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Erin Moriarty
Purchased before we begin Just a trigger warning the following episode contains references to graphic physical violence. Please listen with care we lost our matriarch.
Mary Northup
I lost the love of my life.
Erin Moriarty
When Victoria heard found out her beloved mother Claudia and stepfather Chip had been killed, her whole world fell apart.
Mary Northup
She was my world. She was the past and the future. And that's changed now.
Erin Moriarty
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.
Mary Northup
And we were very persistent about wanting to see her. Really just having a clarification like that is my grandmother that died. It's my mom that died. I need to know that. I don't want to just believe it because somebody told me. And we went to the funeral home and the woman there, she was like, you can't see her.
Erin Moriarty
No one at the funeral home would explain why they couldn't see Claudia, who Sarah affectionately called Granza.
Mary Northup
And the woman at the funeral home told us that they needed at least 24 hours before we could see Granza.
Erin Moriarty
So they waited the 24 hours and then finally were brought into the room with Claudia's body.
Mary Northup
They called in a specialist from UC Davis. I found 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.
Erin Moriarty
It would be more than a year before they learned the full truth that Chip and Claudia had been stabbed a combined 128 times.
Mary Northup
To this day, I am amazed, you know, knowing what I know now. It's she. She looked like the Grands. 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.
Erin Moriarty
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.
Narrator/Advertiser
We as a family, under the circumstances.
Mary Northup
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 am grateful to that woman.
Erin Moriarty
They said they stayed up all night.
Mary Northup
And put her back together.
Erin Moriarty
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. 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.
Mary Northup
We would try and question them, we'd try and get information, but they were very tight lipped, they weren't saying anything.
Erin Moriarty
But they were looking at members of your own family.
Mary Northup
Yeah, they were.
Erin Moriarty
I'm 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty. This is 15 Inside the Daniel Marsh Murders episode two unanswered questions.
Lt. Paul Durashev
Normally, if you have a crime that's committed with that much passion and anger, a lot of times it just happens. It's a crime of opportunity or an escalating argument maybe. So, you know, in this case, we just, we weren't finding much.
Erin Moriarty
Davis Police Lt. Paul Durashev was assigned early on to the murder investigation of Claudia Maupin 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 two years. What impact did it have on the officers, you and everyone else investigating? I heard it was. It had an impact that there were officers who really even had to talk about it because it was such a horrific scene.
Lt. Paul Durashev
Yeah, 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 boss. And I think a lot of frustration because we, we weren't solving it right away. You know, a lot of homicides we clear fairly quickly.
Erin Moriarty
So I assume then if you see, you see a scene that appears to be driven by rage, you look at members of the family or people close.
Lt. Paul Durashev
To the victim in any way, shape or form.
Erin Moriarty
In most murder cases, officials start their investigation with people close, 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.
Mary Northup
Well, first you need to understand that I didn't know how gruesome the murder was.
Erin Moriarty
So the police didn't tell you?
Mary Northup
They told me they were stabbed. I got the death certificate where it said multiple stabbed deaths within minutes. So I knew that it wasn't good or easy.
Erin Moriarty
Even though Chip and Claudia's window screen had been cut, police told Mary they thought the killer had a different point of entry.
Mary Northup
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.
Erin Moriarty
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 break in.
Mary Northup
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. I would go to the store and people come up to me and they would be crying and saying we're not safe anymore. So I know there felt an urgent need to do something to try to solve this.
Erin Moriarty
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Robert Northup
My name's Robert Northup, and Chip Northup was my father. And I also knew Claudia very well. We all lived together in the same town, so I was close to both of them.
Erin Moriarty
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 five years after that in 2018. The two sat next to each other, shoulder to shoulder. They were both soft spoken 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.
Robert Northup
Yeah, I was named after him. My mom chose that name. He was my grandfather, and he was probably the best grandfather I could have had.
Erin Moriarty
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.
Robert Northup
She's very, very loving towards me and very caring. And she treated me very nicely, I guess. Not necessarily like a step grandmother, more like her own grandson. And then. So.
Erin Moriarty
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.
Robert Northup
So I just. I had just gotten the news and I came back and I told Oliver, and he and I were both in the kitchen. We just started sobbing for a moment.
Erin Moriarty
What did you think?
Robert Northup
You know, my initial reaction. I didn't even go that far with it. I was just in disbelief that it. This can't be right. This is. Somebody's got their facts wrong. This can't be what really happened, because nobody would have done such a thing.
Erin Moriarty
Robert remembered that soon after hearing the news, he and his sons were called into the police station. At first, Robert. Robert understood that this was all part of the usual procedure.
Robert Northup
I wasn't surprised at all that it began. And I thought, okay, yeah, that makes sense. They have to look at every possibility. And I kept thinking, well, my father would want us to cooperate in every way. And the sooner they realized it wasn't us, the sooner they can start looking in the right places.
Erin Moriarty
They wanted to be as helpful as possible.
