Noire #1 by Music By Pedro https://goo.gl/sJT2e8 Promoted by MrSnooze https://youtu.be/iYOvAO1rAM0

VHS Dreams by Shane Ivers is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. https://www.silvermansound.com

Cold Open: Richard Chase. The Vampire of Sacramento. This is NOT an episode to listen to if you are easily disturbed. This one’s rough. REAL rough. But also…. darkly fascinating.

Richard Chase had some strange beliefs. Real, REAL strange.

He believed that someone was stealing his blood. He thought that his skull was moving and falling apart.

He thought he could make himself feel better by finding small animals and drinking their blood. And then he started drinking human blood.

Before he was caught, he would massacre multiple victims in ways that the Sacramento police had never seen before. Then, after he was apprehended, he said he did what he did because … Nazi aliens were poisoning his blood.

Chase was a paranoid schizophrenic with violent instincts. He was a sadistic monster who loved to hurt animals, start fires, and make life Hell for his family.

What was going on inside Richard Chase’s head? What horrors would he unleash on the people of Sacramento? How many pets would meet their untimely end in Richard Chase’s gory apartment?

Bojangles does NOT like Richard Chase.

All of this, and more, on a bizarre - what did I just hear? - true crime edition of Timesuck. PAUSE TIMESUCK INTRO

I.Welcome!

A.Happy Monday: Happy Monday, Meat sacks!

Welcome back to the Cult of the Curious. Or - if this is your first time here - boy howdy. Buckle the fuck up.

Hail Nimrod, Hail Lucifina, Bojangles is sitting this one OUT. He’s not amused AT ALL by today’s topic. Glory be to Michael Motherfucking McDonald. The silver fox crooner was doing arena tours when today’s dirtbag was doing his nasty thing.

I’m Dan Cummins, the Suck Sorcerer, the Mustachioed Mouth of Mush, the Master Sucker, the King of the Suck - and you are listening to Timesuck.

B.Standup Special: God some good comedy news this week. My most recent standup special, Get Outta Here Devil is now on Amazon PRIME. It is now free to stream for Prime Members. So if you have Prime, and haven’t watched it yet, what the fuck are you doing with your life? WORKING? PROVIDING FOR YOUR FAMILY? SERVING OVERSEAS IN THE MILITARY? Okay, fine. Those excuses are really valid actually.

Also - so random - a bit off my recent album - Live in Denver - has blown up on Tik Tok. Almost three million views as I record this in just a week. So now I’m on Tik Tok. Dan Cummins Comedy. Fuck it. I’ll be your weird Tik Tok uncle. And there’s a bit on there - “It’s My Gym Connie!” that has blown up with over 300k views in less than 24 hours when I recorded this episode.

C.Additional Announcements: Also - did you know we have a new Timesuck blanket in the store at Bad Magic Merch dot com? Yeah, we do. And yeah, it is made out of 350% Lemur Puss. And no, I don’t care how much that upsets your mom. She’s not the boss of me! And it’s your life. So live it. Snuggle up in some suck already.

Yeah. I’m feeling saucy today. Tik Tok has gone to my head. Let’s get to suckin’.

PAUSE TIMESUCK INTERLUDE

D. Segue to Topic:

We once again find ourselves looking into the life of among the worst humans to have ever existed on the earth.

Given the nickname of the “Vampire of Sacramento”, Richard Chase would spend most of his life as a super-creepy, mentally unstable, nightmare for his parents and basically everyone who met him.

He would become the “poster boy” for the FBI’s “disorganized killer” profile.

Richard Chase was about as troubled as they come. But - he also knew what he was doing was wrong. As mentally ill as he was - I have a hard time giving him a pass for a lot of what he did. Keep that in mind as I ruthlessly mock him.

While we used a few books and numerous sources, we leaned heavily on a book called Vampire: the Richard Chase Murders by Kevin Sullivan.

Thanks, Kevin.

Not a lot of context needed to set this one up.

In the timeline, we’ll follow Richard Chase’s short, tragic life and his steady descent into utter madness. Was Richard Chase pretty much doomed to become a monster from the beginning? Maybe.

Before we get into it, we should note that a lot of the personal details about Richard Chase and his fucked up adventures before the murders come from interviews with friends and family and some give conflicting dates.

We did our best to pick the ones we felt were probably correct.

Now let’s get right into this story and hop into this week’s Timesuck Timeline.

PAUSE TIMESUCK TIMELINE INTRO

II.Timesuck Timeline

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14330237.2015.1101263 http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/Psyc%20405/serial%20killers/Chase, %20Richard%20-%20fall,%202005.pdf

1.May 23, 1950: On May 23rd, 1950, Richard Trenton Chase was born in Sacramento, in Santa Clara County, California just nine and a half months after his parents Richard and Beatrice were married.

And I feel like his terrible future trajectory begins right at birth.

Or, even before he was born.

It began whenever he was named. When your father’s name is Dick Chase, and he doesn’t understand to NOT also name you Dick Chase after he was FOR SURE teased growing up… you’re fucking doomed. You’re not in outstanding parental hands.

Dick Chase. That sounds like a term a group of horny, single sorority girls would use to refer to heading out to some clubs with the sole purpose of getting laid.

(Sorority Party Girl) “C’mon, Becky! You’re hair looks hot as fuck girl, let’s go! Let’s start this Dick Chase. Whoooo!!!”

The world into which Chase was born was very different from this one. Things were a lot calmer in American in general in 1950 than it is in 2020.

After World War II, the economy was BOOMING! Lot of jobs - good jobs to go ‘round. And the generation that survived the war got busy making babies, resulting in a “baby boom” that would last from 1946 to 1960.

Dick Chase Jr. would be a life-long resident of Sacramento, spending the majority of his life just a few miles from where he’d grown up.

And Sacramento was emblematic of a national post war feeling of optimism. It was, for most, a solid town to grow up in in the 50s and 60s.

The city of Sacramento has acquired a lot of nicknames throughout its history: Gateway to the Gold Rush, City of the Plains, City of Trees, the Big Tomato, River City, America’s Most Diverse City, The Lemon-Puss Meat Grinder, Capital of the 6th Largest Economy in the World, America’s Farm-to-Fork Capital, Almond Capital of the World, Camellia [ kuh-mee-lee-uh ] Capital of the World, Birthplace of the Transcontinental Railroad and - Mark Twain’s favorite - City of Saloons.

And those were ALL actual Sacramento nicknames.

Except Lemon-Puss Meat Grinder.

I don’t even know where that came from or what it means. Begone Lucifina! That feels like something foul that you’ve put in my head. https://themetropole.blog/2018/04/12/sacramento-city-of- redevelopments/

In the years leading up to Chase’s birth and in the decade following it, in the 1940s and 50s, redevelopment would define Sacramento.

After World War II, urban cores nationwide were being carved up and transformed. And The Lemon-Puss Meat Grinder was one of those urban cores. Beginning in the 1940s, Sacramento would turn from a folksy western town into a center of urban development.

Life for the Chases during this time was good.

2.1952: In 1952, Dick Chase Sr - ol’ Papa Dick - acquired a federal position as a computer specialist at McClellan Air Force Base, while Beatrice taught school.

3.1953: The following year, in 1953, Richard’s sister Pamela was born, and the same year the family moved into their first house on Kings Way.

4.1961: In ’61, the family of four moved to a home on Wheat Street.

This home, however, they would soon lose to financial troubles.

And I know we’re skipping pretty fast past his early childhood.

Nothing much is written about the first ten or eleven years of Dick Chase’s life.

Based on what we know about the following years, I’m guessing they were pretty quiet and that he didn’t do anything terribly unusual. No arrests. No school incidents we know of. He DID participate in Cub Scouts for several years. He WAS a chronic bed-wetter - BUT - that was over by his eighth birthday. Seems pretty normal to me.

And he did pass each grade on the first try - so no serious behavioral or mental illness-related problems that would hold him back a year or get him suspended.

He may have been abused a few times by his father in moments of anger when he was real young.

On one occasion when Richard was two, Beatrice said Richard Sr. force-fed their son, which caused him to vomit. And she said sometimes Richard Sr. shook Richard Jr. and pitched him at the wall.

But I’m not sure these incidents really happened.

I said “MAY have been abused” earlier because I just don’t trust a lot of what Beatrice says. Especially in regards to her husband - Big Dick. Papa Chase!

Why I don’t trust her will become more and more clear as we move forward.

Mr. Chase would not corroborate any such claims. The worst parenting mistake he would later admit to was to yelling at Richard when the kid was around eleven after he accidentally locked the keys in the family car.

And really - is that really a parenting mistake? I don’t think so. I think it’d be weird to NOT yell at your kid for locking the keys in the car.

Based on what I know of traditional 1950s American parental discipline stylings, it doesn’t sound to me like Richard grew up in a home that was any more or less abusive than any other average home. If anything, his parents were far too permissive and didn’t discipline him enough. You’ll see why I say that soon.

For the next two years, the family lived in a duplex on Valkyrie Way, and they’d purchase a home on Montclaire Street.

And, while money was never again a major problem for the Chases, other cracks would begin to appear in Beatrice and Richard Sr.’s marriage in 1962.

5.1962: According to court reports, in 1962, when Richard was eleven or twelve, Beatrice and Richard Sr. began having serious problems. They were arguing in front of the children frequently, and Beatrice was accusing Richard Sr. of “using dope and of infidelity.”

AND… on two occasions… Beatrice accused Richard Sr. of trying to poison her.

THIS kind of shit is the beginning of why I don’t trust what Beatrice says about Big Dick.

Based on how the rest of this story plays out… based on some claims coming soon that are incredibly outlandish - I do not believe that ever happened.

I DO believe that Beatrice was suffering from undiagnosed mental illness, possibly schizophrenia.

Just a hunch based on more upcoming information.

Richard Sr - aka Big Dick aka Papa Chase aka PAPA DICK - would later admit to authorities that he did sometimes drink too much and that he also had problems handling money. He would deny the charges of infidelity and he would vehemently deny charges of ever poisoning his wife.

Even if a poisoning never actually happened, the mere accusation - likely repeated often by Beatrice - may have had quite the effect on young Richard’s development. He would later have deep convictions, borne of his mental illness, that he was being poisoned or was otherwise being hurt.

Besides the trouble in his parents’ marriage, Richard’s childhood still seemed pretty normal in 1962.

He was still in Little League - played for four years. He had a solid amount of friends - was active in other activities.

During the sixth grade, some FIFTY kids showed up for his birthday party. And everyone, according to some who were there, appeared to have a good time.

HOWEVER - secretly, unbeknownst to family and perhaps unbeknownst to anyone but young Richard Chase - Dick Junior was already going down some dark paths…

By 1962, and possibly as early as 1960, around the age of ten, Chase was torturing and killing neighborhood animals, including cats.

Sadly, the continual and horrific mutilation of animals would become a regular part of Richard’s life. He also began to enjoy setting fires sometimes around the age of 12.

And, I will say this - a lot of children do disturbing shit around the onset of puberty, especially it seems, based on a lot anecdotal evidence I’ve gathered over the years, boys - but then they seem to almost always grow out of it.

Chase would not. He’d double down on it.

6.1963: By 1963, Dick Junior began to exhibit behavior that should’ve never been allowed. No part of me understands how it was.

Beatrice later explained to investigators how difficult things were with Richard already at the early age of thirteen, saying: “(He was) trying to cook for himself. He burnt pans, and he would leave stuff all over it and big puddles on the floor. He never picked up or cleaned anything. He was up stewing around and cooking and burning stuff all night long, and it got to be vexing ... we couldn’t sleep in the house.

He’d turn the PGE - Pacific Gas & Electric - on, and he’d turn it up so high, open the windows and let the heat out, and strip off all his clothes, lying on the couch in the living room.”

What the fuck?

Maybe it was due to her mental health struggles, but I have to say, Beatrice seems like a shitty parent here. As does Papa Dick.

How do you let a thirteen-year-old just keep burning shit all the time and never forbid them from using the stove? How do you let them turn the heat up so high no one else can sleep? How do you let them crash naked on the couch?

Who’s running this shit show?

If one of my kids cranked the heat up in the middle of the night or left burnt shit on the stove, we’d have a heated discussion REAL quick. And it would start with something like, “Excuse me, but, did you just lose your Goddamn mind and forget who the fuck you’re living with?”

THIS dad doesn’t play the blatant disrespect game.

Actually, when my kids see other kids acting like assholes and no one gets after them, they will literally say things to me like, “What’s wrong with their parents? Why aren’t they getting trouble? Who would let them get away with that?”

YES!

God I love you Kyler and Monroe. You’re solid folk.

All that being said - I DO realize that my kids are probably MUCH easier to raise than Richard Chase Jr was.

As the years passed, marital life would turn even darker at the Chase household. Beatrice accused her husband repeatedly of having an affair with the neighbor.

And I wasn’t there. And I’ve never met them, but again, I don’t believe her.

I don’t believe her because when the Chase family took a camping trip to Oregon sometime in 1963 or 1964 - Mrs. Chase confronted Richard Sr. about having a woman… “waiting for him in the woods.”

Seriously.

She thought her husband had some kinda Shrub-Slut hiding out in the forest, just dying to lay her back down on the dirt and get some of that sweet Papa Dick.

The Chase family camping trip was ruined and they returned home early to Sacramento.

See what I mean about the mental illness stuff? Who plans a family camping trip, and then tells their mistress to meet them for some sexcapades? Get out of here!

(Whisper) “Hey baby. My wife and kids are close by so I have to be quiet. We reserved site 13 in the A loop at the Lost Creek Campground by Crater Lake. I talked to the Ranger and he said there is a thick grove of pine trees between that site and the creek.

I reserved you a spot in the B loop - site 22.

There’s a trail behind it that will lead to the pine groove I mentioned. Bring a blanket and lay down in the middle of those trees just after sat down. I’ll tell Beatrice I need to find some sticks to make s’mores with. I’ll send the kids further into the woods to find more sticks.

And then, we’ll have 2 or maybe even 3 minutes to fuck in the brush.

Thanks for making the six hour drive each way this coming weekend for 3 minutes of quiet dirt dickin’. ”

It’s nonsense! Beatrice is paranoid.

Beatrice Chase also began to claim that her husband was “annoying her at night in bed”, whatever that Hell means, AND that he was drugging her at night.

OF COURSE HE WAS! How else was he supposed to be able to sneak off with his Shrub Slut? He’s poisoning her, annoying her, drugging her, and probably bringing home venereal diseases from his Brush Jezebels!

By 1964, Beatrice Chase had already seen two psychiatrists for her escalating marriage problems.

7. September 1964: In September of 1964, Richard Chase starts high school at Mira Loma High in Sacramento.

He still, to his peers, seems like a normal kid.

He’s well-groomed, fairly popular, and has normal interactions with friends, both male and female.

He's six feet tall and weighs about a hundred and fifty pounds, making him exceedingly thin, which he isn’t thrilled about, but he doesn’t let it get in his way much. I was six foot tall and a one hundred and thirty five pounds at one point in high school - I get the not thrilled part.

His grades at this time are slightly below average — Cs and Ds— and by his sophomore year, Fs start to appear on his report cards.

BUT, he would continue to pass enough classes to move on to the next grade.

And it seems as if his low grades were due much more to a lack of work ethic and ambition than they were due to limited intellectual capacity. This will also soon reveal itself in the timeline.

