Mortuaries remained the most common source, but in some cases, such as the notorious Irish murderers Burke and Hare, victims were killed then sold for study and research purposes.
Medicine murder is difficult to describe concisely, as it has changed over time, involving an ever-greater variety of perpetrator, victim, method and motive.
Most detailed information about the minutiae of medicine murder is derived from state witnesses in trials, court records and third-party anecdote.
The phenomenon is widely acknowledged to occur in southern Africa, although no country has issued an accurate and up to date record of the frequency with which it takes place.
Medicine murder has been a topic of urban legends in South Africa, but this does not diminish its status as a practice that has resulted in legal trials and convictions of perpetrators.
The perpetrators are usually men, although women have been convicted as well, most notably in Swaziland when Phillippa Mdluli[2][3] was hanged in 1983 for commissioning a medicine murder.
Body parts excised mostly include soft tissue and internal organs – eyelids, lips, scrota, labia and uteri – although there have been instances where entire limbs have been severed.
It would appear that medicine murder in the 18th and 19th centuries may have been considered the legitimate domain of traditional chiefs and leaders, in order to improve agriculture and protect against war (see Human sacrifice).
The killing led to riots as students in Mochudi protested about police inaction, and eventually Scotland Yard from Britain were asked to investigate, as neutral outsiders.
Nigerian Joyce Osiagede, the only person to be arrested in Britain as part of the inquiry, has claimed that the victim's real name is Ikpomwosa.
It included tiny clay pellets containing small particles of pure gold, an indication that Adam was the victim of a Muti ritual killing in which it is believed that the body parts of children are sacred.
[1] In 2014 an alleged member of the Mexican Knights Templar cartel was arrested for the kidnapping and deaths of minors, after children were found wrapped in blankets and stuffed in a refrigerated container inside a van.
[11] In March 2006, three individuals alleged that thousands of Falun Gong practitioners had been killed at Sujiatun Thrombosis Hospital, to supply China's organ transplant industry.
[12] The Kilgour-Matas report[12][13][14] stated "the source of 41,500 transplants for the six year period 2000 to 2005 is unexplained" and concluded that "there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners".
A significant increase in the number of annual organ transplants in China beginning in 1999, corresponded with the onset of the persecution of Falun Gong.
[17] He conducted extensive interviews with former detainees of Chinese labor camps and prisons, as well as former security officers and medical professionals with knowledge of China's transplant practices.
[20] Data on availability and speed of transplants within China (under 2 – 3 weeks in some cases compared to years elsewhere) led several renowned doctors to state that the statistics and transplant rates seen would be impossible without access to a very large pool of pre-existing donors already available on very short notice for hearts and other organs; several governments also established restrictions intended to target such a practice.
[22][23] In 2012, State Organs: Transplant Abuse in China, edited by David Matas and Dr. Torsten Trey, was published with contributions from 12 specialists.
[24] Several of the essays in the book conclude that a primary source of organs has been prisoners of conscience, specifically practitioners of Falun Gong.
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.
During the nineteenth century, the sensational serial murders associated with Burke and Hare and the London Burkers led to legislation which provided scientists and medical schools with legal ways of obtaining cadavers.
The practice has intermittently been reported since that time; in 1992 Colombian activist Juan Pablo Ordoñez, claimed that 14 poor residents of the town of Barranquilla had been killed for local medical study[28] with a purported account by an alleged escapee being publicized by the international press.