Burke and Hare

 Burke and Hare are often called grave robbers. In reality, they did not rob graves. Instead, they murdered people and then sold the victims’ bodies to surgeons for dissection. Today, many people donate their bodies to science but in the early 19th century, attitudes were very different. Most people were horrified by the idea of being cut up after they were dead. As a result, surgeons found it hard to find bodies to dissect in lectures. So some were willing to pay large amounts of money for dead bodies, without asking too many questions. Burke and Hare are believed to have murdered 16 people. 

William Burke was born in Ireland around 1792, and it’s believed he came to Scotland to work as a navvy on the canals. He eventually settled in Edinburgh, where he worked as a cobbler, repairing shoes. It’s not certain when William Hare was born. He was probably from Ireland. At any rate, by 1827, he owned a lodging house in Edinburgh and he had befriended William Burke. 

The murders began in stages. In November 1827, a boarder known as Old Donald died in Hare’s lodging house. He died owing £4 (a considerable sum of money in those days). Hare told Burke and they decided to sell the body to anatomists to recoup the money. They told the authorities that Old Donald was dead. A carpenter made a coffin for him. Burke and Hare filled it with bark (normally used for tanning). They sold the body to a surgeon, Dr Robert Knox, for £7 and 10 shillings (there were 20 shillings in a pound). So they made a handsome profit from his death.

The next step was to murder a man who was ill but still alive. A tenant called Joseph, a miller, fell ill with an infectious disease. That would drive away other tenants from the lodging house. The two men gave Joseph whisky, then suffocated him.

This time, Burke and Hare sold the body for £10. Suffocating him meant there were no marks on the body. When the body was dissected, it would not be obvious that the person had been murdered.

Burke and Hare began regularly killing people and selling the victims’ bodies. It’s not certain in what order they killed the victims, but the third victim was probably a woman named Abigail Simpson. In February 1828, she was lured to the lodging house and given whisky. She was then suffocated. Once again, they sold the body for £10. Over the next months, Burke and Hare continued luring people to the lodging house, giving them whisky, then suffocating them, and then selling the bodies. 

One of the victims was a mentally disabled man, James Wilson. He was called ‘Daft Jamie’. He was well known in Edinburgh. He was often seen begging. The unfortunate man was lured to the lodging house, where he was given whisky and suffocated. They sold the body, as usual, but this time several medical students recognised the dead person. Local people also noticed James was missing. Dr Knox likely suspected the truth because he ordered the immediate dissection of James’ body. Like so many other murderers, Burke and Hare became overconfident and started being careless.

The last victim was an Irishwoman named Margaret Docherty. She was murdered on 31 October 1828. Burke and Hare befriended her. She was invited to stay at the lodging house. Two other lodgers, James and Ann Gray, were told they must move out to make room for her. Margaret Docherty was suffocated in the usual way and her body was hidden under some straw. The Grays returned the next day to collect their belongings. They were left alone in the house and they looked under the straw, discovering the dead body. 

The Grays immediately alerted the authorities but while they were away, Burke and Hare removed the body and took it to be dissected. 

On 3 November, Burke and Hare were arrested. But the authorities were not sure if they could secure convictions.

So Hare was offered immunity from prosecution if he turned King’s evidence, that is if he testified against Burke. On 25 December 1828, William Burke was found guilty of murder and he was sentenced to death. 

He was hanged in public in Edinburgh on 28 January 1829. Burke’s body was publicly dissected, as his victims' bodies were. His skeleton was given to the Anatomical Museum of the Edinburgh Medical School. 

William Hare moved to England. What happened to him after that is not known. No action was taken against the surgeon, Dr Robert Knox.

The dreadful crimes were remembered in a rhyme:

‘Burke's the butcher, Hare's the thief, Knox the boy that buys the beef’

Dr Marcel Petiot

 Dr Marcel Petiot was a French doctor who killed 27 people. Petiot was born on 17 January 1897. Like many murderers Petiot had a history of petty crime before he started killing people. At the age of 17 he robbed a post box. In 1916 he was conscripted into the French army. However Petiot showed many signs of mental illness. In July 1919 he was discharged from the army with a disability pension. 

