Richard Chase, "The Vampire of Sacramento"
Richard Chase (source: Murderpedia)
If you were ever under the impression that vampires are not real, think again. Or at least, keep reading and maybe this will change your mind. Here I’m going to tell you the story of Richard Chase aka. “The Vampire of Sacramento”. Probably the closest thing there was to a modern day vampire, Chase did seek out blood to drink, for the typical reasons that a vampire is thought to drink blood - he had convinced himself that he needed it to stay alive. However, unlike a traditional vampire, Chase did not sleep in a coffin, and would not begin to self-combust if he went out in the sun.
While it might seem ludicrous that a modern day man considered himself to be a vampire, Chase’s beliefs were rooted in severe mental illness, namely paranoid schizophrenia, which plagued him for most of his life. This is not to say that any of Chase’s actions or crimes were excusable, but the bottom line is, he was a gravely ill man who made it clear from early on that he was not fit to function in mainstream society. Chase, and with that his victims, were let down by a broken system which did not protect Chase from himself, nor did it protect others from Chase.
Red Flags from the Beginning
Richard Trenton Chase was born May 23, 1950 in Sacramento, California. Not much is known about his childhood, other than that it was not a good one. Chase suffered physical and emotional abuse at the hands of both parents. By the age of 10, Chase was displaying behaviors associated with severe psychological problems in children, namely torturing animals, setting fires and persistent bed wetting.
Three years later, in 1963, psychiatrist J.M. McDonald would publish a paper, “The Threat To Kill”, in the American Journal of Psychiatry discussing these behaviors. The paper explained that when presented together (either all three or a combination of two), the behaviors indicated that the person may be predisposed to display violent tendencies, including homicidal behavior and/or sexually predatory behavior, later in life. The combination of the behaviors is best known as the McDonald Triad, but also may be referred to as the homicidal triad or the triad of sociopathy.
Drugs and Delusions
Richard Chase in high school (photo found here)
By the time he was 18, Chase was using drugs almost every day, specifically marijuana and LSD. He also drank heavily. Despite this, he did okay in high school and graduated. It’s pretty heartbreaking to see the photo of him in high school, where he looks so full of life, and think of what became of him.
The substance abuse made him increasingly paranoid and delusional, particularly in regards to his health. He regularly complained of bizarre health problems, including that his pulmonary artery had been “stolen” and that his blood was “turning into powder”. He became convinced that his heart would stop beating at times as a result of these ailments.
To try and cure himself, Chase went into the woods, where he would catch and kill small animals, then drink their blood. In a way, the blood became his self-prescribed “heart medication”, as doctors would not take him seriously. Possibly more disturbingly, the killing of animals also remedied his impotence. While Chase did have girlfriends in high school, the relationships never lasted long due to his sexual problems.
After graduating, he moved out of his parents' home; he was eager to leave, having become convinced his mother was trying to poison him. Chase moved into an apartment with several roommates, but things went south almost immediately.
He walked around naked all the time and his drug use was worse than ever. His roommates demanded that he move out. Chase refused, so they moved out instead. Now that he had the apartment to himself, he began bringing the animals he caught, such as birds and rabbits, into the apartment. Then, I'm not kidding here, he would put them in a blender with Coca Cola, and drink the concoction.
Chase could not afford to stay in the apartment alone for long, however, so he ended up moving back home. His father found another apartment for his son to rent.
In and Out of Institutions
In 1973, at the age of 23, Chase spent some time in a mental institution. Not much is known about this stay. Then in 1976, he was admitted to hospital after injecting rabbit blood into his veins, giving himself blood poisoning. Following that incident, he was institutionalized again. You would think you’d have to try pretty hard to scare staff working in a mental institution, but Chase succeeded. Twice during his stay, he reached through the window bars and grabbed birds off the windowsill of his room, bit off their heads, and drank their blood.
Shortly after his admission to the institution, Chase was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and prescribed a range of antipsychotic medications. Later in 1976, after having shown “improvements” (I’m skeptical of this) on his medications, Chase’s doctors decided that he was “no longer a danger to himself or others” and he was released. Once again, Chase was back living with his parents. Then, to make matters that much worse, his mother figured that her son no longer needed his medications and began weaning him off them. Convinced that he was “cured” of his mental illness, she found him a new apartment. Back to square one, Chase was once again living alone, unchecked, unmedicated and more bloodthirsty than ever.
