Dismemberment in Victorian London: The Thames Torso Murders. By Shane McCorristine
One of the most disturbing unsolved murder mysteries in London’s history began on the morning of 5 September 1873 when a Thames policeman rowing on the river found the left quarter of a woman’s torso in some mud off Battersea waterworks. On the same day other policemen found the right side of a […]
A Historical Long View of Posthumous Harm: Comparing organ snatching to body-snatching. By Floris Tomasini
Improper Procurement and Retention Taking organs of dead children without parental permission at Alder Hey is a practice The Economist (2001) dubbed the ‘return of the body-snatchers’. There is a historical affinity between the practice of body-snatching in the Georgian period and ‘organ snatching’ at Alder Hey some two hundred or so years […]
The Bloody Business of the Bloody Code: Dissecting the Criminal Corpse. By Elizabeth Hurren
Imagine hearing local gossip that a notorious murderer was about to be executed, and that everyone in the vicinity of a homicide was planning to turn out to see the violent culprit punished in Georgian England. Getting to the gallows to secure a good spot would mean having to take an unpaid half-day off […]
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