Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Vampire of Sacramento” Pt. 1: Richard Trenton Chase

Episode Date: October 7, 2019

He was a strange child—messy, disorganized and prone to random outbursts. As Richard Chase neared his 20s, things got worse… much worse. He convinced himself he needed to drink blood to stay alive.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Bad advice? You talking to me? Kayak, got that right. Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder, animal cruelty, mutilation, cannibalism, and sexual harassment that some

people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. December 29, 97, a cold and quiet evening in Sacramento, California. Ambrose Griffin, a 51-year-old engineer, pulled his car into the driveway of his modest home on Robertson Avenue. His wife, Carol, sat behind him. He switched off the car and handed her the keys, asking her to open the trunk full of groceries. Carol Griffin happily complied. Their daughter-in-law, Gail, stood in the doorway to their home, holding the front door open as Carol and Ambrose took bag after bag inside to the kitchen. As she straddled the foyer in the front stoop, Gail caught a glimpse of a silver-gray car moving down Robertson, a 1966 Ford Ranchero. She didn't pay much attention

to it. Ambrose stepped back onto the driveway to retrieve the last bag of groceries, just as the silver car pulled alongside their house. Then two loud pops split the air. Gunshots. Ambrose collapsed on the driveway. Gail ran to her father-in-law's side. Carol appeared at the door, thinking the shots were just a car backfiring. When she saw her husband lying on the concrete, she ran to him, heart racing. By the time paramedics arrived, Ambrose had died in a horrific act of senseless violence. By the time Carol looked up, the silver car was long gone. For now, the shooter would remain a nameless killer. Within a year, he'd become the Vampire of Sacramento. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is serial killers, a parcast original.

Every Monday, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other podcast originals for free on Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. To stream serial killers for free on Spotify, just open the app and type serial killers in the search bar. Today, we're beginning the story of Richard Trenton Chase,

a deeply disturbed man who would eventually become known as the Vampire of Sacramento. At Parcast, we're grateful for you, our listeners. You allow us to do what we love. Let us know how we're doing. Reach out on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network. And if you enjoy today's episode,

the best way to help us is to leave a five-star review wherever you're listening. It really does help. On December 29th, 1970. Ambrose Griffin was the victim of a random drive-by shooting in Sacramento. After a cooling off period of about a month, the man who committed this shooting went on a rampage throughout the surrounding suburbs. From January 23rd to January 27, 1978,

Richard Trenton Chase traveled from house to house, shooting people, drinking their blood, and brutalizing their remains. Over the course of a week, he managed to kill five people before he was finally tracked down and apprehended by Sacramento County Police. This week will follow Richard's troubled adolescence in a turbulent home and delve into his multiple stints at mental health institutions for bizarre, aberrant behavior. Next week, we'll explore the horrific killing spree he initiated in January of 1978,

which led to his capture by local detectives. and his eventual fate while awaiting execution in the San Quentin Gas Chamber, will also analyze Richard's grotesque fascination with drinking the blood of his victims. Richard Trenton Chase was born on May 23, 1950, in Sacramento, California. Starting when he was two, his father, also named Richard, worked at McClellan Air Force Base as a computer specialist. His mother, Beatrice, worked as a teacher. For the first eight years of his life, Richard lived in ordinary childhood. He was a Cub Scout and played Little League baseball.

In 1954, his sister Pamela was born, and his parents, for the time being, were happy together. However, this idyllic family life soon began to fracture. By his own admission, Richard Chase, Sr. struggled with managing money. He drank heavily, frequently fought with his wife, and disciplined his children harshly. Beatrice left the disciplining of the children to her husband, who later admitted to shaking them aggressively when they acted out. On one occasion, he force-fed his son when Richard Jr. refused to eat.

But Richard Jr. wasn't the only one on the receiving end of Richard Sr.'s fury. As Richard and his sister grew up, the fights between the Chase parents grew more constant and more passionate, which greatly affected the psychological development of young Richard. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg.

