"Fifteen: A Killer's Mind" | "48 Hours" Podcast (Episode 5) | Forensic Files

Before we begin, just a trigger warning. The following episode contains references to graphic physical violence.
Please listen with care. [Music] I mean, Chris, do you believe that Daniel Marsh was a serial killer in
training? >> Absolutely. perhaps without a doubt that if if he had been allowed to keep on
going, um he actually talked about how he was going to take his next victim. >> Almost 4 hours into questioning at the
police station, Daniel Marsh admitted to FBI special agent Chris Campion that he
had murdered Claudia Min and Chip Northup. But he didn't stop there. Campion learned the teenager was already
thinking about his next killing. >> Well, it's going to basically do this same thing only with a different
mask and a different gloves, a different jacket, and instead of breaking in, I figured I'd get somebody when they were
alone at night out in the street or out somewhere, just find somebody alone at night and beat him to death with a
baseball bat. >> Okay. Did you have anybody in mind? No. >> Had you actually gone out looking for
someone? >> Yeah. >> He was someone who did not have a conscience. >> You believe Daniel Marsh is a
psychopath? >> I do. I believe Daniel Marsh is a psychopath. I I knew it when he was
talking to me. He actually admitted it. cuz I don't feel sympathy for other people
at all. I don't feel empathy for them. And whether I like that or not, it's the way
it is. Just like I want to hurt people. >> Campion maintained his composure. And then he asked Daniel a question that
I had never heard in a police interrogation. No. How would you kill me? There's a lot of ways I mean that you've
thought of so far in the couple hours that we spent together here. >> Well, choking you to death with your
tie. >> Okay. Uh beating your face into the mirror until it broke and using the glass to cut your arteries. Uh gouging
your eyes out and just smashing your face into the wall. Campion had asked, "How would you kill
me?" And almost immediately, Daniel had thought of three different gruesome ways
that he would do it. >> Nothing personal. I don't take it personal. >> Okay. It's just that's what happens when
you meet somebody, when you're thinking, when there's that time when you >> involuntary. It's something that just
happens. And I said I didn't take it personally cuz I didn't I don't think I did anything to offend him, to upset
him. Um I think he literally thinks about that with anybody he meets. That's what he thinks about doing. That's his
fantasy life. >> While Daniel was questioned, police had searched his mother's home. There they
found writings, drawings, a knife, duct tape, and clothing with Chip and Claudia's DNA.
Police also searched Daniel's father's home. When he found out his son was being questioned, he said he sent a
public defender down to the police station. Authorities finally had a suspect in
Chip Northup and Claudia Mppin's murders. And with physical evidence, DNA samples, and a complete confession, it
seemed like the case against Daniel was solid. But the fact that the suspect was
a teenager would complicate things for the prosecution. [Music] I'm 48 hours correspondent Aaron
Morardi. This is 15 inside the Daniel Marsh murders. Episode 5, A Killer's Mind.
>> When did you first hear the name Daniel Marsh? the victim's advocate as well as
the Davis police u liaison who was in charge of our case uh called and said that they had made an arrest.
>> Victoria Herd had finally gotten the call she had been anxiously waiting for.
>> I just remember shaking my head going, "What? What?" >> That anyone could kill her mother and
stepfather was difficult enough to believe. by a 15-year-old, a teenager. Who was this boy named Daniel Marsh?
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,
I've got to go to that arraignment. That arraignment's going to happen within 24
hours. I've got to go there and see this man, young man. So >> kid, >> kid. But Victoria would have to wait even
longer to see him. Because Daniel was a minor, his face was hidden by a wall at the arraignment.
>> My sister-in-law was with me. I said, "I I have got to see him. I've got to look
in his face and see this man who killed my mother." >> Finally, she saw Daniel's face through a
TV monitor. >> He looked like somebody who would be one of my niec's boyfriends. He looked like
some hippie kid from Davis. When I was at the arraignment, his father sat in front of me. And uh I
think it was my victim's advocate who told me that was his father. And there was something strange. I didn't like it.
I didn't like the feel. [Music] >> Daniel's father is Bill Marsh. We spoke in 2018.
