_Burke's Confession before the Sheriff--A Record of the Murders--The
Method--Complicity of the Women and the Doctors--Murderers but not
Body-Snatchers._
The official confession of Burke was made in the condemned cell by the
criminal on the 3rd of January, 1829, in the presence of Mr. George Tait,
Sheriff-substitute; Mr. Archibald Scott, Procurator-fiscal; and Mr.
Richard J. Moxey, assistant Sheriff-clerk. The following is a copy of the
document:--
"Compeared William Burke, at present under sentence of death in the jail
of Edinburgh, states that he never saw Hare till the Hallow-fair before
last [November, 1827,] when he and Helen M'Dougal met Hare's wife, with
whom he was previously acquainted, on the street; they had a dram, and he
mentioned he had an intention to go to the west country to endeavour to
get employment as a cobbler; but Hare's wife suggested that they had a
small room in their house which might suit him and M'Dougal, and that he
might follow his trade of a cobbler in Edinburgh; and he went to Hare's
house, and continued to live there, and got employment as a cobbler.
"An old pensioner, named Donald, lived in the house about Christmas, 1827;
he was in bad health, and died a short time before his quarter's pension
was due: that he owed Hare £4; and a day or two after the pensioner's
death, Hare proposed that his body should be sold to the doctors, and that
the declarant should get a share of the price. Declarant said it would be
impossible to do it, because the man would be coming in with the coffin
immediately; but after the body was put in the coffin, and the lid was
nailed down, Hare started the lid with a chisel, and he and declarant took
out the corpse and concealed it in the bed, and put tanner's bark from
behind the house into the coffin, and covered it with a sheet, and nailed
down the lid of the coffin, and the coffin was then carried away for
interment. That Hare did not appear to have been concerned in anything of
the kind before, and seemed to be at a loss how to get the body disposed
of; and he and Hare went in the evening to the yard of the College, and
saw a person like a student there, and the declarant asked him if there
were any of Dr. Monro's men about, because he did not know there was any
other way of disposing of a dead body--nor did Hare. The young man asked
what they wanted with Dr. Monro, and the declarant told him that he had a
subject to dispose of, and the young man referred him to Dr. Knox, No. 10
Surgeon's Square; and they went there, and saw young gentlemen, whom he
now knows to be Jones, Miller, and Ferguson, and told them that they had a
subject to dispose of, but they did not ask how they had obtained it; and
they told the declarant and Hare to come back when it was dark, and that
they themselves would find a porter to carry it. Declarant and Hare went
home and put the body into a sack, and carried it to Surgeon's Square, and
not knowing how to dispose of it, laid it down at the door of the cellar,
and went up to the room, where the three young men saw them, and told them
to bring up the body to the room, which they did; and they took the body
out of the sack, and laid it on the dissecting table: That the shirt was
on the body, but the young man asked no questions as to that; and the
declarant and Hare, at their request, took off the shirt, and got £7 10s.
Dr. Knox came in after the shirt was taken off, and looked at the body,
and proposed they should get £7 10s., and authorized Jones to settle with
them; and he asked no questions as to how the body had been obtained. Hare
got £4 5s. and the declarant got £3 5s. Jones, &c., said that they would
be glad to see them again when they had any other body to dispose of.
"Early last spring, 1828, a woman from Gilmerton came to Hare's house as a
nightly lodger,--Hare keeping seven beds for lodgers: That she was a
stranger, and she and Hare became merry, and drank together; and next
morning she was very ill in consequence of what she had got, and she sent
for some drink, and she and Hare drank together, and she became very sick
and vomited; and at that time she had not risen from bed, and Hare then
said that they would try and smother her in order to dispose of her body
to the doctors: That she was lying on her back in the bed, and quite
insensible from drink, and Hare clapped his hand on her mouth and nose,
and the declarant laid himself across her body, in order to prevent her
making any disturbance--and she never stirred; and they took her out of
bed and undressed her, and put her into a sheet; and they mentioned to Dr.
Knox's young men that they had another subject; and Mr. Miller sent a
porter to meet them in the evening at the back of the Castle; and
declarant and Hare carried the chest till they met the porter, and they
accompanied the porter with the chest to Dr. Knox's class-room, and Dr.
Knox came in when they were there: the body was cold and stiff. Dr. Knox
approved of its being so fresh, but did not ask any questions.
"The next was a man named Joseph, a miller, who had been lying badly in
the house: that he got some drink from declarant and Hare, but was not
tipsy: he was very ill, lying in bed, and could not speak sometimes, and
there was a report that there was fever in the house, which made Hare and
his wife uneasy in case it should keep away lodgers, and they (declarant
and Hare) agreed that they should suffocate him for the same purpose; and
the declarant got a small pillow and laid it across Joseph's mouth, and
Hare lay across the body to keep down the arms and legs; and he was
disposed of in the same manner, to the same persons, and the body was
carried by the porter who carried the last body.
