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Nutty the Vampire Slayer

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Man Beats Murder Rap With Vampire Defense

Psychologists Testify About Palmer's Mental Illness

POSTED: 4:43 pm MST March 11, 2004
A man who killed another man because he thought the his girlfriend was being turned into a vampire has been found not guilty by reason of insanity.

The verdict against Kirk Palmer, 28, was delivered Wednesday by Boulder District Judge Morris Sandstead, who sentenced him to the mental hospital in Pueblo, Colo. Palmer had been charged with murder in the case.

Testimony during the trial indicated that Palmer killed Antonia Vierira with a shotgun blast because he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the crime.

Palmer told a psychologist that four days before the July 2001 killing, he was removing a splinter from his girlfriend's finger when he saw Vieira come out of his girlfriend's body and say, "I bit her. Ha ha. She is a member of a vampire gang."

Other testimony indicated that Palmer fled to Canada hours after the killing, but his defense attorney said that it was not an attempt to avoid arrest but was part of a pre-planned trip to California -- by way of Canada -- in order "cleanse his spirit."

If Palmer is found to be sane at any time, he could be released from confinement.
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http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/2916394/detail.html

Judge finds murder suspect insane

Kirk Palmer said he believed his victim was a vampire

By Christine Reid, Camera Staff Writer
March 11, 2004

Kirk Palmer thought he had been charged as a vampire slayer to kill Antonio "Wachen" Vieira because he had possessed Palmer's girlfriend.

The story behind Boulder's 2002 shotgun slaying of Vieira — a 25-year-old African immigrant with a promising music career — was revealed for the first time in public Wednesday during Palmer's one-day murder trial.

Boulder County District Judge Morris Sandstead found Palmer, 26, not guilty by reason of insanity.

Two psychiatrists testified that Palmer was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and didn't know right from wrong when he shot Vieira.

"I don't think I could have come up with the things he told me," said Karen Fukutaki, a forensic psychiatrist.

Palmer will be sent to the state mental hospital in Pueblo for as long as officials there deem appropriate.

Vieira's wife, Jennie, agreed that Palmer was "deeply insane" when he broke a window, crawled into the couple's Canyon Boulevard apartment and shot Vieira in the chest. But the indeterminate hospital stay as punishment bothers her, she said, as does the "not guilty" verdict.

"I saw him do it," Vieira said. "I know that in his head it was not wrong, but we're not living in his head right now."

Palmer came to the couple's apartment on July 26, 2002, and accused Antonio Vieira of having sexual relations with his girlfriend. He returned a few hours later, shot Antonio Vieira with a 12-gauge shotgun and then strangled and punched his lifeless body, Jennie Vieira said.

She said she pulled Palmer off her husband, and the shotgun went off again, nearly hitting her.

"I'd never been around anyone who looked so distorted, so tortured, so evil," Jennie Vieira said.

Even a medicated Palmer believed God had chosen him to play a significant role in an impending Armageddon of good vs. evil, said Robert Atwell, a forensic psychiatrist who spent nearly 10 hours interviewing Palmer.

Beginning sometime in 2000, "voices" started instructing Palmer to do certain things, Atwell said.

As time passed, the frequency of the voices barking orders increased as did other delusional thoughts, Atwell told the court. Palmer believed television personalities were communicating with him and that people could read his thoughts and he could read theirs.

But what sent Palmer over the edge was his belief that his girlfriend was in danger of becoming a vampire because Antonio Vieira bit her, Atwell said.

Palmer told him of an incident the week of the murder when he saw Antonio Vieira's image superimposed over his girlfriend's body taunting him by saying: "Ha, ha. I've bit her and now she's a member of the vampire gang. What are you going to do about that?"

Palmer said he participated in a "fight night" event to try to "cleanse himself and make things right with the evil spirits."

When that didn't work, Palmer told the doctors, he decided to leave Boulder, but not before visiting Antonio Vieira. He told doctors that he decided to kill the immigrant after being poked in the face during their ensuing argument.
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http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/city_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2422_2720979,00.html
 
Seems like there is a lot of it about - I was going to post this in the mass murder/spree killer thread as it look liked a foiled attempt to go postal and my weird-o-meter was regsitering at 'potential weirdness ahoy' but I didn't:

Last modified Sat., March 13, 2004 - 01:23 AM
Originally created Saturday, March 13, 2004

Domino's worker accused of gunning down another

Victim has life-threatening injuries after attack Friday.

By TIA MITCHELL
The Times-Union

An employee of a Westside Jacksonville pizza place is accused of walking into his workplace Friday night, shooting a co-worker and pledging he would return to continue the attack, police said.

The suspect was quickly captured about a half-mile from the restaurant.

The victim, a man in his early 20s, was taken to Shands Jacksonville hospital with life-threatening injuries. The man, who was shot several times in his face and abdomen, was not identified by police.

The shooter was dressed in all black when he entered the Domino's Pizza at 5051 Normandy Blvd., about 7:45 p.m., police spokesman Ken Jefferson said. When the man opened fire on one employee, others inside scrambled for cover.

After shooting the victim several times and saying he would be back, the assailant walked back outside and drove away in a dark-colored truck, Jefferson said.

Police were called and the Domino's employees told officers the shooter was a man who's been working at the pizza place for six years. Patrolmen began searching the immediate area, hoping to capture the attacker before he returned.

One unit was stationed at the old Normandy Mall off Lenox Avenue, where workers are building a church. An officer at the scene saw the suspect and took him into custody without incident about a half-hour after the shooting.

"When he was apprehended, he had several weapons on his person such as a knife taped to his chest and several handguns," Jefferson said.

The suspect has been identified as Timothy White. He has no prior arrests with the Sheriff's Office. No other information about White has been released.

White will likely be charged with aggravated battery, with the possibility of more serious charges if the victim's condition deteriorates, Jefferson said.

A handful of Domino's employees in maroon uniforms gathered outside of the building as crime scene technicians and detectives began processing the site. One woman sobbed uncontrollably as a co-worker hugged her.

Police have not said what the motive was for the attack, but several possibilities have been disproved, Jefferson said.

"The intent was not to rob this place. ... Being disgruntled has been ruled out because he got along with almost everybody," Jefferson said.
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http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/031304/met_15076388.shtml

However, the story has developed in the last couple of days:

Suspected Gunman "Vampire Slayer"
Last Update: 3/15/2004 12:57:29 PM


Timothy White

More information about Friday night's shooting at a westside pizza shop.

According to police, the suspect 35-year-old Timothy White told the employees he was a vampire slayer.

White allegedly shot David Harrison, an employee of the store Friday night. Harrison has been reported in critical condition since the shooting.

White remains in the Duval County Jail.

Previoius Story:
(3/13/04)
A hunt for a heavily armed man suspected of shooting a pizza shop worker ended in a church parking lot Friday night.

According to reports, disgruntled worker Timothy White entered a Domino's Pizza Shop on Normandy Boulevard around 8pm. White allegedly shot store employee David Harrison. Harrison was taken to Shands Jacksonville with life-threatening injuries. He was last reported in critical condition.

White was arrested in a nearby church parking lot. White had a knife, a sawed off shotgun and three pistols with him.
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http://www.wtev.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=3E0A7490-EBE4-42F1-8609-CCC615D9B71E

'Vampire Slayer' Shoots Man In Face

Suspect Reportedly Fascinated With Zombies, Vampires

POSTED: 6:28 am EST March 15, 2004
UPDATED: 6:26 am EST March 16, 2004

Police in Jacksonville, Fla., arrested a man who believed he was a 'vampire slayer' after he allegedly shot his Domino's Pizza co-worker twice in the face because he thought he was a vampire, according to Local 6 News.


