Locals in Griswold, Connecticut, believed a man who was buried there in the late 18th century was a vampire because of the way his femur bones were placed. But there wasn't much else known about him. DNA data is now showing what he may have looked like after more than 200 years. (And yes, he had human genetics.)
Using DNA extracted from a skull, a forensic artist created a facial reconstruction of a man believed to be a vampire from the 18th century. (Image credit: Parabon Nanolabs, Virginia Commonwealth University)
The Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL), a division of the U.S. Armed Forces Medical Examiner System based in Delaware, and forensic scientists from Parabon NanoLabs, a Virginia-based DNA technology company, came to the conclusion that the deceased male (known as JB55) was about 55 years old at the time of death and had tuberculosis. According to a statement, a forensic artist assessed that JB55 most likely had fair skin, brown or hazel eyes, brown or black hair, and some freckles using 3D facial reconstruction software.
Researchers speculate that the body may have been disinterred and reburied at some time, a technique frequently connected to the idea that someone was a vampire, based on the placement of the legs and skull in the grave. According to the statement, historically, some people believed that persons who passed away from tuberculosis were truly vampires.
According to Ellen Greytak, director of bioinformatics at Parabon NanoLabs and technical head for the company's Snapshot Advanced DNA Analysis branch, "the remains were found with the femur bones removed and crossed over the chest." This would prevent them from moving around and attacking the living, says the speaker.
Forensic investigators first took DNA samples from the man's skeletal remains in order to conduct the analyses. Working with bones that were more than 200 years old, nevertheless, proved difficult.
In particular, if the bones are old, the technology doesn't work well with them, Greytak said. "As bones age, they deteriorate and fragment over time. Additionally, when remains have been exposed to the environment for hundreds of years, the DNA of nearby fungi and bacteria ends up in the sample. We aimed to demonstrate that we could still extract DNA from challenging old samples.
A common practice was to bury suspected vampires with their legs crossed so that way they couldn't rise from the dead. (Image credit: MDPI, Basel, Switzerland)
In conventional genome sequencing, the goal is to sequence every segment of the human genome 30 times, or "30X coverage." Only roughly 2.5X coverage was obtained from the sequencing of JB55's degraded bones.
To add to this, scientists took DNA from a person buried nearby who was thought to be related to JB55. Even worse coverage was produced by those samples, at roughly 0.68X.
They were either first cousins or third-degree relations, according to what Greytak indicated.
In 1990, archaeologists discovered the alleged vampire's remains. In 2019, forensic scientists took his DNA, ran it through an internet genealogy database, and discovered that JB55 was really John Barber, a struggling farmer who most likely passed away from tuberculosis. The epitaph written in brass tacks on his grave, which included his initials and age at death, served as the inspiration for the moniker JB55.