The friction in the Chase household was coupled with a certain degree of neglect from Richard's parents. Later psychiatric evaluation labeled Beatrice as, emotionally unable to concentrate on the task of socializing her son or to care for him in a loving way. The supposed inability could have stemmed from emotional problems of her own, but was likely not helped by the increasingly turbulent nature of her life. To be clear, Richard Sr. was no better at socializing his child. But apparently, their doctors didn't view parenting as men's work, and therefore he wasn't blamed. Nevertheless, the neglect and constant fighting isolated Richard and caused him to turn inward.

This was only exacerbated by the fact that the Chase family moved houses multiple times throughout the 1950s. According to court documents, they lost their second home in 1961 to financial troubles caused in part by marital problems. A 2016 study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine by Roger T. Webb, Karsten B. Peterson and Pearl L.H. Mock examined how moving frequently as a child affects a person later in life. The study determined that in all areas, including substance abuse, psychiatric disorders, and violent offending, moving as a child increases the risk of later developing these behaviors. Sadly, Richard would not prove to be the exception. In fact, he was an extremely strange child who grew into a child.

an isolated, unruly teenager. Beatrice Chase later recalled at the age of 13, young Richard frequently made a mess of their kitchen in misguided attempts to cook, but he didn't behave like a typical teenager learning a few recipes. In her words, he burnt pans and he would leave stuff all over the kitchen

and big puddles on the floor. He never picked up or cleaned anything. Now he was up stewing around and cooking, burning stuff all night long, and it got to be vexing. We couldn't sleep, my daughter and I in the house. He'd turn the heat on, and he'd turn it up so high, open the windows, let the heat out, and strip off, lying on the couch in the living room.

Although he still looked outwardly normal, it was clear that Richard Trenton Chase was developing into a very abnormal person, especially as the gulf between his parents widened. Richard's seniors drinking heavily worsened, and Beatrice frequently accused him of infidelity. By the time Richard was 14, in May of 1964, the fighting had grown so constant that he could barely stand to be in his own home. Such was the Richard who entered high school at the end of that summer. He was described by those who knew him as a well-groomed and fairly popular student, though his grades were frequently below average.

As a freshman, his report card was mostly C's and D's. But by his sophomore year, F's started to appear more frequently. This should not be a huge surprise, as 1965 was a particularly turbulent year for the Chase family. Early in the year, Richard Jr.'s mother took both him and Pamela out of the house and fled south to Los Angeles. After eight days, Richard Sr. followed them there and took Richard Jr. back. Beatrice, however, stayed in Los Angeles for another four months before rejoining her family in Sacramento. That same year, 15-year-old Richard began a relationship with a girl a few years his junior.

She spoke about their relationship later, understandably opting not to use her real name. The ex-girlfriend recalled that while Richard liked her and was attracted to girls, he found the sexual part of their relationship challenging. Throughout their year-long relationship, he was never able to maintain an erection. It was this limitation that caused her to end their relationship in 1966. Erectile dysfunction is exceedingly uncommon among younger men. Studies suggest that only 5% of men under the age of 40 will experience it. This can be caused by any number of influences, from stress to depression to generalized anxiety.

We can only speculate which of these preyed on younger. Richard Chase. But what we do know is that it was a constant source of frustration and humiliation for him. Around this time, possibly to cope with the shame surrounding his sexual impotence, or more simply, because he was a teenager in the 1960s, he started experimenting with drugs. These included marijuana, LSD, and occasionally amphetamines. He let his hair grow out and began to neglect his personal hygiene. At the age of 15, he was a lot. At the age of 15, he was a lot of 15, he had his first run-in with police when he got busted for marijuana. When confronted by his father, Richard denied any drug use, contradicting the police report.

This obvious lie only made his father angrier. Richard's casual attitude about drugs and increasingly inconsiderate attitude toward his family caused friction between him and his father. They got into heated arguments about Richard's aimless approach to life. as well as his increasingly slovenly appearance. But these arguments were hardly unique to the Chase family. Most onlookers assumed Richard was just a directionless slob of a teenager. No one thought he was especially dangerous.

