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OLD NEWS

Village puts vampire to rest
From a Sunday Times (London) correspondent in Bucharest
April 12, 2004

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9255296%
255E13762,00.html

IN THE windswept lowlands of Romania the villagers of Marotinul de
Sus know better than to skirt the cemetery after nightfall. After
all, one of the wooden crosses shifting in the wind may lie over the
grave of a bloodthirsty vampire.

"For centuries we have had to protect ourselves against these
creatures by finding the graves of the undead and risking our lives
by ripping out their hearts," said 68-year-old local farmer Tita
Musca.

The village of the vampire slayers has become the focus of a police
investigation that has highlighted not only local fears of the undead
but a startling willingness to act on them.

The saga began when Petre Toma, 76, was buried at the New Year. His
nephew's family fell ill with an unexplained sickness and a few days
later a witness claimed to have seen Toma leaving their house before
sunrise as a flock of crows flew portentously overhead.

"He sucked the life from us so that he could live," said Mirela
Marinescu. "We were all dying, my husband and my child, and we all
saw him come to us in the same dream."

Armed with hammers and chisels, and fortified with home-made
schnapps, four men led by Gheorghe Marinescu, the supposed vampire's
brother-in-law, set out for the cemetery.

"When we lifted the coffin lid his arms were not on his chest as we
had left them but at his sides," said Marinescu. "His head was turned
to the side and his lips were stained with dried blood."

After the corpse's chest had been opened with a wooden stake the
heart was removed. "It was full of fresh blood," said Marinescu. "His
body relaxed and we heard him sigh."

The heart was burnt over the embers of a fire and the ashes stirred
into a bottle of water from the village well to make a potion. The
vampire's "victims" recovered after drinking it but Toma's daughter
called the police.

Investigators soon discovered evidence of up to 20 vampire slayings
in the past few years. At the regional police station, the
commissioner, Gheorghe Sandu, said: "I'd like to be able to say this
village is unique, but unfortunately I can't because I know just how
strong belief in vampires is here."

The Australian

Body of 'vampire' dug up
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004091714,00.html


By CLODAGH HARTLEY

A FAMILY dug up the body of a dead relative then cut out and burnt
his heart after claiming he was a VAMPIRE.


They also drove wooden stakes through Petre Toma's body, saying he
had drunk their blood at night and cursed them.

Toma's brother-in-law Gheorghe Marinescu, who lives at Marotinul de
Sus in Dracula's homeland of Romania, said: "If we hadn't done
anything, my wife, son and daughter-in-law would have died.

"I decided to unbury him. I've seen these kinds of things before.

"When we took him out of the grave he had blood around his mouth.

"We took his heart and he sighed when we stabbed him. We burned it,
then dissolved the ash in water. The people who had fallen sick drank
it.

"They got better immediately. It was like someone took away all their
pain and sickness."

The family said the ritual — similar to those in Hammer Horror films
starring Christopher Lee — was the only way to free them of the curse
of Toma, who died last year aged 76.

Police were last night investigating after another relative
complained Toma's grave had been desecrated.

One cop said: "We will open the grave and see what we find."

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/2916394/detail.html
Man Beats Murder Rap With Vampire Defense
Psychologists Testify About Palmer's Mental Illness

POSTED: 4:43 pm MST March 11, 2004

A man who killed another man because he thought his girlfriend was
being turned into a vampire has been found not guilty by reason of
insanity.

The verdict against Kirk Palmer, 28, was delivered Wednesday by
Boulder District Judge Morris Sandstead, who sentenced him to the
mental hospital in Pueblo, Colo. Palmer had been charged with murder
in the case.

Testimony during the trial indicated that Palmer killed Antonia
Vierira with a shotgun blast because he was suffering from paranoid
schizophrenia at the time of the crime.

Palmer told a psychologist that four days before the July 2001
killing, he was removing a splinter from his girlfriend's finger when
he saw Vieira come out of his girlfriend's body and say, "I bit her.
Ha ha. She is a member of a vampire gang."

Other testimony indicated that Palmer fled to Canada hours after the
killing, but his defense attorney said that it was not an attempt to
avoid arrest but was part of a pre-planned trip to California -- by
way of Canada -- in order "cleanse his spirit."

If Palmer is found to be sane at any time, he could be released from
confinement.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/8267146.htm?1c

Posted on Wed, Mar. 24, 2004

The cemetery in Marotinu de Sus, Romania. Villagers here are not up
in arms about the undead-they're pretty common-but the fact that the
police are involved. Bogdon Croitoru / KRT |

Romanian villagers decry police investigation into vampire slaying

By MATTHEW SCHOFIELD

Knight Ridder Newspapers


MAROTINU DE SUS, Romania - Before Toma Petre's relatives pulled his
body from the grave, ripped out his heart, burned it to ashes, mixed
it with water and drank it, he hadn't been in the news much.

That's often the way here with vampires. Quiet lives, active deaths.

Villagers here aren't up in arms about the undead - they're pretty
common - but they are outraged that the police are involved in a
simple vampire slaying. After all, vampire slaying is an accepted,
though hidden, bit of national heritage, even if illegal.

