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When I took the two lives, every adrenal gland was open wide.
The endorphins were flying through my body.
It was just amazing. It was like pure amphetamine.
That's what it felt like, only more pure.
Hey weirdos, I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid.
Ah, ah, ah, ah. What brand are your glasses?
Gas station. They're gas stations. Gas station.
They're gas station. Gas station. Have you heard of it?
Heyo. We are back. We are here. We are here for another true crime.
I feel like it's been a God, it's been years since we put out an episode.
I think we just love it so much that we can't help ourselves.
One week is too much. Which is why we're going to start throwing in some bonus epis. phonies phonies and i think most of you saw that i threw up on the instagram today for you guys to suggest some horror movies, slasher movies, thriller kind of things.
Yas. Either today or or days of your and we got some amazing suggestions.
I know I'm excited to watch these i know we're gonna because we're gonna do a bunch of these episodes so i'll we'll try to hit as many suggestions as we possibly can we were just trying to figure out what to do first exactly We're going to narrow it down today.
We'll throw up a... We might narrow it down to two.
And then you guys can pick between the two.
Or we might just pick ourselves. We might just take the bull by the horns here.
Just rip him right there. Stop asking. The iron bowl.
The iron bowl. We're taking it back. We're taking it back to the human crock pot.
We're staying outside the iron bowl. We are.
Wait, it wasn't the Iron Bull, though. I'm thinking the Iron... Was it the Iron Bull?
It was the Iron Bull. The... Yeah. Whatever.
Whatever. I'm probably wrong. So before we get into anything else, we just wanted to thank...
Our brand new Patreon donors. Yes. Because we're still... Every single week we are going to tell you how in shock we are that you guys are... so amazing and supportive and want to give us any help.
It's crazy. So... I'm just gonna read off the new ones.
Not that we don't love the ones we've already read off, but I figure.
We don't want to take too much of your time.
Yeah, we don't want to take too much of the time.
So, the new members of the Jagged Little Bitches are Rachel...
Thank you, Rachel. You're the bestest. The next one is, and I'm really sorry if I butcher this name, but just know that I also have a name that everyone butchers, so I am with you in spirit on this one.
Idian Eje Cortez. Thank you. You're the best.
You rock. You are awesome. And the next member of the Jagged Little Bitches is Daphne Sabir.
I like that name. Which I might have said wrong too.
So I apologize for anybody whose name I mess up.
Yell at me. Okay, do it. Scream at us. Tell me.
So thank you so much to those jagged little bitches.
You guys are fucking amazing and we appreciate it so much.
Keep it jagged. The next one, we have a new member of the Evil Onions.
Yeah, new band member. Samantha Keim. Thanks, girl.
Samantha, you are an evil onion. You're rad to the core.
And we have some new members of the Window Latching Coven.
Our coven is really growing. Hell yeah. We have Christina, who is like Madonna.
And she doesn't have no last name. So thank you so much, Christina.
Megan Card. Megan, you rock. We'll send you a card.
Love you. Cheryl Cockrell. Cheryl, you are the love of my life.
You rock my world, Cheryl. Megan Flynn. Megan, I am going to write a song about you.
Yeah. And the next one is... The best name ever.
Is this what it is? Ted Cruz ate my son.
Thank you, Ted Cruz ate my son. That is literally the greatest.
That is so funny. I want to know who 10 Crusade my son is, though.
So I'm pretty sure Ted Cruz ate my son is, I think her name is Ann.
Oh, thanks. And... Hopefully I got that right and you're fucking hilarious.
And you rule. And you're amazing. Get it?
And you rule. So... Yeah, so those are the members of the Window Latching Coven whom we love.
And we also have a custom Patreon. Thank you.
Katie Bielecki. Do you know John? Are you related, John Bielecki, our first Patreon, Katie?
Hmm. Hmm. Curious. Thank you so much, you crazy, beautiful bitches.
Yum. We appreciate it so much. I literally can't even describe to you.
And you're making our lives so much easier.
Legit so much easier. Because hopefully you're noticing a little bit of an upgrade in our audio quality.
Let me upgrade you. So yeah, we're going to keep doing some delicious things with the... the very generous donations that you are handing us.
So we appreciate it. Thank you. And if you haven't signed on to Patreon, And, you know, you just want to give it a little look-see.
Yeah, peer pressure. You can find us at patreon.com slash morbidpodcast.
So, you know, just give us a look-see. You can do a custom donation if you want to.
Whatever you want to do. Did we say we're going to try to figure out if you can do a one-time?
Yeah, I'm fairly positive that you can do a one-time custom donation if you want to, but I'll get that information out to you guys in case you want to.
If you don't want to, that's cool. We love you still the same.
Yeah. But to all the Patreons out there.
We are working on some fun little goodies to send you.
I don't know if you guys have already been charged or not.
I think it happens the first of the month, just so you guys are aware.
But I got some shipping addresses. Yeah.
And from now on, any new Patreons will be asked for their shipping address when they...
Sign in. It is not so we can stalk you. It is so we can send you goodies in the mail.
And stalk you. And we are also going to be giving you our, we're going to be giving you guys a P.O. box that we're going to be having for our shipping address.
Yeah, we'll set one up soon. So we're going to be setting one up and letting you guys know.
I'll throw it on the Instagram or something.
Yeah, I think that's pretty much business.
Now, how is camping, Ash? Oh, girl. Ash went camping this week.
It was better than last time. But last night I woke up. because there was a lot of people that we were camping with it wasn't real camping it's glamping we were in an rv a like really fucking nice rv But still, for me, I'm not... Annie's mom was like, thanks for slumming it this weekend.
And I was like, oh, I feel like a dick. I just don't like... um like i don't like that yeah it's not for me i'm not a big camper myself yeah like i i can see where people find fun and then it's just not my thing Yeah, so, yeah, I just, like, woke up last night, and I thought that the Blair Witch was outside, so.
I couldn't stop thinking about it and I couldn't fall asleep.
And Annie was like, oh, why didn't you just wake me up?
And I was like, oh, I did. And you fucking rolled over and went back to sleep.
Yeah. she was like literally i was like i'm kind of scared and she goes it's all right and just rolls over I was like, that was so comforting.
I mean, she told you it's all right. What more do you need?
It's not okay that the Blair Witch is outside.
It's all right. It's cool. It's so spooky.
It's like, whoa, you just erased all my fear.
It's just like dead silent. And I fucking hate it.
I can't sleep in dead silence. No. It's too loud.
Silence is too loud for me. Yeah. is because i need to fall asleep with like a loud ass ac yeah yeah i need a lot of like fan white noise yeah thing happening with me I also, I just want to put it out there.
