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Lesser Known But Intriguing Historic Criminals

Khalid Elhassan October 17, 2019 32 min

U.S. Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History - Crime

34. The Scottish Cannibal

Sawney Bean at his cave’s entrance, with a woman in the background carrying body parts. Historic Mysteries

Sawney Bean (flourished 16^th century), Scotland’s most famous cannibal, is believed to have been born in East Lothian, Scotland. The son of a hedge trimmer and ditch digger, Sawney took a stab at going into his father’s line of work, but discovered that honest work was not for him. Little else is known of his early life.

More is known of the second part of his wife, after he met and married a vicious woman named Agnes Douglas, who was accused of being a witch. Soon after their marriage, Sawney and Agnes moved to the other side of Scotland, and settled in a coastal cave on Bennane Head, near Ballantrae in Ayrshire. Things then got… interesting.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.