Thinking Sideways: Arthur's Seat Dolls

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys, exciting news. I'm really really stoked about this.
On March seventh, at noon Pacific Standard time, Team Sideways
is going to host an a m A on the
Unresolved Mysteries subreddit on Reddit. Pretty exciting. Hell yeah, yeah,
So the mods will post an announcement a week prior,
so if you can't join us at that time, at

(00:21):
that date, you can post your questions there. Um, please
don't email us questions will lose them and forget them.
Let's try and contain this just to Reddit. But we're
super excited and uh yeah, so if you can join us. Sorry,
just in case somebody you know, five years from now

(00:41):
I was listening to this episode, not two thousand seventeen.
This is not true yourself two thousand seventeen. Sorry, thinking Sideways.
I don't under to say you never know stories of

(01:03):
things we simply don't know the answer to. Hey, guys,
what's up sinking side With the podcast? I'm Devin hosting
super Well, joined by my co hosts and Steve Yeah,
here's one for you. In eighteen thirty six, five boys

(01:28):
were hunting rabbits in the northeast area of Arthur c Edinburgh.
Pro tip if you are boys hunting and you find
something even remotely weird, just just walk away, just walk away.
The number of cases that we cover that start out
in this way is mind boggling to me. It's boys,
specifically young boys groups as young boys find something and

(01:50):
then think, oh, I know, let's go investigate that. Why why?
Because they're boys. The ten year old boy in me
come completely identifies with the boys in this story absolutely.
You know, if you if you have the potential to
kick off a really cool unsolved mystery, and then you
should should not turn your back on that as long
as it doesn't involve you getting killed. No, it's mostly

(02:12):
just playing with stuff, yeah, throwing stuff. I just think
we should start keeping a counter. These kids were kind
of jerks, but we'll get into that later. Yeah. So, okay,
the boys were hunting wabbits. Wabbits kill the wabbitibbit, kill
the labbit, and they came across the cave. Zwinks they

(02:36):
better check that out, so they did. Inside they found
seventeen small caskets and a pile. And by the way,
this wasn't really a cave. It was kind of like
kind of like a hole inside on the side of
the hillside. My story is so much better. Cave is cool.
Cave is cool. No, it was found a torch, an
old torch, and they lit the torch and they walked

(02:57):
into the cave. But it didn't really happen that way,
and it didn't happen that it kind of an alcove area.
Three pieces of slate covering. I don't know. There were
seventeen small caskets and a pile, eight on the bottom,
eight in the middle, and one on top. And upon
further investigation, guys so smart, they found that the caskets

(03:22):
contained a small wooden doll in each one, carved to
look like a human, clothed and small handmade garments. The
dolls were said to be about the size of an
adult finger, so three or four inches long. The doll,
not the cast. Yeah, the doll, okay, yeah, just making
sure being boys, dumb, stupid boys. Hey, Instead of running

(03:47):
to the police or the adult with this fine, they decided, oh,
you know, it would be awesome, Let's just throw all
these things at each other. This is the equivalent of
a dirt wad fight. You find something and you throw
it at your friend to make them run. And screened
this is why the ten year old boy loves this story. Somebody. Yeah,
I mean it's like, you know, at that age, I

(04:08):
probably would have done the same thing. I would be
because of this. Only eight of these dolls remained. They
were destroyed. Most of them were destroyed. Yeah, and before
we go much further, this is the Arthur Seat murder dolls.
And it was listener suggestion about a million years ago

(04:30):
from Thomas all right, ready to keep going. Yeah, creeping
me out, kind of creepy boys throwing caskets and each
other creeps you out a little, tiny caskets. It gets
a little creepier, a little creepier maybe. Anyhow, it's not
clear how the eight remaining caskets that did make it

(04:54):
made it back to civilization, well, in any kind of sense.
The boys were never questioned, they never gave any statements.
It's unclear if they told their school teacher or he
overheard them talking about how much fun it was that
they were throwing coffins at each other. Was it the

(05:15):
school teacher or their head master head I thought it
was the head master. Somebody involved in school, okay, who
happened to also be an amateur archaeologist. Because that's what
you did in those days, right, So he heard the
boys or the boys told him or something. Maybe one
of the boys had a black guy, and he was like, wow,
that happened. He was like this dude through and he