8.1965: In 1965, after a fight with Papa Dick - Beatrice takes the kids - Richard and his sister Pamela - south to Los Angeles.

And then Richard’s dad comes down eight days later and retrieves his son.

Mrs. Chase remained in Los Angeles with her daughter for another four months before returning home.

So… not ideal.

Lot of parental strife happening around Richard.

Sadly, also not that abnormal. Divorces are rarely neat and clean and there are a lot of them. By 1967, the divorce rate in America would climb to 26 percent.

Now it’s even worse.

60% of couples who get married between the ages of 20-25 get divorced. And 36% of couples who get married after the age of 25 are statistically likely to have their marriage also end in divorce.

What Richard experienced as a teen was painful, terrible, and statistically speaking… pretty normal.

How Richard behaved as a teen, however, was becoming increasingly abnormal.

At some point in 1965, fifteen-year-old Richard started thinking he was one of the Younger Brothers of Jesse James fame.

You heard me. And yes that did come out of nowhere.

Chase didn’t think he LOOKEd like one of the Younger Brothers - Yip, yip, yaw! , the James Gang was such a fun Suck- he thought he WAS one of the Youngers.

Beatrice said, “he checked a book out of the library, and he got a poster made, and he had his picture pasted in the picture for one of the Younger Brothers. Now, he later on had some big poster a whole bunch of them and was trying to sell them ... he (also) wanted a cowboy hat and all that, and he wanted a red handkerchief, which I did not buy him a cowboy hat, but he wanted one.”

Ohhhh…kay. Fifteen seems a little old to me to be playing pretend this deeply.

Had Beatrice been more mentally healthy herself, maybe she would’ve made him get some counseling. Not sure why his dad didn’t do that. Maybe living with Beatrice for so many years threw off his barometer for being able to tell what crazy looked like.

Not normal for your fifteen year old to think they’re a member of the Younger gang in case you didn’t already know that.

In 1965, Richard Chase began a relationship with a girl given the fake name of Libby Christopher so she could remain anonymous when interviewed about Richard years later.

She was a couple of years younger than Richard. They’d date for several months, not breaking up until early 1966.

And she’d say that their sexual relationship never progressed beyond the preliminary stages of foreplay, because Chase was never able to maintain an erection.

Uh oh. Here we go!

(Chikatilo) “What is big deal? Why lady care so much ‘bout hard penis! Why soft shame cock not be satisfy for plenty of hot sex!?! This not good. This maybe make him want to wrassle later!”

Thank you Chikatilo. Been awhile since we heard from the world’s worst spokesman for erectile dysfunction.

While his ED did not IMMEDIATELY drive Libby away, it was one of the things that eventually made her end her relationship with Richard, leaving him feeling pretty insecure.

He’d continue to try and date in high school, but his inability to provide what was physically expected of him didn’t go away - each new failed attempt only made it worse - and soon his dysfunction became common knowledge among his peers - who OF COURSE were super sweet and understanding about the entire situation and never teased him about it even ONE single time.

I’m sure no one EVER said stuff like, “Hey look, it’s Dick Chaser! I heard Sara chased his dick right back into his whitey-tighteys on Saturday Night.” “Hey Richard! Do you care if I call you Dick? Or, like every girl you go out with, can I just call you limp?” “Reservation for Chase, party of one! Your sad, soft table is ready.”

I don’t know. I know how much high schoolers busted balls in the 90s. I have to think, based on stories I’ve heard, it was much worse in the 60s.

Like many misunderstood teens and ALSO AWESOME ADULTS - Richard now turned to drugs to numb his pain.

He started using marijuana - fine, not worried about that.

He also started using LSD frequently. Hmmmm. This is troublesome. Probably not the right drug for someone who thought he was a member of the Younger Gang when he WASN’T on hallucinogens.

And on at least one occasion in high school, he used meth.

Yeah METH! Always a solid choice for the unstable mind.

Chase’s disposition began to change in 1965, and towards the end of his time in high school, many of his peers and family members remember him as being rude, inconsiderate and disheveled in his appearance. He started letting his hair grow out, stopped worrying about basic hygiene, and started spending too much time losing himself in his increasingly bizarre thoughts.

And I’m sure he was savagely beating all kinds of small animals.

In 1965 he saw his first brush with the law, when he was nabbed with some marijuana. He’d be ordered by juvenile court to work on the weekends.

The arrest pissed off his dad and the two started to fight a lot.

Richard Sr. - Big Papa Dick - criticized Richard Jr.’s lack of hygiene and his aimless approach to his life.

And Richard Jr. - Dickie Soft Serve! - simply just didn’t care what his father thought.

While they couldn’t have been more wrong, neither Richard’s dad or his mom thought anything was REALLY wrong with their son yet. Teens across the country were having similar arguments with their parents as the generational gap between parents and children widened in the 1960s. As far as his parents were concerned Chase was just a typically rebellious counterculture teen.

But Richard was NOT an ordinary rebellious child of the times.

He was a mentally disturbed, diabolical killer-in-the-making; a homicidal time bomb waiting to explode on the unsuspecting people of Sacramento.

9. June 6, 1968: On June 6th, 1968, Richard graduated from Mira Loma High.

His parents bought him a Volkswagen for a graduation present.

It was time to enter the real world, and Richard decided he would enroll in college and became a student at American River College, a community college in Sacramento. His parents were super supportive of this decision. Had they known he was mentally ill, had he gotten and stayed on the right meds, his life might have worked out okay. In the summer of ’68, he had about a good as chance as any other 18 year old to make something of himself.

10. September 1968: Chase would remain a student at American River College, where he would generally pull a C average, until the spring semester of 1971, at which point he dropped out without ever receiving a degree.

But we’re not ready to jump to ’71! Got more 60s to discuss.

Shortly after enrolling, Chase saw a psychiatrist for the first time in the Fall of 1968 for his inability to sustain an erection.

The psychiatrist, Dr. Phil Rothstein who had a successful practice in the suburb of Roseville, told him there was no cure for being a limp-dicked momma’s boy and threw him in a headlock and then a full nelson, and then he gave him an atomic wedgie - ripping the elastic waistband off his undies before literally kicking him into the lobby and telling his receptionist to take him to the dumpster and throw him away with the rest of the trash.

JK!

Can you fucking imagine?

Can you imagine revealing something that you’re really embarrassed about to your therapist - really opening up and making yourself vulnerable - and then having them say something like,

(Cold, sarcastic therapist) “Sounds like you’re suffering from being a gigantic pussy. Luckily there’s a cure - it’s called manning the fuck up. Now get out of my office! Just looking at your candy ass makes me want to throw up.”

No.

The therapist suggested the cause of his erectile dysfunction was suppressed anger or mental illness. And Richard didn’t like those options so he chose not to continue with counseling.

He wanted, like so many people do, a quick and easy fix for his problems that required no real work or introspection on his part. He wasn’t angry! He wasn’t mentally ill. He just needed a little pill that doesn’t require dealing with feelings. 11.1969: In 1969, Richard - who I now suddenly want to refer to as Dickard, got a job.

Dickard was employed for a brief period in 1969 with at the Retailers Credit Association. His job involved typing and phone work, and according to his mother, he “did a very good job.”

At first.

He wouldn’t do a good job for very long thanks to his rapidly deteriorating mental state. It’s almost like that psychiatrist was onto something.

To hide this deteriorating state from his family, Richard left his parents’ house in late 1969 and moved into his own place with a couple of roommates located at 3831 Anadale Lane.

His roommates were Cud Evans DeMarchi and Rachel Statum.

And these two would soon SERIOUSLY regret letting Chase move in.

Guessing Cud is a nickname, by the way. Don’t meet a lot of Cuds. At least I don’t.

12. February 1971: Anyway - Chase would move into Cud and Rachel’s house in February 1971 after they found Chase sitting on their front lawn. The three began to talk and somehow their conversation led to the three of them becoming roommates.

Of course it wouldn’t end well.

When does finding some stranger sitting on your lawn and then inviting them to be your roommate ever work out?

Once Chase was moved in to the house, Richard’s father gave him fifty dollars each month for rent - small price to pay for not having that maniac in his house - and Chase worked odd jobs to make ends meet.

Not quite twenty-one years old, living away from his family for the first time in his life, Chase smokes weed constantly, and his attitude at the time was later described by his roommates to be “uncooperative, inconsiderate, and difficult to be with.”

Awesome. Sounds super fun. He also becomes intensely paranoid.

After a few months in his new room, he boards up the door. Like, he literally takes boards and nails them across the door to keep anyone from getting in.

Or out I guess.

So how does he get out?

He knocks a huge hole into his closet wall with a hammer for him to enter and exit through.

If you’re asking, “Why would he do that? Why would anyone ever do that?” You’re not alone.

He did it, he told his roommates, so “no one can sneak up on me.”

What did Rachel and Cud think about all this?

(Cud) “Umm, hey Rachel. Did you see how Dickard remodeled his room? Yeah that asshole literally boarded his door shut.”

(Rachel) “What!?! How is he gonna get in?”

(Cud) “Through the giant fucking hole he smashed open in the back of his closet. We might need to talk to him. He just completely fucked our damage deposit.”

Then, shortly after this unorthodox remodel, Rachel watched Chase lean out a window and wave a gun at someone coming up the walk.

This seemed to be the last straw for Dickard’s roomies and they asked him to leave. You don’t get to board your room shut, AND turn your closet into an escape tunnel, AND wave a gun out your window at strangers and not get a “Maybe you should leave” talk.

But Chase refused to leave. So they moved out instead.

And then, I wish there were more details about exactly how or why this went down, Rachel Statum’s brothers and some of his friends moved in with Chase.

Maybe her name was still on the lease and the only way she could afford to leave was to have someone else move in, and her brother needed a new place to stay. I don’t know.

Dickard’s new roomies had problems with him too.

Of course they did.

The Statum brothers and their friends were in a rock band and would rehearse at the house, and Chase, not content to just listen, would join them in practice… without being invited. SWEET.

When they’d start practicing he’d go grab a conga drum and start singing along.

And he was terrible.

He was “no good,” the band would later tell investigators, and they constantly tried to talk Chase out of playing with them.

And then that would lead to a huge argument and then Dickard would get pissed off and they’d give up and just let him continue to “join in.”

Fucking up their jam sessions wasn’t the only problem the new roomies had with Chase.

He also liked to wander out of his bedroom nude while the guys had girls over. Wave his limp dick around and impress the ladies. You get it, Lucifina.

Like his previous roomies, these guys were like, “Fuuuuuuuuuck Richard.”

And they pressured him to leave.

They made it clear they couldn’t stand him and wanted him out, and in May of 1971, Richard, now twenty-two, would be living with his parents again on Montclaire Street, where they’d continue to support him, hoping that a little time was all he needed to get back on the right track.

One way they supported him was by paying the tons of traffic tickets Chase was racking up.

According to his mom, at one point, he had as many as fifteen different unpaid tickets, and as a result, he lost his license. So he bought a motorcycle.

Interesting. I didn’t think it worked that way.

I didn’t think if a cop pulls you over while riding a motorcycle and asks you for your driver’s license, you got to say, “What license? This isn’t a car. It’s just a motorcycle! Sorry officer, I was under the impression that anyone of any age could drive these things anywhere at anytime with little or no training.”

13. May 1972: In May of 1972, Chase’s parents separated. I’m GUESSING Beatrice’s paranoid and their son had a lot to do with their marriage not working out.

Beatrice Chase was finally rid of her annoying, poisoning, drugging, shrub-slut-fucking husband.

Their divorce was finalized that December.

Also that year, Chase took a solo trip to Utah.

After only two weeks, but managed to get arrested for yet another traffic violation and his car was impounded.

And now the timeline is gonna start getting weirder.

While in Utah, Chase said the officers “gassed him.”

Yep. AS POLICE OFTEN DO. He thought they gassed him with some kind of secret, poisonous gas, and that the gas had made him ill, and he wanted to sue the police.

And his dad talked him out of it before he embarrassed himself and wasted a lot of his parents money.

His mom did sent him SOME money to pay his traffic tickets, and Chase made it out of Utah after paying a hundred and eighty dollars. A lot of ticket money in 1972.

This not-real “gassing” would completely destroy any faith Richard had in “the system.” His paranoia was increasing. He was so CLEARLY mentally ill.

He was now convinced that powerful people were trying to harm him. Claiming he was sick from the “gas,” he’d have fits, beating his hands and feet into the wall. This went on for months.

He could barely sign his own name. DAMN YOU POLICE GAS!

14. April 22, 1973: Little Dick lived with his mom for the following year, working odd jobs, talking everyone’s ear off about being sick from being gassed by the police, and generally driving Beatrice crazy.

Then, on April 22nd, 1973, Chase was attending a party at a friend’s house when things went off the rails again.

He tried grabbing some random girl’s breasts - don’t do that - and he was grabbed by a few guys and thrown out for being a rape-y creep.

And then he came back to the party later with a gun.

He forced his way back inside, and when some of guys struggled with him, a .22 pistol fell out of his belt.

The Police were called and Chase apparently resisted arrest - of course he did - he didn’t want to get GASSED again! He was just barely able to write his own name again! - and he was forcibly restrained by patrol officers and taken to jail.

The next day, he complained of being seriously injured and wanted to sue the police department. How dare they hurt him when he resists arrest after taking a gun to a party after grabbing some random boob! He was just LIVING HIS LIFE.

His dad again convinces him to not pursue another crazy lawsuit.

Now Chase is even more paranoid. The system is FOR SURE out to get him. They won’t even let him grab party boobs now.

Chase’s troubles continue at home.

Beatrice is arguing with her increasingly erratically-behaving son more and more often, and sometimes, their fights are turning physical.

During one confrontation, Beatrice was about to call the police on batshit Dickard when he grabs the phone out of her hand and whacks her in the head with it.

Fair. Mom calls 911 on baby boy, mom gets bopped on the noggin’. I thought all moms knew that.

After boppin’ Momma, Richard ran out the door, jumped over a fence, and disappeared.

When officers arrived at his mom’s house, they told Mrs. Chase they’d arrest him if she wanted them to, but she would have to press charges and take out a warrant for his arrest.

She didn’t want to do that. Instead, she convinced Richard to go stay with his grandma down in LA for awhile. Let her deal with his antics. She just wanted to not be around him.

15. May 1973: In May of 1973, twenty-three year old Richard headed down to Los Angles to live with his grandma Neese - Holly Neese - where he starts to complain a lot about strange head injuries and other illnesses.

My GOD. How strong WAS that fake police gas?

His hypochondria was beginning to really manifest.

Chase tried working for his uncle, driving a bus for handicapped children. Awesome. Let’s give the guy who gets tickets almost every day, a guy whose already lost his license before, a guy who’s insane - let’s give him that job.

Like basically everything else Richard tried, it didn’t go to well.

He refused to ever clean the bus, and he kept letting it get low on oil and overheat.

It didn’t matter that he was told over and over that it wouldn’t cost him any money to change the oil - all he had to do was take it to a particular station the business used and they would take care of it.

But he still just wouldn’t do it. So his Uncle fired him.

Dickard’s grandma was now really worried about him. He was nothing like the young, happy child she’d known.

After being fired from his bus driving job, she said he’d stay in bed for most of the day and then he’d roam the house all night making all kinds of racket and leaving huge messes for her to clean up.

