What Really Happened in Sacramento's Vampire Case?

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Limitations apply. Deposit products offered by USAA Federal Savings Bank, member fdic welcome to the shadow signal the frequency of the unknown i'm josh rutledge and i'm stephan gearhart together we dive deep into high strangeness ufos cryptids the paranormal psychic phenomenon and the hidden truths that echo just beneath the surface somewhere between reality and myth lies the signal can you hear it tune in the shadow signal is live welcome

ladies and gentlemen to another spooky edition of the shadow signal podcast i am your host stefan gerhardt joined as always by my spooky co-host mr josh rutledge i'm doing fantastic man it is spooky season by the time you are listening to this we're well into october but as you know stefan spooky season extends all the way the veil is thin all the way into february so we have several months of spooky stuff on the way yeah people are like but how christmas is coming that's why there's scary ghost stories and do do do do do

during christmas because it's a the veil is thin that's why ebenezer scrooge saw the ghosts that he saw that's right that's real is thin the veil is thin just like my cheap kleenexes and toilet paper and no i i go all out on toilet paper i don't i don't skimp there anyways we got a really spooky show for you guys tonight it's going to be really really cool i don't want to get anything away yet um but i do want to say it is time to go into the psychic word of the week psychic psychic word of the week is brought to you by the encyclopedic psychic dictionary

written by Junji Bletzer, Ph.D., Dr. Bletzer to those uninformed. I love you. I miss you. I never even knew you. Oh, Bletzer heart. Oh, Bletzer heart.

I flipped through the pages and land on page 282, and the term that grabbed my eye was high dream. Not a high dream like you're high on gummies or anything, but like high dream. Here's what it says. A psychic experience occurring during the NREM state of sleep, leaving the dreamer with a change of attitude or with a change in personality a distinct feeling

of transcending to a high level of consciousness recognized by one's perception of a deity taking him or her to the higher realms or by a state of emotional high ecstasy in the higher realms the belief system is changed or enlarged upon differs from a dream as it leaves a clear vivid impression so yeah and i i talked about a lot of those a lot of times with my clients and stuff on the more you know the the woo side of uh what i do for my business and um you know it's my understanding that in those higher dreams is when you are like receiving direct messages from your

higher self so yep i had a dream last night i was eating pizza and uh now i want pizza i think it was correct but i think you always want pizza though that's true except for when i'm full then like if like the you know in an apocalypse situation some people might go for like beans because they're a well-rounded meal but you're like no i need pizza pizza is the sustaining meal for you it is it is and i feel like cheese would be difficult to make in the apocalypse i mean there's still cows not all the cows that wipe that would there be zombie cows though i don't

know there's different if it's catch the zombie virus oh well maybe goats would be safe yeah i could do goat cheese goat cheese pizza there you go during a zombie apocalypse go for the goat go for the goat hashtag go for the goat all right very very cool very cool word yeah that was the word that was two words actually hi dream uh but let's move on uh i've actually got an interrupted transmission so let's go and do an interrupted transmission interrupted transmission so of course uh interrupted

transmissions are if we had some uh spooky thing happen to us or anything within the last month or so um so i started a new job uh as a life enrichment director at a new senior living facility so i'm the activities director there so i of course have been like i wonder what kind of spooky stuff i'm gonna see in this building and um the only thing so far that keeps happening is there is what's called the model room this is the room you can show people you know it's decked out and what a what a an apartment can look like there and we also have a refrigerator in there

and that's where we keep the wine and beer for uh happy hour and things like that so i'm in there every tuesday and thursday but i'm telling you every time i go to open that door i hear someone in there and i've walked in before where they they had a tour and so there was a family in there so i'm always cautious that that's happened while i'm just bursting in trying to get some wine you know yeah so but i hear someone in there almost every single time and every time i open that door no one's there it's like goes dead quiet like sometimes i can hear did you say dead

i said dead quiet um it's it's crazy man like i can hear either people shuffling around or what sounds like people talking or whatnot um but i'm telling you as soon as that door opens it stops it's weird it's really weird yeah um i've i've had that recently with my office like uh i'll come downstairs and i'll be like who's in my office talking and i'll get in here and like there's nobody in here like the tv's not on like there's nothing in here that could be making that talking noise but it's like i hear uh usually it's like a female voice for me like a like a

young female voice is in here talking so yeah so yeah just weird it's been happening a lot happened on thursday to me um but yeah i i this one was so really expected to see somebody inside there cleaning it or doing something because it was so audible so well it makes me wonder because a lot of times like uh model rooms may have once upon a time been an actual domicile that they later converted to be a model room i wonder if it was ever occupied as anything other than a model room yeah i mean possibly uh more than likely that room i mean that the building's been there for

10 years i think so it's it's very possible it was an actual room at one point yeah so maybe you're you know interesting too because usually like echoes or or you know what they call residual uh you know they usually will continue on their you know whatever run they're in regardless of the interruption so the fact that it stops when you enter the room implies maybe an intelligent apparition as opposed to a residual.

