Rod Ferrell's Confession
Rod Ferrell's confession
Q: I'm Sergeant Odom, this is Detective Moran and you know Detective Dewey,
and what's your name?
A: Roderick Ferrell.
Q: F-E-R-R-E-L-L. What's your date of birth, Roderick?
A: 03/28/80.
Q: And what's your middle name?
A: Justin.
Q: Do you have a nickname or street name?
A: I just go by Rod.
Q: Okay. You're sixteen years of age. What's your home address?
A: 906 Broad Street, Apartment F6.
Q: What city?
A:Murray, Kentucky.
Q: Apartment F6, Murray, Kentucky? What are you close to, Paducah?
Okay Rod, you know that you are under arrest and are now a fugitive from
the Lake County Sheriff's Office in Lake County, Florida?
A: Yes.
Q: ...the constitution of the United States in the State of Louisiana
it is my duty to inform you that number one, you need not make any statements,
and you have the right to remain silent. Do you understand that?
A: Yes.
Q: Number 2: Anything you say may be used against you in trial,
do you understand that?
A: Yes.
Q: Number 3: You have the right to consult with and obtain advice from
an attorney before answering any questions. Do you understand that?
A: Yes.
Q: Number 4: If you cannot afford an attorney, the court will obtain an
attorney to represent you and advise you. Do you understand that?
A: Yes.
Q:Number 5: You have the right to have your attorney or an appointed
attorney present at the time of any questioning or giving any statement.
Do you understand your rights?
A: Yeah.
Q: Okay. There's a caveat here that says I understand what's been read to me,
a caveat - I just mean something extra - and with full knowledge of my rights I
wish to waive all privileges against self incrimination, make a statement about
my knowledge of the commission of this crime. How far did you go in school, Rod?
A: Tenth.
Q: Can you read and write?
A: I've lived more knowledge than school ever thought of.
Q: I understand.
A: The reason why I did this bullshit.
Q: Well, we'll see. Uhm, have you had any controlled dangerous substances or
alcohol within the last three or four hours?
A: Probably about an hour after I had some.
Q: Okay, and you have a mental disease, are you seeing a psychiatrist for
anything?
A: I was seeing a psychiatrist. Don't know what for. Never paid attention.
Q: Who sent you, your parents?
A: The school, the Sheriff's Office, my mom. Basically, the whole city.
Q: But you are not under a physician' care for anything?
A: Not drugwise or anything, just going to the psychologist.
Q: Okay, but do they give, did they give you any prescription medicine that
you have to take?
A: It wasn't that bad.
Q: Okay Rod, uh, I understand that you talked to Detective Dewey and that
you've agreed to give a statement about what you know about this problem that
arose in Lake County?
A: As long as I get to see Che.
Q: Okay, not a problem. Go ahead, start ahm, I guess from when you guys were
in Kentucky
A: Do you have a recorder on or just eye witness?
Q: Eye witness.
A: I don't remember what night it was but
Q: Today is Friday, the 28th. The incident occurred on, I think, Monday the 25th.
A: Monday.
Q: This past Monday.
A: Ah, it was Tuesday.
Q: You're right, it was Tuesday. I'm an old man.
A: Last Friday from Kentucky cause I was over there at Dana's house
seeing Che.
Q: Hang on a minute, Rod. Can you get a pad? Do you mind if I make notes?
A: I really don't care.
Q: Okay.
A: (Unintel) to the point where (Unintel) I really don't care. I guess I'm
mentally disturbed, I don't know.
Q: Rod, you should never get to that point, son. Even if you are in trouble,
you know.
A: It's not because of the trouble. It's because I don't have any concern
for life anymore. My own, especially.
Q: Perhaps you say that, but you know, I'm not inside your head. I don't
know what's going on, but I know you're still a young guy and ah, you've got
a lot of living in front of ya.
A: Before they transport me, can you try to get something to fix this?
Q: Yeah, we'll fix it. Cut down to the bone. Okay.
A: Thanks a lot, sir.
Q: You left last Friday?
A: ((Unintel) We left 12:30, like I said, over at Dana's apartment to see
Che because her and I've been seeing each other for eleven months now and are
engaged and she's pregnant and all and I told Che beforehand that I was going
to take her with me and just take like a half-ass road trip because I was sick
of Murray because all the cops were bugging me there for something I didn't do
and, I'm sorry...
Q: That's okay.
A: Uhm, so I got her and Dana and Scott Anderson, came over to her apartment and
I asked him if he wanted to go on a road trip, and he said sure, just tell me if
I'm going too fast.
Q: Go ahead.
A: Uh, we drove, got all our stuff that we needed, and we left with the bare
necessities, and we drove out to where his brothers were because he was
supposed to drive them home before twelve that night and we had Che go
and tell them that we have been kidnapped by Steven Murphy, better know as Jaydon.
Q: Okay.
A: And after that we took off and hit the road. That's when we started
toward Florida so actually
Q: It was you and Scott and Che?
A: It was me, Scott, Che and Dana in the car.
Q: Okay.
A: It took about a day to get to Florida ,cause like I told Dewey,
we were going day and night.
Q: Can I get a light? Yes!
A: Okay, whenever I got to Florida, I looked up some of my old friends
to drop by and say hi and shit and I went by Jeanine Leclaire's house,
that's Zoey's best friend, you know her as Heather.
Q: Jeanine Leclaire?
A: She's my ex-girlfriend. She wanted me to come back and pick her up.
Q: Okay, What town is that in?
A: Eustis.
Q: All right.
A: Okay, after that I got ahold of Zoey after school one day, talked to
her and she was wanting to leave also with us, cause we really had no
idea where we were going. That was on Monday, whenever I got a hold of her.
Q: Okay.
A: Tuesday, during the day, we were pulled over by a state rod.
