Rod Ferrell “Vesago”: King Of The Vampires And Slayer Of Men

A Tragic Case Where Teenage Fantasy Blurs The Line Of Reality

Content Warning: This episode briefly mentions topics surrounding animal cruelty, the reader’s discretion is advised.

There Ferrell, 16, and Howard Scott Anderson, 17, went in, and beat her parents to death with a crowbar, reported the Orlando Sentinel. The father, Richard, sustained 22 hits in the face, and nine unexplained burns, and the mother was struck once in the face, and 20 times around her head, by blows so severe they broke her brain stem. She also sustained burns.

The senseless acts of violence committed by Rod Ferrell’s Vampire Clan

17-year-old Jennifer Wendorf’s life was completely changed on 25 November 1996, when she walked into her apartment and found her parents, 49-year-old Richard “Rick” Wendorf and 54-year-old Naomi “Ruth” Queen dead, their bodies were bludgeoned and blood covered the floor and furniture.

Fear, confusion, and despair gripped her teenage mind as she fumbled for the phone with tears in her eyes trying desperately to remember the numbers for the police hotline. Suddenly, a terrifying question crossed her mind that made her freeze in place, where the hell was her little sister?

15-year-old Heather Wendorf was thankfully safe, you see while Jennifer was dealing with the death of their parents, Heather was in a car with her ‘friends’ on the other side of town speeding down the streets and trying to make it to the next county as quickly as possible. The teens were panicking, screaming, shouting, and talking over each other.

Heather and her friends were not your typical rebellious teenagers trying to stick the finger to the man, they were a group of vampire wannabes, or as they call themselves a vampiric clan.

Seating in the driver seat was their Sire Rod Ferrell better known as “Vesago” and he had just broken one of the vampire’s most sacred rules, never kill a mortal.

Earlier that night he had taken the lives of Heather and Jennifer’s parents and if you were to believe his story, he did it all for his vampire queen, Heather Wendorf.

In the dead of the night when all seems quiet and you think you’re safe that’s when evil comes out to play.

Criminal File investigates, Case #14 — The Kentucky Vampire Clan Murders

Roderick Justin “Rod” Ferrell’s Early Childhood

Roderick Justin Ferrell better known as Rod Ferrell was born on 28 March 1980 in Murray, Kentucky. Ferrell did not have an easy childhood growing up. His parents were still in high school when Ferrell was born and his father left shortly after he was born to serve in the military leaving him in the care of his then-16-year-old mother Sandra Gibson.

Gibson suffered greatly trying to raise Ferrell on her own. Not much is known about Gibson’s family but official court documents showed that Ferrell’s maternal grandfather, Harold Gibson sexually abused him when he was still a child though criminal charges were never filed against him.

Gibson had no choice but to raise Ferrell by herself without any support and had to resort to occasional sex work just to afford food for the family. She was constantly in and out of relationships following her divorce from Ferrell’s father and even went on to have several failed marriages afterward. In one of Ferrell’s school essays, he described how much he loved and appreciated his mother despite her anger issues.

Sadly Sandra Gibson was not the best of influences for her son, due to her constant on and off again relationships, Ferrell was forced to uproot and move together with his mother whenever she had a new partner from a different state effectively preventing him from making any form of meaningful friendship. Gibson was reportedly caught writing a questionable letter to a 14-year-old boy when she was 34.

”I longed to be near you, for your embrace.” “Yes . . . to become a vampire, a part of the family, immortal and truly yours forever. I only hope that one day you will once again return to Murray. You will then come for me and cross me over. And I will be your bride for eternity and you my sire.”

Sandra Gibson’s letter to the boy.

An Unhealthy Obsession With Vampires And The Occult

Gibson introduced her son to one of her favorite hobbies, a tabletop game centered around vampires called The Masquerade where players assume the role of a vampire and deal with threats such as their hunger level and vampire hunters.

Ferrell quickly becomes obsessed with the game in which he plays the role of an ancient vampire lord named Vesago and gradually begins to assume the persona of Vesago as his own and firmly believes that he is a 500-year-old vampire.

As he got older, he started drifting from his mother and spent most of his time acting out scenes from his vampire fantasies, when he is not busy playing Masquerade he is binge-watching vampire movies and reading novels about vampiric lore.

It wouldn’t take long for him to take his fantasy outside of his house and begin hunting the neighborhood cats with makeshift weapons that he made.

One night, Gibson witnessed her son cutting himself with a razor blade from his lower stomach to his neck, and when questioned, Ferrell responded coldly by saying he wanted to see what blood would look like on his skin.

Gibson was horrified and soon after she found contraband such as drugs in her son’s bedroom. Ferrell began decorating his room with metal hooks and various weapons. Try as she might, Ferrell was unwilling to listen to her pleas for him to stop, and soon after Ferrell ran away and stayed at one of his friends, Jaden’s.

Kindred Spirit

Jaden Stephen Murphy was also deeply obsessed with vampirism and was already leading a pack of teenage vampire wannabes in his high school in Kentucky.

When Ferrell transferred to the school, Murphy’s vampires saw him as a threat and viewed his arrival as an open declaration of war for territory. But it wouldn’t take long for the two alpha vampires to see their similarities and put aside their differences.

Murphy took Ferrell under his wings and invited him to become an official member of his vampiric clan through an occult ceremony known as the crossing. Ferrell was invited to the clan’s ‘hideout’ in an unnamed Salem cemetery and there he was brought to a single tree that stood in the middle of the land.

According to the vampiric clan, the tree held special ceremonial powers and was the site of many crossovers. Murphy and Ferrell then proceeded to cut open each other’s arms and drink each other’s blood thus completing Ferrell’s transformation into a vampire.

There were three iron-clad rules that Ferrell had to abide by as a new vampire or risk exile from the clan. One, he was to swear his eternal loyalty to the clan, two, he must always put the needs of the clan above his own and three, he must never take a mortal’s life for the clan views a human’s life as sacred.

Warning: The following section briefly talks about animal cruelty, please skip it if you’re not comfortable with the subject.

Family No More

Murphy’s vampiric clan grew in numbers and it wouldn’t take long for the religious neighborhood of Murray, Kentucky to shun the group of outcasts and condemn them for their rituals involving sex and blood.

The clan dressed in all black and wore upside-down crosses to spite the neighborhood. If you’re unfamiliar with the small town of Murray, it is a region heavily influenced by the Protestant religion and there is one church for every 300 residents there hence Murphy, Ferrell and their group of misfits stood out like sore thumbs.

While Ferrell was enjoying his life of misdeeds and deviancy, he was slowly getting tired of Murphy’s many rules. In Ferrell’s eyes, he viewed his leader Murphy as a weakling for refusing to hurt the ‘living’.

Once, while the clan was walking past a trailer park Ferrell saw a kitten and proceeded to pet it, the kitten was startled by him and clawed Ferrell on his arm as a means of self-defense. In a fit of rage, Ferrell slammed the kitten to the ground and proceeded to inhumanely whip the poor creature against a tree effectively breaking its spinal cord. Murphy was horrified while Ferrell laughed in his face.

The breaking point in the pair’s relationship came when a group of unnamed intruders allegedly broke into a dog sanctuary releasing all the bigger dogs before proceeding to mutilate the smaller puppies.

The group proceeded to cover themselves in the blood from the puppies and drank portions of it. The town of Murray was outraged and the sheriff described the scene as looking like it was ravaged by a pack of wolves. The police naturally turned their suspicions onto the vampire clan with Ferrell being the prime suspect.

Murphy was irate by this as he had already warned Ferrell about abusing animals after the kitten incident so one night, he and one of his trusted friends, Bones, confronted Ferrell at his home. Murphy grabbed Ferrell by the throat pinning him against the side of the house until his face turned blue.

Ferrell’s mother Gibson witnessed the fight and screamed for Murphy to back away from her son to which Murphy retorted by saying her son was out of control. After the incident, Ferrell was banished from Murphy’s clan. Murphy was significantly larger than Ferrell which is why he was able to overpower him.

The Rise of The Ferrell Clan

After losing his fellow vampires, Ferrell’s behaviors grew even more erratic and he began relying heavily on drugs. He reached out to one of the vampires that he helped cross over in Murphy’s clan, Michael Schaffer, and together the pair started their own vampiric family.

Thanks to Ferrell’s surprisingly good sense of humor and charisma, he was able to attract other like-minded outcasts into his newfound family. The core members of the clan consisted of Ferrell himself, his right-hand man Howard Scott Anderson, Dana Cooper, Ferrell’s then-girlfriend Charity Keesee, and an integral member of today’s case, Heather Wendorf. We will get to her later.

Now it is unknown if there were other members in the clan as the information about them is rather limited and, as for Michael Schaffer he was determined by the police to be cleared of all suspicions in the later murders and was released. He even testified against Ferrell in the court.

Ferrell, Cooper, Anderson, Keesee, and Wendorf are the main suspects in the gruesome Wendorf Family murders and hence will be the main subjects of discussion for the rest of this article.

Heather Wendorf’s Cries For Help

Ferrell’s new family started as a place for its members to seek solace. Just like their leader, Anderson, Cooper, and Keesee did not have a good relationship with their family and saw Ferrell’s clan as a place of refuge. The members hung out and indulged in the occasional vampiric activities but none of them had any thoughts of actually causing harm.

But that was all about to change, you see, Ferrell had been in contact with one of his ex-girlfriends Heather Wendorf. Ferrell would listen to Heather on the phone talking for hours about how she was mistreated in her family and how she felt like an outcast.

Heather later shared with the media that she had racked up over $800 in phone bills during their calls.

Her parents, Naomi and Richard Wendorf were your typical Suburban parents and were generally known as the nicest family in the neighborhood. But sadly Heather doesn’t share the same sentiments, she claimed that her parents were biased toward her sister Jennifer as she was the ‘perfect’ daughter. Jennifer had the intellect, and the looks and was able to get a scholarship to Florida State University.

Heather on the other hand had a rebellious spirit and a tendency to get into trouble. She was known as a rebel in school and was obsessed with the occult. Heather’s parents didn’t know what to do with her and blamed Ferrell for their daughter’s temperament and odd behaviors.

The two met when Ferrell briefly relocated to Eustis, Florida as sophomores and they clicked almost immediately. Heather was attracted by Ferrell’s unique appearances and his carefree attitude towards life, they spent countless hours together in cemeteries late at night and would frequently sneak in and out of mausoleums.

Ferrell loved to brag about his collection of make-shift weapons to the dismay of Jennifer who once confronted him about the weapons to which Ferrell coldly responded by saying “You don’t see many cats around here do you?”.

Ferrell was later relocated by his mother again and relied on phone calls and subsequently letters to stay in contact with Heather, Heather found comfort in Ferrell as he could relate to his situation and enjoyed ranting about her family to him but unbeknownst to her, the wannabe vampire had more nefarious thoughts in his mind during their conversations.

A Sinister Plan was Brewing

Ferrell had always fantasized about saving the damsel in distress and had almost convinced himself that Heather was being abused both physically and sexually in her own home and that her parents needed to die for Heather to be free.

He decided that it was his calling to save Heather and with the police still trying to link him to the animal sanctuary tragedy, Ferrell decided that moving to Eustis was the best course of action. He convinced his fellow vampires to join him in the new town and they all packed their backs and hopped into Anderson’s car making their way to Florida.

It was later revealed that Michael Schaffer did not join the clan in Florida as he was sent to a treatment center for teens with behavioral problems.

When the clan reached Florida, Ferrell contacted Heather who told the group to meet outside of her parents’ home. Upon arriving, Ferrell split off from the rest of the gang and headed to a local cemetery with Heather and according to Anderson in later interviews, the pair spent about half an hour there.

No one knew what the two were up to during this period but Anderson speculated that they were devising a plan of sorts.

Ferrell later shared with the police that he made Heather take a blood oath to swear her allegiance to his clan by performing the crossover ceremony. The clan wanted to break into Heather’s home and steal their family car as Anderson’s vehicle was in bad shape.

Heather told them that the keys to her family’s Ford Explorer are kept in her parent’s bedroom so Ferrell told her to leave the garage door open for easy access later in the night.

