Hi everyone, it's Vanessa Richardson. Real quick before today's episode, I want to tell you about a show I host with forensic psychologist Dr. Tristan Engels. It's called serial killers and murderous minds. Every Monday and Thursday, we take you deep into the psychology of the most chilling murderers and uncover what drives them to kill. Follow serial killers and murderous minds, available wherever you listen to podcasts. This is Crime House. Rod Farrell was desperate for community and he found it in a gang of vampires. They drink each other's blood. They hit out in abandoned houses and they believed they transformed into something immortal. Which might sound like the latest YA sensation, but no, this is real. And it was leading Rod down a dark path. One that ended in murder. Welcome to Crimes of Colts. I'm Sabrina Deanna Rogan. I'm Karin Dianne. And this season, we are exploring the intersections of faith and manipulation, of hope and fear, is all about the world's most dangerous cults and the charismatic leaders who promised salvation and destroyed their followers' lives in the process. If you're loving Crimes of, please follow right in review us wherever you listen. It helps us build this community and we love hearing from you. To get early access and add free listening, subscribe to the Crime House Plus community on Apple Podcasts. And you can also catch us on YouTube where we include visuals that bring every case to life. The case of Rod Farrell and the vampire cult starts now. Before we dive in today, we want to point out that today's case contains references to murder, bludgeoning, ingestion of bodily fluids, mutilation, self-harm, cruelty to animals, including death and sexual abuse. Also includes brief instances where the victim is a child. So please listen with care. We also want to recognize the very real victims behind this story. Two people who lost their lives at the hands of Rob Farrell's vampire cult. 49-year-old Richard Wendorf and his wife 54-year-old Ruth Queen. Their deaths also deeply affected their friends and family, especially their daughter Jennifer who was orphaned at just 17 years old. So we want to honor Richard Ruth and Jennifer and make sure that their story doesn't get lost. Part of what makes this case so hard to wrap your head around is just the whole vampire angle of all of it. Rod and his followers were definitely caught up in the vampire scene, which was happening a lot in the late 90s, so it was a big thing. But how far did their love of vampires bleed into their propensity for violence? In other words, did Rod become a murderer because he believed that he was a vampire or where his brew crimes completely separate from his sanguine side hustle? Maybe if we can answer those questions, there's a clue as to how someone goes from being a teenage kid to a cold-blooded killer. And also, welcome to everyone who is joining us from part one of this collab episode over on Two Girls One Ghosts, where we talked all about vampires and vampires in history. I'm different pop culture vampires that we have crushes on, and today here we're going to be talking about Rod Farrell and the vampire cult, which I don't really know anything about. You prepared this episode and are going to share it with me. I will see you do a great job in part one when you were referencing sort of like pop culture and like different games and things that were happening in that era. You're going to see a lot of that bleed through in this episode. Pun intended. Ruth Queen feels droplets of water trail down her blue nightcown. Her hair still damp from a late shower. The house is peaceful. It sounds interrupted only by the gentle whistle of the kettle gunning from the kitchen. But suddenly, the sound of a commotion in the living room catches Ruth's attention. Barefoot, the 54 year old moves cautiously through the bedroom and into the kitchen. Just beyond silhouetted and darkness, she can see someone standing by the couch. There's a crowbar in his hand and it's dripping blood. Ruth can see a stranger standing over her husband's body. Oh my god. Ruth can't help but let out a scream. The attacker then turns towards her. She's a pale skinny teenage boy with his hair hanging in a sweaty string across his face and then he starts coming at her. Ruth thinks fast. She scrambles back to the kitchen. She finds the hot cup of coffee that she had just put on the counter and she throws it into this boy's face. But he keeps coming towards her. And soon he's on top of her and he's beating Ruth with everything that he has. Ruth fights back with all of her strength. She's scratching, she's clawing, she's kicking. But her resistance only enrages the monster on top of her. Suddenly she sees a metal crowbar raised above her head and then she hears the sound. The sickening crack of metal against bone before she feels the pain over and over again until her world collapses into nothingness. That is horrible and so horrific. It's beyond trauma. She dies. Yeah. But she walked in and seeing her husband murdered and then I just can't even imagine. And I do feel like in our Two Girls One Ghost episode we were able to like kind of play into the fun of vampires and get caught up in that side of it. Like, ooh, Twilight, ooh, Vampire Diaries, but like this is horrific. No, yeah. And this is where we're realizing that there is a very dark side to this like vampire movement that has existed in the world and it's very real. Yeah. And Ruth and her husband are very real people who were murdered. Right. Yeah. And I'm like, what kind of monster is this? Well, that's a great question and to even begin to answer that, we have to go back to 1980 when Roderick Farrell was born. So like a lot of the perpetrators that we talk about, often the theme is that there's a horrible childhood. And that is not not the case with him. So he definitely not not so it is the case. Yeah. It's the case with Rod as well. His mother, Sandra Gibson was just 17 years old when she had him. His father left only a few weeks after Rod was born. So he was raised by his mom and his maternal grandparents. There was a lot of moving between Marie Kentucky and Central Florida, depending on where his grandfather's job took them. And according to Rod being with his grandfather was the very worst thing that could happen to him. Oh, no. He said that when he was just five years old, he was on a fishing trip with his grandfather when his grandfather first sexually assaulted him. His grandfather denied these allegations, but I will say I don't believe his grandfather at all because Rod's aunt, so his mom's sister, also said that she was assaulted by her dad, which was Rod's grandfather. Yes. So gross. Yeah, it's terrible. And Rod had to spend a ton of time with his grandparents. I mean, he was like living with his mom and grandparents. And so in those early days, that was a huge part of his development and the world that was created around him and his belief on like who he could trust and what was deserved. So Rod was also spending more time with his grandparents essentially because he was kind of dumped into his grandparents lap. But it wasn't just like, oh, he and his mom are living with his grandparents. Sandra, his mom, her parenting style was very hands off. She was kind of still living as a teenager. Like she gave birth young, like she was a teen. But even raising him, she was still out partying, she was drinking. She wasn't providing any structure or supervision. And by the late '80s, Rod and Sandra were actually living on their own in Kentucky for the first time. But whether her parents, their grandparents were around or not, it didn't matter. She was just like very, like Rod was on his own at a very young age. You wish that every story like that turned into Matilda, like how Matilda grew up and became like this incredible person? Miss Honey. Yeah. But using your magic powers, unfortunately not the thing. Pain at the library. No. This nine-year-old Rod at the time was just like left home alone all the time. And so what does he do to entertain himself? Well, it's