That got us a little bit nervous so we decided we wouldn't do anything
that night cause we had told them we were going to stay an extra night
and that would have given us twenty-four hours extra.
Q: Where were you pulled over in Eustis?
A: Uh, on Lake Joanna Drive.
Q: Okay.
A: Cause they ran our I.D.'s and shit and couldn't find anything so they let us go.
Q: All right, okay, so...
A: After that I went to the pay phones at the K-Mart, called Zoey
up and told her that we were leaving that night, for her to grab
the shit she needed, like pictures or whatever, and to get ahold of
Jeanine and tell her the same and that we would be by to pick them
up at a specific time, basically whenever it got dark, just around 5:30 or 6:00.
Q: Okay.
A: And we went out to Zoey's house first, big surprise, waited for
her too, she came down the road about an hour after dark,
I'm guessing around 6:45 to 7:00.
Q: Okay.
A: Before she like left, so Che, Dana and her got in, came in,
and (unintel) the car that Scott took from his mom and drove out
there to go see her boyfriend while me and Scott stayed behind.
Q: Okay.
A: After we made sure that they were gone, we walked down the road to Heather's house.
Q: Okay.
A: Walked up the driveway, looked around the house just to check
the perimeters, we saw they left all the doors unlocked, went to
the garage, looked for special items, found special items.
Q: What kind of special items? Weapons?
A: Yeah, That's all I was concerned about - weapons, food and cash.
Q: Okay.
A: Went into her house, her mother was taking a shower, her father
was asleep on the couch, so I took the liberty of rummaging through
the house and getting something to drink, because I was thirsty.
Q: Okay.
A: Uhm, Scott was following right behind me like a little lost puppy and
then before her mother got out of the shower, I went to her dad and
smacked the fuck out of him until he finally quit breathing so yes,
I'm admitting to murder.
Q: Okay.
A: Actually it took him about twenty fucking minutes to stop, I swear,
I thought he was immortal or something.
Q: What did you hit him with?
A: A crowbar. I was going to use a machete or chainsaw but that was
too messy, just nasty.
Q: Crowbar's pretty messy too you know.
A: No, it only got a little blood spot on me - surprisingly - but anyway,
so after that I basically picked his body up, screwed him around and looked
for his wallet and stuff and that's where we found his Discover card.
Q: All right.
A: And about two minutes after that I flipped him back over, he was, the
mother came out of the shower with a nice hot cup of coffee that she spilled
all over me, cause she was asking me what did I want, cause she thought I was
just robbing them.
Q: She hadn't seen her husband yet?
A: No, I made sure that he was hidden.
Q: Okay.
A: Didn't want her to freak. So she didn't, like I said, she just basically
looked straight at me and said, what do you want? By that time, you know, it
was pretty obvious, I had blood on me and a crowbar in my hand, I was fixing
to say, yeah, I want to have coffee with you, son of a bitching smartass, but
anyway then that's when she lunged at me, cause I was actually going to let
her live, but after she lunged at me I just took the bottom of the crowbar,
and kept stabbing it through her skull and whenever she fell down I just
continually beat her until I saw her brains falling on the floor, cause
that pissed me off. That's how I got these.
Q: She scratched ya.
A: She clawed me, clawed me, spilled fucking scolding hot coffee on me, pissed me off.
Q: Okay
A: So I made sure she was dead. Rummaged through the house looking for car keys,
money, whatever. Thought about waiting for Zoey's sister but decided, nah, why bother.
Let her come home, have a mental breakdown, call the police, which I was correct,
she did. Anyway, went through the parents bedroom, found the keys to the Explorer
which you've now impounded, casually walked outside afterwards, unlocked the door,
peeled out of the driveway.
Q: Where was Scott during all this time?
A: Oh God, he totally froze. He's never seen people get killed before because
he was hyped about telling me how he was going to kill them so basically he
is just an accessory.
Q: Okay.
A: After that we drove over to Jeanine's house looking for the girls because
they thought we were only getting the girls to run away with us which was
very far from our minds at that point in time cause I didn't want to be
followed, so we drove back over to Jeanine's house. At that point in time
we drove the Explorer so she kind of realized what happened to her parents,
she flipped for about a hundred miles or so.
Q: Heather did?
A: Yeah, she goes by Zoey.
Q: Okay.
A: She looks to me as her father or something.
Q: I need to ask you some questions, Rod. You are saying that Scott
was in the house with you, but he didn't take part in the actual murder?
A: All he did was watch, and after I was finished killing them, he
robbed them.
Q: Okay.
A: He took one side of the house and I took the other. The most he did was
move the bodies a little bit.
Q: What all did you all take out of the house: anything that's in the Bronco?
A: We took her mother's pearls which were around her teddy bear's neck.
We took her father's knife. I don't know what kind it is.
Q: Is that that pocket knife with the blue handle?
A: No.
Q: It's a big knife?
A: It's a seven-inch blade.
Q: Like a hunting knife?
A: Uh-hum.
Q: Okay.
A: Almost like a buck knife, only it's not a buck knife.
Q: Okay.
A: We took $4.75 cause we didn't know she had already stolen the money,
which made me a little bit frustrated and agitated (unintel).
Q: Who, Zoey had already taken the money?
A: Yeah, she had already taken the money for gas and so forth.
Q: Okay and, and the Discover card?
A: That was in his wallet. We took that out of his back pocket.
Q: What did you do with the crowbar?
A: I truthfully don't know.
Q: You remember if you left it at the house or if you threw it out
while you were in the Explorer?
A: Explorer. Right after we went the first fifty miles or so I couldn't
find it after that cause I was going to keep it. Kind of hard to find a
murder weapon if you don't want it to
Q: So you don't know what happened to it?
A: All I know they might have thrown it out (unintel).
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