Richard Chase: Difference between revisions

American serial killer and cannibal

Richard Chase
Mug shot of Chase following his arrest, 1978
Born	Richard Trenton Chase (1950-05-23)May 23, 1950
Died	December 26, 1980(1980-12-26) (aged 30)
Other names	The Dracula Killer The Vampire of Sacramento The Vampire Killer
Motive
Conviction	First degree murder with special circumstances (6 counts)
Criminal penalty	Death
Victims	6
Span of crimes	December 29, 1977 – January 27, 1978
Country	United States
State	California
Date apprehended	January 28, 1978

Richard Trenton Chase (May 23, 1950 – December 26, 1980) was an American serial killer, cannibal and necrophile known as the Vampire of Sacramento, the Dracula Killer and the Vampire Killer, who killed six people between December 1977 and January 1978 in Sacramento, California.

All of Chase’s victims were chosen at random. His first victim was killed in a drive-by shooting; his subsequent victims were murdered inside their own homes, with the primary motive behind these murders being the mutilation of their bodies and the consumption of their blood and organs.

Tried and convicted of six counts of first degree murder, Chase was sentenced to death on May 8, 1979, with the jury ruling he was legally sane at the time of the commission of the crimes. He died of an overdose of Sinequan on December 26, 1980 in an apparent suicide.

Chase became known by such titles as the “Vampire of Sacramento” because the majority of his murders were committed with the intention to consume his victims’ blood in his delusional belief he needed to consume the blood of other beings to replenish his own supply.

Richard Chase was born in Sacramento, California, on May 23, 1950, the first of two children born to Richard Edgar and Beatrice (née Neese) Chase; his only sibling was a younger sister named Pamela Lee (b. October 8, 1953).

The Chase household was middle class. His parents were disciplinarians, and both siblings were frequently beaten by their father throughout their childhood.^[4] Both parents were prone to arguing with each other during Chase’s childhood, and his mother—tormented by suspicions her husband was unfaithful to her and trying to poison her—sought psychiatric treatment on at least two occasions in the early 1960s.^{[n 1]} The couple separated in 1964, with their children briefly residing with relatives in Los Angeles, but later reconciled.

By the age of ten, Chase had begun exhibiting the traits of the Macdonald triad: cruelty to animals, fire-setting, and bedwetting,^[4] three behaviors frequently associated with violent behavior in adulthood.^[4][8] He is also known to have developed a rich fantasy life dominated my thoughts of power in addition to a selfish and inconsiderate personality. One of Chase’s first documented instances of strange behavior as an adolescent occurred when he started to believe he was a member of the James–Younger Gang. Chase even pasted his head onto photos of these outlaws. He tried to sell these photos to people, and wanted his mother to buy him a cowboy hat, but she refused.^[9] These internal issues did not greatly affect Chase’s early school or social life, with over sixty children attending one of his birthday parties.

From 1964 to 1968, Chase attended Mira Loma High School. While enrolled at high school, he developed a reputation among his peers as something of a loner, although he did have a small circle of friends—many of whom were known throughout the school as “acid-heads”. By his mid-teens, he had become a heavy user of drugs such as marijuana and LSD in addition to frequently drinking heavily.^[12][13] He would accrue a minor criminal record throughout the 1960s for both possession and theft, for which he was ordered to perform community service. Although Chase possessed an average IQ of 95, he was a largely unmotivated student—typically achieving C, D and F grades. Nonetheless, Chase did graduate from high school on June 6, 1968. He received a Volkswagen from his parents as a graduation present.

Although Chase generally had difficulty interacting with women, he did begin dating girls in 1965; however, he soon discovered that he was impotent, which greatly affected his self-esteem. According to one former girlfriend, she and Chase were unable to have sex the first time they attempted to do so due his inability to maintain an erection. The relationship continued nonetheless, although his continual failure to achieve or maintain an erection contributed to their eventual split in 1966. Shortly thereafter, at a friend’s party, Chase—intoxicated—broke down in tears and confided his frustrations regarding his impotence to his friends.

Shortly after graduating from high school, Chase enrolled at American River College.^[15] Beginning in 1969, while still enrolled at American River College, Chase began working as an administrative assistant for Retailers Credit Association. This employment lasted several months, but would prove to be the only job Chase held for any significant duration of time. Chase would alternate between various roles of employment over the following two years, although due to his poor work ethic and drug use, none of these jobs lasted more than a few weeks.

