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[Assistant] But not so weird that you ever are mean to your kid like that because I really hated that part where you got hit with a brush and you should have never gotten hit with a pretty brush either. Like that sucks. But do keep it so weird that your uncle reincarnates into one of your kids' bodies because I think that's really fucking cool. And how awesome to have all those memories and find the pasta for Jule recipe. That is great.


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[Assistant] I believe it. I believe you. And those stories.


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[Assistant] Honestly, that's just really heartbreaking to think that there's that many people out there second guessing if they have their loved one. 113 people.


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[Assistant] And then like, if you're sitting there wondering if that's concrete dust, I feel like part of you would want to like get rid of that urn, but then you'd be like, fuck, what if it's not concrete dust? Is there any way to have ashes tested?


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[Assistant] Alright, wow, my next one is The Time My Mom Made a Ghost Listen.


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[Assistant] And it starts off, Hello, my kindred spirits. Oh, I'm a New England transplant by way of chaos in Oregon. Say it how your mama taught you because local dialects and all. Okay, so it's Oregon. And really, we all know what the fuck you're saying either way. I love you. I literally love you. Honestly, I don't even know why I've never made that point. Like you guys all know what the fuck we're saying anyway.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and morbid showed up as a you may also like suggestion. Turns out the algorithm was spot fucking on and I've been listening ever since. Aww. My middle one, Liberty, yes you can use all the names, mine is Abby, hi again. Hi!


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[Assistant] But Liberty, who was 15 at the time, and I would often listen to you while I was making dinner,


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[Assistant] And she would just help or just chill with me. Because this was back when we only got one episode a week. No complaints, we all gotta start somewhere, and now you spoil us.


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[Assistant] And 15 year old could totally commit to once a week and hang out, uh, sorry, and a 15 year old


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[Assistant] Could totally commit to once a week hangout with mom in the kitchen. You two have banter that is so familiar to us both.


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[Assistant] As is, as this is how my neuro spicy offspring, my little sister and little old me tend to converse. Aww. I love that.


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[Assistant] Anywho, you two and all your new buds, Deb, Deb, Mikey, and all the new friends to the pod that have popped, that have popped in have become family to Libby and me and both of us are so happy for your success and continued growth. Wow, you're wonderful. That was so sweet. Thank you, Abby.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now on to the meat of it. My family is, well, gifted in the art of healing and intuitive ways, and because of this have had many encounters with spoopy and unseen.


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[Assistant] So I'm really disturbing, so I'm just like, oh sure mister or miss ghosty, I hear you. No, really, I hear them, and my sister sees them, and together we are the super ghost duo! Sorry, I did mention Neuro Spicy, one track mind is not mine.


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[Assistant] Now, if I can focus for just long enough, I will tell this tale. I was about to twinkle in the eye of my parents, meaning I was about three years from, uh, I was about three years away from being born when one of my favorite stories happened to my family.


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[Assistant] I loved this one when I was growing up. Well, I loved all the ghost stories my fam had, as well as dinner conversations of my dad's day of work. He was a paramedic and would always have some gory tale, like when he was a train- when he had a trainee.


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[Assistant] And they showed up to a call and the guy was just chilling in his armchair holding his entire guts because his stitches had popped and well, it all spilled out. Oh my goodness. That's heinous. But now, uh, but that is not the story for today and I'm honestly glad for that because we're eating lunch soon.


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[Assistant] But okay, it was the early 70s and my mom and dad had just gotten married and found a home they could afford. The house had originally been a home to a loving couple who had a whole last life in that house. The wife had died in the house, foreshadowing.


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[Assistant] And the husband could no longer live in the house, so rented it out for a while to anyone who wanted to rent. You know, the 70s of it all. No credit check, no references, and no worries.


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[Assistant] The last tenants that occupied the house were utter human trash for many reasons, but I just need one they mistreated their dogs.


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[Assistant] Yep, hate that. One thing they would let, uh, excuse me, one thing they would do with their dogs was they would let them defecate and urinate just anywhere and then


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[Assistant] And then these absolute good for nothings would just put a wooden board over said bodily functions. Eww. That's so gross.


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[Assistant] One thing I- That's so much- that's more work than cleaning it up. That's more work than taking them outside. Yeah. One thing I never thought to ask, and now I must, where the hell are they getting all these boards from? Yeah, truly. After seeing this house.


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[Assistant] My mom and dad decided this was the house for them because they love to restore just about everything. Healers, we love a project. I love that. And so the house with all its ick-ick because no one touched the toxic mess that those tenants left was their first home.


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[Assistant] They began immediately to restore the house by first making it safe to live in by removing all the poop and potty boards and ripping out carpets to restore the hardwood. Once it was habitable, they moved in.


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[Assistant] There was a basement because all spoopy stories need one. First floor and second floor. The first floor was sort of split in half with the kitchen on one half and living room on the other half and dining room on the front of the house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The kitchen and the living room were separated by the stairway that went to the second floor. There was a door at the bottom of the stairs and it opened up to the kitchen.


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[Assistant] At the top of the stairs was a small hallway with two bedrooms off of them.


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[Assistant] The kitchen also had a door that opened to the basement. Well, it was a basement, but not like folks think today.


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[Assistant] It was one of those with a dirt floor and sooty walls from the heating system. Not a welcoming place, that basement.


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[Assistant] Okay, my parents move in and begin to tear off the wallpaper. Put new wallpaper up, paint, put furniture where they want it, you know, make it their own.


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[Assistant] My mom says it all started with the living room and putting furniture where they wanted it.


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[Assistant] Turns out, the ghosts like to redecorate and move the furniture around at night to where she wanted it.


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[Assistant] Yes, my parents were sure it was the dead wife. So in the morning, my mom, who was now preggers with my older sister, would put the moved items back and just go on with her day.


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[Assistant] I think the ghost did not like her nonchalant attitude of just putting it back over and over again because the ghost turned it up a notch.


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[Assistant] The next thing to happen was, remember the door at the bottom of the stairway that opened to the kitchen? Well.


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[Assistant] That door took to opening, then slamming closed over and over and over again every morning. At what time in the morning you ask? Around 3am of course. With a swoosh open, a pause like the ghost needed to gain enough energy to slam it closed again and again. It would last a few minutes and then stop. One time my parents had just repainted the kitchen wall white.


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[Assistant] Oh, that sounds like uhm, you know who's house. Oh, I hate it. I hate it. With the face? Yes.


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[Assistant] The basement, well, that is a place my mom would not go into, but my dad...


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[Assistant] And my mom's brother had to fix or build something down there. Honestly can't remember.


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[Assistant] While down there they discovered a two by four hole, uh, dug into the dirt wall of the basement.


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[Assistant] And they found it because while down there working, they noticed a breeze that came from that direction. Basements should not have breezes, just saying. No they should not. No. This is a no-pull. That is a no-pull. And they should have left it alone, but you know they didn't.


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[Assistant] Really cool. That's wild because of the time the conflict or war they were associated with. Well.


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[Assistant] The moving furniture started to do some new things after this. The kitchen table chairs would be stacked in inhuman ways in the morning


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[Assistant] It was now really upsetting my parents and my mom decided it was her house and this needed to stop. Hell yea. So she had a conversation with the wife that died in the house. She said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You need to understand that the door slamming and the furniture moving are scaring us. We want to stay here and continue to take care of the house, but won't be able to if you do not stop scaring us. What a badass. And that's such a nice way of saying it. Like, I know this was your house and you loved it. And we love it too.


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[Assistant] Now, this I suppose could have backfired, but the ghost listened, and my mom said the energy of the house immediately lifted, and it actually looked brighter in the house after.


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[Assistant] Did the ghosty stuff stop? No, but it was different.


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[Assistant] But the rocking chair in the room. I just got chills. I have chills all over. It would be rhythmically rocking. Like there was someone watching over my sister sleeping.


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[Assistant] My mom always thought that the woman who once lived in the house who raised her family there and had her death there was just trying to protect the house as it had been so disrespected before. Definitely.


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[Assistant] Once my mom told this woman that my parents just wanted the same opportunity for our family in that house, and that my mom would love and protect this woman,


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[Assistant] I mean, how many people can say they had a ghost grandma. I love that! But that's what she became to my family. Eventually my dad had a job opportunity to relocate and so they left the house and my ghost gma behind all before I was born. Bummer, I know.