(05:39):
was like, okay, we'll tell me more. Either way, somehow
the dolls made it back. And again it's not clear
even if it was only the eight dolls or all
of the dolls or what happened, but only eight of
them really survived. Yeah, thanks have a way sort of
like disappearing. Yeah, let's talk about the dolls for a
seconds more. I guess a little more. We've talked about
them little bit already. There are some reports that there

(06:03):
are both male and female dolls, but I don't actually
think that's the case. I would agree with this, And
like I said, only eight of the dolls survived, but
none of them, as far as I can tell, were
dressed as women. And let's be fair, if you're going
to make tiny little doll clothes, it's way easier to
make a skirt than it is to make little trousers.

(06:23):
But they all had little trousers on the ones that
weren't decayed, didn't didn't They weren't where the trousers so
right with legs, because I mean these things didn't have
individual legs. They they did, did they had? Yeah? They had,
they had, and they had a pair of legs. They
weren't just like a stub that had some kind of
feature carved into them to give the appearance there were

(06:44):
two individual legs and little pants on them, little pants
on them. The dolls in the bottom coffin seemed to
have been older and more deteriorated. Some of the garments
were rotting away or totally rotted away, you can see
in some of the pictures this. The middle tier seemed
to have looked more recent, and the top one apparently

(07:06):
looked almost brand new. And again, in fairness, this is
I'm not it's not clear how this information was relayed. Yeah,
the kids probably upset the site quite a bit when
they pillaged it so they could throw stuff at each other.
So these were found in Arthur's Seats, which is in Edinburgh,

(07:26):
scott Scotland. Is that right? Yeah? Did you do any
research on that site by chance? Like pertaining to what? Well?
I just I pulled a Joe and I went Google mapping,
and then I started researching it. Did you know that
that's actually an old volcano, which is really cool. Yeah,
it's also only about two miles away from the ocean,

(07:48):
the North Sea, right, not the ocean. It's it's really weird,
raised out raised chunk of earth in the middle of
a town. So it's just it was really interesting to me,
and that's why I was just asking. Yeah, it's a
pretty cool all spot. It's one of the only fully
green spots on Google in Edinburgh because the rest is
a town. Back to the dolls, there were two different

(08:12):
kinds of coffins, one carved more rounded, one a little
more square. The different kinds of coffins, however, don't seem
to have been exclusive by tier. They were all inter
mingled when and and this is I saw this in
the photos of people might not understand this when you
say rounded versus square. The square was really more just

(08:33):
a rectangle, just simple straight pieces of wood, and the
rounded it only looked like somebody had basically carved off
the corners to smooth it out a little bit. So
that was the only style difference I saw. That was
my impression too, Okay, not that some of them were
circles and some of them Yeah, that would be super weird.

(08:55):
It also seems that the dolls were not actually made
for this purpose. Men any of the dolls were missing
limbs arms. Specifically, they all had their legs, I think,
so that they would fit inside the coffins. And in fact,
it's a bit odd that the coffins weren't made to
the size of the dolls. That's one of the things
that sort of made me wonder too. Yeah, it doesn't

(09:16):
seem like maybe they were always meant to be together,
but the dolls do seem to have been from the
same set. They all seemed to be almost identical. The
theory is that they were a set of soldiers, toy soldiers.
There were markings around the feet that looked like they
had once been painted, like they were little booties, black booties.

(09:38):
Were they painted or were they blackened? I got the
impression that they were black and almost with soot or
a candle or something. It's a cheaper way to do it.
You just grab a chunk charcoal out of the fire,
you know. Well, yeah, I know, And this is why
I didn't. I didn't. I never saw anything said specifically.
Some said they were black and some said they were

(09:59):
black and that was my too, so I just said painted.
But you're probably right. It probably was something more like
charcoal or something like that, which wouldn't last as long,
but who cares. They were worried about that. The legs
were carved in a way that seemed to note kind
of a rigid, upward standing post, like standing at attention

(10:20):
if you're a toy soldier. Yeah, And in fact, upon
further inspection, it was discovered that they would stand straight
on their own if a small amount of weight was
added to the front of them, like a musket. The
arms that were missing would have held a musket. It
would have been on like a bandolier across their chest

