A Killer's Mind

Summary

Fifteen: Inside the Daniel Marsh Murders — Episode 5: "A Killer's Mind"

Podcast: Fifteen: Inside the Daniel Marsh Murders
Host: Erin Moriarty (CBS News)
Release Date: September 24, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the psychological state and legal battle surrounding Daniel Marsh, a 15-year-old who brutally murdered beloved Davis couple Claudia Maupin and Chip Northup in 2013. Through interviews with law enforcement, prosecutors, family members, jurors, and psychiatric experts, Erin Moriarty explores the chilling confession, the complexity of prosecuting a teenage killer, the defense’s plea of insanity, and the aftermath for victims and community alike.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Daniel Marsh’s Confession and Mindset

• Interrogation Details
  • FBI Special Agent Chris Campion describes Marsh’s lack of conscience, planning for another murder, and chilling detachment.

    “Absolutely, without a doubt. That if he had been allowed to keep on going, he actually talked about how he was going to take his next victim.”
    – Chris Campion (00:20)

  • Marsh admits to rehearsing future attacks, even casually describing how he might kill Campion:

    “Choking you to death with your tie… Beating your face into the mirror until it broke and using the glass… gouging your eyes out and just smashing your face into the wall.”
    – Daniel Marsh (as recounted by Campion, 02:09)

• Psychopathy and Fantasy Life
  • Campion is adamant that Marsh is a psychopath, describing his fantasy life of harming nearly everyone he meets.

    “I think he literally thinks about that with anybody he meets. That’s what he thinks about doing. That’s his fantasy life.”
    – Chris Campion (03:04)

The Immediate Aftermath for the Family

• Family Shock and the Arraignment
  • Victoria Hurd, Claudia’s daughter, recalls the shock of learning the killer was a teenager, and struggling to see Marsh’s face at the arraignment.

    “He looked like somebody who would be one of my niece’s boyfriends. He looked like some hippie kid from Davis.”
    – Victoria Hurd (05:59)

  • Bill Marsh, Daniel’s father, reflects on Daniel’s early heroism and the baffling shift after age 10.

    “He was all over the media, they were touting this young American hero. And look at this. He might actually be a future doctor.”
    – Bill Marsh (07:59)

Profiling Daniel Marsh: A Portrait of Dual Lives

• Early Life: Publicly celebrated for heroism, privately descending into darkness, including history of animal cruelty (09:03)
• Trauma and Family Dynamics: No warning signs noticed by family; Daniel’s mother left, father’s heart attack, bullying at school (13:01)

The Legal Process: Prosecution vs. Defense

• Prosecution’s Argument
  • Deputy DA Amanda Zambor emphasizes Marsh’s calculated, premeditated violence and emotional coldness.

    “He had been fantasizing about it since he was 10, 11 years old about killing somebody. So it wasn’t this spur of the moment murder… he planned and stole items and sharpened the knife.”
    – Amanda Zambor (13:26)

  • Prosecutors illustrate Marsh’s planning and his intent to kill again.

    “He would have gotten away with these murders if he had not bragged to his friends…”
    – Amanda Zambor (14:07)

• Testimony and Evidence
  • Friends, police, psychiatrists testify to Marsh’s meticulous preparation and lack of remorse (14:47–15:35)

    “Claudia fought, made him mad, and it just invigorated him to keep going. He describes how her pleas for him to stop just enthused him, made him want to keep going.”
    – Amanda Zambor (15:19)

• Emotional Toll on the Family
  • Victoria Hurd describes the agony of watching Marsh’s confession:

    “He talked about… she was begging for her life. And that was hard. I felt like I was experiencing the death of my mother. I couldn’t sit. I stood.”
    – Victoria Hurd (16:08)

The Struggle Over Insanity

• Defense’s Argument: ‘The Drugs Made Me Do It’

  • Defense cites trauma, medication (SSRIs) side effects, and claims of ‘out of body’ experience.

• Expert Witness: Dr. Matthew Soulier (Child Forensic Psychiatrist)

  • Explored Marsh’s life history; did not find evidence of legal insanity.

    “He was a different kind of kid. There was a coldness to him… I didn’t feel that there was a feeling in him.”
    – Dr. Matthew Soulier (19:12)

  • Marsh confided ongoing violent thoughts; struggle, then surrender, to dark compulsions.

