Richard Trenton Chase (May 23, 1950 – December 26, 1980) was an American
spree killer
A spree killer is someone who commits a criminal act that involves two or more murders or homicides in a short time, in multiple locations. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics defines a spree killing as "killings at two or more locations ...
,
cannibal, and
necrophile
Necrophilia, also known as necrophilism, necrolagnia, necrocoitus, necrochlesis, and thanatophilia, is sexual attraction towards or a sexual act involving corpses. It is classified as a paraphilia by the World Health Organization (WHO) in its ' ...
who killed six people in
Sacramento, California
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...
, from December 1977 to January 1978. He was nicknamed The Vampire of Sacramento because he
drank his victims' blood and cannibalized their remains.
Early life
Chase was a native of
Sacramento, California
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...
. He was born shortly after his parents got married, and had a younger sister named Pamela.
His parents were prone to arguing with each other during his childhood. On one camping trip in
Oregon
Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...
, his mother Beatrice accused her husband of having an affair with a woman hiding in the bushes, which is described as having ruined this trip.
Chase's mother also said that her husband was annoying her in bed while she was sleeping, and that he must have somehow drugged her to do this.
By the age of 5, Chase privately 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. These internal issues did not affect his early school life, with over 60 children coming to one of his birthday parties.
In his
adolescence
Adolescence () is a transitional stage of physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (typically corresponding to the age of majority). Adolescence is usually associated with the t ...
, he was said to be a heavy user of drugs such as
marijuana
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various tra ...
and
LSD.
As a teenager, Chase also discovered that he was
impotent
Erectile dysfunction (ED), also called impotence, is the type of sexual dysfunction in which the penis fails to become or stay erect during sexual activity. It is the most common sexual problem in men.Cunningham GR, Rosen RC. Overview of male ...
, which prevented him from having sexual relationships with women.
One of Chase's first instances of strange behavior as an early teen occurred when he started to believe he was a member of the
James–Younger Gang. Chase even pasted his head onto photos of them. He tried to sell these photos to people, and wanted his mother to buy him a cowboy hat, but she refused.
Chase would also sometimes sleep in his family's lounge room, and when he did this he would take off all his clothes, turn the heater on as high as it would go, and then open the windows.
While Chase was described as being popular and clean-cut during his high school years, he started to become withdrawn once he entered adulthood, and had a more unkempt appearance.
Chase was able to get a girlfriend in high school, whom he began dating in 1965. In subsequent interviews, this woman used the pseudonym "Libby Christopher". They were unable to have sex the first time they attempted to do so due to his impotence. The relationship continued nonetheless, although his continual failure to achieve an erection led to their eventual split in 1966. Once graduating from high school, Chase attended
American River College between 1968 and 1971. His grades were declining and he started not attending classes, eventually dropping out.
Early adulthood
Chase developed
hypochondria
Hypochondriasis or hypochondria is a condition in which a person is excessively and unduly worried about having a serious illness. An old concept, the meaning of hypochondria has repeatedly changed. It has been claimed that this debilitating cond ...
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
Vitamin C (also known as ascorbic acid and ascorbate) is a water-soluble vitamin found in citrus and other fruits and vegetables, also sold as a dietary supplement and as a topical 'serum' ingredient to treat melasma (dark pigment spots) an ...
would be absorbed by his brain via
diffusion
Diffusion is the net movement of anything (for example, atoms, ions, molecules, energy) generally from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Diffusion is driven by a gradient in Gibbs free energy or chemical p ...
. Chase additionally thought that his
cranial
Standard anatomical terms of location are used to unambiguously describe the anatomy of animals, including humans. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position pro ...
bones had become separated and were moving around, so he once shaved his head to be able to watch this activity.
Chase first worked in a typing and phone answering job for Retailers Credit Association during 1969, while enrolled in American River College. In the next few years, Chase continued to find other odd jobs in Sacramento, but he was still using heavy amounts of drugs and none of them lasted long.
Chase shared an apartment with Cyd Evans DeMarchi and Rachel Statum in 1971, shortly before dropping out of American River College. The two found him sitting on their front lawn one day in February 1971, and began talking, with Chase convincing them to let him become a roommate of theirs.