Especially when, at age 18, he graduated from Miraloma High School. Despite his poor work ethic and general lack of ambition, he enrolled at American River College and began his first semester there in September of 1968, To everyone's surprise, he did all right in classes. A few months later, he saw a psychiatrist for his erectile problem. Unfortunately, there was little to be done for ED at the time, so the condition remained a constant source of insecurity for Richard throughout his life.

But all things considered, it seemed like he was making an effort to get his life on track after his turbulent youth. But then, at the dawn of the 1970s, Richard Chases, strangelyly. truly began to manifest. Richard stopped attending classes at American River College, taking what he called a leave of absence from a schoolwork. The faculty did not see it that way, and he was expelled. But unlike many dropouts, Richard Chase did not move back in with his parents. He relished the chance to live away from his family.

In February of 1971, two young residents of Sacramento, Sid Evans-Demarkey and Rachel Statham found Richard Chase casually sitting on the front lawn outside their house and ended up talking with him. We don't know what their conversation entailed, but by the end of it, Demarkey and Stadam allowed Richard to move in with them and share their rent. Richard's father gave him $50 a month to put toward rent, and he paid for the rest with a series of odd jobs. At first, Richard seemed to be a personable guy who gave no signs of being a little bit of being a job. a difficult roommate. But Demarckian Stadham soon learned this was very far from the case. Free from any real obligations, Richard's eccentricities grew dramatic. For reasons that remained a mystery to his new roommates, Richard became incredibly paranoid,

boarding up the door to his room and knocking down the wall in his closet to make a new entrance. This way, he said, no one can sneak up on me. His drug use persisted. He was always stoned and was utterly inconsiderate of his roommates. At one point, Demarkey witnessed Richard leaning out a window while waving a gun at someone walking by the house. Both of them agreed. Living with Richard for any longer would be a nightmare. They confronted Richard about his habits and told him he would have to move out.

Richard refused. Rather than argue, Demarkey and Samarkey and Samarkey and Sam, Statham simply packed up and abandoned the property. Shortly after her departure, Rachel Stadam's brothers and some of their friends moved into the newly vacated house. They experienced the same problems with Richard that their sister had experienced before. Richard was messy, unkempt and constantly high. He would frequently wander out of his room completely nude while they had guests over.

But his irritating behavior reached a fever pitch when he found out his nude. roommates had a rock band. When they practiced their music, he insisted on joining them. They tried to talk him out of it, but he ignored their obvious lack of interest, banging on a conga drum alongside them, and singing poorly. Eventually, Rachel Stadam's brothers somehow achieved what she had been unable to do. They got Richard Chase to pack his bags and leave. Sometime in late 1971, Richard found himself living with his mother on Montclair Street. The relationship between his parents had reached a breaking point, and they were on the verge of separating permanently. And having their

eccentric, antisocial 21-year-old move back in with them didn't exactly help matters, especially as his actions turned even more disturbing and eventually violent. Up next, Richard Trenton Chase grows too violent for his family. to handle. Now back to the story. By the end of 1971, 21-year-old Richard Trenton Chase had moved back in with his parents after his roommates found him impossible to live with. He was constantly high, never cleaned, and acted with complete disregard for the comfort of others. He took work where he could find it, but never held down a job very long. His parents remained his most stable source of income. While living at home, he became an even greater financial burden on his

mother and father due to accumulated parking violations. According to his mother, Beatrice, at one point he had as many as 15 tickets, causing the DMV to suspend his license. Despite this, he continued to drive, which kept him in constant trouble with the law. In one particular instance, he took a two-week trip to Utah with his two dogs and received several traffic violations while there. He was thrown into jail for the night. His car was impounded, and the two dogs were placed in a shelter. Beatrice bailed him out, in addition to paying his outstanding ticket fees, which would total around $500 today. But when her son returned home, instead of being grateful, he was tense and agitated. Something about him seemed fundamentally disturbed.

