Darkness Fell: The Double Murder of Chip and Claudia Northup

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are so shocking that many are left wondering how is this even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning. Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all, it's kJ You're back with another episode of Unspeakable. How's your week go? And I ask you every single time do you even answer me? Or do you just listen to me say it?

1:06 So? I really do hope that you're having a fantastic week. I know Wednesdays are exciting for a lot of people for these new drops and for my Patreon members, y'all are getting them early. Don't forget y'all get in that Patreon. I'm posting pictures and you can request things if you want. Let me know what you're looking for and I will. I'll be happy to accommodate you as best that I can. Now a couple of announcements real fast, all right, And don't forget that. You can also get the Patreon app on your phone and you can listen to it there. You can watch me podcast all of those great things. So you just go to Patreon dot com or you can get the app however you choose to do that, and you can listen whenever, wherever and interact with me. And I have a great time doing that, all right, So let's jump into this week's episode, And y'all know, I'll love podcasting, right and I love all of the stories that I do. I put my heart and soul into them. This specific one, however, is a special one to me, and I am an I'm not related to these people in any way, but the story just really reached me on a personal level. And so I hope that you come along in this journey with me and you feel why I am so drawn to this case.

2:15 And we are going to go to none other than the beautiful Davis, California. So this area is a low crime place, a beautiful place to live. There's low crime and there's high intelligence, and I think that that's a great thing. I say this because it is a well known college town in Yolo County, And that's kind of cool, right, you only live once Yola. Now, usually if I hear go Aggies, I'm thinking Texas, A and m I'm not gonna lie that's what first comes to my mind. But for today, I'm going to be talking about the Aggies of UC Davis. And this area is a place that is full of environmentally conscious people. They love to live there because the essence of that area encompasses this and all of the things that are important to them, like going green. They have a fifty mile path that is bike friendly. It weaves in and out of the residential communities and also the nearby campus. And to boot it's just fifteen miles west of the hustle and bustle of Sacramento, which, to that note of the environmentally friendly aspect of things, that is home from what I understand to the Golden One Center, which is the world's first entirely solar powered indoor sports arena. Now, maybe I'm just ignorant, but I had no idea about that, and I went down a rabbit hole researching it. But in twenty fourteen, Davis was the perfect place for married couple Chip and Claudia northup

3:48 to settle down. And mister Chip's middle name was Jennings, by the way, and I need to tell you that because you know, he had to be one cool dude if his middle name was Jennings, all right, And I'll tell you this also, Miss Claudia could not have agreed more. She just thought the world of her man, and both of them, I would guess I would have to describe as mature adults, because mister Chip was a fresh eighty seven years old and miss Claudia was a younger woman at only seventy six. Now, both of these two had been married previously, but they found themselves single and sitting in a church pew seventeen years prior when this saying light attracts light was proven absolutely true. Now, of course, they both had lived interesting lives respectively before this chance meeting in church, but together they just created a powerhouse of good times. And from the moment that they met, you hear the saying that they were inseparable. But this was absolutely true. And I want you to think about those precious elderly couples that you see in the stores that are still holding hands. He opens the door for her albeit slow, but he waits for his bride to shuffle right on through that doorway. And the couple where she still places her hands around his face whenever she's giving him a kiss, something that she has done a million times before, but still means it with all of

5:20 her heart. A little bit older, a little bit slower, but still full of life. Mister chip and Miss Claudia were that couple. Now let's talk about mister Chiprill Quick. He was a Navy veteran, and he had served valiantly in World War Two and later would become a very successful attorney. And while he may have known the law, his heart could be found in classical literature. And the man was just a classic example of being great yet serving his community, doing things like serving on the school board as well as working as the city attorney. But he wasn't all work and no play. He was what I would call well rounded guys. He was a scholar, a musical man who played a guitar in his band, the Putah Creek Crawdads, And he was a social justice warrior and also a believer in incredible barbecue, which he sold at the County Fair for as long as he could remember. And if you can't tell by all of this, mister Chip was just a flat out catch. Miss Claudia loved everything about that man. But he was likewise just as smitten with his girl, because Miss Claudia was the miss Piggy to his kermit. And those are her words, by the way, not mine. Miss Claudia was a total free spirit and her boisterous laugh could be heard from miles around. And it was fitting though, because she was

6:53 one of those people that made everyone feel important and valued, and she gave them space to be heard and to listen, and that is not a skill that many people have to genuinely make someone feel seen and heard. I've spoken of my friend Krisha before, but I think of her whenever I think about the way Miss Claudia treated people. Just an absolute angel on earth when it came to accepting others and just being so very kind. And she was known for what they called her Claudia hug. And it was called that because when she hugged you, honey, she hugged you. And if you were around her, you better like to laugh because that woman was giggling all the time. But the giggle is kind of funny in and of itself, because it was kind of a giggle.

7:45 Where in the South we would say bless her heart, you know, like we look at somebody, bless your heart. Well, her giggle was kind of like almost like I don't want to say condescending, but that was kind of like her way of going okay, all right. But that giggle and the light that she brought with her, compounded with the joy you felt when around her, it just made her a very special kind of person. You don't meet people like this every day, loving, compassionate and grateful for everything. But Miss Claudia would have made the absolute best character if you ever had to create one in a movie. And I'm telling you this because the woman was a total frickin badass. First of all, while others back in the sixties were homemakers and doing all that you know, real effeminate lifestyle that was being pushed back in the sixties, Miss Claudia was a whole ass electrician. Yeah, like had a tool belt and was making that money. And she was also a true activist who went against the status quo.

8:53 And I don't say this just lightly. I mean, hell, she went in the sixties and married herself a black man, which was total, totally unheard of back then, and had herself two biracial daughters. Why because she could, Because she could. She was a free spirit, and she lived with what her heart told her was the right life for her. She didn't listen to others. With her pantyhose on and her high heels, you could tell it was her coming in with the whiff of her signature scent, that black rose, which was an essential oil only available at an apothecary down the way, but she handpicked it. That was the smell of miss Claudia. She was her own woman, and no one could tame the wild and free in her.

