00:00:05
- MALE NARRATOR:
The 23rd of January, 1978. Sacramento, California. David Wallin came home from work
00:00:13
to find his wife brutally
murdered in their bedroom. 22-year-old Teresa was
3 months pregnant.
00:00:22
- BILL: She was shot
3 times with a .22 and eviscerated, and
some horrid things done
00:00:28
to that poor woman. Lieutenant Biondi said, "We
have a sick son of a bitch. We have to catch this guy."
00:00:35
- NARRATOR: Even experienced
police officers had never seen anything like it. - FRANK:
Her abdomen was cut open.
00:00:42
The internal organs
had been moved around. I found a used yogurt cup that had been taken
to drink her blood.
00:00:50
It was--it's the most bizarre
thing you'd ever seen. - NARRATOR:
The blood-drinking killer
00:00:55
was 27-year-old Richard Chase, who would go on to be known
as the Vampire of Sacramento.
00:01:02
- DR. YARDLEY: He wanted
to consume the blood of his victims. This really is something
00:01:08
straight out of a movie
or a horror book. He doesn't just
want to kill people. He wants to consume them.
00:01:14
- NARRATOR: Within a month, he
randomly slaughtered 6 people, including 2 children,
his youngest victim being
00:01:21
a 22-month-old toddler,
whose body he decapitated, placed in an old cardboard
box and then dumped.
00:01:29
He drank his victims' blood and terrorized
the city of Sacramento, making Richard Chase one of
the world's most evil killers.
00:01:39
- ♪ ♪ - NARRATOR:
The 27th of January, 1978. Sacramento, California. Just four days after
brutally slaughtering
00:02:10
an expectant mother,
Teresa Wallin, the serial killer struck again. Thirty-six-year-old
Evelyn Miroth
00:02:19
was also shot and disemboweled. Former detective Bill Roberts
was called to the house
00:02:25
and met his colleague, Ivan. - He had the unfortunate
fate of being the first officer
00:02:32
on the scene at
the Wallin homicide. Well, he was also the first
officer on the scene
00:02:38
at the Miroth homicide. I've never seen a person
so ashen and pale in my entire life.
00:02:46
And--and then the detective
came out and said, "It's a bloodbath in there." - NARRATOR: The depraved
killer had also shot Evelyn's
00:02:54
22-month-old nephew, David,
her 52-year-old friend, Daniel, and 6-year-old son, Jason--
all dead.
00:03:03
Former Detective Lieutenant
Ray Biondi led the murder inquiry. - Jason Miroth was about
the same age as my youngest son.
00:03:12
I had, uh, real
close to a tearful moment. That was very emotional to me. I mean, here is this
kid all dressed up.
00:03:19
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.
00:03:27
I do remember that,
out of hundreds of murders, the feeling I had that day. - NARRATOR: Evelyn's postmortem
revealed the sadistic murderer
00:03:36
had indulged in necrophilia. The gruesome murders
spread fear amongst the small suburb
of Sacramento.
00:03:44
They all took place within
just over a square mile. - "The Sacramento Bee"
almost made this kind of
00:03:51
demanding headline
that we do something. That we have some kind of
crazed person
00:03:57
doing these horrific crimes. And I think there was a rash of
people buying guns at that time.
00:04:03
And in general, everybody
was speaking about it. It was just so horrific. - NARRATOR: A blood-drinking
serial killer was on the loose.
00:04:13
And no one knew who
was next on his hit list. - DR. YARDLEY: When these
attacks became public knowledge,
00:04:20
I think it really shook people's
sense of stability and security, because what was normal
had been completely disrupted.
00:04:29
There didn't seem to be
a pattern to these crimes. Anybody could fall victim. - NARRATOR: Assistant District
Attorney Albert Locher
00:04:37
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,
00:04:46
and you not know it until he
was there and you were dead. Um, and that's a scary thing.
00:04:52
- NARRATOR: This killer's story
begins on the 23rd of May, 1950. Richard Trenton Chase was born
in Santa Clara, California,
00:05:04
and grew up with
a younger sister. - Richard Chase seemed to come
from a relatively normal family.
00:05:10
I think there was quite
a bit of controlling behavior, especially on the part
of his father.
00:05:16
So he was very strict.
He was quite a disciplinarian. And I think he put across
some very fixed ideas about
00:05:22
masculinity in the household. But that's not dissimilar to thousands of households
across America.
00:05:31
- ALBERT: He was
just a normal kid. He was in Boy Scouts.
He was in Little League.
00:05:36
Um, he had friends. And what everyone describes
as a--as a-- in many respects,
a pretty normal life.
