Qualla: Keddie Murders

Keddie Murders: Introduction

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 3ternalist01, CC BY-SA 3.0. House number 28 still carries its secrets. On the morning of April 12, 1981, fourteen-year-old Sheila Sharp returned from a sleepover next door to find her mother, brother, and his friend dead in the living room of their cabin at the Keddie Resort. Her twelve-year-old sister Tina was missing. What Sheila discovered that morning in the remote Sierra Nevada railroad town would become one of California's most haunting unsolved crimes, a quadruple homicide that has defied investigators for more than forty years.

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Image: 3ternalist01 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Keddie Murders: A Fresh Start Gone Wrong

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 3ternalist01, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sue Sharp came to California seeking escape. In July 1979, she left Connecticut with her five children after separating from her husband James. Born Glenna Susan Davis in Springfield, Massachusetts, she had hoped the West would offer a new beginning. After a brief stay in a small...

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Image: 3ternalist01 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Keddie Murders: That Night in April

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 3ternalist01, CC BY-SA 3.0. April 11, 1981 unfolded like any ordinary Saturday. Sue, Sheila, and Greg visited friends, the Meeks family, before picking up Rick from baseball tryouts at Gansner Field in Quincy. John and his friend Dana Wingate, seventeen years old, were at the cabin. Sheila spent that night ...

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Image: 3ternalist01 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Keddie Murders: The Search for Tina

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Plumas County Sheriff Office, Public domain. The FBI investigated Tina's disappearance as a possible abduction. For three years, her fate remained unknown. Then, on April 11, 1984, the exact third anniversary of the murders, a bottle collector made a grim discovery at Camp 18, a remote location near Feather Falls in Butte C...

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Image: Plumas County Sheriff Office | Public domain

Keddie Murders: Suspects and Shadows

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 3ternalist01, CC BY-SA 3.0. Martin Smartt, Justin's stepfather and a neighbor, emerged as the primary suspect. He reported that a claw hammer had inexplicably gone missing from his home around the time of the murders. Investigators released composite sketches of two men seen in the area: one in his late twe...

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Image: 3ternalist01 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Keddie Murders: Cold Case, New Evidence

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 3ternalist01, CC BY-SA 3.0. The case refused to die. In 2016, investigators announced the discovery of a hammer in a pond, along with new DNA evidence that offered fresh hope for resolution. Sheriff Hagwood revealed that six potential suspects were being examined. The new evidence linked at least one living...

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Image: 3ternalist01 | CC BY-SA 3.0