12 Crimes Committed By Real-Life Werewolves

Werewolves: ancient legends, or real-life monsters? Whether you believe in these creatures or not, crimes committed by werewolves appear in the history books and on the Internet. A number of these supposed werewolf crimes originate from 16th century Europe, particularly France and Germany. This was the height of werewolf hysteria, when many men and women were burned at the stake or tortured after being accused of possessing dark powers. A few of these victims truly believed that they could turn into beasts.

But modern-day werewolves may have been found as well. One had a run-in with the cops after terrorizing a campsite; another claimed that the neighbor he killed was a vampire. And that's not to mention the self-proclaimed werewolf who snapped photos with a severed dog's head. 

Read on to learn more about crimes committed by these so-called werewolves throughout history.

Albert Fish is one of the most notorious serial killers in history, also known as the Brooklyn Vampire, The Boogey Man, and the Werewolf of Wysteria. Before he became a full-blown murderer and cannibal, he reportedly liked to eat raw meat during every full moon. Later, he began preying on children.

He met one of his victims, Grace Budd, after responding to an employment ad that Grace's brother had placed in the paper. He went there with the intention of offering the boy a job, luring him away, and killing him, but he changed his mind when he saw Grace. He said he'd love to take her to his niece's birthday party, and her parents agreed to let her go with Fish. They never saw Grace again.

Years later, her family received a mysterious letter detailing how the writer had killed Grace and consumed her flesh. The letter was traced back to Fish and he was arrested. The exact number of his victims is unknown.

In the late 1500s, the city of Bedburg, Germany was terrorized by a wolf-like creature. Both townspeople and livestock were being killed, and children were disappearing. Citizens were terrified but could do nothing to stop the mysterious killer.

Year later, a group of men were out hunting for the wolf. They spotted the animal and moved in for the capture, but when they got closer, they realized it was a man: Peter Stumpp. He was a farmer who lived just outside of the city.

Stumpp was threatened with torture and confessed to killing one man, two pregnant women, and thirteen children. He said that at the age of twelve he entered into a pact with the Devil, who gave him a magical belt that would transform him into a werewolf.

He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. His mistress and his daughter, whom he was accused of having an incestuous relationship with, were also sentenced to death as a way to make sure they killed all of the evil in his family. Stumpp's execution was brutal: he was stretched on a wheel, his limbs were broken with an ax, and he was beheaded. His daughter and mistress were burned at the stake.

Not only was Manuel Blanco Romasanta a self-proclaimed werewolf, he is also believed to be Spain's first serial killer. He was born in 1809 and for the first few years of his life, he was raised as a girl. Doctors didn't discover that he was male until he was six years old.

After becoming a widower in 1833, he started working as a travel guide in Spain and Portugal. In 1844, he was suspected of killing the constable of Leon after the official had tried to collect a debt. Romasanta fled the country and became a fugitive, hiding in a small village and using a fake name.

His murder count only grew after that. Several of the women who had hired him disappeared along with their children, and he covered up their absences by writing letters to their families explaining that they had moved. Finally, the other villagers caught on. They accused him of killing the missing people and making soap out of their fat.

At his trial, Romasanta claimed that he had been cursed to transform into a wolf. In his animal form, he would go on five-day killing sprees before returning to his human body. The court took his claim seriously and asked him to prove it by turning into a wolf before their eyes, but he explained that the curse lasted for thirteen years and had just expired the previous week.

He was acquitted for some of the murders after it was proven that a few victims had died in real wolf attacks, but he was convicted on nine charges and sentenced to death. Queen Isabella commuted his execution because a doctor hoped to treat his lycanthropy, but he died in prison a few months later.

Thiess of Kaltenbrun was in his eighties when his neighbors accused him of being a werewolf. The authorities didn't take the charge seriously, since he seemed like a harmless old man, but that changed in 1691 when he was brought in for questioning about a totally unrelated matter.

He confessed that ten years earlier, he had indeed been a werewolf. Thiess explained that on certain holidays, he and a few other humans would transform into werewolves and then roam the countryside killing and eating animals. He also claimed that werewolves were the Hounds of God, and they were meant to travel to Hell to fight witches and the Devil. The Hounds would bring back the livestock and other things the witches had stolen from the human realm.

