Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 390 - The Florida Vampire Murders

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

On the night of November 25th, 1996, Rick Wendorf, 49, and his partner Ruth Queen, 54, were beaten to death with a crowbar inside their home in Eustis, Florida, by a vampire over 500 years old known as Vesago. At least that's what their killer believed. "Vesago" was really Rod Ferrell, a sixteen year-old from Murray, Kentucky, who lost himself in a vampiric role playing game, and truly thought he'd become an immortal bloodsucker. Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Tj4P-thTEdcMerch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious Private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. And you get the download link for my secret standup album, Feel the Heat.

What was your favorite immersive world when you were a teenager? Was it the world of Muggles, Wizards, and more of Harry Potter? Lord of the Rings, Middle-Earth? Westeros, from Game of Thrones. The continent from The Witcher. That Star Wars galaxy that's far, far away. Or maybe the world of ancient vampires finally coming out of the shadows and meeting the rest of us lowly meat sacks in True Blood.

I would say favorite book, game, movie, or TV show, but to many of us these collections of stories were, and maybe still are, so much more than that. They're not just pieces of disposable media that we watch and quickly forget. They're immersive and escapist worlds that we can enter and live in through our imaginative minds' eyes. They're places where we mentally spent so much time in that in some ways these worlds felt every bit as real as our own. Maybe still do.

When we concentrated enough, we could really picture ourselves living there. Maybe we were superheroes throwing fireballs, flying over the city, saving it from evil, scores of women below, dreaming for the chance to be chosen by us. What a ego stroke. As kids, sure we knew that the world around us was real, that our parents could actually legally tell us what to do, that if we walked out of class because our teacher was a douchebag, there's going to be consequences.

If we said the wrong word to the wrong kid at school, we would still very likely get our asses kicked. But despite having to live in this world and play by its rules, many of us still held out hope that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance that we could figure out how to bend the laws that this world can go live in another. And for some of us, that itty-bitty chance was enough to kind of believe our friends when they said they, I don't know, knew someone who could raise the dead with some kind of necromancy spell or the data cousin who no shit swear to God really was a vampire,

sleeps in a coffin and everything. For some of us, probably a lot of us listening to this show, there was a time when it truly was tricky to always be able to tell where the line between imagination, wishful thinking, and just being completely full of shit was drawn. But then, for damn near, all of us, that inability to tell the difference between what is definitely real, and what is nothing more than fantasy, it fades as we grow into our later teens. Sure we can still get emotionally lost in the nostalgia of loving a series of books or movies, but we're not walking around literally claiming to be a witch, a wizard, a high elf, or a vampire. Not only claiming that, but truly believing our own claim.

But for a small handful of us, the desire to truly be a part of our favorite fantasy world does not fade. Instead, it deepens. And some of us start to detach a bit from reality and not in a fun, harmless way. This is what seems to have happened with Rod Ferrell. Rod was introduced to the world of vampires as a kid and he liked it, loved it, really loved it. He truly wanted to become a vampire. And it seems as if he actually started to really think he was a vampire, as did some of his friends. The world of vampire lore offered him an escape from his extremely troubled home life, his dour religious grandparents, possibly a predatory grandfather, his

rebellious, also possibly predatory mother. Instead of feeling like shit or like a nobody, a poor kid living in a small Kentucky town where almost no one seemed to understand him, Rod could instead feel like an ancient, immortal vampire, someone both powerful and feared. Inspired largely by the role-playing game, Vampire of the Masquerade, Rod developed a character for himself named Visago, a 500-ish year old European aristocrat, who decided to reincarnate in the body of an American teenage boy.

And it is a Risto Krat. I don't know why that world suddenly seems so foreign to me when I've said it a thousand times in my life. Anyway, Rod wasn't the only teen in Murray, Kentucky to go full vampire. He was just the only one to go full evil vampire. The only one willing to coldly kill to keep his vampiric adventure going. The wild story of Rod Ferrell and the vampire murders. Right now on another true crime, not quite cult, but cult-ish, super weird. What the hell was going on in small town Kentucky in the 90s? So glad this is not my life edition of Time Suck.

This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck. You're listening to Time Suck. Happy Monday and welcome to the Cult of the Curious. I'm Dan Cummins. There sucks a bit. Fourth dimensional astral traveler, dream interpreter, poor man's rods early, and you are listening to Time Suck. I should have added a guy who suddenly struggles with aristocrat. for either but I have noticed more of my dreams. I had one last night where I was the happiest I've ever been by far. I was married to a good wholesome, very submissive woman who lets me ride her bicycle whenever and however I want. Who's not a level four teddy Bart infested demon zombie.

JK, I love Lindsay's sassy little butt. She is recovering very well from her recent hip procedure for anyone curious and concerned by the way. Got a lot of messages. Thank you for that. She is recovering very well from her recent hip procedure for anyone curious and concerned, by the way. Got a lot of messages. Thank you for that. Very quick double announcement before today's super weird show. The time has come to prepare for the summer camp next year. I know it's early, but we want to give you time to plan ahead. Tickets for wet hot bad magic summer camp 2025, Summer of Love will be on sale Saturday,

March 23rd, 10 a.m. Pacific Time. First come, first serve. Lot more private residences at Camp Next year than last year, but when they're gone, they're gone. Get your tickets while you can. Go to badmagicproductions.com, our new one-stop shop website for everything I'm up to, and click the summer camp banner for all the info and links to tickets. We're very excited to do this again, and, you know, just looking forward to it after how much fun

this past one was really the past two. And also, don't forget to come and spend the scholarship fund accepting applications as of March 6th. You can visit again, badmagicproductions.com. Click the scholarship menu for more info and be linked over to Scholarship America for the application. And now let's go full vampire after you make sure you're not listening to this episode anywhere in your sunlight, unless you

want to be burned alive. Uh, keep an eye out for wooden crosses, uh, stakes, I guess rather garlic, make sure I really, really crosses of any, uh, material, uh, I think, uh, definitely wood stakes, definitely garlic. Uh, make sure you're familiar is standing guard before you put on your noise cancellation headphones. And now enjoy, you beautiful blood-sucking son of a bitch.

In a lot of ways, today's suck feels like a strange corollary to our episode about Dungeons and Dragons a while back. Except while the fears of getting lost in D&D or AD&D were unfounded. Some of today's characters did get dangerous, dangerously lost in a role playing game. Remember James Dallas Egbert III? He was at Child Prodigy and Tech Wiz who enrolled at Michigan State University at the age of 16. He also had epilepsy, was struggling with his own helmet, with his own

homosexuality and parental pressure, which led to depression, which led to his disappearance from campus in 1979, still only 16 years old, after leaving behind a suicide note. Oh, and he played a little bit of Dungeons and Dragons. And D&D was initially, at least in the media, blamed almost entirely for his disappearance. His parents hired William Deere, a private investigator and complete and utter nut job, to help determine their son's whereabouts when police couldn't find him, while examining a board with a pattern of pushpins found in James' dorm room. Deere saw between the lines.

He realized that the arrangement of the pins suggested, at least to him, no one else, the shape of various campus buildings, including the power plant. Deere was a master of connecting dots, dots that were actually largely never there, but he connected them all the same. And Deere was then able to get permission to search the steam tunnels under the school based on the power plant design. Deere also disclosed some of his multiple theories regarding why James disappeared to the media, but decided to keep some of the information private, like the best information, notably anything related to specific personal problems, such as James's

depression, and other less sensational factors. However, he did discuss the notion that Egbert might have entered the tunnels, probably did, almost certainly did enter them, while playing a live-action version of D&D. Also called LARPing, live-action role-playing, where players act out scenarios on location instead of, you know, sitting around a table. They're also advanced the idea that some players might, on occasion, actually believe they are in fact their character, and that Egbert was almost certainly wandering around somewhere in that kind of state, you know, thinking he's on some kind of fucking dragon quest,

you know, looking for some monsters to slay or some shit. He presented 100% speculation, built upon more speculation, and the press ran wild with it. The national media, taken with the novelty of the very thin connection between the game and Egbert's disappearance, pushed all sorts of imaginative, sensationalist musings presented as facts, bullshit, and articles, newscasts, and more. For many listening, watching and reading, a link between Dungeons & Dragons, a cult behavior, mind control, general insanity and more was a done fucking deal. This theory got so much interest,

Deer ended up writing a book about it all called The Dungeon Master, The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III. But what really happened to James? Well, he didn't get lost in a world of D&D. His disappearance didn't have Jack's shit to do with D&D. He just wanted to escape his life. After hiding in Michigan for a few days, he took a bus to New Orleans, attempted suicide with Sinide, lived, made it to Morgan City, Louisiana, worked on an oil field just a few days before he was found by William Deere, who knew damn well that James Takenoff didn't have shit to do with an RPG, but he still went ahead and wrote his book anyway. Deer dropped him off with James' uncle Marvin Gross.

In September of 1979, he enrolled in Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, near his parents' home, studying computer science, working for his dad at an eyeglass store. And then on August 11th, 1980, James, now 17 years old, sadly, tragically, shot himself in the head and died at the hospital. And his death had nothing to do with Dungeons & Dragons. But you wouldn't know that, based on sensationalist reporting that continued after his death. Dungeons & Dragons will not likely lead you to getting so lost in a fantasy world that you lose your mind and do something like take your own life.

It, however, very likely may lead you into spending a lot of time staying up late with other imaginative folks, painting little pewter figurines, adwarves carrying battleaxes and sexy elven enchantresses, sexual fantasies where you beat off to thoughts of fucking some sexy sorcerer, spending too much money on books, boards, dice, that kind of shit. The story of James Dallas Egbert III is not a good one, when it comes to trying to depict fantasy role-playing games as dangerous escapism. Today's story, however, is a good story that does illustrate how some people can, in fact, get dangerously lost in immersive fantasy worlds. Shows how some teens, many if not all, with terrible home lives did get lost in a fantasy that just felt so much better than

their real crappy ass lives. In our world, they were poor, picked on, abused, marginalized, dismissed, teased for being weird, losers, overall fuck ups. So they chose to live in a new world, the world of darkness, the world of vampire, the masquerade, where they were powerful vampires who either believed they were immortal and could do shit like conjure spirits and see and speak with the dead for starters, or they believed that certain other members of their coven could really do these things. They were part of something incredibly special. They were brave enough to leave the norms and limitations of this world behind and step

into a dark world of power and pleasure forbidden to the Judeo-Christian culture they've been born into. Today's true story illustrates that in rare instances, kids can get way too fucking in to a role-playing game, such as the one about vampires, right, where they can start thinking that they are a vampire, they can start believing that they can control people and turn others into vampires, they can convince other kids that they do have dark powers, and all of this can in fact lead to murder. At least partially.

Other factors are definitely also at play for sure in today's story. Rod Ferrell might have killed anyway. But maybe not. Rod Ferrell was just 16 when he committed a double homicide. And maybe he did so because he didn't feel like he was 16. Maybe he did so in part because he felt ancient. Immortal. He was no longer the weird goth kid who was never picked first for dodgeball or any other game in gym class. He was no longer the kid that most other kids really hoped, prayed they did not get stuck with when they had to work on a group project. Thin with a pale complexion, long hair that hung over his face, prone to saying weird

creepy shit about being a vampire, Rod was definitely an outcast. In this world. But in his mind, and with a few members of his coven, he was God. Rod had been carefully constructing a background for himself since he was a young age, possibly as young as five when his mom, Sandra, you know, introduced him to scary movies, horror fiction, New Age spirituality and the RPG Vampire, The Masquerade. A little bit later for that game, actually, but introduced him to the the world of vampire lore for sure before the game. So let's talk about this game a bit before setting the stage for today's

story and then diving into the details in the timeline. Vampire of the Masquerade is a tabletop role-playing game created by Mark Ryan Hagen originally released in 1991 by White Wolf Publishing. Quickly became a top 10 seller for RPGs for that year. Five years later in a 1996 reader poll by Arcane Magazine, to determine the 50 most popular role-playing games of all time, Vampire of the Masquerade was ranked number six. Editor Paul Pettengale commented, random words, just could be a struggle today, that's cool. Vampire has always proved the most popular of the World of Darkness games.

A testament both to the continuing appeal of the Vampire itself and to the structure and design of the game. Like all of the story teller range, it's not an easy game to get right, and it relies heavily on both the players and the referee, putting a lot of effort and imagination into their roles. With a good group though, it could be an immensely interesting and thought provoking game and one of the most effective horror RPGs around. Despite its tendency to take itself a little seriously, Vampire the Masquerade has a great deal to offer, the more mature and serious gamer. This game is set in a

fictionalized gothic punk version of the modern world where players assume the role of vampires, who are referred to as nerds, I mean as kind, as a kindred and deal with their night to night struggles against their own bestial natures, vampire hunters in each other. Ryan Hagan felt that hunting vampires is a game premise would get boring. So he came up with the idea of a game where the players were the vampires instead of hunting them. And for the most part, these vampires, they're not good people. Although there is morality in the game.

And if you butcher people willy-nilly, you will not be rewarded, and you can lose control of your character permanently, you also need to feed on human blood to keep your character going. And many of the 13 different vampire clans in the game are decidedly of an evil, let's destroy humanity kind of nature. This game came out long before Twilight and more recent depictions of vampires being pretty decent, upstanding undead folk, living righteously, only eating animals or whatever. Back around when Rod was starting to play this game, the most popular piece of vampire

media in pop culture was 1994's Interview with the Vampire, that boxed-off a smash starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, very young Kirsten Dunst, Christian Slater, and Antonio Banderas, Maserati Bugare Versace Spaghetti Antonio Banderas. This movie was based on best-selling author Anne Rice's popular 1976 novel of the same name. It was Anne's first of 13 books, collectively known as The Vampire Chronicles, revolving around the fictional character of L'Esta de l'Encourt, 18th century French nobleman

played by Tom Cruise who became an immortal vampire that ends up in New Orleans. Prior to the movie and Rice's books, 1992's Bram Stoker's Dracula, always want to say Stoker, always want to say Bram Stoker. Every time. Starring Gary Oldman, Anthony Hopkins, well known writer, Keanu Not Canoe Reeves, another massive box office vampiric success based on Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula.

In this movie, the historical subject Vlad Dracula, former SUC subject, Vlad the Impaler, dude who loved a human shish kebab more than any other man in history, who becomes a vampire in 1462 after defeating the Ottoman Empire in a military campaign, only to return to his castle and find his wife dead. Enraged at God, after being told her soul was now damned to hell for committing suicide, he desecrates a chapel, renounces God, and becomes a monster. In the film, most of the action takes place over four centuries later in 1897, where Dracula looks fucking great, freeing close to 500 years old and where

he is also an evil dude naughty boy guy who views human life as being very very disposable. A couple years before that movie, 1987 is the Lost Boys made being a vampire look pretty damn cool. I thought it made vampires look cool when I was a kid. Most of the vampires in that movie, they didn't give a shit about taking human life. Rest in peace, Corey Hain by the way. Also rest in peace, Lost Boys franchise. Should have never made a sequel. Definitely should have never turned it into a trilogy. Anyway, two years before the first and only good Lost Boys film, there was Fright Night, second highest grossing horror film of 1985, surpassed only by a nightmare on Elma Street 2, Freddie's Revenge, another

film based on the premise of the evil murderous vampire. There was also the 1975 Stephen King bestseller, Salem's Lot. Book about a little town in Maine, where the residents are quickly becoming vampires thanks to the ancient bloodsucker Kurt Barlow, attacking resident after resident. And I could go on and on. Only want to share one more. Arguably the most popular and enduring vampire character of the past 50 plus years. Pretty fucking terrifying Count von Count. It is I the count and it's time to answer that fascinating question. What is the Sesame Street number of the day? Let's count the bats and find out

Oh, there's one one one bat, okay Two bats yeah, three three fabulous flyers Terrifying! And yes, I did play that exact clip, I believe, in some form during another episode in the past few years. Just can't remember which one. And no, the count, of course, would not help lure Rod into the dark side. Pretty funny if that was true. Guessing Rod was familiar with most, if not all of this media, and for the most part, outside of occasional exceptions, like Anne Rice's Louis de Pointe-Doulac, played by Brad Pitt, these vampires were again dark and powerful antagonists of the human race. Humans feared and despised them just like a lot of Rodspiers feared and despised

him. He saw himself in these vampires, right? He despised them back just like most of the vampires from the vampire lore of the 80s and 90s did. And then along comes vampire the masquerade, a game where you could become, at least in its world of darkness setting, one of these powerful evil vampires. Like Rod was ready, hell yeah! Vampire the Masquerade was one of the first pieces of vampire media to both combine vampires with a steampunk futuristic world and to develop tropes about individual vampires into a highly complex social system. A Ryan Hagan recast the biblical cane as the father of all vampires, taking inspiration from the education he'd received as a child of a Lutheran minister. He wanted the central concept to be something simple but powerful, which he replicated all

the way down to the cover photo. A rose on a green marble table. The game overall, not simple. Incredibly immersive and complex. Focusing on plots, intrigue, and story as opposed to the more straightforward dungeon scenarios of AD&D. Those type of role-playing games when VTM came out. While the RPG industry in general has been trending towards or had been trending towards a more narrative approach for quite some time, Vampire was one of the first games of its

kind to really center on it. The vampires were given an extensive list of broad supernatural powers called disciplines, which included superior strength, speed, and toughness, as well as other powers such as mystic senses, mind control, and blood magic. The 13 clans added late in the development process, provided a much needed character class system based on vampiric archetypes. But if you couldn't afford all the game material about clans, you could also and still also can just you know be a basic generic vampire. And you can use you know the the bit of money that you've saved to buy a

generic vampire action doll if you really want to get into it from the very fine folks who make the action hero people figures. Oh hell yeah. New from the makers of Fighting Man, Atomic Man, Flying Guy, Warrior Woman, Attack Cat, Prophet Jeffery and Kami Guru. It's Vampire Boy and Vampire Girl. Do you want to be a little naughty vampire? Sucking blood and causing trouble, sunlight sunlight hide on the double do you want to be a little naughty vampire a monster with scary teeth a spooky bat

hanging by its feet do you want to be a little naughty vampire a real scary girl a boy better buy this vampire toy complete your action hero people set today Fighting man flying guy warrior woman attack cat atomic man prophet Jeffrey commie guru and now Vampire boy and vampire girl Karate lady and spy person are probably not coming soon anymore since sales are way way now and our corporate masters bear evil Incorporated will probably soon dismantle us and sell us off in pieces. God, fucking sound like you better buy that vampire boy and vampire girl doll pretty quick. Tough times for the action hero people set people.

