Ep. 6 - Keddie Cabin Murders

Many of you have probably spent some time in a cabin in the woods. Or perhaps you have hiked on a nature trail somewhere. Nature is supposed to be a place of peace. But sometimes this can also be a place of danger. Remote natural places are favorite dumping grounds for murderers. The recent murder of Gabby Petito is proof of that. Natural places make easier hunting grounds. A mountain resort or lodge like the Keddie Resort became one such place in 1981. And the horrific murders that happened here remain unsolved today.

Keddie really isn't a town. This was a resort that became a community. The resort started as a former railroad town that sat at the foot of the Sierra Nevadas and it was named for railroad surveyor Arthur W. Keddie. The area was so beautiful that it became a vacation destination. People could get out of the big cities and enjoy nature at the Keddie Resort, which was established 1910. The property had a two-story lodge that featured rooms for rent, a bar and a restaurant that people would drive to from miles away because the food was just that good. Local delicacies like trout and elk were on the menu. There were also thirty-three cabins built from logs and a general store. All seasons, minus winter, found the resort rooms filled with hikers and fisherman or city folk looking for a remote place to relax. For decades, the resort prospered, but by the 1970s things were getting a bit run down and people weren't coming to stay anymore. The owner, Gary Mollath, decided that his best option was to offer the cabins as long-term rentals and most of the takers were low-income families on welfare. The restaurant still attracted people however, so the resort stayed viable. And that's how things went until something horrific happened in Cabin 28 that would bring the resort to ruin and lead to possible unexplained activity.

Glenna Susan Davis was born on March 29, 1945 in Springfield, Massachusetts. She married James Sharp and they had five children: Johnny, Greg, Sheila, Tina and Ricky. In July 1979, she left James and took the five kids. She was tired of his abuse and he had already thrown them all out once before. Her brother Don was in northern California, so she decided to move from Connecticut to Quincy, California and Sue rented a small trailer where her brother had once lived. In November of 1980, she moved to the Keddie Resort and rented Cabin #28. The former resident of the cabin had been Plumas County's then-sheriff, Sylvester Douglas Thomas.

What happened in this cabin on the night of April 11, 1981 is not clear. I will try to lay out the events as best as could be figured out by authorities. This was a Saturday night, so the kids were more free to do other things than study and go to bed early. Sheila was fourteen and she had asked her mother if she could stay over in a different cabin with a friend and Sue agreed. This was the Seabolt family who were staying in Cabin 27. The Seabolts were trying to be a good influence on her. They were strong Mormons and they knew that Sheila had given birth at the age of thirteen to a child that had been placed for adoption. Sheila left for her sleepover at 8pm. Her sister Tina, who was 12-years-old, was already at the Seabolt's cabin watching TV. She wasn't spending the night and headed back to her family's cabin at 9:30pm. Ricky, who was 10, and his brother Greg, who was 5, asked if their friend Justin Eason could stay the night and Sue agreed. Justin was the son of a neighbor, Marilyn Smartt. Also, in the cabin were John, who was 15, and his 17-year-old friend Dana Wingate. So on this evening, there is the 36-year-old adult mother Sue, four of her children and two of their friends in Cabin 28.

Sheila had been invited by the Seabolt's to attend church the following morning, but she didn't have appropriate clothes, so she told them she would run to her cabin and change quickly. What Sheila saw in her cabin is something no one should ever have to see, especially a young teenager. There were three dead bodies, all of them baring the scars of a brutal murder. Her brother Johnny, his friend Dana and her mother were all deceased, their hands and legs bound with white cloth medical tape. Blood was everywhere. Sheila ran screaming from the cabin. The little community of around sixty-six were completely shocked because no one had heard or seen anything, except for a couple staying in Cabin 16 who thought they had heard a muffled scream around 1:15am. They all felt safe enough in their natural setting to leave their doors unlocked.

Mr. Seabolt ran to the house when Sheila told him what had happened and he rescued Greg, Ricky and their friend Justin through a bedroom window. The police were called and they found multiple murder weapons on the scene. No one noticed that someone was missing from the scene: Tina. They wouldn't figure that out for precious hours. The authorities documented that all three victims had been bound with 22 feet of white cloth medical tape - that had been brought to the cabin - and an extension cord from the television had also been used.  A bloody hammer and butcher knife were found on a table and a dull, flimsy table knife was found near Johnny's body. There was a third bloody knife found in a trash can at the general store. The autopsies revealed that all three victims had multiple stab wounds and had been bludgeoned with two different hammers and it was so bad that none of the victims were immediately recognizable. The other hammer wasn't on the scene. Dana had also been strangled and Sue had been bludgeoned by a rifle identified as a Daisy 880 Powerline BB/pellet rifle that was also not on the scene. Sue and John died from their stab wounds, while Dana died from the strangulation. Dana had tape around one wrist and a wire around one ankle, but he was not bound. There was a couch cushion beneath his head.

