Keddie Cabin Murders Part 1
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To enjoy this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, check us out on Patreon. Patreon.com slash Forensic Tales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. One night in April 1981, a grisly quadruple murder took place in the small northern California town of Keddie. To this very day, the case remains unsolved.

But that doesn't mean there isn't any forensic evidence or viable suspects. This is Forensic Tales, episode number 257. The Keddie Cabin Murders, part one. ♪

40 years. Four decades. That's how long this case has been left unsolved.

Are there viable suspects? There's at least two of them. Is there forensic evidence? Another yes. Some of it is even newly discovered. Then you might be asking the same question that I've asked myself since I've heard about this case. Why hasn't it been solved yet?

It started in Keddie, California, a tiny blip on the map nestled into the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California. And when I say tiny blip, we're talking about a place on the map just over a half square mile. What began as a railroad town, Keddie is now known for its beautiful views and stunning landscapes.

A few miles north of the capital, Sacramento, it was named after Arthur Keddie, a Canadian-born land surveyor.

Back in the day, Keddie was well thought of as being a desirable resort town. It had a hotel, bar, restaurant, all surrounded by these beautiful cabins in the middle of the woods, and it really advertised itself as being a place where people could go with their families, enjoy a beautiful vacation, and be away from the busy cities.

But by the early 1980s, things in Keddie had drastically changed. The cabins had become run down, so the place didn't cater to the same type of people that it used to. And when people stopped coming around to Keddie, that meant that the money dried up as well. So when the money was gone, the cabins were eventually converted into homes for low-income families. Practically overnight, it had become an isolated town with only one road going in and out.

But besides its resort town beginnings, stunning views and beautiful mountains, several transformations over the years, Keddie is also known as the place of one of the country's most notorious and macabre unsolved quadruple murders in modern American crime history.

First, let's talk about the family at the heart of this story, the Sharp family. The Sharp family moved to Northern California in July of 1979. They were Glenna Sue Sharp, who went by Sue, and her five children, 15-year-old John, 14-year-old Sheila, 12-year-old Tina, 10-year-old Rick, and 5-year-old Greg.

The family decided to move all the way across the country from Connecticut after Sue divorced her husband, James Sharp, and was looking for a fresh start. James Sharp was said to be abusive and violent, and when they decided to separate, Sue probably wanted to get as far away as possible from him. He was in the military, the Navy, and up until that point, Sue had been a stay-at-home mom to their five children.

Sue and the kids packed their bags and headed to the West Coast, California. They decided on California because that's where Sue's brother lived, Don Davis. When they arrived, she rented a trailer that Don used to live at at the Claremont Trailer Village in Quincy, another small town about six miles away. James Sharp, Sue's husband, was reported to have visited the family there sometime in 1979, but he didn't end up staying.

Then a few months later, November, the family moved out of the trailer and into cabin number 28 in the town of Keddie. This was a massive, massive upgrade for the family because the cabin was a lot bigger than that trailer. And with five young kids, what single parent wouldn't need more space?

Now, to be fair though, it wasn't exactly the nicest place that you could ever live in the world. These cabins in Keddie were incredibly run down and turned into housing for low-income families because no one else really know what to do with them.

But for the Sharp family, Sue's family, it had everything that they needed. It gave them enough space. The younger boys, Rick and Greg, shared the first bedroom, while the girls, Sue, Tina, and Sheila, shared the second room. John, the oldest Sharp child, he slept in the unfinished basement, a part of the cabin that could only be, you could only get into from the outside.

So the outside doors of the basement were usually kept unlocked so that John could go upstairs and use the only bathroom in the cabin.

Back when they were staying in the trailer at the Claremont Trailer Village, the one that Dawn Davis owned, they didn't really have even half the amount of room that they now had in this cabin. It was also a place where Sue could afford the cheap rent. She was finally away from her abusive husband back on the East Coast and things were really starting to look up for her. She

She had enrolled in a federal education program that gave her money to attend classes at the local community college. She decided on typing classes at Feather River College, and she was really looking forward to starting a career of her own and not having to rely on her ex-husband financially.