Despite that he was able to study medicine under an accelerated education programme for war veterans. and he qualified as a doctor in 1921. Petiot practiced medicine in Villeneuve.

Marcel Petiot became mayor of Villeneuve in 1926. In 1927 he married and they had a son the next year. Following many accusations of stealing he was suspended as mayor in 1931. He later resigned and in 1933 he moved to Paris. He purchased a building in Rue Lesueur. 

In 1940 the Germans conquered France. The German army occupied northern France, including Paris. From November 1942 they occupied the whole country. Dr Petiot thought of an ingenious way to make money. Many rich people were desperate to escape from occupied France. Dr Petiot offered to arrange to smuggle them out of France to South America in return for a large sum of money. 

He told them they would need a vaccination against malaria or some other infectious disease. He told them that, as a doctor he could give them the vaccination himself.

When the victim arrived at his surgery Petiot told them he would give them the required vaccination. Instead he injected them with cyanide. When the victim was dead Petiot would dispose of the body with quicklime or he burned them in a stove. 

Dr Petiot killed people during 1942 and the early months of 1943. In May 1943 Petiot was arrested by the Gestapo and held on suspicion of helping people to escape from France. However he was released in December 1943. Why they released him is not certain but Dr Petiot soon returned to killing people. 

Hic crimes came to light On 11 March 1944. Black smoke was pouring from a chimney of a house in Rue Lesuer. A neighbour called the police. The police phoned Dr Petiot who promised to come to the building. Thinking a chimney must be on fire the police called the fire brigade. Firemen who entered the building discovered human remains burning in a stove. When Dr Petiot arrived he informed the police that the dead bodies were those of traitors. The police allowed him to go. Petiot promptly disappeared. 

Dr Petiot was arrested on 31 October 1944. He claimed he was a member of the resistance and that all the people he killed were collaborators. 

However the police could find no evidence that he had ever been part of the resistance. Dr Petiot went on trial on 19 March 1946. On 4 April he was convicted of 26 murders. 

(He was acquitted of one of the murders he was charged with though it is very likely he was guilty). Marcel Petiot was guillotined on 26 May 1946. 

Catherine Hayes

 I wrote about Catherine Hayes. She persuaded two men to kill her husband but was caught when his head washed up on a riverbank.

Eric Brown - the landmine murder

 Eric Brown killed his father. He used a most unusual murder weapon, a landmine. Eric lived with his father, Archibald, and his mother, Doris. His father was partially paralysed and used a wheelchair. He was a bully who ruled over his family with an iron rod. 

His wheelchair was kept in an air raid shelter in the garden. On 23 July 1943, a nurse, Doris Mitchell, went to fetch it but found it locked. Eric emerged from the air raid shelter. Doris then got the wheelchair and took Archibald for a walk. After a while, she lit a cigarette for Archibald, but as he made himself comfortable, there was an explosion. 

Nurse Mitchell survived without serious injuries, but Archibald Brown was blown to pieces. The explosion was caused by a type of mine used to destroy tanks. It had exploded two feet above the ground. The police surmised it had been placed under the cushion Archibald was sitting on. 

They soon found that Eric had learned about this type of mine while in the army. He was on leave when his father was killed, and he had been seen in the air raid shelter. Eric soon confessed. He was brought to trial on 4 November 1943, but a doctor testified that he was a schizophrenic. The jury found him guilty of murder but insane. Eric was sentenced to be detained during his majesty’s pleasure. He died in 1975. 

Alfred Rouse - the burning car murder

 Alfred Rouse was hanged for the murder of an unknown man. Rouse was born in London on 6 April 1894. In 1914 he joined the army but he married Lily May Watkins before he departed for France. In 1915 he was wounded. He suffered head injuries and as well as injuries to his leg. Rouse slowly recovered. He was discharged from the army with a pension in 1916. However In 1920 a doctor examined him and his pension was stopped as he had completely recovered. However Rouse found work as a car mechanic.

In 1929 Rouse got a job as a salesman. It was a well paid position and it involved a lot of travelling by car. Rouse was also a womaniser who had many affairs. He had several illegitimate children and faced having to pay maintenance for them. With his financial situation strained Rouse looked for a way out. He turned to murder.

