The Hantu Langsuir is said to be hideous with piercing red eyes.
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The Hantu Langsuir, from Malaysian lore, is one of the most feared and deadliest of all banshees of Malaysia. It was believed that woman who died giving birth to their child, who also dies, will become a Hantu Langsuir after 40 days. She is described as being hideous with red piercing eyes, sharp claws, very long hair, a decayed face, and huge fangs. She is able to fly and is most often seen wearing a green or white robe. The hantu langsuir could also shape-shift into an owl. She is also vengeful and furious and will go after newborns and pregnant women, drinking their blood, milk, and organs from the inside out causing a very slow death. It was believed that the hantu langsuir has a hole on the back of her neck used to suck blood. Filling the hole with her hair or cutting her claws will make her human again. To prevent women from turning into a hantu langsuir many glass beads must be placed in the woman’s mouth. The still-born children of the hantu langsuir are called Pontianak.

The Balbal, from Filipino lore.
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Other Aliases: Bal-Bal, Busaw, Segben, Wirwir

The Balbal is from Filipino lore and is a ghoul that steals bodies and eats those that are ready to die. Because of this, they are said to have very bad breath. Since it feeds on bodies it is considered a type of vampire and is equipped with very sharp teeth and claws to tear the dead apart. It is also a trickster, once it takes the body out of the coffin it then replaces the coffin with a banana tree trunk so that people think the body is still in the coffin. It is one of the most feared vampires in the Philippines.

The Hanh Saburo is known for controlling dogs.
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The hanh saburo is a vampire from Indian lore. It dwells in the forest and is able to control dogs or wolves which can lure travelers into the forest where they will be attacked by sounds. They were invisible but sometimes were seen as balls of light or orbs. They would often be in trees or deep in the woods surrounded by thick vegetation. They could be detected by a foul odor.

The Hantu Laut was a Malaysian spirit of the sea.
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The Hantu Laut is from Malaysian lore and when directly translated it means “sea spirits.” These spirits of the sea were considered cannibalistic and was known to attack men at sea, particularly as fisherman and sailors. They considered vampires, feasting on the blood and life of the living.

When Malaysian fisherman would enter parts of the water where the hantu laut was believed to inhabit, they would proceed with caution and avoid making noise. They had great respect for the spirits and would not fish fearing their wrath. If they did, it would cause the spirits to be upset and cause accidents and disasters.

Astral Vampires take the form of a spirit to attack their victims.
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The astral vampire, from occult lore, is the spirit of a living vampire or other evil entity. They can also be created by witches or sorcerers who are strong enough to project themselves out of their own bodies to attack people at great distances. The attack is said to be created psychically and they may also be referred to as “psychic vampires”, not to be confused with its other meaning. (a person who believes they can feed off others energies psychically.)

The spirit of a restless dead person may also be able to project itself by exiting its body and feed on living people. When a living person is attacked while sleeping, it feeds off of the psychic energy and can cause depression, madness, and suicide to the victim. When the spirit of the vampire returns, the dead body feeds off of it, this theory is known as the “hemolytic factor.” The vampire sucks up the red corpuscles released in the victim’s blood. These are later brought back to the grave and given to the corpse for food or energy. To protect against one of these vampires only magic will help, using a stake in the heart will not stop it.

The Hannya is often seen characterized on Japanese masks.
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Introduction

The hannya is a demonic woman with vampire-like qualities from Japanese lore. She is very jealous and is described as having two sharp horns poking from her head, eyes that are known to glare, and a large mouth. When opened, the mouth stretches from ear to ear. She eats children and drinks their blood. She is very popular and can be seen in many mask designs throughout Japan. The masks expression has her mouth open and is suppose to capture her anger and wrath. The oldest hannya mask is from 1558.

The Mask

When the mask is used in popular plays the coloration of the mask will depend on how angry she is. The redder her face the more angry she is. For example in a play known as Dodoji, which is a play about a woman who falls inlove with a priest from the Dodoji Temple, the hannya is very violent. She turns herself into an evil serpent and slithers up to the bell at the top of the temple. She wraps herself around it and eats it then turns against the priest and devours him as well. In other plays when she is not so angry her face is portrayed with a paler yellow mask.

Interesting Fact:

In modern day Japan when a wife gets angry or jealous the man will put his two index fingers out from his forehead to symbolize the hannya.

