 Stories and content and weird darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. Even within the realm of cryptozoology, there are creatures that seem to defy easy classification. And some believe there is a distinct line between the field of cryptozoology, which by definition deals with undiscovered organisms which are real, flesh and blood animals, that of paranormal phenomena and that of folklore. While they may at times cross paths or briefly converge, typically these fields are as different as night and day and deal with entirely different sets of phenomena with different areas of study, classifications, methods, aims and goals. Yet there are times when the gulf between them is not clear-cut, when something that on the surface appears to be an uncategorized animal evades such a simple identification. One such enigmatic beast has surely got to be the infamous Black Hellhounds, a unique category of creature so bizarre that it transcends any attempts to safely label it. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Welcome, Weirdos. This is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. Coming up in this episode of Weird Darkness, love, money, divorce, anger and murder, one Pennsylvania family had it all and then some in the late 1800s. Count St. Germain and Jacques St. Germain, John and Wayne Carter, the casket girls of New Orleans. Despite many years between all of their lives, they all still have one grisly thing in common. All were thought to be and possibly were real vampires tied to the Big Easy, a place where real bloodsuckers continue to live and roam the streets even now in the 21st century. But first, they have a long history in the United Kingdom, stalking the moors and fog-carpeted streets in the night, but it appears hounds from hell have also made their way to the Americas. We begin there. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights and come with me into the Weird Darkness. Hellhounds in one form or another have been recorded throughout human history from a variety of far-flung cultures. And although their appearance varies depending on the area and the local traditions, they are typically described as a very large black hound which can range anywhere in size from that of a large great dane all the way up to the size of a cow or a horse. They are usually described as truly frightening beasts being totally black with shaggy or matted fur and large saucer-sized eyes that are typically described as burning with a malevolent red, yellow or green glow, although some accounts say they have only a single luminous eye. Usually they are described as having formidable claws, vicious-looking fangs and as being supernaturally agile, fast and strong. The hounds can be reported as either tangible and real or, conversely, purely spectral creatures, with any attempt to touch them proving to pass through them as if they aren't there. Folklore usually suggests that they have a horrific wail or howl which can invoke sheer terror in those who hear it and they are known to even have a sinister human-sounding laugh but that their footfalls are typically completely silent. The British Isles in particular have long had tales of such entities, with countless tales of phantom hounds which prowl the lonely roads, crypts, cemeteries and wilds here, and stories of these hellhounds go back centuries. The hounds have been known as the Gurt Dog, Padfoot, Barghests, the Hairy Hound, the Yeath and Old Shock, Old Snarlio and Old Scarf, among many others. In Ireland, they are known as Puca. On the Isle of Man, they are Moody Dew. In Wales, the Waleegee and in Scotland, the Beasley Hounds are called Sucith. The most popular and widely used term for these bizarre entities in the United Kingdom is the Black Shuck, a term which originated with the name the hounds were given in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, with the name deriving from the Old English word skucka meaning demon or possibly the word shucky meaning shaggy or hairy. These frightening creatures were said to be anything from the ghosts of dead travelers to the spirits of dead hounds awaiting the return of their masters, to inscrutable guardians of forbidden knowledge, to being the devil himself. The folklore and sightings of these huge mysterious hounds go back centuries, inspiring a great amount of literature and spooky history in their path. Yet these creatures are certainly not confined to the old folklore of Britain, and there are many real modern sightings and encounters with apparent hell hounds across the pond in the United States, and these have come up right into the present. We start at the Appalachian Mountains of the Eastern United States, which have seen quite a few reports of what seem to be hell hounds, especially in the states of Kentucky and West Virginia. Reports go back quite some time, with some accounts coming from as early as the late 17th century of great black dogs with glowing eyes terrorizing the region, and such accounts have continued on into more recent