Hey weirdos, Elena here. If you're looking to kick back and relax with Morbid, Wondery Plus is the way to go. it's like having a cozy seat in our haunted mansion no ads just you and early access to new episodes You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast.
Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar.
Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre you love, You can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities and new ways of thinking.
Listening can lead to positive changes in your mood, your habits, and ultimately your overall well-being.
Audible has an incredible selection of over 1 million audiobooks, podcasts, and Audible Originals all in one easy app.
Find the genres you love and discover new ones.
Explore bestsellers like my sister's title. new releases, plus thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and originals that members can listen to all they want with more added all the time.
I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
And let me tell you, it did. I've been listening to it while I walk, and I am absolutely loving it.
I love all the Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen.
Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. visit audible.com slash morbid.
Sherwin-Williams Super Sale is coming up from August 8th through the 14th.
That is seven whole days to save big on paints and stains.
We're talking 40% off big. It is the perfect time to start that paint project you've been thinking of.
Whether you're looking to revamp your interior or your exterior, they have you covered with bold hues, soothing neutrals and everything in between.
So mark your calendars for August 8th through the 14th and get ready to bring your color to life.
We'll see you next time. available on qualifying orders retail sales only some exclusions apply see store for details Hey weirdos, I'm Ash.
And I'm Alayna. And this is Morbid. Wow, what a week, guys.
The true crime world is going off. Stuff is just happening. some good like justice being served stuff and then some really scary stuff.
So, We just wanted to quickly touch upon it because I'm sure everybody's got it in their heads.
That Robert Durst. Was convicted of first degree murder, which I feel like a lot of people are like, he wasn't already.
Okay. I know because when I think, did you say it last night or did Drew? you were like oh and i was like he wasn't like i thought that happened cool Yeah, I mean, it's great.
Like, awesome. Yeah. The Jinx, if you haven't watched it, go watch it.
Yeah, I mean, Lux agrees. So I don't know if you heard that little meow.
Yeah, we're at my house today and you might hear a cat or two.
You might hear some Lux, might hear some Franklin. probably more looks either way go watch the jinx on hbo it was really good um The other huge thing that happened, it's a case we have not covered yet, but it's always been on my list, and now... there's some amazing closure at least to this case.
There's been an arrest made in the Faith Hedgepeth case. this happened in 2012 faith's murder that's so crazy that like just now it's happening Yeah, and they were able to match DNA from the crime scene... to the DNA of Miguel Enrique Olivares.
And he is being charged with first degree murder.
Yikes. This case is brutal, it's awful, it's so senseless, and...
I'm so glad that her family has got at least something.
I know her mother came out and said, You know, all she did was cry when she got the news.
Because, like, what else do you do? Because it doesn't change.
No, it doesn't bring them back. It doesn't make it better, but they at least now know.
They have some kind of cap on it. This person did this and we're going to get him. off the streets, at least there's that.
So that was huge, like so huge. I'm so glad it happened.
But those two things were like boom, boom.
And then last night we find out that Brian Laundrie, who is.
Gabby Petito's fiance or boyfriend. I read in some cases in some places that they had split, like they had like changed their engagement status and decided not to go forward with it.
Significant other. significant other exactly um but yeah he just fled and the police don't know where he is So he is on the run.
Yeah. There's a lot of places, and I think it's really important to note this, that are saying he's missing.
He's not missing. He's not missing. No one kidnapped him.
Because regardless of what happened here...
He went on the run. He's not missing. He fled.
Regardless of whether he is guilty, innocent, or somewhere in between.
Right. to say he's messing is just not true.
And I believe Gabby's family came out and said, like, he's...
He's not missing. Gabby is. Gabby's missing.
There's a lot of weird stuff going on with this case.
We're not going to repeat any of the things that have been floating around because I
I think it's until things are confirmed and until things are... officially said about it, I don't want to sit here and go, well, I heard that this happened.
I heard that this happened because... All we know for absolute sure is the last time he was seen was on Tuesday by his parents.
That's what they say to police. And that he is currently in places unknown.
Yeah. Attorney for his family said be advised that the whereabouts of Brian Laundrie are currently unknown.
The FBI is currently at the Laundrie residence removing property to assist in locating Brian.
As of now, the FBI is looking for both Gabby and Brian.
And then a few hours ago, actually, I think about six hours ago, it came out that his family says they believe he entered this area earlier this week and this area is the vast Carlton Reserve.
It's a 24,565 acre preserve which is north of his home.
And they think he might be there. So police are out there like right now looking around and searching.
I mean, this just gets weirder and weirder as it goes.
But I mean, I'm still... Holding out hope that there's going to be some kind of happy ending here.
It's a very, it's like very bizarre. It's strange.
Everything. I don't know what to make of it, but.
Just weird. all i keep thinking about is like i really hope that gabby's okay and i know I feel so hard for her family, like her parents just break my heart.
And I really hope that they get a happy ending out of this.
I really do. I know. Let's keep talking about it.
Let's keep spreading her picture. Yeah, make sure, you know, don't spread any pictures that are like Photoshop because I know suddenly people are getting in on this and being like...
Like I saw this, I saw them, I saw them.
And it's like, no. So just make sure when you share stuff that you make sure it's like confirmed stuff. it's easy to it's easy to like make the mistake of sharing something that you think might be real because we've all done it yeah of course just try to like look just to make sure that we're sharing stuff that's going to help her family and not and from like a valid source exactly which I know I know you all would do of course i'm just saying but yeah so we are still thinking about gabby petito and we hope that this has a happy ending but we'll see um but yeah that's that's the The first ones that could come to mind were the Gabby Petito case.
Yes. The twists and turns happening in that and then Robert Durst.
And then Faith Hedgepeth, that was a really happy one and a really good one.
Let's end on that one before we begin this.
But today I don't know if you guys have noticed, but I did a couple of...
Pretty gnarly, intense two-parters. You did?
I didn't notice. I don't know if you noticed.
Yeah, but I did. that yeah I felt it really hard my psyche was right there yeah so I was like you know what I got to go in a different direction this week.
I got to take my own... my own mind into a different direction.
I feel like it's, you know, it's the beginning of spooky season.
Let's get it. Less spooky. So I wanted, you know, New England during spooky season during the fall is...
I mean, I love where I live, but I also just in the fall, it's like...
It's like a dreamland. It's a gift. Like, I love it here.
It truly is. It's a gift. It's not real.
Like, there's trees in my yard that the top of them are starting to turn yellow.
Yeah. And I was watching it and I was like, this, I just love it here.
Hell yeah. Like, I love it here. I love Massachusetts.
I love New England. It's the absolute best.
It's beautiful. New England. But so I decided I was like, you know, I want to stay here.
We have all that spooky history. I got to find something good.
Hell yeah. And you know what? I found something good.
