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Serial Killer Documentary - Richard Chase · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:05
Speaker 1: The 23rd of January, 1978, Sacramento, California. David Wallin came
0:13
Speaker 1: home from work to find his wife brutally murdered in
0:16
Speaker 1: their bedroom. 22-year-old Teresa was three months pregnant.
0:23
Speaker 2: She was shot three times with a. 22 and eviscerated
0:27
Speaker 2: and some horrid things done to that poor woman. Lieutenant
0:31
Speaker 2: Biondi said, We have a sick son of a bitch.
0:33
Speaker 2: We have to catch this guy.
0:36
Speaker 1: Even experienced police officers had never seen anything like it.
0:41
Speaker 3: Her abdomen was cut open. The internal organs had been
0:44
Speaker 3: moved around. I found a used yogurt cup that had
0:48
Speaker 3: been taken to drink her blood. It was the most
0:51
Speaker 3: bizarre thing I'd ever seen.
0:54
Speaker 1: The blood-drinking killer was 27-year-old Richard Chase, who would go
0:59
Speaker 1: on to be known as the Vampire of Sacramento.
1:03
Speaker 4: He wanted to consume the blood of his victims.
1:06
Speaker 5: This really is something straight out of a movie or
1:10
Speaker 5: horror book. He doesn't just want to kill people, he
1:12
Speaker 5: wants to consume them.
1:14
Speaker 1: Within a month, he randomly slaughtered six people, including two children,
1:20
Speaker 1: his youngest victim being a 22-month-old toddler whose body he decapitated,
1:25
Speaker 1: placed in an old cardboard box and then dumped. He
1:30
Speaker 1: drank his victim's blood and terrorised the city of Sacramento,
1:34
Speaker 1: making Richard Chase one of the world's most evil killers.
2:01
Speaker 1: The 27th of January, 1978, Sacramento, California. Just four days
2:09
Speaker 1: after brutally slaughtering an expectant mother, Teresa Wallin, the serial
2:14
Speaker 1: killer struck again. 36-year-old Evelyn Meeroth was also shot and disembowelled.
2:22
Speaker 1: Former detective Bill Roberts was called to the house and
2:26
Speaker 1: met his colleague, Ivan.
2:29
Speaker 2: He had the unfortunate fate of being the first officer
2:33
Speaker 2: on the scene at the Wallen homicide. Well, he was
2:36
Speaker 2: also the first officer on the scene at the Marath homicide.
2:42
Speaker 2: I've never seen a person so ashen and pale in
2:45
Speaker 2: my entire life. And then the detective came out and said,
2:50
Speaker 2: it's a bloodbath in there.
2:52
Speaker 1: The depraved killer had also shot Evelyn's 22-month-old nephew, David,
2:58
Speaker 1: her 52-year-old friend, Daniel, and six-year-old son, Jason, all dead.
3:04
Speaker 1: Former Detective Lieutenant Ray Biondi led the murder inquiry.
3:09
Speaker 6: Jason Marath was about the same age as my youngest son,
3:13
Speaker 6: and I had real close to a tearful bullet. That
3:16
Speaker 6: was a very emotional moment. I mean, here was this
3:19
Speaker 6: kid all dressed up. His mother had bought him all
3:21
Speaker 6: these new clothes to go to the snow, and he
3:23
Speaker 6: simply was just executed like something in the way. I
3:27
Speaker 6: do remember that out of hundreds of murders, the feeling
3:31
Speaker 6: I had that day.
3:33
Speaker 1: Evelyn's post-mortem revealed the sadistic murderer had indulged in necrophilia.
3:39
Speaker 1: The gruesome murders spread fear amongst the small suburb of Sacramento.
3:44
Speaker 1: They all took place within just over a square mile.
3:49
Speaker 2: The Sacramento Bee almost made this kind of demanding headline
3:53
Speaker 2: that we do something, that we have some kind of
3:56
Speaker 2: crazed person doing these horrific crimes. And I think there
4:01
Speaker 2: was a rash of people buying guns at that time.
4:03
Speaker 2: And in general, everybody was speaking about it. It was
4:07
Speaker 2: just so horrific.
4:10
Speaker 1: A blood-drinking serial killer was on the loose, and no
4:14
Speaker 1: one knew who was next on his hit list.
4:18
Speaker 5: When these attacks became public knowledge, I think it really
4:22
Speaker 5: shook people's sense of stability and security because what was
4:27
Speaker 5: normal had been completely disrupted. There didn't seem to be
4:30
Speaker 5: a pattern to these crimes. Anybody could fall victim.
4:35
Speaker 1: Assistant District Attorney Albert Loco worked on the case. He
4:39
Speaker 1: recalls how the whole community was on a knife edge.
4:44
Speaker 7: He could be at your door and come in and
4:46
Speaker 7: you not know it until he was there and you
4:48
Speaker 7: were dead. And that's a scary thing.
4:53
Speaker 1: This killer's story begins on the 23rd of May, 1950.
4:59
Speaker 1: Richard Trenton Chase was born in Santa Clara, California, and
5:04
Speaker 1: grew up with a younger sister.
5:07
Speaker 5: Richard Chase seemed to come from a relatively normal family.
5:11
Speaker 5: I think there was quite a bit of controlling behaviour,
5:14
Speaker 5: especially on the part of his father.
5:17
Speaker 4: So he was very strict. He was quite a disciplinarian.
5:20
Speaker 5: And I think he put across some very fixed ideas
5:23
Speaker 5: about masculinity in the household. But that's not dissimilar to
5:27
Speaker 5: thousands of households across America.
5:30
Speaker 7: He was just a normal kid. He was in Boy Scouts,
5:35
Speaker 7: he was in Little League, he had friends. And everyone
5:40
Speaker 7: describes it as, in many respects, a pretty normal life.
5:44
Speaker 1: But the young Chase started showing sinister traits.
