00:00:08
went to their bedroom. I opened the door and I just kind of stood over their bed
00:00:14
watching them sleep for a few minutes. My body was trembling. I was nervous but excited and exhilarated.
00:00:30
I was actually going to do it. I was there. It's finally happening. >> I will never understand how he did what
00:00:40
he did. >> My name is Victoria Herd and Claudia was my mother. I'm her eldest daughter.
00:00:52
My mom was my best friend. In 1995, Claudia Mopin packed up her bags and left her home in Fairfield,
00:01:14
California to move 30 m northeast to Davis. In her late 50s, she was looking to start a new life. She had been single
00:01:24
for a while and she had decided that she was ready to settle down. When I talked
00:01:31
to Claudia's daughter, Victoria, she was sitting with her own daughter and they couldn't stop giggling as they recounted
00:01:40
the move. >> I remember very well. It was very intentional. Oh, really? Yeah. She was
00:01:46
ready to have a companion and she knew that she wanted somebody smart and she knew that she wanted somebody who lived
00:01:54
in Davis. Claudia was funloving with a boisterous laugh. She wanted to be somewhere young, progressive, and full
00:02:04
of life. And the city of Davis was kind of a paradise. Located in the central valley of
00:02:13
Northern California, it's home to the University of California, Davis. It's also rich in farmland, nature preserves,
00:02:23
and towering trees. There's greenery everywhere. Claudia was also drawn to the spirituality there. She had been a
00:02:35
spiritual traveler through many different religions and denominations and she just had fallen in love with the
00:02:43
Unitarian Church. So she said to me, "My husband is at the Unitarian Church." And
00:02:49
she was right. Only a few months later, Claudia called Victoria to tell her that
00:02:55
she had met someone there. His name Oliver Chip Northup. He was so smart and brilliant and they were like Kermit the
00:03:04
Frog and Miss Piggy meeting over the pews at the Unitarian Church. I mean, was this true love? I think it was true
00:03:13
friendship. I don't think it was youthful passion. Let's put it that way. I think it was the recognition of a
00:03:20
kindred soul. The next year, Chip and Claudia got married. The church was packed. They blended their big, loving
00:03:29
families in a joyous ceremony. Chip had eight children and Claudia had three. >> Two big families. What a gift. What an
00:03:40
absolute gift. And we were older. We were adults when they got together. So I think both families were very
00:03:47
appreciative that the other had come into their parents' life. Time passed and by 2013 they had been
00:03:56
together for 17 years. Their family had grown to include a whopping 22 grandchildren and seven great
00:04:05
grandchildren. Claudia was 76 and Chip 87. >> They had an idyllic life. They did what
00:04:15
they wanted. They had so many loved ones around them. They had so many great neighbors.
00:04:21
They lived in Davis. Every evening, Claudia looked forward to being home with Chip. It didn't matter
00:04:30
what she was doing or who she was with. >> She'd say, " 9:30, have to go home to
00:04:36
Chip. Our programs are on. Have to get my feet rubbed." And Chip would watch with his headphones and rub my mother's
00:04:43
feet every night. They adored each other in that way. They loved going to movies,
00:04:50
holding hands, and just being with each other, and being with each other's families.
00:04:56
That's exactly how they were together. On a beautiful night in April, home from a long day of activities, Claudia and
00:05:06
Chip left their window open as they drifted off to sleep in the cool of the evening.
00:05:13
Hours later, a figure appeared outside their window. >> When you think about the terror um that
00:05:23
these two people just asleep in their own bed where we all feel the most secure and you wake up to this horror
00:05:30
movie happening to you. >> I'm 48 hours correspondent Aaron Morardi. I've been reporting on murder
00:05:44
cases for over three decades. So, you probably think that after all this time, I've seen it all. And actually, I
00:05:53
thought I had too until I encountered two senseless, inexplicable murders, just the torture of the bodies, the
00:06:03
post-mortem cutting, >> you know, putting inanimate objects in their body >> and the mastermind behind them. How does
00:06:11
anybody even have the strength to do that? And and why wouldn't somebody want to do that?
00:06:19
>> This is 15. Inside the Daniel Marsh murders, episode 1, a quiet life shattered.
00:06:34
Before we begin, just a trigger warning. The following episode contains references to graphic physical violence.
00:06:43
Please listen with care. My parents started the Unitarian Church here in Davis back in the 50s and it was
00:06:55
a very big part of my life growing up and and theirs and my father and mother continued to be active even after they
00:07:02
were divorced. >> This is Chip's daughter Mary Northup. When Chip met Claudia at the church he
00:07:08
helped start, he was actually married to his second wife, Maron, and was still on
00:07:14
good terms with his first wife. But Maron was now dying of cancer. He had supported her in her wish to die at
00:07:24
home. And it had been hard for him. Claudia had started attending church while Marlene was still alive. Um, and
00:07:32
so she watched my father go through this. And when Marlin died, she gave him a shoulder to cry on. I don't think her
00:07:40
intent was, "Oh, now I'll go grab him." As much as that she was that compassionate person and she saw this
00:07:47
and uh and and wanted to help him through that grieving. >> I think he was a little embarrassed
00:07:53
because it was barely 6 months after after his second wife had died, but we were all incredibly supportive.
00:08:01
Chip's son, Robert Northup, said that even though his father's relationship with Claudia moved quickly, the whole
00:08:08
family was on board. >> When you talk about Claudia, how would you describe Claudia?
00:08:14
>> An angel who walked the earth. >> Really? An angel. >> Why do you say that? Even just the sensation you could get
00:08:22
from a distance, just the the serenity in her face, the welcoming smile, the just putting people at at ease. Even
00:08:30
from, you know, 50 ft away, she could do that. >> Chip's family knew Claudia was good for
00:08:35
him. Chip was used to running nonstop, and Claudia reminded him to take time for the most important people in his
00:08:44
life. And she also often acted as sort of a a liaison ensuring that he remembered to communicate with people
00:08:52
and >> because I heard he worked a lot. >> Yes. Yes, he did. >> Chip had spent decades working as a
00:08:58
lawyer. Even after he retired, he still worked part-time as an appellet attorney
00:09:05
to keep his mind sharp. His daughter Mary said he was kind and dedicated to doing the right thing. Every once in a
00:09:14
while there was an injustice and it was important to him to make sure that when he found that he did the best he could
00:09:22
to get them a fair trial, to get them a fair hearing in the justice system. A lot of the times he told me, "I get one
00:09:29
or two years shaved off because there have been errors. That's a victory." >> Even in his late 80s, Chip stayed
00:09:38
incredibly active in the broader Davis community. He had been a proud member of the Rotary Club and the school board and
00:09:46
worked the Sunday barbecue at the county fair. He was also a founding member of a
00:09:52
local folk band, the PewD Creek Crawads. >> He had a beautiful voice. He really had
00:10:07
a beautiful voice that gave him the most joy. All my siblings, kids really loved.
00:10:15
Whenever Grandpa Chip came, they would say, "Sing us a song." And of course, he would carry his guitar with him. He got
00:10:20
to that point. >> Chip also performed music at his church, which was like a second home to both him
00:10:27
and now Claudia. So when they didn't show up to the service that second Sunday in April, friends and family knew
00:10:36
immediately that something was wrong. I can tell you what happened from my view. April 14th, uh, I was supposed to
00:10:57
be seeing my father at church. >> On the morning of April 14th, 2013, Chip Northup's daughter, Mary, and her
00:11:07
mother, Chip's first wife, Peggy, arrived at the Unitarian Church, expecting to meet Claudia and Chip,
00:11:15
there. He's part of this group, the musical group that they've been together since literally since the late 60s, part
00:11:24
of the church. And did he didn't show up and that was very unusual. It was unusual enough that my mother said to
00:11:31
me, you need to try to find your father. So, you know, I you know, you guys have
00:11:35
been divorced for 40 years. Let it go. But I it it saddened my brain. So, I went to try to call him, but our church
00:11:42
is sort of out in the country here and didn't get any cell reception. So, I let it go until we went home afterwards and
00:11:48
I called and I called his number and I called Claudia's number and they both went to voicemail.
00:11:55
>> How unusual is that? >> It was very unusual. Claudia always answered her phone.
00:12:00
>> Peggy then called her son Robert >> and I I tried to reassure her that she was overreacting, that, you know, oh,
00:12:07
there's all kinds of reasons he might have missed that performance. and uh I dutifully went to check, but I
00:12:12
everything I saw indicated they were out of town. >> It was evening when Robert rang his
00:12:17
father's doorbell. No one answered. He looked through the front windows and didn't see anything out of the ordinary.
00:12:26
>> I didn't realize they had their car locked in the garage. If they were home, the car would have normally been in the
00:12:31
driveway. And then there were some newspapers piled up and I thought, "Oh, that's proof that they're out of town."
00:12:37
Robert decided if no one was home, it wasn't worth going inside, so he left. Another hour passed, but still no one
00:12:48
could get in touch with Chip and Claudia. Around 7:30 p.m., Claudia's daughter Laura decided to visit the house. Like
00:13:00
Robert, she rang the front doorbell and again, no one answered. But Laura wasn't satisfied leaving it at
00:13:09
that. She walked around the back of the house. She saw a few lights on inside. And that's when she noticed that one of
00:13:20
the back windows wasn't just open. The screen had been meticulously cut. She stepped forward to get a closer
00:13:30
look. She could just barely see into Chip and Claudia's shared bedroom. But even in the dim light, she could see
00:13:40
something wasn't right. >> I think I think she saw blood stains, but she didn't see bodies. She saw
00:13:48
enough that she made a call to get other people over there. It wasn't clear to her what had happened
00:13:57
or whose blood it was, but it was enough to make her call 911. Several officers from the Davis Police
00:14:06
Department arrived at the scene. They tried to get into the house, but couldn't gain entry through the front
00:14:13
door. They went around to the back to look at what Laura thought she had seen through the window. As they shined their
00:14:21
flashlights through the screen, it became very clear that they had stumbled upon a crime scene.
00:14:33
Inside were two bodies completely covered in blood. Police forced their way inside. Hours later, Laura got in
00:14:44
touch with her sister Victoria. and I pick up my phone and there's 12 missed calls from my sister. And so that was
00:14:55
really strange. I called her back and she was sobbing and she said, "Something's wrong with
00:15:07
mom and Chip." And I said, "What? What's wrong with mom and Chip?" and she said, "Well, honey,
00:15:14
there's been a breakin and there are two dead bodies in the house." Victoria was in disbelief.
00:15:24
>> I thought somebody had broken into the house and Chip had killed them. I didn't
00:15:30
think I really didn't think it was Mom and Chip. And Laura didn't say that they were dead.
00:15:38
Laura asked Victoria to pass the phone to Victoria's partner, Casey. So, I'm starting to shake, right, and
00:15:46
break down. And I run to Casey and I hand her the phone. And I sat there just and I'm hearing Laura talk to Casey. And
00:15:56
I sat there and I feel myself like falling to the floor, but I don't know why I'm falling to the floor, but I'm
00:16:02
falling. And I I feel her spirit. It's almost like she's standing there and she says, "You have a choice in this moment.
00:16:16
You can stay on the floor or you can get up and face this with love." It was so clear. From your
00:16:26
mother. From my mother. And I I was then I was like got up. like her words infused me and I said, "Okay, let's go.
00:16:34
Let's go right now." >> Did you know at that moment? >> I just knew that something was wrong.
00:16:43
>> Victoria and Casey made their way from Sacramento to Chip and Claudia's house.
00:16:50
>> We went and made the turn onto their street and the corner's van was there. And I still didn't know. I get out of
00:16:57
the car and I go marching to the police officer and I said, "I'm I'm Claudia's daughter. I need to see Claudia." And he
00:17:05
said, "You can't go in there. That's a crime scene." And and I got angry and started pushing him and said, "I need to
00:17:13
see my mother. I need to see my mother. She needs me." No one would tell Victoria anything.
00:17:21
Instead, she was told to get into the police car and wait. >> My partner was pre-law, so she said, "Is
00:17:29
she under arrest?" And the officer said, "No." And then she we said, "Well, we're
00:17:34
not getting in the car. We'll meet you at the police station." And as we were getting into the car to go to the police
00:17:41
station, I saw the corners bringing out their bodies, and I still didn't know it
00:17:47
was them. Victoria and Casey rushed to the Davis Police Station, but still no one seemed willing to share any
00:17:56
information with them. So Casey began asking yes or no questions. She asked, "Is Victoria's mother dead?"
00:18:06
And then then they said yes. And then I lost it. My brain couldn't process that.
00:18:12
I was in complete shock. She said, "Was Victoria's mother shot?" An officer said
00:18:18
no. Was Victoria's mom strangled? The officer said no. Was Victoria's mother stabbed? And then the officer lowered
00:18:29
his head and I started screaming because I couldn't imagine. I couldn't imagine it. It's impossible
00:18:38
even now and everything we've been through and seen to imagine anybody doing that to somebody who was so kind
00:18:48
and so precious. Meanwhile, Chip's children still had no idea that anything was wrong. Chip's
00:18:58
daughter, Mary, hadn't heard anything since her brother went to check on Chip the night before.
00:19:05
The next morning, she turned on the TV to watch the news. >> I noticed there was this shot with
00:19:13
police caution tape and in from a tree to the garage and it says double homicide in Davis. And I'm like, "Wow,
00:19:21
that's that's unusual." So the next time it came on, I looked at it again. I said, "That that looks like where my dad
00:19:28
lived." So I I paused it and rewindound it and I at this point I'm calling the kids and my wife to come out and and
00:19:37
look and say is is that is that Grandpa Chip's place? >> She was finally able to see the number
00:19:43
by the door and it confirmed the unthinkable. It was Chip and Claudia's house. She
00:19:51
called the police to see if they could tell her what was happening. It took them about 10 minutes before they would
00:19:59
tell me, well, yes, that is the house where they found bodies, but they wouldn't tell me it was my father. They
00:20:04
wouldn't tell me anything. They said I had to come down to the police station. But at this point, I started calling my
00:20:10
family because I didn't know. I didn't want the rest of my family to find out this way.
00:20:14
>> That's a horrible way to find out. >> I I cannot I mean, I literally nearly collapsed on the floor when I realized
00:20:21
that it was their house, that I'm watching this on television. to start from there just made everything all of
00:20:29
the events that began to unfold worse and worse. It was a very very unusual homicide.
00:20:42
>> What do you mean? >> The victims were an elderly couple which didn't seem to make a lot of sense. It
00:20:50
was u it was a very brutal murder. Lieutenant Paul Durashave was one of the Davis police officers who arrived on the
00:21:00
scene that April day. He would later become one of the leaders in the investigation.
00:21:06
>> The couple was still in their bed and you know multiple cut stab type murder.
00:21:11
It was it was it was horrific. Much more so than let's say a bullet wound. Chip had been stabbed 61 times and
00:21:21
Claudia 67. It was something that uh it was up close and personal. >> The cause of death was clear, but the
00:21:30
how and why would take a lot more time to determine. How did the killer or killers get in?
00:21:38
>> Yeah, through the window. >> It didn't look like a typical burglary. There was no sign of ransacking and
00:21:47
nothing of value appeared to be missing. Both bodies were still in bed. No evidence that either victim tried to
00:21:55
escape. And there was another odd thing about the crime scene. Was there a lot of
00:22:03
evidence left behind by the killer? >> Not really. We were coming up pretty dry on the crime scene.
00:22:08
>> Any fingerprints that seem clearly connected? DNA left at the scene? No. >> Did you have the weapon?
00:22:15
>> We didn't have the weapon. No. >> Still, while the crime scene was unusually clean, the bodies were
00:22:23
anything but. Both victims had stab wounds everywhere. In their necks, the torso, the legs, and that wasn't even
00:22:35
the most horrifying part. >> It was a very bloody scene, >> right? And there were some strange
00:22:43
details too, weren't there? >> Yeah, there were um there were a couple objects inside the bodies. Um one of
00:22:51
them being a shot glass or glass of some sort >> put inside the body >> and a cell phone in the other. Right.
00:22:58
>> Right. >> I mean, who does something like this? >> Like I said, we we didn't know. The
00:23:03
first thing we thought is perhaps looking at people they know that are connected especially strongly connected
00:23:08
to the victims where there would be feelings involved. >> I mean it sounds like a lot of anger
00:23:12
toward these people. >> Sounded like it. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. >> Police believe that whoever attacked
00:23:18
Chip and Claudia may have had a personal vendetta. >> I think even one theory was because he
00:23:24
was a defense attorney. um perhaps someone who was in his life as a client that you know felt like they were
00:23:31
wronged and he didn't do a good enough job fighting for them. Um so we were kind of looking at everything
00:23:38
>> but neither Chip nor Claudia had any obvious enemies in town. >> No, you know, everybody liked them. They
00:23:45
were involved in music. They were involved with a lot of people in the community and we were just coming up
00:23:50
with everybody who who really liked them. The police department had to start piecing together a story based on
00:23:57
statistics and crimes they had dealt with previously. They had to ask, "Was one of the victims having an affair?