00:05:43
- NARRATOR: But the young Chase
started showing sinister traits. - DR. YARDLEY: When
Chase is ten years old,
00:05:50
his mother discovers that
he's buried the body of a cat in one of her flower beds,
now there were several cats
00:05:56
that had gone missing
from the neighborhood. This is inherently
disturbing behavior.
00:06:02
And his mother doesn't
do anything about it. She doesn't try and
get help for him.
00:06:07
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,
00:06:12
so we're gonna sweep
it under the carpet and just hope it goes away. - NARRATOR:
By the time he was 15,
00:06:18
the marriage between
Chase's mother and father had begun to fray. At one point, they broke up,
00:06:25
and Chase was sent
to live with relatives. Eventually, his
parents reconciled, and the family made
a fresh start in Sacramento.
00:06:34
At first, Chase seemed
happy at high school, until a few years later,
when it came to dating.
00:06:41
- He had no problem getting
the attention of girls, 'cause he was
a good-looking guy.
00:06:45
But when it came to
the end of the night, when it came to a particular
stage in the relationship,
00:06:50
he couldn't perform in the way
that he felt he was expected to. And I think it's
at this point in time
00:06:57
when he develops issues
with his body. So his body is doing something
that he has no control over.
00:07:02
It's almost working against him. That's how he feels. - ALBERT: He was impotent.
And this caused him anxiety.
00:07:08
He visited doctor and
psychiatrist about this when he was younger. Um, he got into
a crying fit once and--
00:07:15
and told one of his friends,
"I can't do it." - NARRATOR: He started
on a downward spiral,
00:07:20
turning to drugs and
struggling through high school. He found it difficult finding
and holding down a job.
00:07:27
Chase became even more
obsessed with his health, and was convinced that his
major organs were failing him.
00:07:33
- RAY: He'd been
to many doctors. And he was always trying to
self-diagnose his own illnesses.
00:07:39
And most medical doctors
found out that, uh, he'd--he was in
good health, actually.
00:07:45
- NARRATOR: At the age of 23,
a neurologist diagnosed Chase as a paranoid schizophrenic, and
concluded he was suffering from
00:07:53
psychiatric disturbances
of major proportions. Soon, his behavior became
even more worrying.
00:08:01
- DR. YARDLEY: He develops this
fixation with drinking blood. There was a rabbit farm near
to where Richard Chase lived.
00:08:07
And he would go there,
and he would kill rabbits, and he would drink their blood.
00:08:12
And he would justify this,
saying that he had a weak heart, and that he needed
to ingest this blood
00:08:17
in order to restore himself. - NARRATOR: On one occasion, this obsession even
put his life at risk.
00:08:25
- ALBERT: He wound up
at the emergency room at American River Hospital,
being sick.
00:08:30
And he did have, uh,
septicemia--a blood infection. And he was questioned about
what was wrong with him.
00:08:36
And he said he'd given himself
an injection of rabbit blood because he felt he needed
that for his health.
00:08:41
- NARRATOR: Eventually,
on April the 28th, 1976, doctors transferred
25-year-old Chase
00:08:48
to Sacramento's Beverly Manor
Psychiatric Hospital. He was detained by the state
for his own safety.
00:08:56
But his insatiable thirst
for blood continued. And his fellow patients
nicknamed him "Dracula."
00:09:03
- ALBERT: He was
capturing birds. And then he was, like,
twisting their heads off
00:09:10
and--and ingesting the blood. But then over time,
uh, he was given psychiatric medications--
Thorazine, major tranquilizer--
00:09:20
and his behavior
started to improve. - NARRATOR: After
making good progress, Chase was released from
the hospital 5 months later,
00:09:29
on the 29th of September. But by June the following year,
his behavior lapsed once again.
00:09:38
- This obsession
with drinking blood as a way to kind of restore himself,
as a way to nourish himself,
00:09:44
this is an idea that
becomes rooted in his mind and goes on to
determine his behavior.
00:09:51
- ALBERT: At one point,
he killed his mother's cat. And he was outside in the yard,
and drew her attention to it,
00:09:58
and held up the bloody cat,
you know? And then smeared the blood around his neck and
the back of his collar.
00:10:07
- NARRATOR: Horrified, his
mother shut the door on her son and refused to let him
near the house anymore.
00:10:13
But Chase was still
thirsty for blood. And to quench his addiction,
on the 3rd of August, 1977,
00:10:20
he drove his Ford Ranchero truck 145 miles northeast
to Pyramid Lake in Nevada. This time, he was
targeting larger prey.
00:10:30
And he was armed with guns. - ALBERT:
He bought two rifles-- a .22, which is a
small-caliber rifle,
00:10:36
and a .33, which is a more
substantial hunting rifle. And he had taken these
two rifles
00:10:41
up to an area in the Nevada
desert called Pyramid Lake. And he had gotten off
in the wilderness there.