5:49
Speaker 5: When Chase is 10 years old, his mother discovers that
5:52
Speaker 5: he's buried the body of a cat in one of
5:54
Speaker 5: her flower beds. Now, there were several cats that had
5:57
Speaker 5: gone missing from the neighborhood. This is inherently disturbing behavior,
6:02
Speaker 5: and his mother doesn't do anything about it. She doesn't
6:06
Speaker 5: try and get help for him, and I think this
6:08
Speaker 5: was very much part of the culture at the time.
6:11
Speaker 5: This is a really odd thing that doesn't make sense,
6:13
Speaker 5: so we're going to sweep it under the carpet and.
6:15
Speaker 4: Just hope it goes away.
6:17
Speaker 1: By the time he was 15, the marriage between Chase's
6:20
Speaker 1: mother and father had begun to fray. At one point,
6:24
Speaker 1: they broke up, and Chase was sent to live with relatives. Eventually,
6:29
Speaker 1: his parents reconciled and the family made a fresh start
6:33
Speaker 1: in Sacramento. At first, Chase seemed happy at high school
6:37
Speaker 1: until a few years later when it came to dating.
6:41
Speaker 5: He had no problem getting the attention of girls because
6:44
Speaker 5: he was a good-looking guy. But when it came to
6:47
Speaker 5: the end of the night, when it came to a
6:48
Speaker 5: particular stage in a relationship, he couldn't perform in the
6:52
Speaker 5: way that he felt he was expected to. And I
6:55
Speaker 5: think it's at this point in time when he develops
6:58
Speaker 5: issues with his body. So his body is doing something
7:01
Speaker 5: that he has no control over. It's almost working against him.
7:04
Speaker 5: That's how he feels.
7:06
Speaker 7: He was impotent. And this caused him anxiety. He visited
7:09
Speaker 7: a doctor and a psychiatrist about this when he was younger.
7:14
Speaker 7: He got into a crying fit once and told one
7:16
Speaker 7: of his friends, I can't do it.
7:18
Speaker 1: He started on a downward spiral, turning to drugs and
7:21
Speaker 1: struggling through high school. He found it difficult finding and
7:25
Speaker 1: holding down a job. Chase became even more obsessed with
7:29
Speaker 1: his health and was convinced that his major organs were
7:33
Speaker 1: failing him.
7:34
Speaker 6: He had been to many doctors, and he was always
7:36
Speaker 6: trying to self-diagnose his own illnesses, and most medical doctors
7:41
Speaker 6: found out that he was in good health, actually.
7:45
Speaker 1: At the age of 23, a neurologist diagnosed Chase as
7:50
Speaker 1: a paranoid schizophrenic and concluded he was suffering from psychiatric
7:54
Speaker 1: disturbances of major proportions. Soon his behavior became even more worrying.
8:01
Speaker 5: He develops this fixation with drinking blood. There was a
8:05
Speaker 5: rabbit farm near to where Richard Chase lived, and he
8:08
Speaker 5: would go there and he would kill rabbits and he
8:11
Speaker 5: would drink their blood, and he would justify this, saying
8:14
Speaker 5: that he had a weak heart and that he needed
8:16
Speaker 5: to ingest this blood in order to restore himself.
8:20
Speaker 1: On one occasion, this obsession even put his life at risk.
8:26
Speaker 7: He wound up at the emergency room at American River
8:29
Speaker 7: Hospital being sick, and he did have septicemia, a blood infection,
8:33
Speaker 7: and he was questioned about what was wrong with him,
8:36
Speaker 7: and he said he had given himself an injection of
8:38
Speaker 7: rapid blood because he felt he needed that for his health.
8:42
Speaker 1: Eventually, on April the 28th, 1976, doctors transferred 25-year-old Chase
8:49
Speaker 1: to Sacramento's Beverly Manor Psychiatric Hospital. He was detained by
8:54
Speaker 1: the state for his own safety. But his insatiable thirst
8:58
Speaker 1: for blood continued, and his fellow patients nicknamed him Dracula.
9:03
Speaker 7: He was capturing birds, and then he was twisting their
9:08
Speaker 7: heads off and ingesting the blood. But then over time,
9:14
Speaker 7: he was given psychiatric medication, Thorazine, major tranquilizer, and his
9:21
Speaker 7: behavior started to improve.
9:24
Speaker 1: After making good progress, Chase was released from the hospital
9:28
Speaker 1: five months later on the 29th of September. But by
9:33
Speaker 1: June the following year, his behaviour lapsed once again.
9:38
Speaker 5: This obsession with drinking blood as a way to kind
9:41
Speaker 5: of restore himself, as a way to nourish himself, this
9:44
Speaker 5: is an idea that becomes rooted in his mind and
9:47
Speaker 5: goes on to determine his behaviour.
9:51
Speaker 7: At one point he killed his mother's cat and he
9:55
Speaker 7: was outside in the yard and drew her attention to
9:58
Speaker 7: it and held up the bloody cat. you know, and
10:01
Speaker 7: then smeared the blood around his neck and the back
10:05
Speaker 7: of his collar.
10:07
Speaker 1: Horrified, his mother shut the door on her son and
10:10
Speaker 1: refused to let him near the house anymore. But Chase
10:14
Speaker 1: was still thirsty for blood, and to quench his addiction
10:17
Speaker 1: on the 3rd of August 1977, he drove his Ford
10:21
Speaker 1: Ranchero truck 145 miles northeast to Pyramid Lake in Nevada.
10:28
Speaker 1: This time he was targeting larger prey, and he was
10:31
Speaker 1: armed with guns.
10:33
Speaker 7: He bought two rifles, a. 22, which is a small
10:35
Speaker 7: caliber rifle, and a. 33, which is a more substantial
10:38
Speaker 7: hunting rifle. And he had taken these two rifles up
10:42
Speaker 7: to in the Nevada desert called Pyramid Lake. And he
10:47
Speaker 7: had gotten off in the wilderness there, and apparently what
10:49
Speaker 7: he'd done is he had killed a cow.
10:52
Speaker 1: After tearing the animal to shreds, Chase consumed its blood.
10:57
Speaker 1: He then stripped off his clothes and vanished into the desert.
11:01
Speaker 1: The police came across his abandoned Ford Ranchero.
