True Crime Campfire - When Nerds Attack: Prince of Dorkness Rod Ferrell

Episode Date: July 31, 2020

Fantasy is part of being human. Sometimes we all need to tell ourselves stories, escape from the ordinary everyday. We spend luxurious amounts of time and money on this--in daydreams, books, movies, games, music—it’s something both quintessentially human and tantalizingly magical to give ourselves over to fantasy. And most of us have no trouble knowing where to stop. For those of us who haven’t figured that out, though, things can get sticky. Our real lives, real responsibilities, real relationships can begin to recede into the background. The things that once mattered most can start to pale in comparison to the fairy tale we’ve woven. The people who love us can start to seem like people in a story, people in a dream. And as Shakespeare once put it, that way lies madness. We’re about to tell you a story about a group of people who fell into this trap. Some of them never got out again. Sources:The Embrace by Aphrodite JonesOxygen's "Deadly Cults," Episode "Vampire Clan"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tQAUxMh1KgDocumentary "Kentucky Teenage Vampires," https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWclRSulGFQFollow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. Fantasy is part of being human. Sometimes we all need to tell ourselves stories, escape from the ordinary every day. We spend luxurious amounts of time and money on this, in daydreams, in books, movies, games, music. It's something both quintessentially human and tantalizingly magical to give ourselves over to fantasy. And most of us have no trouble knowing where to stop. For those of us who haven't figured that out, though, things can get sticky. Our real lives, real responsibilities, real relationships can begin to recede into the background. The things that once mattered most can start to pale in comparison to the fairy tale we've woven.

The people who love us can start to seem like people in a story, people in a dream. And as Shakespeare once put it, that way lies madness. We're about to tell you a story about a group of people who fell into this trap, and some of them never got out again. This is when nerds attack three, Prince of Dorkness Rod Farrell. So, campers, we're in Eustace, Florida, November 25th, 1996. 17-year-old Jennifer Windorf was late for curfew when she pulled into the driveway of her house. Like teenagers everywhere, she was hoping she could slip past her folks and not get busted. She had a moment of, huh, when she noticed her parents' Ford Explorer wasn't in the driveway where it belonged, but she didn't think much of it.

When she got inside, she immediately noticed that the cord for the phone in the living room had been pulled out. She thought it must be some kind of drama about her younger sister Heather's phone bill. Fifteen-year-old Heather had been racking up bills lately, talking long distance to a guy friend of hers who'd moved to Kentucky. It was becoming a constant point of contention between Heather and their folks. As she got further into the house, she could see her dad lying on the couch. All she could see was his feet. It looked like he'd fallen asleep watching TV. The room was lit with that blue flickering light. So she thought, sweet, maybe I can just sneak past him. But as she crept past the entryway to the living room, in the direction of the kitchen,

her eyes fell on a trail of something shiny and wet, dark red. She cast her eyes along the path of the stain, following it to the doorway of the kitchen. There was a split second of that confusion you get when your mind doesn't know how to process what it's seeing. Then Jenny screamed. It was her mother, lying covered in blood, not moving, not breathing. Clearly dead, bludgeoned. Her glasses lay broken and bloody beside her. Jenny screamed out for her dad, raced back into the living room to wake him.

But when she reached the couch, the blue light from the TV showed her what she hadn't seen moments before. Her dad was gone, too. His head had been practically caved in. Terrified, Jenny ran for the phone in her sister Heather's room. Sometimes we do weird things when we're panicking, and Jenny's first reaction was to call her boyfriend Tony. But because she was hyperventilating, Tony thought she was laughing, playing a joke on him, and he was no help. Jenny hung up on him and dialed 911. She said, I need two ambulances. It's my parents.

They've been killed. When the dispatcher asked her if they were breathing, she said she was scared to get close enough to check. Then the dispatcher said, is anyone with you in the house? And that question went through Jenny like a hot iron. She suddenly realized she didn't know. Whoever did this to her parents, they could still be in the house. They could do the same thing to her. The dispatcher promised her, we've got people on the way, honey.

She said, you should get out of the house now. But Jenny couldn't make herself move. She was frozen with fear. The air was full of the smell of blood. And suddenly it occurred to her that she had no idea where Heather was. She told the dispatcher, I don't know where my sister Heather is. She's only 15 years old and she's gone.

For ten minutes, the 911 operator stayed on the line with Jenny, telling her she was doing great, telling her the police were almost there, asking her a few more questions to try to keep her calm. When the investigators arrived, they walked in on a blood bath. One of the detectives described the walls and ceiling of the Wendorf's living room as looking like a gory Jackson Pollock painting. They found pieces of skull all the way in the next room. Some of these investigators were veteran detectives who'd seen some shit throughout their careers, but this was a whole new ballpark. This was a nightmare come true.

From the location of the blood around him and the position of his body, it was clear to the investigators that Richard Wendorf had most likely been attacked while sleeping on the couch. Ruth had had it much worse. She'd encountered her killer or killers in the kitchen, and she'd fought for her life like a tiger. She had defensive wounds on her arms and hands. The last blows had come down on her while she was lying on the ground, face down. There was no sign of a murder weapon, so the killer or killers must have taken it with them. They seemed to have taken the Wendorf Ford Explorer as well. Jennifer Wendorf didn't have to think about who might have done this horrible thing to her family.

She knew who it was, and she wasted no time in telling the investigators. Rod Farrell. He did this. Rod was her sister Heather's best friend, she told them, and he was disturbed. He claimed he was a 500-year-old. year old vampire, and he really seemed to believe in. He was always wearing black clothes and white face makeup, telling Heather outrageous stories about being immortal. He talked a lot about killing. And ever since he and his mom moved back to Rod's hometown of Murray, Kentucky, Heather and her best friend, Janine, had been talking to him on the phone for hours on end.

One night, Heather had suddenly asked her, Do you ever think about killing mom and dad? Oh, wow. Jenny had been taken aback by such a bizarre question, and she said, no, of course not. And Heather had said, well, if you ever do, I've got the perfect hitman. Rod Farrell. Heather had laughed when she said it. Jenny took it as a joke, but now her parents really were dead, murdered. Jenny's theory of the crime was bolstered when, in Heather's room, investigators found a folded piece of paper addressed. to Mom, Dad, and Jenny. Heather had apparently left it before she left.

It 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 I'll always love you. Heather. So it seemed Jenny might be right that Heather had run off with this freak Rod Farrell and her best friend Janine might have gone too. Was Heather in danger? Was Heather involved?

Had Rod Farrell abducted her or had she gone willingly? And if she had gone willingly, did that mean she was in on the murders? Jenny's head was swimming. And the investigators were determined to find out the answers to these questions, ASAP. They put a be on the lookout on the window of stolen SUV. They knew Rod was from Murray, Kentucky. Would they be heading back there? Would they try to hurt anyone else?

Meanwhile, a group of teenagers sped away from Eustace headed for New Orleans, vampire country. They'd followed Rod, their fearless leader, into the unknown, and now, at least some of them were starting to get a bad feeling. Some of them had caught a glimpse of a crowbar that looked like it had blood on it, just kind of rolling around on the floorboard of the car. And Rod was acting wired, edgy, more so than usual, and he wasn't what you'd call a laid-back guy at the best of times. Now it seemed like the air around him was vibrating. Something was wrong, but Rod wasn't talking. But let's put a pin in that for a bit. Heather Wendorf had met Rod Farrell when she started as the new sophomore girl at the high school in Eustace. Heather was smart, a free spirit, an artsy girl who was curious about the unknowns in life,

satisfied with the football games and parties' lifestyle her cheerleader sister Jenny was into. Heather was interested in things like angels and fairies, the paranormal. She liked to dress a little differently, too. Dark clothes, extra piercings in her ears. It didn't take her long to come to the attention of Rod Farrell and his little band of gothy admirers. One day, they left a Barbie doll hanging from a noose in Heather's locker, which I can only assume they intended as a time-honored gesture of respect. That seems to be how Heather took it anyway. That seems to be how Heather took it anyway. She attached the noose and the Barbie to her backpack and she and Rod became fast friends. Oh, so edgy y'all. We got a badass over here. Step back. I don't think Kentuckyans

do that thing. So I've known a bunch of Texans and they're very proud of their like homecoming traditions where they attach a giant flower to their backpacks around homecoming time. So this might be the use of Florida version. That's what I'm saying. It's a, it's a, it's a Florida mom. So Rod Farrell struck most of his fellow students at Eustace High as a bit odd. He wore all black most days, including a black trench coat, Columbine-cheek before Columbine. And remember, this was Florida, so some days the temperature would get well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit and humid as hell. And even on days like that, Rod would sit outside the school in the sunshine in that black trench coat.