Timothy White, 35, who was described by friends as a born-again Christian with an unusual preoccupation with zombies and vampires, was arrested outside of a church after Friday's shooting.

Witnesses said he walked into the pizza shop on Normandy Boulevard and allegedly said David Harrison looked like a vampire. He then allegedly shot Harrison in the face and stomach.

Police said White was heavily armed with a knife, a sawed-off shotgun and three pistols when he was taken into custody.

Harrison is listed in critical condition at a local hospital.

A grief counselor was brought in to help Domino's employees.

White remains in the Duval County Jail Monday.
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http://www.local6.com/news/2921701/detail.html

More details are bound to emerge with time.

[edit: Some other reports:

http://www.nbc10.com/news/2926460/detail.html

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/news-article.aspx?storyid=15957

A longer report:

Witnesses Describe Accused Domino's Gunman As 'Vampire Slayer'

Suspect Reportedly Fascinated With Zombies, Vampires

POSTED: 10:46 am EST March 15, 2004

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The man accused of shooting a co-worker twice Friday night at a Westside pizza delivery store was described by friends and acquaintances as a born-again Christian with an unusual preoccupation with zombies and vampires.

"He kind of takes it to the extreme," said one co-worker of White's belief in vampires.

Others said White believed he was a vampire slayer.

Timothy White (pictured, left) was arrested outside a church not far from the Normandy Boulevard Domino's Pizza where the shooting occurred.

Witnesses said White, 35, believed that David Harrison was a vampire. White is accused of shooting Harrison, 22, in the face and stomach. Harrison remains in critical condition at Shands-Jacksonville Medical Center.

A witness who saw White lingering outside Domino's on the day of the shooting said that when he asked White what he was doing, White replied that he was "vampire hunting."

White's neighbors couldn't believe that he shot a co-worker because of vampirism. Jasmine Jolly said she often saw White reading the Bible.

"He never spoke to anybody," Jolly said.

Police said White was armed with a knife, a sawed-off shotgun and three pistols when he was taken into custody.

"Both (Tim) and Dave, the victim, are great employees," the restaurant's owner, Jim Holmes, told Channel 4.
"This incident is a total shock to everyone."

A background check revealed White had no criminal record, not even a speeding ticket. He and Williams were reportedly friends and had worked together for years.

A grief counselor was brought in to help Domino's employees. The store was closed Saturday, but reopened Sunday evening.

White is being held in the Duval County Jail without bond on charges of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
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http://www.news4jax.com/news/2922385/detail.html ]

Emps
 
Date Published: Friday 04 June 2004

Researcher `batty about vampires'

CHIPPENHAM NEWS: Allen Gittens has received mail from bloodthirsty youngsters asking for training to become vampire slayers.

Mr Gittens, of Westcroft, Chippenham, blames the success of TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer for marked changes in the vampire world.

The former editor of For The Blood Is The Life magazine, is quick to dispel rumours that he sleeps in a coffin, and being a vegetarian, he has no thirst for human blood. But he admits being batty about the phenomenon.

Mr Gittens, who owns more than 800 books on vampires and Gothic literature, said: "It's true, the entire world of vampires and vampire research has been turned upside down by Buffy.

"I'm no longer being asked to help my correspondents find a vampire to make them immortal. The emerging trend is for young people to ask if I'd meet them after school and train them to be vampire slayers.

"Now, it may be the case that I'm no longer as young, or as slim, as I used to be, and I do tend to spend a great deal of my time surrounded by books on vampires, and these days I need to wear glasses. As for training someone to hunt and kill vampires . Well, someone would have to train me first."

Mr Gittens' interest started about 30 years ago after reading classic Gothic literature which sparked a passion for ghost stories. This, coupled with a love for Hammer horror movies led him into a life devoted to research and, subsequently, he went on to produce the publication For The Blood Is The Life, which became the journal of the Vampyre Society.

The journal, which ran quarterly from 1987 to 1997, contained a mix of reviews, articles and features on vampirism.

Two years ago, following a flood of letters inquiring about the fate of the publication, Allen decided to re-launch it under a different name.

Although no longer the newsletter for the Vampyre Society, Lifeblood contains reviews and research articles.

Mr Gittens said: "I used to write a magazine quarterly but now I send one out to people on a mailing list whenever I have the time."

Answering the time-old question about whether vampires really exist, the 48-year-old said: "I would really love to know that but I'm sure they exist for some people."
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http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/wiltshire/chippenham/news/CHIP_NEWS_LOCAL8.html
 
I bet those wannabe slayers were really cheesed off when their victims didn't go 'poof' and turn to dust :D
 
Is it just me or is the current generation of youth more gullible? And we Role Playing Gamers were once branded "delusional" and accused of having a tenuous grip on reality!

Still, people are still sending letters to Sherlock Holmes at 221b Baker Street. Just goes to show the level on the dimwit detector will never go to zero!
 
Is it just me or is the current generation of youth more gullible?
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My exflatmate worked in a 'headshop' that sold magic paraphernalia, she used to say that all these kids would come in that's seen Buffy and were convinced that the magic stuff that Willow and Tara did was really possible.

Her best cranks tended to be middle aged though.
 
Is it just me or is the current generation of youth more gullible?
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I think it's probably you.

You are probably as distanced from 'the current generation of youth' as were those who formed such silly opinions about role playing when you were the 'current generation of youth'.

Contemporary popular culture is not much to my taste these days : frankly, apart from a brief period at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s on a specific 20 square miles of the planet's surface, it never really has been.

But I am extremely wary of subscribing to the 'going to hell in a handcart' world-in-decline dumbing-down not-like-in-my-day attitudes that seem to want to settle round me like a pall as I get older : this seems to me to be more gullible than anything, to unthinkingly adopt the common current mindset of your social position and age-group etc, to unquestioningly believe the chemico-genetic instinct of your body that just because you personally are no longer squirting out more sex hormones than you know what to do with that the whole world is in terminal decline.

And besides I think kids wanting to be slayers rather than vampires is a good thing.
Long black coats, junkie complexions, frilly shirts and mirrorshades etc look really good on a few very beautiful people most of whom are not spotty awkward adolescents. :)
 
Stormkhan said:
...

Still, people are still sending letters to Sherlock Holmes at 221b Baker Street. Just goes to show the level on the dimwit detector will never go to zero!
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Let's face it, it's some kind of tribute to Jos Wheedon and the "Scooby Gang" team that the suspension of disbelief factor for 'Buffy' is apparently almost as high as for the great detective, himself!

:)
 
I agree with lizard23 a flick back through these forums shows a large number of attacks on people form nutters thinking they were vampires (and a whole sub-culture of people buying into the vampire lifestyle) and now we have the other side of the coin and I'm sure more vampire slayings are on the cards.

I'm sure if you look back you'll find people buying into a fictional lifestyle just a little too much - a decade ago there were certainly some LRPG players who took things far too seriously and I thought should have been committed.

The sad and needy will always believe just a little too much in these things and the delusional will always find a hook to hang their madness (have a look at the Matrix Defence thread - the genuinely mad people had suffered years of delusions buying into the Matrix mythos.

At least this way the wannabe vampire slayers get to sleep in a bed, eat proper meals, dress normally and go to school ;)

Emps
 
And on Buffy influences on religious types:

Buffy's got the muscle to inspire our spiritual side


Not so long ago, Ken Kuykendall stood before a group of Mormon teens in an Atlanta suburb, dressed in starched white shirt and dark tie. He was there, he said, to talk about serious things.

Then Kuykendall literally ripped off his shirt to reveal a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" T-shirt and carefully laid out the moral values of the popular television show, featuring a sassy blonde in a micro-mini skirt who goes one-on-one with the world's nastiest demons.

