Going West: True Crime - The Keddie Cabin Murders // 511

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

In April of 1981, a mother and her children -along with two of her children's friends- were spending a quiet Saturday night in their rural California cabin. But by morning, the scene inside Cabin 28 was anything but peaceful. What investigators found was a blood-soaked mystery involving multiple victims, a missing child, and no trace of who—or what—had come in the night. With few answers and a town cloaked in silence, this case would go on to become one of the most disturbing unsolved crimes in American history. This is the story of the Keddie Cabin Murders.

What is going on true crime fans? I'm your host T and I'm your host Daphne and you're listening to going west. Hello everybody. Thank you for tuning in today. Hope you're doing well today. We have been wanting to cover this case, really, since we started going west. But I think because it's a little bit more well known, it kinda like slipped through our cracks for a while, but it still deserves so much attention. This is truly such a spooky and unnerving story.

Yeah, and surprisingly, we only have one recommendation for it, so thank you Madison for recommending today's case. But yeah, I mean, so glad to finally be covering this one. We're going to post a ton of photos, so check out our socials for those if you can follow along or peep them afterwards for a better visual of the layout of the community that we're going to be talking about today. I mean, this case has actually like recently had some pretty big updates, so can't wait to dive

into this one today. Yeah, let's just do it. Alright guys, this is episode 511 of Going West, so let's get into it. The Keddie murders took place in rural Plumas County, a triple slang, a missing child that remains later found and the case remains cold. In 1981, four Plumas County residents were brutally murdered. That case has never been solved. They said, mom, you better close the doors. And I said, what happened? And he said, there was a murder in Keddie.

And I said, Keddie? Murdered in this cabin were a young mother, Glenda Sue Sharp, her 15-year-old son, John, and a neighbor, 17-year-old Dana Wingate. Investigators were horrified by the carnage in the cabin. Using a butcher and steak knife and a claw hammer, the assailant or assailants murdered the three. But there was more. Lana's daughter Tina was also missing.

She's a girl of 12 years of age with shoulder length hair. We believe that she's an integral part of this. A recording of a man believed to be one of the killers or at the very least an accomplice. In it, he describes a body found in connection with the Ketty murders. After seeing other things on the news, you know, after even older than this, they've been solved, so I know this one can be solved. And we just have to stick to it and have somebody, you know, on our side do it. Glena Susan Davis, who went by Sue, was born on March 29, 1945 in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Very early on, actually in her teens, Sue Davis met a young man named Jim or James Milford Sharp and he was born the year after Sue in 1946 in Missouri. After courting and dating for a little bit, the two got married when they were 19 years old on February 27, 1965 and this is when she officially became Sue Sharp, settling with her new husband in Connecticut. Together, the young couple had five kids, John, Sheila, Tina, Rick, and Greg. We're gonna be talking about these kids a lot today.

So John was the oldest, Greg was the youngest, and the three other came in between their ten-year age gap. Their father Jim worked for the military and during the 60s and 70s Jim and Sue were raising their many kids, but there were definitely some ups and downs. Things were very rocky between them and there were reports of domestic abuse during their relationship. So they separated after almost 15 years of marriage. But the end of one thing meant the beginning of another,

and Sue was ready for a change. As a newly single mother of five kids, she was very eager to get out of Connecticut and just kind of start fresh. So she made the decision to relocate to the other side of the country, to Northern California with all five of her children. Yeah, basically Jim just kind of stepped out on the whole scenario of being a dad. Yeah, so she had like all these kids

to take care of all on her own. And she wasn't gonna be alone in California, by the way. She moved there with the kids in July of 1979 when she was 34 years old. This was a nearly 3000 mile move. So even though it was far away from home, Sue's brother Don lived in Northern California at the time. So when the family settled in Quincy, it kind of made perfect sense. You know, she's actually moving closer to family.

Quincy, California is a small, super quaint, like adorable census designated place northeast of San Francisco, a little over four hours inland, or four hours drive inland, located in the Plumas National Forest. So it is surrounded by mountains and lots of thick, lush woodland. We're gonna be talking about that today.

Really picture just the forest for this whole case. You're out there in the middle of the woods. Well, determined to find a safe haven, Sue and her kids, whose ages ranged from toddler to teen at this point, temporarily settled in this beautiful town nestled in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The six of them initially moved into the Claremont Trailer Village mobile home park upon arriving in California, which meant that this

big family were living in super tight quarters. And despite times being tough, they made it work. in super tight quarters. And despite times being tough, they made it work. But in 1980, after living in Quincy for a little over a year, the family was ready to move again and decided to relocate to the town of Keddie, California. And Keddie was only about a 10 minute drive away. So not far at all.

Keddie was just up State Route 70, also known as Feather River Highway, making this switch up a very easy move to a much smaller spot, much smaller town if you will. I mean, it's also a census designated place, and it's nestled more into the woods. Like, Quincy is kind of surrounded by the woods, but Keddie is right in the woods. Now, Sue had recently started taking business classes back in Quincy with hopes of earning a degree so that she could land a job to support her family since they were really struggling financially at this time.