11:05
Speaker 5: In the car, there's a pile of clothes, and there's
11:08
Speaker 5: a bucket which appears to be full of blood. and
11:11
Speaker 5: there's an organ which looks like a liver. And officers
11:14
Speaker 5: who discover the car go in and look around nearby,
11:18
Speaker 5: and they find Chase naked.
11:20
Speaker 4: And huddling on some rocks and covered in blood.
11:23
Speaker 5: So this looks horrific. You know, this looks like potentially
11:27
Speaker 5: this guy's killed someone.
11:29
Speaker 1: Chase ran when he saw the police approaching, but eventually
11:33
Speaker 1: they caught up with him, and he was arrested.
11:36
Speaker 7: The vehicle gets impounded. The blood and the liver go
11:39
Speaker 7: off for testing. and it's determined to be from a cow.
11:43
Speaker 7: They eventually released him. They wouldn't give him back his car,
11:46
Speaker 7: and they wouldn't give him back his guns.
11:48
Speaker 5: This incident in itself should have been enough to say,
11:51
Speaker 5: hang on a minute, you know, this guy needs help.
11:57
Speaker 5: At this stage in his life, he is internalizing his trauma.
12:00
Speaker 5: But what can happen with some offenders is that can
12:03
Speaker 5: switch the other way, and they can actually begin harming
12:06
Speaker 5: other people in order to get that sense of control
12:09
Speaker 5: that they really crave.
12:11
Speaker 1: For the mentally unstable Richard Chase, killing animals would no
12:15
Speaker 1: longer be enough to satisfy his cravings. The 27th of December, 1977, Sacramento, California.
12:26
Speaker 1: Chase retrieved his car from the police and was now
12:29
Speaker 1: cruising the streets of Sacramento with a new. 22 caliber
12:34
Speaker 1: semi-automatic pistol. The bloodthirsty animal killer set his sights on
12:39
Speaker 1: a different kind of prey.
12:42
Speaker 7: There was a woman who was standing at her kitchen
12:45
Speaker 7: window washing her dishes, and a shot came through the window.
12:49
Speaker 7: That bullet went right through her hair. It just barely missed.
12:52
Speaker 7: It went through her hair and lodged in a cabinet
12:54
Speaker 7: behind her. He's graduated from some of the animal kinds
12:58
Speaker 7: of things that he had done before that to now
12:59
Speaker 7: he wants to kill people.
13:02
Speaker 1: Chase had failed in his first attempt at taking a
13:05
Speaker 1: human life, but just two days later, he was out
13:08
Speaker 1: roaming Sacramento's suburbs in his pickup once again. He spotted
13:13
Speaker 1: 51-year-old Ambrose Griffin on his driveway.
13:18
Speaker 5: He'd been shopping with his wife. He was helping her
13:20
Speaker 5: take the groceries in from the car, and in a
13:24
Speaker 5: split second, Richard Chase shoots him.
13:28
Speaker 7: It hit a major vessel in his lungs. The emergency
13:33
Speaker 7: people were able to get there, and he was still
13:34
Speaker 7: alive and conscious. But there was significant internal bleeding, and
13:37
Speaker 7: he died in about, I'd say about 15 minutes probably.
13:44
Speaker 6: The family first thought maybe he had a heart attack.
13:47
Speaker 6: We later determined he had been shot, presumably by somebody
13:51
Speaker 6: going by in a car. The caliber of the weapon
13:55
Speaker 6: was determined to be a. 22 caliber after projectiles were recovered.
14:01
Speaker 7: It was thought that this was just some sort of
14:04
Speaker 7: random thing, maybe vandals or kids just goofing off and
14:09
Speaker 7: firing shots.
14:10
Speaker 1: Soon, however, the police linked the shooting of Ambrose Griffin
14:14
Speaker 1: with the woman who was shot in her kitchen two
14:17
Speaker 1: days before.
14:19
Speaker 6: Detectives went to the house, and they dug around in
14:21
Speaker 6: the cabinets and through the china, and they dug out a.
14:24
Speaker 6: 22 caliber slug. Eventually, the crime lab was able to
14:29
Speaker 6: tell us that The. 22 calibers were fired from the
14:33
Speaker 6: same gun that killed Mr. Griffin and also tried to
14:38
Speaker 6: kill this lady.
14:40
Speaker 1: Detectives were mystified as to the motive for the random shootings,
14:44
Speaker 1: but Chase was delighted in his first kill, collecting press
14:48
Speaker 1: cuttings about his murder.
14:50
Speaker 7: The newspaper was decrying how irresponsible, you know, apparent vandals
14:57
Speaker 7: had been. It demonstrated to him that I can get
15:01
Speaker 7: away with it, they're on the wrong track.
15:04
Speaker 1: Chase now knew what it was like to take the
15:07
Speaker 1: life of another person, but he still hadn't actually tasted
15:11
Speaker 1: human blood. Nearly a month after his first murder, on
15:15
Speaker 1: the 23rd of January 1978, he decided to stalk the
15:20
Speaker 1: Sacramento suburbs by foot and broke into a family home.
15:25
Speaker 6: There was a couple returning from shopping, and they went
15:28
Speaker 6: in their house, they heard somebody in the house, Homeowner
15:32
Speaker 6: saw a man flee out the back. He chased him,
15:35
Speaker 6: but he eventually lost him. He had a number of
15:38
Speaker 6: valuable items laid out that apparently was going to steal
15:41
Speaker 6: before he got surprised. But he also left a calling
15:45
Speaker 6: card that he defecated in the baby's crib.
15:50
Speaker 5: I think we've got to try and make sense of
15:52
Speaker 5: what this represents. We have to look at the reaction
15:56
Speaker 5: that this kind of behavior will get.
15:59
Speaker 4: You're going to be fearful. You're going to be disgusted.
16:02
Speaker 5: So I think, for Chase, this is a way of
16:05
Speaker 5: gaining control, of gaining the upper hand, of feeling powerful
16:08
Speaker 5: and of feeling important.