Sure. I'm pretty sure that you need to wire that place up, man. You need to get some EVP recorders set up in that room. That would be kind of cool.

Did you have any this time around? Other than, like I said, the woman coming in, hearing that in my office. Other than that, though, not really. I've been continuing to see things out of the corner of my eye.

lily has been having my daughter lily has been having um some things that she's been seeing like she was in the family room the other day and out of the corner of her eye she saw um someone walk into the kitchen and when she looked to see who it was there was no one there oh that's a good one so um yeah you know we're you know and i i think i've talked about it in past episodes but our house is really close like less than a mile from a ley line so we you know for whatever reason we have activity year round seems like but definitely during the the veil is thinning part of the year

it seems that the activity increases absolutely absolutely so well all right josh uh let's go ahead and move into the main topic the main story all right i uh yeah what are we what what What Sam Hill are we talking about? We are talking about the Vampire of Sacramento. Interesting. That sounds cool. Yeah, this is a this is a true crime case.

I will give the disclaimer up front. This episode does discuss violent crime, including the deaths of a child and an infant. So listener discretion is advised. Good to know. Good to know. all right so um sacramento california winter of 1978 uh it's the kind of place where in those days people still left their doors unlocked a neighbor could walk in with a casserole a kid

could run in and ask for a glass of water the doors weren't a risk they were a courtesy over the span of about five weeks that courtesy would be turned into something unspeakable um we're gonna walk through and meet each victim learn who they were and we will kind of stand you know in the rooms where investigators stood holding the same fragments of evidence asking the same question over and over again who would do this and why um and then finally we'll talk about the who and the why all right sounds good this is tutor dixon some of the most

courageous people in the world aren't in headlines, they're not famous, you've probably never even heard their names. They're ordinary Christians doing something extraordinary. They're risking everything to follow Jesus. In places like Iran and India, that kind of courage can put their lives at risk, and yet their faith remains strong. That's why I want to tell you about The Voice of the Martyrs. The Voice of the Martyrs helps persecuted Christians and some of the most difficult and dangerous places to follow Christ. They provide emergency help, spiritual

support, Bibles, and so much more. You can stand with these persecuted Christians today. For just $35, you can provide a Christmas care pack for a persecuted Christian child filled with gifts that can make a real difference. They have practical essentials, a toy, and of course, a children's Bible. And when you donate, you'll receive a free copy of Whom Shall I Fear, a book filled with scripture and inspiring stories. Order a care pack and get your free book

at vom.org slash Tudor. That's vom.org slash T-U-D-O-R, The Voice of the Martyrs. Stand with persecuted Christians. Visit vom.org slash Tudor today. Cashflow Crunch, OnDeck's small business line of credit

gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at OnDeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow.

Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. USAA Bank is designed for our members and whatever life might throw their way. with member benefits like 24-7 fraud monitoring and alerts. And for those times when you need cash, we've got a fee-free ATM network, so every dollar counts.

USAA Bank, taking care of our own. Limitations apply. Deposit products offered by USAA Federal Savings Bank, member FDIC. So part one, the man with the groceries. It's Thursday, December 29th, 1977, two days before New Year's Eve. The holiday week has that strange suspended feeling.

Decorations are still up, offices are half empty, and people are home, tired and a little restless. At a house in the Sacramento area, a man named Ambrose Griffin pulls into his driveway. He's 51 years old. He's an engineer, a husband, and a father of two. By every account that survives, Ambrose is the kind of person nobody writes true crime books about. And that is exactly the point. He is ordinary.

He has a job where he solves practical problems. He has a family. He has a house with a driveway. He has a wife with him in the car. And they've been to the grocery store because that's what you do in the dead of week before Christmas and the New Year's. You restock, you get ready for company, and you plan for a year that hasn't been started yet.

Ambrose opens the trunk, he picks up the bags, his wife is nearby, gathering her own, and a car passes by on the street. Not fast, not screeching, just a car, one of a hundred that might roll through a neighborhood on any given evening. Then a sound, sharp, small, smaller than you'd expect, the sign of sound that a person might mistake for a firecracker or a branch snapping. Ambrose Griffin has been shot in the chest. He is rushed to the hospital. He does not survive. Now, let's pause here for a moment. Let's do what the detectives did.