00:10:48
And apparently what he'd done
is he had killed a cow. - NARRATOR: After tearing
the animal to shreds,
00:10:54
Chase consumed its blood. He then stripped off his clothes
and vanished into the desert.
00:11:00
The police came across
his abandoned Ford Ranchero. - DR. YARDLEY: In the car,
there's a pile of clothes,
00:11:07
and there's a bucket, which
appears to be full of blood, and there's an organ
which looks like a liver.
00:11:13
And the officers
who discover the car go and look around nearby, and they find Chase naked
and huddling on some rocks,
00:11:21
and covered in blood. So this looks horrific. You know, this looks like
potentially
00:11:26
this guy's killed someone. - NARRATOR: Chase ran when
he saw the police approaching.
00:11:31
But eventually they caught up
with him, and he was arrested. - ALBERT: The vehicle
gets impounded.
00:11:37
The blood and the liver
go out for testing. And it's determined
to be from a cow.
00:11:42
They eventually released him. They wouldn't give
him back his car, and they wouldn't
give him back his guns.
00:11:48
- This incident in itself
should have been enough to say, "Hang on a minute, you know?
00:11:53
This guy needs help." At this stage in his life,
he is internalizing his trauma.
00:12:00
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
00:12:07
get that sense of control
that they really crave. - NARRATOR: For the mentally
unstable Richard Chase,
00:12:13
killing animals would
no longer be enough to satisfy his cravings. The 27th of December, 1977.
00:12:22
Sacramento, California. Chase retrieved his car
from the police, and was now cruising
the streets of Sacramento
00:12:31
with a new .22-caliber
semiautomatic pistol. The bloodthirsty animal killer
set his sights
00:12:38
on a different kind of
prey--humans. - ALBERT: There's a woman
who was standing at her kitchen window,
washing the dishes.
00:12:46
And a shot came
through the window. That bullet went
right through her hair. Just barely missed.
00:12:52
Went through her hair and
lodged in a cabinet behind her. He's graduated from some of
the animal kinds of things
00:12:57
that he had done before that
to now he wants to kill people. - NARRATOR: Chase had failed
in his first attempt
00:13:03
at taking a human life. But just two days later, he was
out roaming Sacramento's suburbs
00:13:10
in his pickup once again. He spotted 51-year-old
Ambrose Griffin on his driveway.
00:13:17
- DR. YARDLEY: He'd been
shopping with his wife. He was helping her take
the groceries in from the car.
00:13:22
And in--in a split second,
Richard Chase shoots him. - ALBERT: It hit a major
vessel in his lungs.
00:13:31
The emergency people
were able to get there, and he's still
alive and conscious.
00:13:35
But there was significant
internal bleeding. And he died in about--I'd say
about 15 minutes, probably.
00:13:43
- RAY: The family first thought
maybe he had a heart attack. We later determined
he had been shot, uh,
00:13:49
presumably by somebody
going by in a car. Uh, the caliber of the weapon
was determined to be
00:13:56
a .22-caliber after
projectiles were recovered. - ALBERT: It was thought
that this was
00:14:02
just some sort of random thing, maybe vandals or kids just
goofing off and firing shots.
00:14:10
- NARRATOR: Soon, however,
the police link the shooting of Ambrose Griffin with the woman
00:14:15
who was shot in her kitchen
two days before. - Detectives went to
the house and they dug around
00:14:21
in the cabinets
and through the china. And they dug out
a .22-caliber slug. Eventually, the crime lab
was able to tell us
00:14:29
that the .22-calibers
were fired from the same gun that killed Mr. Griffin and also tried to
kill this lady.
00:14:39
- NARRATOR: Detectives were
mystified as to the motive for the random shootings.
00:14:44
But Chase was delighted
in his first kill, collecting press cuttings
about his murder.
00:14:50
- The newspaper was--was
decrying how irresponsible, you know, apparent
vandals had been.
00:14:58
It demonstrated to him that
"I can get away with it. They're on the wrong track."
00:15:04
- NARRATOR: Chase now knew
what it was like to take the life
of another person. But he still hadn't
actually tasted human blood.
00:15:12
Nearly a month after
his first murder, on the 23rd of January, 1978, he decided to stalk the
Sacramento suburbs by foot,
00:15:22
and broke into a family home. - RAY: There was a couple
returning from shopping.
00:15:27
And they went in their house. They heard somebody
in the house. And the homeowner saw
a man flee out the back.