Robert Northup
That first day was about eight hours of questioning. The next day was another Six. It was just day after day, long hours of questioning.
Erin Moriarty
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?
Robert Northup
So much was made of that, not just had. I just rented the carpet cleaner. And yeah, it was bad timing. I didn't anticipate that that would be the same weekend my father got murdered.
Erin Moriarty
And what did they think when they heard you had just cleaned the carpet?
Robert Northup
It looked like I was covering up. Removing evidence.
Erin Moriarty
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.
Robert Northup
Well, they did find some bloodstains, 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. And in the course of moving things around, they did some damage. And they also took out a little bit of flooring.
Erin Moriarty
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 have expected that they look at your family for 24 hours, but it went longer. How much longer did it go? Hmm?
Robert Northup
Six weeks? Seven?
Erin Moriarty
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 now all of a sudden the police are questioning you. How tough was that?
Robert Northup
It wasn't a good experience.
Erin Moriarty
That's Oliver, who went through hours of interrogation.
Robert Northup
At one point, they did. I think there was like a good cop, bad cop routine or something. But I had volunteered. I agreed to help out with the investigation.
Erin Moriarty
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?
Robert Northup
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 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 not exaggerating, dozens of hours of questioning.
Erin Moriarty
Oliver told me that the pressure on him and his brother wore them down. Were you scared?
Robert Northup
Very nervous.
Erin Moriarty
What was your fear? What was your fear at that point?
Robert Northup
I was tired of it and I didn't want to be blamed for something I didn't do. It's horrifying.
Erin Moriarty
And his father Robert shared those same fears.
Robert Northup
I mostly fear that the suspicion would have never gone away. The case would have never been closed, and we would have remained the only real suspects.
Erin Moriarty
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.
Robert Northup
I was worried that people might have had the wrong idea about me.
Erin Moriarty
And what's that feel like.
Robert Northup
Alone?
Erin Moriarty
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.
Robert Northup
Our neighbors saw a dozen uniformed officers go in and do an eight hour search. And they knew that they knew what it was related to, and, well, they must be suspects in this murder.
Erin Moriarty
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.
Robert Northup
Go through a nightmare?
Erin Moriarty
Through it all, however, the family's faith in Oliver and Tony's innocence never wavered. On January 6, ID Network revisits one of the most notorious cases of the past 25 years in the new documentary event the cult behind the the Andrea Yates story.
Mary Northup
When Andrea Yates drowned her five children.
Erin Moriarty
In the family's bathtub in 2001, the world was shocked.
Mary Northup
Everyone was horrified. A mother killed her kid.
Erin Moriarty
Kids.
Mary Northup
How could she do this? But while Andrea's confession illuminated a history.
Erin Moriarty
Of postpartum depression and psychosis. There's so much more to this tragedy.
Lt. Paul Durashev
They are missing a huge part of the story.
Erin Moriarty
Michael Wernicke. ID's new three part documentary exposes how.
Mary Northup
The sinister influence of a cult led by preacher Michael Wernicke may have twisted.
Erin Moriarty
Her sense of reality with deadly consequences. Andrea Yates was so pressurized with that shot, struggling for salvation, that she had to kill her kids. Don't miss the cult behind the killer.
Mary Northup
The Andrea Yates Story, a new documentary.
Erin Moriarty
Event January 6th on ID or stream on HBO. Max.
Lt. Paul Durashev
Welcome to Radio Rental. The scariest stories you've ever heard in.
Erin Moriarty
Your life, all told by real people. And off we go.
Lt. Paul Durashev
This wasn't a human being that I saw. There's something here in this house, something not of this world.
Mary Northup
There was a woman moving through the hall. I stepped back and I was completely alone. Radio Rental is available now.
Lt. Paul Durashev
Listen for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile.
Erin Moriarty
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Mary Northup
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Mary Northup
The only thing I can say is that they were. The three of them, they're not violent, none of them.
Erin Moriarty
To Mary. The police had it all wrong. There was no chance Robert or his sons would kill Chip and Claudia.
Mary Northup
My father was always providing emotional support for all three of them. He's the last person they would have tried to kill.
Erin Moriarty
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, they.
Mary Northup
Obviously didn't listen to me because I told them there isn't anybody in the family that had 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.
Erin Moriarty
Mary broke it down, plain and simple.
Mary Northup
I don't mean to sound flippant, but my father was 87. But honestly, why wait and kill him? At 87, he'd be just 5 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 done, given to that day, that he wouldn't still have later.
Erin Moriarty
And the longer the investigation went on without any arrests, the more uneasy the family became.
Mary Northup
And it did create problems within the family. And, you know, I don't know how much it was just the investigation, 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.
Erin Moriarty
What a horrible thing to go through.
Mary Northup
I don't think we have a vocabulary that can really describe it.
Lt. Paul Durashev
I think in this case, we were just sort of stumped because how weird the murder scene was.
Erin Moriarty
Lieutenant Paul Durashov 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.
