My favourite character in the Sixties Batman TV series is William Omaha McElroy. His origin may have seemed unlikely – a bang on the head transforms the mild-mannered Professor of Egyptology atYale University into the arch-villain King Tut, played with undisguised relish by Victor Buono – but psychotic and antisocial behaviour after head injuries is no joke. Bangs on the bonce have led to violent crime, serial killing and even a rather tragic case of vampirism.
A 38-year-old “neatly groomed” biological male “wearing female attire” went to an Emergency Department in Florida with a self-inflicted cut to her left forearm. She strongly denied self-harm. Rather she wanted to “fulfil a thirst for blood and flesh”. She told doctors that chewing the inside of her mouth until it bled usually satiated her desire for blood, but when she was especially distressed, this wasn’t enough. So she sliced her forearm with a hobby knife and “chewed the fat deposits, gnawed on it for a while and sucked it to try and get as much blood as possible”. She denied drinking the blood of animals or other humans.
She later told a psychiatrist that she experienced a traumatic brain injury – the medical term for a head injury – at 23 years of age while serving in the military. She had remained unconscious for three weeks. After waking, she started chewing the inside of her mouth to draw blood and, after her discharge, cut herself. Doctors diagnosed gender identity disorder when she was 31 years of age. But her desire to drink blood dated back to adolescence. She had avid interest in vampires, including True Blood, the Twilight Saga and Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles.
This story is from the November 2019 edition of Fortean Times.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November 2019 edition of Fortean Times.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Lightning Or Legendry?: The Chase Vault Moving Coffin Mystery Revisited
The moving coffins of Barbados have been a staple subject of books on the unexplained for over a century, and yet no one has so far provided a wholly satisfactory solution to the mystery. BENJAMIN RADFORD argues that we might have been looking in the wrong place...
The Haunted Generation
Bob Fischer Rounds Up The Latest News From The Parallel Worlds Of Popular Hauntology...
The House On The Borderland In Search Of William Hope Hodgson
In his new book, EDWARD PARNELL goes in search of the ‘sequestered places’ of the British Isles and explores how these haunted landscapes shaped a kaleidoscopic spectrum of literature and cinema. Here, he arrives in Cardiganshire to look for the house in which the neglected master of weird fiction William Hope Hodgson wrote one of his greatest works.
Fortean Traveller: 117. The Mediæval Crime Museum, Rothenburg, Germany Fortean Traveller
STEVE TOASE feels the thumbscrews tighten as he explores a grisly collection exploring the history of mediæval torture and its relationship with the law
Where Ghosts Gather
In 1977, Usborne published World of the Unknown: Ghosts, the children’s book that inspired a generation of junior forteans. Four decades on, following a concerted fan campaign, the book is back in print... and the perpetually haunted BOB FISCHER tracked down its pleasantly surprised writer, Christopher Maynard, to discuss its genesis and unexpected impact.
A Bang On The Head
MARK GREENER explains how traumatic brain injury can change personality, creating serial killers and even vampires.
Out Of The Shadows
In an extract from a new book celebrating the history of Boscastle’s Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, Professor Ronald Hutton introduces the photographs of Sara Hannant, which aim to bring a range of enigmatic objects from the museum’s unique collection to life.
The Face In The Window - Windowpane Ghosts And Lightning Daguerreotypes
One of the most fortean of lightning phenomena is the “lightning daguerreotype,” where a face or figure, often recognised as a particular deceased person, is mysteriously etched upon a windowpane. Chris Woodyard traces some of the fenestral flaps of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Bodies On Ice
Couple who went missing 75 years ago ... found by chance in thawing Swiss glacier
happy old christmas
you thought it was all over, but due to the orthodox refusal to accept the new fangled gregorian calendar, many people – from margate to memphis – will still be celebrating christmas in january. ted harrison goes in search of some stubborn old traditions...