Sue, John, and Tina Sharp and Dana Wingate
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Voices for Justice is a podcast that uses adult language and discusses sensitive and potentially triggering topics including violence, abuse, and murder. This podcast may not be appropriate for younger audiences. All parties are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Some names have been changed or omitted per their request or for safety purposes. Listener discretion is advised. My name is Sarah Turney and this is Voices for Justice.

The case I'm bringing you today is nothing short of tragic and horrifying. It's not for the faint of heart, but it's one I've heard about for years. It's been greatly sensationalized, and I kind of understand why. The details are so shocking sometimes that it feels like fiction. But despite the coverage and the sensation around this case, 43 years later, no one has faced charges for these brutal murders. And the true motive remains a mystery.

This is the case of Sue, John, and Tina Sharp, and Dana Wingate, also known as the Keddie Cabin Murders. On the morning of Sunday, April 12th, 1981, in Keddie, California, 14-year-old Sheila Sharp was walking back to her home to get ready for church. She'd spent the night before with friends at the cabin next door.

Sheila and her family lived at the Keddie Resort. This resort had long-term residents and cabins like the Sharp family, but there was also a kind of rustic hotel and bar attached to the property as well. So it was really this mix of long-term residents and vacationers at the Keddie Resort. But the residential cabins were pretty close together, kind of like a little neighborhood. So Sheila's walk was short. I just wanted to make it clear that she's not traveling like a mile in the forest or anything like that.

Now, Sheila lived in Cabin 28 with her mom, Sue, her older brother, John, and her younger siblings, Greg, Ricky, and Tina. Sheila, Tina, and their mom shared one room, Greg and Ricky shared another, and John stayed in the cabin's basement. And while Sheila was having a sleepover in Cabin 27 with the Seabolt family, her brothers were having sleepovers at the Sharp home too. So even with Sheila gone, it's a full house at Cabin 28.

And at about 8am, Sheila makes the short walk back home to get ready for church. But nothing could have prepared her for what she'd find just inside the front door. The battered bodies of her mother, older brother, and her brother's best friend. Sheila runs back to the Sebalds' home, screaming. Now, the Sebalds' mother would later report that Sheila yelled that her brother John was dead and that there were three dead people in her home.

But Sheila says that all she remembers is hearing screams and feeling her friend's older brother, Jamie Seabolt, pull her away. She describes this as an out-of-body experience, saying she didn't even realize the screams she heard were her own voice. Now, the Seabolts didn't have a phone, so their mom ran to the front office to call the police. But at this point, there are still kids in the home that aren't accounted for, her three younger siblings and their friend Justin who also spent the night.

So, Jamie Seabolt and Sheila walk back to Cabin 28. Obviously, they don't want to go through the front door and see what Sheila saw. So, they go to the back of the house to look through the window of the boys' bedroom. And in some type of miracle, they find Sheila's younger brothers, Ricky, age 9, and Greg, age 5, along with their friend, 12-year-old Justin Eason from Cabin 26, all sound asleep and unharmed.

So Jamie and Sheila helped them climb through the window. That way they also could avoid that front room scene. It was truly a miracle that these boys were unharmed through all of this. But there was still one sibling missing. 12-year-old Tina Sharp.

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When the Plumas County deputies arrived at the Keddie Resort, they were met with a grisly scene. Just inside the door was 15-year-old John Sharp. He'd been stabbed repeatedly and bludgeoned in the head. His hands were bound together with medical tape and had blood on them. His feet were also bound with an electrical cord that tied him to the body of his best friend, 17-year-old Dana Wingate.

Dana was face down, his head resting on a cushion from the sofa. He also suffered significant head trauma. His feet were bound with the other end of the same electrical cord that bound John's feet. Next to Dana was 36-year-old Glenna Susan Sharp, also known as Sue. Her body was covered by a blanket. She was on her side, naked from the waist down. She was also gagged with a bandana and her own underwear. Her mouth was wrapped in medical tape.

She was also beat and had several missing teeth. Her throat was slit and there were stab wounds on her chest and defensive cuts on her arms and hands. The bottoms of her feet were covered in blood, and her wrists and ankles also were bound with electrical wire. As far as we could find in researching this episode, there was no indication that any of the victims found were sexually assaulted, and nothing appeared to be missing from the home.

According to investigators, evidence suggests that their bodies were staged in these positions after they'd been killed. There was also blood everywhere. It was on the green carpet, the sofa cushions. There was blood spatter on the wallpaper and ceiling, and on the doors of the younger boy's bedroom.

and the bedroom Sue shared with her two daughters. There was blood on the handrails of the back steps of the home. And one thing that still bewilders investigators is that they found knife holes in the wall, like the killer or killers had stabbed them. Three weapons were found at the scene as well. A butcher knife, a steak knife, and a hammer.

Now, investigators were able to determine that the two knives came from the Sharpe's kitchen. It's never been officially determined whether or not the hammer found at the scene was from the Sharpe's home or brought in by the perpetrator. They do believe that the medical tape and electrical wire came from inside the Sharpe home.

