GADSDEN, Ala. – A 20-year-old man charged with burning a “V”” into the forehead of a teenager claimed he is a vampire and lived in a house with altars and satanic symbols spray-painted on walls, police said Thursday.
Evan Francis Brown of Albertville was arrested Tuesday in Gadsden on a warrant for second-degree assault, a felony, while he appeared in court on misdemeanor vandalism counts in a separate case.
Sgt. Mike Hooks, a Gadsden police detective, said Brown is accused of heating a fork on the stove and using it to burn a “V”” into the forehead of a 17-year-old who had been hanging around the house, where several other young people stayed and often dressed in ghoulish garb. Brown allegedly tied the teen up, tricking him into believing they were playing a game.
“He claimed to be a Satanist,” Hooks said. “He goes by ”Vamp.””
He said Brown and others in the house were “wannabe vampires.”
Brown was released Tuesday on $2,500 bond. Court records did not indicate that he had a lawyer, and a phone listing for Brown could not be found.
Hooks said the assault on the 17-year-old, which included a beating and burning with cigarettes, took place around Halloween. He said the victim was left tied up about an hour before others in the house took him to a hospital emergency room, where police were contacted.
Hooks told The Gadsden Times, which first reported the branding, that a book on witchcraft, apparently stolen from a library, was found in the house. He said it also had satanic symbols painted on walls, some with smudges of blood.
He said police investigators found that Brown had worked at a local haunted house during the Halloween season, writing on his job application that he “looked creepy, and I enjoy scaring people.”
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