The Fuzzy Mic
After retiring from a 30-year, major market morning radio career, I'm often asked what I miss the most about the job. I miss 3 C's...camaraderie, creativity but most of all, conversation.
The Fuzzy Mic is built around creativity and conversation to develop camaraderie. The 4 focus areas are: Mental Health, True Crime, Music and Sports.
So, while The Fuzzy Mic allows me to fill some professional voids, it's my sincere hope that maybe you'll find something personally fulfilling in it too.
The Fuzzy Mic
Florida's Wildest Crimes: Vampires, Gators, and the Unthinkable
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.
Welcome to the Fuzzy Mike, the interview series, the podcast, whatever Kevin wants to call it. It's Fuzzy Mike. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Fuzzy Mike. Thank you for listening. If you like what you hear, share it with your friends. I sure would appreciate that.
Speaker 1:I've got to start this episode on a somber note as an endurance runner myself. Our community lost a great one recently. Last week, kelvin Kiptum, the world record holder in the marathon, died in a car crash in his native Kenya. Even with a time of 2 hours 35 seconds for 26.2 miles, he still couldn't outrun the Grim Reaper, who remains undefeated in the race of life. I am the Grim Reaper.
Speaker 1:As a member of the 50 States Club, that means I've completed a marathon or longer-distance race in each of the 50 states. I've gotten to travel a lot around our country. I've actually lived in seven different states. The one thing I've learned through my travels is that one state stands alone in how back-crap crazy it is Florida. And that's what we're going to talk about in this episode today with my guest, frank Stanfield.
Speaker 1:Frank has been a newspaper reporter and editor for more than 40 years, including at the Orlando Sentinel, where he's covered high-profile crimes as well as other interesting stories. I learned about Frank from his book Vampires, gators and Wackos, which is available at Wild Blue Press. It's a compilation of crime stories that Frank has covered throughout his nearly half-century as a journalist. The book not only includes the vampire cult story that went international, but it also tells about a teacher who was deemed too pretty to go to jail. Along with alligator attacks, hurricanes and naked people telling cops, it's not as bad as it looks. Frank Stanfield joins me now, so let's just jump in, frank. Why is Florida so back-crap crazy?
Speaker 2:Well, it's because everybody comes to Florida. Used to be, everybody went to California, but California's too expensive for the Wack jobs now, so they all come to Florida.
Speaker 1:And you've been covering. You've been a journalist for 40 years, or 40 plus years now.
Speaker 2:Right, that's right.
Speaker 1:What got you into?
Speaker 2:it. You know I always wanted to write, so that was just a way for me to hone my skills and I just got into it because I, like, I'm always wanting to know what happened, what's going on, and then, if I can write about it, tell about other people about it. It's just the best ever.
Speaker 1:I think how has the internet changed newspaper and reporting?
Speaker 2:Oh man. Well, the newspaper industry was really slow about getting into the on the internet, and so what happened was, because they didn't know, is it? Should it be free, Should it be advertising supported, you know, subscription supported, or what? And they, they fiddled around and kind of lost their way there for a while, so and everything's just changed now, so that it's too late to recoup some of that. And then I don't know, but there is, of course, the newspapers are online now and all that. So that's good.
Speaker 1:How many different publications did you write for?
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, several, but mostly in Florida. I worked in North Carolina briefly, and then I had also worked for a paper in Augusta, georgia, so mostly in Florida, though the Orlando Sentinel Ocala Star Banner, at least for daily commercial.
Speaker 1:So and in that capacity you were a reporter. Did you ever become editor, oh?
Speaker 2:yes, I was an editor for quite a bit too.
Speaker 1:So what's the difference between a reporter and an editor?
Speaker 2:Well, editor, I was in charge of court and cop reporters so I'd and other reporters so I'd send them out on assignments and then I would edit their stories when they came back. So but I think the reporting is much, much more fun.
Speaker 1:As an editor who is editing a reporter's story, how do you go about doing that? Because you're you're taking a part or adding to somebody's already creativity, and we as writers and performers, we kind of have proprietary egos, I guess I would say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the writers at the Sentinel had a note on their computer. Says never trust an editor. Ever, ever, ever.
Speaker 1:What makes? What makes a good reporter.
Speaker 2:Somebody. That's really curious, for one thing, that just has to know. You know, and I'll give you an example of that was one day I was it wasn't even my story, but there was a reporter working on a murder story and what happened was the wife killed her husband and then wrote something on his chest. So I said, no, wait a minute, I've got to know what that was I mean. So I said do you mind if I call somebody 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: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:Yeah, yeah. I mean you look over this fan pliers, gators and Wackles book. Even I am amazed sometimes that just 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:And they always say truth is stranger than fiction and you, as a reporter and writer, know that very well. How do you as a reporter, how do you cover a tragedy and like the murder of the Wendorf's Okay, how do you approach the oldest Wendorf daughter, who had nothing to do with it and was never accused? How do you approach her for comments after she's lost her parents? Walk us through that delicate process.
