William Cunningham, the Ghoul of Cincinnati

and I'm Holly Fry. Ohio was a hotbed of grave robbing activity in the United States in the nineteenth century. The first recorded account of a body snatched from its grave in the state was at Zanesville in the early nineteenth century. There are numerous stories about body snatching activities in Columbus, about fifty miles away, too, and nearly all were related to the supply and demand for cadavers at

medical schools. One stands out for us among many snatchers from that town and state, who was a man named Charles Morton. Charles was a University of Michigan medical school dropout who went on to become well known in the body snatching business. He transported corpses in large vats that he had labeled pickles. But colorful though he is, Charles is not actually the only standout. This episode of Criminalia

doesn't take place in Columbus, Ohio. It takes place in Cincinnati during the mid eighteen hundreds, during the time of the American Civil War. Cincinnati was a rapidly growing city during the nineteenth century. The Ohio River provided numerous business opportunities, and hotels, restaurants, and taverns quickly opened to meet the developing needs of those traveling along the river. The city was also becoming a significant meat packing center and was

nicknamed the Porkopolis of the United States. We're interested in one of its notorious residents, the resurrection man William Cunningham. Thirty six years before William hit the Cincinnati body snatching scene, Daniel Drake established the Medical College of Ohio in Cincinnati, which welcomed its first class in eighteen nineteen. The city became a center for medicine. Thirteen medical schools were operating there between eighteen twenty and eighteen eighty. William was born

in Ireland. His age is disputed, but many historians estimate he was probably born around eighteen oh seven, when he died in eighteen seventy one. The corner estimated his age to be sixty five, which you know that matches up, But according to the US Census, William's self reported age

in eighteen seventy was fifty. He may or may not have passed through Virginia before settling in Cincinnati, but we do know that William was actively stealing bodies from grave sites around since in Addie from eighteen fifty five to seventy one. William's wife, Mary Cunningham, was frequently described as a quote fun loving woman that liked her whiskey and was rough around the edges. She sounds great. She was also described as quote a bony, brawny john Irish woman

with a mouth like an alligator. She still sounds great. Good to say that still great. She may or may not have assisted her husband during his nighttime trips to the graveyard, at least in some capacity during his sixteen years in the business. We'll talk more about her later. No one seems to have called William by his given name. Those who didn't call him Old Man Dead called him

Old Cunney. He was known to be the local boogeyman known as the ghoul of Cincinnati, and tales of him coming to snatch you were used to frighten badly behaving children into shaping up. He appeared in fulk Kills around Since and Eddie, including stories of his body snatching adventures as well as his luck eluding the law. The Cincinnati Inquirer on January nine, eighteen seventy described William in this charming way quote to have seen Cunningham is to retain

him in your memory for a lifetime. For that ponderous yet gaunt frame, that strong marked face corrugated with age and crime, a canine mouth from the corners of which slowly trickles the generous saliva impregnated with the juices of nicotine. And that shuffling gait caused by a broken leg received from a charge of buckshot constitutes a tout ensemble, sufficiently striking to make a very vivid impression. I love that entire description. May I be described in such colorful ways.

I will take care of business for you. He is also described as having been quote a big, raw boned am, was a protruding lower jaw, and an insatiable thirst for hard liquor. According to the William drove an Express wagon at least for his day job. That's how he's listed in the city directory at the time, and local papers note that as his occupation as well. Some records suggest he was a Draymond driver, which is a person who

delivers beer at night. Though he snatched and sold fresh corpses and undercover job that was definitely not listed in the city directory. It's estimated that Williams snatched at least a hundred bodies during his career and sold each four between twenty and thirty dollars to medical schools without a legal way for people to donate their body for dissection. This is a problem we've talked at length about this season. The schools were eager to buy them, even if they

were procured illegally. We're going to take a break here for a word from our sponsor, and when we're back, we're going to describe exactly how old Man Dead transported the bodies he stole. Welcome back to Criminalia. Go ahead and guess what was in the box william deposited at the US Express Office sent c O. D. Let's see if you're right. Being a body snatcher was hard work.

