Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 11 to 15 of 15

Thread: Daniel William Marsh Sentenced in 2013 CA Slaying of Elderly Couple

  1. #11
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Jury: Daniel Marsh sane during murder of Davis couple

    A Yolo County jury on Tuesday found that Daniel Marsh was sane when he murdered a Davis couple.

    He faces the possibility of life in prison without parole when he is sentenced. Marsh, 17, is ineligible for the death penalty because of his age.

    He had been convicted of lying in wait, torture and two counts of first-degree murder. He was accused of stabbing to death Oliver "Chip" Northup, 87, and his wife Claudia Maupin, 76, in their condominium in April 2013.

    The teen targeted the couple at random, after looking for a Davis home he could break into. He then tortured them before killing them in their bed.

    Marsh had originally pled not guilty by reason of insanity. He was visibly shaken upon hearing the guilty verdict Friday. His eyes were closed and his fists were clinched in front of his mouth.

    "I don't like to think about my father and Claudia being tortured," James Northup, Oliver's son, said at the time. "There was a unanimous conviction that he did torture them and it's very hard to contemplate. I'm glad it isn't up to me to decide his fate, because I wouldn't be very kind."

    Dr. Deborah Schmidt evaluated Marsh and said, "He put quite of a bit of thought into it. It wasn't a random act, it wasn't rage. It was very planned, predatory and meticulous," she testified Monday. "He was not delusional. He knew exactly what he was doing."

    http://www.news10.net/story/news/loc...uple/16496083/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  2. #12
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Age may be considered in sentencing of teen for Davis couple’s murder

    A hearing to determine whether a prison sentence of 52 years to life would constitute cruel and unusual punishment in the case of Davis teenager Daniel William Marsh will be held next month in Yolo Superior Court.

    A jury convicted Marsh, 17, of first-degree murder in the brutal slaying of Oliver Northup and Claudia Maupin in their south Davis home in the predawn hours of April 14, 2013. Jurors subsequently rejected Marsh’s plea that he was not guilty by reason of insanity.

    Following the conviction, the Yolo County Public Defender’s Office filed a motion asking the court for an individualized sentencing hearing to consider mitigating factors, specifically that Marsh was 15 when he committed the crime. The motion cites a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that mandatory life imprisonment without parole for someone younger than 18 at the time of the crime violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. A sentence of 52 years to life would mean Marsh would not be eligible for parole until he is 68 years old.

    Defense attorneys argue in their court filing that a teenager has greater potential for rehabilitation than an adult, that “his traits are ‘less fixed’ and his actions less likely to be ‘evidence of irretrievable depravity.’”

    “The question before the court is whether Mr. Marsh will have any meaningful life expectancy at the time he is eligible for parole,” the motion states.

    Michael Cabral, Yolo County chief deputy district attorney, said the DA’s Office seeks the maximum penalty of 52 years to life and believes it is within the parameters of the Supreme Court ruling.

    “We believe he is irreparably corrupt,” Cabral said.

    By statute in California, a maximum of 25 years to life is allowed, and the DA’s Office is seeking 25 years for each homicide, plus an extra year for use of a knife in each slaying, he said.

    A hearing that is expected to culminate with judgment and sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 12. Cabral said defense attorneys and prosecutors will have an opportunity to present witnesses during the hearing.

    Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/cri...#storylink=cpy
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  3. #13
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Davis teen Daniel Marsh gets 52 years to life for slaying elderly couple

    Daniel William Marsh, the onetime boy hero who saved his father’s life, was sentenced Friday to 52 years to life for brutally murdering an elderly couple in their south Davis home last year.

    Yolo Superior Court Judge David W. Reed detailed the horrors in chillingly simple terms as he sentenced Marsh to the maximum of 25 years to life, plus an extra year for use of a knife, one term each for the killings of Oliver “Chip” Northup and Claudia Maupin.

    “The murders in this case were brutal, the victims were random. He tortured them and took pleasure in what he had done. He told his friends. He slaughtered Northup and Maupin out of morbid curiosity,” Reed said.

    “This is a sad case,” Reed continued. “They did not deserve to die. They did not deserve to be killed by Daniel.”


    The sentence followed emotionally raw statements from an extended family devastated by the brutality that visited them in April 2013 and that haunts them still.

    Marsh “stabbed, dismembered, dissected and murdered my cherished parents. ... His actions are irredeemable” said Victoria Hurd, Maupin’s youngest daughter and a constant presence throughout the trial, calling for the maximum sentence as family and friends crowded the rows of the tiny courtroom. “If he is freed, people will die.”

    Marsh, sitting with his attorney, Yolo County Deputy Public Defender Ronald Johnson, his back to the gallery, bowed his head and closed his eyes. Marsh’s father, Bill, and sister, Sarah, occupied a far corner at the back of the courthouse.