times. In Kentucky there have long been reports of massive black dogs measuring about four feet high at the shoulder and seven feet long, and one of these beasts allegedly prowled the area of Pike County through the 1930s and 40s, reportedly massacring cattle and sometimes even humans as well as frightening locals. In modern times such reports drew the interest of paranormal and cryptid investigators for the TV show Mountain Monsters, who went to the area for an investigation. The excursion would turn out to be pretty bizarre if inconclusive. The investigators spoke with farmers in the area who showed them torn apart carcasses of livestock and gave spooky accounts of something large and dark prowling through the wilderness. They were also shown an alleged video of the beast, as well as paw prints measuring seven and a half to eight inches long, very big for a dog. During the investigation the team built a bamboo drop cage and baited it with hog shoulders in an effort to lure it out, and although they don't catch it, they can hear something crashing around in the brush, growling and can see a large shadow. It's all very dramatic and whether the episode has any truth to it or not, Kentucky and other areas of Appalachia have still produced many reports of hellhounds. Also on the east coast is an account from Connecticut where a witness on the site, Real Unexplained Mysteries, claims to have lived in an apartment that was haunted by shadow people and the apparition of some sort of massive spectral hound. The thing would first appear one night looming over their bed, and she would describe the terrifying experience thus. I woke with it over my then boyfriend. It's very immense, stands like a human, has red eyes, long pointy nails. The hands are not like ours but not paws. It has a very unique snout, more pronounced than a canine. It's no dog but a beast. I warded it off. I had so much fear, I guess I had nothing to lose, and hovered over my boyfriend almost like a dog. Told myself, show no fear and I can't even explain the immense anger I felt. It does not speak like us but more in mind. Almost perception. I growled like in my mind and remember thinking stay away. That's when the anger swept over me. It backed up and vanished in the wall. I wish I could say it was a happy ending but wasn't. I started having night terrors, always ending in my death, every night. This report fits in well with the lore of hellhounds being spectral entities rather than physical ones, and also matches some of the stories of them feeding off of fear. What did she see? We'll likely never know. Moving up to Michigan, we also have reports of outsized canine monstrosities, and one report posted in Jason Offit's blog From the Shadows comes from the area of Romulus Michigan. The witness known as S. Castella claimed that he'd been living with his family at a cabin on a farm there at the time, which was all surrounded by thick woods that was the home of something rather unusual to say the least. According to Castella, there was some sort of dog creature, about the size of a great dame, and with glowing red eyes. It skulked about in the darkness there in the evening hours, and he would say of it, we had this really strange dog creature that would hang around the property. I say dog creature because this thing was far too big and intelligent to be a stray dog. It had very pronounced red eyes. I'm not saying it was a werewolf or a dog man, but it was very werewolf-like. The dog would frequently stalk the edge of the woods on our property in the day. It seemed to have no fear. My uncle would yell at it or throw things towards it to try and scare it off. It would simply rear up on its hind legs like a ram and charge at him for a short distance. We would frequently find dead chickens or rabbits after thunderstorms. We knew it was that dog thing because it would leave huge paw prints in the mud and claw marks on the window ledges. Sometimes we would find the screens ripped from our screen doors and windows. It would never outright attack us, but it did seem to enjoy taunting us and harassing us. This was all frightening enough, but it got even weirder when it demonstrated an ability to walk about on two feet for short durations and even more bizarrely began to speak, seeming to call people outside for some insidious purpose. Castella claims that his mother found him one night sitting by the window talking to the creature and would describe the surreal scene thus. One summer night my mom had left the window open in my bedroom to cool the room off so I could sleep. She was on her way to the bathroom and went by my room and heard me talking to someone. When she opened the door she saw me standing in my bed and I had apparently wet my pajamas. I was talking towards the window. I wasn't screaming or freaking out, but seemed to be transfixed and talking in a low voice towards the window. When she looked towards the window the dog had its two front paws pushed through the screen and was looking through the window at us and making