We've given a lot of free publicity to the Netflix show Dark Tourist and I think that they should sponsor us. oh that'd be so cool i'm just putting it out there elena has a crush on the host what's his name david farrier He's adorable.
He is. David Farrier is a very likable person.
He's from New Zealand, so he has the New Zealand accent.
Which already makes you likable. It's always good. delightful.
Yeah. It's just delightful. And then he also has the purest Instagram account I have ever seen.
Oh, I need to follow him because I actually don't.
There's just a lot of animals. Oh. There's a lot of just, it's just pure.
It's very pure. It's very far and few between in this life that you find pure people.
He's a very pure person. He's a pure people.
He's a pure people. He's such a pure people.
And no, but seriously, I keep giving them like so much publicity and like, by the way, Netflix is not paying me for this, but they should.
We actually aren't sponsored by anyone right now.
No. Hey Blue Apron. Hey. Hello Fresh, what's good?
Loving meal kits. I want a Casper mattress.
I actually really do want a Casper mattress. i do too and i actually need a new so hey casper mattress please please guys go buy a casper mattress and say that morbid's on you go tell everybody that we need to be sponsored Who sent you?
They're gonna be like, excuse me? Are you looking for a gravestone?
You looking for a gravestone? You think you're in the wrong place.
This is a different kind of Casper. It's not the friendly ghost.
LOL. LOL. Bye. So today, let's just dive right into it.
Ooh. I think this is a case that you're really only familiar with if you're like a super creep who like... i actually don't know this case yeah it's one of the it's a very deep dive one that like it's it's i remember seeing like documentaries like here and there about it like not documentaries but like little television things about it And I got super interested in it and decided to do a deep dive.
So hopefully this is new to you guys because it's always fun to hear a new case.
I'm excited. This is the vampire cult killer, Rod Ferrell, also known as the Wendorf Martyrs.
Wendorf murders? Yes, the Wendorf murders.
Okay. Has a lot of names. So... This story is basically going to center around a group of misfit Kentucky teenagers who formed a vampire clan.
Which would be fine. Yeah, it's totally fine.
But then they took it way too far, and they allowed their fantasies to kind of turn into...
Real mayhem and real murder. Not all of them.
Really only one. the ringleader it's always one fucking bad seed yeah and it's like identifying as a vampire is totally fine like we support you yeah that's cool as fuck we are here for you By all means.
From what I've seen about most real... vampire clans or families whatever they like i think they all call themselves different like clans families whatever covens They have, like, you know, good rules.
Yeah. You're not supposed to hurt anybody.
People are supposed to be consenting. They seem super, like, chill people but these people they took it into like a place where They took it into a cliche place.
Well, that's the thing. These kind of cases give other... things like a bad name and that's why like vampire vampires have to be like yo I'm just a vampire yeah like this is just who I am please just let me live and it's like right And then these people go and do what the movies are telling you a vampire is.
So, yeah, don't murder people. I'd be so annoyed if I was a vampire and people were giving me a bad name.
Well, it just sucks that, like... You've already taken this kind of leap to just be who you are, which is hard to do in any.
And that takes a lot of... Yeah, I mean, like in a lot of, you know.
With anything, not just being a vampire.
It takes a lot to come out and say who you are. and it's like they just and then they get these people who are murdering people and being like i'm a vampire and it just makes it that much harder Yeah, so it just sucks.
So fuck these guys. So don't be mean to people who identify as vampires because they're not this guy.
We just want to make that very clear that this is not...
Don't be mean to anybody. In fact, and I think I have it way down in my notes, but the lead investigator on this case...
I was watching a documentary about it, and he actually says in the documentary, this murder had nothing to do with the occult.
It had nothing to do with vampirism. This is just a bad guy who decided to do bad things.
And he had to put some kind of label on it.
And so when the lead investigator in Florida... where this ended up happening is saying that where like no offense to florida but like there's a lot of places there that are not very progressive Yeah, that's pretty aggressive of him.
That's pretty, for him to say this has nothing to do with vampirism.
Like, don't. connect it with that it doesn't have to do with the occult it was just a shitty dude who did a really shitty thing so like he's evil that's it So even the investigators don't connect this with it.
So don't connect this with real people who identify as vampires.
That's the end of my PSA. Roderick Justin Rod Farrell.
Roger Dustin Rod Farrell. Yes. Justin or Dustin?
Justin. Justin. But he goes by Rod. Was born on March 28th, 1980.
He grew up in Murray, Kentucky, which is known as the buckle of the Bible Belt of the United States. with one church to every 300 people.
And it's also where Ted Bundy tried to kidnap and murder Carol, legendary Harold Durant.
Oh, shit. It was in Murray, Kentucky. Yes, with your hair, girl.
At, like, the fashion spot or somewhere.
It was, like, a mall called, like, the fashion spot.
I don't remember. But, yeah, I just thought it was a fun little... you know and uh this town is alcohol free it's a dry town that can i just say and unfortunately rod kind of put it on the map they're not psyched about it So they're, I mean, but they're all kind of, because again, there's a church for every group of 300 people.
So it's a very religious town. It's a very... conservative values town, you know, and actually in one of the documentaries I was watching, a guy who owns a place called Circus Skate there sounds like a lot of fun and he created Circus Skate and it's like a roller skating rink that's cool so we're taking it way back I used to go to a roller skating rink when I was younger.
Really? I've never been to one. I've never gone to a roller skating rink.
I've gone to ice skating rinks. Roller skating rinks are fun.
I know, they probably would be. And he created this, he said, because he wanted to have a place where all the upstanding, pure... kids can have good clean fun that's so sweet which is very nice except he's also very judgy Oh.
I'm just going to put that out there. Does he not let certain people in?
Is there a password to get in here? Well, no, I don't think that's the thing.
But in the... And actually, this is really funny, because in the documentary...
He was talking about this whole murder that ends up happening, and he described it as...
These extreme, ready, this is how, no, I'm assuming he meant anomalies and he said anomalies.
No. Yep. that involve the occult, I don't try to deal with them.
I just want them away from me and we should try to prevent it from happening in Murray, Kentucky or any place in the civilized world.
Keep your anomalies away from me. Keep your anomalies away from me.
So he was literally saying... Anything that is not Christian and clean.
Get it out of here. We shouldn't have it anywhere in the civilized world.
It's like, oh, so anyone that's different from you.
Right. Like, anomalies, first of all, I was dying at.
I would have cried and cried laughing. And he said it, like, several times.
I was like, that's not a slip of the tongue.
And it's like, these people identify as vampires.
Let them identify as vampires. And what if they're Satanists?
Let them be Satanists. Just let them be anomalies.
Freedom of religion. God. Let them be anomalies.
