THE DEATH OF ALBERT JOHNSON

2/17/1932 - The huge manhunt of over a month (the largest in Canadian history to the time) through the winter wilds of Northern Canada for a mysterious stranger known only as Albert Johnson (he will become known as "The Mad Trapper of Rat River"), the murderer of RCMP Constable Edgar Millen, ends on the frozen Eagle River of the Yukon in gunfire and death.

Johnson In Death

The trouble for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), begins in July of 1931, when Johnson paddles down the Peel River on a make-shift raft and arrives at a small bit of civilization in the Inuvik Region of Northern Canada once used by the Hudson Bay Company fur trappers, Fort McPherson.  A mountain man roughly 5'9" in height, with brown hair, cold blue eyes, and a very cryptic communicator style, the man calling himself Johnson makes his presence known to the locals by buying, with cash from an old tobacco can, supplies from the Northern Traders LTD store (an Iver Johnson 16-gauge single-barrel shotgun and twenty-five shells for the weapon), setting up a tent camp upstream of the fort, and demonstrating his abilities to protect himself and his property by whittling away three-foot target sticks with his weapons that he places in a sandbank along the river (he is carrying over $3,000 on his person).  Keeping to himself, confining most of his conversations to locals with simple "yes" and "no" replies (it is said that some folks catch a whiff of a Scandinavian accent when the trapper speaks),  he soon draws a visit from Constable Edgar "Spike" Millen of the Arctic Red River detachment of the RCMP, making sure the newcomer is properly equipped and has the necessary skills to survive in the area's harsh wilderness.  During his interview with Johnson, Millen discovers the man intends to set up trap lines in the wilds between the Arctic Red River and the Peel River but does not yet have a trapping license.  Millen suggests Johnson should save himself some trouble and purchase the necessary paperwork as soon as possible.   one as soon as possible.  License never purchased, a week later Johnson buys a twelve-foot canoe local fisherman, Abe Francis, fills the canoe with his possessions, and paddles off for the Rat River.  Eventually finding what he is looking for, Johnson crafts a small cabin (the timber structure measures eight-by-ten-feet) on a promontory that gives him good views in three directions.  Through the summer months Johnson makes improvements to the cabin and hunts down critters for his food supplies for the winter.  Unfortunately for Johnson though, his cabin is built on land that trappers, William Vittrekwa, Jacob Drymeat, and William Nerysoo, consider their own domain ... and they want Johnson gone.

Fort McPherson

Rat River Region - Winter

Millen

Little is heard from Johnson until William Nerysoo walks into the Arctic Red River Post's Christmas celebration of 1931, and complains to Constable Millen that Johnson has been springing the traps of Nerysoo, Vittrekwa, and Drymeat, and then hanging the valuable equipment in the trees (after the manhunt for Johnson ends, it will be discovered that Johnson did nothing to the men's traps, and that the report made is revenge against the stranger for being in territory the men consider their own, and that when they confront Johnson at his cabin and tell him to leave, Johnson instead pulls out a rifle and forces the trio to leave the area with a declaration that he is going no where).  The next day, December 26, 1931, Millen directs Constable Alfred "Buns" King and Special Constable Joe Bernard to mush to Johnson's cabin and question the man about springing traps, and to see if Johnson is still without a trapping license.  Taking two teams of dogs, the lawmen set out in temperatures that will reach up to forty degrees below zero.  Covering sixty miles of frozen wilderness, the men reach Johnson's cabin at around noon on December 28th.  Calling out for Johnson to come outside and discuss the complaints that have been made about him, the Mounties grow frustrated when Johnson refuses to talk to the lawmen or come outside, and locks himself in his abode.  Feeling they can do no more without a search warrant, King and Bernard set off on an eighty mile journey down the Husky River to the RCMP post at Aklavik, where they can report the matter to Arctic region commander, Inspector Alexander Eames, obtain a search warrant, and get reinforcements to help in the search of Johnson's cabin and camp.  The men, now joined by Constable R. G. McDowell and Special Constable Lazarus Sittichinli, arrive at Johnson's camp at around noon on New Year's Eve.  Smoke coming out of Johnson's cabin, the lawmen take up positions about the structure as King demands the trapper come outside, then knocks on the door to show the search warrant.  A moment later he is shot through the door by a slug that passes through the left side of the lawman's chest before exiting his right side.  Wounded grievously, King manages to crawl down to the riverbank, while his comrades engage in a brief gun battle with Johnson, before lashing King to a sled and making a desperate run back to Aklavik to save the man's life.  An historic dash that saves King's life, with stops of only minutes for rubdowns that prevent frostbite, lowering and raising King over the countless obstacles and the steep banks of the Husky River, in below zero weather, the party covers four miles an hour, and eventually makes it back to Aklavik in twenty torturous hours (where King is immediately tended to in the settlement's small hospital by Resident Doctor J. A. Urquhart and two nurses ... lucky to be alive, the lawman is up and around three weeks later).

Aklavik

Mounties - King At Left, Millen At Right

Extremely unhappy that one of his men has almost been killed by Johnson, Inspector Eames puts together an even bigger posse to bring in the trapper.  This time, Eames is in command, accompanied by Constable McDowell, Special Constables Bernard and Sittichinli, and Earnest Sutherland, Karl Gardlund, and Knut Lang, with Constable Millen and native guide, Charley Rat, radioed at the Artic Red River post to meet the force at the mouth of the Rat River (the force is transported into the wilderness by forty-two dogs, and along with normal supplies and weapons, the men purchase twenty pounds of dynamite at Arthur Blake's trading post on the Peel River).  Eames' men leave Aklavik on January 4, 1932.  After moving through drifts of snow and temperatures hovering around -45 degrees, the men take up stations around Johnson's cabin in the late morning of January 9th.  Again, Johnson, surprisingly still at his abode, is told to come out of his cabin, this time by Eames, while being notified that he has not killed King, but again refuses to comply, or even answer the inspector's surrender request (since his first encounter with the RCMP, and throughout the manhunt that ensues, Johnson will not be heard to utter a single word).  No go, Eames then mounts a series of attacks on the front door which Johnson beats off firing a sawed-off shotgun and a .22 rifle with its stock sawed off from loopholes in the walls of the cabin and from a pit dug into the structure's floor.  Meanwhile, the lawmen take turns warming themselves around a makeshift campfire that Johnson can't target, while they take turns with the dangerous job of thawing out the dynamite.  Explosives warmed, Eames illuminates the cabin with flares and begins pitching lit sticks of dynamite at the front door ... none manages to create an opening in the cabin or do more than create loud explosions of dirt and snow.  Frustrated that they can't get at Johnson, at around midnight, with cover fire from the posse distracting Johnson, Knut Lang     crawls forward and pitches dynamite onto the roof of the cabin.  The subsequent hole blown in the roof though does not convince the trapper to give himself up.  Knowing that a siege in the current weather conditions can not last much longer, at 3:00 in the morning, Eames binds up the remaining sticks of dynamite, and tosses the remaining four pounds of explosives twenty yards onto the cabin's roof.  BOOM!  The dynamite blasts the roof off the cabin and partially collapses the sides of the structure.  Rushing the front door expecting Johnson to be dead or dazed, Eames and Karl Gardlund are horrified to discover the trapper is in command of his senses and still fully belligerent, causing the men to retreat when he shoots the flashlight out of Gardlund's hand.  Rejecting suggestions from the posse that they burn Johnson alive in the ruins of his cabin, Eames decides to try again under better conditions and at 4:00 in the morning, leads his force back to Aklavik (they are lucky to have only one injury, with Constable McDowell reinjuring an already injured knee when Johnson bullets force him to jump behind a large snow drift).  Sent to keep an eye on Johnson until the posse can return, on January 14th, Constable Millen and Gardlund discover the trapper has fled into the wilderness.