His late night roaming was more than she could bare - so she sent him back to his mom’s house in Sacramento.

And then his mom kicked him out and he moved in with his dad.

And then his dad kicked him out, and he went back to live with his mom.

After a few months, his mom sent him back to Grandma Neese.

It was like a big, fucked-up game of hot potato. No one wanted to be stuck holding Dickard.

After a few weeks, grandma Neese sent him BACK to Sacramento again.

According to his grandma, Chase’s deterioration, both mental and physical, had noticeably worsened.

He was “terribly dirty” and did shit like leave literal breadcrumbs everywhere, as well as pull apart newspapers and leave the scraps all over the house. And never clean any of this shit up.

My god. I could not deal with this motherfucker. No way.

Eventually, family or not, I’d snap.

(Angry me) “Hey Dick! I’m tired of your shit bud. You have a choice to make right now.

I’m giving you three options.

Option one - you immediately start seeing a therapist, get a prescription for psychiatric medication, take your pills when you’re supposed to, and start picking up after yourself.

Option two - you get the fuck out of my house, I change the lock, and you never come back to live here ever again… EVER.

Option three, you refuse to options one and two, I come across this room and wrestle your crazy ass to the ground, tie you up, and put you in a cage in the basement, where I then throw scraps of food at you three times a day and let you live like the disgusting fucking animal you’ve chosen to be.”

In addition to being a weird slob, Richard also made a lot of noise at night at his grandma’s house. More than the first time he stayed with her.

And he blew a fuse that left her home with no electricity when he was building a speaker for his car - and didn’t do shit to fix it.

And then, a couple times, she walked in on his room and found him standing on his head in the corner.

When she asked him why the Hell he was doing that, he said he was trying to get the blood to run back into his head.

And he said that his heart and his legs hurt.

Weirdest of all, he started wrapping his head with a towel filled with orange slices, believing that the Vitamin C would be absorbed straight into his brain via diffusion and help with the gas pain he was still dealing with.

Fun. He is doing VERY WELL. He is THRIVING at Nana’s. Glad no one called authorities and tried having him involuntarily committed.

AND - Nana caught him talking to himself on several occasions, saying stuff like, “‘Richard, you’re a good boy aren’t you? Yes, you’re a good boy.’”

Not creepy AT ALL.

And then she finally kicked him out and she made it clear to her daughter he was never welcome back after he got fired from a job at a local paint store he’d only managed to hold for ten days, and then used what little money he’d made to buy a new .22 pistol.

Rightly worried about living with a dude saying and doing so much weird shit who now just bought a gun, she put this human train wreck on a plane back to Sacramento.

16. 1973: When Chase returned, he went back to dividing his time between his mother’s home on Montclaire and the duplex on Valkyrie Way where his father lived. And by dividing his time, I mean constantly getting kicked out of both places. More crazy hot potato.

He also started seeing doctors for “head injuries” and stomach aches and he ended up getting referred to a neurologist who concluded that Chase “had a psychiatric disturbance of major proportions.”

DING, DING, DING! NAIL IT, DOC!

But, because his mom was unstable herself and his dad didn’t believe in therapy, no one pushed him to follow the doctor’s advice and get any help.

His dad didn’t think he needed therapy - he thought his son’s problems stemmed from misguided values and a bad attitude.

He wasn’t some super mentally ill young man who desperately needed to be institutionalized. Hell no! He just needed an attitude adjustment!

Just “attitude” those unbalanced brain chemicals back into a proper equilibrium. Maybe wrap those orange slices a little tighter next time - probably just need a little more vitamin C in your brain!

If only Richard could get a job, shape up, and start acting normal - Richard Sr. was sure that everything would would work out fine.

And then when Chase didn’t just “Shape up” his dad kicked him out of his house AGAIN - and this time, told him to never come back.

Neighbors reported that, after this, Chase would come over, stand in the driveway, and stare blankly at his father’s house for long periods of time.

Jesus. That’s so sad. This guy needed so, so much help.

Beatrice, now living with her son at the house on Montclaire, later told investigators that Chase’s now really began to unravel.

As the weeks and months passed, Chase grew more and more preoccupied with his physical condition.

In addition to telling his mom that his head still hurt, he also told her that his head was changing shape.

Yup. He now thinks his HEAD is changing SHAPE.

And this isn’t the weirdest thing he tells her.

He also tells her there is something wrong with his nervous system. What’s wrong? Oh let me tell you. I’m dying to share this.

He knows there is something wrong with his nervous system because his heart has stopped beating and his blood isn’t circulating.

And he’s worried that between his shape-shifting head and not having a heart beat - he could die.

Fair.

That’s fair.

Still haven’t made it to the weirdest thing he told his mom.

He ALSO tells her that he has “bones coming out the back of his head.”

And when I first read all this, I had, unsurprisingly, a weird thought.

What if all if this was actually happening and no one was taking it seriously?

What if the Utah police HAD gassed him? And now his heart wasn’t beating and his shape-shifting head was kicking some bone crumbs out the back?

Can you imagine?

(Doctor) “Mr. and Mrs. Chase, you’re gonna want to sit down for this. Your grown son is suffering from the incredibly rare condition known as KooKooButTrue Syndrome. In rare gases, when someone is dosed with police gas, their head will later start to change shape, their heart will stop beating, and they’ll often shed a few head bones at night. It can usually be treated by wrapping a towel filled with orange slices around what’s head, but, not when the condition is this serious. The only way to cure this is for me to inject rabbit’s blood into Chase’s veins….”

That treatment will come up later in this timeline. Not even kidding. I know if you think to hard about all of this it’s incredibly sad and unfortunate, but, holy shit I have laughed so much working on the notes for this episode this past week.

And we’re STILL not doing with the weird shit Little Dick is up to a this point in his life.

Chase begins to cut pictures of hearts and other organs out of a Gray’s Anatomy book and tape them to his bedroom wall. And his mom Beatrice catches him studying them.

He wants to understand what’s happening to him. Why is his head changing shape? Why is he shedding skull bones?

One day during this stay with his mom, after everything else I just talked about has been happening, the doorbell rings and Mrs. Chase answers it to find fireman standing at her doorstep.

Why is he there? Is her house on fire?

No. Dickard has called them and told them he’s a “heart patient” whatever that means, and he’s requested that they come over and pick him up.

The firemen knock on the door, and when Beatrice answers they are waiting with a stretcher, asking where the patient is. Then Richard steps forward and says, “Well, here I am.”

And the firemen are… “surprised” to see a healthy-looking, if somewhat thin, twenty-three-year old man.

Since nothing is physically wrong with him, they head back to the fire station.

Chase now begs his mother for help, asking her, “Mom, aren’t you going to help me? I’m sick. I want to start tests and everything.”

Beatrice - have to give her some credit here - begins contacting more doctors.

Doctor Donald Ansel examines Chase and tells him and Beatrice he has “a psychiatric disturbance of major proportion.”

DING, DING, DING! Again - NAILED IT.

But he still isn’t committed.

17. December 1, 1973: On December 1st, 1973, Chase walks into the emergency room at Sacramento’s no-longer-there American River Hospital.

He tells doctors he can’t breath.

They’re concerned.

He also also tells doctors he’s “lost his pulmonary vein.”

They’re concerned in a different way now.

He also tells his doctors his heart has stopped beating because someone had “STOLEN” his pulmonary artery, stopping his blood flow. Doctors note that Chase is “tense, nervous, and wild-eyed.”

They think it’s all in his head, and then they check, and his pulmonary artery IS IN FACT MISSING.

The Sacramento Police are called. And to their credit, they find the thief in just two hours. It was the guys at the party who threw Richard out for just grabbing a little party boob. Not satisfied with merely HUMILIATING him, they have now stolen his pulmonary artery. How could they do that? With help. And WHO was helping them? The Utah State Highway Patrol! They’d put a tracking device into Dickard’s blood stream when they gassed him.

My GOD!

No. Of course that’s nonsense. Only Richard Chase would believe that account of what happened.

No, the doctors were, obviously, very concerned about Richard Chase’s mental health.

A psychiatrist on-duty, Dr. Irwin Lyons, wrote in his initial report that the patient was: “a filthy, disheveled, deteriorated, and foul-smelling white male.” The doctor’s diagnosis was “chronic paranoid schizophrenia.”

The hospital commits Richard into their psychiatric ward for two days before they start butting heads with his mother.

According to Doctor Lyons’ report, Chase was discharged after a confrontation between staff and Beatrice.

In his report of the incident, the doctor noted that Beatrice Chase was “highly aggressive ... hostile ... provocative,” quickly adding she was the “so-called schizophrenic mother.”

And Chase is discharged even though his final diagnosis at discharge is also chronic paranoid schizophrenia.

Damn. How unfortunate. I feel like if Richard had just one highly functioning parent who really understand and valued the importance of psychiatric care in certain circumstances, maybe he could’ve still been saved at this point.

Dude needed to be committed for a lot longer than two days.

Possibly for life. This is the kind of social program I have ZERO problems with my tax money going to - psychiatric care for the extremely mentally ill to keep them off the streets and out of the homes of families not equipped to deal with them - so they don’t end up on the street as a danger to themselves and others.

Sadly, although the precise cause of schizophrenia isn't known, certain factors seem to increase the risk of developing or triggering schizophrenia, include having a family history of schizophrenia.

And since one of the symptoms of schizophrenia is paranoia - it’s so hard to seek out the right help. You might not trust the only people who can help you. And if your mom ALSO doesn’t trust those people - and your mom is your primary caregiver - you’re in a real bad spot.

And I should reiterate that I don’t know for sure that Beatrice was schizophrenic. But she sure seems like. Exhibit Shrub Sluts.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/childhood- schizophrenia/symptoms-causes/ syc-20354483#:~:text=Although%20the%20precise%20cause% 20of,Older%20age%20of%20the%20father https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/ schizophrenia/symptoms-causes/syc-20354443

I had a stepmom growing up who was raised by a diagnosed schizophrenic. She had a terrible childhood. Her mom believed that she was trying to poison her. Trying to kill her. Her mom also thought she could talk to angels.

And then my stepmom, she began to exhibit paranoia when I was in high school. She thought everyone was out to get her.

I would be grounded because she thought I was intentionally fucking with her by doing stuff like putting dishes in the wrong places. I wasn’t forgetful. Oh no! I was sending her A MESSAGE!

She also thought my dad and sister and I were conspiring against her when she’d lose at Monopoly. That we’d come up with a plan to make sure she didn’t win. Stupid, crazy shit.

AND - she told me I should listen to her because she knew things that other people didn’t know. Secret spiritual knowledge.

Schizophrenia is INTENSE. And Richard Chase had an intense case of it.

After leaving American River Hospital, Richard Chase had a brief period of improvement. He took the medication Dr. Irwin Lyons prescribed him. He used an oxygen tank he’d been given for panic attacks.

Always super thin, Chase succeeded in adding around twenty pounds to his frame, and he was exercising on a regular basis.

Another bummer about schizophrenia - it’s usually very treatable with antipsychotic medication. And the medication can work so well that the sufferer can think they don’t need it anymore. They’re fine! The feel great! And then, once they get off the medication, and they start to feel not great, they don’t get back on the medication because the paranoia has returned.

It’s such a sad, sad, sad disease.

Beatrice Chase believed this upward swing lasted about two years.

And things got bad again when he stopped taking his meds and started to use illegal drugs again.

(PAUSE)

And this feels like a good spot to take a quick sponsor break. More story in a bit!

(MIDROLL PAUSE)

Thank you for listening, meatsacks! We’re back now with Richard Chase in late 1975, Richard Chase who is schizophrenic and was doing great on his meds for about two years, and now he’s no longer taking them and he’s smoking weed, dropping LSD, and maybe hitting a little meth from time to time.

(MIDROLL PAUSE)

Chase starts acting strangely again.

Beatrice overhears her son carrying on short and strange conversations with no one: “Oh, shut up,” he would mutter. When she would say, “You stop talking to me like that,” Chase would reply, “I’m not talking to you.”

Sometimes she’d be talking to Richard when suddenly he’d declare, “I’m not going to do it.” She thought he was addressing her, maybe talking about some menial chore or errand, and she’d say, “Well, now, you’re going to do it.” And he’d quickly respond, “I wasn’t talking to you.”

I think it would be fun to start doing this to my wife, Lynze, at home.

(Lynze) “Dan, did you feed the dogs?”

(Me) “Oh shut the fuck up already.”

(Lynze) “WHAT did you just say to me, Dan??”

(Me) “I wasn’t talking to you… SALLY SELFISH! My God, Narcissist. Take it down a notch It’s All About Me Edna.”

Also, Richard’s back at it with the fruit.

His brain is low on Vitamin C - which everyone knows you need to keep your skull from shedding - and he’s treating himself to some orange slices again.

At least a dozen times, Beatrice claimed she watched her son take some orange slices, wrap them in a towel and place the towel around his head.

He also started ordering his mom to stop controlling his mind on at least two occasions and he accused his sister, Pam, of controlling his mind at least once.

This poor bastard. If only those two bitches would leave his brain alone, he wouldn’t have to spend all his free time pushing fruit into his scalp!

He also started raging out around the house.

He broke windows, knocked doors off their hinges, and kicked holes in walls.

At times, Beatrice would call Richard’s father to come over and deal with him, and he would come over, but instead of deescalating the situation, his presence just made Richard angrier. On one occasion, Big Dick’s presence upset Little Dick so much that he ripped the phone and its cradle completely off of the wall.

This poor family. How often did they fantasize about Richard running away and just never coming back?

On another occasion, Chase met his father outside, and after heated words were exchanged, they got into a fist fight on the front lawn.

Can you imagine being their neighbors? It would kind of suck, and, let’s be honest, it would kind of be awesome.

“Oh, shit! Mom! Mom come quick. Those two dicks next door are fighting on the lawn.”

On another occasion, Chase slapped his mother in the face - probably for controlling his mind again - and on at least one occasion, he hit her and knocked her down.

Dude was completely out of control.

18. 1976: By 1976, Beatrice began to notice even MORE strange shit happening with her now twenty-five year old son. She finally witnesses some animal cruelty. And it will NOT be the last time.

She catches him grabbing the family dog’s foot and cutting it with a knife. Another time, he squeezed her dog’s jaw so hard he nearly broke it - the dog couldn’t even eat for a few days.

FUUUUUUCK that. One of my kids - my grown kids - cuts the dog - they are kicked the fuck out of my house and they are in psychiatric care. Or at least - the locks are getting changed. Nope. Love ya but you’re not welcome here. If I can’t trust you to not cut our dog I can’t trust you to not do god knows what other evil shit you have rolling around in your shape-shifting head.

Also - easy for me to say. Again, how damn sad. No one wants to abandon their kid. But what if your kid is a sick monster doing shit like cutting the dog and squeezing its snout to the point it can’t eat?

Beatrice decided that she needed to get him out of the house.

But instead of talking to a mental hospital, she rented Richard his own apartment on Cannon Street.

19. March 1976: In March of 1976, Chase moved into his new place.

And before we talk about how well he managed life on his own - or didn’t, let’s take one more lil’ sponsor break!

20.FAKE MIDROLL BREAK:

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PUSH STOP

Huh. Very interesting sponsor. Guess there’s a class action suit and a law firm for almost everything.