00:15:34
He chased him, but he
eventually lost him. He had a number of valuable
items laid out that
00:15:39
he apparently was gonna steal
before he got surprised. But he also left a calling card
00:15:45
in that he defecated
in the baby's crib. - DR. YARDLEY: I think we
gotta try and make sense of--
00:15:51
of what this represents. So we have to look at
the reaction that this kind of behavior
will get.
00:15:58
You're gonna be fearful. You're going to be disgusted. So I think for Chase, this
is a way of gaining control,
00:16:05
of gaining the upper hand, of feeling powerful
and of feeling important. - NARRATOR: Chase then made his
way to the local shopping mall.
00:16:14
Here, the killer spotted
his next potential victim-- a former high school friend,
Nancy Holden.
00:16:21
- ALBERT: They talked for
a little bit in the store. And then they
separated in the store.
00:16:26
But it seemed to Nancy
that he was following her. Um, she was unsettled by this.
00:16:32
She went out to get in her car. He followed her out and called
her and said, "Hey, wait."
00:16:38
- He had this crazed
look in his eye. He was trying to force
himself into her car.
00:16:43
She didn't allow that
and finally drove off. - NARRATOR: Still on the hunt
for his next human victim,
00:16:49
Chase found a gap in the fence
behind the shopping mall that took him into a backyard.
00:16:55
Here he spotted
22-year-old Teresa Wallin, who was at home alone. As she opened her door
to take the garbage out,
00:17:03
Chase slid into her hallway
and shot her three times. - DR. HAMILTON: The first
shot goes through her hand,
00:17:10
along her forearm,
and ends up in her neck. That is classical for somebody holding their hand out
to ward off an assailant.
00:17:19
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.
00:17:29
- NARRATOR: Not only did
Chase take Teresa's life, he killed an unborn child. She was three months pregnant.
00:17:38
Next, the killer indulged
in his darkest fantasies, taking Teresa's body
into her bedroom,
00:17:45
where he slit her abdomen open. - DR. HAMILTON: This is
his opportunity to explore,
00:17:51
to experiment. So Chase has followed
the pattern that is said to be quite classical for
this sort of killer.
00:17:59
He starts by opening animals, and then he goes on
to kill a human being. - NARRATOR: After violently
stabbing her heart and a nipple,
00:18:11
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.
00:18:22
- Now he's getting to what
he actually wants to do. He doesn't just
want to kill people.
00:18:27
He wants to consume them. He wants to own them
and possess them. - DR. HAMILTON:
It's all part of taking on
00:18:35
someone's life essence. It is...using them to strengthen yourself. It is an unnecessary
act in killing.
00:18:46
It is clearly some sort
of fetishistic activity. - NARRATOR: Chase then slid
out through the back door.
00:18:54
Later that day,
Teresa's husband, David, came home from work to
find the horrific scene.
00:19:02
- ALBERT: I mean,
here's a young man. It's his young family. They're starting out,
making a life together.
00:19:08
Um, they're expecting
their first child. And then to come home and find
your wife in this condition,
00:19:15
and this has been done
to her, so devastating. - NARRATOR: In a state of shock,
Teresa's husband immediately
00:19:22
called the police. Detective Lieutenant Biondi and crime scene investigator
Frank Davidson
00:19:28
were called to the house. - RAY: It was a
very involved scene because we had casings
on the floor.
00:19:36
Uh, we had a--a
mutilated body in the back. The scene work went on
nearly 24 hours there,
00:19:43
and just to try to figure
anything out of that house. - FRANK: It was--it's the most
bizarre thing you'd ever see
00:19:50
'cause the lady was with,
uh...bare from the waist down. Uh, her abdomen was cut open.
00:19:58
The internal organs
had been moved around. And he had taken, uh, dog feces
and put it in her mouth.
00:20:08
It was disturbing to, you know, know something like that was
going on in the neighborhood.
00:20:13
- ALBERT: Some of her internal
organs had been pulled out through that cavity in the body.
00:20:19
There were--there
were blood stains, um, around on the floor. Uh, and there was
a crumpled, um,
00:20:27
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.
00:20:37
At first, they had no idea
of their killer's blood-drinking fetish. - ALBERT: On the floor,
you could see rings
00:20:46
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--
00:20:52
if you had a cup that
was wet or had condensation, and you set it on a table,
and then picked it up.
00:20:57
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.
00:21:05
- FRANK: And the cup,
when the officer processed for fingerprints, it had a zigzag pattern
like a rubber glove--
00:21:12
Playtex-like rubber gloves-- and you could see
where he had gripped it. Checked the bathroom, the sink.
00:21:20
And the handles on the faucets
had the same zigzag pattern. So we knew he was
wearing gloves.