Some Of The Mush Teams

Mounties - Eames Front Row Center

Johnson's Blown Up Cabin

World made aware of the events taking place in the wilds of Northern Canada by way of radio broadcasts flashed over "UZK," folks in both Canada and the United States begin tracking the manhunt as if Johnson is a pitcher throwing a no-hitter against the authorities (the hunt will be considered one of the events that propels radio from a media curiosity to a place of importance in people's lives).  The RCMP make their next attempt to capture Johnson as below zero freezing conditions persist and a major blizzard hits the area.  On January 16, 1932, the latest posse looking for the trapper leaves Aklavik.  It consists of John Parsons, a former Mountie, Frank Carmichael, a trapper from the district, Noel Verville, another regional trapper, Ernest Sutherland and Special Constable Siitichinli, veterans of the RCMP's attempts to corral Johnson, and two men from the small Royal Canadian Corps of Signals post, Staff Sergeant Earl F. Hersey and Quartermaster Sergeant R. F. Riddell.  They are accompanied into the wilds by a new set of mush dogs, radio equipment, supplies that can keep the full group searching for four days, or a minimum party for ten days, and a batch of beer-bottle fire bombs and explosives crafted out of old outboard engine cylinders.  There are also eleven Loucheux Indian scouts combing the area for Johnson, along with Millen and Gardlund still being camped near the trapper's destroyed cabin.  Cognizant of the weather conditions in the area and the state of the posse's supplies, Eames decides to concentrate search efforts into one primary group of four men ... Belfast, Ireland born Millen, Gardlund , Verville, and Riddell.  Searching for Johnson, the men discover two small caches of food, which the men leave alone to bait Johnson into an ambush (but the trapper doesn't bite), before Riddell finally locates the trapper's two day old trail on a small piece of ice and in nearby creek.  Up and down seemingly impossible to climb snow covered ridges, only crossing creeks on glare ice, snowshoeing two miles to every one the posse is able to follow, moving in zig-zag patterns that eventually have two different hunters meeting head-on in their search of Johnson's trail, despite showing super-human attributes of strength and energy, undetected, the foursome eventually find the trapper camped in a steep canyon northwest of the confluence of the Rat and Barrier rivers.  Moving quietly, Riddell and Gardlund set up fifteen yards from Johnson, waiting for Millen and Verville, but any surprise advantage the men have over the trapper is lost when the men's descent into the canyon is heard by Johnson.  Rattlesnake quick, the trapper whirls and fires a rifle round from his 30-30 Savage, but then falls to the ground when Verville sends lead his way.  Wind howling and blizzard blowing (it is -37 below zero), the frozen seconds become minutes and eventually the minutes become an hour as the men watch the still body.  Then the one hour becomes two, and a perturbed Millen, finally moves forward to deal with the corpse, despite Verville yelling at Millen to get down lest Johnson is feigning being shot.  Sure enough, Riddell and Millen are approaching Johnson, when the trapper suddenly comes to life and snaps off a shot at the quartermaster sergeant that barely misses the man's head.  Then, Johnson and Millen engage in a brief gun battle.  First try, both men miss each other.  On Millen's second firing, he misses again, but Johnson finds flesh when he targets the lawman again, sending the lawman to Boot Hill when one of his rifle rounds hits the Mountie in the heart.  If there was any doubt before to what the outcome of the manhunt for Johnson will be, Millen's death insures that this group of Mounties will most certainly "get their man" (Millen will be honored for his sacrifice by having a tributary of the Rat River named Millen Creek, and at the site of his death, a memorial of three permanent plaques in English, French, and Gwich'in to the fallen officer is restored in 2021).

Millen

Millen Memorial

With each attempt to capture Johnson failing, more manpower is added to the effort to catch the trapper ... Eames sets off from Aklavik with ten men, local Inuvialuit and Gwinh'in natives enter the hunt, two groups of RCMP block the two passes over the Richardson Mountains in case Johnson tries to leave Canada and head into Alaska, Constable Sidney W. May and Special Constable John Moses lead a group of trappers from the La Pierre House post into the area, and in the move that will eventually result in Johnson's demise, for the first time in its history, Eames gets the RCMP to lease a ski-equipped single-engine Bellanca CH-300 Pacemaker to help with the hunt, a plane piloted by WWI ace (he has thirteen victories to his credit when the war ends and survives an encounter with the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen) and pioneer bush pilot, Wilfrid Reid "Wop" May (among his exploits, May and his brother Elgin open Canada's first airfield in Edmonton, flies into the area one of the two Junkers planes that help with the opening of the region's first oil rush in 1921, and May is one of the men that inaugurates the first mail and passenger service from Edmonton to Aklavik).  Back in the wilds, the RCMP discover that Johnson has escaped from the camp where he killed Millen by climbing a sheer cliff of over a thousand feet by waiting until dark and then climbing out of the area using handholds he has cut out of the snow and ice on the wall (he will follow this feat up by climbing over Mount Richardson, at an elevation 10,125 feet above sea level).  Once atop the ridge, Johnson heads west into terrain where the drifts have piled up, making pursuit by the RCMP's dog teams more difficult.  Searching for Johnson, hundreds of men now involved, patrols move into the northern wilderness from Whitehorse, Fort Norman, Dawson City, Mayo, Aklavik, Fort Simpson, La Pierre House, and even smaller settlements and individual cabins along the Mackenzie, Barrier, Shute, and Rat rivers.  On February 12th, the lawmen get their first break on the hunt.

Wop May At Left

The Hunt About To Go Airborne

Richardson Mountain

After native trapper Pete Alexie mushes over Rat Pass, word is received at the La Pierre House that mysterious snowshoe tracks have been found east of the post, information that is then mushed by Captain May to Eames' base camp at the mouth of the Rat River.  Also at the base camp is Wop May and the Bellanca, which immediately contribute to the pursuit, shuttling supplies, dogs, and men into the wilderness, a three day or more task reduced to minutes and hours, and shortly they will prove their worth by following Johnson's movements from the air and allowing the lawmen to get in front of their prey.  Picking up Johnson's tracks from the air, the Bellanca uncovers that the trapper makes a habit of circling back on his own trail and following in the tracks of roving herds of caribou, both for the ease of moving over hoof packed instead of drifts of powder, and because Johnson's tracks will be lost amongst the more prevalent animal tracks (the brief times he leaves the caribou tracks are how pilot May keeps tabs on the trapper (moving through snow drifts in blizzard conditions with temperatures ranging towards fifty below zero, supplementing his meager supplies hunting small animals with snares, breaking trail over and over, never making a large fire, following animal tracks, and covering up his own movements, Johnson makes it over the Richardson Mountains and to this day no one knows how).  Before yet another blizzard covers the area and grounds the Bellanca, following another herd of caribou, Johnson's tracks appear to be heading south along the Eagle River.

