August 2, 2002 (The Calgary Herald) - Mathew Hardman's preoccupation with vampirism was chillingly foreshadowed in the months before he killed his 90-year-old neighbour. During talks with a German student on an exchange visit to Llanfairpwll, he betrayed his attraction to the "things of the night." He told her he believed the Anglesey village was "a perfect place for vampires" because there were many elderly people there, and if any of them died after being bitten it would be assumed they had suffered a heart attack.

Hardman, who believed there was a vampire community in the area, also accused the girl of being one herself and asked her to bite him. The distressed girl's cries for help when he pressed his neck against her mouth alerted the landlady where she was staying, and police were called. Disclosures about the ritualistic elements of Mabel Leyshon's murder, including the cross of brass pokers, which senior officers at first withheld, reminded police of Hardman's obsession.

The German student, now 17, left the court in tears and refused to comment after watching from the public gallery. Officers searched Hardman's bedroom, where they found books, magazines and Internet material devoted to vampires. Among the books was Bram Stoker's Dracula, as well as a library book entitled The Devil: An Autobiography. There were also two copies of the weird men's magazine Bizarre, published by James Brown's media empire, featuring articles on how to cook and eat human flesh and conduct a Black Mass. One of them ran a spoof interview with a vampire entitled Cooking with Klaus. It claimed to give advice on how to cook a human being "without spices or ketchup, only plasma and adrenalin."

Hardman told the jury he was introduced to the magazine by a friend and attracted to it by the scantily clad women on the cover. But he said he found its content comical.

Examination of his computer showed he had logged on to Web sites including The Vampire/Donor Alliance and the Vampire Rights Movement. The site claims: "The site exists to serve all who might be part of vampire community: gothic lifestyle vampires and non-lifestyle vampires alike, energy feeders, sanguinarians (drinkers of blood); donors, would-be donors, and other loved ones."

The spoof Vampire Rights Movement Web site explored by Hardman is run by Dr. Hugo Pecos from Albuquerque, N.M., who also describes himself as director emeritus of the Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency.

The Web site places the movement's origins in 1891 when the young painter Lucien Steketee arrived in Paris from a village in his native Brittany.

Described as a friend of Pissaro and Cezanne, and a student of Monet, the tall and handsome artist painted the nightlife of Paris, including the "vampires" of Montmartre. The Web site reports that Steketee painted more than a dozen vampire portraits.

In July 1892, a vampire suggested that Paris's underground catacombs, with their stacks of skulls and bones, would be a more atmospheric backdrop for portraits. Steketee foolishly followed him there and was set upon by a hunting pack.

Two days later, a local vampire patrol discovered Steketee about to sink his teeth into a young woman, the Web site says. Imprisoned, he wrote feverishly in his dim prison cell, advancing "the radical notion that vampires should be treated like the sick people they were, and hospitalized rather than destroyed."

Police regard the Web site as a parody of the vampire genre -- though they admit it influenced Hardman -- and make no call for it to be banned.

The killer, who curiously enjoyed listening to dance music when he was not reading about vampires, claimed in his defence that he had only a "subtle interest" in vampirism and never became obsessed.

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Posted by Vladimir Sun, 03/25/2007 - 20:30

 

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