Fritz Haarmann was known for turning his victims into sausages.
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Introduction

Fritz Haarmann (also spelled Haarman) was born in Germany on October 24, 1879, and was later given the nickname the “Vampire Butcher” of Hanover Germany. He grew up with his very strict authoritarian father, with whom he didn’t get along. Haarmann made the decision to join the military since he really didn’t have that much money and considered himself a poor student. Upon returning to Hanover, he was accused of molesting children and was sent to a mental institution. He managed to escape the institution and thought it would be best to go back to live with his father. The two did not get along still, they were constantly arguing and even physically fighting. He decided he could no longer live with his father and turned to street life.

Living on the Streets

Living on the streets put a lot of pressure on Haarmann, which caused to participate in violent crimes, which put him in jail a few times. He was finally released in 1918 and things were starting to look good for him. He found a job as a butcher at a shop and also worked as a police informant. The rumors were true about him molesting children, he would molest little boys. He would find lost boys sleeping at the Hanover railway station and ask the boys to see their tickets. If they didn’t have one, he would offer the boy a place to stay overnight. The boys usually had nowhere else to go and would take the offer, never to be seen or heard from again.

Haarmann met his love interest, a 24-year old male prostitute named Hans Grans, in 1919. They moved in together and Grans later would help Haarman molest boys and murder them. Grans would pick out them out based on if the clothing that they would wear. They would take the boys, molest them, and murder them. That is, until 5 years later when they became suspects.

Victims Found

In 1924, a police officer found human body parts along the banks of the Leine River, about the same time the Haarmann was put into jail for indecent exposure. While in jail, the police went and searched his rented apartment, finding bloodstains. The stains were tested and found to be human, this then became a more serious search which led to outside of the house. They found pieces of 22 corpses.

The police weren’t going to charge Haarman until more evidence came up, which is what happened next. A mother of a missing boy identified a piece of clothing that was worn by her son before he disappeared, which was then traced back to Haarmann. He was then questioned by police, and confessed to murdering the children, and told him that Grans was an accomplice to murder.

The Confessions

He confessed, telling the police his victims were between the ages of 12 to 18 years old. Grans would select the boys, they would then take them to the butcher shop where he would over-feed them, praise them, and sexually assault them. He would then bite their jugular vein, and drink their blood. If biting their necks wouldn’t kill the boys, Grans would beat them to death. He was known as the vampire killer because the boys would be found with these bite marks. Grans would take some of the victims clothes and all of the rest were sold through Haarmann’s butcher shop. To get rid of some of the bodies, Haarmann would grind up the flesh and would sell it as meat or sausages. There was also another man in on the murders, his name was Charles, who worked with Haarmann as a butcher. He would help grinding the meat and cutting up the bodies. It was said an unaware coworker helped make the human sausages, cooked it, and him and Haarmann both ate the sausages.

Conclusion

While in court, Haarmann said he wasn’t insane, but told the jury when he would commit these murders he would be in a trance and wouldn’t know what he was doing. The court didn’t believe him because his confessions were very descriptive and was well aware what was happening. He was then accused of 24 murders, but some think that he killed about 50 boys. Haarmann himself said he killed around “30 to 40″ boys. He was judged as sane and was executed, beheaded on April 15, 1925. His final death wishes were that his grave read, “Here lies Mass-Murderer Haarman,” and requested Grans to lay a wreath on his grave every year on his birthday. Grans was sentenced to life in prison and Charles disappeared.

After his execution, Haarman’s head was kept in a jar, preserved so that scientists could examine the structure of his brain, and one can find his head at the Gottingen medical school.

A Memorial to his Victims

A memorial to Haarmann's victums was constructed in Hannover, Germany.

Many victims still remain unidentified. Those that are known can be read in order of their death as follows:

• Friedel Rothe 17
• Fritz Franke 16
• Wilhelm Schulze 17
• Roland Huch 15
• Hans Sonnenfeld 18
• Ernst Ehrenberg 13
• Heinrich Strauss 18
• Paul Bronischewski 17
• Richard Graf 17
• Wilhelm Erdner 16
• Hermann Wolf 16
• Heinz Brinkmann 13
• Adolf Hannappel 15
• Adolf Hennies 19
• Ernst Speiker 17
• Heinrich Koch 18
• Willi Senger 19
• Hermann Speichert 15
• Alfred Hogrefe 16
• Hermann Bock 22
• Wilhelm Apel 15
• Robert Witzel 18
• Heinz Martin 14
• Fritz Wittig 17
• Friedrich Abeling 11
• Heinrich Koch 16
• Erich de Vries 17

John Haigh was known for using acid to desolve his victims.

