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Vampires in the News

This page is dedicated to any mention of vampirism in the news, past or present.  If you know of a news tidbit pertaining to vampires in any way, please send it in.

Stan Rice, Husband Of Author, Dead At 60
 

NEW ORLEANS, 6:29 p.m. CST December 9, 2002 - Stan Rice, the husband of local author Anne Rice, died Monday at Touro Infirmary.

Copied from... www.annerice.com/feature.htm

Phone Message Transcript: December 9, 2002
[appearing on Anne's fan phone line, (504) 522-8634]

"Hello guys, this is Anne Rice, it's December 9th, 2002. I have the very sad news, that my husband Stan died this morning, between 2:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. He had been struggling with a tumor in his brain for a little over four months. He went down very fast. Very fast. I just wanted to share that information with you, because so many of you have left messages saying that you were praying for him and that you were thinking about him, and I appreciate all of those messages very very much.
I was married to Stan for 41 years. As far as I'm concerned, he died young. I don't even know what the world is going to be like for me without Stan. It's been "Stan and Anne" for so long that I have no concept of it. I'll go on writing, of course. Because one of the great things about being a writer is that you can write in sorrow, in grief, and anguish. You can use your emotions to make something constructive, and something perhaps that will remove these things for someone else.

Thank you so much for your response to BLACKWOOD FARM. You know how much I love that book. You knows it's filled with ways of death and dying and asking for death and dying. Keep giving your response. I love hearing from you. Maybe next year I'll be able to travel again. Maybe on a tour. I don't know.

In 1973, when I wrote INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, my beautiful husband Stan was the inspiration for the vampire Lestat. He had Stan's long blond hair and blue eyes and feline grace that inspired Lestat's charm and magnetism and mesmerizing movement. And now, for the first time in 41 years, I'm alone. I'm a woman alone. It's a very strange feeling.

My heart goes out to all of you who are writing. All of you who are struggling with problems of your own. I hope that whatever pain I've sustained, will only leave me more sensitive to others. That will make me only more loving. I pray that happens.

I have a book already written, that will appear next fall. I'll tell you more about it as time goes on. Right now, I'm sort of thinking that Blackwood Farm is a state of mind; and I like to slip into that state of mind to console myself. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for your wonderful messages. I truly love you. I don't know where I would be if it weren't for you. Take care."

VAMPIRE FANGS SUIT

By John Accola, News Staff Writer

A Boulder fang-maker who sued his former business partners for launching a rival vampire costume venture has been awarded triple damages and interest totaling more than $2.4 million.
In a 20-page ruling, a federal judge in Denver said additional damages were appropriate in part because the defendants had provided "incomplete or false testimony" in a case that proved intentional violations of patent laws.

U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Babcock's judgment against Ram Southwest of New Mexico comes a year after a jury's initial patent damage award of about $300,000 to the plaintiffs, Donald Nutting and his fang-manufacturing company, Foothills Distributing Co.

Apart from the jury award, Babcock ruled Nutting should be awarded three times the $380,000 in lost profits caused by the defendants' illegal vampire knockoff product.

"It was a bitter, hard-fought case and it went for seven days at trial," said Nutting's attorney, Brian Smith. "We obviously think the judge and the jury made the right decision."

Mary and Ron Sheppeard, Ram's owners, could not be reached for comment.

In his ruling Friday, Babcock cited provisions in the federal Landham Act that provide for triple damages in cases where there has been willful patent infringement and unfair profiteering. He said the evidence showed the Sheppeards, former distributors for Foothills Distributing, had wrongfully repackaged or copied the Boulder company's Custom Dracula Fangs since 1995, a year after Nutting applied for his plastic fangs patent.

The judge also determined Nutting was entitled to reimbursement of reasonable legal costs, admonishing the Sheppeards' attorneys for "unprofessional behavior" at trial and during the three years of litigation.

Attorneys at Peacock, Myers & Adams, the Albuquerque law firm that represented the Sheppeards, did not return phone calls.

Smith said that with attorney fees, the award is likely to top $3 million. Although the Sheppeards say they are out of business, Smith said the couple appears to be covered by a general corporate liability insurance policy.

Foothills Distributing claims to be the nation's leading plastic fang makers. Its trademark Dracula Fangs, which come in small coffin-shaped boxes, retail for $14 and up.

A second patent infringement lawsuit the company filed against a California rival last year is still pending in Babcock's court. "Basically, it's the same stuff with some subtle differences," Smith said.

