Transcribe your podcast
[00:00:01]

This is exactly right. I'm Melinda Jericho. I'm Daniel Henderson, and we are the hosts of I Saw What You Did, a podcast on the Exactly Right Network about the fun of watching movies. Each Tuesday, we pick a different theme. Then we pick two films that best showcase it. It's like having a friend who still owns a VCR handpick your movies. You'll definitely build your movie knowledge and find new things to watch.

[00:00:27]

So if you love movies are sick of falling asleep to the same sitcom every night, or just want to stop fighting with your family every time we try to find something new to watch, tune into. I saw what you did and be sure to subscribe on Apple podcast Stitcher or wherever you like to listen. Hi, I'm Cara Klencke, and I'm Lisa Trager, and we are comedians as we used super fans and the hosts of That's Messed Up and Saorview podcast on the Exactly Right Network, every Tuesday will take you through an iconic episode of Law & Order Special Victims Unit and do a deep dove into the true crime it's based on.

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We also interview actors from the episodes. So far we've talked to Diane Neal, a.k.a. Casey Novak, Margaret Cho, Dan Florek, a.k.a. Captain Cragen, Wyclef Jean and so many more listeners subscribe to That's Messed Up and ASV podcast every Tuesday on Apple podcast. Ditcher or Wherever You POF.

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John, John. This story contains adult content and language, listener discretion is advised. They spent all the money that they got, so they had fine clothes, these people, and as it got towards needing to murder somebody else, the clothes went into some pawnshop and they had to trade things for money. And then when they murdered somebody, the phone close came back at.

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After several weeks of holiday, William Burke returned from Bannockburn with Nellie McDougal, who was still very much alive. This, of course, came as a big disappointment to the hairs they had hoped that Burke would return from his trip with his dead wife stashed on his horse and cart, because not only was Scottish, not Irish like they were, Margaret Hair didn't trust her one bit. She was plotting against them, Margaret argued. But this was just one area of tension between the two men.

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When the couple returned to the boarding house and Tana's close, William Burke became enraged by something far more atrocious. As historian Janet Philp explains.

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Before they went off to Bannockburn, the has fine clothes had gone back into hock, and when they came back from Bannockburn, the fine clothes were back on again. So Burke was suspicious that something had happened.

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Where did the money come from? Burke demanded to know here, denied killing anyone, and he tried to retract his earlier suggestion about offing Nellie McDougal. They needed to work together. He insisted they were criminals with a shared secret, and now they were both used to making easy money as killers. Merck didn't believe him. And why would he bargain here had a relationship built on distrust and lies and murder? Of course this would happen at some point. He marched down to Seargent Square and pounded on the door of Dr.

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Robert Knox's dissection room and assistant answered and he confirmed that hair had indeed delivered a female body and received eight pounds. Burke race back to the lodge and confronted her.

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He accused the younger man of violating his trust, a breach of honor.

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I'm sure that seems ludicrous, considering they were serial killers. But Burke did seem to have some kind of a moral compass, a set of rules that made sense to him. And he had just broken one. Don't kill someone on your own. They'd always split the profits.

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The men immediately began to hit each other. Soon they were on the ground landing punch after punch. They were so loud that neighbors scurried to the doorway to watch. Burke finally got the upper hand and Hare confessed to the solo killing. Hare explained that he lured a woman to the boarding house and barked her himself. William Hare had just crossed a very important, precarious line. So now what happens with that money, Berk's weariness had turned to suspicion, even fear.

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By the summer of 1828, Dr. Robert Knox's classes were filled to capacity. He boasted of having four of the most talented assistants in the country, and his students adored him. Knox bowed to them out of respect before beginning his talk. He lectured without notes with the energy of a man half his age, the young surgical students were spellbound. He still courted the University of Edinburgh for a full time professorship, but he was pleased with the income he received from his private anatomy classes.

