She knew what she was doing. She knew it when she took the boy into her home. She knew it when she gave Burke the signal. She knew it when she left the three of them alone in that bleak back room and locked the door.
But Jamie was too well known a victim. News of his disappearance spread quickly and reached the ears of Dr Knox while the body still lay on his examination table. There were no signs of foul play – the method of murder saw to that – but, nevertheless, he ordered that the body be anatomised quickly, with one assistant cutting off the head and deformed feet to avoid it being recognised.
Killing Jamie was a mistake but they had, once again, got away with it. However, time was running out for the fearsome foursome. They were about to go a victim too far. And this time they would all be involved.
It was sweet-talking William Burke who brought the woman, Mary Docherty, back to the room he shared with Helen McDougall. It was Halloween which was fitting considering the dark work that was to be done that night. He had come across the destitute Irishwoman begging in a pub and had inveigled his way into her trust by suggesting they might be related. At that time, they were sharing the room with James Gray and his wife, Ann. Burke and Nelly would regret ever being tempted to sublet their space.
Burke told the Grays that he had arranged for them to have a bed at Tanner's Close with his good friends the Hares. Mrs Docherty was a relative, he explained, and it was his wish that she spend the night. Hare and Laird duly turned up to escort the Grays to their establishment but they returned to Burke's room shortly afterwards. Later, the four were seen drinking, singing and dancing with the woman who was to form part of their stock in trade.
The following day the Grays returned to find the Irishwoman gone. Helen McDougall told them Mrs Docherty had been ‘using too much freedom with William [Burke]’ and she had been forced to kick ‘the damned bitch's backside out the door’. At one point Mrs Gray had settled herself down on the edge of the bed and Burke had snapped at her, ‘Keep out of there, keep out of the straw.’
The Grays were bustled out of the room but later stole back in when Burke and McDougall had gone. Rooting around in the straw, they uncovered Mary Docherty's naked body, blood crusting around her mouth and nose. Shocked, they hurried from the room and came face to face with Helen McDougall on the stairs. Mr Gray challenged her over the dead body and she slumped to her knees and begged him not to say anything, offering him money for his silence. But the Grays were not like John Broggan, who had accepted cash to forget he'd seen the body of Ann McDougall. They rushed out into the street to fetch the police, only to find Maggie Laird. She tried to talk them into going back into the house to discuss the matter but the Grays, wisely, refused to go. They did, however, go to a nearby pub.
By the time the police were alerted and had stirred themselves to investigate the claims of foul murder, the body of Mrs Docherty had been folded into a tea chest – bought by Burke but collected by Maggie Laird – and whisked off to the waiting hands and scalpels of the doctors. But an examination of the bedding and straw revealed the dead woman's clothes and some blood. On questioning, Burke said the woman had left early that morning but McDougall said she had left the previous night – and she had spoken to her since. Presented with an obvious contradiction, the police took the couple into custody.
Further inquiries unearthed a local man who had carried the tea chest to Surgeon's Square. He knew there was a body inside because he himself had tucked away some hair that was hanging out. On arriving at Dr Knox's establishment, police found the corpse still in its makeshift coffin. Hare and his wife were arrested but denied ever having seen the dead woman. This was folly on their part because they knew that a number of people, including the Grays, had seen them all with Mrs Docherty while she was alive.
After being charged, Burke changed his story, inventing a mysterious hooded stranger carrying a large box who had come to have his shoes mended. While he was busy cobbling, Burke said that he had heard the rustle of straw behind him and, after the mystery man had left, he had found the body of the woman hidden beneath the bed. Later he tried a new tack. He admitted that the dead woman was Mrs Docherty, that she had been with them that night but that she had somehow suffocated herself while drunk. He and Hare had seized the opportunity to make some cash by selling the corpse to the anatomists. Hare, meanwhile, blamed another tenant, saying he had struck the woman. McDougall insisted she knew nothing of the murder, while no one knows what Maggie Laird was saying.
