James Riva Schizophrenic Vampire 8.5x11 Crayon Art

Marshfield's 'vampire killer' up for parole

By Jennifer Mann - The Patriot Ledger

Aug 01, 2009

Marshfield - James P. Riva told police the devil made him do it.

The then 23-year-old had stabbed his disabled grandmother in the heart and shot her four times with gold-painted bullets, then set her house on fire to cover the evidence.

He said he was a 700-year-old vampire who needed to drink her blood, but that she was too old and dried up.

That was in 1980. A year later, he was sentenced to life in prison for second-degree murder and arson.

Tuesday, he is up for parole.

Three decades of new residents in Marshfield have no knowledge of the crime, but those who were around back then recall how it shook the town.

“It was a disaster to Marshfield,” says Frances Cipullo. Her brother-in-law, Louis Cipullo, was acting deputy fire chief at the time. She recalls, “everybody was scared to death.”

Tuesday will be the second time Riva has come before the state Parole Board. In 2004, the board turned down his request, telling him to return in five years – the maximum delay for a second request.

Riva is expected to be at the hearing, which is open to the public.

After the hearing, the board will meet alone and make a decision, typically within 30 days, said Michelle Goldman, a spokeswoman for the board.

One of Riva’s aunts, who lives on the South Shore, declined to comment on the hearing, saying the case was difficult for the family.

Residents who were around in 1980 said the Riva murder violated the town’s sense of itself as a safe community.

“The minute you said his name, it all came back to me,” said Anne Lariviere, who then was an assistant town clerk. “It was terrible. There were so many stories going around.”

“I was kind of flabbergasted by what happened in country Marshfield,” said Robert Cheeseman, whose brothers were Marshfield police officers in 1980. “That was something you’d hear about happening in the city.”

“Jimmy” Riva had been battling mental illness for some time before the April 10, 1980, murder. His attorney, John Spinale, told the court that Riva had been in at least four institutions in the five years before that.

Carmen Lopez, his 74-year-old grandmother, was wheelchair-bound from a spinal tumor and weighed about 75 pounds. Riva had lived at her Rexhame Beach house for three months while she was in the hospital. He moved to an uncle’s house two weeks before the crime.

Riva’s mother, Janet S. Jones, was the first to hear his sordid confession.

Jones, in tears, testified during the trial 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 could not 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, Spinale said, and when at home he would consume concoctions of ketchup and oil because it resembled blood.

Spinale said this past week that he hasn’t heard from Riva in many years and he declined to comment on the parole hearing.

He still has a canvas that Riva painted and sent him from prison shortly after he was sentenced.

The painting, which hangs in Spinale’s office, is of the Boston skyline. The buildings are all in black.

The events that led to Vampire Killer's request for parole

• April 10, 1980: Carmen Lopez, 74, is found dead after a fire consumes her Rexhame beach home.
   

• April 11, 1980: James R. Riva, Lopez’s grandson, is arraigned in Plymouth District  Court on charges of murder  and burning a building. He pleads innocent.
   

• June 18, 1980: Riva’s mother, Janet Jones, testifies at a probable cause hearing that her son confessed to killing Lopez because he has been a  vampire for four years and needed her blood to live, at a probable cause hearing.
   

• July 15, 1980: Riva indicted on murder and arson charges.
   

• Nov. 7, 1980: Attorney John Spinale announces he will pursue insanity defense.
   

• Aug. 4, 1981: Riva is deemed mentally fit to stand trial.
   

• Oct. 22, 1981: Riva’s murder trial begins.
   

• Oct. 30, 1981: A jury finds Riva guilty of second-degree murder, arson, and assault and  battery on an officer. Judge Peter F. Brady recommends a  life sentence for the murder charge, followed by a 19 to 20- year term for the arson charge.
   

• Oct. 31, 1984: Riva loses his appeal for a new trial.
   

• June 24, 1991: Riva is found not guilty by reason of insanity for slashing a prison officer.
   

• August 2004: The state parole board denies Riva’s first parole request, telling him to  come back in five years.
   

• Aug. 4, 2009: Riva will appear before the parole board for a second time.