She only received about $250 a month from the Navy since her husband was still in the service, and the rest she turned to food stamps and a part-time job at the Quincy Elks Lodge to make ends meet. So this cabin in Keddie was perfect from a financial standpoint.

When it came to the Sharp kids, they all settled into Keddie pretty quickly too. They were all enrolled in local schools down in Quincy, and at school they all made friends of their own and were generally considered good kids by all of their teachers and the school staff. So all in all, the family quickly settled into this small town and became friends with the neighbors.

Now, Sue was never considered to be that much of a social person, but I think living in such a small place like Keddie was, this meant that her neighbors got to know her whether she really liked it or not. And because of its size, that meant no one bothered locking their doors at night. Little did they know, though, tragedy was about to knock on their cabin's front door just five months later.

Sometime between April 11th and 12th, 1981, three people inside of Cabin 28 were murdered. They were Sue Sharp, her son, 15-year-old John, and John's friend, 17-year-old Dana Wingate. Much later on, Sue's daughter, 12-year-old Tina, would also be discovered dead, becoming the fourth victim.

But before we get to the murders themselves, let's talk about what we know happened before. At around 1130 a.m., Sue and two of her children, Greg and Sheila, left one of their friend's houses, the Meeks family, to go pick up 10-year-old Rick, who was at baseball tryouts in nearby Quincy, the closest town to Keddie about six miles away.

On the way back home, they happened to see John and his friend, Dana Wingate, hitchhiking in the canyon between Quincy and Keddie. There was only one road connecting Quincy and Keddie, so spotting them would have been pretty easy.

So Sue picked up the two boys and drove them about six miles to the family's cabin in Keddie. Dana was one of John's friends who was a junior at Quincy High School and was kind of said by some people to be somewhat of a troublemaker. Now, about two hours later, at around 3.30, John and his buddy Dana hitchhiked their way back to Quincy to meet up with some of their friends.

This is the early 1980s here. So most kids that were John and Dana's age, they hitchhiked as their primary way of getting from place A to place B. It just wasn't a big deal.

Over the course of this story, there's going to be a lot of things we don't know. But we do know that Dana and John ended up back in Quincy because several eyewitnesses said they saw the kids in the city's downtown area that afternoon and early evening. So we at least know they made it back to town. The boys were supposed to head back home sometime that night, and Dana was going to spend the night at the Sharps' cabin.

It's worth mentioning here that Sue apparently told John that she didn't want him hitchhiking that night. She thought it was okay to ask strangers for a ride during the daytime, but she didn't like the idea of them hitchhiking at night after dark. I think that's a pretty fair thing to say as a mom. You can hitchhike during the daytime when there's plenty of people out, the sun is out, it's bright, and

keeping in mind that this is the 80s. But when it comes to nighttime, don't do it. Dana's family also reportedly didn't want him hitchhiking. He was living with a foster family and they wanted to keep a close eye on him. So they weren't huge fans of him hitchhiking either.

But apparently, John and Dana planned to ignore this motherly and family advice, and they decided to catch a ride home anyway. So there's no way of knowing if this decision to hitchhike late at night had anything to do with what is about to happen.

Now, a while after the murders, a few witnesses said that they saw two teenage boys standing at a street corner in Quincy attempting to hitchhike between 9.30 and 10 p.m. They definitely looked like the boys, but no one's for sure or no one knows for sure if that was actually John or Dana or not. And again, we have no idea if their hitchhiking had anything to do with this.

Did whoever give them a ride home know something about the murders? We'll talk a lot more about that once we get to the theories and the suspects. That same night, 14-year-old Sheila had plans of her own. She was going to spend the night with the Seabolt family who lived in the cabin next to her mom's, cabin number 27. This was something that she did a lot on the weekends.