9:40 But guess what, mister Chip didn't want to when he lay eyes on her and he got to know her heart. He never wanted to own her. He wanted to be with her, and he just wanted to look and admire her. They were absolutely in love and when they married back in nineteen ninety six. Of course, of course their children were grown by this time, but both families were thrilled with the union and they blended easily into one big family. Now they had been married seventeen years by the time that twenty fourteen rolled around, and they still remained very very close with their families. They spoke daily with their own respective children from their previous relationships, and now grandchildren were in the mix, as fate would have it, and these were just two very blessed people with a beautifully blended family and things were just right in their world.

10:36 Now I've told you this, miss Claudia, and I think you've picked up on it. She was a sassy thing, a sassy thing, and so granny just wasn't something that she was prepared to be called. So when these grandchildren came around, she, when they got old enough to speak and all that, said, you know what are we gonna call me? I cannot be called granny. I mean I'm just too you know, just that doesn't fit me. So so her grandkids agreed and said, you are just too grand to be a granny. Well, at that time, Happy Days was huge on TV. Y'all remember Happy Days. I remember watching that with my grandparents and y'all know, and that show that the Fawns. He was the coolest guy around. When was Claudia's grandson shouted out, well, Grandza, like the fawns gronds Grandza. And from that point forward, Granza was born and whenever they had gotten married, it was those same grandkids that walked Granza down the aisle to her beloved mister Chip. So on April thirteenth, twenty fourteen, it was really odd when the couple did not show up for church. I mean that's where they had even first met, and they were devoted in their church life and their religious lives mattered to them, so their absence was one that was felt whenever they didn't attend the services. Well as that day crept On, their kids kept calling, but nobody would answer the phone. They tried the house phone, the cell phones just went to voicemail or it just rang and nobody picked up. So later that day, when mister Chip no showed to a gig with his beloved band,

12:10 that was now also going to be a huge red flag with the combined that they didn't show up for church. So this at this point the adult kids were pretty worried. So one of mister Chip's oldest sons, his name was Robert, he went by the house with two of his sons so the grandsons to go check on his parents. Now I want to say this real quick. I recognize that mister Chip and mus Claudia had children that were separate and not theirs together. But just for storytelling and the ease, I'm just going to say their parents, although I would like to acknowledge that they are not biologically the parents of all of the combined children together. So Robert went by the house. He knocked, he rang the doorbell, but no one would ever come and answer the door. So after some time of them trying to get somebody to come to the door, no one came. They loaded up in the car and the guys left the house.

13:05 Well. Then evening came and the couple's daughter, Claudia, went by the house to go see if she could get them to answer the phone or the door, but there was no answer. Again. But the thing here is that a woman a woman ain't leaving without answers, okay, And Claudia is like, what is going on? So she decided to go around to the back of the house and see if she could see anything or if something was a miss And what she found was an open window with the screen cut. Now, anybody listening right now knows that would have been an absolute alarming sight, and so I'm sure her heart had started pounding, going uh oh, this isn't good. And so she went to where the couple's bedroom window was and she peered in through the blinds.

13:52 It was dark, it was hard to see, and she was trying to see what she could see, if anything. Now, this would turn out to be something that she wished pretty soon that she had never done, because as she squinted and she focused on what she could try to make out, she got pretty panicked. And so she called the police, who would arrive. And when the police arrived, they too went and they were looking through the windows. And there is one thing we all know, and that's that there is never a reason for there to be blood spattered on walls. Never. Whatever happened inside of that home seemed like it had been traumatic and these people needed help. So the police made entry into the home.

14:39 They go through quickly. They were announcing who they are, you know, Sheriff's office, police, whatever. And so once the home was quickly cleared, they made it into that back bedroom and there they determined that there were two bodies on the scene, and I am saying bodies because both of them were beyond any possibility of help. They didn't even need to check a pulse to confirm that these victims were dead because what police encountered in that bedroom was something that and I don't say this lightly or in cliche, but it was something truly of a horror film, something that is not natural. It's nothing that anyone should ever witness in this lifetime. So there was an older male and female body and they were laying there, obviously deceased, and just by looking at them, the paramedics shook their heads and said, you know, there's nothing that we can do.

15:39 So the coroner would be called in as well as homicide detectives because this was not any type of natural sequence. So as all of these decisions were being made and people were being called and realizations recorded, word began to spread about a believed double homicide at the home. And what something something that people don't realize until it happens to them, is that media outlets like your local news, they listen to police scanners if you don't if you don't know that, and so they know the police codes and they learn this because it's a tool for them to be able to get on scene quickly for what might be deemed as hot news. And so when they hear these calls come out and they hear that they need the coroner on scene. Boom, they can send out their their crews and start getting footage whenever they're on scene.

16:38 But what most people don't think about is that sometimes the victims' families are getting the information of what is happening at that exact same time that the media is also arriving on the scene. And this happened to be the case for one of missus Claudia's daughter's, Victoria. So she saw that she had twelve missed phone calls on her cell phone from her sister. So when she realized this, she called her sister right back, and all her sister could get out was, oh my god, there's been a break in at mom's house and there are two bodies inside. That's all she could muster the strength to say. So Victoria jumps in her car and flies over to her parents' home, as anyone would do. And as this tragedy unfolded, news cameras were already there and filming this incredibly vulnerable and heartbreaking moment. And I want to stop for a second and say, just imagine how you would feel if that were you, that your most horrifying situation in your life to that date is now being recorded and broadcast for the world to see before you're even able to process what you're being told. The news was very quick to publish this breaking story to the community, even before people involved in the daily lives of this couple had

18:11 time to be notified. And the video coverage on the news caught the attention of a woman that knew this couple very well and had not even been notified. It was their housekeeper. Her name was Miss DeLanda Jones, and it caught her completely off guard. One minute, she's sitting there just watching the news, and the next thing she knows, breaking right in front of her eyes is the home that she's been going to for twelve years and cleaning to this lovely couple that she has become friends with and knows them, I would say intimately. And as she realizes that that's the home that she's seeing on television, she broke up. She just broke down. She started sobbing and started screaming, Oh my god, my clients, those are my clients. So many people were now in hysterics with no further information as to what had happened. I mean, that is heartbreaking, just off the top that you would find out that way of a tragedy. If you've been a listener for a while and you've listened to the episode Nineteen Day Devil. I even mentioned in there that my friend Ronda found out her two children had been murdered not by a knock at the door, but by the news. The news broke that, and she'd unbelievable, unbelievable.