Lt. Paul Durashev
I think we all thought there was a possibility it was some kind of thrill kill. And there's this suspect out there that's not connected to the victims, which was probably. Probably our worst fear, because at that point, you know, how do you keep people safe if someone out there is like that?
Erin Moriarty
So they decided to call in a specialized FBI team.
Lt. Paul Durashev
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.
Erin Moriarty
FBI Special Agent Chris Campion led the national center for the Analysis of Violent Crime in Sacramento.
Lt. Paul Durashev
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.
Erin Moriarty
Special Agent Campion's team was 25 agents in total. They specialized in analysis of violent crimes and behavioral aspects of criminal investigations.
Lt. Paul Durashev
I would do the prep work. I would screen the cases. If we can help with the police or sheriff's departments that are 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 Quantico through His experience.
Erin Moriarty
Special Agent Campion knew what details were important to share and showcase.
Lt. Paul Durashev
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 dead body and then the placement of the objects he placed. I think it was a phone inside the wife and then glass inside the husband. That's weird.
Erin Moriarty
I mean, had you ever run into anything like that before?
Lt. Paul Durashev
We had not run into that.
Erin Moriarty
With Campion's expertise, the FBI started building out a profile as fast as they could with a few facts they had been given.
Lt. Paul Durashev
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 had some precursor crimes, that he would have had prior assault or even at least a burglary or maybe even something much more minor like a peeping or some kind of a trespass case.
Erin Moriarty
What were the factors that made you think it would be someone between 20 and 30, white male with a criminal history?
Lt. Paul Durashev
The profilers back at Quantico see thousands and thousands of cases. They've interviewed offenders in prison. They have data sets that they collate, and it's not an exact science. I mean, we're talking about probabilities here.
Erin Moriarty
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.
Mary Northup
Davis Place emergency.
Lt. Paul Durashev
Can this be anonymous?
Erin Moriarty
Two months after Chip Northup and Claudia Maupin were murdered, the Davis Police department got a 911 call.
Mary Northup
What are you reporting?
Erin Moriarty
Double homicide. The double homicide that happened in April. The chief, you have, like, the suspect information? Yes, I have. I know him. I know every. He told me everything that happened, everything he did.
Lt. Paul Durashev
Like all the little details.
Erin Moriarty
That's next time on 15. Inside the Daniel Marsh Murders. This series was reported by me, Erin Moriarty. Alan Peng is our producer. Maura 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 Tygard, along with 48 Hours producers Judy Ryback, Stephanie Slifer and Greg Fisher from Goat Rodeo. This podcast was written and produced by Kara Schillen, Max Johnston, Jay venables, Isabel Kirby McGowan, Megan Nadolsky, and Ian Enright. Additional reporting and recording by Kara Schillen. Our executive producers at Goat Rodeo are Megan Nadolsky and Ian Enright. Original theme and music by Hans Del Shi with additional music from Paramount. Final mix by Rebecca Seidel. Fendel Fulton is our fact checker. Our production manager is Kara Schillen. I'm Erin Moriarty. If you're enjoying this show, be sure to give it a rating and review. It helps more people find it and hear our report. 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. Paramount plus is the new home of ufc. It isn't just combat, it's cinema.
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Erin Moriarty
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Date: December 30, 2025
Host/Correspondent: Erin Moriarty
This episode explores the unanswered questions in the investigation of the brutal murders of Claudia Maupin and Chip Northup in Davis, California. Through first-hand family accounts and law enforcement insight, host Erin Moriarty delves into the emotional toll the investigation took on the victims' loved ones – especially as suspicion fell on their own family. The episode examines early investigative dead-ends, police strategy, misunderstood evidence, and the eventual decision to involve the FBI in a baffling case that shocked the Davis community.
| Time | Segment/Event | |--------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:05-05:26 | Family’s initial grief, need for closure, private viewing of Claudia | | 05:27-09:41 | Police suspicion falls on family, discussion of key access, pressure | | 12:54-16:46 | Robert/Oliver Northup’s police interviews, house search & suspicions | | 18:09-22:13 | Ongoing interrogations, emotional toll, family forced to get attorneys | | 22:34-26:09 | Impact on family relationships/community, costs, emotional isolation | | 26:39-29:04 | Police/FBI describe unusual crime scene, profiling efforts | | 30:33-31:06 | Anonymous 911 tip pivots investigation |
This episode captures the agonizing uncertainty for both investigators and family members as the case lagged and suspicion fell on the innocent. The profile built by law enforcement did not immediately reveal the killer; instead, a community tip ultimately broke the case open. The episode closes with the promise of deeper revelations in the next installment, where the identity of the true perpetrator — Daniel Marsh — begins to come into focus.
For listeners seeking an in-depth understanding of the Northup/Maupin murders, this episode highlights the human toll of being wrongly suspected, the limits of investigative profiling, and the chaos wrought by unanswered questions in the wake of a violent crime.