A murder can change your life

I grew up  in  stereotypical suburbia in Sacramento, California.  The kids played outside, rode their bikes, the parents visited each other, and we knew our neighbors.  My grade school was down the street, and I walked to school everyday.  (It doesn't snow in Sacramento, so I can't use the five miles, uphill in the snow story for my kids.)  I remember that we rode our bikes to the mall, to the pool, and everywhere.  There was a freedom that we had, that kids are not allowed today. 

My best friend Tina and I had just been riding our bikes around, and saw that a house on my street was taped off with crime tape.  There were police cars everywhere, and the street was blocked off.  I had to find another way home.  When I arrived home, we found out that there had been a murder.  Richard Chase had killed a family that lived on my street, and had kidnapped an infant boy.  It was terrifying.  My parents were away that afternoon, and left my brothers to watch me.  Tina and I were terrified, and afraid to leave the house.  Our little minds had overactive imaginations, and were certain that he was coming to kill us.  We did the most logical thing that we could think of and grabbed some kitchen knives, and sat in wait.  A police officer walked up to the door, and Tina and I were reluctant to answer the door.  We did, but had a meat cleaver and a butcher knife in our hands.  I think we gave the officer a chuckle, but he convinced us to put the knives down. He wanted to know if we had seen anything. 

The next day in school, we had discovered that our classmate had seen the gruesome crime scene.  He was scheduled to go on a play date with them, and they had not called.  He went over to the family's house and walked in to this horrific scene.  I did not remember all of the details of the murder, but looked them up since.  Richard Chase was mentally ill, and had been previously hospitalized and medicated.  When released to his mother, she took him off the medication.  He had a history of pyromania and killing animals and sucking their blood.  He was deemed the vampire, because he was found many times reportedly with blood all over his face, and with buckets of blood.  It seems that he felt the need to drink this blood to cleanse himself. 

He walked into my neighbor's house shot a neighbor, the woman of the house, her six year old son, and a twenty two month old baby that he took with him.  He reportedly ate the organs of the baby, and disposed of the remains in my church parking lot.   He apparently left perfect hand prints and and shoe prints at the crime scene and was later apprehended.  He later committed suicide in prison.  

I was just a little child, when this happened.  It happened in my quiet little neighborhood, where we knew everyone, and the kids roamed around freely.  The kid from my class that walked into the crime scene was never the same.  He changed that day for the rest of his life. I no longer felt like I was truly safe again.   Our neighborhood changed, because it suddenly became very real that it could happen to anyone.