Murder trial reveals sinister link to British vampire groups

John Hooper in Berlin
Guardian

Friday February 1, 2002


A young married couple who admitted to a ritual Satanic killing were yesterday told they could spend the rest of their lives in a secure psychiatric unit after a trial which has raised the spectre of bizarre underground occult groups in Britain.

Manuela Ruda, aged 23, who told a German court she had become a vampire in London, and her husband, Daniel, aged 26, were given prison sentences of 13 and 15 years respectively after admitting to the hacking to death of a friend in their flat in Witten, in the Ruhr valley.

The victim, a 33-year-old colleague of Daniel's, Frank Hackert, was targeted as suitable prey for his mild temperament and love of The Beatles, and was lured to their apartment where he was attacked repeatedly with a hammer.

Manuela Ruda told the court: "Then my knife started to glow and I heard the command to stab him in the heart."

The couple stabbed Hackert 66 times, carving an occult pentagram on his chest and collecting his blood in a bowl and then drinking it.

When police broke into the flat they found a scalpel still embedded in his stomach with his body lying beneath a banner saying "When Satan Lives".

They also found imitation human skulls and a coffin in which Manuela slept during the day.

The judge in the case, which has led to disturbing scenes in court, coupled their jail terms with an order that they be held indefinitely for psychiatric treatment.

Neither of the two self-styled devil worshippers showed the slightest emotion as the sentences were read out to a courtroom dotted with supporters and admirers of the bizarre couple, many dressed in black and holding roses.

Throughout the trial in the western town of Bochum, the couple had remained defiant, making rude gestures, rolling their eyes maniacally, sticking their tongues out and flashing smiles at journalists.

Manuela had told the court how, after working in the Scottish Highlands, she had headed for north London where she se cured a job in a gothic club. It is here she made her first forays into the world of bloodsucking. In the words of her lugubriously bizarre testimony, it was frequented "by both vampires and human beings".

Returning to Germany she began to give substance to her sinister fantasies. She started to mix with people who went to graveyards at night where they would "have a perfectly normal chat and drink some blood". The blood came from donors contacted on the internet.

She also learned how to suck blood from another person's neck without penetrating the artery. And she had two of her teeth removed and replaced with long animal fangs.

A psychologist said she appeared to have been unable to develop any feeling of self-worth. Born into a working-class family, she was selected to attend a gymnasium, the German equivalent of a grammar school, intended to groom its pupils for university. But she dropped out at the age of 14, at about the same time as she tried to kill herself with an overdose.

When she was on the stand, Manuela's lawyer asked her if she had actually signed over her soul to the devil. "That was two-and-a-half years ago, on the night before Halloween," she replied, adding in quasi-Biblical language: "That was when I placed myself in, and swore myself, to, the service of our Lord, his will to perform."

Her Lord, though, was Satan, and he had come to play a big role too in the life of Daniel, the car parts salesman she met through an advert he placed in a heavy metal magazine in August 2000. "Pitch-black vampire seeks princess of darkness who hates everything and everyone," he wrote.

She and her husband were arrested after being spotted at a petrol station after a nationwide manhunt. Police found a list in their flat of their intended future victims. There were 16 names on it.

Manuela, in verbal testimony, and Daniel, in a statement read to the court, both denied murder on the grounds that they were acting on a command from a higher authority. "I got the order to sacrifice a human for Satan," Daniel insisted.
 

Blood-sucking vampires may have their history in disease rather than the supernatural, according to a Spanish neurologist.
Dr Juan Gomez-Alonso has put forward a novel theory to explain the Dracula legend - vampires were suffering from rabies.



Animal killer: Myth maker?
The neurologist hit on the rabid vampire theory after watching a Dracula film.

He said: "I watched the film as a doctor and became impressed by some obvious similarities between vampires and what happens in rabies."

Both legendary vampires and rabies victims share the symptoms of aggressiveness and hypersexuality.

Dr Gomez-Alonso's thesis was published in the journal Neurology after he investigated further links between vampire stories and outbreaks of rabies in Europe.

He said: "Sometimes things that are apparently bizarre and senseless can have a logical explanation."

Balkan base

The neurologist, who works at Xeral Hospital in Vigo, Spain, found that 25% of rabid men "have a tendency to bite others".

Further study of history books uncovered that early tales of vampirism often coincided with reports of rabies outbreaks in and around the Balkans.

Dr Gomez-Alonso believes he can ascribe almost all vampire characteristics to rabies victims.