Okay. In Massachusetts? Well, it's in New England.
New England oh yeah and it includes Massachusetts I'm like Massachusetts Massachusetts you don't say oh my god but and I had heard about this I've always wanted to like go further into it and finally I did.
So we are going to talk about The vampire panic.
Yes, I said vampire panic in New England in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.
Okay, I'm ready. I was born ready. Yes. Now, before we get into this, so...
This is like fascinating to me. Vampires are.
It really is. And also the fact that this is real.
Yeah, and just like what people thought vampires were, how this all differs from like country to country and place to place. but first we got to talk about a little bit about like death practices and death like beliefs in these centuries because, wow, things were different.
Yeah, I would go as far as to say that they were probably pretty different.
Yeah, like how different? You say? Well, when someone, often people would die in the home. which obviously happens still, but it used to happen a lot more back then.
There was also less places. You were just dying in your home.
It was just going to happen. But when somebody died in your household, it was important to never stand at the foot of their bed because that may block their spirit's entry into the next world.
I kind of love that, so don't do it, which I imagine people probably still practice today in some places.
A lot of people, a lot of people think like not even death related, but like sleeping that you're not supposed to sleep with your feet, like with like a window at the end of your bed.
Oh really? Because like bad spirits. Because like bad come in.
I don't know. Because like bad. Ooh ha ha.
Ooh ha ha. Ooh ha ha. Ugh. Well, so you should also open all the doors and the windows when someone has passed away so that their spirit has easy passage into the next realm they don't you don't want them doing like the the bird thing where they go ah and bang right into the window you don't want that so you open the windows so that they can just whoop And also it might start to smell in your house.
So yeah, I mean, it's a good call. For practical reasons, and it's funny that you said that because the next thing I wrote in my notes was, this also to me is good for practical reasons.
Like allowing the smell of rotting decomp to slowly come out of the home and you're not breathing in death fumes.
Like fresh air is for dead people unless there's dead people in your house, in which case fresh Well, fresh air is for them, so open the window.
Exactly. So the fresh air is indeed for the dead people.
Also, I almost elbowed Franklin, and that's why I said, ooh.
Don't do that. But yeah. So, you know, you open the windows, open the doors.
You don't want them running into a, you know, a glass door thinking it. really clean glass door we all know how you know you love a good windex oh that windex is my jam but that can be really tough for a spirit trying to get out of the world i get it i said don't do it Morbid is sponsored by Squarespace.
Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. want to stand out and succeed get you a girl who can do both every dream needs a domain Squarespace domains make it easy to find the best name for your business at one fair all-inclusive price.
No hidden fees or add-ons required. Every Squarespace domain comes with advanced privacy and security tools included to ensure that your domain remains online and protected.
Plus, Squarespace provides everything you need to bring more of your dream to life. whether that means building a website or adding a professional email service.
Squarespace gives you everything that you need to offer services and get paid all in one place.
From consultations, events, and experiences, showcase your offerings with a customizable website designed to attract clients and grow your business. plus streamline your workflow with built-in appointment scheduling and email marketing tools.
Head to squarespace.com slash morbid for a free trial.
And when you're ready to launch, use offer code morbid to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
You know what's even more stressful than a packed calendar?
Realizing you're out of coffee right before a meeting.
That actually happened to me the other day.
And it's exactly why I stocked up during the Thrive Markets back to school sale.
Even if you're not going back to school, I'm not, it's the perfect time to reset.
Thrive makes it easy to shop for high-quality pantry staples, snacks, vitamins, even skincare. without the errands or the ingredient label deep dives.
I just restocked with aloha protein bar simple mills crackers and my favorite poppy drinks i love them so much Everything is delivered super duper fast, and I saved up to 25% on all of that.
Their filters make shopping by diet or lifestyle a breeze, and their healthy swap tool actually helped me upgrade my usual buys with zero label stress.
I love the Lesser Evil popcorn. I got my chomp sticks from there.
I love Thrive and you will too. Now's the best time to try Thrive Market.
You'll get up to 25% off select items. new members get 30 off their first order plus a free gift who doesn't love that Go to thrivemarket.com slash morbid to start saving.
The sale ends 831. Don't miss it. They also carried corpses out feet first, when they would bring them to the burial grounds, because if they didn't... then the dead person would have a chance to look at your livin' ass.
If they're going out feet second, then they're watching you as they're leaving.
So they can look at you and if they look at you, You'll be dead in a few months time.
Wow. I mean, that's a stretch and a half, but like, yeah.
I love the superstition of the early days.
I love it. but it was all just to like explain away the fact that everyone was dying at like age 25.
So it was like, it was like, Oh, You got looked at by a dead person as they were bringing them out.
And so you have to go feet first. You can't let them look at you. yeah it's like maybe it's just because we're like throwing our poop in the streets yeah it's mainly because like We don't understand the transmission of diseases.
Probably because we don't brush our teeth two times a day. literally is what this episode is about, is that we really didn't understand the transmission of diseases back then.
Also, everything should be covered in white linen or black cloth when someone died, like everything in the home.
Because chic. Everything in the house just draped in the spookiest fabric you can find because why the fuck not?
Early gothic century chic. why not just lean right into it I love it I would do it now I'm here for it Then there's mirrors.
We all know that mirrors are a lot. Are tough.
The most. Mirrors are tough. They are. We love them.
But we hate them. We do, correct. We love them because we can zhoosh.
Judge the hair. Do the makes. Check if there's some lipstick on your teeth.
All that good stuff. Yeah. Just staring them for endless hours.
We hate them. Because they are often otherworldly portals to a damned hellscape. portals.
That we don't understand. To a damned hellscape.
So... Here's my question. Ask away. Sometimes I do feel a little bit like I'm living in a damned hellscape occasionally from time to time. the other side of the mirror.
But here's the thing. I never hear about all like the portals to like, why do all the portals lead to bad places?
You know what I mean? Maybe because it's just like it's all bad.
That sucks. Isn't that depressing? Maybe it is.
I don't know. That is bleak. Maybe it's what you make of it.
Maybe we all just assume it's a bad place.
So when we go there, they're like, you want a bad place?
You got a bad place. It's true. Maybe if we assume it's some kind of whimsical like... you know, nether realm where there's fairies that are nice.
Nice. Not like the fae. Not the fae. We don't talk about them.
But like the actual like, you know. Like Tinkerbell.
Yeah, like Tinkerbell's over there. She's kind of a bitch.
She's kind of a dick. Yeah. Like the girls watch Tinkerbell and I'm like, don't listen.
Tinkerbell has a temper. I'm like, get it.
Get over yourself, girlfriend. When steam comes out of her ears.
Yeah, she's mad. But you know what I mean.