His parents gave him 50 dollars each month to help him pay his share of the rent. DeMarchi and Statum both moved out due to Chase's behavior. He was usually high on drugs and walked around naked in front of visitors. He also barricaded himself in his room, explaining that he did this so no one would be able to sneak up on him.
He then shared the apartment with Statum's brother and his friends. These new roommates had a
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
band, and Chase often interrupted their jamming, wanting to play the
conga
The conga, also known as tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed drum from Cuba. Congas are staved like barrels and classified into three types: quinto (lead drum, highest), tres dos or tres golpes (middle), and tumba or salidor (lowest). ...
with them. However, they didn't want him to since he didn't sound good. This caused arguments, and he joined in anyway. Statum's brother and his friends also eventually moved out, and Chase was unable to afford the rent by himself.
Chase's parents divorced in June 1972, and he frequently fought with his mother. He believed that she was trying to poison him, something which she had accused her husband of doing when he was a child.
During one lone trip to
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
in 1972, Chase was arrested for driving under the influence, and he told his parents that he had been gassed in the local jail, and that he wanted to sue the police. His father bailed him out of jail and convinced him against suing the police.
He alternated between living in his mother's residence and his father's new residence, since they were both finding it difficult to deal with his increasingly erratic behavior. When Chase's father kicked him out of his residence, neighbors reported that he would stand still by the property, blankly staring at it for extended periods of time.
At this point, his father didn't believe that the troubles in his life were due to mental illness, but rather a lazy work ethnic and misguided values.
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.
Following this incident, Chase had two separate stints living with his grandmother in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, who noted his odd behavior. During the first stay with his grandmother, Chase worked for his uncle, as a bus driver of mentally disabled children. However, he was fired for never cleaning the bus and letting it run low on oil.
All he had to do to change the oil was to take it to a particular station, but he never followed through on this instruction.
After getting fired from the bus job, he spent most of the day in his bed, roaming the house at night. He became convinced that someone was trying to enter his grandmother's house through a window.
His grandmother heard him talking to himself, and also once found him standing on his head in the corner of his room. He told her that he was trying to get the blood to run back down to his head.
At other times, he complained to her 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 a few days.
Chase's grandmother said that both his mental state and physical appearance had deteriorated during his second stay with her.
When Chase returned to Sacramento for good in the summer of 1973, he began cutting out photos of human organs from a medical book, and pasting them all over his bedroom. This was in an effort to understand what was wrong with him.
Around this time. Chase called an ambulance to his house, who arrived with a stretcher that he had requested. However, they refused to take him to hospital when they found out that he was not suffering from a medical emergency.
Chase later went to his mother "begging" her for help with his supposed medical conditions.
She responded by getting him in contact with two different doctors.
Chase was dissatisfied with the prognosis these doctors gave him, so he went to see Doctor Donald Ansel. Ansel found there to be nothing physically wrong with him, and concluded that Chase had a "psychiatric disturbance of major proportion."
In 1973, Chase killed one of his cats when he saw a television story about a cat that had received high quality medical treatments. The story aggravated him since he believed that he deserved these treatments.
Institutionalization
Chase spent two days in a psychiatric ward on December 1973, after walking into the emergency room of American River Hospital, complaining about a variety of imagined ailments. Chase said that he couldn't breathe, that the blood had stopped flowing through his body and that he was suffering
cardiac arrest
Cardiac arrest is when the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops beating. It is a medical emergency that, without immediate medical intervention, will result in sudden cardiac death within minutes. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and possib ...
.
He also mentioned that he'd lost his "pulmonary vein".
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".
The hospital diagnosed Chase with acute paranoid
schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social withdra ...
, although they said that it was possible he was also suffering a drug-induced psychosis.
Chase was discharged when his mother confronted the psychiatric ward staff. In his report, Lyons said she was "highly aggressive, hostile
ndprovocative", adding that she was "the so-called schizophrenic mother".
After being discharged, Chase's mental health allegedly improved over the next two years, once he started taking the hospital's medication. He was given an oxygen tank, presumably to help him deal with panic attacks. Chase also added 20 pounds to his thin frame.
Chase's mother claimed that his mental state deteriorated once he started using illegal drugs again.
However, his father disagreed with this assessment.
Chase's mother said that as his mental state grew worse, she would overhear him talking to himself, just as his grandmother had. According to his mother, he began to have trouble even signing his own name, and on two occasions, he also ordered her to stop controlling his mind, with Chase later accusing his sister Pamela of controlling his mind as well.
