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Speaker 4: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 4: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 4: written about Them, Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every week,
Speaker 4: another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous
Speaker 4: killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 4: journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Speaker 6: Good Evening. This episode of True Murder is brought to
Speaker 6: you by Audible, the world's leading name in digital audio books,
Speaker 6: Audible podcast, dot Slash True Murder. John Crutchley seemed to
Speaker 6: be living the American dream. Good looking and blessed with
Speaker 6: a genius level IQ, he had a prestigious white collar
Speaker 6: job at a prominent government defense contractor where he held
Speaker 6: top security, top secret security clearance, and handle projects for
Speaker 6: Nassau and the Pentagon. To all outward appearances, he was
Speaker 6: a hard working, successful family man with a lavish new house,
Speaker 6: a devoted wife, and a healthy young son. But he
Speaker 6: concealed a hidden side of his personality, a dark secret
Speaker 6: tie to a hunger for blood and the overriding need
Speaker 6: to kill. As one of the most prolific serial killers
Speaker 6: in American history, Crutchley committed at least twelve murders and
Speaker 6: possibly nearly three dozen. His IQ eclipsed ellipsed that of
Speaker 6: Ted Bundy, and his body count may have as well.
Speaker 6: While he stalked the streets hunting his unsuspecting victims, the
Speaker 6: residents of a quiet Florida town slept soundly, oblivious to
Speaker 6: the dark in their midst unaware of the Vampire next Door.
Speaker 6: The book that we're featuring this evening is The Vampire
Speaker 6: next Door, The True Story of the Vampire Rapist, with
Speaker 6: my special guest, journalist and author JT. Hunter and Detective
Speaker 6: Robert Leatherow. Welcome to the program, JT. Hunter and Detective
Speaker 6: Robert Leatherow.
Speaker 7: Thanks Dan, happy to be here. Let me say a
Speaker 7: quick happy early Thanksgiving to the folks back here at home.
Speaker 6: Thanks very much, gentlemen for agreeing to this interview. Congratulations
Speaker 6: on fantastic book, JT. And congratulations on Robert Leatherrell for
Speaker 6: being a dedicated police officer who had the guts to
Speaker 6: be able to follow this thing all the way through. Amazing,
Speaker 6: incredible story. And let's get right to that. Robert Leatherell,
Speaker 6: please tell us your history as a homicide detective or
Speaker 6: as a detective, and not without giving anything away, just
Speaker 6: give us your background and so then we can maybe
Speaker 6: possibly understand a little bit more of your involvement in
Speaker 6: this case.
Speaker 8: Alrighty. I was a police officer altogether for thirty eight years.
Speaker 8: I have a pachelor's degree in Public safety administration. I'm
Speaker 8: a graduate of the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia,
Speaker 8: and I worked close to I guess rough fifty murders
Speaker 8: are better in my career.
Speaker 6: Well, now, JT, how did you come to write this book?
Speaker 6: What was tell us how you came to want and
Speaker 6: feel compelled to write this incredible story the Vampire next Door?
Speaker 8: Well, well, then, my.
Speaker 7: Father actually lived in the area where where John Crutchley
Speaker 7: had moved to in Florida, and he had heard the
Speaker 7: story of of of Crutchley. Uh, And he he told
Speaker 7: me that story one time and gave me the rough
Speaker 7: details about it. And when I heard I thought to myself,
Speaker 7: you know, this is really uh, this is really an
Speaker 7: interesting story, and I really wanted to follow up with it.
Speaker 7: So I started digging into it some more and found
Speaker 7: some old articles on it and was able to get
Speaker 7: in touch with, uh, with with Bob who had worked
Speaker 7: the case extensively.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 7: He had been, you know, the main the case agent
Speaker 7: on on the on the case, and so he was
Speaker 7: intimately familiar with what had occurred in the case and
Speaker 7: was able to talk with him extensively about his experience.
Speaker 7: And the more I learned about it, the more fascinating
Speaker 7: the story became. And really a lot of a lot
Speaker 7: of twists to the story that really make it a
Speaker 7: compelling tale.
Speaker 6: That's an understatement. Uh now, let's just get to I
Speaker 6: love the way you guys, the way you laid out
Speaker 6: this book, and I really like it because it's important
Speaker 6: because there's various ways of people finding out information, but
Speaker 6: it's nice to find out the information just at the
Speaker 6: right time, and that's what this is. Twists and turns,
Speaker 6: but really very surprising, very very very surprising and shocking
Speaker 6: book and very unique. Let's get to nineteen year old
Speaker 6: Christina Alma. Tell us a little bit about her and
Speaker 6: what she was doing in this you know, November of
Speaker 6: nineteen eighty five. Tell us about Christina Alma.
Speaker 7: Okay, Well, she was from California, and she had met
Speaker 7: a guy who had come over there to California and
Speaker 7: had developed some romantic attachment to him, and he ended
Speaker 7: up going back to Florida not too long after that,
Speaker 7: and she d up deciding she wanted to come over
Speaker 7: and visit him, and he his name was Carl von
Speaker 7: Bain and he lived in the Palm Harbor, Florida area,
Speaker 7: which is what brought her over to Florida. And she
Speaker 7: she was nineteen and you know, it's still a young girl,
Speaker 7: and came over and stayed with Carl von Bain and
Speaker 7: his mother and there they had a trailer and a
Speaker 7: mobile home and a h a community there and she, uh,
Speaker 7: she stayed about a week and near the end of
Speaker 7: her time there, about a day or so before she
Speaker 7: was going to return to California. Actually is when she
Speaker 7: unfortunately happened to cross paths with with John Crutchley.
Speaker 6: Now John Crutchley. Before we get into this altered case
Speaker 6: in give us the background on John Crutchley.
Speaker 7: Well, uh, John JB. As he is he liked to
Speaker 7: be called, came from a you know, certainly a middle class,
Speaker 7: upper middle class family background in the in West Virginia.
Speaker 7: His his father was an executive, ended up being an
Speaker 7: executive for a gas company that he worked for is
Speaker 7: pretty much his entire career. And his mother was let
Speaker 7: a stay at home mom essentially. But JB's family had
Speaker 7: some some bad circumstances he He had an older sister
Speaker 7: who died under some very strange circumstances before JB was
Speaker 7: actually born, and his mother never really recover from that,
Speaker 7: and she always wanted another daughter to replace the daughter
Speaker 7: that she had had lost. And actually, for the beginning
Speaker 7: of of JB's life, he was he was treated as
Speaker 7: a girl. He was he was dressed in girl's clothes
Speaker 7: the first four or five years of his life, and
Speaker 7: his mother repeatedly reinforced to him that she had wanted
Speaker 7: a girl, and you know, she she essentially wished that
Speaker 7: he was a girl.
Speaker 8: And I think that.
Speaker 7: That impacted him quite a bit psychologically growing up, as
Speaker 7: you might imagine, and he was a bright kid, he
Speaker 7: had some some troubles focusing in school because of how
Speaker 7: smart he was. It was not easy for him to
Speaker 7: to keep his attention on the matters at hand because
Speaker 7: it was essentially a little too elementary for him. So surprisingly,
Speaker 7: he didn't do great in school, even though he had
Speaker 7: an extremely high IQ. But he did end up earning
Speaker 7: some advanced degrees and became an engineer and worked for
Speaker 7: a large number of computer engineering corporations doing computer programming
Speaker 7: computer engineering, and eventually ended up working for companies that
Speaker 7: worked closely with military parts of the government, including the Pentagon,
Speaker 7: and working in creating communications, computer communications programs and codes
Speaker 7: for the US Navy, where he was put in contact
Speaker 7: with the lot of secret information that he he ended
Speaker 7: up acquiring as well. And he was a like I said,
Speaker 7: he was a very smart guy. He was one of
Speaker 7: the One of the most interesting things I found about
Speaker 7: him is how he was able to inhabit really two
Speaker 7: worlds at the same time. He had his his professional side,
Speaker 7: his white collar side, his his family man sort of
Speaker 7: facade side, and yet he also had this this darker
Speaker 7: side that no one really realized.
Speaker 6: What was his behavior characterized from the people that did
Speaker 6: know him growing up, people that worked with him, Was
Speaker 6: he really noted as an odd person? But or what
Speaker 6: was his behavior depicted as? What was what? How did
Speaker 6: people regard him in terms of his behavior?
