February 20, 2024 • 59 mins
As we peel back the curtain on Florida's most bizarre crime stories, veteran journalist Frank Stanfield joins us to unravel the peculiar, the haunting, and the downright jaw-dropping from his book, "Vampires, Gators, and Wackos." Imagine the most outlandish cases possible—now multiply that by the Sunshine State's penchant for the extraordinary. Frank's expertise leads us through the dark alleys of crime reporting, sharing the stories that have both captivated and shocked the nation, including his chilling recount of the vampire cult murders.
But our journey with Frank isn't just about human misdeeds; it's a wild airboat ride into the heart of Florida's untamed wilderness. Here, alligators and invasive pythons aren't just part of the landscape—they're central characters in tales of nature's ferocity and the challenges of environmental conservation. Frank's vivid storytelling doesn't shy away from the harsh realities faced by those who encounter these creatures, both in their natural habitat and in the legal wilds of courtrooms.
Finally, we anchor our discussion in the very human element behind every headline. We reflect on the resilience shown by humans in the face of natural disasters and the complex web of accountability and forgiveness that unfolds after tragedy strikes. As Frank bids a heartfelt farewell, we're reminded of the enduring power of family and community support, a theme that resonates deeply with all of us who've tuned in to the Fuzzy Mic for tales that are as true as they are unforgettable. Join us as we explore these compelling stories, where the bizarre becomes the norm and where each narrative invites us to look beyond the surface.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Fuzzy Mike, the interview series, the
podcast, whatever Kevin wants tocall it.
It's Fuzzy Mike.
Hello and welcome to anotherepisode of the Fuzzy Mike.
Thank you for listening.
If you like what you hear,share it with your friends.
I sure would appreciate that.
I've got to start this episodeon a somber note as an endurance
(00:21):
runner myself.
Our community lost a great onerecently.
Last week, kelvin Kiptum, theworld record holder in the
marathon, died in a car crash inhis native Kenya.
Even with a time of 2 hours 35seconds for 26.2 miles, he still
couldn't outrun the Grim Reaper, who remains undefeated in the
(00:42):
race of life.
I am the Grim Reaper.
As a member of the 50 StatesClub, that means I've completed
a marathon or longer-distancerace in each of the 50 states.
I've gotten to travel a lotaround our country.
I've actually lived in sevendifferent states.
The one thing I've learnedthrough my travels is that one
(01:04):
state stands alone in howback-crap crazy it is Florida.
And that's what we're going totalk about in this episode today
with my guest, frank Stanfield.
Frank has been a newspaperreporter and editor for more
than 40 years, including at theOrlando Sentinel, where he's
covered high-profile crimes aswell as other interesting
(01:25):
stories.
I learned about Frank from hisbook Vampires, gators and Wackos
, which is available at WildBlue Press.
It's a compilation of crimestories that Frank has covered
throughout his nearlyhalf-century as a journalist.
The book not only includes thevampire cult story that went
international, but it also tellsabout a teacher who was deemed
too pretty to go to jail.
(01:46):
Along with alligator attacks,hurricanes and naked people
telling cops, it's not as bad asit looks.
Frank Stanfield joins me now,so let's just jump in, frank.
Why is Florida so back-crapcrazy?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Well, it's because everybody comes to Florida.
Used to be, everybody went toCalifornia, but California's too
expensive for the Wack jobs now, so they all come to Florida.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
And you've been covering.
You've been a journalist for 40years, or 40 plus years now.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
What got you into?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
it.
You know I always wanted towrite, so that was just a way
for me to hone my skills and Ijust got into it because I, like
, I'm always wanting to knowwhat happened, what's going on,
and then, if I can write aboutit, tell about other people
about it.
It's just the best ever.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I think how has the internet changed newspaper and
reporting?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Oh man.
Well, the newspaper industrywas really slow about getting
into the on the internet, and sowhat happened was, because they
didn't know, is it?
Should it be free, Should it beadvertising supported, you know
, subscription supported, orwhat?
And they, they fiddled aroundand kind of lost their way there
(03:05):
for a while, so andeverything's just changed now,
so that it's too late to recoupsome of that.
And then I don't know, butthere is, of course, the
newspapers are online now andall that.
So that's good.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
How many different publications did you write for?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Oh gosh, several, but mostly in Florida.
I worked in North Carolinabriefly, and then I had also
worked for a paper in Augusta,georgia, so mostly in Florida,
though the Orlando SentinelOcala Star Banner, at least for
daily commercial.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
So and in that capacity you were a reporter.
Did you ever become editor, oh?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
yes, I was an editor for quite a bit too.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
So what's the difference between a reporter
and an editor?
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Well, editor, I was in charge of court and cop
reporters so I'd and otherreporters so I'd send them out
on assignments and then I wouldedit their stories when they
came back.
So but I think the reporting ismuch, much more fun.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
As an editor who is editing a reporter's story, how
do you go about doing that?
Because you're you're taking apart or adding to somebody's
already creativity, and we aswriters and performers, we kind
of have proprietary egos, Iguess I would say.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, one of the writers at the Sentinel had a
note on their computer.
Says never trust an editor.
Ever, ever, ever.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
What makes?
What makes a good reporter.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Somebody.
That's really curious, for onething, that just has to know.
You know, and I'll give you anexample of that was one day I
was it wasn't even my story, butthere was a reporter working on
a murder story and whathappened was the wife killed her
husband and then wrotesomething on his chest.
So I said, no, wait a minute,I've got to know what that was I
(05:10):
mean.
So I said do you mind if I callsomebody I know in homicide?
Sure, go ahead.
So then I found out what it was.
It was love you forever.
I said now we got a story,that's a story now, because that
happened in Florida.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah, because, number one, improving our point that
Florida is bat crap crazy.
It is crazy, Absolutely crazy.
But it keeps you hopping.
I bet it does.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean you look over this fanpliers, gators and Wackles book.
Even I am amazed sometimes thatjust how bizarre and strange
the stuff is.
I mean, I have an imagination,but you just can't make this
stuff up you know you cannot.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
And they always say truth is stranger than fiction
and you, as a reporter andwriter, know that very well.
How do you as a reporter, howdo you cover a tragedy and like
the murder of the Wendorf's Okay, how do you approach the oldest
Wendorf daughter, who hadnothing to do with it and was
never accused?
How do you approach her forcomments after she's lost her
(06:19):
parents?
Walk us through that delicateprocess.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Well, you have to be sensitive because it's what she
experienced walking into herhouse and finding your parents
is slaughtered and her youngersister gone and just such an
awful, traumatic thing.
You can never unsee it.
And you well, she came back afew years ago for a resintency
(06:50):
and Rod Farrell, the cult leader, and she testified and she
begged the judge, not to youknow, lessen his life sentence.
So she was crying, it was justawful, and so I went up to her
and said I identified myself acouple of different times and
said I'd like to talk with you.
(07:11):
And she said I just I don'ttalk to any reporters.
And I said well, I understand,and I do, I get it.
I actually talked with theyounger sister right after Rod
Farrell's trial and that wasinteresting.
She's a different kind ofperson.
But what happened to Jennifer,who was 17 at the time, a senior
(07:35):
in high school, chair leader,you know that sort of thing?
Just innocent bystander, justblindsided by the whole thing?
Really.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
So let's talk about this case from start to finish,
because this is the start of thebook the vampires, gators and
wackos and the vampire storythat made international news and
I've actually seen an interviewwith you on Ashley Banfield's
judgment television program.
I mean, this thing took offlike wildfire.
So let's start from thebeginning.
Tell us what happened in thevampire story.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Okay, so what happened was Jennifer, like I
said, 17 years old, chair leader, pop Peter, beautiful kid comes
home after work at a grocerystore and she walks in.
The lights are low, tv's going,so she's late.
She's broken curfew a littlebit, so she's trying to sneak in
(08:32):
.
You know past her dad and youknow who's.
She thinks he's asleep on thecouch and so she goes into her
room and then she says I'm goingto get something to eat.
So she goes in the kitchen andthere's a blood trailer into the
kitchen and then she saw hermother on the floor of the
kitchen beaten to death.
Ruth Queen was her name.
And then she runs to her dad,richard Wendell, and he's laying
(08:54):
on the couch and his face isunrecognizable because they had
been beaten to death repeatedly,just pummeled with a crowbar.
So then she calls the 911 andsays please send two ambulances.
My parents are dead.
And the dispatcher says well,how do you know they're dead?
(09:14):
She says, well, there's bloodeverywhere.
So that's how it starts.
And she says and, by the way,my sister, who's 15, is not here
and the car's gone.
So that's how it starts.
And of course that's crazyenough.
Well then, right away, she'stelling Jennifer's telling the
detectives who could have donethis and all this.
(09:36):
They said, well, this kid namedRod Farrell, who's a friend of
my sister's.
And then they get to she tellsmore about her sister and she
says one night my sister turnedto me and said Jen, have you
ever thought about killing ourparents, plotting our parents'
(09:58):
death?
And she goes no, I mean, andjust that's crazy.
You know, be quiet.
You know, of course, but that.
And then she starts tellingabout her sister's friend, rod
Farrell, and how he could killsomebody if she needed somebody
killed and all this other kindof crazy stuff.
(10:18):
Then they call the sheriff'soffice up in Murray, kentucky,
where Rod was from, and thissheriff says man, you got a wild
bunch on the loose because theywere accused of some horrific
animal shelter abuse and someother things and making bombs
and all kinds of stuff like that.
And so that's how it started.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, so in the murder Rod Farrell was
eventually convicted of this andalong with a couple of other
accomplices, but in the murderhe in the interrogation really
admitted to doing this and wasactually bragging about it.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, yeah, he tried to be this tough guy, you know.
You know.
He says well, I'm disturbed.
He says, but he's also makingexcuses.
I'm disturbed, I was molestedby my grandfather.
I witnessed a human sacrificefor my grandfather's cult called
the black mask and all thiscrazy stuff, and I was sexually
(11:25):
molested.
And then he says but he saysyeah, I was.
He says at one point he says Iwas beaten and beaten, and
beaten on the dad and reallyenjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
basically, yeah, yeah , he said he felt like God for a
moment.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah.
Then he says, well, but then ifI was really a God, I wouldn't
be here now.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Yeah, In the interrogation room across from
the detectives.
Where did the vampire aspectcome into it?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Well, rod created this.
Well, first of all, rod, whenhe moved from Florida back to
Kentucky with his grandparentsand his mother, he fell in with
this kid who called himself thePrince of the City.
He was believed in vampirestuff and they would hang out
(12:13):
cemeteries all night in all thisjazz.
So then Rod created his owngroup and they were like
drinking each other's blood, allthis cult stuff, and Rod
started believing at one point,according to one of his friends,
that he was really a vampireand a mortal at one point.
So this kid says and then, buthe got other kids to believe in
(12:37):
it and they, you know, thoughtthey had special powers and all
this stuff.
So that's how it took off fromthere?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Was there an over like an overwriting or a common
theme that these kids had, thatthey were easily recruitable?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
You know I did some research on this about cults and
what happened with this groupthat Rod was okay.
First of all his dad left earlyin his life.
He had no father.
The mother was not a goodmother at all.
She was.
She had no control over him.
(13:17):
She wanted to be his friendrather than a parent, so and he
was.
They didn't have much money,much education, anything else,
so he was sort of an outsider.
What he did?
He found other outsiders, sortof this one kid Howard Anderson
is the one in the house with himat night was totally
(13:40):
dysfunctional family.
They were on welfare becausedad was a raging alcoholic and a
drug user.
They total poverty, I mean thewhole thing.
