*Strange* Blood Rituals By A Teen Vampire Clan, Turns Deadly?
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Hi friends, how are you today? I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. My name is Bailey Sarian and today is Monday, which means it's murder, mystery, and makeup today.

Monday! Disclaimer, I'm just letting you know today's story involves lots of blood, some self-harm references. There is one line about like a dog, a dog, sexual abuse. I mean, it's really all of the above.

All of the above. So just a little disclaimer, maybe skip this one, you know. So what do you think about when you hear the word vampire? Sharp fangs, maybe a black cape, turns into a bat.

Maybe you think of sparkles. But you know, the way we think about vampires as a culture has definitely changed a lot over the years. But in general, you know, vampires are just very popular. They've been popular throughout the years. Great. But for some people out there in the world, there is a fascination with vampires that goes beyond just liking vampire books and movies. There are some people out there who even identify as vampires.

and practice occult rituals that mirror vampire behavior. You may have guessed it, Martha. Today's story is actually about vampires. Well, it's actually about like one guy in particular who thought he was a vampire and then he went on a killing spree.

Yeah. Okay, so we're gonna start with this guy named Roderick Farrell. Now Roderick, but we're gonna call him Rod for short, he was born March 28th, 1980. And his mom, her name was Sandra, she was only 17 years old when him and his dad met and fell in love. He was a teenager too, I believe he was 17.

His name was Rick, but it doesn't matter because he's not a lasting character in this story. So his parents, they were children, young children trying to raise the baby themselves. And nine days after Rod was born, Sandra and Rick, they decided like, let's get married because I mean, this is an assumption 'cause it's not really clear if they married for love or if they felt like they needed to, because you know,

family tradition, I don't know. Either way, they decided to get married. It's sad because it didn't work out and they got divorced just a few weeks later. Yeah, it lasted a couple of weeks. So after they filed for divorce, Rick would join the military and he would basically abandon Rod and his mom. So...

Thanks, bye. So with Rick out of the picture, Sondra is now 17 years old and she's a single mom, you know, at 17.

she doesn't really have anywhere to go, she doesn't have any source of income, so she decides you know what I'm gonna move back in with my parents and hopefully they can help me raise my child you know. Sontra and Rod they move in with Sontra's parents or Rod's grandparents to a town called Murray Kentucky. They have a population around 17,000 at this time so it's not really that large but it's

kind of a large city for Kentucky. So Murray has three city parks covering 200 acres and is home to Murray State University and also the National Boy Scout Museum. It also has one of the oldest theaters in the state of Kentucky. Now I wish I could tell you today's story was all rainbow and sunshines, but as we know here,

This is not the rainbow and sunshine show. It's not. Unfortunately, it's just all bad news. So they move in with Sandra's parents. Now, Sandra, again, she's only 17. I think she may have turned 18 at this point because as soon as she got 18, she got a job working as an exotic dancer and also a sex worker.

So she would be gone working a lot of the time, trying to make money, and she will leave Rod alone with his grandparents. But it turns out that it just really wasn't the safest environment for Rod.

You see, when Rod was five years old, there were reports that his grandfather, Harold, and his friends raped him while they were on a fishing trip. But it turns out that Rod wasn't his grandpa's first victim either. This man, this grandpa, had a history of sexually abusing people

he sexually abused Sandra, his mom. And also he had another daughter who he sexually abused as well. And I'm sure he probably had more, but who fucking knows. So Sandra actually finds out what happened to her son. You know, good for her because she decided, you know what? I'm not just gonna sit back and say nothing. She decides to confront her father. Good for her, you know, 'cause that's,

Yeah, you get it. Good for her. So she goes to her father and it's not clear like exactly what was said, but she does confront him. Now Rod, he would later say that like the whole confrontation in itself was actually just as traumatizing as the actual abuse had been. Again, it wasn't really said in great detail, like what happened, what was said.

And what came from it really? So despite that super toxic environment that came from living with Sandra's parents, Rod and Sandra would end up bouncing between living with them, living in different public housing situations, just moving around to different states. You know, nothing was really stable and she just picked up and left pretty often.