the height of Dungeons and Dragons. So he became completely absorbed in that game, especially in the vampire aspect of it. So then he went and rented an interview with a vampire, which is the movie adaptation of Anne Rice's novel, which I believe you mentioned. Yeah, we talked about it briefly. Okay. Yes. He actually would rent this one movie so many times that, and like not return it, that he had a mountain of late fees. No way. To the boxer because of this one movie. Oh, it was like a lot of it. So he's like a scapism from the real world. Totally. And then he discovered something even better, the vampire, the masquerade, released in 1991. It was basically like an interactive D&D and centered entirely around vampire lore. And this totally hooked him, but not long after his behavior started to spiral. Probably do a bit to his upbringing and lack of supervisioning. Also he started playing violent video games and you know, there's just a lot happening in his work. Yeah. By the time he was in ninth grade, he was expelled for threatening to cut a teacher throat. Jeez. And he. And I also started getting into hard drugs and experimenting with some self-harm. He carved a demonic, a very elaborate demonic symbol into his own chest. So it's not just. I can't even imagine. You're basically not yourself. You're not yourself, like. Yeah. Not to say that anything is basic. Right. But did carve a symbol into you? Yeah. And onto his chest. So yeah, things were not going great for Rod and then by 1995, he was actually expelled. And so Sandra, finally being like, "Okay, I should be a parent and make a decision to help my child." She's like, "We're moving back to Florida because this isn't working for us here. You need a change of scenery." But also at this point, what he's in high school, so yes, he's a teenager, like so much of his development, while yes, he's still developing, has been kind of formed and really skewed. Yeah. But you have to do something. You can't just be like, "Come too late. I'd better late than ever." To some extent, I guess. So this move is what kind of set off a chain of events in his life that would end in tragedy for two completely innocent people. Shortly after moving to Florida, Rod met 15-year-old Heather Wendorf in the school hallway. And they were kind of kindred spirits from the start. They were very moody, withdrawn, angsty. Heather actually, on her backpack, she had a Barbie doll hanging from a noose. Oh my god. They were frightened. I was like, "Oh, that is." That's not like a looboo or like whatever, that's dark, the jelly things that people are getting. Like, this is a dark thing. From toy story. Totally. Yeah. So for a brief period of time, I mean, they connected his friends, but for a brief period, it was a more sexual relationship for the two of them, but that didn't last long. Because a few months into the school year, Sandra walked into Rod's bedroom and found him with two friends. And they were not playing video games, they were not watching a horror movie, they're not doing drugs. What was they doing? They were standing there, covered in each other's blood. Covered? Like, carry covered? I think like significant dripping and smears. So Sandra, again, who's not going to win any parenting award at this point, she's like, "Whoa, this is shocking, this is really, really bad." So she's like, "Again, we got to move. That's her answer for everything." It's like something's not working, we're moving. So she packs up and moves to Kentucky to live with her parents. His grandparents, again, his grandfather, who has been abusing him. Abusing him. Geez. It's gonna be great. Two extra adults to keep eyes on Rod while he's going through something that's beyond what I can handle. But that didn't really help, because once again, she kind of just ditched him on her parents. She found a husband and moved to Michigan to be with the husband and left Rod behind. Also, going to the blood-covered ritual, whatever they were doing, I do feel like it is very normal for teenagers to get caught up in witchcraft or do a blood oath, where you cut your palms and then do. This is so beyond. But it's so beyond. I'm like, what type of literature was he reading? It's gonna get worse. Oh God. So Rod is now living in Kentucky with his grandparents without his mom. He's looking for any sense of community. And that is how he ended up with what locals call the vampire hotel. It's an abandoned lake house where people would spray paint signs, like a cult signs and whatnot. They would drink each other's blood and hook up under the moon light. So this existed before Rod started like what we're calling the vampire cult. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. But it would basically be the very lessing what happens before he starts the vampire cult. So this is kind of nightmare for many of us, but for him he was like, oh my gosh, this is heaven. I'm a deeply troubled teenager with an interest in vampires and blood and this sounds great. So he entered this whole scene which was this like vampire scene and it had a hierarchy at the top of this cult was a guy named Jaden Murphy who ran something kind of akin to a vampire gang. Like a biker gang? Yeah. They were dangerous and it was a scary thing to be a part of. But Rod was immediately drawn to him and the two became very close friends. So Rod, Jaden and the rest of the group, they were a sanguinarian, practicing this so many times that I feel like. We talked about this a little bit last year. You did. Or in our previous one goes episode two. So they were sanguinarians which is like blood drinkers. Not like blood drinkers. It is blood drinkers. Human blood drinkers. Yeah. Subculture with it and swab and blood and drinking each other's blood. Sometimes drinking your own blood to basically just. I had a friend who told me she really liked drinking her blood. If she got a cut she would like try to like squeeze the blood out into a cup so that she could drink it. Oh man. Yeah. So anyway, this is what they were doing and the whole thing was just about like being a part of something bigger than yourself and Rod was going to join Jaden and become a vampire. That was like the next step in their relationship and Rod's role within this group within this day. Well, it is something so intimate in a disturbing way. Don't get me wrong about drinking someone else's blood. Yeah. Like, are you not terrified that you're going to get sick? But it feels so much more intimate than like sex almost. Like you're consuming a part of your body or well, definitely. Is it not cannibalism? I would have to look at what the definition of cannibalism is. I mean, it could, it's probably argued back and forth. Do you have to chew for cannibalism? I don't know. It's like juicing. Yeah. It's a juicing version. For actually, when I don't know if it still is in San Diego, but there's the cannibal museum. You've told me about that. Yeah. And I went to it and at the end of the museum, it was interesting because there was like a board where you could vote and it was like a magnet board or whatever, so like it changes. But it was like, what do you consider cannibalism after everything that you've just read and learned? And it was like, it probably one of them was drinking blood, but it was also like, what about people who eat their placentos? Right. Or even like chewing on your fingernails, eating a booger, like any part of a human body or your skin. We're kind of all breathing in and eating skin. We're breathing dead skin cells, not living. Sure. But wouldn't you argue that if you're cooking up an organ, it's dead too. Are you thinking about the placenta again? Well, that and also just if you're cannibalizing a whole human. Just like it. We don't need to get caught up in the nitty gritty here. Yeah. Questions. Go lower. Interesting. Okay. I shouldn't say interesting. It's interesting. But like, no, I'm not as interested as Rod was interested. And founding. Yeah. So Rod wanted to become a vampire. And this was very official business. This was like something that within the group, and