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[Assistant] Aww. But thanks for reading my story, and next time I will tell the story about the time I saw what I now think was an angel, but what my six year old organized religion saturated brain thought was a fire demon. Diamond.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You travel to somebody's house and you fucking stare at them while they're sleeping and then you threaten them to shoot you and, like, aah. We should just play the clip. But not so weird that.


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[Assistant] And it's like kids going to school, so it just gets chaotic in the morning now.


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[Assistant] It's been a ride. Oh, and by the way, thanks everybody for mentioning litter mate syndrome. I have gotten more messages than I can count about litter mate syndrome. Fun. And I appreciate the concern. I did research litter mate syndrome before I got these puppies.


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[Assistant] So I know all about it. We have a trainer. We're very like on it. That's when they get. They're being separated with training and being separated with sleeping and all that good stuff. They just snuggle together sometimes during the day.


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[Assistant] Yeah, they either, they either like, they like super bond with each other and don't bond with you or they get super aggressive with each other and can get like...


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[Assistant] It can get like dangerous. Oh shit. Like they can get like too aggressive with each other. They'll like eat each other? Yeah.


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[Assistant] With the girls from Red Handed, Hana, and Saruti, it was, they, all three of those gals are top fucking notch humans. They really are.


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[Assistant] And the, it's even weirder because we have collabed with Bailey before, but it was over the internet.


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[Assistant] And like, we feel like we know each other and then we got to do it this time in person. Right. So we were like, we're meeting each other, but like,


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[Assistant] We're not meeting each other because we know each other now. But it was very strange. And then Red Hand was in person too. So it was like, we're usually doing these things on Zoom. So it was a whole week of in person getting to hang with pod friends. It was great. It was so much fun.


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[Assistant] I'm trying to think if I have any, uh, any more. I'm sure I'll have more TikTok shoutouts for you guys like in the next episode. I haven't been on TikTok as much. Yea, that's fun. But I'mma get back onto it, so.


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[Assistant] I'll have some more for you, because it's fun to shout out TikTok people.


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[Assistant] I mean, welcome to VPR Corner for a second, but man, I


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[Assistant] There never is. We should probably begin with Vanderpump rules, get into chit chat, and then go into the story because it's probably an easier segue.


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[Assistant] Was it the office? No! Oh, it's uhm, and that's why we drink. Oh, they say that? Yeah, sagoo. I was like, I wanna give them cred. Cause I remember hearing that word.


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[Assistant] That's- Watching Succession the other night, they were talking about some deal and they were like 10 billion and they were just saying it like it was- It sounds fake. Here's a Cobb salad.


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[Assistant] Yeah, just ask, you know, Shiv and Logan Roy.


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[Assistant] You know what, I'll stand with you, but only because I cannot remember the last time I played Monopoly. And I never remember it being a good time.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I got kids clue for my kids recently. It's really cool. It's so much fun. You have to figure out who broke the toy.


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[Assistant] Yeah, that was my first question that I was gonna have about that. It's like, what's happening there? What kind of chef is it? Is it only a salad chef? He's a full-time chef. He's a full-time chef. So also it's like, is he just hanging out in that car? Always. All the time. That's not good for you. Just at the ready.


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[Assistant] No, you know, like, it's not her fault she was born into, I just said her-furt. It's not her fault. She wrote it. It's not her fault that she was born into a family of


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[Assistant] What the fuck. And it's like, how do you- How do you even come to that, that place at 13?


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[Assistant] The old Thai society woman. The original. It's like the, you know, it's like how it meant more to Emily Gilmore than it did to Rory.


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[Assistant] I like it. Yea, I feel that. I'm into it. They're like Tom Sandoval and Rachel.


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[Assistant] I think it's literally, and I know like- It's like Emily Gilmore. It's like Emily Gilmore. It literally is. It's like you, there's times when you're watching that show and you're like-


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[Assistant] Emily? What the fuck? Shut your mouth. And it's always to do with like appearances. Yeah. And like what is like socially acceptable and


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[Assistant] I think it's just like, that's, that's the, that is a product of how they were raised. Totally. Unfortunately, the time period, the society they were in, it's so surface level though, all of it, and that's what sucks is like,


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[Assistant] Doris was looked at on such a surface level from her own mother.


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[Assistant] Uhm, brought into an argument is really...


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[Assistant] That's the time to think about it. Yeah, I would say so. That's the time to really take stock of what's happening here. Seek guidance. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Moonlighting as a nightclub singer? That's so like old Hollywood. Yeah. Badaboom.


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[Assistant] That is shocking. Shocking. That that just was like, crescendo, crescendo, crescendo, then it's like, no, it's fine. Oh no, we're not done yet. Like, but I mean like that part of it. Oh yeah. Just that it's like, it ended. Oh, and this big crazy thing happened and oh my god.


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[Assistant] I'm scared that something is gonna happen to his kid and he's like, I don't give a fuck about anybody else.


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[Assistant] I love that they were like, we've thought about it for 48 hours and we decided that after that long think on it.


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[Assistant] Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this, right here, that you're


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[Assistant] I was going to say the word pros has no meaning anymore, but it's fun while it lasted. Pros. Pros. Guys, it's only Tuesday and we're losing our GD minds. Yeaah. You ever have a week like that? It's been quite, quite a week. It's just, you know, 2023 man. Yeaah.


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[Assistant] Positive vibe to this place up. The joy candle is wild and over there. Yeah, we have like a positive energy candle and she is lit right now and she's also lit. Like she's like, she's, we lit her and then she got lit herself. Like she is really going off right now, which makes me think.


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[Assistant] That she's like, hey bitches, stop talking so negatively, I am positive energy, hear me roar. And she's engulfing this room in flames.


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[Assistant] Positive vibes only, even when there's tons of shit happening around us that is not great. So I was gonna like start. But we're here.


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[Assistant] Structural. Yep, there's your motto, that's your affirmation for today. But positive vibes only here, and you guys rule. I was talking to a listener today. You were?


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[Assistant] Yes I was, because, uh, her name is Dani, and she's awesome, I really like her. Is she a phantom?


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[Assistant] She's a fan. There you go. I don't know. I'll ask. But the reason that I was chatting briefly with her was I think in one of the recent episodes, we were talking about how, um, Oh, we were talking about it with JVN. We were talking about how we put butter on pop tarts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was like, is that gross everybody? But no, she was like, I do that too. And then she was like, also don't judge me.


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[Assistant] But I put butter with my peanut butter on toast. I do that too and so do you! And she said I put butter on saltines and I was like...


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[Assistant] Bitch, are we the same person? Cause I was like, wait a second. See. That's spooky. That is. Cause that shit is spooky. That shit, also That's Spooky is a great podcast, go listen to it. But that shit is spooky.


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[Assistant] I thought that stuff that whenever I do it, everyone around me is like, that's really gross. And like, you should check yourself before you wreck yourself. So yeaah. To hear somebody sit there and just out with it, say like, I also do these two very niche things. Do you think that putting butter on before peanut butter is niche?


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[Assistant] I feel like it is, because everyone I've ever mentioned it to is like, that's really gross. I wonder if I got it from you. I must have gotten it from you. You did, because ma, I think I got it from dad.


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[Assistant] And then I probably passed it to you because I was like, try this. It's fucking good. Because John is horrified by it. Every time I do it, he's like, you are something else. No, everybody should give it a shot. Where I do


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[Assistant] Have you tried it? You haven't tried it, I'm gonna have you try it, and you're gonna go...


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[Assistant] I probably will. I love a good, I love a good dipping. Cause you're not like smearing butter on it. It's just like a light little dabble do ya on it. And you just take it just with the salt. I don't know what it just like gives it a little, little sweet, little salty.


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[Assistant] It's a nice moment to like connect for a second and be like, girl, yeaah. Uh, but now we're gonna get into some terrible shit. We're gonna get into part two of Birkin Hair.


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[Assistant] It does sound whimsical. It does. I agree with you. Uhm, but when we last left them, they murdered a grandma and her grandson. Separately, right? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And all four seemed to have involvement. Yeah, and then Dr. Knox there was like,


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[Assistant] Huh, weird that you brought in an old lady and her grandson. At the same time. They don't look as good, so I'm gonna give you a little less money for it. And it's like, my guy.


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[Assistant] Yadda da doo. Like, fuck this. Yeah, it's not great, but, you know, the last one that they had before we stopped part one was Effie.


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[Assistant] Who they believed her name was Effie. Right. And in their confessions they were like, I think she went by Effie. It's like, that's nice.


