On Sunday, April fourteenth, twenty thirteen, Chip Northup and Claudia mop And were not at church, and everyone else there knew that was unusual, especially since they hadn't told anyone they would be away.

After some unanswered calls and even a knock on the door, the police were sent out to the couple's house, where they found them dead.

After two months of investigation, there were no leads and the crime could have easily become a cold case, But then someone bragged about the murders and the community was shocked to learn it was only a child.

This is monsters.

Daniel Marsh was born on May fourteenth, nineteen ninety seven to Bill and Sherry Marsh and grew up in Davis, California.

Davis is a medium sized city located just west of Sacramento.

It has a large student population as the home of the University of California Davis.

It also is a strong cycling community and became the home of the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in twenty ten.

Daniel was the younger of two siblings, with a sister named Sarah who was two years older than him.

Their family was rocked when Daniel was only nine years old when his mom took off with a woman she was having an affair with.

That woman happened to have previously been Daniel's kindergarten teacher.

When she returned a few months later, she and Bill got a divorce, and the kids started going back and forth between the two parents.

Daniel explained that they obviously stayed with their father after their mother took off, but once she was back, there was no official custody agreement.

They just stayed with whichever parent they felt like, at least for a while.

When Daniel was ten, his father had a heart attack and the boy performed CPR on him, saving his life.

He received an American Red Cross Heroes Award, which could have been the beginning of a promising life, but it wasn't enough to counter the negative effects of his parents' divorce.

Daniel said he became depressed not long after his parents split up.

When he was twelve or thirteen, he was diagnosed with clinical depression and prescribed a number of medications, well bututrin and zoloft, which are common antidepressants, and ambilify, which can be given to help manage the side effects of the other drugs.

He said, it helped it first, but his sense plateaued.

So I've describe how you feel in that point where you left at your place better than before before I was, you know, I'd wake up and I didn't want to be alive, and I didn't want to get out of bed.

I didn't have any motivation to do anything.

And now I get up, I like I show or I give me to up.

I take better care of myself, I eat better.

I basically it pulled me out of rock bottom.

And put me on a little like put me on my feet.

I guess that's that's a lot.

Yeah, when you talk about rock bottom, I mean I've spoken to different teenagers and an adult as well.

Rock bottom for me and any different things.

And what is that to you?

Never feeling happy, just constantly feeling miserable, wanting to die, having such bad feelings of depression that it actually starts to physically ail you, and you start to hurt like you owns hurt and it wheels you down.

You just want to die so badly, but you can't.

Daniel said he never had a lot of friends, but his depression caused him to push the ones he had away.

On top of that, he was bullied.

Well, I never really had that many friends.

I was like, I was that lunar kid that you know, there's always that one outcast.

Like how was that one?

And so I always only had a handful of friends.

And lately because of the crap that's been happening.

Ok like two or three left from the crap you're telling you tell me earlier about you know, Okay, so two or three friends?

Okay, you meant you referred to yourself as a loner.

Yeah, that who do I need to Well?

The other kids, you know, they you know, pick on me and make fun of me, and so I just I'd sit in the corner.

Basically, I just wouldn't talk to anybody.

I'd just do my work and wait until I could go home.

What were you getting?

What are you getting picked on for?

Well, at the time, I was actually kind of chilly, and so they gave me crap for that.

And I have kind of a weird, dark sense of humor, and so.

Looking back on me, I was kind of a weird kid and a creepy kid in a way.

But I'm not sure exactly what it was.

They just didn't like me.

When Daniel was thirteen, he began seeing a counselor, and his parents said he had nightmares and that he suffered from social anxiety.

Like many teenage boys, Daniel retreated into a world of video games and music.

He did take up martial arts and became a first degree black belt in Filipino martial arts.

He said having something like that to focus on was helpful in improving his mental health, which makes sense.

Martial arts can be a good way to clear your mind and focus your energy on something other than your thoughts, whether those be as bad as wanting to kill people or just stress from work or life events.

It was around that time that Daniel's father, Bill, was living in a house in South Davis, and they had some neighbors named Oliver Northup and Claudium hop In.

Oliver Northup, who went by Chip, was born on April twenty sixth to nineteen twenty five in Grand Island, Nebraska.

He served in the US Navy during World War II before getting his law degree at the University of California Berkeley School of Law.

He continued working as an attorney up until his death in twenty thirteen.

Claudium Moppin was born on May fifteenth, nineteen thirty six in Solano County, California, just southwest of Davis.

It sounds like they were both married previously and had children before they met each other at church.

They married each other in nineteen ninety six and settled in Davis, happy to welcome their new neighbors, Bill marsh and his two children, Daniel and Sarah, when they moved in around twenty eleven.

Daniel said they hadn't lived there long before moving again, and then when he was fourteen, his father kicked him out of the house for his drug and alcohol use.