Speaker 2:Well, you have to be sensitive because it's what she experienced walking into her house and finding your parents is slaughtered and her younger sister gone and just such an awful, traumatic thing. You can never unsee it. And you well, she came back a few years ago for a resintency and Rod Farrell, the cult leader, and she testified and she begged the judge, not to you know, lessen his life sentence. So she was crying, it was just awful, and so I went up to her and said I identified myself a couple of different times and said I'd like to talk with you. And she said I just I don't talk to any reporters. And I said well, I understand, and I do, I get it. I actually talked with the younger sister right after Rod Farrell's trial and that was interesting. She's a different kind of person. But what happened to Jennifer, who was 17 at the time, a senior in high school, chair leader, you know that sort of thing? Just innocent bystander, just blindsided by the whole thing? Really.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about this case from start to finish, because this is the start of the book the vampires, gators and wackos and the vampire story that made international news and I've actually seen an interview with you on Ashley Banfield's judgment television program. I mean, this thing took off like wildfire. So let's start from the beginning. Tell us what happened in the vampire story.
Speaker 2:Okay, so what happened was Jennifer, like I said, 17 years old, chair leader, pop Peter, beautiful kid comes home after work at a grocery store and she walks in. The lights are low, tv's going, so she's late. She's broken curfew a little bit, so she's trying to sneak in. You know past her dad and you know who's. She thinks he's asleep on the couch and so she goes into her room and then she says I'm going to get something to eat. So she goes in the kitchen and there's a blood trailer into the kitchen and then she saw her mother 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 on the couch and his face is unrecognizable because they had been beaten to death repeatedly, just pummeled with a crowbar. So then she calls the 911 and says please send two ambulances. My parents are dead. And the dispatcher says well, how do you know they're dead? She says, well, there's blood everywhere.
Speaker 2: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 crazy enough. Well then, right away, she's telling Jennifer's telling the detectives who could have done this and all this. They said, well, this kid named Rod Farrell, who's a friend of my sister's.
Speaker 2:And then they get to she tells more about her sister and she says one night my sister turned to me and said Jen, have you ever thought about killing our parents, plotting our parents' death? And she goes no, I mean, and just that's crazy. You know, be quiet. You know, of course, but that. And then she starts telling about her sister's friend, rod Farrell, and how he could kill somebody if she needed somebody killed and all this other kind of crazy stuff. Then they call the sheriff's office up in Murray, kentucky, where Rod was from, and this sheriff says man, you got a wild bunch on the loose because they were accused of some horrific animal shelter abuse and some other things and making bombs and all kinds of stuff like that. And so that's how it started.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so in the murder Rod Farrell was eventually convicted of this and along with a couple of other accomplices, but in the murder he in the interrogation really admitted to doing this and was actually bragging about it.
Speaker 2: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 making excuses. I'm disturbed, I was molested by my grandfather. I witnessed a human sacrifice for my grandfather's cult called the black mask and all this crazy stuff, and I was sexually molested. And then he says but he says yeah, I was. He says at one point he says I was beaten and beaten, and beaten on the dad and really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:basically, yeah, yeah, he said he felt like God for a moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Then he says, well, but then if I was really a God, I wouldn't be here now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, In the interrogation room across from the detectives. Where did the vampire aspect come into it?
Speaker 2:Well, rod created this. Well, first of all, rod, when he moved from Florida back to Kentucky with his grandparents and his mother, he fell in with this kid who called himself the Prince of the City. He was believed in vampire stuff and they would hang out cemeteries all night in all this jazz. So then Rod created his own group and they were like drinking each other's blood, all this cult stuff, and Rod started believing at one point, according to one of his friends, that he was really a vampire and a mortal at one point. So this kid says and then, but he got other kids to believe in it and they, you know, thought they had special powers and all this stuff. So that's how it took off from there?
Speaker 1:Was there an over like an overwriting or a common theme that these kids had, that they were easily recruitable?
Speaker 2:You know I did some research on this about cults and what happened with this group that Rod was okay. First of all his dad left early in his life. He had no father. The mother was not a good mother at all. She was. She had no control over him. She wanted to be his friend rather 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?
Speaker 2:He found other outsiders, sort of this one kid Howard Anderson is the one in the house with him at night was totally dysfunctional family. They were on welfare because dad was a raging alcoholic and a drug user. They total poverty, I mean the whole thing. So then Rod had his girlfriend, charity Kesey, and she had kind of a dysfunctional family, I think, although the dad was there, but you know she wasn't paying attention to him. So. And then there was another girl who was like 19 and she was living on her own, working at Walmart, and so she was overweight and didn't have much self-confidence. So they all had something in common. So they were kind of he formed their own little families, what it was a vampire family, and they were held together with little beliefs.
Speaker 1:But there are a lot of families that are underprivileged. There are a lot of kids that grow up on welfare. They don't all become killers. So what led Rod into becoming this guy who, quote, bashed a man's head in until brains came out?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think he always wanted to kill somebody. So then he had this perfect opportunity, you know, because what happened was they came down to Florida to pick up Heather. And they came, yeah, and they came down and his friend Howard Anderson's car, which is an old beater, and it was falling apart and so the car was about shot. So he says, okay, we're going to have to have, we're going to steal Heather's parents' car they 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 he was telling everybody I want to kill somebody, I want to kill something, and so this was just a fantasy of his that he wanted to do, and so this is what he did.
Speaker 1:Well, it kind of brings to mind a more recent story with and I think it happened in Florida also with Aiden Fuchschi, who said he wanted to kill somebody and ended up stabbing his classmate 170 times. You remember that one? Did you cover that?
Speaker 2:I did not cover that one no.
Speaker 1:I thought it was down by the Miami area, but I could be mistaken on that. And you talk about Rod not being educated. How does somebody who's not educated become so charismatic and so dominating that he could convince other people to follow him?
Speaker 2:I know it's amazing really Well, when I said he wasn't educated, he dropped out of school and his mother let him and he was like smoking dope in the house and all this kind of stuff. He had this charismatic personality, but he was also very smart, very gifted artist, so he would draw, and so was Heather. That's something they had in common. So they were both artiste. And Heather fantasized. This is like a perfect storm. She fantasized about being able to go wherever she wanted to go, do whatever she wanted to do, but her parents were not letting her. So she fantasized well, what would happen if they weren't around? So she was talking to him about that and her gothic fantasies and it was like the perfect storm.
Speaker 1:She was 15 at the time. Her parents shouldn't have let her go anywhere, especially across state lines back to Kentucky, and we all have disagreements with our parents when we're 15. We want to be independent, but at no point in my life did I ever say you know what? You're not letting me do something. I think I want to kill you. I know that is a special idiocy right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what it is. I think Rod wanted control, and so what he did was he would study black magic books and that kind of thing in psychology books and he said you can get control of people if you put them in fear. So he was going to put his cult followers in fear, and this is a trick that Charles Manson did too.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of yeah, yeah, exactly, and there was a lot of similarities between Manson and Rod. One of the defense attorneys when they were captured in Baton Rouge, louisiana, said this is not the Manson case. Well, no, but there are some similarities, so it's very interesting.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about the Manson case in a little bit, because I know that you cite Vincent Buleosi's Helter Skelter as a book that actually inspired you to write vampires, wackos and gators, and also Cold-Blooded, which is your newest book, and it focuses solely on this vampire case. Were you in the courtroom at the trial? Oh, yes, okay, a couple of questions here. Why did Rod wear headphones?
Speaker 2:I don't know exactly, but here's the thing, Because headphones are usually for if you're like a Spanish speaking defendant or something and it translates for you and so on, but I don't know. But here's the thing that did when he was arrested. He had this long dyed black, flowing hair.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2: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 came around, they put a white shirt on him and they had him sit there at the table the defense table with crayons and glasses. So he looked like this harmless little nerd. It's all part of the dress-up thing that they do for defendants.
Speaker 1:And he was constantly doodling while the trial was going on. I thought, when I was watching the proceedings with him wearing the headphones, I almost thought that that was an attempt by him or his defense team to show remorse. I can't hear what's going on. I don't want to hear the details because I'm ashamed of what happened you think that might have been the case.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I actually don't hardly remember the headphones much, but the doodling you mentioned. They had set up a vacant courtroom next door for a news media center because all the TV crews and stuff like that were there a wire service. They had a German TV crew there, they had the whole thing. So one of the TV people was on the phone to his cameraman he said zoom in on what he's doodling. And he was zooming in and they was doodling all these vampire figures and stuff like that. So it was like holy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was committed to the lifestyle, that's for sure. Yeah, when you're in a proximity to a murderer like that, is it scary.
Speaker 2:You know, with him it wasn't. I've covered cases where there was one guy that he killed. He was a caretaker on the ranch and he killed this couple that owned the ranch and hid their bodies underneath a haystack. He was going to feed them to the alligators later when their bodies started to rot. So but he kept looking at me and my photographer and it was this weird grin and it was like kind 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, you know, yeah, so you know it's just, it is what it is.
Speaker 1:Sure, you've probably been put in some very precarious situations with your job as a reporter for over 40 years and now an author. We're talking to Frank Stanfield. You can get Frank's book Vampires, gators and Wackos at Wild Blue Press, and you can also get his latest book, cold-blooded, at Wild Blue Press also. Rod gets sentenced to death. Let's talk about that for a second, just under 17 years old and sentenced to death.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what happened was to avoid he's thinking, if I plead guilty, maybe the judge in the court will just say okay, you plead guilty, you'll get into the story, 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 present all the facts and you know I'm still seeking the death penalty. So then they present.
Speaker 2:In Florida they have what they call a bifurcated death penalty case. It's in two phases. You have the guilt phase. Is he guilty? Yeah, you know, present all the evidence, the physical evidence and all that. If he's guilty, then you go to the next phase where you have all these defense shrinks trying to, you know, say, oh, he had this mitigating factor here and there and dysfunctional family and all that. So they went into that. And so then the jury unanimously recommended death. Now here's the thing too. The thing that really did it for the jurors, I think, was they showed a videotape of his confession and then this was weird, because the jurors stopped 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:Thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was very telling.
Speaker 1:So the jury comes back unanimous 12-0 for the death penalty. Does the judge have to enforce that or can the judge go off on his own and kind of call an audible?
Speaker 2:He can call an audible, but if he does, it has to be very specific the reason for it. Like you know, he has to cite the law, some fact of the law that you know that he doesn't qualify, or I don't think it's right, or whatever it is, but the judge went ahead and sends them. But then what happened was they went to the Florida Supreme Court on appeal and the Florida Supreme Court says no, it's too young, so they see him off for death row.
Speaker 1:Technically, he was not too young, though, because he did fit the parameters of being an adult according to Florida law, which surprised a lot of people that the Supreme Court overruled that. Now, my thing with this is he was properly sentenced under the law. You know, frank, it takes 20 to 25 years to execute a prisoner, even in Florida. So he wouldn't have been too young, right.
Speaker 1:I know, yeah, and we talked about this earlier when you were talking about Jennifer Wendorf, the older sister. She had to relive this nightmare not too long ago for an appeal.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, and that's the other thing you know I've covered. I actually covered an execution on time and I've written several stories about it. I covered this one case where it was years and years later and this guy on death row just kept coming back on appeal, on appeal, on appeal, and the family was just wrecked the victim's family because they just have to relive it over and over again, you know and so finally they took the guy off death row. This is a horrible case. And this victim's sister said you know, I'm against the death penalty now and this is why it just tears your guts out. Yeah, so I can see that.
Speaker 1:I have a good friend who is another Wild Blue Press author, Bill Kimberlin, and he wrote 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's family, I would tell them don't seek the death penalty simply because of what we're talking about right here. Every time an appeal comes up, you have to relive that horror.
Speaker 2: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 reason for it and one good reason to have it is because and I actually covered another case one time where a guy pleaded guilty straight up, no negotiated plea to murder, so we could get a life sentence because the possibility was getting the death penalty. So it's a deterrent. I mean it's a tool prosecutors can use to hang over somebody's head. So I get that. I mean that's good.
Speaker 1:It's also a tool prosecutors use to advance their career, though.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, so our judicial system is so flawed I mean it's almost beyond repair now, but that's a topic for a whole other story. The interesting thing beyond Rod getting Rod Farrell getting this death sentence, is Heather never got charged. So, Wendorf's daughter never got charged.
Speaker 2:Right. See, what she said was I didn't know my parents were going to be harmed. So what happened on the night of the murder is that Rod and Howard Anderson, his friend, sent Rod's girlfriend and Dan in a Cooper this other girl to take Heather to go say goodbye to her boyfriend, and so she was not there when this happened and they never told her that her parents are going to be killed. So you know, she didn't realize her parents were killed until later. That's what she said, so that's what everybody says basically. So the other vampires members? So that's what she said. So the grand jury says okay, what she did was wrong running away from home, what she did was wrong being friends with a bunch of nut cases like this, you know, and fantasizing about you know, all this stuff but it's not a crime Because she didn't know. She didn't qualify as being a principle to murder. To be a principle means you have to have some active participation in the crime.
Speaker 1:But didn't she? They didn't use the conversation that she had with her sister and they didn't use the conversation she had with a couple of friends at school about wanting her parents dead.
Speaker 2:No, and see, here's the thing. There's another thing too the prosecutors like to have a straight line shot. If they have a witness like Heather on the stand, the jury's going to be looking at her instead of him, and so even and she didn't testify either.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:And so. But the defense still tried to throw it on Heather. Heather's the one behind this and blah, blah, blah. But she didn't. She wasn't there to testify, they didn't look at her. So and the prosecutor said I didn't believe that she had any to do with it. That's what he said, so but it's. And then later I talked with Heather after the trial and she says I didn't know. Same thing, I didn't know my parents would be harmed and I regret, even knowing Rod Ferrell.
Speaker 1:So oh, it's always regret in hindsight, you know, after something horrific like this happens, I mean, yeah, of course you're going to regret, regret meeting him. As a journalist, you're supposed to be impartial, so you might not be able to answer this question, but having been the reporter that covered this, having been in the courtroom, was she, was she guilty?
Speaker 2:I don't think she was guilty as far as you know, having knowing her parents are going to be killed. But there's, you know, there's another layer of there's accountability, a different kind of accountability. Yeah, she was. She always had accountability for for egging him on, for, you know, feeding this fantasy crap into him and you know she's talking to the wrong guy, you know and you know and then the vampire cult members seemed to think that she didn't wasn't all of that broken up about it.
