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Are now listening to true Murder the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with Your host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Good Evening. Investigators in central Florida residents were horrified when sixteen year old vampire cult leader Rod Ferrell was arrested and charged with bludgeoning occult member's parents. When they realized the slain couple's fifteen year old daughter was me they feared she was a victim too. Detectives and journalists swarming over three states soon uncovered a web of blood drinking,
occult rituals, illicit sex, wildly dysfunctional families, and spiritual warfare. Then, when police officers captured the teens, they discovered that the murdered couple's daughter was among them. But was she a victim or a participant? Ferrell faced the death penalty, sparking constitutional battles over the ultimate punishment, juveniles in the court system, free pressed versus a defendant's right to a fair trial, and psychologists who worked to save him and prosecutors who
wanted him dead. More than twenty years later, the battle continues with new court rulings. Is he a changed man deserving freedom or is he still gaming the system as prosecutors and his victim's family members believe. Decide for yourself after reading Cold Blooded by Ian newspaper reporter Frank Stanfield, who has covered the case from the beginning in November nineteen ninety six and sheds new light on one of
the darkest killers in modern history. The book that we're featuring this evening is Cold Blooded, a true crime story of a murderous teenage vampire cult, with my special guest, journalist and author Frank Stanfield. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for this interview. Frank Stanfield, Thanks for having me.
I appreciate it.
Thank you very much. An incredible story and an incredible book, Cold Blooded. Let me ask this question, how did you come to be the author of this book and how did you come to this story.
I was working for the Orlando Sentinel in it's Lake County bureau, which is a county just north of Orlando, and when the story broke and I covered the courts. So that's how it was going to be the line's share of the story, as it turns out.
So that's how I got involved, right, So let's talk about this place that you say is very close to Orlando, and this is November twenty fifth, nineteen ninety six, So tell us a little bit about this, and also Jennifer Wendorf and her call to police just after ten thirty five pm November twenty fifth, nineteen ninety six.
Jennifer was seventeen years old, a pretty cheerleader, popular girl at Eustas High School, and she came home after work. She worked part time in a grocery store, and she had stopped to see her boyfriend. She was running a little late, so she kind of slipped into the house. Her dad, she thought, was asleep on the count, and
her mother was back in her bedroom, she figured. So she went in and called her boyfriend, says I'm home safe, and then went out to the living room and discovered But she didn't discover anything right off, but she was headed for the living room and she noticed this blood trail leading into the kitchen, and then she saw her mother had just been bludging to death. Her mother's ruth queen, what was her name. She runs back to get her dad,
Richard Windoor, and then realized he was dead. So she gets on nine one one and just makes this horrific telephone call, voice quavering, but she held it together pretty good. She said, my parents have been killed. And they said, well, how do you know your parents have been killed? She says, because there's blood everywhere?
Now, what do Lake County officials find? Officers find at this scene of the Windworfs.
It was probably the most horrific crime scene they've ever seen. I would say, yes, because there was blood spatters everywhere there was they'd been beaten, that the man had been beaten till he was just unrecognizable, and the mother had been beaten and tried to crawl away from her killer. Her brainstem was exposed to the point where one of the investigators that, well, maybe she's been shot, But it turned out they'd been bludgeoned with repeatedly with this crowbar.
What was there any evidence of any other crime perpetrated at the same time.
Well, one of the things, Jennifer is on the phone saying, well, my sister's not here. She's only fifteen, she's not here. So now the investigators are thinking, well, was she kidnapped? Her name is Heather? Was she kidnapped? Is she a part of this crime? You know what's going on here? What's happening.
In terms of theft that the officers immediately realized that anything was stolen.
The family's Ford Explorer was missing, so they realized that that had been stolen.
We talked about Detective al Gussler. He is asking Jennifer immediately questions about who may have killed the parents. What is Jennifer's reaction? Who does she conclude could have done this?
Well, she names Heather for one, and then she says her friend Rod Ferrell, this sixteen year old kid that used to go to Eustas High School, but he had moved back to Kentucky with his friend, with his family rather about a year ago. So those two names pop up immediately, and they said, well, what why would mentioned Heather's name? Well, Heather one time had a conversation with her saying, Jen, have you ever plotted mom and Dad's death?
And was not just that, but Rod had this reputation of being kind of a bad character, and she also Heather supposedly said, you know, if you ever need anybody killed, you know, this bad boyfriend that Jennifer had at one time. She says, I know somebody can do it and be Rod.
Questions about what she knows about this Rod, and also I guess the police wouldn't immediately look for any kind of record or police report regarding Rod. So what was what was done in that regard? And before we talk about neighbor, Suzanne Leclair tells Detective Adams.
