10 Shocking Cases of Modern Day Vampires

With Halloween just around the corner, ghosts and ghouls of all kinds are all over our TVs, cinemas… and perhaps, if the ancient pagan beliefs hold true, our own streets and even our houses. It’s the season of hauntings, ouija boards, and sexy cat costumes.

One of the favourite spooky legends – particularly fashionable in the media these days – is the vampire, who has evolved from literary beginnings as Bram Stoker’s Dracula to pop culture depictions like the hit Twilight franchise and TV’s Vampire Diaries. As such, there’s a wide spectrum for interpretation of the vampire theme: Should you decide to dress up as one for Halloween, you could be a bloodsucking caped monstrosity, a sensual man-eating provocateur, or simply channel Robert Pattinson.

Outside of these fictional depictions, however, a startling number of people genuinelyidentify as vampires and their destructive appetites for blood-red liquids aren’t limited to too much red wine at the Halloween party. ‘Vampires’ like these come from all over the world, with varying cultural backgrounds. Some of them think that they’re actually ancient vampires, hundreds of years old, while others demonstrate their vampiric side by drinking human blood. Understandably, lots of these people have been arrested and imprisoned for their actions. The following are ten spooky, real life criminal cases of modern day vampires from across the world, from Mexico, to Germany, to Scotland.

Trigger Warning: Some graphic descriptions of violence

10. Josephine Smith

via crimelibrary.com

Kicking off the list is 22 year old Floridian Josephine Smith, who left her victim in no doubt as to her plans by allegedly preceding her attack on a senior citizen by saying “I am a vampire, I am going to eat you”.

In September of 2011, Smith attacked a sixty-nine year old homeless man who had been sleeping on a porch in the early hours of the morning. The man in question, Milton Ellis, had invited Smith to join him on the porch while she waited for a relative to pick her up. During the attack Smith bit chunks of flesh from Ellis’s face, lips and arms, before he managed to escape and call 911. Smith later claimed to have no recollection of the attack, and could not explain to police why she was covered in blood.

9. Emi Coleman

via blogs.westword.com

Another vampire-like attack took place in the US in 2011, this time in Denver. The actions of Emi Coleman were caught on security camera when she attacked two people in a convenience store. Coleman, then thirty-one, walked into the store and took a male customer’s drink from him, before grabbing his genitals and biting him on the neck. She then turned on the female store cashier, asking her for a hug before also biting her neck. Coleman then left the store with a male accomplice, but was caught by police as a result of the CCTV. Coleman was sentenced to a mere thirty days in jail, as part of one year of supervised probation.

8. Jeffrey Mitchell

via crimelibrary.com

In 2008, sex offender Jeffrey Mitchell was sentenced by police for offenses relating to sexually assaulting a four year old girl. The manifestly disturbed Mitchell, who preferred to go by the name “Draven”, believed that he was a 225 year old vampire; he embodied this by wearing black and even capping his teeth so that they’d look like fangs. The Florida-based Mitchell was arrested after sexually assaulting three female children, and was charged with aggravated sexual battery amongst other crimes.

7. Jan O

via news.asiantown.net

The mysteriously-named Jan O is a German ‘vampire’ who was arrested on charges of killing two teenagers in 2010. It was decided that Jan O had originally attacked the first teenager, Nina, in order to sexually assault her, but was overtaken by “vampiristic and cannibal tendencies” instead. The murderer admitted “when she was on the ground I didn’t want sex any more, only flesh and blood.” The second teenage victim, Tobias, was killed and similarly defiled days later. Tobias was mistaken for a girl by Jan O because of his long hair. During his trial Jan O expressed remorse to the victims’ families, saying he didn’t know what had come over him.

6. Mathew Hardman

via thesun.co.uk

A seventeen year old student from Wales, Mathew Hardman, was arrested on charges of killing his elderly neighbour in 2001 in the hopes of becoming a true vampire. In a horrific attack Hardman broke into a ninety year old widow’s house, butchered her, and used a kitchen knife to cut open her chest before removing her heart, which he placed in a saucepan on a silver platter. Afterwards, he put two brass pokers at her feet in the shape of a crucifix. At Hardman’s trial, the result of which was life imprisonment, there was a German exchange student present whom Hardman had implored to bite his neck a few months previously, believing her to be a member of a vampire community.

