Trial of William Burke and Helen M'Dougal : before the High Court of Justiciary, at Edinburgh, on Wednesday, December 24. 1828, for the murder of Margery Campbell, or Docherty / Taken in short hand by Mr John Macnee, writer. With an illustrative preface.

  • William Burke
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Trial of William Burke and Helen M'Dougal : before the High Court of Justiciary, at Edinburgh, on Wednesday, December 24. 1828, for the murder of Margery Campbell, or Docherty / Taken in short hand by Mr John Macnee, writer. With an illustrative preface. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    coarse wooden frame, without posts or curtains, and was filled with old straw and rags, among which a man's shirt, stained with blood in front, and something like a child's shift, also bloody, were plainly discernible. At the foot of the bed, between it and the wall, was the heap of straw under which the woman's body was concealed. The bed stood so near the wall, that the corpse must have been doubled up, to be hidden after the murder. At the foot of the common stair is a door opening into a large yard, or piece of waste ground, across which the bodies from the slaughter-house are said to have been conveyed to a cellar adja- cent. Let those ivho possess such cellars, be cautious in future to what use they are appropriated. Constantine Burke's Room in the Canongate, where Mary Paterson or Mitchell was stifled, is also of a most miserable descrip- tion. Ascending a narrow wooden trap-stair, and going along a pas- sage, you find a door, only fastened by a latch, opening into an apartment, in which were a truckle bed, and another with tattered patch-work curtains; the walls adorned with many tawdry prints, carefully nailed on. Here, according to information, the first murder was perpetrated ; but from the long residence of the bro- thers in Edinburgh, and from common report, this point for the present remains exceedingly doubtful. When the criminals were brought to trial, every precaution was adopted to preserve the public peace, and facility of access to those whose duty required their attendance ; the high constables of the City and its dependencies were ordered to muster at six o'clock in the evening; and the police received a temporary reinforce- ment of upwards of 300 men. The prisoners were brought, early in the morning, from the Caltonhill jail, and when produced at the bar, made a very squalid appearance. Burke is a stout, middle-sized man, with a determined visage, that seemed una wed by all around him. The accomplice of his black crimes has never possessed any beauty,* and only at times shewed some sense of her perilous situation. Strange to say, she escaped the just doom of the law, by the verdict of a respectable jury ; and stran- ger, that the audience, whose natural prejudices were supposed * She appears to be considerably older than her paramour, probably ten or twelve years.
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