Well, the Lake County detectives called Kentucky, Murray Kentucky, and the sheriff up there says, you've got a wild bunch on the loose there. Apparently Rod was the leader of a cult with a handful of kids, and they had been suspected of going into an animal shelter and abusing about sixty animals in a horrific, terrible thing. That Rod had been suspected of building gasoline bombs and all this
blood drinking vampire cult business. They just had their eye on him, and they were not They were shocked with the murders, but they weren't surprised that his name had come up. And then as the police were still at the crime scene, this lady named Suzanne Leclair drives up and she says well, what's going on is Jennifer Okay, she figured maybe Jennifer rector Carr in the driveway or something. They said, no, Jennifer's fine. And then Susanne says, well,
my daughter, Janine is was Heather's best friend. Heather's runaway. I just found out.
And so.
The detective says, we'll bring your daughter back up here. We need to talk to her. So that's how that got started.
So what information did did it get from her Heather's best friend Janine regarding this running away and more importantly the murder of her parents.
Well, Janine was fifteen and Heather was fifteen, and they were best friends, had been best friends for years. So the girls had been talking about running away with Rod, just running away, nothing about murder whatever. But Rod had earlier that we'll see this murder happened on a Monday night. So on Saturday, Rod and his friends showed up. There was three other four other people with Rod, and they show up at this fellow classmates, old classroomates of theirs
and makes arrangements. He meets with Janine and he says he talks about killing Jeanine's parents, and she says, no, you're not killing my parents. You know, I'm not. You can you can take money or whatever you want to do. I'll give you money from my bank account or whatever, but you're not killing my parents. So then Janine and Heather talking back and forth about running away with Rod, and at one point Heather says, oh, he's he's got
to leave now, We've got to leave now. They thought they've had several days to leave, and Heather says, well, he's talking about killing my parents. So now all of a sudden everything's thrown them into motion. And earlier on Monday afternoon, they do this thing called crossover, a ritual vampire blood draw blood sucking thing they do. So Rod Ferrell had Heather crossover to be a vampire. So the
police are learning about all this information. Now Heather's gone, but they're getting all this information from Janine and Heather's boyfriend who didn't go away on this trip, and they're putting it all together.
So what is their next step for police in terms of continuing to questioned Jennifer and then Janine as well, and then another person, Shan and Joey. You mentioned where this former classmate where all this group had visited, including Rod Ferrell and the group had visited before these murders. What do they do next in their investigation.
Well, they didn't waste any time. I mean they were knocking on doors at two o'clock in the morning, four o'clock in the morning, that kind of thing. So they tracked down this Shannon Joe, this girl, former classmate of Rod's and Janine's. So they talked with her and she says, yeah, this group showed up at my house, surprised, no warning.
But Rod was different now, and he looked different. He was wearing all black he had he was smoking and talking about how he had to steal the Windorf's car because the car they came down in, which belonged to one of the Cold member, Scott Anderson, was a little Buick Skyhawk and it wasn't running very well. And so he says, we got to steal the Windorf's car, and
then he says, we got to kill him too. Well, this girl, Shannon, she said, I didn't take him seriously that they were going to kill her parents because he was always talking smack, you know, always talking kind of trash. So she didn't take him seriously about it, but she should have. She's in retrospect.
Now while they're looking for these people. You also mentioned something that's very interesting that the grandfather is James Wendorf, and he's a retired lawyer and he became the family spokesman immediately after these murders. And as you said later, we will talk about his support of Heather later. Now, this is three days after the slaying Thanksgiving Day. What does one of the people that's involved with this and who calls their grandmother.
One of the cult members, Charity Casey, her name, nickname is Shay. She calls her grandmother because they're they're broke, they're tired, they're dirty, they're hungry, and she's called her grandmother to try to get a hold of her mother. So the grandmother calls the sherif Lake County Sheriff's office. She these kids are by now in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Their initial goal was to go to New Orleans. Well,
they went there and Shaye didn't like it. She was freaked out because it was they went to a bad neighborhood. So they left New Orleans and went to Baton Rouge. So they end up in Baton Rouge. Everything's closed down. She's just tired of the whole thing, so she calls her grandmother. Grandmother recognizes that she has this phone number from a payphone on her phone, and she calls and notifies the Lake County Sheriff's office. Lake County calls the
Baton Rouge police and they track these kids down. Finally, the girl's mother acts like she's going to send money. They can go to a motel in Baton Rouge, and it's a trap. They're all trapped.
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Now, Frank, you say that the grandmother helped call police, and so they apprehended these characters in Baton Rouge. What's next and who are the people responsible? And set to interview Rod Farrell and the others.
