Marcus Wesson: The Horrific History Of The 'Vampire God'
On the afternoon of 12th March 2004, in a rough part of Fresno, California, officers were dispatched to a small blue house at 761 W. Hammond Ave. The call concerned a child custody dispute that had escalated into violence. Among the officers responding was Escareno. Two women, backed by a large group of supporters, were demanding the return of their young children, but the occupants of the house, many in number, refused to comply. Amid the shouting and tension stood a 300-pound man, his long greying dreadlocks reaching down to his knees. While both sides exchanged insults, he remained composed, standing in the doorway and helping the officers to piece together what was happening.
As tempers flared and physical altercations broke out, the man told the police he wanted a moment to say farewell to the children. He went inside, shutting the door behind him. Eighty minutes later, he emerged, his clothes stained with blood. The officers immediately rushed inside the house.
Escareno, 33, saw something that confirmed his growing suspicion that things had taken a horrific turn: coffins stacked against the wall in the living room. He called out for the children, reassuring them that it was now safe to come out. As he advanced down the back hallway, his fellow officers searched the adjacent rooms.
One door led to darkness. Escareno, holding his gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other, swept the weak beam across the room, revealing a vague, indistinct shape on the floor. His hand found the light switch, and as the overhead lights flickered on, the scene became clear.
It resembled a scene straight out of a horror film. A group of bodies lay on the floor, including babies, children, and young women, totaling nine individuals. Blood gathered around them on the floor. The bodies were still warm, prompting Escareno to call for an ambulance. He began checking their wrists for signs of life but found none.
Eloy Escareno, veteran Fresno police officer, had just stumbled onto the biggest mass murder in the city's history, and the tangled case was about to get a lot more gruesome. In the following months, the extent of the household's darkness would be fully exposed as evidence emerged of systematic child abuse, an obsession with vampires, and a deranged father who perverted the Bible to create a harem using his own daughters and nieces.
Standing at the heart of the conflict was Marcus Wesson, a 57-year-old man who measured 5'9". He was the patriarch of the family residing at Hammond Ave. With his pug dog appearance and hair resembling Medusa's tangles, Wesson was a formidable presence, and for good reason.
Subsequent DNA tests promptly uncovered the most shocking revelation about the household: Wesson was the biological father of all nine victims, with seven of them being the offspring of his daughters and nieces through incestuous relationships.
The list of his victims are as follows -
Sebhrenah April Wesson (age 25): Daughter
Elizabeth Breahi Kina Wesson (age 17): Daughter
Illabelle Carrie Wesson (age 8): Daughter/Granddaughter
Aviv Dominique Wesson (age 7): Daughter/Grand-niece
Johnathon St Charles Wesson (age 7): Son/Grand-nephew
Ethan St Laurent Wesson (age 4): Son/Grand-nephew
Marshey St Christopher Wesson (age 1): Son/Grandson
Jeva St Vladensvspry Wesson (age 1): daughter/granddaughter
Sedona Vadra Wesson (age 1): Daughter/Grand-niece
Of those, only the two eldest were born of his wife. The rest were products of incest.
To even try and understand how Wesson — or anyone, for that matter — ends up leading such a twisted existence, it's instructive to examine their childhoods. Wesson had the misfortune of being born to a booze-addled, sexually degenerate father and a mother who was according to press accounts, a Jesus junkie. The two extremes combined perfectly to create the Bible-thumping pervert that would become Marcus Wesson.
Born in Kansas in 1946, the young Marcus followed his family's drift from Missouri, to Indiana, to California, to Washington. Father Benjamin Wesson never held a steady job, and stayed home, drinking and "flirting" with his own children, according to the Fresno Bee. There was abundant evidence that Benjamin Wesson had homosexual inclinations, the paper reported. A childhood acquaintance of the family would later testify that the senior Wesson once paid him $50 as a boy to submit to oral sex. He later ran off with a teenage male relative to San Jose before returning to his wife and family a decade later.
According to a relative's testimony in court, Marcus Wesson's mother, Carrie, who was a Seventh-day Adventist, would regularly teach her children Bible lessons and discipline them by using an electrical cord. During his childhood, Marcus Wesson enjoyed pretending to be a preacher, a hobby he would later develop into a skill, distorting biblical teachings for his own twisted purposes over the years.
Wesson's sexual history reads like a Greek tragedy in which the protagonist is doomed to commit the same atrocities again and again with no hope of redemption. In the 1960s, Marcus Wesson had sex with one woman, years later with her daughter, and decades later with her granddaughters. The tragedy ends with the children conceived with the daughter and granddaughters lying in a bloody puddle on the floor.
After his honourable discharge from the Vietnam War, where he worked as an army medic, Wesson settled in San Jose. There he met and moved in with Rose Solorio, who was 13 years his senior and already the mother of eight children. The two had a son together.