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He had paid 700 pounds in one year for bodies from Resurrectionists, about seventy five thousand pounds today, or almost 100000 dollars, an incredible amount. Of course, those costs were low, considering how much money he could make from his lectures. Knox had varied interests, all of them genteel. He was an accomplished violinist. And he constantly read Aristotle, the Epocrates tomes on geology, zoology and paleontology, Knox took daily strolls through his anatomy museum. It had been approved by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

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Three years earlier, he was appointed curator and given an annual salary of 100 pounds that was paltry compared to his income from private classes. But Knox coveted prestige and power. He filled the building with his own personal collection of surgical equipment, along with specimens from his former mentor, John Barclay. Knox bought other collections from around the world.

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He featured varnished veins and wax casts, death masks that became his macabre opus. That museum would be his legacy, he hoped.

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But his professional relationships were still acerbically, as they had been for years. He was despised by other anatomy professors. By now, two thirds of the medical students in the city were taking his classes.

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Historian Owen Dudley Edwards says he was running the other professors out of business and they resented him. He was riding high and he was a fine speaker and of course, his students knew that a lecture from Knox really worth hearing after lecture would be invaluable medical material, and the other half would be telling incredibly scurrilous stories about Professor of Anatomy Munro or Dr. Liston or Dr. Same.

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Knox once joked to students that another professor learned anatomy in a butcher shop, he relentlessly disparaged his critics. He degraded his fellow anatomists at every turn. But Knox believed fully in an immersive experience in his classes, he said anatomy is an art and those who would study it must see it practiced. They must see the forms, magnitudes, positions, proportions and connections of the structure and organs as they are in nature. No figures are verbal descriptions can ever compensate for want of the originals.

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They give not the same relish nor interest, nor afford the same correctness of ideas. Edwards says the Dr. Knox was at the zenith of his glory in 1828. There was Knox practical, prominent, distinguished, scientifically enlightened figure and one of the most prominent figures in Edinburgh continue to welcome cadavers from two degenerates from Old Town.

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But we need to revisit that nagging question to Dr. Knox. Now that he was financially supporting a pair of serial killers, did he realize that his money was facilitating a business that resulted in murders?

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The question as to whether he knew or he didn't preoccupy people, and the answer is, of course, Knox knew enough to know, he mustn't know.

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And we will now a bit more later. But late summer of 1828, William Burke was nervous even more than usual. He was still in a constant state of inebriation and he didn't trust William Hare, particularly after he had discovered that Hare had killed someone on his own and kept all the profits for himself. The incident had left a certain amount of anxiety in various parts, including that of Burke, who had in fact moved himself and Helen McDougal out of the house lodging house and to a different place of his own.

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So we're faced with the fact that Hare has suggested that they kill Burke's wife and he had killed somebody on his own, having told Burke that he definitely didn't. And at that point, Burke moves out of the house and lives with John Brogan, who's a relative of his is literally just around the corner.

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Berkin Nely left quickly and it was likely out of self-preservation, but there was also another reason business was booming and despite their mutual dislike, they just couldn't make as much money if they parted ways. They moved to two separate locations so they could double up on the number of people they were killing. And this was sort of business expansion. So they probably thought they were in quite a good position. And again, this was going to go on forever because they were always going to be teaching medicine.

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The two men were constantly struggling just to stay alive. So the prospect of an endless supply of income was pretty tempting. But Williamsburg was struggling both physically and mentally. He felt aches and pains in places that would be concerning to any man. I'm trying to say that delicately. We know that Burke was a violent killer and a habitual philanderer, and now he seemed to be paying for it. But the murder of that boy and his grandmother continued to plague him as he slept in the tiny cell, a room that was his new home.

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And that was almost worse than physical pain, McInally rested on a bed filled with straw and rags. His shoe mending tools lay nearby. He still needed to sleep next to a bottle of whiskey and a lit candle.

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The nightmares about the boy he killed wouldn't stop no matter what. Even with all those dreams of whiskey, he felt like he was going mad.

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Mary Haldane enjoyed being addressed as Mrs. even though she was married. It was a courtesy she believed she deserved. She was an older woman who strolled around Old Town, as many did most days, absolutely hopelessly drunk. She had been a frequent watcher at Harry's flophouse, so he knew her well. One day after Burke had moved out here, watched Mary curse at people on the corner. She was sober and she appeared to be really unhappy about it.

