23 years old James Riva shot his handicapped grandmother Carmen Lopez, who was wheelchair bound from a spinal tumor and weighed about 75 pounds, 4 times, and then stabbed her several times in the heart. He drank the blood from her wounds and then set fire to her house to hide the evidence. The gun was loaded with gold-painted bullets.
James Riva claimed to be a 700 year old vampire and needed to drink his grandmother’s blood to survive. Riva also said his grandmother was also a vampire and that she fed on him at night while he slept. Jimmy Riva was a troubled youngster who developed a bloodlust in at a very early age. He became obsessed with the notion that his grandmother was a vampire, who was feeding on his blood at night when he was asleep. He believed that his only hope was to her kill her using golden bullets because a "vampire told him that was what he had to do." Riva had a history of mental illness dating back to 1975 - 78, when he spent time in a mental institution. The diabolical plot to slaughter his grandmother was the culmination of a whole series of bizarre incidents in the life of James Riva. He began by drawing horrific pictures and slowly moved to killing and drinking the blood of animals, until finally, he snapped completely. He gave two separate stories when confronted about his crime. He told his mother that he was a vampire who would gain strength from drinking his grandmother's blood. He also told psychiatrists he thought his grandmother was a vampire who came to feed on him as he slept. He believed he was satisfying his masters in the netherworld of vampires by making a human kill. He thought that if he killed "everybody who was bad to him, he would come back as a handsome man and have a car and girls and his life would be fine." Riva’s mother, Janet S. Jones, was the first to hear his sordid confession. Janet Jones, testified that her son believed a 200 year old vampire he met in Florida told him to paint the bullets he used for the murder gold. He also told her he tried to suck his grandmother’s blood, but couldn’t because she was too old. In the rubble of the fire, firefighters found a box in which Riva kept several .38-caliber gold-painted bullets like the ones found during Lopez’s autopsy. In Riva’s car, police found a white candle and handmade circle enclosing a five-pointed gold star, a pentacle, a symbol associated with magic. At the trial, Riva’s attorney warned jurors that they would hear evidence “so bizarre it staggers, it shocks the imagination.” He told how Riva had been a loner as a teen, roaming the countryside at night. Riva felt the need to drink animal and human blood, and when at home he would consume concoctions of ketchup and oil because it resembled blood. At the conclusion of his lengthy trial, the jury deliberated for 3 hours and found him guilty of second degree murder. He was also found guilty of arson and assault and battery on one of the arresting officers. Judge Brady sentenced James Riva to life imprisonment in Walpole State Prison on the murder charge, and concurrently to ten to twenty years on the arson charge.
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AuthorLover of all things horror, writes on the dark-side of life Archives
March 2016
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