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[Assistant] I wasn't there to like witness it in person, cause like, maybe I was in a different life. One of your souls probably was. Probably. I think that. Anyway. But either way, poor Effie, she was a hawker, she was actually known around town, she was known to Burke.


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[Assistant] Then they just brought her to Knox's dissection room and got 10 shillings for the body. Wow. Yep.


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[Assistant] So as the summer went on, the stress of maintaining this whole thing was beginning to wear a little bit on Birkin hair.


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[Assistant] Not in the sense of them having remorse or guilt, but just in the sense of stress of doing it. Yeah. And trying to maintain the whole thing.


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[Assistant] And it was also, you know, it was wearing on their significant others as well.


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[Assistant] So Laird, like we talked about, had been at least like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and she was participating in some way, luring people in, you know, help plying them with alcohol. Yeah. Helen McDougall.


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[Assistant] Like we said, she had not actively involved herself in any of the killings up to this point. Except the grandson. The grandson, she didn't actively involve herself in his killings, she was only there to calm him down when he couldn't find his grandma. Oh, okay. So if we're talking like, specifically. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was she involved in a killing? We have no evidence of that right now. Okay.


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[Assistant] But, so she hadn't actively involved herself in any of the killings, like I said, and she's with Burke.


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[Assistant] If you're going to be around, you better make one of the stab wounds so that we can all point to you and say you did it too.


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[Assistant] Otherwise, you can just go, I didn't do anything, but here's all the information. And you don't have to be implicated at all. That's how he was looking at it.


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[Assistant] Exactly, he was like, the fact that the three of us have been actively involved in these and she isn't but is around, that's a problem.


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[Assistant] So in fact, at one point, hair had gone so far as to suggest that Burke killed the woman.


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[Assistant] He wanted Burke to take her into the country for a few weeks, then write Hare and inform him of McDougall's death. And of course, in reality, the murder would have been committed in the back room of the boarding house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And with McDougall's corpse being just another one of the bodies that they gave to Dr. Knox.


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[Assistant] So crazy that like I've been getting all these bodies for you and now my wife died. So when they- and he was trying to have him set up.


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[Assistant] An alibi. Like he was trying to set this whole thing up. He had really thought about this, which is scary.


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[Assistant] An opportunistic monster? Like an actual piece of shit. But I guess his one line was that he wouldn't readily murder.


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[Assistant] If, I think this kind of shows, like the eagerness with which hair wanted to dispatch Helen McDougall, that's kind of evidence of the growing tension, not only between the whole group, but between Burke and hair specifically.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So then the next murder really didn't do anything to relieve Burke's suspicions of hair. Like this made things worse. So in early summer, Burke estimated, estimated it like late June, which was around the anniversary.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] During this time, Hare and Laird were having a lot of financial difficulties and had ended up haunting everything they owned that was of value.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everything? Yeah. Anything that was of value, they were punning.


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[Assistant] Yet when Burke and McDougal returned a short time later, suddenly Hare and Laird appeared to no longer have any financial troubles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hare denied it, said no. However, in discussion with Dr. Knox, Burke learned that during their absence, Hare had quote, fell in with a drunk woman in the street in the Westport and enticed her back to the boarding house, killed her and sold the body to Knox and kept the money for himself and then lied about it.


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[Assistant] Which I'm like, wow, you guys are shitbag monsters, and now you're even being shitbag monsters to each other. Yeaah, I mean.


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[Assistant] Uhm, one night the two spotted a policeman by the name of Andrew Williamson and he was dragging a very obviously drunk woman to the Westport watch house. So Burke saw this and called out, let that woman go on to her lodgings.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the police officer Williamson said he didn't know where the woman lived. That's why he was taking her to the watch house to keep her from spending the night on the street. Yeah.


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[Assistant] So he's like, I'm a good person. Like I'm actually trying to do a good thing here, but cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So after like a brief conversation, Burke was actually able to convince the officer to release her to him.


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[Assistant] According to Burke, he quote, had a good character with police, which is why he was able to convince that police officer to release the very obviously drunk woman to him that night.


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[Assistant] But this brazen act clearly suggests a very misplaced confidence that, don't worry, in a few months at least,


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[Assistant] Will result in their capture. But I'm telling you right now, this didn't do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had a police officer hand a woman to him.


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[Assistant] Like who he murdered that night and brought back to Dr. Knox and was paid for it. And they did not get caught.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly. And that this police officer doesn't care. Like just handed her over. And that was it. I don't need to know what happened to her after that. So sad. It's so sad. And it really is such a misplaced confidence though, because he's out here being like, oh yeah, like I look at what I did. I convinced a police officer to give it to me. That


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If she can't say anything, but she can say tailspin. Hell yeah. Uh, and so in the late summer, Burke and McDougal, Helen, his wife, moved from Tanner's Close, the boarding house, to a small cottage not far from the boarding house. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There they shared this, they shared this little cottage with a couple called the Brogans. I like that name. I do too, it's like very, I don't know why, it's like cozy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm just, I'm just here with the Brogans. I would call them the Brogies. The Brogies. I would just call them the Brogs. I'm with my Brogies. I'm just here with my Brogans.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, some have suggested that the move was Burke's attempt to keep McDougal safe because of what you were saying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After Hare and Laird had suggested that they, um, murder her to keep her quiet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it was at this house that Burke and Hare met their next victim. A washerwoman by the name of Mrs. Hostler.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So one afternoon, the woman had just finished her washing for the day, and Burke and Hare convinced her to return the following day to have a few drinks with them. They were very charming.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were able to convince a lot of people to do this. Sounds like it. And she did


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the next day after she'd become drunk, they convinced her to lie down in an adjacent room where they killed her by suffocation. So this is what they did. They get their people drunk and then they do it. And they're people who they know are desperate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They know are on hard times, they know are going to say yes to a lot of drinks, just to numb whatever is happening in their lives. It's fucked up.


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[Assistant] Yeah, he's just, he's just making random assessments. Right. Of price here. Make an assessment. So not, I thought of that same thing, make an assessment. Not long after the murder of Hossler, Burke, or excuse me, not


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know why I just said that all in one sentence. Don't you hate when you go to read a sentence that you wrote and you're like, how do I speak?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Burke and McDougal welcomed into their home and McDougal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Seymour's name. Yes, it's a cousin of Helen's. Bitch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah. That's a cousin though. Drew's cousins are my cousins. Still a cousin. I love them. Still a cousin. One afternoon, while the Brogans, the other couple that they were living with, were out of the house, Burke and Hare murdered Anna McDougal. They murdered?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, I'm, I'm just, I can't. And because of this whole like, oh uhm, it's a relative thing, Burke said that he did not like to begin first on her, because she was a relative. Oh, totally, totally, totally. So don't worry about that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The wife like, hey, what happened to my fucking cousin? Yeah. She was like, what's going on here? But they loaded her body into a trunk and they intended to take her body to Knox, but before they had the chance, the Brogan's came home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And knowing that no one in the house owned a trunk, they, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Started asking several questions as to the origin of this trunk that was now sitting in their house. I'm going to admit something to you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Birkin Hare eventually, for the record, sorry, Birkin Hare eventually sat down with the Brogans, excuse me, Mr. Brogan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you want to be in on this and get some of the money if you don't say anything? And he was like, okay. And he meant it? Yep. He meant it. He said okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's crazy too is that with each murder committed in this particular period, they're just growing increasingly reckless, first of all, and they're also pulling apart from each other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Drastically. Yeah. They're doing things on their own. They're not listening. They're killing each other's relatives at this point. Like, shit's going down. Now they're inviting other people into this whole scheme. Like, bitch, the more people you have in this scheme, the more shit is gonna fall apart. It's not the merrier. No, it is not the merrier.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're also splitting that profit in way more pieces, which is way less advantageous to them with, they're murdering people. Yeah. And now you're splitting the profits like, now they're splitting it four ways. But are they not?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She gets that one shilling just for her silence. Oh, I see, I see. That's how he's able to hold all these people, they are able to hold all these people, and that's why McDougal


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is such a liability to them because she's not getting anything for it. She's not getting anything for her silence. And they're not just going to pay her unless she has something to do with it because you need her hand to have blood on it. So you can go, she did it too. That way she's not going to be eager to go to the authorities because then she has to admit that she's been part of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they're not getting that from her. This is nutso. So that brings us to the beginning of the end.


