Edinburgh True Crime Tour: You Are The Jury

On Christmas Eve 1828, a jury was locked into an Edinburgh

courtroom and not released until it had decided who would hang.

Tonight, that jury is you.

Sworn in beneath the floodlit castle, you will carry the name of

a real victim through the dark side of the Old Town as your

storyteller unravels Edinburgh's most infamous case, the West Port

murders. Stand on the ground where Burke and Hare's lodging house

stood. Climb the Vennel to the old city wall for the finest night

view of the castle. Follow the money to the anatomy schools that

paid cash for bodies and asked no questions, and pass the building

where William Burke's skeleton still stands in a case tonight, 197

years on.

On a silent street the ghost tours never find, hear the roll of

the Sixteen called through the gates of Old Surgeons' Square. Then

take your place where the real trial ran all night, and cast your

verdict, with a slate token into the bag, on the one man the law

let walk free.

This is a ghost tour told straight: real hauntings, real

history, no costumes leaping from closes. Every stop is in the open

air on public streets, and somehow that makes it worse.