Richard Trenton Chase: The Vampire of Sacramento

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The Crimes

On December 29th, 1977 a man named Ambrose Griffin was bringing in groceries from their shopping trip with his wife. On his way to their car to retrieve more of their bags, he dropped to the ground. When his wife found him, she discovered he had been shot in a drive-by. One of the victim’s sons had seen a man walking around their neighborhood with a gun in his hand. However, his gun did not match the gun used to kill Ambrose Griffin. The gun used in the shooting was a .22-caliber gun. It was soon discovered by the police that the gun used in the murder of Griffin was the same gun that was fired into the house of a woman who lived just a few streets away from the Griffin’s home. The police worked hard to find the shooter to bring justice to Griffins family but the investigation came to an end when all their leads had been exhausted.

The second victim was a woman named Teresa Wallin. Chase considered an unlocked door as an invitation to go inside and a locked door meant that he was not welcome. Teresa had been taking the garbage out so, naturally, her door had been unlocked. He surprised her in her house and when she rose up her arm in a defensive move, he shot her in the palm of her hand. He then went on to shoot her twice in the head. When she was dead, he dragged her down the hall and into her bedroom. He retrieved a butcher knife and an empty yogurt container from Wallin’s kitchen and went back into the bedroom. Chase engaged in necrophilia with her corpse while he stabbed her several times with the knife. He then cut open her abdomen and removed several of her internal organs. Using a bucket, he collected her blood and took it into her bathroom so that he could bathe in it. He sliced off one of her nipples and u...

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...rounds when he noticed Chase in a weird position on his bed, and when he called out to him, Chase didn’t answer. He went into the cell and found him dead, a suicide note next to him. He was being prescribed medication for his depression and had been hiding the pills for weeks, until he finally took them and overdosed.

Richard Trenton Chase is one of the most notorious serial killers/mass murderers ever. To this day, the FBI still use him as an example of a disorganized killer. Although he is dead, his legacy will live on forever, a story of a mad man driven to kill by his own psychotic delusions.

Works Cited

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Chase

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

The Making of a Vampire by Katherine Ramsland

http://www.examiner.com/article/richard-trenton-chase-the-vampire-of-sacramento-part-1

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