00:00:05
Before we begin, just a trigger warning. The following episode does include mentions of graphic physical violence
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and suicide. So, please listen with care. >> Hey, so uh I basically go into police department.
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Okay. So, I have to read this stuff to you. Okay. You understand? >> Yeah. >> All right. On June 17th, 2013,
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almost 2 months after Chip Northup and Claudia Mppen were found dead inside the safety of their bedroom, investigators
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asked the police officer who worked at Daniel Marsh's school to bring the teenager into the station.
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>> Uh, you have the right to remain silent. Do you understand? >> Yes. >> Anything you say maybe is against you in
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court. Do you understand? >> Yep. Daniel would be questioned alone even though he had just turned 16.
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California law states that minors can be questioned without parents present if law enforcement has reasonable belief
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that they were involved in a crime. At no point did Daniel request his parents' presence. When the officer read
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him his Miranda rightites, Daniel waved his right to an attorney. And then Detective Ariel Panetta began
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the interview. >> Hey, I'll sit right here. Okay, I'll sit right here for you. >> Uh, I'm all right. You good?
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>> Daniel was a little scruffy with long blond hair, thin and wiry. He looked like a regular teenager, a little
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jittery and awkward. >> And student? >> Yeah. At high school. What uh year are you? I'm going into my
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junior year. >> Officer Panetta told Daniel why they had asked him to come to the station.
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>> You may notice, but we have an investigation going on in Davis in regards to some murders and we have
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information um indicated you may you may know about it or you have some information as well. Um so that's why
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I'm here to ask you about that. Okay. So >> Okay. But instead of questioning Daniel about
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the murders, Detective Panetta started with the basics. School, friends, family, Daniel told the detective that
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his life was stressful. >> How have you um been able to deal with some of that stress?
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>> Uh honestly, I smoke pot. >> Okay. like I don't do it for any other reason than
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to deal with my depression and my anxiety and all the that happens. It's just just
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kind of, you know, a little bit of a relief temporarily. Like for a little bit, I can just relax.
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I can just everything's all right now. You know, >> it was actually Daniel who first brought
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up Chip and Claudia. He was telling Detective Panetta about his parents' divorce.
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>> So your dad moved down South Davis, you say Har's apartment. >> Uh yeah, it was an apartment.
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>> Okay. Mhm. What was the address? >> I I don't remember. Um I know that it was like I think they were neighbors
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with the people who got killed. >> Okay. cuz I know like they were either next door or within like a few houses of
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theirs. >> Daniel told the detective that within a week after the murders, his father had
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moved out of the neighborhood. >> Well, it freaked him out, you know. I mean, you wake up and you find like the
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people next to you are dead. It's like, wow, that could have been us, you know? I guess it's just kind of it's scary in
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a way. It's spooky. Like you want to just get out of there. >> That was the perfect opening for
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Panetta. >> Yeah. You So you you do know about the uh the murders over investigating
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it. >> I mean, if Davis, when something like that happens here, it's like, holy crap,
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everybody knows about it, hears about it. >> Uh tell me what you know about it. Um,
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[Music] I think they were like an elderly couple or something. [Music] I know that somebody broke in and like
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stabbed these two people, but I don't really know anything else. >> But as law enforcement officers
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questioned Daniel over the next 5 hours, they learned he knew quite a bit more than that.
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I'm 48 hours correspondent Aaron Morardi and this is 15 inside the Daniel Marsh murders
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episode 4, the unlikely suspect. What was your reaction when you heard that the main suspect was a 15year-old
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boy? >> It it shocked me. >> Special Agent Chris Campion worked in the FBI's behavioral unit. The Davis
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Police Department had asked for his help the night before their sitdown with Daniel Marsh. About an hour into the
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interview, Campion opened the door to the room. I walked into the interview room and introduced myself and sat down
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and started talking to him. >> Hi. >> Hi. You must be Daniel. >> Yeah. I'm Chris Campion. Nice to meet
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you. >> Nice to meet you. I'm um from the FBI. >> I spoke with special agent Campion in
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2018, 5 years after he questioned Daniel. Daniel was no ordinary suspect and I wanted to hear more about how he
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approached the interview. >> We had pretty good evidence, probable cause evidence, but certainly not enough
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to arrest him there and then. >> And your then hope is to get him to admit what he did.
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>> Of course, that's our goal. At the same time though, um teams are searching his
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mother's house where he lived most of the time. uh searching his father's house where he he was at some of the
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time and some other locations that they were trying to gather other evidence at the same time.