a low growl. Its eyes glared red. I always recall its eyes. You could see its eyes out in the woods sometimes at night. I have bad dreams about it from time to time. The boy's mother then threw a beer bottle at the thing to chase it off, but for the next few weeks Castella allegedly displayed odd behavior and the house pets would not go near him. He would also blurt out cryptic messages such as we don't want you here, our ghosts are food, or God thinks you're bad, and would sometimes intentionally prick himself with sharp objects until he drew blood. It almost seemed as if the thing at the window had crawled into his head somehow and that this was a kind of demonic possession to an extent. The frightening ordeal would finally come to an end when his uncle hit it with a rifle and Castella would say of this, my uncle was out back working on his truck when he saw the dog at the edge of the woods making its way toward the rabbit pen. At this point he was tired of dealing with it and went into the house to get his 22. Apparently he fired at it and hit it in the rear. The dog turned and ran into the woods. We didn't see it any more after that and everything cleared up. Also from Michigan is a report from the unlikely locale of Detroit where a witness living in one of the city's suburbs claims he had an encounter with a hellhound in 2012. He claims that one evening he was driving through his neighborhood after leaving his girlfriend's house at around midnight when he saw some streak of movement coming from someone's backyard and he described it as being a very large and well-built creature. He immediately stopped his car in order to get a view of the thing and was first impressed with how incredibly fast it moved for its size estimated as around 40 to 50 miles per hour. He observed it for a moment before it streaked out a view and would describe it thus. The creature was very large. If I had to compare the size to another animal, I'd say it was about the size of an adult lion. The body type appeared to be that of a dog, although I've never seen any breed of dog this size and there are absolutely no wild or stray dogs in the area. It had a pitch black coat and while I could slightly make out the shape of its head from the side, I never saw its eyes or mouth. When it ran past my headlights initially it never acknowledged my presence. It did not turn and look at me, slow down or do anything that was directed toward me. I feel confident that if this was a hellhound it was not looking for me, but I don't know that for sure. In nearby Wisconsin we have reports emanating from a place called Meridian Island on the Chippewa River which according to a few witness accounts seems to be prowled by some sort of canine beast. One report comes from a young couple by the names of Shelley Touchstone and Chris Weiner who were at the island's boat landing looking for a secluded spot when a thick fog or mist began to form out of nowhere and which seemed to instill an inexplicable dread in them. They then heard something moving about and growling in a menacing fashion just out of the periphery of their vision as well as a large shadow as big as a bear with two pinpoints of glowing red eyes. On another occasion two men named Mike Bagazzi and Jeremy Stark were in the very same area when they too felt a sudden onset of dread and witnessed a fog congeal out of nowhere. They then apparently spotted a large black hound with matted, filthy hair which gave chase as they ran away. They only apparently managed to evade it when they got to their car and locked the doors after which it meandered off into the wilderness and vanished. These cases hit a couple of interesting points in that hell hounds are supposedly fond of areas near water and also that many supernatural phenomena seem to involve a fog or mist although whatever this connection may be is misunderstood. Going down south we have a case from the state of Louisiana in a report published by the National Cryptid Society. The report comes from the area of Robeline, Louisiana in 1995 and concerns a witness who claims he was in a graveyard looking for a paranormal phenomena. The two of them armed with crosses and an M16 which seems a bit extreme but here we are. As they pushed forward into the cemetery they allegedly heard strange growly noises and the witness describes what happened next. We shined our flashlights all over the graveyard. It was small and enclosed by a fence. I said it must be a dog tied over at the parsonage. The church in parsonage was about 500 feet away so I shined around and over in the corner of the graveyard. I saw four fresh graves. They were apart from the other graves. They had no flowers, just two big graves and two small ones marked by four iron crosses. As he went to explore we heard the growling grow louder. I said Lanny is that dog loose? I kind of felt a little safe knowing it would be hard for it to jump the fence but as we got closer to the grave the hair on my neck stood up and I got chills. My friend got the same feeling. The growls had a sound like rottweilers. They chilled you to the bone and you felt something wasn't right. We heard the snarling as we got a few feet from the grave. The growls were not part of a body. They were disembodied. Then I tried to rationalize it in my head. Is it a couple loose mean dogs outside the gate? Is it a group of coyotes? But as we shined the light this time we saw them. Two sets of glowing red eyes not attached to a body. They were only three feet away and stood guard by those graves. My friend froze in fright and pushed me in front. He was crying about leaving his gun. I said Lanny your gun won't help against this. The dogs were vicious and I said Lanny whatever you do don't run. I prayed for guidance. I had not been to church in many a year but I knew what I was dealing with was straight from hell. I looked right at them. I showed my cross and said that I know what you are. They snarled louder. My friend was really upset and wanting his mama. I said Lanny please. I said I demand in the name of Jesus Christ that you allow us to leave as we came in peace and alone. I demand this in the name of the Son of Man and victor over all that is evil. I said that the Son of Man ruled over all evil and I demand you let us leave in peace. We slowly backed up and as we got to the gate we left. This particular report seems to go overboard a bit but who knows. All the way over on the other side of the country we come to California which has a few accounts of hell hounds of its own. From American Canyon, California comes an account from a 28-year-old witness known as Jedediah who claims that one night as he was walking back from a market he heard an ear piercing howl echo out into the night. He soon caught sight of a very large dog which he at first took to be a stray or someone's pet but which seemed to be too large to be such a thing. As he looked more closely he saw that it seemed to have glowing red eyes and be entangled with what looked to be barbed wire. He would say of what happened next, at this point I was quite scared. I continued on my way home and I found myself dreading each corner, fearing another sighting of this hellish creature. I had almost made it home when the beast appeared again. This time it stood directly in my path. I was frozen with fear, hair standing up on end and I closed my eyes fearing an attack. It starts to growl, a deep, rumbling growl, one that I felt deep in my soul, one that threatens to turn my legs to jello. I don't know what compelled me to do so but I started praying to the Lord and Jesus Christ in heaven to make this beast leave. But the growling intensified, it seemed as if the growl just pulsated through my mind doing everything in its power to get me to stop praying. I continued to pray. I just prayed and prayed and prayed. As I continued to pray, the growl slowly dissipated. When I finally opened my eyes, all that was left was scorch marks where the dog stood. To this day I have yet to see the same dog or another like it so this begs the question, what did I see? A hellhound? A spectral creature? Some sort of demon? I never will know but then again I'm not sure I want to. Also in California is a case that made the rounds involving what seems like a pack of hellhounds in Palm Springs, California. In 2013 there were supposedly numerous reports of large black hounds running amuck in the streets with glowing eyes and sharp fangs. The creatures were described as having the bodies of dogs but the heads of wolves and baffled all who saw them. Apparently they tore through people's yards and even attacked a man's car to rip up his bumper before disappearing into the night to vanish. There was very little to corroborate this but it is a strange case indeed. Such creatures surely seem to toe the line between the real and fantasy where we're not really sure what we should be looking at. What are hellhounds? How can they possibly be? Are these some sort of demonic entity, wandering spirit or what? Are they misidentifications of large dogs or some wildlife? These reports seem to be beyond explanation and show that these old legends from across the world have seemed to seep into the realm of the real. Whatever they are, hellhounds have been spotted all over the world and the United States is no exception. When Weird Darkness returns, love, money, divorce, anger, murder, one Pennsylvania family had it all and then some in the late 1800s. Plus we'll make our way to New Orleans, a city full of vampires, past and present. These stories are up next. We all know someone who struggles with depression, whether we know it or not. It's something that those who suffer tend to deal with in silence, in the shadows. But the organizations we are supporting with our annual Overcoming the Darkness fundraiser this month are working to make it easier for those in the darkness to come into the light, to find help and to learn that they're not alone, that there are ways to overcome the darkness and live normal lives. I'm evidence of that myself. I too suffer from depression. Our goal is to raise at least 5000 this month, but the more we raise, the more people we can help to climb out of their own personal darkness. If you've not donated yet, or if you want to give again, or maybe you'd like to grab the link and share the fundraiser on your own social media and challenge others to give, visit WeirdDarkness.com slash Overcoming. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Overcoming. The fundraiser ends on Halloween, so please give right now while you're thinking about it. WeirdDarkness.com slash Overcoming. Christina Hasler, 50 years old, grew quite wealthy from several oil wells operating on her farm in Butler County, Pennsylvania. But she was not so fortunate in her personal life. She married a man named Nordheim and had four children by him. They lived together until, for some unspecified reason, Nordheim made a murderous assault against Christina's father. He was sent to the penitentiary, and Christina secured a divorce and resumed her maiden name. In 1878, one of Christina's three daughters married a man named Harper Whitmer. They borrowed money from Christina, giving her a mortgage on the property. Whitmer later induced her to cancel the mortgage and put the farm in his wife's name and consider it her full share in her mother's estate. But Whitmer had already borrowed money on the farm, representing himself as the owner. When the loan came due, he had to continue borrowing money to stay out of trouble. Mrs. Whitmer died under suspicious circumstances in 1891. Though he was never arrested, many believed that Harper Whitmer had beaten her to death. Whitmer put the children in the care of a charitable school and left Butler County. Whitmer returned in early December 1893 and went to see Christina Hasler, presumably to ask for money. She let him stay in the farmhouse, also staying at the house where Christina's daughter Flora, who had recently married James Martin and her son, Louis Nordheim, who worked on the oil wells. Louis had been working the night of December 4th, and when he returned home at 9 o'clock the following morning, he found the house in disarray. Trunks had been opened. Boxes and drawers had been ransacked. In an adjoining room, he found his mother lying in agony, barely breathing. She had been struck in the forehead by the broad blade of a hatchet. Nearby, Flora lay dead, her throat cut from ear to ear. Christina remained alive just long enough to tell her son that Harper Whitmer had committed the murders. Sheriff Campbell began the search for the killer, and at the house of his brother, Samuel Whitmer, he learned that Harper had been there and asked to borrow his revolver. When Samuel asked why he wanted it, Harper said, I've killed two women and I want to make an end of myself. Samuel refused to give him the revolver and Harper went away. Samuel contacted his other brothers, Louis, Daniel and Peter. Peter went to town to get a warrant and the other three went looking for Harper. They found him sitting by a fire outside the home of John Calvin. As the brothers tried to convince Harper to return to Samuel's for dinner, they saw two rigs coming toward the house. Harper said that he would not be taken alive. He ran to the barn, found his son Sid and gave him some money. Then he went around a hill to a small grass plot, and before anyone reached him, he sat down and cut his throat, hacking it six times with the same razor he used on Flora Martin. He was dead by the time his brother got him back to Samuel's house. Public sentiment against Harper Whitmer had been strong, but as reported in the history of Butler County, Pennsylvania, Whitmer relieved the county of the onus and cost of the prosecution. New Orleans is an eerie place. It is gothic in one sense and dangerous in another. The city has a rich and colorful history and is the perfect place for scouting up the supernatural. New Orleans boasts a whole host of vampire, cemetery, voodoo and ghost tours which often last as long as two hours. It is known as one of the most haunted cities in America. Vampire legends are an important part of New Orleans history. Stories stretch back to France in the illustrious 1700s when there was a mysterious man who charmed the courts of Europe. The Comte de Saint-Germain was a very strange, extraordinary and enigmatic character. He was a master of the piano and the violin, could converse in six different languages, and his skills as a conversationalist were unrivaled, a skill that is nowadays a lost art. He also composed music, including arias and solo work for violin. His wealth was unfathomable. He carried gems around in his clothing and no one knew how he came into such wealth. No one knew anything about his family, where he came from, or who he was. He did, according to some accounts, claim to be a son of Francis II Rokoski, Prince of Transylvania. One of his greatest passions was alchemy, and he was believed to have an extraordinary talent for maintaining his youth. Perhaps it was his vast knowledge of cosmetics and herbs that