The London Vampire Panic

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Speaker 15 The mob is growing larger by the minute.

Speaker 17 More dangerous, too.

Speaker 19 You stand your ground, but secretly, you're terrified.

Speaker 10 You and your men are woefully outnumbered by this crowd of lunatics.

Speaker 17 Suddenly, as though reading your mind, the mob surges forward.

Speaker 13 A wild-eyed man wielding a wooden stake is heading straight for you.

Speaker 21 You tackle him, pinning him to the ground with your baton, but you can't stop the rest of them.

Speaker 30 Dozens of people are already swarming past you, scaling the high fence surrounding the graveyard.

Speaker 21 This is madness, you tell yourself.

Speaker 33 These people have been whipped into a frenzy over something that can't possibly be true.

Speaker 12 Surely they don't believe the rumors.

Speaker 16 Or do they?

Speaker 19 You look into the eyes of the man under your baton.

Speaker 32 And there you find your answer.

Speaker 36 He absolutely believes in.

Speaker 35 All of these people do, with every fiber of their being.

Speaker 33 And in that moment, A horrifying thought occurs to you, taking root in your mind.

Speaker 18 What if these people aren't crazy at all?

Speaker 39 What if they're right?

Speaker 40 What if there actually is a vampire in Highgate Cemetery?

Speaker 42 It's the night of December 21st, 1969.

Speaker 44 In North London, the historic Highgate Cemetery sits dark and completely silent.

Speaker 46 It'll be months before hysteria grips the city as the public becomes aware of what's really happening here.

Speaker 37 So tonight, there's no mob.

Speaker 7 In fact, there's only one living soul on the premises, a young man named David Ferrend.

Speaker 18 Walking among the century-old headstones and Gothic mausoleums, Ferrend struggles to keep warm.

Speaker 48 His teeth begin to chatter.

Speaker 42 He zips his heavy coat all the way up to his chin, but Ferrend has no plans to leave the cemetery before dawn.

Speaker 50 Not until he catches sight of the apparition.

Speaker 34 Ferrent is the owner of a tobacco shop.

Speaker 51 But his true passion lies in the paranormal.

Speaker 37 A self-described Wiccan priest, Ferrent founded the British Psychological and Occult Society two years prior.

Speaker 27 The society hasn't had much to investigate since its formation.

Speaker 25 Well, until tonight.

Speaker 49 In recent weeks, Ferrent Society has received an inexplicable surge in attention.

Speaker 10 Multiple people from the community have come out of the woodwork with stories about strange happenings.

Speaker 41 in and around Highgate Cemetery.

Speaker 50 The first to approach Ferent is a middle-aged accountant, a well-respected professional in the community, and certainly not the type to believe in mystical nonsense.

Speaker 59 He explains to Ferent that on his way home late one evening, he had cut through the graveyard and gotten lost.

Speaker 34 As he made his way through the cemetery's winding overgrown pathways, he heard a clanging bell.

Speaker 37 The accountant followed the noise, hoping it would lead him to a recognizable landmark.

Speaker 12 Yet instead, he felt the chill descend, and suddenly, floating before him was a seven-foot-tall figure, shrouded in darkness.

Speaker 10 The accountant tried to move, but discovered that he couldn't.

Speaker 51 He was rooted to the spot.

Speaker 44 A moment later, the figure disappeared into the night.

Speaker 42 The accountant gradually recovered his mobility, but he was left feeling drained, sapped of his energy.

Speaker 58 Ferenc is intrigued by the accountant's claim, but doesn't see the need to take action.

Speaker 18 Well, that is, until a second person comes to him and reports a strikingly similar encounter.

Speaker 28 This time, the witness is an elderly woman.

Speaker 9 She tells Ferron how she'd been out walking her dog when she too felt the temperature drop.

Speaker 9 Next thing she knew, a floating shape was drifting towards her through the mist.

Speaker 42 The woman describes the creature as tall with glowing eyes.

