Friday 29 November 2013

Richard Trenton Chase - The Vampire of Sacramento

Born on May 23,1950, Richard Trenton Chase displayed disturbing behaviour from a very young age (including the infamous, but disputed, Macdonald Triad of  bedwetting, arson, and animal torture). He abused alcohol and drugs from adolescence onward, and started to develop hypochondriac delusions with regard to his health. On one occasion he became convinced that someone had stolen his pulmonary artery; on another he thought that his stomach was back to front. He also believed that his heart was shrinking, and that the only was to stop this was to eat various animals raw (he would sometimes remove the organs and liquefy them in a blender, adding in some coca cola for good measure).

In 1975, Chase injected animal blood into his veins, which resulted in him developing blood poisoning. After the cause became apparent, he was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital, where he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Staff members nicknamed him 'Dracula' due to his fondness for drinking the blood of animals.

After receiving treatment, Richard Chase was released from hospital into the care of his mother. She gradually weaned him off his medication and helped to get him set up in a place of his own. Perhaps this wasn't the best of moves, considering what came next.

On December 29, 1977, Chase killed a father of two, Ambrose Griffin, in a drive-by shooting. Shortly afterwards, he broke into a family home, urinated in a drawer, and defecated on a child's bed. The family returned and Chase fled the scene.

Chase's second murder occurred on January 23, 1978. Teresa Wallin was three months pregnant at the time. Chase shot her three times, before sexually assaulting the corpse whilst repeatedly stabbing it with a butcher knife. He drained the blood from the corpse, drank some of it, and bathed in the rest. He then went outside and collected some dog feces, returning to the corpse to shove the feces down its throat. At last, he left the premises.

The final murders were committed on January 27, 1978. He entered the home of 38-year-old Evelyn Miroth, shooting her neighbour, 6-year-old son, and 22-month-old nephew, as well as Evelyn herself. Evelyn Miroth's corpse was sodomized, and Chase drank her blood also. Part of the 22-month-old boy's brain was eaten and his corpse was taken back to Chase's apartment for further acts of cannibalism and mutilation.

Richard Trenton Chase was arrested shortly afterwards and charged with 6 counts of murder. Despite his long history of mental illness and the disorganized nature of the crime scenes he left behind, Chase was declared legally sane and sentenced to die in the gas chamber. He claimed that his crimes had been necessary to counter the effects of poison that had been placed under his soap dish by Nazis. He took his own life on December 26, 1980, by overdosing on prison-prescribed antidepressant medication.

You might also like:
Organized vs Disorganized Serial Killers, Edmund Kemper - The Co-ed Killer, Harvey Glatman - The Lonely Hearts Killer




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