All of the murders had taken place in the living room. Sue was near the couch, lying on her side on the floor. She was nude from the waist down and had been gagged with her underwear and a blue bandana. She was covered with a yellow blanket from her bed. She was stabbed horizontally in the throat so deep that her spine was nicked. The side of her head was hit by the rifle leaving an imprint that helped identify it. John's throat was slashed with a knife and he was beat in the head with a hammer. Dana was beat repeatedly in the head with a hammer as well. It is not clear what the three boys in the bedroom experienced or witnessed. Their stories conflicted with each other and even their own individual claims. Justin at first thought he dreamed up the murders, but later claimed to have witnessed something. He was hypnotized and while he was under, he claimed that he woke up because he heard strange noises in the living room. He saw two men with Sue and that Dana and John were not in the room. He described the men as wearing glasses and one having a mustache and short hair and the other being clean-shaven with long hair. John and Dana arrived home and argued with the men and there was a fight. Tina came out of her bedroom and one of the men grabbed her and took her outside. It is believed that Justin may have been the one to cover Sue's body with the blanket. I also wonder if the pillow under Dana's head was his doing as well.

This was a violent and angry crime. Not only were all the victims repeatedly assaulted with a multitude of weapons, but one of the knives was bent at a 30 degree angle. The drapes had been drawn for privacy and the telephone was off the hook, but more importantly, the cord had been cut. Police were unable to determine the timing of events or who was killed first. The deaths were thought to have occurred sometime between 10:30pm and 2:30am. That 2:30am time was used because the bartender from Back Door at the lodge thought he heard some thumping sounds in the cabin when he passed around that time on his way home from work. Composite sketches were made from Justin's claims, but not by a professional. The man who drew the pictures had no forensic sketch training and really had no artistic ability period. Press releases described the suspects as being in their late 20s to early 30s with both wearing gold-framed sunglasses - a bit unusual for being late at night. One stood between 5 feet 11 inches to 6 feet 2 inches tall and the other stood between 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 10 inches. The taller guy had dark-blonde hair and the other had black, greased back hair.

Let's look at what happened prior to the murders. On the day of the murders, Saturday, April 11, 1981, Johnny had gone into the city of Quincy to hang out with his friend Dana who was actually staying at a group home for boys. He had recently been having issues at home and at school. The boys spent all day together and decided to head back to Keddie in the evening. They asked the couple who supervised the group home if Dana could stay the night and the couple said the answer was yes as long as they didn't hitchhike to get there. The boys would hitchhike. They stopped at a female friends place at 6:30pm and she asked them to stay over, but Johnny replied that his mother was expecting them. They next stopped at the Quincy Country Store around 7pm. A friend gave Dana a ride on his motorcycle up to an Exxon station. Dana hung out there until Johnny walked to the location. They were next seen hitchhiking along highway 70 and this was around 10pm. Johnny and Dana are thought to have arrived at the cabin sometime after 10pm, probably around 10:30pm.

Sue hung out with Tina, Greg, Ricky and Justin at the cabin. They decided to watch "The Love Boat" that evening and Sue made some popcorn for everybody to share. The three boys and Tina then went to bed and Sue entertained some neighbors. There are claims that Sue did sex work for a little side hustle. Whether that is relevant or not, I don't know, but it is necessary to have that information. The neighbors were Martin and Marilyn Smartt and they brought Martin's friend John Boubede, whom everyone called Bo, over with them. Bo was not a good guy and had some trouble with the law. He had been convicted of bank robbery and had connections to organized crime. On top of that, he and Marty met and became friends while the two were staying at a psychiatric hospital. The trio didn't stay long as they were on the way to the bar at the lodge. They invited Sue along, but she didn't go. Marilyn was her friend and had told Sue about the abuse she suffered at Marty's hands. Sue probably wasn't interested in spending time with him and she more than likely picked up on Bo's "creep" factor. They left and Sue probably returned to watching the TV powered by a cord that would soon bind her. 

Tina was small for her age and a little slow. She was tested and placed in a special education class at school. Tina had wanted to stay the night at the Seabolt's place that evening, but Mrs. Seabolt said that only Sheila could stay over. So Tina returned home unfortunately. No one realized she was missing until later in the day when the sheriff questioned Justin in his squad car. The boy had hysterically screamed that Tina was missing over and over, but the sheriff didn't understand what he meant. It would be Justin's mother who finally figured it out and got the sheriff to listen. Tina's jacket and shoes were missing from the house, along with her. She would be found on April 22, 1984 by a bottle collector who discovered a human cranium and part of a mandible 100 miles away from Keddie at Camp Eighteen near Feather Falls in neighboring Butte County. An anonymous call helped identify the remains, which were confirmed to from Tina by a forensic pathologist in June of 1984. A blue nylon jacket, a blanket, a pair of Levi Strauss jeans with a missing back pocket, and an empty medical tape dispenser were also found by the remains.

