Away from me, you vampire!

In the November 4, 1892 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle it was reported that James Brown, a vampiric murderer imprisoned in Ohio, had behaved like a one-man riot while being removed from his cell to be transported to a psychiatric facility. Brown had been arrested for vampire murders while working as a cook aboard the Atlantic in 1866. Brown was originally sentenced to be hanged for killing a fellow crew member who had insulted him, but that judgement was commuted to a life sentence by President Andrew Johnson.

A quarter-century later, the New York Times added reportage about his alleged blood-sucking exploits. Others followed up on this sensational angle. An excerpt from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle piece:

“Deputy United States Marshal Williams of Cincinnati has removed James Brown, a deranged United States prisoner, from the Ohio penitentiary to the National Asylum at Washington D.C. The prisoner fought like a tiger at being removed.

Twenty-five years ago he was charged with being a vampire and living on human blood. He was a Portuguese sailor and shipped on a fishing smack from Boston up the coast in 1867. During the trip two of the crew were missing and an investigation made. Brown was found one day in the hold of the ship, sucking blood from the body of one of the sailors. The other body was found in the same place and had been served in a similar manner. Brown was returned to Boston and convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged. President Johnson commuted the sentence to imprisonment for life.

After serving fifteen years in Massachusetts he was transferred to the Ohio prison. He has committed two murders since his confinement. When being taken from the prison, he believed that he was on the way to execution and resisted accordingly.”

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