Six men jailed for exhuming a 'vampire' to eat his heart

i had the same question. i've heard of burning the heart of a vampire or burying at a crossroads,but never eating it. maybe they were just hyped up on some crazy drug?

I am glad they got punished. Even if they just followed some native folklore, they went to extremes to carry it ouot. What about another folklore that they can follow? We dont know what they could do next, even if they genuinely believe it.

"meaty drink"



THAT should be on "fear factor"

sick!!!

french royalty used to have their hearts removed after death as a form of a burial ritual, but I don't think anyone ate them

Those crazy gypsies. My dad was right. They are crazy.

[edit on 6/2/05 by Croat56]

ummmmmm!!!.....vampires heart!....does it come with vegetables or chips?

It seems that this act of cutting out the heart and eating it has been going on for centuries in this one part of Romania. The police were very aware that it goes on but felt helpless to prevent it. The people that did the deed felt that the dead mans spirit was coming into their dreams and making the family sick. So I suppose in Romania, the definition of a vampire is much wider than it is here, as what these people described is closer to a haunting than anything else.

It was just before midnight as Gheorghe Marinescu and five of his relatives crept into the graveyard in the small Romanian village of Marotinul de Sus. They knew which plot they were looking for – a simple earth grave with a wooden cross bearing the name Petre Toma – and quickly, but quietly, set about digging.

When they had dragged the body out, they waited. Then, at the stroke of 12, Marinescu began the ritual that they had been planning for weeks, one that had passed from generation to generation in their family. They drove a pitchfork through Petre Toma's chest, opened it, drew out his heart and then put stakes through the rest of his body. They sprinkled garlic over the mutilated corpse and then, carefully, laid it back in its grave.

They left the cemetery with the heart impaled on the end of the pitchfork and went to a crossroads where Marinescu's wife, son and daughter-in-law were waiting. There the group burnt it, dissolved the ashes and then drank the solution.

Much more on this in this article. A very interesting read.

Some believed that the heart had to be removed and burned. Others called for cutting off the head of the suspected vampire and stuffing the mouth with garlic or rose petals or placing the head upside down in the coffin.

This is the first time I have ever heard of consuming the heart of a vampire. Most legends give the impression that the vampire is unclean (spiritually). In eating the heart wouldn't that make the vampire a part of you?

Seems you are well-versed in the mythos...(big vampire fan myself).

As William mentioned, yes, this is an old practice, very restricted geographically though, as most go for the other more common methods.

What many don't realize, is that most vampire legends aren't anything like Hollywood or Anne Rice vamps.... Most are more about restless spirits, whose bodies remain interred, but their hearts get filled with blood upon the spirit feasting...

This was the reason for the stake originally, to keep the heart from travelling with the spirit, thus ending the vampire's roaming. The removal of the head was more obvious (can't drink blood without a head, hehe...)

Most of this was due to misunderstandings about the process of decay... Gases expanding, pushing blood out the mouth, etc.