October 18, 2024 • 11 mins
The New England Vampire Panic bred a new kind of fear in Connecticut pediatrician Hugh Prior, whose attempts to save his wife’s soul led to call on old gods for strange favors.
Written by Izzie Cava
Narrated by Izzie Cava
Composed by Simon Jones
Logo Design by Dana Gee
Instagram: @epilogue_audio
TikTok: @epilogue_audio
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Epilogue, where I tell you folk tales and legends, then fabricate my own counterpart
(00:10):
from those root yarns.
I am that lovable outcast who mixes potions and poisons for soon to be widows, but you
can call me Izzy Cobble.
Today I want you to cast your minds back to just before the turn of the 20th century,
a time when New England was plagued with consumption, or as we know it today, tuberculosis.
(00:34):
I'm sure you all remember that in times of fear and uncertainty, there's no better
moment for imaginations to run wild, as was the case with the New England Vampire Panic.
This flight of fancy disturbed the eternal rest of many such victim, but the one whose
name comes back for us is Mercy Brown of Exeter, Rhode Island.
(00:57):
Mercy's mother and sister were claimed by consumption, and she joined them in the year
1892.
Shortly after Mercy's death, her brother fell out.
Convinced it was the undead spirit of the daughter he lost back for their lives, Mercy's
father went to the mausoleum and opened the caskets.
He found that Mercy's mother had decayed magnificently, as had her sister, but when
(01:20):
he opened Mercy's casket, her body showed no signs of ever having died.
In fact, it almost seemed that her hair was still growing, but what was most frightening
was that there was still blood in her heart when they cut it out of her chest, cementing
their belief that Mercy Brown was a monster.
Her heart and liver were burned, and the ashes mixed into her brother's medicine in an effort
(01:44):
to cure him, but he died a few months later, in the spring.
It had been winter when Mercy died, and her body had been kept in a stone mausoleum in
the coldest months of the year, which is surely the cause of her preservation.
(02:05):
And now for our epilogue.
Just a few short years later, in 1905, a similar monster rose out of Danielson, Connecticut.
Her name was Ava Larson, and her husband was the local pediatrician, Joseph Pryor.
Pryor's family had been a part of that town for generations, initially establishing their
wealth by owning a fleet of whaling ships.
(02:27):
Then when electricity became the modus operandi of the times, they were the first to light
the town.
Joseph had received an extensive education, with a small battalion of tutors guiding him
through his youth and into Yale, where he studied both pediatric medicine and theology.
He was particularly taken with the ancient Egyptian myths, teaching himself bits of
(02:47):
Coptic to be able to read the artifacts of their faith for himself.
The Gospers of the time were called him being painfully awkward, which is why there was
much surprise and delight when he announced his engagement to Ava Larson, the Pryor's
neighbor and a prominent figure in high society.
It was theorized that they'd secretly been childhood sweethearts, and their marriage
(03:08):
was thought to be the start of a long and happy life together.
And though germ theory was gaining popularity among scientists and doctors, that did not
happen fast enough to keep consumption from claiming Ava Larson as it had done to Mercy
Brown just thirteen years prior.
Now superstition, like the vampire panic, had passed out of fashion by this point, but
(03:31):
the Larson family was notoriously devout.
They were the authors of many pamphlets condemning sinners for forcing God to bring about the
tuberculosis pandemic.
So Ava was laid to rest in the family Mausoleum, where they could pray over her constantly
to keep God's curse from reaching out to the rest of their bloodline.
Poor Joseph, ironically an atheist, was beside himself with grief and denied entry to the
(03:56):
Larson family Mausoleum.
The Gospers had been aflame with the news of his matrimony just a few months ago, now
whispered about the depth of his loss.
Joseph and Ava had made an odd couple, but they loved each other with a ferocity that
would have made the gods of love walk the earth again.
Now what happened next could have been for any number of reasons.
(04:18):
Something stayed Joseph's hand and kept him from joining his wife in the fields of
paradise.
Maybe it was a devotion to his young patients, or to take care of his aging parents, or maybe,
it was because as both a scientist and a theologian he knew of other ways to call her spirit back
to him.
(04:38):
A grave digger working by lamp light heard a disturbance in the Larson family Mausoleum.
Grave robbing and body snatching were also declining in popularity with the turn of the
century, but the grave digger remembered that time well.
But with it being so late and the night so cold, he decided to wait until morning to
investigate the disturbance.
(04:59):
When he checked the Mausoleum the following day, he glanced in the casket and found it
contained a form.
But he did not look closely, for if he had, he might have noticed the wrappings around
the body.
Joseph had taken Ava's body to his office in the center of town, where he performed
the highest honor that he knew, mummification.
(05:21):
He washed her body in cheap wine and kitchen spices, then he began removing her organs.
