Richard Chase: The Vampire of Sacramento (Part 2)

Send us Fan Mail Richard Chase, the “Vampire of Sacramento,” was one of America’s most disturbing serial killers. But by the time he murdered six people in Sacramento in 1977 and 1978, his severe schizophrenia, violent delusions, and increasingly alarming behavior had been documented for years. So why wasn’t anyone able to stop him? In Part Two of our Richard Chase series, we move beyond the crimes to examine the mental health system that surrounded him. Chase had been hospitalized, diagnosed, placed under conservatorship, and repeatedly identified as dangerous by people directly involved in his care. Nurses at Beverly Manor reportedly fought his release. And yet, in September 1976, he walked out of the institution and eventually stopped taking his medication.  Pasted text To understand how that happened, we trace the history of deinstitutionalization in America, California’s Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act, the collapse of the state psychiatric hospital system, the promise of community mental health care, and the difficult legal tension between civil liberties and involuntary psychiatric treatment. The result is a more complicated story than one negligent doctor or one family failing to recognize the warning signs. Richard Chase’s case exposes a gap between recognizing that someone is dangerously unraveling and having the legal authority, clinical resources, and social infrastructure to intervene before a crime occurs. And it leaves us with a question that still hasn’t been neatly resolved: What responsibility does society have to intervene when the danger seems obvious—but the legal threshold for taking away someone’s freedom has not yet been crossed? Pretty Evil is a true crime and psychology podcast exploring the people, systems, and human behavior behind disturbing events—and what those stories reveal about us. Master Show Bible Topics: Richard Chase, Vampire of Sacramento, Richard Trenton Chase, serial killer psychology, schizophrenia, psychosis, true crime, Sacramento murders, mental illness and crime, deinstitutionalization, psychiatric hospitals, Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, LPS Act, involuntary commitment, conservatorship, community mental health, California mental health law, forensic psychology, criminal psychology. Support the show Some details don't make it into the episode. For source material, research files, episode extras, and more to the story, visit prettyevilpodcast.com.