1. The Vampire of Sacramento
Richard Trenton Chase
The Vampire of Sacramento
“All I did was kill a couple of dogs”

2. Background information
Born May 23, 1950 in Santa Clara County, California
As a child and teenager, displayed characteristics of the MacDonald Triad
-bedwetting, setting fires, and torturing animals
His mother mistreated him, and it’s rumored she may have physically abused him
Never had much of a social life
-no girlfriend, didn’t have many friends in general, roommates moved out because of his strange behavior
Mother and father fought a lot, eventually divorced
As a teen, got involved with alcohol and drugs
-drugs: mainly LSD and Marijuana
Developed hypochondria
- hypochondria is defined as worrying about having a serious illness. Chase’s worries consisted of his heart shrinking, thinking someone stole his pulmonary artery, that his heart had stopped beating, that his blood would turn to dust, his stomach was backwards, etc.
*MacDonald Triad: Also referred to as the homicidal triad, is a set of three behavioral characteristics that suggests, if two or more are present, to be predictive of, or associated with violent tendencies, mostly serial offenses

3. Background Information cont.
Killed and disemboweled animals, drinking their blood and sometimes blending them up into an “organ smoothie”
-Being a hypochondriac, he faced irregular fears about his health. He was always concerned someone stole his pulmonary artery, his heart was shrinking, his heart had stopped beating, his blood was turning to dust, and that stomach was flipped backwards. He thought drinking and eating animal blood (and later, human blood) would help to fix these issues he thought he had.
He was institutionalized
-He was sent to an institution after injecting rabbit blood into himself and getting blood poisoning
He was sent to a hospital for the criminally insane
-this happened after it was found that in the first institution, he was killing and eating birds raw
Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic
-He was on medicati0n, and they thought it was helping so they released him from the institution, sending him home. His mom weaned him off medication causing him to downward spiral again, this time even worse.

4. Crimes HE commit CRIME DATE VICTIMS PUNISHMENT
Commit first degree murder in a drive by shooting.
December 29, 1977
Ambrose Griffin, 51, was helping his wife take groceries in
Not caught
Commit burglary and destroyed property in his neighbors home
January 11, 1978
His next door neighbors, a married couple and their baby
Commit two first degree murders, shot a woman three times, raping her corpse, stabbing her, and drinking her blood
January 23, 1978
Teresa Wallin, who was three months pregnant at the time
*Burglary:
entry into a building illegally with intent to commit a crime, especially theft
*First degree murder:
murder that is carried out with the planned
and deliberate intention of killing somebody
*Destruction of property: injury to real or personal property through another's negligence, willful destruction, or by some act of nature

5. Most recent crime (1978)
Murdered Evelyn Miroth, her six year old son, and her friend Dan Meredith inside their home.
-They were all shot in the head. Evelyn though, was tortured more than the rest. Chase had raped her corpse, her stomach was cut open and organs were removed, her throat was slit, and there was attempts at removing one of her eyeballs
Evelyn Miroth’s 22 week-old nephew was missing from the scene. There was blood in his crib.
-the boy was later found mutilated, decapitated and mummified outside in a box in a vacant lot. Richard Chase had eaten his organs.
Charged on three accounts of first degree murder

6. Evidence brought against chase
A woman who went to high school with him had notified police and said she had run into Richard Trenton Chase, saying he was tall and thin with sunken eyes and had bloodstains on his sweatshirt, matching their profile.
It was discovered that Richard Trenton Chase lived within a mile of all the crime scenes
In his home after the arrest, they discovered the gun linked to the crimes, a 12-inch butcher knife, rubber boots, animal collars, three blenders full of blood, and body parts in the fridge
A calendar was found in his apartment with the word “today” on each of the dates of the wallin and miroth murders.
At the Miroth crime scene, he was spooked and left in a hurry, leaving a bloody hand and shoeprint.
*criminal profiling: The investigation of a crime with the hope of identifying the responsible party, based on crime scene analysis, investigative psychology, and behavioral evidence analysis

7. Sentence:
Chase was charged on six accounts of first degree murder and was
Sentenced to the death penalty. He was set to die in the gas chamber.
Was on death row at San Quentin State Prison
He never made it to follow out the death penalty. He commit suicide
by overdosing on anti-depressants he saved for months in the prison.
A guard found him dead in his cell in December 1979.
*death penalty: the punishment of execution, administered to someone legally convicted of a capital crime.
*Death Row: a prison block or section for prisoners sentenced to death

8. Theory The Labeling Theory
I believe the theory that best fits Richard Trenton Chase is the Labeling Theory. The labeling theory is when individuals come to act as how others label them. I feel that this fits Chase for a few different reasons. First of all, Richard Trenton Chase was labeled as said paranoid schizophrenic by those in power, a doctor, matching to how the theory claims it goes. He acted as his label defined him. The only conflicting point I have is that he also acted this way before he was labeled as a schizophrenic. I also believed as a part of this theory, he was involved in secondary deviance.
I think Richard Trenton Chase accepted the label placed upon him. I think he accepted it because of his continuous acts of deviance. He knew what he was doing, and he continued doing it despite the consequences. The techniques of neutralization apply to this. First of all, he tried to say he wasn’t responsible, but his illness, his label, was why he murdered. The court rejected this statement of him trying to get off on second degree murder because they didn’t see his label as an excuse for his actions, although he accepted and he did.

9. MOVIES MUSIC Cultural References TV SHOWS:
- The CSI episode “Justice is Served” is based on Chase’s crimes.
-Criminal Minds episode “Blood Hungry” from Season One is also
based on his crimes. The unsub in this episode just lacks the sexual
component of chase’s crimes. This clip is the show saying how crimes
like these are always of opportunity, and chase’s were never
predeterined.
link:
MOVIES
-A movie made in 1987 Rampage is based slightly on his murders.
MUSIC
- A band called Church of Misery has a song called “Blood Sucking Freak
(Richard Trenton Chase)”