RedHanded - Episode 36 - Richard Chase: The Vampire of Sacramento Part 2

Episode Date: March 8, 2018

In this week’s episode Hannah and Suruthi follow a spiraling, unmedicated and (literally) bloodthirsty Richard Chase as he dives into a brutal killing spree. With suburban home invasions, bloody eviscerations, necrophilia and vampiric lore made real, this is truly a disturbing and haunting finale.    See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed Richard Chase Part 2. Thanks for coming back. It was quite rough last week and it's just gonna get worse. It is downhill from here, friends. So let's just pick straight up where we left off. Last week, we left you in December 1977. So let's go back. Richard had just taken his first shot at killing a person. He'd failed, but he wasn't deterred because he moved almost immediately onto his next target. He headed to another suburban neighbourhood and here he spotted a man

unloading his shopping from his car. It was 51-year-old Ambrose Griffin. Again, this shows just how irrelevant it was to Richard who his victims were. He went from shooting Dorothy to Ambrose. Completely different victim profiles. And we talked about this last week. I'm not convinced that he sees people as that much different to the animals he's been killing for years. So with his.22 caliber gun, Richard shot Ambrose in the chest. And this time, sadly, he died. And this again, is just so weird. Richard, as we see later, is 100% a product killer. He takes no pleasure in the kill. And I'm not excusing him. I mean, literally, he doesn't get off on the kill. What he wants is the body and the blood and everything else that you'll find out in this episode. So why randomly shoot at people when he can't then get to them? And again, like the case with Dorothy Polinski, the police had no

suspects. It was such a random killing, a literal drive-by shooting. No one had any reason to kill Ambrose. And with no clues left behind, except a.22 caliber shell casing, the police just had nothing to go on. After the killing of Ambrose though, there were more shots fired into random houses in and around the area. Again, as we said last episode, this is pretty rare, but at last Richard Chase had killed his first person. It's so funny, isn't it, that he, I would imagine that quite a lot of the people in his neighbourhood are aware of him because he's wandering around looking so weird all the time and it takes the police quite a while to connect them. That's not necessarily saying the police

weren't doing their job properly but sort of everyone just kind of ignores him. They don't see him as the threat he would become and I think that's really interesting. And killing Ambrose was just the start of his crimes. In January, the police encounter even more weird behaviour. Just aside from the shooting people, there's more. He started buying all of these animals. So we're talking dogs, cats, and, of course, his fave, rabbits. His neighbours watched him cart animal after animal into his house and none of them were ever seen again. Literally fucking

10 guesses what he's doing with these animals. During the same time people started to report a prowler on the loose and spoiler again it's Richard. He'd been walking around neighbourhoods peering into people's windows, walking through their gardens, and generally just being totally unhinged. And then he started to break into people's houses. A woman called Jean Layton remembers a particularly terrifying experience when she came face to face with Richard Chase. On January 23rd, 1978, Jean was at home when Richard came upon her house and started trying all the doors and windows. I mean fucking hell just imagine how terrified you'd be. She's in the house she can see him doing this but he couldn't see her and when he moved to the back door

Jean was there staring out through the window terrified Richard, probably filthy and generally wild-eyed, stared back at her and she said later he just had no emotion whatsoever on his face. He didn't say anything but as he couldn't get into the house he just walked away and Jean watched him walk through her garden and out into the neighbourhood. And this is really important to note here that this is another really weird vampiric trait that Richard Chase lived by. He only went into houses that he found open, not because it was easier, but because he genuinely thought that if the doors and windows were locked, it meant he wasn't welcome.

That is so chilling. But again, I think it just comes back to the idea of what a schizophrenic mind will latch onto. He's read this somewhere, he's picked this up somewhere, or, you know, he's just decided in his mind, if a person leaves their door open, I'm okay to go in. I don't think this has anything to actually do with this. Obviously, I don't think it has anything to do with the supernatural side of things. It just comes back to what he convinces himself of. And it's terrifying, because it fits with the story of vampires.

