Jessie King
14
MENTIONS
6
EPISODES
6
PODCASTS
Search complete. 14 mentions across 6 episodes found for "Jessie King".
Oct 28, 2026
Gavin WhiteheadHOST
Well, you cover a number of different criminal cases throughout the book, and I wanted to zero in on two of them that struck me as particularly interesting.
Gavin WhiteheadHOST
Our first case revolves around a woman by the name of Jessie King.
Gavin WhiteheadHOST
The story all starts in October 1888 when a group of boys are kind of hanging around in Edinburgh.
Gavin WhiteheadHOST
What happens to them?
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
He was a pioneer of courtroom photography.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
This is the moment that medicine enters the courtroom and very much Bell and Little John are at the forefront of that.
Gavin WhiteheadHOST
The police launch an investigation and their inquiries lead them to a woman named Jessie King.
Gavin WhiteheadHOST
And Jessie King worked as what was pejoratively known as a baby farmer.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
And then they got curious and they opened that bundle of rags and they find the decomposing remains of an infant.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
Thus begins the investigation into Jessie King.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
She was a baby farmer in the area.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
She was taking fees to farm these children out.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
You know, women did not have divorce as a ready option for the most part.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
There's also a story in Sleuth Hound about a woman named Jessie King, who's a baby farmer.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
And baby farmers.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
So in the 19th century, women didn't have access to birth control.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
They'd pay the baby farmer to then farm the baby out to a family that would take care of the child.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
And that's how it was supposed to work.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
Well, Jessie King, much like Burke and Hare, decides to just cut out the middleman and doesn't farm them out.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
She ends up killing these infants.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
Thus begins the story.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
investigation into Jessie King.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
She was a baby farmer in the area.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
She was taking fees to to farm these children out.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
And so the point is that there are these stories in here and a lot of it revolves around women.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
There's also a woman named Jessie King, who's a baby farmer.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
I don't know if you guys know what this is, but no baby farming in the 19th century.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
Yeah, a baby farmer.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
And so women and they would turn to the baby farmer.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
The problem is that some of the baby farmers ended up just taking the fee and then dispatching the child, killing the child.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
And one of them was this woman named Jessie King.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
But I'm not going to give too much away about her story.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
And it is an extraordinary case.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
And Jessie King, I'm convinced that her lover, who she's not married to, but I'm convinced he was also involved.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
involved in the crimes and certainly complicit, certainly must have had knowledge of them, but he has not tried.
Lindsey FitzharrisGUEST
He actually testifies against her.