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Exceptional Depravity: Dan Who Likes Dark and Double Murder in Davis, California [Kindle Edition]

Lloyd Billingsley
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Book Description

A crime Stephen King could not invent

Davis, California, April 14, 2013.

Bluegrass musician Oliver “Chip” Northup fails to show for a memorial service. That was not like the 87-year-old lead singer for the Putah Creek Crawdads, a popular northern California folk group.

Chip also fails to show for a gig in Woodland that evening. He does not answer his phone.

His stepdaughter grows worried and drives to the house. Nobody answers the door. A window screen had been cut, so the call goes out to the police.

They find two deceased individuals, Northup and his wife Claudia Maupin, 76, stabbed, mutilated and murdered in a way that showed “exceptional depravity.”

The home had not been robbed. The killer left no clues. The police have no motive, and no suspects.

The killer is a high-school student, only 15 at the time of the crime. His website proclaims “Too Many Humans” and he believes serial killers can help fix the overpopulation problem. And as his girlfriend said, “he liked to torture.”

He tortured and mutilated Chip and Claudia then talked up the murders to his friends. That gets him arrested and for five hours he gives police details of the crime. “I stabbed the hell out of them,” he said. It “felt right” and gave him “pure happiness.”

He pleads not guilty, then changes his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity. By any means necessary, this killer wants to get away with double murder.

An expert witness testifies that the killer’s medications put him in a dream-like dissociative state. So he was not in control of his actions, and therefore not guilty.

The victims’ families and friends, already horrified and suffering, begin to wonder: Will this killer get away with it?

If readers want to exercise their right to know, there’s one place to find out.

This crime took place just down the freeway from author and investigative journalist Lloyd Billingsley. He visits the crime scene. He digs into the records. He talks to relatives of the victims.

He attends every day of the trial, where he finds that police may have understated the horror of this crime, something Stephen King could not invent.

Exceptional Depravity: Dan Who Likes Dark and Double Murder in Davis, California explains how it all happened, why it happened, and what it means. Readers might even learn what they should do about it.

First step: Lock and load on this powerful new book.


Editorial Reviews

About the Author

LLOYD BILLINGSLEY lives in northern California and attended every day of the Daniel Marsh trial. He is the author of Hollywood Party: Stalinist Adventures in the American Movie Industry, also available on Kindle. He has written for City Journal California, Reason, The Spectator (London), FrontPage Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The San Diego Union-Tribune and many other publications.

Product Details

  • File Size: 1153 KB
  • Print Length: 320 pages
  • Publisher: A Ferus Digital Edition Published by Event Horizon Press (October 13, 2014)
  • Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B00OGW1WZK
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • X-Ray:
  • Word Wise: Not Enabled
  • Lending: Enabled
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #134,192 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A fast-paced page-turner November 17, 2014
By Reader
Format:Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
Exceptional Depravity tells the true-life story of the brutal murder of an elderly couple in Davis, California, and the subsequent arrest of a local teenager, who confessed to the crime but later plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Billingsley sets the scene very nicely (though there is nothing "nice" about the details of this grisly crime), introducing the reader to the victim, the accused, and the town in which they lived. Davis is relatively small university town in north-central California, noted for the number of its bicycle paths -- not the setting in which one expects a double murder to take place. The victims themselves were model citizens --- the husband, after retiring from his law practice, volunteered his time representing criminal defendants who felt they had been wrongfully convicted; both husband and wife were active at their (Unitarian) church, and both were active in the local arts scene. The accused, Daniel Marsh --- the "Dan Who Likes Dark" of the subtitle, so nicknamed because that's how he described himself to his classmates -- set out the night of the murders looking for someone to kill, and succeeded. Billingsley explores the influences and motivations that seem to have led him to do it, and these are some of the most interesting passages in the book.

The second half of the book walks through Marsh's trial, day by day, and is an interesting look at what actually happens in courtrooms. This was a thought-provoking, fast-paced page turner, which fans of crime stories are sure to enjoy
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Great story, great legal detail. November 18, 2014
Format:Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
Some true crime genre books miss the legal details for the soap opera drama. Not this one. The story of this well-publicized murder both riveting and disturbing, to be sure. But Billingsley also documents the legal decisions and details, in a way any motivated reader can appreciate. I think readers will find that part of this book actually instructive.
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3.0 out of 5 stars Brutality at its worst December 26, 2014
Format:Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
I read this book to find out what happened in the murder of two people I knew (and interviewed, separately, over the years.) The author is extremely thorough in his research, but such thoroughness does not always make compelling reading. If you want to know how a court handles a sensational crime, this would be fascinating. If you are more interested in the facts, but not the process, not so much.

Bottom line: Two very nice, very giving members of this small community lost their lives in the most brutal way possible. In the end justice was served.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Really gets into the details of a criminal trial far ... December 16, 2014
Format:Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
Really gets into the details of a criminal trial far beyond what the newspapers and local TV ever do, especially the game of "expert witnesses," who are usually neither one. For fans of the "true crime" genre, Exceptional Depravity stands out as a really unique treatment.
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