(10:40):
or something tripod kind of like long across their chest,
just like hanging there. So it wasn't actually going to
touch the ground, Okay, I got I got the impression
that it was that you see soldiers, you know, let's yeah,
you know, holding their gun against the ground, so they
make a tripod. That wasn't my sense. It was that

(11:03):
they would have had something else lashed them. I will
believe you, because I'm not positive I didn't go as
far down in this one. Yeah, that's probably true. It
was like I said, they were probably toy soldiers, and
they probably had muskets or something like that, so they
would stand upright in that situation and quickly. I want

(11:25):
to address the rotting because the different It was initially
suggested that perhaps they were of three different ages, that
the bottom ones had been placed much earlier than the
middle ones, and the middle ones placed much earlier than
the top one, or that perhaps the top tier was
in a work in progress or whatever. But I do

(11:47):
want to just mention anybody who's ever had like a
woodpile may know that things rot from the bottom because
that's where the moistures end. So those would have, even
if they've all been placed at the same time, would
have absolutely rotted much quicker and would have looked as
though they were much older than the middle and top ones.

(12:11):
Tears tears, will call them tears, Yeah, tears good, Yeah, yeah,
because you're gonna have fungus and bugs and just plain
water damage in general to that would yeah, it makes
total sense. Yeah. So, like I said, there was the
original thought that they had been placed at different times.
I don't think that's true. I think it was probably

(12:32):
at the same time, maybe a short period of time
but definitely no more than twelve years, which I guess
is kind of a long period of time that has
got a long period of time. Yeah, I mean, I
definitely if it was me doing this, I would have
done all at once, just to save myself a lot
of trips up the mountainside. Yeah. Well, but that's that's

(12:54):
inferring that if somebody's putting their these in that location
for specific reason, that it's one reason and not a
reason that reoccurs over a period of time, because I
know some of the reasons that they would happen we're
going to talk about in the theory section. So that's
that's a big presumption. I have to say, I'm going

(13:16):
to do it just this way because it's easiest. No, Actually,
what I really would have done pitched him out in
the trash, but yeah, not broken. I would have got
to the hassle of making them little coffins. I would
have just like tossed them but given them too. Obviously, Yeah,
obviously I've got I've got different motivations than whoever with
these things there. And here's where I get to actually

(13:36):
nerd out a little bit to help justify my no
longer than twelve years things, because I'm really excited about this.
I am a bit of a historical fashion buff you
as you to know sitting in this room with me,
and this is where don't talk anymore. There was a
lot of analysis of the textiles and notions. And notions

(13:56):
are like thread and buttons and the other miscellaneous things
other than just the cloth that you would use to
create something in case you didn't know what those things were. Anyways,
there was a lot of analysis happening on that aspect
of the dolls. Since it was it's pretty well recognized
that they probably were tour soldiers and they came from

(14:17):
the same set. It's hard to glean a date from
that because they could have been years old by the
time they were placed in the coffin. So they thought, well,
let's look at the fabric, which I think is great.
If you look at the pictures of the dolls, it's
fairly clear to say that they're not really clothed for burial.

(14:37):
That is to say, they're not in the traditional burial
clothes of the time. It's more of a garments kind
of representing clothes every day where, or maybe not garments
at all, just to cover basically chunks of cloth that
they just put over the top of them, right, Yeah,

(14:59):
except that they weren't actually just placed on top of
them like a blanket. They were actually sewn into sleeves
and pants. In fact, some of the dolls that were
missing arms also there are not armholes where an arm
would have been. The seam is sewn up over that
missing arm. So they were clothed for the purpose of

(15:21):
going into those coffins once the coffins were made to size,
which is fairly interesting. No, you guys are looking at
me like this is boring. Well just I just this
is this fashion with thread count and notions are I
don't get it? Yeah, so this is the this is
actually the bit. I'll just get to the bit that
excites me a lot. The curator of European Textiles at

(15:42):
the National Museum of Scotland looked at these garments and
she noticed that the thread that had been used in
some of the garments with three ply cotton thread. This, okay,
three ply though cotton threats. So you know applies are
because you buy toilet paper. Yeah right. The reply is
there's three layers. Yes, two ply is two layers and

(16:05):
single ply is one layer. Never used single ply, right,
Why would you ever do that to yourself? It's awful.
But the same thing goes for thread. You can make
thread with just one strand, or you can make it
with multiple strands. It's stronger. So it's three strands wound
around each other pretty much. Yeah, okay, I've got it.

(16:26):
This is significant because the kind of thread, this three
ply cotton thread wasn't even remotely available prior to eighteen twelve,
and didn't become readily available and used until the eighteen thirties.
So that can help us give a bit of a
timeline for these garments. And it is fair to say

(16:47):
that the some of the other garments were sewn with
two or one ply thread, so they could have been
sewn earlier at the same time. You know, people don't
just pitch stuff out right. I mean, I've got I've
actually got sewing thread that I inherited from my mother,
and you know who knows she might have inherited from
her grand because why throw it out? Yeah, there's a

(17:10):
couple of loops that you hang onto him for a
quick stitch job. Yeah, So this allows us to date
the dolls as having likely been interred between the eighteen twenties,
mid eighteen twenties to mid eighteen thirties, likely eight eighteen
thirty five, just for convenience sake, I would say it's
a pretty good time frame on cotton thread. So at first,

(17:34):
the suspicion was that these dolls were related to witchcraft.
That's what which I mean, this is kind of late
for the witchcraft bandwagon. It's not the sixteen hundreds. Probably
at that time, probably still a lot of people are
kind of believing in that stuff. Well, it turns out
as recently as some women in Russia were murdered because

(17:57):
they used folk magic on some people. They were burned
at the stake. No, I mean even in the even
in the twenty one century. I mean, there have been rumors,
rumors of witchcraft started in some countries in Africa, and
next thing you know, people are getting killed because of it. Yeah,
so it's still going on. Yeah, people thought maybe because
they were mixing voodoo and witchcraft. Up, I'm not totally sure.

(18:19):
I'm not up on my witchcraft stuff. I guess I
should go back and do some learning. I didn't realize
that they used dolls, but I guess the theory was
that maybe the dolls were used to symbolically confined victims
to their tombs forever. Well, the dolls could be there.
An effigy and effigies have a pretty long history and

(18:45):
they've been used for lots of things, traditional burial things
when a sarcophagus is not the right thing. But if
you see the old stone carvings of kings that sit
on top of their their caskets, that's an effigy. But
effigies have been used in all scales for all kinds
of practices through time, so an effigy can easily be

(19:08):
linked to it. And I don't think it has to
just be a voodoo saying fair. Yeah, and I guess
we're in Theories's just keep talking about theories. Another primary
early theory was that these dolls were meant to represent
an effigy a bit sailors who had been lost at sea,
to give them a sort of ceremonial burial. And like

(19:29):
we said earlier, Arthur's seat is just about two miles
away from the coast of the North Sea. It does
overlook the sea. It's pretty It's the kind of place
you might bury somebody you cared about, even if only
in a four inch long doll. That makes sense, But
you would think that would be some sort of memorial marker.
You would think that you would also think that there

(19:51):
would have been some sort of record of the loss
of seventeen souls. I don't think they bothered again, Okay,
I'm going to point out a fallacy in that that,
which is you're presuming that all seventeen died at the
same time. We're we're giving a ten year range for

(20:12):
these things to have been interred, which means that even
if it wasn't over that ten year time span, there
could have been time between them being put in there.
So it could be I knew Steve and Joe went
on this ship, and then that whaling ship sank, so
I made effigy so I could bury them at home,

(20:34):
and then of course, and then the next is the
next ship that you know a couple of guys are on,
and so it could have built up that way. So
I mean, we've got to be careful of saying they
were all interred at the same time with that idea.
That's fair, That's totally fair. I guess I just think
there's a cooler theory out there. I hate I hate

(20:55):
this one. Why do you want to talk about that
first or do you want to talk about it after?
Let's wait till after. No, let's talk about your feelings.
Let's not you know, I'm not a big talking about
my feelings guy. Podcast therapy session. This is not that podcast.
Are you guys ready? Are you guys up on your
early nineteenth century murders in Scotland? Yeah, some listeners maybe

(21:19):
as well, So you might know these guys, William Burke
and William Hair. Yeah. Burke and Hair were Irish born
immigrants to Scotland. They are so famous, in fact, that
there's apparently a British term called Burking, which is derived
from Burke's name. So why are they famous? You may
be asking if you don't know, if you're not up
like we are on our early nineteenth century murders in Scotland.

