Summerlin, Carter: Carter is about thirteen in the 1930s when his older brother gets into a fight with neighbor Isaiah Wechsler over Isaiah’s cruel words about Carter. Carter murders Isaiah with a hammer and kills himself the following week. His family secretly buries him in the yard, telling everyone that he has been sent to live with relatives. When the hammer is discovered during renovations to the home—now owned by Tara and JB du Rone—Carter’s spirit reawakens until Sookie and the du Rones’ nanny are able to discover the truth about the murder. His remains are unearthed, and he is laid to rest in Sookie’s family plot. (Deceased; mentioned IIHAH)

Summerlin, Daisy and Hiram: Daisy and Hiram secretly bury their youngest son, Carter, in the yard when he commits suicide after killing neighbor Isaiah Wechsler. In order to protect the family’s name, they then announce that Carter has been sent to live with relatives. The couple loses their only daughter to scarlet fever, but their oldest son, Albert, marries and raises his own children in the family home. (Deceased; mentioned IIHAH)

Suskin, Cindy Lou (vampire): Kansas City vamp Cindy Lou wants a child. Since she can’t have her own, she is granted permission by the parents of a dying preteen to turn him into a vampire. The legal agreement gives the parents visitation rights with their now eternally undead child, an agreement that Cindy Lou and the boy are not honoring. They are brought before a judicial panel at the summit in Rhodes and told to abide by their legal arrangement with the parents. (ATD)

Synthetic blood: Developed by the Japanese as a medical adjunct for emergency rooms and surgical procedures, this discovery turns out to be the key to the vampire nation revealing its existence to the rest of humanity. It satisfies all the nutritional needs of vampires, thus allowing them to appear to be far less of a threat to humans than they have traditionally been. Synthetic blood needs to be kept refrigerated before use and is usually warmed up in a microwave before being drunk. Marketed under brand names such as Life Flow and TrueBlood, the latter having become an almost generic designation for the product, it is available in various blood types. As with any product, there is a variety of quality and price, ranging from low-end Red Stuff to Royalty, a part-synthetic, part-real blood mixture that includes actual blood from European royalty. (DUD, LDID, CD, DTTW, DN, DAAD, OWA, DD, ATD, L, FDTW, GW, DAG, TB, DITF, DR)

T:

Talbot: No other name given. Talbot is Russell Edgington’s steady human companion until Russell’s marriage to fellow vampire Bartlett Crowe. (CD; mentioned DAAD)