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00:28Oh
00:53I'm Vicky McClure. I've spent years playing police officers on screen
00:57my husband Johnny Owen is a historian and filmmaker we share a passion for
01:03finding out the truth together we're going on a journey back in time to
01:10explore murder cases that have changed modern Britain oh god he's basically
01:16saying I'll do time for these people but when I come out I'm gonna kill them
01:21whether it's unsolved crimes because the cockle was the victim he wasn't the
01:26perpetrator of any crime miscarriages of justice the last words he said just
01:31before he was executed was Christy done it or milestone cases that have changed
01:40the law the government agreed to not disclose it to the public Wow we'll
01:46examine what really happened and how the legacy of these crimes continues to be
02:01felt today
02:02well here we are in the beautiful capital of Scotland Edinburgh I love the city the
02:08Athens of the North as they call it yeah that's because it was a world leader in
02:12the 19th century a bit like Athens was in the ancient world philosophy medicine and
02:18that ties in nicely with a famous story with the city macabre story Berk and Hare so who
02:24are Berk and Hare all I know is that they were the body snatchers and they provided
02:30bodies for doctors to look at
02:33so they're snatching bodies yes this morning when I left the hotel um I was talking to the
02:38concierge and he says what are you both filming here and I said we're here doing Berk and Hare and
02:42he
02:42went oh did he yeah yeah so should we find out more let's do that
02:50everyone's heard of Berk and Hare but what's the real story we want to sort out the facts from the
02:57fiction who were Berk and Hare why were they snatching bodies and who for
03:04in the early 1800s Edinburgh was famously a city of two halves the rich and the very poor the haves
03:11and the have-nots the average life expectancy was only about 35 years old so it definitely has a tough
03:19dark side my old mate Irving Welch has written about social division in Edinburgh many times
03:27most famously in train spotting let's go he once wrote a screenplay based on the story of Berk and
03:34Hare good to see you mate you okay we're in the lovely city a native city of Edinburgh and we
03:40are
03:40trying to find out the story of Berk and Hare Berk and Hare yeah they were often kind of described
03:48as
03:49body snatchers but they weren't they were mass murderers they would get people drunk kill them
03:57and then sell the bodies for medical research oh okay so I was thought they'd be the body snatchers
04:02that's how they've sort of known in popular culture so they never actually snatched any bodies they never
04:07snatched any bodies no they kind of prepared the fresh kill if you're walking class at Edinburgh try and
04:15get money at the bourgeoisie it's not an easy task like you know so I don't think it would be
04:19a
04:19particularly easy back then yeah it's quite a Edinburgh story of the very wealthy and privileged
04:25kind of benefiting from the the marginalized and excluded it's fascinating because you know all of
04:33these stories does all tend to fall back into class most of the time yeah when you think back to
04:38what Edinburgh was like then before they built the new town the old town here everybody lived together
04:44so you had quite wealthy professions on the top floors and then you had kind of tradesmen in
04:50the middle and then you had the laborers on the bottom floor of these big tenements so everybody
04:54lived together and they'd throw all the feces and urine out so it was quite a tough life for people
05:00particularly on the bottom floors gosh so the higher social classes literally lived on top of
05:07the working class it's been ingrained in the DNA of the city the stories of the city for for years
05:13and years Robert Louis Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde very much influenced by it Birkenhead I mean how do
05:21you feel they influenced your work my book Dead Men's Trousers was very much about this body parts thing
05:27which is a modern version of the you know of the cadaver selling the body parts so these stories and
05:32these characters are pretty much ingrained in the literary culture of the town yeah there's a lot
05:38to delve into that yes I think so so dark so Birkenhead weren't actually body snatchers dragging bodies out of
05:48graveyards they were serial murderers who sold the corpses of their so-called fresh kills for medical
06:00research so how and why did they come to be so mythologized and their crimes misrepresented I
06:08think part of the reason lies in the dark nature of their crimes which made them Scotland's first
06:13serial killer celebrities so this is the world-famous Royal Mile this goes right up to the castle
06:25here we go this is where Burke was hung the very spot I can imagine right in the middle of
06:35the
06:35city on the Royal Mile one in four people in Edinburgh here up to 30,000 people hanging out
06:42the windows one in four and in four a quarter of the population Wow I've come to see him being
06:49hung
06:49like public spectacle it says a lot about how the city felt about him and that you know that story