He says that:

Dracula's famous weaknesses - garlic and light - could be ascribed to hypersensitivity, a symptom of rabies.
The vampire's voracious sexual appetite and nocturnal habits could be attributed to the effect of rabies on parts of the brain that help regulate sleep cycles and sexual behaviour.
In the past a man was not considered rabid if he could look at his own reflection - an explanation for vampires not having a reflection.
The association of vampires with animals such as wolves and bats could be explained by the fact that those creatures are susceptible to the disease.
Even the vampire's fatal bite could be traced to rabies, he says.

Dr Gomez-Alonso said: "Man has a tendency to bite, both in fighting and in sexual activities.

"The intensification of such tendency by rabies increases the risk of transmission, as the virus is in saliva and other body secretions."

In his article for Neurology, Dr Gomez-Alonso wrote: "Hypersexuality may be a striking manifestation of rabies. Literature reports cases of rabid patients who practised intercourse up to 30 times in a day."

He added: "Men with rabies ... react to stimuli such as water, light, odours or mirrors with spasms of the facial and vocal muscles that can cause hoarse sounds, bared teeth and frothing at the mouth of bloody fluid."

Slain Scientist's Daughter arrested.

Written by: Matthew Barakat

Leesburg, VA- 3 months after DNA scientist Robert Schwartz was stabbed to death with a 2-foot sword and left with a ritualistic X carved in to the back of his neck, the case has turned out to be less exotic than investigators thought, but chilling nonetheless.

Schwartz on daughter a 21 year old college student, is under arrest along with three other friends, Ranging from 18-21, whos signed confessions are disturbing in both their macabre detail and the banality of their launguage.

Kyle Hulbert, an 18 year old with an interest in vampires and a history of mental illness, told police in a rambling 7 page confession that he had killed schwartz to protect
Clara Schwartz from her father "who had poisoned her many times with various chemicals."

Prosecuters and defense attorneys have said next to nothing about the case. Schwartz relatives have said the notion that he was poisoning his daughter was ludacris.

The 57 year old biophiscist was a respected researcher in DNA sequencing and a contributor to one of the first online database of DNA sequencing information. His wife Claras mother had died several years earlier from cancer.

He was killed DEC. 8 and was found 2 days later in his farmhouse in Hamilton, about 40 miles west of Washington D.C.

The investigation turned quickly to HUlbert, Micheal Paul Pfohl and his girlfriend,Katherine Inglis. Neighbors had seen them drive to Schwartz house and get stuck in the mud. The three were charged with murder Dec. 12.

Clara Schwartz a student at James Madison University, was later implicated and arrested on Feb. 1. Prosecuters said she was involved in the plot. But she was not there during the slaying itself.

All four are being held without bail.

The mysterious X in Schwartz neck was said to have been related to a ritualistic murder. Friens said the ones who commited the crime had a facsination for medieval times and wizardry. and that they had met at a renissance festival.

But investigators said the X was just a coincidental stab wound, and Hulbert said he did not remember doing it.

Hulbert was alledgedly the only one that had entered the house.the other 2 waited in the car. According to one of the accounts, Schwartzs, on his knees before Hulbert delivered the fatal blow looked up and asked " What did i ever do to you?"

In his confession Hulbert referred to vampirism and the occult and said the taste of schwartz blood got in his mouth and " drove me into a frenzy"

Hulbert also wrote that he would have let Schwartz live if it had not been for the confession in his eyes when he confronted him about abusing his daughter.

Defense attorney Connie Maggie said Hulberts testiment is unreliable because of his mentall history.

Hulberts father had said that Hulbert had suffered from schizophrenia.Hulbert told investigators that he had stopped taking his medication a couple of days before the murder because he was having trouble with medicaid.

 

Vampire Bats Attack Indians/Kill Cattle

Story Filed: Friday, April 05, 2002 8:31 AM EST

San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico, Apr 05, 2002 (EFE via COMTEX) -- Five Indians were attacked by hundreds of vampire bats in the municipality of Ocosingo, in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas, the Health Secretariat reported.

Health authorities noted that thousands of vampire bats have killed more than 100 head of cattle in the area and that some 30 people who came in contact with infected cattle have received anti-rabies vaccines.

The Health Secretariat said that the Indians attacked by vampire bats are residents of the towns of Santa Rosa, El Jardin and Ubilio Garcia.

Authorities explained that vampire bats make their home in caves and tree hollows during the day and at night attack animals and, now, even people.

According to medical reports, the victims are in stable condition, and no intoxication cases due to consumption of infected meat have been reported.

mdc/ad/rm

www.efe.es


Vampire Rapist Commits Suicide

Story Filed: Monday, April 01, 2002 11:38 PM EST



BOWLING GREEN, Fla. (AP) -- A man dubbed ``the Vampire Rapist'' because he drank the blood of a kidnapped hitchhiker killed himself in his prison cell, officials said Monday.

