WILLIAM BURKE MURDERING LAST VICTIM, 1829
WILLIAM BURKE MURDERING LAST VICTIM, 1829 On the Eve of All Hallows, 1828, notorious Edinburgh murders William Burke and William Hare murdered their last victim for Dr Robert Knox’s dissecting table, Margaret, also called Mary, Docherty. After discovering the rich rewards of selling cadavers to anatomists when one of Hare’s lodgers, an old soldier named Donald, died without paying his rent, the pair realized they were on to a good, if not lucrative, idea. They would spend the next 10 months of 1828 ‘Burking’ the forgotten inhabitants of Edinburgh and get paid for it in return. Their killing spree was about to come to an abrupt end when Burke’s lodger, Ann Grey, discovered Docherty’s naked body under a pile of straw in the corner of the room. This post looks solely at Burke and Hare’s last victim, instead, head over to this post on Burke and Hare if you’d like to discover more about the murders. How Did Burke & Hare Find Margaret? William Burke befriended Mary Docherty as she s...