>> Did it ever occur to you that your own son could be involved in something like
that? >> Not in a million years. You never saw any sign of that. You never got a sense
that >> if I had had any sense of it, I would have taken action. >> Bill seemed to still struggle with what
his son was accused of. >> Show me the pictures you have here. Tell me who this 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
heart attack. >> Yes. Right. One day in November 2009, Daniel was home with his father when Bill says he
had started feeling dizzy >> and I I'd gone upstairs and taken a shower, came down and said, "Come on,
Dan. Let's go to the hospital. I got checked out. >> They got in the car and made it to the
corner of their street. >> Next thing I knew, I woke up and the car was ran into a wall covered in bushes
and a tree. I asked Daniel, "How did we wind up here? What happened?" He says, "I don't know, Daddy." He says,
"Suddenly you just passed out." He says, "I climbed into your lap and steered the
car into the wall to stop it." >> It must have been terrifying for Daniel, who started banging on his father's
chest. Something Daniel later said he had seen on a medical drama. It worked. Daniel
had saved his father's life. About a month later, Daniel was presented with an American Red Cross
Heroes Award. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was a major event. Um, he was all over the media and they
were, you know, touting this young American hero. And look at this. He might actually be a future doctor. And
>> sure enough, there was Daniel featured in local newspapers, hailed for his heroism. In photos, he looks innocent
and sweet, wearing a suit with a rose bud in his lapel, his father proudly standing beside him. The next year,
Daniel enrolled in the Davis Police Department's Youth Academy, receiving instruction on crime scene
investigation. But while Daniel may have appeared a model citizen on the outside, he was
also harboring a dark side. Something Bill said he didn't notice until after his heart attack.
>> You know that he told counselors that he was actually killing animals before then. Did you
have any sense of that, Bill? >> 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 of experience to counsel him. But he told the FBI agent that he had thought
about killing your wife's >> lover >> lover that he thought about killing her. That was 2 years earlier.
As Daniel entered the Yolo County courthouse almost a year and a half after Claudia Mopin and Chip Northup's
murders, a judge and jury were about to decide his fate. Now on trial is Daniel Marsh, the teenager being tried as an
adult after the gruesome killings that rocked the city of Davis last year. On Tuesday, September 2nd, 2014,
the long awaited murder trial against Daniel Marsh, now 17 years old, began at the Yolo County Courthouse.
Daniel had been charged as an adult with two counts of first-degree murder. Prosecutors concluded that he had quote
committed a very adult crime in a very adult manner. And then just 3 months before the trial began, Daniel changed
his plea from not guilty to not guilty by reason of insanity. A clear indication of the defense to
come. Inside the courtroom, Daniel looked noticeably different from the year before when he had first confessed to
killing Chip Northup and Claudia Mopin. Gone was the long scruffy hair. Now it was cut short, neater, and darker.
[Music] >> He showed zero emotion. Um, he didn't seem scared. Um, he would just face
forward. He never cried. >> This is Amanda Zambour, the deputy district attorney for Yolo County. I
spoke with her in 2018. At the time of the trial, she was one of the two prosecutors.
Had you ever run into a defendant like this? >> Not in real life. Only in books. When
you read about Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dmer, um you know, Richard Ramirez, all people
that he idolized and and studied and identified with. I >> mean, did that add a whole another the
fact that this defendant was a kid? >> Yeah. So, I was pregnant with my third 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 depraved mind? How do how do they get
that way? Um is it possible to change them? >> Zambour along with co-prosecutor Michael
Cabraw began prepping for the trial as soon as Daniel was arrested in June 2013.
