By Thomas Stewart
In our youth, we tend to find who we are as people. A transitional period, in which our identities begin to take shape, mind and body. It’s the point in our lives where we find ourselves at a crossroads of sorts, deciding what future we wish to build for ourselves, how we wish to conduct ourselves, and the beliefs we choose to hold near and dear.
More times than not, we are shaped by the beliefs we grew up with, what was instilled into us by our parents and/or family. Be it Christianity, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, or what have you, our parents and guardians will have more than likely tried to bring us up in some form of religion or spiritual teachings. While many of us will grow into, and stick with, these cultural teachings, an equal, perhaps greater, number will choose to ashew them outright, if they were brought up in them to begin with.
In our departure from our parents’ image of us, we find ourselves undergoing many an experiment to reshape or rediscover our identities, finding who we TRULY are, rather than who we were perceived to be. We try many things, turn to many ideals; sex, drugs, money, or perhaps even just another religion outright. Another cultural zeitgeist, with which we’re given a new direction, or taught to go against much of what we knew outright from childhood.
For better or for worse, for a time at least, this new direction serves as the guiding light going forward for many years to come. In this time, we tend to make names for ourselves in the lives of those around us. The things we do cement our legacies in the records of those who keep them. We become the men and women we were “meant to be”, so to speak.
It all begins at our most impressionable ages, and our most rebellious. Such was the case for 17-year-old Roderick Justin “Vesago” Ferrell and his band of misfits: “The Kentucky Vampire Clan”. A group of friends, influenced by popular culture, youth rebellion, and misunderstood values, led down the path of darkness, where blood becomes not only the granting of life, but the taking of it as well.
Throughout the years, vampires have spanned from spoken myth, to the written word to the silver screen. What started as a primitive way to explain the phenomena of constant plague or pestilence, evolved into a subspecies of its own, using media as its petri dish. Through legends, fables, or just hysterical accounts, vampires of all different kinds have always been prevalent throughout history, throughout the world, long before Stoker.
With each new myth came new lore to be added to what was quickly a widespread belief of vampires. First, they were merely reanimated corpses, come back to feast upon the flesh and blood of the living. Over time, they evolved into having more humanlike features, being able to blend with us.
While their physical attributes may’ve changed, so, too, did their mannerisms. They started as horrid monsters, unfeeling, uncaring, and utterly irredeemable. Over time, this, too, would be amended. They would become seductive. Then sympathetic, perhaps even tragic. Through it all, one thing remained the same. Where there were vampires, there were, and would always be, fanatics for them, spreading their chronicles until the end of days.
As the years went by, at least in the western culture, vampire lore thrived most within the goth counter-culture, much of which came to a head in the 1990s. In that time, we saw the release of two hit films to feature the mythical terrors in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), and Interview With The Vampire (1994), based around the respective novels of the same name, as well as movies like Blade (1998) and Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1997), which were geared towards a more mainstream audience.
Along with vampires being portrayed in popular media, however, with the rise of goth counter-culture among impressionable teens at this time came the rise of vampiric religion. Cults all over the country began to crop up, consisting of young men and women, believing themselves to be centuries-old creatures of the night, consuming the blood of others as a method of sustenance.
Ever since the days of Mesopotamia, belief in vampiric entities has been prevalent. Some would even attribute the fabled “Mother of Demons”, Lillitu, as being one such. Much of vampirism as a belief, a lifestyle, is centered around the empowerment of oneself, as well as the granting and possession of life of others. Much of it centers around occult practices, meant primarily for the giving of life to others within the community.
Many are discipled as vampires either to join the organized religion or out of personal curiosity. To be initiated, one is required to perform some manner of blood sacrifice in the pursuit of esoteric knowledge, as a show of dedication to the path and craft. This would then be followed with deep meditation to strengthen your connection with the new spirituality.
Once initiated, the newborn vampire would partake in blood communions, a rite in which they and others would drink of each other’s blood, to form not only a bond with the new brotherhood, but to transfer essence between them as well. The act of bloodletting (drinking blood) itself is seen as a transference of essence between individuals. A mutual symbiosis, rather than the parasitic act depicted in films, novels, and other popular media. It acts as a reminder of the covenant made by all parties involved and serves as a powerful symbol of life’s fragility and immortality.
