Mercy Brown Incident: Vampires or Pure Coincidence?

Author: Sebastian Garland

Vampires are undead creatures who drink a person’s blood to feed their hunger, many people believed that these creatures live among us. Acting as which they are normal people. People called anything that looked out of place, a monster. So, it would not be completely shocking to mistake a scientific accident for a monster. A common illness that was seen as an act of a vampire was tuberculosis, which mostly ended in death during the 19th century. The most common symptom was that it made you slowly lose weight, which could be related to what happens when your blood gets ‘sucks’ out of your body. Which most people think vampires cause on their victims.

A person who fell to the illness of tuberculous during the 1880s.

One of the first actions of the belief of the vampires is the Mercy Brown case. It started with the Brown family, George and Mary Brown, moving to this new town, Exeter, Rhode Island. The village thought the family was normal and did not think anything about it. Till the day Mary Brown, Mercy’s mother, fell ill with tuberculosis during the 1800s. It caused her to die, then her eldest daughter happened to have the same fate. Then the action happened again with her son, but he happened to pull the lucky stick and survived the illness. Finally, Mercy fell ill and had the same future as her sister and mother. The sudden rounds of death felt odd to the villagers, and they started to be a little more interested into the family’s personal business. 

Mercy Brown’s grave as of modern day sights. 

Mercy’s mother and sister were soon buried after their deaths, but Mercy was not due to the extreme coldness. So, the village decided to live Mercys body out and wait out till it became warmer. When the village turned their attention back to burying Mercy, they noticed something odd about her body. When the villagers opened her casket and saw she was in ‘perfect’ condition, no sights of decay and maybe even some growth within her hair as well as her fingernails. She was believed to still be alive due to the fact that she has change in a positive way and looked even better than when she died. They are though she was a vampire and was the cause of her family’s deaths. So, they decided to burn her body in order to ‘kill‘ the monster, saving her father and her brother from the same fate as the other two faced.

Mercy before she died, happy and safe.

It was later believed that Mercy was not a vampire but rather just a scientific action. That the cold from the weather caused Mercy body’s to be left in a stable state and was not able to start decaying because she was basically frozen in time. Which counteracted the effect of decaying, but the growth of the nails and hairs has yet to be proven against, but it shown that stories sometimes change which could be mean that someone just added that detail to the story to make it a little more interesting than before.

Works cited: 

Crystal Ponti. “When New Englanders Blamed Vampires for Tuberculosis” A&E Television Networks, October 25, 2019, https://www.history.com/news/vampires-tuberculosis-consumption-new-england. October 26, 2023

J.W. Ocker. “Explore the dark side of New England with these spooky sites” Boston Globe Media Partners, October 5, 2013, https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/travel/2013/10/05/explore-dark-side-new-england-with-spooky-sites/bV8m5801urtdRqf4tdQPjN/story.html

Staff Writer. “Mercy Brown, The Rhode Island Vampire Lady.” Any Mystery, December 14, 2022, https://anymystery.com/mercy-brown-the-rhode-island-vampire-lady/.

Links for Further Research:

The Mercy Brown Vampire Story, https://www.historicmysteries.com/mercy-brown/ This article written by Doug MacGowan, who writes a lot of stories about historic true crimes, goes into detail about the actions that took place before, during and after the deaths of the Brown family.

Why The Mercy Brown Case Remains One Of History’s Craziest “Vampire” Incidents, https://allthatsinteresting.com/mercy-brown-vampire This article published by all that’s interesting, a website that writes a lot of facture but interesting stories, goes into details as well as the facts that stand base on the Mercy Brown case.

The story of Mercy Brown: New England’s last vampire, https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/01/16/the-story-of-mercy-brown-new-englands-last-vampire/ This article written by Marjia Georgevska shows a different theory on what happened after Mercy died and shows aspect that the first theory might of

Chupacabra, Fact or Fiction?

Author: Joshua Sunderman

A picture of A Chupacabra

Chupacabra, A mass-hysteria creature or real-life horror? As the Chupacabra is a myth that first started in Puerto Rico. Where a farmer had reported his cattle dead by means of their blood being sucked dry. Soon reports of the Chupacabra began appearing all over the North and South America. Where it was unknown exactly what the creature looked-like that cause a feat but many theories it to look like this. A creature, according to “Tracking the Chupacabra” by Benjamin Radford, that has many variations of descriptions leaving it to be cryptid (unidentifiable animal). One description of a Chupacabra being covered in glossy matted hair and has a feral face with long limbs that end in massive claws. Making it able to transverse any terrain at a huge distance and some say the Chupacabra even has wings. Most often though, the creature is described as having red eyes, feathery-like spikes going down its spine.

A Chupacabra with wings by Cristart (2001)

Chupacabra ways of killing its victims could even be described as a vampire as it meets all the classifications to be classified as a vampire. While the stereotypical vampire is more like Count Dracula, a tall, thin, pale, white-haired and or bald man with fangs that can transform into a bat. However, as informed by Benjamin Radford the Greeks described vampires as malevolent undead creatures that stalked the living, bring death and disease. Vampires would also puncture two holes into the victim’s neck as they suck their blood dry and that is exactly what victims of the Chupacabra were found dead two punctured holes in the neck bleed dry. Which scientist examined the puncture wounds and they would be that of canine’s teeth.

A Chupacabra being examined

Upon closer inspection of the Chupacabra lead scientist to logically conclude that it is actually a canine, typically a coyote or a dog, with a disease called mange. Where the hair of the creature is at a loss leaving them bare-skin and more in a weaken state. Which the reason it is so close vampires is that it is the canine’s instincts is to go straight for the neck of its prey. Then the canine would go off and kill another animal for food or sport while the victim dies from suffocation, internal hemorrhaging, and or infection (Benjamin Radford).

So, while the Chupacabra may not have its extreme alien-like features it is most certainly a real creature just in more of a disease that is affecting a canine.

Resource links:

"The Chupacabra & Bigfoot" , Scholastic Scope. 2/14/2011, Vol. 59 Issue 10, p16-16, 1p, Academic Search Premier, http://ezproxy.usca.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=58030972&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Lopez, Lalo “Media-Fueled Chupacabra-Mania Raises ‘Fact or Fiction’ Hysteria.”, Hispanic. Aug1996, Vol. 9 Issue 8, p12. 2p. 1 Color Photograph. Academic Search Premier, http://ezproxy.usca.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=9608164065&site=ehost-live&scope=site

“Not a Monster.”, Outdoor Life. Feb2005, Vol. 212 Issue 2, p21-21. 1/7p. 1 Color Photograph, Academic Search Premier, http://ezproxy.usca.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=15632026&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Further Research:

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161109-the-truth-about-a-strange-blood-sucking-monster
A local article that goes into further detail about the Chupacabra explain this monstrous story and even talks about the author who wrote “Tracking the Chupacabra” Benjamin Radford and talks about his research.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004XOGILY/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Benjamin Radford is someone who has been investigating this mysterious and unusual phenomena for over a decade, and in this chapter “A Brief History of Vampires” it gives off a summary of how there are many vampires in the world ranging from the European, to African, to Latin American.

https://study.com/academy/lesson/quotes-about-count-dracula.html
This is for information for about Count Dracula and their appearance along with some more explanation about his powers he can do.