On February 27,1998 Judge Jerry T. Lockett sentenced Roderick Ferrell to death for two counts of first-degree murder. The
Embrace documents the chain of events that led the self-described
vampire to his fate. Rod seemed to have a gift for finding and influencing the disillusioned and outcast teenagers who would be vulnerable enough to believe him. They lived for role-playing games and hung out in cemeteries and a dilapidated building they dubbed the Vampire Hotel. When the games were over Rod headed home to his mother who also believed she was a vampire. On one fateful night Rod and an accomplice crept into the home of Rick and Ruth Wendorf. Rod stabbed the man through the heart with a crowbar, beat his wife to death, and stole their credit cards and the keys to their Ford Explorer. The pair stopped long enough to pick up the three female members of the coven, one of which was Heather Wendorf, the daughter of the murdered couple. She knew Roderick had stolen the Explorer but was unaware of the brutal
murders. When the bodies of the Wendorfs were discovered Rod and his friends immediately became the prime suspects and were sought for questioning but were long gone. The group headed for New Orleans where Rod told them he had lived for centuries and was part of a larger vampire family. Along the way Heather learned of her parent’s murders and spent the rest of the trip in a state of semi shock. The group was finally captured at a Howard Johnson’s motel in Baton Rouge. They were taken into custody and separated for interrogation. The Embrace does an excellent job of recording the events leading up to the murders and follows the group day by day through the capture and trial process. There are no hard answers given and the reader is free to reach his or her own conclusions.
Aphrodite Jones was born in Chicago, Illinois. She began her professional writing career at twenty-one. She has been a journalist and teacher and now lives in California. Her works include Cruel Sacrifice, The FBI Killer, All She Wanted, and Della’s Web.