It's horrible. Do you think he thought he was a vampire? I don't think he thought he was a vampire. I think Richard Chase genuinely thought, because look at his obsession with anatomy books, he went to the doctor. He really thought that he had a physical problem, that his blood was turning to dust, that his blood had stopped flowing. I think he just thought that this was the way to fix that and we can't we can't try understand richard chase's mind through looking at it through logic no i completely agree i think that obviously that is part of vampire law that they can't go into your house unless you invite them i think it is just a bit of a coincidence it is another thing it's another thing. It's another thing that he does that happens to fit into the vampire category. I don't think he was on purpose trying

to act like a vampire. I think it just is a coincidence. Absolutely. And it may have been that he may have read books about like bloodletting from back in the day, got it into his head that that's what he needed to do. And people from his second stint in that psychiatric hospital were calling him Dracula. All he had to do was go away and read a book about that and then pick up and take on the traits that he was reading in there. You don't know where he picked these things up from. So, a few blocks away from Jean Layton's house, Richard Chase found the home of Robert and Barbara Edwards. They were out shopping, but their doors were unlocked. So he went in, stole some things, but also, I have a really hard time with this, he defecated on their baby's

bed and he urinated in drawers all over the family's stuff. Honestly, like, this is not by no means the worst thing he does, but why? What is he gaining from doing that he's i mean he's clearly not thinking rationally or clearly but still like i just it's it i can't get my head around it is it is it control is it contempt or power but i don't think it can be about nothing he does is about power i don't think i mean i don't know again it comes back to the idea that with a psychotic killer we just cannot understand or try to make logical assumptions behind why they do the things that they do it only has to make sense to him i can't say why he did these things it doesn't make any sense but that is in essence exactly what sits the heart of the actions of a psychotic

person or a psychotic killer and whatever his reasons were you know we'll never know but it is undeniably an escalation why this case is so interesting i think is he is doing he's stepping up and doing what it takes other killers years to work up to and he's doing it in days he goes from animals to humans in days what's terrifying is that the family had come home during this you know his activities and found him just stood in the middle of their house filthy and frantic i mean fucking hell can you even imagine but unbelievably luckily for them considering what would become of Richard Chase's future victims they managed to scare him out and I think it's really interesting that he goes after suburban families at this time families were moving out of the cities to escape the crime

the drugs the gangs this kind of era of the 1970s this was the key time you see that kind of suburban it's called white flight isn't it isn't that what it's called yes exactly and i think the families that he goes after they're very ordinary very middle class very suburban families who were safe quote unquote out in the suburbs and now here was richard chase the fucking vampire of sacramento going almost exclusively after them. And the thing with Richard is that he fell into his psychotic episodes just as quickly as he fell out of them. It is really, really abrupt, the change. 30 minutes after being chased out of the Edwards' house, he just casually headed to the mall to buy a drink.

There he was in his orange parka. What a statement. I've never seen anyone wear an orange parka in my life. He really doesn't care about drawing attention to himself, let alone being grubby as fuck. He's wearing an orange parka and, you know, probably not looking his best. And it's at the mall that he spots an old high school friend called Nancy Holden. Remember at high school, Richard was pretty normal and pretty good looking compared to what he would become because he's completely unrecognisable now. So when he went over to Nancy, she didn't immediately recognise who he was. It didn't help that the first thing he said to her was, were you on the motorbike when Kurt was killed? So Nancy's

high school boyfriend, Kurt, had been killed when they were at school in a motorbike accident. So what a fucking weird thing to say to someone that you haven't seen for years. Be like, oh, I'm going to open with your high school trauma. I mean, obviously he's not a normal person, but even for him, this seems ridiculous. His appearance aside, she doesn't recognise this guy and he's asking her this really bizarre question anyone would freak the fuck out. But she does eventually realise who he is. And at this point, Richard tried to follow Nancy out into the car park and get a lift with her,

but she managed to lose him and get away. This is just further proof that he really doesn't think anything he's doing is weird. No, no, absolutely not. I think that is the fundamental thing we have to keep at the front of our minds whenever we're talking about Richard Chase, is everything he says, everything he does, everything he doesn't do is so weird to us. But none of it is weird to him. It completely makes sense in the mind of Richard Chase. In the disorganised, deranged mind of Richard Chase.