"In May, 1828, as he thinks, an old woman came to the house as a lodger,
and she was the worse of drink, and she got more drink of her own accord,
and she became very drunk, and declarant suffocated her; and Hare was not
in the house at the time; and she was disposed of in the same manner.
"Soon afterwards an Englishman lodged there for some nights, and was ill
of the jaundice: that he was in bed very unwell, and Hare and declarant
got above him and held him down, and by holding his mouth suffocated him,
and disposed of him in the same manner.
"Shortly afterwards an old woman named Haldane (but he knows nothing
further of her), lodged in the house, and she had got some drink at the
time, and got more to intoxicate her, and he and Hare suffocated her, and
disposed of her in the same manner.
"About Midsummer, 1828, a woman with her son or grandson, about twelve
years of age, and who seemed to be weak in his mind, came to the house as
lodgers; the woman got a dram, and when in bed asleep, he and Hare
suffocated her; and the boy was sitting at the fire in the kitchen, and he
and Hare took hold of him, and carried him into the room, and suffocated
him. They were put into a herring barrel the same night, and carried to
Dr. Knox's rooms.
"That, soon afterwards the declarant brought a woman to the house as a
lodger; and after some days she got drunk, and was disposed of in the same
manner: That declarant and Hare generally tried if lodgers would drink,
and if they would drink, they were disposed of in that manner.
"The declarant then went for a few days to the house of Helen M'Dougal's
father, and when he returned, he learned from Hare that he had disposed of
a woman in the declarant's absence, in the same manner, in his own house;
but the declarant does not know the woman's name, or any further
particulars of the case, or whether any other person was present or knew
of it.
"That about this time he went to live in Broggan's house, and a woman
named Margaret Haldane, daughter of the woman Haldane before mentioned,
and whose sister is married to Clark, a tin-smith in the High Street, came
into the house, but the declarant does not remember for what purpose; she
got drink, and was disposed of in the same manner: That Hare was not
present, and neither Broggan nor his son knew the least thing about that
or any other case of the same kind.
"That in April, 1828, he fell in with the girl Paterson and her companion
in Constantine Burke's house, and they had breakfast together, and he sent
for Hare, and he and Hare disposed of her in the same manner; and Mr.
Ferguson and a tall lad, who seemed to have known the woman by sight,
asked where they had got the body; and the declarant said he had purchased
it from an old woman at the back of the Canongate. The body was disposed
of five or six hours after the girl was killed, and it was cold, but not
very stiff, but he does not remember of any remarks being made about the
body being warm.
"One day in September or October, 1828, a washer-woman had been washing in
the house for some time, and he and Hare suffocated her, and disposed of
her in the same manner.
"Soon afterwards, a woman named M'Dougal, who was a distant relation of
Helen M'Dougal's first husband, came to Broggan's house to see M'Dougal;
and after she had been coming and going to the house for a few days, she
got drunk, and was served in the same way by the declarant and Hare.
"That 'Daft Jamie' was then disposed of in the manner mentioned in the
indictment, except that Hare was concerned in it. That Hare was lying
alongside of Jamie in the bed, and Hare suddenly turned on him, and put
his hand on his mouth and nose; and Jamie, who had got drink, but was not
drunk, made a terrible resistance, and he and Hare fell from the bed
together, Hare still keeping hold of Jamie's mouth and nose; and as they
lay on the floor together, declarant lay across Jamie, to prevent him from
resisting, and they held him in that state till he was dead, and he was
disposed of in the same manner; and Hare took a brass snuff-box and a
spoon from Jamie's pocket, and kept the box to himself, and never gave it
to the declarant--but he gave him the spoon.