16:10
Speaker 1: Chase then made his way to the local shopping mall. Here,
16:14
Speaker 1: the killer spotted his next potential victim, a former high
16:18
Speaker 1: school friend, Nancy Holden.
16:22
Speaker 7: They talked for a little bit in the store, And
16:24
Speaker 7: then they separated in the store, but it seemed to
16:27
Speaker 7: Nancy that he was following her. She was unsettled by this.
16:32
Speaker 7: She went out to get in her car. He followed
16:34
Speaker 7: her out and called her and said, hey, wait.
16:38
Speaker 2: He had this crazed look in his eye. He was
16:40
Speaker 2: trying to force himself into her car. She didn't allow
16:44
Speaker 2: that and finally drove off.
16:46
Speaker 1: Still on the hunt for his next human victim, Chase
16:50
Speaker 1: found a gap in the fence behind the shopping mall
16:53
Speaker 1: that took him into a backyard. Here he spotted 22-year-old
16:57
Speaker 1: Teresa Wallin, who was at home alone. As she opened
17:01
Speaker 1: her door to take the garbage out, Chase slid into
17:04
Speaker 1: her hallway and shot her three times.
17:08
Speaker 8: The first shot goes through her hand, along her forearm,
17:12
Speaker 8: and ends up in her neck. That is classical for
17:15
Speaker 8: somebody holding their hand out to ward off an assailant.
17:20
Speaker 8: She's then shot in the head. Chase wants to be
17:23
Speaker 8: sure she's dead, so we have a last shot from
17:26
Speaker 8: about six inches into the temple.
17:29
Speaker 1: Not only did Chase take Teresa's life, he killed an
17:33
Speaker 1: unborn child. She was three months pregnant. Next, the killer
17:40
Speaker 1: indulged in his darkest fantasies, taking Teresa's body into her
17:44
Speaker 1: bedroom where he slit her abdomen open.
17:49
Speaker 8: This is his opportunity to explore, to experiment. So Chase
17:54
Speaker 8: has followed the pattern that is said to be quite
17:57
Speaker 8: classical for this sort of killer. He starts by opening
18:02
Speaker 8: animals and then he goes on to kill a human being.
18:08
Speaker 1: After violently stabbing her heart and a nipple, Chase removed
18:12
Speaker 1: Teresa's internal organs. But in the final act of the killing,
18:17
Speaker 1: he used an empty yoghurt pot to drink his victim's blood.
18:23
Speaker 5: Now he's getting to what he actually wants to do.
18:26
Speaker 5: He doesn't just want to kill people, he wants to
18:28
Speaker 5: consume them.
18:28
Speaker 4: He wants to own them and possess them.
18:32
Speaker 8: It's all part of... taking on someone's life essence.
18:37
Speaker 4: It is.
18:39
Speaker 8: Using them to strengthen yourself. It is an unnecessary act
18:46
Speaker 8: in killing. It is clearly some sort of fetishistic activity.
18:51
Speaker 1: Chase then slid out through the back door. Later that day,
18:56
Speaker 1: Teresa's husband David came home from work to find the
19:01
Speaker 1: horrific scene.
19:03
Speaker 7: I mean, here's a young man, this is a young family.
19:05
Speaker 7: They're starting out making a life together. They're expecting their
19:10
Speaker 7: first child. And then to come home and find your
19:14
Speaker 7: wife in this condition, and this has been done to her,
19:17
Speaker 7: so devastating.
19:19
Speaker 1: In a state of shock, Teresa's husband immediately called the police.
19:24
Speaker 1: Detective Lieutenant Biondi and crime scene investigator Frank Davidson were
19:29
Speaker 1: called to the house.
19:32
Speaker 3: It was.
19:33
Speaker 6: A very involved scene because we had casings on the floor.
19:37
Speaker 6: We had a mutilated body in the back. The scene
19:41
Speaker 6: work went on nearly 24 hours there just trying to
19:45
Speaker 6: figure everything out of that house.
19:48
Speaker 3: It was the most bizarre thing you'd ever see, you know,
19:51
Speaker 3: because the lady was with a bear from the waist down.
19:55
Speaker 3: Her abdomen was cut open. The internal organs had been
20:00
Speaker 3: moved around. And he had taken dog feces and put
20:06
Speaker 3: it in her mouth. It was disturbing to know something
20:10
Speaker 3: like that was going on in the neighborhood.
20:13
Speaker 7: Some of her internal organs had been pulled out through
20:18
Speaker 7: that cavity in the body. There were bloodstains around on
20:23
Speaker 7: the floor. And there was a crumpled yogurt cup that
20:29
Speaker 7: was right next to the body. And it had a
20:32
Speaker 7: lot of blood on it.
20:34
Speaker 1: The police were puzzled by the yogurt cup. At first,
20:38
Speaker 1: they had no idea of their killer's blood-drinking fetish.
20:43
Speaker 7: On the floor, you could see rings that might have
20:47
Speaker 7: been left by the yogurt cup actually being bloody and
20:51
Speaker 7: then being set down on the floor. In the same way,
20:52
Speaker 7: if you had a cup that was wet or had
20:55
Speaker 7: condensation and you set it on a table and then
20:57
Speaker 7: picked it up, there'd be a ring where the cup was.
21:01
Speaker 6: At the time... went right over my head. I couldn't
21:03
Speaker 6: understand why that was there.
21:04
Speaker 3: And the cup, after it was processed for fingerprints, it
21:10
Speaker 3: had a zigzag pattern like a rubber glove, platex-like rubber gloves.
21:15
Speaker 3: And you could see where he had gripped it. Checked
21:18
Speaker 3: the bathroom, the sink, and the handles on the faucets
21:22
Speaker 3: had the same zigzag pattern, so we knew he was
21:25
Speaker 3: wearing gloves.
21:28
Speaker 7: The murderer had gone and gotten a knife from the kitchen.
