Burke and Hare murders two men were hanged in December 1831 for the crime. A bill was quickly introduced into Parliament, and gained royal assent nine months later to become the Anatomy Act 1832. This Act authorised dissection on bodies from workhouses unclaimed after 48 hours, and ended the practice of anatomising as part of the death sentence for murder. The events of the West Port murders have made appearances in fiction. They are referred to in Robert Louis Stevenson's 1884 short story, "The Body Snatcher", and Marcel Schwob told their story in the last chapter of "Imaginary Lives" (1896), while the Edinburgh-based author
Witness of Truth: The Railway Murders executive producer. Other notable cast members include Mark Spalding, who co-starred alongside Higginson in "The Bill" in 1995, Caroline Woodruff, Joanna Monro and Robert Swann. The film broadcast at 22:35; subsequently no viewing figures for the programme were recorded by BARB. The film has never been repeated and remains unreleased on VHS and DVD. Witness of Truth: The Railway Murders Witness of Truth: The Railway Murders is a British television docudrama, first broadcast on 11 December 2001, that dramatises the crimes committed by John Duffy and David Mulcahy, commonly known as the "Railway Rapists" or "Railway Killers". The film, produced