URL last accessed March 4, 2006. Pressing is a form of torture or execution that works through asphyxia, e.g. burking.
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193, 807–808. His father was a sea captain who died when Johnny was about fourteen; his mother also died when he was a teenager. Burke continued to live with his sister and brother on Prescott Street in St. John's until his death."De-Burking Johnny Burke, an Excluded Canadian Troubadour".
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The term "burking" comes from the method William Burke and William Hare used to kill their victims during the West Port murders. They killed the usually intoxicated victims by sitting on their chests and suffocating them by putting a hand over their nose and mouth, while using the other hand to push the victim's jaw up. The corpses had no visible injuries, and were supplied to medical schools for money.
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In some cases, when performing certain routines, smothering is combined with simultaneous compressive asphyxia. One example is overlay, in which an adult accidentally rolls over onto an infant during co- sleeping, an accident that often goes unnoticed and is mistakenly thought to be sudden infant death syndrome. Other accidents involving a similar mechanism are cave-ins or when an individual is buried in sand or grain. In homicidal cases, the term burking is often ascribed to a killing method that involves simultaneous smothering and compression of the torso.
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An anatomy murder (sometimes called burking in British English) is a murder committed in order for all or part of the cadaver to be used for medical research or teaching. It is not a medicine murder because the body parts are not believed to have any medicinal use in themselves. The motive for the murder is created by the demand for cadavers for dissection, and the opportunity to learn anatomy and physiology as a result of the dissection. Rumors concerning the prevalence of anatomy murders are associated with the rise in demand for cadavers in research and teaching produced by the Scientific Revolution.
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Although there were no specifics, law enforcement sources cited evidence that the death scene had been staged, as well as witness statements implicating Murphy and Tabish. Detectives had suspected for some time that Murphy and Tabish had been romantically involved, and had learned that Binion suspected Murphy was cheating on him. In June 1999, Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish were arrested for Binion's murder, as well as for conspiracy, robbery, grand larceny and burglary. The prosecution contended that Murphy and Tabish had conspired to kill Binion and steal his wealth, drugging Binion into unconsciousness and burking him, a form of manual suffocation.
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Creswick was born near Covent Garden, London. He was intended for a mercantile career, but the death of his father when Creswick was 17 left him free to follow his theatrical vocation.Shaw, Robert Gould. Exhibition of prints and playbills to illustrate the history of the Boston stage, 1825-1850, pp. 82–83, Boston: The Club of Odd Volumes (1915). Under the name of "Master Collins" Creswick appeared in 1831 at a theatre in the East End, playing an Italian boy in a drama on the subject of "burking" (murder with the motive of selling the victim's body to anatomists).
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An anatomy murder (sometimes called burking in British English) is a murder committed in order to use all or part of the cadaver for medical research or teaching. It is not a medicine murder because the body parts are not believed to have any medicinal use in themselves. The motive for the murder is created by the demand for cadavers for dissection, and the opportunity to learn anatomy and physiology as a result of the dissection. Rumors concerning the prevalence of anatomy murders are associated with the rise in demand for cadavers in research and teaching produced by the Scientific Revolution.
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Irish Settlers in Vermont In Vermont Fr. O'Callaghan was known for his campaign against Usury. In 1834, O'Callaghan self-published a book (entitled Usury, Funds, and Banks : Also, Forestalling Traffick, and Monopoly, Likewise Pew Rent, and Grave Tax, Together with Burking and Dissecting, as well as Gallican Liberties, are all Repugnant to the Divine and Ecclesiastical Laws, and Destructive to Civil Society, to which is prefixed, A Narrative of the Author's Controversy with Bishop Coppinger, and of his Sufferings for Justice Sake) in which he gives a brief autobiography and a detailed description of his controversy with Bishop William Coppinger.
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For these reasons, legislation from the 19th century on has focused on removing the motive for murder by providing legal sources of cadavers for medical research and teaching. In Great Britain, the Anatomy Act of 1832 provided for cheap, legal cadavers by turning over the bodies of those who died in caretaker institutions to medical schools. Although there were public protests at using the bodies of the poor as raw material for medical students, proponents of the Act were able to use fear of burking in order to get it passed. The Massachusetts Anatomy Act of 1831 was also inspired by the anatomy murders.
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In 2010, the self-described historian Don Shelton questioned the methods by which Smellie performed his research. In the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine he suggested that Smellie and his collaborator and later competitor William Hunter were responsible for multiple murders of pregnant women in order to gain access to corpses for anatomical dissection and physiological experimentation. Due to the inadequate match between supply and demand of corpses, scientists had to find other means, often requiring illegal methods, to obtain access. Shelton proposed that these two physicians used what would later be named "burking", after murderer William Burke, who killed 16 people in collusion with William Hare, selling the bodies to anatomist Dr. Robert Knox.
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