William Hare (serial killer)

William Hare

William Hare (* 1792 or 1804 in Newry (Northern Ireland) or Derry ) was the main accomplice of the serial killer William Burke in the West Port murders . Together they killed 16 people in Edinburgh in 1827 and 1828 in order to sell them as anatomical corpses.

resume

Hare emigrated to Scotland and worked on the Union Canal. He later settled in Edinburgh, where he met a man named Logue. After he died in 1826, he led a common-law marriage with his widow Margaret Laird . Together they ran the cheap pension where the series of murders took place.

In return for his release, Hare confessed his involvement in the murders and testified against Burke. As a result of this statement, he was hanged .

Hare was last seen in the small English town of Carlisle after his release in February 1829 . There are contradicting statements about his further fate afterwards, so that no reliable statement is possible. On the one hand, it is reported that he was thrown into a lime pit by a lynch mob , went blind and died as a beggar in London in 1859 . On the other hand, it is alleged that he had traveled to the Northern Irish town of Kilkeel , volunteered at the workhouse there and was only discovered when a certain Doctor Reid, who had studied in Edinburgh, recognized him.

reception

In 2010, director John Landis filmed the story under the title Burke & Hare . Actor Andy Serkis took on the role of William Hare .

literature

• G. Macgregor: History of Burke and Hare and of the Resurrectionist Times. 1884.
• H. Douglas: Burke and Hare. 1973, ISBN 0-7091-3777-X .
• OD Edwards: Burke and Hare. 1993, ISBN 1-873644-25-6 .
• B. Bailey: Burke and Hare: The Year of the Ghouls. 2002, ISBN 1-84018-575-9 .

German-language literature

• Hans Pfeiffer : Der Zwang zur Serie - Serial Murderers Without a Mask , Militzke Verlag, OA (1996), ISBN 3-86189-729-6 , pp. 16–36 ( online (pp. 7 ff.)) , Accessed on May 30 2014