Obviously Sue is now a single mom. She has no partner to support the kids. So she's doing the best she can. According to reports, Sue abstained from dating at this time, but she had made a few friends with, you know, students from her classes, obviously people around her age, not like kids. And there were other local moms in her life as well. So their move to KETI marked the start of a new chapter where dreams of stability and positive change seem to be on the horizon

I don't know why anytime I hear or talk about this case I always think of the mom from ET, you know as Sue yeah, yeah, like I don't know why any cabin movie. Yes. I just pictured that for some reason anyway She is a brunette woman. So you she is she looks very different than her, but that's very funny I guess just maybe like you know timeline wise well Just you know she's a single mom just like the mom oh yeah trying to take care of her kids that whole thing I see what you're saying now. Yeah, totally anyway, KETI, California is and was a tiny Sierra, Nevada Railroad town The current population today is around like 50 people, but it was

around like a hundred back in 1980s, so you know, some people have moved since. Tucked right by Spanish Creek, Sue found a supposed safe haven for her and her many young kids, even though I will say many describe this spot as being on the wrong side of the tracks quite literally since it was directly next to the railroad. So they moved into the Keti Resort, and the natural wonders surrounding them were absolutely spectacular. Like, they were nestled directly into these lush woods. The Little Resort town was originally constructed back in 1910, and in the early 1900s, during

the heyday of railroad travel, the mountain retreat was built to attract rail travelers from all over. Following a dirt road on the tucked away property back in the day, there were cabins along with a hotel, bar, and also a restaurant. And despite what it used to be, by the 1980s, Keddie was no longer a town for wealthy, traveling people to stop over in. Throughout the century, the little community endured financial troubles, and the 33 cabins on the property were eventually converted into low-income housing.

But the local bar and restaurant there remained open. When Sue and her kids moved into Cabin 28, the two-bedroom home was spacious compared to the trailer that they had just left in Quincy, though still quite a tight space for the six of them. A local sheriff, Sheriff Doug Thomas, had recently vacated Cabin 28, so he was living there, and by 1980s, Sue and her kids were the new renters there. Again, while the house was still small for all six of them, they definitely made things work and many described Sue as an amazing mother for how hard she worked for her kids, especially all on her own. Her oldest daughter Sheila later stated, quote, She was a kind and loving mother who was doing her very best to raise five children alone.

She was dutiful in her attention to each of us, and while we lived in relative poverty, we also lived in a home of love. The two bedrooms of their pale yellow cabin were split up amongst the six of them, and we will post many photos so that you guys can see both the actual cabin and the layout and map of the community itself, because we're going to talk a lot about different cabins today and a visual will definitely help you guys. So originally the cabin was a one bedroom that was expanded to two small bedrooms, but it also had an unfinished basement.

And also there was a hide-a-bed sofa that they made use of in the living room. So the younger boys, 10 year old Rick andyear-old Greg shared a room, and they had bunk beds in that room, and Sue shared a room with her 12-year-old daughter Tina and 14-year-old Sheila, and then 15-year-old John just kinda made like a private quasi-bedroom for himself in the basement. It being a railroad town, some reports state that it was mandatory that Cabin 28's porch light remain on at all times for railroad workers as it was very dark out there in the woods without any street lamps.

So definitely remember that for later. So the Sharp family were all settling into a routine of school and friends leading active and busy lives. So everything was going off without a hitch in this picturesque backdrop of Keddie. While their little neighborhood amongst the trees may have felt a little bit remote, but a lot of the nearby cabins were occupied with other families, so the Sharps had some neighbors

just a stone's throw away. There were over 30 cabins total, like Keith said, but at this time, actually only about 12 of them were occupied, so there were many dilapidated unused cabins in their circle. Remember, this is low-income housing and that's why because this neighborhood was a little bit, like I said, dilapidated. Not long after moving to the teeny mountain community that was previously known for its rustic charm, Keddie would become the landmark

of an unthinkable horror. It was the middle of April in 1981 and springtime activities were in full swing. On the morning of Saturday, April 11th, Sue and her 14-year-old daughter Sheila and her five-year-old son Greg made their way to a friend's house nearby, the Meeks. At about 1130 a.m., the three of them arrived at the Meeks family home to pick up Sue's middle child, 10-year-old Rick, who had just recently gotten out of baseball tryouts in nearby Quincy. So Sue, along with three of her kids, Sheila, Greg, and Rick, then left Quincy and headed back home to Keddie. Again, just about a 10 minute drive away.

During the scenic drive home, Sue's oldest child, 15 year old John, was hitchhiking at the base of the canyon trying to get a ride back to Keddie. Now John was accompanied by his friend, a friendly local 17 year old boy named Dana Wingate. So, you know, she sees her son like trying to flag down a ride. So she pulls over and both of the boys hopped into her very packed car at this point.

And just a few minutes later, they all got to Keddie. John and Dana had become pretty good friends by this point. They would often hang out, you know, doing normal teenage boy stuff, like they'd go to downtown Quincy a lot to meet up with other teens and spend time at the local arcade. And hours later, at about 3.30 PM,

John and Dana actually hitchhiked back to Quincy where they were spotted around town that afternoon. That night, 14-year-old Sheila had plans to sleep over at the neighbor's house where the Seabolt family lived because located next door in cabin 27, the Seabolts had a daughter who was friends with Sheila Sharp. Sheila's 12-year-old sister, Tina, joined her at the Seabolt's cabin next door,

but instead of sleeping over there too, Tina took the short walk back home right next door at about 9.30 p.m. So Sheila ends up staying at the Seabolt's and Tina's like, I'm gonna go back home. Yeah, back to her very busy house because sometime after Tina got home, between 9.30 and 10 p.m.,

her eldest brother John arrived back home too. And John came in with his friend Dana again. So again, very full house to say the least, especially with the other boys as well. Because while Sheila, like Heath is saying, remained next door that evening, inside the Sharp home that night was Sue, her kids her other four kids and two neighborhood boys One being Dana and the other being Justin Smart I don't want to confuse you guys because this is the Sharp family home

but we're also going to be talking about the Smarts today and both friends of the Sharp boys Justin Smart and Dana Wingate would ultimately spend the night that evening. Which would have a horrifically tragic end for one of them. And hopefully this is not too confusing because I'm throwing around a lot of names, a lot of kids. But to clarify, by night time on April 11th, 1981, there were seven people in cabin 28. Sue Sharp, Tina, Rick, John and Greg, and their friends Dana and Justin. But what exactly happened between the hours of 10pm on April 11th and the early morning hours of April 12th would lead to a decades

long mystery. But one thing was for sure, when Sheila arrived back home the next morning after her sleepover, life would never be the same again. Between 7 and 8am on Sunday, April 12th, Sheila left the Seabolt's house after her night away. As she walked home to Cabin 28, there was a chill in the air. The elevation in the Sierra Nevada Mountains is pretty high, so it was a little bit cold out, but luckily the walk home was basically right next door. Opening the door, Sheila came upon a scene from a horror movie.

