Lore - Episode 43: Supply and Demand

Episode Date: September 19, 2016

Throughout history, certain individuals have managed to rise to the challenge in the face of difficulty. But in 1827, that attitude was taken to a new—and horrific—level. * * * Official Lore website: www.lorepodcast.com Extra member episodes: www.patreon.com/lorepodcast Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support

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Burial, like death, is supposed to be permanent. The process and tradition has a weight of finality to it. The very act of placing our dead in a hole in the ground and then covering them with pound after pound of heavy damp soil. Well, it's one of the most powerful metaphors in everyday life. When we bury our dead, we bury the past. We dig deep and place something precious, someone precious, out of reach from society. In the vast majority of the time, we do all of this in graveyards.

A place that is itself viewed as sacred and set apart. Burial, for a huge portion of the world, is the end. Graves, for as eternal as they seem, are sometimes disturbed. Most of the time, the buried are unburied by accident. We assume this when we talk about ancient burial sites in places like Rome or Jerusalem. Often as a result of modern construction projects and development of long-abandoned property. For example, the Gherkin in London stands on the site of the 1600-year-old grave of a girl from the Roman era of the city.

The remains of King Richard III were found in 2012 beneath a parking lot in the city of Leicester. And just last year, a similar site was discovered beneath a portion of New York University. Sometimes, the dead are just disturbed. Sometimes, though, it's on purpose. In ancient times, the goal was often grave robbing. Nearly all of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt were robbed of their treasures long before Egyptologists began to study them. When there are valuables on the line,

humans have a way of moving past the sacredness of the grave and digging in. Literally. While most graves have been opened purely by accident or intentionally by curious scholars, some have been dug up for darker reasons. In the 18th and 19th century, that reason had a noble veneer which concealed a more sinister activity. They called it body-snatching. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore.

Something was happening in Edinburgh in the late 1700s. Scottish Enlightenment had been transforming the culture and attitude of the city and things were beginning to shift. Edinburgh, you see, was becoming a major center for learning. And along with growth in the fields of literature, philosophy, mathematics, and economics, one of the pillars of that growth was medical science. If you wanted to become a physician in the late 18th century, chances are you were planning to move to Edinburgh.

One of the old medical terms that I think it's glossed over these days is the idea of the operating theater. Today, that's a room in a hospital where surgeons perform sterile medical procedures. But two centuries ago, they looked a lot more like a real theater, which is where the name came from. Educators would stand in front of a tall table and the students would sit in tiered rows so that they could all have a good view. And what they'd be watching, in most cases, was human dissection.

It wasn't sanitary, but nearly all of the subjects were already dead, so sterilization was a lot less important. The key for all these medical students was to see the inner workings of the human body up close and personal. Remember, these were the days before MRIs and radiology. If you wanted to know how a part of the human body worked, you needed to look inside, and that required cutting. Believe it or not, there was some debate among medical professionals

as to whether this was actually a moral thing to do. But in the end, the need to learn far outweighed all other reasons. The result was a huge demand for corpses. If you're going to teach a class that involved dissection, you needed a fresh body. The trouble was that the laws of the land vast enough vastly restricted where teachers could get bodies from. Thanks to an act of parliament in 1752,

the only bodies that could legally be used for dissection were those of executed murderers. And by the early 1800s, fewer and fewer executions were actually happening. At the same time, demand for corpses was a bit, um, bloated. Just London itself had over 700 medical students, and each of them was required to dissect at least three human bodies. You can see the problem, right? So to help, a new criminal was born out of this turmoil.

The resurrectionists. These were the people who were willing to dig up freshly buried corpses and sell them to the colleges and universities who needed them. They were a creative bunch, truth be told. And sure, some of them would do the deed the typical way, digging straight down to the coffin. That quickly became impossible. You see, people didn't like it when their loved ones were dug up and dragged away.

To combat the grave robbing, some unique preventative measures were implemented. Oftentimes, family would organize a team of adults to literally sit beside the grave 24-7 for the first two weeks. Their goal was to guard the grave while the body beneath had time to decay enough to become undesirable to the resurrectionists. In other cemeteries, stone watchtowers were built and guards were hired in place of family, working the literal graveyard shift. Some buried their dead in metal coffins, locking them against thieves and animals alike.

Others were interred in standard graves, but were then covered with stone slabs or metal mort safes, the sort of iron cage that protected the grave from being disturbed. In fact, if you stroll through Grafire Cemetery today in Edinburgh, you'll see a number of them still protecting their occupants. Some internet posts will tell you that those were installed to keep zombies in their graves. Those internet posts are dumb. The resurrectionists were able to work around a lot of these techniques, though.

