"Fifteen: Unanswered Questions" | "48 Hours" Podcast (Episode 2) | Forensic Files

Before we begin, just a trigger warning. The following episode contains references to graphic physical violence.
Please listen with care. >> We lost our matriarch. I lost the love of my life. When Victoria Herd found out her beloved
mother Claudia and stepfather Chip had been killed, her whole world fell apart. >> She was my world. She was she was the
past and the future and that's changed now. >> She couldn't imagine someone stabbing
Chip and Claudia dozens of times. But even when Victoria and her daughter Sarah arrived at the funeral home, they
had no idea just how brutal the murders actually were. So, as they planned the burial, Sarah and Victoria asked to see
Claudia's body. >> And we were very persistent about wanting to see her. Really just having a
clarification like that that is my grandmother that died. It's my mom that died. And I need to know that. I don't
want to just believe it because somebody told me, >> right? >> And we went to the funeral home and the
the woman there, she was like, "You you can't see her." >> No one at the funeral home would explain
why they couldn't see Claudia, who Sarah affectionately called Granza. And the woman at the funeral home told
us that they needed at least 24 hours before we could see Granza. >> So they waited the 24 hours and then
finally were brought into the room with Claudia's body. >> They called in a specialist from UC
Davis. I found all out all this after the fact to do a reconstruction on my mother and
she was beautiful when we saw her. >> Yes, >> she looked like herself. >> It would be more than a year before they
learned the full truth that Chip and Claudia had been stabbed a combined 128 times.
>> To this day, I am amazed. Yeah. >> You know, what I know now, it's >> she she looked like the grand I knew she
did. >> I mean, >> she did. They washed her hair. The makeup artist >> did amazing.
>> Amazing. >> Her little hands, her little feet, you know. >> Victoria remembered that her mother
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
circumstances needed to have that moment of closure with her. So it was closed to
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
goodbye that way. But I I am grateful to that woman. They said they stayed up all night and put her back together.
Roughly two weeks after that small private viewing, the family held a memorial service to celebrate Chip and
Claudia's lives at the Unitarian Universalist Church. [Music] But even as the grieving family members
were saying last goodbyes, they were also contending with another problem. Police were beginning to suspect that
one of them might be the killer. We would try and question them. We try and get information, but they were very
tight lipped. They weren't saying anything, but they were looking at members of your own family.
>> Yeah, they were. [Music] >> I'm 48 hours correspondent Aaron Morardi. This is 15 inside the Daniel Marsh
murders. Episode two, unanswered questions. >> Normally, if you have a crime that's
committed with that much passion and anger, a lot of times it it it just happens. It's a crime of opportunity um
or an escalating argument, maybe. Uh so, you know, in this case, we just we weren't finding much.
Davis police Lieutenant Paul Durishev was assigned early on to the murder investigation of Claudia Mopin and Chip
Northup. It was an all hands on deck situation. The department only had about 100
employees total and this was the first murder case the city of Davis had in nearly 2 years.
[Music] What impact did it have on the officers, you and everyone else investigating? I
heard it was it it it had an impact that there were officers who really even had
to talk about it because it was such a horrific scene. >> 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 that you could never replace that loss.
and um I think a lot of frustration because we weren't solving it right away. You know, a lot of homicides we
clear fairly quickly. >> So I assume then if if you see you see a scene that appears to be driven by rage,
you look at members of the family >> or people close to um the victim in any way, shape, or form.
In most murder cases, officials start their investigation with people close to the victims, not necessarily as
suspects, although it's a fact that most victims are killed by people they know.
But in this case, police were trying to create a complete picture of the situation.
They talked to all of Chip and Claudia's family members who lived in Davis. One was Chip's daughter, Mary Northup. Mary
was as perplexed by the murders as the police were. >> Well, first you need to understand that
I didn't know how gruesome the murder was. >> So, the police didn't tell you. >> They told me they were stabbed. I got
the death certificate where it said multiple stabbed death within minutes. So, I knew that it wasn't good or easy.
Even though Chip and Claudia's window screen had been cut, police told Mary they thought the killer had a different
point of entry. >> I said, "So, had they left the slider open? Is that what the problem? Is that
how he got in?" And the police said, "No, all the doors were locked from the inside." So, we think it was somebody
with a key. And I was like, "No, I had a key to their place." But just since I lived in Davis, it was
convenient if they didn't if they lost their keys, Mary could come let them in. >> Mary thought the police had a theory
that a person with a key cut a hole in the window screen to make it look like a breakin.
>> If you come up with that theory, then you have to look at family members or close friends that they might have
shared a key with, right? I was very worried that they were going to just make an arrest of someone in the family
because believe me, this was the talk of the town. You know, I would go to the store
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
felt an urgent need to do something to try to solve this. My name's Robert Northup and Chip
Northup was my father and I also knew Claudia very well and we all live we all lived together in the same town so I was
close to both of them. >> Mary's brother Robert also lived in Davis with his adult son Tony. Tony's
brother Oliver lived nearby. At the time of the murders, Tony was 28 and Oliver was just a year older. I spoke to Robert
and Oliver 5 years after that in 2018. The two sat next to each other, shouldertosh shoulder. They were both
softspoken and a bit hesitant in their answers. They looked somber and stoic. Oliver spoke gently about his
relationship with his grandfather, the man he was actually named after. >> Yeah, I was named after him. My mom
chose that name. He was my grandfather and uh is he is probably the best grandfather I could have had.
Oliver and his brother Tony spent a lot of time with their grandfather going on camping trips, eating dinner, and they
grew close with Claudia after she joined their family. >> Oh, she's very, very loving towards me
and very caring, and she treated me very nicely. I guess not necessarily like a stepg grandmother,
more like her own grandson. and then some. >> Oliver's dad, Robert, had been the first
one to check on Chip and Claudia's house when they didn't show up to church. He only found out what really happened
after receiving a call the morning after the murders. >> So, I just I had just gotten the news
and I came back and I uh told Oliver and he and I were both in the kitchen. We just started sobbing for a moment.
>> What did you think? >> You know, at at my initial reaction, I 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
somebody's got their facts wrong. This can't this can't be what really happened cuz cuz nobody would have done such a
thing. >> Robert remembered that soon after hearing the news, he and his sons were
called into the police station. At first, Robert understood that this was all part of the usual procedure.
>> I well, I wasn't surprised at all that it began. You know, I thought, okay, yeah, that makes sense. They have to
look at every possibility. And I kept thinking, well, my father would would want us to cooperate in every way. And,
you know, the sooner they the sooner they realize it wasn't us, the sooner they can start looking in the right
places. >> They wanted to be as helpful as possible. >> That first day, it was about 8 hours of
questioning. the next day was another six. It was just day after day, long hours of questioning.
>> Mhm. >> But then, in addition to interrogating the family at length, Davis police began
to scour Robert's home and belongings for evidence. There they found something that made them suspicious.
Now, it didn't help, did it, that you had just had the carpet cleaned. So much was made of that. Not just that
had I just I just rented the carpet cleaner and uh yeah it was bad timing. I didn't I didn't
anticipate that that would be the same weekend my father got murdered. >> And what did they think when they heard
you had just cleaned the carpet? >> It looked like I was covering up removing evidence.
>> Officers were having a hard time finding any evidence connected to the crime. So,
a newly cleaned carpet. That looked like one of their best clues. If Robert had committed the crime, police thought they
might find blood in that carpet. Maybe it had seeped into the floor below. Or maybe they'd find evidence that someone
had tried to flush down the toilet. >> And I mean, the search, just tell me what the search did to your house.
Well, they did find some blood stains and then they cut out the carpet. They took out some of the plumbing fixtures
looking for things that might have been put in the drain. Um, and in the course of moving things around, they well, they
did some damage and they also took out a little bit of flooring. >> Investigators thought they had really
found something until the blood turned out to be Robert's son Tony's blood. Robert kept cooperating, hoping the
police would finally be satisfied and leave them alone. But the suspicion and the questions seemed endless.
>> You said that you would you would have expected that they look at your family
