March 28, 1980 - Rod Ferrell
At sixteen, Ferrell led a small group of alienated teenagers through a self-styled vampire subculture that culminated in the brutal murder of the parents of a fellow member — making him, at the time of his sentencing, the youngest person in the United States condemned to death row. The case drew attention less for its occult trappings than for what it revealed about adolescent social dynamics, group coercion, and the capacity of a charismatic peer to direct others toward extreme violence. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment after a Supreme Court ruling barred capital punishment for juvenile offenders.
From Wikipedia
Roderick Justin "Rod" Ferrell (born March 28, 1980) is an American murderer and cult leader. He was a member of a loose-knit gang of teenagers from Murray, Kentucky, known as the "Vampire Clan". Ferrell claimed to be a 500-year-old vampire named Vesago, a character he created for himself after becoming obsessed with the role playing game Vampire: The Masquerade. It was his mother, Sondra Gibson, who first introduced this game to Rod. In 1998, Ferrell pleaded guilty to the double slaying of a couple from Eustis, Florida, becoming the youngest person on death row in Florida at that time. Originally sentenced to death, Ferrell's penalty has since been reduced to life imprisonment. In 2023, he married Stephanie Ferrell.
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