Revulsion over this case and others led to the review of the system of providing corpses to medical science. In 1832, MP Henry Warburton's bill to regulate the supply of bodies and make grave-robbing a felony was passed. With the stroke of a pen, the government had finally seen sense and brought this particular skin trade to an end.
But there is another character, albeit a bit player, in this drama whose fate is worth mentioning – John Broggan, the man who had accepted money to keep quiet about seeing the body of Ann McDougall in Burke and McDougall's house. He had made off with the money and, in July 1829, was arrested in Glasgow for attempting to murder a man with laudanum.
The appearance of this drug in connection with the Burke and Hare case is interesting. For, while the furore over the West Port murders continued to rage in the early part of 1829, another pair of serial killers was operating. And their favoured method of murder was this opium-based narcotic.
7
TIPPING THE DOCTOR
Catherine Stuart, 1828
The nightmare was always the same. She awoke to find him watching her from the walls of the room. No matter which way she turned, his pallid face gleamed in the dark, his accusing eyes burning into her soul. Even when she closed her eyes, she still saw the hellish vision. Liquor could not wash it from her mind nor could tobacco burn it from her conscience. Night after night, he visited her, torturing her, reminding her of her crime, of the life she had helped take.
Her partner was of stronger mettle and saw no such spectres in the night but he was fearful his wife's distemper would prove their undoing. He tried to calm her, to reassure her, but still she was tormented by the nocturnal terrors. So they suffered and they fretted and the woman, at least temporarily, regretted the course their life had taken.
But it did not stop them from killing again.
Catherine Wright met John Stuart in Dumfries in 1827 and he probably led her astray. He was already an experienced thief but not yet a murderer. When he did take that step, however, his wife would be by his side to administer the poison that would claim up to eleven lives.
Stuart's real name was Bradfoot and his poor Irish parents rented a small farm in Galloway. However, the farm failed, either through misfortune or their own mismanagement, so they sent their son to Glenluce to work. He worked as a blacksmith for a man who was described as ‘pious, benevolent and good-hearted’. His employer found his young charge to be ‘industrious, sober and frugal’. But this was not destined to last. It was the love of a woman that caused the change in young John Bradfoot's personality.
In 1823, at the age of twenty, he married a young girl from a respectable local family. The girl's family disapproved of the match, believing their daughter had married beneath her, and made their feelings more than evident every single day. At first, young John tried to ignore their jibes and snide remarks but then something snapped and he knew he had to get away. He had no way of knowing that, by joining the Marines, he was going to affect not only his life adversely but also that of his delicate young wife, who was not coping well with her family's rejection. She did not take readily to life as a soldier's wife and, soon after arriving at Chatham Barracks, she took ill and died. Bradfoot obtained a pass to go back to Scotland with their only child but he failed to return.
Now a deserter, Bradfoot underwent the personality change that was to lead him to theft, murder and ultimately the gibbet. He was a tortured soul with low self-esteem and this confusion of the mind led his old friends to shun him. From there it was but a short step to fall into the company of ‘idle and unprincipled profligates’. He moved around the country, stealing what he could, although he was too fearful to attempt anything as daring as housebreaking or highway robbery. According to a report on the case in The Scotsman, ‘sheep stealing was his boldest adventure’ although he did prove himself to be ‘a pretty dexterous pickpocket’, targeting county fairs. He also gambled extensively and learned the delicate art of cheating in order to reduce the possibility of losing any of his ill-gotten gains. He did, however, at one point manage to stage a break-out from Stranraer Jail. Later, while on remand for murder, he would plot a more adventurous and bloody escape from Edinburgh's Calton Jail.
For two years, he ran with a band of coiners and passers of forged bank-notes from whom he learned some brand new skills. He was smart enough to realise that he could not escape the interest of the law forever and that the perils of being caught increased along with the number of accomplices a man had. There is no such thing as honour among thieves, he knew, and it was certain that, if any of his partners-in-crime were caught, he would inform on the others faster than a man could be turned off the gallows.
So, using his new-found skills, he went into business for himself, operating first in the Borders then taking up residence in a small room in Dumfries. He proved adept at forgery, devising his own moulds and dyes, but he also took odd jobs, including work as a blacksmith, to explain the cash he often had to spend.
It was around this time that he met the young girl who was to be his second wife. Born in Glasgow but raised in Dumfries, Catherine Wright was aged around twenty and was bowled over by Bradfoot – or Stuart, as he was now calling himself – who could be a charming fellow when he wasn't blind drunk. By all accounts, they were very much in love and were married, fittingly for a man who worked in a smithy, over the anvil in Gretna. Together they began a two-year-long crime spree. He showed her some of the tricks of his new trade and they ran up a wad of counterfeit cash. They then embarked on a tour of Scotland, Northern England and Ireland to convert the forged notes into coin of the realm. Unfortunately, they seemed incapable of hanging on to their ill-gotten gains, both having a weakness for strong drink and debauchery.
Stuart was growing tired of coining. He needed a new outlet for his criminal talents and apparently he found it during one of his trips away from Dumfries. While travelling between Edinburgh and Biggar, he met an old acquaintance, who was then preparing to rob a genteel family while they were ‘wrapped in profound repose’. The old partner-in-crime told him this was to be his last such job for he had discovered a much more lucrative way to make a living. He planned to use drugs, specifically laudanum, to render victims senseless so they could be plundered at leisure. The idea appealed to Stuart and he returned to Dumfries to outline the new trade to his wife. She agreed and they set off immediately for Glasgow.
Laudanum really was the opium of the masses. At the time it was used extensively among the poorer classes as a medicine and a means of dulling the harsh realities of their life. Stuart called their method of robbery ‘tipping the Doctor’. The problem was that neither of them had any experience of administering such a sleeping draught so Stuart took the dangerous step of experimenting on himself first by taking different doses. They did enjoy some success in Glasgow but had the sense to realise that lingering too long in one place left them open to having their collars felt.
Then they killed their first victim.
They befriended a quiet, good man with few friends. Catherine poured him some liquor, laced with the laudanum, while her husband exuded bonhomie. The little man, the poisoned drink in his hand, was just grateful that he had at last found good company in which to spend a few hours. He thanked his hosts for being such kind people and then drank deeply. His new-found friends then robbed him blind and left him to die.
This was the man in Catherine's nightmares. And they would not let her rest. Although concerned that her discomfort would bring the law down on them, her husband refused to leave her and determined to help pull her through. He did a good job for she managed to keep her niggling conscience under control enough to allow them to pursue fresh victims. ‘The Doctor’ was, once again, back in business.
According to one report, a man was killed in full view of the customers in a tavern in Glasgow's Bridgegate. The Doctor had duly done his job and, while the patient was slumped senseless, they rifled his pockets and relieved him of 30 shillings. They told the publican that t
he man was their brother and that they would leave him there to sleep it off while they went off to find lodgings. Naturally, they never returned. Another victim was said to be a drover in Ireland, who was drugged and robbed of the 20 or 30 sovereigns he had hidden in the tail of his coat.
No one knows exactly how many men tasted the Doctor's medicine and awoke to find themselves somewhat ill and considerably poorer. It was believed the Stuarts killed three men during this time although, according to the press reports, Stuart later confessed to eleven murders in total. The pair's downfall, though, was the robbery and murder of a Hebridean businessman in December 1828.
When farmer, merchant and father of four, Robert Lamont, left his home on the remote isle of Ulva with his cousin John on his annual trip to Glasgow to buy tea, sugar and tobacco, he was in fine health and had in his possession a black leather pocket book containing £10 in bank notes, a £2 note from the Leith Bank and 7 guineas in bankers’ notes, as well as some silver coins in a black silk purse.
