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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

33. Sawney Bean’s Cave

Entrance to Sawney Bean’s cave. Scotland Off the Beaten Track

Sawney Bean and his wife Agnes did not move into just any old cave. Their abode had tunnels penetrating the solid rock for over a mile, with numerous side passages that the young couple converted into living quarters as their family grew over the next 25 years.

It was also hard to get to and hazardous for the uninvited, as the entrance flooded for about two hundred yards twice a day at high tide. That came in handy, because Sawney decided that work was for suckers, and that it was easier to support his wife from the proceeds of robbery. So he took to ambushing travelers on the narrow roads connecting the area’s villages.

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.