If I want to be an animali, I'ma do it. I'm a proud animali.
Fuck yeah. Keep it animal-y. Sorry, that's a little digression, but I just wanted to let you know what we're dealing with here.
Rod was raised by his mother, Sondra Gibson.
He never knew who his father was. According to Sandra, she met his father Rick in high school.
According to her, they had the same homeroom, so...
Like I'd say that's like a pretty solid foundation for compatibility to create a human life together.
Yeah, right. If you don't have the same home room, I mean, what are you doing?
And the relationship now. They dated for about a year and a half before she got pregnant with Rod. when she was in high school um they married shortly after but they divorced with it a year oh So Rod was barely existing at the point that he pieced.
So he split before. Yeah, he grew up without a father.
People actually said in this documentary that I was watching that the father never even saw Rod until he was later testifying at his murder trial.
Oh, shit. yeah so that sucks whoa yeah now his childhood obviously he doesn't have a father figure which people can get by with that but his childhood was pretty shitty oh no his mother was an asshole oh good who didn't take responsibility for her child's she divorced she married and divorced several times and was described as quote flighty and rootless.
She was unable to hold a job for more than a few weeks at a time, and she just outright refused to take care of him.
So she would just hand him off to her parents.
So his grandparents. Anytime she wanted a party, she would just hand him off.
Were they not good? No, they were fine, but, like, they also didn't want to raise her child.
So they were, like... And she was doing this so she could go out and party.
That's shitty. Which you had a kid. Suck it up, Buttercup.
Like it's over now. Like you don't get to party when you want to and you, whatever.
If you have sex, you will get pregnant and die.
And just so you know, that's a mean girls quote in case anybody doesn't know.
We don't actually believe that. So and apparently she ran with like a pretty rough crowd.
And whenever her father, Harold, would fight with her about being like, we can't take care of your child all the time.
She would threaten to have someone in her quote drug group kill him.
Jesus. Yeah. So she was a piece of shit.
That's rude. So this is what he was living.
Oh, and also she was on probation in Kentucky for trying to entice a 14 year old boy into a sex act. well she was doing a ritual with him to become a vampire herself So they were a 14 year old and her were drinking each other's blood and she was trying to entice him into a sex act.
Like, goodbye. And she was on probation.
So this is the mother figure he has. Ew, how old was she?
So, so far we're not doing great. I mean, I don't know how old she was when that happened.
Too old for 14. Yeah, clearly too old for 14.
Girl. You're an animali. Yeah, she's an animali.
And so obviously the fact that Rod later retreated into a fantasy world does not... super surprising because i think he was just trying to get away like a coping mechanism yeah it's just a coping mechanism exactly gone too far So they moved back and forth between Murray, Kentucky and Eustis, Florida a lot.
Okay. So he dropped out of school, high school in Eustis, Florida, then re-enrolled back in Murray, Kentucky.
And his mother obviously didn't give a shit about structure for him at all because she was just flitting him back and forth.
So he never really had time to make good friends either.
It was like... He just didn't have any root.
Oh, shit. I mean, I say all this, he's a piece of shit.
Yes, I don't feel bad. But he did have a shitty childhood.
I think he was created in some way. So as for his high school life, uh rod says quote everything i was listening to it was dark it was based upon hate war death pain That's all my music, all my movies that I watched.
My bedroom was an array of the darker side of the occult, such as the Necronomicon, the Satanic Bible, I had upside down crosses.
I had broken shards of glass laying about in the corner.
I had hooks and metal cables wrapped around looking like Hellraiser.
Wow. So that's what his bedroom looked like.
And his mom, if his mom was like a mom, she'd be like, hey, do you want to talk about anything?
You want to see like maybe therapy? Like again.
If that's what you're into, cool. Just talk to me about it.
Yeah, well, and it seems like he maybe, like, wanted some attention.
Well, that's what I'm saying. It's like, maybe just talk to me.
But, like, let's talk about this. You want to paint your room black?
Okay, let's talk about it. Why do you want to do that?
Right. You know, like, that's all it is.
Just fucking talk to your kids. like let them be them but she's just neglecting figure out what's going on and if your kid wants to only watch dark shit something's yeah like you gotta kind of It's not just that he was painting his room black.
Yeah, exactly. And he was obviously like getting ideas from this.
That's like a cry for help. And by the way, I found it.
I just want to let you guys know what the Necronomicon is because I remember reading about it somewhere and I don't know if everybody knows what it is.
But the Necronomicon, which is what he was just saying he had in his room along with the Satanic Bible and all that.
It's a fictional book sometimes referred to as the book of the laws of the dead or the book of dead names.
And it was created by horror author H.P.
Lovecraft. And it's used a lot in his other works.
Other authors like August DeRyth and Clark Ashton Smith have also used, with Lovecraft's permission, that book in their works.
So it's kind of been embedded into the world of fiction, which is kind of cool.
But actually because of this, because it went into other works as well, people believed it was real.
So publishers actually published versions of it actually after his death.
Oh, wow. So it's kind of like a necromancer is like a sorcerer or a wizard who summons the dead. either through messages or zombies straight up just summoning a dead person.
That's cool. So it's kind of along that same line. just so you know what he's talking about and what he's into.
So Rod... was into all this stuff. And he also had another thing he was interested in.
He was pretty positive. that he was a 500 year old vampire named Vassago.
Well, me too. Yeah. So he was... And he was... Which, like, I can barely remember what year in my 30s I'm in.
And, like, you make it to 500... And you remember exactly how old you are.
That seems intense to me. If I made it to year 500, I would end up being like, yeah, I'm like several hundred years old.
I'm like a bell. pretty old i'd be like i i'm over i'm older than you whoever's asking Yeah, like whatever.
I'm just a lot of hundreds of years old.
Many centuries I have seen. Many moons. I would not be able to be like, I am five.
Because even now I'm like, wait. How old am I?
And I'm only in my 30s. So this came out of him being really into a role-playing game called Vampire the Masquerade.
Sounds a lot like your high school years.
Pretty much, except it got a lot darker.
Uh-oh. This game is kind of like a Dungeons & Dragons style, where it's like a tabletop role-playing game, and the players assume very intricate creative identities, like Dungeons & Dragons.
And it's set in this modern world, but like super gothic punk style and very full of dramatic vampires.
Wow. Basically. Which is fine. You want to play that.
That's cool. Yeah. I played role-playing games in high school.
I didn't murder anyone. I didn't murder anyone.
I just didn't murder anyone. Whatever. Join me on my raft.
No, thank you. Goodbye. You were a cheerleader.
We already went through this. It was literally a season of cheerleading.
Like you didn't. You were a cheerleader.
Through and through. I'm a valley girl. You were a cheerleader through and through.
Even if you weren't leading cheers. You were a cheerleader.
In high school. It's fine. But my role-playing games didn't really go out into...
Murderous man. Yeah, it didn't really go that far.
Good, I'm glad. So now this is a... When he gets into this role-playing game and when he moves back to... to Murray, Kentucky from Eustis, Florida during somewhere around his like junior, senior year of high school.
Okay. This is the time when he starts to become close with a local teen who also considers himself a vampire named Jaden.
That's his vampire name. His real name is like Steven or something.
I don't remember. Cool. Is this in Kentucky or is this in Florida?
This is in Kentucky. Okay. He just moved from Florida to Kentucky.
Okay. The two met in September 1995 at Callaway County High School in Murray, Kentucky.
Rod had recently transferred, like I said.
They were both 15 years old, and they gravitated towards each other because... uh according to jayden like everybody wanted them to fight when he came to the high school because it was like the two super goth kids and they were like you guys should fight Like, what the fuck is it?
And so they were like, no, we're not going to fight.
Let's be buds. And like Rod referred to it as the freak way of life where they were wearing like trench coats, combat boots, like goth attire, makeup, you know, like...
And so they just kind of instead of fighting each other like everyone wanted, they were like, let's be friends.
So in 1996, Jaden invited Rob to become a vampire officially.
Because Jaden's way of doing this... was that you had to cross over.
There had to be a ritual, a blood drinking ritual, and that's how you become a vampire.
Great. So, and he also invited him to join the vampire family that he was a leader of.
And it was like a handful of other like gothic teens who considered themselves vampires.
They also were super into this role-playing game, but they did it like... they would act it out in real life.
Like they didn't hurt each other or anything, but they were like to like, they were LARPing literally.
So this ritual that they had to go through to make Rod a vampire and bring him into the coven...
I feel like up until this point, it sounds kind of fun.
Right? I mean, this is kind of like... what like i had a great childhood so that was different but like and i wasn't super gothic in school but role-playing was fun and yeah so this ritual was um he took rod to the old salem cemetery apparently is where somewhere in kentucky It's to an old tree where, quote, all chosen ones had been made by their sires. where, quote, all chosen ones had been made by their sires.
He handed Rod a knife. Rod cut his arm three times and had Jaden drink from it.
And then, according to Rod, Jaden also, like, they did it back and forth.
So they became vampire bros. Rod cut his arm, Jaden cut his, they drank from each other.
And then according to Rod, they sat in, quote, quiet meditation for several hours after that.
Beautiful, right? Rod said in an interview that he looked to Jaden as a father figure.
Which is sad. Wow, I got a little sad there.
Yeah. Now, the membership into this vampire coven stressed obedience and loyalty to the coven.
Okay. And basically it was like put the family's needs before anything else.
Which can get a little tough. Yeah, it gets a little culty.
That's very culty. Jaden says now that after what, and you're going to find out what Rod did, that he's not pissed at Rod for what he did, but he's sad. about what rod did because he said he didn't know better than to murder two people in cold blood So he basically is like, I thought he knew what this was about and he didn't.
Like, I thought he knew what this family was about.
Maybe he just like took it too far. Well, that's what he's saying.
Yeah. Well, yeah. Maybe. Maybe he took it too far.
I don't know. We can argue. We can't be positive.
He took it too far. But he's basically saying this family is about something totally different, and he kind of took it somewhere else.
Now, the reason that this ended up happening was Rod saw himself more as like the true Antichrist. oh like he saw himself he didn't want to conform to the rules of the group he didn't want to have to deal with all this bullshit of like don't hurt people He wanted to hurt people.
He wanted to hurt people. Because from what I've gathered, murder is against vampire law just like it is against mortal law.
They consider human life sacred, and this particular coven of vampires from Murray, Kentucky... did cut each other and drink each other's blood, but they did it under each other's consent.
I think it varies from place to place, coven to coven, family to family.
Like we've seen, but... typical that exactly what a vampire being a vampire means is different to a lot of people right But these particular ones believed in sires, like he said, which is like from Buffy.
Which might be where they got it, to be quite honest.
Yeah, I mean, Buffy was huge at that time.
It was. I like Buffy. I love Buffy. I never LARPed it, but I do like it.
No, we LARPed it, but... That's a different story.
Spike. So Spike was like my first true love.
I'm bringing you back. I know you had a fucking framed picture of him on your I did.
I have a signed photo from James Marsters and Juliet Lando.
Is that Drusilla? Hell yeah. Okay, continue.
I'm sorry. So because I don't know if you guys know, like I'm sure a lot of our listeners have watched Buffy.
Yeah, if not, watch it. It's a good app show.
I think it's on Amazon. But sires are basically the person who makes you a vampire. you know, turns you.
So your sire is supposed to be like an important thing.
So Jaden was Rod's sire. Yeah. So it wasn't long after he joined this vampire family.
It went okay for a little while. But then it started getting a little darker because Rod basically wanted to be evil.
And they were like, that's not what we're doing here.
We're not evil. So apparently things were not going well at home for him around this time still.
You know, everything's going on there. So one night he was walking with a couple of other members of the vampire family.
Including Jaden. They were attempting to, according to them, all aid each other by talking about their issues.
Because he said we would go on walks and talk each other through things.
Wow. Other than like hit rod stance, this sounds great.
It seems pretty wonderful. Good for them.
Well, for now. Rod says as he's walking, he picked up a kitten along the way. no yeah like trigger alert guys oh fuck dude trigger Okay, there's an animal thing about to happen, so skip if you don't want to hear it.
I'm not going to go into detail or anything, but just skip it if you don't want to hear it.
He was petting it. Everything was fine. Jaden said the same thing.
He picked it up fine. He was petting it.
Everything. Then the kitten clawed him. And he said he was in such a state of mind of just being rage.
Just enraged at everything. He said as soon as he clawed me...
I turned it on its back, held it by its neck and slung it against a tree, breaking its spinal column.
Jaden described the moment as basically Rod said, hey, see this tree?
And then he did it. That's what Jaden says.
He's like, I remember him saying, hey, see this tree?
Boom. Jaden said that this was the moment that he started pulling back from their friendship because he was like, what the fuck?
You're going to a dark place now. Yeah, he said he was losing touch with the family and what they were supposed to be about.
So at this time, Rod was heavily into drugs.
Oh no. Like acid, crank, PCP, heroin, like all the heavy hitters.
What's crank? I don't know. Oh, it's crank.
Crank is whack, man. Crank is crank. It's bad.
And at this point, he was, by his own admission, very out of control.
Like he said, he was very out of control.