Ever since the Sharps moved to Keddie, they became fast friends with the Seabolts. Just like Sue, the Seabolts had two daughters of their own right around the same age as Tina and Sheila. So it makes sense why they became such close friends right away. Sheila left around 8 o'clock p.m. that night to sleep over at the Seabolts. And when she got there, her sister Tina was already there watching TV.

Just like Sheila, she would usually go over to the Seabolt's cabin on the weekends. But Tina didn't spend the night like Sheila did. She went home back to cabin 28 at around 9.30. No one knows why she didn't stay the night at the Seabolt's or why she decided to come home, but either way, things were about to get bad for Tina.

Then finally, Sue Sharp. That night, she allowed a boy named Justin Smart, who was friends with her two youngest sons, Rick and Greg, to spend the night. He was also another neighbor kid who lived in Keddie and someone that we're going to talk a lot more about later on.

So inside the cabin at this point in the night was Sue Sharp, her daughter Tina, her two youngest sons, Rick and Greg, and their neighbor friend, Justin Smart.

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Babbel.com slash Spotify podcast spelled B-A-B-B-E-L.com slash Spotify podcast. Rules and restrictions may apply. Okay, here's another small detail that may or may not have anything to do with this. Sue originally had plans to go out with the people who lived in cabin 26. Justin's mom, Marilyn, his stepfather, Marty, or Marty Smart, a couple who had been together since sometime in 1979.

Also planning to go out with them was a guy named John Bobadie, or Bo as he was called. He was someone who was living or basically sleeping on the couch of the Smarts at the time. And in the weeks leading up to the murders, he had become increasingly close with Marty Smart. So by all accounts, they were really close buddies.

Not only were they neighbors of Sue, Marty, and Marilyn, but they also attended the same typing classes at the local community college with Sue. So they were all thought to be really friendly with one another, or so everyone thought. If you were to look down on Keddie from an aerial view, Sue's cabin 28 was in the middle of the block, not far from the hotel.

Next door, cabin 27, was where the Seabolt family lived. Both of these cabins were on Keddie Station Loop Road. Then directly across a narrow street called Spanish Oaks Lane and right in line with the other two cabins is cabin 26. That's where the Smarts lived. You could easily walk between all three of these cabins. Now back to that night.

Marty Smart worked as a chef at one of the local bars, but it was his night off. So he, Marilyn, and their friend Bo, who was sleeping on their couch, decided to go down to the bar where he worked and get some drinks. He probably got a discount or was just friendly with the other servers, so that's where they decided to go. It's also possible that that was the only bar nearby.

On their way, though, the three of them stopped at Sue's cabin and asked her if she wanted to go. But she apparently told them that she probably shouldn't go with them because she had the younger boys in the house with her. And it probably wouldn't be a very good idea to leave them at home all by themselves at night. So the Smarts and Bo left for the bar. And that would be the last time that anyone saw Sue alive.

But before we go on, I want you to remember these names, Marty Smart and Bo. Both of them are going to come up a lot a little bit later in this story. Sometime around 10 o'clock p.m., 12-year-old Tina apparently went to bed. Then not long after that, Justin and the boys, who were all together in one of the bedrooms watching television, all went to sleep too.

Finally, Sue falls asleep herself while waiting for John and his friend Dana Wingate to get back home from that party with friends in Quincy.

Eventually, the boys do make it home, but at exactly what time, we don't know. But here's where we're at. Between the late hours of April 11th and the early morning hours of April 12th, it's Sue, John, Tina, Rick, Greg Sharp, plus their friends, Justin Smart and Dana Wingate, inside of that cabin. Now fast forward to the next morning, April 12th.