The Mormon leader told his gum-chewing audience that Buffy was not too unlike them. For the most part, she was a spoiled, rich teenager in southern California who loved nothing more than shopping and shmoozing and clubbing in a place called Sunnydale. That is, until she discovered that dark forces were everywhere and only she had the supernatural powers to thwart them.

"The safety of the world routinely rests on her attractive, usually bare shoulders," Kuykendall told his startled audience. Time and again she had to sacrifice her own desires to save humanity and the planet.

And that is what Jesus Christ wants us to do, too, Kuykendall told the teens.

Does that mean that "Buffy," with its vampires and paganism and witchcraft, is really just a disguised Christian tract?

Hardly, says religion scholar Jana Riess.

Sure, Buffy wears a crucifix (which wards off vampires) and she dies and is reborn at least twice in the series. Yet there are no easy answers, obvious God or organized religion in Sunnydale. ("Note to self: religion freaky," Buffy mutters in one episode.)

Still, the show depicts a world where evil never goes unpunished and doing good is its own reward.

"It's a medieval morality play -- only with skimpier clothes, wittier dialogue and cutting-edge music," says Riess, author of the just published What Would Buffy Do? The Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide.

The series had an almost a cultlike following during its seven seasons on WB from March 1997 through May 2003. A spin-off show, "Angel," is ending this season, but several seasons of both are available on DVD and reruns.

Riess' book provides plot summaries and features an interview with Eliza Dushku, who played Faith, a rogue slayer friend of Buffy's. Dushku, who was raised Mormon in Boston, now stars in "Tru Calling," another show that gives her weekly supernatural powers.

Riess, religion book review editor of Publisher's Weekly, discovered the joys of Buffy watching reruns on late-night television while suffering from insomnia during her pregnancy about six years ago.

"At first I thought, 'I can't watch any TV show with a name like Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' " Riess said this week. "Then I started to notice that the dialogue was really clever, with all sorts of allusions to classical literature, Shakespeare and Greek myths in a richly layered text. I was hooked."

The characters explore notions about sin and forgiveness, friendship and failure, redemption and self-worth -- lightened up by puns and sarcasm and playfulness. And that's spiritual, too.

"I know every slayer comes with an expiration date, but I want mine to be a long time from now. Like a Cheeto," Buffy says in one episode.

Riess argues that the show, created by an avowed atheist, also abounds in Buddhist parallels.

Buddhism begins with the idea that all life is suffering, she says, while Buffy puts it in 21st century vernacular: "Life sucks."

Buffy and Angel are like "bodhisattvas" or beings who have achieved enlightenment but forgo personal salvation to help others, she says. In Buddhist and Buffy universes, it is not necessary to believe in a personal god to be a moral person. All that is required is the courage to make tough choices and then accept the consequences.

Angel, by the way, is a vampire with a soul -- meaning that he remembers his past evil and fights against it. After he and Buffy kiss for the first time, he seems speechless, says Kuykendall. Buffy walks away and the camera pulls back to show that Angel actually is gasping in pain because Buffy's crucifix had fallen against his throat and burned him rather badly. But he hadn't pulled away.

Kuykendall was "blown away" by the show's depiction of a simple idea: "love hurts," he says. "You make sacrifices for the one you love."

When Buffy had sex with Angel, that moment of happiness nearly killed him.

"I cannot imagine anyone being able to give a more persuasive advertisement for chastity as the hell Buffy went through following their night together," Kuykendall says. "It just, essentially, ruined everything, and Buffy admitted time and again that it had been a mistake."

Or the time they went drinking at a fraternity party and "almost got eaten by a terrifying sewer worm when the college guys turned out to belong to a cult," he says.

Still, the show is not all about the triumph of good characters. It has nuance and ambiguity, especially about the complexity of human nature, Riess says. "Buffy's power originated from mating a human girl with a demon. When she realizes this, she is horrified. She has to acknowledge her capacity to do harm and learn to control it."

Mortals may not be descended from demons, she says, but they do have a capacity for cruelty. In Christianity, it's called "original sin." And in order to be redeemed, humans must acknowledge it in themselves.

Take the husband who constantly interrupts and belittles his wife or tells stories that put her in a bad light, yet thinks he is a perfect spouse, Riess says. "He has no idea of his own darkness."

Most of the characters express a kind of yearning for eternity, says Dori Marshall, director of Christian education at Cottonwood Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City.

"I've heard many people say witches and vampires are anti-Christian, but I don't think so," says Marshall, who named her golden labrador "Buffy."

"It's like any pop culture," she says. "If we get our young people talking about God and their faith, it can have value. You never know when you are going to have points of convergence."

To Kuykendall, the show is positively faith-promoting.

Seeing Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" made him feel he could never be as self-sacrificing as Jesus, he says. "But I can be like Buffy."
Click to expand...

http://www.sltrib.com/2004/May/05012004/Saturday/Saturday.asp

What Would Buffy Do? : The Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide
by Jana Riess
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0787969222/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0787969222/

Emps
 
I think I understand where the idea that the current generation of teenages are particularly gullable might come from. It's about what we have to compare them with.

If I look back at myself when I was a teenager then I cannot imagine that I would have believed that Buffy was real. I might have wished she was real and even read up on real life witchcraft wondering if it worked at all but I would not have been roaming churchyards at night with a stake.

But then I also didn't believe that you couldn't get pregnant the first time you had sex or if you were standing up or if you hadn't had your first period yet. And I knew plenty of girls who did believe simply because some guy told them

As a teenager I beleived that smoking was bad for you, that cheap shoes would damage your feet and that too much make-up was bad for your skin and made you look like a slut. I don't think that I was a typical teenager. I doubt that any fortean was a typical teenager.

So yes modern youth does seem particularly gullible to us but then perhaps we were unsusually shrewd as teenagers.

Cujo
 
So yes modern youth does seem particularly gullible to us but then perhaps we were unsusually shrewd as teenagers.
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I'm not so sure. I mean, my geeky contemporaries and I were terribly into RPGs cira 1985, but we didn't try and carry it over into real life.

The kiddies (and not so kiddies) that are buying books like Silver Raven Wolf's Teen Witch do actually believe that magic really works.
 
The kiddies (and not so kiddies) that are buying books like Silver Raven Wolf's Teen Witch do actually believe that magic really works.
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Whereas I assume you believe it doesn't.

And as a ritual magician I disagree with you ...
And with the teen witches ...
And everyone else too ;) .... but this isn't really the place for that debate I suspect :)


Thinking about it though there are lots of relationships we can and do have with entertainment material, most which are perfectly normal behaviour ... the suspension of disbelief, identification with characters, infatuation, obsession, acting out .....

I would think at some time in their life pretty much everyone has done at least some of these, whether they want to admit to them or not :

losing yourself so thoroughly in a work of entertainment it is jarring to return to reality when it is finished,

falling in (safe, impossible, one-sided) love with a public or fictional figure,

identifying with and adopting the philosophy of a public or fictional figure,

dressing to be like a public or fictional figure,

fantasising about having sex with / receiving incomperable perfect love from / playing guitar with / discussing Satre (or whatever) with a public or fictional figure,

masturbating to that fantasy,

fantasising that you *are* some public or fictional figure,

altering the style of your internal dialogue to mimic the narrative of a favourite work of fiction,

writing 'fan-fiction',

etc.

Yet all of these could probably be thought of as 'unhealthy' or 'sad' or 'worrying'.

Children unselfconsciously play at being their heroes, adolescents openly play with borrowed identities and hero-worship, as adults we are more furtive but frequently still do idolize and fantasise and aspire.

