Vance Collins

Name	Vance Collins
Actor	Nathan Dashwood
Dates	???? - 1862 (killed by brother) 2013 (spirit laid to rest by Garth)
Location	Kearney, Missouri
Occupation	Spectre Confederate Soldier
Episode(s)	8.06 Southern Comfort

History

Vance Collins was a soldier in the Confederate Army who was killed by his brother, Union Corporal Jim Collins in battle during the Civil War. Jim buried him on the battlefield, but eventually out of guilt, he dug Vance up and buried him under the title "the Unknown Soldier" in their home town of Kearny, Missouri. Vance is trapped in his coffin for nearly 150 years, but is released when a bunch of kids break into his mausoleum and desecrate his grave. Vance's ghost attaches itself to his Indian Head penny which was stolen by one of the teenagers.

Episodes

8.06 Southern Comfort

Vance becomes a spectre, or an "avenging ghost," possessing people who take possession of the penny, senses their betrayals, and forces them to killing those people. Possessing Mary Lew, he kills her husband Chester Lew after she gets the penny at the grocery store when one of the kids used it as change. Vance then possesses her son Scott Lew when he finds the penny in her purse and kills his former business partner, Jeff.

After identifying the Unknown Confederate Soldier as the spectre they're facing, Sam, Dean, and Garth salt and burn his bones, but fail to put Vance to rest as his spirit is still attached to his penny.

Deputy Doug, who hates the sheriff, heads to the evidence room to retrieve Scott's inhaler, but gets possessed and kills the sheriff. After the deputy is detained, Officer Karl Henry also gets possessed and tries to kill a doctor who was an umpire in a baseball game he lost in. He runs out of shotgun pellets before he can kill the man and when Dean tries to stop him, possesses Dean.

After Sam and Garth identify Vance and learns of his penny, they head back to the motel to tell Dean and find him possessed. Drawing on Dean's anger at Sam abandoning him in Purgatory, the possessed Dean nearly kills Sam until Garth manages to knock the penny from his hand. As Garth has let go of his past grudges, Vance is unable to possess him and Garth melts down the penny, putting Vance to rest.