I'm listening to a podcast on Burke and Hare, and though I have read up on the case before it suddenly occurred to me that there were all these graves that were emptied of their occupants, victims of grave robbers. What happened after that? I assume an overwhelming majority of the time the body was never recovered. Was the hole filled in and left empty? Would some sort of notice or marker be added to the headstone that the body had been stolen? For that matter, how often did this happen? Are there great sections of Scottish graveyards that consist of headstones and no bodies?
Edit: I am aware that Burke and Hare were murderers and not grave robbers, I am interested in the aftermath of those who were.
This really depends on the culture you are talking about, how well the grave is marked, etc. In England, France, and Spain there are a number of graves which have been exhumed for the purposes of archaeology which have turned out to be barren. Many were the graves of supposed saints and royalty, so it is likely that they were taken piecemeal for their supposedly holy properties in the case of the former, and for their clothing and jewelry in the case of the latter. In many cases, the graves might have been false to begin with, in an effort to deter robbers from fouling their repose.
Source: A BA in literature with a predilection for morbid history.