Latest / True Crime California / TCC #13 Richard Chase Part 2
Transcript
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- 0:46Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to True Crime California. I'm your host Cindy,
- 0:51and I'm glad you're here. Hey, everybody, welcome back to
- 1:06True Crime California. This is Part two of Richard Chase
- 1:12the Vampire Sacramento. I have to apologize you guys. I'd
- 1:16completely failed to put that part one was a part one.
- 1:22So I'm sure a ton of people listen to it
- 1:24thinking they're gonna get the whole story, and then when
- 1:27I stopped, We're like, what the hell, where's the rest
- 1:30of the story. It's been It was like a rough
- 1:32couple of weeks, but we're back in the swing of things.
- 1:34I'm gonna update that to say part one. This will
- 1:36be part two, and I apologize to anybody whose heart
- 1:40was broken when they realized they were gonna have to
- 1:42wait another week to finish this tale. Anyway, I want
- 1:47to thank a few people who have been emailing case
- 1:49suggestions letting me know they're enjoying the show. You guys, rule,
- 1:53Thank you so much for that. I'm definitely going to
- 1:56take some of these suggestions. Some of them were the
- 1:58ones that I wanted to do soon anyway, so it
- 2:01feels like a sign. So the next few cases will
- 2:04probably be ones that were sent in by listeners, which
- 2:06is always exciting to see that people are listening and
- 2:10want to hear more. So thank you everyone for that.
- 2:13I appreciate you, and I'm really excited to cover some
- 2:17more cases that I know everybody wants to hear. But
- 2:20for it now, let's get into part two. And do
- 2:25you want to tell you guys that I'm surrounded by animals.
- 2:27I have my two dogs next to me and my
- 2:29cat is on my lap cleaning himself. So if you
- 2:32hear any little animal noises, it's because I live in
- 2:37a zoom anyway, So this is such a horrific tale.
- 2:41I honestly think part of why it took me so
- 2:43long to put these out was because as I researched this,
- 2:47it's just been I've been doing a lot of heavy
- 2:50hitters to start this series, and I'm happy to do it,
- 2:53and like true crime is true crime, but like it
- 2:56wears on you, and I really really hate this case
- 2:59on so many life so I'll be happy when it's over,
- 3:03but I'm happy that I did it. I think it's
- 3:05a really interesting case to cover. Brings up a lot
- 3:07of weird you know, and interesting questions about mental health,
- 3:13which we will definitely discuss as we get to the
- 3:16end of this case. But for now, let's get back
- 3:17into it. So I believe we were at the end
- 3:19of nineteen seventy seven. Actually I keep confusing the months,
- 3:25but so we left off with Richard having killed his
- 3:29first victim, fifty one year old Ambrose Griffin, who was
- 3:32unloading groceries from his car with his wife in Sacramento
- 3:35when he was shot and killed. Richard did it basically
- 3:39a drive by. He was in a card shot this man.
- 3:43He also after this, so that was in December nineteen
- 3:47seventy seven, and then rolling into nineteen seventy eight, he
- 3:50attempted to kill a random woman who was doing dishes
- 3:53in her house, but shot the bullet through the bun
- 3:55like her hair was in a bun, and it shot
- 3:57through this bun. It was that close to killing her.