That is the main thing. And we don't really know what he wanted to do to Nancy. Like whether he was going to kill her. What he wanted to do. Did he genuinely just want to lift back to the suburbs? We don't know. But she managed to get away. He left them all shortly after and headed back to the suburbs, his favourite hunting grounds. Because,

you know, after he'd gone and got his drink, after being chased out the Edwards house, he decided it's time to give it another crack. At 2360 Teoka Way, he spotted a van in the driveway. And this is interesting because that van had been at the shopping centre Richard had been in just an hour before. So I think it's really interesting, had Richard seen the van and its owner Teresa Wallin at the mall? Or again, was it just another coincidence? I don't know. Because a lot of killers do stalk their victims, but he was so disorganised it doesn't really fit. But then again, maybe he saw her at the shopping centre when he was so disorganized it doesn't really fit but then again maybe he saw her at the shopping center when he was there latched onto thinking that he needed her blood or something

i feel like chase saw signs everywhere everything had particular meaning or symbolism to him just trying to crack the code of what each of those signs meant to him is what's difficult for us to do but i think everything meant something to rich. I think so. I think, especially with this instance, he's thinking, oh, I saw that van an hour ago. That means they're the ones I need to go after next. They're inviting me because I've already seen them. Absolutely. She could have looked at him at the mall and in his mind, he could have thought, she's telling me, I'm the'm the one come get me I've got the blood you need whatever we don't know what is going on in Richard's mind and whatever it was he decides this is the house and this time we know that he's looking for a person when he broke into the Edwards house he knew it was empty now he knows that there's someone in this house because

the van is outside so he goes in he goes up to the door with his 22 caliber gun with him he opened the door and there was Teresa, about to head outside to put her bins out. And when she saw him, she dropped the bins and held her hands up in the air. And this is when Richard fired. The first shot hit her in the hand and then grazed her neck.

The second shot hit her in the head. Then with a final shot to the head, Richard Chase finished her off. Richard was absolutely 100% a product killer. He wasn't interested in the kill like process killers are. He just wanted the body. And this is when the fun began for Richard. He dragged Teresa's body into the bedroom and went into the kitchen to get a knife and also picked up a discarded yogurt cup that had rolled out of the bins that Teresa had dropped. This is where it's going to get pretty graphic. Fair warning. So then he pulls up Teresa's sweater and he cuts off her right

nipple. What the fuck is it with? Why? Always with the nipples. That and ears and teeth. For fuck's sake. I don't know. He then stabbed her in the chest so hard that he cracked open her sternum. He then sliced her stomach open, reached in and pulled out her organs one by one, before pulling her intestines out too. And he stabbed her again and again so hard, the stab wounds went straight through to the other side of her body. He then picked up the yogurt cup and filled it with blood from Teresa's stomach cavity and drank it. He then, classic Richard style, smeared the blood all over his face and chest. And then, what he did next just makes no

sense. And I know all of this is beyond horrific, but it fits with Richard's obsession. And we've seen iterations of what he's done before, but what comes next is completely off the wall. I would never have thought this would be a natural progression. But now he goes outside and he got some dog feces from outside and he shoved them in Teresa's mouth. And as if this wasn't horrendous enough, Teresa Wallin had been six weeks pregnant. Dog feces just don't make any sense because, you're right, we see him building to the butchery, the blood drinking, all of that with what he did to the animals. What is that about? I don't understand.

But well done guys, we got through it. When Richard was done, he just left, just walked out, covered in blood and walked back to his own flat. Meanwhile, Teresa's husband had come home to find his wife. The police, in every interview we watched with them, talked about how the fear on Teresa's face when they found her body still haunts them. From the scene of the murder, it was clear that this was the work of a highly disorganised killer. But because of this, the police just had no leads. This was so motiveless. It signalled huge amounts of rage.

I mean, imagine how much someone would have had to hate this woman to do this to her. But it wasn't rage. It was something else altogether, and the police were lost. And absolutely full credit to the police in this case, it was led by super cop Ray Biondi, who cracked this case and wrote an incredible book about it called Dracula Killer, which I can absolutely recommend if you can stomach it. The only clues the police had at this crime scene to work with were the bloody footprints, the bullets, the casings, and bloody rings on the floor left

near the body. They were bucket rings. And the police, and I, if, you know, my opinion matters, really feel that what he'd done is Chase had taken parts of Teresa with him. Think back to the Pyramid Lake situation. He had that big white bucket with a liver in it. These were bucket rings. He took parts of Teresa with him. And he'd killed a person before. He killed Ambrose.

But this was the first human example of what he'd been doing to animals. And I think think to Richard Teresa Wallen was just an object he couldn't link who she was with what he'd done I think he just saw people as like big blood sacks I need this blood they're just bigger animals I need blood they've got more of it and we kind of talk a lot about in this case the difference between him being a psychotic killer not being a psychopathic killer but I talk a lot about in this case the difference between him being a psychotic killer not being a psychopathic killer but I saw a lot of reports and articles and stuff written about him where they call him again and again call him a sociopath because he showed no remorse I think

yes I think Richard Chase didn't show any remorse and we'll see that as we go through his case but not because I think anyway he was a psychopath or a sociopath I think it's because he thought he had to do this and again I'm not making excuses for Richard I think he thought to survive to live he had to kill Teresa Wallen and take her blood take her organs I think he saw this as it's there's no other option for me and therefore I think he had no remorse but it's's really, really tricky. This is one of the hardest kind of killers to kind of get your head around, wrap your head around their motivations, because it makes so little sense. So now Richard Chase had killed two people. And even though they were such different killings, Ambrose had just been shot outside his house and

Teresa Wallen, a home invasion where she'd been butchered, Ray Biondi still managed to link them because the police canvassed the neighbourhood and the neighbours reported seeing a white man in his 20s, six foot, scraggly, thin, emaciated looking, in a bright orange parka. Okay, this was the 70s in California and what, they were looking for a hippie-looking white guy? It's like now, if you were out there looking for a guy in a plaid shirt with a beard, like, who is he? Drinking a fucking craft beer, like, it's everybody. So I think he was able to start to make these links, especially because of the type of weapon used,

the type of person they had been spotted at the crime scenes. But they couldn't go any further with it at this point. But on January 27th 1978, Richard Chase took four more lives. It was another home invasion. Richard walked into the home of 38-year-old Evelyn Miruth and immediately came across her neighbour, 51-year-old Danny Meredith, who had just come over to check in on Evelyn. He shot Danny in the head. It was quick, because Richard had no interest in Danny. He just wants to eliminate the biggest threat first.

He had then found Evelyn and again shot her in the head. And then, just like with Teresa Wallin, he eviscerated Evelyn. He cut open her abdominal cavity, played around with her innards, and clearly was thrilled with his work. Because he'd sodomised her. So his impotence was cured. It is very interesting that he's only messing around with women.

The two guys he's killed, he just shoots them. But this is it, isn't it? People kill who they're sexually attracted to. When you see this with serial killers, anybody, they kill who you're sexually attracted to. John see this with serial killers anybody to kill who you're sexually attracted to john wayne gacy was married etc publicly a heterosexual man but he was dealing with deep-seated issues around his secret homosexuality and that's why he killed young boys like tib bundy killed women who all look the same people kill who they who they want to fuck yeah

and i think it is interesting that erectile dysfunction is actually very common in killers some killers can only perform when the victim is dead and i think it's and it's comes out of that frustration if there's a part of your body that you can't control like i genuinely don't know what that's like i can't imagine having that feeling but also again it just comes down to the impotence that how important that is to men and obviously not all men who suffer with erectile dysfunction go on to be killers again as we talk about it's all of these things coming together and clashing that lead to a killer but the perfect storm has to be there he was hip-hop's biggest mogul the man who redefined fame fortune and the music industry the first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone.

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Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favourite podcasts. Just that level of impotence can fill these killers with so much rage that they go on to act like this. And they have to find that thing that sets them off and gets them what they want. Because in very few cases with them, the erectile dysfunction is a genuinely physical problem.

It's usually psychological. This can be indicative of a process versus product killer. For a process killer, they get off on the killing. Like, it's the actual act of death that is their thing. Like, they want to watch as the life leaves their victim. Product killers, like Chase, want time with with the body time to play with it and yes sometimes engage in necrophilia with the body it's the dead body itself that they want how they get it is kind of irrelevant to them yeah absolutely and we see this clearly with the difference between somebody like we've done like a btk

who wants to watch the fear in his victim's eyes versus Chase who just shot them in the head and then played around with the bodies. That was the aim. But what's really interesting now that we see with the escalation to the sodomy with Evelyn is that finally Richard Chase gets sexual satisfaction after his entire life being impotent. And just think what this means. Firstly, it means he's not going to stop because he's figured it out.

He's cracked the root of all his problems. And secondly, this is, imagine how confirming this is to all of his theories. He thought, I didn't have enough blood in my body. That's why I couldn't get hard. That's why I couldn't, you know, sleep with these women that I was incredibly attracted to. He's gone out, he's killed two women.

