Burke & Hare return to The Edinburgh Dungeon

Inside The Edinburgh Dungeon. Picture: Michael Dornan

Madgy Docherty was lured into a lodging house by William Burke on October 31, 1828, before she was murdered by one half of Edinburgh’s most villainous crime duo. Her body was discovered the following day by a married couple staying at the property, eventually leading to the capture of both men.

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The Edinburgh Dungeon will be taking visitors back in time as they unveil the horrors of one of the darkest periods in the capital’s history. The tour started on October 10 and will run until 2 November.

Johnny Campbell, general manager at The Edinburgh Dungeon, commented: “Few people know that Burke and Hare committed their last crime on Halloween. Had it not been for Madgy Docherty who knows when their murderous spree would have ended?

“Now Burke is back in the Dungeon with a brand new show, visitors will need to have their wits about them, for danger lurks at every turn in the Home of Halloween.”

Incorrectly identified with grave robbing, William Burke and William Hare undertook a much more sinister means of providing Doctor Robert Knox with cadavers for his popular anatomy lectures.

In total 16 people were killed in a period lasting over a year. Most of the victims were suffocated. These included three men, 12 women and a child.

The men were paid for each body they provided to Knox, and the doctor was driven out of Edinburgh after the public and press implicated him by association, even though there was no proof he knew about their crimes.

Burke was executed via hanging on January 28, 1829, while Hare escaped the hangman’s noose by giving evidence against his former partner. He disappeared shortly after his release from prison.