Now, take this next detail with a grain of salt, because it came from a website powered by armchair detectives. But apparently an impression on Sue's head matches the butt of a Daisy 880 BB gun, or another similar pellet rifle.

No gun was found at the scene, and there's not any evidence that any shots were fired. But in 2016, Jane Braxton Little of the Sacramento Bee also reported that Sue had been bludgeoned with a rifle. So I thought it was worth mentioning in this episode.

The Plumas County Sheriff's Office was now facing a triple homicide, and what they assumed was a child abduction. And it's safe to say that they were not equipped for this. In 1981, the county, which included the slightly larger town of Quincy, California, only had about 17,000 residents. The Sheriff's Department had 33 deputies, and about one-fifth of them were assigned exclusively to the Keddie homicides.

Before this, there had not been a mass killing in the county since 1952, so the FBI and the California Department of Justice were soon called in for assistance, especially in locating Tina. If they can find her, maybe they can find whoever did this.

The search for Tina spanned days across the entire county, but no reports say that physical searches went any further than that county line. Missing persons flyers were issued that described Tina as having long blonde hair and wearing blue jeans and a blue shirt the last time she was seen. But the search didn't produce any credible leads, and it eventually fizzled out.

There were still a ton of questions in this case. Investigators didn't even know exactly when the murders had taken place, but they knew that it had to be sometime between 10 p.m. on Saturday the 11th and around 8 a.m. on Sunday the 12th when they were found.

So they start putting together a timeline for that night. Here's what they know. John and Dana went to a party that night in Quincy. There were many sightings of them trying to hitchhike their way back to Keddie between 9pm and 1am. We don't know exactly what time they got back to Cabin 28. But investigators did find the woman who gave them the ride back to Keddie, and she was ruled out as a suspect.

Earlier I told you that John stayed in the basement. It's important to note that the only way into the cabin from the basement was a staircase on the outside of the home. Another factor to consider is that the only bathroom of the home was located on that main level. So the front door of the cabin was almost always left unlocked so that John could use the bathroom. Unfortunately, we don't know how they ended up in the living room, but these factors are important to consider.

As for Tina, she'd spent most of her Saturday at the Seabolts' home. But she did reportedly come home between 7.30 or 8 to wash dishes. After that, she goes back to the Seabolts' house for about an hour and then goes home and goes to bed around 9.30pm. It's really not much of a timeline, but it's something.

And of course, as they're looking for Tina, they begin going down the list of who may have done something like this. And as we know, they always start with those closest to the victims. The first person they looked at was Sue's ex-husband, James Sharp. See, the Sharps hadn't really lived in Keddie for that long. In 1979, Sue packed up the kids and moved west to escape James. He was reportedly extremely abusive.

Now, James was in the Navy stationed in North Carolina, and Sue chose California because her brother Don lived in Quincy. At first, Sue and her kids lived in a trailer on Don's property, then they finally got a place of their own at the Keddie Resort in October of 1980, only about six months before these murders.

It seemed like Sue was really making it work. She got a small stipend from the Navy each month to support her kids and worked part-time at the local Elk Lodge while her kids were in school. She was also part of a program that paid her a small stipend for taking typing classes at the local Feather River College.

According to Sheila Sharp's book, How to Survive Your Visit to Earth, her father was a cruel man. He sexually assaulted her and her sister Tina, and was physically abusive to their mother. Other witnesses say that Tina was considered James' favorite of the three to assault. So, since Tina was missing, investigators theorize that James may have come to kidnap Tina and killed everyone else who was in the way.

But investigators got a hold of James Sharp, and he had an alibi for the night. It was confirmed by his supervisors in the Navy that there was no way he could be anywhere near California at the time these murders were committed. Despite this, he was still put under heavy surveillance, but there was never any sighting of Tina anywhere, with or without her father.

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At this point, investigators still believed that abducting Tina was the perpetrator's main motive. And there was some disturbing evidence to point to this. Police reports showed that Tina had been sexually assaulted by a man in Quincy only a few months prior to the killings. And as if that wasn't bad enough, they were also looking into another man, one of her teachers at Quincy Elementary School.

This teacher reportedly kept a photo of Tina on his desk at work, and had photos of her at his home.

According to the documentary Cabin 28, The Keddie Murders by Josh Hancock and Amanda Glover, they uncovered documents that contain a statement from this teacher, saying that Tina often sat on his lap and was affectionate towards him. This man was also said to have been at the Keddie Hotel's bar restaurant the night of the murders. Now, this man actually participated in the community search for Tina, and was eventually ruled out. He apparently had an alibi.

Another local man, Henry Thompson, claimed that he had a friend from the Bay Area who had been in the cabin on the night of the murders. He said his friend was tying people up and going berserk. He also said that the police would never find Tina. But when he was interviewed by deputies, he passed a polygraph and told them that he made the whole thing up. It was apparently a cruel hoax, and he was ruled out.

As I mentioned, the FBI and California Department of Justice quickly became a part of the search, but they didn't send agents who specialized in homicide or abduction.