I think within like all vampire subculture, there's an actual procedure and like ritual about becoming a vampire and it's called the crossing over. Late at night in the cemetery, Rod and Jaden cut themselves. They let their blood drip into cups. They made a toast and then they drink each other's blood. And in these two boys eyes, they're under age, they're teenagers. This meant that Rod was indebted to Jaden for eternity because Jaden turned Rod into a vampire. And that meant that Rod got to pick a new name at the empire. What name did he pick? Visago. What does that mean? Visago was a vampire who was 500 years old and has different meanings about like connections to darkness and hierarchy and being a prince or king or whatever. But to Rod, Visago was a 500-year-old vampire. So that is who he was now. He went from being a teenage boy to a 500-year-old vampire because he drank Jaden's blood in a cemetery. Four universities, four deaths, and four times the truth got buried under the institution that was supposed to protect it. I'm Vanessa Richardson and this is Campus Crimes, a four-part bonus series on Crime House 24/7. It starts in 1905 when Stanford's own co-founder is fatally poisoned and the school quietly recast it as natural causes. A biology professor denied tenure opens fire in a faculty meeting. A graduate student stabbed to death in a crowded library and a killer who simply vanishes. And a college basketball player murdered by his own teammate while his coach schemes to smear the victim to save himself. Every case asks the same question. What happens when an institution has more to protect than the truth? Listen every Sunday in August on the Crime House 24/7 feed or join Crime House Plus to get all four episodes right now, add free. Join on Apple Podcasts or at crimehouseplus.com. Here's what I will say and this is not again not forgiving anything that I'm sure you're going to say that he did, but in a way given his upbringing, he did live way more inexperienced to more than someone that age should. Right. And you just want to believe in anything or even if you don't believe in it, you just want to be a part of a community. You want some sort of family, right? According to Rod's mom, Sandra, he thought Vassago had possessed him. So it wasn't just that he became this vampire. It was that this vampire spirit came and consumed him. So in vampire, the masquerade, which remember he was very obsessed with that, vampires belong to different clans with specific powers and curses.
and Rod specifically believes that he was Malkavian, which is a clan characterized by insanity and prophetic visions. - Interesting things to be characterized by. - Right, prophetic visions, totally get. But insanity? - Yeah. So he also was like, okay, Visago is possessing me and he claimed to hear voices, which maybe he's like part of why he said, I don't know if he was truly hearing voices, of this was just part of the persona that he was bringing on to himself as Visago the vampire. - Right. - When Sandra eventually came back to Kentucky after dumping her husband, Rod was very much in a worse place than when she first dropped him off there. - Yeah. - He dropped out of school completely. Most of his days were spent using drugs and also harming himself. And there was actually one point where he had cut himself so deeply that you could see the muscle. - Ah! - Oh, God. He was also taking so many drugs. So he was on cocaine and when he was using cocaine, his behavior became even more unpredictable, more violent, there were other drugs in there too. And there's one story that, and this is very disturbing, and this is gonna be some content warning for the next 30 seconds for animal abuse and death. Like it's, oh, it feels gross coming out of my mouth, but I'm gonna say it. - Can I plug my ears? - Yeah, you can. You don't need to, it's not, you don't need to hear this. I'm kidding, there was one story where he was crouch down and he was petting a cat. And it was just like lovely and peaceful. And then out of nowhere, it was like he snapped. He picked it up and he slammed it against a tree and killed it and then laughed and said, "Oh, I'll do anything for a thrill." Like it was funny. - I'm uncomfortable. - And then in October of 1996, things got worse because Rod and one of his friends broke into the Murray Animal Shelter, the Murray Kentucky Animal Shelter. - They broke into it. - They tortured and killed two puppies and they injured the 50 other dogs. Like, I'm sorry, Jill, immediately. - Well, yeah, 'cause it's like there are so many studies that prove that kids and teens who kill animals are at much higher risk of escalating and later harming people. - Yeah, totally. And also like this is a crime. - I'm so disturbed. Oh, this is so sickening. - Yeah. - But yeah, to your point, he was a very textbook example of like the escalation pattern with animals being the first victims soon to be human. So a lot of people trace back his time with the vampire hotel as being sort of like the catalyst of what is to come. At some point though, Rod and Jaden had a major falling out and it actually got very physical to the point where Jaden threw Rod against a wall and knocked him unconscious and Jaden was 18. So he was considered an adult. Rod was still a minor. So he was actually, Jaden was charged with assault and that basically ended Rod's time there and he left the gang and decided to start one of his own. So Rod is starting his new vampire cult, his new vampire gang. And the people that he's bringing in are like him. It's a group of social outcasts, people who didn't feel like they quite fit in anywhere. And two of the people that were involved were simply there just because of how close they were to Rod. So it wasn't better to start with than you're like best friends. Yeah. Right. They're totally guess-and-ing him. If I were to ever start a cult, they were gonna be the empires, probably not. I'd ask you first, this thing. Would you want to be a part of it? I'd be a part of it. So I'll just say, even though I don't think I'm a vampire. So the two people were his girlfriend, 16-year-old Charity Keesee, who was allegedly or supposedly at this time pregnant with his baby. And also his best friend, 16-year-old Howard Anderson, who went by the name Scott. So it was Scott and Charity. I think one of the things that's so wild about this is I didn't realize they were teenagers. They're young. They're so kids. They're so young, right? You think like we'd talk about it more 'cause I feel like when teens kill it, it's like huge news. Like I think about like the Slender Man case or all that. And also all of the other cults that we're talking about this season are led by people who are much older. Yeah, who've been working for decades to build something. Yeah. No, but this is, but also like this is a Ragtag group of like teens who feel like they never fit in who are like desperate to keep their friends and their friend group and are going along with whatever the scariest member of the group says, which is Rod. Yeah. Okay, so those are the Charity and Scott or two. But then there's also Dana Cooper, who was the only adult in the group. But I say adult and Dana's 19. So I'm still an adult, but she also. A very young adult. A very young adult has teens still in her age and she grew up very isolated. So maturity wise, I don't really know where she was on that spectrum. But she felt like she didn't belong anywhere in this group felt like something which is kind of a common theme with all of them. But this and also many cults. So most of them were not there because they believed in vampirism. They were there to have some sort of sense of identity and they were incredibly loyal to each other and just like with many other cults, incredibly loyal to Rod who had founded this vampire gang for all of these three other kids to be a part of with him. So they were going to do basically whatever Rod told them to do. At just 16 years old, Rod had basically become a cult leader, but there was still one person missing from his group. Heather