So then Rod had his girlfriend,charity Kesey, and she had kind
of a dysfunctional family, Ithink, although the dad was
(14:02):
there, but you know she wasn'tpaying attention to him.
So.
And then there was another girlwho was like 19 and she was
living on her own, working atWalmart, and so she was
overweight and didn't have muchself-confidence.
So they all had something incommon.
So they were kind of he formedtheir own little families, what
(14:25):
it was a vampire family, andthey were held together with
little beliefs.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
But there are a lot of families that are
underprivileged.
There are a lot of kids thatgrow up on welfare.
They don't all become killers.
So what led Rod into becomingthis guy who, quote, bashed a
man's head in until brains cameout?
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Yeah, well, I think he always wanted to kill
somebody.
So then he had this perfectopportunity, you know, because
what happened was they came downto Florida to pick up Heather.
And they came, yeah, and theycame down and his friend Howard
(15:10):
Anderson's car, which is an oldbeater, and it was falling apart
and so the car was about shot.
So he says, okay, we're goingto have to have, we're going to
steal Heather's parents' carthey had a new Ford Explorer and
then we'll have to kill him.
But it was just an excuse.
All the way down to Florida hewas telling everybody I want to
kill somebody, I want to killsomething, and so this was just
(15:33):
a fantasy of his that he wantedto do, and so this is what he
did.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Well, it kind of brings to mind a more recent
story with and I think ithappened in Florida also with
Aiden Fuchschi, who said hewanted to kill somebody and
ended up stabbing his classmate170 times.
You remember that one?
Did you cover that?
Speaker 2 (15:54):
I did not cover that one no.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
I thought it was down by the Miami area, but I could
be mistaken on that.
And you talk about Rod notbeing educated.
How does somebody who's noteducated become so charismatic
and so dominating that he couldconvince other people to follow
him?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
I know it's amazing really Well, when I said he
wasn't educated, he dropped outof school and his mother let him
and he was like smoking dope inthe house and all this kind of
stuff.
He had this charismaticpersonality, but he was also
very smart, very gifted artist,so he would draw, and so was
(16:42):
Heather.
That's something they had incommon.
So they were both artiste.
And Heather fantasized.
This is like a perfect storm.
She fantasized about being ableto go wherever she wanted to go
, do whatever she wanted to do,but her parents were not letting
her.
So she fantasized well, whatwould happen if they weren't
(17:02):
around?
So she was talking to him aboutthat and her gothic fantasies
and it was like the perfectstorm.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
She was 15 at the time.
Her parents shouldn't have lether go anywhere, especially
across state lines back toKentucky, and we all have
disagreements with our parentswhen we're 15.
We want to be independent, butat no point in my life did I
ever say you know what?
You're not letting me dosomething.
I think I want to kill you.
I know that is a special idiocyright there.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah, you know what it is.
I think Rod wanted control, andso what he did was he would
study black magic books and thatkind of thing in psychology
books and he said you can getcontrol of people if you put
them in fear.
So he was going to put his cultfollowers in fear, and this is
(17:56):
a trick that Charles Manson didtoo.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
There's a lot of.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
There's a lot of yeah , yeah, exactly, and there was a
lot of similarities betweenManson and Rod.
One of the defense attorneyswhen they were captured in Baton
Rouge, louisiana, said this isnot the Manson case.
Well, no, but there are somesimilarities, so it's very
(18:21):
interesting.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
We'll talk about the Manson case in a little bit,
because I know that you citeVincent Buleosi's Helter Skelter
as a book that actuallyinspired you to write vampires,
wackos and gators, and alsoCold-Blooded, which is your
newest book, and it focusessolely on this vampire case.
Were you in the courtroom atthe trial?
Oh, yes, okay, a couple ofquestions here.
(18:42):
Why did Rod wear headphones?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
I don't know exactly, but here's the thing, Because
headphones are usually for ifyou're like a Spanish speaking
defendant or something and ittranslates for you and so on,
but I don't know.
But here's the thing that didwhen he was arrested.
He had this long dyed black,flowing hair.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Down to a pasty shoulders Right and then no
glasses or anything like that.
So he was all living the part.
And then when the trial camearound, they put a white shirt
on him and they had him sitthere at the table the defense
table with crayons and glasses.
So he looked like this harmlesslittle nerd.
(19:31):
It's all part of the dress-upthing that they do for
defendants.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
And he was constantly doodling while the trial was
going on.
I thought, when I was watchingthe proceedings with him wearing
the headphones, I almostthought that that was an attempt
by him or his defense team toshow remorse.
I can't hear what's going on.
I don't want to hear thedetails because I'm ashamed of
what happened you think thatmight have been the case.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
I don't know.
I actually don't hardlyremember the headphones much,
but the doodling you mentioned.
They had set up a vacantcourtroom next door for a news
media center because all the TVcrews and stuff like that were
there a wire service.
They had a German TV crew there, they had the whole thing.
(20:20):
So one of the TV people was onthe phone to his cameraman he
said zoom in on what he'sdoodling.
And he was zooming in and theywas doodling all these vampire
figures and stuff like that.
So it was like holy.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Yeah, he was committed to the lifestyle,
that's for sure.
Yeah, when you're in aproximity to a murderer like
that, is it scary.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
You know, with him it wasn't.
I've covered cases where therewas one guy that he killed.
He was a caretaker on the ranchand he killed this couple that
owned the ranch and hid theirbodies underneath a haystack.
He was going to feed them tothe alligators later when their
(21:10):
bodies started to rot.
So but he kept looking at meand my photographer and it was
this weird grin and it was likekind of nerve-racking, to be
honest with you.
I mean he wasn't going anywhere, he was shackled with the floor
, but it was just weird, youknow, yeah, so you know it's
(21:31):
just, it is what it is.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Sure, you've probably been put in some very
precarious situations with yourjob as a reporter for over 40
years and now an author.
We're talking to FrankStanfield.
You can get Frank's bookVampires, gators and Wackos at
Wild Blue Press, and you canalso get his latest book,
cold-blooded, at Wild Blue Pressalso.
Rod gets sentenced to death.
(21:54):
Let's talk about that for asecond, just under 17 years old
and sentenced to death.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yeah.
So what happened was to avoidhe's thinking, if I plead guilty
, maybe the judge in the courtwill just say okay, you plead
guilty, you'll get into thestory, you're going to have a
life sentence.
But that's not what happened,because the prosecutor says no,
judge, it's my duty to presentall the facts and you know I'm
(22:23):
still seeking the death penalty.
So then they present.
In Florida they have what theycall a bifurcated death penalty
case.
It's in two phases.
You have the guilt phase.
Is he guilty?
Yeah, you know, present all theevidence, the physical evidence
and all that.
If he's guilty, then you go tothe next phase where you have
all these defense shrinks tryingto, you know, say, oh, he had
(22:48):
this mitigating factor here andthere and dysfunctional family
and all that.
So they went into that.
And so then the juryunanimously recommended death.
Now here's the thing too.
The thing that really did itfor the jurors, I think, was
they showed a videotape of hisconfession and then this was
(23:13):
weird, because the jurorsstopped looking at the videotape
and stared at him like, oh my,oh, my God, what is wrong with
you?
You know that kind of.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Thing.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, so that was very telling.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
So the jury comes back unanimous 12-0 for the
death penalty.
Does the judge have to enforcethat or can the judge go off on
his own and kind of call anaudible?
Speaker 2 (23:41):
He can call an audible, but if he does, it has
to be very specific the reasonfor it.
Like you know, he has to citethe law, some fact of the law
that you know that he doesn'tqualify, or I don't think it's
right, or whatever it is, butthe judge went ahead and sends
them.
But then what happened was theywent to the Florida Supreme
(24:03):
Court on appeal and the FloridaSupreme Court says no, it's too
young, so they see him off fordeath row.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Technically, he was not too young, though, because
he did fit the parameters ofbeing an adult according to
Florida law, which surprised alot of people that the Supreme
Court overruled that.
Now, my thing with this is hewas properly sentenced under the
law.
You know, frank, it takes 20 to25 years to execute a prisoner,
(24:33):
even in Florida.
So he wouldn't have been tooyoung, right.
I know, yeah, and we talkedabout this earlier when you were
talking about Jennifer Wendorf,the older sister.
She had to relive thisnightmare not too long ago for
an appeal.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yes, yeah, and that's the other thing you know I've
covered.
I actually covered an executionon time and I've written
several stories about it.
I covered this one case whereit was years and years later and
this guy on death row just keptcoming back on appeal, on
appeal, on appeal, and thefamily was just wrecked the
(25:13):
victim's family because theyjust have to relive it over and
over again, you know and sofinally they took the guy off
death row.
This is a horrible case.
And this victim's sister saidyou know, I'm against the death
penalty now and this is why itjust tears your guts out.
Yeah, so I can see that.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
I have a good friend who is another Wild Blue Press
author, Bill Kimberlin, and hewrote a book about death row
inmates it's called Last Words,and he said, if I ever am in the
position to caution a victim'sfamily, I would tell them don't
seek the death penalty simplybecause of what we're talking
about right here.
Every time an appeal comes up,you have to relive that horror.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah, and a lot of times they will take the guy on
death row.
I mean it's a catch 22.
I mean I understand the reasonfor it and one good reason to
have it is because and Iactually covered another case
one time where a guy pleadedguilty straight up, no
(26:22):
negotiated plea to murder, so wecould get a life sentence
because the possibility wasgetting the death penalty.
So it's a deterrent.
I mean it's a tool prosecutorscan use to hang over somebody's
head.
So I get that.
I mean that's good.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
It's also a tool prosecutors use to advance their
career, though.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
You know, yeah, so our judicial system is so flawed
I mean it's almost beyondrepair now, but that's a topic
for a whole other story.
The interesting thing beyondRod getting Rod Farrell getting
this death sentence, is Heathernever got charged.
So, Wendorf's daughter nevergot charged.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Right.
See, what she said was I didn'tknow my parents were going to
be harmed.
So what happened on the nightof the murder is that Rod and
Howard Anderson, his friend,sent Rod's girlfriend and Dan in
a Cooper this other girl totake Heather to go say goodbye
(27:33):
to her boyfriend, and so she wasnot there when this happened
and they never told her that herparents are going to be killed.
So you know, she didn't realizeher parents were killed until
later.
That's what she said, so that'swhat everybody says basically.
So the other vampires members?
(27:55):
So that's what she said.
So the grand jury says okay,what she did was wrong running
away from home, what she did waswrong being friends with a
bunch of nut cases like this,you know, and fantasizing about
you know, all this stuff butit's not a crime Because she
(28:17):
didn't know.
She didn't qualify as being aprinciple to murder.
To be a principle means youhave to have some active
participation in the crime.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
But didn't she?
They didn't use theconversation that she had with
her sister and they didn't usethe conversation she had with a
couple of friends at schoolabout wanting her parents dead.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
No, and see, here's the thing.
There's another thing too theprosecutors like to have a
straight line shot.
If they have a witness likeHeather on the stand, the jury's
going to be looking at herinstead of him, and so even and
(29:01):
she didn't testify either.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
No.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
And so.
But the defense still tried tothrow it on Heather.
Heather's the one behind thisand blah, blah, blah.
But she didn't.
She wasn't there to testify,they didn't look at her.
So and the prosecutor said Ididn't believe that she had any
to do with it.
That's what he said, so butit's.
(29:25):
And then later I talked withHeather after the trial and she
says I didn't know.
Same thing, I didn't know myparents would be harmed and I
regret, even knowing Rod Ferrell.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
So oh, it's always regret in hindsight, you know,
after something horrific likethis happens, I mean, yeah, of
course you're going to regret,regret meeting him.