Speaker 2:You know, after the, after the thing. So so she has some responsibility, some accountability.
Speaker 2:And you know she is. In the last I heard she's in Georgia with her family. She's still an artist, she's I saw her on Facebook page and she's a very accomplished artist and she has a family. It's interesting though she says her favorite movie was Dracula, yeah, and. And that she says I'm still not this bright, sunshiny girl, you know, and that kind of thing. So so she's still, and apparently, according to the family, that she and Jennifer still have a relationship of some kind. Wow, I'm surprised, which is surprising.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very surprising. It shows the power of forgiveness that Jennifer has.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what is the? How old is she now and how old is Rod?
Speaker 2:Okay, let's see. So Rod was 16 in 1996.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so he's in his 40s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and Heather would be too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, when Rod came back for his recent, I was thinking a couple of years ago it was interesting to see him because, you know, his shaved head now not shaved, but a little short cropped hair yeah, it's kind of red and gray and then there's no long hair, in other words, and he, he was sun tan because he has to work outside 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:No, it does. And talking with my friend Bill Kimberlin, 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 one thing. Yeah, well, I mean I would always be looking over my shoulder.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's yeah. And the worst thing is to be a celebrity prisoner, because then somebody says I'm gonna stick a knife in this guy, homemade knife in this guy, and then I'll be famous. So, anyway, yeah. So this, this, like I say, this is the most interesting case, but there's other cases in this book that are just incredible.
Speaker 1:Well, we're going to talk about another case right now, because we're talking about not getting a good night's sleep in prison. The inside prison code is that if you are a rapist or a child molester, you are on borrowed time because prison justice will take care of you. I got to imagine that Officer James Duckett probably doesn't get a good night's sleep ever.
Speaker 2:Tell us about the story. Well, he's on death row, yeah. So the I suppose the advantage is that he's in a solitary cell.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And they don't get out much, they don't get a lot of recreation yard time, all that kind of thing. So this is an interesting case, 1997, he's a rookie police officer in Little Town in Central Florida and he there's a missing child and reported and the mama says she didn't come home. You know, after 10 o'clock she went to the store to get a pencil for homework and convenience store. She never made it home. So he's out supposedly looking for her all night. But really he at five o'clock in the morning he starts setting up a radar to her speeding people and all that kind of thing. So that was odd. Well, then turns out they find her body. She's 11 years old awful thing and she'd been raped. And then the rookie becomes a suspect because he's just acting weird he's not acting like all broke up about it, you know. And then they find tire tracks by this lake where her body was, and then the tire tread matches the police car and so it goes on from there and so fine. And they find the girl's fingerprints on the hood of his car along with his and. But he says well, she wasn't sitting on my car and I saw her at the store, or talked to her or said go home because it's almost curfew time. But I did. She went in my car, but somebody other people saw her in the car and so big holes start showing up in the story. Yeah, so then they arrest him. And then there's this is a crazy thing there's they find the Sheriff's Office finds all these girls that said they had been sexually harassed by this cop. One girl went along with stuff in his car and so that comes up in his trial. And then one girl in particular said she saw the girl in the car, then she recanted, and then she recanted again, she recanted again. So she becomes sort of unreliable witness. But you know, that was controversy. And then the FBI lab analyst had been in trouble for some others Another case of his credibility is dragged through the mud and on and on.
Speaker 2:So it's a very interesting case. But anyway he ends up being convicted and then sentenced to death. Well, here's the thing. That's bad enough. But then, 20 years later his grandson is missing, his grandson. Now he's in jail. So he does, he can't do it right. His grandson is the kid is missing, the, the girl, the kids, mother, was said. Well, I went to go get him out at a better check on him water. But he was gone, that somebody had taken him through the screen window, so, but then she killed herself three days later. Oh oh so, and then everybody says, well, she did it. Then the another merit, but she left. The suicide note says when you find my son Then so another police agency involved in this said, well, he must still be alive. And so it's just like I say you just cannot make this stuff up?
Speaker 1:No, you can't. And it's To have that kind of stuff running in the same family. That's got to be like a genetic thing.
Speaker 2:It's nuts. Oh well, it was the. The Wasn't the son that did it was as well as the wife. Okay yeah, she was crackers. I mean, she was just absolutely bonkers.
Speaker 1:Well, crazy begets, crazy right.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah and, and the sad thing was, I remember when James stuck it was on in the county jail during the trial. Then his little boys was sitting out there with mama On the sidewalk trying to talk to dad in the jail up you know several stories taller. So here's this kid. The leader becomes the father of this boy who's missing and Presumed it now because he never shows up. So it's absolutely terrible.
Speaker 1:And you're dealings with stories like this. You probably talked to law enforcement Law enforcement officers. How do missing children and murdered children affect them?
