Institutionalization
In 1975, Chase was involuntarily committed to a mental institution after being taken to a hospital after injecting rabbit's blood into his veins. He often shared with the staff fantasies about killing rabbits. He was once found with blood smeared around his mouth – hospital staff discovered he had been drinking the blood of birds; he had thrown the birds' corpses out of his hospital room window. Staff began referring to him as "Dracula".
In one of the many incidents in which he was held at the institution, he substituted the blood from the therapy dog to curb his addiction. He claimed he obtained the syringes from cracking open the disposable boxes left in the doctor's offices. Occasionally, he defecated on himself and smeared the walls of the institution with his feces.
Chase was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. After undergoing a battery of treatments involving psychotropic drugs, Chase was deemed no longer a danger to society and, in 1976, he was released under the recognizance of his mother.
Chase's mother weaned him off the medication and got Chase his own apartment.
Later investigation uncovered that in mid-1977, Chase was stopped and arrested on a reservation in the Pyramid Lake (Nevada) area. His body was smeared with blood and a bucket of blood was in his truck. The victim was found to be bovine and no charges were filed.
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