Anyway, now let’s examine how well Richard managed living without anyone to supervise his insanity.

It was a small cottage behind the main home, and for a while, Chase kept the place relatively clean, and went in and out on his bicycle. And didn’t wrap any towels full of orange slices around his head or cut any dogs.

Richard was on “general assistance,” a form of unemployment, and didn’t need to worry about employment.

Things were going great!

Why were things going so well? Chase was back on some meds.

Kind of.

No one prescribed them, and, what he was taking wasn’t really “Meds” per say, but, he did think what he was doing made him feel better.

He was drinking rabbit’s blood.

I’m not even kidding. And before we go forward, I just want to say - Don’t knock it ‘till you try it.

Have any studies proven that drinking rabbit’s blood cures schizophrenia?

No. Not to my knowledge.

BUT - have any studies proven that drinking rabbits blood DOES NOT cure schizophrenia???

As far as I know - exactly zero dollars have been spent to fund studies looking into how rabbits blood does or does not alleviate symptoms of mental illness.

He really did start drinking it.

We’ve just arrived at the blood-section portion of the Vampire of Sacramento’s timeline.

Dickard began drinking the blood of rabbits he’d purchased from an individual in Rio Linda, a twenty minute drive from Sacramento. Sources don’t say how he was drinking their blood. Not at this point. When he uses more rabbit blood later, we’ll get more details.

Outwardly, he really did seem to be the best he’d been in years. He was talking to his dad again. Big Dick occasionally came by the cottage to play chess with his son.

One day, he saw these rabbits, rabbits he assumed were pets, and when he asked about them, Chase told him straight up that he was eating them.

And his dad didn’t believe him because he was used to his son saying weird, crazy shit.

This poor son of a bitch. He married a woman who’d accuse him of trying to poison her and of cheating on her with a shrub- slut on a camping trip, and his son gets into fist fights with him on the lawn on a bad day and drinks rabbits blood on a good day.

21. April 25, 1976: On April 25th, 1976, not more than two months after living on his own, Richard takes the next logical step in rabbit blood treatment, and instead of drinking it, he starts injecting it into his veins.

He’s now mainlining rabbit’s blood. It’s like he’s a heroin addict, but this is somehow worse.

He doesn’t do this for very long because injecting rabbit’s blood into your blood is in fact really, really bad for you.

He gets sick for real - not just in his head - and starts vomiting shortly after one of his treatments.

When his dad comes to check on him the next day, Little Dick is so sick he can hardly move.

Mr. Chase drives his son to Community Hospital in north Sacramento where Richard is immediately admitted, and attending physicians made the following observations:

“[Patient] states he has been ‘poisoned by a rabbit he ate’ ... gives a bizarre history of eating a rabbit, which had battery acid in its stomach.”

Haha!

This dude. I love how he doesn’t want to tell them he’s been injecting rabbit blood in his veins, so he tells them something EVEN CRAZIER.

“No! No I have NOT been injecting rabbit blood. What happened - DOCTOR JUDGE-Y, is that I ate some rabbit meat, as one does, and unbeknownst to me, said rabbit had been eating battery acid instead of rabbit food. So, you know, of course I’m sick and ALSO ANGRY at whoever thought feeding rabbits battery acid was a good idea - everyone knows you’re supposed to wrap their heads in orange slices when they’re hungry.”

One again, Richard received the diagnosis of “schizophrenia, paranoid type,” and he’s placed on a seventy-two hour psych hold.

22. April 28, 1976: On April 28th, Chase is transferred to American River Hospital, where, according to the report, “he stayed until May 19, 1976.”

Admitting physician Doctor Frank Harper said: “Approximately three days ago, [patient] drank some blood and attempted to inject rabbit blood into his system ... states he needs to drink blood because his heart is weak.”

Doctor Harper also noted Chase was “hostile ... but oriented to time, place, and person.”

While there, Chase complained of “heart weakness,” said his “body was falling apart,” and refused to participate in an exercise program or attend group therapy. According to staff members, Chase was almost nonverbal.

At some point during his stay, he just walked away from the hospital after doctors would not consent to releasing him, as he was considered a “danger to others.”

23. May 19, 1976: The doctors were able to get him back a few days later.

And then they released him to another facility on May 19th. The final notations from Doctor Michael Buckley paint a dismal picture: “Uncooperative with treatment throughout the course of his hospitalization. ... Final diagnosis: ‘schizophrenia, paranoid type.’”

Chase was transferred to Beverly Manor, a long-term mental hospital. Chase, who was visibly nervous entering the institution, stated, “Food poisoning is why I am here.”

However, it wasn’t long before the staff noticed a slight improvement in the patient’s condition, noting that while he initially was “withdrawn, reclusive, and uncooperative,” he “eventually participated more in programs and activities and socialized with other patients and with staff.”

24. June 20, 1976: But that period of calm wouldn’t last long. An entry from the hospital records dated June 20th, read that Richard was suspected of “killing and maiming animals. Two dead birds ... found outside his room with their heads broken off last Wednesday. The housekeeper saw (Chase) outside his room, but could not see what he was doing. ... When he came in, he had blood all over him.” You know, normal shit.

When he was asked what the fuck he was doing, he said he had cut himself shaving. Another bird was found later by an orderly in his trash can. In another creepy bird-related incident, he was found on the hospital grounds some bushes surrounded by feathers with blood all over his face.

So disturbing. And also… weirdly impressive. How is this sick fuck catching birds with his bare hands? You ever tried to catch a bird with your hands? I used to try as a kid, and, REAL HARD. Bird, if you haven’t noticed, tend to be pretty quick and good at flying which makes them hard to catch. There’s a reason bird hunters use shotguns and not sticks to kill them.

At this point, Chase believed he needed the blood from birds, or whatever poor animals crossed his path, to stay alive.

On the other hand, he seemed to improve, or maybe got better at hiding his absolute batshit craziness. He began playing basketball and became more consistent in communicating with the staff and in peer groups.

25. September 29, 1976: On September 29th, 1976, Doctor Buckley noted, “Thinking much clearer as compared to time of admission. Will discharge to be under care of parents and follow-up physician. Thought disorder improved. Prognosis: Fair. Will continue on same medications. Diagnosis paranoid schizophrenia. Restorative potential: guarded.”

And just like that, Richard was free. Although his mom is put in charge of him through a court ordered conservatorship that will last for a 18 months.

And I do have to give it up for his parents here. It’s not easy to get a grown up involuntarily committed to a mental health facility for longer than 72 hours. And it’s real hard to have someone committed for longer than two weeks.

Currently in California, a 72 hour involuntary hold - called a 5150 - can be obtained if a person is deemed, due to mental illness, “a danger to others, or to himself or herself, or gravely disabled."

If they’re deemed still dangerous to release after 72 hours by a psychiatrist, the doctor can ask for a 5250 hold that keeps someone for 14 days. But it involves a committee review and the committed person has to appear before a judge within 48 hours into their stay, and… well… the whole thing sounds like it involves a whole bunch of red tape. It’s not easy to have done.

Its hard to have someone who hasn’t been arrested for a serious crime involuntarily committed to a psychiatric care facility for a long period of time because of protections afforded to US citizens via the 1st section of the 14th amendment: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

And that’s awesome… except in cases like this.

Then it sucks.

No legal system is perfect and to ensure that perfectly sane people aren’t illegally locked up for years in mental institutions against their wills - which DID happen for decades in America in the 19th century and in the early 20th century - we now err so far on the side of caution that obviously dangerous and severely mentally ill people are often left to wander our streets.

I used to live near several of these people in Santa Monica, California. And next to traffic, it’s one of the main reasons I don’t miss living there.

Not fun having severely mentally ill people sleeping in the alley directly behind your apartment. And you have to walk your wife to her car because she’s scared to be near them alone. And you can’t let your kids ever go out and play in the neighborhood.

Not sure what to do about this problem. Society. The bigger it gets the harder it becomes to take care of everyone. https://www.stimmel-law.com/en/articles/involuntary- commitment-conservatorships-and-guardianships

Now back to Richard being released.

His divorced parents work together to set him up in apartment 12 of the Evergreen Apartments at 2934 Watt Avenue.

He’s taking his meds again - real meds - and according to his mother, he’s “easy to handle” although she doesn't like seeing him move around throughout the day “like a zombie.”

And because she doesn’t like seeing him act like a zombie, Beatrice Chase does something really, really, really stupid that will lead directly to a series of murders. Murders that aren’t her fault - I’m not saying that - but, this is fucked up.

According to a later police report, in December of 1976, Little Dick’s Mom “took it upon herself to wean him off all his medications, and by January, 1977, he was no longer taking any drugs.”

This is such a classic case of the blind leading the blind, except it's the mentally ill leading the even more mentally ill.

Why, Beatrice, why!?! Isn’t a zombie better than a dude who cuts dogs and injects rabbit blood into his veins?

Poor Beatrice, she would soon come to REALLY regret this decision.

Off his medication, not receiving follow-up visits or outpatient care, and not even seeing a regular psychiatrist - Richard Chase turned into a ticking time bomb.

He becomes nocturnal, sleeping by day and roaming the streets of Sacramento at night.

He creeps around to various places including the Country Club Lanes Bowling Alley bar. I’m sure the regulars and staff from that time have some STORIES.

He meets some other people his age, and some of them end up staying with him at his apartment.

And then he can’t get rid of them and his dad has to run them off. What was going on with these people where the Vampire of Sacramento is weirded out by THEM?

“Dad. DAD! You have to help me. My new roommates are fucking crazy. Last night, I was minding my own business in the living room trying to count how many bones had fallen out of the back of my head when TOMMY starts talking all this GIBBERISH to me. Dude is NUTS. He told me that police are trying to poison his water. As if I don’t know the police only use GAS POISON. DUH!”

Little Dick, in addition to now being off his antipsychotics - is also back to using drugs.

METH!

FUCK YEAH, BRO! That’s EXACTLY what this timeline needs.

His paranoia returns. Dicky Orange Slices is BACK baby!

Beatrice had been handling his Social Security payments and taking care of his rent, but now Chase becomes convinced that Beatrice and Pamela are trying to poison them.

Still glad he’s off his meds, ma!?!

Again - what a nightmare for this family.

When Richard was still on his meds, he was starting to do well again.

He and his dad would go bowling at Country Club Lanes every Sunday and Richard Sr. would bring his son groceries.

But off his meds - Richard bans his dad from his apartment. His mom and sister are trying to poison him, and his dad is, who knows, taking all the good rabbit blood and not sharing it or something.

26. Late 1976/Early 1977: In late 1976, Chase shaves his head completely bald down to the skin.

Sweet. I’m sure he’s not terrifying anyone.

He also starts going to his doctor’s office in late 1976 and asking for blood.

He’ll tell the nurses and anyone else there that he’s tired and not sleeping well and needs a little extra blood.

C’mon, assholes! Stop hoarding all the blood! Dickard’s thirsty! He only needs it because some asshole stole his pulmonary artery again!

The nurses consistently, of course, tell him to leave.

According to one nurse, sometimes when Chase would come, he’s see that the waiting room was busy, and leave without speaking to anyone.

So weird. Like going to a busy taco stand and seeing how long the line is. “Nah… not today.” Except it’s a doctor’s office and he doesn’t want some sweet carnitas street tacos - he wants blood.

Now he really starts to spiral out of control, desperate for the blood he believes he needs to live.

Desperate, he goes back to animals for blood. Small birds, cats, dogs, rabbits - any small animal he can get ahold of he is now killing and drinking their blood.

Around this time, Dickard’s court ordered conservatorship expires, and now he can do as he pleases. Not that his parents were doing anything anyway by early 1977. I think they’d given up.

What could go wrong?

27. June 1977: In June of 1977, the twenty-seven year old Chase decides he wants to head east.

His mom gives him $1,450 - he moves out of his apartment - and his dad drives him to the bus station and buys him a ticket for Washington, D.C.

This really, REALLY feels like they just want to ship him across the country and hope he never comes back.

And I can’t really blame them.

On his journey, Richard gets off the bus once he’s out of California and he buys a silver-gray 1966 Ford Ranchero from a man in Steamboat Springs, Colorado for $800.

28. July 3, 1977: And then, homesick, he drives that Ford Ranchero back to the Evergreen Apartments on Watt Avenue he’d just moved out of, arriving on July 3rd, 1977.

This time he rents apartment number 15.

And I doubt his parents are thrilled.

(Faking excitement) “Oh hey, Richard. That’s SO GREAT that you’re back already. Hahaha. I thought you were, you know, moving across the country. Like, CLEAR across it, but, now you’re back in the same apartment building after like, what, four weeks? Less? That’s SOOOO COOOOOL.”

As you can imagine, Little Dick wasn’t the best neighbor.

One of his Evergreen neighbors, Linda Dillon, later recalled him being weird… as… fuck.

She would later tell investigators that she’d see him walking around the complex with his mouth hanging open, often “dragging one foot” as he walked. Probably another gas side effect. Or maybe a side effect of too much brain vitamin C or rabbit’s blood.

She said she’d try and engage him when she’d run into him, saying hi and making small talk, but he’d never respond.

Also, one time Chase wandered into her apartment uninvited - remember, they never talked— only to leave immediately after seeing that other people were there.

So creepy.

When Chase finally did talk to her, he cornered her in the apartment’s parking lot and asked for a cigarette. Then, when she gave him one, he demanded more, so she gave him the whole pack.

She said he had a strange, blank look on his face that really creeped her out.

Another day she saw him bring two dogs and a cat into his apartment, but she never heard or saw them again.

Uh oh.

That’s not good. I think we can also guess what happened to those animals.

THEN - even more disturbing, one day she saw him wandering around the apartment complex carrying a shotgun.

Yep. Just going for a casual stroll around the apartment complex common area, carrying what she and other residents presumed to be a loaded shotgun.

Which was not technically illegal since he wasn’t pointing it anyone or menacing anyone with it.

This made Linda and all the other residents a bit uneasy to say the least.

The apartment manager talked to Richard and asked him to at least put the gun in a blanket if he wanted to run around with it. And he apparently complied.

How uncomfortable was that conversation?

(Apartment manager) “Hey Richard, how’s it going, buddy?”

(Richard) “Okay. Been drinking enough pet blood to keep my bones in my head.”

(Apartment manager) “Well alright. That’s good. Always good to keep all of your, um, keep all of your head bones.

(Richard) “And make sure no one takes your pulmonary artery!”

(Apartment manager) “Yeah. Totally. That too….. Hey, about the shotgun. Do you think you could maybe keep it in your apartment?”

(Richard) “And let those Utah police gas me again!?! I don’t think so!”

(Apartment manager) “Alright. Okay, Richard….Well, what if I gave you a blanket and you just put it over the gun? That way, when the gas police come for you, you can get the jump on them.”

(Richard) “I LIKE THAT! Yes, yes, YES!”

If this guy is your neighbor and authorities won’t take care of him, do you at least consider killing him? Or kidnapping him, driving him 1,000 miles away, and then just releasing him in the wild? Almost like live-trapping a pesky raccoon or skunk or something and then rereleasing it somewhere else.

29. Summer 1977: In the summer of 1977, twenty-seven year-old Richard kills both of his mom’s dogs as well as a cat.

…we think.

He is the son from Hell.

When Richard Sr. confronted his son, ol’ Dick Jr. denies this.

