Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me, Richard McLean Smith, where for the weeks in between

episodes, we look at stories and ideas that for one reason or other didn't make it into

the previous show.

In our last episode, where the bodies lie, we looked at the tale of William Burke and

William Hare, who in the early 19th century murdered 16 people in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The Westport murders, as they have come to be known, constitute perhaps the most infamous

murder spree in Scottish history.

But what makes this story especially interesting to me is the wider context within which it occurred.

Today we might refer to Burke and Hare as serial murderers, but in many ways this label

masks what was really at play.

It is impossible to speculate whether these two men would have gone on to commit similar

crimes, or indeed if they had murdered before.

But what is known in the case of the murders in question is that they were a product of

market forces as much as anything else.

In other words, the Westport murders, but what happens when financial desperation converges

with an illicit but desperate demand.

Thinking more about it, these murders brought to mind a very modern equivalent.

One evening in August 2013, in the town of Fen Chi in North China, six-year-old Binbin

was playing outside his home while his mother tidied up after dinner.

When it was time to call him back inside however, the boy was no longer there.

Having checked the house and found no sign of him there either, the woman and her husband

began frantically searching the nearby streets.

...