Speaker 7: Well, during the course of his working, he he tended
Speaker 7: to be a little bit of a loner at times.
Speaker 7: He was devoted to his work. In that respect, he
Speaker 7: he he did have a a social side, if you will.
Speaker 7: He was charismatic. He was viewed to have some quirks,
Speaker 7: some you know, odd mannerisms. Uh well, for example, one
Speaker 7: thing that was that was talked about was a certain
Speaker 7: way of walking he had that he seemed to instead
Speaker 7: of instead of walking like a normal person might walk,
Speaker 7: he seemed to almost bounce in his step and almost
Speaker 7: as if he was trying to attract attention to himself.
Speaker 7: But he was certainly regarded as a as a smart guy,
Speaker 7: an intelligent guy, certainly in the world of computer programming,
Speaker 7: which was, you know, a newer industry back in the
Speaker 7: seventies and eighties, which is when he was involved in it.
Speaker 7: It was more of an up and coming technology at
Speaker 7: the time.
Speaker 6: You have some fantastic photos in the book, and I
Speaker 6: got to congratulate you to it really harkens back to
Speaker 6: true crime classics and true crime the best of true
Speaker 6: crime in the past, and that might seem shocking to
Speaker 6: some people. But seeing skeletons and other photos in your book.
Speaker 6: But for those that aren't looking at the book right now,
Speaker 6: tell us what how you could described John Crutchley in
Speaker 6: terms of his physical appearance and his was he masculine
Speaker 6: or was he more effeminate? Tell us what did he
Speaker 6: really look like physically?
Speaker 7: Bob might be able to give you some good get
Speaker 7: insight on that, dealing dealing up close with him quite
Speaker 7: a bit, the way the way I was told, and
Speaker 7: the things I've seen, and the footage I've seen of him,
Speaker 7: because of course he he he died before I ever
Speaker 7: got around to writing a book about him, although I
Speaker 7: would have been very interested to have met him and
Speaker 7: sat down with him.
Speaker 6: But he he wasn't.
Speaker 7: He wasn't a big guy.
Speaker 6: He was.
Speaker 7: He was about average size, I think, but he was.
Speaker 7: He was a fairly attractive guy. He had he had
Speaker 7: nice facial features and he I think he he was
Speaker 7: considered attractive by typical women.
Speaker 8: And uh, but he was.
Speaker 7: He wasn't. He wasn't a large, intimidating sort of presence.
Speaker 7: And I think that's part of what aided him in
Speaker 7: the the darker activities he was involved in. Is he
Speaker 7: didn't come across as someone threatening. He didn't see like
Speaker 7: the monster you would imagine. He came across as a
Speaker 7: normal person, a professional person. But as I said, Bob
Speaker 7: might be able to comment on that a little bit more.
Speaker 8: Sure, So what was going to go ahead?
Speaker 6: Impression? Sure, what was your impression when you first saw him?
Speaker 8: What was I mean?
Speaker 6: Again, we talked about no one could really recognize a monster.
Speaker 6: But what was your first impression of what he looked like?
Speaker 6: His stature? Was he imposing guy or not?
Speaker 8: No, he was not imposing, very slight built. I think
Speaker 8: the thing that brought my attention to it was writing
Speaker 8: the beginning. When I met the victim at the hospital,
Speaker 8: the usual question going through all you know, all the
Speaker 8: stuff that we have to go through. I asked her
Speaker 8: for a description and how old was he? And she
Speaker 8: sat there and looked at me and she said, I
Speaker 8: can't tell you. I don't know. If he was twenty
Speaker 8: years I don't know. And I kept I was a
Speaker 8: little annoyed at that. I kept asking her, what do
Speaker 8: you mean, give me an idea. Is he twenty five?
Speaker 8: Was he thirty five? And she would not give me
Speaker 8: an answer. So I don't know. And when we made
Speaker 8: the arrest that night, the team, the homicide team, I
Speaker 8: saw what she was saying. He was very slight built,
Speaker 8: long blonde hair that was all bleached out. He dyed
Speaker 8: his hair, and I felt a lot of very feminine
Speaker 8: features about him.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's kind of what I got from the photo,
Speaker 6: that he was kind of how you describe now talking
Speaker 6: about some of his darker side before we get into
Speaker 6: the what with you and all of us would talk
Speaker 6: about the real dark side. What was his sex life
Speaker 6: characterized by and what was his history in terms of
Speaker 6: relationships with women? Was it a good one or a
Speaker 6: bad one? According to the later research, well, he.
Speaker 7: He became sexually active more when he went off to
Speaker 7: school in college, and he had relationships with a lot
Speaker 7: of different women, and he ended up going down a
Speaker 7: line where he became much more experimental with the sexual
Speaker 7: interests his sexual activities as he went along, and particularly
Speaker 7: I believe when he moved to the Washington, DC area,
Speaker 7: he became involved with a group there. I believe that
Speaker 7: really did a lot of I guess I would say,
Speaker 7: more kinky sexual activities. And in fact, that's when he
Speaker 7: met one of the nurses that he dated. He dated
Speaker 7: a lot of nurses for some reason that he himself
Speaker 7: didn't seem like. He quite understood that one of these
Speaker 7: nurses was well versed in bamphorism for lack of a
Speaker 7: better word. She introduced him to the practice of withdrawing,
Speaker 7: taking blood from another person and drinking it, and that
Speaker 7: became incorporated into his sexual repertoire. So to speak, and
Speaker 7: that became something that he became heavily involved in and
Speaker 7: continued that through his second marriage. He married earlier in
Speaker 7: his life and his first wife, mad Motes was her name.
Speaker 7: She told investigators about how he would get violent in
Speaker 7: their sexual time times together. In particular, he enjoyed choking
Speaker 7: her and it was something he did repeatedly, and it
Speaker 7: continued throughout the rest of his wife really until he
Speaker 7: was caught and put behind bars. But he had a
Speaker 7: lot of more deviant practices involved in his sexual background.
Speaker 6: Now it was the vamporism. Was that confined to people
Speaker 6: he would he would meet online outside of a relationship
Speaker 6: or did he in the relationship that he was in
Speaker 6: because he was promiscuous guy, was he able to was
Speaker 6: he practicing vamporism in the steady relationship and these other
Speaker 6: outside relationships as well well.
Speaker 7: He claimed that he had been taking blood from his wife,
Speaker 7: his second wife, and had been doing that. I think
Speaker 7: he said about one hundred times or hundreds of times.
Speaker 6: So there was.
Speaker 7: Certainly that was certainly an element of his his legitimate relationships,
Speaker 7: and it became clear that this was an element that
Speaker 7: was involved in his criminal activity as well, including with
Speaker 7: Christina Alma, who we talked about a.
Speaker 6: Little bit before. Now with Christina Alma. She goes for
Speaker 6: a walk. She's looking to see her opt to meet
Speaker 6: her boyfriend, Bondaine, and she walking outside this mobile park.
Speaker 6: It's November twenty first, nineteen eighty five. This is an
Speaker 6: innocent woman. She still hasn't lost her virginity. She as
Speaker 6: you describe in your book. She's listening to Madonna's Like
Speaker 6: the Virgin album and she's a small young girl. And
Speaker 6: she goes out for a walk. Take it from there.
Speaker 6: Who does she meet and what does the encounter result?
Speaker 7: Well, she was walking along the road outside of the community.
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Speaker 7: Crutchley. John Crutchley happened to be driving home from work
Speaker 7: and during I believe it was during his lunch hour,
Speaker 7: and came across her spot her and this was a
Speaker 7: apparently this was a way that he came across a
Speaker 7: lot of his victims. He saw them along the roadsides
Speaker 7: walking alone or hitchhiking, and he saw her walking and
Speaker 7: offered her ride. It was there was a little bit
Speaker 7: of rain, and he offered her a ride. And you know,
Speaker 7: as I said, he didn't look like a threatening type
Speaker 7: of person. He looked like a nice guy. He acted
Speaker 7: like a nice guy, and she accepted the ride. And
Speaker 7: that's when the that's really when her nightmare started.
Speaker 2: He he.
