Mental Health: 'Before it's too late'
Record (Stockton, CA)Oct 20, 2014
In the weeks and months before the slayings, during which at one point he was placed on involuntary psychiatric hold, Marsh repeatedly shared his disturbing thoughts with therapists.
Marsh's ghoulish imaginings were so alarming, one therapist broke confidentiality and notified authorities that January.
'I have to find value in this'
"I believe that every human life has value, but I'm having a really hard time with, what is the value of
"That's where I have the spiritual dilemma," added Schick, who moved to
It is her hope that a measure of that value will come as part of a nationwide Mental Health First Aid grant program through which Stockton Unified just received
"He had planned this for years," Schick said. "That's why I wish that there were a way to catch this kind of problem. I guess there wasn't any way anybody could do anything about it."
'I had to do it'
In the dead of night, dressed in black and wearing a mask, gloves and tape-covered shoes, Marsh tried at least 50 homes before finding what he was looking for just a few doors down from his own father's condo: an unlocked window.
"That night I couldn't take it anymore. I had to do it," Marsh would later tell police.
Using his mother's hunting knife, he cut a flap in the screen, then hoisted himself inside. Unaware, Northup and Maupin slept on.
Northup, a longtime attorney, was 87; Maupin, a pastoral associate at the
Marsh heard the couple snoring and followed the sound to the master bedroom, he later admitted in a graphic, six-hour-long videotaped confession punctuated by his own laughter. The teen stood silently in the room as they slept, "thinking how he was going to kill them," Detective
Days before, Marsh had posted on his blog: "My Head is a
'It's finally happening'
Maupin woke up first. She saw Marsh standing over their bed and screamed. That's when the stabbings began. So many, it was hard to tell how many times, said Yolo County Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney
Northup heard his wife's cries and sprang up. Marsh incapacitated him, then kept going, continuing to attack the couple. Said Pineda: "He didn't know why; it just felt right."
"It's finally happening," Marsh later recounted during his confession. "I'm not gonna lie. It felt great. It was pure happiness and adrenaline rushing over me. It was the most exhilarating feeling I've ever felt."
Police prevented calls to family
That Sunday evening, one of Maupin's daughters grew concerned after not hearing from the couple all day. She drove to their home and saw their car parked outside.
"She went around back to see why they would not answer the door and noticed the cut screen," Schick said. That's when she called police.
They kept her all night, preventing her from letting other family members know what had happened. That's why Schick's sister Mary saw a picture that Monday morning of their parents' condo, surrounded with crime scene tape, on the
Schick remembers that morning vividly, her sister's phone call. "I noticed that on my phone, I had all these little blinking numbers, that my brothers, who don't call me all the time, two of my brothers were trying to reach me, and I thought, 'That's kind of odd.' "
"My sister said, 'I want you to hear it now. I don't want you to find out the way I did.' "
Probe made family's life 'miserable'
Two days after the murders, Marsh met with his regular psychiatrist, Dr. Cheyenne He. It would be two months before police tied the crime to the high school sophomore; he left no evidence behind.
"A cloud of fear descended over the city of
After discounting Northup's appeals clients and with no leads in the case, investigators zeroed in on the textbook suspects: the victims' families.
"That was so hard on our family. ... It actually was very offensive that they suspected anybody in the family, because to me, it was very clearly somebody who was a sociopath," Schick said. "And the
A month later, in
That was the break police needed. The boy and Marsh's girlfriend turned him in. He was arrested on
System failed
The system failed the disturbed teen,
"I do have some questions about the
Schools are in a key position to identify and intervene early to help steer mentally ill youth toward resources and treatment, those behind the Project AWARE grant say. Could things have turned out differently in Marsh's case?
"We would have done everything to prevent a crime that like,"
"For people involved the situation, it will be part of our lives forever. You move on and you keep working and do your best. It's very hard. It's an absolute tragedy for everyone."
Killer to be sentenced
Schick doesn't yet know what she'll say at Marsh's sentencing hearing
"I think I really have to face him. I have to figure out what value there is to every life. To figure out what I can say," she says.
If for nothing else, she wants to make sure he stays behind bars as long as possible; Cabral says he'll recommend 52 years to life.
During his preliminary hearing, Marsh almost looked drugged, Schick said -- until they read the part of his statement recounting the crime. His eyes lit up in the courtroom.
"He was kind of like, 'Yeah!' We were afraid that it's kind of like he's a tiger that has a taste for human blood, that it's too late," she says. "I don't know if he's even salvageable. It's a terrible thing. That's my spiritual dilemma."
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