The authorities had a body. They had witnesses who placed the victim in the company of the Burkes and Hares on the night she died. Unfortunately, they had very little else. A post-mortem revealed that, although the woman had been suffocated, it was impossible to state with any certainty she was a victim of murder. What was needed was an eyewitness to the killing – and unfortunately the only people who knew what went on in that room were the accused foursome. Unless one or more of the alleged accomplices decided to confess or inform on the others, there was every chance they would all be freed on a not proven verdict. Perhaps a deal could be made. Perhaps one or more of them could be offered immunity in return for their freedom. Scottish justice is renowned for turning a blind eye to the misdeeds of witnesses testifying on the Crown's behalf. A conviction, any conviction, is better than nothing. And so the offer was made to William Hare and Maggie Laird. And they accepted.
With further information coming in regarding the disappearances of Mary Paterson and Jamie Wilson, that left only William Burke on three counts of murder – Daft Jamie, Mary Paterson and Mary Docherty. Helen McDougall was charged only in connection with Mary Docherty. In the end, thanks to protests from Burke's crack defence team – acting, as was the custom, free of charge – only Mary Docherty's death would trouble the court.
The trial began on the morning of Christmas Eve, 1828, and sat, without break, for a full twenty-four hours. There were fifty-five witnesses cited to appear. Dr Knox was listed but, amazingly, he was not called – fuelling conspiracy theories that the entire case was somehow designed to cover up the involvement of influential medical men and to protect the establishment of the day. However, the most important witnesses were undoubtedly William Hare and his wife, Maggie Laird.
Hare, of course, blamed Burke for just about everything, while being careful not to implicate himself too much. He was allowed to decline answers to certain questions that may have shown he was more involved in the murders than he claimed. Although Burke's defence tried to break this wall of silence, the prosecution defended Hare's stance. They were there to obtain a conviction not to unearth the truth.
Laird appeared holding her young child whose father was possibly Hare. The youngster was sick with whooping cough and she used it like a prop, tending to it while she thought about what she was saying. She did, however, make one slip of the tongue that may have passed unnoticed at the time but which has been seized on by writers since. She claimed that she and Helen McDougall had fled the room when Burke fell on Mrs Docherty. When she was asked what she thought had happened to the woman, she said she ‘had a supposition that she had been murdered’. Then she added, ‘I have seen such tricks before.’
She had seen such tricks before. Maggie Laird, a star prosecution witness, knew of previous murders. And she was getting away with it. None of the lawyers picked up on the remark. Perhaps their wits were dulled by the hours of continual evidence. Perhaps they caught it but chose to let it go. It would have suited the prosecution to do this because they had already agreed to try only the one murder. And the defence failed to follow it up because there would have been no benefit to their client to do so. Or perhaps neither side wanted the full extent of the West Port horrors to come out in a court of law.
The jury took just under an hour to reach their guilty verdict on William Burke. But it was only a majority verdict – two of the jurors remained unconvinced of his complete guilt. The press and populace at large were happy he had been convicted but felt the courts had not gone far enough
. They felt that equally nefarious villains were escaping the noose – William Hare, Maggie Laird and Dr Robert Knox who, it was believed, must have known just how his two suppliers were gathering their merchandise.
The charge against Helen McDougall was found not proven. When he heard the verdict on his lover, Burke remarked, ‘Nelly, you're out of the scrape.’
Much to the relief of the medical establishment and also to the prosecuting authorities, there was no need to try Burke on the other two charges – those of Mary Paterson and Jamie Wilson. After all, he could only hang once. The presiding judge, Lord Justice Clerk Boyle, stated that Burke had no chance of a pardon. He continued:
The only doubt I have in my mind in order to satisfy the violated laws of your country and the voice of public indignation is whether your body should not be exhibited in chains to bleach in the winds, to deter others from the commission of such offences but, taking into consideration the public eye would be offended by such a dismal spectacle, I am willing to accede to a more lenient execution of your sentence, that your body should be publicly dissected.