Speaker 7: Chatted with her pleasantly for a while and said, Hey,
Speaker 7: I need to stop by my house because I need
Speaker 7: to pick up a notebook I left that I needed
Speaker 7: for work. And she said, oh, okay, you know that's fine,
Speaker 7: and they stopped at the house. He got out to
Speaker 7: go proportally to go find the notebook to go inside.
Speaker 7: Just before he went in the house, he asked her
Speaker 7: if she wanted to come in, you know, offered her
Speaker 7: a drink or something, and she declined.
Speaker 6: She said, no.
Speaker 7: You know, basically I need to I need to go
Speaker 7: get to where I was going. You know, my friends
Speaker 7: are going to be worried about me, that sort of thing.
Speaker 7: And he went in the house and came back out
Speaker 7: a little while later and said he couldn't find it.
Speaker 7: It must be in the car. So he walks over
Speaker 7: to the car, which she's still she's still sitting in
Speaker 7: the passenger seat at this point, and he gets behind
Speaker 7: her in the car and just all of a sudden,
Speaker 7: he pushes the seat forward that she's sitting in with
Speaker 7: such force that she goes flying forward and hits her
Speaker 7: head in the dashboard essentially, and he ends up with
Speaker 7: a rope around her neck and chokes her out, drags
Speaker 7: her into the house, and the next thing she knows
Speaker 7: she wakes up, she's tied down on a on a
Speaker 7: countertop table with a rope and he's standing next to her,
Speaker 7: naked except for a necklace with a pendant on it.
Speaker 6: And that's when.
Speaker 7: That's when the really really bad stuff again.
Speaker 6: Now I want to ask you, Roberts, at this point, yes,
Speaker 6: in nineteen eighty five, did John Crutchley ever come to
Speaker 6: the attention of your office or any police agency, And
Speaker 6: if so, what were those charges?
Speaker 8: No, we hadn't, weren't even where he was in our area.
Speaker 8: Nothing in the state of Florida. It's all I know
Speaker 8: is as we go along, you'll probably get into it.
Speaker 8: He had a problem with the Virginia authorities and after
Speaker 8: later on, that's when we contacted Virginia once we made
Speaker 8: the arrest and everything. If that answers your question properly, yes.
Speaker 6: It does, Thank you. Now you were talking about what
Speaker 6: was next in store for Christina Alma. What is really
Speaker 6: in store which makes it unique? And we talk about
Speaker 6: the vampire what what did she discover when she woke up?
Speaker 6: And was he in that position to blood let at
Speaker 6: that time or tell us tell us about that component
Speaker 6: of this unique torturous behavior.
Speaker 7: Well, she was held there captive in his house for
Speaker 7: I'm gonna say around twenty hours or so approximately, and
Speaker 7: during that throughout that time, she was raped a number
Speaker 7: on a number of occasions. And as a part of
Speaker 7: that sexual assault process, he also drained her blood several
Speaker 7: times throughout that time period and drank it in front
Speaker 7: of her.
Speaker 8: And he used.
Speaker 7: Presumably he used the method that he was taught by
Speaker 7: his his nurse acquaintance from the Easy area and he
Speaker 7: used used surgical eels and tubing to drain the blood
Speaker 7: out of her different parts of her body, both of
Speaker 7: her arms and also I believe her legs, and essentially
Speaker 7: drained it into a glass container like a beaker and
Speaker 7: drink it. And when she asked him what he was doing,
Speaker 7: he told her that he was drinking her blood and
Speaker 7: that he was a vampire.
Speaker 6: Now, what was the result in terms of her health
Speaker 6: immediately from taking a certain amount of blood and how
Speaker 6: much blood did he actually take at that time?
Speaker 7: But during the course of the entire ordeal, he ended
Speaker 7: up draining one of her body's blood volume, I believe,
Speaker 7: and it was such a such a large volume of
Speaker 7: blood that had she not received medical attention when she did,
Speaker 7: she would have she would have died very soon. And
Speaker 7: she was fortunate to get that medical attention because she did.
Speaker 7: She did ultimately escape from his house where he was
Speaker 7: where he was keeping her through some very fortuitous circumstances.
Speaker 7: But he did drain a large volume of her blood,
Speaker 7: and it turned out that he had become quite familiar
Speaker 7: with the amount of blood that could be withdrawn from
Speaker 7: from a human. You know, she getting to the point
Speaker 7: where it became life threatening. So he knew what he
Speaker 7: was doing, He knew how much he could take her
Speaker 7: take from a person, did he did.
Speaker 6: They have conversations in this twenty hours where she was
Speaker 6: lucid enough to understand and had some I guess significant
Speaker 6: questions for him. What was the exchange like in many
Speaker 6: of those hours, What kind of facts were gained by
Speaker 6: her or what was said?
Speaker 7: Well, you know, she was, as you can imagine, she
Speaker 7: was terrified, and she asked him what he was doing
Speaker 7: at times, and you know, why he was doing it
Speaker 7: to her. And she noticed that he had a video
Speaker 7: camera set up and it was recording what was going on,
Speaker 7: and she asked him about that, why he was doing that,
Speaker 7: and he made some comment to the extent that, you know,
Speaker 7: it's not nothing you need to worry about. This is
Speaker 7: just something for my own personal youth. You know, I
Speaker 7: do this for for everyone that's in your situation, implying
Speaker 7: that he had done this with with other women.
Speaker 6: As well, other girls as well.
Speaker 8: And there was.
Speaker 7: There was a you know, as you as you might imagine,
Speaker 7: there was a there was some some superficial sort of
Speaker 7: banter back and forth just to try to get him
Speaker 7: to see her as not just some victim to do
Speaker 7: what he wanted to do, but you know, as a person.
Speaker 7: And he at one point said that he wasn't supposed
Speaker 7: to do this, but he was getting.
Speaker 6: Attached to her.
Speaker 7: It was something he wasn't supposed to be doing because
Speaker 7: his his mo was to treat his victims as really
Speaker 7: as objects, not as people. And you know, associated with
Speaker 7: that was a lack of any sort of empathy or
Speaker 7: emotional attachment to them. But apparently in this case, for
Speaker 7: whatever reason, he had mentioned that he felt like he
Speaker 7: was becoming attached to her.
Speaker 6: Now, what kind of changes are happening in that twenty
Speaker 6: hours in terms of her health? Like you had alluded
Speaker 6: that he understood how much blood he could take out
Speaker 6: of someone, but he also knew how much blood he
Speaker 6: could take out of someone, and the purpose of that
Speaker 6: was to immobilize them. So what happened in this regard
Speaker 6: she's young, she's healthy. What happens is she less susceptible,
Speaker 6: she's stronger. What happens here, that's a little different.
Speaker 7: Yeah, as best I could tell that it was a
Speaker 7: combination of her youth and being a particularly healthy young
Speaker 7: girl that she was able to still function at a
Speaker 7: level to that enabled her to ultimately escape. He ended
Speaker 7: up after draining her blood several times, after having raped
Speaker 7: her a number of times, he had put her in
Speaker 7: a bathtub and she was handcuffed, she had shackles on,
Speaker 7: and he left her there.
Speaker 6: He had to get why a basstub though, why a bathtub?
Speaker 7: Well, it seems like it would be serve several purposes,
Speaker 7: one of which would be easily disposable of the body
Speaker 7: after she.
Speaker 8: Expired.
Speaker 7: Which seemed to be the way he went about doing
Speaker 7: this was he would have the the victim, the girl,
Speaker 7: at such a point where she was on her way out,
Speaker 7: close to death, and would have him in the bathtub,
Speaker 7: and then once they were dead, it would make disposal
Speaker 7: much easier as far as dismemberment of the body. The
Speaker 7: blood easily drained down down the bathtub drain. So he
Speaker 7: had her in there and she was fortunately able to
Speaker 7: get her get herself up out of the bathtub and
Speaker 7: get out of the bathroom through a bathroom window that
Speaker 7: it just happened to have a malfunctioning lock on it.
Speaker 7: There were two locks on the window. It was one
Speaker 7: of those type of windows where you have to push
Speaker 7: in the the two lock pieces on each end of
Speaker 7: the window at the same time, and one of them
Speaker 7: was not working rather than was broken. And that's how
Speaker 7: she was able to get out of the out of
Speaker 7: the bathroom. Otherwise she never would have got out of
Speaker 7: there because she was handcuffed, And if she had had
Speaker 7: to do both of those pieces at the same time,
Speaker 7: she would not have been able to do that with
Speaker 7: the handcuffs, and she never would have got out of there.