The plan was simple, Anderson would keep a lookout while Ferrell stole the car, and the pair would go in and out without alerting anybody and make a clean getaway. But as we will soon see, Ferrell was about to deviate from his plans big time.

It is worth noting that Ferrell took some LSD before the big operation which police believed led to him spiralling out of control. LSD is a type of powerful hallucinogen that can alter one’s perception of reality.

The Horrible Massacre of The Wendorf Family

Heather’s parents were enjoying their evening after a long day of work and had no clue about the evil that their daughter was about to unleash in their home.

While Richard Wendorf was unwinding on his couch, Ferrell and Anderson were circling outside his house and snuck into the family garage which is connected to the side of the house. Ferrell immediately started looking around for weapons and settled on a crowbar after giving it a couple of practice swings.

At this point, the LSD started to kick in and he felt confident that he could bludgeon someone to death if he just swung hard enough. Ferrell told Anderson to subdue Heather’s mother Naomi before getting the keys while he would go and knock out Richard before they made their escape in the Ford Explorer.

The pair of vampires entered uninvited into the living room via the connecting door in the garage, the TV was blasting at max volume and Richard had no clue that intruders were in his home.

Upon seeing Richard, Ferrell paused for a moment before raising the crowbar high above Richard’s head and sending it down hard against the back of Richard’s head. Ferrell continued swinging without giving Richard any time to react and soon he was lying motionless on the couch covered in his blood.

Anderson watched in horror at the gruesome scene playing out in front of him, he later told police that at that moment, Ferrell looked possessed.

Anderson wasn’t prepared to see someone die that night, their plan was simply to subdue the parents before making their escape, he was scared shitless. Ferrell checked to see if Richard was still breathing before pushing Anderson aside, he saw Naomi in the kitchen holding a cup of coffee. Naomi was startled by Ferrell’s presence and instinctively threw the coffee at him before trying to run away.

Ferrell grabbed hold of Naomi who scratched him to no avail, he overpowered her and pushed the long end of the crowbar into her skull effectively killing her.

Ferrell then grabbed the keys to the Ford Explorer along with some of the family’s valuables before grabbing Anderson who still hasn’t moved an inch from where he was standing and rendezvoused with the rest of the clan. The girls watched in horror as Ferrell emerged from the garage soaked in blood and in response Ferrell simply smiled at them. The rest of the members told police later that Ferrell was laughing and screaming while driving away from the house.

Jennifer Wendorf’s Gruesome Discovery

Jennifer was out late past her curfew that night and wanted to sneak into her house to avoid waking up her parents. She slowly opened her front door and entered the dark living room, she saw her father sitting on the couch with the TV so she carefully made her way past him and into the kitchen. The minute she stepped into the kitchen she froze.

The floors and cabinets were all covered with floor and lying at the end of the blood trail was her mother’s lifeless body sprawled on the floor. Jennifer ran out to the living room, switched on the lights, and immediately noticed her dead father. She screamed and ran towards the telephone and dialed 911.

When the police arrived, they searched the gruesome scene for traces of evidence that might help in identifying the attackers. Jennifer became suspicious of the fact that Heather was conveniently missing and informed the police about the group of people that Heather usually hangs out with. Heather became a prime suspect almost immediately and police turned their attention to Ferrell and his clan.

The City Of Vampires

Police found an abandoned car in Seminole County, Florida, and matched the plates to Scott Anderson. The police now have the names of the members of the vampiric clan though they were still unsure where the group was headed.

Ferrell was trying to reassure his family that they just needed to make it to the city of New Orleans and they would be able to start fresh there without judgment. New Orleans has traditionally been linked to vampirism and is known as the city of vampires to those who practice vampirism. The city is to vampires what Salem is to witches.

Heather was sobbing throughout most of the car ride at the fact that her parents were dead but Anderson pointed out to the police that he couldn’t tell if she was faking it or if she was genuinely grieving. He had his suspicions that Heather and Ferrell had already planned for this during their meeting in the cemetery earlier on.

Ferrell changed his clothes at an unnamed gas station before throwing away his blood-soaked outfit, it is unknown if anyone had seen him at the time. They stocked up on food and supplies before making the long drive to New Orleans. The clan was stopped an astounding five times by police at various points in their road trip but Ferrell was able to talk his way out each time.

You see, the police knew that they were looking for a homicidal maniac and had assumed that the killer would look and sound deranged but Ferrell was calm and spoke with an assertive tone so the officers never suspected that he was the man they were looking for.

After getting stopped by the police for the fifth time, Ferrell grew increasingly paranoid and made the abrupt decision to take a detour to Baton Rouge, Louisiana and there he threw away the bloody crowbar that he kept into the Mississippi river.

The clan was running out of money and that was when one of the girls, Charity Keesee suggested that she could call her family for help. Ferrell allowed Keesee to call home to ask for money and her family agreed to meet the group at the Howard Johnson Motel in Baton Rouge for the drop-off.

End Of The Line For The Ferrell Clan

Unbeknownst to Ferrell, Keesee’s parents had been in contact with the police and they set up a sting operation on 28 November 1996 at the Howard Johnson Motel. When the clan arrived, the police immediately surrounded their vehicles with squad cars and forced them to surrender. The vampire wannabes were taken to a holding cell while waiting to be interrogated. Ferrell and Keesee didn’t appear worried at all and were caught on police surveillance making out in their cells.

During her interrogations, Heather denied having any knowledge about Ferrell’s plans to harm her parents. She claimed that she had forbidden Ferrell from going near her parents and instructed him to just take the car and leave. She told him repeatedly to leave her parents alive.

When it was Ferrell’s turn to be questioned, he told officers that he was simply in a dream and that he could wake up any time and all of these would be over. After further intensive questioning Ferrell eventually caved and confessed to everything, he said that he alone was responsible for masterminding the entire operation and killings and that the rest of his friends had no part in any of it.

He was hoping to take all the blame and that his friends would be spared.

At the time of the murders, most of the members in the clan were still only teenagers…

• Rod Ferrell was born on March 28 1980 and was only 16 years old at the time of the murders.
• Howard Scott Anderson was born on August 1 1979 and was only 17 years old at the time of the murders.
• Charity Keesee was born on October 4 1976 and was the oldest of the group, she was 20 years old at the time of the murders.
• Dana Cooper was born on January 9 1977 and was only 19 years old at the time of the murders.
• Heather Wendorf was born on January 26 1981 and was only 15 years old at the time of the murders.

The Trial of Rod Ferrell

On 12 February 1998, 17-year-old Rod Ferrell pleaded guilty to two counts of felony murder. Ferrell’s defense attorney tried to argue for a case of insanity claiming that Ferrell was diagnosed with mental disorders such as Asperger syndrome and schizotypal personality disorder and was not in the right mental state at the time of the murders.

Despite their pleas, Ferrell was ultimately sentenced to death becoming one of the youngest people at the time to be charged with the death penalty. Charity Keesee was convicted of two counts of third-degree murder, robbery with a deadly weapon, and armed burglary and sentenced to 10.5 years in state prison.

Dana Cooper was also convicted of two counts of third-degree murder, robbery with a deadly weapon, and armed burglary but sentenced to 17.5 years in state prison. Scott Anderson was sentenced to life in prison for his involvement with the Wendorf murders.

Rod Ferrell’s death sentence was reduced to life imprisonment in November of 2000 without the possibility of parole. Charity Keesee was released in March 2006 and Dana Cooper was released in October 2011.

In January 2013, Ferrell and Anderson appealed for new sentencing but their attempts were dismissed. In December 2018, Anderson’s sentence was reduced to 40 years in prison, and will be eligible for release in 2031.

Today, Anderson is held in the Calhoun Correctional Institution while Ferrell is incarcerated in the Northwest Florida Reception Center Annex paying the penance for their crimes.

Closing Out The Case

Rod Ferrell’s case is a tragic example of what happens when we allow our fantasies and delusions to overtake our lives. In his later interviews, he still believes that he is an immortal vampire and that he holds supernatural powers.

Thankfully he is locked safely behind bars without any possibility of parole and there he will spend the rest of his ‘immortal’ life rotting away for the blood on his hands. Until next time, Detective.

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