Sometime between 7 and 8 o'clock that morning, Sheila woke up at the Sebald's house next door. Now I say sometime between 7 and 8 because there's been some conflicting reports over the years and I want to make sure I get this as accurate as possible. But sometime around 8 o'clock that morning, Sheila left the Sebald's cabin right next door and when she walked in through that normally unlocked front door, that's when she discovered the bodies.

Her mom, older brother John, and his friend Dana were all dead in the living room. John and Dana were tied up together on the floor covered in blood. And right there next to them was a yellow blanket that was draped over her mom's body. Her sister Tina was also missing. She wasn't anywhere inside of the cabin. But no one would realize that for several more hours.

Then in one of the bedrooms right next door to the living room were Rick, Greg, and Justin Smart, all of them alive and completely unharmed. After finding the bodies, Sheila ran out of the cabin screaming and shouting for help. She went back over to the Seabolt's cabin next door and told them what she had found. And that's when the police were called, the Plumas County Sheriff's Office, who became the lead law enforcement agency on the case.

Let's talk about the three victims found inside of the cabin first. Sue and John Sharp and Dana Wingate. They were all found dead in the living room, and all of them had become the victims of a very, very vicious attack.

John was first. He was the one closest to the front door, face up, covered in blood, and bound with medical tape. His throat had been slit, and he had been beaten multiple times with a hammer. Right next to him was his close friend, Dana, lying on his stomach with his skull smashed in. But that's not what killed him.

On top of a smashed skull, he had also been strangled to death, and his ankles were tied together with electrical wire, which were also around John's ankles, so the two of them were connected. Dana was also likely beaten with a hammer, but the police suspect that a different hammer was used to hit him than was used to hit Sue and John.

Finally, there was Sue Sharp. She was found lying on the floor next to the two boys and next to the couch in the living room. She was partially covered with a yellow blanket, and then underneath of that, she was wearing only a robe and was naked from the waist down. Her underwear and a blue bandana had been stuffed inside of her mouth like a gag. Both she and her son John had been beaten with the same hammer before being stabbed to death.

They both had multiple stab wounds to their chest and necks. So even though they had both been hit by some type of hammer, it was probably the stab wounds that ultimately killed them. They also both had their throats slit. Sue also had another interesting injury. On the side of her head was an imprint of a Daisy 880 Powerline BB rifle, something that we'll talk about later on.

Later on, autopsies revealed that Sue and John had died from the knife wounds and blunt force trauma, and Dana died from asphyxiation. He was strangled to death.

Now, something we aren't exactly sure about is the exact time the murders happened. We know that Sue was inside of the cabin all night long. But what about John and Dana? They were the ones who hitchhiked into Quincy to meet up with their friends that night and returned home sometime later. So did they walk into the house while someone was murdering Sue?

Now, that's been a pretty popular theory. Or did someone break into the cabin after John and Dana hitchhiked home? We really don't know.

We also don't know if more than one person did this. With at least three victims here, it's possible and almost likely that multiple people were involved, at least two. Sure, a single person might have been able to attack Sue all by themselves, but what about the two teenage boys, John and Dana? That's a lot for a single person to take on. John and Dana were both strong kids.

If they happened to come home right at the same time someone was murdering Sue, it would make sense one or both of them would fight back. They wouldn't just let someone murder their mom or their friend's mom without doing anything. So that's led a lot of people to wonder if multiple people did this. And again, we'll talk a lot about that once we get into the possible theories.

Regarding Sue, there was no evidence that she had been sexually assaulted, which might sound a little strange. Why would she be partially naked from the waist down with her underwear gagged in her mouth if she wasn't sexually assaulted? The only thing I can think of is maybe she was asleep when the attacks happened, so maybe she didn't have on all of her clothes.

Also interesting was this. Sue was the only one who was partially covered by that blanket. Whoever the killer was didn't bother to cover up either of the boys. It was just Sue. But why? One possible theory is that Sue was the only one who was visible through the bedroom door.