At that point, Daniel stayed exclusively to his mother's house, which was in the same South Davis neighborhood as the house his father had lived in previously.

By the time Daniel was fifteen, he was having extreme intrusive thoughts about killing people.

He would eventually tell investigators that those started when he was pretty young.

Thought about plodding showing the woman my mother I left my father, your kindergarten teacher, Yes, because you were so angry at her.

Yeah, okay.

I saw her as the reason that my family was stripped apart, and in a way she was a big part of that.

So she was gonna be repelled responsible?

Okay, So what were you gonna do at age time?

What was your plan?

So this let her through?

Okay?

How were you gonna do that?

I knew where she lived and she came over frequently.

I didn't at the time, really, I was ten.

I didn't have a plan.

Okay.

Did you ever take any steps towards that one?

Did you go to her house and try to get in any night or at least watch what her habits were?

Did you have a knife at the time?

Why?

Access to my lives?

But I didn't have when I could call my own Okay, So when for the next time that you can remember picking a buck telling someone?

Uh, seventh grade and who was out?

Wasn't anyone in particular, It was just I thought about everybody at that school.

You got me so much shit that I just thought about just showing up one day and see how many I could take out before they took me out.

The anger was boiling over.

Yeah.

Did you ever?

How far did you get in that one?

Did you ever try to blind a gun?

Yeah?

I tried, but I didn't really succeed.

Year does a year family have guns?

Your dad doesn't have any?

Or what was the next time you remember thinking about chocks on m M.

Eighth grade, I still had same desire school.

This is middles cooler.

Yeah, ninth grade ist when I got more intense.

Every time I look at someone in my mind, I see flashes of images of me killing them in numerous ways and numerous horrible ways, doing perible names.

I can't help it.

It's just what comes into my head when I see them.

I don't want it to.

I don't like that it does what it does right, not sur around the time that that started.

These were other people at school are students, so everyone everyone, everyone.

I look at family members, family members, lost ones, doesn't matter.

It's disgusting moments.

His dangerous feelings eventually took over, and Daniel finally gave in.

In the early morning hours of April fourteenth, twenty thirteen, Daniel left his mother's home and walked around his neighborhood looking for unlocked doors or windows.

He made his way from his house on Lillard Drive and first headed west to the Renaissance Park apartments.

Having no luck there, he walked back the way he had come and made his way north to Cowl Boulevard.

Ware After he walked by the house he had once lived in with his father, he found the opening.

He was looking for an open window in the house that Chipped north up in Claudia Moppin lived in.

He was wearing all black, which was his usual uniform as a depressed, angst filled teen, but he had added a couple other items.

He was also wearing black gloves and a black ski mask, which he had stolen from a Big five sporting goods store.

He had brought a hunting knife with him that he would later describe as looking just like the knife from the movie Scream.

He used the knife to cut the window screen and enter the house.

Inside, he carried out his fantasy before returning home.

April fourteenth was a Sunday, and Chip and Claudia were strict churchgoers, so much so that their absence from the pews that morning raised alarms with other parishioners.

Chip's daughter called the house but got no response, so his son went and knocked on the door.

When he got no answer, he assumed they went out of town and left.

Later that evening, Claudia's daughter, accompanied by a police officer, arrived at the house, where she found a window on the back of the house open and the screen cut.

That was when the bodies were discovered laying in their bed covered in blood.

Unfortunately for investigators, there was no evidence left at the scene, no fingerprints, no fibers, no footprints, no clues.

Daniel had committed a crime that he would never have been linked back to if only he could have kept his mouth shut.

That same day, he told a friend that he had committed the murders, and then the following day at school, he bragged about it some more.

After that, he told his girlfriend about it, which led her to break up with him at the beginning of June, and yet another case where kids knew about a crime and didn't immediately report it.

They claimed they were afraid of Daniel.

A few weeks after Daniel's girlfriend broke up with him, he broke into her house by climbing through the dog door, which made the girlfriend fear for her life.

That's when someone in the group of friends told Bill about what his son had done, but he didn't believe the claim.

After that, the teen went to the police and reported what he knew about the crime.

Daniel was brought to the police station for questioning on June seventeenth, twenty thirteen.

His interview is just over five hours long, and unlike many interview videos that have long periods where the suspect is just waiting in the room, almost all of this video has Daniel talking to someone.

He talks to al least detective for a while, and he talks to an FBI agent for a while or both are in the room with him.

They asked him about his family history and then ask him if he knows anything about the couple who were murdered.

He explained that he knew that an older couple had been murdered and that they used to be his father's neighbors.

He told the detective that he thought he heard they had been beaten to death, but didn't know much else.

They asked him what he had been doing the weekend of the murders, and he said he probably just stayed home playing video games and playing on his guitar.

He also said that he was normally asleep by ten or eleven PM.