It is not a huge step from infatuation to stalking and murder, nor a huge step from role-playing an axe-weilding barbarian and dressing up for a convention to chopping someone up in a frenzied bloodbath ....... PROVIDED YOU ARE A DEEPLY DISTURBED INDIVIDUAL WITH SERIOUS MENTAL PROBLEMS.

With each new entertainment medium ... the novel, film, TV, video nasties, computer games blah blah comes the warning and the fear that people will no longer be able to tell fantasy from reality and all hell will break loose.
And with every generation come the cluckings and tuttings that the kids today have no respect and I don't get where they're coming from and they've no idea and they're so violent and the language they use ....

And it's the same old reactionary tosh every time.

I've known some pretty disturbed individuals of all ages with some fair to middling mental problems (indeed I am one) and none of them ever shot a white tiger dressed as Lara Croft nor staked a goth in leggings or anything else of that nature for that matter.

I don't honestly think it has anything to do with religion or magic or gullability or generation or entertainment media and any discussion of the relative abilities of different generations is completely irrelevant to the subject.
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
I'm not so sure. I mean, my geeky contemporaries and I were terribly into RPGs cira 1985, but we didn't try and carry it over into real life.
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You may not but I certainly knew a number of people into war gaming and Live RPGing who were certainly over the edge and potential dangerous in a way that if I found out they'd killed a number of people I wouldn't have been that suprised (there is also the case of the boy who killed a number of members of his family because he thought the Mindflayer from AD&D was making him).

For discussion on these cases (and others) see:

http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6584

lizard23 said:
Whereas I assume you believe it doesn't.

And as a ritual magician I disagree with you ...
And with the teen witches ...
And everyone else too ;) .... but this isn't really the place for that debate I suspect :)
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No it probably isn't but start a thread over in esoterica as I'd be fascinated to see where this one went.

I do find myself agree with your other points though - it is all part of a continuum - most of us can enjoy fiction and engage and get invovled with it in different ways but in some needy/troubled people it can help fill a void or help them address difficult issues in their life and they can buy into the whole thing. The actually mentally disturbed/delusional also seem to get overly invovled in such things (see also the Matrix Defence thread) and may actually move from one to another depending on the prevailing cultural climate.

And lets be honest there are a lot of Scientologists out there but that is another thread entirely..........

Emps
 
All my "I'm a ritual magician and I disagree with everyone" threads always seem to get deleted heh heh.

There is an old "Does magic work" thread
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4587
which I am actually a bit embarrassed about my participation on as I do not necessarily now think the same way as I did then.

[Emp edit: Updating link as old one wasn't working properly.]
 
The vampire gigolo

This is one I was looking into the other day as it is one of thecases where an acknowledged vampire has been killed - although the case has some odd contradictory elements to it.

Basically Shane Chartres-Abbott was a male prostitute who was in court for biting off part of a woman's tongue and raping her but during his court case he was gunned down. His mother claims he was killed by the people who really did the attack on the woman and that he was being groomed by these people to appear in a snuff film where they were going to kill him.

Older news:

http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6544131%5E1702,00.html
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/04/1054700278772.html
http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,6547915%5E421,00.html
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6547245%5E1702,00.html

Leads in vampire case

13jun04

POLICE have identified several possible suspects in the baffling vampire gigolo murder case.

Homicide squad detectives have questioned several people close to the case since Shane Chartres-Abbott, 28, was executed in his home last year.

Homicide squad Detective Inspector Bernie Rankin said investigators were following several leads.

"We have identified several people of interest and we also believe there are people out there who know the background and hold the key to the case," he said.

Two professional hitmen shot the male prostitute on June 4 last year, the fifth day of his rape trial.

His pregnant girlfriend, Kathleen Price, 21, and her father witnessed the murder. It is understood Ms Price fled interstate and had the child.

Chartres-Abbott was accused of raping and biting off the tongue of a female client, and during his trial claimed he was a vampire who drank blood.

Speculation was rife he was either killed as payback for the rape, or by former clients afraid they might be exposed in the course of the trial.

This week his mother, Nancy Bowen, questioned whether other members of the family were involved.

Det-Insp Rankin could not comment on the identity of the suspects.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
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http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,9827197%5E2862,00.html

[edit: I'll also quite this one as it is one of the more indepth articles:

The dark side of a young life

July 7 2003




Picture: CRAIG ABRAHAM
Police search the scene of Chartres-Abbott's murder.

Homicide inquiries into a young man's sordid lifestyle threaten to expose the secrets of his many clients and associates, writes Padraic Murphy.

It began on a quiet morning in an unremarkable street in Reservoir. Shane Chartres-Abbott, a slender, almost baby-faced 28-year-old in a conservative suit, had just walked out of his home with his girlfriend, who was six-months pregnant, and her father. On footpath two men waited to kill him with a single shot to the neck.

For homicide investigators, that professional style hit was the start of a strange and disturbing journey - from unassuming suburbia to a violent underworld of anonymous sex and sado-masochism.

Shane Chartres-Abbott's life was disconnected from what most people would regard as normality. Now it might taint other lives previously thought safe, secure and ordinary.

Chartres-Abbott was a male prostitute - and allegedly self-described "vampire" - specialising in rough sex with both male and female clients. On the morning of his murder he was on his way to the County Court to face trial over the brutal rape and bashing of a 30-year-old Thai woman in a St Kilda Motel.

Although police have interviewed dozens of people involved in the rape trial, detectives are struggling to develop significant leads. Hampered by the reluctance of those in the sex industry to co-operate, they now might be forced to turn their attention to Chartres-Abbott's clients - many of whom are married men.

Detective Senior Sergeant Clive Rust of the homicide squad said police might be forced to widen their inquiries. "Certainly there are a lot of people who may have known (Chartres-Abbott) who might be reluctant to come forward . . . we know there are a lot of reasons why people may not want it to be known that they knew the victim."

Any information would be treated with strict confidence and sensitivity, Senior Sergeant Rust said.

"At the moment we are just doing a lot of leg work."

Chartres-Abbott came to the murky, clandestine world of the organised sex industry about three years ago, after a few false starts as a street walker trying to earn "pocket money". He began working mainly for the Male to Male escort agency based in Balwyn. Known as "Simon", he charged up to 00 for a night. About a third of this fee went to the agency.

He soon gained a reputation in the business, but his seedy life now seems almost predestined by his fractured past.

His father, William Chartres-Abbott, was a hard-drinking but youthful-looking man who, in the 1960s and early 1970s, operated an introduction agency next to a pool hall in Roma Street, Brisbane. Of his 10 children from three women, at least three are dead, from either drug abuse, disease or murder. Two are in jail, two are living on the streets, and another works at a Melbourne brothel.

Two of his children, half-siblings to Shane, have told The Age tales of sexual and physical abuse.

Police sources have confirmed that the eldest daughter, now 44 and living in Melbourne's outer west, complained to police in 1997 about abuse she endured as a child. The complaint was referred to Queensland Police, but no charges have been laid.

A brother, Ashley Chartres-Abbott, 40, is in failing health and lives in an abandoned car in bush near Bendigo.

He claimed last week that his father's introduction agency was little more than a thinly veiled brothel, and that he and his siblings were regularly abused by both male and female customers.

In 1974, William Chartres-Abbott left his second wife for Nancy Bowen, a client of the agency, and they moved to Nimbin in northern NSW. Shane Chartres-Abbott was born in Brisbane in 1975, the second youngest of his father's children.

His parents split when Shane was seven and, with his younger sister Jo-Anne, he spent the next decade or so drifting back and forth between his mother's Gold Coast home and his father's various homes around northern NSW.

After marrying in the mid-1990s, Shane Chartres-Abbott moved to Melbourne with his wife and their son. Police in northern NSW had warned them over prostitution offences, and they spent the first few months living with Shane's half-sister in Melbourne's outer west.

HIs wife began working at the Top of the Town brothel off King Street and has more recently been working at another brothel in Coburg.

In 2000, Shane Chartres-Abbott was arrested after fraudulently collecting money on behalf of the Salvation Army, and later that year broke up with his wife. "(But) he saw how much money his wife was making and thought 'I can do that'," said Ashley Chartres-Abbott, who worked as Shane's driver for a while. "He was making good money."

After splitting from his wife, Chartres-Abbott moved to Reservoir with his new girlfriend Kathleen Price, who told the County Court during the trial that she was a trainee nurse.

Contacted by The Age this week, William Chartres-Abbott said he was grieving about his son's death and that allegations about his children being abused were false.

While police trawl through Shane Chartres-Abbott's murky life, his body remains at the Coroners Court in South Melbourne. His funeral is yet to be arranged.
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http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/07/06/1057430075388.html ]

Emps
 
Toll plaza victim's troubled past

Driver was confined after '89 stabbing deaths of parents


Demian Bulwa, Kelly St. John, Chronicle Staff Writers

Monday, July 26, 2004



The driver of a van that barreled into a building at the Bay Bridge toll plaza -- killing himself and a 71-year-old artist in the passenger seat -- had stabbed his parents to death in 1989 in a psychotic episode in San Luis Obispo, authorities said Sunday.

Killed in Saturday's wreck were Ronald Wade McClave, 39, of Oakland, and his friend Mildred Harris of Emeryville. They were on their way to an art exhibition in San Francisco where they both planned to display dozens of paintings. Harris probably had McClave drive her 1992 Chevrolet Astrovan because she was afraid to drive on freeways, according to her children.

McClave was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the stabbing deaths of his parents, Helen and Larry McClave, at the family home in San Luis Obispo. According to published news reports, Wade McClave (who went by his middle name) had been hospitalized shortly before the killings after telling doctors that his parents were vampires.

Authorities later determined he had not received the proper medication before he was discharged from the hospital. He was institutionalized for nine years before he was conditionally released in Northern California, the reports said.

Law officers made no suggestion Sunday that the crash into the Caltrans administration building at the toll plaza was due to McClave's history of mental illness. The California Highway Patrol said it was investigating the driver's past for clues as to what caused the crash.

Just before 2 p.m. Saturday, Harris' van drove at more than 65 mph up a ramp leading to the toll plaza parking lot off westbound Interstate 80. The van clipped a woman and her daughter who were standing by as their disabled car was loaded onto a flatbed tow truck. The woman sprained her ankle while turning away from the speeding van, while her daughter was hit and broke her ankle.

Meanwhile, the van sped toward the Caltrans administrative building, and without turning or slowing, bounced up a ramp and into a closed garage used by armored cars picking up bridge tolls. It crashed through a concrete wall and only stopped when it hit an emergency generator. The authorities found no skid marks to suggest the driver ever applied his brakes.

"It is quite unusual as far as the speeds that were involved and the distance traveled. The van clipped pedestrians and went a quarter of a mile. The vehicle never slowed," CHP spokesman Sgt. Wayne Ziese said Sunday.

CHP officials said investigators believe the crash was not related to alcohol or illicit drugs, but have not ruled out a mechanical failure, a heart attack, a seizure or an intentional crash. They were also retracing the driver's movements in the 24 hours before the crash to see whether he may have been suicidal.

CHP investigators expect to spend today examining the impounded remains of Harris' Astrovan for clues, Ziese said.

McClave's girlfriend, Shawna Gubera, 24, said Sunday that she was aware of his background but did not believe it played any role in Saturday's crash.

"I can guarantee he would not intentionally drive the van into a place. He would not create an accident. That is not his personality," she said. "He would not do this because he lives the kind of life where he understands that people can go through tough times and that is not a reason to end your life."

She said that she talked briefly on the phone with McClave on Friday night and that he seemed "completely normal." Gubera said nothing had seemed out of the ordinary lately and that he was very "grounded."

While she had moved out of their shared apartment about a month ago to live closer to UC Berkeley, where she is a senior, the two still spent almost all their time together. She said that nearly every day, she would read poetry and literature to him while he painted.

Gubera would not say whether McClave was on medication or in therapy, but she said that he "always took care of himself, and he let others take care of him."

Harris' children said late Sunday that they were unaware of McClave's history of mental illness. While trying to make sense of the news, they were mourning an eccentric, well-traveled woman who devoted her life to art and in recent years had achieved some commercial success under the name "Melania Magdaleno." They said they were troubled to hear about McClave's past.

"He seemed very gentle. ... I can't think of him in that way at all," said David Harris, 49. He said his mother knew McClave for about a year, and the two exhibited paintings together several times. "I feel like throwing up right now. It's not sinking in yet."

The San Luis Obispo Police Department late Sunday said that it was asked to make a death notification to McClave's brother, who still lives in the house where his parents were killed.

"I'd sure be interested in finding out what happened, given the background," said San Luis Obispo Police Sgt. Jim Hays, who as a patrol officer in March 1989 investigated the stabbing.

Hays said that officers responding to a 911 hang-up in the middle of the night found Helen McClave, 47, stabbed to death in her driveway, and spotted Wade McClave through an upstairs window. As officers were about to storm the house, the 24-year-old man pedaled out of the garage on a bicycle and was tackled, Hays said. The officers then found Larry McClave, a 49-year-old on the city's Architectural Review Commission, dead in the kitchen. The couple had been stabbed more than 40 times in total.

"The experts we hired came back and said if there is a classic example of someone who is legally insane, it's Wade McClave," prosecutor Ron Abrams told the San Luis Obispo Tribune in 2002.

People who knew McClave in recent years were stunned to hear of the crash and described him as an intelligent, thoughtful and generally upbeat artist with talent.

At the Nomad Cafe in Oakland, where five of McClave's modern and abstract paintings are being displayed this month, owner Christopher Waters recalled meeting McClave a year ago when he applied for a job as store manager. McClave didn't get hired, but the men kept in touch.

"People have said his work is a cut above a lot of the other work we've shown," Waters said. "There is a depth to his art and his perception of what he was representing. He was very eloquent in describing his work and his approach to his art."

David Harris said McClave on several occasions brought lunch to Mildred Harris or cooked with her. The two artists looked for cafes and galleries to hang paintings and helped each other navigate the art world -- with McClave showing a talent for salesmanship, David Harris said.

At her small Emeryville home, which she shared with boarders, David Harris and his sister, Maya Magdaleno, picked through paintings from Mildred Harris' life. Her home doubled as a studio, packed with acrylic and oil paint, canvases painted in almost every conceivable form, and books on topics from mythology to Mexican mask-making to Expressionism.

Harris, who had five children and two grandchildren, was born and raised in Campbell, Ohio, the daughter of a Polish mother and Greek father. She moved to the Bay Area, initially to Berkeley, in 1963. She did a variety of jobs, everything from cleaning houses to nursing, but her passion was exploring the artistic gift she discovered as a child, her children said.

"She was an artist -- everything else was to pay the bills," David Harris said. "But in the last couple of months she actually started paying the bills with her art."
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http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/07/26/MNGPT7T4H01.DTL

Posted on Tue, Jul. 27, 2004


Crasher of van at bridge killed his parents in 1989

By Nathaniel Hoffman

CONTRA COSTA TIMES



Investigators are looking at the history of a man who died in an improbable weekend crash at the Bay Bridge toll plaza with his passenger, a fellow Oakland artist.

