tr.v. burked, burk·ing, burkes To suppress or extinguish quietly; stifle: burked the investigation by failing to reappoint the commission.
Article on the origin of the word burking (burkeing)
Another of Hare’s lodgers, Joseph the Miller, fell ill not many days later. Joseph owed no money to Hare and was not as seriously ill as Donald had been, but Hare and Burke discussed the situation and decided, with no medical expertise whatsoever, that Joseph was going to die, and was in pain, and they decided to put him out of his misery.The two, showing great sympathy for Joseph’s discomfort, gave the sick man glasses of whisky until Joseph fell unconscious. Then one of the men held Joseph’s nose and mouth shut while the other spread himself across the victim’s prone body, pining the arms and preventing any struggle.
Joseph never regained consciousness and was soon on Knox’s doorstep. Inadvertently, Burke and Hare had stumbled onto a foolproof method of murder with Joseph: it appeared that the victim had died from illness or drunkenness and there were no incriminating marks. They would repeat the process frequently over the next 11 months.