THATS KILLER!

03 CHASE

THATS KILLER!

THATS KILLER!

THATS KILLER!

Richard Trenton Chase Richard Trenton Chase (May 23, 1950 December 26, 1980) was an American schizophrenic serial killer and one time mass murderer who killed six people in the span of a month in Sacramento, California. He was nicknamed The Vampire of Sacramento because he drank his victims blood and cannibalized their remains. Childhood A self-described victim of abuse at the hands of his mother, Chase exhibited by the age of 10 evidence of the Macdonald triad: enuresis, pyromania, and zoosadism. In his adolescence, he was known as an alcoholic and a chronic drug abuser. He suffered from erectile dysfunction due to psychological problems stemming from repressed anger. Early Adulthood 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 the 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 in order to watch this activity. After leaving his mothers house (believing she was attempting to poison him), Chase rented an apartment with friends. Chases roommates complained that he was constantly intoxicated on alcohol, marijuana, and LSD. Chase would also walk around the apartment nude, even in front of company. Chases roommates demanded that he move out. When he refused, the roommates moved out instead. Once alone in the apartment, Chase began to capture, kill, and disembowel various animals, which he would then devour raw, sometimes mixing the raw organs with Coca-Cola in a blender and drinking the concoction. Chase reasoned that by ingesting the creatures he was preventing his heart from shrinking.

THATS KILLER!

THATS KILLER!

THATS KILLER!

Institutionalization In 1975, Chase was involuntarily committed to a mental institution after being taken to a hospital after injecting rabbits blood into his veins. He often shared with the staff fantasies about killing rabbits. He was once found with blood smeared around his mouth, but hospital staff discovered he had been drinking the blood of birds; he had thrown the birds corpses out of his hospital room window. Staff began referring to him as Dracula. In one of the many incidents in which he was held at the institution, he substituted the blood from the therapy dog to curb his addiction. He claimed he obtained the syringes from cracking open the disposable boxes left in the doctors offices. It took them weeks before they figured it out, and then they no longer brought any therapeutic animals in. Occasionally, he was discovered to have defecated on himself at which point he would paint art on the walls of the institution with feces. Chase was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. After undergoing a battery of treatments involving psychotropic drugs, Chase was deemed no longer a danger to society and, in 1976, he was released under the recognizance of his mother. Chases mother decided that he did not need to be on the prescribed antipsychotic medication, stating it made her son a zombie. She weaned him off the medication and got Chase his own apartment. 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 in his truck. The victim was found to be bovine and no charges were filed.

THATS KILLER!

Murders 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. After the shooting, one of Griffins sons reported seeing a neighbor walking around their East Sacramento neighborhood with a .22 caliber rifle. The neighbors rifle was seized, but ballistics tests determined that it was not the murder weapon. Two weeks later, he attempted to enter the home of a woman but, finding that her doors were locked, walked away; Chase later told detectives that he took locked doors as a sign that he was not welcome, but that unlocked doors were an invitation to come inside. He was later chased off by a returning couple as he pilfered belongings from their home and urinated and defecated on their beds and clothing. Teresa Wallin was Chases next victim on January 23. Three months pregnant, Wallin was surprised at her home by Chase, who shot her three times, killing her. He then had sex with the corpse, mutilated it, and bathed in the dead womans blood.

Two days after killing Wallin, Chase purchased two puppies from a neighbor. He killed them and drank their blood. On January 27, Chase committed his final murders. Entering the home of 38-year-old Evelyn Miroth, he encountered her friend, Danny Meredith, whom he shot with his 22 handgun. Stealing Merediths wallet and car keys, he rampaged through the house, fatally shooting Miroth, her six-year-old son Jason, and her 22-month-old nephew, David. As with Wallin, Chase engaged in necrophilia and cannibalism with Miroths corpse. A six-year-old girl with whom Jason Miroth had a playdate knocked on the door, startling Chase, who fled the scene in Merediths car, taking Davids body with him. The girl alerted a neighbor, who alerted police. Upon entering the home, police discovered that Chase had left perfect handprints and shoe imprints in Miroths blood. Chase returned to his apartment on Watt Ave., where he drank Davids blood and ate several of the childs internal organs (including the childs brain)before disposing of the body at a nearby church.

THATS KILLER!

THATS KILLER!

On May 8, th e jury in the h ighly publiciz Chase guilty of ed case found six counts of first degree m was sentenced urder and Ch to die in the ga ase s chamber. Th argument that ey rejected th he was not gu e ilty by reason fellow inmates of insanity. H , aware of the is graphic and bi Chases crimes zarre nature of , feared him, and according they often trie to prison offici d to convince als, Chase to com mit suicide. Chase granted a series of inte rviews with R during which obert Ressler, he spoke of h is fears of Naz claiming that is and UFOs, although he h ad killed, it w he had been fo as not his fau rced to kill to lt; keep himself believed any p alive, which h erson would d e o. He asked R him access to essler to give a radar gun, w ith which he co the Nazi UFO uld apprehen s, so that the d Nazis could st the murders. and trial for He also hand ed Ressler a la macaroni and rge amount of cheese, which he had been h his pants poc oarding in kets, believing that the prison in league with officials were the Nazis and attempting to kill him with poisoned food . On Decembe r 26, 1980, a gu ard checking lying awkwar cells found C dly on his bed hase , not breathin determined th g. An autopsy at he commit ted suicide wit prison doctorh an overdose prescribed an of tidepressants over several w that he had sa eeks. It is uncl ved ear if he did th inmates sugg is because of estions or his the own mental st ate.

In 1979, Chas e stood trial on six counts of to avoid the d murder. In or eath penalty, der the defense tr found guilty of ied to have him second degre e murder, wh in a life sente ich would resu nce. Their case lt hinged on Ch mental illness ases history of and the sugges tion that his cr imes were not premeditated .

Aftermath

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