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>> Campion started the conversation by asking Daniel about his family. >> Dad and mom split when you were pretty
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young. >> Yeah. >> And then mom basically left, abandoned you or your family as >> Yeah. for like 3 or 4 months and she
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just kind of randomly turned up again. >> Campion then got Daniel to confirm something his friend Alvaro had already
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told the police. Daniel said that his parents divorced after his mother had an affair with a woman. It
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>> was actually my kindergarten teacher. >> Wow. >> Yeah. >> In the interview, you're not just asking
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him about the crime at all. You're you're starting just talking to him. What's the purpose of the beginning of
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the interview? >> Well, in any law enforcement interview or any interview, you try to get some
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rapport going to make the person feel at ease, right? And so, that's what we try
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to do um in these cases. And of course, during that time, you get to know the person a little bit. I like to try to
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drop a few hints and some themes that I might come back to later on. >> One of those themes Campion wanted to
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pursue was trauma. He guessed that Daniel might relate to hearing about how people struggle like Daniel did with
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mental health. Doing the kind of work that I do, there is I see a lot of people who have had lives that are
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just devastated, devastated by all sorts of different things. And the refuge is the key.
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And uh we all do that. I mean, from combat veterans in Afghanistan and Iraq who come back and they have these
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nightmares and they're haunted and >> PTSD and stuff. >> PTSD, right? We see those and we see
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them do just some horrible things cuz they just want the the pain to stop. They want the they need the refuge. They
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need someplace to go where they can feel something besides what they're feeling.
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Does that make sense to you? >> Yeah. That's a way to escape. Get some temporary relief,
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>> right? >> Temporary relief from the hell that they're living in. >> Yeah. >> Does that sound kind of familiar to you?
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>> Yeah. >> Campion spoke gently with Daniel and thought he had struck a chord with the
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teenager. Daniel perked up as special agent Campion talked about the psychology of criminals and his mission
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in law enforcement to heal people >> and not necessarily just the victims but the people who do these horrendous
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things, what the public perceives as the horrendous things. >> Yeah. >> They agreed that people might do
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horrible things, but that doesn't make them horrible people. that's not what they planned on for their lives, right?
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But why did you get there? How did you get there? And I ask them, you know, and they they're sometimes very honest and
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they say, "Chris, it's just I I can't not do it. I can't not have it. It's what I think about all the time."
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>> Somehow it might be a form of OCD. >> It's it's an obsession for sure. and and
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it's a compulsion because they can't not do it. >> Campion's approach to questioning
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fascinated me. I asked him where he was going with it. >> Well, the biggest theme with Daniel that
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I I suspected is that he didn't feel like anybody else could understand what was going on in his head, that he
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thought that he was unique, that that nobody else felt like this. And so I tried to reassure him that I had talked
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to other people who have had these kind of very dark thoughts and fantasies and that I wasn't going to look at him like
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he was an evil terrible person that I could understand try to understand what was going on in his interior life in his
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thoughts. >> Daniel was opening up more and more. Campion learned that Daniel's father
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suffered from back and neck injuries. >> How does he get along? I mean, that's got to be constant pain.
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>> Yeah, not very well. Uh, makes him pretty irritable. Uh, doesn't help with his temper, but he's on a lot of
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painkillers. So, >> is you look like one of those guys that we have so many in our society right
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now, Ben, that just are kind of addicted, you know, like Brett Farre, a football player. Yeah. Would you say
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that that's >> I say that both of my parents are addicted to painillers. >> According to Daniel, there was one point
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when he and his sister had to take care of their mom when she was diagnosed with
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a disease affecting the nerves in her face. >> Uh she has fibromyalgia and trigeminal
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neuralgia and she might have MS. They're not sure yet. [Music] Daniel coped with his parents' behavior,
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he said, by slowly trying to starve himself. Ultimately, he checked into an eating disorder clinic for 25 days.
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But after treatment, he still sought other ways to harm himself. Kind of see a scar too there. Yeah.
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Yeah. At that point, Special Agent Campion leaned forward to have a closer look. Daniel extended his arm.
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>> I've attempted suicide in the past. >> Those aren't suicide attempts, so that's
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something different. >> No, not at all. Those aren't that. But it >> No, this doesn't have anything to do
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with the suicide attempts. Okay. >> Daniel told Campion that his parents never found out about those attempts on
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his own life. At the time of the police interview, Daniel had just turned 16. He had spent much of the conversation
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with special agent Campion discussing the many problems in his life. But he also told him that his outlook on life
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had started to improve somewhat when he began to take anti-depressant and anti-csychotic
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medication. >> Yeah. um got to the point where I actually wake up in the morning and I
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want to be alive, you know, like if I want to experience what life has, you know, I mean, I'm 16. I've just started.