On 15 December at Lochgilphead, the fifty-year-old boarded the Royal Mail packet steamer, the Toward Castle, travelling to Glasgow from Inveraray. It was while in the steerage compartment, where drinks were sold, that he fell in with what he called ‘fine company’. Unfortunately for him that fine company included John and Catherine Stuart, who were already drinking with a Mrs Catherine McPhail and her granddaughter. Mrs McPhail was a hawker and sometime smuggler, who was raging over the fact that a customs officer had impounded two kegs of whisky from her baggage. The nice young Mrs Stuart was trying to cheer her up with a glass of porter when Robert Lamont joined them. He instantly called for another bottle but was informed there was none left. They would have to make do with gills of whisky and strong ale, which was taken into the charge of Mrs Stuart.
For some reason, they were all forced to drink from the same glass and, when it came time for a refill, John Stuart distracted everybody's attention while his black-gloved wife poured. John Lamont, though, refused little more than a few sips, finding the ale somewhat bitter. Mrs McPhail, who admitted she was no stranger to strong liquor, also declined to sup much from the bottle, despite Mrs Stuart's sharp order, ‘Damn you – drink it all!’ The woman was resolute and the glass passed to Robert Lamont.
However, when it was Mr Stuart's turn, the company was treated to a minor domestic dispute. As he raised the glass to his lips, his wife angrily slapped it from his grip and damned him for a blackguard, telling him he must not get himself drunk. She then refilled the glass from her bottle and handed it to Robert Lamont. He was about to decline but she insisted, saying, ‘It is your drink and you must drink it.’
John Lamont decided he'd had enough of the stuffy but highly charged atmosphere below decks and went topside for some air, leaving his cousin with the Stuarts. On deck, he felt extremely ill, being racked by ‘a severe griping of the bowels’. From then on, he vomited every half-hour. When the vessel reached Paisley Water, he went back down to fetch Robert to prepare for their arrival in Glasgow. He found his cousin alone ‘and in a fit of insensibility’, his head slumped between his knees and unable to either speak or move. In John Lamont's words, the man's ‘limbs refused to perform their office’. Knowing that copious amounts of beer had been flowing, John at first presumed Robert Lamont was drunk but he also suspected that he had been robbed. A swift check of his pockets proved this to be correct. The black leather wallet lay on the floor beneath his feet but it was empty. Gone also was the silk purse.
When told of this, William Stewart, master of the Toward Castle, was not surprised. He had been involved in an earlier encounter with the Stuarts, soon after they had come on board at Inveraray. When asked for the money for their fare, they had said they were near penniless, having left all their belongings on the ferry bound for Belfast. The ferry had docked at Inveraray because of poor weather and had then sailed without them earlier that day. On the Toward Castle, they had paid their passage as far as Greenock but, later, were in sufficient funds to cough up more cash to take them all the way to Glasgow. Captain Stewart recalled they were both somewhat the worse for drink.
After discovering the robbery, John Lamont reported it to the captain who found Mrs Stuart alone below decks. She explained her husband was in the water closet and, when the man came out, the captain asked him about their erstwhile drinking companion. Stuart said the man had got so drunk they had been forced to leave him. When Stuart was asked how much cash he had on him, he claimed it was about £20, despite having earlier pleaded poverty. He agreed to a search and, sure enough, was found to have £19 7s. He was also found to have a black silk purse similar to the one previously carried by Robert Lamont. The purse itself was distinctive, as the man's daughter had sewn it herself. Meanwhile, a small square bottle smelling strongly of laudanum was found in the water closet John Stuart had so recently vacated.
By this time, the boat had berthed at Glasgow's Broomielaw and three doctors were called. They immediately suspected Robert Lamont had been poisoned and, when told, a weak and pale John Lamont said, ‘If he was poisoned, then I have had a glass of it.’ Mrs McPhail was also vomiting copiously and it was clear they had a touch of whatever ailed the still insensate farmer. They were luckier than he was to be, though, for, despite the medical treatment, Robert Lamont died at 5.30 a.m. the following morning.