Richard Chase was furious about his perceived mistreatment by the police in Utah. Beatrice asked him what had happened, and according to her, he said, I think they gave me something in jail or asphyxiated me in some way. He seemed to think he had been poisoned by the police, a notion he would never let go of. This was the beginning of a new pattern in Richard's life. He grew obsessed with his own physical condition, believing that something inside him was wrong. or poisoned. Though he had not been formally diagnosed with any mental illness, his increasing paranoid delusions, alongside his cripplingly disorganized lifestyle, fit the diagnostic and

statistical manual of mental disorders criteria for schizophrenia. On top of these delusions, Richard would experience sudden bursts of rage, or fits, as his mother called them. During these fits, it would be impossible to talk or reason with him, and often he would turn violent. During one of these arguments, Beatrice became so scared of her own son, she grabbed the phone and started to dial the police. Richard snatched the phone from her hands and struck her with it, but somehow she'd managed to complete dialing the number. Realizing this, Richard fled the house and leaped over the back fence. He was gone by the time police arrived. They told her they could put out a warrant for Richard's arrest if she wanted to press charges.

Beatrice did not. Beatrice had always been the more lenient of Richard's two parents. She did not believe seeing her son thrown in prison would help anything. But Richard's presence was putting an undeniable strain on his mother. In June of 1972, she and Richard Sr. separated. Beatrice would have to simultaneously handle both the stress of living with Richard Jr. And the ennui that came with her failing marriage. But Beatrice was still determined.

to help her son. Soon she found a way to get him acclimated to the world and conveniently get him out of her hair for a little while. Beatrice sent Richard to live with his grandmother, Holly niece, who had a spare room available in her Los Angeles home. While there, Richard worked for his uncle as a bus driver. His poor work ethic became a problem once again, as he refused to clean the bus or replace the engine oil, despite being reminded multiple times that it would not cost him anything. He was soon fired. After this, Holly niece claimed that Richard stayed in bed most of the day and roamed the house aimlessly at night. Richard returned to Sacramento for Christmas of 1972. The divorce proceedings between his parents were almost finalized, so it was

far from a charming holiday retreat. He increasingly felt like an outsider in his own family. Due to conflicting testimony from various family members, Richard's timeline becomes a little unclear at the start of 1973. At some point following his parents' divorce in January, he took a job at a local paint store. He only managed to keep it for 10 days, but saved enough money to purchase a special gift for himself. During the evening of April 22nd, Richard Trenton Chase found himself at a party at a friend's house. During the revelry, he groped the breasts of one of the other partygoers. Due to this inappropriate behavior, he was asked to leave. Richard complied, only to return shortly after,

he forced his way back into the party where he was seized by several of the other men there while someone called the police. As he struggled to get free, a 22-caliber pistol fell from his belt. He had bought the pistol with paychecks saved from working out. the paint store. Shortly after, police arrived to arrest him. Patrol officers found Richard drunk and belligerent. He resisted arrest and was forced into a patrol car. He spent the night in jail. The next day, his father came to pick him up. Richard claimed the police had seriously injured him and he wanted to sue. His father managed to talk him out of this and they left.

Richard Chase was charged with a misdemeanor and forced to pay a $50 fine. Richard's fixation with his own health only became more dramatic from here. Presumably after this incident, he moved back down to Los Angeles to once again live with his less than thrilled grandmother. Holly Nees claimed he arrived on February 10, 1973, but official records, as well as accounts of his earlier arrest, place him there closer to May. She observed that this time his living habits had become even stranger,

saying that the second time he was down here, he was terribly dirty. He came out and used my couch in the living room, and he had breadcrumbs and everything just dripped over the couch and all over the floor, and he had papers, newspapers. I don't know what he wanted to do with them, but he'd have them pulled all apart over the house. He kept her up all hours of the night, supposedly building a speaker for his car.

She also claimed to hear him talking to himself, saying, Richard, you're a good boy, aren't you? Yes, you're a good boy. Though he never told anyone, the possibility that he was experiencing audible hallucinations was starting to become apparent to his grandmother. Richard did not talk to her much. Sometimes she would come home and find him standing on his head in the corner of the house.

When asked what he was doing, he told her he was trying to get the blood to run back into his head. He had started to have frequent headaches and believed the root cause was that he was losing blood. This fixation with not having enough blood would only intensify. He also complained to his grandmother about heart and leg pain. She also claimed that he would occasionally wrap his head with a towel filled with orange slices. He seemed to believe that vitamin C would pass into his brain via diffusion and would soothe his headaches. It did not work.