00:21:27
- ALBERT: The murderer had
gone and gotten a knife from the kitchen and
used that on the body.
00:21:34
And then, after
all of that was done, took the knife back, cleaned it, and put it back
in the dish rack.
00:21:42
So that was certainly
unusual kind of behavior. There were blood smears
along her inner thigh
00:21:47
and close to her genitals. Uh, given knife thrust back
and forth in her breast, through the nipple.
00:21:54
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
00:22:03
for the police. - RAY: The FBI had called
him as just a blitz killer. Just walk right up
and just kill ya.
00:22:12
The classification for them
from behavioral science was a disorganized killer. Pretty much of a loner
that just acted on impulse
00:22:22
with no plan, uh, as to how
he was gonna commit the crime. Really dangerous,
super dangerous.
00:22:31
- NARRATOR: As the police
launched a manhunt for the brutal killer, Richard Chase sat back
and relished his achievement.
00:22:39
Now he'd had his first
taste of human blood, the Vampire of Sacramento
was ready to kill again.
00:22:46
- ♪ - NARRATOR: Having
killed two people, Chase, who was still armed with his .22-caliber
semi-automatic pistol,
00:22:57
now reverted back to something he'd been doing since his
childhood--killing animals.
00:23:04
Just two days after
Teresa's murder, the body of a dog was
found by its owners, and they alerted the police.
00:23:11
- The dog had been shot with
the same caliber ammunition-- .22 ammunition--um, as Teresa
Wallin had been shot with.
00:23:20
And the dog had been, uh,
partially eviscerated as well-- um, cut open
through the abdomen.
00:23:26
The kidneys had been cut out,
but the kidneys were missing. The sheriff's department made
a connection, saying, you know,
00:23:33
what was done to the dog's body
is similar to what was done to Teresa Wallin's body.
00:23:37
Same type of ammunition. - Dogs were killed by .22s. Mr. Griffin was killed
by a .22-caliber gun.
00:23:45
And then, of course, we had
Teresa Wallin homicide. And it was then when we thought,
00:23:53
"Maybe we have a connection
between all these three." - NARRATOR: Detectives concluded
their killer lived somewhere
00:24:00
within a one-mile radius
they'd mapped out. - BILL: One lieutenant said,
"We have a sick son of a bitch.
00:24:06
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.
00:24:15
- So we drew all our
activity to that mile square, and had tremendous
canvasses going on.
00:24:22
We were knocking on
every door we could find. There was cops
everywhere in that area.
00:24:29
- NARRATOR: 4 days later,
on the 27th of January, Chase would strike again. He focused on a new neighborhood
a mile further south--
00:24:38
Merrywood Drive. Thirty-six-year-old mother
Evelyn Miroth shared a home here with
her six-year-old son, Jason.
00:24:48
- ALBERT:
The lady across the street was planning to take her
daughter up to the snow,
00:24:51
and wanted to know
if Jason would like to go. Evelyn said, um, "Sure,
I think Jason would like to go.
00:24:55
But he doesn't have
good shoes for the snow." - NARRATOR: So Evelyn's friend
Daniel took Jason shopping
00:25:01
while she stayed at home. She was babysitting her
22-month-old nephew, David. When Chase spotted
the lone mother in her house,
00:25:11
he decided to pounce. - DR. YARDLEY: Richard Chase
went in through an open door.
00:25:17
He entered the home without having to break and enter,
essentially. But it was Evelyn
who he was after.
00:25:25
He wanted her. He wanted to consume her blood. - At that point, Evelyn Miroth
was shot and killed, uh,
00:25:35
apparently in the hallway. - NARRATOR: With
Evelyn now dead, her 22-month-old nephew,
David, started crying.
00:25:42
So Chase coldly put a bullet
through his head. Then he turned his mind back to
Evelyn, whom he stripped naked.
00:25:52
- Her body was
moved to a--a front bedroom and thrown over a bed. - NARRATOR: Chase then
sodomized his victim.
00:26:02
- ALBERT: The only time
that we could establish that Richard Chase
ever had an orgasm
00:26:08
in a sex act with a woman was
when he sodomized Evelyn Miroth. So there was a clear sexual
sadism aspect to these crimes.
00:26:17
- NARRATOR:
Chase had moved on to a whole new level--necrophilia. And he'd experienced the sexual
release he'd waited so long for.
00:26:27
But his attack
still wasn't over. Chase slit Evelyn's abdomen open
and stabbed her major organs.
00:26:34
He then tried to cut
out one of her eyes. - DR. YARDLEY: I think there's
a very evident link here
00:26:40
back to his teenage years,
back to that time in high school when he was this popular,
good-looking guy
00:26:46
who got lots of girls,
but when he got those girls, he wasn't able
to perform with them.
