While explore the tale of Mercy Brown for theCemetery Storiespost , I register that she was the only accuse vampire ever exhumed in the United States . The very theme that this is a far-famed fact gave me the willies . Is this so common in other country ? As it turns out , exhumation over supernatural suspicions happened quite often in our story , and many people have been accused of vampirism during their lives . There aresomany such the great unwashed that I limited this list to object lesson of the dissimilar reason people became known as vampires . admonition : these stories are all ghastly .
The Serial Killer: Vincenzo Verzeni
Vincenzo Verzeniof Bergamo , Italy , was a serial killer who derive intimate pleasure from the enactment of murder by strangulation and from drinking profligate and eating the innards of the deceased . He was called The Vampire garrotter of Bergamo in the press . In 1873 he was arrested for attempted execution after an interrupted attempt at halter at teenaged girl . Verzeni was found guilty of two murders and several attempted murders and was sentence to hard labor for life at a psychiatrical infirmary . He died in custody in 1918 .
The Torture Victim: Clara Geisslerin
Clara Geisslerinwas a 69 - year - older widow woman in the town of Gelnhausen , Germany when she was accuse of witchcraft in 1597 . Among the charges were graverobbing , murder , and consorting with fiend . Under torment ( by thumbscrews and the wheel ) , she confessed to intimate relations with demons in the cast of creature and todrinking the blood of sixty childrenthat she had killed . She also named twenty other women who were guilty . However , Geisslerin recanted her confession when the anguish was stopped . Local sanction , dread for her soulfulness , resumed the agony a 2d time . Geisslerin again confess , adding that she had conceived many youngster with the demons and had vote out them all . She recanted once more as soon as she was taken off the rack , and told her accusers that God would be their judge . The other twenty defendant had been questioned and implicated Geisslerin by then , so the old cleaning woman was torment athirdtime . A confession was once again elicit , but Geisslerin could not recant this time because she pall under the pressure . The judges in the case attributed her death to the devil , who did not desire Geisslerin to disclose any further item . Case come together .
The Deceased: Arnold Paole
Arnold Paole was a Serbian soldier who go a relatively insignificant life , but became a famous lamia after his dying from a fall around the year 1725 . Paole had separate a tale of how he was once sting by a lamia in Turkey , but that he had take steps to lift the curse , which involved eating land from the vampire ’s grave and slander himself with the vampire ’s rip . That tale was remembered by those left behind in the village of Medve?a . Within a calendar month of his demise , four people
describe that Paole had round them
; all four died presently after . Paole was , of course , blamed for their Death and his body was exhumed . Expecting to recover a skeleton , the villager were shocked to discover he looked rather fresh ( after all , Paole had only been buried a few weeks earlier ) . The appearance of fresh blood at his mouth and the deficiency of decomposition convinced them that he was , indeed , a vampire . When they drove a stake through the body , Paole ’s cadaver groaned and emit blood . The villagers then burned the consistence . They then exhumed the four " victims " and , wonder of wonder , launch they , too , were not yet decay . They were all staked and then burn up .
A few years later in 1731 , more than a dozen Medveda citizens go of a mysterious unwellness . Two of the bushed had been to Turkey and brought back taradiddle of vampires , and one had report she had eaten meat from a sheep that Arnold Paole ( or possibly one of his " victims " ) had slaughtered . The regional authorization send a communicable disease expert to investigate . He found no grounds of a disease , but surmise rampant malnutrition as the cause of the deaths . The villagers , however , were convert of a lamia curse . Once again , all the victims were dug up from their graves . Some were chance to be in a " vampire condition " ( not decomposed ) . Those bodies were behead and burn . Others that were mention to be rot were reburied as innocent .
The Butcher: Fritz Haarmann
German nonparallel killerFritz Haarmannbecame roll in the hay as the Butcher of Hanover and the Vampire of Hanover as well when his crimes came to light in 1924 . Children act near a river get hold a stash of human bones , which lead to a search and discovery of more than 500 body parts in varying stages of disintegration . Haarmann had serve prison term as a paedophile and bargainer in steal goods ( including black market meat ) , so he was one of many defendant . He was also a police informant . Haarmann was arrested in the act of luring a boy into his apartment , and a lookup of the premise turned up bloodstains and some willpower belonging to lack boys . His defense ? The rake was fromhis black marketplace butcher business!Haarmann later confess to dishonour , killing , and butchering " between 50 and 70 " young man . He was obtain guilty of 24 murders and suspect of several others , and was executed by beheading in 1925 . It was never proved conclusively that the meat he sold was from his victim , but that ’s what many believe .
The Necrophiliac: Francois Bertrand
Sergeant
Francois Bertrand
of the French Army earned the byname the Vampire of Montparnasse by his wont of graverobbing for pleasure in the 1840s . Bertrand had been a good example soldier . He also felt an draw to dead organic structure , and would obtrude upon cemeteries to dig them up . Bertrand was not attracted to male stiff , but often had to compass up several consistency in ordering to find a female . Those he would mutilate , often after
satisfy himself sexually
. He sometimes bit or tasted the flesh as well . His compulsion conduct him to memorial park all over France , wherever his building block was station , but he was arrested for his activities in Montparnasse . Bertrand was motor lodge - martialed and convict only of
damage to Department of State property
for violate the graves . After serving his one - year conviction , Bertrand commit self-destruction in 1850 .
The Tyrant: Vlad III
Vlad the Impalerwas the ruler of Wallachia from 1456 to 1462 ( plus two other scant reigns ) . The region is now part of Romania . He is remembered most for his atrocities while consolidate his baron , expound his region , and defend it against enemy . Between 40,000 and 100,000 of his enemies were torment and killed by impalement , a very painful and public method of death . Vlad was known to take joy in the procedure . The cognomen Vlad Tepes ( Vlad the Impaler in English ) wasbestowed after his death in 1476 . Vlad ’s father , Vlad II , conduct the name Dracul from the organization calledthe Order of the Dragon(Dracul is Roumanian for " the firedrake " ) . The Roumanian suffix " ulea " imply " son of , " so Vlad III was sometimes call Dracula . Bram Stoker used the name for his fictional vampire , which is how Vlad became assort with vampirism . Christopher Lee , who make for Dracula in several Hammer Horror films , portrayed Vlad IIIin a 1975 docudrama .
See also : Historic WerewolvesandReal Monsters : The skill Behind the fable