Not Enough Blood
Sometime in mid-1977, Chase was found at an Indian reservation near Pyramid Lake in Nevada. Nobody really knows what inspired the 180-mile road trip. Calls from residents of the reservation were made to the Washoe County Sheriff’s Dept. about a man at the lake wandering around aimlessly, his clothes covered in blood stains. The police arrived and searched Chase’s truck, in which they found guns and a large bucket full of blood. They discovered that it was, in fact, only cow’s blood. Explaining that the blood on his clothes was from hunting, Chase was released without incident, only having to pay a fine.
This event should have served as a warning sign that small animals were no longer satisfying Chase’s needs.
A Gruesome Killing Spree
On Dec. 29, 1977, Chase killed a person (as opposed to an animal) for the first time. Ambrose Griffin, 51, was shot and killed in front of his home as he was helping his wife unload groceries from their car. Due to the drive-by nature of the murder, Chase was not identified as the murderer until weeks later. The killing of Ambrose Griffin was by far the least violent of Chase’s murders, which took place the following month.
Chase waited nearly four weeks before he killed again. There was no order to how he selected his victims, other than that he would try doors of random houses and if they were locked, he saw it as a sign that he was “not welcome”; he did not forcefully break into any homes.
The second murder, which took place sometime in the early afternoon of Jan. 23, 1978, was of 22-year-old Terry Wallin, who was 3 months pregnant at the time. Terry’s murder was beyond abhorrent. I won’t put all the details here, but she was shot 3 times and her abdomen slashed to reveal her internal organs. Chase then had sex with her corpse. Before he left, he found an empty yogurt cup, collected some of her blood and drank it.
Terry’s fiancé, David, arrived home after work to find his wife’s mutilated body on their bed. In a state of shock, he ran next door to a neighbor’s house, where they called the police. The first officer to arrive at the scene was so horrified by what had been done to Terry, he confessed that he had nightmares for months following the murder.
FBI Agent Robert Ressler (Bill Tench in Netflix’s Mindhunter), who is best known for his work in criminal profiling and is credited with coining the term “serial killer”, was contacted right away to consult on what kind of killer was responsible for the horrific crime. Ressler came up with a profile of the killer (see below). Officers also agreed with Ressler that the killer would almost definitely strike again if not caught as soon as possible.
Police searched tirelessly for the murderer over the next three days, but came up with nothing. Then, on Jan. 27, the call came in that they had been dreading: a North Sacramento resident was going to visit their neighbor, but when no one answered the door, they entered the home and found three dead bodies. Each had been shot and badly brutalized. They were Evelyn Miroth, 36, who had suffered a similar fate to Terry Wallin, Evelyn’s 6-year-old son Jason and a family friend, Daniel Meredith, 56. Evelyn’s nephew, 22-month-old Michael Ferreira was missing and was assumed to have been abducted by the killer.
Chase’s victims, from left to right: Terry Wallin (22), Evelyn Miroth (36), Jason Miroth (6), Michael Ferreira (22 months). (Source: Find A Grave)
Unfortunately I couldn’t find photos of Ambrose Griffin or Daniel Meredith.
Profiling Richard Chase
After examining the Wallin crime scene, Agent Ressler released this profile of her killer:
“White male, aged 25-27 years; thin, undernourished appearance. Residence will be extremely slovenly and unkempt and evidence of the crime will be found at the residence. History of mental illness, and will have been involved in use of drugs.
Will be a loner who does not associate with either males or females, and will probably spend a great deal of time in his own home, where he lives alone. Unemployed. Possibly receives some form of disability money.
If residing with anyone, it would be with his parents; however, this is unlikely. No prior military record; high school or college dropout. Probably suffering from one or more forms of paranoid psychosis.”
FBI Agent Robert Ressler (source: NPR)
Agent Ressler classified the killer as a “disorganized” offender i.e. no planning was involved in the murder, likely seriously mentally ill and cannot distinguish between right and wrong. This is in contrast to “organized” offenders, who carefully plan their crimes, often stalk victims for months beforehand, are of reasonably high intelligence and definitely do know right from wrong.
Chase’s Capture
After the slayings at Evelyn Miroth’s home, Chase fled in Daniel Meredith’s red station wagon which was parked outside. Agent Ressler was quite sure that he would have ditched the car not far from his home, as he clearly was not a planner and not concerned about concealing evidence.