Speaker 2:Well they hate it. It it, it affects them, it does they 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 they they're relying on the kindness of other people, and they're just Just abuse. I've seen way too much of really you are.
Speaker 1:You are talking my language right there, man, I'm I to my. Two of the three biggest pet peeves I have about crime is crime against children, rape against women and animal abuse.
Speaker 2:Can't stand it.
Speaker 1:There's no excuse for any of them. No none Did you cover the Kaylee Anthony story.
Speaker 2:No, I wish I had. And here's that story that I mean. I just watched it. But the jury couldn't even agree that she had neglected her child.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're talking about mom Casey. The daughter was Kaylee.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I Mean they just were tired and just wanted to go home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, again, we're talking about Florida, and it's not just the criminals or the suspected criminals who are crazy, it's the jurors too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean they just wanted to go home. I mean, yeah, I mean you've got to say, okay, she's guilty of child neglect, because that, that was obvious and that came out of, the facts came out in the case. So maybe she killed the child accidentally, but still that's child neglect or whatever. If they had done that then they could have gone to the next thing but, once they decided that it was over.
Speaker 1:So we've talked about vampires, we've talked a little bit about wackos, but we haven't touched upon gators. Have you ever had to run in with an alligator in Florida?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, they're everywhere and we had. There was one case. We at the Sentinel we had a Cable show and so there was a little boy that was Eating by an alligator over Belisha County. So I'm in Lake County, just next door, so we did a show on alligators and how dangerous they are in that kind of. So we went out on this lake with the game and fish biologist on an airboat and we're Filming alligators and stuff. There's a 12 footer that pushed off from the shore right before left, splash, splash. So we're out there and this three footer swims up to the boat and the game and fish guy says you want me to catch him. I said, sure, you know, it's great, great film right there, right yeah, great video. So he's holding the gator and the gators like squeaking and stuff and making this noise probably like mama, help me you know, oh wow, and so we're filming on.
Speaker 2:Everything's fine. Well, the winds blowing the boat out to the middle of the lake and and this gate, this lake is just infested with those things. They're everywhere. So he's well, I can't put him out in the middle of the lake here, he'll be food for the other alligators. So it says here you holding while I get back to the get, I said say what now? So this gators like, go everywhere trying to get away and the photographers laughing so hard she almost fell over.
Speaker 1:So it's so funny but in the book you are A vampire's gators and wackos you are. You talk about the lack of strength that alligators have with their mouth opening and the sincere strength they have closing. So is it? Is it easy to hold an alligators mouth shut?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, because they, they can't. And the other thing is they have no jaws, they, they don't chew their food, they just kind of. What they do is, when they get their prey, they will let it, they'll push the like a deer or something. They'll put the deer on the shore and Then let it decay and then come back and then grab it and flip it around. They call the death roll. So, but yeah, you can put your hands on the jaws.
Speaker 2:Good luck with that, but you can do it and they can't open their jaws, their mouth. But, and it's amazing, when I was a kid there was a Gator farm over in St Augustine and they had this guy he would climb into this pen with his big old alligators and Do a show and he, what he would do is he would stick his, he run his hand through the jaws real quick and then you get this chomp, you know, and he was like, oh my gosh. Then he climbed out and everybody will like empty their wallet, give this guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, amazing not a way to make a living.
Speaker 2:No, I'm so proud.
Speaker 1: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 in dominant now in florida are the pythons. Um, have you done any stories on on brimmy's pythons? I mean, they have hunters and wranglers now to try and control the population. It's a, it's a losing battle, it is uh they, what those?
Speaker 2:it's a exotic species of course people have. They have these stupid things as pets. Then they get big and they let them go. Well, they are destroying, like natural Animals, like the the key deer is a really small version of a deer. They're destroying everything of this native. And so, and then there was a famous the case where, uh they, they came across a six foot alligator in the mouth or in the body of One of these pythons, right, whatever it was, and it looked like a telephone pole stuck in a sock side moves. They both died in the struggle. You know, yeah, it's kind of monster movie thing you know right, yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 2:And I, yeah, I've talked with a guy who goes out, hunts these things, and so they get paid pretty handsomely, they do and uh, if I had any guts, I'd probably go out and do a story with him. Well, I.
Speaker 1:I've watched video of of some uh uh snake wranglers, python wranglers in florida and I saw one guy just get. He got chomped on by a 17 footer and it just wrapped around him and stuff and it took him like 30 minutes to fight this thing off. I don't know if there's enough money in the world, frank.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, I mean, I almost stepped on a snake in the everglades one time trying to get away from mosquitoes. I was in a hurry when I was watching what I'm going on this trail. I'm trying to get out of there and I almost stepped on a snake, so I'm going. No, I hate snakes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they're, uh, they're sneaky little devils, aren't they?
Speaker 2:they are.
Speaker 1:Uh, what is uh, what's uh like a story that would like make you say I don't want to cover that. Is there such a story.
