In the shadowy annals of vampire lore, where myths and reality intertwine, one woman’s haunting tale stands out— Sarah Ellen Roberts, an unassuming woman from Blackburn, England, who would become immortalized as Dracula’s Bride in the unlikeliest of places: Pisco, Peru.
In the long, eerie catalog of vampire lore — from the misted Carpathians to the cobbled streets of Whitby — few tales are quite as strange, or as oddly international, as that of Sarah Ellen Roberts, a woman born in Blackburn, England in 1872, who died in obscurity yet rose to legend as Dracula’s Bride in Peru.
On June 9 in 1993, her 80th death anniversary was in Pisco, Peru where she is buried. The locals feared she would return for her vengeance. Pregnant women fled the town, hundreds of anti-vampire kits were sold and street vendors were selling t-shirts and keyrings as television and radio broadcasted it all live. They were all fearing and awaiting the return of Dracula’s bride.
The Life and Sinister Reputation of Sarah Ellen Roberts
Not much is historically documented about Sarah Ellen’s early life in Blackburn. She was born Sarah Ellen Gargett and was born March 6 in 1872 in Burnley. She was one of four children of the coachman, William Gargett and Catherine Abbott.
She grew up in Blackburn, England and married John Pryce Roberts in St. John’s Church in 1892, both working as weavers, raising their two sons, Frank and William born in 1892 and 93 on Bolton Road in Blackburn.
Seemingly a humble and innocent life, so how in the world did she end up buried in Peru with a reputation of being a vampire?
John had a brother who left to work as a manager at Nab-lane in a weaving mill in Lima, Peru in 1901. He must have been successful as he traveled first class back. John himself went to Peru at least two times in 1912 and 1913. He brought Sarah with him and left their children in England with Sarah’s aunt, Lily Gargett. But Sarah would never return to England the last trip they took.
On the 9th of June in 1913 she died of unknown cause in Pisco, Peru, 200 km south of Lima. Her obituary in the Northern Daily Telegraph simply read:
On the 9th inst., at Pisco, Peru, Sarah Ellen, the beloved wife of John P. Roberts (formerly of 25 Isherwood-street, Blackburn.) In her 42nd year. Deeply regretted.
John Roberts returned to England and ended his day as a weaver, opening a grocer’s shop he ran until his death in October 1925.
The Legends Of Sarah
As mentioned, little is known about her life except the skeleton we can read about through wedding dates in the church register or the census records. but what lingers in local memory is the rumor that she dabbled in the dark arts. Accusations of witchcraft, murder, and even vampirism followed her like a shadow. Folklore claims she was suspected of being one of the undead — a creature cursed to drain the life from others in order to sustain her own. In Victorian England, where superstition clung tight even as the Industrial Revolution steamed ahead, such rumors could be a death sentence.
According to the rumors, Sarah was sentenced to death in East Lancashire after the accusations of her being a witch, vampire and murderer. Legend has it that, in 1913, she was chained, nailed inside a lead-lined coffin, and left to die. And as she died, she vowed to return for revenge.
England, it is said, refused her burial — no hallowed ground would accept the restless corpse of a vampire. Desperate to find his wife a final resting place, John allegedly wandered the globe for four years with her corpse, encountering refusal after refusal from fearful communities in all of Europe as well as Chile and Argentina. A sailor told him to go to Peru as “everyone knows Peru is the land of witches.”. It wasn’t until he reached Pisco, a small port town in Peru, that he found a people willing — or perhaps sufficiently unaware — to allow her burial. There he bought a tomb for five pound and laid his wife to rest.
Thus, Sarah Ellen was laid to rest in Cementerio General de Pisco, far from the foggy moors of England. But death would not be the end of her story
The Night of Dread and Disappointment
As midnight approached on 9th June 1993, nearly one thousand people gathered around Sarah Ellen’s grave. The date of her resurrection had been from Cuban talk show host, Cristina Saralegui on her program, a self proclaimed vampire specialist.
Some came out of morbid curiosity, others driven by genuine dread. As mentioned, pregnant women fled the town as they were afraid that her spirit would be reborn as their child.
The crowd included witch doctors and spiritualists, eager to ward off whatever horror might claw its way from the earth.
The grave was doused with holy water and protective rites were performed, sprinkling flower petals as well as blood on her grave, welcoming her back. Local shamans chanted, crosses were brandished, and prayers filled the night air thick with incense and anticipation as people had armed themselves with crucifixes, holy water, stakes and garlic. Midnight struck, and… nothing.
The grave remained undisturbed. No spectral figure emerged. No pallid hand tore through the soil. The townsfolk, some relieved, others a little disappointed, slowly dispersed into the night and the broadcasters packed up their equipment with little to report on.
Local witch doctors claimed victory over evil; skeptics chalked it up to superstition’s last gasp. In 2007, a massive earthquake hit Peru that killed hundreds and destroyed a lot of the city, including the cemetery that her grave was. Her grave was undamaged and people speculated that this was a sign that she really held powers, even in her grave. Even today, some believe the rituals merely postponed the inevitable, and that Sarah Ellen Roberts still waits.
An Enduring Enigma
Fact and fiction blur at the edges of Sarah Ellen’s tale. Historical records of her existence are scant, and little in England officially documents the accusations against her. There were also versions of the legend where she was one of the three “brides of Dracula”, together with the sisters Andrea and Erica. They were executed in Blackburn and buried by John Roberts in Mexico and Hungary or Panama, as the legend varies. This thing comes from the Cuban TV personality. The question is: was the tale even a thing in Peru before this broadcast?
According to this variation, she and her sisters had gone to Transylvania and met Dracula himself who had seduced her and made her his lover, biting her and making her a vampire.
Another tale was that she gave birth to a son as soon as she arrived in Peru and died six days later. After this, stories about a pale foreign woman were seen in town as she fed on the blood of animals and young children. This creature was known as the Vampira de Inglaterra.
Yet in Peru, her grave remains real, and her legend persists.
Over the years, her story has appeared in Peruvian newspapers, paranormal documentaries, and folklore anthologies.
Final Thoughts from the Crypt
In the grand pantheon of vampire legends, Sarah Ellen Roberts stands out not for bloody deeds or midnight prowls, but for the sheer, gothic absurdity of her story: an accused vampire from industrial England buried in coastal Peru, with an apocalyptic prophecy attached for good measure.
Historians have several times debunked the story, although tourism still thrives on it. If it was so that she was convicted for witchcraft, there would only be a prison sentence as well as more press like the last woman convicted for witchcraft in the UK made.
Read More: Spiritualism and the Occult: The History of Ectoplasm and Gooey Ghosts
What happened when she died? Was it a traveling man with his wife in a coffin, trying to get her back to England that gave rise to the myths? Was it something that happened before she left for South America that gave a lingering impression on those who crossed her path?
Her grandchildren were unaware of the vampire legends that existed about her until 1993 and that the legend had more with a 60% spike in tourism in the Pisco area after the incident. Some believe that she was no vampire at all, but a saint, leaving her flowers on her grave and asking for miracles today.
And while she didn’t rise in 1993, one can’t help but wonder if perhaps — in true vampiric fashion — she’s just biding her time.
After all… some graves are better left unvisited.
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References:
Sarah Roberts (subject of vampire legend) – Wikipedia
Vampires – Sarah Ellen Roberts
Sarah Ellen (1872-1913) – Find a Grave Memorial