It wasn’t difficult to find the station wagon, which was parked relatively close to the Morith home. The door was open and the keys were still in the ignition. The killer was so close. A huge manhunt consisting of upwards of 65 police officers began. They walked the streets within a half-mile of the abandoned station wagon, questioning passersby and knocking on doors, asking if anyone had seen a thin, disheveled looking Caucasian man, likely with blood stains on his clothing.
It was a young woman in her late-twenties who gave them the lead they had been looking for. She explained that on Jan. 23, around 11:30am or 12pm, she had seen a man she went to high school with at a shopping mall. It turned out the mall was less than a mile from Terry Wallin’s home. She had been shocked by his appearance; he was extremely thin and pale, with huge dark circles around his eyes. His clothing hung loosely off his emaciated frame. He wore a sweatshirt with what looked like large blood stains. As she was getting in her car to drive away, he pursued her, saying he wanted to talk. He approached the car and tried to yank open the door, but she quickly drove away. She explained that the man’s name was Richard Chase. They had graduated from high school in 1968.
Chase’s apartment was less than a block away from where they had found the station wagon. It wasn’t long before Chase appeared, leaving the apartment with a box under his arm. When he realized what was going on, he ran towards his truck. His panicked state made it pretty clear to authorities that they had found who they were looking for. Officers tackled Chase, getting him on the ground. He had a .22 revolver in a shoulder holster and Daniel Meredith’s wallet in his back pocket.
In the box was a bundle of bloody rags he had been planning to get rid of. Inside Chase’s apartment was a plethora of evidence. They found his bloody food blenders, newspaper articles about the murder of Ambrose Griffin, bloody clothing and knives stolen from Terry Wallin’s house. His truck was a garbage dump on wheels, filled with beer cans and blood rags.
A calendar in his home had the dates of the murders marked with the word “Today”.
Trial and Sentencing of Chase
As it turned out, Richard Chase fit Agent Ressler’s profile to a tee.
In early 1979, Chase’s trial began. He was charged with six counts of first degree murder; shell casings from Chase’s gun found at the Ambrose Griffin crime scene proved that he was guilty of the murder. On March 24, the body of Michael Ferreira was found discarded in a box by some garbage bins in a church parking lot. It was the church janitor who discovered the body and called the police. It was difficult to identify the body at first because of what had been done to it.
Richard Chase in court (photo found here)
Chase pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Pretty astonishingly, his insanity plea was rejected, and the jury found Chase guilty on all counts. He was sentenced to death by electric chair and would await his execution at San Quentin State Prison.
Agent Ressler disagreed with the ruling, believing that if anyone should have been granted an insanity plea, it was Richard Chase. He wrote in his book, Whoever Fights Monsters (which I used extensively for writing this piece), that Chase should have spent the rest of his life in a mental institution.
Aftermath
Richard Chase’s mugshot (source: Wikipedia)
While at San Quentin, Chase was largely avoided by other inmates. They had heard about the sheer brutality of his crimes and wanted nothing to do with him.
As part of his work with the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit, Agent Ressler, along with FBI Agent John Conway, went to interview Chase in prison. Just the walk from the prison entrance to the interview room where they would meet Chase made Ressler feel uneasy. Although he had been to visit dozens of prisons before, he described this one as an “oppressive and frightening experience” and that he felt he was “going beyond the point of no return”.
Seeing Chase for the first time immediately reminded Ressler of Marley’s ghost in A Christmas Carol, due to his leg irons and ghoulish appearance. But he was most struck by Chase’s eyes:
“I'll never forget them. They were like those of the shark in the movie Jaws. No pupils, just black spots. These were evil eyes that stayed with me long after the interview. I almost got the impression that he couldn't really see me, that he was seeing through me, just staring.”
Chase did not show aggression towards the agents (as it turns out, he was on some strong downers). He admitted to the murders, but said he had no choice in the matter; he had to commit them in order to stay alive. Nazis and UFOs, which Chase was deathly afraid of, also came up multiple times in the interview. At one point, he stuck his hands in his pocket, pulling out a handful of macaroni and cheese. Convinced that the prison guards were Nazis trying to kill him, he asked that Ressler take the food and test it for poison.
On Dec. 26, 1980, Richard Chase was found dead in his cell due to an overdose of antidepressants he had been hoarding. He was 30 years old.
Find serial killers fascinating? Check out the case of Rodney Alcala, 'The Dating Game Killer' or Robert Hansen, “The Butcher Baker”.
Sources
Whoever Fights Monsters - Robert Ressler and Tom Shachtman
Profile of Serial Killer Richard Chase
