Every Town - Keddie, CA - Unsolved Quadruple Homicide - Keddie Cabin Murders

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

Do you want a respite from the hustle and bustle of your daily grind in the city? Close your eyes and imagine this: it’s a bright and cheery weekend, and you’re whiling away the day in the far northern edge of California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range surrounded by vast lakes and verdant forests. After communing with nature, you retreat to a rustic cabin, and dine on fresh fish, local barbecued bear ribs, and fine wine. Sounds like pure bliss, right? That would have been a typical day for guests at Keddie Resort in Plumas County, California roughly 40 years ago. But when the resort town became the spot of a quadruple homicide in 1981, it was abandoned, later becoming a rotted refuge for squatters and drifters. The glory days of the resort town are long gone, and the truth behind the deaths of four people is still lost, decades later.💥 Watch This Episode On Youtube Here: https://www.youtube.com/scarymysteries💥 Exclusive Content Here: https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries 💥 More Creepy Podcasts From Us: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scary-mysteries/id1273612861💥 Contact Us [e-mail]  Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you love true crime, grab your favorite mug and pour yourself a dose of creepy true crime every single morning with a morning cup of murder. This short daily show is the perfect podcast to incorporate into your morning routine because in less than 15 minutes, you'll hear about a true crime that took place on a day's date in history. Each day's dark history lesson will kickstart your morning with intriguing tales of murder, abduction, serial killers, cults, and everything in between.

With over 20 million downloads, Morning Cup of Murder has something for every true crime lover. One listener describes the show as a small package with a powerful punch of crime. Another writes that the show is an absolute delight in the morning. Support yourself a piping hot cup of murder every single morning with Morning Cup of Murder. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every town has a dark side. Today we head to Kettie Plumis County in California, where we check out the four decades-old unsolved quadruple homicide at a cabin resort.

Do you want to respite from the hustle and bustle of your daily grind in the city? Close your eyes and imagine this. It's a bright and cheery weekend, and you're relaxing away the day in the far northern edge of Kempark. California's Sierra Nevada mountain range, surrounded by vast lakes and endless forests. After communing with nature, you retreat to a rustic cabin and dine on fresh fish, local barbecued bear ribs, and fine wine. Sounds like pure bliss, right? That would have been a typical day for the guests at Keddy Resort in Plumas County, California,

roughly 40 years ago. But when the resort town became the spot of a quadruple homicide in 1981, it was abandoned, later becoming a rotted refuge for squatters and drifters. The glory days of the resort town are long gone, and the truth behind the deaths of four people is still lost decades later. Hi, I'm Andrew Fitzgerald, and I'll be telling you another interesting story in this week's episode of every town. If small packages can spring big surprises, a small and seemingly obscure town could present an

unexpected shock too. This was true in the case of the resort town of Keddy, when four of its approximately 60 residents were savagely murdered in 1981, the case became a confounding mystery the area would become notorious for. The investigation has continued till now, with new evidence recently recovered, yet no one has been named as responsible for the crimes. Could it be possible that the home stretch is within reach with a newly reinvigorated probe? Cabin 28 and Kettie Resort was demolished in 2004, and physical remnants of the buildings haunting pass can no longer be found. Inside the two-story humble structure occurred the bloody murders of Glenna Sue Sharp,

her two children, and a friend between the late-night hours of April 11th and early morning of April 12, 1981. If only Cabin 28's Walls could talk, the quadruple homicide would have been solved a long time ago, and the families of the four victims would have closure. When 36-year-old Sue, 15-year-old John and 12-year-old Tina, were killed together with 17-year-old Dana, the Sharp family had been living in Kettie Resort for just a year and a half. Hoping to start life anew after leaving her abusive husband, James, a military man, Sue and her five children left North Carolina in the fall of 1979. They headed to Quincy in northern California, where Sue's brother.

Don lived. Aside from John and Tina, Sue's other children were 14-year-old Sheila and two young boys, Rick and Greg, ages 10 and 5, respectively. In November of that year, the family of six finally settled in the rural town of Keddy and rented cabin 28 at the Ketty Resort, which became their home. The cabin had two bedrooms, one was shared by Sue and her two daughters, while the other one was occupied by her two younger sons. John, the eldest, stayed in a basement room that could only be accessed from the outside. The kids were enrolled at local schools in Quincy, just five miles south of Keddy. Sue didn't receive any financial support from her ex-husband, so she relied on her $250 income

