Texas' 'weird' teen vampire
After kicking down a woman's door and trying to feed on her neck, Lyle Bensley claimed to be a 500-year-old vampire. Is he really just a 19-year-old Twihard?

A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
The video: Lyle Monroe Bensley, 19, was arrested in his boxer shorts after he allegedly broke into the Galveston, Texas, home of a randomly chosen single woman, growled and hissed at her, dragged her down the hall, and tried to bite her on her neck. She escaped and was given refuge in a neighbor's car. When the police arrested Bensley a short time later, he told them he was a 500-year-old vampire. "He was begging us to restrain him because he didn't want to kill us," says Galveston officer Daniel Erickson. "He said he needed to feed." (Watch a news report of the incident below)
The reaction: It's pretty clear Bensley "has watched too many of those Twilight movies," says Mark Berman in Opposing Views. Or possibly overdosed on HBO's True Blood. Why else would this apparently sober, un-drugged teenager go all vampire on a woman, much less the cops? Well, "just look at those brooding eyes and sparkly skin!" says Seth Abramovitch in Gawker. Maybe he's who he claims to be. That's technically impossible, says John Nova Lomax in the Houston Press. "Where was his cape?" And why didn't this "Neck-Tattooed Nosferatu" turn to dust in daylight? Anticlimactically, it seems Bensley is just another "weird" and "wild-eyed kid" on the wrong side of the law. Judge for yourself:
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
-
A surge in surge pricing
Feature And more of the week's best financial insight
By The Week Staff Published
-
Rupert Murdoch steps aside at the empire he built
Feature The last of the old-style 'press barons' has retired. What is he leaving behind?
By The Week Staff Published
-
Net zero: the looming 'energy gap'
Talking point UK has made strides in decarbonising UK's electricity supply but government has few plans to expand capacity
By The Week Staff Published