They tried to get specific details out of him, like what games he was playing and who he had talked to, but Daniel pointed out that it was two months ago it was reasonable for him to not remember those exact details, and he was right.

That didn't stop the investigators from pushing for more information.

I guess get for me.

Kind of concerns are man people who are much more tech savvy than me, because I'm just an old guy.

I don't know anything about anything.

I found this thing called tumblr and your tumblr page?

Is that the right term?

Yeah?

Yeah, tell me about that.

How did that come to be Tumblr?

I heard about it.

I made one, Okay, So describe to me the stuff that's on there on my page.

You're on Tumblr and j on your on your page?

Yeah, song lyrics, uh, things like miniature things about like what I feel, a lot of stuff from horror movies because I like horror movies, gore.

It's pretty much it just music and scary stuff.

Horror movies and gore.

Yeah, things like this, A lot of that on there.

Since I was a little kid.

I like armies.

I've been watching them like for a long time.

And so the rumors that he's referring to our people saying specific things about what you have told other people, Well, what would that be that you were there, that you did.

Those murders?

Me, that's ridiculous.

Why it's it ridiculous?

I'm a kid.

No, that's well, like I don't.

I don't hear people like you can ask anyone around me.

I'm a compassionate, affectionate person.

I care about people.

I don't when I heard them.

I mean, yeah, they kissed me off sometimes and they used some messed up shit, But I heard about people.

I know.

There's probably some people that you do care about.

And as far as being a kid, Dan, I mean last year or last week, last month was up in Calivert's kind did you ever see anything in the news about that by the twelve year old boy who ordered a sister he stapped her after they're not really I tried to make it look like an intruder had done it for.

A fifteen year old, Daniel's actually quite bright.

The investigators told him that his friends claimed that he had told them about the murderers, and that he gave them details that only someone who was there would have known.

Daniel responded by asking why that person wasn't to suspect.

Then, if they had those details, how did the investigators know that they aren't the murderer, which is a good point.

Fortunately for Daniel, they had more information than just the word of another teenager.

They didn't just talk to that person and turn around and immediately interview Daniel.

They talked to the other people around him, such as his ex girlfriend.

Daniel claimed that they had broken up because she cheated on him, but they had already talked to her and knew that he had bragged about the murder and that was why she broke up with them.

They also knew that he had broken into her house.

The thing that did make Daniel stupid was when he proclaimed himself a compassionate person and suggested that investigators should ask around about him.

I mean, they'd be asking the same people that turned him in, so it wasn't really a great suggestion.

From there, he tried to place the blame for the murder on his friend Alvarrow.

He told the FBI agent that Alvarau had killed a cat and that he was the type of person who would kill people.

From that point in the interview, Daniel Diggs's heels in and maintains that he did not commit the murders and he did not describe the murders to anyone.

Eventually, they were able to get a DNA sample and take his phone and his boots from him.

They explained that they would be able to examine the boots for microscopic blood drops, and that his cell phone location data would show where he had been at the time of the crime.

It seems that Daniel realized he would eventually get caught, and he finally admitted to the murders.

It was at that time when they asked when he had first started thinking about killing people.

Then the agent asked when was the first time he had thought about killing Chip in Claudia, But he responded that he hadn't.

He had never previously planned on murdering them.

He just walked around until he found a house that he could get into easily.

Not I just I couldn't take anywhere I had to do.

I was control though.

I just went in to the street, wandered around for a while.

I was looking for who would be which house I should go to?

Who would be good?

Okay, wall you buy yourself down?

Yeah?

What time of night wasn't I think it was like two in the morning, two or three?

Okay?

Do you remember what day of the week it was?

I think it was Fridy, either Friday night or Saturday night.

And when you said you went out the street, where did you start out?

That evening.

Then then well, I just kind of walked all around the south days.

It was just by chance that the poor couple had left a window open that day.

The only crime chip in Claudia had committed was living less than a mile from Daniel.

When he found that window open, he knew he had finally found what he was looking for.

I got a hole on the screen, not even the hole, it was just a flap that I could get out with.

Climbed into the back.

I listened for storm and I heard it.

Went to their bedroom.

I opened the door and I just kind of stood over their bed, watching the sleep for a few minutes.

My body was trembling.

I was nervous, but excited and exhilarated.

I was actually gonna do it.

I was there, It's finally happening.

It was almost like an out of body experience.

I just didn't feel like I was really there.

It was real.

Yeah, And the woman woke up, so I just started stabbing over and over.

Okay, i'll sharp in the torso and I tried to get it, and then my husband woke up and he looked over, and just as he looked over, I stabbed him in the neck and then I went back to killing the woman cause she wouldn't die.

You're stabbing her in the torso and she just went back.

Yeah, Like I I stabbed her a lot, as you obviously know.

It took a long time, and it was a lot easier with the guy than it was with her.

