Hey y’all, it’s Julie Mattson here on Pushing Up Lilies. Welcome to Part 2 of our deep dive into the disturbing world of Richard Chase, the Sacramento Vampire. In this episode, I’m taking you through the harrowing details of his grisly crimes and the tragic stories of the victims who fell prey to his twisted methods. We'll explore how his reign of terror unfolded—from the chaotic scenes of his brutal attacks to the relentless investigations that eventually brought his dark legacy to light. Join me as I piece together the forensic evidence, recount the chilling events, and reflect on the impact of Chase’s horrifying actions on the community of Sacramento. Strap in for a gripping, heart-wrenching journey through one of true crime history's most infamous serial killer cases. * Listener discretion is advised.
CONNECT WITH JULIE MATTSON:
• Website: https://pushinguplilies.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pushinguplilies
0:06 Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies.
0:08 I'm your host, Julie Mattson.
0:10 Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual, and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
0:24 Do I have some stories for you?
0:26 Are you ready?
0:31 Hey y'all, I'm back from Tulsa.
0:33 I know that I mentioned to y'all that I was on a reality TV show that was filmed last week.
0:38 It's for entrepreneurs.
0:40 There were well over 10,000 applicants and there were only 90 of us chosen.
0:45 I feel very fortunate to have gotten the opportunity to attend.
0:49 It was so much fun.
0:51I can't even tell you how many amazing entrepreneurs I met and how much I learned, not only from them, but also from the judges and from Wess.
1:02 It'll be season 21 of the Blocks, and I encourage you all to stay tuned for that.
1:07 I don't know yet when it's going to air, but yeah, it was an amazing, amazing week.
1:13 I just brought so much home from it and I'm excited to really start implementing everything that I've learned.
1:21 You know, last week we talked about Richard Chase nicknamed the Vampire of Sacramento because he did drink his victim's blood.
1:29 And as promised, I kind of wanted to talk this week about the people that he murdered.
1:36 There are some things about these murders that I left out because they were disturbing to even me.
1:43 And I see this stuff every day, so it's really hard for me to be disturbed by something that someone does because, you know, you feel like you've seen it all and heard it all, and then wow, this guy was absolutely crazy.
1:58 I guess we left off kind of talking about how, you know, he liked to drink blood and had a terrible childhood and all the things.
2:07 He killed animals, which we discussed, you know, how Dahmer did that when he first started, but Chase purchased a 22-caliber pistol in December of'77.
2:19 And of course, you can't just buy a pistol if you have a history of mental illness.
2:25 So naturally he lied about that.
2:29 Neighbors actually heard him shooting in his apartment, and it turns out that he had been shooting at voices that he heard in his apartment.
2:38 Now this was confirmed when police went into the residence and saw bullet holes in the walls.
2:45 Apparently, he just continued to kill and eat dogs, and I know that to a lot of people, the killing of animals and dogs and cats and all of those things is almost more disturbing, if not as disturbing as killing people.
3:04On December 29th of 1977, Chase actually killed his first human victim in a drive-by shooting.
3:14 So this was Ambrose Griffin.
3:16 He was a 51-year-old engineer and father of two.
3:20 Now he had been unloading groceries in his driveway and collapsed.
3:25 His wife initially believed that he had had just had a heart attack.
3:30 But you know, later when the investigation took place, it was found that he had been shot.
3:36 Chase claimed that he did this because he was angry because his mom wouldn't allow him to come to her house for Christmas, and the reason she wouldn't allow that was because his sister was afraid of him after he ripped a cat apart in front of his mother during an argument and smeared the blood on his body.
3:56 We all agree this guy is a freaking weirdo.
4:01 Two weeks later, he attempted to enter the home of a woman, but because her doors were locked, he walked away, which is interesting that he wouldn't just break in or try to get in in other ways, which he may have, but he felt that an unlocked door was an invitation to enter and that a locked door was a sign that he was not welcome.
4:25 Which is really strange that he decides to be conscientious of people's feelings, you know, at this time.
4:33 I want to talk a little bit about locking doors too, and I was thinking of this as I was researching this case.