And then at one point, Sandra, she gets remarried and moves to Michigan with her new husband. And her new husband doesn't want Rod. He doesn't want Rod. So he's telling Sandra, like, let's just leave him behind with your grandparents. Now, I guess before...

leaving. This new husband tells Rod, we're never coming back. That's what he tells him. He tells the little boy this, right? So this little boy is like, oh great, you're never coming back and you're leaving me 'cause they're gonna leave him with his grandparents, the ones that are abusing him. So I'm sure, I don't know. It's not great. It's not great. Sandra eventually finds out that

Her new husband had said this to Rod and she gets super pissed off and she decides to divorce him. And then she moves her ass back to live with her grandparents again. There's a lot going on. Little recap, Rod's been sexually abused, abandoned by his father, uprooted a bunch of different times from brief moments, abandoned by his own mother. And his mom has her own baggage. She's also been sexually abused.

became a single mom at a really young age. So with that being said, Sondra gets to a point where she needs an escape. She needs something that could just make her feel better, something that could take away all the pain and just keep her occupied, right? And at some point in the 80s, she found her escape in the form of a tabletop role-playing game called Vampire: The Masquerade.

I know that's probably not where you thought this was going, huh? I don't mean either. I was like, oh, okay. I'm gonna put my money on drugs or alcohol, but good for her. Good for her. Board games. So if you haven't heard of this game, 'cause I sure didn't, it's basically like Dungeons and Dragons, but with vampires instead of dragons or dungeons. So Dungeons and Dragons first came out in 1974. And at this point in our story, we're in like the early nineties.

So tabletop role-playing games was like still new, not super popular. It was just kind of like not a mainstream thing. The Masquerade was created in 1991 and it was inspired by vampire films like The Lost Boys and other games like Dungeons and Dragons. The creator of this game felt like hunting vampires was kind of boring and cliche. So he wanted to create a game where you were the vampire and it quickly became a big hit.

I'm the vampire, okay. So there would later be video games, novels, and even a TV show in 1996 made by Aaron Spelling, who, if you don't know, made a lot of popular shows like "Seventh Heaven," "Charmed," "Melrose Place," "Blend 0210." Yeah, horror games were hard to sell, but this game "Vampire," it wasn't just a horror game.

In this game, the characters had a list of supernatural powers called disciplines. These were powers like strength, speed, toughness, as well as like mystic senses, mind control, and blood magic. This game gave characters more superhuman vibes than

like the horror story ones. It just sounded a lot more fun. Players would use a 10 sided dice to wield these superpowers. Each skill determined the number of dice a player could use and the values the player rolled determined success or failures in their quests.

I know, it honestly just sounds super confusing. I'm sure if you're playing it, like it's not, because apparently it was said that it was a really easy game for new users or new players to quickly understand and pick up, which is probably why it became so popular. So when Sondra discovered the game, she became obsessed with it.

And because the game was like really easy, it was easy for her to also teach her son Rod how to play as well, which she did. So she and Rod are playing this game and both of them are just playing it nonstop. They love it. It's fun. They're vampires. Yay.

Rod also started reading Anne Rice's vampire chronicle books, which kind of just fueled this flame of vampire-ness even more. And he was so obsessed, Rod, that he was now claiming to be a 500 year old vampire named Visago, which is the character he created for the game. This may sound familiar because we have talked about vampires before, remember? I'm trying to think.

I know we have. So to look the part, Rod decided to, his fashion changed as he's getting older, he's a teenager and he takes on the role of this vampire. Rod is dressed in all black. He's wearing trench coats now. He grew his hair out really long and started wearing it in a ponytail as vampires do, I think. But that's not all. Rod also turned his bedroom into like a shrine to the occult. Oh, super creepy.

In an interview, Rod said that everything he was listening to was dark, that it was based on hate, war, and death. His bedroom was filled with upside down crosses, dark books like the Satanic Bible, and just a bunch of weird stuff. There was one like, what's it called when you have sex with dead bodies? That stuff.

What's it called? I'm drawing such a blank right now. I'm so sorry, but that kind of stuff. Rod also had hooks and metal cables hanging around his room so it looked like something out of the movie "Hellraiser." For some reason, he said that he had a pile of broken glass laying in the corner of his room at all times. I don't really know what that was about though. The broken glass, maybe one of you knows.