Once Chase slapped his mother in the face, and sometimes when he argued with her, she would put his father on the phone, which led him to have fits of rage, causing damage throughout the house. Chase's mother would accuse her ex-husband of telling him to behave like this.
Chase became too much for either parent to handle, so they got him his own apartment.
Once living in this apartment, Chase began riding his bicycle to a rabbit farm, and after purchasing the rabbits he consumed them raw.
Chase kept the apartment relatively clean, and his father would come over for games of chess. When Chase's father asked why he had live rabbits, Chase responded by saying that he was eating them, and his father never looked into this any further, having already grown accustomed to his strange statements.
In 1976, he was involuntarily committed to a mental institution for the second time. This occurred when he was taken to the emergency of American River Hospital, after injecting rabbit's blood into his veins. His father found him vomiting in his apartment and barely able to move, following blood poisoning. The emergency staff said that Chase gave them a "bizarre story" about eating a rabbit which had battery acid in its stomach, and they again concluded that he was mentally ill.
He was sent to American River Hospital's psychiatric health facility, and there Chase complained of heart weakness and said his body was falling apart.
He refused to participate in any group activities, eventually being transferred to the Beverly Manor Psychiatric Hospital.
The staff at this institution nicknamed him "
Dracula
''Dracula'' is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking ...
" 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.
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.
The mental institution's staff disagreed with this decision, which was ordered by a doctor. Shortly after Chase's murders, one of the staff members told TV reporters that, "it was his turn to be released, and anything we had to say or do about it was irrelevant", adding that he thought that Chase was "sick and dangerous."
Without consulting doctors, Chase's mother weaned him off his medication, since she disliked how it made him "like a zombie". She got him another apartment, and in it, Chase progressed from eating birds and rabbits to eating dogs.
He purchased puppies and hanged them in his apartment. Chase would then cut open their stomachs, drinking their blood and eating their raw guts.
The dogs he purchased were suspicious and didn't want to go with him.
Chase's neighbor Dawn Larson said that he would aimlessly walk around their apartment complex with his mouth open, and that he didn't respond to her when she said hello. She also remembered seeing him bring dogs and a cat, even though pets weren't allowed. She never saw the animals again and didn't know what became of them.
Initially, Chase only allowed his mother to enter the door of his apartment, but he soon would not allow anyone to come in, and would speak to his mother through a crack in the door.
Later investigation uncovered that, in mid-1977, Chase was stopped and arrested on a
Native American reservation in the
Pyramid Lake, Nevada
Pyramid Lake is the geographic sink of the basin of the Truckee River, northeast of Reno, Nevada, United States.
Pyramid Lake is the biggest remnant of ancient Lake Lahontan, the colossal inland sea that once covered most of Nevada. It is app ...
, area. His naked body was smeared with blood and a bucket with a liver was found in his truck, with police suspecting that a homicide had occurred.
Witnesses reported that Chase had a dog with him earlier that day, but it was never recovered. When questioned by police at the scene, Chase claimed that the blood was seeping out of him and that he didn't know what had happened to the dog. The blood was determined to be cow's blood, and no charges were filed.
Murders
Lead up to the murders and Griffin shooting
Chase purchased a .22 caliber pistol in late 1977, and lied about his history of mental illness in order to do so.
Neighbors soon heard shooting noises in his apartment. Chase later claimed that he had been shooting at voices that he heard, with bullet holes in the walls confirming this story.
Chase continued to kill and eat dogs, and would now shoot them in the head, which made it easier for him to collect the blood, since he could put cups next to the bullet wounds.
After killing small dogs, including
Labrador
, nickname = "The Big Land"
, etymology =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Canada
, subdivision_type1 = Province
, subdivision_name1 ...
puppies, he eventually tried to steal a large
St. Bernard from a residence, but was unsuccessful.
On December 29, 1977, Chase killed his first known human victim in a
drive-by shooting. The victim, Ambrose Griffin, was a 51-year-old engineer and father of two.
The shooting baffled police, who viewed it as being a random, motiveless crime.
Chase claimed that in the lead up to the murder, he was angered by his mother's refusal to allow to him to come over to her house for Christmas. She wouldn't allow him in her house since his sister had become afraid of him, following a recent incident where he ripped apart a cat in front of his mother during an argument, smearing its blood over his body.