Well, the Baton Rouge police department are the first ones to get their hands on these kids, and so the detectives their start. They at first they talked with Rod and here's the thing. Rod is says, look, my girlfriend Shay, he thinks she's pregnant. And he says, I'll tell you anything you want to know, just let me talk to my girlfriend. And so the cops interview him and he just he says, yeah, I did it. Nobody else really had any part in it, you know, although the one kid,
Howard Anderson, was with him in the house. The other girls had picked up, had taken Heather away from the house to go see your boyfriend when all this murder was going on. So they start with Rod and he's like matter of fact in a way. He said, you know, yeah, I did it, and I got it was a rush and all this kind of bold, silliest stuff that he
was saying. And we're all animals basically, and you know, humans are just animals and all this kind of stuff and then he claims he was mentally disturbed, you know, all that jazz. So that's the Baton Rouge of the Meanwhile, the Lake County Detectives are on the way to go get to Baton Rouge. But the Baton Rouge police get their first crack add him.
What does he say in terms of regards to the culpability of the others, but especially the culpability of Heather in regards to her parents' death.
He's The cops, of course by this time, are are very interested in what Heather knows, what her role is, you know, did she have any part in it? And he says, well, the plan was just to first, he says, the plan was just to pick her up and for
all of us to go to Baton Rouge. But then he says, yeah, because people in Florida were telling the police, you know, she was he was talking about killing her parents, and she was talking about They had a big correspondence and with the telephones and all this stuff, talking back and forth, and so they really wanted to know, you
know what about it, and so they said okay. So eventually the Lake County detectives get up there and they talk with Heather and then they talked to Rod and Heather says, yeah, he had mentioned about killing my parents. How many times had he mentioned it? Why did he mention it? She says, well, he's obsessed with killing people. He's killed people before, he says. And so they were very interested in all this, and they said, well, how many times did he talk about this? And she said, well,
he would just say something in passing, you know. And so they're building this case they think where Heather and Rod are working together this kind of thing, but there's holes in the story. It's sort of murky, you know. And then of course they ok to the other kids too, Dana Cooper, who was the oldest, I think she was about twenty at the time. She was the only adult. And then Howard Anderson I think he was seventeen. Shay was fifteen or sixteen. So they're talking to all of them,
and then the Lake County detectives talk with Rod. They finally get their chance to talk with Rod, and he's telling them all this stuff about it. It's a rush and it's like a god. If you kill somebody, you feel like a god for a minute. Then he says, well, I was really a god. I wouldn't be here though, what that was interesting.
At the same time, he tells the other his accomplices and their role in this, including addresson But at the same time they're wanting they're questioning Heather about things like her sister saying that she had plotted and asked the question if they ever plotted she ever plotted her parents death, And so there was other people that they and there was other people that they spoke to as well that had things to say regarding what Heather had said, apparently
about her parents. Tell us about some of the things that other people said.
Right, Well, Heather first of all denied ever asking her sister about that, but her sister would end up testifying that she had said it. So that was interesting. But they were classmates to school that said, yeah, I overheard Heather say she wished her parents were dead. One girl comes forward and says, yeah, I saw Rod one time at Heather's house and I heard him her try to get me to go with him and all that sort of thing. That girl turned out to be a liar.
That was a whole can of worms. She just well, I don't know why she did it, but she was claiming all the stuff that wasn't true. That would come back to haunt the investigation. But also Rod's mother, Sondra Gibson, told the police, Yeah, I overheard Heather saying she wished their parents were dead. So those two things were kind of hanging out there. They were getting ready to go into the grand jury.
They also the police looked into Sondra, his mother and her background as well. What did they find and when they spoke with her, what did they discover.
Well, Sondra Gibson had her own problems. She was arrested for trying to solicit sex with a fourteen year old boy in the middle of a vampire ritual. That was what her plan was. She was going to have sex
with this kid while crossing him over. And so she was arrested for that, and then they got to doing more investigation, and it turns out that Rod, who also told this to the police, told the police that he had been raped as a five year old by his grandfather's friends in a cult ritual called the by a cult called the Black Black Mask. And that was a whole other kettle of fish. And see, basically, Sondra had a whole history of failed relationships with men, so she
lived with her parents. So this grandfather that Rod talked about was he was living with his grandfather and his grandmother in Kentucky. So that was another whole thing that came up. They would be a very important part in the trial later on.
And what did she and Rod share other than this interest in well, what interest did they share, but also even the clothing and some of the behavior that people thought they were siblings rather than a parent and.
Son or a boyfriend girlfriend. Actually they had an apartment together and they both wore black all black, black fingernails, black clothes, everything dyed their hair dark black, and they walked around together in the parking lot holding hands and stuff. And when they moved out of the apartment, they found
a pentagram painted on the floor in her bedroom. So she was into this vampire thing too, But then she would Rod became a real problem at school, was a real discipline problem, and wasn't doing his work and so on. And she went and told the officials there in Kentucky that Rod had threat that the members of this vampire cult had threatened her, that this rival cult leader had raped her during an orgy. So it was really just the craziest sounding story you could ever imagine.