Wendorf, the girl that he'd left back behind when he had moved to Kentucky, the girl who had the Barbie doll. Yeah, yeah. They had now been apart for seven months and Rod and Heather, despite being young and like lives moving on instead, they actually kept in contact. They were in like constant contact talking every day on the phone over these seven months. Was she his girlfriend or just a friend? Well, they had dated like very, very briefly. Okay. But we were like very close friends. Okay. Yeah. So still kind of weird. I'm sure it's current girlfriend charity who may or may not have been pregnant at the time with his girlfriend probably felt weird about how frequent they started together. But yeah, it was still frequent. It was actually Heather's parents were like, you're racking up phone bills that are long distance and like this is getting expensive. So it was, they were in constant communication and that doesn't sound totally unusual for teenagers. I feel like I definitely, I remember like buying calling cards when I'd go on vacation just so in the airport, I could use my like $20 that I spent on a call card to call friends. Oh, shoot. So they were in communication a ton and Rod, I think felt this sort of a deep connection with her but also needing to protect her in a way because she told him that her parents were abusive and that her father had molested her. Oh geez. So he hears that and it completely switches to switch, flips to switch for him because like, now he's not Rod her friend. He's five year old Rod on a fishing trip with his grandfather. He's like, I know what you are dealing with. I know what you're experiencing. And he's a Sago a 500 year old vampire who was probably keen on revenge. Totally. He wants to help her. So he comes up with a plan. He is gonna gather his vampire cult. They're gonna drive down to Florida. They're gonna rescue Heather from her parents and the whole group is then gonna move together to New Orleans. The perfect place for vampires. Yeah. So while he's coming up with this plan, he actually is a court date that he's supposed to show up to. The court date is November 25th, 1996. He's supposed to stand in front of a Kentucky judge about the animal cruelty in the burglary charges with the Humane Society breaking. But he's like, that's not important. I'm a 500 year old vampire and my friend is in trouble. And we're packing everybody into Scott's red Buick Skylark. We're going down to Florida. We're gonna go get Heather. And go to New Orleans and just ignore this whole. Yes, so you just didn't show up. Charity and Dana are in the back. Two boys are in the front. And they're going to Florida. Three days before Thanksgiving, they crossed into Florida. And the next day, they pull outside of Heather's high school. She slipped out of her art history class for something that she clearly thought was more important, which was her crossing over ceremony. So not only was she getting saved, she was going to be turned in the middle of the day. I think it was that night. But they're preparing things. Sure, yeah. You have to go get stuff. You don't have to spend a lot of money on me. So much is Dr. Sleep. There's like a whole little group of people who are trying to like steal people's shine, like that energy. And they travel around in a bus. Like this, this is giving me that same type of energy. Except where we get to say Dr. Sleep is fiction. Yeah, and this is very much real, unfortunately. So they pick up Heather at school, and then they drive to Walmart. They buy razors, and then they go to a nearby cemetery. And there, Rod and Heather cut themselves. Just like he had done with Jaden to cross over himself. And now she is officially joining the ranks of his cult. She is a vampire. But there's one more step to the plan, and that is to go to New Orleans. But vampires, they're still subject to human problems. And one of those problems was that Scott's car got a flat tire, so they couldn't go to New Orleans. But they're like, OK, or Rod is like, OK, I'm a 500 year old vampire. I'm smart. I can come up with a plan. And instead of just fixing the flat tire, His plan is to make sure that he is not too late.
to break into Heather's house, tie up her parents, Richard and Ruth, knock them out, and then steal their car. So that was his plan. He was pretty committed to it, and the rest are just following with the plan, right? There's, aside from like knocking them out, and that being sort of like a violent part of the acts, the plan was religious about stealing the car. Right. Which I feel like they could have done in a not harmful way. Why did they have to knock them out at all? Why couldn't they just wait for them to fall asleep the night, exactly. So this is where things get a little bit murky with everyone's accounts. I said, like, what happened? And why? But Rod later claims that he went into the Wendorf's house on Green Tree Lane, planning just for a simple robbery that he had no intention of actually truly murdering anyone. But other people in the group said that he had been talking about wanting to do something violent for a while. I mean, based on his past, I'm not surprised by that, and I do believe that's true. Yeah. Either way, what we do know is that Rod and Scott entered the house through an unlocked garage door. They grabbed a crowbar along the way and then Rod ripped the house phone off of the wall to cut any chance of calling for help. They found Richard Wendorf asleep on the couch, the TV still blaring in front of him. And then this part seems like a movie, like you would be like this is fiction. They start dancing around him. So he's still asleep on the couch. He doesn't know that they're there. Well, is he also doing drugs? Like, this is like, it feels so drug-induced too. I mean, we know he was doing cocaine, like, it's going to come up. No. Okay. Like, once he gets caught, there's going to be conversation about like, oh, well, he was on drugs or whatever, but he will claim that he, like, everyone's like, no, he was totally sober. I mean, either way, there's like a lot of mental issues happening here. Totally. Yeah. It's like a freaky ritual that they're doing, like, dancing around their prey before they're about to attack him. Rod later said that he heard a voice in his head in this moment saying, "Bucket." And that is when he lost control. It was his own voice. Sometimes people need to recognize that certain voices in your head are just your thoughts. And actually reminds me of Jeanette McCurdy's book. I'm glad my mother is my mom is dead. I'm glad my mom died. Yeah. She talks a lot about how, because she grew up Mormon and everyone, like, growing up told her, like, one day she would hear Jesus talk to her and Jesus's voice would, like, come through to her and she kept waiting for it to happen. And then all of a sudden, in one day, she heard a voice, like, tell her to do, like, touch things like 10 times, which she now knows was severe OCD, but like all the things that she would hear this voice tell her, she thought was God's voice, finally speaking to her. It's hard with all of this to, like, differentiate what's going on. And especially if you don't have anyone in your life who's actually trying to help you or show you the way or do literally anything for you, I can imagine why he is just thinking that. Yeah. He's, well, and also that's part of his vampire identity is hearing voices and the saga is telling him what to do being experiencing insanity. So it feels very icky saying the details of the crime. It's very, very gruesome, but I am going to tell you what happens. Richard beat Richard, who was sleeping on the couch, completely devants us over 20 times with a crowbar until his face looked like what was described as quote, raw hamburger meat. That's a direct quote from the coroner, by the way. Richard did not die right away. No. He stayed alive for 20 minutes in agonizing pain, seizing and struggling before finally passing away. And then took Richard cigarettes, the pack of cigarettes and smoked one just standing over his body. So was I like that's a good picture as to like what was going on with his psyche and how messed up he was. He then burned a V shape simple into Richard's corpse for a visage like branding him basically being like, I did this. And he also surrounded it with five circles, so one for each member of his cult. Basically this was also his way, not only saying he did it, but of like taking Richard soul for himself. But it's also like very clearly, Rod is not thinking about or worried about getting caught. Like he's leaving clues to be like, this is my work. Yeah. Okay, but also let's remember that he was told by his dear friend Heather that she was being sexually assaulted. She was like, this was a child molester. Yeah. So not only is this for his friend, but like this is probably for himself too. Like what he wanted to do, his own grandfather. So there's a lot of anger coming out for sure in this attack because he thinks that this is terrible. Which is again, why it feels premeditated and not just a spur of the moment, let's knock them out and steal their car. Totally. It's hard because it's like if they hadn't gotten a flat tire, they would have just gone on to New Orleans. Would they have? I think they would have, but I think someone else would have died because he had been talking about wanting someone wanting to have that great act of violence. So yeah, this is basically happening when Ruth is showering and when she steps out of the shower, she is terrified when she hears a noise coming from her living room. And so she kind of slings in to figure out what's going on. And that is when she sees what's happening. That's when she runs to the kitchen, grabs a hot cup of coffee, the only thing that she could find quickly to throw at Rod, but he came back to her, attacked her. He said he hadn't planned to kill her, but snapped when she struck him first with the coffee. Yeah. Cheers. And he attacked her with the same crowbar that he had attacked her husband, Richard with, and her over and over again. The autopsy showed extensive defense wounds, which means that she was conscious and fighting for the entire attack. But luckily, unlike Richard, who was left to just suffer for 20 minutes, her brain stem had been severed by the crowbar. So there was a point where she just instantly died. Afterward, Rod grabbed Richard's credit cards and keys to the Ford Explorer, which is the car that they're going to steal, and the two boys sped away into the night. One summer evening when she was 20 years old, something terrible happened to Vienna Luke. I can't figure it out, but I do know that it was a violation. When people started asking questions, what a creep. Who else knows about this? From CBCs, personally, this is Agent Leila. The story of how a victim went undercover. So bring it on. Let's go. Let's get a confession. Available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. A while later, Heather's older sister, 17-year-old Jennifer Wendorf, finished her late shift at the grocery store, she gets home just after 10.30 p.m. She walks into the living room. She turns on the light to her house and sees her dad, like, or like the image of him kind of over by the watching TV, presumably, right, which was like a normal thing. She was like, oh, it wasn't odd for him to fall asleep in for the TV, so she doesn't really think much of it. She goes to the kitchen to grab a snack, and that is when she sees a trail of blood and she starts following it to her mother. She doesn't just see her mom in a pool of blood. She sees her mom with half of her mom's school gone. Like, you're a 17-year-old girl coming home. Like any age, any person coming to find their parents brutally murdered is something no one should ever have to experience. No. Well, she doesn't even register their dad. It's also been attacked yet in this moment. So she sees her mom and she runs to the couch to wake up her dad to be like, "Help, help, it's like mom!" And that is when she finds that he has suffered the same horrible fate. I think a lot of people could go into shock. There are some people who spend days before even calling 911 because they can't fathom what just happened and what they're witnessing. Jennifer kept it together. She immediately called 911 from her cell phone. And when police got there, they started collecting a bunch of evidence, but there was nothing to pinpoint who the suspects could be. There was no clear. Because also Rod and his friends came from Kentucky, like, they're far away. It's not like, "Oh, this is a suspicious person who is around telling this person all the time." And also like, "Who could say, like, "Oh, yes, Heather was always in contact with this one guy, Rod, who was weird. The parents who were not dead." Yeah. So, there is a lot of evidence, not much destruction in the beginning, but it doesn't take long for things to start pointing in the direction of Rod Varyl and his little vampire crew that is now rolling out of town, trying to go to New Orleans. I almost said Las Vegas. Las Vegas could work too. But there's still one big question hanging over everything, which is where is Heather. Because at this point, they don't know that Heather is a part of the group. They think that like, she was abducted or like, "Oh, no, she was murdered. They have no idea what's going on. Does she murder her parents?" Like, they have no idea what's going on. So, while it's all unfolding, Rod and Scott had already met back up with the girls. They ditched Scott's Buick, they had the flat tire, and everyone crammed into Richard's Ford Explorer, and that is when they headed to New Orleans. So, it's possible that Heather doesn't even know that her parents are dead because-- Correct. The girls said they were just going to knock them out and grab the car. Rod and Scott burned their blood soaked clothes. They tried to scrub the brain matter off of their boots. They went to Walmart. They bought a knife and some booze. And what did they use to pay for it? Richard's credit card. Which like, kind of lucky, because then the police at least are being able to see what's going on. But this also proves that like--
there's so much underdeveloped, like, teenage brain here. - Oh yeah. - Like, most murderers make mistakes, and that's why they're caught, but like, they're not thinking this through. - No. - They're really not, which is why it's confusing, 'cause it's like, the premeditated part was, the rod was just like, waiting for an excuse to get violent. - Yeah. - But otherwise, there's no real thought out plan. And rod would later say that being on the run was an utter rush because he loved knowing that law enforcement all over the country was looking for him, because this is such a brutal crime. But things are falling apart pretty quickly. So Richard's credit card gets shut off. And again, relying on the 500-year-old vampire genius, rod pitched another stellar plan, which was to break into a house and steal a piggy bank. - Big money, movie. - Specifically a piggy bank. - Yeah. Okay, I think it's a little kid. - It's still a piggy bank. - Yeah. - So they do that and 20 bucks in quarters. That is what they get from the piggy bank. - Which also in quarters is the most inconvenient way to have 20 bucks. - Oh my gosh. You can't even check out a Walmart. Quickly to be on the run. You were $20. - $20, 50 cents. - Yeah. The other big issue was the atmosphere in the car was getting worse by the mile. So it was very cramped. The girls were starting to get nervous about Rod's erratic behavior. They weren't really entirely sure what was going on. And Rod was starting to worry that one of them was gonna ruin the getaway. - So he's getting paranoid. - Yes, exactly. So he responds as any good cult leader would by threatening them. So he taunted Heather with a blood-covered crowbar, the blood-covered crowbar, pointing to each different end, saying that he murdered her parents and saying like, this is a side I murdered your father with this is a side I murdered your mother with. And I'll murder you too if you-- - I'm just like my heart breaks for Heather. She thought Rod was