Let's look at what we actually have. What we have is a drive-by shooting. In 1977, that was not the kind of thing that happened in a quiet residential street. There's no robbery. Ambrose's wallet is untouched. There's no argument, no confrontation, no note, no one who threatened him, no enemy no debt no affair detectives dig into his life and find a man who simply had no reason

to be killed they find the bullet 22 caliber slug small common cheap the kind of round that could have come from any of a thousand guns sold in california they canvass the neighborhood they ask did anyone see the car what color how many people inside one person or two nothing useful a car, a shot, a man dead. There's one more detail, and at that time it seemed like nothing, just a footnote. Two days earlier, a .22 round had been fired into a kitchen of another home in the area. No one was hurt. It was filed away as vandalism, maybe a stray shot or a prank.

Kind of a cautionary tale for the neighborhood, not much more. Two days before the killing, a .22 fired at a house where a family was living their normal life. Did anyone connect those events? Not yet. Remember, we're in 1977. There is no database that says these two incidents are related.

There's a stack of paper reports and different filing cabinets. So detectives are left with this. A random killing, no motive, no suspect, and a man who will never again carry groceries into his house. Ambrose Griffin's family buries him. The new year arrives.

And somewhere in Sacramento, a person has a .22 caliber weapon and has just discovered that firing it at strangers costs him nothing. Nobody has caught him. Nobody has seen him. For about three and a half weeks, nothing happens. Detectives will later wonder whether that silence meant something,

whether the shooter was pausing or planning or simply waiting to feel the return. Then came a Monday. Part 2, The Unlocked Door. Well, real quick, you know what's interesting is is at the same time in the same area you had the east area rapist doing stuff who later we know is

the golden stick killer yeah and so like what a time to be in sacramento shoot yeah i mean it was yeah and like it like we talked about just a minute ago there was no kind of common database yeah that existed there was you know you just had to you know talk to your fellow detectives or see something in a report or maybe in the papers and hope that it might be related

yep so Monday January 23rd 1978 a mild ordinary sacramental afternoon in a house in the east part of the city lives a young woman named Teresa Wallen

she is 22 years old she is married to a man named David and she is about 3 months pregnant 3 months far enough along that the news is certain close enough to the beginning

that most of the world doesn't know yet it's the time when a couple lives inside a secret that is also a promise they're picking names in their heads they're imagining a future david is at work theresa is at home and at some point that day she does something so routine so utterly ordinary that no human being on earth would think twice she takes out the trash yeah and she leaves the door unlocked behind her why wouldn't she she's going to be gone for 30 seconds When David Wallen comes home that afternoon, something is wrong before he even understands what.

He enters the house, and he calls for his wife. No answer. He moves through the rooms. Now I'm going to tell you what David Wallen found, and I'm going to tell you carefully, because it is the kind of thing that no one should ever have to see, and no one should ever have to hear described in detail. Teresa is dead. She has been shot three times.

that's not the part that will haunt investigators what was done to Teresa after she died is the thing that makes a veteran homicide detectives go quiet her body has been violated her body has been cut Oregon or organs are missing from the scene there is blood everywhere but there is something stranger about the blood investigators notice that some of it appears to have been collected a container is found and in it blood let that sink in for a moment collected a man who kills for range doesn't stop to collect anything a man who kills for money takes the

money a man who kills for jealousy for revenge for sex they all leave a pattern that detectives have seen before but collecting taking pieces removing parts of a person from the scene this is something else the detectives who arrive at the house are experienced they've seen shootings and stabbings and beatings but this is a scene something different than anything they've ever handled yeah and they know it the room doesn't read like a crime of passion it reads like something methodical but a mythology that is logic they can't decode they begin to process

the scene a knife is missing from the kitchen they find evidence that the killer took time not minutes but long enough long enough to do all of this and still leave without being seen they find something else tracks prints the killer left traces in the blood because whoever did this was not careful there was no wiping down no cleaning no gloves no attempt to hide it's as if the killer didn't care whether anyone knew yeah and no dna yeah stuff back then So then comes the ballistic test. The bullets recovered from Teresa Wallen's body are .22 caliber, and the ballistics examiner puts them under the comparison microscope next to the bullet that killed Ambrose Griffin, and three and a half weeks earlier in the driveway, they match. The same gun.

Two killings, different neighborhoods, different kinds of victims. One a middle-aged man in a driveway shot from a passing car and a young pregnant woman shot inside her own home and then subjected to something beyond comprehension. Nothing connects them. There is no link between Ambrose Griffin and Teresa Wallen.