21:31
Speaker 7: and used that on the body, and then after all
21:35
Speaker 7: of that was done, took the knife back, cleaned it,
21:38
Speaker 7: and put it back in the dish rack. So that
21:42
Speaker 7: was certainly unusual kind of behavior. There were blood smears
21:47
Speaker 7: along her inner thigh and close to her genitals. You
21:49
Speaker 7: have a knife thrust back and forth in her breast
21:53
Speaker 7: through the nipple. There's a clear sexual aspect to those things,
21:57
Speaker 7: sexual sadism, if you will.
22:00
Speaker 1: The FBI drew up a profile of the depraved murderer
22:04
Speaker 1: for the police.
22:04
Speaker 6: The FBI had called him just a blitz killer. Just
22:10
Speaker 6: walk right up and they'd just kill you. The classification
22:13
Speaker 6: for them from behavioral science was a disorganized killer, pretty
22:18
Speaker 6: much of a loner that just acted on impulse, no
22:23
Speaker 6: plan as to how he was going to commit the crime.
22:28
Speaker 6: Really dangerous, super dangerous.
22:31
Speaker 1: As the police launched a manhunt for the brutal killer,
22:35
Speaker 1: Richard Chase sat back and relished his achievement. Now he'd
22:39
Speaker 1: had his first taste of human blood, the vampire of
22:43
Speaker 1: Sacramento was ready to kill again. Having killed two people, Chase,
22:53
Speaker 1: who was still armed with his. 22 caliber semi-automatic pistol,
22:58
Speaker 1: now reverted back to something he'd been doing since his childhood,
23:02
Speaker 1: killing animals. Just two days after Teresa's murder, the body
23:07
Speaker 1: of a dog was found by its owners, and they
23:10
Speaker 1: alerted the police.
23:12
Speaker 7: The dog had been shot with the same caliber ammunition,.
23:16
Speaker 7: 22 ammunition, as Teresa Wallen had been shot with, And
23:20
Speaker 7: the dog had been partially eviscerated as well, cut open
23:25
Speaker 7: through the abdomen. The kidneys had been cut out, but
23:28
Speaker 7: the kidneys were missing. The sheriff's department made a connection, saying,
23:33
Speaker 7: you know, what was done to the dog's body is
23:35
Speaker 7: similar to what was done to Teresa Wallen's body. Same
23:38
Speaker 7: type of ammunition.
23:40
Speaker 2: Dogs were killed by. 22s.
23:42
Speaker 7: Mr.
23:43
Speaker 2: Griffin was killed by a. 22 caliber gun. And then,
23:47
Speaker 2: of course, we had Teresa Wallen homicided. And it was
23:51
Speaker 2: then when we thought, maybe we have a connection between
23:56
Speaker 2: all these three.
23:57
Speaker 1: Detectives concluded their killer lived somewhere within a one-mile radius
24:02
Speaker 1: they'd mapped out.
24:04
Speaker 2: One lieutenant said, we have a six, son of a bitch,
24:07
Speaker 2: we have to catch this guy. There was somebody who
24:10
Speaker 2: was pretty evil and twisted, and I just wanted to
24:13
Speaker 2: help get him off the street.
24:16
Speaker 6: So we drew all our activity to that wild square
24:19
Speaker 6: and had... Tremendous canvases going on. We were knocking on
24:23
Speaker 6: every door we could find. There was cops everywhere in
24:27
Speaker 6: that area.
24:30
Speaker 1: Four days later, on the 27th of January, Chase would
24:34
Speaker 1: strike again. He focused on a new neighbourhood a mile
24:37
Speaker 1: further south, Merrywood Drive. 36-year-old mother Evelyn Meeroth shared a
24:43
Speaker 1: home here with her six-year-old son, Jason.
24:48
Speaker 7: A lady had crossed the street. was planning to take
24:50
Speaker 7: her daughter up to the snow and wanted to know
24:52
Speaker 7: if Jason would like to go. Evelyn said, sure, I
24:55
Speaker 7: think Jason would like to go, but he doesn't have
24:56
Speaker 7: good shoes for the snow.
24:59
Speaker 1: So Evelyn's friend Daniel took Jason shopping while she stayed
25:03
Speaker 1: at home. She was babysitting her 22-month-old nephew, David. When
25:09
Speaker 1: Chase spotted the lone mother in her house, he decided
25:12
Speaker 1: to pounce.
25:14
Speaker 4: Richard Chase went in through an open door.
25:18
Speaker 5: He entered the home without having to break and enter, essentially.
25:22
Speaker 5: But it was Evelyn who he was after. He wanted her.
25:27
Speaker 5: He wanted to consume her blood.
25:29
Speaker 7: At that point, Evelyn Roth was shot and killed, apparently
25:36
Speaker 7: in the hallway.
25:37
Speaker 1: With Evelyn now dead, her 22-month-old nephew David started crying.
25:43
Speaker 1: So Chase coldly put a bullet through his head. Then
25:47
Speaker 1: he turned his mind back to Evelyn, whom he stripped naked.
25:52
Speaker 7: Her body was moved to a front bedroom and thrown
25:57
Speaker 7: over a bed.
26:00
Speaker 1: Chase then sodomized his victim.
26:03
Speaker 7: The only time that we could establish that Richard Chase
26:06
Speaker 7: ever had an orgasm in a sex act with a
26:09
Speaker 7: woman was when he sodomized Evelyn Murat. So there is
26:13
Speaker 7: a clear sexual sadism aspect to these crimes.
26:18
Speaker 1: Chase had moved on to a whole new level, necrophilia,
26:22
Speaker 1: and he'd experienced the sexual release he'd waited so long for.
26:27
Speaker 1: But his attack still wasn't over. Chase slit Evelyn's abdomen
26:32
Speaker 1: open and stabbed her major organs. He then tried to
26:36
Speaker 1: cut out one of her eyes.
26:38
Speaker 5: I think there's a very evident link here back to
26:41
Speaker 5: his teenage years. Back to that time in high school
26:44
Speaker 5: when he was this popular, good-looking guy who got lots
26:47
Speaker 5: of girls. But when he got those girls, he wasn't
26:50
Speaker 5: able to perform with them. He experienced erectile dysfunction. So
26:54
Speaker 5: I think that lodges in his mind an association between
26:58
Speaker 5: women and shame and women and failure. And what he's
27:02
Speaker 5: doing in opening these women up and, by implication, humiliating them,
27:07
Speaker 5: is kind of levelling the playing field for him.