Furniture and objects were all over the place and there was blood everywhere. Terrified and absolutely shocked by the scene that she just stumbled upon, Sheila rushed back to the neighbor's house that she had just left to detail the bloodshed in her home. She was screaming in terror and the Seabolt called the police right away. In the living room at Cabin 28, the room was covered with blood from floor to ceiling and the bodies of three people were discovered. 36-year-old Sue Sharp, her 15-year-old son John, and his 17-year-old friend Dana Wingate. And it was immediately clear that they had been violently murdered.

The neighbor, who again was Jamie Seabolt, rushed to Cabin 28 to discover that the other three young boys, who had also been in the house that evening, were unharmed in the boys' bedroom, which was right next to the living room where the three lifeless bodies laid. In an attempt to get them out safely and without seeing the bodies in the living room, Jamie Seabolt pulled Greg and Rick Sharp along with Justin Smart from the boys' bedroom through a window. Now, trying to see if anybody else was still alive and needed to be rescued, Jamie admitted to entering the living room for a brief moment,

which was later recognized as a possible contamination of evidence. As for the murder scene, the sheer amount of blood was almost unbelievable. The blood spatter evidence made it clear that all three victims were killed in that living room where they were discovered. So 36-year-old Sue Sharp was found on her side near the living room sofa, partially covered with a blanket but nude from the waist down, which kind of tells us that someone had covered up her body and maybe for a reason.

And we have talked about this in other cases that a lot of times when this happens, that means the person who killed them knew them. They're almost trying to spare them from like humiliation or something like that. Yeah. So that's a really interesting thing to note here. Now she had been bound with electrical tape at her wrists and her ankles and she was gagged with her own underwear. Though it was not positively determined that she had been sexually assaulted. We actually don't know this for sure.

Obviously, like I said, she was not wearing any pants. Her underwear are in her mouth. Maybe that was just a really crude, horrific thing for them to do and they did not assault her. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of hard to believe though that she would like not be wearing her underwear around her son and her son's friends. So just the fact that the killer did take off her underwear, that at least shows to

me that there was this potential for sexual assault. Well, yeah, it definitely seems like they took off her underwear at the very least. We just don't know if they did anything further because as we're going to say a lot in this case, this investigation was botched. Now regarding the wounds to her body, Sue had stab wounds to her chest and her throat was cut so deeply in addition to blunt force trauma to her head, which was later determined to be the result of many blows with a claw hammer.

So all of their deaths were very vicious, but hers, I mean, there was multiple things done to her body. Her throat was sliced, she had stab wounds in her chest, and she was beaten in her head. There were also signs of defensive wounds on her body that did make it clear that she tried to fight back in the struggle. Now her 15-year-old son old son John was found near her body actually with similar injuries because like his mother, John had also been struck in the head with a hammer and suffered from

significant knife wounds to his throat. His friend Dana, who was also brutally murdered in the living room of the cabin, had been bludgeoned with a blunt force object too, and he had been strangled. Now at the scene, there were reports of pellets from a BB gun present, belonging to a Daisy 880 pellet gun, which was actually never found. And I also read that there were parts of the barrel of that pellet gun that were on the floor as well. Really strange. Yeah, which is just really strange, yeah.

Well, also in the house, they found knives and a hammer, though none were concretely believed to be the murder weapons. They were all reportedly clean. We're gonna talk a little bit more about weapons later. So that's kind of a mystery at first glance. There's a hammer in the house, but most people have a hammer in their house. Most people have knives in their house. Very true. So they're kind of trying to figure out,

were these used during the murders or are these just objects that are also already here? But yeah, it was clear that these murders were horrific. they were so brutal, and they took the lives of three innocent people in a completely unimaginable way. And somehow, no one had witnessed the attack, so it is merely speculated that sometime between 10pm and 2am, one or more unidentified individuals found their way into Cabin 28, where they acted out this heinous triple homicide. Because shockingly, there was no sign of forced entry, no broken locks, no shattered glass. So whoever entered Cabin 28 that night either walked through an unlocked door or was invited in by someone inside. unlocked door or was invited in by someone inside. The main entrance of the home opened up into the living room and past the living room there

was a kitchen that led to a screened front porch. And again we will post the floor plan on our socials for anybody who wants to see. Oh and you might have clocked that we're missing somebody. And you would be correct because Sue, John, and Dana were found dead in the living room, and Rick, Greg, and Justin had been safely removed from the home through the window like Heath told us. But what about 12-year-old Tina Sharp? Remember, she had safely arrived home the night before from the neighbor's house. But when police arrived, Tina was nowhere to be found. Now, on that spring, 1980 evening, a brutal murder had taken place, but there were immediate

issues with the way the crime scene was handled. In a rush of the commotion, several neighbors and locals had arrived at cabin 28, and police failed to close off the scene early on, meaning there was much more contamination happening, allowing for a ton of evidence to be tampered with. Now as we've seen many times in cases from this era, essentially no objects like cigarettes or beverage containers were kept for testing. Though while DNA testing didn't exist as it does today, preserving those kinds of items would have potentially been huge for this case. While the small sheriff's department did not have the resources to properly

manage a crime scene of this caliber, it's clear that a lot of pieces of this puzzle were severely mishandled. Though we do know that DNA was found on the electrical tape that the victims were bound with. Now, in a tiny, quiet neighborhood like Keddie, it seems impossible that nobody heard a thing. The Sharps' home at Cab cabin 28 was located only a few yards from the Siebel's home at cabin 27, so it's kind of wild that they didn't hear three people being killed with a blunt weapon. And that the three boys in the bedroom that shared a wall with the living room where the murders took place

apparently didn't really wake up either because allegedly they didn't. One account we will get into, but overall it appears that they really didn't really wake up. But aside from that, there was actually one report that came in. It did surface when a nearby neighbor apparently heard a scream sometime around 1.30am, and the sound was alarming enough to prompt them to get up and try and see where the noise came from. But unfortunately, they didn't hear anything afterwards, and they just went back to sleep.