They didn't know each other. They didn't share friends, jobs, or neighborhoods. Detectives search for a connection and find none, which means one thing. and this is the thing that every detective dreads random the killer isn't choosing victims for who they are he's choosing them for what proximity opportunity sacramento begins to feel it news spreads people who left doors unlocked for decorate decades start turning the deadbolts

neighbors look at neighbors a little differently right a city starts to understand that someone is out there someone who goes in at night or in daylight or any time at all someone who does not need a reason and what do detectives have a gun a bullet some prints and blood a scene that makes no sense by ordinary logic no witness no suspect no motive and the horrible suspicion is that the killer isn't finished yeah especially that being random yep so move on to part three the house and marywood drive friday january 27 1978 four days after theresa wallen just four days

detectives are still processing evidence they've called in help there is a task force forming and there is growing pressure from a frightened public but they are still working with almost nothing on marywood drive in sacramento lives a woman named evelyn miroth evelyn is 38 years old She is a mother. Her son Jason is six, old enough to be a little person with his own opinions, young enough that the world is still mostly wonder. And Evelyn is also a caretaker in a broader sense. Family members trust her with their kids, and that Friday she is watching her nephew,

a baby named David, 22 months old, whose mother has left him in Evelyn's care for the day. There's also a friend in the house that day. His name is Daniel Meredith, though everyone calls him Danny. He's 51, a family friend who has stopped by. Danny is the kind of friend that just shows up and sits at the kitchen table and stays for a while. The kind of friend you can't imagine not having. So at the Miroff house on Marywood Drive on Friday in late January, there is a woman, a young boy, a baby, and a friend. Four people, an ordinary afternoon.

Remember that we knew about the killer from the first two cases. Random, unlocked doors 22 caliber weapon and a willingness to be far worse than any of the detectives had imagined right somewhere in that house the door opens i want to be careful here because i don't know every detail of the sequence what we do know comes from the physical evidence and it tells us this danny meredith is shot with a 22 caliber weapon evelyn miroth is shot her six-year-old son jason is shot and the baby david is not found jesus christ a child knocks on the door

a six-year-old girl a friend of jason's comes to the house the way kids do she raises her hand and knocks inside the house at that moment a killer is in the middle of something something that requires time and privacy and in the middle of it a little girl six years old knocks on the front door the killer doesn't answer but the killer hears and the killer leaves quickly taking things with him danny meredith's car keys his wallet and his car and taking something else the baby the little girl puzzled goes home she tells someone that no one answered maybe she says

something felt wrong and then soon after someone goes to look someone opens the door to the house i tell you only this investigators who worked many homicides men who had thought that they were past being shocked would later describe it as the worst scene they had ever seen they would carry it for the rest of their lives evelyn miros body had been subjected to the same unthinkable acts as theresa wallace same pattern same signature the detectives did not need a lab to tell them what they already knew in their bones it was the same person the same killer the

same appetite if that's even the right word and this time he had killed an entire household a mother a little boy a friend and had taken the baby detectives search for the infant they search the house the yard the neighborhood the nightmare hope is that the baby is still alive yeah somewhere held by someone afraid but breathing that hope only lasts a few days the baby's body is found reportedly in a box left near a church a small terrible bundle placed there like a package no one wanted. Six people are now dead. Ambrose Griffin, Teresa Wallen, Evelyn Miroff, Jason

Miroff, Danny Meredith, and baby David. Six lives in less than five weeks. The youngest, not even two years old. There's something else at the Miroff house. Something the killer left behind. Something that, for the first time, is a real lead. The killer left prints. Not just footprints, prints but hand prints and blood a palm print clear enough to examine a shoe print evidence of a man who never once believed he'd be caught and one more thing Danny Meredith's car the one the killer drove away in is found abandoned nearby and inside it more traces the killer is careless

he is not hiding yeah and that carelessness that total lack of concern for being seen tells investigators that something, something will soon put into words. But first, they need help. This is Tudor Dixon. On my way home from church on Sunday, it struck me how fortunate I am to live in a country where I can openly practice my Christian faith without fear of persecution. I know my Christian brothers and sisters in places like Iran, India, and Nigeria don't have that same kind of freedom. In fact, in more than 70 countries, Christians face rejection,

imprisonment, and even death for following Jesus. That's why I follow The Voice of the Martyrs. The Voice of the Martyrs helps persecuted Christians in some of the world's most difficult and dangerous places to follow Christ. They provide emergency help, spiritual support, Bibles, and more. You can stand with these persecuted Christians today. for just $35, you can provide a Christmas care pack for a persecuted Christian child. These packs are filled with gifts that can make a real difference. They're going to get practical

essentials, a toy, and of course, a children's Bible. And when you donate, you get something too. You'll receive a free copy of Whom Shall I Fear, a book filled with scripture and inspiring stories. So order your care pack and get your free book at vom.org slash Tudor. That's vom.org slash T-U-D-O-R, the voice of the martyrs. Stand with persecuted Christians. Visit vom.org slash Tudor today.