Speaker 55 These two independent accounts are too similar for Farron to ignore, and so he decides to spend a night in the cemetery and see for himself.

Speaker 13 Tonight is that night.

Speaker 37 As Farron walks down Swain's Lane, the street separating the two main plots of the cemetery, he's doubtful that he'll actually see anything.

Speaker 17 By nature, he's a skeptical person.

Speaker 50 and believes the two witnesses probably just saw someone in a costume or perhaps let their imaginations get away from them.

Speaker 37 Hours pass.

Speaker 49 Farron sneaks about, investigating the farthest reaches of the expansive graveyard.

Speaker 54 But as he looks, he sees nothing out of the ordinary.

Speaker 64 Then, around midnight, he suddenly feels the already frigid air grow even colder.

Speaker 38 A sensation he'll later describe as walking into a refrigerator.

Speaker 37 His eyes dart around frantically, scanning the darkness.

Speaker 63 At last, his gaze lands on the creature.

Speaker 30 It isn't similar to how the accountant and old woman described it.

Speaker 64 It's exactly as they described it.

Speaker 25 The gray shape looms seven feet tall and floats in midair.

Speaker 27 Its eyes are two points of hellish red light.

Speaker 65 but the rest of its face is indistinct.

Speaker 59 Just as the witnesses foretold, Farron feels rooted to the spot, frozen in place.

Speaker 57 Realizing that he's under a psychic attack, Farron murmurs a Kabbalistic prayer, hoping it'll ward off evil.

Speaker 36 And immediately after, the figure promptly vanishes into the night.

Speaker 15 Now, left standing alone again in the cemetery, slowly thawing out of his frozen state, Farron knows the time for skepticism is over.

Speaker 64 He has seen enough.

Speaker 16 The stories are true, and the public needs to know what's happening here.

Speaker 67 Weeks later, early February.

Speaker 55 It's a slow news day at the offices of the Hampstead and Highgate Express, a North London weekly newspaper known as the Ham in High.

Speaker 28 The dreary clack of typewriter keys fills the air. as staff members prepare the next issue for publication.

Speaker 15 But then the incoming mail arrives.

Speaker 27 An editor comes across a letter that's too outrageous not to share with his colleagues.

Speaker 33 It's from a local man claiming to have seen an apparition in Highgate Cemetery.

Speaker 52 The staff figures that it must be a prank, but they decide to publish it anyway.

Speaker 12 The letter gave them a good laugh after all, so why not give their readers something to chuckle about as well?

Speaker 39 What's really the harm in that?

Speaker 54 And so, on February 6th, 1970, David Ferrin's letter appears in The Ham in High.

Speaker 28 In it, he describes three occasions where a ghost-like figure was seen inside the gates at the top of Swain's Lane.

Speaker 49 Each encounter was brief, but Ferrin can't think of any other explanation besides a supernatural one.

Speaker 34 His letter admits that he knows very little about apparitions, which is why he's querying the readers, asking if anyone has had similar experiences.

Speaker 49 The Ham and High staff expect to receive some fun, light-hearted letters from readers responding to Ferrin's piece.

Speaker 46 but that's not at all what happens.

Speaker 28 They receive response letters, all right,

Speaker 19 but these letters are deadly serious

Speaker 12 across North London.

Speaker 43 Residents are actually corroborating Ferrant's claims, and people are now coming forward with similar experiences and Highgate Cemetery.

Speaker 63 The joke, it seems, is on the ham and high

Speaker 23 because the community certainly isn't laughing at David Ferrent.

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Speaker 36 The most prominent of the response letters received by the Hammond High comes from a self-styled exorcist named Sean Manchester, the president of the British Occult Society.

Speaker 4 Not to be confused with Ference British Psychological and Occult Society.

Speaker 47 Manchester is a bishop of the Old Catholic Church, which is a conservative splinter group of Catholicism.

Speaker 28 He also has a keen interest in the supernatural.