4:41 You know, when I grew up in a small town, we did lock our doors because we lived in the Dallas area or North Dallas area prior to moving to the small town of Valley View.
4:54 We were in town part of the time and then we later moved kind of out in the country, but because we had lived in a large city, I believe my parents had just gotten into the habit of, you know, locking the doors and making sure the windows were secure and just all the things every night before we went to bed or even during the day when someone was home alone.
5:17 It just was habit, and I know a lot of people who live in a small-town kind of have the mindset that, you know, I trust everybody, no one's going to break in.
5:27 I don't have anything anyone wants, but they don't always know that you don't have anything until they break in.
5:35 Keep that in mind, but my husband grew up in North Dakota and it's funny because no one is there, and y'all can correct me if I'm wrong, most of the people there that I asked do not lock their doors during the day, at night, like ever.
5:52 Now it's a very welcoming place and many times your neighbors or your relatives may come over and just walk in, which is fine, but I growing up in the city and then even later in a small town, I'm just a little bit paranoid and maybe I've just seen too much and I know that a lot of you police officers and other death investigators can totally relate to that, but they do not lock their doors.
6:20 And so when we're there.
6:22 Visiting, I would always completely go through the house, make sure all the windows are down and locked, and make sure all the doors are locked and close the blinds because that's one thing that kind of creeps me out is thinking that my blinds are open, my lights are on, and anybody that drives by, walks by, whatever, can see everything I'm doing and I'm basically like a fish in a fish bowl.
6:50 It just creeps me out a little bit.
6:53 It is what it is.
6:54 My husband thinks I'm crazy.
6:55 He's like, what are you doing, locking the doors, dude.
6:58 Like, I don't want to be murdered.
7:00 And he's like, there's nobody out here.
7:02 And I'm like, eventually, someone is going to have something stolen.
7:09 Or I mean, I'm glad that nothing bad has happened up to this point, but that doesn't mean that it won't.
7:15 And not everyone that's there is from there.
7:20 I mean, we know there's bad people everywhere.
7:24 I guess my point is, I just feel the need to lock the door.
7:28 I'm interested to see if y'all do that.
7:32 Just let me know what your thoughts are on locking your door every night because I cannot not do it.
7:41 I mean, even when I'm driving my car, if I'm sitting in a red light, like my car doors are locked because I don't know if y'all have a lot of homeless people in your area, but we do.
7:53 And they're standing on the corners of the street, and when you're stopped, sometimes they surprise you and walk up to your car and knock on your window or start washing your front windshield.
8:04 And I don't want anybody opening my car door and getting in my car or grabbing me and I don't know.
8:11 Like I said, I'm not trying to be paranoid, but I just always lock everything.
8:17 And I had a rape case years ago.
8:21 Where someone had been watching this mother and daughter, it was a single mom.
8:26 Her daughter was in high school, and someone had been watching them, following them, and knew their schedule.
8:33 And so when the daughter left for school one morning, she did not lock the door and Mom was off that day, the car was parked outside.
8:43 The person watching knew, and just walked in the front door, went into the bedroom, and raped the mom at knifepoint.
8:55 That story also still kind of haunts me a little bit, and I think that's why I'm so paranoid about making sure the doors are locked.
9:05 Almost anxious.
9:06 Like I said, when we go to North Dakota and they're unlocked and its midnight, and I'm like, OK, y'all, I'm locking the doors.
9:13 I'm closing the blogs because I just have seen what can happen.
9:18 And again, we all hear the stories, and we all think it's not going to happen to me, but the fact that it can just kind of keeps my awareness raised enough that I'm very conscientious about it.
9:32 Anyway, that's my little soapbox unlocking the doors.
9:36 I mean, again, I grew up in a small town and it's not that I didn't trust the people that lived there, but there are bad seeds and there are people coming through town that aren't from there, that don't live there, people visiting, homeless people.
9:52 I mean, and again, no one knows what you have until they walk into your house.
9:59 Just the mindset that you don't have anything anyone wants; it doesn't really make sense.
10:06 Anyway, let's go back to Richard Chase.
10:08 One time, you know, he was again trying to get into people's houses.
10:14 He had been chased off by a couple who came home while he was going through their belongings.