her friend and they had been staying connected over phone calls for so long. She had no idea how drastic he had become and how extreme he had become. - Yeah, definitely she couldn't have predicted this. I don't think. He told charity if she tried to leave, he would break her kneecaps. He told Dana if she ran, he wouldn't go after her. He would instead take it out on the other girls. So they're each getting an individual threat that is going to scare them the most. - Keep them in line. - Yes. And for a little while, Rod's approach actually did work and the group did stay in line. They made their way all the way to Louisiana, not to New Orleans though. Because charity, she was petrified. Remember again, I keep saying supposedly 'cause it was just like, oh, she may have been pregnant with the baby. Like this was what was said. Like she was scared for her and her baby. So she, three days after the murder, finds a pay phone and calls her grandma and asks for help. So police are able to trace the call and that is how they get intel and know where the group is going. And they're waiting for the group when the group pulls in a few hours later into the nearby Howard Johnson hotel. Rod and others are taken into custody and the story's just sort of beginning or starting to unfold. - And as I how is it just starting? - Yeah. Well, there's a lot of complicated narratives conflicting with one another. - Got to. - Once Rod and the others are taken into custody, the police had to figure out what they were dealing with 'cause like what the hell is going on? Thankfully, Rod hadn't hurt any of the people in the group but everyone is so scared and so clearly, visibly shaken. Heather's sobbing, she's covered in self-inflicted cuts and the others are a lot quieter. They seem shut down that like no one's talking really for a while and whenever investigators would ask them a question, they just kept looking over at Rod, like they were waiting for him to answer for the group. - Well, so most of them are miners except for Dana, right? So it's also like, do they have parents there to be with them as they're being questioned? - No, I don't think so, no. At first they're being questioned as a group. And then I think it's clear that like - You can't question the group together, yeah. - Yeah, especially not with Rod in the mix. Immediately, investing as you're like, okay, well, Rod is the ringleader here. - That's clear. - Because if everyone's looking to him. - No one will answer except for him. One officer said that Rod's control over the group was so strong that he thought that if they hadn't been caught, if they had made it to New Orleans, that Rod actually probably would have pretty successfully recruited a lot more people into his vampire cult. So he had the makings, this is like the makings of a cult leader. - Oh yeah, I believe it. When police brought them in for questioning, Rod did not show any remorse, he did not pretend to be sorry. He openly admitted to killing Richard and Ruth. He seemed proud of it. He said that taking their lives made him feel like a god and it was the best thing that he had ever done. - Is this sickening? - Right. - Now this is like a very disturbed human. - Yeah. There's like nothing normal. You can't even extract anything. You know what scares me is that I recently am like getting back into like the dating world. And I've developed such a fear of like men because I'm like, what if they're like this? And you don't know. - It could be. - I'm so scared. - I'm really scared, did I wanna? - I'm terrified. - Where? - I'm just gonna become a cat lady. - Yeah, I'm good. - The two second version was someone told me their backstory and then as they started drinking, they had a completely different accent and their story started to change. And they got really, really scary in their arms for dead and then they started talking to someone who wasn't there. I mean, like two of the girls in this group are people who either had relationships with him or were in one too. - Yeah, this is an abusive relationship, but like so far- - Cornering. - So he's super proud of this. He's also openly discussing being a vampire and he's trying to pin some of this on being a vampire which makes the media go crazy because it's hard to have like a murderous group of teenagers, but a group of murderous teen vampires, like, oh my God, who's not gonna read that article? - Yeah, that's a very catchy headline. - Totally, and like a double homicide double murder. Like that's, it's so wild. So while he did kind of talk about vampirism as being part of it, it wasn't his whole stick. They wasn't trying to like blame it and be like, oh well, I'm not responsible because I'm a 500 year old vampire and I was possessed and it wasn't actually me. - It was more of that pride. - Yeah, it was more of like a backdrop. It was just like, that was like the side story of his big proud moment. Rod had a very warped sense of justice. His need for control and his propensity for utter violence and the confession that would come. It's just like, he's just such an odd character that it was impossible to not be like, oh my God, what the hell is going on here? - No, I'm also so intrigued by it. I mean, like in a very, like, I'm so concerned about how disturbed he is way. Like you want to dig into it, you want to understand and see how this is possible. - Right. Yeah, it's like almost like, yeah, oh, there's still some like weirdness to come behavior wise. There's more. - Okay, okay. - And there's like more little details that will come out. So on December 17th, 1996, Rod was charged as an adult to two counts of first degree murder. He pleaded not guilty even though he was caught. I was like, I murdered him and I'm proud. Now I feel like a god. Scott, Dana and Charity were each charged as principles to first degree murder along with armed robbery and armed burglary. But the real surprise is the Heather, the one whose parents were murdered, a grand jury actually cleared her of any wrongdoing. They believed her when she said she had no clue that her parents were in danger and that she, after the fact, went along with everything 'cause she was terrified of Rod. - I think I would have, if I were on that grand jury, probably would have sided the same way. - Yes, except I will say, one detail that's a little bit, it makes this a little more confusing, was Heather's sister, 17-year-old sister, said that a few weeks prior, Heather had asked if she had ever thought about killing their parents. - But was that her thought or was that something Rod had said on a phone call and Rod was like, "Have you ever thought about killing your parents?" And then Heather starts to question that. - Right, this is why it's confusing 'cause it's like, what's Rod's influence and how did things, and also these are teenagers. Is she just saying stuff over the phone to try to oppose him or be liked by him? Like, yeah, we don't know. But we do know that the other sat in jail and they kind of became these local celebrities. And part of why it was so crazy in the media was because of the brutality of the crime, but also because of how they were acting behind bars. - Oh my gosh. Okay, so you would think that because most of these people coming in, we're not actually like, truly buying into the vampire thing, they were just doing it because of Rod, that they might just act like normal teenagers, but that is not what happened. Scott would spend hours crouched like a gargoyle in his cell and not on the cell bars all night long. Oh my gosh. Okay. Charity got caught licking blood from self-inflicted cuts, which she did with jail-issued razors. - Well, also like yes, they might have not bought into the whole vampire thing initially, but then once they did buy in, I feel like they really did. - But also these are kids who are coming in with a lot of other things. - Yes. - And it's like, you know, I don't think she's putting herself because she thinks she's a vampire and she needs to drink blood. I think that this is her form of release. - Yeah, yeah, so sad. - Rod spent his courage.