06:56and everything that happened so we know William Burke came to a sticky end but how did he and William
07:03Hare get started so this is the very famous grass market area this is where Burke and Hare lived socialized
07:14drunk and also the people who were the victims unfortunately also and now we're going to meet
07:19Rob who is an expert tour guide who has studied Burke and Hare yes I'm Vicky nice good to meet
07:26you
07:26Johnny we're hoping that you'll be able to give us lots of information on Burke and Hare yeah absolutely
07:33well Burke and Hare murdered 16 people in a 10-month period that's shocking there's so many victims in such
07:40a
07:40short time let's talk about William Burke yeah he was born in Ireland in 1792 but there was not much
07:48money kicking around then so he decided to leave come to Edinburgh and he met a lady by the name
07:53of
07:54Nellie McDougall and he actually lived as man and wife for about 10 years and the eventually came into
08:01Edinburgh they met Margaret Laird married to a chap called William Hare William Hare there he is right okay
08:08well looking quite handsome does yeah it's not my time well November 1827 was the very first time
08:17working here he met by the time the final murder took place they'd only known each other for a year
08:24oh wow I'm really intrigued by the two women who were involved in this as well do they know about
08:31it
08:31Margaret yeah here first of all she was actually getting paid one pound for the use of her boarding
08:38house for the murders oh wow so Burke in here split the money that we get which would range between
08:43seven
08:43pounds during the summer and ten pounds during the winter here we take the lion's share of that
08:48Burke would get some and Margaret got one pound out of Burke's share so she knew exactly what was going
08:55on
08:56oh wow Nellie McDougall who was infatuated with Burke she loved him and Burke just told her the story
09:05that the bodies were found in lodging houses whether she believed it and just decided to you know maybe
09:12turn a blind eye instead yeah hey taking most of the money yeah his wife being more involved seems to
09:21be
09:21I would be more more sort of manipulative of the two maybe yeah I would say so yeah so here
09:27was
09:28um a despicable character Burke however was quite likeable yes I mean if you met Burke in a pub you'd
09:36probably have a dram with him you know I think that was key because he managed to lure people back
09:42because he trusted him right they came down here at the grass market and they would visited bars like the
09:48white heart in it the idea was to take them back to the lodging house where it was private and
09:54then
09:55do they took place in their houses absolutely I'd like to know more about Margaret Hare's notorious
10:03lodging house and how the murders began in late 1827 right so we are now at the site of where
10:16William
10:17Hare and Margaret Hare's lodging house was Tanner's close came from the front street down and would
10:25finish round about here in November there was a knock on Burke's door it was here and he said that
10:34old Donald had died he's my lodger he's died for me four pounds in rent but Hare and Burke had
10:41both
10:41heard that if you could sell a body to the anatomy school you could actually get quite a bit of
10:46cash
10:47for it so that was a plan so it all started with a dead body not a murder yes exactly
10:54so the next
10:56move is to go to Edinburgh University and look for Professor Alexander Monroe who is the head of
11:01anatomy there had Alexander Monroe been in that day the story of Burke and Hare might have turned out
11:07very differently as it was in Monroe's absence Burke and Hare were directed to the house of his altogether
11:14more flamboyant and ambitious colleague anatomist Dr Robert Knox so they went across to Surgeon Square
11:23knocked on the door at number 10 and another medical student on the door he says well bring the body
11:29back here in the cover of darkness Knox was called for he did a quick examination and told the
11:41students to give them seven pounds ten shillings and Knox said to them if you get any more subjects we'd
11:51be
11:51very interested wow so that was really the catalyst for them to think how can we take advantage of the
11:59situation
12:05must have been intoxicating for them isn't it oh absolutely in money nowadays we're talking hundreds of
12:09pounds wow okay they spent all the money they down and on whiskey mostly well people died because they
12:15got pissed exactly hundreds of pounds
12:21in terms of the murders themselves was there a trend in how they were murdering people
12:28yes okay so there was a trend actually
12:34abigail simpson was murdered using this method it's now come known as burking it's in the dictionary
12:41so burking is named after william burke but in actual fact how it took place was here would
12:47basically clamp his hands on the chin to keep it closed and his other hand on the nose
12:53i would demonstrate with you ricky but i'm not going to it so you know work would then lie across
12:59the
12:59chest or sit astride the chest either way really quite an ingenious form of murder because it left no