    As a 12-year-old, Daniel Marsh was honored by a local American Red Cross chapter for saving his father’s life when the elder Marsh suffered a heart attack behind the wheel of the family’s car.

    Marsh was 15 when in the predawn hours of April 14, 2013, he dressed in black, donned a shoplifted ski mask, grabbed a hunting knife and set out into the dark, breaking into the home of Northup and Maupin. Marsh stabbed the pair in their bedroom as they awakened, and tortured, then mutilated the couple in a crime so savage that jurors at his murder trial were moved to tears and that prosecutors called it the most heinous they had seen.

    “I’ve been a prosecutor for 28 years, and never have I seen a defendant with such an evil soul,” said Michael Cabral, Yolo County assistant chief deputy district attorney and lead prosecutor on the case.

    Northup, an attorney and locally popular folk musician, was a Yolo County prosecutor early in his law career who once tried cases in the very courthouse where his killer stood trial. He was 87.

    Maupin, 76, was a pastoral associate and spiritual director at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, where Northup was a founding member. The couple would have celebrated their 18-year anniversary in November.

    The killings shocked the college town and terrified residents in the weeks after police found the bodies of Northup and Maupin. The gruesome discovery came hours after the two failed to show for a memorial service and a later engagement where Northup was scheduled to perform with his folk band, the Putah Creek Crawdads.

    A Yolo Superior Court jury convicted Marsh, now 17, of first-degree murder in September after weeks of disturbing testimony that plumbed Marsh’s mental state in the months and years before the killings and featured Marsh’s marathon confession to authorities that detailed the grisly murders and the exhilaration he felt by committing them.

    A counselor testified during the trial that Marsh daydreamed of torture. A state psychologist testified that Marsh studied serial killers. He surfed websites with images of beheadings and disembowelment in the weeks before the killings, investigators testified.

    Marsh sought to be found not guilty by reason of insanity, but jurors determined him to be sane at the time of the killings. He was remanded to Yolo County juvenile custody and will be sent to state prison when he turns 18.

    One by one on Friday, members of Northup and Maupin’s families remembered the couple for the rich, encompassing lives they shared, the love they had for their families and the November day 18 years ago when they were married.

    On their wedding day, the two families stood behind the couple as they recited their vows. Instead of Northup and Maupin saying “I do,” the family, in unison, said “We do.”

    They also described the emotional, psychological and financial wreckage Daniel Marsh left in his wake, miles-deep and widespread.

    Mary Northup, Chip Northup’s youngest daughter, works just blocks from where Northup and Maupin lived and she saw him daily on her walks before her father’s home became a crime scene sealed with police tape.

    She broke down, couldn’t work, struggled to keep the family together. Across town, her son was in middle school, the killer of his grandparents the talk of the town. She pulled her son from school, re-enrolled him at a private school in Sacramento. The costs of a new school, months of intensive therapy and lost wages has totaled more than $80,000. The money she hopes to recoup, but her father is gone.

    “My father’s murder ripped him from us,” Mary Northup said. “After watching the defendant for the last year and a half, the only thing he learned is that he should not disclose the details of his next murder. No sentence can bring my parents back.”

    Hurd, who saw her mother’s and Northup’s bodies carried away by medical examiners, said she’ll never forget the sound of her daughter’s screams over the phone when she heard the terrible news. Hurd’s sister discovered the bodies with Davis police.

    “My sister lost her mind that day,” Hurd said. “It has not come back.”

    When the family was finally able to enter the home to carry away effects, Hurd found blood on furniture that crime-scene cleaning crews had missed. She sobs in her sleep when she does sleep.

    “The ramifications of this gruesome crime are unending,” Hurd said.

    James Northup, Chip Northup’s son, battling the ravages of Lou Gehrig’s disease, rose from his wheelchair to address the court. A week before the killings, the Northup family hosted a baby shower to celebrate the birth of James’ granddaughter and Chip’s great-granddaughter.

    “We were looking forward to a beautiful spring,” he said. “A week later, Daniel Marsh murdered our joy.”

    http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/art...#storylink=cpy
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  4. #14
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    FRANCE
    Posts
    3,073
    Appellate ruling sends Marsh homicide case back to court

    By Lauren Keene
    The Davis Enterprise

    The case of a Davis teen convicted of double murder is coming back to Yolo Superior Court, following a state appellate court’s recent ruling that the defendant is entitled to a juvenile-court hearing bypassed during his initial criminal proceedings.

    Daniel William Marsh, who was a minor when he was convicted for the stabbing deaths of Oliver “Chip” Northup and Claudia Maupin, has been ordered by the Third District Court of Appeal to undergo a juvenile transfer hearing — also known as a fitness hearing — to determine whether he should have been prosecuted in adult court.

    Although the Feb. 22 ruling noted it’s unlikely Marsh would be found suitable for juvenile court, the three-justice panel conditionally reversed his conviction in light of a recent California Supreme Court decision that applies the transfer proceedings retroactively.

    No date for the hearing had been set as of Friday, but it was expected to be held within several months.

    Marsh was 16 years old when he faced adult charges for the brutal April 14, 2013, stabbing deaths of local attorney Northup, 87, and his wife Maupin, 76, in their Cowell Boulevard condominium.

    At the time, the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office had the authority to directly file Marsh’s case in adult court, under a California statute that deemed certain crimes so severe and sophisticated that they are unfit for juvenile court.

    That statute, 602(b) of the Welfare and Institutions Code, made it mandatory for juveniles age 14 or older accused of murder with at least one special circumstance to be “prosecuted under the general law in a court of criminal jurisdiction.”

    A Yolo County jury convicted Marsh in September 2014 of two counts of first-degree murder with enhancements for use of a knife and the special circumstances of multiple murders, torture and lying in wait, rejecting the teen’s claim of being not guilty by reason of insanity.

    Ineligible as a juvenile for the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole, Marsh received the maximum possible sentence of 52 years to life in state prison, though a youthful-offender provision of the state Penal Code could make him eligible for a parole hearing after 25 years.

    Now 20, he is serving his time at the R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.

    Two years after Marsh’s sentencing, in November 2016, California voters passed Proposition 57, the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act, which increased parole considerations for nonviolent offenders and did away with the direct filing of juvenile cases in adult court.

    Now, all juvenile matters commence in delinquency court, with a hearing required to determine whether a transfer to adult court is appropriate.

    The court considers five criteria in determining whether a minor is fit for juvenile court: their degree of criminal sophistication, capacity for rehabilitation while in juvenile court jurisdiction, previous delinquency history, success of prior rehabilitation attempts, and the circumstances and gravity of the alleged offense.

    At the time Prop. 57 appeared on the ballot, Marsh’s case was undergoing appeal, his court-appointed attorney Mark Greenberg mounting a challenge to elements of Marsh’s sanity defense that the appellate court ultimately rejected.

    Following the proposition’s passage, Greenberg filed a supplemental brief seeking its retroactive application, citing Marsh’s 14th Amendment right to equal protection under the law.

    “The People concede that this initiative applies retroactively to defendant’s pending appeal, and that we must conditionally reverse for proceeding in juvenile court,” the appellate justices wrote in the 12-page ruling.

    “Although it could be argued that it is not even remotely probable that the juvenile court would find the present defendant suitable for juvenile court, the People do not object to a conditional reversal and remand for the juvenile court to rule on the issue,” the ruling says.

    If deemed suitable for adult court, Marsh’s criminal judgment would be reinstated. If not, he would be re-sentenced at a juvenile disposition hearing where he’d face a maximum punishment of incarceration until age 25.

    “It’s really disappointing, because this case highlights one of the serious flaws with Prop. 57,” Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig said, noting the measure was widely opposed by district attorneys across the state. “I don’t think the voters ever would have contemplated that this killer would be a beneficiary.”

    “This is just going to re-traumatize the families of the victims,” Reisig added.

    Mary Northup, Oliver’s daughter and Maupin’s stepdaughter, said the murders continue to devastate both families nearly five years later. She acknowledged voting in favor of Prop. 57 with youths facing lesser crimes in mind, never realizing it could be applied to the Marsh case.

    But she said she feels confident Marsh will be found unfit for juvenile court, noting his rational, intricate planning of the crimes and the thoroughness of the prosecution.

    “There has been no injustice in the handling of this case,” Northup said. “I have to trust that the system will protect the citizenry, because if we don’t trust that, what do we have?”

    Victoria Hurd, Maupin’s eldest daughter, said she, too, is putting her faith in the justice system. Her family had just begun to “settle into a new normal” when they were notified of the decision — news that brought back disturbing memories of when they first learned about the homicides.

    “We thought it was in our past, and it exploded into our presence again,” Hurd said. “It’s like a bandage has been ripped off.”

    Supervising Deputy Public Defender Ron Johnson, who represented Marsh at trial, on Friday called the appellate decision “absolutely correct based on the recent Supreme Court ruling” and said he likely would serve as defense counsel for the transfer hearing.

    The case’s original lead prosecutor, former Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Cabral, is expected to return here from Riverside County to argue the people’s case with his co-counsel in the trial, Amanda Zambor.

    Honored as an American Red Cross hero at age 12 after saving his father from a heart attack, Marsh again made headlines four years later when police arrested the Davis High School sophomore as a suspect in the Northup-Maupin murders, which had gone unsolved for more than two months.

