Julia Hoffman

Doctor Julia Hoffman is a character in House of Dark Shadows.

She was a general practitioner specializing in the field of hematology and alternative medicine. A graduate of Cornell, she took a sabbatical from her medical profession to spend time collating a comprehensive history of the prestigious Collins family of Collinsport, Maine. She moved into the great old, Collinwood estate and spent a great deal of time researching old diaries and letters.

In June of that year, Julia was forced to bring her medical expertise to the Collins family service. Her first in-house patient was Daphne Budd, the secretary to Collinwood matriarch, Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. Daphne had been walking home from work one evening when a vampire attacked her, leaving two gaping wounds upon her throat. Daphne was brought back to Collinwood where Julia administered care to her injuries. She discovered that a strange, unidentifiable cell had entered Daphne's bloodstream, slowly destroying her platelets. She described Daphne’s condition to the county sheriff, George Patterson.

A few nights later, Elizabeth's daughter, Carolyn Stoddard, became another victim of a vampire attack. Julia examined her blood and discovered the presence of the same mysterious, destructive cell that she had found in Daphne’s blood. She presented her results to a family friend named Professor Timothy Eliot Stokes. Stokes suspected that the one responsible for attacking Daphne and Carolyn was a vampire. Julia had difficulty accepting Stokes’ theory, but knew the man well enough to know that he wasn’t given to whimsical bouts of speculation.

Within a short while, Julia discovered that Stokes was correct. A distant relative of the Collins family – Barnabas Collins visited the venerable estate and Julia noticed that Barnabas failed to cast a reflection in the mirror of her compact. The following evening, Julia went to Barnabas' abode at the Old House. She told him that she knew that he was a vampire, and further – that she could possibly cure him. Barnabas was naturally skeptical and regarded Julia as a threat to his existence. However, she convinced him that through careful analysis of Daphne and Carolyn's blood samples, she could isolate and destroy the viral vampire cell. Julia prepared a serum and administered a series of injections to Barnabas over the course of several evenings.

Miraculously it worked. Barnabas' blood-cravings began to subside and in a matter of days, he gained the ability to walk in the daylight for the first time in almost two hundred years. He still had a long way to go however, and Barnabas began to grow impatient. He wanted to rush the process along so that he could continue with his plans to court the Collins family governess, Maggie Evans. This revelation devastated Julia. She had fallen in love with Barnabas and hearing him pine after Maggie Evans was more than Julia could bear to hear. She deliberately sabotaged her serum and gave Barnabas his final injection. The altered serum had a traumatic effect on Barnabas' physiology. He began rapidly aging until he was little more than a gruesome, bald old man. He lunged at Julia screaming in a raspy voice, "You betrayed me!" Grabbing her by the throat, he strangled Julia until she fell over, dead.