Well, he's killed more than that, but you know, he's killed and played with the dead bodies of these two women, drunk their blood. And then he's been able to get hard and perform. He's now, of course, he's convinced in his own thinking. He's completely validated in everything he ever thought. Back to the crime scene. And this is just so horrible. On the other side of the bed from

Evelyn's torn apart body was the body of her six-year-old son, Jason. He too had been shot in the head. And the house, as the police described it afterwards, was just hellish. There was blood everywhere. And in the bathroom, the police even found a bathtub full of bloody water. There were 22 casings everywhere as well. And the police soon also made another horrifying discovery. Because the day she was murdered, Evelyn had also been watching her 22-month-old nephew, David, who was now missing. Where was he? And you have to understand that the fear was intense. Whoever was doing this was killing totally indiscriminately.

And like we said before before he was going after normal suburban families but the police and honestly full credit to them with this they went all in on this case and soon they linked the crimes because a family who lived in the area said that they had sold a puppy to a you guessed it scraggly looking white guy in an orange parka you might just want to try a change of costume every now and again richard because seriously the scraggly looking white guy in an orange parka. You might just want to try a change of costume every now and again, Richard, because seriously, the scraggly looking white guy in the orange parka, it's going to stick out in people's minds. And it did. And they said that after they sold him this puppy, a few days later, they found the puppy dead in their back garden.

It had been shot with a.22 and had been cut open, just like Teresa Wallen and Evelyn Mirra. So the police put out this description and bingo, Nancy, Richard's old schoolmate that he had freaked out at the mall, called the police. She gave the exact description of a man wearing an orange coat and she even said that she thought there might have been blood on his hands, but most importantly, Nancy was able to give them a name, Richard Trenton Chase. The police now track Richard and find his flat, but when they arrive, there was no response. There was, however, an empty apartment next door. I mean, shocking that nobody wanted to live next to this guy. The police enter the unused flat and through the wall they could hear noises in Richard's flat so they stay completely silent and hide. Chase, thinking they'd left, came out but as soon as he did they pounced and Richard tried to run but it was too late, they caught him.

It is interesting that he's not opening the door and he's actively hiding. But he was so paranoid. He was so paranoid. He would do things like lock himself in cupboards and board them up because he thought everyone was out to get him. So I think he's not running because he thinks, oh my God, they're going to come get me and I'm going to go to jail because I killed that woman. I think he's like, it could be anything.

He thinks what he's doing is right and he's justified in it but he is so paranoid absolutely full credit to the police here because Richard had a gun and they overpowered him and arrested him without firing a single shot the police then entered the flat hoping to find baby David there was predictably blood everywhere and there were all these weird and disgusting things in jars in the fridge. There were organs but police couldn't tell if they were animal or human. This is the bit that sticks in my mind about this case more than anything else. There was a blender in the kitchen with so much blood and like matter in it. You know he never cleans that once.

You're gonna want to rinse that out between uses. Just a little rinse between each smoothie. Like no wonder you're getting ill all the time. That'll be it. Your unhygienic practices when it comes to blender care is why you're getting ill all the time, Richard. It's so disgusting. They find all this shit in his house.

It's very fucking obvious that he's guilty. But no baby David. So the police finally arrest him though. And after a spree that had just lasted a few weeks, on the 28th of January 1978, the police bring in Richard Chase. Five people were dead, but baby David was still missing. During the police investigation after his arrest,

Richard admitted to killing the animals, but not to killing the people. So on some level, he knows that there is a difference between killing animals and killing people. It's really hard to understand where Richard draws his line of morality. I think where we're going wrong is we're trying to ascribe some sort of logic to it. Like it doesn't matter how fucked up that logic is. Even being like, yeah, but he sees humans as bigger animals. I don't think you can put any logic to it at all.

Like I think that's the definition of it. It doesn't make sense. But I just think what I mean by that is that it's interesting that he's willing to admit to something that is already very depraved, buying all these animals and killing them and drinking their blood. He admits to all that, but he says, I didn't kill those people though. I know because he knows that the animals isn't illegal. And this is the thing, this becomes a fundamental part of his trial. Did he know what he was doing was wrong when he killed those people? Is it a sign that he knew what he had done was wrong when he killed those people is it a sign that he knew

what he had done was wrong because during the interrogation he won't admit to killing these people we'll analyze it more when we get into the trial and what comes of that but for the police what they do is they show him the crime scene photos and just from his reaction he was like visibly excited by it they could just tell and, the flat gave it all away. They didn't need a confession from him. It was so obvious what he had done. But at this point, the key thing was that the time was running out. They had to find baby David. So the prosecution attorney joined in the questioning. But Chase just wouldn't answer anything. Most of his answers indicated just how delusional Richard Chase was. And the police just couldn't get anything valuable out of him.