    “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…”
    – Dr. Matthew Soulier (21:43)

  • Soulier insists Marsh was not psychotic or unaware of morality/consequences.

    “It shows that he’s engaging in logical and linear behaviors. He’s calculating, he’s planning in a logical manner… it’s not psychotically driven in any way.”
    – Dr. Matthew Soulier (24:36)

• Alternate Defense Expert: Dr. James Marikangas

  • Claimed SSRIs contributed to Marsh’s violence (26:46), but this was contradicted by records showing Marsh’s violent fantasies predated medication and that he often did not take his prescribed meds (28:38).

Jury Deliberations and Verdict

• Guilty Verdict, With Enhancements

  • Jury swiftly finds Marsh guilty on all counts (30:20), with juror Cheryl Gleason citing overwhelming evidence and Marsh’s meticulousness.

    “The more evidence that came out… how meticulous and precise his actions were, how things leading up to that, like going through the junior police academy… He was a smart kid.”
    – Cheryl Gleason (31:15)

• Sane or Insane?

  • Jury also quickly determines Marsh was sane at the time.

    “It was just really clear that he was not insane.”
    – Cheryl Gleason (33:55)

• Family Impact Statements

  • Victoria Hurd pleads for maximum sentence, recounting family trauma.

    “Therefore, in honor of my mother… I request… the maximum sentence allowable for the torture and murder of my mother and her husband.”
    – Victoria Hurd (34:46)

• Sentencing

  • Marsh receives 52 years to life (maximum allowed for his age), eligible for parole in 25 years (35:52).

    “It was the maximum that he could have done… So we were very happy with that.”
    – Amanda Zambor (35:52)

Ongoing Impact and Legal Fears

• Family finds a sense of closure, but new state legislation threatens early release, reigniting fear.

  “It wasn’t over, Erin. No, it wasn’t over.”
  – Victoria Hurd (36:44) “If he’s out in four years, he knows us, he knows our names.”
  – Amanda Zambor (37:12)

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Timestamps for Notable Segments

• Interrogation and Confession: 00:20–02:36
• Family Learns Daniel’s Identity: 04:44–06:20
• Bill Marsh on Daniel’s Childhood: 06:29–09:03
• Early Planning and Fantasies: 13:26–14:47
• Trial, Testimony, and Family Testimony: 14:47–16:53
• Daniel’s Psychiatric Evaluations: 18:23–24:50
• Drug Defense and Rebuttal: 25:17–28:38
• Jury Deliberation/Verdict: 29:36–34:14
• Sentencing and Aftermath: 34:46–36:04
• Continuing Legal Fears: 36:36–37:25

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Memorable Quotes

• “I believe Daniel Marsh is a psychopath. I knew it when he was talking to me. He actually admitted it. 'I don’t feel sorry for other people at all. 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.'”
  – Chris Campion (01:33)
• “My mind can’t process that degree of evil. So hearing that was just something that… I just can’t go there. I can’t. It’s so dark. It’s just so dark.”
  – Victoria Hurd (16:56)
• “He showed zero emotion. He didn’t seem scared. He would just face forward. He never cried.”
  – Amanda Zambor on Daniel Marsh during trial (11:05)
• “He had a lot of goth followers… thinking that he was innocent… it was like he was a celebrity, like he was the celebrity that he wanted to be.”
  – Victoria Hurd (17:27)
• “I just fundamentally don’t believe putting someone on an antidepressant generates any level of risk that you’re going to go and do what Daniel did.”
  – Dr. Matthew Soulier (28:04)

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Summary & Thematic Takeaways

• Complexity of Evil: The episode confronts the challenge of understanding how a socially integrated teenager became a calculating killer.
• Nature vs. Nurture: Experts and family debate the origins of Marsh’s pathology—trauma, genetics, medication side effects—all weighed but ultimately unable to justify or explain away Marsh’s actions.
• Justice and Its Aftermath: The legal process exacts a heavy toll on families, jurors, and the community. Sentencing brings some peace, but evolving state laws threaten resolution.
• Chilling Remorse (or Lack Thereof): Marsh’s admission of his fantasies and lack of empathy leave a lingering unease about the boundaries of rehabilitation and release.