00:24:06
Could they have had a falling out with a close friend or family member?" >> Usually to us when it's that violent, um
00:24:14
there's anger behind it, some type of feeling. Uh you'll see it with domestic violence, family related murders, things
00:24:20
like that. But usually we felt like, okay, maybe there's a connection between the suspect and and and the victims.
00:24:27
Here, >> with little to no evidence to lead them, the police started their investigation
00:24:33
by looking close to home. Very close to home. >> I understand that they had few options.
00:24:42
They had very, very little in the way of good evidence to work with. So, they had
00:24:47
to make the best they could with very few clues. Chip's son, Robert, was one of the first people they talked to
00:24:55
>> at that point. Then those clues pointed us. We we lived in the same town, not
00:24:59
very far away that we would have had with certainly no motive, but easily had the opportunity.
00:25:06
>> Coming up on the next episode of 15, inside the Daniel Marsh murders. And what did they think when they heard
00:25:16
you had just cleaned the carpet? It looked like I was covering up, removing evidence.
00:25:35
This series was reported by me, Aaron Morardi. Alan Pang is our producer. Mora Walls is our story editor. And Jamie
00:25:45
Benson is the senior producer. Megan Marcus is the vice president of podcast editorial for CBS.
00:25:54
Special thanks to 48 hours executive producer Judy Tyiggard along with 48 hours producers Judy Ryback, Stephanie
00:26:04
Slifer, and Greg Fiser from Goat Rodeo. This podcast was written and produced by
00:26:10
Carara Schillin, Max Johnston, Jay Venibals, Isabelle Kirby McGawan, Megan Nadulski, and Ian Enright.
00:26:21
Additional reporting and recording by Cara Schillin. Our executive producers at Goat Rodeo are Megan Nadulski and Ian
00:26:30
Enright. Original theme in music by Hans Del Shei with additional music from Paramount. Final mix by Rebecca Sidell.
00:26:41
Then Fulton is our fact checker. Our production manager is Carara Schillin. I'm Aaron Morardi. If you're enjoying
00:26:50
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
00:27:01
inside the Daniel Marsh murders, check out the rest of our 48 hours podcasts by searching 48 hours on your favorite
00:27:10
podcast app. Thanks for listening. Before we begin, just a trigger warning. The following episode contains
00:27:36
references to graphic physical violence. Please listen with care. >> We lost our matriarch.
00:27:47
I lost the love of my life. When Victoria Herd found out her beloved mother Claudia and stepfather Chip had
00:27:57
been killed, her whole world fell apart. She was my world. She was she was the past and the future and that's changed
00:28:09
now. >> She couldn't imagine someone stabbing Chip and Claudia dozens of times. But
00:28:17
even when Victoria and her daughter Sarah arrived at the funeral home, they had no idea just how brutal the murders
00:28:26
actually were. So, as they planned the burial, Sarah and Victoria asked to see Claudia's body.
00:28:34
>> And we were very persistent about wanting to see her. Really just having a clarification like that that is my
00:28:41
grandmother that died. It's my mom that died. >> I need to know that. I don't want to
00:28:45
just believe it because somebody told me, >> right? >> And we went to the funeral home and the
00:28:51
the woman there, she was like, "You you can't see her." >> No one at the funeral home would explain
00:29:02
why they couldn't see Claudia, who Sarah affectionately called Granza. and the woman at the funeral home told
00:29:10
us that they needed at least 24 hours before we could see Granza. >> So they waited the 24 hours and then
00:29:20
finally were brought into the room with Claudia's body. >> They called in a specialist from UC
00:29:27
Davis. I found all out all this after the fact to do a reconstruction on my mother and
00:29:35
she was beautiful when we saw her. >> Yes, >> she looked like herself. >> It would be more than a year before they
00:29:43
learned the full truth that Chip and Claudia had been stabbed a combined 128 times.
00:29:53
>> To this day, I am amazed. Yeah. >> You know, what I know now, it's >> she she looked like the grand I knew she
00:30:02
did. >> I mean, >> she did. They washed her hair. The makeup artist did amazing.
00:30:10
>> Amazing. >> Her little hands, her little feet, you know. >> Victoria remembered that her mother
00:30:19
Claudia had always said she didn't want a viewing when she died. But I felt at the time that we as a family under the
00:30:28
circumstances needed to have that moment of closure with her. So it was closed to
00:30:33
the public. But it was just our family >> and it was just a few of us. >> It was just a few of us chose to say
00:30:39
goodbye that way. But I I am grateful to that woman. They said they stayed up all night and put her back together.
00:30:50
Roughly two weeks after that small private viewing, the family held a memorial service to celebrate Chip and
00:30:57
Claudia's lives at the Unitarian Universalist Church. But even as the grieving family members
00:31:07
were saying last goodbyes, they were also contending with another problem. Police were beginning to suspect that
00:31:16
one of them might be the killer. We would try and question them. We'd try and get information, but they were very
00:31:24
tight lipped. They weren't saying anything. But they were looking at members of your own family.
00:31:29
>> Yeah, they were. >> I'm 48 hours correspondent Aaron Morardi. This is 15 inside the Daniel Marsh
00:31:44
murders. Episode two, unanswered questions. >> Normally, if you have a crime that's
00:31:54
committed with that much passion and anger, a lot of times it it it just happens. It's a crime of opportunity um
00:32:01
or an escalating argument maybe. Uh so, you know, in this case, we just we weren't finding much.
00:32:09
Davis police Lieutenant Paul Durishev was assigned early on to the murder investigation of Claudia Mopin and Chip
00:32:17
Northup. It was an all hands on deck situation. The department only had about 100
00:32:25
employees total and this was the first murder case the city of Davis had in nearly 2 years.
00:32:36
What impact did it have on the officers, you and everyone else investigating? I heard it was it it had an impact that
00:32:44
there were officers who really even had to talk about it because it was such a horrific scene.
00:32:51
>> Yeah. I don't And it's not just the scene. I think it's the scene plus the loss when you're dealing with the family
00:32:58
that you could never replace that loss. and um I think a lot of frustration because we weren't solving it right
00:33:04
away. You know, a lot of homicides we clear fairly quickly. >> So I assume then if if you see you see a
00:33:11
scene that appears to be driven by rage, you look at members of the family >> or people close to um the victim in any
00:33:21
way, shape, or form. In most murder cases, officials start their investigation with people close to
00:33:29
the victims, not necessarily as suspects, although it's a fact that most victims are killed by people they know.
00:33:40
But in this case, police were trying to create a complete picture of the situation.
00:33:46
They talked to all of Chip and Claudia's family members who lived in Davis. One was Chip's daughter, Mary Northup. Mary
00:33:56
was as perplexed by the murders as the police were. >> Well, first you need to understand that
00:34:02
I didn't know how gruesome the murder was. >> So, the police didn't tell you. >> They told me they were stabbed. I got
00:34:10
the death certificate where it said multiple stabbed death within minutes. So, I knew that it wasn't good or easy.
00:34:20
Even though Chip and Claudia's window screen had been cut, police told Mary they thought the killer had a different
00:34:28
point of entry. >> I said, "So, had they left the slider open? Is that what the problem? Is that
00:34:33
how he got in?" And the police said, "No, all the doors were locked from the inside. So, we think it was somebody
00:34:40
with a key." And I was like, "No, I had a key to their place." But just since I lived in Davis, it was
00:34:48
convenient if they didn't if they lost their keys, Mary could come let them in. >> Mary thought the police had a theory
00:34:57
that a person with a key cut a hole in the window screen to make it look like a breakin.
00:35:05
>> If you come up with that theory, then you have to look at family members or close friends that they might have
00:35:12
shared a key with, right? I was very worried that they were going to just make an arrest of someone in the family
00:35:17
because believe me, this was the talk of the town. You know, I would go to the store
00:35:24
and people could come up to me and they would be crying and saying, "We're not safe anymore." You know, so I know there
00:35:31
felt an urgent need to do something to try to solve this. My name's Robert Northup and Chip
00:35:44
Northup was my father and I also knew Claudia very well and we all lived we all lived together in the same town so I
00:35:51
was close to both of them. >> Mary's brother Robert also lived in Davis with his adult son Tony. Tony's
00:36:01
brother Oliver lived nearby. At the time of the murders, Tony was 28 and Oliver was just a year older. I spoke to Robert
00:36:11
and Oliver 5 years after that in 2018. The two sat next to each other, shouldertosh shoulder. They were both
00:36:21
softspoken and a bit hesitant in their answers. They looked somber and stoic. Oliver spoke gently about his
00:36:31
relationship with his grandfather, the man he was actually named after. >> Yeah, I was named after him. My mom
00:36:39
chose that name. He was my grandfather and uh is he is probably the best grandfather I could have had.
00:36:51
Oliver and his brother Tony spent a lot of time with their grandfather going on camping trips, eating dinner, and they
00:36:59
grew close with Claudia after she joined their family. >> Oh, she's very, very loving towards me
00:37:07
and very caring, and she treated me very nicely. I guess not necessarily like a stepg grandmother,
00:37:16
more like her own grandson. And then some. >> Oliver's dad, Robert, had been the first
00:37:26
one to check on Chip and Claudia's house when they didn't show up to church. He only found out what really happened
00:37:34
after receiving a call the morning after the murders. >> But so I just I had just gotten the news
00:37:40
and I came back and I told Oliver and he and I were both in the kitchen. We just
00:37:47
started sobbing for a moment. >> What did you think? >> You know, at at my initial reaction, I
00:37:53
didn't even go that far with it. I was just in disbelief that it you know, like this can't be right. This is somebody's
00:38:00
somebody's got their facts wrong. This can't this can't be what really happened cuz cuz nobody would have done such a
00:38:04
thing. >> Robert remembered that soon after hearing the news, he and his sons were
00:38:10
called into the police station. At first, Robert understood that this was all part of the usual procedure.
00:38:21
>> I well, I wasn't surprised at all that it began. You know, I thought, okay, yeah, that makes sense. They have to
00:38:26
look at every possibility. And I kept thinking, well, my father would would want us to cooperate in every way. And,
00:38:33
you know, the sooner they the sooner they realize it wasn't us, the sooner they can start looking in the right
00:38:37
places. >> They wanted to be as helpful as possible. >> That first day, it was about 8 hours of
00:38:44
questioning. and the next day was another six. It was just day after day, long hours of questioning.
00:38:49
>> Mhm. >> But then, in addition to interrogating the family at length, Davis police began
00:38:55
to scour Robert's home and belongings for evidence. There they found something that made them suspicious.
00:39:07
>> Now, it didn't help, did it, that you had just had the carpet cleaned. So much was made of that. Not just had I
00:39:16
just I just rented the carpet cleaner and uh yeah, it was bad timing. I didn't I didn't
00:39:23
anticipate that that would be the same weekend my father got murdered. >> And what did they think when they heard
00:39:28
you had just cleaned the carpet? >> It looked like I was covering up removing evidence.
00:39:34
>> Officers were having a hard time finding any evidence connected to the crime. So,
00:39:41
a newly cleaned carpet. That looked like one of their best clues. If Robert had committed the crime, police thought they
00:39:50
might find blood in that carpet. Maybe it had seeped into the floor below. Or maybe they'd find evidence that someone
00:39:58
had tried to flush down the toilet. >> And I mean, the search, just tell me what the search did to your house.
00:40:06
Well, they did find some blood stains and then they cut out the carpet. They took out some of the plumbing fixtures
00:40:14
looking for things that might have been put in the drain. Um, and in the course of moving things around, they well, they
00:40:21
did some damage and they also took out a little bit of flooring. >> Investigators thought they had really
00:40:28
found something until the blood turned out to be Robert's son Tony's blood. Robert kept cooperating, hoping the
00:40:38
police would finally be satisfied and leave them alone. But the suspicion and the questions seemed endless.
00:40:48
>> You said that you would you would have expected that they look at your family
00:40:52
for 24 hours, but it went longer. How much longer did it go? >> 6 weeks. Seven. >> It wasn't just Robert who was under
00:41:01
suspicion. Police had their eyes on his two sons, Tony and Oliver. >> Here you had just lost your grandparents
00:41:12
and all of a sudden the police are questioning you. How tough was that? >> It wasn't a good experience.
00:41:21
>> That's Oliver who went through hours of interrogation. Now, at one point they did I think there
00:41:30
was like a a good cop bad cop routine or something, but I had volunteered. I agreed to to help him out with the
00:41:38
investigation. >> Oliver had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. His brother Tony was a year younger.
00:41:46
Tony had volunteered for the US Army and even served in the California Conservation Corps for a year. But Tony
00:41:55
may have had his own struggles. Investigators had found a disturbing drawing, an image of a man with a knife
00:42:04
standing over two children in a bed. It had been drawn by Tony. Investigators zeroed in on the two
00:42:13
brothers, but there was still no physical evidence connecting them to the murders, only circumstantial
00:42:22
theories. Were you worried that as time went on and they didn't have any evidence and they
00:42:30
didn't have any suspects that they might arrest one of your sons? >> I was I was worried that possibly
00:42:39
one of my sons could be arrested. I didn't think there was the slightest chance that he could ever be charged or
00:42:44
indicted or certainly not convicted. Other members of my family became so concerned that they uh kind of insisted
00:42:51
on getting a criminal defense attorney for my younger son. This was weeks into the investigation after well we've
00:42:58
already voluntarily cooperated with dozens I'm I'm not exaggerating dozens of hours of questioning.
00:43:04
>> Oliver told me that the pressure on him and his brother wore them down. >> Were you scared?
00:43:12
>> Very nervous. >> What was your fear? What was your fear at that point? I was tired of it and I
00:43:18
didn't want to be blamed for something I didn't do. This horrifying. >> And his father, Robert, shared those
00:43:26
same fears. >> I mostly fear that the suspicion would have never gone away. The case would
00:43:33
have never been closed and and we would have remained just the only the only real suspects. I mean, was
00:43:41
there Did you feel that other people in the community were wondering about your family? Did you feel it, Oliver? Did you
00:43:48
feel like >> I was worried that people might have had the wrong idea about me? >> And what's that feel like?
00:43:58
>> Alone. The Northups began to feel they had to prove their innocence, not only to the
00:44:05
police, but to everyone around them in the Davis community. Our neighbors saw a dozen unformed
00:44:13
officers go in and do an 8-hour search and and they knew that they knew what it was related to and well, they must be
00:44:21
suspects in this murder. >> According to Robert, the investigation ended up costing his family tens of
00:44:28
thousands of dollars. They had to replace the carpet, plumbing fixtures, and the flooring that was
00:44:35
pulled up and taken as evidence. They lost work opportunities when their computers were seized.
00:44:43
Insurance covered some of the costs, but not all. And it certainly didn't touch the emotional damages they suffered.
00:44:52
>> You kind of laugh about it now >> kind of. But what was that really like to go through?
00:44:59
a nightmare. >> Through it all, however, the family's faith in Oliver and Tony's innocence
00:45:06
never wavered. >> The only thing I can say is that they were the three of them. They're not
00:45:20
violent. None of them. >> To Mary, the police had it all wrong. There was no chance Robert or his sons
00:45:30
would kill Chip and Claudia. >> My father was always providing emotional support for all three of them. He's the
00:45:40
last person they would have tried to kill. >> Do you think that the police were listening to other members of the family
00:45:46
saying that when you told them that when there's no way it could >> there? They obviously didn't listen to
00:45:51
me. Uh because I told them there isn't anybody in the family that would have done this. There was nothing that would
00:45:57
have warranted murder. There just wasn't. I was very angry because they took the
00:46:05
members of the family that needed more emotional support. They put them under a great deal of pressure.
00:46:12
>> Mary broke it down plain and simple. I don't mean to sound flippant, but my father was 87. But honestly, why wait
00:46:22
and kill him at 87 if he's just a, you know, five years or so away from death anyway? You waited this long, wait a
00:46:29
little longer if it were a family member. I'm just speaking logically. It made no sense that at this point in time
00:46:35
a family member would kill him. There wasn't any money involved. There wasn't anything that my father would have given
00:46:42
to that day that he wouldn't still have later. And the longer the investigation went on without any arrests, the more
00:46:52
uneasy the family became. >> And it did create problems within the family. And you know, I not I don't know how
00:47:04
much it was just the investigation. It the difficulty of living in the town, waking up every day wondering, you know,
00:47:11
what's going to happen today? Is everybody still alive? that kind of a thing. >> What a horrible thing to go through.