When Solorio's daughter Elizabeth was 14 and Wesson was 27, he impregnated her as well. They got married in 1974, forever sealing Elizabeth's role as subservient child to his domineering adult. The couple had five boys and four girls.
In 1989, Elizabeth's sister Rosemary left her seven sons and daughters at the Wesson home because her drug addiction precluded her from caring for them, according to media reports. The total number of children living in the Wesson household rose to 16.
The family had no consistent income, and the large brood lived off welfare and took shelter where they could find it, alternately dwelling in an army tent, a trailer, and on derelict boats before settling in Fresno. Although his children were frequently reduced to digging through rubbish bins for food, Wesson always had money to buy hamburgers and other fast food, the Fresno Bee reported.
Years later, when she was asked on the witness stand why her husband didn't work, Elizabeth Wesson would reply without a trace of irony: "You can't work when you are on welfare."
Wesson had a dark and malevolent perspective on the world. He thought that society was corrupt and dangerous, so he kept his children isolated to protect them from it. However, ironically, within the walls of their home, the greatest threat they faced was none other than their own father.
Wesson resorted to physical punishment using a stick covered in duct tape or a small baseball bat when his children failed to complete their homework or Bible lessons. They were isolated from having friends and rarely went outside. In situations where they did encounter strangers, they remained silent, giving the false impression of being courteous and mannered when, in reality, they struggled with social interactions. Living in the Fresno residence, Wesson's many children were kept so concealed that most neighbors were unaware of their presence until news of their tragic deaths emerged.
Brainwashed from a young age, the children believed everything Wesson said. They had no sense of what was moral or socially acceptable — all they knew was Wesson's law. He told them he was Jesus Christ, demanded their unwavering obedience, and got it.
At one point during their upbringing, Wesson segregated his household, forbidding even brothers and sisters from associating with each other. According to his warped logic, he believed his children would develop sexual feelings for each other.
At the same time, he groomed his daughters and nieces to serve as his devoted geishas. They attended to his dreadlocks, massaged his armpits and belly, and responded to his every request.
By the time the girls were 8 or 9 years old, Wesson began sexually abusing them. Initially, he touched their breasts and genitals, then proceeded to instruct them in oral sex, eventually leading to full intercourse. Ruby Sanchez later testified in court that he labeled these repeated assaults as "acts of love" and convinced them it was a "fatherly display of affection towards his daughters."
He justified his sickness by reading the girls Bible passages containing references to men with multiple wives.
"God wants a man to have more than one wife," he'd tell them.
Ruby Sanchez would later tell a stunned courtroom that she agreed to "marry" Wesson when he was 44 and she was 13. During a ceremony performed in a bedroom, Sanchez put her child's hand on a Bible and Wesson covered it with his own, making her recite vows that culminated in an "I do." Wesson did the same with his two daughters and another two nieces. He encouraged his child brides to compete for his affection, and they often grew jealous of the private time he spent with their siblings.
Wesson was captivated by David Koresh, the cult leader in Waco, Texas, known for having multiple wives. The family was riveted to the television during the federal siege of the group's compound in 1993, where Koresh and 80 of his followers perished.
"This is how the world is attacking God's people," Wesson told his family, according to the Fresno Bee. "This man is just like me. He is making children for the Lord. That's what we should be doing, making children for the Lord."
Not long after, Wesson started breeding with daughters and nieces. He told them he wanted to have one child with each of them, but he couldn't stop himself and kept impregnating them. The young women viewed themselves as surrogates for Elizabeth Wesson, who could no longer bear children.
Some of the girls still had normal teenage inclinations. Wesson discovered Ruby Sanchez flirting with boys and beat her severely. She ran away three times, but always returned, having nowhere to go and not wanting to leave her child. But when she turned 22, she left for good and got married, according to the Fresno Bee. Her sister, Sofina Solorio, also left. Away from Wesson's pernicious stranglehold, the young women finally realized what it was like to lead a normal life. They became furious when the learned that Wesson continued to impregnate their sisters and cousins, and worried about the welfare of their small children. On that fatal March day, they drove to the Hammond Ave., determined to rescue their kids.
Upon their arrival at the house, the sisters were aware that they were up against a difficult challenge. Marcus Wesson had previously struck a deal with them stating that if they ever decided to leave his residence, they would have to part with their children.
Should Child Services or another government agency attempt to separate the family, Wesson provided his children with disturbing instructions, as later recounted in court by Sofina Solorio.
In case the authorities intervened to take away the children, Wesson instructed his daughters and nieces to first kill their children before taking their own lives. He planned to remain alive to justify their actions to the public. Solorio mentioned that the family held monthly meetings to go over the specifics of the suicide plan, including the method of shooting for a fatal outcome. Shortly after moving into the Fresno residence, Wesson bought 12 mahogany coffins from an antique store.
