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you get what you need done too.

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to bed and cargo and utilization of

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the bed, including when towing a trailer.

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Together with a wider bumper step, it's easier

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spaces. An available Pro-Power onboard

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serves as a mobile power source, providing up

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to 7.2 kilowatts of power to charge a

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bed full of electric dirt bikes or run

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an entire job site worth of tools. I'm

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still driving my 2016 F-150 truck and 90,000 miles in. As

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long as I keep it clean, it honestly still looks brand

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new. I've taken it down snow-covered, forest-service

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roads, taken it out camping, put a ton

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of miles on it on the freeway, had

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five adults in the cabin for long trips,

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and it's been great everywhere. Super dependable. I

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still love the way it looks, nice and

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rugged design, but with a super comfortable interior.

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And I'm still very happy with the quality

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sound system and heated seats. And since I

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bought my 2016 F-150 truck, the

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list of standard amenities that make a truck

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feel like a luxury vehicle have only grown.

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your local Ford dealer at ford.com.

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Pro-axis tailgate available starting spring 2024.

1:13

See owner's manual for important operating

1:15

instructions. What was your

1:17

favorite immersive world when you were a teenager? Was

1:20

it the world of muggles, wizards, and more of Harry Potter?

1:22

Lord of the Rings, Middle Earth? Westeros from

1:25

Game of Thrones? The continent from

1:27

The Witcher? That Star Wars galaxy that's far,

1:29

far away? Or maybe the world of

1:31

ancient vampires finally coming out of the shadows and meeting

1:33

the rest of us lowly meat sacks in true blood.

1:36

I would say favorite book, game, movie, or TV

1:38

show, but to many of us, these collections of

1:41

stories were, and maybe still are, so much more

1:43

than that. They're not just pieces

1:45

of disposable media that we watch and quickly

1:47

forget. They're immersive and escapist

1:49

worlds that we can enter and

1:51

live in through our imaginative minds' eyes. They're

1:54

places where we mentally spent so much time

1:56

in that in some ways, these worlds felt

1:58

every bit as real. as our own.

2:01

Maybe still do. When we concentrated

2:03

enough, we could really picture ourselves living there.

2:05

Maybe we were superheroes, throwing fireballs, flying

2:07

over the city, saving it from evil,

2:10

scores of women below, dreaming for the chance

2:12

to be chosen by us. What an ego

2:14

stroke. As kids, sure, we

2:16

knew that the world around us was real, that

2:19

our parents could actually legally tell us what to do,

2:22

that if we walked out of class because our teacher

2:24

was a douchebag, there's going to be consequences. If

2:27

we said the wrong words to the wrong kid at school,

2:29

we would still very likely get our asses kicked. But

2:32

despite having to live in this world and play by its

2:34

rules, many of us still held out

2:36

hope that maybe, just maybe, there

2:38

was a chance that we could figure out how to bend

2:40

the laws of this world and go live in another. And

2:43

for some of us, that itty bitty chance was enough to

2:45

kind of believe our friends when they

2:47

said they, I don't know, knew someone who could

2:49

raise the dead with some kind of necromancy spell

2:51

or that they had a cousin who, no shit,

2:53

swear to God, really was a vampire, sleeps in

2:56

a coffin and everything. For some

2:58

of us, probably a lot of us listening to

3:00

this show, there was a time when it truly

3:02

was tricky to always be able to tell where

3:04

the line between imagination, wishful thinking, and just being

3:06

completely full of shit was drawn. But

3:08

then for damn near all of us, that

3:10

inability to tell the difference between what is

3:12

definitely real and what is nothing more

3:14

than fantasy, it fades as

3:17

we grow into our later teens. Sure,

3:19

we can still get emotionally lost in the

3:21

nostalgia of loving a series of books or

3:24

movies, but we're not walking around literally claiming

3:26

to be a witch, a wizard, a high

3:28

elf, or a vampire. Not

3:30

only claiming that, but truly believing our own

3:32

claim. But for a small

3:34

handful of us, the desire to truly be a

3:36

part of our favorite fantasy world does not fade.

3:39

Instead, it deepens. And some of us

3:41

start to detach a bit from reality and not in a

3:43

fun, harmless way. This is what seems

3:46

to have happened with Rod Farrell. Rod

3:48

was introduced to the world of vampires as a

3:50

kid, and he liked it, loved it, really

3:53

loved it. He truly wanted to become

3:55

a vampire. And it seems as if

3:57

he actually started to really think he was a

3:59

vampire. as did some of his friends. The

4:02

world of vampire lore offered him

4:04

an escape from his extremely troubled

4:06

home life. His dour religious grandparents,

4:08

possibly a predatory grandfather, his rebellious,

4:10

also possibly predatory mother. Instead

4:13

of feeling like shit or like a nobody, a

4:15

poor kid living in a small Kentucky town where

4:17

almost no one seemed to understand him, Rod

4:19

could instead feel like an

4:21

ancient, immortal vampire, someone both

4:24

powerful and feared. Inspired

4:26

largely by the role-playing vampire of

4:28

the masquerade, Rod developed a

4:30

character for himself named Visago, a 500-ish year

4:33

old European aristocat who

4:36

decided to reincarnate in the

4:38

body of an American teenage boy. And it

4:41

is aristocrat. I don't know why that world has set itself

4:43

far to me when I've said it a

4:45

thousand times in my life. Anyway, Rod wasn't the

4:47

only teen in Murray, Kentucky to go full vampire.

4:49

He was just the only one to go full evil

4:52

vampire, the only one willing to

4:54

coldly kill to keep his vampiric adventure going. The

4:57

wild story of Rod Farrell and the

4:59

vampire murders, right now on another

5:01

true crime, not quite cult, but cult-ish,

5:04

super weird, what the hell was going on

5:07

in small town Kentucky in the 90s? So

5:09

glad this is not my life edition of

5:11

Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're

5:13

listening to Time Suck. Happy

5:29

Monday and welcome to the Cult of the

5:31

Curious. I'm Dan Kelman, Sir Sucksabit, fourth

5:34

dimensional astral traveler, dream interpreter, poor

5:37

man's Rod Surly, and you are

5:39

listening to Time Suck. I should have

5:41

added a guy who suddenly struggles with aristocrat. I

6:00

had one last night where I was the happiest I have

6:02

ever been by far. I was

6:04

married to a good, wholesome, very

6:06

submissive woman who lets me ride her

6:08

bicycle whenever and however I want, who's not

6:10

a level four Teddy Bart-infested demon zombie.

6:14

JK. I love Lindsay's stashed a

6:16

little butt. She is recovering very well from

6:18

her recent hip procedure for anyone curious and concerned, by

6:20

the way. Got a lot of messages. Thank you for

6:22

that. Very quick

6:24

double announcement before today's super weird show.

6:27

The time has come to prepare for the summer camp next year.

6:30

I know it's early, but we want to give

6:32

you time to plan ahead. Tickets for Wet Hot

6:35

Bad Magic Summer Camp 2025 Summer of

6:37

Love will be

6:39

on sale Saturday, March 23rd, 10 a.m.

6:42

Pacific Time, first come, first serve. A

6:44

lot more private residences at camp next year than

6:46

last year, but when they're gone, they're gone. Get

6:49

your tickets while you can. Go to

6:51

badmagicproductions.com, our new one-stop shop website

6:53

for everything I'm up to, and

6:56

click the summer camp banner for all the info and

6:58

links to tickets. We're

7:00

very excited to do this again and

7:03

just looking forward to it after how much fun this past

7:05

one was, really the past two. And

7:07

also don't forget to come and spend on the scholarship

7:09

fund accepting applications as of March 6th. You

7:12

can visit again badmagicproductions.com, click the scholarship

7:14

menu for more info and be linked

7:16

over to Scholarship America for the application.

7:20

And now let's go full vampire. After you

7:22

make sure you're not listening to this

7:24

episode anywhere near sunlight, unless you want to

7:26

be burned alive, keep an

7:28

eye out for wooden crosses, steaks, I

7:30

guess rather, garlic, makes

7:32

really, really crosses of any

7:34

material, I think. Definitely

7:37

wooden steaks, definitely garlics. Make

7:39

sure you're familiar, is standing guard

7:41

before you put on your noise cancellation headphones.

7:44

And now enjoy, you beautiful, bloodsucking

7:46

son of a bitch. In

7:55

a lot of ways, Today's Suck feels like a strange

7:57

corollary to our episode about Dungeons and Dragons

7:59

while back. Except while the

8:01

fears of getting lost in D&D or AD&D

8:03

were unfounded, some of today's

8:05

characters did get dangerously lost

8:07

in a role-playing game. Remember

8:10

James Dallas Egbert III? He

8:13

was that child prodigy in TechWiz who enrolled at Michigan

8:15

State University at the age of 16. He

8:18

also had epilepsy, was struggling with

8:21

his own homosexuality and parental pressure,

8:24

which led to depression, which led to his

8:26

disappearance from campus in 1979, still only 16 years old. After

8:30

leaving behind a suicide note. Oh,

8:32

and he played a little bit of Dungeons and Dragons. And

8:34

D&D was initially, at least in the

8:36

media, blamed almost entirely for his disappearance.

8:39

His parents hired William Deer, a

8:42

private investigator and complete and utter nut job,

8:45

to help determine their son's whereabouts when police couldn't find

8:47

him. While examining the board with

8:49

a pattern of pushpins found in James' dorm room,

8:52

Deer saw between the lines. He realized that

8:54

the arrangement of the pins suggested, at least

8:56

to him, no one else, the shape of

8:58

various campus buildings, including the power plants. Deer

9:01

was a master of connecting dots. Dots

9:04

that were actually largely never there, but he connected

9:06

them all the same. And

9:08

Deer was then able to get permission to search the

9:10

steam tunnels under the school based on the power plant

9:12

design. Deer also disclosed some

9:14

of his multiple theories regarding why James disappeared

9:16

to the media, but decided to

9:19

keep some of the information private, like the

9:21

best information. Notably, anything related to specific personal

9:23

problems, such as James' depression and

9:26

other less sensational factors. However,

9:28

he did discuss the notion that Egbert might

9:30

have entered the tunnels, probably did, almost certainly

9:33

did enter them while playing a live action

9:35

version of D&D. Also called

9:37

Larping, live action role playing, where

9:40

players act out scenarios on location instead of sitting

9:42

around a table. Deer also

9:44

advanced the idea that some players might, on

9:46

occasion, actually believe they are in

9:48

fact their character. And

9:50

that Egbert was almost certainly wandering around somewhere

9:52

in that kind of state, you know, thinking he was

9:54

on some kind of fucking Dragon Quest, looking for some

9:57

monsters to slay or some shit. 4%

10:00

speculation built upon more speculation and

10:03

the press ran wild with it. The national

10:05

media, taken with the novelty of

10:07

the very thin connection between the

10:09

game and egg-verse disappearance, pushed all

10:11

sorts of imaginative, sensationalist musings presented

10:13

as facts, bullshit into articles, newscasts,

10:15

and more. For many

10:17

listening, watching and reading, a link

10:20

between Dungeons and Dragons, occult behavior,

10:22

mind control, general insanity,

10:24

and more was a done fucking deal. As

10:27

theory got so much interest, Deer ended up writing a

10:29

book about it all, called the Dungeon Master,

10:32

the Disappearance of James Dallas Egg-verse III. But

10:35

what really happened to James? Well, he didn't get lost in

10:37

the world of D&D. His disappearance didn't

10:39

have jack shit to do with D&D. He just wanted

10:42

to escape his life. After

10:44

hiding in Michigan for a few days, he took a bus to New Orleans,

10:46

attempted suicide with cyanide, lived,

10:49

made it to Morgan City, Louisiana, worked

10:51

on an oil field just a few days before he

10:53

was found by William Deer. Who

10:56

knew damn well that James taking off didn't have

10:58

shit to do with an RPG, but he still

11:00

went ahead and wrote his book anyway. Deer

11:03

dropped him off with James' uncle, Marvin Gross.

11:05

In September of 1979, he enrolled in Wright

11:07

State University in Dayton, Ohio, near his parents'

11:09

home, studying computer science, working for

11:12

his dad at an eyeglass store. And

11:14

then on August 11, 1980, James,

11:16

now 17 years old, sadly, tragically,

11:19

shot himself in the head and died at the

11:21

hospital. And his death had nothing

11:23

to do with Dungeons and Dragons. But

11:25

you wouldn't know that, based on sensationalist

11:27

reporting that continued after his death. Dungeons

11:31

and Dragons will not likely lead you to getting so lost

11:33

in a fantasy world that you lose your mind and do

11:35

something like take your own life. Yet, however,

11:38

very likely may lead you into spending

11:40

a lot of time staying up late

11:42

with other imaginative folks, painting little pewter

11:44

figurines, adorbs, carrying battle axes, and sexy

11:46

elven enchantresses, sexual fantasies where you beat

11:48

off to thoughts of fucking some sexy

11:50

sorcerer, spending too much money on books,

11:53

boards, dice, that kind of shit. The

11:55

story of James Dallas Egbert III is not a good one

11:58

when it comes to trying to depict fantasy roles.

12:00

playing games as dangerous escapism. Today's

12:03

story, however, is a good story that

12:05

does illustrate how some people can, in

12:07

fact, get dangerously lost in immersive

12:09

fantasy worlds. Shows how some

12:12

teens, many if not all with terrible home lives,

12:14

did get lost in a fantasy that just

12:16

felt so much better than their real

12:18

crappy ass lives. In our

12:20

world, they were poor, picked

12:22

on, abused, marginalized,

12:24

dismissed, teased for

12:27

being weird, losers, overall

12:29

fuck-ups. So they chose

12:31

to live in a new world, the world of

12:33

darkness, the world of vampire, the masquerade, where

12:36

they were powerful vampires who either believed they were immortal

12:38

and could do shit like conjure spirits and see and

12:40

speak with the dead for starters, or they

12:42

believed that certain other members of their coven could really

12:44

do these things. They were part

12:47

of something incredibly special. They were brave enough

12:49

to leave the norms and limitations of this

12:51

world behind and step into a dark world

12:53

of power and pleasure forbidden to the Judeo-Christian

12:55

culture they'd been born into. Today's

12:57

true story illustrates that in rare instances,

13:01

kids can get way too fucking in

13:03

to a role-playing game, such

13:05

as the one about vampires, right? Where they

13:07

can start thinking that they are a vampire. They can

13:09

start believing that they can control people and turn others

13:11

into vampires. They can convince other kids that they do

13:13

have dark powers. And all of

13:15

this can, in fact, lead to murder, at

13:18

least partially. Other factors are definitely

13:20

also at play for sure in today's story. Rod

13:22

Farrell might have killed anyway. But

13:25

maybe not. Rod Farrell was just 16

13:27

when he committed a double homicide. And maybe he

13:29

did so because he didn't feel like he was 16. Maybe

13:32

he did so in part because he felt ancient.