Two weeks after the Griffin murder, he attempted to enter the home of a woman, but because her doors were locked, he walked away. Chase went on to tell 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. He broke into another unoccupied house and attempted to set fire to one of the drapes.
Chase later said that he believed the residents of this house had been spying on him, and that he wanted them to leave the neighborhood.
Wallin murder
On January 23, 1978, Chase broke into a house and shot Teresa Wallin (three months pregnant at the time). She had been taking out the trash, and he first shot her in the hand, as she attempted to protect herself. He then shot her in the cheek, breaking her jaw, before shooting her in the head, and rendering her unconscious. He had
sexual intercourse with her corpse while stabbing her in the stomach with a butcher's knife from her kitchen. He then removed multiple organs, cut off one of her nipples and drank her blood through a yogurt cup he found in her trash bag. He stuffed dog feces from Wallin's yard down her throat before leaving.
It was determined that she was still alive while some of the mutilation was occurring.
Wallin's corpse was discovered by her husband, a truck driver who was at work when the murder happened.
The husband only saw a split second of the corpse before screaming and getting out of there.
He called his parents to come over and was hoping that they wouldn't have to look at her corpse, but they did eventually see it.
Police called to the scene were told that the victim had been shot and "opened up with a knife".
Per standard procedure, they checked to see if she had a pulse, even though it was obvious she was dead.
Wallin's eyes were open and her tongue was sticking out, with Detective Wayne Irey saying that the terrified expression on her face had continued to haunt him over the years.
[''Born to Kill'' episode on Richard Chase, 2010.] Irey added, "it was a horrific homicide, because not only had he killed her, but she was pregnant at the time, so he killed an unborn child."
Sacramento officer Frank Davidson remembered in 2010, "I've been to a lot of homicide scenes and took a lot of pictures and done a lot of evidence, and he was the strangest I've ever seen, a lot of the other people have ever seen. You don't have everyday someone cutting somebody open, looking through their intestines and moving their things about."
Chase later told a psychiatrist that he spent the rest of that day watching television in his apartment.
In the following days, Chase had a phone conversation with his mother. She said that he talked about rockets, spaceships and "little green men".
Miroth family murder
On January 27, Chase entered the home of 38-year-old divorced mother Evelyn Miroth, and proceeded to murder everyone inside the building. Chase said he was only semi-conscious when this happened, so the exact sequence of events is unclear. Near the door, he encountered Miroth's friend, Dan Meredith. Meredith had been introduced to Miroth through his sister and was being treated for a brain tumor at the time.
Chase shot him twice in the head, also fatally shooting in the head Miroth, her six-year-old son Jason, and her 22-month-old nephew David Ferreira, before mutilating Miroth and engaging in
necrophilia
Necrophilia, also known as necrophilism, necrolagnia, necrocoitus, necrochlesis, and thanatophilia, is sexual attraction towards or a sexual act involving Cadaver, corpses. It is classified as a paraphilia by the World Health Organization (WHO) ...
and
cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, b ...
with her corpse. Like with Wallin, Chase cut open the organs of Miroth, in addition to repeatedly stabbing her in the anus and attempting to cut out one of her eyes.
Semen was found in Miroth's mutilated anus, suggesting that Chase was able to get an erection and have anal sex with her corpse, in spite of his impotence.
Chase also stabbed Ferreira in the anus and cut open a section at the back of his skull, so it would be easier to drink his blood.
Evidence suggests that Chase shot Ferreira in the head while he was in his crib, and that Evelyn's corpse was dragged to the bed in which it was found. There was a bathtub full of blood, meaning that Evelyn might have been having a bath when Chase entered the home.
While the mutilations were occurring, six-year-old Tracy Grangaard began knocking on the door, since her family had a scheduled daytrip with Jason Miroth.
Chase said that this startled him, and so he "took the baby and split".
He fled in Meredith's car with Ferreira's body and took it to his apartment. Chase went on to decapitate the baby and consumed parts of the brain, claiming that he did this because he was hungry.
Police investigation and capture
The family of the girl who startled Chase at Miroth's house alerted a neighbor, who called police.
