During the 19th century several vampyric killers emerged. During the twentieth century, a number of vampyric crime reports have surfaced, and of these, a few have become famous. Many other cases however recieved very little notice, and I shall have a section for those listed after the more substantail cases.

The earliest reported case being that of a man by the name of Sorgel. Sorgel was a German, in an attempt to cure himself of epilepsy he killed a man in the forest and drank his blood. He was arrested and confined to an asylum as a result. After his execution, pathologists examined his brain.

During the same year the Sorgel's crime occured, a man name Antoine Leger committed a similar vampyric crime. Leger was guilty of killing a 12-year-old girl, drinking her blood, and consuming her heart.

In 1849 Sergeant Francoise Bertrand (1824-1849) was arrested in Paris for opening graves and eating the flesh of the dead corpses. Although he was labeled a vampyre by many, this behavior is more related to a ghoul than to that of a vampyre, though it is similar to many revenants. His story later became the model for one of the most sucessful werewolf novels, The Werewolf of London. The incident itself, became rather famous in it's own right.

Just a few decades later, in 1886, a similar crime was commited by Henri Blot. After completing his work, Blot would fall into a deep sleeplike hypnotic tracne, allowing him to be apprehended and arrested quickly. He had only accosted and violated two corpses before he was caught.

Another famous vampyre killer of interest is German Fritz Haarman (1879-1924). Haarman had murdered and canibalised more than 20 people, before his arrest and execution in 1924. In the last several years of his murders, he had also begun to bite his victims and suck their blood.
More about Fritz Haarman.

Peter Kurten (1883-1931), also German, was a contemporary to Haarman. Kurten first killed when he was 9 years of age, and then again in 1913. He began a series of ghoulish crimes in which he stabbed and mutilated his vitims in1929. In August of '29, at the hieght of his killing spree, he murdered and mutilated 9 people, mainly young women. His initial excitement of killing turned to a fixation with blood, and towards the end of his career, he began to drink the blood of his victims. He would continue to drink, even after the consumed blood made him sick, and in one case he bit the victim and drank striaght from the wound itself. After his final arrest in 1930, Kurten was executed the next year.
More about Peter Kurten.

Seaman James Brown was one of the vampyre killers that sprang from the United States. In 1967 he was found sucking the blood from a crewman he had murdered aboard his ship, a fishing boat that was on it's way to Labrador. Another sailor had already been killed and drained as well. Upon discovery he was arrested and returned to Boston, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment. In prison he killed and drank the blood of at least two more people. After the second murder, he was sent to the National Asylum in Washington, D.C., here remained there -confined in a padded cell- until his death.

During the 1940s, a man by the name of John George Haigh (1910-1949) became one of the more famous cases of vampyric crime in the 20th century. Operating out of a home in London, Haigh would murder his victims, drain them of their blood, and dispose of their bodies in a large vat of sulfuric acid.
More about John George Haigh.

Another of the more famous cases during the 20th century is that of Richard Chase (1950-1980). As early as 1974 Chase killed a cat and drank it's blood. In the years that followed he would kill a number of other animals and drink their blood in the hopes of improving his physical health. However, Chase's offical vampyric crime spree began in December of 1977 in Sacramento, California; where he shot and killed a man. The next month he killed again, and on this occasion drank the blood of his victim. This practice was continued throughout the month of January in a string of killings, until his arrest at the month's end. After his arrest Chase went through a comples legal process, including scrutiny of his sanity. He was tried and convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to death, however, he commited suicide before the execution took place.

Now, as promised, is a listing of many other -lesser known- vampyric crimes:

1861- Martin Dumollard of Montluel, France, was convicted of murdering several young girls whose blood he drank. He was executed.

1872- Vincenzo Verzeniof Bottanaucco, Italy, was sentenced to life imprisonment in two cases of murder and four of attempted murder. He confessed that drinking the blood of his victims gave him immense satisfaction.