13:34

Immortal. He was no longer

13:36

the weird goth kid who was never picked first for

13:38

dodgeball or any other game in gym class. He

13:41

was no longer the kid that most other kids really

13:43

hoped, prayed. They did not get stuck with when they

13:45

had to work on a group project. Thin,

13:48

with a pale complexion, long hair that hung over

13:50

his face, prone to saying weird creepy shit about

13:52

being a vampire. Rod was definitely

13:54

an outcast. In this world. But

13:57

in his mind, and with a few members of his

13:59

coven, He was God. Rod

14:01

had been carefully constructing a background for himself since

14:04

he was at a young age, possibly as

14:06

young as five when his mom, Sondra, introduced

14:09

him to scary movies, horror

14:11

fiction, New Age spirituality, and

14:13

the RPG Vampire The Masquerade.

14:16

A little bit later for that game, actually,

14:18

but introduced him to the world of vampire

14:21

lore, for sure, before the game. So

14:23

let's talk about this game a bit before setting the

14:25

stage for today's story, and then diving into

14:27

the details in the timeline. Vampire

14:30

The Masquerade is a tabletop role-playing game

14:32

created by Mark Rinehagen, originally released in

14:35

1991 by White Wolf Publishing.

14:38

Quickly became a top 10 seller for RPGs for that

14:40

year, five years later, in a 1996 reader poll

14:42

by Arcane Magazine to

14:44

determine the 50 most popular role-playing games

14:46

of all time. Vampire The

14:48

Masquerade was ranked number six. Editor

14:51

Paul Pettengale commented, heh

14:55

heh, random words, it's just gonna be a struggle today, that's cool. Vampire

14:58

has always proved the most popular of the world

15:00

of darkness games, a testament both to

15:02

the continuing appeal of the vampire itself and

15:05

to the structure and design of the game. Like

15:07

all of the storyteller range, it's not an easy

15:09

game to get right, and it relies heavily on

15:11

both the players and the referee putting a lot

15:13

of effort and imagination into their roles. With

15:16

a good group, though, it could be

15:18

an immensely interesting and thought-provoking game and

15:20

one of the most effective horror RPGs

15:22

around. Despite a tendency to take

15:24

itself a little seriously, Vampire The

15:26

Masquerade has a great deal to offer

15:28

the more mature and serious gamer. This

15:31

game is set in a fictionalized, gothic punk version

15:33

of the modern world where players

15:36

assume the role of vampires, who are

15:38

referred to as nerds, I

15:40

mean as kindred, and deal

15:42

with their night-to-night struggles against their own beastial

15:44

natures, vampire hunters and each other. Ryan

15:47

Hagan felt that hunting vampires as a game premise

15:50

would get boring, so he came up

15:52

with the idea of a game where the players were the

15:54

vampires instead of hunting them. And for

15:56

the most part, these vampires, they're not good people,

15:59

although there is my In the game, and if

16:01

you butcher people all willy-nilly, you will not be rewarded

16:03

and you can lose control of your character permanently, you

16:06

also need to feed on human blood to keep your character going.

16:09

And many of the 13 different vampire clans in the game are

16:12

decidedly of an evil, let's destroy humanity

16:14

kind of nature. This

16:16

game came out long before Twilight, a more

16:18

recent depiction of vampires being pretty decent, upstanding

16:21

undead folk, living righteously,

16:23

only eating animals or whatever. Back

16:25

around when Rod was starting to play this game, the

16:28

most popular piece of vampire media in pop culture was

16:31

1994's Interview with a Vampire, that boxed-office

16:33

smash starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt,

16:36

Barry Young, Kirsten Dunst, Christian

16:38

Slater, and Antonio Banderas,

16:40

Maserati Bugatti, Vasachis, Fagari Antonio

16:43

Banderas. This movie was

16:45

based on best-selling author Anne Rice's popular 1976 novel of

16:47

the same name.

16:51

It was Anne's first of 13 books, collectively known

16:53

as The Vampire Chronicles, revolving around

16:55

the fictional character of L'Esteat de

16:57

l'Encourt, 18th century

16:59

French nobleman played by Tom Cruise, who became

17:02

an immortal vampire that ends up in New

17:04

Orleans. Prior to the

17:06

movie and Rice's books, 1992's Bram

17:08

Stoker's Dracula, always want to

17:10

say Stroker, always want to say Bram Stroker, every

17:14

time, starring Gary

17:16

Oldman, Anthony Hopkins, Winona Ryder,

17:19

Keanu, Nat Kanu, Reeves, another

17:21

massive box office of empiric success, based

17:24

on Bram Stoker's 1897

17:26

novel Dracula, in this

17:29

movie, the historical subject Vlad Dracula,

17:32

former suck subject Vlad the Impaler, dude

17:35

who loved a human shish kebab more than any other man in

17:37

history, who becomes a vampire in

17:39

1462 after defeating the Ottoman Empire in

17:41

a military campaign, only to return

17:43

to his castle and find his wife dead. Enraged

17:46

at God, after being told her soul

17:48

was now damned to hell for committing

17:50

suicide, he desecrates a chapel, renounces God,

17:53

and becomes a monster. fucking

18:00

great for being close to 500 years old and

18:03

where he is also an evil dude

18:05

naughty boy guy who views

18:07

human life as being very very disposable. A couple

18:10

years before that movie, 1987 is the

18:12

Lost Boys. Made being a vampire

18:14

look pretty damn cool. I thought it made vampires look cool

18:16

when I was a kid. Most of

18:18

the vampires in that movie, they didn't give a shit about taking

18:20

human life. Rest in peace,

18:22

Corey Hain by the way. Also rest

18:25

in peace, Lost Boys franchise. Should

18:27

have never made a sequel. Definitely should

18:29

have never turned it into a trilogy. Anyway

18:32

two years before the first and only Good Lost Boys

18:34

film, it was Fright Night. Second highest grossing

18:36

horror film of 1985 surpassed only by a Nightmare

18:39

on Elm Street 2, Freddy's Revenge. Another

18:41

film based on the premise of the evil

18:43

murderous vampire. There was also the 1975 Stephen

18:45

King bestseller, Salem's

18:48

Lot. Book about a little

18:50

town in Maine where the residents are quickly

18:52

becoming vampires thanks to the ancient bloodsucker Kurt

18:54

Barlow attacking resident after resident and

18:56

I could go on and on. Only

18:59

want to share one more. Arguably the

19:01

most popular and enduring vampire

19:03

character of the past 50 times years.

19:08

Oh

19:16

greetings, it is I the Count

19:18

and it's time to answer that

19:20

fascinating question. What is

19:22

the Sesame Street number of the day?

19:24

I don't know. Let's

19:27

count the bats and

19:29

find out. Oh there's

19:31

one. One bat. Okay. Oh

19:34

there's another one. Two bats. Yeah.

19:36

Three. Three fabulous flyers.

19:39

Ah ah ah. Terrifying.

19:43

Yes I did play that exact clip I believe in some form

19:46

during another episode in the past few years. Just can't

19:48

remember which one. And no

19:50

the count of course did not help lure Rod into the

19:52

dark side. Pretty funny if that was true.

19:55

Getting Rod was familiar with most if not all of

19:57

this media and for the most part outside of occasional

19:59

exception. like Anne Rice's Louis de

20:02

Pointe du Lac, played by

20:04

Brad Pitt. These vampires were again dark

20:06

and powerful antagonists of the human race. Humans

20:10

feared and despised them just like a lot

20:12

of Rod's peers feared and despised him. He

20:14

saw himself in these vampires, right? He

20:17

despised them back, just like most of the vampires from the vampire lore of the

20:19

80s and 90s did. And along

20:21

comes Vampire, the masquerade, a

20:23

game where you could become, at least in its world of darkness setting,

20:27

one of these powerful evil vampires. Like Rod

20:29

was ready. Hell yeah! Vampire,

20:31

the masquerade, was one of the first pieces

20:33

of vampire media to both combine vampires with

20:35

a steampunk, futuristic world and

20:38

to develop tropes about individual vampires into

20:40

a highly complex social system. Ryan

20:43

Hagen recast the biblical Cain as

20:45

the father of all vampires, taking inspiration

20:47

from the education he'd received as a child

20:49

of a Lutheran minister. He wanted

20:51

the central concept to be something simple but powerful, which

20:54

he replicated all the way down to the cover photo, a

20:56

rose on a green marble table, the

20:58

game overall not simple, incredibly

21:01

immersive and complex, focusing on

21:03

plots, intrigue and story as opposed to the

21:05

more straightforward dungeon scenarios of A, D and

21:07

D, those

21:10

type of role-playing games when VTM came out. While

21:13

the RPG industry in general has been trending towards,

21:16

or had been trending towards a more narrative approach

21:18

for quite some time, Vampire was one of the

21:20

first games of its kind to really center on

21:22

it. The vampires were given an extensive

21:24

list of broad supernatural powers called disciplines,

21:27

which included superior strength, speed and toughness,

21:30

as well as other powers such as

21:32

mystic senses, mind control and blood magic.

21:35

The 13 clans added late in the development

21:37

process provided a much needed character class system

21:40

based on vampiric archetypes. But

21:43

if you couldn't afford all the game

21:45

material about clans, you could also, and

21:47

still also, can just be a basic

21:49

generic vampire. And you can use,

21:52

you know, the bit of money that you've saved to

21:54

buy a generic vampire action doll if you really want

21:56

to get into it, from the very

21:58

fine folks who make the action he-

22:00

Hero People Figures. Oh hell yeah. New

22:04

from the makers of Fighting Man,

22:06

Atomic Man, Flying Guy, Warrior Woman,

22:08

Attack Cat, Prophet Jeffrey and Kami

22:10

Guru, it's Vampire Boy

22:12

and Vampire Girl. Do

22:15

you wanna be a little naughty

22:17

vampire? Suckin'

22:19

blood and causing trouble, sunlight, hide

22:22

on the double. Do you

22:24

wanna be a little naughty vampire? A

22:28

monster with scary teeth, a spooky

22:30

bat hanging by its feet. Do

22:32

you wanna be a little naughty

22:34

vampire? A real

22:36

scary girl or boy, better buy

22:38

this vampire toy. Complete your

22:40

action hero people set today. Fighting

22:43

Man, Flying Guy, Warrior Woman, Attack

22:45

Cat, Atomic Man, Prophet Jeffrey, Kami

22:47

Guru, and now Vampire Boy and

22:49

Vampire Girl. Karate Lady

22:51

and Spy Person are probably not coming soon

22:53

anymore, since sales are way, way

22:55

down, and our corporate masters,

22:57

Bear Evil Incorporated, will probably soon dismantle

23:00

us and sell us off in pieces.

23:05

God, fuckin' sounds like you better buy that Vampire Boy

23:07

and Vampire Girl doll pretty quick. Tough

23:10

times for the action hero people set people.

23:13

Anyway, don't even worry about it if you don't understand

23:15

where that guy came from. It has nothing to do

23:17

with this topic. Vampire

23:21

the Masked Great character class clan system, and

23:23

all the ways you can customize your character within its clan,

23:26

prove very popular with players, especially big groups of

23:28

teens who wanted to both feel like they were

23:30

members of a secret club, but also feel like

23:33

they were unique individuals within that secret

23:35

club. But there was another

23:37

draw for teenagers as well, the concept

23:39

of the beast. VTM

23:42

made use of a lot of existing

23:44

vampiric folklore, like immortality, thirst for blood,

23:46

undead status, pale skin, heightened

23:49

intelligence, sophistication, but they

23:51

also introduced something new, the beast. The

23:54

beast is a savage carnal predatory drive

23:57

within all vampires. That

24:00

fucker? Mostly beast at this

24:02

point. One innocent

24:05

child I killed. Ha ha

24:07

ha ha. Two innocent child

24:09

I killed. Ha ha ha.

24:11

But for real. The

24:14

beast takes only to satisfy its base urge to

24:16

survive. Anger, mortal threats, hunger, or

24:18

bloodlust are some of the things that can cause

24:20

the beast to rise. The beast

24:22

is capable of taking over the vampire's consciousness, their

24:25

conscious mind, force them into

24:27

a frenzied state where they take violent,

24:30

often deeply regrettable actions that they otherwise

24:32

might not. One of

24:34

the major themes of vampire is character's battles

24:36

to strike a balance between their violent predatory

24:38

nature and being at least a little morally

24:40

responsible before their humanity is completely

24:42

overtaken by this powerful force within themselves. This

24:45

could be read as a lesson for all people. Learn

24:48

how to balance your worst, most

24:50

base impulses, or you're going

24:52

to suffer the consequences. It could also

24:54

be seen now as a license to do whatever you want,

24:56

no matter how cruel or terrible. You couldn't really

24:58

help it. You were simply overtaken by

25:00

the beast. You drank a

25:02

bit. Too much vampire blood. Wait

25:04

up! Oh! And shit went

25:06

off the rails. What'd you guys do? He didn't ask

25:08

for the beast. You were made a beast. When

25:10

you got turned into a fucking bloodthirsty undead vampire. BTM

25:14

became Rod's escape from this world. He loved the

25:16

beast. He wanted to give in to the

25:18

beast and punish a world that had to be fair. Punish

25:21

him quite often. BTM was his

25:23

way out of his massively unstable home life, which

25:25

involved an absentee dad and a mom who quite

25:27

possibly molested him, never held down a job for

25:29

long, often resorted to sex work or bumming off

25:31

her parents when she didn't feel like showing up

25:33

to a job. Rod also

25:35

partially was raised by his maternal grandparents,

25:38

devout Pentecostals, horrified and embarrassed by the

25:40

choices of their daughter, Sondra. They

25:42

never wanted her to get pregnant at 16, or even go

25:44

out in pants or wear makeup or really have any much

25:46

fun at all. BTM Sondra took

25:49

her rebellion against their wishes too far, but

25:51

then would come crawling back from time to time when she needed money or

25:53

a place to stay. And also, Rod's

25:55

grandpa may have created the darkness that Rod and his mom

25:57

got wrapped up in when he allegedly There was so

25:59

much chaos and pain in Rod's

26:01

childhood. Understandably,

26:04

he didn't much care for his real life, so he

26:06

invented a new one. He gave

26:08

himself a background that didn't start off in backwoods,

26:11

Central Florida or Bumfuck, Kentucky, but instead

26:13

in France. In the 1400s,

26:15

vampire Rod had been a filthy rich,

26:17

handsome as fuck, a wrist of cracked noise.