["Richard Chase", ''World's Most Evil Killers'', 2020.] Dan Meredith was lying in a pool of blood near the door when police entered. Sacramento detective Ray Biondi described Miroth's residence as "a house of carnage",
and said it was difficult to look at the dead body of six-year-old Jason Miroth, since he also had a six-year-old son at the time.
["Inside the Warped Mind of the Vampire of Sacramento", ''35 Serial Killers The World Wants to Forget'', ]Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-own ...
. Jason Miroth was wearing new clothes for the daytrip he was meant to go on with Grangaard's family.
When police found Evelyn Miroth's mutilated corpse spread out on a bed, they noticed that Ferreira was missing from his crib, subsequently saying they had little hope that the missing baby was still alive.
They discovered that the murderer had left complete handprints and shoe imprints in Miroth's blood, and due to the nature of the murder, immediately connected it to the Wallin slaying. During both murders, Chase had been wearing an orange ski
parka his father recently bought him. Neighbors later reported that a disheveled long haired man in an orange ski parka had been knocking on their doors in the lead up to the Miroth murder, asking if they had old newspapers. Police soon created a sketch of this long haired suspect. Nancy Westfall, an old high school acquaintance of Chase, later told police that a man in an orange ski parka had approached her while she was shopping. Westfall didn't realize it was Chase at first since his appearance had changed so much since he was a teenager. She noted that he had blood stains on the white shirt underneath his parka, and noticed a yellow crust encircled around his mouth. His dirty appearance and strange behavior unsettled her, and she locked her car and drove off when he asked her for a ride. The encounter occurred shortly before Chase murdered Wallin.
Chase was arrested after this woman came forward and they checked his background. 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. Several dog collars were also found, along with rotting organs, which were determined to belong to animals and some of his victims. He had been reading gun magazines, psychology magazines, a book titled ''Psychic People'' and he had circled classified ads in the paper about dogs for sale.
For the dates of the Wallin and Miroth murders, Chase had written the word "today" on a calendar, with the word "today" being written on 44 more dates throughout 1978.
At first, Chase wouldn't let police in his apartment, so they loudly spoke to each other outside it, pretending that they were leaving. This tactic worked, and they got Chase once he left his apartment. When Chase saw police, he initially tried to run from them, and resisted arrest when they tackled him. Chase was armed at the time, and it wasn't known whether David Ferreira was still alive or not, so Detective Wayne Irey contemplated shooting Chase. He said in 2010, "that's when I found out I'm not like him. Even though it would have been a good shooting, it would have been a justified shooting, I couldn't kill him. And I would have been justified in doing it. Because the average person, cops included, are not like these people. He's a cold blooded killer, and we aren't."
Once captured, Chase was uncooperative with police, claiming that he had only killed some dogs, and that he was being framed by the Italians.
He speculated that the murders had been committed by a blonde man in an orange jacket, and that someone had been coming in and out of his apartment.
It would take until March 1978 for the police to find Ferreira's decomposed corpse in a garbage bin. It had been placed inside a box.
A few days after his January 1978 capture, he was interviewed by psychiatrists, and only went into vague detail about his mental health history. When they 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 said that he saw lights in the sky that might be
UFO
An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...
s, and incorrectly claimed that he was Jewish, saying that he was beaten up by gangs of Italians because of his ethnicity.
Aftermath
In 1979, Chase stood trial on six counts of murder. Due to his delusions of being a persecuted Jew, Chase wanted a lawyer from the
Jewish Defense League, with this motion being denied. His defense attorney would end up being Farris Salamy, who was the son of Lebanese migrants and local to the Sacramento area. 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.
In order to avoid the
death penalty
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
, the defense tried to have him found guilty of
second degree murder
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...
, which would result in a
life sentence
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...
. Their case hinged on Chase's history of mental illness and the suggestion that his crimes were not premeditated. Farris Salamy remembered in 2010 that Chase was "the most deranged" person he'd ever met, and that his case was "one of mental disease".
In more interviews with psychiatrists during the trial, Chase admitted his guilt, saying "I didn't kill anybody, just a few people." He remembered very little from the Miroth family murder, and regarding the Wallin murder, Chase explained to psychiatrists, "I was sick, poisoned by
iodine
Iodine is a chemical element with the symbol I and atomic number 53. The heaviest of the stable halogens, it exists as a semi-lustrous, non-metallic solid at standard conditions that melts to form a deep violet liquid at , and boils to a vi ...
or
mercury
Mercury commonly refers to:
* Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun
* Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg
* Mercury (mythology), a Roman god
Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to:
Companies
* Merc ...