10:19 Could you imagine, I mean, just your privacy being invaded like that, but he also urinated and defecated on their infant child's bed and clothing.
10:32 This guy is absolutely crazy.
10:35 And again, there's not many stories that I won't tell, but some of the things he did, I don't even want to say on the air because it is disturbing to me, and I know it would be equally disturbing to you and it gets to the point where those things are not entertaining.
10:51 He broke into another unoccupied house and attempted to set fire to the drapes.
10:58 He later told the police that the residents had been spying on him and that he wanted them to leave the neighborhood.
11:05 He was trying to burn their house down so that they would move because he didn't want them there.
11:12 On January 23rd, 1978, Chase broke into a house and shot Teresa Wallin.
11:20 Teresa was 3 weeks pregnant at the time.
11:23 And she was taking out the trash while she was doing that, he shot her in the hand, which I guess for some reason, and I don't know how far away from her he was, but she was apparently trying to protect herself.
11:39 Maybe she saw him point the weapon and put her hand up in an attempt to stop the bullet, which instinctively we would probably all do, but we know isn't going to help.
11:52 After he shot her in the hand, he shot her in the cheek, and that broke her jaw, and then he shot her in the head.
11:59 Now, he had intercourse with her corpse while stabbing her in the stomach with a butcher knife from the kitchen.
12:06 That is about the worst part of this crime I'm going to tell you about because again, it's very disturbing that someone would do this to someone, especially someone pregnant, and this was very random like he did not know her.
12:21 He removed multiple organs including her spleen and kidneys, and then he cut off her nipples and drank her blood from a yogurt cup that he found in her trash.
12:32 And this guy went out to the yard and found dog feces in her yard and stuffed it down her throat before he left.
12:44 You know, weird, he claims kind of sudden loss of consciousness when he does these things, and at times he can remember everything he did and then at other times he says that he was completely unaware of what was happening.
12:59 Now he wore rubber gloves when he performed a lot of his crimes, but the crazy thing is that he really didn't try to cover up the scene at all.
13:10 There were remnants of her unborn fetus also found in the residence.
13:16 She was found by her husband, who was a truck driver, and he had been out of town.
13:23 Could you imagine finding your significant other after getting home from a work trip?
13:30 Now, in the following days, Chase had a phone conversation with his mother about rockets, spaceships, and little green men.
13:40 I mean, he's having strange conversations with people that know him, and remember, she didn't want him to come to her house for Christmas because the sister was afraid of him.
13:50 On January 27th, Chase entered the home of 38-year-old divorced mother Evelyn Miroth and proceeded to murder everyone there.
14:01 He shot her friend, Dan Meredith, who was introduced to her through a family member and was being treated for a brain tumor, shot him twice in the head.
14:12 He also shot Miroth, her six-year-old son Jason, and her 22-month-old nephew, David Ferreira.
14:22 Before mutilating Miroth, he engaged in necrophilia and cannibalism.
14:27 He cut open her organs, and in addition, he stabbed her repeatedly in the anus and attempted to cut out one of her eyes.
14:37 The stab wounds to her anus also punctured her uterus, so you can imagine the force.
14:43 He also stabbed Ferreira in the anus and cut open a section of the back of his head, so that it would be easier to drink his blood.
14:54 Mind you, he's 22 months old.
14:56 Now there was a bathtub full of blood, indicating that Miroth may have been taking a bath when Chase entered the home.
15:05 Ferreira was in his crib when he was shot.
15:09 Investigators believed that Chase may have bathed in the bathtub full of blood.
15:15 Now, while the mutilations were occurring, a six-year-old neighbor, Tracy Graingard, began knocking on the door, and Chase said that it scared him.
15:25 And so he took Ferreira and left, so he took the 22-month-old to his apartment where he decapitated him and consumed parts of his brain.
15:35 And when asked why later after he got caught, he responded that he was hungry.
15:41 Now the family of Tracy, the girl who startled him, and she came over because the other six-year-old Jason who was murdered was supposed to go somewhere that day with her family.
15:52 She came over there to get him and startled Chase while he was murdering them.
