New Orleans is known for many things—Mardi Gras, jazz music, beignets—but locals will tell you the city has another claim to fame: vampires.
According to one TikToker, it’s not just tourist trap folklore.
Everyone In New Orleans Has A Vampire Story
In a viral video with more than 1.4 million views, TikToker @user27291002839303 (which might be an AI account) explains that vampire lore runs deep in New Orleans. And it’s not just something tour guides talk about to spook visitors.
“The vampires in New Orleans are real,” she says in the video. “There’s all this lore about, like, ‘Oh, I met a vampire at a bar in New Orleans.’ ‘My Uber driver told me he met a vampire once.'”
She explains that if you talk to local people, everyone has some sort of story. One particularly infamous tale involves a bartender who claims the Carter Brothers walked into her bar. And that story has become legendary in New Orleans.
“The Carter Brothers are infamous. Everybody has a story about them,” she says in the TikTok.
The TikToker describes how the Carter Brothers were two men in the 1930s who became notorious in New Orleans after allegedly abducting people and draining their blood. The legend has persisted for decades, with locals attributing unexplained supernatural occurrences around town to one of the brothers.
“They were rumored to be vampires after allegedly abducting and draining the blood of their victim,” she explains. “A lot of people think if there are, like, weird things happening around town that are, like, supernatural and unexplained, it could be linked to one of the Carter brothers.”
She also mentions another famous vampire legend: Count Saint Germain, described as “the man who does not die and knows everything.”
“Everybody’s had sightings of him. People have claimed to have been seeing him since the eighteenth century. And he just, like, changes as time goes on, so people, you know, figure out he’s immortal,” she says.
The TikToker emphasizes that New Orleans is “a bit of a paranormal hotspot.” Both locals and visitors end up with their own unexplained encounters, she notes.
“There are thousands of stories just like this,” she says in the video. “If you’re a local or a visitor, it seems like everybody ends up having some sort of story.”
The Dark Legend Of The Carter Brothers
The Carter Brothers legend centers on John and Wayne Carter. According to Yesterday’s America, they arrived in the city just before the Great Depression and worked night shifts at the docks.
Their dark secret allegedly came to light in 1932 when a young girl rushed down Royal Street in a visible panic and was intercepted by a police officer.
Her story sounded far-fetched at the time. She claimed she’d been tied up by the two brothers along with several other victims so they could drink their blood. She said she only escaped because the brothers were careless in securing her ropes.
Police followed her back to a home on the corner of Royal and St. Ann. They allegedly found four other people tied to chairs and barely alive, along with more than a dozen bodies drained of blood.
When John and Wayne Carter returned home, they were quickly apprehended. And, according to legend, confessed almost immediately and begged to be executed because they claimed they were vampires who couldn’t control their need for blood.
The story goes that the brothers were tried as serial killers, convicted, and eventually executed. But here’s where it gets even stranger. When their family vault was later opened to bury another relative, Ranker reports the brothers’ bodies had mysteriously vanished. This, of course, fueled rumors that they were indeed vampires who couldn’t truly die.
However, researchers have cast doubt on the tale’s authenticity. According to HauntJaunts, there are no execution records for John or Wayne Carter in Louisiana’s history.
No court documents exist showing they were arrested or tried. The story may be entirely fictional, an urban legend that grew during a dark period in American history.
Despite the lack of evidence, the legend persists. And people still claim to see the Carter Brothers in the French Quarter.
The Immortal Count Saint Germain
The legend of Jacques St. Germain is equally mysterious. According to Locations of Lore, a man named Jacques St. Germain arrived in New Orleans from France in the early 1900s and moved into a home on Royal Street. He claimed to be a descendant of the historical Comte de Saint-Germain, an 18th-century European aristocrat known for his alleged immortality.
Jacques became known for throwing lavish dinner parties for New Orleans high society. Curiously, he never ate any of the food he served his guests. He was only ever seen drinking what appeared to be red wine. He fascinated guests with detailed stories about historical events from centuries past, speaking as if he’d witnessed them firsthand.
The legend took a dark turn when a woman was heard screaming from his home after he allegedly attacked her and bit her neck. She escaped by jumping from his second-story balcony. When police investigated his home, they reportedly found bottles filled with a mixture of wine and human blood. Jacques St. Germain disappeared before authorities could question him and was never seen again.
Commenters React
“Interview with a vampire was true then,” a top comment read.
“I claim no negative energy from this,” a person said.
“I lived in New Orleans for 8 years. it’s definitely a different world there i have so many crazy stories from working in the French Quarter,” another wrote.
“Real vampires won’t say they are real vampires,” a commenter added.
BroBible reached out to @user27291002839303 for comment via TikTok direct message and comment. We’ll be sure to update this if she responds.