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As we know by now, most people in Old Town were alcoholics in the 1920s, the pubs encouraged it by offering cheap spirits and water. The police encouraged it somewhat by offering a free place to sleep off a hangover in their watchhouse. In fact, just about everyone in Oldtown enabled it except the churches. Without alcohol, most of the poverty stricken people there had little to live for, including Mary Haldane.

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She did have three daughters, one was respectably married, the other two also. Hair slyly asked Mary to join him in Bourke for a drink at Hare's flophouse. She quieted down and then happily agreed. As they walked toward Tana's close, a homeless boy approached Mary for a handout, Burke walked over and shoot him away.

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She smiled together. Burke and Hare led married to the boarding house.

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She drank far too much and she spotted the open door to the stable.

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In the back. She curled up on a pallet of hay on the ground and soon went to sleep.

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They killed her and kept her body in the stable. The next morning, they sold her corpse to Dr. Norks. Mary Haldane might have been a hard drinker, roaming the streets of Old Town, harassing pub owners for drinks, but she was also a parent and she was missed by her family.

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Several months after Burke and Hare murdered Mary Haldane, a younger woman with a similar name began knocking on the doors in Old Town. She arrived at Burke's house and asked to be let in. Her name was Margaret Haldane, and her mother was missing, of course. Burke knew she was talking about Mary. He handed Margaret a drink and offered a seat. She drank and then she drank some more. She passed out on her back, but had to think for a moment without hair, Borking wasn't very easy, so he adapted.

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He rolled her over on her stomach and pressed all of his body weight down on her. Now, the daughter was dead, but this was a turning point for Burke. This was his first solo kill. Burke just killed her in the state and he did that on his own. And it was a spur of the moment thing. Now, William Burke knew what it felt like to kill alone and he thought he could do it again. He sold Margaret's body to Knox for eight pounds, but he shared those profits with hair, which was more consideration than hair had ever given him.

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Now, no one else would search for old Mary Haldane. Birckhead murdered the only person who cared to look for her. Mary's other daughter, the sober one who was married, never showed up in Old Town. If she had, she might have asked questions or even gone to the police. But Margaret Haldane suffered from the same disease as her mother. Alcoholism and Burkean hair, as usual, capitalized on their victims weaknesses.

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The people they killed were people who had no connection to others. They were loners or they were new in town. They didn't have any friends that would miss them. They were a mixture of men and women and they killed a child. He was 10.

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So that is where they went. Those are the sort of people you get into the whole society argument about whether the rich people in Edinburgh ever missed the poor people in Edinburgh.

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And of course, that still happens today. We know that serial killers often target sex workers or the homeless or runaways, people who don't have strong connections. For almost 30 years, forensic psychology professor Dr. Mike Ammit has gathered data on serial killers to create a database logically named the Serial Killer Database Research Project. His team has collected information on more than 3300 serial killers, mass murderers and spree killers from around the world. There are more than 9000 victim profiles.

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Here's a reminder. The FBI defines serial killer as a series of two or more murders committed as separate events usually, but not always by one offender acting alone. So this database also includes gang members, for example, and they don't fit society's normal description of a serial killer. Dr. Emmett has charts on murders by state in America and by country in the United Kingdom.

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He looks at statistics on their race, their method, their motive, even their guns. Here's a hint. Guns are the most widely used weapon by serial killers. It's fascinating and upsetting. They linked the excuse of serial killers to their murder methods. The most intelligent ones used bombs, the least intelligent, bludgeoned people to death. Women are just slightly more likely to be victims than men. Most victims are white, as are most serial killers, and more than half are younger than 30.

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And here's how this relates to Birken hair, researchers found that more than a third of serial killers murdered for enjoyment like dominants or sexual pleasure, but another third murdered for financial gain.

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And the landscape of serial killers in history, the lure of working here has never really made it out of Europe to America.

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But virtually everyone around the world knows a less prolific serial killer from London who killed just 60 years later.

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What's interesting is if you compare this to the tale of Jack the Ripper, where there's newspaper articles and, you know, people are sort of bracing themselves and, you know, White Chapel is on edge. There's none of that but the same in theory demographic. So how do all of these people disappear in Edinburgh? If you compare it to, you know, 60 years later, the time period, Jack the Ripper, what is the difference?