5. Stephanie Pistey

via vebidoo.de

In an interesting twist on the “I’m a vampire” excuse, Stephanie Pistey attempted to account for her strange activities by claiming that she was part vampire and part werewolf. She was arrested in 2011 at the age of eighteen in her home state of Florida on suspicion of playing a part in the murder of Jacob Hendershot. Pistey’s Facebook profile was a red flag hinting at her violent tendencies, listing “blood” and “unworldly things” amongst her interests. She also admitted to having drunk the blood of her fiancé William Chase, but denied drinking Hendershot’s blood.

4. Manuela and Daniel Ruda

via backwardmessages.wordpress.com

Merging Satanism with vampires, couple Manuela and Daniel Ruda killed and drank the blood of one of their friends, claiming they were acting on the Devil’s wishes. Manuela ran away from her home in Germany to England at the age of sixteen. There, she was first introduced to the world of all things vampire, attending “bite parties” at which people drank one another’s blood. She met her partner in crime, Daniel, through a lonely hearts column, and the two committed the murder exactly a month after their marriage, which was on 06/06/2001. The murder was committed on July 6th, and was carefully planned in order to combine the dates of the marriage and the killing to make up the number 666.

3. Allan Menzies

via dailyrecord.co.uk

In 2003, Scottish vampire wannabe Allan Menzies stood trial for the murder of Thomas McKendrick. The then-twenty-two year old Menzies said that he had been ordered to kill McKendrick by a character in the film Queen of the Damned, which he had watched around a hundred times. He claimed to have been told that he would be rewarded for the murder with immortality and would become a vampire “in the next life”.

2. Mauricio Lopez

via nyatanyang.com

Mexican Mauricio Lopez killed the man his niece was having an affair with, drinking a cup of the victim’s blood afterwards. Lopez had previously warned the two to end their affair, but when his warnings went unheeded he stabbed the man, Macario Cruz, in the heart and liver. He then drank a plastic cup of Cruz’s blood before fleeing. He was captured by police in Florida three days later, when a woman recognized him from wanted posters and informed the authorities. Lopez claimed that he drank his victim’s blood as part of a Mexican ritual which would allow him to escape the police — evidently, it wasn’t particularly effective in this instance.

1. Andrew Whiteman

via crimelibrary.com

To leave you all on a much lighter note than some of the horrific stories on this list, this is the story of Andrew Whiteman, a student from Michigan. He got drunk and tried to convince police that he was a vampire.

In 2010 Whiteman, highly intoxicated, tried to break into a drugstore, and hassled a newspaper deliveryman. The police were called, at which point Whiteman declared himself a hundred year old vampire and threatened to suck the deputy’s blood, which he could allegedly smell from the back of the patrol car as he was being transferred to jail. At the Oberlin Municipal Court, Whiteman pleaded not guilty and said that he was “still learning how to drink”.

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6 Shocking Lawsuits Filed By Hollywood

Hollywood celebrities, production companies and movie producers have been sued thousands of times over the years. Sometimes everyday citizens will sue big movie production companies for plagiarism or intellectual property infringement. This often happens when a movie becomes super successful: It seems plenty of chancers come out of the woodwork with their own claims to valuable intellectual property.

More often than not, these lawsuits are strange and even absurd. A New Jersey woman is currently suing Walt Disney for allegedly ripping off her life story. Isabella Tanikumi claims that the movie Frozen is based on two of her books which document her life growing up in the Andes. Many people think her lawsuit is a crash grab, and they claim her books bear no resemblance to the movie Frozen at all. Tanikumi cites similarities between Frozen and her memoirs such as living in a town at the foot of snow covered mountains, and sisters being brought together by a horrific accident. Another bizarre case involves a woman claiming to be the surrogate of Beyonce. She’s suing for custody of Blue Ivy – Jay Z and Beyonce’s daughter. Tina Seals claims Beyonce used her as a surrogate, but Seals has a history of suing other celebrities including Kate Middleton and Mariah Carey. It seems almost anybody can claim foul and sue Hollywood, but there’s only a very slim chance they’ll ever do so successfully.

Hollywood, on the other hand, has no problem flexing its legal muscles. Movie studios have gone after the little guy for movie piracy, Hollywood producers have filed countersuits and Hollywood has even sued big corporations, too. Here’s a look at five instances where Hollywood launched lawsuits of its own.