As a journalist, you'resupposed to be impartial, so you
might not be able to answerthis question, but having been
the reporter that covered this,having been in the courtroom,
(29:56):
was she, was she guilty?
Speaker 2 (30:01):
I don't think she was guilty as far as you know,
having knowing her parents aregoing to be killed.
But there's, you know, there'sanother layer of there's
accountability, a different kindof accountability.
Yeah, she was.
She always had accountabilityfor for egging him on, for, you
(30:21):
know, feeding this fantasy crapinto him and you know she's
talking to the wrong guy, youknow and you know and then the
vampire cult members seemed tothink that she didn't wasn't all
of that broken up about it.
You know, after the, after thething.
So so she has someresponsibility, some
(30:43):
accountability.
And you know she is.
In the last I heard she's inGeorgia with her family.
She's still an artist, she's Isaw her on Facebook page and
she's a very accomplished artistand she has a family.
It's interesting though shesays her favorite movie was
(31:05):
Dracula, yeah, and.
And that she says I'm still notthis bright, sunshiny girl, you
know, and that kind of thing.
So so she's still, andapparently, according to the
family, that she and Jenniferstill have a relationship of
(31:26):
some kind.
Wow, I'm surprised, which issurprising.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Yeah, very surprising .
It shows the power offorgiveness that Jennifer has.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Yeah, what is the?
How old is she now and how oldis Rod?
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Okay, let's see.
So Rod was 16 in 1996.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yeah, so he's in his 40s.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And and Heather would be too.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah, yeah, when Rod came back for his recent, I was
thinking a couple of years agoit was interesting to see him
because, you know, his shavedhead now not shaved, but a
little short cropped hair yeah,it's kind of red and gray and
then there's no long hair, inother words, and he, he was sun
(32:14):
tan because he has to workoutside in the prison system,
but he still looked wiped out.
He looked, you know, washed out, even though he had a sun tan,
if that makes any sense.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
No, it does.
And talking with my friend BillKimberlin, who who spends a lot
of time with death row inmates,you never get a good night's
sleep in prison.
You just can't, you can't.
Yeah, that was too loud for onething.
Yeah, well, I mean I wouldalways be looking over my
shoulder.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Yeah, well, it's yeah .
And the worst thing is to be acelebrity prisoner, because then
somebody says I'm gonna stick aknife in this guy, homemade
knife in this guy, and then I'llbe famous.
So, anyway, yeah.
So this, this, like I say, thisis the most interesting case,
but there's other cases in thisbook that are just incredible.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Well, we're going to talk about another case right
now, because we're talking aboutnot getting a good night's
sleep in prison.
The inside prison code is thatif you are a rapist or a child
molester, you are on borrowedtime because prison justice will
take care of you.
I got to imagine that OfficerJames Duckett probably doesn't
get a good night's sleep ever.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Tell us about the story.
Well, he's on death row, yeah.
So the I suppose the advantageis that he's in a solitary cell.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
And they don't get out much, they don't get a lot
of recreation yard time, allthat kind of thing.
So this is an interesting case,1997, he's a rookie police
officer in Little Town inCentral Florida and he there's a
missing child and reported andthe mama says she didn't come
(34:02):
home.
You know, after 10 o'clock shewent to the store to get a
pencil for homework andconvenience store.
She never made it home.
So he's out supposedly lookingfor her all night.
But really he at five o'clockin the morning he starts setting
up a radar to her speedingpeople and all that kind of
thing.
So that was odd.
(34:22):
Well, then turns out they findher body.
She's 11 years old awful thingand she'd been raped.
And then the rookie becomes asuspect because he's just acting
weird he's not acting like allbroke up about it, you know.
And then they find tire tracksby this lake where her body was,
(34:45):
and then the tire tread matchesthe police car and so it goes
on from there and so fine.
And they find the girl'sfingerprints on the hood of his
car along with his and.
But he says well, she wasn'tsitting on my car and I saw her
(35:06):
at the store, or talked to heror said go home because it's
almost curfew time.
But I did.
She went in my car, butsomebody other people saw her in
the car and so big holes startshowing up in the story.
Yeah, so then they arrest him.
And then there's this is acrazy thing there's they find
(35:28):
the Sheriff's Office finds allthese girls that said they had
been sexually harassed by thiscop.
One girl went along with stuffin his car and so that comes up
in his trial.
And then one girl in particularsaid she saw the girl in the
(35:54):
car, then she recanted, and thenshe recanted again, she
recanted again.
So she becomes sort ofunreliable witness.
But you know, that wascontroversy.
And then the FBI lab analysthad been in trouble for some
others Another case of hiscredibility is dragged through
the mud and on and on.
(36:16):
So it's a very interesting case.
But anyway he ends up beingconvicted and then sentenced to
death.
Well, here's the thing.
That's bad enough.
But then, 20 years later hisgrandson is missing, his
grandson.
Now he's in jail.
(36:37):
So he does, he can't do itright.
His grandson is the kid ismissing, the, the girl, the kids
, mother, was said.
Well, I went to go get him outat a better check on him water.
But he was gone, that somebodyhad taken him through the screen
window, so, but then she killedherself three days later.
(36:57):
Oh oh so, and then everybodysays, well, she did it.
Then the another merit, but sheleft.
The suicide note says when youfind my son Then so another
police agency involved in thissaid, well, he must still be
alive.
And so it's just like I say youjust cannot make this stuff up?
Speaker 1 (37:20):
No, you can't.
And it's To have that kind ofstuff running in the same family
.
That's got to be like a geneticthing.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
It's nuts.
Oh well, it was the.
The Wasn't the son that did itwas as well as the wife.
Okay yeah, she was crackers.
I mean, she was just absolutelybonkers.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Well, crazy begets, crazy right.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Yeah yeah and, and the sad thing was, I remember
when James stuck it was on inthe county jail during the trial
.
Then his little boys wassitting out there with mama On
the sidewalk trying to talk todad in the jail up you know
several stories taller.
So here's this kid.
(38:01):
The leader becomes the fatherof this boy who's missing and
Presumed it now because he nevershows up.
So it's absolutely terrible.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
And you're dealings with stories like this.
You probably talked to lawenforcement Law enforcement
officers.
How do missing children andmurdered children affect them?
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Well they hate it.
It it, it affects them, it doesthey just hate it, and so do I.
I hate it too.
I despise it.
This and Abusive animals, yes,just bothers me, because they're
innocent, you know, and theythey're relying on the kindness
of other people, and they'rejust Just abuse.
(38:44):
I've seen way too much ofreally you are.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
You are talking my language right there, man, I'm I
to my.
Two of the three biggest petpeeves I have about crime is
crime against children, rapeagainst women and animal abuse.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Can't stand it.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
There's no excuse for any of them.
No none Did you cover theKaylee Anthony story.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
No, I wish I had.
And here's that story that Imean.
I just watched it.
But the jury couldn't evenagree that she had neglected her
child.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Yeah, we're talking about mom Casey.
The daughter was Kaylee.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Yeah, so I Mean they just were tired and just wanted
to go home.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Yeah, again, we're talking about Florida, and it's
not just the criminals or thesuspected criminals who are
crazy, it's the jurors too.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Yeah, I mean they just wanted to go home.
I mean, yeah, I mean you've gotto say, okay, she's guilty of
child neglect, because that,that was obvious and that came
out of, the facts came out inthe case.
So maybe she killed the childaccidentally, but still that's
child neglect or whatever.
If they had done that then theycould have gone to the next
(40:01):
thing but, once they decidedthat it was over.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
So we've talked about vampires, we've talked a little
bit about wackos, but wehaven't touched upon gators.
Have you ever had to run inwith an alligator in Florida?
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, they're everywhere and we
had.
There was one case.
We at the Sentinel we had aCable show and so there was a
little boy that was Eating by analligator over Belisha County.
So I'm in Lake County, justnext door, so we did a show on
(40:37):
alligators and how dangerousthey are in that kind of.
So we went out on this lakewith the game and fish biologist
on an airboat and we're Filmingalligators and stuff.
There's a 12 footer that pushedoff from the shore right before
left, splash, splash.
So we're out there and thisthree footer swims up to the
(40:58):
boat and the game and fish guysays you want me to catch him.
I said, sure, you know, it'sgreat, great film right there,
right yeah, great video.
So he's holding the gator andthe gators like squeaking and
stuff and making this noiseprobably like mama, help me you
know, oh wow, and so we'refilming on.
Everything's fine.
(41:19):
Well, the winds blowing theboat out to the middle of the
lake and and this gate, thislake is just infested with those
things.
They're everywhere.
So he's well, I can't put himout in the middle of the lake
here, he'll be food for theother alligators.
So it says here you holdingwhile I get back to the get, I
said say what now?
So this gators like, goeverywhere trying to get away
(41:44):
and the photographers laughingso hard she almost fell over.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
So it's so funny but in the book you are A vampire's
gators and wackos you are.
You talk about the lack ofstrength that alligators have
with their mouth opening and thesincere strength they have
closing.
So is it?
Is it easy to hold analligators mouth shut?
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Yeah, yeah, because they, they can't.
And the other thing is theyhave no jaws, they, they don't
chew their food, they just kindof.
What they do is, when they gettheir prey, they will let it,
they'll push the like a deer orsomething.
They'll put the deer on theshore and Then let it decay and
then come back and then grab itand flip it around.
They call the death roll.
(42:26):
So, but yeah, you can put yourhands on the jaws.
Good luck with that, but you cando it and they can't open their
jaws, their mouth.
But, and it's amazing, when Iwas a kid there was a Gator farm
over in St Augustine and theyhad this guy he would climb into
(42:48):
this pen with his big oldalligators and Do a show and he,
what he would do is he wouldstick his, he run his hand
through the jaws real quick andthen you get this chomp, you
know, and he was like, oh mygosh.
Then he climbed out andeverybody will like empty their
wallet, give this guy.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Yeah, amazing not a way to make a living.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
No, I'm so proud.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
So later you have a nickname like lefty or something
girl Of course, of course,stumpy, yeah, the other wildlife
that is really prevalent in indominant now in florida are the
pythons.
Um, have you done any storieson on brimmy's pythons?
I mean, they have hunters andwranglers now to try and control
(43:35):
the population.
It's a, it's a losing battle,it is uh they, what those?
Speaker 2 (43:40):
it's a exotic species of course people have.
They have these stupid thingsas pets.
Then they get big and they letthem go.
Well, they are destroying, likenatural Animals, like the the
key deer is a really smallversion of a deer.
They're destroying everythingof this native.
And so, and then there was afamous the case where, uh they,
(44:07):
they came across a six footalligator in the mouth or in the
body of One of these pythons,right, whatever it was, and it
looked like a telephone polestuck in a sock side moves.
They both died in the struggle.
You know, yeah, it's kind ofmonster movie thing you know
(44:28):
right, yeah, it's crazy.
And I, yeah, I've talked with aguy who goes out, hunts these
things, and so they get paidpretty handsomely, they do and
uh, if I had any guts, I'dprobably go out and do a story
with him.
Well, I.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
I've watched video of of some uh uh snake wranglers,
python wranglers in florida andI saw one guy just get.
He got chomped on by a 17footer and it just wrapped
around him and stuff and it tookhim like 30 minutes to fight
this thing off.
I don't know if there's enoughmoney in the world, frank.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
No, yeah, I mean, I almost stepped on a snake in the
everglades one time trying toget away from mosquitoes.
I was in a hurry when I waswatching what I'm going on this
trail.
