In the fall of 1980, her and her five children left their Connecticut home after separating from her abusive husband, James Sharp. They traveled cross-country visiting friends and old neighbors. In November, Sue then decided to relocate to Keddie, California, where her brother Don was residing at the time.
At the time, Keddie was a run-down, low rent, railroad town were violence ran rampant. i don't know what the population was at the time, but in 2000 there were 96 people living there and in 2010 there was a cenus of 66 people.
She rented a 3 bedroom Cabin, number 28, at the Keddie Resort. Sue's 15-year-old son, Johnny, took an unfinished room downstairs that was off a small utility area in the partial basement. With no indoor stairs or separate bathroom, he used the back staircase or front door to gain access to Cabin 28. His little brothers, 10-year-old Rick and 5-year-old Greg, shared a bedroom at the front of the cabin that was next to the living room. Sue and her youngest daughter, 12-year-old Tina, shared the rear bedroom opposite the kitchen.
In February, Susan's oldest daughter, 14-year-old Sheila, gave birth to a baby in Oregon. The baby was put up for adoption and Sheila rejoined her family in Cabin 28. Sue slept in a twin bed while the girls shared the queen. On occasion Sue slept on the pull-couch in the living room.
Sue had one close friend, a neighbor woman with the last name of Meeks. Sue hung out at a neighborhood bar called The Back Door. She had a steady boyfriend and their relationship was volatile. In March of 1981, they broke up following a shouting match.
On April 11, 1981, Sue and Sheila drove from Keddie to pick up John and his friend Dana Hall Wingate from Gansner Park in Quincy, and brought them rhw 5 miles back to Keddie. Two hours later, John and Dana hitchhiked back to Quincy to visit friends. The two were seen in the city's downtown area. A woman named Donna Williams claimed to have picked them up in front of a tire store and given them a ride down the road to another friend's home. John and Dana later attended a party at Oakland Camp in Quincy.
That same evening, Sheila departed the home shortly after 8:00 pm to spend the night with the Seabolt family, who lived in an adjacent cabin. Tina, who had been watching television at the Seabolts', returned home to the cabin around 9:30 pm. Sue remained at home with Rick, Greg, and the boys' young friend, Justin Smartt.
The next morning, after Sheila awoke, she headed to Cabin 28 to get her church clothes. It was sometime after 7 a.m. and when she swung the door open to cabin 28, she was in for a horrifying shock. There were three dead bodies on the floor, one of which was covered with a blanket. Between the doorway and the closest body was a knife. Screaming and crying, a frightened Sheila desperately ran back to the Seabolts. Zonita Seabolt rushed Sheila across the street to the landlord's Cabin number 25. Zonita then called the Plumas County Sheriff’s Office.
While waiting for the police, Zonita’s eldest son Jamie returned went around the back of Cabin 28 and knocked on the boys’ bedroom window. A face popped up in the window. Jamie dragged an unharmed Greg, Rick, and a neighbor child, Justin Smartt from that window. Jamie then crept up the back stairs to see if anyone else was still alive. The back door was ajar and once inside, Jamie saw the three dead bodies, but no one else.
When police arrived, they discovered that the three bodies were that of Sue, John, and John’s friend, Dana Wingate. They were all bound by adhesive tape and electrical wiring.
A bent steak knife was found on the floor. A bloodied butcher knife and a claw hammer were found on a table near the entry way of the kitchen. Blood splatters were found on the walls and ceiling. Drops of blood on Tina's bed. The investigation pointed to rape as the motivation behind kidnapping Tina, instead of murdering her in the home with the others. More evidence found included a bloody footprint that was discovered in the yard and knife marks in some of the walls of the home.
Police theorized that at least two people committed the three murders. The only suspects at the time were Marty Smartt and his roommate John "Bo" Boubede. Marty served two tours in Vietnam and was seeking psychiatric help at the Reno VA hospital a few weeks before the murders. Marty was married to Justin's mom, Marilyn. They lived two cabins away from the Sharps. Marty was allegedly abusive and Sue was counseling Marilyn, which made Marty furious.