In 1970, Chase moved out of his parents’ home and into an apartment on Annadale Lane. He shared this apartment with two girls named Cyd Evans DeMarchi and Rachel Statum, both of whom he knew and whom he convinced to let him become a roommate of theirs. His parents gave him $50 each month to help him pay his share of the rent. Three months later, DeMarchi and Statum moved out of the apartment due to Chase’s behavior and his neglecting of household responsibilities. He was usually high on drugs, suspected of dealing marijuana, and frequently walked around naked in front of female visitors. Increasingly isolated, he also barricaded himself in his room, explaining that he did this so no one would be able to “sneak up” on him. Shortly thereafter, Statum’s brother and his friends moved into the apartment. These roommates had a rock band, and Chase often interrupted their jamming, insisting on playing the conga with them; however, they resisted these requests due to his poor musical ability. This resistance frequently caused arguments, but Chase joined in anyway.

Statum’s brother and his friends also moved out of the apartment. As Chase was unable to afford the rent, he soon moved into his parents’ home. Chase’s parents separated in June 1972, and were divorced six months later. Thereafter, he divided his time between his parents.

Typically achieving C grades and again developing a reputation among his peers as a lackadaisical student and heavy user of drugs and alcohol, Chase eventually dropped out of college in 1971.

During one lone trip to Utah in 1972, Chase was arrested for driving under the influence. Two weeks later, having returned to California, he claimed to his parents that he was “quite ill” due to being gassed by officers in a Utah jail, and that he intended to sue the police. His father—who had bailed him out of jail—convinced him against suing the police.^[19]

Chase then alternated between living in his mother’s residence and his father’s new residence, although both found it difficult to deal with his increasingly erratic behavior in addition to an increasingly slovenly lifestyle. His father continued to believe that the troubles in his son’s life sourced not from mental illness, but a poor work ethic and misguided values.^[9] In late 1972, Chase’s mother attempted to call the police on him during an argument, when suddenly Richard grabbed the phone and whacked her on the head with it. She was still able to call the police, and he ran outside and jumped over the fence. The police said they could press charges against her son, but she decided not to.

By early 1973, Chase had begun obsessively worrying about his physical health; shortly after he returned to Sacramento in the summer of 1973, he began cutting out photos of human organs from a medical book and pasting the images all over his bedroom in an effort to understand what he believed was wrong with him. He also began seeking medical help for his perceived ailments; on one occasion in approximately 1973, Chase called an ambulance to his house, which arrived with a stretcher that he had requested. However, they refused to take him to the hospital when they found out that he was not suffering from a medical emergency and suggested he undergo a psychiatric evaluation. By this stage, Chase’s sister had become markedly afraid of him and made efforts to avoid being alone in his company; his mother—having noted he had begun hearing voices and regularly made comments to the effect of “Stop bothering me!”—made arrangements for him to see two separate doctors. Chase was dissatisfied with the prognosis these doctors gave him, so he went to see a doctor named Donald Ansel. Ansel discovered no physical ailments, and concluded that Chase had a “psychiatric disturbance of major proportion.”

Following this incident, Chase had two separate stints living with his paternal grandmother in Los Angeles, who also noted his odd behavior. During the first stay with his grandmother in May 1973, Chase worked for his uncle as a bus driver for mentally disabled children. He was fired for failing to perform necessary maintenance work on the bus and letting it run low on oil. After being fired from his job, Chase spent most of the day in his bed, roaming the house at night. He refused to eat any meals his grandmother cooked for him, and insisted on cooking his own meals. His grandmother also heard him talking to himself when alone in his room — most frequently asking himself the question, “Richard, are you a good boy?” before replying to himself, “Yes, you’re a good boy.” On other occasions, Chase’s grandmother observed him standing on his head; his explanation was that his head hurt and he was attempting to increase the circulation of blood to his head.

On other occasions, Chase complained to his grandmother that his heart was hurting and spoke of pain in his legs. During his second stint in Los Angeles, he found a job working at a paint store, but was fired within two weeks. Chase’s grandmother later said that both his mental state and physical appearance had deteriorated during his second stay with her. She later bought him a plane ticket to return to Sacramento.

On December 1, 1973, Chase walked into the emergency room of the American River Hospital in a manic state, alleging to have suffered a cardiac arrest, that the blood had ceased flowing through his body, that he was unable to breathe and claiming both that his head was changing shape and that his pulmonary artery had been stolen. He was admitted to the hospital’s psychiatric unit.

Doctor Irwin Lyons noted in his report that Chase was “tense, nervous and wild eyed”, describing him as a “filthy, disheveled, deteriorated and foul-smelling white male”. Hospital staff diagnosed Chase as a chronic paranoid schizophrenic,^[29] though conceded the possibility the condition sourced from his extreme drug abuse. Two days after his admission to the psychiatric unit, Chase was discharged from the facility against the doctors’ advice when his mother confronted the psychiatric ward staff. In his report, Lyons said she was “highly aggressive, hostile [and] provocative”, adding that she was “the so-called schizophrenic mother”.