Rouse thought of a plan. He would offer a lift to a down and out and then kill the man. He would set the car on fire. He hoped he could make it look like an accident. The man’s body would be so badly burned it would be unidentifiable but the cars number plates would survive. Rouse hoped the police would identify the car as his and assume the dead body was him. If he was believed to be dead he could make a fresh start. 

However, Rouse bungled the murder. In Britain 5 November is Bonfire Night when people light bonfires and fireworks. At 2 am on 6 November 1930 two young men were returning from a Bonfire Night Dance in Northamptonshire. They saw a fire in the distance. Strangely they saw a man on the opposite side of the road climb out of a ditch. He was carrying a briefcase. The man said ‘It looks like someone is having a bonfire’. He then walked off in the opposite direction to the two men. They soon discovered the burning car. As Rouse hoped, the police quickly identified the burning car. 

The police spoke to his wife. She said she had last seen Alfred at 2 am on 6 November. (Rouse later said it was actually about 6.30 am). They showed pieces of the dead man’s clothing to Mrs Rouse. She was not certain if they were his. 

The police were naturally keen to talk to the mysterious man who climbed out of a ditch. It had been a moonlight night and the two young men who saw him were able to describe him to the police. He matched the description of Alfred Rouse. So if he wasn’t the victim who was? 

Meanwhile, Rouse went to his house in London then hitchhiked to the house of his mistress, who was heavily pregnant in Wales. She asked where his car was. He told her it had been stolen. 

However his mistress showed him a newspaper that named him as the owner of the burned car. Rouse decided to leave and he caught a coach to London.  He told his mistress where he was going and she told the police. They were waiting to arrest him when he arrived. 

The police also found that the fire was not accidental. The feeder pipe from the petrol tank to the carburetor had been loosened allowing petrol to leak out. Across the two front seats of the car was the body of a man burned beyond recognition. The post mortem showed he was alive but unconscious when the fire started. 

Rouse had a not very convincing explanation for the fire. He had picked up a man near St Albans and later stopped the car to go to the toilet. He asked the hitch hiker to fill the petrol tank with fuel from a can. The man then asked if he had a cigarette. Rouse did not smoke cigarettes but he had a cigar and gave the man one. He then went into a field. Looking back he saw the car on fire. According to Rouse the passenger must have accidentally ignited the petrol when he lit his cigar. Rouse claimed he tried to rescue the hitch hiker from the burning car but he could not.

The police were skeptical. Why had Rouse taken his briefcase when he got out of the car to relieve himself? (The two men who discovered the burning car saw him carrying one). Rouse claimed that he panicked and fled the scene. 

However the police soon discovered that several of Rouse’s mistresses were taking out had child maintenance orders against him. He would be unable to pay them so he set fire to his car with an unconscious hitchhiker inside hoping he would be mistaken for the dead man. 

He hoped could begin a new life with a new identity. On 27 November 1930 Rouse was arrested for the murder of an unidentified man. 

His trial began on 26 January 1931. Expert witnesses testified that the victim was unconscious when the fire started. It was also revealed that a fragment of his clothing, which had survived the fire had been soaked in petrol.  Rouse stood by his claim that the death was an accident. However the jury did not believe him. On 31 January he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Alfred Rouse was hanged on 10 March 1931. 

While awaiting execution Rouse sent a letter to a newspaper, the Daily Sketch confessing to the murder. Rouse claimed he met a man outside a pub in London and promised him a job in the Midlands and arranged to drive him there. Rouse got the man drunk by giving him a bottle of whisky. When he was sufficiently drunk Rouse strangled the man until he was unconscious. Rouse admitted he had deliberately loosened a pipe to let petrol flow out. He also poured petrol over the man. He then set the car on fire. 

Jack the Stripper

 The Thames Nude Murders were a series of murders in London in the 1960s. Because the killer removed the victims’ clothes, he became known as Jack the Stripper.

It’s not certain how many women he killed but on 2 February 1964, the body of Hannah Tailford was found floating in the River Thames near Hammersmith Bridge in London. 

