A Vampire Pyramid Scheme

Carmen Lopez was seventy-four years old in the spring of 1980. She was disabled, confined to a wheelchair and living alone in her house in Marshfield, Massachusetts, a rural town in Plymouth County about forty minutes south of Boston. On the afternoon of 10 April 1980, a painter working inside a nearby house saw smoke pouring from her home and called the fire department. The fire was put out, and firefighters found Carmen dead inside, curled in a foetal position on her bedroom floor. She had been shot several times with a .38 calibre handgun, and the bullets were painted gold. The autopsy also found two stab wounds to her chest and one to her back. Nothing appeared to have been stolen, and the television was still there, so robbery seemed unlikely. Investigators turned to her family.

details of the account remain covered until revealed His childhood and adolescence, as the episode tells it, were extraordinary. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it The next day he rigged a hammer and string above his parents' bedroom door so that it struck his father on the head when he opened it. In preschool and kindergarten his drawings worried his teachers: goblins, bats, witches, bottoms with holes and blood dripping on the floor, puddles of blood and hypodermic needles. He later claimed that his mother had abused him physically and sexually, performed witchcraft rituals on him and made him drink a witch's brew, and that his father gave him marijuana and whisky as a child. His mother, his siblings and the rest of the family denied all of it. He said he began using drugs at thirteen and took a great deal of LSD as a teenager. By sixteen he was hearing and seeing things while sober, including telepathic messages about vampires who drank his blood.

His behaviour grew stranger. He cooked concoctions on a hot plate in his bedroom from boiled ketchup, animal parts, oil, entrails, raw fish and birds, and sometimes ate a whole bird. He killed a neighbourhood cat in the apartment complex where he was living, cut off its head, dissected its brain in the hope of fixing his own and drank its blood. On a farm nearby in the late 1970s he killed a horse with a fence post and drew its blood with a syringe, which he drank with crackers. In 1974, at sixteen, he stole tear gas grenades from a police station and was committed to McLean Hospital for six months. He was given the choice of a juvenile facility or psychiatric hospital, chose the hospital and then refused the recommended medication. In 1975 he was admitted to Westwood Lodge after telephoning a psychiatrist to say he was angry with his father and might kill him. He left against medical advice and stopped his medication. In the summer of 1978, after the cat mutilation, he was admitted to Boston University Hospital and then transferred to Taunton State Hospital, where staff considered him dangerous and where he was described as acutely psychotic. He escaped through the air vents. At Mayflower Clinic in Plymouth he was diagnosed with undifferentiated schizophrenia and an impulse disorder. In 1980 the Plymouth District Court referred him there again, apparently because he had applied for a gun permit, which was refused.

After his grandmother had had enough of him, he moved out and went to live with his grand uncle, Henry Lopez. On 9 April 1980 he told Henry that he was going to Plymouth the next day to look for work. this part of the story is covered for now At about 1.45 p.m. he was at an auto parts store, where he met a former high school teacher and talked to him for a few minutes. The teacher noticed nothing unusual. details of the account remain covered until revealed At about three o'clock he parked about 150 yards from his grandmother's house, went inside and found her alone on the couch. She asked him to put a load of washing in the basement. Downstairs he had hidden a gun and bullets, both painted gold. He went back upstairs and shot her once. She threw a glass of water at him. He shot her again, then stabbed her. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it He dragged her into the bedroom, poured dry gas over her and set her on fire, then pushed her wheelchair in after her. He was in the house for about ten minutes. this part of the story is covered for now He then collected his father from work. While they were together his father took a call telling him that his mother's house was on fire, and they drove there. details of the account remain covered until revealed He went home.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now He told her his brain was on fire and the voices were bad, that he had been a vampire for four years, that voices told him to drink blood, and that he had been talking with the devil. He said he had met vampires in Florida who were over 200 years old and who told him that gold-tipped bullets would find their mark. He said he thought one bullet would be enough, but she did not die, so he stabbed her and she still did not die, so he set her on fire. He admitted drinking her blood but denied stabbing her. The autopsy found that she was unconscious but still alive when the fire started, and that she burned to death.

He was held at the Plymouth House of Correction while psychiatrists examined him. details of the account remain covered until revealed His defence attorney was John T. Spanali. Three psychiatrists for the defence said he was not criminally responsible, one of them, Dr Daniel M. Weiss of Newton, describing him simply as crazy. A fourth said he was a manic depressive with features of delusional mania. A psychiatrist for the prosecution said he was aware of wrongdoing and diagnosed borderline personality disorder. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now He showed no emotion. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed In 1990 he attacked a corrections officer with a metal shank, stabbing him in the head and beating him with a mop handle. He said he wanted the officer's spinal fluid. The officer survived. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed Members of Carmen's family testified against his release, and the board noted threatening letters he had written to his mother. He was denied again in 2014, when he asked to be transferred to Worcester State Hospital. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now