What true crime stories scare you the most?
the true crime that's worth your time
I won’t say that we’re a jaded bunch, but just between us chickens, I feel like true crime folks are made of pretty stern stuff. We can handle details about blood spatter without fainting, can casually debate the difference between pre-meditated murder and crimes of passion, and know exactly why agreeing to go to that second location is ill-advised.
And yet, there are still cases that scare even us, with details that come floating into our minds when we’re walking to our cars alone at night — or when everyone is going on and on about how it’s spooooky season, so scary, boo! Cases that make us think twice about sleeping with the window open or taking our eye off that guy at the gas station parking lot. You know what I mean.
Richard Chase, the so-called “Vampire of Sacramento,” is my case that goes bump in the night, a series of crimes that bugs me so much I haven’t ever even brought him up here before today, I don’t think. When interviewed by Robert Ressler after his conviction, Chase said that one of the ways he decided who to kill was by checking the bars of soap in homes he illegally entered. "Everyone has a soap dish,” Chase said. “If you lift the soap and find that underneath it is dry, you’re all right. If it’s gooey, you have the poisoning, which turns your blood to powder. The powder then depletes your energy and eats away at your body."
To this day, you won’t find a bar of soap* in my house. It’s irrational, so irrational I have kept my soap bar phobia quiet until now! So thanks for letting me get it off my chest.
How about you? On this Halloween weekend, what unsettling true crime cases are passing through your head? Let’s scare each other in the comments. — EB
*And, I know, bar shampoo is supposed to be amazing and great. I read Allure and know all about it! Maybe one day.