A cinder gatherer; Burke thinks her name was Effy. She was in the habit of selling small pieces of leather to him, as he was a cobbler, she gathered about the coach-works. He took her into Hare’s stable, and gave her whisky to drink till she was drunk; she then lay down among some straw and fell asleep. They then laid a cloth over her. Burke and Hare murdered her as they did the others. She was then carried to Dr. Knox’s, Surgeons’ Square, and sold for L.10.
Andrew Williamson, a policeman, and his neighbour, were dragging a drunk woman to the West Port Watchhouse. They found her sitting on a stair. Burke said, “Let the woman go to her lodgings.” They said they did not know where she lodged. Burke then said he would take her to lodgings. They then gave her to his charge. He then took her to Hare’s house. Burke and Hare murdered her that night the same way as they did the others. They carried her to Dr. Knox’s, in Surgeons’ Square, and got L.10.
Burke being asked, did the policemen know him when they gave him this drunk woman into his charge? He said he had a good character with the police; or if they had known that there were four murderers living in one house they would have visited them oftener.
James Wilson, commonly called Daft Jamie. Hare’s wife brought him in from the street into her house. Burke was at the time getting a dram in Rymer’s shop. He saw her take Jamie off the street, bare-headed and bare-footed. After she got him into her house, and left him with Hare, she came to Rymer’s shop for a pennyworth of butter, and Burke was standing at the counter. She asked him for a dram; and in drinking it she stamped him on the foot. He knew immediately what she wanted him for, and he then went after her. When in the house, she said, you have come too late, for the drink is all done; and Jamie had the cup in his hand. He had never seen him before to his knowledge. They then proposed to send for another half mutchkin, which they did, and urged him to drink; she took a little with them. They then invited him ben to the little room, and advised him to sit down upon the bed. Hare’s wife then went out, and locked the outer door, and put the key below the door. There were none in the room but themselves three. Jamie sat down upon the bed. He then lay down upon the bed, and Hare lay down at his back, his head raised up and resting upon his left hand. Burke was standing at the foreside of the bed. When they had lain there for some time, Hare threw his body on the top of Jamie, pressed his hand on his mouth, and held his nose with the other. Hare and him fell off the bed and struggled. Burke then held his hands and feet. They never quitted their grip till he was dead. He never got up nor cried any. When he was dead, Hare felt his pockets, and took out a brass snuff-box and a copper snuff-spoon. He gave the spoon to Burke, and kept the box to himself. Sometime after, he said he threw the box away in the tan-yard; and the brass-box that was libelled against Burke in the Sheriff’s office was Burke’s own box. It was after breakfast Jamie was enticed in, and he was murdered by twelve o’clock in the day. Burke declares, that Mrs. Hare led poor Jamie in as a dumb lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep to the shearers; and he was always very anxious making inquiries for his mother, and was told she would be there immediately. He does not think he drank above one glass of whisky all the time. He was then put into a chest that Hare kept clothes into; and they carried him to Dr. Knox’s in Surgeons’ Square that afternoon, and got L.10 for him. Burke gave Daft Jamie’s clothes to his brother’s children, they were almost naked; and when he untied the bundle they were like to quarrel about them. The clothes of the other murdered persons were generally destroyed, to prevent detection.
Ann M‘Dougal, a cousin of Helen M‘Dougal’s former husband. She was a young woman, and married, and had come on a visit to see them. Hare and Burke gave her whisky till she was drunk, and when in bed and asleep, Burke told Hare that he would have most to do with her, as she being a distant friend he did not like to begin first on her. Hare murdered her by stopping her breath, and Burke assisted him the same way as the others. One of Dr. Knox’s assistants, Paterson, gave them a fine trunk to put her into. It was in the afternoon when she was done. It was in John Broggan’s house; and when Broggan came home from his work he saw the trunk, and made inquiries about it, as he knew they had no trunks there. Burke then gave him two or three drams, as there was always plenty of whisky going at these times, to make him quiet. Hare and Burke then gave him L.1, 10s. each, as he was back in his rent, to pay for it, and he left Edinburgh a few days after. They then carried her to Surgeons’ Square as soon as Broggan went out of the house, and got L.10 for her. Hare was cautioner for Broggan’s rent, being L.3, and Hare and Burke gave him that sum. Broggan went off in a few days, and the rent is not paid yet.[7] They gave him the money that he might not come against them for the murder of Ann M‘Dougal, that he saw in the trunk, that was murdered in his house. Hare thought that the rent would fall upon him, and if he could get Burke to pay the half of it, it would be so much the better; and proposed this to Burke, and he agreed to it, as they were glad to get him out of the way. Broggan’s wife is a cousin of Burke’s. They thought he went to Glasgow, but are not sure.
Mrs. Haldane, a stout old woman, who had a daughter transported last summer from the Calton Jail for fourteen years, and has another daughter married to ——, in the High Street. She was a lodger of Hare’s. She went into Hare’s stable, the door was left open, and she being drunk, and falling asleep among some straw, Hare and Burke murdered her in the same way as they did the others, and kept the body all night in the stable, and took her to Dr. Knox’s next day. She had but one tooth in her mouth, and that was a very large one in front.