for 24 hours, but it went longer. How much longer did it go? >> 6 weeks. Seven. >> It wasn't just Robert who was under
suspicion. Police had their eyes on his two sons, Tony and Oliver. >> Here you had just lost your grandparents
and all of a sudden the police are questioning you. How tough was that? >> It wasn't a good experience.
>> That's Oliver who went through hours of interrogation. Now, at one point they did I think there
was like a a good cop bad cop routine or something, but I had volunteered. I agreed to to help out with the
investigation. >> Oliver had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. His brother Tony was a year younger.
Tony had volunteered for the US Army and even served in the California Conservation Corps for a year. But Tony
may have had his own struggles. Investigators had found a disturbing drawing, an image of a man with a knife
standing over two children in a bed. It had been drawn by Tony. Investigators zeroed in on the two
brothers, but there was still no physical evidence connecting them to the murders, only circumstantial
theories. Were you worried that as time went on and they didn't have any evidence and
they didn't have any suspects that they might arrest one of your sons? >> I was I was worried that possibly
one of my sons could be arrested. I didn't think there was the slightest chance that he could ever be charged or
indicted or certainly not convicted. Other members of my family became so concerned that they uh kind of insisted
on getting a criminal defense attorney for my younger son. This was weeks into the investigation after well we've
already voluntarily cooperated with dozens I'm I'm not exaggerating dozens of hours of questioning.
>> Oliver told me that the pressure on him and his brother wore them down. >> Were you scared?
>> Very nervous. >> What was your fear? What was your fear at that point? I was tired of it and I
didn't want to be blamed for something I didn't do. Is this horrifying? >> And his father, Robert, shared those
same fears. >> I mostly fear that the suspicion would have never gone away. The case would
have never been closed and and we would have remained just the only the only real suspects. Mhm.
>> I mean, was there Did you feel that other people in the community were wondering about your family? Did you
feel it, Oliver? Did you feel like >> I was worried that people might have had the wrong idea about me?
>> And what's that feel like? >> Alone. The Northups began to feel they had to prove their innocence, not only to the
police, but to everyone around them in the Davis community. >> Our neighbors saw a dozen uniformed
officers go in and do an 8-hour search and and they knew that they knew what it was related to. Well, they must be
suspects in this murder. >> According to Robert, the investigation ended up costing his family tens of
thousands of dollars. They had to replace the carpet, plumbing fixtures, and the flooring that was
pulled up and taken as evidence. They lost work opportunities when their computers were seized.
Insurance covered some of the costs, but not all. And it certainly didn't touch the emotional damages they suffered.
>> You kind of laugh about it now. >> Kind of. But what was that really like to go through?
a nightmare. >> Through it all, however, the family's faith in Oliver and Tony's innocence
never wavered. [Music] The only thing I can say is that they were the three of them. They're not
violent. None of them. >> To Mary, the police had it all wrong. There was no chance Robert or his sons
would kill Chip and Claudia. >> My father was always providing emotional support for all three of them. He's the
last person they would have tried to kill. >> Do you think that the police were listening to other members of the family
saying that when you told them that when there's no way it could >> there? They obviously didn't listen to
me. Uh because I told them there isn't anybody in the family that would have done this. There was nothing that would
have warranted murder. There just wasn't. I was very angry because they took the
members of the family that needed more emotional support. They put them under a great deal of pressure.
>> Mary broke it down plain and simple. I don't mean some flippant, but my father was 87. But honestly, why wait
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
little longer if it were a family member. I'm just speaking logically. It made no sense that at this point in
time, a family member would kill him. There wasn't any money involved. There wasn't anything that my father would
have given to that day that he wouldn't still have later. And the longer the investigation went on without any
arrests, the more uneasy the family became. [Music] >> And it did create problems within the
family. And you know, I not I don't know how much it was just the investigation. It
the difficulty of living in the town, waking up every day wondering, you know, what's going to happen today? Is
everybody still alive? that kind of a thing. >> What a horrible thing to go through.