A few short months later, his grandmother put him on a plane back to Sacramento. Like everyone else he had lived with, she had found his habits intolerable. Now 23 years old, and unable to afford a place of his own, Richard Trenton Chase split his time between his parents' separate houses. His parents had two completely different attitudes about their son's failure to have a normal life. Beatrice clearly saw it as a mental health issue, having seen Richard at his most volatile. Richard Sr. believed his son's issues stemmed from misguided values and attitudes. Richard Sr. believed his son just needed to man up and take charge of his life.

Richard Jr. did not heed his father's frequent remonstrations. And more often than not, their conversations devolved into arguments. Beatrice listened to what her son was going through. but everything he said only caused her more distress. He seemed to believe he was deeply sick on the inside. In her words, his head was hurting and changing shape. He thought there was something wrong with his nervous system, that his heart was stopping,

and he had something wrong with his blood circulation. These beliefs seemed to trace back to his arrest in Utah, where he claimed to be poisoned by the police. Ever since, he had an obsession with his own internal illness. Richard began to decorate his room with images of hearts and organs cut out from a copy of medical journal, Gray's Anatomy. He seemed curious about what he thought was happening to his insides, but could never properly articulate it. He believed that bones were growing out of the back of his head. He pleaded with his mother for medical help, and she started calling doctors.

The third doctor to examine him, Dr. Donald Ansel, simply said he had a psychiatric disturbance of major. proportion. Through the rest of 1973, they were unable to find a satisfactory diagnosis to Richard's multitude of internal issues. Finally, on December 1, 1973, he walked into an American River Hospital emergency room. He told the nurses there that he couldn't breathe and that someone had stolen his pulmonary artery stopping his blood flow. Dr. Irwin Lyons described Richard in his initial report as a filthy, disheveled, deteriorated, and foul-smelling

white male. Lyons diagnosed Richard with chronic paranoid schizophrenia, although he said that the possibility of psychosis caused by drug use could not be ruled out. While concrete records are scarce, Richard's drug habit

likely had not subsided since high school. Marijuana was his most common drug of choice, but he's rumored to have explored more dangerous substances as well. If Richard was suffering from substance-induced psychosis, his symptoms would most likely have been temporary and treatable, an ideal scenario for Dr. Lyons. But any chance for long-term observation was derailed after two days, when Dr. Lyons had a hostile confrontation with Beatrice Chase, causing the hospital to discharge her son. The exact details

of this confrontation are unclear, but Dr. Lyons' report described Beatrice as a as highly aggressive and hostile to the medical staff. Despite the acrimonious circumstances surrounding his discharge, Richard's perceived pain seemed to subside for a while. He was provided with medication and an oxygen tank for panic attacks. And over the course of a few months, the chronically emaciated man actually managed to put on around 20 pounds. Once again, accounts from Richard's family, particularly his parents, differ on this.

But Beatrice claims that this respite lasted two years, 1974 and 1975. Richard Sr. claims it was much shorter. Either way, Beatrice eventually started to notice her son's troubling behavior patterns creeping back into their home. Like her mother, Holly Neese, had witnessed early in 1973, Beatrice started hearing her son have one-sided conversations with himself and wrapping his head with orange-slip. Beatrice felt helpless, unable to relieve her son's suffering.

Every time she attempted to intervene, he only grew more agitated. This war on his mother, who grew exhausted from her inability to help. She and his sister Pamela could only watch as Richard relapsed, and by 1976, Richard was no longer just yelling at his family members. He started hurting them. Up next, Richard Trenton Chase morphs into something unrecognizable and deeply disturbing. Exema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with ebbglis, a once-monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four-month- or longer dosing phase, about four in ten people taking ebb glist, achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks,

