Keddie Cabin Murders | USA
In the early hours of April 12, 1981, fourteen-year-old Sheila Sharp returned to her family’s cabin after a sleepover with a friend. She expected to find her mother and siblings starting their Sunday morning. Instead, she walked into a bloodbath.
Inside Cabin 28 of the Keddie Resort, nestled in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, Sheila found the bodies of her mother, her brother, and his friend – brutally murdered, bound, and mutilated. And to add to the horror: her little sister was nowhere to be found.
What began as an ordinary weekend in a quiet mountain town became the start of one of the most disturbing and mysterious unsolved crimes in California’s history.
This is the story of the Keddie Cabin Murders.
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Glenna Susan Sharp, known to everyone as Sue, was born on March 29, 1945, in Springfield, Massachusetts. She married James Sharp in 1965, and together they had five children: Johnny, Sheila, Tina, Rick, and Greg.
The marriage was troubled from the start. James Sharp, a Vietnam War veteran, struggled with alcoholism and, according to family accounts, became increasingly abusive. In July 1979, Sue made the difficult but necessary decision to leave her husband and start fresh. She packed up her five children and moved across the country to northern California, to be closer to her brother, Don.
Initially, the family rented a small trailer in Quincy, Plumas County. The Sharp children attended school in Quincy, where teachers reportedly felt there wasn’t much support at home – likely due to Sue’s demanding schedule balancing a part-time job and attending typing classes at Feather River College through the California Education Training Act.
By November 1980, however, Sue had found a more permanent housing solution. The family moved to Cabin 28 in Keddie, a former logging town that had been transformed into a resort community in the 1960s. But by 1980, Keddie had seen better days. The collection of aging cabins surrounding a central lodge had become home to many low-income families seeking affordable housing in the mountains.
Cabin 28 was a modest three-bedroom wooden structure that had previously been occupied by a sheriff’s deputy. Despite the somewhat rundown conditions, Sue worked hard to create a stable home for her children. The family relied on financial assistance, including a $250 monthly stipend from the Navy, food stamps, and the income from Sue’s part-time job at the Quincy Elks Lodge.
Johnny, the oldest at fifteen, was described by those who knew him as a friendly, outgoing teenager who made friends easily. As the eldest son he saw himself as the protector of the family, and although he was small in stature, he could be scrappy. Sheila, fourteen, was quieter but well-liked by her classmates. Twelve-year-old Tina was known for her vibrant personality and her obvious beauty, with crystal-blue eyes and blondish hair. Although she struggled academically, her teachers saw her as the sweetest kid. The two youngest boys, Rick and Greg, were ten and five years old respectively, adding energy to the bustling household. By most accounts, they were all settling in well.
Despite Sue’s efforts to care for her children, some neighbors were judgmental. They gossiped that she wasn’t the most attentive mother and noted that male visitors were frequently seen coming and going from Cabin 28 - fueling community speculation, though unsubstantiated, that she might have been involved in sex work. These assumptions were never verified and likely reflected societal bias more than truth.
A small household with five children meant there was constant activity in the house. The Sharps had become friendly with the Smartt family who lived around the corner. In the communal spirit of the mountain resort town of Keddie, sleepovers were a regular occurrence - Sheila and Tina often stayed at their friend Paula Seabolt – who lived in a neighbouring cabin – while Johnny had grown close to seventeen-year-old Dana Wingate, a local teenager who frequently spent the night at Cabin 28.
On April 11, 1981, the Sharps had only been in Keddie for five months. They would never have guessed that that Saturday night would become their final night together. Earlier that day, around 11:30 AM, Sue, Sheila, and Greg had driven to pick up Rick from baseball tryouts in Quincy. On their way, they saw Johnny and his friend Dana hitchhiking and gave them a ride back to Keddie. Around 3:30 PM, Johnny and Dana hitchhiked back to Quincy, possibly to visit friends in the downtown area. They returned to Cabin 28 later that evening, arriving sometime after 9:00 PM.
The family's evening plans were simple. Rick and Greg's friend Justin Smartt was staying over, while Sheila planned a sleepover at the Seabolt family's cabin next door. Tina initially joined them to watch television but returned home around 9:30 PM, leaving Sheila at the Seabolts'. By then, Sue, Johnny, Dana, Tina, Greg, and Justin were all gathered in Cabin 28.
What happened next has been the subject of investigation and speculation for over forty years. Based on the evidence recovered from the crime scene and witness statements gathered over the years, investigators believe that sometime after 9:00 PM on April 11, at least two assailants entered Cabin 28. The lack of forced entry suggests that either the victims knew their attackers or that they somehow convinced someone to let them in.
What followed was a prolonged and horrifically violent attack. Sue, Johnny, and Dana were bound with electrical wire and medical tape before being subjected to a brutal assault involving multiple weapons. Two bloodied knives and a hammer were found at the crime scene. One of the knives – a steak knife – was bent at approximately thirty degrees, indicating the extreme force used.
The level of violence was extraordinary. Sue Sharp was found nude from the waist down, gagged with a blue bandana and her own underwear secured with tape. She had been stabbed in the chest – multiple times – her throat was slashed horizontally through her larynx, and there was an imprint on the side of her head matching the butt of a Daisy 880 Powerline BB/pellet rifle.
Johnny Sharp's throat was slashed, and he had suffered severe blunt-force trauma to his head from what appeared to be hammer blows. Dana Wingate had multiple head injuries and had been manually strangled to death, in addition to suffering blunt-force trauma similar to Johnny's injuries.
Autopsies later determined that Sue and Johnny died from their knife wounds and blunt-force trauma, while Dana died from asphyxiation due to strangulation.
During this horrific attack, twelve-year-old Tina was taken from the cabin. Whether she was removed before, during, or after the murders of the others remains unclear to this day. Miraculously, the youngest Sharps, Greg and Rick, and twelve-year-old Justin Smartt, who were sleeping in an adjacent bedroom, were left unharmed.
The perpetrators also took steps to prevent immediate discovery of their crimes. The cabin's telephone had been taken off the hook and the cord cut from the outlet. The curtains were drawn, and several of Tina's belongings – including her jacket, shoes, and a toolbox Johnny had made at school – were missing from the house.
It was about 7:00 AM the following morning when Sheila Sharp returned home from her sleepover at the Seabolts' cabin. What she discovered when she entered through the front door of Cabin 28 would traumatize her for life. The living room was a scene of unimaginable carnage. Blood spatter covered the walls and floor, furniture was overturned, and personal belongings were scattered throughout the room. She could see three bodies in the living room, but they were so badly injured and bloodied that she couldn't tell who they were.
Sheila rushed back to the Seabolts' house in a state of shock. They went back with Sheila to check if the young boys were still alive. To their relief, the boys were still in their room, unharmed, and they helped them through the bedroom window, as they did not want them to see the horrific scene.
The Plumas County Sheriff's Office was notified, and investigators arrived at the scene around 10:00 AM. The investigation that followed, led by Sheriff Doug Thomas, was problematic from the beginning. The small local Sheriff’s Office was not used to dealing with crimes of this magnitude, and they failed to secure the crime scene properly. In the chaos following the discovery, countless people were inside the cabin: neighbors, first responders, curious onlookers… This contamination of the scene would later complicate forensic analysis significantly.
Despite these challenges, investigators worked to collect as much physical evidence as possible. They recovered the weapons found at the scene, collected numerous fingerprints and hair samples, and documented the crime scene through photographs and measurements. However, the forensic technology available in 1981 was way more limited compared to today's. DNA analysis was not a thing yet, and many of the samples collected were not of much use.
One crucial piece of evidence was the missing hammer that their neighbour, Martin Smartt, claimed had inexplicably disappeared from his home around the time of the murders. When his wife Marilyn asked him about it, Marty allegedly told her he had "lost it" while using it for work.
Police interviewed the three young boys at the scene. Greg and Rick were in shock and could not recall anything about the attack. Their friend Justin, however, knew that Tina was missing and urged officers to find her. He also had blood on his tennis shoes, suggesting he had walked into the room where the blood shed had taken place. However, at the time he claimed that he could not remember anything and that he was asleep all night.