Speaker 2:If it's big enough to be in the paper, I'll cover it yeah, do you have nightmares over things that you've covered?
Speaker 2:That's a common question. I don't know. I only nightmare I ever had really was about was this terrible case. These two teenage girls were killed in a car wreck. It was a drunk driver classmate driving them. These girls both resemble each other. They both had blonde hair. One of the dads was a funeral director. One of them was a private detective dad. Well, they got it was bad and it was horrible accident. And they were buried side by side and then the funeral guy started thinking you know, maybe we put them in the wrong grave. They had to exhume them and swap them out. And that one gave me nightmares.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because.
Speaker 2:I've got. I've got three dollars, you know. So that's, that's the thing. So, and what happened was one of the girls didn't die right away, so the wrong family was sitting at the bedside of this one girl. Oh my gosh, it's just horrible. Yeah, so that was, that was a terrible thing. So yeah, stuff like that. I mean, if it's something that resembles something in your life, then that's going to be.
Speaker 1:Oh sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, if you have. If I mean that's empathy, I mean you can empathize with those, those parents, with the, with those victims, natural disasters. Which ones have you covered?
Speaker 2:Oh, we had a terrible groundhog day tornado that killed over 21 people in the little town north of where I'm at, and that was just awful. Mobile homes are not a good place to be and those things and some of those old retired folks in really old single wide mobile homes or double-wides or whatever, and they were just. Sometimes they were picked up and 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 there was a church, a big church. As you enter the town. It was gone, totally wiped out, and the pastor was out there along the highway trying to pray with people as they went by.
Speaker 2:So, and of course, the air is full of helicopters, ambulances, fire trucks, the whole deal. That's the way it started. And so what we did? Our friend, I went together and we saw the most incredible things. We saw one guy went around a corner 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 on the foundation and we said we'll stop and talk to this guy and he said he was asleep. This happened in the middle of the night, of course, like they do.
Speaker 1:Yeah they do yeah.
Speaker 2:And he said the first thing I knew was a problem was I was floating in the air on my mattress. My wife is across the house because she said the house goes. She said she snored so she got injured, you know, but not too bad. It was crazy and this is a brick house. Other ones that I talked to as a lady in a mobile home. She heard something and grabbed a little dog and tried to make made it to. She didn't make it to the living room behind the couch and her house was destroyed, but she was grateful she was alive. So other ones what they would do is that they found a body. They would stop all the chainsaws and everything else, be quiet and while they took the person out, just out of respect. That was quite a day.
Speaker 1:Tornado are probably, wouldn't you say, of the three natural disasters that Florida experiences wildfires, hurricanes and tornadoes Tornadoes got to be the most devastating because you don't have time to prepare for them, that's right and, like I say, they happened in the middle of the night.
Speaker 2:It seems like, yeah, you have a warning, but yeah, I covered a lot of hurricanes too in 2000. Well, we're, we had Three hurricanes that came across Central Florida and by the time it got to us, the city of Florida, it went from a hurricane to tropical force winds. Well, that's still just under 74 miles an hour and you can 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 his flooded yard. He was sitting in a chair but he had an oxygen, you know a cannula on his nose that ran all the way into the house. He was sitting there with a rake trying to push logs away from the storm drain so the water would drain. We saw an 80 year old woman who'd lost her home. Big tree fell through the mill overhouse. She was having to move out. She spent her whole life there. So just amazing stuff.
Speaker 2:And of course, the people are. We ran into a church that a whole bunch of Spanish speaking folks were having a church service in there and they were very nice and they they prayed for us, they shined a flashlight. All the flashlights were pointed at the photographer. She was embarrassed, but you know it was funny. And then, when we left there, all my phone messages and all my messages were in Spanish for some days. Oh wow.
Speaker 1:You made quite an impression on them.
Speaker 2: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 look at them, at me say, okay, we're asking for it. We're a peninsula between the Gulf and the Atlantic Ocean. What was I thinking? No, but um, yeah, it's pretty crazy.
Speaker 1:So why do you think we have such a fascination with true crime? You know?
Speaker 2:it's interesting. I did a little research on this. You know, the biggest audience for true crime is our women.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Let me tell you something, frank. My wife uh has every episode of discover ID on how to kill your husband. Memorize. That's comforting, very comforting, Exactly, yeah, yeah, say can we watch something else?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, yeah so uh, yeah, I think it's because it's the reason, the same reason that men read war stories, because we say well, how would we deal with, how would we confront this, how would we handle this? You know, um, if something happened? I think that's, and I think we just empathize with the victims and we just, you know, we I personally I always want to know why. What caused this? It's just like the vampiric thing. What?
Speaker 2:then you, then you get to understanding the family dynamic and stuff. You say, okay, get it. Yeah, no, the exactly the the a great reporter always asks why.
Speaker 1:Um, and that is the question, my other, my fascination comes from how did this level of depravity happen? Yeah, I'm fascinated by the depravity you know. Yeah, absolutely yeah, and that'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 reading stories about these criminals that do these horrendous things, where and how did that level hit that low? I?