19:32 But eventually, in this case, the family would be updated once police got a grasp of the situation, and they would be told that both of their parents had been stabbed multiple times. And so, hearing this, the question became, what does that mean? What does multiple times mean? What do you mean? They were stabbed multiple times and the coroner reported to them it's going to be more more than twelve times a piece. How do you even process this information? These two elderly people stabbed multiple times in their bed? How is this even real? How is this real life? They're old, they're in their bed, and you're telling me someone stabbed them twelve times. So, while this was hard for the family to even wrap their brains around, the whole truth would be something no normal person could have ever imagined possible. So the scenes being processed by detectives, the bodies were loaded up and they were taken to the Medical Examiner's office for autopsy. The pathologist completed the normal procedure for an autopsy, and this includes removal from the body bag and photographs being taken. Now any trace evidence that might you know, they're putting in a body bag in case there's any type of trace evidence that

21:03 might fall off of the body, something along those lines, but in this case that there was none, so instead of just removing them from the bag, because of the condition that the bodies were in, the examinations want to be done from head and documented down to the feet, but they decided that they wanted to X ray the bodies while they were still inside of their respective body bags. And this was done for a multitude of reasons, including being able to check for any hardware that might be within the body, like a hip replacement or a pace maker or something along those lines. But it can also detect fractures in bones, hemorrhages, or any foreign objects that may be within the body. So like, for example, sometimes when people are smuggling drugs and die, they'll find that they had like a foreign pouch in their body that leaked the drugs out and that's what caused them to die.

21:59 Something along those lines. Well, whenever they did these x rays, it did actually show that there were foreign objects inside of both of their bodies. So, starting with mister Chip, his X ray showed that there was something non natural and non surgical inside of his stomach cavity. And looking at the X ray, it resembled something cylindrical and it was quite shocking in its placement within the body. It did not belong, nothing belonged where this was found. So the pathologists would have to look at this more closely once he was removed from the bag. Now I've already told you this, but mister Chip was in horrific condition upon removal of the bags, suffering from, as you already know, multiple stab wounds. But what I haven't explained to you yet was not only were there multiple stab wounds, but he had been disemboweled. So while the family had been told, look, there's a lot of stab wounds, you know, more than twelve, the autopsy report would finalize that number at somewhere between sixty one and sixty five stab wounds. The number here uncertain because some of the stab wounds connected with other ones, and some just passed through the others, and so it's kind of a It was a mess, I guess is

23:30 the only way to put this. Mister Chip had major stab wounds to his throat, his chest, his hands, and the lower half of his legs. Three stab wounds were in the right side of his neck, which had dissected his jugular vein. His torso had nine clustered stab wounds, meaning close together, and they were all facing the same direction as the knife entered his body. His left chest, the left side of his chest wall was sliced open with a four and a half inch open gap, and the knife that he was stabbed with. He was being stabbed with such force that the knife broke through his eighth rib and it severed his left lung. There were severe stab wounds on the backs of his hands and his lower left leg, which was indicative of defensive wounds.

24:35 Like imagine you're laying in your bed and then something happens, and so you start trying to defend yourself using whatever you can, putting up your hands and your legs, trying to fight someone off. He was absolutely aware that he was being attacked and the stab through his lower hand. It ran through his finger bones, meaning the knife penetrated finger bones, and it severed the tendons in his hand, and it caused a big hemorrhage. Outside of his hand, his palm had a deep horizontal cut from him swiping and trying to grab at the blade as he was being stabbed over and over and over again. His major leg wound indicated that the knife was swung with such force that the blade went all the way through his leg in one side and completely out of the other. Now, as far as the cylindrical item from the X ray, when the doctor reached into his chest cavity and removed it, everyone in the room became wide eyed because it was a drinking glass, like a whiskey glass. A whole drinking whiskey glass had been inserted inside of his chest. So obviously this makes no sense. It wasn't the whiskey glass that he was being cut with, So whoever had done this to this elderly man had purposefully put a drinking glass inside of his chest for whatever reason. Nothing I

26:09 can say would even make sense. So that was pulled out and documented and completely bizarre. But the killer had also gone up to mister Chip's forehead and cut open his forehead. But this wasn't done in the frenzied stabbing that was all over the other parts of the body. The doctor was documenting that this seemed more controlled, more meticulous, slowed down, very purposeful. So based on the location, the severity of all of these stab wounds and the blood loss, mister Chip was simply unable to defend himself, and because because the jugular vein was cut or dissected. He fought valiantly, but he was rendered unconscious within minutes of being attacked.

27:10 But I want to focus on something for one second, and that's the word minutes, because minutes is not a short amount of time for someone to be stabbing you upwards of sixty five times. I don't want to minimize that when I say he was rendered unconscious within minutes. Have you ever tried to run for minutes? That's hard enough. Imagine fighting for your life at almost ninety years old. As for Miss Claudia, her autopsy was just as horrible, if you can even fathom it. When she was X rayed, I told you, she too was found to have a foreign object inside of her, but it was different than mister Chips X ray, so the item inside of her body seemed to be an electronic of some sort, but that would have to be confirmed after her autopsy was pleated.

28:01 She too was covered in stab wounds, while the major the majority of hers were focused mainly on her left side of her body. So in total, she had been stabbed seventy four times, along with other random cuts that were on her body. So it's kind of a combination of all of these wounds that were documented. Now. Miss Claudia's most significant injuries were on the left side of her face, her neck, and her abdomen. Her face was stabbed at an angle where it sliced through her cheek and into her oral cavity or into her mouth. There was another stab wound to the mouth that went straight in so it knocked out one of her teeth.