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I think I mean, Jack the Ripper left his victims all splayed out today. So, I mean, it was quite obvious when somebody was attacked by Jack the Ripper, Birkenhead, they just disappeared in any murder.

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The really dangerous thing is that the body may be found, but there isn't any body by the book hair method. The body will have been dissected. So it meant that in any police investigation, there were no bodies to find. Well, that's true. Birken hair.

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We're not hoping to be infamous, just enterprising. And they had a brilliant, horrible business model.

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But quite soon they would begin making some big mistakes.

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You know, at the beginning of an episode of Law and Order for You, there's that little message that comes on the screen and says the following story is fictional and does not depict an actual person or event. We don't believe you. Hi, I'm Cara Klank. And I'm Lisa Trager.

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And we are comedians as few super fans and the hosts of That's Messed Up NSV podcast on the Exactly Right Network. Every Tuesday we chat about a classic episode of SVO and break down the true crime the episode is based on. We also interview an actor from the episode. So far we've talked to Diane Neal, a.k.a. Casey Novak, Margaret Cho, Dan Florek, a.k.a. Captain Cragen and Wyclef Jean and so many more. And this podcast is for S.V. Watchers and non watchers alike.

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So whether you're caught up on all four hundred and eighty six episodes or you're just a true crime fan with no idea who Olivia Benson is, you're going to love it. Listen and subscribe to That's Messed Up NSV podcast every Tuesday on Apple podcast Stitcher or wherever you pod. And don't forget to follow the show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Dun dun.

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Ideally to Jericho, I'm Daniel Henderson, and we are the hosts of I Saw What You Did, a new podcast on the Exactly Right Network about the fun of watching movies. Each Tuesday, we pick a different theme, like the L.A. rebellion. Is it good or was I horny? I wish you were never born. Prank phone calls and the brothers Wayans a critical assessment of esthetic. Then we pick two films that best showcase it. It's like having your friend who still owns a VCR, handpick movies.

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He'll definitely build your movie knowledge and fill your streaming cues.

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If you love movies are sick of falling asleep to the same sitcom every night or just need to stop fighting with your family. Every time you try to find something new to watch, tune in every Tuesday to I saw what you did and subscribe on Apple podcast Stitcher or whatever you like to listen and find us on Instagram and Twitter at isopod for all your double feature needs. Hello, I'm Bridger Winoker, I'm sorry to interrupt whatever it is you're doing, but I had no choice.

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I've been trying to get in touch with you and you've made it extremely difficult. I've texted. I've emailed, I've driven by your house multiple times. Your yard looks beautiful. I've been wanting to tell you about my podcast. It's called I Said No Gifts. And it has one rule, no gifts. Unfortunately, every one of my guests disobeys me, meaning we end up having to discuss the gift they brought. I've received gifts from all kinds of people, people like Emma Thompson Zuway, Aimee Mann, Chris Fleming, Casey Wilson, Sasheer Zamata, Joel Combustor and more.

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The list truly goes on and on. Now, I'm not going to tell you any of them brought me. I said I would tell you some of my guests. And in exchange, you swore that you would listen to the podcast. I've upheld my end of the bargain. Now I trust you to do your part. Please don't let me down. I'm not in the mood. Subscribe to I said no gifts now on Stitcher, Apple podcast, Spotify or wherever you like to listen.

[00:21:32]

That's none of my business and make sure to follow. I said no gifts on Instagram and Twitter. I love you very much. Oh, boy, hold on real quick. I just had a cacophony of sounds go through my headphones, people yelling in another language, and I saw Janet, Phillip and I are walking along the Royal Mile and Old Town.

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It's February. And despite that interruption, the street is pretty quiet. Most tourists won't brave the wickedly cold winds in the winter.

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So Edinburgh's built on hills. Essentially, the royal mile is a spine and this is the closest go down steeply either side of it. But this is where Birkenhead went wrong. Yes, very wrong.

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They finally made a mistake, a serious lapse in judgment. They targeted the wrong person. James Wilson was a 21 year old man who was intellectually disabled. Locals called him an idiot, a half wit. He was tall and strong and talkative. He wandered around Old Town despite his mother's concerns. It had been just the two of them since he was 12. When his father died, people were very fond of Jamie Wilson. He had a lovely singing voice and he earned pennies here and there on the street.