>> I don't think we have a a vocabulary that can really describe it. >> I think in this case we were just sort
of stumped and because how weird the murder scene was. Lieutenant Paul Durashav and the rest of the Davis
police had spent weeks investigating the case, but they had found nothing but weak circumstantial evidence and
theories that weren't panning out. Maybe the family wasn't involved after all. I think we all thought there was a
possibility it was some kind of throw kill and there's this u suspect out there. is not connected to the victims,
which was probably our worst fear because at that point, you know, how do you keep people safe if someone 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
interior motive where this person has a fantasy. That's the one that the profilers really
can sink their teeth into. FBI special agent Chris Campion led the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime
in Sacramento. >> The way I like to explain it to people is if you ever watch the TV shows where
the profilers from Quantico get off the plane and meet the agent in the field, that's me.
>> Special Agent Campion's team was 25 agents in total. They specialize in analysis of violent crimes and
behavioral aspects of criminal investigations. I would do the prep work. I would screen
the cases. If we can help with the police or sheriff's departments that are uh asking us for help, then we'll help
them. But when it gets time for the profilers to be involved, then we would be the ones that would help package the
case up and present it to the profilers in Quanico. Through his experience, Special Asia Campion knew what details
were important to share and showcase. >> Some of the really kind of outlandish factors here is the post-mortem cutting.
You don't see that a lot after the victim's already dead for them to be the offender to be cutting and experimenting
apparently with the uh the dead body. And then the placement of the objects he placed, I think it was a phone um inside
the the wife and then glass inside the husband. That's weird. >> I mean, had you ever run into anything
like that before? >> We had not run into that. >> With Campion's expertise, the FBI
started building out a profile as fast as they could with a few facts they had been given.
We thought we were looking for somebody who was probably between 20 and 30, probably a white male, probably lived
close by or had some kind of reason to be in the neighborhood. And we thought that this person would have had some
precursor crimes that he would have had prior assault or even, you know, at least a burglary or maybe even something
much more minor like a peeping, you know, or some kind of a trespass case. What were the factors that made you
think it would be someone between 20 and 30, white male with a criminal history?
>> The profilers back at Quantico see thousands and thousands of cases. They've interviewed offenders in prison.
They have data um sets that um they coalate and it's not an exact science. I mean, we're talking about probabilities
here. [Music] Even after bringing in a special team, investigators were still unable to pin
down a primary suspect. In the end, it wasn't the profile they had developed, but a surprise tip that pointed them in
the direction they needed to go. >> Davis, place emergency. >> Uh, can this be anonymous?
Two months after Chip Northup and Claudia Mppen were murdered, the Davis Police Department got a 911 call.
>> What are you reporting? >> Double homicide. Um, the double homicide that happened in April this year.
>> You have like the suspect information? >> Yes, I have. I know him. I know every He
told me everything that happened, everything he did, like all the little details.
That's next time on 15 inside the Daniel Marsh murders. 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. Then 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]

Without any real leads, the police start to look close to home, questioning Chip and Claudia's own family members. The family cooperates, but as suspicion falls on Chip's son and grandsons, the investigative ordeal becomes another nightmare for the family, as the actual murderer roams free.

Crime. Social justice. Impact. "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

The episode discusses the brutal murders of Claudia Mopin and Chip Northup, the investigation, and the family's emotional struggles.

Key points

The Loss of a Matriarch. Victoria reflects on losing her mother Claudia and stepfather Chip in a brutal murder.
The Gruesome Truth Revealed. The family learns the shocking details of the murders, including 128 stab wounds.
Suspicion Falls on the Family. As the investigation unfolds, police begin to suspect family members might be involved.
Surprise Tip Leads to Suspect. A surprise tip leads police to the suspect in a double homicide case.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She was my world. She was the past and the future.

Victoria's reflection on her mother Claudia.

0:16WatchSep 3, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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