Richard Chase

Richard Trenton Chase (May 23, 1950 – December 26, 1980) was an American serial killer, cannibal, and necrophile who killed six people in Sacramento, California, from December 1977 to January 1978.

He was nicknamed The Vampire of Sacramento because he drank his victims' blood and cannibalized their remains.

Chase was a native of Sacramento, California.

By the age of 5, he exhibited evidence of all three parts of the Macdonald triad, a theory suggesting the development of violent psychopathy.

The triad links cruelty to animals, obsession with fire-setting, and persistent bedwetting past the age of five, to violent behaviors, particularly homicidal behavior and sexually predatory behavior.

In his adolescence, he was said to be a heavy drug user.

Chase developed hypochondria as he matured.

He often complained that his heart would occasionally "stop beating", or that "someone had stolen his pulmonary artery".

He would hold oranges on his head, believing Vitamin C would be absorbed by his brain via diffusion.

Chase also believed that his cranial bones had become separated and were moving around, so he shaved his head to be able to watch this activity.

Chase spent a brief time in a psychiatric ward in 1973.

In 1976, he was involuntarily committed to a mental institution when he was taken to a hospital after injecting rabbit's blood into his veins.

The staff nicknamed him "Dracula" because of his blood fixation.

He broke the necks of two birds he caught through the institution window and drank their blood.

He also extracted blood from therapy dogs with stolen syringes.

Chase was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

After undergoing a battery of treatments involving psychotropic drugs, Chase was deemed no longer a danger to society, and later in 1976, he was released to his mother's custody.

Chase's mother weaned him off his medication and got him his own apartment.

He initially shared the apartment with roommates before all of them moved out, leaving Chase on his own.

Later investigation uncovered that, in mid-1977, Chase was stopped and arrested on a reservation in the Pyramid Lake, Nevada, area.

His body was smeared with blood and a bucket of blood was found in his truck.

The blood was determined to be cow's blood, and no charges were filed.

On December 29, 1977, Chase killed his first known victim in a drive-by shooting.

The victim, Ambrose Griffin, was a 51-year-old engineer and father of two.

Two weeks later, he attempted to enter the home of a woman, but because her doors were locked, he walked away.

Chase later told detectives that he took locked doors as a sign that he was not welcome, but unlocked doors were an invitation to come inside.

On one occasion, he was caught and chased off by a couple returning home as he pilfered their belongings; he had also urinated and defecated on their infant child's bed and clothing.

On January 23, 1978, Chase broke into a house and shot Teresa Wallin (three months pregnant at the time) three times.

He then had sexual intercourse with her corpse while stabbing her with a butcher's knife.

He then removed multiple organs, cut off one of her nipples and drank her blood.

He stuffed dog feces from Wallin's yard down her throat before leaving.

On January 27, Chase entered the home of 38-year-old Evelyn Miroth.

He encountered her friend, Danny Meredith, whom he shot with his .22 handgun.

He then fatally shot Miroth, her six-year-old son Jason, and her 22-month-old nephew David Ferreira, before mutilating Miroth and engaging in necrophilia and cannibalism with her corpse.

A visitor's knock on the door startled Chase, who fled in Meredith's car, taking Ferreira's body with him.

The visitor alerted a neighbor, who called police.

They discovered that Chase had left complete handprints and shoe imprints in Miroth's blood.

Chase was arrested shortly afterwards; police who searched Chase's apartment found that the walls, floor, ceiling, refrigerator, and all of Chase's eating and drinking utensils were soaked in blood.

In 1979, Chase stood trial on six counts of murder.

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.