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He wasn't a drunk or swindler, just a boy who liked to entertain people. He chatted with people on the street offering riddles. Why is a jailer like a musician?

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When the person gave up, he replied, Because he's a man taking care of his key. He had even earned a nickname Daft Jamie. The British use death to describe something silly or foolish. So everyone knew Jamie, so they all knew.

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Jamie had to tell stories and laugh to poke fun at and listen to.

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And he had a distinctive physical feature all the time.

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Walking up and down the ramal. He walked around barefoot, so his feet were thirteen. Characteristically, he had a clubfoot as well.

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When Jamie was a teenager, he wandered away from home, his mother closed up their modest house and began searching for him. Later on, Jamie returned tired and hungry to an empty house.

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He searched the kitchen for food, breaking dishes along the way.

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When his mother returned, she was furious and gave him a severe whipping with a leather strap.

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After that, Jamie decided to live on the street, sleeping in doorways and stairs unless a stranger offered him a bed for the night, he was trusting and gullible. That is all to say that Jamie Wilson might have been naive because of his disability, but he was very physically strong.

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And Margaret Hair should have known better when she eyed him one morning in October of 1828, she wasn't quite as skilled at selecting victims as Burke and Hare.

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She watched Jamie and he looked distraught. The story is that on this particular day, he had an argument with his mother and he was out on the street upset about this. And as Margaret led so his wife, it came across him and said, come back to the house and I'll go and get your mother and we can sort this out and you can go home.

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Margaret Hare promised him loads of snuff as she led him to the boarding house. Tobacco was his weakness. In fact, he carried a very distinctive snuffbox and spoon. So she got him back to the boarding house and then she went and got back and had brought back. She left him at the boarding house with her husband, who seemed surprised that she would bring home a young man. Jamie looked strong and that alarmed her. It should have they would have to depend on alcohol to weaken him.

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Margaret soon stepped into Reimer's shop, Burke's favorite drinking spot. She spotted him at the counter with a dram of whiskey in his hand. She slid next to work and ordered one for herself. And as they stood there, Margaret pressed her foot on his work, looked her over. She quickly turned and left. He downed his drink and followed her out. He knew what that signal meant. When Burke and Margaret arrived at the Lodge, Jamie was still there along with her.

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Nellie McDougal was gone. She was collecting potatoes in the field for a harvest. Burke stood in the room and sized up Jamie. He looked formidable and stared right at hair. Jamie asked about his mother. Margaret assured him quickly that she was certainly on the way not to worry, the men stood near Jamie and offered him a dram of whiskey. Spirits could quickly make any man helpless, they hoped. But Jamie declined. Up until then, the people have been killing, have been fairly old, infirm people who drank a lot and Jamie was 21 and then they discovered he didn't drink.

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So this. Yeah, Burke and Hare looked at one another time for a new plan. They gently convinced him to take a sip of whiskey and they seemed so sincere. He finally agreed, but he drank just a glass, not enough to make him unconscious. Jamie seemed tired, emotionally exhausted from the fight with his mother, had invited him to lay down in the back room. They even volunteered to join him. Remember, Jamie Wilson was accustomed to people in Old Town treating him kindly.

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He shuffled to the back room and stretched out on the bed. Hair lay down beside him, propping his head up with his hand. They both stared up at the ceiling. Burke pulled up a stool and sat beside the bed, watching her carefully, Jamie probably couldn't hear Margaret hair quietly leave the house, locking the front door behind her and pushing the key underneath. Jamie was alone with the two men. Now, the men prayed he would close his eyes quickly, but it took a while.

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Heather leaned over and glanced at Burke. Hare pounced on him, gripping his mouth and nose. Jamie opened his eyes, panicked and then fought back. He was much stronger than William hair, much bigger. Burke jumped from the stool and hopped out of the way. Jamie was flailing, trying to get up. He dragged her off of the bed and they began punching each other. Jamie was normally passive, but tonight he was fighting for his life.

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Burke waited for an opportunity and then grabbed Jamie's legs and arms as he lay on the ground. Hair covered Jamie's nose and mouth as he struggled. Both men were on top of him. Now his body was weakened. Everything was going dark. And soon Jamie was dead.