Anyway, don't even worry about it if you don't understand where that guy came from. Has nothing to do with this topic. The vampire the mass great character class clan system and all the ways you could customize your character within his clan prove very popular with players, especially big groups of teens who wanted to both feel like they were members of a secret club, but you know, also feel like they were unique individuals within that secret club. But there was another draw for teenagers as well.

The concept of the beast. VTM made use of a lot of existing vampiric folklore, like immortality, thirst for blood, undead status, pale skin, heightened intelligence, sophistication, but they also introduced something new. The Beast. The Beast is a savage, carnal, predatory drive within all vampires. Count Fawn Count. Haha, that fucker! Mostly beast at this point.

One innocent child I killed. Ha ha ha ha. Two innocent child I killed. Ha ha ha. But for real. The beast seeks only to satisfy its base urge to survive. Anger, mortal threats, hunger or bloodlust are some of the things that can cause the beast to rise. The beast is capable of taking over the vampire's consciousness, the conscious mind, force them into a frenzied state where they take violent, often deeply regrettable actions that they otherwise might not. One of the major themes of vampire is characters' battles to strike a balance between their violent predatory nature and be at least a little morally responsible before their humanity is completely overtaken by this powerful force within themselves.

This could be read as a lesson for all people. Learn how to balance your worst, most base impulses, or you're going to suffer the consequences. It could also be seen, though, as a license to do whatever you want, no matter how cruel or terrible. You couldn't really help it. You were simply overtaken by the beasts. You drank a bit. Too much vampire blood. Whip! OHHHHH! And shit went off the rails. What's a guy to do? He didn't ask for the beast. He were made a beast. When you got turned into a fucking bloodthirsty undead vampire.

VTM became Rod's escape from this world. He loved the beast. He wanted to give in to the beast and punish a world that had to be fair. Punished him quite often. VTM was his way out of his massively unstable home life, which involved an He wanted to give in to the beast and punish a world that had to be fair, punish him quite often. VTM was his way out of his massively unstable home life, which involved an absentee dad and a mom who quite possibly molested him, never held down a job for long, often resorted to sex work or bumming off her parents when she didn't feel like showing up to a job. Rod also, partially, was raised by his maternal grandparents, devout Pentecostals, horrified and embarrassed by the choices of their daughter, Sandra. They never wanted her to get pregnant at 16 or even go out in pants or wear makeup or

really have any much fun at all. Seeing Sandra took her rebellion against their wishes too far, but then would come crawling back from time to time when she needed money or place to stay. And also, Rod's grandpa may have created the darkness that Rod and his mom got wrapped up in when he allegedly molested them both. There was so much chaos and pain in Rod's childhood. Understandably, he didn't much care for his real life, so he invented a new one. He gave himself a background that didn't start off in Backwood Central, Florida or bumfuck Kentucky, but instead in France. In the 1400s, Vampire Rod had

been a filthy rich, handsome as fuck, aristocrat, noiceice He was respected powerful feared super handsome probably had a big old fat dick, too He was a vampire gigachat Wrist and dick and skull mugging the fuck out of lowly medieval Melvins and crushing so much giga Stacy post and just riding around crashing women's bicycles anyone that he wanted and his name was a Roderick. No, it was way cooler. It was Visago Which is very likely a nod to a demon. Found in some old occult literature. Just Visago spelled a different way. Visago was a goetic demon and the occult literary work would be came from there with a few weeks ago. And the exorcisms suck. The Lesser Key of Solomon. I don't mention that in the, I think we mentioned that in the West Baptist Three as well. The Grimoire spellbook that deals with demonology.

The saga was third in command of the spirits of Satan's army of rebellious angels, according to occult belief, and possessed special powers such as fortune telling. Fuck yeah. Well Rod's the saga, Rod's Saga, if you will. He neither liked the bourgeoisie that he was a part of back in France, nor the peasants that he ruled over, so he decided to let his soul undertake a 500 or so year slumber. He went into a bit of a vampiric hibernation. You got to recharge those bloodlust batteries every once in a while

so you can get even stronger, you know, be able to to fangmong or fangmog. There we go. And you know, other vampires because you're a fucking gigadracula. While he slept, his spirit had access to the ancient worlds of the Arabians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, also access to a set of entities he called the Elders, whom he could commune with in the vast darkness. He accumulated all kinds of knowledge, almost certainly found ancient library of Alexandra Scrolls that allowed him to shoot fireballs. And he went on a lot of bitchin' astral adventures. And then finally he felt it was time to be reborn. He decided to emerge, cloaked as an American teen, a teen who would be the ultimate rebel.

So why America? Why not back to Europe? Well, with Sago, I mean Rod, Rod Sago, would later say that he regarded himself as a Satanic vampire. Mm-hmm. Satanic and so powerful, he was an equal to God. And since America was the most sinful country on earth filled to the brim with greed and corruption Here in the United States of debauchery

He would find the devil worshipers. He needed to complete his army Rod wouldn't have liked those twilight puss vamps for him vampires were supposed to be full evil By the time Rod was a teen while most of his evil vampire talk and brooding demeanor turned off a lot of his peers, some were drawn to his bad boy, Rebel Persona. He was like James Dean. If James Dean was a lot less attractive, painted his fingernails black, wore a mesh crop top, and was actually not at all like James Dean, but more like Marilyn Manson, minus any and all musical talent. Not visually appealing to most girls with his long, narrow nose, pale skin, claw-like

nails and thin body. For some, there was something darkly charismatic about ol' Rod Sago. God's equal. Rod dog, God Rod. Even if he was also a little repulsive. Rod God did have flowing black hair. A bit below shoulder length and silky. He usually kept it tied back in a ponytail. He did have, yeah, he had great hair. I'll give him that. Also a real good talker Spoke eloquently about good and evil proclaiming calmly and confidently that he was a fallen angel capital F capital A the anti-christ as a matter of fact and he had a good mind for both philosophy and politics keeping track of international affairs the way Most 16 year olds did not

He said crazy shit like how Saddam Hussein was the fourth anti-Christ. He would say it so casually and seriously Few kids believed him. He knows he knows things He had a personality a lot like an emerging cult leader You don't got to you don't got to win them all right just like one out of a thousand if you really get them in You can start accumulating a nice little following Central Florida he would make two close friends by sharing his elaborate fantasy world musings, but maybe in Rod's mind, real world musings. Two young girls named Janine Leclerc and Heather Wendorf.

But not long after befriending them, dating one of them and having the other want to date him, family instability reared as ugly as it had again and he had to move back to Murray, Kentucky. While Rod Dog God Rod did not look forward to returning to Murray, he did find and meet up with some birds of a blood-sucking familiar feather. He hooked up with what he found out to be a surprising amount of local vampire enthusiasts, and eventually he would form his own dock, Coven! His Coven's main meet-up spot was called the Vampire Hotel, a dilapidated structure in

the middle of the woods near Kentucky Lake and the land between the lakes. There his vampire clan would throw parties, use psychedelics, and take part in various types of vampiric rituals. Rituals they took so seriously, some started to have a hard time understanding what was real and what was pretend. Was Rod actually a vampire, as he said, or was he just goofing around for fun? Bit of escapism. Some kids later swore they saw him

turn into a nine foot tall demon with their own eyes. Others said he sacrificed animals. Almost everybody saw him drink human blood. He encouraged everyone else to drink blood, many did. And some of these kids, these three teenagers, would follow Rod to use this Florida in November of 1996 to begin a vampiric journey around the world. New Orleans, Cairo, Rome, meeting up with ancient vampiric brethren and reclaiming

Visago's ancestral castle in Wales. I thought I'd be in France, but whatever. Rod's minions knew he was violent, that he was a bad boyfriend, a constant, flirt, aggressive manipulator who did as many drugs as he could get his hands on, but maybe, just maybe, he was also a legit vampire. And he could lead them into immortality. I'll have to be a teenager again, right? When the most ridiculous bullshit can feel so real, I still daydream every day and live all kinds of lives in my head.

Oh man, the adventures I go on internally every single day. But when I was a teenager, damn if I didn't almost truly convince myself that a lot of these wild fantasies could for sure come true. I actually thought that maybe I could find stuff like a portal to another dimension in the woods. I thought I might just be able to really control some shit with my mind. And I bet at one time or another, I thought that maybe I could be a real vampire, maybe like, maybe like a real vampire would show up my life.

You know, a super sexy one, probably like Kate Beckinsale, Celine in the underworld franchise, Hail Lucifina, holy shit, Hail Lucifina actually, and she would truly convert me. And I would leave my little Idaho town and travel the world and be immortal and fuck a whole bunch and you know, for sure, kill a lot of lichen werewolves and you know, hail Nimra. As crazy as that story is is this story is to an extent maybe more than I care for moments. I do get it. I get the appeal of getting lost in your own little world. I mean, hell, I made my own little world right here for you to listen to.

And for me to get lost in every week, I get it, but they took the shit way too far. Rod got way too lost in his made up empiric story. And now let's spend a couple of hours getting lost in his story in today's Time Suck timeline. Right after today's first of two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thanks for sticking around. If you don't want to hear ads, get the entire catalog ad for you and more by signing up to be a Spacelift on Patreon for $5 a month. And now for that vampiric timeline. Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time-sucked timeline.

Rod was born Roderick Justin Ferrell, March 28, 1980, in Murray, Kentucky, with the imbibical cord wrapped around his neck, almost stillborn. God tried to kill him, but tried to kill a little vampire, but the devil cut the cord. Rod's difficult birth could be interpreted as an omen of sorts for his difficult life, even leaving the womb was more traumatic for Rod than it is for the average meat sack. Rod will be the first and only child of his very young parents, Rick Farrell and Sondra Gibson, both in grade school when Sondra got pregnant.

Rick in sixth grade, Sondra in third, kids have always grown up fast, too fast in Murray, Kentucky. No, there were teenagers still in high school when Sondra got pregnant. Wasn't quite that bad. Rick's exact age never listed, not even in court records, only said he was a teenager still in high school. Sondra just 16 when she got pregnant, 17 when she gave birth to Rod. The two got married nine days after Rod was born, but then separated a few weeks

later, quickly got divorced and would never get back together again. Rod's dad would remain in his life barely until he was eight years old, when he would completely and totally abandon his son. Fucking dads. Uh, after Rod turned eight, Rick wouldn't see him again until Rod's trial for a double homicide, and at the trial, he wouldn't even refer to his son by name. Rick would consistently call Rod the child. So that's super cool.

One of the only times Rod would show any emotion at all during his trial was when his dad took the witness stand and his defense attorney spoke to him about how Rod never even got a card on his birthday, or at Christmas, from his father. When Rod committed his killings, the wounds being abandoned, still pretty fresh and deep. Rick spoke of how manipulative, argumentative, and confrontational Rod's mother, Sondra, was, as did Rick's mother, Betty Jean Farrell, who actually went to court when Rod was young to try and get visitation rights, and Sondra ended up shooting those down. Rick, not a good dad, and as we'll soon see, while she never completely

abandoned her child, Sandra, definitely not a good mom, not by any stretch of the imagination. Rick said at Rod's trial that by the time his son, the child, was eight, in 1988, he just, quote, gave up trying to have a relationship with him. By that point, he joined the armed forces, and then he would go on to get a bachelor's and a master's degree in aviation technology and build himself a pretty respectable career in the airline insurance industry. Little Rod would end up staying with his mother, Sandra's parents, Harold and Rosetta Gibson. And Harold may have molested him. Per court documents, the grandfather he has continuously referred to with regard to the

sexual abuse allegation is his maternal grandfather. This evidence is supported by Rod's aunt who as a young teenager was sexually fondled by her father. Rod has been consistent about his innocence being taken away at age five. In court, Rod's aunt also testified under oath that Harold molested Sandra. Sandra had an extremely volatile relationship with her father and mother. Sometimes she would leave Rod with him alone. Other times she also stayed with her parents, but typically not for long. In a big fight, she'd take off, stay with someone else across town, or maybe leave town entirely for a while.

Rod's life was consistently chaotic. Not only was Sandra only sometimes be his primary caregiver, she'd also tell Rod that he didn't have to listen to her parents' rules when he stayed with them. Just openly encouraged his rebelliousness. According to some sources, she not only allowed him to skip classes in school, she also told him that he should. So that's fucking awesome. She regularly, may probably, did hard drugs with him, got to into playing vampiric RPGs with him, and according to at least one psychologist Rod would see in prison, she had a romantic sexual her own. Her parents were strict, moralist, Pentecostal fundamentalists who made her life a living hell.

Commanding her to wear her hair long, not wear makeup, never go to movies, dances, the beach. Her dad also again, may have been a pedophile. Cute and grey eyed with a button nose, Saundra dropped out of school at 16, not long after getting pregnant and never really got her life back on track. Like her son would be, she was an outcast, disliked by most of the kids she used to go to school with and also by the congregants of her parents' church in Murray. And speaking of Murray, let's talk about the town a bit before moving forward. Murray is a little college town of only about 17,000 residents, located in southwest Kentucky,

about a two-hour drive from the nearest city Nashville, Tennessee. The main source of the local economy is a giant castle just outside of town, where some secretive rich guy pays a lot of local people to look the other way when his henchmen come into town, kidnap children, take them to the castle, never to be seen again. Or when he flies into town at night, reportedly as a bat, transforms into a man, bites beautiful women on the neck, then either carries them back to the castle or turns back into a bat and flees from angry villagers approaching him with like, you know, torches and wooden stakes and garlic and stuff.

One angry villager. Ah, ah, ah. Two angry villagers. Ah, ah, ah. Or maybe that was silly. And maybe the main source of the local economy is Murray State University. That sounds more realistic. A public university with over 9,000 students. So big time college town, over 9,000 students and a little burge of

around 17,000 total residents. You know, in a college town like that, that makes for an interesting local culture. Murray sits in what's sometimes called the buckle of the Bible Belt. And to be fair, several locations from Kentucky all the way to Texas make that same exact claim. But it's one of them. Very conservative area, approximately 75 churches in a town of 17,000, majority of them Baptists, Pentecostal, some other version of fundamentalism. Some of Rod's old vampire pals after his arrest spoke of Murray as being a town chock full of good old boy rednecks and jacked up pickup trucks who loved to shit on goth kids, but also because of the college in the 90s had a shit ton of goth kids.

I would say high school or colleges when most people who get into role playing games like vampire the masquerade do get into them. And a lot of college kids, former college kids, local high school kids who you know were hanging out with college kids were into these games when today's story takes place. Murray State also home to 26 different frats and sororities, so conservative area, but also party town And Rod's mom, Sandra loved to party She uh frequently as she kind of raised rod along with her parents would seemingly try and get her life together somewhat Maybe working in a fast food place or equivalent for a few weeks before quitting getting fired and then it would be fucking party time

Sex drugs and maybe not any rock and roll because it was not much of a music scene In between regular jobs. She sometimes turned tricks as a sex worker. Also was frequently a welfare recipient while she partied and leaned on her parents to support her and her son. And by the time Rod was five, she was very into two things that would later help define her son's life, drugs and witchcraft. Perhaps as a rebellion against her parents, she hung around with drug dealers and pushers, dated a bunch of them.

On a few occasions when her parents told her to knock that shit off, she threatened to have her associates kill them. Family a little bit dysfunctional. Two extremes continually colliding. Extreme fundamental conservativism, clashing with rebellious, wildly irresponsible liberal hedonism. And by the time Rod was eight, at the latest, she introduced him to witchcraft. And not like a healthy piece of nature-loving wick of kind of witchcraft, more like a fuck grandpa and grandma, fuck god, I'd love to see some demons show up and ruin some shit, kind of witchcraft. While the satanic panic of the 80s was built on uh, mostly hysteria as I've talked about many times, there were some fucked up people who did want to figure out how to conjure controlled dark forces and unleash them upon humanity.

And Sandra definitely one of those people. As you can see, a lot more than a role-playing game about vampires would help turn Rod into a killer. Sandra was more than a little intrigued by tarot cards, books as spells, supposed potions, she let her obsession with the occult take over her life and influence her son heavily. For a time when Rod was young, she dated a man named David who claimed to be a shaman priest and to get a rise out of her parents, she talked with them about playing games. They worried about being devilish with Rod like Dungeons and Dragons.

Sandra's father, Harold, was a traveling salesman and he and Rosetta would move back and forth between Murray, Kentucky and kind of the outline area around Florida or excuse me, Orlando, Florida, like Eustace, Florida. And every time that they would move, he and Rosetta would bring their troubled daughter and grandson with them, afraid to leave rod alone anywhere with Sondra. All the back and forth would leave rod feeling like he didn't belong anywhere. Spent his first few years in Kentucky, followed by a move to winter garden,

Florida, suffered 14 miles west of downtown Orlando. Before he started grade school, it seems Rod and Sondra moved back to Murray while her folks stayed in Florida near Orlando. Back in Kentucky, in early grade school during the 80s, late 80s, Rod lived alone with his mom at the Southside Manor Apartments. Fully subsidized, Sondra Gibson was able to live there rent-free, and thus she no longer needed to stay with her parents at that time. While she partied, Rod was permitted to play his fantasy games, basically unsupervised. All the time with his friends, mostly Matt Goodman and Scott Anderson, using the woods near the apartments to engage in fake battles for hours and hours.

And for a lot of kids, that would not be detrimental. But Ferrata gave him time, too much time, to push his developing mind and imagination and imagination possibly fueled by a lot of fucked up family trauma, further and further into his increasingly dark escapist world, and he added psychedelics at a young age, I don't know if it was this young, but within a few years. To all that. In 1990, no longer able to care for herself again, or her son, despite free housing, Sandra, such a mess.

