Evelyn Miroth's house

This is Evelyn Miroth's former house.

It is located at 3207 Merrywood Drive in Sacramento, California.

On the morning of January 27th, 1978, Miroth was babysitting her 22-month-old nephew, David Ferreira. Her six-year-old son, Jason, and a family friend named Daniel Meredith were also at the house.

That day, Jason was supposed to accompany two neighborhood kids on a day trip to the mountains. However, because he didn't have any snowshoes, Meredith offered to drive him to a local store so that he could buy a pair.

Shortly after they left, serial killer Richard Chase came prowling through Merrywood Drive and noticed that the garage door at the front of the property was open.

Earlier that morning, Miroth had opened the garage while she was mowing her front lawn. However, she still hadn't finished putting the lawnmower away.

Chase was a paranoid schizophrenic who believed that he needed to drink other people's blood in order to prevent his own blood from turning into powder. His paranoid delusions, coupled with his hypochondria and his penchant for necrophilia, made him a disturbing piece of work.

After walking into the garage and entering the house via an unlocked door, he came across Miroth in the hallway.

When he encountered the startled woman, he immediately lifted up his .22-caliber pistol and shot her dead.

Following the shooting, he walked into one of the bedrooms and saw Miroth's nephew, David, in his crib. At that point, he decided to shoot the infant in the side of the head.

When Meredith and Jason returned from the store and entered the house, Chase confronted them in the front room and killed them both.

Once everyone was dead, he mutilated Miroth's body and engaged in necrophilia. Shockingly, he also took the infant's remains into the bathroom so that he could drink his blood.

At around 11 a.m., one of the neighborhood kids knocked on the front door to see what was taking Jason so long.

Luckily, Chase decided not to answer.

When the young girl returned home and reported that her knock had gone ignored, her mother picked up the telephone and called Miroth's number.

However, once again, there was no answer.

After putting the phone down, the woman looked outside and noticed that Meredith's red station wagon had suddenly disappeared from Miroth's driveway.

Disturbed by the knock at the front door, Chase had taken the infant's remains with him and driven away in Meredith's vehicle. He then returned to his apartment on Watt Avenue, where he proceeded to mutilate the body even further. Once he felt like he was finished with his "process," he put the child's remains in a cardboard box, traveled to a nearby church, and threw them behind a locked gate.

Later that day, another neighbor on Merrywood Drive learned about the sudden, unexplained pause in activity at Miroth's house. Thinking it was strange and out of character for her, they decided to enter the property via the back door.

Once inside, they discovered the bodies of Evelyn Miroth, her son, Jason Miroth, and Daniel Meredith.

Photos

Photos of the house and other related images.

3207 Merrywood Drive

This is a "then and now" image of 3207 Merrywood Drive.

The photograph at the top was taken shortly after the murders. Notably, Miroth's lawnmower is outside, and the garage door is open.

Miroth was shot and killed in the hallway. The fact that the lawnmower wasn't put away suggests that she had gone inside for a brief moment when Chase spotted his opportunity to enter the house.

For example, she may have been checking on her nephew.

The Google Street View image at the bottom was captured in March 2009.

The house was built in 1950. It is roughly 1,485 square feet in size, and it has two bedrooms.

2022

This Google Street View image was taken in December 2022.

Map

Richard Chase lived 1.3 miles away from Evelyn Miroth's house. It takes about five minutes to travel between these two locations by car.