with flexible draws transparent pricing and control over repayment get funded quickly and confidently apply today at ondeck.com funds could be available as soon as tomorrow depending on certain loan attributes your business loan may be issued by ondeck or celtic bank ondeck does not lend in north dakota all loans and amounts subject to lender approval usaa bank has an app for all your financial to do's and for those times when you need cash we've got a fee-free ATM network. USAA Bank, taking care of our own. Limitations apply. Deposit products offered by

USAA Federal Savings Bank, member FDIC. They need someone who thinks about killers the way no one in local law enforcement has ever thought about them. Part four, the profile. By late January 1978, the Sacramento authorities are desperate. Six dead, a terrified city, and no suspect. So they do something that at that time was unusual. They call the FBI. Specifically, they call a unit in Quantico, Virginia that had been developing a new approach to violent crime, the Bureau's Behavioral Science Unit. The idea, instead of starting with a suspect, start with a crime scene.

Read the scene like a text. Ask what kind of person writes this kind of story. Two agents are involved. Russ Vorpajel, a veteran investigator, and Robert Ressler, one of the pioneers of what would become known as criminal profiling. Ressler would later write about this case in his book, Whoever Fights Monsters, and it became one of the early examples of the method in action.

So let's walk through how they thought about this case. They began with a question, who does this crime scene, or sorry, what does this crime scene tell us about the mind that created it? First observation was disorganization. Ressler had been developing a distinction between two broad types of offenders. Organized offenders plan. They bring tools. They control the scene. They hide evidence, dispose of bodies, and think about the investigation that will follow. disorganized offenders are different they act on impulse they use whatever is at hand they leave

evidence everywhere they make no attempt to conceal their identity the crime is chaotic because the mind behind it is chaotic in this scene with the blood the prints the knife taken from the victims on kitchen the abandoned car carelessness is a textbook disorganized scene their second observation the mutilation you don't do what this killer did without an anger or greed this is not a crime of passion it is not a robbery gone wrong it reflects a mind that is not operating in a shared reality the behavior has a logic but it's a logic internal to the offender

something real to him and invisible to us that suggests several oh sorry that suggests severe mental illness not a man who is merely cruel but a man who is ill someone out of touch with ordinary reality the third observation randomness in the unlocked doors detectives had noticed that the killer seemed to enter homes that were that weren't locked not because he was clever but because it seemed no matter to him why would an unlocked door matter if you are a disorganized offender you don't plan you don't case you test you try the knob and you walk until a door opens

yeah that's what i was thinking which means the killer is probably on foot or close to where he lives disorganized offenders don't travel far they operate in a world about the size of a few blocks a world that they know so the profile was put it together and here is the best public record of a reflects is the portrait they delivered to the police a white male between 25 and 27 years old thin undernourished someone who lives alone not with a wife not with a girlfriend not with a roommate a man with no meaningful relationships unemployed probably living on some form of

disability or financial support a man who drifts through his days with no structure someone who looks disheveled unkempt someone police people notice and avoid a man whose clothes and appearance reflect a mind that has stopped caring about the usual rules of the world a history of mental illness possibly hospitalization a history of drug use and crucially a man who probably lived within about a mile of the first crime scenes not wild like they're able to figure all that out just based off the crime scene like it's

impressive i mean that's knowing the psychology of people but yeah it is impressive i mean that's why i like that that show that you know mind hunters that those guys are based off of like that's just crazy man i mean there's been a lot of shows that are kind of go deep into the profiling right i mean you know of of the subject like there was i think a law and order spinoff that had the guy that was like the edgar suit guy i can't think of his name yeah but he was like a like as a detective he was like a profiler that's what his main strength was so yeah but all right

um so it sounds one more thing they said the killer would not stop he would keep going until someone stopped him because a mind like this doesn't have a break nope um so in an era before dna databases before crime scene technology before most of the tools we now take for granted two investigators looked at a pile of horror and drew a human outlined around it they gave the profile to the press the description went out to the public and a city frightened and watching began to look at the people around them somewhere in sacramento a woman read that description and a