Ronald Wade McClave, 39, spend nine years in a state mental hospital after the double murder of his parents 15 years ago in San Luis Obispo, police said. He was known to colleagues in the Bay Area only as an upbeat and talented artist.

McClave and Mildred Harris, 71, were believed to be on their way to show their paintings at an exhibit in San Francisco when the crash occurred Saturday afternoon, said California Highway Patrol officer Annie Greenfield.

McClave was driving his van at high speeds when it crashed through a garage door and wall of the toll plaza administration building about 2 p.m., Greenfield said.

Investigators found no marks on the roadway to indicate that McClave hit the brakes before crashing. The CHP is trying to determine what may have led to the crash.

CHP investigators found about 100 paintings in the van, half of which were destroyed.

A former San Luis Obispo police officer Monday remembered a frantic 911 call in 1989 from McClave's mother before she and her husband were stabbed to death.

"I was the first one at the scene when he slaughtered his parents," said Greg Clayton, a private investigator who retired from the police force in 1993.

Clayton recalled a harrowing scene that was illuminated by a lone streetlight at the end of a cul-de-sac in a high-income San Luis Obispo neighborhood: McClave stabbing his mother with a large knife in the driveway, then staring down at officers from a second-story window after stabbing his father in the heart before attempting to flee on a bicycle through a pool of his mother's blood.

"I regret to this day that we didn't take him out," Clayton said.

He said he believes the justice system failed when McClave was allowed to re-enter society after nine years at a state mental hospital.

The story of the killings was shocking to Christopher Waters, owner of the Nomad Cafe in Oakland, where McClave displayed some of his paintings.

"He was a very affable and engaged upbeat kind of a person," said Waters, who met McClave about a year ago.

McClave's paintings and collages demonstrated amazing use of color and incorporated multiple layers, Waters said. One painting on display, "WMD" speaks to McClave's left-leaning politics, he said.

Waters said fellow artists and acquaintances called all day Monday to recount down-to-earth stories of the artist, including his cooking ability.

"There are stories about a guy who is a functional member of society," Waters said. "It says a lot about mental illness."

Members of Harris's family could not be located Monday for comment.

Greenfield said investigators are examining the 1992 Chevy Astro Van for possible mechanical failure and are looking into McClave's past.

"We are concerned with the history," Greenfield said, but declined to elaborate.

The van hit an 11-year-old girl, breaking her ankle, before crashing into the building. In addition, the girl's mother was injured trying to avoid the van.
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http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/9252263.htm?1c

Bay Area car crash kills Wade McClave

By: Wendy Thies


A man who stabbed his parents to death 15 years ago in their San Luis Obispo home was killed over the weekend in a car accident the CHP believes was intentional.

39-year old Oakland resident Wade McClave died Saturday when the van he was driving crashed into the Toll Plaza Administration Building on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. McClave and his 71-year old passenger, who also died, were on their way to an art exhibition in San Francisco when the crash occurred, which the CHP believes was intentional.

McClave was 24 years old when he killed his parents, Larry and Helen McClave, who were found at their San Luis Obispo home stabbed more than 40 times. Misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and on the wrong medication, McClave thought his parents were devils coming to drink his blood. McClave was found not guilty by reason of insanity; his defense attorney, Jim Maguire, calls it the most tragic case of his career.

"Because of Wade's case, I know that there is such a thing," says Maguire. "People can be so mentally ill that they don't know what they're doing, and they act on a basis of delusions instead of reality, and you know it's a disease that can be cured because I saw it with him."

Wade McClave was in his fifth year of a conditional release program which gives the courts regular reports.
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http://www.ksby.com/home/headlines/892986.html
 
Following up on the earlier post on this:

Aug. 15, 2004. 01:00 AM


New book explores the ethics and morality of vampire slayer Buffy

TV show like medieval morality play

Characters' actions have consequences


CECILE HOLMES
RELIGION NEWS SERVICE

The TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer becomes much more than one young woman stalking the undead in a book exploring the show's spiritual values.

What Would Buffy Do? The Vampire Slayer As Spiritual Guide (Jossey-Bass, .99) by Jana Reiss deftly portrays the TV show as challenging media stereotypes and revealing essential spiritual themes in American pop culture. The show, which ended its seven-year run in May, 2003, re-emerges as something of a medieval morality play.

In the "Buffyverse," as Reiss terms it, the world may be mostly God-neutral with little hint of an all-powerful creator. But make no mistake about it, evil is alive and well. So is good.

"The book is organized by values. I decided to just look at some of the spiritual values," Reiss says in a telephone interview.

"Self-sacrifice is a major issue for Buffy. This is part of hero literature everywhere, from today's Superman to classical Greek mythology. The idea of the hero having to sacrifice personal gain to help others is very important in Buffy. That being the slayer is hard. In the beginning, the first season, Buffy is making sacrifices such as not being a cheerleader. She's not able to have a normal relationship with her mother. She's not able to have a boyfriend. All of those when you're 16 are quite serious.

"In the fifth season, she actually sacrifices her life to save the world," Reiss says, adding: "Of course, she is resurrected. Otherwise there'd be no show."

Juxtaposing her analysis against the backdrop of Buffy episodes and quotes from thinkers as diverse as Reinhold Niebuhr and Confucius, Reiss shows how Buffy goes beyond the average TV show to a level where characters' actions have consequence. She explores the religious themes implicit the popular series and investigates what it has to say about friendship, honesty, redemption and forgiveness.

With humour and aplomb, Reiss produces a thoughtful book, poking fun at others and even at herself for their fascination with Buffy.

At first, Reiss was embarrassed to admit she was a fan.

"Now I'm just embarrassed that I was ever embarrassed," she says. "Buffy is a complex and nuanced series, full of ambiguity. If offers no clear-cut answers, but takes moral and spiritual issues very seriously."

Once Reiss, religion book review editor for Publishers Weekly, got over her uncertainty at being a Buffy fan, other viewers began coming out of the closet.

"There were some people who raised their eyebrows when I says I wanted to write a book about Buffy, the vampire slayer," Reiss says. "There were far more people in the academic community and in the church community who says, `I'm a Buffy fan, too.'"

A gifted writer, Reiss holds degrees from Wellesley College and Princeton Theological Seminary. She earned a Ph.D in American religious history from Columbia University. She makes no bones about her reasons for writing this book.

"The primary reason is that I absolutely love the show," she says. "I have to have an excuse for all the hours I've spent watching the show and thinking about it and being fascinated by it. This seemed like a great opportunity to legitimize my preoccupation.

"On a more serious note, I really do believe that people who have theological or academic training cannot dismiss popular culture," she says. "They do so at their own peril."
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Source
 
Killer Says He Thought Mother, Aunt Were Vampires

Man Says He Used Rock, Sharpened Drumstick To Kill

POSTED: 3:14 pm HST March 22, 2005
UPDATED: 9:22 am HST March 23, 2005

HONOLULU -- There is a bizarre new explanation for one of Hawaii's most horrible murders. Micah White, of Kailua, who stabbed and burned his mother and aunt, told psychiatrists that he thought they were vampires.

Sharon and Kerrie White were stabbed, dowsed with gasoline and set on fire last April in their Kainui Road home.

"The mother and the aunt were laying on the ground. Her throat was stabbed and she was bleeding and they were on fire," witness Alyssa Erickson said in April.

Before dying, the victims identified Micah White. His father and police suspected drugs. His mother's call for help described Micah as "tweaking," but a court appointed psychiatrist said White denies using drugs and told her he believed vampires were out to get him.

His doctor wrote, "it appears the world of vampires closed in on him and that he began to see his aunt, and then his mother, assume the appearance of the vampires. And these vampires were snarling at him and the air was populated by their screams and voices."

White told the doctor that his weapons were a rock and a sharpened drumstick. Although the doctor didn't say so, if White is telling the truth, the sharpened stick may represent the type of wooden stake said to be used by mythological vampire slayers.

Prosecutors may be skeptical of White's story. The fire may have destroyed the weapon and other clear physical evidence.

White has little history of mental illness. He has no symptoms now. The doctor said he was "probably" severely impaired just on the day of the murder. More doctors will examine White.

Judge Virginia Crandall will probably be asked to decide if White is responsible for the killings. If White used drugs, delusions due to drug use would not be a legal defense.
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Source

-------------
Slightly longer report:

Posted: March 23, 2005 10:10 PM


Killer Says Victims Were Vampires


Lisa Kubota - [email protected]

They were stabbed, doused with gasoline and set on fire by a family member. Now there is a new twist in the murders of two women last April in a Kailua home. The man who killed them claims he thought they were vampires.

Micah White's strange explanation came out during an interview with a court appointed psychiatrist. He told the doctor he had thoughts of vampires intruding into his mind for a long time, but much more so in the year before the violent killings.

The brutal attack on his mother and aunt took place in a Kainui Drive home. According to a court document, he told his doctor that he used a sharpened drumstick and a rock in the deadly assaults. One of his court-appointed psychiatrists said the 21-year-old's comments indicated a delusional system filled with danger.

The doctor wrote, "That system was a world inhabited by spirits, Satan, devils, shadows, evil and vampires; vampires, as representations of evil, were permeating all parts of his world, they were omnipresent and dangerous."

Neighbors and passing drivers rushed to the aid of the injured women on fire running out of the house.

48-year-old Kerry White and her 58-year-old sister-in-law Sharon White died from their severe injuries later that month. Other family members and police suspected drugs were to blame. But Micah told his doctor he almost never used illegal drugs.

The psychiatrist wrote, "...it appears the world of vampires closed in on him and that he began to see his aunt and then his mother assume the appearance of vampires; and these vampires were snarling at him and the air was populated by their screams and voices."

The psychiatrist concluded that Micah was "probably" severely impaired at the time of the attacks. The doctor is the first of three court appointed psychiatrists to evaluate the defendant. According to the document, White is currently taking an anti-psychotic medication.
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Source

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And a better one again:

Posted on: Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Kailua man called 'delusional,' saw 'vampires'

By Ken Kobayashi
Advertiser Courts Writer

Micah White believed his mother and aunt had turned into vampires when he stabbed them, doused them with gasoline and then torched them and his Kailua home last year, a psychiatrist has reported.

White, 21, is charged with killing the two women, but psychiatrist Kosta Stojanovich said White believed he lived in a "terrifying world of danger and struggled with vampires."

He saw his aunt Sharon White and then his mother Kerry White "assume the appearance of vampires; and these vampires were snarling at him and the air was populated by their screams and voices," Stojanovich said.

Stojanovich concluded that White "probably" suffered a mental disorder that substantially impaired his ability to know right from wrong and to control his conduct, the legal test for insanity.

The psychiatrist is the first of three experts appointed by Circuit Judge Virginia Crandall to assess whether White should be held criminally responsible for the deaths and the April 5, 2004 fire.

The judge appointed the panel after Deputy Public Defender Susan Arnett raised the insanity issue, saying there were indications that her client had been hearing voices and experiencing hallucinations.

"We always expected that the defense in this case would be based on the statute (allowing for an acquittal based on a mental disorder)," Arnett said yesterday.

City Deputy Prosecutor Franklin "Don" Pacarro Jr. yesterday said he is prohibited under the rules governing lawyers from commenting.

Prosecutors, however, have hired their own expert to evaluate Micah White and are expected to oppose any insanity acquittal.

The fire at 1214 Kainui Drive stunned the Kailua neighborhood and left Kerry White, 48, and her sister-in-law, Sharon White, 58, with severe injuries. Both later died.

Micah White was arrested the next day at a scenic overlook along Pali Highway. He is being held in lieu of $1 million bail.

No clear motive emerged in the days following the fire, although there were suggestions that Micah White may have been using the drug ice. Police said Sam and Kerry White had suspected their son of drug usage, but when they confronted him, he denied it.

Stojanovich's eight-page letter filed with the court last month reported that Micah White said he had almost never used illegal drugs and said it had been a long time before the fire that he consumed any drugs.

Arnett said defense always believed that drugs were not involved.

In his letter, Stojanovich concluded White suffered from a psychotic disorder.

The psychiatrist said White's remarks during the evaluation suggested he suffered from a "delusional system of a rather bizarre type."

White viewed the world as inhabited by "spirits, Satan, devils, shadows, evil and vampires."

"Mr. White apparently felt that vampires, or spirits, had been threatening not only himself but also anybody who would be on his side; reportedly these experiences would often be accompanied by an apparent presence of CIA or FBI, or all combined, and his smelling blood," Stojanovich said.

On the morning of the fire, White's mind was "apparently clouded" from not getting enough sleep the previous night, the psychiatrist said. He had stayed in his room from 5 p.m. the previous day and into the morning of the fire, Stojanovich said.

White woke up in the morning, went back to sleep, then awoke at about noon, the report states.

"He apparently just navigated within the house, basically watching TV," Stojanovich said.

His mother offered him food, but he could not eat it because he felt it was "vampires' food," the psychiatrist said.

"Mr. White continued watching TV," Stojanovich said.

White recalls his mother calling his father complaining that their son was "tweaking," which White assumes was the result of him doing or saying "unusual things" or acting "out of control," the psychiatrist said.

White isn't clear about what happened between him and his mother, but "it appears that a world of the vampires closed in on him" and the two women appeared to him to be vampires, Stojanovich reported.

White then supposedly assaulted the two women with a "sharpened drum stick" and a rock, Stojanovich said.
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Source
 
Ok, not saying I believe this, but it would be interesting to find out that all these people thinking they are killing vampires are right. That these people really have been called upon to kill vampires and protect "mortals" only to have us "mortals" say they have paranoid schizophrenia or something and lock them up.

(Again, not arguing that this is the case. It's just a thought).
 
I'm sorry this is a bit old, but I hoped somebody might have more info:

Graves in Northern France and throughout Europe have been desecrated. The vandals have even gone to the lengths of examining bodies. In one instance, a body had been left leaning against a tombstone after having been impaled through the heart by an umbrella.

It has been suggested that this behaviour has been due to anti-Semitism. Since the first outbreak, similar things have occurred in an unnamed North London cemetery.

Source: Carole Bohanon, News, The Velvet Vampyre # 10, June 1990.
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monkey the magnificent said:
I'm sorry this is a bit old, but I hoped somebody might have more info:

Graves in Northern France and throughout Europe have been desecrated. The vandals have even gone to the lengths of examining bodies. In one instance, a body had been left leaning against a tombstone after having been impaled through the heart by an umbrella.

It has been suggested that this behaviour has been due to anti-Semitism. Since the first outbreak, similar things have occurred in an unnamed North London cemetery.

Source: Carole Bohanon, News, The Velvet Vampyre # 10, June 1990.
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There is a lot of grave desecrations going on all the time including corpse interference:

www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13595

Also there is a lot of it going on in France and there are some wilder rumours that there is an uncoordinated mix of Neo Nazis and kids interested in the occult buggering about in France although this article sounds like an over-reaction to me:

www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 237#524237

although it does fit in with what you say about Northern France, vampires and grave desecration.
 