Yeah, no, I do. You know, maybe there's like little goblins that are happy and will give you pie or like it's just like a tropical beach but it's fall time at the tropical beach but like warm on the tropical beach but like it's fall at the same time and you get to have like an apple cider drink and you get to have a pumpkin patch over there.
I hate that the beach was interwoven into this.
I like the beach, but I also like fall. This is your other portal.
It is. Well, yours is literally just a spooky forest.
Oh, hell yeah. hell yeah a spooky forest in the fall with a graveyard nearby yeah But like, what's the best thing there?
An apple or shirt to the left. And like, Who's there?
And a pumpkin patch straight ahead. And what do you get to do?
I get to pick pumpkins. Yes. I get to take hay rides to very, very well-produced haunted houses.
Okay. Uh, Corn mazes. Okay. Haunted hay rides.
Mazes. Mazes. Corn mazes. There you go. All of that.
Okay. There's apple cider donuts. Yeah, there are.
We had some of those this morning. There's endless... endless ingredients for me to bake endless amounts of fall food.
I love it. I think that's what's on the other side of the mirror for me.
I didn't think mine through enough. You didn't.
I'll get back to you later. I think shopping like free.
Yeah. Free designer clothing. That would be on your side.
That fits me. But unfortunately... This all sounds great.
Yeah. The unfortunate reality, though, is like portals are not good.
I don't think mirrors really lead to that, unfortunately, or at least we don't think they do.
Yeah. So when someone dies, you got to cover that mirror.
Cover that mirror. I did know that. Do that.
The whole act of covering a mirror seems so fucking creepy to me.
Very spooky. Like, oh, I got to cover that shit.
But then you just uncover it when the dead person's gone.
Yeah. Well, and the thing is, too, you can't just cover the mirror.
Like, you can't just be like, oh, I'll do it, guys.
Don't worry about it. Yeah, like, I got this.
The oldest person in the home... has to cover the mirror, or they have to turn the mirrors to face the wall.
For some reason, that's creepier to me. Right?
Turning the mirror to face the wall. Yeah, I don't like that.
That's very Blair Witch Project of them. everyone.
So they thought that they were fearing that the person who died could actually become trapped in the mirror because once the the spirit leaves, I picture it like the spirit leaves the body or this is what they're thinking happens.
And just like ping pongs around the room.
And so you need to give it as many like just holes for it to like go whoop. well it's like it's like um like pinball yeah yeah it's like it just goes And then it finally hits that open whoosh out the window.
Why is the spirit so confused? Because is the spirit not just the person and the body is the vessel?
Yeah, I don't know. I imagine it's stressful vacating your worldly body I mean, so maybe it's just like that you're stressed and you don't understand what's going on.
So you start ping-ponging everywhere, and if a mirror is there, it's going to act like a window or a door, and you're going to go through it, but you're going to go into this... shitty mirror realm when you're gonna be stuck there wow and then i don't know how to get you out horrible i don't know how to get you out i'm just me i'm just elena i don't know Do you know how to get them out?
I don't know how to get them out. I think thou doth protest too much.
I just don't know. Well, and also, while you're doing this, by the way, oldest person in the house.
Turning the mirrors or turning them around.
Make sure that you don't accidentally look into the mirror before this is done and see your own reflection honey i am far too vain yeah you would be fucked because some people think that means you're next If you see your reflection in the mirror while you're turning it around. you would be dead in a few months time because of your goddamn vanity.
If you see yourself in the mirror while you're turning the mirror around, like that just seems like, So while you're turning around, you just have to like look up, like don't look.
And so you got to make sure those mirrors are turned or covered and that the body is out of the home and in the ground safely before you turn them around or uncover. them okay you can't do it and also um this one's interesting i don't think this is done now but let me know Sometimes they would have a family member literally inhale the last dying breath of the dying family member.
That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my entire fucking life.
Like, that's why you died next. Yeah. I mean, like I'm dying.
Yeah. Like I don't want. Yeah. No. Sure.
It's like that. I love you so much, but I would literally never.
Like, I'm good. I'll watch it and I'll cry.
I'll watch it. But I'm not going to eat it.
I'm going to eat your dying breath. I'm also not going to.
It's okay. It's not a cuisine I'm looking to taste.
Not a kid's cuisine I'm excited for. Or like death rattle cuisine is not in the freezer section of your local grocery store.
But now almost every mention, and I say all this because during that time, A lot of people were dying of a lot of different things.
You don't say. And so people were dying all over the place, oftentimes at a young age.
And so... people needed reasons. You know, medical technology was not advanced. medicine was really not telling you like, here's what a germ is, here's what a bacteria is, here's what a virus is.
So they were just looking for anything that could explain what the hell was happening around them and why people were... just kicking it at an alarming rate usually in families yeah so Now, almost every mention of a vampire panic that happened, because they happened all over the place.
I definitely want to revisit this again, because there's so many...
I could have gone on for hours and hours.
That's so crazy to me. Now, when you see a vampire panic mention, especially in New England at this time.
It's usually because there was a massive consumption outbreak.
Yes. Consumption as in tuberculosis, but they didn't know it as tuberculosis back then.
They called it consumption. And they called that because it literally consumes the sufferer.
And if you didn't know what it was, you would just be watching someone become consumed by this disease.
So they call it consumption. Yeah. Now obviously we know it as tuberculosis.
At the time it was also called the Great White Plague.
Because it made its suffers unbelievably pale.
Ooh. Like us. Yes. Like us. It was a very big deal in New England and elsewhere, but I'm concentrating on New England, obviously.
We know a lot about it now. It's an infectious bacterial disease.
It attacks the lungs. It really came to pass. play in New England in the 1730s.
Health officials in New England started recording mortality rates in the area in 1786 for the disease. and between 1786 and 1800, so 14 years, 2% of the population of New England had died of consumption.
Wow. 2%. That's like a lot. I was going to say.
In New England. Exactly. The disease itself is horrible.
Horrific. It caused a crazy hacking cough.
Blood would spew out constantly each time you coughed eventually.
There was debilitating pain involved, a punishing fever. extreme exhaustion.
It would start with like a little blood each time and then eventually you would be like straight up vomiting blood.
Oh my god, that's like I can't even handle that.
Now, the person who was infected would also lose all color and seemingly waste away.
And it was kind of like a slow end usually.
Sounds like it. Yeah, it often was slow because they wouldn't be able to eat.
Right. Like they would just literally waste it.
They didn't want to eat. They couldn't eat.
They're just vomiting up blood and everything.
And it literally seemed to most people at the time that something, like some unseen force was there. violently sucking the life out of their loved ones, and they were just powerless to stop it.
And if you think about it, they're pale.
You're walking into their room and they have blood dripping down the sides of their mouths.
They are, you know, they're doing these hacking cops.
They're probably awake at night. They're probably doing, it's like, sounds like a vampire to me.
Yeah. like because they they were known to like all all the time have blood just like dripping down from on the sides of their house.
Isn't that so crazy that people were like, well?
Well, gotta be that. But on top of all this, is the fact that entire families would just be wiped out from this.
So once one of them got it, it was like a ticking time bomb to see if it attacked the other family members in the house.
And at this point, disease itself was just not understood.
Right, not at all. And consumption, what they were understanding it was, did not understand that at all.
They didn't understand transmission in the slightest.
So they didn't know that this was something you could pass to somebody else.
They weren't wearing their masks. So they would just be everyone hanging out together.
And if someone had it... They were not like quarantined from the rest of the family.
Like, no, they were hacking in your face at breakfast.
And sleeping in the same room with 14 brothers and sisters just spewing all over each other.
No, no, no. That's not the way to take care of that.
No. And it's called quarantine, baby. And that's the thing.
So they didn't understand that they would just No, of course not.
Live life. So they didn't understand it.
So it would just go through the entire home and they were like, what's happening?
Must be the devil. Must be a vampire. And cures, obviously, were not like what we have today.
Not at all. So Cures, they came up with things like drinking brown sugar in water.
I mean, sounds really sweet. And my personal favorite, frequent horseback riding. to shake the devil out of you?
No, it was because it'll, no. Because it was allowing the patient to have fresh air, which...
But it was fresh air that you were not having to become out of breath to get. because you were sitting on a horse.
So the horse was giving you the fresh air.
Yes, they tried. You could get on that horse, go riding through the country, hacking up blood. your tuberculosis everywhere.
So just spew all those, you know, tuberculosis... little balls everywhere, just spread it around like wildfire.
But you're sucking in that fresh colonial air as you do it.
Yeah. In 1692, a doctor named Dr. Thomas Sydenham published this about this cure that he had found, because he came out and was like... gotta ride a horse I got this he said but he said quote but the best remedy is hitherto discovered in this case is riding sufficiently long journeys on horseback,
Provide this exercise be long enough continued, observing that the middle-aged person must persist in it much longer than children or young persons.
So if you old, Get on that horse and you got to start riding and don't stop riding.
But if you're a child, you can ride for a little bit and then get off.
What's that song about like Mustang Sally?
Mustang Sally. But yeah, get on your horse and start riding through the country.
Get on your high horse. That's going to help you out.
Get your tuberculosis out of here. The town of Agde in France is famous for sun, sand, sea and sex.
But lately, life on the coast has taken a strange turn.
The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption.
His wife claims he's been bewitched by a beautiful clairvoyant.
Then there's the mysterious phone calls that local people have been getting.
I am the Archangel Michael. The whole town has been thrown into chaos.
As the mayor is unable to carry out his duties, I would like to address you all.
Legal proceedings have been initiated. Join me, Anna Richardson, and journalist Leo Schick for The Mystic and the Mayor as we investigate a story of power, corruption, Binge all episodes of The Mystic and the Mare exclusively and ad-free right now on Wondery+.
Start your free trial in Apple Podcasts Spotify or the Wondery app.
I mean, at the time and even later with tuberculosis patients, fresh air was like a huge thing.
Yeah, we said that in the Eastern State Penitentiary, they had special cells designed.
Like, open-air cells, and they would, like... in tuberculosis wards, they would have beds that the head of the bed would be outside. and there would be an awning over you to protect you from the weather, but your head would just be hanging outside.
Wow. Yeah. It is interesting like what they tried to do and you can see the logic in some of it.
The wheels were turning. They were. There just wasn't a lot of gas.
They were getting the right idea. They knew it was lungs.
They knew they were like... They were on the right path, you know?
We all got to get there. It's going to take a while.
Yeah. But this was also really heavily into the period of time when doctors would just, like... bleed people oh yeah like you have a cold let's cut you you have a headache let's cut you You want to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?
Let's cut you. Let's do it. We're going to cut you.
That's what we're going to do. Bitch, I'll cut you.
Hi, I have a hang now. Let's cut you and see what happens.
Let's do it. They just hemorrhaged out everybody.
I don't know why that was the... It was just the blood.
They were like, we know blood's important.
We're sure of that. It is. And they were right.
But let's not get rid of it. But they were like...
I feel like if we just cut you open and just drain a ton of it out of you, we'll figure it out.
I don't know. They were wrong. But they were.
So a lot of tuberculosis patients and consumption patients would just be the same thing.
I don't know why I just said it as like two different diseases.
But they knew it as consumption. We know it as tuberculosis.
Yeah, you're just clarifying. Just clarifying.
But a lot of them would be like bled. Just like I think like George Washington was bled when he died.
He had a cold, and he literally would have lived.
He just didn't need to be bled, right? No.
Well, who does? Who really needs to be bled?
Not me. Eventually, it became a belief that the first one who died was going to return at night to suck the life out of the remaining family members.
Obviously. Because they were like, obviously if it's just knocking everybody down in a row, that first one that did it The whole thing wasn't that that person was evil, per se.
It was that some evil entity was using... their body as a host okay okay that was the idea i for the most part i'm sure some people thought their family members were evil i'm sure we all have family members that we'd be like i think they are the evil entity i don't think they're the host i think it's them yeah Now, so they were like, okay, we should just like start digging up graves to like figure this out.
We got to dig up the corpses. Obviously, again.
Because the corpses are coming out of their graves at night.
So let's see what's the haps. underground here what is going what's the 411 underground what is the What's the hot goss from the cemetery?
So it was a very common practice to exhume bodies at this time just to be like, Have they moved?
What's going on in there? Like, maybe. No.
So they were like, they are becoming soldiers after death.
We need to figure out who... patient zero is basically in each family.
Right. Because remember... Back then, it's not like they're getting their news from like medical journals or like... the news no they're getting them from local taverns Yeah.
And people popping into local taverns and being like, have you heard the word from Perd?
He said... That if you bleed this person out after exhuming their body, like, it's ridiculous.
And apparently in New England, taverns were like everywhere, which is not shocking to me.
They still are at this very moment. Were very popular.
And still are. Pretty famous dude, like infamous dude named Cotton Mather.
I think a lot of New Englanders know this man.
He was quoted as saying in the late 1600s that every other house in Boston was one of these quote-unquote public houses.
No, people told all of their hot goss and any intel about their travels or things happening around them in these taverns.
So it becomes more obvious how some serious shit could be stirred this way.
And make everyone think these crazy cures are going to work, you know, for your vampirically afflicted family member.
Well, and you're probably desperate. So you're like, please help my vampiric afflicted family member.
Because you just want your family members to stop dying of this horrific disease.
So you're like... If you're telling me that it's a vampire and I have to burn the person in the ground, I'll do anything.
And the taverns would be near meeting houses or sometimes act as the meeting houses of the time.
So they were like really, I mean, food and drink.
I'm saying they would also definitely always be near the whipping posts, the gallows or the stocks. because all of those things like really bring in thirsty customers central points in town it's just good like It's just good planning.
It is. Really. Architecturally genius. So to stop this whole consumption thing from taking over entire families, often they would exhume the corpse of the first infected, And this could happen just with family members present with family neighbors who knew the deceased, or sometimes it would raise the attention of like, you know, the town elders and the clergymen and shit.
And they would all vote on it, and it became a whole shebang.
Imagine voting on something like that. Yeah.
They would vote to be like, yeah, we should exhume Henry. uh over there and see if i'll everyone say say hi let's do this No, the whole idea was you take the person out, you check their heart and vital organs and see if there's fresh blood in there.
Mm-hmm. Mainly, I guess they were looking for bright red blood as opposed to like congealed darker blood because that would be old blood.
Right. If there was fresh blood, you had yourself a vampire.
And you better put a stop to this. It's weird that we were talking about Fresh Blood, or excuse me, it's weird that we're talking about Fresh Blood and we talked about the Jinx.
The Jinx and that theme song. The Eels. great so good sorry fresh blood good theme song that's how my brain works it's a great song Now, because according to an article published in 1896 in the American Anthropologist, it was by George R. Stetson. it says quote in new england the vampire superstition is unknown by its proper name It is there believed that consumption is not a physical but a spiritual disease, obsession or visitation. that as long as the body of a dead consumptive relative has blood in its heart, it is proof that an occult influence steals from it for death. and is at work draining the blood of the living into the heart of the dead and causing his rapid decline.
In some places, the specter appears as in the flesh, walks, talks, infests villages, ill uses both men and beasts, sucks the blood of their near relations, makes them ill, and finally causes their death. the late Monsieur, Monsieur de Wessemont.
Are you using Babel too? I am. You could tell, right?
That was really good. Wow, good job. Devessement.
Monseigneur Devessement. Counselor of the Chamber of the Courts of Barre. was informed by public report in Monrovia that it was common enough in that country to see men who had died sometime before quote, present themselves at a party and sit down to table with persons of their acquaintances without saying a word. and nodding to one of the party.
The one indicated would infallibly die after some days.
Who made that up? I feel like I feel like that's hearsay, but I don't know.
Was Anne Putnam here? I believe she was.
She was around. It says about 1735 on the frontier of Hungary...
A dead person appeared after. Now, this is in an article like the American Anthropologist.
Yeah, this is for real. This is not like somebody being like, let me tell you legends.
This is not a blog. So about 1735, on the frontier of Hungary, a dead That person appeared after 10 years burial and caused the death of his father.
In 1730, in Turkish Serbia, it was believed that those who had been passive vampires during life became active after death. in Russia that the vampire does not stop his unwelcome visits at a single member of the family. but it extends his visits to the last member, which is the Rhode Island belief as well.
In the same village resides Mr. Redacted.
It's redacted. Mr. Vampire. An Intelligent Man by Trada Mason.
I feel like his name is probably like Mr. Mason.
They're like, by trade, a mason. I'm like, you gave it away.
That's it. I love it. who is a living witness of the superstition and of the efficacy of the treatment of the dead which it prescribes."
He informed me that he had lost two brothers by consumption.
Upon the attack of the second brother, his father was advised by Mr. Redacted, the head of the family before mentioned, to take up the first body and burn its heart.
But the brother attacked, objected to the sacrilege and in consequence subsequently died.
When he was attacked by the disease in his turn, Redacted's advice prevailed. and the body of the brother last dead was exhumed, and living blood being found in the heart and in circulation, it was cremated.
And the sufferer began immediately to mend, and stood before me in hail, hearty and vigorous man of fifty years.
When questioned as to his understanding of the miraculous influence, he could suggest nothing. and did not recognize the superstition even by name.
He remembered that the doctors did not believe in its efficacy, but he and many others did.
His father saw the brother's body and the arterial blood.
The attitude of several other persons in regard to the practice was agnostic. either from fear of public opinion or other reasons.
And the replies to my inquiries were in the same temper of mind as that of a blind man in the Gospel of St.
John, who did not dare to express his belief, but answered and said whether he was a sinner or no.
I know not one thing I know that whereas I was blind, now I see. so poetic at the end but like all the way through i'm like you're really he got literally at the end So this is stuff that is like to really show you that this is stuff that people were taking seriously.
Yeah. These are stories that people were like, this happened. people were mended because of this, like consumption was gone because we burned the heart of the first person to die in the family.
I can't imagine living during this time.
It would have been a wild, wild time to live during.
And apparently in Maine and in Massachusetts, mainly Plymouth, they would just open the graves and flip the corpse over on its face.
Oh, they were like, that'll take care of it.
They felt good about that. Interesting. I love that they're like, you know what?
We're not going to do too much. Keep it simple, stupid.
Exactly. Like, kiss. All right? It's just, let's...
Let's chill. Let's keep this casual. Let's just flip it over.
He can't get out now. How would he get out?
How are they going to know? I was literally... How are they going to know?
How would they know? How would they know?
And apparently it worked for us. So... Hey, Massachusetts out here doing the best.
Like flip them over on their face and just...
Slayed a harbinger of evil today. I had a big day at work today.
Tossed a dead guy right around and, you know...
Lift them right over. Saving lives day by day.
Saving everybody from death. Cook me up a soup.
Well, in Connecticut, Vermont and Rhode Island, though, they got like real gnarly with it.
Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Island, you were very metal back then.
Weird that Massachusetts wasn't. Yeah, I think Massachusetts at the time was like, hi, we had that whole Salem thing.
Witch trails. We got real gnarly with it, so, like, it's your turn now.
Yeah, like, we're actually very tired. We just...
We just took a little nap during this time.
They were like, we're just going to flip dead people over.
We're not going to do anything sacrilegious to them.
We're just going to... Don't worry, we'll be back at it.
We're gonna let Connecticut, Vermont, and Rhode Island take care of this right now.
It's fine. So first in Rhode Island, vampires were thought to only be women.
And only between the ages of 15 and 22. Oh, we're in the clear.
That's such a random ass age range. Like what Rhode Island?
What? 15 and 22 on your 23rd birthday. You are safe, BB.
You're good. In everywhere else, it was not age or gender specific.
It was just Rhode Island, so I thought that.
In Connecticut, Vermont, and Rhode Island as well, they would exhume the person.
This is when they would check for the fresh blood and the heart.
If so, they would cut out the heart, burn the heart, and sometimes they would even use the fumes and smoke from the smoldering heart as a cure.
They would also have people inhale the smoke from the burning tuberculosis heart because they thought that would aid. in staying healthy.
I'm willing to bet that it probably didn't.
