Being a True Crime junkie, if I click the TV on for background noise, nine times out of ten it’s gonna be playing Investigation Discovery, at least to begin with. (I might flip over to Destination America or The Travel Channel, depending on what’s on.) The other day I was busy puttering around the house with ID on in the background when I heard the word “vampire” and my attention was immediately snagged. I sat down to watch the program, which turned out to be an episode of the series “Mind of a Murderer,” where a psychiatrist, Dr. Michelle Ward, visits notorious murderers in prison and interviews them, trying to get into their heads. This particular episode was entitled “Bad Blood” and profiled Rod Ferrell, the “Vampire Cult Killer.” Ferrell, along with an accomplice, bludgeoned to death the parents of his female friend and follower Heather Wendorf.
I remember when Ferrell and his cohorts first made the news in 1996. All the TV stations loved it, sensationalizing the crimes to score ratings. The suspects making faces at the cameras, so smug and cocky. After 20-plus years in a cage, Ferrell no longer comes across that way. He also no longer claims to be Vesago, a 500-year-old vampire. (Vesago was a character he created for the VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE roleplaying game.) He now admits that he was just a “very fucked-up teenager who threw his life away.” And unfortunately it wasn’t just his life that he destroyed.
Ferrell was initially sentenced to death, but that sentence was later commuted to life in prison without parole. I’m not sure which is worse.