Davis Police Department thankfully built a very strong case and Chris Campion um
from the FBI did a masterful job in his interview of Marsh. Had Campion not been
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
from the get-go once we figured out it was him. >> What about though the defense argument
that this guy, this young man had a lot of trauma? his mother left the family for another woman. Um, he was in this
car accident when his father had a heart attack. He had to save his father. He was bullied in school. Possible that
that could cause this kind of anger and lashing out. >> You know, there's no doubt that he he
had some trauma in his life, but there's how many kids that go through and have divorced parents and they don't kill
other people. They may struggle with depression. and they may struggle with other things, but there's a lot of
people who actually have severe trauma that don't act like this. >> But Zamour needed to convince the jurors
that Daniel had intended to kill. >> I mean, he had been fantasizing about it since he was 10, 11 years old about
killing somebody. So, it wasn't this spur-ofthe- moment um murder where he just snapped and went
out. He planned and stole items and sharpened the knife and put duct tape on his boots to not leave footprints, which
you know, it it just shows how intelligent he is. >> To put Daniel behind bars, Zambour
needed to make the case to jurors that Daniel knew exactly what he was doing and if given the chance, he'd do it
again. And if that happened, he'd be even better at it. I believe he would have gotten away with these murders if
he had not bragged to his friends. If he had not bragged, he would have killed others. He would have he bragged about
going out with a baseball bat in the middle of the night and just not being able to find the right victim. He had
plotted and planned another victim for his girlfriend's ex-boyfriend and had done reconnaissance on him and I mean
knew the pets in the home, the neighbors, what family members lived there. He had created a fake Facebook
account to get more intel on this family to to try and figure out how he could kill them. And he actually went out and
waited for him on one night, but he didn't come. In the courtroom, the prosecution
questioned dozens of witnesses, including friends of Chip and Claudia, Daniel's former friend, Alvaro Garab,
police officers, and psychiatrists. One witness, a member of the Davis Police Department, helped process the
crime scene. He testified that the blood stain patterns left behind suggested that Chip and Claudia were awake and had
tried to defend themselves against Daniel. >> Claudia fought, made him mad, and it
just invigorated him to keep going. and he describes how her please for for him to stop just
enthused him, made him want to keep going. >> These were horrific details. Prosecutors
tried to prepare Claudia and Chip's families for what they would hear in the courtroom.
>> So, they would brief us before we'd go in and say, "Okay, now in this next part, you're going to hear some things
that you haven't heard before." Claudia's daughter, Victoria, told me that one of the most painful times for
her was sitting in court watching that taped interview between FBI special agent Chris Campion and Daniel Marsh.
>> It was really tough for me. Um especially when he got to the part where he talked about killing my mother and he
talked about um he had to stab keep stabbing her because she wouldn't die and that she was
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
anymore. I felt like it was so real that I was experiencing the death of my mother. He was saying all the details in
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
describe a person like Daniel Marsh after hearing him talk? >> My mind can't process that degree of
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.
Adding to Victoria's horror was the score of friends and fans. Yes, fans who showed up to the trial to support
Daniel. >> He had a lot of goth followers. So he had a lot of young women who were
following him. acting like little teenage girls, you know, dressed in black and black makeup and all that and
thinking 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 was a celebrity. Like he was the celebrity that he wanted to be. No remorse.
>> Oh, no. He was reveling in his celebrity. The prosecution was convinced that not
only did Daniel know exactly what he was doing when he killed Chip and Claudia, but the big question at trial, was
Daniel in his right mind? Was he sane when committing the murders? Daniel's defense team intended to prove
he wasn't. And this was the man they wanted to help make that case. >> So, my name is Dr. Matthew Sulier and
I'm a child forensic psychiatrist. I was hired by his attorney in 2013 to evaluate him as part of his original
trial. >> I sat down with Dr. Sulier in 2018 and again in 2025. >> My job really was to kind of explore his
life history beginning with birth until 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 relationships, history of trauma, and
specifically as it related to the defense, I needed him to tell me about 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 criminally responsible or not.
>> Sulier first met Daniel a few months after his arrest. In 2013, I met him at the Yolo County Juvenile Hall and uh he
was dressed in, you know, typical juvenile hall attire. He was a different kind of kid. I mean, when I I it does
stick out to me that uh 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 there was a heart or that there was there was a feeling in him. In fact, Daniel was
still regularly thinking about killing people. He told Sulier that he had thoughts of harming his peers and the
people taking care of him in juvenile hall. Then, just like FBI special agent Chris Campion, Dr. Sullier found himself
on the receiving end of Daniel's homicidal thoughts. I asked him, "What are you thinking
about?" And he said, "I'm thinking about killing you. I'm thinking about taking that pen on your table right there and
shoving it in your neck. I'm thinking about taking your laptop and crushing it over your head."
>> It wasn't the only time that a patient had threatened Dr. Sulier. So, while he
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.
Sulier believed that Daniel's desire to kill him and others was actually the result of an obsessive compulsive
disorder. >> It's my belief that, you know, Daniel wasn't born a bad seed. I don't believe
in that. Daniel clearly changed around the age of 10. Um, by everybody's observation and what we could gather
about him, um, he wasn't a terrible kid up until age 10. But you don't think he was born that way?
