Transcript of A Strange Tip

Before we begin, just a trigger warning. The following episode contains references to graphic physical violence and suicide. Please listen with care.

Hi, this is Corporal Allen. Hello? This is Corporal Allen. Who am I speaking with? I want to remain anonymous. Is that okay?

For two months, police have relentlessly searched for the killer of Chip Northup and Claudia Moppen. Officers had interviewed the family and people who knew the couple. They'd set up a hotline to receive tips, but nothing had panned out. Then, late on the evening of June 15, 2013, 911 dispatch received an anonymous call. They transferred it to the Davis Police Department.

Okay. What are you How are you calling to report, sir? The double homicide that happened in April this year?

To determine if the collar was a crank or not, Corporal Scott Allen asked the person to share details about the crime. And then, he introduced the collar to Corporal Kireth-Bresnik, who knew more about the continuing murder investigation. Would you mind giving me the details of the information that you had. Yeah.

The person that did it, he told me everything. He told me everything he did in step-by-step.

The collar clearly knew a lot about the murders and had information that the police hadn't shared with the public or even the victim's family.

He told me he stabbed her in the stomach area, like 20 to 40 He was telling me he was just going at it. Well, he said he did that and she was screaming.

For weeks, the authorities have been looking at friends, family, anyone who had crossed paths with Claudia and Chip, trying to piece together who might have brutally murdered this beloved couple.

I grew up with this person.

Here in Davis?

Yes. And I've known I knew him better than anyone else.

But what this collar revealed was beyond anything they had imagined. The person the anonymous collar knew better than anyone else was named Daniel Marsh. He was 15 years old.

I think the word is psychotic, basically. He's the person that likes to see something hurt.

I'm 48 Hours Correspondent Erin Moriardi, and this is 15 inside the Daniel Marsh murders. Episode 3, A Strange Tip. After spending hours on the phone with police, the clearly nervous, anonymous collar, finally agreed to come down to the police station to talk in person.

Can I get some water? Yes, please. Okay. Can we get some water?

The teenage tipster was Alvaro Garabe. He arrived at the station early the following morning. There, police led him into a small room and offered to grab him some snacks. Alvaro was skinny with long black hair that was pulled up into a ponytail. He wore dark frame glasses. A camera in the room captured Alvaro as he nervously rubbed his hands together and tapped on the table next to him until the officers came back into the room.

How old are you? I'm 17. We just met. Do you mind if you spell your name again? A-l V-A-R-O.

At first, investigators weren't sure what to make of Alvarez phoned in Tipp. Given his intimate knowledge of the crime, they had to consider the possibility that he himself could have been involved. So they read him his rights.

So the other right to me is on anything that say can be used against you in court of law. You understand that? Yeah. Can't write to your attorney before and during questioning, if you can't afford a woman being admitted to be appointed to you. No cost. Do you understand that? Okay. Well, I don't really, but I've heard that from some times on TV.

I later sat down with Álvaro Garribe in 2018, five years after Chip and Claudia were killed. Alvaro was then 22 years old with a full beard. They thought you were involved.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, retrospect, I totally get it. I'm like some random kid saying that this person committed a crime. I'm like, you know. Kind of flicked out at the time.

The story that he had shared with the police still haunted him. The story of his once close friendship with a teenage boy named Daniel Marsh.

When I first met him, he was very shy and very quiet.

Averro met Daniel in seventh grade at Holmes Junior High School. Both of them were lonely, self-described outcasts who bonded over their mutual love of the heavy metal band Disturbed.

We just hung out a lot.

What would you do when you'd hang out?

Just play video games and then just watch music videos and go on YouTube. Watch the dumbest YouTube videos ever, and we just sit there and laugh for hours. Those can't breathe laughing.

Averro said that he and Daniel became fast friends, almost family. Daniel would talk to him about his rocky home life. When Daniel was 10 years old, his parents separated, and his mother had an affair with a woman. When his parents divorced shortly after, Daniel said he felt abandoned. Alvarez told me that the situation infuriated Daniel, who over time directed his anger at the woman that his mother was involved with.

He hated her because he would tell me that I know this woman was involved in my parents' divorce, and I just want to strangle her to death. I remember him saying that to me.

Did you think he was serious when he talked about wanting to kill her? No.