face came to mind oh that's that you know and that's the thing that scares me whenever that stuff happens it's like it's scary to know that somebody like that is in the city yada yada yada but it's almost more scary to realize you might know that you might know them yeah so part five a face from high school her name is net was nancy holden nancy was an ordinary sacramental woman and years earlier she had gone to high school with a boy a quiet kid awkward sometimes she barely thought about then in the days after the miroth murders nancy had a strange

encounter she was in a shopping center in sacramento running errands when a man approached her. He knew her name. He greeted her as if they were old friends. It took her a moment to place him. When she did, she felt something close to alarm. He looked terrible, thin, almost gaunt. His clothes were rumpled and odd. By her account, he wore a heavy jacket despite the weather, and something about his appearance was off. The ease of the classmate she remembered had been replaced by something frantic and wrong. They spoke. They spoke briefly. He seemed eager to talk

and she wanted to leave. Then she saw the news, the description of the killer, then disheveled, living alone, mentally ill. And she thought about the man in the parking lot. It was a thought most people would. This is Tudor Dixon. Some of the most courageous people in the world aren't in headlines. They're not famous. You've probably never even heard their names. They're ordinary Christians doing something extraordinary. They're risking everything to follow Jesus. In places like Iran and India, that kind of courage can put their lives at risk,

and yet their faith remains strong. That's why I want to tell you about The Voice of the Martyrs. The Voice of the Martyrs helps persecuted Christians in some of the world's most difficult and dangerous places to follow Christ. They provide emergency help, spiritual support, Bibles, and so much more. You can stand with these persecuted Christians today. For just $35, you can provide a Christmas care pack for a persecuted Christian child filled with gifts that can make a real difference. They have practical essentials, a toy, and of

course, a children's Bible. And when you donate, you'll receive a free copy of Whom Shall I Fear, a book filled with scripture and inspiring stories. Order a care pack and get your free book at vom.org slash tutor that's vom.org slash t-u-d-o-r the voice of the martyrs stand with persecuted christians visit vom.org slash tutor today cash flow crunch on deck small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to two hundred thousand dollars right when you need it cover seasonal dips manage payroll restock inventory

or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at OnDeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank.

OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. USAA Bank has an app for all your financial to-dos. And for those times when you need cash, we've got a fee-free ATM network. USAA Bank, taking care of our own. Limitations apply.

Deposit products offered by USAA Federal Savings Bank. Member FDIC. Dismiss. No, surely not. It couldn't be someone I know. But Nancy Holden did something brave.

She called the police. She told them who she had seen, and she told him his name. The name was Richard Trenton Chase. Now you know. The man who shot Ambrose Griffin from a passing car. the man who walked through an unlocked door and ended the life of a pregnant yuan woman

the man who entered a house on merriwood drive and left in silent richard chase detectives moved quickly they looked into his background and formed and found a trait that matched almost exactly what the profiles had described wow a history of psychiatric hospitalization a man living alone An earlier incident in 1977 in which Chase had been found in a remote spot in Nevada, reportedly naked and covered in blood. Blood not from a person, but from cows. Wow.

They watched his apartment. On February 1st, 1978, they saw Chase leaving, carrying a box. Police moved in. Chase tried to flee, but he was caught. On him, they found a .22 caliber handgun. Yeah.

Inside his apartment, investigators found a scene that confirmed everything. Blood-stained items, evidence of animal remains, items that connected him directly to the whore at the Wallen and Miroth homes, including, according to accounts of the search, remains of his victims. The bloody shoe print, the handprint, the gun, the car, everything lined up. the carelessness that had made the girl look so mysterious had made him easy to convict once someone knew where to look yeah and

just think if if that detective had not called the fbi they probably would not have found this guy at least not for a while or you know even if they just delayed in calling yeah they're like you know we'll just keep it in house you know um it could have been several more victims before he was caught so part six the man behind the name who was richard chase

he was born on may 23rd 1950 in santa clara california and by most accounts his childhood was troubled long before it was dangerous reports describe a volatile home a father who was harsh parents who fought accounts of chase as a child including bedwetting fire setting and cruelty to animals. You may know these as the so-called homicidal triad, a set of childhood warning signs popularized in criminology. I'll add that the reliability of that triad as a predictor is genuinely debated among researchers. Plenty of children show one or all of these and never harm

a human being, but in Chase's case, they appear in the history. As a teenager, he drank, he used marijuana he used lsd over time the line between his inner world and his real one began to blur he struggled to form relationships by his early 20s he was drifting moving between living situations convinced that something was wrong with his body his body and that conviction is the key to everything chase became a hypochondriac of an extreme kind he believed that parts of his body were missing or malfunctioning that an artery had been stolen that his stomach was reversed

that his skull bones were shifting in 1975 the dilution took a darker turn chase injected himself with blood from rabbits he was hospitalized staff reportedly noticed blood around his mouth after he had killed and consumed birds he earned a nickname amongst the hospital staff Dracula. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

