How Teen "Vampire" and Cult Leader Rod Ferrell Became Youngest on Florida's Death Row
Rod Ferrell claimed to be 500-year-old vampire and formed a group of teens who regularly visited cemeteries and drank one another's blood.
Oxygen/December 27, 2024
By Jax Miller
The disturbing acts of 16-year-old self-proclaimed vampire Roderick "Rod" Ferrell beckoned local teens to the graveyard and eventually ended with the 1996 murders of two people, as once detailed in Oxygen’s Deadly Cults.
Born in Murray, Kentucky — a little over 100 miles northwest of Nashville, Tennessee — Ferrell was raised by his young mother, Sondra Gibson, according to court records previously reviewed by Oxygen.com. Authorities cited a troubling childhood as the reason he could have possibly been drawn to the macabre, including Ferrell’s claims that he was raped by his maternal grandfather, Harrell Gibson, at age 5.
Psychologists said Harrell Gibson allegedly had his friends gang-rape Ferrell as a child, according to Central Florida's Daily Commercial. During the 1998 trial, Ferrell’s maternal aunt testified that Harrell Gibson sexually abused both her and Sondra Gibson.
Harrell Gibson has never been charged in connection with the claims.
Sondra Gibson was an admitted sex worker who would later be a part of Ferrell’s motley crew of blood-drinking goths and later painted by the prosecution as a mentally ill woman who went so far as to attempt to have sex with a 14-year-old teen boy as part of a ritualistic act, according to Daily Commercial. (She denied claims in court that she and Ferrell were “beyond romantic.”)
Mother and son reportedly moved between Murray, Kentucky, and Eustis, Florida — about 40 miles northwest of Orlando — after Gibson’s parents moved to the area when Ferrell was around 10, per the Deadly Cults series premiere.
In Kentucky, following his mother’s footsteps as someone with a deep interest in vampirism, Ferrell presented himself as a 500-year-old vampire named Vesago, per Florida’s Spectrum News 13.
Prior to moving, he met 15-year-old troubled teen Heather Wendorf in Florida, and even after Ferrell moved back to Kentucky for his sophomore high school year, the friends stayed in touch. Wendorf’s parents, Richard Wendorf and Naoma Ruth Queen, were reportedly “very angry” due to collect calls from Ferrell to Heather Wendorf and the fees they accrued, according to Deadly Cults.
But while in Murray — more than 800 miles from Eustis — Sondra Gibson’s reported obsession with the role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade seemed to rub off onto her son. Soon, Ferrell enlisted other local teens, including his 16-year-old girlfriend, Charity Keesee, as well as 19-year-old Dana Cooper and 16-year-old Howard Scott Anderson, to take part in his growing vampiristic ways.
The disillusioned adolescents wore black gothic attire, hung out in cemeteries, and drank one another’s blood after cutting themselves.
“We’re dealing with some sick individuals, and I want them caught,” said the sheriff. “This goes way beyond a simple breaking and entering. One of these animals was stomped to death, and the other had its legs either pulled or cut off. This is a case of absolute vandalism, and these people need to be caught.”
Scott theorized they were “related to some kind of cult activity,” given the graphic nature of the crimes. By November 2, 1996, Ferrell and another were identified as suspects, and Scott estimated that there were as many as 10 individuals in the group that called themselves “The Vampire Clan.”
Ferrell faced charges of animal cruelty, criminal attempt to commit burglary, and criminal trespassing.
Meanwhile, Heather Wendorf — still in Eustis, Florida — expressed her desire to run away from home. According to court documents previously reviewed by Oxygen.com, Ferrell, Keesee, Cooper, and Anderson drove to Eustis under the pretense that Wendorf was being sexually abused by her father, the Daily Commercial reported. They reportedly planned to take Wendorf to New Orleans, where the group hoped to live together as a pack of so-called vampires.
The murders of Richard Wendorf and Naoma Ruth Queen
On Nov. 25, 1996, Ferrell and Howard Scott Anderson snuck through the unlocked garage of Heather Wendorf’s Eustis home, as detailed in Deadly Cults. At the time, the females (Heather Wendorf, Charity Keesee, and Dana Cooper) drove elsewhere to meet another friend, and were not near the home at the time of the double murder, according to CourtTV.com.