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[Assistant] So for obvious reasons, and with very few exceptions, Burke and Hare killed mainly elderly and incapacitated.


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[Assistant] And transient, like down on their luck, women. Yeah. That seems to be their L.O.G.


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[Assistant] Well, although they were almost always opportunists, like they were always just, they weren't like following people and like trolling for days, you know what I mean? Their preferred victim type likely had something to do with the fact that women were just much easier to overpower in their mind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But what's wild is like, at least one of them, and probably more of them, there was evidence that they tried to fight back and resist.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this became very evident in the, in this whole thing that like they were definitely doing this because they could overpower their victims. Yea. It became evident that they thought this was the case and that it wasn't in October, uh, when they murdered James Wilson, who was otherwise known as Daft Jamie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What does, like, daft mean again? So, I'll explain to you. According to George McGregor Wilson,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was described as quote, a lad who while deficient in intellect was kind at heart.


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[Assistant] Don't you dare ruin me right now. He was a universal favorite. Stop. Uh, among the townspeople he was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not confrontational, he was not an aggressive man. Ugh. People loved him, he was like very beloved, but he also was kind of like a frequent target of bullies. Fuck that! They would just like taunt him and shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in his early twenties, by the time of this happening, Jamie's father had died many years earlier and his mother was a hawker who was often traveling selling goods. So he spent a lot of his time just wandering the streets in Edinburgh. If Jamie doesn't live, I'm leaving.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jamie Wilson was definitely not only the antithesis of a typical Birkin hair victim because he was not a drinker.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was not a woman. He was not, he was pretty strong. He's not an older person. He's not older. And he's well known to everybody in town. Very well known. Like this is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, front page of Time Magazine, kinda well known. Like, even more so than the previous- Very more so. So this is just like, totally the antithesis of their typical victim. He was also the stupidest choice for a victim.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because, like I said, he didn't drink. You're not gonna ply him away with alcohol. So what the fuck is your move, you idiot?


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[Assistant] He's, he's not going to be easily lured, easily lured away. And when he is suddenly gone, everyone's going to notice immediately. Yeah, he's like everyone's kid. You're not going to be able to bring him to Dr. Knox and have it be like, oh yeah, it's just weird. Daphne Jamie just dropped dead. It's like, no, no one's going to believe that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, it was actually Margaret Laird who'd chosen Jamie as a victim because she discovered him alone and looking for his mother at a grass market one day in early October. Fuck you, Margaret. Yep. Fuck you. That's what I said. Now, according to Burke,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whom she eventually found at a local shop and the two of them went back to Tanner's Close, the boarding house.


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[Assistant] Back at the house, Laird left the three men alone.


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[Assistant] Which they offered Jamie some drinks and after, after a little while and Jamie did drink with them. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he started struggling and resisting, and the two men fell from the bed and continued to struggle on the floor. Eventually though,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Burke was able to get a hold of Jamie's feet and legs, which he held tight as hair suffocated Jamie.


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[Assistant] So he like, they almost lost this one.


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[Assistant] And this was the stupidest, thank goodness they were so stupid, but this is so.


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[Assistant] Tragic. They're all tragic, but this one's just like, are you fucking kidding me?


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[Assistant] And like Margaret, go fuck yourself. Like he's looking for his mom and that's when you fucking pray upon him. And he's clearly like-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, in nearly every case, Burke and Hare were very careful to get rid of their victim's clothings and whatever possession the victim had on them at the time, if they had anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, and in this case though, their victim had a lot of belongings. Most of the time their victim didn't have a lot of things on them because they didn't have a lot of things in the world. Was he walking around with like a lot of his things? He had like, he had a lot of belongings and he had some things of value because he was, he was, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which they ended up just splitting between them. They just stole all the things and eventually they gave his clothing to Burke's brother.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who passed them on to his younger children. And he knew? Yep. Fuck this. Yep.


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[Assistant] So, and this is the thing, so his brother didn't know, but like they, they knew that he was going to be, they knew that Constantine was going to give these clothing, these clothes to his children. And they still allowed it to happen. Cause they have actually no souls.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause Constantine Burke and the children didn't recognize the clothing, so they were like, okay. They did eventually end up trading them for like other items in town, but still. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Putting Jamie's very recognizable clothing and belongings out in the public because they were selling these goods now too, that was a really bad idea on their part.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly, and then you sold the belongings he had to people in town who are like, wait,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the more significant problem was that the boy would almost certainly be recognized by Dr. Knox. That was the biggest problem. Like when you bring this kid in, they're gonna know exactly who he is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So indeed, when it was brought to him, he wasn't home, but when they arrived with the body, his assistant didn't really look very quickly. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the next day when they did inspect the body, several of Knox's students were like, that's Jamie.


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[Assistant] And they were like, what the fuck? But Knox was like, you know what? Ready the body for dissection.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he 100% recognized this body, just like, but he was like just ready for it, for dissection.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What the actual fuck. And then he assured his students this ever so fresh male subject could not possibly be anyone they knew.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. And later, these students were interviewed by police later, obviously, because they were very much like unwillingly involved in this. Exactly. They all told investigators, they were pretty certain this was Jamie, but they didn't want to swear on it because they were, Knox had told them that it wasn't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, the final murder occurred on October 31st. Oh. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know. This is when Burke met Mary Doherty and it was in a Reimer's grocery store that morning on October 31st.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So like the grandmother the pair had brutally murdered earlier that summer, Doherty had come from out of town in search of her son, and was virtually unknown to anyone in Edinburgh. So Burke struck up a conversation with this older woman telling her that he'd also come to Edinburgh, he was from Ireland,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you know, wow, crazy, my mom's maiden name is Doherty. So maybe we're related. Probably not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, and what she likely took as a friendly gesture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Berk invited her back to the home for breakfast with he and his wife, and she was like, great, absolutely, friends. Excited to make a friend, exactly. Maybe they can help me find my son, that kind of thing. So once they were in the house, Helen McDougall tended to this new guest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] While Burke went off in search of hair. Okay. When he'd finally found hair, they went back to Burke's house where they found Helen and the guests cleaning up after breakfast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, it would have been pretty easy for them to overpower and murder Mrs. Doherty, cause she was very frail. Sure. Uh, the real issue that they were facing was getting rid of the couple who had been staying with Burke and McDougal for over a week. There was another couple of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they're trying to think quickly here, and Burke told this couple that he'd run into an old family friend, and he wondered if it would be, you know, terribly inconvenient for them to maybe find another place to stay for a night or two, just so they could have this Mrs. Doherty, this family friend.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He even went as far as suggesting they could stay with Hare and Laird for a few days, and the couple said, sure, uh-huh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that evening, things went about the usual way. They had, so the couples had dinner with Mary Doherty, Birkin Hare and Lairden. They shared like multiple meals with this woman. Like really got to know her. Wow. Probably heard all about her life. All about her missing son.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They had dinner with her at Burke and McDougal's home, uh, afterwards they sang, they danced, they drank, had a great time with her. They literally like had a little party. It's, ugh, I just can't even.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, people wanted to know what was going on, so a woman from the house next door went to look through the window and she saw what she later told police was Helen McDougal, quote, holding a bottle to the mouth of Doherty, pouring the whiskey down her throat. I always knew that I saw Helen McDougal for exactly who the fuck she was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they only stopped when Mary Doherty fell from her stool and crashed onto the floor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Laird and McDougal, the two women, use the opportunity to get out of the house, which is when Burke and Hare use the same method that they always use to suffocate Mrs. Doherty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They did do something a little different with her, which I don't know if this was them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Trying something different that they were going to employ from here on out or if this was just, I don't know. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whichever man was doing the actual suffocating, at some point they had used their hand to strangle Mrs. Doherty around the throat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this left deep bruises on her neck.


