For more than eighty years after a British woman named Sarah Ellen Roberts was buried in the local cemetery in Pisco, Peru, local residents continued to spread the story that she had been executed in the United Kingdom for being a vampire and a murderer. According to the legend, Sarah Ellen Roberts had been tried and executed in Blackburn, E after being seen biting the neck of a child and sucking the blood. Her husband, John Roberts, reportedly brought her to Pisco because the Church of England had denied her burial on consecrated ground. Since there was nowhere else that was willing to take the body due to her terrible crimes, he settled on an obscure city in Peru. To ensure that she would remain in her grave, Roberts purchased a lead-lined coffin and, after burying his wife, went home and never returned to Peru. In a more elaborate version of the story, Sarah Ellen Roberts was actually one of three sisters, all executed for vampirism at Blackburn and reportedly known in the U.K. as the "Brides of Dracula". The other two sisters had been buried by John Roberts in different countries to ensure they were widely separated.
How the legend started is not really clear but it seemed to have a powerful influence on the residents of Pisco, many of whom were convinced that Sarah Ellen Roberts would rise someday and seek a terrible vengeance on the town where she was buried. The panic over her presence in the local cemetery came to a head in 1993, eighty years after Sarah's death. After a "vampire expert" appeared on Cristina Saralegui's U.S. talk show and discussed Sarah Robert's story, among others, as an example of a real-life vampire case. Rebroadcast in Spanish, the show was seen on Peruvian television and residents of Pisco were startled to discover that they suddenly had an international reputation as a vampire haven. Not long after the broadcast, visitors to the cemetery were horrified to see a crack in Sarah's tombstone and rumours spread across the town that the vampire was about to rise. Pregnant women fled Pisco out of fear that Sarah's ghost would be reincarnated into one of their children while cloves of garlic and crucifixes were placed on houses throughout the area. Quick-acting vendors starting selling "anti-vampire kits" to hundreds of local residents. Sold for for two and a half dollars, the kit contained a string of garlic, a crucifix, a stake and mallet, and a small booklet described Sarah's story (quite a bargain, really). Armed with their anti-vampire tools, hundreds of curiosity-seekers converged on Sarah Roberts' gravesite on June 9, 1993 (eighty years to the day after Sarah's death).
It was reportedly quite a spectacle. One group of women, dressed in black, placed flowers on Sarah's grave and sang hymns accompanied by two violins. Radio and television journalists gathered at the site as well and it became a major media event in Peru. One news helicopter monitored the scene from above providing live coverage. Journalists interviewed numerous local residents who shared their own fears of being attacked after Sarah rose. Eventually, police had to be called in to deal with the hysterical crowd of about a thousand people gathered at the graveyard that same night. The crowd dispersed after shots were fired into the air although a small group of local witch doctors remained at the tomb to splash holy water and scatter white rose petals around. Presumably, it worked since the vampire failed to rise and the intrepid vampire experts claimed credit for protecting the town. For months afterwards, there were rumours of a mysterious figure roaming the back streets of Pisco but the anti-vampire hysteria had largely subsided by then.
Of course, anti-vampire hysteria is nothing new with fresh outbreaks occuring even in the last century in places as diverse as London, England and Malawi. Recent movies, books, and television shows about vampires have kept the legend in the public eye and given vampires and vampire-hunters a certain credibility. Since Pisco had relatively few other attractions, having their own vampire became a favourite selling point to the town's small tourist industry and local taxi-drivers often told Sarah Ellen Roberts' story to customers. The tale of the Pisco vampire took on a new life after the devastating Peruvian earthquake of August 2007. Pisco was particularly hard-hit given that it was very close to the earthquake's epicenter and more than eighty per cent of the city was destroyed. Hundreds of residents died and many historic building were badly damaged by the quake. In the cemetery where Sarah is buried, numerous coffins were uncovered although hers was remarkably untouched.
Ironically, the preservation of Sarah Ellen Roberts' grave spawned a new legend about her. Far from being a vampire, local residents decided that she was blessed instead. Only a true saint's grave would be preserved when so many other graves were destroyed after all. Once more in the news, Sarah Ellen Roberts became the focus of Blackburn historians who decided to get to the bottom of her legend once and for all. The notion that anyone in the United Kingdom could have been tried and executed for witchcraft, let alone vampirism, in 1913 was enough of a red flag for them to investigate further. The reality proved to be far more mundane. Sarah's grandchildren, many of whom were still living in the U.K., were justifiably mystified when they heard about the legends that surrounded their ancestor. Born Sarah Gargett in 1872, she had only one sister (not the two of legend) and she and her husband, John Pryce Roberts, were both Blackburn weavers who often travelled to Peru where John's brother became prosperous in the cotton-oil trade. It was during one of these trips to Peru that Sarah died on June 9, 1913. The actual cause of death is unknown but the fact that she died in Peru meant that her husband needed to arrange for her burial locally (using a wooden coffin, not lead-lined). He never returned to Peru after that and later died in 1925.
So, how did a deceased weaver from Blackburn become "Dracula's Bride"? Exactly how the legend of Sarah Ellen Roberts started will probably remain a mystery. Her husband's decision to have her buried locally rather than return the body home probably seemed remarkable enough for the residents of Pisco to speculate on his motives. The presence of Sarah's headstone in the cemetery among all of the other headstones with Peruvian names likely helped reinforce her status as an outsider. The identity of whoever first came up with the colourful stories about her is still unknown but the legend quickly took on a life of it's own. The 1993 panic seemed largely media-driven although the fact that tourism to Pisco rose sharply once the legend took hold gives a good old-fashioned economic motive for retelling the story for the benefit of visitors. In any event, the 2007 earthquake has ensured that the people of Pisco have more important things to worry about than vampires these days.
Still, Sarah Ellen Roberts' story provides a good example of how easily local superstition and media coverage can combine to cause panic. It also shows how a really good story can linger over time.