In November 1985, 19-year-old Laura Murphy escaped the clutches of a man who had held her captive for over 20 hours, drained nearly half her blood, and recorded the ordeal. That man was John Crutchley, later infamously dubbed the “Vampire Rapist” — a Florida engineer with a double life that concealed his monstrous crimes.
Murphy’s escape exposed a string of horrors that investigators would later suspect connected Crutchley to as many as 24 to 30 disappearances and homicides across multiple states. As reported by the Orlando Sentinel and Oxygen, her survival marked the beginning of one of the most disturbing criminal investigations in Florida’s history.
The Night of Terror with the Vampire Rapist
Murphy was hitchhiking when Crutchley offered her a ride. According to the Los Angeles Times, he convinced her to stop by his Malabar home under the pretense of retrieving a notebook. When she refused to enter, he choked her unconscious and dragged her inside.
She awoke naked, handcuffed, and strapped to a kitchen counter — her ordeal being videotaped. Crutchley raped her repeatedly and used medical syringes to extract her blood, nearly killing her. Roughly 22 hours later, Murphy managed to escape through a window, staggering naked and handcuffed along a Florida roadside until a motorist stopped to help.
