With
no other hope to save his family, and urged by friends and neighbors
who feared the spreading affliction, Brown turned to a folk remedy.
Under the direction of the medical examiner from Wickford, Dr.
Harold Metcalf, the bodies of Mary Eliza, Mary Olive and Mercy
Lena were uncovered in search of the "vampire" or evil spirit
that inhabited one of the corpses and was draining the life from
the living family members. The mother and eldest daughter were
nothing but skeletons, but Mercy, who had been dead for only two
months, had liquid blood in her heart, which those in attendance
interpreted as "fresh" blood. Despite Dr. Metcalf's assurances
that the condition of Mercy's corpse was unremarkable, attendants
at the scene burned her heart to ashes on a nearby rock. To complete
the cure, Edwin was said to have drunk the ashes in water shortly
thereafter. But he must have been too far gone, for he died two
months later.
Text © Dr. Michael Bell |