Johnson Illustration

Hunters - L To R - Sgt. Riddell, Sgt. Hersey, Duncan Bowen,

Norman Hancock, Sgt.-Maj Neary, Jack Either, And Wop May

Poor flying conditions keep May on the ground most of Sunday, but he is able to find Johnson's tracks about twenty miles up the Eagle River from its confluence with the Bell River.  On February 15th, two patrols (one consisting of four men commanded by Eames and a second composed of eight men led by Constable Sid May) marry up at La Pierre House and start off along the Eagle River in pursuit of the trapper.  After another day of inclement weather keeps the Bellanca grounded, on the morning of February 17th, the dog patrol is in motion along the Eagle River and Wop May is once more in the air.  Shortly before noon, the posse turns a bend in the river and discovers Johnson reversing through his own tracks on the iced over river.  Prey and hunters both surprised at finding each other only yards away after a wintery pursuit lasting over a month, leading the lawman from aboard his seven-dog sled, Staff Sgt. Earl Hersey whips out his rifle and fires on Johnson just as the mountain man turns and gets off a round of his own, a Savage 30-30 slug that smashes into the man's left elbow, through his left knee and into his chest, causing the kneeling officer to cartwheel through the snow.  Dividing the men into three groups, Eames sends four men up the east side of the river, four men along the west bank of the Eagle, while he remains with Constable May in the center of the river, yelling at Johnson to surrender and firing upon him when he doesn't, while overhead, Wop May arrives on the scene, overhead.  Having determined that he can not make it off the river to either bank, Johnson runs forty yards before throwing himself into a drift of snow.  There, he shrugs out of his backpack, sets up behind the sack, and begins firing on various members of the posse.  Fired on from three sides and protected by nothing more substantial than powder and cloth, the battle does not last long as the trapper is hit in the pocket by a bullet that sets off ammunition he is carrying in his pocket and takes a chunk of flesh out of his thigh.  Wounded, Johnson continues to fire on his adversaries, and he is soon struck by bullets to his shoulder and side, and finally takes a killing round in the pelvis which snaps the trapper's spine and causes massive damage to the trapper's bowels, vital tissues, and main arteries.  Flying so low his skis almost touch the snow, Wop May determines by Johnson's unlikely positioning that the trapper is dead and wagging the wings of his plane, lets the posse know they have successfully brought Johnson to ground after a pursuit of covering over 150 miles of winter Hell.  Gun battle over, May will land, load the wounded Hersey into his plane, and fly the lawman back to Aklavik, where he will be patched together again by Dr. Urquhart (and in a bit of silver lining from the manhunt and aftermath, recognizing the inadequacies of its hospital, the town will soon receive an X-ray machine).

Hersey

Final Gun Battle From The Air

Dr. Urquhart also performs the autopsy on Johnson after the corpse is sledded to the La Pierre House and then flown to Aklavik.  Along with identifying Johnson's wounds, the doctor notes that the dead trapper is five feet and nine and half inches tall, weighs one-hundred-fifty pounds, has light blue eyes and light brown hair, and has an upturned nose and lobbed ears.  Urquhart also identifies the possessions the corpse is found with ... a small glass bottle containing five pearls (with an estimated value of $15) and five pieces of dental gold (with an estimated value of $3.20), a small glass bottle of alluvial gold (with an estimated value of $9.36), a Savage 30-30 Model 99 rifle, a 16 gauge Iver Johnson sawed-off shotgun, a sawed off Model 58 .22 Winchester rifle, a pocket compass, an axe (bearing a bullet hole in its handle), a sack containing a lard tin and a lid used for making tea, a knife made from a spring trap, a safety match, a Gillette safety razor, a homemade file and chisel, a moose-skin rifle cover, a moose-skin pouch, a small spring, nails and matches wrapped in tinfoil, a moose-skin sewing pouch with needles and thread, a 30-30 cartridge box containing a small empty bottle and pieces of wax, a sack of thirty-nine 30-30 shells, two boxes of .22 ammunition, seven pieces of moose-hide, a sack containing six smaller empty sacks, fifteen pieces of snowshoe lacing, a large bundle of snowshoe lacing, a sewing thread, a piece of moose-skin lace, a Calico rifle cover, a large envelope containing a box of Pony matches, a bundle of sulphur matches wrapped in tinfoil, a bundle of sulphur matches wrapped in paper, a paper package of fish hooks, an oily rag, a leather covered comb and sewing materials, a bundle of twine, a rag bundle of sewing twine, a paper package of fish hooks, four .2 shells, four 16 gauge shotgun shells, a rag containing pepper, a sack containing salt, a mirror with a moose-skin cover, over $2,000 in American and Canadian currency, a dead squirrel, a dead bird, and a large quantity of laxative Beecham's Pills.  After the body is examined, cause of death is established, fingerprints are taken, and photographs of the corpse are made, Johnson is put in a cheap wooden casket and buried in an unmarked grave ... case closed, or is it?

Some Of Johnson's Possessions

Johnson

The News

Manhunt over, it doesn't take authorities any time whatsoever to realize that they really know nothing about Albert Johnson, not even if Albert Johnson is really the trapper's name.  Looking for information, Johnson's death photograph is released in both Canada and America, but results in just deepening the mystery of the trapper's existence.  Testing theories, at first it is believed that Johnson is actually an obscure trapper named Arthur Nelson (who also goes by the name, Mickey Nelson) who is the right age and height, owned weapons Johnson was known to also have, and was in the region during the right time period, and Nelson is thought to actually be a Nebraska outlaw by way of Norway (he is born there, in the town of Bardu, as Johan Konrad Jonsen) named John Johnson who did time at San Quentin and Folsom prisons before heading into the wilds of Canada.  DNA testing however will negate this individual from being Albert Johnson.  And the confusion continues when the Johnston family of Pictou, Nova Scotia offers up Owen Albert Johnston as the Mad Trapper because of the similarities in this name, age, and that the family never heard from their relative again after receiving a letter from him in 1931 from British Columbia., but the claim is never proven.  The next candidate to be Johnson is a Norwegian trapper named Sigvald Pederson Haaskjold, who vanishes from the fortress he built on Digby Island off the northern coast of British Columbia, but no hard evidence is ever provided to substantiate the claim.  In 2007, Johnson's remains are exhumed so that DNA can be gathered to help in identifying Johnson, but as of 2021, nothing is still known about the man other than his relatives can be traced back to Sweden and the towns of Hanger, Kavsjo, and Kulltorp.

Police Drawing Of Johnson

Arthur Nelson - 1927

Likeness Recreation

Digging Up Johnson 

And of course, Hollywood eventually puts their spin on Johnson, producing "The Mad Trapper" in 1972, "Challenge to be Free" in 1975 (with professional wrestler turned actor, Mike Mazurki, as the Trapper), and a full blockbuster treatment in 1981 for 20th Century Fox, "Death Hunt," starring Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Carl Weathers, Andrew Stevens, and Ed Lauer ... and of course, the film's makers find a need to tweak reality with Johnson as a sympathetic character caught up in events out of his control when he rescues a German Shepard from a vicious dog fighting trapper, a serial killer stranger being added to the action that steals the gold out of the mountain men he murders, Millen is not killed, and instead allows Johnson to escape at the end, claiming the serial killer that has his face shot off is really Johnson, and Wop May does not fire on Johnson from his plane during the hunt, nor is he shot out of the air by Johnson.  And so it goes, not what happened, but entertaining anyway.

Marvin As Millen

Bronson As Johnson

2/17/1932 - After a pursuit lasting over a month across one-hundred and fifty miles of wild Northern Canada during blizzard conditions, mountain man murderer, Albert Johnson, is shot down by authorities on the Eagle River, the RCMP getting its man once again, and instantly becomes a Yukon legend of survival (for awhile at least) and endurance.

Johnson?

 

    

 

   

       

                

 

    

 

A HAUL OF OVER $100,000,000!!!!!!!!!

2/16/2003 - At the heart of the world's diamond business, Belgium's Antwerp Diamond Center is hit for more than $100 million (no one will ever really know how much booty the thieves get away with) in loose diamonds, gold, silver, and other types of jewelry in a two-day robbery the authorities will call "the heist of the century."