They were experts in organized crime. See, just across the street from Cabin 28 was Cabin 26, home to Marilyn and Martin, or Marty Smart, and two of Marilyn's children. One of them, Justin, was the third boy sleeping in the room with Ricky and Greg on the night of the murders. At this time, a friend was staying with the Smarts in Cabin 26, and he was a seedy character at best.

Severin John Bobaday, also known as Bo, reportedly met Marty Smart only a few weeks before the murders. They'd met at a VA hospital in Reno, Nevada, about 80 miles from Keddie.

Marty was a Vietnam veteran who was seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. He was admitted into the Reno VA Hospital's psychiatric ward on the week of March 13th, 1981. This is where he met Bo, a retired Air Force veteran with a less-than-credible record. After they were both discharged, Bo came back to Keddie with Marty and was staying with them at the Smarts home.

Marty and Bo were both immediately questioned after the murders. And this is where the organized crime element comes in. Bo, who was 50 at the time, had ties to organized crime in Chicago. He admitted that he was close to a man named Jimmy Rainey, a known member of the Chicago mob who was accused of being involved in the disappearance and likely murder of a journalist named Molly Zelko in 1957. And they were really close. Bo said that Jimmy was like a father to him.

Like I said, Beau has a very colorful past. He reportedly committed multiple bank robberies and was a part of a gang that gained notoriety for jewel heists. We know that Beau did serve some time in prison for some type of charge, but no credible source can say exactly what those charges were for. It's also reported that this man carried around pictures of teenage girls in his wallet, claiming that they were his wives.

As for Marty, investigators say that he supported his family by selling drugs in the Keddie area. He worked a day job as a cook at the Keddie Hotel, but was fired shortly before the murders. And by many accounts, he was abusive to his wife Marilyn. Marilyn's daughter, who did not live with them because of her fear for Marty, says that he tried to kill her mother multiple times. Marty also reportedly tried to run over Marilyn and Justin with his car.

Now, the Smarts had been together since 1979. All three of Marilyn's children were from previous relationships. According to reporting by Victoria Metcalf of PlumasNews.com, one of Marilyn's aunts recalls that when the couple was staying with her, Marty was violent. The aunt also claims that Marty once got into a fight with his father, then said he was going out to buy supplies to make bombs to blow up his house.

Marilyn and Marty are not only connected to the Sharps because they were neighbors or because their son was friends with Sue's son. The Smarts were both enrolled in that same typing class at Feather River College as Sue. So this is when they all met, and when Sue befriended Marilyn. Now, investigators think that Sue may have been urging Marilyn to leave Marty, since Sue herself had recently left an abusive marriage.

Meanwhile, Marty claims he had another friend in town, Plumas County Sheriff Doug Thomas. Thomas has denied being friends with Marty multiple times. However, he did tell Jeff Truesdale of People Magazine Investigates that one time, Marty and Marilyn came to him for marriage counseling. He says he told them that he was the wrong person to give them advice because he was recently divorced himself, but he did provide them with one counseling session.

He says he realizes that this sounds strange that he, being the sheriff, counseled them on their marriage. And oddly enough, Truesdale reports that Marilyn says she has no memory of this counseling session or Marty ever being friends with the sheriff. It's just a really strange situation.

But Marnie and Beau said that they had an alibi for that Saturday night. And parts of it check out. They were seen at the Keddie Hotel's bar that night with Marilyn. This was considered a working class bar, so the two men definitely made an impression when they showed up in flashy three-piece suits and sunglasses indoors at night.

Something that was not only unusual for the setting, but unusual for the men. And while the men were unusually dressed up, Marilyn wore plain clothing that was not memorable to anyone.

In an interview with the Department of Justice, Bo told investigators that at some point, the owner's wife came in and changed the music from country to rock and roll. He says he and Marty were infuriated by this because they were fans of country music. They made this huge scene and then left the bar. Once they got back to Cabin 26, they called the bar to complain again.

Marilyn says that she went to bed after they came home, but Bo and Marty say that they ended up going back to the bar just before close to have one final drink. They eventually leave just before last call around 1.50 a.m., and there are witnesses that confirm seeing them at this bar.

While investigators are building their list of possible suspects, they are of course also trying to figure out what, if anything, the survivors saw or heard that night. The three boys who survived all claim they didn't see anything. But in an initial interview with Justin, he revealed some details to Sheriff Thomas that made him believe he might have seen more than he remembered.

Justin described that first interview in the Cabin 28 documentary, saying he knew Tina was missing. He says he was trying to emphasize this to the sheriff that they needed to be looking for Tina. In the same documentary, Marilyn says she told Thomas, quote, Will you be quiet for a moment and listen to what this boy is telling you? He's telling you that Tina is missing. End quote.

Sheriff Thomas is something in this case. In the days following the murder, he used an unconventional method to interview Justin.

Apparently, Thomas had taken two classes and chose to conduct this interview himself. During the session, Justin told Sheriff Thomas that he had a dream. It was inspired by the show The Love Boat. He'd been watching it with Sue and Ricky before bed. He said in this dream, he saw two men fighting with John and Dana. He says John, Dana, and Sue were thrown off the boat.