This is his mother. So now you talked about this grand jury being convened, But you also write in this book about writing a letter to Rod Ferrell in December. So tell us which which happened first, and tell us about that.
Well, the the letter came first. As soon as they brought him back to Florida. I sent a letter to the jail through the jail and asked him for an interview. It's kind of the standard thing in a big case where I say, look, we're getting all our information from the police, you know, we want to hear your side of the story. So then it was before I had a cell phone, and I left the office finally, and he called, and the editor sent two other people to
interview him. Well, in this interview, he claims to have had multiple personalities. He didn't know what he was like, he could remember anything and all this crazy stuff. And he blames this rival gang, rival vampire group, I should say, for it, and they set him up and that at one time he tells a story about how Scott Anderson had borrowed his boots and then went into the house and then came driving up on the ford ex floor
all this crazy stuff that you know. And then when the police saw the story in the paper, the headline was Interview with a Vampire because that movie based on the Nrice book who had come out, So that was big headline. The police were like, the first I've heard of this kind of multiple personalities and all this sort of thing. And I interviewed psychologists and they said, that is so rare, this associative disorder that wouldn't even know
for sure if it's real or not. Such a condition even exists, and so it was like a major deal. And one of the prosecutors joked, he says, well, I don't care which personality we have in jail as long as he's in jail. It's kind of funny. But it was. It was a big deal, and this.
Was this was big news where you were, obviously, and for the Sentinel in Orlando. But how big had this story gotten once the word was out about the details and the age, Well, it was people.
It was international news. I mean it was headlines in Great Britain and Germany and all over Europe. Eventually when the trial was held there was a German TV crew there and so on. So it was it was big news. And I was on the radio every night with the United Kingdom radio shows talking about it because they were interested in it. So it was a big deal.
Tell us about the grand jury being convened.
When was that, Well, there were two. They actually met twice. The first time they met, they indicted everybody but Heather, and the sheriff was not happy about that. Here, we didn't understand what that was all about.
And so.
Heather's defense attorney, court appointed lawyer, says, well, just don't everybody get it, you know, in an uproar. It's the process. We'll see what happens. Well, then this defense attorney's name is James Hope. He put Heather on the stand for the next grand jury and had her testify, No, I didn't know anything was going to happen to my parents. I didn't know they were going to be hurt. I
was just going to run away all this stuff. So the grand jury believed her and came out with a statement that said, even though what she did was wrong, running away and so on, it wasn't criminal to be criminal. To be considered to be a criminal charge, you have to have knowingly participating in or helping and set this murder up, so she wasn't considered to be a principal, so they didn't charge her. And then the sheriff was
really mad. Well, then the defensive team, the defense attorneys for the other kids, they were flipping out, going, well, we want to see the grand jury testimony. We want to see what she said. Well that's sealed, so they didn't get to see that. And then they were worried, well, is Heathery going to testify against my people? You know that kind of thing is It was a big turning point.
One question, what was the reason why in the first grand jury, why they didn't invite it, didn't indict Heather And tell us about this note to her parents that was discovered.
They found a note that she had scribbled out on a card and a little ceramic figure, one of those things that kids give their dad on Father's Day or whatever. And they said, and the statue says to the best dad ever or whatever, and she says she leaves this note for her parents and say, look, I'm running away. It's not you. I have to go because Janine has this new religion and I have to look out for
her and I love you, don't look for us. Well, the defense attorney for Heather says, look, that's powerful evidence that she didn't intend for anything to happen. She didn't even know anything was going to happen to her parents. Okay, otherwise she wouldn't have left that that note. So that I think that made an impression on the first grand jury. And the other thing is this in a grand jury, it's a one sided affair. Only the prosecutor is the
presenter's case. Okay, So the prosecutor, I think, for tactical reasons, didn't want to have Heather charged because then the other defense attorneys would be heaping the blame on her. They'd be like taking the focus off Rod and looking at her. So and he said all along, Brad King, he said, look, there's no evidence to support the fact that she ever was a principle or knew that her parents are going to be harm No evidence, so I'm not going to charge her. But that also helped his case.
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this episode. Now, we talked about the second grand jury being convened and then having indictments as a result, and interestingly you told us the reason why for people that would be wondering why Heather was not charged despite the testimony or despite the the people claiming that she had mentioned this before as well. With that as well, we haven't mentioned that some of the details of after she found out that her parents had been murdered and her behavior.
Can you tell us a little bit about what police found out about that, Well, they were.
