World's Most Evil Killers - Season 4, Episode 8 - Richard Chase - Full Episode | Forensic Files

- MALE NARRATOR: The 23rd of January, 1978. Sacramento, California. David Wallin came home from work
to find his wife brutally murdered in their bedroom. 22-year-old Teresa was 3 months pregnant.
- BILL: She was shot 3 times with a .22 and eviscerated, and some horrid things done
to that poor woman. Lieutenant Biondi said, "We have a sick son of a bitch. We have to catch this guy."
- NARRATOR: Even experienced police officers had never seen anything like it. - FRANK: Her abdomen was cut open.
The internal organs had been moved around. I found a used yogurt cup that had been taken to drink her blood.
It was--it's the most bizarre thing you'd ever seen. - NARRATOR: The blood-drinking killer
was 27-year-old Richard Chase, who would go on to be known as the Vampire of Sacramento.
- DR. YARDLEY: He wanted to consume the blood of his victims. This really is something
straight out of a movie or a horror book. He doesn't just want to kill people. He wants to consume them.
- NARRATOR: Within a month, he randomly slaughtered 6 people, including 2 children, his youngest victim being
a 22-month-old toddler, whose body he decapitated, placed in an old cardboard box and then dumped.
He drank his victims' blood and terrorized the city of Sacramento, making Richard Chase one of the world's most evil killers.
- ♪ ♪ - NARRATOR: The 27th of January, 1978. Sacramento, California. Just four days after brutally slaughtering
an expectant mother, Teresa Wallin, the serial killer struck again. Thirty-six-year-old Evelyn Miroth
was also shot and disemboweled. Former detective Bill Roberts was called to the house
and met his colleague, Ivan. - He had the unfortunate fate of being the first officer
on the scene at the Wallin homicide. Well, he was also the first officer on the scene
at the Miroth homicide. I've never seen a person so ashen and pale in my entire life.
And--and then the detective came out and said, "It's a bloodbath in there." - NARRATOR: The depraved killer had also shot Evelyn's
22-month-old nephew, David, her 52-year-old friend, Daniel, and 6-year-old son, Jason-- all dead.
Former Detective Lieutenant Ray Biondi led the murder inquiry. - Jason Miroth was about the same age as my youngest son.
I had, uh, real close to a tearful moment. That was very emotional to me. I mean, here is this kid all dressed up.
His mother had bought him all these new clothes to go to the snow. And he simply was just executed like something in the way.
I do remember that, out of hundreds of murders, the feeling I had that day. - NARRATOR: Evelyn's postmortem revealed the sadistic murderer
had indulged in necrophilia. The gruesome murders spread fear amongst the small suburb of Sacramento.
They all took place within just over a square mile. - "The Sacramento Bee" almost made this kind of
demanding headline that we do something. That we have some kind of crazed person
doing these horrific crimes. And I think there was a rash of people buying guns at that time.
And in general, everybody was speaking about it. It was just so horrific. - NARRATOR: A blood-drinking serial killer was on the loose.
And no one knew who was next on his hit list. - DR. YARDLEY: When these attacks became public knowledge,
I think it really shook people's sense of stability and security, because what was normal had been completely disrupted.
There didn't seem to be a pattern to these crimes. Anybody could fall victim. - NARRATOR: Assistant District Attorney Albert Locher
worked on the case. He recalls how the whole community was on a knife edge. - ALBERT: He could be at your door and come in,
and you not know it until he was there and you were dead. Um, and that's a scary thing.
- NARRATOR: This killer's story begins on the 23rd of May, 1950. Richard Trenton Chase was born in Santa Clara, California,
and grew up with a younger sister. - Richard Chase seemed to come from a relatively normal family.
I think there was quite a bit of controlling behavior, especially on the part of his father.
So he was very strict. He was quite a disciplinarian. And I think he put across some very fixed ideas about
masculinity in the household. But that's not dissimilar to thousands of households across America.
- ALBERT: He was just a normal kid. He was in Boy Scouts. He was in Little League.
Um, he had friends. And what everyone describes as a--as a-- in many respects, a pretty normal life.
- NARRATOR: But the young Chase started showing sinister traits. - DR. YARDLEY: When Chase is ten years old,
his mother discovers that he's buried the body of a cat in one of her flower beds, now there were several cats
that had gone missing from the neighborhood. This is inherently disturbing behavior.
And his mother doesn't do anything about it. She doesn't try and get help for him.
And I think this was very much part of the culture at the time. This is a really odd thing that doesn't make sense,
so we're gonna sweep it under the carpet and just hope it goes away. - NARRATOR: By the time he was 15,
the marriage between Chase's mother and father had begun to fray. At one point, they broke up,
and Chase was sent to live with relatives. Eventually, his parents reconciled, and the family made a fresh start in Sacramento.
At first, Chase seemed happy at high school, until a few years later, when it came to dating.
- He had no problem getting the attention of girls, 'cause he was a good-looking guy.
But when it came to the end of the night, when it came to a particular stage in the relationship,
he couldn't perform in the way that he felt he was expected to. And I think it's at this point in time
when he develops issues with his body. So his body is doing something that he has no control over.
It's almost working against him. That's how he feels. - ALBERT: He was impotent. And this caused him anxiety.
He visited doctor and psychiatrist about this when he was younger. Um, he got into a crying fit once and--
and told one of his friends, "I can't do it." - NARRATOR: He started on a downward spiral,
turning to drugs and struggling through high school. He found it difficult finding and holding down a job.
Chase became even more obsessed with his health, and was convinced that his major organs were failing him.
- RAY: He'd been to many doctors. And he was always trying to self-diagnose his own illnesses.
And most medical doctors found out that, uh, he'd--he was in good health, actually.
- NARRATOR: At the age of 23, a neurologist diagnosed Chase as a paranoid schizophrenic, and concluded he was suffering from
psychiatric disturbances of major proportions. Soon, his behavior became even more worrying.
- DR. YARDLEY: He develops this fixation with drinking blood. There was a rabbit farm near to where Richard Chase lived.
And he would go there, and he would kill rabbits, and he would drink their blood.
And he would justify this, saying that he had a weak heart, and that he needed to ingest this blood
in order to restore himself. - NARRATOR: On one occasion, this obsession even put his life at risk.
- ALBERT: He wound up at the emergency room at American River Hospital, being sick.
And he did have, uh, septicemia--a blood infection. And he was questioned about what was wrong with him.
And he said he'd given himself an injection of rabbit blood because he felt he needed that for his health.
- NARRATOR: Eventually, on April the 28th, 1976, doctors transferred 25-year-old Chase
to Sacramento's Beverly Manor Psychiatric Hospital. He was detained by the state for his own safety.
But his insatiable thirst for blood continued. And his fellow patients nicknamed him "Dracula."
- ALBERT: He was capturing birds. And then he was, like, twisting their heads off
and--and ingesting the blood. But then over time, uh, he was given psychiatric medications-- Thorazine, major tranquilizer--
and his behavior started to improve. - NARRATOR: After making good progress, Chase was released from the hospital 5 months later,
on the 29th of September. But by June the following year, his behavior lapsed once again.
- This obsession with drinking blood as a way to kind of restore himself, as a way to nourish himself,
this is an idea that becomes rooted in his mind and goes on to determine his behavior.
- ALBERT: At one point, he killed his mother's cat. And he was outside in the yard, and drew her attention to it,
and held up the bloody cat, you know? And then smeared the blood around his neck and the back of his collar.
- NARRATOR: Horrified, his mother shut the door on her son and refused to let him near the house anymore.
But Chase was still thirsty for blood. And to quench his addiction, on the 3rd of August, 1977,
he drove his Ford Ranchero truck 145 miles northeast to Pyramid Lake in Nevada. This time, he was targeting larger prey.
And he was armed with guns. - ALBERT: He bought two rifles-- a .22, which is a small-caliber rifle,
and a .33, which is a more substantial hunting rifle. And he had taken these two rifles
up to an area in the Nevada desert called Pyramid Lake. And he had gotten off in the wilderness there.
And apparently what he'd done is he had killed a cow. - NARRATOR: After tearing the animal to shreds,
Chase consumed its blood. He then stripped off his clothes and vanished into the desert.
The police came across his abandoned Ford Ranchero. - DR. YARDLEY: In the car, there's a pile of clothes,
and there's a bucket, which appears to be full of blood, and there's an organ which looks like a liver.
