The Hearts They Burned: The New England Vampire Panic (New England)

Haunted American History · Aug 1, 2026 · 28m

In 1990, archaeologists uncovered a colonial grave in Connecticut unlike anything they had ever seen. The skeleton had been carefully rearranged—its skull placed atop its ribs and its crossed leg bones forming a macabre skull-and-crossbones. Someone had dug this man up decades after his death, cut open his chest, and burned his heart because they believed he was a vampire. But this wasn't the story of one corpse. It was part of a forgotten epidemic that swept across New England, where grieving families fought an invisible killer with shovels, fire, and desperate hope. Tonight, we uncover the…