00:47:19
>> I don't think we have a a vocabulary that can really describe it. >> I think in this case, we were just sort
00:47:30
of stumped and because how weird the murder scene was. Lieutenant Paul Durashave and the rest of the Davis
00:47:37
police had spent weeks investigating the case, but they had found nothing but weak circumstantial evidence and
00:47:45
theories that weren't panning out. Maybe the family wasn't involved after all. I think we all thought there was a
00:47:57
possibility it was some kind of throw kill and there's this u suspect out there. it's not connected to the
00:48:03
victims, which was probably our worst fear because at that point, you know, how do you keep people safe if someone
00:48:09
out there is like that? >> So, they decided to call in a specialized FBI team. >> A crime such as this, that's more of an
00:48:19
interior motive where this person has a fantasy. That's the one that the profilers really
00:48:26
can sink their teeth into. FBI special agent Chris Campion led the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime
00:48:34
in Sacramento. >> The way I like to explain it to people is if you ever watch the TV shows where
00:48:40
the profilers from Quantico get off the plane and meet the agent in the field, that's me.
00:48:46
>> Special Agent Campion's team was 25 agents in total. They specialize in analysis of violent crimes and
00:48:55
behavioral aspects of criminal investigations. I would do the prep work. I would screen
00:49:02
the cases. If we can help with the police or sheriff's departments that are uh asking us for help, then we'll help
00:49:09
them. But when it gets time for the profilers to be involved, then we would be the ones that would help package the
00:49:15
case up and present it to the profilers in Quanico. Through his experience, Special Asia Campion knew what details
00:49:22
were important to share and showcase. >> Some of the really kind of outlandish factors here is the post-mortem cutting.
00:49:32
You don't see that a lot after the victim's already dead for them to be the offender to be cutting and experimenting
00:49:40
apparently with the uh the dead body. And then the placement of the objects he placed, I think it was a phone um inside
00:49:47
the the wife and then glass inside the husband. That's weird. >> I mean, had you ever run into anything
00:49:54
like that before? >> We had not run into that. >> With Campion's expertise, the FBI
00:50:01
started building out a profile as fast as they could with a few facts they had been given.
00:50:08
We thought we were looking for somebody who was probably between 20 and 30, probably a white male, probably lived
00:50:15
close by or had some kind of reason to be in the neighborhood. And we thought that this person would have had some
00:50:22
precursor crimes that he would have had prior assault or even, you know, at least a burglary or maybe even something
00:50:29
much more minor like a peeping, you know, or some kind of a trespass case. What were the factors that made you
00:50:36
think it would be someone between 20 and 30, white male with a criminal history?
00:50:41
>> The profilers back at Quantico see thousands and thousands of cases. They've interviewed offenders in prison.
00:50:48
They have data um sets that um they coalate and it's not an exact science. I mean, we're talking about probabilities
00:50:56
here. Even after bringing in a special team, investigators were still unable to pin
00:51:06
down a primary suspect. In the end, it wasn't the profile they had developed, but a surprise tip that pointed them in
00:51:17
the direction they needed to go. >> Davis, place emergency. >> Uh, can this be anonymous?
00:51:26
Two months after Chip Northup and Claudia Mopin were murdered, the Davis Police Department got a 911 call.
00:51:35
>> What are you reporting? >> Double homicide. Um, the double homicide that happened in April this year.
00:51:42
>> You have like the suspect information? >> Yes, I have. I know him. I know every He
00:51:47
tells me everything that happened, everything he did, like all the little details.
00:51:54
That's next time on 15 inside the Daniel Marsh murders. This series was reported by me, Aaron
00:52:10
Morardi. Alan Pang is our producer, Mora Walls is our story editor, and Jamie Benson is the senior producer. Megan
00:52:20
Marcus is the vice president of podcast editorial for CBS. Special thanks to 48 hours executive
00:52:28
producer Judy Tyiggard along with 48 hours producers Judy Ryback, Stephanie Slifer, and Greg Fiser from Goat Rodeo.
00:52:39
This podcast was written and produced by Cara Schillin, Max Johnston, Jay Venibals, Isabelle Kirby McGawan, Megan
00:52:49
Nadulski, and Ian Enright. Additional reporting and recording by Carara Schillin. Our executive producers
00:52:58
at Goat Rodeo are Megan Nadulski and Ian Enright. Original theme in music by Hans
00:53:05
Delshi with additional music from Paramount. Final mix by Rebecca Sidell. Then Fulton is our fact checker. Our
00:53:16
production manager is Carara Schillin. I'm Aaron Morardi. If you're enjoying this show, be sure to give it a rating
00:53:24
and review. It helps more people find it and hear our reporting. If you liked 15
00:53:32
Inside the Daniel Marsh Murders, check out the rest of our 48 hours podcasts by searching 48 hours on your favorite
00:53:42
podcast app. Thanks for listening. Before we begin, just a trigger warning. The following episode contains
00:54:07
references to graphic physical violence and suicide. Please listen with care. >> Hi, this is Corpal Allen.
00:54:17
>> Hello, >> this is Corporal Allen. Who am I speaking with? >> Uh, I want to remain anonymous. Is that
00:54:22
okay? >> For 2 months, police have relentlessly searched for the killer of Chip Northup
00:54:30
and Claudia Mopin. Officers had interviewed the family and people who knew the couple. They'd set up a hotline
00:54:39
to receive tips, but nothing had panned out. And then late on the evening of June 15th, 2013,
00:54:49
911 Dispatch received an anonymous call. They transferred it to the Davis Police
00:54:57
Department. >> Okay. Uh, what are you calling to report, sir? >> Um, the double homicide that happened in
00:55:04
April this year. To determine if the caller was a crank or not, Corporal Scott Allen asked the
00:55:14
person to share details about the crime. And then he introduced the caller to Corporal Kirth Breznik, who knew more
00:55:23
about the continuing murder investigation. >> Would you mind kind of giving me the
00:55:32
details of of the information that you have? >> Yeah. Um, the person who did it, he told me
00:55:38
everything. He told me everything he did step by step. >> The caller clearly knew a lot about the
00:55:47
murders and had information that the police hadn't shared with the public or even the victim's family.
00:55:56
He told me he stabbed her in like the stomach area like 20 to 40 times. He was telling me he was just going at it and
00:56:04
um well he said he he did that and she was screaming. For weeks the authorities have been
00:56:14
looking at friends, family, anyone who had crossed paths with Claudia and Chip trying to piece together who might have
00:56:22
brutally murdered this beloved couple. >> Uh I grew up with this person >> here in Davis.
00:56:30
>> Yes. And I've known him I knew him better than anyone else. >> But what this caller revealed was beyond
00:56:39
anything they had imagined. The person the anonymous caller knew better than anyone else. Was named
00:56:48
Daniel Marsh. He was 15 years old. >> He's a I think the word is psychotic. Basically, he's the kind of person that
00:56:59
likes to see something hurt. >> I'm 48 Hours correspondent Aaron Morardi and this is 15 Inside the Daniel Marsh
00:57:16
Murders, episode 3, A Strange Tip. After spending hours on the phone with police, the clearly nervous anonymous
00:57:33
caller finally agreed to come down to the police station to talk in person. >> Can I get some water?
00:57:41
>> Uh, yes, please. I need some water. Water. >> The teenage tipster was Alvaro Garbe. He
00:57:50
arrived at the station early the following morning. there. Police led him into a small room and offered to grab
00:57:58
him some snacks. Alvaro was skinny with long black hair that was pulled up into a ponytail. He
00:58:06
wore dark frame glasses. A camera in the room captured Alvaro as he nervously rubbed his hands together and tapped on
00:58:16
the table next to him until the officers came back into the room. >> How old are you? I'm 17.
00:58:23
>> 17. >> Okay. Um, since we just met, do you mind if uh you spell me your name again?
00:58:30
>> A L V A R O. >> At first, investigators weren't sure what to make of Alvaro's phoned in tip.
00:58:41
Given his intimate knowledge of the crime, they had to consider the possibility that he himself could have
00:58:49
been involved. So they read him his rights. >> So um you had the right to make your
00:58:56
time. Anything you say can will be used against you in court of law. You understand?
00:58:59
>> Yeah. >> Can't write your attorney um before and during questioning if you can't
00:59:04
affordable will be afforded to you. No cost. Do you understand that? >> Okay. >> Well, I don't really but I've heard that
00:59:11
tons of times on TV. >> I later sat down with Alvaro Garab in 2018. 5 years after Chip and Claudia were
00:59:23
killed, Alva was then 22 years old with a full beard. They thought you were involved.
00:59:31
>> Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, I I mean, I retrospect, I totally get it. I mean, I'm like some random kid saying that
00:59:37
this person committed a crime. I'm like, you know, kind of freaked out at the time.
00:59:44
>> The story that he had shared with the police still haunted him. the story of his once close friendship with a teenage
00:59:53
boy named Daniel Marsh. When I first met him, he was very shy and very quiet. >> Avaro met Daniel in seventh grade at
01:00:05
Holmes Junior High School. Both of them were lonely, self-described outcasts who
01:00:12
bonded over their mutual love of the heavy metal band Disturbed. Like we just hung out a lot.
01:00:20
>> What would you do when you'd hang out? >> Just like play video games and then just
01:00:23
like watch music videos and go on YouTube. Like watch like the dumbest YouTube videos ever. And we just sit
01:00:31
there and laugh for like hours, you know, like those like like like can't breathe kind of laughing.
01:00:39
>> Alo said that he and Daniel became fast friends, almost family. Daniel would talk to him about his rocky
01:00:48
home life. When Daniel was 10 years old, his parents separated and his mother had
01:00:54
an affair with a woman. When his parents divorced shortly after, Daniel said he felt abandoned. Alvaro told me that the
01:01:04
situation infuriated Daniel, who over time directed his anger at the woman that his mother was involved with. He
01:01:14
hated her like abs. Like cuz he would tell me that I know this woman was involved in my parents' divorce and I
01:01:22
just want to like strangle her to death. I remember him saying that to me. >> Did you think he was serious when he
01:01:29
talked about wanting to kill her? >> No. I mean, I knew Okay. Well, I kind of empathize cuz I'm like, "Okay, I guess
01:01:35
if this one, if there's a person, an individual that was was responsible for my parents' divorce, I would hate them,
01:01:41
too." You know, >> but enough to kill them. >> No. No. Well, he didn't kill her, but
01:01:46
you know. >> No, but he talked about it. >> Talked about it. Yeah. >> The conversations disturbed Alvaro, but
01:01:54
he remained close with Daniel. In high school, they smoked marijuana together, played guitar, and watched YouTube
01:02:03
videos. But eventually, Alvaro said Daniel started spending hours watching very disturbing content, videos of
01:02:13
torture and beheadings. As I warned you earlier, what you're about to hear is disturbing.
01:02:24
There was this one torture video that really like hit me that made me feel like more more uncomfortable and more
01:02:30
unsettled, which was a a video of this person um uh drowning somebody. They have like a video of somebody like, you
01:02:37
know, like a scarf on their face and just like putting them under a tub and just drowning them.
01:02:43
>> Alvaro was upset by what he saw, but he said that Daniel seemed to enjoy the videos.
01:02:50
He just sat there, you know, just kind of like, whoa, what's going on? I think like fascinated by it.
01:02:59
When we spoke, Alvaro explained that he thought Daniel's interest in violence and hurting people was just a way to
01:03:08
destress, not something he'd try to replicate. >> That's how I took it. I never thought in
01:03:16
reality this person was actually going to go do something about it. You know, after Daniel's parents divorced, things
01:03:32
became even more tense between Daniel, his parents, and his mother's new partner. According to Alvaro, Daniel,
01:03:40
then 14 years old, became fixated with his weight. How thin did he get? I mean, was it
01:03:48
really a problem? >> He got really thin. I think I have a couple photos of him and I hanging out,
01:03:52
and he looks like like bones. >> Daniel would starve himself for extended periods of time, and he regularly talked
01:04:02
about death. And was he taking medications? He was taking anti-depressants. >> Did he talk about what was going on in
01:04:11
his head and his thoughts? >> He would tell me a lot about suicide. >> Daniel was sent to various therapists
01:04:21
according to Alvaro and doctors tried to deal with his behavioral and health issues.
01:04:28
In 2012, Daniel told a school guidance counselor that he fantasized about killing people. The counselor called
01:04:37
police who hospitalized Daniel because of the danger he posed to himself and others.
01:04:45
When Daniel would go through these depressive episodes, writing became an outlet for him.
01:04:51
>> And he was like, "Yeah, I've been doing a lot of writing lately." And I was like, "Oh, cool. What are you writing?"
01:04:55
I was like, "Uh, just stuff." And I was like, "Oh, okay." Like lyrics. And I was
01:04:59
like, "Nope." I was like, "Oh, okay." The police had shared with me pages copied from Daniel's personal journal
01:05:06
from this time period, and I showed them to Alvaro. >> You want me to go through this? Cuz it's
01:05:14
crazy stuff. >> I know. Well, tell me why you say it's crazy stuff. >> Cuz it's like it's just just random
01:05:25
streams of consciousness. What the hell is this? >> Hard to read at all. That looks like
01:05:31
someone with a gun. >> Yeah. >> In his mouth. >> I pulled out one page that Alvaro had
01:05:38
already seen. Daniel himself had shown it to him. The page was covered with drawings of skulls mixed with references
01:05:48
to serial killers Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dmer and song lyrics about sex and murder.
01:05:57
>> This is kind of scary when you look at it. it. >> Oh my gosh. Like, you don't even Okay,
01:06:02
so when I first saw this, I didn't think too much about it. Now I'm like 22 looking at this. It blows my mind that I
01:06:10
like didn't even like think about what like could happen. >> Another page was covered in exploives.
01:06:21
>> There's one that's uh like kill Daniel seemed able to keep much of that anger bottled inside.
01:06:36
In high school, he and Alvaro dated girls, and they all started hanging out together as a group.
01:06:44
But then over time, Daniel's girlfriend also observed troubling behavior. She called Alvaro.
01:06:53
I remember her just being like kind of panicky and just very like I don't think Dan's okay, you know? Like I I think
01:06:59
he's like messed up or like he's got like something going on where he's like he just like snapped at me.
01:07:07
Some of Daniel's journal entries involved his girlfriend. And these ones didn't just talk vaguely about murder.
01:07:16
They showed just how seriously Daniel was thinking about killing. Okay. Wow. >> What is that?
01:07:26
>> This is him planning to kill uh her ex-boyfriend. He keeps keeps writing, "I am ready."
01:07:39
In his original interview with police, Alvaro described the weekend of April 13th, 2013.
01:07:48
It was the weekend of Alvaro's 17th birthday, the same weekend that Chip and Claudia were murdered.
01:07:57
Alvaro spent the time playing video games. He went to Guitar Center with his family. His friend Daniel didn't join
01:08:06
him, but he did invite Alvaro to hang out that Sunday to talk about something important.
01:08:15
M >> he said, "I want to tell you something important." >> Yeah. And he told me he had a he had an
01:08:23
interesting night and he wanted to talk about it. >> Avoid Daniel wanted to tell him about
01:08:30
the interesting night he had had hours earlier. >> Like he started off by like telling me
01:08:38
that he killed two people and then they told him, "I don't want to hear about it. I want to know about it."
01:08:44
According to Alvaro, Daniel said he killed two people. Alvaro didn't know what to make of what Daniel just told
01:08:52
him, and he didn't want to hear anymore, so he left. But Alvaro told me that the
01:08:59
next day, Daniel still wanted to talk to him. And then on Monday, uh, I go to school, I go to lunch, and
01:09:10
I, uh, sit down with my friend group, Dan comes up to me, walks up to me, and he like, he's like, "Hey man, I need to
01:09:16
talk to you." I'm like, "Oh, okay. What about?" And I was like, "Just just come with me." And then like brings me up to
01:09:20
the side by a locker room, and he's like, "Hey, man. I made the news." And I'm like, "Okay, what do you mean by
01:09:26
that?" You know, like, "What do you mean you made the news?" Oh, okay. Well, I'll
01:09:30
just talk to you about it later. Later on in social studies class, someone told Alvaro about a story they
01:09:41
had read in the newspaper. It was about a double homicide that had taken place over the weekend.