Much of the vampire culture’s roots are similarly connected with pagan/Wiccan beliefs, such as: divination, astrology, alchemy, and other magical rites tied to occult origins. Many organizations and subterranean societies have supported the vampire subculture throughout the years, many of which are known for being welcoming to new initiates and individuals seeking esoteric knowledge through the community.
Certain symbols, such as sigils, talismans, charms, and runes, are used for protection, and perhaps for simply focusing energy into the transference of essence. When it comes to vampires, there are two main variants. “Real” ones, and ones that enjoy the lifestyle. Reportedly, the latter variant is more interested in the aesthetic than the mannerisms and practices of vampirism. They walk among the vampiric community, but do not participate in the communion practices. They are also free to come and go from the community as they please.
The “Real” vampires, in contrast, are bound to the religion. Whether he or she embraces the life of the subculture or not, they are forced to embrace the hunger for blood and/or essence. It’s more of a natural reflex for them than a choice. Of this kind, there are typically two variants: Sanguinarian and Psychic vampires.
Sanguinarian vampires, as the name would suggest, are ones that would consume the blood of humans, like we would all expect. The Psychic vampires are those that draw from one’s essence or spirit, siphoning lifeforce without any sort of physical medium. There are also Hybrids that can utilize both feeding techniques.
According to one specialist in religious rites, Dawn Perlmutter, real vampires believe immortality can be attained through virtue of resurrection of the old Gods, similar to the Christian rapture. Others believe it’s through a form of reincarnation, similar to Hinduism. Others believe their immortality is a natural part of them, able to walk the mortal and immortal worlds; modern Greek Daemons. No part of these beliefs, however, are attained through the blood communion.
Many of these vampiric rites are observed in the Temple of the Vampire. The rites include bloodletting, communions and communications with the old vampiric gods. The doctrines are delivered from the Vampire Bible, which teaches the difference between living vampires and the undead Gods. The communion rites are a method of bringing living vampires closer to the undead Gods they worship, drawing them closer towards immortality.
One subculture of vampires, known as “Otherkin”, refers to those vampires, or vampire initiates, who claim to be of non-human descent, or of another origin species entirely. They may claim to be mythic figures or creatures, or unknown ones. They may also possess alleged non or sub-human features, either spiritual, psychological, or philosophical.
While many would think that people, at least nowadays, don’t ascribe to these mysterious occult rites and practices, that’s simply not true. There aren’t quite as many as there may have once been, the vampiric community, true to their names, “survive the grave”, so to speak. Every year, a social event for vampires and vampire initiates is organized, called “The Endless Night festival”. This alone has reportedly become one of the largest vampire gatherings, comprising of individuals from all over the world.
Other examples include the 2007 Twilight conference and energy workshops, both of which host conferences and seminars that teach beginners, intermediate, and advanced level vampires how to manipulate energy and hone their rituals to ascend to their fabled immortality. There are also even a few known vampire sects even today, such as the Kheprian and Sekhrian orders, The Left Hand Path, Lucifer’s Den, House of Lilitu, Order of the Vampyre, House of Quinotaur, The Loyal Order of St. Germaine, and House Verthaine.
Mainly today, Vampiric communities thrive on the internet, with many of the aforementioned vampiric organizations and more continuing to disciple and preach their gospels. One of the biggest reasons why vampires and their sects aren’t surface-level any longer is because of the misunderstandings and extreme views of the mainly conservative Christian outsiders. Many of them growing up in the southern states of the U.S., affectionately dubbed “The Bible Belt”, claim to feel ostracized and oppressed by the outside world, due to their vastly different beliefs and cultures.
Many have attributed vampirism to be a corruption of the mind, body, and soul. “A recent manifestation of the occult”, was what the aforementioned Dawn Perlmutter claimed regarding the phenomenon of vampirism. This belief stems from the traditional belief that something small, such as the belief in vampires or vampirism as a lifestyle, inevitably leads to much darker, much more sinister acts.