5. Hollywood launches lawsuit against Google for not removing images fast enough

Following the release of hundreds of images of naked celebrities from the likes of Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton by notorious hackers in an event dubbed ‘the Fappening,’ some celebs decided to launch a lawsuit. However, this lawsuit wasn’t against the hackers who leaked the photos. Instead, Hollywood sued Google for not taking the photos off Google images fast enough. Celebrity lawyer Marty Singer sent a letter to Google on behalf of numerous “actresses, models, and athletes whose confidential, personal, private photos and videos” were leaked. The letter demands all images be removed or Google will face a $100 million lawsuit. Singer has not disclosed which ‘Fappening’ victims he is representing, and Google responded by saying it “deleted tens of thousands of images within hours of the request being made,” during an interview with CNN.

4. Canadian man sued for streaming episodes of The Simpsons

A Canadian man was sued by Fox after he set up websites that streamed episodes of The Simpsons and Family Guy. The case went to federal court in Canada and the man was forced to pay Fox a staggering sum –  $10.5 million in damages. After losing the case he ended up going bankrupt. The man said he did make a small amount of profit from illegally streaming the content, but it was not enough to make a decent living. He was forced to sell his house in an effort to try and pay what was owed to Fox. The fine could have been ever higher – the maximum for his offence would have been $14 million.

3. Michael Egan is sued for malicious prosecution

Earlier this year the media was in a frenzy after former model Michael Egan alleged he was sexually assaulted by Bryan Singer and a number of other high profile Hollywood executives and producers. The lawsuits Egan filed were dropped, but Garth Ancier, one of the men Egan accused of sexual assault, has since filed a lawsuit against Egan for malicious prosecution.

2. Lionsgate sues those involved with Expendables film leak

Expendables 3 was a box office bomb of epic proportions, and the fact that the film was leaked online before it even hit theatres may have had something to do with the poor box office performance of the film. Lionsgate, the studio responsible for making Expendables 3, filed a huge lawsuit in the state of California which goes after everyone from the person who leaked the film to those who downloaded it to the owners of the torrent sites from which the film was downloaded.

1. Producers of Dallas Buyers Club and The Hurt Locker sue torrent sharers

Another high profile case involving piracy of a Hollywood film happened last year when Voltage Pictures launched a lawsuit against 31 individuals who allegedly shared a copy of the Oscar nominated film Dallas Buyers Club. This wasn’t the first time that Voltage launched this type of lawsuit. It did that same thing after another film it produced, The Hurt Locker, started making its way around torrent sites while it was still playing in theatres.

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North America’s 10 Creepiest Haunted Places

All Hallows Eve is fast approaching, which in days of yore celebrated the day when Samhain, Lord of the dead, gathered together all the souls of the departed for that year and moved them on to the next plane of existence…but did he leave some of them behind?   Many people claim to have seen a ghost, and even more believe in them. North America is full of places around which ghostly lore has built up. With that in mind, October is the perfect time to plan a trip to some of the most haunted locations in the continental North. Which one is closest to you? And are you man enough to go creeping around these terrifying places in the dark?

10.  Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel – Banff, Alberta

Via hauntedamericatours.com

Built in 1887, the Banff Springs Hotel is a massive chateau set within a beautiful Rocky Mountain vista that would remind anyone of the haunted hotel immortalized in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. There could be no more fitting of a place for the undead to roam. Several spirits are said to call the hotel their home but none more famous than the “Doomed Bride”. The bride was walking to her wedding banquet, bedecked for her beautiful day in a very flammable wedding gown, which as luck would have it, got too close to a decorative candle and caught fire. Turning in terror, surely thinking her perfect day was ruined, she slipped on the staircase and fell, breaking her neck and dying. Many guests claim to have seen the sad lady dancing alone in the ballroom, forever mourning the love she lost. The eternal bellman, Sam, has also been witnessed here by more than a few guests and employees. Sam is an old Scottish man who worked for the hotel for decades and passed into the hereafter in 1975. It seems he never realized he no longer worked there, because even to this day people report being assisted to their accommodations with old-world courtesy by Sam. Oddly, The Algonquin Resort in St. Andrews, New Brunswick has remarkably similar ghost sightings.

