Case file · Folklore / legend
Casket girls of the Ursuline Convent
In 1728 the French crown sent young women to New Orleans with small trunks (cassettes); a modern legend says their sealed chests in the Old Ursuline Convent attic held vampires.
1728 CE · 29.96, -90.06 · status: legend
The account
The real filles à la cassette were placed under the care of the Ursuline nuns until they married. Ghost tours say the third-floor shutters are nailed shut to keep something in.
The sceptical view
The vampire story is a late 20th-century invention; the convent was finished in the 1750s, after the women arrived, and the shutters are hurricane fittings.