Bo, who had a criminal history of bank robbery for which he spent time in prison, claimed he was at the hospital for epilepsy and a suicide attempt. The two men met there, and Marty brought Bo with him to Keddie, California.
Marilyn, later claimed she had found Tina's bloody jacket in her basement and had turned it in to police. I haven't found an official record of this.
When investigators interviewed Marty Smartt he claimed that a claw hammer had disappeared from his home.
Shortly after the murders Marty took off to Reno.
Detectives also interviewed members of the Seabolt family, who recalled seeing an unknown green van parked at the Sharps' cabin around 9:00 pm. Other neighbors recalled noticing a brown Datsun parked at the residence that evening, which appeared to have a tire that was going flat.
Justin at first said that he dreamed details of the murders and then later claimed to have actually witnessed them. Under hypnosis he claimed to have heard sounds coming from the living room while watching television in the bedroom with Rick and Greg.
He went to investigate and saw Sue with two men. Then John and Dana then entered the home and began heatedly arguing with the men. There was a fight, Tina entered the room, and she was taken out of the cabin's back door by one of the men.
Carla McMullen, a family acquaintance, later told detectives that Dana Wingate had recently stolen an unknown quantity of LSD from local drug dealers.
In December 1983, detectives ruled out serial killers Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole as potential suspects.
In 1984, on the 3rd anniversary of the murders, a cranium portion of Tina's skull and part of her mandible were discovered 50 miles away at Camp Eighteen near Feather Falls in Butte County. Shortly after announcing the discovery, Butte County Sheriff's Office received an anonymous call that identified the remains as belonging to Tina. Near the remains, detectives also found a child's blanket, a blue nylon jacket, a pair of Levi Strauss jeans with a missing back pocket, and an empty surgical tape.
Bo, who allegedly had ties to organized crime in Chicago, died there in 1988.
Martin Smartt died of cancer in Portland, Oregon, in June 2000.
In 2001, Dana Wingate's father said that the police, "stumbled over each other and fouled up the case."
In 2004, the cabin was demolished.
In a 2008 documentary on the murders, Marilyn Smartt claimed that she suspected her husband Martin and Bo were responsible. Marilyn claimed that on the evening of the crimes, she had left Martin and Bo at a local bar around 11:00 pm and returned home to go to sleep. She said she woke up around 2:00 am to find the two burning an unknown item in the wood stove. Additionally, she alleged that Martin "hated Johnny Sharp with a passion." In the same documentary, Sheriff Doug Thomas said he had personally interviewed Martin, and that Martin he had passed a polygraph.
In 2013, the case was looked into with a fresh pair of eyes by Plumas County Sheriff Greg Hagwood and investigator Mike Gamberg.
On March 24, 2016, a hammer matching the description of the hammer Martin claimed to have lost was discovered in a local pond. Plumas County Sheriff Hagwood stated: "the location it was found... It would have been intentionally put there. It would not have been accidentally misplaced." Gamberg also stated that at that time, six potential suspects were being examined.
One day Gamberg was organizing old case reports and boxes of old evidence. He found the 9-1-1 audio of the anonymous caller sealed in a envelope, it apparently had never been submitted into evidence. Gamberg also found letters Marty had sent to Marilyn after the murders. In one of the letters he wrote, "I've paid the price of your love & now I've bought it with four people's lives, you tell me that we are through? Great. What else do you want?" Marilyn claimed that she never remembered getting that letter, but did recognize Marty's handwriting.
In a 2016 interview, Gamberg stated that the letter was initially "overlooked" and never admitted as evidence. When talking about the the previous investigation of the murders Gamberg said,"You could take someone just coming out of the academy and they'd have done a better job."
A counselor whom Marty regularly visited also alleged that he had admitted to the murders of Sue and Tina, but claimed "I didn't have anything to do with [the boys]." Marty allegedly told the counselor that Tina was killed to prevent her from identifying him, as she had "witnessed the whole thing."
In April 2018, Gamberg stated that DNA evidence recovered from a piece of tape at the crime scene matched that of a known living suspect.
In April 2018, Gamberg stated that DNA evidence recovered from a piece of tape at the crime scene matched that of a known living suspect.