26:20

He was respected, powerful, feared, super handsome.

26:23

Probably a big old fat dick

26:25

too. He was a vampire

26:27

giga-chat, wrist and dick and

26:29

skull-moggin' the fuck out of lowly medieval

26:32

Melvins and crushing so much giga-stacy-puss and

26:34

just riding around crashing women's bicycles, anyone

26:36

that he wanted. And his name

26:38

was Roderick. No, it was way cooler. It

26:40

was Vassago, which is very

26:42

likely a nod to a demon found in some

26:44

old occult literature. Just Vassago

26:46

spelled a different way. Vassago was a go-edic

26:49

demon in the occult literary work we became familiar with

26:51

a few weeks ago. And the exorcisms suck.

26:53

The Lesser Key of Solomon. I might

26:56

have mentioned that in the, I think we mentioned that in

26:58

the West Baptist three as well. The

27:00

grimoire spell book that deals with demonology.

27:03

Vassago was third in command of the spirits

27:05

of Satan's army of rebellious angels, according to

27:07

occult belief, and possessed special powers

27:09

such as fortune telling. Well, fuck that. Well,

27:12

Rod Vassago, Rod Sago, if you will,

27:15

he neither liked the bourgeoisie that he was a part of back

27:17

in France, nor the peasants that

27:20

he ruled over. So he decided to let his soul

27:22

undertake a 500 or so year slumber. He

27:24

went into a bit of a vampiric hibernation.

27:27

You got to recharge those bloodless batteries every

27:30

once in a while so he can get even stronger. You

27:32

know, be able to fang mong or

27:34

fang mong. There we go. Any and

27:36

all other vampires. You're a fucking gigadracula.

27:39

While he slept, his spirit had access to the ancient

27:41

worlds of the Arabians, the Egyptians, the Greeks. Also

27:44

access to a set of entities he called the

27:47

elders whom he could commune with in the vast

27:49

darkness. He accumulated all kinds

27:51

of knowledge, almost certainly found ancient

27:53

library of Alexandria scrolls that allowed him to

27:55

shoot fireballs. And he went on a lot

27:57

of bitchin' astral adventures. to

28:00

be reborn. He decided to emerge, cloaked

28:02

as an American teen, a teen who

28:04

would be the ultimate rebel. So

28:07

why America? Why not back to Europe? Well,

28:09

the saga, I mean, Rod, Rod saga, would

28:11

later say that he regarded himself as

28:13

a satanic vampire. satanic

28:15

and so powerful. He was an equal to God.

28:18

And since America was the most sinful country on earth, filled

28:21

to the brim with greed and

28:23

corruption here in the United States

28:26

of debauchery, he would

28:28

find the devil worshipers he needed to complete his army.

28:31

Rod wouldn't have liked those twilight post

28:33

vamps. For him, vampires were supposed to

28:35

be full evil. By the

28:37

time Rod was a teen, while most of his evil vampire

28:39

talk and brooding demeanor turned off a lot of his peers,

28:42

some were drawn to his bad boy,

28:44

rebel persona, he was like

28:46

James Dean. If James

28:49

Dean was a lot less attractive, painted his fingernails

28:51

black, wore a mesh crop top, and was actually not

28:53

at all like James Dean, but more like Marilyn Manson

28:55

minus any and all musical talent. Not

28:58

visually appealing to most girls with his long, narrow

29:00

nose, pale skin, claw like nails and thin body. For

29:03

some, there was something darkly

29:05

charismatic about old Rod saga. God's

29:07

equal. Rod dog, God Rod,

29:10

even if he was also a little repulsive. Rod

29:13

God did have flowing black hair, a

29:15

bit below shoulder length and silky. He usually

29:17

kept a tie back and ponytail. He

29:19

did have yeah, great hair. I'll give him that. Also,

29:21

a real good talker. Spoke eloquently

29:23

about good and evil, proclaiming calmly and

29:25

confidently that he was a fallen angel,

29:27

capital F, capital A, the

29:29

Antichrist, as a matter of fact.

29:32

And he had a good mind for both philosophy and

29:34

politics, keeping track of international affairs the way most 16

29:36

year olds did not. He

29:38

said crazy shit, like how Saddam Hussein

29:40

was the fourth Antichrist. He

29:42

would say so casually and seriously, few kids

29:44

believed him. He knows things. He

29:47

had a personality a lot like an emerging cult leader. You

29:50

don't got to win them all. Right? Just

29:52

like one out of 1000. If you really get them in, you

29:55

can start accumulating a nice little

29:57

following. Central Florida, he would

29:59

make two close. friends by sharing his elaborate

30:01

fantasy world musings, but maybe in

30:03

Rod's mind, real world musings, two

30:06

young girls named Janine LeClaire and Heather

30:08

Wendorf. But not long after befriending them,

30:10

dating one of them and having the other want to date him,

30:13

family instability reared his ugly head again and he

30:15

had to move back to Murray, Kentucky. While

30:18

Rod Dogg Godrod did not look forward

30:20

to returning to Murray, he did find a

30:22

meet up with some birds of a blood sucking familiar

30:24

feather. He hooked up with

30:26

what he found out to be a surprising

30:28

amount of local vampire enthusiasts and eventually he

30:31

would form his own dock coven. This

30:33

coven's main meet up spot was called the

30:35

Vampire Hotel. A dilapidated destruction of

30:38

the middle of the woods near Kentucky Lake and the land between

30:40

the lakes. There his vampire

30:42

clan would throw parties, use

30:44

psychedelics and take part in

30:46

various types of vampire, vampiric rituals. Rituals

30:48

they took so seriously, some started

30:51

to have a hard time understanding what was real and

30:53

what was pretend. Was Rod

30:55

actually a vampire as he said or was

30:57

he just goofing around for fun? Bit of

30:59

escapism. Some kids later swore

31:01

they saw him turn into a 9 foot

31:03

tall demon with their own eyes. Other

31:06

said he sacrificed animals. Almost

31:08

everybody saw him drink human blood. He encouraged

31:11

everyone else to drink blood, many did. And

31:14

some of these kids, these three

31:16

teenagers would follow Rod to Eustace,

31:18

Florida in November of 1996 to

31:20

begin a vampiric journey around the

31:22

world. New Orleans, Cairo,

31:24

Rome, meeting up with

31:27

ancient vampiric brethren and reclaiming

31:29

Visago's ancestral tassel in Wales.

31:32

I thought I'd be in France, but whatever. Rod's

31:34

minions knew he was a violent but he was

31:36

a bad-boiled friend, a constant-flurred, aggressive manipulator who did

31:38

as many drugs as he could get his hands

31:40

on but maybe, just maybe, he

31:43

was also a legit vampire. And he

31:45

could lead them into immortality. Ah,

31:48

to be a teenager again, right? When

31:50

the most ridiculous bullshit could feel so real, I

31:53

still daydream every day and live all

31:56

kinds of lives to my head. Oh man, the

31:58

adventures I go on internally every single day. But

32:01

when I was a teenager, damn if I

32:03

didn't almost truly convince myself that a lot of

32:05

these wild fantasies could for sure come true. I

32:08

actually thought that maybe I could find stuff

32:10

like a portal to another dimension in the woods. I

32:12

thought I might just be able to really control some shit with

32:14

my mind. And I bet at one

32:17

time or another, I thought that maybe I could be a real vampire. Maybe

32:19

like a real vampire would show up in my life. You

32:22

know, a super sexy one probably, like

32:24

Kate Beckinsale's Celine in the Underworld franchise.

32:27

Hail, Lucifina! Holy shit! I'm a little bit

32:29

of a bitch, actually. And she would truly convert me. And

32:32

I would leave my little Idaho town and travel the world

32:34

and be immortal and fuck a whole bunch and, you know,

32:36

for sure kill a lot of lichen werewolves and, you know,

32:38

hail Nimra. As crazy

32:40

as that story is, to an extent, maybe more than

32:42

I care for a moment, I do get it. I

32:45

get the appeal of getting lost in your own little world.

32:47

I mean, hell, I made my own

32:49

little world right here for you to listen to and for

32:51

me to get lost in every week. I

32:53

get it. But they took this shit way too

32:55

far. God got way too lost

32:57

in his made-up vampiric story. And

32:59

now let's spend a couple of hours getting lost

33:01

in his story in today's Time Suck

33:04

timeline. Right

33:06

after today's first of two mid-show sponsored

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breaks. This show

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And now for that Vampiric

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Timeline. Shrap

38:14

on those boots, soldier. We're

38:17

marking down a Time Suck

38:19

Timeline. Rod

38:26

was born Roderick Justin Farrell. March

38:29

28, 1980 in Murray, Kentucky with

38:31

the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. Almost

38:34

stillborn. God tried to kill him. God tried

38:36

to kill a little vampire, but the devil cut the

38:38

cord. Rod's difficult birth

38:40

could be interpreted as an omen of sorts for his

38:42

difficult life. Even leaving the womb was more

38:44

traumatic for Rod than it is for the average meat sack.

38:48

Rod would be the first and only child of

38:50

his very young parents, Rick Farrell and Sondra Gibson,

38:52

both in grade school when Sondra got pregnant. Back

38:55

in 6th grade, Sondra in 3rd, kids

38:57

have always grown up fast, too fast in

39:00

Murray, Kentucky. Now there were

39:02

teenagers still in high school when Sondra got

39:04

pregnant. It wasn't quite that bad. Rick's exact age never listed,

39:06

not even in court records. Only said he was a teenager

39:08

still in high school. Sondra

39:10

just 16 when she got pregnant, 17 when she gave

39:12

birth to Rod. The two got married

39:14

9 days after Rod was born, but then separated

39:16

a few weeks later, quickly got divorced and would

39:18

never get back together again. Rod's

39:21

dad would remain in his life barely

39:24

until he was 8 years old when

39:26

he would completely and totally abandon his

39:28

son. Fuckin' dads! After

39:31

Rod turned 8, Rick wouldn't see him again

39:33

until Rod's trial for a double homicide. At

39:35

the trial, he wouldn't even refer to his son by name. Rick

39:38

would consistently call Rod the child. So

39:41

that's super cool. One of the

39:43

only times Rod would show any emotion at all during

39:45

his trial was when his dad took the witness stand

39:47

and his defense attorney spoke with him about how Rod

39:49

never even got a card on his birthday, or Christmas,

39:51

from his father. When Rod committed

39:53

his killings, the wounds of being abandoned were still pretty

39:55

fresh and deep. Rick spoke of

39:58

how manipulative, argumentative, and confrontational... Rod's

40:00

mother, Sondra, was, as did

40:02

Rick's mother, Betty Jean Farrell, who actually went to

40:04

court when Rod was young to try and get

40:06

visitation rights, and Sondra ended up shooting

40:08

those down. Rick, not

40:10

a good dad, and as we'll soon

40:12

see, while she never completely abandoned her child, Sondra,

40:15

definitely not a good mom, not by any stretch

40:17

of the imagination. Rick

40:19

said at Rod's trial that by the time

40:21

his son, the child, was eight, in 1988,

40:24

he just, quote, gave up trying to have

40:26

a relationship with him. By

40:28

that point, he joined the armed forces, and then

40:30

he would go on to get a bachelor's and

40:32

a master's degree in aviation technology and build himself

40:35

a pretty respectable career in the

40:37

airline insurance industry. Little Rod

40:39

would end up staying with his mother,

40:41

Sondra's parents, Harold and Rosetta Gibson, and

40:43

Harold may have molested him. Per

40:46

court documents, the grandfather

40:48

he has continuously referred to with regard to

40:50

the sexual abuse allocation is his

40:53

maternal grandfather. This evidence is supported

40:55

by Rod's aunt, who as a young teenager was

40:57

sexually fondled by her father. Rod

41:00

has been consistent about his innocence being taken away

41:02

at age five. In court,

41:04

Rod's aunt also testified under oath that

41:07

Harold molested Sondra. Sondra

41:09

had an extremely volatile relationship with

41:11

her father and mother. Sometimes

41:14

she would leave Rod with him alone. Other times, she also

41:17

stayed with her parents, but typically not for long. They'd

41:19

have a big fight. She'd take off, stay with

41:21

someone else across town or maybe leave town entirely

41:23

for a little while. Rod's life

41:25

was consistently chaotic. Not

41:27

only was Sondra only sometimes be his primary caregiver, she'd

41:29

also tell Rod that he didn't have to listen to

41:32

her parents' rules when he stayed with them. Just

41:34

openly encouraged his rebelliousness. According

41:37

to some sources, she not only allowed him to skip classes

41:39

in school, she also told him that he should. So that's

41:41

fucking awesome. She regularly,

41:44

May probably did hard drugs with him,

41:46

got too into playing vampiric RPGs with

41:48

him. And according to at least one

41:51

psychologist Rod would see in prison, she

41:53

had a romantic sexual relationship with her

41:55

son. So Rod's whole

41:57

family dynamic super fucked up. Sondra

42:00

was a wild child party girl who wanted to fuck

42:02

around, maybe if not probably, you know, fuck

42:04

her son, and never hold down a steady

42:06

job. Her parents were strict,

42:08

moralist, Pentecostal fundamentalists who she

42:10

felt made her life a living hell, commanding

42:13

her to wear her hair long, not wear makeup,

42:15

never go to movies, dances, the beach. Her

42:17

dad also, again, may have been a pedophile. Cute

42:20

and gray-eyed with a button nose, Sondra dropped out of

42:23

school at 16, not long after getting pregnant, and

42:25

never really got her life back on track. Like

42:28

her son would be, she was an outcast, disliked by most of

42:30

the kids she used to go to school with,

42:32

and also by the congregants of her parents' church in Murray.

42:35

And speaking of Murray, let's talk about

42:37

the town a bit before moving forward. Murray

42:40

is a little college town of only about 17,000 residents,

42:42

located in southwest Kentucky, about

42:45

a two-hour drive from the nearest city of Nashville, Tennessee.

