Honest Georgia Sheriff Lamar Potts Caught Millionaire Murderer John Wallace, Hero Andy Griffith, Keddie Cabin Massacre, Horrific Story of Dozier School for Boys, Bonnie and Clyde and Steve McQueen

The Keddie Cabin #28 Massacre, a 15-year-old and his friend die defending his mom and little sister.

     

                       

The Keddie Cabin #28 Massacre, the third story below. Two boys, Johnny Sharp, 15-years-old, and Dana Wingate, 17-years-old, died defending Johnny's Mom and Sister Tina. 

No one must ever, ever be allowed to get away with torturing and murdering children. 

The real mystery of the Keddie Cabin #28 Massacre is that there is any mystery at all, there isn't and never has been. In the late 1980's I wrote Robert Stack's Unsolved Mysteries about the case, asking them to investigate the unsolved mystery. What happened should bother anyone with a heart and moral compass.

MASS MURDER AND TORTURE OF CHILDREN AT BIBLE BELT CONSERVATIVE FLORIDA DOZIER REFORM SCHOOL. TRUMP PAL AND REPUBLICAN FLORIDA ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI REFUSED TO PROSECUTE THE GUARDS WHO KILLED THEM. If you listen you can still hear the boys' SCREAMS! FOURTH STORY BELOW 

Georgia Sheriff Lamar Potts got his man, Georgia Millionaire John Wallace who was sure he was above the LAW. 

Georgia Millionaire John Wallace in 1950 on the way to his trial for murder, Sheriff Lamar Potts is to the right, escorting him. Murder Victim WWII Veteran William Wilson Turner. Killed because he had been cheated out of pay, so he stole a cow from his rich, powerful boss as compensation.

Playing against type, Andy plays the bad guy in Murder in Coweta County. Johnny Cash got to play the hero Sheriff Lamar Potts.

Andy Griffith based the character of Sheriff Andy Taylor on real people. One such person was Sheriff Lamar Potts of Coweta County Georgia who served in office over 32 years. Even though he lived in the Bible Belt, no one ever accused him of prejudice. And this was rural Georgia. He did his job honestly and honorably. Everybody respected him. He was proud of the fact that he never had to fire his gun in the line of duty and his county hadn't had a serious crime in years. When one of the richest men in Georgia committed a murder in his jurisdiction, Sheriff Potts went after him. Politicians, Preachers and Sheriffs asked him to let the case go. John Wallace was a "good" man, a deacon in his church and a friend of the "good people" of Meriwether County and the man he killed, Wilson Turner, was white trash . Sheriff Potts said no, Wilson Turner deserved justice: Potts was relentless, he proved that Wallace was a murderer, even though they couldn't find Turner's body. He said the man he killed was a veteran of WWII and he deserved his day in court. And that was what Sheriff Potts gave him.  

Sheriff Potts above and Wilson Turner's Widow and son below meet the man who murdered her husband.

Meriwether County Jail where Wilson Turner was held, deputies siphoned gas from his truck, then allowed him to drive off, then John Wallace began to chase him to Sunset Tourist Camp, below.

http://www.angelfire.com/weird2/georgia/page16.html

The Sunset Tourist Camp in Moreland in Coweta County is long gone, but the murder happened approximately here just over the Meriwether County line. This would turn out to be a HUGE mistake by murderer John Wallace. Moreland was the hometown of Atlanta's famous writer Lewis Grizzard (1946-1994), Grizzard wrote several humorous books on southern culture, parlaying that into several appearances on Atlanta's "Designing Women".  Meriwether County Sheriff Hardy Collier's Deputies had siphoned off most of Wilson Turner's Truck's gas, but miscalculated, he had enough gas to get to Sheriff Lamar Potts' Jurisdiction. When John Wallace caught up with him, he beat him savagely, even after Wilson was unconscious. Took him back to Meriwether and then burned the body.

John Wallace was an extremely wealthy landowner in Meriwether County, Georgia, with virtually unlimited power in that county, including having the sheriff, Hardy Collier, under his control. Wilson Turner, a sharecropper tenant, attempted to do extra bootlegging work without Wallace's permission and was fired by Wallace. Wallace refused to pay Turner for outstanding work he had done. Turner retaliated by stealing a cows for compensation that Turner felt Wallace owed.

Turner was found and arrested in Carrollton, Georgia, by Chief of Police Threadgill but was transferred from the Carrollton Jail to the Meriwether County jail in Greenville, Wallace arranged for the sheriff to release Turner. John Wallace and three other men were waiting outside the jail. Turner, already[citation needed] realizing that his release was a conspiracy, attempted to escape in his truck, with Wallace and his group in pursuit, two men each in two cars.

Turner's truck, drained of its fuel earlier, ran out of gas just past the county line at the Sunset Tourist camp in Moreland, Coweta County, Georgia. Multiple witnesses reported seeing Wallace pistol-whip Turner so hard that the gun discharged, then Turner going limp and being put in one of the cars. The group then returned to Meriwether County, where Turner's body was first hidden on Wallace's property, then burned in a pit, the ashes and bone fragments scattered in a nearby stream. Wallace forced two black field workers, Albert Brooks and Robert Lee Gates, to assist him in destroying the victim's body.

Because the act of murder, as witnesses testified, took place in Coweta County, the crime was under the jurisdiction of the Coweta County sheriff, Lamar Potts. Potts and his deputies searched for days and then an informant told them of Wallace burning the body and revealed the names of Brooks and Gates. Potts persuaded the two men to take him to the burn site. There were bone fragments found that the crime lab identified as human. Brooks and Gates also took the sheriff to the well where Turner's body had originally been deposited. Ruptured brain tissue was found that was also identified as coming from a human being.

Wallace's trial received wide press coverage in the rural community. It was reported that Wallace's eccentric testimony led to his conviction. After several appeals, John Wallace was executed in the electric chair in 1950. His case was unusual because he was one of the richest men to ever be given the death penalty and his case was the first in Georgia where a white man was given the death sentence upon the testimony of two black men. Mayhayley Lancaster, a feared and respected local fortune-teller, also testified against Wallace.

Wikipedia

Celestine Sibley with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in the White House

Pulitzer Prize Winning female journalist and Atlanta Constitution Columnist Celestine Sibley wrote about the case. She portrayed Georgia Sheriff Potts as a man who was proud of never having fire his gun in the line of duty. He felt that was a badge of honor. Potts was respected by all residents of Coweta County because justice was the only thing that mattered to him. He took the words protect and serve to heart, rare for the time, he applied them to the Blacks who lived in his county as well. Andy Griffith read the story about Sheriff Potts and remembered it, when he was spit-balling with TV Producers Sheldon Leonard and Danny Thomas, Andy who based the rest of the show on his childhood in Mt. Airy North Carolina, decided Sheriff Lamar Potts was the kind of sheriff Andy Taylor would be.

Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a very active life filling in for her husband who was crippled by polio. She decided to use it to her advantage. She would give press conferences and briefings, but only open them up to women. During her many travels all over the world, Eleanor demanded women reporters have access too. In fact, no men were allowed at her press conferences at the White House. 

The Atlanta Constitution and other papers went out and hired women like Ms. Sibley in response. For 50 years Celestine Sibley was one of the preeminent Southern Journalists/Columnists in the country, winning the Pulitzer Prize for her work and opening doors for other female journalists of the day. The John Wallace/Lamar Potts case was her first great success. 

President Roosevelt

Andy Griffith was one of the most successful actors in the history of Television, starring first as Sheriff Andy Griffith on The Andy Griffith Show was in the top #10 for nine years, 1960-1968. It was based on his childhood in Mount Airy North Carolina. Here Andy is shown with his Mom and Dad and a photo of his childhood home. Andy became a champion of small town values. Then he played Defense Attorney Ben Matlock for another nine years, 1986-1995. In 1987, Andy won the People's Choice Award. I can remember cheering when they announced his win. I imagine that was echoed in 1,000's of homes across the US. A small town boy and champion of American values never left him, he was a champion of Civil Rights, Social Security and Medicare. Andy spent the last 25 years of his life fighting against Republican efforts to gut Social Security and Medicare. Andy was a millionaire, but remembered his childhood, when FDR's Social Security was the only thing which saved many of his elderly relatives and their homes during the Great Depression.  Andy was awarded our country's highest award the Medal of Freedom in 2005. 

Andy after receiving his Bachelor of Music Degree from the University of North Carolina taught music at Goldsboro High School. 

Andy and his wife Barbara arrive in Hollywood. 

Andy was proud to be friends with Democratic Presidents Harry Truman and Lyndon "LBJ" Johnson. Truman proposed Medicare in 1948, LBJ signed into law on July 30, 1965. LBJ gave the first Medicare card to Harry Truman and his wife Bess. 

I didn't realize how much Republicans hated Andy. I ran across a forum where they attack Mayberry family values and  Andy's support for Social Security/Medicare as proof he has Alzheimers. In Mayberry they love their Nanas, Grannies and Abuelas. Republicans have run up a $1 Trillion Dollar Deficit with Trump's MASSIVE VICIOUS RICH REPUBLICAN TAX CUTS, which were supposed to give us a surplus, by the way. They lied. Now, Republicans want to STEAL Granny's average $12,000 Social Security Pension, while the STARVATION MINIMUM WAGE of $7.25 an hour is $15,000 a year. I LOVE MY NANA and I don't like Republican THIEVES. I hope you see them for who they are too. 

Harry Truman, Andy Griffith and Sheriff Lamar Potts were all the same kind of men, we are all the better for it.

The new Coweta County Jail was dedicated to the memory of Sheriff Lamar Potts in 1977. 

Now for the punchline, Meriwether County has named a street for the Richest Man in Georgia ever executed for murder. It is the Republican Bible Belt and Brian Kemp is Georgia's Governor. That explains it. If you think I am kidding. 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/02/07/murderers-road/23039021/

Did you know that Donald Trump/Mike Pence kicked off their 2016 campaign in Philadelphia Mississippi in front of an all-white crowd, many wearing rebel flag shirts/hats.  Ever asked yourself why he chose Philadelphia Mississippi over Colonial Philadelphia Pennsylvania where American Freedom, the American Republic were born and the First Continental Congress met. 

I remember it because only a few weeks earlier my divorced Dad had taken us to the Atlanta Amusement Park FUNTOWN, when I was 7-years-old. We were watching the news about a month later and police threatened to arrest Martin Luther King when he tried to take his family there. 

In 1966, I campaigned against Lester Maddox when he ran for governor. I was 9-years-old. 

Philadelphia Mississippi, Funtown and Lester Maddox are what made me a liberal Democrat. 

What Made Bonnie and Clyde America's Most Vicious Killers? There was a reason.

Shortly before she died, Bonnie Parker wrote the following poem. Most people don't know that Bonnie was an honors student in high school who loved to write poetry:

 

The Story of Bonnie and Clyde

You've read the story of Jesse James
Of how he lived and died;...
If you're still in need
Of something to read,
Here's the story of Bonnie and Clyde.

Now Bonnie and Clyde are the Barrow gang,
I'm sure you all have read
How they rob and steal
And those who squeal
Are usually found dying or dead.
There's lots of untruths to these write-ups;
They're not so ruthless as that;
Their nature is raw;
They hate all the law
The stool pigeons, spotters, and rats.
They call them cold-blooded killers;
They say they are heartless and mean;
But I say this with pride,
That I once knew Clyde
When he was honest and upright and clean.
But the laws fooled around,
Kept taking him down
And locking him up in a cell,
Till he said to me,
"I'll never be free,
So I'll meet a few of them in hell."
The road was so dimly lighted;
There were no highway signs to guide;
But they made up their minds
If all roads were blind,
They wouldn't give up till they died.
The road gets dimmer and dimmer;
Sometimes you can hardly see;
But it's fight, man to man,
And do all you can,
For they know they can never be free.
From heart-break some people have suffered;
From weariness some people have died;
But take it all in all,
Our troubles are small
Till we get like Bonnie and Clyde.
If a policeman is killed in Dallas,
And they have no clue or guide;
If they can't find a fiend,
They just wipe their slate clean
And hand it on Bonnie and Clyde.
There's two crimes committed in America
Not accredited to the Barrow mob;
They had no hand
In the kidnap demand,
Nor the Kansas City depot job.
A newsboy once said to his buddy;
"I wish old Clyde would get jumped;
In these awful hard times
We'd make a few dimes
If five or six cops would get bumped."
The police haven't got the report yet,
But Clyde called me up today;
He said, "Don't start any fights
We aren't working nights
We're joining the NRA."
From Irving to West Dallas viaduct
Is known as the Great Divide,
Where the women are kin,
And the men are men,
And they won't "stool" on Bonnie and Clyde.
If they try to act like citizens
And rent them a nice little flat,
About the third night
They're invited to fight
By a sub-gun's rat-tat-tat.
They don't think they're too tough or desperate,
They know that the law always wins;
They've been shot at before,
But they do not ignore
That death is the wages of sin.
Some day they'll go down together;
And they'll bury them side by side;
To few it'll be grief
To the law a relief
But it's death for Bonnie and Clyde.
-- Bonnie Parker

Clyde Barrow was one of the most cold-blooded murderers in all history, always aided by his ever present moll, Bonnie Parker. Even as a kid of nine, I knew Bonnie and Clyde(1967) was fiction. I was curious as to why did he become the Jesse James of his generation. Like everything else, there are reasons for everything that happens in life.

Prison usually makes things worse, sometimes it destroys people, like Clyde Barrow; Clyde went from a school boy who committed burglary to a rattlesnake, after suffering repeated torture, rape and beatings at Eastham Texas Prison when he was a 17-year-old teenager.  A review of prisons stated that Eastham was the worst prison in the US, more rape, torture, murder and suicide than any other prison in the US.

Clyde committed burglaries starting when he was 16 to help feed his family during the Depression. Everyone was broke and a lot of desperate families went hungry. Clyde finally got caught for a burglary at age 17, he was sentenced to state prison for 20 years. He was a young, good looking boy and horrible things happened to him from the first day he was in the Evangelical Bible Belt Eastham/Huntsville Texas State Prison: His life was a living hell from the moment he walked in the door.  Clyde looked like he was 14-years-old, from his first day in prison, guards, sworn officers of the law, and several prisoners tortured him and forced him to give them oral sex and proceeded to anally rape the boy. Clyde began to display mental illness almost immediately, eventually becoming a psychopath. Beatings, Torture and Forceful oral and anal rape every day will drive any teenage boy insane. Turning to guards to protect him was no use, they were raping him too. 

After a couple of years, after reports of the rapes reached the governor, Clyde was given a parole, but he never forgot that hell hole. By then it was too late. A few years later, Clyde broke into Eastham/Huntsville Texas State Prison and summarily executed his tormentors, guards and prisoners. He wouldn't talk about what they did to him, but we know. At least one of them was a guard. Another guard had the day off when Clyde went looking for him. 

When Clyde got out, whenever he saw a police officer/sheriff, he became a homicidal maniac. They were supposed to protect him, but all they wanted to do was **** him, just like the child molesters and rapist prisoners. Whenever he saw an officer of the law or badge he went insane, killing them.

Prison drove him over the edge, this mug shot shows why. His sister, Marie, said this about Clyde when he got out of jail. "There’s a new air about him. A funny sort of something I can’t put my finger on." Sister Nell said: "I’m afraid he’s not going to go straight." Years later, Marie was more blunt. "Something awful sure must have happened to him in prison, because he wasn’t the same person when he got out." and, in the 1970s, Ralph Fults, who knew Barrow inside Eastham and would later join Barrow's gang for a short time, said he watched Barrow "change from a friendly schoolboy to a rattlesnake, the most vicious man I ever met." That isn't to say he wasn't capable of kindness. ordinary people, his family and friends all describe him as kind, even sweet, until the day he died.  Prison caused him to go into a rage whenever he saw a man with a badge. His experiences in prison, repeated beatings, rape and torture by the guards and other prisoners made Clyde mentally ill. A good kid got in trouble out of necessity, then we destroyed him.

As a boy, Clyde liked playing cowboys, he loved being the sheriff.

Clyde was a very polite and earnest kid, a good student too.

This photo was taken a few days before his arrest for burglary. The smile would never return.

Clyde and his mom.

When someone talks about us being too easy on crime, tell them that they are stupid and have no idea of what they speak.

Live by the sword, die by the sword. Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed by law enforcement at Bienville Parish, Louisiana, in a hail of bullets on May 23, 1934. Louisiana, the inevitable end to their story. It couldn't have ended any other way. 

Clyde Barrow's sports coat, after the ambush. 

Even as a kid, I knew Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty "Bonnie and Clyde"(1967) was romanticized. There were real, innocent victims to Bonnie and Clyde's murder spree. He was no anti-hero. He was a murderer and a bad guy. I knew that when I was 11-years-old. But knowing the whole story, will teach us what we did wrong. We already knew what Bonnie and Clyde did wrong. 

One thing to reflect on, Bonnie and Clyde's funerals had over 10,000 attendees. That can't be just fans, there has to be more, hopeless people beaten down by life, saw someone who wasn't going to take it anymore from the "man". Bonnie and Clyde's lives ended the only way they could have. We shouldn't mourn them, but learn from happened to make sure it doesn't happen again. 

Not many things make me angry, but blaming the victims of a torture murder for their fate made me post this about the Keddie Cabin Murders. Two teenage boys fought back to save their family's lives and were tortured and murdered, in my eyes, that makes them HEROES. In memory of you Johnny Sharp, 15-years-old and his pal Dana Wingate, 17-years-old, who died defending 12-year-old Tina and Mom, Sue Sharp.

I spent a major part of my childhood in Newport Rhode Island and my family is a US Navy family, like the Sharps did and were, so out of loyalty I take up their cause. 

The Keddie Campground Massacre

The Keddie murders is an unsolved 1981 American quadruple homicide that occurred in Keddie, a resort town in the Sierra Nevada of Right-Wing Rural Republican Northern California. The victims were Glenna Susan "Sue" Sharp (née Davis; born March 29, 1945); her son, John Steven Sharp (born November 16, 1965); daughter Tina Lynn Sharp (born July 22, 1968); and John's friend, Dana Hall Wingate (born February 8, 1964).

The murders took place in Cabin 28 of the Keddie Resort during the late evening of April 11, 1981, or early the following morning, and the bodies of Sue, John, and Dana were found on the morning of April 12 by Sue's 14-year-old daughter, Sheila. Sue's two younger sons, Rick and Greg, as well as their friend Justin Smartt, were also in the house, but were unharmed. Tina was missing from the scene. Wikipedia

Any further information, please email me at briankeithohara@gmail.com

Neighbors report hearing screams at 1:15 AM and thinking it was a TV turned up too loud, went back to sleep. This is the real mystery, if the neighbors heard screams, then why didn't Rick, Greg and Justin Smartt hear them from a few feet away? At this point we should mention there was blood on the boy's bedroom door handle and a bloody footprint inside their room. Like the horrifically incompetent/compromised police investigation, you feel no one is telling the whole truth or that no one cares. Sue, Johnny, Dana and Tina deserve at least that much.

Clairmont Trailer Park in Quincy, where Sue and the kids moved into trailer 27A when they first came to California.

Sue had moved from Newport Rhode Island to Connecticut, finally to Quincy California in the Sierra Nevada Mountains to be near her brother, Don Davis, in 1979 and to escape an  alcoholic husband. She received $250 a month from the Navy, plus food stamps and other state aid. The family originally relocated into a small cramped trailer in Quincy, the Plumas County seat. In November 1980, she heard of an inexpensive cabin in Keddie for rent and made the decision to move there. John got his own room in the unfinished basement, using a space-heater to stay warm in the mountain air. The rest of the family shared two bedrooms upstairs. All the neighbors described the family as quiet and friendly, though somewhat shy and retiring. John was described as a normal boy for his age, probably the most outgoing and described by one neighbor as part Tom Sawyer, a real rascal, while his sister Tina was described as somewhat slow, but sweet, with a gentle disposition.

Sue Sharp “was not a fancy dresser and was best described by casual associates and neighbors as a loner. Sharp had one close girlfriend, a neighbor woman with the last name of Meeks. Sharp’s only known source of income came from her position as a CETA worker, wherein she was paid to attend school, the Feather River Community College, where she was to learn a business trade. She was described as a good student who studied hard and obtained good grades but who was also a loner and who did not participate in social gatherings such as coffee breaks. She had no other known source of income other than a $250 a month allotment check from the US Navy via her husband. Prior to her death, Sharp had no known criminal record nor was she known to local authorities.”

Sue with Ricky.

What strikes everyone as most strange, there couldn't possibly be anyone less deserving of such a horrific crime than the Sharp family. 

The mystery was made far more mysterious, when an anonymous tip revealed Tina's body was 100 miles away.  An investigation, found her skull and scattered bones. Had she been kept alive in the remote area, nobody knows for how long, then killed? The anonymous tip, named Tina's name, so it is believed to have either have been the murderer or a conspirator in the massacre.