from the Navy, food stamps, and a part-time job at the Quincy Elks Lodge. A small additional income came from her stipend as an enrollee in a California Education Training Act program. As part of that program, Sue joined a typing class at Feather River College, also attending the class were Marilyn and Marty Smart, who lived in Cabin 26 together with their sons, Justin and Casey. The Sharp family also became friends with their neighbors occupying Cabin 27, James and Zonita Seabult and their children, Alyssa, Paula, and Jamie. Since its revival in 1978, the Keddy Resort had been an active summer place with a hotel, complete with bar and restaurant, a general store, a post office, and a boarding house

where some Feather River College students lived. Ketty was a thriving and peaceful community that offered a simple yet sufficient kind of a life for their residents. Sue was happy with her decision to move the family there, but it took only one night for her family's life to change terribly, and the horror that turned the resort town from a little paradise to hell unleashed in its full force, specifically on Cabin 28. April in California is a beautiful month because sunshine abounds everywhere as the mid-spring weather warms the earth after the cold months. It's a prelude, to summer, and kids can enjoy activities outside the confines of their homes.

The elder children of Sue Sharp did just that on April 11, 1981, a wonderful spring Saturday. John spent the day with his friend Dana Wingate at Gansner Park in Quincy. Dana was two years older than John, a junior at Quincy High School. At 1.30 p.m., Sue's 14-year-old daughter, was sent to fetch John and Dana and brought them back to Ketty. The two boys had plans of meeting up with their other friends to attend a party later that night.

So John and Dana left Kettie at 3.30 p.m. and hitched hiked back to Quincy. Later that night, the boys were seen partying at Oakland Camp. Meanwhile, sisters Sheila and Tina spent the afternoon watching TV at the Seabolt's home and Cabin 27. While Tina went home after 9 p.m., Sheila stayed for her sleepover with the Seabolt girls. Thus, Sue spent the night with Tina and her younger sons, Rick and Greg.

The boys were joined by Justin Smart, their 12-year-old friend from Cabin 26, who slept over at the Sharps. After partying in Quincy, John and Dana, who planned to spend the night in Cabin 28, caught a ride back home between 930 and 10. m p.m. It was a relatively peaceful night as the residents and Kettie Resort slumbered. Around 1.30 a.m. of April 12th, a couple living nearby the Sharp's cabin, were awakened by what sounded like muffled screaming, but they went back to sleep when they couldn't figure out what it was. Some hours later, it was revealed that what the couple had heard were actually cries of agony and pleased for help coming from Cabin 28. After spending the night with the Seaboltz, Sheila Sharp woke up at 7 a.m. on April 12th and headed home, maybe looking forward to sharing a

hearty Sunday breakfast with her family. But she was shocked when she opened the unlocked door of Cabin 28 to find the bloody bodies lying dead on the floor. The shaken teenage girl ran back to the Seaboltz, crying uncontrollably. James and Zonita Seabolt, stayed with Sheila and sent their teenage son Jamie to check on cabin 28, and he entered the cabin's back door to look for any survivors. To his surprise, Jamie discovered in another bedroom the three young boys, Rick, Greg, and Justin, unharmed, asleep and totally oblivious to the carnage in the living room. Jamie didn't want the boys to see the nightmarish crime scene, so he helped them get out

to the bedroom window. They reported the crime to Jan Albin, the co-owner of the Kettie Resort, who then contacted the Plumas County Sheriff's Office about a possible homicide. Deputy Sheriff Hank Clement responded immediately and was the first officer to arrive to the crime scene at 8.05 a.m. When he opened the cabin's door, he saw three dead bodies on the green carpeted floor. Closest to the front door was John Sharp, who was lying face up. with his blood covered hands bound together securely with medical tape, and his ankles wrapped with an electrical cord. His throat had been slashed.

Next to John was Dana Wingate, lying on his stomach, his badly damaged head resting partially on a sofa pillow. His ankles were likewise firmly tied with an electrical cord, his head had multiple injuries, and his neck showed signs of strangulation. Pools of blood on the living room floor and on the sofa pillow indicated the boy's bodies have been moved and staged. Lying on her side very close to the sofa was the sharp matriarch Sue, who was naked from the waist down.

Her body appeared to have been moved and covered with a yellow blanket that was soaked in blood. She was gagged with a blue bandana and her underwear tightly secured using medical tape. Sue's throat wasn't only slashed. Her chest had also been stabbed. And on the side of her head was an imprint matching the butt of a Daisy 880 BB gun. All three victims had severe skull injuries caused by a hammer or hammers and have been stabbed possibly more than once. Post-mortem exam results later determined that Sue, John, and Dana died from the knife wounds and blunt force trauma. More police officers soon arrived

and began documenting the evidence of the crime scene. Multiple weapons covered in blood and believed to have been used in the crime were discovered. They included a hammer and a knife found near the dead bodies and a badly bent steak knife, which had probably been used to stab the victims. An unidentified fingerprint was found on a handrail on the stairs leading to the cabin's back door.