Another neighbor reported to police that they saw a green van or wagon parked outside of Cabin 28 at around 9pm and that they didn't know whose it was, so it just kind of stood out to them. Then multiple witnesses described seeing a small brown car, potentially a Datsun or Vega, parked near Cabin 28 around the same time, between 9pm and 11.30pm, and that it had a flat tire. And really quick, I feel like this is a good time to go back to the porch light thing that Heath touched on earlier.

So one account claims that the porch light was not on that night, though like he'd said it was apparently mandatory that it remained on. And then another report claims that a witness saw the light on at around 4 a.m. And another source says that police found the porch light unscrewed. So lots of kind of conflicting reports here and not sure which of these is actually true. But it does not seem like the light was on when the murders took place, meaning it would have been extremely dark outside when they occurred. But it's also possible that the killers even unscrewed it or switched it off themselves to avoid, you know, bringing attention to the cabin. Well, when we talk about these suspects in this case today, you know, they would possibly be aware that that light was there and that they needed it

to be completely dark so that they could get away with these crimes. Exactly, and like you're saying, we will definitely get into all of that in a little while. But first, with three dead and one missing, a manhunt for Tina Sharp unfolded. Though again, their resources were extremely limited and the police had a lot of work on their plate. Actually, one of the men at the helm of the case was Sheriff Doug Thomas, who as we said, lived in in cabin 28 before the sharps moved in.

So that's kind of interesting. Now, some wondered if maybe Tina had like evaded the attacker or attackers before fleeing the scene and possibly was hiding out in the woods nearby until it felt like the coast was clear and that she would soon return. But the hope of that being true was really dwindling, you know, the hope that there was a living witness because local volunteers and officers searched the neighborhood and the surrounding woods in hopes of finding this missing 12 year old girl.

But there was no trace of her ground water and aerial searches were conducted in the immediate area, but the searches came up with nothing, and as we'll mention later on as well, it doesn't seem like these searches were very thorough anyway. At this point, Tina's whereabouts were simply untraceable, which made them wonder if the killers had abducted her. Now back in Cabin 28, there were reports of blood found on Tina's bed, as well as even a little in the boys' room, despite them being left unharmed, meaning the killer or killers likely walked into both rooms, but for whatever reason didn't harm the boys.

Investigators considered that the motive behind the murders and presumed kidnapping of Tina may have been sexually motivated. But again, there was no proof that Sue had been assaulted and that Tina had even been abducted. She was just gone. So the mystery surrounding what happened to Tina haunted many for three whole years, when finally a man collecting bottles discovered what appeared to be a skull in Butte County. About a two hours drive from Keddie, the area was full of untamed brush and woods, and there,

in the dirt, was a jawbone a Fragment of a skull and some other pieces of bones along with traces of fabric Which were assumed to be clothing or a blanket and then they also apparently found a pair of Levi's jeans with the back pocket cutouts Now of course the bones later underwent testing, and they were eventually confirmed to be those of Tina Sharp, found two hours away from where her home was, from where she went missing from. So obviously she was abducted.

Absolutely. But due to the condition of her remains, it was nearly impossible to determine her cause of death. You know, they really only had pieces of her skull. They didn't have any other bones, you know, for her body that would help determine cause of death. Of course, after three years, animals got to it. But also, it's possible that maybe parts of her body were distributed in different areas. Because of course, we don't know if her body was intact when it was put there or how she was killed. Now, something that is so eerie about her

discovery was a call that came in afterwards. So again, Tina's remains were found in early April of 1984, almost three years to the day of the murders. And on the three-year anniversary days later, this call came what he said. He said, Hello, I was watching the news and they were talking about the skull found at Feather Falls and I'm just wondering if they thought of the murder up in Keddie, up in Plumas County a couple years ago where a 12 year old girl was never found. I just thought maybe a 12 year old girl may be mistaken for a 14 year old boy. And he said that because officials had released the information stating that they believed the remains belonged to a 14 year old boy for whatever reason.

So he's kind of saying, oh, maybe it was actually a 12 year old girl and maybe it's the girl that went missing up in KETI, which is so crazy. Like this man doesn't inherently sound suspicious to me. Like he sounds very calm, very chill, but it's so strange, maybe coincidental, that he thought that two hours away from Keddie the remains of somebody found years later Who was believed to have been a 14 year old boy were instead those of Tina and he was right Yeah, like that's an incredibly Accurate guess what are the odds so it is?