And then later on, while he doesn’t actually admit to killing them, he does tell his mom, when she confronts him, that the dogs belonged to him and that he “had a right to do what I wanted to.”

So that makes him look pretty guilty. And then this next thing I’m gonna tell you makes him look real, real guilty.

Apparently, his mom had more than one cat and he didn’t kill them all.

One afternoon, Beatrice heard knocking on her front door. Thinking it was Richard, she decided not to open it. Can’t blame her there.

They’d had another disagreement about something and she was purposely avoiding him.

I’m guessing this was a regular occurrence.

The next thing she heard was a loud bang. Opening the door, she saw Richard holding her dead cat by the tail.

He’d just shot her cat in the fucking head on his mom’s front porch.

Blood was splattered all over the place, and as Beatrice stared at him, Richard wiped some of the cat’s blood on the back of his neck.

What happens next? Sources don’t say. I’m guessing she didn’t hug him and invite him in for dinner. It also doesn’t appear that he got in any legal trouble for this incident, so she didn’t call the police. And she he didn’t go back into the mental hospital, she clearly didn’t call them either.

Again, this dude needed to be committed for life.

30. August 3, 1977: Shortly after this terrible incident, on August 3rd, 1977, Chase found himself just sitting in the hot sun along a rocky area of Pyramid Lake, Nevada, some two hundred miles from Sacramento.

What was he doing there? He’d claim he was hunting. And, I guess he was in his own way.

He ended up completely naked, alone, and covered in blood. Just chilling. Just vibing.

Approximately one-half to three-quarters of a mile away, and across the lake, sat his Ford Ranchero.

Inside the vehicle, there were two rifles, a .22 and a Marlin .30-30.

Both weapons had blood on them, as did most of the the inside of the vehicle. There was also a blood filled white bucket with a liver inside it.

Fun.

Earlier that morning, he’d gotten his truck stuck in some sand.

And then a witness named Carman Tobey Sr. watched Richard leave the vehicle and set out towards what’s called the “Pinnacles area” with a dog.

The way he did this weirded Carman out, and he called the police.

And then Bureau of Indian Affairs officers Charles O’Brien, Manuel Sabori, and Leland Johnson, along with Tribal officers Leroy Phoenix and Edward Crutcher responded to the call.

“At this time,” Officer O’Brien later wrote in his report, “I started to scan the area with field glasses, and as I looked to the south, I saw a white male subject squatting in the sand, watching us. He was approximately one-half to three-quarters of a mile away from us. He was completely nude.

I found him very attractive and I loosened my belt buckle enough for me to unzip my pants and access my penis, which was becoming erect.

As I watched the naked man across the lake I began to slowly and passionately… manually pleasure myself.

As I began to approach my climax, I told the fellow officers accompanying me on the call to please look away and they obliged. I finished, wiped my hand on what I believe to be some deergrass, zipped up my pants, tightened my belt, and then we approached the subject now not as an object of carnal desire, but as the possible perpetrator of numerous criminal acts….”

Wait!

No. He didn’t write all of that. He wrote all of that up unto seeing Richard nude. Then I wrote the rest.

What he wrote after seeing Richard nude was:

Officers Johnson and Sabori started after him on foot. Subject then started running towards the lake, with officers in foot pursuit. Tribal officers Phoenix and Crutcher started out to head subject off; the officers were equipped with a four-wheel-drive vehicle.”

Within minutes, Little Dick - naked and covered in blood - was apprehended.

Chase - despite the insanity of his appearance - spoke clearly to the officers and had no trouble letting them know his correct name, age, and address.

BUT - when asked about the blood covering him and in his truck, he suddenly seemed confused - or perhaps evasive.

Officer O’Brien reported, “I asked Mr. Chase where all the blood on his face came from. He told me that the blood was seeping from his skin. I asked some further questions, which he would not answer. I then asked him again about the blood on his face and body. He told me then that he had shot a deer. I asked him where and when, and he told me in Colorado in May.”

Oh boy.

The dog accompanying Chase that morning was now missing, and when questioned about it, he said he didn’t know where the dog was. The investigators also noticed he was wearing a knife sheath, and that the knife was missing.

After a brief struggle, Chase is arrested and held while the blood and liver found in the Ranchero were tested.

O’Brien placed a call to the U.S. Attorney in Reno, and informed him of the situation. The U.S. Attorney advised the officers to arrest Chase for unlawful possession of a weapon and bringing an unlawful weapon across state lines. They placed him under arrest, gave him his Miranda warning and then booked him into the Washoe County jail.

When the lab reports came back that the blood and liver were from an animal, Chase was released. Sources don’t say WHAT kind of animal the liver belonged to. I’m guessing it was that poor dog.

Back into the world he goes. As insane as the circumstances of his arrest were, they didn’t have a ton to charge him with.

They didn’t give him back his Ranchero, however, there being an issue with his registration.

Chase now called his poor mother and lied about the real problem, telling her it was all a big mix-up, as he’d really just killed some rabbits, had gotten blood all over himself, and was mistakenly arrested.

Beatrice then called his dad, and Papa Dick drove to Sparks, Nevada, to pick up his son, and Richard gave him the same bullshit story.

And I find this really interesting.

YES - Richard Chase Jr. was INCREDIBLY mentally ill.

No doubt about it.

BUT - he clearly knew that what he was doing was wrong. At least knew it was “illegal”. Otherwise - why lie to police? Why lie to his parents in moments like this?

Why try and conceal his terrible actions?

He reminds of blatantly mentally ill people on the street I’ve given food or money to over the years. One moment they’re talking to someone who isn’t there - arguing with voices in their head - and then the next, their comparatively extremely lucid thanking me for the money, sometimes asking me for more money, or whatever, sometimes saying “God Bless you,” while making eye contact, clearly mentally present and with me in that moment. And then I walk away and the babbling begins again.

With Chase, I think - how much of his horrible behavior could he truly blame on his mental illness? All of it? Some of it? None of it?

If you are hearing voices in your head, if you are paranoid and think people are out to get you, if you think your pulmonary artery has been stolen and you need pet blood because your heart isn’t beating, BUT, you also know that killing pets is wrong - how responsible are you for killing the pet? How much of a pass should mental illness give you?

Who’s responsible for Chase’s behavior? Who will be responsible for the murders he will soon commit? Him? His parents? The psychiatrists who previously signed off on releasing him back into society?

Soon after his dad picked him up from jail and brought him back to Sacramento, Chase was able to travel back to Sparks, Nevada, and obtain the release of his car.

He had to prove that he owned the car and replace its expired Florida license tags. Not sure why it had those.

Ms. Macia Luis, of the Washoe County Sheriff’s Department, handled Chase’s claim. Although she reported Chase looked “raunchy” every time he showed up, he always was calm and courteous.

After numerous attempts, Chase was finally able to sort everything out and get his Ranchero back.

31.September 1977: By September of 1977, Chases’s desire to drink blood had increased significantly. He began obtaining dogs on a regular basis, both by stealing people’s pets and purchasing them, to satisfy his sick desires.

This dude has become such a ghoul.

32. October 1, 1977: On October 1st, records show that Chase bought a dog from the SPCA for fifteen dollars and ninety cents.

On October 10th, 1977, he bought another dog from the SPCA for the same price.

In October or November, Chase went to the home of Alane Maier to purchase a dog. The advertised price was twenty-five dollars, but Chase tried to talk her down to twenty-three dollars. She wouldn’t lower the price and grumbled about having to spend the extra two bucks. Alane Maier later told investigators that Chase seemed normal but that the dog didn’t want to go with him.

That poor dog.

The dog’s tags later were recovered in his apartment.

This guy was a canine serial killer before he became a human serial killer. I can’t recall ever reading about someone who so methodically sought out and killed dogs like this guy did.

Ready for more sadness? The rest of this timeline just keeps getting worse.

33. November, 1977: In mid-November of ‘77, Chase responds to an ad for Labrador puppies, ten dollars apiece.

At this point in the initial research - Bojangles let himself outside to go for walk. And by “let himself outside,” I mean he Bruce Lee kicked a hole through the wall and then blew off some steam by mauling a jogger.

The seller, a Mr. Daniel Owens, said he returned home at 4:00PM and found Chase staring over his back fence.

Chase introduced himself as a breeder and asked if he could get a two-for-one price. Owens agreed, and Chase then took two. Owens thought it was odd that Chase, supposedly a breeder, didn’t pay any attention to the sex of the puppies he picked.

Mentally ill or not, Chase is a fucking monster.

Also in mid-November, Chase stole a dog belonging to the Sundseth family and wasn’t content with simply killing and mutilating the dog. When the Sundseths placed an ad in the newspaper, Chase called and taunted them, giving details that only the owner of the dog would know, then hung up.

Once again, the dog’s tag and collar were later found in his residence.

Was doing that part of his schizophrenia? OR - in addition to being schizophrenic, was he ALSO just a huge piece of shit? Just a morally bankrupt sadistic asshole? It’s not like being mentally ill means that if you weren’t mentally ill, you’d be an amazing person.

Chase would later admit to taking many of these dogs back to his apartment and hanging them. And then he would drink their blood and eat their flesh raw.

34. December 2, 1977: On December 2nd, 1977, Chase entered Big 5 Sporting Goods and purchased a Stoeger Arms, Luger-style .22- caliber pistol. Awesome! That’s what this dude needs. Another gun.

This timeline needs more guns and more meth.

There was two-week waiting period before Chase would be permitted to own the gun.

When asked whether he was mentally ill or had ever been a patient in a mental hospital, Chase said no. And because it was 1977 and convenient national computer databases didn’t exist yet - the sporting goods store employee had no way to prove Chase was lying.

He paid sixty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents, cash. And then he asked his mother to buy him a holster. She refused.

Linda Dillon, who would soon be leaving the apartment complex because Chase scared the shit out of her - good call Linda - stated later that she heard shooting inside Chase’s apartment on at least two occasions.

Chase later confirmed this, saying he was shooting at that voices he was hearing.

My GOD this guy is cartoonishly insane.

35. December 22 and 23, 1977: On December 22nd and 23rd, Chases picks up some copies of the local newspaper, The Sacramento Bee. And he keeps pages with articles on singles and dating and circles some ads offering free dogs.

What a weird combo! He wanted dogs for their blood AND ALSO to maybe sneak in some dates. Find a girlfriend. Can you imagine going on a date this dude?

(Date) “So, Richard, what do you do?”

(Richard) “Right now, I’m working at a blood bank.”

(Date) “Oh, cool. Are you a lab tech or something?”

(Richard) “I catch and hang dogs.”

(Date) “What?”

(Richard) “I catch and hang the dogs and I shoot the voices. And I make sure MOM doesn’t poison me anymore. I have to keep my blood moving. If someone steals my pulmonary artery again, I might die.”

(Waiter) “Alright, are you two ready to order?”

(Richard) “I’ll have some fresh orange slices wrapped in a towel with a glass of dog blood.”

Richard had mentioned to his mother that he wanted a coat, and his dad picked him up a few days before Christmas and drove him to Weinstock’s, a Sacramento-based department store.

Mr. Chase purchased an orange down parka his son liked.

That day, Papa Dick later reported that Richard “seemed all right, but after the purchase was anxious to leave.”

Over next month, Richard Sr. spoke to his son several times, and didn’t hear anything about the health problems that Richard had complained of so frequently before.

He was hopeful that his son was getting better again. He wasn’t. He was just about to get way, way worse.

Considering he was now just days away from committing his first murder, it’s odd that his physical appearance and demeanor seemed to get better.

Richard begged both of his parents to come to their homes for Christmas, and neither would allow him to come over.

Can’t blame them one bit. All this guy does is ruin shit for everyone.

Beatrice would later tell the District Attorney, “I felt awful about not inviting him down at Christmas, but I did invite him to go out with me. I took all his gifts and lots of good things up there for him to his apartment, but it wasn’t like being with the people that he wanted and loved, I don’t know, I hope that he loves.”

According to Holly, Richard’s grandmother, Richard also called her over and over again, begging to come home for Christmas.

No one wanted this motherfucker in their homes.

When Beatrice visited him at his apartment, he did seem happy to at least have that. He said, regarding presents she brought him, “All these for me?”

Later, when they returned to take him out to dinner, he also seemed pretty normal. He was dressed in new clothes, and looked good.

36. December 26, 1977: But of course, he wasn’t good. On December 26th, Chase purchased an additional box of ammunition.

Then a day or two later, he’d fire it at a neighbor’s residence.

And then shit would hit the fan.

37. December 29, 1977: On December 29th, despite appearing “normal” to family only a few days before, Richard Chase, the Vampire of Sacramento, murders his first victim.

Crazy that we’ve just arrived at the first murder.

This has to be the craziest serial killer story so far, in terms of what they did BEFORE killing their first person. This tale might be more insane so far than Albert Fish’s life was before he first killed. Maybe. Drinking dog blood and injecting rabbit blood into his veins might be crazier then eating (Albert Fish) “peanut butt butter and drinking hot apple cider and getting your fat bottom spanked bloody with a cat on nine tail. Showbiz!”

On December 29th, a fifty-one year old white man named Ambrose Griffin was just picking up the last of his grocery bags when Chase fired two shots out of his car.

One bullet entered Mr. Griffin’s chest and killed him while Chase sped away.

Authorities were baffled.

They couldn’t begin to guess at the motivations behind these crimes. I’m not sure Chase understood his motivation either.

38. January 5, 1978: On January 5th, 1978, Chase collected a “trophy” of sorts when he bought a copy of the Sacramento Bee that had an article about the murder of Ambrose Griffin.

To add his budding taste for murder, his inner arsonist was also screaming to be let out.

39. January 16, 1978: On January 16th, he started a fire in a garage in the 3000 block of Watt Avenue. Lighting some newspapers that were sitting on a shelf, the fire was discovered quickly and put out and he wasn’t caught.

Why did he want to burn a random garage?

According to him, he believed the people in the neighborhood were spying on him, and he wanted to drive them away. Oddly, just a few weeks after shooting a stranger dead, he knocked on the door of his target residence to make sure no one would die.

Also odd - he managed to seem somewhat-normal to his family in early 1978.

A few days later after the fire, Chase mentioned to his mother that he wanted to go rock collecting with his dad and the two made plans for a father-son outing.

40. January 21, 1978: On January 21st, Mr. Chase picked Richard up and the two went hiking and rock collecting. Richard Sr. said his son “did not act bizarre, said nothing unusual.” He made “no complaints about health, no arguments,” and that they “got along well together.”

This story is so, so weird.

41. January 22, 1978: Then, on January 22nd, at 1:00 AM, just a little over twelve hours after the rock collecting, Chase broke a window at 3040 Watt Avenue, crawled inside, and set fire to the drapes of the Nelson residence.

Again, he checked to see if anyone was home. The fire department was called quickly, and they put out a fire that had only spread to a speaker cabinet and the carpet.

That evening, Chase visited his mother and grandmother at her Beatrice’s house, and neither woman asked him to leave. Which was rare.

They thought he looked fine and his grandma even gave him ten dollars before he left. As he was leaving, Richard asked his grandma about her dog. How was it? What had it been up to?

Ugh. He was probably fantasizing about killing and eating it and drinking its blood.

They had no idea what he’d been up to.

42. January 23, 1978: On January 23rd, Chase would finish his descent into complete and total monstrosity.

He awoke that morning and left his apartment on Watt Avenue, and headed east on foot towards Burnece Street.