9.  Josiah B. and Sarah Moore House – Villisca, IO

Via stacy-green.com

On a balmy summer night in 1912, Josiah Moore, his wife, his four children and two of the children’s friends (all aged 12 and under) were bludgeoned to death in the family home. Only one victim, one of the children’s friends, was awake during the attack. They know this because she was the only one with defensive axe wounds on her arms… Like the plot to some horrific “whodunit”, many suspects were brought to light, one mentally disturbed Reverend George Kelly was even tried twice, but no one was ever convicted. The crime remains unsolved. The home has since been placed on the National Register of Historic Places list and many people have supposedly experienced paranormal phenomenon in the home. Many reports have been made of sounds of children laughing, children crying, apparitions of an axe-wielding man, and multiple voices picked up by EVP equipment, including one whispering “I killed six kids”…Is it possible that in another dimension we can almost see and hear this crime is being rehashed over and over again?

8.  Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery – Bremen Township, IL

Via commons.wikimedia.org

Just outside of Chicago lays an abandoned and overgrown cemetery that has been the subject of many a paranormal rumor since breaking hallowed ground in the 1840s. Even though the cemetery is well off the beaten path and you can only get to it by walking through unkempt countryside at least a quarter mile from the closest road, many paranormal researchers have made the trek to check the rumors for themselves. There are also rumors that the site has been used by occultists for satanic worship and ritualistic sacrifices over the years. Reports of glowing orbs floating amongst the graves began in the 70s and continue even today. A phantom house is said to appear to the occasional visitor, but as the visitor approaches the house, it seems to get further away until it disappears altogether. A man with a horse and plow are often seen trudging into the slough where they both drowned years ago. Many unexplained EVP recordings have been taken in the graveyard, even though electronics are known to act strange upon approach; cameras taking pictures on their own, fully-charged batteries draining in an instant, etc. The most famous “capture” was during a research expedition in 1991. Someone took a picture of a tombstone that revealed, upon having the pictures developed, a semi-transparent woman in turn-of-the-century clothing, sitting on top of the stone. No one was there when the picture was taken.

7.  Rails Restaurant – La Grange, KY

Via roadtrippers.com

Not all hauntings are the result of sad souls mourning and moaning about the lives they lost. Some spirits are playful and mischievous, like Jennie, the little girl that haunts the Rails Restaurant in La Grange, Kentucky. Said to have died of typhoid sometime in the 1800s, the little girl has often been seen wearing a white dress with a bow in her hair. She is heard laughing and playfully moves things about in the building, like table settings, toys, chairs, etc. Ownership of the restaurant recently changed hands and during remodeling, workers found toys in places that would be inaccessible to pranksters. The owners, intrigued by events and thankful that the ghost does not appear to be malicious or depressed, have placed a doll for the little girl to play with in the restaurant.

6.  Gettysburg Battlefield – Gettysburg, PA

Via hauntedplacesinamerica.com

Who would have guessed that a plot of land on which nearly 8000 people lost their lives during a two-day battle would be littered with the souls of the departed? There are reports of ghostly armies, women in mourning pacing the fields and wailing, children and animals crying, as well as the moans of injured and dying soldiers droning on for the past 151 years. That’s not all, though. The haunting is not exclusive to the battlefield; locations nearby that housed wounded soldiers report loads of paranormal activity. The Herr Tavern, used as a field hospital, was so full of amputations that doctors had to throw limbs out the windows to keep them from piling up inside. The rooms are reportedly haunted by the amputees that died soon after surgery and never left the building. There is also an orphanage nearby that housed the children of fallen soldiers. Rosa Carmichael, headmistress of the orphanage, was an extremely abusive woman and fashioned a 5’x8’ windowless room called “the cellar” in which to punish the children. Kids as young as 5 were bound, beaten, and left in the room for as long as Rosa saw fit. The cellar is said to be so dark and full of despair that people with psychic abilities will not enter.

5.  Pennhurst State School and Hospital – Pennhurst, PA

Via flickr.com

Built in 1908, Pennhurst was intended to be a nurturing live-in home for the “feeble-minded and epileptic.” As one would imagine, the reports of abuse and neglect began as soon as it opened its doors. Pennhurst housed over 10,000 patients during the course of its service to the community, mostly comprised of people with autism and various mental handicaps. Families struggling to care for a member would drop their loved ones off thinking they would be better cared for by a staff member paid to do just that, but with far too many patients and far too little funding, “care” was a thing hard to come by at Pennhurst Asylum. Punishment for “unfit behavior” however, was in abundance. Many patients were abused, ignored, and raped at Pennhurst by angry, overworked staff or by other inmates, and the staff would organize fights between patients for their own amusement. If a patient bit someone they were reprimanded, but if a second biting incident occurred, a dentist would pull out all of the patient’s teeth. After the facility closed its doors in the 80s, reports began stacking up of the sounds of vomiting issuing from empty rooms, cries of lament in the dark, and apparitions wandering from room to room mourning their sad lives in the institution.