27:10
Speaker 1: But the serial killer was suddenly disturbed during the macabre mutilation.
27:15
Speaker 7: Sometime in the course of all this going on with Mrs. Maroth,
27:20
Speaker 7: Daniel Meredith, the family friend, and Jason came home. And
27:26
Speaker 7: they were shot in the living room right after they
27:29
Speaker 7: had come into the house.
27:31
Speaker 1: Chase killed Daniel Meredith instantly. Six-year-old Jason was shot twice
27:36
Speaker 1: in the head the fatal bullet was delivered at close range.
27:42
Speaker 8: It is rare for children to be killed in the
27:45
Speaker 8: way that adults kill adults, and therefore the fact that
27:48
Speaker 8: he shoots both a six-year-old and a toddler really tells
27:55
Speaker 8: you that he is not thinking of them as children.
27:58
Speaker 8: That sanctity of childhood that we have in society is ignored.
28:03
Speaker 8: They are simply dispatched coldly with a bullet.
28:08
Speaker 1: Now the vampire of Sacramento returned to his final act.
28:13
Speaker 1: Using a bucket, he scooped the blood from the open
28:16
Speaker 1: cavity of his female victim and drank it. Then he
28:20
Speaker 1: took the body of 22-month-old David from his crib.
28:25
Speaker 5: I think Chase took the baby from the scene because
28:29
Speaker 5: the baby, in this case, is reminiscent of what he
28:33
Speaker 5: did with animals earlier on in his life.
28:37
Speaker 4: So you have.
28:37
Speaker 5: Complete control over these creatures who are smaller than you,
28:41
Speaker 5: and he wanted to extend that feeling of pleasure, those
28:44
Speaker 5: feelings of power that he'd felt at the scene, so
28:48
Speaker 5: he took the baby with him to continue his offending.
28:51
Speaker 1: Chase fled the scene in Daniel's car. In the solitude
28:55
Speaker 1: of his apartment, he decapitated the 22-month-old toddler, David, and
29:01
Speaker 1: also drank his blood.
29:03
Speaker 5: I think this was an individual that was so focused
29:06
Speaker 5: on the act of consuming the blood of other people
29:10
Speaker 5: that he stopped seeing them as people. They were simply
29:13
Speaker 5: there to serve a purpose for him. They were dehumanized.
29:18
Speaker 1: Back at Evelyn's home, a concerned neighbor raised the alarm
29:22
Speaker 1: after seeing what they thought was the dead body of
29:25
Speaker 1: Daniel Meredith when they peered through the living room window.
29:29
Speaker 7: The sheriff's department has called and go in and find Mr.
29:34
Speaker 7: Meredith laying in the living room, having been dragged there dead.
29:38
Speaker 7: They find Mrs. Moran. naked, sprawled across the bed. They
29:43
Speaker 7: find Jason, shot twice in the head. This becomes a
29:47
Speaker 7: major crime scene. It becomes the biggest story in Sacramento
29:53
Speaker 7: for a long time.
29:56
Speaker 6: The community was really up in arms. A lot of headlines,
30:01
Speaker 6: a lot of real concern. In my experience, this was
30:05
Speaker 6: probably one of the scariest individuals you could deal with.
30:08
Speaker 6: Somebody who would hesitate to walk right up to your house,
30:11
Speaker 6: it could be high noon, and walk in and commit
30:14
Speaker 6: a murder. There didn't seem to be anything that was
30:16
Speaker 6: going to stop him.
30:18
Speaker 1: It was now clear that a serial killer was on
30:21
Speaker 1: the loose, and the police were under pressure to find him. fast.
30:25
Speaker 1: To add to the urgency, they also had a missing
30:29
Speaker 1: toddler to track down.
30:31
Speaker 6: The baby, David Ferreira, was our big concern at that time,
30:37
Speaker 6: although in the back of our mind we were pretty
30:39
Speaker 6: sure that he probably had been murdered because of the
30:41
Speaker 6: blood and a projectile had been fired into the bed clothing.
30:45
Speaker 6: But there was a big push to try to find
30:48
Speaker 6: David Ferreira, whether it be his body or him still
30:50
Speaker 6: be alive.
30:52
Speaker 2: I think we were all like, oh, my gosh, you know,
30:55
Speaker 2: this is an evil person. How do we catch him?
30:59
Speaker 2: What do we do? How do we catch him?
31:01
Speaker 1: Whilst the team went on the hunt for the missing toddler,
31:05
Speaker 1: crime scene officers examined blood patterns on the carpet next
31:09
Speaker 1: to Evelyn's body. Similar stains had also been found at
31:13
Speaker 1: the scene of his second victim, Teresa Wallin.
31:17
Speaker 7: Found on the floor next to Mrs. Wallin's body were
31:19
Speaker 7: bloody rings, um, as if a bloody object had blood
31:26
Speaker 7: and been placed on the carpet there.
31:29
Speaker 1: These circular stains had been a huge mystery to Detective
31:33
Speaker 1: Biondi until now.
31:36
Speaker 6: Finally, somebody said, no, he was drinking blood. We figured
31:39
Speaker 6: out why he had the ringlets and stuff. That was
31:42
Speaker 6: the first time and the only time in my career,
31:45
Speaker 6: 17 years of homicide, that I ever encountered anything like that.
31:51
Speaker 1: Now it was clear to the police they had a
31:54
Speaker 1: bloodthirsty killer on their hands who would stop at nothing
31:57
Speaker 1: to quench his depraved addiction. Friday 27th January 1978, Sacramento, California.
32:09
Speaker 1: 27-year-old Richard Chase had killed six people, including a 22-month-old toddler, David,
32:15
Speaker 1: whose body he removed from the scene in a stolen car,
32:19
Speaker 1: belonging to one of his victims, Daniel Meredith. Detective Biondi
32:24
Speaker 1: and his team were on the hunt for the blood-drinking
32:27
Speaker 1: serial killer.
