THE VAMPIRE KILLERS

Valentine's Day Surprise

A Valentine's Day surprise occurred in Arizona when an apparent agreement between a man and woman became much rougher than expected — even terrifying. Robert McDaniel, 46, learned to his dismay he was with a "vampire."

Robert McDaniel

On Feb 14, 2007, the two of them had consumed drugs and alcohol together in a shack behind an abandoned house, and McDaniel voluntarily allowed his "friend," Tiffany Sutton, 23, to tie him up. She'd been staying with him for a couple of days and had agreed to participate in kinky sex, although no mention is made of who came up with this idea. With them was a book, The Eighth Circle, a reference to one of the lower arenas in Dante's literary circles of hell. McDaniel ended up in a hell of his own, once he was bound and vulnerable.

Tiffany Sutton

According to his story, pieced together from several accounts, Sutton, whom he barely knew, had tied him up and then pulled out several knives and a pickax. She sliced him across the leg with one of the knives, and when he demanded to know what she was doing, she allegedly told him she liked to drink blood and wanted to drink his. Then she placed her mouth to his fresh wound and did just that.

But it didn't end there. She also stabbed him several times in the upper torso. Fearing for his life, McDaniel struggled to get free of his bonds. He knew that if Sutton sliced too deeply or in the wrong place, he could bleed to death in short order. This was most definitely not what he had in mind when he'd envisioned their sexual encounter.

Finally, he managed to get loose of his bonds and escape the shed. However, when he started to run, Sutton allegedly came after him, ax in hand. No mention was made of wounds from this implement, so she apparently did not catch him. Or if she did, she didn't use it on him. He managed to get to a phone to call a friend before passing out.

The friend arrived to find McDaniel's blood-covered body, with Sutton standing nearby, covered only in a blanket. He called 911 and got McDaniel transported by ambulance to a hospital. There, ER staff counted seven stab wounds and several slices. Fortunately, McDaniel survived.

According to newspapers local to Phoenix, such as the Sun, Tempe police arrested Sutton for aggravated assault, although she initially claimed that she had been the victim. In newspaper photos, she appears as a brunette with the typical Goth look of heavy black eye-liner. She insisted that the entire incident had been consensual, so if this case gets to court, it will probably be a matter of which participant the jury believes.

McDaniel told police that he had been tricked: While he'd consented to be bound, he'd had no idea, he said, what Sutton had in mind. He was not keen when she'd cut and stabbed him, and he'd believed she might actually kill him. Yet it came out later that McDaniel had signed a disclaimer before they'd started their Valentine's Day tryst that he would not prosecute if the sex became "crazy." Attorneys will no doubt try to determine whether it's binding.

On April 11, a pretrial conference convened, with a hearing set for mid-June. Sutton was charged with nine counts of aggravated assault. There was no word on who might represent her.