..I was trying to get free of poison place and go live with my grandmother's relatives. The car had broken down and I had no money, so I walked into somebody's house and killed them."
Chase acknowledged that he needed blood, saying that he'd gone to several places to get some, but was unable to. He believed that his lack of blood was preventing him from living a normal life.
Chase 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."
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.
Chase told the jury that he was a good person, but had a weak heart and mind.
Chase also said that he was afraid that his victims would come back from the dead.
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.
On May 8, 1979, the jury found Chase guilty of six counts of
first degree murder and, rejecting the argument that he was
not guilty by reason of insanity, sentenced him to die in the
gas chamber. His fellow inmates, aware of the extremely violent and grisly nature of Chase's crimes, feared him and, according to prison officials, often tried to persuade Chase to commit
suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...
. Chase was described as behaving psychotically from the moment he entered prison, and he was briefly housed in a mental health facility again.
Shortly before his death, Chase granted a series of interviews with
Robert K. Ressler
Robert Kenneth Ressler (February 21, 1937 – May 5, 2013) was an FBI agent and author. He played a significant role in the psychological profiling of violent offenders in the 1970s and is often credited with coining the term "serial killer", tho ...
, during which he spoke of his fears of
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
s and UFOs, claiming that although he had killed, it was not his fault; he had been forced to kill to keep himself alive, which he believed any person would do. He asked Ressler to give him access to a
radar gun, with which he could apprehend the
Nazi UFOs
In ufology, conspiracy theory, science fiction, and comic book stories, claims or stories have circulated linking UFOs to Nazi Germany. The German UFO theories describe supposedly successful attempts to develop advanced aircraft or spacecraft pri ...
, so that the Nazis could stand trial for the murders. Chase again claimed that he was Jewish, and now said that there was a
Star of David
The Star of David (). is a generally recognized symbol of both Jewish identity and Judaism. Its shape is that of a hexagram: the compound of two equilateral triangles.
A derivation of the ''seal of Solomon'', which was used for decorative ...
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.
Chase wanted Ressler to have the food tested, and Ressler said he would do this.
On December 26, 1980, Chase was found dead in his prison cell. An
autopsy
An autopsy (post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death or to evaluate any di ...
revealed that he died from an
overdose of
sinequan, an anti-depressant that was prescribed to him. He had been secretly hoarding the pills in his cell, unbeknownst to officers.
The exact reasons for his apparent suicide remain unknown.
In popular culture
* In 1987,
William Friedkin made the film ''
Rampage'', which was based on Chase's crimes.
* The
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'', also referred to as ''CSI'' and ''CSI: Las Vegas'', is an American procedural forensics crime drama television series that ran on CBS from October 6, 2000, to September 27, 2015, spanning 15 seasons. This wa ...
episode
Justice is Served is about a serial killer who cannibalized healthy sportsmen to counteract
porphyria.
* Investigation Discovery's 2011 TV special, ''Lore: Deadly Obsession,'' was a two-hour documentary reenactment of Chase's crimes.
* The 2009
Church of Misery
is a Japanese doom metal band from Tokyo, formed in 1995. Church of Misery's musical style melds early Black Sabbath-style doom with psychedelic rock; most of the band's songs are about serial killers and mass murderers.
Bassist Tatsu Mikami ...
song, "Blood Sucking Freak (Richard Trenton Chase)," is about Richard Chase.
* The 2010
Xiu Xiu song "House Sparrow" is about Richard Chase.
See also
*
List of serial killers in the United States
A serial killer is typically a person who kills three or more people, with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines serial murder a ...
References
Cited works and further reading
*
*
*
External links
Richard Chase at the Crime Library*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chase, Richard
1950 births
1977 murders in the United States
1980 suicides
1980 deaths
20th-century American criminals
American cannibals
American male criminals
American mass murderers
American murderers of children
American people convicted of murder
American people who died in prison custody
American prisoners sentenced to death
Drug-related suicides in California
People with hypochondriasis
Necrophiles
Place of death missing
People convicted of murder by California
People from Sacramento, California
People with schizophrenia
Prisoners sentenced to death by California
Prisoners who died in California detention
Vampirism (crime)