TV Detective David Hayman investigates the crimes of Scotland’s most infamous body snatcher’s; Burke and Hare.
During the early 19th century the University of Edinburgh was the leading institution in the world for medical sciences, especially in anatomy.
However the demand for the dead was greater than what was naturally available due to the new law the ‘Bloody Code’.
With this growing demand and not enough corpses so began the bloody period of grave robbing during which Burke and Hare infamously began their serial murders and body snatching. Their crimes finally lead one of them to the gallows.
With a new movie about these murderers, directed by Jon Landis and starring Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis and our own David Hayman, soon to be released, we will look at the killings that still fascinate a modern audience and use grizzly dramatic reconstructions to bring the murders to life.
“Up the close and down the stair,
But and ben with Burke and Hare.
Burke’s the butcher, Hare’s the thief,
Knox, the boy who buys the beef.”
19th century Edinburgh jumping-rope rhyme