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Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. Seeful terms at mintmobile.com. Now back to the story. When he was discharged from the American River Hospital on December 3rd of 1973, 23-year-old Richard Trenton Chase seemed like he had the potential to overcome his schizophrenia symptoms and returned to a normal life. He took his medication, started exercising, and abandoned all of the strange habits that disturbed everyone who lived with him. But this latency

period was only a temporary reprieve. As the years rolled on, his paranoid delusions returned, and he began treating his family with increasing cruelty. On two occasions, he told his mother Beatrice to stop controlling his mind. He also accused his sister. He also accused his sister Pamela of this on a separate occasion. He again became prone to random bouts of anger and would take out his fury on whatever furniture, glass, or wall was nearby. On one occasion, his rampage grew so violent

that Beatrice and Pamela had to flee the house while he destroyed everything inside it. Richard Sr. drove over and attempted to calm the raging Richard Jr. down. This particular instance included a fistfight between the two men on their front lawn. Around this time, his rage also began to manifest itself in more sinister ways. According to Beatrice Chase, Richard began to torture the family dogs. He would take the paw of his dog and cut it with a pocket knife.

On one instance, he squeezed the dog's snout until it almost broke. The poor dog had difficulty eating solid food for some time afterward. Worried about her son's habits, Beatrice arranged with her ex-husband to get Richard a place of his own. But now that he no longer had anyone watching him, Richard's habits started to get even more perverse. Richard started taking trips to the neighborhood of Rio Linda, where he visited a rabbit breeder. He purchased a number of rabbits from this man and brought them back to his home. He would then eviscerate the rabbits and drink their blood. Sometimes he would put their entrails into a blender and drink the gory sludge.

When his father visited to play chess, he noticed the presence of these animals. He asked his son what the rabbits were for. Richard said that he was eating them. Already used to his son's odd behavior, Richard Sr. shrugged the comment off. On April 25, 1976, Richard Sr. paid his usual visit to a son. He seemed normal at the time. As normal as Richard ever was, Richard Sr. left that night after a completely uneventful evening.

The next day, Richard Sr. came by to visit his son again. When Richard didn't answer the door, he went inside. He found Richard lying on the floor, too ill to move. The stench of vomit filled the air. Richard had injected himself with rabbit blood sometime after his dad left the night before. believing his blood levels were critically low. Richard Sr. rushed his son to the hospital. When he was admitted, Richard gave his own bizarre reasoning for what had happened.

He told the physicians that he had been poisoned by a rabbit he ate, which had battery acid in its stomach. He was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and placed under a 72-hour hold. Richard was then transferred to American River Hospital on April 28th. His physical condition had improved slightly, but he maintained his strange version of events, justifying his behavior to the doctors. He told the doctors that he needed to drink blood because his heart was weak, saying that his body was falling apart.

Despite this, he refused to join any of the hospital's exercise programs or group therapy. On May 19th, he was once again discharged. His doctor, Michael Buckley, wrote in his final report, uncooperative with treatment throughout the course of his hospitalization. Against Richard's wishes, he was admitted to Beverly Manor, an institution for mental illness patients. He protested the whole way, insisting he was only hospitalized for food poisoning, and there was no reason for him to be admitted to a mental health ward. While initially withdrawn and quiet, he eventually started to socialize more with his fellow patients and some of the staff,

Despite prescribed medication, he showed no signs of losing interest in drinking blood. He would frequently describe eating raw rabbit to his fellow patients. And on June 20th, one of the staff wrote that he suspected Richard was killing animals on the property. Two birds had been found lying outside his room earlier that week. Their heads had been torn off. Richard had been found with his shirt and face covered in place. covered in blood. When asked about this, he said that he cut himself while shaving. During his four-month stay at Beverly Manor, Richard was given the nickname Dracula for his

obsession with blood. His horrific pastimes grew so disturbing, a pair of nurses' aides quit the institution. But after this incident, Richard Chase showed some signs of responding to treatment. With cautious optimism, the doctors began to prepare him for release. This was a controversial decision at the hospital. One of the nurses recalled, when we heard he was going to be released, we all raised hell about it, but it didn't do any good.