It was an ironic twist in the tale, considering the way Burke had made his most recent living. But the judge had another comment to make, opining that, if it was ever customary for the skeletons of murderers to be kept after dissection, then he hoped Burke's would be one ‘in order that posterity may keep in remembrance of your atrocious crimes’.
The Edinburgh Tolbooth had been demolished in 1817 so Burke was taken first to Calton Jail and then, in preparation for his final public appearance, to the lock-up house in Libberton's Wynd. He made two confessions during this time, admitting sixteen murders but claiming William Hare had more to do with them than he had stated in court. He also removed any blame from his lover, Helen McDougall, and, to an extent, from Maggie Laird. However, there can be little doubt that both women knew exactly what was going on – if not at first, then certainly as the death tally rose. They had stood outside the room in Gibb's Close while their husbands finished off poor Mary Paterson and they had sat at the table drinking as her body cooled on a bed behind a curtain. Maggie Laird had helped lure Daft Jamie and others to their doom. Helen McDougall had remained silent when her ex-partner's cousin, Ann McDougall, disappeared. They had both waited with the deaf-mute Glasgow lad while the men slaughtered his grandmother and then they had allowed him to be led away to his own certain death. They had both been present when Burke and Hare plied poor Mrs Docherty with drink, although they had fled as the murder began. Helen had tried to buy the Grays’ silence when they found the corpse of Ann McDougall and Maggie had attempted to calm them down. They had lied to the police over the night's events. Maggie Laird had admitted in court that she had ‘seen such tricks before’ after supposing Mrs Docherty had been murdered.
But, guilty or innocent, on Wednesday 28 January 1829, it was only Burke who paid the price for their collective misdeeds. The gallows itself was constructed in the Lawnmarket, not far from the lock-up house. The event was to be quite a spectacle. Signs were posted on windows on the tall buildings overlooking the execution site advertising an uninterrupted vantage point from which to witness the hanging. Despite fees being set as high as a guinea, there was a huge demand for places. Sir Walter Scott found himself such a window at 423 High Street to watch the show. The streets below were full of people – as many as 25,000, it has been estimated – and, as Burke was led on to the platform, a great wave of revulsion rose from their throats. This tide of hatred was not just aimed at the man on the scaffold but also towards the two men deemed by public indignation to be just as guilty – William Hare and Robert Knox. However, they had to be satisfied with just one hanging. Burke died easily, his body jerking minimally at the end of the drop. After the light-footed Irishman danced his last jig, the huge crowd celebrated with three loud cheers.
His body hung for an hour before it was taken down and transported to the dissecting rooms of Dr Alexander Monro. The butchery was to be a public event and, again, demand to view the event was great. The lecture theatre was filled to capacity and the usual angry crowd gathered outside. Police had to be called to keep order but, in the way that police often can, they only managed to make a bad situation worse. Anger turned to fury and fury turned to violence, with the mob trading blows with baton-wielding officers. While Burke's blood flowed in the lecture room, more blood was spilled in the streets and order was not restored until some arrangement could be made to allow as many people as possible to see Burke's corpse. Medical students were given priority to see the actual anatomising but, the following day, the public would be allowed to view the corpse lying on the slab. Again it is estimated that as many as 25,000 people filed past the sliced-up cadaver. The body was then flayed and the skeleton sent to Edinburgh University's anatomical museum for display. The skin was cut up into strips and sold as macabre keepsakes. One strip of skin, died blue, eventually came into the possession of Strathclyde Police's Black Museum at Pitt Street, Glasgow. Meanwhile, the rope that had been used to hang Burke was sold to a man for half a crown per inch.
During the dissection, it was revealed that Burke was suffering from testicular cancer. Had justice waited much longer to catch up with him, he would have cheated the hangman.