Following his discharge from the psychiatric unit, Chase’s mental health allegedly improved. According to Beatrice Chase, her son had been distressed by the experience of his institutionalization and she was able to “work with him” for approximately two years—ensuring he took his medication, refraining from drug and alcohol abuse, eating healthier, and improving his hygiene.^{[n 2]}

By late 1975, Chase had relapsed into frequent drug abuse, and from early 1976, his mental health began to deteriorate considerably. He became markedly paranoid and intemperate, and his hypochondria led to behavior such as his holding oranges onto or alongside his head, believing Vitamin C would be absorbed by his brain via diffusion. Convinced his body was not producing sufficient blood, his fixation with blood increased greatly.^[32] Chase additionally believed that his cranial bones had become separated and were moving around his skull; on one occasion, he shaved his head to be able to monitor this activity.^[33]

As his mental state deteriorated, Beatrice Chase would overhear her son talking to himself, just as his grandmother had. According to his mother, he began to struggle to even sign his own name, and on two occasions, he also ordered her to stop controlling his mind; he later also accused his sister Pamela of controlling his mind. On several occasions, Chase and his mother engaged in heated arguments, occasionally resulting in either Chase striking his mother, or she and her daughter fleeing the household and summoning Richard Sr. to calm his son. On one occasion in approximately March 1976, as Chase spoke with his father on the telephone following another heated argument, Chase tore his mother’s phone from the wall, terminating the call. This incident prompted both of Chase’s parents—but particularly his father—to resolve to find an apartment for their son. Thereafter, he briefly resided with his father, who soon found an apartment for his son on Cannon Street. He moved into this apartment in early 1976, surviving on welfare, and with his father paying his rent and visiting him on a weekly basis.

Shortly after moving into his Cannon Street apartment, Chase began to frequently consume animal blood in a delusional belief that his doing so was a survival necessity to replenish his own insufficient blood supply. He initially primarily killed rabbits he bought at a nearby rabbit farm; after purchasing the rabbits, he consumed their raw entrails and flesh at his apartment—frequently liquefying the animal intestines and blood in his blender in the belief his doing so would prevent his heart from shrinking.^[40] Initially, Chase kept his apartment relatively clean, and his father would frequently visit to play games of chess. When Chase’s father asked why he had begun keeping live rabbits, Chase responded by saying that he was eating them; his father never looked into this claim further, having long grown accustomed to his son’s fanciful statements.^[13]

On April 26, 1976, Chase was involuntarily committed to a mental institution for a second time. This occurred when he was taken to the emergency room of American River Hospital, having injecting rabbit’s blood into his veins. His father found him vomiting, shaking, barely able to move, and complaining of having eaten a “bad rabbit”. Chase initially explained to staff he had been poisoned by a rabbit he had eaten, before claiming the rabbit had battery acid in its stomach, which had begun burning through his own stomach. Staff concluded that he was mentally ill, and he was sent to American River Hospital’s psychiatric unit. He was again diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, with staff recommending he be detained for seventy-two hours to undergo further assessment. He refused to participate in any group activities and insisted he was only suffering from food poisoning, but did confide to staff that he needed to drink blood because his body was weak and “falling apart” because his circulatory system failed to function normally.^{[n 3]}

On May 19, Chase was involuntarily transferred to the Beverly Manor Psychiatric Hospital.^[4] The staff at this institution also diagnosed Chase with severe schizophrenia; staff also noted he failed to react to prescribed anti-psychotic medication, leading doctors to conclude his mental issues sourced from his heavy and prolonged drug use.^[4] On one occasion, staff discovered Chase with blood around his mouth. Two birds with broken necks lay outside his window. He denied any responsibility for the birds’ deaths, insisting the blood around his mouth sorced from cutting himself while shaving.^[44] He also extracted blood from therapy dogs with stolen syringes.^[12]

Despite several setbacks, by the summer of 1976, Chase’s condition had markedly improved, with the battery of treatments involving psychotropic drugs producing positive results. Staff notes indicate that by mid-September, he had not mutilated any birds, or requested blood to drink for “some time now”. In addition, he had actively participated in group activities for over two months. Doctors believed they could not help him improve further and released him to his mother’s custody on September 29, his parents having been granted a conservatorship to be subject to annual review and staff strongly emphasizing Chase continue to take his medication.^{[40][n 4]}

Shortly after his release from the Beverly Manor Psychiatric Hospital, Chase moved into an apartment on Watt Avenue, with his mother paying his rent on the first day of each month and both parents shopping for his groceries and monitoring his condition. Initially, Beatrice Chase ensured her son took his medications, but increasingly believed the medications simply made him “easier to handle”. Uncomfortable with her son’s zombie-like status and believing he no longer needed to be medicated, without consulting doctors, Chase’s mother weaned him off his medication and by January 1977, Chase was no longer taking any prescribed medication. Shortly thereafter, Chase’s delusions returned, and he began accusing his mother of attempting to poison him with dish soap.