- 4:01He tried to enter the home of another woman but
- 4:03walked away because he didn't find any open doors or windows,
- 4:05and that was the woman that actually ended up staring
- 4:08him down like face to face through her sliding glass door,
- 4:12so super terrifying. And he successfully entered and ransacked the
- 4:16home of a young couple and also went to the
- 4:19bathroom in their baby's room and actually took a shit
- 4:24in their baby's crib, which is fucking insane. As I
- 4:28mentioned last time, I think this was January twenty third,
- 4:32nineteen seventy eight, and from here on out Richard continued
- 4:35this totally whacked out spree. So this was actually all
- 4:38in the same day, I believe. The same day he
- 4:42entered a home and tried to set it on fire,
- 4:44later claiming whoever lived there was spying on him. So
- 4:47one of his weird like paranoid fantasies. He actually definitely
- 4:52Also on January twenty third, ran into a woman he
- 4:55knew from school, so from high school. Now. He saw
- 4:58her at a grocery store and approached her in an aisle. Now,
- 5:01at first, the woman whose name is Nancy, had no
- 5:04clue who he was. As you may remember, Richard had
- 5:08been clean cut and relatively normal, at least outwardly during
- 5:12his high school years. And at this point, he's dirty,
- 5:15he has long, oily hair, he looks homeless. He's wearing
- 5:20like a blood spattered parka, which we'll talk about. He
- 5:25was actually wearing this because his father got it for
- 5:29him for Christmas, and he basically just like put it
- 5:32on his body and didn't take it off because he
- 5:35didn't he didn't shower, he didn't change his clothes, so
- 5:39you know, it was still it only been worn for
- 5:41about a month straight, so it was much cleaner than
- 5:43the rest of him, and it could still be seen
- 5:46that it was bright orange, which is very memorable, but
- 5:50you know, still dirty and disgusting. So anyway, at first,
- 5:54Nancy had no clue who this transient man was. But
- 5:57then Richard said something to her that was very, very specific,
- 6:01Nancy's boyfriend in high school, a boy named Kurt, had
- 6:05died in a motorcycle accident while they were in high school,
- 6:09which Richard obviously would have remembered because he went to
- 6:11school with them. The only thing that Richard said to
- 6:13this woman in the grocery store, or the first thing
- 6:16I guess he said to her, was were you on
- 6:18the motorcycle when Kurt died. It was at this point
- 6:22that the woman looked more closely at Richard, still couldn't
- 6:25figure out who he was, and then said who are you.
- 6:28He told her he was Rick Chase, and she was
- 6:31shocked because obviously, like I said, very very different look
- 6:35to him nowadays. He then started kind of following her
- 6:38around the store and asking her for a ride, saying, Oh,
- 6:42I don't have my car, can you give me a ride?
- 6:44She kept telling him no, I can't do that, and
- 6:46he continued to sort of follow her around and even
- 6:49followed her all the way out to her car. Nancy
- 6:52was so scared that she jumped into her car and
- 6:55locked him out, like he was trying to open the
- 6:57handle of her door to get in, even though she
- 7:00told him over and over, I can't give you a ride,
- 7:02so she locked the door and sped away. And this
- 7:05is important later it comes back, but it's also just
- 7:09like a really freaky interaction that shows kind of how
- 7:11out of it and scary he was at this time,
- 7:14even just despite like the things we know that he
- 7:17was doing, he just presented as a really whacked out,
- 7:21scary fucking dude. That same day, also January twenty third,
- 7:29nineteen seventy, this is a big day for Richard. He
- 7:32again escalated his crimes. So you know, this is a crazy,
- 7:36crazy fucking day. Now, around midday, he again went out
- 7:40walking in the area near his apartment, just sort of
- 7:43meandering around. He walked through people's yards onto their porches.
- 7:48He was trying doors and windows, and he was completely
- 7:51unbothered by the people who saw him doing this, which
- 7:54there were some. The worst thing about that is that
- 7:58nobody called the police. Many people were weirded out, but
- 8:03they didn't think that he was dangerous. So there were
- 8:06reports of like later on, like neighbors being like, oh, yeah,
- 8:08we saw him. We were talking to our neighbor about it.
- 8:10We thought it was really weird, but we didn't do anything,
- 8:13which really sucks. So anyway, he makes his way to
- 8:18twenty three sixty to Yoga Way in Sacramento, and this
- 8:22is the home of twenty two year old Teresa Wallen
- 8:24and her husband. Now, Teresa was pregnant at the time
- 8:28and had just returned home from the grocery store where
- 8:31she had cashed a ten dollar check. And yes, this
- 8:35was the same grocery store where he had just accosted Nancy.