So maybe the person or persons responsible thought that they had to cover her up so that the kids in the other bedroom wouldn't be able to see her. It's also possible that this was done out of respect. If Sue knew her killer, maybe then this was just their way of showing respect in their own sick and twisted way after they murdered her.

We've seen this before in other cases. After a suspect murders or assaults someone, they cover them up out of quote-unquote respect. They also might do it because they don't want to look her in the face as they're killing her. But again, those are just a couple theories. We have no idea why Sue was the only victim covered up with that blanket and not the boys.

When it came to murder weapons, the police found a few of them still inside the cabin. The first was a bent steak knife that was found lying on the floor right near the bodies. It had been bent sideways about 30 degrees, probably because of how vicious and forceful these attacks were. As the victims were being struck by it, it started to bend out of shape.

They also found a butcher knife and a claw hammer, both covered in blood lying side by side on a small wooden table right near the entryway into the kitchen. But the weapons that were missing were the other hammer and the BB rifle.

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Several hours into the initial investigation, the police realized that a fourth victim was missing, 12-year-old Tina Sharp. She wasn't in the cabin, and now she was nowhere to be found.

Now, a lot of people would eventually criticize the police, especially the sheriff at the time, for how they handled this entire investigation. Those people pointed to this as just one of many mistakes that they made. They didn't even realize Tina was missing until hours into the investigation. So if someone had abducted her and taken her somewhere, then they had a huge start ahead of the police.

We also don't know what this meant. Why would someone abduct Tina but then leave everyone else inside of the cabin? Let's not forget that the other three kids inside that separate bedroom were all found alive and well. So why was only Tina taken? Some people suspect that maybe Tina was the intended target in all of this.

At first, it seemed like Sue was the intended target for some reason. Then John and Dana came home during the murder. But now with Tina gone, it looked like maybe she had something as a part of the motive.

This is what the former Plumas County Sheriff Greg Hadwood said about that theory to ABC 10 News. Quote, End quote.

So once the sheriff's office finally figured this out, they immediately suspected that something bad had also happened to her. That's because when they looked inside of Tina's bedroom, they saw blood everywhere, especially on her bed. So a massive manhunt was launched to try to find her. And while they searched for her, the other question on everyone's mind was, why did whoever do this leave three people alive alone?

We know that Sue, John, and Dana were all killed savagely, but what about the other people found still alive inside the cabin just a couple feet away? Well, those to survive were 10-year-old Rick, 5-year-old Greg, and their friend Justin Smart. They were all found completely unharmed in the bedroom next door to the living room right there where the murders happened.

When the boys were questioned by the police, they initially all apparently said that they slept through the entire night and they didn't remember a single thing. They didn't hear any of the murders happen, even though they happened in the room next door. Besides, we aren't talking about a mansion here. We're talking about a teeny tiny cabin with just a few neighbors. But somehow, none of the boys heard a thing.

Even more strange, when the police went around to talk to some of the neighbors living in the other cabins, one of them said that they heard muffled screams coming from Sue's cabin at around 1.30 that morning. They said the screams were so loud that they almost went over there to go investigate on their own. But when the screams suddenly stopped, that's when they said they decided to go back to bed.

So that's a little strange, right? The neighbors heard something, but none of the boys in the room next door heard anything. Now, besides being a bit puzzling, this also establishes a little bit of a timeline.

If the neighbors in cabin 16 heard the screams at around 1 30 in the morning, then that's probably when the murders took place. It also means that John and Dana were probably already back home when everything happened, unless they stayed out way, way later than they were supposed to, or they might have had trouble finding someone to give them a ride home. And

and they didn't actually get back to the cabin until around 1.30 when the murders probably happened. Again, that's assuming the theory about them coming home when Sue was being murdered is actually true. Some of the neighbors also said this. A few of them reported seeing an unfamiliar green van parked outside of Cabin 28 at around 9 p.m. that night, while others reported seeing a brown Datsun that appeared to have a flat tire.

