‘Real vampire’ so harmful she was padlocked inside grave as remaining moments are revealed

A ‘real life vampire’ was considered so dangerous she was padlocked inside her grave with a sickle across her neck, as experts unearthed her final moments alive.

The woman, nicknamed Zosia by researchers, died 350 years ago in Poland but was only discovered in a graveyard around two years ago. Now, scans of her skull and other tests have now given a new insight into what she may have looked like and how her final moments alive were spent.

The 18-year-old is now thought to have had fair skin, blue eyes, short hair and a protruding incisor tooth. But more troublingly, when she was found, she was buried with a sickle around her neck and a padlock on one of her toes. Of more than 100 bodies found in the same graveyard in Pien, Poland, Zosia’s was the only one to have these precautions.

Professor Dariusz Polinski, who worked with Magda Zagrodzka on research into Zosia, told the Daily Mail: “It can be assumed that for some reason those burying the woman were afraid that she would rise from the grave. Perhaps they feared she was a vampire.”

It is thought the sickle and padlock were both put in place to stop any attempts to rise from the dead, with the sickle positioned to cut her head off if she had moved.

“The sickle was not laid flat, but placed on the neck in such a way that if the deceased had tried to get up most likely the head would have been cut off or injured,” Polinski said.

Rather than being an actual vampire however, the reason Zosia was so feared may have been down to a deformity.

Bone scans examined by medical investigator Dr. Heather Edgar at the University of New Mexico found an abnormality in Zosia’s breast bone.

She told the Times that the deformity “marked this person [to others] in a negative way”, potentially explaining the fear some others held towards her.

The latest findings about Zosia will be revealed in a new documentary, Field of Vampires, airing on Sky History on October 29 and November 5.