12 Criminals Who Really Thought They Were Vampires

Gory tales of blood-sucking vampire killers have been around since at least the 17th century. Vampire myths have survived through the ages, and vampires are now a permanent fixture in modern pop culture. Why are we so obsessed with the blood-drinking creatures?

One of the reasons people love vampires is because they are sexy. At the same time, they are also terrifying. The combination of these feelings is oddly compelling. Drinking blood is also very close to cannibalism. The taboo nature of blood-drinking and cannibalism are part of what gives vampires their allure.

Vampires are not afraid of anything. They are smart, independent, and extremely powerful, making them a prime fantasy for many disaffected people.

For most people, vampire movies, books, and games are just harmless fun. There aren't any real vampires - or are there? A few people take vampirism very seriously. Imagining they are real vampires, they carry out heinous crimes to satisfy their lust for blood. For these people, vampirism isn't just pop culture, but a deadly way of life.

These terrifying real-life vampire killers took the blood-sucking myth way too far. These killers who actually thought they were vampires are scarier than any fiction Bram Stoker, Anne Rice, Stephen King, or Stephanie Meyer could ever imagine.

Fritz Haarmann is one of the most famous vampire killers of all time. Between 1918 and 1924, he killed at least 24 boys and young men in Hanover, Germany. His nicknames include the Vampire of Hanover, the Butcher of Hanover, and the Wolfman.

Haarmann was a petty criminal and police informant. He started a life of crime at a young age; at 16, he was arrested for molesting younger boys. He was placed in a mental institution, but later escaped.

Haarmann would lure young men and boys into his home by promising them jobs. He would then rape them, biting their Adam’s apples and drinking their blood until they were dead. Haarmann said he didn’t intend to kill his victims, but that he was overcome by a “rabid sexual passion."

After a murder, Haarmann would dismember the body, removing the skull and internal organs. The bones would be dropped into the Leine River.

One of Haarmann’s criminal enterprises was selling meat on the black market. It has been guessed, but never proven, that the meat from Haarmann’s corpses was sold as mince or sausages.

After the discovery of more than 500 bones in the Leine River, suspicion turned to 45-year-old Haarmann. He had been questioned regarding several disappearances, and was a known homosexual, which was considered a crime at that time. Many items belonging to the victims were found at Haarmann’s home, and he confessed.

Haarmann’s true death toll will never be known. He claimed to have killed between 50 and 70 men, although he was only convicted of killing 24. He was sentenced to death by beheading and executed 18 days after his trial. He said he would “go to his execution as if it were a wedding.”

In 2003, near Edinburgh, Scotland, Allan Menzies killed his best friend, drank some of his blood, and ate a piece of his skull. The reason? He said the vampire Akasha, a character from the 2002 movie Queen of the Damned, told him he had to if he wanted to become a vampire and live forever.

Menzies had known the victim, Thomas McKendrick, since he was four years old. Menzies had become obsessed with the vampire movie based on a book by Anne Rice, seeing it more than 100 times. He also claimed the character Akasha visited him. “I basically agreed with her [Akasha] that if I murdered people, I would be rewarded in the next life,” Menzies said.

On the day of the murder, Menzies said McKendrick said something against Queen of the Damned, sparking Menzies’s rage. He bludgeoned his friend with a hammer at least ten times. Menzies then stabbed McKendrick 42 times with a bowie knife and a kitchen knife.

After his friend was dead, Menzies drank his blood and ate part of his skull. It was several weeks before McKendrick was found in the shallow grave Menzies had dug for him.

After his arrest, Menzies tried unsuccessfully to plead insanity. Two psychiatrists said he wasn’t suffering from mental illness when he attacked McKendrick, and Menzies was given a life sentence.

In 2004, Menzies killed himself in Shotts Prison near Glasgow, Scotland.

Elizabeth Bathory is one of the most famous female real-life vampires. She may have been the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, even more than Vlad the Impaler.

Called "The Blood Countess," between 1585 and 1609, she sadistically tortured and killed as few as 37 or as many as 650 young women. She holds the Guinness World Record for the most murders committed by a woman.

Bathory was a Hungarian countess who was married and had four children. She also had a sadistic streak. She started her life of crime by torturing and killing young peasant girls who came to work for her. Though unsubstantiated, there are rumors she drank and bathed in their blood to keep herself young. Court testimonies mentioned Bathory using needles on her victims, burning them, and biting off their flesh.

Bathory wasn’t put to trial until she began killing the daughters of noble families. At her trial, more than 300 witnesses spoke of the atrocities she'd committed.

