Australia’s “lesbian vampire killer” Tracey Wigginton, who stabbed a man to death and drank his blood, is expected to be released from prison within weeks after an independent parole board decision.

Her co-accused lover, Lisa Ptaschinski, was released in 2008.

A Florida woman jailed in the slaying of a 16-year-old boy says she and her cohorts were members of a vampire cult and that she loves drinking blood.

The 18-year-old denies drinking the victim’s blood after the murder, but reportedly claims she has drunk the blood of her fiance and co-defendant.

In an unusual story about three missing kids, CBS Atlanta has learned three Cobb County students all disappeared within a few days of each other.

The three McEachern High School teens were said to be involved a Goth lifestyle, had an obsession with vampires, and then they disappeared each within a week of each other.

Two of the teens turned up over the weekend. But Shelby Elllis, a 16 year old sophomore, is still missing and her parents fear the worst.

Shelby has been missing for three weeks. On Oct. 11, she took the bus to school and never came home. Her last known activity on the Internet was logging onto the website “Vampire Freaks,” where her parents say she lived a double life.

“You have the obvious thoughts of pentagrams and candles and the crazy things that you see on TV that are associated with the darker cult lifestyle,” Rich Ellis said.

“A lot of them are in this dark, ‘let’s be gothic, let’s be different, let’s suck blood.’ All kinds of dark stuff,” Wendy Ellis said.

She said the three girls were fascinated with vampires and the dark side of life.

Police have released additional details on a stabbing that took place in Chandler earlier this week. The story has attracted national attention as the “vampire stabbing” after suspects told police they practice vampireism and paganism and said they were trying to suck the victim’s blood.

Police say the victim, 25-year-old Robert Maley, was stabbed after refusing to let his roommates suck his blood.

Vampires are in fashion across the United States, encouraged by the hit TV series “True Blood,” now in its third season, the “Twilight” movies and “Vampire Diaries.” Stories about feeding on blood are greedily consumed and eagerly published.

For a pastime with dark, anti-religious overtones vampire fashion is itself becoming oddly like an organized religion. There are rules, priests, private gatherings and large-scale celebrations.

The growing interest in stories like the Twilight saga could see “real” vampires emerge from the underground and into the daylight.

University of Western Sydney Associate Professor Adam Possamai, who specialises in sociology of religion, said the growing number of “vampires” was an example of hyper-real religions – new faiths that draw on religion, philosophy and popular culture to create their own beliefs.

He said people had been interested in vampires since the 1970s, particularly the super-human abilities of vampires.

A row over claims a notorious lesbian vampire murderer was to be released from jail has been resolved – with the revelation that it was her co-accused lover who is to be set free.

Queensland’s Corrective Services department has rejected reports a woman known as the vampire killer for her role in a brutal Brisbane murder has been approved for parole or graduated release.

Vampire-cult leader Rod Ferrell claimed he would live forever. But as the convicted murderer serves a life sentence in prison, it’s the story of his gruesome Lake County killings that just won’t die.

A lesbian member of a blood-drinking vampire cult and her lover have been sentenced to life in prison for the sexually-motivated murder of their housemate.

Vampires, underground lairs – the stuff of fiction. But a Nixa mother and daughter say they lived through it, in Springfield. As a warning, they share their tale.

Turns out vampires weren’t always as sexy and seductive as Dracula.

In January 2006, Jonathon “The Impaler” Sharkey, a former wrestler himself, announced that he was running for governor of Minnesota. On the Vampyres, Witches and Pagans ticket, naturally.

She was called a killer. A gothic vampire. An awkward 15-year-old who fell in with the wrong crowd. Today, at 25, Heather Wendorf-Kelly isn’t out to change minds. She’s just trying to move her life forward and give the scars of her past time to heal.

The true story of Rod Ferrell and his vampire cult is being used to teach students about the legal system – and about how easily some people are manipulated into making bad decisions.