"And the last was the old woman Docherty, for whose murder he has been
convicted. That she was not put to death in the manner deponed to by Hare
on the trial. That during the scuffle between him and Hare, in the course
of which he was nearly strangled by Hare, Docherty had crept among the
straw, and after the scuffle was over they had some drink, and after that
they both went forward to where the woman was lying sleeping, and Hare
went forward first, and seized her by the mouth and nose, as on former
occasions; and at the same time the declarant lay across her, and she had
no opportunity of making any noise; and before she was dead, one or other
of them, he does not recollect which, took hold of her by the throat. That
while he and Hare were struggling, which was a real scuffle, M'Dougal
opened the door of the apartment, and went into the inner passage and
knocked at the door, and called out police and murder, but soon came back;
and at the same time Hare's wife called out never to mind, because
declarant and Hare would not hurt one another. That whenever he and Hare
rose and went towards the straw where Docherty was lying, M'Dougal and
Hare's wife, who, he thinks, were lying in bed at the time, or, perhaps,
were at the fire, immediately rose and left the house, but did not make
any noise, so far as he heard, and he was surprised at their going out at
that time, because he did not see how they could have any suspicion of
what they (the declarant and Hare) intended doing. That he cannot say
whether he and Hare would have killed Docherty or not, if the women had
remained, because they were so determined to kill the woman, the drink
being in their head;--and he has no knowledge or suspicion of Docherty's
body having been offered to any person besides Dr. Knox; and he does not
suspect that Paterson would offer the body to any other person than Dr.
Knox.
"Declares, that suffocation was not suggested to them by any person as a
mode of killing, but occurred to Hare on the first occasion before
mentioned, and was continued afterwards because it was effectual, and
showed no marks; and when they lay across the body at the same time, that
was not suggested to them by any person, for they never spoke to any
person on such a subject; and it was not done for the purpose of
preventing the person from breathing, but was only done for the purpose of
keeping down the person's arms and thighs, to prevent the person
struggling.
"Declares, that with the exception of the body of Docherty, they never
took the person by the throat, and they never leapt upon them; and
declares that there were no marks of violence on any of the subjects, and
they were sufficiently cold to prevent any suspicion on the part of the
doctors; and, at all events, they might be cold and stiff enough before
the box was opened up, and he and Hare always told some story of their
having purchased the subjects from some relation or other person who had
the means of disposing of them, about different parts of the town, and the
statements which they made were such as to prevent the doctors having any
suspicions; and no suspicions were expressed by Dr. Knox or any of his
assistants, and no questions asked tending to show that they had
suspicion.
"Declares, that M'Dougal and Hare's wife were no way concerned in any of
the murders, and neither of them knew of anything of the kind being
intended even in the case of Docherty; and although these two women may
latterly have had some suspicion in their own minds that the declarant and
Hare were concerned in lifting dead bodies, he does not think they could
have any suspicion that he and Hare were concerned in committing murders.
"Declares, that none of the subjects which they had procured, as before
mentioned, were offered to any other person than Dr. Knox's assistants,
and he and Hare had very little communication with Dr. Knox himself; and
declares, that he has not the smallest suspicion of any other person in
this, or in any other country, except Hare and himself, being concerned in
killing persons and offering their bodies for dissection; and he never
knew or heard of such a thing having been done before."
This declaration was signed by Sheriff Tait and Burke. It is curious to
notice how, in it, the criminal endeavours in almost every instance to
bring out Hare as the chief actor in the horrible events he describes in
such a fragmentary way; but it will be remembered that Burke, several
times between his conviction and execution, said he would be happy if he
were certain Hare would also become a subject for the scaffold. There is
little reason to doubt that, had the opportunity been afforded him, he
would have turned informer himself, and twisted events in such a way as to
have condemned Hare.
About three weeks later, on the 22nd January, Burke was again before the
gentlemen to whom he made his confession on the 3rd of the same month. But
there was an addition to the company in the person of the Rev. Mr. Reid,
the Catholic priest, who had regularly attended him since his
condemnation. This gentleman was requested to be present, as the Sheriff
said in his letter to the Lord Provost, in order to give the confession
"every degree of authenticity." On this occasion, Burke, having expressed
his adherence to his former declaration--
"Declares further, that he does not know the names and descriptions of any
of the persons who were destroyed except as mentioned in his former
declaration. Declares, that he was never concerned in any other act of the
same kind, nor made any attempt or preparation to commit such, and all
reports of a contrary tendency, some of which he has heard, are
groundless. And he does not know of Hare being concerned in any such,
except as mentioned in his former declaration; and he does not know of any
persons being murdered for the purpose of dissection by any other persons
than himself and Hare, and if any persons have disappeared anywhere in
Scotland, England, or Ireland, he knows nothing whatever about it, and
never heard of such a thing till he was apprehended. Declares, that he
never had any instrument in his house except a common table knife, or a
knife used by him in his trade as a shoemaker, or a small pocket knife,
and he never used any of those instruments, or attempted to do so, on any
of the persons who were destroyed. Declares, that neither he nor Hare, so
far as he knows, ever were concerned in supplying any subjects for
dissection except those before mentioned; and, in particular, never did so
by raising dead bodies from the grave. Declares, that they never allowed
Dr. Knox, or any of his assistants, to know exactly where their houses
were, but Paterson, Dr. Knox's porter or door-keeper, knew."