Robert Knox regular basis. After 16 more transactions, in what became known as the West Port Murders, on 2 November 1828 Burke and Hare were caught, and the whole city convulsed with titillated horror, fed by ballads, broadsides and newspapers, at the terrible deeds of the pair. Hare turned King's evidence, and Burke was hanged, dissected and displayed. Knox was not prosecuted, which outraged many in Edinburgh. His house was attacked by a mob of 'the lowest rabble of the Old Town,' and windows were broken. A committee of the Royal Society of Edinburgh exonerated him on the grounds that he had
The Murders in the Rue Morgue in the Life of Vidocq, the French Minister of Police". Poe would likely have known the story, which features an analytical man who discovers a murderer, though the two plots share little resemblance. Murder victims in both stories, however, have their neck cut so badly that the head is almost entirely removed from the body. Dupin actually mentions Vidocq by name, dismissing him as "a good guesser". Poe originally titled the story "Murders in the Rue Trianon" but renamed it to better associate with death. "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" first appeared in "Graham's Magazine" in April 1841 while