Vampires in Hampton Roads

They're Blockbuster hits and number one best sellers. We're talking about movies and books about vampires and even Satan worshipping. Casting crews make the lead character look handsome and appealing, but local sheriff officials say they discovered a connection with those movies and recent crime in the area.  So, they contacted 10 On Your Side to alert parents of the problem. A 10 On Your Side investigation confirmed investigators' fears of this disturbing growing trend.

It might be hard to believe or even uncomfortable or scary to hear, but through our investigation we heard experts say vampires are real and they're living right here in Hampton Roads. Even more shocking is how easily your child can get sucked into their culture without you knowing it.

Twilight is a popular book, transformed into a popular movie, but it's not just a story anymore. For some, it's become reality.

"This I would have never thought would have come into my life, because I didn't know anything about it," says Lisa.

Lisa is a Virginia Beach mother who wants her identity hidden, but her family's story told.

"This girl was a vampire and she truly believed that she was a vampire," says Lisa.

That girl was a friend of Lisa's then 14-year-old daughter, but how did her little girl get involved with a self-proclaimed vampire? The answer sat right in their living room and Lisa's husband picked up on the problem.

"He would walk through the living room and notice she was on the computer and things would be minimized very quickly," says Lisa. "He kept telling me, 'She's doing something she shouldn't be doing,' and I kept saying, 'No she's not. She's fine. She's fine.'"

So to be on the safe side, Lisa installed a program in her family's computer that allowed her to check her daughter's IM and MySpace history. What she found was disturbing.

"There's things in there where she says that Satan, I am filled with Satan and he may as well consume me, of darkness or something and that was my daughter talking. So, it was very eye opening."

This mother's next step was searching her 14-year-old's room.

"There were pictures of, what I would call angels, that looked like they were dead or falling over a rock or whatever," says Lisa.

At her wits-end, Lisa contacted Don Rimer, a former Virginia Beach Police Officer who is an expert in Ritual and Occult Crimes.

"With the advent of Twilight and TrueBlood, we're seeing people, not just children, not just teenagers, but people are starting to take on that kind of a lifestyle," says Rimer. "Very reminiscent of what people did when Ann Rice wrote Interview with a Vampire . Now people are playing games.  New games are coming out. There's new merchandising that is associated with this and as long as they play their games and conduct their behavior lawfully, no one has a problem with that, but we're having crimes associated with it."

This expert tells 10 On Your Side the proof lies in recent vampire cases across the country.

"This past Halloween, in Hagerstown, a father was killed at the request of his 16 year-old daughter because he was trying to intervene in her new Twilight, vampire behavior. She had taken that on as a lifestyle with a number of friends. They were living that life. She sent one of her new associates to kill him.  He's dead and that's what frightens everyone," said Rimer.

You don't have to leave Hampton Roads to find proof of violent vampires. There's a group of self proclaimed vampires in jail right now, including Terisa Davidson of Hampton, and Dianna Breznik, Thomas Rogers, and Aaron Meader of Newport News. All but Meader are serving time for attempting to kill a man known as their head vampire in York County.

"The female which was involved in this, the eldest, she's 42 years old, wanted to be the leader. The male leader, she and the others decided to eliminate him. So he was taken to a remote area and he was stabbed, they injected him with a substance, and they hit him with a car. They beat him and then finally they soaked him in a flammable liquid and set him on fire and left him out in this remote area thinking he would die, but he crawled for hours until...he was able to be rescued and he survived," says Rimer.

Rimer is quick to point out, not all self-proclaimed vampires are violent to people outside their culture.

"Like in any society, we have good and evil. There are people involved in that that have no intention of committing crimes and then those who do."

Even so, Rimer doesn't think your children are ready for any form of the vampire world.

"There are people in that culture (who) believe they have the right to take human blood by whatever means necessary.  Then others are just playing a game. It's just a game. It's a movie, it's a book and we just want to look that way. We're just going to go to a club, but there's all kinds and children getting involved in that don't know the difference."

So what are warning signs of your child dabbling in vampirism or the occult? Look for self mutilation,