And it wasn't until March 1978, so two months after baby David had gone missing, that his body was finally found in a cardboard box behind a church. And he'd been decapitated. So now six people were dead. It's interesting that he treats men completely differently. He kills them in a different way.

He treats women in a different way. He treats women in a different way. He kills them in a different way. And then when it's a baby, it's a different thing as well. So you can, there is some sort of order. But that's the thing. I think it comes back to kind of what we were talking about with Richard's high school years. One of the key triggers into what he started to do was his impotence. That's when he became convinced that he didn't have enough blood.

And the impotence came from the fact that he knew he was attracted to women, but he couldn't perform. blood and the impotence came from the fact that he knew he was attracted to women but he couldn't perform he couldn't get it up even though he is not a psychopathic killer who's getting off and getting hard on the kill he was still ultimately acting with a form of sexual desire in mind when he was playing with the innards that's when he got hard and then that's when he thinks oh i've done. I've now got enough blood in my body. Sex just comes down to it. The reason for so many killings, regardless of the mindset

or regardless of the state of mind of these killers. And that is fascinating. Whether it's psychopathic and totally in control or whether it's psychotic and totally out of control, sex still sits at the centre of so many of their motivations. But then why didn't he just shoot the baby? Why did he cut his head off? He drunk the blood. Because it was

blood, isn't it? It's human blood. Why waste it? But he didn't do that with the men. No. But then the men, he could have perceived them as a threat. Yeah, that's true. And there's probably something about it being young blood, probably. Oh, for sure. A young, untainted, young untainted 22 month old baby that's like

not to sound horrific i'm not the one who did this that's probably fucking prime the ultimate blood isn't it yeah i mean right i'm not talking about dead babies anymore yeah that's enough. court telling the jury how Richard had spent most of his life thinking his blood was turning to powder, with the voices in his head telling him that the only solution was to consume blood. His case was clear, although Richard had killed six people, he was not in his right mind and didn't realise what he was doing. He asked the jury's sympathy for Richard and put forward a plea based on insanity. But prosecution attorney Ronald W. Totchman went after Chase to prove that he knew what he'd done. Because it wasn't hard to prove that Richard had done it. But was he sane? This was the key question.

The prosecution wanted the death penalty. And to get this, they'd have to prove that Richard knew exactly what he had done. And Totcherman brought in as his star witness David Wallen, Teresa Wallen's husband, who had found his pregnant wife dismembered and disembowelled in their home. Over 250 pieces of evidence were exhibited during the five-month trial. As a part of his defence, Chase even took the stand. And there he admitted to drinking blood and decapitating baby david he described himself as a good person but weak and he said that he had to do it because it was

therapeutic i don't understand how you can admit to decapitating a baby and then the same breath call yourself a good person we have to again understand the fact that richard chase didn't understand or claims to not understand that what he was doing was wrong he doesn't look at killing this baby as an abhorrent act like a normal person would he saw it i believe as i had to do this to survive and that's what i think he means by therapeutic i had to do this i'm a good person but i'm weak i gave in to my desires i gave into my needs but i'm a good person, but I'm weak. I gave in to my desires. I gave in to my needs, but I'm a good person. We can't think about this as how can he describe himself as that, because that's not how he saw himself. Well, no one sees himself as a bad person, do they? Exactly. We've talked about this before. No one is the monster in their own story. Every killer,

whether they're psychopathic, whether they're psychotic, whether they're sociopathic, they all think that what they're doing is right even take someone like the butcher baker of alaska he was convinced i should kill these prostitutes because they're a scourge all these killers operate by their own code of morality one that doesn't fit with what the rest of society thinks chase's defense they are trying to get a verdict of second degree murder through reason of insanity because there's no way. He obviously did it. So the case is about his sanity level, not is he innocent or guilty. Everybody knows he's guilty.