Speculated that this guy could have been the killer or one of the killers because he was never identified he never came forward to say oh that, that was me. That was just a hunch. And police never found him. Kind of crazy. I mean, I'm willing to bet that that probably was one of the killers. One thing that stands out to me though, is that he said the murder up in KETI. He didn't say the murderers, which could have been an easy slip. But if you're the killer, like, you know what you did that is ingrained in your memory

So that's one thing that makes me question it But I don't know but also like why wouldn't you want to come forward and take credit like you just? Basically solved part of this you know three years long mystery Yeah, why would you not want to go to the news and be like hey? I'm the guy that called in about this well as we're gonna get into later I know we keep saying that but we are gonna talk about the fact that this call did not surface for a very long time So it's possible that by the time it did he was dead But we'll put a pin in that well during the investigation

Justin smart the friend who had been in cabin 28 during the murders Mart, the friend who had been in cabin 28 during the murders, underwent hypnosis and hopes that something would come up, even though the boys said that they were all asleep that night. Because Justin originally said that he thought he saw the murders in a dream that night, and that he didn't actually see them. But, under hypnosis, he claimed that he saw Sue in the house with two men that evening. Based off of Justin's hypnotized accounts, the sketch artists drew up images of two men, somewhere between their late 20s and early 30s, which we are gonna post on our socials, so go check those out. And here's the description from the Sacramento Bee. It says, quote,

Sheriff Doug Thomas described the two men his office wants to interview as white males who were wearing denim jackets and gold-framed sunglasses. One was 30 to 32, 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall of medium build with a black mustache and black, greasy hair combed back. His sunglasses were light enough to reveal his eyes. The other was described as 28 to 30 years old, between five feet 11 and six feet two inches tall of medium build, with dark blonde hair

slightly curled outward on the ends. His sunglasses obscured his eyes. So obviously this seems like it would be potentially helpful, but it turned out that the sketch artist who did the drawings was not properly trained in forensic sketchings, which seems maybe like it would give little merit to this interpretation. But it also, you know,

you have to kind of believe in hypnosis and believe that what Justin is seeing is something that he really saw. So this whole thing feels like we don't really know if we can trust it, but this made a lot of people wonder. This is a big murder case. It might be a small sheriff's department, but a lot of people are thinking, why are police not using better resources? Like, are they trying to cover something up? Because police corruption is a really big thought in this case as a whole. Well two major suspects close to home raised major suspicion during this spotty investigation. The first was a man named John Babade who went by Bo. Bo was a convicted felon who had been charged for burglary and drug related crimes and was even tied to the Chicago

Mafia at one point. I did read that he also had a couple different nicknames, so he also went by Booby Lake and also John DeSantis. Well and his real first name is Severin So this guy's like all over the place. Yeah. But he mostly went by Bo, and his last name was Babade. But yeah, he probably had a lot of different names because he committed a lot of different crimes. But when Bo met a man named Martin Smart, this Martin Smart that we're going to be talking about a lot throughout the rest of this episode,

they became super close. And 49-year-old Bo, he was 49 when the murders took place, began living with 32-year-old Martin in Martin's home. came super close and 49 year old Bo, he was 49 when the murders took place, began living with 32 year old Martin in Martin's home, where he resided, where they both resided at the time of the killings right there in Keddie. Now Martin Smart was a Vietnam veteran who is known to have PTSD and major anger issues

just like his friend Bo. Like I said, Martin lived in Keddie, actually in this very community, with his wife, Marilyn Smart and if that last name sounds familiar, it should, because Martin's stepson was Justin Smart, the friend who stayed over at the Sharps house the night of the murders and the one who escaped unscathed. The one who was hypnotized. To be specific, the Smarks lived in Cabin 26, so quite close to where the Sharps lived in Cabin 28.

It's not quite two doors down because of the layout of the cabins, but it's like right on the same road, just slightly around the corner and across the street a little bit, just the way that it's laid out. But kind of both of them are on the outs by the exit, still very close by. Now, before moving to Keddie, Martin had a dodgy past.

At one point, he got into an argument with his father and he allegedly bought materials to make a bomb to blow up his dad's house. So this guy has been a shit his entire life. Yeah. And when Martin moved to Keddie around 1980, so around the same time as the Sharps but before the Sharps, he was working as a cook in the town's local restaurant He only worked there for a little bit though because he quickly lost his job due to the fact that he did not even have Basic cooking skills, so he couldn't cook but they hired him to cook Yeah, and then he was cooking really shittily and they fired the guy

Yeah, so struggling to make ends meet at that point Martin just started selling drugs though He was selling drugs before he took the cooking job. He was just trying to sell more drugs and focusing on dealing instead of having a normal job. But other cracks in Martin's life would surface as well, as it was discovered that by the early 1980s, Martin and his wife Marilyn were having marital issues. Martin was abusive.

I mean, he once tried to run over Marilyn with his car and even threatened to cut her with a knife in a fit of rage. Like Martin was just this demanding and jealous husband, allegedly Marilyn discussed her marital issues with Sue Sharp, who apparently told her neighbor Marilyn that she should leave her husband. While this has not been officially confirmed, of course we can't ask Sue, it's believed that Martin learned that Sue suggested Marilyn get out of the marriage and that this made him furious.

Described as a player who likely cheated on his wife in the past, some even believe that then 32-year-old Martin Smart was romantically involved or interested in Sue Sharp. The night of the murders on April 11, 1981, at the local historical dive bar in Keddie called the Back Door Bar, two men showed up in outfits very unfitting to the area. They donned three-piece suits and sunglasses when they arrived at the establishment around 10pm that night. The men were at the local bar slash restaurant for a few hours when something kind of pissed them off The bar's co-owner had changed the music selection from country tunes to rock. God forbid

