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From a landlady who poisoned her tenants to a serial killer who drank the blood of his victims, Sacramento County has seen its share of high-profile crimes over the past 40 years.
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Notable cases range from deaths tied to the Unabomber and the Golden State Killer to the kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard.
Although some of the people convicted of those crimes died behind bars, others remain incarcerated in state prisons across California.
Where are the inmates connected to famous Sacramento County cases now?
The Sacramento Bee checked state correctional records to find out:
Who was the Vampire of Sacramento?
Serial killer Richard Chase gained his gruesome nickname — the Vampire of Sacramento — after killing six people in the Sacramento area pver a one-month period in the late 1970s.
In addition to raping and mutilating his victims’ corpses, Chase drank their blood.
In 1979, a jury convicted Chase, then 28, of murdering six people, including a pregnant woman and two children, The Washington Post reported.
Chase received the death sentence.
While incarcerated in what was then known as San Quentin State Prison, Chase died by suicide in 1980.
Couple convicted of ‘sex slave’ murders
A Sacramento couple were nicknamed the “Sex Slave Killers” after participating in a two-year, cross-state crime spree that resulted in the deaths of nine women and one man.
Charlene Williams, then 24, lured women into cars so her 32-year-old husband, Gerald Gallego, could rape and kill them., SFGate reported.
Gallego and Williams were captured in 1980, and Williams testified against her husband to receive a lesser sentence.
Gallego was convicted of first-degree murder and kidnapping, and sentenced to death. He also received two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
In 1997, Williams was released from a Nevada prison at age 41 after serving 17 years behind bars.
Gallego, 56, died of cancer in prison in 2002, SFGate reported.
What happened to the Unabomber?
Known as the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski carried out a 17-year mail bombing campaign across the country starting in 1978.
His bombs killed three men — including two Sacramento residents — and injured almost two dozen people.
Kaczynski, then 53, was arrested in 1996. Investigators found bomb materials and a live bomb in his remote Montana cabin, along with 40,000 journal pages detailing his crimes.
Kaczynski pled guilty to all federal charges in 1998, and was sentenced to four consecutive life terms plus 30 years in federal prison without the possibility of parole.
The 81-year-old died by suicide at a North Carolina prison in 2023 after being diagnosed with cancer, NBC News reported.
How many people did Golden State Killer murder?
Serial killer James DeAngelo murdered more than a dozen people and participated in dozens of rapes, burglaries and attempted murders involving at least 62 victims between 1974 and 1986 in 11 California counties.
The crimes were traced back to the so-called Golden State Killer in 2018 after authorities discovered DNA left behind at the crime scene was similar to one of his relatives’ genetic material, The Bee previously reported.
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DeAngelo, then 72, was arrested in Citrus Heights in 2018.
Two years later, the former police officer pled guilty to 13 murders and 13 kidnappings, and received multiple consecutive life sentences.
DeAngelo, 80, was incarcerated in California as of Thursday, June 18, according to inmate records from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
However, state records listed the name of the prison as “not disclosable.”
Sacramento boardinghouse was hunting grounds for killer
In the 1980s, Dorothea Puente murdered homeless people staying at her downtown Sacramento boardinghouse and buried their bodies in her backyard, The Bee previously reported.
Puentes, then 59, was arrested in 1988 after police questioned her about the disappearance of a man that was staying at the home and found seven bodies buried in her backyard.
Investigators later accused Puente of lethally poisoning her victims in order to cash their Society Security checks, Sactown Magazine said
Puente was tried on nine counts of first-degree murder in 1993, but convicted of three killings after the other cases ended in mistrial.
The 82-year-old woman died in prison in 2011.
Who kidnapped Jaycee Dugard?
In 1991, Phillip and Nancy Garrido kidnapped 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard from a South Lake Tahoe street, The Bee previously reported.
Over an 18-year period, the married couple kept Dugard captive in a backyard compound in Antioch. Phillip Garrido repeatedly raped her and fathered two daughters with her.
Dugard was rescued in 2009.
Phillip Garrido was sentenced to 431 years to life in prison for kidnapping and rape, while his wife received 36 years to life.
As of Thursday, Nancy Garrido, 70, was serving her sentence at the California Institution for Women in Chino, according to state records.
Phillip Garrido, 75, was behind bars at an undisclosed California state prison, records show.
How many people died in Good Guys hostage crisis?
In 1991, four Vietnamese refugees held about 40 people hostage at a Good Guys electronics store in south Sacramento, The Bee previously reported.
A Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department sniper shot at one of the hostage takers and missed, the situation turned chaotic.
The crisis ended with the death of three hostages, and three of the men holding them prisoner.
Long Khac Nguyen and Pham Khac Nguyen and Cuong Tran were killed, while a fourth hostage taker, Loi Khac Nguyen, was injured.
In 1995, Loi received 49 consecutive life sentences.
As of Thursday, the 59-year-old was incarcerated at Correctional Training Facility in Soledad.
Man killed his children in Sacramento church
In 2022, David Mora fatally shot his three daughters during a court-ordered family visit at The Church in Sacramento, as well as a 59-year-old man who was chaperoning the supervised visit.
Mora, 39, then died by suicide.
This story was originally published June 21, 2026 at 9:00 AM with the headline “These murder cases shocked Sacramento County. Where are convicted killers now?.”
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