And the officers who discover the car go and look around nearby, and they find Chase naked and huddling on some rocks,
and covered in blood. So this looks horrific. You know, this looks like potentially
this guy's killed someone. - NARRATOR: Chase ran when he saw the police approaching.
But eventually they caught up with him, and he was arrested. - ALBERT: The vehicle gets impounded.
The blood and the liver go out for testing. And it's determined to be from a cow.
They eventually released him. They wouldn't give him back his car, and they wouldn't give him back his guns.
- This incident in itself should have been enough to say, "Hang on a minute, you know?
This guy needs help." At this stage in his life, he is internalizing his trauma.
But what can happen with some offenders is that can switch the other way. And they can actually begin harming other people in order to
get that sense of control that they really crave. - NARRATOR: For the mentally unstable Richard Chase,
killing animals would no longer be enough to satisfy his cravings. The 27th of December, 1977.
Sacramento, California. Chase retrieved his car from the police, and was now cruising the streets of Sacramento
with a new .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol. The bloodthirsty animal killer set his sights
on a different kind of prey--humans. - ALBERT: There's a woman who was standing at her kitchen window, washing the dishes.
And a shot came through the window. That bullet went right through her hair. Just barely missed.
Went through her hair and lodged in a cabinet behind her. He's graduated from some of the animal kinds of things
that he had done before that to now he wants to kill people. - NARRATOR: Chase had failed in his first attempt
at taking a human life. But just two days later, he was out roaming Sacramento's suburbs
in his pickup once again. He spotted 51-year-old Ambrose Griffin on his driveway.
- DR. YARDLEY: He'd been shopping with his wife. He was helping her take the groceries in from the car.
And in--in a split second, Richard Chase shoots him. - ALBERT: It hit a major vessel in his lungs.
The emergency people were able to get there, and he's still alive and conscious.
But there was significant internal bleeding. And he died in about--I'd say about 15 minutes, probably.
- RAY: The family first thought maybe he had a heart attack. We later determined he had been shot, uh,
presumably by somebody going by in a car. Uh, the caliber of the weapon was determined to be
a .22-caliber after projectiles were recovered. - ALBERT: It was thought that this was
just some sort of random thing, maybe vandals or kids just goofing off and firing shots.
- NARRATOR: Soon, however, the police link the shooting of Ambrose Griffin with the woman
who was shot in her kitchen two days before. - Detectives went to the house and they dug around
in the cabinets and through the china. And they dug out a .22-caliber slug. Eventually, the crime lab was able to tell us
that the .22-calibers were fired from the same gun that killed Mr. Griffin and also tried to kill this lady.
- NARRATOR: Detectives were mystified as to the motive for the random shootings.
But Chase was delighted in his first kill, collecting press cuttings about his murder.
- The newspaper was--was decrying how irresponsible, you know, apparent vandals had been.
It demonstrated to him that "I can get away with it. They're on the wrong track."
- NARRATOR: Chase now knew what it was like to take the life of another person. But he still hadn't actually tasted human blood.
Nearly a month after his first murder, on the 23rd of January, 1978, he decided to stalk the Sacramento suburbs by foot,
and broke into a family home. - RAY: There was a couple returning from shopping.
And they went in their house. They heard somebody in the house. And the homeowner saw a man flee out the back.
He chased him, but he eventually lost him. He had a number of valuable items laid out that
he apparently was gonna steal before he got surprised. But he also left a calling card
in that he defecated in the baby's crib. - DR. YARDLEY: I think we gotta try and make sense of--
of what this represents. So we have to look at the reaction that this kind of behavior will get.
You're gonna be fearful. You're going to be disgusted. So I think for Chase, this is a way of gaining control,
of gaining the upper hand, of feeling powerful and of feeling important. - NARRATOR: Chase then made his way to the local shopping mall.
Here, the killer spotted his next potential victim-- a former high school friend, Nancy Holden.
- ALBERT: They talked for a little bit in the store. And then they separated in the store.
But it seemed to Nancy that he was following her. Um, she was unsettled by this.
She went out to get in her car. He followed her out and called her and said, "Hey, wait."
- He had this crazed look in his eye. He was trying to force himself into her car.