- 8:40So if we want to talk about whether or not
- 8:42this was planned, that gives us a little bit of
- 8:46a clue, and that will kind of come up later. Now,
- 8:50very unfortunately, Teresa's door was unlocked, so when Richard tried it,
- 8:54he was able to go right inside, and he did
- 8:58in the middle of the day, in the middle of
- 9:00a big, busy city. When Richard entered, Teresa was walking
- 9:05from her kitchen to the front door with a bag
- 9:07of trash in her hands. She was going out through
- 9:10the front and she had done so. Had sorry, had
- 9:13she done so even ten seconds earlier, she probably would
- 9:16have been able to stop Richard from entering her home.
- 9:19But very unfortunately, that is not what happened. When Teresa
- 9:23saw Richard, she dropped the bag of trash, probably because
- 9:27Richard had already pulled his gun from his holster and
- 9:30was aiming it at Teresa. With no hesitation, he fired
- 9:35the gun. The first shot went through Teresa's hand, traveled
- 9:40up her arm and exited her elbow, then grazed her
- 9:44neck so that's horrifying. It went through inside of her hand,
- 9:49came out and hit her again, absolutely terrible. The next
- 9:55bullet hit her in the jaw, shattering her jaw and
- 9:59knocking her to the ground. Teresa, always smiling and happy,
- 10:04had a look of terror on her face at this moment.
- 10:07That was still there when detectives found her, and that
- 10:10haunted them for many years. While Teresa was on the ground,
- 10:15seriously wounded but not yet dead, Richard approached her, put
- 10:18the gun six inches from her head, and fired into
- 10:21her temple, and this killed Teresa instantly. Richard then dragged
- 10:27Teresa's body from the living room to a bedroom, then
- 10:30went to the kitchen to find a knife. This is
- 10:35a trigger warning moment. There will be another one, but
- 10:39this is the first one of this episode. Richard then
- 10:45raped her dead body while stabbing her in the stomach
- 10:48with the knife that he took from the kitchen. He
- 10:51also cut off one of her nipples and cut her
- 10:55open from her sternum to her hips, pulling out her intestines,
- 11:00cutting out both of her kidneys and placing them in
- 11:02different places in her body, and also cutting out her spleen.
- 11:07He found a yogurt cup in her trash bag and
- 11:11used it to drink her blood as it spilled out
- 11:14of her body, which is discussing on many many levels.
- 11:20As his final fuck you to this completely random, poor
- 11:25young woman, he went into her yard and found dog
- 11:28feces from her pet german shepherd and shoved it down
- 11:33her throat before leaving the house. Her husband came home
- 11:39hours later after work and found her body, which I
- 11:44cannot imagine what that's like. He called the police, and
- 11:47he also called Teresa's parents, who somehow ended up seeing
- 11:51her body. I don't know how that happened, but they
- 11:54did when police were called to the scene. When they
- 11:58got there, as I said, they were horrified, but they
- 12:01also took immediate action. They started interviewing neighbors and many
- 12:05came forward with that same story of a strange, disheveled
- 12:08man walking around the area that day. From these descriptions,
- 12:13people were able to create a sketch police wear, sorry,
- 12:16and also noted his clothing, including the orange parka, which
- 12:20is a pretty like that stands out right. Sadly, all
- 12:25of this took several days to put together, even though
- 12:27they were working quickly, These things take time, and meanwhile,
- 12:32Richard would continue his reign of terror on the people
- 12:35of Sacramento. Four days later, on January twenty seventh, Richard
- 12:40would kill again, but before he did that, he called
- 12:44his mother to talk about little green men, among totally
- 12:49unhinged things, just all sorts of weird shit. He also
- 12:52walked around the area knocking on doors and asking for
