How DeathPenaltyUSA.org Helped Debunk A New Orleans Vampire Tale

New Orleans abounds with vampire stories. There’s even one about a pair of men known as the Carter Brothers, who some say were arrested in the 1930s for being serial killers, confessed to being vampires, and were executed. Allegedly their ghosts still haunt the French Quarter to this day. This is the story of how DeathPenaltyUSA.org helped unintentionally debunk that particular tall tale.

The Vampire Episode

In the “Bits and Pieces Bonus Episode” of Haunting American True Crimes, I talked about something I dug up during research for “The Vampire Episode.” Something that made me go, “Hmm…”

It happened when I spotted a story on Yesterday’s America called: “The Forgotten History of Two New Orleans Vampires.”

It was about a police officer in 1932 who spotted an obviously distressed little girl rushing down Royal Street. When he offered assistance she allegedly explained she’d just escaped from a home where she’d been tied up and held captive along with others. The men who held them would cut them and drink their blood. She’d escaped when her ropes hadn’t been re-tied tight enough.

The police officer allegedly followed her to the home, which belonged to the Carter brothers, and he allegedly found four other people in a room tied up to chairs and barely alive, just like the little girl had described.

It was a riveting tale that both got my hopes up and perplexed me. How had I never heard of it before? This didn’t seem like the sort of tale that would be forgotten.

I immediately set to work researching it, prepared to include it in “The Vampire Episode.”

The trouble was, it appeared the reason I likely never heard of it before was because it wasn’t true.

The Devil Is in the Details

There were a lot of details in the story, like the intersection where the Carter brothers’ house of horrors allegedly stood, which was Royal St. and St. Ann.

Other details should’ve helped corroborate the story too. For instance, the names of the serial killers: John and Wayne Carter. Allegedly they confessed to being vampires, needing to drink blood, and warned they’d kill again if released.

It also stated they were tried as serial killers, convicted, and executed. This sort of raised a red flag, but I couldn’t put my finger on it at first. I’ll get to why it troubled me in a second.

Anyway, I pressed on with my research. Because even though the article said it was a forgotten story, it was sensational. You’d think something like this would have definitely hit the papers, but I couldn’t find any mention of anything like it at all.

Which was suspicious. For Haunt Jaunts in general, but especially while researching stories for the Haunting American True Crimes series, one thing that quickly became apparent was that papers love sensational, weird, and wild stories —regardless of the decade. It’s as true now as it was back in 1921.

Had the story of the Carter brother vampires somehow been kept from the press? Perhaps. I gave it the benefit of the doubt and thought about how to research it from another angle.

What about executions? Could I verify men named John Carter and Wayne Carter had been executed in Louisiana? That’s what led me to DeathPenaltyUSA.org.

DeathPenaltyUSA.org’s Execution Index

DeathPenaltyUSA.org has an index of all Louisiana executions from 1911 to 1961.

But the only Carters I could find that had been put to death in Louisiana was a man named Sampson Carter in 1933 and a Herman Carter in 1943.

Maybe Yesterday’s America had the date wrong? Maybe this vampire incident didn’t happen in 1932?

So I checked all of the Louisiana indexes that DeathPenaltyUSA.org had. No men named Carter were executed from 1911 to 1932 either. None appeared on the 1722 to 1875 index either. An Aaron Carter shows up in 1878 on the 1876 to 1910 index.

These were alleged vampires we were talking about. Maybe they’d somehow lived on death row for decades? Maybe when capital punishment resumed in 1976 they were still there?

Nope. No Carter has been executed on death row in Louisiana since Herman in 1943. Unless, of course, DeathPenaltyUSA.org missed one.

Hmm… Curiouser and curiouser. Maybe the name was wrong?

Carson Brothers Not Carter?

Vocal Media’s Horror section recounted the tale of the forgotten New Orleans vampires in a “Vampires in America” article. Except, there were some inconsistencies in their story, including alternating between “Carson” and “Carter” for the brothers’ last names.

Let’s say the year was right but the name was wrong. Were there a pair of Carsons executed sometime after 1932?

Nope.

Both the Yesterday’s America and Vocal articles wrote that the Carter Brothers had been buried in one of the New Orleans cemeteries, but neither stated which one. What was special about the brothers’ interment was that supposedly when their vault was opened after a year to make room to bury someone else, as was the custom in Lousiana (it’s now every two years), allegedly the Carter brothers bones were gone.

The Vocal article also included a plot twist worthy of a vampire horror movie. According to them, one of the Carter brothers’ victims survived and went on to murder over 30 people, which, as they put it, “established him as one of the first serial killers.”

Never mind that this prolific serial killer had no name. Or that the phantom Carter brothers are purported to haunt the French Quarter to this day. Neat trick, considering they never existed.

Serial Killer Snafu

But it was the serial killer thing that finally clued me in as to what was wrong with this story.

Serial killers have always been around, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that the term “serial killer” originated. But even more importantly, why would they have been tried as serial killers? Their victims were only half-dead, not fully dead. There was no mention of anyone finding other bodies.

This was a good lesson in paying attention. It had just enough details to seem legit, but in the end, that’s also what tripped the story up.

Check-In

Did you know there was a site like DeathPenaltyUSA.org?