It was physically demanding work. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, the body snatching process was kind of like this quote. They don't really open the grave. They simply dig a hole about two ft square over the head of the coffin. When they get to that, they break out the coffin head and fastened big hooks to which strong ropes are attached under the arms of the corpse and haulowed out

by main force. William, it said, it was fearless when it came to both digging up and transporting bodies greg hand Locals. Sinati historian describes William's transportation set up and we quote he would disguise the corpses that he had just pulled from the grave by having them sit next to him on his wagon as he drove through town,

passing the police. After his death, a story about William told by a quote very knowing acquaintance appeared in a local newspaper on March first before It was very likely a physician who did business with him, and it goes like this. One night, I remember I met Connie driving into the city with a stiff and horrible as the site was, there was something grotesquely ludicrous about it. He had placed the corpse in a sitting position on the seat beside him, and had dressed it in an old

coat and a vest and a plate out hat. He kept his arm round the waist of the corpse to steady it from the jolting of the vehicle. But every now and then the horrid thing would double up on the seat, and its head kept bobbing up and down in the ghastliest way you ever saw. Then Old Coney would give the stiff a slap in the face and sit up. This is the last time, by God, I'll ever take you home. When you get drunk. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, drunk as a boiled owl

with a wife and children to support. Can you even imagine this scene? Can you? My? I have many times in my imagination. It's weekend at Bernie's. We've seen it, We've seen it all. As we talked about earlier, a growing number of medical schools opened and flourished in Ohio

during the mid nineteenth century. During the years that William was active at his night job, there were at least five established schools operating throughout Cincinnati, including the Medical College of Ohio on Sixth Street, The Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery at Central in Longworth, the Eclectic Medical Institute at Court and Plum Streets, Miami Medical College on Twelfth Street, and the Physio Medical College on the corner of Seventh

and Cutter Streets. Each of those schools had anywhere from a few dozen into a few hundred students, all of whom needed cadavers to study human anatomy. Medical schools needed a certain number of bodies not for season classrooms, but for anatomy training. Because they weren't able to secure them through legal means. Most worked with body snatchers, and some were pretty creative in their relationships with the local resurrection

ment if you were delivering to Sixth Street. For instance, the Medical College of Ohio had a pretty convenient feature. The school, and we quote historian Greg hand on this again, had a drop off shoot for bodies, so that a wagon could drive down the alley out back of the school, unloaded body into the shoot, and it was picked up

there by the anatomical professor the next day. Deliveries took place at night, and so did dissection demonstrations, which have been described as taking place in quote, poorly lit laboratories in the midst of a rowdy crowd of tobacco smoking and chewing students. William didn't let something like location hold him back from making money in his business, and unlike

most body snatchers, his reach went beyond Cincinnati. He would ship bodies to out of town and out of state physicians, including as far away as Kansas, at least that's the farthest we know of. As reported in the Cincinnati Daily Gazette on January and note that there's some outdated language in this quote, Cunningham, the resurrectionist, deposited a box at the US Express office marked glass with care c O

d Dr M. P. Hayden, Leavenworth, Kansas. Suspicions of the company's agents were excited, and when they opened the box, it contained the body of a Negro woman, prepared for the dissecting knife and served up in a sack. The freight was returned to Mr Cunningham. That's just crazy, they just sent it. So we're now going to take a break for from our sponsor. When we return, we'll talk about the end of William's career as a resurrection man and how he's at least partly to blame for the

invention of something called the coffin torpedo. Welcome back to criminalia. For more than a decade, William evaded arrest and punishment for his involvement in the illegal body trade, but nothing less forever. William is described as having been vindictive, and this came through in his work, at least in his

graveyard work. In an act of revenge, William once sold and delivered a body infected with smallpox to naive medical students who had once played a joke on him, and several reports suggest that this was the beginning of the end for his career. That's a fast way to lose your goodwill with the medical community that's been covering up your stuff for a while, and new kidding, Just give a bunch of them smallpox. He had evaded arrest for roughly fifteen years when his good luck changed for the worse.

On August thirty one, eighteen seventy one, the Cincinnati Enquirer ran a feature on William when he was finally arrested. They wrote, quote, everybody knows Old Cunney, the resurrectionist whose occupation for many years past has been to supply the various medical colleges of the city with subjects for dissection, and who, it is understood, has amassed quite a handsome competency.