Chase’s preoccupation with his own health soon developed into extreme somatic delusions. Again convinced his heart was shrinking and that he needed to drink animal blood and eat their viscera to survive, Chase progressed from eating birds and rabbits to eating dogs.^[40] He both stole and purchased dogs and hanged them in his apartment before proceeding to drink their blood and consume their innards.^[4] His mother also suspected him of stealing both her dogs, although when she confronted her son, he denied her accusations.

As Chase’s mental deterioration continued, both his personal hygiene and the living conditions within his apartment worsened. Neighbors frequently heard shouting and banging noises emanating from his apartment and Chase was occasionally seen exiting his apartment with his mouth hanging open and carrying large boxes. Initially, Chase only permitted his mother to enter his apartment, though by the spring of 1977, he had begun refusing either parent entry to his apartment and solely permitted communication with his parents via partially opening his front door.

Although Chase’s parents had been granted a conservatorship status of his estate and person, Chase gradually tired of the arrangement and insisted on becoming independent and taking a vacation. As such, his parents allowed the conservatorship to expire automatically in the summer of 1977, although his mother continued to pay his rent and bills. Shortly thereafter, she gave him $1,450 she had saved from his benefits (the equivalent of approximately $7,770 as of 2025^[update])^[56] and bought him a bus ticket to Washington, D.C. Three weeks later, Chase returned home, having purchased a 1966 Ford Ranchero in Colorado for $800.

On August 3, 1977, officers of the Bureau of Indian Affairs arrested Chase on a Native American reservation in Pyramid Lake, Nevada. The seats and inner panels of his Ford Ranchero were smeared with blood and a .22-caliber rifle, a Marlin Model 336, and a pile of men’s clothing were discovered inside the vehicle.

Chase was discovered squatting naked on a rock ledge approximately half a mile from his vehicle, his body smeared with blood.^[58] Suspecting that a homicide had occurred, Chase was arrested despite protesting the blood on his body and within his vehicle had seeped through his own skin. He later amended his story to claim he had shot a deer in Colorado “sometime in May” and had simply undressed to wash the blood from his body in the lake when arrested.

Four days later, laboratory tests confirmed the liver to source from a cow. As such, no charges were filed. Shortly thereafter, Chase returned to Sacramento,^[12] having been able to retrieve his vehicle but not his rifles.

On December 2, 1977, Chase purchased a .22 caliber pistol for $69.99, having lied about his history of mental illness to do so. He was allowed to collect the gun on December 18. Thereafter, neighbors heard him shooting within his apartment. As the first box of bullets Chase purchased with the pistol contained fifty rounds of ammunition and he is known to have purchased a second box of ammunition on December 26, Chase is believed to have fired the gun on at least fifty occasions between December 18 and December 26.

In the early evening of December 27, Chase fired his pistol at at the wall of a home as he drove by the household. Nobody was injured in this incident. Shortly thereafter, at approximately 6:30 p.m., he fired into the kitchen window of a nearby household. Nobody was injured in this second incident, although one bullet did tear through the hair of a young woman, narrowly missing her head.

On December 29, 1977, Chase killed his first known human victim. The victim, Ambrose Griffin,^[63] was a 51-year-old engineer and father of two whom Chase targeted in a drive-by shooting.^[64] Griffin had just returned from a shopping trip with his wife, Carol, and was returning to his vehicle to continue carrying bags of groceries into his house when his wife heard two “popping noises” before hearing her husband scream, turn to face her, then crumple to the ground. One of the rounds fired missed and struck a tree, but the other struck Griffin in the chest. Griffin’s wife—initially believing that he had suffered a heart attack—ran to his side. He died of his wounds in a hospital emergency room. The shooting baffled police, who viewed the murder as a random and motiveless crime—possibly a thrill killing.^{[n 5]}

Two weeks after the murder of Ambrose Griffin, Chase attempted to enter the home of a lone woman; as her doors were locked, he walked away from the premises.^{[n 6]} On January 10, 1978, he purchased three further boxes of ammunition. One week later, he set two fires in apartments close to his own, believing the occupants had been spying on him and in an effort to force the occupants to leave, and on the weekend of January 21-22, Chase went rock-hunting with his father, then visited his mother’s house. Both parents later stated Chase seemed calm and pleasant.

On the morning of January 23, Chase entered an unlocked and unoccupied household; he escaped from a window when the owners returned home at 10:40 a.m. The owners discovered $16, binoculars, a knife, a cassette player, and a stethoscope had been stolen, and that Chase had also urinated and defecated on their infant child’s bed and clothing. Chase then returned home, retrieved his gun and changed from a blue jacket into an orange ski parka.

On January 23, 1978, Chase broke into a house on Tioga Way and shot 22-year-old Teresa Wallin to death before extensively mutilating her body.^[71] Wallin was three months pregnant at the time of her death.^[72] She had been taking a bag of trash from the kitchen to the garbage when she encountered Chase, who entered her home through an unlocked door.

Chase first shot Wallin in the right hand as she dropped the bag of garbage and raised her hands to protect herself. This bullet passed through her palm and into the left side of her scalp. Chase then shot her through her right forearm, with the bullet entering her cheek, breaking her jaw and causing her to collapse to the floor, before fatally shooting her in her left temple. He then dragged her body into the master bedroom before retrieving a butcher’s knife from the kitchen silverware drawer and an empty yogurt cup from the trash bag Wallin had dropped to the living room floor.

Wallin was extensively mutilated while lying on her back. Her turtleneck sweater was pulled up to expose her breasts before Chase severed her left nipple, repeatedly stabbed her breast through the wound, then cut open her torso from her sternum to her left hipbone, exposing her internal organs and causing sections of her intestines to protrude through the wounds and fall to the floor. The knife had penetrated her torso to a depth of a minimum of six inches, and multiple organs were removed, including the spleen, which was completely severed from her body.^[40] Both of Wallin’s kidneys were severed and placed on the left side of her abdominal cavity beneath her liver.^[19] Her liver was stabbed, her diaphragm incised, and her pancreas sliced in two. Chase smeared Wallin’s blood over his face and hands and licked the blood from his gloved fingers before smearing blood over Wallin’s inner thighs. He then repeatedly dipped the yogurt container into her abdominal cavity to collect and drink her blood before washing the blood from his hands, gloves and face in the bathroom. He left the Wallin residence via the back door.

Before leaving the crime scene, Chase stuffed dog feces from Wallin’s yard down her throat.^[40] Wallin’s eyes were open and her tongue protruded from her mouth. Her facial features indicated she had died in a state of fear. A lead pencil, book of matches and a crumpled and crushed, bloodstained yogurt container were discovered on the hardwood floor beside her body. Also discovered on the hardwood floor were several ringlet-shaped bloodstains created as Chase consumed Wallin’s blood through the yogurt cup.

Wallin’s body was discovered by her husband, David, shortly after 6 p.m. Upon discovering his wife’s body, David Wallin ran screaming from the house. Nothing had been stolen from the household, although some body parts were missing.

Shortly after the murder of Teresa Wallin, a Sacramento-based FBI special agent named Russell Vorpagel obtained the assistance of Virginia-based FBI profiler Robert Ressler. The two created their own psychological profile of the killer. They believed that the killer was a white male, aged 25 to 27 and a classic loner. He would be undernourished, with an extensive history of drug use, and suffering from one or more forms of paranoid psychosis. The murderer was a markedly disorganized offender, with evident mental health issues which had most likely begun to develop at around the age of fifteen, with the depth of the offender’s psychosis increasing in severity over the previous eight to ten years, to the point of committing a murder of this nature and evidently consuming his victim’s blood and retaining sections of her body.

The FBI profile also said that as a result of this mental illness, the killer likely didn’t take care of himself, and would have a dirty, disheveled appearance. Furthermore, evidence of the crime would be found at the offender’s residence, and the perpetrator would most likely repeatedly strike until he was caught.

On the morning of January 27, Chase parked his car in a shopping center, then entered the nearby Merrywood Drive home of 36-year-old divorced mother-of-three Evelyn Miroth.^[81] All four occupants in the household were shot to death, with Evelyn Miroth’s body mutilated in a manner similar to that of Teresa Wallin. Their bodies were discovered by a neighbor at approximately 12:30 p.m. The crime scene was less than a mile from the home of David and Teresa Wallin.

Chase claimed to have been in a semi-conscious state when committing these murders. As such, the exact sequence of events which unfolded is unclear. Evidence indicates that in the hallway to the household, he encountered Miroth’s friend Daniel Meredith. Chase shot Meredith twice in the head—including once between the eyes—at close range, with both wounds exiting the back of his skull. Six-year-old Jason Miroth may have been shot prior to Meredith, as forensic evidence indicates Meredith had stepped in Miroth’s blood before he fell. Evelyn Miroth and her 22-month-old nephew David Ferreira were also shot to death, with evidence upon an extensively blood-soaked pillow within Ferreira’s crib indicating Chase had shot Ferreira while he was in his crib.^{[n 7]} Chase then dragged the bodies of Evelyn and Jason Miroth into the master bedroom, where he first undressed both himself and Evelyn Miroth, then extensively mutilated her abdomen with knives from her own kitchen in addition to engaging in necrophilia and cannibalism with her body. He also repeatedly stabbed Miroth in the anus, incised her neck, and attempted to enucleate one of her eyes.^[40] Chase then drained Evelyn Miroth’s blood from her wounds into a green plastic bucket before finding a coffee cup which he used to drink her blood from the bucket.