13:06trace of the body suffocation would mean that the preserving of the body that's exactly what anatomists
13:13would want almost like a pure body with no scratches marks it's insane in it
13:23i was shocked by a few things how short the period of time was yeah and serial killing people for
13:31money
13:31you know the statistic yes not for the statistic enjoyment as we imagine a modern-day serial killer
13:36and their wives were in on it okay so we know quite a lot about burke and hair now i
13:42think the next
13:42thing is to find out about people like dr knox yeah how much did knox know about the murders bearing
13:48in
13:49mind he was a celebrated anatomist of the day and the fellow of the prestigious royal society
13:55were burke and hair killing to order
14:061828 edinburgh william burke and william hair are murdering people and selling their cadavers to
14:12dr robert knox for dissection at his private anatomy school
14:19the poor being killed so their bodies could be dissected and examined by medical students it's
14:24shocking we need to know more about how and why this was able to happen
14:32so i've managed to track down a lady called kat irving okay and she's an expert in science
14:37history everything that we want to find out in that area oh amazing she's the woman in the know
14:45hi hello lovely to meet you i'm vicky i'm cats nice to meet you and johnny nice to meet you
14:50are you
14:50okay welcome to surgeon's hall what's this replicator so this is actually the type of anatomical theater
14:56that was common across europe you would have people who would watch the dissection taking place
15:02so they would overlook it it's fascinating it is yeah enlightenment edinburgh in the 18th century
15:09we have a medical school so you have lots of people flocking to edinburgh to learn medicine
15:15people are starting to think about it in relation to the body and of course to understand the body
15:21you need to look inside it and it's better to do that when the person isn't alive you know so
15:25you're
15:26dissecting dead bodies so that's why you start to get this demand for anatomists for medical men to
15:38have dead bodies to dissect try and further this kind of medical knowledge so how did anatomists of
15:47the time actually get hold of bodies for dissection there's something called the murder act and this
15:53comes in in 1752 and what this says is that if somebody commits the crime of murder the judge is
16:01likely to commit them to be hanged what the judge can do at that point is say well you can
16:08have a
16:08further punishment and that can be you're either jubited so that means that you're hanged and then
16:14afterwards your body is put in a cage to publicly decompose right or you come to the anatomist table for
16:22dissection all right okay yeah and the reason for this is in order to rise come judgment day you
16:29have to be buried intact so of course if you're publicly decomposing or being chopped up by anatomists
16:36this is denying the murderer the chance of getting to the pearly gates and of course in the meantime you
16:43help the anatomists who want those dead bodies amazing so in edinburgh you've got the demand yeah and
16:50so there's not enough murderers i don't suppose there's not enough bodies getting to them there
16:53is absolutely not enough bodies this act is in place from 1752 to 1832 in that time there are
17:01less than 100 people hanged for murder in all of scotland oh i know and so there starts to be
17:08a bit of
17:08demand for other forms of supply god this makes so much sense yeah that's because it doesn't make
17:15it okay no no it does make sense and so you'd need a fresh body and how long would they
17:22last at that
17:22time i always say that anatomy was a winter sport because decomposition would happen slower at that
17:28point but even so you've only got a very limited amount of time before things are going to get a
17:33bit
17:33squishy and very very stinky for doing that kind of dissection so is this where the grave robbers or
17:41body snatchers come into it yeah so they would work in gangs and they would go out at night under
17:48cover
17:48of darkness and then they would use their spades to break the coffin and then you would use hooks to
17:57literally pull the body out my problem is as i'm imagining it you know what i mean like if they're
18:03laying like that in the ground they're pulling them out from the top i guess yeah yeah absolutely
18:12selling a body wasn't a crime okay you could get arrested for disturbing a grave but regardless of
18:19what time of year you you're doing at taking a body up is hard work yes you know and if
18:25a mob
18:25realized what you're up to they would be outraged and it's likely that you would have a mob descend on
18:31you there was a whole array of different things that people would do to try and prevent body
18:38snatching happening so you'd have mort safes put over graves basically putting a big cage over the
18:43grave so you can't dig into it so it created this almost death market really didn't it you know yeah
18:48i get you know the fact that there's less people to be able to get science but innocent people just
18:54being killed in the face of it yeah