She didn't allow that and finally drove off. - NARRATOR: Still on the hunt for his next human victim,
Chase found a gap in the fence behind the shopping mall that took him into a backyard.
Here he spotted 22-year-old Teresa Wallin, who was at home alone. As she opened her door to take the garbage out,
Chase slid into her hallway and shot her three times. - DR. HAMILTON: The first shot goes through her hand,
along her forearm, and ends up in her neck. That is classical for somebody holding their hand out to ward off an assailant.
She's then shot in the head. Chase wants to be sure she's dead. So we have a last shot from about 6 inches into the temple.
- NARRATOR: Not only did Chase take Teresa's life, he killed an unborn child. She was three months pregnant.
Next, the killer indulged in his darkest fantasies, taking Teresa's body into her bedroom,
where he slit her abdomen open. - DR. HAMILTON: This is his opportunity to explore,
to experiment. So Chase has followed the pattern that is said to be quite classical for this sort of killer.
He starts by opening animals, and then he goes on to kill a human being. - NARRATOR: After violently stabbing her heart and a nipple,
Chase removed Teresa's internal organs. But in the final act of the killing, he used an empty yogurt pot to drink his victim's blood.
- Now he's getting to what he actually wants to do. He doesn't just want to kill people.
He wants to consume them. He wants to own them and possess them. - DR. HAMILTON: It's all part of taking on
someone's life essence. It is...using them to strengthen yourself. It is an unnecessary act in killing.
It is clearly some sort of fetishistic activity. - NARRATOR: Chase then slid out through the back door.
Later that day, Teresa's husband, David, came home from work to find the horrific scene.
- ALBERT: I mean, here's a young man. It's his young family. They're starting out, making a life together.
Um, they're expecting their first child. And then to come home and find your wife in this condition,
and this has been done to her, so devastating. - NARRATOR: In a state of shock, Teresa's husband immediately
called the police. Detective Lieutenant Biondi and crime scene investigator Frank Davidson
were called to the house. - RAY: It was a very involved scene because we had casings on the floor.
Uh, we had a--a mutilated body in the back. The scene work went on nearly 24 hours there,
and just to try to figure anything out of that house. - FRANK: It was--it's the most bizarre thing you'd ever see
'cause the lady was with, uh...bare from the waist down. Uh, her abdomen was cut open.
The internal organs had been moved around. And he had taken, uh, dog feces and put it in her mouth.
It was disturbing to, you know, know something like that was going on in the neighborhood.
- ALBERT: Some of her internal organs had been pulled out through that cavity in the body.
There were--there were blood stains, um, around on the floor. Uh, and there was a crumpled, um,
yogurt cup that was right next to the body. And it had a lot of blood on it. - NARRATOR: The police were puzzled by the yogurt cup.
At first, they had no idea of their killer's blood-drinking fetish. - ALBERT: On the floor, you could see rings
that might've been left by the--the yogurt cup actually being bloody, and then being set down on the floor in the same way if you--
if you had a cup that was wet or had condensation, and you set it on a table, and then picked it up.
There'd be a ring where the cup was. - At the time, it went right over my head. I couldn't understand why that was there.
- FRANK: And the cup, when the officer processed for fingerprints, it had a zigzag pattern like a rubber glove--
Playtex-like rubber gloves-- and you could see where he had gripped it. Checked the bathroom, the sink.
And the handles on the faucets had the same zigzag pattern. So we knew he was wearing gloves.
- ALBERT: The murderer had gone and gotten a knife from the kitchen and used that on the body.
And then, after all of that was done, took the knife back, cleaned it, and put it back in the dish rack.
So that was certainly unusual kind of behavior. There were blood smears along her inner thigh
and close to her genitals. Uh, given knife thrust back and forth in her breast, through the nipple.
There's a clear sexual aspect to those things. Sexual sadism, if you will. - NARRATOR: The FBI drew up a profile of the depraved murderer
for the police. - RAY: The FBI had called him as just a blitz killer. Just walk right up and just kill ya.
The classification for them from behavioral science was a disorganized killer. Pretty much of a loner that just acted on impulse
with no plan, uh, as to how he was gonna commit the crime. Really dangerous, super dangerous.