Perhaps the coffins figured into Wesson's obsession with vampires. The family watched dozens of vampire movies and took vampire middle names. Wesson didn't see any conflict between his belief in a Christian god and vampires because "they are both immortal," according to the Fresno Bee.
The owner of the antique store told the press that a group of somber children loaded the caskets into a yellow school bus. How chilling to think they may have carried the same coffins in which Wesson intended to place their corpses.
Witnesses reported that Ruby Sanchez and Sofina Solorio arrived at the Wesson residence at approximately 2 p.m. on March 12, along with multiple vehicles carrying a group of young individuals.
"I came to get my son," Solorio said, rushing into the house to find 7-year-old Jonathon. She had the boy by the hand and was walking out of the house when her sister Rosa snatched him away and stuck him in the back bedroom with the other children, according to the Fresno Bee. Solorio would never see her son again.
Solorio was pushed from the house and Wesson stationed his massive frame in the doorway to block her from re-entering. Wesson's supporters called the two sisters "whores" and "bitches" and ordered them to leave. Sebhrenah Wesson pointed at her father's feet and told Ruby Sanchez to "bow down to her master" before running into the back bedroom with the children, according to news accounts.
At 2:30, a squad car pulled up. The Wesson household kept a low profile and the police had only visited twice before — once to take a report on a missing license plate, and another time on the theft of a purse from a car.
One of the responding officers would later say he heard a baby crying as he spoke with Marcus Wesson in the doorway. Wesson did not invite the officers inside, and they weren't allowed to enter without a warrant or reasonable fear for public safety. Wesson's preternaturally calm demeanor — as the crowd cursed and jeered around him — lead officers to believe that the patriarch would work with them toward a peaceful resolution.
But then he suddenly turned and ducked into the house, slamming the door behind him.
"He's going to hurt the kids!" the two mothers shouted. One of Wesson's sons told the police he owned a .22-caliber gun, and they called for a SWAT team. The police ordered the crowd to disperse and take cover themselves behind the bus and trees. An enraged woman punched the hood of a patrol car, denting it.
In the following confrontation, multiple witnesses claimed to have heard gunfire coming from inside the residence, as per media accounts. This raised suspicions that the authorities failed to intervene to prevent the tragic event. However, all the officers on site refuted hearing any gunshots, a statement that was strongly backed by their police chief.
The Fresno Bee interviewed several neighbours who contradicted the official account. Maria Leyva, who lived a few houses down from the family, said she heard four gunshots as she was e-mailing her sisters shortly after 3:30 p.m.. She ran to the doorway and heard women screaming "Not my babies! Not my babies!" before returning to her computer to quickly finish her message: "There's been a shooting here in front and apparently there are deaths," she wrote in a missive she showed to the paper.
While in her front garden, Wesson's neighbour heard a series of loud explosions. Although she was unfamiliar with gunfire, she couldn't mistake the anguished cry of a woman amidst the commotion, saying, "It wasn't supposed to happen this way!"
By the time the SWAT team arrived to evacuate the neighbourhood, it was all over. Wesson appeared abruptly in the doorway, his black shirt and pants spattered with blood. As officers grab him, he instructed them to use three handcuffs to encompass his thick wrists. The blood soaking his clothing was enough of a warrant to cause the officers to storm the house, and they rushed through the doorway, calling for the children.
They were quickly located in the rear bedroom. Every person had been shot in the eye and arranged from youngest to oldest. At the top of the stack was Sebhrenah, with a .22-caliber pistol tucked under her arm.
The officers searched under beds and in cabinets for possible survivors, wanting desperately to amend this tragedy. There were none. For all of the officers, March 12, 2004 would become the single most traumatic day of their professional careers; many would seek counseling in an attempt to erase the horrific image of the stacked dead children from their minds.
Once in custody Wesson was detained at the Fresno County jail with a bail set at $9 million. He faced nine murder charges, supported by DNA testing confirming his paternity of the victims through his daughters and nieces. Additionally, he was accused of 14 counts of sexual abuse. Despite the allegations, he pleaded not guilty to all charges.
His wife Elizabeth, daughter Kiani, and niece Rosa Solorio continued to voice their support for him, denying he'd done anything wrong and proclaiming him to be a wonderful husband and father.
His mother Carrie was more ambivalent.
"If Marcus is guilty, I would really feel disappointed in my country if it didn't make him face the penalty," Carrie Wesson told the Los Angeles Times. "But I'm a biblical person too, and I don't believe in capital punishment ... what I would like for Marcus to do is sit in prison and think about what he's done and read the Bible."
In jail, Wesson wrote country-western songs, which he sang for his visitors. In conversations with his family that were secretly recorded, he said he felt electrical currents in his head because God had given him an "angelic brain," the Fresno Bee reported. "I've never seen that, except at the beginning of time, when the angels were mixing with men."