19:02kat are there any examples nearby where we can go and have a look at the mort safes
19:07oh absolutely you can go to greyfraa's kirkyard and you will see a couple of mort safes still in place
19:21hand in hand from the graveyard very romantic i quite like graveyards though there's something
19:27very soothing about them i think there's only one time i want to be in a graveyard
19:32well it's some sight isn't it put me through this then so this is a mort safe so the word
19:40mort is death
19:41or dead in latin death safe cells tells you everything you're safe from being so there's
19:48graves underneath yeah there'd be people in this makes you want to shiver
19:55but the working class they would have thought that your body would have been taken and given to
20:02medical science without your consent meat market basically a death meat market
20:09but yeah this should remain forever just as a lesson that people will do anything
20:13something interesting money it's so macabre
20:20unenamored with the squalor of grave robbing burke and hare set their sights higher they wanted fresh
20:27kills for which they would receive top dollar from the likes of knox and his fellow anatomists
20:33and they would choose their victims from packed public houses and taverns around edinburgh's city centre
20:49well here we are in the white heart one of the oldest pubs in edinburgh and also somewhere as we
20:54know burke and hare could have been grass market they're still the center of edinburgh to this day
20:59fascinating they could have come here met their victims lulled them in sort of quite sinister really
21:05when you think about what they were like and how they were operating injured yeah like you say if they
21:08would have found them possibly in this pub what would have been their reason for choosing those
21:12people that's what i'm gonna know yeah so we're gonna split up now there's a why in the road as
21:18they
21:18say i want to go and see somebody about dr robert knox i'm intrigued about him what role he played
21:24how
21:24complicity was well i want to find out about the victims who are the people that lost their lives and
21:30why were they chosen i love that about you i was on the victim side why we work so well
21:35me i'm interested in more of practical yeah or a double axe but not like burke and hare no no
21:41more
21:42like what would you say more like what georgia mildred yeah yeah okay
21:53we know there were 16 victims their identities are mostly unknown but after more research i found that
22:00some of their names are on record including joseph abigail simpson mary patterson and jamie wilson
22:10so i'm going to focus on those victims i want to know who they were and how did they become
22:16victims
22:17of burke and hare i've managed to track down a lady called lisa rosner she's a historian um i'm told
22:25that
22:25she knows a lot about the victims which is something that i'm really keen to get more information on
22:32she used to live in edinburgh but she's in america now so i'm gonna have to zoom with her
22:38hi lisa nice to meet you you too it's a great honor to meet you i'm curious as to whether
22:43or not
22:44burke and hare were specific about who they were targeting they didn't want to be caught so they looked
22:49for people that in their view would be easy to take and so of course that's largely women and so
22:56out of those 16 murders how many of those were women 12. okay so lisa who was burke and hare's
23:03first victim the suggestion was made by sir walter scott that the first murder would have been the man
23:10we know as joseph because he was already sick so that would be the next stage to murder someone who
23:17was
23:17already perhaps a death store and after that they got a kind of a taste for the crime they got
23:25a taste
23:26for the money will you tell me a bit more about what happened with mary mary patterson has long been
23:34one of the great myths of burke and hare which is that she was a beautiful prostitute murdered and then
23:43her body was recognized in the dissection room later by one of the students who had been with her
23:49and the fact is that she was very young she was perhaps 16 or so she agreed to go into
23:57the magdalene
23:58asylum which was entirely voluntary and it was a kind of a cross between a reformed school and workhouse
24:05i suppose and she left about a week before her body ended up at knox's anatomical dissecting rooms
24:14she was actually accosted by burke in a whiskey shop who invited her to come home for breakfast
24:26mary patterson's body was kept for three months i think the most straightforward reason is that he
24:31held on to it because this was a very well-kept body indeed and knox wanted to see if anybody
24:36was
24:37going to ask any questions
24:44i've also heard of someone called daft jamie a 19 year old local lad with learning difficulties
24:51and a limp caused by his club foot jamie had a nickname and even in the nickname just makes you
24:59feel like he was a sweet soul i wouldn't have imagined he was you know much of a drinker
25:05the nickname they had for him daft jamie would be considered very inappropriate and disrespectful now
25:11but it's uh it seems to have been an affectionate term and he was very well known in the neighborhood