01:09:50
>> And I was like, "Oh, snap. All right." And then that's where everything kind of
01:09:55
just like turns into a movie. Alvaro began connecting the dots. Later, he received a text from Daniel to come
01:10:06
over to his house. And then when I go to his room, like, you know, like I just walk in, he's
01:10:15
sitting on on the on his um, you know, rolling chair, you know, by his computer, and I sit on the side of his
01:10:21
bed and then he starts telling me like, you know, he's like, "So, uh, I actually
01:10:26
did it." And then I I don't like talking about this too much. >> I know, but tell me what you can just
01:10:34
describe what he told you. He had >> So when uh he gave me basically I'd say like a
01:10:42
rundown of what he did. And this is what Daniel told him. That on Saturday, instead of attending
01:10:53
Alvaro's birthday celebrations, Daniel had put on all black clothing and a ski mask over his face. He told Alvaro
01:11:03
that he had grabbed his mother's 6-in hunting knife and then left his home in the darkness of the night.
01:11:12
>> You showed me the knife, the weapon. Um, uh, >> his shoes. >> Yeah, his shoes.
01:11:19
>> Daniel had thought of everything, Alvaro said, even wrapping the bottom of his
01:11:25
boots in duct tape so he wouldn't leave any footprints. In his rundown, he told me how he broke
01:11:34
into the house and then the entire act of uh, of killing those two people, like step by step, like every move.
01:11:42
>> Did it seem real at that point? No, no. Everything just didn't make any sense.
01:11:52
>> And why did he do this? Why did he tell you he was doing this? I >> I I have no idea. I honestly I think
01:11:59
about that a lot. >> Did he seem proud of what he had done? >> Yeah. Oh, yeah. He seemed very like
01:12:05
content and, you know, took a lot of I mean, it sounded like he took a lot of pleasure out of it. Did you get the
01:12:13
impression he was kind of bragging to you about what he had just done? >> Yeah, he was chuckling. He was laughing
01:12:18
about, you know, putting in objects in their body. >> The details were so upsetting to Alvaro,
01:12:27
so difficult to absorb, he didn't know how to respond to Daniel's story. >> I felt like throwing up, felt like
01:12:38
I couldn't feel anything. Felt very numb. And I just walked out. My head's just running, spinning, and then I'm
01:12:43
like looking at the door and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, like I need to get out of here." And like I I had this feeling
01:12:48
that the police were going to break in here and like I need like shaking. Alvaro had told me that he was shaking
01:13:05
and he felt like throwing up after hearing Daniel confess to the crimes. But still, Alvo didn't immediately go to
01:13:15
the police. >> You knew he had just killed two people. Why didn't you tell >> anybody?
01:13:22
>> I I don't know. >> But you knew he might hurt somebody else. >> It was just like one of those things
01:13:29
that you just kind of I just wasn't facing it. >> So, help me understand why not.
01:13:37
The two of you know, both of you, you both know. >> Well, okay, you're in high school.
01:13:43
How do you How do you approach this? >> You call the boys. >> Yeah. Well, I mean, that's obviously
01:13:49
that's easier said than done. I'm like freaking out about what's going to happen. What if I call the police? How's
01:13:55
that how's this going to affect me? Is this going to follow me all my whole life? You know, is there any way I can
01:13:59
do this anonymous? After Daniel told Alvaro about the murders, Alvaro was too scared to go to
01:14:07
the police. But the one thing he did do was cut off all contact with Daniel. That's when I des like stopped talking
01:14:19
to him, stopped texting him. I told him I needed space. Hey man, like hey, I just like I need a moment, man. like I I
01:14:25
can't just, you know, I didn't I tried my best to not let him feel like I was downing or like, you know, making him
01:14:33
feel like you're unfriending him. Try my best. I was just like, "Hey, man, like I
01:14:37
just need space." You know, like I didn't tell him why. >> He didn't want to call the police at
01:14:44
first. Instead, Alvaro said he reached out to Daniel's father, Bill. And you know, I text him. I was like,
01:14:53
"Hey, man. Daniel was involved with that with the the the double homicide. Uh, I
01:14:58
don't know what to do. I'm thinking about calling the police." Something along the lines of that.
01:15:04
Bill and Alvaro's accounts of this differ. But according to Alvaro, Bill was stunned by the accusation and
01:15:12
refused to believe that Daniel could have committed such a crime. And so Dan's dad said, "You're
01:15:20
overreacted. He wouldn't do this. >> Yeah. >> He didn't believe you. >> I mean, it's his son and it's just like,
01:15:26
"No, of course he didn't believe me, you know." >> So, Alvaro kept his mouth shut and tried
01:15:34
to go on with his life while police began investigating the murders. But a few weeks later, Daniel approached
01:15:43
him at school. >> He came up to me and he was like, "Dude, like what what are you doing?" Like, you
01:15:49
know, like how come you're not talking to me? like why are you and I told him I I just I remember having just like this
01:15:54
like public you know just hey man I I don't want to be your friend you know like don't talk to me and then you know
01:16:00
he just like starts yelling at me and I'm like yeah whatever and I just like walk out of the school
01:16:07
at that point Alvaro had become scared of Daniel fearful to be around him knew that Daniel regularly carried a knife
01:16:16
around so he told a guidance counselor that Daniel had one at school. Alvaro said that got Daniel expelled.
01:16:28
Afterwards, Daniel wasn't supposed to return to the campus, but he did. And while there, he approached Alvaro again.
01:16:40
And he's just like uh threatened to like attack me if I don't like, you know, talk to him. He wants to
01:16:47
know what's going on. Why is he why am I not speaking to him? You know, uh, that's basically it. And I just kind of
01:16:56
like freaked out and like ran. >> Soon after, Alvaro was on the phone with Daniel's girlfriend and suddenly she
01:17:06
started panicking >> and she's like, "Hey, uh, I think I think someone's in my house." You know,
01:17:12
cuz she hears noises in the backyard and, uh, and she's like, "I got to go." And she hangs up, right? She texted me,
01:17:18
"Dan, uh, Dan just broke into my house." I'm like, "How do you get in?" I'm like,
01:17:22
"Through the doggy door." And I'm like, "Whoa, okay." Uh, I'm like freaking out now. I'm like panting in my room. I'm
01:17:28
like, "I got to do something. I got to," you know? I'm like, "Uh, what am I going
01:17:30
to do? What am I going to do?" And that's when Alvaro grabbed a phone, called 911,
01:17:39
and became that anonymous caller that you heard at the top of the episode. Over the course of several more phone
01:17:47
calls, he was eventually connected with corporals Scott Allen and Kirth Breznik.
01:17:54
Alvaro didn't want to give them his name, but eventually he became more comfortable and started calling Corporal
01:18:01
Breznik KB. Officer KB, she's very nice. She was like, "Okay, well, in order for me to
01:18:10
follow up with you, I need you to actually give me your name." And I'm like, "Okay, all right. I'm going to
01:18:16
come over to your house and we're going to talk about this." And I'm like, it's like it's like 2:00 in the morning. I'm
01:18:20
like, "Okay, gotcha." And like she comes over and we have a chat and then she takes me to the uh police department.
01:18:29
Alvaro spent hours with police in that interrogation room. He told them about what Daniel had confessed to him about
01:18:37
his actions on the weekend of April 13th. He told me he got a Yeah. He got duct tape to put under his shoe. So then you
01:18:46
guys wanted to like find his footprints or shoe prints or something like that. Mhm.
01:18:51
>> He went there. Uh he uh he went to the back of the house. >> It was the first real break in the case.
01:18:59
Investigators had closely guarded the details of Chip and Claudia's murders. And now inside that interrogation room,
01:19:09
Alvaro was sharing gruesome details from the crime scene. You cut both of them open
01:19:17
just to see the insides or something. >> Alvaro had told the investigators everything he knew. The police were
01:19:27
going to allow him to go home, but first they wanted to try something. They asked
01:19:34
Alvaro if he could call Daniel and ask him about the murders while police recorded the call.
01:19:44
>> Going back to uh a possible phone call or talking to Daniel. >> Yeah, I can do that.
01:19:52
>> Alvaro tried contacting Daniel, but Daniel didn't answer any calls or texts. And that's when investigators decided it
01:20:03
was time to bring Daniel Marsh in for questioning. >> That that you were there that you did
01:20:10
those murders. >> Me? That's ridiculous. Why is it ridiculous? I'm a kid. Coming up next on 15. Inside the Daniel
01:20:30
Marsh murders. This series was reported by me, Aaron Morardi. Alan Pang is our producer. Mora
01:20:50
Walls is our story editor. and Jamie Benson is a senior producer. Megan Marcus is the vice president of podcast
01:20:59
editorial for CBS. Special thanks to 48 hours executive producer Judy Tyiggard along with 48
01:21:08
hours producers Judy Ryback, Stephanie Slifer, and Greg Fiser from Goat Rodeo. This podcast was written and produced by
01:21:18
Cara Schillin, Max Johnston, Jay Venibals, Isabelle Kirby McGawan, Megan Nadulski, and Ian Enright.
01:21:28
Additional reporting and recording by Cara Schillin. Our executive producers at Goat Rodeo are Megan Nadulski and Ian
01:21:37
Enright. Original theme in music by Hans Delshi with additional music from Paramount.
01:21:46
Final mix by Rebecca Sidell. Then Fulton is our fact checker. Our production manager is Carara Schillin. I'm Aaron
01:21:56
Morardi. If you're enjoying this show, be sure to give it a rating and review. It helps more people find it and hear
01:22:04
our reporting. If you liked 15 inside the Daniel Marsh murders, check out the rest of our 48 hours podcasts by
01:22:14
searching 48 hours on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for listening. Before we begin, just a trigger warning.
01:22:42
The following episode does include mentions of graphic physical violence and suicide. So, please listen with
01:22:50
care. >> Okay. So, uh I go ahead and please form it. Okay. So, I have to read this stuff to you. Okay.
01:23:00
You understand? Yeah. All right. >> On June 17th, 2013, almost 2 months after Chip Northup and
01:23:08
Claudia Mopin were found dead inside the safety of their bedroom. Investigators asked the police officer who worked at
01:23:16
Daniel Marsh's school to bring the teenager into the station. >> Uh, you have the right to remain silent.
01:23:23
Do you understand? >> Yes. Anything you say maybe is against you in court. You understand? Yep.
01:23:29
>> Daniel would be questioned alone even though he had just turned 16. California
01:23:35
law states that minors can be questioned without parents present if law enforcement has reasonable belief that
01:23:44
they were involved in a crime. At no point did Daniel request his parents' presence. When the officer read
01:23:52
him his Miranda rights, Daniel waved his right to an attorney. And then Detective Ariel Panetta began
01:24:01
the interview. >> Hey, I'll sit right here. Okay, I'll sit right here for you. >> Uh, I'm all right. You good?
01:24:10
>> Daniel was a little scruffy with long blond hair, thin and wiry. He looked like a regular teenager. A little
01:24:19
jittery and awkward. >> And student? >> Yeah. At high school. >> What uh year are you? Um I'm going into
01:24:29
my junior year. >> Officer Panetta told Daniel why they had asked him to come to the station. You
01:24:37
may notice, but we have an investigation going on in Davis in regards to some murders and we have some information um
01:24:44
indicated. You may you may know about it or you have some information as well. Um
01:24:49
so that's why I'm here to ask you about that. Okay. So, >> but instead of questioning Daniel about
01:24:57
the murders, Detective Panetta started with the basics. School, friends, family. Daniel told the detective that
01:25:07
his life was stressful. >> How have you um been able to deal with some of that stress?
01:25:15
>> Uh honestly, I smoke pot. >> Okay. Like I don't do it for any other reason than
01:25:23
to deal with my depression and my anxiety and all the that happens. It's just kind of,
01:25:31
you know, a little bit of a relief temporarily. like for a little bit I can just relax.
01:25:37
I can just everything's all right right now. You know, >> it was actually Daniel who first brought
01:25:44
up Chip and Claudia. He was telling Detective Panetta about his parents' divorce.
01:25:52
>> So you dad moved down South Davis. He said apartment. >> Uh yeah, it was an apartment.
01:26:01
>> Okay. Mhm. What was that of? I I don't remember. Um I know that it was like I think there
01:26:11
were neighbors with the people who got killed. >> Okay. >> Cuz I know like they were either next
01:26:17
door or within like a few houses of theirs. >> Daniel told the detective that within a
01:26:24
week after the murders, his father had moved out of the neighborhood. >> Well, it freaked him out, you know. I
01:26:32
mean, you wake up and you find like the people next to you are dead. It's like, wow, that could have been us, you know?
01:26:41
And I guess it's just kind of scary in a way. It's spooky. Like, you want to just
01:26:46
get out of there? >> That was the perfect opening for Panetta. >> Yeah. You So, you you do know about the
01:26:57
uh the murders that we're investigating. I mean, it's Davis. When something like
01:27:03
that happens here, it's like, holy crap, everybody knows about it, hears about it.
01:27:08
>> Uh, tell me what you know about it. Um, I think there were like an elderly couple or something.
01:27:20
I know that somebody broke in and like stabbed these two people, but I don't really know anything else.
01:27:29
But as law enforcement officers questioned Daniel over the next 5 hours, they learned he knew quite a bit more
01:27:38
than that. I'm 48 hours correspondent Aaron Morardi and this is 15 inside the Daniel Marsh
01:27:54
murders. Episode 4, The Unlikely Suspect. >> What was your reaction when you heard
01:28:06
that the main suspect was a 15-year-old boy? >> It It shocked me. >> Special Agent Chris Campion worked in
01:28:16
the FBI's behavioral unit. The Davis Police Department had asked for his help the night before their sitdown with
01:28:24
Daniel Marsh. About an hour into the interview, Campion opened the door to the room.
01:28:32
>> I walked into the interview room and introduced myself and sat down and started talking to him.
01:28:37
>> Hi. Hi. You must be family. >> Yeah, I'm Chris Campion. Nice to meet you. >> Nice to meet you. I'm um from the FBI.
01:28:46
I spoke with special agent Campion in 2018, 5 years after he questioned Daniel. Daniel was no ordinary suspect, and I
01:28:58
wanted to hear more about how he approached the interview. >> We had pretty good evidence, probable
01:29:05
cause evidence, but certainly not enough to arrest him there and then. >> And your then hope is to get him to
01:29:12
admit what he did. Of course, that's our goal. At the same time, though, um teams
01:29:17
are searching his mother's house, where he lived most of the time, uh searching his father's house, where he he was at
01:29:23
some of the time, and some other locations that they were trying to gather other evidence at the same time.
01:29:29
>> Campion started the conversation by asking Daniel about his family. >> Dad and mom split when you were pretty
01:29:37
young. >> Yeah. Wow. And then mom basically left, abandoned you or your family as
01:29:46
>> Yeah. for like 3 or 4 months and she just kind of randomly turned up again. >> Campion then got Daniel to confirm
01:29:54
something his friend Alvaro had already told the police. Daniel said that his parents divorced after his mother had an
01:30:03
affair with a woman. >> It was actually my kindergarten teacher. >> Wow. Yeah. >> In the interview, you're not just asking
01:30:12
him about the crime at all. You're you're starting just talking to him. What's the purpose of the beginning of
01:30:17
the interview? >> Well, in any law enforcement interview or any interview, you try to get some
01:30:22
rapport going to make the person feel at ease, right? And so, that's what we try
01:30:26
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
01:30:34
drop a few hints and some themes that I might come back to later on. >> One of those themes Campion wanted to
01:30:41
pursue was trauma. He guessed that Daniel might relate to hearing about how people struggle like Daniel did with
01:30:50
mental health. doing the kind of work that I do, there is I see a lot of people who have had lives that are
01:31:01
just devastated, devastated by all sorts of different things. And the refuge is the key.
01:31:08
And uh we all do that. I mean, from combat veterans in Afghanistan and Iraq who come back and they have these
01:31:16
nightmares and they're haunted and >> PTSD and stuff. >> PTSD, right? We see those and we see
01:31:21
them do just some horrible things cuz they just want the the pain to stop. They want the they need the refuge. They
01:31:29
need someplace to go where they can feel something besides what they're feeling.
01:31:35
Does that make sense to you? >> Yeah. It's a way to escape, get some temporary relief,
01:31:40
>> right? Temporary relief from the hell that they're living in. >> Yeah. >> Does that sound kind of familiar to you?
01:31:49
>> Yeah. Campion spoke gently with Daniel and thought he had struck a chord with the
01:31:56
teenager. Daniel perked up as special agent Campion talked about the psychology of
01:32:02
criminals and his mission in law enforcement to heal people >> and not necessarily just the victims but
01:32:11
the people who do these horrendous things, what the public perceives as the horrendous things.
01:32:17
>> Yeah. They agreed that people might do horrible things, but that doesn't make
01:32:23
them horrible people. >> That's not what they planned on for their lives, right? But why did you get
01:32:30
there? How did you get there? And I ask them, you know, and they they're sometimes very honest and they say,
01:32:36
"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."