Now, here's the part of the story that should make you uncomfortable. Yeah, nothing else has at this point. Richard Chase was in the system. He had been seen. He had been

diagnosed. He had been hospitalized. And in 1976, he was released into the care of his mother. Over time, his medication was reduced. He moved into his own apartment he had few contacts little supervision and a weapon he was somehow able to

attain i'm gonna shut up there yeah um this is the part where many people ask could this have been stopped i'll leave you with this question because the answer is complicated and it touches on the history of how the united states cared for and failed to care for the severely mentally ill in the decades after deinstitutionalization. That's a big, long word. After they decided to not institutionalize people all the time.

But I'll say this. The warning signs were not hidden. They were just scattered across different offices, different files, and different people who never had the whole picture. Part 7. The Motive And now we come to the question that has haunted this case since 1978.

Why? Why did he do it? the answer to the extent there is one is both simpler and stranger than any of us might expect richard chase did not kill for money he did not kill for revenge he did not kill out of hatred of the people he killed he done he did not even know them he killed because of a delusion chase believed his blood was turning to powder that's weird he believed his blood was being converted into powder drying up inside his body and in his mind the cure was blood fresh

blood the blood of living things this is what drove the birds the rabbits the cows in nevada animal blood for a while was enough but as his illness deepened it stopped being enough he needed more and in the distorted logic of a psychosis he needed it from people yeah there's more and this where the case brushes up against the kind of territory that we talk about on the show yeah chase's delusions reportedly included a belief in persecutors and this telling a conspiracy was poisoned him was poisoning him working to make him sick working to drain his body accounts of

his statements describe a nazi-linked ufo-associated mafia he believed was behind the poisoning. He believed, for instance, that this group was tampering with his soap dish. Soap dish. Okay. This is a delusion. This is the symptom of a profoundly ill mind, not reflecting on anything real. I mention it because it shows how a mind can weave the cultural fears of its time, in this case, Nazis and UFOs, into a framework of persecution.

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What about the unlocked doors? Chase explained that too, in his own ways. He reportedly believed that an unlocked door was an invitation. It was an invitation. Ah, I was going to say that. A signal that he was welcome.

A locked door meant that he was not. This is the logic of a mind that has built a private rulebook. One that has nothing to do with anyone else's, but that governs every action. think about that horror i mean those families had no way of knowing none just leaving their door unlocked to carry out the trash or whatever yeah would somehow be interpreted by a person as permission as permission an invitation like a vampire needs

so was he insane in the clinical sense almost certainly he was severely mentally ill but the legal question is different the law asked whether a defendant understood that his actions were wrong and at trial the defense argued that chase was legally insane while the prosecution argued otherwise pointing out the fact that he had tried to flee had returned to normal routines and showed awareness of consequences in 1979 a jury found chase guilty of six counts of first degree murder they rejected the insanity defense and he was sentenced to death richard chase never faced the

gas chamber on december 26 1980 he was found dead in his sale at cell at san quentin the cause was an overdose of prescription medication reportedly antidepressants that he had saved up over time oh man in robert wrestler's book he had had the opportunity to interview him at length before that and those conversations became an important part of the early study of how disorganized psychotic offenders think yeah so in closing six people who had nothing in common expect that they were in the wrong place when a door opened the case of richard chase changed the

way american law enforcement thought about violent crime it was one of the early demonstrations that you could read a crime scene and describe the shape of the person who made it it helped push criminal profiling from curiosity toward practice and it left us with an uncomfortable lesson about what happens when a seriously ill person slips through the gaps in the systems meant to help but i want to leave you with something their names ambrose griffin theresa wallen and the child she was carrying evelyn miroth jason miroth danny meredith and the baby named david

we tell this story so we remember what happened but we should also remember who yeah thank you for listening and that's it that's heavy man so i just want to give a couple of the sources so again robert kess wrestler and tom uh shockman wrote the book whoever fights a monster whoever writes fights monsters um this is a book i read about the first two chapters of it Um, it, it goes into a lot of other cases where they did profiling, um, but it does include the chase case. So, you know, if you're interested in this kind of thing, I'd recommend checking it out.