- NARRATOR: As the police launched a manhunt for the brutal killer, Richard Chase sat back and relished his achievement.
Now he'd had his first taste of human blood, the Vampire of Sacramento was ready to kill again.
- ♪ - NARRATOR: Having killed two people, Chase, who was still armed with his .22-caliber semi-automatic pistol,
now reverted back to something he'd been doing since his childhood--killing animals.
Just two days after Teresa's murder, the body of a dog was found by its owners, and they alerted the police.
- The dog had been shot with the same caliber ammunition-- .22 ammunition--um, as Teresa Wallin had been shot with.
And the dog had been, uh, partially eviscerated as well-- um, cut open through the abdomen.
The kidneys had been cut out, but the kidneys were missing. The sheriff's department made a connection, saying, you know,
what was done to the dog's body is similar to what was done to Teresa Wallin's body.
Same type of ammunition. - Dogs were killed by .22s. Mr. Griffin was killed by a .22-caliber gun.
And then, of course, we had Teresa Wallin homicide. And it was then when we thought,
"Maybe we have a connection between all these three." - NARRATOR: Detectives concluded their killer lived somewhere
within a one-mile radius they'd mapped out. - BILL: One lieutenant said, "We have a sick son of a bitch.
We have to catch this guy." There was somebody who was pretty evil and twisted. Uh, I just want to help get him off the street.
- So we drew all our activity to that mile square, and had tremendous canvasses going on.
We were knocking on every door we could find. There was cops everywhere in that area.
- NARRATOR: 4 days later, on the 27th of January, Chase would strike again. He focused on a new neighborhood a mile further south--
Merrywood Drive. Thirty-six-year-old mother Evelyn Miroth shared a home here with her six-year-old son, Jason.
- ALBERT: The lady across the street was planning to take her daughter up to the snow,
and wanted to know if Jason would like to go. Evelyn said, um, "Sure, I think Jason would like to go.
But he doesn't have good shoes for the snow." - NARRATOR: So Evelyn's friend Daniel took Jason shopping
while she stayed at home. She was babysitting her 22-month-old nephew, David. When Chase spotted the lone mother in her house,
he decided to pounce. - DR. YARDLEY: Richard Chase went in through an open door.
He entered the home without having to break and enter, essentially. But it was Evelyn who he was after.
He wanted her. He wanted to consume her blood. - At that point, Evelyn Miroth was shot and killed, uh,
apparently in the hallway. - NARRATOR: With Evelyn now dead, her 22-month-old nephew, David, started crying.
So Chase coldly put a bullet through his head. Then he turned his mind back to Evelyn, whom he stripped naked.
- Her body was moved to a--a front bedroom and thrown over a bed. - NARRATOR: Chase then sodomized his victim.
- ALBERT: The only time that we could establish that Richard Chase ever had an orgasm
in a sex act with a woman was when he sodomized Evelyn Miroth. So there was a clear sexual sadism aspect to these crimes.
- NARRATOR: Chase had moved on to a whole new level--necrophilia. And he'd experienced the sexual release he'd waited so long for.
But his attack still wasn't over. Chase slit Evelyn's abdomen open and stabbed her major organs.
He then tried to cut out one of her eyes. - DR. YARDLEY: I think there's a very evident link here
back to his teenage years, back to that time in high school when he was this popular, good-looking guy
who got lots of girls, but when he got those girls, he wasn't able to perform with them.
He experienced erectile dysfunction. So I think that lodges in his mind--an association between
women and shame, and women and failure. And what he's doing in opening these women up
and, by implication, humiliating them, is kind of leveling the playing field for him.
- NARRATOR: But the serial killer was suddenly disturbed during the macabre mutilation.
- ALBERT: Sometime in the course of all this going on with Mrs. Miroth, Daniel Meredith,
the family friend, and Jason came home. And they were shot in the living room right after they had come into the house.
- NARRATOR: Chase killed Daniel Meredith instantly. Six-year-old Jason was shot twice in the head.
The fatal bullet was delivered at close range. - It is rare for children to be killed in the way
that adults kill adults. And therefore the fact that he shoots both a six-year-old and a toddler
really tells you that he is not thinking of them as children. That sanctity of childhood that we have in society is ignored.
