Strange Deranged Beyond Insane
Everything paranormal and unexplained. History of buildings old hospitals any haunted locations along with personal experiences. Famous murders in Michigan. Ufo and extraterrestrial. Urban legends of Michigan. Folklores witches and tribal tales. Horror movies and unexplained curses and deaths on set.
Strange Deranged Beyond Insane
Unraveling Dark Minds: Vampire Cult Murders, Werewolf Delusions, and Midwest's Hidden Cults
What would compel someone to believe they're a 500-year-old vampire? Discover the horrifying tale of Rod Farrell, leader of the Kentucky Vampire Cult, and the brutal murders that shook the nation in 1996. We'll take you through the macabre rituals at the infamous "Vampire Hotel" and their reckless journey across states, which ended with their inevitable capture. Hear about the grim fates of Farrell and his followers as we unravel this chilling chapter in crime history.
Next, we navigate the murky waters of insanity pleas in Michigan's most notorious criminal cases. From Pankaj Boshan's terrifying belief that his victim was a werewolf, to Lorena Bobbitt's shocking acquittal for mutilating her husband, and Andrea Yates' tragic descent into postpartum psychosis, we shed light on the complex interplay between mental illness and the law. We also recount the gruesome saga of the "Grindr Cannibal," Mark Latunsky, whose heinous acts led to a lifetime behind bars. These stories serve as a grim reminder of the human mind's darkest corners.
Finally, we turn our attention to the Midwestern United States, a hotbed of cult activity that often flies under the radar. From the manipulative practices of Michigan's Twin Flames Universe to the severe punishments within the House of Judah, we expose the hidden dangers lurking in seemingly spiritual groups. We also touch on larger, more established organizations like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Church of Scientology, examining their influence and control over their members. Don't forget to engage with us through email, fan mail, TikTok, or Facebook—we're eager to hear your stories, suggestions, and feedback. Prepare for a spine-chilling episode that will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew about cults and crimes.
Good evening everyone. Welcome back to Strange, strange Beyond Insane, and this is your host, melissa, and I would like to start this episode off with saying that I have done some research on some like really fucked up cults. I came across this vampire cult that started in Kentucky that I'm like super not to sound weird, but kind of obsessed with, super not to sound weird, but kind of obsessed with, and I was watching all this stuff on it when we were driving to Tennessee and I got to be the passenger. So let me start off with this little video from TikTok and then we'll get right into it vampire cult kentucky and you need to know about it.
Speaker 2:Let me rewind. You might have heard about the vampire cult murders but I bet you didn't know about the connection it had to the lbl, the land between the lakes.
Speaker 1:For context, the leader was raised in kentucky or county to be exact, he immersed himself in a vampire video game so deep he started to believe that he was a 500 year old vampire named Visago.
Speaker 2:Visago's cult meetup spot was an abandoned structure in the LBL that they dubbed the Vampire Hotel, and they threw all kinds of parties and rituals there.
Speaker 1:The story gets weirder and darker from there, so grab your passport and your sweater, because this one's going to give you chills, alright, and just to kind of get into it more detailed, this man's name was Rod Farrell, also known as Roderick Justin Farrell. He was born March 28th on 1980. He is an American murderer and cult leader. He was a member of a loose-knit gang of teenagers from Moray Kentucky Moray, I think that's how you say it known as the Vampire Clan. Farrell claimed to be a 500-year-old vampire named Visago, a character he created for himself after becoming obsessed with the role-playing game Vampire the Masquerade. It was his mother Sond Sandra Gibson, who first introduced this game to Rod in 1998. Farrell pleaded guilty to the double slaying of a couple from Eustis, florida I believe that's how you say that becoming the youngest person in Florida on death row at that time. Originally sentenced to death, farrell's penalty has since been reduced to life imprisonment. Okay, so getting into the killings.
