The Embrace: A True Vampire Story

by Aphrodite Jones

A chilling inside study of a teenage vampire cult examines the vicious murders of Rick and Ruth Wendorf by Rod Ferrell, a high-school classmate of the Wendorfs' daughter and the self-proclaimed leader of the "Dark Army," who killed the couple as part of a nightmarish human sacrifice. Reprint.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime, Vampires, History

448 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Aphrodite Jones is an award-winning American reporter and author who writes about murder. Her knack for detail allows her to dissect bizarre murder cases and bring readers into the heart of darkness. Now, the author has taken her career to TV as the executive producer and TV host of the ID series, True Crime with Aphrodite Jones, which airs on Investigation Discovery.
Jones is now filming her sixth season, uncovering secrets about riveting cases across America. The series follows Jones, who's written a string of best-selling true crime books, as she unravels new mysteries lurking behind cases that shocked America: O.J. Simpson, Scott Peterson, Jon Benet Ramsey, Phil Spector, and the list goes on.

Reviews

[Heather ~*dread mushrooms*~ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up at a library book sale because it sounded interesting. I'd never heard of this case before, though when reading I found out my husband had watched a documentary on Roderick Ferrell. It pretty much sucked me in right away, and I found myself aghast at these people and their actions. Some of the characters played Vampire: The Masquerade, a roleplaying game like Dungeons and Dragons, but in this book the lines seemed blurred as to who believed in the playacting and who was just having fun.

The author admits to taking a few minor liberties for the sake of the book, but I'm not sure what details she changed. I'm sure she sensationalized quite a bit, because there's no way she could have written all the conversations in this book with 100% accuracy. Still, the absolute DRAMA of these people's lives was top-notch. I kept asking myself, "WHO LIVES LIKE THIS???" People dated everyone, broke up and dated again, had babies, sent those babies to their parents and continued playing pretend, formed covens, had vampire meetings at Hardee's, casually talked about murder and Wicca, wrote letters to each other, cut themselves and drank each other's blood, and hung out at the Vampyre Hotel (aka an abandoned building covered in graffiti in the woods).

The last quarter of the book, which dealt with the court cases of the four teens involved in the murders, was actually really dull, and I found the timeline all over the place. It was like the author didn't even try to keep the events straight, she just wrote them based on whatever notes happened to be closest to her at the time. Several of the scenes could have been condensed or combined for ease of reading. As a result, the book ended up feeling longer than it should have.

Three stars for sheer entertainment value.

[Kat · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm pretty difficult to shock or make uncomfortable, but this book does both, as well as give me the creeps like no other.

[Stacey W · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the first True Crime novel I have read by Aphrodite Jones. Though I love her, I will admit I was disappointed with this book. The story being that it is true and actually happened is interesting, but her attempt at writing it as being "inside" the heads of the criminals just did not work for me. I found myself reading it much slower than other novels and books I enjoy. I will give another of her books an attempt, but I truly would not recommend this particular one to anyone who reads this genre.

[♥ Marlene♥ · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I remember correct this was my first true crime book that I had bought which was bad.
I had began purchasing English tc books and had been lucky with my first books (BloodLust by Gary C King and Die For me by Don Lasseter come to mind but this oen I remember because the writing was bad.

Later I did read another book by the same author which I did enjoy so always give an author a chance (except when they behave badly in real life, bagging over reviews for one) That book was Cruel Sacrifice.

This could have been such a great book. Group of teenagers think they are vampires and kill,but alas she messed it up.

[Laurie (barksbooks) · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't finish this. I tried my best to work my way through it but found it extremely difficult to continue as the writing style, as many have said before me, is nearly unreadable. It was basically snippets of interviews pieced together and filled in by the author with very little creativity or interesting writing skills. It quickly became very tedious and dull. Rod Ferrell was clearly delusional and self-involved and a very dull person. The author also did very little research about Witchcraft, Wicca, Satanism or Vampirism and I found myself getting too irritated to continue.

[Chamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely love it!

[Marieke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sommige mensen zijn echt koekwaus!
Opzich wel een goed boek. Laat ook zien hoeveel invloed de media heeft, het kan mensen maken en breken, vooral dat laatste blijkbaar. Maar op een gegeven moment had ik wel zoiets van ja zijn we nu een keer klaar.

[Peacegal · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think the author wanted to write a vampire novel rather than a true crime account.
Rod wasn't a centuries-old supernatural being; he was a very mentally unstable 16-year-old.
I got tired of chapter after chapter immersing us in the fantasy world of bored suburban teenagers, and only about midway through does she start talking about who these people actually are.

[Stefanie Robinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book covers the case of Rod Ferrell, a self-proclaimed vampire cult leader. Ferrell was the leader of a group of people known as the "Vampire Clan". Ferrell adopted the personality of a 500-year-old vampire, called Vesago, that he created on a video game he liked to play. Ferrell was introduced to the game by his mother, who also had some really bizarre hobbies that involved vampirism. Ferrell and his group of friends, aka cult members, met up to drink each others blood and discuss death rituals and other things. Ferrell and another cult member went to the home of Heather Wendorf to help her run away from her home. Both of her parents were beaten to death with a crow bar by Ferrell and his friend. I will not spoil anymore of the case for anyone interested in looking it up or reading this book.

This author was wonderful to meet and hear speak at Crime Con in Nashville. I wish that I enjoyed her books as much as I enjoyed hearing her speak, but I haven't found that one that really got my attention like some other crime writers I enjoy reading. This book was tedious in places, especially in the first half of the book. I think it is important to go over the background and living situation of the people involved in the case, especially if it may shed some light on the actual crimes. This was a bit of a beating a dead horse situation when it came to rehashing the same details repeatedly. Towards the end of the book, the pace picked up and so did my interest. The case was interesting to learn about, but this could have been done better. There were a lot of missed opportunities for research into various relevant topics. Read at your own risk.

[I’m a Paula too… Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Embrace…

Ms. Jones is a really good writer of true crime stories and I’ve had a chance to read some of her previous works. This particular book talks about the Wendorf slayings, performed by a bunch of teenagers who thought they were vampires. I remember seeing this at the time and wondering how semi-intelligent kids could fall for this tripe. Today, I still wonder how anyone with even a few working brain cells would think this was true. In some ways, the guy ringleader was sort of brain washed by his own mother. She was definitely a piece of work. The rest of the little “family” were mostly underage teenagers with no real life direction. So they believed this guy’s crazy stuff and just went along with him. It’s so sad, really, that these kids were just a bunch of followers with no real moral compass.

Pretty well written and fairly engrossing. Ms. Jones writes well and I’ll be looking at her newer work. It’s been a long while since I’ve seen her work.

KU read.

[Jessie Bartholomew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Using this book for a podcast episode, I was hoping to find clarity somewhere on which parts were the “storytelling liberties” she took. It doesn’t seem right to write a book on true crime but change details in parts you feel like need spicing up. So I’m hoping that’s not what she did. But overall it seemed to be well researched and well written. For those claiming it was too detail oriented, go read some fiction? My podcast is called Kentucky History & Haunts, for anyone interested in some additional details on this case, including updates on where they all are now.

[Lisa Tollard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unreal

This was a very troubling book to read. I was horrified what these young people were capable of doing. Aphrodisiac Jones captured how kids can go astray perfectly. I look forward to reading more books by her

[Julia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This had potential but missed the mark. I find I like true crime books that provide details on family dynamics of both the victims and criminals. I want to understand as much as I can and learn as much as I can about both sides. Unfortunately the victims remained 'just victims' much too far into the book, with little provided about their lives prior to the crime, while the other persons involved had chapters devoted to dynamics that were repetitive versus enlightening. The timelines were also very confusing.

[Ashlee Chance · Rating 2 out of 5]

it was slow. it picked up pace towards the end with the murders and the trial but really seemed dragged out. it repeated a lot of the scenes in it and not necessarily from one characters pov to another’s.

[🦇Em🦇 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting but I skimmed over some bits. The author does a brilliant job of piecing together crimes into a narrative, however, the back story can be a little too in depth for my liking. Though, they still have me thinking long after I’ve read them and I will read all of hers.

[Carina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chilling true crime story.

[Mark H Duprey · Rating 5 out of 5]

These kids had issues

It amazes me that no adults got involved like normal parents. When they started with these inhumane behaviors, parental intervention should have began.

[Ashley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I DnF'ed it because the writing wasn't for me. It took a case that was interesting and made it boring.
2.5 stars.

[Emily D · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really repetitive, poor writing

[Chad Luck · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting book and story, just did not care for the writing style of Aphrodite.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, easy read. I liked how it was laid out, with a lot of short chapters.