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For Listeners

This episode provides a gripping, thorough breakdown of one of California’s most disturbing double murders. It combines legal drama, psychiatric exploration, and profound human loss, while leaving listeners with unsettled questions about mind, morality, and justice.

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[Next episode will explore how new California law impacts Daniel Marsh’s sentence and the victims’ families.]

Transcript

[Erin Moriarty]

Before we begin, just a trigger warning. The following episode contains references to graphic physical violence. Please listen with care. Chris. Do you believe that Daniel Marsh was a serial killer in training?

[Chris Campion]

Absolutely, without a doubt. That if he had been allowed to keep on going, he actually talked about how he was going to take his next victim.

[Erin Moriarty]

Almost four hours into questioning at the police station, Daniel Marsh admitted to FBI Special Agent Chris Campion that he had murdered Claudia Maupin and Chip Northup. But he didn't stop there. Campion learned the teenager was already thinking about his next killing.

[Chris Campion]

I was gonna basically do the same thing, only with a different mask and a different gloves, a different jack. 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.

[Erin Moriarty]

You believe Daniel Marsh is a psychopath?

[Chris Campion]

I do. I believe Daniel Marsh is a psychopath. I knew it when he was talking to me. He actually admitted it. I don't feel sorry for other people at all. 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.

[Erin Moriarty]

Campion maintained his composure. And then he asked Daniel a question that I had never heard in a police interrogation.

[Chris Campion]

So 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've spent together here. Choking you to death with your tie, okay? Beating your face into the mirror until it broke and using the glass to cut your arteries, gouging your eyes out and just smashing your face into the wall.

[Erin Moriarty]

Campion had asked, how would you kill me? And almost immediately, Daniel had thought of three different gruesome ways that he would do it.

[Chris Campion]

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.

[Bill Marsh]

And I said I didn't take it.

[Chris Campion]

Personally because I didn't. I don't think I did anything to offend him, to upset him. I think he literally thinks about that with anybody he meets. That's what he thinks about doing. That's his fantasy life.

[Erin Moriarty]

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 Maupin'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. I'm 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty. This is 15 Inside the Daniel Marsh Murders episode 5 A Killer's Mind when did you first hear the name Daniel Marsh?

[Victoria Hurd]

The victim's advocate, as well as the Davis police liaison who was in charge of our case called and said that they had made an arrest.

[Erin Moriarty]

Victoria Hurd had finally gotten the call she had been anxiously waiting for.

[Victoria Hurd]

I just remember shaking my head going, what?

[Erin Moriarty]

What? That anyone could kill her mother and stepfather was difficult enough to believe. But a 15 year old, a teenager, who was this boy named Daniel Marsh.

[Victoria Hurd]

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 got to go to that arraignment. That arraignment's gonna happen within 24 hours. I've got to go there and see this man. Young man, kid, kid.

[Erin Moriarty]

But Victoria would have to wait even longer to see him. Because Daniel was a minor, his face was hidden by a wall.

[Victoria Hurd]

At the arraignment, my sister in law was with me. I said, I have got to see him. I've got to look in his face and see this man who killed my mother.

[Erin Moriarty]

Finally, she saw Daniel's face through a TV monitor.

[Victoria Hurd]

He looked like somebody who would be one of my niece's boyfriends. He looked like some hippie kid from Davis. When I was at the arraignment, his father sat in front of me and 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 feeling.

[Erin Moriarty]

Daniel's father is Bill Marsh. We spoke in 2018. Did it ever hurt you that your own son could be involved in something like that?

[Bill Marsh]

Not in a million years.

[Erin Moriarty]

You never saw any sign of that? You never got a sense that your son.

[Bill Marsh]

If I hadn't had any sense of it, I would have taken action.

[Erin Moriarty]

Bill seemed to still struggle with what his son was accused of. Show me the pictures you have here. Tell me who this is.

[Bill Marsh]

This is. This is Daniel in 2009. So that would have made him 12.

[Erin Moriarty]

This was about the time when you had the heart attack.

[Bill Marsh]

Yes. Right.

[Erin Moriarty]

One day in November 2009, Daniel was home with his father when Bill says he had started feeling dizzy.