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[Assistant] Now, she was dead, they stripped her of her belongings, and Burke sent for Knox's assistant, and they explained that they just had another body to sell. Wow, crazy. It's, I can't. Now with the, also, so they make the call, they're like, hey, you need to pick up this body tomorrow, and then they just went about the party.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the following day, November 1st, Burke went to the boarding house to check on the, um, on the lodgers that had been sent to the house and invite them back home for breakfast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Saying that, you know, their family friend, that old woman that they had met yesterday, she had grown very impudent, perhaps having taken too much liquor and they found it necessary to put her out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's how they wanted to put it. Put her out. Yeah. So one of these lodgers, Mrs. Grey, thought that Burke was behaving a little strangely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And calling after her when she began cleaning around a pile of straw near the corner of the room.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Burke kept up his weird, like, anxious behavior for most of the morning, and when several of the occupants of the house needed to go out that afternoon, Burke actually instructed Mr. Brogan, who knows about all this stuff now, to sit in a chair by the bed in the corner and not move until he returned.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay Blair Witch, what the fuck. So he did. He sat in the chair, he didn't ask questions. At first. And then when Burke left the house, he waited until he was out of sight. Because remember,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This guy just joined this whole thing. He just wanted money. Yeaah. He wasn't, he's not gonna save your ass. Still a bad person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, and also, he doesn't give a shit. Like, this is not a good guy, this is somebody who just doesn't give a shit. Exactly. So when he tells him, you gotta sit by this corner of the bed near the straw in the corner, he's like, sure, sure, sure. So he sits there, Burke leaves. Once he's out of his sight, Brogan just leaves the house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like he didn't, he was like, I'm not doing that. So he left the house and then Mrs. Grey, the lodger who thought that he was acting very strange, she's now alone in the house and she takes this opportunity to investigate whatever it was by the bed that Burke


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So she starts poking around the straw pile in the bed next to the bed, excuse me, and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She found the nude body of Mary Doherty. Can you imagine? All around her mouth and nose.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So she literally finds this naked old woman who was clearly murdered in a pile of straw in the corner of their bedroom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow. So she knows why she was sent out the night before. So she immediately tells her husband. She's like, we gotta get the fuck out of here. And the two of them start gathering up all their belongings and they're like, we're getting the fuck out of here. But then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Mrs. Grey is packing and Mr. Grey started carrying things downstairs and as this is happening, he ran into Helen McDougall. I knew one of those.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when he ran into Helen McDougall, he demanded that she explain what the fuck was going on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, he was like, you tell me why the fuck there's a body in that bedroom. Like, you tell me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And at first she tried to just like dismiss the question. Yeah, cause she's a little butt head. But she kept, but he kept pushing. He was like, no, you can't, you literally can't dismiss a body.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In your bedroom. Like you need to explain that. A naked old woman's body in your bedroom. Like tell me what that's about. The fuck. And so she finally broke down and said, I suppose you know very well what it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then offered him several shillings in exchange for silence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Poor, innocent Helen. She had nothing to do with this. Fuck Helen. She decided to change her tactics when Mr. Grey wasn't gonna believe the, she overdosed on drinks so we stripped her naked and tied her in a pile of straw. So she was like, okay, and she started convincing, trying to convince him to join in on the scheme.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so she couldn't convince anything to, she couldn't convince them to join the scheme. She wasn't getting a promise of silence from them. So she followed them into town. Oh shit. And they ran into Laird in town. Oh, I'm so nervous. Somehow the Grays, the Grays agreed to join Laird and McDougal at a nearby public house for like a drink.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They bought them rounds of drinks, they used every argument they could to try to convince them that this was something


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was fine ethically. Y'all don't drink a drink that they buy you. What's good is they were very unpersuasive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but when they went to the police, they were made to wait several hours for someone to even listen to their story. Oh good. Yeah, that checks. So when Mr. Grey was finally able to tell his story to a police sergeant,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there he found spatters of blood on the bedsheets. Yup. And the floor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it all matched up with what Grey had told the police. Right. It was the same room, the spatters made sense for what had happened. So when asked, Burke and McDougal gave very inconsistent stories about who the woman was, when she left, and this alone was enough for the police to be like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The next day, officers went back to Burke's home to do a more thorough search, and they found more blood stains, and they also found Mary Doherty's blood stained clothing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Meanwhile, additional officers, uhm, they also brought a police surgeon, Dr. Black, they all went to Dr. Knox's address, where they discovered Dockery's body, uuuh, body, sorry. Yeah. Dockery's body being readied for dissection. Oh my.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so they had the bloody clothing and the body now in their possession. And so now more officers were sent to Hare and Laird's boarding house where they were informed, where they informed Margaret Laird that Captain Stewart wished to see her husband.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So as uhm, as they had done with the grays, Laird tried to just dismiss the whole thing, the whole evening events are being misunderstood here, she overdosed, we didn't do anything, it was just drunken revelry, but she was very unsuccessful just as they were, and both Hare and Laird were taken into custody as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Burke and McDougal now were officially arrested after being questioned. Aaron Laird are just being brought in for questioning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So throughout the fall of 1828, Birkin hair made


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tons of reckless and very risky decisions. In the beginning, they were doing things pretty undercover. Mhm. They got so fucking reckless. It unraveled. Like it's really wild. It's a true downfall for them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wait until you hear the story he tells. Cause he told one story and now this is the other story he tells. So his first formal explanation for why Doherty's body was in his home, according to Burke, he and McDougal had begun their day like any other day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And while this stranger is, while he's working on the stranger shoes,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This stranger just drags a trunk into his house.


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[Assistant] While he's working on his shoes. This can't be real. And he's, and he's working.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's just working and he's like, I don't know why you have that crazy trunk in here, but that's fine. And Burke said, it's so weird. I could hear the man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Removing the ropes that were used to secure the trunk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I found, I, you know, I heard this sound of a man like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Burying something under a pile of straw, I think it was. Like that's the sound that I heard. No, I must go. And I think that pile of straw was next to the bed. Yea, it sounded like that. I, I've left. And he said, and then that man left.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then I discovered what that man had left in my house and I tracked him down and I demanded that he come back and he remove this body. And this guy said, sure, I will, but I can't come back until tomorrow morning to do it. And he said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay my guy, I guess. Okay my guy. He said alright, I guess I'll go back and just live with this naked dead body and a pile of straw in the corner of my bedroom for tonight. As one does. And then you come back and you take this out. And I didn't know him at all, but I just figured he was good on his word. Yea, you know, he seemed like a trustworthy guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This stranger, who literally approached me in town, I don't remember his name or his face, couldn't tell you a damn thing about him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He asked me to cobble a fucking shoe, I said, sure why not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You better come get that body out of my house. And he says, I'll do it tomorrow morning. And you say, I believe you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I believe you, sir. I think you will come back. I think you will come back and get this body. I'm shooketh. And he said this to investigators, like they were not gonna be like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are you really saying this story to me? A seasoned fucking investigator.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm gonna go, wow, what bad luck. What shitty luck Burke has.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and you know what's crazy? I met that woman earlier in the day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He couldn't stop. This isn't absurd enough. We have to add on to it. He goes, yeah, she was begging for money. And he said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Out of the kindness of my heart, I invited her back to my house for a meal and for some drinks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I send you back out to town and he goes, I never saw her again. Until that man left her dead body in my house. Like what a coincidence. And he says a day or two later, the stranger sent two men.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who Burke had never met before to retrieve the body. And he goes, one of those men who I had never seen before came to my house and his name was William Hare.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So now he is claiming that this stranger that dragged a trunk into his house that contained a dead woman who he had met earlier that day, brought to his house to feed and give drink because he was just so kind, sent back into fucking town to be murdered by this stranger that dragged her in a trunk in his house and hid her in a pile of straw in the corner of his bedroom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unbelievable. It's unhinged behavior. And this is fucking ridiculous. It's incredible that he told this story thinking it was gonna do anything but make everybody go wuh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you know why he- every part of the story makes sense for why he put it in there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As absurd as it is, he was trying to explain one why people, cause he knew he had been seen everywhere. He had been seen with this woman, he had been seen with


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's absurd. It's ridiculous. And I'm like, wow, you really hit every, you tried to hit every possible thing that could connect you to this and explain every part of this, but in the stupidest way imaginable. Seriously.


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[Assistant] Oh, uhm, yeaah, we spent the day drinking with William Hare and his lady, Margaret Laird.


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[Assistant] Thinking about Burke being like, and then these two men show up and they come to get the body. And I said, oh my god, this stranger's in my house coming to get this body of this woman that I, out of the kindness of my heart, I fed and I sent into town and then she was dragging it in a trunk into my house. This is wild. These two strange men.


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[Assistant] Cause they just came over and were like, hey, uh,


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[Assistant] Yeah, I murdered Mary Doherty and, um, several other people.


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[Assistant] So basically, the authorities in Edinburgh knew that in order to get a conviction, they just had to get the four of them to turn on each other. Yea, which was seemingly easy.


