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SALT LAKE CITY — Federal prosecutors have identified four more alleged assault victims of a long-haul trucker who authorities say is obsessed with vampires.
Timothy Jay Vafeades, 54, of Murray, allegedly held the women captive in his truck, the "Twilight Express," sexually and physically abused them and filed their teeth with a Dremel power tool.
Prosecutors filed a motion in U.S. District Court this week to admit evidence about the four new victims, bringing the total to six. Vafeades was married to four of the victims and one was a relative, according to court documents. The alleged abuse dates back to 1994.
One of the newly identified women told investigators that Valfeades took all of her identification, cut and dyed her hair, sexually assaulted her, forced her to shower with him, refused to let her look at other people, filed her teeth and hit her with a belt. She escaped after six months while the truck stopped in California in 2008, court documents say.
"This evidence is relevant to show a pattern of sexual abuse the defendant engaged in once his victims were on his truck with him and/or married to him," prosecutors wrote.
All six women have told authorities similar stories.
Vafeades wore bracelets on his wrists that he called "slave bracelets" and would hit his victims with the bracelets if they didn't follow his commands, according to court documents. He owned a pair of dentures that were carved to make the two front teeth appear as fangs, prosecutors said.
Vafeades' alleged trail of abuse ended last November in Clay County, Minnesota, when a state trooper realized that the female passenger in Vafeades' semitrailer had a lifetime protection order issued against him out of Florida.
Prosecutors charged him in March with two counts of kidnapping, two counts of transportation for illegal sexual activity and one count each of transportation of child pornography and possession of child pornography.
Vafeades is being held in the Davis County Jail.