[Bill Marsh]

And I'd gone upstairs and taken a shower, came down and said, come on, Daniel, let's go to the hospital. I got checked out.

[Erin Moriarty]

They got in the car and made it to the corner of their street.

[Bill Marsh]

Next thing I knew, I woke up and the car was rammed 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, Danny. He says, suddenly you just passed out. He says, I climbed into your lap and steered the car into the wall to stop.

[Erin Moriarty]

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.

[Bill Marsh]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was a major event. He was all over the media, they were touting this young American hero. And look at this. He might actually be a future doctor.

[Erin Moriarty]

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 rosebud 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?

[Bill Marsh]

No, not at all. In fact, because of all the upheaval in the family and the rest, I had no basis of experience to counsel him.

[Erin Moriarty]

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 two years earlier. As Daniel entered the Yolo county courthouse, almost a year and a half after Claudia Maupin and Chip Northup's murders, a judge and jury were about to decide his fate.

[Victoria Hurd]

Now on trial is Daniel Marsh, the.

[Erin Moriarty]

Teenager being tried as an adult after the gruesome killings that rocked the city of Davis last year. On Tuesday, September 2, 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 three 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 Maupin. Gone was the long, scruffy hair. Now it was cut short, neater and darker.

[Amanda Zambor]

He showed zero emotion. He didn't seem scared. He would just face forward. He never cried.

[Erin Moriarty]

This is Amanda Zambor, 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?

[Amanda Zambor]

Not in real life, Only in books. When you read about Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, you know, Richard Ramirez, all people that he idolized and studied and identified.

[Erin Moriarty]

With, did that add a whole nother, the fact that this defendant was a kid?

[Amanda Zambor]

Yeah. So I was pregnant with my third child during the trial. And you definitely reflect back and how can a child do this? How can they have such a depraved mind? How do they get that way? Is it possible to change them?

[Erin Moriarty]

Zambor, along with co prosecutor Michael Cabral, began prepping for the trial as soon as Daniel was arrested in June 2013.

[Amanda Zambor]

Davis Police Department thankfully built a very strong case. And Chris Campion 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.

[Erin Moriarty]

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. 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.

[Amanda Zambor]

You know, there's no doubt that 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, they may struggle with other things, but there's a lot of people who actually have severe trauma that don't act like this.

[Erin Moriarty]

But Zambor needed to convince the jurors that Daniel had intended to kill.

[Amanda Zambor]

I mean, he had been fantasizing about it since he was 10, 11 years old about killing somebody. So it wasn't this spur of the moment murder. Where he just snapped and went out. He planned and stole items and sharpened the knife and. And put duct tape on his boots to not leave footprints, which, you know, it just shows how intelligent he is.

[Erin Moriarty]

To put Daniel behind bars, Zambor 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.

[Amanda Zambor]

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 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.

[Erin Moriarty]

In the courtroom, the prosecution questioned dozens of witnesses, including friends of Chip and Claudia, Daniel's former friend Alvaro Garabe. 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.

[Amanda Zambor]

Claudia fought, made him mad, and it just invigorated him to keep going. He describes how her pleas for him to stop just enthused him, made him want to keep going.

[Erin Moriarty]

These were horrific details. Prosecutors tried to prepare Claudia and Chip's families for what they would hear in the courtroom.

[Victoria Hurd]

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.

[Erin Moriarty]

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.

[Victoria Hurd]

It was really tough for me, especially when he got to the part where he talked about killing my mother, and he talked about he had to keep stabbing her because she wouldn't die, and that she was begging for her life. And that was hard. And 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 couldn't sit. I stood.

[Erin Moriarty]

How do you describe a person like Daniel Marsh?

[Victoria Hurd]

After hearing him talk, my mind can't process that degree of evil. So hearing that was just something that. I just can't go there. I can't. It's so dark. It's just so dark.

[Erin Moriarty]

Adding to Victoria's horror was the score of friends and fans. Yes, fans who showed up to the trial to support Daniel.

[Victoria Hurd]

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 hands, it was like he was a celebrity, like he was the celebrity that he wanted to be.

[Erin Moriarty]

No remorse.

[Victoria Hurd]

Oh, no. He was reveling in his celebrity.

[Erin Moriarty]

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.

