Anatomy of Murder - Granza - Part 1 (Claudia Maupin and Oliver ‘Chip’ Northup)

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

Ten years ago, a beloved retired couple was murdered in unthinkable ways. The case still haunts the family and community. And it’s one that will stay with Scott and Anna-Sigga forever. For episode information and photos, please visit https://anatomyofmurder.com/ Can’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc

We wanted to let you know at the top of this podcast that while all homicide is disturbing, this one has some particularly gruesome graphic content. Dave, this place emergency. Can this be anonymous? What are you reporting? Double homicide. You almost got away with it. The crime was a masterpiece of technique.

The police don't know anything. They're not telling us anything. You know, I'd do it again. I don't want him to hurt anyone. Is that your worst nightmare? A person dressed in all black standing over you with a knife. Like, that is your worst nightmare. So you know who did it?

Yes. Okay, let's start from the beginning. I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff. I'm Anasika Nikolazi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction. And this is Anatomy of Murph. Ten years ago, almost to the day, Sarah Rice, a 36-year-old woman, received alarming news from her mother in Davis, California, a college town just outside of Sacramento. My mom's phone was on silent, and my mom woke up at 6 to having all these missed calls. My auntie, she called my mom 26 times.

I met Sarah a few years ago in person. She's someone that you know from the moment she walks in the door that she is strong and she is tough. But from the moment she begins to speak, there is this softness, almost a vulnerability to her within that strength. My mom calls her and Laura tells her there's been an accident and there's two dead bodies. I need you to come straight to the house. The house we're talking about here is the home of 76-year-old Claudia Maupin, Sarah's grandmother, who she affectionately calls Granza,

and Claudia's husband, 87-year-old Oliver Northup, who went by the nickname Chip. The house, it's just lined with police cars. And my mom, she just sank. If some of the facts or names of this case seem familiar to you, it's because we've definitely talked about this one quite a bit here on AOM. And we also profiled the story for our show, True Conviction. All cases are tragic. Some are baffling. But this case, the murder of Claudia and Chip, it stands alone in its category.

And if I had to describe it in one word, it would be nightmare. It was 11.30 or 12. She called me. So when she calls me, she doesn't know any details, but she just knows that there's two dead bodies. And they're presuming it's Granza and Chip. You know, we screamed. I screamed and couldn't quite wrap my head around what she was telling me.

Your head just goes all different directions. I just, I collapsed. Now, I've worked and covered crime scenes for a very long time, but the complete lack of humanity of how Chip and Claudia spent the last few moments of their life challenged

every first responder and investigator walking into this double murder scene. It was a low-level ranch-style home. When you walked in, there are two bedrooms, there was an open layout with a kitchen, an office, and there was nothing out of place when investigators first went inside, no sign of forced entry. But when they looked more closely in the back, just above one of the windows as part of the screen, was one cut.

There was a slider and then there were more windows and those other windows went into the living room. And that's where the slit was. Investigators were not sure that the cut screen was absolutely connected to this incident. And then the next window was the master bedroom. Then as the officer walks down the hallway, you notice that the bedroom light is turned off. Then the officer opens the door and flips the switch,

and you can see Chip and Claudia murdered in their bed. There's no way to prepare for hearing that. I remember being very numb and I remember having to call my boss and I couldn't get anything out. She's like, Sarah. And I was like, uh-huh. And I just start sobbing uncontrollably. Because in that moment, I had to say that my granza was murdered. And I hadn't said that yet. It was like my first time acknowledging it in the hour or whatever I'd known. And we have seen the crime scene video, and obviously we are not going to share it in any way. And there are some crime scenes that what is found, the way that people are left,

is almost too gruesome to graphically describe. But we'll suffice it to say that it was incredibly disturbing how these two human beings had been left. Both were stabbed multiple times. But that word multiple doesn't adequately describe the brutality of the crime. I looked at my mom and said, what does multiple mean? Because multiple could be two, it could be 10, it could be 12. And she said, it's more than a dozen. Even if you try to imagine the worst possible scenario, I'm confident that it won't even be close to the reality of what happened to Claudia and Chip.