(21:41):
Well for killing people, of course at the killings. They
are the guys behind what's known as the Westport murders,
and they killed sixteen people in ten months. But Devin,
you're yelling undoubtedly at your iPod in the car and
people think you're crazy. There were seventeen calls. Well, kind listener,

(22:02):
that's interesting because Burke and hair were killing folks to
sell to a doctor to dissect, and they actually sold
seventeen bodies. The first one died of natural causes. That
was there, like introductory, that was their inspiration. It's like, hey, wow,
they thought, oh, let's sell him. And then they're waiting
for somebody else to die natural causes, and they thought,

(22:23):
let's just rush the process a little bit. Yeah, the
first so he expired of natural causes, and they they yeah,
they basically realized how much money they could make and said, hey,
why don't we just kill some people sell their bodies.
What did they get? They sold it to a professor,
a doctor named Dr Knox, who is using him for lectures.

(22:45):
That's what it was. Okay, so they actually sold the
first body for a hefty seven pounds ten shillings, which
doesn't sound like much now, but is about the equivalent
of one thousand, two hundred and six dollars and cents
or about eight dred and six pounds in two thousand fifteen. Yeah,
I gotta tell you that that really wouldn't be enough

(23:06):
to incent about a murder somebody. In fairness, it's not
nothing for just finding a body talking about murdering bucks,
I might be tempted. That's a good point. It gets better.
Doctor Knox offered any bodies that they bring him further,
particularly if they were mostly healthy and just died of like, oh,

(23:28):
I don't know, asphixiation or something. He would pay them
ten pounds a body, and I'll do some quick I
did some quick math, and that meant that they in
ten months they would have made a handy twelve thousand,
four hundred and ninety six dollars in today's But there's
actually a better calculation for what it is actually equivalent
to with the cost of living. Blah blah blah, blah blah.

(23:48):
If you want to find out how I got this number,
you can email me. I will tell you all about it.
I don't know for everybody, but it actually is about
the equivalent of two hundred and ten two dollars in
ten months by selling seventeen bodies and murdering sixteen people.
Murdering I don't know for two hundred and eleven. It

(24:12):
wasn't like Hardy got him drunk and suffocated them. Anyways,
The murders were okay. The murders and the one death
were hugely sensationalized and Harren Burke were caught and tried.
This is super cliff notes version of this story because
this is not what the story is about. But essentially,

(24:34):
the prosecutors were under the impression that Harron Burke would
just say no, he didn't, no, he didn't know, he
did he did, and the jury would get confused because
people were dumb then, apparently, and they wouldn't convict either
one of them. You know what, I think the jury
probably would have convicted both. I agree, I think they
probably would have too. But because of this, the prosecutors said, oh, well, actually,

(24:55):
you know what, Hair is kind of the dummy of
the two, so they offered to allow him to become
what's do what's known as becoming King's evidence, which basically
means for immunity rats out. He said, yes, I will
do that, and it worked, and in eighteen twenty nine
Burke was convicted and hanged. Actually he was convicted Christmas

(25:18):
Eve and executed a month later. You gotta love it, because,
I mean, that doesn't happen in this kind. It takes
it takes thirty years at least. But here's the best
part is that the judge and his sentencing said yeah,
you're going to be executed, and also, uh, also the
day after you're executed, you're going to be dissected in public.
And he was dissected in public and correct me if

(25:40):
I'm wrong. They then took his skeleton and that is
still in the Royal College. I think at least the
skull is. I'm not sure if it's entire. I know
it goes a step further than that. They actually sold
his skin as like pocket person They used it as
leather goods basically and sold it. It was yeah, one one,

(26:01):
like I don't know if it was, I can't remember.
It's like a card purse or something like that, a
little small purse that was made from the skin of
his hand, and that's sold as recently I don't remember,
like two thousand and eight or something like that. Yeah,
and it was. I mean that's the grossest part. Yeah,
I mean it's I I don't want to own anything
that would made out of somebody's skin, especially not a murderer.
Who knows what kind of bad ju do that. Yeah, anyways,