They are simply dispatched coldly with a bullet. - NARRATOR: Now the Vampire of Sacramento
returned to his final act. Using a bucket, he scooped the blood from the open cavity
of his female victim and drank it. Then he took the body of 22-month-old David from his crib.
- DR. YARDLEY: I think Chase took the baby from the scene because the baby in this case, um,
is reminiscent of--of what he did with animals earlier on in his life. So you have complete control over these creatures
who are smaller than you. And he wanted to extend that feeling of pleasure, those feelings of power, um, that he'd felt at the scene.
So he took the baby with him to continue his offending. - NARRATOR: Chase fled the scene in Daniel's car.
In the solitude of his apartment, he decapitated the 22-month-old toddler, David,
and also drank his blood. - DR. YARDLEY: I think this was an individual that was so focused on
the act of consuming the blood of other people that he stopped seeing them as people.
They were simply there to serve a purpose for him. They were dehumanized. - NARRATOR: Back at Evelyn's home,
a concerned neighbor raised the alarm after seeing what they thought was the dead body of Daniel Meredith
when they peered through the living room window. - ALBERT: The sheriff's department is called,
and go in and find Mr. Meredith laying in the living room, having been dragged there, dead.
They find Mrs. Miroth naked, sprawled across the bed. They find Jason shot twice in the head.
This becomes a major crime scene. That becomes the biggest story, uh, in Sacramento
for--for a long time. - RAY: The community was really up in arms. There's a lot of headlines, uh, a lot of real concern.
In my, you know, experience, this is probably one of the scariest individuals you could deal with--
somebody who wouldn't hesitate to walk right up to your house-- it could be high noon-- and walk in and commit a murder.
Uh, there didn't seem to be anything that's gonna stop him. - NARRATOR: It was now clear
that a serial killer was on the loose. And the police were under pressure to find him fast.
To add to the urgency, they also had a missing toddler to track down. - RAY: The baby, David Ferreira, uh,
was our big concern at that time, although in the back of our mind, we were pretty sure that he probably had been murdered
because of the blood and a projectile had been fired into the bed clothing. But there was a big push to try to find David Ferreira,
whether it be his body or he'd still be alive. - FRANK: I think we were all like, "Oh my gosh, you know?
"This is an evil person that--how do we catch him? What do we do? How do we catch him?"
- NARRATOR: Whilst the team went on the hunt for the missing toddler, crime scene officers examine blood patterns
on the carpet next to Evelyn's body. Similar stains had also been found at the scene
of his second victim, Teresa Wallin. - ALBERT: Found on the floor next to Mrs. Wallin's body
were bloody rings, um, as if a--a--a bloody object had blood and been placed on the carpet there.
- NARRATOR: These circular stains had been a huge mystery to Detective Biondi until now.
- Finally somebody said, "No, he was drinking blood." We figured out why they had the ringlets and stuff.
And that was the first time and the only time in my career-- 17 years of homicide-- that I ever, uh,
encountered anything like that. - NARRATOR: Now it was clear to the police they had a bloodthirsty killer on their hands
who would stop at nothing to quench his depraved addiction. Friday, the 27th of January, 1978.
Sacramento, California. Twenty-seven-year-old Richard Chase had killed six people,
including a twenty-two-month-old toddler, David, whose body he removed from the scene in a stolen car
belonging to one of his victims--Daniel Meredith. Detective Biondi and his team were on the hunt
for the blood-drinking serial killer. - RAY: There was a big search put out for Meredith's car,
and also for the body, or-- we assumed it was the body of the--of the young baby.
We probably had a canvas going of 50 detectives were banging on doors all over. - NARRATOR: In the meantime,
detectives were interested in the burglar seen on the day of Teresa's Wallin's murder
four days earlier. Neighbors also reported the same man acting suspiciously near Teresa's home.
- They decided maybe this person could be a suspect. They got a composite sketch done.
And the composite sketch was circulated widely in the sheriff's department. - RAY: The sketch was kind of really based on
what people had told us, you know? A skinny, disheveled, dirty-looking individual,
uh, dirty clothing, uh, on. I don't think anybody realized that most of the dirty clothing was blood stains.