Now 27, Rod now 10, leave Kentucky for Florida again. They move in with Rod's grandparents in Eustis, another suburb of Orlando, kind of, quite a bit further out, about 40 miles from downtown Orlando, but still considered part of the metro area. In Eustis, Rod attended Eustis Middle School, and he would also start classes at Eustis, like junior high, excuse me, high school, so he attended middle school in the beginning of high school. His mom would also start to date a man after living in Florida for a few years named Darren Vraven. I feel like Vraven's made up last name for this guy. The two will get married in the summer of 1995 in Daytona Beach, stay married about six months. He was super cool,

a real winner. If not a Chad, at least to Brad, big risks, solid school. He was a drug dealer from Louisiana who was very into satanic worship and occult rituals. Later, Sandra will admit that Darren supplied her son, Rod, with a variety of drugs that she knew about but did nothing to stop. So by junior high, you know, beginning of high school, if not before, he's already fucked around with hard drugs. One of his favorites will be LSD. Down in use, just Rod also became friends with two girls from a very different world. Mentioned them earlier, Janine Leclerc, Heather Wendorf. Heather had heard about the boy who called himself a vampire from some friends at school,

thought that they were, you know, who thought that they were ridiculous. But when she met him or thought he was ridiculous, excuse me, she had to admit she was attracted to him. Right? Might have been a case of opposites attract. Heather was a lichen, werewolf, ancient blood enemy of the vampires, descendant of William Corvinus, son of Alexander, brother of Marcus, the first vampire. Sorry, started thinking about underworld again. No, Heather was just a good kid from a good family. Heather's parents had created a wonderful life for her and her sister Jennifer, that was just about the furthest thing from Rod's life with Sondra and his grandparents.

Heather's mother was Ruth Wendorf, born Naomi Ruth Adams from the mountains of West Virginia. She grew up a farm girl, known lots about livestock, chickens and hogs. She got married young to a guy named Joe Queen, and they had two daughters Paula and Samantha. By the time Paula turned 16, it became clear that the couple was not meant to be. They'd rush things. And Ruth and Joe decided to separate. Ruth found a job at a place called Crown Cork and Seal, doing unglamorous factory work, which paid enough for her to keep a roof over her and her daughter's heads. And she met Rick Wendorf.

You can't have too many Rick dads in the same suck. Ruth didn't think there was anything special about him, but her friend Bobby Spears convinced her to go out with him, went out for a few months, and then Ruth discovered she was pregnant. So I guess Rick might have been at least a little special. Ruth was in a tough spot now, not super thrilled to be starting a new family again a little later in life. But Rick loved the shit out of her, convinced her to move in, let him take care of her. She agreed. Soon after giving birth to Jennifer Wendorf,

she became pregnant again, gave birth to her fourth child, Heather. Rick's company, which manufactured metal cans and plastic containers for orange juice, soon moved north of Orlando and Rick got a big promotion, which meant Ruth could stay home with the girls. They scoured the Lake Country area for a property, fell in love with the rural outskirts of Eustis where they were able to buy five acres at a great price. They constructed a 3,000-foot house with a built-in pool, vegetable garden for Ruth, woods for the kids to play in. They bought season passes

to Disney World. They would go on camping trips in the mountains. Girls took music lessons, the family would go on picnics. They had every toy a kid could want. No handsy pedo pop-pop, unless in any of them. Rick was a damn genius when it came to business and money. He invested his hard earned dollars in companies like Disney, McDonald's, eventually saving enough for his daughter's college funds.

Even bought stocks in his daughter's names so the girls could learn about investing early and start their retirements before ever entering the workforce. Great Dad. Rick's parents and two brothers lived nearby, they'd come over to visit a lot, especially his identical twin brother Billy. They'd bring the kids, it was a good, wholesome family time for all. Pretty idyllic life. The family never seemed to fight, never really argued,

just had the normal growing pains of raising two kids. Rick and Ruth also loved the hell out of each other. Heather grew up so surrounded by love that maybe Rod's dysfunction and darkness intrigued her simply because it was so foreign. She had a crush on him, but Rod did not immediately reciprocate. Instead, he went for her best friend. That always stinks. Janine LeClaire. My mind just flashed when I was in grade school. All the girls left Ryan Shaw. None of them cared about me.

Still thinking about everyone else. Janine went to school in nearby Leesburg, which meant, and Ryan was my buddy. Sorry, I got distracted in my head there. Janine went to school in nearby Leesburg, which meant that Heather and Rod would end up spending more time together than he and Janine would.

Sucks for Heather. Because Rod was already goth as fuck, they spent a lot of their time hanging out in a nearby cemetery, the Greenwood Cemetery, talking about vampires. Life, philosophy, more vampires. And when Rod was with Janine, he also talked about vampires a lot and would try to seduce her in his own goth way. He showed her the occult satanic altar he had made for his room that he cut himself on the finger, pressed it to her lips in some sort of vampiric love gesture.

One lip touch. Ah ah ah. Two. Did these I want to suck? Ah ah ah. Three bases. Left me touch the pussy. Ah ah ah.

Can you imagine trying to seduce somebody with a count on count voice? Ah, three bases, let me touch your pussy. Ah, ah, ah. Can you imagine trying to seduce somebody with a count on count voice? I'd love to know about somebody pulling that off. One time I want to kiss your lips. Two times I want to suck on your nipples. Three times, let me put the tip in. Ah, ah, ah. Gotta be at least one person that I turn on and in my mind she also talks

like that they just go back and forth one dick i want to stroke two balls i want to empty ah ah i'll stop now soon heathen jenine would be participating in occult rituals with rod this is starting to feel like a like an after school fucking one of those after school special movies from the 90s some kind of PSA They were just two ordinary American girls from the suburbs leading good and wholesome lives But then they met they say Tannock vampire lost their way and ended up in hell The girls loved how spooky and mysterious it all was. And I'm sure like normal teens, right, they got off on knowing how to piss off their parents. Right? How mad their parents would be if they found out about all this stuff. Girls also got some insight into Rod's strange relationship with his mom,

which they would later attest to in court about how a bad shit crazy and creepy she was. One day in December of 1995, 15-year-old Jeanine, 14-year-old Rod, some other unnamed boy who went to school with Rod, were all in Rod's room and they were cutting themselves on their arms on Rod's bed with a razor. So they could suck on each other's blood, naturally. And then Sondra walked in and all hell broke loose. Sondra thought that they were fucking. She accused Rod of performing some kind of sex ritual with Janine and of being a devil

worshiper. And she tore down his altar in front of his friends, pulled him off his bed by his hair, and screamed for Janine to get out. But was she really mad at what she seemed to be mad at? Rod told Janine something really odd as he walked her out after the incident. He said, don't worry about my mom. She just wants to be sired, as in to be made a vampire. As in, she was fucking jealous that her 14-year-old son, son Rod was letting Janine suck on his blood

creepy Not sure if she was molesting him at this point or not But if I had to guess I would say she was very few details are ever given about this possible molestation of Rod She wasn't pissed at Rod because he was engaged in an occult in occult activity either just mad She wasn't part of it following year back in Kentucky Rod would build another altar in his room and his mom would put occult markings in her room. And she'd be arrested and received probation for trying to seduce one of Rod's 14 year old friends, hoping to have sex with him in a vampiric initiation ritual. She is creepy shit. Can you imagine having her as your mom?

Even if the molestation accusation regarding Rod is not true. Just still such a weird and creepy, just goth pedo. Just fucking picture these goth kids like getting ready to have this ritual in the room. Okay fuckers, are you ready to dance with the devil? We're about to call him the power of the dark lord to strengthen our vampire coven. I'm ready dude. But should we do this somewhere else? I think I heard your mom come home. I don't want her to flip her shit, you know, and tell my folks she's not gonna rat you out, Brian,

but she will try and join our game. And then her mom is fucking, his mom is walking into dress like Lucifina, you know, walking into her teenage rebel son's room, looking more goth than he does, sitting down in their little circle around the Ouija board. Tits almost popping out of her push-up bra, you know, covered by just some see-through mesh.

Her lacy panties clearly visible underneath her little, like, black leather mini-skirts. Mom! How many times do I have to tell you you're not invited to my coven? Stop being such a brat and sire me already. Mom, I'm not gonna sire you! You're embarrassing me! Fine, I have my own Ouija board, and I'm gonna conjure the devil before you do. And when he gives me immortal power, I won't invite you into my vampire coven and I won't sire you. MOM! Please don't conjure the dark lord before

me! It's so fucked up! Too late brat if anyone else wants to join our ritual you can. I'll be in my bedroom naked covered in some pigs blood about from the butcher. I don't have a cool python and drugs too. Coke, acid, meth. It's gonna be fucking rad. Granted that's your fucking mom like that base. This basically this character is Rod's mom, but maybe she was actually worse than that. Backing up to Janine and Heather being thrown out of Rod's house. Now Janine thought that Sondra's behavior was so strange

because you know, it was after the door closed, following Rod walking Janine out of Sondra's big after Sondra's big meltdown, Rod walked back into his room to tidy up and Sondra continued to scream at him. At one point, he told her to get a life. She now started screaming that she wished she was dead, and she grabbed a fucking knife from the kitchen. She came after him, Rob grabbed a rod, grabbed a knife of his own, stabbed it in the door frame, a few inches from her face. What a childhood. One volatile dysfunctional child kind of trying

to raise, but not really another. Shortly after this incident, Sandra divorces Darren Vraven, satanic fucking drug dealer, and moves back to Murray, Kentucky, away from her parents and returns to the South Side Manor apartments. Both girls were devastated that he was moving back to Murray but promised to keep in touch. He said he'd be back, he would, and they both will regret that very much. Before we return to Murray, this is our least intrusive spot for today's second of two mid-show sponsor breaks. And I'm back.

It's the beginning of 1996. Rod has returned to Kentucky and shit is about to get real crazy. In early 1996, when Rod made it back to Murray, he started hanging out with his old elementary school buddies, Matt Goodman, excuse me, and Scott Anderson. He told them he'd take them into his coven, fucking cool. Get them ready for an eternal existence. It's a nice gesture. He's very into vampires now. Rod's time in Florida seemed to have increased his mystique, and Matt and Scott eagerly agreed. They believed him, or at least Scott did. When he said shit like, you know, Rod could turn into a nine foot tall demon. Scott would later claim he saw this happen

Cool story, bro Both Matt and Scott to be fair to them. They were primed to need someone to believe in they were both misfits themselves Also had very troubled incredibly unstable home lives They saw some of themselves and their friend Rod who had been carted back and forth across country so many times exposed So much shit a kid should never have to be exposed to When Rod bragged about bragged about being a killer, when he compared himself to Jack the Ripper and Jeffrey Dahmer, they didn't fear him or think he was crazy. They just saw a strong fellow outcast who would protect them just,

you know, mouth and off. Also, Matt and Scott were used to people their own age talking a lot about vampires, claiming to be vampires. Remember in the college town of Murray in the mid 90s, just like in other college towns across America, vampire the mass grade, one of the most popular fantasy role playing games in the country. Another kid, Matt and Scott knew and Murray, who was into being a vampire as much as Rod almost, was a 19 year old kid named Stephen Jaden Murphy, who other kids knew as the vampire prince of the city. Some other kids knew him as that. Most kids knew him as, most kids knew him as check out this vamp dork in the nine ish nails T who won't shut up about his nerd coven.

Possibly as possibly how most people knew him. Jaden was also bragging about his vampiric bloodlust to his group of friends, his coven as he called him. So many vampires in small town Kentucky did not expect that when I picked this topic. Uh, Jaden was according Jaden, more into vampires than Rod. Jaden later claimed that he was the one who turned Rod into Visago, that he helped him create that backstory, that he sired Rod into his coffin. Not sure if that's the truth, but that's what he claimed.

This story, particularly going forward from this point in the timeline, filled with a lot of very imaginative people who seemed to have a lot of trouble deciphering between fantasy and reality, and also people with big egos about this sort of thing, very concerned with who was the coolest, most powerful fake vampire and stuff. And when it came time for Rod's trial and when journalists began interviewing Rod and his old friends, a recollection of events and the timelines that went along with them varied quite a bit, especially between Rod Dog, God, Rod and Prince

Jaden. If he asked Rod, he was already a big deal vampire mother fucker before he returned to Kentucky. He was like probably the most powerful vampire in all of Florida, you know, which is saying quite a bit. But if he asked Jaden, oh yeah, sure. Rod dabbled in bloodletting and yeah, he had a satanic altar in Florida, but he didn't really know what the hell he was doing about his vampirism. And since he didn't really know what he was doing, he had a said Tannock altar in Florida, but he didn't really know what the hell he was doing about his vampirism And since he didn't really know what he was doing, he was he was just a fake vampire He thought it was vampire. It was Jaden the vampiric prince of Murray Kentucky who turned him into you know being a real vampire

If you've ever seen what we do in the shadows the goofy 2019 FX comedy horror series But mostly comedy mockumentary about a group of bumbling, idiot vampires living in Staten Island. The next section of this timeline, basically until we get to the murders, reminds me so much of that show. These people remind me of characters from that show. When Rod moved back to Marie, Jayden and his coven primarily hung out at their headquarters, which was a Hardee's. It was a Hardee's fast food restaurant. The fast food burger joint. With almost identical branding and the same menu as Curls Jr.

Sad times, sad times for a Coven of Empires. When, you know, the Coven's HQ is a Hardee's lobby. One big cheeseburger combo with fries. Two chocolate hand-scooped ice cream shakes. Ah, ah, ah. In that lobby right there in public, they would frequently do stuff like recite verses from the vampire Bible. It doesn't say exactly which vampire Bible they use, but I think I know which one.

There's a bunch in publication. I think the vampire Bible they read from probably the one first published in 1989 by a group called the Temple of the Vampire. Temple of the Vampire is technically a new religious movement published in 1989 by a group called the Temple of the Vampire. Temple of the Vampire is technically a new religious movement founded in 1989. I don't feel like it has a lot of followers to explore the positive aspects of the vampire mythos. The temple states that it quote, embraces only those aspects of the vampire mythos that include a love and respect for all life, physical immortality, individual elegance, proven wisdom, civilized

behavior, worldly success, and personal happiness. Based in Lacey Washington, which is just outside of the capital of Olympia, uh, not only do they have many members, I can't find a physical address associated with them, so I don't think they have any church, so to speak, and their website is, uh, janky as shit. Uh, they probably hold black vampire masses in places like the men's room, jack-in-the-box, and Taco Bell parking lot, stuff like that. According to their website, the vampire bible focuses primarily on three things. One, the secrets of vampirism to draw a life force from human beings. Two, why vampires never harm others and are barred from criminal acts. And three, how to perform the ancient r rights of the calling of the undead gods in

magical ritual ah ah ah Sure that ritual totally works and stuff This group is all about non-violence and based on interviews of jade and I've come across on YouTube That is what he seems to believe non-violence. He and rod will butt heads over this Feels like based on several interviews of Jaden I watched, he just likes to feel important. And having his coven lets him feel that. Which is fine. Yeah, he seems odd.

But also, I gotta say, he seems pretty smart. Funny. Self-aware, at least somewhat. Someone who takes continual role-playing seriously but doesn't actually think of himself as a real immortal vampire. Dressed in sheer black, referring to himself not just as Goth, but as Gothic back in 1996, Jaden loved to do shit like invite undead gods to join him in his coven at their fucking heartiest table while they snacked on fries and whatnot.

Say stuff like he could see the undead in the heartiest windows and his coven believed him or at least pretended to. They started to say that he had the calling. You know, some of them started to believe that he could make them somebody nobody else could, a living vampire. Through the Murray-Goth vampire grapevine, which I have to imagine was a pretty small grapevine,

like maybe just one or two grapes, Rod set up a meeting with Jaden at Murray's old Salem Cemetery, two vampires coming together in the cemetery at midnight to join forces or fight to the death or eat some hardies, hand-breaded chicken sandwiches and hash rounds. April Dodon, former girlfriend of Rod's, testified that Jaden did sigh Rod into his coven shortly after they met and on the night Jaden crossed Rod over, Rod couldn't get to sleep. He cried. He shivered all night long like a scared little boy.

Interesting, taking this stuff real seriously. As soon as they sat down, according to Rod, later at the cemetery, the cemetery, they both proclaimed that they had the supernatural within them. Experienced dealing with ghosts and witches, past lives and undead souls. Jaden told Rod that he had a powerful sire in England. Sire being the termed vampire of the mass grade for a vampire who had turned a human into another vampire, adding a human to their group of vampiric followers. Jason also said that he was a good vampire, a Christian vampire in fact, who used his

powers to serve the forces of light. Rod? Not a fan of that. He considered this a perversion. He felt that all real vampires were satanic and a story. But he knew he would need Jaden to jumpstart forming his own vampiric covenant in Kentucky. Maybe he could get Jaden to assemble vampires for him and then steal them in a hostile vampiric takeover. Soon the two boys were meeting in old Salem cemetery almost every night to feed upon

one another. Like they would make little slashes in their shoulders and drink it to their blood and perform various rituals from the vampire Bible and other sources. Also soon, Rod would bring someone new into what was still Jaden's coven, his new girlfriend, 15 year old named Charity. He lured her in by telling her that he'd witnessed blood rituals as a kid,

old men sacrificing an animal, dripping blood all over him, all kinds of spooky shit. Charity didn't care about all that. She didn't even really care about vampirism. She was just bored. She thought Rod God was cool and handsome. Wanted him to stop talking about his supposed other girlfriends in Florida and thought that joining his little vampire coven or clique or clan or whatever the fuck would help him

shut the hell up. Not long after these two join up, Rod's social circle begins to grow again. All of the events from Rod moving to Murray and the murders will take place in 1996 by the way. Big year for the timeline. Lot of vampire shit happening. Early that year, Rod would be invited to join what was called the Victorian Age Masquerade Performing Society, a group of local thespians, improvisational actors, fans of Billy Shikes

no doubt, leading serial killer of the medieval era, who developed their acting skills by using the role-playing game we talked about at length before the timeline, Vampire the Masquerade. Rod was very into this game. This game will pull him much deeper into his vampire fantasy and detach him further from reality. Not clear if he had played it before or this was his introduction to this game, I think before, but doesn't say for certain in sources.

Jayden warned that these guys not as serious about vampirism as they were, mostly about acting, but Rod still wanted to play. And they will both end up loving this group in the game. Full blown masquerade sessions would last from sundown to sun up. Oftentimes, there's many of 17 members playing and performing. A tall good looking 25 year old named James. Yohe was the game Master, the storyteller who'd come up with the internal game mechanisms known as the Constitutions.

They performed in the Crypt, aka James' basement in his off-campus house, where the walls have been painted black, blood-red curtains hung, and plaster and clay molded to the ceiling to create a vaulted effect. Aside from the acting aspect, which included props like fangs and fake blood, game plays similar to Dungeons and Dragons. Players filling out character sheets roll in dice, assign quests by James. For his character, Rod chose the vampiric type known as the Bon Vivant, someone who wanted to enjoy life while it lasted a heat nest, a party animal.