I Okay, well, I empathize because I'm like, Okay, I guess if this one, if there's a person, an individual that was responsible for my parents' divorce, I would hate them, too.

But enough to kill them?

No. Well, he didn't kill her, but- No, but he talked about it. Talked about it, yeah.

The conversations disturbed Alvaro, but he remained close with Daniel. In high school, they smoked marijuana together, played guitar, and watched YouTube videos. But eventually, Alvaro said Daniel started spending hours watching very disturbing content, videos of torture and beheadings. As I warned you earlier, what you're about to hear is disturbing.

There was this one torture video that really hit me, that made me feel more uncomfortable and more unsettled, which was a of this person drowning somebody. They have a video of somebody, a scarf on their face and just putting them under a tub and just drowning them.

Alvarez was upset by what he saw, but he said that Daniel seemed to enjoy the videos.

He just sat there. Just like, Oh, what's going on? I think he's fascinated by it.

When we spoke, Alvaro explained that he thought Daniel's interest in violence and hurting people was just a way to destress, not something he'd try to replicate.

That's how I took it. I never thought, in reality, this person was actually going to go do something about it.

After Daniel's parents' divorce, Things became even more tense between Daniel, his parents, and his mother's new partner. According to Alvarez, Daniel, then 14 years old, became fixated with his weight.

How then What did he get? Was it really a problem?

He got really thin. I think I have a couple of photos of him and I hanging out, and he looks like bones.

Daniel would starve himself for extended periods of time, and he regularly talked about death.

Was he taking medications?

He was taking antidepressants.

Did he talk about what was going on in his head and his thoughts?

He would tell me a lot about suicide.

Daniel was sent to various therapists, according to Alvarez, and doctors tried to deal with his behavioral and health issues. In 2012, Daniel told a school guidance counselor that he fantasized about killing people. The counselor called police who hospitalized Daniel because of the danger he posed to himself and others. When Daniel would go through these depressive episodes, writing became an outlet for him.

He was like, Yeah, I've been doing a lot of writing lately. I was like, Oh, cool. What are you writing? I was like, Just stuff. I was like, Oh, okay. L lyrics? I was like, Nope. I was like, Oh, okay.

The police had shared with me pages copied from Daniel's personal journal from this time period, and I showed them to Alvaro.

You want me to go through this? Because this is crazy stuff.

Yeah, tell me. I know. Well, tell me why you say it's crazy stuff.

Because it's just just random streams of consciousness. What the hell is this?

Hard to read at all. It looks like someone with a gun.

Yeah.

In his mouth. I pulled out one page that Alvarez had already seen. Daniel himself had shown it to him. The page was covered with drawings of skulls mixed with references to serial killers Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Daumer, and song lyrics about sex and murder.

This is scary when you look at it, isn't it?

Dude, this is like...

Oh, my gosh. You don't even... Okay, so when I first saw this, I didn't think too much about it. Now, I'm 22, looking at this, it blows my mind that I didn't even think about what could happen.

Another page was covered in explatives.

There's one that's like, Fuck, kill, kill, kill.

Daniel seemed able to keep much of that anger bottled inside. In high school, he and Alvaro dated girls, and they all started hanging out together as a group. But then, over time, Daniel's girlfriend also observed troubling behavior. She called Alvaro.

I remember her just being panicky and just very like, I don't think Dan's okay. I think he's messed up or he's got something going on where he just snapped at me.

Some of Daniel's journal entries involved his girlfriend, and these ones didn't just talk vaguely about murder. They showed just how seriously Daniel was thinking about killing.

Okay. Wow.

What is that?

This is him planning to kill her ex-boyfriend. But he kept writing, I am ready.

In his original interview with police, Alvaro described the weekend of April 13, 2013. It was the weekend of Alvaro's 17th birthday, the same weekend that Chip and Claudia were murdered. Alvaro spent the time playing video games. He went to guitar center with his family. His friend Daniel didn't join him, but he did invite Alvaro to hang out that Sunday to talk about something important. Or he said, I want to tell you something important.

Yeah. He told me he had an interesting night and you wanted to talk about it.

Alvarez said Daniel wanted to tell him about the interesting he had had hours earlier.

He started off by telling me that he killed two people, and then I told him, I don't want to hear about it. I want to know about it.