We come again to the classic question of mad versus bad, cruel versus crazy. And after hearing all of the evidence, the the jury after deliberating for just an hour found richard chase to be legally sane i.e he knew what he was doing when he killed all of those people question yeah should juries be the ones making decisions on whether someone is legally sane or not so do you mean it should be a mental health professional who makes that call? Yes, because the prosecution's case is very emotional. It's very easy to be emotional about this case. They bring in, rightly so,

David Wallens, the husband of found his pregnant wife fucking eviscerated, to come tell the story. If you are a normal person in the jury, how could you not be affected by that? He decapitated a baby. How could you not be affected by that he decapitated a baby how could you not be affected by that but within an hour 10 15 20 how many other people are on a jury during this case

they come to the decision that he's legally sane should that decision not be made by somebody who understands what that definition even means properly yeah i hear you however we've seen it in loads of cases where you can find an expert to say anything. Like the defence will have a psychiatrist saying, you know, he's the most unstable young man I've ever come across in my life. And then the prosecution will have another mental health professional saying he's completely fine. I think I agree with you, but it is difficult to, because you can find an expert to say anything.'s very true that's a very good point so maybe it's more important can an an average person a normal person understand his actions and say

whether he knew what he was doing was right or wrong rather than just bringing in two experts that say opposing things and then you're back to back to nil that's a good point yeah it's tough though i i don't know how i feel about that i I'll have to think about that one. Let us know what you think about that. Yeah. So this jury of his peers found Richard Chase guilty on six counts of first degree murder and he was sentenced to death by gas chamber. Richard Chase, following the trial, was sent to San Quentin until he was to be executed. While in San Quentin though, the other inmates quickly found out what he had done and began to taunt Chase. They would try and convince him to kill himself.

And after a short stay at a mental hospital, Chase was sent back to San Quentin where he stashed his daily antidepressants. And on Boxing Day, 1980, Chase was found dead in his cell from an overdose. I'm not going to defend what Chase did. He killed six people. He tore them apart and decapitated a baby.

But he was so severely mentally ill. I think we're both in agreement here that we don't think he understood the nature of what he did. Not really. And that's the definition of insanity, isn't it? Come on, he wandered in and out of people's gardens, he walked out of crime scenes covered in blood, he never cleaned himself up, he made no attempt to cover up any of his crimes. The prosecution did point out the fact that sometimes he had worn gloves. As we've mentioned in the past that this can be a sign that you're covering up a crime

which points to sanity, like with the case of good old Ricky Ramirez. But I wonder if this was because he genuinely thought he was treating himself medically. He called his actions therapeutic, and he'd spent a lot of his life in hospitals, watching doctors and nurses wearing gloves during treatment. Was the glove wearing a forensic measure, like the prosecution alleged, and therefore a sign of sanity? Or was it a mimicked behaviour he practised so as not to contaminate his precious blood? Why wear gloves if it's a forensic countermeasure? Don't wander outside covered in blood.

That's it, isn't it? I think if you were concerned about cleaning up the crime scene and not getting caught, you wouldn't smear the victim's blood on your face and then walk outside. Exactly. So I think the gloves are like neither here nor there, really. And Richard Chase was a paranoid schizophrenic and he was a rare one at that because he was violent and dangerous. But most people with schizophrenia do just live their lives in fear and are much more likely to be

victims of crime than perpetrators of it. I think that's a really important thing to say. And you can actually watch on YouTube schizophrenia simulators. It really is a window into the terrifyingly chaotic mind of someone with schizophrenia. After I watched it, I felt dizzy and I felt sick and I felt scared. Yeah, I think it's key that like we're not saying schizophrenia makes you a dangerous killer but I will say it's very obvious that Richard Chase needed help long before he started killing people that is the case of Richard Chase aka the vampire of Sacramento thank you for listening It's been a tough one to research and probably for

you guys to listen to. An extra thank you to our new Patreon supporters. We have Beck Pryor, Kimberly Matten, David Snowden, Mirwin Watson, and Patricia Walters. So thank you very much guys for your support. It really is so important.

Absolutely. And it helps us keep going oh and we honestly we appreciate each and every one of you and you know usual thing if you guys can head over to apple podcast and leave us a five-star review that would be fantastic also all the social medias at red handed the pod we'd love to talk to you and we'll see you next week yeah see you then bye they say hollywood is where dreams are made a seductive city where many flock to get rich be adored and capture america's. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant.

When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on on the wondery app

or wherever you get your podcasts you can binge all episodes of the cotton club murder early and ad free right now by joining wondery plus i'm jake warren and in our first season of finding i set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life you can listen to finding natasha right now exclusively on wondery plus season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me,

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