I'm trying to get out of thereand I almost stepped on a snake,
so I'm going.
No, I hate snakes.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
Yeah, yeah, they're, uh, they're sneaky little devils
, aren't they?
Speaker 2 (45:19):
they are.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Uh, what is uh, what's uh like a story that
would like make you say I don'twant to cover that.
Is there such a story.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
If it's big enough to be in the paper, I'll cover it
yeah, do you have nightmaresover things that you've covered?
That's a common question.
I don't know.
I only nightmare I ever hadreally was about was this
terrible case.
These two teenage girls werekilled in a car wreck.
(45:57):
It was a drunk driver classmatedriving them.
These girls both resemble eachother.
They both had blonde hair.
One of the dads was a funeraldirector.
One of them was a privatedetective dad.
Well, they got it was bad andit was horrible accident.
(46:22):
And they were buried side byside and then the funeral guy
started thinking you know, maybewe put them in the wrong grave.
They had to exhume them andswap them out.
And that one gave me nightmares.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Yeah, because.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
I've got.
I've got three dollars, youknow.
So that's, that's the thing.
So, and what happened was oneof the girls didn't die right
away, so the wrong family wassitting at the bedside of this
one girl.
Oh my gosh, it's just horrible.
Yeah, so that was, that was aterrible thing.
So yeah, stuff like that.
(47:04):
I mean, if it's something thatresembles something in your life
, then that's going to be.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Oh sure.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Yeah, for sure, if you have.
If I mean that's empathy, Imean you can empathize with
those, those parents, with the,with those victims, natural
disasters.
Which ones have you covered?
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Oh, we had a terrible groundhog day tornado that
killed over 21 people in thelittle town north of where I'm
at, and that was just awful.
Mobile homes are not a goodplace to be and those things and
some of those old retired folksin really old single wide
(47:45):
mobile homes or double-wides orwhatever, and they were just.
Sometimes they were picked upand rolled around, sometimes
trees snatched them out,sometimes people were pulled out
of their houses by the storm.
And that was the day, oh man,and it was like.
The first thing I saw was therewas a church, a big church.
(48:07):
As you enter the town.
It was gone, totally wiped out,and the pastor was out there
along the highway trying to praywith people as they went by.
So, and of course, the air isfull of helicopters, ambulances,
fire trucks, the whole deal.
That's the way it started.
And so what we did?
(48:28):
Our friend, I went together andwe saw the most incredible
things.
We saw one guy went around acorner and there was a what had
been a brick house and there was, the house was gone and there
was a man sitting in a chair onthe foundation and we said we'll
stop and talk to this guy andhe said he was asleep.
This happened in the middle ofthe night, of course, like they
(48:51):
do.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Yeah they do yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
And he said the first thing I knew was a problem was
I was floating in the air on mymattress.
My wife is across the housebecause she said the house goes.
She said she snored so she gotinjured, you know, but not too
bad.
It was crazy and this is abrick house.
Other ones that I talked to asa lady in a mobile home.
She heard something and grabbeda little dog and tried to make
(49:18):
made it to.
She didn't make it to theliving room behind the couch and
her house was destroyed, butshe was grateful she was alive.
So other ones what they woulddo is that they found a body.
They would stop all thechainsaws and everything else,
be quiet and while they took theperson out, just out of respect
.
That was quite a day.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Tornado are probably, wouldn't you say, of the three
natural disasters that Floridaexperiences wildfires,
hurricanes and tornadoesTornadoes got to be the most
devastating because you don'thave time to prepare for them,
that's right and, like I say,they happened in the middle of
the night.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
It seems like, yeah, you have a warning, but yeah, I
covered a lot of hurricanes tooin 2000.
Well, we're, we had Threehurricanes that came across
Central Florida and by the timeit got to us, the city of
Florida, it went from ahurricane to tropical force
winds.
Well, that's still just under74 miles an hour and you can
(50:20):
have gusts of 100 miles an hour,yeah.
So we saw a lot of destruction,a lot of a lot of stuff.
We saw one guy was in hisflooded yard.
He was sitting in a chair buthe had an oxygen, you know a
cannula on his nose that ran allthe way into the house.
He was sitting there with arake trying to push logs away
(50:43):
from the storm drain so thewater would drain.
We saw an 80 year old womanwho'd lost her home.
Big tree fell through the milloverhouse.
She was having to move out.
She spent her whole life there.
So just amazing stuff.
And of course, the people are.
We ran into a church that awhole bunch of Spanish speaking
(51:05):
folks were having a churchservice in there and they were
very nice and they they prayedfor us, they shined a flashlight
.
All the flashlights werepointed at the photographer.
She was embarrassed, but youknow it was funny.
And then, when we left there,all my phone messages and all my
messages were in Spanish forsome days.
(51:26):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
You made quite an impression on them.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
Yeah, but I mean I don't know how that happened,
it's just funny.
But um, yeah, it's, it's crazy.
Florida's, uh, I mean you lookat them, at me say, okay, we're
asking for it.
We're a peninsula between theGulf and the Atlantic Ocean.
What was I thinking?
No, but um, yeah, it's prettycrazy.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
So why do you think we have such a fascination with
true crime?
You know?
Speaker 2 (51:58):
it's interesting.
I did a little research on this.
You know, the biggest audiencefor true crime is our women.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
Oh yeah, Let me tell you something, frank.
My wife uh has every episode ofdiscover ID on how to kill your
husband.
Memorize.
That's comforting, verycomforting, Exactly, yeah, yeah,
say can we watch something else?
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Yeah, I know, yeah so uh, yeah, I think it's because
it's the reason, the same reasonthat men read war stories,
because we say well, how wouldwe deal with, how would we
confront this, how would wehandle this?
You know, um, if somethinghappened?
I think that's, and I think wejust empathize with the victims
(52:42):
and we just, you know, we Ipersonally I always want to know
why.
What caused this?
It's just like the vampiricthing.
What?
then you, then you get tounderstanding the family dynamic
and stuff.
You say, okay, get it.
Yeah, no, the exactly the the agreat reporter always asks why.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
Um, and that is the question, my other, my
fascination comes from how didthis level of depravity happen?
Yeah, I'm fascinated by thedepravity you know.
Yeah, absolutely yeah, andthat's what I always try and I
always try to, I always try to,I always try to, I always try
and find, when I'm readingstories about these criminals
that do these horrendous things,where and how did that level
(53:25):
hit that low?
I?
Speaker 2 (53:27):
know, and one of the um defense psychologists in the
vampire case says this is themost dysfunctional thing that
I've ever seen.
The, the mother, um Rod'smother, uh, they would have, she
would.
She claimed that she was rapedrepeatedly by this prince of the
city, this rival vampire cult,because they would have these
(53:48):
group sex vampire orgies orwhatever she says.
And then, um, then the otherthing she says I, I would go to
my room and I feel like I'd beendrugged and they were like
these ghost-like images floatingin the air.
Somebody was tapping on thewindow while she was on the
second floor, so you know, sothere's all kinds of and, of
(54:12):
course, her child.
There was no walk in the parkeither.
Well, she was pregnant at 16.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
She had Rod when she was 16.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
Right, and so she fused, basically her sister
accused, uh, their dad, of youknow, sexual abuse.
So it's sexual abuse is a bigbig thing.
It's a big um thing for ummental illness, absolutely.
You see it, you see it a lotand and that's uh, and it
(54:43):
continues generation aftergeneration, sometimes Absolutely
yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
It is, uh, it's a cycle, it is a cycle.
And it does often repeat itselfin families that have
experienced it and it's uh, it'sso tragic.
You know it is, and, and one ofthe things that I try and do
with my podcast and it's funnythat we're talking about mental
health is I am trying to breakdown the stigma of mental health
, that if you need help, go gethelp.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
Absolutely Out there and and my.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
My psychiatrist told me a long time ago that 20% of
the American population is onsome sort of mental illness pill
.
80% need to be.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:19):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Absolutely.
I mean, yeah, I think it's like, uh, cancer, cancer touches
every family in in America atsome point some way, and it's
just like mental illness.
And you know, depends on howyou define mental illness, but
it's everything from um seriousdepression to OCD and all kinds
of other other things.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
Even the opposite of depression mania that's a mental
illness.
Speaker 2 (55:44):
It is Because a lot of things.
Speaker 1 (55:46):
a lot of strange things happen when you're manic.
Yeah, I've often been told bymy psychologist and psychiatrist
that the way you look at mentalillness is if you sprained your
ankle you would go get it fixed.
Mental illness is just a sprainon the brain.
Speaker 2 (56:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:02):
And.
Speaker 2 (56:03):
I I've got a.
I'm working on a novel about avet that has PTSD, so that's
another thing.
Um, what those, a lot of thoseguys have tried to do is
self-medicate.
Speaker 1 (56:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:16):
And that's a disaster .
Speaker 1 (56:18):
Well, what is the statistic?
22 veterans a day, 22 soldiersa day commit suicide and it's
because of PTSD.
So, yeah, yeah, um, I I hopeyour book, uh, does some wonders
for for that population,because they really need to help
.
Yeah, yeah, I love askingreporters and authors this
question and, uh, no two answersare ever the same.
(56:39):
Uh, what is your favorite word?
Because reporters and authorshave to have a stellar
vocabulary.
Do you have a favorite word?
A?
Speaker 2 (56:47):
favorite word?
Yeah, um, hmm.
Uh, I have to think about that.
I have to think about that one,because you know I love to read
.
I've always loved to read and Ialways tell young writers I say
, if you want to be a goodwriter, read, read like mad,
(57:09):
read all kinds of stuff.
And I taught middle school forone year, just for the heck of
it.
And so you'd ask aboutnightmares.
I like to say well, okay.
I say I, I okay, I was a Vietnamera war veteran.
Um, I've covered all thesecases for years.
If I have any flashbacks, itgoes back to the classroom.
(57:30):
These kids are a mess.
Yeah, you know, they're a hotmess.
It's absolutely terrible.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
Well, thanks for your service.
I didn't know you're in the.
You're in the military.
Thank you very much, buddy.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
Oh, you're welcome.
Speaker 1 (57:45):
Yeah, my father-in-law was, was in
Vietnam as well.
Speaker 2 (57:48):
Yeah, it was a.
My time was spent mostly inKorea, which was an interesting
place in itself.
You get off the plane.
You say, okay, this is.
You look from the air and it'slike mountains and rice paddies
and all that.
It's cool.
Then you get off the plane.
You see barbwire everywhere andsandbags and machine guns.
You go.
I thought the war was over like20 years ago.
(58:09):
Apparently not.
Speaker 1 (58:11):
Yeah, apparently not.
Isn't travel the best educationyou can give yourself?
Speaker 2 (58:15):
It is, it's great, oh it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (58:18):
Yeah, it is so amazing.
Well, my brother, it has been apleasure talking with you.
I'm glad we got to hook up andpromote the book Vampires,
gators and Wacos and you've gotcold blooded out, also all
available on Wild Blue Press.
But continue success to you,buddy, and I'm sure we'll hook
up again.
Speaker 2 (58:35):
Well, thank you very much for having me.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (58:37):
Yeah, you're the best , frank.
Take care, I'll talk to yousoon, okay.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (58:41):
My thanks to Frank Stanfield for his time and his
storytelling.
You can get Frank's bookVampires, gators and Wacos at
wildbluepresscom.
And thank you for listening.
I appreciate beyond words whenyou share your time with the
Fuzzy Mike.
Feel free to share the FuzzyMike with your friends and
family.
Just stay connected with theFuzzy Mike.
You can follow me on Instagram,facebook and Twitter or you can
(59:04):
email me at thefuzzymikecom.