Semen was discovered in Miroth’s mutilated anus, suggesting that, in spite of his impotence, Chase was able to obtain an erection and perform anal sex with her corpse.^[88] The bathtub was filled with bloodied water in addition to sections of brain and fecal matter, suggesting that Evelyn’s corpse had been dragged from or close to the bathroom to the bedroom where she was mutilated and sodomized. Aside from Meredith’s wallet and car keys, nothing had been stolen from the crime scene.

While committing the mutilations upon Evelyn’s body, a six-year-old neighbor, Tracy Grangaard, began knocking on the family door by prearrangement to enquire whether Jason Miroth was ready to accompany her and her mother upon a scheduled family daytrip into the Sierra Nevada. Chase later said that this development startled him, and so he “took the baby and split”. He fled the Miroth household with Ferreira’s body in Meredith’s Ford station wagon, which he parked in the lot of an apartment building next to his own before taking the toddler’s body into his own apartment. He then retrieved his own vehicle.

Minutes later, the mother of Tracy Grangaard, having noted Meredith’s station wagon was now missing from the Miroth household, alerted a neighbor named Catherine Belli as to Miroth’s uncharacteristic absence. She then drove with her daughter to the Sierra Nevada, deciding Miroth had simply changed her plans. Belli informed a friend named Nancy Turner, who attempted to knock on the back door, only to discover the door open. Turner entered the property and discovered the body of Daniel Meredith. She fled from the house, alerting neighbors. Two men driving a Salvation Army truck nearby contacted the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office. Officers began arriving at the Miroth household at 12:43 p.m.

The first officer dispatched to the scene, Ivan Clark, discovered Daniel Meredith lying face down on the floor near the hallway with two live and one spent .22-caliber cartridges near his body; they also discovered a nude woman lying on the bed in the master bedroom with extensive mutilation from her sternum to lower stomach and several internal organs protruding from the gaping wounds. She had been shot above her right eye. Two bloodstained knives lay on the bed near her head and left hand, and her hair was still wet, as if she had recently bathed. Jason Miroth lay beside the same bed, having been shot in the head.^{[n 8]} The bathroom tub was full of bloodstained water and brain matter, and an empty coffee cup lay on the floor near the door. A single, spent .22-caliber casing was discovered in a bloodstained, empty crib.

At his apartment, Chase decapitated Ferreira’s body before mutilating his chest, removing several organs and collecting and drinking his blood. He also stabbed Ferreira in the anus and cut open sections of the back of his skull, consuming sections of his brain. Ferreira’s body was discovered concealed in a cardboard box in an alleyway on March 24.

Investigators discovered that the murderer had left complete handprints and shoe imprints in Miroth’s blood, and due to the nature of the mutilations upon the female victim, the evident consumption of the victim’s blood, and the close proximity of the crime scenes, the murders were almost immediately connected to the Wallin slaying. Furthermore, Meredith’s station wagon was discovered close to the crime scene with the door ajar and keys still in the ignition, supporting investigators’ contentions the perpetrator lived locally—most likely less than 1 mile (1.6 km) from where the vehicle had been abandoned.

Armed with an updated psychological profile of the murderer, over sixty police officers conducted extensive door-to-door inquiries in the neighborhood of the Wallin and Miroth households, primarily focusing on properties within a half-mile radius of the abandoned station wagon. Residents questioned were asked if they had seen either the red station wagon or a young, disheveled and undernourished white male on January 27. Two eyewitnesses had seen the station wagon being driven in the neighborhood on January 27, but were unable to provide a clear description of the driver; however, a former high school acquaintance of Chase named Nancy Holden informed police that, shortly before midday on the date of the Wallin murder, she had been approached by a man in an orange ski parka while she was in a shopping center close to the Wallin household.^{[n 9]} Initially, Holden had failed to recognize the individual, but when the man asked her if she had been on the motorcycle “when Curt was killed”, she replied “No”, and asked who he was.^{[n 10]} He introduced himself as “Rick” and she realized the man was Richard Chase.^[13]

Holden was shocked by his disheveled and emaciated appearance, also noticing that he had bloodstains on him, that his eyes seemed sunken into their sockets, and that a thick yellow crust encircled around his mouth. She had been so unsettled that when Chase followed her from the supermarket to the parking lot and asked her for a ride, she stated she was now married, then locked her car and drove off as Chase attempted to unlock her passenger-side door.

The Wallin household was located beyond a small park adjacent to this parking lot. Chase is believed to have encountered Teresa Wallin several minutes later.

Chase was arrested after police discovered that a Richard Trenton Chase lived less than a block from the abandoned station wagon. Initially, Chase refused to either answer his phone, or let police into his apartment. Police then attempted a ruse to lure Chase out of his apartment by pretending that they were leaving. Shortly thereafter, Chase left his apartment carrying a box of bloodstained rags beneath his arm.^[107] He was arrested following a brief chase and scuffle,^[108] during which he shouted to the officers that he had “done nothing”.