There was little mystery as to the cause of death. Doctors had pumped his stomach when they boarded and found that the contents smelt strongly of laudanum. Meanwhile, his vomit was gathered into a glass jar and given to the police. The doctors believed the symptoms exhibited by the dead man were consistent with laudanum poisoning and of such a considerable dose that its odour could be detected over the stench of the beer.
In Glasgow, William Davie, the Assistant Town Clerk, questioned both John Lamont and Mrs McPhail. He called for a bottle of strong ale, tipped a penny's worth of laudanum into it and asked them both to take a sip. They promptly confirmed that it tasted similar to the ale served by Mrs Stuart on the boat.
The Stuarts had already been arrested and taken away for questioning. It was clear there was sufficient evidence to charge the husband and wife team of murder and send them for trial in July 1829. John Stuart, however, was not prepared simply to sit in a cell and wait for the machinery of justice to stretch his neck. He planned a daring escape with another eight men, described at the time as ‘stout and desperate ruffians’. The plan was to murder a warder, take his keys, then rampage through the prison before killing the depute governor. This daring bid for freedom was set to take place the day before Stuart's trial. An alternative plan was also hatched. This involved the use of whatever weapons they could gather – including a wooden seat they had prised from its bolts on the floor and some metal spikes sawed from railings and sharpened into daggers – to fight their way out, killing anyone who got in their way.
But someone talked, as someone often does, and their schemes were uncovered. The spikes were found hidden in Stuart's cell and, when challenged, he said, ‘It was no more than anyone else would have done.’
The trial began with some legal jiggery-pokery concerning the indictment, which stated that, on 15 December 1828, they ‘did both, and each or one or other of them, go on board the Toward Castle steamship plying on the River and Firth of Clyde from Inveraray to Glasgow and, when the said steamship was between Tarbert and Glasgow, they did wilfully, wickedly and feloniously administer to Robert Lamont, a passenger, a quantity of laudanum, being a deadly poison’. Lamont, it said, lingered in a state of utter insensibility until the morning of 16 December 1828, when he died.
The defence contended that the indictment was incompetent because it did not state how the deadly poison was actually administered and pointed out that it might have been for ‘laudable purposes’. In other words, the Stuarts – if they had, indeed, slipped him the alleged Mickey – might have done so for the good of his health and with his consent. If that was the case, it was gamely argued, they should not be charged with th
e capital crime of murder but with the less serious crime of culpable homicide – or manslaughter, as it is known outwith Scotland. Also, it was pointed out that the indictment did not specify exactly where death occurred. It could have been anywhere between Lochgilphead and Glasgow. For all the court knew, it could have been in England. The medical treatment the man received was also raised. Mrs Stuart's advocate demanded to know if Mr Lamont's stomach had been pumped and if every precaution had been taken to lengthen or protect his life.
All this was just a brave attempt to stave off the inevitable. It was argued that the indictment did not need to state where the man actually died and the attempts made to revive him would soon be made clear. As for the possibility that the drug had been administered for altruistic reasons, the subsequent robbery showed that this was not the case. The Lord Advocate dealt with each objection and presented arguments that convinced the bench to deny the defence's objections. Meanwhile, the witnesses were paraded before the fifteen good men and true of the jury.
According to the prosecution, Stuart was apt to boast about his crimes. Certainly, even today, criminals can establish their place in the prison pecking order by crowing to fellow convicts over the charges lodged against them. However, it is unlikely that quite so many of them confess to complete strangers as the prosecuting authorities claim. In this case, one Malcolm Logan, who was doing six months for handling stolen goods, told the court that Stuart had said that his wife kept the poison in the square bottle and that it was she who had dropped the poison into the ale. After they had drugged and robbed Mr Lamont, Stuart then took the bottle and flushed what was left of the laudanum down the water closet. However, no amount of rinsing out could wash away the strong smell from the bottle itself.
Deadlier Than the Male Page 10