Legal Definitions - burking

Burking

Burking refers to the specific crime of murdering an individual with the primary intention of selling their body or body parts. This act often involves using methods that leave minimal visible trauma, making the corpse more suitable for illicit sale, whether for organ trafficking, unregulated medical study, or other black market purposes.

• Example 1: A criminal syndicate operates by abducting vulnerable individuals, murdering them through methods designed to preserve vital organs, and then selling these harvested organs on the black market to wealthy clients in need of transplants.

  Explanation: This scenario exemplifies burking because the murder is committed with the explicit goal of profiting from the sale of the victim's body parts.

• Example 2: An unscrupulous individual, aware of a clandestine demand for human cadavers for unregulated medical research or anatomical study, murders a person. They take precautions to ensure the death appears natural or leaves minimal external injuries, thereby making the intact body more appealing and salable to an illicit buyer.

  Explanation: Here, the act constitutes burking because the perpetrator's motive for the murder is directly tied to the subsequent sale of the deceased's body for an illegal purpose.