(26:23):
you can look up the story. You should definitely look
The hair is a horrifying story, horrifying and super fascinating,
great story. Now, can we get to my I don't
like the story? No? Why? Oh no, I'm sorry. Do
you have more on it? I do? Let's have that
lots more. So. It's again it's theorized that there were

(26:43):
seventeen victims kind of so it could have been similar
to the burial for the sailors, kind of in an effigy.
What's referred to as a mimic burial is I think
probably the term you were looking for. It's because since
the bodies were dissected for science or reasons, they they

(27:03):
never got a burial, so it was supposed to represent
them so that their souls could be laid to rest.
There is a huge problem, one huge problem at least,
and that is that of the seventeen victims of Burke
and Hair, twelve war women, and all of the effigies
look male or don't have any feminine Not only do

(27:23):
they look man, that's fine, that's fine, there's no feminine
features at all, so that's pretty big. Additionally, the there's
the problem of who would have created the dolls that
comes into play here because Burke and Hair there was
a thought that they one of them did it because
they felt bad, but Burke and Hair were apprehended directly

(27:44):
after their seventeenth murder. Well, and also they were sociopaths,
so they probably didn't feel bad. Well, I don't know
if they're sociopaths, but they don't strike me as the
kind of guys who would go to any huge I
think Hair seems like, well he he lived up the
rest of his life and misery again, or you should
read the story. It was not a popular guy. It

(28:04):
was not a popular guy, and people recognized him everywhere
he went. Anyways, some people have suggested that there was
an accomplice, because there were lots of accomplices, perhaps that
weren't ever actually convicted of anything um in regards to
the Birken Hair story, But it seems like those people

(28:24):
would want to keep a low profile, and maybe carting
seventeen coffins, no matter how small, into the wilderness would
be kind of a high profile thing. Well, but there
are four or five inch coffins. You can fit those
into a bag very easily. But even there's you're carrying
a bag of stuff. I think that they would have

(28:47):
not done anything even anything even kind of suspicious. Yeah,
I don't think so either, but you know, it's also possible,
and I don't think I'll just say this, I don't
think that the dolls are committed, are connected to the
murder and anyone, but it's but it is conceivable that
maybe somebody, having heard about these seventeen people haven't been
died and sent off to be dissected and then basically

(29:10):
tossed into the dumpster, maybe somebody got the idea to
create these epigees and bury them. Well. I guess it's
also probably worth noting that the theory that the dolls
were connected to the burke Hair murders the Westport murders
wasn't even positive and tell them the nineteen nineties, that
was an issue made and somebody looked back and thought, oh,

(29:31):
there's seventeen victims, and I know that the only thing
they have in common is another. Yeah, I think that
that's you know, I know Steve has a bunch of
stuff to talk about this, but I think that's one
of the big ones, right, Yeah, Well, yes, it's so
romantic to assign these dolls to this case. It's a

(29:56):
romantic notion. We've found this connection between in the two
and so somebody had remorse. That's to me why people
go to it. Okay, well too, maybe direct who might
have been And I again, I'm not on the stand
of saying that is connected these murders, but I know

(30:18):
that the wives and children and the woman who owned
the boarding house that they were in, they all got
out relatively unscaped, but they all had to leave town,
but they didn't have to leave town immediately. So if
we're gonna say this is correct, there is a possibility
that they had some bit of remorse or guilt or

(30:42):
felt like they needed to do some kind of penance
for it. So that's why they would have gone ahead
and done this. Okay, that's the easy answer. I did
a bunch of digging into the time frame and looking
at as we talked about a little bit earlier, is
that the use of effigies was something that had been

(31:05):
going on in Europe for years and years and years,
And because we talked about the sailors thing, but you know,
something else that was going on at the time and
very close to when the dolls were found, cholera, typhus
and influenza. You're rampant in the area. If you look

(31:26):
at the news prints of the time, all kinds of
alerts about this, and it's killing people like mad If
your family member dies of cholera at the hospital, they're
not giving you that. Boy, No, you're not going to
get the body back. So what do you do? You say,