Speaker 41 He writes in and reports that not only does he believe the hauntings in Highgate Cemetery, but he knows what's causing these occurrences in the first place.

Speaker 58 In fact, he's been tracking supernatural encounters of this nature for years.

Speaker 54 It's a bold claim.

Speaker 66 Too bold to ignore.

Speaker 12 And so, the very next week, the Hammond High hits news stance with the headline, Does a Vampire Walk in Highgate?

Speaker 31 splashed across the front page.

Speaker 28 North London is immediately gremped with curiosity, not only about the vampire, but about the two masters of the occult who were hunting this creature, David Ferrend and Sean Manchester.

Speaker 15 The two men are complete opposites.

Speaker 34 and this only adds fuel to the media frenzy.

Speaker 29 Ferrent is soft-spoken and not very charismatic in interviews.

Speaker 55 For a man claiming to have seen a supernatural creature in a graveyard, he exhibits an astonishing amount of restraint and reason.

Speaker 42 His story doesn't change, and he takes great care to remind reporters that the creature he saw was not necessarily a vampire.

Speaker 30 He pleads caution to the press.

Speaker 54 Ferrend comes across as a concerned citizen who isn't seeking attention.

Speaker 31 He truly witnessed an inexplicable event in a graveyard and believes Londoners should should be aware.

Speaker 15 Sean Manchester, on the other hand, is a force of nature.

Speaker 26 He's tall and dons Catholic bishop garments wherever he goes.

Speaker 56 Wear fair and preserved, Manchester is bombastic.

Speaker 36 In his interview with the Hammond High, Manchester doesn't hesitate to make evidence-free pronouncement that the creature in Highgate Cemetery is a king vampire of the undead.

Speaker 46 an ancient nobleman from Wallachia who had risen from the grave.

Speaker 65 Moreover, Manchester claims to have numerous eyewitnesses to back up his theory with accounts going back to 1965.

Speaker 51 According to Manchester, a schoolgirl named Elizabeth Wachdilla had reported to him that she was walking down Swain's Lane when she saw the tall figure in the graveyard.

Speaker 32 In the weeks afterward, she began having nightmares.

Speaker 60 She fell ill.

Speaker 2 and believing she was fighting against an evil presence, she contacted Manchester for help.

Speaker 28 When Manchester examined her, he found two puncture marks on her neck, the telltale sign of a vampire attack.

Speaker 9 He immediately spread garlic around Elizabeth's apartment and placed strategic crucifixes to ward off evil.

Speaker 67 Within days, her symptoms were gone, and she had effectively been saved from corruption.

Speaker 38 And

Speaker 35 as it turns out, Elizabeth's tale is hardly the only one Manchester claims to have been involved with.

Speaker 67 He tells reporters that another young lady was also affected by the corruption at Highgate.

Speaker 66 This girl named Jacqueline awoke one night in her bed to feel something cold and strong clutching her hand.

Speaker 24 She pulled and tugged, but the thing kept its iron grip on her.

Speaker 24 After a long struggle, she was able to wrench it free, and by the next morning, she awakened in her bed with deep, unexplained slices in the skin of her hand.

Speaker 8 Manchester says that from that day onward, Jacqueline had found herself afflicted with a strange compulsion.

Speaker 12 She felt drawn to Highgate Cemetery, as though something dark and powerful was beckoning her to go there, specifically to the western side of the graveyard.

Speaker 66 He theorizes that the Highgate vampire is the one responsible.

Speaker 12 Reporters aren't quite sure what to make out of these claims, but they do know one thing for certain.

Speaker 66 They've hit absolute pay dirt with Ferrend and Manchester.

Speaker 15 It's as though the two men are an odd couple designed in a laboratory to sell newspapers.

Speaker 7 And so, local news outlets continue interviewing both Ferrend and Manchester, with each of them giving alternate theories about the mysterious events at Highgate Cemetery.

Speaker 64 Ferron mentions to reporters that he's found corpses of foxes littered around the graveyard.

Speaker 47 It's unclear what killed them, and perhaps that has something to do with the hauntings in their cemetery.

Speaker 6 The reporter asks him if it's possible the perpetrator could have been a vampire.

Speaker 34 Ferret runs a hand through his wild hair and grimaces.

Speaker 17 He acknowledges that it is indeed possible, but it isn't his main theory.

Speaker 18 Naturally, the reporters go straight to Sean Manchester next.

Speaker 8 They ask him if he too has seen the foxes.

Speaker 64 Manchester replies that he has indeed, and that by all appearances, they'd been drained of their blood.

Speaker 39 Likely food for the king vampire.

Speaker 8 The Hammond High publishes yet another article on the case, this time titled, Why Do the Foxes Die?, detailing Ferrin's story about dead foxes as well as Manchester's theory.

Speaker 21 At his home, Ferrin reads the article with a clenched jaw.

Speaker 79 He's growing annoyed with this Sean Manchester character.

Speaker 34 and he doesn't appreciate that he's becoming associated with him in this way.

Speaker 54 What's clear to Ferrin is that Manchester does not fully appreciate the situation.

Speaker 9 Ferrent was actually there.

Speaker 19 He felt the temperature drop with his own skin.

Speaker 2 He witnessed the creature with his own eyes.

Speaker 18 He felt the creature's power.

Speaker 52 Ferrend knows that the Highgate vampire discovery is the most important work he's ever done and will ever do in his life.

Speaker 51 Meanwhile, Sean Manchester is turning it into a circus sideshow.

Speaker 61 Farron glances back down at the newspaper in his hands, and only then does he realize that he's been clutching the page with fists so tight that the paper is torn.

Speaker 63 He relaxes his hands, trying to put thoughts of the article out of his mind, but he can't do it.

Speaker 19 And at last, Farron reaches an inescapable conclusion.

Speaker 51 Something needs to be done about Sean Manchester.

Speaker 34 On Friday, March 13th, David Farron shows up again to Highgate Cemetery.

Speaker 55 Unlike his previous visits to the graveyard, this one's taking place in broad daylight.

Speaker 23 This time, he's not alone either.

Speaker 42 A TV crew is setting up their cameras and microphones outside the cemetery gates when he arrives.

Speaker 47 The public broadcaster ITV had invited Ferrend to give an interview and lend his expertise on camera.

Speaker 58 The prospect of appearing on the BBC is anxiety-inducing for Ferrent, but it's too late for him to back out now.

Speaker 63 The host of the program, Sandra Harris, has already spotted him through the crowd.

Speaker 53 She's striding his way with her arm extended towards Ferrend for a handshake.

Speaker 25 And so he takes a deep breath and proceeds to greet her.

Speaker 15 Sandra shows him where to stand, when suddenly there's a commotion among the crew nearby.

Speaker 19 Ferron whips his head over and sees a cameraman in clear distress. The man clutches at his throat, his face going pale, yet there's nothing around his neck.

Speaker 56 No visible source of an attack at all.

Speaker 25 Ferron freezes, shocked by what he's witnessing.

Speaker 27 Several other crew members rush over just in time to catch the distressed cameraman as he falls.

Speaker 49 The onset EMT quickly disappears, and the man is loaded onto a stretcher and carried away.

Speaker 49 David Ferrin looks over at his interviewer, Sandra Harris, and she's visibly shaken, but quickly composes herself.

Speaker 43 She tells Ferrin that they'll begin as soon as they can bring in a new cameraman, and then she hurries away.

Speaker 34 Ferret reminds himself that this is why it's so important for him to do this interview.

Speaker 43 It doesn't matter how camera-shy he might be.

Speaker 16 There are dark forces at play here in Highgate Cemetery, and they're a clear threat to the community.

Speaker 52 Determined, Ferrin steals himself.

Speaker 23 Eventually, a new cameraman arrives.

Speaker 10 Sandra Sandra and Ferrant are just about to begin when they're interrupted by yet another commotion among the crew.

Speaker 67 Ferrin fears it's another supernatural attack, but this time the shouts are shouts of excitement.

Speaker 63 The crew has noticed something. Ferrin follows their gaze and his heart sinks.

Speaker 27 Evidently, He wasn't the only supernatural expert who ITV was going to talk to today.

Speaker 18 A tall man wearing bishop's robes strides their way, way, and he's immediately swarmed by the crew and onlookers.

Speaker 25 The man is Sean Manchester.

Speaker 16 He's carrying a briefcase, which he hoists high and declares to be a vampire hunter's kit, essential for any would-be slayer of demons.

Speaker 47 Ferent, understandably, rolls his eyes, feeling his face turn red at being forced to share airtime with this loony.

Speaker 47 He had spent hours of time carefully researching and investigating, only to have a man in a bishop's costume swoop in as if he were the true authority.

Speaker 57 When the interview finally commences, Ferron speaks in his usual unassuming manner, doing his best to inform the public of the facts.

Speaker 13 He takes caution not to refer to the entity as a vampire, but rather a spirit that might have been awakened by recent Satanist activity.

Speaker 15 Sean Manchester, on the other hand, has no such reservation.

Speaker 27 He boldly declares that he knows what should be done.

Speaker 6 He claims that this very night, on Friday the 13th, he and David Ferrent will return to the cemetery, hunt down the vampire, and slay it.

Speaker 47 When asked how they'll do that, Manchester simply replies that he'll first drive a stake through its heart with one blow, chop off its head with a gravedigger's shovel, then burn what remains.

Speaker 43 The interviews air that evening, and the promise of a vampire hunt is enough to draw a ground.

Speaker 20 Dozens of people from North London and beyond show up for what is sure to be a night to remember.

Speaker 58 Farron gets wind of this impromptu gathering shortly after the broadcast airs while drinking at a local pub.

Speaker 22 There, he's approached by a man who's about his own age, who introduces himself as Alan Blood, a teacher from Chelmsford, a city over 20 miles away.

Speaker 20 Blood, a self-proclaimed vampire expert, said that he saw the ITV report and immediately brought a handful of students down to join in on the vampire hunt.

Speaker 61 Farron sighs and explains that there aren't favorable conditions to conduct a psychic investigation tonight, as the cemetery will soon be overrun with thrill seekers and hoodlums.

Speaker 68 The teacher agrees on principle.

Speaker 58 but he and his students still decide to take part in the search, just in case.

Speaker 25 Farron Farron wishes them good luck, but elects to stay behind, still seething that Sean Manchester has gotten his good name mixed up in all of this hysteria.

Speaker 18 Highgate Cemetery is closed in the evenings, but that doesn't stop roughly 100 people from showing up with stakes, crucifixes, and beer cans, eager to take part in the hunt that night.

Speaker 64 The locked gates do little to deter them.

Speaker 49 They surge over the walls, climbing defenses, and rush inside to hunt the creature.

Speaker 15 Police cars roll up and dozens of constables charge in, trying to keep the public at bay.

Speaker 33 At least 40 officers are there, blowing on their whistles and shouting at the top of their lungs.

Speaker 18 They restrain some of the public, but there are simply too many to be held back.

Speaker 36 Naturally, Sean Manchester is there, soaking up the attention.

Speaker 29 With a glint in his eye, he watches the chaos unfold from the sidelines.

Speaker 49 Finally, once the police have their hands completely full, he makes his move.

Speaker 28 With a nod to a handful of his disciples nearby, their group scales a fence and slips off into a deserted part of the cemetery.

Speaker 23 The western side, the part which sleepwalkers like Jacqueline had found alluring.

Speaker 12 Unlike the mob, Manchester knows precisely where he'll find the vampire.

Speaker 67 He quickly refers to a photo in his pocket.

Speaker 56 This picture was given to him by a young woman named Louisa, who claimed to have a similar supernatural experience to Jacqueline's.

Speaker 55 In Luisa's case, she was drawn to a specific sepulchre on the western edge of the cemetery.

Speaker 68 The photograph in Manchester's pocket identifies the exact tomb that beckoned to her.

Speaker 62 When Manchester locates the sepulcher, he finds it shut and locked.

Speaker 67 But that doesn't deter the stalwart vampire hunter.

Speaker 22 The cemetery is poorly maintained, ravaged by the unfeeling hand of time.

Speaker 2 Manchester examines the catacomb and notices that the roof is somewhat fallen in.

Speaker 8 He climbs up the side.

Speaker 36 Then he and his disciples lower themselves down by ropes.

Speaker 68 It's dingy and dark inside.

Speaker 26 The only way they can see is by the dim beams from their electric flashlights.

Speaker 7 Fumbling around, Eventually they find a large black coffin that feels somewhat out of place in this Victorian catacomb.

Speaker 75 Together, Manchester and his cohort take out their weapons and heave the lid off the casket, ready to stake the beast in its heart.

Speaker 80 The lid falls off the coffin and lands with a bang on the floor.

Speaker 36 The group lets out a collective gasp at what they find.

Speaker 61 The box is empty.

Speaker 49 Whatever soul was housed here, had escaped.

Speaker 23 Manchester and the others anoint the coffin with garlic and holy water, hoping that with no home to return to, that the hauntings just might cease.

Speaker 45 Once they've left the cemetery, Manchester alerts the press to his daring encounter.

Speaker 15 He tells reporters that although he and his followers didn't stink the vampire, they have hindered the beast for now.

Speaker 23 Only time will tell whether this monster ever shows its face again.

Speaker 18 Months go by, and it looks as though the vampire frenzy might finally be dying away.

Speaker 68 But now, the phone rings at a North London police station.

Speaker 21 A constable answers.

Speaker 7 The voice on the other end sounds young.

Speaker 68 It's a schoolgirl who says that she and her friends just walked across something in Highgate Cemetery.

Speaker 47 Something disturbing.

Speaker 23 What the girl describes sounds so improbable that the constable isn't sure he heard her right.

Speaker 58 And so he decides to go check himself, just to be sure.

Speaker 49 The police officer assures himself that these school children probably just happened across a dead fox and got spooked.

Speaker 29 After all, the Highgate Cemetery seemed to be sparking a lot of wild claims these days.

Speaker 15 But strangely, as soon as the constable enters the cemetery, he stops cold.

Speaker 23 The schoolgirl was telling the truth.

Speaker 12 There, lying on the path directly in front of him in broad daylight, is a body.

Speaker 12 It's not a fox or any other common urban pest.

Speaker 68 It's no apparition either.

Speaker 20 It's an actual human corpse, burned black beyond all recognition.

Speaker 61 And for some reason, this body is missing its head.

Speaker 21 More police arrive.

Speaker 61 They rope off the scene.

Speaker 15 Forensic specialists determine that it's the body of a woman. and that it was no homicide.

Speaker 20 This woman had been dead for quite some time.

Speaker 2 It seems that someone unearthed the body from the graveyard and did exactly what Manchester said should be done to a vampire.

Speaker 29 This corpse has been stanked, beheaded, and burnt.

Speaker 21 The constable is incredulous.

Speaker 29 This vampire nonsense has gotten out of hand.

Speaker 10 The acts of trespass and mild vandalism had been bad enough, but this was entirely too far.

Speaker 68 The media frenzy has all led up to this.

Speaker 67 Actual desecration of the dead.

Speaker 13 The police step up their presence around Highgate Cemetery, and it isn't long before they catch the next uninvited guests.

Speaker 54 Less than three weeks later, on the 17th of August, 1970, the police hear noises from within the cemetery.

Speaker 51 They're not quite sure what's going on, but it sounds like a whole group of people.

Speaker 23 They blow their whistles and rush in, sweeping their flashlights across the gravestones.

Speaker 45 And up ahead, they hear footsteps.

Speaker 42 The sound of people fleeing.

Speaker 18 Objects clatter and the trespassers try to scuttle away.

Speaker 7 But for one of them, it's already too late.

Speaker 29 The London police are able to corner a young man with wild hair and thick sideburns, carrying only a wooden stank and a cross.

Speaker 2 The cops arrest him on the spot.

Speaker 12 And as they're handcuffing him, they actually recognize him.

Speaker 15 They've seen his face in the paper several times over the last few months.

Speaker 75 The trespasser, as it turns out, is David Ferret.

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Speaker 47 In September of 1970, David Ferrent appears before the court.

Speaker 6 He's confident that he had committed no crime and insists that the police had it out for him.

Speaker 67 He and members of the British Psychological and Occult Society had assembled in Highgate Cemetery in order to conduct a Wiccan ritual which would banish the evil spirit from Highgate for good.

Speaker 55 However, he keeps this explanation to himself.

Speaker 2 He knows the nuance of pagan and Satanism would be lost on the court.

Speaker 33 And instead, he defers to his lawyer to mount a defense.

Speaker 75 After a brief trial, the charges against Ferrent are dismissed.

Speaker 44 The court rules that since Highgate Cemetery is not technically an enclosed space.

Speaker 18 Ferrent can't be guilty of trespassing.

Speaker 23 There is no proof that Ferrent had any intent to interfere with the graves themselves.

Speaker 15 And so the matter was settled.

Speaker 29 Well, at least, it should have been.

Speaker 49 Despite his close encounter with the law, David Ferrend has every intention of continuing his activities.

Speaker 2 However, some members of his society begin to suspect that Ferrend isn't as interested in rooting out the mystical forces of darkness as he is in taking down his human foe, Sean Manchester.

Speaker 54 Though Ferrend and Manchester had nominally worked together in the early spring of 1970, their alliance was tenuous at best.

Speaker 47 Ferrend has never cared for Manchester's bluster, and Manchester's disdainful of Ferrent's wicked beliefs.

Speaker 9 Both men carry out their own hunts, Manchester for the vampire.

Speaker 67 and Ferrent for rogue Satanists.

Speaker 68 And it's here where they begin deriding each other in the press.

Speaker 45 In 1974, David Ferrend is arrested again.

Speaker 31 This time, the police claimed that Ferrend had defaced the graves of the dead and conducted ungodly ceremonies therein.

Speaker 67 The evidence presented includes pictures of satanic symbols drawn on the floor of a mausoleum, pictures of a headless corpse in a car, as well as scandalous photographs of naked women in coffins.

Speaker 59 Moreover, someone's been sending voodoo don'ts and taunting messages to police officers.

Speaker 67 Farron blames the vandalism on Satanists and claims that the naked women were symbols of purity as part of innocent Wiccan rituals.

Speaker 61 But the damage was already done.

Speaker 69 With all the hysteria in the air, the jury finds Farron guilty of defacing the graves and the court sentences him to five years in prison.

Speaker 80 Throughout the trial and the decades following, Farron maintains his innocence, but does eventually admit that he was the one who sent voodoo dolls to the police.

Speaker 2 He only ends up serving two years and eight months, but his time behind bars does little to quell his feud with Manchester.

Speaker 67 In 1978, shortly after Ferrin's release, flyers appear in London's underground stations, advertising the most outlandish escalation yet: a wizard's duel between David Ferrend and Sean Manchester.

Speaker 13 It's not the first time the two occultists have threatened a duel.

Speaker 77 Similar threats were hurled five years prior in 1973.

Speaker 35 Now, though, it seems like one might actually happen, and the public holds its collective breath.

Speaker 20 Ultimately, it's unclear whether the Wizards' Duel ever came to pass, at least with wands or swords.