42:48

The main source of the local economy

42:50

is a giant castle just outside

42:52

of town, or some secretive rich guy. Pays

42:55

a lot of local people to look the other way,

42:57

when his henchmen come into town, kidnap children, take

42:59

them to the castle, never to be seen again, or

43:02

when he flies into town at night, reportedly

43:04

as a bat, transforms into a man, bites beautiful

43:06

women on the neck, then either carries

43:09

them back to the castle or turns back into

43:11

a bat and flees from angry villagers approaching him

43:13

with, like, you know, torches and wooden stakes and

43:15

garlic and stuff. One

43:17

angry villager! Ah, ah, ah!

43:21

Two angry villagers! Ah, ah,

43:24

ah! Or maybe that was silly. And

43:26

maybe the main source of the local economy

43:28

is Murray State University. That

43:30

sounds more realistic. A public university with

43:32

over 9,000 students. So

43:34

big time college town, over 9,000 students in

43:37

a little burg of around 17,000 total residents. You

43:40

know, in a college town like that, that makes for an interesting

43:42

local culture. Murray sits in what's

43:45

sometimes called the buckle of the Bible Belt, and

43:47

to be fair, several locations from Kentucky all the

43:49

way to Texas, make that same exact claim. Ah,

43:52

but it's one of them. Very conservative area,

43:54

approximately 75 churches in a town of 17,000,

43:57

majority of them, Baptist, Pentecostal, and the Catholic Church.

44:00

some other version of fundamentalism. Some

44:02

of Rod's old vampire pals after his arrest spoke of

44:04

Murray as being a town chock full of good old

44:06

boy rednecks and jacked up pickup trucks who loved to

44:08

shit on goth kids. But also because

44:10

of the college in the 90s had

44:12

a shit ton of goth kids. I

44:15

would say high school or college is when most people who

44:17

get into role playing games like Vampire the Masquerade do get

44:19

into them. And a lot of college

44:21

kids, former college kids, local high school kids who were

44:23

hanging out with college kids were into

44:25

these games when today's story takes place. Murray

44:28

State also home to 26 different frats

44:30

and sororities. So conservative area, but

44:33

also party town. And

44:35

Rod's mom, Sandra, loved to party. She

44:38

frequently, as she kind of raised Rod along with

44:40

her parents would seemingly try and get her life

44:42

together somewhat, maybe working in a fast food place

44:44

or equivalent for a few weeks before quitting, getting

44:46

fired, and then it would be fucking party time,

44:49

sex, drugs, and maybe not any rock and roll because

44:52

it was not much of a music scene. In

44:54

between regular jobs, she sometimes turned tricks into

44:56

sex worker, also was frequently a

44:58

welfare recipient while she partied and leaned on her parents

45:00

to support her and her son. And

45:02

by the time Rod was five, she was very into

45:05

two things that would later help define her son's life,

45:07

drugs and witchcraft. Perhaps

45:10

as a rebellion against her parents, she hung around

45:12

with drug dealers and pushers, dated a bunch of

45:14

them on a few occasions when her parents told

45:16

her to knock that shit off, she threatened to

45:18

have her associates kill them, family

45:21

a little bit dysfunctional. Two extremes

45:23

continually colliding. Extreme fundamental

45:25

conservatism, clashing with rebellious,

45:27

wildly irresponsible liberal hedonism.

45:30

And by the time Rod was eight, at the

45:33

latest, she introduced him to witchcraft. And

45:35

not like a healthy, peace and nature-loving, wicked kind

45:37

of witchcraft, more like a fuck grandpa and grandma,

45:39

fuck God, I'd love to see some demons show

45:41

up and ruin some shit kind of

45:44

witchcraft. While the satanic panic

45:46

of the 80s was built on mostly hysterias I've

45:48

talked about many times, there were some fucked up

45:50

people who did want to figure

45:52

out how to conjure and control dark forces and unleash

45:54

them upon humanity. And Sondra, definitely one

45:56

of those people. As you

45:58

can see, a lot more than a role-playing. game about vampires would

46:00

help turn Rod into a killer. Sonder

46:03

was more than a little intrigued by tarot cards,

46:05

books of spells, supposed potions, she led her obsession

46:07

with the occult take over her life and influenced

46:09

her son heavily. For a time

46:11

when Rod was young, she dated a man named David who claimed

46:13

to be a shaman priest. And to

46:16

get a rise out of her parents, she talked with

46:18

them about playing games, they worried about being devilish with

46:20

Rod like Dungeons and Dragons. Sonder's

46:22

father Harold was a traveling salesman and he and Rosetta

46:24

would move back and forth between Murray, Kentucky, and

46:27

kind of the outline area around Florida, or

46:29

excuse me, Orlando, Florida, like Eustace, Florida. And

46:33

every time that they would move, he and

46:35

Rosetta would bring their troubled daughter and grandson with

46:37

them afraid to leave Rod alone anywhere with Sonder.

46:40

All the back and forths will leave Rod feeling like he didn't

46:42

belong anywhere, spent his first few years in Kentucky,

46:45

followed by a move to Winter Garden, Florida, subbed

46:47

14 miles west of downtown Orlando. Before

46:49

he started grade school, it seems Rod and Sonder moved back

46:51

to Murray, while her folks stayed

46:54

in Florida near Orlando, back in

46:56

Kentucky, and early grade school during the 80s, late 80s. Rod

46:59

lived alone with his mom at the South Side Manor

47:01

apartments. Fully subsidized, Sonder Gibson was

47:03

able to live there rent free, and thus she no

47:06

longer needed to stay with her parents at that time.

47:08

While she partied, Rod was permitted to play

47:10

his fantasy games, basically unsupervised, all

47:13

the time with his friends, mostly Matt Goodman and

47:15

Scott Anderson, using the woods near the

47:17

apartments to engage in fake battles for hours and hours.

47:20

And for a lot of kids, you know, that would not

47:22

be detrimental. But for Rod, it gave him

47:24

time too much time to push his developing

47:26

mind and imagination and imagination possibly fueled by

47:28

a lot of fucked up family trauma, further

47:30

and further into his increasingly dark escapist world,

47:32

any added psychedelics at a young age, I

47:34

don't know if it's this young, but within

47:36

a few years. To all

47:38

that. In 1990, no longer

47:41

able to care for herself again, or her son, despite

47:43

free housing, Sonder, such

47:45

a mess. Now 27, Rod now 10 leaves

47:48

Kentucky for Florida again. They

47:50

move in with Rod's grandparents in Eustace, another

47:52

suburb of Orlando, kind of quite

47:55

a bit further out, about 40 miles from downtown

47:57

Orlando, but still considered part of the metro area.

48:00

And Eustace, Rod attended Eustace Middle School and

48:02

he would also start classes at Eustace, like

48:04

junior high. Excuse me, high school.

48:06

So he attended middle school and the beginning of high school. His

48:09

mom would also start to date a man after living in

48:11

Florida for a few years named

48:13

Darren Vraven. I

48:15

feel like Vraven's a made up last name for this guy. The

48:18

two will get married in the summer of 1995 in

48:20

Daytona Beach. Stay married about

48:22

six months. He was

48:24

super cool, a real winner. If

48:26

not Chad, at least to Brad, big wrists,

48:28

solid skull. He was a drug

48:31

dealer from Louisiana who was very into

48:33

satanic worship and occult rituals. Later

48:36

Sandra will admit that Darren supplied her son, Rod, with

48:38

a variety of drugs that she knew about but had

48:40

nothing to stop. So by junior high, you

48:42

know, beginning of high school, if

48:45

not before, he's already fucked around with hard drugs. One of

48:47

his favorites will be LSD. Down

48:49

in Eustace, Rod also became friends with two

48:51

girls from a very different world. Mentioned them

48:53

earlier, Janine LeClaire, Heather Wendorf. Heather

48:56

had heard about the boy who called himself a vampire. Some

48:59

friends at school thought that they were, you know, who

49:02

thought they were ridiculous. But when she met him or thought

49:04

he was ridiculous, excuse me, she had to admit she was

49:06

attracted to him. Right, might have been

49:08

a case of opposites attract. Heather was

49:10

a lichen, werewolf. Ancient blood

49:12

enemy of the vampires, descendant of William

49:14

Corvinus. Son of Alexander, brother of Marcus,

49:17

the first vampire. Sorry,

49:19

started thinking about underworld again. No, Heather was

49:21

just a good kid from a good family. Heather's

49:23

parents had created a wonderful life for her and her sister,

49:25

Jennifer. That was just about the furthest thing from Rod's life

49:28

with Sondra and his grandparents. Heather's

49:30

mother was Ruth Wendorf, born Neoma Ruth Adams

49:32

from the mountains of West Virginia. She

49:35

grew up a farm girl, knowing lots about

49:37

livestock, chickens and hogs. She got

49:39

married young to a guy named Joe Queen, and

49:41

they had two daughters, Paula and Samantha. By

49:44

the time Paula turned 16, it became clear that the couple was

49:46

not meant to be. They'd rush things. And

49:48

Ruth and Joe decided to separate. Ruth found

49:50

a job at a place called Crown Cork and Seal,

49:52

do an unglamorous factory work, which paid enough for her

49:54

to keep a roof over her and her daughter's heads.

49:57

And she met Rick Wendorf. Rick

50:00

Dats in the same suck. Ruth

50:02

didn't think there's anything special about him, but her friend,

50:04

Bobby Spears, convinced her to go out with him, went

50:06

out for a few months, and then Ruth discovered she

50:08

was pregnant. So I guess Rick might've been

50:10

at least a little special. Ruth

50:12

was in a tough spot now, not super thrilled to be starting

50:15

a new family again, a little later in life, but Rick loved

50:17

the shit out of her, convinced her to

50:19

move in, let him take care of her.

50:21

She agreed. Soon after giving birth to Jennifer

50:23

Wendorf, she became pregnant again, gave birth to

50:25

her fourth child, Heather. Rick's

50:27

company, which manufactured metal cans

50:29

and plastic containers for orange juice, soon

50:32

moved north of Orlando, and Rick

50:34

got a big promotion, which meant Ruth could stay home with

50:36

the girls. They scoured the Lake

50:38

Country area for a property, fell in

50:40

love with the rural outskirts of Eustace,

50:43

where they were able to buy five acres at a great

50:45

price. They constructed a 3,000-foot house

50:47

with a built-in pool, vegetable garden for Ruth,

50:49

woods for the kids to play in. They

50:51

bought season passes to Disney World. They would

50:54

go on camping trips in the mountains. Girls

50:56

took music lessons, family going picnics. They

50:58

had every toy a kid could want, no handsy-pedo pop-pop,

51:00

more or less than any of them. Rick

51:03

was a damn genius when it came to business and money.

51:06

He invested his hard-earned dollars in companies

51:08

like Disney, McDonald's, eventually saved enough for

51:10

his daughter's college funds, even

51:12

bought stocks in his daughter's names, so

51:14

the girls could learn about investing early and start

51:17

their retirements before ever entering the workforce. Great

51:19

dad. Rick's parents and two brothers

51:21

lived nearby. They'd come over to visit a lot,

51:23

especially his identical twin brother, Billy. They'd

51:26

bring the kids. It was a good, wholesome

51:28

family time for all. Pretty idyllic life. The

51:31

family never seemed to fight, never really argued.

51:33

Just had the normal growing pains of raising

51:35

two kids. Rick and Ruth

51:37

also loved the hell out of each other. Heather

51:40

grew up so surrounded by love that

51:42

maybe Rod's dysfunction and darkness intrigued

51:45

her simply because it was so foreign.

51:48

She had a crush on him, but Rod did not

51:50

immediately reciprocate. Instead, he went for her best

51:52

friend. That always stinks. Deneen

51:54

Leclerc. My mind just flashed when

51:56

I was in grade school. All the girls love Ryan Shaw.

51:59

Not who cares about me. I still think

52:01

about it every once in a while. Janine went to school

52:03

in nearby Leesburg, which meant—and Ryan was

52:05

my buddy. Sorry, I got distracted in my

52:07

head there. Janine went to school in nearby Leesburg, which meant

52:09

that Heather and Rod would end up spending more time together

52:12

than he and Janine would. Sucks for

52:14

Heather. Because Rod was already

52:16

goth as fuck, they spent

52:18

a lot of their time hanging out in a nearby

52:20

cemetery, the Greenwood Cemetery. Talk about vampires. Life.

52:24

Philosophy. More vampires. And

52:26

when Rod was with Janine, he also talked about vampires a

52:29

lot, and would try to seduce her in his

52:31

own goth way. He showed her

52:33

the occult, satanic altar he had made for

52:35

his room, that he cut himself on the

52:37

finger, pressed into her lips in some sort

52:39

of vampiric love gesture. One

52:41

lip touch. Ah, ah, ah. Two

52:44

titties I want to suck.

52:46

Ah, ah, ah. Three

52:49

bases left me touching a pussy. Ah,

52:51

ah, ah. Can you

52:53

imagine trying to seduce somebody with a count by count voice? I'd love

52:56

to know about somebody pulling

52:58

that off. One time I want to kiss

53:00

your lips. Two times

53:02

I want to suck on your nipples. Three

53:05

times let me put the tip in. Ah,

53:08

ah, ah. It's got

53:10

to be at least one person. They'll actually turn on. And

53:13

in my mind, she also talks like that. They just

53:15

go back and forth. One dick I want to stroke.

53:18

Two balls I want

53:20

to empty. Ah, ah, ah. Ah, ah, ah.

53:23

Ah, ah, ah. I'll stop now. Soon Heather

53:25

and Jeanine would be participating in occult rituals with

53:27

Rod. This is starting to feel

53:29

like a, like an after school fucking, one of

53:31

those after school special movies for the 90s, some

53:34

kind of PSA. They

53:36

were just two ordinary American girls from the

53:39

suburbs leading good and wholesome lives.

53:42

But then they met, they say Tanic

53:44

Vampire, lost their way and

53:46

ended up in hell. Uh,

53:50

the girls loved how spooky and mysterious it all was. And

53:53

I'm sure like normal teens, right, they got off on knowing how it

53:55

pissed off their parents. Right? How

53:57

mad their parents would be if they, if they found out about all this stuff. Girls

54:00

also got some insight into Rod's strange relationship with his mom,

54:02

which they would later attest to in

54:04

court about how batshit crazy and creepy she

54:06

was. One day

54:08

in December of 1995, 15-year-old Janine, 14-year-old

54:11

Rod, some other unnamed boy

54:13

who went to school with Rod, were

54:15

all in Rod's room, and they were cutting

54:17

themselves on their arms on Rod's bed with a razor. So

54:20

they could suck on each other's blood, naturally, and

54:22

then Sondra walked in and all hell broke loose.