(31:48):
uncle Jay and Janey died. Uncle Janey maybe, but and
Janie most likely, and Janey died, and we can't do anything.
So I'm gonna do this little ceremonial thing here and
then oops, well, now uncle Bob just got typhoid or
died of typhoid, and then somebody else of influenza. All

(32:08):
these deaths, it may have just been pure happistant. So
the reason that that's why I think they're there is
either as the sailors or somebody who knew as everybody did,
a bunch of people who died from some ailment that
was just running like wildfire through the population. That's a

(32:35):
that's very very true. Another possibility, even though I don't
think they would have gone to the bother, is that
maybe either Hair or Burke built up a little collection
of these little dolls. I say, and it wasn't because
they felt remorse, but because you know, they had time
in their hands and everything, like the accounting system Basically,
it's kind of like, you know, you know, every time
you shoot down an enemy fighter, you put a little

(32:56):
you put a little Japanese zero on the side of
the nose of you're playing. Oh yeah, well two fighters today, Yeah, exactly.
So every time you do it, you create a you
can grab one of these dolls and make a little
coffin for it and put it in, and put it
in the coffin, and then perhaps one of their one
of their wives are supposed alleged accomplices, realize that, holy crap,

(33:16):
this is kind of incriminating. I got rid of it,
although I think that probably more likely want to shoot
all of my own theory, just would have burned them,
you know, that's much simpler. Yeah, yeah, I just that
just popped into my head out there, just to fill
up a little air time. Yeah, I guess in fairness
to poke another hole in that. Like I said, Verk
and Hair were apprehended within I think an hour or

(33:37):
two of their for their last murder. They wouldn't have
had time to complete the seventeenth doll. Well actually, though
maybe maybe they completed the dolls before the murders. I
don't think they were that pre planned. I doubt I
doubt that they be crimes of opportunity. Yeah, and I mean, well,
that's the thing is you can say, well, the wife
or the mistress could have done it, but then again,

(34:02):
why was she doing it? And at what point why
wouldn't she have just chucked him in the fire rather
than hiking up the hill and then putting them into
a hole. That I think that the simpler answer of
somebody did it for something other than the Burke Hair murders.
I just I don't. I don't have any good theories

(34:22):
about what else, which is why I went through all
the historical documentation to try to find some explanation that
was a little more rooted in fact. That's fair, I guess.
The only thing is that seventeen people is a lot
of people. But well, but your sphere of influence and
close relations. It could be if there was a big

(34:47):
scholar epidemic or something like that then, and people had
a lot of kids back then, many of whom died young.
So it could be family members. Uh got brother and
a sister, and Aunton and Knuckle, maybe one of your parents,
and then maybe a whole bunch of other people, you know,
like schoolmates, or whatever, and so maybe that was There's
a host of reasons, and I think it's not going

(35:08):
to do with any benefit to beat him into the ground,
but not a bunch of them. Yeah, there is. There
really is no mystery here, I think, but I don't
want to say that. I do want to say that
it is interesting though. There was a little a lot
of approbrium directed a lot of people, like especially Hair
of course, and the doctor Knox who dissected all these bodies.

(35:30):
And it's like people keep bringing to these dead bodies
and you and you pay them for them, and pay
these guys for these bodies, and you never say where
are you getting all these bodies from? And he just
dissected them. And so he had mobs showing up outside
his house and throwing rocks through his windows. All of
the all of the family that the mistress, the wife,
and children, they all had to get out of town.

(35:51):
Oh hell yeah, that was a bad scene. But the dolls,
Oh yeah, you know, I'm sorry I did a dangerous
thing where I brought up a really interesting case that
wasn't unsolved. That's super interesting. Yeah, I think it is solved,
but I'm sorry ment isn't unsolved, but there's a bunch
of points. Yeah, we're back on topic, Devin. Where are

(36:15):
we going now? We're going nowhere? Yeah, we're there. Sorry, guys,
that's it. That's all we've got. Yeah, okay, that's the
whole like, that's all the theories. And Steve came up
with a pretty good one. Yeah. I think. I think
the lesson is that if you've lost a lot of
loved ones and you want to make little effigies in