28:47 There was a two to three inch stab on the right side of her neck and that cut into an upward angle, so the knife went into her neck, up into her mouth, It went through her thyroid gland, and it slice through her tongue. She suffered three stab wounds into her back that were so powerful the knife hit her spine. Her left side of her chest and her left breast had suffered internal injuries and were described as caused by a significant blow because blood clots had begun forming around that area. And you know this, if you've been a true crime fan for a while, that this means you have to be alive. Your body is not going to start sending or forming the enzymes to create a blood clot unless you are alive and your body's trying to repair itself. She had also been pulling blood into her chest cavity where blood should not be. This was beyond anything it would ever take to subdue an elderly person if you, for any god forsaken reason needed to.

29:58 But she too had been dis boweled, and the item that was removed from her abdomen was found to be a Nokia cell phone. Again, someone had placed an electronic on purpose inside of her body. Now that odd cut that was on mister Chip's forehead. In that same fashion, Miss Claudia also had some strange wounds on her body, and particularly I'm going to talk about her leg because the leg wound was done in a way that it was sliced open and it exposed a fat layer in her thigh. It was meticulous. It was on purpose, and some of that fat had been pulled out from her body.

30:49 So everything considered, the realization in these reports was that the killer had fun with their bodies after stabbing them. I say had fun because that's the only thing I can think to describe this. As he experimented and he performed his own procedures on them. He took out their organs, he placed household items within their stomach cavity, while also pulling out fat and digging in the forehead of one of his victims. The pathologist was very clear that the high number of wounds on both of the victims' bodies does not even come close to telling how horribly they both suffered. This was not quick, This was not humane.

31:42 The victims both were absolutely alive, and every wound was deep and painful when it was inflicted upon them. Once all of this was documented and the reports were completed, they were then turned over to the police for their investigation. But that aside, how do you possibly begin to explain everything that I just told you someone not related, someone not involved in this? How do you possibly explain what I just explained to you to the grieving family that loved these two people. They thought twelve wounds was peak trauma.

32:26 Knowing what you know now, this was pure savagery. Both deaths were obviously ruled a homicide and police now had their work cut out for them. But the issues in terms of evidence presented themselves pretty quickly. And by issues, I mean problems, and by that I mean a complete lack thereof Okay, there was no evidence to be found to start, The motive was confusing. Nothing was obviously missing from the home, and the home wasn't ransacked or anything along those lines. Aside from that cut screen. I know right now, someone's going, well that's evidence. Yeah, Well, aside from that cut screen, there was no evidence of anything else.

33:13 I mean, like I said, nothing was stolen. There were presumed blood stains, and always they presumed until they're confirmed. But those blood stains were located on the walls of the bedroom and they extended into the master bathroom, and you know that was that was expected. But whose blood do you think it is? Obviously we're thinking, you know, that's probably the victim's blood. And so once the bodies had been removed, technicians came in and they were processing the bed, and so they processed the top sheet, which, by the way, in the sheet they found fifty seven different stab holes in it. And then the fitted sheet was processed and they did find what appeared to be a bloody left handprint pressed into the fabric. But this aside, the home was neat, it was orderly, and there was a total lack of physical evidence. There was no DNA, there was no print that was found that was not expected to be there, nothing when it was all processed. So, now that the autopsies had been performed, the medical examiner was able to tell the investigators that they believe the murder weapon was a knife and it had to have been at least four inches long and with a non serrated blade, meaning not jagged type of blade. So detectives decided to go through the house and to look for any type of weapon or knife that they could find that might would fit that location. And when they were in the kitchen, they did actually locate a knife they

34:46 thought might would fit, and it actually had this undetermined red substance on the tip of it. The thing was when it was sent to be evaluated, that's just what it was. It was just an undetermined red substance. It was not blood and that was not ruled as a possible murder weapon. So the local police would end up teaming up with a host of other agencies, including the FBI, some experienced specialized task force members, lots of people that had experience in trying to solve a case like this, and they all were trying to work together to solve it because it was extremely confusing. How could this have been so brutal and nothing left behind by this killer?

35:30 And based on the level of viciousness at this scene, law enforcement and profilers alike felt like this had to be personal. This level of violence inflicted upon somebody had had to be a personal vendetta applied here. Things that are this up close and personal where you have to take a knife, get that close up on somebody and then just start stabbing them and then in the face and all of that. The victim selection here was why they came to that conclusion. They chose elderly people asleep in their bed. They were able to get up close and personal on them, and then it was absolute overkill.

36:13 And those are some of the things that led these profilers to believe that this had to be personal. But the FBI profilers weren't convinced as to how many people may have acted in this case. They didn't know if it was one killer or if there were multiple. They also thought that the cut on the screen on the window, they weren't convinced that that was actually something to do with what had happened, that maybe it had been more of like a diversion tactic, and they kind of felt like whoever came in the house may have used a key to get in there, because there was no forced entry. So the couple's poor housekeeper, the one that was just traumatically, you know, alerted through the news that the people she loved and cared for all these years were deceased. She was called and she was ruled out as a possible suspect, and the police decided to use her to go through the home and identify if anything was missing that she could tell. And mister Lando was undoubtedly shook up to even enter the home knowing what she now knew, but considering she had worked in that house for twelve years, she was the best one to assess the home and determine if anything was a miss So she walked through, and emotional but steady, she went room by room, checking things out and according to everything that she saw, nothing was out of place. Everything was there, nothing was missing, so motive. At this point, investigators were kind of clueless

37:46 because missus Claudia's purse was still on the scene as well. It was filled with her credit cards still, so they even contacted the credit card companies and said, can you tell us if there's been any recent activity on these numbers, but they said no, no one's used the credit cards, there's been no strange banking activity, nothing, So the leads were just slim. So going back to the drawing board, the question became, okay, who knew the victim's best Well, this would obviously be their children, so the next obvious question was then, okay, well, if we think that the killer used a key to get inside the house, the screen cut was just a distraction, then who had a key to the home? That said? Police interviewed all of the adult children, but special attention was given to son Robert, so after hours of questioning, he was really the one that was put under the microscope because he was the one who had a key to the house, and it was curious at this point that he had gone by the house and now police knew that he had a key, but y'all, he said he never went inside the home. Okay, well, Robert, if you thought that something was really wrong, why didn't you use the key and go inside of the house. Well, his answer was kind of like, well, everyone is different and expectations aren't the same amongst everybody's families, and he just didn't think it appropriate to bust up inside of

39:17 their home unannounced. So, in an effort to gather more information on his possible involvement in the murder of his parents, Robert's family life was looked into more closely, and that included his two sons. So obviously police are now going to dive in to check in on all of their whereabouts and get their explanations of things. But police also wanted to do a search of Robert's home to see if there was anything there that might be of any interest to the case. And immediately, immediately this would raise eyebrows because for starters, Robert's carpet had just been steam cleaned, and I mean as in the same day that the murders took place. So why'd you clean your carpet, Robert?