Oftentimes, they'd start digging from a good 20 or 30 feet away and approach the grave through a tunnel from the side. After removing the headboard of the coffin, they would loop a rope around the head of the occupant and pull them out. And this would all happen right under the nose of a hired guard or a grieving family member. Once they had the body, the clothing and personal belongings were stripped off and returned to the grave to avoid felony charges. And then those body snatchers would make their way to their favorite medical educator and make the sale.

It was wrong on many levels, but it was also common. And in Edinburgh, where more physicians trained than most other cities, it was nearly an epidemic. Despite that, though, it was still really difficult to get a corpse when you needed one. The resurrectionists worked hard, though, and they managed to supply hundreds of fresh bodies each year. The educational need was nearly insatiable. And like any moment in human history, when the market has demand that outpaces supply, people went looking for a creative solution.

And boy, did they find one. The two Williams met in a boarding house in 1826 and quickly realized how similar their pasts were. If you step back and thought about it, it's as if they were destined to meet and work together. The younger William, William Hare, was born in 1807 in Northern Ireland. He grew up in close proximity to the Neary Canal, which cut up through the countryside from Carlingford to Loch Naye, where the coal fields were. He worked for a time at the local canal in Pointe Spass, driving a team of horses along the route. But that job came to an end when he killed one of his employer's horses in a fit of rage.

As a result, Hare packed up and left Ireland, taking his skills and temper with him to Scotland. He'd been working on the Union Canal when he met a local man named Logue Laird, who ran the boarding house for the destitute and homeless. Being new to Edinburgh, this seemed like the best chance he had to get his feet on the ground, so he moved in. And that's how he met Logue's wife, Margaret. When Logue died in 1826, William married Margaret and the couple stayed in the boarding house together. At the same time, another William was working his way toward the boarding house. William Burke was also from Ulster in Northern Ireland.

He'd managed to move through a series of odd jobs and had married and started a family. In 1817, though, he left them behind and emigrated to Scotland, where he began working on the Union Canal. During his time in Edinburgh, Burke met a woman named Helen, and the pair made plans to move west and start a new life together. Instead, Chance intervened, and they were invited by Margaret Laird to stay at the boarding house in one of their spare rooms. And that's when the two Williams met. We know very little about their friendship. They both worked on the canal, so I can imagine them as the stereotypical factory buddies, walking home from work together, stopping at the local pub for a drink on their way.

At the very least, sharing the same home and job brought them together on beyond a casual level. On November 29th of 1827, Margaret Laird stepped into the room where her husband sat. She had an expression on her face that was a knot of frustration and horror. One of their lodgers, an elderly man, had passed away during the night. Margaret had found him dead in his cot, a horrifying experience for most people. This tenant had no family that they were aware of and no valuables worth selling, which was disappointing because the man also owed her for the past few months worth of rent. That's when Hare had an idea.

He approached Burke and told him what had happened, and then he presented an idea that required the man's help. What if they sold the body to a medical teacher? There were rumors on the streets that physicians were paying good money for fresh bodies, and it was hard to get more fresh than this, no doubt. They'd be rid of the body and might recoup the lost rent in the process. It was a morbid win-win scenario, but these were morbid men. Now, law required the body to be buried, so they filled the coffin with firewood and snuck the corpse away to Edinburgh University.

There, they were directed to a teaching doctor named Robert Knox. Knox had been an army physician at Waterloo and had been teaching independently at the university for a little over a year with hopes of obtaining a full-time professorship there. Knox taught a lot of anatomy classes, all of which required fresh cadavers. As a result, Knox had a large network of providers, teams of body snatchers all across the city who were robbing graves and bringing him every cadaver they could get their hands on. Still, the demand from the growing class sizes was outpacing the supply, which left Dr. Knox with a problem.

When Burke and Hare approached him that night in November of 1827, Knox took full advantage of the opportunity. He asked no questions, and the men were polite, but you have to imagine that Knox suspected something unusual. After all, the body was still clothed, and yet, he had needs, didn't he? The two men went home that night with seven pounds in their collective pockets in modern American money that's close to $1,200. The rental debt was covered, and there was profit to go around.

And how much money earned with such relative ease? Well, it was hard not to think about the possibilities. And that gave the men a killer idea. It wasn't an original idea. There have been rumors for years of disappearances, horrifying tales that were used to warn children to beware of strangers. The youth of Edinburgh were disappearing, they said, and you could be next if you aren't careful, so watch out.

Others whispered of abduction by gypsies, or children spirited away by illegal slavers. But all of it was just gossip, xenophobic rumor masked as fantasy. At the core of it, though, was a grain of truth, which is why some members of the medical community, as well as politicians in London, were already discussing the warning signs.

Namely, soaring prices for dead bodies meant someone was bound to cross the line eventually. I'm telling you all of this to understand something important. Birkenhair didn't invent what they were about to do. They weren't the first, although they were arguably the best at it, which is why years later, their names would become synonymous with the act. But they weren't pioneers by any means. They were just early adopters of that famous Wayne Gretzky lesson

to skate where the puck is going, not to where it's at right now. Except here, the puck was a cadaver. I know, I'm stretching the analogy a bit. Work with me here. A month after selling their first cadaver to Dr. Knox, Margaret told the two men of another tenant in the house, a man named Joseph Miller, who was sick in his room. Birkenhair paid him a visit,

and after getting him drunk on whiskey, they smothered him with a pillow. That body earned them a full 10 pounds from Dr. Knox and zero suspicion, so they kept going. With no more sick or dying tenants under their roof, Birkenhair started to frequent the local taverns, looking for poor, lonely travelers and members of the invisible layer of Edinburgh society.

In February of 1828, they met an elderly woman named Abigail Simpson and offered her a room at the boarding house for the night. Once behind closed doors, the whiskey and pillow were used again with the same results. Even Margaret got in on the action, apparently, by helping to bring victims home to the two men. They aimed for travelers who appeared poor,

and in search of assistance, and then played into those needs. Each visitor to the house was treated the same way, more whiskey and more suffocation, all of which earned Birkenhair more money. Sometimes they worked together as a team, as they had with their first victim. In other times, they split up and worked alone.

They were in the sort of line of work that required Goldilocks conditions, after all, the right person in the right place, with the right needs at the right time. It wasn't necessarily chance, but it wasn't all skill, either. Still, they were getting good at it, and they turned it into an art. The men were dressing well now,

and many of the locals near the boarding house had noticed this. Each new cadaver came with a bigger payday, and both men were living large as a result. But it wasn't always easy money. Long stretches of time would go by between victims, and sometimes it was easy to doubt whether their lucky streak would continue. It was after one of those dry spells

that Birkenhair happened to bump into an old friend, named Mary Haldane. Mary was an older woman who had once lived in the boarding house with them, but had since moved out to find a better life. But she was also a drunk, and the men knew an opportunity when they saw one. Here it was a victim that would have no problem

with glass after glass of whiskey. After waiting for her to pass out that night, they smothered her to death, and then took her body to Dr. Knox the following morning. A few days later, Mary's daughter Peggy came searching for her missing mother. A local grocer had told her that he'd seen Mary in the company of hair,

and so she knocked on their door. Margaret answered the door and recognized Peggy immediately. Together with Birk's wife Helen, the two women did their best to proclaim complete ignorance of Mary's whereabouts. But when the men heard them, they panicked. If they sent her away, she'd go to the police. Now, they needed to offer her some form of hope,

some solution to her desperation. Hair stepped into the hall and interrupted the conversation. He could help, he said. In fact, he knew where Peggy might look to find her mother. Peggy's eyes opened wide with hope, and then hair stepped aside with the sweeping arm. Would you care to come in and talk about it? Over a drink.

Music Birk and hair continued on this path for months, and as they did, the death toll climbed steadily higher. And then, on October 31st of 1828, Birk was in the local grocery store when an elderly woman named Mary Docherty stepped in. She was newly arrived from Ireland and had come to Edinburgh looking for her son.

Birk heard her accent and saw how frail she was, and knew he'd found his next victim. He struck up a conversation with her, and after discovering where she'd been born and what her last name was, he pretended to be distantly related through his mother's side. Mary fell for it. She was far from home, after all, and very lonely.

She had no travel companions, no money, and no place to stay. And so Birk kindly offered to lead her to the boarding house where she was welcomed to stay the night. There was a problem, though. The inn was full, so to speak. Had given their last room to a small family earlier in the week, James Gray was a former soldier,

and he'd brought his wife and child with him. So Birk offered to find them temporary lodgings elsewhere for the night so that Mary, his newly discovered relative, could stay there. The Grays agreed and moved out for the night. After they'd gone, the drinking started. It was an evening full of dancing, shouting, laughter,

and many, many songs sung at the top of their voices. Mary kept up nicely despite her old age, and each of them got as drunk as they possibly could, which led to a fistfight between Birk and Hare. There's some debate among historians about whether the fight was real or planned. The outcome worked in their favor nonetheless. In an effort to stop the fight,

Mary stepped between the men and was knocked to the floor. Too drunk to get back up, she simply passed out right there where she lay, and that was the opportunity the men had been waiting for. They strangled her and then hid her body in the woman's room between the bed and the wall, where a small pile of straw had been placed. In the morning, the Grays returned to eat breakfast

at the boarding house and asked about the old woman. Gone, Birk told them. He claimed she'd gotten a bit too rude thanks to the alcohol, and they'd been forced to turn her away in the night. Anne Gray thought it was a shame, but shrugged and then stepped into her room to retrieve the stockings she'd left on the bed that afternoon. That brought her within sight of the pile of straw.

