Richard Chase
AKA: THE VAMPIRE OF SACRAMENTO
“If the door was locked, that means you’re not
welcome.”
By: Kalyn Serman
Background
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He was born in 1950 and raised in a strict household, where he was often beaten by his father.
This caused him to become an alcoholic by his teen years and begin killing and mutilating animals and starting
fires.
He wasn’t capable of holding a relationship in high school because he couldn’t become aroused by females,
only by violent and disturbed acts.
When he moved back in with his mother after moving out, he accused her of attempting to poison him.
This caused his father to move him into an apartment where Chase began to kill and disembowel animals.
He would blend the animals organs into smoothies and drink them because he thought that it would prevent
his heart from shrinking.
He feared that if his heart shrank too much, it would disappear and he would die.
In 1975, he was involuntarily committed to a mental institution after being admitted to the hospital for blood
poisoning after injecting rabbits blood into his veins.
He escaped, went to his mother’s house, where he was placed back into the mental institution for being
criminally insane.
While there, he told the staff about his animal killing fantasies.
The staff then found him with blood on his mouth that they later discovered was from sucking a bird’s blood.
This prompted the staff to call him “Dracula”.
In 1976, he was released from the institution and his mother weaned him off of his anti-schizophrenic
medication.
This caused him to kill more animals, including a neighbor’s pet, and become obsessed with firearms.
He also stopped caring for himself (hygiene).
On August 3, 1977, the Nevada state police found Chase’s car with two rifles, a pile of clothes, and a bucket of
blood with a cow’s liver inside. The officers tracked him down and found him naked and screaming in the sand
while covered in blood. When asked, he told them that it was his own and that it had leaked through his flesh.
Crimes Accused of Committing
Crime
Date
Victim(s)
Punishment
Fired .22 caliber gun into
the home of a Sacramento
woman. The slugs were
found but no one was
harmed.
December 27, 1977
Sacramento woman (no
name given)
Escaped.
Murdered a 51 year old
male who was an engineer
and father of two. Police
found that the bullets
matched the ones from the
Sacramento home.
December 29, 1977
Ambrose Griffin
Escaped.
Murdered a pregnant
woman her home. Shot her
3 times, raped her postmortem (after death) while
repeatedly stabbing her,
cut her open, bathed in and
drank her blood, and
stuffed her mouth and
throat with dog feces.
January 21, 1978
Teresa Wallin
Escaped.
Most Recent/Final Crime
 January 27, 1978.
 Chase committed a “mass murder” (killing multiple people at one
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time), killing 4.
Evelyn Miroth (38), her son Jason Miroth (6), her nephew David
Ferreira (22 months), and her neighbor Daniel Meredith (52).
All were shot fatally in the head.
Evelyn was the last one to go, and after she was dead, Chase
sodomized (forced sexual acts, especially anally) her while sucking
her blood from cuts that he had made on the back of her neck. Once
finished, he stabbed her repeatedly, which caused internal bleeding.
This prompted him to cut her stomach open and catch the blood in
a bucket, which he then drank.
After this, he took David’s body to the bathtub, split his head open,
and ate some of his brain matter.
Evidence against Richard Chase
 After fleeing the residence of his last crime, he left a perfect handprint in
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the blood.
He had a .22 caliber semiautomatic pistol registered in his name, which
was the same one that was used in all of his crimes.
He was arrested leaving his home with a bloody box, in which they found
blood-soaked wallpaper and the blood-stained .22 caliber gun.
His shoes and parka were also blood-stained.
Once they searched him, they found that he was carrying Dan Meredith’s
wallet.
Police then searched his home, where they found everything had blood on
it.
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In the fridge was:
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David’s brains in a Tupperware container
Pieces of his body wrapped in Saran Wrap
Evelyn and Teresa’s organs
Multiple bodies of animals
Sentence
 Sentenced to die in the gas chambers after being charged
for 6 counts of first-degree murder (an unlawful killing that
was both willful and premeditated).
 Sentenced to death row at San Quentin State Prison.
 On December 6, 1980, Chase was found dead in his cell
from an overdose on prison doctor prescribed
antidepressants that he had been hoarding for weeks.
Theory
I would say that Richard Chase falls under the Anomie
Theory in the category of Innovation. This would mean
that he cannot meet his goals through legitimate means,
therefore he turns elsewhere in order to meet those goals.
 I think that this suits Chase due to the fact that his goal is
psychological: drinking blood in order to make his heart
stop shrinking. Since he can’t obtain this goal by legally
getting human blood, he turns to deviance by killing
animals. When this no longer satisfies him, he moves on
to killing humans, all in an attempt to get blood to “save
his life”.
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Cultural References
 TV Shows:
 Criminal Minds, Season 1, Episode 11: “Blood Hungry”
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Was based off of Chase’s crimes
 Movies:
 Rampage (1987)
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Loosely based off of Chase’s crimes
 Books:
 Dracula Killer: Dracula Killer
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Written by Lt. Ray Biondi in 1992