00:26:50
He experienced
erectile dysfunction. So I think that lodges in
his mind--an association between
00:26:57
women and shame,
and women and failure. And what he's doing in
opening these women up
00:27:03
and, by implication,
humiliating them, is kind of leveling
the playing field for him.
00:27:09
- NARRATOR: But the serial
killer was suddenly disturbed during the macabre mutilation.
00:27:15
- ALBERT: Sometime in the course
of all this going on with Mrs. Miroth,
Daniel Meredith,
00:27:20
the family friend,
and Jason came home. And they were shot
in the living room right after they had
come into the house.
00:27:31
- NARRATOR: Chase killed
Daniel Meredith instantly. Six-year-old Jason was
shot twice in the head.
00:27:37
The fatal bullet was
delivered at close range. - It is rare for children
to be killed in the way
00:27:44
that adults kill adults. And therefore
the fact that he shoots both a six-year-old
and a toddler
00:27:54
really tells you that
he is not thinking of them as children. That sanctity of childhood that
we have in society is ignored.
00:28:02
They are simply dispatched
coldly with a bullet. - NARRATOR: Now the
Vampire of Sacramento
00:28:10
returned to his final act. Using a bucket, he scooped
the blood from the open cavity
00:28:16
of his female victim
and drank it. Then he took the body
of 22-month-old David from his crib.
00:28:25
- DR. YARDLEY: I think Chase
took the baby from the scene because the baby
in this case, um,
00:28:31
is reminiscent of--of
what he did with animals earlier on in his life. So you have complete control
over these creatures
00:28:39
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.
00:28:47
So he took the baby with him
to continue his offending. - NARRATOR: Chase fled
the scene in Daniel's car.
00:28:54
In the solitude
of his apartment, he decapitated
the 22-month-old toddler, David,
00:29:00
and also drank his blood. - DR. YARDLEY: I think
this was an individual that was so focused on
00:29:06
the act of consuming
the blood of other people that he stopped
seeing them as people.
00:29:12
They were simply there
to serve a purpose for him. They were dehumanized. - NARRATOR: Back
at Evelyn's home,
00:29:19
a concerned neighbor
raised the alarm after seeing what they thought was the dead body
of Daniel Meredith
00:29:26
when they peered through
the living room window. - ALBERT: The sheriff's
department is called,
00:29:31
and go in and find Mr. Meredith
laying in the living room, having been dragged there, dead.
00:29:38
They find Mrs. Miroth naked,
sprawled across the bed. They find Jason
shot twice in the head.
00:29:45
This becomes
a major crime scene. That becomes the biggest story,
uh, in Sacramento
00:29:51
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.
00:30:02
In my, you know, experience,
this is probably one of the scariest individuals
you could deal with--
00:30:08
somebody who wouldn't hesitate
to walk right up to your house-- it could be high noon--
and walk in and commit a murder.
00:30:14
Uh, there didn't seem to be
anything that's gonna stop him. - NARRATOR: It was now clear
00:30:18
that a serial killer
was on the loose. And the police were under
pressure to find him fast.
00:30:25
To add to the urgency, they also had a missing toddler
to track down. - RAY: The baby,
David Ferreira, uh,
00:30:34
was our big concern
at that time, although in
the back of our mind, we were pretty sure that
he probably had been murdered
00:30:40
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,
00:30:48
whether it be his body
or he'd still be alive. - FRANK: I think we were all
like, "Oh my gosh, you know?
00:30:55
"This is an evil person
that--how do we catch him? What do we do?
How do we catch him?"
00:31:01
- NARRATOR: Whilst the team
went on the hunt for the missing toddler, crime scene officers
examine blood patterns
00:31:07
on the carpet
next to Evelyn's body. Similar stains had also
been found at the scene
00:31:13
of his second victim,
Teresa Wallin. - ALBERT: Found on the floor
next to Mrs. Wallin's body
00:31:18
were bloody rings, um, as if a--a--a
bloody object had blood and been placed on
the carpet there.
00:31:29
- NARRATOR: These circular
stains had been a huge mystery to Detective Biondi until now.
00:31:36
- Finally somebody said,
"No, he was drinking blood." We figured out why they
had the ringlets and stuff.
00:31:41
And that was the first time
and the only time in my career-- 17 years of homicide--
that I ever, uh,
00:31:48
encountered anything like that. - NARRATOR: Now it was clear
to the police they had a bloodthirsty killer
on their hands
00:31:56
who would stop at nothing to
quench his depraved addiction. Friday, the 27th
of January, 1978.