(36:38):
their honor, do a better job of hiding themselves some
little some little jerk kids and like really each other.
Oh my gosh. Yeah yeah, So I mean that's it.
I guess I like Steve sory the question. That's a
good one. Yeah, okay one, although it doesn't explain why
they were all a dressed like little dudes were little

(37:00):
soldiers there, little dudes to start with. But you put them,
you can put them in little skirts and stuff. If
it's Aunt Jane, you're imaginative, you can. If you're not,
you just dress what you have. I guess that's fair.
Pants are really hard to make, though, just like, yeah,
I would say it's score to be easier, way easier.
I'm just saying I understand just saying, especially at that size,

(37:21):
I worked with a bunch of non creatives. Trust me,
things where Okay, So, yeah, do you guys have favorite theories?
I know yours. I'm still gonna go with the troop
of Oh yeah, I know, I know. Um No, I
have no favorite theories in this one. I have no
opinion whatsoever. Yeah, I don't really, I don't care about

(37:43):
this car at all. Well, sorry it's a little short this,
but now I guess I do have one opinion, which
is that the typical name that is given to this
mystery is the Arthur Seat murder Dolls. And I think
that's a really cool name. It is. Yeah, I mean,
that's true, so cool. But the yeah, the name is,
and that's the tie to the Burke and Hairy situation. Yeah,

(38:04):
murder dolls. There's just something so cool and creepy about that.
But but yeah, I mean, there's there's really no tie
and other than the number seventeen. So if you want
to find out how I came up with that weird
giant number, I do you will, we'll talk about it afterwards.
Or you have a theory about what the Arthur Seat
murder Dolls might be or just the Arthur seat dolls

(38:26):
or whatever. You can email us Thinking Sideways Podcast at
gmail dot com. Uh, you are probably not listening to
us on the website, but you can listen to us
on the website. That website is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com.
There are some of my research links up there as well,

(38:47):
and on that as well, you can find the link
to buy merch if you want. We got it. You
guys were asking for it, so we did it because
we love you. Finally, finally we have phasers and what
else do we Yeah? We have rocket launchers. Yeah, yeah,
a couple of airplanes. I don't know what kind they are.
You guys know that they're expensive, but if you want

(39:09):
something a little cheaper, we also have t shirts and
mugs and phone cases, which I am buying one of.
That's right, I have to buy my own merch for free. Nope,
find us or you probably you could be streaming us
also almost anywhere. You are probably listening to us on
iTunes though. If you do that, subscribe if you haven't already,

(39:33):
and leave us a comment in a rating. Those are awesome.
It's how other people find us, and I know you
want other people to find us. You can't find us
on Facebook. We have a group and a page which
has been uber busy yep, like us, friend us, friend us,
find us, find us, friend us, like us, and then
tweet us, and then and then tweet us thinking sideways,

(39:58):
no podcast or anything like that. That. Okay, we tweet sometimes.
Actually we use that Twitter thing every once in a while,
and I think that's it. Usually we do the email
at the end. That's why I'm confused about it. If
I told you or not, Sorry, I missed that one up.
They know where to find us. Ever, you guys know
where to find us. You're doing good at finding us.

(40:20):
So that is everything about dolls. Yeah, creepy dolls. This
is why I never liked the movie Chucky, because dolls
are creepy. They are. No, No, I didn't watch them,
but do go watch Breaking Hair. It's fun. It's a
fun movie. It's Simon Peg. It's totally fun. I gotta say,

(40:43):
if you can, if you can make a comedy out
of murder, that's awesome. Oh, it's totally funny and weird,
Simon Peg. Yeah, okay, I gotta see it. Yeah. And
by the way, speaking to Simon Peg, if you have
not seen Sean of the Dead, well, you better go
see it. Any of the Cornetto trilogy all right by.

(41:10):
You know what's funny is if anybody knows this story.
Every time I read about Broken Hair, I have a
really hard time not visualizing Simon Peg, because there's that
that movies five years old. Five years ago, they made
a Broken Hair and he was in it. And every
time I read this, I see his face. I cannot

(41:32):
help it sounds like a personal problem. I did not
see that movie. They actually made a movie about Broken Hair.
It's a bit of a comedy. I didn't make a
comedy out of this story, and it's Simon Peg.