Statement given by Rod Ferrell on Friday, 11/28/96 Baton Rouge, LA
Q: I'm Sergeant Odom, this is Detective Moran and you know Detective Dewey,
and what's your name?
A: Roderick Ferrell.
2)
Q: F-E-R-R-E-L-L. What's your date of birth, Roderick?
A: 03/28/80.
3)
Q: And what's your middle name?
A: Justin.
4)
Q: Do you have a nickname or street name?
A: I just go by Rod.
5)
Q: Okay. You're sixteen years of age. What's your home address?
A: 906 Broad Street, Apartment F6.
6)
Q: What city?
A: Murray, Kentucky.
7) 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.
8) 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.
9)
Q: Number 2: Anything you say may be used against you in trial, do you understand that?
A: Yes.
10)
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.
11)
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.
12)
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.
13)
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.
14)
Q: Can you read and write?
A: I've lived more knowledge than school ever thought of.
15)
Q: I understand.
A: The reason why I did this bullshit.
16)
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.
17)
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.
18)
Q: Who sent you, your parents?
A: The school, the Sheriff's Office, my mom. Basically, the whole city.
19)
Q: But you are not under a physician' care for anything?
A: Not drugwise or anything, just going to the psychologist.
20)
Q: Okay, but do they give, did they give you any prescription medicine that you have to take?
A: It wasn't that bad.
21)
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.
22)
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?
23)
Q: Eye witness.
A: I don't remember what night it was but
24)
Q: Today is Friday, the 28th. The incident occurred on, I think, Monday the 25th.
A: Monday.
25)
Q: This past Monday.
A: Ah, it was Tuesday.
26)
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.
27)
Q: Hang on a minute, Rod. Can you get a pad? Do you mind if I make notes?
A: I really don't care.
28)
Q: Okay.
A: (Unintel) to the point where (Unintel) I really don't care. I guess I'm mentally disturbed, I don't know.
29)
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.
30)
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?
31)
Q: Yeah, we'll fix it. Cut down to the bone. Okay.
A: Thanks a lot, sir.
32)
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...
33)
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.
34)
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.
35)
Q: Okay.
A: And after that we took off and hit the road. That's when we started toward Florida so actually
36)
Q: It was you and Scott and Che?
A: It was me, Scott, Che and Dana in the car.
37)
Q: Okay.
A: It took about a day to get to Florida ,cause like I told Dewey, we were going day and night.
38)
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.
39)
Q: Jeanine Leclaire?
A: She's my ex-girlfriend. She wanted me to come back and pick her up.
40)
Q: Okay, What town is that in?
A: Eustis.
41)
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.
42)
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.
43)
Q: Where were you pulled over in Eustis?
A: Uh, on Lake Joanna Drive.
44)
Q: Okay.
A: Cause they ran our I.D.'s and shit and couldn't find anything so they let us go.
45)
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.
46)
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.
47)
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.
48)
Q: Okay.
A: After we made sure that they were gone, we walked down the road to Heather's house.
49)
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.
50)
Q: What kind of special items? Weapons?
A: Yeah, That's all I was concerned about - weapons, food and cash.
51)
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.
52)
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.
53)
Q: Okay.
A: Actually it took him about twenty fucking minutes to stop, I swear, I thought he was immortal or something.
54)
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.
55)
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.
56)
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.
57)
Q: She hadn't seen her husband yet?
A: No, I made sure that he was hidden.
58)
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.
59)
Q: She scratched ya.
A: She clawed me, clawed me, spilled fucking scolding hot coffee on me, pissed me off.
60)
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.
61)
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.
62)
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.
63)
Q: Heather did?
A: Yeah, she goes by Zoey.
64)
Q Okay.
A: She looks to me as her father or something.
65)
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.
66)
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.
67)
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.
68)
Q: Is that that pocket knife with the blue handle?
A: No.
69)
Q: It's a big knife?
A: It's a seven-inch blade.
70)
Q: Like a hunting knife?
A: Uh-hum.
71)
Q: Okay.
A: Almost like a buck knife, only it's not a buck knife.
72)
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).
73)
Q: Who, Zoey had already taken the money?
A: Yeah, she had already taken the money for gas and so forth.
74)
Q: Okay and, and the Discover card?
A: That was in his wallet. We took that out of his back pocket.
75)
Q: What did you do with the crowbar?
A: I truthfully don't know.
76)
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
77)
Q: So you don't know what happened to it?
A: All I know they might have thrown it out (unintel).
78)
Q: What about the knife, was it still in the car?
A: Ah, Zoey had it on her cause it was her father's knife and she wanted to keep it as a souvenir I guess.
79)
Q: Okay. Where were you guys going?
A: You mean after Florida?
80)
Q: Yeah.
A: The place we actually went to, New Orleans. We got pulled over by the cops there too (unintel). We got pulled over five times on this whole trip and never got caught til now, til we checked into a hotel.
81)
Q: Why did you let one of them call? Who called their grandmother? Did somebody call South Dakota?
A: Yeah, that was Che.
82)
Q: Che did.
A: She was freaking out and she's basically the only thing I care about in this world, so
83)
Moran: Bingo, that's who got when she made the phone call.
A: Oh, I know. That's when I told them, get out of town now butthey didn't listen to me. See, they never listen to the leader.
84)
Q: Where were you going to go?
A: Don't know, don't care.
85)
Q: Just ride til you lit somewhere?
A: Til I found a nice forest area. I was just going to fucking ditch the fucking Explorer in some lake and start going through the fucking woods, killing deers or whatever I could find for meat. It was her grandparents that turned them in?
86)
Q: Ahm, I don't know for a fact.
A: Cause I thought it was her mom cause she's like a Deputy Sheriff in Rapid City.
87)
Q: I don't think her mom knew where she was.
A: Uhm, she called her mom too.
88)
Q: Rapid City, South Dakota. May have been, I don't know. There was somebody up there.
A: Yes, sir, her mom and she's a bitch.
89)
Q: Did, did you all ever discuss these homicides, prior to the day you went over there, with anybody that you can remember?
A: We never thought about it until about ten minutes before we did it.
90)
Q: Okay, so you didn't, it wasn't a planned thing til you went over there?
A: It wasn't premeditated - it would be like spontaneous (unintel) because if you premeditate something it's too easily planned out and easily known.
91)
Q: How long you guys been knowing each other?
A: All of us?
92)
Q: Yeah.
A: Me and Scott, since second grade. I've know Che for eleven months, going on twelve. I've know Dana for two weeks and Zoey for a year.
93)
Q: And Dana lived in Eustis with Zooey? No, Dana lived in Kentucky. I'm so confused Rod.
A: Yeah, you need fucking help.
94)
Q: You and Scott and Dana and Che were all from Kentucky?
A: Yeah.
95)
Q: Yeah, all right, when you all went to Eustis that's when you saw Zoey?
A: We were supposed to pick up Zoey and Jeanine.
96)
Q: And you've known Zoey for?
A: One year, I just moved from Florida about a year ago.
97)
Q: In Eustis?
A: Yeah, used to go to Eustis High.
98)
Q: Were your parents there or?
A: I lived with my mom and my grandparents. Later on mom got married to Darren Breven which if you had jurisdiction in Michigan tell you a few things about him, but this is about me right now so
99)
Q: Did you know Zoey's parents prior to this?
A: I'd never even seen them before until I found them that night so I wasn't even, hell, I went to the wrong house first. Didn't kill anybody though cause I looked in and saw there was little kids and that's my rule, I don't kill anything that's little. Now adults, that's perfectly fine, 16 and up.
101)
Q: In this trip that you all taken, did you ever, did you assault anybody or?
A: Just the parents.
102)
Q: Nobody else since them?
A: I was on my way here, we went into a secluded forest area to rest so that way no policeman could see us. My idea of course, they cut down camouflage and shit to cover up the Explorer. Worked quite nicely.
103)
Q: Where was that?
A: Somewhere in the state.
104)
Q: In Louisiana?
A: I think so cause, yeah, it had to be cause last two days cause we just been here a few days.
105)
Q: Was it before you got to New Orleans or after?
A: It was after, cause in New Orleans and started walking through this big complex. It was not too nice of a neighborhood.
106)
Q: There aren't too many nice neighborhoods anymore.
A: That's when Che freaked out because she's never been to a big city and she's never seen black people carry around AK-47's in their hack yards. So we left there and came here and were like flat broke, had no food and the only thing I could...
108)
Q: That was here in Baton Rouge?
A: It was not in Baton Rouge, it was like maybe 7 to 10 cities some direction
109)
Q: Right outside of, were you on the Interstate?
A: I don't know, we took this back road, like wow. We were totally lost, we just found the Interstate today. We've been over at the USS Kidd all day on Airline Highway and so we had four or five of your patrol cars go right past us. I was like, what the fuck.
110)
Q: Did you think that they had put the thing out?
A: I would suspected as much. I was like uhm... so it's pretty much obvious that they were looking at warrants and shit out on us.
111)
Q: Have you considered staying there and waiting for Jennifer?
A: Jeanine.
112)
Q: I mean Jeanine?
A: No, cause they, Scott wanted to stay at the house just to dump the corpses in the pool.
113)
Q: Uh-hum.
A: And I was like for one thing that's just sick and for another - no...
114)
Q: You didn't want to hang around?
A: Cause the police - once one of them didn't show up at work or they didn't show up at school they would have somebody go out there and check or call or something and they get worried and they have cops come in. Didn't want to deal with cops because they are a lot more hostile there than you ever seem to be here. That's why I'm cooperating with you. You didn't like beat my ass or anything.
115)
Q: Why would we do that, Rod?
A: Because the Murray cops have done it, the Florida cops have done it and whenever I see a cop car I get a nightstick upside my head. That's why I've had such lack of faith in law enforcements.
116)
Q: Well, everybody's not like that, buddy.
A: I know, that's why I check out everybody. I checked out (unintel). I got cracked upside the head or something I would be totally different.
117)
Q: Dana and Zoey and, and ah, Che weren't involved in this, right?
A: Those three were basically just the ones we kind of kidnapped we weren't accompanied
118)
Q: But they went along agreeably right?