Following the murders, Sheila, Rick, and Greg Sharp were placed in foster care, adding another layer of trauma to their already devastating loss.
Meanwhile, the disappearance of twelve-year-old Tina Sharp complicated the investigation further. Despite extensive searches of the surrounding area using police canines and covering a five-mile radius around the cabin, no trace of the missing girl was found.
The FBI initially became involved in Tina's case, treating it as a possible abduction. However, by April 29, 1981, it was reported that the FBI had "backed off" the search, stating that the Department of Justice was doing an "adequate job" and that the FBI's presence was no longer necessary.
The community remained haunted by Tina's disappearance. Months turned into years with no sign of the young girl and hope of finding her alive gradually faded.
Then, three years after the murders, skeletal remains were discovered near Feather Falls in neighboring Butte County, approximately 60 miles from Keddie. Near the remains, detectives also discovered the cranium portion of a skull and part of a mandible. Also found were a blue nylon jacket, a blanket, a pair of Levi Strauss jeans with a missing back pocket, and an empty surgical tape dispenser. Dental records confirmed what investigators had feared: the remains indeed belonged to Tina Sharp.
The discovery raised new questions. The remote location, so far from Keddie, suggested that whoever had taken Tina was familiar with the area. However, the isolated site meant that little additional evidence could be recovered.
Curiously, shortly after the discovery was announced but before the remains were officially identified, the Butte County Sheriff's Office received an anonymous call claiming the remains belonged to Tina. This call was never documented in the case files, and the recording was only discovered years later by a deputy working the case after 2013, when the cassette tape was found in a sealed envelope at the bottom of an evidence box.
The anonymous caller's knowledge raised disturbing questions. How could this person have known the remains were Tina before official identification? Cold case investigators believed strongly that the caller was either the killer or an accomplice. Due to the advanced decomposition, investigators were unable to determine a cause of death, leaving haunting questions about Tina's final hours and what she may have endured after being taken from the cabin.
Throughout the investigation, several individuals emerged as persons of interest, but two names consistently surfaced: Martin ‘Marty’ Smartt and his friend John "Bo" Boubede.
Marty Smartt was Sue Sharp's neighbour, living in nearby Cabin 26 with his wife Marilyn. A war veteran, Marty had a history of volatile behavior and had reportedly been arguing with Sue in the days leading up to the murders. His missing hammer, which matched the description of one of the murder weapons, made him a prime suspect.
Speculation arose that Marty and Sue were having an affair. Other rumours emerged that Marty was abusive to his wife, and Sue (who had left an abusive husband) was counselling her, which aggravated Marty. Some locals also believed that Sue was dealing drugs and that the murders were a result of a deal-gone-wrong.
The other suspect, Bo Boubede, was a friend of Smartt's who had been staying with the couple as a houseguest. He had a criminal record and had only recently arrived in Keddie. Boubede was an ex-convict with ties to organized crime, and some sources suggest he met Marty Smartt when both were receiving treatment at a hospital, where Smartt was being treated for PTSD from his Vietnam service. Some investigators found it suspicious that an ex-convict had appeared in town just before such a violent crime occurred.
Both men claimed to have been at home in Cabin 26 on the night of the killings, with Marilyn Smartt initially corroborating this alibi. However, years later, her story would change dramatically, stating that they had gone to the resort’s bar that night and that they wanted Sue to go with them, as Bo needed a woman. However, when Marilyn asked Sue if she wanted to go with the men, she refused.
If Smartt was involved, could this be why the boys were not attacked – as his son, Justin was in the room with them? Justin provided conflicting accounts of the events. Initially, he claimed to have slept through the entire incident. Later, he said he had dreamed details of the murders. Eventually, under hypnosis, he claimed to have actually witnessed the attacks.
In his later account, Justin described awakening to sounds from the living room. He claimed to have seen Sue with two men: one with a moustache and short hair, the other clean-shaven with long hair. Both wore glasses and gold-framed sunglasses. According to Justin, Johnny and Dana then entered the home and began arguing with the men, leading to a fight. He claimed that Tina entered the room during the altercation and was taken out the back door by one of the men.
