BUTTE COUNTY, Calif. - A Butte County man suspected of threatening to kill multiple people in Butte County before traveling to Las Vegas to commit a mass shooting appeared in Butte County Superior Court on Wednesday for arraignment, Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said.
Dallas Marsh, 37, has been charged in court on various felony counts.
Ramsey says that the investigation into Marsh began on Sept. 19 after the Chico Police Department received calls from a police chief in Tennessee.
The chief reported that one of his officers received text messages from Marsh threatening to commit mass shooting incidents, Ramsey said.
Ramsey said that officer was Marsh’s former commander when they were in the U.S. Army more than 10 years ago.
The officer provided screenshots of the text messages, some of which included a “hit list” of people that March intended to kill, Ramsey said.
Ramsey said the “hit list” include Marsh’s father, a former Chico neighbor of Marsh, two local police officers and several people officers were not able to identify.
Detectives with the Chico police department contacted those people and interviewed Marsh’s parents. Ramsey said the parents told detectives that Marsh stopped taking psychiatric medication and made detailed threats toward his father.
The former neighbor told detectives was also threatened in 2019, Ramsey said. Marsh was convicted and sentenced to more than three years in state prison for those threats.
The Chico Police Department learned Marsh expressed a plan to kill people on his hit list and then travel to Las Vegas where he intended to commit a mass shooting on Saturday, Sept. 30, according to Ramsey.
Ramsey said Marsh also expressed an interest in the mass shooting in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, 2017. The shooting killed 58 people and 413 were injured.
Marsh was arrested on Sunday at a Chico motel. When he was arrested, he made several threats to kill the arresting officers, Ramsey said.
Ramsey said when Marsh was in an interview room with detectives, he shoved a table into the detectives and fought with them. The officers were able to overpower Marsh without causing significant injuries.
Marsh is a former soldier. He served in the U.S. Army from 2004-2009 and was wounded in combat in Iraq, Ramsey said.
In 2021, he was designated as a “Mentally Disordered Parolee” instead of being paroled from state prison for his conviction in 2019, Ramsey said. He was transferred to Atascadero State Hospital but it is unknown when he was released.
He remains in jail without bail. Marsh will be back in court to enter a plea on Thursday.
