Credit: Dangerous Minds / Public Domain

Those unfamiliar with Richard Chase don’t wholly understand the world of true crime. Even if you think nothing can shock you anymore, you are wrong.

After all, these are real people that we’re talking about. How does one get desensitised to the worst things that can happen to a person? Well, quite easily in fact. Just look at anyone who’s spent much time in law enforcement. There’s also the fact that true crime is just another entertainment medium now, which we can overdo like any other genre.

In a way, it’s a defence mechanism. Our brains are, quite simply, not meant to take in as much horrible stuff as we’ve been taking in over the past decade. If we react to everything with the intensity we should, we’ll fall apart right quick. Thus, our brains compartmentalise as a way of protecting ourselves. That said, things still slip through the cracks and remind you just how depraved and horrible people can be.

For me, it was discovering Richard Chase, a man who well and truly earned the nickname ‘The Vampire of Sacramento’.

Born May 23rd, 1950, in Santa Clara County, California, Chase was as classic a sociopath as you could possibly want (or not want, presumably). By the age of ten, he was showing all three of the behaviours associated with the Macdonald Triad, the study that those who have gone on to commit repeated violent acts in childhood often have an uncontrollable urge to set fires, behave cruelly to animals and persistently wet the bed. You only need two of them to qualify.

It got worse long before his behaviour turned violent towards others. Chase developed profound mental health issues in his young adulthood, a behaviour that we would call schizophrenia today. For decades, his family tried to help anyway they could, applying for conservatorship of Chase while he went in and out of psychiatric hospitals throughout his life.

However, by 1977, Chase was sick of living under his parents’ watchful eye, and despite the fact that he was in no way fit for an independent life, his parents let their conservatorship expire in the summer of 1977.

By January 1978, six people, including three children, would be dead at his hands. Murders of such staggering cruelty and violence that I’m not going to go into the details. They’re out there if you really must know, but suffice it to say that Chase wasn’t interested in just ending lives. For years, the violence that he’d inflicted on animals came from a belief that he had to ingest things that he killed to live. By December 1977, he’d stopped feeling like animals were enough.

He had an urge to kill and consume people, so that’s what he did. Beginning with Ambrose Griffin on December 29th, a spur-of-the-moment shooting that Chase carried out as Griffin was arriving home with groceries. Two weeks later, he broke into the house of Teresa Wallin, then murdered, mutilated and sexually assaulted her in that order. On January 27th, 1978, he targeted the house of Evelyn Elizabeth Miroth, a divorced mother of three. All four members of the household were murdered by Chase, with Miroth suffering the same fate as Wallin.

Chase had eaten parts of all of his targets saved for Ambrose Griffin. Once he was arrested and interrogated, he first denied all accountability. Then, when he could no longer deny it, he claimed that he had acted out of self-preservation, that he had a condition that meant he couldn’t generate his own blood, and thus had to drink the blood of others to top himself up. This obviously doesn’t explain everything else he did to his victims, but it’s all but impossible to tell whether he was lying or genuinely believed this explanation.

Chase was sentenced to death, but took his own life by hoarding sinequan tablets for weeks before taking 36 times the recommended dose.

If you seriously think nothing can shock you anymore, I suggest you look further into Chase’s crimes. Or you can just take my word for it. Please do, for your own sake.