Other players included Missy, James' girlfriend, age not listed in sources, who played as a martyr, and an 18-year-old girl named April Doden, aka Shy, who played as a caregiver. All of them would hunt each other, betray each other, war between their vampire clans, you know, participate in those wars, got cast spells, fall in love, you know, all that stuff. And sometimes a line between character and person would blur, like when Rod bit Jaden's lip hard enough to draw blood after Jaden had wrapped Rod up in a passionate kiss. They now consider themselves to be blood bonded. Characters in VTM refer to the supernatural blood in their bodies that sustains them as Vite. Vampires gain Vite by drinking blood. In games,

accumulation of Vite is called a blood pool. A vampire's Vite can inspire false feelings of love and foster dependency if drunk by others and can lead to what's called a blood bond. According to the game, the vampire performing the bond is called the regnant and the one performing being bound by it is called a thrall. In most cases, the victim must drink three times from the same vampire on three separate nights to become bonded. Once bonded, the thrall feels something akin to a very twisted sort of love for the vampire who has, you know, bonded them and they become the most important person in their

life. They also become more susceptible to mind control by the vampire and are willing to do anything, even risk their own life to aid their regnant, mortals, animals, even other vampires, and other supernatural creatures may be bound in the game. Capital G. None of this happens in real life. But Rod, based on stuff like April Doedin, testified that he cried and shared all night long like a scared boy after being crossed over, it seems that he started to believe a lot of this shit was real.

Still early in 1996, life becomes complicated for a number of young vampires in Murray. James Yohe got engaged to his girlfriend Missy, whom he lived with, but then shy showed up and told James that she was pregnant with his baby, and now needed to stay with James and Missy. Soon they were living at James' house, all of them arguing incessantly, yeah I bet. Vampire drama so much, vamp drama. It's a regular vamp soap opera right now. One soon to be baby, ah, ah, ah ah two women hating each other Three people in a love triangle. No one wants ah ah ah

Jaden was now a fixture at James's house to most hanging around watching be horror flicks with his girlfriend Ashley Rod also coming by a lot everyone hanging out of James's house Rod came over a lot because he currently hated being around his mom love loath going to school as well. And James's house was the perfect getaway. He was also excited that James seemed to be escaping his complicated personal situation by taking masquerade to new heights, creating vampire scavenger hunts on the college campus, juggling multiple complex storylines. Is that cool that he was doing that or wildly irresponsible? You got a kid on the way, motherfucker.

And why is your 25-year-old ass pouring more energy into a vampire game you're playing with mostly high schoolers that get in the job? Maybe pour more energy into helping provide for the baby you're about to have with an 18-year-old. Some people. While James ignores his imploding personal life, sticks his head in the sand, some new kids start joining the ongoing vampire role-playing game, and both Jayden and James will warn Rod, who's either about to turn 16 or is barely 16 now, to stay away from the new recruits.

Why? He was annoying the shit out of them, with his one-note stupid count-fun-count impression, one new recruit wants to be a vampire! Ah, ah, ah, two! Why are you leaving? No, Jayden and James both felt that Rod was taken masquerade way too seriously, and weird in people out. Rod told Jayden he planned to embrace certain players, especially two girls named Cindy

and Cynthia, twins, who had become enthralled with the idea of crossing over from human to vampire. The embrace is defined in Vampire the Masquerage, World of Darkness lore as follows. The creator of Vampire is known as Asire, the newly created Vampire, a child, and the creation process, the Embrace. Rod was also getting a reputation as quite the little player around this time, but he wanted to embrace all sorts of goth girls. When pressed by both Jaden and James about how whether or not Rod thought this shit was

actually real around this time, he was cryptic with his answers. Sometimes he insisted that he was just a regular human, but he would say that with a look and or vocal tone that was interpreted as the equivalent of a wink. Just, oh yeah, nah, nah, I'm totally just a regular human. Just a regular guy. Yeah, you bet. As the year progressed towards the summer, James became so overwhelmed with his personal life problems that he didn't have the energy to protect new players from Rod. He figured if these kids wanted to literally suck his blood and feed from Rod, well, fuck it. That was their business. If Rod was abused in the vampire game, all right, well, what could he really do about it? He did tell Rod, though, he didn't want to cross over into the vampiric world. Weird that he had to tell him that and didn't want him cut himself and

feeding people in his house. Fair. Meanwhile, Jaden is getting more and more annoyed with Rod. The two were now in direct competition for supremacy over the few people who took their vampire game as seriously as them, like Ashley, Jaden's girlfriend. Ashley started complaining that Rod was stalking her, following her every move, but when confronted, Rod would refuse to admit it. He also refused to admit something else.

Jaden suspected that Rod was dosing various female players with LSD to make the game seem more real, to make him seem more like an actual vampire. If he was really doing that, that is so fucked up. I don't doubt he was. Rod turned 16 on March 28, 1996, and he'd been partying with his mom, former stepdad, other random dudes with hard drugs, in particular LSD, for years in all likelihood. He was taking up to 10 tabs of acid at a time now.

He knew how acid can fuck up your perception of reality and would know how unknowingly dropping someone like a half a tab, one tab during a game like that, you know, would lead to them thinking through the power of suggestion combined with LSD's powerful hallucinogenic properties that they were really seen what he told them that they were seen. Jaden also stumbled across a couple tabs and confronted Rod, but Rod said it was for his own personal use and denied ever dosing anyone. And to be fair to Rod, didn't seem like he needed drugs to convince goth girls to like him.

A lot just did. Besides charity, his on-again, off-again girlfriend that was shy, aka April Dodin, his frequent sex partner, despite her pregnancy with James, and Janine and Heather, both of whom did want to come visit him from Florida. And there were more girls, some pretty young, girls still in junior high, who Rod would meet at the old Salem Cemetery. The power struggle over who was the head vampire haunch show between Rod, James, and Jaden, if there was what you could call a power struggle, was being won by Rod. James was out because of his personal life.

And for him, this was more about having fun with improv than about actually being a vampire. And between Jaden and Rod, Rod won, simply by virtue of his dark charm. Goth girls liked satanic vamp Rod more than Christian vamp Rod, Jaden. Getting drunk on his own pathetic power, a big fish in the tiniest of ponds, still in early 1996, Rod would tell Shy that he had cast a spell on her,

unleashing her elf inside and turning her into a fairy, and Shy did not tell him to get the fuck out of here. No, she believed him. She spent the next several weeks molding herself into Rod's image of what an elf and fairy should be, studying candle spells, white magic, walking in shadows, whatever that means, and practicing astral projection. Based on what you find in the vampiric Ask Me Anything blog on Tumblr, shadow walking is the ability of vampires to travel from one place to another. This allows vampires to go around, albeit it must be during the night or in well-shaded

areas. As a shadow, the distance of the vampires, the shadow walk depends on the type and level of vampire they are. Okay, guessing that extends to vampires who are also Elven Ferries. Cool, glad I know that. Shot was disappointed that despite doing so much cool shit like practicing her shadow walking,

Rod still was not choosing her over Charity. In fact, when she tried to force him to choose her, Rod told her that he had used her White Witchcraft against her, saying he was tired of hearing her talk about angels and winged creatures. And now he had blocked her romantic hold over him with magic and shit. Totally normal. Sky down but not defeated, continued to work on her loving cantations. And Earth and Magic. Hoping she could craft some type of spell or potion or whatnot that would force Rod to come back to her she even built a harvest altar and started her own witch's cupboard hoping to use you know her growing power to lure him away from charity I mean what she need to do

she's a fucking vampire she's the elf she's a witch come Come on! How much magic does one girl need? Uh, her new magic did end up working. Uh, or maybe a different kind of magic. Maybe good old fashioned, uh, pussy, power magic did. Most powerful magic on earth. Uh, the summer of 1996, well, Charity was away in South Dakota. Visiting her mom, Shy managed to nab Rod. And by nab, I mean she fucked him.

Panaged girlfriend's back. And in a moment of sexual passion, got him to agree to get engaged to her. So things are going great now for Shy in the spring of 1996. She's excited early summer. She's excited to have James's baby. I actually forgot she was pregnant for a bit. And with Rod's followers growing by the day, she feels like a queen amongst mortals, a high vampiric elf witch priestess. With her social security and welfare money, she manages to set up a makeshift home for her rod and her future baby So many people so many people making so many terrible choices in this story I can't remember another episode where I wish that like the overwhelming majority of the characters

We just grow up and get jobs and look I like role-playing games. I love them My anger not coming from that angle if you can play these games and also pay your bills and manage your life, fucking play away! Oh, so fun! But if you can manage your life and play, well, maybe don't play. Maybe get your shit figured out. Maybe, I don't know, give some stability to your child or children. Maybe make that a priority. I feel like an angry old man in this episode. Just fucking kids these days! No one wants to work anymore! Just want to play their vampire games suck and fucking get high Anyway, now that he's with shy and has a place to go that isn't his mother's house Rod actually seems to calm down a bit He stops taking as much LSD

Maybe even altogether for a few weeks stops talking about death all the time stop getting so so angry When his mom Sandra calls him begging him to come home But then as shy as pregnancy progresses, you know, things change and he gets angry again. Rod starts to see Shy as a rival, not as a companion. Right. She had started bragging to his followers about having him under her thumb and that pissed him off. And when Charity returned from South Dakota, Rod ditches Shy.

He and Charity get back together, leaving Shy on her own. So much for all her magic. Then to make matters worse, Rod starts talking about killing her. In Rod's mind, Shy had tried to topple the social order by putting herself above him, and Rod felt like she probably had to die for that transgression. He's taken his vampire game real seriously. He's full of a sogo now. He threatened to sacrifice her and her newborn baby to Satan, unless she moved away.

So what does Shy do? Well, this great choice maker choice maker abandoned her baby. Mm hmm. She gives her baby boy to her mom in Tennessee, then goes back to Murray and begs Rod for forgiveness. What the fuck? Uh, how good was that Vlad the hymen and paler one-eyed undead necromancer staff he was packing?

And I'm referring to his dick there to be clear. Now baby free. Rod God and shy start to fuck again. He no longer wants to kill her. Also, Rod took her back in part because according to Jaden, his powerful sire was coming back from England any day now. And an all out Kentucky vampire war is brewing. These idiots now shy starts to get scared.

Like she's actually scared about this vampire war. Rod told her that to prepare for the war, he had killed some Goths in Nashville. He drained them of their blood in preparation for this upcoming battle. And she thought it was serious. She thought he really did that. Maybe he did, but I doubt it. Shai now wanted Rod to leave town with her. They needed to escape. And they should join her idea, a traveling theater troop. So they troop so they could you know escape this vampire battle and I don't know just travel the world and she could never see her baby and whatnot what traveling theater troop would have actually hired these two wildly unstable teenagers I

wish I knew what it was hey damn important how well what are you doing this Friday night? How about you come down to the Oaks launch? See some theater? Nosferatu's Vampire Side Story of the Musical! Let me give you a little preview here. When you're a vamp, you're a vamp out of the way From your very first sire to your last under day

When you're a vamp, if the blood hits the fang Your coven's around, you're a big vamp our gang When you're a vamp! A sea of Friday night ghosts and ghouls Haha, we're gonna have a great time! Hahaha! So maybe it's like, you know, maybe it's something like that. Whatever it was.

Rod. I mean Visago. Not interested. Soon Rod God was pushing Shy aside again. Sleep with her on occasion, but then telling her that he was having fantasies about cutting her up and killing her on other occasions. So that's pretty cool. That's a healthy relationship. One day Shy returned to see half of the windows in her trailer busted out, and now she knew that it was time to get away from Rod this time for real. He's out of control. The person who should have stood up to Rod, his mom, Sandra, not helpful during all of

this, she'll claim later that she worried about him being a Murray from the very beginning, knowing he stood up because of his dark clothes and strange obsessions. And she is full of shit. If you were so worried, Sandra, why did you drag him back there? Why not stay in Florida? It's not like you moved back to Murray for a fucking great job.

You moved back to the South Side Manor apartments so you could party, not to pay rent. She could have tried to find something similar in Florida. You know, no mention that she did. She could have at least tried working on a hold-down and steady job for once in her fucking life, living in the studio apartment with Rod's something, anything other than being a piece of shit, just like Rod's dad.

Ugh. And again, she may have been sleeping with her son at this time. Sondra will later say she knew that Rod was on the precipice of being expelled from school for truancy. She, that he got detention for smoking cigarettes. She was in foul language in front of a Mrs. Stone cipher. Later he'll get into a, but she doesn't do anything about it. Later he'll get into a verbal altercation with Mrs. Stone Cipher and he'll be expelled from school.

The assistant principal at Callaway High, Dennis Fisher, determined that Rod would be better served by an alternative school. By the summer's end, Rod was telling his mom and others he was just going to get a job in his GED. He also let Sandra supposedly bring him to a place called Western Kentucky Mental Health for a psych eval, but wouldn't do him any good He was assigned to write an essay about drugs, but refused. Sander never took him back for any follow-ups Soon Sander would file a beyond parental control report having gone down to the administrative offices of the courts in Callaway County Sander was hoping to be freed from any legal parental responsibility over Rod on the ground She was powerless to control him, which she probably was at this point. And I should add, she might not have been molesting

him. His grandfather also may not have molested him. Maybe not. I take allegations of this nature very seriously, but Rod clearly has a hard time processing what is real, what's on his head. He for sure does lie a lot. I mean, he's telling people he's a legit vampire, which is for sure not true He's still alive in prison right now and not one guard has ever mentioned him getting burned by sunlight not having a reflection being a burst of garlic He's never turned into a bat and just flown out of prison But all these allegations as much of a liar as Rod is, you know, Rod's aunt also Testified that Rod's grandfather molested Sandra and and I do think based on kind of Rod's behavior and Sondra's behavior. Yeah, there's a good chance that some yeah real bad should happen to

Sondra told a court designated juvenile court worker Jane and Turner that Rod had been involved with drugs in Florida Trying to get you know free to print or responsibility that she thought he was involved in satanic cult She left out details about her also being involved in the occult, marrying a guy who was weighing the satanic worship, a dude who gave her son drugs, and she also left out the part about her, you know, having drunk drugs with Rod probably for years. A report was filed with the court, and a meeting was scheduled for Rod and Sandra. Neither one of them ever showed. Instead, they reconciled. Sandra moved into a new apartment with more room. Rod moved back in with her. She allowed Rod to do the decorating and he spray-painted pentagrams on the floors and built altars in the bedrooms.

Lots of stuff going on. She also let him bring over his vampiric buddies and they got to do basically whatever they wanted. She loved having him and his friends around. She even started referring to herself as a member of Rod's coven. Dye her hair black, started wearing goth clothes. Fuck's sake. August of 1996, Rod and Jayden have a fallout. Rod files an assault complaint against Jayden. Jayden's thrown in jail. He'll quickly be released on $500 bond and almost end up being sentenced to serve six months in county jail, all because of Rod's sworn statement that claimed Jayden bashed his head against the wall and choked him.

In addition, Jaden ordered to have no contact with Rod for two years. But when Jaden is released after his initial short jail stint, the two boys make up, the charges are dropped, Rod's not going to testify and their buddies again. These kids are all over the place. Saundra claimed she again grew worried about her son by the end of August. He seemed to be spiraling. He'd always been in a goth fashion, but now he's dressed like Marilyn Manson, wearing body suits, painting his nails black, wearing eyeliner, face paint, putting his hair up

in a bunch of miniature ponytails, uh, mixing up a shit ton of drugs. That August, Sondra contacted the Murray Police Department about Rod leaving home without permission, then called the very next day to take back the report, saying that he just had to fight with his girlfriend. Everything's fine. I bet the local police in Murray loved Sandra and Rod. I bet they never mocked them, or bitched about what a pain in the ass they were. Not ever. Sandra made another call to that juvenile court worker, Jane Ann Turner, in late August, alleging that her son was being verbally abusive, then canceled her appointment with Mrs. Turner the next day.

The dynamic duo would finally appear at an appointment in mid-September where Sandra told Jane Anne that Rod was carrying around occult books, dropping a shit ton of LSD, and hurting himself. She forgot to tell Jane Anne that she was also fucking around with occult books and using drugs. Jane Anne recommended rehab, but Sandra refused to sign any paperwork to send him there. Now she wants him to stay home with her. But then a few months later in November, she'll file a habitual runaway complaint, seemingly

ready to press charges against her son again. However, by that time, Sondra will be facing serious legal problems of her own. More on that in a bit. First some other disturbing problems Rod is facing. Rod was called into Sheriff Stan Scott's office early in the first week in November 1996. Probable cause for cruelty to animals and criminal trespassing had been filed by Officer Warren Hopkins regarding a break-in at the Callaway County Humane Society.

Apparently some puppies there had been, this is rough, quote, mutilated. Bojangles just started paying attention to this episode for the very first time. Previously, he was not interested because he felt like all these people were worthless fucking nerds who did not deserve any breath spent telling their melodramatic story. His words not mine. Anyway, the Polaroid pictures of this hideous act were circulating to the high school cafeteria. Then Rod's old girlfriend, young woman he sometimes talked about murdering shy, spoke to the police and told them that Rod had bragged to her about doing something at the animal shelter with a knife.

By this time, most of Rod's old vampire friends minus charity, were growing to be quite afraid of him. He talked too much about creepy shit. He was threatening to kill people too much. Rod's pervy, odd mom weirded them out. The honeymoon between Murray's goth crowd and Rod's saga was quickly wearing off. These other kids were mostly just laying around, playing around with vampire stuff.

Rod truly seemed to be an evil bloodsucker, or wanting to be. So why didn't Charity also bounce? Let's talk about her for a second. She was perhaps predestined to be a bit more impressionable than your average teenage girl. She'd been raised by a dad who was often gone at work, leaving her alone with her increasingly dark thoughts. Ah kid herself. She'd gotten real into voodoo before meeting Rod, fastened by the sacrificial use of blood. Then she fell in love with Rod. The relationship was, as we've somewhat covered, very tumultuous. Full of breakups, incidents of cheating to get back

on one another, recorded in countless letters that Rod bombarded her with. In these letters, he would promise her shit like she would always be his queen. He told her that she was the one pure mortal on earth that she would be at his side eternally. He told her that he snuck into her bedroom to watch her while she slept, even showing her a key to her own house that she had not given him. Huge red flags.

But she was 16, right? Full of hormones, lonely, melodramatic, craving male attention, not getting a lot outside of Rod. And she found all this, uh, endearing. Uh, but now she is starting to wonder what the hell is going on with Rod. Why is everyone else starting to stay away from him? Why is he seemed paranoid lately?

