John B. Crutchley was convicted and sent to prison for kidnapping and raping a young hitchhiker in 1985. The girl managed to escape, and Crutchley plead guilty to rape. Now, he is a suspect in more than 30 homicides or missing women cases.

John Crutchley, with this terrifying crime earned the nickname of the “Vampire Rapist” – he kidnapped the girl and, while she was tied up, he inserted a hypodermic needle into her arm and attached it to a hose leading to his mouth. On several occasions, while she was bound and gagged in his Malabar home, Crutchley drank her blood. He even poured some into a large glass and gulped it all down. But, it was the crimes for which he never was convicted that caused his nefarious reputation to grow even more sinister.

Even though six driver’s licenses belonging to dead women were found in his desk at work, no murders could ever be linked to Crutchley. The remains investigators are now focusing on were found in Malabar in 1985, along with partial and full skeletal remains of a half-dozen other women. Young women went missing everywhere Crutchley lived, and the disappearances stopped every time he moved away, according to police.

There are dozen or so boxes of case files and evidence collected from Crutchley’s home. Among the items in the boxes are handcuffs he used on the rape victim, a handgun, ropes, homemade sex tapes of he and his wife, dozens of candid photographs of women in public places, a book titled “The Dracula Syndrome,” and an earring.

Crutchley was only a rape suspect initially and was released on bond after his arrest. Some believe he successfully destroyed evidence that would have linked him to the murders while he was free. “It’s not law enforcement’s fault that they only treated it like a rape,” said Crutchley’s former attorney, Joe Mitchell of Melbourne, “Apparently, he would drink their blood until they died. Supposedly he would dismember the bodies and scatter the parts all over the place.”

While Crutchley was working as an engineer in Fairfax County, Va., he was a suspect in the 1977 slaying of his girlfriend. The skeletal remains of 25-year-old Debbie Fitzjohn were found in the woods in 1978. Authorities believe he may have killed women in Virginia, Maryland, Ohio and Washington, D.C., before women started vanishing in Brevard County. He died in prison in 2002 at the age of 55 while practicing autoerotic asphyxiation — suffocating himself during sexual arousal.

-article by John A. Torres, rewritten and adapted by admin-