Speaker 15 However, their public feud sees a dramatic escalation around this time and is, is, in reality, fawn with the pen.

Speaker 2 In 1985, Sean Manchester self-publishes a book entitled The Highgate Vampire.

Speaker 4 In it, he takes credit for killing the vampire with a wooden stake after the creature took the form of a massive spider.

Speaker 38 His book also takes aim at Farron's personal life.

Speaker 75 He claims that at the time of the first sightings, David Ferrin's wife had just left him for a different occultist.

Speaker 27 So Farron was in a bad place in life when his fixation began.

Speaker 55 Unsurprisingly, Ferrin takes issue with Sean Manchester's account, and so he publishes his own book, Beyond the Highgate Vampire, which disputes claims that there ever was a vampire in the graveyard, going forth to insinuate that Sean Manchester's previous account was chalk full of lies and embellishments.

Speaker 42 Ferrin and Manchester's feud far outlives the Highgate vampire mania.

Speaker 40 Manchester runs a blog for years where he often took swipes at Ferent, calling him a charlatan and a trend chaser.

Speaker 15 Ferent himself created a webcomic called The Adventures of Bishop Bonkers, clearly ridiculing Manchester.

Speaker 18 As the decades wore on, Manchester became bored of talking about the Highgate vampire.

Speaker 42 He retires from the media in 2013.

Speaker 53 but re-emerges for one occasion.

Speaker 39 To comment on the death of David Ferenc in 2019.

Speaker 30 Here, he claims that he wished to finally bury the Hatchet, but Della Ference, David's widow, refuses to accept his condolences.

Speaker 57 With Ference passing, the Highgate Vampire Investigation loses one of its main eyewitnesses, and it begins to seem as though the question may never be answered.

Speaker 80 What exactly was behind the events at Highgate Cemetery around 1970?

Speaker 15 Throughout the investigation, the sightings of the vampire were all relatively consistent, at least until Sean Manchester started expanding upon it.

Speaker 51 Once the media frenzy caught hold, it swiftly became impossible to distinguish real eyewitness testimony from creative license.

Speaker 30 The frenzy surrounding the Highgate vampire is not a unique phenomenon.

Speaker 45 It would seem to share DNA with the satanic panic of the early 1980s, for example.

Speaker 67 But what makes the Highgate vampire so appealing and why the story continues to resurface again and again to this day is the bitter feud that it created.

Speaker 20 A lifelong enmity between two eccentric yet passionate men.

Speaker 69 Whether they liked it or not, it's impossible to untangle the story of the Highgate Vampire from the men who sought to defeat it.

Speaker 76 So maybe it was a vampire that drew so many North Londoners to Highgate Cemetery in the late 1960s and 70s.

Speaker 67 Or perhaps it was a zeitgeist, or simply a legend that spun out of control.

Speaker 12 Whatever it was, though, the haunting was real in one form or another, and it followed both Ferrent and Manchester until the very end.

Speaker 51 Late Nights with Nexpo is created and hosted by me, Nexpo.

Speaker 65 Executive produced by me, Mr.

Speaker 29 Bollin, Nick Witters, and Zach Lovitt.

Speaker 67 Our head of writing is Evan Allen.

Speaker 40 This episode was written by Matt Tiemstra.

Speaker 48 Copy editing by Luke Baratz.

Speaker 55 Audio editing and sound design by Aleister Sherman.

Speaker 49 Mixed and mastered by Schultz Media.

Speaker 36 Research by Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Evan Beamer, and Stacey Wood.

Speaker 58 Fact-checking by Abigail Shumway.

Speaker 29 Production supervision by Jeremy Bone and Cole Locasio.

Speaker 62 Production coordination by Samantha Collins and Avery Siegel.

Speaker 46 Artwork by Jessica Kloxton Kiner and Robin Fane.

Speaker 37 Theme song by Ross Bugden.

Speaker 36 Thank you all so much for listening to Late Nights with Nexpone.

Speaker 31 I love you all, and good night.