On April 22, 1984, 3 years and 11 days after the murders and Tina's disappearance, a bottle collector discovered a cranium portion of a human skull and part of a mandible at Camp Eighteen near Feather Falls in neighboring Butte County, a distance of roughly 100 miles (160 km) from Keddie. Shortly after announcing the discovery, Butte County Sheriff's Office received an anonymous call that identified the remains as belonging to Tina, but the call was not documented in the case. A recording of this call was found at the bottom of an evidence box at some point after 2013 by a deputy who was assigned the case. The remains were confirmed by a forensic pathologist to be those of Tina Sharp in June 1984. 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 dispenser. Wikipedia

An inference drawn as to the reason for the crime, by many, was that 12-year-old Tina was taken from the crime scene, possibly to be raped and then murdered. The teenage boys had been beaten and tortured with a hammer, both the claw end and hammer end, then viciously stabbed and strangled until they died. Sue Sharp's throat was cut by a knife and stabbed repeatedly in the chest and bled to death. Johnny tried to defend his sister and mother. Dana must have come to his friend's aid to defend his family, Johnny and Dana were beaten much more viciously than necessary, torture appears to be the only motivation for this cruelty. Proof of a personal relationship between the perpetrators and their victims. This was personal.

Background: Cruel Poverty Breeds its own Offspring

A resident of the Quincy Trailer Park William Workman French is questioned for molesting 11-year-old Tina and another 7-year-old girl, whose name was withheld. Sue immediately moved to Keddie to get away from that troubled neighborhood. Sue and her family move into cabins in Keddie in November 1980. Coincidentally, the Smartts moved in at the same time. Tina seems to have had a male teacher who took a "special interest in her" and was later arrested for child molestation. This was discovered during the Keddie Cabin Massacre investigation. Mr. French and this teacher had unbreakable alibis for the night of the crime.

Daughter Sheila, 14, was pregnant and gave birth in late fall 1980. Apparently, for this reason Sue got her kids out of the trailer park as quickly as she could.

"I taught Dana Wingate that year at the Quincy High School. He was a sweetheart of a kid. Broke my heart." Teacher Tia Robinson

Dana Wingate got into some legal scrapes, marijuana use, petty theft and vandalism at a used car dealer, Nugget Motors at 116 East Main Street in Quincy. Which brought him under the jurisdiction of Juvenile Court, the judge put Dana on probation with intense supervision, placing him in a foster home which he felt would get Dana back on track. 

A few months before the murder, Dana got a "Big Brother," Robert "Baja Bob" Matthews, who worked very hard to be a positive force in Dana's life. The Juvenile Court and Probation Department had assigned him to Dana and he was making a real difference in Dana's life. He encouraged Dana to take Karate Lessons from Plumas County Sheriff's Detective Gamberg. In a small town everyone knows everyone else. Baja Bob was a good guy, taking it a step further by also encouraging, Dana's "adopted little brother," Johnny Sharp, to take the lessons himself, since both boys were practically inseparable. Both boys profited from these positive adult male role models and good character reinforcement. Dana and Johnny enjoyed Karate and apparently wanted to master the skill. 

Not knowing the effect it might have had on events, "Baja Bob" went on vacation for two weeks on April 1, 1981. Inadvertently, Bob wasn't there when Dana needed him most. 

In February 1981, two months before the massacre, Dana meets a girl named Kelly from out of town visiting friends. They hit it off immediately, though lacking transportation, their romance consisted of phone calls and letters.  Dana also started casually dating a local girl named Alysa Seabolt about a week before the murder, the Sharp's friend and neighbor. Dana was probably not a virgin, but not a "Hound Dog," either, just a normal boy of the times, the late 1970's, early 1980's were a time of more sexual freedom, than before and since. According to all, except the sniping critics, Dana was turning his life around. And like a big brother, Dana was helping Johnny get his act together too. Johnny is not known to have a girlfriend or romantic relationships at the time of his death. His sex life, if any, probably consisted of self-abuse, playing doctor or "first or second base" fumblings with a teenage neighbor or schoolmate, completely normal for his age. No one came forward with any reports of Johnny or Dana engaging in any unacceptable behavior with girls....or boys.

It is very disturbing that some locals smeared the Sharp family after they were tortured and murdered. John and the rest of the Sharps kept to themselves and didn't bother anyone. They were on state aid, since, if press reports are correct, her military husband was an alcoholic who did not support his family. An allotment meant the family was taken out of his paycheck off the top. 

Dana Wingate was also a diabetic who had given himself an injection of Insulin at 7:30 PM on April 11, 1981. Being Type One Diabetic would cause many issues in his life and 

Insulin singled him out for being different than most kids. I FBI Profiler John Douglas believed that Dana's troubled childhood and neglect would make him intimidated by authority. He would try to please the adults in his life and be more quiet and compliant than most kids his age. Which fit perfectly with the Juvenile Court's evaluation of Dana, with rigorous supervision, which his parents couldn't provide at the time, he would turn out OK. 

It is speculated that at first, the family and Dana felt there was no life threatening danger. They apparently consented to being bound without resistance. But the situation changed and became desperate and violent very quickly. 

As Justin Smartt said in his hypnosis session on May 19, 1981, this time by Dr. Jerry Dash, a psychologist at the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles: 

One of the men had a pocketknife in his right hand and cut Sue Sharp in the chest. He also said that the same man had a hammer in his other hand. 

He said Tina allegedly woke up and appeared in the living room to see what was going on. She was carrying a blanket.

According to what Justin said under hypnosis, a man allegedly grabbed her and carried her through the kitchen and down the back stairs. The man then returned, removed a hunting knife that someone had stuck in one of the walls, picked up the blanket and left again, according to Detective Gamberg. 

http://www.plumasnews.com/keddie-murders-revisited-part-3-hypnosis-counselors-revelations-mob-connections/

Regardless, Johnny and Dana suddenly realized their and Johnny's family's lives were in danger, the boys fought back sometime after Dana, himself was bound, at which point the murderers viciously attacked, tortured and murdered the boys. 

One further conundrum, what was the reason behind this home invasion. The probable window for the commission of this crime is between 10 to 10:15 PM when Justin, Greg and Ricky went to bed and Sue was seen washing dishes in the kitchen by a neighbor and 1:15 AM when the neighbor's heard the boy's screams as they were being tortured and murdered. It is believed that Johnny and Dana entered the home at 11 to 11:30 PM through the front door, Johnny actually had his own room downstairs in the basement with a separate entrance, entering the front door, he probably saw the living room lights were still on, they were immediately confronted by the perpetrators and Sue Sharp who was already bound and gagged. So, it is believed, the home invaders were in the home for over two hours. Why? If robbery by a stranger was the motive, it was a bust. The family had no money. If drugs were a motive, it too was a bust, the family had no drugs. Police found absolutely no traces of drugs in the house. Staying 2 + hours in a home where you committed torture murders seems very strange and totally incomprehensible. They appear to even have gotten bored, someone threw a knife/knives into the wall to while away time. If murder was the goal, a quick precision attack and escape are the only strategy which would make sense. None of this makes sense.

UPDATE MAY 31, 2019 

A documentary made in the last couple of years may have finally come up with the answer. The police in 1981 had reports that 12-year-old Tina was pregnant and that the father was the neighbor under suspicion. That explains why her body was not left with her family. The man who fathered that baby could not allow police to perform an autopsy on Tina. But that doesn't explain why police repressed this report from THREE DIFFERENT SOURCES, including the county health department for the past 40 years. From the Police Report, buried in an Evidence Box.

In reference to the aforementioned
report re: Kathy's encounter w/
giving him a puppy & his
would eat it for supper- Kathy maintains
the subject was Martin Smartt - not a
[l]ach. The conversation took place at F.R.C. (Feather River College)

Kathy informed undersigned that she
had been told by T===h [Trish?] (who works
[at] the Plumas Co Health Dept) and by Sh===y
====== (Downtown Trailer Park) that Tina was pregnant.

B
Tina was pregnant.
====== stated she had been told
by [Beckley] that Sgt. Shanks had
told [Beckley] that Tina was pregnant
that Martin [Smartt] was the father.

C
Space #6 Downtown Trailer Park
Stated K[athy Beckley] h
her that Tina was pregnant
Martin [Smartt] was responsible
Asmus [???] did not know Tina.

Which makes the defense of Mom and Tina by John Sharp, 15-years-old, and Dana Wingate, 17-years-old, all the more heroic. They died defending John's Mom and his sister, Tina. The fact that they were tortured before death shows how brave they were and how ferocious their defense of their family and friends was. They were and are true American Heroes. God Bless John and Dana and comfort Sue and Tina Sharp. 

Teenagers John Sharp and Dana Wingate are HEROES! These two boys are the kind of kid every parent prays for. 

John's bedroom was in the unfinished basement

The great question, why weren't the other boys in the cabin harmed? Which leads to a tangled story. 

The Sharp Kids had a playhouse, which survives to this day, while the cabin itself was torn down in 2004 because gawkers were always coming to see it and spend the night in the haunted cabin.

Keddie was a railroad town, the Keddie Resort is between Highway 70 and the river and railroad. 

Cabin 28 is the Sharp residence, 26 is where Marty and Bo lived, they had met in a military medical facility, mental health ward. PTSD for Marty, Epilepsy for Bo? The kid's playhouse is located immediately next to Marty's house. http://keddie28.com/

https://www.Keddie28.com/ 

is a great website on the case, but apparently has been down for several months, I beefed up my coverage of the case, because of that. Hopefully they will be up again soon. Maps are from their website. They are trying to raise money to continue their research into the case, PLEASE GIVE ALL YOU CAN TO THEM:  

Fund Raising for the Keddie28.com Website/Investigation 

The Sharp family had an overnight house guest, the son of a neighboring couple, Justin Smartt, age 12, who slept in the bedroom with Sue Sharp's boys Rick age 10  and Greg age 5. These boys were unharmed and claimed to have heard nothing during the night. Marilyn and Martin Smartt were having marital problems, involving violent abuse. Sue Sharp advised Marilyn to leave Martin and get a divorce. Martin is reported to have been furious at the interference. His best friend, John Boubede was a career violent criminal, with multiple armed robbery convictions, he also had organized crime connections.  Martin Smartt died of cancer in Portland, Oregon, in June 2000. John Boubede died in Chicago in 1988. Wikipedia

The boys who survived were in the back bedroom off the kitchen

What is believed to be Marty's blue hammer was discovered about a mile away in a dried up pond a couple of years ago, almost 10 years after Marty's death. The current sheriff speculates, with good reason, this was not misplaced as Marty claimed, but deliberately hidden. 

A note found buried in police files, written by Marty Sharp to his wife:

I've paid a 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? 

Suspect Martin Smartt had one other best friend, the Plumas County Sheriff Doug Thomas. Subsequent Sheriffs say the investigation was an inept disaster. Marilyn Smartt later claimed she found and turned over Tina's bloody jacket to police, which has never been seen since the crime. Sheriff Thomas unexpectedly RESIGNED in August 1981.

An odd mistake, Sheriff Thomas says in a documentary that Tina loved Johnny's toolbox/shoe box, which he made in shop class and was very proud of, but was missing. But Rick Sharp said in the Cabin 28 House tour/documentary, made with his sister Sheila, that while the toolbox was missing,Tina also had a little pencil box in which she kept all her keepsake.. She never went anywhere without it. The night Tina disappeared it went missing as well.

Marty was a Vietnam veteran. He was a cook in Vietnam and spent some time in the brig over drugs. Marty was separated from his wife and blamed Sue Sharp for telling Marilyn to escape her abusive marriage. Marty had just been fired from his job as a cook at the Keddie Lodge Restaurant immediately before the massacre. He was on the verge of being evicted. Marty got free room and board went with the job of being the cook at the restaurant; no job, no money, no apartment. Marilyn Smartt said Marty had a hair-trigger, ferocious temper. During one argument, Marty attempted to run over Marilyn and his then 12-year-old stepson, Justin. He was accused of physically abusing Justin. Justin was afraid of his stepdad, everyone was, especially when Marty got angry. 

Justin's name today is Justin Smartt Eason.

Marty and his buddy Severin John “Bo” Boubede. "Bo" worked for Chicago Mafia Boss Tony Accardo, who ruled the mob in Chicago for almost 40 years after Al Capone was arrested. Was "Bo" in the Reagan Administration Witness Protection Program. Did they give orders to protect the child killer and stop the investigation of his part in the Keddie Cabin #28 Massacre? 

During the interview between the Sheriff of Plumas County, his staff, State Police and Bo and Marty, Detective Crim said that Bo was a retired Police Officer – a 100% lie. Since rural police seldom deal with murder, California dispatched CBI Officers to aid in the investigation. This lie seemed to lead California Investigators to treat Bo with undue deference and respect. Pretty neat trick, for a man who was a career criminal, including several armed robberies, and was the probable mass murderer and killer of children.

Why would the PLUMAS Sheriff Staff LIE to California State Investigators and say that a prime suspect was a retired POLICE OFFICER? Why were Bo and Marty questioned together, not separately. Sheriff Thomas asked for organized crimes investigators, not homicide investigators. The Sheriff's department administered a lie detector test to Marty, saying he "passed".* Marty would brag to his therapist that fooling a lie detector test was "easy".  No one ever interviewed Marty and Bo after that one interrogation. Immediately, Marty and Bo moved to Reno 87 miles away, eventually Marty ended up in Oregon where he had family. As far as can be determined, police never bothered him again after the initial investigation. 

I wrote about another case, in which, Connecticut teenager Peter Reilly was accused of murdering his Mom. A lie detector test was administered to the boy by the state police. Peter didn't have legal counsel at the time and had been police custody from the moment he came home from a church social and discovered his Mom's body. The state police officer who gave Peter the test said he flunked and was 100% "guilty". Years later, under a freedom of information request, other examiners looked at Peter's test. They determined that the examiner lied. Peter was confused, police kept telling him they knew he did it and that all the evidence pointed to him as the culprit. Peter kept telling the cops he didn't do it, he had no memory of his Mom's murder, other than discovering her body and immediately calling police. These new examiners said Peter's test showed that he was in a state of total confusion and had no idea what happened and couldn't understand how police had "proof" that he did it. After appealing his conviction and getting a new trial, Peter's lawyers showed the court that the DA had proof of Peter's innocence all along. A Connecticut State Trooper lived nearly 10 minutes away from Peter and recognized Peter's very distinct jalopy from the neighborhood. The officer said he had seen Peter driving home less than 15 minutes before Peter called the police. There was NO way Peter had time to kill his Mom, the crime scene was a horrendous mess and appeared to show an interrupted burglary, in the time available. Peter was made to strip naked and his body minutely examined on scene by police. They found absolutely NO CUTS OR WOUNDS on the teenage boy. The crime scene all but guaranteed the perpetrator would suffer extensive injuries. The murdered woman fought her attacker ferociously. The DA and Police hid this evidence during Peter's trial. The lie detector examiner appeared to be testilying to help the prosecution. The judge at the retrial ruled that Peter was COMPLETELY INNOCENT of the crime, instead of the more ambiguous Not Guilty, which can be interpreted as NOT PROVEN. If police come to the wrong conclusion or were up to no good, they sometimes tailor the evidence to fit their version of crime. To some, the truth doesn't seem to matter.   http://briankeithohara.blogspot.com/2013/02/i-was-kid-in-1973-and-remember-this.html 

Detective Gamberg had been teaching Dana and Johnny Karate, so he knew them. Everyone in this small town knew each other. Detective Gamberg was THREATENED with being fired if he came within 10 miles of the investigation. Everyone agrees the investigation was a mess, guaranteed to never solve the crime. 