No one was going to be able to. Tell him what to do.
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Again, he really didn't have a good home life and he was really leaning into that pretty hard.
So not long after the cat incident, he ended up somehow getting into an actual fight with Jaden, like a fist fight.
Oh, no. And Jaden, both of them say, which at first when I was reading these things and seeing the documentaries...
I thought Jaden was trying to like puff his chest up and be like, cause he was like, I just, it wasn't even a fight.
He said, he said something to me. I lifted him up by his neck and threw him against a wall.
And that was the end of it. Oh, wow. And I was like, I think you're trying to be like a tough guy.
And then Rod from Prism was like, it wasn't a fight.
He literally lifted me up and against a wall and that was it so like whoa um so after this rod was banished from the family you can't go because that just it just became too much Now, he was obviously pissed about this, but he decided to form his own vampire clan.
Eventually, he became the leader of a group of pseudo-goth wannabes called the Vampire Clan, which needs a lot of work when it comes to branding.
Yeah. I feel like that's just, like, the vampire clan.
Like, I don't know. Like, you could have done better.
I don't know. Work with that. Yeah. You need to branch out of that.
You need to workshop that a little bit. Just...
So a kid named Michael Schaefer was 15 at the time, and he became the first member of Rod's new family.
The other new family members were Charity Kesey, age 16, Dana Cooper, age 19, and Scott Anderson, age 16.
Later, Heather Wendorf, age 15, became a member.
Okay. Rod became the vampiric leader and like a father.
How old was he at this point? Do you know?
I believe he was 16 at this point. Oh, wow.
So Dana and Heather... were actually living in Eustis, Florida.
They had met Rod when he and his mother had moved there for a short period of time.
Uh-huh. So that's how he knew them and he stayed in touch with them.
Heather, who used to have a Barbie doll with a noose around its neck hanging from her backpack.
Wow. was said she was charmed by him and claimed that he seemed much older than other kids because of the way he spoke, which admittedly, he is very articulate.
Okay. He actually sounds like a 500-year-old vampire when he talks.
Maybe he is. Like, to be quite honest. I don't know.
It's just something about how he talks. That you would believe it.
If you're in that way, you're going to believe him.
So Rod, Charity and Scott all planned to escape Murray.
They wanted to get the hell out of there.
To Florida. Rod claims the police were trying to blame a bunch of shit that was going around town on him.
Like, there was an awful story, again, trigger warning, where...
In Murray, Kentucky at around this time, there was an animal shelter broken into and a lot of puppies were stolen and murdered in like a field.
Jesus. And people were saying that it was vampires who did it, because in that place, they're immediately gonna start persecuting them, but...
I mean, honestly, I can't say I don't believe that Rod wasn't involved in that.
So he's saying that the police immediately blamed him for that, that they were trying to blame him for other shit going around.
So he was like, I gotta get out of here.
And his home life was shitty, yada, yada, yada.
So they planned to go to Florida. Now this is Rod, Charity, and Scott. planned to go to Florida, pick up Heather and Dana, and all of them were going to go over to New Orleans because Rod knew that there's like a flourishing society of vampires there.
Oh, yeah. And then it's very accepted. And they were like, let's start our new life.
So that's a great plan. Which, like, whatever.
Go ahead. Bye. Do your thing. So, I mean, I want to go to New Orleans.
Not for that. New Orleans. Just because.
So, Heather Wendorf was actually an old girlfriend of Rod's at the time.
Is she from Florida? Yes. Okay. Heather and Dana are from Florida.
Okay, sorry. No, don't worry. Rod, Charity, and Scott are from Kentucky.
And they're going to... Yes, they're going to get Heather and Dana.
Okay. So Heather was an old girlfriend of Rod's.
He currently at this time was dating Charity.
Heather lived with her parents in Eustis, Florida.
Okay. Phone records showed that Heather had been contacting Rod for like several months, that they had talked a lot.
And Rod claims that Heather was confiding in him and told him that she had a really bad home life. her parents were super fucking mean, and that she actually asked him to come to Florida to kill her parents.
Oh, shit. This is why kids are fucking scary.
Yeah, don't have kids. No, I'm just kidding.
Like, now I'm gonna have to be on the lookout to see if one of the girls dates a vampire.
Who I tell her to stop dating and then she has him kill me.
That's like, honestly. Like, that's a thing that happens.
It's like actually scary. It happens when your kid is not even dating a vampire.
Date just a regular old sicko human being.
It's like some dude that you don't want your kid dating.
That happens on Snapped all the time. Yeah, it's not cool.
There's another case of that that I want to cover eventually.
I can't remember the name. We'll do it. Whatever. around this time her grades had been slipping and she was basically having issues just being a dick to her parents like she was just she was starting to become a bad kid And they were like, maybe don't do that.
And her grades were slipping and all that.
So she started being like, my parents suck.
So on November 25th, 1996, Rod dropped a 10 strip of golden dragonfly acid, which means absolutely fucking nothing to me.
Does it mean anything to anyone else? Ten strips of acid, I would think, is a lot of acid.
Going by context clues, I'm assuming. Ten strip acid.
Typically when you take acid, I think you take it from a strip.
Is that what you do? I don't even know. I think.
I've never done acid. I've never done acid.
I've never been near someone who did acid.
But you don't need a lot of acid to trip fucking.
Yeah. And he said it was golden dragonfly acid, which I'm assuming is some kind of like potent.
I don't know different names of acid. Well, whatever.
He did that. And then he arrived. So they all arrived in Florida 12 hours later.
So he was on acid when they were driving to Florida.
That's terrifying. Yeah. He called Heather and basically was like, listen.
You need to decide if you're gonna join our family or not.
Are you gonna come with us? We're getting Dana.
And that's when they were getting near her home, the car began to break down a bit.
So they decided that they were going to steal one.
Because if your car breaks down, you still want it.
That's what you do. You don't call AAA. Now, he says this is when the plans for that night began to, like, really form.
Yeah. because they decided they were gonna steal Heather's parents' Ford Explorer.
Uh-oh. Which, like... Poor Heather's parents.
Maybe it's because I'm a parent, but, like, fucking kids, man.
No, that sucks. No, I don't really like kids either.
That's their car. They bought that car. They work for that car.
You can't just have it. You can't just fucking have it.
None of that bothers me, too. Go away. And it's like, ugh.
So they arrive at Heather's home. Heather meets them outside of her parents' home.
She gets in the car with Dana and Charity, and they're like a little ways away from the house.
Rod and Scott go towards the house while the girls are all staying in the car.
Now... You're going to hear Heather's defense later.
And this part to me makes it a little unbelievable that she didn't have more involved in this.