kept him young. The philosopher Voltaire called him the man who knows everything and who never dies. No one really knew his true age. He looked about 40 in all of his portraits and continued to appear so for over half a century. Although he was charming, engaging, and graced the dinner tables of many dukes and kings, no one had ever seen him eat anything. He would only sip his wine, exquisitely, and ramble on about everything from history to chemistry. There was much speculation about the council lineage and immense wealth, which resulted in the development of many myths and legends about his background. He is considered by some to have mastered immortality, as many have claimed to have seen him since his death in 1784. Fast forward to New Orleans, Louisiana, and there appears a man by the name of Jacques Saint-Germain in the early 20th century. He fits every description of the comte, around 40 years of age with heavy money bags, the most fascinating of dinner guests, and still a complete mystery. He would throw lavish parties and invite the elite, and everyone would sit and raptured in the conversation and food. But curiously enough, this Jacques would never eat a morsel, only sip his wine. One night, several months after moving to New Orleans, he had a lady stay a bit late. Out on his balcony at the corner of Ursuline and Royal Streets, this Saint-Germain grabbed her and tried to bite her neck. She escaped by falling from the balcony and then reported the incident to the police. When the police came to investigate, Jacques Saint-Germain had vanished. They searched his apartment and found tablecloths with large splotches of blood on them. They searched the kitchen where they found no sign of food or evidence that food had ever been there. All they found were bottles of wine, and after pouring themselves a glass, drinking it and then spitting it out, they discovered that it was not only wine in those bottles, it was wine mixed with human blood. It is unclear whether the count Saint-Germain and Jacques are the same person, but believers speculate that they are. To this day, the mysterious figure of the count Saint-Germain has his own occult following, from theosophists to complete way out their mystics. Although he allegedly died in the year 1784, no one saw his death and some claim to have seen him many years afterward. Nevertheless, he disappeared from court life. I would too if I knew that the French Revolution was coming which some people claim he had foreseen. In terms of murder rates, New Orleans ranks among the highest. It has always been a notorious place for missing persons. That is, it is a place where people just disappear and no one ever knows what happened to them. The blood of the French, Spanish, Indian, African, Creole and English all mixed together here, where the mosquito is not so picky, nor perhaps are other creatures. Jean and Wayne Carter were brothers. They seemed to be normal in every aspect. They both had normal labor jobs down by the river and lived in the French Quarter. It was the 1930s during the Great Depression and times were hard, so a man worked all he could. One day a girl was reported to have escaped from the Carter Brothers' apartment and run to the authorities. Her wrists were cut, not enough to cause immediate death but enough to cause her blood to drain slowly over the next several days. The policeman ran to the Carter's third-storey apartment and found four other people tied the chairs with their wrists sliced in the same fashion. Some had been there for many days. The story was that the brothers had abducted these people in order to drink their blood at the end of every day when they came home from work. Police also found about fourteen dead bodies. The cops waited for the brothers to return and when they did, it took seven or eight of them to hold down the two average-sized men. A few years later, when the Carter's were finally executed, their bodies were placed in a New Orleans vault. Cemetery's in New Orleans are quite picturesque. Not only are they more ornate than the rest of the nations, but they inter many generations of one family inside one vault. The remains sift down into the bottom of the vault and when it's all rubble, a new body is slid inside. Many years after the Carter Brothers' deaths, when they were placing another Carter in the family vault, they discovered the vault was completely empty. No John or Wayne. They were gone. To this day, many sightings have occurred in the French Quarter that matched the description of these two brothers almost exactly. Years later, an owner of their apartment saw two figures that matched their descriptions outside on the balcony, whispering to each other. Both figures jumped off the top of the third-story balcony and took off running. The legend goes that if a vampire drinks your blood seven nights in a row, then and only then can you become a vampire. Some of those found in a Carter Brothers' apartment had been there for more than seven days. One warped fellow named Philippe went on