He also says that in this dream, one of the men held a pocket knife which he used to cut Su in the chest, and he held a hammer in the other hand.

Justin was interviewed under hypnosis a second time by a psychiatrist at the Los Angeles Children's Hospital. This time, he told the doctor that Tina woke up and appeared in the living room holding a blanket. He said one of the men grabbed her and ran out the back door with her. The man later appeared again and grabbed a knife that was stuck in the wall and the blanket, then left again. This account would be consistent with the blood found on the railing of the stairs in the back of the home.

Throughout these two sessions, Justin also accurately described how each victim's body was positioned after they were killed, though multiple details of his stories change between interviews. In the end, they did call in a sketch artist who generated two suspect images from the men Justin described in his dream. Many people have said that one of the men in the drawings looks like Marty, and that

And some even claim that if you cut each photo in half and switch the top and bottom halves of the faces, they look remarkably like Beau and Marty. In that same interview, then grown up, Justin says, quote, There's a very good chance that I had witnessed something, whether it be the crime itself or the aftermath. End quote.

In the same documentary, Marilyn tells a disturbing story of the days following the murder. She says she overheard Justin playing with his younger brother. And they were like mock stabbing each other. She says Justin also started saying that he had to protect Sue. Now, Marilyn says that Marty came in and snatched Justin up and said, quote, you will never speak about this again, end quote.

Then he took him outside. She says she doesn't know what that conversation looked like, but that Justin didn't say anything else about it to his family or to investigators after that. Marty and Bo left Keddie for Oklahoma only days after the murders, basically right after they completed their interviews with the Department of Justice. In his interview, Marty told the investigators that he was missing a hammer, but the one he described didn't match the hammer found at the scene. Just keep that in mind for the future.

Only a few months after the murders, Sheriff Thomas left the Plumas County Sheriff's Office to work for the California Department of Justice. As for Sheila, Ricky, and Greg, they were sent to live with their aunt, Sue's sister, but she apparently had kids of her own and just couldn't afford to take care of them all. So, the kids were placed into the foster care system. They were together at first, but were soon separated.

Eventually, there was an entire room of evidence at the Plumas County Sheriff's Office. All the evidence was tested by the Department of Justice and sent back. Now, it is important to note that DNA technology was still being developed at this time, and that evidence wasn't even admissible in court until 1986 in the U.S.,

At this time, fingerprint technology was much more prevalent, and the Department of Justice sent an evidence expert to help. But no fingerprints were identified, and investigators assumed that the perpetrator or perpetrators wore gloves.

And then, finally, there was a break in the case. Almost exactly three years after the murders, in April 1984, a bottle collector in Butte County called to report that he'd found what appeared to be a human skull at Feather Falls, about 100 miles from Keddie. When investigators got to the scene, they found the top of a skull and began running tests on it.

However, according to reporting by Dave Moeller for the Feather River Bulletin, the forensic dentist employed by the Department of Justice couldn't make an identification based on those remains. So they searched Feather Falls again. This time, they found a jawbone with teeth.

And then something kind of amazing and perplexing happened. Once news broke that human remains had been found, the Butte County Sheriff's Office got a call. The voice on the other end of the line said, quote, I was watching the news and they were talking about the girl found at Feather Falls. I was just wondering if you thought of the murder up in Keddie, in Plumas County a couple years ago, where a 12-year-old girl was never found, end quote. And sure enough, dental records confirmed that the remains belonged to Tina Sharpe.

she'd finally been found. This is Jessica Knoll, host of the new series Back in Crime. If you're a follower of true crime, you're probably familiar with some of the most shocking stories from our history. Horrific tragedies like the Columbine Massacre. He turned the gun straight at us and shot. Oh my God, the window went out. And the kid standing there with me, I think he got hit. Okay. Oh God. And notorious criminals like cult leader Charles Manson.

In a scene described by one investigator as reminiscent of a weird religious rite, five persons, including actress Sharon Tate, were found dead at the home of Miss Tate and her husband, screen director Roman Poliansky. But what if we were to turn back the hands of time and relive these events as they unfolded? Follow along each week as we take a fresh look at crimes from the past. Back in Crime is available now.

In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dia, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I'm Lucy Sheriff. Over the past four years, I've spoken with Dia's family and friends, and I've discovered that everyone has a different version of events.

Hear the story on Where's Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Despite this major discovery, not much was learned through analyzing Tina's remains. They couldn't say how she died, if she'd been sexually assaulted. It seems that they basically just knew it was Tina and that she was gone.

Sheila was on a church trip to Mexico with some of her cousins when she heard the news. She describes this moment in her book, saying, "...the news hit me like a sledgehammer in my gut. Until that moment, I had chosen to believe that my sister would one day be found alive. That may be a little naive considering what happened to the other three victims, but as a teenage girl, I continued to dream of being reunited with my sweet little sister." End quote.

Years passed, and Tina writes that when she'd call for updates, the Plumas County Sheriff's Office would tell her that they had nothing to report. She says they made no attempt to stay in contact with the victims' families. In the early 2000s, documentary filmmakers Josh Hancock and Amanda Glover began investigating the Keddie murders, and were able to gain access to some case files.