01:32:45
H somehow it might be a form of OCD. >> It's it's an obsession for sure and and it's a compulsion because they can't not
01:32:55
do it. >> Campion's approach to questioning fascinated me. I asked him where he was
01:33:03
going with it. >> Well, the biggest theme with Daniel that I I suspected is that he didn't feel
01:33:09
like anybody else could understand what was going on in his head. that he thought that he was unique, that that
01:33:16
nobody else felt like this. And so I tried to reassure him that I had talked to other people who have had these kind
01:33:25
of very dark thoughts and fantasies and that I wasn't going to look at him like he was an evil, terrible person that I
01:33:34
could understand, try to understand what was going on in his interior life, in his thoughts.
01:33:41
Daniel was opening up more and more. Campion learned that Daniel's father suffered from back and neck injuries.
01:33:50
How does he get along? I mean, that's got to be constant pain. >> Yeah, not very well. Uh, makes him
01:33:55
pretty irritable. Uh, doesn't help with his temper, but he's on a lot of painkillers. So,
01:34:03
>> does you look like one of those guys that we have so many in our society right now, Ben, that just are kind of
01:34:08
addicted, you know, like Brett Farre, a football player. And >> would you say that that's I say that
01:34:13
both my parents are addicted to painters. >> According to Daniel, there was one point
01:34:19
when he and his sister had to take care of their mom when she was diagnosed with
01:34:24
a disease affecting the nerves in her face. Uh, she has fibromyalgia and trigeminal
01:34:32
neuralgia and she might have MS. They're not sure yet. Daniel coped with his parents' behavior,
01:34:44
he said, by slowly trying to starve himself. Ultimately, he checked into an eating disorder clinic for 25 days.
01:34:56
But after treatment, he still sought other ways to harm himself. >> Kind of see a scar too there. Yeah.
01:35:04
>> Yeah. >> At that point, Special Agent Campion leaned forward to have a closer look.
01:35:12
Daniel extended his arm. >> I've attempted suicide in the past. >> Those aren't suicide attempts, so that's
01:35:19
something different. >> No, not at all. Those aren't that. But >> it what? No, this doesn't have anything
01:35:25
to do with the suicide. Okay. >> Daniel told Campion that his parents never found out about those attempts on
01:35:33
his own life. At the time of the police interview, Daniel had just turned 16. He had spent much of the conversation
01:35:43
with special agent Campion discussing the many problems in his life. But he also told him that his outlook on life
01:35:52
had started to improve somewhat when he began to take anti-depressant and anti-csychotic
01:36:00
medication. >> Yeah. Um got to the point where I actually wake up in the morning and I want to be
01:36:07
alive, you know, like I want to experience what life has now. I mean, I'm 16. I've just started. got my whole
01:36:17
life ahead of me. I experience all the things that they're already experienced. >> But Campion didn't see this revelation
01:36:26
quite the same way Daniel did. He didn't think Daniel Marsh was actually getting
01:36:33
better or healthier. Campion had reached a far more chilling conclusion. >> Well, to the casual observer, you might
01:36:42
think he's just, you know, he's getting through his depression and, you know, this is a good thing. He's looking
01:36:47
forward to a a life of doing positive things. In my mind, as I'm listening to that, I'm thinking he's looking forward
01:36:55
to being a serial killer. >> You're actually thinking that. And why are you getting that?
01:37:02
>> When I worked with the the profilers on on analyzing this case, and they've taught this to um people such as myself,
01:37:11
FBI agents out in the field for years. These people are fantasy driven. the, you know, the people who commit a crime,
01:37:18
like we saw in the crime scene photos of of this double murder, they're motivated
01:37:23
by a fantasy. They're they're interior life is completely obsessed with this fantasy that he has. And Daniels, we
01:37:32
find out later, is about death and mutilation and murder and gore. And uh so I knew that that was going on um in
01:37:42
his mind. So that's why I I felt pretty confident he was talking about looking forward to his future as a criminal.
01:37:49
This is what gave him pleasure. This is what gave him meaning in his life. This is what really thrilled him
01:37:59
and he he found that and could leave the depression behind. What exactly are you guys trying to
01:38:20
get from me? >> Daniel had asked, "What exactly are you guys trying to get from me?"
01:38:27
Close to 2 hours into questioning, FBI special agent Campion revealed concerns over some of Daniel's online postings.
01:38:38
people who are much more techsavvy than me cuz I'm just an old guy. I don't know
01:38:42
anything about anything. Found this thing called Tumblr. And your Tumblr page, is that the right
01:38:50
term? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Daniel had an account on Tumblr. It's a blogging platform where users can share
01:38:59
videos, pictures, or text posts. Daniel's page was public but under a pseudonym.
01:39:07
On it he had curated and saved a series of unsettling images. >> There were all sorts of images like Iraq
01:39:16
war deaths, you know, roadside bomb aftermath, um sniper killings, um horror movies, you know, Hollywood type horror
01:39:24
movie images, um all mixed together, crime scene photographs from different uh types of violent crimes. So he had a
01:39:32
little bit of everything, but it was the common theme was gore and violence and death.
01:39:38
>> How unusual is that for a 16-year-old? >> Very I think very unusual for any age.
01:39:43
Uh quite frankly, it's not a uh a focus or a an obsession um with most people. >> Campion kept patiently probing. He
01:39:57
needed to understand why Daniel focused so much on gore and violence. >> I'm wondering if it's a refuge for you,
01:40:06
Dan. In a way, kind of is. Um, got a dark, screwed up sense of humor. And actually, a lot of that stuff makes
01:40:17
me laugh when I see it. And I don't know, not a lot of stuff makes me laugh. >> Mhm. And so it's like I like horror
01:40:27
movies and it's just it's the same thing as a horror movie only it's real and since I don't have any connection to
01:40:34
whoever it happened to it doesn't really bother me. >> Right. So and it's kind of like the
01:40:42
cutting. It's it's a feeling, right? >> Yeah. Seriously. Like it makes me feel something and
01:40:50
I've just always kind of been into darker stuff. Darker stuff that would spook most
01:40:59
people seem to thrill Daniel. I don't know. It makes me like shocked and I don't know. I've fascinated with
01:41:11
anatomy and so like I don't know you can see what happened to them and how warped
01:41:20
their bodies are and just it's kind of fascinating to think like what could have done that? How did that happen?
01:41:28
Um why did that happen? Just how did this all come to play? And I don't know, sometimes they'll be like
01:41:40
in a funny pose or something and they'll just look like stupid and so like giggle at it.
01:41:49
Finally, Agent Campion got to the point of the long interview and directly brought up why Daniel was being asked
01:41:59
all these questions, the tips they received that he had killed Chip and Claudia,
01:42:07
that you were there, that you did those murders. Me? Mhm. That's ridiculous. >> Why is it ridiculous? I'm a kid.
01:42:26
>> No, that's Well, like I don't I don't hurt people. Like, you can ask anyone around me. I'm
01:42:36
a compassionate, affectionate person. I care about people. I don't hurt them. I mean, yeah, they piss me
01:42:43
off sometimes and they do some messed up but I care about people. >> What were you thinking at that point? I
01:42:53
mean, I found him kind of convincing. Did you at all? >> Um, no, I did not at that point. Um,
01:43:00
>> I mean, what would the normal innocent person do? >> Are you kidding me? You think I murdered
01:43:05
those people? Absolutely not. That's ridiculous. Are you really think it's me? something like that.
01:43:14
>> The FBI agent had just confronted Daniel with the reason they had brought him in.
01:43:20
They had evidence that Daniel committed the murders. Now, Campion had to get Daniel to admit it.
01:43:29
>> I see you as a person who has a need. You have a big need. you have a need for a refuge, maybe more than
01:43:40
anybody I've ever run across. And at age 16, just 16, that's remarkable. Um, I don't know if that's a good thing.
01:43:53
Probably not. But it is an unusual thing to see to meet a person like you, Dan, who is
01:44:01
been through some of the things you have and has this need, the compulsion, I think, the
01:44:10
the need to do something to feel. Well, yeah, but I don't hurt people. >> Over and over again, Daniel continued to
01:44:25
deny that he could have killed anyone. >> I don't want to kill anyone. I don't want to hurt anyone.
01:44:36
>> The person who did this, we will do it again. I have no doubt about it. They can't not.
01:44:46
It's the inside obsession. It's the compulsion. Well, then maybe that's where you'll
01:44:56
find your guy, sir. It's not me. >> Almost 3 hours had passed in the interview room. It was a standoff.
01:45:09
Special Agent Campion stepped out of the room. Daniel cracked his knuckles and wiped his face with a tissue. When
01:45:18
Campion returned, he was holding a DNA swab kit. >> Um, I'd like to take your DNA to check
01:45:26
it against things that have been found at the crime scene. Pretty much standard CSI kind of stuff.
01:45:33
Any problem with that? >> Okay. Special Agent Campion asked Daniel to remove his boots.
01:45:42
Then he again asked Daniel about the elderly couple who had lived near his father.
01:45:48
>> Have you ever been inside of that house? >> No. >> Either when they were there or when they
01:45:53
weren't there. >> When I went in once when we first moved there. >> Okay. What were the circumstances of
01:46:02
that? >> Neighbors. Meeting neighbors. It was just a little welcome thing, you know.
01:46:10
>> Daniel said that he had been to Chip and Claudia's house once when his father
01:46:15
first moved to the community. It was just a quote welcome thing, neighbors, meeting neighbors.
01:46:23
But it turned out that Daniel knew quite a lot about Chip and Claudia's home. He
01:46:29
had actually been invited inside with his father two years earlier. They show us around. I went in the
01:46:38
kitchen and in the living room showed me where Show me their bedroom. Show me like I can use their bathroom at
01:46:48
one point. I think it was a long time ago. >> He was planting the in the contingency
01:46:58
that there was DNA evidence there. you planting the the thought that maybe that could have been the reason.
01:47:04
>> As another officer began opening the DNA swab packaging, Campion picked up Daniel's boots and began probing for
01:47:14
more information. >> Anything um unusual about these? Uh I don't I don't think so. Um you ever
01:47:26
worn them around blood? Um maybe I get a lot of nose bleeds. So maybe they got on that. Okay. But if
01:47:39
that was to be the case, it would be your luck. I >> We started talking about um his boots,
01:47:46
which I think he realized were the same boots that he had worn the night of the murders, and he realized he probably
01:47:52
didn't clean those to remove all of the physical evidence. uh we started talking
01:47:58
about his cell phone and the fact that cell phones are basically personal tracking devices and you know we could
01:48:04
track his movements on particular days and times. So those factors I think started weighing on him that he wasn't
01:48:11
going to be able to talk his way out of this and the walls started closing in on
01:48:15
him. You guys are threatening me with with what? The truth? With getting arrested for two murders.
01:48:28
I aming I am so scared right now. Of course, I'm going to do anything I can to try and say that I didn't do
01:48:38
this. That was um the first sign that he was getting over that wall, that he was
01:48:44
getting ready to talk to us about what really happened. >> You want to help me and then don't ruin
01:48:50
my life. >> Anything send me to the psychiatric hospital. >> Backed into a corner
01:49:00
away. >> Daniel Marsh seemed to see that he was trapped. Chris, were you really prepared for what
01:49:10
he told you next? >> Um, no. >> Every time I look at someone in my mind, I see flashes of images of me killing them,
01:49:25
>> okay? >> In numerous ways, and numerous horrible ways, doing terrible things. I can't
01:49:31
help it. It's just what comes into my head when I see them. >> I don't want it to. Oh my god, it does.
01:49:37
But it does. Daniel admitted to special agent Campion that he had spent years thinking about
01:49:53
killing people and that he made it a reality on that April night. >> When was the first time you started
01:50:01
thinking about killing these people down the street? That night, I just I couldn't take it
01:50:08
anymore. I had to do it. I lost control a little. Okay. I just went into the street
01:50:22
and wandered around for a while just looking for who would be which house I should go to, who would be
01:50:34
a good thing. >> Daniel said he had walked through his father's South Davis neighborhood in the
01:50:41
middle of the night. He scouted most of the street and checked out 50 homes. >> Everyone had done a good job of locking
01:50:51
their doors and closing their windows until I got to their house. >> When he got to Chip and Claudia's home,
01:51:01
he noticed that they had left a back window open. So, he cut the screen and climbed through. I listened for a
01:51:11
snoring and I heard it, went to their bedroom. I opened the door and I just kind of stood over their bed
01:51:21
watching them sleep for a few minutes. My body was trembling. I was nervous but excited and exhilarated.
01:51:36
I was actually going to do it. I was there. It's finally happening. >> He said at that point Claudia woke up.
01:51:48
I just started standing. She over and over getting all strapped in the torso. And I
01:51:58
tried to get them. And then the husband woke up and he looked over and just as he looked over I
01:52:05
stabbed him in the neck. And he didn't stop. Daniel Marsh stabbed both Chip and Claudia a combined
01:52:18
128 times. >> Made sure they were both dead and then I just kind of kept stabbing their dead
01:52:26
bodies. Don't know why. I just felt right. Okay. So, even after they stopped moving, even when they were dead, I
01:52:36
wasn't done. >> Daniel admitted to all of it. >> I just kind of messed around with
01:52:47
messed around with them. Cut open both of their torsos around here. And in the woman, I put a phone in the side
01:53:00
of her. And I put a cup in the side of the guy. I don't know why. I really don't.
01:53:07
Okay. And I like cut open her leg. I don't know why I did that either. I just kind of wanted to see
01:53:17
>> the horrific details Daniel shared match crime scene reports and the autopsies.
01:53:25
But what he said afterwards was even more outrageous. I'm not going to lie, it felt
01:53:35
amazing. >> How did it feel? It >> felt great. I I It was pure happiness and adrenaline and dopamine just all of
01:53:53
it rushing over me. It's the most exhilarating, enjoyable feeling I've ever felt.
01:54:03
>> Special Agent Chris Campion never changed the tone of his voice during the hourslong interview. He never reacted
01:54:12
visibly to anything Daniel Marsh said to him. But he later admitted to me that Daniel Marsh was the most dangerous
01:54:22
suspect he had ever interviewed. With everything out in the open, Daniel was then willing to walk the police
01:54:31
through where they could find the rest of the evidence. The ski mask he wore, his gloves, his pants. He had stashed it
01:54:41
all in his mother's garage, but he kept the jacket. just kind of a little momento and a
01:54:48
constant reminder what happened just so I can see it and it'll kind of relive it.
01:55:02
>> Daniel knew his admission of guilt was going to lead to an arrest and was curious about what would come
01:55:11
next. Did you get the death penalty? I don't know. >> That was kind of farfetched.
01:55:18
>> You were 15, right? >> Yeah, I was 15 and got psychological issues of law. >> There was one moment from Campion's
01:55:32
interview with Daniel that especially shocked me. In my years of reporting on crime, I had never heard anything like
01:55:41
it in a police interrogation. For the prosecutors building a case against Daniel, it was just one more
01:55:50
example of how dangerous Daniel would be if he wasn't put behind bars for a long
01:55:58
time. That's next time on 15. Inside the Daniel Marsh murders. This series was reported by me, Aaron
01:56:17
Morardi. Alan Pang is our producer. Mora Walls is our story editor. And Jamie Benson is the senior producer. Megan
01:56:28
Marcus is the vice president of podcast editorial for CBS. Special thanks to 48 Hours executive
01:56:36
producer Judy Tyiggard along with 48 hours producers Judy Ryback, Stephanie Slifer, and Greg Fiser from Goat Rodeo.
01:56:47
This podcast was written and produced by Carara Schillin, Max Johnston, Jay Venibals, Isabelle Kirby McGawan, Megan
01:56:56
Nadulski, and Ian Enright. Additional reporting and recording by Cara Schillin. Our executive producers
01:57:06
at Goat Rodeo are Megan Nadulski and Ian Enright. Original theme in music by Hans
01:57:13
Del Shei with additional music from Paramount. Final mix by Rebecca Sidell. Then Fulton is our fact checker. Our
01:57:24
production manager is Carara Schillin. I'm Aaron Morardi. If you're enjoying this show, be sure to give it a rating
01:57:32
and review. It helps more people find it and hear our reporting. If you liked 15
01:57:40
inside the Daniel Marsh murders, check out the rest of our 48 hours podcasts by searching 48 hours on your favorite
01:57:50
podcast app. Thanks for listening. Before we begin, just a trigger warning. The following episode contains references to
01:58:17
graphic physical violence. Please listen with care. I mean, Chris, do you believe that
01:58:27
Daniel Marsh was a serial killer in training? >> Absolutely. Abs, without a doubt that if
01:58:34
if he had been allowed to keep on going, um, he actually talked about how he was
01:58:39
going to take his next victim. Almost 4 hours into questioning at the police station, Daniel Marsh admitted to
01:58:48
FBI special agent Chris Campion that he had murdered Claudia Min and Chip Northup. But he didn't stop there.