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Got my whole life ahead of me. I experience all the things that they're already experienced.
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>> But Campion didn't see this revelation quite the same way Daniel did. He didn't
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think Daniel Marsh was actually getting better or healthier. Campion had reached a far more chilling
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conclusion. >> Well, to the casual observer, you might think he's just, you know, he's getting
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through his depression and, you know, this is a good thing. He's looking forward to a a life of doing positive
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things. In my mind, as I'm listening to that, I'm thinking he's looking forward to being a serial killer.
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you're actually thinking that and why are you getting that? >> When I worked with the the profilers on
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on analyzing this case and they've taught this to um people such as myself, FBI agents out in the field for years.
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These people are fantasydriven. The, you know, the people who commit a crime like
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we saw in the crime scene photos of of this double murder, they're motivated by a fantasy. their their interior life is
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completely obsessed with this fantasy that he has. And Daniels, we find out later, is about death and mutilation and
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murder and gore. And uh so I knew that that was going on um in his mind. So that's why I I felt pretty confident he
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was talking about looking forward to his future as a criminal. This is what gave
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him pleasure. This is what gave him meaning in his life. This is what really thrilled him.
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And he he found that and could leave the depression behind. >> What exactly are you guys trying to
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get from me? Daniel had asked, "What exactly are you guys trying to get from me?"
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Close to 2 hours into questioning, FBI special agent Campion revealed concerns over some of Daniel's online postings.
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>> People who are much more techsavvy than me, cuz I'm just an old guy. I don't know anything about anything, found this
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thing called Tumblr. and your Tumblr page. Is that the right term? >> Yeah. Yeah.
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>> Daniel had an account on Tumblr. It's a blogging platform where users can share
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videos, pictures, or text posts. Daniel's page was public, but under a pseudonym
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on it. He had curated and saved a series of unsettling images. There were all sorts of images like Iraq war deaths,
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you know, roadside bomb aftermath, um sniper killings, um horror movies, you know, Hollywood type horror movie
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images, um all mixed together, crime scene photographs from different uh types of violent crimes. So, we had a
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little bit of everything, but it was the common theme was gore and violence and death.
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>> How unusual is that for a 16-year-old? very I think very unusual for any age.
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Uh quite frankly, it's not a uh a focus or a an obsession um with most people. Campion kept patiently probing. He
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needed to understand why Daniel focused so much on gore and violence. >> I'm wondering if it's a refuge for you,
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Dan. In a way, it kind of is. Um, it's got a dark, screwed up sense of humor. And actually, a lot of that stuff
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makes me laugh when I see it. And I don't know, not a lot of stuff makes me laugh.
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>> Mhm. >> And so it's like I like horror movies and it's just it's the same thing as a
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horror movie only it's real. And since I don't have any connection to whoever it
00:18:00
happened to, it doesn't really bother me. Right. So, and it's kind of like the cutting. It's it's a feeling, right?
00:18:09
>> Yeah. Seriously. Like it makes me feel something. And I've just always kind of been into
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darker stuff. >> Darker stuff that would spook most people seem to thrill Daniel.
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>> I don't know. It makes me kind of like shocked and [Music] I don't know I've fascinated with
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anatomy and so like I don't know you can see what happened to them and how warped
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their bodies are and just it's kind of fascinating to think like what could have done that? How did that happen?
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Um why did that happen? just how did this all come to play? And I don't know, sometimes they'll be like
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in a funny pose or something and they'll just look like stupid and so like giggle at it.
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>> Finally, Agent Campion got to the point of the long interview and directly brought up why Daniel was being asked
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all these questions. the tips they received that he had killed Chip and Claudia,
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>> that you were there, that you did those murders. >> Me? Mhm. >> That's ridiculous.
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Why is it ridiculous? >> I'm a kid. >> No, that's Well, like I don't I don't hurt people.
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Like you can ask anyone around me. I'm a compassionate, affectionate person. I care about people. I don't when I hurt
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them. I mean, yeah, they piss me off sometimes and they do some messed up [ __ ] but I care about people.
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>> What were you thinking at that point? I mean, I found him kind of convincing.
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Did you at all? >> Um, no, I did not at that point. Um, >> I mean, what would the normal innocent
00:20:27
person do? >> Are you kidding me? You think I murdered those people? Absolutely not. That's
00:20:33
ridiculous. Are you really think it's me? Something like that. >> The FBI agent had just confronted Daniel
00:20:42
with the reason they had brought him in. They had evidence that Daniel committed
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the murders. Now, Campion had to get Daniel to admit it. >> I see you as a person who has a need.