You know, it's, uh, it's true crime from the perspective of a person who developed profiling. Yeah. Yeah. I want to see, I know there's a movie about the, it's called rampage, uh, in the eighties and it's based off the book that was written about this case not not the one you were talking about but the book that was written about this case it's direct oddly enough it's directed by william friedkin who directed the exorcist so but i'm surprised i've never seen that i'd like to someone have to look that up see if i can find it yeah yeah the hard part these days is you know

since everybody's gone to screaming is trying to find these kind of right these titles that are available to view that are you know not on a dvd player that nobody has anymore right although if you've got a you know if you've got a gaming station that accepts discs you know it'll play dvds but yeah so it looks like it's available on amazon not for free but to rent so so yeah i mean And I think that's where, you know, you know, I remember growing up that in the early 80s, my dad would always go around, make sure all the doors are locked. And that's something I do today.

And I guess it's this kind of stuff that changed that mentality. Oh, yeah. I mean, the 80s was such an interesting time, late 70s, early 80s, because that's when you're dealing with the advent of serial killers. you're dealing with the advent of child abductions you know being figured that's what the kids on the milk box you know the milk cartons all that stuff as well as the satanic panic and all that i mean there was a lot going on that was happening while also us being left alone at the same time right

you know i mean i was a latchkey kid me too um so it's like you know there are times when it was okay for me to walk the five blocks from the school to my house yeah um but you know yeah it's just it's a weird kind of contradiction almost um in a lot of cases so yeah it's wild man but um so that's your that's your spooky episode for that was spooky man you know especially if he's doing lsd and things like that i mean and he's already mentally unstable you know like god only knows what he was being told in his head you know things he was seeing and he believed his

blood was being turned to powder by the nazi ufo yeah i mean it's it's kind of the i think it's a similar psychosis as like people who you know people who believe to this day that uh you know the obamas were actually killed and they've been replaced by you know uh cloned copies or whatever Right. You know, that that's a similar type psychosis. And, you know, it's it's almost dangerous sometimes that our our community of, you know, the strange and paranormal is so willing to accept those. Yeah. Those, you know, those theories and those ideas. So, yeah, that's great. That's wild. Which tells me what what what listeners out there, what are some of your strangest beliefs?

yeah what what what are some conspiracy theories that you think i think they might be true yeah and i'll say this if you're if you're an individual who channels or you're a medium and any of the things that you ever talk to ever tell you to commit a crime or to hurt someone don't don't do it that's not that's not a channel that's not a spirit i mean it could be a spirit but it's definitely not in your best interest or the interest of anybody else to do those things so you know i channel but the messages i get are more about you know helping humanity as a whole

and helping to raise our our awareness and our vibration and all that kind of stuff and it's all about love if at any point in time though i can receive a channeling it's like you know you need to go do this horrible act sorry i'm i'm not going to do it i'm going to really rethink uh what it is that i do so yeah good to know good to know never thought about it that way That was indeed an episode Well let me switch gears

And just say to everyone Happy Halloween Happy Samhain If you celebrate Samhain It is the spooky time of year And my disclaimer always is

I don't care how old they are If they're in a costume and they want candy Give them candy Give them candy Even if that costume In your opinion is not very well put together

like i remember when i was doing bad stuff when i was in middle school i used to put on a trench coat and carry a fake uh shotgun and call myself a member of the mafia but i mean that was that was the best costume that i could come up with in middle school you know yeah for me i was in middle school and i didn't have a costume because dad's like you're too old and i was like no i'm so i took a bandana and i tied it up and then i put a spatula in there and bent the spatula so that it looked like a knife going into my head yeah that's that's what i had and i was just in

plain clothes there you go yep you were a stabbing victim yep that's you do what you got to do to get candy man candy man no no no candy man candy man candy man no but anyways great great job josh i appreciate the work on that uh i'm glad i didn't look up anything ahead of time um that was really interesting uh to hear and be the face of the audience so to speak as well that was really really interesting um but yeah i i want to ask victoria my friend victoria she's from that area you know if she ever growing up if she heard about

you know yeah urban legends about the vampire of sacramento or anything like that so be interesting but anyways thanks again josh i appreciate it yep i guess we'll go ahead and get out of here again happy halloween everybody thank you so much for tuning into the shadow signal podcast um before we sign out don't you usually got something you want to talk about i just usually say if if there's uh if you like listening to the show you don't like all the commercials we do have an option through sprecker where it's like seven dollars a month and you get

to listen to all the episodes commercial free and that seven dollars a month really helps us out so you know several people have taken advantage of it so far and you know maybe you would be interested as well so like i said it has to be done through sprecker and you have to use their listener which is good i i've been using it quite a bit so yeah so but anyways take care everybody I hope you guys have a great Halloween. We'll see you next month.

This has been Stephan reminding you to stay in the shadows and listen to the signal. This has been Josh. The truth is now. All right. Good night, everybody. Shadow Signal Podcast.

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