Scene Of The Crime

Taking over two years of planning and prep work, career criminal Leonardo Notarbartolo (his first robbery takes place when the crook is only 6, taking $8 from a sleeping merchant that his mother has sent him to buy milk from) and a group of five thieves known as "The School of Turin," complete an almost perfect crime in which Notarbartolo poses as a diamond merchant and rents an office in the Antwerp Diamond Center (for $700 a month) that gives him 24-hour access to the building and his own safe deposit box in the vault of the building.  Photography in the Diamond Center (a gray fortress-like 14-story structure) monitored and restricted, Notarbartolo uses his access to take pictures of the building and underground vault (requiring an elevator ride to reach it) using a miniaturized digital camera concealed in the cap of an apparently innocuous highlighter, and it also allows him to find a spot above the vault door (3-tons of steel rated to withstand 24-hours of nonstop drilling) where another tiny camera is planted that allows him to observe the combination used by the guards to swing open the door leading to the safety deposit boxes (four numbers required, the combination has 100 million possibilities), the camera sends its signal to a sensor in a nearby storage room, fully functional fire extinguisher that the men have substituted for the real thing.

Notarbartolo

The Target

Robbery moves practiced on a mock-up of the vault, women's hair spray is used to temporarily bypass a thermal-motion sensor, which is later brought down in full by a thief known only as "The Genius'' (thought to be a man named Elio D'Onorio, the action doing this is recorded the day before the heist, but ignored by security personnel use to the Italians's visits).  During the robbery, Notarbartolo sits in a getaway car (a gray Peugeot 307) monitoring a police scanner, plastic gloves are used so that DNA and fingerprints are not left behind.  To avoid the many security cameras watching the building, a thief known as "The King of Keys" gets the gang access to the structure through an unused office in the building next store that shares a private garden with the Diamond Center that is not under surveillance.  A small ladder is used to climb up on to a balcony and get into the Center, "The Genius" using a homemade, polyester shield to block the infrared sensor and then disabling the alarms on the balcony's access window.  Security cameras are negated with black plastic bags which allow the crooks to turn on the lights and not work in the dark.  A magnetic field on the vault door is overcome by "The Genius" using an aluminum plate and two-sided heavy-duty tape that allows the field on the vault to appear intact as it is pivoted out of the way and taped to a wall.

D'Onorio

Even with the combination to the vault, a foot-long key is required which "The King of Keys" creates, but doesn't use when he discovers the original in an unlocked room used by guards prior to giving clients access to the vault.  Moves memorized but taking no chances, the gang works in the dark (except for briefly turning on pen lights to make sure of their positioning during the theft ) of the vault once "The Genius" picks the lock on an internal gate and another crook, called "The Monster" (Ferdinando Finotto) based on his height, strength, and ability to master any assignment he is given, moves to the center of the room, pushes up a panel in the ceiling, uses a bypass and reroutes the light monitors (tape on each is also used), while heat sensors are beat with the use of Styrofoam boxes.  And using a hand-cranked drill created by "The King of Keys," the men break into 123 of the 160 safety deposit boxes in the vault (made of steel and copper, each box also requires a key and a combination lock, each with 17,576 possibilities), dumping their contents into large duffel bags and stealing all the security tapes before vacating the premises (the robbing stops at 5:30 and takes an hour to extract themselves from the building.  Perfect, the next morning the vault appears sealed tight on all The Center's monitors, but reality underground is quite different. 

Inside The Vault - After

Unfortunately though for the crooks, the clean-up in which evidence like diamond envelopes is to be burnt up in France on the road back to Turin, is botched by a neurotic criminal friend of Notarbartolo named "Speedy" (Pietro Tavano) who has a panic attack that causes Notarbartolo to turn on to a dirt forest road and dispose of evidence in the woods, instead of burning it.  Sure enough, a hunter that owns the land, August Van Camp, soon finds the rubbish near the side of the road, contacts the police, and Notarbartolo is linked to the crime by a receipt for a low-light surveillance system purchased by Notabartolo, DNA on a salami sandwich wrapper that links Finotto to a surveillance tape made at a sandwich store.  at a local store where he bought the item.  Arriving in Turin, the men divide their booty and then appear to renew leading ordinary lives.   But the Notabartolo lead is enough for detectives to figure out a major chunk of the crime.  Never ratting out his partners, Notabartolo is discovered to have 17 certified polished diamonds which can be traced back to the Diamond center (and another handful is found in a rolled-up rug from his Antwerp apartment.  Placed on trial he will receive a 10 year sentence.  After raiding the French Riviera home of Finotto's girlfriend, the crook receives a five-year sentence for possessing marked $100 bills that can be traced back to the robbery.  D'Onorio receives a five-year sentence when his DNA is found on some adhesive tape left in the vault.  And Travano gets five years when cell-phone evidence is presented at his trial that triangulates him into the vault and shows he was in almost contact with Notabartolo during the heist.  Guilty and yet no one talks, awaiting their release and hopeful reunion with their loot ... and the fifth participant, "The King of Keys" is never identified.

Tavano

FAST FEET STILLED

2/11/1982 - Sublime dancer (after starring in her first MGM musical, a critic will write that she has, "the most eloquent feet in show business.") and American actress, Eleanor Torrey Powell, dies of ovarian cancer in her Beverly Hills home at the age of 69.

Eleanor

The girl that will grow up to be the "World's Greatest Tap Dancer" (per the "Dance Masters of America" in 1865), is born in Springfield, Massachusetts on November 21, 1912 to Clarence Gardner Powell (a hardware retailer) and Blanche Torrey Powell.  When Eleanor is only eleven months home, her parents separate (they will later divorce) and she is brought up by her mother (who works as a chambermaid, waitress, and bank teller to support her daughter), and her mother's parents, Harold and Susie Belle Torrey (for years she will be told her father is dead, and Eleanor will not really know him until she is twenty-three and Clarence introduces himself to his daughter).  Not having her father in her life, Eleanor grows up so painfully shy that she hides from guests when they call on her mother or grandparents.  Hoping to break the shyness afflicting her daughter, when Eleanor is seven, Blanche enrolls her in dance classes given by Ralph McKernan (McKernan will also teach Robert Alton Hart, the dancer and choreographer responsible for discovering Gene Kelly, working with Fred Astaire, being the dance director at MGM from 1944 to 1951, and designing the dance numbers for The Harvey Girls, Till the Clouds Roll By, Show Boat, and White Christmas).  Studying classical ballet, "interpretive" modern dance, and acrobatics, the blue-eyed youngster discovers she has a natural aptitude for physical movement and discovers her calling in life.  Jumping about and dancing wherever she is, twelve-year-old Eleanor's big break comes during a family summer vacation to Atlantic City, New Jersey when local entrepreneur, Gus Edwards, spots her doing cartwheels on the beach and offers her a job working three nights a week at the Ritz Grill of the city's Ambassador Hotel doing a specialty acrobatic act.  Not a bad gig, her opening salary is seven dollars a show.  Receiving good reviews and more local work, by 1927, she is performing dance numbers at the high-priced Atlantic City supper clubs of the Silver Slipper and Martin's, and is soon hearing from comedian Jack Benny, entertainer Eddie Cantor, and her teacher, Ralph McKernan that she should set her sights on dancing on Broadway.  Blossoming into a 5'6" brown-haired beauty with a 33-23-35 inch figure, forgoing her schooling, in 1927, Eleanor and her mother move to New York City, where the teenager signs with William Grady of the William Morris talent agency and begins getting jobs dancing in clubs, on vaudeville stages, and at private parties (she is now up to $500 a performance).