25:19they invited him in and they tried to get him drunk but he didn't drink so they had to actually
25:25assault him and hold him down and smother him that's something that raised a lot of outcry later
25:41what can you tell me in terms of what we can learn
25:44of the representation of the people that birkenhead chose what i would like to see is that the the
25:52victims be recognized for for who they they were they had families that they were looking after or that
26:01they intended to go back to they were out for a good time which many people in edinburgh can relate
26:07to
26:09what i would always wish to emphasize is the tragedy of it simply because their bodies
26:17in some sense had more monetary value than they themselves did as as living people yeah every life
26:28is is you can't put a cost on it you can't put money on anybody's lives no matter what your
26:34status is
26:34everybody's here everybody deserves a shot at life a human being's life is is of incalculable worth
26:42absolutely that's brilliant thanks lisa take care take care bye-bye bye-bye
26:51while vicky's been learning about the people birkenhead murdered i'm meeting up with the
26:55author owen dudley edwards to find out more about the man who bought and dissected the victims bodies
27:00in the name of science how complicit was dr robert knox in the birkenhead murders
27:09i'm intrigued to find out something about the birkenhead story but i'm particularly interested
27:13in somebody that's fascinated me in this whole story dr robert knox he's the man that received
27:19the bodies and and performed his anatomy on them tell me about him knox was a brilliant intellectual
27:27born in 1791 in edinburgh an authority on corpses of certain ways experience of the army
27:34where he had ample opportunities to investigate bodies he'd had various adventures but began to
27:40specialize at an early stage in at anatomy and docks became more and more qualified to study of bodies
27:47and the different races of the bodies in south africa he afterwards became one of the leading and most
27:54pernicious racists theory ratists
28:08200 years ago birkenhead murdered 16 people here in edinburgh and sold their victims bodies to anatomist
28:15dr robert knox for dissection whilst burke would hang for their heinous crimes knox got away scot-free
28:23and i've just learned that even before he became entangled with birkenhead he had a dark past in the
28:28army in south africa where he was a vigorous supporter of race theory
28:35but i didn't realize he was a huge propagandist for race theory that's awful
28:42and what happened after knox left the army he got back to ettenborough found the best jobs were being
28:47held by a professor of anatomy alexander monroe the third and so knox himself built up a school outside
28:57in surgeon square that meant that they were in rivalry with one another and knox had to get hold
29:05of the bodies wherever he could get them this is a big question for me do you think he turns
29:12a blind eye to
29:13the fact that somebody gets these bodies to him he would have known that his rivals would be having
29:19students and others getting bodies from graveyards and he would quite likely encourage them
29:27you know in the old days of school teaching you brought an apple to teacher yeah in this case
29:33you brought a body for teacher wow okay but when the murders began a birder arrives a second of the
29:44corpses and knox simply says another nice fresh corpse gentleman wow
29:52and from that point of view we can say with confidence
29:56knox knew enough to know he mustn't know okay wow
30:06did he have people helping him do you think knox won the support and enthusiasm of his own students
30:13including those who went in for grave robbery and of course when corpses arrived with some questions
30:20attached to them the students knew enough from knox you don't ask where corpses come from nor would
30:27william ferguson his prime assistant
30:33in the case of daft jamie when that body arrived william ferguson took off the foot immediately
30:41the foot was twisted and everybody knew daft jamie through that twisted foot
30:47now not only did knox know enough to know that he must know william ferguson evidently knew it also
30:54and so would other students
31:00so what happened to him during the trial was he sort of seen as somebody that was very much part
31:04of this
31:04whole process well in the investigation of corpses the first thing you need is a corpse if you're
31:13investigating corpses which have been dissected by dr knox and his students when of course the bodies are
31:19no longer there that's correct yeah of course and knox himself denied any knowledge and of course the
31:26students denied any knowledge as to where any other bodies might have come from
31:34only one body survived and investigations were made but committees were set up and the problem that
31:42the committee would be professor william pulteney allison he was very much aware of the fact that
31:49docks like himself and like so many others would have got the corpses from graveyards but if you're
31:56going to start probing who won't turn out to be guilty at least of some crime like grave robbing