He was wearing a blue jacket and carrying a loaded semi-automatic .22 and a pair of rubber gloves. When he came to 2909 Burnece, there was no car in the driveway, so Chase went around to the back of the house and tried to force open the door.

Jeanne Layton, who was watching television, heard a noise in the rear of the house and found Chase on her back porch. It was between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. Chase saw her through the window and blurted out, “Excuse me.” He then sat on her porch for the next few minutes.

Ms. Layton wasted no time calling the police, and a few minutes later, Chase left.

Jeanne would soon learn how lucky she was to have survived this encounter.

From there, Little Dick walked north - oddly, staying on Burnece, even though he understood the police had been called— and decided to pay the Edwards residence, at 2929 Burnece, a visit.

This time, the house was empty.

Unbeknownst to Chase, the Edwards were on their way back home by the time Chase started his burglary.

Chase entered through a rear window, and once inside, he went through some drawers and boxes looking for god knows what. Rabbit blood maybe. Fresh oranges.

No. He was looking for money. Money he probably wanted to use to BUY rabbit’s blood and oranges.

Within minutes, Chase had sixteen dollars, at which point he began loading a bag with other valuables.

And THE he took a piss in a drawer filled with clothing and THEN … he took a shit on one the Edwards’ kids’ beds.

And then the Edwards came home.

Chase fled out the back window and jumped over a fence. and Mr. Edwards ran after him. As the two men ran through the neighborhood, Edwards kept yelling for him to stop.

At one point, Chase yelled back, “I’m only taking a shortcut.”

Haha. That cracks me up for some reason.

“Sorry about taking a shit on your kids’ bed. I was just taking a shortcut!”

Chase lost Mr. Edwards, but only temporarily, as Mr. Edwards returned home, got into his car, and then spotted Chase again on Watt Avenue. If only he could have ran him over and killed him.

Nope. Chase was quick and he escaped again.

Soon, Richard Chase was back inside his apartment, but only long enough to change his jacket. He wasn’t done fucking up people’s lives. He’d kill again.

At approximately 11:45 AM, Richard Chase made his way to the parking lot of the Pantry Market. He was wearing his new orange parka, he was extremely dirty, and he had some type of crusty substance around his mouth.

For Richard Chase - he was doing pretty good.

A high school friend of his, Nancy Westfall, spotted him in the parking lot before parking her car and entering the store. She didn’t recognize who he was. No sooner had she started her shopping than she heard a man’s voice calling out her name.

It was, of course, Chase. As she turned around, Richard asked, “Weren’t you on Curt’s motorcycle when he was killed?”

Nancy had no fucking clue what he was talking about. This guy’s brain was so damn scrambled. She said “no” and asked him who he was.

He then identified himself as “Count Dickard: Drinker of Dog Blood.”

No, he said his name was “Rick,” and she said, “You’re Rick Chase,” and Chase said, “You’re Nancy Westfall.” And then he nodded and turned and walked away as one does when you run into an old friend.

A few minutes later, Captain Crazypants approached Nancy again. She asked, “What have you been up to, Rick?”

And instead of answering her, he replied, “Where are you going?”

Again, AS ONE DOES when you just starting to talk to someone you haven’t seen in ten years.

She gestured towards the cash register and he said, “To the bank?” She said yes. He asked her if she had to write a check and she said, “No, I do it for work.”

What a confusing conversation.

Nancy, who’d later remark how filthy Chase was, with stained clothes and a strange crust around his mouth, had only one thing on her mind — getting away from this maniac.

Good job, Nance! Way to follow your instincts.

As she paid for her items, Chase stood behind her with only an orange juice to purchase. Haha! Of course he’s drinking orange juice.

As soon as Nancy finished checking out, she hurried towards the door. Chase called out, “wait ... hey, wait,” but Nancy Holden had no intention of waiting.

And like Jeanne Layton - she would be SO GLAD she only had an uncomfortable interaction with Richard Chase, Jr. that day.

As she backed out of the space, Chase caught up with her and attempted to grab the passenger door handle, but missed it by about a foot as she sped out of the lot. Driving away, Nancy looked in her rearview mirror and, for a second, watched as Chase just stood there looking in her direction, before turning and walking away.

Meanwhile, only a few blocks away, Teresa Wallin, twenty-two, walked out her back door at the home where she and her husband lived at 2630 Tioga Way. She walked through her backyard, continued out the back gate, walked for a bit and then also entered the Pantry Market. The checker, who knew Wallin, said she was in the store between 10:30 a.m. and noon.

A pretty girl, Teresa had been married to David Wallin for almost three years and was three months’ pregnant.

After leaving the store, she walked straight back home.

Her husband, employed as a truck driver at National Linen, had left about 6:30 that morning while she was still asleep.

Teresa, a state worker, had the day off. She would soon Richard as well, and not be nearly as lucky as Jeanne and Nancy.

Back to Richard.

He watched Nancy Holden drive away from the Pantry Market and then turned and began walking towards Tioga Way. He passed through a small park, then immediately turned left and walked across the front porch of Richard and Sheila Eastlick at 2710 Tioga Way.

Richard Eastlick - how many Dicks were living in Sacramento at this time? _ who’d been watching television in his living room, immediately got up and saw a thin, dirty, creepy white male wearing an orange ski jacket heading towards Fulton Avenue.

Two doors down - towards Fulton Avenue - sat the Wallin home.

Teresa Wallin, back home from the supermarket, was busy cleaning. She’d left the front door unlocked which was normal, especially during the day in her usually safe neighborhood.

What happened next would be anything but normal.

The front door flew open and Richard Chase pulled out his .22 pistol.

He aimed it at Teresa, who was carrying a white plastic garbage bag out of the house.

Seeing the weapon, she threw her right arm up in a vain attempt to protect herself.

Chase fired and the bullet passed through Wallin’s hand near her wrist and grazed her head.

Then he quickly fired again and the next shot slammed into her cheek, breaking her jaw.

Chase then fired a third and final time, and this last bullet pierced her brain and rendered her unconscious.

Why? Why her?

Chase would later tell detectives that he “just wanted to kill her, it could have been anybody.”

With Wallin not yet dead and lying on the living room floor, Chase put on rubber gloves and dragged his victim to a rear bedroom.

Leaving her on the floor, Chase pulled her sweater and bra above her breasts and pulled her pants and panties down to her ankles. He took her left leg and angled it to the right and bent it, exposing her pubic region. And then, taking a knife from the kitchen, Chase began to mutilate the young wife and mother-to-be…

According to court records, Richard Chase attacked her organs, slicing her pancreas in half and cutting her spleen out of her body.

Investigators found cuts on her stomach and liver, and parts of her large and small intestines were pulled out of her body. Both of the kidneys were cut out of their proper positions and one was nearly cut in half; they recovered one of the kidneys bizarrely placed inside her chest. A portion of her lower lung was completely sawed off and there were stab wounds in her heart. Thy think that most of this was done before she was dead.

Thank God she was at least unconsciousness.

While doing this, Chase used an empty yogurt cup and was able to fill it with blood, and then drank from the cup.

Chase ALSO stabbed Teresa Wallin through the left breast, “once superficially, once through the nipple, and on through to the lung, thrusting knife three times through wound.”

THEN - still not done - this fucking maniac placed dried dog shit that he’d found in the backyard in her mouth.

Can THAT be blamed on mental illness? Or - does he just hate women?

After defiling Teresa, he walked into her bathroom and washed the rubber glovers. Then he wiped the knife with a scarf, washed it, and and lay it underneath other dishes in the dish rack.

So weird. Leaves her body with literal dog shit in her mouth, but makes sure to put the murder weapon in the dishwasher.

Chase then leaves through the back door and exits the property through the back gate.

He goes home and watches TV like he didn’t just do what he did.

Meanwhile, David Wallin, Teresa’s husband, is on his way back home from training a new driver at work.

He clocked out around 5:00 PM, and headed to Slick Willies Bar at Fulton and Cottage with a co-worker. After splitting two pitchers of beer, the two men called it a night, and David Wallin got into his car for the short drive home.

Just before entering and having his life permanently changed for the worse, David flipped on the porch light to give him some light, seeing that the house was entirely dark inside. As he stepped into his home, he discovered that not only was the house dark, but the stereo was playing.

David immediately noticed that there was garbage all over the front room.

He called out to Teresa, but received no answer, and then their German shepherd, Brutus, came up to him and was acting strangely.

I can’t believe Richard let the dog live.

He also spotted what he thought was a circular patch of oil on the floor and he followed some additional “spots” leading to the master bedroom.

Rounding the corner to the bedroom, he was met with the lifeless and mutilated body of his wife. He looked only long enough to see a large wound in her stomach, her tongue hanging out, and her eyes open.

FUUUUUUUCK.

He started screaming and ran from the room before calling his father. His brother, John, answered the phone and he told them what happened, then rushed out of the house and went next door to his neighbor’s home, saying, “My wife is dead.”

David’s parents arrived and found Teresa’s mutilated body before David could come outside and warn them.

Within minutes, patrol officers Gary Flanagan and Tom Savage responded to the scene. As they pulled up to the house, they noticed the front door was open and several people were standing in the living room. As the officers approached them, David Wallin said, “You’ve got a murder on your hands, boys. My wife’s in the bedroom, she’s been murdered.”

Jesus.

The officers secured the scene and contacted the dispatcher to send detectives from homicide, as well as the coroner. The quiet residential street was suddenly swarming with neighbors and police.

Heading up the investigation was Lieutenant Ray Biondi, an experienced investigator and known as an “all-around good cop” who was well respected by his peers. Biondi told the detectives, “We need to hurry up and catch the sick son of a bitch who did this.”

It was clear to Biondi that whoever had done it was likely to do it again. And soon.

He was right.

43. January 24, 1978: The next day, on January 24th, Chase purchased a copy of The Sacramento Bee, once again enjoying the report regarding his kill.

And he wanted to kill again as soon as possible.

He also wanted… um… some old magazines?

Between 10:00 and 10:30 AM, Chase walked up to the front door of Lawrence and Betty Lawman at 3216 Sunview Avenue. When Mr. Lawman asked him what he wanted, Chase said that he was collecting old magazines. Lawman said he didn’t have any, and Chase left.

Huh.

He was next spotted at 1:00 PM at 2412 Brentwood, where he again asked for more magazines, and was turned away.

He then called his mom to ask her if she wanted to go on a picnic, and his grandmother picked up. According to Holly, her grandson “seemed in good spirits.”

This guy, if he would’ve written his plans down, would have the most fucked up to-do lists.

(Richard Chase) “Okay, Ricky - you good boy you - what’s on the docket? (1) One. Grab some orange juice. Always orange juice. (2) Two. Drink some blood. (3) Three. Find as many old magazines as possible. (4) Four. Call Mom and set up pic nic. (5) Five. Kill someone.

At 10:15 AM on January 25th, he was spotted at the Heise residence at 3133 Pennland. The same neighborhood he’d looked for magazines the day before.

Here, he AGAIN asked for old magazines, and again did not receive any.

Not having any luck finding any old magazines or people he wanted to kill, Chase revisited the Owens place, where he’d purchased those two puppies back in November.

Chase knew Mr. Owens’ schedule, and he was able to get inside when he wasn’t home and find one of his Labradors.

He shot one in the head, then cut open the dog’s stomach and removed its kidneys, and then drank its blood before leaving.

And I’m now numb to a lot of what he’s doing. “Yeah. Of course he did. That’s what he DO. He drinks blood. He kills people’s dogs. This is just Little Dick being Little Dick. CLASSIC Chase!”

That night, Chase called his mother, and this time, she was home.

During the conversation, he spoke of “rockets, spacecraft, (and) joked about little green men.”

Beatrice Chase would later say that she and Richard had a “jolly conversation.”

What a strange, STRANGE life he is leading.

While Chase is looking for more victims, the police were working long hours knocking on doors and following up every available lead.

None of their leads were promising and they found nothing but dead ends.

As brutal as this recent murder was - it wasn’t connected immediately to Chase’s first two murders, so they didn’t think immediately they had a serial killer.

At first, they thought one of Teresa Wallin’s boyfriend’s might have killed her.

AND - they were more concerned with another string of local crimes.

The sheriff’s department had instituted a task force to catch an individual known as the East Area Rapist (EAR) who had racked up thirty-eight rapes in two years, and investigators were busy trying to catch the man who would become the Golden State Killer - a past suck subject we now know is Joseph James DeAngelo. Just a few weeks ago, on August 21st, 2020, that now 74 year-old dirtbag finally received multiple life sentences with no possibility of parole for all of his heinous crimes.

BUT - I don’t want to give the impression that they weren’t also trying to find Richard. t

They were sickened by the brutality of Teresa’s murder. They had to find the guy who did this.

44. January 26, 1978: On January 26th, three days after Teresa had been butchered, Chase migrated over to Merrywood Drive to look for new victims. And probably old magazines. And possibly fresh oranges and rabbit’s blood.

Like the previous places he’d visited, he was just several blocks from where he lived.

Chase stopped at the Scott residence at 2407 Merrywood on the 26th and spoke to Mrs. Scott, asking for magazines. Of course. Always the magazines.

Mrs. Scott turned him down.

Chase next stopped at the Klimek home at 2837 Merrywood around 11:00 a.m. Knocking on the door, Ms. Klimek looked through the peephole and asked, “Who’s there?” And Chase didn’t answer.

She then asked what he wanted; he said, can you guess? Yes that’s right - “magazines” And she said no.

Then Chase sat on her porch for a few minutes before leaving.

Investigators would later speculate that Chase waited around, as he had at the Layton house, debating whether he could get away with killing the home’s inhabitants. He may not have actually given a shit about magazines. He wasn’t completely separated from reality. He knew he wanted to kill and he wanted to get away with it. And his magazine question may just have been the best thing he could think up to ask someone.

What was the brain storm that led to that question?

(Richard) “Think, Ricky, think!

What do people say when they knock on a stranger’s door?

‘My name’s Richard and I doubt I’m even gonna try and kill you today?’

No. That doesn’t feel QUITE right.

Maybe, ‘Hi. I think I may have left some rabbit blood laying around. Did you take it?’

No. Still doesn’t feel right.

Maybe, ‘Hey, do you have any orange slices I could wrap up in a towel to get my blood moving again?’

Hmmm. That’s good! That’s real, REAL close.”

How long Chase spent wandering that neighborhood remains a mystery, but he wouldn’t find a victim that day. But he’d return to Merrywood the next morning and find several…

45. January 27, 1978: Leaving the Evergreen Apartments on the morning of Friday, January 27th, Chase drove south along Watt, crossing first over Marconi Avenue and then crossing over El Camino Avenue, before turning into the parking lot of the Country Club Center.

He parked his car sometime between 10 AM and noon and set out for Merrywood Drive on foot.

3207 Merrywood Drive was a modest ranch house at the north side of the block, the third house from a dead end.

In 1978, it was owned by Evelyn Miroth, thirty-six, and she lived there with her two sons, thirteen-year-old Vernon and six-year-old Jason.

Evelyn had a steady boyfriend, Daniel Meredith, who was fifty, and by all accounts, they were pretty happy.

Evelyn Miroth didn’t work, helping out in other ways, like babysitting her young nephew, twenty-two-month-old David Michael Ferreira.

