“Did you ever look up on the computer and do research on psychopaths?”
“Yeah.”
“Why did you do that?”
“What are you reporting?”
“Double homicide.”
“An elderly couple asleep in their bed was stabbed to death.”
“It was the most horrific, depraved murder I’ve ever seen.”
“Why did you do that?”
“If you get up close to him, you can see his eye twitching.”
“I want to kill people but I don’t want to want that.”
“There’s really no empathy there.”
“I guess I’ve just been afraid to actually face that.”
“Those things just don’t disappear.”
“This deep, dark desire for murder and
gore and bloodshed and it doesn’t go away.
It just doesn’t.”
She peered through the bungalow’s window.
Husband Chip Northup, 87, and wife Claudia Maupin, 76, were in a
quiet slumber, laying in their bed, in a pool of their own blood.
What many would call a quiet, safe California college town,
had become the backdrop to a horrific elderly homicide.
Chip’s daughter Mary was worried when the couple didn’t show up to
church on Sunday April 15th, 2013 and decided to give Claudia a call.
It immediately went to voicemail.
Mary called her brother Robert to go check on
their house, but there was no answer at the door.
“We rang the doorbell and no one answered,” Robert said in an
interview, “Everything I saw indicated they were out of town.”
But Claudia’s stepdaughter, Laura, knew
in her heart that something was wrong.
After ringing the doorbell to no avail, Laura
went around back to look into the window.
That was when she saw the blood stains and slashed window screen.
Police were called immediately.
Claudia’s daughter, Victoria Hurd, woke up to 12 missed
calls, and learned that her parents’ bodies were found.
All the police would tell the family was
that there were multiple stab wounds.
Later, Police Lieutenant Paul Doroshov revealed that Chip’s body was
punctured with knife wounds a total of 61 times, and Claudia’s, 67.
In Chip’s stomach lay a drinking glass
and in Claudia’s abdomen was a cellphone.
This was no ordinary break in.
Nothing was missing, ruling out a robbery, but
the police were struggling to find a motivation.
Eyes turned to family members who had access to house keys, specifically
Chip’s grandson, Oliver, who was schizophrenic; and his twin brother, Tony.
Despite each member of the family being called individually,
the close proximity to the twins’ home made them prime suspects.
When the house they shared with their father, Robert, was
raided, the police found the recently steamed carpet suspicious.
Upon further investigation, more evidence pointed towards the family.
Robert had the carpet cleaned the same weekend of the murder.
What was found in Tony’s bedroom caused alarm: a drawing of
a man holding a knife, standing over two children in a bed.
As a result of the investigation, the family gathered thousands of dollars
to hire an attorney for Tony, who was now the prime suspect, and to fix
the damage caused by investigators when carpet and plumbing was removed.
The real damage was to Tony, however, who was eventually found innocent.
The repercussions were so bad that he ended
up taking his own life three years later.
His twin brother, Oliver, has a tattoo in his memory.
Without fingerprints or DNA to go by to find the culprits
for Chip and Claudia’s deaths, the police were stumped.
Two months later, a 911 operator received a call:
911 Operator: Davis Police Emergency. Two months later, a 911 operator received a call:
911 Operator: Davis Police Emergency.
Caller: Oh yeah, can this be anonymous?
911 Operator: What are you reporting?
Caller: Uh, double homicide?
The reason I want to remain anonymous is ‘cause if
my mom finds out she will send me to military school.
Officer: What are you calling to report, sir?
Caller: Um, the double homicide that happened in April this year.
Corporal Allen: What can you tell me about that?
Caller: Everything actually.
Claudia Maupin had moved to Davis back in
1995, one of the safest cities in California.
Deciding to attend a Unitarian church, she would spend her
Sundays worshipping and volunteering as a pastoral associate.
Claudia Maupin met her third husband, Chip
Northup and they hit it off almost immediately.
They were the perfect couple, according to her daughter,
Victoria, and their families easily blended, something
Claudia was good at—she brought people together.
“Claudia had that ability to make every person that she spent
time with feel that special so that they would come away and say,
‘She’s my best friend.’” Chip’s daughter Mary said in an interview.
Chip was a World War II veteran, attorney, and member
of a local folk band that would practice every Sunday.
He was also the founding member of their church.
They were happily married for 17 years before the devastating night.
“Who did it, then?” Corporal Allen, who
picked up the 911 call, asked Alvaro Garibay.
“Daniel Marsh.”
“Daniel Marsh?”
“Yeah, Daniel Marsh or Dan Marsh.”
Daniel Marsh was known as a young hero who saved his father’s life.
He had received the Red Cross Heroes Award for using CPR to save his
father who had a heart attack while driving, all at the tender age of 12.
Alvaro revealed that Daniel, now age 15, talked a lot about
killing, but he didn’t think his friend was being serious.
Alvaro also knew a lot of grisly details about the crime....
Including the experiments on the bodies.
The odd details that hadn’t been shared with the public
were things that Daniel happily bragged about to his friend.
Alvaro had previously walked in on Daniel watching gory videos.
Fascinated, Daniel had tried to get Alvaro to join in on watching them too.
When investigators pressed him to find out why he took
so long to tell anyone, Alvaro explained that he was
scared of endangering himself, his family, or his friends.
Once investigators got all they could out of Alvaro,
they knew it was time to contact Daniel Marsh.
