A popular event that comes to mind is the New England Vampire Scares of the 1800s. This article by the Smithsonian Magazine gives a description of the recent discoveries of 'vampire' cemeteries on the East Coast. Townspeople, usually in an epidemic like tuberculosis, would fear that the mass death were being caused by a supernatural being. Some corpses might have been dug up or buried in some of these manners:
Known as consumption, the disease would cause a visible wasting away of the victim. Hunting out a scapegoat 'vampire' was a way for townspeople to feel as though they were making efforts to stop the destruction. Sometimes, the 'vampire' would be identified as an already deceased person. In the popular case of Mercy Brown (1892), her heart was cut out post-mortem in the hopes that an elixir made from its ashes might cure her sickened brother. You might remember the truth or scare episode of the case.