She was naked apart from her stockings. The unfortunate woman was strangled and several of her teeth were missing. Her knickers had been stuffed down her throat. 

The police surmised she had been dumped in the river at Dukes Meadows, a parkland in Chiswick, London. Hannah was a sex worker. She was from Northumberland, and she was 30 at the time of her death.

On 8 April 1964, a second body was found on the shore of the Thames at Chiswick. The victim was Irene Lockwood, aged 26. 

Like Hannah Tailford she was a sex worker. The police realised that both women were probably killed by the same man.

A third victim was found on 24 April 1964 in an alleyway in Brentford. The woman had been strangled, and three of her front teeth were missing. She was identified as Helen Barthelemy, aged 22, from Glasgow. She was naked and specks of lead-based paint were found on her skin. It was the kind of paint used in the car industry and the police surmised that her body had been stored in a workshop where a high-pressure paint sprayer was used.

A fourth victim, Mary Fleming, was discovered on 14 July 1964 in Berrymede Road in Chiswick, London. Mary, a Scottish woman was a sex worker. She was 30 years old. This time, too, specks of paint were found on the victim’s body.

Another victim, Frances Brown AKA Margaret McGowan, was found in a car park in Kensington on 25 November 1964. Frances was a sex worker. She was born in Glasgow. At the time of her death, she was 21.

On 16 February 1965, the body of Bridget O’Hara, known as ‘Bridie’ was found by a shed behind the Heron Trading Estate in Acton, London. Again, flecks of paint were found on the body. Bridget was born in Dublin, and she was 27 years old.

The murders then stopped, perhaps because the killer committed suicide. Or perhaps he was arrested for an unrelated offence. Thames Nude Murders, also called the Hammersmith Nude Murders, were never officially solved.

The Axeman of New Orleans

 The axeman of New Orleans was an unknown serial killer in the years 1918-1919. As his title suggests, he killed people with an axe. He usually chiseled out a panel of a back door to gain access to people’s homes. His first victims were Joseph Maggio, an Italian grocer and his wife, Catherine. On 23 May 1918, the axeman broke into the couple’s home, cut their throats with a razor and then hit them both with an axe. The motive for the murders was unclear. It was not robbery, as nothing was taken.

The axeman next struck on 27 June 1918. He broke into the home of Louis Bessumer, another Italian grocer and Harriet Lowe. He struck both of them with an axe. Fortunately, both survived although Harriet suffered from partial facial paralysis for the rest of her life. Once again nothing was stolen.

The next attack was on 5 August 1918. The axeman broke into the home of Anna Schneider. He struck her with an object (some accounts say an axe, others say a bedside table lamp) but she survived. Anna was 8 months pregnant at the time of the attack but luckily the baby was not harmed. Anna gave birth shortly afterward.

The next victim was an elderly man named Joseph Romano. Joseph lived with his two nieces. On 10 August they were woken by the sounds of a struggle. On investigating they found their uncle had been hit with an axe. He was still alive but he died two days later.

The axeman did not strike again until 10 March 1919. This time he struck in Gretna, Louisiana. He broke into the home of Italian grocer Charles Cortimiglia. He struck Charles and his wife with an axe. Both survived. Sadly, their two year old daughter Mary was also hit with an axe and she died. Rosie accused Iorlando Jordano and his son Frank of being the attackers. Both men were convicted of murder. Iorlando was sentenced to life imprisonment while his son was sentenced to death. 

However, they could not have been guilty. Iorlando was nearly 70 and in poor health. His son, Frank, was a tall and heavily built man. The killer had chiseled out a panel of a door to gain entry. Frank would not have been able to squeeze through. Charles Cortimiglia said his wife was lying and the Jordano’s were innocent. 

Eventually, Rosie Cortimiglia admitted she lied and the two men were released. (Her motive for accusing two innocent men is not known).

Steve Boca was attacked by a man with an axe on 10 August 1919. Fortunately, he survived. Sarah Laumann was attacked on 3 September 1919. She too survived. 

The last murder by the New Orleans Axeman happened on 27 October 1919. A man named Mike Pepitone was attacked and killed in his bed. The attacks then ceased. The case remains a mystery.