Obscure Occurrences : The Tragic Case of the Sharp Family

 On the morning of April 12^th 1981, 14-year-old Sheila Sharp woke up from her slumber at a neighbour’s house. She had her breakfast and chatted with her neighbour before deciding to go back to her home and join her family. She walked across the short path to her home, turned the handle of the house door, and pushed it open expecting to be greeted by her mother, sister, brothers and a local friend who had stayed at her house the previous night. But unbeknownst to her, she was about to witness a gruesome murder scene.

Background

 In the July of 1979, 34-year-old Glenna Susan Sharp left her house in Connecticut in order to escape the abusive behaviour of her husband James Sharp. With intentions of staying close to her brother Don, Susan and her five children, namely John Sharp (aged 14), Sheila (aged 13), Tina (aged 11), Rick (aged 10) and Greg (aged 5), relocated to Northern California. With little to no money in her hand, no valuables in her possession, no job and five kids under her care, she rented a small trailer in Quincy. Despite the trailer being too small for the six-membered family, Susan and her kids were happy about their new start. Soon afterwards, an opportunity to move into an actual house knocked on the family’s door.

Sharp Family (Source: Mamamia)

 Formerly a family resort, the Keddie Resort had fallen on hard times before being converted into low-income housing. A cabin in the property had recently been vacated by Sylvester Thomas, the county Sheriff, and it was offered to the Sharps. Thus, the family of six moved into cabin #28 of the Keddie Resort. Although the cabin was in poor shape, it was considerably larger than their previous makeshift house. Furthermore, there was woodland throughout the resort to keep the kids entertained and the neighbourhood had more than enough people for the family to socialize with.

 Eventually, the family settled into the neighbourhood and their struggles seemingly began fading away. However, in a cruel twist of fate, their newfound happy home would become the backdrop of their horrifying torture and murder.

The Day before the Tragedy

 On the morning of April 11^th 1981, Susan drove to Quincy to pick up Rick from his baseball practice. On her way back, she spotted John and his friend Dana trying to hitchhike their way to Keddie following which she offered them a lift. A couple of hours later, John and Dana went back to Quincy to meet their friends. Parallelly, Sheila and Tina were at a neighbour’s cabin while Susan stayed back home looking over her two youngest sons Rick and Greg along with Justin, the 12-year-old son of her friend.

 Greg went to bed at around 8:30 pm and he was soon followed by tina at around 9:30 pm. Rick and Justin stayed up until 10 watching tv as Susan lay on the sofa waiting for her eldest child john to return home with Dana. As for Sheila, she had decided to spend the night at her neighbour’s cabin.

Discovery

 When Sheila returned home the next morning, she was greeted by a terrifying scene. Her elder brother John was lying face up in the living room and he was covered in blood and deep puncture wounds. His friend Dana lay face down beside him and even he was in a similar state. Wrapped up in a yellow blanket was her mother, Suzan. All of them had their hands and ankles bound with medical tape and electrical cords, and none of them was breathing. The grisly sight was too much for the poor 14-year-old and she rushed back to her neighbour’s cabin screaming for help. Soon afterwards, the police were informed.

 Before the police officials and the ambulances arrived, Sheila, along with her neighbours, went back to her house. When they peeked through a window of the cabin, they found Rick, Greg and Justin fast asleep in their beds. Strangely, it appeared as if they had slept through the entire incident. In order to prevent the three kids from seeing the horror in the house, the neighbours pulled them out of the house through the aforementioned window. They then checked through the rest of the house with hopes of finding Tina alive, but she was nowhere to be found. Whoever had done this had taken Tina while leaving the back door of the house open.

 Beside the body of John lay a steak knife, one of the weapons used in the slayings. The blade of the knife had been bent to about 30 degrees. Also, a second blade and a hammer were found on a small table in the living room.

Investigation

 In total, five officers arrived to examine the cabin and none of them had experience with preserving a crime scene of this nature. Moreover, only after all five of them went through the house, they started taking photos and documenting evidence. Also, they failed to report Tina missing for several hours. Their incompetence proved to have huge ramifications for the future of this investigation.

 John, who lay closest to the door, had the right side of his throat slashed. He had been struck in the right side of his head with a hammer and his hands were bound with a white cloth and tape. His ankles were tied with an extension cord whose other end was knotted around Dana's ankles.

 Dana had also been struck with a hammer and shallowly stabbed but ultimately, he had been strangled to death. A much wider tape was used to secure dana's hands and it indicated the usage of two different rolls of tape. Thus, it appeared as if there had been more than one perpetrator. To further solidify this speculation, the hammer used against Dana wasn't the one found on the table in the living room.

 As for Susan, she had been stabbed in the chest and through the neck, with the blade hitting her spine. A narrower tape had been loosely wrapped around her hands and ankles and three separate cords had been tightly wrapped around the tape. Her body was nude from the waist down, and she had been gagged with her own underwear. The blanket covering her body had been taken from Tina’s bedroom.

 Following this preliminary search of the cabin, a more thorough investigation commenced. Strangely, there was no sign of a forced entry and a footprint by the back door suggested that perpetrators had entered the cabin through it. However, it's unclear whether Susan left the door unlocked or, whether she had willingly let the attackers in. The curtains had been closed to prevent neighbours from looking inside and the phone line had been severed.

 There were blade marks on several walls inside the house and fingerprints were discovered on the inside of a door frame and on a railing. Pools of blood all over the living room floor and on the bottom of the victims’ feet indicated that they had been moved around while they were still breathing.