It took him hours to complete, for he was working with tools meant to operate on children.
But soon enough, all that was left in her body when he had finished his work was her
still bloody heart.
He did not have the seventy days necessary to properly treat the body with salt and
(05:45):
sand, so he wrapped her in bandages he made from dipping old textbook pages in wax.
He even wrote her love poems in what little copter he knew, binding her soul to rest in
a body made from his love.
Now the tradition of mummification existed because in ancient Egypt, it was believed
that it was possible to live again after death, but only if the body was properly preserved
(06:10):
so that the soul, or Ka, could have a vessel to repossess after to taking the journey to
the Duot, or the underworld, ruled by the God-king Osiris.
Osiris had been an Egyptian king who was slain by his brother, Sett, who tore Osiris' body
apart and scattered his remains.
Osiris' wife, Isis, collected those pieces and reassembled them, returning him to life.
(06:37):
Almost.
She couldn't find the last piece, so Osiris was condemned to be the king of the underworld,
and the judge of the dead souls that passed through his realm.
Souls like Ava Larson.
Of course Joseph Pryor would have known all of this, but he might not have known what
it meant to call on the God Osiris in this way.
(06:58):
Because Joseph did not have the means to build Ava a tomb for a queen, he kept her organs
in the cabinet of his examination room, then returned the wrapped body to its casket, where
the grave digger found it the following morning.
From that night on, Joseph's mood had shown a marked improvement.
He was on those Gossiper's lips again, for it seemed to them that overnight his black
(07:20):
melancholy had faded.
It was as if Ava had never passed at all.
Sometimes when he would speak of her, he would use the present tense, or refer to a quick
trip she'd taken.
They likely assumed it was some form of psychosis, a pet delusion to numb the pain.
Joseph certainly didn't contradict them.
In fact, his excitement only grew, as did his insistence that she was going to return
(07:45):
to him.
One afternoon there was a boy, Eugene Fitzclimmons, whose mother had brought him to Joseph's
office to treat a cough that the boy just couldn't shake.
Joseph knew just the treatment for such a common thing, and left his office to call
the chemist.
Now, Eugene Fitzclimmons was no more than six, but in spite of his condition, the vitality
(08:05):
and boundless enthusiasm of youth must have cascaded from him in fits of running, jumping,
treaking, and entirely ignoring his mother.
He jumped from the table where he was examined onto the scale, then he knocked everything
off the table, and finally he opened the cabinet doors.
His mother looked in, then she screamed and screamed.
(08:27):
Joseph's secretary was the first to arrive, and she joined Eugene's mother in that fearful
chorus.
Eugene started to cry, for Ava's organs were lovingly preserved and very poorly hidden
in that cabinet.
The Fitzclimmons family ran to the police station to file a report, and when the chief
stormed into Joseph's office, he found Joseph waiting for him in front of his gruesome
(08:49):
trophies.
Joseph Pryor was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison for the desecration of
Ava Larson's body, but he never once showed it into remorse.
Indeed, sources say he was eerily proud of the work he had done.
Terrified by his demeanor and the state they could find Ava's remains in, the Larson family
(09:11):
asked a priest to be present when they opened the casket to see what had become of her.
By ancient standards, the bandages were expertly applied, and when they tore them from her
face, the blush on her cheek suggested that she'd merely been sleeping, not that she'd
been dead for some months.
The medical examiner performed an autopsy on the body and found that her heart still
(09:34):
had red blood in it.
The autopsy report is one of the strangest in medical history, because of the condition
of her body, Ava almost broke apart under the medical examiner's knife, and he had
to sew all the pieces of her back together again.
He returned her organs to their proper place before the final stitch, all saved the heart,
(09:56):
which unbeknownst to the family, he kept aside to study.
Later, the medical examiner was able to explain her preservation by the wax that Joseph had
dipped the makeshift bandages in during his approximation of the ritual.
But even if the bandages were coated in wax, why then was there a blush on Ava Larson's
cheek, and where had her heart gone?
(10:20):
That was the final question of this case, for after Joseph's release, he'd broken into
the medical examiner's office, but he couldn't find it.
Her heart had gone missing shortly after it had been removed from her body, lacking in
the final piece of his ritual, Joseph believed he had failed in his mission and that Ava
was lost to the Duot forever.
(10:43):
This drove him insane, and he spent the rest of his life in mental hospitals up and down
the East Coast.
It may have brought him some comfort to know that a century later, enough forensic scientists
had questioned the strangeness surrounding Ava Larson's death, so the state granted
them permission to enter the mausoleum and see the body for themselves.
(11:03):
But when they opened the casket, it was empty of everything except a scrap of paper, a
Coptic poem written on a textbook page, proclaiming Joseph's eternal love for Ava.
That's the end of today's tale.
I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed telling it.
Please remember to like, share, and tell all your friends.
(11:26):
Join me next time for more fabricated folktales on epilogue.
Welcome to Epilogue, where I tell you folk tales and legends, then fabricate my own counterpart
(00:10):
from those root yarns.
I am that lovable outcast who mixes potions and poisons for soon to be widows, but you
can call me Izzy Cobble.
Today I want you to cast your minds back to just before the turn of the 20th century,
a time when New England was plagued with consumption, or as we know it today, tuberculosis.
(00:34):
I'm sure you all remember that in times of fear and uncertainty, there's no better
moment for imaginations to run wild, as was the case with the New England Vampire Panic.
This flight of fancy disturbed the eternal rest of many such victim, but the one whose
name comes back for us is Mercy Brown of Exeter, Rhode Island.
(00:57):
Mercy's mother and sister were claimed by consumption, and she joined them in the year
1892.
Shortly after Mercy's death, her brother fell out.
Convinced it was the undead spirit of the daughter he lost back for their lives, Mercy's
father went to the mausoleum and opened the caskets.
He found that Mercy's mother had decayed magnificently, as had her sister, but when
(01:20):
he opened Mercy's casket, her body showed no signs of ever having died.
In fact, it almost seemed that her hair was still growing, but what was most frightening
was that there was still blood in her heart when they cut it out of her chest, cementing
their belief that Mercy Brown was a monster.
Her heart and liver were burned, and the ashes mixed into her brother's medicine in an effort
(01:44):
to cure him, but he died a few months later, in the spring.
It had been winter when Mercy died, and her body had been kept in a stone mausoleum in
the coldest months of the year, which is surely the cause of her preservation.
(02:05):
And now for our epilogue.
Just a few short years later, in 1905, a similar monster rose out of Danielson, Connecticut.
Her name was Ava Larson, and her husband was the local pediatrician, Joseph Pryor.
Pryor's family had been a part of that town for generations, initially establishing their
wealth by owning a fleet of whaling ships.
(02:27):
Then when electricity became the modus operandi of the times, they were the first to light
the town.
Joseph had received an extensive education, with a small battalion of tutors guiding him
through his youth and into Yale, where he studied both pediatric medicine and theology.
He was particularly taken with the ancient Egyptian myths, teaching himself bits of
(02:47):
Coptic to be able to read the artifacts of their faith for himself.
The Gospers of the time were called him being painfully awkward, which is why there was
much surprise and delight when he announced his engagement to Ava Larson, the Pryor's
neighbor and a prominent figure in high society.
It was theorized that they'd secretly been childhood sweethearts, and their marriage
(03:08):
was thought to be the start of a long and happy life together.
And though germ theory was gaining popularity among scientists and doctors, that did not
happen fast enough to keep consumption from claiming Ava Larson as it had done to Mercy
Brown just thirteen years prior.
Now superstition, like the vampire panic, had passed out of fashion by this point, but
(03:31):
the Larson family was notoriously devout.
They were the authors of many pamphlets condemning sinners for forcing God to bring about the
tuberculosis pandemic.
So Ava was laid to rest in the family Mausoleum, where they could pray over her constantly
to keep God's curse from reaching out to the rest of their bloodline.
Poor Joseph, ironically an atheist, was beside himself with grief and denied entry to the
(03:56):
Larson family Mausoleum.
The Gospers had been aflame with the news of his matrimony just a few months ago, now
whispered about the depth of his loss.
Joseph and Ava had made an odd couple, but they loved each other with a ferocity that
would have made the gods of love walk the earth again.
Now what happened next could have been for any number of reasons.
(04:18):
Something stayed Joseph's hand and kept him from joining his wife in the fields of
paradise.
Maybe it was a devotion to his young patients, or to take care of his aging parents, or maybe,
it was because as both a scientist and a theologian he knew of other ways to call her spirit back
to him.
(04:38):
A grave digger working by lamp light heard a disturbance in the Larson family Mausoleum.
Grave robbing and body snatching were also declining in popularity with the turn of the
century, but the grave digger remembered that time well.
But with it being so late and the night so cold, he decided to wait until morning to
investigate the disturbance.
(04:59):
When he checked the Mausoleum the following day, he glanced in the casket and found it
contained a form.
But he did not look closely, for if he had, he might have noticed the wrappings around
the body.
Joseph had taken Ava's body to his office in the center of town, where he performed
the highest honor that he knew, mummification.
(05:21):
He washed her body in cheap wine and kitchen spices, then he began removing her organs.
It took him hours to complete, for he was working with tools meant to operate on children.
But soon enough, all that was left in her body when he had finished his work was her
still bloody heart.
He did not have the seventy days necessary to properly treat the body with salt and
(05:45):
sand, so he wrapped her in bandages he made from dipping old textbook pages in wax.
He even wrote her love poems in what little copter he knew, binding her soul to rest in
a body made from his love.
Now the tradition of mummification existed because in ancient Egypt, it was believed
that it was possible to live again after death, but only if the body was properly preserved
(06:10):
so that the soul, or Ka, could have a vessel to repossess after to taking the journey to
the Duot, or the underworld, ruled by the God-king Osiris.
Osiris had been an Egyptian king who was slain by his brother, Sett, who tore Osiris' body
apart and scattered his remains.
Osiris' wife, Isis, collected those pieces and reassembled them, returning him to life.
(06:37):
Almost.
She couldn't find the last piece, so Osiris was condemned to be the king of the underworld,
and the judge of the dead souls that passed through his realm.
Souls like Ava Larson.
Of course Joseph Pryor would have known all of this, but he might not have known what
it meant to call on the God Osiris in this way.
(06:58):
Because Joseph did not have the means to build Ava a tomb for a queen, he kept her organs
in the cabinet of his examination room, then returned the wrapped body to its casket, where
the grave digger found it the following morning.
From that night on, Joseph's mood had shown a marked improvement.
He was on those Gossiper's lips again, for it seemed to them that overnight his black
(07:20):
melancholy had faded.
It was as if Ava had never passed at all.
Sometimes when he would speak of her, he would use the present tense, or refer to a quick
trip she'd taken.
They likely assumed it was some form of psychosis, a pet delusion to numb the pain.
Joseph certainly didn't contradict them.
In fact, his excitement only grew, as did his insistence that she was going to return
(07:45):
to him.
One afternoon there was a boy, Eugene Fitzclimmons, whose mother had brought him to Joseph's
office to treat a cough that the boy just couldn't shake.
Joseph knew just the treatment for such a common thing, and left his office to call
the chemist.
Now, Eugene Fitzclimmons was no more than six, but in spite of his condition, the vitality
(08:05):
and boundless enthusiasm of youth must have cascaded from him in fits of running, jumping,
treaking, and entirely ignoring his mother.
He jumped from the table where he was examined onto the scale, then he knocked everything
off the table, and finally he opened the cabinet doors.
His mother looked in, then she screamed and screamed.
(08:27):
Joseph's secretary was the first to arrive, and she joined Eugene's mother in that fearful
chorus.
Eugene started to cry, for Ava's organs were lovingly preserved and very poorly hidden
in that cabinet.
The Fitzclimmons family ran to the police station to file a report, and when the chief
stormed into Joseph's office, he found Joseph waiting for him in front of his gruesome
(08:49):
trophies.
Joseph Pryor was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison for the desecration of
Ava Larson's body, but he never once showed it into remorse.
Indeed, sources say he was eerily proud of the work he had done.
Terrified by his demeanor and the state they could find Ava's remains in, the Larson family
(09:11):
asked a priest to be present when they opened the casket to see what had become of her.
By ancient standards, the bandages were expertly applied, and when they tore them from her
face, the blush on her cheek suggested that she'd merely been sleeping, not that she'd
been dead for some months.
The medical examiner performed an autopsy on the body and found that her heart still
(09:34):
had red blood in it.
The autopsy report is one of the strangest in medical history, because of the condition
of her body, Ava almost broke apart under the medical examiner's knife, and he had
to sew all the pieces of her back together again.
He returned her organs to their proper place before the final stitch, all saved the heart,
(09:56):
which unbeknownst to the family, he kept aside to study.
Later, the medical examiner was able to explain her preservation by the wax that Joseph had
dipped the makeshift bandages in during his approximation of the ritual.
But even if the bandages were coated in wax, why then was there a blush on Ava Larson's
cheek, and where had her heart gone?
(10:20):
That was the final question of this case, for after Joseph's release, he'd broken into
the medical examiner's office, but he couldn't find it.
Her heart had gone missing shortly after it had been removed from her body, lacking in
the final piece of his ritual, Joseph believed he had failed in his mission and that Ava
was lost to the Duot forever.
(10:43):
This drove him insane, and he spent the rest of his life in mental hospitals up and down
the East Coast.
It may have brought him some comfort to know that a century later, enough forensic scientists
had questioned the strangeness surrounding Ava Larson's death, so the state granted
them permission to enter the mausoleum and see the body for themselves.
(11:03):
But when they opened the casket, it was empty of everything except a scrap of paper, a
Coptic poem written on a textbook page, proclaiming Joseph's eternal love for Ava.
That's the end of today's tale.
I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed telling it.
Please remember to like, share, and tell all your friends.
(11:26):
Join me next time for more fabricated folktales on epilogue.
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