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[Assistant] It might have been because of his younger age or because Doherty's body had been discovered in Burke's house, but Lord Advocate William Ray, William Ray, he determined that hair would be the one most likely to turn on Burke.


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[Assistant] Okay. Because although what like hair, uh, Burke is agreeing that he knows hair, he hasn't thrown him completely under the bus yet. Hair also just like gives me more diabolical vibes. Yeah, and hair's gonna turn on Burke, he's gonna turn on McDougal, and they were like, he's gonna turn on Laird. I don't think he's got any kind of...


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[Assistant] Yeah, I think he's the aggressor. Okay, for sure, but they both are. But here's just something about him.


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[Assistant] I thought it was kind of funny that, like, Burke essentially, like, implicated hair already, but like, go off-king, I guess. Like, sure, hair's gonna turn on Burke. Sure. But despite that, Ray's assumptions seem to have been pretty well-placed because he offered hair immunity in exchange for a full confession and hair happily accepted.


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[Assistant] He said, glad that I got my neck out of the halter, and as for poor Bill Burke, well, he must go hang I suppose. Sold his friend right up the river.


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[Assistant] And was like, guess he's gotta hang. He never gave a shit about him. No, he didn't give a shit about anybody. I don't give a shit.


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[Assistant] From the moment they were arrested and put in a jail cell, all four of the accused were prevented from seeing or speaking to each other. They couldn't communicate at all until the trial.


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[Assistant] This makes it that it was probably a huge surprise to Burke.


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[Assistant] That hair had literally turned completely against him because he had no idea. He went into trial being like,


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[Assistant] And then it's like, all of a sudden Harry's like, I'm the star witness. It's like, what?


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[Assistant] Exactly. Like actual suffocating. He's like, are you fucking kidding me? So as, um,


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[Assistant] As Lisa Rosner pointed out, when the warrants for arrest and incarceration were handed down, Burke and McDougal probably had some idea that the Lord Advocate was being given information by either Laird or Hare. The Lord Advocate?


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[Assistant] Uhm, like the first warrant for the murder of Mary Doherty was sworn out against all four.


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[Assistant] And so was the second one, which was against James, was for the murder of James Wilson.


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[Assistant] And only after Hare's detailed confession, the warrant for Wilson's murder was amended.


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[Assistant] And was only against Burke and McDougal. No, no, no, against it. The same happened for the warrant for the murder of Mary Patterson.


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[Assistant] Which we only named Berk and McDougal as the perpetrators in that one too. So now Berk and McDougal are being...


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[Assistant] Like we said throughout this whole thing, it's very unclear to the exact extent that Helen McDougall played in these murders.


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[Assistant] She obviously participated in some way. Be it an outside, side thing, you know?


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[Assistant] She definitely had knowledge of what was happening there, like definitely had it. But throughout the murder spree and confessions, William Burke went to great lengths to completely distance Helen from any of the schemes and to protect her from any prosecution. And for that reason,


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[Assistant] Burke probably felt even doubly betrayed when he learned that hair hadn't just sold him out, but it also sold McDougal out. Right. Because throughout the entire thing he had tried to protect her.


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[Assistant] And it's like now he made sure to, like, and that's the thing, you know, hair was just so fucking happy to be able to put McDougall in that whole thing.


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[Assistant] Now, over the centuries after this, Helen McDougall's name has kind of disappeared.


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[Assistant] From the retelling of this story, like she's in there.


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[Assistant] But no one points to her as like, what the fuck were you doing? Yeah, exactly, I do. But at the time of Hare's confession, which they basically were, they were really going off of Hare's confession at this point.


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[Assistant] Uhm, he identified her as equally responsible for the crimes. And so Burke and McDougal were the only two prosecuted for the murders. Are you kidding me? Burke and McDougal were indicted December 8th, 1828 for the murders of Mary Doherty, James Wilson, and Mary Patterson.


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[Assistant] And they just wanted to see these ghouls. They had read a ton about them in the paper because there was tons of media surrounding this case.


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[Assistant] And after they read the indictments, both of the accused pleaded not guilty. Before the trial could begin, however, Burke's attorney argued it was inappropriate for his client to be tried for three unconnected murders.


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[Assistant] And after a long discussion the justices agreed with Burke's attorney and ruled in favor of trying one case at a time.


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[Assistant] So after they announced the decision, uh, Lord Advocate William Ray was given the opportunity to choose which charge he wanted to begin with, and he chose the murder of Doherty because he figured it was the strongest case. Right.


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[Assistant] So the trial went on with several witnesses saying they'd seen Doherty with Burke throughout the day.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and also because Blake, uh, excuse me, Burke, had claimed the woman was a heavy drinker, at least one witness refuted that claim, telling the jury she, quote, never saw her worser for liquor.


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[Assistant] He testified that it was Burke who plotted with McDougal to kill Doherty for money, and he said quote, he had an old wife in the house and that it was, it was a shot for the doctors.


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[Assistant] Lord Advocate, William Ray, and his assistant prosecutors were very, very deliberate.


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[Assistant] They were very careful to avoid any kind of question that might incriminate him.


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[Assistant] In any of the crimes. Well yea, I mean that makes sense. He did however, admit on the stand that he had sold the body to Knox.


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[Assistant] But his participation in the murder of Doherty was otherwise very minimized. Otherwise, his role in the actual murders? Completely ignored. There were no witnesses called by the defense. They just completely ignored it.


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[Assistant] Deliberated, uhm, it was a little after 8am on December 25th on Christmas. Oh my god, I'm surprised by that. Took about an hour and they returned a guilty verdict for Burke's participation in the murder of Mary Doherty and he was sentenced to hang. Merry Christmas, motherfucker! The charge against Helen McDougal was found to be unfounded.


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[Assistant] Oh. So that's why you don't hear her name and her guilty ass in this story. What's even worse is it's 100% a certainty that Margaret Laird was involved in the whole scheme. She was paid. But she got no consequences. And what about hair? Yep.


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[Assistant] It's so wild to me. Well, Burke did his best to shield Helen of consequences for his, for the crimes that they had committed.


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[Assistant] Uhm, it was really the defense attorney, Henry Cockburn, who saved her from having to hang. I mean yeaah. Throughout the trial, he painted a picture of McDougal as a dutiful wife.


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[Assistant] She knew what he would do to her, so she kept her mouth shut, and she did what she was told to do.


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[Assistant] And it was true that she hadn't informed the police of Burke's crimes, but it was only because she quote,


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[Assistant] Felt oblig- obliged to make false statements in order to protect Burke and avoid-


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[Assistant] Basically becoming destitute. And in this time especially, that is an argument. She didn't want to be thrown out on the streets because that was almost certain death eventually. And so they were basically being like she feared for her own life, which doesn't give her, like that doesn't spare her from being a criminal.


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[Assistant] Uhm, it also helped her case immensely that there was no evidence and no testimony that could even slightly connect her to the murders. Right. Which she was found not guilty in the end.


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[Assistant] Now on the morning of January 25th, 1828,


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[Assistant] Yep. And when he finished the dissection, Dr. Monroe apparently


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[Assistant] He did this thing and it's called an anatomist ritual, it was called, where he dipped his quill into the blood still contained in Burke's head and wrote the following declaration in blood.


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[Assistant] Like, and y'all were really God-fearing? I don't know about that.


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[Assistant] Uh, she was released from custody following the trial and she tried to go home.


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[Assistant] But she was met by a large group who'd assembled outside of her house and made it pretty clear


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[Assistant] But uhm, no one knows what happened to her after that. She left Edinburgh. Hit me up with the deets on hair. People do think she was killed by an angry mob or that she changed her name completely and lived in like, isolated somewhere. Wow.


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[Assistant] Uhm, I will say the family of Jamie Wilson. Yeaah. The uhm, the young man who everyone literally knew and loved. Loved. They protested against Hare's freedom. Good. And aggressively petitioned the government to reconsider the immunity he was given in exchange for his testimony. I bet.


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[Assistant] The public knew what he fuckin' did. And his very much equal participation in the murders, they knew about that too.


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[Assistant] It took less than a day for a mob to assemble outside the boarding house intending to, uh, kill him themselves.


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[Assistant] So she was released from custody in mid January and she left Edinburgh for Glasgow. And while she was in Glasgow, she was discovered by an angry mob and had to be rescued by the authorities who put her and her baby, she had a baby at this point, on a boat.


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[Assistant] Uhm, he definitely claimed ignorance, for sure.


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[Assistant] But he was confronted by authorities and they were like, you definitely knew something was amiss here. You might not have known the details.