At his contraband employment. Twelve or fifteen years ago, when he was in the prime of manhood, Coney was so adroit and careful, though daring withal, that he carried on the business almost without molestation. But of late years, his increasing age and infirmity have several times thrown him into the hands of the officers, though by sing uller good fortune, he has hitherto escaped punishment. Their feature continued as so

yesterday morning. About one o'clock, the attention of two police officers was attracted by the figure of an old man driving at a rapid rate down to Cincinnati Street, followed by a crowd of men and boys running after him, hooting and hollering stop him, shoot him, and the like. The officers called him to stop, but he only laid

whip to his horse and drove past them. The horse, however, was lame, and the load in the wagon seemingly heavy, and after a short race, one of the officers grasped the bridle while the other took charge of the driver. The driver was old Cunney, who, returning after a night's work at his ghoulish employment, had been delayed on his

road home by an accident to his vehicle. In the wagon was found a sack containing the dead body of a man, while a similar package on the seat beside him contained the remains of a child, a boy ten or twelve years old. The Cincinnati Daily Gazette reported on his arrest as well, but their take was a little different, though they wrote, quote, William Cunningham first fired his brain with whiskey, then fired off an enormous revolver on Central Avenue.

On September twelfth, eighteen seventy one, local papers reported William had been indicted on five counts. We've actually seen that number also reported as low as two. He entered a plea of not guilty, paid three hundred dollars bail, and was released. He was to answer to the charge of a legal possession of dead human bodies at the next session of the Common Pleas Court on January thirty one, two,

but he didn't make it. On October seventy one, local papers reported that William was a patient in the Cincinnati hospital and that he, as quoted from The Inquirer, regarded the announcement of his demise yesterday morning as an error. The article described William as suffering from a quote temporary derangement of his system from heavy alcohol consumption. He promised the press he'd be out in a few days and he'd be back to business, but William died on November two.

After his death, William was on the other side of the dissection door. He sold his body to the Medical College of Ohio for fifty dollars, and after their students were done practicing on it, the faculty had the skeleton put on display, wrote the Cincinnati Enquirer on September two. His ghastly skeleton, neatly articulated and wired, sits on a tombstone in the cabinet of that institution. Well. In his hand, he grasps a spade, the emblem of his calling in life.

Between his teeth, he holds a short pipe, as he was wont to in the days of flesh. The reporter noted that the only things missing from the exhibit were his gray horse and his wagon. And then there's Mary. It's possible that it was William's wife who sold his corpse for fifty dollars, but it's not the story most often pulled of his death. We do know she picked up or perhaps continued body snatching work after he died.

As reported in the Ohio State Journal in December eight she was arrested along with four others for snatching the body of a child and selling it to Miami Medical College in Cincinnati. The article noted her as quote the widow of Cunningham, a former notoriety in this business. Historians estimate that as many as five thousand bodies were exhumed for dissection in Ohio in the nineteenth century, although these kinds of methods weren't in place yet when William was

actively snatching bodies Ohioans. This was not limited to Ohio, we should be clear, developed a few inventive ways to prevent bodies from being stolen from the grave. A lot of it had to do with old man Dead in his work, though. Six years after William died, Philip K. Clover of Columbus, Ohio, for instance, invented and patented a device that was to quote prevent the unauthorized resurrection of dead bodies. Clover called his device a coffin torpedo, and

here is how it worked. Buried underground the torpedo would fire several lead balls into anyone who disturbed the grave. A few years later, in former probate Judge Thomas and Howell of Circleville, Ohio, received a patent for an exploding shell that would sit above a coffin and go off

if the grave was disturbed. Over time, the development of and and the improvement of embalming methods slowed down the high demand for bodies at medical schools, not only in Ohio, but also across the United States and outside of the United States as well. And donated bodies to made a big impact on supply. Under the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act of the Ohio Revised Code, body donations, also called anatomical donations, became legal and commonplace at medical schools in the state,