For video.
Please subscribe to the FuzzyMike YouTube channel.
The Fuzzy Mike is hosted andproduced by Kevin Klein.
Production elements by ZachSheesh at the Radio Farm.
Social media.
Director is Trish Klein.
I'll be back next Tuesday witha new episode of the Fuzzy Mike,
where we'll meet an author whowill share the story of his
(59:25):
decade-long battle with bipolardisorder and addiction, how he
overcame both and is now aleading speaker on life recovery
.
It will definitely empower youand remember the all-new
Tuddling Klein podcast with newepisodes every Monday and
Thursday.
So grateful for you, thank you.
That's it for the Fuzzy Mike.
Thank you.
Welcome to the Fuzzy Mike, the interview series, the
podcast, whatever Kevin wants tocall it.
It's Fuzzy Mike.
Hello and welcome to anotherepisode of the Fuzzy Mike.
Thank you for listening.
If you like what you hear,share it with your friends.
I sure would appreciate that.
I've got to start this episodeon a somber note as an endurance
(00:21):
runner myself.
Our community lost a great onerecently.
Last week, kelvin Kiptum, theworld record holder in the
marathon, died in a car crash inhis native Kenya.
Even with a time of 2 hours 35seconds for 26.2 miles, he still
couldn't outrun the Grim Reaper, who remains undefeated in the
(00:42):
race of life.
I am the Grim Reaper.
As a member of the 50 StatesClub, that means I've completed
a marathon or longer-distancerace in each of the 50 states.
I've gotten to travel a lotaround our country.
I've actually lived in sevendifferent states.
The one thing I've learnedthrough my travels is that one
(01:04):
state stands alone in howback-crap crazy it is Florida.
And that's what we're going totalk about in this episode today
with my guest, frank Stanfield.
Frank has been a newspaperreporter and editor for more
than 40 years, including at theOrlando Sentinel, where he's
covered high-profile crimes aswell as other interesting
(01:25):
stories.
I learned about Frank from hisbook Vampires, gators and Wackos
, which is available at WildBlue Press.
It's a compilation of crimestories that Frank has covered
throughout his nearlyhalf-century as a journalist.
The book not only includes thevampire cult story that went
international, but it also tellsabout a teacher who was deemed
too pretty to go to jail.
(01:46):
Along with alligator attacks,hurricanes and naked people
telling cops, it's not as bad asit looks.
Frank Stanfield joins me now,so let's just jump in, frank.
Why is Florida so back-crapcrazy?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Well, it's because everybody comes to Florida.
Used to be, everybody went toCalifornia, but California's too
expensive for the Wack jobs now, so they all come to Florida.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
And you've been covering.
You've been a journalist for 40years, or 40 plus years now.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
What got you into?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
it.
You know I always wanted towrite, so that was just a way
for me to hone my skills and Ijust got into it because I, like
, I'm always wanting to knowwhat happened, what's going on,
and then, if I can write aboutit, tell about other people
about it.
It's just the best ever.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I think how has the internet changed newspaper and
reporting?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Oh man.
Well, the newspaper industrywas really slow about getting
into the on the internet, and sowhat happened was, because they
didn't know, is it?
Should it be free, Should it beadvertising supported, you know
, subscription supported, orwhat?
And they, they fiddled aroundand kind of lost their way there
(03:05):
for a while, so andeverything's just changed now,
so that it's too late to recoupsome of that.
And then I don't know, butthere is, of course, the
newspapers are online now andall that.
So that's good.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
How many different publications did you write for?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Oh gosh, several, but mostly in Florida.
I worked in North Carolinabriefly, and then I had also
worked for a paper in Augusta,georgia, so mostly in Florida,
though the Orlando SentinelOcala Star Banner, at least for
daily commercial.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
So and in that capacity you were a reporter.
Did you ever become editor, oh?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
yes, I was an editor for quite a bit too.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
So what's the difference between a reporter
and an editor?
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Well, editor, I was in charge of court and cop
reporters so I'd and otherreporters so I'd send them out
on assignments and then I wouldedit their stories when they
came back.
So but I think the reporting ismuch, much more fun.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
As an editor who is editing a reporter's story, how
do you go about doing that?
Because you're you're taking apart or adding to somebody's
already creativity, and we aswriters and performers, we kind
of have proprietary egos, Iguess I would say.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, one of the writers at the Sentinel had a
note on their computer.
Says never trust an editor.
Ever, ever, ever.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
What makes?
What makes a good reporter.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Somebody.
That's really curious, for onething, that just has to know.
You know, and I'll give you anexample of that was one day I
was it wasn't even my story, butthere was a reporter working on
a murder story and whathappened was the wife killed her
husband and then wrotesomething on his chest.
So I said, no, wait a minute,I've got to know what that was I
(05:10):
mean.
So I said do you mind if I callsomebody I know in homicide?
Sure, go ahead.
So then I found out what it was.
It was love you forever.
I said now we got a story,that's a story now, because that
happened in Florida.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah, because, number one, improving our point that
Florida is bat crap crazy.
It is crazy, Absolutely crazy.
But it keeps you hopping.
I bet it does.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean you look over this fanpliers, gators and Wackles book.
Even I am amazed sometimes thatjust how bizarre and strange
the stuff is.
I mean, I have an imagination,but you just can't make this
stuff up you know you cannot.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
And they always say truth is stranger than fiction
and you, as a reporter andwriter, know that very well.
How do you as a reporter, howdo you cover a tragedy and like
the murder of the Wendorf's Okay, how do you approach the oldest
Wendorf daughter, who hadnothing to do with it and was
never accused?
How do you approach her forcomments after she's lost her
(06:19):
parents?
Walk us through that delicateprocess.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Well, you have to be sensitive because it's what she
experienced walking into herhouse and finding your parents
is slaughtered and her youngersister gone and just such an
awful, traumatic thing.
You can never unsee it.
And you well, she came back afew years ago for a resintency
(06:50):
and Rod Farrell, the cult leader, and she testified and she
begged the judge, not to youknow, lessen his life sentence.
So she was crying, it was justawful, and so I went up to her
and said I identified myself acouple of different times and
said I'd like to talk with you.
(07:11):
And she said I just I don'ttalk to any reporters.
And I said well, I understand,and I do, I get it.
I actually talked with theyounger sister right after Rod
Farrell's trial and that wasinteresting.
She's a different kind ofperson.
But what happened to Jennifer,who was 17 at the time, a senior
(07:35):
in high school, chair leader,you know that sort of thing?
Just innocent bystander, justblindsided by the whole thing?
Really.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
So let's talk about this case from start to finish,
because this is the start of thebook the vampires, gators and
wackos and the vampire storythat made international news and
I've actually seen an interviewwith you on Ashley Banfield's
judgment television program.
I mean, this thing took offlike wildfire.
So let's start from thebeginning.
Tell us what happened in thevampire story.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Okay, so what happened was Jennifer, like I
said, 17 years old, chair leader, pop Peter, beautiful kid comes
home after work at a grocerystore and she walks in.
The lights are low, tv's going,so she's late.
She's broken curfew a littlebit, so she's trying to sneak in
(08:32):
.
You know past her dad and youknow who's.
She thinks he's asleep on thecouch and so she goes into her
room and then she says I'm goingto get something to eat.
So she goes in the kitchen andthere's a blood trailer into the
kitchen and then she saw hermother on the floor of the
kitchen beaten to death.
Ruth Queen was her name.
And then she runs to her dad,richard Wendell, and he's laying
(08:54):
on the couch and his face isunrecognizable because they had
been beaten to death repeatedly,just pummeled with a crowbar.
So then she calls the 911 andsays please send two ambulances.
My parents are dead.
And the dispatcher says well,how do you know they're dead?
(09:14):
She says, well, there's bloodeverywhere.
So that's how it starts.
And she says and, by the way,my sister, who's 15, is not here
and the car's gone.
So that's how it starts.
And of course that's crazyenough.
Well then, right away, she'stelling Jennifer's telling the
detectives who could have donethis and all this.
(09:36):
They said, well, this kid namedRod Farrell, who's a friend of
my sister's.
And then they get to she tellsmore about her sister and she
says one night my sister turnedto me and said Jen, have you
ever thought about killing ourparents, plotting our parents'
(09:58):
death?
And she goes no, I mean, andjust that's crazy.
You know, be quiet.
You know, of course, but that.
And then she starts tellingabout her sister's friend, rod
Farrell, and how he could killsomebody if she needed somebody
killed and all this other kindof crazy stuff.
(10:18):
Then they call the sheriff'soffice up in Murray, kentucky,
where Rod was from, and thissheriff says man, you got a wild
bunch on the loose because theywere accused of some horrific
animal shelter abuse and someother things and making bombs
and all kinds of stuff like that.
And so that's how it started.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, so in the murder Rod Farrell was
eventually convicted of this andalong with a couple of other
accomplices, but in the murderhe in the interrogation really
admitted to doing this and wasactually bragging about it.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, yeah, he tried to be this tough guy, you know.
You know.
He says well, I'm disturbed.
He says, but he's also makingexcuses.
I'm disturbed, I was molestedby my grandfather.
I witnessed a human sacrificefor my grandfather's cult called
the black mask and all thiscrazy stuff, and I was sexually
(11:25):
molested.
And then he says but he saysyeah, I was.
He says at one point he says Iwas beaten and beaten, and
beaten on the dad and reallyenjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
basically, yeah, yeah , he said he felt like God for a
moment.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah.
Then he says, well, but then ifI was really a God, I wouldn't
be here now.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Yeah, In the interrogation room across from
the detectives.
Where did the vampire aspectcome into it?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Well, rod created this.
Well, first of all, rod, whenhe moved from Florida back to
Kentucky with his grandparentsand his mother, he fell in with
this kid who called himself thePrince of the City.
He was believed in vampirestuff and they would hang out
(12:13):
cemeteries all night in all thisjazz.
So then Rod created his owngroup and they were like
drinking each other's blood, allthis cult stuff, and Rod
started believing at one point,according to one of his friends,
that he was really a vampireand a mortal at one point.
So this kid says and then, buthe got other kids to believe in
(12:37):
it and they, you know, thoughtthey had special powers and all
this stuff.
So that's how it took off fromthere?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Was there an over like an overwriting or a common
theme that these kids had, thatthey were easily recruitable?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
You know I did some research on this about cults and
what happened with this groupthat Rod was okay.
First of all his dad left earlyin his life.
He had no father.
The mother was not a goodmother at all.
She was.
She had no control over him.
(13:17):
She wanted to be his friendrather than a parent, so and he
was.
They didn't have much money,much education, anything else,
so he was sort of an outsider.
What he did?
He found other outsiders, sortof this one kid Howard Anderson
is the one in the house with himat night was totally
(13:40):
dysfunctional family.
They were on welfare becausedad was a raging alcoholic and a
drug user.
They total poverty, I mean thewhole thing.
So then Rod had his girlfriend,charity Kesey, and she had kind
of a dysfunctional family, Ithink, although the dad was
(14:02):
there, but you know she wasn'tpaying attention to him.
So.
And then there was another girlwho was like 19 and she was
living on her own, working atWalmart, and so she was
overweight and didn't have muchself-confidence.
So they all had something incommon.
So they were kind of he formedtheir own little families, what
(14:25):
it was a vampire family, andthey were held together with
little beliefs.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
But there are a lot of families that are
underprivileged.
There are a lot of kids thatgrow up on welfare.
They don't all become killers.
So what led Rod into becomingthis guy who, quote, bashed a
man's head in until brains cameout?