40:05 Why would you do that? And Robert's answer was plainly because it was dirty. I just was steam cleaning my carpet. Well, continuing to search the home, police also uncovered some very curious drawings. And when I say curious, disturbing is probably way more accurate. So it was a sketch that was on a loose leaf sheet of paper, and it was drawn in black ink, and it's a bit chaotic. It's like a scribbled picture, but clear, if that makes sense. The words ah like ahhhh like a scream was written above an image that depicted a person holding a large knife over a bed with two people in it asleep. Well, this is obviously something that can't be overlooked. So all of the guys, d Robert and his two sons were brought in for questioning by police, and they would continue to be questioned over multiple days, long hours of intense questioning, and they all complied. They all answered any questions that were brought their way, and they all did this without ever requesting an attorney. So while a picture on its own is worth a thousand words, you know, the sketch, it's worth a thousand words. Well so is a medical record.

41:32 What do I mean by that? Well, one of Robert's sons Oliver. He was known already diagnosed with schizophrenia and the family had been working valiantly to help manage and mitigate this diagnosis. And in general, I do want to tell you this. In general, drawing an art has been a very valuable tool for therapists you know, across the nation who work with patients who suffer with schizophrenia. And while it's a very complex disorder. In a nutshell, I'll just add that art therapy is a very common method that patients will use to express their thoughts and the drawings can serve as therapeutic, nonverbal outlets for expressing these complex, terrifying and a lot of times chaotic experiences that are going through the schizophrenic person's head. And a lot of times these are like vivid hallucinations and delusions. It's a very traumatic experience for the person that's even experiencing it.

42:39 So much like the average person may go for a run or a walk or work in their garden whenever stress builds up, drawing can help those types of patients alleviate the build up of stress when their schizophrenia is kind of out of control. The art is going to depict internal feelings rather than a literal reality. But when it's hard to express yourself, drawing can be an easy way to do that. And even some well known great minds, by the way, have done strange things. And to that point, even the likes of Vincent van Goh at one point was considered to maybe have possibly suffered from schizophrenic episodes because his art over time changed and was indicative of him going through something, that's for sure. But here's the kicker.

43:23 After all of that is looked at, Oliver wasn't the one who drew the picture. Wouldn't you have expected that? Yeah, but Oliver didn't draw it. It was his brother Tony who drew the photo. So why would Tony have drawn something like this? And their investigation led them to tear apart the home even further. Okay, so carpet was cut out, even the sink fixtures and the bathrooms and in the kitchens and all that those were removed and tested for blood or DNA and the drains from you know, maybe someone washed their hands whatever. And as police pondered this recently cleaned carpet and the pretty accurate drawing of murder that just occurred, they would need more physical evidence to support their theory of the family possibly being involved in this double murder. So weeks would pass without an arrest in the case, but it was still being worked even the FBI, like I told you, they came in and they were speaking and interviewing anybody that could possibly be involved in the case. Meanwhile, while that's happening, the family was completely adamant that they didn't do anything. And the grandsons that were being focused on, they one hundred percent adored their grandfather Chip. I mean, they spent a lot of time with him, a lot of time very very close.

44:48 So that wasn't even something that the family was even willing to entertain. Nope, you were hitting a brick wall with the family. Absolutely not. That is not even a possible scenario that you were bringing our way. And the family did get upset by this, and they did even go to the extent of hiring an attorney for Tony as it became rather clear that eyes were now starting to really focus on Tony the grandson. But as more days and these weeks were passing, there was someone else in town who was starting to feel a bit uneasy. He was feeling so uneasy that he decided, at seventeen years old that he was going to make a call to nine one one. He would call in and he would go on to detail that he thought he knew who the killer was in the double homicide, and when directly asked by the dispatcher, okay, if you know who did it, who is it, he gave a name. He said, it's my best friend. His name is Daniel Marsh. So nine one one operators took in the information and they turned that directly over to investigators, and they wanted to question him about his relationship with Daniel and why he would think he needed to call nine to one one on his best friend. Well, they had been friends since twenty twelve. They had met through another friend. They all liked music. They had gotten together to make a band.

46:16 They it was a metal like you know metal band, and the three of them would practice two to three times a week at the house. And while the Alva kid quit the band, the other two, Daniel and Kevin, they they kind of stayed friends. Well, why did Alva quit the band? What happened there? Well, he said, well he thought that Daniel was dangerous and so he had voiced that to me and then he just kind of dropped us both and he stopped talking to us all together. So was it jealousy? Was it? You know, three's a crowd and the friendship. It wasn't quite clear why they you know, why they kind of fell apart, other than he thought Daniel was dangerous. So Kevin and Daniel remained friends, and they would do things like play video games games like World of Warcraft and League of Legends, and you know, there were little edgier kids. I guess you would say they did partake in some frowned upon activities for teenagers.