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Work side, it was finally over. Will soon lay prone dead on their floor. It was such a sad ending for a boy who just wanted to return home to his mother. And there's another terrible revelation that I hadn't thought of. He seems to have been the only corpse who had known that he was about to be murdered. He's right. Everyone else was essentially asleep before they died. There is the issue that maybe they would never have woken up just from alcohol poisoning.

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But that argument didn't work for Jamie. Janet Philp and other authors have searched the Scottish National Records for James Wilson, and they found nothing. He became famous like so many other crime victims after he was killed. Soon, there would be ballads written about him. His sketch would appear in broad board newspapers across Europe. He was the most famous figure in this case, the face of injustice for all of the poor people in Old Town. But for now, Jamie Wilson lay on the floor of the lodging house, just another tally on the list of Burke and Hare victims.

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Since Streamy was known about they had to get him out of the way fast, Pierce search Jaimie's pockets and found that unusual brass snuffbox and copper spoon hair kept the box and Burt claimed the spoon. Then they did what they had always done. They stripped the body and removed the clothes, except they did something different this time. The men had always destroyed the clothing from the other victims. But Burke decided to give Jamie's rags to his nephews. Burke's brother, Constantine, could barely keep his two sons and daughter clothed, so they were happily received.

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Constantine and Elizabeth probably didn't ask where the clothing came from.

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Jamie, like all of the others, was stuffed into Harry's text, despite his large size Birkin hair, received 10 pounds for Jamie Wilson.

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If I killed somebody who was instantly recognizable from the fact that he had a clubfoot, but also it was a turning point that they now could pretty much kill anybody, but of course, in any good historical true crime tale, there are always some myths.

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They've got him up to Knox's room. And again, he was identified by Dr. Ferguson, whose first action was to remove Jamie's foot. The story goes that Dr. Robert Knox and his assistant ordered the removal of Jamie's clubbed foot and he was immediately dissected. This was offered as proof that the anatomists knew that the young men would be recognized by his students, who ventured onto the Royal Mile and knew Jamie Knox was clearly covering up his tracks. But historian Janet Phelps says there's just no evidence that actually happened.

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There's no records of Knox.

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And certainly even if you made this decision, you wouldn't you wouldn't record it. Is it? The feet were removed from the body and the Jamie's body was dissected pretty much straight away. Now, this is prior to preservation. So bodies would have been dissected pretty much straight away anyway, removing somebody's clubfoot. We've got knife proof as to whether that happened or not.

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Another valid point, Dr. Robert Knox's guilt continues to be a mystery to me.

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The murder of Jamie Wilson had bolstered Burkean Harry's confidence that was another turning point, the ability to kill a healthy under 21 year old.

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William Burke watched old Mrs. Hossler wash clothing at his house, her husband had been a Street-Porter and he had recently died. She was still mourning him.

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So to survive, Mrs. Hossler was forced to work all day long in the fields during harvest and then she would go do people's wash afterwards. It was backbreaking work, but she had to earn money. Somehow it was bright the middle of the day. When her arrived, the men glanced at each other. Burke offered Mrs. Hossler some whiskey, which she happily accepted. She drank and sang her favorite song, Home Sweet Home, so loudly that the neighbors noticed Burke sang along until she grew sleepy.

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Before long, she requested a little rest on the bed. Soon, Mrs. Hossler was dead. Her hand was balled up in a fist. They provided open and found a nine pence half penny inside. Mary Patterson also had coins in her hand. That's how important money was to a jeweler in Old Town. Mrs. Hossler had worked honestly and hard for that money. Birkin hair placed the washerwoman in a tea chest. They kept it in the coalhouse in the alley until later that day she was worth eight pounds to Dr.

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Knox.

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Birkin hair returned to Bragin small house and through a raucous party at Mrs. Hustler's expense.

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I just didn't last long. I'm sitting in a pew at St. Patrick's Church in a section of Old Town called the Coalgate, Monsignor Phillip Kerr has been kind enough to let me record the 745 early morning mass. St. Patrick's is a Roman Catholic parish church that has sat on the spot since 1774.

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It began as a Scottish Episcopal Church, but during Birkenhead first time it was Presbyterian in the late.