>> No. No. I I just The issue of psychopathy. Uh it it's clearly something that Yes,
there's probably some level of genetic predisposition to it. Um but he wasn't a bad kid in preschool or kindergarten.
There's no evidence of that of any kind. Um there's something that was unlocked in him. There were forces. There were
things that experiences, things that happened to him that I think made him who he was.
>> Dr. Sulier also believed that Daniel didn't want to be this way, that he had wanted to stop his compulsive behavior.
>> In his case, he developed these morbid preoccupations about death, about killing people. Um, but again, the thing
that it was important to note to me was that it was disturbing to him. He was going around telling everybody and
anybody who would listen to him. Um he told school, he told a transporting police officer, he told his therapist,
he told a psychiatrist, he told anybody that he wanted to kill everybody. I have
these thoughts. I don't want to have them. Ultimately, he did act on them. But the precursor was sat masochistic
sex, gore porn, all these things was an attempt in my mind to diminish the intensity of those preoccupations. And
at first it worked. At first, it would dissolve those thoughts and feelings about killing other people, but
ultimately that gave out and it wasn't sufficient and ultimately he then acted on it.
>> But at some point, Daniel seemed to stop fighting his compulsions. The horror he had once felt had morphed
into something else. rather than being repelled and upset by what he had done when he finally listened to those
repetitive thoughts, he was actually excited about it, proud. What does that say?
>> Um, that's disturbing. That's deviant. Again, that's the psychopathy in him that really lacks feeling. He just is
unable to feel um compassion for those that he hurt at that time in 2013. And that's scary.
But here's the important part. Daniel might have had strong compulsions to kill. Compulsions that he struggled to
control, but Dr. Sulier concluded that Daniel was not legally insane. What would make him insane? What are you
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
doing it? >> It is a very high standard. You have to be able to um lack an appreciation for
what you did. So, for instance, while you're holding a knife, you think you're, you know, holding a spoon or
something that's completely unrelated um and that you really fail to understand the morality of what you're
doing, the consequences of what you're doing. It it's it's typically reserved for people that have very severe
psychiatric illness. uh psychotic illness, uh people that are uh acting under the direction of delusions, their
voices, and none of this was true for Daniel. The fact that Daniel actually bragged about what he was doing and
seemed to enjoy it, but also covering the bottom of his shoes with tape. What does that say to you when you're trying
to determine whether he's insane or not? >> It shows that he's engaging in logical
and linear behaviors. He's calculating, he's planning in a logical manner. We might disagree with what he's doing,
obviously, and it's terrible. Um, but it's not psychotically driven in any way. >> Dr. Sulier was convinced that Daniel
knew what he was doing when he committed the murders. But despite Sulier's professional assessment, Daniel's
defense team was determined to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. And they plan to prove that the medications
Daniel had taken made him that way. The drugs made me do it. >> Exactly. The drugs and anti-depressant
um specifically. And what I basically told defense is that I couldn't get on board with the idea of the defense of an
insanity particularly. I didn't believe that the anti-depressants caused him to act in that way or kill. So the defense
said thank you. and they went and found another expert. >> The defense called Dr. James Marangis to
testify as an expert witness. A neurologist and psychiatrist, he interviewed Daniel and his family
members several times and reviewed Daniel's previous medical records and police statements. Dr. America Kangas
testimony focused largely on SSRIs, a class of anti-depressants that included medications that Daniel had
been prescribed to treat severe depression. According to Merrick Hangus, the side
effect of those drugs could include extreme restlessness, outbursts of anger, and increased impulsivity.
Daniel, he said, was experiencing those side effects. The doctor believed that Daniel had endured trauma for years. And
that had, in part, made him more susceptible to dangerous side effects. Daniel's father, Bill Marsh, also
believed that Daniel's behavior was caused by medication. >> It turns your world upside down. Turns
your brain inside out. You think that's the only reason why he killed? >> I do. Yeah.
>> But isn't it just possible your son is a psychopath? >> Um, not in my mind. No.
>> And why? Why? Why are you so >> Because I I've raised him. I was around him all the time. And he was in my
estimation a normal kid until they um until they started feeding these drugs. >> Most important, Dr. Marra Kangas said
that on the day of the murder, Daniel had reported having an out-ofbody experience.
