ST:  Why was it the belief that the vampires would feed upon their own families? I don't seem to have read anything about the community being affected by the suspected vampire. Is this common in all traditions?

MB:  As odd as it seems, in folk traditions throughout the world, vampires (and other revenants--that is, those who return from the realm of the dead) almost invariably attack their own family members first. If not stopped, the revenant will then proceed into the community at large, creating an ever-widening circle of death--which is probably why friends and neighbors often implore the head of an afflicted household to perform the rituals needed to "lay" (destroy or disarm) the vampire/ghost/revenant. An old French proverb says, "Curses are like chickens; they always come home to roost." ST:  In many of the stories of vampirism in New England, it appears that many of the exhumations performed to cure remaining family indeed did not work. Is there any record on how people explained the failure of the ritual?

MB:  Unfortunately, there are no records of any follow-up on the vampire cases--with the exception of the Brown family event. The newspapers show that Edwin, Mercy's brother who was ill when her body was exhumed in March, died in May. But, according to the family story, he was the last in the family to die, so they believed that the ritual "took care of the problem" (Edwin was too far gone to save, they believed).