The only person who seemed to offer a clue to what was going on with Scott, Rod's old friend and new best friend. Now that Jaden's out, Scott would tell charity that being an immortal is hard It's painful right you know he and Rod they're both immortals he and Rod they're just so sick of making new friends every century only to have to surrender them to death yeah he's really saying stuff like that oh uh or maybe you know I don't, I don't know, but Rod has just said, why is Rod sad though? Uh, uh, if charity is his eternal mate, charity feels very confused about all this. But like I said, she still loves Rod.

And so she stays back at the police station. Rod showed up to his meeting with Sheriff Scott in white theatrical makeup all over his face with his lips painted red. Like he's a fucking clown and He's not laughing like he's just doing this like it's a normal thing to do like he's the Joker from Batman going to meet the cops I'm sure the officers had a real good laugh about all this once he left or maybe you know when he showed up Rodic used the police of picking on him due to his beliefs He said the whole town was after him they kicked him out of school

They misjudged and mistreated him all because what what? Because he wasn't some preppy rich kid? And another thing. He literally told the police. They should be happy with him because he'd shown great restraint when it came to keeping himself in check. He hadn't killed anyone. The sheriff was a bit alarmed and confused by that. I bet. Hey listen, officers. Have I been perfect? No! Have I maybe committed some petty crimes? Oh fuck yeah, I have! But you should thank me. I haven't murdered anyone yet, even though I think about it, a lot. You're welcome. Sheriff Scott couldn't tell if Rod was walking time bomb, or just another, you know, kid trying to act tough.

Well, he did assume Rod was behind the puppy killings, since he had no hard evidence, Rod had no criminal record and wasn't going to confess, there was nothing he could do to put Rod behind bars. That'll come soon enough though. Out of the grasp of police for the moment, Rod returns to charity side where he keeps encouraging her to embrace her dark side, like he's Emperor fucking Palpatine or some shit, or Darth Vader, by telling her to cut herself. He also starts doing random weird shit like shattering ashtrays and light bulbs around her, which when she least expects just to try and scare her, make her flinch. At one point just to scare her, he sets his own living room on fire. Oh boy, his coven outside of a few followers had now all turned their backs on him,

even stubbing him at Halloween at a Halloween celebration they were supposed to attend. With his remaining followers, Rod God keeps getting weirder. He's talking more and more about how he was searching out for telltale signs of past civilizations, looking for evidence of the cults of the dying God that destroyed the Roman Empire and gesticulated about the worship of Osiris, the judge of the dead responsible for the fall of the Egyptian pharaohs. All the kind of stuff he's saying. He said it was just a matter of time before he took over the whole fucking universe and plunged the world into a huge and ruthless war by taking over the airwaves, TV satellites, and the internet. Did I mention that Rod is dropping a ton of acid again?

Yeah, he is. Easy on the acid, Rod. You really lost to the reality. One tab of acid. Two tabs of acid. Three, four, ten, twenty, all the tabs of acid. Ah, ah, ah. When anyone tried to argue against any of his proclamations, he would say stuff like, you know, he'll chop their head off and burn their body if they don't stop mouthing off to him.

Uh, November 5th, 1996, more vampire drama. Shy, AKA April Dodin, signs an affidavit with law officials in Callaway County to complain about an attack involving Rod Farrell. Another kid named Michael Schaefer, and a third kid named Jason Jones. According to Shy's statement, the three young men had come driving up in Jason's car looking for Jayden

at her trailer, violating a restraining order Rod had placed on Jayden that was still in effect, despite them patching things up shortly after Rod was granted it. At the trailer, Rod and Jaden got into a fight and then the three boys jumped into Jason Jones' car, tried to back away over Shy, who was trying to get the car's plate number, and the right rear tire went over her foot. She was hurt but also relieved that it wasn't a whole lot worse. Jaden will back up Shy's statement to police, by the way.

An arrest warrant served in mid-November 1996, charging Jason Jones with wanton endangerment of class T felony. He was released on $2,500 bail, and then later the charges will be dropped. That night at Shy's trailer would be the last time Shy would ever even see Rod. Not long before that night, did I mention that Rod had begged Jaden to kill him to chop his head off? Shy and Jaden shook their heads when he said that. Hoping their old friend would just go get some help. He's going through a bunch of shit.

He needed to be placed in a psychiatric treatment facility. Switching over to charity now, guess what? By mid-November, she's almost positive she's pregnant. With Rod's baby. But doesn't tell anyone. Whatever doubt she had about Rod's plan to take over the world, now she tries to squash them. But she does give Rod an ultimat take over the world, now she tries to squash them. But she does give Rod an ultimatum.

It's her or the drugs. And Rod chooses the drugs. Is anyone surprised? She quickly now starts fooling around with a nice kid from her neighborhood named Brian to make Rod jealous, but then stops that because Rod is stalking the two of them and freaking Brian out. Like a week later, the two are back together.

Life moving so fast and loose for these uber dramatic teen vamps. Now charity comes clean about a pregnancy. Rod not happy. Tells her he's going to jump off the arts building. Said he is not ready for another baby because get this, he already had a baby with some girl, uh, Janine, but the infant was killed in a car wreck. Who the fuck is Janine? Uh, not real guessingources do not say.

It seems like Rod made her up, made up that whole story. But Charity believes it. Hook, line and sinker. She just keeps hanging around, hoping that Rod will wake up, decide to be a good partner and father. Even lets him drag her into some more occult ceremonies he's holding in the boiler room with the college stadium now. Rod had set up a small altar there with holy water and daggers and was leading his coven through some kind of meditation where they would all concentrate on time traveling. Yeah, why not? Actually they would concentrate on using glowing ropes in order to be able to time travel. Why not? I mean you have to concentrate on glowing ropes if you ever want to time travel and hope to access the fourth dimension, there is a fourth dimension that is known to man, but not fully understood.

It is known to vampires, though, and it is as timeless as infinity. It lies between our world and the world of darkness, and fully encompasses the present, past and future. It is a dimension between science and superstition, a dimension of Goth vampires who walk amongst us and constantly fight with one another over who has the most powerful magic, who is the real father of the babies they give away. It is a dimension that lies just beyond Hardee's a dimension where no one ever gets a job and everyone stays up too late too often

playing games like Vampire the Masquerade. It is a dimension I like to call the pathetic Murray Kentucky Vampires own. Back to the story. Also in mid-November, Rod and a few other kids meet in the woods behind Hardy's fucking Hardy's at the Vampire Hotel where they can make supernatural things happen. Like making people their puppets through telekinesis. All powerful vampires dicking around in the woods behind Hardy's. Probably after grabbing cheeseburgers and fries and shakes like the undead are want to do. Thinking they are turning people into puppets and yet still having their moms pay their

bills. Maybe they made their moms are puppets. One of the girls who especially believed in all of this was Charity's friend Dana Cooper. Unpopular at school, Dana had a reputation for being a goofball. Yet she'd somehow becomes Rod's trusted new servant. Possibly because she had her own apartment, where Rod and Scott Anderson could stay for free. While they planned an upcoming escape to Florida now, time to check back in with the mother of vampires,

Sondra, at some point in early November. Well, Rod Sago and his crew are planning to Florida run. Penny Murphy, Jaden Murphy's mom, submitted an affidavit in Callaway County that Sondra had kissed her son against his will. Not Jaden, Jaden's younger brother Jamie, 14 years old. 35 years old, Sondra had mailed a letter to 14-year-old Jamie, writing that she wanted to fuck him and acknowledging that she knew he was very young earlier in the summer of 1996. Maybe Rod not lying about his mom being a pedo. June 23rd, she'd mailed him a second letter asking Jamie again straight up to let her

fuck him. Even sent Jamie a key to her apartment asking that Jamie come live with her. Then she sent Jamie a necklace in another letter writing, so you can wear it and know you thought about it and missed a lot. Of course, Rod will end up in prison in this episode with the rest of his life. Between his fucking deadbeat dad and Sondra von batshit, dude never had a chance. In that third letter Sondra, or in a third letter Sondra wrote, you may be young but you are fine.

She wished they could have wild sex every night. She wrote, I think about being French kissed and fucked by you all the time. I hope it doesn't upset you by my feeling this way. She assured him that he shouldn't be afraid of sex and that she would never hurt him or make him feel uncomfortable. She would even empty out a drawer for him when he moved in. She added, I'll wear my blue denim sun dress and we could kiss for a while. Then while we're kissing, I'll unzip your pants and go down and lick you and suck you

until you're just about to get off my mouth Then I'll pull my dress up and move my panties over and guide you inside me Rod will wonder later if she had been pretending to be into his vampire shit just so she could try and fuck his teenage friends Yeah, she's a piece of shit I'll be honest when I was 14 This is not good this is not good when I was 14 I would have definitely fucked the hot neighbor lady Paula Who is also about 35 if she would have shown any if she would have written me that letter. Oh

Holy shit, I would have been sprinting. I would have like maybe like a cartoon Just fucking smashed through the wall and just been straight over into her place But that doesn't mean that what Saundra is doing here isn't deplorable and heinous What she's doing is just as gross as a 35 year old man trying to fuck a 14 year old girl. She's a deranged predator. Terrible excuse for a mom. November 12, 1996, Sondra Gibson charged with soliciting rape and soliciting sodomy. She'd be appointed a public defender, Dennis Lordy. In response to all this, Jaden and Rod decided to meet up in a tucked away rural cemetery. Always a cemetery with these dipshits.

And yes, I know that Rod has just gotten into a fight with Jaden at Shy's trailer a week earlier or so, but now I guess they're cool again. Nonstop drama. No one in this episode is stable. Here in the cemetery, Rod will tell Jaden that it was Sondra who forced him to sign the affidavit against him saying that Jaden hit him, even though he didn't, because she was jealous of Rod and Jaden's close relationship. I don't doubt it. She's toxic as shit. Rod and Jaden hit him, even though he didn't, because she was jealous of Rod and Jaden's close relationship. I don't doubt it. She's toxic as shit. Rod and Jaden decide that enough is enough, they're going to never let somebody significantly

older than them into their coven ever again. They're two very powerful vampires. They're fucking sick of Rod's mom trying to keep them separated and weak. They should combine their covens. They also discussed killing Sandra and her father, Rod's pedo papa, Harold, but abandoned that idea. Instead, Rod said he wanted to leave town. He proposed they both moved to Eustace, Florida, where he reassured Jaden. He had a ton of followers, like an entire army of super cool, very powerful

vampires, even though Jaden had supposedly not sired Rod until after he left Eustace, but whatever. You know, no need to get hung up on important details. Rod is high a lot of the time and he's been alive for centuries and things get mixed up. Jaden was not interested in going to Florida. He had just graduated high school, had plans to attend college. He wanted to study drama, begin an acting career. He's not as into this stuff as much as it seems in moments.

He also kept remembering that, you know, Rod is fucking crazy. Still, he later said he played along you know, Rod is fucking crazy. Still, he later said he played along, telling Rod he'd go with him in his Florida group to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for whatever reason. Louisiana, just, you know, it's the place to be for a lot of modern vampires. It's the main vampire state in the United States. Uh, a few days later, he really decides not to go when during another graveyard meetup, he watches Rod out of nowhere, kill a stray kitten. Sorcerers do not say how I'm guessing it was gruesome.

Rod's still 16, killing numerous small animals, starting at least one fire, talking about death all the time, super delusional, infatuated with the evil aspects of vampire- vampirism. Dude was on his way towards becoming a serial killer. Or a cult leader, or both. Jaden officially ends up with friendship now after the kitten incident. He will not be moving anywhere with Rod. Following their parting, Rod gets more destructive. Now the young man starts making Molotov cocktails in his bedroom,

more fire, has plans to blow up the old Salem cemetery with the help of another friend, Peter Reynolds. Deputies at the Caliwii County PD hear about this plan, even have a stake out to make sure they don't fucking set the cemetery on fire. Nothing happens. November 22nd, 1996, uh, Friday, Rod leaves Murray, Kentucky now with Scott Anderson, age 16, Charity Keesey, age 16, and Charity's friend Dana Cooper, 19, at around 11 p.m. Guessing the Murray PD if they heard about this, we're so glad to see them go.

Uh, their plan was simple. Pick up Heather Wendorf in Florida, head from there to New Orleans, obvious center of vampiric activity in the U.S. After kicking in New Orleans for a bit, they would go on to Cairo in Rome, a couple of global vampiric hotspots, Avi, and then Rod would show them what he now believed to be his ancestral castle in Wales, and they would take it back 100%. I mean, I mean, this is okay. Take all your emotion out of it. Objectively, this is a great plan. It's a great plan. It has to work out

It has to I mean have they bought their flights yet? No, do they have money to buy those flights? Uh, no, uh, do they even know how to buy flights? I'm gonna say no have any of them ever been on a flight doubt it Do they even have a place to stay in New Orleans? They don't Do they literally know a single person who lives in Cairo or Rome or have been to Cairo or Rome ever or could even point to a map with certainty where Cairo and Rome is? Highly unlikely. Are all of them even aware that Wales is in the UK or that the name Wales has literally

nothing to do with large swimming mammals with blowholes and actually is derived from an old English word for foreigners? Ah, fuck no, absolutely not. But you know what? They're with Rod Dog Godrod, Rod Sago, King of the Vampires. You'll fucking teleport them if that's what it takes. He'll turn into a bat, but like a really big bat and they'll climb up on top of him and they'll fly across the Atlantic easy peasy. One, Gullskid climbs onto Rodbat. Two, Gull golf kid climbs onto a road bat. Two, golf kids climb onto a road bat. Ah, ah, ah. Anyway, before the left for Florida, Rod had promised that Heather would be Scott's

vampiric bride once they rescued her from her abusive family. And Scott's pumped. He's fucking pumped, guessing he's a virgin. And he's super stoked about this bride promise. Heather's family was not for the record abusive, not at all. We talked about how loving they were earlier.

Scott even thought so that they were loving. When he talked to Heather on the phone, who never complained about fights with her parents. But he didn't confront Rod about this point. He didn't confront Rod about anything. He'll later say after his arrest that he truly believed his friend was immortal. That he could grant Scott superpowers if he wanted to. He wasn't this time, you know, believing that he was immortal. An immortal vampire who also writes really shitty letters and a letter to Heather before

they left Scott wrote. I fucking love this. This is how the letter starts. As you know, I'm a thousand seventeen years old. That's awesome for a sentence. As you know, I'm a thousand seventeen years old. My actual birthplace was Scotland. Sometimes I talk in a Scottish accent. I have a taste seventeen years old. My actual birthplace was Scotland.

Sometimes I talk in a Scottish accent. I have a taste for bagpipes. I like their bonny little tunes. My actual breed of vampire is called a vampire. It means psychic vampire. In other words, I feed off blood and souls of those who I choose to kill, but I haven't killed a person in almost 200 years. I am a sword fighter, a man of deception and hatred, but I don't like to

lie to people. I show no mercy to men, but you are not human. I take it. So you're safe. Oh, wow. Okay. Uh, in the same sentence, I love that he writes, he's a man of deception, three words later, but I don't like a lot of people. Oh, poor Scott. I think part of the reason that Scott followed Rod was because he didn't have the sharpest fangs in the Coven. I love that he's a damn pyr.

Are you a vampire? Yeah, kind of, I'm a damn, I'm a damn pyr. Do you just make that up? No, you call me a liar. Don't, don't make me psychically feed off you as damn pyrs do. Again, I think of what we do in the shadows. So what about Heather? Uh, no, you call me a liar. Don't don't make me psychically feed off you as vampires do Again, I think of what we do in the shadows So what about Heather did any of this freak her out? Apparently not

She's eagerly awaiting these dipshits arrival for the past several months She'd spent a lot of time talking long distances of rod He'd actually racked up over $2,000 and long distance charges that will show up on his mom's bill good When not talking to Rod, Heather had been unraveling, spending too much time alone in her bedroom, very moody teen, her mental state is rocky. She spent most of her time wishing she was dead on the floor crying, cutting herself,

hoping for some release from her despair too bad she didn't get therapy. Like Rod and Scott, she'd gotten lost in an elaborate escapist dream world, thinking that she was part animal, part human, that she needed to surrender to her animal side if she ever wanted to really be happy sure she lived in a lovely house with two chill kind parents who loved the shit out of her and just wanted her to express herself yes she had her own phone line had her own cd player own vcr and tv in her room and her room

was big in a big-ass house with a custom in-ground pool but but she was deeply unhappy. Her friend Janine, similarly unhappy. Janine was dating her game master, Bob, love it. But her life still felt empty. She wasn't interested in witchcraft. The only thing she wanted was death. She resented her parents for switching her out of the used to school system, taking her away from best friend Heather,

and for putting her in Leesburg High, which she hated. Her only respite was getting to walk around town with Heather while they dressed up in Victorian lace from vintage clothing shops and pretended they were in 19th century England, where they both thought they belonged, due to their obsession with role-playing. But plain dress have only provided her, you know, with a temporary relief from her mental anguish. Suicide, sadly, becoming a more tempting thought each day, she wrote in her diary, and things only got worse when Suzanne Leclerire, Janine's mom, found the disturbing letters

Rod had sent her and placed a call to Ruth Wendorf who promised to keep an eye on the girls. The Wendorf's were also worried about their oldest daughter, 17-year-old Jennifer, who was now spending a lot of time with a 21-year-old who had totaled her car. Fucking teenagers! I feel like this episode can be sent to people as a form of birth control. Do you really? Do you really want to deal with this shit? Maybe don't have kids

So thankful neither one of my kids is anywhere near this dramatic Janine will end up drawing rod a map of Wendorf of the Wendorf house Explaining that it would be easier for him to pick her up from there since her mom is being such a total bitch about everything It won't let her run off with fucking rappers To impress him she made the map I'm such a total bitch about everything and won't let her run off with fucking wrappers! To impress him, she made the map elaborate, including diagrams to the furnishings in every room, specific constructions, how to get to Heather's window. Meanwhile, Heather chomped at the bit, so ready to leave home. She felt sick of her hometown, sick of her parents trying to make her into some all-American teenager,

or you know, keep her safe, and was dying for Rod to pick her up. November 25th, Monday morning, Heather skips her AP art class to meet up with who else but Rod Farrell and his coven. The group had arrived and used his Florida and Scott Anderson's Buick and were now at a nearby cemetery, of course, performing a blood ritual. Why not? Rod had called Jeanine the night before wanting to meet up at Lake Seneca Road and Jeanine had gone. Rod kissed, Jeanine the night before wanting to meet up at Lake Seneca Road. And Jeanine had gone. Rod kissed, uh, floored with her, told her she had a whole new life waiting for her. But Jeanine got cold feet about running away. Said she needed time to think.

Well, Rod didn't want to wait. Right. He's been waiting fucking hundreds of years already. He said now or never. Uh, I said Heather would be meeting with him the next day and then it was off to New Orleans for all of them. If Jeanine was going to go, all right, he's going to leave her home. Jeanine wanted to think again.

That's what she told him. She already knew. Now that he was really there in the flesh, that the reality about all this didn't match her fantasy, and she was staying put. She had talked to him on the phone, but hadn't realized being around him in person would feel like being around a stranger.

Plus, he seemed fucking scary. Next day, Rod meets up with Heather. Heather, unlike Janine, pumped to see him, overjoyed. She drank his blood from his arm freely, cut her own arm, and returned for him to drink some. She was excited that she would soon be made into a vampire. She did have to give Rod some bad news though. Janine called her that morning, said that she realized, ah, she didn't actually love Rod, and didn't want to go on the road trip. Teenager is so fickle.

One minute, they're ready to teleport to Cairo with an immortal, powerful vampire. The next day, want to stay in Florida with their parents and keep dating their game master, Bob. I told Heather, this was fine with him because he didn't need, he didn't need Janine. Heather was the missing link to overthrowing God. He told her that.

Did I mention that Rod needed Heather to overthrow God? Sorry, I forgot to mention that very important fact. At the time, uh, at the same time, Rod is talking with Heather. Another Wendorf is cutting classes at school, Jennifer. She'd been hiding out at her 21-year-old boyfriend's house. But then just before three o'clock, her mom shows up. But Ruth, not even mad, just wants to know if Jennifer had seen Heather. Jennifer reports she had not seen her sister.

Meanwhile, Rod has now convinced Heather that she was born evil. He would take her to the edge of eternity and that it was her destiny to go with him. But first, Heather said she needed to go back home and gather up her shit and hopefully snag, you know, some cash for gas money and truck stop snacks, you know, and whatnot. Rod told her they would pick her up tomorrow and then they would be off. They would first stock up on beef jerky, Mountain Dew, Cheetos and host of Ding Dong, and then the edge of eternity. Later that night, just after dark, Rod called again. Now insisting that

Heather pack her bags immediately. Their Buick had gotten a flat tire. And they were in a stolen vehicle now, and on the run from the place, which they weren't. This is weird that he said that. He just trying to get her to hurry. Heather's not into this. She didn't want to run, she didn't want to run off right that second. She asked Rod to meet her a few yards from her house down at the end of green tree lane where they can talk about things in person. She left her house in her cutoffs, fishnets and combat boots.

Soon she spied the glowing tips of cigarettes, saw the Buick. Uh, the boys are standing outside, charity and Dana in the backseat. Heather told these vampires she needed to say goodbye to her parents. And in the meantime, Scott and Rod said, fine, they would go pick up Janine. Did you think Janine was staying put? Yeah, I did too. Apparently she had changed her mind or Rod was lying about her changing her mind or Rod was confused because he would, as he would say later, he had, as he would say

later, taken eight to 10 hits of acid that day. Oh, shit. Well, the vampires went to go grab Janine, who maybe or maybe not, uh, had to now agree to go. Heather ran back to her house where she pulled together some of her favorite jeans, jewelry and t-shirts. She grabbed her teddy bear, her sketchbook, uh, then called Jeanine to talk, but Jeanine was busy.

She was having a birthday celebration with her family. The fucking fuck is even happening in this story. In the kitchen, Heather slipped 50 bucks out of her dad's wallet. Right. Even vamps need gas and truck stop snacks. the fuck is even happening in this story. In the kitchen, Heather slipped 50 bucks out of her dad's wallet, right? Even vamps need gas and truck stop snacks. In the living room, her dad, Rick, uh, had his old high school yearbook out. He showed Heather a couple old friends, Heather listened for a couple of minutes and then went to go see her mom in her parents' bedroom.

Her mom was watching a lifetime movie. Heather snuggled into bed with her mom and then during a commercial break, got up to make a phone call to her boyfriend, Jeremy, telling him that she was leaving him. Oh yeah. She also has a boyfriend. Then she stuck a note in her bathroom, telling her family goodbye. This is what her note read. Dear mom, dad, and Jenny, I don't have much time, but I must say that I love you all so very much. I'm leaving for good, but I don't want you to worry about me because I will be fine.

I had to go with Janine because she needs someone to look after her. Please don't try to find us. Just know that I'll miss you and always love you. Heather, did she actually expect her loving parents to read that and not look for her or call the police? I know these characters are young, but the level of immaturity is astounding in moments. Heather's 15, not seven. How could someone who was in high school

envisioned parents reading this note, maybe crying a bit, hugging each other, and then just what? Just turning to each other and say, yeah, she's okay. No, we don't need to worry about her. She'll be fine. I mean, she said so.

She's doing the right thing. Janine needs someone to look after her for the rest of her life, I guess. And Heather needs to focus on watching her 24 seven, three 65 forever, apparently. She'll have to focus so much she'll never have time to ever talk to us again, not even for 30 seconds on the phone one time. And that's okay, baby. I'm proud of her. We raised her right. We raised her right. Soon Heather was getting into the stolen car, or the actually not stolen car since they're still in the Buick, with Jared and Dana. Then the Buick is pulling up to Jeremy's house.

Heather wanted to talk to him once more in person. Jeremy asked where Rod was. Heather reported that he and Scott went to pick up Janine. They didn't. Heather now asked Jeremy to come with him, but because he wasn't completely fucking insane, he turns her down. While they talk, Charity stands up, crosses her arms, and tells them they have to go. They need to go grab Rod and Scott. And where are they? Well, they're not picking up Janine.

Another change in plans, or maybe that was never the plan. Uh, the plan they had, I think, was mostly about changing the plan, as often as possible. These kids are like fucking cats chasing a laser pointer all over the place. Just living life following one impulse after another. Rod and Scott now hidden in the woods just behind Heathers. They watched the Buick pull away and approach the house. An alarm system went off. Then they realized they were approaching the wrong house.

They were not in the woods behind Heathers house. They were in the different woods down the street. They're idiots. Again, I think of what we do in the shadows. These are the most incompetent, bumbling, ancient, immortal, wise vampires ever. Now they scurry through the darkness down to Heather's house.

Rod quickly realized that the garage door is unlocked, tells Scott that they should just walk in like they own the place. Rod will take the dad, Scott will take the mom. What the hell are they doing? They already have Heather. Why are they going to do something to her parents? Rod will later tell investigators he didn't really know why he decided to do it.

He said he had thought about it. He had thought about maybe killing them for a long while and then he just decided, you know what? Fuck it, why not? And also he wanted to steal a car from them and figured they would be less likely to report it missing if they were dead. decided, you know what? Fuck it, why not? And also, he wanted to steal a car from them, and figured there would be less likely to report it missing if they were, you know, dead. Scott held a wooden club, they looked around the garage, found a crowbar that Rod

grabbed, perfect for beating up Heather's parents. Then they could grab the car keys and get out. They waltzed down the hallway towards the family room, catches glimpses of the TV reflected into the windows, Rick was fast asleep on the couch, so Scott and Rod slipped by him, cut the phone cords into back bedrooms. Then Rick Wendorf briefly awoke to a sharp blow to the head from a crowbar before losing consciousness. Now, Rod had a decision to make. He will later say, I really have no idea where the notion came from, but Scott and

I just decided to kill him. So that's what we did in a childish manner. Scott and I ambitiously danced around his body before he was dead. After that first blow, after some ambitious dancing, whatever that is, Rod kept beating the 49 year old man just to make sure he was dead. Then Rod took the crowbar, stabbed him through the chest. He now grabbed Rick's keys and his Discover card. Scott Froze now seemed to realize he was in the middle of a bloodbath.

Maybe taking some acid too that day. And now is where enough sources don't say. While the fucked up reality of what was happening starts to sink in with Scott, Rod is already hunting down his next victim. Ruth is freshly showered in her blue bathrobe, hot cup of coffee in her hands in the kitchen. Slowly she sees two blood covered vampires approach and the crowbar. She threw her cup of coffee at Rod, which did not hurt him but did

enrage him. He lunged at her, Ruth grabbed, scratched his face with her fingernails and attempted to fend herself as Scott stood next to them both silently doing nothing. With a karate kick, Rod knocks Ruth to the ground, then starts beating her with the crowbar. Rod struck her hard, over and over and over, hitting her in the head again and again until her skull was little more than a bloody mess. Rod didn't seem fazed at all by what he had just done. He told Scott to pilfer the master bedroom for cash, then, just for funsies, Rod goes

back and uses a cigarette to burn a V into Rick's chest. The V was feral symbol, Visago, which he accompanied with a dot for each person he considered to be a vampire in his cult. After leaving his calling card, I suppose, Rod grabbed the explorer keys, keys to the explorer, ripped off his blood spattered shirt, cleaned off his crowbar, minutes later the two young men were at a gas station washing up while their bloody clothes burned in the Florida woods. Then they met back up with the Buick. Heather noticed that her friends were driving her parents' car.

She was confused. Nobody had said anything about stealing the explorer, especially her parents' explorer. Heather realized that Rod must have tied her parents up or hurt them, like he was always talking about doing to pretty much whoever. Heather told Charity to flash to be upright to the Explorer, telling it to pull over, but the Explorer was racing, rushing to the floor tonight. Eventually, they did manage to flag Rod down back at the house. The Windorff's two dogs, B. Shawn and Jake, had already discovered their parents. Both barged furiously, their fur turning red as they tried to revive them. So sad. Heather said to Jennifer and gets home 10.30pm, back from her job at the grocery store.

She noticed that the explorer was gone, but figured her dad had just gone out to pick up Heather somewhere. Jennifer kept her head down as she moved to the house, was quiet, she was actually out a little bit past curfew, went to her bedroom without seeing her parents. Soon, she wanted a snack, and as she walked to the kitchen she noticed a trail of blood on the ground. Shrieking! She ran into the kitchen, calling for her mom only to find her mom's dead body on the floor. Still shrieking, she runs back into the living room, calling for her dad finding a gory bloody mess. What a fucking nightmare!

She calls her boyfriend Tony now on her cell phone screaming so loudly she had started to hyperventilate and then calls 911. It's a poor kid. Meanwhile, the Buick and the Explorer are pulled up next to each other on a remote highway. Heather wasn't getting any answers about her parents. Instead, she watched the boys switch the car's license plates. Heather did see Rod whisper something to Charity and now Heather hounded her.

What were they talking about? What was going on? Finally, Charity yelled at her to shut up. Rod had done something and she needed to think. Charity and others continued to refuse to answer all her questions. Nobody would even tell her why they hadn't decided to get Janine after all. And once they started driving, she noticed they were headed east, away from New Orleans. Meanwhile at Janine's, Janine tells her mom, Suzanne, that she's worried about Heather.

She was supposed to meet up with Heather, but says Heather never showed up. Now Janine's worried that her friend has run away with Rod Ferrell. When the Wendorfs don't answer their phones, Suzanne gets even more concerned and heads over. She's stunned to find ambulances, police vehicles, all kinds of shining lights flooding the streets. She finds a detective, tells him about Heather's plan to run away. The detective, very interested, asked to speak with Janine so Suzanne heads back home to grab her.

While she does that, detectives and forensics experts began to search through clots of blood, mangled brain tissue, shredded bone. They would end up collecting over a hundred fingerprints. Detectives interviewed Heather's friends, kept hearing the same word over and over like they're calling people, right? The same word they keep hearing is dorks. I mean vampires. They quickly learned from Jeremy Huber that Heather run off with a kid who used to live in the area, who told everybody he was a vampire, Roderick Farrell. Janine Leclerc, head also of course told him this, less than 12 hours after the murders and all points bulletin goes over the wires and also before daybreak on the 26th, Florida law enforcement has sent a helicopter and a team of patrol

cars in search of that Ford Explorer. Early November 26, 1996, Rod tells his coven to ditch the Buick just a few miles past Sanford. He ordered Dana to leave her bags in the woods. She had about seven to leave half of them. Heather, however, didn't want to leave the Buick. She didn't want to be found in her parents car because they would be really mad at her. That was when charity spilled the beans. Don't worry about it, Heather.

Your parents are already dead. Heather doesn't believe her. That was when Charity spilled the beans. Don't worry about it, Heather. Your parents are already dead. Heather doesn't believe her. She knows that Rod makes stuff up. Maybe he's just trying to scare her. She gets into her parents' Explorer and for the next few hours, the SUV barrels down the interstate, now heading west as they approach the Florida Panhandle. Meanwhile, that day, Dr. Laura Hare would perform the initial autopsy of Rick and Ruth. She'd been told Rick's head looked like hamburger meat, seen even more horrible than she could have imagined. There were 56 separate blood stains, a tooth knocked out of Rick's mouth, bone fragments in the dining room, all kinds of gore. Rick suffered from 22 chop wounds, mostly skull fractures and brain lacerations, causing his death. Skin samples were taken from underneath Ruth's fingernails. She

had a cut on her lower right arm, laceration around one knuckle. She'd been struck 21 times, 16 times to the head. Her brainstem had been lacerated clean through. She was nearly decapitated. My God! Back with the vampires now, the group slept overnight off a highway near Tallahassee, heading to a Walmart early in the morning of the 27th to buy some snacks. Rod also picked up a large honey knife, paid for it with Rick Windorf's Discover card. Dana will use the card again to refuel in Tallahassee. Heather now feels like a hostage. If Rod had really killed her parents, as she was starting to suspect, he could kill her soon as well. Then after a couple of hours,

the explorer runs out of gas. Geniuses! They have money. They're on the run from the law for a double homicide, but they don't put enough gas in the fucking escape vehicle. Dumbest vampires ever. Rick Selfon was in the glove compartment. Rod grabbed it, promising he would walk to the nearest gas station and be back soon. As he walked, Dana, his assistant, walking with him, he calls Harold Gibson, his grandpa.

Rod admits he's driving a stolen vehicle, then laughs when his grandpa suggests he turns himself in. Then he pretends like his signal is breaking up and ends the call. Okay, cool. Soon a cop will pull up behind the Explorer. At that moment, Rod and Dana return with gas and Rod sweet talk the officer, getting him to leave without ever showing a driver's license. Probably use some vampire magic to mess with his mind, or at least convinced himself that's what he did and told his coven. Uh, that actually was kind of impressive. I'll give him that. Uh, as they now drive again, Rod talked about New Orleans as though he had lived

there for centuries, saying he'd been there back in the 1700s, lived in the French Quarter, interacted with demons, you know, voodoo, priestesses, ghouls. That tracks. Heather noticed that, uh, this story didn't match up with the backstory he had told her about growing up in Europe. But you know, whatever. His story is always changing. She's a little more worried about her, you know, parents being probably dead than about

Rod's backstory right now. She still held onto some hope that her parents were alive. Sometimes Rod would speak about them as if they were, other times, you know, as if they weren't. Heather hoped, obviously, that they were, or at least, you know, said so. She had definitely written numerous letters telling him over the past year or so in no uncertain terms that she wished her parents were dead. And there are people online still to this day

pissed that she didn't go to prison for a long, long time for unleashing Rod on her folks. Was that just teenage melodrama or did she actually want Rod to kill them? Only she knows the truth and she'll probably never admit it if the truth is that she did want him dead. Soon they do make it to New Orleans. There they tell you they break into some houses that Rod claimed were once owned by ancient, or that were owned, excuse me, currently by ancient vampires. Look over places for cash, food and weapons. Charity would also call her mom for money, tipping authorities off as to where they were. Also in a French Quarter alleyway, Rod will demand that Scott, whom he still resented for not helping in the murders,

to perform for his coffin. Ask Scott to pretend to be a member of the nobility in France and describe how his life was when he first made it to New Orleans. Scott didn't know a lot about history and he fucked it up. He couldn't remember what part of France he lived in, or what language and customs of the time were, or any of his millions of memories from life as a dark prince. God damn it, Scott! You're killing the vibe! You damn pyrh half-wit! Because of this embarrassing display, Rod made him assist in performing a ritual in St.

Louis Cemetery number one later that night. It's the oldest cemetery in the city where people like a voodoo priestess Marie LeVaux are buried. Here Rod will attempt to conjure a spirit messenger. He named the passing Rod slit his wrist a bit smeared blood in the shape of an upside-down cross on the locked stone gates entrance to the cemetery Then he decided to share a Thanksgiving to the gods of the undead after which he simply scaled the wall All right hopped over it dropped down their side then unlocked the gate for his friends This cemetery locked all the time to the general public since 2015, was opened during the day,

but locked at night back in 96. Inside this cemetery, Heather would discard her personal belongings, photos, craft books, all signs of her human childhood, including pictures of her parents. Rod then, through the crowbar, he had used to kill Heather's parents into the Mississippi, the man that Heather gives thanks to the gods of the undead. Charity and Dana asked him the same. Dana was the only one who refused to let go of some personal keepsakes. A few prom pictures, DACA letters, a resume, bank statements, a couple bills. By the time they left the cemetery, it was early in the morning on November 28, 1996.

Charity's grandma had reserved a room for them in a Howard Johnson, Baton Rouge, the favorite hotel of vampires. Off they went thinking everything's going great. At least Rod was thinking that. They had no idea that Charity's grandma was working with the police. And that immediately after they checked in the cops would arrest them, hail Charity's grandma! The day before arrest warrants had gone out for five suspects. The murders of Rick and Ruth Wendorf, Rodrick, Char Charity, Scott, Dana and Heather. At 9 30 p.m. on November 28th, Sergeant Ben Odom placed five teens in custody in Baton Rouge. After all he'd done, after all his big vampire going to kick even God's ass talk,

Rod Ferrell quietly surrendered. He was taken into an interrogation room in Baton Rouge and quickly, proudly, would confess. Here's a little snippet from his initial confession. Dude did not give a shit about what he had done to Heather's parents. He didn't notice me. Scott pulled right behind me as fast as he could and as quiet as he could, because he had the TV pretty much cranked. As he started to turn around, I saw he was coming out and I was going boom, right

across the temple up ahead. They knocked him cold. And while he was cold, I figured, now or never, because if he gets up, I'm a fucking dead motherfucker. So I just beat him until he died. Then, did you strike him anywhere else with the crowbar or just in the head? I strike him once in the chest because he wouldn't stop breathing, so I stabbed him in the heart the crowbar just in the head? I striked him once in the chest because he wouldn't stop breathing so I stabbed him in the heart. You stabbed him in the heart?

I took the bottom of the crowbar. It's like... Just so casual. Didn't hesitate to take the blame for killing Ruth and Rick. Waved his rights to an attorney not wanting an adult with him, explained that Scott was basically an accessory who didn't participate much, explained that the girls weren't even there He said he only had two things

That bothered him about now that he was arrested only two things bothered him Neither had shit to do with feeling bad about murdering Rick and Ruth He was one sad that he would never be able to see charity again, and he was two Angry that when he was five years old his grandpa had taken him to a black mass and sexually abused him black mass and sexually abused him. A black mass? Hmm, maybe. Feels far-fetched, but maybe. Uh, did you feel any remorse about what you did? Sergeant Odin asked him.

I'm used to sacrifices, Rod replied. I've been hanging around gangs and cults forever and killing is a way of life. Animals do it, and that's the way humans are. We're just the worst predators of all, really. Now, even though Rod had copped to the murder and was indeed telling the truth, the police still need to talk to everybody else, especially Heather.

Multiple people from her school had come forward saying that she had talked about getting someone from out of state to kill her parents. However, one of them, Amber Blood, later did fail a polygraph, and then admitted she had not even met Heather, so. Who knows? November 29th, Lake County officials arrived to talk to the teenagers.

They had been kept chained to the chairs and some chairs in a police department. Perhaps because the teens... Oh my god, perhaps because the teens come Rotary, even though Rod admitted to being a murderer continued as they joked and played with one another. Perhaps Rod had told them this was all some kind of test. Perhaps most of them felt like they just didn't have anyone else left than each other to lean on. Whatever the reason, their behavior made the Lake County official Sergeant Wayne Longo and Detective Al Gusher even more convinced of Heather's guilt. She's not acting like her parents were dead.

They taped interviews with each of the kids, leaving Heather for last to get enough ammo against her. Rod would prove the most useful, saying he and Heather and Jeanine had planned to run away together for over a year. Police had found evidence to back that up. A letter from Jeanine smeared with blood, which contained a map of the Wendorf home, as well as a travel bucket list. Canada, Ireland, Egypt, Rome, Greece, France. That same day, Rod's mom, crazy ass Sandra, told the Orlando Sentinel that Heather was saying she was going to kill her parents for a long time.

Dana would be the first to be extradited to Lake County on December 3rd. All of the teens minus Heather would be indicted on charges of murder. Rod and Scott first degree. Charity and Dana third degree while prosecutors still figured out if they wanted to charge Heather or not. December 18th, 1996, Rod, in an interview with the Sentinel, claimed that he had to kill the Wendorf's because of a pact he made with the rival vampire clan

in Kentucky. He also asserted he suffered from special blackout moments, after which he had no memory. How convenient. The authorities would discount this claim about a rival vampire cult the very next day. Lake County Sheriff George Knupp said, I put no stock in it whatsoever.

Yeah, but bet not. January of 1997, Gibson pleads guilty but mentally ill, Sassandra, to a first degree criminal attempt to commit an unlawful transaction with a minor of felony. A Kentucky judge placed her on probation on the condition she seek counseling. And yes, this is her being punished for trying to fuck Jaden's 14 year old little brother.

Takes until January 28th, 1997 for late county officials to decide what to do about Heather. They decide not to press charges. They decide she's innocent that she had no prior knowledge of the murders, Robbery or Berglary. Later, her boyfriend Jeremy will testify on her behalf that she in no way wanted her parents dead. She loved them very much.

That anything she wrote to Rod was just a mix of teenage angst and fantasy, just talking shit, not meaning she wanted anything bad to really happen to them. Almost a month later, February 27th, State Attorney Brad King announces the opposite outcome for Rod. The prosecution will seek the death penalty. And in August, the judge will rule that the case against Rod will begin in February. Presiding Judge Jerry Lockett, in a crucial ruling, decides that the jury and Rod's murder trial will be able to hear his confession. Jury selection will begin in February, but that'll pose problems too. Nearly everyone has heard about this case. One prospective juror said you would have had to have been blind or deaf or have not

seen anything. So not have heard about this. But the lawyers will agree on a 12-person jury all the same. Also in early February, defense attorneys argued that Rod should be allowed a new defense intoxication coupled with mental disorders. Uh, Rod told a defense expert that he drank half a bottle of alcohol in the late afternoon before the murders, smoked a lot of marijuana, consumed eight to 10, uh, it's called strips here, but bright tabs of LSD also took roughly 15 prozac pills within an hour of the murders. Vampires, man, they're just built different.

The drugs apparently just don't hit us hard. Or he was dropping really shitty acid and smoking bad weed. Maybe he did do all that, but no one in his coven would attest any of that. And since he would not be arrested until days after the murders, he would not be tested for toxicology. There's no evidence of this. Just Rod's word. February 5th, Rod makes it real easy for prosecutors

Just as opening statements are about to be read Rod pulls an audible stands up Pleads guilty to two counts of felony murder claims that the others traveling with him were innocent except Scott who is simply in accessory Outside the courtroom his mom Sandra Gibson The finally yells at reporters we live forever You know cuz she and Rod are vampires. Hmm. They both still believe that. Uh, there was still a sentencing to go and Rod wanted to present mitigating factors.

The death penalty is still looming. Rod's attorneys attempt to argue that he was insane. He being diagnosed with mental disorders, including schizo typal personality disorder and Asperger syndrome. Uh, experts from the university of Florida further attest that Rod sometimes hallucinated without LSD, that he witnessed spiritual things such as angels and demons. Rod himself will make some unsurprisingly pretty bizarre claims. He'll again attest that his maternal grandfather molested him, but this time without the black mass details. Psychologists said Rod told them he was not only molested by Harold, but gang-raped by Harold and a bunch of

his friends. And as outlandish as this may sound, Sondra Gibson's older sister will testify that her father sexually abused both her and Sondra. Again, I'd be shocked if some terrible shit did not happen to Rod when he was a little kid. The judge, Jerry T. Lockett, not swayed by this, though, he sentenced his Rod to death on February 27, 1998, making him the youngest member on Florida's death row.

Now for the rest. Charity Kesey convicted of two counts of third degree murder, robbery with the gun or deadly weapon, burglary armed with the weapon or explosives. The burglary robbery charges stem from Rod and Scott breaking into Rick and Ruth Wendorf's home using a crowbar, the weapon, to kill them in order to steal the explorer and other items. She sentenced to 10 and a half years in state prison. Dana Cooper convicted on those charges as well, given a 17 and a half year prison sentence because she was a legal adult at the time. Scott Anderson pled guilty to the same charges as Rod and was sentenced to life in prison.

Kentucky authorities who had convicted Sandra of the charges she'd received from sending the sexually explicit letters allowed Sandra to move to Florida to visit him, but then Florida authorities nixed that idea, citing neighbor opposition. Umatilla police chief Doug Foster told probation officials he was not pleased with the idea of having a sex offender in his community. I strongly object to allowing this person with her background and connection in Colts in this area. I have grandchildren and great grandchildren, wrote a woman from Altoona.

But then later she will be back. I watched her speak on a real stories documentary called Kentucky Teenage Vampires about how she had moved back to Florida, got an apartment near the prison, saw Rod every week and wrote letters to him every day. Backing up for two years, Rod held the record as the youngest inmate on death row in Florida, but then in November of 2000 the Florida Supreme Court reduced his sentence to life in prison because he was just 16 when he committed the killings. Charity Kesey released from prison March of 2006, Dana Cooper released from prison October of 2011, in January of 2013 an appellate

court dismissed attempts by both Rod and Scott to get a new sentencing hearing. However, in December of 2018, Scott Anderson was resentenced by Circuit Judge Don Briggs to 40 years in prison. Anderson was given credit for the 22 years he'd already served, and that makes him first eligible for parole in 2031. Ruth Wendorf's relatives attended Anderson's sentencing hearing, Actually, uh, excuse me, eligible for release in 2031. So I misspoke there. Ruth Wendorf's relatives attended Anderson's sentencing hearing did not oppose his early

release. They said they were way more concerned about Rod, who was scheduled for his own resentencing hearing, July of 2019. Rod's hearing subsequently rescheduled to November 18th, then again to April of 2020. His resentencing was spurred by a U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled that juveniles should not automatically get life without parole sentences because scientific research shows that their brains, you know, are still developing at that age. During the hearing, Rod once again maintained the claim that his grandpa, other older men, had molested him. Psychologists Heather Holmes testified

during the resentencing hearing that his mom, Saundra Gibson, confronted the homeowner where the rape took place of Rod when she was young. With five-year-old Rod in tow, Gibson thought she was taking up for her son, but it re-traumatized him, Holmes said. Holmes also claimed Saundra herself had a sexual relationship with her son, but wouldn't provide exact details. This claim will be backed up by Rod's new fiance, who met Rod in prison by writing him letters, a woman named Leslie Bullard, who testified that Saunders' relationship with Farrell was, quote, beyond romantic. Bullard, a teacher in Texas, also said she would give Rod a home and make sure he had a job if he was ever released.

Rod made a tearful apology to the families of Ruth and Rick, said Heather tricked him into believing she was truly being sexually abused. But if she really did that, how fucked? Regardless of the outcome of this resentencing, please know just how deeply sorry I am for all the hurt that I have caused, he said. I'm sorry for all the pain and your loss. I'm sorry for everything. Yeah, he's done with being a vampire now.

Would this apology get him a chance at life outside of prison? Circuit Judge G. Richard Singletier, yes, got a dick, wrote in his sentencing memo, it is the court's responsibility to evaluate whether the defendant was the juvenile offender whose crimes reflect unfortunate yet transient immaturity or the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption. But after looking at Farrell's history and based on the evidence presented, the court finds that he is irreparably corrupt. In this case, the facts of the double homicide of Richard and Naomi Ruth Queen, as well as

the armed burglary and armed robbery are among the most appalling. These two victims were peacefully going about their daily lives when the defendant violated the sanctity of their home. Rather than restraining them or tying them up as he had contemplated, he ended their home and beat them to death with a crowbar. After his arrest, he described these events to law enforcement and later journalists without any remorse and without any indication that he was psychologically impacted by having beaten two human beings to death. The couple's oldest daughter, Jennifer Wendorf, said at the resentencing hearing that the pain will never go away. She begged the judge to keep Farrell in prison.

Her sister Heather, not at the hearing, guessing she and Jennifer are not on the best terms. The judge noted regarding Jennifer's request, her plea to the court was based not only on the fact that the defendant had murdered both of her parents, but was also founded upon her sincere fear for her own safety and that of her children. Her fear is justified not only because of the murder of her parents but also considering the following statement from Rod Ferrell, made to the Baton Rouge Police Department. Thought about waiting for Heather sister, but decided nah, why bother. Let her come home, have a mental breakdown, call the police.

Which I was correct, she did. It's a cold blood of motherfucker. Anderson currently incarcerated in the Calhoun Cor was correct she did. He's a cold-blooded motherfucker. Anderson currently incarcerated in the Calhoun Correctional Institution. Farrell is in the Northwest Florida Reception Center, Annex. He'll turn 44 in a few months. And it looks like he'll never walk free. Unless, of course, he finally decides to turn into a bat and fly away. He could obviously do that at any moment. He could also employ some vampiric mind control, force one of the guards to unlock him, sire

that fucker, make him a vampire, have him attack other guards. Rod also will sire. Eventually, Rod's Sago could march out the front door with an army of vampiric guards and of course all the prisoners behind him and take over the fucking world, starting with Murray Kentucky. He's probably gonna fuck that town up after stopping by Hardee's, you know, grabbing a burger for old times. Now let's end this timeline on a happier note. In 2022, Janine Leclerc now an artist had a showing of her art at the Buckham Gallery in Flint,

Michigan. She apparently attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts after doing a year at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Couldn't find any recent mention of Heather Wendorf online. Seems to be keeping a low profile. Only mention of her online I can find comes from 2006. Decade after the murders. In the photos she looks happy, healthy, blonde hair, pulled back into two pigtails. Thin, pretty, wearing a black Andy Warhol graphic tee with a Warhol sketch of a banana on it. Sexy. She's standing next to three black and white sketches that she did of seemingly random shapes. There's a small caption that just says, Heather Wendorf Kelly with selections of her artwork series titled, resistant figures at her home in North Carolina, Friday, December 15, 2006. So also an artist seems that she has gotten married and based on comments from some people in some

chat rooms still lives in North Carolina Hope she truly never wanted anyone to kill her parents. I hope she's happy Hope she never wants to be a vampire again, and now let's hop out of this timeline Good job soldier made it back Before I share a few of my final thoughts, Suckverse Crime Stopper, Sonny Hollister, would like to share his thoughts. Detective Sonny Hollister here, Meets X. Cheesecake Factory Store Detective. What a case today.

Vampires. Wish the Murray PD would have consulted me about Rod. I would have stopped him long before he ever left for Florida. Believe it or not, I've dealt with vampires myself over the years. Once I had to take on an entire coven when I worked the factory at the Lakeside Shopping Center just outside of New Orleans. Their leader, Todd, managed the hot topic there. And several of the vampires he sired worked for him. A few others worked at Buckle. At least one worked at Zoomies.

Another at Charlie's Philly Steaks, or maybe Auntie Ann's. The whole food court was infested with goth vampires. And they thought that six or more of them could come in together, one of them could order a side of fries, and then all of them could indulge in our unlimited free brown bread. Those bloodsuckers were trying to bleed us dry. Technically, they had found a loophole, and I couldn't bust them. They weren't doing anything illegal,

but I could make them want to never come in again. I hired a guy I've only ever known as Sleepy Gregg from Houston, I believe. Twerk is their waiter, also not illegal to give terrible service. I would have Gregg deliver them one basket of bread and then go sit at the bar and quickly fall into a deep slumber. When Todd decided to fight back by creeping out all the pain customers around him by talking about how he had invited demons to join their table. I called up an old friend of mine who knows a real demon, Charles Gutman, and he sent me Woody, a possessed puppet who demanded to be paid in vodka. And I put that

paranormal puppet on the wall right next to their table. Hi, vampires! Me, whaty? Gosh, your dorks are spooky. Why you scared a little me? Oh, God, he's talking like you're a pee pee in your little vampire boy pants. Why is your coven so scared of me? Wee! Just like that, bang bang chicken and shrimp, the vampires were gone. Same technique could have been used with Rod and his coven. They thought they were scary so the Murray PD should have outscored them. Send in some undercover officers pretending to be werewolves. Kidnap them. Throw them in a van. Beat the tar out of them. Time up in burlaks sacks. Hanging from some tree branches. Tell

if they don't leave town or drop the act, they'll be eaten alive. Then leave them there, thinking that they're gonna die. Easier than selling cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory. Until next time, you keep listening to True Crime, and I'll keep stopping it. Stay sunny, everyone. Huh, pretty sure that Sonny's advice was very illegal. Oh well, it was nice to hear from Woody.

He has been pissed behind the scenes since he was completely forgotten about in the extra system suck. Rod Ferrell and the Florida Vampire murders my thoughts now. Weird episode. I don't know if the truth is actually stranger than fiction. I can make up a lot of really weird shit in my head, but this truth, definitely stranger than a lot, if not most fiction. In this story, Rod seems to have gotten really lost in fiction. So did some other kids, but

no one more than him. What a terrible combination of very likely familial sexual abuse in early childhood, coupled with a very unstable home life, no consistent supervision and boundary setting by any stable adults, mental illness, tons of drug use with a still developing mind, early exposure to fantasy RPG games that he was allowed to play seemingly endlessly with no guidance, games that provided Rod with a fantasy life so much better than his own, and you know, combining the game with the use of a ton of heavy psychedelics, I can see how those games started to feel way too real. Then Rod finds a crew of other kids, almost like the family he never had, who also loved vampires, who got really into vampire, the masquerade, playing

throughout the night, taking it very seriously. And it was all just too immersive for Rod. And he got lost. And then he pulled others into his dark fantasy. And it ended in a very senseless, you know, set of double murders or double murder. Like, why did he kill Heather's parents? He could have easily fled to New Orleans without doing that. So unnecessary.

Did he really think they had sexually abused Heather or did he just want to get a little taste of his power, you know, in real life to give in to the beast? Did he really, truly to his core think he was a vampire or did he just relish the control over people pretending to think that gave him? You know, people who thought that about him. And if, you know, if he would have gotten away with those murders, what else would he've done? How many others would the saga have killed? I'm guessing many, many more.

I'm guessing he would have just kept killing and killing until eventually he was caught. Thankfully, he only lasted four days on the run. Thankfully, not eligible for parole. If it was my choice, he would never, ever get out. Not worth the risk. Let's keep Rod Saga behind bars and maybe drive a wooden stakes. Thankfully, not eligible for parole. If it was my choice, he would never ever get out. Not worth the risk. Let's keep Rod Soggo behind bars and maybe drive a wooden stake through his heart after he finally dies just to make sure he stays dead.

Let's now head to the takeaways. Time's up. Top five takeaways. Number one, Rod Feral and Scott Anderson, but really just Rod, murdered Ruth and Rick Wendorf on the night of November 25, 1996. Rod butchered them with a crowbar while Scott stood by terrified. Two, Rod told other kids he was a vampire named Visago, 500-something year old eternal being who'd been born in France and then went into a state of dormancy or maybe lived in

New Orleans for a long time. It's hard to say his story kept changing. Number three, when we look at what Rod became, what made him, I think his mom, Sandra, had the most influence. She introduced him to the occult at an early age, to hard drugs, possibly if not almost certainly molested him, also seemed to thrive off her son's attention and the attention she got from being in his coven as though she were his girlfriend rather than his mom. She even put on probation for sending horrifyingly sexual letters to a 14-year-old boy, and even after Scott pled guilty to a double murder, she screamed outside the courthouse, We Live Forever! Also, uh, fuck his dad Rick for abandoning him.

Number 4 In February of 1998, Rod was sentenced to death, although the term was later reduced to life in prison. For two years, he was the youngest person on death row. Now he's not anything. Just a 40-something man who pissed away his life as a teen for getting way into thinking he was a vampire. And number five, new info, Rod Ferrell, not the only teenager who got so into vampires, he ended up becoming a murderer. On November 25, 2001, a Meals on Wheels volunteer visited the home of a woman in Wales, living

in a town with the hardest pronounced name in the fucking world. It's 60 letters long. Listen to this local newscaster say this. Just up the road from Slandbyr to Puskwinga to go get a quindrobo, slanted Sileo go go go. That literally is the name of the town. Kanpumptu, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul,

Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingdiskul, Klingd of 90-year-old widow Mabel Leeshawn was found. 17-year-old Matthew Hardman broke into her home through a lower window in her back door. She didn't hear him enter because she had the TV on max volume because she was hard of hearing. Matthew snuck up on her. She was sitting in her favorite

chair watching one of her shows and he stabbed her 22 times with a kitchen knife he'd brought from home and would take back home like an idiot. DNA from that knife in his house would seal his conviction. After killing her, he moved her body to another chair, placed two pokers in the shape of a cross at her feet. He then cut out her heart, put it in a saucepan, wrapped it in newspaper, placed the saucepan on a silver platter

in some kind of macabre vampiric ritual he'd come up with, then drained blood from Mrs. Leishan's leg into the same saucepan and drank from it. Matthew, who was familiar with Mrs. Leishan, he had been her paperboy for a few years, was obsessed with vampires, thought he could become one if he just performed the right ritual. Two months before that murder, he had begged a German exchange student to bite him on the neck because he thought she was a real vampire and could transform him.

He was sentenced to life, but with a possibility to parole after just a dozen years. His first attempts at parole were rejected, but he has another parole hearing coming up August of 2023. Or he had one, excuse me, that came up in August of 2023. It is still under review currently. He could be released any day now. He could have been released in between recording this episode and you hearing it. I hope not when you do something that fucked up, even if you do it when you're 17. Can you ever really be rehabilitated? I fucking doubt it. Time sucked.

Top 5 takeaways. The Florida Vampire Murders have been sucked. The Florida Vampire Murders have been sucked. Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for all the help and making time suck, such as Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsay Cummins, running operations around here, Art Warlock, Logan Keith recording this episode, designing merch, Sophie Evans providing initial research. Also thanks to the all-seeing eyes moderating the culturally-curious private Facebook page, the Mod Squad making sure Discord keeps running smooth, and everyone over on the Time Suck

subreddit and Bad Magic subreddit. And now, let's head on over to this week's Time Sucker updates. Today's first message comes from marvelousMeatsackMind, OG Sucker Morgan McCaw. I've met Morgan, and I wonder what his IQ is. Pretty confident, his's double digits, more than mine. He writes in with a subject line of fourth dimension experiment lacks a control. Hi Dan, I am listening to the fourth dimension episode and you're talking about the experiment

that what's his name did with recording his dreams and looking for similarities in the following days. The problem with his experiment is that it lacks a control to compare to. He also claims to use statistics, but I'm not sure how you could use statistics without a control. How would you even enumerate how many chances there were for an event to happen and a baseline for random happenstance? Not smart. You told listeners that they could try the experiment themselves.

I would suggest anyone trying it to add a control to see if these results are explainable by coincidence and what's his name and others are noticing patterns and And what's his name and others are noticing patterns, and if what's his name and others are noticing patterns that aren't really there. Morgan is referring here to John William Dunn's dream journaling, right? Right when you wake up, you write down as many details from your dream as you can remember.

You don't care about what you felt about the dream, just what you saw. Who? What were they wearing? What were they doing? Where were they? Where were you? What painting was hanging on the wall of the room you were in?

That sort of thing. And then that evening, you looked down through what you wrote that morning and also the morning before to see if out in the world you saw anything you just dreamt about. Did you see the future a bit in your dream? Morgan continues, for the control, I would write down an equally long list of things that seem equally random, a similar level of ridiculousness. When looking back at your notes, see if you can draw parallels to the randomly picked events.

Now this isn't going to be perfect, because the person is going to have a personal connection with the dream memories they may not necessarily have with the random ones they made up. So maybe they could try to picture this thing they are making up happening, and extra details about it to match the dreams. Again, still not perfect, but better than nothing. It's also good to go into this experiment with the realization that animal brains, especially humans, are very good at finding patterns, even when they don't exist. BF Skinner's pigeons are a great example of this, Morgan. Morgan regarding we meet Saxby in program-defined patterns and things included a link to

Apophynia per Merriam-Webster dictionary, Apophynia is defined as the tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things, such as objects or ideas. The example given is, what psychologists call Apophynia, the human tendency to see connections and patterns that are not really there, gives rise to conspiracy theories. Uh, damn it, Morgan, uh, yeah. That may be all that this dream interpretation is. Just us finding patterns that aren't really there. Uh, I do appreciate you always working to keep me grounded.

Well, I don't always read your messages on the show. I do always read them, by the way. Uh, so why do we see patterns that aren't there? One of the explanations put forth by evolutionary psychologists for apophenia is that it is not a flaw in the cognition of human brains, but rather something that has come about through years of need, or just, you know, evolution. The study of this topic is referred to as error management theory.

Error management theory too much to get into here. But a quick example of how it may affect us is men seeing flirtation from women that does not exist. But a perception that had existed led to the man, a man flirting with the women, then in, you know, a fair amount of cases, this leads to relationships, leads to sex, to the genes passing on and the behavior is rewarded. Right. Beneficial.

Seeing signs that we're not there. Beneficial. Hail, Lucifina. And so, you know, we doubled down over the generations on that type of thinking. Finally, the pigeon experiment Morgan refers to is called Skinner's Box. This experiment involves taking a hungry pigeon, placing it in a box, and releasing food pellets at totally random times. But the pigeon receives the food pellet while the pigeon is doing something. And rather than attributing the arrival of the pellet to randomness, the pigeon attributed

it to what they were doing when the pellet showed up. Then they repeat that action and continue to do so until another pellet falls. As the pigeon increases the number of times it performs the action, it gains the impression that it also has increased the times it was rewarded with the pellet, although the release, the whole time, was entirely random. Very interesting. I get it, Morgan, but I am still holding out hope that we can see the future in our dreams, because it's cool.

And I enjoy employing magical thinking from time to time just because I like to walk through the world with a sense of at least some childlike wonder. Our next message inspired by the history of exorcism suck. Midwest Meat Sack, Big G. Blenstein. Or Stein. Blenstein writes in with a subject line of my dad saw dead people. Okay, Big G. I'm listening. Dearest Dan, the person with the podcast, as always, a mediocre effort on this week's podcast, three out of five stars.

Uh, this one is really long, but true. My father, Gary, who bore a striking resemblance to Captain Kangaroo, he did. The picture you included. Yeah, he did. Uh, had repeated interactions with spiritual incarnations started. We moved to Hinsdale just outside of Chicago in 1974. He loved old houses, and this house fit the bill.

It was on the sole remaining brick street on top of a hill. The three and a half stories looked menacing to my six-year-old self. The basement had strange, boarded up rooms, off of cobweb filled rooms that had been sealed until my dad knocked them down. The third floor had doors off of the playroom for storage and the eaves. The house scared the shit out of me before I knew the word shit existed. My dad woke at about 3 am one night to take a piss. It was a crisp fall night in 1975. He woke to the sound of a mother and two kids walking outside on a sidewalk. He went to

the window, clearly heard the mother's voice talking with her children about their melting ice cream cones. Faulted the trail of their voices up the block. The children's feet rustling in the dry leaves, kept hearing them, but no one was there. He wasn't sure he was even awake until he turned to go to the washroom in the hall, came back in the house. When he entered the hallway,

the temperature seemed to drop to near freezing and each of the four bedroom doors slammed shut simultaneously. There was no further overt contact, but my three-year-old sister had frequent night tears over the next two years. At one point, we had to tie her to the bed so my mom and dad could rush in and comfort

her before she ran out of the house. When we moved in, her room was wallpaper with bright pink flowers on the walls and floor, a clear attempt to hide something, even in 1974. My mother decided to strip the paper from the floor to refinish the wood, what she unveiled horrified her. Exactly underneath my sister's bed were two parallel, deeply worn groups. My grandfather, a carpenter, told my mom the patch attempt had to be more than 30, 40 years old because it was just sawdust and horse glue.

As I was attending the Catholic school, my parents invited a priest to come over. After doing research on the house and the neighborhood, he unveiled the troubled history of the house. Our house was built in the mid-1800s and remained the sole house on that hill until the mid-1930s. It served for decades as the township's mental asylum. The grooves in the floor were from patients tied to the bed for years, rocking back and forth. After the house's diagnosis, my dad tried in vain to contact the spirits. All activity stopped after the priest's visit. My sister moved into a room with my little brother.

Her room was padlocked. I remember every time I walked past that door, I ran against the opposite wall with my tiny buttholes sucked into my lower back. I transferred to a school across town. We put the house on the market. Two consecutive renters left the house inside of 30 days of moving in. It took us three years and my dad's entire inheritance to sell it. We moved to a house in the dunes of southwestern Michigan in 1983 when another house went on the

market just outside of town. My dad jumped on it. He only told us that a woman had recently hung herself in the barn after we moved in. My God! A nice new horrifying experience for my little sisters were the bedroom closets each room had, were the bedroom closets. Each had a door for storage under the eaves, more tightening of crinkle holes. My dad frequently sat out in the barn drinking Olympia beer with our dog Ollie and his goat, Horny, hoping to make contact with dead spirits or with, you know, undead spirits. To his lifelong dismay, he never experienced any spirit. Again, we, that woman, sorry, to his lifelong, my God, to his lifelong long as may he never experienced any spirit again. We start that woman.

Sorry to his life long my God to his life long as may he never experienced the woman's spirit, the woman who died in the home. We just celebrated 10 years since his passing. We spread his ashes off the town's beach in Lake Michigan. My mother has since passed, but she will not be interned in the same lake. Interned. My father has always said it was death do us part. They're both dead. Therefore his wish is to be a part. All right, it is my wish that this benevolent man

finds some spirits in the storied lake where he rests befriending the thousands of sailors and unfortunate souls. When I die, I too will be cremated. Alas, since I'm a workaholic, I'll be placed in an hourglass so I can keep working. Yes, this was really long. If you read it, please dedicate it

to my wonderful Father, Gary, thanks, Big G. Well, Big G, dedicated it is. your dad sounds like he was quite a character. Uh, the best of ways. I love that he's sought out a horse, a sought out a house where someone had died tragically. Just wanted to talk to spirits hanging out in the barn, drinking pills, nerves with a goat named horny, trying to contact a dead woman. Uh, how in the psychedelics was your dad? I'm pretty funny about being married to his wife until death but then wanting nothing to do

with her in the afterlife. And I love the concept of ashes and an hour glass. Never heard of that one. Thank you for the ghost story and now our third update just cracked me up. Comes in from smart sack Caroline Vogel who's married to a complete fucking idiot. She sends in a subject line. Excuse me, of your making my husband stupider. Daniel Wiley Bastard, she writes, apparently not sorry for the length of this email. If you don't like it, kick rocks.

I've been a long time listener of Time Suck and as much as I try, I cannot get my illegal husband, Sean, not legally married, but basically married to listen to Time Suck. He claims that you make him feel like chatting because you get his mind working and because I refuse to submit and won't let him pause the episode to chat. JK, I can't have him interrupted in an episode and risking getting Cummins Lot. I have managed to get him to sit through parts of an episode here and there and one of your gags came back to get him nearly three years later. I love it so much. We were driving last night and I was telling him about

the woman who has gone viral on TikTok for making cinnamon rolls with yeast from her yeast infection. Yuck. I checked it out because you mentioned it. I said the internet was praying it was fake but she ended up getting oral thrush from eating them. Sean so casually goes, Did you know that female prisoners make prison wine with their yeast infections? I dare take my eyes off the road to turn and look at him.

Head on. See if he was messed with me. He misread my disbelief and continued, Yeah, I mean, that's why it's called Hooch, right? Hooch, like Cooch. I was cackling. I asked him if he knew where he heard that, because he likes to brew beer at home, so I was giving him the opportunity to save himself, by really thinking about what he was saying. Again, he misreads and doubles down by saying, I didn't make up the Cooch thing, I didn't do that. As if that was a problem. I told him he was repeating some bullshit you had spread during one of the prison

episodes early in time suck. He was so upset. He said that it sounded rational because you need yeast because X, Y, Z. And it's not his fault. You must let him. I just kept laughing. He's a very good sport. Encourage me to write it and tell the story.

If you read this on the show, please give a shout out to Sean. He's always been an amazing source of both of both steadfast support and reckless joy He's an amazing dog dad to our two big boys, but his shortcoming is that he cannot get a single one of us to submit Thank you and the crew for so much that you do moving across the country this past year was lonely But listing to your episodes and the Time Sucker updates gave me a great anchor while we figured it all out all the love Caroline Caroline yeah, thank you for the message. I really made me smile. Glad I caught Sean.

You're a weak, fellow shitty pay truck. I get it, Sean. I can't get my daughter, wife, or either female dog of ours to submit. Actually, Lindsay was just teasing me the other day, telling me that the dogs don't respect me. And she might be right. I just don't like to get after those dumb little babies too much.

A kooch wine. My God. Wonder if anyone has ever made that. Also disturbing about the cinnamon rolls. I can't tell if it's a hoax or not. I hope so. Also hope you keep enjoying this nonsense. And now one more.

Very fascinating. From exorcism expert, Jacob Harrison. Jacob wrote in with the subject line of, New a priest who assisted in exorcisms. Jacob writes, Dearest Dan, the bad magic man, Emperor of dark history on high, and all around cool dude. Well, thank you.

I was so excited to hear this week's episode of Time Suck because I have very interesting knowledge on the rites of exorcisms. I went to a private Catholic high school in Southern California and one of my teachers was a priest who used to assist personally in exorcisms. One Friday a month during school would be dedicated to a free hour-long period he called exorcism Fridays. I love it. Where we threw our classwork out the window and got to ask any and all questions, our

14 and 15 year old brains could possibly think about regarding exorcisms, demonology, or the occult in general. Like you said in the episode, curses and witches are still recognized as beings in the church. And upon hearing that, one of my classmates asked, wait, if witches are real, does that mean that werewolves and vampires are real too? Cue big laughs from everyone, including the priest teacher. Now I'm gonna share some fun and interesting facts

taught by the church about exorcisms. Share them on the pod or not, but I figured this should go with your knowledge bank as well, as since or because you run a couple scary podcasts as well. All of the following was taught to us by Father Darren, Father D, we called him, and I'm in no way claiming that this is real or true, just that he claimed to have a lot of first-hand experience with this. One, the reason demons have knowledge of past sins that you or the exorcist priests have committed is because they can communicate with each other almost immediately and across

vast distances. If one, Mephistopheles, saw you cranking it a couple years ago and Baphomet possesses you, Mephistopheles can say, hey, I saw this guy cranking it. Use it to scare him. Telepathically, of course. It's how they can weaponize past actions against their targets. Two, only appointed people can exercise a demon, and they know that. You got it exactly right in the pot.

A demon will know if you do or don't have the required credentials to expel him. Father D was once asked to take over the prayers while the exorcist priests had to leave for an emergency. The second Father D started saying the prayers. The possessed person started saying, You don't have permission. And laughing at Father D. To properly exercise the demon, you need to find out their true names and they have no obligation to tell you their true names if you're not qualified. Three of the church actually very rarely recognizes possessions and requires that the patient undergoes

severe psychiatric treatment before declaring a proper exorcism be performed. A very few important observations need to be documented before proceeding. The subject must speak in a language that they are not familiar with in any capacity. If a 13-year-old boy from South Carolina starts speaking Greek, oh boy. The body of the subject must have some type of unexplained injury to it, such as scratches, bonus points if words are written. This has been photographically documented multiple times. The subject must have objects move in a poltergeist fashion without outside influence. This includes the subject.

They may levitate themselves on rare occasions. Big bonus points for that. The subject must talk about a seeker that only someone in the room would know. Finally, the subject must make sounds that cannot be explained as being human. Exorcism priests do conduct interviews to try and get these events to happen. They all need to happen, be caught on camera or documented by multiple eyewitnesses, sent to the Vatican for review, along with medical documents, then approved and verified before the church will give the green light.

And then finally, for a contrary to popular belief, demons usually don't want to kill their subject, just violently abuse them. That means that anything involving what could kill a person is a myth and hasn't been witnessed. Heads don't spin around, backs don't break, wrists aren't slit, etc. Because the demon will just kill them and then lose their power. Anyway, sorry, not sorry for the length of the email, 3 out of 5 stars, all of the other catchphrases. I hope you found all of this information really interesting.

FatherD would be thrilled if he knew I was passed along this info. Thanks for the amazing show, keep doing what you're doing. Jake H. Milwaukee Colt of the Curious, Plebeian. Thank you, Jake. Uh, yeah, I love learning lore like that. I love how formalized it all is. I mean, is any of this real, though, uh, at this point in my life? Uh, I think it is at least some of it.

Like I say, unscared to death, it only takes one instance of, say, demonic possession to be real, like one inches in history to make it a real possibility and thus make the world more magical, make us reevaluate much of what we currently think we know. Next time, suckers, I needed that. We all did. Thank you for listening to another Bad Magic Productions podcast. Scared to death, time suck each week. Short sucks, nightmare fuel on the time suck and scared of the podcast feeds.

Some weeks on Fridays, it's been working out. Please remember this week, you're not a fucking vampire. I promise you're not. Just like you're not a werewolf or Frankenstein or JFK or Elvis. Don't suck anyone's blood. Just stay here and just use your ear fangs to keep on sucking And magic productions It is me count won't count I I know, I'm not counting right now.

Do you have any idea how fucking frustrating it is to be viewed through such a dehumanizing and reductionary lens where everyone thinks all you can do is count? I am so much more than a kindergartner's calculator. I have dreams, desires, needs. I crave not just arithmetic, but a beautiful woman's gentle touch. I love to play Midnight Frisbee Golf Did you know that? I'm very good at it. I enjoy nice bottle of scotch. I love Costa Rica So warm at night. I enjoy nice walk on the beach and sometimes yes, I kill people Okay, I need human blood. I did not ask to be made this way

Okay? I need human blood. I did not ask to be made this way. No one is mad at a hawk for eating a snake. That is just what hawks must do. And I do what I must do. But no one wants to hear about that. They just want the counting. One, go fuck yourselves. Ah, ah, ah.

Two, off my fists off your ass. Ah, ah, ah. Three, times I kick your pussy. Ah, ah, ah. Four, times I punch your ass.