Young Eleanor

Teenager Powell

But the Broadway roles do not come, chiefly because Eleanor does not have tap dancing in her repertoire.  Seeking to make the deficit into a strength, Powell enrolls in a ten lesson tap dancing class with Jack Donahue (a master soft shoe dancer) and Johnny Boyle (a vaudeville hoofer known for his "buck-and-wing" style dancing).  The men emphasis the feet grounding tap requires, and known for her aerobatic dancing leaps, Eleanor almost quits after the first lesson, but perseveres and suddenly becomes a potential talent after her seventh lesson.  Ankles held while Donahue works with how her feet will move on the ground, the two men also devise a Rube Goldberg apparatus consisting of a belt off of which ten pound sandbags drape from either hip that the teenager must wear while dancing that keeps her even more grounded.  Lessons (by the eighth session Powell is being called on in class to demonstrate various taps she has just learned herself) combined with hours and hours of practice, and experience watching and dancing with legendary black entertainer, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson (the two will become life long friends, with Powell using the same entrances and exits the black entertainer is forced to use, as well as always making sure whatever food and drink she is offered, is also offered to Robinson, and Robinson will teach Powell his famous "stair dance"), and equally famous black hoofer, John W. "Bubbles" Sublett (the two share a twenty week tour of the vaudeville circuit that has them performing five shows a day, during which Powell learns the heel drop tapping that Sublett has mastered and moves to wearing high-heeled tap shoes with a wider Cuban heel more conducive to reproducing the Sublett's style of rhythm tapping she falls in love with) and like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, Powell emerges from her work as one of the finest tap dancers of her generation.  Ballet fused to aerobatic leaps married to grounded machine-gun style tapping that flows into energetic swift turns and natural, loose arm movements that mix gracefulness and athletic ability, at only seventeen years of age, Powell gets her first Broadway success in the 1929 musical, "Follow Thru" (she auditions to a tune that will become one of the show's hits, "Button Up Your Overcoat," with a dance routine she works on with Donahue in class.  Aiming to get better and better, during the show's run, Powell continues to practice her moves, dancing up to twelve hours a day, creating her own routines as she listens to the records of various jazz talents of the day like Fats Waller.  Other Broadway successes soon follow, "Fine and Dandy" in 1930 (the opening night audience includes George and Ira Gershwin, Al Jolsen, Ruby Keeler, Judith Anderson, and William Demarest), "Hot-Cha!" in 1932 for legendary Broadway impresario, Florence Ziegfeld, George White's "Music Hall Varieties" in 1933 doing two rhythm tap numbers, and "At Home Abroad" in 1935, with a cast that includes Ethel Waters, Reginald Gardner, Eddie Foy Jr., Vera Allen, and John Payne (Powell will dance to the new song, "What a Wonderful World").  Between shows, still working to perfect her craft, Powell takes jobs performing for jazz and big bands like the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, and becomes the first tap dancer to perform at Carnegie Hall.

George White, Powell, And Robinson

Sublett

Playbill For "Follow Thru"

Never intending to make a career in movies, just trying to keep a roof overhead as Broadway starts cutting back on spending as the Great Depression in America deepens, Powell appears in the chorus line of a couple of minor, early film musicals before moving front and center in "George White's 1935 Scandals," a project Powell loathes because she thinks she is made up too much and looks like an Egyptian on screen.  Nonetheless, her tapping is a talent Hollywood wants, and when Leo B. Mayer of MGM comes calling, Powell gives the executive her money contract demands, which she believes will be rejected ... instead, Mayer accepts Eleanor's needs, Powell signs on and the studio soon has a new asset to put into a group of musicals which will save the company (behind the scenes, very little is done to change either her hair or makeup).  Supported by old friend Jack Benny, actor Robert Taylor, entertainer Buddy Ebsen (his screen debut) and veteran actress Frances Langford, the fresh faced new beauty displays her energetic talent for stunning dancing in her first starring role as Irene Foster in "Broadway Melody of 1936," playing a dancer her high school boyfriend (Taylor) refuses to put in his New York musical, forcing Powell to pretend to be an imaginary French hoofer (created by newspaperman Benny) that is hired.  Performing in scenes that include the songs "Broadway Rhythm," "You Are My Lucky Star," "Sing Before Breakfast," and "All I Do Is Dream Of You" (though possessing an adequate voice, her singing will be dubbed by Marjorie Lane) the movie and Powell are huge hits with 1930's audiences (the picture will be nominated for three Academy awards, including Best Picture, and will win for Best Dance Direction).  Men are drawn to Eleanor as a beautiful woman, moving beautifully, while women respond to a vision of their future in which they can do anything a man can do, and can do it leading.  Powell's follow-up to her first hit is "Born to Dance," in which she dances to the music of Cole Porter (the film features the debut of the hit song, "I've Got You Under My Skin") while trying to capture the affections of another big MGM male star, a gentleman named Jimmy Stewart.  Also featuring the hit song "Easy to Love" (Powell will again have her singing voice dubbed by Lane), the movie is another hit for MGM and Powell.  A backstage ensemble piece filmed in 1937 in which Powell plays a horse trainer breaking into show business at the behest of boyfriend (Lane again does Eleanor's singing and will for the rest of her career with MGM), actor Robert Taylor, "Broadway Melody of 1938" also features future California senator, George Murphy, legendary entertainer Sophie Tucker, Buddy Ebsen (again, his third pairing with Powell), and singing "You Made Me Love You" to a photograph of Clark Gable, MGM's coming musical star, Judy Garland.  Also filmed in 1937, Powell appears as football loving princess opposite singer Nelson Eddy in a reworking of the 1928 play, "Rosalie," by Guy Bolton, and featuring a new score by Cole Porter (the film also stars Frank Morgan, Edna May Oliver, Ray Bolger, Ilona Massey, and Billy Gilbert).  Finishing the decade with another hit, Powell starred next opposite Robert Young in the mistaken identity musical comedy, "Honolulu" (young plays the dual roles of a movie star and a Hawaiian businessman named George Smith).  In the movie, for the first time, Powell incorporates "hulu" movements into her dancing, and in a tribute to her friend, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson (who one day will be the godfather of Eleanor's son, Peter), dances in blackface to "The King of Harlem," and manages to lose a toenail practicing her steps for hours for the movie. 