4.  Amityville House – Amityville, NY

Via spiritsociety.org

Famed site of the DeFeo family massacre and the most obvious inclusion on this list, the Amityville House has been the subject of many horror movies and books. If you’ve somehow missed them and don’t know the story, Ronald DeFeo, Jr., adult son of the house’s then owners, Ron and Louise DeFeo, murdered his parents and four brothers and sisters in the house while they slept. DeFeo is still alive and incarcerated, but the souls of some of his victims as well as other darker spirits still reportedly haunt the house. The most famous story of this haunting is the account of the George and Kathy Lutz family. After buying the house at an incredible bargain price, the family began to experience terrifying, ghostly phenomenon including voices, green ooze, sulphurous smells, red eyes peering at them from the dark, windows and doors opening and closing on their own, and an extremely odd encounter their family priest had when he tried to bless the house. The Lutz family only stayed in the house for 28 days before leaving and having a moving company procure their belongings. To deter modern-day sightseers, the house’s address and familiar exterior windows have been changed.

3.  LaLaurie Mansion – New Orleans, LA

Via themagazine.ca

Can the buildings we live in carry imprints of our hurt? In the 1830s Delphine LaLaurie, a beautiful Creole socialite, and her third husband built a three-story mansion in the French Quarter of New Orleans. In this exquisite home, they threw refined parties, raised their children, and tortured their slaves. While the city had been informed that LaLaurie was mistreating her servants, representatives sent to investigate could find nothing. However, during a fancy party in 1834, the house was suddenly set ablaze! When people came to assist the LaLauries, they found the cook, a 70-year-old negress chained to the kitchen stove. She claimed she set the fire in an attempt to commit suicide, preferring to burn to death than to be punished “in the attic.” When firefighters finally located and broke their way into the attic room, they found a scene of blood-curdling carnage. Slaves had been stretched, bound, cut, and mangled in a shocking variety of ways. When the public found out, they mobbed the home in a fury and the family fled, never to be heard from again. Ghosts of slaves walking the halls and grounds, screams of agony, and encounters with whip-wielding phantoms have been reported time and again as people have attempted to re-inhabit the LaLaurie Mansion.

2.  Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Via en.wikipedia.org

The architecture, atmosphere, and age of one of North America’s oldest cities lends much credence to the plethora of hauntings reported here…Old Montreal is the site of 17th century fur trade, and as the community grew, so did Montreal’s rich history. At Old Montreal’s Auberge Le Saint-Gabriel, the oldest inn in North America, a little girl who tragically lost her life in a fire there is often seen wandering the halls. Another house in Old Montreal still has the patron’s wife occasionally overseeing activities even though she died in the late 1800s. Apparitions are very frequently seen floating through Mount Royal Cemetery, including a Native warrior and his steed. People report having been pushed by invisible hands and hearing disembodied voices in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Employees of Royal Victoria Hospital report hearing footsteps in empty hallways, seeing “light anomalies”, and even the apparitions of former patients forever awaiting treatment in the hereafter.

1.  Sites of the Salem Witch Trials – Salem, MA

Via panoramio.com

During the course of 16 months in 1692 and 93, twenty “witches” (mostly women) were executed, five more of the accused died in prison, and at least another 50 people were incarcerated for suspicion of witchcraft. Is it any wonder that Salem reports numerous hauntings? The Witch Trials Memorial and nearby graveyard are said to be haunted by those who were executed and many witnesses have caught strange things on camera including apparitions, orbs, unexplained shadows, etc. The house of Joshua Ward is said to be haunted by an elderly woman who appears very angry when she allows herself to be seen, as well as the ghost of George Corwin, a man who was so despised at the time of his death that he had to be buried under the boards of the cellar of the house to keep angry community members from desecrating his grave. Inexplicable fragrances of apples in a local hotel have caused some to speculate that it is haunted by Bridget Bishop, owner of an apple orchard and the first of those executed for witchcraft (accused because she supposedly came to men in their dreams). The Salem Jail where prisoners were left to starve, suffer, and die has been renovated and turned into luxury condos. If one wishes to live in a place where they would almost definitely encounter the souls of the long-deceased, they can do so for a pretty penny. With Salem’s wicked history, echoes of the past reverberate in far too many places to count on this list.

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