The Burke and Hare case was a scandalous episode in 19th-century Edinburgh where William Burke and William Hare, two Irish immigrants, resorted to murder to supply fresh corpses to medical schools. Operating in the early 1820s, they targeted vulnerable individuals, including travelers and the homeless, smothering them to sell their bodies for dissection. The ... Show More
Sep 25
Austin's Most Brutal Mystery: The Four-Toed Footprint Killer | Part 2
In 1880s Austin, a series of brutal nighttime attacks on women begins to reveal a terrifying pattern the city is slow to recognize. As the violence escalates, investigators are left chasing conflicting descriptions, false suspects, and one chilling clue: a bloody footprint with o ... Show More
41m 48s
Feb 2021
“Killing for Corpses" William Burke and William Hare Pt. 1
In 19th-century Edinburgh, two men on the hunt for money found a lucrative industry: grave robbing. But the infamous Burke and Hare didn’t want to dig up corpses. Instead, they delivered death to the gullible, and brought the bodies to one high-paying professor. Learn more about ... Show More
46m 55s
Jun 2025
Ep.130 - Burke & Hare, Serial Killers That Sold Their Victims
Burke and Hare were two of the maddest lads you'll ever hear of. Two Irish fellas who moved to bonnie Scotland, they were real bastards. At first selling the body of a man who died for some sweet moola, then the moola was so good, why not make a few dead bodies of their own? Rese ... Show More
1h 4m
Oct 2024
The Edinburgh Body Snatchers: Murder at Halloween
In 1827, Edinburgh, Scotland was a world centre for anatomical study, but there was a shortage of cadavers for medical students to dissect. Two men, William Burke and William Hare, spotted a grim business opportunity. They began sourcing bodies - by any means possible... In this ... Show More
41m 47s
May 2021
“The Anatomy Murderers” Burke and Hare Pt. 1
When a tenant at their boarding house died in 1827, William Burke and William Hare found a way to make some extra money: selling bodies to a medical school. But to keep it up, they’d need a fresh supply of dead bodies — and those were hard to come by. Naturally, at least. Learn m ... Show More
44m 17s
Apr 2023
An Eye for a Killing: 1. The Trial On Christmas Eve
<p>Welcome to hell. The true story of Scotland’s notorious serial killers, Burke and Hare.</p><p>On Christmas Eve in 1828, William Burke is on trial for murder at the High Court in Edinburgh. He’s accused of killing an old woman, Madgy Docherty. In the witness box is his accus ... Show More
40m 9s
May 2024
Postmortem, Ep. 4: The anatomy lab
<p>As haunting as the Harvard morgue scandal is, you don't have to go back very far in history to find practices for sourcing bodies that would be shocking today. Reporter Ally Jarmanning finds that for more than a century, medical schools relied on grave robbing and body snatchi ... Show More
23m 47s