A young woman, a daughter of Mrs. Haldane, of the name of Peggy Haldane, was drunk, and sleeping in Broggan’s house, was murdered by Burke, in the forenoon, himself. Hare had no hand in it. She was taken to Dr. Knox’s in the afternoon in a tea-box, and L.8 got for her. She was so drunk at the time, that he thinks she was not sensible of her death, as she made no resistance whatever. She and her mother were both lodgers of Hare’s, and they were both of idle habits, and much given to drinking. This was the only murder that Burke committed by himself, but what Hare was connected with. She was laid with her face downwards, and he pressed her down, and she was soon suffocated.
There was a Mrs. Hostler washing in John Broggan’s, and she came back next day to finish up the clothes, and when done, Hare and Burke gave her some whisky to drink, which made her drunk. This was in the day time. She then went to bed. Mrs. Broggan was out at the time. Hare and Burke murdered her the same way they did the others, and put her in a box, and set her in the coal-house in the passage, and carried her off to Dr. Knox’s in the afternoon of the same day, and got L.8 for her. Broggan’s wife was out of the house at the time the murder was committed. Mrs. Hostler had ninepence halfpenny in her hand, which they could scarcely get out of it after she was dead, so firmly was it grasped.
The woman Campbell or Docherty was murdered on the 31st October last, and she was the last one. Burke declares, that Hare perjured himself on his trial, when giving his evidence against him, as the woman Campbell or Docherty lay down among some straw at the bed-side, and Hare laid hold of her mouth and nose, and pressed her throat, and Burke assisted him in it, till she was dead. Hare was not sitting on a chair at the time, as he said in the Court. There were seven shillings in the woman’s pocket, which were divided between Hare and Burke.
That was the whole of them, sixteen in whole; nine were murdered in Hare’s house, and four in John Broggan’s; two in Hare’s stable, and one in Burke’s brother’s house in the Canongate. Burke declares, that five of them were murdered in Hare’s room that has the iron bolt in the inside of it. Burke did not know the days nor the months the different murders were committed, nor all their names. They were generally in a state of intoxication at those times, and paid little attention to them; but they were all from the 12th February till 1st November 1828; but he thinks Dr. Knox will know by the dates of paying him the money for them. He never was concerned with any other person but Hare in those matters, and was never a resurrection man, and never dealt in dead bodies but what he murdered. He was urged by Hare’s wife to murder Helen M‘Dougal, the woman he lived with. The plan was, that he was to go to the country for a few weeks, and then write to Hare that she had died and was buried, and he was to tell this to deceive the neighbours; but he would not agree to it. The reason was, they could not trust to her, as she was a Scotch woman. Helen M‘Dougal and Hare’s wife were not present when those murders were committed; they might have a suspicion of what was doing, but did not see them done. Hare was always the most anxious about them, and could sleep well at night after committing a murder; but Burke repented often of the crime, and could not sleep without a bottle of whisky by his bed-side and a twopenny candle to burn all night beside him; when he awoke he would take a draught of the bottle—sometimes half a bottle at a draught—and that would make him sleep. They had a great many pointed out for murder, but were disappointed of them by some means or other; they were always in a drunken state when they committed those murders, and when they got the money for them while it lasted. When done, they would pawn their clothes and would take them out as soon as they got a subject. When they first began this murdering system, they always took them to Knox’s after dark; but being so successful, they went in the day-time, and grew more bold. When they carried the girl Paterson to Knox’s, there were a great many boys in the High School Yards, who followed Burke and the man that carried her, crying, “They are carrying a corpse;” but they got her safe delivered. They often said to one another that no person could find them out, no one being present at the murders but themselves two; and that they might be as well hanged for a sheep as a lamb. They made it their business to look out for persons to decoy into their houses to murder them. Burke declares, when they kept the mouth and nose shut a very few minutes, they could make no resistance, but would convulse and make a rumbling noise in their bellies for some time; after they ceased crying and making resistance, they left them to die of themselves; but their bodies would often move afterwards, and for some time they would have long breathings before life went away. Burke declares, that it was God’s providence that put a stop to their murdering career, or he does not know how far they might have gone with it, even to attack people on the streets, as they were so successful, and always met with a ready market; that when they delivered a body they were always told to get more. Hare was always with him when he went with a subject, and also when he got the money. Burke declares, that Hare and him had a plan made up, that Burke and a man were to go to Glasgow or Ireland, and try the same there, and to forward them to Hare, and he was to give them to Dr. Knox. Hare’s wife always got L.1 of Burke’s share, for the use of the house, of all that were murdered in their house; for if the price received was L.10, Hare got L.6 and Burke got only L.4; but Burke did not give her the L.1 for Daft Jamie, for which Hare’s wife would not speak to him for three weeks. They could get nothing done during the harvest-time, and also after harvest, as Hare’s house was so full of lodgers. In Hare’s house were eight beds for lodgers; they paid 3d. each; and two, and sometimes three, slept in a bed; and during harvest they gave up their own bed when throng. Burke declares they went under the name of resurrection-men in the West Port, where they lived, but not murderers. When they wanted money, they would say they would go and look for a shot; that was the name they gave them when they wanted to murder any person. They entered into a contract with Dr. Knox and his assistants that they were to get L.10 in winter and L.8 in summer for as many subjects as they could bring to them.