Based on Justin's descriptions, composite sketches were created, though these were drawn by an amateur volunteer rather than a professional forensic artist – a decision that has been heavily criticized in retrospect.
In 2008, Marilyn Smartt made a stunning admission in a documentary about the murders. She claimed that shortly after the killings, her husband had confessed to killing Sue Sharp, telling her he had killed Sue because she was interfering with their marriage. However, he denied killing the others.
Marilyn also reported that around 2:00 AM on April 12, she had awakened to find Smartt and Boubede burning an unknown item in their wood stove. She alleged that her husband "hated Johnny Sharp with a passion."
In the days following the murders, Smartt left Keddie and went to Reno, Nevada. While he was there, he sent a letter to his wife, with one chilling statement:
"I've paid the price of your love & now that I've bought it with four people's lives, you tell me we are through? Great! What else do you want?"
This seemed to be a clear admission of guilt, but questions remained about why this crucial piece of evidence had not been discovered during the original investigation
As years passed without resolution, the Keddie murders became one of California's most notorious cold cases. The investigation had been hampered by the initial mishandling of the crime scene, limited forensic technology, and the deaths of key suspects before charges could be filed.
In 2004, Cabin 28 and nearly all the other cabins in Keddie were demolished, destroying the physical crime scene and seemingly sealing the fate of the case. The town itself began to fade away, with tourism – already declining – coming to a virtual standstill after the murders.
In 2013, more than three decades after the murders, Plumas County Sheriff Greg Hagwood and Special Investigator Mike Gamberg made the decision to reopen the case. Hagwood, who was sixteen at the time of the murders and knew the Sharp family personally, was determined to apply modern forensic techniques to the old evidence.
The team began by re-examining the physical evidence that had been preserved from the original investigation. They were able to extract DNA profiles from various pieces of evidence, including the hammer that had been recovered from a pond near the cabins in 1981.
Further analysis of crime scene photos using modern technology revealed additional evidence that had been overlooked. A bent kitchen knife found at the scene appeared to match a set of knives from Cabin 26, where Smartt and Boubede had been staying.
Investigators also discovered that a therapist Smartt had been seeing in Reno had kept detailed notes from their sessions. In these notes, the therapist recorded Smartt saying he had "hurt some people in Keddie" and that he had disposed of a hammer in a pond. The therapist also alleged that Smartt had confessed during a session to killing Sue and Tina Sharp. Smartt reportedly insisted that he “didn’t have anything to do with the boys,” but claimed Tina had to be killed because she had “witnessed the whole thing.”
Despite these revelations, Marty Smartt lived a long life of freedom, and only died of cancer in Portland, Oregon, in 2000. Bo Boubede too, died a free man in Chicago in 1988, making prosecution impossible.
In April 2018, Special Investigator Gamberg announced that DNA evidence recovered from tape at the crime scene had been matched to a known living suspect, though the identity of this individual was not disclosed publicly.
Despite these significant developments, as of 2025, no one has been officially charged with the Keddie murders. The case remains officially unsolved, although investigators have stated publicly that they believe they know who was responsible.
Questions remain about whether the initial investigation's failures were due to simple incompetence or something more deliberate. The fact that Sheriff Doug Thomas lived in the Keddie area and that crucial evidence like Smartt's confession letter was overlooked for decades has led some to speculate about a potential cover-up, though no concrete evidence supports this theory.
The Keddie murders had a profound and lasting impact on both the survivors and the community. Sheila Sharp, who discovered the bodies, has spent decades advocating for justice for her family while struggling with the trauma of that terrible morning. The surviving Sharp children – Sheila, Rick, and Greg – have all spoken publicly about their struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and the challenges of moving forward after such devastating loss.
The Keddie Cabin Murders remain one of California's most notorious unsolved cases, a mystery that has captivated true crime enthusiasts and investigators for over forty years. While recent developments have shed new light on the crimes and pointed strongly toward the involvement of Marty Smartt and possibly Bo Boubede, many questions remain unanswered.
We may never know the complete truth of what happened in Cabin 28 on that April night in 1981. The exact sequence of events, the potential involvement of others, and the full motive behind the violence may always remain matter of speculation.
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