But unfortunately, neither of these leads led anywhere helpful. Something else we have to talk about here is Justin Smart. He apparently gave some pretty conflicting stories about what exactly happened that night or what he remembered. The first version was that he was asleep and that he didn't hear anything, just like the other two boys. But the other story was that he dreamed about the murders and

And then he eventually said later on that he witnessed them. Of course, this story is completely different than what he said before, that he slept through the entire night and didn't hear a peep. So we don't know which story is the most accurate. Was he sound asleep? Did he dream it? Or did he actually witness the murders like he now says he did?

Later on, Justin was interviewed while under hypnosis, and apparently he said he woke up to sounds coming from the living room while Rick and Greg were still sound asleep in the room with him. He said he decided to go investigate the weird sounds and peeked down the stairs when he saw Sue in the living room with two men.

He said one had long hair, no facial hair and wore glasses, and the other had a mustache, short hair and also wore glasses. At some point, he said that John and Dana walked in through the front door and started arguing with the two men, but things escalated and a fight broke out between them and the two men.

He then witnessed Tina enter the living room and was taken outside of the cabin through the back door by one of the men. That's when he said he went back upstairs and remained quiet for the rest of the time because he was so afraid. He didn't want these two mystery men to follow him into the bedroom and start attacking him too, so he just stayed there and kept quiet.

After that interview, again, while apparently under hypnosis, Justin helped the police create composite sketches of the two men. But here's the strange thing. According to several different news reports, the artist who worked with the sheriff's office to create these sketches didn't even have any forensic sketch experience. He was just some volunteer and didn't even work for the sheriff's office.

And I guess, according to some reports, he was even a personal friend of the sheriff at the time. Now, that seems to be big mistake number two by the sheriff's office. Number one was that they didn't even realize they had a fourth victim who was missing from the cabin. And now number two, they didn't even have a qualified forensic artist to do a sketch. He was just some personal friend of the sheriff at the time.

Why didn't they enlist the help of someone like the FBI to come in and do a proper forensic sketch? The FBI had already become involved in the case as soon as they found out that 12-year-old Tina Sharp had been abducted. So why didn't the local sheriff's office reach out to the feds? It's just, by many people's standards, considered just yet another mistake.

But regardless, the forensic sketches were eventually released to the public. And alongside of them, the police said that the two suspects were probably in their late 20s to early 30s. One was about 5 feet 11 inches to 6 feet 2 inches tall with dark blonde hair and the other between 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 10 inches with black greased hair.

And again, both of them wore glasses that Justin described, saying that they were gold-framed sunglasses. But no arrests were ever made following the release of these forensic sketches. Next up at the scene, the forensic evidence. For it being such a bloody and chaotic scene, the killers somehow managed to leave no DNA evidence behind, or at least not any that they could immediately find.

Nor was there any forensic evidence suggesting Tina had been among the victims that night. She was simply gone. Most of the blood spatter pattern analysis suggested that all three of the victims, Sue, John, and Dana, had been moved after they were killed.

You could see blood smears across most of the floors and lone pools of it on the living room floor and the sofa pillow, suggesting that the boys' bodies had been moved and staged. Bloody prints were also found on the bottom post of the stairwell that leads to the back door. An unknown fingerprint was even found in the blood.

Inside the girls' bedroom, the phone cord had been cut, and the phone was off the hook like maybe the killers had messed with it, or maybe someone tried using the phone to call for help.

Another chilling piece of evidence. The blood wasn't just confined to the floor. The walls themselves had bloody stab marks, like someone was playing around with one of the knives and stabbing into the walls after committing the murders. The bottom of Sue's bare feet and the soles of one of the boys' shoes were also covered in blood, suggesting that they were moving around and had stepped in it at some point.

Finally, all of the lights throughout the cabin had been shut off, and the drapes closed like no one wanted anyone to see anything. The search of the entire cabin revealed no signs of forced entry. But that really shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, right? This is Keddie, California in 1981. It's the saying, or the saying always goes, no one locked their doors that night.