Marra Kangas couldn't prove when Daniel's dreamlike state began or how long it lasted. He just knew that
according to Daniel, it had started sometime that night. The doctor knew that Daniel, the defendant, had
motivation to lie about this dreamlike state. After all, Daniel hadn't said anything about it in his interviews with
special agent Chris Campion or Dr. Matthew Sulier. But still, Dr. Marangas felt that Daniel had been truthful to
him in his interview. >> I just fundamentally don't believe putting someone on an anti-depressant
generates any level of risk that you're going to go and do what Daniel did. >> That's Dr. Sulier again and he wasn't
convinced that medications could cause legal insanity. >> There are side effects. It can make you
more suicidal, more agitated, but it doesn't drive you to kill in the way he did in such a calculating and callous
manner. It just doesn't. >> And as prosecutor Amanda Zambour pointed out, Daniel was having those violent
feelings much earlier. when you actually looked at the medical records, he was having these thoughts and fantasies
before he was ever on Zoloft. Um, he wasn't taking his Zoloft as he was supposed to. A lot of times he would
just not take them. Um, he described selling some of his medications to other people. So, really there was no basis
for that. >> After 4 weeks of testimony, it would be up to the jury to decide, was Daniel
Marsh guilty? And if so, did he know what he was doing when he committed the murders? There was a lot at stake here
for Daniel and the community because one verdict would put Daniel behind bars for
the foreseeable future. The other meant Daniel would go to a psychiatric hospital for treatment.
[Music] You know, we felt very confident in the case, in the evidence, but there's
always that little bit of doubt. >> Prosecutor Amanda Zamour felt she had made the best case she could to the
jury. >> You had mostly women on the jury. Were you worried one woman might feel
sympathy for this young guy? Um, you know, it's it's always it's a 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 you know they feel sorry like how could
this this child have done this? But nearly 2 hours after closing arguments, the jury re-entered the courtroom
and the verdict was >> guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of of every single count of all the
enhancements of all the special circumstances. Unanimously, the jury had found Daniel
Marsh guilty on two counts of firstdegree murder along with additional quote enhancements that increase the
severity of the punishment he would face due to the depraved nature of the crime.
>> You see things on TV and you think, well, that's television. That couldn't possibly happen in such a
way. in in real life, but it was actually probably more horrifying. >> Cheryl Gleason sat on the jury of eight
women and four men. She explained to me why she believed Daniel Marsh was guilty. the stacks of binders of
pictures from the crime scene, the piles of evidence that we went through, hearing the accounts of the story, the
more evidence that came out in how meticulous and precise his actions were, how things
leading up to that, like going through the Junior Police Academy and how well he did at that, and
he was a smart kid. Really smart kid. >> Hearing weeks of gruesome testimony left
some jurors traumatized. >> It had a long-term effect that I wasn't really thinking would happen. To this
day, I cannot fall asleep without sleeping my face towards the door, the bedroom door. I can't turn my back on
the door to this day. >> Explain that to me. because he came through a window that he 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 thing that I
have to keep my eye on until I fall asleep. >> However, finding Daniel guilty was not
actually the end of the trial. The jury still had to make another decision. Was Daniel insane at the time of the
murders? While she had been confident that the jurors would find Daniel guilty of murder, prosecutor Amanda Zambour
wasn't as confident about the issue of insanity. >> Were you more nervous about that?
>> Yes. Because of that, you know, that immediate thought to see something this grave, the immediate thought is it
somebody would have to be insane to do something like this. they'd have to be out of their mind. Um, but then again,
when you go back and you hear him speak about just how happy and enthused that this made him, that he was laughing the
whole way home and giggling and wanted to relive it and kept these moments. And to see it up close is it's powerful.
So after delivering the guilty verdict, the jurors heard another day of arguments where the prosecution and
defense tried to prove that Daniel was either legally sane or insane at the 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 committed the murders of Claudia
Mopin and Chip Northup. >> It was just really clear that he was not insane. >> So if he's not insane, then what is
Daniel Marsh? >> He's a psychopathic killer. I think if he were let loose, he would be a serial
killer. He has an urge to kill. Ahead of the sentencing, the judge heard from members of Claudia and Chip's
family who talked about the deep losses they had suffered. Victoria Herd detailed the trauma that the family
experienced and told the court that her sister Laura had quote lost her mind to grief after discovering the bodies and
had still not recovered by the time of the trial. Victoria also recalled having to tell her children about their
grandmother's murder and how they sobbed and screamed in heartbreak. Victoria's message to the court was that
quote, "If Daniel is free, people will die. Another son, another daughter, another father, mother, brother, sister
will suffer as I have. Therefore, in honor of my mother, Claudia Mppen, and the legacy of love that she left behind
for us, it is my belief that the loving, compassionate action in this situation would be to request from the court the
maximum sentence allowable for the torture and murder of my mother and her husband, Chip Northup.