Yeah, God forbid and according to the bar staff the vibe change made them angry. So then they left and the men in the suits were allegedly identified as 49-year- old Bo Babade and 32 year old Martin Smart. Very interesting that they are wearing sunglasses at night when the composite sketch people, suspects, had sunglasses on as well. And I don't know what the deal is with the three-piece suits, but I guess whatever. Yeah, I mean it kind of makes you wonder if they were trying to like

establish an alibi in order to throw everybody off, like make a scene so they'd be noticed. I mean that's very very possible. Well, the two men reportedly arrived back to the bar much later that night, but it's what happened in between that remains a complete mystery or after the second visit. that remains a complete mystery, or after the second visit. And let's talk about those composites to kind of give you guys an idea of if these guys, Bo and Martin, looked like them. I don't think that they match other than the sunglasses thing. Martin was in the right age bracket, but Bo definitely wasn't. The only thing that I would say other than the sunglasses is that all the photos of Bo that I've seen, you know, on the internet, he was very much the kind of guy

to slick his black hair back. But he was nearly 20 years older than the composite suggested. Remember, it said 30 to 32 with a black mustache and black greasy hair combed back. But I also don't see any photos of Bo in his life with a mustache or even any facial hair. He was like a clean shaven kind of guy. And then Martin sometimes had ear length brown hair,

but he doesn't look like the other composite sketch either. Obviously, as well with Justin being the one put under hypnosis, he knows what his stepdad looks like so if the person looked like him I'm sure he would have mentioned that or said oh, yeah the other guy that was my dad Well one of the things that we didn't really talk about is how Justin was able to see these perpetrators because according to him After he had this this dream about these attacks after he had this this dream about these attacks he told the person who was giving him hypnosis that he was peering through the crack of the door so he had a very limited range of vision so it's not like he was right there in the room

and could be like hey stepdad you know like he's peeking through that little crack of the door where he can barely see what's going on. Well, that's why it's so hard to know if we can put any weight into the composites at all, because he had a very obstructed view. And then, of course, this is all being said under hypnosis when he had originally said that he didn't see anything and he just thought he dreamt it. So it's like, I don't know. I mean, bless Justin's heart, he's doing his best. This is a horrible situation, but I don't know if what he said is something we can really count on fully.

Well, I'm kind of wondering if maybe he was asleep, he was having a dream, because, by the way, he did mention that in his dream that the murders took place on a boat, but it was revealed that they had watched a TV show that, I can't remember, something about a boat or something. But then, you know, he wakes up, maybe he's just really groggy, kind of peers through the door, then he goes back to sleep, so maybe he thought he still was dreaming. And maybe he didn't realize that these men were murdering Sue, maybe they walked in, there was a conversation, but it's like, to them be like, oh, there's two men in the house talking to Sue. Okay, I'm gonna go back to bed

and sleep through three brutal murders, especially because there was blood found in the boys' rooms, which, or the boys' room, which would then tell us that the killer probably entered the room. It's definitely possible it was one of the victims who tried to escape into that room, but then there would be so much noise. Like, this case is really difficult. Yeah, I was kind of thinking victims who tried to escape into that room, but then there would be so much noise. Yeah. This case is really difficult.

Yeah, I was kind of thinking that maybe the killers, when they entered the house, because Sue and the two boys knew them, that maybe they were able to say, hey, like, don't say anything, don't scream, or whatever, we're gonna tie you up. And then, you know, by the time those neighbors heard that scream at 1 30 in the morning that was the only scream that occurred because it's impossible for me to believe that two teenage boys didn't have the mindset to run away from killers like run out the door or try to get away in any capacity yeah it seems like they probably were quickly overpowered and if this did happen late at night it's possible it happened while they

were asleep and they were quickly bound and their mouths were covered up and they couldn't scream and they couldn't talk so that is also such a difficult part of this case is there are many details that have not been released but there's also a lot that isn't known because the original investigation was totally fucked up yeah they, they really, really dropped the ball. Well, either way, we know that Martin and Beau were two, and are two, major suspects. So a lot of people started wondering if there was a messy love triangle going on that could give Martin's smart motive to want to kill Sue. Or again, like I had said, maybe he wanted to kill Sue

because she was trying to get Marilyn out of their marriage. But then just makes you wonder, why did he kill the kids too? Well, some believe that that was never part of the plan, but that Tina, John and Dana were simply in the way or they had seen too much. Yeah, like they were possible like collateral damage. Yeah, absolutely they were possible, like collateral damage. Yeah, absolutely. And that the reason the boys were left alone is because they didn't interfere. And then maybe Tina was abducted possibly so they could assault her or keep her for other reasons before killing her. Maybe she walked out of her room at the very end and they wanted to get out of there. So they just said, said shit she saw us

let's just take her and go you know it's anybody's guess. Of course Martin was investigated and it seems like everything surrounding Martin Smart in general was suspicious to investigators. While many suspects were considered during the early days of the investigation Martin Smart took a polygraph test even. They were trying to get answers out of this guy. And we do know that polygraph tests can be very finicky, but he actually did pass. So he was kind of off the hook after that,

especially since they didn't have any evidence pointing to him being responsible. But suspiciously, days after the murders, like days, Martin moved away to Reno, Nevada, and Marilyn moved away soon after as well, and filed for divorce. Martin eventually ended up in Oregon where he died at the age of 50 in the year 2000.

But Bo also left town at the same time. Remember remember he was living with Martin, so to be fair, maybe he had nowhere to live, but he moved back to Chicago and he died only seven and a half years after the murders at the age of 57 in November of 1988. And even though they were never officially tied to the case, many believe that Martin Smart and Bo Babade are the men to blame for the murders of Sue, John, Dana, and Tina. Well, after the murders, even more reason to get into why we think they're involved. Martin Smart was receiving counseling at the Veterans Administration in Reno, Nevada, and according to the anonymous counselor, Martin even confessed to the murders, saying that

Sue had encouraged his wife Marilyn to leave him. This alleged confession came mere weeks after the crimes had been committed. The therapist also said that Martin said he only killed Tina because she could identify him, even though he only went there to kill Sue, meaning, like Heath just hinted at, that everybody else was collateral damage. He allegedly even said, quote, I killed the woman and her daughter, but I didn't have anything to do with the boys. He even said, quote, I killed the woman and her daughter, but I didn't have anything to do with the boys. So maybe that's him saying, but not saying that Bo killed the boys.