- 12:56used newspapers, which is super weird and had an but
- 13:00he opened the door for him. Perhaps he would have
- 13:02struck sooner. Now many people came forward with this story,
- 13:06as well as a description of the man that matched
- 13:09the one who murdered Teresa Wallin. Now. Unfortunately, I thought
- 13:15I should mention this because it just kind of shows
- 13:18the type of person he was and the things he
- 13:20was doing. On January twenty fifth, so two days before
- 13:24his next murder, he bought two Labrador puppies listed for
- 13:27sale in the newspaper. The couple who sold him the
- 13:30puppies later told police he was really weird and that
- 13:33they found it strange that he didn't care about the
- 13:35sex or condition of the dogs, but they still sold
- 13:38them to him. Fucking red flag guys. There were same
- 13:42couple actually found one of their other puppies dead in
- 13:45their backyard after selling Richard the dogs, having been shot
- 13:48to death and then split open with a knife. So
- 13:52you know, I think we all know what happened. In
- 13:57any case, on to the next human murders, And as
- 14:02bad as the last murder was, this one is far
- 14:05far worse in my mind. On January twenty seventh, nineteen
- 14:10seventy eight, Richard went out walking and eventually entered the
- 14:13unlocked home of Evelyn Moroth, a thirty eight year old
- 14:17single mother to a six year old boy named Jason. Now,
- 14:21on this day, Evelyn was also babysitting her sister's twenty
- 14:24month old son that day. His name was uh I
- 14:27think Daniel. Actually, she also had a friend over helping out,
- 14:32and his name was Dan Meredith and he went by Danny. Now,
- 14:36these two were not romantically involved, and Evelyn actually had
- 14:40a boyfriend, but they were good friends and Danny helped
- 14:43her out a lot, and he cared about her family
- 14:45a lot. Now. That morning, her good friend and neighbor
- 14:48from across the street, I think her name is NIONI
- 14:51had asked if Evelyn and Jason wanted to go to
- 14:53the snow in the nearby mountains. It doesn't snow very
- 14:56often up there. Really. I lived in Sacramento area for
- 15:00the Sacramentar area for years and years, and I think
- 15:02I saw snow once, So it was a big deal.
- 15:05You know, to you either have to drive to see
- 15:08it or if it was nearby. But anyway, this neighbor
- 15:11was like, hey, do you guys want to go? Evelyn said,
- 15:12you know, I can't, I'm babysitting, but if you can
- 15:15take Jason, that would be great. And Naoni agreed, and
- 15:20Evelyn said, you know, I'll have him over just after
- 15:22ten o'clock. I'm gonna go rent him some snow shoes.
- 15:26Now around eleven am, Naoi was like, where's Jason? So
- 15:30she sent her daughter, who was also six, over to
- 15:33the house to see where they were because they were
- 15:35super super late. When nobody answered, her daughter Tracy came
- 15:39back home, and a few minutes later Naoni herself went
- 15:43to see what was going on. When she knocked on
- 15:45the door again, nobody answered. She told another friend and neighbor,
- 15:50also named Nancy, who then went inside Evelyn's house from
- 15:54the back door and found a man's body on the
- 15:57floor covered in blood. Nancy began screaming, then shouted, then
- 16:02ran from the home, saying that someone was in there,
- 16:05but that something was terribly wrong. The police were called
- 16:09and they came to an absolutely horrific scene. Just inside
- 16:18the front door. Danny Meredith's body was lying on the
- 16:21floor covered in blood. He had been shot in the
- 16:24head and was later determined to have been dead for
- 16:27a few hours. Detectives then saw blood in a nearby
- 16:31bathroom and went in to find a tub full of
- 16:33bloody water. They then went into the main bedroom, where
- 16:37they found Evelyn's body. Evelyn had also been shot, but
- 16:41also horrifically mutilated, much in the way Teresa Wallen was.
