While you may have never heard of him Arnold Paole was quite famous as a suspected vampire back in the 1700's and he is still remembered in the Serbian areas today. Many people in the area still believe he was a real life vampire even today.
The real life vampire story of Arnold Paole took place during 1727-1728 in the Serbian village of Meduegna. Arnold Paole was a soldier serving in the Austrian Army and he came home to his home village in the spring of 1727. But before he came home he said he was attacked and bitten by a vampire in Greece and he was able to kill it. But he told people in the Serbian village of Meduegna that he had started to feel weird and wake up at all hours of the night after being bitten by the vampire.
He was not back home in his village of Meduegna for long before he fell off a hay wagon and busted his head wide open causing his death. He was buried and before long people in and around the village would claim to have seen Arnold at night in and around the village. It was said he went to many peoples houses and they held their door closed and refused to let him enter their home. Two people in different homes in the village were found dead with puncture marks to their throats. The villagers burnt those bodies and scattered the ashes to make sure they did not turn into vampires.
Forty Days after Paole had died army troops arrived from Belgrade and they dug up Arnold Paole at the request of the village elders. When the casket was opened it is said that Paole was laying on his back but as soon as the sun fell on him he screeched and rolled up in a ball on his stomach. The soldiers fired their muskets over and over into the casket and then they drug him from the casket chopped off his head and burned it and his body to ashes and poured them into the near by river. The vampire problems were then over in the village of Meduegna. Was he a vampire or was he not we can not say for sure. Its up to you to decide. But this is one of many documented tales of a real live vampires.