Another theory whispered recently as if to explain the odd behavior of Plumas County Police, Bo was a career MAFIA hitman relocated to Keddie for testifying against Mob Boss Tony Accardo and his Chicago "Outfit"/Mafia. Remember "Casino"(1995), the Outfit "owned" Las Vegas. Was Bo hiding in plain sight, under witness protection? One would hope that not even Witness Protection would get you off the hook for raping, torturing and murdering children.

 

Mafia Capo and Las Vegas Gambling founder Bugsy Siegel owned the Flamingo Casino, named for his Georgia girlfriend, Virginia Hill, and is famous for having said "We only kill each other," the Mafia only kills fellow mobsters. 

Mafia Sammy "the Bull" Gravano killed at least 19 mobsters and got 5 years in prison after testifying against Capo di Tutti Capi and Mafia Godfather John Gotti. 

How could anyone justify the torture murder of children and no jail time? If Sammy "The Bull" went to prison, so should Bo, for 100X longer, if guilty.  

Mafia Godfather Paul Castellano's daughter Connie was dating a young Italian mobster named Vito Borelli. Castellano owned several legitimate businesses, including chicken processing plants supplying butchers and grocery stores in New York and New Jersey with chickens.  In 1975, Castellano allegedly had Vito Borelli murdered because he heard that Borelli JOKINGLY compared him, the Capo di Tutti Capi/Mafia Godfather, to Frank Perdue, the owner and commercial spokesman for Perdue Chicken Farms. Making fun of the Godfather of the Mafia was not the smart thing to do. Castellano was so insulted, he personally ordered the killing. In 2004, court documents revealed that Joseph Massino, a government witness and former Bonanno crime family boss, admitted murdering Borelli as a favor to Castellano. Wikipedia

https://www.plumasnews.com/keddie-murders-revisited-following-the-clues/

An anonymous source called police on the day after the murder and told them that Marty Smartt hated Johnny Sharp. The source said Marty would vent against the 15-year-old constantly, never giving any reason other than he didn't like the way the boy looked. Hating a kid should take far more than that. 

Marilyn Smartt later stated the same thing, Marty hated 15-year-old Johnny. Someone else has suggested that the reason was that Johnny had told Marty to stay the hell away from his Mom and sisters. If the police reports are right and Marty molested and raped Tina, getting her pregnant, then Johnny's warning to STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM HIS YOUNGER SISTERS AND HIS MOM is exactly what you would expect from a big brother who cared about his family. This makes sense and gives Marty a HUGE motive to kill Johnny. It would also establish that Johnny was a good kid with a good heart.

Marty and Marilyn went to a square dance the night before the murders, April 11, 1981. Marilyn told police that Bo asked Sue on a date that day, she turned him down cold. Bo was furious and began ranting about the rejection.  Coupled with Marty's anger at Sue for advising Marilyn to leave him and the possibly of Marty being under investigation for Tina's pregnancy and Johnny telling him to stay the hell away from his family. A perfect storm of anger aimed at the Sharp family.

Marty Smartt's letter sent 16 days after the massacre to his soon to be ex-wife Marilyn, established to be in his handwriting, found in a sealed evidence bag at the bottom of a police evidence box from the original investigation after both Marty and Bo were dead, and never revealed to the public.

A counselor whom Martin regularly visited would also allege that he had admitted to the murders of Sue and Tina, but claimed "I didn't have anything to do with the boys." He allegedly told the counselor that Tina was killed to prevent her from identifying him, as she had "witnessed the whole thing." He then told his therapist and told the doctor he was being blamed for the killings. Ten years after Marty’s death in 2000, his therapist came forward and told the Plumas County Sheriff's Office that Marty had confessed to killing Sue Sharp. He also told the police that Marty was a friend of Plumas County Sheriff Doug Thomas and  Thomas let Marty live with him when he first moved to town and before marrying Marilyn in 1977. The therapist admitted that Marty told him that beating the polygraph was easy. Additionally, Marty said the reason he killed Sue was because she was trying to talk Marilyn into divorcing him. According the therapist, Martin Smartt denied killing Dana and Johnny but he never said who was responsible for their murders.

Johnny Sharp's school photo, small for his age, being poor and constantly picked on, made him a lot tougher than people expected. Smart kids learn early, the only way to deal with bullies is to stand your ground and fight back. Like most kids of the time and since, John smoked pot. He was accused, with two different friends on two different occasions, of pocketing someone else's pot on visits to their house. He was 100% innocent of one of the charges, the actual thief admitted that he did it by himself, not Johnny. 

Johnny's uncle Don Davis, Sue's Brother, says he wasn't heavy into drugs, just recreational use, mainly pot, limited by his lack of money and the fact that there were no jobs in Keddie.

Johnny was with a boy named Tim, when some pot disappeared from a friend's house, a school bus driver(?!). Restitution of $25 had been paid to the "victim".  Later the same thing happened when he was with another friend nicknamed Wolf. Wolf admitted he took the marijuana, without Johnny’s knowledge, and worked off the debt. Five Finger Discount marijuana seems a very common trait among the poor kids in the area. These two stories are reported from John's friends trying to explain the murder, but no one thinks these incidents led to the attack. Because both had been resolved, more or less to the satisfaction of the "victims".  

Greenhorn Creek Quincy 

Richard Meeks, one of Johnny's best friends at the time of the murders, sums up the type of young man Johnny was turning out to be. "We were swimming at Greenhorn Creek one day," recalls Richard in an exclusive interview in 2008. "And we saw smoke on the mountains where the Johnsons lived. We ran all the way to their house where there was a big fire. The fire didn't stop me and Johnny from fighting the flames. We did most everything. This is the Johnny I knew. He was NOT out stealing drugs from drug dealers or running around with older people. That is the Johnny I knew.

SATURDAY April 11, 1981

We know that the following events occurred: at 9:00 to  9:30 AM on Saturday April 11, 1981, Sue Sharp took Justin Smartt/Easton and Rick Sharp to baseball practice. Greg stayed with his older brother to watch and cheer the boys on. Sue then took Dana and Johnny to Dana's foster home in Quincy and dropped them off, then she went to visit friends and go grocery shopping, when she was done, she picked-up Justin Smartt, Greg Sharp and Ricky Sharp taking them back home to Keddie. The boys then went out riding their bikes, coming home at 5:30 PM.Greg, Rick, Sue Sharp and Justin Smartt then had Burritos for dinner about 6:30 PM. Sometime after 9:00 PM Sheila Sharp comes home to get a nighty and went back to her friends house to spend the night. Tina and Sheila came home about 9:30 PM from the Seabolt's house, the Sharp's nearest neighbor, where they had been watching TV. Tina stayed home, while Sheila retrieved her nightie, she then went back to the Seabolt's house to spend the night.  