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Churches are at the center of the story, religious doctrine for bayed, body donations, even organ donations. Professor of Anatomy Tom Gillenwater says that much of this started in the early 16th century.

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You know, you go back to the the great anatomists, the past Leonardo da Vinci, one of the very earliest, you know, kind of experts in the field. He wasn't a trained anatomist, but he learned his anatomy by dissection.

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So he had to see the body. He then produced this amazing, beautiful pictures from it.

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But the fundamental process he undertook to understand it was seeing the real thing.

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But the work of Da Vinci and others like him repulsed church and community leaders.

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If you go back to Vesalius, who is the father of anatomy, along with Galen, I guess he was persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition for the stuff that he did looking at bodies by the 18th century, science was advancing rapidly and I.S. was considered a more practical teaching method.

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And Great Britain's government actually helped those schools inadvertently. In 1752, parliament passed the Murder Act, which was meant to be a deterrent for killers. So anybody who is executed for murder could be dissected by the university. But there aren't that many murderers. So they were teaching on pretty old. This is before preservation. So pretty okmulgee specimens.

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And why not the people who have been abandoned, you know, who aren't claimed? Why not add those? Because they still deserved to have a proper burial.

[00:36:07]

Yeah, well, it depends what you call a proper burial, I guess. I mean, back then it was like pauper's graves, wasn't it, where everybody was abandoned altogether.

[00:36:15]

People convicted of murder would be executed and then be either publicly dissected or their corpse hung up by chains.

[00:36:24]

They would not be buried.

[00:36:26]

Those bodies were turned over to anatomy schools as they were crossing the royal mile here.

[00:36:32]

As you can see over on the other side, the three brass cobbles or we'll pass them. That's where they did the public executions. So it's quite common. You could see locals used to be that you spat on it as you walked past. And also locals don't walk over. They tend to walk around it as well.

[00:36:50]

And why have the church, again, so close to the location and public hangings? Well, the clergy were on the platform with the one eye. So shorter travel time at convenience.

[00:37:01]

I see. If you get executed, do you get buried in consecrated ground? I don't know. I think you end up on an anonymous table.

[00:37:11]

But there was criminal justice reform in the early 80s. Hundreds and fewer executions, there were certainly not enough bodies to accommodate the increasing number of medical students. So anatomists relied on grave robbers. Professors around the world simply couldn't teach 19th century medicine without cadavers. Of course, this terrified devout Christians in America and Britain.

[00:37:35]

So the idea that the body had to be whole when it was buried so that when the end of the world comes, the body can be resurrected. If it's not whole, then it won't get up to heaven. In the early 1400's, religious leaders in Britain and America refused to allow people to donate or sell their bodies to science, even their organs were considered sacred. That's changed in the past century, said Anthony Horen with the Catholic parliamentary office in Scotland.

[00:38:04]

Organ donation is a noble and meritorious act, and it's something that we and the church support and believe and encourage the faithful to to to consider.

[00:38:15]

There's quite a lot of controversy about that in Scotland. In July of 2019, the government passed what's called an opt out system for organ and tissue donation. You must sign a document if you don't want your tissue or organs donated after death. Otherwise, it's assumed that donation is your wish. Now, this doesn't include body donations. Right now in most countries, including America, you must opt in to donate your organs after you die. You make that choice by signing a document like when you renew your driver's license and you can also register online.

[00:38:48]

There's not enough information about which system is most effective right now. The U.S. ranks in the top 10 countries for organ donation with the opt in system, but the opt out system has dramatically increased donations in other countries.

[00:39:04]

Anthony Horan says the Catholic Church is concerned about Scotland's opt out system because many people just might not have enough information and may worry here is that this is almost like an insidious sort of state ownership of organs until an individual decides otherwise, until they decide to opt out, which I feel is deeply worrying.

[00:39:26]

Horan says that the Catholic Church encourages people to give the gift of life, but it must be a choice. He believes that most people won't have all of that information, and that's the concern of many church leaders.

[00:39:40]

Dr. Tom Gillenwater agrees that most churches now encourage both organ and body donation among their parishioners, but religion can still present anatomists with obstacles in certain cultures and religions.