Sheila was featured in this documentary in some of the first interviews she'd done since the 80s. It also features some of the only interviews with Marilyn, Justin, and Dana Wingate's family. In her interview, Marilyn makes a shocking statement. She says that she found a girl's jacket with blood on it underneath their house, and she says she knew this jacket belonged to Tina. But when asked, former sheriff Doug Thomas said that he had no memory of a bloodstained jacket.

Marilyn also confirms that after the murders, Cabin 26 was searched, and investigators found a cabinet containing a noose, hustler magazines, and knives. Now, Marilyn does mention that these knives would kind of make sense. Marty was a chef in both the Army and at the Keddie Resort. Just one of many odd tidbits in this case.

But Marilyn also gives us more information about what happened that night. Marilyn confirms that she did go to bed early that night after the trio returned home from the bar. But she also says that she woke up at around 2 a.m. and saw Marty and Bo trying to burn something on the stove. Marilyn also told the sheriff that Bo once told her it wouldn't bother him to kill a child or a woman.

Now, this documentary was released in 2005, and soon after, the producers went right back to work on a follow-up. Sheila writes in her book that when the filmmakers thought they were finishing interviews for the second documentary, they made another shocking discovery. Marty had confessed to killing Sue and Tina.

Or at least that's what his former counselor from the Reno VA had reported to the Plumas County Sheriff's Office back in May of 1981, only a month after the murders.

The filmmakers track down this counselor, and he interviews with them on the condition that his identity be kept secret. He says he only saw Marty for seven or eight weekly sessions that spring. In his fifth session, Marty told the counselor that he'd been questioned in relation to the Keddie murders, but that he'd passed a polygraph test.

In his second-to-last session, he began to tell the counselor about a woman who he called an extreme bitch. He said she was partially responsible for his wife turning against him and wanting a divorce. The counselor said that when Marty came back the next week, he confessed, saying that he, quote, "...killed the woman and her daughter, but didn't have anything to do with the boys," end quote. He added that he'd killed them using a hammer.

The counselor asked why he felt the need to kill Tina when he only had a problem with Sue, to which he says Marty replied that Tina saw everything, and he couldn't have a witness. The counselor says that Marty was calm when talking about Sue's murder, but became flustered when asked about Tina. He also asked why Tina didn't scream or run away, and Marty said it was because he incapacitated her.

He asked about the polygraph test, and Marty told him that, quote, those things are easy to beat. I lied and they let me go, end quote. When asked if he would confess to the sheriff, Marty said that he would think about it, then left.

Now, this counselor did what he was supposed to do. He contacted the sheriff's office with this information right away. He says he was told that investigators would be in contact with him. But then, about three days later, Marty showed up at his office without an appointment. The counselor had some free time and offered to talk with him. But Marty said that there was no need. He was just stopping in to say goodbye. He said he'd gotten a job with a carnival in Northern California.

The counselor asked if he'd confessed, and Marty said no. When the counselor told him that he should confess, Marty apparently just smiled. According to investigator Mike Gamberg, agents on the case did reach out to the counselor, but his claims were ultimately brushed off as a he-said-she-said scenario.

Now, the filmmakers reach out to Justin again when making this second documentary, but he declined to do another interview and said the truth would come out soon enough because he was writing a book about the murders, but to date, no book has been released.

The second documentary also makes note of several case documents. One report states that either on April 4th or April 11th, 1981, Marty told a friend that if he, quote, didn't get things straightened out soon, he might kill someone, end quote. Another report claims that on April 27th, Marty told a friend that he'd start killing Marilyn's boyfriends and people close to her if she did not return to him, end quote.

There are also apparently three statements that exist in which someone alleges Marty Smart had gotten Tina pregnant, which was his true motive for the killings. Now, it is important to note that these statements are just things people reported to the sheriff by word of mouth, and were not officially confirmed or denied by any means.

In this documentary, the man who lived in cabin 13 at the time of the killings describes a man with dark, frizzy hair in a white Chevy Blazer. He claims he saw this man arguing with Sue frequently. And they dug deep, they found this man's ex-wife, and she also backed up his story. In Sheila's book, she says that she believes that Marty is the man that they're talking about. However, her book doesn't mention, and no other sources confirm or deny if Marty drove a white Chevy Blazer.

In the early 2010s, Plumas County got a new sheriff, Greg Hagwood, and the Keddie case was personal to him. He'd gone to school with John and Dana, and even worked with them on a painting crew in the summer of 1980. Hagwood's mom was also one of Tina's teachers at Quincy Elementary.

Hagwood says he actually spent many nights in Cabin 28 while he was growing up. One of his friends had lived there before the Sharps moved in. He was determined to solve this case and called in some help.

Mike Gamberg was a Palomas County deputy before the murders, but says Sheriff Thomas fired him shortly before the murders took place. He was then reinstated shortly after, but never allowed to work on the Keddie case. He says he worked on every case in the county from 1974 to 1999 but the Keddie case. Again, another odd tidbit.