This case, the case of the Kentucky Vampire Clan, essentially cemented this belief in stone, etched in the very blood Rod “Vesago” Ferrell spilled, in the eyes of the general public. Despite many attempts from those within the vampiric community at large to dismiss the claims of corruption and evil indoctrination, including claims from Suscitatio Enterprises, LLC on the matter, this case has remained a staunch and haunting reminder to the public of the dangers of influence.
Roderick Justin Ferrell was born on March 28th, 1980 in Murray, Kentucky to Sondra Gibson and Rick Ferrell. Rick exited his son’s life just shortly after it began, running off after his birth. One Murray minister, David Roos, claims it was highly unlikely his father ever saw little Roderick before his murder trial in 1998.
Growing up primarily with his mother, the boy came up largely enthralled with the same sorts of media as his young mother, who was only 18 at the time. At age 15, Rod was taken by his mother to see the 1994 film, The Crow, where his interest and infatuation with goth culture essentially exploded. His mother claimed Rod would constantly borrow both her makeup and her tight black clothing to mimic the film’s dark, brooding protagonist, Eric Draven.
Throughout Rod’s life, he grew up immersed in his artistic skills. His pictures would usually encapsulate elements of high fantasy, mythology, and the like, usually drawn or painted in a morbid, absurdist fashion, meant to both provoke concern and perhaps intrigue. “The concrete world has too many limitations,” Rod Ferrell told interviewers on Death Row in 1998, “but with abstract, you can do almost anything. You have more room to work with.”
In his freshman year of high school, Rod was expelled from Calloway County High School in Eustis, Florida, for reasons never divulged. According to Gibson, this marked the first turning point towards the dark road in her teenage son’s life. It was around this time, aged around 14 or 15, that he began smoking marijuana and doing acid. Soon after moving back to Murray, Kentucky, he met other delinquents and non-savory characters, who would introduce him to crystal meth, heroine, and cocaine.
In interviews, his mother detailed incidents of rage fits induced by his cocaine. These episodes involved instances of vandalizing the furniture, knocking holes in the walls, and spewing all manner of vile things to his mother. “... Just like that, his personality would change,” his mother claimed.
Entering a new school in Murray, Kentucky, Rod Ferrell and his dark, mysterious nature attracted the attention of others, like-minded individuals. One such individual was Jaden Murphy. According to his own testimony, it was Ferrell’s reserved nature that attracted him to him for the first time. “He wore black, like me,” Murphy claimed. “He didn’t wanna fit into any clique or any of that shit. He didn’t care what people thought about him, which attracted me to him.”
Another of his old classmates, and fellow vampire brethren, April “Shy” Doeden, labeled him as “Charming, elegant, and charismatic”. “Life with Rod was awesome because you never knew what was gonna happen. You never knew what each day was gonna be like. One day, things could be calm and peaceful, and the next, everything’s blowing up in your face,” Doeden claimed to reporters.
One day, during class change at school, Murphy approached young Ferrell, introducing himself and beginning a friendly bond with him. Immediately, the two became attached to one another, bonding over their many similarities, most of which revolved around the macabre. It was during this first encounter that the seeds of vampirism would be planted in Rod’s young and unstable mind would be planted for the first time.
Jaden would go on to teach Rod about the lifestyle, doctrines, and the rites and beliefs of the vampire. One night after their fateful first encounter, Murphy invited Ferrell to attend one of their vampiric communion gatherings in the local cemetery, where he would be inducted for the first time into vampirism by virtue of bloodletting.
“When you take blood from another living being, you are bonded with them for all eternity. Not even death can separate you,” Jaden Murphy claimed when referring to the communion rites.
Rod testified that, ever since he was a boy, he had always harbored a fascination with vampires, in myths and in pop culture (movies, books, video games, etc.), and further with the lifestyle he’d now found himself entrenched in. “The more I learned about them, the more I wanted to become one of them,” He claimed. “They were just the greatest gifts on Earth for anyone.”
“Shy” Doeden claimed in interviews that Rod saw himself as something of a “Shepherd” of vampires. He looked to discipline the world as vampires, all under him and his rule. “He wanted everyone to bow to him,” Doeden claimed.
A veritable turning point for Rod came one day while petting a cat. Murphy and Doeden watched as, in a split second, without rhyme or reason, Rod took up the cat and proceeded to drive its head into a nearby tree. The other two claimed to have been horrified by the sudden outburst, while Rod himself felt absolutely nothing, save for a surging adrenaline rush. Doeden claims Ferrell told her, in the heat of the moment, “I’ll do anything for a thrill.”
Both “Shy” and Jaden claim further instances of Rod’s descent into madness and evil, including threats to both their lives, threats to the lives of their loved ones and/or others they held dear, the lives of Jaden’s followers, and the lives of other vampires from different tribes. Jaden testified that Rod had numerous times betrayed him and his teachings by going behind his back and embracing or discipling others without his permission-- something expressly forbidden in their order, especially as the scribe to the leader (Jaden), as Rod was.
Rod was quickly proving to be a cut above the rest, in a manner of speaking, and with his newfound ambition, it wasn’t long before he discipled his own vampiric following.
During his time mingling and making a name for himself within the vampiric communities, that name being “Vesago”, after the original character he created while playing the popular tabletop RPG, Vampire: The Masquerade, Rod would soon find exactly the kinds of people he was looking for: loyal, devout followers. Of note, one of these would be then 15-year-old Heather Wendorf of Eustis, Florida. Wendorf was herself enthralled with the wave of goth culture at the time. It is unclear whether she was part of the vampiric community before her interactions with Ferrell, but not long after, she would be one of his disciples, and perhaps his most important.
Heather Wendorf, much like Rod himself, grew up misunderstood and ostracized by much of the world around her. Perhaps even more than her vampiric lord himself, as unlike Rod with his doting and understanding-- perhaps timid-- mother, Richard and Naomi Ruth Wendorf were far more strict and concerned for their dear daughter’s well-being. Because of this, Heather went about her day-to-day life feeling much more isolated, much more alone in her hometown.
According to Wendorf’s testimonies to police detectives during questioning, Richard Wendorf was the more lenient of the two parents. Naomi was the “Rule-setter”, to put it into Wendorf’s own words. Young Wendorf first met the would-be vampire lord during his family’s time in Eustis, where she would divulge her grievances with her family and home life, her family’s persecution of her, and her lifestyle and beliefs.
After moving back to Murray, Ferrell would continue amassing his following. 16-year-old Howard Scott Anderson, 19-year-old Dana Cooper, and his girlfriend and vampiric queen, Charity Keesee (“Shea”) would all band together under the banner of “Vesago” to form their family, dubbed “The Kentucky Vampire Clan”. Ferrell never lost contact with young Wendorf, though, and throughout his time away, she would continue expressing her disdain with her life and particularly with her parents through long-distance phone calls, something that reportedly angered Richard and Naomi. It was in November of 1996 that Rod “Vesago” Ferrell and his Vampire Clan put gears into motion that would forever change history, not only for himself, not only for his followers, and not only for the towns of Eustis and Murray, but for the entire vampire community as a whole, irrevocably and unutterably, for the worst.
***
On the night of November 17th, 1996, Rod Ferrell announced to his disciple, Dana Cooper, that he and fellow member Howard Scott Anderson were departing to Eustis, Florida, to pick up a member of the clan going by the name “Zoe”. At this time, it was unknown to Cooper and Anderson that “Zoe” was the cult/vampire-associated alias for young Heather Wendorf. Heather had by this time begged for the Vampire Clan to leave Murray and rescue her from her life in Eustis with her parents.
At this time, Dana Cooper’s life had been somewhat of a downward spiral for many of the same reasons as Wendorf, a sense of isolation and persecution for her fascination in the macabre and the occult. She felt there was truly nothing in her life in her hometown anymore. She sought in him and the clan a new start in life, something Ferrell had frequently promised his followers and Wendorf on a number of occasions. Upon his blessing, Cooper packed up whatever remnants of her life in Murray, Kentucky, and left with Rod, Scott, and Charity for Florida, to start their new life as a family of the night in Anderson’s Buick© Skylark.
Something of note about this night is that it was the last time, before the trial, that Jaden Murphy, Rod’s former vampiric mentor and friend, ever saw him, as they sped down the Kentucky road, headed to Florida.
According to Cooper, the drive from Murray to Eustis started as relaxed, carefree, and easygoing. They all laughed, joked, and chatted about possible plans for the future as a newly-formed vampire family. They were just normal, albeit angsty, adolescents, enjoying an extended road trip to anyone on the outside looking in. Ironically enough, as the drive progressed, the atmosphere changed, becoming more and more tense for this very same reason.
According to Ferrell’s mother, Shondra, the alleged original intent for the vampire clan, upon “rescuing” Wendorf, was to then drive to Daytona, where Rod would marry his girlfriend, Charity (“Shea”), before relocating to a more permanent residency in New Orleans, sharing an apartment together and living out the rest of their days as the Vampire Clan. The drive was 72 hours in length, not accounting for occasional rest/necessity stops.
November 25th, 1996, Keesee and Cooper joined with Wendorf at her boyfriend’s house, whilst Ferrell and Anderson were away, heading back to the Wendorf residence to gather a few personal effects of Heather’s upon her request. They’d arrived at approximately 9:30 P.M., and left at approximately 9:50 P.M. after the two had failed to return in the time originally planned. Using Heather’s boyfriend’s car, he, Heather, Charity (“Shea”), and Dana got out on the road to meet back up with Rod and Scott back at the Wendorf residence.
During this 20-minute timeframe, Rod “Vesago” Ferrell and his disciple, Scott Anderson, indeed arrived at the Wendorf home. As well as fulfilling his disciple’s request, Ferrell believed this raid was also necessary for procuring another, bigger car, to accommodate for the extra passengers, that being the Wendorf’s Ford Explorer. The two entered the Wendorf home through the garage, where Rod spotted an instrument of doom, both to his victims and himself: a crowbar. He picked it up, believing it to be handy in the event of an altercation.
Once they entered the home itself, they made quick work of gathering Heather’s personal belongings and made their way into the living room, where they sought out any other desirable effects to claim as their own. There, they found Richard Wendorf fast asleep on the couch, the TV on as background noise. Claims from Rod Ferrell state that in seeing Mr. Wendorf in such a vulnerable state, a sense of adrenaline washed over him. He couldn’t help himself. A direct quote from Rod “Vesago” Ferrell, detailing the gruesome murder, is as follows:
“In a childish manner, Scott and I impishly danced around his body before he was dead. Just, strangely enough, it was a rush, a teenager’s rush, to know that he was asleep, and not know that we held the fate of his life in our hands. And after we finished our foolish dance, I stood over him, and began to strike his head repeatedly with the crowbar until his life was taken.”
Rod further explained that he had, at this time, examined the weight and consequences of his actions before the act. “... Once the consequences of not doing it were evaluated, one singular voice came forth and said, “Fuck it”, simple as that. And that’s whenever I brought the crowbar down,” Rod explained.
Rod’s original method of killing, according to testimony, was going to be impalement. His poor choice of weapon, however, precluded this, something he only realized after failing five times to stab Richard Wendorf through his heart. After resorting to bludgeoning Richard until death, Naomi Ruth walked into the room, likely hearing some commotion, where she bore witness to the horror in her living room.
Spotting her at the other end of the kitchen, covered in blood and disheveled, Rod’s bloody ire fixated on her. She reportedly screamed out to him, “What do you want!?” or something to that effect. He did not reply, overcome with bloodlust.
Rod sprang forth to attack. In defense, Naomi sloshed scalding hot coffee onto the front of his shirt. Rather than deter him, it only fueled the deranged vampire lord, and in only a minute or less, Naomi Ruth Wendorf would meet the very same gruesome fate as her husband at the hands of the Kentucky Vampire Clan.
Fleeing the Wendorf home, Rod and Scott eventually rendezvoused with Dana, Charity, and Heather in the Ford Explorer. According to testimony, Charity was the first to notice something was wrong, spotting strange red stains all over the front of Rod’s T-shirt. “We got out of the car, and Charity looked at me, white as a ghost,” claimed Cooper. “She told me, “I don’t know if Rod killed Heather’s parents, but he’s got red stains all over his shirt.”
In this time, news of the slaying began spreading quicker than wildfire as Heather’s sister, Jennifer Wendorf, having come home from work late that night, alerted authorities to the discovery of her parents’ mutilated corpses on the living room and kitchen floors. According to testimony, Shondra recieved a phone call from her sister, asking if she’d seen or heard from her son, or about his whereabouts. Replying in the negative, she was then informed that news coverage was spreading, actively searching in a growing manhunt for young Ferrell.
“The next 72 hours on the road were a thrill, and I loved that,” Rod claimed in interviews. According to him, he believed every cop in the nation was now hunting him and his new family. “... Even one slip, I knew everything could go into catastrophe,” he claimed. For him, the hardest part was keeping the other members of his family under his influence.
The aforementioned 72-hour “Thrill-ride” was described as tense and frightening by other members of the Vampire Clan. Rod’s behavior was said to be erratic, bouncing at just about everything that moved or made a sound. At one point, Dana Cooper described an instance where Rod pulled the bloodied crowbar from the floorboards, gleefully regailing the murder to them all, expressing with exclamation the more brutal details of the act.
“It felt dreamlike,” claimed young Heather Wendorf in interviews. “It felt like a nightmare, with everything going on, and I couldn’t leave. If he could do that to my parents, what would he do to me?”
***
On the following day after the bloody night, the Kentucky Vampire Clan arrived in New Orleans, where Rod sought to meet up with an old contact of his, going by the alias “Chicken Man”, someone whom he knew was famous for hosting blood drinking rituals. They parked in an alley in a reportedly shady area of the neighborhood, where the clan began walking towards one of the apartment complexes. In this time, a police car was said to have driven by, asking the teens where they were heading.
Rod spoke up, informing the officer that they were heading to one of the apartments to visit a friend of theirs. The officer advised them to turn around and leave, unless they had any weapons on their person. Rod declined the officer’s advice, being short on cash and gas in the Ford Explorer, and proceeded to break into one of the abandoned apartments, using the very same crowbar he’d used to end the lives of the Wendorfs. There, he and the clan plundered and pillaged the apartment, scavenging for whatever supplies Rod saw fit to claim as their own.
These supplies included, but weren’t limited to: a crossbow with arrows, bullets for a gun he’d brought with him, liquor, and a plastic bank with just over $20 in change. With this, they were able to fill their gas tank, and depart from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
***
Heather Wendorf (“Zoe”) was the one to drive the Vampire Clan into Baton Rouge the following morning. Their first stop was a bridge, where they ditched a shotgun and a few other items. Following this, according to Baton Rouge Police Sgt. Ben Odom, the Clan’s next stop was a casino, and then a moored and decommissioned Destroyer, the U.S.S. KID, where they stopped just north of it to throw away the bloodied crowbar Ferrell had used to murder the Wendorfs.
After that, the Clan drove around for a while, until, out of desperation, Charity Keesee (“Shea”), urged them to make a stop at a nearby telephone so she could make a call to a family member, asking them to wire them some money, having all but depleted their financial reserves. This was much to Rod’s chagrin, but alas, he and the others obliged and she made the call. This one move would prove to be the very fatal mistake and the ultimate end of the Kentucky Vampire Clan.
Only hours later, the Clan were swarmed by the Baton Rouge P.D. Sgt. Ben Odom testified that, at that time, when he received the dispatch, he was already en route to apprehending another suspect in another homicide. When he arrived, he found the Clan in the Ford Explorer, surrounded by police units on all sides. The jig was up.
According to Odom, of the Clan members, Heather was the only one who seemed distraught by the events currently unfolding. “It was like my whole world was gone, I’d have to start all over,” she claimed in interviews. Odom claimed that the rest, sans Rod, were fairly reserved, stoic perhaps, while Rod himself appeared arrogant.
Once Mirandized, Sgt. Ben Odom transported the teen vampires to the Baton Rouge detective office.
***
In the time following the arraignment and indictment of the Kentucky Vampire Clan, led by then 17-year-old Roderick “Rod” Ferrell (“Vesago”), extensive interviews and interrogations ensued, probing the minds of the individual vampires. Rod always appeared calm, void of emotion, when answering any questions regarding the events of that damning November night. One particular instance was when he was visited by his old mentor and sire, Jaden Murphy, who questioned him extensively as to what happened that night, and just why he did what he’d done.
“It’s quite simple, really,” Rod replied to him. “Every person, at least one point in their life, has that moment where they can cross the line. Most people can turn away from it. I, myself, took what little bits of decay I had within me and expanded upon it. I wanted to become fully decayed. I wanted to become darkness… They allowed me to cross the line with ease, with the conflict that you and I had had at that time since I did, and I do, love you as a father.”
Ferrell went on to tell Murphy that he believed his actions would have condemned him from ever being able to come back as a squire and a “son” to Murphy’s vampire clan from whence he’d come. Murphy told him that the door was always open. That all that was preventing him from coming back, coming home, was his own blind ambition.
“You didn’t just destroy those people in that house. You fuckin’ destroyed me,” Murphy told him. “Because you are my family, and you did this shit.”
Rod expressed that none of his actions were done in any way to cause him or his vampire family any harm. That his actions were purely his own, acted out of animal rage and teenage angst, forming a bloodlust perfect for a vampiric lord such as himself.
When asked if he believed he was going to Hell after his death, he replied, “Yes, I’ve always believed that.”
At trial, Rod Ferrell was found guilty on the charges of First Degree Murder, Armed B&E, and the aggravated assault of Richard and Naomi Ruth Wendorf. At just 17 years old, he and Scott Howard would be the youngest inmates on Death Row. Shortly after the original sentencing, Scott Howard’s sentence was reduced from death, to two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. Dana Cooper was sentenced to 17 years, eligible for parole in 2011.
Charity Keeseee (“Shea”) was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Heather Wendorf (“Zoe”) faced no charges, having been found innocent of any involvement with the murders outside of mere association with the Clan. Rod himself was sentenced to be executed in 2005, but only five years before this date, the Supreme Court would overturn this sentence, declaring the execution of juveniles unconstitutional. His sentence was then reduced to life without the possibility of parole.
During his time in prison, his mother would come to visit him every Saturday. In 2023, he came to marry Stephanie Ferrell while still in prison. In 2019, Ferrell attempted to appeal, stating that he wanted everyone to know how sorry he was for what he’d done all those years before. “I know nothing I say will bring them back,” he told the court.
This appeal was ultimately denied, and Ferrell and Anderson continue to serve their sentences to this day in the Marion Correctional Institution. Keeseee and Cooper have since been released, completing their sentences.
***
While it is less common than it was, the ways of vampirism still lived on following the shadow cast upon the community by the Kentucky Vampire Clan. Jaden Murphy himself continued preaching the vampiric gospel along with his wife in Kentucky long after, merely going underground with it, keeping a much more normalized profile on the surface. As mentioned before, even now, in our day and age, almost 30 years following the horror, vampires still exist and thrive, through different organizations and societies.
***
The Kentucky Vampire Clan is the story of one young man’s ambition and thirst for blood, figuratively and literally, taking him and others down the road of irrevocable darkness and destruction. More than this, it’s the story of someone who found acceptance within the darkness and further sought to harness it, that it may never have to leave him alone again. A tragic tale on several fronts, but at the end of the day, a staunch reminder that wandering from the light can, and many times will, lead you into a darkness so addicting, you’ll not only never wish to leave it, but you’ll want others to join you in it as well.
Exploring Vampire Spirituality And Beliefs: A Comprehensive Guide
How Teen "Vampire" and Cult Leader Rod Ferrell Became Youngest on Florida's Death Row
Kentucky Vampire Teen Murders
The Vampire Murders (HBO, 1999)
Editor's note: this article ran in Serial Killer Magazine and is reproduced as written. Nobody in it appears in this archive's roster, and correctly so: the Wendorf killings were one event with two victims, which makes it a double murder rather than a series, whatever the group around Rod Ferrell called itself. The convictions are as described. Ferrell pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death in 1998 at seventeen, the youngest person on Florida's death row at the time; his sentence was reduced to life without parole in 2000 after the Florida Supreme Court found the death penalty disproportionate in his case, some years before the United States Supreme Court barred the execution of juveniles in Roper v Simmons in 2005. The article compresses those two decisions into one. Howard Scott Anderson received two consecutive life sentences, Dana Cooper seventeen years and Charity Keesee ten, and both women have completed their sentences. Naoma Wendorf's forename is spelled Naomi in places here, as it was in the original.