A Disturbing History of Serial Killers You Probably Didn't Know About

Author's Note: Before I get started on Richard Chase, I first want to apologize for the dry content. I know that most of the articles I have written have been somewhat boring as they are very factual and linear, so I have an idea to get you guys more involved. I am going to highlight certain facts throughout the story as they are presented, and later on time them all in together to form a basic psychological profile so that you guys can comment things that I've missed or even correct me if I'm wrong. I will end this by saying thank you to all of you that have been following this series as well as my other series.

Early Life:

Richard Trenton Chase was born May 23rd, 1950 in Sacramento, CA. For the first nine years of his life, Richard was a typical child, but his parents had started to notice changes in him as he continued to get older. At the age of ten years old, Richard and his family found out that he was showing signs of the McDonald Triangle (The three developmental traits of a psychopath). Richard was prescribed personality medications, but these were quickly taken away as the Chase's found out that Richard had developed hypochondria (a heart condition that will make a person's heart skip a beat). As if this wasn't bad enough for Richard's parents, this is when it became obvious that his mind was slowly slipping away from him. Richard started claiming that someone else was making his heat stop, and thought that someone was out to get him. Richard started holding oranges to his head because he thought he could feel himself absorbing vitamin C through his brain. Then, getting even weirder, Chase would often shave his head to "watch his bones move" when he was thinking. Later on in life, Rich had gone through quite a bit of roommates. His former roommates often complained of him walking around drunk or high in the nude. At one point his former roommates asked him to move out, but Rich refused to leave, so his roommates did.

After Richard's roommates left, Rich started experimenting with killing animals and drinking their blood. Chase would also eat these animals raw so that his heart wouldn't shrink. Due to his obsession with animal blood, Chase was involuntarily sent to a psychiatric hospital in 1976 after he injected rabbit's blood into his veins. While spending time inside the psychiatric institution, Richard was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. After being heavily medicated and "treated" for his schizophrenia, Rich was released in late 1976

Murder Spree:

Richard's first murder was that of Ambrose Griffin when he killed her in a drive by shooting on December 29th, 1977. Chase's next murder was a little bit more involved and personal. on January 23rd, 1978, Teresa Wallin walked to her back yard when she heard her dog trying to fight something off. To her surprise when she opened the door she saw Richard Chase knelt over her dog pulling apart its sternum. Teresa screamed and ran inside, with Richard pursuing. Rich was able to catch up to her and shot her three times. He then had sex with her corpse and removed her organs afterwards, drinking the blood from them.

For full disclosure, this murder was a lot more violent and involved than what I am writing. There are guidelines to what we can put in articles and this was the most that I could put in, I do apologize.

Four days later on January 27th, Richard broke into the home of Evelyn Miroth where he shot her six year old son and two year old nephew. Eventually he shot Evelyn and then mutilated her body before having sex with it and eating some of her organs. Richard's feast was disturbed by a neighbor who knocked at the door. Startled, Chase grabbed Evelyn's body and ran out the front door past the neighbor and stole Evelyn's car. The neighbor called 9-1-1. When the police arrived at the house the found that Richard had left perfect hand prints at the scene.

The police went to Richard's apartment where they found Richard and what was left of Evelyn's body. Her blood was allover the apartment from the ceiling down.

Conviction:

Richard Chase stood trial in 1979 and was charged with six counts of first degree murder. While he did try to plea not guilty due to mental insanity, the judge denied to motion. On May 8th, 1979, Chase was found guilty of all six counts of first degree murder. He was sentenced to death via the gas chamber.

While in prison, he was widely feared by other inmates who often tried to convince him to take his own life, which ended up working. On December 26th, 1980, Chase was found dead in his prison cell. The autopsy had revealed that he overdosed on his prescribed antidepressants that he had saved.

Psychological Profile:

This one is pretty self explanatory, but lets breakdown some things that we can build a profile with.

1. Mental Instability:

It is common that forms of schizophrenia run in most American families and can be picked up again in any generation. Also, the fact that he continued to eat raw animal meat most likely lead to extreme progression in his mental instability as the meat would not have been clean and he could have picked up a number of viruses.

2. Sexual Gratification

Even though there was not a lot of information I could find about his romantic life, we can assume that he had been a virgin. We can also assume that he would have been heavily bullied as a child due to his behavior. While he never acted on his sexual acts before his murder spree, he did have sex with the corpses to grant himself sexual gratification.

3. McDonald Triangle

Unfortunately, Chase was born to be a killer. Even to this day, there is no true solution for someone who shows signs of the McDonald Triangle. With his extreme heart condition, medication was not an option, and a psychopath was allowed to walk around with no restraints.