By 2013, Gamberg was working as a private investigator. Hagwood reached out to him and asked if he'd like to help give the case a fresh look over 30 years later. Gamberg also knew John and Dana. He coached them in martial arts and other community activities. He says Dana even came by his house the day before he was killed. They had the passion, they had the emotional investment, but they didn't know how to do it.

But this case was a mess. Gamberg told reporter Victoria Metcalf that he was met with a great task when he was asked to go through the Keddie room filled with evidence. He describes it as a disorganized mess and says the original investigation log stating what officer took what action on which day was nowhere to be found.

He adds that physical evidence from the crime scene, like pieces of the wallpaper and carpet, were really disorganized. But worst of all, he made the discovery that a freezer full of evidence had at some point been unplugged, basically making all that DNA either one, contaminated, or completely unusable.

It was a total mess. But it didn't take long before Gamberg and Hagwood found new leads. They found what they considered to be Marty Smart's second confession. Buried in these case files, they found a letter written on a floral yellow stationery addressed to Marilyn, sent from Oregon. This was dated April 27th, 1981. It reads, quote, "'I've paid the price for your love.'

And now that I've bought it with four people's lives, you tell me we are through. Great, what else do you want? End quote. This letter does contain Marty's signature, and according to People Magazine Investigates, Marty's DNA was found on the letter's stamp. Now, Marilyn is reportedly the person who gave this letter over to the sheriff's office. When asked about it later, she said that she didn't remember that. But she did confirm that the letter was in her ex-husband's handwriting.

And it just doesn't stop. Gamberg says that he found another box of unopened, unadmitted evidence that contained another piece of crucial information. It was the audio recording of that call from the person saying that the remains found may have been Tina.

See, Gamberg says that he doesn't think that this was just a random call. He thinks this person may be connected to the case. And the leads just didn't stop. In 2016, the sheriff's office gets another tip from an unlikely source. An internet user who goes by the alias DMACC runs Keddie28.com. This is an online forum that welcomes discussion about the case and proposes theories about the killings.

One user posted on this forum saying that he'd been junk hunting around Keddie when he found an old hammer in a pond. They didn't think that it was anything of value, so they threw it back. But when they read the details of the Keddie case and saw that Martin Smart claimed he was missing a hammer at the time of the murders, he thought it was worth reporting.

And sure enough, in that pond, investigators found an Eastwig brand hammer with a blue rubber handle that perfectly matched the description of the hammer Martin Smart was missing. Investigators also found a 6-inch hunting knife near the old Keddie store. In 2018, they said that both of these items were being tested. But it doesn't appear that anything came of this.

Now, this is an old case, which means a lot of these key players just aren't around anymore. One thing that reports vary on is exactly when Marty and Bo died. Most sources say that Bo died in 1988, but Hancock and Glover's documentary claim that he was still alive and living in Celebration, Florida in 2005.

Most sources say that Marty died in Oklahoma in 2006, but Sheila told Hancock and Glover that she received a call from the Plumas County Sheriff's Office nearly 10 years earlier, in 1997, telling her Marty was dead. The same documentary claims Marty died in the spring of 2000. I know, it's confusing. But in the end, it does appear that both men are now deceased, whatever those dates may be.

In 2016, Hagwood and Gamberg told People magazine Investigates that they believe there were as many as six living persons of interest. Gamberg said, quote, I believe they, at minimum, have first-hand information, and at maximum, participated in or assisted in destroying evidence and hiding Tina's body, end quote.

In a 2021 interview with ABC 10's Madison Wade, Gamberg said, quote, I believe there are two individuals that are alive and accessories after the fact. End quote.

Now, over the years, Gamberg has discussed testing a lot of things. He wanted to see if that audio recording matched any of the persons of interest. He also said that DNA evidence had been pulled from a piece of tape found at the crime scene, and it matched one of the living people of interest. But I couldn't find any follow-up on this information.

And Gamburg's theories don't end here. Here's how he thinks the murders played out. He believes that Sue Sharp befriended Marilyn, and was giving her advice on how to leave Marty. He believes Marty wanted to get back at Sue for meddling in their relationship, so he enlisted Bo's help to kill her. He thinks John, Dana, and Tina only lost their lives because they were in the way.

Gamberg also believes that there would be no reason for Marty and Bo to show up at the Keddie bar dressed in suits and sunglasses or to throw a fit over the music, if not to make themselves memorable and establish an alibi.

Hagwit also still believes that Tina could be a motive in the killings. He told Madison Wade, "...you kill three people in a cabin and you leave the remains there to be discovered. I think Tina was absolutely central to why this happened. I think there was something about Tina that could not be left there to be discovered. It's my strong sense that there's something about Tina that did not allow her to be left there."

Gamberg and Hagwood have also been very frank in their interviews that they believe that the Sheriff's Department and the California Department of Justice mishandled this case. Gamberg even goes as far as to suggest that the Department of Justice was protecting Bo, who could have been a key witness in a larger organized crime.

In all of this, People magazine tracks down Doug Thomas, the original sheriff at the time of the murders. He said, quote, End quote.