54:25

Sondra thought that they were fucking. She accused Rod

54:27

of performing some kind of sex ritual with Janine, and

54:30

of being a devil worshipper. And she tore down his

54:32

altar in front of his friends, pulled him off his bed by his

54:34

hair, and screamed for Janine to get out. But

54:36

was she really mad at what she seemed to be mad at? Rod

54:39

told Janine something really odd as he walked her out after

54:41

the incident. He said, don't worry about my mom. She

54:44

just wants to be sired, as in

54:46

to be made a vampire, as in she

54:48

was fucking jealous that her 14-year-old son

54:51

Rod was letting Janine suck on

54:53

his blood. Creepy. Not

54:56

sure if she was molesting him at this point or not, but if I

54:58

had to guess, I would say she was. Very

55:00

few details are ever given about this possible

55:02

molestation of Rod. She

55:05

wasn't pissed at Rod because he was engaged in a

55:07

cult activity either, just mad she wasn't a part of

55:09

it. Following a year back in Kentucky,

55:11

Rod would build another satanic altar in his room,

55:13

and his mom would put occult markings in her

55:15

room. And she'd be

55:17

arrested and receive probation for trying to seduce one

55:19

of Rod's 14-year-old friends hoping to have

55:22

sex with him in a vampiric initiation ritual.

55:25

She is creepy as shit. Can you imagine having her as your mom? Even

55:28

if the molestation accusation regarding Rod is not

55:30

true. Just still such

55:32

a weird and creepy just goth-pedo. Just

55:35

fucking picture these goth kids like getting ready

55:37

to have this ritual in the room. Okay

55:39

fuckers, are you ready to dance with

55:41

the devil? We're about to call

55:43

him the power of the Dark Lord to strengthen our

55:45

vampire coven. I'm ready, dude.

55:48

But should we do this somewhere else? I just, I

55:50

think I heard your mom come home. I don't want

55:52

her to flip her shit, you know, and tell my folks she's

55:54

not going to rat you out, Brian. But she will

55:56

try and join our game. And

55:58

then her mom is fucking, his mom is watching. walks into dress like

56:00

Lucifina, walked into her teenage rebel

56:03

son's room looking more goth than he does,

56:05

sitting down in their little circle around the Ouija board,

56:07

tits almost popping out of her pushup bra, covered

56:10

by just some see-through mesh, her

56:12

lacy panties clearly visible underneath her little

56:14

black leather miniskirts. Mom, how many

56:16

times do I have to tell you you're not invited

56:18

to my coven? Stop being

56:21

such a brat and sire me already. Mom,

56:23

I'm not gonna sire you, you're embarrassing me.

56:25

Fine, I have my own Ouija board, and

56:27

I'm gonna conjure the devil before you do.

56:30

And when he gives me immortal power, I

56:32

won't invite you into my vampire coven, and

56:34

I won't sire you. Mom, please

56:36

don't conjure the Dark Lord before me. It's so fucked

56:38

up. Too late brat, if anyone

56:40

else wants to join a ritual, you can, I'll be in my

56:42

bedroom naked, covered in some pig's blood, I bought from the butcher.

56:45

I don't have a cool python and drugs too. Coke,

56:47

acid meth, it's gonna be fucking rad. Imagine

56:51

that's your fucking mom, like that's basically this

56:53

character is Rod's mom, but maybe she was

56:55

actually worse than that. Backing

56:58

up to Janine and Heather, being

57:00

thrown out of Rod's house now. Janine thought that Sandra's behavior was

57:02

so strange because, you know, it was. After

57:05

the door closed following Rod walking Janine out, after

57:08

Sandra's big meltdown, Rod walked back into his room

57:10

to tidy up, and Sandra continued to scream at

57:12

him. At one point, he told her

57:14

to get a life. She now started screaming that she

57:16

wished he was dead, and she grabbed a fucking knife

57:18

from the kitchen, she came after him, Rod grabbed a

57:21

knife of his own, stabbed it in the door frame, few inches

57:23

from her face. What a childhood.

57:26

One volatile, dysfunctional child kind of trying to

57:28

raise, but not really another. Shortly

57:31

after this incident, Sandra divorces Darren Vraven,

57:34

satanic fucking drug dealer, and

57:36

moves back to Murray, Kentucky away from her parents, and

57:39

returns to the Southside Manor apartments. Both

57:41

girls were devastated that he was moving back to Murray,

57:43

but promised to keep in touch. He said

57:46

he'd be back, he would, and

57:48

they both will regret that very much. Before

57:51

we return to Murray, this is

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Rules and restrictions may apply. And

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I'm back. It's the beginning of 1996.

59:11

Rod has returned to Kentucky and shit is

59:13

about to get real crazy. In

59:15

early 1996, when Rod made it back

59:17

to Murray, he started hanging out with his old

59:19

elementary school buddies Matt Goodman, excuse me, and Scott

59:21

Anderson. He told them he'd

59:23

take them into his coven. Fucking cool. Get

59:26

them ready for an eternal existence. Nice

59:28

gesture. He's very into vampires now. Rod's

59:31

time in Florida seemed to have increased his

59:33

mystique and Matt and Scott eagerly agreed. They

59:35

believed him or at least Scott did. When he

59:37

said shit like, you know, Rod could turn

59:39

into a nine-foot tall demon. Scott would later

59:41

claim he saw this happen. Cool

59:44

story, bro. Both Matt and Scott,

59:46

to be fair to them, they were primed to need

59:48

someone to believe in. They were both misfits themselves. Also

59:50

had very troubled, incredibly unstable homewives. They saw some of

59:52

themselves and their friend Rod who had been carted back

59:54

and forth across the country so many times, exposed to

59:57

someone shit a kid should never have to be exposed

59:59

to. When Rod bragged about

1:00:01

being a killer, when he compared himself to

1:00:03

Jack the Ripper and Jeffrey Dahmer, they didn't

1:00:05

fear him or think he was crazy. They

1:00:08

just saw a strong fellow outcast who would protect

1:00:10

him, just mouth it off. Also

1:00:12

Matt and Scott were used to people their own

1:00:14

age talking a lot about vampires, claiming to be

1:00:17

vampires. Remember the College Town

1:00:19

of Murray in the mid-90s, just like in other

1:00:21

college towns across America, Vampire the Masquerade,

1:00:23

one of the most popular fantasy role-playing games

1:00:25

in the country. Another

1:00:27

kid Matt and Scott knew in Murray who was into

1:00:29

being a vampire as much as Rod almost

1:00:32

was a 19-year-old kid named Steven Jaden

1:00:34

Murphy, who other kids knew as

1:00:37

the vampire prince of the city. Some

1:00:39

other kids knew him as that. Most kids knew him

1:00:42

as, check out this vamp dork in the Nine-ish Nails T

1:00:44

who won't shut up about his nerd coven. Possibly.

1:00:46

That's possibly how most people knew him. Jaden

1:00:49

was also bragging about his vampiric bloodlust to his group

1:00:51

of friends, his coven, as he called them. So

1:00:54

many vampires in small town Kentucky. I

1:00:56

did not expect that when I picked this topic. Jaden

1:00:59

was, according to Jaden, more into vampires

1:01:01

than Rod. Jaden later

1:01:03

claimed that he was the one who turned Rod

1:01:05

into Visago, that he helped him create

1:01:07

that backstory, that he sired Rod into his

1:01:10

coven. Not sure if that's

1:01:12

the truth, but that's what he claims. This

1:01:14

story, particularly going forward from this point in the

1:01:16

timeline, filled with a lot of very

1:01:18

imaginative people who seem to have

1:01:21

a lot of trouble deciphering between fantasy and reality,

1:01:23

and also people with big egos about this sort

1:01:25

of thing, very concerned with who was the coolest,

1:01:27

most powerful fake vampire and stuff. And

1:01:30

when it came time for Rod's trial, and when

1:01:32

journalists began interviewing Rod and his old friends, a

1:01:35

recollection of events and the timelines went

1:01:37

along with them very quite a bit,

1:01:39

especially between Rod Dog, God Rod, and

1:01:42

Prince Jaden. If you ask Rod,

1:01:44

he was already a big deal vampire motherfucker before

1:01:46

he returned to Kentucky. Like

1:01:48

probably the most powerful vampire in

1:01:50

all of Florida, which just ain't quite a bit.

1:01:54

But if you ask Jaden, oh yeah sure, Rod dabbled

1:01:56

in bloodletting, and yeah he had a Santana altar in

1:01:59

Florida, but he didn't. really know what the hell

1:02:01

he was doing about his vampireism. And since

1:02:03

he didn't really know what he was doing, he was just a

1:02:05

fake vampire. He thought it was a

1:02:07

vampire. It was Jaden, the vampiric prince of

1:02:09

Murray Kentucky, who turned him into, you

1:02:11

know, being a real vampire. If

1:02:13

you've ever seen What We Do in the Shadows, the

1:02:16

goofy 2019 FX comedy horror series,

1:02:19

but mostly comedy mockumentary about a

1:02:21

group of bumbling idiot vampires living

1:02:23

in Staten Island, the

1:02:25

next section of this timeline, basically until we get to the

1:02:28

murders, reminds me so much of that show. These people remind

1:02:30

me of characters from that show. When

1:02:32

Rod moved back to Murray, Jaden and his coven primarily

1:02:37

hung out at their headquarters, which

1:02:39

was a Hardee's, it was a Hardee's fast food restaurant, the

1:02:42

fast food burger joint with

1:02:44

almost identical branding and the same menu as

1:02:46

Curl's Jr. Sad times, sad

1:02:49

times for a coven of vampires. When you

1:02:51

know, the coven's HQ is

1:02:54

a Hardee's lobby. One

1:02:56

big cheeseburger combo with

1:02:58

fries, two chocolate hand

1:03:01

scoop ice cream shakes.

1:03:04

In that lobby right there in public, they would frequently

1:03:06

do stuff like recite verses from the vampire Bible. It

1:03:10

doesn't say exactly which vampire Bible they use

1:03:12

by thinking which one there's a bunch in

1:03:14

publication. I think the vampire Bible they read

1:03:17

from probably the one first published in 1989

1:03:19

by a group called the temple of the vampire. Temple

1:03:22

of the vampire is technically a new religious movement

1:03:24

founded in 1989. I don't feel like it has

1:03:26

a lot of followers to explore

1:03:28

the positive aspects of the vampire mythos.

1:03:31

The temple states that it quote embraces only

1:03:33

those aspects of the vampire mythos that

1:03:35

include a love and respect for all

1:03:38

life, physical immortality, individual

1:03:40

elegance, proven wisdom, civilized behavior,

1:03:42

worldly success, and personal happiness.

1:03:45

Based in Lacey, Washington, which is just outside of

1:03:48

the capital of Olympia. Not only they have many

1:03:50

members, I can't find a physical address associated with

1:03:52

them. So I don't think they have any church,

1:03:54

so to speak. And their website is janky

1:03:56

as shit. They probably hold

1:03:59

black vampire masks. In places like God,

1:04:01

the men's room better Jack and box. And

1:04:03

Taco Bell. Parking Lots of them. A

1:04:06

Forty Years Or website. The Vampire Bible Folks is

1:04:08

primarily on three things: One.

1:04:11

The. Secret The Vampires and to draw

1:04:13

life force from human beings to

1:04:15

why vampires never harm others, are

1:04:17

barred from criminal acts and see

1:04:19

how to perform Asian rights of

1:04:22

the calling of the ended undead

1:04:24

gods in magical ritual. Ah ah

1:04:26

ah so that ritual totally works.

1:04:28

and stuff. All this group

1:04:30

is all about non violence and based on interviews of Jaden

1:04:32

have some across on you do. That. Is

1:04:35

what he seems to believe. Nonviolence.

1:04:37

He. Rod will butt heads over this. Film.

1:04:40

Based on several interviews of Jaden, I watched. Need

1:04:43

as I still important. right? And and

1:04:45

having a tough let him feel that

1:04:47

which is fine. Faces odd Ah, but

1:04:49

also going to say seems pretty smart

1:04:52

funny ah, self aware, at least somewhat

1:04:54

someone who takes continual role playing no

1:04:56

seriously, but doesn't actually thinks of themselves

1:04:58

as a real immortal vampire. Dress

1:05:01

Ensure Black. Referring to himself not just as

1:05:04

Das Ist, das Expanding as Ninety Six. They'd.

1:05:06

Love to do shit like invite under God

1:05:09

to join him. His competitors are the hardest

1:05:11

evils. plus that are fries whatnot. It's a

1:05:13

stealth like you can see the undead in

1:05:15

the heart is windows and seven bleed him.

1:05:18

For. The pretended to. They started the said

1:05:20

he had to call him. He also

1:05:22

them sort of leave the he could make them

1:05:24

somebody nobody else could. A living built

1:05:26

bar. Or through the Murray

1:05:29

dance. Vampire Grapevine was a have to measure.

1:05:31

was pretty small, great by. Was

1:05:33

marriages were to those rod set

1:05:35

of a meeting with Jaden at

1:05:38

Murray's Old Salem Cemetery to vampires

1:05:40

coming together the cemetery at midnight

1:05:42

to join forces. Or. Fight

1:05:44

to the Death. Or. Eat

1:05:47

some Hardy's Hand breaded chicken sandwiches

1:05:49

and hash browns are able don't.

1:05:52

For. Girlfriend Rod set by the Jaden

1:05:54

did sire Rod and his southern. Shortly

1:05:56

after they met. And on

1:05:58

the night Jaden cross rod over. Rod.

1:06:00

Couldn't get to sleep. He cried. The. Zebra

1:06:02

all night long as a scandal boy. Interest

1:06:05

in taking the stuff real says that. Ah

1:06:07

that are They sat down according rod

1:06:09

later at cemetery a cemetery. The both

1:06:12

for claimed that they had the supernatural

1:06:14

within them experience dealing with ghosts and

1:06:16

witches, past lives and undead souls. Didn't.

1:06:19

Told rather see had a powerful

1:06:21

siren England. Sire. Be determined

1:06:23

Vampire The Masquerade for a vampire who had

1:06:25

turning human to another ramparts an inhuman to

1:06:27

the group of Mps followers. Are

1:06:29

adjacent also said he was a good vampire

1:06:31

a Christian vampire in fact who use his

1:06:33

powers to serve the forces of light. Rod.

1:06:37

Not. A fan of that To consider this

1:06:39

a perversion. People that all real vampires were

1:06:41

satanic and a story. But he

1:06:43

knew he would need Jade to jumpstart for me to zone

1:06:45

vampiric companies and just. May. Be detained

1:06:47

to assemble vampires for hims and and

1:06:50

steal them in a hostile vampiric take

1:06:52

over. Ah ah ah. So.

1:06:54

The two boys were made an Old Salem Cemetery

1:06:57

almost every night to feed upon one another. As

1:06:59

they would smuggle slashing their shoulders and drink

1:07:02

to the blitz and perform various rituals for

1:07:04

the vampire Bible another sources. Also

1:07:06

soon robert bring someone new into a what

1:07:08

was still jaden seven. His new girlfriend

1:07:11

fifteen year old him Charity. He

1:07:13

lured or in by tell her that he'd witness blood rituals

1:07:15

as a kid. Old. Men sacrificing an

1:07:17

animal dripping blood all over him. All

1:07:19

kinds of spooky. Sit. Here.

1:07:21

Doesn't care about all that. Didn't even really

1:07:24

care about vampires suited board. So.

1:07:26

That rod god was cool may some one

1:07:28

himself talking about his supposed other girlfriends in

1:07:30

Florida and other join his little vampire coven

1:07:32

or click or clan where the spots I

1:07:34

would help him settle up. Not

1:07:37

long after the to join of rod social circle

1:07:39

begins to grow get. All of

1:07:41

the events rod moving to Murray and the murders will

1:07:43

take place Ninety Ninety Six by the way. Big Year.

1:07:45

For. The time one lot of vampires. it

1:07:47

happened. Early that Jurado

1:07:50

be invited to join what was called

1:07:52

the Victorian Age Masquerade Performing Society. A.

1:07:54

Group of local says pins

1:07:57

and propositional act towards ah

1:07:59

spam the Billie sites. No

1:08:01

doubts. Lane. Serial killer of

1:08:03

them are De Valera or who devote their acting

1:08:05

skills by using role playing game. We talked about

1:08:07

a length for the time with Vampire The Masquerade.

1:08:10

Rod. Was buried in his game. The same

1:08:12

will pull him much deeper into his vampire fantasy

1:08:15

and attach him further from reality. Not clear if

1:08:17

he's had played it before or or this was

1:08:19

his introduction to the skin I think before, but.

1:08:22

Doesn't. Say for certain and sources are

1:08:24

Jane one of these guys know serious

1:08:26

about vampirism as they were mostly about

1:08:28

acting. Roster wanted to play. And

1:08:30

they will both and of loving this group in the game. Full

1:08:33

Blown Masquerade sessions would last from sundown

1:08:35

to sun up. Often times as many

1:08:37

as seventeen members plane to perform. At

1:08:39

All good looking twenty five year old named

1:08:42

James yo he was game master the storyteller

1:08:44

who come up with the internal game mechanisms

1:08:46

known as the Constitution's they performed in the

1:08:48

crypt. As a James, his basement is off

1:08:50

campus house where the walls been painted black,

1:08:52

blood red curtain songs and classroom claim older

1:08:54

to the ceiling to create he bolted affects.

1:08:57

A size of the acting aspect which included props

1:08:59

i sayings and say blood. Gameplay.

1:09:02

Center to Dungeons Dragons. Players.

1:09:04

On Altair procedural dice A side

1:09:06

Quests by James. For

1:09:08

his care to Rod shows the vampire type known

1:09:10

as the Bonds of Wants. Someone. Who

1:09:12

wanted to enjoy life while it lasted? A he'd

1:09:14

missed a party M. Other

1:09:16

players included Messy James his girlfriend age not

1:09:18

listen sources who played him as a martyr

1:09:21

and an eight year old girl named April

1:09:23

Dotan a shy who played as a caregiver.

1:09:26

All. Of them would hunt each other betrayed other,

1:09:28

war between the other vampires plans and over

1:09:30

but it's been as wars. got cast. Spells

1:09:32

ball love, we'll all at all that stuff.

1:09:35

and some as a lives in care to emperors would blow. My.

1:09:37

Could rod bit jaded lip hard enough to draw

1:09:40

blood? At are jaded rap brought up

1:09:42

in a passionate kiss. They now consider themselves

1:09:44

to be blood bond. It. Characters.

1:09:46

And V T M R refer to the

1:09:49

supernatural blood in their bodies a sustained them

1:09:51

as vital. Vampires. Gain

1:09:53

by t by drinking blood been games accumulation

1:09:55

of by to is called a blood pool

1:09:57

of vampires. By doesn't inspire false feelings of.

1:10:00

In foster dependency if trump by others and

1:10:02

can lead to was called a blood bond.

1:10:05

According to the gained a Vampire best performing

1:10:07

the Bond is called the Residents. And.

1:10:09

The one performing be bound by it is called

1:10:11

a thrall. In most cases

1:10:13

a was drink three times from the same

1:10:16

vampire on three separate. It's nice to become

1:10:18

bonded once bonded, the thrall feel something akin

1:10:20

to a very twisted sort of love for

1:10:22

the vampires was are your bonded them? They

1:10:25

become the most important person in their life.

1:10:27

They. Also, become more susceptible to mind control by

1:10:30

the vampire and are willing to do anything

1:10:32

even ritual my to aid their regnet. Mortals.

1:10:34

Animals, even other vampires, other supernatural creatures

1:10:37

may be bound. In. The game.

1:10:40

Capital G. None. of this happened of

1:10:42

realize but Rod based on stuff like April don't

1:10:44

testified that he cried and several night long us

1:10:46

like a scared were to been crossed over. The

1:10:49

seems that he started to believe a lot of she was real. Ah,

1:10:52

still early. Ninety Ninety Six Light

1:10:54

becomes complicated for number of young

1:10:56

vampires and very. James. Ya

1:10:58

he had gotten engaged was girlfriend Missy V live

1:11:00

with but then shy showed up until James that

1:11:02

she was trying to was his baby. And

1:11:05

now need to stay with James and Missy. Soon.

1:11:08

They were live in a James's house, all of

1:11:10

them arguing incessantly. Yeah. I bet. Vampire.

1:11:13

Drama. So much Vamp drama is

1:11:15

a regular vamps soap opera right

1:11:17

now. one soon to be a

1:11:19

baby. Ah ah ah So where

1:11:21

my head in his other story,

1:11:24

people with a love triangle. No

1:11:26

one was ah ah ah. Jade

1:11:29

without a Sir James's house to mostly hanging

1:11:31

around watching be horror flicks with his girlfriend

1:11:33

actually rod also common by a lot of

1:11:35

one hang out James's Us. Regime.

1:11:38

Over Lot because he currently hated rub your

1:11:40

mom. Load. Going to school as well. And

1:11:43

James's house was the perfect getaway. He

1:11:45

was also excited the game seemed

1:11:47

to be. Escaping is complicated personal

1:11:49

situation by taking Masquerade to New

1:11:52

Heights. Pretty vampire scavenger hunt, some

1:11:54

college campus juggling, multiple complex storylines.

1:11:57

Is a cool. Little. Do a

1:11:59

net or one will be irresponsible. Your

1:12:01

kid on the way mother fucker. And why is

1:12:03

your twenty five year old our as pay poor

1:12:05

more energy into a vampire game you play? Of

1:12:07

most your high schoolers they get a job. Maybe.

1:12:10

Poor more energies into helping provide for the baby

1:12:12

are about to have been a general. Some.

1:12:15

People. Are while James

1:12:17

ignores is imploding personalized, Six. His

1:12:19

head the sand. Some new kids are joining

1:12:21

the ongoing vampire role playing game. And

1:12:23

will Jane the James worn rot who's either

1:12:26

about turned sixteen or is barely sixteen now

1:12:28

to stay away from the new recruits. Why?

1:12:31

He was annoying the shit out of

1:12:33

them with is one note stupid count

1:12:36

on town. Impressive was new recruits was

1:12:38

to the of a bar ah ah

1:12:40

ah to lot like are you living.

1:12:43

Now jaded is most of the rod was taking mastery

1:12:45

way too seriously and weird be blocked. Roads

1:12:48

holds a new plan to embrace certain

1:12:50

players especially two girls them Cindy and

1:12:52

since your twins who become in thrall

1:12:54

the idea of crossing over. From. Human

1:12:56

to vampire, Or the

1:12:58

embrace is defined and vampire. The

1:13:01

Masquerade world of Darkness lore as

1:13:03

follows: The Creator vampires not as

1:13:05

a sire, the newly created vampire,

1:13:07

a child, any creation process. The

1:13:09

Embrace. Our was also gained

1:13:11

a reputation as quite a little player around

1:13:13

this time, but he want to embrace all

1:13:16

sorts of gossip girls. When. Fred's

1:13:18

Bible Jaden James about how whether or not

1:13:20

raw.this it was actually real. Around this time

1:13:22

he was cryptic with and answers. Sometimes.

1:13:25

He insisted that he was is what you're human. But.

1:13:27

He would say that with a look and

1:13:29

or vocal tones that was interpreted as equal

1:13:32

that of winked as he had no i'm

1:13:34

not totally this is a regular human is

1:13:36

a regular guy that he that are. As

1:13:38

year progress towards the summer Daves became so

1:13:40

overwhelmed with his personal i probably didn't have

1:13:42

the energy. To. Protect new players. Rod

1:13:45

he big of these kids want to little

1:13:47

he stuck his blood feeds rodwell fuck it

1:13:49

Now their business fraud with views of every

1:13:51

game or well, what did he really do

1:13:53

like. He. detail rod though he

1:13:55

did want to cross over into the vampiric

1:13:57

world where the ads on that and i

1:13:59

did want him cut himself and feeding people in his house.

1:14:02

Fair. Meanwhile, Jaden is getting more

1:14:04

and more annoyed with Rod. The

1:14:06

two were now in direct competition for supremacy over

1:14:09

the few people who took their vampire game as seriously

1:14:11

as them, like Ashley, Jaden's girlfriend.

1:14:14

Ashley started complaining that Rod was stalking her following

1:14:16

her every move, but when confronted, Rod

1:14:18

would refuse to admit it. He also

1:14:20

refused to admit something else, Jaden suspected, that

1:14:22

Rod was dosing various female players with LSD

1:14:25

to make the game seem more real, to

1:14:27

make him seem more like an actual vampire.

1:14:30

If he was really doing that, that is so fucked up. I

1:14:33

don't doubt he was. Rod

1:14:35

turned 16 on March 28th, 1996, and

1:14:37

he'd been partying with his mom, former stepdad, other

1:14:39

random dudes with hard drugs, in particular LSD for

1:14:41

years in all likelihood. He was

1:14:44

taking up to 10 tabs of acid at

1:14:46

a time now. He knew

1:14:48

how acid can fuck up your perception of reality and

1:14:50

would know how unknowingly dropping someone like a

1:14:52

half a tab, one tab, during a game

1:14:55

like that, you know, would lead to them

1:14:57

thinking through the power of suggestion combined with

1:14:59

LSD's powerful hallucinogenic properties that they

1:15:01

were really seen what he told them that they

1:15:03

were seen. Jaden also

1:15:05

stumbled across a couple tabs, or Jaden, excuse me,

1:15:08

had stumbled across a couple tabs and confronted Rod,

1:15:10

but Rod said it was for his own personal use and

1:15:13

denied ever dosing anyone. And to be

1:15:15

fair to Rod, didn't seem like he needed drugs to

1:15:17

convince goth girls to like him. A

1:15:19

lot just did. His charity is on again,

1:15:21

off again girlfriend. There was shy, aka April

1:15:24

Doden, his frequent sex partner, despite her pregnancy

1:15:26

with James, and Janine and Heather,

1:15:28

both of whom did want to come visit him from Florida.

1:15:31

And there were more girls, some pretty young, girls

1:15:33

still in junior high, who Rod would meet

1:15:35

at the old Salem cemetery. The

1:15:37

power struggle over who was the head vampire honcho between

1:15:40

Rod, James and Jaden, if there was what you could

1:15:42

call a power struggle, was being won by Rod.

1:15:45

James was out because of his personal life. And for

1:15:47

him, this was more about having fun with improv than about actually

1:15:49

being a vampire. And between Jaden and

1:15:51

Rod, Rod won simply by virtue of his dark

1:15:53

charm. Goth girls like

1:15:56

satanic vamprod more than Christian vamprod.

1:15:58

Jaden. Getting drunk

1:16:00

on his own pathetic power, a big fish in the

1:16:02

tiniest of ponds, still in early 1996, Rod

1:16:05

would tell Shai that he had cast a spell on

1:16:07

her, unleashing

1:16:09

her elephant side and turning her into a

1:16:11

fairy. And Shai did not

1:16:13

tell him to get the fuck out of here. Now she believed him. She

1:16:16

spent the next several weeks molding herself into Rod's image of

1:16:19

what an elven fairy should be. Studying

1:16:21

candle spells, white magic, walking in shadows, whatever

1:16:23

that means, and practicing astral

1:16:25

projection. Based on me finding

1:16:27

a Vampiric Ask Me Anything blog on Tumblr, shadow

1:16:30

walking is the ability of vampires to travel from

1:16:32

one place to another. This allows

1:16:34

vampires to go around, albeit it must be

1:16:36

during the night or in well-shaded areas. As

1:16:39

a shadow, the distance of the vampire as a shadow, walks

1:16:42

depend on the type and level of vampire

1:16:45

they are. Okay. I'm guessing that extends to

1:16:47

vampires who are also elven fairies.

1:16:50

Cool. Glad I know that. Shai

1:16:52

was disappointed that

1:16:55

despite doing so much cool shit like practicing her shadow

1:16:57

walking, Rod still was not choosing

1:16:59

her over charity. In fact, when

1:17:01

she tried to force him to choose her, Rod

1:17:03

told her that he had used her white witchcraft

1:17:05

against her, saying he was tired of hearing her

1:17:07

talk about angels and wing creatures. And

1:17:10

now he had blocked her romantic hold over him with

1:17:12

magic and shit. Totally normal.

1:17:14

Skye, down but not defeated, continued to work

1:17:17

on her love incantations and earth and

1:17:19

magic. Hoping she could craft some type

1:17:21

of spell or potion or whatnot that would force Rod to come

1:17:23

back to her. She even built

1:17:25

a harvest altar and started her own

1:17:27

witch's covenant. Hoping

1:17:29

to use her growing power to lure

1:17:31

him away from charity. I mean,

1:17:34

what does she need to do? She's a fucking vampire,

1:17:36

she's an elf, she's a witch? Come

1:17:38

on! How much magic does

1:17:41

one girl need? Her

1:17:44

new magic did end up working. Or

1:17:46

maybe a different kind of magic. Maybe good

1:17:48

old fashioned pussy, power magic did. Most

1:17:51

powerful magic on earth. The summer of 1996 while

1:17:53

charity was away in South Dakota, visiting her

1:17:55

mom, Skye managed to nab Rod. And

1:17:57

by nab, I mean she fucked him. girlfriend's

1:18:00

back. And in a moment of sexual passion,

1:18:02

got him to agree to get engaged to her. So

1:18:04

things are going great now for Shai in the spring of 1996.

1:18:06

She's excited early summer.

1:18:09

She's excited to have James' baby. I actually forgot she was

1:18:11

pregnant for a bit. And with Rod's

1:18:13

followers growing by the day, she feels like

1:18:16

a queen amongst mortals, a high vampiric elf

1:18:18

witch priestess. With her social

1:18:20

security and welfare money, she manages to

1:18:22

set up a makeshift home for her, Rod, and her

1:18:24

future baby. So

1:18:27

many people. So many people making so many terrible choices in

1:18:29

this story. I can't remember another episode

1:18:32

where I wish that like the overwhelming majority of the characters

1:18:34

would just grow up and get jobs. And

1:18:36

look, I like role playing games. I love them. My

1:18:38

anger not coming from that angle. If you can play

1:18:41

these games and also pay your bills and manage your life,

1:18:43

fucking play away. Oh, so fun. But

1:18:46

if you can't manage your life and play, well, maybe don't play.

1:18:48

Maybe get your shit figured out. Maybe, I

1:18:50

don't know, give some stability to your child or children.

1:18:52

Maybe make that a priority. I

1:18:55

feel like an angry old man in this episode. Just fucking

1:18:57

kiss these days. No one wants to work anymore. Just want

1:19:00

to play their vampire games. Fucking fucking good

1:19:02

high. Anyway, now

1:19:05

that he's with Shai and has a place to go that

1:19:07

isn't his mother's house, Rod actually seems to calm down a

1:19:09

bit. He stops taking as

1:19:11

much LSD, maybe even all together

1:19:13

for a few weeks. Stops talking about death all the time.

1:19:16

Stops getting so angry when

1:19:18

his mom, Sondra, calls him, begging him to come

1:19:20

home. But then as Shai's

1:19:22

pregnancy progresses, you know, things change and he gets angry again.

1:19:25

Rod starts to see Shai as a rival, not as

1:19:28

a companion. She had started bragging

1:19:30

to his followers about having him under her thumb, and that

1:19:32

pissed him off. And

1:19:34

when Charity returns from South Dakota, Rod ditches Shai. He

1:19:36

and Charity get back together, leaving Shai on her own.

1:19:40

So much for all her magic. Then to make matters worse, Rod

1:19:43

starts talking about killing her. In Rod's

1:19:45

mind, Shai had tried to topple the social order by

1:19:47

putting herself above him, and Rod felt like she probably

1:19:49

had to die for that transgression. He's taken

1:19:51

his vampire game real seriously. He's full of

1:19:54

asago now. He's threatened to

1:19:56

sacrifice her and her newborn baby to Satan, unless

1:19:58

she moved away. So

1:20:00

what does Shy do? Well, this

1:20:02

great choice maker abandons her baby. Mm-hmm.

1:20:05

She gives her baby boy to her mom in

1:20:07

Tennessee, then goes back to Murray and begs Rod

1:20:09

for forgiveness. What the fuck?

1:20:13

How good was that Vlad the Hyman

1:20:15

Impaler one-eyed undead necromancer staff? He was

1:20:17

packin'! And I'm referring to his dick there,

1:20:19

to be clear. Now baby, free,

1:20:21

Rod, God, and Shy start to fuck again.

1:20:24

And he no longer wants to kill her. Also,

1:20:27

Rod took her back in part because, according

1:20:29

to Jaden, his powerful sire was coming back

1:20:31

from England any day now. And

1:20:34

an all-out Kentucky vampire war is brewing.

1:20:37

These idiots. Now Shy starts

1:20:39

to get scared. Like, she's actually

1:20:41

scared about this vampire war. Rod told

1:20:43

her that to prepare for the war, he had

1:20:46

killed some Goths in Nashville. He

1:20:48

drained them of their blood in preparation for

1:20:50

this upcoming battle. And she thought it was serious. She

1:20:53

thought, I really did that. Maybe did, but I

1:20:55

doubt it. Shy now wanted Rod to leave town with

1:20:57

her. They needed to escape. And

1:20:59

they should join, her idea, a traveling

1:21:01

theater troop. So they could,

1:21:03

you know, escape this vampire battle, and, I don't know, just

1:21:05

travel the world, and she could never see her baby, and

1:21:07

whatnot. What

1:21:09

traveling theater troop would

1:21:11

have actually hired these two

1:21:14

wildly unstable teenagers? I

1:21:16

wish I knew what it was. Ha

1:21:19

ha ha! Hey, Davenport, Iowa!

1:21:22

What are you doing this Friday night? How

1:21:24

about you come down to the out-of-the-box, see some

1:21:27

theater? No spiratus! A

1:21:29

vampire-fied story of a musical!

1:21:33

Ah, let me give you a little preview here. When

1:21:38

you're a vamp, you're a

1:21:41

vamp all the way from your very first

1:21:43

sire to your last Sunday day when you're

1:21:45

a vamp. If

1:21:47

the blood hits the fang, you're coming

1:21:49

to round, you're a big vampire gang,

1:21:51

with your vamp! See

1:21:54

you Friday night, girls and girls! Ha ha! We're

1:21:56

gonna have a great time! So

1:22:02

maybe it's like, you know, maybe it's something like that. Whatever

1:22:05

it was. Rod, I mean, Visago, not

1:22:07

interested. Soon Rod God was

1:22:09

pushing Shai aside again, sleep with her on occasion, but

1:22:12

then telling her that he was having fantasies about cutting her

1:22:14

up and killing her on other occasions. So that's

1:22:16

pretty cool. That's a healthy relationship. One

1:22:18

day Shai returned to see half of the windows in her

1:22:21

trailer busted out. And now she knew that it was

1:22:23

time to get away from Rod. This time for real. He's

1:22:25

out of control. The person who

1:22:27

should have stood up to Rod, his mom, Sandra, not

1:22:29

helpful during all of this.

1:22:31

She'll claim later that she worried about him being a Murray from the

1:22:33

very beginning, knowing he stood out because of his

1:22:35

dark clothes and strange obsessions. And

1:22:38

she is full of shit. If

1:22:41

you were so worried, Sandra, why did you drag him back

1:22:43

there? Why not stay in Florida? It's

1:22:45

not like you moved back to Murray for a fucking great

1:22:47

job. You moved back to the South Side Manor apartments so

1:22:49

you could party, not to pay rent. She

1:22:52

could have tried to find something similar in Florida. You

1:22:54

know, Noah mentioned that she did. She could have at

1:22:56

least tried working on a whole lot of steady

1:22:58

job for once in her fucking life, living in

1:23:00

the studio apartment with Rod, something, anything other than

1:23:02

being a piece of shit, just like Rod's dad.

1:23:05

And again, she may have been sleeping with her son this time.

1:23:09

Sandra will later say she knew that Rod was

1:23:11

on the precipice of being expelled from school for

1:23:13

truancy. She, that he got detention for smoking cigarettes,

1:23:15

using foul language in front of a Mrs. Stone

1:23:17

Cipher. Later he'll get into a,

1:23:19

she doesn't do anything about it. Later he'll

1:23:21

get into a verbal altercation with Mrs. Stone

1:23:23

Cipher. And he'll be expelled from school. The

1:23:26

assistant principal at Callaway High, Dennis Fisher, determined

1:23:29

that Rod will be better served by an

1:23:31

alternative school. By the summer's end, Rod

1:23:34

was telling his mom and others he was just going to get a job in

1:23:36

his GED. He also let Sandra

1:23:38

supposedly bring him to a place called Western Kentucky

1:23:40

Mental Health for a psych eval, but

1:23:42

wouldn't do him any good. He was assigned

1:23:44

to write an essay about drugs, but refused. Sandra

1:23:47

never took him back for any follow ups. Soon

1:23:49

Sandra would file a beyond parental control

1:23:51

report, having gone down to the

1:23:53

administrative offices of the courts in Callaway County.

1:23:56

Sandra was hoping to be freed from any legal

1:23:59

parental responsibility over Rod. on the ground

1:24:01

she was powerless to control him, which she probably

1:24:03

was at this point. And I

1:24:05

should add she might not have been molesting

1:24:07

him. His grandfather also may not have

1:24:09

molested him, maybe not. I

1:24:11

take allegations of this nature very seriously, but Rod clearly

1:24:13

has a hard time processing what is real, what's only

1:24:16

in his head. He for sure

1:24:18

does lie a lot. I mean he's telling

1:24:20

a lot of people he's a legit vampire, which is for sure

1:24:22

not true. He's still alive in

1:24:24

prison right now and not one guard has ever mentioned

1:24:26

him getting burned by sunlight, not having a reflection, being

1:24:28

averse to garlic. He's never turned into

1:24:30

a bat and just flown out of prison. But

1:24:33

with these allegations, ah, as

1:24:36

much of a liar as Rod is, you know Rod's

1:24:38

aunt also testified that

1:24:40

Rod's grandfather molested Sandra.

1:24:44

And I do think based on kind of Rod's

1:24:46

behavior and Sandra's behavior, yeah, there's a good chance

1:24:48

that some real bad shit happened to him. Sandra

1:24:50

told a court-designated juvenile court worker, Jane

1:24:52

Ann Turner, that Rod had been involved with

1:24:55

drugs in Florida, trying to get,

1:24:57

you know, free to print a responsibility, that she thought he

1:24:59

was involved in Satanic cult. She left

1:25:01

out details about her also being involved in the

1:25:03

occult, marrying a guy who was

1:25:05

weighing the Satanic worship, a dude who gave her

1:25:08

some drugs, and she also left out

1:25:10

the part about her, you know, having drawn drugs with Rod

1:25:12

probably for years. A report was filed

1:25:14

with the court, and a meeting was scheduled for Rod

1:25:16

and Sandra. Neither one of them

1:25:18

ever showed. Instead they reconciled. Sandra

1:25:21

moved into a new apartment with more room. Rod

1:25:23

moved back in with her. She allowed Rod to

1:25:25

do the decorating, and he spray-painted pentagrams on the

1:25:27

floors and built altars in the bedrooms. A

1:25:30

lot of stuff going on. She also let him

1:25:32

bring over his vampiric buddies, and they got to do

1:25:34

basically whatever they wanted. She loved

1:25:36

having him and his friends around. She even started

1:25:38

referring to herself as a member of Rod's coven. Dyed

1:25:41

her hair black, started wearing goth clothes. Fuck's

1:25:44

sake. August of 1996,

1:25:46

Rod and Jaden have a fallout. Rod

1:25:49

filed an assault complaint against Jaden. Jaden's thrown

1:25:51

in jail. He'll quickly be released on a

1:25:53

$500 bond, and almost end up

1:25:55

being sentenced to serve six months in county jail, all because

1:25:58

of Rod's sworn statement that claimed Jaden's Jaden

1:26:00

bashed his head against the wall and choked him. In

1:26:02

addition, Jaden ordered to have no contact with Rod

1:26:05

for two years. But when Jaden

1:26:07

is released after his initial short jail stint,

1:26:10

the two boys make up, the charges are dropped,

1:26:13

Rod's not going to testify in their buddies again. These

1:26:16

kids are all over the place. Sonder claimed she

1:26:18

again grew worried about her son by the end of August.

1:26:21

He seemed to be spiraling. He'd always

1:26:23

been into goth fashion, but now he's dressing like

1:26:25

Marilyn Manson, wearing bodysuits, paint his nails black, wearing

1:26:27

eyeliner, face paint, putting his hair up in a

1:26:29

bunch of miniature ponytails, mixing up

1:26:31

a shit ton of drugs. That

1:26:34

August, Sonder contacted the Murray Police Department about

1:26:36

Rod leaving home without permission, then

1:26:39

called the very next day to take back the report, saying

1:26:42

that he just had to fight with his girlfriend. Everything's

1:26:44

fine. I bet the local police in

1:26:46

Murray loved Sonder and Rod. I bet

1:26:48

they never mocked them or bitched about what

1:26:50

a pain in the ass they were. Not

1:26:52

ever. Sonder made another

1:26:54

call to that juvenile court worker, Jane Ann Turner,

1:26:57

in late August, realizing that her son

1:26:59

was being verbally abusive, then canceled her

1:27:01

appointment with Mrs. Turner the next day. The

1:27:03

dynamic duo would finally appear at an appointment in

1:27:06

mid-September where Sonder told Jane Ann that Rod was

1:27:08

carrying around occult books, dropping a shit ton of

1:27:10

LSD, and hurting himself. She

1:27:13

forgot to tell Jane Ann that she was also

1:27:15

fucking around with occult books and using drugs. Jane

1:27:18

Ann recommended rehab, but Sonder refused to sign any

1:27:20

paperwork to send him there. Now she

1:27:22

wants him to stay home with her. Then a

1:27:24

few months later in November, she'll file a

1:27:26

habitual runaway complaint, seemingly ready to press charges

1:27:28

against her son again. However, by that time,

1:27:31

Sonder will be facing serious legal problems of

1:27:33

her own. More on that in a bit.

1:27:36

First, some other disturbing problems Rod is facing.

1:27:38

Rod was called into Sheriff Stan Scott's office early in the

1:27:40

first week of November 1996. Probable

1:27:44

cause for cruelty to animals and criminal

1:27:46

trespassing had been filed by Officer Warren

1:27:48

Hopkins regarding a briefing at the

1:27:50

Callaway County Humane Society. Apparently

1:27:53

some puppies. There had been, this is

1:27:55

rough, quote, mutilated.

