MURDER OF MARY PATERSON.
The first murder which was charged against Burke, although it is surmised that several had been committed before that time, is that of the girl Paterson, who was about eighteen or twenty years of age. It appears that this girl, with one of her associates, Janet Brown, had been lodged in the Canongate Police Office on Tuesday night, the 8th of April. They were kept till six o’clock next morning, when they went to the house of one Swanston, to procure spirits. Here they were met, for the first time, by Burke, who asked them to drink. He afterwards prevailed on them to go with him to breakfast, and gave them two bottles of spirits to carry along with them. They accompanied him to Constantine Burke’s house, in the Canongate. This man was a scavenger, and went out at his usual hour to his work. After they had been in the house for some time, Burke and his wife began to quarrel and to fight, which seems to have been the usual preliminary to mischief. In the midst of this uproar, Hare, who had been sent for, and who was a principal agent in this scene of villany, entered, and in the mean time Janet Brown, agitated seemingly, and alarmed by the appearance of violence, wished to leave the house, and to take her companion along with her. By this time it was about ten o’clock on Wednesday morning, and Paterson was asleep in one of the beds, totally unconscious of her approaching fate. The other girl went out, and was absent about twenty minutes. When she returned she asked for Paterson, and was told that she had left the house. By this time she was murdered. She came back in the afternoon in search of her, and received the same answer. Burke had availed himself of the short interval of twenty minutes, during which her companion Janet Brown was absent, to execute his horrid purpose when she was asleep, by stopping her breath; and that very afternoon, between five and six o’clock, her body was taken to the dissecting room and disposed of for L.8. The appearance of this body, which was quite fresh, which had not even begun to grow stiff, and of which the face was settled and pleasant, without any expression of pain, awakened suspicions, and Burke was strictly questioned as to where he procured it. He easily framed some plausible excuse, that he had purchased it from the house where she died, which silenced all further suspicion.
JANET BROWN’S STATEMENT RELATIVE TO THE MURDER OF PATERSON.
The following is the account of the circumstances connected with the death of the unfortunate girl, Mary Paterson, who was murdered in Constantine Burke’s house, in Gibb’s close Canongate, as given by her companion, Janet Brown. Brown, though a girl of the town, seems possessed of considerable intelligence, and tells her story with distinctness and with every mark of apparent truth. She does not appear disposed to exaggerate, but rather seems unaware of the inference that may be drawn from some parts of the statement. This account has been communicated by herself, and is taken down nearly in her own words.
Mary Paterson and she, after leaving the Canongate watch-house, between four and five o’clock in the morning on which the murder was committed, proceeded to the house of an acquaintance, Mrs. Lawrie, where they had formerly lodged. Mrs. Lawrie wished them to remain. They, however, left the house in a very short time, and went to a spirit-dealer’s in the Canongate, named Swanston. They had there a gill of whisky, and while drinking it, they observed Burke, who, in company with Swanston, was drinking rum and bitters. He entered into conversation with the girls, and affected to be much taken with them, and three gills of rum and bitters were drank at his expense. He wished them to accompany him to his lodgings, which he said were in the neighbourhood, and upon Brown expressing reluctance, was very urgent that she should go, saying that he had a pension and could keep her handsomely, and make her comfortable for life, and that he would stand between them and harm from the people in the house. This particular attention to her, she supposes to have been in consequence of finding her more shy and backward than Paterson, who was always of a forward fearless disposition. They consented to go along with him, and he promised them breakfast when they reached the house. He purchased, before leaving Swanston’s, two bottles of whisky, and gave one to each of the girls to carry. He then conducted them to Constantine Burke’s house in Gibb’s close. They found there Constantine and his wife; when they arrived the fire was not lighted, and William Burke swore and abused the woman for her negligence.
The fire was afterwards lighted up, and breakfast, consisting of tea, bread, eggs, and Finnan haddocks prepared; but during this process, the two bottles of whisky were produced and partly drank by Burke, Constantine, his wife, and the two girls. Constantine partook only of part of it, having in the meantime left the house to his work as a scavenger.
Before the whisky was finished, however, Burke had requested Brown to leave the house along with him. He seems to have considered Paterson as already sufficiently intoxicated for his murderous purpose, and to have applied himself more particularly to Brown, on whom the spirits had not taken so much effect. Finding that the enormous quantity of whisky had not yet produced the requisite effect upon her, he accompanied her to a neighbouring public-house, where he proceeded further in his design of stupifying her, by giving her two bottles of porter which he also partook of, and a pie. All along, it is remarkable, that Burke, although he seems never to have lost sight of his object, but to have adopted every method to further it, should nevertheless have partaken as freely of the liquors consumed as if he had no other intent than to produce intoxication on himself as well as his intended victims, and it appears surprising that such a quantity of ardent spirits, joined to the porter, should not have disqualified him for carrying on the plot. He has, since his conviction, mentioned that it had produced this effect, and that he was intoxicated when the murder was committed.
After leaving this public-house, Brown was again taken to Constantine’s, and the second bottle of whisky finished. While engaged on it, M‘Dougal, who had hitherto been unobserved, suddenly started from a bed, and joined in drinking the spirits. When she appeared, Constantine’s wife whispered to the girls that she was Burke’s wife, and upon her upbraiding him for his conduct, Brown apologised for being in his company, mentioning that they did not know him to be a married man, otherwise they would not have come, and proposed then to leave the house. M‘Dougal replied that she did not blame them, but that it was his constant practice to desert her and spend his money upon loose women. She requested them to sit still, and seemed anxious that they should not go away. The quarrelling between Burke and her then got more violent, and she took up the eggs which had been set down for breakfast and threw them into the fire. Upon this Burke took up a dram glass and flung it at her; it hit her forehead above the eye and cut it.
At the commencement of the uproar, Constantine Burke’s wife ran out of the house, as Brown supposes for the purpose of bringing Hare; indeed, as she saw no other person dispatched anywhere, it is difficult to account otherwise for this vampire’s speedy appearance. After her departure Burke succeeded in turning M‘Dougal out of the house, locking the door upon her. By this time Paterson was lying across the bed in a state nearly approaching to insensibility, and the murderer seems to have considered her as incapable of exertion, and certain to fall an easy prey when he had leisure to finish her. On this account, doubtless, he endeavoured to commence his diabolical work upon her more active companion; he affected great kindness towards her, and pressed her to go along with him into the bed which M‘Dougal had so recently left. As she herself observes, however much she might have been disposed to yield to his wishes, she could scarcely have done so after the brawl she had so recently witnessed, and while M‘Dougal was still making a noise at the door and knocking for admittance, and she peremptorily refused. Fortunate it was for her that she did so, as there can be no doubt about his purpose, if he had succeeded in getting her into the bed, and once there it cannot be questioned that it was intended she should never leave it alive.