- 16:47Evelyn was cut from her sternum to her hips and
- 16:50had her organs removed, also had them moved and her
- 16:54intestines pulled out of her body. She had also been
- 16:58raped post mortem and had also been stabbed in the
- 17:01anus repeatedly. Now these stabbings cut open her uterus from
- 17:08the other side. They were so violent and so hard
- 17:12that he actually cut almost all the way up through
- 17:15her body. One of her eyes was also horribly damaged,
- 17:19as it had been someone had attempted to cut it
- 17:22out but failed. We know who that someone is. Her son,
- 17:27six year old Jason Moroth, was found in another room
- 17:31and had also been shot to death. As for her
- 17:35twenty month old nephew, David, when police entered the home,
- 17:39they found that he was missing. A huge manhunt began,
- 17:44despite police believing he was almost certainly already dead. Now,
- 17:49obviously this was Richard who committed these crimes, and after
- 17:52he had killed Danny, Evelyn and Jason, he fled in
- 17:55Danny's red station wagon, which police then started looking for.
- 18:00And I'm gonna jump ahead in the story now to
- 18:03tell you that this baby David was in fact dead
- 18:08and had most likely been killed while in his crib
- 18:11by being shot in the head, then taken from his
- 18:13home by Richard after he fled when Jason's friend Tracy
- 18:17came to get him to go to the snow So
- 18:20it was thought later that Richard had been interrupted and
- 18:24so just took the body, almost like in a panic.
- 18:29Richard took the boy to his home, where he stabbed
- 18:33him in the anus, just as he had done to Evelyn,
- 18:35and also cut a hole in the back of his
- 18:38head to more easily drink his blood. So this is
- 18:42fucking awful. This boy's body was found after Richard was arrested.
- 18:49He was found in a box in a garbage bin
- 18:52in March, so it took almost two months to find him,
- 18:56but at least it was found, which I'm happy that
- 18:59his family had that closure. Now, as for what happened
- 19:02at the house, it is thought that Evelyn may have
- 19:05been taking a bath when Richard entered the home, which
- 19:07is how the tub came to be filled with bloody water.
- 19:10She was definitely dragged into her room after being killed
- 19:13and was found to be wet, so it's not clear
- 19:16if Richard placed her in the tub or took her
- 19:18from it. Maybe he even bathed in the bloody tub himself.
- 19:23It is thought that Danny came back into the home
- 19:26while Richard was murdering Evelyn and Jason and was shot
- 19:32as he was kind of walking into the house from
- 19:35the back door. So for Danny it was like a
- 19:37sneak attack by Richard. I think they kind of surprised
- 19:43each other, and then obviously Jason and David were just
- 19:47shot their children. They couldn't defend themselves. That's fucking horrific.
- 19:51So now we have these two horrific murders, nearly back
- 19:54to back, obviously perpetrated by the same person, and police
- 19:58are desperate for answers. They even had a few suspects
- 20:01they brought in for questioning the same day as the murders,
- 20:04but they were ultimately released within a couple of days.
- 20:08They had Robert Wrestler from the FBI help them with
- 20:10a profile, which is crazy because this case moved so quickly.
- 20:15It seemed there wouldn't have been time for this, but
- 20:17there was. And he put together a pretty accurate description
- 20:21like white man mid twenties, probably doesn't drive, or if
- 20:25he does, wasn't driving at this point, recently out of
- 20:29a mental hospital suffering from mental problems, like he was
- 20:32pretty on. It was pretty accurate, which is wild. Now,
- 20:37five days after the first murder, the woman from the
- 20:40grocery store, Nancy, told her father in law about her
- 20:43run in with Richard, and he called police, giving them
- 20:46the name Richard Chase. Police asked why it took them
- 20:50so long to report the crime, and their answer was
- 20:52that the woman didn't realize what was going on until
- 20:55she saw the sketch of the suspect, at which point
- 20:58she immediately told someone from here. Police began looking into
- 21:02Richard's past, and I mean, it's pretty crazy what they found,
- 21:06of course, you know, including the time Richard was found
- 21:09covered in cow's blood in a field, you know, pretty
- 21:14gnarly and weird. They also looked up some of his
- 21:18history of purchases and found that he had been buying bullets.
- 21:22I don't know that they knew that he had guns,
- 21:24but they could sort of track that he was buying bullets.
- 21:26Obviously you're buying bullets, probably because you have a gun.
- 21:30So they then go to his apartment building because they
- 21:33decide they're going to arrest him. They're not even going
- 21:36to interview him. They've got enough on him. They're just
- 21:38gonna go get him. So they go to the apartments,
- 21:41they talk to the manager, let the manager know what's
- 21:44going on, which is great, and they go up and
- 21:46they knock on Richard's door. Now, Richard refused to answer,
- 21:50even though he was home and police could hear him
- 21:52in the apartment so police stood outside for quite a
- 21:56while while Richard refused to come out or even answer them.
- 22:00At one point they called his home phone and he answered,
- 22:04and then when he realized who it was, he hung up,
- 22:06which is so weird that he would like answer in
- 22:08that moment. But again, there's so much weirdness about this case,
- 22:13including the way that police finally got him, was that
- 22:15they pretended to leave, making a big deal about walking
- 22:20down the stairs and walking away, and this apparently fooled Richard,
- 22:24who then came out of his apartment with a big
- 22:26bag of trash in his hands or a box I
- 22:28think of trash. He immediately saw the police, who ordered
- 22:31him to stop, but I bet you can guess what
- 22:34he did instead. He ran away or tried to, but
- 22:38police were able to stop him and arrest him on sight. Now,
- 22:43inside the bag, I think it was a bunch of
- 22:45torn up paper, which is super random. But more importantly,
- 22:49what they found in Richard's back pocket was a light
- 22:52brown wallet, and in this wallet was Danny Meredith's ID card,
- 22:59as well as as his bank account, his bank card,
- 23:02library card, all his identifying stuff. So this was his
- 23:06wallet and it was on Richard when they arrested him.
- 23:10Of course, police take Richard down to the station, and
- 23:13after being taken in for questioning, he refused to admit
- 23:16any wrongdoing in terms of the murders, but he did
- 23:19admit to killing many dogs. Now, he also killed cats
- 23:24and rabbits, but in this moment, he was just admitting
- 23:26to the dogs because police had found newspapers with ads
- 23:30for dogs for sales circled, so they were like they
- 23:34knew he was still on that shit now. Also in
- 23:37his apartment, I mean, it was just a fucking disgusting scene.
- 23:41It was putrid smelling everything. Everything was covered in blood.
- 23:47His couch, his floor, his refrigerator, his countertops, his clothing.
- 23:51Everything was just covered in blood spatter and drips. I mean,
- 23:56what the hell. Absolutely disgusting. And there were bullet holes
- 24:02in the walls and in the ceiling because Richard had
- 24:05been shooting his gun in some sort of paranoid fit. Anyway,
- 24:11Richard continued to refuse to cooperate with police, but they
- 24:15had enough evidence without his help, including bullets that matched
- 24:18his gun at both crime scenes. They also had his
- 24:22footprints from Evelyn Moroth's home, and he was fucking covered
- 24:27in blood head to toe when he was arrested. Now,
- 24:31there was a lot of back and forth here, but
- 24:32essentially Richard went to trial for the murders in nineteen
- 24:36seventy nine, and the main focus of the trial was
- 24:39not whether or not he did it. They had a
- 24:41pretty open and shutcase. They had the gun evidence, they
- 24:45had eyewitness testimony. They had his hair and fingerprints and shoeprints.
- 24:52I don't think they had like blood DNA in the
- 24:54same way, but they could do blood typing to see
- 24:56that it all kind of aligned. They had the wallet.