appearances, flicking his tongue at news cameras and kissing the glass door panels. - He's the type of person who would have for sure gotten that surgery to exploit your tongue. - Yes, oh my God. Or like the eye tattoo or your eyes are completely black. - We will. - Totally. Yeah, it was very creepy. He was so clearly having no remorse or respect for the victims. It was a very bizarre legal situation. Rod's mother, Sandra, also arrested around this time for sending sexual messages to a 14 year old boy. And in the review of those messages, she asks the boy, just guess, like you will never guess what she asks. - Is it something to do with her son? Like what? - Sort of. She asks this 14 year old boy to cross her over so that she can become a vampire. - His mom, who was like nothing to do with him anymore. - Wait, well now I'm so confused. I'm like, what did she know of her son's vampire involvement? - And did she influence him way more than we even know? - Right. - Like that's so weird. - It feels like there's so much of the story that we're not, we don't know. - Right. - That indicates that there should be more. - Or is like this her trying to use her son's obsession with vampires to like relate more to a child to try to groom them. - Like, yeah, I don't know what's going on with Sonja. - The semantic wise, that 14 year old boy would have to also be a vampire in order to cross her over. - Right, so there's some potholes here. - Yeah, Sonja ended up leading guilty, but mentally ill to unlawful transaction with a minor. Somehow she only got probation for all of that. - If I was in charge of the judicial system, I would make every single person be mandated therapy from like an early age, and like you have a therapist to monitors all your stuff. - Yeah. - Not that therapy solves everything, but like I feel like there's just so much in this story where you see there's stuff going on mentally. - There's so many kids involved that are, and also it's like someone could be, I feel like maybe not have that much going on that they need help with, but you meet the wrong person and the influence and like things get exacerbated, and mental illness can also start appearing, especially for like boys in the late teens, early 20s. - Yeah. - Yeah, it's all very complicated, but in this case, very, very tragic because two people lost their lives. - Geez. - On February 5th, 1998, literally hours before his trial was supposed to start, Rod suddenly changed his plea to guilty. - He pulled a Gentra. - I guess Gentra pulled a Rod Pharaoh. - Very different cases. I'm not completely ready. - Just in that moment. - How they choose to switch up. - Plus again. - Yeah. - So even though he switched to plea guilty, he's still the face of jury for sentencing. So this is where his defense team is like, okay, well, our defense is that he was on drugs. He wasn't in his right mind. He had been drinking, he was smoking, he'd taken hits of LSD. He had down 15 pro-Zach pills, but then the other kids, the witnesses, told a different story. They were like, no, he was completely coherent. He was focused on what he kept referring to his unfinished business with Heather's parents that day. - I believe that. - And then Rod himself told jail staff that he was completely sober when he killed Richard and Ruth. - I would say an attorney's role is to kind of spin a story to lessen the sentencing here. - They're doing their job. But he's talking so much, everyone's talking so much but it's impossible to actually do that. - No, sometimes I do wonder like for a lawyer who's defending someone who is so clearly guilty, just the conversations that they're having behind closed door internally. - Right. - Oh God, it would be so hard to be a defense attorney. What do you do if you think that they're guilty? - I wouldn't want to take on a case where I thought someone was guilty. - Yeah, but sometimes you can get so far into a case and then something comes out and you start to go, "Oh shit, wait a second now, I'm questioning everything." Okay, so that angle didn't work, but then Rod's lawyers are like, "We have another idea, the mental health angle. "If we're not gonna do the drugs, we're gonna do mental health." And they brought psychologists in who said that Rod had schizophrenia type of personality disorder, depression, substance abuse issues, and a learning disability. - I don't disagree with, but that's not a reason to say that he's not guilty or responsible for the crime. He committed. - Right, but it might just change where he's held. - Sure. They also tried to argue that Rod had snapped after hearing that Richard had been abusing Heather. Heather, apparently it comes out that those claims were made up. She had just said that in conversation. Why she said that, what the motive was? I don't know, but she was like, no, it wasn't actually true. I just, that was a lie. - That's horrible. And also like the guilt that she already has to live with every single day knowing that she led this unhinged man to murder her parents. - Yeah, 'cause she was not a part of the plot or like the plotting to kill the parents, she wasn't in the house, so she had no idea. - Yeah. - Rod's psychologist admitted that Rod was faking a lot of his symptoms and that he seemed to think that the whole legal process was a game. - So after hearing that, the jury was like, well, this isn't gonna take long for us to sentence you. And on February 27th, 1998, Rod was sentenced to death and became the youngest person ever sent to the Florida electric chair. - Also another shocking part of this case that I'm like, surprise I had never heard of this part of this. - Right, yeah, I hadn't known all the details, but I'd like seen clips come up before, like small moments like one of the most shocking cases, like vampire cult leader. - I knew nothing. Teenage yourself. - Heard you. - Heard a new nothing. - Rod was sent to the electric chair. Heather is let go, right? But then there's still three others. There's Dana, Charity, and Scott. So Scott pleaded guilty to principal on first degree murder. And at his sentencing, he told the judge that when things turned violent, he basically just froze. He panicked, he didn't know what to do. He just kind of stood there. The court did not buy that. And he was sentenced to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. Dana, on the other hand, pleaded guilty. And remember, Dana's the only one that's 19, so she is already an adult. - Right. - So she pleads guilty to being a principal of the third degree murder, along with armed robbery and burglary. She ends up getting 17 and a half years in prison. - Interesting, 'cause like she and the two other girls were not even at house, yeah. - They were not inside the house now. - So she made it pretty clear that she wishes, she had never met Rod ever in her life. - I'm sure her life. - He did. - Absolutely. - Charity also took a plea deal and was sentenced to 10 and a half years. - Wow. - So Heather's the only one who had no punishment in any regard. - Yeah, basically. So there were a lot of questions that came up. So Heather initially was released or like let go. But then a judge demanded that the state prosecutors call a second grand jury to stick Heather with criminal charges, 'cause they weren't buying everything completely. In December of 1998, two years after the murders, that's exactly what happened. This time the state brought in witnesses who testified that Heather said that she wanted her parents dead. One person said they actually overheard her telling Rod to get rid of her parents. - Oh geez. - And then like I said before, her sister Jennifer was like, hey, a few weeks before she asked if I'd ever thought about killing our parents. So there were all these things that are like, okay, maybe she's not as innocent as you think. - Also poor Jennifer who 17 has to discover her parents' murder. And then also the one person who you could have potentially had to get through all of this, your sister, was somewhat responsible for it, it just. - Hey, you lose your whole family, breaks my heart. - Yeah, she's brought in a second grand jury. And basically how the grand jury works is, the bar's way lower than an actual trial. You don't have to prove someone's guilt. You just