Yeah, it's possible that Bo was the one that was responsible for the boys' murders and he was responsible for Sue and Tina. Well, the therapist said that Martin claimed to have beaten the polygraph test easily, lying his way through it, and even added that he was friends with the Plumas County Sheriff. None other than Sheriff Doug Thomas, who we will recall is the same sheriff who had lived in Cabin 28 right before Sue Sharp and her kids took over the lease, and the man who was investigating the murders, they are friends.

Yeah, so there's a bit of a conflict of interest going on there. Well, actually, I even read that during Martin Short time living in cabin 26 before the Sharps moved in to cabin 28, that Doug Thomas, Sheriff Doug Thomas, would let Martin stay in his cabin number 28 when he and Marilyn were fighting. So that would mean that Martin was also very familiar with cabin 28 in general. But I also want to get into that night a little bit more and talk about Marilyn's side of things.

I'm sure you guys are wondering if Marilyn was questioned and what happened with Bose questioning. So regarding first their stint at that bar, Marilyn was apparently there the first time they went in, but she says that she dropped them off the second time at around 11 p.m. and then went home to go to bed for the night. And this contradicts the timeline that we stated earlier,

that they were originally at the bar at 10 and then went back a second time many hours later. But honestly, the three of their statements really don't match up for that night because Marilyn also told police that Martin and Bo, before going to the bar for the first time, stopped by Cabin 28 to ask Sue if she wanted to join them at the bar and she said no. So that means they were aware of Sue, they knew she was home that night and they wanted her to come out with them and Martin's wife. Yeah.

Like perhaps a double date. And she was like, no, I've got kids at the house that I got to take care of. So that's really suspicious and on top top of this, at around 2 a.m., Marilyn says she woke up and witnessed Martin and Bo burning something unknown in their outdoor wood stove. Bo told police that Marilyn was awake when they got back, not mentioning burning anything in a stove. But Martin said that she was asleep.

So there's more things that don't match up. Marilyn also, this is crazy, gave a bloody jacket that is said to have belonged to Tina Sharp to the police. But this bloody jacket was never entered into evidence. Can you believe that? Well, yeah, I absolutely can because again, they botched the entire investigation. You're right. I can believe it too. And weirdly, Marilyn even told police

that her husband Martin, quote, hated John Sharp with a passion. And remember, John Sharp is the 15-year-old son of Sue, who was also murdered. Like you hate a 15 year old kid with a passion? Weird. And then he's one of the ones that is murdered that night? I don't know, that's just a really interesting detail to me.

Pretty strange. I mean, obviously he knew who John was because his son or his stepson was hanging out with John a lot. Well, at the very least, hanging around John. Yeah, because Justin was more so John's brother's friend, Rick's friend. But yeah, of course, he was always, he was around the house, he slept over then, I for God's sakes, like they were around each other and Martin knew John. Yeah, I'm sure that all the kids around just hung out with each other.

But also going back to the back door bar, Martin told police that while he was at the bar one of the times, he watched a suspicious looking man walk in, describing him as quote out of place and detailing that he was a white male, early 20s, 5'7 to 5'8, with long hair tied in a ponytail and a dark mustache and a buck knife on his belt. I don't think it can trust anything Martin says, but it also automatically makes you wonder if he's trying to, as we always say, divert attention in the other direction.

But you know, it's just so funny that he mentions the buck knife, and we know that they were stabbed. Yup, very true. Well, unfortunately, since there was no solid proof that Martin or Bo or anybody else for that matter were the perpetrators, the case grew cold and no arrests were ever made. But years later, when fresh eyes came to the case, a little glimmer of hope was restored. A new Plumas County Sheriff named Greg Hagwood had reason to reopen the investigation.

Obviously it was a major unsolved case for him, but also it hit very close to home. It was very personal to him because when the murders happened, Sheriff Hagwood was living in the area. He even attended Quincy High School. And back in 1981, he was only 16 years old and knew both 15 year old John and 17 year old Dana and even worked with them the summer before they were killed. So he basically had to start the investigation from the ground up and enlisted the help of a retired investigator, Mike Gamberg.

Detective Mike Gamberg was equally desperate to help solve the case because he had actually also known Dana Wingate prior to his death. So together, Sheriff Hagwood and Detective Gamberg were able to unearth numerous clues. I mean, more than just clues, they brought previously ignored information to the light and even discovered new evidence. Like after digging for just over one week, deep inside of a police storage unit, Detective Gamberg found that old audio recording of the phone tip regarding Tina Sharpe's remains. Even though this tip had been in police's possession the whole time, it had never been officially documented and like I

said earlier, they never looked into this phone call or tracked down the caller. So that's why I was saying earlier, maybe you know this is happening in 2016, maybe the guy who called was dead by this point or he really was the killer. I really wish we knew if his, you know, tone of voice was similar to that of Bo or Martin, but we don't have that information. But also in 2016, a pond just down the path from the crime scene held a concerning piece of evidence. A claw hammer discovered 34 years after the crime still laying there and this is what I meant earlier when I said that they didn't really look in the woods because

if this claw hammer had been there the whole time they didn't find it back then. But this thing was so corroded and rusted, I mean, it was clear it had been there a long time. And it matched the description of a hammer that Martin Smart himself had apparently lost many years earlier, which is also really suspicious. And it gets even more so because after the 2016 news of the mysterious hammer being found