01:58:58
Campion learned the teenager was already thinking about his next killing. Well, I was going to basically
01:59:09
do this same thing only with a different mask and a different gloves, a different
01:59:13
jacket. And instead of breaking in, I figured I'd get somebody when they were alone at night out in the street or out
01:59:20
somewhere just find somebody alone at night and beat him to death with a baseball bat.
01:59:25
>> Okay. Did you have anybody in mind? No. Had you actually gone out looking for
01:59:34
someone? Yeah. >> He was someone who did not have a conscience. >> You believe Daniel Marsh is a
01:59:43
psychopath? >> I do. I believe Daniel Marsh is a psychopath. I I knew it when he was
01:59:48
talking to me. He actually admitted it. >> Cuz I don't feel sympathy for other people
01:59:54
at all. Don't feel empathy for them. And whether I like that or not, it's the way
02:00:04
it is. Just like I want to hurt people. Campion maintained his composure. And then he asked Daniel a question that
02:00:15
I had never heard in a police interrogation. >> So, how would you kill me? There's a lot of ways, I mean, that
02:00:25
you've thought of so far in the couple hours that we spent together here. Well, choking you to dust with your tie. Okay.
02:00:32
Uh, beating your face into the mirror until it broke and using the glass to cut your arteries. Uh, gouging your eyes
02:00:39
out and just smashing your face into the wall. Campion had asked, "How would you kill
02:00:50
me?" And almost immediately, Daniel had thought of three different gruesome ways
02:00:59
that he would do it. >> Nothing personal. >> I don't take it personal. Okay. It's
02:01:04
just that's what happens when you meet somebody, when you're thinking, when there's that time when you
02:01:11
>> involuntary. It's something that just happens. >> And I said I didn't take it personally
02:01:16
cuz I didn't I don't think I did anything to offend him, to upset him. Um, I think he literally thinks about
02:01:22
that with anybody he meets. That's what he thinks about doing. That's his fantasy life.
02:01:28
>> While Daniel was questioned, police had searched his mother's home. There they
02:01:34
found writings, drawings, a knife, duct tape, and clothing with Chip and Claudia's DNA.
02:01:43
Police also searched Daniel's father's home. When he found out his son was being questioned, he said he sent a
02:01:51
public defender down to the police station. Authorities finally had a suspect in
02:01:59
Chip Northup and Claudia Mopin's murders. And with physical evidence, DNA samples, and a complete confession, it
02:02:09
seemed like the case against Daniel was solid. But the fact that the suspect was
02:02:14
a teenager would complicate things for the prosecution. I'm 48 hours correspondent Aaron
02:02:30
Morardi. This is 15 inside the Daniel Marsh murders. Episode 5, A Killer's Mind.
02:02:52
When did you first hear the name Daniel Marsh? >> The victim's advocate as well as the
02:02:57
Davis police u liaison who was in charge of our case uh called and said that they
02:03:03
had made an arrest. Victoria Herd had finally gotten the call she had been anxiously waiting for.
02:03:11
>> I just remember shaking my head going, "What? What?" >> That anyone could kill her mother and
02:03:19
stepfather was difficult enough to believe. But a 15-year-old, a teenager, who was this boy named Daniel Marsh?
02:03:30
I'm in shock and then all of a sudden I get a burst of, you know, eldest daughter can do anything. And I said,
02:03:36
I've got to go to that arraignment. That arrangement's going to happen within 24
02:03:40
hours. I've got to go there and see this man, young man. So >> kid, >> kid. >> But Victoria would have to wait even
02:03:49
longer to see him. Because Daniel was a minor, his face was hidden by a wall at the arraignment.
02:03:57
>> My sister-in-law was with me. And I said, "I I have got to see him. I've got to look in his face and see this man who
02:04:04
killed my mother." >> Finally, she saw Daniel's face through a TV monitor. He looked like somebody who
02:04:12
would be one of my niec's boyfriends. He looked like some hippie kid from Davis.
02:04:17
When I was at the arraignment, his father sat in front of me. And uh I think it was my victim's advocate who
02:04:24
told me that was his father. And there was something strange. I didn't like it. I didn't like the feel.
02:04:32
>> Daniel's father is Bill Marsh. We spoke in 2018. >> Did it ever occur to you that your own
02:04:38
son could be involved in something like that? >> Not in a million years. >> You never saw any sign of that? You
02:04:45
never got a sense that your son >> If I had had any sense of it, I would have taken action.
02:04:51
>> Bill seemed to still struggle with what his son was accused of. Show me the pictures you have here. Tell me who this
02:04:58
is. >> This is This is Daniel in 2009. So that would have made him uh 12. >> This was about the time when you had the
02:05:07
heart attack. >> Yes. Right. >> One day in November 2009, Daniel was home with his father when Bill says he
02:05:18
had started feeling dizzy. >> And I I'd gone upstairs and taken a shower. Came down. I said, "Come on,
02:05:23
Dan. Let's go to the hospital. I got checked out. >> They got in the car and made it to the
02:05:28
corner of their street. >> Next thing I knew, I woke up and the car was ran into a wall covered in bushes
02:05:34
and a tree. I asked Daniel, "How did we wind up here? What happened?" He says, "I don't know, Daddy." He says,
02:05:40
"Suddenly, you just passed out." He says, "I climbed into your lap and steered the car into the wall to stop
02:05:45
it." >> It must have been terrifying for Daniel, who started banging on his father's
02:05:51
chest. something Daniel later said he had seen on a medical drama. It worked. Daniel
02:06:00
had saved his father's life. About a month later, Daniel was presented with an American Red Cross
02:06:09
Heroes Award. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was a major event. Um he was all over the media and they were,
02:06:17
you know, touting this young American hero and look at this. He might actually be a future doctor.
02:06:23
Sure enough, there was Daniel, featured in local newspapers, hailed for his heroism. In photos, he looks innocent
02:06:33
and sweet, wearing a suit with a rose bud in his lapel, his father proudly standing beside him. The next year,
02:06:43
Daniel enrolled in the Davis Police Department's Youth Academy, receiving instruction on crime scene
02:06:50
investigation. But while Daniel may have appeared a model citizen on the outside, he was
02:06:57
also harboring a dark side, something Bill said he didn't notice until after his heart attack. you know that he told
02:07:08
counselors that he was actually killing animals before then. Did you have any sense of that, Bill?
02:07:15
>> No, not at all. Um, in fact, I had because of all the upheaval in the family and the rest, I had no basis of
02:07:23
of experience to counsel him. >> But he told the FBI agent that he had thought about killing your wife's
02:07:32
>> lover >> lover that he thought about killing her. That was 2 years earlier. >> As Daniel entered the Yolo County
02:07:40
courthouse almost a year and a half after Claudia Mopin and Chip Northup's murders, a judge and jury were about to
02:07:49
decide his fate. >> Now on trial is Daniel Marsh, the teenager being tried as an adult after
02:07:56
the gruesome killings that rocked the city of Davis last year. On Tuesday, September 2nd, 2014,
02:08:08
the long awaited murder trial against Daniel Marsh, now 17 years old, began at the Yolo County Courthouse.
02:08:17
Daniel had been charged as an adult with two counts of firstdegree murder. Prosecutors concluded that he had quote
02:08:26
committed a very adult crime in a very adult manner. And then just 3 months before the trial began, Daniel changed
02:08:37
his plea from not guilty to not guilty by reason of insanity. A clear indication of the defense to
02:08:48
come. Inside the courtroom, Daniel looked noticeably different from the year before when he had first confessed to
02:09:04
killing Chip Northup and Claudia Mopin. Gone was the long scruffy hair. Now it was cut short, neater, and darker.
02:09:17
>> He showed zero emotion. Um, he didn't seem scared. Um, he would just face forward. He never cried. This is Amanda
02:09:26
Zambour, the deputy district attorney for Yolo County. I spoke with her in 2018.
02:09:34
At the time of the trial, she was one of the two prosecutors. Had you ever run into a defendant like
02:09:41
this? >> Not in real life. Only in books when you read about Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dmer, um
02:09:46
you know, Richard Ramirez, all people that he idolized and and studied and identified with. And did that add a
02:09:55
whole another the fact that this defendant was a kid? >> Yeah. So, I was pregnant with my third
02:10:01
child on um during the trial and you you definitely reflect back and how can a child do this? How can they have such a
02:10:11
depraved mind? How do how do they get that way? Um is it possible to change them? Zambour along with co-prosecutor
02:10:20
Michael Cabraw began prepping for the trial as soon as Daniel was arrested in June 2013.
02:10:28
>> Davis Police Department thankfully built a very strong case and Chris Campion um
02:10:33
from the FBI did a masterful job in his interview of Marsh. Had Campion not been
02:10:38
on that, I don't know that we would have gotten the confession that we did. But they really built a solid case on Marsh
02:10:44
from the get-go once we figured out it was him. What about though the defense argument that this guy, this young man
02:10:52
had a lot of trauma? His mother left the family for another woman. Um, he was in
02:10:59
this car accident when his father had a heart attack. He had to save his father.
02:11:04
He was bullied in school. Possible that that could cause this kind of anger and lashing out. You know, there's no doubt
02:11:14
that he he had some trauma in his life, but there's how many kids that go through and have divorced parents and
02:11:20
they don't kill other people. They may struggle with depression. They may struggle with other things, but there's
02:11:25
a lot of people who actually have severe trauma that don't act like this. >> But Zamour needed to convince the jurors
02:11:34
that Daniel had intended to kill. I mean, he had been fantasizing about it since he was 10, 11 years old about
02:11:42
killing somebody. So, it wasn't this spur-ofthe- moment um murder where he just snapped and went
02:11:50
out. He planned and stole items and sharpened the knife and put duct tape on his boots to not leave footprints,
02:11:58
which, you know, it it just shows how intelligent he is. To put Daniel behind bars, Zambour needed to make the case to
02:12:07
jurors that Daniel knew exactly what he was doing. And if given the chance, he'd
02:12:14
do it again. And if that happened, he'd be even better at it. >> I believe he would have gotten away with
02:12:21
these murders if he had not bragged to his friends. If he had not bragged, he would have killed others. He would have
02:12:29
he bragged about going out with a baseball bat in the middle of the night and just not being able to find the
02:12:34
right victim. He had plotted and planned another victim for his girlfriend's ex-boyfriend and had done reconnaissance
02:12:41
on him and I mean knew the pets in the home, the neighbors, what family members lived there. He had created a fa
02:12:48
Facebook account to get more intel on this family to to try and figure out how he could kill them. and he actually went
02:12:54
out and waited for him on one night, but he didn't come. >> In the courtroom, the prosecution
02:13:01
questioned dozens of witnesses, including friends of Chip and Claudia, Daniel's former friend, Alvaro Garbe,
02:13:09
police officers, and psychiatrists. One witness, a member of the Davis Police Department, helped process the
02:13:17
crime scene. He testified that the blood stain patterns left behind suggested that Chip and Claudia were awake and had
02:13:28
tried to defend themselves against Daniel. Claudia fought, made him mad, and it just invigorated him to keep
02:13:36
going. He describes how her please for for him to stop just enthused him, made him want to keep
02:13:45
going. These were horrific details. Prosecutors tried to prepare Claudia and Chip's
02:13:53
families for what they would hear in the courtroom. >> So, they would brief us before we'd go
02:13:58
in and say, "Okay, now in this next part, you're going to hear some things that you haven't heard before."
02:14:05
Claudia's daughter, Victoria, told me that one of the most painful times for her was sitting in court watching that
02:14:14
taped interview between FBI special agent Chris Campion and Daniel Marsh. >> It was really tough for me. Um
02:14:23
especially when he got to the part where he talked about killing my mother and he
02:14:29
talked about um he had to stab keep stabbing her because she wouldn't die and that she was
02:14:37
begging for her life and that was hard. And I I felt I was sitting there and I felt like I couldn't stay in the seat
02:14:48
anymore. I felt like it was so real that I was experiencing the death of my mother. He was saying all the details in
02:14:57
the interview and I felt like I was watching the murder of my mother and I I couldn't sit. I stood. How do you
02:15:06
describe a person like Daniel Marsh after hearing him talk? >> My mind can't process that degree of
02:15:14
evil. So hearing that was just something that I I just can't go there. I can't It's so dark. It's just so dark.
02:15:27
Adding to Victoria's horror was the score of friends and fans. Yes, fans who showed up to the trial to support
02:15:38
Daniel. >> He had a lot of goth followers. So he had a lot of young women who were
02:15:43
following him acting like little teenage girls, you know, dressed in black and black makeup and all that and thinking
02:15:52
that he was innocent, you know, and if he could have waved at them or hugged them or shook them hand, it was like he
02:15:58
was a celebrity. Like he was the celebrity that he wanted to be. No remorse. >> Oh, no. He was reveling in his
02:16:06
celebrity. The prosecution was convinced that not only did Daniel know exactly what he was
02:16:13
doing when he killed Chip and Claudia, but the big question at trial, was Daniel in his right mind? Was he sane
02:16:23
when committing the murders? Daniel's defense team intended to prove he wasn't. And this was the man they
02:16:33
wanted to help make that case. >> So, my name is Dr. Matthew Sulier and I'm a child forensic psychiatrist. I was
02:16:40
hired by his attorney in 2013 to evaluate him as part of his original trial. >> I sat down with Dr. Sulier in 2018 and
02:16:51
again in 20125. >> My job really was to kind of explore his life history beginning with birth until
02:16:57
the day I was meeting him and try to get a sense of what his life story is. um some of his more critical experiences in
02:17:04
relationships, history of trauma, and specifically as it related to the defense, I needed him to tell me about
02:17:10
what he did, and I needed to try to figure out if in fact he was if it was going to be my opinion that he was
02:17:17
criminally responsible or not. >> Sulle first met Daniel a few months after his arrest. In 2013, I met him at
02:17:25
the Yolo County Juvenile Hall and uh he was dressed in, you know, typical juvenile hall attire.
02:17:33
He was a different kind of kid. I mean, when I I it does stick out to me that uh
02:17:38
there was a coldness to him. Um despite even the number of hours that I spent with him, I didn't feel that I mean
02:17:46
there was a heart or that there was there was a feeling in him. In fact, Daniel was still regularly thinking
02:17:52
about killing people. He told Sulier that he had thoughts of harming his peers and the people taking care of him
02:18:02
in juvenile hall. Then, just like FBI special agent Chris Campion, Dr. Sulier found himself on the receiving end of
02:18:13
Daniel's homicidal thoughts. I asked him, "What are you thinking about?" And he said, "I'm thinking about killing
02:18:22
you. I'm thinking about taking that pen on your table right there and shoving it
02:18:27
in your neck. I'm thinking about taking your laptop and crushing it over your head."
02:18:32
>> It wasn't the only time that a patient had threatened Dr. Sulier. So, while he
02:18:38
took it seriously, it didn't deter him from trying to speak with Daniel again. He was able to go back a week later. Dr.
02:18:48
Sulier believed that Daniel's desire to kill him and others was actually the result of an obsessive compulsive
02:18:57
disorder. >> It's my belief that, you know, Daniel wasn't born a bad seed. I don't believe
02:19:02
in that. Daniel clearly changed around the age of 10. Um, by everybody's observation and what we could gather
02:19:09
about him, um, he wasn't a terrible kid up until age 10. But you don't think he was born that way?
02:19:16
>> No. No. I I I just the issue of psychopathy. Uh it it's clearly something that yes, there's probably
02:19:24
some level of genetic predisposition to it. Um but he wasn't a bad kid in preschool or kindergarten. There's no
02:19:31
evidence of that of any kind. Um there's something that was unlocked in him. There were forces, there were things
02:19:38
that experiences, things that happened to him that I think made him who he was. >> Dr. Sulier also believed that Daniel
02:19:49
didn't want to be this way, that he had wanted to stop his compulsive behavior. >> In his case, he developed these morbid
02:19:58
preoccupations about death, about killing people. Um, but again, the thing that it was important to note to me was
02:20:05
that it was disturbing to him. He was going around telling everybody and anybody who would listen to him. Um, he
02:20:11
told school, he's told a transporting police officer, he told his therapist, he told a psychiatrist, he told anybody
02:20:18
that he wanted to kill everybody. I have these thoughts. I don't want to have them. Ultimately, he did act on them.
