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Summary Vampires have been a focal point of literature since Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula.
The arrest of a Texas man who broke into a womans house, threw her against a wall and tried to suck her blood over the weekend has sparked discussion over the impact of vampire books and movies on U.S. youth culture.Whether pop culture played a role in the attack remains to be seen, as 19-year-old Lyle Monroe Bensley awaits a psychiatric evaluation in jail on burglary charges in Galveston, Texas, southeast of Houston.Found growling and hissing in a parking lot and wearing only boxer shorts, the pierced and tattooed Bensley claimed he was a 500-year-old vampire who needed to feed, Galveston Police Capt. Jeff Heyse said.But fascination, particularly among young people, has peaked in recent years with the popularity of the Twilight books about teenage vampires and the HBO series, “True Blood”.
