California. The land of Hollywood, land of surfing. Of Silicon Valley and dreams of all kinds coming true. In the late 1970’s, it was also the land of nightmares.
Richard Chase was born in Sacramento on May 23, 1950. Today, he is remembered as the Vampire of Sacramento. Or The Dracula Killer. Sometimes, more generally, people just call him The Vampire Killer.
How did one, seemingly ordinary man, earn so many horrible nicknames? Chase was no ordinary killer. No, he wasn’t satisfied by merely killing his first victim, Ambrose Griffin, in a drive-by shooting on December 29, 1977.
That impersonal killing wasn’t enough. Not for Chase. He wanted more. He wanted blood. Perhaps it was because, as a young hypochondriac, Chase had become convinced that someone had ‘stolen his pulmonary artery’.
He preyed on… rabbits?
After injecting rabbit’s blood into his veins, Robert Chase was involuntarily committed. His nickname at the institution was ‘Dracula’ due to his obsession with blood and his continued quest to consume it. Later, once his odd behavior had driven away his roommates, he would kill animals, mix their blood with Coca Cola, and drink it, believing that this process would prevent his heart from shrinking.
Soon, though, animal blood wasn’t enough to satisfy his desires. He needed human victims.
That first murder would not be Chase’s last. Two weeks later, he attempted to invade the home of a woman who lived nearby. Her doors were locked. Chase would later tell police that a locked door was a sign that he was not welcome. Like a fictional vampire, Robert Chase only entered buildings where he believed he was welcome.
Unfortunately, his deranged mind believed he was welcome in places he was never wanted. By January 23, 1978, he had killed again– and this time, the shooting was at close range. Chase stuck around to mutilate the corpse and drink the blood of his victim, Teresa Wallin’s. Wallin was three-months pregnant at the time of her death.
Bloody footprints
Robert Chase would claim four more lives before his bloody spree was brought to an end. He was finally captured when a neighbor caught him fleeing a murder scene, where police discovered complete hand and shoe prints left behind. Even before modern DNA analysis, this was more than enough evidence to bring police right to his door.
Once they got there, the horror wasn’t over. Reports say that every surface- walls, floor, ceiling, refrigerator, cups, and even utensils- within Chase’s apartment were covered in blood. He was arrested and, despite attempts to argue his diminished capacity or insanity, found guilty of six counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in the gas chamber.
Robert Chase wasn’t executed by the state, though. Instead, Chase became the Vampire of Sacramento’s last victim when he overdosed on prescription medication in 1980, proving that monsters can, in-fact, be killed. Even without a handy wooden stake.