The methods used to kill the vampire exemplify the variation that is found in all folk traditions. Various combinations of the following measures are found in America’s anti-vampire arsenal: removal and burning of vital organs (particularly the heart), ingesting the ashes (perhaps with other roots or herbs) or wearing them in a box around the neck; burning the entire corpse, sometimes inhaling the smoke; turning the corpse face down and reburying it; searching for and destroying (sometimes by burning), a vine found growing from the corpse or grave; removing the shroud from the mouth of the corpse; and, perhaps (as we shall consider in more detail later), driving a wooden stake through the heart or rearranging the bones of a corpse.

The measure of positioning the legs and head of a corpse into a “skull and crossbones” pattern—which I described in Food for the Dead—needs reexamination. In 1990, I received a phone call from Nick Bellantoni, Connecticut State Archaeologist, who was excavating an unmarked family cemetery in Griswold, Connecticut. Bellantoni said that he was aware of my research on the New England vampire tradition and thought that I might be able to shed some light on one of the burials, which he characterized as “weird.” The complete skeleton of a man, the best preserved of the cemetery, had been buried in a crypt with stone slabs lining the sides and top of the coffin. On the lid of the hexagonal, wooden coffin, an arrangement of brass tacks spelled out “JB-55,” presumably the initials and age at death of this individual. When the grave was opened, J.B.’s skull and thigh bones were found in a “skull and crossbones” pattern on top of his ribs and vertebrae, which were     also rearranged. An examination of J.B.’s skeletal remains by forensic anthropologist Paul Sledzik revealed lesions on J.B.’s ribs, probably the result of tuberculosis.

The best conclusion that Bellantoni, Sledzik, and I could reach was that J.B. had been exhumed to counteract the spread of tuberculosis. At the time, no other interpretation of his unusual postmortem treatment even approached the coherence of the following scenario: An adult male, J.B., died of pulmonary tuberculosis or a similar infection interpreted as consumption by his family. Several years after the burial, one or more of his family members contracted the disease. As a last resort—to spare the lives of the family and stop consumption from spreading into the community—J.B.’s body was exhumed so that his heart could be burned. When his body was unearthed, however, J.B. was found to be in an advanced stage of decomposition. Perhaps his ribs and vertebrae were in disarray as a result of the desperate search for the remains of his heart. Finding no heart, J.B.’s skull and thigh bones were arranged in a “skull and crossbones” pattern, a practice that stretches back to ancient times throughout Europe as means to prevent the dead from returning. But after reading or hearing about my account of J.B., several Freemasons have asked if I considered the possibility that J.B. had been a Mason. My subsequent research into this question shows some intriguing similarities between J.B.’s postmortem treatment and certain burial customs of both the Masons and the Knights Templar.