[Dr. Matthew Soulier]

So my name is Dr. Matthew Soulier, and I'm a child forensic psychiatrist. I was hired by his attorney in 2013 to evaluate him as part of his original trial.

[Erin Moriarty]

I sat down with Dr. Suliet in 2018 and again in 2025.

[Dr. Matthew Soulier]

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, 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.

[Erin Moriarty]

Soulier first met Daniel a few months after his arrest in 2013.

[Dr. Matthew Soulier]

I met him at the Yolo County Juvenile hall, and he was dressed in, you know, typical juvenile hall attire. He was a different kind of kid. I mean, when I. It does stick out to me that there was a coldness to him. 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 a feeling in him.

[Erin Moriarty]

In fact, Daniel was still regularly thinking about killing people. He told Soulier that he had thoughts of harming his peers and. And the people taking care of him. In juvenile hall. Then, just like FBI Special Agent Chris Campion, Dr. Soullier found himself on the receiving end of Daniel's homicidal thoughts.

[Dr. Matthew Soulier]

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.

[Erin Moriarty]

It wasn't the only time that a patient had threatened Dr. Soulier. 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. Sullier believed that Daniel's desire to kill him and others was actually the result of an obsessive compulsive disorder.

[Dr. Matthew Soulier]

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. By everybody's observation and what we could gather about him, he wasn't a terrible kid up until age 10.

[Erin Moriarty]

But you don't think he was born that way?

[Dr. Matthew Soulier]

No, no. I just. The issue of psychopathy, it's clearly something that, yes, there's probably some level of genetic predisposition to it, but he wasn't a bad kid in preschool or kindergarten. There's no evidence of that of any kind. 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.

[Erin Moriarty]

Dr. Soulier also believed that Daniel didn't want to be this way, that he had wanted to stop his compulsive behavior.

[Dr. Matthew Soulier]

In his case, he developed these morbid preoccupations about death, about killing people. But again, the thing that 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. 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 sadomasochistic 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.

[Erin Moriarty]

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?

[Dr. Matthew Soulier]

That's disturbing. That's deviant. Again, that's the psychopathy in him that really lacks feeling. He just is unable to feel compassion for those that he hurt at that time in 2013. And that's scary.

[Erin Moriarty]

But here's the important part. Daniel might have had strong compulsions to kill, compulsions that he struggled to control. But Dr. Soulier 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?

[Dr. Matthew Soulier]

Doing is a very high standard. You have to be able to 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, and that you really fail to understand the morality of what you're doing, the consequences of what you're doing. It's. It's typically reserved for people that have very severe psychiatric illness, psychotic illness, people that are acting under the direction of delusions or voices. And none of this was true for Daniel.

[Erin Moriarty]

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?

[Dr. Matthew Soulier]

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, but it's not psychotically driven in any way.

[Erin Moriarty]

Dr. Soulier was convinced that Daniel knew what he was doing when he committed the murders. But despite Soulier's professional assessment, Daniel's defense team was determined to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. And they planned to prove that the medications Daniel had taken made him that way. The drugs made me do it.

[Dr. Matthew Soulier]

Exactly. The drugs. An antidepressant, 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 antidepressants caused him to act in that way or kill. So the defense said, thank you, and they went and found another expert.

[Erin Moriarty]

The defense called Dr. James Marikangas 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. Marikangas testimony focused largely on SSRIs, a class of antidepressants that included medications that Daniel had been prescribed to treat severe depression. According to Marikangas, 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.

[Bill Marsh]

It turns your world upside down, turns your brain inside out.

[Erin Moriarty]

You think that's the only reason why he killed she?

[Bill Marsh]

I do, yeah.

[Erin Moriarty]

But isn't it just possible your son is a psychopath?

[Bill Marsh]

Um, not in my mind, no.

[Erin Moriarty]

And why, why, why are you psychopaths?

[Bill Marsh]

Because I. I raised him. I was around him all the time. And he was, in my estimation, a normal kid until they. Until they started peeing these drugs.

[Erin Moriarty]

Most important, Dr. Marakengas said that on the day of the murder, Daniel had reported having an out of body experience. Marikangas 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 Soulier. But still, Dr. Marikangas felt that Daniel had been truthful to him in his interview.

