15-Year-Old Teen Murders Elderly Couple Without Motive
Daniel was born on May 14, 1997, in a city in Northern California called Davis. He was born just 17 months after his older sister, Sarah. For a while, Daniel's mother, Sheri Hosking, was a stay-at-home parent. Taking care of her two young children, as well as the household. This presented a normal amount of stress in her marriage.
Sheri later recounted that it was when she decided to go back to work that her marriage began to crumble. Not only was she working full time, but she still was the one taking care of the children and the household.
Sheri said that her husband, Bill Marsh, had an unbearable temper, and she spent most of her energy trying to keep him calm, especially because his outbursts had become increasingly frequent and usually occurred in front of Daniel and Sarah.
But it wasn't just Bill's temper that was the problem in their marriage. Sheri began having an affair with a woman who was Daniel's former kindergarten teacher. After 12 years of marriage, in 2008, Bill and Sheri divorced.
Sheri was given full custody of the children. She moved out of the house and into a duplex around the corner from the home she had shared with Bill. Daniel and Sarah went back and forth between the two.
Sheri wanted the children to be able to visit their father and allowed them to do so at their discretion. The same year his parents got divorced, Daniel made local headlines after receiving an American Red Cross Heroes Award for using CPR to save his father.
His father had a heart attack and passed out while driving. A 10-year-old Daniel steered the car to a stop and pounded on his father's chest until his heart started beating again. Sheri believed this event to be traumatic for her son.
When she met him at the hospital, Bill was on a stretcher getting worked on while Daniel stood there watching. His father recovered but there's no question that this event had quite an impact on Daniel. Although I don't think anyone could have guessed how dark it would become.
During this time, Daniel had a lot of anger towards Marty, the woman his mom had left his dad for. He believed she was the reason his parents were no longer together.
This relationship mixed with the back and forth between households also seemed to take a toll on both kids because both parents would be talking to their children about the other person.
Sheri noticed a change in Daniel's behavior. He started to speak to her in a way that he had never before and it was hurtful. This is when Daniel began having dreams of killing people including taking the life of the woman his mom was dating.
At 11, he started seeing a therapist. He told the therapist about the fantasies he was having of torturing people and his desire to make those fantasies come true. Daniel was diagnosed with adjustment disorder which is an emotional or behavioral reaction to a stressful event or change in a person's life.
He was also diagnosed with depression. In the seventh grade, he began threatening physical harm. In August 2010, he was prescribed his first antidepressant.
Now a teenager, Daniel began experimenting with drinking and smoking. He was still splitting time between his parents' homes but at 14 his father threw him out due to his constant drinking and smoking.
Daniel wasn't eating and was exercising a lot. His pediatrician diagnosed him with an eating disorder. Daniel had gotten down to 93 pounds and was hospitalized for his eating disorder from December 29, 2011 to January 25, 2012. Between 2012 and 2013, Daniel's antidepressants were switched multiple times.
He was given a bill of five antipsychotics because he was having feelings of derealization with out-of-body experiences four to five times a week. Unfortunately, Daniel's violent thoughts continued to increase.
In mid-December 2012, Daniel told a school counselor about the homicidal fantasies he'd been having, which then resulted in the police being brought to the school. Daniel was involuntarily hospitalized because of the danger he posed to himself and others.
While the hospital stay began as involuntary, it became voluntary because, although Daniel was a very depressed person, he was also very cooperative. The doctor treating him said that Daniel was someone who had a lot of trauma but was asking for help, and he felt safer in the hospital since he was on suicide watch and being monitored every 15 minutes.
The doctors once again switched Daniel's medication, and he was released from the hospital, but his dark thoughts and depressive behavior continued. He was regularly telling his friends about his thoughts of torturing and killing random people.
He also would tell his friends that if he was ever caught for murder, he would claim insanity. During this time, Daniel began watching BestGore.com, a website that promoted gore, and amateur videos of actual gory events.
He started fires and engaged in animal cruelty. On the night of April 13th, 2013, a 15-year-old Daniel concluded that he couldn't wait any longer. He taped the bottom of his shoes so that he would not leave behind footprints, and he wore gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints or DNA.
He also wore all-black clothing with a black mask and armed himself with a six-inch buck knife. He walked the streets of Davis looking for an open window or door. There was no rhyme or reason for him choosing Chip and Claudia's home, except that it was the first house that had an open window.
Oliver ‘Chip’ Jennings Northup Jr. was an 87-year-old World War II Navy vet. He was a prominent attorney in Davis and was also very active in his community. Chip was elected to serve on the Woodland School Board as a city attorney for Woodland, Winters, and Yolo, president of the Woodland Chamber of Commerce and the Woodland Rotary Club president.
Additionally, Chip was a musician and also a founding member of the church where he met Claudia Maupin. Both had been previously married and had children from previous relationships.
When they married in 1996, they blended families and had a combined total of 11 children. By 2013, their family had expanded to the previously mentioned 11 children, 14 grandchildren, and 8 great-grandchildren.
With zero consideration for the lives that these two people had created and shared, Daniel stood over the couple's bed. He watched them sleep while deciding how he would kill them. While he was trying to make this decision, Claudia awoke and began screaming at the sight of him in their room.
Daniel began stabbing her in the torso as she continued to scream and cry for help. Chip woke up too, and Daniel began to stab him too. In total, Daniel inflicted over 128 stab wounds on these two victims.
Once both Claudia and Chip were deceased, he cut their bodies open to examine and experiment on them. He then placed a cell phone into Claudia's abdomen and a drinking glass into Chip's. Daniel later stated that he placed the items inside the bodies to mess with whoever might be investigating the murders.
On the morning of April 14th, when Claudia and Chip hadn't arrived at church, there were immediate concerns from their family. After calls to their home went unanswered, Claudia's daughter, Laura, went to the house with the police.
When there was no answer at the door, she went around to the back. Laura could see blood stains through the bedroom window. The police forced entry and made the gruesome discovery.
Daniel had left no DNA, fingerprints, or footprints behind, which made looking for a possible suspect near impossible. However, Daniel bragged to both his girlfriend and close friend, Alvaro Garibay, that he had committed the murders.
They didn't initially believe him. Alvaro went over to Daniel's house on the Tuesday after the murders to gather more information. Daniel again described to his friend that killing the couple was the best feeling in his life.
He then got several items out of his closet to show Alvaro, including the knife, gloves, ski cap, boots, and jacket worn the evening of the murders. Alvaro stayed at Daniel's for a little bit longer that day, pretending as if nothing was different.
He still didn't know how to properly respond and was scared. Alvaro and Daniel's girlfriend were afraid of Daniel but felt conflicted about telling anyone at least for the first couple of months.
On June 4, 2013, Daniel's girlfriend broke up with him because she felt too intimidated by him. A week or two later, Daniel snuck into her house through the dog door. She understandably feared for her life, although Daniel said he simply wanted to talk.
The day after he had snuck into her house, Alvaro told Daniel's dad about the murders, but Bill did not believe him. Alvaro then decided he had to call the police after Daniel threatened to kill again. Daniel was arrested on June 17th. He was interrogated by Detective Ariel Pineda, and an FBI Special Agent, Chris Campion.
Daniel at first denied involvement as he sobbed and pleaded with Chris Campion to believe his innocence. But after 3 hours and 38 minutes of questioning, he began to confess.
He stated,
‘I don't feel sympathy for other people. At all. Don't feel empathy for them.’
Daniel was charged with two counts of first-degree murder with special enhancements for intentionally killing more than one person, demonstrating exceptional depravity in the killings, lying in wait to kill the victims, and inflicting torture in the commission of the murders.
He pleaded not guilty, and later changed the plea to not guilty by reason of insanity. He was examined by a psychiatrist, Matthew Solier. He found Daniel to be mentally ill, but fit to stand trial.
Daniel's trial began on September 2nd, 2014. He was 17 but tried as an adult instead of a juvenile. On September 26th, 2014, after under two hours of deliberating, the jury reached a verdict. Guilty on both counts of first-degree murder and all special circumstances.
In 2016, California voters passed Proposition 57, which holds that juvenile court judges must decide whether juvenile offenders are tried in juvenile court or adult court.
Regarding the proposition, Governor Brown said that while the victims' testimony weighed on him, there was a need for redemption and reformation wherever possible. This proposition could have retroactively changed Daniel's sentencing. However, the prosecutors in Daniel's case argue that Daniel is in extreme danger and he remains incarcerated.
He will be eligible for parole once he's served 25 years of his life sentence.
Sources: