The Last Vampire Hunter: The Horrifying Exorcism of a Strigoi | Documentary

On a cold January afternoon in 2004, six men arrived at the grave of a recently deceased elder from their village of Marathon Udisous, in Dolge County, southwestern Romania, historically known as Lesser Wallachia, where

vampire

hysteria flourished in In the 18th century, the region was once again tormented by fear of the undead. The six men, the

last

known

vampire

hunter

s who grew up on the tales of Times Gone, dug up the old man's grave, cut open his chest and removed his heart. After burning it, they made an infusion with the ashes and served it. to the Dead Man's niece the ritual that, according to them, was thousands of years old and that was the only solution to get rid of vampires or, as they are known in Romanian folklore, strigoy, shocking and disturbing, the headlines published Years later they reminded the world of the long history of vampire plagues in the area and its surrounding regions and, although we cannot think that the horror of that time is little more than a distant memory that has largely inspired works of fiction, this Current example of grave desecration and corpse execution is evidence that for the people of Dulge County, at least the horror that spread like wildfire in the 18th century has not yet faded with time.

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Thanks now with the video. The first recorded mention of stragoy in the area was in the law code written by the revered Wallachian prince companion Basarab. as an enlightened patron of education and an avid supporter of traditional Eastern Orthodoxy in the reform laws of 1652, he wrote that some Mad Men gossip and say that the bodies of many people, if they die and are buried in the ground, do not rot but they are found. everything full of blood and this is the diabolical law because the devil imagines himself in every way and pretends to be an angel and a monk and a layman and a woman and a child and a wood and a rod and a water and a blood and a tray and a coat and a dead man and everything.

It can become other things, but everything is like a decoy, that's why you can't believe what you see in the body of a dead man, because if a man dies , has no blood in his body, but it is much more, sir, to consider how. occasion if they bury him and keep him in the grave for a few days there will be blood inside him know that the body shown with blood is the tradition of the devil although he criticized describing such beliefs as nonsense the doctrine of the Wallachian prince did little to change the beliefs and pagan practices of the people, certainly after the Habsburg Empire, lassen in Wallachia and the neighboring region of Transylvania in the early 18th century, stories of the dead rising from their graves were so common that they reached the ears of royalty.

Army in the area in 1725, the first cases of vampires on the Serbian border were recorded by imperial delegates, followed by the infamous Flukinger reports of 1732, a report that described a horrible disease that was said to have the power to turn men. into voracious blood-sucking creatures in this area. Over the next two decades, tales of vampire play continued to spread like wildfire in Croatia, Moravia, Hungary, and the present-day Romanian regions of Transylvania and Lesser Wallachia. According to reports of the time, there seemed to be a distinctive connection between the practice. of sorcery and revenge, people believed that their dead relatives became blood-sucking returnees, hideous reanimated corpses as a result of witchcraft, so a witch hunt began targeting the dead so much that they were believed to have become vampires as well as the living who were believed to practice the dark arts very early.

However, the hysteria became unmanageable, so beginning in 1751 the vampire panic and subsequent witch hunts were systematically extinguished through a series of royal decrees issued by the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa. Historians claim that she never intended to banish the issue of witchcraft from the realm of public morality and instead instituted regulations restricting superstition, harmful beliefs, healing practices that harm people's health, quackery and blasphemy to combat against scandals that cast an unfavorable light on the kingdom, while these policies were able to significantly decrease vampire-related scandals in most of the east. regions over the next decade the same cannot be said of the Romanian region that became known as the Wild East in the Western world.

Reports sent to Vienna at the time claimed that the indigenous people were caught on the boundary between ancient pagan rituals and Christianity tormented by superstitious delusions, especially those related to superstitious priests who helped villagers and stragoi

hunter

s exhume and execute the corpses of those suspected witches and blood suckers from Beyond the Grave, so the empire was still tormented by vampires. The disturbing events reported by the imperial delegates caused great distress not only among the people of the Romanian region but also among the representatives of the Empire, some of whom had witnessed several cases of exhumation and execution of stragoy, terrifyingly trusted officials, military and Surgeons sent to investigate the reports learned that the stragoy victims supposedly exhibited the same symptoms before going from excruciating pain in the stomach and intestines to nausea, severe headaches and chaotic pulse and not only that the symptoms were also supposedly accompanied of nightmares that evoked the image of those suspected of being vampires and stragoy would not only disturb the sleep of the villagers, but also their waking lives, numerous accounts stated that the dead appeared at the doors or in the yards of their relatives, the They would still walk the streets at night, often asking for something, whether a favor or food, once rejected, they would pounce on their victims and make them sick. or even kill them and so, prey to what seemed to be a supernatural attack to protect themselves, people began to carry wooden stakes, as well as powders made of sacred herbs and garlic at all times, which they blew towards the sinister apparitions to make them disappear when they such methods failed to protect them, they would gather under the village's priest and stragoy hunter to exhume and execute the corpse traditionally by staking or burning, far from being a mere illusion, it is both intriguing and disturbing how the accounts of those present in such exhumations they commented. that the bodies of suspected stragoi were often found intact with fresh blood around the mouth and repositioned on their sides.

The way this happened was inexplicable. They had not been buried as such and therefore this could only be the work of the devil, and so after decades of such stories. Fueling vampire hysteria in the region, the Panic reached unprecedented heights in 1753, making headlines once again and mobilizing one of the largest witch hunts the region had ever seen, according to a report submitted to the Court Administration. Imperial for Mint and Mining by an imperial magistrate and inspector in a northwestern mining town of Kavnik, an infectious disease had begun to spread in the fall of 1752, affecting several miners, although several military doctors and surgeons initiated a investigation, the mortality rate decreased rapidly, so the activity was postponed until early 1753, when the deaths of five more miners between January and February resurrected suspicions.

The afflicted minors were reported to have suffered four days of serious illness with symptoms of chills, bloody saliva and a burning sensation ominously, the doctor appointed to perform their autopsies was also a victim. to the unknown illness on February 16 the next day three imperial surgeons examined his corpse according to the report the specialists present unanimously established that there were no external signs of violent acts on the body that could suggest a sudden death, however the three surgeons noted that they had not found a drop of blood in the body or in the heart, but instead found a large amount of water, finally firmly established that the cause of death was a spell or blood sucking.

Their findings quickly spread among the people, further reinforcing the belief that a vampire had been victimizing their city for the past few months. Stories about nocturnal ghost visits and Nightmares were already circulating at this stage, so it didn't take long for the public's suspicions to fall on two women who had died in the autumn. 1752, at the same time that the disease first began to spread Dorothea fisson, who died on October 13, and Anna Tonnerin, who died on November 8, so a posthumous investigation was launched against both women on November 20. February, their bodies were After exhuming, it was found that while the corpse of the woman who died later had completely decomposed, the decomposition of the corpse of the former was only partially underway, unlike the face, it was found that the hands and feet were not at all decomposed, but fresh and intact and the corpse seemed somewhat swollen, the shroud also seemed to have been soaked with fresh blood, as the council declared anatonerin innocent, while the body of Dorothea fisson was examined Further disturbingly, an autopsy revealed that her body was still saturated with blood believing her responsible for the miners' deaths and by killing and draining the blood of the doctor who performed the autopsies Dorothea was posthumously convicted of witchcraft and by sucking blood her body was burned by hanging on a pyre that same day.

Horrifyingly, the city guards who carried out the execution reported that an enormous amount of blood gushed from the burning corpse, thus legitimizing the judgment of those leading the investigation. The report goes on to mention that another miner fell ill before Dorothea's execution, but that the illness peaked. At the peak of her trial, of course, it is impossible to say whether or not Dorothea was guilty of what she had been accused of. They were certainly incredible charges and some historians commented that the report read as an attempt by the authorities to justify a witch trial that had been carried out without clerical participation in which Dorothea Fissen had been forced to take the role of scapegoat to restore law and order at the local level, and whether or not the authorities take advantage of the local belief in strategists and vampires to pursue their own goals.

The interests are somewhat secondary to the lived reality of the locals themselves after all their reports of nighttime apparitions and attacks on their lives continued to plague the region, spreadingbeyond the mining town and exposing other supposed witches and vampires, men and women revered as seers, healers, fortune tellers. and specialists in love magic were put on trial and expelled from the region while those believed to be revenants were still being exhumed and executed by the tormented villagers, as such. Empress Maria Theresa established a commission to further investigate the report and in 1768 she decided to eliminate everyone. witch hunts and vampire hysteria in the region once and for all issued a Royal Decree prohibiting all sorcery, posthumous magical practices and illegal exclamations.

Her strict stance was reflected in her words. all incidents of grave desecration, grave disinterment and vampire execution will be reported in the future without exception investigated by the authorities and heavily sanctioned a testament to how deep-rooted these events were and every layer of the local communities was how the empress even had than to claim that the clergy in particular are strongly accustomed to not tolerate or confirm such practices henceforth, for a time, the reports and claims about the Restless Dead diminished, instead, the stories of misplacements that terrified a u another Romanian village circulated beneath the surface and, to a much lesser degree, in the 19th and 20th centuries, paranormal gossip was largely linked to the location in the 21st century. century the empress's order on posthumous magic the practice of Witchcraft, the proliferation of superstitions and illegal exhumations, can be said to have been largely ineffective, although they have been reduced after being persecuted by secular and ecclesiastical authorities for centuries.

The belief in vampiric stragoy remains so true that in some parts of rural Romania archaic rituals against revenants are today still practiced by the last dragoi hunters, one such figure is mircha mitrica from southwestern Doge County. In 2017, the then 63-year-old pastor by day, stragoy Hunter By Night, spoke to the press about the case that occurred in 2004 and revealed the details that led to it. to perform a very disturbing ritual against his deceased neighbor on the afternoon of December 26, 2003, a 76-year-old villager named Petro Thomas was driving his horse-drawn carriage through the village when he lost control of the reigns, according to the street hunter, The old villager had been drinking so intoxicated that he fell from the carriage directly onto the horse's hooves, which crushed his head and chest, killing him, although reports claim that the old man lived a normal life and his supposed afterlife was said to have occurred. been nothing ordinary immediately after the burial some of his relatives claimed to have felt tormented supposedly witnessed objects moving on their own and she Bangs on the walls disembodied voices screams and whispers In unknown languages ​​some of the locals also noticed that the old man's relatives had become paler and seemed weaker at the time when one of his nieces suddenly fell ill about six weeks later the family concluded that Thomas must have become a

strigoi

bazali in addition to being ill the young woman was also supposedly terrified by a force that only she could see that he became deeply depressed and reported excruciating headaches and general weakness.

It was also said that she lost a lot of weight in a short period of time and became unable to care for her two young daughters, so the young woman's husband and father arrived. He asked Mitrica for help when he went to see her. Matrica claimed to have found the young mother bedridden withered by the

strigoi

and screaming that the creature was on top of her, eating and killing her. The niece told the strigoi hunter that the entity would show itself. to her as a bird or other animal and then pounced on her to drag her to the Grave, she never identified the entity as her uncle, but rather it was her mother, Thomas' sister, who claimed that this trigoi was her deceased brother, moved by The plight of young mother Mitrica brought together a group consisting of the woman's father, her husband, and three other men to discuss their options after a night of heavy drinking to develop their courage.

The man agreed that the young woman was the victim of a strugoy that was draining the life from her. force and would soon cause their death if they did not intervene according to the strigoi Hunter's interview, they had to act immediately leaving no time to seek approval for what they were about to do if the priest had known he would have had to inform the authorities and get a permit but when the permit came the woman could have been dead or maybe the priest would have said no or the city council and the police would have said no and so the six men went to the cemetery at midnight where they dug up Petrie's body Thomas the Stragoy Hunter declared that his body had changed color his face was red and his beard had begun to grow at the corner of his mouth it was fresh blood at such a sight he cut the chest with a scythe and opened the ribcage according to mitrica within the Thomas's body was a puddle of blood when we took out the heart, it was still beating that's when we knew it was a blow away, this dragoi Hunter then put his deceased neighbor's heart in a plastic bag and the very intoxicated men tried to bury it. the body as it was before, however some local accounts have claimed that the body was carelessly handled and left in a dirty state.

Heart in hand, the men crossed the village to the first intersection where, according to Romanian folklore, the scene occurred and The invisible worlds become one and where any magical act is much more powerful, are the six men lit in the fire and They lightly burned the dead man's heart. Arriving at the haunted woman's house, they lit a second fire and burned the heart to The ashes which they carefully collected afterward, the ashes were boiled in water as tea would be boiled with the brew offered to the sick woman who drank it, according to According to some reports, she was not the only one who drank the liquid with other relatives supposedly persecuted by the Strigoi, having had a drink themselves discussing this incident, Matrica claimed to have learned the dissonant and highly disturbing Ritual from her Elders, one of whom He also taught him that to be effective he would need to have a strong heart and not be afraid to enter the cemetery. in the early hours of the night and in fact the strigoi hunter confessed that he was not afraid, firmly stating that my heart is strong I go to the cemetery at any time of the night and I am not afraid incredibly the ritual seemed to have worked the next day the young man who previously could not walk came to the strigoi hunter's house to reward him and invite him to celebrate his sudden recovery but not everyone applauded his apparent victory horrified upon hearing the news the old man's daughter called the police she and her mother showed The officers found the desecrated grave of their loved one and with the help of other villagers exhumed the body once again, they were shocked by the state of the court.

The abdomen was open, the intestine spread over the clothes and the garlic was scattered everywhere, so the six men were accused of gross desecration during the trial. All of the defendants admitted their actions not only that they chillingly confessed that The ritual performed was thousands of years old and always worked without fail, but they were convinced that they had done a good deed in the service of the community and the family of the old man, one of the six condemned men even told the judge that in case From another case of struguayaka I would proceed in the same way according to the unwritten laws of the elders that never fail and incredibly such as feelings.

It seems to have resonated with most of the villagers, as one of them stated to the press that it was not the first time a heart had been removed from the dead man's chest, stating that there are dozens of dead people who had become non- dead, usually the dead man's family. would come to terms with those who said they were bewitched there had never been such a stir for the police to come and dig up the body yet the defendants were eventually sentenced to six months in jail but the sentence was suspended rather than spending time in prison they were required to pay 900 euros in damages to the family and the town, although undoubtedly scandalous, the 2004 case was not the only one that occurred in the town, but the only one documented by the local press and the authorities between the years 1970. and exumations in the 1990s of those believed to have been strugoy are said to have been common in the area since the highly publicized case of 2004, the tradition seems to have changed somewhat now, instead of opening the bodies and consume the heart that the villagers seem to have.

He settled for staking the heart with a knitting needle and placing a piece of iron under the dead man's tongue, telling them to finish chewing it before starting to chew their relatives, and so it seems that in Dolge County the fear of the Restless The dead continue to haunt the countryside, especially in the village of Gururakuloi. Stragoi are incredibly a daily reality. About 200 years ago, the town was supposedly moved house by house from the hill it initially stood on into the valley due to fear of the Dead. From their graves after the plague arrived in the area to this day, the villagers avoid venturing onto the hill, even during the day.

The local elders were always supposed to be busy calming the restless spirits. It is believed that they remained there. One of the local elders even told the press in 2013. God forbid. they descended on us every night I smeared the house with incense and prayed to the good Lord to protect me we have no way to defend ourselves from them I told my grandchildren that they have no reason to go to that place and I do not advise them If you go there, there is people who have not found peace and harm everyone they encounter, although it can be difficult for us to understand safety in our suburbs and cities.

After all, this was a very sincere statement in the minds of those. who still live in the shadow of the wild east of the 18th century, vampires stalk the living far from the image of the aristocratic vampire evoked by Dracula or the 15th century, they were lucky and Prince Vlad the Impaler, the vampires of rural Romania and archaic are seen as tormented spirits who have been bewitched suffered a violent or premature death all those who have been predisposed from birth to become lost these creatures the law of the devil does not seem to want to stop stalking the nightmares of the people they loved, lost, feared or failed them in the short term thank you Thank you so much for watching, if you enjoyed this episode and would like to see more of Paranormal, please consider subscribing and remember to click the Bell icon to turn on notifications for all new videos.

You may want to watch another suggested video on the screen that now includes a deeper dive. in the horrible and disturbing folklore of the stragoi, thanks again until next time