Emperor said:
Killer Says He Thought Mother, Aunt Were Vampires

Man Says He Used Rock, Sharpened Drumstick To Kill

POSTED: 3:14 pm HST March 22, 2005
UPDATED: 9:22 am HST March 23, 2005

HONOLULU -- There is a bizarre new explanation for one of Hawaii's most horrible murders. Micah White, of Kailua, who stabbed and burned his mother and aunt, told psychiatrists that he thought they were vampires.

.........
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And the professional opinion is:

Posted on: Thursday, May 5, 2005

Kailua killing suspect insane, experts say


Three court-appointed mental health experts have concluded that a 21-year-old man charged with murdering his mother and aunt by stabbing them and torching a Kailua home last year was legally insane.

Micah White suffered from a mental disorder that substantially impaired his ability to know the difference between right and wrong, the legal test for an insanity acquittal. Two of the three experts also found his ability to control himself also was impaired.

White is accused of stabbing the two women and burning down his Kailua family home while the two were still inside the residence April 5, 2004.

The three experts found during their examinations that White talked about vampires and one reported that he thought the two women were vampires.

Circuit Judge Virgina Crandall held a hearing on whether to allow a mental health expert hired by the prosecution to evaluate White at the State Hospital. The hearing will resume later.

White's defense is expected to seek an insanity acquittal. The trial is scheduled for August.
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Source
 
Mighty_Emperor said:
Killer Says He Thought Mother, Aunt Were Vampires

Man Says He Used Rock, Sharpened Drumstick To Kill

POSTED: 3:14 pm HST March 22, 2005
UPDATED: 9:22 am HST March 23, 2005

HONOLULU -- There is a bizarre new explanation for one of Hawaii's most horrible murders. Micah White, of Kailua, who stabbed and burned his mother and aunt, told psychiatrists that he thought they were vampires.

.........
Click to expand...

And the professional opinion is:

Posted on: Thursday, May 5, 2005

Kailua killing suspect insane, experts say


Three court-appointed mental health experts have concluded that a 21-year-old man charged with murdering his mother and aunt by stabbing them and torching a Kailua home last year was legally insane.

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Source
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Seems that swung it:

Insanity ruled in acquittal for killing of mother, aunt

Father says he never knew son was schizophrenic and bipolar
By Debra Barayuga
[email protected]

Sam White wept yesterday in Circuit Court after his son was found not guilty by reason of insanity of charges he stabbed his mother and aunt and set them on fire.

Micah White was sent to the Hawaii State Hospital. "I think he's going to the right place," said Sam White, his voice breaking as he searched for words to describe his feelings. "I don't believe he should be in prison."

Circuit Court Judge Virginia Crandall acquitted Micah White, 22, yesterday on charges of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder and first-degree criminal property damage. Had he been convicted as charged, White would have been facing life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

In several interviews with doctors after the April 5, 2004, incident, White revealed that he went after his mother and aunt with sharpened sticks because he believed they were vampires who were out to get him.

Notebooks recovered after the fire documented his preoccupation with vampires. His family was concerned about his preoccupation with them, and a week before the incident, his mother told his sister she believed he needed help, and was trying to find a psychiatrist.

Statements taken from family members and those at the scene suggested he might have been using drugs, and he admitted to drug use in the past. But results of drug tests showed none in his system at the time of the incident. The doctors who have examined him have since diagnosed White with various forms of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder for which he has never been treated.

Sam White said yesterday that he did not know at the time about his son's mental illness or see it coming.

"I really don't know much about it ... did not know this was there," he said.

When asked if he had any advice to share about his family's experience, White said simply, "Just love your family, that's all I can say."

Crandall ruled yesterday that the state had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that White had intentionally caused the deaths of his mother and aunt and caused extensive damage to the family's home.

But based on the conclusions reached by three court-appointed doctors and experts hired by the state and defense, Crandall also found that the defense had proved that at the time of the offenses, White was suffering from a mental illness that affected his ability to know right from wrong and appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct -- the legal definition of insanity.

Because the panel also found that White is a danger to himself and to others, Crandall committed him to the Hawaii State Hospital for an indefinite period, until the court finds he is fit for release.

White's attorney said he is entitled to release at some point.

"I believe he should, because he's never been treated," said deputy public defender Susan Arnett. "The things he's been diagnosed now are treatable illnesses. And it's true that in our society we still don't know much about mental illness, and there's still so much stigma attached to it, but with proper treatment and medication, I certainly hope the day comes when he's able to leave the facility."

Deputy Prosecutor Franklin Pacarro Jr. said they will vehemently oppose any such requests and that he should remain in the hospital for the rest of his life.

"What he did was atrocious -- he killed his mother, he killed his aunt -- it's just a horrific act he committed," Pacarro said.

Kerry Anne White suffered burns to over 80 percent of her body and was stabbed nine times in the neck and chest, twice in the scalp. She also suffered two fractured ribs and a broken upper left arm. She died April 29, 2004.

Her sister-in-law, Sharon White, suffered burns over half her body and had also been stabbed three times in the chest and six times in her hands and arms, Pacarro said. She died April 14, 2004.

The state had a strong case against White, including the declarations of the two women that he was responsible, he said. The only question that remained for the judge or jury was White's state of mind at the time of the offense.

While the outcome is "troubling," "this is how the system works," Pacarro said. "I hope for everyone's sake -- the whole community -- I hope the doctors are right."

Everyone who knew White could not believe he did what he did or was capable of it, "and that's the tragedy of this type of mental illness and to the degree that he had a psychotic break that played out this way," Arnett said afterward.

That White's family continues to support him means a lot to him, she said. "They are a remarkable group of people, and the fact that they stood by him from the beginning while dealing with incalculable grief is pretty amazing."

By law, White can seek release once every year, starting 90 days from the date of commitment.
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www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=98718
 
I'm not trying to condemn DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS, and I certainly never saw the slightest hint of criminal behavior - let alone murder - associated with any of my personal friends who became addicted to the game.

However, I saw several long-term ADULT friendships, of many years' duration, turn to dust over a single D&D game, enough that I decided to stay away from it and other RPGs entirely.
 
Cincinnati Vampire and Vampire Slayer

On April 23, 2002, a miscreant named Thompson, three weeks out of prison on a rape charge, was arrested concerning the theft of a bottle of blood from Cincinnati's Holmes Hospital. Thompson needed the blood, he reportedly said, because he was a vampire.

Thompson was charged only with receiving stolen property, because he allegedly talked a hospital nurse into actually stealing the blood for him.

According to another news story, less than four weeks later (on May 19, 2002), Brandon Wrenn, 21, of Bobalink Drive in North College Hill, allegedly stabbed his mother in the chest because she is "a vampire who has been sucking blood from [me]."

Interestingly, this "vampire slayer" story didn't hit the CINCINNATI POST until May 30th, at which time it was stated that Wrenn's mother had been killed in the attack.

The next day, however, WCPO-TV news revealed that the woman had not only survived but that "she is improving."
 
Its not really clear what is going on in this case but I'll keep an eye out for it and see what happens:

Posted on Wed, Feb. 15, 2006

Antioch man shot dead by police

By Danielle McNamara
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

A man was shot and killed by Antioch police early this morning after he threatened officers with a knife.

Police responded to a call on Rubye Drive at 11:55 p.m. Tuesday night from an elderly man who reported seeing what he described as a group of vampires outside of his home, Antioch police Cpt. Steve McConnell said.

When officers arrived, the man invited them inside and then came at one of the officers with a large kitchen knife and a meat fork. The officer shot the man twice. He died at the scene.

Police did not release the name of the victim or the officer involved.

Police still had the several lots on the street taped off early this morning. The incident is being jointly investigated by Antioch police department and Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office.
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www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/13879324.htm
 
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