Okay. Because why didn't she just take the keys from her own house if that was the plan?
Like she didn't come out with the car keys.
She was like, oh, Rod and Scott go in and get them.
Yeah, that's dumb. Why would you do that?
Like, why would you send two boys you don't even know, really, into your parents' house?
And it would just be like less... Yeah, it doesn't make any sense.
None of it makes sense. Yeah. Like I'm...
Like, if you just, you could easily just take your parents' keys without them noticing.
Just take it and walk out the door. Yeah.
This was, because I think this was around 9 p.m.
Yeah. So they're, like, starting to turn in for the night.
Right. So before they did this, they had, he, Rod said that he and Heather had to have, quote, an embrace, which is his term.
No. Very different. His term for crossing over, which is the drinking of the blood and becoming the vampire.
So Heather had to drink his blood, he had to drink hers.
Before he went inside. This was in a local cemetery, yeah.
Before he would do this, he was like, yo, I gotta make you a vampire first.
So, because priorities. For sure, I mean.
And you got to cross those T's and dot those I's before you go in and murder her.
If you guys are just walking around everywhere, why don't you just hop on a fucking bus?
You don't need a car. It doesn't make sense.
So Rod claims that Heather was asked to leave the garage door open from outside and into the home and that she did for them.
Okay. She said that that didn't happen. But I think she's lying.
Okay. This is just me. So this is around 9 p.m.
Rod and Scott circled the house and looked in all the windows to see where the Wendorfs were.
Naomi Wendorf, her mother, was in the shower, and Richard, her father, was laying on the couch in the family room asleep.
Oh, never lay on the couch sleeping. Always on the couch.
Yeah, don't do that. Couches are for sitting.
When you're awake and alert, they're not for sleeping.
No. Don't sleep. No. Don't sleep on that couch.
It's going to hurt your back anyways. It is.
It's going to hurt your back. Sleep on your Casper mattress.
Sleep on your Casper mattress that we're not getting paid for.
Come on, Casper. Please. So Rod said, quote, we had sticks, just wooden sticks in our hands.
I didn't know how big her father was and I was slightly worried about that.
And I knew a grown man could smash me to the ground without a second thought."
So obviously this is just to steal a car, right?
Yeah, why are you already thinking about that?
Like, he's already, this, none of it makes, he's already bringing a weapon into the house.
And you're just trying to steal a car. Again, why wouldn't Heather just take the keys herself and walk out of this house?
It doesn't make sense. So Rod and Scott enter the garage area.
With their sticks. With their sticks. And then according to him, he said, we realized we needed a bigger weapon.
Because obviously. To steal our car. To steal our car.
So in Rod's words, quote, I see an axe. I'm, oh, there's an axe.
It's been done before. Chainsaw? That's too loud.
That's when I found a crowbar. It was something I knew I could swat somebody away with and run if I had to.
So he grabs the crowbar. Okay. I love that he's like, that's been done before.
I want to be different. Yeah, when I murder these people, not when I steal their fucking car.
Not when I steal their car. Like, That is stupid.
No, it doesn't make any sense. So... I'm getting angry.
I'm getting riled. So then they entered the home. from an old washroom because that was all open because heather left it open they walked straight past the father lying asleep on the couch according to rod the tv was cranked super high so he didn't stir or hear them That'd be me.
When he did start to wake up a bit, Rod hit him in the temple with the crowbar and knocked him out cold.
Jesus. Instead of just going about his business, he then decided that he would be in trouble if he woke up.
So he just quote, beat him until he died.
What? Seems justified, right? He then amended that story shortly after in the same conversation where he's talking about the same interview that I saw, where he said, well...
He wouldn't stop breathing, so I took the bottom of the crowbar and stabbed him in the chest at the end.
Oh my god. So he literally took the crowbar and beat him in the head until he thought he was dead.
Then he wouldn't stop breathing. So he said he took the crowbar and... stabbed him in the chest jesus um according to rob he said he had no idea how many times he hit him Police would later determine it was more than 20 times.
Oh, my God. He was left soaking in his own blood.
His face was completely unrecognizable, and there was a gaping hole in his... said.
Holy shit. There's autopsy photos of these poor people and crime scene photos and they're horrific.
How do you do that? These poor people. So...
The other member who came with him, Scott, the other dude that's with him, was shocked, according to Rob.
Rod, sorry. He said, quote, he stood frozen, stock still.
He was scared to death. He'd never seen anything like that.
Never seen a death. Never seen even really any extreme violence.
He was stunned. Now, yeah, I'm sure he was stunned by that, but for him to say he's never seen extreme violence is not true because Scott's father was an abusive alcoholic who beat his mother.
Oh. So that's the home he came from. That's awful.
So I'm sure he did see extreme violence.
Not like that, I guess, but still. Now this is when Rod said they performed a death dance and gleefully danced around Richard's slaughtered body on the couch.
What the fuck is a death dance? According to Rod, he said, quote, in a childish manner, Scott and I ambitiously danced around his body before he was dead.
What is ambitious dancing? like who knows and also if scott is so shocked why is he ambitiously dancing exactly Now Rod, now as to how he felt about this, Rod said, just strangely enough, it was a rush, a teenager's rush.
Just to know that he was asleep and did not know that we held his fate in our hands.
Like go fuck yourself, buddy. Right? Gross.
Now, after he's done this, they went into the parents' bedroom and looked for the car keys.
They couldn't find them initially, where Heather said they were.
Now, this is when Heather's mother Naomi came into the kitchen area holding a cup of coffee and wearing a robe from the shower.
She was just coming out of the shower. Rod says that she immediately started to lunch at him and threw her hot coffee at him, which is good for her.
Well, and she probably thought he was an intruder because she doesn't know who the fuck he is.
Because he is an intruder. Well, exactly.
That's exactly it. So she's like, get the fuck out of my house.
So she then clawed his face and grabbed his wrists.
That's when he took the straight end of the crowbar and started in his words. quote, bashing the back of her head.
He said the entire time she was holding onto him and her nails were embedded in his face.
And he said, quote, until she let go, I was going to beat the fuck out of her.
Oh, my God. Yeah. So he's a good guy. He then went back into the bedroom and he says, quote, So I grabbed a pearl necklace off the stand that belonged to her mother.
I grabbed a hunting knife that was in the drawer from her father.
I found the keys in the dish on the drawer.
I grabbed Scott and we ran out the door.
So this was just to get a car, right? Yeah, this was just to get a car.
No, that was a thrill kill. Now... Heather's 17-year-old sister Jennifer came home from work soon after to find her parents that way.
Oh my god. She immediately called the police, obviously.
Detective Al Goussier now retired, but he was then the lead investigator on the case.
