The Connecticut "Vampire" Burial (JB55, Griswold)

Briefing

In 1990, sand-and-gravel operations in Griswold, Connecticut exposed an unmarked cemetery of the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries; twenty-seven burials were recorded [1]. One stone-lined grave held a middle-aged man whose coffin lid bore brass tacks spelling “JB55”, read as his initials and his age at death [1]. The case is documented here as a forensic identification cold case — an unnamed individual whose putative identity was established almost two centuries later through DNA — and as one of the best-attested examples of a New England folk practice.

Sequence of events

1990 — discovery

• An early-19th-century cemetery is exposed during quarrying; twenty-seven burials are recorded [1].
• One grave is found stone-lined, holding a middle-aged male; coffin hardware dates the burial to the early nineteenth century, and brass tacks on the lid spell “JB55” [1].
• The skull and femora have been repositioned into a “skull and crossbones” orientation — deliberate postmortem rearrangement [1].

1994 — the bioarchaeological report

• The skeleton shows proliferative lesions on the inner (pleural) surfaces of the ribs, consistent with chronic pulmonary infection and interpreted as pulmonary tuberculosis [1][2].
• The published report states that “certain bones in the skeleton were rearranged after decomposition was complete” — the grave was reopened some time after death, not disturbed at burial [2].
• The authors place the act within a documented New England belief that a deceased tuberculosis victim could return to “waste away” surviving relatives, to be stopped by exhuming and disrupting the body; twelve historic accounts of such activity are cited [2].

2019 — the DNA identification

• Initial 1990s mitochondrial DNA testing had produced control-region sequences but could not identify JB55 without known maternal relatives [1].
• SNP ancestry testing indicates 100% European biogeographic ancestry; a full Y-STR profile is obtained and assigned to Y-haplogroup R1b, refined to R1b-P312 [1].
• Searched against a public R1b genealogy project, the profile returns two closest matches, both surnamed “Barber” [1].
• Historical records name a John Barber whose son Nathan Barber was buried in Griswold in 1826; a nearby subadult burial (“NB13”) is consistent with a son. On this combined genetic and documentary basis the authors propose JB55’s putative identity as John Barber [1].

November 2022 — facial reconstruction

• A DNA-informed facial reconstruction of “John Barber” is unveiled at the International Symposium on Human Identification [3].

Documentary record

The primary source is the peer-reviewed 2019 Genes study, which sets out the burial context, the DNA methods, the R1b haplogroup, the genealogy-database match, and the John Barber identification [1]. It rests upon the original 1994 American Journal of Physical Anthropology communication by Sledzik and Bellantoni, which first described the burial, the tuberculosis rib lesions, the postmortem bone rearrangement, and the vampire folk-belief context [2]. The 2022 facial reconstruction is documented only through secondary reporting and is treated as reported, not established [3].

Those involved include Nicholas Bellantoni, the Connecticut State Archaeologist who excavated the cemetery in 1990 and co-authored both papers; Paul S. Sledzik, forensic anthropologist and co-author of the 1994 report; and Charla Marshall, corresponding author of the 2019 study at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFMES-AFDIL) [1][2]. The 2022 reconstruction was produced by Parabon NanoLabs, with a forensic artist and AFDIL, whose Director of Bioinformatics Ellen Greytak is quoted on the difficulty of phenotyping historical bone [3].

Open questions

1. The identification is explicitly putative: the Y-STR match confirms the paternal Barber surname line, not the specific individual, and no primary vital record definitively naming “John Barber, 55” at this grave has been located [1].
2. The interval between burial and the exhumation and rearrangement is not fixed in the primary abstract beyond “after decomposition was complete” [2].
3. Whether JB55 was specifically feared as a “vampire” — as opposed to being subject to a generic contagion or apotropaic ritual — is an interpretation, not a recorded contemporary statement.
4. Counts differ between accounts: some describe a “Walton family cemetery” of roughly twenty-nine individuals, while the 2019 paper records twenty-seven burials; both figures circulate and the papers do not fully reconcile them [1][2].
5. The phenotype percentages reported in some secondary outlets (for example ~92% fair skin, ~99.8% brown/hazel eyes) are not confirmed against a primary release here; the primary secondary source gives fair skin, brown or hazel eyes, and brown or black hair without percentages [3].

Status

This file is CONFIDENTIAL — admitted on the strength of two peer-reviewed papers documenting the burial, the tuberculosis rib lesions, the postmortem bone rearrangement, and the DNA analysis [1][2]. The John Barber identification is carried as putative, in line with the primary study’s own language, and the “vampire” framing is recorded as a modern interpretation rather than a contemporary label. The 1994 authors’ hypothesis — that, in the absence of a heart left to burn, the “skull and crossbones” arrangement served the same apotropaic function — is logged as their theory, not as fact [2]. Updates pending any primary confirmation of the phenotype figures and any direct vital record for JB55.

References

1. Daniels-Higginbotham, J. et al. (2019). “DNA Testing Reveals the Putative Identity of JB55, a 19th Century Vampire Buried in Griswold, Connecticut”, Genes 10(9):636, 22nd August 2019. DOI 10.3390/genes10090636 (open access, CC BY 4.0).
2. Sledzik, P.S. & Bellantoni, N. (1994). “Brief communication: bioarcheological and biocultural evidence for the New England vampire folk belief”, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 94(2):269–274. PMID 8085617.
3. Germain, J. (2022). “Scientists Digitally Reconstruct Face of 19th-Century Man Accused of Being a Vampire”, Smithsonian Magazine, 9th November 2022.