Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClane Smith, where for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make it into the previous show. In last week's episode, The Rising, we heard the beguiling tale of the supposed Highgate vampire that is said to have stalked London's most famous cemetery
in the late nineteen sixties and early seventies. As some listeners have been at pains to point out, the story has grown somewhat overblown in the years since, but perhaps most interesting is the animosity that developed out of it between David Farrant and Seawan Manchester, the two figures most often associated with the events. When the story was first reported in The Hampstead and Highgate Express in nineteen seventy, the pair appeared to be very much in audence about
the possible nature of the unusual goings on. Before long, however, each became intent on establishing their own version of the story. Though Sean Manchester maintained throughout that it was a vampire stalking the cemetery, Farrant preferred instead to think of it more as a dark, ghostly entity that had become empowered
by black magic. Before long, Manchester accused Farrant of meddling with things he didn't understand, and even charged him of being a black magic practitioner himself, who had helped to resurrect the vampire in the first place. Things deteriorated so much that in nineteen seventy three, Manchester challenged Farrant to a magician's duel to the death, billing the encounter as a fight between his white force of good and Farrant's black magic forces of evil. Sadly, in the end, the
battle never took place. Many have also questioned Manchester's account of Elizabeth Voidiwa and Barbara Moriarty's apparent experiences, neither of whom appeared to have ever spoken publicly on the matter,
if indeed they existed at all. The similarity between elements of Manchester's stories and Bram Stoker's own Dracula has also not gone unnoticed, certainly his belief that a king vampire once lived at Ashurst House, close to the Cemetery, having arrived in England under a cloud of mystery from Eastern Europe, where he also claimed a vampire plague had once Raged bears much of the hallmarks of bram Stoker's masterpiece. So
what then, of the stories that inspired bram Stoker. It may seem far fetched to claim a vampire had been living at the site of Highgate Cemetery since the eighteenth century, but did you know the so called vampire plague was, in one way or another, entirely real. The year was seventeen thirty one, and the place the village of Meadvija, a small farming community located about a hundred miles south of Belgrade in what was then the Kingdom of Serbia.
It was there that a doctor Glaser, an expert on infectious diseases from nearby Parachin, was sent after the military commander in charge of the local region received word of some kind of infection that had broken out in the village, claiming the lives of at least ten of its inhabitants. On arrival at the village, the urbane Glasser was met by the captain of the Haiduks, a group of guards
tasked with keeping watch over the local neighborhood. Before Glasser could get to work, the captain thought it important to provide a little background on the case. It had all started, he believed four years ago, when one Arnold Parvol returned home to Meadviger after a number of years serving in the army with a strange, haunted look in his eyes.
For most who lived in the local area at the time, life was of fraught existence, being constantly buffeted between the two heavy weights of the Ottoman Empire pushing up from the south and the Habsburg Empire squeezing down from the north.
So naturally, when Parvell returned home during a period of relative stability, it was assumed that he had simply taken the opportunity to establish a more peaceful life for himself, with that strange look in his eye, just a grim reflection of the harrowing experiences he'd no doubt encountered on the battle field. The truth, however, was something a little different. Things started happily enough when Parvel mere and fell in love with the daughter of a neighbor. Not long after
he returned home, with the pair marrying soon after. He even found steady work as a high duk himself. Before long, however, Pavel's secret past eventually caught up with him, having grown increasingly frustrated with her husband's frequent bouts of melancholia. His wife eventually confronted him about it, demanding that he tell her what it was that grieved him so, and so he did. It happened while he was stationed in a small town in the vilayette of Kosovo, though he was
a little hazy on the details. At some point he apparently began receiving nightly visits in his quarters from something undead. Taking the advice of a local, Parvell sought out the body of the creature, which he found in a local cemetery, drove a stake through its chest and cut off its head. Afterwards, Parvell dipped his fingers into the wounds, wetted them with the creature's blood, and then smeared his face and body
with it. Next, he grabbed a handful of dirt from the grave and threw it into his mouth, gagging and choking as he swallowed it down. Taking some flint, iron and tinder from his pocket, he set fire to the coffin, then stood back and watched the blood smeared across his face, glistening in the flames as the body burned to ash. Not long after telling this story to his shocked wife, Arnauld Parvel died, breaking his neck after falling from a
hay wagon. It was around twenty days later in mid Major, as dusk was descending, that a villager out working in the fields saw a man ambling about in the distance who they recognized as Parvel. By the following week, many others believed they'd seen him two, including four villagers in total, who claimed that the long dead Parvel had even broken into their homes and strangled them as they slept. All four of those villagers were alleged to have then died
themselves only a few days later. When news of Parvel's bizarre experiences in the villayette of Kosovo came to light, it was clear to all what had happened. The man had been tormented by a vampire, and now he was a vampire too. Without delay, a small task force was sent to Parvel's grave, whereby his coffin was promptly dug up and slid unceremoniously wrenched open inside. Much to everyone's shock, they found Parvell's body virtually unblemished by decomposition, despite having
been in the earth for more than forty days. Perhaps even more disturbing were the rivulets of seemingly fresh blood that was flowing from his mouth, nose, eyes, and ears. Then one of the men present pointed with horror to the deceased's hands. Although his old nails had dried and peeled off, a set of fresh nails appeared to be
growing underneath. Terrified that Pavel might wake up any moment and attack them, a stake was swiftly hammered into his chest, which it is said, drew a blood curdling wail from the supposedly dead man's lips and caused rivers of blood to gush out from the wound. One of the men drew his sword from its hilt and cut off Pavel's head. What makes a Murderer's Mind tick? Killer Psyche is a true crime podcast from Wandry that explores these types of