    Their families contacted authorities on April 15, 2015, after Northup, a musician for the popular Putah Creek Crawdads folk band, failed to show up for two of the group’s performances the prior weekend. Maupin, a church leader and local theater actress who spoke daily with her three daughters, also was uncharacteristically unreachable.

    Davis police officers conducting a welfare check at their condo found their bodies in their bedroom. Each had been stabbed more than 60 times by a then-unknown intruder who had slipped into the residence through an unlocked window after slicing open a screen.

    With no physical evidence left behind, investigators struggled in their search for a suspect. Some surmised it was a burglary gone awry, or perhaps an act of revenge by a disgruntled client from Northup’s law practice.

    The answer came in mid-June 2015, when two friends of Marsh — who had bragged to them about the crime in the days after it occurred — tipped off police, who knew the teen from his participation in a youth academy several years before.

    Marsh confessed to the murders in his interview with a police detective and FBI agent, telling them he’d fantasized about killing since he was 10 years old and that the stabbings “felt great.”

    “I’m not gonna lie. … It was pure happiness and adrenaline rushing over me,” said in the recorded interview. “It was the most exhilarating feeling I’ve ever felt.”

    Marsh later entered dual pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity, his attorney Johnson arguing at trial that the teen’s tumultuous family history, his struggles with mental illness and the side-effects of antidepressant medications consumed him with homicidal urges and rendered him unable to know right from wrong at the time of the killings.

    The jury rejected that defense. At sentencing, Johnson made a bid for a reduced term of 25 years to life, arguing that the maximum sentence would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

    A lesser term would not guarantee Marsh’s release, “but it gives a promise that there is an opportunity to parole,” Johnson said during the hearing before Judge David Reed. Juvenile offenders should be treated differently, he added, because of their immaturity, impulsivity and lack of insight into the consequences of their actions.

    Marsh’s prosecutors disagreed, saying the defendant’s deeds warranted harsher punishment than the law currently allows.

    “Never have I seen such a heinous and reprehensible act, and never have I seen a defendant with such an evil soul,” Cabral said at the time. “This case screams out for 52 years to life. Nothing else would be appropriate.”

    https://www.davisenterprise.com/loca...-back-to-yolo/
    In the Shadow of Your Wings
    1 A Prayer of David. Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry! Give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit!

  5. #15
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    20,875
    Daniel Marsh, convicted of murdering, mutilating elderly California couple as teen, seeks early release

    Daniel Marsh was 15 in April 2013 when he murdered and mutilated the elderly couple in Davis

    By Stephanie Pagones
    Fox News

    A man convicted of killing an elderly California couple when he was 15 years old could be released from prison next year under a state law that would make him eligible at the age of 25.

    Daniel Marsh will be in a northern California court Wednesday as part of his efforts to be freed early, despite his conviction and 52-years-to-life prison sentence for the 2013 murders of Oliver Northup, 87, and Claudia Maupin, 76. The victims – a husband and wife – were stabbed more than 60 times each.

    "Close your eyes for a second. Let that sink in – 128 times he stabbed them," Sarah Rice, Maupin’s granddaughter, told local affiliate FOX 40 earlier this month.

    Rice and other family members were joined by the district attorney from Yolo County – where a jury convicted Marsh – last week to denounce his and others’ early release, according to the report.

    "What he’s been doing for the past eight years is honing his skill," Rice previously told the news station. "I hate to think that he has the capacity to do it again, but he’s already said he would."

    The California law, which was passed in 2018, gives offenders convicted of most violent crimes committed as juveniles the chance to be set free when they turn 25.

    Marsh was 15 in April 2013 when he murdered and mutilated the elderly couple in Davis. Marsh had targeted their home after searching the area for open doors and windows to get to potential prey, according to FOX 40. He sliced a hole into a window screen at their home and looked on as his victims slept, the station has reported.

    "This was not a crime of passion or juvenile impulse. It was a well-planned and executed random act of violence," Mary Northup, the daughter of one of Marsh’s victims, said in 2018.

    Investigators found no forensic evidence linking Marsh to the crime, but the teen confessed to authorities after another teen told police Marsh had been boasting about the slayings, "48 Hours" reported.

    "It was the most horrific, depraved murder I've ever seen as the district attorney in this county," Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig told "48 Hours" at the time.

    Marsh allegedly told authorities he dreamed of being a serial killer and, according to FOX 40, told investigators he enjoyed the slayings.

    He pleaded not guilty, claiming insanity, and was tried as an adult in 2014, local reports state.

    Marsh, who is now 24, is expected to appear in court at 2 p.m. local time, or 5 p.m. ET.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/daniel-ma...-early-release
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •