Showing results by author "Frank Stanfield" in All Categories

The 911 call was harrowing. “I accidentally killed someone. Please!” the man said, his voice rising. “Who?” “My stepmom. My name is Ian Anselmo. Sue-Ellen Anselmo, she’s in the car with me. My dad is going to kill me. I guess I strangled her. I don’t remember doing it. I remember the argument.” The call disintegrated quickly, with the 20-year-old howling and sobbing so pitifully that the dispatcher could not understand what he was saying, except that he was calling from a cemetery.

During his decades-long crime coverage in Central Florida, journalist Frank Stanfield covered every atrocity that man or nature could unleash. Vampires, Gators, and Wackos: A Florida Newspaperman’s Life recounts some of the frequently craven, and at times downright stupid, crimes Stanfield covered during his time in the field. He somehow made it through without winding up more mental than the crackpots he tracked. However, his unvarnished, no-holds-barred account of news events reveals just how crazy-making a case can be when you are dead set on nailing the truth.

Investigators and Central Florida residents were horrified when 16-year-old vampire cult leader Rod Ferrell was arrested and charged with bludgeoning a cult member's parents. When they realized the slain couple's 15-year-old daughter was missing, they feared she was a victim, too. Detectives and journalists swarming over three states soon uncovered a web of blood-drinking occult rituals, illicit sex, wildly dysfunctional families, and spiritual warfare.