A: Che had no choice. I told her either she agreed or I'd hogtie her, take her with me. Dana came with Che because she was worried about Che. Zoey came along cause she's been planning to come with me for about a year because we had planned on whenever I moved back into Eustis, her and Jeanine were going to come up here and we were just like going to go somewhere cause I still have a lot of friends in New Orleans and that was were I was going to live
119)
Q: Yeah
A: And if Che didn't freak out that's where I would have been right now. What can I say, it's a bitch about living in the big cities, you learn to be good friends with the cops and crime lords.
120)
Q: Any questions?
Dewey: Rod, you talked about a, you said that Scott never saw a murder before, did you see a murder before then?
A: I've fucking seen murders like all my life, every since I was five cause my grandfather for one, he's never been caught either.
121)
Q: You saw these people murder other people?
A: He's part of an organization called the Black Mask. Whenever I was five they chose me as the Guardian of the Black Mask and the Guardian has to become one with everybody. In other words, they raped me. And they have to sacrifice a human to the Guardian so they sacrificed someone right in front of me.
122)
Q: What city was that in?
A: It was in Murray.
123)
Q: Would you call that a cult?
A: Yeah.
124)
Q: These guys that are with ya, are they, have you indoctrinated them into the ways of the cult or you just their friends that your run with? What about Scott?
A: No, I never became part of them.
125)
Q: Kind of tough even when you're hard core, isn't it man?
A: Two things bother me: what happened whenever I was five and the fact that I never will get to see Che after this... I've been hanging around gangs and cults and all that shit all my life, so I've seen like sacrifices and drug buys...
127)
Q: I'm just asking, Rod.
A: Killing is a way of life, animals do it, and that's the way humans are, just the worst predators of all actually.
128)
Q: How old is Che?
A: Sixteen (unintel) about all of this, she is carrying around my kid. She's almost two months pregnant. Like they say, shit happens.
141)
Q: Well Rod, I'm not going to sugarcoat this thing, buddy, cause you know what you've done.
A: It's pretty simple, I'm fucked.
142)
Q: The guys from Lake City, the detectives, are on their way here. They'll probably be here around 6:00 or 7:00.
A: Is it actually possible for somebody my age to get like a death penalty?
143)
Q: It depends, ah, I don't know what the laws are in Florida, ah, when you are sixteen years old in this state you can be tried as an adult and you're subject to adult penalties.
A: Cause what I was thinking, what I would have done if I was an adult would equal the death penalty.
144)
Q: Sure.
So I was kind of hoping, you know, I was like, please go ahead, ha!
146)
Q: To be straight up with ya, yeah, it's probably going to entail the death penalty.
A: Petty.
149)
Q: Yeah, there you go.
A: I'm sorry, this is just like a big fucking joke. My life seems like a dream. My childhood was taken away at five, I don't know whether I'm asleep or dreaming anymore so whatever, for all I know I could wake up in five minutes.
150)
Q: Rod, I can assure you it's not a dream.
A: It's cold.
151)
Q: Anything else you want to add?
A: Ah, yeah, beginning like get a hold of Michigan police.
152)
Q: Uh-hum
A: Darren Breven, he just happens to be shipping drugs.
153)
Q: Darren Breven?
A: Breven, he's an asshole.
154)
Q: How does he spell his name?
A: D, you're talking about Darren now?
155)
Q: Yeah
A: B-R-E-V-E-N.
156)
Q: What city?
A: Pontiac, Michigan, he's somewhere in Michigan State right now and he owns like this pizzeria joint. That's where he has his local drug trafficking. He deals marijuana, occasional cocaine, heroin.
157)
Q: Has he been arrested before?
A: Yes.
158)
Q: Has he done any time that you know of?
A: Nope, never got convicted. The most time he did was like thirty days in jail. That was for not paying his child support.
159)
Q: What's his date of birth, do you know? Know how old he is?
A: Like I said, I just know he's from Michigan and I know his name. I know he's not to hard too find cause the cops there don't like him.
160)
Q: That's your mom's current husband or ex?
A: It's her ex, she just got a divorce from him. She's, her boyfriendright now is Kyle Newman. He just got out of prison for forgery. I don't know where she stays.
161)
Q: Okay Rod, well, they're going to come here and they're probably going to want to talk to you and it's up to you whether you talk to them or not.
A: I hope they're nice like you all, you know. If they're assholes I'm just going to be really quiet and clam up.
162)
Q: Okay.
A: I didn't speak for two years at one time so I can do it again.
163)
Q: May I see your thumb? How did you cut it?
A: With a knife
164)
Q: By, for yourself?
A: Just went phutt (phonetic).
165)
Q: Okay.
A: Could you see I do that quite frequently.
165)
Q: We'll get that looked at for ya.
A: Now all the things I said, can see her - now that I spilled my
guts?
166)
Odom: Yeah, yes you may.
A: You promised.
167)
Dewey: See. I told you.
A: The Florida police tried that once.
168)
Dewey: I told you I wasn't going to lie to you.
A: You aren't too.
169)
Dewey: Hang on man.
- End of Statement -
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