As Chase was driven to the police station, he remarked to officers: “My apartment’s a lot cleaner, isn’t it? I didn’t do anything in my apartment except kill a few dogs.”

A search of Chase’s vehicle revealed a twelve-inch butcher’s knife and a pair of bloodstained rubber boots in the trunk. The walls, floors and ceiling of his apartment were extensively bloodstained, with investigators also discovering an extensively bloodstained electric food blender in the kitchen. Several dishes in the refrigerator contained human body parts, and a container held human brain tissue. Several knives also discovered in the kitchen had been stolen from the Wallin residence. Numerous dog leashes and collars were also found upon a wall, a bloodstained half loaf of French bread lay upon his couch, and an unwashed, bloodstained dinner plate lay upon Chase’s bed. A calendar on the wall of the apartment had the word ‘Today’ written on the dates of the Wallin and Miroth murders; Chase had written the same word upon this calendar on forty-four further dates throughout 1978. Furthermore, Chase had evidently been avidly reading gun and psychology magazines, and he had circled classified ads in a local newspaper advertising dogs for sale.

Chase was formally charged with the murders of Teresa Wallin, Daniel Meredith, and Evelyn and Jason Miroth, plus the kidnapping and murder of David Ferreira, on the evening of January 28, with Sacramento County Sheriff Duane Lowe informing the media investigators had obtained sufficient physical evidence to conclude Ferreira was also deceased.^[114] Shortly thereafter, ballistic testing revealed Chase’s pistol had also been used to kill Ambrose Griffin, and he was additionally charged with his murder.

A few days after his January 1978 capture, Chase was interviewed by psychiatrists and psychologists, who concluded his mental deterioration most likely began at approximately age fifteen. Chase himself would only give vague details about his mental health history. When asked what was on his mind, Chase was not forthcoming. They rephrased the question and asked what was on the “screen” of his mind, as if he were watching his thoughts on a television. Chase said “normal things” and “an exploding 747 jetliner“. He also attempted to justify his murders by claiming: “The whole neighborhood was a bunch of drug addicts and Nazis. Everybody who lived around here for a square mile, for ten square miles, knew what was going on.”

In 1979, Chase stood trial before Superior Court Judge John Schatz, charged with six counts of murder.^[117] His counsel entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity on his behalf.^[118][119]

Due to his delusions of being a persecuted Jew, Chase requested a lawyer from the Jewish Defense League, with this motion being denied.^[120] His defense attorney was Farris Salamy, who was the son of Lebanese migrants and local to the Sacramento area.^[121] While in custody and awaiting trial, Chase claimed the food he was being served was poisoned. He ordered his defense attorney to have the food tested, and it came back negative.^[9] In order to avoid the death penalty, the defense tried to have him found guilty of second degree murder, which would result in a life sentence. Their case hinged on Chase’s history of mental illness and the suggestion that his crimes were not premeditated.

The prosecutor, Ronald Tochterman, argued that Chase had acted in a deliberate and premeditated manner in the commission of his crimes as opposed to a “wild and haphazard” manner. Tochterman outlined Chase’s progression of practising shooting with his gun before fatally shooting Ambrose Griffin, then entering occupied homes with loaded guns and rubber gloves, where he precisely mutilated women’s bodies to obtain their blood. The prosecution therefore outlined that Chase had demonstrated an intentional and premeditated thought process in the commission of his crimes.

Chase claimed that he needed blood, saying that he’d gone to several places to get some, but was unable to. He believed that his inability to produce sufficient blood was the source of his physical ailments, thus preventing him from living a normal life. Chase also claimed that the blood from animals hadn’t helped him, explaining, “I couldn’t cope with the world anymore because every time I tried to get up and act like a human being I couldn’t because of the weakness. I went on welfare and got in Beverly Manor, so now I’ve got a trial pending I guess.”^[9] He went on to plead not guilty by reason of “temporary insanity”, and requested he be seen by a heart specialist for his supposed stolen pulmonary artery.^[9] Chase told the jury that he was a good person, but had a weak heart and mind.^[124] Teresa Wallin’s husband was involved in the trial, giving victim impact statements. One day during the trial, Chase’s mother confronted him, and criticized their German Shepherd for not protecting them the day the murder happened. This comment left Wallin’s husband stunned, who responded by saying that she should have protected them from her son.^[67]

On May 8, 1979, following six hours of deliberations over the course of two days,^[125] the jury found Chase guilty of six counts of first degree murder, rejecting the insanity defense. The sanity phase was deferred until Monday, May 14.^[126]

On May 17, the jury, having deliberated over the course of two days, ruled Chase to have been sane under California law at the time of the commission of the murders,^[127] with the lead prosecutor convincing the jurors that Chase, while mentally disturbed, still appreciated the criminality of his actions.^[128]

