In 1892, Mercy Lena Brown of Exeter, Rhode Island died of tuberculosis, and what followed became one of the most infamous cases in the New England vampire panic. This episode traces the real history behind the legend: consumption, family loss, the exhumation of Mercy Brown, the burning of her heart and liver, and the desperate folk remedy meant to save her brother Edwin. It’s not a Dracula story—it’s a story about grief, fear, medicine failing in public, and the way a young woman named Lena was turned into folklore after death.

Sources:

Rhode Island Historical Society, Michael E. Bell, Smithsonian Magazine, Science History Institute.
https://www.rihs.org/have-mercy/
https://www.weslpress.org/9780819571700/food-for-the-dead/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-great-new-england-vampire-panic-36482878/
https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/distillations-pod/vampire-panic/

#MercyBrown #NewEnglandVampirePanic #ExeterRhodeIsland #RhodeIslandHistory #TuberculosisHistory #AmericanFolklore #UnderThePines #TrueCrimePodcast