00:32:05
Sacramento, California. Twenty-seven-year-old Richard
Chase had killed six people,
00:32:11
including a twenty-two-month-old
toddler, David, whose body he removed from
the scene in a stolen car
00:32:18
belonging to one of his
victims--Daniel Meredith. Detective Biondi and
his team were on the hunt
00:32:24
for the blood-drinking
serial killer. - RAY: There was a big search
put out for Meredith's car,
00:32:32
and also for the body, or-- we assumed it was the body
of the--of the young baby.
00:32:39
We probably had a canvas going
of 50 detectives were banging on doors all over. - NARRATOR: In the meantime,
00:32:45
detectives were
interested in the burglar seen on the day of
Teresa's Wallin's murder
00:32:49
four days earlier. Neighbors also reported
the same man acting suspiciously
near Teresa's home.
00:32:57
- They decided maybe this
person could be a suspect. They got
a composite sketch done.
00:33:02
And the composite sketch
was circulated widely in the sheriff's department. - RAY: The sketch was
kind of really based on
00:33:09
what people had told us,
you know? A skinny, disheveled,
dirty-looking individual,
00:33:14
uh, dirty clothing, uh, on. I don't think anybody realized that most of the dirty clothing
was blood stains.
00:33:21
But he was always described as
having this orange ski parka. - NARRATOR: By a twist of fate,
00:33:27
on Saturday,
the 28th of January, Chase's former high school
friend, Nancy Holden,
00:33:32
saw the sketch
and alerted her father-in-law, who was a policeman. She told him about her
confrontation with Chase
00:33:40
in the shopping mall. - RAY: She looked
in the squad car, and she saw this sketch that we
had put out of the suspicious,
00:33:48
disheveled-looking individual. And she said that looked
a lot like Richard Chase.
00:33:54
And that was really the
identification of the killer. - NARRATOR: Daniel Meredith's
missing station wagon
00:34:01
had also been found
just over two miles from Richard Chase's home. With a potential name
for their top suspect,
00:34:08
the team dug deeper
into his criminal past. - BILL: I started finding
out about his background.
00:34:15
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.
00:34:27
Found out that
we had arrested him for carrying a loaded
and concealed weapon. Found out that he had been
in a psychiatric hospital
00:34:35
and was deemed violent. So I'm putting all
these things together. Uh, we had a flyer, which
was a sketch of the suspect
00:34:45
in the Teresa Wallin homicide. And I look at it and compare it
to a mug shot we have,
00:34:53
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,
00:35:03
"This is very close." - NARRATOR: With this new lead, Detective Bill Roberts
and two colleagues
00:35:09
drove straight
to Chase's apartment. - BILL: We're standing both to
the left and to the right
00:35:14
of the door,
and knocking on the door. No answer. And so we're saying,
"Hey, Richard.
00:35:19
It's the sheriff's department." And there's movement in there. So I go ahead and
talk to the guys.
00:35:25
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.
00:35:32
And, uh, you guys stay
at the building here." So we do that. - NARRATOR: As Detective Roberts
00:35:39
went upstairs to the manager's
office to phone police HQ, Chase made a run for it
through his apartment door.
00:35:47
- BILL: Saw him fly down
the stairs and turn the corner. And they got him
in a little pile there.
00:35:52
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.
00:36:02
And he had pictures
of the Miroth family. We knew we had him. - NARRATOR: Chase was also
carrying a box of bloody rags
00:36:12
and the utility bucket he used
to drink Evelyn Miroth's blood. And this was later matched
to the blood rings
00:36:19
found next to her body. Most damning of all, Chase was
carrying a .22-caliber pistol,
00:36:26
linking him to bullets
found at the murder scenes. - BILL: They called me as soon
as they wrestled him
00:36:32
to the ground and says,
"We got him." And he had David Meredith's
wallet in his jacket pocket.
00:36:40
He also had a .22
in a shoulder holster. So we were pretty
confident we got the guy.
00:36:47
Just the great big relief. - NARRATOR: Chase was taken
back to the team's headquarters.
00:36:55
- BILL: Everybody in the
department from our division, as well as support groups,
was standing on chairs, desks,
00:37:03
wedged together, just to see
this monster that we brought in. - NARRATOR: But once
in the interview room,
00:37:10
Chase gave up nothing
about his murders. - BILL: His stare--
he didn't look at you.
00:37:18
His eyes were
constantly just darting. I'd raise my voice,
and say things, and talk to him
about the homicides
00:37:25
and, "How could you do that?" It didn't matter.
It didn't matter. We talked about Pyramid Lake
00:37:32
and our knowledge of him
being in Pyramid Lake. "What were you doing nude,
full of blood in Pyramid Lake?"