On June 8, Judge John Schatz formally sentenced Chase to death.^[129] Upon hearing the judge refuse to reject the jury’s recommendation that he be sentenced to death, Chase shouted that he remained the victim of poisoning conspiracies, blurting: “But they brainwashed me! There’s a conspiracy and I’m still being poisoned here.”^[130]

Chase’s fellow inmates in San Quentin prison, aware of the extremely violent and grisly nature of his crimes, feared him and, according to prison officials, often tried to persuade Chase to commit suicide.^[131] Chase was described as behaving psychotically from the moment he entered prison, and was temporarily sent to a facility for the criminally insane in Vacaville, California during December 1979^[19] He was eventually sent back to San Quentin in April 1980, once he was deemed to be stabilized.^[19] Chase wanted to be transferred to a prison on the east coast in 1979, so he could be closer to the government and safe from UFOs, and that same year he had also written several documents, in which he blamed the murders on UFOs, the CIA, the mafia and airline disasters.^[133] In one of the documents, Chase wrote that UFO intelligence began tracking him six months prior to the murder spree, also theorizing that he was born as a result of UFO cloning experiments, and claiming that his mother had been secretly poisoning him since he was a year old.^[133] Chase also wrote that he had been born with a Jewish Star of David symbol on his forehead, and that this was as a result of the UFO cloning experiment.^[133] During late 1979, Chase was considering appealing his death sentence, since he thought his life was under threat when the murders happened, which could have made his actions justifiable under Californian law.^[133]

In 1979, Robert Ressler conducted an interview with Chase at San Quentin. A reason Ressler did this interview was since he wanted to validate the original criminal profile he had made of Chase, while the murders were occurring during 1978.^[134] When Ressler met Chase, he noted that he was very thin, and described his eyes as being like black dots rather than normal pupils, saying that they resembled those of the shark in the movie Jaws. In this interview, Chase spoke of his fears of Nazis, UFOs and being poisoned. He told Ressler that he was going to appeal his death sentence, and this was since he was the victim of soap-dish poisoning. Chase explained to Ressler that everyone has a soap-dish, and if they lift up the soap and the part underneath the soap is dry, they are fine, but if it’s gooey, that means they have soap-dish poisoning. When Ressler asked what the soap-dish poisoning had done to Chase, he responded by saying it had turned his blood to powder, and that the reason he killed was to replenish his blood and thus prevent his own death. Chase again claimed that he was Jewish, and said that there was a Star of David symbol on his forehead. He handed Ressler a large amount of macaroni and cheese, which he had been hoarding in his pants pockets, believing that the prison officials were in league with the Nazis and attempting to kill him with poisoned food.^[40] Chase wanted Ressler to have the food tested at the FBI lab in Quantico, and Ressler said he would do this.^[9] During the interview, Ressler went along with the statements Chase was saying. For example, Ressler said he couldn’t see the Star of David symbol on Chase’s forehead since he hadn’t brought his glasses with him that day, but didn’t question the statement as being false. In 1992, Ressler said, “the rule is, you stay out of commenting on the fantasy, and, by your comments, urge him to continue. So I couldn’t say about soap-dish poisoning, ‘There isn’t any such thing,’ because that wouldn’t have helped. Neither could I say, ‘Oh, yes, I know people who’ve had soap-dish poisoning.’ I merely accepted his explanation and didn’t debate him about it.” When Chase was temporarily sent to the Vacaville facility for the criminally insane shortly afterwards, Ressler was supportive of this decision. Ressler had also opposed the initial decision to send Chase to San Quentin in May 1979, believing that he should have been permanently institutionalized instead.

At 11:05 a.m. on December 26, 1980, Chase was found dead in his death row cell at San Quentin. He was lying on his stomach, with both legs extended off his bunk and his feet touching the floor. His head was turned into his mattress and his arms extended upwards into his pillow. He had last been seen alive when served breakfast at 7:45 a.m., when a guard observed him lying on his back and breathing normally.

An autopsy revealed Chase had died from an overdose of fifty-milligram Sinequan tablets, a drug prescribed to treat depression and hallucinations, and that he had died approximately one hour prior to the discovery of his body.^[144] He had taken thirty-six times the recommended dosage, and unbeknownst to officers, had been secretly hoarding the pills in his cell for between two and three weeks.^[19] His autopsy also revealed no abnormalities with his heart.

San Quentin prison staff discovered four sheets of A4 paper covered in handwriting and illustrations within a cardboard box beside Chase’s bunk. Two of the sheets contained an illustration approximating a graph, with the marking squares filled with an unknown cryptographic code; the other two pages contained a message in which Chase indicated that he may consume some pills which could cause his heart to stop beating.^[19]

In 1992, Sacramento detective Ray Biondi would reflect on the manner of Chase’s death by writing: “I did note the irony in the way in which he died: Richard Chase ended up being poisoned to death all right—by his own hand” before adding, “Now, frankly, I was just relieved he was gone.”

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