have to have enough evidence to move it forward. And basically it was like, was she involved in a way? Let's find out. I mean, even just the idea of it is enough to move forward. - But that is not what happened. The grand jury cleared her again for a second time. And to this day, Heather's never faced any criminal charges. She was sent to live with her grandmother, but her grandmother really resented her for the murders. And was not very kind. She actually fired a pistol in your Heather's head one day to get her to stop talking. - I mean, I have a lot of thoughts on like, even just near her head, like was that the intention or was she actually trying to kill her? - I don't know. But it did get to a point where Heather's grandmother was like, I'm not taking care of you at all. And she refused to take care of her. So Heather's own lawyer ended up stepping up and becoming her foster parent. Is that not interesting? - Kind of feels like Matilda. - It kind of does. So the role, like what Heather did or did not do, that's still a big question mark. - Right. - I think a lot of people involved in the case where there's still, you know, there's differing sides. - But legally, she's innocent. Any eyes of the court, she had no role. - She had, yes. But then in the eyes of a lot of people in the public or other people who believe that she did have a role, they feel like Richard and Ruth didn't ever truly get justice for their murders. In 2006, Charity was released early for good behavior. Dana got out in 2011 before finishing her entire sentence. and then the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the
death penalty was unconstitutional for anyone under 17. So, Rod's sentence was automatically reduced to life in prison. So was that decided the same year of the sentencing? Or it was like anyone who was sentenced to this under the age of 17? I think it was anyone who was. Yeah. Because I was like, he probably wasn't 17 any longer. I always have to remind myself, because when I feel like when people get sentenced to the electric chair, like to death or whatever, my mind is automatically like, okay, they've got like a couple weeks or something. No, it's a long time. But like, it can be decades. Yeah. Someone awaiting the completion of their sentencing. But basically with the Florida Supreme Court ruling that the death penalty is unconstitutional for anyone under 17, that ruling also opened up a door for all minors who received sentencing, like life sentences to be reviewed as well. And remember Scott, it was like two life sentences or something like that. So Scott took advantage of that and he managed to get his sentence reduced to 40 years. Rod tried to do the same. It took a long time for him to get in front of anyone. But in November of 2019, he finally got back in front of a judge. He argued to reduce his sentence. This was the very first time he showed any signs of remorse, which you're like, "But more." Like in quotation. Was he like coached or something? Or was like he was just putting on a performance. Totally. Yeah. Too little too late. The court was like, "Sorry, we do not believe you." The judge called him irreparably corrupt. Basically said that he was beyond rehabilitation. He needed to stay separated from society for the rest of his life and his sentence, his life sentence stood. I like this judge. I don't know anything else beyond this sentence, but I agree. But it also makes me curious what more the judge heard of his behavior in jail. Because that does a huge part of. At this point, with the appeals exhausted, it's very unlikely that Rod will ever see the light of day because it seems like. Oh, pun intended. Never see the light of day because he's a vampire. Does he go out for his walks around the court? I feel like the only real thing he took on of a vampire was drinking blood. Yeah, true. Just a horrific case. I mean, there are three victims in this. Well, before I guess if you include Heather, but Jennifer, 17-year-old, two became an orphan, lost her entire family. Yeah. This is all because of a guy who thought that he was a vampire. When you take everything into account, it does feel a lot less like Rod became violent because of vampires and a lot more like vampires were just in a static that he layered on top of everything else that he was going on because he had violence like big-ass. Yes, the isolation, the child abuse, drugs, mental health issues were just so much going on and all of that combined into something. There's a lot more dangerous than Dracula himself. Hot take, he's not a vampire. He's a human murderer. 100% and he used the like idea of a vampire to kind of encourage his sick ideas. Yes. Well, that's disturbing. We do not want you to start this. Not at all. I really, I knew nothing about this, so horrifying. I was trying to hint at things when I was saying like, oh, the drinking blood or like the different things are going to come up, but I guess, yeah. I mean, I had an idea, yeah, in that sense, but no idea about how horrible it was and how young they all were. Well, we hope you all enjoyed this episode. Before we do wrap up, I feel like we want to share a few resources for some of the very heavy topics we discussed. All of the support we're about to mention is free, confidential and available 24/7 anywhere in the U.S. and it will be included in our show notes as well of this episode. If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, please know you are not alone. The national sexual assault hotline offers support in both English and Spanish. You can call 800 656 Hope, which is 4673,
[email protected]/hotline or text Hope to 64673. There's also a dedicated crisis line for those struggling with self-harm. In the U.S., you can text the letters S H to 741741. And there's a special number to text for those in California, 686868. Either of those lines will connect you to a crisis counselor who can help you identify triggers and come up with safe alternatives. Visit crisistextline.org for more information. And finally, there are also resources available for people trying to leave high control groups or cults. So if you or someone you know is in a part of a group that threatens physical harm against you or shows other warning signs that we've talked about today and in the other episodes of crimes of cults, you can visit cultrecovery101.com for more information and resources. Thank you so much for listening. We are your hosts Sabrina DeNaroga and Corinne VN. Join us next Tuesday for another peek inside another crimes of cults case. And if there are any cases that you would like us to cover, please let us know in the comments. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. And if you like what you heard today, please reach out on also social media at Crime House. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow crimes of wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference. Thank you, jurors. Thank you for joining us. Cult is adjourned. One of everything you learned in history class was only half the story. I'm Dr. Herne Bott, I start as a clinical pharmacist, and somewhere along the way I became obsessed with the mysteries that history never fully solved. That's exactly why I created Hidden History, a rewind students original podcast powered by PAVE Studios. Every Monday, I go where history touches the unknown. Vanishing civilizations, doomsday prophecies, paranormal phenomena, and events that science still can't fully explain. I'll give you historical context, I'll break down the science, I'll even interrogate the supernatural. I treat these moments like open case files, not miss, not superstition, just incomplete explanations waiting for a closer look. And I'll ask the question, what if this happened today? Listen to and follow Hidden History available now wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening to this episode from Crime House. If you're looking for another show to check out, listen to serial killers and murderous minds. Every Monday and Thursday, Dr. Tristan Engles and myself dig into the most chilling murders and uncover what drives them to kill. Follow serial killers and murderous minds, available wherever you listen to podcasts.
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