Criminalia

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William Cunningham, the Ghoul of Cincinnati May 24, 2022

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Resurrectionist William Cunningham was actively stealing bodies from grave sites around Cincinnati from 1855 to 1871. He was well known, and he was something of a legend. He once returned to the same gravesite at which he had earlier been caught digging – after he’d bought those who had detained him a drink. He dressed the bodies he stole. And, he had a “villainous bald head.”

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Cranioklepty, Skulduggery, and the Time of Phrenology May 17, 2022

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Snatching bodies from graves to sell them to medical and anatomy schools was once a super-common reason for disinterring corpses, but it’s definitely not the only reason people have disturbed the dead. And as strange as this may sound, it turns out many people have had their skull stolen from their grave -- sometimes for research, sometimes for ransom, and sometimes, because they were considered prized possessions.

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Meet John Hunter, the Patron Saint of Body Snatchers May 10, 2022

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So far in our season of body snatching, we’ve been looking at things mainly from the point of view of the snatcher. But we’re going to change that up a little. Scottish surgeon John Hunter was “the patron saint of the body snatchers.” What do you have to do to earn that title? Well. Let’s find out.

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Burke, Hare, and the Anatomy Murders of Edinburgh May 03, 2022

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Contrary to popular belief, the famous body-snatching duo of William Burke and William Hare were not actually body snatchers. They never robbed graves at all -- they had their own way of supplying anatomists with fresh corpses, and it didn’t involve the graveyard. They simply killed people. And a new word was coined from the pair’s murderous practices: ‘burking'.

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William Jansen, a King Among Ghouls Apr 26, 2022

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He was hardly the only professional body snatcher in Washington, D.C. in the late 19th century, but William M. Jansen is definitely one of the most colorful. He snatched the body of Charles Shaw, and sold it. And then he stole it a second time. And it all happened within 36 hours of Shaw’s death. Here's how it went down.

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The Body-Snatching ‘Borough Gang’ of London Apr 19, 2022

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Welcome to first episode of a new season of Criminalia. This season we're talking about body snatchers, and the bodies they snatched. Ben Crouch was the son of a carpenter, and was a well-known prizefighter in his day. He’s described as a tall, flamboyantly-dressed man with a pox-marked face who loved to wear gold jewelry, especially gold rings. He could be violent and intimidating -- and he was the leader of London's most notorious group of body snatchers in the 1810s.

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Welcome to Season 6 of Criminalia: The Resurrectionists Apr 12, 2022

Show notes

In season 6 of Criminalia, you can expect to hear about those who dug up the dead for cash. Grave robbers dug up graves to steal valuable items that had been buried with the deceased. As did tomb raiders. They were known to take everything but the body. Body snatchers and resurrectionists, though, stole bodies from graves. The first recorded case of body snatching is attributed to four medical students in Bologna, Italy, in 1319 -- and we'll start there, to find out why.

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Welcome to the Season 5 Finale of Criminalia: Top 3s Apr 12, 2022

Show notes

Holly and Maria continue their tradition: At the end of each season, they pick their favorites shows and favorite cocktails and mocktails. Tell us about the stories and drinks you liked best on social media – #criminalia. Let's see which ones we have in common.

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Defamation and the Devil: False Accusations of Witchcraft Apr 05, 2022

Show notes

Let’s talk about witch panic. If your crime is not of being a witch, but rather of falsely accusing and then punishing an alleged witch, what led up to that moment? Well, probably more than one thing. There’s a lot of talk about the religious factors that have long been part of purging witches, and while that’s often a fair explanation based on the time and place, it’s not the only explanation. Misogyny. Jealousy. Dreams. Lots of things are in this cauldron.

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April Fools' Day: Did Alchemy Prank the Modern Sciences? Mar 29, 2022

Show notes

There’s no mistaking that alchemy laid a foundation for the modern science of chemistry. And though the contributions of alchemists have been dismissed by scholars for years – centuries, to be more accurate -- some of the names we recognize as being influential in the early days of our modern sciences were also alchemists. Whether it was known they were practicing alchemists, that’s a different story.

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