John Brennan Crutchley

According to Crutchley, his mother was distraught over the loss of her eldest child, Donna June Crutchley (August 17, 1931 – February 2, 1945).

Donna had died during emergency surgery the year before John was born; her cause of death was listed as "circulatory collapse".

When Crutchley was born, his mother was disappointed by his sex because she had intended to have another daughter, so she began dressing him as a girl for the first six years of his life.

In addition to being forced to wear a dress, Crutchley also claimed his parents subjected him to severe child abuse, which included beating him until he lost consciousness and burning his fingers.

Crutchley was a friendless child, preferring to spend most of his time tinkering with electronic gadgets in the basement of his home.

This penchant for electronics paid off early when he earned money repairing and rebuilding complex radio and stereo systems.

John Brennan Crutchley (October 1, 1946 – March 30, 2002) was an American convicted kidnapper, rapist, and possible serial killer who was suspected of murdering up to thirty women but was never tried for nor convicted of murder.

He was called the Vampire Rapist because he drained the blood of his one confirmed victim almost to the point of death while he repeatedly raped her.

John Crutchley was born the youngest of three children into an affluent family in Clarksburg, West Virginia, on October 1, 1946.

His parents were William “Bill” Crutchley Sr. and Mildred Burnside.

He graduated from Upper St. Clair High School in Upper St. Clair Township, Pennsylvania and eventually, Crutchley graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Defiance College in Ohio in 1970, and earned a Master of Engineering degree in Engineering Administration at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He married his first wife in 1969.

Crutchley's first marriage showed strains by the time he graduated from college, and it had all but ended by the time he moved to Kokomo, Indiana, to work at Delco Electronics.

Crutchley had previously worked at General Motors' Central Foundry Division in Defiance, Ohio, where he was responsible for the installation of a new plant security system.

He applied for a transfer to Delco Electronics in Kokomo, where the systems were designed and built, and worked there for several years as an electrical systems engineer.

Crutchley's departure from Kokomo came after an investigation was made by plant security into missing materials.

He later moved to Fairfax County, Virginia, and remarried in the mid-1970s.

He worked for several high-tech firms in the Washington, D.C. area, including TRW, ICA and Logicon Process Systems.

Crutchley later moved to Florida and began working in 1983 at Harris Corporation in Palm Bay.

At the time of his arrest, Crutchley was found to be in possession of a great deal of highly classified information regarding naval weaponry and communications.

The FBI, CIA and naval intelligence considered opening an espionage case against him although they ultimately never did.

Crutchley's employer, Harris Corporation, was highly involved with not only the NASA research and launch facilities at Cape Canaveral, but also with other naval contractors and subcontractors.

Due to the nature of his work, Crutchley also had top-secret security clearance at The Pentagon that gave him access to classified documents.

On the evening of November 22, 1985, in Malabar, Florida, a nude teenaged girl later identified as 19-year-old Laura Murphy, handcuffed at both feet and ankles, was found crawling along the side of the road.

She had been passed by several trucks before a motorist stopped to help her.

She begged the motorist to not take her back "to that house"; when he asked where, she told him to remember a certain house.

He noted the location, took her home, and called for police and an ambulance.

The hospital determined that the victim was missing between 40 and 45 percent of her blood and had ligature marks on her neck.

She had been hitchhiking the day before on November 21 and she claimed that Crutchley had picked her up and was willing to take her to where she needed to go, which was the nearby city of Melbourne, Florida, but said he had to stop off at home first to pick up the notebook he claimed he needed for work.

Once in his driveway, Crutchley invited her in but she refused, at which time he tied a ligature around the teenager's neck, choked her into unconsciousness, and dragged her into his house.

Then, he removed all of the young woman's clothing and strapped her to the counter in his kitchen.

Murphy then awoke to find that she was tied to the kitchen countertop, arms and legs immobilized.

A video camera had been set up, along with lights, presumably so that he could watch the footage later to relive the attack.

Crutchley then raped her and inserted needles into her arm and wrist and carefully extracted blood and began to drink it, telling her that he was a vampire.

Afterward, he handcuffed her and put her in the bathtub, returning later for another round of sexual assault and blood extraction.

The following morning, after a third round, Crutchley handcuffed Murphy and left her in the bathroom, saying that he would be back later for further assaults, and that if she tried to escape in the interim, his brother would come and kill her.

It was after Crutchley had left the house that she was able to push out of the bathroom window and crawl to the road.

A haematologist later stated that she would have died of blood loss within twelve hours if she had not been able to get help.

Murphy was initially too traumatised to file charges against Crutchley, but a rape counsellor was eventually able to persuade her to do so by explaining that if Crutchley was found guilty, it would help stop him from being able to harm more victims.

A search warrant was served for Crutchley, whose wife and child were away for the Thanksgiving holiday visiting relatives in Maryland.

The videotape in the camera was partially erased, which according to the victim would otherwise have contained footage of her rape and the extraction of her blood.