And that's really where the case is today. Cabins 27 and 28 were torn down in the early 2000s, but as of 2018, cabin 26 still stood. As of Madison Wade's 2021 article, Greg Hagwood was no longer the Plumas County Sheriff.

Sheila Sharp and her husband released her book, How to Survive Your Visit to Earth, in 2012. In it, she says, "...with the information that is currently available, I feel confident that Marty and Bo were indeed the killers. I believe my mother befriended Marilyn Smart, who was in an abusive relationship, and offered her counsel and support."

My mother, who had also been the victim of abuse, no doubt encouraged her friend to leave her husband and seek a better life elsewhere. I believe that Marty, a man who was treated for his inability to handle stress, already fueled by a deep hatred for my mother, and blaming her for Marilyn's decision to divorce him, chose to act in revenge toward my mother for what he saw as meddlesome influence.

His hatred for my mother, together with a building frustration over the type of music played at the bar in Keddie, the consumption of alcohol, and perhaps encouragement from Beau, created a perfect storm of pent-up violence that descended on Cabin 28, and claimed the lives of four innocent people. Beau, a man who exhibited a history of parallel behavior to that of a sociopath, was undoubtedly an eager accomplice.

"'I believe that a short time after Marty and Bo "'left the backdoor bar, "'they gained entry to our home "'with the idea of raping and or murdering my mother. "'I believe that while in the process "'of assaulting my mother and sister, "'my brother Johnny and his friend Dana, "'who had managed to hitchhike back from a day "'spent in nearby Quincy, California, "'stumbled into the horrific scene. "'I believe my mother and sister may have already been "'or were in the process of being bound "'with tape and electrical cord "'when Johnny and Dana arrived.'

End quote.

Since the murders took place, rumors have continued to circulate around Keddie and now online that Sue was involved in selling drugs, and that that's what ultimately led to her death. I only include that to tell you that there's no evidence of this. Even in 1981, Sheriff Doug Thomas told Dave Muller of the Feather River Bulletin, "...we've gone through the house several times with a fine-tooth comb, and there was absolutely no traces of drugs or drug paraphernalia found in that home."

Sheila says that this is one of the hardest things to grapple with. The assumptions about her mom, how she died, her receiving government benefits, she says it's one of the hardest things she's had to deal with in the aftermath of all of this. She wrote, quote, My mother's character has been subject to all manner of cruel supposition, including accusations that she was a drug addict, drug dealer, prostitute, or at the very least an unfit mother.

End quote.

In the end, Sheila blames law enforcement for the case remaining unsolved. She mentions how they allowed the freezer full of evidence to be unplugged, how Sheriff Thomas only took two classes before deciding to hypnotize a key witness. She also says that the Plumas County Sheriff's Department allowed reporter Victoria Metcalf to sprinkle flour around the crime scene. She was apparently trying to determine if the killer or killers had returned.

In her book, Sheila also makes a larger statement about the online community surrounding her family's case, saying, quote,

End quote.

There isn't a lot of information online about Dana Wingate, but through those documentaries, I learned that he was born prematurely and suffered from various medical conditions throughout his youth. He's described as a quiet, kind young man, and the fact that investigators believe he died trying to protect a family that wasn't his own speaks wonders of his character. Sheila says she tries to remember the good moments with her family. I'll leave you with what she wrote about each of them in her book.

Quote, I will forever mourn the precious gift that was my sister. When I think of my brother Johnny, I try to think of the protective and precarious rascal that he was. I try to remember his smile and how much I knew he loved us.

End quote.

Which brings me right to our call to action. As I told you, investigators believe there are still people alive who were involved in this crime. Sue's three living children are still out there, wondering what happened to their mother, brother, and sister. Dana Wingate's family still deserves closure. Please share this case. Also, I'd really like to encourage you to get Sheila's book.

I've heard about this case for years, and our reporter Brooke has worked on this episode for a very long time, but nothing compares to Sheila's first-hand account.

As a reminder, Sue, John, and Tina Sharp and Dana Wingate lost their lives sometime between Saturday, April 11th and Sunday, April 12th, 1981 in Keddie, California. If you have any information, please call the Plumas County Sheriff's Office at 530-283-3660. But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.

Voices for Justice is hosted and produced by me, Sarah Turney, and is a Voices for Justice media original. This episode contains writing and research assistance by Brooke Haynes. If you love what we do here, please don't forget to follow, rate, and review the show on your podcast player. It's an easy and free way to help us and help more people find these cases in need of justice.

Welcome to the Secret After Show. The door is open, the dogs are running around, and emotionally supporting us. Let's get into the case. I will say that this is one of the hardest crime scenes I've ever had to discuss. Um...

And there's always that fine line between adding details you think are necessary that can help solve this case and not being too graphic. My goal, of course, was to be respectful, and I hope that that came across.

One part of this case that I couldn't get over was that first sheriff. Him doing the hypnosis himself, doing the marriage counseling. I mean, maybe that's just a sign of the times, right? And I hate to be that way because I do feel obviously it was inappropriate given today's standards. But small town, small town sheriff. I don't think that he had bad intentions, but maybe I'm being naive.