On September 29, 1976, Dr. Buckley wrote that Richard had notably improved census admission, and that his potential for further improvement was fair. Although his prognosis was cautiously optimistic, rumors around the institution insisted that Richard was merely being discharged to make room for other patients in the overcrowded facility. Now, 26 years old, Richard was released into the custody of his parents

under the sincere belief that with a guiding hand, he could get better. His parents were granted conservatorship of him, a legal agreement that required them to pay his bills and manage his quality of life. However, nothing in the paperwork signed by Beatrice indicated that he, had to live with them. Either Beatrice or Richard's younger sister Pamela would drop groceries off at Richard's apartment, and Richard Sr. would also regularly check up on his son. But when Beatrice came to visit, she was distressed by what she saw. The medications Richard had been prescribed rendered him listless and constantly drained. He had never been more manageable, but Beatrice

looked at him and saw a zombie. This wasn't her son. So Mrs. Chase, without consulting any psychiatrists or medical professionals, took it upon herself to wean her son off the prescribed medication. Within a year, Richard Trenton Chase was no longer taking any officially prescribed medication. He had no visits to outpatient care, no psychiatrist, and his parents made no contact with Beverly Manor to inform them of his perceived recovery. His energy restored, Richard was quickly back to his old ways. He would sleep during the day and go out at night.

A frequent haunt of his was the Country Club Lane's bowling alley, where the 26-year-old would socialize with people his age. He reconnected with some old acquaintances from his earlier years, who found him surprisingly nostalgic, mostly talking about their high school days. But despite his best efforts, he wasn't able to hide his unusual behavior. His paranoia alarmed many of his former classmates. He spoke of UFOs and a Nazi crime syndicate he believed operated out of his old high school,

saying he was sure they were still after him. According to some reports, he even started subletting his apartment, though would occasionally call his father to chase unwelcome squatters off his couch when he wanted the place to himself again. Despite this, he remained a slave to his own untreated mental illness, sometime in late 1976, he appeared in his doctor's office. His head totally shaved, demanding blood. Richard had regressed even deeper into his delusion that he was running out of blood. He claimed to desperately need a transfusion. When asked if he had an appointment, he turned

and left without another word. According to a nurse that worked there, Richard would frequently show up at the offices, but when he saw other patients were there, he'd leave. without talking to anyone. He wanted help, but somehow knew that what he was requesting was incredibly strange. And he did his best to avoid embarrassing social encounters whenever possible. One of Richard Chase's neighbors, Linda Dillon, recalled a number of very strange encounters with Richard during late 1976 and early 1977. She would see him carrying boxes into his apartment at odd hours.

One day, she saw him carry two dogs and a cat in a cat. to the apartment. Dylan didn't consciously notice at the time, but she never heard or saw the animals again. On another occasion, Richard's neighbors complained to the building manager that Richard was openly carrying a shotgun around the premises. The landlord warned Richard to at least hold the weapon in a blanket when he had to carry it around, and he obliged. But even after this, his bizarre behaviors continued to attract attention. And in 1977, they reached new heights. That year, the court-ordered conservatorship of Richard Chase expired.

Neither of his parents took any action to renew it. This marked a turning point for Richard Chase. The legal reins that held Richard back were completely off. He was free to do whatever he desired, and what he desired was blood. Next week, we'll explore the year, leading up to Richard Trenton Chase's series of horrific murders. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. We'll be back Monday with Part 2.

You can find more episodes of serial killers and all other Parcast originals for free on Spotify. Not only to Spotify already have all your favorite music, but now Spotify is making it easy for you to enjoy all your favorite podcast originals, like Serial Killers for free from your phone, desktop, or smart speaker. stream serial killers on Spotify, just open the app and type Serial Killers in the search bar. Several of you have asked how to help the show. And if you enjoy the show, the best way to help is to leave a five-star review. And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network. We'll see you next time. Have a killer week.

Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler, is a production of Cutler Media and is part of the Network. It is produced by Max and Ron Cutler, sound designed by Anthony Valsick. Production assistance by Ron Shapiro and Paul Mahler. Additional production assistance by Carly Madden and Maggie Admire. Serial Killers is written by Robert Teamstra and stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson. All. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person.

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