At approximately 7:00 AM on the morning of January 27th, Karen Ferreira dropped her young son David off at her sister-in-law’s house. It was their Friday routine.

Sometime that morning, Evelyn Miroth mowed her yard and subsequently left the garage door open. I’ve do the same thing pretty much every time I mow my lawn. I bet a lot of you do too.

After finishing, she went to take a bath and she forgot to shut the garage door.

Meanwhile, Richard Chase has left the parking lot of the Country Club Center, wearing the new orange jacket his dad, Papa Dick had bought him, and carrying his .22 pistol.

In his pocket are some rubber gloves, and a mere hundred feet from where he parked his car, as he strolled down Merrywood, he noticed the open garage door at 3207.

There was only one car in the garage, which was a good sign to Chase, who avoided houses that might have numerous adults in the house at the same time. Which again speaks to a big part of his mind working just fine. His brain wasn’t just working on rabbit blood and orange slices.

He enters Evelyn’s home.

In the home are Evelyn, little David, Eveyln's six-year-old son Jason, and Dan Meredith, a neighbor who had come over to check on Evelyn.

Evelyn was in the bath while Dan watched the children.

He went into the front hallway when Chase entered the home, and was shot in the head at point-blank range with Chase's .22 handgun, killing him. This was the same gun used in the Griffin and Wallin murders.

Chase then turned the corpse over and stole Dan's wallet and car keys. Jason ran to his mother's bedroom, where Chase fatally shot him twice in the head at point-blank range; on the way to killing Jason, Chase also shot young David in the head.

He was killed while in his crib with a shot that entered the right side of his head, passing through it, and piercing the pillow case but not penetrating the pillow.

Chase then entered the bathroom and fatally shot Evelyn once in the head. He dragged her corpse onto the bed, where he simultaneously sodomized it and drank its blood from a series of slices to the back of the neck. Medical examiners reported an inordinate amount of semen in the corpse's rectum, indicating an "unusual amount" of ejaculations.

When Chase had finished, he stabbed her "at least half a dozen times" in the anus, the knife penetrating her uterus. He stabbed her in a series of vital points on the body, which caused blood from her internal organs to pool into her abdomen, which he then sliced open and drained into a bucket; and then then consumed all of the blood.

Chase then went to retrieve David's corpse; he took it to the bathroom and split its skull open in the bathtub, and consumed some of the brain matter.

Outside, a six-year-old girl with whom Jason Miroth had a playdate knocked on the door, startling Chase; he fled the residence, stealing Dan Meredith's car; the girl alerted a neighbor. The neighbor broke into the Miroth home where he discovered the bodies and contacted the authorities. Upon entering the home, police discovered that Chase had left perfect handprints and perfect imprints of the soles of his shoes in Evelyn's blood.

Chase, meanwhile, took David's corpse home with him, where he chopped off his penis and used it as a straw through which he sucked the blood out of the body.

WHAT???? I don’t even know what to say about something that preposterous.

He then sliced the corpse open and consumed several internal organs and made smoothies out of others, finally disposing of the corpse at a nearby church.

Gone are the days of feasting on the blood and flesh of birds and dogs. Now, he’s feasting upon his own kind. He’s scarier than any movie or graphic novel vampire now.

46. January 28, 1978: The next morning, on January 28th, Chase would purchase and keep as a memento another copy of The Sacramento Bee, which described his recent murders in great detail, with accompanying pictures of the victims.

Chase had done it again. He’s gotten away with more gruesome murder.

But - he hadn’t covered his tracks very well. And this same day, he’d be apprehended.

The city was in shock.

A city-wide search was organized to find baby David, as many people assumed - or at least hoped - that the child was still alive.

The search to find David’s kidnapper - and killer - didn’t look real promising at first.

The only thing the authorities knew for a certainty was that a twenty-something white male with long hair was the person responsible for committing these murders, and they THOUGHT he lived very near to where the crimes were taking place. But there were lots of young, scruffy white men in Sacramento.

While they hunted him, with police cars all over the neighborhood, Chase, who had no idea authorities were closing in on him, went about further mutilating the body of David Ferreira.

In the privacy of his filthy apartment, he cut off the child’s head and and drank more of his blood, while also eating portions of the body, mostly his brain matter.

This, combined with months of eating animals, made his apartment look like a butcher shop. Run by a psychotic butcher who didn’t give a shit about ever cleaning anything.

There were practically no surfaces that weren’t stained by blood, and all of his kitchen utensil’s had blood on them.

No one other than Richard had been inside for months.

His parents - still paying for his groceries at twenty-seven years old - would hand him his groceries through a cracked door.

If you recall from the recent FBI Behaviorial Science Unit Suck, FBI agents Russ Vorpagel and Robert Ressler were called in to assist with the investigation, and Ressler came up with a quick psychological profile of the killer that lead directly to Chase getting caught. Ressler wrote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYOvAO1rAM0 Play starting at 12:28.

Insane Fake Description (Detective Crime Noir Narration):

“White male aged twenty-five to twenty-seven; thin, undernourished appearance; single; living alone in a location within one mile of abandoned station wagon owned by one of the victims.

An unusual amount of orange peels will be found near the residence. And the area will be curiously devoid of small animals. No dogs, cats, bird, or rabbits will live within a hundred yards.

The killer will be found missing his pulmonary artery. It will later be discovered that his mother stole it roughly a decade earlier.

Also, the killer will likely have a limp he will attribute to a poison gas attack suffered many years prior.

The killer will have no pulse. His heart stopped beating a long, long time ago. And in his room, you will find skull shavings. His shape-shifting head has been shedding bones for years out the back.

But how will you find this strange man? How will you locate his residence?

Old magazines!

Look for scraps of old magazines. Those scraps will lead you straight to him.

I know this description is incredibly specific and more than a little odd, but it comes from an informant I trust implicitly. Mary is a shrub slut I’ve relied on for many years, and she’s never let me down. From the dirt and the pines she sees things the rest of us cannot…

PUSH STOP

And of COURSE that is nonsense.

This is the real profile that agent Ressler, BSU founding father, man credited with coining the term serial killer, wrote: “White male aged twenty-five to twenty-seven; thin, undernourished appearance; single; living alone in a location within one mile of abandoned station wagon owned by one of the victims.

Residence will be extremely slovenly and unkempt, and evidence of the crimes will be found at the residence.

Suspect will have a history of mental illness and use of drugs. Suspect will be an unemployed loner who does not associate with either males or females and will probably spend a great deal of time in his own residence.

If he resides with anyone, it will be with his parents. However, this is unlikely. Suspect will have no prior military history; will be a high school or college dropout; probably suffers from one or more forms of paranoid psychosis.”

Damn! NAILED IT! That is pretty damn impressive.

After hearing this FBI profile, Nancy Holden - Chase’s old classmates - lady he creeped the fucked out at Pantry Market, contacted police saying she believed Richard Chase could be the killer.

The police then ran a background check on Chase, where they came across his registration of a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol.

Detectives and a team of police then went to Chase's apartment and knocked on his door.

No response - BUT - they heard movement inside the apartment, so they stayed and listened.

Eventually, Chase stepped out, and they tackled him and arrested him.

This Vampire of Sacramento, a human ghoul if there ever was one - was holding a bloodstained box, and the parka and shoes he was wearing had similar bloodstains.

Inside the box were pieces of shredded, blood-soaked wallpaper, and the bloodstained .22 with which he had committed his murders.

Chase claimed that the bloody wallpaper and bloody gun were a result of his killing several dogs. And the police were like, “You know what, that makes sense. Let him go, boys!”

No. When the police searched him, they found that he was carrying Daniel Meredith's wallet. Boyfriend of murder victim Evelyn Miroth.

Detectives, along with Ressler and Vorpagel, performed a search of Chase's apartment.

They found the walls, floor, CEILING, refrigerator, and all of Chase's eating and drinking utensils soaked in blood. Yep. Even the fucking CEILING.

On the counter was blender Chase used to make blood “smoothies.” It was CAKED in coagulated blood and the rotting matter of internal organs.

Side note - how was this dude not on the toilet 24 hours a day? I have Taco Bell and for the next two hours my butthole is the heavily outmatched underdog in a cage fight. This dude has rotting organs in a blender and isn’t constantly throwing up and/or hemorrhaging out his colon.

Inside the refrigerator police found several animal body parts wrapped in aluminum foil.

Young David's brains were in a Tupperware container and pieces of his body were wrapped in Saran Wrap.

Several of Evelyn Miroth and Teresa Wallin's internal organs were also in the fridge.

And on another counter were several pet collars.

And on his kitchen table he had spread out numerous diagrams depicting various aspects of human biology.

What the fuck? Those poor police officers. Good luck getting those smells and sights out of your head.

A calendar in his home had the dates of the murders marked with the word “Today”.

https://murderpedia.org/male.C/c/chase-richard.htm

47. January 29, 1978: The following day, January 29th, the police interrogated Chase. He was interviewed by two psychiatrists and didn’t display an ounce of remorse or guilt; instead, described the crimes matter-of-factly.

He also won’t tell anyone what he’s done with the majority of young David Ferreira’s remains, which were not found in his apartment.

48. March 24, 1978: Nearly eight weeks later, on March 24th, the body of baby David Ferreira is finally found.

49. January 2, 1979: On January 2nd, 1979, Richard Chase’s trial begins. Both psychiatrists deemed him sane at the times of the crimes.

He’s charged with SIX counts of first degree murder. Shell casings from Chase’s gun found at the Ambrose Griffin crime scene proved that he was guilty of the murder of that 51 year old man. His first kill. The man he randomly shot from his car as he was grabbing his grocery bags.

50. May 8, 1979: On May 8th, just a few weeks before Richard Chase’s twenty-ninth birthday, he’s found guilty on all six murder counts and sentenced to death. While the trial lasted for four months, the jury only deliberated for five hours.

I’m surprised it took them that long.

I feel like about five seconds should be plenty.

Chase was put on death row at San Quentin State Prison.

At one point, Chase was sent to the Vacaville State Hospital after having some trouble with his medications, and then he was returned to death row.

While in prison, Chase was interviewed again by Robert Ressler and Special Agent John Conway. Agent Ressler would say of Chase’s eyes: “I'll never forget them. They were like those of the shark in the movie Jaws. No pupils, just black spots. These were evil eyes that stayed with me long after the interview. I almost got the impression that he couldn't really see me, that he was seeing through me, just staring.” https://www.talkmurderwithme.com/blog/2020/5/6/richard-chase

Chase did not show aggression towards the agents - as it turns out, he was on some strong downers. He admitted to the murders, but took no actual responsibility for the crimes. He said he had no choice in the matter; he had to commit them in order to stay alive.

His heart had stopped beating for fuck’s sake! You try to stay alive after someone takes YOUR pulmonary artery.

Chase told the FBI profilers that he had killed to preserve his own life and he was developing an appeal based on that.

He also, randomly, talked to the agents about soap-dish poisoning.

Ressler asked him what that was and he explained that everyone has a soap dish, right? And if you lift the soap and find that underneath it’s dry, you’re all right. BUT - if it’s gooey, you have the poisoning, which turns your blood to powder. And THAT powder then depletes your energy and eats away at your body.

Wake up Agent Shit For Brains! Do you not remember the Blood Powder chapter from your Human Anatomy 101 class textbook? C’mon! You call yourself an FBI Agent and you don’t even know that you can have your blood turned into powder from dish soap poison?

Chase also said that he was Jewish— which he was not— and that he'd been persecuted by Nazis because he had a Star of David on his forehead—which he did not.

He also explained that Nazis were connected to UFOs which had telepathically commanded him to kill to replenish his blood. SOOOOOOOO - there was no WAY his appeal was gonna fail. Not if the FBI did their damn job and tracked down the alien Nazis!

Chase told the agents that these UFO Nazi Fucks were still following him around, and that the FBI should be able to pinpoint them by putting a radar on Chase. And then, BOOM! They can catch them and let him go.

At one point during the interview, he stuck his hands in his pocket, pulling out a handful of macaroni and cheese. Convinced that the prison guards were Nazis trying to kill him, he asked that Ressler take the food and test it for poison.

Ressler declined. Agent My Shit Doesn’t Stink apparently thought his hoighty-toity ass was too good for some perfectly fine pocket mac n’cheese.

Ressler also asked Chase how he’d chosen his victims. Chase said he would go down the streets, testing doors to see if they were unlocked. “If the door was locked,” he said, “that means you’re not welcome.”

If you didn’t have a good reason to lock your door already - now you do.

After hearing all this, it may not surprise you to hear that Agent Ressler disagreed with Chase’s receiving the death penalty.

He believed that if anyone should have ever been granted an insanity plea, it was Richard Chase.

Years later he wrote in his book, Whoever Fights Monsters, that Chase should have spent the rest of his life in a mental institution.

And, I hate to do this YET AGAIN, in our timeline, but we have one last sponsor break to take. Actually, it’s a sponsor we already did an ad for, but, they bought another one for a different service. It’ll make sense in a second.

51.FAKE SPONSOR:

PUSH PLAY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ruYws4bjNQ

Today’s Timesuck is STILL brought to you by the Law Office of Chase, Kemper and Kroll.

(Infomercial lawyer voice) “Have you been framed by Nazi UFOs? Have they been poisoning your macaroni? Have they been turning your blood into powder? Have they perhaps stolen your pulmonary artery? Have doctors not taken your rabbit blood injections, blood smoothies, and orange peel cranium diffusion treatments seriously? Do you think those doctors may be also trying to poison you? Just like your mother? Or do you think they may be trying to gas you? Just like those Utah police officers?

Get the freedom you deserve! Call the Law office of Chase, Kroll, and Kemper by dialing, toll free, 1-800 -THEY’RE OUT TO GET YOU.

The Judge, Jury, and FBI may not take the threat of Nazi UFOs seriously, but we here at the Law office of Chase, Kroll, and Kemper understand that Nazi UFOS are not only real… they’re a goddamn epidemic.

Again that’s 1-800-THEY’RE OUT TO GET YOU.

PUSH STOP

Sorry about that everyone. I hate to have a sponsor on twice in one episode, but, they paid a million dollars for each of those spots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ruYws4bjNQ

Back in the real world, no crazy firm would save Chase from incarceration.

52. December 26, 1980: On December 26th, 1980, Richard Trenton Chase died while on death row. An autopsy found that he committed suicide by overdosing on antidepressants that he’d saved up over several weeks. Rather than be executed, he took himself out.

And - I gotta say, I’m okay with this suicide. I am STRONGLY anti- suicide 99.9% of time - BUT - damn near every rule has an exception, and what good could have possibly come from a dude THIS completely and irreparably fucked up staying alive?

I really don’t think he was mentally capable of getting his shit together. And to what end? To hang out in prison for the rest of his life?

No. Hopefully his death brought his victim’s families some closure.

And that’s it for this week’s Timesuck Timeline.

PAUSE TIMESUCK TIMELINE OUTRO

III.Recap:

Wow. What another crazy tale. One of the craziest one’s we’ve told.

I both despise Richard Chase and pity him.

It really doesn’t seem like he was dealt out a hand that had a chance of winning in life. He battled his fragile, demented mind his whole life.

He earned the nickname the Vampire of Sacramento because of his obsession with drinking blood, which - forgot to mention this connection - he believed prevented Nazis from turning his blood into powder via poison they had planted beneath his soap dish.