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Yeah, well, I think he always wanted to kill
somebody.
So then he had this perfectopportunity, you know, because
what happened was they came downto Florida to pick up Heather.
And they came, yeah, and theycame down and his friend Howard
(15:10):
Anderson's car, which is an oldbeater, and it was falling apart
and so the car was about shot.
So he says, okay, we're goingto have to have, we're going to
steal Heather's parents' carthey had a new Ford Explorer and
then we'll have to kill him.
But it was just an excuse.
All the way down to Florida hewas telling everybody I want to
kill somebody, I want to killsomething, and so this was just
(15:33):
a fantasy of his that he wantedto do, and so this is what he
did.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Well, it kind of brings to mind a more recent
story with and I think ithappened in Florida also with
Aiden Fuchschi, who said hewanted to kill somebody and
ended up stabbing his classmate170 times.
You remember that one?
Did you cover that?
Speaker 2 (15:54):
I did not cover that one no.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
I thought it was down by the Miami area, but I could
be mistaken on that.
And you talk about Rod notbeing educated.
How does somebody who's noteducated become so charismatic
and so dominating that he couldconvince other people to follow
him?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
I know it's amazing really Well, when I said he
wasn't educated, he dropped outof school and his mother let him
and he was like smoking dope inthe house and all this kind of
stuff.
He had this charismaticpersonality, but he was also
very smart, very gifted artist,so he would draw, and so was
(16:42):
Heather.
That's something they had incommon.
So they were both artiste.
And Heather fantasized.
This is like a perfect storm.
She fantasized about being ableto go wherever she wanted to go
, do whatever she wanted to do,but her parents were not letting
her.
So she fantasized well, whatwould happen if they weren't
(17:02):
around?
So she was talking to him aboutthat and her gothic fantasies
and it was like the perfectstorm.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
She was 15 at the time.
Her parents shouldn't have lether go anywhere, especially
across state lines back toKentucky, and we all have
disagreements with our parentswhen we're 15.
We want to be independent, butat no point in my life did I
ever say you know what?
You're not letting me dosomething.
I think I want to kill you.
I know that is a special idiocyright there.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah, you know what it is.
I think Rod wanted control, andso what he did was he would
study black magic books and thatkind of thing in psychology
books and he said you can getcontrol of people if you put
them in fear.
So he was going to put his cultfollowers in fear, and this is
(17:56):
a trick that Charles Manson didtoo.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
There's a lot of.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
There's a lot of yeah , yeah, exactly, and there was a
lot of similarities betweenManson and Rod.
One of the defense attorneyswhen they were captured in Baton
Rouge, louisiana, said this isnot the Manson case.
Well, no, but there are somesimilarities, so it's very
(18:21):
interesting.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
We'll talk about the Manson case in a little bit,
because I know that you citeVincent Buleosi's Helter Skelter
as a book that actuallyinspired you to write vampires,
wackos and gators, and alsoCold-Blooded, which is your
newest book, and it focusessolely on this vampire case.
Were you in the courtroom atthe trial?
Oh, yes, okay, a couple ofquestions here.
(18:42):
Why did Rod wear headphones?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
I don't know exactly, but here's the thing, Because
headphones are usually for ifyou're like a Spanish speaking
defendant or something and ittranslates for you and so on,
but I don't know.
But here's the thing that didwhen he was arrested.
He had this long dyed black,flowing hair.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Down to a pasty shoulders Right and then no
glasses or anything like that.
So he was all living the part.
And then when the trial camearound, they put a white shirt
on him and they had him sitthere at the table the defense
table with crayons and glasses.
So he looked like this harmlesslittle nerd.
(19:31):
It's all part of the dress-upthing that they do for
defendants.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
And he was constantly doodling while the trial was
going on.
I thought, when I was watchingthe proceedings with him wearing
the headphones, I almostthought that that was an attempt
by him or his defense team toshow remorse.
I can't hear what's going on.
I don't want to hear thedetails because I'm ashamed of
what happened you think thatmight have been the case.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
I don't know.
I actually don't hardlyremember the headphones much,
but the doodling you mentioned.
They had set up a vacantcourtroom next door for a news
media center because all the TVcrews and stuff like that were
there a wire service.
They had a German TV crew there, they had the whole thing.
(20:20):
So one of the TV people was onthe phone to his cameraman he
said zoom in on what he'sdoodling.
And he was zooming in and theywas doodling all these vampire
figures and stuff like that.
So it was like holy.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Yeah, he was committed to the lifestyle,
that's for sure.
Yeah, when you're in aproximity to a murderer like
that, is it scary.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
You know, with him it wasn't.
I've covered cases where therewas one guy that he killed.
He was a caretaker on the ranchand he killed this couple that
owned the ranch and hid theirbodies underneath a haystack.
He was going to feed them tothe alligators later when their
(21:10):
bodies started to rot.
So but he kept looking at meand my photographer and it was
this weird grin and it was likekind of nerve-racking, to be
honest with you.
I mean he wasn't going anywhere, he was shackled with the floor
, but it was just weird, youknow, yeah, so you know it's
(21:31):
just, it is what it is.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Sure, you've probably been put in some very
precarious situations with yourjob as a reporter for over 40
years and now an author.
We're talking to FrankStanfield.
You can get Frank's bookVampires, gators and Wackos at
Wild Blue Press, and you canalso get his latest book,
cold-blooded, at Wild Blue Pressalso.
Rod gets sentenced to death.
(21:54):
Let's talk about that for asecond, just under 17 years old
and sentenced to death.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yeah.
So what happened was to avoidhe's thinking, if I plead guilty
, maybe the judge in the courtwill just say okay, you plead
guilty, you'll get into thestory, you're going to have a
life sentence.
But that's not what happened,because the prosecutor says no,
judge, it's my duty to presentall the facts and you know I'm
(22:23):
still seeking the death penalty.
So then they present.
In Florida they have what theycall a bifurcated death penalty
case.
It's in two phases.
You have the guilt phase.
Is he guilty?
Yeah, you know, present all theevidence, the physical evidence
and all that.
If he's guilty, then you go tothe next phase where you have
all these defense shrinks tryingto, you know, say, oh, he had
(22:48):
this mitigating factor here andthere and dysfunctional family
and all that.
So they went into that.
And so then the juryunanimously recommended death.
Now here's the thing too.
The thing that really did itfor the jurors, I think, was
they showed a videotape of hisconfession and then this was
(23:13):
weird, because the jurorsstopped looking at the videotape
and stared at him like, oh my,oh, my God, what is wrong with
you?
You know that kind of.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Thing.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, so that was very telling.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
So the jury comes back unanimous 12-0 for the
death penalty.
Does the judge have to enforcethat or can the judge go off on
his own and kind of call anaudible?
Speaker 2 (23:41):
He can call an audible, but if he does, it has
to be very specific the reasonfor it.
Like you know, he has to citethe law, some fact of the law
that you know that he doesn'tqualify, or I don't think it's
right, or whatever it is, butthe judge went ahead and sends
them.
But then what happened was theywent to the Florida Supreme
(24:03):
Court on appeal and the FloridaSupreme Court says no, it's too
young, so they see him off fordeath row.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Technically, he was not too young, though, because
he did fit the parameters ofbeing an adult according to
Florida law, which surprised alot of people that the Supreme
Court overruled that.
Now, my thing with this is hewas properly sentenced under the
law.
You know, frank, it takes 20 to25 years to execute a prisoner,
(24:33):
even in Florida.
So he wouldn't have been tooyoung, right.
I know, yeah, and we talkedabout this earlier when you were
talking about Jennifer Wendorf,the older sister.
She had to relive thisnightmare not too long ago for
an appeal.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yes, yeah, and that's the other thing you know I've
covered.
I actually covered an executionon time and I've written
several stories about it.
I covered this one case whereit was years and years later and
this guy on death row just keptcoming back on appeal, on
appeal, on appeal, and thefamily was just wrecked the
(25:13):
victim's family because theyjust have to relive it over and
over again, you know and sofinally they took the guy off
death row.
This is a horrible case.
And this victim's sister saidyou know, I'm against the death
penalty now and this is why itjust tears your guts out.
Yeah, so I can see that.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
I have a good friend who is another Wild Blue Press
author, Bill Kimberlin, and hewrote a book about death row
inmates it's called Last Words,and he said, if I ever am in the
position to caution a victim'sfamily, I would tell them don't
seek the death penalty simplybecause of what we're talking
about right here.
Every time an appeal comes up,you have to relive that horror.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah, and a lot of times they will take the guy on
death row.
I mean it's a catch 22.
I mean I understand the reasonfor it and one good reason to
have it is because and Iactually covered another case
one time where a guy pleadedguilty straight up, no
(26:22):
negotiated plea to murder, so wecould get a life sentence
because the possibility wasgetting the death penalty.
So it's a deterrent.
I mean it's a tool prosecutorscan use to hang over somebody's
head.
So I get that.
I mean that's good.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
It's also a tool prosecutors use to advance their
career, though.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
You know, yeah, so our judicial system is so flawed
I mean it's almost beyondrepair now, but that's a topic
for a whole other story.
The interesting thing beyondRod getting Rod Farrell getting
this death sentence, is Heathernever got charged.
So, Wendorf's daughter nevergot charged.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Right.
See, what she said was I didn'tknow my parents were going to
be harmed.
So what happened on the nightof the murder is that Rod and
Howard Anderson, his friend,sent Rod's girlfriend and Dan in
a Cooper this other girl totake Heather to go say goodbye
(27:33):
to her boyfriend, and so she wasnot there when this happened
and they never told her that herparents are going to be killed.
So you know, she didn't realizeher parents were killed until
later.
That's what she said, so that'swhat everybody says basically.
So the other vampires members?
(27:55):
So that's what she said.
So the grand jury says okay,what she did was wrong running
away from home, what she did waswrong being friends with a
bunch of nut cases like this,you know, and fantasizing about
you know, all this stuff butit's not a crime Because she
(28:17):
didn't know.
She didn't qualify as being aprinciple to murder.
To be a principle means youhave to have some active
participation in the crime.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
But didn't she?
They didn't use theconversation that she had with
her sister and they didn't usethe conversation she had with a
couple of friends at schoolabout wanting her parents dead.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
No, and see, here's the thing.
There's another thing too theprosecutors like to have a
straight line shot.
If they have a witness likeHeather on the stand, the jury's
going to be looking at herinstead of him, and so even and
(29:01):
she didn't testify either.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
No.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
And so.
But the defense still tried tothrow it on Heather.
Heather's the one behind thisand blah, blah, blah.
But she didn't.
She wasn't there to testify,they didn't look at her.
So and the prosecutor said Ididn't believe that she had any
to do with it.
That's what he said, so butit's.
(29:25):
And then later I talked withHeather after the trial and she
says I didn't know.
Same thing, I didn't know myparents would be harmed and I
regret, even knowing Rod Ferrell.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
So oh, it's always regret in hindsight, you know,
after something horrific likethis happens, I mean, yeah, of
course you're going to regret,regret meeting him.
As a journalist, you'resupposed to be impartial, so you
might not be able to answerthis question, but having been
the reporter that covered this,having been in the courtroom,
(29:56):
was she, was she guilty?
Speaker 2 (30:01):
I don't think she was guilty as far as you know,
having knowing her parents aregoing to be killed.
But there's, you know, there'sanother layer of there's
accountability, a different kindof accountability.
Yeah, she was.
She always had accountabilityfor for egging him on, for, you
(30:21):
know, feeding this fantasy crapinto him and you know she's
talking to the wrong guy, youknow and you know and then the
vampire cult members seemed tothink that she didn't wasn't all
of that broken up about it.