Like what is that? Is that a reference to something? Let me know down below, thank you. So in his bedroom, there were actually photographs of Rod hanging upside down in his room because you know, vampires. But to top the vampire vibes off, Rob would go for walks in the cemetery late at night. Well, you may be thinking to yourself, okay, that all makes sense.

Well, does it? I don't know. Maybe you aren't thinking that at all. But in order to be a vampire, Bailey, one must drink blood, don't they? Yes. A little bit of blood drinking does need to be involved.

So there was this guy that Rod met in school and his name was Steven. Now Steven was also super into vampires. Yeah, he was like, oh my God, yeah, me too. I don't know, they were both super into vampires, right? Both into the occult and both kids came from broken homes and were not the most financially stable. Because of this, it's believed

they had something to bond over. Steven said that they bonded because Rod had the same views and same principles in life. Something about like they both agreed, kill or be killed. Like very dramatic as teenagers are, you know? So to this kid Steven, Rod was like a reflection of himself, right?

And he said that the feeling would send chills through his entire body because he finally found his spiritual person. I mean, it's good to find friends and all, but you know, these guys took friendship to a whole different level, I guess.

You could say that. So about a year and a half into their friendship, Stephen finally decided, I'm going to bless you and turn you, Rod, into a vampire. You could say things were moving pretty quickly. But how does one turn someone into a vampire? You might be wondering. Well, according to Stephen, Rob met him at a tombstone and they called this tombstone the birth plate. And they did a ritual.

So during this ritual, you would bust out like a regular razor blade and cut the upper arm. And after they cut themselves, Stephen would make Rod drink his blood either until he had enough or until the blood stopped bleeding. And then he would do the same, like a little much. Like I'm not that desperate to be your friend, but I don't know.

Now, Stephen referred to himself as a quote, unquote, responsible vampire. Because to him, like he tried to teach Rod that blood should only be taken for survival. And he would go on to say, quote, giving blood as a gift is one of the most precious gifts you can give someone. It is a total commitment. There is no turning back once this is done, end quote.

But Rod kind of like disregarded that lesson. You'll soon find that out. But it turned out that Rod's mother, remember Sandra, she didn't really have a problem with this whole vampire thing. You know, she's like, "Oh yeah, he's dressing up, being all kind of different and stuff, but you know, he's fine." Like one day she had found Rod in his bedroom with some friends and they were cutting their arms with a razor blade. I guess there was like blood everywhere. And Sandra like walked in and was like,

"Oh, boys will be boys." Am I right? You know, don't forget to clean up. So yeah, I mean, it turns out the reason that Sandra was so relaxed about it was because she too was super wrapped up in this vampire lifestyle. She referred to herself as Sta, Mistress of the Dark, after an Elvira movie character.

and she would dress up. The whole house was like vampire themed and she would take things to just a super inappropriate level. In September of 1996, Steven, remember Rod's friend, he had attacked Rod pretty badly to the point where he did need to go to the hospital, but he refused treatment because they were brothers. Anyways, but he refused treatment and Steven ended up being convicted for the attack, but couldn't find any articles explaining why Steven attacked Rod.

There's a theory though. So the theory, shortly after his incident, Rod's mom was charged with soliciting a minor, Stephen's 14 year old brother. Apparently, allegedly Rod's mom, Sandra, she was writing him love letters, his 14 year old, and was begging him to help her cross over and make her his vampire bride. Yeah, there was just like a lot going on with this.

So my guess is that Steven found out about his younger brother and Rod's mom, and like kind of took matters into his own hands. That's the theory, okay? But after this, it's safe to say that their friendship was officially over. So around this same time, Rod, he started skipping school, right? He's skipping class, he's ripping heaters,

smoking on school grounds and just being a very bad boy. Okay? Not, I mean, I'm about to say something. I mean,

I was about to say, do you blame him? He does not have like the best role models around him. Shit, man. Anyways, he's just not being a great kid. And he came across this other kid at school who were kind of like him. There's the bad kids, right? And they kind of all got together. It was like a sense of community, all the misfits.

like him kind of gathered together and Rod became this leader teaching them about his vampire lifestyle. Hey, like look at me, like I'm a vampire. Don't you want to be like me? We have the same background. Being a vampire, super cool. You get to do vampire stuff. Like it's cool you guys. Be a vampire with me. And he welcomes these misfits

into his vampire clan. One of the kids he welcomed into his vampire clan was a kid named Howard Anderson. Now he was only 16 at the time. Now this kid Howard, he also came from a really poor family and his father was said to be an alcoholic. His dad had abused him.

his mom and he would like witness it and stuff. It was just not a good home. So this kid is telling Rod all of this and he's like, we need to be best friends because I can relate to this. I know what it's like coming from this kind of household, you know, just finding a common interest.