32:04like nox all right okay so in other words you have an enlightenment which is trying to pursue truth
32:10and at the same time has to cover up like all crazy and therefore nox got off it's remarkable isn't
32:18it
32:22for me nox is the reason why a lot of this happened he turned the blind eye and he and
32:28his students got
32:28away scot-free it's unbelievable nox may have got away with it but we need to find out what happened
32:36to birkenhair how were they finally caught and how was he punished
32:46the national library of scotland hosts tens of thousands of scottish newspapers dating back as
32:51far as the 18th century so they'll definitely have reports on the birkenhair story i see the price
32:58there seven pence caledonian mercury i love the names of them it doesn't take long to find reports
33:07explaining how birkenhair were finally caught on the last day of october 1828
33:15they've had this argument birkenhair so burke has moved up the road to some other lodgings
33:22and he's gone out and he's met margaret docherty got it drunk lulled her in
33:33he's got her back to the lodgings hares joined him and then they've killed her burke turf
33:44they've left the body under the bed to go and tell nox they've got another body and when they leave
33:50him
33:50two other people that live in the lodging house with them the greys they've said don't look under the bed
34:01so they've looked under the bed
34:07james gray is mentioned he was present when his wife found the body and he knew it to be that
34:11of the old woman docherty mrs b fell on her knees and implored that he would not inform of what
34:17he
34:18had seen here we go so this is burke's partner saying don't go to the police so she knew yeah
34:24said she would give him some shillings to put him over till monday so some money for the weekend
34:29yeah uh and there was never a week after that he might be worth 10 pounds so she'd say to
34:36him i'll
34:36give you 10 pound a week to keep quiet but he said his conscience would not let him do it
34:41good good
34:42man james gray good well if he hadn't have done yes what might have how many more people might have
34:48been murdered well i said just goes to show james gray had enough conscience to go i don't care about
34:52money this is you know this is wrong and he's gone to the uh to the police they got sloppy
35:02didn't
35:02they yeah yeah massively this all suddenly exploded with the the finding of this body blew it all open
35:09really and it became a national story burke and here were arrested along with their wives and burke's
35:21landlord john brogan but with barely any evidence police offered her and his wife margaret immunity
35:31from prosecution if he testified against burke here accepted fessed up to all 16 murders and gave police
35:40all the detail they needed to charge william burke and his wife nelly mcdougall
35:50william here was a grass you know it was almost worse than he was a murderer he did it
35:55and he got away with it by grassing everything's pinned on burke really yeah he didn't throw anybody
36:01under the bus no took the rap for everything and two of them hair and knocks got away with it
36:08yeah they
36:09did you can see here william burke and helen mcdougall's trial got a lot of press coverage these headlines
36:18say west port murders an intense excitement produced by the uh disclosures made in the course of the late
36:24trial as a known degree subsided so the public interest is massive and you can see all these
36:30newspapers are running with this no trial in the memory of any man now living has excited so deep
36:37as that of william burke and his female associate which took place yesterday as public feeling has
36:44worked up to the highest pitch of excitement it's weird that they say excite yeah like people have died
36:53the papers then reported that burke's wife nelly was let off due to lack of evidence but on christmas day
37:011828 william burke was found guilty of margaret docherty's murder
37:09and sentenced to hang
37:16i want to find out what happened to burke's body after he was hanged
37:20and what i'm desperate to know is what happened to william hair
37:31on wednesday 28th of january 1829 william burke was hanged for the murder of margaret docherty
37:39and it happened right here in the middle of edinburgh
37:45william hair his partner in crime literally got away with murder
37:50as did many believe the man to whom the bodies were supplied anatomist dr robert knox
37:57i want to know what happened to william hair i also want to know did this murder case change
38:03anything when it came to providing bodies for dissection
38:10hi janet hello okay nice to meet you janet philp has written a book about the murders told from the
38:17unique perspective of burke's skeleton which still hangs here in the anatomical museum at the
38:23university of edinburgh
38:26we know william burke was hanged for the murder of margaret docherty in january 1829
38:32so what happened to burke's body so he was executed his body was then transferred to the anatomy
38:40department but so many people wanted to go and see the body there was actually a riot
38:44at old college so they opened the doors the next day 5 000 people went past his body to see