 Later, the neighbours were questioned before interesting information came to light. A couple living in cabin #16 reported hearing muffled screams during the early hours of the day. Several other neighbours claimed having heard a dog bark near cabin #28 on that night. Also, the porch light of Sharp’s cabin had allegedly been turned on at around 4 in the morning. 

 Few others noted the presence of an unfamiliar green van parked just outside cabin #28 at about 9 pm. The local cats were also said to be acting strange that night, pacing around as if they sensed something wrong. Although these clues were interesting, they were insignificant compared to the oddity of the information provided to them by the father of Justin, Martin Smartt.

 In line with the statement of the investigating officers, Martin constantly gave them an endless stream of clues which, they thought, might have been a way for him to throw suspicion off himself. Martin had apparently told them that his claw hammer had gone missing from his toolbox while the details of neither the usage of a hammer as a weapon nor the hammer missing from the crime scene, were made public by the police. Paradoxically, the most insightful information was provided by his son Justin.

 The twelve-year-old was confused and shocked by the events of the tragic night. Although he had originally told detectives that he had been sleeping throughout the incident just like Rick and Greg, he had, on various other occasions, claimed to have heard the incident taking place in the living room. Also, at times, he even claimed that he had witnessed the events unfold.

 To help him recall his true memories from that night, Justin agreed to be hypnotized. During the hypnosis, Justin claimed that he was awoken at an unknown time by loud noises coming from the living room. He had peeked through the door before seeing two men talking with Susan. One had greased black hair with a moustache and stood at an average height while, the other had long blonde hair, was clean shaven, and was taller than average. Both of them were allegedly in their late twenties or early thirties and they sported sunglasses with golden frames and mirrored lenses.

 Although Justin couldn't figure out what they were talking about, he was able to comprehend the sensitivity of the situation. A few moments later, John and Dana came home through the front door following which a heated argument erupted between them and the two unknown men. As things escalated, Tina came out to see what was happening before one of the unknown men picked her up and walked out through the back door with her. This is where his memories of that night ended.

 Based on the descriptions provided by Justin, the authorities had an amateur artist with no experience in forensic sketching draw the composite sketches of the two unknown men. The answer to this peculiar selection remains a mystery even today.

Composite Sketch of the Perpetrators (Source: Thought Co)

Discovery of Tina’s Remains

 Police began investigating Tina’s disappearance as a case of abduction but no traces or clues turned up until the 22^nd of April 1984. Three years and eleven days after the Keddie cabin slaughtering, a bottle collector was out in the woods of Camp Eighteen in Butte County, a place that is two and a half hours away from Keddie. On his quest for bottles, he stumbled upon an unusual-looking object nestled in the leaves and dirt of the woodland. On giving it a closer look, he realized that it was the cranium of a human skull and beside it was part of a mandible.

 Rather sooner than later, the discovery was made public following which the Butte County Sheriff's office received a chilling phone call. An anonymous person on the other side of the call told them they had just found the bones of Tina Sharp. Once the remains were tested, the police understood that the anonymous caller had indeed been telling the truth.

 This discovery reignited interest in the case but it resulted in nothing more than a swirl of unsubstantiated rumours and theories. Eventually, with no new leads to work with, this case hit a dead end. Even 42 years after the Keddie Cabin Murders, the identity of the two perpetrators remains a mystery.

Speculation

 Subsequent developments put forth two major suspects, namely Martin Sharp and his friend-cum-roommate John Boubede. As mentioned before, Martin lived next to the Sharp family and his son Justin was staying over at their cabin on the night of the murders.

Martin (left) and Boubede (right) (Source: People)

 That fateful night, Martin had gone over to Sharp’s cabin along with his wife Marilyn and Boubede. They had allegedly invited Susan to join them at a local bar, but she turned down their offer before the trio went off without her. In line with Marilyn’s statement, Martin and Boubede were enraged because Susan turned down their offer.

 The trio didn't stay long at that bar due to Martin’s hatred for the rock music played there and they soon returned home. Marilyn went to bed at around 11 in the night but, just before she went upstairs, Martin and Boubede told her that they were going back to the bar they had just left. The duo returned home an hour later following which Marilyn awoke to find them burning some unknown objects on the wood stove while talking about John Sharp. According to Marilyn, this was extremely suspicious as her husband Martin hated him. Also, Boubede had previously gotten into confrontations with the 15-year-old as well.

 Furthermore, Boubede was a well-known criminal with records which included, robberies and break-ins. He also had strong ties with the Chicago Outfit (an organized crime syndicate). To add on, both Martin and Boubede were known for having mean tempers

 After they officially became suspects, both Martin and Boubede disappeared from California for quite some time. Martin fled to Reno before sending a suspicious letter to his wife, Marilyn. The letter ended with the words, “I've paid the price of your love and now I've bought it with four people's lives”. Although this letter screamed foul play, the police did not document it as a piece of evidence. To further solidify the suspicion, Martin had apparently confessed to his counsellor that he had indeed killed Susan and Tina but denied having anything to do with the murder of John or Dana. Despite the strong suspicion, the authorities did not charge either of them due to the fact that they doubtlessly passed the polygraph test.

 Boubede died in 1988 and Martin succumbed to cancer in 2000.

Recent Developments

 In 2016, the claw hammer that was missing from the scene was found at the bottom of a pond in Keddie. It also matched the description of the one that had disappeared from martin's toolbox. The same year, more trustworthy detectives said that they were looking into six unnamed suspects who were still alive. They had allegedly not been properly examined the first time.

 The most recent development occurred in 2018 when authorities announced that they had recovered DNA from a piece of medical tape from the crime scene. They claimed that the DNA matched with a still living suspect but didn't disclose their name. Despite the huge finding, there have been no new developments or updates in the case.