02:20:25
But the precursor was sat masochistic sex, gore porn, all these things was an attempt in my mind to diminish the
02:20:33
intensity of those preoccupations. And at first it worked. At first it would dissolve those thoughts and feelings
02:20:39
about killing other people. But ultimately that gave out and it wasn't sufficient. And ultimately he then acted
02:20:45
on it. >> But at some point Daniel seemed to stop fighting his compulsions. The horror he had once felt had morphed
02:20:55
into something else. Rather than being repelled and upset by what he had done, when he finally listened to those
02:21:05
repetitive thoughts, he was actually excited about it, proud. What does that say?
02:21:10
>> Um, that's disturbing. That's deviant. Again, that's the psychopathy in him that really lacks feeling. he just is
02:21:18
unable to feel um compassion for those that he hurt at that time in 2013. And that's scary.
02:21:27
But here's the important part. Daniel might have had strong compulsions to kill. Compulsions that he struggled to
02:21:36
control. But Dr. Sulier concluded that Daniel was not legally insane. What would make him insane? What are you
02:21:48
looking for? Is it like a memory of does he have all the details? Did he know what he did? You know, does he remember
02:21:55
doing it? >> It is a very high standard. You have to be able to um lack an appreciation for
02:22:02
what you did. So, for instance, while you're holding a knife, you think you're, you know, holding a spoon or
02:22:09
something that's completely unrelated. um and that you really fail to understand the morality of what you're
02:22:16
doing, the consequences of what you're doing. It it's it's typically reserved for people that have very severe
02:22:22
psychiatric illness, uh psychotic illness, uh people that are uh acting under the direction of delusions or
02:22:29
voices. And none of this was true for Daniel. The fact that Daniel actually bragged about what he was doing and
02:22:37
seemed to enjoy it, but also covering the bottom of his shoes with tape. What does that say to you when you're trying
02:22:46
to determine whether he's insane or not? >> It shows that he's engaging in logical
02:22:51
and linear behaviors. He's calculating. He's planning in a logical manner. We might disagree with what he's doing,
02:22:57
obviously, and it's terrible. Um, but it's not psychotically driven in any way. Dr. Sulier was convinced that Daniel
02:23:06
knew what he was doing when he committed the murders. But despite Sulier's professional assessment, Daniel's
02:23:14
defense team was determined to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. And they planned to prove that the medications
02:23:24
Daniel had taken made him that way. The drugs made me do it. >> Exactly. the drugs and anti-depressant
02:23:32
um specifically and what I basically told defense is that I couldn't get on board with the idea of the defense of an
02:23:39
insanity particularly I didn't believe that the anti-depressants caused him to act in that way or kill so the defense
02:23:47
said thank you and they went and found another expert >> the defense called Dr. James Maracangis
02:23:54
to testify as an expert witness, a neurologist and psychiatrist. He interviewed Daniel and his family
02:24:02
members several times and reviewed Daniel's previous medical records and police statements. Dr. America's
02:24:11
testimony focused largely on SSRIs, a class of anti-depressants that included medications that Daniel had
02:24:20
been prescribed to treat severe depression. According to Merrick Hangus, the side
02:24:26
effect of those drugs could include extreme restlessness, outbursts of anger, and increased
02:24:34
impulsivity. Daniel, he said, was experiencing those side effects. The doctor believed that
02:24:42
Daniel had endured trauma for years. And that had, in part, made him more susceptible to dangerous side effects.
02:24:51
Daniel's father, Bill Marsh, also believed that Daniel's behavior was caused by medication.
02:24:59
>> It turns your world upside down. Turns your brain inside out. You think that's
02:25:04
the only reason why he killed Ch? >> I do. Yeah. >> But isn't it just possible your son is a
02:25:09
psychopath? >> Um, not in my mind. No. >> And why? Why? Why are you so >> Because I I've raised him. I was around
02:25:18
him all the time. And he was in my estimation a normal kid until they um until they started feeding these drugs.
02:25:28
>> Most important, Dr. Marra Kangas said that on the day of the murder, Daniel had reported having an outof body
02:25:36
experience. Marra Kangas couldn't prove when Daniel's dreamlike state began or how
02:25:43
long it lasted. He just knew that according to Daniel, it had started sometime that night. The doctor knew
02:25:52
that Daniel, the defendant, had motivation to lie about this dreamlike state. After all, Daniel hadn't said
02:26:01
anything about it in his interviews with special agent Chris Campion or Dr. Matthew Sulier. But still, Dr. Marangas
02:26:11
felt that Daniel had been truthful to him in his interview. >> I just fundamentally don't believe
02:26:18
putting someone on an anti-depressant generates any level of risk that you're going to go and do what Daniel did.
02:26:25
>> That's Dr. soulier again and he wasn't convinced that medications could cause
02:26:31
legal insanity. >> There are side effects. It can make you more suicidal, more agitated, but it
02:26:36
doesn't drive you to kill in the way he did in such a calculating and callous manner. It just doesn't.
02:26:42
>> And as prosecutor Amanda Zambour pointed out, Daniel was having those violent
02:26:48
feelings much earlier. when you actually looked at the medical records, he was having these thoughts and fantasies
02:26:55
before he was ever on Zoloft. Um he wasn't taking his Zoloft as he was supposed to. A lot of times he would
02:27:02
just not take them. Um he described selling some of his medications to other people. So really there was no basis for
02:27:09
that. After four weeks of testimony, it would be up to the jury to decide, was Daniel
02:27:16
Marsh guilty, and if so, did he know what he was doing when he committed the murders? There was a lot at stake here
02:27:25
for Daniel and the community. Because one verdict would put Daniel behind bars for the foreseeable future. The other
02:27:36
meant Daniel would go to a psychiatric hospital for treatment. >> You know, we felt very confident in the
02:27:52
case, in the evidence, but there's always that little bit of doubt. >> Prosecutor Amanda Zamour felt she had
02:27:58
made the best case she could to the jury. >> You had mostly women on the jury. Were
02:28:04
you worried one woman might feel sympathy for this young guy? >> Um, you know, it's it's always it's a
02:28:13
16-year-old boy at the time and so you always worry about not just women but men that they could see their son and
02:28:21
you know they feel sorry like how could this this child have done this? But nearly 2 hours after closing arguments,
02:28:29
the jury re-entered the courtroom and the verdict was >> guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of of
02:28:37
every single count of all the enhancements of all the special circumstances. Unanimously, the jury had found Daniel
02:28:47
Marsh guilty on two counts of firstdegree murder along with additional quote enhancements that increase the
02:28:57
severity of the punishment he would face due to the depraved nature of the crime.
02:29:05
>> You see things on TV and you think, well, that's television that couldn't possibly happen in such a
02:29:12
way. in in real life, but it was actually probably more horrifying. >> Cheryl Gleason sat on the jury of eight
02:29:21
women and four men. She explained to me why she believed Daniel Marsh was guilty. the stacks of binders of
02:29:30
pictures from the crime scene, the piles of evidence that we went through, hearing the accounts of the story, the
02:29:39
more evidence that came out in how meticulous and precise his actions were, how things
02:29:50
leading up to that, like going through the junior police academy and how well he did at that. and and he was a smart
02:29:58
kid. Really smart kid. >> Hearing weeks of gruesome testimony left some jurors traumatized.
02:30:07
>> It had a long-term effect that I wasn't really thinking would happen. To this
02:30:13
day, I cannot fall asleep without sleeping my face towards the door, the bedroom door. I can't turn my back on
02:30:21
the door to this day. explain that to me >> because he came through a window that he
02:30:27
cut the screen out of through the living room but then came into their bedroom door and so I just I see that as this
02:30:36
thing that I have to keep my eye on until I fall asleep. >> However, finding Daniel guilty was not
02:30:44
actually the end of the trial. The jury still had to make another decision. Was Daniel insane at the time of the
02:30:54
murders? While she had been confident that the jurors would find Daniel guilty of
02:30:59
murder, prosecutor Amanda Zambour wasn't as confident about the issue of insanity.
02:31:06
>> Were you more nervous about that? >> Yes. Because of that, you know, that immediate thought to see something this
02:31:14
grave, the immediate thought is that somebody would have to be insane to do something like this. they'd have to be
02:31:19
out of their mind. Um, but then again, when you go back and you hear him speak about just how happy and enthused that
02:31:27
this made him, that he was laughing the whole way home and giggling and wanted to relive it and kept these momentos and
02:31:34
to see it up close is it's powerful. So after delivering the guilty verdict, the jurors heard another day of
02:31:44
arguments where the prosecution and defense tried to prove that Daniel was either legally sane or insane at the
02:31:54
time of the crime. And once again, it was a quick decision for the jury. They found Daniel to be sane at the time he
02:32:04
committed the murders of Claudia Mopin and Chip Northup. >> It was just really clear that he was not
02:32:12
insane. >> So if he's not insane, then what is Daniel Marsh? >> He's a psychopathic killer. I think if
02:32:19
he were let loose, he would be a serial killer. He has an urge to kill. Ahead of the sentencing, the judge heard
02:32:30
from members of Claudia and Chip's family who talked about the deep losses they had suffered. Victoria Herd
02:32:38
detailed the trauma that the family experienced and told the court that her sister Laura
02:32:45
had quote lost her mind to grief after discovering the bodies and had still not recovered by the time of the trial.
02:32:55
Victoria also recalled having to tell her children about their grandmother's murder and how they sobbed and screamed
02:33:03
in heartbreak. Victoria's message to the court was that quote, "If Daniel is free, people will
02:33:12
die. Another son, another daughter, another father, mother, brother, sister will suffer as I have. Therefore, in
02:33:24
honor of my mother, Claudia Mopin, and the legacy of love that she left behind for us, it is my belief that the loving,
02:33:33
compassionate action in this situation would be to request from the court the maximum sentence allowable for the
02:33:41
torture and murder of my mother and her husband, Chip Northup. And then the judge handed Daniel a
02:33:50
sentence. that prosecutor Amanda Zambour had been working to secure for weeks. >> The judge sentenced Daniel Marsh to 52
02:34:02
years. Were you happy with that? >> It it was the maximum that he could have done. Um had he been 16, he would have
02:34:09
been eligible for life without the possibility of parole. Um but because of his age, the max he could have gotten
02:34:14
was 52 years to life. So we were very happy with that. The prosecution had succeeded in their effort to put Daniel
02:34:21
behind bars for a long, long time. When asked for comment on the case and sentencing, Daniel's lawyers declined.
02:34:34
While Daniel had been handed the longest sentence possible, he still would be eligible for parole in 25 years. But in
02:34:44
the meantime, the victim's families could take time to breathe. >> When we received the conviction, it felt
02:34:53
healing, like we could we could be free. >> But it wasn't over yet, was it? >> It wasn't over, Aaron. No, it wasn't
02:35:00
over. >> It was not over. Not by a long shot. Because 4 years later, Victoria and the
02:35:11
rest of Chip and Claudia's family would find themselves fighting again as a new California law threatened to let Daniel
02:35:21
go free much earlier than the judge had ordered. >> So if he's out in 4 years, he knows us.
02:35:28
He knows our names. Of course he does. He's seen us in court. The capacity that he could get back on the streets and do
02:35:34
what he's done again. >> Yes. That fear is overwhelming. >> That's next on 15 Inside the Daniel Marsh murders.
02:35:53
This series was reported by me, Aaron Morardi. Alan Pang is our producer. Mora Walls is our story editor. and Jamie
02:36:03
Benson is a senior producer. Megan Marcus is the vice president of podcast editorial for CBS.
02:36:12
Special thanks to 48 hours executive producer Judy Tyiggard along with 48 hours producers Judy Ryback, Stephanie
02:36:21
Slifer, and Greg Fiser from Goat Rodeo. This podcast was written and produced by
02:36:28
Carara Schillin, Max Johnston, Jay Venibals, Isabelle Kirby McGawan, Megan Nadulski, and Ian Enright.
02:36:38
Additional reporting and recording by Cara Schillin. Our executive producers at Goat Rodeo are Megan Nadulski and Ian
02:36:47
Enright. Original theme in music by Hans Delshi with additional music from Paramount.
02:36:56
Final mix by Rebecca Sidell. Then Fulton is our fact checker. Our production manager is Carara Schillin. I'm Aaron
02:37:06
Morardi. If you're enjoying this show, be sure to give it a rating and review. It helps more people find it and hear
02:37:14
our reporting. If you liked 15 inside the Daniel Marsh murders, check out the rest of our 48 hours podcasts by
02:37:25
searching 48 hours on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for listening. Before we begin, just a trigger warning.
02:37:53
The following episode contains references to graphic physical violence and suicide. Please listen with care.
02:38:03
Well, it was late at night and I was finishing up some work at my computer and I said, "Well, how how bad could
02:38:09
this be?" You know, not never a good thing to say to yourself. 4 years after Daniel Marsh had been sent
02:38:16
to prison for murdering her mother, Claudia Mppen, Victoria Herd was sitting in her office preparing to watch a
02:38:24
YouTube video. >> I came to realize that there are no such things as evil people in this world.
02:38:32
only damaged people. >> There on the screen suddenly was Daniel Marsh. It was 2018 and Daniel was now 20
02:38:43
years old. >> I did horrible things to people who never deserved to be hurt. >> In the video, Daniel was standing on a
02:38:52
stage delivering a TEDex talk organized by his correctional facility. His short hair was slick back and he wore a blue
02:39:01
prison shirt and sweatpants >> and I'm watching it like a deer in the headlights. You know, I can't pull my
02:39:08
eyes away. It's a mature, self- assured Daniel Marsh telling his story. In all his
02:39:17
previous interviews with law enforcement and psychiatrists, Daniel had denied being sexually abused. But that story
02:39:26
had now changed. In his TED X talk, he claimed he had been sexually abused as a child, although he never named the
02:39:36
culprit or provided any details about the alleged abuse. >> Growing up, I felt like there wasn't a
02:39:43
soul in the world that I could tell. >> He also admitted that he hurt people, but he never apologized for murdering
02:39:52
Chip and Claudia. I just went into a rage immediately. I went into a crying rage.
02:39:59
>> What bothered you? Tell me. >> It was his arrogance. It was his um uh minimizing
02:40:08
not talking about what he did. Uh you know, and not showing any kind of remorse.
02:40:16
No remorse. But Daniel said he was changing. finally learning how to connect with others and let go of hate.
02:40:26
>> We must always always embrace our humanity. >> The audience was celebrating him as he
02:40:44
spoke. Good job on your recovery. And you could feel that coming from his audience. Victoria says she couldn't
02:40:51
quite believe her eyes. The audience rose to its feet and applauded. This was not a man she believed who had changed.
02:41:02
I felt like no more. No more from you. We did a loving thing by putting you behind bars. This is a loving thing to
02:41:12
our family and our community that's suffering. And then you're going to keep coming.
02:41:17
>> Yeah. >> No. Chip and Claudia's family wanted to move forward and heal, so they pushed to get
02:41:27
the video removed from the internet, and it was. But that video wasn't the last they'd see of Daniel Marsh.
02:41:37
New laws in California intended to rehabilitate young offenders were about to put Daniel's case in the spotlight
02:41:46
again. This was a massive undertaking to essentially reopen the case. >> It had been 5 years since Daniel Marsh
02:41:56
had killed two people. Was it possible that in that time he had changed? That certainly was his contention.
02:42:07
>> I I'm not who I used to be. >> And if so, could he walk free? >> The fear was overwhelming.
02:42:21
I'm 48 hours correspondent Aaron Morardi and this is 15 inside the Daniel Marsh murders
02:42:31
episode 6 hurt people in his TEDex talk in March 2018 18, Daniel Marsh talked about why he
02:42:48
believed he had changed for the better. And there was a reason for that public appeal. It was because of a new state
02:42:56
law that might give Daniel a chance at freedom. >> One of the most controversial
02:43:02
propositions on California's ballot would impact the state prison system and some say public safety.
02:43:08
A ballot proposal called Prop 57 reform the state juvenile criminal justice system. It would allow only judges, not
02:43:19
prosecutors, to decide whether certain juveniles would be tried as adults in court. And among those who had voted for
02:43:28
the new law were Chip and Claudia's children. Victoria explained why. Of course, I want our children to be
02:43:37
rehabilitated. I think that there's a lot of young criminals in the adult system that shouldn't be there. So, yes,
02:43:46
I want to support any kind of rehabilitation for young people. Um, but did you think that might include
02:43:52
>> I did not I did not think that would include Daniel Marsh. >> But Daniel's attorneys argued despite
02:44:03
the violence of his crimes, he should benefit from Prop 57. And an appeals court agreed and granted
02:44:12
Daniel a new hearing at the Superior Court of Yolo County. Now, a juvenile court judge would go
02:44:20
back, listen to the evidence, and decide if Daniel Marsh should have been tried as a juvenile instead of an adult.
