Richard Chase, The Vampire Of Sacramento
Public DomainSerial killer Richard Chase was obsessed with drinking blood.
If there’s one thing people know about vampires, it’s that they drink blood. So Richard Chase, a blood-obsessed serial killer who murdered at least six people in the 1970s, certainly qualifies as a real-life vampire.
Known as the “Dracula Killer,” Chase displayed sociopathic tendencies from a young age. He set small fires and was cruel toward animals. As he grew older, he also began to suffer from delusions that his heart had stopped and that he was a walking corpse. Chase developed an obsession with blood and was institutionalized after attempting to inject himself with rabbit blood.
Though he was briefly held in a psychiatric facility — where fellow patients allegedly observed Chase drinking the blood of birds he caught and killed — Chase was released in 1976. Shortly thereafter, he turned his attention to humans.
Public DomainA jury found that Richard Chase was sane and sentenced him to death. However, he died by suicide in prison.
On Dec. 29, 1977, Chase killed his first known victim, Ambrose Griffin, in Sacramento, California. Chase shot Griffin as he helped his wife unload groceries from their car. Less than a month later, on Jan. 23, 1978, he shot Teresa Wallin after entering her home through an unlocked door. He then stabbed her and drank her blood, allegedly using a yogurt container as a cup.
Four days after that, Chase killed four people at once after entering another home through an unlocked door: Evelyn Miroth, her six-year-old son Jason, her 22-month-old nephew David Ferreira, and her friend Daniel Meredith. HISTORY reports that Chase removed Miroth’s organs, filled them with blood, and took them home with him.
Though police were able to track Chase down quickly, they found even more horrors at his apartment. Human blood was everywhere — in his sink, on his utensils, and even in his blender. It appeared that this real-life vampire had been drinking blood for quite some time. He was found guilty of first-degree murder and sent to prison, where he died by suicide on Dec. 26, 1980.