Cold Blooded

Investigators and Central Florida residents were horrified when 16-year-old vampire cult leader Rod Ferrell was arrested and charged with bludgeoning a cult member's parents. When they realized the slain couple's 15-year-old daughter was missing, they feared she was a victim, too.

Detectives and journalists swarming over three states soon uncovered a web of blood-drinking occult rituals, illicit sex, wildly dysfunctional families and spiritual warfare. Then, when police officers captured the teens, they discovered that the murdered couple's daughter was among them. But was she a victim or a participant?

Ferrell faced the death penalty, sparking Constitutional battles over the ultimate punishment, juveniles in the court system, free press versus a defendant's right to a fair trial, and psychologists who worked to save him and prosecutors who wanted him dead.

More than 20 years later, the battles continue with new court rulings. Is he a changed man deserving freedom? Or is he still gaming the system, as prosecutors and his victims' family members believe?

Decide for yourself after reading COLD BLOODED by veteran newspaper reporter Frank Stanfield, who has covered the case from the beginning in November 1996, and sheds new light on one of the darkest killers in modern history.