Howard would later say that like he really looked up to Rod because he was like this cool kid and the one that everybody, all the misfit kids looked up to as this leader. And he considered himself Rod's right hand man. And all the other kids just loved Rod because again, they all came from like a dysfunctional family and they all just had something to bond over.

And Howard said that like in all of their minds, it was them against the world. Like they were just loyal to each other. So there were other members of Rod's group and their names were Charity and Dana. And Charity was Rod's girlfriend at the time. Friends and family described her as a really shy girl who just kind of kept to herself. She didn't really like say much. And Dana, she was the oldest of the group.

Her family straight up said she was strange, okay, and that she craved attention, but she had more of a follower personality and was easily manipulated. At least they're honest. They were aware. She was weird. There were some sources that claimed Dana was actually the leader of the clan, but honestly Rob gets more of the credit for being the leader because of the events that go down, but I'm getting ahead of myself, so.

Someone's a goddamn leader here. So this group referred to themselves as the Vampire Clan and they hung out at different spots. They hung out at a place called the Vampire Hotel, which was basically just like a rundown building in the middle of the woods near Kentucky Lake. It was here that the clan threw a bunch of parties. They did drugs and they would participate in various types of rituals. Oh yes.

And it was rumored that by the time Rod was 14, he was already smoking the devil's lettuce.

And he was also using LSD. And it wasn't long before he graduated to harsher drugs like cocaine and heroin. With these harsher drugs, it was said that there were some not so nice side effects that would happen with Rod. And Rod would often fly into uncontrollable fits of rage. He was once possessed by a demon and he also was experiencing

insane mood swings, just going from being deep and thoughtful one minute to being enraged and breaking furniture the next. During one of his fits in October of 1996, Rod allegedly took things to just

a whole new level, okay? Rod and other members of his clan, they allegedly broke into a local animal shelter and they killed some animals. I'm really sorry, but that's what they did, like shitheads. Rod was later charged and arrested for burglary, trespassing, trespassing, did you hear that?

trespassing, I'm so sorry, and cruelty to animals. So he was charged for it, thank God. He should have been burned at the stake. No one messes with animals. They're so innocent. You just don't do that. I don't know why Rod was discharged. They all should have been charged, whatever. Honestly, he should have gone in jail because maybe it would have prevented what was coming next.

Of course, now he's gonna up his game. Well, of course, I don't know if of course is the right word, but anyhow. So by the time Rod was in ninth grade, he actually was expelled from high school. But remember he was moving around a bunch.

So Rod at one point was living in Eustis, Florida in 1995. He met a 15 year old girl when he was living there. Her name was Heather and people said that Heather was super nice. She was normal until she met Rod and then she became super quiet, started wearing all black. She dyed her hair purple, gasp.

So her family is like, we don't recognize her anymore. She is becoming the devil. But Rod was having an influence on her and he took her on into his little vampire clan lifestyle. But it's not totally clear if Rod was expelled from the school in Florida and then moved back to Murray, Kentucky, or if he moved first and then was expelled.

It's kind of irrelevant, but that I'm just being honest. I don't know what came first. So he met that girl, Florida, Heather, great. But now he's back in Kentucky with his grandparents and stuff. So he's remaining friends with the girl, Heather in Florida. And they're talking on the phone all the time.

Now Rod would get in trouble because he would run up like an $850 phone bill for talking with her nonstop. Back then, long distance phone calls were very expensive, okay? So he was talking with her all the time. He racked up a pretty big bill to say the least, okay? And it was strange because Rod had a girlfriend at this time. Yeah, Charity, I think I said her name was. And...

He was talking with Heather nonstop. It is what it is. So in the spring of 1996, Rod and Heather are on one of their super long phone calls. And I guess at some point Heather tells Rod like my parents are abusing me. Like I wish you can come and rescue me. Now we don't really know if this is true or not. I like to think that she's not lying but this is what she tells Rod.