00:20:58
You have a big need. You have a need for a refuge, maybe more than anybody I've ever run across. And at age
00:21:08
16, just 16, that's remarkable. Um, I don't know if that's a good thing. Probably not. But it is an unusual thing
00:21:22
to see to meet a person like you, Dan, who is been through some of the things you have and has
00:21:31
this need, the compulsion, I think, the the need to do something to feel. Well, yeah, but
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I don't hurt people. >> Over and over again, Daniel continued to deny that he could have killed anyone.
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>> I don't want to kill anyone. I don't want to hurt anyone. >> The person who did this will do it
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again. I have no doubt about it. They can't not. It's the inside obsession and it's the
00:22:13
compulsion. Well, then maybe that's where you'll find your guy, sir. It's not me.
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>> Almost 3 hours had passed in the interview room. It was a standoff. Special Agent Campion stepped out of the
00:22:37
room. Daniel cracked his knuckles and wiped his face with a tissue. When Campion returned, he was holding a DNA
00:22:47
swab kit. >> Um, I'd like to take your DNA to check it against things that have been found
00:22:53
at the crime scene. Pretty much standard CSI kind of stuff. Any problem with that?
00:23:00
>> Okay. Special Agent Campion asked Daniel to remove his boots. Then he again asked Daniel about the
00:23:10
elderly couple who had lived near his father. >> Have you ever been inside of that house?
00:23:16
>> No. >> Either when they were there or when they weren't there. >> Quinn. >> I went in once when we first moved
00:23:23
there. >> Okay. What were the circumstances of that? >> Neighbors. Meeting neighbors.
00:23:32
It's just a little welcome thing, you know. >> Daniel said that he had been to Chip and
00:23:37
Claudia's house once when his father first moved to the community. It was just a quote welcome thing, neighbors,
00:23:46
meeting neighbors. But it turned out that Daniel knew quite a lot about Chip and Claudia's home. He
00:23:54
had actually been invited inside with his father two years earlier. They show us around. I went in the
00:24:03
kitchen and in the living room. Showed me when show me their bedroom. Show me like at least their bathroom at
00:24:13
one point. I think it was a long time ago. >> He was planting the in the contingency
00:24:23
that there was DNA evidence there. planting the the thought that maybe that could have been the reason.
00:24:29
>> As another officer began opening the DNA swab packaging, Campion picked up Daniel's boots and began probing for
00:24:39
more information. >> Anything um unusual about these? Uh I don't I don't think so. But um you
00:24:51
ever worn them around blood? Um maybe I get a lot of nose bleeds. So maybe they got on that. Okay. But if
00:25:04
that was to be the case, it would be your luck. I >> We started talking about um his boots,
00:25:11
which I think he realized were the same boots that he had worn the night of the murders, and he realized he probably
00:25:17
didn't clean those to remove all of the physical evidence. uh we started talking
00:25:23
about his cell phone and the fact that cell phones are basically personal tracking devices and you know we could
00:25:29
track his movements on particular days and times. So those factors I think started weighing on him that he wasn't
00:25:36
going to be able to talk his way out of this and the walls started closing in on
00:25:40
him. You guys are threatening me with with what? The truth? With getting arrested for two murders.
00:25:53
I aming [Music] I am a sober skater right now. Of course, I'm going to do anything I
00:26:01
can to try and say that I didn't do this. That was um the first sign that he was
00:26:07
getting over that wall, that he was getting ready to talk to us about what really happened.
00:26:14
>> You want to help me and then don't ruin my life. >> Anything send me to the psychiatric
00:26:20
hospital. >> Backed into a corner, aren't they? >> Daniel Marsh seemed to see that he was
00:26:30
trapped. Chris, were you really prepared for what he told you next? >> Um, no. >> Every time
00:26:43
I look at someone in my mind, I see flashes of images of me killing them, >> okay?
00:26:50
>> In numerous ways, and numerous horrible ways, doing terrible things. I can't help it. It's just what comes into my
00:26:58
head when I see them. I don't want it to. Oh my god, it does. But it does. Daniel admitted to special agent Campion
00:27:15
that he had spent years thinking about killing people and that he made it a reality on that April night.
00:27:25
>> When was the first time you started thinking about killing these people down the street?
00:27:30
That night, I just I couldn't take it anymore. I had to do it. I lost control a little.