Perhaps Helen McDougall was in the Lawnmarket that Thursday to see her man die but probably not. Courtroom sketches had been well circulated and, after being released from prison, she had found her face too weel kent in the streets for her comfort. During an early excursion to buy liquor, she had been recognised and surrounded by angry townsfolk. The fifteen good men and true of the jury may not have been convinced of her guilt but these people were. Rough justice would almost certainly have been dispensed there and then had police officers not rescued the miserable woman and spirited her away. Later, disguised as a man, she was led from the police station and set free again. She thought it best to leave Edinburgh and return home to Falkirk but her welcome there was somewhat on the chilly side so she once again found herself back in Auld Reekie. She did not tarry there long but left Scotland altogether, winding up in Newcastle. There was talk that she emigrated to Australia but there is nothing concrete to support this.
Maggie Laird fared little better at the hands of the mob. She was given her liberation on Saturday 24 January 1829 but did not actually leave the jail until the following Monday when, like Helen McDougall, she was spotted in the streets. A dangerous crowd surrounded her in the High Street and would have done her some mischief had she not had her young child in her arms. The furious people contented themselves with pelting her with snowballs although one gent did succeed in delivering a violent kick to her leg. Again police came to the rescue and steered her away from the jeering mob. She too realised that Edinburgh had grown too hot for her and, after a period spent wandering the country, she finally arrived in Glasgow with a view to hopping aboard a boat bound for Ireland. But, even in Glasgow, she was recognised and she had to be rescued by police officers there as well. Finally, she did book passage for the Emerald Isle but nothing more is known of her.
William Hare was kept locked up for a period. His promise of immunity from prosecution did not prevent the mother and sister of Jamie Wilson from attempting to raise a private prosecution. Despite a public subscription being raised to help meet the costs, the action failed. Six judges pondered the matter and rejected it by four votes to two. It was agreed that the Lord Advocate's decision to grant immunity from prosecution meant immunity from any prosecution. In their opinion, justice was best served by sticking to the original deal, while the good name of the Scottish legal system was best not besmirched by any further investigation. In any case, by the time their lordships made their decision, Burke, who would necessarily have been an important witness, was dead.
And so William Hare was set free. The multiple murderer had assisted Scottish justice and that was that. It may have been a necessary evil to ensure that at least one person was punished for the horrors but, even today, almost 200 years later, it
leaves a bad taste in the mouth. In February, Hare boarded a coach bound for England and, apart from a stopover in Dumfries, where he experienced the same kind of treatment as had already been meted out to his female accomplices, little definite is known about what he did next. Some say he wound up in London, begging in the streets. Others say he was recognised by workmen and blinded with quicklime. Yet others say he was lynched in Dublin or that he met the same fate in New York. Another version has him making his way back to Ireland where he was reunited with Maggie Laird.
But no one knows for sure. He, Maggie and Helen became shadows on the pages of history.
It is worth noting that, although William Hare avoided the drop, another Hare, a man reputed to be his nephew, did fulfill a date with the hangman. On 24 October 1851, Archibald Hare was hanged in Glasgow for stabbing a man in Blantyre. Like his alleged uncle, this Hare was described as being ‘of repulsive and dogged aspect’. His drop was too short and he spun on the rope trying desperately to relieve the pressure on his neck with his hands. The hangman pulled down on his legs until he died.
Despite the best efforts of the establishment to protect him, Dr Robert Knox's medical career was more or less ruined – at least in Edinburgh. Angry townspeople thirsted for his blood and, if they could not hang him in earnest, they would hang him in effigy. His house was attacked and stoned, as was his anatomy theatre in Surgeon's Square. An inquiry was held but in the Scottish way – in private and in secret. By clearing Knox of any knowledge in regard to the murders, its findings failed to satisfy the public's expectations. Although many of his students still held him in high regard, his classes began to shrink. Shunned by friends and colleagues and with his professional abilities called into question, he left Edinburgh in 1840 and died in Hackney in 1862.
Deadlier Than the Male Page 9