He was part of the Lake County Sheriff's Office, and he was the first one on the scene.
He said, quote, I've never seen anything worse.
It was very gruesome situation. That was probably the worst case I have or will ever have.
Geez. Now, they took off in the Ford Explorer that they stole, and there was a nationwide manhunt at this point.
So they were trying to take long, like out of the way routes to New Orleans where they were headed.
Rod says they dumped the murder weapon and all the evidence they could think of in the Mississippi River.
Then he took his bloody clothes off at a gas station.
In between Eustace and Baton Rouge, Louisiana? where they eventually were arrested.
Oh, wow. They were actually pulled over by police five times, according to Rod.
For what? Now, how could they be stopped five times and not be arrested?
Rod thinks they got away with it because, in his words, they were expecting a teenage cult-looking psychopath. and instead I was speaking to them with every courtesy.
I already had my story set up. I had already told the others we're college students from Texas or Iowa.
Wow. So he was just being very like. Why couldn't he pick between Texas and Iowa?
I don't really know. Maybe depending on where they were.
Oh. I don't know. But yeah, it's like those are weird places just like we are from Texas or Iowa.
I'm not sure. I haven't quite decided yet.
When they ended up reaching Baton Rouge.
Rod's girlfriend, Charity, called her family and they called the police.
They traced the numbers. Did Charity say what happened?
I'm not sure if she told her family what happened.
I think she just called them and was like, this is where we are.
And her parents... called the police to be like, my kid has ran away.
And so, because they're pretty far from home now.
But so the police were able to trace the number to a motel where all five of them were arrested just three days after the murders on Thanksgiving Day.
Wow. Also at that young, how do you fucking have money to stay in a motel?
I don't think they really did. Well, they stole stuff from the house.
Oh, they probably had that money. Yeah, and who knows if they stole money there, too.
But after being arrested for double homicide in a police surveillance video, Rod and Charity can be seen passionately making out in their holding cell. before being extradited back to Florida.
What? Yeah. That's gross. They were super remorseful, just so you know.
Now, Rod immediately confessed. He said, I murdered them on my own.
I did it. And he said he actually wanted his followers to go free.
Like, he's a special kind of fucked up. Yeah.
Now, detectives did finally get Charity to admit she knew of the plan to kill Heather's parents.
Oh, so it was premed. so it was premeditated I knew it but she claimed she tried to persuade Rod and Scott not to do it Well, yeah, of course, to keep your little ass out of jail.
Dana Cooper told the police the same exact thing.
Now Scott admits his role in the killing and said quote I was going to go for the father and he was going to go for the mother but when I saw him make the first blow I just couldn't.
Wow. So, Heather is still, I don't know.
I want to hear what people think about Heather.
Well, she's a little bitch. She's suspect to me.
She said to police on camera in interrogation, I remember telling him flat out don't even go near my parents because he asked me not too long ago if i wanted my parents dead or alive and i told him straight out i want them alive When we steal the car.
And none of... Exactly. And the story doesn't make sense because you didn't know that your car was going to break down.
Exactly. And it's like, if you... If this whole thing was to steal a car or something like that, it's like, first of all, this kid has already asked you, do you want your parents dead?
Why are you letting him into your house with your parents?
He's already proven that he has a... fucked up mindset yeah and it's like so i don't know i don't believe that you were just like no No, I want them alive.
Like, even if you've said it in passing, you've said it to the wrong person.
Yeah. Like, come on. So Dana kind of backs Heather up.
She says Heather didn't even know Rod had murdered her parents until they were on their way to New Orleans.
And according to her, she said, quote, Charity told her right as we were getting ready to leave Florida while we were basically leaving the county.
She started freaking out really bad. oh so to me that could indicate that no she didn't know or it could indicate that it suddenly was real it hit her yeah yeah that all of a sudden or she was acting Yeah, shit.
I don't know, that's tough. Because maybe she wanted to keep her own shit together so she could say later that she had no idea.
Right. And Rod isn't going to throw her under the bus because Rod is apparently not throwing any of them under the bus.
He's just saying it was him. That's so bizarre.
So... I think it might have been she knew about it.
Maybe she didn't believe he'd actually do it.
Maybe this was more of that like fantasy world kind of thing.
And maybe when she was told that it happened, it hit her that it was real.
She knew it was going to happen, but she didn't fully understand the consequences and the fact that her parents were fucking dead.
Exactly. So there's that. Wow. So how about sentencing?
So Heather denies hating or being mistreated by her parents at all.
Oh. Which again, seems suspect to me. Yeah, no, that definitely does.
So it's like, at least say that you were like a bitchy little teenager who didn't like your parents at the time.
Yeah. Because all of us fucking were bitchy teenagers.
No one believes that you weren't mad at your parents at some point.
Exactly. So she was ultimately exonerated by a grand jury.
Oh, wow. That's wild. They said she was not aware of the plan to murder her mom and dad, and she was never charged for anything.
Wow. Let go immediately. I'm surprised by that.
Al Goussier, the one bullied detective on the case, said he remembers interviewing Heather days after her parents were killed, and he said he asked her, just how many vampires are in Eustis, Florida.
And he says, and she just sat back, folded her arms and said, you'd be surprised.
To me, that doesn't seem like somebody who just lost.
Is mourning the death of their parents. And again, I'm not... I always say I never want to... judge how people react to things because we all react to things differently and but at that young and you're But if you're sitting there with your arms crossed and being like, you'd be surprised.
Right. You don't seem like you're... wrapped up in this awful tragedy that you got yourself involved in like you seem like you're being pretty cocky Well, that's the thing.
It's like very common. Yeah. And she later said she actually edited her own Wikipedia page because she said it was lying about her being involved.
So she's like actively... Trying to get rid of any... Well, why are you looking at your own Wikipedia page?
Now, Charity Kesey and Dana Cooper each pled guilty to being principals to third-degree murder. armed burglary and principles to armed robbery Charity was sentenced to ten and a half years Wow well Dana got seventeen and a half years and Why did Dana get more?
I'm not really sure. Was she older? Um...
She might have been. Maybe H has something to do with it.
Well, H has a lot to do with it later. uh dana was was released from florida's panhandle prison in 2011 and charity was released in 2006 so did they serve so they live in their lives But did they serve full sentences?
No, I don't think they served the full sentence.
But they served a good amount of time. Yeah, they served a good amount of time, I guess.
But I don't know. They're out here now. Wow.
Wow. shit I think your family failed you I think society failed you but I also am here to The sentence was later commuted to life without parole because Rod was just 16 at the time and still a juvenile when he committed the murders. the U.S.