According to Alvaro, Daniel said he killed two people. Alvaro didn't know what to make of what Daniel just told him, and he didn't want to hear anymore, so he left. But Alvaro told me that the next day, Daniel still wanted wanted to talk to him.

And then on Monday, I go to the school, go to lunch, and I sit down with my friend group. Dan comes up to me, he walks up to me, and he's like, Hey, man, how do you talk to you. I'm like, Oh, okay. What about? And he's like, Just come with me. And then brings me up to the side by a locker room, and he's like, Hey, man, I made the news. And I'm like, Okay, what do you mean by that? What do you mean you made the news? Oh, okay. Well, I'll just talk to you about it later.

Later on in social studies class, someone told Alvarez about a story they had read in the newspaper. It was about a double homicide that had taken place over the weekend.

I was like, Oh, snap. All right. And then that's where everything just turns into a movie.

Alvaro began connecting the dots. Later, he received a text from Daniel to come over to his house.

And then when I go to his room, I just walk in. He's sitting on his rolling chair by his computer, and I sit on the side of his bed, and then he starts telling me, he's like, So I actually did it. And then, I don't like talking about this too much.

I know, but tell me what you can. Just describe what he told you he had done. So when…

He gave me, basically, I'd say, a rundown of what he did.

And this is what Daniel told him that on Saturday, instead of attending Alvaro's birthday celebrations, Daniel had put on all-black clothing and a ski mask over his face. He told Alvaro that he had grabbed his mother's 6-inch hunting knife and then left his home in the darkness of the night.

He showed me the knife, the weapon.

His shoes?

Yeah, his shoes.

Daniel had thought of everything, Alvaro said, even wrapping the bottom of his boots in duct tape so he wouldn't leave any footprints.

In his run He told me how he broke into the house, and then the entire act of killing those two people, like step by step, like every move.

Did it seem real at that point? No.

No. Everything just didn't make any sense.

Why did he do this? Why did he tell you he was doing this?

I have no idea. Honestly, I think about that a lot.

Did he seem proud of what he he had done?

Yeah. He seemed very content and took a lot of... I mean, it sounded like he took a lot of pleasure out of it.

Did you get the impression he was bragging to you about what he had just done?

Yeah, he was chuckling. He was laughing about putting inanimate objects in their body.

The details were so upsetting to Alvaro, so difficult to absorb. He didn't know how to respond to Daniel's story.

I felt like throwing up. I felt like I couldn't feel anything. I felt very numb, and I just walked out. My head's just running, spinning, and then I'm looking at the door, and I'm like, Oh, my gosh. I need to get out of here. I had this feeling like the police are going to break in here, and I'm shaking.

Alvarez had told me that he was shaking and he felt like throwing up after hearing Daniel confess to the crimes. But still, Alvaro didn't immediately go to the police.

You knew he had just killed two people. Why didn't you tell anybody?

I don't know.

But you knew he might hurt somebody else.

It was just like one of those things that you just… I I just wasn't facing it.

So help me understand why not? The two of you know. Both of you, you both know.

Okay, you're in high school. How do you approach this? You call the police? Yeah, well, I mean, obviously, that's easier said than done. I'm freaking out about what's going to happen. What if I call the police? How's this going to affect me? Is this going to follow me on my whole life? Is there any way I can do this anonymous?

After Daniel told Alvaro about the murders, Alvaro was too scared to go to the police. But the one thing he did do was cut off all contact with Daniel.

That's when I Stop talking to him. Stop texting him. I told him I needed space. Hey, man, I need a moment, man. I can't just... I tried my best to not let him feel like I was disowning making him feel like you're unfriending him. Trying my best. I was just like, Hey, man, I just need space. I didn't tell him why.

He didn't want to call the police at first. Instead, Álvaro said, he reached out to Daniel's father, Bill.

I texted and I was like, Hey, man, Daniel was involved with the double homicide. I don't know what to do. I'm thinking about calling the police, something along the lines of Bill and Alvaro's accounts of this differ.

But according to Alvaro, Bill was stunned by the accusation and refused to believe that Daniel could have committed such a crime.

And so Dan's dad said you're overreactive? He wouldn't do this? Yeah. He didn't believe you?

I mean, it's his son, and it's just like, No, of course he didn't believe me.

So Alvaro kept his shut and tried to go on with his life while police began investigating the murders. But a few weeks later, Daniel approached him at school.

He came up to me and he was like, Dude, what are you doing? How come you're not talking to me? Why are you… I told him, I remember having this public, Hey, man, I don't want to be your friend. Don't talk to me. Then he just starts yelling at me. I'm like, Yeah, whatever. Then just walk out of the school.

At that point, Alvaro had become scared of Daniel, fearful to be around him. He knew that Daniel regularly carried a knife around, so he told a guidance counselor that Daniel had one at school. Alvaro said that got Daniel expelled. Afterwards, Daniel wasn't supposed to return to the campus, but he did. And while there, he approached Alvaro again.

And he's just threatened to attack me. If I don't talk to him, he wants to know what's going on. Why am I not speaking to him? That's basically it. And I just flicked out and ran.

Soon after, Alvaro was on on the phone with Daniel's girlfriend, and suddenly she started panicking.

She's like, Hey, I think someone's in my house because she hears noises in the backyard. She's like, I got to go. She hangs up, right? She texted me, Dan just broke into my house. I'm like, How do you get in? I'm like, Through the doggy door. I'm like, Whoa, okay. I'm freaking out now. I'm panting in my room. I'm like, I got to do something. I got to do something. I'm like, What am I going to do?

What am I going to And that's when Alvaro grabbed a phone, called 911, and became that anonymous caller that you heard at the top of the episode. Over the course of several more phone calls, he was eventually connected with Corporal Scott Allen and Kira Brezenick. Alvaro didn't want to give them his name, but eventually, he became more comfortable and started calling Corporal Brezenik K. B.

Officer K. B. She was very nice. She was like, Okay, well, in order for me to follow up with you, I need you to actually give me your name. I'm like, Okay. All right. I'm going to come over to your house, and we're going to talk about this. It's like 2: 00 in the morning. I'm like, Okay, got you. She comes over. Then we have a chat, and then she takes me to the police Department.

Alvarez spent hours with police in that interrogation room. He told them about what Daniel had confessed to him about his actions on the weekend of April 13th.

He told me, Yeah, you got duct tape to put under your shoe. Then you guys wanted to find his footprints or his shoe prints or something like that? Mm-hmm. He went there. He went to the back of the house.

It was the first real break in the case. Investigators had closely guarded the details of Chipp and Claudia's murders. And now inside that interrogation room, Alvarez was sharing gruesome details from the crime scene.

You got both of them open? It was just this the insides or something.

Alvaro had told the investigators everything he knew. The police were going to allow him to go home, but first, they wanted to try something. They asked Alvaro if he could call Daniel and ask him about the murders while police recorded the call.

Going back to a possible phone call or talking to Dan. Yeah, I can do that.

Alvaro tried contacting Daniel, but Daniel didn't answer any calls or text. And that's when investigators decided it It was time to bring Daniel Marsh in for questioning.

That you were there, that you did those murders? Me? Mm-hmm. That's ridiculous. Why is it ridiculous? I'm a kid.

Coming up next on 15, Inside the Daniel Marsh Murders. This series was reported by me, Erin Moriardi. Alan Pang is our producer, Maura Walls is our story editor, and Jamie Benson is the senior producer. Megan Marcus is the vice President of podcast editorial for CBS. Special thanks to 48 Hours executive producer, Judy Tigard, along with 48 Hours producers, Judy Ryback, Stephanie Slipher, and Greg Fischer. From Goat Roadio, this podcast was written and produced by Kara Shillen, Max Johnston, Jay Venables, Isabelle Kirby-McGowan, Megan Nadolsky, and Ian Enright. Additional reporting and recording by Kara Shillen. Our Our executive producers at Goat Rodeo are Megan Nadolsky and Ian Enright. Original theme in music by Hans Del Shee, with additional music from Paramount. Final mix by Rebecca Seydel. Fender Fulton is our fact checker. Our production manager is Kare Shillen. I'm Erin Moriardi. If you're enjoying this show, be sure to give it a rating and review. It helps more people find it and hear our reporting. If you liked 15: Inside the Daniel Marsh Murders, check out the rest of our 48 Hours podcast by searching 48 Hours on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for listening.