British Serial Killers

By Nigel Wier

The book is about British serial killers from the 19th century all the way to the present day.

I have written the book to show the readers what a serial killer is and why he is so different from any other killers. In Britain it is estimated that there are between 70 and 80 known serial killers and the book will cover about 75% of them.

Fortunately for us most serial killers are arrested and sentenced to very long prison sentences and of course the earlier serial killers were executed. But is also shows some serial killers who have remained unidentified and have never been arrested.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Dec 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781467881401

Nigel Wier

Nigel Wier is qualified to write this book as it is his memoirs of thirty years with the West Midlands Police The author states that he is an avid reader of all real life crime thrillers. He is a married man and lives with his wife in Sutton Colfield.

Book preview

Chapter One

William Burke and

William Hare

The Burke and Hare murders also known as the West Port murders occurred in Edinburgh, Scotland between November 1827 and October 1828. There are not the first known British serial killers but they are the first in my book and I would think that most of you have heard of them. You may know then by another name as they were frequently referred to throughout history at the ‘body snatchers’, it is known they were not the only body snatchers active in the country in the nineteenth century in fact there were several of them.

But what is meant by the term body snatching? Well it means that during the eighteenth and nineteenth century medical schools throughout the country needed dead bodies for dissection and training purposes. And in the early days only criminals that had been executed were allowed by the law for their bodies to be used for dissection. But as less and less criminals were being executed and as the demand for dead bodies for dissection increased. The only course left open was to steal dead bodies from graves. Also at the time medical schools were paying people to steal bodies from graves.

In London alone anatomy and medical schools employed ten full time body snatchers to rob graves and get them dead bodies for dissection. It was alleged that the average body snatcher could make about £1,000 a year.

So where do Burke and Hare fit into this? Well they took body snatching one step further they decided they would murder for the money. They along with a number of criminals from London who called themselves the London Burkers, (the name Burker incidentally being taken from name Burke and Hare) decided to murder for money as well, so how did it all start?

William Burke was originally from Ireland and had arrived in Scotland in 1817 and had found work on the Union Canal as a labourer, he was married with two children but his wife had refused to come to Scotland with him. In due course he met a woman called Helen McDougal and they began to live together as man and wife. Burke could read and write and was fairly well educated; he also had a charming gentlemanly manner and treated his women well. Also at this time he had no previous criminal record and was not known to the police. You could almost describe him as the perfect gentleman, but not for too much longer.

William Hare was also from Ireland and like Burke he came to Scotland and worked on the Union Canal where he later met a man who ran a lodging house in West Port. This man Mr Laird subsequently died and Hare who had got to know the family well during his time in West Port moved in to the lodging house and eventually lived with Mr Lairds widow Margaret Laird who he later married. She ran the lodging house as a business and he continued to work on the canal to earn more money.

In late 1827 Burke and his wife moved into Tanners Close, in the West Port area of Edinburgh where Margaret Hare (nee Laird) ran the lodging house. We know Burke had met with Margaret on previous trips to Edinburgh but it is not thought that he had previous met with Hare. Anyway on moving into the area they all became good friends.

But as I said earlier in the chapter how and why did it all this start?

Well it started with the death of one of the lodgers in the lodging house, an old man called Donald he had died and apparently still owed Hare £4 in rent. Knowing about the shortage of dead bodies at these medical schools, the decision to sell the body rather than bury it was an easy decision for them to reach. Hare had decided this was how the old man was going to pay off his debt. On the day of the burial Burke and Hare filled the coffin with tree bark and later that day they went in search of a purchaser for the dead body, who to use its medical term a ‘cadaver’. They found a buyer in the form of Robert Knox, a local anatomist and he paid them £7.10 shilling for the body, easy money.

The biggest problem in all of this is that the anatomist only wanted ‘fresh bodies’, bodies that had begun to rot and decay through age were no good for dissection. So grave robbing was still common so much so that the families of those who had recently had loved ones buried would hold graveside vigils for days and days to stop the grave robbers digging up their loved ones for dissection. And sometimes when graves were eventually dug up and bodies taken what they had was not suitable.

So for Burke and Hare the only way forward was to murder, so much so that between January and October 1828 they killed, three men, twelve women and one child before they thankfully were caught.

Their first murder victim was another of the lodgers, Joseph Miller although at the time of the murder he was a sick man but between them they plied him with whisky until he was almost asleep, then they suffocated him. But of course they were not going to have ill or sick lodgers all the time so now they had to go and look for their victims. Like people who would not be missed, the elderly living alone, homeless people and prostitutes seemed to be the best choice.

In February 1828 they found a victim out on a local street, they invited this pensioner by the name of Abagail Simpson into the lodging house on the pretence of offering her some alcohol and a room for the night, she of course gratefully excepted. Using the same method as before they served her alcohol until she was almost asleep then they smothered her until she was dead; it was so easy as an old woman would not put up any fight against two grown and fit men. They again sold her to Mr Knox and took the body around to him under the cover of darkness and were paid £10 for her.

During April 1828 they invited two local prostitutes to the house for a drink, the prostitutes were known as Mary Paterson and Janet Brown. But after many hours of drinking they all began to start to argue so Miss Brown decided to leave and that no doubt saved her life. On returning the following day to collect her friend she was told that Mary had left the house, which was partly true because during the night she had been smothered and murdered and was now on her was to Dr Knox. Janet continued for many months to try and find her friend but unbeknown to her she had by now been subject of Dr Knox and dissection.

The next victim of Burke and Hare was an old friend of Burkes a local beggar woman known as Effie. She too was easy she was totally defenceless and after accepting an offer of a drink and a warm bed for the night, she was smothered with ease and taken to Dr Knox, they were paid £10 for her body.

The pair got bolder and was now taking the bodies to the doctor during the day as everything seemed so easy; the next two victims were an old woman and her blind grandson. Whilst his grandmother died of a mixture of pain killers and alcohol it is alleged that Hare took the grandson and stretched him over his knee and proceeded to break his back in order to kill him. Both bodies were quickly delivered to Dr Knox and they were paid £8 for each body.

These two were quickly followed by a friend of Burke, a Mrs Ostler and a relative of Helen McDougal’s a woman called Annie Dougal, both were quickly killed in the normal manner of smothering and taken to Dr Knox and once again they were paid £8 for each body.

But with all four living in the same house arguments between them were now beginning to happen so it was decided that Burke would move out for the time being.

But the victims kept coming, next it was an Elizabeth Haldane a previous lodger at the house. She was in a desperate state and really down on her luck and she asked them if she could perhaps sleep in the stable of the lodging house for a few days. Of course Burke and Hare readily agreed to this request and quite honestly her luck did not improve; she was given alcohol and smothered until she was dead as was their normal method of killing people. Some months later Burke and Hare even murdered her daughter Peggy Haldane in similar circumstances.

Their next victim was a well know local character called James Wilson or most people knew him as Daft Jamie. He lived on the streets or with kind people who took pity on him and offered him a room for the night, although he would frequently visit his widowed mother he very rarely stayed with her. In early October Hare came across Jamie wandering the streets apparently looking for his mother for some reason or another. Hare stated that he knew where Jamie’s mother was and would go and get her for him and in the meantime Jamie was invited to go back to the lodging house by Hare to await the arrival of his mother.

Burke was in a local tavern doing what he enjoyed best and that was drinking large amounts of whisky. When he saw both Hare and Jamie walk past the window no doubt he was thinking another lamb to the slaughter. It is alleged that sometime later Margaret fetched Burke from the tavern and when back at the lodgings, Burke and Hare began the task of murdering young Jamie.

Firstly they tried to convince Jamie to have some whiskey, he had a small amount but much to the annoyance of Burke and Hare he refused anymore whisky. Although shortly afterwards he fell asleep on the bed so now was the time for them to murder him with their usual method of smothering their victim. But Jamie was young he fought back but eventually he was overpowered and murdered by the two of them.

The two men delivered the body once again to Dr Knox and they were paid £10, but suspicion began to grow. Jamie’s mother was constantly walking the streets searching for Jamie and asking questions of his whereabouts. Then when Dr Knox began the task of dissecting Jamie’s body a lot of the medical students seemed to recognise him as Jamie, he had a well known deformity of his foot and was not by most people in the area. Dr Knox denied it was Jamie and one of the first places on his body that he began to dissect was his face and within minutes he was unrecognisable.

But their murderous career was coming to an end with their last victim, it was Halloween morning and Burke was in a local tavern having his usual drink of whiskey when an old lady wandered in. He noticed she was Irish and he offered to buy her a drink, she accepted and sat with him at his table.

The old lady was Mary Docherty and she had originated from Innisowen, in Ireland. Burke told her that his mother’s name was Docherty and she too came from the same village as her, so they must be related. He invited her back to his house to which she readily agreed with. Staying with Helen and Burke at their house at the time were a couple James and Annie Gray and that evening they all drank whiskey and had a good time. At the end of the evening Burke persuaded Mary to stay the night whilst he arranged for the Grays to stay at the Hare’s lodging house for the night.

The Grays returned the following morning to Burke’s house and were told that the old lady had gone. Annie then went to retrieve some stockings that she had left the previous evening and Burke shouted at her to stay away from the bed. He again shouted at Annie when she went fetch some potatoes from the same bedroom and later the same day when the Grays were left alone in the house they decided to have a look in this room and underneath the bed. They now found out why Burke kept shouting at them to stay away from the bed, because there covered in old rags they saw a body of an old lady.

They ran straight from the house in order to find a policeman and bumping into Helen as they went, they told Helen what they had discovered and what their intention was and Helen even offered them £10 to keep their mouths shut. This incensed the Grays even more. The police arrived at the Burke’s house later they day and they were joined a few minutes later by Burke and Helen who calmly asked what the problem was. Knowing by now of course that between them they had disposed of the body, in fact they had managed to take the old ladies body put it in a wooden tea chest and take it to Dr Knox.

The police separated Burke and Helen and asked them separately as to the time that the old lady had left their house. Burke quite confidently told the police that she had left at 7.00am that morning Helen on the other hand told the police that the old lady did not leave until the evening. The discrepancy was enough for the police to arrest both Burke and Helen and take them to the local police station.

An anonymous tip led the police to Dr Knox and it was there that they found the body of the old lady who was positively identified by James Gray, as being Mary Docherty the lady who had been in Burke’s house the evening before. Joined at the police station shortly afterwards was the Hares and with all four in custody and with a dead body intact the police now started to unravel what had happened.

The police had four people in custody who were then interviewed over the next few days. It became obvious that the four had not agreed with a common version of events surrounding the allegations put to them, all their stories varied dramatically. I don’t suppose they ever believed that they would be found out.

On 6th November 1828 a local newspaper ran a story about the rumours that were being spread about persons going missing and what might have happened to them. And this prompted Janet Brown to go to the police station, of course Miss Brown had been into the Burke’s house earlier in the year with her friend Mary Patterson and Mary was now missing and had not been seen since that night.

Miss Brown was shown clothes that had been seized from the Burke’s house and she recognised some of the clothes as belonging to her friend Mary Patterson. The public were outraged and they wanted all four to be charged along with Dr Knox as they believed he must have known what was going on and merely turned a blind eye. Because he was the one who wanted the bodies for dissection. But the evidence against them was not overwhelming, the police had no eye witnesses to the crime but they did have a lot of circumstantial evidence against some of them but not all four. But who to charge was not down to the police it was firmly in the hands of the Lord Advocate of Scotland, Sir William Rae.

A deal was struck the Lord Advocate decided that Burke was the stronger man out of the two men and that Helen was the stronger woman out of the two women. And he would give the Hares immunity if they both testified against William Burke and Helen McDougal. The Hares readily accepted so Burke and Helen MacDougal were charged with the murder of Mary Docherty, and Burke alone was further charged with the murders of Mary Paterson and James Wilson

The trial started on Christmas Eve 1828 and was finished by Christmas morning, the Hares had given their evidence followed by the Grays and some other witnesses and the jury retired to consider their verdict. After 50 minutes they returned with the following verdicts, Burke, guilty on all charges, Helen MacDougal was found ‘not proven’ and under Scottish Law she was freed from the court but was not acquitted of the charge of murder. It was obvious that the jury thought she may have had some knowledge so for that reason the case was not proven. If they had thought that she was totally innocent they would have returned a not guilty verdict.

Burke was sentenced to hang for the crimes but before the execution took place he made two separate confessions from his cell and in those confessions he admitted all 16 murders that he and Hare had committed over the previous twelve months.

Burke was executed by hanging on 28th January 1829 and at the scaffold the public was shouting for Hare and Dr Knox to join him but of course that never happened.

And what happened to the others? Well Margaret Hare is believed to have returned to Ireland. Helen McDougal apparently went to England first and it is believed eventually settled in Australia. William Hare did not meet up with his wife again and is believed to have fled to England to a town called Carlisle and eventually ended up as a beggar of the streets of London. And Dr Knox, well he attempted to remain in Scotland but that was impossible due to angry mobs gathering wherever he went so he too ended up in London where he worked at a hospital and died in 1862.

Burke and Hare over the years have been called ‘grave robbers’ and ‘body snatchers’ there is no evidence to suggest they ever dug up a body from a grave quite the opposite it would appear they made their money from murder and not robbing graves.

They truly were serial killers.

Chapter Two

The London Burkers

The London Burkers were a name given to a group of body snatchers working in the London area. They had apparently copied the activities of the famous Scottish body snatchers William Burke and William Hare a few years earlier. They had even borrowed part of their name from the famous duo. They came to prominence in 1831some two years after Burke was executed. It was clear even after the execution of Burke that medical schools throughout the country still needed dead bodies for dissection and the London Burkers were going to make sure they were not disappointed.

By the nineteenth century it was estimated that medical schools needed at least 500 bodies a year for medical research. When you consider that only about 55 people were being executed a year they were of course the only bodies that the law of the land would allow the schools to use. Then obviously the supply was never going to meet the demand for bodies lawfully, hence the rise of the body snatchers.

One group of London Burkers consisted of John Bishop, Thomas Williams, Michael Shields and James May. And they formed a notorious gang of body snatchers who worked in and around the Shoreditch and Bethnall Green areas of London. Their job was to steal newly buried bodies and to sell them onto anatomists as fast as they could and as often as they could and to make as much money as they could.

It is estimated that this gang stole and sold between 500 and 1000 bodies over a twelve year period of course there is no hard evidence to substantiate this only very strong rumours.

This particular gang of body snatchers would normally sell their dead bodies to anatomists and surgeons working from St Bartholomews’ Hospital, St Thomas’ Hospital and Kings College Hospital, at the time three of the biggest hospital’s in London. It makes you think what the hospitals thought when day after day, body after body turned up. Well clearly the hospitals turned a blind eye to the actions of these gangs that were so prominent at the time.

The body snatches even had their own local tavern called the Fortune of War Public House near Smithfield market. Apparently this is where these so called gangs of body snatchers met to discuss business and of course drink loads of ale from the money they had made.

However reading about the exploits of Burke and Hare in Scotland, this particular gang of body snatchers was to turn to murder to get their dead bodies. So in July 1830 Bishop and Williams rented a cottage known as number 3, Nova Scotia Garden, St Leonards near Shoreditch. These cottages had been built on top of an area that had been filled with waste. They were undesirable to live in as they were below ground level and they frequently flooded but of course the cottage was more than suitable for the purpose that they wanted it for. Their move into the world of murder was not to last very long.

On 5th November 1831 Bishop and May went to Kings College Hospital to the dissecting room and attempted to sell a dead body, they said that the body was of a young male 14 years old and they wanted twelve guineas for it. They were known at the hospital so the request to sell was not an unusual request but it was refused by a Mr Partridge who was a member of the anatomic staff.

He offered nine guineas and no more, May demanded no less than ten guineas and as they were leaving Bishop said to Mr Partridge that nine guineas would be fine and they will bring the body in half an hour.

They did return this time they were with Williams and Shields and they were carrying a hamper. Bishop and May carried the hamper inside the hospital where May who was slightly the worse for wear through drink opened the hamper and tipped out a sack, inside the sack was the body of the 14 year old boy who they wanted to sell. May threw the body carelessly onto the ground and allegedly remarked ‘that it was a good un.’

They were then joined once again by Mr Partridge who believed that there was something very suspicious about the body as it appeared that more than normal rigour mortis had set in. It did not look as if the body had been buried, there was a cut on the head of the body, his left arm and hand turned inward something that would not be in place if the body had been buried correctly.

Mr Partridge left the room on the pretext of fetching nine guineas but he returned with a Mr Mayo, a professor of anatomy from the hospital, Inspector Rogers of the ‘F’ Division and some constables. All four members of the gang were arrested and taken into custody along with the hamper, sack and the body. At this stage an allegation on suspicion of murdering the young boy was made against all four members of the gang and they were remanded in custody by a local magistrates sitting at Bow Street Court.

On 8th November 1831 a coroner’s inquest was held whereby a jury listened to the evidence of witnesses. They heard particularly from both Mr Partridge and Mr Mayo from Kings College and also from Mr George Brennan, the surgeon of the parish of St Paul in Covent Garden and his view which was taken very seriously. He had examined the body on the evening it was bought to the police station and he believed that the body had been dead for some 36 hours prior to that Saturday evening. He was of the opinion that the boy had not died as a result of a natural death.

The jury returned with the verdict of ‘wilful murder against some person or persons unknown’ but they did express belief that three prisoners, Bishop, Williams and May were somewhat involved and for that reason they were remanded in custody. It would appear that Shields was released at this stage as the jury clearly believed he was innocent of being party to the dreadful crime.

On 19th November 1831 the police went to 3 Nova Scotia Gardens and conducted a new and very detailed search of Bishop and Williams rented property, this time they did make some starting finds. From within the small back garden of the cottage the police found several items of male or boys clothing, including a coat, trousers, braces and a waistcoat with blood on the back and a shirt which was torn. Also found buried in the garden were items of women’s clothing which were later believed by the police to belong to a local woman called Frances Pigburn.

On 2nd December 1831, John Bishop, Thomas Williams and James May appeared at the Old Bailey charged with the murder of the young boy who by now police had still not positively identified. Evidence was given by many witnesses and the jury returned their verdict that Bishop, Williams and May were guilty of murder. All three were sentenced to death by hanging.

But this was not the end of the story because John Bishop decided to confess to this murder and two others in which he said it was him and Williams, and that May was not involved in the murders in any way. This of course led to May and Shields being exonerated of all crimes.

On 4th December 1931after visiting the jail chapel, Bishop and Williams were placed in the same cell and were seen by the local under-sheriffs and Bishop began his confession in which Williams was a willing party to.

In relation to the body of the boy for which was the murder they had both been convicted off. Bishop began by saying that on 3rd November 1831 with Williams, the boy was taken from The Bell public house near Smithfield market with the excuse of offering him lodgings in their rented cottage at Nova Scotia Gardens. They gave him bread and cheese and a cup or rum with laudanum in, (laudanum being a very potent drug containing morphine and codeine and normally used in cough medicine) the boy soon fell asleep.

Bishop and Williams then went out to have a drink and when they returned the boy was still asleep so they carried him into the garden. They tied cord around his feet and then put him head first into a well in the garden which was filled with water and only his feet were now visible.

Williams then tied the rest of the cord round some palings so to stop the boy escaping. The boy struggled a little bit but soon stopped. Bishop and Williams left him there and went out and had another drink and on their return they pulled him out of the well with the cord. They undressed him and hurriedly buried his clothes in the garden and carried him to the wash house where they covered him with a bag. Bishop said that the rest you know, we then tried to sell him and were arrested.

Bishop continued with his confessions and told the under-sheriffs about he and Williams murdering a woman who the police believe was a Frances Pigburn. Bishop said that he and Williams initially met her one evening and she had a small child aged about five years with her. She was clearly homeless and appeared destitute as her