But he was always described as having this orange ski parka. - NARRATOR: By a twist of fate,
on Saturday, the 28th of January, Chase's former high school friend, Nancy Holden,
saw the sketch and alerted her father-in-law, who was a policeman. She told him about her confrontation with Chase
in the shopping mall. - RAY: She looked in the squad car, and she saw this sketch that we had put out of the suspicious,
disheveled-looking individual. And she said that looked a lot like Richard Chase.
And that was really the identification of the killer. - NARRATOR: Daniel Meredith's missing station wagon
had also been found just over two miles from Richard Chase's home. With a potential name for their top suspect,
the team dug deeper into his criminal past. - BILL: I started finding out about his background.
He was up in Pyramid Lake, Nevada, found nude, covered in blood, with a .22, uh, about a year before all of this stuff started happening.
Found out that we had arrested him for carrying a loaded and concealed weapon. Found out that he had been in a psychiatric hospital
and was deemed violent. So I'm putting all these things together. Uh, we had a flyer, which was a sketch of the suspect
in the Teresa Wallin homicide. And I look at it and compare it to a mug shot we have,
except the sketch doesn't have a mustache and goatee. So I penciled that in. And then I put it next to the mug shot and I go,
"This is very close." - NARRATOR: With this new lead, Detective Bill Roberts and two colleagues
drove straight to Chase's apartment. - BILL: We're standing both to the left and to the right
of the door, and knocking on the door. No answer. And so we're saying, "Hey, Richard.
It's the sheriff's department." And there's movement in there. So I go ahead and talk to the guys.
And I go, "Hey, let's do this. "We'll pretend we're leaving, pound on the door, "tell him we're gonna go get a warrant.
And, uh, you guys stay at the building here." So we do that. - NARRATOR: As Detective Roberts
went upstairs to the manager's office to phone police HQ, Chase made a run for it through his apartment door.
- BILL: Saw him fly down the stairs and turn the corner. And they got him in a little pile there.
And we start searching him. And that's when we find, uh, Mr. Meredith's wallet, driver's license, keys, uh, a lot of credit cards.
And he had pictures of the Miroth family. We knew we had him. - NARRATOR: Chase was also carrying a box of bloody rags
and the utility bucket he used to drink Evelyn Miroth's blood. And this was later matched to the blood rings
found next to her body. Most damning of all, Chase was carrying a .22-caliber pistol,
linking him to bullets found at the murder scenes. - BILL: They called me as soon as they wrestled him
to the ground and says, "We got him." And he had David Meredith's wallet in his jacket pocket.
He also had a .22 in a shoulder holster. So we were pretty confident we got the guy.
Just the great big relief. - NARRATOR: Chase was taken back to the team's headquarters.
- BILL: Everybody in the department from our division, as well as support groups, was standing on chairs, desks,
wedged together, just to see this monster that we brought in. - NARRATOR: But once in the interview room,
Chase gave up nothing about his murders. - BILL: His stare-- he didn't look at you.
His eyes were constantly just darting. I'd raise my voice, and say things, and talk to him about the homicides
and, "How could you do that?" It didn't matter. It didn't matter. We talked about Pyramid Lake
and our knowledge of him being in Pyramid Lake. "What were you doing nude, full of blood in Pyramid Lake?"
Wouldn't acknowledge it. It was just like it didn't matter. So that one time, after talking about dogs and animals,
and then he tried to play it off like, "I'm in trouble for a bunch of dogs?" Just blurted out, "Irish Setters are the best."
It was like, "What?" Because I didn't know if he meant he liked Irish Setters because they tasted good or because he liked Irish Setters
and maybe didn't hurt any. Um, but it just was a spontaneous out-of-his-mouth thing that had nothing to do
what we were trying to get out of him. So it was by far, in my entire career, the toughest interview/interrogation
I ever had. - NARRATOR: Even the most experienced homicide detectives couldn't get anything out of Chase.
So Lieutenant Biondi's team had to find more evidence against him. They searched his apartment.
- FRANK: It was a stinkin' mess when they got to it, rotten meat on the counters and what have ya.
Except one drawer, where his knives and stuff were kept was very neat and, you know, like a--
like a surgeon would have, you know? - RAY: There were body parts. I don't know whether animal or human.
