Erin Moriarty

As Daniel entered the Yolo County Courthouse almost a year and a half after Claudia Maupin and Chip Northup's murders, a judge and jury were about to decide his fate.

On Tuesday, September 2nd, 2014, the long-awaited murder trial against Daniel Marsh, now 17 years old, began at the Yolo County Courthouse.

Daniel had been charged as an adult with two counts of first-degree murder.

Prosecutors concluded that he had, quote, committed a very adult crime in a very adult manner.

And then, just three months before the trial began, Daniel changed his plea from not guilty to not guilty by reason of insanity, a clear indication of the defense to come.

Inside the courtroom, Daniel looked noticeably different from the year before, when he had first confessed to killing Chip Northup and Claudia Maupin.

Gone was the long, scruffy hair.

Now it was cut short, neater, and darker.

This is Amanda Zambor, the Deputy District Attorney for Yolo County.

I spoke with her in 2018.

At the time of the trial, she was one of the two prosecutors.

Had you ever run into a defendant like this?

And did that add a whole other, the fact that this defendant was a kid?

is it possible to change them?

Zambor, along with co-prosecutor Michael Cabral, began prepping for the trial as soon as Daniel was arrested in June 2013.

What about, though, the defense argument that this guy, this young man, had a lot of trauma?

His mother left the family for another woman.

He was in this car accident when his father had a heart attack.

He had to save his father.

He was bullied in school.