Yikes. Yeah. No. Not good. That's a wicked bad idea.
Yeah. Wicked bad idea, Ken. That's a wicked bad idea.
Sometimes, though... they would be plagued with this vampire curse for years as it just mowed down family member after family member.
And they would not discover what they believed was the cause for those years.
Yeah. So sometimes when they finally found who they believed to be the origin of the vampire activity, they would be dead for so long that there was no heart left to take out.
I was wondering when they were going to run into that.
Yeah, and we'll see what happens when there's no heart to take out later on. oh i feel like it's gonna be wild and by later on i mean we're gonna find it out in the next case So the next case comes from Griswold, Connecticut.
And we are going to start this Kind of recently in 1990.
Oh, okay. More recent than the 1700s at least.
Yeah. 1990 to me still feels like 10 years ago.
So I don't I don't understand. Oh, no. Like I was saying like, oh, OK, like, wow, we're starting there.
But like that sounds weird. Yeah, recent enough.
Well, in 1990, three boys were playing outside.
And now it was 1990. So they're not like scooting around on a hoverboard or like playing games where you have to like use technology.
They were outside. To find a Pokemon or some shit.
Like, they were playing in a sand and gravel pit in the town because...
That's what you did. Fun. Like, good, wholesome fun.
Because Sandlot. Yeah. While they are... because sandlot sandlot those aren't the same thing no i know about like sand it's like sandlot it made me think of it yeah Sad lot.
A baseball field, a gravel pit. Yeah, sad lot.
Honestly, some baseball fields felt like gravel pits.
Because holes. Because of dirt.
Don't hurt. Doesn't. Now, while they're playing, suddenly a very... old-looking human skull just starts rolling down the hill next to them.
Yippee-ki-yay! Hey, boys! Like, seemingly disturbed from the earth by their playing.
It had just rolled out of its burial spot and was just like hanging out with them.
That'll change you. Luckily, it certainly will.
Luckily, they ran home and were like, mom, dad, help.
And the parents contacted authorities, so everybody did what they were supposed to do here.
Good, good. And at first the authorities were like, well, shit.
This must be a serial killer at work. Like we found graves.
This is bad. Yeah. Because, and they thought this because another skull popped out of the earth as well while they were looking for this other one.
So like. That makes sense. Two skulls rolling down the hill.
Yeah, right. Whoa. You're like, oh shit.
Yeah, and at the time, it's important to note that a serial killer had just been caught in the area.
His name was Michael Ross, and he brutally raped and killed at least eight girls and women between the ages of 14 and 25.
He did this between the years of 1981 and 1984.
Wow. So they were thinking. or maybe this is just victims we don't know about or it's a new serial killer because now they're like well we now know they're serial killers so yeah But when they started looking at these skulls, they were like, these are like way older.
Right. Like these are not recent skulls.
So... They called in the state archaeologist named Nick Bellatoni, and he came in to take a look. he was like, yup, these are old as fuck and definitely not to work.
He's like, can confirm those are old. And he said these are not the work of a modern day serial killer.
When they dug a bit further, he came to the conclusion that this sand and gravel pit was actually on top of an old family cemetery.
Later, it was identified as the Walton Family Cemetery from the 1800s.
There were 29 graves, seven men, eight women, and 14 children were present.
And they now had to be moved like carefully and respectfully.
Yeah. Now, at the time of their deaths, these women, men and children were all put in pretty plain wood coffins as was common at the time right once they got to so they're looking through these coffins they're just like trying to identify people trying to see how many women and children they have.
Once they got to the fourth coffin that they were looking at, though, it was marked...
And they were like, that's strange. And it was strangely marked.
It had brass tacks like drilled into the top of it, and the tacks spelled out JB55.
Okay. And they were like, that's weird, on the lid of a coffin.
Why is this the only person labeled? So they opened it up.
And they don't find a skeleton just lying there.
Oh God. They find a partially disarticulated skeleton, like intentionally disarticulated.
The skull had been literally cut off the neck and placed on the chest. and under it also on the chest were the man's two femurs.
What? They had been placed in the arrangement of a cross with the skull on top of them.
They also found broken ribs and evidence of lesions of the ribs that was indicative that this person probably died of consumption.
Right. Or at least had consumption. Right.
Which they died of it. So obviously... What?
His chest was obviously cut into as well.
And they said they believe that they went into his chest to find his heart.
And when they couldn't find his heart because he had been gone for too long, that's when they took his femurs off and his head off.
And they put it in that cross pattern to like do what they could.
That is bananas. And after inspection, they believed he was likely dug up about four or five years after his initial death.
Because the family was probably going through trying to figure out who the initial person was.
Right. And like I said, they couldn't find the heart.
So that's why they did this. Now his bones were sent to the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Springs, Maryland, And they were able to get some DNA from the thigh bone.
We loves a DNA test. It wasn't until recently, though, that they could actually take that DNA and do anything with it because it was in 1990.
They were like, we can do a little with it.
But now we can really do stuff. Now they used Y-chromosomal DNA profiling and genealogy surname profiling prediction methods and they figured out his last name was barber they were able to find what his last name was I didn't even know that that was a thing.
Genealogy, I'll say it again. Genealogy surname prediction method.
I didn't even know that was a thing. And Y-chromosomal DNA profiling is pretty cool.
It's basically like a method of DNA typing that allows you to look at the patrilineal strands of DNA.
So the ones that go into the father's ancestry, which helps with the surname thing, especially for bones long since deceased. because, you know, why DNA chromosomes are passed down from father to son and They're basically unchanged as they pass.
So they use this information to search for barbers who lived...
Right. Because, you know, at the time, obviously everyone's surnames are important, especially back then.
Yeah. Like back then, surnames, that was the identifier.
So once they were able to trace that DNA, that Y chromosome back. to that surname, that's when they started searching in Connecticut for barbers who had died at the time that the age were age two.
And they ended up finding a farmer named John Barber, JB.
Hello. And he had died in Griswold, and he was about 55 years old.
Okay, so whoop, there it is. He also found an obituary from 1826 for a 12-year-old named Nicholas Barber.
Oh, that's sad. and his father, John Barber, was included in that.
Upon further inspection, a coffin with the initials N.B., 13 was also found.
Oh, so that totally confirms it. And it was near John Barber's.
So only John's was the way it was arranged like that.
Right. And the position of the body was totally different from everyone else's.
Everyone else was in that normal burial position.
Hands over the chest or by the sides. Yeah.
So he was buried but exhumed when further family members were definitely suffering from consumption. like Nicholas right and so they did what they had been told to do which like because when you see this you're like what the fuck like you hacked the head off of a corpse what are you doing yeah but they were told to do this.
They were confronted with what they were told, Was vampiric activity.
And it was like... That was killing children.
It's so crazy to say, but it was the norm.
Like... they were told this is what is happening.
So that's like what you do. And when you don't know any better, no kind of science to back anything up so it's like you're just going off of yeah like all Obviously for us, it sounds fucking crazy.
But if we had lived back then, we would have been doing this shit.
Yeah, that's what you were told to do. And when no heart was found, this is all they knew to do was you got to put it in the sign of the cross and put his head on top of it and you'll be fine call it a day it's crazy so A little side note about consumption too, because this is why it can be very difficult for people to trace it.
There are different ways in which you can present in different people.
Some people are asymptomatic and it's called latent TB infection.
They carry the disease, but they can't pass it until it turns active.
So they're not passing it to people while it's latent.
They show no symptoms themselves. Other people have it for years sometimes and they struggle and like slowly succumb to it.
I didn't know that. Yeah. and others have what is known as the galloping variety.
And this can either be a latent TB infection that suddenly becomes and goes hard and fast, or it's just one that comes on quick. and it's quick, it's merciless, and it's fast, and it takes you down to the end just as fast.
That's why it's like galloping. Right, right.
Folklorist Michael Bell is known to be one of the leading researchers on this... vampire panic that occurred.
And I read in one of his interviews that people also believe Edgar Allan Poe had the asymptomatic type type of TB.
Which definitely could have been true because he was around a lot of Yeah, he was around a lot of active TB sufferers.
Right. His mother being the first one who died of consumption when he was only three years old.
That's so sad. His wife later Like, all, you know, his wife died of it.
Like, everybody around him was dying of TB.
And in fact, Poe wrote a story you may all know called The Mask of the Red Death.
Yes. I love this story. It's such a good post story.
It's one of my favorites. It was about a plague consuming society and mostly starting to eat away at the poorest and least fortunate in society.
Right. The plague makes you feel intense pain and bleed from the pores, which sounds a lot like an artistic rendering of consumption, It really does.
And eventually the richer in society begin to fear that it will leap the bounds of class and come for them as well.
So they think they can use their privileged status to hide away and wait it out till it's gone.
They don't actually care about those people suffering in the shadows.
They just want to escape it themselves. And the character Prince Prospero decides to quarantine in his, like, giant mansion.
But he makes it glamorous, like quarantine, but make it glamorous.
Quarantine glam. a lavish party for everyone hiding away, like all these nobles.
And he hides himself away and like a thousand other fancy noble guests in his fortress.
And at one point, there's like all these rooms in the story where like it's all these different like lit rooms.
It's really cool. Yeah. Sounds like a cool party until the end.
Until the very end. That's usually how most parties are.
Cool until the end, yeah. At one point, they notice a figure standing there in a funeral shroud that's like blood spattered.
And they're wearing a mask. And they don't know who this figure is.
And they all just kind of like flinch. follow it from room to room while the prince is like holding a dagger and acts like he can fight this thing.
You can't. And eventually the figure is cornered and it turns to face the prince. and the prince just sees it and falls down dead in his tracks.
And when the rest of the revelers, like, unmask the figure, there's nothing underneath.
Isn't that so creepy? And everyone just falls down and dies of the plague.
It's wild. And the last line of the story is, and darkness and decay and the red death. held illimitable dominion overall.
And I think that's so rad. I just fucking love Poe.
You do. I fucking love Poe. It's such a good one.
How can you not? And it's so relevant. I mean, when you think of that, it's really relevant. today with what's going on, which is very interesting.
It's also very relevant with consumption and considering Poe was surrounded by the disease his whole life, it was definitely about that in my opinion.
I mean, yeah. It's also a really strong allegory for the fact that no one escapes death, not even the rich, which is another...
Thing that is very relevant right now with what's going on.
Like no one can escape it. Right. You're not safe from it.
Rich, poor, everything in between. It's not discriminatory.
Just saying. So that's interesting. Just saying.
Either way, speaking of Griswold, Connecticut, now that we've talked about John Baker.
There is a gnarly case of vampire mania that hails from the village of Jewett City, which is inside the town of Griswold.
Okay. On March 9th, 1845, a family started to fall to the plague of consumption.
On that day, 24-year-old Lemuel Billings Ray passed away. from consumption.
He was the son of Lucy and Henry B. Ray.
By July 3rd, 1849, his father, Henry B. Ray, had died of consumption as well.
His brother, who was 26 years old, Alicia Ray, died of that on February 1st, 1851.
And soon more family members were all falling ill to consumption.
And finally, they were like, wait a second.
It's gotta be ghouls. Obvi. Must be ghouls.
So in 1854, another son, Henry Nelson Ray, was coming down with it, and he was starting to waste away. and seemingly to them by the hands of an unseen force that was just sucking the life right out of them.
So that unseen force was germs, right? But they went with the bolder choice, which is Vampire.
Germs. Germs, Vampire, same thing. it's germs like the answer is germs but they they went with vampire multiple choice so germs they went with vampire today so They did what everyone else was doing at the time.
It was in vogue to exhume recent victims of consumption and see if there was fresh blood in their heart.
Yeah. So if there was, you got yourself a vampire, you gotta get rid of that organ or the entire corpse itself to break the curse of consumption or the surviving family members are all just going to keep dying.
So they dug up Lemuel, Henry, and Alicia.
And Alicia was said to have fresh blood in the corpse's heart.
I mean, they were also the last one to die, so the corpse was the freshest.
I don't know, Elena. Could be vampires. Could be.
And I don't know about fresh blood, but like, who am I to argue?
I wasn't there. Like I was not present at this exhumation.
I was only two. I'm just kidding, I wasn't.
I was like, I feel like I heard the date wrong.
It was in the 1800s. I was only two. I was just being mean to myself.
But so they figured Henry could go back. you know, into his otherworldly home, because they were like, he's probably good.
That's fine. Lemuel had to go. They were like, no, I feel it in both of you, so you're going.
Lemuel, for good measure, I suppose, because, like, He didn't have any heart, but like, yeah, let's get rid of him too.
So they burned them in their coffins, essentially just like cremating their remains.
Okay. But they did it in a huge bonfire on site, which was spooky and ominous.
Yeah, you don't say. You know, that would do the trick.
And I guess you can find the site of this grave.
This graveyard is still there. The site of the bonfire is still there.
Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So they figured that was going to do the trick, but it didn't.
Henry Nelson Ray died the same year, very soon after.
And his wife and three children also died of consumption.
That's so sad. It did not do it. This made the papers, because of like the whole bonfire thing, go off.
And they were referred to and still are referred to as the Jewett City vampires.
Wow. It's like, what a name to get after.
Like, still are referred to. Like, maybe we should stop.
It's like... Such a metal nickname. Maybe we should recognize what actually happened.
Exactly. But you know what? None of us are there.
I don't know. I don't know what they found.