hit the media, a man came forward about finding a knife and this knife was allegedly found amongst a mess of ash also near the Keddie cabin. So it makes you wonder if what Marilyn had said about Bo and Martin burning something outside, if the knife used in the murders was one of them and then it was just left in the area. So all of this stuff, the knife, the hammer, and the audio tape, were submitted to the FBI to undergo forensic analysis. Well and perhaps the most shocking piece of potential evidence, while digging through

a police storage box, Sheriff Hagwood and Detective Gamberg found a letter that had been turned into police years prior. And this letter was damning, making it impossible to understand why police, you know, from the original investigation, were seemingly hiding it, just like the audio tape. Unless it was just severe negligence. Now, the letter was handwritten by Martin Smart, and it was written shortly after the murders, reportedly given to the police by Marilyn Smart. Since Martin and Marilyn's marriage was crumbling, he clearly wrote the letter to her as an aggressive

attempt to get her back. And here's what the end of the note said, quote, I've paid the price of your love and now that I've bought it with four people's lives, you tell me that we're through? Great! What else do you want? First of all, why would you put that in a letter? Second of all, why would he write that if that's not what happened? Yeah, I mean, it feels pretty clear to me that just was with everything that we've compiled thus far You know that's fucking Martin. It's Martin. It's gotta be it's fucking Martin Well by the time Hagwood and Gamberg found this letter

Martin had been dead for 16 years, so they obviously couldn't question him Instead they got in touch with Marilyn who claimed that she didn't remember that note at all, but she confirmed that the handwriting did look like Martin's. So this long trail of discoveries made it seem like there probably was some sort of cover-up during the initial investigation, although it's not clear why. Again, either that, or they didn't know how to handle a murder investigation, which would also make sense since this is a very small area, their resources were limited. And as we know, something I wonder as well is if signs were pointing to Martin but not

enough and since the sheriff was friends with him, he kind of just said, well, let's just kind of let this go. Well, yeah, I mean, after, after he passed the polygraph test, basically that was good enough for the sheriff and he decided that he didn't need to question Martin anymore after that. Yeah, so even if it wasn't like the police were directly involved,

a lot of people just think that they knew who was involved and they didn't do shit about it. Well, while it has not yet been made public what was found regarding DNA on the two possible weapons, Sheriff Hagwood and Detective Gamberg are not giving up. It has long been believed that there was more than one attacker in cabin 28 that night, but both Detective Mike Gamberg

and Plumas County Sheriff Greg Hagwood quote, "'Believe that possibly as many as six people were involved in one capacity or another in the murders or the cover-up. Even though over four decades have now passed, Detective Gamberg believes that two of those individuals are still alive and are catchable, which means that he's got names we don't have. Detective Gamberg said, quote, Most of the suspects wore gloves.

Identifiable footprints were not recovered inside. Apparently the suspects bludgeoned and stabbed their victims to death and none of the suspects were injured or left their own blood at the scene. Which I think makes it feel even more true that there were multiple perps to kind of hold all these people down and threaten all these people. Sure. Well, the fight continues on in the name of justice for Sue Sharp, her daughter Tina Sharp, her son John Sharp, and his friend Dana Wingate.

As for the remaining Sharp children, you know after these murders, of course, their mother was now gone and since their estranged father was out of the picture, the three surviving Sharp kids faced a difficult reality. When the tragedy happened, again Sheila was 14, Rick was 10, and Greg was only 5. In an interview with People Magazine, Sheila later said quote, I didn't have the big brother to look up to and I lost my only sister and we were close. I struggle with that and I go through my moments of, I start crying for no reason, but then it's also I think made me stronger because I've had to look out for my two younger brothers.

They're the ones that have kept me going. It's been nearly 45 years and there is still a ton of speculation regarding who committed the gruesome quadruple homicide in Keddie, California. The case remains unsolved to this day and there is still hope that someday the innocent victims will finally get justice. Once a busy mountain retreat, the Keddie Resort now sits in an eerie desolate silence. While the town of Keddie is still home to some, for years after the fact, Cabin 28 stood as a monument

to one of California's most haunting unsolved crimes. Actually, in an attempt to move past its grisly past, the resort owners demolished Cabin 28 in 2004, along with some other nearby cabins. Even though a ton of critical evidence from the crime scene was not preserved, with DNA technology constantly advancing, hope is still out there. And we, by the way, really commend the hard work being done by both Detective Mike Gamberg and Sheriff Greg Hagwood.

They care so much about this case and they're doing so much more really honestly than anybody ever has in this case. In an article in 2021, Detective Gamberg said, quote, I believe in one way, shape or form, we are going to pull this together. So if you have any information regarding the Keddie Cabin murders, please contact the Plumas County Sheriff's Office at 530-283-6360. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. As Daphne mentioned earlier, we're going to post all the pictures and a map on our socials.

So go check those out. You mentioned it too, champ. Oh, I guess I did. Well go check them out. We're on Instagram at Going West podcast and we're also on Facebook. I'm so glad that we covered this case. I know that it's very, very well known. It's very infamous, but diving into the details was so interesting. Truly. And I know it was kind of all over the place. We were trying to figure out how to structure this. It's, it can be so difficult, honestly,

with unsolved cases, especially when it's like so much he said she said, which we had a lot of in this story. So hopefully that all made sense. Thank you guys so much for tuning in and we will see you guys on Tuesday. All right, guys. So for everybody out there in the world, don't be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a So I'm just a little bit of a wimp. I'm just a little bit of a wimp. I'm just a little bit of a wimp. I'm just a little bit of a wimp. I'm just a little bit of a wimp.

I'm just a little bit of a wimp. I'm just a little bit of a wimp. I'm just a little bit of a wimp. I'm just a little bit of a wimp. I'm just a little bit of a wimp. I'm just a little bit of a wimp. I'm just a little bit of a wimp. I'm just a little bit of a wimp. I'm just a little bit of a wimp. Thanks for watching!