They were very curious about how she acted. Uh. Once once she learned that her parents were dead. One of this Shay Charity and this Dana Cooper were in the car or in this little buick that belonged to Anderson when they met up with the Ford Explorer with Scott and Rod in the car and then they they they stopped the cars and Shay got out and talk with Rod for a minute and she realized he was covered with blood and blood on him and he says, I don't want to I don't want Heather to see me
like this. So Charity goes back to the Little Buck and they drive off, and Heather says, what happened? He killed my parents, didn't he didn't he? And finally Charity says, yeah, to be blunt, yeah he killed your parents. Well then she freaks out. Uh, Charity and Dana say, and and Heather. She's flailing around in the car, trying to jump out of the car and whatnot. They get to a point where they stop at both cars they switch license plates.
That's what the cops saw, and then she says. Cooper says, it wasn't very long. Maybe the next day or so. She was laughing and cutting up and listening to the radio with everybody else, and the cops says, what.
What do you?
Wow? And you know, how long did that go on?
You know?
So but sometimes Cooper said, she zoned out too, So it was like she was kind of back to normal kind of quickly. So that was something that were interested in.
So tell us about this trial. The defense attorneys that line up for these perpetrators as well.
Well, they decided to just try rod By himself. That was going to be the first case they listened to, and so they have this mammoth trial all set up, They pick a jury, they have jury questionnaires, they say, out a thousand jury questionnaires, all these questions on there there, and meanwhile the defense attorneys are like filing motion like crazy, like we need to change a venue, we need this is not fair, too much publicity, all this kind of stuff.
And they're trying to seal all these records. But meanwhile they're trying to subpoenat all of our notes and everything else, you know, including the interview with the vampire. Everything, right, So it's it gets to be a real heated kind of battle. And the trial judge and another judge also keep ruling on these things. Well okay, well we're not going to. At one point, the defense from me says we should we should even seal or ban people from going to the trial, and the sentinel just lit up.
I mean, they said, are you crazy. This isn't communist Cuba here, you know, this is nuts. So the judge says, look here, we'll have a big jury pool. You know, I'll think about sequestering the jury. I'll think about it. I'll think about you know, these kind of things, but we're not going to you know, stop the world from witnessing this trial. So that was what that was all about. And so they get ready to have the trial, and finally they pick a jury, and so then the defense
of the rather the prosecutors, making his opening remarks. It just started, and the defense attorney, one of the defense attorneys says, your honor, Rod wants to make a change. So the judge ordered everybody out of the courtroom, and so then we're all in the hallway and so we're all We've got the prosecutor pressed up against the wall saying what's going on. Did you offer a deal? He says, no,
I didn't offer a deal. I don't want one. Well, then after a few hours we'd go back in there and there's Rod standing up at the podium pleading guilty. He's pleading guilty to the guilt phase, they call it, in hopes of avoiding the death penalty. He's hoping. The defense attorneys say, look, we're in a mess here. We got the judges allowing the confession to come in. We've got these gruesome photos, we've got all this stuff. You know,
it's too much to overcome. Maybe if he pleads guilty, the judge will just you know, send them to life in prison. He's only sixteen when he committed the crime, and the cutoff in those days I think was fifteen.
So but the.
Prosecutors say, nope, and we're going to go ahead with it. I want the death penalty. So that was a big surprise. M So.
How does his defense attorney address this?
Well? What now in the death penalty phase, you're allowed to present all these mitigation experts in this case, psychologists and so on. Well, now the focus early on and before the first grand jury, the defense attorney and the prosecutors put out a pressure release saying this case has nothing to do with vamporism. Okay, well, now we're in the trial and everything is about vamporism. Everything. He's got
a terrible childhood, he was abused as a child. He's got all these mental illnesses as a result of all this terrible upbringing. Now all these psychologists are testifying on his behalf, and the prosecutor is well prepared. He's a veteran prosecutor, been in office for a long time, and he's like questioning all these psychologists and questioning their opinions of what they figure is wrong with him. All the disorders and so on. He's like picking them apart.
In this as well. They did the investigation as well as they could, speaking to his mother, Sondra, and his bio father, even about his his actual background. Of course, they always look for something like a concussion or something like that's some organic brain injury, but what was the actual background and any contact with psychiatrists.
Well, he the defense claimed that he had encephalitis as a child and that he was born with a cord around his neck. Well, the prosecutor picked that apart too, because there's no he says, there's no medical record of that. You know, there's none. There's no no record of it at all. So that went down. And then the most compelling testimony was from this the psychologist one in particular, who said, you know, it's like he's not able to process all this information properly because his brain is still
being formed, and look what his environment is. It's just crazy. It's like he's not able to emotionally process this information like a normal person. And it was, I mean, she did a good job, it was it was compelling. And then one of the defense psychologists had interviewed seven hundred murder suspects and he said, this is the most dysfunctional family I've ever seen. So there was no they couldn't
prove any organic brain damage, nothing like that. And of course they hadn't done MRIs and all that sort of thing back in those days either, but they had no evidence of that, so that they were going up against it against it. There.
He also had his mom, Sondra, testify, and I don't know if she was good enough, but she was there to help her son, I guess, and that they talked about her prostitution and her jobs and her behavior while he was growing up, didn't they.
Yes, that was like the object there was to show the jurors in the defense opinion, this woman is Look at her. She's not a good mother. I mean, she's got all these terrible things going on into life, so she's obviously she's failed Rod. And of course then as much as possible, this is interesting too, they didn't the prosecutors didn't put Heather on the stand, so they couldn't
the defense couldn't cross examine her. And then when they interviewed the biological dad, who hadn't seen his sone for years, the dad didn't even look at Rod, didn't even look at him, and so it was like, uh, you know what, even the most cold hearted of us I felt sorry for on that day. You know what I'm saying. That was just like the kid had two strikes against him. Really no, he knew right wrong.
But you know, despite the three psychologists and these expert testimony to say that Rod had this troubled life, certainly claimed that he was abused, so that they put that in there as well. Then they documented or claimed about talked about the substance abuse that he certainly engaged in. But what was their overall diagnosis to try to explain this, They called.
It schizo typal disorder. It's just like schizophrenia in a way, but he's like a delusional delusional ideas. And yes, he was like overloaded all all kinds of drugs. Anything he'd get his hands on, he was taking it, you know, LSD, marijuana, just any prozac. Overdosing on pro on prozac. I don't know what that does to you, all kinds of things. So and then he also claimed that he was drunk at the time, you know, when he did this murder.
So so there was all that going on. So all that stuff had had an impact and the and there was also a lot of physical evidence that they found DNA. He found his DNA on on the victims. Also, his boot marks were a straddle the poor Ruth Queen as he bludgeoned her to death. And of course his own words. They played the video. That was the other thing they put The judge allowed the jurors to hear this video of his confession. Right, that was it, right there. I'm
on the jurors. Some of them looked at him, like glared at him during that, like, oh my god, you know, it was just like unbelievable.
And you write that they also had DNA under Ruth Queen's nails, fingernails, Yeah, and a bloody footprint.
Yeah, the blood under the fingernails. The way I put it in the book was it's ironic that the vampire wouldn't be the victim pointed to her killer with his blood, because that's what happened.
There was a there wasn't an egregious lie that was proven in this case as well. Regarding the mother, you write that he looked like he stood over her and beat her to death, but there was, as he said in the confession, a reason why he did that. It was prompted by her behavior. Tell us about that interaction and the what he claimed was a scratch on the face.
Well, what happened was after he this is what happened. He and Anderson went into the house and the dad was asleep on the couch. So they had this They had picked up this crowbar and the dad was asleep. And Rod later admitted doing this. He like, he and Anderson danced around the sleeping man, and like would lower the crowbar near his head for a few minutes, and
then you know, raise it up again. And finally, he said, there was some kind of voice in his head saying, don't do this is wrong, This could be a bad thing. And then he says, oh the heck with it in so many words, and then crashed his crowbar down on his head, so that man never knew what hitting. Then he was scrawning. They were scrunging around looking for money, or the keys to the car, in a credit card,
anything like that they could get their hands on. And the mom who had been in the bedroom taking a shower the master bedroom area, she comes out. She's got a cup of coffee in her hands, and she says, what do you want you know, she's alarmed, you know, and then he says basically standing there with a bloody crowbar and he then he attacks her and she is reaching up. First of all, she throws the coffee on him,
hot coffee, and that may seem furious. And then he's like beating her, beating her, and she's like reaching up and fighting him, and she digs her claws, her claws, her fingernails into his cheek and that's how she gets the DNA under her fingernails. I f autumn.
Yeah, yes, Now you say that this decision is unanimous. What was the decision unanimous regarding three.
Recommending the death penalty, which is now the law. The law has changed. Used to be it was a jury recommendation. You could have seven to five in theory and for death finality, and they could a judge could impose it. But the closer it was the seven and five, that more unlikely it was going to be rendered. But this was unanimous, So that was interesting. But what's happened with the law is the Supreme Court later well for the Supreme Court later ruled that sixteen year olds can't be executed.
But now the Supreme Court has come out later and said, well, no, you can't even impose a mandatory life sentence on a juvenile without a a certain hearing talking about their background and give extra consideration to family environment and that kind of thing. But at the time it was yeah, okay, you got your sentence to death.
Interesting, there was a surprise on February twenty seventh, just four days later from Judge Lockett. This is very very interesting. What did he have to say regarding the enviolment of Heather.
After his sentences, Well, actually, right before he sentences Heather, he says, look, it's the considered opinion of this court that the prosecutor, the duly elected prosecutor state attorney, should hold another grand jury to look at Heather because a lot of people have questions about her possible involvement. It was she involved or not? That kind of thing. Well, that was a bombshell. Nobody was expecting that. Judge Lockett
was an interesting character. He liked to make case law, he liked to be very controversial in a lot of ways. He's a former public defender. But they called him lock him up Lockett. He was he could be very severe, but he wanted another grand jury. Well, of course, brad King, the prosecutor, was upset. He says, nobody could believe anything that brod says, there's no evidence to support Heather being involved. So at first he said no, we're not going to
do it. But then he says, okay, all right, we'll do it. We'll have another grand jury. And what happened, And what happened was the grand jury again says no, it might have been wrong what she did, running away and so on, but she not guilty of murder.
So that was that you write about that Heather, and you met with Aphrodite Jones or Afroderdie Jones was meeting with Heather August thirteenth, nineteen ninety eight. Tell us about this interaction.
Yes, Heather had agreed to talk with me. And this is after the two girls in the cult had been sentenced Charity for ten and a half years and Dana for seventeen and a half years. Took they pleaded out to a lesser charge than principal and murder first degree. So she says they shouldn't even have been sentenced. You know, they didn't know any more than me. That's what her take was. So that was interesting. Then she says, look, I wish I had never known Rod. I wish I
had never had anything to do with him. I didn't know he was going to kill my parents, all this, all this sort of thing. So that's that was her take on the whole deal. And then she says, well, you know, I write in the book about they find all these She's a very artistic girl, very smart, and so she would write prose and poetry, and she would create all these drawings and ceramic gargoyles and all this sort of thing.
So she.
You know, you read these things and it's very Some of this stuff is very disturbing. It talks about she writes that sometimes I feel like I'm a hideous monster. You know, I'm nice on one day and the next minute, I'm like this hideous monster. And she has talked about all these dreams about sinking things into people and all this kind of stuff, and it's it's very upsetting just to read this stuff. So I don't, you know, she says she didn't know her parents were going to be harmed.
She was just going to run away. You get the idea that she was just I don't know, I don't want to say this, but sort of a spoiled brat. You know, my parents would tell me to behave and do all these things I don't want to do. You know, I just don't want to do it. I want to run away and do my own thing. I think that's basically the bottom line. But she had the problem was she used her imagination to imagine and talk about what if her parents were dead, and she talked to the
wrong guy. That's for sure.
In other states, and I won't even mention, well, I will mention that in Canada, these kids, well, these young people would have not one of them would have received more than well the twenty year rowd will be exempt from that, but everybody under eighteen years of age would have received no more than three years custody for these crimes,
for this crime period. Right, absolutely, in other states, and just like countries like Canada and other countries that say Australia and England where it wouldn't have a death penalty, I believe, what do you think about the idea that these kids didn't couldn't separate fantasy from reality, or at least their age had something to do with this incredible, these incredible murders.
Well, here's the thing, So I mentioned the Supreme Court. They keep changing the goal post. So in twenty twelve they had a case called Miller versus Alabama where they said, you know what, kids, people's brains don't stop performing until they're twenty five, so they should get another chance. So Rod gets another shot. He gets rehearing in twenty eighteen, and so does Scott. Scott gets his life sentence. He pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalties. He gets life.
So he goes through here's resentencing. He gets forty years.
No.
Rod gets his chance, and they again, there's a whole platoon of psychologists and talking about his childhood and all these drugs he'd taken and how his brain was still being formed and meanwhile it was all being changed chemically by all these drugs and all this environment and all this sort of thing. So this goes on for several days and Rod gets over there and he says, I'm changed. I'm so sorry. He apologizes from the stand. He says,
I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't realize the consequences what I was doing, and all this sort of thing. And then he has this woman testify that she's his fiancee. Now you know, visiting him in prison, and everybody's saying, well, he deserves a second chance and all this. So, but then Jennifer gets on the stand and says, no, no, don't ever let this guy come go because I'm afraid. I'm afraid if he gets out, he'll kill me and
my family, my kids and stuff. And the judge is listening to all this, he listens to all the testimony, and then the judge writes up this fifty five page sentencing memo and says, you know, because he is an habitual liar, because I don't see any evidence, good evidence that he's rehabilitated and so on. No, he's going to stay in prison life. So I think I think that's the correct ruling for Rod. And I think that's maybe Scott. Scott was a follower. What he did was wrong, No
doubt he needs to be. His situation is different than Rod's. Scott didn't hit anybody with a crowbar. He was a follower. You know, you see what I'm going with this. But Rod, he even though he apologized from the stand, you can't ever one hundred percent say, well, maybe he's gaming us now, maybe he's lying to us. Now, All this sort of thing. So it's I think he's where he needs to be. But now, of course he's appealed that, and so this appeal process will go on forever. So I don't I
don't know that one size fits all. Maybe the Supreme Court's got it right there, But in Rod's case, it seems to be the right thing to do, just.