And then the judge handed Daniel a sentence. that prosecutor Amanda Zambour had been working to secure for weeks.
>> The judge sentenced Daniel Marsh to 52 years. Were you happy with that? >> It it was the maximum that he could have
done. Um had he been 16, he would have been eligible for life without the possibility of parole. Um but because of
his age, the max he could have gotten was 52 years to life. So we were very happy with that. The prosecution had
succeeded in their effort to put Daniel behind bars for a long, long time. When asked for comment on the case and
sentencing, Daniel's lawyers declined. While Daniel had been handed the longest sentence possible, he still would be
eligible for parole in 25 years. But in the meantime, the victim's families could take time to breathe.
>> When we received the conviction, it felt 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 over.
>> It was not over. Not by a long shot. Because 4 years later, Victoria and the rest of Chip and Claudia's family would
find themselves fighting again as a new California law threatened to let Daniel go free much earlier than the judge had
ordered. >> So if he's out in 4 years, he knows us. 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
what he's done again. >> Yes. That fear is overwhelming. >> That's next on 15 inside the Daniel Marsh murders.
[Music] This series was reported by me, Aaron Morardi. Alan Pang is our producer. Mora
Walls is our story editor. And Jamie Benson is the senior producer. Megan Marcus is the vice president of podcast
editorial for CBS. Special thanks to 48 hours executive producer Judy Tyiggard along with 48
hours producers Judy Ryback, Stephanie Slifer, and Greg Fiser from Goat Rodeo. This podcast was written and produced by
Carara Schillin, Max Johnston, Jay Venibals, Isabelle Kirby McGawan, Megan Nadulski, and Ian Enright.
Additional reporting and recording by Cara Schillin. Our executive producers at Goat Rodeo are Megan Nadulski and Ian
Enright. Original theme in music by Hans Delshi with additional music from Paramount. Final mix by Rebecca Sidell.
Vendel Fulton is our fact checker. Our production manager is Carara Schillin. I'm Aaron Morardi. If you're enjoying
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
inside the Daniel Marsh murders, check out the rest of our 48 hours podcasts by searching 48 hours on your favorite
podcast app. Thanks for listening. [Music]

Was Daniel Marsh a depraved psychopath without a conscience, or was he not in his right mind when he murdered Claudia Maupin and Chip Northup? As Daniel Marsh is tried as an adult, his defense team makes the case he was legally insane when stabbing the sleeping victims. Could his medications be responsible for his actions? But the prosecution argues Daniel knew exactly what he was doing and would have harmed others had he not been caught. It is up to the jury to decide Daniel's fate as Chip and Claudia's family watches and waits.

True crime. Real justice. "48 Hours" investigates the most intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all areas of the human experience including greed and passion. "48 Hours," which premiered in 1988, has developed a rich history of original reporting and impact journalism that has helped exonerate wrongly convicted people, caused cold cases to be reopened and solved, and along the way changed lives.

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Brief Summary

Daniel Marsh, a teenager, murdered Claudia Min and Chip Northup and was sentenced to 52 years after a chilling confession and trial.

Key points

The Confession. Daniel Marsh reveals his plans for future killings during police interrogation.
A Killer's Mind. The episode explores the chilling psyche of Daniel Marsh, a teenager accused of murder.
Trial of Daniel Marsh. The trial begins for Daniel Marsh, charged with two counts of first-degree murder.
Daniel's Defense Strategy. The defense aimed to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, citing medication effects.
The Jury's Verdict. After weeks of testimony, the jury found Daniel guilty of first-degree murder.
Sentencing and Family Impact. Daniel was sentenced to 52 years, with family members expressing their trauma.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I don't feel sympathy for other people at all.

Daniel Marsh's chilling admission about his lack of empathy.

1:44WatchSep 24, 2025

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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