[00:39:53]

There is the need to have a burial within 24 hours of death. Of course, that's completely incompatible with that individual donating their body to the medical school. We have to accept that. We have to we have to agree with them. Where I take issue is when people with a certain religious belief then try to force their view on everyone else. That's where and we do run into problems with that.

[00:40:14]

We can't have situations where people think that we should run everything according to their beliefs.

[00:40:20]

In 1828, Burkean has effectively eliminated those obstacles. For Dr. Robert Knox, they appeared unstoppable. For now.

[00:40:30]

Helen McDougle had been married before to the father of her boy and girl. That marriage ended when she began seeing William Burke. They've been together for about a decade now, but she still kept in touch with the McDougle family in Falkirk a little more than 20 miles northwest of Edinburgh. She and Burke had visited there in June. A rap on the door came in October after they murder Jamie Wilson in The Woman. It was an McDougal, a cousin of Nelly's former husband.

[00:40:59]

They invited her inside and drank and drank with Nellie and Burke for several nights, exchanging stories and gossiping along with Burke's relative, John Brogan and his family, and talked about her husband. She was young and happy. She enjoyed chatting with all of them.

[00:41:18]

I'm often curious about when someone like William Burke decides on a victim like his wife's relative and McDougal wasn't a stranger off the street.

[00:41:27]

They had likely seen her in Falkirk over the summer and then offered her a room. Birkin here had a conversation about an one night hair slipped down to Dr. Knox's dissecting room and chatted with the porter, David Paterson.

[00:41:40]

He asked to borrow a nice trunk for another body that they would be expecting quite soon.

[00:41:46]

Was David Paterson suspicious at this point? Perhaps he had pulled himself into thinking that they were simply grave robbers. Still, could he also be that naive, like Dr. Knox and his assistants? Were none of them suspicious at this point? John Brogan went to work in the morning leaving hair and work at the house with an McDougle. Hare eyed her, but Burke pulled him to the side. He was clearly uncomfortable. He explained that Hare would have to initiate killing her, not him.

[00:42:20]

He felt guilty because they were all friends and family. Hare agreed. And after some more whiskey, he put his hands over her mouth and nose.

[00:42:30]

She didn't struggle as Burke lay over her soon and McDougal was gone, and so was any hope of redemption for William Burke. And now there was another hitch. And that hitch was John Brogan, Burke's relative and his landlord. He returned from work in the afternoon and noticed two odd things. A new trunk and a missing distant cousin when he questioned Burke and Hare, they quietly handed him a gram of whiskey and a few pounds in payment for back rent.

[00:43:04]

He accepted their explanation and downed his drink, and then John Brogan and his family smartly left the city.

[00:43:12]

Now William Burke had the house to himself. Later that day, the two men carried an McDougall's body down to Seargent Square and received 10 pounds after the pair had murdered Jamie Wilson. Burke was now more certain than ever that hair and he were above the law.

[00:43:31]

He said at this point, he felt they could just they could do anything if they could take fit 21 year olds off the street. There was no way anyone was ever going to stop them.

[00:43:46]

On the next episode of Tenfold More Wicked, they need to get caught because they will just carry on murdering unless somebody captures a nearby inhabitant, heard the cries, then heard footsteps of the person being drawn back.

[00:44:02]

She's looking through the straw at the end of the bed and she discovers this body. If you love historical true crime, be sure to order my book, American Sherlock. It's about a real life Sherlock Holmes who solved some of the most gruesome murders in the 1920s. The paperback arrives on February 16th, but it's available for preorder. Now, this has been an exactly right and ten fold more media production producers Jason Whaling and Laura Sobell, sound designer. Eric Friend, composer Curtis Heath artwork.

[00:44:34]

Nick Todger, executive producers, Georgia Howard Stark, Karen Kilgariff and Danielle Cramer follow us on Instagram and Facebook at tenfold more wicked and on Twitter at tenfold more. If you're an advertiser interested in advertising on our show, go to Mirel Dotcom ads.

[00:44:54]

And if you know of a historical crime that could use some attention. Email us at info at tenfold more wicked dotcom. So please listen, subscribe leave us a review on Apple podcast, Ditcher or wherever you get your podcasts.