Introduction

John George Haigh was born on July 24, 1909 and was later known as the “Acid Bath Murderer.” Haigh grew up with strict parents who were members of the Plymouth Brethren. His parents, John and Emily brought their son up in a house with a 10 ft. tall fence around it, which confined Haigh from the outside world. He was very intelligent which led to scholarships. He received one for the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, then later to Wakefield Cathedral, where he became a choirboy. He had many friends and was soon an apprentice for a firm of moter engineers. He then left that job and took a few jobs in insurance and advertising, until he was suspected of stealing cash and was fired at age 21. He was married for a short time at age 25, and had no interest in sex after things didn’t work out. His wife did give birth while he was in prison but gave the baby up for adoption. For the next ten years he ended up in prison three times for fraud and being dishonest.

The Dreams

Some interesting things about his childhood might have led up to his murders later on in life. At the age of six he became fasinated with blood and would often hurt himself so that he could taste his blood. He was also interested in the Holy Communion and the Crucifixion. He also had some pretty intense dreams, most of his dreams were about railways accidents filled with bleeding people. These dreams stopped but then came back to him in 1944. When Haigh was 35, and out of prison, he injured his head and blood went into his mouth. He began to have the dreams with bloody people and would also have dreams about a forest filled with crucifixes that would turn into bleeding trees. He would taste the blood, when he would wake up he would crave the taste of blood. The dreams were in a weekly cycle increasing from Monday through Friday.

Covering up the Crimes

While he was in prison this gave him time to think. He thought the perfect way to get rid of bodies would be to destroy it with sulphuric acid. When he came back home in 1944, he rented a storeroom and bought vats of acid. He first experimented with mice and observed that it only took about a half an hour for the body to completely dissolve. Right after being freed from prison, he became an accountant at an engineering firm.

It Begins

One night he ran into his friend McSwan, where he introduced Haigh to his parents who told him they invested in property. On September 6, 1944, people had been searching for McSwan and he was no where to be found. Later, it was determined that Haigh hit him over the head, cut his neck open, and began collecting cup fulls of blood. Then to dispose of the body, he took McSwan to his basement. He put McSwan’s body in a 40-gallon drum and poured concentrated sulphuric acid all over top of him. He would then drink the blood which he said made him feel “relieved.” Two days later the body turned into a mud-like consistancy and was poured down a manhole. He told McSwan’s worried parents that their son went to Scotland to avoid being drafted into the military. He later went over to the McSwans’ house after frequent inquiries from his parents about why their son hasn’t come back yet when the war was about to end. He then took them to his house where he murdered them on July 2, 1945. He then stole the pension cheques and sold their properties and was left with a lot of money. He went along killing for the next 4 years (5 years in all). He then killed and robbed another couple acting like he was interested in a house they were selling.

Conclusion

He was arrested then put on trial. He could’ve been making up the blood-drinking in order for him to appear insane, but he would talk about his dreams before he would kill and about how he would crave blood. He was hanged in London in 1949 and claimed to have killed 9 people even though he was convicted of six murders.

Jean Grenier was discovered by his stepmother by vomiting up bones and body parts.
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The Jean Grenier werewolf case was a series of interesting events that took place in Landes in southern France. His case was one of the most famous cases in Europe of lycanthropy, a disorder where a person believes that they are a wolf or another wild animal. Jean Grenier was thirteen at the time and had thick, long red hair and a tanish complexion.

Confessions

Two shepherd girls came across the boy sitting on a log. They looked at him and noticed his hair, his fangs sticking out over his lip, and his long, pointed black fingernails that resmembled claws of a bird. His clothing looked like rags, they were dirty and torn and he gave out a loud laugh. He started to talk to the girls, he told them his father was a priest and was trying to determine which of the girls was the prettiest so that he could marry one. He could see the girls were quite scared and told them that he looked like a wolf because he wore a wolf-skin every once in a while. He said that the skin was given to him by a man named Pierre Labourant. He said that Pierre lived in a place with fire and wore an iron chain necklace. Labourant wrapped the skin around Grenier and told him to wear it every Sunday, Monday, and Friday, and also to wear it every other day for about an hour at dusk to turn him into a wolf. He then told the girls, “I have killed dogs and drunk their blood; but little girls taste better, their flesh is tender and sweet, their blood rich and warm. I have eaten many a maiden, as I have been on my raids together with my nine companions. I am a werewolf! Ah, ha! If the sun were to set I would soon fall on one of you and make a meal of you!” With that said the girls quickly ran away.