He thought his fucking head was changing shape and that bones were coming out of the back of his skull. He thought that someone had taken his pulmonary artery!

Chase started eating his murder victims. Raw. He drank their blood. He ate the brain matter of toddler. No one knows how many dogs, cats, rabbits and other creatures he killed and ate. He injected rabbit blood into his veins!

He had his mental health evaluated so many times - and no one ever thought his mind was in a good place. He should have been permanently institutionalized.

Dude was born into the wrong family for someone with his brain. His dad didn’t value the field of psychiatry and his mom meant well but was probably schizophrenic herself and her paranoia may have helped lead to his.

She thought her husband, Richard Chase Sr., was poisoning her. She thought he was trying to fuck shrub sluts on camping trips.

I feel bad for Little Dick Chase.

Kind of.

Despite his paranoid and hallucinations, in the end, I think he killed mostly because he wanted to, not because anyone else - or any uncontrollable thoughts - made him.

He waited and debated if he could get away with it, and ultimately decided that he could. And for a while, he would.

Six people would die at the hands of Chase.

While one person was killed in a drive-by style shooting, the other were exercises in deluded brutality that shocked the city of Sacramento.

Finally, with the help of the FBI and Nancy Holden, the Sacramento Sheriff’s Department managed to apprehend him and put a stop to the atrocities.

And as of December 26th, 1980, the Vampire of Sacramento was no more.

Like with other over-the-top monsters Albert Fish and Joachim Kroll - I can’t believe I never heard of Richard Chase before coming across his name if the FBI BSU episode a few weeks ago.

How many other utter psychopaths like this guy are out there? How many have been caught over the years? How many haven’t?

That’s a scary thought.

Time now for today’s Top Five Takeaways.

PAUSE TOP FIVE TAKEAWAYS INTRO

IV.Top Five Takeaways

1.Number One: Number one! Richard Chase killed six people in the span of a month in 1977 and 1978, including a baby that wasn’t even two years old yet. He would mutilate several of their bodies and cannibalize their corpses, keeping many organs in their fridge and making organ “smoothies” that he would drink. He was, I think we can all agree, a very bad boy.

2.Number Two: Number two! Erectile dysfunction. As we see time and time again with these fuckheads, erectile dysfunction influences killers deeply. Chikatilo, Joachim Kroll, Richard Chase. All the more reason to get it treated if you’re dealing with it! https://www.uwhealth.org/urology/erectile-dysfunction-ed/ 20537#:~:text=About%205%20percent%20of%20men,of%20men %20in%20their%2060s).

3.Number Three: Number three! Part of what drove Chase was his fear of his own body being sick. His severe hypochondria included his belief that he had some SUPER weird heart issues - that his heart wasn’t even beating, blood sickness - missing an artery, and that his cranial bones had become separated and were falling out of his head.

Too bad his unique Vitamin C brain treatments didn’t work.

4.Number Four: Number four! To go along with his bad roll of the genetic dice, Chase also was a drug addict, which made his problems worse. If you suffer for serious mental illness - sorry - hard drugs are NOT for you. Schizophrenia REALLY doesn’t mix will with LSD and Meth. Also - his parents didn’t always agree with doctor recommendations, at one point taking him off his antipsychotic meds. Really not a good idea. Before ditching your meds - get a second opinion. From another doctor. Not your mom. Unless of course she’s a doctor.

5.Number Five: Number five! New shit.

Because of the unique and horrific nature of his crimes, Chase has been featured in a number of television series, films, even video games.

He’s even mentioned several times in songs by artists like rapper Brotha Lynch Hung where he says he is “…like Richard Chase mixed with Al Capone.” Metal bands, experimental groups and stoner rockers have also referenced him.

The band Dismantled put out an album in 2011 called The War Inside Me, and the first verse of the track “Insecthead” is written from Chase’s perspective.

My stomach's on backwards And my blood's turned to powder Can you help me out?

My skull is changing shape And when I look in the mirror All I see is an insecthead

They're in the ceiling tiles This whole god damned place is bugged Gonna find these motherfuckers

I'm outside your front door And if your shit is unlocked I'm gonna come inside, come inside

Finally, the little known 1987 movie Rampage - but a movie Roger Ebert gave 3 out of 4 stars - is based on his crimes.

PAUSE TOP FIVE TAKEAWAYS OUTRO

V. Final Announcements

A.Episode has been sucked!: And another chapter in the true section of the Timesuck catalog has been written.

Yikes. The Vampire of Sacramento. That was some brutal shit.

B.Thank you to Timesuck Team:

Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions Team for all the help in making Timesuck! Queen of Bad Magic Lynze Cummins, Reverend Doctor Joe Paisley, the Script Keeper Zaq Flanary, Sophie “Fact Sorceress” Evans, Bit Elixir, Logan and Kate Keith running BadMagicMerch.com and the socials!

Thanks to all of those who’ve joined the Cult of the Curious private Facebook group. Hail Nimrod to all of you!

Thanks Liz Hernandez and her All Seeing Eyes running the Cult of the Curious Facebook page.

Thanks to all the wonderful weirdos having fun on our Discord Channel as well.

And thanks to all of your Space Lizards playing Timesuck Trivia on the app: Sgt Awesome is currently in the lead with 6887 points. New round - round 3 - starts on September 7th at 3PM PT.

C.Next Episode Preview: Next week it’s the Titanic and the Conspiracies that surround it’s sinking!

The Titanic sank in the early hours of the morning on April 15th, 1912.

The luxury cruise liner that some had touted as being “unsinkable” was certainly sinkable. After smashing into an iceberg on its starboard side, it took less than two hours for the Titanic to submerge into the ocean, eventually coming to rest at a depth of 12,500 feet underwater, while its confused and traumatized passengers— passengers who, just a few hours before, had been enjoying music, dancing, state-of-the-art amenities, food and drink, aboard the most technologically advanced ship of their time— leaving those traumatized passengers in just twenty-four lifeboats. It would be nowhere near enough to save all of them, and over a thousand people would perish that night.

And soon after it’s sinking, wild conspiracy theories began to float to the surface. Sorry - couldn’t help myself.

Did J. P. Morgan use the Titanic to kill off some other millionaires? Was it the Rothschilds, the old favorite of the conspiracy theorists? Just two of many extreme ideas that don’t have anything to do with unluckily hitting an iceberg.

And we’ll look into them. And also at how the Titanic was finally found.

Going full Jack Dawson next week on Timesuck.

D.Segue to Timesucker Updates: N let’s head on over to this week’s Timesucker Updates!

PAUSE TIMESUCKER UPDATES INTRO

VI.Timesucker Updates

1.First up - some Roy Disney related-humor coming in from funny Meat Sack Jennie Drake. Jennie making me feel good when she writes:

Dear Suckmaster Mush-mouth and handler of Bojangles, Slayer of the cocker spaniels.

I wanted to write to you about the Disney suck, but it's because of something you said in the Skinwalker Ranch suck. In the Skinwalker suck you made a comment about how you hoped that other people found the Roy Disney jokes funny...and I had to laugh.

Of all the random jokes you've made about people, that one has gotten me the most.

I cracked up every single time you went off on Roy. I'm not 100% sure why, but growing when I was growing up my mom used to make comments about how "That Roy Disney was ruining everything Walt Disney built" and that he was destroying the family values that Disney had instilled in the company with the "worldly changes" he was allowing in the newer movies.

I just always took it as fact of course, because I was young and had no idea what she was talking about. Fast-Forward to my adult years and I realize my mom is just kind of a nut with lots of very outdated "old fashioned" values.

Anyway, the Roy jokes were hilarious to me because I could just see my mom rambling off about Roy and wholeheartedly agreeing with you. Thank you for the laughs! My husband and I listen every week. Please give him a shout out, his name is Mike and he's been an amazing source of strength for me while I deal with some back injury issues and a pregnancy on top it. Maybe a story for a different email for a different time. Keep on Sucking! Your loyal Meatsack, Jennie

Thanks Jennie and I hope you’re already feeling a bit better! Thanks for being her rock, Mike! You sound like one solid dude. And Jennie, it sounds like your mom and I should co-author a book about ROY MOM-KILLING, VALUE-DESTROYING DISNEY. One of the few men I’ve ever covered who’s WORSE than Dickard Chase.

2.More humor now coming in from High School Health Teacher and fun-loving Sucker, Dan McVey. Dan writes:

All hail Reverend Doctor Dan Sarcasm-born of the House Cummins, First of His Name, the Unbearded, King of the Meatsacks and the Space Lizards, Comedian of the Great Potato State, Breaker of Pronunciation, and Father of Bojangles, Esq.!—

- Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, YOU’LL REALLY GET MY ZAPPLES GOING!

While you take great pleasure in your misdirects, and plenty of meatsacks have written to say so, I have been able—for the most part—to detect the BS in the first two or three sentences. I’ve been playing catch-up with the back catalogue for some time, while also staying current. The only nonsense I’ve ever fallen for was the Da Vinci being sodomized as an apprentice—until today!

During the Fritz-Whistle Suck, you talked about a college friend getting genital warts after his first sexual experience. Knowing a little bit about the subject as a high school health teacher, I was like “seems legit.” Then how it spread all over his body to his face, I thought “extreme, but still seems medically possible. THEN you said it was only a hand job, and I STILL thought “wellllll, seems unlikely but I guess it could happen.” That lead you to your cousin getting HIV by getting finger banged, AND I WAS STILL PROCESSING IN MY HEAD THAT HIV IS TRANSMITTED THROUGH BLOOD SO THAT’S TOTALLY BELIEVABLE!!!! After soooo many Sucks (I only have 20 left to be caught up), you got me twice. The fact it’s so infrequent makes it even better. It’s literally all I’ve been able to think about since this morning! Anyway, SFTLEM, thanks for making me laugh like a fiend at my gullibility, Hail Nimrod, and keep on Sucking, you glorious bastard! P.S. My last name is pronounced the same as Noodle McDryween’s, just FYI.

Dan! Holy shit you made me laugh with this message. I totally forgot about my lie about DaVinci and all the great Renaissance masters “paying their dues” by getting sodomized.

And the HIV finger bang. Oh boy. I’m so glad I got you twice and I’m even more happy you could laugh about it. Glad you’re having fun and thanks for doing what you do, teacher.

3. Now, Super Sack Jackson Boyd gives me more hope in the existence of life in the universe beyond what we have here on Earth. Jackson writes:

Dear Suck Daddy, I just finished listening to the Skinwalker Ranch suck and figured I'd share my recent UFO encounter with you. This occurred on August 11th of this year, just a few weeks ago. I was at my family's lake cabin in North Dakota with my girlfriend and my grandparents, and we were all sitting around the fire stargazing and watching the meteor shower. Now, I am a bit of a space nerd so I was pointing out all the different stars, planets, and satellites we could see. Around 11:45, everyone decided to go to bed except me. I wanted to stare at the clear sky for just a few more minutes. As I was looking up, I saw what at first I thought was a faint satellite. However, it began to move in a zig-zag pattern at impossible rates of speed. My hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I experienced equal feelings of "This is the coolest thing I'll ever see" and "I'm gonna need some new pants after this." After around 15 seconds, it had dipped below the horizon and I could no longer see it. I sat and tried to rationalize what I had seen but could not. I immediately told my girlfriend and texted a few buddies who are also space nerds. The consensus was that it was indeed a UFO. Our vast universe holds many secrets, and I look forward to the day science can offer us some answers. Yours in sucking, Jackson Boyd

Thanks, Jackson! I love this message. How cool you lucky bastard! This is what I keep hoping to see when I sit out in my hot tub late at night and stare into the night sky - one of my favorite things to do. Come find me aliens! Maybe not the Nazi aliens that fucked with Richard Chase, but, some other kind of alien.

4.Now let’s get back to some funny. Lucky Meatsack Jon Tall writes:

Almighty Suckmaster Supreme, I'm writing to report some good news from the Salt Lake City realm of Nimrod's kingdom, and to confirm that there is indeed an opposite and good version of Cummins Law! I was pulled over by UHP on the way home from work, listening to Timesuck. I have a sweet Bluetooth car stereo, with a ton of amazing features; unfortunately, the volume control is broken. Also, it's set up to stay on until the driver's side door is opened. So, there I am, on the side of I-15, car off, hands at 10 & 2, licence and registration out and ready. And you, railing on "Roy Fucking Disney", as the trooper comes to my window. I sheepishly look up at him, and he dramatically whips off his sunglasses, and says, "what the hell are you listening to?" Before I can answer he says, "j/k, gosh dang, meatsack!" A feeling of ultimate relief washed over me, and I laughed harder than I have in a long time. We chatted for a brief minute, I told him we should get coffee at Kroll's Cafe sometime, he said "I'd love that, MOTHER", and he let me off with a warning. Anyway, I Thought you'd enjoy a tale of what I've been calling Kummins Karma. Thanks for all you do, Mushmouth! The podcast has really helped me survive the last few months. Keep it up!

Sweet! Glad that worked out Jon. Hail Nimrod! And thanks for the reminder that there are good cops out there. Easy to forget that in 2020. Definitely some bad apples out there. Definitely some problems that need fixing. Also - some good peeps out there who just want to help keep the world a little safer for us. And a lo of them have good senses of humor too.

5. Alright - one last message. Another funny one. I’m feeling the funny messages today. Also - sorry if yours didn’t get read. We get literally hundreds every week. We’re look. Please keep sending them in.

Funny ass Sucker Lorenzo Sandoval writes: Hey suckmaster! I just wanted to share a hilarious moment i had while listening to the suck. I work at a water treatment plant, where i don’t have a lot of interactions with my coworkers. My boss found me the other day while i was listening to the Andrew Jackson suck to give me an update about the plant. After he got done saying a lot of monotonous bullshit about the plant, he asked what i was listening to. I started telling him about the best podcast ever, he was genuinely interested, so i took the headphones out of my phone only to hear you say "and then the pox spread to his dick and balls, soon you couldn't tell where the pox ended and the dick began" to which i started laughing hysterically, while he looked at me like i was really fucked up. It was the best laugh ive had in a while and i thought i share it with you. Anyway keep on sucking and HAIL LUCEFINA! sincerely, Lorenzo

Hail Lucifina, Lorenzo! Dude. I love that you laughed over this. Thanks for helping to keep our water clean, dude. Keep on sucking and watch out for that dick pox.

PAUSE TIMESUCKER UPDATES OUTRO

VII.Goodbye!

A.Goodbye!:

1.That’s all for this week, meatsacks. Thanks for continuing to rate and review this show. It for sure still helps to spread the suck. Thanks for sticking around and continuing to listen to one of what has to be one of the weirdest podcasts out there.

I don’t how this works but I’m glad it does.

Don’t let anyone steal your pulmonary artery this week, keep an eye out for Shrub Sluts, and keep on sucking!

PRIMARY SOURCES:

Books

Vampire: the Richard Chase Murders by Kevin Sullivan (Wild Blue Press)

The Vampire of Sacramento by Genoveva Ortiz

A Thirst For Blood by Lt. Ray Biondi and Walt Hecox

Web: https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/serial-killers/richard-trenton- chase/ http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/Psyc%20405/serial%20killers/Chase, %20Richard%20-%20fall,%202005.pdf https://murderpedia.org/male.C/c/chase-richard.htm