02:44:31
And this is what was at stake. If the judge ruled in Daniel's favor, he would then be tried as a juvenile. And even if
02:44:40
he was again convicted, the state could be forced to set him free on his 25th birthday. Okay, Madame Clerk, let's go
02:44:52
on the record. In the case JD18-332 in the matter of Daniel William Marsh, the judge had to weigh several factors,
02:45:05
including the sophistication and gravity of the crime, prior juvenile delinquent
02:45:11
behavior, and the probability of rehabilitation. You know, of course, my memory of Daniel
02:45:19
is him telling me he wants to put a pen in my neck and crush my head with a laptop. So, um, right, I was skeptical.
02:45:33
That's Dr. Matthew Sulier, who took the witness stand for the defense. He's the psychiatrist I spoke to in the last
02:45:41
episode, who was first asked to evaluate Daniel Marsh in 2013. 5 years after the trial, he had received
02:45:51
a call from Daniel's defense team asking if he would meet with their client again.
02:45:58
>> We were being asked for the first time as child forensic psychiatrists, is Daniel amendable to rehabilitation.
02:46:05
Um, and this was new, quite frankly, and and why start with this guy? I mean, this guy is um extremely challenging.
02:46:13
And I said, I'll, you know, I'll give it a shot. I' I'd like to see what he looks
02:46:16
like 5 years later. And I went and met with him. >> And was the same Daniel Marsh sitting in
02:46:22
front of you when you walked in? >> No, he was different. Well, he wasn't a boy anymore, obviously, so he was, you
02:46:29
know, more grown up. He had more of the appearance of an adult. He was much warmer.
02:46:35
Immediately he remembered that he had threatened to harm me. He without me prompting expressed remorse for it, said
02:46:43
he was sorry. Um and then proceeded to tell me how he had grown, how he had changed, how he had uh so-called done
02:46:54
the work and that he had gained a lot by being around people who had been compassionate towards him.
02:47:04
In his testimony, Dr. Sulier said Daniel had begun his rehabilitation early on in
02:47:11
juvenile hall. >> He's still not out of the woods. He's still got some definite growth and
02:47:17
maturation to do, but he's grown a lot emotionally. As for Daniel's past fixation on killing
02:47:26
others, >> the homicidal ideation, those thoughts, imagery, um, intentions to kill other people have
02:47:33
completely ceased. Um, per his report. >> Daniel told Sulier that he had never felt better.
02:47:41
>> It was his opinion that he could live violent free, that he could um be set free at 25, and that he could live
02:47:47
without violence. I first spoke with Dr. Sulier a few months after his 2018 testimony at the
02:47:56
hearing. >> But you did testify that you thought he could be rehabilitated. >> I did and I didn't. I was struggling
02:48:05
because of course I was struggling with just the nature of what he did. It was horrific. It's hard to contemplate that
02:48:12
the mind behind that crime is changeable. He did a horrible crime. He's a psychopath. Let's throw him away.
02:48:19
Why are we even having this silly hearing? And I too, I grappled with it too. He is an extreme.
02:48:25
>> You wrote in in your report, Mr. Marsh is manipulative, intelligent, and capable of deceiving this evaluator and
02:48:34
others. >> I did. >> And if he is in fact lying to you, wouldn't that make you more concerned
02:48:41
about his ability to be rehabilitated? It would be if he was uh lying and being disingenuous about everything then right
02:48:53
that would be a pause for concern but there are some things that he can't lie about. Um there are other factors to
02:49:00
consider as it relates to transfer. There is the the absence of his delinquency history. There is the
02:49:06
absence of a court reaching out to him and trying to help him before he did this. there are things that he can't lie
02:49:12
about that help his cause. Um, and gave me reason to go in and try to opine that
02:49:21
he should go back to a juvenile jurisdiction. >> Dr. Matthew Sullier was hired by
02:49:29
Daniel's defense team. So when his testimony wrapped, the prosecution called its own expert on psychopathy,
02:49:38
forensic psychologist Matthew Logan. While Logan had never met Daniel Marsh, he did examine his records and saw that
02:49:48
when he had turned 18, Daniel had scored a 35.8 out of 40 on a widely used psychopathy
02:49:57
checklist. It was one of the highest scores Dr. Logan had ever seen. In other words, according to this
02:50:07
assessment, Daniel Marsh had nearly all the traits of a psychopath. Some of the traits are glib, superficial
02:50:16
charm, grandiose sense of selfworth, pathological lying, uh criminal versatility,
02:50:23
uh lack of responsibility, uh inability to feel remorse. >> Dr. Logan also highlighted a
02:50:32
psychopath's ability to con and manipulate. Well, they they have an uncanny ability
02:50:39
to to um use their charm and use use a lot of real savvy as opposed to just straight intelligence, but street smarts
02:50:48
in order to kind of manipulate police, uh psychologists, uh national parole board, the courts.
02:50:57
>> Logan told me at the time that releasing a psychopath like Daniel Marsh was dangerous.
02:51:05
It definitely means that um that this person is not going to be easily rehabilitated or not rehabilitated at
02:51:12
all by any means that is being used within the correctional system. I think this is going to be something that he's
02:51:19
going to be dealing with the rest of his life. >> Do you believe that Daniel Marsh could
02:51:23
kill again and will kill again? >> I I believe that he could kill again. And if I was being asked uh to make a
02:51:32
decision on the likelihood, I would say it's more likely than not that he would kill again.
02:51:38
>> This was the chief concern for Claudia and Chip's family members when they were
02:51:43
allowed to give impact statements at the hearing. Here's Chip's daughter, Mary Northup.
02:51:50
I was raised to believe that people deserve a second chance. But a second chance is really only
02:51:58
worthwhile if one acknowledges and understands the issues that caused the failure in the first place and has the
02:52:06
desire and ability not to do the same thing again. >> Mary acknowledged that no punishment
02:52:14
would ever bring back her father. But the one thing this court could do is protect all the other families
02:52:23
from suffering as ours has suffered at the hands of this defendant. >> As she spoke, Mary alternated her gaze
02:52:31
between the judge and Daniel. >> He didn't look at anyone that gave it a personal statement. I I was surprised
02:52:41
because if he's a really good manipulator, he at least looks and tries to be empathic. But I think he didn't
02:52:51
look cuz he realized he couldn't feain empathy. >> After the victim's statements, the judge
02:53:00
requested a brief recess, and Daniel's defense team returned with a surprising announcement.
02:53:09
Daniel himself was going to testify. >> Daniel Marshall witnessed stand direct exam by attorney Pelito.
02:53:19
>> Daniel described his time first in juvenile hall and then an adult correctional facility. He admitted to
02:53:27
taking drugs inside prison and that he had been hospitalized after cutting his wrist. You know, again, when I I first
02:53:36
came in, I I made a lot of mistakes. Um, and one of those mistakes was, you know,
02:53:43
experimenting a little bit with meth and then a lot with uh heroin. And I I ended
02:53:50
up using heroin pretty consistently for a little over a year. >> That included injecting it.
02:53:57
>> It did. Yeah. Eventually, it got to the point where I was I had my own rig, as
02:54:02
they call it, syringe. But Daniel said he stopped using drugs when he became involved with groups like
02:54:11
TED X inside the prison. >> Have you learned anything in any of these groups about responsibility for
02:54:19
your own behavior? >> I have. Yeah. Um that was mainly through errors and criminal thinking.
02:54:26
>> Can you tell the court a little bit about what you learned? >> Sure. Um, I guess what it comes down to
02:54:33
is like the main errors in criminal thinking is like the selfishness behind it and the the self-centerness behind
02:54:39
it. Not taking into account how your actions affect those around you and affect other people in negative ways.
02:54:45
You know, again, like feeling entitled, you know, feeling like it's all about you or feeling um
02:54:52
like you you can like the rules don't apply, I guess. Um and part of um breaking that way of thinking is
02:55:01
uh accepting responsibility for your mistakes and for your actions, you know, and and acknowledging and beginning to,
02:55:09
you know, like work through what the things that you have done have done to other people. I guess
02:55:18
>> Daniel Marsh insisted that he was a changed man, no longer the troubled child who had viciously murdered two
02:55:27
people. >> I mean, it's night and day, man. It's it's completely different. You know, I
02:55:34
no longer struggle with mental illness. I've worked through the vast majority of
02:55:39
my my anger and hate. And for the first time, he addressed his victim's families.
02:55:49
>> Nothing I ever say or do will ever be enough, but I'm I'm sorry. I'm I'm I'm sorry.
02:56:05
I'm I'm sorry I took them away from you. I'm sorry for all the pain that I've caused you.
02:56:11
I'm sorry for the pain that I'm sure I'm still causing you. I'm sorry for every horrible thing that you've gone through
02:56:16
because of me. I'm sorry for everything. And if I could undo it, I would. I I and I know that until
02:56:27
I truly process what I did, the then I can't really give you the apology that you deserve.
02:56:37
I I can't even bring myself to look at you. But I I really and and I know you don't
02:56:42
think I'm being genuine, but I just really hope that at least to some extent you're able
02:56:48
to receive this because I'm truly sorry. >> But for Chip's daughter, Mary, that apology
02:56:58
didn't sound sincere. for me to be convinced that he's sorry for what he did would be for him to talk
02:57:06
about it and to say I did that and that was awful. And he really even in his apology
02:57:16
all he said was that was another me. That was a dark me. You know that's it it it
02:57:24
he wasn't willing to embrace that that really was him. At the opening of the last day of the
02:57:41
hearing, Daniel Marsh smiled and exchanged pleasantries with his lawyers as they waited for the judge to enter
02:57:49
the chamber. Okay, madame clerk, let's go on the record in the matter of Daniel William
02:57:56
Marsh, case JD18-332. And uh what I have before me is a written court order. >> Daniel looked down as the judge read
02:58:08
from his order. >> The legal basis of the remand was the November 9th, 2016 passage of
02:58:16
Proposition 57. After going over the details of the crime in the case against Daniel, the
02:58:24
judge announced his decision. In conclusion, the seriousness of the offense, both in terms of its
02:58:32
sophistication and the gravity, along with the finding that Marsh has made little progress in rehabilitation in the
02:58:38
past 5 years, support the ultimate ruling of this court to transfer the case to adult criminal court.
02:58:47
Daniel's original sentence, a minimum of 52 years in prison would stand. As a judge announced his verdict, the
02:58:58
courtroom remained silent. Daniel kept his eyes locked on the floor and didn't visibly react, but Claudia and Chip's
02:59:08
family members did. They gathered to hug each other and cry. We did it. We did it. We did it. You did
02:59:20
it. >> And yet, it was still not over. Daniel's legal team continued to pursue appeals
02:59:30
in the wake of yet another new California state bill that went into effect in January 2019.
02:59:40
This one would prohibit 14 and 15y olds from ever being tried as adults, even killers.
02:59:50
To me, this is terrorizing. Although Victoria had voted for Prop 57, she actively protested against this
03:00:03
newest state law known as Senate Bill 1391 with Daniel Marsh on her mind. I realize that this man is not the
03:00:14
typical juvenile offender. However, the passage of this bill will make all juvenile offenders one and the same.
03:00:21
There will be no discernment and no responsibility. If 1391 is passed, the man who murdered
03:00:27
my parents and many others like him will be released into society at age 25. In response to Senate Bill 1391,
03:00:39
Daniel's defense team appealed his 52-year prison sentence, arguing that this latest new law should be
03:00:48
retroactively applied to his case. It raised the possibility that once again Daniel could be eligible for an early
03:00:59
release. He was not giving up on getting out. >> The the overwhelming amount of fear that
03:01:07
I had of him knowing first of all knowing us. >> That's Sarah Rice, Claudia Mopin's
03:01:14
granddaughter. >> He knows our names. Of course he does. He's seen us in court. And then it was the capacity that he
03:01:24
could get back on the streets and do what he's done again. >> Yes. >> That fear is overwhelming. And I was
03:01:30
thinking about every little kid and every woman that was running on the streets or a family that was walking in
03:01:37
a park or an individual that was sleeping in their home. Daniel's latest appeal made its way to
03:01:46
the California Supreme Court in 2021, but was sent back to a lower court the next year. The state supreme court
03:01:56
ultimately rejected the appeal in 2023. So, at least for now, Daniel Marsh remains in prison. According to the
03:02:08
correctional facility where he is currently being housed, Daniel will be eligible for parole in December 2036.
03:02:19
He'll be 39 years old, but that's subject to change. Even behind bars, Daniel Marsh has left a deep mark on
03:02:29
many of those involved in his case. My experience is if you work in crime, uh there's always going to be one or two
03:02:38
cases that are just not going to go away. They're going to haunt you in the sense of uh I always remember him. He's
03:02:45
indelible to me. >> When I spoke with Dr. Matthew Julier again in 2025, he said his thinking about Daniel Marsh
03:02:56
had evolved since our first conversation. Yeah, I have had experiences in my life
03:03:02
that um have also made me much more attuned to the experience of of being a victim and um it it has changed me. It's
03:03:12
changed my process and and meeting over 100 kids that have killed people now. Um
03:03:20
I have a totally different I I think I would approach Daniel very differently than I did in 2018. he should be um the
03:03:28
kid that that deserves different consequences um different considerations. He will
03:03:33
always be a psychopath and that there would be grave danger to to letting him out.
03:03:40
As for Chip and Claudia's family, they still grieve deeply. It's impossible to overstate the trauma
03:03:51
caused not only by Daniel Marsh's actions, but by the investigation that followed. If you remember, in the early
03:04:00
days after the murders, one of Chip Norup's grandsons, Tony, was mistakenly identified as the possible perpetrator.
03:04:11
that created tremendous stress and financial problems for him and his family. In October 2016,
03:04:21
at age 31, Tony died by suicide, his family, including his father Robert and brother
03:04:31
Oliver, were left to grieve yet another terrible loss. This case has left a mark on me, too.
03:04:41
With all the killers I've met, even spoken to, I've never encountered anyone so unknowable as Daniel Marsh.
03:04:54
Daniel's crimes still have ripple effects to this day. Victoria Herd and Sarah Rice now work with other families
03:05:03
who have been harmed by violent crime and continue to advocate changes to state law. So people like Daniel Marsh
03:05:13
never walk free and they continue to share memories of Chip and Claudia because you know at the end of the day
03:05:23
for me I have a responsibility and my responsibility is to show the world who my grandmother was
03:05:32
>> and the life that she lived not the life that she died by. >> Not the way that she died. Yeah.
03:05:38
Chip and Claudia's family remember them for everything they created. The years of joy, laughter, and music.
03:05:56
This is Victoria. I never remember a day that I didn't speak with her or love her or ask her
03:06:05
for direction or giggle with her. Um, she was my world. >> Mary Northup also remembers walking
03:06:17
nearly every day with her father Chip, catching up on their lives. He had this voice too sometimes, you
03:06:25
know, Mary, you know, you could hear it and and made me feel good to know it was
03:06:30
there. You can hear Claudia and Chip enjoy the festivities of Claudia's 75th birthday
03:06:38
party. It was held just a year before the two were killed. They laughed and they sang with friends.
03:06:46
>> Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. >> The memory of Claudia and Chip lives on
03:06:57
through their family while the man who took their lives and fantasize about taking others
03:07:05
sits behind bars for now. He will never understand how wonderful they were and are.
03:07:35
This is 15 inside the Daniel Marsh murders. This series was reported by me, Aaron Morardi. Alan Pang is our
03:07:45
producer. Mora Walls is our story editor and Jamie Benson is the senior producer.
03:07:53
Megan Marcus is the vice president of podcast editorial for CBS. Special thanks to 48 Hours executive
03:08:01
producer Judy Tyiggard along with 48 Hours producers Judy Ryback, Stephanie Slifer, and Greg Fiser from Goat Rodeo.
03:08:12
This podcast was written and produced by Carara Schillin, Max Johnston, Jay Venibals, Isabelle Kirby McGawan, Megan
03:08:22
Nadulski, and Ian Enright. Additional reporting and recording by Carara Schillin. Our executive producers
03:08:31
at Goat Rodeo are Megan Nadulski and Ian Enright. Original theme and music by Hans Del
03:08:39
Shei with additional music from Paramount. Final mix by Rebecca Sidell. Fendo Fulton is our fact checker. Our
03:08:49
production manager is Carara Schillin. I'm Aaron Morardi. If you're enjoying this show, be sure to give it a rating
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and review. It helps more people find it and hear our reporting. If you liked 15
03:09:05
Inside the Daniel Marsh Murders, check out the rest of our 48 hours podcasts by searching 48 hours on your favorite
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