Where did you stab him?

I started in the neck and then I just kind of went all over and well, I stabbed her until she stopped moving and she was just kind of twitching.

And I went over to him because I only stabbed him once at the time, because you know, I had to finish that one, and I just started stabbing him in the dorset as well, made sure they were both dead, and then I just kind of kept stabbing their dead bodies.

I don't know why.

I just felt right, okay, even after they stopped loving, even when they were dead, I wasn't done.

And I just kind of messed around with messed around with him, kind of open most of their torsos around here, and and the woman, I put his phone in the side of her, and I put a cup inside of the guy.

I don't know why, I really don't, okay, And and I like cut open her leg I don't know.

I did not either.

I just kind of wanted to see he was disgusting that what you expected.

Yeah, I've never actually seen like what fat actually looks like?

Is it?

What?

What surprised you about it?

And I don't know.

It's just like, so that's what makes people fat.

It's just like this material, like this substance.

It smelled that that's not People don't recognize it, don't realize that that's what happens.

And it does sell that What color was it?

Do remember?

Yellow?

Okay?

And I like pulled some of it out with a knife because I was interested in that.

I wanted to see what else and side we still thought about the leg and the woman talk about the torsa?

Was the torsa?

I told him more that I don't remember if I told some la.

He described the murders in great detail.

When he was about to leave the house, he saw the phone in the cup in the kitchen and decided to go back into the bedroom and mess with the bodies.

He put the phone inside Claudia's body and the cup inside Chip's body.

He told the investigators that he thought it would confuse the authorities when the crime was discovered He described committing the murders as amazing and euphoric, but he said that the way it happened was better than he thought.

There's a lot messier and it didn't go I excited.

All was sure is I figured out Mike speaking, slip their throats and pay it from there.

This was a lot working were dens AshEL stabbing was more exciting, and an intestine slipped their throat because it was Ashley.

They were a knowing and resisting.

He thought he was going to go in and slit the throats of people who were sleeping, but Claudia woke up.

He said it seemed like she was going to go to the bathroom, since she first threw the sheet off of her before she noticed him standing there.

After the murders, he returned home, where he put his shirt, jacket, gloves, and ski mask into the garage.

He didn't clean them, saying he kept them as a trophy.

He washed his pants and continued wearing his boots.

He cleaned the knife and set it on a shelf inside the garage.

He told the investigators that he felt better after the killings, but by the time of his interview he had already started feeling the urge to kill again.

He described going out twice by then with a baseball bat, looking for someone outside to beat to death.

The investigators asked him why a baseball bat, and he explained that he thought changing it up would keep the murders from being connected.

Won a break in with a knife and the other outside with a baseball bat.

If he hadn't bragged about his first murders, he quite possibly would have gotten away with another one.

Once he had fully confessed.

He asked the investigators if he would get the death penalty, and they said it was unlikely, but the actual answer is a hard no.

The US Supreme Court ruled that miners cannot get the death penalty in two thousand and five.

You can commit the most heinous crime imaginable and be tried as an adult, but no matter what, if you committed the crime while you were under the age of eighteen, you cannot receive the death penalty in the US, and in this case, Daniel was tried as an adult.

Special circumstances were added for killing more than one person, demonstrating exceptional depravity, and inflicting torture in the commission of the murders before we finished this episode, I just want to remind you that we're trying to hit a million subscribers this year.

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Despite making a full confession, Daniel pleaded not guilty, which was eventually changed to not guilty by reason of insanity.

He was examined by a psychiatrist who Daniel threatened to kill during the meeting.

The doctor reported that Daniel definitely suffers from mental illness, but he is not insane based on the definition by a court of law.

He knew what he was doing at the time was wrong.

Daniel's defense claimed that's slight effects from the medications he was taking triggered uncontrollable violence.

The jury didn't buy it, and they found him guilty on all counts.

On top of miners being ineligible for the death penalty, they're also not able to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

They have to at least have parole eligibility, though that doesn't mean they will ever be granted parole.

Daniel Marsh was sentenced to life in prison with parole eligibility after fifty two years.

What makes a person so young have the overwhelming urge to kill?

Some people want to blame the heavy metal music he listened to or the video games he played, but more than enough studies have shown that violence in the media doesn't cause someone to be violent.

It can encourage an already violent person to commit violence, but it doesn't create the desire to commit evil.

Something inside of Daniel Marsh was already evil?

Was he born that way?

Did the breakdown of his parents' relationship chip cause it?

It's something we'll probably never know, but it would be nice if we did, and we could figure out some way to cause it to not happen.

Until we do, though, we will continue to see more monsters like Daniel.

Thanks for listening to this As Monsters.

New episodes are uploaded twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays.

There are occasional bonus episodes covering unsolved cases in criminal history.

If you have a suggestion for a case you think I should cover, leave it in the comments.

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