Beverly Hills Rooftop Dancing - 1935

Mayer

Finale Of Born To Dance

Honolulu - 1939

Hit after hit, it is inevitable that sooner or later a studio executive would think it might be a good idea to match Eleanor up on screen with MGM's best dancer, Fred Astaire (his first movie after leaving RKO for MGM as an example of the perfection each dancer is trying to achieve, they spend two weeks practicing just the arm movements for "Begin the Beguine"), and so for the first and only time in their careers, the pair are matched together as a new decade begins in "Broadway Melody of 1940."  Supported by George Murphy and Frank Morgan (with an uncredited cameo by voice legend Mel Blanc as a panhandler), with the words and music of Cole Porter, the film is a major hit for the studio and features in the number, "Begin the Beguine" what many film and dance historians believes is the greatest tap dance ever captured on film (Astaire will state, "She put 'em down like a man, no ricky-ticky stuff with Ellie.  She really knocked out a tap dance in a class by herself.  While in "That's Entertainment," Frank Sinatra will proclaim of the dance, "You know, you can wait around and hope, but I tell ya, you'll never see the likes of this again.").  Though there are plans to match the two stars together again (as well as plans for a Broadway Melody of 1944 with Gene Kelly and Powell), nothing gets into production (both stars are slightly intimidated by each other at first, but impressed once they start dancing and will bloody their feet trying to find perfection in their steps, along with wearing out their practice pianist) and Eleanor's next movie will be 1941's "Lady Be Good" (chiefly because Eleanor is ill and is sidelined for several months after undergoing a gall bladder operation) with Robert Young, Ann Southern, Red Skeleton, Lionel Barrymore, Phil Silvers, and the dancing Berry Brothers.  And once more, Powell has another astounding dance (this one directed by choreographer legend, Busby Berkeley) in which to the music of George and Ira Gershwin's "Fascinatin' Rhythm," clad in a tuxedo, Eleanor taps her way through a stage full of pianos, an orchestra, and lines of male dancers that pitch Powell into the finale (the film also includes a tap dance in which Powell's partner is a small dog Eleanor trained for the role ... if it doesn't make you smile after seeing the routine, there is something wrong with your funny bone!).  America at war and audience tastes turning, Powell is matched with Red Skeleton in "Ship Ahoy" (1942) and "I Dood It (1943 ... practicing for a complex dance featuring lariats and cowboys she manages to knock herself unconscious whipping a rop about her head and will wear a football helmet until the scene is finally filmed), films that aren't major hits for MGM (but do feature Powell tapping out a Morse code message to a spy and dancing with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and drummer Buddy Rich to the tune "Tallulah" in "Ship Ahoy," and dancing to the music of Jimmy Dorsey in the second film).  Waiting for her next assignment, she volunteers her time to make a cross-country, 12-city trip with other entertainers (among the notables are Bob Hope, Cary Grant, and Claudette Colbert) selling war bonds for the Army and Navy Relief organization.  During the trip, Eleanor falls in love with a young, 27-year-old actor in the process of becoming a star for Columbia Pictures, Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford ... better known to audiences as Glen Ford.

Equals, Step For Step

Fascinatin' Rhythm

Dog Dance

Ford - 1943

Born to Newton Ford, an engineer with the Canadian Pacific Railway, and Hannah Wood Ford in Quebec, Canada on May 1, 1916 (the actor is the great-nephew of Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. McDonald and is also related to 8th United States President, Martin Van Buren), Ford is six in 1922 when the family transplants itself to the United States, settling first in the beachside town of Venice (Newton will have a job as a motorman for the Venice Electric Train Company until his death at 50 in 1940), and then in nearby Santa Monica.  Ford begins his acting career at Santa Monica High School, and continues it after graduation, appearing locally in small theater groups and productions while working odd jobs about town (working for Will Rogers, the young thespian will be taught horsemanship by the Cherokee cowboy-philosopher).  In 1939, Ford becomes a naturalized U.S. citizen and signs a studio contract with Columbia Pictures (the change to the moniker of Glenn Ford comes from his father's hometown of Glenford, Alberta).  Loan outs to other studios and parts in Columbia productions follow, and the young actor is soon attracting mobs of young female fans and being prepped for star roles.  After a White House visit (FDR becomes a fan after viewing 1941's "So Ends Our Night" in which he plays a 19-year-old German exile on the run in Europe from Nazis) and seeking to support his adopted country, Ford volunteers for the war bond selling tour in which he meets Eleanor.  Trains, planes, cars, speeches, dinners, thrown together on the road for weeks on end, the pair fall in love and by October of 1941, the couple are openly dating when they appear at the opening of the USO club in Hollywood.  When Ford impulsively joins the United States Marine Corps Reserve after the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, after the release of "Thousands Cheer" (in which Eleanor is only on screen for a brief specialty solo tap number, her first appearance in Technicolor) Powell decides to terminate her MGM contract to be near Ford while he undergoes basic training in San Diego, and then as the actor's wife when the couple marries on October 23, 1943.  A full-time mother (a role for life that she takes seriously and is good at, producing a son who grows up to be an actor and singer, marries and has three children one of whom is named Eleanor Powell Ford like his mother, before becoming involved in building and remodeling homes and writing a biography about his father) after she gives birth to Peter Newton Ford on February 5, 1945.  And though retired from MGM (Europe will also see her in 1946's "The Great Morgan," in which some dance footage cut from "Honolulu" is used), there is one more star turn for Powell, when she appears in "Sensations of 1945" for United Artists (the movie marks comedian W. C. Fields last appearance) and dances to "Spin Little Pinball" inside a giant pinball machine (after six years, her final turn for MGM comes in 1950, when Eleanor has a special appearance as herself in the Esther Williams/Van Johnson musical comedy, "The Duchess of Idaho" in which she is called on to perform a dance for Sun Valley nightclub audience ... only a few minutes on screen, Eleanor nonetheless practices her moves until her feet bleed to get everything perfect according to Williams ... it will be Powell's last appearance in a major film).

Once Upon A Time

Eleanor, Peter, And Glenn

"Thousands Cheer"

Pinball Dance

Last Dance

Sadly, like far too many Hollywood marriages, the Ford & Powell bonding does not last (while Powell will never marry again, Ford will have three more wives before he dies at the age of from a series of strokes at the age of 90 in his Beverly Hills home), and after one-too-many times becoming involved with such leading ladies and entertainment beauties as Rita Hayworth, Stella Stevens, Gloria Grahame, Gene Tierney, Barbara Stanwyck, Eva Gabor, and Joan Crawford (many of the affairs caught on tape because Ford puts a recording system into the couple's Beverly Hills home to eavesdrop on whether Powell is aware of his serial cheating; their son Peter will claim his father has affairs with 146 actresses, all documented in Ford's personal diaries), the marriage ends with dissolution.  By the day of Glenn's 43rd birthday, May 1, 1959, Powell has had enough and files for divorce, asking for $3,000 a month in alimony and seeking total custody of Peter, citing adultery and mental cruelty (the pair will only appear together only once, in a 1955 three minute short film produced by the Variety Club of Northern California entitled "Have Faith in Our Children").  Granted custody of Peter, Powell's post Hollywood career involves appearances on television (her first will be a guest appearance on a episode of "All Star Revue with Danny Thomas and June Havoc) on shows like The Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace.  Ordained a minister in the Unity Church (other famous members include Della Reese, Betty White, Lucie Arnaz, Wally Amos, Ruth Warrick, and Patricia Neal) in the early 50s, from 1953 to 1955, hosts an Emmy award winning Sunday morning TV program for kids called "The Faith of Our Children."  Called out in real life watching a Pearl Bailey show in 1959 with her son as she was in "The Duchess of Idaho," encouraged by her son, Peter, Powell puts together a nightclub act that allows her way well into middle age during the 1960s (her highly publicized "return" takes place during a series of performances at Lou Walters' Latin Quarter in Boston).  Fittingly, her final public appearance takes place in 1981 at the televised American Film Institute tribute to Fred Astaire, at which when introduced after the "Begin the Beguine" dance is shown, receives a standing ovation from a crowd that includes Fred, Charlton Heston, David Niven, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Bob Fosse, Cyd Charisse, Audrey Hepburn, Hermes Pan, James Cagney, and Gene Kelly.  Sadly, for family, friends, and her millions of fans around the world, Eleanor dies in Beverly Hills, California of ovarian cancer on February 11, 1982 at the age of 69.  Cremated, with her wishes that no lavish Hollywood funeral is planned, Powell is cremated and interred at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California.  Now a forever angel in Heaven, her ashes reside in the Cathedral Mausoleum, Foyer Niche 432, Tier 3.

Peter & Glenn

TV Show Host

On The Nightclub Circuit

With Gene Kelly

Astaire Tribute

2/11/1982 ... one of the greats of Hollywood's Golden Age passes ... do yourself a favor and pop in one of Eleanor's DVDs today ... the dance sequences featuring Eleanor are just as vibrant and alive today as they were when first captured on celluloid decades ago!

Resting Place

Dancing

Eleanor Torrey Powell

        

       

           

 

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THE SACRAMENTO VAMPIRE - RICHARD TRENTON CHASE

2/1/1978 - Too late for at least six victims, the homicidal madness of Sacramento's Richard Trenton Chase, a serial killer, rapist, cannibal, and necrophile nicknamed "The Vampire of Sacramento" (he will also be known as "The Dracula Killer" and "The Vampire Killer") comes to a close with the monster's Wednesday arrest by local authorities (working with FBI profile agents, Robert Ressler and Russ Vorpagel) in the state capitol of California.

 

Monster

Born in Sacramento, California, on May 23, 1950, Chase's early mental problems are exacerbated by strict disciplinarian parents that beat and yell at the boy frequently (his mother, Beatrice, is a teacher, and his father, Richard Chase Sr., is a alcoholic computer specialist ... a baby daughter, Pamela, is born into the family when Richard is four), turning a child that is a Cub Scout, plays four years of little league baseball, has dozens of children attend his birthday parties and whom his teachers believe is a "sweetheart" into a budding monster.  Displaying all of the early psychiatric indicators of Dr. John Marshall Macdonald's "triad of sociopathy" (first postulated by the doctor in a 1963 article for the American Journal of Psychiatry called "The Treat to Kill"), by the age of ten he is setting stuff on fire, killing and torturing animals, and wetting his bed.   And his mind isn't helped at all by being exposed to the crumbling marriage of his parents.  Troubles building (at 13, Chase believes he is an actual member of the James-Young Gang of Missouri infamy), by the time Chase is a teenager he is a hypochondriac smoking marijuana, taking LSD, consuming amphetamines, and drinking heavily, but still putting forth the appearance of normalcy ... he has a string of girlfriends, but nothing lasts, and he has intimacy issues that won't allow him to maintain an erection.  Seeking guidance from a local psychiatrist due to his concerns about his erectile dysfunction, the youth is told that the root of his problems are the result of repressed rage or mental illness, but nothing is done to treat Chase.

High School

On The Way To Murder

Moving out of his parents' home when he is eighteen and graduates from Mira Loma High School in June of 1968 (his parents get him a Volkswagen Bug as a reward), Chase rents an apartment with friends and sinks deeper into his mental illness ... he will complain of his heat stopping from time to time, that a mysterious "someone" is attempting to steal his pulmonary artery, holds oranges to his head so that his brain can directly absorb the fruit's Vitamin C, believes his cranial bones have separated and shaves his head to observe the movements of the bones, thinks his stomach is backwards, lets his hair grow long, rarely bathes, doesn't brush his teeth, and nails the door of his closet shut to prevent people no one can see from invading his space.  Enough finally enough for his pals when Chase continually walks around in the nude, often when guests are visiting, his fellow renters ask him to leave, and when he refuses, they all choose to vacate the premises.  Left alone, he soon begins to believe his blood is turning to powder and that his heart is shrinking and comes up with a temporary solution, killing small animals (rabbits are a favorite), drinking their blood and then putting their organs in a blender with a Coca-Cola chaser, and drinking down the ghoulishly nasty brew.  Not enough money coming in to continue living in the apartment, he is soon back at his mom's place (by this time his parents have divorced), but leaves again when he suspects his mother is poisoning him.  Daddy to the rescue, Richard Sr. gets his son a place of his own and junior's mental faculties continue to deteriorate

Another Encounter With Authorities

Once more on his own, in 1973, Chase is diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic suffering from a drug-induced toxic psychosis ... and yet he is released from a mental institution after only 72-hours of observation.  The mental health community gets another crack at Chase in 1975 when he injects rabbit blood directly into his bloodstream and ends up with blood poisoning in a Sacramento hospital's emergency room.  Committed to a mental hospital, in 1976, Chase escapes, makes his way back to his mother's place, is apprehended by the authorities, and sent to Beverly Manor, a facility for the criminally insane.  A modern day Renfield, blood needs vocalized and soon on full display to doctor's and staff, the vampire catches two birds that fly through a window, breaks their necks, and drinks their blood, and using a stolen syringe, pilfers the blood of several dogs at the mental facility.  Known as "Dracula" at the institute, in 1976, despite the objections of many members of the staff, Chase is deemed to no longer be a danger to himself or society, prescribed a set of psychotropic drugs, and released into his mother's custody.  A major mistake, Ma Chase soon weans her soon from his regime of drugs and junior is soon going bonkers again ... in front of his mother on the front porch of Beatrice's home, he tears a dead cat apart and begins eating it's organs, smearing it's blood on his face, and screaming (the incident is not reported to authorities).  Given the boot again, Senior finds his son another place, which mommy pays the rent for (and also supplies her boy with groceries).

Beverly Manor

Rubber room nuts, alone again (his parents do not renew custody of their son when it comes up for renewal), Chase becomes a fan of the Hillside Strangler killings (believing whoever is responsible is also afflicted with powder blood problems), begins to acquire firearms (why would anyone ever give this guy a gun?), and now thinks he is being poisoned by Nazis flying UFOs, with more blood of course the solution.  Sneak preview of what's coming, on August 3, 1977, Nevada state police discover a Ford Ranchero stuck in the mud near Pyramid Lake.  Searching the vehicle they discover two rifles, a pile of men's clothing, blood all over the cab, and a white plastic bucket containing a large liver belonging to a cow.  Seeking the owner the vehicle, the police find Chase, nude and covered in blood.  Fleeing, Chase is easily caught, and when all the blood is found to be bovine in nature and no one files a complaint over the beast, not wanting all the paperwork of another state's problem, he is released and sent on his way.  Upset that his mother will not allow her boy to celebrate the holidays with his family, in December of 1977, treating himself to an early Christmas gift, Chase buys a .22-calber semiautomatic handgun, and practicing for slaughter, fires a round into the kitchen of a Sacramento woman.  Then Chase's mad Sacramento rampage begins.

Chase As Dirty Harry

Randomly selected, Chase's first victim is 51-year-old Ambrose Griffin, a married engineer with two sons.  On December 29, 1977, helping his wife bring a fresh load of groceries into their home, Griffin is shot in the back by an unknown person, and despite the best efforts of ER personnel, dies at a nearby Sacramento hospital, his body yielding a slug that matches the kitchen round.  Enjoying the feelings the murder has produced, Chase begins 1978 seeking new victims, Dawn Larson, a neighbor in the killer's East Sacramento apartment complex, escapes her possible murder when Chase accosts her for a cigarette, and she gives him her whole pack (thinking the man lonely, she had not reported that she had noticed him brining forbidden pets into his apartment, but never seen any of the dogs ever go outside).  Blood lust up, on January 23, 1978, a few blocks away from where Chase lives, Jeanne Layton finds an unkempt individual trying to break into her home (finding the doors and windows of the house locked, the stranger walks away after lighting a cigarette as he is confronted by Layton).  Police cruising the area find no one matching Layton's descriptions and a little later, down the street from Layton's home, Robert and Barbara Edwards return from a grocery run and discover someone in their home (inside the couple will discover that the intruder has urinated on their baby's clean clothes and defecated on their child's bed), a skinny, dirty stranger who runs out the back of the house, and as Mr. Edwards pursues the man, jumps several fences and vanishes into the neighborhood, still searching for the right circumstances and victim.  Sadly found, David Wallin returns home from work at about 6:00 in the evening and calls the police in anguish ... arriving minutes later at the home of Wallin and his 22-year-old, three months pregnant wife, Teresa, the authorities find a home that has been turned into a hellish abattoir in which Wallin's unlucky wife has been shot twice in the head while taking out the garbage (and through the hand as she strikes a defensive pose against her killer ... the bullets all match the one that killed Griffin earlier in the month), drug back into her home, taken to the bedroom, stabbed repeatedly in the chest and liver with a knife from her own kitchen, sexually assaulted, had her stomach opened up and her spleen and intestines pulled out, her kidneys cut out and then returned to the wound in her abdomen, her pancreas cut in two, and showing how evil the murderer is, her mouth filled with feces from her dog (the killer will also fill a bucket with her blood, take it into the bathroom and bath in the substance, while also drinking a mouthful from an empty yogurt container).  Knowing a monster is on the loose, the FBI is immediately contacted by the Sacramento police and begin preparing a profile of the killer ... one that will almost exactly match Chase.