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[Assistant] But it's pretty hard to believe that he had no idea that this, that they were possibly murdering people to supply him with bodies.


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[Assistant] Cause that last body had very clear evidence. Doherty had clear evidence of being strangled and he turned his eyes the other way. He also pretended like he didn't know that it was Jamie. But what's weird is Burke, when he confessed, went out of his way to clear knocks of any wrongdoing as well.


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[Assistant] He swore that Knox, quote, never encouraged, never taught or encouraged him to murder any person. Yeah, I'm sure he did and I think he just turned a blind eye.


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[Assistant] And it's like, yeaah, no one's saying, exactly, like no one's saying that he told you to go murder people, but like.


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[Assistant] He knew you were. He didn't tell you to stop murdering people. Exactly. And it's like luckily because you should definitely not be let off scot-free here. The public didn't forget his participation in everything either. Good. And after public outrage, he willingly resigned from his position. Bye bitch.


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[Assistant] And Knox left Edinburgh several years later and resettled in London where he died in 1882.


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[Assistant] And that is the story of Birkin Hair. Girl, that's a wild


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[Assistant] He's notorious. It's, and you know what? We, we got to, we're working on another one that connects to this case. Oh my good. And I think Dave described it as like a Hardy Boys, um, like a Hardy Boys book, but if there was serial killers in coffins. Yeah, that's exactly right.


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[Assistant] So it's gonna be great. I'm intrigued. This story just is like fascinating to me mainly because of the ending.


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[Assistant] William Hare just, I don't know what it is about him, but I'm like, you're scary, like Burke is scary, but like Hare, I'm like, something about you. And then the fact that he just gets away with it.


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[Assistant] I don't know. I don't know. I think, well I think there's a Buffy episode recently where it's like don't jump to conclusions.


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[Assistant] And it's like, I just took, I think she says like, I just walked around the corner and their conclusions were, yeah, exactly. I think this is the same situation. It's like.


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[Assistant] I don't think that's the leap, you just walked around a corner and their conclusions were.


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[Assistant] I don't know about you. They put fun clips in there and fun little sound things and it's like, it's so fun guys. Like that, that podcast gives us the most joy in the entire world.


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[Assistant] Fun, silly nostalgia. Yeah, exactly. And if you don't...


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[Assistant] Hey weirdos! It's me, it's Elena. What's going on? How's your day? I hope it's awesome. That's all I wanted to say.


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[Assistant] No, I'm just kidding. This is a message because I think a couple of episodes ago we talked about how we are going back to the OG way of doing things. We're doing two episodes a week, two big old honkin' delicious juicy episodes with one listener tale a month just as a little cherry little glitter on top of a


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[Assistant] Crazy month. And we're going to keep doing that, but I think we were also debating what days would be best for this new two episode a week cadence because we figured


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[Assistant] You know, from Wednesday to Monday is a long wait for us and for you. Too much. We'd all be sad.


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[Assistant] We don't want that. So we finally came up with a good cadence. We're gonna drop episodes on Monday and Thursday from here on out. So Mondays, Thursdays. That's when they'll come out on Wondery+. Then a week later, you will get them Monday and Thursday for everybody else.


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[Assistant] That's what we're gonna do. You deserve consistency. We wanna give it to you. I know we didn't do that in the first like three years. We were like willy-nilly. Whenever you get episodes, here it is. But you know.


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[Assistant] We're in that consistency train and we want to stay on that. And yeah, I think this is going to work for everybody. It just feels better. We don't want that big chunk of time between episodes. You don't either. Um, so yeah, that's what we're going to do. Mondays, Thursdays, new episodes.


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[Assistant] We're excited about it. It lets us really put more time and effort into these episodes, which is what they deserve.


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[Assistant] And what you deserve and we fucking love you and I can't wait to see you every Monday and Thursday. I know I won't see you. I realize that I won't even hear you, but it feels like I will and you will hear me. So we're all in this together. We're best friends. Thanks guys. Mondays, Thursdays.


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[Assistant] There's, you know what, there's been a lot of stuff going on lately, not with us. Not with us. But with a certain reality show that we have talked about many, many times that I know a lot of you watch.


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[Assistant] First and foremost, I think we said it on the JVN episode, but uh, team motherfucking Ariana. Yeah, in case you don't know, we're talking about Vanderpump.


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[Assistant] You described, I think somebody described it as Chandler.


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[Assistant] Cheating on Monica with Rachel and Joey knowing the entire time in case you do not watch Vanderpump Rules and you need a frame of reference. Yes. But like, I feel like even if you don't watch Vanderpump Rules, you've been hearing like the echoes. I was actually getting my Botox done yesterday and I had a new girly like injecting my face and she said, I was like,


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[Assistant] Do you watch Bravo? Like, do you know what's going on? She was like, so I don't, but I know everything that's going on. But I know the exact situation you are referring to. And I think a lot of people are in that situation, like the people that don't watch. And here's the thing, if you don't, like, if you don't watch it and you don't give a shit about this, don't worry.


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[Assistant] We're getting into a true crime case in a couple minutes. We just, I know a lot of you do. I know a lot of you with me. So we're going to chat about it for a minute because


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[Assistant] I swear, if I say to John on the couch at night one more time, if I just look up from my phone and go, alright, so one more thing happened, he's, and he,


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[Assistant] Okay, alright, I was like, I knew that would getcha, but- It's never the same as talking to somebody who like- Who's been there since the beginning. Because we started Vanderpump Rules together in 2014, I had just graduated high school, and I would skip going to college all the time and just do like my college classes, I don't even know what the fuck they were called, and I just would go to your house and we would-


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[Assistant] Like literally eat, sleep, breathe Vanderpump rules. It's, it's a really unique reality show in the way that it just, it rarely stops giving.


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[Assistant] Rarely. Rarely. There are a couple times, like- Here's the thing. Two or three years, but we stuck through them. We stuck through the Valley Village, um, you know, purchases. We stuck through them trying to introduce an entirely new cast. That didn't work out. But we hung in there. And we got Charlie out of it. We got Charlie out of it. I'm a Charlie stan. We, you know, and now, uh, we have always loved Ariana. Never wavered.


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[Assistant] And Rachel. And Rachel. But it's like, like we need to talk about this just for a second.


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[Assistant] Tom Sandoval dressed as his mistress for Halloween in front of Ariana. That's another level of like deep-seated evil. And then Rachel posed for a picture with him dressed as her.


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[Assistant] Knowing full well they were having a full blown affair at the time. In front of Ariana. Do you understand that when the two of them come out and go,


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[Assistant] Yes, we're so sorry. We're so sorry that we hurt people and Rachel's like, I'm gonna work on myself. It's like, fuck both of you. And are you kidding me? Her saying that she needs to heal?


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[Assistant] Uh, what about Ariana, dog? Well it's just, I'm sorry, you're coming out and you two are saying we're sorry? We never meant to hurt anyone? Oh my goodness.


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[Assistant] But you dressed as your mistress for Halloween in front of Ariana while you were having an affair. No one believes that you're sorry! You can't do that. You created an entirely false story to make it seem like Schwartz was the one, like,


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[Assistant] Fuckin' around with Rachel and also that was fucked up in and of itself because he was hot off a divorce with one of their fucking cast members and friends. And I like Katie. I like Katie too. And I feel like that was created and hurt Katie. It did hurt Katie. You put Katie in a position to be hurt just so that you could save the weird


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[Assistant] Like, bro code that these dudes have is unlike anything I have ever seen. Oh my god, I was just gonna say I've never seen anything like it. It goes beyond...


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[Assistant] Like this plane of reality. It does. Because they will sacrifice everything about themselves for their dudes. Mhm. For their bros. And it's like no, there is a time where you need to go


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[Assistant] They were together for like, Arianna and Tom were together for nine years.


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[Assistant] Purchased a home together, like she has a dog that like I'm sure Tom became like a dad to. Married for all intents and purposes. I mean, that's common law marriage, what is it? It's seven years, right? Yeah, and it's just-


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[Assistant] Like when you drink, I wouldn't let you around my man, which is like, whoa, you gotta really take a look in the mirror if somebody's saying that to you. And then Rachel's response was,


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[Assistant] Good thing you don't have a man for me to be around. Whoa, you are gross, my friend. Christina Kelly wrapped it up perfectly when she just pulled back the covers to protect herself from Rachel and was like,


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[Assistant] Christina Kelly's, like, coming back this season is everything to me. I always thought she was hilarious. Everything. And we never got enough Christina Kelly. No. But if you listen to somebody else's podcast, like back when you could, uhm, you would get a lot of Christina Kelly. Yeaah. And I loved that. It's true. We love a Christina Kelly moment. We do.