Speaker 1:On November 25th 1996, naomi, ruth, queen and Richard Wendorf were found by their daughter, jennifer Wendorf. Wendorf were found by their daughter, jennifer Wendorf, beaten to death in the Eustis home While 49-year-old Richard Wendorf was asleep on his couch and Ruth was in the shower. Farrell and accomplice Howard Scott Anderson had entered the home through the unlocked garage, picking up the murder weapon, a crowbar. Before Richard had even awakened, farrell beat him multiple times with it, fracturing both his skull and ribs almost instantly, knocking him out and killing him shortly after. When Ruth found Farrell and Anderson in the home moments later, farrell bludgeoned her to death, bashing her head with the crowbar. He claimed in his confession, however, that his original plan was to allow Naomi Ruth to live, but she first attacked him by lunging at him and throwing a very hot cup of coffee on him. This angered him and made him change his mind, so he killed her. Also, Richard had burn marks in the shape of a V it was said that theV was Farrell's symbol which he accompanied with a dot for each person he considered to be in his vampire cult.
Speaker 1:The victims were the parents of Heather Wendorf, a longtime friend of Farrell's, whom he was helping to run away from a home that she described as hell. Heather and the other girls that were there with Farrell and Anderson were not at the Wendorf home when the murders took place. Charity Kesey and her friend Dana Cooper had driven Heather to her boyfriend's apartment so Heather could say goodbye before leaving for New Orleans, leaving Roderick and Scott outside the Wendorf home. After four days of driving through four states, the group was found in Baton Rouge, louisiana. It is believed that Farrell liked a video arcade in New Orleans, so they were headed there. One of the girls, charity Kesey, placed a call to her grandmother in South Dakota. The group needed money and Charity thought her grandmother could help them. However, kesey's grandmother informed the police about where they were. Okay, so this is just talking about all right.
Speaker 1:So on February 12, 1998, then 18-year-old Farrell pleaded guilty to the murders, claiming that the others traveling with him were innocent, except Scott Anderson, who was simply an accessory. Farrell pleaded guilty to two counts of felony murder. His attorneys tried to argue that he was insane and that he was diagnosed with mental disorders, including schizotypal personality disorder, which I'm guessing is like schizophrenic Asperger's syndrome. The University of Florida further attested that Rod sometimes witnessed spiritual things such as angels and demons. Judge Jerry T Lockett sentenced Farrell to death. Charity Kessie was convicted of two counts of third-degree murder, robbery with a gun and deadly weapon and burglary armed with a weapon or explosives. She was sentenced to ten and a2 years in the state prison. Dana Cooper was convicted of those charges as well, but was given a 17 1⁄2-year prison sentence. Anderson was convicted of the same charges as Farrell and was sentenced to life in prison For two years. Farrell held the record as the youngest inmate on death row. This changed in November 2000, when the Florida Supreme Court reduced his sentence to life in prison. Kessie was released from prison in March 2006 and Cooper was released from prison in October 2011. In January 2013, the court dismissed the attempts by Roderick Farrell and Howard Scott Anderson to get a new sentencing hearing. However, in December 2018, howard Scott Anderson was resentenced by Circuit Judge Don Briggs to 40 years in prison. Anderson was given credit for the 22 years he has already served, making him first eligible for release in 2031. Ruth Wendorf's relatives attended Anderson's resentencing hearing and did not oppose his early release. Speaking with a daily commercial, they said that they are more concerned about Farrell, who was scheduled for his own resentencing hearing in July 2019. Farrell's hearing was rescheduled for November 18th and then again April 2020, when the sentencing judge upheld his life without parole sentence and deemed him corrupt.
Speaker 1:Good, okay, now I want to talk about, um, this is more, you know, along the lines of cult-like thinking and murders. This article, I felt was very interesting, and this is from October 2022, so it reads insanity plea saves werewolf killer from life in prison and other insane stories. Okay so, even in this digital age of Tinder, bumble, instagram DMs, twitter DMs, where it's become increasingly common to start a relationship online, where it's no longer socially implied that you're going to have to lie about how you met, there's still a certain amount of reasonable caution when it comes to online dating. The early 2000s term catfishing is still very much real. You never really know who is behind that profile. It could be a face that's nothing like the one you see in their profile pic, and it could be a decade old picture that might as well have a whole different face. Or it could be a man pretending to be a woman. Could be a woman pretending to be a man. Could be a man who stabbed a guy 53 times because he was convinced that he was a werewolf. Because he was convinced that he was a werewolf. Crazy, right, all right, let's read on.
Speaker 1:So in the morning of July 13th 2018, 34-year-old man Pankaj Boshan drove from his New Jersey home to DC area. He entered a Four Seasons Hotel with a can of gasoline and demanded a room. After a hotel worker asked him to leave, he said 90%. If I die, everybody dies. There's still time to save everyone, he added, and that today is going to be a very bad day. He then made his way to an old town in Alexandria, virginia, where he walked into an alley near the Window University store to look at boxes that he believed contained human DNA. There he saw Brad Jackson, the 65-year-old store manager, and he continued to follow him into the store, thinking that Jackson had information about these boxes. Jackson eventually confronted Boshin, and as their interaction got more and more heated, boshin began to fight him, beating him and stabbing him 53 times with a box cutter and gouging out his eyes. Boshan left the building covered in blood. Police later found him naked from the waist down in a car nearby.
Speaker 1:Um boshan told police and the doctors that jackson began began turning into a werewolf. During their encounter, he said that he had to kill jackson to save 99 of the moon and planets. Okay, so now he is in jail. How does one get out of something like this and how does one get to a position where they're able to be on dating apps after having stabbed a guy 53 times because they were convinced that this guy was a werewolf? What's the secret. Okay, and this says it's simple and it's not a secret at all not guilty by reason of insanity. Wow. So basically, they proved him to be insane, that he was suffering from mental disease or defect and or that was a result of mental disease or defect, and that they did not know their conduct at the time of the crime was wrong. Wow, that is just like crazy, okay. So now this reads in 1993 Lorena Bobbitt what, oh, I remember hearing about this.
Speaker 1:This is funny, I mean, it's not, it's fucked up, but it's still kind of funny. She I mean it's not, it's fucked up, but it's still kind of funny. She was arrested after cutting off her then husband's reproductive organ. Bobbitt argued that she suffered years of abuse and was sexually assaulted by John Bobbitt, which is what caused her to snap and cut off his genitals. Due to her just keyword snapping. Due to her just keyword snapping momentarily.
Speaker 1:The jury found her not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. That's a very popular story. Like I said, I've heard that a lot about that woman. Okay, and in 2001, andrea Yates confessed to drowning her five children in their bathtub. In 2002, she was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In 2005, however, her conviction was overturned to false testimony of a prosecution witness who, bizarrely enough, stated that shortly before the murders, an episode of Law Order had aired featuring a woman who drowned her children and was acquitted of murder by reason of insanity. And when Yates was retried in 2006, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Yates had a long medical history of suffering from severe postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis, and she had experienced episodes of psychotic behavior after the birth of each of her children. So Yates attorneys insisted that her postpartum depression played a significant role in causing her actions Crazy.
Speaker 1:All right, now I want to talk about you know, I haven't heard anybody talk about this in a while and I haven't really seen anything online about this. I still remember when this happened, and I'm sure you guys too. So it's about the grinder cannibal that killed a young man that was also a hairstylist. Okay, so this was back in, I think, 20, okay, 2019, and he got. He was on trial in 2022. So a Michigan man convicted of killing, gutting and eating the testicles of other body parts I'm sorry and other body parts of a hairdresser he met on Grindr has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Speaker 1:Mark Latunsky, 50, pleaded guilty in September to the December 24, 2019 murder of Kevin Bacon, who was 25. Lawyers for Latunsky had previously contended the man was mentally ill and unfit for trial. As a result of Latunsky's confession Chawasi, I think that's how you say it county Judge Matthew J Stewart was tasked with determining whether the crime was first or second degree murder, and he ruled in October the crime qualified as a more serious, premeditated first degree. On Thursday he sentenced Latunsky to the maximum punishment allowed under Michigan law. Michigan abolished the death penalty in 1963. In your sick twisted mind, you probably don't think you did anything wrong. Bacon's mother, hannah, wrote in a statement that was read at the sentencing hearing, and this is from the Daily Mail this Christmas, I hope you suffer like we have.
Speaker 1:Bacon, a successful hairdresser and a student at the University of Michigan in Flint, had told his roommate on Christmas Eve of 2019 he was meeting a man he had been speaking with on Grindr. Bacon was reported missing the following day after he did not show up at his parents' house in Flint for breakfast with the family on Christmas Day. Police discovered his body the following Saturday, december 28th, in Bloomfield Township, more than 20 miles from his home in Bloomfield Township, more than 20 miles from his home. Bacon's naked body was found suspended by the ankles from the rafters of Latunsky's basement with stab wounds in the back and neck, and his whole body was mutilated. That's gross.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, latunsky was a married. He was married twice, both ending in divorce. His former wife, emily Latunsky, had filed a motion in court in August of 2019 seeking to suspend his access to their children several years earlier with major depression, paranoid schizophrenia and personality disorder characteristics, and that he often failed to take prescribed medication. He had been arrested in the previous month for failing to pay child support and spent four days in jail. Following their divorce, latunsky married former husband Jamie Arnold. Latunsky married former husband Jamie Arnold. The pair broke up in September 2019, with Arnold saying he only learned of Latunsky's mental illness after Emily sued him for child support. He claimed Latunsky told him the children were not his. He also expressed shock at learning that Latunsky was accused of murder.
Speaker 1:So again, to me, this is like the system failed, right? I think that there should be follow-ups with mentally ill people. I know that they don't ask for it and obviously something's wrong in your fucking brain to cut off testicles of another man and eat them and mutilate a naked body. Um, but I remember following the story when it happened and it is very, very sad. Um, and, like I said it, it hit our community big because, you know, we're all hairstylists, so okay. So now I want to move on to um 11 cults in Michigan that you must avoid. Um, one has been on netflix on this list um, that was a very interesting documentary, but we'll get to that, okay. So at number 11 we have um the hair Hare Krishna, and this is followers are made to hold beliefs that include avoiding intoxication, gambling, sex and eating meat.
Speaker 1:It's a branch of Hinduism that has established establishments sprinkled across Michigan. Hare Krishna has controversies involving child abuse and brainwashing. Okay, so number 10 would be House of David. House of David is located in Benton Harbor and holds extremely purity beliefs. In Benton Harbor, and holds extremely purity beliefs, members are to abstain from sex, meat, alcohol, tobacco and cannot own their own property. Naturally, a sex scandal involving the group's leader, benjamin Purnell, crushed the church. Still, the community in Benton Harbor swears by the kindness of the church's members. The scandal aside, the church is seen as a doomsday cult with restrictive practices that are too familiar with cult behavior. And, by the way, it is not illegal. It is not illegal to operate a cult or to be in a cult, which is really fucked up. Which is really fucked up. I mean, I know that they keep a close watch on these groups. Okay, this one is the Domininities. All right, they have the least amount of information on the internet.
Speaker 1:The Christian politicized theology advocates for Christians to take full control of society and the government, simply because it's their God-given right to do so. There is believed to be a section in Detroit, but this group is either very new or very, very secretive. Is either very new or very, very secretive, all right. And this group is, I'm sorry, cult. Is the Black Hebrew Israelis, israelis, I think, I'm saying it. So they believe themselves to be the true descendants of the ancient Israel people. They're not Jewish. The anti-Semitism is the largest problem of the following, though largely not violent, there are notable conspiracy theories, and there's beliefs in this group that are particularly dangerous, such as Holocaust denial, so they do not believe that the Holocaust happened. All right.
