In 1892, as tuberculosis ravaged the small town of Exeter, Rhode Island, a grieving family made a desperate decision: they exhumed the body of 19-year-old Mercy Brown, convinced the dead were feeding on the living. What followed became one of the most well-known cases of vampire hysteria in American history, a moment when fear and superstition filled the gaps that medicine could not. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson explores the Mercy Brown case, the tuberculosis panic that fueled it, and how grief can turn a community toward the unthinkable. How far will people go when science has no answers and the people they love keep dying?
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