She was found guilty, but imprisoned in her castle instead of being put to death. She lived there for four years before dying of an illness. The location of her body is unknown.

Daniel and Manuela Ruda of western Germany believed Satan told them to murder their friend.

The young couple were practicing Satanists and vampires. They were married on the sixth day of the sixth month (June) to signify the number of the beast. Manuela sometimes slept in a coffin. She also had her teeth removed and animal fangs implanted in their place. Their first forays into blood-drinking took place with consensual volunteers at blood-drinking gatherings they attended in England and Scotland, often held in cemeteries or in old ruined buildings.

The couple said Satan told them they needed to murder their friend, 33-year-old Frank Haagen. They picked Haagen because he was“so funny and would be the perfect court jester for Satan,” said Manuela.

They invited Haagen over, telling him they were going to a party. Daniel hit Haagen in the head with a hammer, then they stabbed him 66 times – a significant number for the couple. After he was dead, they carved a pentagram on his stomach. They drank his blood and had sex in Manuela’s coffin. They also prayed to Satan.

Manuela was disappointed she didn’t become a real vampire after the murder.

When authorities came into their apartment several days later, they found Haagen’s decomposing body near the coffin.

At the time of their sentencing, Daniel was 26 and Manuela was 23. They made a show of the trial, flashing Satanist hand signs and threatening witnesses. The pair denied all blame for the crime, saying they were simply Satan's instruments. They compared their trial to blaming a car for a vehicular accident. Manuela testified,

It was not murder. We are not murderers. It was the execution of an order. Satan ordered us to. We had to comply. It was not something bad. It simply had to be. We wanted to make sure that the victim suffered well.

The jury disagreed, however. They were both sentenced to psychiatric hospitals: Daniel for 15 years, Manuela for 13.

Richard Trenton Chase was one messed-up dude. He was called the Sacramento Vampire, and he’s known for killing six people in 1977.

Chase was affected by mental illness his whole life. He chronically used alcohol and drugs as a young man, which may have led to his hypochondria. He believed killing animals and drinking their blood would stop his heart from shrinking. He also believed that was being secretly poisoned by the soap in his bathroom, which was turning his blood to powder. He needed fresh blood to replace what was being lost. He killed many neighborhood pets, including his mother’s cat, and caught and bit the heads off birds.

In 1976, he tried to inject rabbit blood into his body, landing him in the hospital. That led to him being placed in a mental institution. He was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. Soon after, he was released from the institution into his mother’s care.

Then the killings began. Chase was looking for bigger game than neighborhood pets. His first killing was a drive-by shooting. Then he started entering homes - true to vampire folklore, he wouldn’t go into a locked house.

On January 23, 1978, Chase killed a pregnant woman, raped her corpse, and mutilated her body. He ate parts of her flesh, and used a yogurt container as a cup to drink her blood. Four days later, he would kill again. His next murder was four people in one day, two adults and two young children. He also raped and mutilated the adult female.

Police found human body parts, including brains, in his refrigerator. He also had a calendar that said “Today” on the murder dates. The word was written on 44 more days.

Chase was given the death sentence, but committed suicide before it could be carried out. The 1987 movie Rampage was loosely based on his life.

Weird things happen in Florida, but rarely anything as weird as this. In 1996, Rod Ferrell was 16 years old. He brutally murdered Richard and Naomi Wendorf, the parents of his friend Heather Wendorf, with a tire iron. Even stranger, he committed these ghastly murders as the ringleader of a teenage vampire cult.

Ferrell looked the part of a high school goth: long, dyed-black hair, all-black clothing, and a trench coat. He befriended Heather Wendorf when they both attended high school in Eustis, Florida. The following year, Ferrell moved to Kentucky but kept in contact with Heather.

In Kentucky, Ferrell began collecting members for his vampire cult. Ferrell and his friend Howard Scott Anderson were charged with cruelty to animals after they broke into an animal shelter. They abused and beat more than 40 dogs, killing two in what looked like a satanic ritual.

Ferrell and other teenagers hung out at a place called the “Vampire Hotel," drinking each other’s blood. Ferrell became obsessed with the role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade. He claimed to be a 500-year-old vampire named Vesago.

Just before the murders, Ferrell drove from Kentucky to Florida, with Howard Scott Anderson and two girls. Heather Wendorf was planning to run away from home with Ferrell and the rest of the vampire cult. She didn’t know Ferrell was planning to kill her parents, although other cult members did. 

Ferrell and Anderson broke into the Wendorf home. Richard Wendorf was sleeping when Rod severely bludgeoned him with a tire iron. Naomi Wendorf tried to fight back by throwing hot coffee into Rod’s face, but he brutally murdered her with the tire iron as well. Ferrell and Anderson met up with the girls, and the five teenagers went on the run for several days before getting caught.

Ferrell was sentenced to death, and was the youngest person on death row for two years. His sentence was then changed to life without the possibility of parole.

“I was in a maelstrom of my own madness” Rod said in an interview with Investigation Discovery. He has been diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder.

The 2002 movie Vampire Clan was based on the murders.

Caius Veiovis isn’t exactly someone who can blend into a crowd - and that’s the way he likes it. His face is full of piercings, tattoos, and yes, horn implants. His mug shot has been called the scariest ever. But even scarier are the crimes he’s committed - cutting and drinking the blood of a 16-year-old girl and killing three Hell’s Angels.

Veiovis’s given name is Roy Gutfinski, Jr. He legally changed his name in 2008. Many media outlets reported that he changed his name to Caius after a vampire character in the Twilight books and movies, although Veiovis denies this.

Veiovis has a long history of violence and Satanism. He and a former girlfriend cut another girl, who was 16 at the time, and kissed while they drank her blood. Veiovis has professed to being a vampire.

In 2001, Veiovis, along with two other men, kidnapped and murdered three Hell’s Angels. One of the Angels was said to have been about to give testimony against  Veiovis’s friend. The dismembered bodies were found in a trench.

Veiovis was convicted of kidnapping, witness intimidation, and first degree murder. He was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without parole.

James P. Riva is known as the Vampire Killer - both because he claimed the person he killed was a vampire, and because he later said he was a vampire himself. He is also known as the Schizophrenic Vampire.

As a teen, Riva became obsessed with vampires. He claimed to need to drink blood, and would often consume a blood-like drink made of ketchup and oil.

In 1980, Riva was 23 years old and living in Marshfield, Massachusetts. He had a history of mental illness and had been in several institutions. He had dealt with voices telling him what to do nearly all his life. On April 10, the voices told him he needed to murder his 74-year-old grandmother, Carmen Lopez, who was in a wheelchair and whom he believed to be a vampire plotting to kill him.

He painted the bullets for his gun gold, which he said another vampire told him would kill vampires. He went to his grandmother’s house and stabbed her in the heart. He also shot her four times with the bullets before setting her house on fire to destroy the evidence.

Riva later told his mother from prison that he was a 700-year-old vampire and that he had tried to drink his grandmother’s blood, but she was too old and dried up.

Riva was sentenced to life in prison and has repeatedly been denied parole.

Australian Tracey Wigginton is better known as the Lesbian Vampire Killer. Wigginton told a jury she didn’t live on food, but on the blood of pigs and cows. Wigginton’s lover, Lisa Ptaschinski, also said she slit her own wrists so Wigginton could feast on her blood.

On the night of October 20, 1989, Wigginton decided to take things a step further and kill a human to satisfy her bloodlust.

Wigginton was 25 years old. She and Ptaschinski, along with two other women, were driving around when they spotted 47-year-old Edward Baldock walking home drunk. The women coaxed Baldock into the car and took him to a park near the Brisbane River. They promised him sexual favors, but instead Wigginton stabbed him 27 times, coming close to decapitating him.

After Wigginton drank Baldock’s blood, the women left his body in the park to be found in the morning. It wasn’t hard to catch Wigginton - her ATM card was found in the victim’s shoe.

Wigginton plead guilty to the bizarre murder. Wigginton and Ptaschinski were given life sentences. On January 11, 2012, Wigginton was astonishingly given parole. She can’t contact the victim’s family or the other women involved in the crime, but she is a free woman in most aspects. It is a condition of her parole that she can't profit from her story - for example, by writing a memoir about her experiences.

It’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it? Mathew Hardman from North Wales was described by friends as a normal, quiet boy. The 17-year-old attended art school and worked part time as a kitchen porter.

No one suspected he would murder his 90-year-old neighbor, Mabel Leyshon. But that’s exactly what happened in November 2001. Hardman came into his elderly neighbor’s house while she was watching TV and stabbed her 22 times with a knife.

After she was dead, he carved out her heart and wrapped it in newspaper. He drained her blood into a kitchen saucepan and drank it. He also placed candles and a makeshift crucifix at her feet.

Before the murder, Hardman had become obsessed with vampires. He believed drinking blood would make him immortal. He even accused a German exchange student of being a vampire. He begged her to bite him so he’d become one, too.

After his arrest, Hardman confessed to smoking pot at the time of the murder.

Hardman was sentenced to life in jail.