Burke and Hare murders
series of murders committed in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1828 / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Burke and Hare murders (or West Port murders) were serial murders in Edinburgh, Scotland, from November 1827 to 31 October 1828.
The murders were done by Irish immigrants William Burke and William Hare. They sold the corpses of their 17 victims to Dr Robert Knox. Knox was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the Conservator of the Museum of Comparative Anatomy in Edinburgh. He was a teacher of human anatomy to Edinburgh medical students, so needed bodies for his students to dissect.
The murderer's accomplices included Burke's mistress, Helen McDougal, and Hare's wife, Margaret Laird.[1] From their method of killing their victims has come the word "burking", meaning to purposefully smother and, more generally, to quietly suppress.[2][3]