You could just walk into someone else's cabin and no one would care. Plus, everyone who lived there knew each other. So even if someone walked through your cabin's front door, chances are you would just let them and it wouldn't be a big deal.

So the fact that the door was unlocked and the sheriff's office didn't find any signs of forced entry, well, that wasn't really helpful. It essentially meant nothing to the investigation.

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I mentioned earlier about the murder weapons that were found at the crime scene. Inside of the kitchen was a bent steak knife, a butcher knife, and a claw hammer. But some of the weapons were gone, like I mentioned, the second hammer and the BB rifle that was used to hit Sue in the head. Plus, a toolbox was missing from the cabin and was never found.

Now here's something else about the murder weapons. Early on during the investigation, Marty Smart, one of the people who lived next door to the Sharps and was Justin's stepfather, told the police that a claw hammer had been stolen from his garage. He said it was there before the murders, but then mysteriously went missing afterward.

So let's pause there for a second. Why would Marty know so quickly, just within hours of the murders happening, that a similar claw hammer that was used in the murders was now missing from his garage? And why would he voluntarily tell the police that so quickly? Also, Marty is Justin's stepfather. He was one of the only boys to survive.

So Marty lives in a cabin right next door to Sue Sharp. He denied hearing anything that night. He says that a claw hammer was missing from inside of his garage and he's the father of one of the boys to magically survive in the room next door. Seems a little bit strange, right?

The murders not only affected the Sharp and Wingate families, but as word spread through Keddie and the rest of Plumas County, people started to become afraid. They began locking their doors at night, finally, and they started to wonder if a killer was living among them. With a population of just a few dozen people, everyone living in Keddie became a suspect and

And life changed dramatically in 1981 for this entire community. Suddenly, everyone was suspicious of everybody, and they were afraid of everyone. For the next three years, the case remained unsolved with virtually zero progress. No arrests were ever made, no clues popped up, and people's criticism of the Plumas County Sheriff's Office, headed by then-Sheriff Doug Thomas, only worsened.

The department was criticized for not following up on many leads. Some said that critical forensic evidence wasn't even checked or it was ignored completely. Detectives from the area who would eventually take over in the case said, quote, you could take someone just coming out of the police academy and they would have done a better job at investigating this case, end quote.

And it wasn't just the Plumas County Sheriff's Office who may have dropped the ball. Right after the murders, Sheriff Doug Thomas contacted the DOJ, Department of Justice, in the state's capital of Sacramento. And apparently, the DOJ sent two men, two special agents, from the division's organized crime unit, not the homicide unit, to investigate.

Now, besides these two special agents with the DOJ, they also had fingerprint experts and a few other forensic experts also come in.

But remember, this was 1981, and DNA collection at crime scenes didn't really begin until 1985. Of course, we know now that DNA is usually considered the most reliable piece of forensic evidence at crime scenes. But back in 1981 when these murders happened, not so much. It's now 1984, three years after the murders.

On April 11, 1984, exactly three years to the day since the original murders, someone collecting bottles in the woods of Rule Butt County, a place about 100 miles away from Keddie, found human remains. The cranium portion of a human skull and part of a mandible. They were found at Camp 18, roughly five miles from Feather Falls, California.

Later on, forensic anthropologists confirmed that the remains belonged to missing 12-year-old Tina Sharp. She had been found exactly three years to the day from the original murders. Coincidence? Or did someone know more? This is the end of part one of the Keddie Cabin Murders.

Tune in next week to listen to part two and the end of this story. In part two, we're going to talk a lot more about the discovery of Tina's remains, the suspects, and all the different theories about why and how these murders could have happened. We're also going to talk about some of the shortcomings of the Plumas County Sheriff's Office and whether this case is still solvable based on the forensic evidence.

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