Roland Littlewood and Chavannes Douyon

In 1997 researchers Roland Littlewood and Chavannes Douyon conducted a study on three individuals found wandering in remote Haitian villages. Each of the three was believed by locals to be a long—lost relative who had been poisoned for unknown reasons by a malevolent witch doctor, buried alive, and enslaved as a zombie for a number of years before somehow escaping captivity. The researchers' findings, which follow, suggest that all three subjects were simply victims of mental disorders and mistaken by aggrieved relatives for missing loved ones to whom they bore a passing resemblance. Roland Littlewood is a professor of psychiatry and anthropology at University College London. Chavannes Douyon is a professor of psychology at the Polyclinic Medica in Port—au—Prince, Haiti.