- 25:00It was a slam dunk case in terms of like, yes,
- 25:03he did this, but the main focus was whether or
- 25:07not he was sane at the time of the murders. Now,
- 25:12his defense, of course, said that he was not, and
- 25:14that he wasn't able to premeditate these killings because he
- 25:17was too mentally ill. They pointed to his post arrest interviews,
- 25:22during which time he claimed to be a persecuted Jew
- 25:27with Nazis out to get him. He also continued on
- 25:32with his stuff about being dead, about his blood not working,
- 25:36having to drink animal blood to replace his blood, he
- 25:39has blood poisoning, just all that same shit. Also, while
- 25:43he was being held. He said that the food at
- 25:46the jail was being poisoned, going as far as having
- 25:49his defense team test the food, which of course came
- 25:52back negative. While there was no argument really that he
- 25:57was very mentally ill, the Proseccuschin argued that he was
- 26:01still very much in control of his actions at the
- 26:03time of the killings, citing his refusal to open the
- 26:06door for the police, his washing of his hands before
- 26:09leaving certain crime scenes, which apparently he did, his stocking
- 26:13of women, including Teresa Wallen, which showed there was premeditation
- 26:17in terms of finding victims, and their biggest smoking gun
- 26:23was Richard Chase himself confessing his crimes to a fellow inmate,
- 26:28including giving details about how he chose his victims, which
- 26:34proved premeditation. Richard straight up admitted to this inmate that
- 26:40he had followed Teresa Wallen home before killing her, which
- 26:44is very much first degree murder, and this inmate agreed
- 26:49to testify for nothing in return, so he wasn't given
- 26:53a reduced sentence or any sort of favor. He just
- 26:56testified because this is what he heard and he wanted
- 27:00him to be held accountable. I guess now Richard's family
- 27:04stood by him during this trial, or at least his
- 27:06mother did, and to kind of show what kind of
- 27:09people his parents were, or at least his mother was.
- 27:12At one point during the trial, his mother confronted Teresa
- 27:16Wallen's husband and told him that it was their dog's
- 27:20fault for not protecting her from Richard, because apparently the
- 27:24dog was in the home and didn't keep Richard from
- 27:26killing her. So Richard's mother said it was the dog's
- 27:31fault that she died and not her son's fault. What
- 27:36a fucking asshole anyway. In May of nineteen seventy nine,
- 27:40after just a few weeks of trial, Richard was found
- 27:43guilty on all six counts of murder and was sentenced
- 27:47to the gas chamber. Uh oh, there's a car alarm
- 27:50going off. And to clarify, when I say six counts,
- 27:53I'm talking about Teresa Wallen, Evelyn Moroth, Jason Moroth, Danny Meredith,
- 28:00Daniel Ferrera or David Ferrera, her nephew, and Teresa Wallin's
- 28:07unborn child. Richard was found guilty and was sentenced to
- 28:13the gas chamber. Once in prison, Chase continued to be
- 28:18a big problem, acting in very psychotic ways, causing trouble
- 28:23and actually scaring other prisoners who kept away from him
- 28:26or tried to convince him to kill himself because they
- 28:29both hated and feared him. For a time. He was
- 28:33sent to a mental hospital, but returned to prison in
- 28:36nineteen eighty after being deemed ready for reintegration with the
- 28:39general prison population, which sounds like a little horseshit to me,
- 28:43but whatever that being said. To prove my point, he
- 28:48kept talking about the food being poisoned, there being UFOs,
- 28:52and all sorts of other crazy shit. Kind Of a
- 28:55cool part of this case, or an interesting part, I
- 28:58should say, is that the I took a really strong
- 29:01interest in Richard due to his being a perfect example
- 29:05of what is now called a quote disorganized killer. This
- 29:10meant like being a disorganized killer means you have no process,
- 29:13So he had no process to his killings, was completely
- 29:16random in his choice of victims, was socially withdrawn, and
- 29:20basically just had no rhyme or reason to what he
- 29:22was doing, just like there was no rhyme or reason
- 29:25to most of his life. Now there are organized killers
- 29:28and disorganized killers. An organized killer would be somebody like
- 29:31Israel Keys if you don't know who he is, look
- 29:33him up. He's probably the most interesting serial killer in
- 29:37my opinion. I can't really cover him because he wasn't
- 29:41California based. But on Twisted Listers, I did like a
- 29:45Patreon episode that I think I posted on a regular podcast.