He must have been sweating balls, but of course you can't risk your dark, mystique just for a little comfort that would be weak you know that's a thought actually i feel like you don't really see goths in shorts goth dudes at least goth girls can look cute in anything as long as it's black but goth dudes like long pants always maybe a kilt as long as it's black yeah that would be a fair compromise if you ask me at least give your junk a little breathing room right get a little breeze going in there because if you ask me your vampire cred is going to take a hit if you pass out from he stroked. Yes. Of course, maybe you can just pretend you're intorper from lack of blood or something. Either way, I guess the paramedics can bring you back with a little gatorade

as long as it's red. Am I right? Yeah, while we're on the topic, I have a bit of a tip for sweaty goths. A little bit of corn starch around your, on your thighs, around your joints will absorb this sweat and will prevent chafing. Plus, it'll do it a pinch if you run out of white face powder. That is a great tip. You're welcome. So anyway, Anyway, okay, everybody says this, so it must be true. Rod had charisma. It pains me to say it, because every time I've seen this man talk, I have cringed so hard I nearly sprained something. But if everybody insists he had charisma, he must have had it at some point.

Among the jocks and cheerleaders of Eustace High, Rod cut a dramatic figure with his long, dark hair and black clothes. And around the time he first met Heather Wendorf, he'd begun filling the heads of his sidekicks with stuff that most of the kids in the small central Florida town would never have imagined in a million years. Odd, you see, was a vampire. Vampire. Vampire. An immortal. He was hundreds of years old. He'd been asleep for the past 500 years, existing only in the spirit realm, before finally.

finally, deciding to come back to mingle with the living again. He said he'd chosen the guise of a modern American teenager, curious to see how the ugly Americans lived. Yes, and Anne Rice fans, I'm sure all this sounds very familiar to you. So he's not what you'd call an original thinker. Rod or Roderick, as he'd been known back in the 15th century, France, had been a nobleman when he was turned into a vampire. a member of the aristocracy.

Now, he was living among peasant children, and he had a great deal of contempt for them. He was always up for regaling his minions about how corrupt and soulless America was. How crass compared to the rarefied world he'd grown up in. Not that I disagree that America has its issues, by the way. Oh, sure. I mean, obviously, we all do. But still, just shut up, Rob. Shut the fuck up, Ron.

Like, you know anything about it, you a little 17-year-old dork. Dude, okay. Let's say, for a second, let's pretend that you were telling the truth that you're 500 years old. People didn't live to see 35 in the 15th century. So technically, to him, from his experience, all his classmates would have been middle-aged. That's actually true. That's a good point. And by the way, I want you all to close your eyes for a second because Rod has a voice like a bad improv comic doing Christian Bale's Batman.

He really does. And he'd say shit like this to his friends. Lest mortals destroy themselves with their own hate and greed. I have been cast upon this land. I am the devil's child walking with earthly feet. Jesus. Just out of nowhere, out of Tuesday, in the cafeteria. On Taco Salad Day.

You know, these kids never knew what hit them. By the way, the direct quote was from one of our sources on this case, which was Aphrodite Jones's book, The Embrace, which is, I can only describe it as a wild ride. Yeah, it gets a little frustrating sometimes because Aphrodite seems to have decided that she wants to present Rod as dark and mysterious. She does, though. She does, though. And you're like, and there's like a bunch of talk about, like, his sex life with his little teenage girlfriends. And you're like, Aphrodite, these are children. These are literally children, can we not? And we were like, well, maybe this was an early book for her. No. No. It really wasn't. And it's like, look, if you wanted to write vampire fanfic, you could have done that. Yeah. You could have done that, Aphrodite. God bless your heart. We still love you. But I don't know what happened with that book. I was getting so frustrated. I was just yelling like, these people are nerves. They need to be ridiculed.

What are you doing? That's what we're her for. It was a wild right. Anyway, we're taking a different approach in this episode than Aphrodite chose to take. Yeah. So by the time Heather Wendorf entered the picture, Rod had created himself a little family of vampires. And like many Anne Rice obsessed late 90s gothners before them, they like to cut each other and suck each other's blood.

Dr. Freud, paging Dr. Freud. Yeah, they considered it a form of spiritual communion or something. Rod claimed it gave you a wicked good buzz, and most of the nerds agreed. Some of them found themselves dreaming about blood drinking, developing a blood lust. Yeah, I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that these teenagers were marinating in puberty hormones and just dying for any excuse to suck on each other. I'm sure it had nothing to do with that. Yeah, you're just going to get a whole lot of your brain wires crossed

if you're soaking in hormones, sucking on each other, and drinking blood. I think that's just going to confuse everything. Confuse the issue. Rod told his friends they were among the chosen, the few mortals worthy of everlasting life as a vampire. And when you convinced him, you were ready, he'd consider crossing you over, i.e. making you a vampire like him. This involved an exchange of blood,

after which, according to Rod and Anne Rice, your mortal body would die and he'd become one of the children of the night. So the criteria for this, well, from what I can tell you had to swallow Rod's big bag of bullshit without too much back chat. Sure. That was essential. You had to sit in the cemetery with him and listen to him drone on about astral projection. No.

You had to practice projecting yourself into other places and other times. Time travel was a part of this shit, which is bizarre to me, but okay. You couldn't ask too many questions, especially questions like, well, if you're immortal, how come you survive on donuts and McDonald's? Or are vampire supposed to have zits? Or, hey, can I see you fly? Because, yeah, he could fly all right. Just, you know, not right now.

He could fly once. Yeah, not right now. He just can't do it on command. So most of the wannabe vamps and eustace were more than willing to pay that price. I mean, you know, it was something to do. After a while, you get tired of watching that Texco sign turn around. So we know one of the ways in which cult leaders gain loyalty from their followers is to love bomb them and make them feel special. And Rod was good at that.

I will give him that. I mean, just the bare fact that he told these kids that they could be made immortal was seductive enough. Vampires were hot back then and super sexy. Those Anne Rice books were everywhere. I was obsessed with those Anne Rice books. I'm not going to lie. The movie version of Interview with the Vampire came out in 1994 and was an enormous hit.

And Nerds Everywhere were getting sucked into a role-playing game called Vampire the Masquerade. And by Nerds Everywhere, I mean me and most of my nerd friends. So please don't think I'm judging anybody for playing Vampire the Masquerade. I used to run that game, okay? I played the live action version. I have no room to talk.

So please don't think I'm making fun of everybody who played that game. Anyway, my point is, these kids were primed to buy what Rod was selling. Heather Windorf had a nice middle-class home life and parents who loved her, but most of the kids Rod gathered around him came from really dysfunctional families. And they were in their mid-teens, so right in that spot where you start to throw off your childhood stuff and inch into more adult interest, but you're still young enough to like playing make-believe. And for some of the kids in Rod's orbit, I think that's all this was.

it was just sort of something to do besides going to the mall, but the problem was that for him and for a few others, it became way too serious. Mrod saved some of his best tactics for Heather. He regaled her with stories about his life in 15th century France and his travels through the spirit realm during his 500 years of sleep. He'd projected himself all over the world to the pyramids in Egypt and the ruins in Rome, and he told her that she could do this too if she practiced enough.

And he told her he'd had visions of his and Heather's past lives. They'd been together in a previous existence. So, you know, destiny and fate and all that. Heather had been burned at the stake. She was like a Joan of Arc type figure. And now they'd both been reincarnated and chosen for this life of immortality. I mean, what's not to like? It feels good to be chosen, right?

Especially when you're a kid and you're going through your teenage years and you're realizing that you don't really fit in with most of the kids at school or at church. and your parents kind of seem to like your older sister a little bit better than they like you, you know, because she's a cheerleader and she gets really good grades. Yeah, Rod himself hadn't had anything like the nice home life Heather had grown up with. He spent part of his childhood years in the little town of Murray, Kentucky, until his mom, Sandra, decided to follow a boyfriend down to Eustace, Florida. Rod's dad had left when he was a baby, so he'd never known the guy.

All he knew was his grandparents in Kentucky and his single mom. I'm Sandra. Oh, Sandra. Oh, campers. Sandra is, what's a nice way to put this? A hot mess beyond my words to express it. Rod's mom is so crazy, Arkham Asylum reported her missing. They wouldn't want her back. Yeah, Sondra was pretty much a living, breathing advertisement for birth control. More like a child herself, really, than a mom. She had him real young, and from the time he was born, when she wasn't foist him off on her parents, she cultivated more of like a buddy relationship with him than a parent. Yeah, treating your kid like a

friend is like signing them up for toxic relationship 101 classes. So true. And whenever Rod's grandparents would try to discipline him, Sondra would tell him, you don't have to listen to your granddaddy. He's not your father. So she's undermined them at every turn. And I can only assume this was to get back at them for whatever resentment she had against them for her own childhood, because obviously they dropped the ball with her. Sondra spent most of her time partying and doing drugs and hardly ever managed to hold down a job and she was really good at wheedling her parents into, you know, enabling her and bailing her out of trouble. It was not a great start in life for Rod. And then the cheese slid even further off both Rod's and Saunders crackers when Rod hit his teenage years.

For one thing, his friends thought that Rod and his mom acted more like boyfriend and girlfriend and thought that her interactions with him seemed like flirting, like they'd walk around holding hands and stuff, like when he was a teenager. Weird. No, ma'am. So their relationship was stormy. Sometimes they had great fun together, playing dungeons and dragons on the weekends or carving pumpkins for Halloween. But increasingly, as Rod got older, their relationship was getting more and more toxic, sometimes violent, emotionally abusive on both sides. Rod had never had any real parenting, any real discipline, so he ran all over her and his grandparents. He seemed to enjoy tormenting them from a young age.

And Sandra would wig out and scream at him about how she hated him and wished he'd never been born. Oh, yay. Yeah, this is on the syllabus for Toxic Relationships 500, by the way. She's got the whole syllabus covered, the whole course catalog. Sandra had moved the two of them down to Florida to follow a band she was dating. And in 1995, when the relationship ended, Sandra announced to Ra that they were moving back to his childhood stomping ground of Moray, Kentucky. extremely inconvenient for a vampire who was just starting to really build a following, God damn it. Rod was furious about it, but he assured Heather and his other minions that he'd find a way to come back soon.

Shortly before the move, Rod hosted yet another blood-letting partay in his bedroom. Rod, Heather, Rod's on-again, off-again girlfriend, Janine, and some other dude whose name escapes me. Rod was standing in front of his candle-strewn, quote, altar, chanting something or other from one of his mystical books. Yeah, I think Walden Books had the Necronomicon on sale that day or something. And two of the other kids were on the bed, licking blood off each other when Sondra walked in. And as many parents would, if we're being fair,

Sondra wigged the fuck out. I would wig the fuck out. I'm not going to lie. I would freak the fuck. If I walked in and my precious child was licking blood off of some dude with like green hair and I would wig out epically. So I don't blame her for that. Even if it wasn't my kid. Even if I was just walking into a room. Yeah. Really anybody? Yeah. That's true. So Sandra started screaming about devil worship, knocked his altar off the table. And it was a big scene. His friends all scuttled off like all teenagers slash cockroaches do and Rod just kind of laughed at her.

Yeah, and once they were alone, he announced he was leaving. And Sondra screamed at him. If he left, she'd destroy his stereo. She hated him. She wished he'd never been born, et cetera, et cetera, all that awful stuff. And suddenly Rod rushed at her and pressed a knife to her throat. And he kind of held her there for a moment. And then he said, you know, I'd never really hurt you. And then as he was leaving, he just kind of casually turned around and lobbed the knife right at his mother's head and it just kind of went into the wall just a few inches from her face. So that was one of Rod's last night's in Eustace. Onwards and upwards to Kentucky. Yay! It's going to go great. And that was like not that weird of a scene between the two of them. Like that shit happened all the time. That was like a Tuesday. Yeah.

So Rod hated Murray. He'd grown up there, but he hated it. It was a smallish college town in western Kentucky. and as far as he was concerned, the high school there was just full of preppies and rich kids who looked down on him for being different. He had a chip on his shoulder, pretty much from day one, minute one. And as soon as he got there, Rod wasted no time building a new group of cultists' lackeys. The first to bite, see what I did there, was Scott Anderson, a kid he'd grown up with in his elementary school years before he and Sondra moved to Florida. Scott was, bless his heart, kind of a sad sack. He'd been handed a shit sandwich pretty much from birth, and there's no doubt about that. His dad was an alcoholic and a drug addict.

His family never had much money. They lived in a rundown trailer that was basically a glorified shack with garbage bags nailed over the broken windows. I mean, it was grim. In high school, as soon as he was old enough, Scott got a job at McDonald's to help out. Most days, he'd bring home unused food for his little brothers just to make sure they got something to eat that day. It's rough stuff. so it's not surprising that Scott had a hard time fitting in at school and when Rod came blazing back to town with his black trench coat

and his high-minded talk about vampires and gods and magic powers Scott was basically a sad little moth to the flame he just never knew what hit him and in a recent interview with the TV series Deadly Cults Scott said Rod had this kind of social machismo about him I mean people would just kind of gravitate toward him and I was happy just to be his right-hand man Scott was pretty much designed to be a sidekick, and he fell very easily into that role.

So Scott was Rod's first and most ardent follower, but soon there were others. Ron put on quite a show for the young Goths of Murray. He hung upside down from a crypt in the cemetery, swallowed matches, stuff like that to add to his mystique. But when somebody would ask him to prove that he could fly or speak French or astraly project or whatever, there'd always be some kind of smooth, usually condescending reasons. that that just couldn't happen. The mere mortal wasn't ready for it yet or something. Okay.

But I would love to have heard Rod's stupid voice saying, Omelet, do famage, or something. Just once. Ullo Bibliotech. So kids argued about whether Rod actually had powers, which I find both hilarious and really sad at the same time. Some of them claim that they'd seen him do magic stuff. Some claim to have done magic stuff with him themselves.

Rod would take him out to the woods or the cemetery, and they would practice, quote, martial arts with swords. And before long, Rod became aware that there was a potential rival in his midst, a guy named Stephen Murphy, who went by the vampire name, Jaden. Nerd alert. So Jaden was into the vampiric lifestyle, too, blood drinking and all. And he liked running live-action vampire the masquerade game. names with his friends, whom he referred to as a coven. Jaden. Baby, Jaden.

Coven is witches. Get your supernatural bullshit right, for God's sake. Learn what words mean, children. Anyway, so Rod and Jaden sort of circled each other for a while, like a pair of dogs trying to decide whether to, like, hump or rip each other's throats out. Clearly, they were going to be in competition for minions. Jaden referred to himself Prepare to cringe so hard

You implode and become a sentient black hole campers He referred to himself As the vampire prince of Murray Oh that hurts Shake it off That is painful Okay, we're over it So before long

Rod sent word to Jaden that he wanted to meet And they got together one night at where else, the cemetery, and rivals or not, it didn't take long for them to bond. I mean, they had loads in common, after all. They were both insufferable, and they both liked black, not to mention the bloodletting. What else do you really need, right? Yeah, you've got the McDonald triad, and then you've got this, which is the vampire loser triad. Exactly.

So they sat there on top of the crypt of some unsuspecting Murrayite, who had had the good fortune of being dead, and therefore not having to listen to anything they were saying, and they talked it out. Rod told Jaden he'd been sent to, quote, challenge God, that in the year 2000, the prophecy that had foretold his arrival would all be made clear. In the meantime, Rod needed to build himself a vampire family. He needed to wrestle himself up some minions. Rod and Jaden both understood that there was a pecking order in the pretend vampire world. Rod and Jaden were at the top, you see.

They were the ones who could, quote, cross-examination. you over, meaning make you a vampire or vampire. Vampier. It's vampire. Whatever. It doesn't matter. It's all fake, Whitney. I'm going to, just to piss them off, I'm just going to keep calling it, vampire.

So to cross somebody over, you needed the exchange of the good old red stuff. Mm-hmm. And then there were the children. Or when he was feeling extra pretentious, childer. Oh, Lord, have mercy. All this is a blatant rip-off of Anne Rice and that Vampire the Masquerade RPG. I guess one lesson Rod never learned in his 500 years of unlife was how to come up with your own goddamn material. Anyway, pecking order, sires, and childer.

Whitney and I like to call him the skaters and the bleeders, but you know us. We're crass. Skaters and the bladers. Rod wanted Jaden to help him recruit for whatever was supposed to be coming in 2000. Y2K, maybe. Yeah. Whatever it was, Rod made it clear that it was going to be hot as a pistol. Jaden was mostly cool with that, though he wasn't wild about Rod's whole challenge God thing.

Jaden was a Christian using his vamp powers for good. Vampires for the Lord. This may be the new direction the church needs to bring the new generation on board. I mean, I'm just saying, if y'all are listening, run that up the ladder. Yeah, I've already got a tagline. It's Bleeden is the reason for the season. For his part, Rod thought of Jaden as a faux vampire. If you weren't in it for the evil, what the hell was the point?

It'd be like drinking non-alcoholic beer. Eich. Blach. Rod bragged to Jaden about his minions down in Eustace, for some reason. This kills me. He called them his vampiles, which is fucking hilarious. Why? Oh, my God.

Did you know, Rod, that piles is another word for hemorrhoids? Was it on purpose, my dude? I have no idea, but I like. I really want to know, though. I like to think that he didn't know, but has. I hope he didn't know. I'm pretty sure he didn't know. No, but has since discovered it and is super embarrassed.

Very upsetting. See, the vampires were a crack team, trained to kill on Rod's command, in between lunch and fifth period, I guess. But Jaden was disturbed by Rod's talk about killing humans. Yeah, he was more of a feed from the willin, don't go around killing type of amp. But hey, teenage vampires got to stick together, and Jaden could see the writing on the wall. Most of his coven were already hanging around Rod. Probably seemed like a bad idea to alienate him. So, Rod and Jaden broke out the razor blades, had a little nip of each other's blood to seal the deal, and that was it.

Rod would be welcomed into Jaden's coven of teenage vampires. But from the start, there was tension. Some of the Murray Goths were into Rod's loosely satanic, edge lord brand, but others were pursuing a lighter. Decaf version, if you will. Jaden still considered himself a Christian, or at least he still hung on to some of those beliefs. He didn't like the idea of consorting with demons or worshipping Satan. Some of the kids were into Wicca, or considered themselves fairies, and wanted to practice good magic, magic with a K. Rod was grumpy about this, and of course, because Rod is Rod, he ridiculed the Good Vams and Wiccans and ranted about a coming, quote, war between the chosen and the children of God.

Oh boy. He even dumped one girl because of her interest in good magic. The Coven had a clubhouse where they played their live-action role-playing game. They called it, of course, the crypt. And for a while, this became Rod's second home, even though it was literally a freaking hovel. I've seen it in a documentary. It's grim as fuck.

And there's sitting there talking about how, we are the chosen people. We are so far above the mortals. Like, okay, well, to the casual observer, it would seem that you were sitting in a filthy hovel sucking on each other's necks. So, with, like, rusty razor blades. But okay.

Bless your hearts. So, in anywho, for some inexplicable reason, perhaps these girls had never seen a movie or TV show and didn't know anything about, like, normal human behavior. Rod was swimming in vampire nerd Vigene. Because of course he was. These assholes always are. One of these woefully misguided young ladies, the one Rod was quote unquote in love with, was Charity Kesey. So Charity was a good girl. She was a good student.

She went to church with her dad. on Sunday. She was still a Girl Scout, still had Barbies in her room, and Rod was all over it. He soon had her dye in her hair black and dressing more goth, and her personality was changing too, becoming harsher. Their relationship had that all-or-nothing intensity that teenage relationships tend to have, and they got sexually involved really fast. At one point, Rod told her he was coming into her room at night to watch her sleep. And she thought he was kidding until he pulled a housekey out of his pocket. So can I get a yikes on that? Yikes.

Okay, so I know you wouldn't know this, Whitney, but I was a teenager when Twilight came out, and this is the exact shit that Edward did to Bella. Yeah, I actually knew that, and it's bonkers because it's so far pre-Twilight, and it's so creepy, and

this is somebody who literally is getting ready to commit a double murder, so, good job, Stephanie Meyer, way to go. Well, and, like, if you just break it down to its core, you have, I have a 100-year-old man watching a teenager sleep. A man who is older than anyone you know. Yeah.

And he was like, oh, I'm watching you sleep because I want to protect you? Oh, hell no. That's so creepy. Harley is freaking creepy. I'm sorry. I don't need it. Anyway, so Rod was unsurprisingly paranoid and controlling with charity, that typical double standard where he was allowed to chase as many other girls as he wanted.

wanted, but she better not. She did anyway, but she wasn't supposed to. And he told her he had a theory that all females were weak, and that charming. But at the same time, he needed her to constantly reassure him of her love and commitment. So she had to really mommy him. And Charity soon learned, as did everybody in that group, that Rod was a control freak. And when he'd go really crazy, it was when he felt that control slipping. And when Charity questioned him too much, he would wig out once he threatened to cut her head off and burn the body just because she was asking questions about the vampire stuff. Hey, it's a relationship advice time. Stop. That's all. Yeah, it's a simple one there. So everything kind of chugged along for a while. Jaden invited Rod to join the

live action role-playing games and of course Rod felt it necessary to make fun of the game and called it silly because apparently he is unacquainted with the concept of irony. So, you know, they all hung out at hovel and talked about gods and demons and vampires and blood drinking and astral projection and all the fascinating stuff. It was all way more interesting than school, right? And lots of the kids were letting themselves be talked into blood drinking. One of the former Rod Squad told Aphrodite Jones, it was really more of a spiritual thing. You were about to have a piece of your friend with you forever. Okay, Jeffrey Dahmer. Yeah, nothing says friendship like swallowing a bunch of your nerd friend's blood and then peeing it out later.

Hashtag BFFs. Also, do you want hepatitis? Because obviously, this is how you get hepatitis. Yeah. Pay attention in biology instead of drawing hearts around Rod's initials, moron. But like, okay, I do have a question. Okay. Are we doing friendship wrong?

Well, maybe, but I'm not drinking your blood. Not even if it gets us on the podcast top fit. Well, okay, maybe if it gets us on the podcast top 50. So, campers, if anyone knows of a blood ritual that will catapult us to podcasting fame, you know where to find us. That's the only way I'm drinking your blood, KT. I'm sorry. I'm sure it tastes delicious. No. Like strawberry pie.

Also more interesting than school for Rod was drugs, specifically acid. And this may have been the beginning of the end. I'm not entirely sure, but Rod started getting more and more into drugs. acid, weed, and whatever illicit prescription pills he could lay hands on. At one point, Jaden found some tabs of acid Rod had hidden in the crypt and got really upset. They didn't need cops coming down on their little coven. On top of that, Jaden's girlfriend, Ashley, was freaked out by Rod. She said he was stalking her.

She didn't want Jaden to have anything to do with him. He was way too dark for her, always talking about how taking human lives gives a vampire power. he didn't seem like he was just playing the game. Ashley felt like he was fully capable of killing someone. He even tried to cut people during the live-action games, which was strictly against the rules. Then, some shit hit the fan between Rod and Jaden. Rod ended up filing assault charges against him.

He said Jaden was mad because he thought Rod was somehow involved in some mutual acquaintance messing with Ashley. They got in a fight, which Jaden describes in detail, in a documentary made around the time of the murders. Oh, my God. His description of how he allegedly owned Rod that night might be the most excruciating thing I've literally ever watched in my life. Like, you were talking about cringing so hard that you become a sentient black hole.

That happened to me. Like, you're listening to a sentient black hole right now. That's how hard I cringe. It was rough. It's bad. And the documentary does that thing where it shows both Jaden and Rod's reactions to it and it's fantastic. It's a piece of art. They deserve a goddamn Oscar for just that scene. Because Jaden is like, yeah, I slammed him up against the wall. His feet weren't even

touching the ground. And Rod was like, I mean, it was a fight. I think Rod was like, it wasn't even a fight. He just hit me. It was like, come on. It was pretty spectacular. Anyway, Jaden went to jail for a short sentence and he got on probation. Rod had a restraining order against him for a little while, but once Jaden got out, it didn't take long for him and Rod to make some kind of peace. What brought them back together was way more disturbing than a fight had been. Something super gross had popped up, namely that Rod's mom, Sandra, had been busted for writing disgusting sexual letters to Jaden's 14-year-old brother. Ugh, God, Sandra's the worst. Sandra had gone right off the rails since they got back to Murray.

She had apparently gotten over her horror of devil worship, aka the vampire stuff, because suddenly she was dressing goth, constantly hanging around Rod and his friends, coming on to the boys and talking about how much she wanted to be embraced. She was so obsessed with Jaden's kid brother that she'd made a shrine to him in her bedroom. Just, yeah. And Rod was disgusted by Sondra's sick obsession with this kid, who was a virgin at the time, and he was humiliated that it had all come out in the courts when Jaden's mom found the letters in his kid the brother's room.

And not only that, but Sondra, a grown-ass woman, was buying all the way into Rod's vampire stick, and it was embarrassing him in front of his followers, and Jaden was teasing him about it and stuff. Like, can you imagine doing some counterculture, like, rebel without a cause shit, and suddenly your mom shows up to participate? Like, no, mom, please don't show up at this black flag concert. All my friends will see. I'm flashing back to high school when my dad took us to a Smashing Pumpkins concert and bought a zero t-shirt.

Amazing. It was, yeah. So it was around then that he started talking a lot about killing her. Make Rod look bad in front of his sad minions and I, I guess. So the idea of killing Sandra and his grandfather started coming up more and more, and it really unsettled Jaden quite a bit. Between all this craziness, his on-again, off-again relationship with charity and his paranoia that she no longer loved him and his increasing drug use, Rod was not doing great. Before long, he got himself expelled from school, too, for a whole series of shitty behaviors. Rod's reaction to that was the same as it was.

Anytime somebody dared to question his behavior, he was being persecuted because he was different. His reunion with Jaden didn't last long either. Two things killed it. So there's a content warning on this first one for animal badness, and we're going to go into as little detail as possible, but if you want to skip ahead 30 seconds or so, that should be enough, we'll understand. So first, during one of their late night strolls through the woods, Rod found a stray cat. He and Jaden started petting it, and then with no warning whatsoever, Rod killed the poor baby, and I'm not going to tell you how, because I don't want to. And Jaden was completely horrified, and he started yelling at Rod like, what the fuck is wrong with you? What is your

problem? And Rod yelled back, you, you, you are my problem and your self-righteous attitude. Oh, fuck off. Wow, really? So Jaden just didn't get it. Like, in Rod's world, vampires had carte blanche to kill whoever and whatever they wanted. And to not do that was Goody Two Shoes. And then, one night when the Coven was hanging out at the Old Salem Cemetery, like you do, Rod suddenly just wigged out and started screaming for Jaden to kill him. If you don't kill me, I'm going to go on a rampage. Just kill me, just kill me, blah, blah, blah, blah.

They were fighting about something, and Rod just kirked out and started screaming, kill me, kill me. It was bonkers behavior. And Jaden watched the whole thing and then basically said, get out. except count on the fact that he said it in the most pretentious way possible okay he said what he actually said was

you are now forever banned from these gatherings and with that Rod was banned from the Coven okay what is it with these vampires and talking like you ought to hear the way they talk in the documentary it's just it's exhausting they always talk like

15th century like literature professors that are also serial killers like that very specific type of pretentiousness. Everybody knows what those people are like. Well, I've been watching a lot of criminal minds lately. There's been like three episodes like that. Like, is that something they have to do?

Because I posit that it makes them sound like milk toast losers. Just say leave, you fanged freak. So after that, Rod was in full revenge mode. He started making Molotov cocktails. in his room, planning to blow up the cemetery, where Jaden and company liked to hang out. And when she got wind of this, Sondra's one remaining parenting-related brain cell flickered briefly into life, and she called the Murray Police. They came around to the apartment, they searched Rod's room, but they couldn't find any evidence

of bomb-making or anything like that, so there wasn't much they could do. They did stake out the cemetery for a few nights, which must have been fun, but nothing happened. and the Murray PD were accustomed to Sandra and her attention-seeking bullish. In the past, she'd called them to report figures in her bedroom, a bloody goat's head in her bed, which turned out to be a hunting trophy somebody put in there as a joke, like a friend of hers.

So it was a little bit hard to take her seriously. But they were definitely hearing from people around town about both Rod and Sandra. Their goth clothes freak people out, which just grow the fuck up rubs, and their talk about vampires and demons, but worst of all, the Murray Sheriff had had multiple calls about Rod and his vampire friends sacrificing animals. Now, we won't go into detail about any of that, but they could never prove that Rod was the one responsible. Okay, we got to throw another content warning on this next part, again, for animal-related stuff.

We're not going to give any gory details at all, but we are going to give the bare-bones facts about something pretty upsetting. One night, someone, probably more than one someone, based on the evidence, broke into the Murray Animal Shelter and killed some of the animals. If you want more detail than that, you can either read Aphrodite Jones's book The Embrace or watch the episode of Deadly Colts about this case. Because, to be honest, we can't stand to talk about it. Police soon got a tip that Rod and one of his shitty little minions was responsible and that they'd taken Polaroids of what they'd done and were showing them around. They brought Rod in for questioning. He denied it outright and as always played the victim, arguing that he was being persecuted for dressing in black and wearing white makeup. When the police questioned them, Rod's little girl groupies were indignant that anyone

could accuse animal lover Rod of such an awful thing. But behind the scenes, charity wasn't so sure. And another girl finally fessed up to the cops that Rod had made some incriminating statements to her about the whole thing. This girl said Rod had gotten weirder and darker by the day ever since the two of them had stopped seeing each other months before. She also said he was pretty much steeping himself in drugs. Rod shrugged the whole thing off when friends asked about it, but those closest to him could tell he was feeling hunted by the police. He started talking more and more about getting out of Murray and going somewhere new, probably New Orleans, the vampire capital. Yeah, because Anne Rice said it was. Or she was. Or something.

something. I'm sorry. It's just so funny that he was like, he like spun a globe and landed on New Orleans. Like, what the fuck? No, it's not. He didn't spin a globe. That is the vampire capital according to those Anne Rice books. He's taking his entire cosmology from freaking airport fiction. Sorry, Anne Rice. I loved those books. I'm not trying to song. She's a fantastic writer. Weird lady. But Rod's such a moron. All along, he'd continue to relationship with his Florida friends, Heather and Janine. The three of them had been waking up huge phone bills, calling back and forth. Heather had been filling Rod's head with complaints about her mundane life and Eustace and how annoying and unfair her parents were being,

giving her crap about such a stupid, meaningless thing as how much time and money she was spending on the phone with her friends. Heather and Janine were both fed up with their lives and their parents. Heather's boyfriend, Jeremy, had started to worry about her. At first, He thought her obsession with Rod and the vampire family was just her play. But lately, he realized she was dead serious. All she seemed to want to think about or talk about lately was dark, depressing, creepy stuff. Vampires, demons, blood. She told Jeremy she believed she was the reincarnation of a demon.

And he could tell she meant it. I feel like you'd know. Maybe she felt she did know. Yeah. Yeah, that seems like the kind of. thing that you'd like have like a contract of somebody would have come to you and spoken to you about that she'd started referring to rod as her daddy no thank you and talking about how someday he was going to spirit her away to his castle in europe so all this plus the scars on heather's arms

from the blood rituals was a major bummer for jeremy he was thinking about breaking up with her He thought this Rodd dude sounded crazy. Back in Kentucky, Rod would hang up with Heather and rant to Scott that Heather's parents were evil. They cared more about money than they did about their own daughter. They were abusive monsters and Rod needed to rescue Heather from them. Scott later said that this was confusing to him because he talked to Heather on the phone a lot too and he never got the impression that she had an especially bad relationship with her folks. And this, by the way, is borne out by Heather's other friends too,

that the Wendorf's were loving, supportive parents. They didn't even give Heather a hard time for dying her hair purple, like in high school. And I can tell you my folks would have shit bricks if I had tried that. And I'm the same, like, I'm the same age as these kids. So this was 1996. Like, I was 19. So I'm right. I mean, it's not like that was normal back then and parents were cool about that stuff.

It was way less normal than it is now. So they're cool parents, you know. But Rod was insistent. And Heather was open to the idea of running away. She was sick to death of high school, sick to death of Eustis, sick of ordinary life. My girl, you're 15. Just hang in there for a second. And she wanted what Rod was selling. Eternal life, the romance of New Orleans, the promise of gaining spiritual powers under Rod's guidance.

So they started making plans for Rod, Scott, and charity to come down to Eustis, pick up Heather and possibly her bestie Janine, and right off into the sunset. Now, this was obviously absurd, but these were teenagers, so you've got to take it with a grain of salt. Also, they might not have been that bright, if we're being honest. And Rod could be real persuasive. Now, how they were actually going to bring this little plan to fruition? Who the hell knew? It was just fun to talk about. And meanwhile, Rod kept working on his little group of minions.

He added a new admirer, a quiet 19-year-old woman named Dana, who quickly became his right-hand lackey. Dana had been an outcast in school and didn't really have friends, but she did have her own apartment. So that, plus her immediate and unquestioning loyalty to Rod, convinced Rod to cross her over and secured her place in the inner circle. As for Scott, he and Rod had become inseparable ever since Jaden booted Rod out of the coven. Rod crossed him over, of course, so he could be immortal too. And I got to stop for a second, because Rod is apparently just a one nerd flipping vampire factory, ain't he? Like, I remember those books, and if I recall, you weren't supposed to just vampirize every sad-eyed asshole who asked. You're such a slut, Rod.

I don't know, maybe he was working on some kind of vamp-based multi-level marketing scheme or something. That's what it sounds like to me. He was just hoping to build a business from home while gaining friends and confidence. Yeah, sure. Before long, he'd have been running seminars at holiday ends, offering a free stay at an all-inclusive resort if you sign up for immortality. join vampir on today Of course you'd have to have the paramedic song to mop up all the blood

and pass out the OJ and cookies but I think it could work Yeah the problem is Is that multi-level marketing schemes Are already Vampires This is true Well see that makes it even more perfect right

Zing! Sorry I couldn't help myself They're super annoying Scott did his best to copy rod But he didn't have the book knowledge to make up the kind of elaborate shit about his past lives that Rod did. But Scott was Rod's little shadow and he took to the vampire stuff

like a duck to water. He was hundreds of years old. He and Roderick had lived in England in ye oldy days. He had lost generations of people he'd loved as they aged and he didn't. And other such, hoarse-dooky.

And he also told charity that sometimes he grew fangs and his eyes glowed yellow. But funnily enough, just like Rod, he never seemed to be able to do any of that on cue. Rod's on-again, off-again, soulmate, Charity waffled back and forth about whether she bought the vampire stuff. She was young and naive, not stupid. He regaled Charity with his

theories. Rod had a paradoxical, choose-your-own-adventure philosophy, wherein fate is real, but we all choose our own reality. If Charity demanded to know how both of those things could be true, Rod would say, you want logic? There's no truth in logic. Yeah, say it to Mr. Spock's face, you pencil neck geek. Mr. Spock would put the neck grip on his dumb ass. I'm pretty sure. Logic is fucking. All of Rod's little nuggets of philosophical wisdom sound like hallmark cards for Goss. They so do. Which is something we need a patent. ASAP. Yes, please. Charity was ambivalent about Rod in a lot of ways. On the one hand, he could act loving and protective, but then he'd hand her a piece of broken

glass and tell her to cut herself. He'd smash an ashtray and start ranting about cutting somebody's head off or blowing up parts of town, not to mention the thing with the animal shelter. She didn't really believe he was involved, but then sometimes she wondered. Rod could be incredibly callous. Charity and Rod were on and off a lot that summer and fall. She was getting tired of Rod's constant drug use. Rod used LSD like chain smoker smoked cigarettes.

He'd drop a new tab right as the old one started to wear off. Sometimes he could be fun when he was tripping, but increasingly lately, he'd just all be freaked out and crazy acting. And it was all wearing a bit thin on Charity. And while he and Charity were broken up, Rod close. constantly bitched about how she'd never loved him. He told people he was thinking about killing Charity's dad for keeping them apart. It wasn't her dad, you absolute turnip.

She was sick of your shit. And during one of their on periods, Charity, just buckle in for this one, decided to try to get pregnant with this numbskulls baby. She's like 14, 15 years old, too. Her plan was to settle him down. Oh, my God. You know, because that always works out great. Yep.

Just a quick note. Having a baby hasn't fixed anyone in the history of ever. Especially not a 17-year-old boy, as Rod was at this time. You're not supposed to be settled at 17. Even if he wasn't insane. Yeah, let's add sleep deprivation and financial stress. to an already stressed out loser. And lo and behold, by fall,

she was pretty sure she was pregnant. When she told Rod, he wigged out. First, he said he was going to jump off the roof of the arts building at Murray State. Then he confided in Charity's best friend, Cindy, that he'd already had a baby with his ex down in Florida, and the baby had died in a car accident. He just couldn't go through that again.

This was all bullshit, of course, but Charity believed it, and it really upset her. But Charity's bestie Cindy was on to Rod by now. He'd crossed her over months earlier, as part of his relentless vampire multi-level marketing plan, as we discussed earlier. Cindy was really just into the vampire stuff for funsies,

just something to do, you know, play and pretend. But she told Charity, look, he supposedly made me a vampire, and I can assure you I didn't get any special powers. I mean, did you? No, didn't think so. Charity, he's a fake. You should dump him, raise the kid on your own.

Yes. Yes, Cindy. Yes, bitch. But Charity was desperate to make it work with Rod. Be a family. Calm him down. She wanted him to get a job. Settle down with her. She said she wanted to be his life raft. Oh, honey. Honey, no. If you never take anything else away from this podcast, let it be this. You cannot be somebody's life raft. Okay? That tortured soul who seems so appealing to you because you think you can fix him. He is not a wounded puppy who needs you to band his paw. You can't fix him. You can't save him. People have to do that for themselves, and it's a hard process, and they've got to really want to do it and be willing to do the work themselves. So just run, baby. Run and don't look back. So by the fall of 1996, Rod seemed to be going further and further off the rails. When he wasn't busy plotting revenge on Jaden, Rod talked a lot about his plans for, you know, world domination. No big. He claimed to know world leaders and spoke with a weary tone about how badly the world's governments had messed things up. But even 14-year-old charity could sometimes tell that his understanding of politics and world

events was full of holes. It was just a bunch of stuff he'd cobbled together from soundbites on the news, basically. But Rod had big plans. When the time was right, he'd take over the TV and radio stations. This was pre-internet. I mean, the internet exists, but it wasn't everywhere. And he and his minions would just rain down all kinds of unholy hell on all mankind. And then when the world ended, Rod and his band of Wounded Angels would rule. Wounded Angels, the name of my Prague Rock Band. That would be a good name for Prague Rock Band. So there's this fast food restaurant in the States called Hardee's,

and the Murray Hardies was one of the main hangouts for Jaden and his coven. You know, because that's the kind of stuff vampires eat, right? He liked to think of Hardys as his personal space, his office, if you will. And when he'd kicked Rod out of the coven, he made sure everybody knew Rod was not welcome there anymore. And my favorite line in Aphrodite Jones's entire book is Jaden telling his coven, get ready for it, Rod has forfeited the right to patronize Hardee's. Rod has forfeited the right to patronize Hardee's. And you know at the time he was like, this is such a badass line.

And it's like, it's like And they were like, yes, my lord, we will make sure that your edict is obeyed. Now leave, sir, or I will have you escorted out by force. I bite my thumb at you, sir. Just what the fuck do you think you are? God, those poor minimum wage workers at the Murray Hardee's. Oh no, God bless them.

They were not getting paid enough for this shit. So Rod was banned from Hardys, according to Jaden. But Rod couldn't seem to stay away. He'd come in by himself, violate. his own restraining order against Jaden, and he would just sit across the room and just glare at Jaden in his little coven. At one point, there was a rumble

between the Rod squad and some of Jaden's coven, and Rod encouraged one of his friends to run over one of the girls. She wasn't badly hurt, but she did have to go to the ER. Animals were showing up hanging from trees in the trailer park where Jaden lived, and he felt sure that it was Rod's doing. And the criminal case against Rod's mom

was moving forward, led by Jaden's mom. Stuff felt like it was coming to a head. Meanwhile, Heather Wendorf was still calling Rod constantly, moaning about her terrible, mediocre life and Eustace, and how her parents were letting Jenny get away with murder, but writing her about the dumbest stuff. Rod gathered up his childer and told him it was time to go. Scott had a crappy old Buick his dad had given him. They'd just take off in that. The plan was to go to get Heather and her friend Janine. then head to New Orleans. It was Rod, Scott, Charity, and Dana. The bloom started to wilt off the rose fairly soon. I mean, you had four kids crammed into a clunker car, not a lot of money to

spend on food, and miles and miles of road. Charity was grumpy because she didn't like the idea of picking up these two strange girls from Florida who seemed so moony over Rod. But after much bitching and moaning and a few stops to pick up Little Debbie's and Gatorade, you know what vampires eat the Rod squad arrived in Eustis their first stop was the home of a former friend of Rods who hadn't seen him since his full transformation into the

Prince of Dorkness this girl Shannon was a normie and she took one look at Rod and his entourage and wished to hell she hadn't told him they could stop by the girls spent an hour so kind of languorously moping around her parents' house eating soup

and playing the Nintendo and using the phone Rod and Scott, though, were wired and very eager to tell Preppy Shannon all about their plans to move to New Orleans and pursue the vampire lifestyle. That's the funniest series of words ever constructed. Pursue the vampire lifestyle. Sir, you're driving a shitbox clunker that smells like old fast food, teenage sweat, and dried blood? Not exactly the life of Louie and Lestad, is it? Oh, my God. And when Shannon asked how they were planned.

on doing all that, given that Scott's Buick was clearly on its last legs, Rod said, oh, it's no problem. We're going to kill Heather Windorf's parents and take their car. Oh. Yeah. He said, I'm going to cut the heads off them people, which I guess being alive for 500 plus years didn't teach improper grammar, but yikes. And, you know, Shannon, like most people when they hear things like this, didn't think they were serious per se, but she was freaked out by the whole thing, and she was very grateful when Rod and his lackeys left so that Rod could go pick Heather up from school. Heather's parents had no idea that evening that Heather had slipped off to the cemetery

for a joyous reunion with Rod. This was the first time she'd seen him since he'd moved back to Murray. Charity and Dana and Scott waited in the Buick while Rod and Heather disappeared among the tombstones for a while, just the two of them. Rod wanted to cross Heather over at Long Last, kind of an official ritual to begin their new life together as a vampire family. So probably in plain view of any poor bastard trying to lay flat, on their loved ones grave, Rod and Heather did their icky little blood exchange. And then Rod

told Heather that they needed to get on the road ASAP. The cops might be looking for him as runaways. But Heather was taken aback. She was kind of reluctant. She really wasn't ready to leave yet. It was right before Thanksgiving and she wanted to say goodbye to her parents and Jeremy and pack up all her favorite stuff. You know, I feel like now that this was all getting real, it seemed like Heather maybe wasn't so sure she was ready for life as a, you know, rogue vampire at age 15. But Rod was insistent, as Rod always was, and he was even more so than normal, like pushy and urgent, and there was definitely like an edge on him. And he said, you know, you can go home and pack up some stuff, that's fine, but we can't stay long. We need to get on the road

tonight. And then he said, if you want, you can go in there and start to pack, and we'll follow you and tie your parents up so we can get going faster. And when he said that, Heather felt a little panicky. She said, no, no, I don't need you to do that. I'll just sneak in and out. And then Rod asked her, very seriously, Heather, do you want me to kill them? And Heather says she told him unequivocally, no, absolutely not. Leave my parents alone. And Rod's response was basically, hey, I was just asking, just offering. That's fine. But despite this bouquet of massive flaming red flags, Heather then ran back home, threw as many of her favorite clothes and mementos into a duffel bag as she could,

then wrote the, I'm leaving for good, please don't try to find us, note. Then she says she got the sudden urge to spend some time with her parents before she left them, maybe forever. Her dad was sitting on the couch, looking through one of his old high school year books. He showed her some of his favorite old pictures. They laughed together. Then Heather went to her mom's room, plopped down next to her in bed,

and watched part of a lifetime movie. Did she lay her head on her mom's shoulder? Did she have a lump in her throat? Was she having second thoughts? We can't know for sure. She left her mom's room, went to her bedroom, and called Janine, who couldn't talk because she was having birthday cake with her parents. Then her boyfriend, Jeremy.

Jeremy could not believe she was planning on running off with these freaks, and he tried his damnedest to talk her out of going, even offered to fight Rod for her. But Heather wouldn't budge. She told him she had to go. Rod had threatened to kill her parents if she didn't. And because Jeremy is a normal human being, his reaction was, okay, if you really think he'll do that, let's call the police. But Heather just kept saying, no, no, she had to go and begging Jeremy to go with her.

Why the hell this kid didn't just call the police himself? I can't imagine. I know. It's, ugh. But he didn't. And soon, Heather left and the female members of the Rod squad picked her up a little ways down the street. The girls told Heather that Rod and Scott were getting some stuff for the trip. But in fact, Rod and Scott were hiding in the trees watching his charity, Dana and Heather, pulled away in the Buick.

They had plans to meet up with them later after they did what they were going to do. Right now, they headed back to the Wednesday. Dwarf house, each clutching a wooden club. When they found the house, they case the place for a few minutes, deciding on an entry point. Then they realized the garage door was unlocked. The plan was for Rod to take on Heather's dad and Scott to take the mom. Rod said to Scott, are you sure you want to do this? I don't want to get in there with no backup. Scott said, yeah, I'm ready. I'll back you up, man. So it's not entirely clear whether they planned to kill the Wendorf from the start or just knock them unconscious. But once they got into the garage, Rod said, we need something

better than these clubs, and he picked up a crowbar. So my guess is, even if he didn't specifically intend to kill them from the time that they entered that garage, he certainly wasn't troubling himself about the possibility that they may die because he's holding a crowbar. And then, Rod and Scott, two pale apparitions and black outfits and long dark hair, strolled into the Wendorf's house. They could hear the shower going. They pulled out the phone cord, and for a moment Scott thought, maybe they'd just sneak past Mr. Wendorf, grab the keys to that Ford Explorer in the garage and go. But then, Mr. Wendorf raised his head up off the couch, and that was it. Rod flipped a switch, going from calm to frenzy in a split second. He hit Richard Wendorf far more times than he needed to

to kill him over 20, and then, just to make sure he was dead, stabbed the end of the crowbar through his heart. The man never even made it off the couch. Scott stood there watching, his eyes big as walnuts, frozen in shock. And when Rod was sure Mr. Wendorf was dead, he just rifled casually through his pockets and took his credit card. And a moment later, Mrs. Wendorf, fresh from the shower and her little night dress, appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. At first she was just confused. She said, what are you doing here? Are you friends of heathers? Then she saw the bloody crowbar. And this brave lady threw a whole cup of hot coffee right in Rod's face, and tried to run. She fought hard, but she didn't make it. And again, Scott stood rooted to the

spot and watched. Rod laughed at him for being such a wussy, then ordered him to go root around the house for valuables or cash. And while Scott was doing that, just for funsies, Rod burned a V in Mr. Windorf's chest with his cigarette lighter. He seemed vastly pleased with himself. He kept recapping the whole scene for Scott as if Scott hadn't just witnessed it. Did you see her throw that coffee? That's why I had to hit her so hard. He called Mrs. Windorf, that little bitch. Fuck you, Rod. I wish the coffee was hotter.

Yeah, I wish it had melted his face off. Once they'd found the explorer keys and a small amount of Mrs. Windorf's jewelry, Rod and Scott took off in their brand-new SUV and washed up in a gas station bathroom. They found a wooded spot and torched their bloody shirts. They decided not to tell Heather right away that her parents were dead, you know, just in case she freaked out or something. I can't imagine why she would. Yeah.

They'd tell Charity and Dana, though. It was time to go reunite with the vampire fam and head for Louisiana. When Heather, sitting in the back of the Buick, saw Rod and Scott drive up in her parents' SUV and motioned for the Buick to follow, she ducked down in panic. She figured her mom and dad had found the note and somehow managed to track her down.

When she saw Rod and Scott in the front seat, shirtless now, for some reason, she was baffled. Why do they have the car? Why do they have the car? Heather was getting progressively more uneasy. If they'd stolen her parents' car, did that mean they'd tied them up?

Hurt them? But Charity and Dana couldn't tell her anything. Eventually, they pulled both cars over and Rod ordered everybody into the SUV. They are going to switch the license plates then abandoned the Buick. As Scott worked on the license plates, Heather could see Rod whispering something to Charity. They both glanced over at Heather, and the knot in her stomach got worse. She fired question after question, demanding to know if her parents were okay, until Charity

snapped at her to shut up. They rode in silence for a long while. Finally, Heather said, look, if my parents find out we have their car, they're going to kill me. We have to take it back. and Charity said, You don't need to worry about your parents. To put up bluntly, Heather, your parents are dead. Rod told Heather, I'm your parent now. The eustace investigators were hard at work, but in the end, the big break came not so much from crack police work,

but typical teenage dipshittery. See, Rod and company were running out of gas and out of money. And Charity got the bright idea of calling her mom and asking her to wire them some cats. Rash. Rod didn't like it. He figured Charity's mom would turn them into the cops. But Charity insisted her mom wasn't like that. Did Charity know better in her heart of hearts? Or did she really believe her mom would just pony up the cash and let these runaway teenagers be? I'm not sure. But it all came apart for the Prince of Dorkness when Charity's mom, having assured her daughter that the cash

would be waiting for her at the money exchange in a nearby hotel called the cops. Knowing Ron was from Murray, the useless cops had been in communication with the Murray cops. So when the Rod squad pulled into the parking lot of the hotel to retrieve their cash, well, they had some people waiting for him. And for all his bravado, all his talk about being the chosen one and bringing mankind to its knees, when the police descended and Rod caught sight of those guns pointed at his little ferret face, he gave it up immediately. He talks about it now like, I was just so world-weary, and I wanted to protect my children. Yeah.

You were pissing yourself in terror, fraud. We see you, buddy boy. Those cops weren't asleep on the couch, and they weren't a terrified woman in a nightdress. They had guns, and you didn't want to get shot. Now, teenage killers tend to talk a badass game, but when the chips are down and the tiniest little bit of pressure is applied,

just about every last one of them sings like a damn canary. Rod and his crew were no different. Rod put on quite the performance, in the interrogation room, laughing and describing the murders in gory, proud detail, talking about how life is a big joke and this might all be a dream. Talking about how he and Scott had danced impishly around the room after the murders. The detective sat and listened, remembering those two brutalized bodies, a wash-in blood, and that crying teenage girl who found them, a girl who had come home from a date

to find that her life would never be the same again. Yeah, Rod put a lot of stock in scaring the normies, but when it comes right down to it, he's a coward who had to murder two innocent people because he so badly needed validation from his peers. Like all cult leaders, he's a narcissist and a coward who knew who to go after and he knew when to fold when his life was on the line. Rod, I want you to know that you're probably the least impressive person I've ever encountered. You're a spineless little freak that had to resort to hurting people and creatures to make yourself feel special. You talk like you're Jim Jones, but in reality, you're an ineffective Charles Manson. You're a pathetic excuse for a person, and I can only hope that you spend the rest of your existence drenched in the boredom that you so fiercely hated. It's like my mama and dad always said, if you're bored, you're boring.

And I would venture to guess that in the real world, Rod is about as bland. and monotonous a person that I've ever heard of. You're so boring that you looked around at your friends and your minions and decided they weren't enough for you. It'd be sad if it wasn't so apt. Damn, yeah. And it all unraveled pretty quick. Dana and Charity and Scott all told the detectives pretty much everything.

Heather, too, though she was more of a puzzle for the investigators. Rod had told them that she was in on the murders from the start. She tearfully insisted she wasn't that he'd promised to leave her parents alone. Public opinion was sharply divided on Heather. Was she a dupe or a demon? In the end, after much legal wrangling and media hysteria, it broke down like this. Charity and Dana both pled guilty to two counts of third-degree murder and robbery with a deadly weapon. They were sentenced to ten and a half and seventeen years respectively.

They're both out today and hopefully staying out of trouble. We couldn't find out whether Charity was ever actually pregnant with Rod's baby. We tried, too. We could not find out. It's so hard. Scott Anderson pled guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. But in 2018, he was resentenced to 40 years with 22 for time served. He'll be eligible to be released in 2031 at the age of 51.

Rod Farrell, while acting like a massive jackass and doing his best impression of goth Charles Manson for the cameras, pled guilty to murder. and was sentenced to death. His sentence was later reduced to life without parole due to a Supreme Court ruling that required re-evaluations of juvenile sentences. It shouldn't surprise anyone to hear that he's done quite a few prison interviews. And in the most recent one, I saw,

he was a full, grown-ass adult and still preaching the vampire lifestyle. Yep. Still doing the Batman voice. Still a massive, pretentious twat. insufferable. I hope he's getting bullied in prison. Oh, me too. I fervently hope it. As for Heather Wendorf, the prosecution ended up deciding not to charge her with anything, which really pissed off the sheriff in Eustis because he wanted to get Heather.

He was convinced she was involved. But, you know, the prosecutor decided, yeah, we don't have enough. But I'm not convinced we've ever gotten the full story from Heather. I don't necessarily believe that she wanted her parents' kill or knew for that Rod was going to kill them or anything, but I do think she was very careless with their safety. And, I mean, she said some pretty callous stuff about him before the murders, that joke to her sister about hiring Rod as a hitman, for example. So at minimum, Heather had to know Rod was an unstable, dangerous guy who talked constantly about killing. He had actually told her that he had killed people before. She knew he'd talked about killing her parents that day. And it was more important

to her to run off and chase fairy tales than it was for her to ensure her family's safety, because all it really would have taken is at least to warn them that, hey, if this guy shows up, make sure to lock the doors and windows tonight. If this guy shows up, call the police, whatever, she didn't do that. So I think she was either incredibly reckless or just incredibly, incredibly naive. And to be fair, she was very young. And as I understand it, she and Jenny never repaired their relationship. So I'm probably not the only one that has some of these thoughts.

Because her sister and she, as I understand it, are still estranged. And I have no idea what Heather's up to today. Oh, I do. I know the answer to this one. She's an artist. Heather is an artist. Mm-hmm. Yeah, she makes cool, weird art. Good for her. So, this case, as a weird kid myself or former weird kid, it bugs me this case, a lot. You know, it's like these kids convince themselves that their only two choices were, number one, by 100% into the Southern Baptist, small town, Cougar Mellon camp thing, you know, be either a jock or a cheerleader, spend every Friday night at the football game and every Sunday morning at church,

swallow everything your mommy and daddy and preacher tell you, marry your high school sweetheart, get a soul-crushing job, start plopping out kids, and begin the slow march toward death. Or, number two, turn into Rod Flipp and Farrell. And putting aside the fact that plenty of people are actually very happy and fulfilled in that first life, here's the thing, kids. Those are not the only two options. Okay? I think you'll find that there are more ways to spread your wings and express yourself

than to invent yourself a name like Raven with two E's, do fuck tons of drugs, and give each other hepatitis with rusty razor blades. There's more than two choices, okay? You don't have to follow a flippin little wannabe cult leader. But I guess these kids either didn't have the wherewithal or just weren't imaginative enough to figure that out. And some of them still haven't. Because in the show Deadly Cults, Jaden, who is now a 40-something grown-ass man, described his involvement in the vamp lifestyle by saying, in exactly this tone, the nighttime called to me. Well, good to know he's matured.

So that was a wild one, right, campers? You know we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And we want to send a grateful shout out to some of our newest patrons. Thank you so much to Margaret and Sarah. We appreciate you to the moon and back. Thanks also to our superfan Steve in England for coming up with Prince of Dorkness.

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