to become a notorious serial killer. And of course, he would do more than just kill his victims. He was believed to drink the blood of all 32 of his victims. During the colonization of New Orleans, France was having a hard time convincing women to make the voyage. This was mostly due to the fact that the men originally sent were thieves, murderers, and culprits of every type and caste, not to mention Louisiana's snakes, alligators, mosquitoes, and humidity. Eventually, some women were sent. Some sources say they were nuns, while others say they were prostitutes. But nevertheless, a few of them made it. Many of them snuck off the ship in Mobile, Alabama when they ported there and were told what type of riffraff they would be tricked into marrying if they stayed on board. Historically, these women were referred to as casket girls in reference to these small chests in which they carried their clothing and other belongings. However, the legend goes that these girls had the most interesting luggage shaped like coffins. So to the dismay of the men of New Orleans, all that arrived in New Orleans were 300 of these coffin-like suitcases. Some stories say they were empty. Some say they contained the undead. These suitcases were reportedly stored in the attic of a convent in the French Quarter where they still sit behind windows that are nailed shut because they have a strange habit of just opening by themselves. Years later, in 1978, two amateur reporters demanded that the convent's priest let them in to see the coffins. The priest, of course, denied their entrance, so one night these two men climbed over a wall with their recording equipment and set up their workstation. The next morning, the reporter's equipment was found strewn about on the street outside, and there on the convent's front steps were found the almost decapitated bodies of these two men. 80% of their blood was gone. To this day, this unsolved crime baffles investigators. However, research indicates that these legends are completely unsupported by historical evidence. It is unclear how or when the myth of the casket girls began, but the story continues to haunt tourists and believers to this day. Clinical vampirism has been recognized as a neurological disease in which those with symptoms drink human blood, believing it to be beneficial for their health. Psychologists have said that symptoms begin with incidences in childhood that draw a sexual connection to the ingestion of blood. This interest in blood results in the individual drinking their own blood, and eventually that of other humans or animals. John Edgar Browning, a PhD candidate at Louisiana State University, conducted research in New Orleans that determined that there were about 50 individuals who identified as vampires living in New Orleans alone. Many of the real vampires of New Orleans have fangs or are nocturnal. Research has indicated that these markers are cultural, but the vampires insist they are biological. Another study by the Atlanta Vampire Alliance reported about 5,000 of these individuals in the United States. However, clinical vampirism, also sometimes called Renfield's syndrome, has not been recognized by the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. Those who self-identify as vampires even have their own organization, New Orleans, known as the New Orleans Vampire Association, or NOVA. The organization accepts all paradigms or denominations of sorts of those who identify as vampires. NOVA is governed by a council which is comprised of members of seven houses that serve as sects of denominations, reflecting various aspects of NOVA's community values. Browning's research involved extensive time spent at NOVA meetings, from which he observed that the members were predominantly Caucasian. There were nearly equal numbers of men and women, and the members were between the ages of 18 and 50. The association was formed in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. Members participate in charitable events, such as serving food to the homeless and hosting silent auctions. However, their website is not currently maintained, and it is unclear whether they are still in operation. All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true, and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. American Hellhounds was written by Brett Swancer for Mysterious Universe. The Butler County Tragedy is by Robert Wilhelm for a Murder by Gas Length. And Vampires of New Orleans was written by Ryan Harrison for Exemplar. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. 1 John 1 verse 9 This is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. And a final thought from Booker T. Washington. I began learning long ago that those who are happiest are those who do the most for others. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. And while you're at it, spread the darkness by sharing this video with someone you know who loves all things strange and macabre. If you want to listen to the podcast, you can find it at WeirdDarkness.com.