And I guess this was like music to Rod's ears. Okay, it seemed to awaken something deep inside of him. Maybe it was because Rod was triggered by the thought of Heather being abused, which reminded him of his own abuse, or maybe it was something else. But for whatever reason, Rod was now on a mission to save his damsel in distress, Heather.

At this point, he was already planning a trip to New Orleans because apparently there was this video arcade out there that he really wanted to go to. So he was like gonna take his vampire clan out there and they were gonna go to this video arcade game, great. So he tells his clan, hey, we're gonna make a pit stop in Florida to rescue Heather first. If you look at a map, maybe you're like me and you're like, I don't think you can make a pit stop in Florida.

when you're going to New Orleans from Kentucky. Kids, you know, they're just wild imaginations. So sometime during the middle of the night on November 23rd, 16 year old Rod, his 16 year old girlfriend, Charity, 16 year old Howard and 19 year old Dana would all get into an old like Buick Skyhawk.

and they hit the road. So they were driving a 750 mile drive from Murray, Kentucky to Eustis, Florida. 750 mile drive, road trip. Again, making a pit stop in South Florida before going to Louisiana somehow makes sense to them, but okay, sure, yeah, okay. Anyhow, so the gang ends up going to Florida and they meet Heather.

And in the early morning of Monday, November 26th, 1996, they head to the local cemetery where Rod officially, quote unquote, makes Heather a vampire in the official blood drinking ceremony.

Now with this, Heather finally crosses over and she is now a vampire. She is one of them. And now they're on their way to go to New Orleans to this video game place. 'Cause that's what vampires do. They play video games to celebrate. So they head on the road, they're heading out to New Orleans. Now the drive isn't, it does not go smoothly. Of course it does not. 'Cause when does a long drive ever go smoothly?

Never, great. So they head off from Heather's and the first thing that happens like not even far away was that they got a flat tire.

Now they get stopped by a police officer, like asking the kids where are they going? They smelled something funny from the vehicle and it freaks the kids out, but there's like nothing really comes from it. On top of that, when they were doing the vampire ceremony, Rod took LSD. So he's kind of like tripping balls. So the whole thing is just making him a little funky fresh and he's driving, which is even better.

Note my sarcasm. So yeah, the LSC is probably not working with him. It's probably working against him. So the cop ends up like questioning them. They're not really, they're not really, well, they just ate some blood. But like, there's nothing really to...

Get them for? Anyways, so cop leaves and the kids decide that they need a different car. I don't know. They were like, we need a different car because I guess according to Rod being stopped by the police means like they're on the police's radar. So they need to get into a different vehicle ASAP because the police are onto them. Rod is just extremely paranoid.

So everyone's like, "Yeah, yeah, we need a different car, you know? Oh my God, yeah." So they decide like, "Hey, we're not far from Heather's house." And Heather was like, "My parents have another car. It's a Ford Explorer. We could just steal it, you know? We could just steal my parents' car."

And they're like, "Yeah, it's a great idea. Let's do it. Let's go get that car." So the plan was for Heather to go back into her house, leave the door unlocked to like the garage, and then head down the street and meet up with the group. And then Rod's girlfriend, Charity, and the other girl, Dana, were going to take Heather to her boyfriend's house to say goodbye while Rod and Howard were gonna break in and steal the Explorer.

It sounds confusing, but essentially Rod and Howard, they're gonna break in and steal the Explorer. Great. And then they're all gonna meet back together and leave for New Orleans. Seems simple, right? Yeah, okay. But remember, Rod is on LSD, so...

It's not that simple. He's like, "I don't rock." So the girls head out. Rod and Howard, they head to Heather's parents' house to steal the car. So they find the open door to the garage, but they can't find the car keys. Oh shit. Originally, the guys had brought some clubs with them to use as weapons to scare Heather's parents into giving them the keys just in case they needed to, but it wasn't like in the plan.

But once they were inside the garage, Rod ends up finding a crowbar and decides like that's a way better weapon than this like little club I brought. So he ditches that and he grabs the crowbar and like goes into the house. So the first thing Rod and Howard do when they get into the house is they rip the phone off of the wall so no one can call for help. Because remember, well, it's 1996, like landlines, that was it. So they ripped that off of the wall.

And then they began to look around the house for the keys to the Ford Explorer. Now that's when they come across Heather's dad was sleeping on the couch, like in the living room. And this wasn't according to the plan, but Rod is like, you know what? I'm gonna kick his ass. So Rod starts beating the father to death with the crowbar. He beats him to a pulp, fracturing his skull, his ribs,

everything until he dies, he dies. Not in the plan and not a great move there, Rod. Meanwhile, Heather's mom, I guess at this moment was taking a shower. So she's in the shower, she gets out of the shower and she goes to the kitchen and she pours herself a cup of coffee. And then she turns and she comes across Rod. Rod is standing there covered in blood, crowbar in hand.

she's like, "Oh fuck." I think it takes her a minute to kind of realize like what's going on. And then it finally registers in her brain like, "Oh shit, tits, this guy is here to hurt me. Like this guy doesn't want to be my friend."

She finally reacts and she ends up throwing the cup of coffee at him, hot cup of coffee at him. And this makes Rod angry. He's so angry, he just sees red and he beats Naomi to death with the crowbar. Yes. So both parents are now dead. And let me tell you, that wasn't even the plan. The plan was just to steal the cars, murders them, dead, goodbye.

So Rod has now just killed Heather's parents and Howard, I guess he was just standing by watching 'cause he wasn't participating in the killing of the parents, but he does find the keys to the Ford Explorer, which was in the father's pocket. And so they're like, "Hey, while we're here, let's just steal some credit cards and some jewelry and that can like help us fund our trip."

So they do that, so they rob them too. Before they take the car and go, Rod and Howard do one last thing. They decide to burn the body, do some kind of sacred burnish onto the body, and then do a satanic ritual and some kind of dance movements around them.

The dead parents, I know. Then they finally take the car and then they drive off meeting with the girls. So the group take both cars to the nearby town of Sanford. Now the plan is to swap the license plates of the two cars, the old car and now the Ford Explorer, and then go from there, right? So they end up going on their way. They go through Tallahassee and they're heading towards New Orleans.

Meanwhile, back at Heather's house that same day, Heather's 17 year old sister, she comes home.

which sad, didn't even know she had a sister. Like that's fucked up 'cause now this poor sister's ruined for fricking life because she comes home and she finds her parents dead. And not even just dead, they were like brutally murdered. In addition to the skull and rib being fractured, the autopsy report showed that Richard, the father, he had burn marks in the shape of a V on his chest,

which was later said to be Rob's symbol. It's just what he left behind on like a burn mark he would leave on somebody for vampire cults.

This is Mark, you get it. Stupid kids and their stupid hobbies. So when police come out to the scene of the crime, they found a letter from Heather that was left behind saying that she was running away and that she loved them both. So cops believe that Heather must have something to do with the murder, but at this point, she's nowhere to be found.

So the gang is on the road and after four days, they stop in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The day that they stop it's Thanksgiving day and the group was running low on cash. So Charity decides it's a good idea to call her grandmother who lives in South Dakota and like asked her for money. However, grandma suspects that something is not right.

She thinks something's up, but she tells Charity like, "Sure, honey, I'll wire you some money. Go stay at the Howard Johnson Hotel and I'll have the wire transfer sent there." And Charity's like, "Great, thanks grandma." Like, "We'll go there now." So when grandma hangs up, she calls police. Yep, yep, she calls police. And she's like, "Hey, this is where the group is heading. I just feel like something's not right." And yeah.

So I'm assuming here, I'm not really a hundred percent sure, but I don't, I guess like they must've not had the best relationship, Charity and her grandma, because why else would her grandma call the cops unless she knew something's not right. You get it, I think.

So the whole gang, they arrive at the hotel that grandma was sending the money to, but cops were already there like waiting for them. And the five of them end up getting arrested and were held at jail for a week before being sent back to Florida where they were eventually placed in a juvenile facility. They had blood on them. They were all sorts of strange something. They just found all sorts of suspish evidence

And interestingly enough, no one denied anything. Rod was recorded making two different confessions. In one confession to police, Rod said, quote, "I went to her dad and smacked the fuck out of him until he finally quit breathing.