32:29
Speaker 6: There was a big search put out for Meredith's car
32:33
Speaker 6: and also for the body, or we assumed it was
32:36
Speaker 6: the body of the young baby. We probably had a
32:40
Speaker 6: canvas scoring of 50 detectives who were banging on doors
32:43
Speaker 6: all over.
32:44
Speaker 1: In the meantime, detectives were interested in the burglars seen
32:48
Speaker 1: on the day of Teresa Wallin's murder four days earlier.
32:52
Speaker 1: Neighbors also reported the same man acting suspiciously near Teresa's home.
32:57
Speaker 7: They decided maybe this person could be a suspect. They
33:00
Speaker 7: got a composite sketch done, and the composite sketch was
33:03
Speaker 7: circulated widely in the sheriff's department.
33:07
Speaker 6: The sketch was kind of really based on what people
33:10
Speaker 6: had told us, you know, a skinny, disheveled, dirty-looking individual,
33:15
Speaker 6: with dirty clothing on. I don't think anybody realized that
33:19
Speaker 6: most of the dirty clothing was bloodstains, but he was
33:22
Speaker 6: always described as having this orange ski parka.
33:26
Speaker 1: By a twist of fate, on Saturday, the 28th of January,
33:30
Speaker 1: Chase's former high school friend, Nancy Holden, saw the sketch
33:34
Speaker 1: and alerted her father-in-law, who was a policeman. She told
33:38
Speaker 1: him about her confrontation with Chase in the shopping mall.
33:42
Speaker 6: She looked in the squad car and she saw the
33:45
Speaker 6: sketch that we had put out of the suspicious disheveled
33:49
Speaker 6: looking individual. And she said that looked a lot like
33:53
Speaker 6: Richard Chase. And that was really the identification of the killer.
33:59
Speaker 1: Daniel Meredith's missing station wagon had also been found missing.
34:03
Speaker 1: just over two miles from Richard Chase's home. With a
34:06
Speaker 1: potential name for their top suspect, the team dug deeper
34:10
Speaker 1: into his criminal past.
34:13
Speaker 2: I started finding out about his background. He was up
34:16
Speaker 2: in Pyramid Lake, Nevada, found nude, covered in blood, was
34:21
Speaker 2: a 22, about a year before all of this stuff
34:26
Speaker 2: started happening. Found out that we had arrested him for
34:29
Speaker 2: carrying a loaded and concealed weapon, found out that he
34:33
Speaker 2: had been in a psychiatric hospital and was deemed violent.
34:38
Speaker 2: So I'm putting all these things together. We had a flyer,
34:44
Speaker 2: which was a sketch of the suspect and the Teresa
34:47
Speaker 2: Wallen homicide, and I look at it and compare it
34:51
Speaker 2: to a mugshot we have, except the sketch doesn't have
34:57
Speaker 2: a mustache and goatee. So I penciled that in, And
35:01
Speaker 2: then I put it next to the mugshot and I go,
35:03
Speaker 2: this is very close.
35:06
Speaker 1: With this new lead, Detective Bill Roberts and two colleagues
35:10
Speaker 1: drove straight to Chase's apartment.
35:13
Speaker 2: We're standing both to the left and to the right
35:15
Speaker 2: of the door knocking on the door. No answer. And
35:18
Speaker 2: so we're saying, hey, Richard, it's the sheriff's department. And
35:21
Speaker 2: there's movement in there. So I go and talk to
35:25
Speaker 2: the guys and I go, hey, let's do this. We'll
35:29
Speaker 2: pretend we're leaving. pound on the door, tell them we're
35:31
Speaker 2: going to go get a warrant, and you guys saved
35:35
Speaker 2: the building here. So we do that.
35:38
Speaker 1: As Detective Roberts went upstairs to the manager's office to
35:41
Speaker 1: phone police HQ, Chase made a run for it through
35:45
Speaker 1: his apartment door.
35:47
Speaker 2: So I fly down the stairs and turn the corner,
35:50
Speaker 2: and they got him in a little pile there, and
35:53
Speaker 2: we start searching him, and that's when we find Mr.
35:56
Speaker 2: Meredith's wallet, driver's license, keys... a lot of credit cards,
36:03
Speaker 2: and he had pictures of the Miroth family. We knew
36:07
Speaker 2: we had him.
36:09
Speaker 1: Chase was also carrying a box of bloody rags and
36:13
Speaker 1: the utility bucket he used to drink Evelyn Miroth's blood,
36:17
Speaker 1: and this was later matched to the blood rings found
36:20
Speaker 1: next to her body. Most damning of all, Chase was
36:24
Speaker 1: carrying a. 22- caliber pistol, linking him to bullets found at
36:28
Speaker 1: the murder scenes.
36:31
Speaker 6: They called me as soon as they wrestled him to
36:33
Speaker 6: the ground. He says, we got him. He had Daniel
36:37
Speaker 6: Merritt's wallet in his jacket pocket. He also had a.
36:41
Speaker 6: 22 and a shoulder holster. So we were pretty confident
36:46
Speaker 6: we got the guy. Just a great big relief.
36:51
Speaker 1: Chase was taken back to the team's headquarters.
36:56
Speaker 2: Everybody in the department from our division as well as
36:59
Speaker 2: support groups was standing on chairs, desks, wedged together just
37:05
Speaker 2: to see this monster that we brought in.
37:08
Speaker 1: But once in the interview room, Chase gave up nothing
37:12
Speaker 1: about his murders.
37:15
Speaker 2: His stare, he didn't look at you. His eyes were
37:19
Speaker 2: constantly just darting. I'd raise my voice and say things
37:24
Speaker 2: and talk to him about the homicides and how could
37:27
Speaker 2: you do that? It didn't matter. It didn't matter. We
37:31
Speaker 2: talked about Pyramid Lake and our knowledge of him being
37:33
Speaker 2: in Pyramid Lake. What were you doing nude full of
37:36
Speaker 2: blood in Pyramid Lake? Wouldn't acknowledge it. It was just
37:42
Speaker 2: like it didn't matter. So that one time after talking
37:46
Speaker 2: about dogs and animals and then he tried to play
37:50
Speaker 2: it off like I'm in trouble for a bunch of
37:52
Speaker 2: dogs and just blurted out Irish setters are the best.
37:57
Speaker 2: It was like, what? because I didn't know if he
38:01
Speaker 2: meant he liked Irish setters because they tasted good or
38:04
Speaker 2: because he liked Irish setters and maybe didn't hurt any.
38:08
Speaker 2: But it just was a spontaneous, out-of-his-mouth thing that had
38:12
Speaker 2: nothing to do with what we were trying to get
38:15
Speaker 2: out of him. So it was, by far, in my
38:18
Speaker 2: entire career, the toughest interview interrogation I ever had.
38:23
Speaker 1: Even the most experienced homicide detectives couldn't get anything out
38:28
Speaker 1: of Chase. So Lieutenant Biondi's team had to find more
38:32
Speaker 1: evidence against him. They searched his apartment.
38:36
Speaker 3: It was a stinking mess when they got to it.
38:38
Speaker 3: Rotten meat on the counters and what have you. Except
38:42
Speaker 3: one drawer where his knives and stuff were kept were
38:44
Speaker 3: very neat and, you know, like a surgeon would have,
38:48
Speaker 3: you know.
38:50
Speaker 6: There were body parts. I don't know whether animal or human,
38:53
Speaker 6: but things in his refrigerator and freezer. some mixture that
38:58
Speaker 6: was like probably some part of anatomy in a blender,
39:02
Speaker 6: but it was a real involved scene to where he
39:06
Speaker 6: obviously was dissecting and killing animals inside that apartment.
39:13
Speaker 1: Detectives also uncovered brain matter on the killer's bed, which
39:17
Speaker 1: was also found on the bloody rag seized during his arrest.
39:21
Speaker 1: Tests revealed this belonged to the missing toddler, David Ferreira.
39:26
Speaker 1: On the 24th of March, his body was finally found
39:29
Speaker 1: in a box on wasteland next to a local church
39:32
Speaker 1: by the janitor.
39:34
Speaker 7: The baby had been decapitated. He had been out for
39:36
Speaker 7: almost two months at that point, and so there was
39:39
Speaker 7: a lot of decomposition. Also in the box with the
39:42
Speaker 7: baby's body were the keys to Daniel Meredith's car.
39:46
Speaker 1: Just over nine months later, on the 2nd of January, 1979,
39:51
Speaker 1: Richard Chase stood trial on six counts of murder at
39:55
Speaker 1: Santa Clara County Superior Court. Chase finally admitted his crimes,
40:00
Speaker 1: but his defense team said they were not premeditated due
40:04
Speaker 1: to his mental illness. Assistant District Attorney Albert Locher was
40:10
Speaker 1: determined to prove otherwise.
40:13
Speaker 7: There's a lot of evidence that shows that Mr. Chase
40:16
Speaker 7: knew what he was doing, knew that it was wrong,
40:21
Speaker 7: and could formulate a plan. For instance, Mr. Chase wore
40:25
Speaker 7: gloves in these scenes. He didn't leave behind fingerprints. In
40:28
Speaker 7: the Wallen scene, he takes a knife out of the
40:31
Speaker 7: kitchen rack, he stabs her repeatedly, mutilates her body with it,
40:35
Speaker 7: and then he cleans it up and he puts it
40:36
Speaker 7: back in the rack. What is that if not trying
40:38
Speaker 7: to cover your tracks and cover what you did?
40:42
Speaker 1: The prosecution made their case over the next four months,
40:46
Speaker 1: and on May the 8th, Richard Chase was found guilty
40:49
Speaker 1: of first-degree murder. He was later sentenced to death by
40:53
Speaker 1: gas chamber. But the infamous serial killer had a parting shot.
40:58
Speaker 7: He was being given psychiatric medications, which were major tranquilizers,
41:04
Speaker 7: and he hoarded them until he got to a point
41:08
Speaker 7: where he felt he had enough pills to do what
41:11
Speaker 7: he wanted to do, and he ingested them all at once,
41:14
Speaker 7: and it was a fatal overdose, and he died.
41:16
Speaker 5: He actually decided to take his own life. So for me,
41:19
Speaker 5: this is somebody who always wants to be in control,
41:22
Speaker 5: and he was very much in control until the end.
41:26
Speaker 1: The so-called vampire of Sacramento's reign of terror was finally over.
41:33
Speaker 6: The fear that he put in a community A killer
41:36
Speaker 6: who would walk in your house in the middle of
41:38
Speaker 6: the day when you thought you were safe would walk
41:40
Speaker 6: up and simply execute you. That's what made Richard Chase
41:44
Speaker 6: so evil. And after the killing, what he did just
41:48
Speaker 6: added to the horror of the killings.
41:51
Speaker 5: Here's somebody who engaged in evil acts, but this was
41:54
Speaker 5: somebody who had mental health problems that went unaddressed. So
41:58
Speaker 5: I think when we're talking about accountability and responsibility in
42:02
Speaker 5: this case, this doesn't just lay at the hands of
42:05
Speaker 5: the offender.
42:06
Speaker 4: This is about society as well.
42:08
Speaker 2: There are just evil people in the world, and like
42:13
Speaker 2: it or not, that's why you have the cops, because
42:14
Speaker 2: we go after those people, and you've got to eliminate
42:17
Speaker 2: the evil people, protect everybody else.
42:20
Speaker 1: Chase mercilessly executed six people, including a six-year-old child and
42:26
Speaker 1: a toddler whom he brutally decapitated. He violently mutilated two women,
42:32
Speaker 1: then drank their blood. He rained terror over the streets
42:36
Speaker 1: of Sacramento, and his crimes still haunt the city to
42:40
Speaker 1: this day. That makes Richard Chase one of the world's
42:45
Speaker 1: most evil killers.