making names profession they're obsolete. Now that we just mentioned embalming methods, right time for embalming fluid. I'm for embalming fluid. Let's talk about what we're going to tip back for Williams. I think this one will surprise you. The name is horrifying, so just know that upfront, because I'm calling it corpse juice. I'm playing a little bit with this and that I kept thinking about the idea of someone that would dress a corpse and play act in entire scenario as they

drove along. There was a whole dialogue there, right, he had scenes written in his head to me that was all very funny, and so I thought it would be funny like that scene. Right. It's hilarious, but it is also grizzly as well when you think about it. We laugh a little bit in these episodes because there's some of it really truly is on one level laughable, but it's grizzly laughable. It's terrible. And so I wanted to come up with a drink that sounded and even looks

a little like huh, but it's amazingly delicious. I'm gonna surprise you out of the gate with what the first ingredient is. I can't because you'll be like, wait, oh, this doesn't seem like where we're going. First, You're gonna chop some watermelon. It's as if I have conjured this in the universe. So watermelon is one of my favorite things, and I am looking more and more and more and more and more now that it's springtime to watermelon. So I am with you on it. That's exactly where I'm at.

We are on the precipice here in the northern hemisphere of summer coming, and I also want to just have good summer drinks at ready. But this one is fun. So you're gonna chop some watermelon. You don't want uniform slices or cubes. You want it to look a little chunky, and you're gonna retain the juice along with your chopped fruit and set it aside. You don't need a ton of it. I would say a couple of table spoons,

and you have more than enough. You can also do it the lazy way, which I have done, which is you buy a bunch of watermelon and chop it, or you buy pre chopped watermelon and you leave the juice and debris in the bottom of your bowl or wherever. I just use that. At the end. I eat watermelon at an alarming rate, so there's always plenty of this around the house. So then you'll have your little couple of tablespoons of sliced, chopped, chunked up watermelon and it's juice.

Set that aside and into a glass with ice. You're gonna pour an ounce and a half of vodka. If you have a fruit infused vodka, this is a great time to pull it out. I have one that is watermelon and basil. Oh my god, that sounds delicious, Yes, delicious,

And onto that. I just poured four ish ounces of ginger ale and then you just pour in your watermelon juice in the slurry, and so as it's falling to the bottom of the glass, it looks like viscera, and it looks a little like there's chunks of flesh in it. But it is so beautiful and taste like summer. I'm I'm so conflicted here with it. I'm like, if you started talking about chunks going and I'm like, oh my god, this is called corpus juice and has chunks and it

is going to be fantastic and horrible. It's so good I first tried it. I will tell you in case anyone is listening and they're like, I know what I'll do. You could do this, Um, you might be tempted to throw your watermelon in a blender or food processor. I found that came out too smooth. You wanted a little chunkier than that. If you want to take away that sort of gruesome association. You could just pure it or whatever. That will work fine. Obviously, the mocktail on this is easy.

Just leave out the vodka, You're fine. Just the ginger ale with the chunks of fruit in it is pretty darn delicious. I'm gonna keep saying the word chunks just to watch Maria's face squeak up every time. Chunky juice. It's so good, it's so delicious. I mean, this is like one of the simplest ones we've ever done. And as you're sipping in and you get to the end, because they fall to the bottom, chunks, you'r chunks, Maria,

those small ones. Towards the end, we'll start to creep into your SIPs and then you're reminded that you're drinking corpse juice, old man chunks. Delicious delicious is what I'm saying. So yes, I will drink this in mocktail form all day long, because delicious. I'm gonna go ahead and say that Mary I would serve this to her, I'd be like, hey, I don't think she'd like it. She would be like, please just give me a glass and eight ounce glass

of whiskey. I don't mess with smaller portions. We could say to her, but the scruvy, that's good for you. This is like a nutritional cocktail exactly. There's chunks in it, like Okay, enough of the chunky talk. So gross, got Maria? What why it's wrong with you? Elicio? That all being said, this is a super yummy one. I'm gonna go have another one here in a minute. Thank you for spending this time with us. I hope you have enjoyed this

story of old Cunney and his strange, strange vocation. We will be right back here next week with another episode of Criminalia, and we hope you join us. Criminalia is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, please visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,