Speaker 7: And we want to be talking about the story today
Speaker 7: because that's the only reason the story ever came to
Speaker 7: light is because she was able to escape.
Speaker 6: Now what was her state? Was she clothed, the half clothed,
Speaker 6: the half half? Was she stark, raving mad? And where
Speaker 6: did she run to? And who was a rescuer?
Speaker 7: Now she didn't she was completely unclothed. She grabbed a
Speaker 7: towel in the bathroom on her way out.
Speaker 6: She had to.
Speaker 7: Force herself through the window. It was you know, it
Speaker 7: wasn't a large window. She had to squeeze herself through
Speaker 7: it and had grabbed a towel on the way and
Speaker 7: dropped out the window onto the ground outside and stumbled
Speaker 7: through the through the yard at the house there and
Speaker 7: made her way up through a swale, very over an
Speaker 7: overgrown swale, and made her way eventually onto one of
Speaker 7: the one of the roads, one of the dirt roads
Speaker 7: near the house there, and was making her way as
Speaker 7: best she could, considering her her state and the fact
Speaker 7: that she was handcuffed and had shackles on her leg.
Speaker 7: She was making her way down the road the best
Speaker 7: she could, stumbling down the road essentially, and she had
Speaker 7: had the tiel draped around her, and that was really it.
Speaker 7: And one truck approached her and kept going apparently had
Speaker 7: to two women in it, and they kind of looked
Speaker 7: at her and just kept going going for whatever reason.
Speaker 7: And eventually another truck came and it had a guy
Speaker 7: in it that lived in the area, not too far away,
Speaker 7: a few houses down. And at first he wasn't going
Speaker 7: to stop either. He thought that she was just some
Speaker 7: kid playing some sort of strange game or maybe doing
Speaker 7: some kind of prank, so he wasn't going to stop
Speaker 7: at first either. But something about her made him stop.
Speaker 7: Something something in her face, the look in her face
Speaker 7: made him stop, and he stopped and you know, asked her,
Speaker 7: you know what's going on? He's playing around, and she
Speaker 7: told him no. She told him that she had been
Speaker 7: held captives and that what was going on. So he
Speaker 7: helped her in the in the truck and took her
Speaker 7: to his house and called to call the authorities. And
Speaker 7: on the way to his house, when she was in
Speaker 7: the car, as he started driving, she pointed at at
Speaker 7: the house she had managed to escape from and said,
Speaker 7: remember that house, Remember that house, and that's how that's
Speaker 7: how he was found ultimately found.
Speaker 6: Now, Detective Robert Leatherow, tell us take it from here
Speaker 6: in terms of the contact with police and when you
Speaker 6: actually came in contact with this woman and this case,
Speaker 6: and tell us you're just tell us take the police
Speaker 6: information from here. How did the police respond and the
Speaker 6: search warrant and John Crutchley and the home, and proceed
Speaker 6: from here, please, Okay, Well it started.
Speaker 8: I was out all night on another case and I
Speaker 8: had just left at the hospital and I got back
Speaker 8: home and my pager went off to respond back to
Speaker 8: the hospital, and my supervisor at that time informed that
Speaker 8: this party had lost a lot of blood and he
Speaker 8: needed me to respond to the hospital. I responded up
Speaker 8: to Holmes Hospital and upon getting there, I was surrounded
Speaker 8: by the nurses and one of the doctors doctor's stern.
Speaker 8: They were glad to see me. I walked in and
Speaker 8: wasn't sure what was going on, and they told me
Speaker 8: about this basic real quick. The girl is almost going
Speaker 8: to die from loss of blood from exposure, and I
Speaker 8: had her put into a private room. There was a
Speaker 8: girl there, a lady Audrey mcgregan from Cassa. She's the
Speaker 8: one who called our department. Our people got there first,
Speaker 8: and the victim she really didn't want to say anything.
Speaker 8: She was kind of nervous upset, and the lady against
Speaker 8: rape got there and demanded that we send somebody there,
Speaker 8: and that's what I got sent In there. I started
Speaker 8: to interview the girl, and the hospital staff had cut
Speaker 8: the ackles and handcuffs after and the towel they was
Speaker 8: laying in the corner. I think within fifteen minutes, I
Speaker 8: put my tape recorder on and started talking to her,
Speaker 8: swore her in and within ten minutes I stopped the
Speaker 8: tape and I knew what was going on. I excused
Speaker 8: myself for momentarily. I called my supervisors and advised them,
Speaker 8: and from there we set people to the house to watch.
Speaker 6: The house.
Speaker 8: People went to the party had picked them Up's house
Speaker 8: to interview mister Harper. I spent a few hours at
Speaker 8: the hospital interviewing the victim, then the doctors to see
Speaker 8: what the chances were, and at that time they weren't
Speaker 8: sure she was going to make it through the night.
Speaker 8: They were concerned such a great loss of blood that
Speaker 8: she might expire during the night. And from there, within
Speaker 8: about four or five hours, I responded to our precinct
Speaker 8: and I wrote the search warrant and the affidavit for
Speaker 8: the search warn't we were assisted with. Of course, the
Speaker 8: state attorney came down to assist me with my affidavit,
Speaker 8: and that evening I responded to Judge Johnson's house probably
Speaker 8: about midnight to get the search once signed, and approximately
Speaker 8: two thirty seven on the twenty third, the homicide team
Speaker 8: with our road patrol surround the house and made the
Speaker 8: arrest of mister Crutchley at that time and then we
Speaker 8: from then on we sat down in his kitchen and
Speaker 8: we did an interview with him, and he was very
Speaker 8: outgoing with us. He wanted to explain everything to us
Speaker 8: of what was going on, and he couldn't understand. He
Speaker 8: kept saying that this girl was a willing participant in
Speaker 8: the whole thing, which we knew was not correct. But
Speaker 8: we took statements from him, sworn statements, and we removed
Speaker 8: our crime scene people, took a lot of evidence out
Speaker 8: of the house, and we removed him from his house
Speaker 8: probably the following morning, and he was taken to our
Speaker 8: county jail and placed under arrest by myself in the team.
Speaker 6: And what were the.
Speaker 8: What were you?
Speaker 6: What were all the charges involved with kidnapping abduction? Tell
Speaker 6: us the various charges he was he was he had?
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, we had kidnapping, sexual battery, and numosexual battery.
Speaker 8: We even did charge him with the taking of the
Speaker 8: human blood, theft of blood, and uh, we found some
Speaker 8: different narcotics in the house and we charged them with that. Uh.
Speaker 8: The theft of blood, of course, was gone away with
Speaker 8: later on before he pled guilty to the all of
Speaker 8: the charges.
Speaker 6: Now for JT. How does the media respond to this,
Speaker 6: the knowledge about this blood letting, this vampire and or
Speaker 6: how does the media portray this story? And are the
Speaker 6: interested in it?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was certainly took on a life of its
Speaker 7: own in the media. He came to be known as
Speaker 7: the vampire rapist, and the blood taking became a big
Speaker 7: popular topic in the media. It was it was picked
Speaker 7: up not just locally but statewide when national ended up
Speaker 7: in even international coverage, and was was was followed very
Speaker 7: very closely and crutchly like like is not uncommon with these.
Speaker 6: Sort of.
Speaker 7: Criminals. Became very enamored with his own fame in the media.
Speaker 7: He he followed the stories about himself and he enjoyed it,
Speaker 7: and it was it was something that that he he liked.
Speaker 7: He even jokingly referred to himself as Count Malibaruh he
Speaker 7: lived in Malibar, Florida, so he called himself Counting Alibar.
Speaker 7: And he he really, he really enjoyed the media coverage.
Speaker 7: It was the the narcissistic side of himself coming out,
Speaker 7: which and something a trait he shared with some some
Speaker 7: of the more famous serial killers, like like like Bundy.
Speaker 6: Now we're getting a little head, so we'll get back
Speaker 6: to Robert Leatherow and and how police proceed when they
Speaker 6: when they have him and they have the description of
Speaker 6: this crime, Robert, what did the police do in terms
Speaker 6: of the possibility he may have been tied to other
Speaker 6: rapes and so what's how does that investigation go in
Speaker 6: terms of past crimes potential.