00:37:39
Wouldn't acknowledge it. It was just like
it didn't matter. So that one time, after
talking about dogs and animals,
00:37:48
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."
00:37:57
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
00:38:05
and maybe didn't hurt any. Um, but it just was a
spontaneous out-of-his-mouth thing that had nothing to do
00:38:13
what we were trying
to get out of him. So it was by far,
in my entire career, the toughest
interview/interrogation
00:38:21
I ever had. - NARRATOR: Even the most
experienced homicide detectives couldn't get anything
out of Chase.
00:38:28
So Lieutenant Biondi's team had to find more evidence
against him. They searched his apartment.
00:38:35
- FRANK: It was a stinkin'
mess when they got to it, rotten meat on the counters
and what have ya.
00:38:41
Except one drawer, where
his knives and stuff were kept was very neat and,
you know, like a--
00:38:46
like a surgeon
would have, you know? - RAY: There were body parts. I don't know whether
animal or human.
00:38:52
But things in his
refrigerator, in the freezer. Uh, some mixture that was, like,
00:38:58
probably some part of
anatomy in a blender. But it was a real involved scene
to where he obviously was, uh,
00:39:08
dissecting and killing
animals inside that apartment. - NARRATOR: Detectives also
uncovered brain matter
00:39:15
on the killer's bed, which was
also found on the bloody rags seized during his arrest.
00:39:21
Tests revealed this belonged
to the missing toddler, David Ferreira. On the 24th of March, his body
was finally found in a box
00:39:29
on wasteland next to
a local church by the janitor. - ALBERT: The baby
had been decapitated.
00:39:35
He'd been out for almost
two months at that point. And so there was
a lot of decomposition.
00:39:40
Also in the box
with the baby's body were the keys to
Daniel Meredith's car. - NARRATOR: Just over
9 months later,
00:39:47
on the 2nd of January, 1979,
Richard Chase stood trial on 6 counts of murder at Santa Clara County
Superior Court.
00:39:58
Chase finally
admitted his crimes, but his defense team said
they were not premeditated
00:40:03
due to his mental illness. Assistant District Attorney
Albert Locher was determined
to prove otherwise.
00:40:13
- There's a lot evidence
to show that Mr. Chase knew what he was doing,
knew that it was wrong,
00:40:19
um, and--and could
formulate a plan. For instance, Mr. Chase
wore gloves in these scenes.
00:40:26
He didn't leave
behind fingerprints. In--in the Wallin scene, he takes a knife
out of the kitchen rack.
00:40:31
He stabs her repeatedly,
mutilates her body with it. And then he cleans it up and
he puts it back in the rack.
00:40:37
What is that if not
trying to cover your tracks and cover what you did? - NARRATOR: The prosecution
made their case
00:40:43
over the next four months. And on May the 8th,
Richard Chase was found guilty of first-degree murder.
00:40:51
He was later sentenced
to death by gas chamber. But the infamous serial killer
had a parting shot.
00:40:58
- ALBERT: He was being given,
um, psychiatric medications, which were major tranquilizers.
00:41:03
And--and he hoarded them
until he got to a point where he--he felt
that he had enough pills
00:41:09
to do what he wanted to do. Um, and he ingested
them all at once. And it was a fatal
overdose, and he died.
00:41:16
- DR. YARDLEY: He actually
decided to take his own life. So for me, this is somebody who
always wants to be in control.
00:41:21
And he was very much
in control until the end. - NARRATOR: The so-called
Vampire of Sacramento's
00:41:28
reign of terror
was finally over. - RAY: The fear that, uh,
he put in a community.
00:41:35
A killer who would walk in your
house in the middle of the day when you thought you were safe,
00:41:39
would walk up and
simply execute you. That's--that's what made
Richard Chase so evil.
00:41:45
And after the killing,
what he did, uh, just added to the horror
of the killings.
00:41:51
- DR. YARDLEY: He's someone
who engaged in evil acts, but also was somebody who
had mental health problems
00:41:56
that went unaddressed. So I think when
we're talking about accountability and
responsibility in this case,
00:42:02
this doesn't just lay at
the hands of the offender. This is about society as well.
00:42:08
- BILL: There are just
evil people in the world. And like it or not,
that's why you have the cops,
00:42:14
'cause go after those people. And you gotta eliminate
the evil people to protect everybody else.
00:42:20
- NARRATOR: Chase mercilessly
executed six people, including a six-year-old child
and a toddler
00:42:26
whom he brutally decapitated. He violently mutilated two
women, then drank their blood.
00:42:34
He reigned terror over
the streets of Sacramento. And his crimes still
haunt the city to this day.
00:42:41
That makes Richard Chase one of
the world's most evil killers. - ♪ ♪ - [whoosh]