Greg, Rick, Justin and Tina went to bed at 10:00 to 10:15 after the Love Boat finished.Johnny and Dana arrived home between 11:30 PM and 12:00 AM, possibly surprising the home invaders. The boys entered through the front door, not John's separate basement entrance.The lights were on in the living room, as neighbors reported, the boys presumed that Mom was still awake, so they probably came into the living room to say goodnight and possibly grab a snack. Dana had taken a shot of Insulin around 6:30-7:00 PM and needed to eat something or he may have passed out. Sue may have already been tied and bound at this point and at this point, the boys were ambushed, tied and bound. 

An odd anomaly, the perpetrators had been throwing knives into the living room wall, like they were killing time waiting on someone or something. Were they waiting on the boys?   

A boy's scream was heard at 1:15 AM.

Only certain things on the timeline: 

Tina and Sheila came home at 9:30 from the Seabolts, Sheila retrieved her nightie at that time and left, Tina stayed home and went to sleep.  

Greg, Rick and Justin went to bed at 10 to 10:15 PM. 

Johnny and Dana came home around 11:30 PM

Sue, who may have been the first subdued, walks through blood immediately after the attack on the boys, screams are heard at 1:15 AM

A friend arrives at Marty Smartt's Cabin to help him cut firewood, he notices that Marty has a burning fire going and notes that Marty throws a pair of shoes in the fire, without explanation. 

An inference can be drawn that the home invasion lasted from 11 PM to 1:15 AM. The actual murders probably occurred soon after 1 AM. Johnny and Dana, then Sue, then Dana's body is moved to the floor and Sue's body is posed. The assailants left the scene taking Tina with them.

Formerly a Exxon Station, then a Union 76 Station, now closed at 107 Crescent Street, Highway 70, the road going back to Keddie. 

Quincy California, the big city, population under 2000. Keddie by contrast had 66 inhabitants. 

Leaving Quincy they counted on getting lifts from friends, neighbors and strangers along the way. We know John and Dana left the Exxon Station in Quincy after 7:00 to 7:30 PM. John and Dana intended to hitchhike the 7.5 miles from Dana's foster home in Quincy to Keddie. They had spent the day visiting Dana's foster home, then attending a party at a friend's house, which served alcohol and marijuana to the boys, they then began hitch-hiking at the Exxon Station in Quincy on Highway 70. The boys got a lift to Oakland Feather River Campground off Highway 70 at 4348 Oakland Camp Road, where some friends were staying, staying about an hour. Not sure exactly sure when they resumed hitch-hiking, probably after 9:00 PM. The boys still had just over 5.5 miles to go. It is obvious that Johnny and Dana weren't in any hurry that evening.Life in Keddie was boring, so a trip to the "big city," Quincy population 2000,  was a chance to get away and blow off steam, 

As can be inferred not a lot of traffic on this mountain road. The boys probably got to Keddie around 11:00 to 11:30 PM. Saturday night according to a neighbor who had given them a lift. The neighbor said the boys did NOT go to Johnny's basement door, instead entering the front door. 

One fact, which is quite important, several Keddie residents had aggressive dogs for their security. None of those dogs barked that evening. Any stranger in the Keddie neighborhood would have immediately created a cascading cacophony and crescendo of barking dogs. 

If you remember the Sherlock Holmes story "Silver Blaze," ended with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson determining that the guard dog didn't bark when the racehorse Silver Blaze was stolen and his trainer murdered because he recognized his owner. 

Sheila Sharp arrived home the next morning at 8 AM to find an unlocked front door, which was unusual. She spotted the bodies of her family, noting the blood engulfing her brother and Dana and Tina's blanket covering up her Mom. 

Investigators suspect that Tina, Johnny or Dana must have covered their Mom with a blanket. One question, was she alive when this occurred. A child, Johnny and Tina might do this because the murderers had taken Sue's panties off and put them in her mouth as a gag and appears to have deliberately pulled her sleeping gown above her waist. Dana might have done it out of common human decency. The murkiness of the timeline prevents us from determining who put the blanket over Sue with certainty.

Now, for an odd occurrence, blood was found on the floor of the three sleeping boy's room. Though he originally denied it, there is a report that teenager and neighbor Jamie Seabolt, 15-years-old, entered the home and went to the sleeping boy's room, then ran out to tell Sheila, and his sisters Alysa, Paula and his Mom, Zonita Seabolt, what he found.  The Seabolts were Sharp family friends and the friends with whom Sheila had spent the night. Zonita called to the boys from the window and Jamie removed them through that same window, sparing them the horrific scene in the living room. His Dad was cutting firewood for the family leaving early the Sunday morning and was not on scene. Alysa found clothing on the river bank under a pedestrian bridge located a few yards from Cabin #28 a few days later. 

https://www.keddie28.com/ 

The sleeping boys had no knowledge of the crime, claiming that they slept through the murders. Under hypnosis Justin claimed to have dreamed about it, helping a sketch artist create these two drawings. Although, Justin Smartt would tell his mother, who reported it to the police, Dana and Johnny got home around midnight. Current investigators have gone back to Justin and asked how he would know that they got home at midnight if they had been sound asleep at the time.

WARNING! The True Horror of the Keddie Cabin #28 Massacre

John and Dana's body positions, Dana's head was on the sofa cushion.

                                     WarningJohn's hands and ankles bound while he was being beaten, no blood under his hand bindings indicate he fought back against his attackers after he was bound. John's Autopsy drawing from the coroner/medical examiner. Johnny's throat was cut so deeply it went back to his spine. His skull was smashed repeatedly with both ends of a hammer, his hair was drenched in blood, his lungs flooded with blood as well, which indicated he was alive for the time it took him to bleed to death. John's brains protruded out of his skull from the repeated blows. Johnny's death could be attributed to either skull wounds or his cut throat, the coroner comes down on the side of his cut throat wound from the amount of blood spurting out from his still beating heart. Death would occur between 2 to 4 minutes. To smash a dying boy with a hammer, which only caused him to suffer unbelievable, horrendous pain for the last two minutes of his life was purely vicious cruelty as the boy's life slowly slipped away from him.

John, with his face obscured, hands bound above his chest and feet still bound and autopsy sketches, showing the vicious violence inflicted on him. 

Dana was found on his stomach, with a black eye, a busted lip, two deep bruises, small circular bruises on his upper butt, like from the handle end of a broom/mop. The coroner is pretty sure that Dana was TORTURED, then strangled while sitting down because of post mortem lavidity, how the blood settled in his body at the time of his death, according to Detective Gamberg. His killer attacked Dana face to face, while the boy struggled to free himself from the bonds on his hands and ankles and defend himself as he was repeatedly being hit with a hammer's claw and blunt end, breaking his teeth, his ear was almost ripped from his head, blows which also cracked his skull. So the murderers moved his body turning him face down and resting it on the cushion for some reason. It takes 2 to 4 minutes to kill someone by strangulation. Face to face strangulation is very rare, very personal and vicious, you see and feel your victim die in front of you. The autopsy notes that Dana's pants were unbuttoned and his zipper was down about 2 inches.  Not sure what inference to draw, maybe he was grabbed/subdued in the bathroom before/after peeing? Another possibility, considering Marty's odd "confession" to his therapist, where he totally disavowed any part in the Dana and Johnny's murder, could this portray a sexual angle by his co-conspirator?  Speculation whether Dana was killed first in the house to intimidate the family or last to remove the last living witness is simple conjecture. 

