Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - She's a Real Life Vampire - The Daniel and Manuela Ruda Story

Episode Date: November 27, 2025

In July 2001, German couple Daniel and Manuela Ruda- deeply involved in Satanic and vampire-themed beliefs- lured their friend, 33-year-old Frank Hackert, to their apartment in Witten and brutally murdered him in what they described as a ritual killing. Manuela had filed her teeth into fangs and slept in a coffin, and Daniel claimed he’d received a vision of the number 6667, which he believed meant they should marry on June 6 and kill themselves on July 6 after offering a human sacrifice to Satan.

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Paradise, the official podcast, is now streaming. And stream Paradise on Kulu and Kulu on Disney Plus. So this woman really believes that she's a vampire? Now the woman's name is Manuela, and Manuel is around 21 when this story starts, and she's living in Germany, and Homegirl is extremely into goth culture, like the black boots and the heavy metal, she even worship Satan, and she does like rituals, and she sleeps in graveyards and like all sorts of weird stuff. But she's also got a big problem. She's actually kind of lonely.

But one day, in the year 2000, all that changes. Because she's reading a heavy metal magazine. Because of course she is. And in it, she sees a personal ad. And the ad says, Vampire seeks Princess of Darkness, who hates everybody and everything. And I guess she thinks this is pretty romantic,

and she's like, well, this vampire guy seems foin. And so she reaches out and she contacts the guy who posted it. The guy who posted the ad is this guy, Daniel. And Daniel, he's around 25, and he's just like Manuela. He's into all that goth and Satan worshiping shit. He's even into blood-drinking rituals? So eventually, Manuel and Daniel meet up in real life. And the chemistry is off the charts.

It's a match made in hell. And so they decide to officially start dating. And they feel like they're perfect for one another. They go to Satan-worshipping parties together. They do blood-drinking rituals. together. They take vacations to England and Scotland, and rather than stay in a hotel, they just like sleep in graveyards. Here's a picture of the two of them in real life if you want to see what they look like. They seem very pleasant. And not long after they start dating, they decide to take the

next step and move in together. And if these two aren't weird enough, here's where things get even weirder. Now, they're both into strange satanic goth type stuff. But Manuela specifically is into vampire things, and she actually considers herself a real-life living vampire. And once they move in together, Manuela, she doesn't have a job, so Daniel's basically supporting her. So he goes to work every day at an auto parts store while Manuela stays at home and like sleeps all day. And since she considers herself a vampire, she stays out of the sunlight and apparently they keep their apartment dark even at night. Not only that, but her bed is an actual coffin. So she sleeps in a coffin. She also has her canine teeth filed down to look like animal fangs

or I guess vampire fangs. And this goes on for some time and they get more and more into this lifestyle and more and more into the Satanism part. And one day in 2001, Daniel starts getting visions. Because I guess he's got some mental illness stuff going on. Specifically, he gets visions of the number 6667. And he doesn't know what he's supposed to do with this information, but he eventually decides that this is a sign. It's a sign from Satan himself and that they've been selected by him and that they need to get married.

And that the 666 he's seeing in his visions are a sign that they should get married on the 6th day of the 6th month, June 6th. And the 7 is a sign that they should sacrifice themselves a month later on the 7th month, and that once they die, they'll become actual vampires living in hell with Satan. However, they feel that just unaliving themselves, that's not going to be enough to appease Satan. They also feel like they need to sacrifice someone else.

But they don't know who they're going to sacrifice. But then Daniel remembers a guy that he works with, this guy, Frank. And Frank, he's apparently super nice. He gets along with Daniel. In fact, he's one of the only people at work who actually talks to him. and doesn't judge him for his strange beliefs. Plus, Frank is a funny guy. He has a good sense of humor.

And Daniel and Manuel think that if they kill him and he goes to hell, that he would actually make a good court jester for Satan. That's kind of insulting to Frank. Regardless, they've got it all planned out. They'll invite Frank over one night, and then they'll murder him. So, some time passes, and it's finally June, and these two vampire goth weirdos get married. Then July comes, and now it's time for the next phase of their plan, the human sacrifice.

So Daniel goes and he invites Frank over to hang out one night. And poor Frank, he thinks it's just a normal evening hanging out with a friend from work. So he's like, sure, I'll hang. So Daniel goes and he picks him up and he brings him to their apartment. And they're all three there and they're just hanging out and listening to music. But then, out of nowhere, without any kind of warning or indication, Daniel pulls out a hammer and bam, he hits Frank in the head with it, and then bam, he hits him again. And Manuel is there, and she's watching all this go down, just like they had planned.

And that is when she hears a voice. A voice, who she believes is Satan telling her to stab Frank in the heart. So she grabs a knife, and boom, she stabs him. And she stabs him again and again and again until he's no longer moving. And they apparently stabbed him with a bunch of different sharp objects. and they made sure to stab him 66 times because of 666. So now the murder is done and they can start the rest of the ritual. And I won't get into the details of the rest of the ritual because it's pretty gruesome,

but there are certain things that they feel like they have to do with his body. And also, as part of that ritual, they smash in the coffin while Frank's body is still in the room. So now the ritual thing is complete. And at this point, all they have to do is unalive themselves, and then they'll be at Satan's side forever, existing as vampires, I guess. Until. Here's the thing. Daniel and Manuela aren't really the most stable people, and they just violently murdered someone. And it turns out that this is actually a lot to process mentally. And so, like, now they're supposed to unalive themselves?

This is just too much for them to handle. So they start to panic, and they abandon the next. step in the ritual. So now they're not going to unalive themselves, I guess. And instead, they decide to just flee and leave the body there. So Manuela writes a farewell note to her parents to say goodbye, and they somehow get it to them. I guess they drop it off at their place. And from there, they go on the run, and they drive all over Germany, crisscrossing the whole country, living out of their car, trying not to attract too much attention. Meanwhile, Manuel's parents find her goodbye note. And they read it and it basically says something like, I am not meant for this world or something.

And they think it's a suicide note. So they freak out and they call police to go over to her apartment and do a welfare check on her because they think she's in there hurting herself. So police, they go over there and they get inside and that is when they find poor Frank's body. And police immediately think, oh shit, they killed this guy. They think they're probably out there actively looking for more victims to kill. And so they put out an APB and this becomes a big manhunt all over Germany trying to find these two. And about a week goes by and police finally spot them at a gas station. And so bam, they get arrested. And I don't have mugshots, but here's what Daniel looks like in real life. And here's what Manuela looks like in real life. And eventually they go to court and they admit to the murder. However, they claim that it's not actually there for. fault because they claim that Satan was using their body as a tool and therefore they're not responsible. Well, the panel of judges doesn't buy it and they're both found guilty and Daniel is sentenced to 15 years in prison while Manuela gets sentenced to 13 years in prison.