"What did we do?" pleaded Flora Marinescu, Petre's sister and the
wife of the man accused of re-killing him. "If they're right, he was
already dead. If we're right, we killed a vampire and saved three
lives. ... Is that so wrong?"

Yes, according to the Romanian State Police. Its view, expressed by
Constantin Ghindeano, the chief agent for the region, is that
vampires aren't real, and dead bodies in graves aren't to be dug out
and killed again, even by relatives.

He doesn't really have much more to say on this case, other than
noting that Petre had been removed from his grave, his heart had been
cut out and it was presumed to have been consumed by his relatives.
Ghindeano added that police were expanding the investigation, which
began in mid-January, to include the after-deaths of others in area.

"The investigation is ongoing, and we expect to file charges later,"
he said, referring to possible charges of disturbing the peace of the
dead, which could carry a three-year jail term. "We are determining
whether this was an isolated case or whether there is a pattern in
the village."

Romania has been filled with news of the vampire-slaying
investigation, and villagers admit there's a pattern, but they argue
that that's the reason these matters shouldn't make it to court.
There's too much of it going on, and too few complain about the
practice.

Vampire slaying is a custom that's been passed down from mother to
daughter, father to son, for generations beyond memory, not just in
this tiny village of 300 huts astride a dirt cart path about 100
miles southwest of Bucharest, but in scores of villages throughout
southern Romania.

Little has changed since the days that Turkish invaders rolled
through 500 years ago, seeking the mineral riches of Transylvania
just to the north. By day, the people are Roman Catholics. At night,
they fear the strigoi, or vampires.

On a recent afternoon, the village's single store, which also serves
as its lone bar, was filled with men drinking hard, as they explained
the vampire facts to a stranger. Most had at least one vampire in
their family histories, and many were related to vampire victims.
Most had learned to kill a vampire while still children.

Theirs is not a Hollywood tale, and they laugh at Hollywood
conventions: that vampires can be warded off by crosses or cloves of
garlic, or that they can't be seen in mirrors. Utter nonsense.
Vampires were once Catholics, were they not? And if a vampire can be
seen, the mirror can see him. And why would you wear garlic around
your neck? Are you adding taste?

No, vampires are humans who have died, commonly babies before baptism
or people unfortunate enough to have black cats jump over their
coffins. Vampires occur everywhere, but in busy cities no one
notices, the men said.

Vampires are obvious when dug up because while they will have been
laid to rest on their backs, arms folded neatly across their chests,
they will be found on their sides or even their stomachs. They will
not have decomposed. Beards will have continued to grow. Their arms
will be at their sides, as if they are clawing out of their coffins.
And they will have blood - sometimes dried, sometimes fresh - around
their mouths.

But the biggest tip-off that a vampire is near is his or her family,
for vampires always prey on their families. If family members fall
ill after a death, odds are a vampire is draining their blood at
night, looking for company.

"That's the problem with vampires," said Doru Morinescu, a 30-year-
old shepherd who, like many in the village, has a family connection
to the current case. "They'd be all right if you could set them after
your enemies. But they only kill loved ones. I can understand why,
but they have to be stopped."

Ion Balasa, 64, explained that there are two ways to stop a vampire,
but only one after he or she has risen to feed.

"Before the burial, you can insert a long sewing needle, just into
the bellybutton," he said. "That will stop them from becoming a
vampire."

But once they've become vampires, all that's left is to dig them up,
use a curved haying sickle to remove the heart, burn the heart to
ashes on an iron plate, then have the ill relatives drink the ashes
mixed with water.

"The heart of a vampire, while you burn it, will squeak like a mouse
and try to escape," Balasa said. "It's best to take a wooden stake
and pin it to the pan, so it won't get away."

Which is exactly what happened with Petre, according to Gheorghe
Marinescu, a cheery, aging vampire slayer who was Petre's brother-in-
law.

Marinescu's story goes like this: After Petre died, Marinescu's son,
daughter-in-law and granddaughter fell ill. Marinescu knew the cause
was his dead brother-in-law. So he had to go out to the cemetery.

The first time, he was frightened, so he had a little graveside
drink, for courage. He ended up with a little too much courage and
couldn't use the shovel. So the next night he returned, and with a
proper amount of courage, was successful.

Marinescu said he found Petre on his side, his mouth bloody. His
heart squeaked and jumped as it was burned. When it was mixed with
water and taken to those who were sick, it worked.

His wife, Petre's sister, interrupted his story with a broom,
swinging it at him and a stranger. She was worried that he would
incur the wrath of the police, who would jail him.

But then his son Costel called what happened next a miracle. After
weeks in bed, Costel got up to walk. His head wasn't pounding. His
chest wasn't aching. His stomach felt fine.

"We were all saved," he said. "We had been saved from a vampire."

But how could he be sure his illness came from a vampire?

"What other explanation is possible?" he asked.

Police: Suspected Gunman "Vampire Slayer"
Last Update: 3/15/2004 6:32:33 AM


According to police, the suspect 35-year-old Timothy White told the
employees he was a vampire slayer.

White allegedly shot David Harrison, an employee of the store Friday
night. Harrison was reported to be in critical condition at Shands
Jacksonville Saturday.