You know, after the, after thething.
So so she has someresponsibility, some
(30:43):
accountability.
And you know she is.
In the last I heard she's inGeorgia with her family.
She's still an artist, she's Isaw her on Facebook page and
she's a very accomplished artistand she has a family.
It's interesting though shesays her favorite movie was
(31:05):
Dracula, yeah, and.
And that she says I'm still notthis bright, sunshiny girl, you
know, and that kind of thing.
So so she's still, andapparently, according to the
family, that she and Jenniferstill have a relationship of
(31:26):
some kind.
Wow, I'm surprised, which issurprising.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Yeah, very surprising .
It shows the power offorgiveness that Jennifer has.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Yeah, what is the?
How old is she now and how oldis Rod?
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Okay, let's see.
So Rod was 16 in 1996.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yeah, so he's in his 40s.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And and Heather would be too.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah, yeah, when Rod came back for his recent, I was
thinking a couple of years agoit was interesting to see him
because, you know, his shavedhead now not shaved, but a
little short cropped hair yeah,it's kind of red and gray and
then there's no long hair, inother words, and he, he was sun
(32:14):
tan because he has to workoutside in the prison system,
but he still looked wiped out.
He looked, you know, washed out, even though he had a sun tan,
if that makes any sense.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
No, it does.
And talking with my friend BillKimberlin, who who spends a lot
of time with death row inmates,you never get a good night's
sleep in prison.
You just can't, you can't.
Yeah, that was too loud for onething.
Yeah, well, I mean I wouldalways be looking over my
shoulder.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Yeah, well, it's yeah .
And the worst thing is to be acelebrity prisoner, because then
somebody says I'm gonna stick aknife in this guy, homemade
knife in this guy, and then I'llbe famous.
So, anyway, yeah.
So this, this, like I say, thisis the most interesting case,
but there's other cases in thisbook that are just incredible.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Well, we're going to talk about another case right
now, because we're talking aboutnot getting a good night's
sleep in prison.
The inside prison code is thatif you are a rapist or a child
molester, you are on borrowedtime because prison justice will
take care of you.
I got to imagine that OfficerJames Duckett probably doesn't
get a good night's sleep ever.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Tell us about the story.
Well, he's on death row, yeah.
So the I suppose the advantageis that he's in a solitary cell.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
And they don't get out much, they don't get a lot
of recreation yard time, allthat kind of thing.
So this is an interesting case,1997, he's a rookie police
officer in Little Town inCentral Florida and he there's a
missing child and reported andthe mama says she didn't come
(34:02):
home.
You know, after 10 o'clock shewent to the store to get a
pencil for homework andconvenience store.
She never made it home.
So he's out supposedly lookingfor her all night.
But really he at five o'clockin the morning he starts setting
up a radar to her speedingpeople and all that kind of
thing.
So that was odd.
(34:22):
Well, then turns out they findher body.
She's 11 years old awful thingand she'd been raped.
And then the rookie becomes asuspect because he's just acting
weird he's not acting like allbroke up about it, you know.
And then they find tire tracksby this lake where her body was,
(34:45):
and then the tire tread matchesthe police car and so it goes
on from there and so fine.
And they find the girl'sfingerprints on the hood of his
car along with his and.
But he says well, she wasn'tsitting on my car and I saw her
(35:06):
at the store, or talked to heror said go home because it's
almost curfew time.
But I did.
She went in my car, butsomebody other people saw her in
the car and so big holes startshowing up in the story.
Yeah, so then they arrest him.
And then there's this is acrazy thing there's they find
(35:28):
the Sheriff's Office finds allthese girls that said they had
been sexually harassed by thiscop.
One girl went along with stuffin his car and so that comes up
in his trial.
And then one girl in particularsaid she saw the girl in the
(35:54):
car, then she recanted, and thenshe recanted again, she
recanted again.
So she becomes sort ofunreliable witness.
But you know, that wascontroversy.
And then the FBI lab analysthad been in trouble for some
others Another case of hiscredibility is dragged through
the mud and on and on.
(36:16):
So it's a very interesting case.
But anyway he ends up beingconvicted and then sentenced to
death.
Well, here's the thing.
That's bad enough.
But then, 20 years later hisgrandson is missing, his
grandson.
Now he's in jail.
(36:37):
So he does, he can't do itright.
His grandson is the kid ismissing, the, the girl, the kids
, mother, was said.
Well, I went to go get him outat a better check on him water.
But he was gone, that somebodyhad taken him through the screen
window, so, but then she killedherself three days later.
(36:57):
Oh oh so, and then everybodysays, well, she did it.
Then the another merit, but sheleft.
The suicide note says when youfind my son Then so another
police agency involved in thissaid, well, he must still be
alive.
And so it's just like I say youjust cannot make this stuff up?
Speaker 1 (37:20):
No, you can't.
And it's To have that kind ofstuff running in the same family
.
That's got to be like a geneticthing.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
It's nuts.
Oh well, it was the.
The Wasn't the son that did itwas as well as the wife.
Okay yeah, she was crackers.
I mean, she was just absolutelybonkers.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Well, crazy begets, crazy right.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Yeah yeah and, and the sad thing was, I remember
when James stuck it was on inthe county jail during the trial
.
Then his little boys wassitting out there with mama On
the sidewalk trying to talk todad in the jail up you know
several stories taller.
So here's this kid.
(38:01):
The leader becomes the fatherof this boy who's missing and
Presumed it now because he nevershows up.
So it's absolutely terrible.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
And you're dealings with stories like this.
You probably talked to lawenforcement Law enforcement
officers.
How do missing children andmurdered children affect them?
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Well they hate it.
It it, it affects them, it doesthey just hate it, and so do I.
I hate it too.
I despise it.
This and Abusive animals, yes,just bothers me, because they're
innocent, you know, and theythey're relying on the kindness
of other people, and they'rejust Just abuse.
(38:44):
I've seen way too much ofreally you are.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
You are talking my language right there, man, I'm I
to my.
Two of the three biggest petpeeves I have about crime is
crime against children, rapeagainst women and animal abuse.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Can't stand it.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
There's no excuse for any of them.
No none Did you cover theKaylee Anthony story.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
No, I wish I had.
And here's that story that Imean.
I just watched it.
But the jury couldn't evenagree that she had neglected her
child.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Yeah, we're talking about mom Casey.
The daughter was Kaylee.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Yeah, so I Mean they just were tired and just wanted
to go home.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Yeah, again, we're talking about Florida, and it's
not just the criminals or thesuspected criminals who are
crazy, it's the jurors too.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Yeah, I mean they just wanted to go home.
I mean, yeah, I mean you've gotto say, okay, she's guilty of
child neglect, because that,that was obvious and that came
out of, the facts came out inthe case.
So maybe she killed the childaccidentally, but still that's
child neglect or whatever.
If they had done that then theycould have gone to the next
(40:01):
thing but, once they decidedthat it was over.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
So we've talked about vampires, we've talked a little
bit about wackos, but wehaven't touched upon gators.
Have you ever had to run inwith an alligator in Florida?
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, they're everywhere and we
had.
There was one case.
We at the Sentinel we had aCable show and so there was a
little boy that was Eating by analligator over Belisha County.
So I'm in Lake County, justnext door, so we did a show on
(40:37):
alligators and how dangerousthey are in that kind of.
So we went out on this lakewith the game and fish biologist
on an airboat and we're Filmingalligators and stuff.
There's a 12 footer that pushedoff from the shore right before
left, splash, splash.
So we're out there and thisthree footer swims up to the
(40:58):
boat and the game and fish guysays you want me to catch him.
I said, sure, you know, it'sgreat, great film right there,
right yeah, great video.
So he's holding the gator andthe gators like squeaking and
stuff and making this noiseprobably like mama, help me you
know, oh wow, and so we'refilming on.
Everything's fine.
(41:19):
Well, the winds blowing theboat out to the middle of the
lake and and this gate, thislake is just infested with those
things.
They're everywhere.
So he's well, I can't put himout in the middle of the lake
here, he'll be food for theother alligators.
So it says here you holdingwhile I get back to the get, I
said say what now?
So this gators like, goeverywhere trying to get away
(41:44):
and the photographers laughingso hard she almost fell over.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
So it's so funny but in the book you are A vampire's
gators and wackos you are.
You talk about the lack ofstrength that alligators have
with their mouth opening and thesincere strength they have
closing.
So is it?
Is it easy to hold analligators mouth shut?
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Yeah, yeah, because they, they can't.
And the other thing is theyhave no jaws, they, they don't
chew their food, they just kindof.
What they do is, when they gettheir prey, they will let it,
they'll push the like a deer orsomething.
They'll put the deer on theshore and Then let it decay and
then come back and then grab itand flip it around.
They call the death roll.
(42:26):
So, but yeah, you can put yourhands on the jaws.
Good luck with that, but you cando it and they can't open their
jaws, their mouth.
But, and it's amazing, when Iwas a kid there was a Gator farm
over in St Augustine and theyhad this guy he would climb into
(42:48):
this pen with his big oldalligators and Do a show and he,
what he would do is he wouldstick his, he run his hand
through the jaws real quick andthen you get this chomp, you
know, and he was like, oh mygosh.
Then he climbed out andeverybody will like empty their
wallet, give this guy.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Yeah, amazing not a way to make a living.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
No, I'm so proud.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
So later you have a nickname like lefty or something
girl Of course, of course,stumpy, yeah, the other wildlife
that is really prevalent in indominant now in florida are the
pythons.
Um, have you done any storieson on brimmy's pythons?
I mean, they have hunters andwranglers now to try and control
(43:35):
the population.
It's a, it's a losing battle,it is uh they, what those?
Speaker 2 (43:40):
it's a exotic species of course people have.
They have these stupid thingsas pets.
Then they get big and they letthem go.
Well, they are destroying, likenatural Animals, like the the
key deer is a really smallversion of a deer.
They're destroying everythingof this native.
And so, and then there was afamous the case where, uh they,
(44:07):
they came across a six footalligator in the mouth or in the
body of One of these pythons,right, whatever it was, and it
looked like a telephone polestuck in a sock side moves.
They both died in the struggle.
You know, yeah, it's kind ofmonster movie thing you know
(44:28):
right, yeah, it's crazy.
And I, yeah, I've talked with aguy who goes out, hunts these
things, and so they get paidpretty handsomely, they do and
uh, if I had any guts, I'dprobably go out and do a story
with him.
Well, I.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
I've watched video of of some uh uh snake wranglers,
python wranglers in florida andI saw one guy just get.
He got chomped on by a 17footer and it just wrapped
around him and stuff and it tookhim like 30 minutes to fight
this thing off.
I don't know if there's enoughmoney in the world, frank.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
No, yeah, I mean, I almost stepped on a snake in the
everglades one time trying toget away from mosquitoes.
I was in a hurry when I waswatching what I'm going on this
trail.
I'm trying to get out of thereand I almost stepped on a snake,
so I'm going.
No, I hate snakes.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
Yeah, yeah, they're, uh, they're sneaky little devils
, aren't they?
Speaker 2 (45:19):
they are.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Uh, what is uh, what's uh like a story that
would like make you say I don'twant to cover that.
Is there such a story.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
If it's big enough to be in the paper, I'll cover it
yeah, do you have nightmaresover things that you've covered?
That's a common question.
I don't know.
I only nightmare I ever hadreally was about was this
terrible case.
These two teenage girls werekilled in a car wreck.
(45:57):
It was a drunk driver classmatedriving them.
These girls both resemble eachother.
They both had blonde hair.
One of the dads was a funeraldirector.