[Dr. Matthew Soulier]

I just fundamentally don't believe putting someone on an antidepressant generates any level of risk that you're going to go and do what Daniel did.

[Erin Moriarty]

That's Dr. Soulier again. And he wasn't convinced that medications could cause legal insanity.

[Dr. Matthew Soulier]

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.

[Erin Moriarty]

And as prosecutor Amanda Zambor pointed out, Daniel was having those violent feelings much earlier.

[Amanda Zambor]

When you actually looked at the medical records, he was having these thoughts and fantasies before he was ever on Zoloft. He wasn't taking his Zoloft as he was supposed to. A lot of times he would just not take them. He described selling some of his medications to other people. So really there was no basis for that.

[Erin Moriarty]

After four 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.

[Amanda Zambor]

You know, we felt very confident in the case, in the evidence, but there's always that little bit of doubt.

[Erin Moriarty]

Prosecutor Amanda Zambor 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?

[Amanda Zambor]

You know, 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 child have done this?

[Erin Moriarty]

But nearly two hours after closing arguments, the jury re entered the courtroom and.

[Amanda Zambor]

The verdict was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of every single count. Of all the enhancements of all the special circumstances.

[Erin Moriarty]

Unanimously, the jury had found Daniel Marsh guilty on two counts of first degree murder, along with additional, quote, enhancements that increase the severity of the punishment he would face due to the depraved nature of the crime.

[Cheryl Gleason]

You see things on TV and you think, well, that's television. That couldn't possibly happen in such a way in real life. But it was actually probably more horrifying.

[Erin Moriarty]

Cheryl Gleason sat on the jury of eight women and four men. She explained to me why she believed Daniel Marsh was guilty.

[Cheryl Gleason]

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.

[Erin Moriarty]

Hearing weeks of gruesome testimony left some jurors traumatized.

[Cheryl Gleason]

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.

[Erin Moriarty]

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 Zambor wasn't as confident about the issue of insanity. Were you more nervous about that?

[Amanda Zambor]

Yes, because of that. You know, that immediate thought to see something this grave. The immediate thought is somebody would have to be insane to do something like this. They'd have to be out of their mind. 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 mementos, and to see it up close is.

[Victoria Hurd]

It's powerful.

[Erin Moriarty]

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 Maupin and Chip Northup.

[Cheryl Gleason]

It was just really clear that he was not insane.

[Erin Moriarty]

So if he's not insane, then what is? Daniel Marsh?

[Cheryl Gleason]

He's a psychopathic killer. I think if he were let loose, he would be a serial killer. He has an urge to kill.

[Erin Moriarty]

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 heard 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 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 Maupin, 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 Zambor had been working to secure for weeks. The judge sentenced Daniel Marsh to 52 years. Were you happy with that?

[Amanda Zambor]

It was the maximum that he could have done. Had he been 16, he would have been eligible for life without the possibility of parole. But because of his age, the max he could have gotten was 52 years to life. So we were very happy with that.

[Erin Moriarty]

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 victims families could take time to breathe.

[Victoria Hurd]

When we received the conviction, it felt healing, like we could be free.

[Erin Moriarty]

But it wasn't over yet, was it?

[Victoria Hurd]

It wasn't over, Erin. No, it wasn't over.

[Erin Moriarty]

It was not over. Not by a long shot. Because four 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.

[Amanda Zambor]

So if he's out in four years, he knows us, he knows our names.

[Victoria Hurd]

Of course he does.

[Amanda Zambor]

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.

[Erin Moriarty]

That's next 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 Schillin, Max Johnston, Jay venables, Isabel Kirby McGowan, Megan Nadolski and Ian Enright. Additional reporting and recording by Kara Schillen. Our executive producers at Goat Rodeo are Megan Nadolski and Ian Enright. Original theme and music by Hans Nelshy with additional music from Paramount. Final mix by Rebecca Sidel. Fendo Fulton is our fact checker. Our production manager is Kara Shillin. Erin 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 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. Thanks for listening. Song stands about an obsessed fan who's.

[Dr. Matthew Soulier]

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[Erin Moriarty]

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[Chris Campion]

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[Victoria Hurd]

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[Amanda Zambor]

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I travel the world for him.

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[Amanda Zambor]

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