Birk panicked and demanded that she leave it alone. She had been smoking a pipe at the time, and he shouted something about straw and fire. Mrs. Gray didn't like his tone. Something about it all seemed odd, and if suspicion were a seed, that was the moment it took root. Later, through a series of mistakes,

misunderstandings, and errors in judgment by Birk and Hare, the Grays found themselves in the big house all alone and very, very curious. So Mrs. Gray started to search the room again. Beneath the pile of straw, beside the bed where she had planned to sleep that night, she was shocked to find the cold, dead body of the missing old woman.

The police were called to the house. The men managed to get the body out before their arrival, but it was already too late. The Grays later identified Dockardy's corpse in possession of Dr. Knox, sealing their case. Birk and Hare were arrested, and their 10-month killing spree, a run of murder that claimed 17 victims in total,

was finally brought to an end. Hare proved to be more open to the police than Birk, and he managed to strike a deal with them. He turned King's evidence, agreeing to testify against his partner, and tell the police everything that had happened, all in exchange for a mutiny from prosecution. So when the trial began on Christmas Eve of 1828, it was Birk and Birk alone who received his death sentence.

He was hanged a month later. It was a cold winter day, and torrential rain pounded the cobblestones outside the courthouse. But no one cared about the rain. A crowd of nearly 25,000 gathered to watch the killer drop, and they cheered at his death. The following day, Birk's body was dissected at Old College in front of a sellout crowd.

For over two hours, Dr. Alexander Monroe led his anatomy lecture using the former Body Snatchers corpse as a teaching tool, while groups of students were led through in waves to give everyone a chance to see the infamous killer. During the dissection, Monroe stopped for a moment and retrieved a piece of parchment and a quill. The students watched him in total silence as he dipped the quill and began to scratch out a note.

This is written, he wrote, with the blood of William Birk, who was hanged at Edinburgh on 28 January 1829 for the murder of Mary Docherty. The blood was taken from his head. Some people have referred to Birkenhair as the most famous grave robbers in history. But the truth is that they never once opened a grave

and never even stole a body in the true Body Snatcher sense. Faced with a supply and demand problem, Birkenhair created their own inventory. Enterprising, yes, but not grave robbing in the traditional sense. As a result, 17 people lost their lives and all but one of them, Mary Docherty, ended up on the table in a medical theater.

There was a silver lining as a result of their deeds, though. Just three years after Birk's execution, Parliament passed the Anatomy Act of 1832, which opened the door for medical doctors and anatomy teachers to find enough cadavers for their work. Bodies can now be donated and unclean corpses from prisons and workhouses could also be used. We know about the last days of Birkenhair,

but what I'm more curious about are the 10 months before their arrest. How two poor men living in Edinburgh's Old Town used to lie to themselves all that time to justify their actions and then strut around town in expensive clothing. I'm interested in the psychology of it all. Well, they slept at night,

because it couldn't have been easy. These men were engaged in something that came with layer upon layer of moral debt. They were luring in needy people with the promise of help, which was bad enough on its own, and then they were ending their lives. And then finally, they denied them the burial they deserved. How does a person process those deeds

and live with them after the fact? William Hare was never tried and convicted for his crimes, so one can assume he lived for decades with all of this weighing on his conscience. Maybe, though. Just maybe. He did try to make things right. You see, something odd was found in 1836,

just seven years after Hare's release. Outside Edinburgh is a rocky hill known locally as Arthur's Seat, and in June of that year, some boys were on the northeast side hunting rabbits. In a moment of distraction, one of them began to scale part of the rocky face of the cliff when he lost his footing and slipped.

He instinctively reached for a handhold and caught the edge of a slab of stone that had been wedged into a crevice. When the stone fell away, he saw the large man-made hole in the hill. The boy leaned in, trying to make sense of what he could see inside. There were shadows and moisture and odd shapes,

and if he wasn't mistaken, wood. He reached in and brushed away the cobwebs and pulled one of the objects out. It was a coffin, a tiny wooden coffin decorated with tin and carved from a single block of wood. Inside was a wooden doll about four inches long, dressed in a tiny shirt and trousers

with a face carved on the round head. And then the boy put the coffin back and counted. There were a lot of them, all coffins, all occupied by a tiny figure, and all buried with care. The total is a curious number to say the least. There were 17 of them. This episode of Lore was researched, written,

and produced by me, Aaron Mankey. Lore is much more than a podcast. There's a book series in bookstores around the country and online, and the second season of the Amazon Prime television show was recently released. Check them both out if you want more Lore. I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured,

and I think you'd enjoy both. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. You can learn about both of those shows and everything else going on all over in one central place. And you can also follow the show on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Just search for Lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button.

When you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening. You