Possibly two of Scotland's most gruesome imports were the serial killers William Burke and William Hare. Burke and Hare hailed from Ulster and moved to Scotland to work as labourers on the Union Canal. Ever aware of a market to meet, Burke and Hare set themselves up as procurers of human bodies to satisfy the demand of Edinburgh's medical schools.

Originally the two would dig up the graves of the recently departed in the dead of night, steal the body and then sell it for cash to a doctor for use during anatomy demonstrations. Sounds like hard work and Burke and Hare must have thought so, too, because they decided there was no need to go digging. The two entrepreneurs started murdering people in Edinburghs old town and selling the cadavers of the victims to the medical schools on an 'ask no questions basis.'

The murder of their 16th victim led to their arrest, along with Burke's mistress and Hare's wife, yet the courts had little evidence with which to conduct a successful prosecution. The Lord Advocate, Sir William Rae, offered Hare immunity from prosecution if he would turn King's evidence. The evidence Hare and his wife provided sent Burke to his death on the gallows on 28 January, 1829 while his mistress Helen MacDougall escaped when the charges against her were found not proven.

William Hare is said to have died a penniless pauper in London in 1859, while Robert Knox - the doctor who bought most of Burke and Hare's bodies so willingly - was never prosecuted.

Burke and Hare killed their victims by strangling them using a method they had perfected which left no obvious trace of foul play and little evidence of the murder which they had committed. Burke and Hare are remembered in Scotland with a degree of romantic nostalgia. They were after all a most unusual couple of serial killers.