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[Assistant] Honestly, the whole thing is wild. It's insane. It's getting wilder by the day. And the, the other thing too is like, so like everything is coming out online, but then the season is airing right now and we are watching it now through such a different lens. Because as things are happening right now,


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[Assistant] The affair is already happening. Like right now? So you're watching it and you're like, oh no. And it just breaks my heart for Ari. It's so nice to see.


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[Assistant] Cause we've gotten a lot of messages that are like, I am a Bravo like head and I want to talk about this. So yeah, we just had to get this out because guys.


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[Assistant] Yeah. But you know what, we just, we had to get that out. I'm so stressed. And you know, I'm sure we'll have something else to.


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[Assistant] No really, uh, good way to transition out of that and into a true crime case. It's just that's a terrible situation, but my goodness is this a worse situation. This is a very sad situation. This case is rough. It like, it hurt me.


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[Assistant] We'll talk about it. One of the headlines in this case, you read it and you're like, wait, what? So then you start reading more and you're like, oh, okay, well that's layered. Yeah.


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[Assistant] So it all starts on the afternoon of October 22nd, 2010. So it's not old timey guys, it's 2010. Ash brings it newer. Of course. Sometimes. Most of the time, but today.


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[Assistant] So 15 year old Rebecca Aylward left her house in My Stig. I looked that up and I really hope I'm saying it correctly. My Stig is in Wales. Uhm, Rebecca had plans to go meet her ex-boyfriend in a wooded area just outside of Aberkenfig, which I also looked up and I hope I'm saying correctly.


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[Assistant] Now, she was under the guise that they were actually going to be reconciling, because they had recently gone through a breakup, they were-


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[Assistant] Going through hard times, you know, and, but this she was really excited about.


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[Assistant] Okay. So, she told her mother, bye mom, I love you. As she grabbed her purse and walked out the door.


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[Assistant] And unfortunately, that would be the last time that Rebecca's mother would see her alive.


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[Assistant] So let's talk about who Rebecca was. Uh, she really went by Becca. So Becca Oatley-Ellward was born on


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[Assistant] She was the first child of what would eventually be three kids. And she was.


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[Assistant] Beautiful. And she had one of those faces, and we always say this but I mean it.


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[Assistant] She had one of those faces where you would see her in a crowd and be like, I wanna be that girl's friend. Like, that girl looks cool. She had the perfect scene bangs, because this is 2010. And I tried to cut those, and I was like... We all tried to have those. We all did, but Becca had them. Yeah, she did. When she fucking rocked them. But beyond looks, she was also a very smart girl.


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[Assistant] Uhm, her mother Sonia said, she was born inquisitive and I knew from well before she could even speak that she was a bright girl. A girl who took everything in. Like she was very astute.


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[Assistant] She was also just a really easy child to raise and to be around. She loved being with her parents. She was really close with her mom.


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[Assistant] And when she was little, she loved playing dress up in her mom's closet. She put together like different outfits and accessories and she'd throw the heels on and it's just like pure. I love it. I love that.


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[Assistant] Now when she entered primary school, she was still known to be pleasant and easygoing. Her parents, er, her teachers would always tell her parents that they wish they had a class full of Rebecca's. Ugh, right?


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[Assistant] And of course, as a parent, that's everything you want to hear. Oh, that's exactly what you want to hear. And of course, again, it speaks to who Becca is, but it also speaks to who her parents are. Yeah, absolutely. Like, raising a great daughter. For sure it does.


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[Assistant] So, her natural curiosity and love for things like reading and writing, those things made her a good student, but she also stood out in other ways. She would always stand up for other students.


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[Assistant] And her willingness to help was extra appreciated at home, because like I said, she was the oldest and she took that role as oldest very seriously.


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[Assistant] Her mom would always say that she was like a little mum. Ooh, little mum. So when her sister Jess was born in 1980, or excuse me, 1998,


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[Assistant] Becca loved helping with the little baby and it was just like awesome. She would get her


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[Assistant] And then five years later, she had a little brother Jack and he was born and her little mum instinct had not gone anywhere. It was still there.


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[Assistant] So when she entered her teen years, she started thinking more and more seriously about her life beyond secondary school. And by the time she went into high school, her mom recalled that she had already got her life mapped out, she said.


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[Assistant] Sonia wrote that, uhm, in her book, and she said that Becca was a great student who studied hard. She wanted to pursue a law degree when she went to university. Damn.


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[Assistant] And her ultimate goal was to one day become a barrister. Oh, okay. An intense lawyer. A very intense lawyer. You know? That's how I looked it up. That's the definition. That's what Google says. It says barrister. Very intense lawyer. A very intense lawyer. Look it up. Esquire. Esquire. Yeah, I forgot that part. Of course.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, of course, she also had less career oriented and like more romantic goals for herself. Yea, of course. Relatable. Now, according to her mom, she would quote, spend lots of time planning every last detail of her wedding, drawing her ideal wedding dress right down to the flowers that she'd have in her bouquet. She's multifaceted. Multifaceted, and I just like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, she met a prospective love interest named Joshua Davies in 2008, and he quickly became a regular presence in their family home. This family welcomed him with open arms. That makes me even sadder because I don't think this is going to be a good thing. That's a pretty good feeling you had right there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, mom Sonia would later say pretty much right off the bat Josh was loved and accepted by everybody in the family. And especially that Becca's little brother Jack really started to look up to Josh the more and more time they spent together as like a big brother.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At an age where most teenagers started kind of pulling away from their parents, Josh actually seemed like he enjoyed hanging out with Becca and her family. And like wanted to be, like, as a family unit. And that's, you want that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Totally. And he especially liked Sonja, like he found it easy to talk to Sonja, and at the time Sonja felt like it was easy to talk to him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They would talk about music a lot together because they both really loved music.


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[Assistant] And Sonya would end up telling reporters in 2018, I liked him before it happened. He was okay. He was always polite and nice. No bad language. He seemed like a decent boy. We all knew his family. His younger brother was friends with my two younger ones.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this is like a community of people. And these are always the things that stress me out so much is when you hear them, like, people be like, He was in my home. Like, I liked him. There was no reason to think anything different. It's like, that is the scariest thing. Because there's no warning sign.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's exactly it, because I think a lot of times when we say this, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now in retrospect, obviously, Sonya could see that there were red flags indicating that Josh might not have been as nice and polite as he appeared to be. There were times where he would stay over for like no reason.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Sonia didn't know why, but she would tell Jack to put his things away, especially his toy swords or like potentially hurtful items. It was like she subconsciously wanted to keep these things away from Josh. Like a mother's instinct.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, this is like he was racist, so if you don't want to hear that, skip forward a little bit. There was an incident where they were watching television together, and they saw members of the KKK, and Josh commented that he wanted to join the KKK.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Time to get out. Time to get the fuck out of my house and time to get the fuck away from my kid. And his actual comment was like way more explicit to the point where I didn't even feel comfortable repeating it here. I'm sure you can find it in an article if you would like to know. But it was horrible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in the moment, Becca being, I mean, this is in front of her family, so that's putting her in a real shit position of like- Yea, cause she's like, what the fuck? Where did that come from? Yea. So she lightly scolded him, but she tried to play it off like he was kidding. Remember, she's 15. And she's probably hoping he is. She's exactly hoping she is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She's like, that is not a joke. And that's not what we are about in our house. That's not our humor. Yeah, she didn't like that. So she ended up, when Josh had gone home, talking to Becca about it. And she was like, what was that about? And Becca ended up telling her mom how uncomfortable she was and how shocked she was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she said later on actually, her and Josh got into an argument about it. Oh, and it makes me so sad because that's exactly-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How this should have gone. Mhm. Where like you didn't escalate things, you didn't, you didn't make it a scary situation because if he says something like that, you're like, okay, I don't know what you're capable of here. So when he leaves...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The mom did the right thing, Sonia did the right thing, she walked up, she told her daughter.


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[Assistant] She talked to her afterwards and her kid felt the same way. Exactly. It's like that is like a really good relationship and it makes me so sad that it couldn't have translated into...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's such a difficult situation after that because it's like now you have to...