Thiess was exiled after revealing that he also practiced folk magic in addition to being a self-proclaimed werewolf. There is no record of what happened to him in exile.

Emily Isabella Burt, also known as The Werewolf of Georgia, returned after a semester in Europe as a changed woman. Her mother noticed that she looked ill and often stared off into the distance. She suffered from insomnia, began to grow hair in odd places, and her teeth became pointed like fangs. Sometimes when she had trouble sleeping, she would wander in the woods.

Around the same time, local farmers began waking up in the morning to find that their livestock had been slaughtered in the night. They suspected a wolf attack and formed nightly hunting parties, determined to kill the animal. One night as they hunted during a full moon, the farmers shot at a figure lurking in the woods. The next morning, Emily Isabella awoke with a bullet wound in her hand.

After that, her mother shipped her off to Paris to be treated by a doctor who specialized in lycanthropy. The attacks on the livestock ended. When Emily Isabella completed her treatment, she returned to Georgia and lived there until her death in 1911.

Wolfie Blackheart is a self-proclaimed werewolf who belongs to a teenage "wolf pack" in Texas. In 2010, the eighteen-year-old gained some notoriety after posting a photo of a dog's severed head on her MySpace page. The photo prompted an investigation by the San Antonio police and Animal Care Services.

When interviewed, Wolfie admitted that she had found a dead dog, severed its head, and boiled it. She had a small collection of animal skulls that she insisted had all come from roadkill. "I would never kill a canine. I am a canine," she said.

Her mother also insisted that Wolfie would never hurt a living animal, but their neighbor, Kathy, was suspicious. When she saw the photo of the dog's severed head, she thought it looked a lot like her missing pup, Rigsby. However, the police were never able to prove that Wolfie harmed a live animal.

In 2013, a California man named Mark Andrews used a rifle to kill his neighbor, Colleen Barga-Milbury. He tried to claim insanity during the trial, saying he was a werewolf, that he was married to a she-wolf, and that he had lived through medieval times. He told a psychologist that he first transformed into a werewolf when he was three years old.

He also said that he believed that his neighbor was a vampire who was stealing his dreams, perhaps continuing to lay tracks for an insanity defense. However, there was evidence that he had planned the crime and tried to avoid being caught. He was even interviewed by a TV reporter and feigned shock at his neighbor's death.

Andrews was convicted of murder in 2015 and sentenced to fifty years in jail.

The real name of The Werewolf of Chalons has been lost. He was accused of crimes so horrific that officials wanted him erased from the history books and his true identity is now unknown. 

Here's what historians think they know: he was a tailor living in Paris, and he allegedly lured children into his shop so that he could torture and murder them. He then carefully carved them up and ate them for dinner. To capture even more children, he would transform into a wolf and stalk his victims through the forest at night. 

When his shop was searched, a barrel full of bleached children's bones was discovered. He confessed to his crimes and showed no remorse at his trial, even going into explicit detail about what he had done to the children. He was burned at the stake and court officials destroyed all court documents relating to the case.

Pierre Burgot and Michel Verdun were French serial killers who also said they were werewolves. At his trial in 1521, Pierre Burgot claimed that as he was out searching for his lost sheep one night, three men in black approached him. They demanded that he renounce God, but said that in return, they would make him rich and give him back his lost sheep. He reluctantly agreed.

Soon after, he met Michel Verdun, who claimed to be a shapeshifter able to transform into a werewolf. Verdun supposedly took Burgot to a meeting of warlocks, where they stripped naked and applied a strange salve all over their bodies. Burgot claimed that they morphed into wolves and started murdering people throughout the French countryside.

Both men confessed to their crimes, which included eating a nine-year-old girl after breaking her neck. They were convicted and burned at the stake.

In 2011, police in Lorain County, Ohio were called to a campground after Thomas Stroup was reported for being violent. When they arrived, Stroup's friend told them he was concerned because Thomas had been very aggressive towards other campers and some animals.

Police found Stroup passed out drunk among a pile of knives and swords. He refused to open his eyes and started growling at the officers. Whe he finally spoke, it was with a thick Russian accent. He explained that ever since he was scratched by a wolf in Germany, he blacked out during the full moon and went on rampages. He then started threatening to kill the deputy's cousin, Keith, even though the deputy didn't have a cousin named Keith. He was arrested for under-age alcohol consumption.