Showing posts with label John George Haigh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John George Haigh. Show all posts

Werewolf and Vampire!

FRIGHTENING!

If you haven’t been clawed, drained, ripped, bitten or sucked yet, don’t go off guard. I interviewed vampire buffs, visited graveyards, consulted skeptics, and searched the literature.

The truth that I dug up is as frightening as the fiction. Savage attacks by putrid vampires and howling werewolves still occur.


Vampire Killers and the First Vampire

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word vampire as "the reanimated body of a dead person believed to come from the grave at night and suck the blood of persons asleep." Since the word was first coined in 1734 the myth of the vampire has grown, entering into popular culture with the publication of Bram Stoker's {Dracula} in 1897 and more recently through the books of Anne Rice, the most famous of which, {Interview with a Vampire} was made into a film starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. But these are works of fiction. Still, myths do not just spring out of mid-air. Throughout the ages, human killers have been fascinated by the blood of their victims. Here are some of history's most notorious "vampire" killers.

The First Vampire


Mortal Blood Drinkers of the Past

Dracula. The name has become synonymous with vampirism in the past century thanks to Bram Stoker's 1897 novel of the same name and Bela Lugosi's portrayal of the character on the screen. Of course, the Dracula of the silver screen does not closely resemble the literary Dracula. Whoever reads the novel after seeing any of the hundreds of images of vampires that fill stores every Halloween is likely to be quite shocked.


John George Haigh: The Acid Bath Vampire

Missing Person

On Thursday, March 3, 1949, London's Daily Mirror began a series of macabre stories about murder that began with the headline, "Hunt for the Vampire." They did not name names, but it became common knowledge that a certain prisoner was the man to whom they referred—one John George Haigh.