Literature is filled with stories of sensual blood sucking creatures that terrorized many villages and small towns. But did you know that these vampiric creatures exist in the real world too? These monsters share an important and well recognized feature with those fictitious creatures: a thirst for human blood. Some of the most depraved crimes were committed by serial killers who believe that human blood is the answer to some twisted logic they come up with.

Do not read this if you’ve got a weak stomach. Their stories could also lead to nightmares!

1 Richard Chase- The Sacramento Vampire

Chase lived between the year 1950 to 1980 in California and was named the ‘vampire of Sacramento‘ for drinking his victim’s blood and cannibalizing their remains.  He roamed the streets like a mythical vampire trying locked doors. If he found an open door, he took it as an invitation to go in.
On one such occasion, Chase surprised Teresa Wallin, who had left her door open while going to take out garbage. Her husband, David, was at work and she was three months pregnant. Chase shot her three times then dragged her body to the bedroom. He raped her body post-mortem while stabbing it repeatedly with a butcher knife. He then carved her body open and removed several organs. He used a bucket to collect her blood then went to the bathroom and bathed in it. He later sliced her nipple off and drank her blood with a yogurt container. Before he left, he took a pile of dog feces from the yard and stuffed it into the corpse’s throat and mouth.
He was later arrested after committing another murder (that was considered mass murder) and found guilty of six counts of first degree murder. (source)

2 Magdalena Solis: The High Priestess of Blood 

She was a serial killer and member of a cult that orchestrated murders and participated in blood drinking. She did this for sexual motivation and was responsible for 8 known murders (although some sources claim they were actually 15). She claimed to be a goddess and demanded numerous blood ritual sacrifices.
Solis devised a blood ritual where a dissenting member would be brutally beaten, cut, burned and maimed by members of her cult. The victim was then bled to death and the blood deposited into a cup that also had chicken blood. She drank the blood from this chalice, and then took it round for other members to drink. The blood presumably gave them extra-natural powers. She was supposedly a reincarnation of the Aztec Goddess Coatlicue and therefore needed the blood to keep her young forever. According to Aztec Mythology “the blood was the only decent food for the gods, through it, they preserved their immortality.” (source)

3. Daniel and Manuela Ruda

Daniel and Manuela Ruda murdered their friend in 2001 claiming that Satan had ordered them to do so. They believed they had done Frank, their friend, a favor by killing him, as he was now “beside Satan, the best place that he could be”. Daniel, 26 was a car salesman while Ruda was only 23. They stabbed him 66 times, hit his head with a hammer, carved a pentagram on his chest and a scalpel was found protruding from  his body. They also drank his blood after that and had sex in Manuela’s coffin.
According to Manuela, they were not alone- other strange beings were present during the ordeal. The couple was not remorseful even while in court and confessed to the killing. They defiantly showed provocative behavior while in court with rude gestures, sticking their tongues out and rolling eyes manically. Investigators of the crime found a list of future victims in their apartment.
Manuela had embraced Satanism before she met her husband. She had lived with vampires who went to cemeteries, ruins and woods at night. She had also drank blood from willing donors and been buried for just the ‘feel of it‘. (source)

4 John Brennan Crutchley: The Vampire Rapist 

Convicted rapist and kidnapper Crutchley, was suspected of murdering more than 30 women. He was referred to as the ‘vampire rapist’ because he had drained his victim’s blood to the point of death as he repeatedly assaulted her sexually.
In November, 1985, Malabar, Brevard County in Florida, Crutchley videotaped himself raping a hitchhiker, then inserted needles into her wrist and arm and extracted blood. He drank her blood claiming to be a vampire. He handcuffed her and left her in the bathtub whereupon he came back, raped her again and extracted her blood. In the morning he left her in the bathroom promising to come back later and do the same but the hitchhiker was able to escape when he left.
Crutchley was later arrested and during sentencing, in June 1986, he claimed that he had been introduced to drinking of blood by a nurse in the 1970’s, as part of a sex ritual. (source)

5 Fritz Haarmann – ‘The Vampire of Hanover’

Fritz Harman was born on October 25th 1879 in Hanover and was also known as “the vampire of Hanover”. He was a serial killer from Germany responsible for 27 known murders of young men aged 10-22. He chewed through the necks of his victims and drank their blood in a ‘love bite’ as he called it.
“I never intended to hurt those youngsters, but I knew that if I got going something would happen and that made me cry… I would throw myself on top of those boys and bite through the Adam’s apple, throttling them at the same time,” he said.
He was sentenced to death by guillotine and his last words were “I repent, but I do not fear death.” His head was preserved by scientist in a jar for further studies on the structure of his brain. To this day, his head is kept at the Göttingen medical school. (source)

6 Joshua Rudiger: The Vampire Slasher 

He slit the throats of the homeless so he could drink their blood and in a videotaped statement given to police, Rudiger claimed himself to be a 2,000 year old vampire. The assistant district director on his case told Jurors that, Rudiger used the victims’ blood to draw a Chinese language character that signified death. He also had the same tattooed on his chest.
Rudiger confessed to the police that he drank blood to attain vitality and that to him, “Prey is prey.” One of his victims testified that he awoke to find his attacker drinking blood from his slashed throat. (source)

7 Vincenzo Verzeni – Strangler Of Women  

He was from Bettanuco, Bergamasco. His pleasure in killing was not sexual. All his pleasure came from the strangling and sucking of blood from his victims. He would cut the abdomens along the entire length, pull out their intestines and smash them. He would then smash and scatter the limbs on the road with their bloody clothing. He even went ahead and hammered the hairpins of the victims onto their bodies or on the ground near the body and in a geometric rosette.
During his trial, he admitted that he drank blood from his victims; “I have really killed the women and tried to strangle the other, because I felt immense pleasure in that act. The scratches found on the thighs were not produced with fingernails but with teeth, because I choked after the bites and I sucked the blood that had flowed, which I enjoyed very much. “ (source 1, 2)