The Resurrectionists

Of course, while not murderers, there were a few stories of famous body snatchers to be had around the time too. The most well known were a band led by "Merry Andrew", an unusually tall and gaunt man. His trio was made up by the physically and mentally deficient "Spune" and the mercenary former plasterer, "Moudewart". These three were infamous for their antics and their colourful characters among the medical fraternity, who sometimes even took it upon themselves to play jokes on the trio, telling them of dead bodies where the poor "victim" was still very much alive. In one case, however, a set of body snatchers found that this could be the case, even in extreme circumstances.

Greyfriar's Kirkyard was the scene of many a stolen body, so much so that relatives would often post a constant vigil at the graveside of a recently deceased relative until they were sure it had decayed enough to be of no use to the snatchers. It is said that one night, a group had dug up the body of a recently deceased old woman and found her to have been considerably wealthy, with a number of valuable rings on her hands. As was their wont, the ghouls began the task of removing the jewellery by cutting off the woman's fingers, but as the first cut was made, the woman sat bolt upright in her coffin and screamed in pain! She was not dead at all, but accidentally buried alive, having been in a trance like state. Sadly, this was not an uncommon occurrence in the days of less advanced medical science, and many coffins have been subsequently uncovered with terrible scratches and gouges on the inside of the lid, where the occupant had clearly awoken to find themselves six feet under…

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