John Crutchley, 55, who drained and drank blood from a 19-year-old woman he abducted in 1985, was found early Saturday morning at Hardee Correctional Institution with a plastic bag wrapped around his head, the Florida Department of Corrections said.

Crutchley drained nearly half of his victim's blood with a syringe and drank some before she escaped his home in Malabar, 60 miles southeast of Orlando.

Sentenced to 25 years in prison, Crutchley served 10 years before he was released to a halfway house in Orlando in August 1996. He was arrested the next day when state probation officials said he tested positive for marijuana.

Crutchley received a life sentence after that violation.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating Crutchley's death.



Copyright © 2002 Associated Press Information Services, all rights reserved.

 

Dracula

28th May 2000

The Independent Newspaper

"Romania revamps Dracula legend to earn tourist dollars"

Article by Alison Mutler, Associated Press Writer


Romania has sunk its fangs into the vampire legend with a horror fest for Dracula devotees in deepest Transylvania.

No garlic, crucifixes or other banes of vampires were in sight when 30 Dracula buffs from the United States, Britain, Switzerland, Serbia and Canada joined locals to discuss Romania's most infamous son.

Instead, the ideas were more 21st century, as participants talked about Dracula on the Internet, for instance, or listened to the thoughts of an actress famed for playing Countess Dracula in the nude.

Some Romanians are offended that a national hero, Vlad the Impaler, a 16th century Romanian prince who hoisted his enemies on stakes, inspired writer Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, "Dracula," which in turn spawned the 20th–century vampire industry.

One presentation was too much even for die–hard Dracula fans – several congress participants walked out during the showing of a video showing a woman sucking blood from a man's neck. The footage was real.

Still, there were no detractors of the legend at the gathering inside the dingy Hotel Favorit, a communist–era hostel nestled in the pine trees and mountains of Transylvania, some 160 kilometers (100 miles) north of Bucharest.

The four–day congress, which lasted through Sunday, is only part of a full tour devoted to Dracula. At dlrs 468 to dlrs 824 per head, the event is expensive in Romania, where the average monthly salary is less than the equivalent of dlrs 100.

Still, tourist managers hope the Count Dracula congress – the second since 1995 – will help attract badly needed tourists to Romania, if not now, then in the future.

A masked ball in Castle Dracula in Transylvania's Borgo Pass is planned next week, as is a visit to Vlad the Impaler's tomb on an island opposite a villa owned by former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

Mention of Dracula was officially forbidden under Ceausescu, who himself was nicknamed "Vampirescu" by Romanians for his draconian policies that sucked the country dry during 25 years of rule, ended in 1989 with his overthrow and execution.

At the congress, the experts paused in their discussions of Dracula for long lunches of bloody steak and Romanian white wine.

"Vlad was not devilish for his time. In fact he saved Romania," said Polish–born British actress Ingrid Pitt, alluding to his battles against invading Turks.

Pitt starred in the 1970 movie Countess Dracula and 1971 movie The Vampire Lovers, in which she strips in several scenes.

"Dracula represents a freedom of sexuality that is something the American society has mixed feelings about," said Victoria Amador from Silver City, New Mexico, who teaches a course on vampire literature at Western New Mexico University.

She is planning a vampire–theme wedding in Scotland this fall. A dress of deep raspberry silk, drop earrings in the shape of fangs and raspberry punch are some of the tributes she plans to pay to Dracula.

For Romanian craftsman Teodor Stanciu, who makes Dracula copper engravings and sells plum brandy, the vampire is his lifeblood. "It is an inestimable legacy that Bram Stoker left us, and we don't know how to use it."

Others question whether the hoopla is fitting.

"If he rose from his grave and saw how we have mocked him, he'd impale the lot of us," said Maria Pascu, selling Dracula dolls from Bran Castle about 35 kilometers (23 miles) south of Poiana Brasov.

 

Youth guilty of vampire ritual killing
2nd August 2002, NTL world news (Wales –U.K.)

A teenager has been found guilty of murdering his elderly neighbour and drinking her blood in a vampire ritual.
Art student Mathew Hardman, 17, butchered Mabel Leyshon at her home in Llanfairpwll, Anglesey, last November.
He has been jailed for a minimum of 12 years.
The 90-year-old widow's heart was cut out and her blood appeared to have been drunk from a saucepan.
The teenager was said to be obsessed by vampires and killed Mrs Leyshon in a bid to become one of the creatures.
He had denied any involvement in the murder and claimed his alleged fascination with vampires was no more than a "subtle interest".
Hardman was convicted by a unanimous verdict at Mold Crown Court.
After the verdict was reached, trial Mr Justice Richards lifted an order banning his identification.
The 17-year-old wept when the male foreman read out the verdict and his mother shrieked and sobbed in the public gallery.
Judge Mr Justice Richards says all the evidence pointed to the fact Hardman believed he could achieve immortality by killing Mrs Leyshon and drinking her blood.