Ferrell first came upon Richard Wendorf as he slept on the couch, then used a crowbar from the garage to bludgeon the 49-year-old father to death, according to a 106-page appeal filed with the Supreme Court of Florida in 1999 and reviewed by Oxygen.com.
“Ferrell proceeded to strike Wendorf’s head repeatedly with the crowbar,” according to the court documents. “Richard Wendorf died as a result of blunt impact to the head with skull fractures and brain lacerations. Richard Wendorf suffered no defensive wounds. The position of his body was consistent with the fact that he was completely unaware of the attack.”
Later, Ferrell confessed to the murder, according to Daily Commercial.
“I just kept beating him and beating him and beating him and beating him, taking pleasure in it,” he told investigators.
As Ferrell and Anderson searched the home for valuables, they were caught off-guard when Queen came out of the shower and found them in the kitchen. She reacted by “throwing a cup of scalding hot coffee onto Ferrell,” according to the motion, and “also scratched and clawed his face.”
“Naoma Queen died as a result of chop wounds of blunt impact to her head, which resulted in skull fractures and brain laceration [sic]. Queen’s brain stem was severed, which resulted in almost instantaneous death," the motion continued.
The couple was discovered the next day by their 17-year-old daughter, Jennifer Wendorf, according to Daily Commercial. During a 2019 hearing in which Ferrell sought resentencing, Jennifer Wendorf described being traumatized after finding her mother’s “brains scattered all over the kitchen” and wondering, “Where did his face go?” when seeing her father’s corpse on the couch.
Following the murders, Ferrell, Anderson, Keesee, Cooper, and Heather Wendorf rode in the murdered couple’s Ford Explorer and headed for New Orleans, according to court documents. They used Richard Wendorf’s credit card to purchase gas and a knife along the way.
In Baton Rouge, Keesee called a relative who, in turn, tipped off authorities. The participants were arrested without incident on Thanksgiving Day on Nov. 28, 1996, three days after the double homicide, according to the NPR affiliate.
“In statements to Louisiana authorities and to Florida detectives, Ferrell took most of the blame for the crimes,” public defenders argued in Ferrell’s appeal.
Rod Ferrell becomes Florida’s youngest on death row
Soon after Rod Ferrell’s murder trial began on February 12, 1998, Ferrell — then 17 years old — pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, armed burglary, and armed robbery, as seen in Deadly Cults. Less than two weeks later, a jury returned a unanimous verdict to have the teen sent to the electric chair.
The decision made Ferrell the youngest person on Florida’s death row.
“I think you are a disturbed young man,” Circuit Judge Jerry Lockett told the defendant, according to CBS News. “I think your family failed you. I think society failed you.”
Many voiced against the harsh sentence, citing Ferrell’s troubled background. In 2000, thanks to a decision by the Florida Supreme Court that bans juveniles from automatic death sentences, Ferrell’s sentence was commuted to life without the possibility of parole.
Heather Wendorf faced two grand juries but was never charged in connection to her parents’ deaths since she, Keesee, and Cooper were in a car when the murders took place. However, Judge Lockett urged prosecutors to seek an indictment, stating, “There is genuine evil in this world,” according to CourtTV.com.
Following Ferrell’s death sentence, his mother, Sondra Gibson, also suggested Heather Wendorf had a role in her parents’ murders when stating, “There's one person walking around who's just as guilty as he is,” according to the crime news network.
Sondra Gibson was never charged in connection with the double murder, though at the time of Ferrell’s sentencing, Judge Lockett said, “I think Rod Ferrell’s mother should be [on] trial for some of this.”
Where is Rod Ferrell today?
In a 2020 response to a 2019 appeal, a judge found Rod Ferrell “irreparably corrupt” and referred to the crimes as “among the most appalling,” according to Daily Commercial.
“I know nothing I say or do can bring them back,” Rod Ferrell testified at the hearing. “I hope you know just how truly sorry I am.”
For his role in the crimes, Anderson pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison, according to Daily Commercial. Anderson — who told detectives he “froze” when Ferrell carried out the attacks — later had his sentence reduced to 40 years behind bars.
Charity Keesee was sentenced to 10 years in prison, while Dana Cooper received a 17-year sentence, per the Florida outlet. Both women have since been released.
Rod Ferrell continues serving life at The Central Florida Reception Center in Orlando, Florida, according to records by the Florida Department of Corrections reviewed by Oxygen.com.
Learn more about the case by watching Deadly Cults, available to watch on Oxygen.
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