15:59 But she was a smart little one and she alerted a neighbor who called the police.
16:05 Now when the police arrived, they noticed that Ferrer was missing.
16:09 They also noticed that the murderer had left handprints and shoe prints.
16:14 And so, due to the nature of the murders, they immediately connected it to the wall and slaying.
16:22 FBI profilers were called in to kind of assist, and they believe that the killer was a white male in his twenties with a history of mental illness due to the evidence that he left behind.
16:37 Now during the murders, Chase was wearing an orange ski parka that his father had bought him, and neighbors later reported that a disheveled long-haired man in an orange parka had been knocking on their door prior to the Miroth murders, asking if they had old newspapers.
16:55 No, he was going around trying to get into people's houses, looking for more victims.
17:00 He was definitely on the hunt at that time.
17:04 Now when police searched Chase's apartment, the walls, floor, ceiling, refrigerator and all eating and drinking utensils were soaked in blood.
17:15 Several dog collars were also found along with rotting organs which belonged to animals and some of his human victims.
17:25 He had been reading, according to what they found in his apartment, magazines about guns, psychology, and classified ads for dogs for sale.
17:36 That's why I really love to see that people are oftentimes picky about who they sell or rehome their dogs to because of this story.
17:47 Now Chase had the word today written on a calendar on the days that he murdered Wallen and Miroth, but it was written on 44 other days throughout the 1978 calendar.
18:01 There may be a lot of murders that were never linked to him that he definitely was behind.
18:08 Now, once caught, he was uncooperative, go figure.
18:12 And he claimed that he only killed dogs and that he was being framed by Italians, and he speculated that the murders had been committed by a blonde man in an orange jacket and that he said someone had been coming in and out of his apartment, indicating that whoever was coming in and out of there had mutilated all these people, and that's why the blood was there and all the things.
18:38 It would take until March of 1978 for police to find Ferrera's decomposed corpse in a garbage bin at Chase's apartment.
18:48 In 1979, he stood trial for six counts of murder, and while awaiting trial, he claimed that the food that he was being served in jail was poisoned, and he ordered his defense attorney to have the food tested.
19:04 Of course they did that and all the tests.
19:06 Surprise came back negative.
19:08 He claimed to need blood and believed that the lack of blood was preventing him from having a normal life.
19:16 He claimed that the blood of animals wasn't helping anymore, and so he kind of quote unquote graduated to people.
19:25 Now he pled not guilty by reason of temporary insanity, and he requested to be seen by a heart specialist because of his stolen pulmonary artery.
19:34You remember we talked a little bit about that last week.
19:37 He told the jury that he was afraid that his victims would come back from the dead and at the trial, Teresa Wallen's husband gave a victim impact statement, and I know that has to be so hard.
19:50 I've seen those given before and it has to be extremely difficult.
19:54 The ones that I've seen given were during sexual assault trials, so there was not a murder, but still, I mean, a very violent crime, and I just cannot imagine getting up and giving a victim impact statement that just seems like it would be so difficult to do.
20:11 On May 8th of 1979, the jury found Chase guilty of six counts of first-degree murder, and they sentenced him to the gas chamber.
20:20 That was back, kind of when that was a thing.
20:23 The fact that he wore gloves did prove some level of premeditation.
20:29 You know, ironically, the inmates at San Quentin and those are the bad guys, they were aware of his violent crime, and they actually feared him.
20:38 They tried to persuade him to commit suicide.
20:41 They wanted him out of there.
20:42 They did not want to be around him at all.
20:45 They were scared.
20:47 He was described as behaving psychotically from the moment he entered the prison.
20:52 And so he was temporarily sent to a facility for the criminally insane in California in December of 1979, but in April of 1980, he was eventually sent back to San Quentin.
21:06 He wanted to be transferred to a prison on the east coast so he could be closer to the government and safe from UFO.
21:12 See how weird this guy is like these ideas that ran his head are crazy.
21:17 He thought that UFO intelligence had been tracking him for the last 6 months and said that he was born as a result of a UFO cloning experiment and that his mother had been secretly poisoning him since he was 1 year old.
21:31 So this is why he wanted to be transferred to this prison on the east coast.
