My first vampire was discovered by accident, when I noticed that I had wounded sitting in the hospital but no one doing anything about it. The units screen said that my chief medical dwarf was deceased, which explained why I didn't have a "health" screen. I was pissed; the guy was a middlin'-decent doctor, but I keep my doctors with Engraving enabled to keep them busy in the off hours. This one had just made Legendary engraver and was in the process of doing up my dining hall all nice and pretty.
I check the justice screen, and (sure enough) there's the murder of my doctor-dwarf right there on the list. Turns out that there was a witness to the crime: someone named Vutok accused some other dwarf named Urdim, saying that he witnessed the murder.
I check on Urdim:
By looking at his screens I can see that his history is too long and he's got scads of relatives, none of which are at my fort. He's also been here since two migrant waves ago, and still hasn't claimed a room. I was convinced: Into a walled-off office he went. The fort has a new permanent manager.
As it turned out, it wasn't Urdim that I was looking at: I had gotten names mixed up in my head and checked on Vutok by mistake. So the vampire had accused someone else of doing the deed! I went to the justice screen and convicted Vutok of the crime, then went to check on the ACTUAL Urdim to make sure that I didn't cause any negative thoughts by waiting too long.
Urdim's "thoughts and preferences" screen comes up:
She got here the same time that Vutok did, and still hasn't claimed a room. No thoughts about drinking or eating. Forty-five blood relatives listed, none of which were present at my fort. I walled her off in another office straight away. The fort has a new permanent bookkeeper.
So my first experience wasn't one vampire, but two. Were they both going for the same kill, and one happened to see the other one? Or was this just a freak occurrence? And which one actually committed the crime?