- 29:49You could hear about it. I did it a long
- 29:51time ago, but it's still interesting. I think I covered
- 29:54a lot. But anyway, he's a great example of like
- 29:56an organized killer. He plans everything well in advances, got
- 30:00his tools, he's got his like processes. It's also called
- 30:03like another factor. I don't know if they're the same thing,
- 30:05but as like a process killer, so a killer that
- 30:07has a particular way that they kill because they enjoy
- 30:10the kill. With Richard Chase, he was a product killer,
- 30:14and he was a disorganized killer. So he wasn't killing
- 30:17for the sake of killing. He was killing for the blood.
- 30:20He was killing for what he got from the dead body.
- 30:24And he was also extraordinarily disorganized in that process obviously.
- 30:30So to kind of figure out more about Richard Chase
- 30:34and the way that he worked, Robert Wrestler interviewed him
- 30:37a bunch of times between nineteen seventy nine and nineteen eighty,
- 30:42And obviously they weren't doing this just to find out
- 30:45more about Richard, like they wanted to find out more
- 30:47about killers like him. So it's really interesting that he
- 30:51was so integral to the FBI's overall understanding of different
- 30:55types of serial killers or different types of killers in general. Unfortunately,
- 31:01Wrestler had very little time with Chase as he died.
- 31:07Richard died at the end of nineteen eighty on December
- 31:11twenty sixth. In fact, nineteen eighty, around eleven am, Richard
- 31:15Chase was found unresponsive in his jail cell. Now he
- 31:18had intentionally overdosed on sinequin, a drug he was prescribed
- 31:23for his hallucinations and depression. He had pretended to take
- 31:28this pill every day for over a month, instead saving
- 31:32and hiding them until he had enough to overload his system,
- 31:36which is exactly what he did. So this is another
- 31:40instance of him being mentally ill enough to want to
- 31:43do something like kill himself and mentally cognizant enough to
- 31:48plan and execute his own death. So a very interesting
- 31:54sort of look into how somebody can be very very
- 31:59mentally ill, very tormented and tortured, and still with it
- 32:05enough mentally to know what they're doing and to do
- 32:11horrible things. So it's interesting to have sympathy for him
- 32:15on the level that he was mentally ill, he was tormented,
- 32:18he was never given the help that he needed, but
- 32:20also hold him accountable for the horrific things that he
- 32:23did as a murderer. Just absolutely fucking terrible the things
- 32:29that he did. And the thing that the only thing
- 32:32that I take solace in, which really isn't much of
- 32:35anything at all, is that he did not mutilate and
- 32:39torture these people while they were alive, which is a
- 32:42very small favor. But in the end, at least these
- 32:47people died quickly, they were not tortured, they were not
- 32:52you know, assaulted sexually or otherwise while they were alive.
- 32:55But it's definitely not like a silver lining any means.
- 33:00It's definitely not like a happy ending to the story.
- 33:04It's just an at least moment, well, at least it
- 33:09wasn't the most horrifying thing I've ever heard. It was close,
- 33:15but at least it wasn't. I don't know, I don't
- 33:17know what I'm trying to say here. This is a
- 33:19fucked up, fucking tale, and Honestly, I thought these two
- 33:23parts were gonna be much longer. I think, now that
- 33:26I'm looking at I probably could have done this in
- 33:27one episode, and I apologize that I did not. I
- 33:30think maybe mentally I needed the break, but I apologize
- 33:35for the kind of shorter episodes these last two weeks.
- 33:38We'll be getting back to it full force next week
- 33:40with something exciting and interesting. I think I'm gonna do
- 33:43an unsolved mystery case. But yeah, Thanks everybody for listening.
- 33:48Please like rate Review, tell your friends and family. Support
- 33:51local small podcasts. I don't know if I'm local to
- 33:54many of you. It looks like a lot of my
- 33:56listeners are in like other countries, so support small podcasts,
- 34:00indie podcasts keep us going, guys. Thanks everybody. I'll be
- 34:05back again next week, and until then, stay safe.