Teresa Wallin

And it gets worse.  Two days later, two bodies of a mutilated puppies are discovered in the same neighborhood (the pups had been bought by a strange man with stringy hair driving a Ranchero), but it is not enough to satisfy the blood seeking killer.  On January 27, 1978, police are called to another crime scene only a mile away from where Teresa Wallin was butchered, the home of 38-year-old Evelyn Miroth.  Finding another door open, this time the killer leaves even more slaughter in his wake ... 51-year-old neighbor, Dan Meredith (helping babysit while his friend takes a bath) is shot in the head at point-blank range in a hallway (with the same weapon that killed Chase's other victims, Evelyn's six-year-old son, Jason, is shot to death in his mother's bedroom, Evelyn's twenty-two-month-old nephew, David Ferriera, is shot in the head, and Evelyn is killed in the bathtub with a single shot to the head, then the monster begins feeding on his victims.  Evelyn is drug from the bathroom, put on her bed and sodomized repeatedly as her killer simultaneously drinks her blood from a series of cuts to the back of her neck, then stabbed in the anus with a knife a half dozen times, before the maniac cuts into her body at various points so her blood can be collected from her abdomen, which Chase then drinks.  Then Chase carries the baby into the bathroom, and begins to attack Ferriera's corpse, splitting open his skull and eating some of hi brain, a meal that is interrupted when six-year-old neighbor knocks on the front door to inquire why Jason hasn't shown up at her home for their scheduled playdate.  Bolting from the home carrying the baby's corpse, Chase flees the area in Meredith's red station wagon, leaving behind perfect handprints and shoe imprints in Miroth's blood.  Back at his apartment, Chase decapitates his trophy, takes organs out of his prize, and drinks the crimson gruel he has created out of his blender (the head will eventually be discovered in Meredith's abandoned car in March).  City buzzing with fear and anger, the killings are the major topic of discussion on the radio, on television, and on the front pages of newspapers in the area.

Miroth

Jason & David

Meredith's Body

Filtering tips through the FBI's profile, the name of Richard Chase soon comes to the attention of Sacramento authorities by way of high school classmate Nancy Holden telling police of her encounter with Chase while visiting the Town and Country Village shopping center (on the same day that Wallin is killed) in which he tries to get a ride from her, but frightened by his transformation into a hobo , she drives off as he tries to get in her car, and neighbor Dawn Lawson relating her strange cigarette encounter with an individual who fits the description of the killer.  Running background checks on Richard Chase, the authorities find their suspect has recently purchased a gun and ammunition that matches the recent deaths, discover his history of mental health issues, and find out that he lives less than a block away from where Meredith's stolen car had been discovered.  Seeking to question their suspect, Chase refuses to open his door when the police come calling, but arrest him later when he steps outside carrying a cardboard box filled with bloody rags and papers, wearing a blood-stained orange parka (a piece of clothing that witnesses had identified as being the garb of the killer in the Miroth butchery), wearing blood stained shoes and carrying a .blood stained .22-semiautomatic pistol in a shoulder holster with Meredith's wallet in his pocket.  Warrants issued, searching inside Chase's apartment officers find horror after horror ... there are blood stains everywhere, on the walls, on plates, on drinking glasses, on the refrigerator, and even on the ceiling, a penis with a straw through it that has been used to drink blood is found, kitchenware is soaked in blood, a blood soaked blender is found rimmed in rotted flesh and bits of bone, animal organs are found wrapped in aluminum foil in the refrigerator, Ferriera's brain is discovered inside a Tupperware container, and pieces of his body are found wrapped in Saran Wrap, organs belonging to Miroth and Wallin are discovered, there are multiple dog collars but no pets, and there is a calendar for 1978 with "Today" marked on the days Wallin and Miroth were killed, along with over forty upcoming days also containing the same designation.       

 

Special Agent Ressler

The Vampire's Lair

Bloody Cook Ware

After being examined by a dozen psychiatrists, and a change of venue to Santa Clara County (one hundred and twenty miles south of Sacramento), represented by public defender Farris Salamy and prosecuted by District Attorney Ronald W. Tochterman, Chase is brought to trial on January 2, 1979.  Obviously guilty of the six Sacramento killings (the prosecution will present 250 exhibits of Chase's guilt), the vampire's fate is waged over whether he is sane or cuckoo clock crazy (a wraith of only 107 pounds, Chase will testify on his own behalf, talking about his difficult childhood, the trauma not being able to have sex as a teenager caused, admits to drinking Mrs. Wallin's blood, and states that he killed baby Ferriera and decapitated the corpse, but thought he was shooting "something" other than a child, and that he is sorry about what has happened).  Despite Tochterman's attempts to show Chase is not playing with a full deck of cranium cards (and also asking for verdicts of second degree murder to avoid his client from being executed), after four months of ghoulish exhibits and testimony, a jury takes five hours of deliberations to find Chase guilty of all six charges of first degree murder, and after a four hour competency hearing that rules him sane, the judge in the trial sentences Chase to execution in the San Quentin gas chamber.  But in the gas chamber is not how the human vampire will go.

In Court

In San Quentin, the other inmates taunt Chase. They threatened to kill him and encouraged him to commit suicide. Psychologists and psychiatrists who examine Chase during this time suggest that he be transferred to Vacaville Prison, California, a facility for the criminally insane, which Chase most certainly is!  According to the authorities, Chase is psychotic, insane, and incompetent.  Indeed!  Chase is admitted to Vacaville in December and after being stabilized, sent back to San Quentin in April, 1980.  On the morning of 26 December, 1980, a correctional officer assigned to guard duty on death row greets the prisoner in cell #5800. Chase is lying on his back and breathing normally. At 11:05 the same day, the guard checked his cell again. This time Chase is lying on his stomach, legs extended off his bunk and feet on the floor. His head is buried in the mattress and his arms extended upwards, to the pillow. Next to the bed were four sheets of paper covered in handwriting. Two of them contained drawn squares filled with a strange, cryptographic, like code of some kind.  On the other two pages is a message in which Chase indicates that he might take some pills which could cause his heart to stop beating . It turned out that Chase had saved his three daily 50mg tablets of Sinequan (doxepin hydrochloride), a psychotropic agent for depression, for approximately 3 weeks in order to ingest them that morning.  As a result, no wooden stake, cross, or garland of garlic necessary, the life of 30 year old Richard Trenton Chase, the “Vampire of Sacramento," is lost ... a good riddance goodbye loss almost no cares about.

Monster