Speaker 8: Well, as I said, you know, we took numerous amount
Speaker 8: of evidence out of the house, a lot of different
Speaker 8: female driver's licenses, are ID cards, a lot of necklaces
Speaker 8: and chains. And then that was in November. Now, in
Speaker 8: January he was indicted by our grand jury and at
Speaker 8: that time I could not write a search one for
Speaker 8: the Harris Corporation where he worked. And in January, once
Speaker 8: the indictment came down, I was allowed to go into
Speaker 8: the building with my partner with security and we went
Speaker 8: into his office and that's when we came upon a
Speaker 8: lot of stuff. The security people were emptying out his
Speaker 8: desk and everything because he was being relieved from working there.
Speaker 8: And at that time I found a lot of evidence
Speaker 8: of females and pictures of females, and a lot of
Speaker 8: heavy bondage ropes and chains three five file course, about
Speaker 8: seventy of them with ladies, females, names and addresses, their
Speaker 8: sexual preferences, their stores. And in the desk I found
Speaker 8: an opaque envelope that security pulled it out. It was
Speaker 8: a picture of one of my victims and a couple
Speaker 8: of her children, Patty Velanski, and we have never found
Speaker 8: her body. Yet to this day. And at that time
Speaker 8: we found a calling card from a Fairfax County a
Speaker 8: detective Detective fed Fife and beat in police work for
Speaker 8: so long, it's unusual to get hold of somebody right away.
Speaker 8: I asked to use the phone. They put me to
Speaker 8: another room and I called Fairfax County detective, asked for
Speaker 8: the homicide squad, asked for Detective Fife, and I got
Speaker 8: on the phone with Detective Fife and told him what
Speaker 8: I had and what I was doing, and he knew
Speaker 8: John Crutch the right a way. He was a suspect
Speaker 8: in a homicide up in Fairfax, Virginia with a secretary
Speaker 8: that worked for John. Found about a year later. The
Speaker 8: sculptor remained out of the wooded area and detective Wife
Speaker 8: and I conversed back and forth. He flew down with
Speaker 8: another detective from Fairfax, Virginia, came down to a few
Speaker 8: our crime scene and vice versa. We went up there
Speaker 8: and as I said, they had one victim up there.
Speaker 8: There was a few other ones that were possible when
Speaker 8: John was living there, but one was his secretary at
Speaker 8: work and they were dating or going out together, and
Speaker 8: he was the last person to see her. She disappeared.
Speaker 8: He wasn't home when the detectives went to the house
Speaker 8: when her grandmother reported her missing, and a few days
Speaker 8: later John showed back up at his trailer. Fairfax County
Speaker 8: was there to interview him, and he denied everything, and
Speaker 8: unknown to him that they had asked him to take
Speaker 8: a polygraph test at that time. He said yes, and
Speaker 8: then he got real nervous about taking it, but he
Speaker 8: did take it eventually a couple weeks later, and he
Speaker 8: wasn't aware of it, but he failed the polygraph test
Speaker 8: recording the w Fitch John. So we had a connection
Speaker 8: with Fairfax County, and there was a lot of other
Speaker 8: females in that area that we're missing, and the only
Speaker 8: one that we could put him together was with w.
Speaker 8: Fitch John because she had worked with him. I hope
Speaker 8: that answers your question.
Speaker 6: Yes, it does. Now with the impending trial with Christina Alma,
Speaker 6: how does that proceed in terms of does he does
Speaker 6: he have the means to get a really good lawyer
Speaker 6: or is it a public defender? And how does it
Speaker 6: what's their sort of defense? Tell us a little bit
Speaker 6: about at least the beginning of the trial.
Speaker 8: You're asking me that or you want to yes, JT
Speaker 8: to answer that no, Robert, Yeah, well, okay, he hired
Speaker 8: an attorney. They had the means. They hired an attorney
Speaker 8: from our aria here that represent him, and the beginning
Speaker 8: of the trial didn't last too long. I Robert Wrestler
Speaker 8: from the FBI was who I was mentored by, was
Speaker 8: down on our trial assisted us. I had gone to
Speaker 8: behavioral Science to show them in this case file and
Speaker 8: they were assisting us on the case. And when if
Speaker 8: trial first started, he had his attorney and our district attorney,
Speaker 8: Norm Wolfinger had handled the case and probably the first
Speaker 8: couple hours of the case and they came in with
Speaker 8: a guilty plead. John decided to plead guilty, and he
Speaker 8: was sentenced to twenty five years in prison and he
Speaker 8: got out in ten years with good behavior.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I could if I could kind of kind of
Speaker 7: add on there. Yeah, the kind of the reasoning for
Speaker 7: why Crutchley decided to lead guilty, he was he was
Speaker 7: confronted with the evidence that the investigators said had put
Speaker 7: together on him. There was a number of bodies that
Speaker 7: had been skeletal remains that had been recovered in the
Speaker 7: in the Bervard County area. And he was confronted with
Speaker 7: evidence of those crimes and also.
Speaker 5: Of the.
Speaker 7: Case with Christina Alma, obviously, and he decided that he
Speaker 7: might be in jeopardy, and so he wanted to avoid
Speaker 7: facing a death sentence. So he wanted to plead guilty
Speaker 7: to try to avoid some of those other crimes being
Speaker 7: further investigated or further developed and further linked to him.
Speaker 7: So I think that's a big reason why he decided
Speaker 7: to plead guilty in that Christina alm the Cave.
Speaker 6: What I found fascinating about the book too, JT, is
Speaker 6: that and Robert Leatherhow's involvement with Robert K. Wrestler, the
Speaker 6: famous Robert K. Wrestler, That Wrestler had a real strategy
Speaker 6: and he really did work hand in hand with him
Speaker 6: to come up with a strategy. And so tell us
Speaker 6: a little bit about the the bones in the box
Speaker 6: and the and the names on the cabinet and the
Speaker 6: whole thing with the low lighting that was staged, if
Speaker 6: you like, Robert or JT, could you tell us about
Speaker 6: that scenario that was advised by Wrestler and what did
Speaker 6: he suggest, And tell us a little bit about that scene.
Speaker 8: You want me to do? Okay, I'll give it my
Speaker 8: best shot. As I said, I had gone through the
Speaker 8: FBI National Academy, and Robert Wrestler was He was one
Speaker 8: of our instructors at the class, and John Douglas and
Speaker 8: him himself became very involved with us. And when we
Speaker 8: got onto the case and our training there was we
Speaker 8: talked about how to interview suspects, and when this case
Speaker 8: came up, and when Robert Wrestler came down to assist
Speaker 8: us on the case, he recommended that we and I've
Speaker 8: done this in other murder cases, we bring him into
Speaker 8: a very nondescript room, file cabinets with names of the
Speaker 8: victims on it, boxes with the crime scene bones in him.
Speaker 8: And I wasn't there. I was in Quantico at the
Speaker 8: time when this came on. We brought him over. The
Speaker 8: other agents brought him over from the jail to the
Speaker 8: homicide office. And usually with the low lighting you get
Speaker 8: them in a room like that, they get very very
Speaker 8: nervous when they see it, well the fact, well the
Speaker 8: information we had sitting there, and they as JT said,
Speaker 8: he want to avoid the death penalty, which they all do,
Speaker 8: and he got real nervous and he wouldn't even go
Speaker 8: into the room. He starts screaming, yelling that the room
Speaker 8: was evil and he didn't want to be in there whatsoever,
Speaker 8: and they had to take him back. But that was
Speaker 8: part of the training. I've done that in other murder cases,
Speaker 8: where we bring people into a nondescript room and sit
Speaker 8: there and have file cabinets and maps and pin maps
Speaker 8: where the bodies are, and it works. I hope that
Speaker 8: answer your question, sir.
