[chris]

Roderick J. Ferrell # 124473
New River West Correctional Institution
7819 NW 228th St.
Raiford, FL 32026

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[chris]

Rodrick Justin Ferrell was the leader of a loose-knit gang of teenagers from Murray, Kentucky infamously known as the "Vampire Clan". In 1998 Ferrell pled guilty to the double-slaying of a couple from Eustis, Florida, becoming the youngest person in the United States on Death Row. Ferrell told people that he was a 500-year-old vampire named "Vesago." He was also diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, essentially a form of high-functioning autism.

On November 25, 1996 (the week of Thanksgiving), Naoma Queen and Richard Wendorf were found beaten to death in their Eustis home. While 42-year-old Richard Wendorf was asleep on his couch, Ferrell had entered the home and beaten him multiple times with a crowbar, fracturing both his skull and ribs. When Queen had found Ferrell in the home moments later, he bludgeoned her to death, bashing her head with the crowbar. The victims were found bearing burn marks in the shape of a V. It was said that the V was Rod's symbol which he accompanied with a dot for each person he considered to be in his vampire cult.

The victims were the father and step-mother of Heather Wendorf, a long time friend of Rod's who he was helping run away from a home that she described as "hell".

Ferrell and the rest of his clan fled the scene. After four days of driving through four states, the group was found in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It is believed that Ferrell liked a video arcade in New Orleans and they were headed there. One of the girls placed a call to her mother in South Dakota. The group needed money and Charity Keesee thought her mother could help them. But Keesee's mother informed the police about her whereabouts, and, after negotiations, Ferrell, Wendorf and the rest of the teens agreed to be arrested at a local Howard Johnson's hotel. The four were held at a Baton Rouge jail for a week before being extradited back to Florida where they were initially booked at Lake County jail. They were later moved to a juvenile facility in Ocala.

On February 12, 1998, then-seventeen-year-old Ferrell pled guilty to the murders, claiming that the others travelling with him were innocent except Scott Anderson who was simply an accessory. Anderson was convicted of premeditated first degree murder, sentenced to life in prison, while Charity Keesee and Dana Cooper were convicted of murder in the third degree.

For two years Ferrell held the record as the youngest inmate on death row until September 1999 when the Florida Supreme Court reduced his sentence to life without parole. Ferrell is serving his sentence at the New River West Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida

[GeorgeM]

Painting and letter from rod

[chris]

Yea, dude. The world has changed a little bit from when you were "Taken Down" ... This letter actually lends some insight into this guy.