The suspect list was thin. Who could do something so heinous? Despite this being a tight community, it was anything but full of good people. There were many criminals here with even the resort owner being linked to a murder. There were pedophiles, drug addicts and dealers, transient thieves and other criminals. The serial killer Robert Silveria, Jr., also known as "The Boxcar Killer," spent some time in the area and even confessed to the murders in 1996. And it was definitely a possibility. He spent 15 years riding the rails and killing other transients along the way. His method was bludgeoning and stabbing. He worked in Quincy at a lumber mill near the time of the murders. But his confession was tossed out when it was discovered he was in jail for an unrelated crime at the time. I'm not sure why. As many of you true crime aficionados know, serial killer Henry Lee Lucas liked to confess to murders. This was another one that he and Otis Toole were looked at for, but they eventually were ruled out.

The next primary suspect would be Martin Smartt,. His home was missing its clawed hammer and he claimed to have no idea where it disappeared to. Plumas County Sheriff Doug Thomas said that Smartt had proven his innocence with an "endless clues" supply. But the taped interviews are weird and not much was followed up on. Smartt says during the interview that Justin is "quiet enough to where he could have noticed something without me detecting him." He also pointed out that he was missing a hammer at his house during this time and went on to describe how he would have committed the murders had it been him. Both Bo and Martin contradict themselves and outright lie during the interviews. Smartt claimed they had been at the bar until 1:30am, headed back to their cabin and took tranquilizers to sleep, on top of the 4 to 5 beers they had each consumed. He also said that two men he didn't recognize came into the bar. The first came in around 11pm. He was wearing Levis and a t-shirt and had long hair nearly to his waist that was pulled back in a ponytail. He had a thick dark mustache and wore a buck knife with a flap over the top of it. He stood 5'7" to 5'8" and was 24 to 25 years old and muscular. The other had short, curly hair, he was in his late 20's, early 30's and stood, 6' 1", 6'2", he came in around 1am and bought a case of beer. Sheriff Thomas claimed Smartt passed a polygraph and the men left town after being questioned. Bo died in 1988 and Smartt in 2000.

It's not surprising that a violent crime like this would leave behind spiritual residue, particularly since it remains unsolved today. Cabin 28 was demolished in 2004, but there were many reports of hauntings connected to it before that and as we know, unexplained activity can continue even after a location is razed. People who stayed in the cabin claimed to see chairs and bodies floating mid-air. They heard disembodied footsteps, disembodied whispers, moans and the sound of knocking. No one stayed in this cabin long because of the intense feelings of dread. Children were most often effected by the negative energy, suffering night terrors and nightmares. One child even claimed to see a man with a green face looking in at him through the bedroom window. The window had been eight feet off the ground.

Ashley Conte was long-time owner Gary Mollath's step-daughter. She and some friends broke into Cabin 28 for a cheap thrill, but they didn't stay long because of what they witnessed inside. They claimed to see murky forms and the kitchen door had two things carved on it: a pitchfork and the word "no." They returned to the cabin later that night and the carvings were gone. Forest Jones was a local who entered the cabin on a dare and he said he heard disembodied moans inside, the doors slammed on their own and he heard disembodied footsteps. In 1991, a group of three teenagers were seen running from the cabin late one night. They screamed as they jumped into their car and sped off.

This is an interesting crime, one that I think the authorities probably screwed up on. The best suspects seem to be Martin Smartt and his friend Bo. But then, if Justin saw them committing the crime, wouldn't he have recognized them? Even if the scene was so traumatic to put their identities out of his mind, he was hypnotized and surely would have mentioned them during that session. If you believe that hypnotism works and I'm not sure I do. And why would the two men take Tina 100 miles away to dump her body? They seem the most likely suspects. Is it possible that Johnny and Dana caught a ride with the wrong people back to their cabin? Could these people have been the men that Smartt saw in the bar? Was Smartt even telling the truth? It is interesting that these two men seem to match Justin's descriptions. However, Marilyn Smartt believed her husband and Bo were guilty of the murders and said so in a 2008 documentary about the murders. She moved out of the cabin she shared with Martin on the day of the murders. And she clearly would have been an alibi for the men if she had been with them at the bar. So were they not with her all evening? In that same documentary, she claimed to have left the men at the bar and gone home to bed. At 2am she awoke and saw them burning something in the wood stove. Martin apparently admitted to committing the murders to a counselor many years later. On March 24, 2016, a hammer was found in a local pond that matched the one Smartt was missing. DNA was taken from a piece of tape from the crime scene in April of 2018 and it matched to a living suspect. Smartt was long dead at this time.

We may never know who committed this heinous murder. It takes a really evil person to kill children. Three of these victims were kids. They were tortured and murdered in horrific ways. Hopefully one day this case will be solved and the Sharp family can finally find some peace. Dana's father Gary put it best when he told the SF Gate, "Nobody has the faintest idea who killed my son, so I long ago had to let this thing go or it would eat me alive. But I do know this. There is evil in this world, and evil was in that house that night."