Speaker 1:Then we have the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church, all right. So this is a church in Gaylord, michigan, and this was subject of a four-part ID discovery documentary. These churches are often proven to be an environment that protects child abusers, both physically and sexually. All right. So these churches are particularly dangerous as they are prominent across the country and in some ways, viewed as just another I guess, demonic. I'm sorry um it, I'm sorry. Yeah, just another group of the Christian faith um, I don't see why he said they, oh, I'm sorry protects child abusers. I thought I read that wrong. Okay, so this Baptist church obviously welcomes fucking child abusers. I thought I read that wrong. Okay, so this Baptist church obviously welcomes fucking child abusers, both physically and sexually. So, yeah, there are pieces of shit in my book. I read that too fast, you guys. I'm sorry about that, but Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church. And again, that's in Gaylord, michigan, so that's north of most of us, and that there is a four part ID discovery documentary on this. So I will definitely be watching that.
Speaker 1:Okay, and, of course, scientology. There are several churches of Scientology sprinkled around Michigan. Much of Scientology is a mystery, which is part of why the organization is so so much considered a cult. It's got an authority-like structure that works to isolate members and allegedly exploit their finances, and they also display some of the common traits of cults, alright, shen Yun. Shen Yun is a controversial and it's unique. It says it's controversial and it has like a unique manner of doing things. It's a traveling dance show with strong anti-China and anti-communist messages in their shows. The Chinese government has the organization in its country labeling it as a cult, and it's also here in Michigan. Shen Yon has also been known to preach prayer over medicine and that has led to negligence in people and death.
Speaker 1:All right, then we have the Shermanities Shermanities, all right, centered at the church in Carson City, michigan. Sherman Tees are tricky, I'm sorry. It says Sherman Tees are a tricky subject. The church members are rather isolated and hold two traditional values. Men wear beards and lead the family, while women wear long dresses and are treated as I'm sorry, let me scroll down treated unlike anything human. That's great. However, sexual child abuse accusations against the late Lee Sherman, one of the group's founders, are at the top of the complaints of the cult behavior, despite other examples of child abuse in the history of the church. The church claims not to condone these actions, though reporting I'm sorry, through reporting the examples reported in several articles wasn't on their priority list when this happened. So they treat women like shit and child abuse again. I mean, any cult is mentally abusive, right? I mean you kind of have to, I would say, be mentally abused to be in a cult, all right, so 12 tribes, occult All right, so 12 tribes. The 12 tribes community calls itself the attempt to recreate the first century church as described in the book of Acts and has been an establishment in Marshall, michigan. 12 tribes has often been linked to child labor practices and physical and sexual abuse against children as well. Their teachings are also described as racist and homophobic.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this is the one that I watched on Netflix and this was extremely interesting to watch, and this is called the Twin Flame Universe. The Twin Flames Universe is a belief that mixes Hindu, buddhist and even Christian beliefs and practices, with the primary belief that everyone has a twin flame, effectively a soulmate. Naturally, this leads to problematic behaviors. Its leader, jeff Devine, was born in Lapeer, michigan, and graduated from Western Michigan University. The organization is based in Michigan, so it doesn't really talk a lot on here on this article, but if you guys um watch the documentary, hold on one second, let me look it up. It's called hold on, oops, sorry, twin.
Speaker 1:Okay, this one is escaping the twin, the twin flames, and I don't believe this one is out of Michigan, but this pretty much will explain to you guys how that works and it's really, really fucked up. How they like tug at people's hearts and emotions because everybody is emotional when it comes to like finding your soulmatemate right any way anyone can fucking make money and have power trips is like I don't know. No offense, I just don't understand how you can be so stupid and I know I shouldn't say that because some people are very vulnerable but like I am too much of a bitch and a thinker for my own self to ever be, like you know, degraded like that and controlled. And again, it's a lot of these cults like you have to give them money, give me money, give me money, give me money. It's like that's stupid to me, but it's very, very, very sad too. All right, so moving forward, the House of Judah.
Speaker 1:The House of Judah cult was tied to Michigan, most notably in Allegiant County, where a mother involved in the cult beat her son to death. Roughly 100 followers once lived on a 22-acre camp led by Prophet William A Lewis, who endorsed corporal punishment to an extreme within the framework of the religion. The cult moved to Alabama after the incident and Lewis died in 2004. The cult is believed to have died with him, though Lewis's son denounces the claim of the religious group as a cult, of the religious group as a cult. Nice, all right. And just to recap, too, let's do some cults through the Midwest, all right.
Speaker 1:So the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a very subtle spiritual deception, started in 1830 by Joseph Smith. This aggressively group I'm sorry, this aggressive group contends that is only true church and that all Christians outside Mormonism are following. They're basically I'm sorry, I'm just trying to do like the gist. They're basically not doing what God's expecting and it's a false Christ and you're not. You're basically not going along with the Holy Gospel, all right. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society so that's Jehovah Witnesses, all right. So they're anti-historic Christian tenants.
Speaker 1:This group began in the 1870s with Charles Taze Russell. They not only deny the essentials of the Christian faith, but the control exercised over the membership is highly destructive. The Church of Scientology so we already went through that. That must be big in the Midwest. The Twelve Trib tribes we went through that too, and that was in the early 1970s. That's Albert Eugene Springs. They claim that salvation can only be found by giving all possessions to them and living in their community. All personal decision-making power is given over to the leadership, the Holy Spirit, I'm sorry, the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of Real Christianity, founded in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon. I'm guessing this highly authority person is very destructive. He teaches the group that Jesus failed on the cross, moon is now the mediator between God and man. So I just kind of wanted to give you the gist of that one.
Speaker 1:And then we have the International Churches of Christ, the Boston Movement. This group began in 1978 with Kip McKean and he embraced most of the main tenets of the historic church and he wanted to teach that this is the only true church and is very high in authority with immense control over members' lives. Okay, the family, children of God, a family children of God. This communal group was founded by David Moses Berg, a strange mixture of basic Christian tenets and almost total sexual license, very controlling and manipulative. Christian Identity Movement, a loose-knit confederation of various small groups that are maliciously anti-government and conspiracy-driven. Each group holds differing, defiant Christian tenets. All hold Caucasians, being the descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel, god's true people. So the Nation of Islam is black Muslims we did talk about that, and that began in 1930s by wd fard, I think, fard group, um. So this group teaches that black man teaches that the black man is good, the white man is the devil and that jesus was merely a prophet, merely a prophet, merely a prophet. Highly controlling group. And then we have the United Pentecostal Church, a highly controlling group that was formed in 1945. This group denies the Trinity and teaches that in order to be saved, one must be baptized in the name of Jesus, only must be baptized in the name of Jesus only.
Speaker 1:All right, you guys. Well, that is all I have on this episode. But I just thought it was really fun to bring back the cult talk and there will be much, much more of this. But I couldn't believe like how many active cults are actually in Michigan and through the Midwest. When I think of like big cults with big followings, I always think of like California, right Anywhere out in the desert. I just always think back to Charles Manson. But thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:And you guys, tune in. And again, you know, you guys can email me at tune in and again, you know, you guys can email me at um ghost sisters 21, 24 at gmail. And we do have this fun new thing on buzzsprout now that is called fan mail. So if you look up buzzsprout I'm sorry, actually, if you just look up strange, strange, beyond insane it will take you to the buzzsprout site too and you can go right into there and you can like text message me from there and I will get it through the app. I would love to hear from you guys. Also, you can find me on TikTok on Facebook. Like I always say, please reach out. I do want to hear everything you have to say. If you have a story that you want me to tell on here, or you just want to give me a suggestion or tell me that an episode sucked or it was great, whichever, I'm always open ears about that. All right, you guys, tune in for some more Talk to you soon.