The details that transpired, we actually didn't hear about until the preliminary hearing, which was in September. The coroner got up there and talked about multiple stab wounds and then said, how many? And you could just, you could hear a pin drop in that room. You're just overwhelmed with shock because you can't even comprehend it. That's the stuff of movies, you know, like you just never expect it to happen to you. From our experience,

we obviously know family members want to know everything about what happened to their loved one. The fact of the matter is that the number of stab wounds in this case is so utterly grotesque, while likely a detail that investigators wanted to hold on to. Information that only the killer or killers would know. The police don't know anything. They're not telling us anything. We have no, nothing. The coroner, she told us the funeral home was going to come and get Granza and Chip to their funeral home in Davis.

And we said, can we see them before that? And she said, no. She did that not because we aren't allowed. Maybe, maybe. But to save us because of the wounds that had taken place. I need to know for myself that it was her. Because they asked us, what do you need to see? And we said, we need to see her face.

We need to feel her hair. And I said, I need to hold her hand. And they just needed to see her to give her that final goodbye. They told us that they needed 24 hours. And what these people did was incredible because we went into the room with Granza. She was completely covered from her neck down. She looked just like the Granza that I knew. Before we discuss the murder, it's important to understand who the victims are. My granza was my mom's mom.

I spent a ton of time with my granza. She was just a beautiful, kind, funny spirit. She just was one of those people that you wanted to be around all the time. Having spoken both with Sarah here, but also Claudia's daughter, Victoria, Sarah's mom, they describe her in a way that every one of us wishes we had someone like her in our lives. But she had this thing where you, when you were with her, you felt like you were the only person in the room. You know, she only had two chairs in her home. You would come into her home and you would sit with her and you would have coffee or you, you know, she liked the little Swiss Miss, like cappuccino in a can.

She'd make you a little cappuccino and you'd sit and you'd sit in your jammies and you'd just talk for hours. You know, when she passed on, one of the things I asked my mom for was the two chairs. The bond between Sarah and her granza was unbreakable. Well, I used to call her the oracle because I think the Matrix came out. She was the oracle of my life. And there's a story that Sarah told us, and I believe maybe it was for true conviction, but it just always stays with me, and it was about being in the car. When she is in the car, it's always when she thinks about her grandmother because they would drive down the street and they would always hold hands.

But it was that bonding, that hand in hand, that whenever she is in her car to this day, that she still thinks of her grandmother. You know, in her younger years, she was, you know, had some struggles. She was an alcoholic. She had some failed marriages. She, you know, was growing up in the 50s and the 60s and challenged everything in the book. She was an activist.

She married an African-American man in the 60s and had children, and that was really frowned upon. You know, she just was going to challenge the status quo. She was that woman. And after Claudia moved to Davis, she received visits from her neighbors, started to attend church often, and also became an embedded member within her community. So that was really where she felt the best was in this community.

So she was really active in sponsoring other alcoholics right through the AA program. Once Claudia started going to church, she, being the oracle that she was, prophesied that she was going to meet her next husband. And she did. She was searching for Chip. She was on the hunt. And they were at church. And he fell quick.

And she fell quick. And I remember getting a phone call within that same year of them meeting and her telling me, we're getting married. And Chip was like no man she had ever met before. Warm, funny, talented. And he was a musician in his own right. He was smitten. He just loved my granza so much. And she did equally.

Like they were just like little kids. They were just so in love. And here's a Chip and Claudia story that really makes them win the cutest couple of the year award. Every night they had this routine that they would eat a bowl of ice cream together while Chip would rub Claudia's feet. Both Chip and Claudia were retired, and they really had no big plans in life except for one, which looking back now is bittersweet. She always said that she really wanted to die together because neither of them wanted to live without each other.

So there's some peace in knowing that they did actually go together. Sarah and her family took a little bit of solace knowing that, but they didn't know the extent of what the killer or killers did to Chip and Claudia. They told us a burglary ground wrong. I didn't want to think about the worst way that they could die. Now, as we told you at the top, what you're about to hear is gruesome, really, really disturbing. Chip and Claudia had more than 60, that's six zero stab wounds each. And some of their injuries were post-mortem. Their bodies, their stomachs had

been opened and various things had been done with their internal organs too. Now you have to ask Anastigua what would drive a human to commit such a violent act on two grandparents lying in bed defenseless but it's obviously too early to tell but you have to think this had to be on some level a personal attack but there's even something here so much deeper and darker than what we talk about as these rage-filled personal attacks which may have many many stab wounds right that is something we have seen many times before but it is what is done to Chip and Claudia after their deaths that really takes this case to an entirely different level. And it just right away almost speaks to some sort of psychopathy, like some sort of experimentation or whatever was being done that really takes it out

of just someone with some sort of revenge or love gone wrong motive on their mind. And there's more to it. First responding officers noticed something sticking out of each of their bodies, but police leave the processing for the medical examiner to review. And when they took the x-rays and conducted the autopsy, the medical examiner found a cell phone in Claudia's abdomen. And it was one of those old-style cell phones. You know, it wasn't a flip phone, just those basic phones that everything was right there on its face. It had the screen and the buttons.

And inside of Chip, they found a drinking glass, one of those clear glasses they might serve orange juice to you in if you went to order it in a diner. Adesika and I have both seen these items in person while filming True Conviction. Seeing it in the photo was one thing. Holding the evidence bag with the glass in it, seeing the size and the dimensions of the glass is unthinkable. And the only word that came to my mind at that moment was why. I've seen, unfortunately, where people have inserted objects into other people's bodies during the crime or post-mortem like here, but never like this. Just such ordinary, everyday items that to me, it just, I don't know, Scott, I just had to keep thinking, like, is there something symbolic in it when I first heard about it?

I would say potentially something for shock value. But, you know, thankfully, I've never seen anything like this. I hope I never do. So then we have to start thinking about theory. You know, one of the things that the family was originally told as a potential hypothesis that this was a burglary gone wrong. But again, nothing was taken, nothing out of place in the home other than what was done to Chip and Claudia. And then you talk about the two items that were placed into their bodies. What could be the significance of a cell phone and a glass?

Was this killer trying to send a message? Maybe the killer thought that Claudia talked too much on the phone or that Chip drank too much, but they really just didn't know. And there was a lot of didn't know. The police didn't know who the killer was or the motive. And we've heard a lot about Claudia here already. And it is hard to imagine why anyone would want this woman dead. But we haven't really yet talked about Chip. And you know, he was a father. He was a lawyer. Those are the two things I knew about him.

I didn't know the type of person that he was. Chip had a job that did intersect with many dangerous people. Killers, in fact. But even more suspicious than that was Chip's family. Early on, investigators were trying to determine how many intruders did they believe it took to inflict this much carnage. The crime scene was unusually pristine.

Outside of the victims on the bed where the attack occurred, as far as physical evidence, the house was pristine. Clean, in fact. Unusually clean. No blood dripping from one location to another. No footprints. Not even a single chair or table overturned. It looked like this was a well-thought-out planned entry and exit, leaving no traces of DNA, blood evidence, or even fibers along the way. So while the crime scene itself isn't giving investigators much to work with, they really had to go back to learning everything they could about Claudia and Chip. For True Conviction, I spoke with Chip's son, Robert, who gave us a

wealth of information about his dad. He told us that his dad had joined the Navy when he was just 17 years old and that even as a kid, he had just had this love for outdoors and camping. Chip went on to become an attorney. He was first a prosecutor, but then spent most of his career working as a defense attorney. And even now in retirement, he was still taking cases on pro bono. He'd always talk to us about when,

like when we were there, I didn't, couldn't ever tell you anybody's name or anything like that. He would never do that, but he would say, oh, I'm working on this case. And he would kind of give you a little background on it. The obvious question is, could the killer or killers be the type of people that Chip would come across in his career? Defending people accused of committing crimes? Could this

be someone he was unable to successfully defend, who was out now and looking for revenge? Or even family members of the defendant who may have had a grievance about a former case. We had heard about a case that he was doing that had to do with some gang members. Certain gangs definitely have a reputation for brutality. But this case speaks differently to me about the type of injuries inflicted. It isn't that harsh, brutal, the type of cases we've seen where someone's, you know, decapitated or something

to send this message. This was something more. I agree. When you talk about the elements of putting objects into someone's body post-mortem, which obviously means after death, it does not fit the normal MO

for a gang killing because in a sense, they would be leaving items, physical evidence, where their MO normally is to get rid of as much evidence as they can. Remember, gangs like to send messages, not their members to jail. One thing that we know about stabbing cases

is that they very often are indicators of something personal at play. And that was the direction that Davis PD were soon heading. You know, everybody in the family got interviewed. My direct cousin was being looked at. He has an addiction problem, really unstable. There was a recent encounter at Granza and Chip's house where Chip and him got into like a yelling argument over money in the driveway.

But he had an alibi of where he was. So police now turned to Chip's son, Robert, and his family. They started to learn certain things that raised suspicion. He had some broken relationships with his children. And it wasn't just one thing. It was one thing after the other, after the other. Robert had a key to Chip's home. The day after the murders, Robert had carpets in his home steam cleaned.

Now, Robert also had adult sons. One of them kept a collection of knives. He had more than 20. And the other son had once made a disturbing drawing of a man holding a knife over the bed of two people while they slept. We have seen this drawing. It's almost exactly in the most basic sense

what investigators found. It would be obviously relevant to be considered within the investigation. But it's also important to note that the drawing was done seven years earlier. And Chip's son, the boy's grandfather, did admit to investigators that his boys had some mental health issues. Could that have played a factor in this case? And does that move them to the top of a potential list of persons of interest? If you put these factors together, it is obviously various suspicious things, behaviors, things that police have figured out about Chip's family. But that doesn't rise to the level of making them actual suspects. And so while this wasn't a case assigned to the FBI,

they were there to lend their expertise. And one of the first steps was for the police and the FBI. They did a very thorough canvas of the neighborhood, trying to search for any information, any clues or witnesses they could find. And it didn't really lead to anything fruitful, except one neighbor reported that there was another resident on the block who had moved out about two weeks after the murder,

claiming to have been really just freaked out by these homicides and said he could no longer afford his rent. Investigators were following several threads, multiple theories, but nothing was pointing to a specific killer or killers. Then, two months later... Double homicide? Where? That happened at April. You're reporting that or you have information regarding that? I have information regarding that. On June 16, 2013, police get an anonymous call with information about a recent double homicide in Davis.

What are you calling to report, sir? The double homicide that happened in April this year. What can you tell me about that? Everything, actually. Okay, and how is it that you were able to have all this information about it? The person told me everything. So you know who did it? Yes. He has a blonde, long hair. Blonde, long hair? Yes, he's Caucasian. He used to live near them, and he told me that he kind of knew that they were kind of clumsy,

and they didn't really lock their doors or do all that. And he told me that he kind of knew that they were kind of clumsy, and they didn't really, like, you know, lock their doors or do all that. And he told me he went to the back, and there was a screen, and he made, like, a doggy flap, so he just kind of cut through it. He went through that. He told me he went to the bedroom, I think. So he stood there for, like, 10 minutes just staring at her, and then when she woke up and saw him, he grabbed the knife and he stabbed her, like he told me, like 20 to 40 times in the stomach.

And then the guy woke up, he just like stabbed him in the neck. Now remember, police had been holding information about the actual injuries very close to the vest. The family of both Chip and Claudia, they themselves didn't know the extent of the injuries, let alone the newspapers or the media. Before he left, he sliced open the stomach to see the inside of both of them. He put a phone in the woman, I think, and a cup in the guy inside the stomach. How did this person know this information? Was this something the killer told them directly? But there's also the other possibility

that he didn't hear it from the killer, but that he knows it because he was either there or maybe he is the killer himself. The caller eventually reveals his identity to police and agrees to meet with investigators at the station for a formal interview. He is a 17-year-old student, and he's actually friends with the suspect. And he also gives them the suspect's name.

So the person is Daniel Marsh? Daniel Marsh. Yeah, Daniel Marsh or Dan Marsh. And Daniel Marsh was 15 years old. What would drive a 15-year-old to commit a murder like this? And let me just add, how did a 15-year-old plan it in a way that he left without leaving a trace? Is this the only time he's ever done it? And an FBI investigator that we spoke to about this case said that he thought

that they were looking for someone at least 10 years older, not only because of the way the crime was committed as far as what was done to Claudia and Chip, but also the precision that the killer used in getting in and out of their home. You're going to do it again. I don't want him to hurt anyone. Daniel Marsh was a high school student that police and the DA's office had heard about in the past, but not in connection with a crime. When he was 10 years old,

Daniel was given the American Red Cross Heroes Award after using CPR to save his father from a heart attack. But there's also another interesting detail about Daniel. Remember the neighbor who talked about a person who lived on the block but

moved out two weeks after the murder? That was Daniel's dad. And Daniel had been in their home. He knew that. He knew that there was two people there. There was also a darker side to Daniel that the caller had told the police.

In the beginning of this year, he started talking a lot about killing people and hurting people. And he started being extremely abusive to his dog and his cat. And he, like, he beat it. It definitely opens my eyes to the fact that brutality may come natural to him. And that he has no problem with violence towards animals. But that still leaves the question, would he make the leap to a human, and in this case, to elderly people? He's the kind of person that likes to see something hurt,

and he kind of, like, he likes it. And this is where investigators began to connect the dots. Hey, how you doing? Hey, I'm Officer Rose. I'm the school resource officer. Is Dan here? Dan Marsh? Marsh had recently been in trouble for bringing a knife to school. What's going on? You got a few minutes just to talk to me real quick?

So a school resource officer brought him over to police. I appreciate you doing this, man. You know you don't have to come with me, right? I mean, we're trying to get this thing dialed in, you know what I mean? So a school resource officer brought him over to police. Meanwhile, investigators did their homework on Marsh, which they would later bring up to him when they sat him down for an interview. You're about to hear pieces of the police interview with Daniel Marsh, and it is a truly rare look inside the mind of someone who has actually been diagnosed a true psychopath. Since I was like nine and my family kind of like broke. As always, there is a backstory. His parents got divorced when he was very young. His mom had apparently an extramarital affair.

And after that, he first lived with his dad. His mom actually left for a while, and then she came back into the picture. And that is where the outward problems for Daniel Marsh first began. I don't know, I kind of isolated myself. I didn't really have many friends to begin with, but I just kind of pushed everyone away. Now, we would normally never dwell that much on a killer's backstory. You know, we definitely are believers in the no notoriety movement, like let's not give these killers any platform. But we also believe that through knowledge that we potentially can help save a life or lives later on. And so that is why we choose to talk about him here.

50 minutes into the interview, this entire interview process will take a very big turn because the man who's about to enter the room is a skillful behavioral profiler for the FBI. Hi. Hi. You must be Daniel? Yeah. I'm Chris Campion. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. His name is Chris Campion, and as you'll see, he is masterful at what he does. Sounds like this young man has quite a history. Kind of a family train wreck, if I can be so bold to say that. Yeah, pretty much. And you can just tell that he has this keen eye of observation, which we really also saw play out in his interview with Daniel Marsh.

So what did I hear? I mean, dad and mom split when you were pretty young. Yeah. She came back with another woman or something? Oh, yeah. It was actually my kindergarten teacher. Wow. Yeah. So your kindergarten teacher later shows up back in your life. Yeah.

When you're nine, so you're in fourth grade by then, maybe. As the woman that my mom was having an affair with and left with. Wow. Yeah. That's going to be devastating. Shocking. Chris didn't go in there just relying on his background as a profiler. And he says that his strategy with Daniel Marsh was to try to connect with him, build that rapport, but really try to get it on this level that Marsh could feel that Chris Campion got him.

Doing the kind of work that I do, there is, I see a lot of people who have had lives that are just devastating, devastated by all sorts of things, And the refuge is the key. He was connecting with Marsh while using the term refuge, meaning a place to have these conversations in a safe space, talking about traumatic events or deep or dark thoughts without being judged, opening the door for this conversation. We all do that. I mean, from combat veterans in Afghanistan and Iraq who come back

and they have these nightmares and they're haunted. PTSD and stuff. PTSD, right. We see those and we see them do just some horrible things because they just want the pain to stop. They want the, they need the refuge. They need some place to go where they can feel something besides what they're feeling.

