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This Sunday, HBO will reignite America’s battle against vampires with the premiere of the sixth season of True Blood. Although there’s no concrete proof that vampires exist (aside from that eerie picture of Nicolas Cage), criminals have been using bloodlust as an excuse for their heinous acts for over four centuries. Here are eight such cases.
1. COUNTESS ELIZABETH BÁTHORY
One of the earliest to use the vampire defense was Countess Elizabeth Báthory, a Hungarian noblewoman infamous for her brutal treatment of her servants, including leaving them drenched in water to freeze to death in winter. However, it wasn’t until 1609, after she staged the murder of a young noblewoman to look like a suicide, that she was finally brought to justice for her atrocities.
Though separating truth from myth in Báthory’s story is challenging, her legend claims she murdered over 650 women and bathed in their blood, believing it had rejuvenating properties. Báthory and four servants were charged with 80 murders, but she died under house arrest before facing trial. In Dracula Was a Woman, historian Raymond T. McNally argues that Báthory partly inspired Bram Stoker’s iconic vampire.
2. FRITZ HAARMANN
Known as “The Vampire of Hanover,” Fritz Haarmann was among the earliest and most notorious serial killers. From 1918 to 1924, he killed at least 24 people, often by biting their necks. On December 19, 1924, he was sentenced to death by guillotine and executed on April 15, 1925. His head was preserved in a jar for scientific study and remains at a medical school in Göttingen, Germany.
3. RICHARD CHASE
A gruesome obsession with blood drove Richard Chase, dubbed “The Vampire of Sacramento,” to a month-long killing spree. Between 1977 and 1978, he murdered, mutilated, and drank the blood of six victims aged 22 months to 36 years. Chase randomly targeted homes with unlocked doors, believing locked ones meant he wasn’t welcome. Convicted on six counts of first-degree murder, he was sentenced to death but died by suicide in December 1979 from an overdose of antidepressants.
4. JAMES P. RIVA
At just 23 years old, James P. Riva murdered his wheelchair-bound grandmother in Marshfield, Massachusetts, in 1980. He stabbed her multiple times and shot her four times in the heart with gold-painted bullets. To conceal the crime, he set her house on fire. Riva initially claimed to be a 700-year-old vampire who needed her blood to survive, but later changed his story, alleging self-defense against his grandmother, whom he believed was a vampire draining his blood with an ice pick. In 1981, he was sentenced to life in prison for second-degree murder and arson.
5. RODERICK FERRELL
In 1996, Roderick Ferrell, known as the “Vampire Killer,” blurred the lines between role-playing and reality. The teenage leader of a Vampire Clan traveled from Murray, Kentucky, to Eustis, Florida, to murder his girlfriend Heather’s parents as part of her initiation into his coven. After beating her father with a crowbar, Ferrell and an accomplice burned a “V” into his chest with cigarettes. Upon arrest, Ferrell boasted to police that he was Vesago, a 500-year-old all-powerful vampire who couldn’t be contained. In 1998, he became the youngest death row inmate in the U.S., though his sentence was later reduced to life without parole.
6. CAIUS DOMITIUS VEIOVIS
If you’re curious about how “real-life” vampires view Twilight, Caius Domitius Veiovis has a strong stance. In a 2011 letter to Massachusetts’ Berkshire Eagle, Veiovis wrote, “Pop culture makes me want to vomit hot blood.” Veiovis, who faces trial in early 2014 for the kidnapping and murder of three men in Massachusetts and was previously convicted in Maine for the ritualistic drinking of a teenage girl’s blood, sports a forked tongue, sharpened teeth, implanted horns, and a “666” tattoo on his forehead. He added, “I’ve never watched this ridiculous movie, read the books, or wasted my time on such nonsense.” Message received.
7. ALLAN MENZIES
Allan Menzies was deeply fixated on the 2002 vampire film Queen of the Damned, which he borrowed from his best friend, Thomas McKendrick. Watching it up to three times daily, Menzies became convinced that the character Akasha was real and demanded he kill someone to become a vampire. At his trial, Menzies stated, “I knew I had to murder somebody.” After McKendrick insulted Akasha, Menzies stabbed him 42 times, struck him with a hammer, drank his blood, and ate part of his brain. Menzies died in prison from an apparent suicide a little over a year after receiving a life sentence.
8. JOSEPHINE SMITH
A closed Hooters restaurant might seem an unlikely vampire hideout, but it’s where 22-year-old Josephine Smith attacked a 69-year-old homeless man in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 2011. As the man slept, Smith allegedly declared, “I am a vampire, I am going to eat you,” before biting off parts of his face, lips, and arm. The victim escaped and called police, who found Smith bloodied at the scene with no memory of the attack.