Marguerite Poirier

Another encounter with him from another thirteen year old was recorded, a girl named Marguerite Poirier. She lived near the village of St. Antoine de Pizon and she often worked with Grenier tending sheep. He would talk to her about eating dogs, drinking blood, and killing little girls. He told Poirier about a girl that he ate, telling her grusesome details, including him giving the remains of the little girl to a nearby wolf. He also told her about a girl that he bit to death and ate everything except for her shoulders and arms.

Poirier was tending sheep alone one day when she was attacked by a wolf wearing clothes, later believed to be Grenier. She tore his clothes as she attacked him with great panic with her shepherd’s staff. She said he backed off but looked at her with rage in his eyes. She said it looked like a wolf but it was shorter, stalkier, had a small head, and red hair with a tiny tail. This incident scared her so bad she left the sheep alone and ran home.

Poirier Describes the Event

After the incident the villagers were scared and noticed a few small girls were missing. Poirier told the villagers about Grenier’s graphic stories that he had told her, which led to an investigation. Grenier was found and arrested. When he was found they discovered he wasn’t the son of a priest at all, he was the son of a poor laborer in St. Antoine de Pizon. Grenier had left home three months earlier and performed odd jobs, along with begging. He then started tending sheep with Poirier, but was slacking caught slacking off.

Grenier goes to Court

In court Grenier told the everyone about him being a werewolf. He started by telling them how it all began, when he was eleven years old. A neighbor took him into the woods to meet a black man named Monsieur de la Forest (Lord of the Forest), who gave them both a wolf-skin and magical ointment. He was told to put the ointment on and the skin to become a werewolf, and he did so from then on.

He admitted to trying to kill Poirier, and told the court about how he ate a white dog by drinking its blood. He injured another dog but was chased off by the owner. He also admitted to killing an infant sleeping in her cradle, he ate her and shared her with another wolf. He also devoured a shepherd girl and another child standing by a bridge. He told everyone the Monsieur de la Forest was his master and would tell him when to hunt for children. He was told to would put the ointment on, and to go in the daytime, but sometimes he would also go at night. He was also not allowed to bite off his left thumb nail, it was the longest and thickest nail. He had to keep it in sight when he was a wolf.

One night after being a wolf he ate a dog and a child, when he went home he got sick and threw up. His stepmother went to clean it up and saw that there were dog paws and children’s finger in it. This made her leave for good. He also said that his father had a wolf skin and both went out one night and ate a girl tending her geese in Grilland. His father was dismissed from court, there was no other evidence against him.

Many of the details about the attacks were matched up with wounds. The president of the court thought that Grenier had something wrong with him and suffered from hallucinations and didn’t believe that he was directed by the devil. He was given life imprisonment in a monastery in Bordeaux, where he would recieve a religious direction.

Seclusion

When he first arrived he ran around on his hands and knees and ate raw bloody intestines. Seven years in the monastery he was visited by Pierre Delancre, a demonologist. Grenier had changed since then, both mind and appearance. He told him his story and how the Lord of the Forest came and visited him twice in the monastery, but kept him away with a cross. Not long after the visit Jean Grenier died at age 20.

The bogeyman often waits in the closet to kidnap misbehaving children.

The boogyman is an interesting phenomena that seems to embody a child’s fear of the unknown. He has no set appearance or characteristics, and there are several tales of boogymen in practically every major culture around the world. Most of the tales revolve around misbehaving kids, and tales of boogymen are told by parents as a way to keep kids from misbehaving. The origin of the English word boogyman is thought to have been derived from the Scottish word for similar creatures called boggarts. Other languages it may have came from include the Middle English word for bug, bogge/bugge and the German word bögge. Several other European languages also have similar words.

In American tales of the boogyman, he may scratch at the window and comes upon his victims as a fog. Several tales of the boogyman involve him appearing from either a child’s closet or from under their bed. This follows through in many other countries as well, with the boogyman preferring to hide in dark places. In some countries such as Brazil, the boogyman is referred to as “Bag-man” and often carries a bag with him to kidnap children.