Shannon+H.W.+4B

On November 25th, 1996, Richard Wendorf and Naoma Ruth Queen were unmercifully slaughtered by a sixteen year old by the name of Rod Farrell. Rod Farrell and his other teenage followers participated in a fantastical reality game titled, "Vampire the Masquerade". Ferrell had gathered a group of his peers that shared his cult-like obsession with "Vampire the Masquerade". For two years this group of teenagers lived as though this role-play game was a reality. Farrell went as far as to create his own alternate, vampiric personality named Visago. Farrell claimed that Visago was a 500 year old vampire. Then Farrell met the love of his life, Heather Wendorf, on a trip to visit his father in Florida. Heather complained of her parents' restrictions on her life, and Farrell decided to be the one to set her parents straight. On the day preceding Thanksgiving, Farrell consumed ten tabs of "acid". He then gathered his Vampire clan and drove them all down from their hometown of Murray, Kentucky, to Eustis, Florida. Crowbar in hand, Farrell entered the Wendorf household to find Heather's father, Richard, asleep on the living-room sofa. Before Mr. Wendorf could regain consciousness, Farrell beat him to death with the crowbar. Noticing a disturbance in her home, Naoma Ruth Queen, Heather's step-mother, attempted to stop Farrell from harming her husband. Farrell overtook her and beat her to her demise the same way he did to her husband. In a high from the murders he had just committed, Farrell ingested small amounts of his victims' blood and then sliced "V"s (his group's insignia) into their skin. The clan then drove towards their destination of New Orleans, Louisiana. However, they only reached the city of Baton Rouge before they were intercepted by the police. Farrell's trial began on February 12th, 1998, and continued until February 23rd, 1998, when Ferrell was sentenced to Florida's electric chair. His sentence was later changed to life in prison in July of 1999. Farrell has been known as the youngest male on death row in the U.S.

Farrell plead guilty to the crimes he was accused of in court: armed burglary, armed robbery, and two cases of first degree murder. He described each scene of the murders in great detail. "Boom! Right across the temple of the head. So I just beat him until he died." Farrell said in a questioning session. A psychiatrist examining Farrell said that he had the emotional capacity of a three year old. Farrell's lawyers stated that he was very emotionally disturbed. There was never any argument as to whether or not Farrell committed the crimes of which he was accused. It was only a matter of attempting to get the least harsh punishment possible. As Ferrell never denied his crimes, the prosecutors did not have to argue over whether or not he was guilty. Rod Farrell's trial was not a lengthy one, which alludes that the form of punishment for his crimes did not need much debate. On the day that Farrell received his court order of punishment a judge said to him " I think your family failed you. I think society failed you, but I am here to tell you in the considered judgement of this court, a troubled and disturbed youth cannot serve as an excuse for cold blooded premeditative murder." On February 28, 1998, Rod Farrell became the youngest person on death row. He was found guilty of the accused crimes and was sentenced to Florida's electric chair. However, in July of 1999 Florida's supreme court changed Farrell's sentence to life in prison. He still exists within the confines of a Floridian prison. I completely agree with the judge quoted above, when he said Farrell had been failed by society in that he had not been provided with the right habitat to grow into a stable, compassionate human being. The whole trial was justly executed. There was no need to argue about the crimes themselves, but rather the discussion concerned the punishment for the crimes. I personally believe Farrell deserved the death penalty for his heinous crimes. However, if the death penalty was not a possibility, it was wise of the prosecutors to keep Farrell in prison, where he could not pose a threat to the masses of society. The fact that Rod Farrell was a youth at the time of his trial did not seem to have an effect on his punishment. His verdict mirrored that of cases involving adults. This was a wise verdict of the court. It was the same situation in //The Crucible// and in other, non-fictional, documents of the Salem witch trials. The age of the accused "witch" was an unimportant fact to the judges, just as in the case of Rod Farrell. It was the actual crime that the "witch" had supposedly committed that was the fact of consideration of the Salem Judges. However, it is important to consider that the people of Salem had much less evidence that those accused of witchcraft were honestly guilty of the accusation, whereas in Farrell's situation there was a bountiful amount of proof that he was guilty of the crimes he was accused of. Farrell was a dangerously dysfunctional young man and needed to be removed from society. Farrell's case showed that justice does emerge every so often, even if only to keep society safe from a reckless sociopath. Citations:

i. (1998). National news briefs; vampire cult leader pleads guilty to killing 2. The New York Times, Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/06/us/national-news-briefs-vampire-cult-leader-pleads-guilty-to-killing-2.htm

ii. (1998). National news briefs; leader of vampire cult gets death sentence. The New York Times, Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/28/us/national-news-briefs-leader-of-vampire-cult-gets-death-sentence.html

iii. (2009, October 25). Rod ferrell. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Ferrell

iv. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqMu1Os1-rw, 2009

v.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/48/Rodrick_Ferrell.jpg

vi. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sMXBbmPt5D4/SeN_OYKKxsI/AAAAAAAAAyc/rsJmv5LbVDc/s400/Vampire5.jpg