47:11 They like to drink and smoke weed and all that kind of stuff. So, okay, police are taking all this in and like, tell us more though of why you think this Daniel guy may have killed this elderly couple. And Kevin says, well, Daniel likes to watch horror movies and he really loves this website called Bestgore dot Com. Now I went and looked up bestcore dot com, by the way, because inquiring minds want to know. And the nature of the content of that site is literally right there in the title. But it features real life gore, like real life gore death and dismemberment and watching young children get decapitated, rapes, horrific injuries, things that would be upsetting to the average joe. He really really liked that website, and he was also infatuated with Ted Bundy and other serial killers, and so much so that he kept a notebook with drawings detailing different ways to torture and abuse people. Okay, well, from the eyes of the police, they're like, that makes you morbid and creepy as hell, but that doesn't mean you're a killer. Man, Like, we need more than that.

48:32 And quite frankly, what you're telling us doesn't align with the thoughts, the theories and the bit of evidence we may have in the case thus far. It's actually not even close. So police then started thinking about what all this kid was saying, and they wondered, maybe if he was the killer, how did he how did he know things that he knew Because as he expanded on that, he knew way too much, like way too much in terms of details of the crime, and some of those things were things that only the killer would know. For example, that there was an attempted eyeball removal, some of the cuts in the face. I believe it was of Miss Claudia, but there was an attempted eyeball removal and he knew that that had not been released to the public, so they call him back in. They ended up interviewing this kid twice because they really started thinking he might be the killer, and he had inserted himself into the investigation, which is actually kind of a common thing to happen.

49:45 So the question became, Okay, if you know all of this, it's been like months, Okay, why did you wait so long to come and tell us this if you already knew this and you're so afraid that now you need you need to tell us. But his answer was, well, because I was afraid. I was terrified of what he might be capable of doing, and so I kind of just didn't come to you until now. And here's the thing. Police are listening to all of this, but they already knew the name Daniel Marsh. It was actually a well known name. Even the district attorney knew who he was, but not because it was something bad. It was actually quite literally the opposite of bad. Daniel Marsh was a locally known hero. In two thousand and nine, when Daniel Marsh was riding in the car with his dad. They were in the family station wagon. His dad kind of fell back and went limp while driving down the road, and Daniel, at only like ten years old, had the presence of mind to grab the steering wheel steer the car to safety, all while applying the brakes carefully and getting the car off to the side of the road.

50:54 Is a very young kid. He did this. Not only did he avoid major casualties that could have happened on the roadway when he stopped the car, he got out and he gave his dad CPR as best as he knew how until help arrived. And it turns out that his dad had been suffering a heart attack and his actions that day saved his dad's life and also stopped any potential for hurting other people as the car barreled down the road. That had been just four years back when he was honored by the Red Cross and he had been awarded their Hero's Award for saving his dad. It was televised. It was a huge ordeal and he was a young kid who did this amazing thing. So now here's another teen directly pointing and accusing this hero of a double homicide. But police were still intrigued and they had to follow up on the lead just to rule it out. So it just didn't seem right that kid Daniel was looking to be very successful now and the current time that that was happening, he was only fifteen years old, and there was no connection between Daniel and the Northops, so it was just far fetched. The family of the victims they had never even heard of Daniel Marsh before either, and so they couldn't give any insight on why this kid would be a person of interest.

52:15 They never met him, never knew him, never nothing. So police wanted to go check him out and see what he was about. So they ended up at Daniel's dad. His name was Bill, Daniel's dad's house, and they knocked on the door and Bill was pretty slow to get up to the door. So when he opened it and they started explaining they were the police, he was a little bit slow because he was recovering from back surgery. Now, immediate questioning would reveal that Bill, first of all, he didn't know the Northops either. He had no idea who they were. The only thing even remotely possible of a connection that the police were able to make was that Bill had previous lived a few doors down from the Northops, but Daniel lived with his mother Sherry at the time, not with his dad, and so Bill told the police, yeah, I don't I don't live there anymore because I couldn't afford the rent, so I had to move out. He said.

53:21 The only reason he had even lived there for that period of time was because that home was walking distance to the mother, Sherry's house, and so the you know, the kids could walk back and forth. Well, a neighbor came up and would approach the police, and he would make mention of the fact that the police, well, you know, Bill moved out of that house right after the murders happened. Timing is a bit odd. And another neighbor also said, yeah, I mean I know Bill lived there, and I would occasionally see a teen boy that he thought was Bill's son ride up on a bike or a skateboard, but he said he hadn't seen that kid in months. He also added that the owner of the home where Bill had lived, the one that he had moved out of, that was owned by an elderly lady who he was renting from, but she had just died a week before the murders. Happened, and her family decided to put the residents up for sale a few weeks later, And that is why the neighbors said, as far as he knew, Bill moved out, it wasn't anything nefarious. So all in all, everything Bill said and everything that the neighbor said seemed to line up and check out when they looked deep into it. But one thing Bill said stuck in the minds of detectives. If Bill's home, the previous one he had moved out of, was walking distance to his ex wife's house, then that would obviously mean that it was also walking distance to the Northip's house. But why had

54:55 this Daniel Marsha's best friend randomly called two months after the murders if he knew that Daniel had supposedly killed these two people. So again, all of it's just not it's not jiving. So that friend, like I said, he had come back in for that second interview and he was questioned. Now that interview was recorded, So in that recording again they addressed the fact that you've waited so long, why come forward now, And the friend goes in further detail and says, well, that's not exactly how this went. It was more of a progression of information that led me to make the nine one one call. So he said that Daniel told him on April fourteenth that he had committed the double murders, but the friends just didn't want to hear it. The friend group, you know, he was like, whatever, you're lying. You're just trying to you know, because he was obsessed with the gore and all that kind of stuff. You're lying, you didn't do this. Whatever.

55:50 But the next day Daniel told the story again at school during lunch, and he added that he was going to be on the news. So the thing was, the murders hadn't been headlining everywhere, though, even considering how grotesque this was, because another huge event had taken over nationally, and you're going to know this event. It's the Boston bombing. The Boston bombing took place right at that time, and that took over the national news. So now there were even more questions. How and why did Chip and Claudia's grandson draw an image eerily similar to the actual murder scene if he knew nothing about it? Number two, how did a local teenager know details that only the killer would know if he weren't involved? And then number three.