On July 17th, 2013, Special Agent Chris Campion asked the high
school resource officer to bring in Daniel for questioning.
“What do you know?”
“I know that somebody broke into this old couple’s house and...
killed them.” He replied.
For three hours, Daniel told Special Agent Campion about his life.
Daniel considered himself an outcast after his
mother left his father for his kindergarten teacher.
He was extremely angry at the teacher and wanted to hurt her.
Instead, he would take the anger out on himself.
Over the years, Daniel developed an ED
and even ended up in a clinic for 25 days.
According to a school counselor, he had told them
about his morbid fantasies and was hospitalized again.
After 38 more minutes of questioning, Special Agent Campion
asked the real question that was on his mind: “Why the
heck would you just sit there and bold-faced lie to...
me?”
“‘Cause I am- you guys are threatening me with f__ing”
“With what, the truth?”
“Getting arrested for two murders.
I am so scared right now.
Of course I’m gonna do anything I can
to try and say that I didn’t do this.”
This was what made Daniel finally talk.
The senior couple weren’t even his primary target.
On the night of April 14th, he stalked the
community when he came across their bedroom window.
Daniel cut a hole into the screen and climbed in.
He nervously stood over the bed, watching
them sleep for a while before he pounced.
To confuse investigators, he placed the cup and phone inside his victims.
To conceal his identity, he wore a ski mask and gloves, and
had taped the bottom of his shoes to prevent footprints.
To commemorate his victory, he kept the knife as a souvenir.
He treated the grisly event as an accomplishment.
His grades went up and he was even named student of the month at school.
“It was pure happiness, and adrenaline and
dopamine, just all of it, rushing over me.”
And when asked how he would be able to hurt Special Agent
Campion, Daniel replied: “Just a lot of ways… um… Nothing
personal.” It was nothing personal for him because Daniel
had thoughts of carnage with almost everyone he met.
It was a full year after the murder when Daniel was put on trial.
The defense was set on pleading insanity, claiming that his
anorexia and self-destructive tendencies were a clear sign,
arguing that his antidepressants fueled his psychotic thoughts.
Deputy D.A.
Amanda Zambor disagreed, however, arguing that Daniel was having
thoughts of destruction before he was put on his medication, Zoloft.
Dr.
Matthew Soulier, who was hired by the defense,
considered Daniel mentally ill, but not insane.
He was still responsible for his crimes
as he actively knew what he was doing.
On September 26th, 2014, under just two hours, the jury
deemed Daniel sane and guilty of first-degree murder.
He was charged as an adult, sentenced to life in prison.
“We can sleep again,” Victoria Hurd, the victims’
daughter, exclaimed outside the courtroom.
“We are so relieved… we got justice.
I feel like we had a really good victory today”.
But it wasn’t long before a new law was in place
that would change the face of juvenile justice.
In September 2018, California Governor
Jerry Brown signed a new law known as S.B.
1391, which made it impossible to ever try a 15
year old as an adult in the state of California.
This brought the Daniel Marsh case into question.
Daniel’s defense attorney, Jeff Resig,
vowed to fight for his charge as a juvenile.
This meant the possibility of the grieving family having
to face Daniel every two years until he turned 25.
In October 2018, a two week court hearing began to decide if Daniel
should continue being tried as an adult or be tried as a juvenile.
Dr.
Jonathan Yip, the Associate Director of Mental Health and Treatment for
the Division of Juvenile Justice within the California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation explained the interdisciplinary approach and
individual treatment plans to rehabilitate each juvenile would go through.
The main focus was on giving the youth a better understanding
of their trauma and what triggers their destructive behaviour.
When questioned about Daniel’s particular situation, Dr.
Yip testified that to keep an offender under the age of 25 in
custody, a mental health evaluation must be performed by a licensed
psychiatrist or psychologist and if the criteria isn’t met, they
would be jailed for another two years until their next evaluation.
Daniel’s lawyers were determined to defend him and ensure Daniel was
under the juvenile law, despite the reluctance of the victims’ families.
Defense Attorney Andrea Pelochino said she believed the
court would be “overwhelmed by the changes he has made
in a very short amount of time.” Despite being one of
the people Daniel initially threatened, psychiatrist Dr.
Matthew Soulier was part of the defense.
After spending four years behind bars, he mentioned that
there were “distinct differences in his maturity, his empathy,
his insight into himself, his sense of responsibility.”
But Dr.
Matthew Logan, a forensic psychologist, begged to differ.
He believed it was more likely than not that Daniel would
be fatally destructive again if given the chance, after
the results of his psychopathy test—a 35.8 score out of 40.
For context, anyone with a score over 30 is considered a psychopath.
“Some of the traits are glib, superficial charm… pathological
lying..lack of responsibility, inability to feel remorse.”
Judge Samuel McAdam’s final verdict was that Daniel still
posed a threat to society and would be put behind bars.
He said that Daniel, “has not made any meaningful progress on addressing
the triggers of childhood and incident trauma that pose a risk to society.”
As recently as August 18th, 2021, Daniel Marsh was on
trial again continuing his fight to be tried as a juvenile.
On September 8th, the Davis court denied an appeal for early release.
The Yolo County District Attorney's Office explained “We never
believed the change in the law prohibiting persons under the age of
16 from being tried as adults applied to Marsh...As satisfied as we
are about this ruling, we are equally relieved for the survivors who
have to keep reliving this tragedy in each ongoing court proceeding.”
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