00:27:41
Okay. I just went into the street and wandered around for a while just looking for who would be
00:27:56
which house I should go to, who would be a good thing. >> Daniel said he had walked through his
00:28:03
father's South Davis neighborhood in the middle of the night. He scouted most of
00:28:08
the street and checked out 50 homes. >> Everyone had done a good job of locking their doors and closing their windows
00:28:17
until I got to their house. >> When he got to Chip and Claudia's home, he noticed that they had left a back
00:28:28
window open. So, he cut the screen and climbed through. listened for snoring and I heard it,
00:28:39
went to their bedroom. I opened the door and I just kind of stood over their bed
00:28:46
watching them sleep for a few minutes. My body was trembling. I was nervous but excited and exhilarated.
00:29:01
I was actually going to do it. I was there. It's finally happening. >> He said at that point Claudia woke up.
00:29:12
So >> I just started standing. She over and over all strapped in the torso and I tried to
00:29:23
get them. And then the husband woke up and he looked over and just as he looked over I
00:29:30
stabbed him in the neck. >> And he didn't stop. Daniel Marsh stab both Chip and Claudia a combined
00:29:42
128 times. >> Made sure they were both dead. Then I just kind of kept stabbing their dead
00:29:50
bodies. Don't know why. It just felt right. Okay. So, even after they stopped moving, even when they were dead, I
00:30:01
wasn't done. >> Daniel admitted to all of it. >> I just kind of messed around with
00:30:12
messed around with them. Cut open most of their torsos around here. And in the woman, I put a phone
00:30:24
inside of her and I put a cup inside the guy. I don't know why. I really don't. Okay. And
00:30:35
I like cut open her leg. I don't know why I did that either. I just kind of wanted to see.
00:30:42
The horrific details Daniel shared match crime scene reports and the autopsies, but what he said afterwards
00:30:52
was even more outrageous. I'm not going to lie, it felt amazing. How did it feel to
00:31:09
felt great? I I it was pure happiness and adrenaline and dopamine just all of it rushing over me.
00:31:21
It's the most exhilarating, enjoyable feeling I've ever felt. Special Agent Chris Campion never
00:31:30
changed the tone of his voice during the hours long interview. He never reacted visibly to anything Daniel Marsh said to
00:31:40
him, but he later admitted to me that Daniel Marsh was the most dangerous suspect he had ever interviewed.
00:31:50
With everything out in the open, Daniel was then willing to walk the police through where they could find the rest
00:31:57
of the evidence. The ski mask he wore, his gloves, his pants. He had stashed it all in his mother's garage, but he kept
00:32:09
the jacket. >> It's kind of a little momento and a constant reminder what happened
00:32:18
so I can see it and I'll kind of relive it. Daniel knew his admission of guilt was
00:32:30
going to lead to an arrest and was curious about what would come next. >> Did you get the death penalty?
00:32:41
>> That was kind of farfetched. >> You were 15, right? >> Yeah, I was 15 and got psychological issues.
00:32:51
[Music] There was one moment from Campion's interview with Daniel that especially
00:32:59
shocked me. In my years of reporting on crime, I had never heard anything like it in a police interrogation.
00:33:09
For the prosecutors building a case against Daniel, it was just one more example of how dangerous Daniel would be
00:33:18
if he wasn't put behind bars. for a long time. That's next time on 15. Inside the
00:33:29
Daniel Marsh murders. This series was reported by me, Aaron Morardi. Alan Pang is our producer. Mora
00:33:46
Walls is our story editor and Jamie Benson is the senior producer. Megan Marcus is the vice president of podcast
00:33:55
editorial for CBS. Special thanks to 48 hours executive producer Judy Tyiggard along with 48
00:34:04
hours producers Judy Ryback, Stephanie Slifer, and Greg Fiser from Goat Rodeo. This podcast was written and produced by
00:34:14
Carara Schillin, Max Johnston, Jay Venibals, Isabelle Kirby McGawan, Megan Nadulski, and Ian Enright.
00:34:24
Additional reporting and recording by Cara Schillin. Our executive producers at Goat Rodeo are Megan Nadulski and Ian
00:34:33
Enright. Original theme in music by Hans Delshi with additional music from Paramount. Final mix by Rebecca Sidell.
00:34:45
Then Fulton is our fact checker. Our production manager is Carara Schillin. I'm Aaron Morardi. If you're enjoying
00:34:54
this show, be sure to give it a rating and review. It helps more people find it and hear our reporting. If you liked 15
00:35:04
inside the Daniel Marsh murders, check out the rest of our 48 hours podcasts by searching 48 hours on your favorite
00:35:14
podcast app. Thanks for listening. [Music]