56:39 If the killer had been confessing to everyone around him that he had done this, why had no one else said anything? And why had this friend waited until right now to call the police. Was it possible that he was trying to pass the blame? This friend was did he actually do it and he wanted to pass the blame to get ahead of suspicion on him. But the team being questioned said, the answer to that last question was simple. The reason that he had come forward now was not only because he was scared, but he said, Daniel is now threatening to kill again. And he said, I'm scared for my life. I'm scared for my family's life because if he killed these other people, he's capable of doing it to me. And he said, look, even Daniel's girlfriend can verify what I'm telling you. So Daniel did have a girlfriend, and police went and spoke to the girlfriend and guess what she did confirm. Daniel had asked her specifically if she had heard about the murders that had taken place in town, and she told him no.

57:44 When she did, he then started describing in detail what had happened at the murders. So police contacted the school where Daniel Marsh was enrolled and spoke to the sr. Oh, they're the school resource officer, and so look, I need you to get this kid. I need you to bring him in. We need to do some questioning of him in relation to a double homicide. And when Daniel was brought in, he looked a bit surprising compared to what I guess police thought they would get. He was a thin, small kid. He looked like a gamer kind of guy. Black clothing and long, dirty blonde hair just past his shoulders.

58:28 Kind of like the band Hansen, you remember them. He kind of had that look about him. But he was very polite. He shook hands with the officers. He wasn't nervous at all when he was answering questions. He was very open when talking. He didn't seem guarded at all, and they questioned him for upwards of three hours at this period. He was very upfront, easy to talk to. He discussed that his home life had, you know, had a few troubles. His parents had split, and that was kind of a different situation too. When his parents split, it was because his mother started having an affair with his kindergarten teacher, which was a woman. So Daniel hated his teacher for that, and he even told the police man, I wanted to strangle her. I wanted to strangle that woman.

59:19 She broke up my parents' marriage, and now my mom's in a in a relationship with my kindergarten teacher. So while they're discussing that, an officer that was that was interviewing noticed that there were some scars on his arms, and they were like, what's that about. What are these these cuts on your arms? And he said that he had been taking it very hard since all of that happened. It happened right after his dad's heart attacks, within a little time frame of that, and he said that he started hurting himself to deal with the anger. He was cutting himself. And his parents were very aware of these issues. They were they were serious, and they were actively working to get him help for this, for his anxiety, for his depression, and he'd even gone to the extent that he started to starve himself. This got so bad that he was committed to an eating disorder clinic for nearly a month to try to get him back on track.

1:00:15 He was struggling so bad, but it had helped, and so he had obviously been released from the facility. And it may come as no surprise to you, it didn't to me, because you know, this is very unfortunately common in kids that are suffering. But he also had been very suicidal. He had attempted suicide four times in the past, but he was now medicated and he was just doing really well. Now that's what Daniel's explanation of things were. But looking into school records, they would be able to confirm that he had really been struggling, because he even had told a school counselor in the past that he had fantasized about killing people. Now, was that his mother's new lover or was that just people in general? You know, I don't have the answer for you on that, but he had fantasized about it. The school counselor took it so seriously and they were so concerned at what he was saying that they had brought the police into the school and he had been hospitalized for that event as well. Now, when he was confronted about talking with people about this couple that died or may have been killed during this questioning, he denied all of that. In the interview with the police, not only did he deny it, but he became emotional and he told the police at one point, you know you're scaring me, you're threatening me. You know, this is this is this is bad. And this is a direct quote.

1:01:44 He said. If you want to help me, don't ruin my life. You know, I feel like you're trying to ruin my life. If anything, send me to a psychiatric hospital. But don't sit here and accuse me of something, I mean, because of my past or whatever. But by this point the interview, it just was very obvious that the police were dealing with a very damaged, unhinged as far as the mind went. Individual. But what exactly did that mean in terms of this investigation of this murder, because there was no evidence of anything other than him having been struggling mentally, and he explained to them. He was very, very open. He continued to talk to investigators for hours about how he did have bad thoughts and all of that.

1:02:31 I mean, Elly had tried to kill himself and he was put in a hospital. But he said something to investigators I think that would make anyone uncomfortable. But he said something a couple hours into the interview that I think would make anyone uncomfortable, and he told the investigator, Look, anytime I see someone, I do see images flashing of me killing them. You know, that's just something that happens. He explained that when he was ten that he not only wanted to strangle his teacher, but he had planned to slit his teacher's throat. But he said, you know, I have good reason. The only reason I was thinking those thoughts is because he had broken up my parents' marriage. Well, expanding on that thought, he then went on and he confessed to them, look, and I am obsessed with gore porn also, So gore porn is like gore, but add sex, a sexual element to it, you know, like murder and stabbing in sex and all that kind of stuff. So the thing was about that is that that did align with what his best friend had originally claimed that he was obsessed with this gore, and now he was openly admitting he was fascinated with it. He even said that he had once strangled a cat in the street because he hated it so much. So now we're adding an element of animal torture and murder. I don't know, do we say murder animals, but the death of an animal. Okay, So, feeling at at this point in the interview like Daniel

1:04:01 may have been on the cusp of saying more, the detective, just on instinct, decided to take his shot, and he directly asked the question, all right, Daniel, when did you start planning to kill the people down the street from your dad's house? And that's when fifteen year old Daniel Marsh answered that question by saying when he had reached a boiling point, he couldn't take it anymore and had gone out looking for anyone to kill the night of Claudia and Chips murders. He just said it. It was. The detective asked, just on an instinct, and he said it.

1:04:44 He answered that question. Now they're like, oh, okay, well we'll tell us why did you pick that house then? And he said, oh, well, I was drawn to it because I could see inside this big living room window that they had. Guys, they did have an open, big living room window. Seeing inside that window that night, it got his blood pumping and his adrenaline racing, and believing that this was the home he was compelled to enter. He slinked around the back where he saw another window and he cut the screen to make entry, not even knowing who was inside.

