My love of vampires started with The Lost Boys, and then grew as the popularity of vampires grew as well. Anne Rice with her Interview With A Vampire series and various other authors solidified my love of vampires.
With my love of this supernatural creature, I’ve never once thought, “I need to drink blood to survive.” Surviving off of another is not something that I have ever wanted to do. I am however still interested and a fan of vampires, and I’m interested in those who think they are vampires and feel the need to drink blood or consume human flesh to survive. Richard T. Chase is one of those people who felt he needed to drink blood and eat human flesh to be able to live.
Richard Chase was born in May, 1950 in Sacramento, California. By the age of 10, he was exhibiting all three parts of the MacDonald Triad, a theory suggesting the development of violent psychopathy. Those three include, arson, cruelty to animals, and enuresis (bedwetting).
As Richard grew he also began heavily abusing drugs and developed hypochondria. Richard would often complain about maladies that he did not have such as, his heart would stop beating, bones were separated and moving, he felt that he needed more vitamin C so he would hold oranges atop his head.
Richard had lived with his mother, but felt she was poisoning him, so he moved out and rented an apartment with friends. Richard was reported to be constantly under the influence of alcohol, marijuana, and LSD. He would walk around nude, regardless of who was in the apartment, and when his friends demanded he move out, Richard refused. Eventually his friends would move out.
Now that he was on his own, Richard began to capture, kill, and disembowel various animals. But it didn’t stop there, he would also devour them raw, sometimes mixing the organs with Coca-Cola in a blender and then drinking the mixture. He felt that he was preventing his heart from shrinking.
It’s no surprise that in 1973 he had spent time in a psychiatric ward. And again in 1976 he was again involuntarily committed when he had injected rabbit’s blood into his veins. He was obsessed with blood; he would catch birds and drink their blood, extract blood from therapy dogs with using stolen syringes. His diagnosis was schizophrenia. He was then released into his mother’s custody with a list of medications to take.
She weaned him off his medication and then got him his own apartment. Again he originally had roommates, but they all moved out. At the end of 1977, Richard killed his first victim.
Ambrose Griffin – 51 – was shot in a drive by shooting.
January 1978 – Teresa Wallin – 22- 3 months pregnant – was shot three times. Richard then had sexual intercourse with her corpse while stabbing her with a butcher’s knife. He removed multiple organs, cut off a nipple, and drank her blood. Before leaving he stuffed dog feces down her throat.
Four days later in January 1978, Richard’s blood lust returned. Evelyn Miroth – 38, her friend Danny Meredith who was shot with a .22 handgun. Richard then turned the gun onto Evelyn and shot her, he also shot her son Jason – 6 years old and her nephew David 22 months old. He then mutilated the body of Evelyn and engaged in necrophilia and cannibalism.
When a knock was heard at the door, he fled in Danny’s car, and took the body of 22 month old David with him. The police were called and Richard had left a cornucopia of evidence at the scene. They had complete hand and show prints in Evelyn’s blood. Richard would be arrested later that night.
The police upon searching his apartment stated that the floors, walls, ceiling, refrigerator and all his eating and drinking utensils were soaked in blood.
In 1979, he was tried and convicted of six counts of first degree murder. He was sentenced to die in the gas chamber. He had spoken during his incarceration with Robert Ressler, and FBI agent, he authored the book on psychological profiling of violent offenders and coined the term, serial killer.
December 26, 1980, Richard Chase was found dead in his prison cell, he had committed suicide with an overdose of prescription medicine.
The mummified, decapitated remains of the 22 month old David were found outside in a box in a vacant lot.
Richard’s killings were attempts at self-preservation, or so he believed. He had delusions of persecution by alien forces and insisted that he only ingested human flesh and blood to protect himself from “outside forces” that were trying to steal his blood. He thought his heart was shrinking and believed drinking blood would stop it. These paranoid delusions, coupled with schizophrenia, had been noticed in his childhood, and only became more severe as he got older. He was in his early twenties when his ability to maintain a stable life on his own began to crumble, and he was institutionalized. Once he was released, his killings would begin, probably due to the fact that his mother weaned him off of his medication because she thought it made him lethargic.
In my opinion, his mother should have been held accountable for her actions as well.
Stay Curious my Friends!
Amateur Connoisseur 