Blood was found outside the living room floor where the bodies were found. It was also splattered on the living room ceiling, on the ivory, patterned, wallpaper-covered walls, and on furniture. A bed sheet in the girl's bedroom was also tainted by blood. There was no sign of forced entry, and the attacker had taken the time to switch off all the lights, close the blinds, and leave the phone off the hook. Sheila noted that missing inside the cabin was a shoe box, containing various tools and the jacket and shoes of her younger sister Tina. The 12-year-old girl had also been in Cabin 28 when the murders took place,

but was nowhere to be found that morning. Consumed with the task of finding evidence, the police only realized Tina was missing after several hours. Did she escape to save herself? Or did she also suffer her mother and brother's fate? Sadly, it turned out to be the last. ladder. Three years and 11 days after the murders of Sue John and Dana and the disappearance of Tina, it was confirmed that the Keddy Murders was a quadruple homicide case. On April 22nd,

1984, a bottle collector discovered a cranium portion of a human skull and a part of a jaw at Camp 18 near Feather Falls in neighboring Boote County, roughly 100 miles from Cairnium. In June of 1984, a forensic pathologist confirmed they were Tina Sharp's remains. The deaths haunted the resort town's residence. One deputy sheriff said, Life changed dramatically in 1981 for this whole community. Everybody was suspicious of everybody and afraid of everybody else. The investigation of the 1981 Ketty Murders was initially handled by the Plumis County.

Sheriff's Office under Doug Thomas. Examination of the surrounding areas and the Keddy Resort grounds didn't yield more physical evidence, and the scan amount of witness sightings provided a few leads. The Seabult family said that they hadn't seen or heard anything suspicious that night. They also hadn't heard any screaming or shouting, unlike the neighboring couple who had heard something but ignored it. A few residents recalled seeing an unknown green. green van and a flat tired Brown Dotson parked outside the Sharps cabin around 9 p.m.

But it was the interview with Justin Smart, the 12-year-old friend of Sue's younger sons, that gave investigators a lead. Under hypnosis, Justin claimed to have actually witnessed the crime. He said that he was watching television with Rick and Greg in the boy's bedroom when he heard sounds coming from the living room. There, he saw Sue's struck. with two men when John and Dana entered the house and stumbled upon the attack in progress, entangling them in a violent fight. When Tina entered the living room, she was taken out of the cabins back door by one of the men. Justin described these men as being in their late 20s to early 30s, both wearing gold-framed sunglasses.

One stood between 5-11 and 6-2 with dark blonde hair, and the other between 5-6 and 4.6 and 5'10 with black greasy hair. Composite sketches of the two unknown men produced by forensic artist Harlan Embry were publicized by the police. Some residents came forward claiming to have known the two men, but no valid suspect was identified. However, many noted a striking resemblance to Justin's stepfather, Marty Smart, who lived two cabins away from the Sharp family. Marty was a Vietnam veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder and was known to have deep-seated anger issues. In 1980, Marty and his family arrived in Kettie where he was hired as a hotel cook at the resort and moved in to Cabin 26.

But before the Ketty murders, Marty lost his hotel job because his cooking skills weren't satisfactory. Marital problems exacerbated his situation as seen his wife Marilyn were growing apart. He allegedly supported his family by selling drugs and manufacturing his sheesh, the drug made from the resin of the cannabis plant. Quite notably, Marty hated Sue's oldest child John for being a bit of a troublemaker and a smart aleck. So was this his connection to the Keddy murders? On April 13th, the day after the killings, Marty Smart was brought in for his first

and only interview with law enforcement headed by Sheriff Doug Thomas. The war veteran said he'd heard the victims were struck with a hammer and told the sheriff he lost a hammer weeks ago and couldn't find it. When asked about his whereabouts on the night of the murder,

Marty said he, his wife, and a friend named John Boobud Bed were at a local bar. They stayed there until it closed at around 1.30 a.m. then headed home and went to bed. John Bo had been staying with the Smarts for a few weeks at the time of the murders, which, further linked Marty's involvement with selling drugs.

John Bo had been in and out of prison for multiple crimes such as burglary and drug-related offenses, and had ties to an organized crime group in Chicago. Interestingly, Marilyn Smart had a different account. She was indeed at the bar with Marty and John, and they all went home around 11 p.m. When she fell asleep, the two men returned to the bar, wearing three-piece suits and sunglasses, which was perhaps a disguise to mislead their fellow bar patrons.

