The group's mastermind, such as it was, was named Rod Ferrell by his parents but preferred to be addressed by his fantasy role-playing name, "Vesago". If that sounds stupid already, consider it compounded by the fact that he apparently meant Vassago, a demon mentioned in an old occult grimoire called The Lesser Key of Solomon but he couldn't spell so good.
The group traveled from Murray, Kentucky to Eustis, Florida for the purpose of murdering the parents of fellow cultist Heather Wendorf. Ferrell and his accomplice, Howard Scott Anderson, entered the Wendorf residence through an unlocked garage door and bludgeoned the sleeping father to death with a crowbar. When the mother emerged from the shower, Ferrell killed her with the crowbar as well. Ferrell told police that his original plan had been to allow the mother to live, but she fought back and threw a hot cup of coffee on him. Before leaving the house, Ferrell burned his cult's symbol - the letter V with a dot - into the father's corpse.
One of the young girls in Ferrell's group, Charity Keesee, called home to ask for money on their way to New Orleans and ended up tricked by her mother into going to a Howard Johnson's, where law enforcement were waiting thanks to Mrs. Keeseee's tip-off. Ferrell was, for a time, the youngest prisoner on Death Row in the Florida system, but in November 2000 the Florida Supreme Court inexplicably reduced his sentence to life in prison. I say inexplicably because, Ottis Toole aside, Florida is notorious for its lack of leniency on felons.
Florida has enough of its own home-grown loonies running around with having some imported from Kentucky, and the entire incident was very bad PR for both states. Unfortunately, the mitigating factors - poorly raised children and America's infantile obsession with vampires and RPGs, remain.
I know this is an old article but the story is always fascinating to me and it's simplistic stupidity. This guy is such a narcissist and he was such a nerd back then and to listen to him talking the interviews makes my skin crawl because he's clearly still the same person. In my personal opinion they should have executed him already and not commuted him to life. Listening to him tell the tale All the way up until the end he believes himself to be some kind of impressive soul. He even states that at the very last minute when the cops arrested them in baton rouge that he decided to save the idiots who followed him instead of taking an aggressive stance towards the officers. While his lack of an aggressive stance and opening fire on the officers undoubtedly saved lives probably including the idiots in the backseat The way that he makes it sound is like he decided to allow himself to be arrested Because he suddenly decided to be a hero. This Guy is the epitome of a self-absorbed narcissist who still does not understand or truly acknowledge his own culpability in the destruction of all of their lives. Side note the daughter of the people he murdered should have been 100% held accountable too. There is no way in those endless hours of talking and with her comments about being abused that she had nothing to do with their murder.
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