At ten o’clock on the morning of 24 December 1828, William Burke and Helen M’Dougal were placed at the bar of the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh. Since daybreak, an immense crowd had gathered outside the doors, where the city constabulary, reinforced by two infantry detachments, struggled to preserve order around the courthouse. The indictment encompassed three distinct deaths: Mary Paterson, who had vanished in the spring; James Wilson, familiarly known as Daft Jamie, slain in October; and Margery M’Gonegal, designated Docherty in the libel, who had crossed Burke’s threshold on the final day of October. It fell to the Lord Advocate to establish not merely that the woman had perished by violent hands, but that her remains had been conveyed to the anatomists for dissection.
The Court determined that the several charges in the indictment should be tried separately, electing to proceed first with that concerning Docherty, which alone implicated both prisoners at the bar. Burke and M’Dougal pleaded not guilty. The contemporary chapbook recording the proceedings lays great stress upon the agitated state of the public mind, asserting that the jury remained unswayed by the tumult; yet within the courtroom, none could ignore the gravity of the stakes. Witnesses were called to recount an evening passed within four narrow walls, an elderly stranger far from her home, cries piercing the dead of night, and, come daybreak, explanations that failed to agree.
Ann Black testified that she had observed the woman Docherty in Burke’s dwelling on Friday, 31 October. The stranger claimed to be seeking intelligence of her son and possessed not a penny. She declared that Burke had offered her a meal and a night's shelter. Black saw her take food, then share in the liquor; the visitor appeared slightly intoxicated, yet in sound health. Later that night, Black heard a violent disturbance in the adjoining room, resembling a quarrel between Burke and Hare. On the following morning, when Black inquired after the old woman, M’Dougal replied, according to her deposition, that she had turned her out of doors for having grown too familiar with William.
This explanation was not the only version offered that morning. Another neighbour deposed that M’Dougal had spoken of a scuffle between the two men and repeated that Docherty had been thrust into the street. Burke, meanwhile, was seen sprinkling whisky over the bed and up toward the roof, professing a desire to empty the bottle so that he might fetch more. A heap of straw lay piled at the foot of the bed. Two neighbours had thus received the selfsame tale: that Docherty had departed after giving offense to the mistress of the house. It remained only to trace a woman whom no eye had seen take her leave.
Hugh Alston, a grocer, chanced to be near the close that night. Between eleven and twelve o’clock, he overheard two men speaking in angry tones, followed by the cries of a woman shrieking "murder" and calling upon the watch. He ran to summon an officer but found none; returning to the mouth of the passage, he heard only muted voices. Alston saw no blows struck nor any struggle upon the floor. His deposition fixed the tumult at a particular hour, while the absence of the watch at his return left the chamber closed to all immediate inspection.
David Paterson, porter to Dr. Knox’s rooms, laid before the Court the path leading from the squalid lodging to the anatomists’ market. On the previous evening, Burke had spoken to him in a whisper of a "subject" for the doctors, indicating the straw beside the bed. Paterson saw no corpse at that moment. The following day, Burke and Hare brought a package packed into an old tea-box to Dr. Knox’s establishment. Paterson was instructed to hand them five pounds, which he divided between them, with a further payment promised once the body had undergone examination. When the officers subsequently opened the box, they discovered an elderly woman doubled up within, with blood about her mouth. Paterson judged the appearance consistent with strangulation or suffocation, though he discerned no external marks sufficient of themselves to account for death.
The testimony of Mrs. Gray connected Docherty’s final hours directly with the discovery of the body. She had lodged for some days beneath Burke’s roof. On Friday evening, she had left the old woman singing and dancing alongside M’Dougal and Hare. Returning on Saturday morning to search for her child’s stockings, she found Burke jealously guarding the straw and dashing spirits about the room. Later, when left alone, she and her husband searched beneath the litter and uncovered the corpse. Mrs. Gray described seizing Docherty’s arm and perceiving blood about the mouth. Upon leaving the premises, she demanded an explanation from M’Dougal, who allegedly offered her hush-money, even promising ten pounds a week to ensure her silence; Mrs. Gray swore that she rejected the bribe and raised the alarm with the police.
The Crown rested further upon the testimony of William Hare, an eyewitness within the chamber, who was warned by the Bench that he must speak the whole truth upon pain of forfeiture of his immunity. Hare stated that a brawl had arisen between himself and Burke that evening, during which he had thrust Docherty, who was heavy with drink, against a small stool. Burke, he testified, straightway threw himself upon her, compressed her mouth and nostrils until she was suffocated, and then concealed the body beneath the straw. Hare thus admitted his presence without professing any attempt to intervene; his evidence was paramount for the prosecution, yet profoundly self-interested on the part of the witness.
Hare’s wife corroborated portions of his narrative, though her words left significant ambiguities unresolved. She stated she had seen Burke stretched above the victim, though she could not affirm whether his weight bore down upon the chest or upon the mouth. She also related that M’Dougal had spoken of a "shot" procured for the doctors. The medical men summoned to inspect the body found neither natural disease nor mortal wounds capable of explaining the decease. Dr. Black concluded that death was violent, resulting from suffocation; Dr. Christison held violent death to be highly probable. The medical evidence supported the hypothesis of homicide without singling out the hand that had executed it.
At the close of the evidence, the credibility of the witnesses became the core of the arguments. The Lord Advocate contended that the depositions formed an unbroken, compelling chain. Burke’s counsel countered that the fact of murder rested entirely upon Hare and his wife, whose acknowledged complicity and personal interest rendered their testimony thoroughly tainted. For M’Dougal, Henry Cockburn likewise assailed a witness who, having confessed to murder, sought to preserve his own neck by laying the guilt upon another. The Lord Justice-Clerk addressed the jury at great length, his charge occupying two hours and a half.
At half-past eight in the morning, the jury retired. Fifty minutes later, they returned a verdict finding Burke guilty, while for M’Dougal they brought in the Scots verdict of "Not Proven," which acquitted her without declaring her innocence. The Court sentenced Burke to be hanged on 28 January, directing that his body be delivered over to the public anatomists for dissection. In passing sentence, the judge recalled the treacherous promise of meat and lodging made to Docherty, who had sought a lost son only to find an unholy grave; the very man who had welcomed her had marked her body for the dissecting table. The law thus visited upon Burke the exact fate to which he had consigned his victim.
On 3 January 1829, a confession attributed to Burke before the Sheriff enumerated sixteen victims, among them Mary Paterson, Daft Jamie, and Docherty, asserting that Hare had borne the principal part in the slaughters. This catalogue widened the panorama of their crimes, though it bore no legal force as judicial convictions. For the kin of those who had vanished, it raised tormenting questions: who had harboured their relatives, who had looked upon their remains, and where had they found their final resting place?
The pamphlet concludes with an account of the execution. A vast concourse had assembled at daybreak upon the Lawnmarket; their roars accompanied the condemned man to the scaffold. Voices in the crowd cried out for Hare and Knox as well, demonstrating that the execution of a single felon had not slaked the public fury against the illicit trade. Once the body was cut down, spectators scrambled for fragments of the rope or shavings from the coffin. The constables struggled to hold back those who sought to lay hands upon the corpse. The man who had consigned Docherty to the anatomists had himself become the object of a macabre curiosity.