1:27:58

Bojangles just started paying attention. this episode for the very first

1:28:00

time. Previously, he was not interested

1:28:03

because he felt like all these people were worthless

1:28:05

fucking nerds who did not deserve any breath spent

1:28:07

telling their melodramatic story. His worth not

1:28:09

mine. Anyway, the Polaroid pictures

1:28:11

of this hideous act were circulating

1:28:13

to the high school cafeteria. Then

1:28:15

Rod's old girlfriend, young woman he sometimes talked

1:28:18

about murdering shy, spoke to the

1:28:20

police and told them that Rod had bragged to her about

1:28:22

doing something at the animal shelter with a knife. By

1:28:25

this time, most of Rod's old vampire friends, minus

1:28:27

Charity, were growing to be quite afraid

1:28:29

of him. He talked too much

1:28:31

about creepy shit. He was threatening to

1:28:33

kill people too much. Rod's pervy, odd mom

1:28:35

weirded them out. The honeymoon

1:28:38

between Murray's Goss crowd and Rod's saga was

1:28:40

quickly wearing off. These other kids were

1:28:42

mostly just laying around, playing

1:28:44

around with vampire stuff. Rod truly seemed to

1:28:46

be an evil bloodsucker, or wanting to be.

1:28:50

So why didn't Charity also bounce? Let's

1:28:52

talk about her for a second. She was

1:28:54

perhaps predestined to be a bit more impressionable than

1:28:56

your average teenage girl. She'd been

1:28:58

raised by a dad who was often gone at work,

1:29:00

leaving her alone with her increasingly dark thoughts, a goth

1:29:03

kid herself. She'd gotten real

1:29:05

into voodoo before meeting Rod, fascinated by the

1:29:07

sacrificial use of blood. Then she fell in love with

1:29:09

Roon. The relationship was, as we've

1:29:11

somewhat covered, very tumultuous. Full of

1:29:13

breakups, incidents of cheating to get back on one

1:29:16

another, recorded in countless letters that Rod bombarded her

1:29:18

with. In these letters, he would promise

1:29:20

her shit like she would always be his queen. He

1:29:22

told her that she was the one pure mortal

1:29:24

on earth that she would be at

1:29:26

his side eternally. He told her that he snuck into her

1:29:28

bedroom to watch her while she slept, even

1:29:31

showing her a key to her own house that she had not

1:29:33

given him. Huge red

1:29:35

flags. But

1:29:37

she was 16, right? Full of

1:29:39

hormones, lonely, melodramatic, craving male

1:29:41

attention, not getting a lot outside of Rod. And

1:29:44

she found all this endearing. But

1:29:47

now she is starting to wonder what the hell is going

1:29:49

on with Rod. Why is everyone else starting to stay away

1:29:51

from him? Why is he seem paranoid lately? The

1:29:54

only person who seemed to offer a clue to what was

1:29:56

going on with Scott, Rod's old friend and

1:29:58

new best friend. Now that Jaden's out. Scott

1:30:00

would tell charity that being an immortal is hard. It's

1:30:05

painful, right? You know, he

1:30:07

and Rod, they're both immortals. He and Rod, they're

1:30:09

just so sick of making

1:30:11

new friends every century, only

1:30:14

to have to surrender them to death. Yeah,

1:30:16

he's really saying stuff like that. Or

1:30:22

maybe, you know, I don't know, Rod has just said, why

1:30:24

is Rod sad though, if

1:30:26

charity is his eternal mate? He feels

1:30:29

very confused about all this. But like I said,

1:30:31

she still loves Rod. So she stays. Back

1:30:33

at the police station, Rod showed up to his

1:30:35

meeting with Sheriff Scott in white theatrical makeup all

1:30:38

over his face with his lips painted

1:30:40

red like he's a fucking clown. And

1:30:42

he's not laughing. Like he's just doing this like it's a normal thing to do.

1:30:45

Like he's the Joker from Batman going to meet the cops.

1:30:48

I'm sure the officers had a real good laugh about all this

1:30:50

once he left, or maybe, you know, when he showed up. Rod

1:30:53

accused the police of picking on him due to his beliefs. He

1:30:56

said the whole town was after him. They kicked him

1:30:58

out of school. They misjudged and mistreated

1:31:00

him. Because what? Because he

1:31:02

wasn't some preppy rich kid. And another

1:31:04

thing, he literally told the police, they should

1:31:06

be happy with him. Because he'd

1:31:09

shown great restraint when it came to

1:31:11

keeping himself in check. He hadn't killed

1:31:13

anyone. So Sheriff was a

1:31:15

bit alarmed and confused by that. Yeah, I bet. Hey,

1:31:17

listen, officers, have I been perfect? No. Have

1:31:21

I maybe committed some petty crimes? Oh, fuck yeah,

1:31:23

I have. But you should thank

1:31:25

me. I haven't murdered

1:31:27

anyone yet, even though I

1:31:29

think about it a lot. You're

1:31:31

welcome. Sheriff

1:31:33

Scott couldn't tell if Rod was a walking time bomb or

1:31:36

just another, you know, kid trying to act tougher. Well,

1:31:39

he did assume Rod was behind the puppy killings, since

1:31:41

he had no hard evidence. Rod had

1:31:43

no criminal record and wasn't going to confess there was

1:31:45

nothing he could do to put Rod behind bars. That'll

1:31:48

come soon enough, though. Out of

1:31:50

the grasp of police for the moment, Rod returns to

1:31:52

charity side where he keeps encouraging her to embrace her

1:31:54

dark side like he's Emperor fucking Palpatine or some shit

1:31:57

or Darth Vader by telling her to cut

1:31:59

her. He also starts doing random

1:32:02

weird shit like shattering ashtrays and lightbulbs around her,

1:32:04

which when she least expects just to try and

1:32:06

scare her, make her flinch. At

1:32:08

one point just to scare her, he sets his own living

1:32:10

room on fire. Oh boy. His

1:32:13

covet outside of a few followers had now all turned their backs

1:32:15

on him, even snubbing him at a

1:32:17

Halloween celebration they were supposed to attend. With

1:32:20

his remaining followers, Rod God keeps

1:32:23

getting weirder. He's talking more and

1:32:25

more about how he was searching now for

1:32:27

telltale signs of past civilizations, looking for evidence

1:32:29

of the cults of the dying gods that

1:32:31

have destroyed the Roman Empire,

1:32:34

and gesticulating about the worship of Osiris, the

1:32:36

judge of the dead, responsible for the fall

1:32:38

of the Egyptian pharaohs. All

1:32:41

the kind of stuff he's saying. He said it was just a

1:32:43

matter of time before he took over the whole fucking universe and

1:32:46

plunged the world into a huge and ruthless war

1:32:48

by taking over the airwaves, TV satellites, and the

1:32:50

internet. Did they mention that Rod

1:32:52

is dropping a ton of acid again? Yeah, he is.

1:32:55

Easy on the acid, Rod. You've really lost

1:32:57

touch with reality. One tub

1:32:59

of acid. Two tubs

1:33:01

of acid. Three, four,

1:33:04

ten, twenty, all the

1:33:06

tubs of acid. When

1:33:10

anyone tried to argue against any of his proclamations, he

1:33:13

would say stuff like, you know, he'll chop their head

1:33:15

off, burn their body. Don't stop mouthing off

1:33:17

to him. November 5th, 1996, more

1:33:19

vampire drama. Shai,

1:33:21

aka April Doden, signs an affidavit with law

1:33:23

officials in Callaway County to complain about an

1:33:25

attack involving Rod Farrell, another kid

1:33:28

named Michael Shafer, and a third kid named Jason

1:33:30

Jones. According to Shai's statement,

1:33:32

the three young men had come

1:33:34

driving up in Jason's car looking for Jaden at her

1:33:36

trailer. Violating

1:33:38

a restraining order Rod had placed on

1:33:41

Jaden that was still in effect, despite

1:33:43

them patching things up shortly

1:33:45

after Rod was granted it. At the

1:33:47

trailer, Rod and Jaden got into a fight, and

1:33:49

then the three boys jumped into Jason Jones' car,

1:33:51

tried to back away over Shai, who was trying

1:33:53

to get the car's plate number, and

1:33:55

the right rear tire went over her foot. She

1:33:58

was hurt, but also relieved that it wasn't a crime. a

1:34:00

whole lot worse. Jaden will back up Shai's

1:34:02

statement to police, by the way. An

1:34:04

arrest warrant served in mid-November 1996, charging

1:34:06

Jason Jones with wanton endangerment of Class D

1:34:08

felony. He was released on $2,500

1:34:10

bail, and then later the charges will be dropped.

1:34:13

That night at Shai's trailer would be the last time Shai would

1:34:15

ever even see Rod. Not long before

1:34:18

that night, did I mention that Rod had begged Jaden to kill

1:34:20

him to chop his head off? Shai

1:34:22

and Jaden shook their heads when he said that, hoping

1:34:24

their old friend would just go get some help. He's

1:34:27

going through a bunch of shit. He needed to be

1:34:29

placed in a psychiatric treatment facility. Switching

1:34:31

over to charity now, guess what? By

1:34:33

mid-November, she's almost positive she's pregnant with

1:34:36

Rod's baby, but doesn't tell anyone. Whatever

1:34:38

doubt she had about Rod's plan to take over the world, now

1:34:40

she tries to squash him, but

1:34:42

she does give Rod an ultimatum. It's her or

1:34:45

the drugs, and Rod chooses

1:34:48

the drugs. They didn't want surprise. She

1:34:50

quickly now starts fooling around with a nice kid from

1:34:52

her neighborhood named Brian to make Rod jealous, but then

1:34:54

stops that because Rod is stalking the two of them

1:34:57

and freaking Brian out like a week

1:34:59

later the two are back together. Life

1:35:01

moving so fast and loose for these uber dramatic

1:35:03

teen vamps. Now charity

1:35:05

comes clean about her pregnancy. Rod not happy, tells

1:35:08

her he's going to jump off the arts building, said

1:35:10

he is not ready for another baby because

1:35:13

get this, he already had a baby with some

1:35:15

girl, Jaden, but the infant was killed in a car

1:35:17

wreck. Who the fuck is Jaden? Not

1:35:20

real, guessing. Sources do not say, seems

1:35:22

like Rod made her up, made up that whole story, but

1:35:26

charity believes it. Hook, line and sinker. She

1:35:28

just keeps hanging around hoping that Rod will wake up, decide to be

1:35:30

a good partner and father. Even lets him

1:35:32

drag her into some more occult

1:35:34

ceremonies he's holding in the boiler room of

1:35:36

the college stadium now. Rod

1:35:38

had set up a small altar there with holy water and

1:35:40

daggers and was leading his coven through

1:35:44

some kind of meditation where

1:35:46

they would all concentrate on time

1:35:49

traveling. Yeah, why not?

1:35:51

Actually, they would concentrate on using glowing

1:35:53

ropes in order to be able to

1:35:55

time travel. Why not? I mean, you

1:35:57

have to concentrate on glowing ropes. If

1:36:00

you ever want to time travel and

1:36:02

hope to access the fourth dimension, there

1:36:07

is a fourth dimension that is known

1:36:09

to man, but not fully understood.

1:36:12

It is known to vampire, and

1:36:14

it is as timeless as infinity.

1:36:18

It lies between our world and

1:36:20

the world of darkness and

1:36:22

fully encompasses the present, past and future.

1:36:26

It is a dimension between science and superstition,

1:36:29

a dimension of those vampires who will amongst us

1:36:32

and constantly fight with one another over

1:36:34

who has the most powerful magic, who

1:36:36

is the real father of the babies they

1:36:39

give away. It is a

1:36:41

dimension that lies just beyond parties, a

1:36:44

dimension where no one ever gets a job and

1:36:46

everyone stays up too late, too often, playing

1:36:48

games like vampire or the masquerade. It

1:36:51

is a dimension I like to call the

1:36:54

pathetic Murray Kentucky Vampires Home. Back

1:36:58

to the story. Also in mid-November,

1:37:00

Rod and a few other kids meet in

1:37:02

the woods behind Hardee's, fucking Hardee's, at

1:37:05

the vampire hotel, where they

1:37:07

can make supernatural things happen, like

1:37:10

making people their puppets through telekinesis, all

1:37:13

powerful vampires, dicking around in the

1:37:15

woods behind Hardee's, probably

1:37:18

after grabbing cheeseburgers and fries and

1:37:20

shakes, like the undead are wont

1:37:22

to do, thinking they are turning people

1:37:24

into puppets, and yet still having their

1:37:26

moms pay their bills. Maybe

1:37:29

they made their moms their puppets. One

1:37:31

of the girls who especially believed in all of this was Charity's

1:37:33

friend Dana Cooper. Unpoppetered at school, Dana

1:37:35

had a reputation for being a goofball, yet

1:37:38

she somehow becomes Rod's trusted new servant,

1:37:42

possibly because she had her own apartment, where

1:37:44

Rod and Scott Anderson could

1:37:46

stay for free, while they planned an upcoming

1:37:48

escape to Florida now. Time

1:37:51

to check back in with the mother of vampires, Sondra, at

1:37:55

some point in early November, while Rod Sago and

1:37:57

his crew are planning a Florida run. Penny

1:37:59

Murphy, Jay-Z, Murphy's mom submitted an affidavit in

1:38:01

Callaway County that Sondra had kissed her son

1:38:03

against his will. Not Jaden, Jaden's

1:38:06

younger brother Jamie, 14 years old. 35

1:38:09

years old, Sondra had mailed a

1:38:11

letter to 14 year old Jamie, writing that she

1:38:13

wanted to fuck him and acknowledging

1:38:15

that she knew he was very young earlier

1:38:18

in the summer of 1996. Maybe

1:38:20

Rod not lying about his mom beat a pedo. June

1:38:23

23rd, she'd mailed him a second

1:38:25

letter asking Jamie again straight up to

1:38:28

let her fuck him. Even sent Jamie a

1:38:30

key to her apartment asking that Jamie come live

1:38:32

with her. Then she sent Jamie

1:38:34

a necklace in another letter writing,

1:38:36

so you can wear it and know you thought about it

1:38:38

and missed a lot. Of

1:38:40

course Rod will end up in prison in

1:38:42

this episode for the rest of his life between

1:38:45

his fucking deadbeat dad and Sondra Von Bat shit.

1:38:47

Dude never had a chance. In

1:38:50

that third letter, Sondra or in a third letter, Sondra

1:38:52

wrote, you may be young, but you are fine.

1:38:54

She wished they could have wild sex

1:38:56

every night. She wrote, I think

1:38:58

about being French kissed and fucked by you all

1:39:00

the time. I hope it doesn't upset you by

1:39:02

my feeling this way. She

1:39:04

assured him that he shouldn't be afraid of sex and that

1:39:06

she would never hurt him or make him feel uncomfortable. She

1:39:09

would even empty out a drawer for him when he

1:39:11

moved in. She added, I'll

1:39:13

wear my blue denim sundress and we could kiss

1:39:15

for a while. Then while we're kissing,

1:39:18

I'll unzip your pants and go down and lick you and

1:39:20