Speaker 6: Yes, well, in the book it's and from the information
Speaker 6: you've given him, is that betrayal of that scene and
Speaker 6: what it does to crutch Lee and then a wrestler
Speaker 6: coming in and saying, listen, I think we should do
Speaker 6: it and do it this way and say these things
Speaker 6: to him. So it's brilliant and it's amazing that the
Speaker 6: axis that you have gives us this unique window to
Speaker 6: be able to see this. Now, maybe you can tell
Speaker 6: us Robert too. And then I thought this was the
Speaker 6: most disappointing situation in this entire book, the ability to
Speaker 6: find out information about loved ones that were other victims
Speaker 6: that were killed, tell us about what happened to this
Speaker 6: potential prelea agreement that even his lawyer, Joe Mitchell that
Speaker 6: Krutchley's layer, Joe Mitchell, was trying to facilitate on behalf
Speaker 6: apparently according to him, for John Crutchley to be able
Speaker 6: to admit the twelve murders. Tell us about this plea agreement?
Speaker 6: What happened to kywash this thing?
Speaker 8: Well, sir, it's a very touchy question.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 8: If I answer it probably won't go overwrite JT. You
Speaker 8: want to handle that please?
Speaker 6: Sure?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Dan.
Speaker 7: What had happened with that is there was there was
Speaker 7: an individual in charge of the homicide there, and he
Speaker 7: was he had a certain way he liked to handle cases,
Speaker 7: and he wasn't big on degree into deals in these
Speaker 7: sort of circumstances, and he decided that he would rather
Speaker 7: have his men, have his detectives work the case, work
Speaker 7: the case up, find the evidence themselves, and then be
Speaker 7: able to go after Crutchley. However, they wanted to, you know,
Speaker 7: give him any the full extent of the law, bring
Speaker 7: the full extent of the law to bear on him
Speaker 7: if he will. And so it was this individual decided
Speaker 7: that they would not deal with him, that they would
Speaker 7: not accept any sort of plea, and he voiced that
Speaker 7: strongly to the state attorney, and it was decided that
Speaker 7: they would not enter into this deal with even though
Speaker 7: he was willing to give up a large number of
Speaker 7: his victims, including leading investigators to the burial sites, which
Speaker 7: would have provided a lot of closure for a lot
Speaker 7: of the families of these victims. But it was decided
Speaker 7: at the time that that was not the way to go,
Speaker 7: that they would build up the case on their own,
Speaker 7: and that was the decision that was made. And whether
Speaker 7: it was the right decision or not hindsight, you know,
Speaker 7: you can play money money Monday morning quarterback, of course,
Speaker 7: but it certainly if the deal had been made, there
Speaker 7: would have been a.
Speaker 6: Lot more.
Speaker 7: A lot more closure for a lot more people.
Speaker 6: Robert, in cases like this, often, well maybe is it
Speaker 6: is it often prosecutors will go to the to some
Speaker 6: of the family or consult some victims on this kind
Speaker 6: of agreement being done or not done.
Speaker 8: Yes, that happens a lot. Don't forget I'm trying to
Speaker 8: avoid something here, Dan. The whole thing was was a
Speaker 8: real hot thing right then and there, and a lot
Speaker 8: of the people, a lot of even the supervisors. It
Speaker 8: was a very hot item right now in our county.
Speaker 8: Here we had uncovered about four bodies prior to mister
Speaker 8: Crutchley's arrest. Skeleton remains in a wooded area. So this
Speaker 8: was pretty hot in our press here. The news media
Speaker 8: was on it, real heavy, hot and heavy, and things
Speaker 8: were just handled wrong. I'm trying to avoid telling you
Speaker 8: just how I feel.
Speaker 6: Sure, I get I get what you're saying. No, no problem,
Speaker 6: I understand.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 6: What's interesting too, is that I come from super liberal Canada,
Speaker 6: where nobody does life sentence. There's no such thing in reality,
Speaker 6: but a twenty five year sentence, how does it really
Speaker 6: get down to ten years? And realizing that he gets
Speaker 6: the ten he's out in ten years, it's very interesting
Speaker 6: to see the concerted effort to try to keep him
Speaker 6: in prison. So, and that's very important part of this story.
Speaker 6: So tell us how on earth you can get from
Speaker 6: twenty five years to ten years without a parole? Is that?
Speaker 6: How does that work?
Speaker 8: Back then? Our laws were a lot differently back in
Speaker 8: eighty five compared to what they are now. And yeah,
Speaker 8: he was a little over ten years that he got there.
Speaker 8: I just don't know how that all worked. I was
Speaker 8: taken back on it, but it worked for the best.
Speaker 8: I guess it was meant to be he come out,
Speaker 8: as you know in the book there, he came out.
Speaker 8: He was out one day and he failed the urine
Speaker 8: test the smoke of marijuana. He admitted to it, and
Speaker 8: we went back to court on that. He went back
Speaker 8: to prison. I hope that answer your question.
Speaker 6: Sure, JT. Elaborate on that, because this is a fascinating,
Speaker 6: incredible and I mean really movie esque tell us about this.
Speaker 6: He's going to get parole. And let's see, we were
Speaker 6: skimming over a fair amount of this too. John Crutchley
Speaker 6: is what kind of criminal our pardon me, what kind
Speaker 6: of inmate in prison he's going to get he's released
Speaker 6: after ten years. And then we'll again, JT. I'll get
Speaker 6: you to give us the evidence of the fellow inmates
Speaker 6: that testify, and so tell us about that fascinating parole violation,
Speaker 6: a parole a breach of parole hearing. But first tell
Speaker 6: us about a little bit about John Crutchley in prison
Speaker 6: for that ten years.
Speaker 8: Well, he was a.
Speaker 7: Really close to a model inmate. He didn't get into
Speaker 7: a lot of trouble in prison. He had very few
Speaker 7: instances of any sort of administrative punishments. He was he
Speaker 7: was a he was a good inmate. He was put
Speaker 7: in charge of some of the programs in the prisons
Speaker 7: there for the other inmates, and he he helped with
Speaker 7: the computer systems, as you might imagine based on his
Speaker 7: background there in the in the prisons.
Speaker 6: And so he had a he had a a.
Speaker 7: You know, close to an exemplary record in prison, I
Speaker 7: guess you could say.
Speaker 6: And he did.
Speaker 7: He came up for his parole, he earned a lot
Speaker 7: of gain time. The laws back at that time we
Speaker 7: were structured to enable that to happen, frankly, because the
Speaker 7: prisons were overcrowded, so the system needed to be able
Speaker 7: to make room for other prisoners that needed to be there.
Speaker 7: It was the bottom line. So he gained a lot.
Speaker 7: He got a lot of gain time, which reduced his
Speaker 7: sentence significantly and was able to get out in about
Speaker 7: ten years time instead of the twenty five that he
Speaker 7: was sentenced to. And he did come up for his release,
Speaker 7: and the night before his release, and keep in mind
Speaker 7: this is after he's had a very good history in
Speaker 7: the prison there. But the night before his release, somehow
Speaker 7: or another, he ends up being exposed to marijuana smoke.
Speaker 7: Whether it was a voluntary or involuntary exposure is a
Speaker 7: little bit murky, but he did end up ingesting this
Speaker 7: marijuana smoke and tested for it. After being released, he
Speaker 7: was taken to a parole facility in the Orlando area,
Speaker 7: and as Bob mentioned, he was given the standard test
Speaker 7: there and it showed up, and so it was discovered
Speaker 7: that he had ingested this marijuana.
Speaker 2: And he was.
Speaker 7: Promptly arrested for violating the terms of his parole based
Speaker 7: on that. And it was very interesting circumstances, as you
Speaker 7: alluded to there, because of so much pressure, the fact
Speaker 7: that he was coming up, that the dreaded vampire was
Speaker 7: coming up for release from prison. It made a lot
Speaker 7: of people in the communities in Florida up in arms.
Speaker 7: There was a big uproar about it, and there was
Speaker 7: a lot of pressure brought to bear in the form
Speaker 7: of media coverage and in the form of political pressure
Speaker 7: to do something about that. Nobody wanted him to be
Speaker 7: released in their area, Nobody wanted him in their community.
Speaker 7: And lo and behold, he he violates the terms of
Speaker 7: his probation, even though he certainly had to know that
Speaker 7: he was about to be set free, so you would
Speaker 7: think he would be on pretty good behavior there but yeah,
Speaker 7: he did. He did get this violation of probation charge
Speaker 7: and that ended up putting back in prison for life.
Speaker 7: So he went from being he went from being a
Speaker 7: free man for a day to being back in prison
Speaker 7: for a life.
Speaker 6: I got to say that, it's like anybody that reads
Speaker 6: it's just got to, you know, shake their head. Versus
Speaker 6: twenty five, it turns into ten. It's amazing that even
Speaker 6: got twenty five because the sentencing guidelines were about eighteen.
Speaker 6: So thank god he got twenty five. Otherwise he'd been
Speaker 6: out in about six. And then nobody wants him. And
Speaker 6: but here's the thing. He really does have a hearing
Speaker 6: that he provides some evidence. He gets a lawyer, his
Speaker 6: mom gets this great lawyer, and he's got a pretty
Speaker 6: good case. He's got witnesses, not that they're that credible,
Speaker 6: but he really has a story that's credible. But in
Speaker 6: the end, just like they when they took that sentencing,
Speaker 6: guideline said no, no, this guy would have killed this woman.
Speaker 6: And so I applaud them that they, you know, they
Speaker 6: weren't constrained by that so much. And they call it
Speaker 6: the way it really was. This guy's a unique villainous creature,
Speaker 6: and so that little bit of marijuana. It was interesting
Speaker 6: at this hearing that he has the witness say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 6: he was a non smoker. He had probably lung problems
Speaker 6: or something. But he was placed into this smoking cell
Speaker 6: and then these big black guys came into his cell
Speaker 6: and blue marijuana smoke into his lungs, and they go, well,
Speaker 6: too bad, too bad, just spend the rest of your
Speaker 6: life in prison. I went there, you go, that's now,
Speaker 6: that's a little bit of a happy ending if nothing else.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it worked out for the best there ultimately. But yeah,
Speaker 7: it was interesting because he had been for most of
Speaker 7: his confinement he had been in a you know, a
Speaker 7: non smoking building essentially, but shortly before his release date
Speaker 7: came up, he was put in this building where it
Speaker 7: was notorious for being a smoking smoking area where a
Speaker 7: lot of the inmates who did marijuana and other drugs
Speaker 7: were housed there. But it was the timing of it
Speaker 7: was interesting to say the least.
Speaker 6: Yeah, just just another truly astonishing aspect of this story.
Speaker 6: If you think you can cut out of this book early,
Speaker 6: it's no way. There's stuff going on every single page.
Speaker 6: It's amazing. The photos are incredible, and just the access
Speaker 6: to information thanks to people like Robert Leatherout, we have
Speaker 6: this incredible, incredible story. Robert, what was the tell us
Speaker 6: about the demise of John Crutchley and any What happened
Speaker 6: to John Crutchley and when did that happen?
Speaker 8: Well, as you, as you said, his demise was in prison.
Speaker 8: He was found in the very stranger besiegure what erotic death?
Speaker 6: Do you know what that is?
Speaker 8: Their?
Speaker 6: Sure?
Speaker 8: Sure it was a bag it yes, very good, yeah,
Speaker 8: bag overhead and some other little things. And he was
Speaker 8: a pleasure to himself and his fail safe system. Very
Speaker 8: unusual for his age at that time. He was I
Speaker 8: think forty nine or almost fifty. What eerotic usually happens
Speaker 8: with younger males in the teenage years. But he died
Speaker 8: from autoerotic death.
Speaker 6: Here's some irony there, perhaps, yeah, fitting fitting ending, I
Speaker 6: would think, you know, It's another aspect that I really
Speaker 6: thought was very fascinating to Robert, is is the is
Speaker 6: the idea how much you employed uh jail house snitches
Speaker 6: to try to gain information and how how forthcoming these guys,
Speaker 6: some of these guys were you. So if you could
Speaker 6: tell us just a little bit about your involvement in
Speaker 6: any of that, and and your thoughts, well.
Speaker 8: Well, when John was in an arguing with that, correct
Speaker 8: me if I start getting carried away here. Now, John
Speaker 8: was a bisexual, and he became very familiar with a
Speaker 8: lot of the different guys were in prison with him,
Speaker 8: in jail with him, and uh, interviewing all them. H
Speaker 8: he took us a lot, a lot of time to
Speaker 8: interview them and learn a lot about John Qutchley and
Speaker 8: what he was planning. And at one point he'd ask
Speaker 8: one of the inmates to go down and take care
Speaker 8: of his wife. He fell in love with somebody else
Speaker 8: and he wanted one of his inmates friends to go
Speaker 8: down and take take care of his wife and raise
Speaker 8: his child for him. I don't know you read that
Speaker 8: part in the book. I assume you did.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, And of course what what one of them?
Speaker 7: Patrick Dantell became very close to Krutchley while he was
Speaker 7: in the jail there and and Dantell kept a very
Speaker 7: detailed diary during his time in the prison, and there's
Speaker 7: there's a lot of very interesting entries in there which
Speaker 7: are sided pretty extensively in the book and revealed a
Speaker 7: lot of a lot of information that really makes sure
Speaker 7: your your hair stand up on the back of your
Speaker 7: neck and you read it.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, he did have a well, I want to say credibility,
Speaker 6: but a lot of the stuff could be proven uh
Speaker 6: truthful anyway, in terms of the information that he did provide.
Speaker 7: Don tel Right, Yeah, he was. He was all lined
Speaker 7: up to testify, but he skipped down and they weren't
Speaker 7: able to get him to actually testify a trial against
Speaker 7: Crutchley because a lot of his testimony would have been
Speaker 7: very very damning.
Speaker 6: And then he uh, he ended up.
Speaker 7: Dying not too long after that, so his his testimony
Speaker 7: was lost forever. But fortunately he had kept this very
Speaker 7: detailed diary which which I was able to access with
Speaker 7: with Bob's help. And as I said, there's a lot
Speaker 7: of very very interesting information about Crutchley's background and the
Speaker 7: the things he had been doing before he ever even
Speaker 7: moved to Florida, So he had only been in Florida
Speaker 7: a couple of years before he was arrested, but he
Speaker 7: had been he had a history of these these these
Speaker 7: encounters going all the way back to his college days,
Speaker 7: and of course the Virginia victim that he was so
Speaker 7: closely tied to Debbie FitzJohn, whose story is covered in
Speaker 7: extensively in the book, thanks to the information Bob got
Speaker 7: from from Fred Fife at the Fairfax County Police Department,
Speaker 7: as well as as a lot of information that I
Speaker 7: got speaking directly with a private investigator that Debbie Fitzjohn's
Speaker 7: family had hired to look into her disappearance, James Wilt.
Speaker 7: He was very accommodating and gave me access to all
Speaker 7: of his materials that he had on the case and
Speaker 7: talked to me extensively about his investigation as well.
Speaker 6: Now, Robert, with the police, it's always, I mean, you
Speaker 6: don't have to have all the evidence. But they speculated
Speaker 6: that he had killed in other places other than Florida.
Speaker 6: What was the really reasonable tally on how many victims
Speaker 6: he likely had and in how many states he had
Speaker 6: killed in And finally, you know, just tell us really
Speaker 6: what they thought he had done with those victims in
Speaker 6: terms of disposal.
Speaker 8: I guess, well, my figures come up that he won
Speaker 8: in Virginia that we can put to him, as I
Speaker 8: told you earlier, and I believe I had four or
Speaker 8: five here in Florida. I believe he did six that
Speaker 8: I can put to him. And not assume something. But
Speaker 8: as you're well aware of, we never got close enough
Speaker 8: his computer. We never really got into the computer. We
Speaker 8: made a mistake and not apprehending or not apprehending taking
Speaker 8: in evidence the computer the night of the arrest. That
Speaker 8: would have been a real big plus for us, and
Speaker 8: I believe it the skelter remains. Just prior to John's arrest,
Speaker 8: about a year or two, we started finding skelter remains
Speaker 8: down here in Florida in a general Vicinity two by
Speaker 8: the Hiris Corporation, another plant that do we have off
Speaker 8: a US one. We found a couple of skeleter remains
Speaker 8: out there and that just kind of coincided as I
Speaker 8: see it with Virginia Debbie Fish. John's skelter remain was
Speaker 8: found about a year later out in the dirt bike
Speaker 8: path by power lines, and our skeleter remains down here
Speaker 8: were basically found inlf of the power lines dirt bike
Speaker 8: paths where motorcyclists would ride through, but everybody was a
Speaker 8: skeleton remains. And my belief is that John I could
Speaker 8: put him to six possibly.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Bob was talking about directly, you know, having having
Speaker 7: clear evidence to bring a case against him at the
Speaker 7: time that krutch Lee was willing to plead this plea
Speaker 7: deal that he offered.
Speaker 6: Uh, he was.
Speaker 7: He was willing to plead to twelve. He was gonna
Speaker 7: he was going to give up twelve of his victims.
Speaker 7: And that, Uh, that was through discussions with one of
Speaker 7: the one of the members of the department there the
Speaker 7: Sheriff's office, and through his attorney there in Brevard County.
Speaker 7: He was willing to give up twelve of the victims.
Speaker 7: And it's believed really by a lot of the people involved,
Speaker 7: that he had.
Speaker 8: He had a.
Speaker 7: A history of victims, the account of victims that would
Speaker 7: go into the dozens, but of course they could never
Speaker 7: tie him definitively to any of those. A lot of
Speaker 7: that was just, you know, reasonable surmising based on where
Speaker 7: his whereabouts and victim people that had gone missing, different
Speaker 7: places he had been during those time periods and that.
Speaker 6: Sort of thing. Robert, how frustrating. I can almost feel
Speaker 6: the frustration kind of exuding from you in this that
Speaker 6: you were just there's so much circumstantial evidence without being
Speaker 6: able to actually charge him for some of these murders,
Speaker 6: like the little motorcycle he drives a motorcycle and there
Speaker 6: are along these telephone lines, and I mean, it's just
Speaker 6: great detective work, great police work. How frustrated were you
Speaker 6: with this case? I'm sure this is not the only
Speaker 6: time you've ever been frustrated, But how was frustration the
Speaker 6: big thing in this case?
Speaker 8: Yes, definitely is definitely right now talking with you, I
Speaker 8: yet kind of wound up about it, and it really
Speaker 8: bothers me. I put six to eight years of my
Speaker 8: life into this case, and we did three times. We
Speaker 8: investigated three times the original thing. We did that for
Speaker 8: almost a year trying to put everything together, and then
Speaker 8: back in eighty eight we did the whole case over,
Speaker 8: and then in ninety four, I think it was ninety five,
Speaker 8: we did the case over again. And you get so
Speaker 8: close but yet so far, and you could tell by
Speaker 8: my voice I get kind of worked up on a
Speaker 8: I was almost there. I want to see him in
Speaker 8: the electric chair. That's what I wanted, and that was
Speaker 8: back we had electric chair back in Florida. Then sure
Speaker 8: that stuff. I could see myself getting wound up just
Speaker 8: talking to you to night about it.
Speaker 6: What was it like to give you a little bit
Speaker 6: of relief? What was it like to hear that he had,
Speaker 6: because obviously there's got to be this incredible whole experience
Speaker 6: where this clown is released after ten years and you
Speaker 6: can't do anything about it, and people are trying, like yourself,
Speaker 6: to do something about but just they can't do anything
Speaker 6: about it. And then the news that he's back in
Speaker 6: on a violation, what was that like?
Speaker 8: Kind of overwhelmed me at first. The night he went
Speaker 8: he got out, he went down to the halfway house
Speaker 8: there in Orlando, I went to the city council meeting
Speaker 8: in Malabar. The people were up into arms because he
Speaker 8: was going to have to come back into their community,
Speaker 8: and I went there and apologized to the people there.
Speaker 8: In the TV stations, I felt I failed my job,
Speaker 8: not putting in prison forever or at the electric chair.
Speaker 8: I was very upset with that. And the next day
Speaker 8: when we got the notification that he had failed the
Speaker 8: test over there and we were bringing him back before
Speaker 8: it was like a birthday press myself and my family.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, Bob, Bob was Bob was pretty hard on
Speaker 7: himself in relationship to the case. I mean, he he
Speaker 7: had become close to the family of one of the victims,
Speaker 7: Patty Velanski, there, and it's described in the book a
Speaker 7: little bit of the relationship. But he had he had,
Speaker 7: he had promised the family that he would he would
Speaker 7: find Patty Valanski's body for them to get them some
Speaker 7: sort of closure. But unfortunately it was never able to
Speaker 7: do that. And you know, it's something I think that's
Speaker 7: still that still eats at him a little bit.
Speaker 8: Yes, it does. I just talked to Patty Valanski's mother
Speaker 8: just last week. She called me about the book, and
Speaker 8: I had thought that Alta Pratt had passed away. She's
Speaker 8: in a hospice with cancer right now. And uh my
Speaker 8: wife answered the phone that day and to hear Alta
Speaker 8: Pratt on the phone kind of rock me. Well, I failed.
Speaker 6: Well, I think the system fails, you know it, you
Speaker 6: know it does fail. I mean that the person that
Speaker 6: everybody can see in these true crime books when it's
Speaker 6: and there's many cases like this where it's a dedicated cop,
Speaker 6: it's the take the case home that have to go
Speaker 6: look at a crime scene. I can't even I was
Speaker 6: involved in a case, but I can't even fathom having
Speaker 6: to see a crime scene and then having to try
Speaker 6: to erase that out of your mind, let alone see
Speaker 6: that have to see these characters face to face and
Speaker 6: then have to pretend that you're not just totally disgusted
Speaker 6: by these creatures, and then have to talk to the
Speaker 6: families at first and then later I mean a different
Speaker 6: kind of grief, initial grief and then later grief and
Speaker 6: lasting and then So I think that's what everybody finds
Speaker 6: so fascinating about this That we get the experience of
Speaker 6: the detective, but as we're hearing, our audience is getting
Speaker 6: the privilege of hearing how affected you still are from
Speaker 6: this case. And you were no novice fifty murders under
Speaker 6: your belt homicide cases. And this is a testament to
Speaker 6: this book. I read a lot of books, we cover
Speaker 6: a lot of books, and this is again taking storytelling
Speaker 6: up another level with having the great work that you did,
Speaker 6: Bob and having that access and then convey that to JT.
Speaker 6: And it's it's captured in this book and it's an amazing,
Speaker 6: amazing story. So I applaud both of you, gentlemen, for
Speaker 6: this great work, and I want to thank you very much.
Speaker 6: I also want to do as go ahead, I just
Speaker 6: want to say thank you. I was very apprehensive of
Speaker 6: about doing this tonight with you if you don't mind
Speaker 6: me calling you Dan right and no, certainly, I'm very
Speaker 6: I'm very pleased to talk to you about it. I
Speaker 6: enjoy talking with you. Thank you for understanding well, thank
Speaker 6: you very much and for sharing, and thank you JT.
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Speaker 6: and or any that you choose and really experience digital
Speaker 6: audio books. Again, gentlemen, I want to thank you very
Speaker 6: much for coming on the program tonight and talking about
Speaker 6: The Vampire next Door. Thank you very much. Robert Leatherow
Speaker 6: And are you retired now, Robert from Oh yes, we're yes,
Speaker 6: seven years now, seven years seven seven.
Speaker 8: But it doesn't matter. Our family, my son and my
Speaker 8: brother roller Coops. My son is a police officer right now. Great,
Speaker 8: it continues.
Speaker 6: Oh thank you JT. For those that would like to
Speaker 6: contact you get a little bit more information about the book,
Speaker 6: if you are interested in being contacted by Facebook? How
Speaker 6: do people go about contacting if they're more If you're
Speaker 6: interested than learning a little bit more or reaching you personally, well,
Speaker 6: I am on Facebook JT. Hunter.
Speaker 7: You can find my web my page on Facebook under that.
Speaker 7: There's also a page under the Vampire next Door the
Speaker 7: True Story of the Vampire Rapists. So either way, they
Speaker 7: could also email me if they like to email me directly,
Speaker 7: My email is JT. Hunter eight one four at gmail
Speaker 7: dot com, and I would welcome hearing from anyone.
Speaker 6: Well again, thank you very much gentlemen for a fantastic
Speaker 6: interview and a great book. JT and I hope to
Speaker 6: talk to you both again sometime soon. Thank you very much,
Speaker 6: good night.
Speaker 7: Thanks a lot, Dan, my pleasure tonight.
Speaker 4: Good night,