 

VAMPIRE SLEUTH STAKES OUT RHODE ISLAND BLOODSUCKERS


NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) -- Rhode Islanders have been guarding themselves for months against mosquitoes infected with a potentially deadly virus, but Christopher Rondina (Vamptopher@aol.com) says the state's past is filled with stories of a far scarier bloodsucker: vampires.

After 10 years of research, the 29-year-old Newport man has written and illustrated a book, "Vampire Legends of Rhode Island" (ISBN 0-924771-91-7 Covered Bridge Press, 1997). Last Halloween, Rondina and two friends camped amid the cold ruins and dark shadows of Castle Dracula in Romania. They're traveling for 18 days in the Transylvania countryside tracking both the Dracula of history and sites associated with the bloodsucking legend made famous by the 1897 novel
by Bram Stoker.

"I personally believe that Stoker based a lot of the domestic events of his story on the Rhode Island legends,'' said Rondina, noting Stoker read newspaper clippings on New England vampire tales while researching the book.

"One article focused on Rhode Island and reported dozens of cases over a number of years,'' Rondina said. "It mentions Newport frequently, and vaguely refers to a legend not far from Newport. "Unfortunately no one has been able to pin down a vampire story in Newport -- excuse the pun.''

Tuberculosis caused the mysterious deaths once attributed to Rhode Island vampires, including the case of Mercy Brown. Brown died in 1892 at age 19. Her death followed those of her mother and older sister. At the time, her brother, Edwin, was seriously ill and the family was desperate to save him. Family members attributed the deaths to a curse on the family and
decided to dig up the bodies of the women, including Mercy, who had been buried for about a month. When Mercy's body was exhumed, observers noted it appeared to have moved inside the coffin and blood was present in her heart and veins. Fearing she was a vampire, townspeople removed her heart and burned it on a rock before reburying her. The family dissolved the ashes in medicine and gave it to Edwin, who died two months later.

Modern science may have driven the stake through the heart of local vampire tales but Dracula still grips Rondina's fascination. "I still enjoy the romance of the story, the snappy wardrobe and the bats -- I love bats," Rondina said.
 

"Vampires arrested for Vandalism

Submitted by Dean.

DALLAS (AP) - Four teen-agers claiming to be vampires went on a drug-crazed rampage, vandalizing dozens of cars and homes, spray-painting racial slurs and burning a church, police say.

The fire early Thursday destroyed the office and fellowship hall at Bethany Lutheran Church. Its outside walls were scrawled with satanic graffiti in hot pink and white paint.

``My sadness is not for us. It is for those people who don't know the joy of life,'' said pastor Carol Spencer, whose church is in the mostly white, middle-class suburb of Lake Highlands.

Evidence from the fire quickly led authorities to the nearby home of a 16-year-old boy, who was not identified because he is a juvenile.

He and the others - Lucas Charles Simms, 17, Brandon Lee Ramsey, 18, and Charles Randal Kinnard, 19 - were arrested on arson charges.

The Dallas Morning News reported that one of them told detectives the teens believe they are vampires and that the teen-agers had marks on their arms from sucking each other's blood. The newspaper said the teens smoked marijuana laced with some kind of a substance before the rampage.

They slashed car tires, broke windows and spray-painted vulgarities on cars, homes and fences, police said. An acid used to treat swimming pools was spread on cars.

``I expected it to be messed-up kids. But this was really bad,'' said Elwin Setliff, one of the dozens of vandalism victims.

Investigators would not disclose the evidence that led them to the teen-agers.

Before their arrest, some of the teens sat in lawn chairs on top of a carport and watched as investigators went through the ruins of the church Thursday, said Deputy Fire Chief Tom Oney.

``It appeared to me that they were savoring the fruits of the damage,'' he said. ``They were enjoying watching us look at it.''

 

Fatal Vampire Attack in Germany

Submitted by Dean.

Courtesy of The Fortean Times, June 1996.


A man of 75, walking Jockel, his Dachshund, in Berlin on 4 April 1995, was attacked by a 43-year-old man who bit him on the neck, shouting "I am Dracula!" Passersby overpowered the attacker and handed him over to police. He said he had been drinking. The victim went home and died an hour later from a heart attack.