I will say that I agree with Sheila that there were a lot of missteps in this case. Like, the evidence freezer. I wanted to crumble and melt into a thousand pieces when I saw that. It's just, it's so sad. And there's nothing you can say to a family that will ever make that okay. Like, accidents happen, absolutely. But when that accident could mean the difference between your loved one getting justice or not...

That's a hard thing to understand, give grace for, and forgive. One thing that also got me was how Marty went back to that count. I mean, allegedly, right? They say that this is a he said, she said situation. But how Marty apparently took the time to go back to the counselor and say goodbye after confessing. And I couldn't get past that smile part. Something about that just really creeped me out.

I will say that something I discovered through researching this episode as well is that this case is based off of one of my favorite horror films, and I had no idea. As I travel through true crime, I've really had this crisis with my love of horror movies. I've talked about this before, but

You know, I grew up on horror movies, like primarily horror movies, me and Alyssa. I was watching Chucky at like four and five or whatever. It was one of my favorite movies. I just always loved horror. I grew up with it. It was primarily what I watched. And now that I dive into true crime, you know, seeing something like the movie that was inspired by this case, The Strangers, it makes me look at everything differently.

And I really try not to be like this huge wet blanket in true crime, but it just, it makes me feel bad. I guess what it is for me is it always goes back to Alyssa. How would I feel about somebody making a horror movie based on her life? Especially something like The Strangers that appears to be extremely loosely based and that they might be just using this case to like say it was inspired by that. I don't know.

I am conflicted about horror, and honestly, I would love to know what you guys think.

I think that there's a certain type of horror that's like no harm, no foul, right? Like child's play. Like find me a case where a doll comes to life and kills people and do not name Annabelle, okay? Do not name Annabelle. I guess maybe there are no good examples. Maybe even the paranormal creeping into true crime is also kind of icky. I don't know. I'm telling you, I am having a crisis of conscious right now. Let me know what you think because I am conflicted.

This week, I'm not watching anything, but I am looking forward to the Fallout series. Now, my total nerd is gonna show, um, but this is like the combination of content that I love. One, I love- Are you okay? I got a dog coughing. Um, I think he's- You're okay? Corn!

Alright, he's fine. I love the combination of, like, apocalypse. Like, I love apocalypse movies. Don't... I don't know. I don't know what it is. You can call it drama or whatever. I love apocalypse movies. Starting over from scratch in a brand new world, it's so interesting to me. And of course, you guys know that, like, those June's Journey ads aren't lies. I love video games. It is, hands down, my favorite way to decompress. I love getting lost in a game. It's just...

I don't know. I grew up with a Nintendo controller in my hand with my four older brothers, and it's something that stuck with me my whole life. So if you guys don't know, Fallout is based off of the video game Fallout about the apocalypse, essentially. And they're coming out with a series. So I'm super excited to watch that. It looks really good and really cool. Not true crime associated, but that is what I'm into this week.

I will also say that, and maybe this is the trauma talking again, but I had this like weird itch in my brain. I remember this book from my childhood called The Island of the Blue Dolphin. And I was like, I want to read this again. And so I grabbed it off my shelf at like 7 p.m., sat down and read it all in one sitting. I don't know if that was like a normal thing for people to read growing up.

Um, but you know, it reminded me because it's like what made me fall in love with the earth and caring about the earth and, um, all that. But, uh, if you haven't read it, it's essentially about, um, a little girl who is left behind by her tribe when white men come and take her away. Um,

And eventually, you know, they come back for her. And what's like awful is like the point of the story is like kind of the worst at the end. So it's all about her like surviving on her own and like the beauty of her culture and these traditions and the earth. And it's so cool. And then at the end, she's like so excited to like go back.

be colonized or whatever, not to spoil it for you. But yeah, that's what I read. It had an unexpected ending that I was able to reevaluate as an adult, I guess. It's just, it's interesting to me too that that was a book I believe I read in school. And with that message, I don't know. I don't know, y'all. But that's what I read.

Again, if you have read Island of the Blue Dolphin, please tell me I am not alone. Please let me know in the comments if you read it, if you've read it recently, and what you think.

Onto our segment of hope, and I actually pulled it from this week's episode. I know, I'm just pulling hope out of everywhere. But I wanted to talk about the hammer being found. Really, the crowdsourcing of that information, getting it to police, and then it, you know, being a part of this case. Albeit, it doesn't appear to be a huge part of this case. It was evidence that was found.

And I think that that's really cool. You know, I'll admit that even for me, sometimes it's hard to see the benefits of forums. You know what I mean? Especially when there are just like thousands of posts that are just mean and bashing. I guess I'm more talking about like a Reddit. I would say that something like a Websleuths is like much better than Reddit. But I wanted to really point that out and pointed out that it gave me more hope in these forums too, to be totally honest.

I think it's just, it's really cool. You know, there's so much bashing of the true crime community and people being too involved in cases. And I'll admit, I do that too, because I do think that sometimes people cross a line. But this is, you know, the hope that is in those forums. Like, that's best case scenario, that all this talking about this case leads to something tangible like that hammer being found. So that is my segment of hope.

But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.