To any credibility or credence to what he had said about being a change man. What's his behavior been like in prison.
Well, it's been pretty good according to the prison records. But here's the thing. I've found something else I've seen too. One of the defensive witnesses in his rehearing was a retired warden Okay, and he's like, oh, well, you had this minor brush here, minor brush there, you know, no big deal. And then the state had a psychologist who was refuting some of the stuff that the defense psychologists
were seeing. Well, lo and behold, they introduced this one thing where Rod supposedly tips one of the guards in his prison that another inmate is going to kill a guard, a female guard that he had this affair with. So
they bring that up at their rehearing. Well, so I contacted the Department of Corrections for the Department Corrections and say what about this, And there's a record they present in court where yeah, a Rod hit this guard and they found this homemade knife and all this sort of thing. But then I contact the DC and they said, well, we don't have any record of that of Rod doing this, but he said he did. And this woman that's mentioned in this earlier report, she's at a different prison and
it gets fired for different reasons. So and the prosecutors are never never able to verify this thing. So did it really happen like that or not? You know, it's more mystery.
Yeah.
I mean, he had all kinds of girlfriends and they would get in trouble and for kissing him inside the prison walls and all kinds of stuff. So it's really changed. Only God knows for sure, you know. But this crime was just so horrific. I mean, the crime scene was just god awful, and he just had no remorse.
It's interesting the power he seemed to have over these teens. And it's interesting what you write too, that Charity Kesey was reportedly found to be drinking blood from another inmate in prison. I thought that was.
Yeah, and I put a chapter in there. It is I put a chapter in there talking about Charles Manson because one of the defense attorneys in Baton Rouge says, this is not the Manson case, but I got to look in at the Manson case, and there are a lot of similarities in the way these characters form these cults.
They have this sort of magnetic personality. They preach this sort of doctrine that sounds weird when you first hear it, but I guess if you're of that like mind, come from dysfunctional family background, all that sort of thing, they all kind of adapted it, adopted it, and so it kind of makes sense to them. And they talk about the dynamics of a cult in their a lot of similarities Charles.
Manson interesting interesting ess when you talk about too, that he claimed to have superpowers and be five hundred years old, and some of the teens said that while we didn't believe everything he said, but there was a certain amount of belief that they had in his system that they would gain powers and this crossing over and becoming vampires. And like the one girl said, you know, I didn't even have any friends.
I was.
My only visitors were my parents. But suddenly when I crossed over and became part of this group, suddenly had people caring about me and seeing what I was up to. So very very interesting.
Yeah, yeah, I think they were I don't wanst say, I don't want to be unkind, but they were like losers, you know, they weren't. They were from dysfunctional families, and they they forefound each other. They kind of bonded together, and I think they wanted power because they had no power. They had nothing, They had no power, and of course, when you're a kid and you're trying to find your own identity anyway, you're just ripe for anything, I guess.
Yeah. Unfortunately, when you talk about dysfunction, Heather and her sister came from what seemed like a loving family from all reports, from a loving family, and then she had a good relationship according to her and everyone, with her parents. Sure there was some issues, but it's a very very sad in tragic story and a senseless, senseless murder certainly.
Yeah, yeah, that's a strange thing. So, like I said, she's an artiste. She wore outlandish clothes, she had a barbie doll she hung off the back of her backpack with a noose, and she was just like to fantasize. She got really wrapped up with this whole fantasy idea of being a vampire. And Rod said one time, well, who would want to be a vampire staff all night and do whatever you want to do? So I think
there's there was some appeal. And of course I talk about pop culture too in this book, about how Anne Riis's books and the movies were very popular, and so there's a lot of pop culture going on influence too.
Certainly, certainly, I want to thank you very much Frank Stafew for coming on and talking about Cold Blooded, a true crime story of a murderous teenage vampire cult. It has been fascinating for those that might want to take a look at this. I know this was a Wild Blue Press release, but also tell us about your website.
It's Frank E. Stanfield dot com. So and I do some blogging. I'm still writing for the newspaper, a local newspaper, so I keep pretty busy. But it's I like to talk about writing. I like to talk about other things too. It's just, uh, I got the writing, I got ink in my blood. I can't get it out. So that's doesn't want to keep on doing it.
Well. Thanks, we're all thankful that you do. Thank you very much Frank Stanfield for coming on and talking about cold Blood at a true crime story. I'm a murderous teenage vampire cult. Thank you very much. Frank, you have a great evening. Good night.
Thank you.