John Brennan Crutchley
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John Brennan Crutchley (1946 - March 30, 2002) was a convicted kidnapper and rapist who was suspected of murdering more than 30 women, but was never tried nor convicted of those crimes. He was called the "Vampire Rapist" because he drained the blood of his victim almost to the point of death while he repeatedly sexually assaulted her.
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[edit] Early life and career
Born to a well-to-do family in Pittsburgh, John Crutchley was a friendless child, preferring to spend most of his time tinkering with electronic gadgets at the basement of his home. This penchant for electronics paid off early when he earned a good amount of money repairing and rebuilding complex radio and stereo systems even before he graduated from high school. Eventually he graduated with a bachelor's degree in physics at Defiance College in Ohio in 1970, and earning a master's degree in engineering administration at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He married his first wife in 1969.[1]
Crutchley's first marriage showed strains by the time he graduated from college, and it all but ended by the time he moved to Kokomo, Indiana to work at Delco Electronics Corporation. Crutchley had been working 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, Kokomo, where the systems were designed and built, and worked there for several years as an electrical systems engineer[2]. His departure from Kokomo came after an investigation was made by plant security into missing materials. He later moved to Fairfax County, Virginia in the mid-1970s and remarried, and worked for several high-tech firms in the Washington, D.C. area, including TRW, ICA and Logicon Process Systems. At about this time, several teenaged girls began disappearing in and around that area.
[edit] Disappearances
In 1977, a 25-year old Fairfax secretary, Deborah Fitzjohn, disappeared. Crutchley was placed under close scrutiny because he was Fitzjohn's boyfriend and she was last seen alive at the trailer park where Crutchley lived. As a result, he was questioned several times for his possible involvement in her disappearance. However, nothing came out of it due to lack of evidence, even after her skeletal remains were found by a hunter in October the following year. Other disappearances in the area have not been definitely linked to Crutchley. A rash of disappearances also occurred in Pennsylvania when he resided there (in some cases bodies of women were found in remote areas in the state); some investigators even linked Crutchley with the disappearance of two teenaged girls in Wheaton, Maryland and a possible rape-murder in nearby Aspen Hill, both in Montgomery County, where his second wife's family lived.
According to Robert Ressler[3] Crutchley fit the profile of a serial killer.
[edit] Brief freedom
After serving 11 years of his sentence, Crutchley was released on August 8, 1996 from Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida for the Brevard County Jail on good behavior. Officials in Fairfax County, Virginia, where his mother lived, did not want him, neither did the people in Malabar and Melbourne. Hence he was transferred to the Orlando Probation and Restitution Center, a half-way house where he would undergo counseling and pay restitution even while serving his 50 years in probation.
[edit] Arrested again
Less than a day later, he was arrested again for violating his probation after being tested positive for marijuana. Even though he denied smoking marijuana (saying that inmates blew marijuana smoke in his face), prosecutors in the subsequent trial showed Crutchley telling a corrections inspector that he smoked the substance because he was nervous of his impending release and he thought that the drug would make him relaxed.[4]
This violation of his probation resulted in a sentence of life imprisonment to be imposed on Crutchley on January 31, 1997 under the "three strikes law"[5]
[edit] Death
On March 20, 2002, Crutchley was murdered by a gang of fellow inmates.
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ Monaco, Richard and Bill Burt, The Dracula Syndrome, Avon Books, 1993. ISBN 0-380-77062-8, p. 119
- ^ Development of GM Security Monitoring Systems[1]
- ^ Ressler, Robert and Tom Schactman,Whoever Fights Monsters. St Martin's Press, 1992. ISBN 0-312-95044-6
- ^ "Vampire Rapist" sentenced to life for smoking pot, Associated Press report, February 1, 1997, retrieved 2006 12-24
- ^ This was his third conviction; the first two were for kidnapping and rape.