Does that make sense to you? Yeah, it's a way to escape, get some temporary relief. Right. Temporary relief from the hell that they're living in. Yeah. Does that sound kind of familiar to you? Yeah. In the 15-year-old mind of Daniel Marsh,

was the murder of Chip and Claudia a temporary relief from his own hell? Chris Campion had already had a peek into the mind of Daniel Marsh because before stepping into the doorway of that interview room, a member of his team had found Marsh's Tumblr page. People who are much more tech savvy than me, because I'm just an old guy, I don't know anything about anything, found this thing called Tumblr.

So describe to me the stuff that's on there. Song lyrics, things like miniature things about what I feel. A lot of stuff from horror movies, because I like horror movies. Gore. Photos of soldiers being blown up by IEDs. Pictures of bodies which have been dismembered. True gore that the average person would immediately look away from. I don't get grossed out by gore.

I'm wondering if it's a refuge for you, Dan. The theory really being presented by Chris is that this gore was Daniel's escape from his own inner mental torture. I'm fascinated with anatomy. You can see what happened to them and how warped their bodies are. And just kind of fascinating to think, like, what could have done that?

Just the human body is fascinating. It's crazy how it can all work the way it does, how it's all just set up and connected. I just find it fascinating to see what's on the inside, you know? The more he revealed, the more likely Chris Campion believed he was sitting across from a vicious murderer. And he's just scratching the surface about Marsh's deepest, darkest desires. So that's when he decides to dig into the real reason why they brought Marsh in for questioning. So the rumors that he's referring to are people saying specific things about what you have told

other people. Well, not me. That you were there, that you did those murders. Me? Mm-hmm. That's ridiculous. why is it ridiculous i'm a kid i see you as a person who has a need you have a big need you have a need for a refuge maybe more than anybody I've ever run across. And at age 16, just 16, it's an obsession. It would be an obsession. It would be a compulsion. I could never do that to someone. You may be asking what Chris's strategy here is talking about compulsion. I say he's walking down an incredibly strategic path. Compulsion, the word itself, is doing something almost beyond your control. So it may be a way for, in Daniel's mind, to help him talk about these things he's done with a, it's not a legal out, it's not a moral out, it's not an ethical out,

but it is an out in his mind as he is being asked to talk about what we know are incredibly brutal, sadistic things that he had done to other human beings. The information that was said that came out of your mouth had specifics of what happened in that house, of those two elderly people, that only the person who was inside that house would know very specific information what I said that someone broke in and stabbed the people you said to other people who may have repeated to other people is information that is so specific Not just that somebody broke in and stabbed two people, but exactly what was done to these people. During an interview or an interrogation, the truth starts to develop

and a person's tone of voice and body language may begin to shift. He got quieter. He didn't do it. He looked down a bit more. And you almost got away with it. I mean, that's the thing. I mean, the crime was a masterpiece of just technique.

I didn't do it. It was a work of art. Yeah. Okay. And you almost could see something shift within him as he began to softly talk about some of what he had done. I can't confess to something that I didn't do. I can't tell you why I did something that I didn't do. And if I'm right, if I'm even close to being right,

about this as a refuge for you, then I'd like to hear the why. And I want to give you that opportunity. You're asking the wrong person. Because I want to heal that person, Dan. I want to heal you. I'm being healed. After two hours talking about the murders and the case against Marsh,

you start to see the change in Marsh. Just tell us that you need help. I need help. Okay. That's the first step. And then Chris goes back to the beginning. To the very first time Marsh ever had a violent thought. So let's go back to the first time you thought about killing someone.

It had been something festering inside of him since he was 10 years old. When I was 10, I thought about and plotted about killing the woman that my mother left my father. Every time I look at someone in my mind, I see flashes of images of me killing them in numerous ways, in numerous horrible ways, doing terrible things. I can't help it. It's just what comes into my head when I see them. I don't help it. It's just what comes into my head when I see them.

I don't want it to. The rest of Marsha's interview and Sarah's pursuit for justice will be revealed next week in part two of this story. Anatomy of Murder is an AudioChuck original produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frosetti Media. Ashley Flowers and Sumit David are executive producers. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?