Just hard to believe these kids were so gullible!

[Zack · Rating 5 out of 5]

I noticed something rereading this one. Jones refers to Heather Wendorf, whose parents were murdered by Rod Ferrell, and Sondra Gibson (Rod's mother) both as having "wide-set eyes," both times in the context of attractiveness, which might make you wonder what's happened for a few seconds, then back to the gory details of a story that gives and gives. Author Aphrodite Jones has an interesting career of writing books about scandalous things in the news and now hosts her own true crime series. She could use a good editor to tighten her sentences, but maybe she was trying to fulfill a required word count here. This was an interesting book about a weird modern crime you might have heard about involving teenagers as vampires in Kentucky and Florida. I wrote a detailed review of it years ago when I worked at examiner.com but they've gone out of business, so this vague gesture of approval has been substituted.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

The facts are fascinating, and captivating.. and completely repellent. Teenagers, am-I-right?
The writing, editing, and proofing though, are absolutely busted.

[Mathilda Craft · Rating 1 out of 5]

I must have been 15 or 16 when I read this book. I bought it as a bargain book in Waldens because I saw the tv special of it on 24 hours, or some sort of news investigation show like that. Unlike the special on the tellie, however, this book was DULL.

Which really is disappointing. The content is SO interesting! But the reading style... omg... flat as a tire snagged on a nail.

Only the first seventy or hundred-so pages are actually about what happened. The rest of the book (more than two thirds) is about the pain (and I emphasize on PAIN!)-stakingly dry text of what happened in the court system.

I was very disappointed. I was looking more for an in-depth look into the minds of the people. The obsession... etc. None so much a luck.

Good luck in reading this encyclopedia. The dictionary is easier to read than this is.

[Dawn Martindale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dark, disturbing, and brilliantly written

This is one of the darkest and most disturbing stories I've ever read, so brilliantly written it was almost impossible to put down. Fur someone who is still fairly new to the genre of True Crime, I've read a few books that definitely caught my attention and held it, for the most part. However, this is not one of those... This was one of those rare reads that completely sucks in the reader, to the point that, at times, you forget that it's actually a true story! As a life-long fan of Stephen King, I love a good dark and disturbing story. This is one of the best, (and most genuinely disturbing), stories I've read in a long time. I HIGHLY recommend this book to any True Crime fan, or even just something looking for a good read.

[Nataly Dybens · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't remember having any difficulty in reading this as some others have encountered. The whole book kept me interested &I couldn't help wanting to know more and more about how these kids came to believe they were true vampires. Once I read the book, I was forced by my curiosity to do a bit of research. As I was reading the book actually, I kept notes on things that I wanted to know more about. Unfortunately the notebook I had the notes in was misplaced &I wasn't able to learn more about all the things that interested me in the book, which were many of things.

[Tiffany Lynn Kramer · Rating 2 out of 5]

My grandmother gave me a copy of this book during the high of my vampire craze, around age 15-16. Upon reading it I was both disappointed and dismayed to learn that it was a nonfiction account about a group of teenagers who believed they were vampires and went on to commit murder to prove that. I love both horror and crime but when it is based on real happenings I can find no entertainment value in it and that being the main reason I read it should be understandable as to why I didn't enjoy this book.

[Maurean · Rating 1 out of 5]

A 'real-life' vampire story...who could pass that up?! Well, I tried a couple times to get into this book, but after 34 pages, I've given up. The writing just seems...flat, and I was uninterested in the characters . However, truth be told, its probably NOT the book, but me. I think I have just recently discovered that I really don't like true-crime novels. *shrugs* Guess I'll just stick to the 'fake' murders! (lol)

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love vampire stories, so I figured a "true vampire story" would be really interesting. There really wasn't so much about vampires or even teenagers who think they are vampires in this book. Some goth kids, who liked to pretend they are vampires, kill a couple of people (I believe it is the parents of one of the kids). They do not kill them in any way resembling vampirism. They do not actually believe they are vampires. So, a true crime book about murder. Leave the vampires out of it.

[Kristine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is wonderfully and very insightful into the minds of several confused teenagers and one severely mentally disturbed teenager. The details are heart wrenching, leaving a person on the verge of tears, but upon reading it I've become more attune and aware of the people around and their mental stability. This novel shows how trully dark, uncaring, unfeeling, and cold any person can be under the right circumstances.