Now that brings us to the case which some people may know, Mercy Lena Brown.
It does sound familiar. In 1883, George T Brown was a respected farmer in the town of Exeter, Rhode Island.
Exeter. Exeter. His wife, Mary Eliza, died of consumption that year in 1883.
Seven months after she died, their daughter Mary Olive died of consumption as well.
She was only 20. Shortly after that... His son Edwin was showing signs of consumption because they were probably all eating at the same kitchen table.
Yes. He was like pale, didn't want to eat anything, was getting that hacking cough.
They actually sent Edwin to Colorado for a while to see if he could get better air.
Which, like, they hoped it would make him better, and he just got worse.
I've definitely heard this. He got worse.
He came back home. Meanwhile, while this is going on, neighbors have been talking to Farmer Brown. and the local doctor, which was a man named Dr. Metcalf.
And he had heard that a few of them wanted Farmer Brown to have his wife and daughter Mary Olive exhumed to see if there was fresh blood in their hearts.
Mm-hmm. If there was, then it was likely that they were sucking the life out of Edwin and that was the reason for his suffering.
Um, so he thought this was nuts. They weren't going to like be burning hearts or anything.
He was like, no. But he was like, you know what?
They just kept coming at me. The neighbors won't shut up about it.
I'm starting to think it might be real. And either that or maybe he was believing it and he was a bit embarrassed to admit it.
But either way, he said he just gave in.
They were starting to sway him. Somebody was swaying him, and this is when Edwin was sent to Colorado to try that last-ditch effort to get him better.
And while he was there, their other daughter, 19 year old Mercy Lena Brown, was showing signs of becoming very ill with consumption as well.
Of course. She progressed very quickly.
Like, she clearly had the galloping kind.
I was just going to say that. And she died and was buried in January 1892.
Also, before she died, a doctor came to her bedside to try to perform some kind of aid on her or like comfort her symptoms.
And he just looked at Mercy and was like, yeah, sorry, she's at the end.
Like, there's nothing we can do. Don't even try.
Awesome. Like, way harsh, Ty. Thanks, Doc.
Like, that's like, wow. Way harsh. So now Farmer Brown is ready to do this.
He's like, okay, now that Mercy has died, he's a believer.
He's got no one left. So, he calls the doctor and says he would like them exhumed, and he would like this doctor to perform an autopsy to see if there is fresh blood somewhere.
So the doctor shows up at Shrub Hill Cemetery on March 17, 1892, And they've already exhumed the bodies of the wife and Mary Olive.
Both of them were dead for a while and were basically just skeletons.
Yeah. Their hearts were not filled with blood and likely maybe not even there still.
Yeah, I was wondering if they would even. be there.
At least in Mary Eliza's case, the mother, I don't think hers was there.
Right. Now, Mercy Lena had been buried for only two months, and it was...
Cold. Yeah. So she was not too bad in bad condition.
Right. kind of preserved in a way. I was going to say, was she like slightly mummified?
Yeah, a little bit. So they removed her heart and liver and reports say there was fresh blood in her heart. while other reports from the scene say that there was like normal old congealed blood.
So there was blood. The results vary. We know there was blood.
It should be noted also that Farmer Brown was not present at this exhumation and ritual, but there is nothing to say he didn't give his blessing.
I just didn't want to be there, and I kind of get that.
I 100% get that. Either way, they removed them, the liver and the heart. and took them to a rock nearby.
Surrounding the rock, the liver and heart were burned to ashes.
Once they were reduced to ash, they took some of the ashes and forced Edwin to eat them.
So that probably made him worse. They felt this would cure him of his malady.
But two months later, Edwin died of consumption.
Another two months of that horrible, horrible illness. after you ate the ashes of your dead sister's heart and liver yeah yeah Now, interestingly, this news went way further than New England And in 1896, and that's the last story I'm going to tell about it, but I just needed to end on this because it was interesting.
In 1896, there was an article about this that Bram Stoker had read this article.
I don't know if you know Bram Stoker. Oh.
Who? Whomst is that? He was touring in the US with his stage company at the time, and he had not yet finished Dracula.
It came out in 1897, so the following year.
Some people think this was the inspiration behind that because there are a lot of similarities between the illness and death of Mercy Lena and Lucy. in dracula but that's a no and i'm here to tell you that's a no you're like it's not true you heard heard it here first.
I read in several sources that it took him upwards of seven years for him to write Dracula. so the timeline doesn't add up.
And he said, he was like, no. But like, but who knows if maybe the story could have added like flavor to the already written manuscript.
Like you could have added a little bit of like. flair like sure like maybe he added some of the like little details in there i don't know maybe there's nothing to say that But either way, the vampire panic of New England is so much further reaching than this.
I mean, a million other things happen. So interesting.
But I think the Mercy Brown one is the one that a lot of people hear.
Yeah. Again, you can like see these gravestones.
You can see these people really existed.
The timelines add up. There's old newspaper articles to confirm all these.
I read a bunch of different books about them that I'll link here because they were fascinating oh my god Elena was showing me her kindle library the other day and I was like it's so funny too because it's all these fucking terrifying books And then it's like, Vampirina.
Yep, literally. In the tale of the... chef and then it's like bad seed plays with new friends it's like It's just funny.
I love it so much. It's amazing. My Kindle is a real chaos.
It's a real dichotomy. It's a real chaotic journey through my life.
But I think I had like four books on this that I just could not stop reading. reading yeah because you were like I read this one oh and then I found this one and then there was also this I found another one I was like, how long is this episode about to be?
I was like, not too bad. I decided I was going to keep it to only a few cases.
This was fun. But I definitely want to revisit this.
Do part two. It's real fascinating. So this might be like Vampire Panic of New England part one. yeah like volume one and like yeah i was gonna say like later on down the road kind of vibe Yeah, later on down the line, I'll throw another one in.
I like it. I like it a lot. But yeah, I hope you guys thought that was interesting.
I thought it was a fun, like spooky journey. and learning about consumption was like weirdly interesting it is like very fascinating to learn about Franklin gives this five paws.
I love that. I mean, five whole paws. I don't know.
He's only got five beans. He'll give an extra one.
Four beans. he gives it a lot of props i appreciate it yeah meow All right, well, this was super fun.
I liked this a lot. See, I had to bring it to a fun speed. yeah I needed that I needed to sit here and not be like I mean I was horrified still I was gonna say I mean consumption is not fun it was different like it wasn't like a different thing yeah you know it wasn't like well it was still brutal it wasn't the sunset strip slayers or the hillside stranglers correct well that's all that matters Anyways, we hope that you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it. When your family member's dying, you stand over them and you inhale their last breath because I think somebody might find that weird and I think you probably might get sick.
So definitely don't do that. Thanks. Okay, bye.
Thank you. Thank you. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.