21:37 At 11:05 a.m. on December 26th of 1980, Chase was found dead in his prison cell at San Quentin.
21:46 Now, an autopsy revealed that he died of a sinequan overdose, which is a drug prescribed to treat depression and hallucinations.
21:58 There are a lot of deaths in jails and prisons, and there are also a lot of inmates, and I know that.
22:06 Probably a lot of them are short-staffed.
22:09 I don't know what kind of pay the people that work there get, but these people many times will secretly hoard their pills, which is what they believe he did.
22:21 According to the toxicology, he took 36 times the normal dose, so they do believe that he'd been secretly hoarding the pills in his cell.
22:31 Now he was lying on his stomach with his head buried in the mattress and his legs extended off the bunk, but there were 4 sheets of paper next to him that he had written on, and some of it was in code, but there was also something indicating that he might drink pills that would make his heart stop beating.
22:52 Nobody really knows why he eventually did kill himself after committing all of these murders and not really seeming remorseful at all, but this guy was certifiable.
23:08 Again, I mean, I don't know the ages of the people who listen to my podcast, but I do know that some people listen with their teenagers.
23:16 I mean, I try to be careful of the things that I report.
23:19 It's not anything that's not in the news, but it's just so disturbing what people do.
23:27 Some of the things, I don't know.
23:29 I just don't want to even share, which is weird cause it's hard to disturb a nurse who has seen everything and been doing this for 30 years.
23:39 But yeah.
23:40 Thank God, this guy is gone and we're not even having to pay for his hot meals in the prison anymore.
23:48 But the things he did were absolutely crazy, and the fact that he just kept killing and his own family was afraid of him, you know, it just makes you wonder why he wasn't jailed long before he was.
24:05 I don't know, it's just a crazy, crazy story.
24:08 I don't know how the weather is in y'all's area.
24:10 I've heard that a lot of people are supposed to get snow this week.
24:14 A lot of my new blocker friends that I met in Oklahoma, we're just hoping to get home before the snow hits their area.
24:23 It's kind of crazy.
24:24 I don't know what it's supposed to do here.
24:26 I know it's cold, it's not freezing, but it's cold and kind of wet.
24:30 I think it's been overcast for the last few days, and it rained in Tulsa literally the whole time I was there.
24:36 I parked outside the casino, and I never once went outside because when I looked out the window, it just looked gross.
24:43 And I made a comment at the end of the week.
24:46 I hope my car's still here because I didn't even go out there to check on my own car.
24:50 Anyway, it was, but when we left, I got to enjoy a wonderful brunch with 3 of my new friends and took 2 of them to the airport and then went shopping with the other one before I dropped her off at the hotel.
25:05 So, so, so much fun.
25:07 But I did order my Serial boxes.
25:11 We have 30 of those coming and all the contents are also on order.
25:17 I will put a link on my website soon where you can order that.
25:20 Again, there's no choice as far as what is in yours.
25:23 It's the same thing for that month that everyone else gets.
25:28 And that's kind of the fun of it, I think, is being surprised.
25:31 And I would love to hear your ideas about items that you'd like to see in there.
25:37 I just want to make sure that everyone's getting what they expect out of it.
25:41 And so I would love to get subscriptions for this 1st 30 and get good critiques from y'all on what you thought of the items and ideas on maybe what other things you'd like to see in there.
25:56 I hope y'all have an amazing week.
25:58 I was off today, just, I needed a chance to sleep y'all.
26:02 We were up early in the morning and stayed out late at night.
26:06 It was a hard week, and I was exhausted.
26:11 Anyway, home now, back to the grindstone, back to the ME's office tomorrow and back to the med spa on Thursday.
26:20 And, oh yeah, Valentine's Day is on Friday, maybe?
26:24 Hope you have an amazing Valentine's Day, and I really look forward to next week.
26:30 Talk to you soon.
26:31 Bye.
26:33 Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies.
26:37 If you like this podcast and would like to share with others, please do me a quick favor and leave a review on Apple Podcast.
26:44 This helps to make the podcast more visible to the public.
26:48 Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at pushinguplilies.com for merchandise and past episodes.