One of them was a privatedetective dad.
Well, they got it was bad andit was horrible accident.
(46:22):
And they were buried side byside and then the funeral guy
started thinking you know, maybewe put them in the wrong grave.
They had to exhume them andswap them out.
And that one gave me nightmares.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Yeah, because.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
I've got.
I've got three dollars, youknow.
So that's, that's the thing.
So, and what happened was oneof the girls didn't die right
away, so the wrong family wassitting at the bedside of this
one girl.
Oh my gosh, it's just horrible.
Yeah, so that was, that was aterrible thing.
So yeah, stuff like that.
(47:04):
I mean, if it's something thatresembles something in your life
, then that's going to be.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Oh sure.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Yeah, for sure, if you have.
If I mean that's empathy, Imean you can empathize with
those, those parents, with the,with those victims, natural
disasters.
Which ones have you covered?
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Oh, we had a terrible groundhog day tornado that
killed over 21 people in thelittle town north of where I'm
at, and that was just awful.
Mobile homes are not a goodplace to be and those things and
some of those old retired folksin really old single wide
(47:45):
mobile homes or double-wides orwhatever, and they were just.
Sometimes they were picked upand rolled around, sometimes
trees snatched them out,sometimes people were pulled out
of their houses by the storm.
And that was the day, oh man,and it was like.
The first thing I saw was therewas a church, a big church.
(48:07):
As you enter the town.
It was gone, totally wiped out,and the pastor was out there
along the highway trying to praywith people as they went by.
So, and of course, the air isfull of helicopters, ambulances,
fire trucks, the whole deal.
That's the way it started.
And so what we did?
(48:28):
Our friend, I went together andwe saw the most incredible
things.
We saw one guy went around acorner and there was a what had
been a brick house and there was, the house was gone and there
was a man sitting in a chair onthe foundation and we said we'll
stop and talk to this guy andhe said he was asleep.
This happened in the middle ofthe night, of course, like they
(48:51):
do.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Yeah they do yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
And he said the first thing I knew was a problem was
I was floating in the air on mymattress.
My wife is across the housebecause she said the house goes.
She said she snored so she gotinjured, you know, but not too
bad.
It was crazy and this is abrick house.
Other ones that I talked to asa lady in a mobile home.
She heard something and grabbeda little dog and tried to make
(49:18):
made it to.
She didn't make it to theliving room behind the couch and
her house was destroyed, butshe was grateful she was alive.
So other ones what they woulddo is that they found a body.
They would stop all thechainsaws and everything else,
be quiet and while they took theperson out, just out of respect
.
That was quite a day.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Tornado are probably, wouldn't you say, of the three
natural disasters that Floridaexperiences wildfires,
hurricanes and tornadoesTornadoes got to be the most
devastating because you don'thave time to prepare for them,
that's right and, like I say,they happened in the middle of
the night.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
It seems like, yeah, you have a warning, but yeah, I
covered a lot of hurricanes tooin 2000.
Well, we're, we had Threehurricanes that came across
Central Florida and by the timeit got to us, the city of
Florida, it went from ahurricane to tropical force
winds.
Well, that's still just under74 miles an hour and you can
(50:20):
have gusts of 100 miles an hour,yeah.
So we saw a lot of destruction,a lot of a lot of stuff.
We saw one guy was in hisflooded yard.
He was sitting in a chair buthe had an oxygen, you know a
cannula on his nose that ran allthe way into the house.
He was sitting there with arake trying to push logs away
(50:43):
from the storm drain so thewater would drain.
We saw an 80 year old womanwho'd lost her home.
Big tree fell through the milloverhouse.
She was having to move out.
She spent her whole life there.
So just amazing stuff.
And of course, the people are.
We ran into a church that awhole bunch of Spanish speaking
(51:05):
folks were having a churchservice in there and they were
very nice and they they prayedfor us, they shined a flashlight
.
All the flashlights werepointed at the photographer.
She was embarrassed, but youknow it was funny.
And then, when we left there,all my phone messages and all my
messages were in Spanish forsome days.
(51:26):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
You made quite an impression on them.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
Yeah, but I mean I don't know how that happened,
it's just funny.
But um, yeah, it's, it's crazy.
Florida's, uh, I mean you lookat them, at me say, okay, we're
asking for it.
We're a peninsula between theGulf and the Atlantic Ocean.
What was I thinking?
No, but um, yeah, it's prettycrazy.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
So why do you think we have such a fascination with
true crime?
You know?
Speaker 2 (51:58):
it's interesting.
I did a little research on this.
You know, the biggest audiencefor true crime is our women.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
Oh yeah, Let me tell you something, frank.
My wife uh has every episode ofdiscover ID on how to kill your
husband.
Memorize.
That's comforting, verycomforting, Exactly, yeah, yeah,
say can we watch something else?
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Yeah, I know, yeah so uh, yeah, I think it's because
it's the reason, the same reasonthat men read war stories,
because we say well, how wouldwe deal with, how would we
confront this, how would wehandle this?
You know, um, if somethinghappened?
I think that's, and I think wejust empathize with the victims
(52:42):
and we just, you know, we Ipersonally I always want to know
why.
What caused this?
It's just like the vampiricthing.
What?
then you, then you get tounderstanding the family dynamic
and stuff.
You say, okay, get it.
Yeah, no, the exactly the the agreat reporter always asks why.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
Um, and that is the question, my other, my
fascination comes from how didthis level of depravity happen?
Yeah, I'm fascinated by thedepravity you know.
Yeah, absolutely yeah, andthat's what I always try and I
always try to, I always try to,I always try to, I always try
and find, when I'm readingstories about these criminals
that do these horrendous things,where and how did that level
(53:25):
hit that low?
I?
Speaker 2 (53:27):
know, and one of the um defense psychologists in the
vampire case says this is themost dysfunctional thing that
I've ever seen.
The, the mother, um Rod'smother, uh, they would have, she
would.
She claimed that she was rapedrepeatedly by this prince of the
city, this rival vampire cult,because they would have these
(53:48):
group sex vampire orgies orwhatever she says.
And then, um, then the otherthing she says I, I would go to
my room and I feel like I'd beendrugged and they were like
these ghost-like images floatingin the air.
Somebody was tapping on thewindow while she was on the
second floor, so you know, sothere's all kinds of and, of
(54:12):
course, her child.
There was no walk in the parkeither.
Well, she was pregnant at 16.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
She had Rod when she was 16.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
Right, and so she fused, basically her sister
accused, uh, their dad, of youknow, sexual abuse.
So it's sexual abuse is a bigbig thing.
It's a big um thing for ummental illness, absolutely.
You see it, you see it a lotand and that's uh, and it
(54:43):
continues generation aftergeneration, sometimes Absolutely
yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
It is, uh, it's a cycle, it is a cycle.
And it does often repeat itselfin families that have
experienced it and it's uh, it'sso tragic.
You know it is, and, and one ofthe things that I try and do
with my podcast and it's funnythat we're talking about mental
health is I am trying to breakdown the stigma of mental health
, that if you need help, go gethelp.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
Absolutely Out there and and my.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
My psychiatrist told me a long time ago that 20% of
the American population is onsome sort of mental illness pill
.
80% need to be.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:19):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Absolutely.
I mean, yeah, I think it's like, uh, cancer, cancer touches
every family in in America atsome point some way, and it's
just like mental illness.
And you know, depends on howyou define mental illness, but
it's everything from um seriousdepression to OCD and all kinds
of other other things.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
Even the opposite of depression mania that's a mental
illness.
Speaker 2 (55:44):
It is Because a lot of things.
Speaker 1 (55:46):
a lot of strange things happen when you're manic.
Yeah, I've often been told bymy psychologist and psychiatrist
that the way you look at mentalillness is if you sprained your
ankle you would go get it fixed.
Mental illness is just a sprainon the brain.
Speaker 2 (56:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:02):
And.
Speaker 2 (56:03):
I I've got a.
I'm working on a novel about avet that has PTSD, so that's
another thing.
Um, what those, a lot of thoseguys have tried to do is
self-medicate.
Speaker 1 (56:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:16):
And that's a disaster .
Speaker 1 (56:18):
Well, what is the statistic?
22 veterans a day, 22 soldiersa day commit suicide and it's
because of PTSD.
So, yeah, yeah, um, I I hopeyour book, uh, does some wonders
for for that population,because they really need to help
.
Yeah, yeah, I love askingreporters and authors this
question and, uh, no two answersare ever the same.
(56:39):
Uh, what is your favorite word?
Because reporters and authorshave to have a stellar
vocabulary.
Do you have a favorite word?
A?
Speaker 2 (56:47):
favorite word?
Yeah, um, hmm.
Uh, I have to think about that.
I have to think about that one,because you know I love to read
.
I've always loved to read and Ialways tell young writers I say
, if you want to be a goodwriter, read, read like mad,
(57:09):
read all kinds of stuff.
And I taught middle school forone year, just for the heck of
it.
And so you'd ask aboutnightmares.
I like to say well, okay.
I say I, I okay, I was a Vietnamera war veteran.
Um, I've covered all thesecases for years.
If I have any flashbacks, itgoes back to the classroom.
(57:30):
These kids are a mess.
Yeah, you know, they're a hotmess.
It's absolutely terrible.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
Well, thanks for your service.
I didn't know you're in the.
You're in the military.
Thank you very much, buddy.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
Oh, you're welcome.
Speaker 1 (57:45):
Yeah, my father-in-law was, was in
Vietnam as well.
Speaker 2 (57:48):
Yeah, it was a.
My time was spent mostly inKorea, which was an interesting
place in itself.
You get off the plane.
You say, okay, this is.
You look from the air and it'slike mountains and rice paddies
and all that.
It's cool.
Then you get off the plane.
You see barbwire everywhere andsandbags and machine guns.
You go.
I thought the war was over like20 years ago.
(58:09):
Apparently not.
Speaker 1 (58:11):
Yeah, apparently not.
Isn't travel the best educationyou can give yourself?
Speaker 2 (58:15):
It is, it's great, oh it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (58:18):
Yeah, it is so amazing.
Well, my brother, it has been apleasure talking with you.
I'm glad we got to hook up andpromote the book Vampires,
gators and Wacos and you've gotcold blooded out, also all
available on Wild Blue Press.
But continue success to you,buddy, and I'm sure we'll hook
up again.
Speaker 2 (58:35):
Well, thank you very much for having me.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (58:37):
Yeah, you're the best , frank.
Take care, I'll talk to yousoon, okay.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (58:41):
My thanks to Frank Stanfield for his time and his
storytelling.
You can get Frank's bookVampires, gators and Wacos at
wildbluepresscom.
And thank you for listening.
I appreciate beyond words whenyou share your time with the
Fuzzy Mike.
Feel free to share the FuzzyMike with your friends and
family.
Just stay connected with theFuzzy Mike.
You can follow me on Instagram,facebook and Twitter or you can
(59:04):
email me at thefuzzymikecom.
For video.
Please subscribe to the FuzzyMike YouTube channel.
The Fuzzy Mike is hosted andproduced by Kevin Klein.
Production elements by ZachSheesh at the Radio Farm.
Social media.
Director is Trish Klein.
I'll be back next Tuesday witha new episode of the Fuzzy Mike,
where we'll meet an author whowill share the story of his
(59:25):
decade-long battle with bipolardisorder and addiction, how he
overcame both and is now aleading speaker on life recovery
.
It will definitely empower youand remember the all-new
Tuddling Klein podcast with newepisodes every Monday and
Thursday.
So grateful for you, thank you.
That's it for the Fuzzy Mike.
Thank you.
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