Marilyn woke up around 2 a.m. and saw Marty and John Boe burning something in their wood stove. Marty later told the police it was just another log. Days later, Marilyn, who had already separated from Marty, told authorities that she suspected her estranged husband and John Bo were responsible for the Keddy murders. Aside from Marty's hatred for John Sharp, Marilyn cited the strange behavior of her ex-husband that night. Also, she told police that John Bo had made some advances on Sue, who had flat out rejected him. Marilyn knew Marty's aggressive and violent nature surfaced when he was drinking, so she believed

Sue John and his friend Dana had been the victims of the drunken rage of Marty and John Boe. Unfortunately, the Sheriff's Office and the California Department of Justice botched the investigation back in 1981.

Leeds weren't followed up on and evidence was either not checked or deliberately ignored. It was alleged that the DOJ had an interest in protecting John Boe and that Sheriff Thomas was a close friend of Marty's.

In a 2008 documentary, Thomas said that he personally interviewed Marty Smart and he had passed a polygraph test. Unfortunately, John Boe passed away in 1988 in Illinois, and Marty died of cancer in Portland, Oregon in June of 2000. And so that would have been the end of the Kettie murder cases if it had not been for the efforts of two determined men pursuing the case. 32 years later, with new evidence. One of several people affected by the Keddy murders was Greg Hogwood.

He was only 16 years old when his friends John Sharp and Dana Wingate were killed, and he hadn't forgotten about it when he became the sheriff of Plumis County. In 2013, the infamous unsolved murders still haunted Hogwood, so he relaunched the investigation. He asked retired Plumas County Sheriff Deputy and Special Investors, investigator Mike Gamberg to take over the investigation. Like Hogwood, Gamberg had a personal connection with the case because he had been John and Dana's martial arts coach. Gamburg had strong opinions about what had and hadn't happened back in 1981. He accepted the

challenge of following up on evidence and leads that still existed and finding more. When he was reviewing the boxes of evidence, he discovered a take of the take. recording of an anonymous call to Boote County Dispatch in 1984, identifying Tina Sharp's remains. But such a call wasn't documented in the case and never presented as evidence. Gamberg believed the tape had been deliberately ignored when it arrived at the Plumas County Sheriff's Office. Another piece of new evidence found was a letter Marty Smart wrote to Maryland from Reno, Nevada, a few weeks after the Keddy murders. The letter concluded,

I've paid the price of your love, and now that I've brought it with four people's lives, you tell me we are through. Great, what else do you want? However, the letter was overlooked and never listed as evidence in 1981. In 2016, Gamburg met with a counselor at the Reno Veterans Administration,

who told him that in May of 1981, Marty Smart had confessed to killing Sue and Tina Sharp. Marty purportedly told the counselor, I killed the woman and her daughter, but I didn't have anything to do with the boys. When the DOJ was alerted to this confession in 1981, they dismissed it as hearsay. On March 24, 2016, a rusty old hammer was found in a pond near Keddy that matched the description of Marty's lost hammer in 1981. According to Sheriff Hagwood, the location it was found, it would have been intentionally put there. It wouldn't have been accidentally misplaced.

He believed the hammer was indeed one of the missing murder weapons. Marty's incriminating letter and the discovery of the hammer put the burden of suspicion back on Marty, even though he's already dead. Then, a rusty six-inch knife was also recovered near an old store in KETI, which was brought, together with the hammer, to the DOJ Forensic Lab for analysis. Around this time, Hagwood revealed the police were still exploring at least six potential suspects, and they knew where they were. Another development happened in 2018.

DNA was recovered from a piece of tape at the crime scene, which had been found next to the body of Sue Sharp. This DNA allegedly matched a suspect who is still alive, giving credence to the notion that the 1981 Keddy murder case is far from finished. In fact, this notorious case that had gone cold because of police corruption and cover-ups in the past is just heating up in the hands of truly committed, trustworthy, and honorable law enforcers. And we're all waiting to see if they'll finally reveal the real

architect behind the Keddy Murders. So that's it for this week's episode of Everytown. If you want more creepy stories from us, then please check out our Scary Mysteries podcast, as well as the Scary Mysteries YouTube channel with awesome video compliments to the audio. Also, there is each episode of Everytown with video added to it on there as well, so you can watch or listen in whatever way works best for you. Tune in next week for another episode filled with scary, strange, and mysterious stories. And who knows, maybe your town will be next.