New Orleans is Home to At Least 50 Real Vampires

NEW ORLEANS, La. (KPEL-FM) - New Orleans and the state of Louisiana has always had a reputation for haunted legends and things that go bump in the night. Swamp monsters, ghosts, voodoo, and of course vampires a rumored to crawl around in the shadows in Louisiana year round, not just during Halloween.

Vampires can't be real though, right?

If not, nobody told the 50 real vampires that are said to be living in New Orleans.

Unsplash Via Vitaliy Shevchenko

The Casket Girls of the French Quarter

Vampire lore in New Orleans is almost as old as the City itself. One of more famous vampire stories of the Crescent City is The Casket Girls of the French Quarter.

In the 1700s, French girls known as les filles à la cassette or “casket girls”, arrived in New Orleans with small wooden trunks. Locals claimed their “caskets” contained no clothes, only vampires they brought from Europe.

The Ursuline nuns stored the caskets in the convent’s attic, which was sealed and still shrouded in mystery today. Some say the shutters on the attic windows are nailed shut to keep the vampires inside.

Then there's John and Wayne Carter and Jacques St. Germain, all rumored to be real vampires.

But, what about in 2025? Can there actually be "real vampires" living in New Orleans?

According to a recent study, there sure are.

(Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

Real Vampires Living In New Orleans

A doctoral candidate at Louisiana State University conducted research over a 5 year period and concluded that New Orleans is home to at least 50 real vampires.

John Edgar Browning, a Georgia Institute of Technology researcher tells The Washington Post that although his research finds that there are real vampires in New Orleans, he stresses they are, for the most part, just regular people.

There's even a New Orleans Vampire Association that explains they are a "non-profit organization comprised of self-identifying vampires representing an alliance between Houses within the community in the greater New Orleans area."

Real vampires aren't just in the city of New Orleans because according to a survey conducted by the Atlanta Vampire Alliance, they estimate there are roughly 5,000 real vampires throughout the US.

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Gallery Credit: Joe Cunningham