Crutchley was eyed by authorities after a 19-year-old female hitchhiker from California flagged a motorist on the side of a Brevard County, Florida road, according to The Washington Post. She claimed that over a 22-hour period between November 21 and 22, 1985, Crutchley kept her locked up and bound at his Malabar home — about 75 miles southeast of Orlando on Florida’s east coast — repeatedly strangling and raping her.

During the horrific ordeal, Crutchley used surgical instruments (i.e. syringes) to drain nearly half of the victim’s blood for his own consumption, almost killing the woman in the process, as reported by The Tampa Bay Times. She narrowly escaped through a bathroom window after Crutchley left her handcuffed in the bathtub.

Crutchley later alleged she was “begging to be roughed up,” per the Post.

The prolonged torture occurred when Crutchley’s wife and son were away visiting relatives in Maryland, according to Ressler’s book.

When police searched Crutchley’s home, they initially found “a stack of credit cards, several inches thick,” and necklaces belonging to (mostly) women believed to be Crutchley’s past victims. According to Whoever Fights Monsters, Crutchley claimed the cards were left in his car by past hitchhikers and that the necklaces belonged to his wife.

“I was very glad [authorities] asked me to get involved in the case, because while the police knew they had caught a dangerous rapist, after I found out a few things about Crutchley, I thought it probable that they had a serial killer in custody,” Ressler stated.

At Crutchley’s office, authorities collected handcuffs, a handgun, ropes, homemade sex tapes of him and his wife, and a book titled The Dracula Syndrome, according to CBS St. Petersburg affiliate WTSP. His home was littered with IV needles, women’s locks of hair, dog collars, chains, small tubes, and hoses, per the Orlando Sentinel.

In 1986, Crutchley pled guilty to kidnapping, sexual battery with a deadly weapon, and multiple counts of sexual battery, according to court records reviewed by Oxygen. On August 8, 1996, he was released from prison after serving less than 11 years of a 25-to-life sentence, according to The Washington Post.

Upon his release, he was expected to enter a halfway house.