Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Sue Hartigan wrote:
>
> > Hi Sue, whats this vampire case it sounds really bizarre, I've never heard
> > of anything like that before.
> >
> > Steve
Hi Steve:
Here is the story. It really is very interesting.
Sue
Florida v. Rod Ferrell
"The Vampire Cult Slaying Case"
On February 12, 1998, seventeen-year-old Rod Ferrell pled
guilty to killing a Eustis, Florida couple with a crowbar.
The leader of a teenage vampire cult, Ferrell was
allegedly helped in the double slaying by his
then-girlfriend, Charity Lynn Keesee, and two other
members of the cult.
The victims, Richard Wendorf and
Naoma Queen, were the parents of
Heather Wendorf, a friend of
Ferrell's, and were beaten to death
in their home on November 25, 1996.
The road to the murders began some
guilty to killing three days earlier, on November 22.
Late that night or early in the
morning of the 23rd, Ferrell -- along
with Keesee and the two cult members,
Howard Scott Anderson and Dana Cooper
-- left his hometown of Murray, Kentucky to drive down to
Eustis.
After the four arrived in Eustis, Ferrell, who had lived
there for several years before moving back to Murray to
live with his mother, tracked down Wendorf and told
another acquaintance, Audrey Presson, that he was in town
for unfinished business.
A Disturbing Upbringing
When Ferrell was born on March 28, 1980, his mother,
Sondra Gibson was only 17 years old, and his father, Rick
Ferrell, was also a teen. The two were married nine days
after baby Rod was born, but split up weeks afterwards.
Rick Ferrell filed for a divorce and
joined the military, while Sondra kept
the child. Her parents also looked
after Rod, who claimed Sondra's father
-- his grandfather -- raped him when he
was 5.
Rod also claimed that as a young child,
he was exposed to occult rituals and
human sacrifices, and was introduced to
the "Dungeons & Dragons" role-playing
game.
Sondra Gibson eventually remarried and moved frequently
with Rod before leaving him in Murray, Kentucky and moving
with her new husband to Michigan. He allegedly told Rod
that they were never coming back, and Gibson apparently
became so upset that she divorced him and moved back to
Murray to be with Rod. (Her second husband also allegedly
engaged in satanic rituals.)
Around this time, Rod began to undergo some sort of
transformation. He walked in cemeteries at night, cut
himself so others could drink his blood, and told people
he was a 500-year-old vampire named "Vesago." His school
work slipped and he began flagrantly disobeying his
schools' policies, skipping class, smoking on campus and
generally defying teachers and school officials. He also
indulged in playing "Vampire: The Masquerade," a realistic
role-playing game in which players act out vampiric
scenarios in real-time.
His mother allowed him to stay out all night, use drugs,
and skip school, and he frequently spent time with a young
man named Stephen Murray, who brought the teenage Ferrell
into the vampire world and "crossed him over," turning him
into a presumptive vampire and giving him his name.
By the spring of 1996, Rod was also talking long-distance
to Heather Wendorf, who apparently told Rod that her
parents were hurting her and that she wanted him to come
get her, but that he would have to kill them to do so.
In September 1996, Murphy attacked Ferrell, who refused
treatment when taken to a local hospital. Murphy was
convicted for the attack. Shortly after, Sondra Gibson was
charged with soliciting a minor -- Murphy's 14-year-old
brother -- whom Gibson wrote love letters, imploring him
to "cross her over" and have her as his vampire bride.
"Vesago" Attacks
On November 25, the day of the murders, Ferrell and his
companions were stopped by law enforcement officers and
questioned because their vehicle had a flat tire. The flat
caused Ferrell to change his plans. He told Wendorf and
another friend, Jeanine LeClaire, about this and allegedly
discussed with the group a plan to kill Wendorf's parents
and take their Ford Explorer to use as a getaway vehicle.
Ferrell and friends arrived near the
Wendorf home and met Heather Wendorf down
the road from her house. He sent the three
young women -- Heather Wendorf, Cooper and
Keesee -- to visit Heather's boyfriend and
pick up LeClaire. Ferrell and Anderson
stayed behind, armed with clubs.
The two young men searched the outside of
the Wendorf home, looking for some way to
get inside. They entered through an
unlocked door to the garage and searched
the garage for better weapons. Ferrell finally settled on
a crowbar.
Ferrell and Anderson then went inside the
house, yanked one phone from the wall, and
came upon 49-year-old Richard Wendorf,
asleep on the couch. Ferrell beat him
several times with the crowbar, fracturing
his skull and giving him numerous chest
wounds, including fractured ribs.
As Richard Wendorf lay dying, Naoma Queen left a bathroom
in the house and entered the kitchen, where she found
Ferrell. Ferrell had blood on his clothes and the crowbar
in his hands. Queen threw hot coffee on him and fought
him, but Ferrell beat her down to the floor and bashed her
head with the crowbar several times.
With Heather's parents dead, the two young men searched
the house. They took a Discover card from Richard
Wendorf's pocket and the keys to the Explorer, which they
drove off in.
They soon met the girls, who were returning to the area
near the Wendorf home in the Buick Skyhawk they had
originally used to drive down from Kentucky. The group
then used both vehicles to drive to nearby Sanford, where
they dumped the Buick. They switched the license plates,
so that the Explorer had the Buick's plates (and the
Buick, now left behind, had the plates of the stolen
Explorer).
The group of five -- Ferrell, Anderson, Keesee, Cooper and
Heather Wendorf -- drove west along Interstate 10 through
Tallahassee and towards New Orleans, presumably to meet
famed vampire writer Anne Rice. They stopped in Crestview,
Florida and bought gas and a knife using Richard Wendorf's
stolen Discover card.
One of the five made a call from Baton Rouge to Charity
Keesee's family, and soon after, the five were caught.
Ferrell was videotaped making two slightly different
confessions, and four of the suspects -- the two guys,
Dana Cooper and Heather Wendorf -- were charged with
murder. Keesee was charged with being an accessory after
the fact. A grand jury indicted Ferrell and Anderson on
December 17, 1996 but refused to indict Heather Wendorf.
The Trial and Sentencing
The trial against Ferrell began on February 12, 1998. As
the state offered its opening arguments, Ferrell pled
guilty to the four charges against him: armed burglary,
armed robbery, and two counts of first-degree murder. The
jury empanelled for his trial was then given the task of
determining if Ferrell should be given life in prison or
death in Florida's electric chair.
Ferrell's lawyers argued that his young age should be a
mitigating factor in his sentence, as well as his
emotional age, which a psychiatrist placed at three years
of age and his extreme emotional and mental disturbance.
On February 23, the jury voted unanimously to give Ferrell
the death sentence. After additional testimony from both
sides, Judge Jerry Lockett accepted the jury
recommendation four days later and sentenced Ferrell to
the electric chair. He is now the youngest person in
Florida to sit on death row.
After the sentencing, Judge Lockett also urged prosecutors
to charge Heather Wendorf, pointing to unanswered
questions about her parents' death and saying, "There is
genuine evil in this world." Ferrell's mother, Sondra
Gibson, said she felt her son did not deserve the death
penalty, but endorsed the judge's suggestion about
Wendorf.
"There's one person walking around who's just as guilty as
he is," she said.
--
Two rules in life:
1. Don't tell people everything you know.
2.
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