But things in his refrigerator, in the freezer. Uh, some mixture that was, like,
probably some part of anatomy in a blender. But it was a real involved scene to where he obviously was, uh,
dissecting and killing animals inside that apartment. - NARRATOR: Detectives also uncovered brain matter
on the killer's bed, which was also found on the bloody rags seized during his arrest.
Tests revealed this belonged to the missing toddler, David Ferreira. On the 24th of March, his body was finally found in a box
on wasteland next to a local church by the janitor. - ALBERT: The baby had been decapitated.
He'd been out for almost two months at that point. And so there was a lot of decomposition.
Also in the box with the baby's body were the keys to Daniel Meredith's car. - NARRATOR: Just over 9 months later,
on the 2nd of January, 1979, Richard Chase stood trial on 6 counts of murder at Santa Clara County Superior Court.
Chase finally admitted his crimes, but his defense team said they were not premeditated
due to his mental illness. Assistant District Attorney Albert Locher was determined to prove otherwise.
- There's a lot evidence to show that Mr. Chase knew what he was doing, knew that it was wrong,
um, and--and could formulate a plan. For instance, Mr. Chase wore gloves in these scenes.
He didn't leave behind fingerprints. In--in the Wallin scene, he takes a knife out of the kitchen rack.
He stabs her repeatedly, mutilates her body with it. And then he cleans it up and he puts it back in the rack.
What is that if not trying to cover your tracks and cover what you did? - NARRATOR: The prosecution made their case
over the next four months. And on May the 8th, Richard Chase was found guilty of first-degree murder.
He was later sentenced to death by gas chamber. But the infamous serial killer had a parting shot.
- ALBERT: He was being given, um, psychiatric medications, which were major tranquilizers.
And--and he hoarded them until he got to a point where he--he felt that he had enough pills
to do what he wanted to do. Um, and he ingested them all at once. And it was a fatal overdose, and he died.
- DR. YARDLEY: He actually decided to take his own life. So for me, this is somebody who always wants to be in control.
And he was very much in control until the end. - NARRATOR: The so-called Vampire of Sacramento's
reign of terror was finally over. - RAY: The fear that, uh, he put in a community.
A killer who would walk in your house in the middle of the day when you thought you were safe,
would walk up and simply execute you. That's--that's what made Richard Chase so evil.
And after the killing, what he did, uh, just added to the horror of the killings.
- DR. YARDLEY: He's someone who engaged in evil acts, but also was somebody who had mental health problems
that went unaddressed. So I think when we're talking about accountability and responsibility in this case,
this doesn't just lay at the hands of the offender. This is about society as well.
- BILL: There are just evil people in the world. And like it or not, that's why you have the cops,
'cause go after those people. And you gotta eliminate the evil people to protect everybody else.
- NARRATOR: Chase mercilessly executed six people, including a six-year-old child and a toddler
whom he brutally decapitated. He violently mutilated two women, then drank their blood.
He reigned terror over the streets of Sacramento. And his crimes still haunt the city to this day.
That makes Richard Chase one of the world's most evil killers. - ♪ ♪ - [whoosh]

Richard Trenton Chase was an American serial killer who brutally murdered six people within a month in the late 70s in California. Chase was given the nickname "The Vampire of Sacramento."

An in-depth look at the lives and crimes of some of the world's most evil killers, including Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez, Cary Stayner, Leonard Lake, Dorothea Puente and more.

Brief Summary

Richard Chase, the Vampire of Sacramento, murdered six people in 1978, including children, and drank their blood, instilling fear in the community.

Key points

A Blood-Drinking Killer. Chase's gruesome acts included drinking blood and indulging in necrophilia.
The Vampire of Sacramento. Richard Chase, known for his horrific murders, was dubbed the Vampire of Sacramento.
A Community in Fear. The murders spread fear throughout Sacramento, leaving residents on edge.
Chase's Disturbing Childhood. Chase exhibited disturbing behavior from a young age, including animal cruelty.
The First Murder. Chase's first human victim was Teresa Wallin, who was pregnant at the time.
The Dog Connection. A dog found shot leads detectives to connect multiple homicides.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's a bloodbath in there.

Detective's reaction to the crime scene.

2:49WatchAug 12, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

More from True Crime Files

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.