White remains in the Duval County Jail.

Previoius Story:
(3/13/04)
A hunt for a heavily armed man suspected of shooting a pizza shop
worker ended in a church parking lot Friday night.

According to reports, disgruntled worker Timothy White entered a
Domino's Pizza Shop on Normandy Boulevard around 8pm. White allegedly
shot store employee David Harrison. Harrison was taken to Shands
Jacksonville with life-threatening injuries. He was last reported in
critical condition.

White was arrested in a nearby church parking lot. White had a knife,
a sawed off shotgun and three pistols with him.

http://bbspot.com/News/2002/11/popup.html

Monday, November 11 12:34 AM EST
Pop-Up Windows Inventor Refuses to Stay Buried
By Dale McFarland

The Hague, Netherlands - Undertakers are puzzled and irritated by a
coffin that refuses to stay underground. After numerous attempts to
inter the body, cemetery staff is at a loss.

Verdomde Klootzak, the Dutch html developer credited with scripting
the earliest pop-up window codes, was found violently murdered in his
home weeks ago. Authorities have no solid leads in the strange case,
and this latest enigma has served only to hamper their investigation.

Grounds manager Vlad Diggoort expressed his frustration. "We close
the box and we think we're rid of him, then he pops up somewhere
else. We bury the bastard over here, but then he reappears over
there. It's driving us all crazy."

Tim Berners-Lee, Klootzak's former co-worker at C.E.R.N. on the
French-Swiss border west of Geneva, has no explanation for the
mystery.

"Frankly, I'm bewildered," he confesses. "I'm sure they'll be able to
dispose of the casket eventually. But I wouldn't be surprised if his
murderer is never identified. There are just too many people in the
world who wanted him to disappear."

http://www.castleofspirits.com/coffins.html

On the outskirts of Barbados, West Indies a strange and unexplainable
occurrence happened in one of the oldest cemeteries in the area.

Inside the Chase vault at Christ Church overlooking oistin's Bay
somewhere between 1812 and 1820, coffins moved inside the vault with
no reasonable explanation as to why or how?

The first published account of these moving coffins was by Sir J. E.
Alexander's Transatlantic Sketches (1833):

"Each time that the vault was opened the coffins were replaced in
their proper situations, that is, three on the ground side by side,
and the others laid on them. The vault was then regularly closed; the
door (a massive stone which required six or seven men to move) was
cemented by masons; and though the floor was of sand there were no
marks of footsteps or water.

The last time the vault was opened was in 1819. Lord Combermere
(governor of the colony) was then present, and the coffins were found
confusedly thrown about the vault, some with their heads down and
others up. What could have occasioned this phenomenon? In no other
vault in the island has this ever occurred".



There have been many varied accounts printed of this particular story
over time. One of the alleged witnesses, the Rev. Thomas H. Orderson,
the rector of Christ Church gave conflicting accounts to the
inquirers. Other accounts were published in 1944 (Sir Robert
Schomburgk's History of Barbado's) and 1860 (Mrs. D. H. Cusson's
Death's Deeds).

In 1907 a noted English folklorist Andrew Lang reviewed the affair,
taking information from his brother-in-law's investigation in
Barbados and using the printed material. Lang examined the vault
records but found absolutely nothing to substantiate the story. He
also found that the Islands newspapers of that time did not print
anything about the moving coffins. About the only interesting thing
he came across was an unpublished description by Nathan Lucas, who
witnessed the final interment of the vault in April 1920.

Lang was mainly interested in the episode because of similar events
he had heard of in a Lutherian Cemetery on the Isle of Oesel, in the
Baltic Sea. This happened in 1844 and the occurrence was documented
by American diplomat Robert Dale Owen who reported it in Footfalls on
the boundary of Another World - 1960; no other written records are
known to exist. Lang suspected that the inventors of this story
somehow used the Barbados story as a source for their own variation
on the moving coffin story, adding a few charming flourishes of their
own, such as a hand of suicide being found sticking out of one of the
coffins.

However there is another moving coffin story that is believed to be
original and genuine and could not of been from the Barbados story.
It was printed in The European Magazine September 1815. This story
told of the case of "The Curious Vault at Stanton in Suffolk" in
which coffins were "displaced" several times under mysterious
circumstances. Nathan Lucas, one of the alleged witnesses to the
final (1820) interment at the Chase Vault, mentions this English
case, even quoting the article, in his private account of 1824.

F. A. Paley told of another incident when his father was the rector
in the parish of Gretford, near Stamford (England). His father noted
that two or three times the coffins in a vault were found on re
opening to have been moved around. The incidence created some
excitement within the village at the time and of course brought out
every superstitious belief that existed within the English village.
The incident was quickly hushed up out of respect for the family to
whom the vault belonged.

All these occurrences took place in the 1800's but the 1900's have no
record of any such occurrence at all. It has been heavily suggested
and well argued that the entire thing (originally in Barbados) was a
Masonic hoax. The general belief however of this mysterious
occurrence is that none of the cases were real. Perhaps they were
simply invented by bored Englishmen in the 1800's looking for a bit
of attention?

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.

 
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