questions about the crimes that killers and criminals commit. Killer Psyche covers high profile cases that shocked the world, and host Candy Stlong uses her five decades of experience as a clinical psychiatric nurse and FBI criminal profiler to dissect the motivations and behaviors of the most terrifying felons in history. And you'll definitely want to listen to a recent episode of Killer Psyche where Candice looks into the mysterious murder
of Ted Ammon, a wealthy Wall Street financier. Ted had been going through a divorce with his wife of thirteen years, Jenna Rosa, and child custody and millions in assets were at stake. Jenna Rosa and her new boyfriend Danny Pelosi were the prime suspects, but Generosa died of cancer before police could prove her involvement. In twenty oz four, Danny was convicted of second degree murder, but still maintains its innocence. How does hatred drive a person to murder the father
of their children? Listen to Kill a Psyche on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or you can listen to one week ad free by joining Wandry Plus in the Wandry app Convinced more than ever that they were in the midst of a vampire plague, the task Force then ordered the immediate exhumation of all four of Parvel's apparent victims, each of which was treated in the same manner as the former soldier, before all five bodies were thrown, along with their heads,
onto a fire and burn to ash. As the captain telling this story, then went on to explain to Glassa they'd seen nothing like it in the four years since until the dead livestock began turning up in the fields, and then he knew the thing was back. Glassa thanked the captain for his help, but, not being one for superstition, took his words with a pinch of salt as he made his way to the home of the latest apparent
victim of the illness. After examining the first body, Glassa found no sign of any obvious infection and concluded the individual had simply died of malnutrition. To make a more thorough assessment, however, he had little choice but to examine the other bodies. The first was Melitza, a woman said to be sixty years old, who died ninety days previously, having been suffering from the mystery illness for a good three months. Doctor Glassa stood over her coffin, holding a
handkerchief to his nose. As the captain and his men wrenched off the lid. Things could be seen wriggling about at the bottom as a foul, putrid stench filled the air. But as the smell dissipated, the men's eyes widened in horror at the sight of Melitza's relatively well preserved body inside. What was strangest, however, was that she now appeared to be twice as big as she was before, as if
she had somehow been gorging herself all that time. Filling doctor Glasser in on the details, the men recounted how Melitza had emigrated to the village about six years before from somewhere south in Ottoman controlled lands, and had been well liked by everyone. Then another of the men cut in, remembering a story he'd heard about the woman, how she was said to have once eaten the meat from two sheep back in her homeland, which she later discovered had
been killed by a vampire. Doctor Glassa frowned under his handkerchief, then waved for the men to place the lid back on the coffin. The second body Glasser was taken to was that of a woman named Stana, who died two months before at the age of twenty, having given birth to a child who died almost immediately after. Stana then
herself fell ill and died three days later. Examining her body, Glasser was surprised to find, just like in the tail of Arnold parvel that although most of her body was in keeping with that of a two month old corpse, her hands appeared to have recently grown nails and fresh skin. Then, after making a quick incision into her chest, the doctor gasped at the sight of fresh blood oozing out from
her veins. Staner, he was told, had also emigrated to the village from somewhere in Ottoman controlled territory, where it was said that she once claimed to have smeared vampire
blood on herself as a protection from local vampires. After examining the rest of the apparent victims, doctor Glasser couldn't escape the fact that something very peculiar was taking place, with each body either strangely undecomposed or exhibiting unusual conditions unlike anything he expected to find in long dead bodies.
As fears grew that another vampire plague was upon them, many in the village demanded that the bodies be destroyed in the traditional manner, Realizing the power that such superstition could hold over a rural community. On December twelfth, seventeen thirty one, Glasser compiled his report accordingly, recommending that the apparent vampires be executed as soon as possible in order to grant permission for the executions. However, a second expert
was dispatched to the town to verify Glass's findings. Doctor Flukinger arrived in early January seventeen thirty two, only to find that a further seven people had by then succumbed to the apparent vampire plague. After conducting his own autopsy on the bodies, a greatly disturbed fluking A wasted little time in signing off the previous doctor's unusual request. One of the more recently deceased was reported to be a twenty year old woman called Stanoika, As it was explained
to Flukinger, have been perfectly healthy. A month before, the woman had woken up screaming in the middle of the night, claiming she was being strangled by a man named Milo, who died nine weeks before. Over the next few days, the woman complained of a great pain in her chest that steadily intensified until three days after the apparent attack, when she died. As Flukinger wrote in his own report on the matter, Stanoika died after a three day illness
and had been buried eighteen days previously. In the dissection, I found that she was in her countenance quite red and of a vivid color, and as was mentioned above, she had been throttled at midnight by Milo, the son of a high Duke. And there was also to be seen on the right side under the ear a bloodshot blue mark the length of a finger. As she was being taken out of the grave, a quantity of fresh
blood flowed from her nose. With the dissection I found, as mentioned often already a regular, fragrant fresh bleeding, not only in the chest cavity, but also in the ventriculo cordice. The hypodermis of the entire body, along with the fresh nails of hands and feet, was as though completely fresh. His report ended with the following declaration. After the examination had taken place, the heads of the vampires were cut off by the local gypsies and burned along with the bodies,
and then the ashes were thrown into the river. The undersigned a test herewith that all we have observed in the matter of vampires is in every way truthful, and has been undertaken, observed, and examined in our own presence. If you enjoy unexplained and would like to help support us. You can now do so via Patreon to receive access to add free episodes, just go to Patron dot com
Forward Slash Unexplained Pod to sign up. Unexplained, the book and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never before been covered on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, among other bookstores. All elements of Unexplained, including the show's music, are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast