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Speaker 6: Are now listening to true Murder the most shocking killers
Speaker 6: in true crime history and the authors that have written
Speaker 6: about them. Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every week
Speaker 6: another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous
Speaker 6: killers in true crime history. True Murder with Your host
Speaker 6: journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 7: Good Evening. Investigators in central Florida residents were horrified when
Speaker 7: sixteen year old vampire cult leader Rod Ferrell was arrested
Speaker 7: and charged with bludgeoning occult member's parents. When they realized
Speaker 7: the slain couple's fifteen year old daughter was me they
Speaker 7: feared she was a victim too. Detectives and journalists swarming
Speaker 7: over three states soon uncovered a web of blood drinking,
Speaker 7: occult rituals, illicit sex, wildly dysfunctional families, and spiritual warfare. Then,
Speaker 7: when police officers captured the teens, they discovered that the
Speaker 7: murdered couple's daughter was among them. But was she a
Speaker 7: victim or a participant? Ferrell faced the death penalty, sparking
Speaker 7: constitutional battles over the ultimate punishment, juveniles in the court system,
Speaker 7: free pressed versus a defendant's right to a fair trial,
Speaker 7: and psychologists who worked to save him and prosecutors who
Speaker 7: wanted him dead. More than twenty years later, the battle
Speaker 7: continues with new court rulings. Is he a changed man
Speaker 7: deserving freedom or is he still gaming the system as
Speaker 7: prosecutors and his victim's family members believe. Decide for yourself
Speaker 7: after reading Cold Blooded by Ian newspaper reporter Frank Stanfield,
Speaker 7: who has covered the case from the beginning in November
Speaker 7: nineteen ninety six and sheds new light on one of
Speaker 7: the darkest killers in modern history. The book that we're
Speaker 7: featuring this evening is Cold Blooded, a true crime story
Speaker 7: of a murderous teenage vampire cult, with my special guest,
Speaker 7: journalist and author Frank Stanfield. Welcome to the program, and
Speaker 7: thank you very much for this interview. Frank Stanfield, Thanks
Speaker 7: for having me.
Speaker 5: I appreciate it.
Speaker 7: Thank you very much. An incredible story and an incredible book,
Speaker 7: Cold Blooded. Let me ask this question, how did you
Speaker 7: come to be the author of this book and how
Speaker 7: did you come to this story.
Speaker 5: I was working for the Orlando Sentinel in it's Lake
Speaker 5: County bureau, which is a county just north of Orlando,
Speaker 5: and when the story broke and I covered the courts.
Speaker 5: So that's how it was going to be the line's
Speaker 5: share of the story, as it turns out.
Speaker 7: So that's how I got involved, right, So let's talk
Speaker 7: about this place that you say is very close to Orlando,
Speaker 7: and this is November twenty fifth, nineteen ninety six, So
Speaker 7: tell us a little bit about this, and also Jennifer
Speaker 7: Wendorf and her call to police just after ten thirty
Speaker 7: five pm November twenty fifth, nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 5: Jennifer was seventeen years old, a pretty cheerleader, popular girl
Speaker 5: at Eustas High School, and she came home after work.
Speaker 5: She worked part time in a grocery store, and she
Speaker 5: had stopped to see her boyfriend. She was running a
Speaker 5: little late, so she kind of slipped into the house.
Speaker 5: Her dad, she thought, was asleep on the count, and
Speaker 5: her mother was back in her bedroom, she figured. So
Speaker 5: she went in and called her boyfriend, says I'm home safe,
Speaker 5: and then went out to the living room and discovered
Speaker 5: But she didn't discover anything right off, but she was
Speaker 5: headed for the living room and she noticed this blood
Speaker 5: trail leading into the kitchen, and then she saw her
Speaker 5: mother had just been bludging to death. Her mother's ruth queen,
Speaker 5: what was her name. She runs back to get her dad,
Speaker 5: Richard Windoor, and then realized he was dead. So she
Speaker 5: gets on nine one one and just makes this horrific
Speaker 5: telephone call, voice quavering, but she held it together pretty good.
Speaker 5: She said, my parents have been killed. And they said, well,
Speaker 5: how do you know your parents have been killed? She says,
Speaker 5: because there's blood everywhere?
Speaker 7: Now, what do Lake County officials find? Officers find at
Speaker 7: this scene of the Windworfs.
Speaker 5: It was probably the most horrific crime scene they've ever seen.
Speaker 5: I would say, yes, because there was blood spatters everywhere
Speaker 5: there was they'd been beaten, that the man had been
Speaker 5: beaten till he was just unrecognizable, and the mother had
Speaker 5: been beaten and tried to crawl away from her killer.
Speaker 5: Her brainstem was exposed to the point where one of
Speaker 5: the investigators that, well, maybe she's been shot, But it
Speaker 5: turned out they'd been bludgeoned with repeatedly with this crowbar.
Speaker 7: What was there any evidence of any other crime perpetrated
Speaker 7: at the same time.
Speaker 5: Well, one of the things, Jennifer is on the phone saying, well,
Speaker 5: my sister's not here. She's only fifteen, she's not here.
Speaker 5: So now the investigators are thinking, well, was she kidnapped?
Speaker 5: Her name is Heather? Was she kidnapped? Is she a
Speaker 5: part of this crime? You know what's going on here?
Speaker 5: What's happening.
Speaker 7: In terms of theft that the officers immediately realized that
Speaker 7: anything was stolen.
Speaker 5: The family's Ford Explorer was missing, so they realized that
Speaker 5: that had been stolen.
Speaker 7: We talked about Detective al Gussler. He is asking Jennifer
Speaker 7: immediately questions about who may have killed the parents. What
Speaker 7: is Jennifer's reaction? Who does she conclude could have done this?
Speaker 5: Well, she names Heather for one, and then she says
Speaker 5: her friend Rod Ferrell, this sixteen year old kid that
Speaker 5: used to go to Eustas High School, but he had
Speaker 5: moved back to Kentucky with his friend, with his family
Speaker 5: rather about a year ago. So those two names pop
Speaker 5: up immediately, and they said, well, what why would mentioned
Speaker 5: Heather's name? Well, Heather one time had a conversation with
Speaker 5: her saying, Jen, have you ever plotted mom and Dad's death?
Speaker 5: And was not just that, but Rod had this reputation
Speaker 5: of being kind of a bad character, and she also
Speaker 5: Heather supposedly said, you know, if you ever need anybody killed,
Speaker 5: you know, this bad boyfriend that Jennifer had at one time.
Speaker 5: She says, I know somebody can do it and be Rod.
Speaker 7: Questions about what she knows about this Rod, and also
Speaker 7: I guess the police wouldn't immediately look for any kind
Speaker 7: of record or police report regarding Rod. So what was
Speaker 7: what was done in that regard? And before we talk
Speaker 7: about neighbor, Suzanne Leclair tells Detective Adams.
Speaker 5: Well, the Lake County detectives called Kentucky, Murray Kentucky, and
Speaker 5: the sheriff up there says, you've got a wild bunch
Speaker 5: on the loose there. Apparently Rod was the leader of
Speaker 5: a cult with a handful of kids, and they had
Speaker 5: been suspected of going into an animal shelter and abusing
Speaker 5: about sixty animals in a horrific, terrible thing. That Rod
Speaker 5: had been suspected of building gasoline bombs and all this
Speaker 5: blood drinking vampire cult business. They just had their eye
Speaker 5: on him, and they were not They were shocked with
Speaker 5: the murders, but they weren't surprised that his name had
Speaker 5: come up. And then as the police were still at
Speaker 5: the crime scene, this lady named Suzanne Leclair drives up
Speaker 5: and she says well, what's going on is Jennifer Okay,
Speaker 5: she figured maybe Jennifer rector Carr in the driveway or something.
Speaker 5: They said, no, Jennifer's fine. And then Susanne says, well,
Speaker 5: my daughter, Janine is was Heather's best friend. Heather's runaway.
Speaker 5: I just found out.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 5: The detective says, we'll bring your daughter back up here.
Speaker 5: We need to talk to her. So that's how that
Speaker 5: got started.
Speaker 7: So what information did did it get from her Heather's
Speaker 7: best friend Janine regarding this running away and more importantly
Speaker 7: the murder of her parents.
Speaker 5: Well, Janine was fifteen and Heather was fifteen, and they
Speaker 5: were best friends, had been best friends for years. So
Speaker 5: the girls had been talking about running away with Rod,
Speaker 5: just running away, nothing about murder whatever. But Rod had
Speaker 5: earlier that we'll see this murder happened on a Monday night.
Speaker 5: So on Saturday, Rod and his friends showed up. There
Speaker 5: was three other four other people with Rod, and they
Speaker 5: show up at this fellow classmates, old classroomates of theirs
Speaker 5: and makes arrangements. He meets with Janine and he says
Speaker 5: he talks about killing Jeanine's parents, and she says, no,
Speaker 5: you're not killing my parents. You know, I'm not. You
Speaker 5: can you can take money or whatever you want to do.
Speaker 5: I'll give you money from my bank account or whatever,
Speaker 5: but you're not killing my parents. So then Janine and
Speaker 5: Heather talking back and forth about running away with Rod,
Speaker 5: and at one point Heather says, oh, he's he's got
Speaker 5: to leave now, We've got to leave now. They thought
Speaker 5: they've had several days to leave, and Heather says, well,
Speaker 5: he's talking about killing my parents. So now all of
Speaker 5: a sudden everything's thrown them into motion. And earlier on
Speaker 5: Monday afternoon, they do this thing called crossover, a ritual
Speaker 5: vampire blood draw blood sucking thing they do. So Rod
Speaker 5: Ferrell had Heather crossover to be a vampire. So the
Speaker 5: police are learning about all this information. Now Heather's gone,
Speaker 5: but they're getting all this information from Janine and Heather's
Speaker 5: boyfriend who didn't go away on this trip, and they're
Speaker 5: putting it all together.
Speaker 7: So what is their next step for police in terms
Speaker 7: of continuing to questioned Jennifer and then Janine as well,
Speaker 7: and then another person, Shan and Joey. You mentioned where
Speaker 7: this former classmate where all this group had visited, including
Speaker 7: Rod Ferrell and the group had visited before these murders.
Speaker 7: What do they do next in their investigation.
Speaker 5: Well, they didn't waste any time. I mean they were
Speaker 5: knocking on doors at two o'clock in the morning, four
Speaker 5: o'clock in the morning, that kind of thing. So they
Speaker 5: tracked down this Shannon Joe, this girl, former classmate of
Speaker 5: Rod's and Janine's. So they talked with her and she says, yeah,
Speaker 5: this group showed up at my house, surprised, no warning.
Speaker 5: But Rod was different now, and he looked different. He
Speaker 5: was wearing all black he had he was smoking and
Speaker 5: talking about how he had to steal the Windorf's car
Speaker 5: because the car they came down in, which belonged to
Speaker 5: one of the Cold member, Scott Anderson, was a little
Speaker 5: Buick Skyhawk and it wasn't running very well. And so
Speaker 5: he says, we got to steal the Windorf's car, and
Speaker 5: then he says, we got to kill him too. Well,
Speaker 5: this girl, Shannon, she said, I didn't take him seriously
Speaker 5: that they were going to kill her parents because he
Speaker 5: was always talking smack, you know, always talking kind of trash.
Speaker 5: So she didn't take him seriously about it, but she
Speaker 5: should have. She's in retrospect.
Speaker 7: Now while they're looking for these people. You also mentioned
Speaker 7: something that's very interesting that the grandfather is James Wendorf,
Speaker 7: and he's a retired lawyer and he became the family
Speaker 7: spokesman immediately after these murders. And as you said later,
Speaker 7: we will talk about his support of Heather later. Now,
Speaker 7: this is three days after the slaying Thanksgiving Day. What
Speaker 7: does one of the people that's involved with this and
Speaker 7: who calls their grandmother.
Speaker 5: One of the cult members, Charity Casey, her name, nickname
Speaker 5: is Shay. She calls her grandmother because they're they're broke,
Speaker 5: they're tired, they're dirty, they're hungry, and she's called her
Speaker 5: grandmother to try to get a hold of her mother.
Speaker 5: So the grandmother calls the sherif Lake County Sheriff's office.
Speaker 5: She these kids are by now in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Speaker 5: Their initial goal was to go to New Orleans. Well,
Speaker 5: they went there and Shaye didn't like it. She was
Speaker 5: freaked out because it was they went to a bad neighborhood.
Speaker 5: So they left New Orleans and went to Baton Rouge.
Speaker 5: So they end up in Baton Rouge. Everything's closed down.
Speaker 5: She's just tired of the whole thing, so she calls
Speaker 5: her grandmother. Grandmother recognizes that she has this phone number
Speaker 5: from a payphone on her phone, and she calls and
Speaker 5: notifies the Lake County Sheriff's office. Lake County calls the
Speaker 5: Baton Rouge police and they track these kids down. Finally,
Speaker 5: the girl's mother acts like she's going to send money.
Speaker 5: They can go to a motel in Baton Rouge, and
Speaker 5: it's a trap. They're all trapped.
Speaker 7: Us has an opportunity to stop for a second for
Speaker 7: these messages.
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Speaker 7: Now, Frank, you say that the grandmother helped call police,
Speaker 7: and so they apprehended these characters in Baton Rouge. What's
Speaker 7: next and who are the people responsible? And set to
Speaker 7: interview Rod Farrell and the others.
Speaker 5: Well, the Baton Rouge police department are the first ones
Speaker 5: to get their hands on these kids, and so the
Speaker 5: detectives their start. They at first they talked with Rod
Speaker 5: and here's the thing. Rod is says, look, my girlfriend Shay,
Speaker 5: he thinks she's pregnant. And he says, I'll tell you
Speaker 5: anything you want to know, just let me talk to
Speaker 5: my girlfriend. And so the cops interview him and he
Speaker 5: just he says, yeah, I did it. Nobody else really
Speaker 5: had any part in it, you know, although the one kid,
Speaker 5: Howard Anderson, was with him in the house. The other
Speaker 5: girls had picked up, had taken Heather away from the
Speaker 5: house to go see your boyfriend when all this murder
Speaker 5: was going on. So they start with Rod and he's
Speaker 5: like matter of fact in a way. He said, you know, yeah,
Speaker 5: I did it, and I got it was a rush
Speaker 5: and all this kind of bold, silliest stuff that he
Speaker 5: was saying. And we're all animals basically, and you know,
Speaker 5: humans are just animals and all this kind of stuff
Speaker 5: and then he claims he was mentally disturbed, you know,
Speaker 5: all that jazz. So that's the Baton Rouge of the Meanwhile,
Speaker 5: the Lake County Detectives are on the way to go
Speaker 5: get to Baton Rouge. But the Baton Rouge police get
Speaker 5: their first crack add him.
Speaker 7: What does he say in terms of regards to the
Speaker 7: culpability of the others, but especially the culpability of Heather
Speaker 7: in regards to her parents' death.
Speaker 5: He's The cops, of course by this time, are are
Speaker 5: very interested in what Heather knows, what her role is,
Speaker 5: you know, did she have any part in it? And
Speaker 5: he says, well, the plan was just to first, he says,
Speaker 5: the plan was just to pick her up and for
Speaker 5: all of us to go to Baton Rouge. But then
Speaker 5: he says, yeah, because people in Florida were telling the police,
Speaker 5: you know, she was he was talking about killing her parents,
Speaker 5: and she was talking about They had a big correspondence
Speaker 5: and with the telephones and all this stuff, talking back
Speaker 5: and forth, and so they really wanted to know, you
Speaker 5: know what about it, and so they said okay. So
Speaker 5: eventually the Lake County detectives get up there and they
Speaker 5: talk with Heather and then they talked to Rod and
Speaker 5: Heather says, yeah, he had mentioned about killing my parents.
Speaker 5: How many times had he mentioned it? Why did he
Speaker 5: mention it? She says, well, he's obsessed with killing people.
Speaker 5: He's killed people before, he says. And so they were
Speaker 5: very interested in all this, and they said, well, how
Speaker 5: many times did he talk about this? And she said, well,
Speaker 5: he would just say something in passing, you know. And
Speaker 5: so they're building this case they think where Heather and
Speaker 5: Rod are working together this kind of thing, but there's
Speaker 5: holes in the story. It's sort of murky, you know.
Speaker 5: And then of course they ok to the other kids too,
Speaker 5: Dana Cooper, who was the oldest, I think she was
Speaker 5: about twenty at the time. She was the only adult.
Speaker 5: And then Howard Anderson I think he was seventeen. Shay
Speaker 5: was fifteen or sixteen. So they're talking to all of them,
Speaker 5: and then the Lake County detectives talk with Rod. They
Speaker 5: finally get their chance to talk with Rod, and he's
Speaker 5: telling them all this stuff about it. It's a rush
Speaker 5: and it's like a god. If you kill somebody, you
Speaker 5: feel like a god for a minute. Then he says, well,
Speaker 5: I was really a god. I wouldn't be here though,
Speaker 5: what that was interesting.
Speaker 7: At the same time, he tells the other his accomplices
Speaker 7: and their role in this, including addresson But at the
Speaker 7: same time they're wanting they're questioning Heather about things like
Speaker 7: her sister saying that she had plotted and asked the
Speaker 7: question if they ever plotted she ever plotted her parents death,
Speaker 7: And so there was other people that they and there
Speaker 7: was other people that they spoke to as well that
Speaker 7: had things to say regarding what Heather had said, apparently
Speaker 7: about her parents. Tell us about some of the things
Speaker 7: that other people said.
Speaker 5: Right, Well, Heather first of all denied ever asking her
Speaker 5: sister about that, but her sister would end up testifying
Speaker 5: that she had said it. So that was interesting. But
Speaker 5: they were classmates to school that said, yeah, I overheard
Speaker 5: Heather say she wished her parents were dead. One girl
Speaker 5: comes forward and says, yeah, I saw Rod one time
Speaker 5: at Heather's house and I heard him her try to
Speaker 5: get me to go with him and all that sort
Speaker 5: of thing. That girl turned out to be a liar.
Speaker 5: That was a whole can of worms. She just well,
Speaker 5: I don't know why she did it, but she was
Speaker 5: claiming all the stuff that wasn't true. That would come
Speaker 5: back to haunt the investigation. But also Rod's mother, Sondra Gibson,
Speaker 5: told the police, Yeah, I overheard Heather saying she wished
Speaker 5: their parents were dead. So those two things were kind
Speaker 5: of hanging out there. They were getting ready to go
Speaker 5: into the grand jury.
Speaker 7: They also the police looked into Sondra, his mother and
Speaker 7: her background as well. What did they find and when
Speaker 7: they spoke with her, what did they discover.
Speaker 5: Well, Sondra Gibson had her own problems. She was arrested
Speaker 5: for trying to solicit sex with a fourteen year old
Speaker 5: boy in the middle of a vampire ritual. That was
Speaker 5: what her plan was. She was going to have sex
Speaker 5: with this kid while crossing him over. And so she
Speaker 5: was arrested for that, and then they got to doing
Speaker 5: more investigation, and it turns out that Rod, who also
Speaker 5: told this to the police, told the police that he
Speaker 5: had been raped as a five year old by his
Speaker 5: grandfather's friends in a cult ritual called the by a
Speaker 5: cult called the Black Black Mask. And that was a
Speaker 5: whole other kettle of fish. And see, basically, Sondra had
Speaker 5: a whole history of failed relationships with men, so she
Speaker 5: lived with her parents. So this grandfather that Rod talked
Speaker 5: about was he was living with his grandfather and his
Speaker 5: grandmother in Kentucky. So that was another whole thing that
Speaker 5: came up. They would be a very important part in
Speaker 5: the trial later on.
Speaker 7: And what did she and Rod share other than this
Speaker 7: interest in well, what interest did they share, but also
Speaker 7: even the clothing and some of the behavior that people
Speaker 7: thought they were siblings rather than a parent and.
Speaker 5: Son or a boyfriend girlfriend. Actually they had an apartment
Speaker 5: together and they both wore black all black, black fingernails,
Speaker 5: black clothes, everything dyed their hair dark black, and they
Speaker 5: walked around together in the parking lot holding hands and stuff.
Speaker 5: And when they moved out of the apartment, they found
Speaker 5: a pentagram painted on the floor in her bedroom. So
Speaker 5: she was into this vampire thing too, But then she
Speaker 5: would Rod became a real problem at school, was a
Speaker 5: real discipline problem, and wasn't doing his work and so on.
Speaker 5: And she went and told the officials there in Kentucky
Speaker 5: that Rod had threat that the members of this vampire
Speaker 5: cult had threatened her, that this rival cult leader had
Speaker 5: raped her during an orgy. So it was really just
Speaker 5: the craziest sounding story you could ever imagine.
Speaker 7: This is his mother. So now you talked about this
Speaker 7: grand jury being convened, But you also write in this
Speaker 7: book about writing a letter to Rod Ferrell in December.
Speaker 7: So tell us which which happened first, and tell us
Speaker 7: about that.
Speaker 5: Well, the the letter came first. As soon as they
Speaker 5: brought him back to Florida. I sent a letter to
Speaker 5: the jail through the jail and asked him for an interview.
Speaker 5: It's kind of the standard thing in a big case
Speaker 5: where I say, look, we're getting all our information from
Speaker 5: the police, you know, we want to hear your side
Speaker 5: of the story. So then it was before I had
Speaker 5: a cell phone, and I left the office finally, and
Speaker 5: he called, and the editor sent two other people to
Speaker 5: interview him. Well, in this interview, he claims to have
Speaker 5: had multiple personalities. He didn't know what he was like,
Speaker 5: he could remember anything and all this crazy stuff. And
Speaker 5: he blames this rival gang, rival vampire group, I should say,
Speaker 5: for it, and they set him up and that at
Speaker 5: one time he tells a story about how Scott Anderson
Speaker 5: had borrowed his boots and then went into the house
Speaker 5: and then came driving up on the ford ex floor
Speaker 5: all this crazy stuff that you know. And then when
Speaker 5: the police saw the story in the paper, the headline
Speaker 5: was Interview with a Vampire because that movie based on
Speaker 5: the Nrice book who had come out, So that was
Speaker 5: big headline. The police were like, the first I've heard
Speaker 5: of this kind of multiple personalities and all this sort
Speaker 5: of thing. And I interviewed psychologists and they said, that
Speaker 5: is so rare, this associative disorder that wouldn't even know
Speaker 5: for sure if it's real or not. Such a condition
Speaker 5: even exists, and so it was like a major deal.
Speaker 5: And one of the prosecutors joked, he says, well, I
Speaker 5: don't care which personality we have in jail as long
Speaker 5: as he's in jail. It's kind of funny. But it was.
Speaker 5: It was a big deal, and this.
Speaker 7: Was this was big news where you were, obviously, and
Speaker 7: for the Sentinel in Orlando. But how big had this
Speaker 7: story gotten once the word was out about the details
Speaker 7: and the age, Well, it was people.
Speaker 5: It was international news. I mean it was headlines in
Speaker 5: Great Britain and Germany and all over Europe. Eventually when
Speaker 5: the trial was held there was a German TV crew
Speaker 5: there and so on. So it was it was big news.
Speaker 5: And I was on the radio every night with the
Speaker 5: United Kingdom radio shows talking about it because they were
Speaker 5: interested in it. So it was a big deal.
Speaker 7: Tell us about the grand jury being convened.
Speaker 5: When was that, Well, there were two. They actually met twice.
Speaker 5: The first time they met, they indicted everybody but Heather,
Speaker 5: and the sheriff was not happy about that. Here, we
Speaker 5: didn't understand what that was all about.
Speaker 6: And so.
Speaker 5: Heather's defense attorney, court appointed lawyer, says, well, just don't
Speaker 5: everybody get it, you know, in an uproar. It's the process.
Speaker 5: We'll see what happens. Well, then this defense attorney's name
Speaker 5: is James Hope. He put Heather on the stand for
Speaker 5: the next grand jury and had her testify, No, I
Speaker 5: didn't know anything was going to happen to my parents.
Speaker 5: I didn't know they were going to be hurt. I
Speaker 5: was just going to run away all this stuff. So
Speaker 5: the grand jury believed her and came out with a
Speaker 5: statement that said, even though what she did was wrong,
Speaker 5: running away and so on, it wasn't criminal to be criminal.
Speaker 5: To be considered to be a criminal charge, you have
Speaker 5: to have knowingly participating in or helping and set this
Speaker 5: murder up, so she wasn't considered to be a principal,
Speaker 5: so they didn't charge her. And then the sheriff was
Speaker 5: really mad. Well, then the defensive team, the defense attorneys
Speaker 5: for the other kids, they were flipping out, going, well,
Speaker 5: we want to see the grand jury testimony. We want
Speaker 5: to see what she said. Well that's sealed, so they
Speaker 5: didn't get to see that. And then they were worried, well,
Speaker 5: is Heathery going to testify against my people? You know
Speaker 5: that kind of thing is It was a big turning point.
Speaker 7: One question, what was the reason why in the first
Speaker 7: grand jury, why they didn't invite it, didn't indict Heather
Speaker 7: And tell us about this note to her parents that
Speaker 7: was discovered.
Speaker 5: They found a note that she had scribbled out on
Speaker 5: a card and a little ceramic figure, one of those
Speaker 5: things that kids give their dad on Father's Day or whatever.
Speaker 5: And they said, and the statue says to the best
Speaker 5: dad ever or whatever, and she says she leaves this
Speaker 5: note for her parents and say, look, I'm running away.
Speaker 5: It's not you. I have to go because Janine has
Speaker 5: this new religion and I have to look out for
Speaker 5: her and I love you, don't look for us. Well,
Speaker 5: the defense attorney for Heather says, look, that's powerful evidence
Speaker 5: that she didn't intend for anything to happen. She didn't
Speaker 5: even know anything was going to happen to her parents. Okay,
Speaker 5: otherwise she wouldn't have left that that note. So that
Speaker 5: I think that made an impression on the first grand jury.
Speaker 5: And the other thing is this in a grand jury,
Speaker 5: it's a one sided affair. Only the prosecutor is the
Speaker 5: presenter's case. Okay, So the prosecutor, I think, for tactical reasons,
Speaker 5: didn't want to have Heather charged because then the other
Speaker 5: defense attorneys would be heaping the blame on her. They'd
Speaker 5: be like taking the focus off Rod and looking at her.
Speaker 5: So and he said all along, Brad King, he said, look,
Speaker 5: there's no evidence to support the fact that she ever
Speaker 5: was a principle or knew that her parents are going
Speaker 5: to be harm No evidence, so I'm not going to
Speaker 5: charge her. But that also helped his case.
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Speaker 7: this episode. Now, we talked about the second grand jury
Speaker 7: being convened and then having indictments as a result, and
Speaker 7: interestingly you told us the reason why for people that
Speaker 7: would be wondering why Heather was not charged despite the
Speaker 7: testimony or despite the the people claiming that she had
Speaker 7: mentioned this before as well. With that as well, we
Speaker 7: haven't mentioned that some of the details of after she
Speaker 7: found out that her parents had been murdered and her behavior.
Speaker 7: Can you tell us a little bit about what police
Speaker 7: found out about that, Well, they were.
Speaker 5: They were very curious about how she acted. Uh. Once
Speaker 5: once she learned that her parents were dead. One of
Speaker 5: this Shay Charity and this Dana Cooper were in the
Speaker 5: car or in this little buick that belonged to Anderson
Speaker 5: when they met up with the Ford Explorer with Scott
Speaker 5: and Rod in the car and then they they they
Speaker 5: stopped the cars and Shay got out and talk with
Speaker 5: Rod for a minute and she realized he was covered
Speaker 5: with blood and blood on him and he says, I
Speaker 5: don't want to I don't want Heather to see me
Speaker 5: like this. So Charity goes back to the Little Buck
Speaker 5: and they drive off, and Heather says, what happened? He
Speaker 5: killed my parents, didn't he didn't he? And finally Charity says, yeah,
Speaker 5: to be blunt, yeah he killed your parents. Well then
Speaker 5: she freaks out. Uh, Charity and Dana say, and and Heather.
Speaker 5: She's flailing around in the car, trying to jump out
Speaker 5: of the car and whatnot. They get to a point
Speaker 5: where they stop at both cars they switch license plates.
Speaker 5: That's what the cops saw, and then she says. Cooper says,
Speaker 5: it wasn't very long. Maybe the next day or so.
Speaker 5: She was laughing and cutting up and listening to the
Speaker 5: radio with everybody else, and the cops says, what.
Speaker 4: What do you?
Speaker 5: Wow? And you know, how long did that go on?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 5: So but sometimes Cooper said, she zoned out too, So
Speaker 5: it was like she was kind of back to normal
Speaker 5: kind of quickly. So that was something that were interested in.
Speaker 7: So tell us about this trial. The defense attorneys that
Speaker 7: line up for these perpetrators as well.
Speaker 5: Well, they decided to just try rod By himself. That
Speaker 5: was going to be the first case they listened to,
Speaker 5: and so they have this mammoth trial all set up,
Speaker 5: They pick a jury, they have jury questionnaires, they say,
Speaker 5: out a thousand jury questionnaires, all these questions on there there,
Speaker 5: and meanwhile the defense attorneys are like filing motion like crazy,
Speaker 5: like we need to change a venue, we need this
Speaker 5: is not fair, too much publicity, all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 5: And they're trying to seal all these records. But meanwhile
Speaker 5: they're trying to subpoenat all of our notes and everything else,
Speaker 5: you know, including the interview with the vampire. Everything, right,
Speaker 5: So it's it gets to be a real heated kind
Speaker 5: of battle. And the trial judge and another judge also
Speaker 5: keep ruling on these things. Well okay, well we're not
Speaker 5: going to. At one point, the defense from me says
Speaker 5: we should we should even seal or ban people from
Speaker 5: going to the trial, and the sentinel just lit up.
Speaker 5: I mean, they said, are you crazy. This isn't communist
Speaker 5: Cuba here, you know, this is nuts. So the judge says,
Speaker 5: look here, we'll have a big jury pool. You know,
Speaker 5: I'll think about sequestering the jury. I'll think about it.
Speaker 5: I'll think about you know, these kind of things, but
Speaker 5: we're not going to you know, stop the world from
Speaker 5: witnessing this trial. So that was what that was all about.
Speaker 5: And so they get ready to have the trial, and
Speaker 5: finally they pick a jury, and so then the defense
Speaker 5: of the rather the prosecutors, making his opening remarks. It
Speaker 5: just started, and the defense attorney, one of the defense
Speaker 5: attorneys says, your honor, Rod wants to make a change.
Speaker 5: So the judge ordered everybody out of the courtroom, and
Speaker 5: so then we're all in the hallway and so we're
Speaker 5: all We've got the prosecutor pressed up against the wall
Speaker 5: saying what's going on. Did you offer a deal? He says, no,
Speaker 5: I didn't offer a deal. I don't want one. Well,
Speaker 5: then after a few hours we'd go back in there
Speaker 5: and there's Rod standing up at the podium pleading guilty.
Speaker 5: He's pleading guilty to the guilt phase, they call it,
Speaker 5: in hopes of avoiding the death penalty. He's hoping. The
Speaker 5: defense attorneys say, look, we're in a mess here. We
Speaker 5: got the judges allowing the confession to come in. We've
Speaker 5: got these gruesome photos, we've got all this stuff. You know,
Speaker 5: it's too much to overcome. Maybe if he pleads guilty,
Speaker 5: the judge will just you know, send them to life
Speaker 5: in prison. He's only sixteen when he committed the crime,
Speaker 5: and the cutoff in those days I think was fifteen.
Speaker 7: So but the.
Speaker 5: Prosecutors say, nope, and we're going to go ahead with it.
Speaker 5: I want the death penalty. So that was a big surprise.
Speaker 5: M So.
Speaker 7: How does his defense attorney address this?
Speaker 5: Well? What now in the death penalty phase, you're allowed
Speaker 5: to present all these mitigation experts in this case, psychologists
Speaker 5: and so on. Well, now the focus early on and
Speaker 5: before the first grand jury, the defense attorney and the
Speaker 5: prosecutors put out a pressure release saying this case has
Speaker 5: nothing to do with vamporism. Okay, well, now we're in
Speaker 5: the trial and everything is about vamporism. Everything. He's got
Speaker 5: a terrible childhood, he was abused as a child. He's
Speaker 5: got all these mental illnesses as a result of all
Speaker 5: this terrible upbringing. Now all these psychologists are testifying on
Speaker 5: his behalf, and the prosecutor is well prepared. He's a
Speaker 5: veteran prosecutor, been in office for a long time, and
Speaker 5: he's like questioning all these psychologists and questioning their opinions
Speaker 5: of what they figure is wrong with him. All the
Speaker 5: disorders and so on. He's like picking them apart.
Speaker 7: In this as well. They did the investigation as well
Speaker 7: as they could, speaking to his mother, Sondra, and his
Speaker 7: bio father, even about his his actual background. Of course,
Speaker 7: they always look for something like a concussion or something
Speaker 7: like that's some organic brain injury, but what was the
Speaker 7: actual background and any contact with psychiatrists.
Speaker 5: Well, he the defense claimed that he had encephalitis as
Speaker 5: a child and that he was born with a cord
Speaker 5: around his neck. Well, the prosecutor picked that apart too,
Speaker 5: because there's no he says, there's no medical record of that.
Speaker 5: You know, there's none. There's no no record of it
Speaker 5: at all. So that went down. And then the most
Speaker 5: compelling testimony was from this the psychologist one in particular,
Speaker 5: who said, you know, it's like he's not able to
Speaker 5: process all this information properly because his brain is still
Speaker 5: being formed, and look what his environment is. It's just crazy.
Speaker 5: It's like he's not able to emotionally process this information
Speaker 5: like a normal person. And it was, I mean, she
Speaker 5: did a good job, it was it was compelling. And
Speaker 5: then one of the defense psychologists had interviewed seven hundred
Speaker 5: murder suspects and he said, this is the most dysfunctional
Speaker 5: family I've ever seen. So there was no they couldn't
Speaker 5: prove any organic brain damage, nothing like that. And of
Speaker 5: course they hadn't done MRIs and all that sort of
Speaker 5: thing back in those days either, but they had no
Speaker 5: evidence of that, so that they were going up against
Speaker 5: it against it. There.
Speaker 7: He also had his mom, Sondra, testify, and I don't
Speaker 7: know if she was good enough, but she was there
Speaker 7: to help her son, I guess, and that they talked
Speaker 7: about her prostitution and her jobs and her behavior while
Speaker 7: he was growing up, didn't they.
Speaker 5: Yes, that was like the object there was to show
Speaker 5: the jurors in the defense opinion, this woman is Look
Speaker 5: at her. She's not a good mother. I mean, she's
Speaker 5: got all these terrible things going on into life, so
Speaker 5: she's obviously she's failed Rod. And of course then as
Speaker 5: much as possible, this is interesting too, they didn't the
Speaker 5: prosecutors didn't put Heather on the stand, so they couldn't
Speaker 5: the defense couldn't cross examine her. And then when they
Speaker 5: interviewed the biological dad, who hadn't seen his sone for years,
Speaker 5: the dad didn't even look at Rod, didn't even look
Speaker 5: at him, and so it was like, uh, you know what,
Speaker 5: even the most cold hearted of us I felt sorry
Speaker 5: for on that day. You know what I'm saying. That
Speaker 5: was just like the kid had two strikes against him.
Speaker 5: Really no, he knew right wrong.
Speaker 7: But you know, despite the three psychologists and these expert
Speaker 7: testimony to say that Rod had this troubled life, certainly
Speaker 7: claimed that he was abused, so that they put that
Speaker 7: in there as well. Then they documented or claimed about
Speaker 7: talked about the substance abuse that he certainly engaged in.
Speaker 7: But what was their overall diagnosis to try to explain this,
Speaker 7: They called.
Speaker 5: It schizo typal disorder. It's just like schizophrenia in a way,
Speaker 5: but he's like a delusional delusional ideas. And yes, he
Speaker 5: was like overloaded all all kinds of drugs. Anything he'd
Speaker 5: get his hands on, he was taking it, you know, LSD, marijuana,
Speaker 5: just any prozac. Overdosing on pro on prozac. I don't
Speaker 5: know what that does to you, all kinds of things.
Speaker 5: So and then he also claimed that he was drunk
Speaker 5: at the time, you know, when he did this murder.
Speaker 5: So so there was all that going on. So all
Speaker 5: that stuff had had an impact and the and there
Speaker 5: was also a lot of physical evidence that they found DNA.
Speaker 5: He found his DNA on on the victims. Also, his
Speaker 5: boot marks were a straddle the poor Ruth Queen as
Speaker 5: he bludgeoned her to death. And of course his own words.
Speaker 5: They played the video. That was the other thing they
Speaker 5: put The judge allowed the jurors to hear this video
Speaker 5: of his confession. Right, that was it, right there. I'm
Speaker 5: on the jurors. Some of them looked at him, like
Speaker 5: glared at him during that, like, oh my god, you know,
Speaker 5: it was just like unbelievable.
Speaker 7: And you write that they also had DNA under Ruth
Speaker 7: Queen's nails, fingernails, Yeah, and a bloody footprint.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the blood under the fingernails. The way I put
Speaker 5: it in the book was it's ironic that the vampire
Speaker 5: wouldn't be the victim pointed to her killer with his blood,
Speaker 5: because that's what happened.
Speaker 7: There was a there wasn't an egregious lie that was
Speaker 7: proven in this case as well. Regarding the mother, you
Speaker 7: write that he looked like he stood over her and
Speaker 7: beat her to death, but there was, as he said
Speaker 7: in the confession, a reason why he did that. It
Speaker 7: was prompted by her behavior. Tell us about that interaction
Speaker 7: and the what he claimed was a scratch on the face.
Speaker 5: Well, what happened was after he this is what happened.
Speaker 5: He and Anderson went into the house and the dad
Speaker 5: was asleep on the couch. So they had this They
Speaker 5: had picked up this crowbar and the dad was asleep.
Speaker 5: And Rod later admitted doing this. He like, he and
Speaker 5: Anderson danced around the sleeping man, and like would lower
Speaker 5: the crowbar near his head for a few minutes, and
Speaker 5: then you know, raise it up again. And finally, he said,
Speaker 5: there was some kind of voice in his head saying,
Speaker 5: don't do this is wrong, This could be a bad thing.
Speaker 5: And then he says, oh the heck with it in
Speaker 5: so many words, and then crashed his crowbar down on
Speaker 5: his head, so that man never knew what hitting. Then
Speaker 5: he was scrawning. They were scrunging around looking for money,
Speaker 5: or the keys to the car, in a credit card,
Speaker 5: anything like that they could get their hands on. And
Speaker 5: the mom who had been in the bedroom taking a
Speaker 5: shower the master bedroom area, she comes out. She's got
Speaker 5: a cup of coffee in her hands, and she says,
Speaker 5: what do you want you know, she's alarmed, you know,
Speaker 5: and then he says basically standing there with a bloody
Speaker 5: crowbar and he then he attacks her and she is
Speaker 5: reaching up. First of all, she throws the coffee on him,
Speaker 5: hot coffee, and that may seem furious. And then he's
Speaker 5: like beating her, beating her, and she's like reaching up
Speaker 5: and fighting him, and she digs her claws, her claws,
Speaker 5: her fingernails into his cheek and that's how she gets
Speaker 5: the DNA under her fingernails. I f autumn.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yes, Now you say that this decision is unanimous.
Speaker 7: What was the decision unanimous regarding three.
Speaker 5: Recommending the death penalty, which is now the law. The
Speaker 5: law has changed. Used to be it was a jury recommendation.
Speaker 5: You could have seven to five in theory and for
Speaker 5: death finality, and they could a judge could impose it.
Speaker 5: But the closer it was the seven and five, that
Speaker 5: more unlikely it was going to be rendered. But this
Speaker 5: was unanimous, So that was interesting. But what's happened with
Speaker 5: the law is the Supreme Court later well for the
Speaker 5: Supreme Court later ruled that sixteen year olds can't be executed.
Speaker 5: But now the Supreme Court has come out later and said, well, no,
Speaker 5: you can't even impose a mandatory life sentence on a
Speaker 5: juvenile without a a certain hearing talking about their background
Speaker 5: and give extra consideration to family environment and that kind
Speaker 5: of thing. But at the time it was yeah, okay,
Speaker 5: you got your sentence to death.
Speaker 7: Interesting, there was a surprise on February twenty seventh, just
Speaker 7: four days later from Judge Lockett. This is very very interesting.
Speaker 7: What did he have to say regarding the enviolment of Heather.
Speaker 5: After his sentences, Well, actually, right before he sentences Heather,
Speaker 5: he says, look, it's the considered opinion of this court
Speaker 5: that the prosecutor, the duly elected prosecutor state attorney, should
Speaker 5: hold another grand jury to look at Heather because a
Speaker 5: lot of people have questions about her possible involvement. It
Speaker 5: was she involved or not? That kind of thing. Well,
Speaker 5: that was a bombshell. Nobody was expecting that. Judge Lockett
Speaker 5: was an interesting character. He liked to make case law,
Speaker 5: he liked to be very controversial in a lot of ways.
Speaker 5: He's a former public defender. But they called him lock
Speaker 5: him up Lockett. He was he could be very severe,
Speaker 5: but he wanted another grand jury. Well, of course, brad King,
Speaker 5: the prosecutor, was upset. He says, nobody could believe anything
Speaker 5: that brod says, there's no evidence to support Heather being involved.
Speaker 5: So at first he said no, we're not going to
Speaker 5: do it. But then he says, okay, all right, we'll
Speaker 5: do it. We'll have another grand jury. And what happened,
Speaker 5: And what happened was the grand jury again says no,
Speaker 5: it might have been wrong what she did, running away
Speaker 5: and so on, but she not guilty of murder.
Speaker 7: So that was that you write about that Heather, and
Speaker 7: you met with Aphrodite Jones or Afroderdie Jones was meeting
Speaker 7: with Heather August thirteenth, nineteen ninety eight. Tell us about
Speaker 7: this interaction.
Speaker 5: Yes, Heather had agreed to talk with me. And this
Speaker 5: is after the two girls in the cult had been
Speaker 5: sentenced Charity for ten and a half years and Dana
Speaker 5: for seventeen and a half years. Took they pleaded out
Speaker 5: to a lesser charge than principal and murder first degree.
Speaker 5: So she says they shouldn't even have been sentenced. You know,
Speaker 5: they didn't know any more than me. That's what her
Speaker 5: take was. So that was interesting. Then she says, look,
Speaker 5: I wish I had never known Rod. I wish I
Speaker 5: had never had anything to do with him. I didn't
Speaker 5: know he was going to kill my parents, all this,
Speaker 5: all this sort of thing. So that's that was her
Speaker 5: take on the whole deal. And then she says, well,
Speaker 5: you know, I write in the book about they find
Speaker 5: all these She's a very artistic girl, very smart, and
Speaker 5: so she would write prose and poetry, and she would
Speaker 5: create all these drawings and ceramic gargoyles and all this
Speaker 5: sort of thing.
Speaker 6: So she.
Speaker 5: You know, you read these things and it's very Some
Speaker 5: of this stuff is very disturbing. It talks about she
Speaker 5: writes that sometimes I feel like I'm a hideous monster.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm nice on one day and the next minute,
Speaker 5: I'm like this hideous monster. And she has talked about
Speaker 5: all these dreams about sinking things into people and all
Speaker 5: this kind of stuff, and it's it's very upsetting just
Speaker 5: to read this stuff. So I don't, you know, she
Speaker 5: says she didn't know her parents were going to be harmed.
Speaker 5: She was just going to run away. You get the
Speaker 5: idea that she was just I don't know, I don't
Speaker 5: want to say this, but sort of a spoiled brat.
Speaker 5: You know, my parents would tell me to behave and
Speaker 5: do all these things I don't want to do. You know,
Speaker 5: I just don't want to do it. I want to
Speaker 5: run away and do my own thing. I think that's
Speaker 5: basically the bottom line. But she had the problem was
Speaker 5: she used her imagination to imagine and talk about what
Speaker 5: if her parents were dead, and she talked to the
Speaker 5: wrong guy. That's for sure.
Speaker 7: In other states, and I won't even mention, well, I
Speaker 7: will mention that in Canada, these kids, well, these young
Speaker 7: people would have not one of them would have received
Speaker 7: more than well the twenty year rowd will be exempt
Speaker 7: from that, but everybody under eighteen years of age would
Speaker 7: have received no more than three years custody for these crimes,
Speaker 7: for this crime period. Right, absolutely, in other states, and
Speaker 7: just like countries like Canada and other countries that say
Speaker 7: Australia and England where it wouldn't have a death penalty,
Speaker 7: I believe, what do you think about the idea that
Speaker 7: these kids didn't couldn't separate fantasy from reality, or at
Speaker 7: least their age had something to do with this incredible,
Speaker 7: these incredible murders.
Speaker 5: Well, here's the thing, So I mentioned the Supreme Court.
Speaker 5: They keep changing the goal post. So in twenty twelve
Speaker 5: they had a case called Miller versus Alabama where they said,
Speaker 5: you know what, kids, people's brains don't stop performing until
Speaker 5: they're twenty five, so they should get another chance. So
Speaker 5: Rod gets another shot. He gets rehearing in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 5: and so does Scott. Scott gets his life sentence. He
Speaker 5: pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalties. He gets life.
Speaker 5: So he goes through here's resentencing. He gets forty years.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 5: Rod gets his chance, and they again, there's a whole
Speaker 5: platoon of psychologists and talking about his childhood and all
Speaker 5: these drugs he'd taken and how his brain was still
Speaker 5: being formed and meanwhile it was all being changed chemically
Speaker 5: by all these drugs and all this environment and all
Speaker 5: this sort of thing. So this goes on for several
Speaker 5: days and Rod gets over there and he says, I'm changed.
Speaker 5: I'm so sorry. He apologizes from the stand. He says,
Speaker 5: I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't realize the consequences
Speaker 5: what I was doing, and all this sort of thing.
Speaker 5: And then he has this woman testify that she's his fiancee.
Speaker 5: Now you know, visiting him in prison, and everybody's saying, well,
Speaker 5: he deserves a second chance and all this. So, but
Speaker 5: then Jennifer gets on the stand and says, no, no,
Speaker 5: don't ever let this guy come go because I'm afraid.
Speaker 5: I'm afraid if he gets out, he'll kill me and
Speaker 5: my family, my kids and stuff. And the judge is
Speaker 5: listening to all this, he listens to all the testimony,
Speaker 5: and then the judge writes up this fifty five page
Speaker 5: sentencing memo and says, you know, because he is an
Speaker 5: habitual liar, because I don't see any evidence, good evidence
Speaker 5: that he's rehabilitated and so on. No, he's going to
Speaker 5: stay in prison life. So I think I think that's
Speaker 5: the correct ruling for Rod. And I think that's maybe Scott.
Speaker 5: Scott was a follower. What he did was wrong, No
Speaker 5: doubt he needs to be. His situation is different than Rod's.
Speaker 5: Scott didn't hit anybody with a crowbar. He was a follower.
Speaker 5: You know, you see what I'm going with this. But Rod,
Speaker 5: he even though he apologized from the stand, you can't
Speaker 5: ever one hundred percent say, well, maybe he's gaming us now,
Speaker 5: maybe he's lying to us. Now, All this sort of thing.
Speaker 5: So it's I think he's where he needs to be.
Speaker 5: But now, of course he's appealed that, and so this
Speaker 5: appeal process will go on forever. So I don't I
Speaker 5: don't know that one size fits all. Maybe the Supreme
Speaker 5: Court's got it right there, But in Rod's case, it
Speaker 5: seems to be the right thing to do, just.
Speaker 7: To any credibility or credence to what he had said
Speaker 7: about being a change man. What's his behavior been like
Speaker 7: in prison.
Speaker 5: Well, it's been pretty good according to the prison records.
Speaker 5: But here's the thing. I've found something else I've seen too.
Speaker 5: One of the defensive witnesses in his rehearing was a
Speaker 5: retired warden Okay, and he's like, oh, well, you had
Speaker 5: this minor brush here, minor brush there, you know, no
Speaker 5: big deal. And then the state had a psychologist who
Speaker 5: was refuting some of the stuff that the defense psychologists
Speaker 5: were seeing. Well, lo and behold, they introduced this one
Speaker 5: thing where Rod supposedly tips one of the guards in
Speaker 5: his prison that another inmate is going to kill a guard,
Speaker 5: a female guard that he had this affair with. So
Speaker 5: they bring that up at their rehearing. Well, so I
Speaker 5: contacted the Department of Corrections for the Department Corrections and
Speaker 5: say what about this, And there's a record they present
Speaker 5: in court where yeah, a Rod hit this guard and
Speaker 5: they found this homemade knife and all this sort of thing.
Speaker 5: But then I contact the DC and they said, well,
Speaker 5: we don't have any record of that of Rod doing this,
Speaker 5: but he said he did. And this woman that's mentioned
Speaker 5: in this earlier report, she's at a different prison and
Speaker 5: it gets fired for different reasons. So and the prosecutors
Speaker 5: are never never able to verify this thing. So did
Speaker 5: it really happen like that or not? You know, it's
Speaker 5: more mystery.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean, he had all kinds of girlfriends and they
Speaker 5: would get in trouble and for kissing him inside the
Speaker 5: prison walls and all kinds of stuff. So it's really changed.
Speaker 5: Only God knows for sure, you know. But this crime
Speaker 5: was just so horrific. I mean, the crime scene was
Speaker 5: just god awful, and he just had no remorse.
Speaker 7: It's interesting the power he seemed to have over these teens.
Speaker 7: And it's interesting what you write too, that Charity Kesey
Speaker 7: was reportedly found to be drinking blood from another inmate
Speaker 7: in prison. I thought that was.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I put a chapter in there. It is
Speaker 5: I put a chapter in there talking about Charles Manson
Speaker 5: because one of the defense attorneys in Baton Rouge says,
Speaker 5: this is not the Manson case, but I got to
Speaker 5: look in at the Manson case, and there are a
Speaker 5: lot of similarities in the way these characters form these cults.
Speaker 5: They have this sort of magnetic personality. They preach this
Speaker 5: sort of doctrine that sounds weird when you first hear it,
Speaker 5: but I guess if you're of that like mind, come
Speaker 5: from dysfunctional family background, all that sort of thing, they
Speaker 5: all kind of adapted it, adopted it, and so it
Speaker 5: kind of makes sense to them. And they talk about
Speaker 5: the dynamics of a cult in their a lot of
Speaker 5: similarities Charles.
Speaker 7: Manson interesting interesting ess when you talk about too, that
Speaker 7: he claimed to have superpowers and be five hundred years old,
Speaker 7: and some of the teens said that while we didn't
Speaker 7: believe everything he said, but there was a certain amount
Speaker 7: of belief that they had in his system that they
Speaker 7: would gain powers and this crossing over and becoming vampires.
Speaker 7: And like the one girl said, you know, I didn't
Speaker 7: even have any friends.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 7: My only visitors were my parents. But suddenly when I
Speaker 7: crossed over and became part of this group, suddenly had
Speaker 7: people caring about me and seeing what I was up to.
Speaker 7: So very very interesting.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I think they were I don't wanst say,
Speaker 5: I don't want to be unkind, but they were like losers,
Speaker 5: you know, they weren't. They were from dysfunctional families, and
Speaker 5: they they forefound each other. They kind of bonded together,
Speaker 5: and I think they wanted power because they had no power.
Speaker 5: They had nothing, They had no power, and of course,
Speaker 5: when you're a kid and you're trying to find your
Speaker 5: own identity anyway, you're just ripe for anything, I guess.
Speaker 7: Yeah. Unfortunately, when you talk about dysfunction, Heather and her
Speaker 7: sister came from what seemed like a loving family from
Speaker 7: all reports, from a loving family, and then she had
Speaker 7: a good relationship according to her and everyone, with her parents.
Speaker 7: Sure there was some issues, but it's a very very
Speaker 7: sad in tragic story and a senseless, senseless murder certainly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, that's a strange thing. So, like I said,
Speaker 5: she's an artiste. She wore outlandish clothes, she had a
Speaker 5: barbie doll she hung off the back of her backpack
Speaker 5: with a noose, and she was just like to fantasize.
Speaker 5: She got really wrapped up with this whole fantasy idea
Speaker 5: of being a vampire. And Rod said one time, well,
Speaker 5: who would want to be a vampire staff all night
Speaker 5: and do whatever you want to do? So I think
Speaker 5: there's there was some appeal. And of course I talk
Speaker 5: about pop culture too in this book, about how Anne
Speaker 5: Riis's books and the movies were very popular, and so
Speaker 5: there's a lot of pop culture going on influence too.
Speaker 7: Certainly, certainly, I want to thank you very much Frank
Speaker 7: Stafew for coming on and talking about Cold Blooded, a
Speaker 7: true crime story of a murderous teenage vampire cult. It
Speaker 7: has been fascinating for those that might want to take
Speaker 7: a look at this. I know this was a Wild
Speaker 7: Blue Press release, but also tell us about your website.
Speaker 5: It's Frank E. Stanfield dot com. So and I do
Speaker 5: some blogging. I'm still writing for the newspaper, a local newspaper,
Speaker 5: so I keep pretty busy. But it's I like to
Speaker 5: talk about writing. I like to talk about other things too.
Speaker 5: It's just, uh, I got the writing, I got ink
Speaker 5: in my blood. I can't get it out. So that's
Speaker 5: doesn't want to keep on doing it.
Speaker 7: Well. Thanks, we're all thankful that you do. Thank you
Speaker 7: very much Frank Stanfield for coming on and talking about
Speaker 7: cold Blood at a true crime story. I'm a murderous
Speaker 7: teenage vampire cult. Thank you very much. Frank, you have
Speaker 7: a great evening. Good night.
Speaker 5: Thank you.