Naturally, the students went looking for the vampire. As the story goes, the students came upon the Plain Meeting House Baptist Church and cemetery in West Greenwich, the town located between Coventry and Exeter. They never made it as far as the Chestnut Hill Baptist Church cemetery where Mercy is buried. As they pulled up to the diminutive Plain Meeting House, with its windows ominously shuttered, they could see, dimly lit by the headlights, the beckoning stone pillars of the cemetery's entrance. It didn't take long for the flashlight beam to hit upon the gravestone that was just to the right of the dirt road, only a few meters in from the entrance. The students let out a spontaneous gasp/scream when the light fixed on the inscription at the bottom of the gravestone. As they read aloud, "I Am Waiting and Watching For You," Nellie's fate was sealed. Since then, the story of Nellie the vampire has spread, ever evolving, despite the fact that her stone is no longer there. Indeed, the missing stone actually seems to have fueled the legend, adding to its mystery.

Text © Dr. Michael Bell