So yes, I'm admitting to murder. Actually, it took him about 20 fucking minutes to stop. I swear I thought he was immortal or something." End quote. Okay? Which is ironic coming from someone who thinks he's a vampire. Maybe he thought he was a vampire. I don't know. And then the cops asked Rod like,

do you have any remorse for what you did? Like, do you want to apologize? You know? And Rod said, "Yeah, no, why? Killing is a way of life." So, okay. So Rod just, "All right, Rod. Great." You know, at least he confessed.

I'll give him that. He also told them that the killings were done in a rush. Howard, on the other hand, admitted to the cops that the murders were premeditated, despite Heather asking them to like not kill her parents, just steal the car. He told them, Howard told them, that he was going to go for the father and Rod was gonna go for the mother, but then he saw Rod just attack them both and he couldn't. Who fricking knows?

So this ends up going to trial. Now the case was a big huge deal at the time. Rod was doing all kinds of interviews okay and he was claiming that he was being framed by a rival group of vampires. Oh yes a vampire gang was out to get him. He also made multiple statements that he had multiple different personalities and he was trying to ditch being a vampire. I don't know.

And whenever the media tried to photograph him, Rod, he would just like stick out his tongue or say something like, "God bless America." I don't know. All this publicity though, it made it really hard to find a jury for the case. But eventually they did. They selected some jury members. And then in February of 1998, Rod, who was now 17, he pleaded guilty to two murders, armed burglary, why do I say it so weird?

He plead guilty to that and two murders and armed robbery. He also claimed that the others traveling with him were completely innocent, except for Howard, who was an accessory, confirming Howard's confession, really. So now the jury was tasked with deciding if they recommended Rod get life in prison or the electric chair. Now Rod's attorneys tried to argue that he was insane, okay? And that Rod's age and state of mind should be considered when making the decision.

Three experts claim that Rod was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance when he committed the murders. And they also argued that Rod's ability to really understand the crimes that he committed were clouded by his upbringing, his extreme drug use, and the fact that he was a vampire. It clouded his mind.

Y'all clouded his mind. Psychologists were also brought in to stand on the trial and they brought up the fact that Rod was sexually abused by his grandfather and his grandfather's freaking friends and then Rod's

aunt had testified during the trial that indeed the grandparents had sexually abused her and her sister, Sandra, the mom, remember? Yeah. So psychologists came in and determined that Rod was suffering from a laundry list of mental disorders. And this was just furthering the lawyer's argument that Rod was just not of sound mind and therefore should not be harshly punished.

I don't know man. But on February 23rd, 1998, the jury voted to give him the death sentence. Oh yes. And then four days later, the judge sentenced him to the electric chair. Now it's actually an interesting point because in an interview, Rod said that he had always fantasized about his death ever since he was a super young kid.

He said, quote, "Going to the electric chair is, as morbid as it may sound, it's been a fantasy of mine. I used to think about that a long time ago when I was nine years old." End quote. Dream big, they say. Dream big. For two years, Rob would hold the record for being the youngest inmate on death row. Congratulations, Rod, you did it, buddy.

Wow. But then in 2000, Florida Supreme Court, they ended up reducing his sentence to life in prison. And he was like, "God damn it." He was bombed. So the rest of the gang though, they didn't escape unscathed.

Howard was convicted of the same charges as Rod. And as I mentioned before, he had confessed to his involvement in the murders and he was sentenced to life in prison. Heather was being charged with murder, but then I guess because she testified against Rob and Howard, she's good to go. She's free to just be free, which is fine because it sounded like she really didn't want her parents to die.

That was a Rod and Howard thing. Charity was convicted of two counts of third degree murder, robbery with a gun and burglary

armed with a weapon. She was sentenced to 10 and a half years in state prison, and she ended up serving eight years and then was released in 2006. Dana, she was convicted of the same charges as well, but she was sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison. She ended up serving 13 years and she was released in 2011. Rod's mom, Sandra, strongly believed that her son didn't deserve the death penalty. I mean, of course.

Of course, right? But she believed that Heather should be charged with murder as well. She would go on to say like, there's one person walking around who's just as guilty as he is and he got the super harsh treatment and this person didn't. She's just like really upset that Heather got to walk away

scot-free pretty much. Yeah, so she's really pissed about that. So during Rod's trial, Sandra took the stand, but her testimony was just all over the freaking place and it did not look good, Sandra. It was not helping anybody.

She claimed that her involvement in vampirism, vampirism, vampirism? Vampirism was over exaggerated. But then later she turned to reports during a break and said like, "I'm a vampire and we live forever. I will never die." So she was very flip floppy on whether or not she's a vampire. She also said she was upset by the way that the media was portraying her and also how the psychologists during the trial were portraying her, okay?

She was like, "I am not a vampire. I'm just trying to help my son." Sandra would later claim that she changed and she is no longer mentally ill. She is cured. So...

Good for her, I guess. I don't know. After the murders and after the trial, Sondra would go on to auction off everything that belonged to Rod, including art projects that he made as a kid, photos, stuff from his room, his ashtray. And she was just kind of milking it because you know those people who are like obsessed with murder and stuff? And well, not me, not me. I wouldn't buy it. Anyways, you know those people out there who like wanna buy all the,

She was auctioning it off to them. You get it. So she was making some money, you know? It's just so stupid. Is that against the law? Excuse me. Okay, sorry. After the story of Rod's crime hit the newsstands, other details began to surface about the blood drinking teen cult that her son was a part of and the neighborhood she, Sondra, was living in. They all signed a petition behind her back asking her to leave, that she needed to move away because

it was a bad look for their community. So Sandra, she ended up packing up her stuff and pretty much just making a new life for herself. She started a jewelry business and she moved back in with her mom to take care of her. Her father was diagnosed with dementia and would stay in a home, be taken care of.

Sondra moved in hopes to just get a fresh start and put her past behind her. No word if she's still a vampire or not. I don't know. Over the years, there's been a lot of back and forth. Rod and Howard have been trying to appeal. Both of them had appealed for new sentence hearing back in 2013, but both attempts were dismissed.

And then a few years later, a new rule came out saying that a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole for a juvenile is considered cruel and unusual punishment. So with that being said, at the age of 39, Rod and Howard were able to challenge their life sentences again and hopefully get out.

So Howard ended up being resentenced to 40 years in prison by the judge. And he was allowed his time served, which was 22 years to be credited towards him. And he will most likely be up for release in 2031.

and Rod got a new hearing. His was like moved around a lot because it happened right when the pandemic was going on, but it ended up taking place in November of 2020. And the judge listened to three days of testimony. Heather's sister came and like begged the judge to keep Rod in prison. And then the state attorney filed a 57 page document defending the original sentence, mentioning Rod's vampire clan and said that his interest in the occult, it caused him to become violent.

And Rod would make his own statement that claimed Heather told him that her father was sexually abusing her. And because of that and his own history, he felt like he had to do something. He said like,

Yeah, that he had to help. Anyways, Rod told the court, I know, this is a quote, I know nothing I can say or do will bring them back and I hope you just know that how truly sorry I am. I cannot tell you how many nights over these decades that I have wished with all of my soul that I could take the night back preventing this from happening. End quote.

Now the judge, the sentencing judge would ultimately upheld the life without parole sentence and Rod over here will most likely never get out of prison. This child made life choices, adult decisions, you know? And was a vampire, like drank blood and was kind of like meh, weird. I don't know. I mean, he like brutally killed them. So I think Rod, sorry, but yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

You wanna hope, or at least I do, I like to hope that people change, but also, I don't know, he killed a mom and a dad and poor Heather and her sister have no parents because of what? I mean, well, I don't know, but he's gonna be in prison for all of his life.

Sorry, goodbye. People seem to love vampires and there's always someone out there who takes the vampire-ism to the next level and gets very excited about it, gets very jazzed and just becomes a vampire. And nothing good seems to come from that, does it? In 2003, legendary Shaq Shakers wrote a song called "Blood on the Bluegrass" which is about Rod and the whole gang

And then 2002, there was a movie called "Vampire Clan" and it's also based off of this story. So that's good.

Cool, lots of movies, lots of books, you know? I don't know. People love vampires. People love vampires. They are interesting, 'cause someone who claims to be a vampire, you're like, "Really? Okay, tell me more." Like, what's that about? Are you? Okay. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I love and appreciate you so much. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices. Please be safe out there, and I'll be seeing you guys later.