38:52it there
38:54he was dissected by munro who was knox's opposition and munro actually took a pen dipped it in the blood
39:02of burke and wrote a letter that says this is written in the blood of william burke
39:10that is macabre in a way though you've sort of brought burke back to life with a striking image
39:16on the cover of your book tell us a little bit about the um the recreation of the face that
39:21you
39:21did uh of william burke it was the craze at the time to take um casts of people's heads because
39:26they
39:27believed in phrenology which is the idea that you can tell somebody's personality from the shape of their
39:31head oh we were doing work at the time with um dr chris rin who was up in dundee um
39:38and he scanned
39:39the death mask and he did a facial reconstruction of burke for us can we see it yes it's skeleton
39:47so that would be the death mask that's the death mask yeah oh wow that's amazing isn't it oh
39:54oh wow that's amazing i didn't expect that that's terrifying it really brings it to life doesn't
40:06it reminds me of someone i know does he i can't think who it is you know when you see
40:10a face and
40:10go oh he looks like somebody just looks like somebody who walked past you in the street now yeah
40:16amazing that is incredible and it's unsettling yeah because that could be anybody you could have
40:22a paint with him absolutely yeah that's how burke's story came to an end so what can you tell us
40:32about hair so they took hair and they put him on a coach under the pseudonym of mr black and
40:38sent him
40:39down towards dumfries now unfortunately for hair he was recognized so by the time they got to dumfries
40:45everybody knew who hair was is it a mob waiting for them it's a mob just waiting outside to rip
40:52into bits
40:52so they took him into the coach house and they sneaked him out a window at the back
40:56and they escorted him down to the border and they just set him free into england
41:02common story is that he was recognized and he was thrown into a lime pit that blinded him and then
41:08he lived the rest of his life as a beggar on the streets of london what's becoming the accepted story
41:14now is that he went back to ireland into a workhouse and he is now buried in the graveyard where
41:20that
41:20workhouse used to be wow
41:24so ultimately hair got his comeuppance but what concerns me more is the 16 victims
41:33what was done to one of them to try and prevent anything like this happening ever again
41:38so the anatomy act was actually going through parliament for the first time whilst this was
41:42happening oh wow and then shortly after burke and hair when the anatomy bill came to parliament for
41:48the second time it just went straight through so now we have the 1832 anatomy act which put the
41:56grave robbers out of business essentially but how it did that was it supplied bodies to the anatomy
42:02departments from hospitals and poor houses we still do it today people donate their bodies now that's
42:08how medical students are doing yeah donating your body i mean it's such a wonderful thing to do isn't
42:13it if people are willing to to do that science it's the choice isn't it it's all about having choice
42:18over your life and you know whether you become ill and your death by legally regulating a supply of bodies
42:26the 1832 anatomy act effectively ended the era of body snatching by protecting graves
42:33and allowing students and surgeons to improve their understanding of human anatomy from cadavers
42:39supplied in a safe and consenting way
42:49we came to edinburgh to find out the real story of birken hair
42:53and why their legacy still lives on today two merciless serial killers but burke was the only one
42:59who faced justice while hay got away scot-free not to mention their wives dr robert knox and all the
43:06others who must have known what birken hair were up to it's such a tragedy that 16 people had to
43:14die
43:14here in this wonderful city what a city yeah what a city what a story yeah there's been a lot
43:22that you
43:22can compare to today's world and yeah it was 200 years ago yeah and it still lies very heavy in
43:28the
43:28city doesn't it yeah this can teach us great lessons about the modern world you know how people can
43:32behave in such an abhorrent way one profession desperate for bodies the other people desperate
43:36for money just to survive i think it's like there's a massive reason why birken hair is such a world
43:42famous
43:42story why there are tour guides packed down there now nearly 200 years later why this city there this
43:48magnificent city produced such amazing storytellers well yeah irvin and owen and all these brilliant
43:54robert lou stevenson all these people wrote in this city and you can see how the echoes of this story
44:00was the beginning yeah yeah was the beginnings of it
44:15next time it was here that an infamous serial killer the name of christy lived
44:20he's killed eight people including a baby they hung an innocent man his name was timothy evans he
44:28shouldn't have been hanged on the basis of these statements it really does give me the chills this
44:33story
44:34so
44:59so
45:04you
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