When the case went to trial in June 2005 at the Fresno County Superior Court, the focus of the national media had already moved to another accused pedophile, Michael Jackson.
A parade of 50 witnesses took the stand during Wesson's three-month trial.
His lawyers argued that Sebhrenah shot the children before turning the gun on herself. According to testimony, the young woman was so fond of guns she carried cartridges in her purse and liked to play "Army," painting her face green and black like camouflage.
According to the defense, Sebhrenah held the .22-caliber Ruger Mark II pistol to the eye of each child and squeezed the trigger before killing her sister Elizabeth and her herself. The argument was bolstered by expert testimony saying the sisters died an hour or two after the younger victims.
Although neither the fingerprints of Marcus nor Sebhrenah Wesson were found on the pistol, Sebhrenah's DNA was, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The prosecution rebutted by arguing that Wesson was ultimately guilty of the massacre, because he'd primed his children to kill and be killed.
"In this family, he was Christ himself, the ultimate authority figure who determined life and death," prosecutor Lisa Gamoian told the court. "But for his suicide pact, for his teachings, none of this would have happened."
Rosa Solorio, 23, whose children Ethan, 4, and Sedona, 1, were among the dead, wore the gold wedding ring Wesson gave her on the witness stand, and said she still loved him and considered herself his wife. Her strident support differed from a taped interview she gave Fresno detectives shortly after the slayings, when she admitted her conflicted feelings about Wesson.
"I do love Marcus a lot," she said in the interview. "I understand what he did and everything. But at the same time, it's just that to me, he's my father, and I do not want to be responsible for putting him away. I just don't feel it's right for me to do it."
She told the court that Wesson bought the caskets for their mahogany wood, which he'd planned to use on a renovation project. They could also be used as beds in a pinch, she added with a straight face.
Elizabeth Wesson denied having knowledge of her husband's sexual relations with her daughters and nieces.
"How can I protect them if they didn't tell me? They never told me anything," she told the court.
When the girls' bellies started to swell, she said didn't ask who the fathers were. Her excuse? Her own mother had 10 kids with three different men and her sister had seven children with various men — she considered it "mean and rude" to ask about fathers, she told the courtroom.
While on the witness stand, Elizabeth Wesson glanced at her husband for guidance before speaking, but was reprimanded by Gamoian. She then cried, hiding her face with her hands, while the prosecutor bombarded her with rapid questions, prompting several breaks to help her compose herself.
Gamoian depicted Marcus Wesson as a master manipulator who brainwashed his daughters and nieces into thinking it was normal to have sex with him. He limited their access to education and the outside world until he had complete financial, physical and emotional control over their lives, she said, and convinced them that death was preferable to police interference with the family.
The women's brothers, who were segregated from their sisters at an early age and left home long before the murders, also spoke out about their father in court.
Marcus Wesson, Jr., 22, said he was surprised when his sisters and cousins, who weren't allowed to date, started showing. They told him they got pregnant by artificial insemination, but he thought the whole thing was "weird." When he learned that DNA proved his father sired children with his sisters and cousins, he told the court "that's not right. I don't want that happening."
Adrian Wesson, 29, was also suspicious.
"The (babies) looked like my father," Adrian told the jurors. In particular, they'd inherited Marcus Wesson's distinctive pug nose.
Another son, Dorian, 30, called his father "insane" because he thought he was Jesus Christ and believed in vampires, but also described him as highly intelligent.
Following slightly over 48 hours of deliberation, the jury reached a verdict of guilty for Wesson on nine charges of first-degree murder, along with 14 charges of sexually assaulting and abusing his young nieces and daughters.
The jurors wrestled with the evidence for more than two weeks and ultimately decided that Wesson himself pulled the trigger on at least some of the victims, the Associated Press reported.
While the clerk was reading the verdicts, numerous surviving family members of Wesson held back tears, whereas Wesson himself stayed silent. He was dressed in the identical short-sleeved black shirt that he had worn during the trial, and seemed to have lost half of the 300 pounds he weighed when he was arrested.
As the courtroom emptied, Wesson's relatives rushed from the building and neither the prosecution nor the defense would answer reporters' questions.
A month later, Fresno County Superior Court Judge R.L. Putnam accepted the jury's recommendation for the death penalty. The judge also sentenced Wesson to 102 years in prison for sexually abusing his daughters and nieces.
Kiani Wesson persisted in supporting her father until the very end, holding her cousins responsible for the deaths as they attempted to disrupt the family by taking back their children.
"I am proud of all my family, of the way we were raised," she told the court, her voice breaking.
Wesson's defense team filed a motion asking the judge to grant their client a new trial, or reduce his sentence to life in prison. Putnam denied both requests, stating that the "continued love of him by some family members" was the only leniency Wesson could expect.
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