1:05:29 I got a hole on the screen, climbed in through the back, went to their bedroom, opened the door, and they just kind of stood over their bed, watching the sleep for a few minutes. My body was trembling. I was nervous, but excited and exhilarated. I was actually going to do it. I was there. It's finally happening. Did you just hear that little laugh and that sigh? His descriptors of the upcoming events as exhilarating and exciting. Those are his words. His description is what I would have used to describe how it feels before going on a huge roller coaster. Do not let this get lost on you. That those words he just said. That description is how he felt before murdering two innocent people. So he broke in to their house, made his way back to the bedroom where he stood over that couple and he just watched. They were none the wiser. He stood there in the dark, listening to them sleep, letting his adrenaline build up in his body until he physically said he couldn't take it anymore. This is what nightmares are made of. But this was unforce fortunately, just the beginning

1:07:01 of the depravity to come, because with zero emotion, sitting upright and arms resting on the chair as if discussing a hunting trip of some sorts, he then explained how he had come well prepared for that night that he was going to take someone's life. Before he had even taken to the streets on that fateful evening, he had taken measures to hide what he was planning to do. He had carefully taped the bottom of his shoes in preparation to leave no prints in whoever's home he would enter. The duct tape has colorful skulls and things of that nature on it. Taped to the bottom of his shoes, he had put on gloves so that he wouldn't leave any fingerprints on anything that he touched. And he had stowed a ski mask that he would put on before making entry so he would not leave any DNA and nobody would be able to identify him. And once he was inside of that house, he watched that elderly couple's sleep peacefully, and in that moment he felt like God because he was about to have ultimate control and ultimate say so in the events that were to come and to unfold right there in that house, and one can only imagine the still cool night as mister Chip lay peacefully on his back and miss Claudia snuggled up right beside him on her right side, And when the adrenaline peaked and he was at top hype of the emotion

1:08:33 that he was feeling, he pounced on the bed, jumped on the couple, and he started stabbing down, forcefully and wildly on the couple. As mister Chip awoke to the knife penetrating both he and his wife's bodies, and not knowing who or what was attacking them, he instinctively was raising up his arms and his legs to try to defend himself against the slicing and the stabbing, and he undoubtedly yelled out in both warning to his beloved Claudia, but also in an immeasurable amount of pain, as this knife was slicing in his arms and his legs, and his chest and his throat, and going straight through the tendons in his hands as well as through his thigh.

1:09:15 And it was dark, this room was dark. Neither of this couple could see the murderous enemy on the other end of the knife. All they knew was that they had to fight for their lives against an unknown assailant, but within seconds they were both just bleeding everywhere. They were injured nearly everywhere, and as the knife penetrated into mister Chip's chest over and over again, blood started pulling in his chest cavity, and that knife had broken his ribs, it had punctured his lung. It made it incredibly hard for him to breathe. Mister Chip's adrenaline also now pumping just wildly in an effort to save his own life, but that adrenaline would also prove counterproductive because as Daniel swung that blade wildly into both victims, he sliced into mister Chip's throat, dissecting his jugular, which pumped out more blood at a rate that was completely unsustainable with life.

1:10:17 It happened within moments, and while the killer continued to drive the knife downward and nothing short of overkill, he was also cutting Miss Claudia at the same time. Both of these people were elderly, they were unable to get up quickly, especially from the position on their back, with massive injuries to their bodies. The killer, once he was thrilled with what he had done to mister Chip, and felt like he couldn't do much more. That's when the killer focused his attention completely on miss Claudia, and he continued the murderous attack upon her in such rapid succession that she couldn't have done anything but scream, her face, her neck, and her abdomen being eviscerated, the knife destroying her face, her mouth, her teeth being knocked out. While she tried to get away, her tongue was sliced. She couldn't have made words if she wanted to. As she rolled away from the direction of the pain, the knife penetrated her in the back, spiking her spine three times, and unable to effectively move any more, she then bled out and died right there in the bed, next to her beloved Chip. In the dark and when the killer was confident that his victims had no fight left in them,

1:11:48 he fell back and slumped onto his heels to take a breath to let his endorphins flow. His head, looking up at the ceiling, eyes closed, was letting all of those endorphins and that dopamine pomp through his body while he savored the climax of the moment he had dreamed of for so long and in the stillness and the quiet of that home. Their killer was out of breath and covered in their blood from head to toe. But he wasn't done. With the smell of blood filling the air a sensory confirmation that the scene was now nothing short of a fucking massacre, he wanted to see the damage he had done to his victims in the dark, but for that he would need some light. So he climbed from the bed and felt along the wall until he hit the light switch, and in an instant he flipped it on, and the results of his attack were horrific, and he loved it. He stood there, eyes wide open as he took in everything that he had just done to his victims in a devilish smile slowly formed behind

1:13:21 the mask on his face. Murder alone was not enough to get this guy off, though. It wasn't enough that he had just taken to beautiful, wonderful, intelligent, funny, smart, and valuable souls. Death was only part of his excitement, but he was now ready to take it to the next level. The things that that website he was so obsessed with had shown him. He loved the gore, but now he wanted to make his own. He wanted to place his victims in the perfect position for what he had planned for them. And when he got the couple on their backs where he could get a good look at them, that was when he started his experimentation. He sliced the couple open and reached his hands into their abdomens, pulling out their organs with no real purpose except to destroy and look at the innards of a human being.

1:14:32 He would reach in and pull out whatever he could grab, and he would look it over in his hands and inspect it before dropping it to the side and reaching in again and grabbing another handful. After some time and he had pulled out enough of their innards and he could see inside of the cavity, he decided it was time to start inserting things into the bodies, just for the added shock of it for whomever would be the unfortunate person to find mister Chip and miss Claudia. The cruelty here it was so deliberate, and it wasn't enough for him to end two lives. He wanted everyone to see how little he cared about who he had killed.

1:15:20 His vision was to force responders not only to see his work, but to strip the victims down to nothing more than his trophies, the horrific details of their demise forever to be memorialized to him in that coroner's report. And just when you think that this story can't possibly escalate anymore, a revelation will be made. And the truth is that the outcome of this story is gonna get even uglier. But it will take me two episodes to tell it all to you, So if you think that you can bear it, stay hi.