On December 26, 1980, serial killer Richard Chase, known as the “Vampire of Sacramento,” died by suicide in prison. Specialists still debate what exactly drove him to murder. At 18, he told a psychiatrist he wanted to kill someone, and at 26 he was placed in a psychiatric hospital for compulsory treatment. Less than a year later, he was declared recovered and released.
Chase was born on May 23, 1950, in Sacramento, California. As a child, he was described as nervous and explosive. His behavior was later seen as fitting the so-called Macdonald triad: fascination with fire, cruelty to animals, and bed-wetting. His family life involved alcohol abuse and harsh treatment from his father, while Chase himself began drinking and using drugs in his teens.
By the mid-1970s, his condition had worsened. He believed his body was breaking down and that his blood was “turning to powder.” Chase drank the blood of animals, and he was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Doctors said neuroleptics helped keep him stable, but after his release his mother stopped giving him the medication, saying it turned him into a “zombie.” His mental state then deteriorated again.
A series of crimes
In December 1977, Chase legally bought a .22-caliber semi-automatic pistol. On December 27, 1977, he made his first attempted attack by breaking into a stranger’s home, but found no one there. On December 29, he killed his first victim, 51-year-old engineer Ambrose Griffin, a father of two.
On January 11, 1978, Chase entered a neighboring house at gunpoint and demanded cigarettes, but did not kill anyone. On January 21, he first broke into the Edwards family home, trashed it, and fled, then entered the house of Teresa Wallin, who was three months pregnant. He shot her, then mutilated the body, drank blood, and scattered internal organs around the house.
Chase committed his final crime on January 27, 1978. At the home of Evelyn Miroth, he killed the homeowner’s neighbor Dan Meredith, Miroth herself, her eight-year-old son Jason, and 18-month-old David. Investigators concluded that he again drank a victim’s blood and abused the bodies. He fled after taking the child’s body with him.
Arrest and death
Police identified Chase after interviewing witnesses. A former classmate said she had seen him near Teresa Wallin’s home and knew about his drug use and psychiatric treatment. When he was arrested, officers found a .22-caliber pistol with traces of blood, bloodstained items, and Meredith’s wallet in his possession.
A year later, Chase was found sane by the court. A jury convicted him of six counts of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to death and sent to death row at San Quentin. In a conversation with FBI profiler Robert Ressler, Chase claimed that prison authorities were part of a “Nazi-UFO conspiracy” and were trying to poison him. He never admitted guilt. On December 26, 1980, Chase took a fatal dose of neuroleptics that, investigators later found, he had been hoarding instead of swallowing.