Supreme Court declared life without parole unconstitutional for juveniles and In 2015, the state Supreme Court ruled all juvenile killers with automatic life sentences must be resentenced. so did he so he got resentenced then yeah so well he's in the process of being resentenced him and scott Is it still possible to get life, though, if your crime was bad enough?
I think it, yeah, I'm pretty sure it is. now they just need you but it also means unfortunately rod also got now one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the state assigned to him oh damn How did that happen?
His name is Terrence Leneman of Miami. And it basically means that... after only a little more than 20, like over 20 years in prison, Rod could be free.
Like that day. Yeah. Like he, and he knows this.
He knows he could do, he could end up serving like time served.
And eventually, because I did hear that they were supposed to do these sentencings, um...
I believe last year or this year in March, and they kept getting pushed back.
And it was really hard. I've been looking up like trying to find updates on it.
So, so far nothing's been happening with it.
They're both still in prison. So they're both still in prison.
And neither one of them have been resentenced as far as I can tell.
That is coming up, though. They are going to get a re-sentence hearing.
And if they come in there and they decide you can time served...
He can walk out of there that day. Wow. So Rod Farrell, who beat two elderly people to death for literally no reason at all, So does he express any kind of remorse or anything like that now?
Or is he just like, yeah, so that happened?
No. No. He doesn't at all. And actually, he knows that he could get out soon.
And according to him, quote, I have a woman, I have a job waiting on me, I even have a cat and dog waiting. what like go yourself also who would hire him he also says that nothing could have stopped this and if it wasn't the wendorfs then it probably would have been someone else and probably more people So if he gets out, he's probably going to kill more people.
But I guess if I was a god, I wouldn't be here today, now would I?
That's scary that he could get out. They need to look at those statements before they resentence him.
Well, and you wonder if, like, his followers were just, like... really shocked to see that he got caught and sentenced because he's supposed to be a 500 year old vampire.
Yeah. I'm sure they were probably like, Roz, why didn't you just explode into a thousand bats?
And... Get out of here. Like, you know what I mean?
Like, they were probably like, shit. Maybe this isn't for realsies.
This is like real life. And I'm sure he thought that.
Maybe he thought he could just explode into a thousand bats and leave.
Yeah, I don't know. It's a harsh reality when you realize you can't do that.
I wish I could. I could do that sometimes.
But then morph back into human. In awkward social life, situations just burst into bats and then walk away. bye and then when people ask me i'll be like what are you talking about i think you're insane i'd be like look listen to what you're saying you're like come on come on really But that's gotta be a harsh reality when all of a sudden you're like, oh, I'm not a 500-year-old vampire who can get out of this.
Well, maybe he still thinks he's a 500-year-old vampire, but there's no way that...
He does to this day. He can get out. Well, he still must be older now.
No. He's not older. What? He's just... He stopped.
He stopped aging. Well, yeah, that happens.
You know. I've heard. You're like, he must be older now.
Like, 20 years later, he must be older. Well, I mean, I guess I was wrong.
No, he's still 16. His wonderful mother moved to Florida to be close with him.
So now that he's behind bars, she's being a doting mother.
I'm gonna take care of you. She visits him every week and she says Rod blows her a kiss every time she leaves.
So cute. What? Rod said, and as for the murders, when you talk to Rod now, he says, uh...
They don't really cross my mind much because it's like any other thing I've done in my life.
It's happened. It's over. Oh, okay. As for Heather, in case you wanted to know, Heather moved to North Carolina and tried going by the name Zoe for a bit.
But people were like, nah, you're Heather Wendorf.
Like, you're that girl. Yeah. And a lot of people think she had a lot to do with it.
I think she does. Her family also didn't want anything to do with her after this, so... Imagine being her sister.
She was placed in foster care, like, with a foster family after the murders, because nobody in her family...
I wouldn't want to foster her. Oh, I would not want her anywhere near me.
I'd be like, you're gonna get us killed.
And honestly, according to her, in an interview I read, her sister... forgives and her sister and her talk and I'm like fuck you if that was me I'd be like literally never like you took my parents yeah it's her fault Whether she did it by her own hand or not, it's your fault.
You brought this dude into our lives. Wow.
Wow, that's so fucked up. But now she's married and she's an artist.
And you can Google her, Heather Wendorf.
I think it's Heather Wendorf Kelly now, actually.
I might be wrong, but I think that's it.
And I think she does art exhibitions and stuff.
Damn. Yeah. Don't want her art. Yeah. Rod is kind of like a angstier version of Edmund Kemper, where he likes to talk.
And he likes to talk about, you know, how he doesn't give a shit and how...
That's nice. It didn't bother him to do that and how he felt great about it and all that good stuff.
So he has like zero remorse. Now I'm just Satan himself, so... Not that I really care.
I had decided to take the, uh... The darker path, the evil path.
I found that more exciting. If it wouldn't have been the Wendorffs, at the rate I was going, it would have been somebody, if not more people.
And apparently, now, I posted photos online.
I'll post some more because of all the people involved. on the instagram but when this happened he had like long like really long black hair of course that was like shaved on one side and all that good stuff And now he's, like, straight up bald.
And I'm like, huh. So being a 500-year-old vampire couldn't stop the balding.
Didn't salvage your hair. Yeah, like... Like, seems...
Seems like you're mortal. Does he think he's immortal?
I don't know if he thinks he's immortal.
Does being 500 years old make you immortal?
I feel like when you think you're 500 years old, you're like, I think I'm going to go the distance.
Like, if you get to 500, you're close. I don't think I would want to get to 500.
Yeah. I'll get to 500 if it means like, if I can like maintain my, you know, autonomy.
That's like the age of Adeline. sure I don't want to do that I mean, if everybody else can be 500 with me.
Yeah. Like, everybody that I love. Because she was, like, really old by herself.
Or, like, really young and, like, everybody else died. yeah that's not cool yeah and like the government was like hmm like got on her butt about it because like you know the government would capture you if you know the government when you're an immortal yeah like you know how that goes it's so hard it's a tough life for immortals it is fucking government But yeah, so that's the Wendorf murders, the vampire cult murders, and Rod Farrell.
Awesome. What a time we just had. What a time.
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And... Yeah, I think that's really all the business we had to update you on.
Yeah. Next week, we're going to do, what's her name?
Oh, we're not even going to tell you. We're just going to do a crazy Australian murder, and you have to wait to find out all about it.
Mainly because we don't remember her name.
Yeah, we'll do a crazy Australian murder for next week.
Yeah. So get psyched. And we're going to let you know about the bonus episodes.
All that fun stuff. And yeah. So we hope you keep listening.
We hope you keep... Keep it weird. See ya.
Bye. Farewell. I just turned into a thousand bats. just like that they literally just say Thank you.
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