Speaker 2:know, and one of the um defense psychologists in the vampire case says this is the most dysfunctional thing that I've ever seen. The, the mother, um Rod's mother, uh, they would have, she would. She claimed that she was raped repeatedly by this prince of the city, this rival vampire cult, because they would have these group sex vampire orgies or whatever she says. And then, um, then the other thing she says I, I would go to my room and I feel like I'd been drugged and they were like these ghost-like images floating in the air. Somebody was tapping on the window while she was on the second floor, so you know, so there's all kinds of and, of course, her child. There was no walk in the park either.
Speaker 2:Well, she was pregnant at 16.
Speaker 1:She had Rod when she was 16.
Speaker 2:Right, and so she fused, basically her sister accused, uh, their dad, of you know, sexual abuse. So it's sexual abuse is a big big thing. It's a big um thing for um mental illness, absolutely. You see it, you see it a lot and and that's uh, and it continues generation after generation, sometimes Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:It is, uh, it's a cycle, it is a cycle. And it does often repeat itself in families that have experienced it and it's uh, it's so tragic. You know it is, and, and one of the things that I try and do with my podcast and it's funny that we're talking about mental health is I am trying to break down the stigma of mental health, that if you need help, go get help.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Out there and and my.
Speaker 1:My psychiatrist told me a long time ago that 20% of the American population is on some sort of mental illness pill. 80% need to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, yeah, I think it's like, uh, cancer, cancer touches every family in in America at some point some way, and it's just like mental illness. And you know, depends on how you define mental illness, but it's everything from um serious depression to OCD and all kinds of other other things.
Speaker 1:Even the opposite of depression mania that's a mental illness.
Speaker 2:It is Because a lot of things.
Speaker 1:a lot of strange things happen when you're manic. Yeah, I've often been told by my psychologist and psychiatrist that the way you look at mental illness is if you sprained your ankle you would go get it fixed. Mental illness is just a sprain on the brain.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I I've got a. I'm working on a novel about a vet that has PTSD, so that's another thing. Um, what those, a lot of those guys have tried to do is self-medicate.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's a disaster.
Speaker 1:Well, what is the statistic? 22 veterans a day, 22 soldiers a day commit suicide and it's because of PTSD. So, yeah, yeah, um, I I hope your book, uh, does some wonders for for that population, because they really need to help. Yeah, yeah, I love asking reporters and authors this question and, uh, no two answers are ever the same. Uh, what is your favorite word? Because reporters and authors have to have a stellar vocabulary. Do you have a favorite word? A?
Speaker 2: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 I always tell young writers I say, if you want to be a good writer, read, read like mad, read all kinds of stuff. And I taught middle school for one year, just for the heck of it. And so you'd ask about nightmares. I like to say well, okay.
Speaker 2:I say I, I okay, I was a Vietnam era war veteran. Um, I've covered all these cases for years. If I have any flashbacks, it goes back to the classroom. These kids are a mess. Yeah, you know, they're a hot mess. It's absolutely terrible.
Speaker 1: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:Oh, you're welcome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my father-in-law was, was in Vietnam as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a. My time was spent mostly in Korea, which was an interesting place in itself. You get off the plane. You say, okay, this is. You look from the air and it's like mountains and rice paddies and all that. It's cool. Then you get off the plane. You see barbwire everywhere and sandbags and machine guns. You go. I thought the war was over like 20 years ago. Apparently not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, apparently not. Isn't travel the best education you can give yourself?
Speaker 2:It is, it's great, oh it's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is so amazing. Well, my brother, it has been a pleasure talking with you. I'm glad we got to hook up and promote the book Vampires, gators and Wacos and you've got cold 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:Well, thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're the best, frank. Take care, I'll talk to you soon, okay.
Speaker 2:Bye.
Speaker 1:My thanks to Frank Stanfield for his time and his storytelling. You can get Frank's book Vampires, gators and Wacos at wildbluepresscom. And thank you for listening. I appreciate beyond words when you share your time with the Fuzzy Mike. Feel free to share the Fuzzy Mike with your friends and family. Just stay connected with the Fuzzy Mike. You can follow me on Instagram, facebook and Twitter or you can email me at thefuzzymikecom. For video. Please subscribe to the Fuzzy Mike YouTube channel. The Fuzzy Mike is hosted and produced by Kevin Klein. Production elements by Zach Sheesh at the Radio Farm. Social media. Director is Trish Klein. I'll be back next Tuesday with a new episode of the Fuzzy Mike, where we'll meet an author who will share the story of his decade-long battle with bipolar disorder and addiction, how he overcame both and is now a leading speaker on life recovery. It will definitely empower you and remember the all-new Tuddling Klein podcast with new episodes every Monday and Thursday. So grateful for you, thank you. That's it for the Fuzzy Mike. Thank you.