1897- Joseph Vacher of Bourg, France, while on a walking tour through the country, killed at least a dozen people and drank their blood from bites in their neck. He was finally captured, convicted, and executed.

1916?- Following a notice that Bela Kiss, of Czinkota, Hungary, had been killed in World War I, neighbors searched her property and found the bodies of 31 individuals, all of whom had been strangled. Each corpse possessed puncture wounds in the neck and had been drained of blood.

1920- Baron Roman von Sternberg-Ungern, a nobleman in postrevolutionary Russia, drank human blood on occasion, seemingly in connection with a belief that he was a reincarnation of Genghis Khan. For his habits (and other reasons), he came into conflict with the new government and was executed.

1947- ElizabethShort of Hollywood, California, was murdered and her body dismembered. Later examination discovered that her body had been drained of it's blood.

1952- Estelita Forencio of Passi, Iloilo Province, the Philippines, bit a number of people and then sucked the blood from their wounds. She was arrested for attempted murder. She said that she had icquired the urge from her husband, and that it came on her at regular intervals.

1959- Salvatore Agron, a 16-year-old resident of New York City, was convicted of several murders that he carried out at night while dresses as a Bela Lugosi-style vampyre. In court he claimed to be a vampyre. He was executed for his crimes.

1960- Florencio Roque Fernandez of Manteros, Argentina, was arrested after more than 15 women said someone had entered their bedroom, bit them, and drank their blood.

1963- Alfred Kaser of Munich, Germany, was tried for killing a 10-year-old boy. He drank blood from the boy's neck after stabbing him.

1969- Stanislav Modzieliewski of Lodz, Poland, was convicted of seven murders and six attempted murders. One witness against him was a young woman he attacked, who pretended to be dead while he drank blood from her. Modzieliewski confessed to thinking that blood was delicious.

1971- Wayne Boden was arrested for a series of murders that began in 1968. In each case he had handcuffed the victim, raped her, and then bitten her and sucked blood from her breast.

1973- Kuno Hoffman of Nurnburg, Germany, confessed to murdering two people and drinking their blood and to digging up and drinking the blood of several corpses. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

1979- Richard Cottingham was arrested for raping, slashing, and drinking the blood of a young prostitute. It was later discovered that he had killed a number of women, and in most cases has bitten them and lapped up their flowing blood.

1980- James P. Riva shot his grandmother and drank the blood coming from the wound. He later said that several years earlier he had begun to hear the voices of a vampyre, who eventually told him what to do and promised him eternal life.

1982- Julian Koltunor Warshaw, Poland, was sentenced to death for raping seven women and drinking their blood. He killed two of the women.

1984- Renato Antonio Cirillo was tried for the rape and vampyre-style biting of more than 40 women.

1985- John Crutchley was arrested for raping a woman. He held her prisoner and drank much of her blood. It was later discovered that he had been drinking the bloodof more willing donors for many years.

1987- A jogger in San Francisco park was kidnapped and held for an hour in a van while a man drank his blood.

1988- An unknown woman picked up at least six men over the summer in the Soho section of London. After she returned home with a victim, she slipped drugs into his drink. While he was unconscious, she cut his wrist and sucked his blood. She was never arrested.

1991- Marcelo da Andrade of Rio de Janeiro killed 14 young boys, after which he drank their blood and ate some of their flesh.

1991- Tracy Wigginton of Brisbane, Australia, was convicted of the vampyre murder of Clyde Blaylock. She stabbed him and then drank his blood. A lesbian, Wigginton claimed to be a vampyre and regularly drank blood from her friends.

1992- Andrie Chikatilo of Rostov, Russia, was sentenced to death after confessing to killing some 55 people whom he vampyrized and cannibalized.

1992- Deborah Joan Finch was tried for the murder of a neighbor. She stabbed the victim 27 times and then drank he flowing blood.

If you know of any other documented cases that are not listed here, please The above mentioned book was also used as a source for much of the information in this section.