One thing to note, by Dana's body are two footprints in blood, one by the sofa cushion and one by his waste. Sue's feet had blood on her souls, probably Johnny's blood.  Johnny had a small amount of brown liquid in his stomach, which is presumed to be remnants of a chocolate candy bar. Dana had taken an Insulin shot at his foster home at 7:30 PM, but there was no food in his stomach. It is very dangerous to take an Insulin shot and not eat. Dana was not stupid, he knew he couldn't take Insulin and not eat. This is an illogical footnote, unless the boys intended to grab a snack and say goodnight to Sue at the same time.

Missing Items

Tina pencil box was missing, Sheila said Tina kept her personal treasures in it and never went anywhere without it. Johnny's toolbox was missing. He had made it in shop class and was very proud of it. 

MISSING AND TOTALLY ILLOGICAL, DANA'S DIABETES KIT WAS MISSING. Why would someone have taken it. Also missing was Johnny's pellet gun. Pieces of broken pellet gun stock were found on the floor in the living room next to Sue's body.  Her body showed bruises which looked like they might come from the stock of a pellet gun. 

The only light on when Sheila came into the house the next morning, was the kitchen light, which provided very little light in the living room.

An episode of Tony Shahloub's Monk, mentioned that one of the places almost every criminals forget to wipe down after committing crimes is light switches. People driving by Saturday evening noticed Sue's living room light as late as 11 PM. We know Sue, Johnny, Dana did NOT turn off the lights, can't find any information that fingerprints were taken from the living room light switch. 

Sue's body was discovered under a blanket which was removed for this crime scene photo. A debate whether her body position was changed.  Investigators believe that John or Tina covered their Mom's body before or immediately after her death. The murderers would not care. Sue was the only one gagged, with her own panties. The horrific wounds of the boys must have created unbearable pain and must have elicited screams of pain and agony, yet they were not gagged, though bound. Sue was hit in the head with pellet rifle butt, then stabbed repeatedly and bled to death internally. Her death must have been fairly quick, her chest wounds were fatal. Why was Sue gagged? That may indicate that she was a prisoner until the real target got home. The boys were tired from walking and not ready for a fight, when they walked in the front door. No one knows what happened inside the house and a timeline is hard to establish. Blood on Sue's feet shows the boys may have been wounded or dead when she was killed. Sue may have been captured first and then witnessed the boy's murders, then killed. The sexual positioning of Sue's body indicates a false, planted clue to imply this was a sex crime.

A smudged finger print in blood found on scene

John Douglas world famous FBI Profiler provided a report on the Keddie Family Massacre which included the following:

Summary
This triple homicide appears to be without any motive. Neither
sex nor money was the motivating factor. The crime scene reflects
anger and rage on one hand and remorse and guilt on the other. It
appears at this point that there is more than one murderer involved
in this triple homicide.

Offender Profile
The offender responsible for this triple homicide did not
initially plan on killing. It was an afterthought as evidenced by
the weapons he selected. All weapons could be referred to as Weapons of Opportunity. This offender knew his victims, particularly John and Glenna Sue Sharp.

This offender was motivated by his commitment and love for Tina
Sharp. He loves her like a father. In all probability, Tina Sharp
was planning on running away with him. She had nothing left at home and it was obvious, according to witnesses, that her mother no longer had control of her family.

In case you've forgotten or did not know, Mr. Douglas was the model for "Silence of the Lambs"  Behavioral Sciences Chief Inspector Jack Crawford. Reviewing his report. There must be a motive, we just don't know what it was. Multiple perpetrators brought a least one hammer and the large knife, which means they were up to more than mischief. Considering Tina was murdered, these are very murky waters. She was NOT the one who screamed, the boys did as they were being tortured and murdered, according to some sources. Again the usual suspects were smearing Sue, with the help of police officers who were apparently complicit in this duplicity. If it was Marty and Bo, Marty admitted it, Sue refusing to date him, not liking Johnny for nebulous reasons unknown, just the way he looked has to be excuse, is a grounds for torture murder of three children? One person on a forum, I forget which one, suggested that Johnny told Marty to stay the hell away from his 12-year-old sister, Tina, Sheila and his Mom. True or not, who knows? It sounds like something a caring big brother would do. If true, that could explain a great deal.

My Reflections

1) Marty Smartt's blue hammer was found at the bottom of a retention pond in Keddie about a mile away from the murder scene. It was thrown in the pond to hide it. The perpetrators could have thrown Marty's hammer in the fast running river less than 150 yards from the murder scene and it would have been lost forever, but someone, originally, threw it in an easily accessible pond where it would be easily retrievable. Once police forensically determined that TWO DIFFERENT HAMMERS had been used in the crime and only one was left at the crime scene, that was no longer an option. One of the hammers used was the Sharp family hammer and the other one was Marty Smartt's. His blue hammer was brought to the crime scene and was NOT a weapon of opportunity. It is also believed that the large knife was brought to the scene of the massacre. Police speculated it probably belonged to the Sharp family. Again more misdirection by the local authorities. FBI Profiler John Douglas was wrong about one thing, this being a crime of opportunity based on all the weapons being found inside the victim's house. Though an odd choice for a murder weapon, Marty's hammer and a hunting knife of unknown origin were brought to the murder. The bent dinner knife found by Johnny's body was found in the home and one of the hammers apparently belonged to the Sharp family. It should be noted that Marilyn told a friend that she found a bloody hammer and canvas bag in the Smartt family basement the day after the murder. Later she would deny that. Police said they had no record of that claim.

2) Tina, Justin Smartt, Greg and Ricky Sharp were treated differently from the murder victims, Sue, Johnny and Dana. There must be a reason for it. Killing Tina and leaving her at the crime scene had to be be easier than removing her and taking her 100 miles away to Butte County, California. If one person was the intended target of a stranger on stranger crime, either killing all the witnesses, including Justin Smartt(12), Greg(6) and Ricky(10) or killing no one, would be logical. Dana, Johnny and Sue had been subdued and tied up, what did killing them accomplish for the perpetrators, unless they knew their murderers? The boys seemed to be compliant until they realized they, Sue and Tina were in danger, then they fought back ferociously and heroically.

3) Sue had no known enemies, besides Marty, who was angry at  Sue's advice to his wife Marilyn to leave their abusive relationship.  Marty volunteered, totally unprompted to one of his buddies, that he didn't like 15-year-old Johnny Sharp. For no other reason than he didn't like the way he looked. However, one post on a Internet Forum states that Johnny told Marty to STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM HIS MOM AND SISTERS. If true, that says more about Johnny's character than any of the 2nd hand stories from anonymous sources. 

4) The Sharp family was poor. They lived a subsistence existence. Tables in the home consisted of cardboard boxes. Some local residents, always the same ones, smeared Johnny Sharp trying to portray the boy as a miniature John Gotti, a major league drug dealer. As more than one person pointed out, if true, Johnny wasn't doing it right. Johnny was always broke, hitching rides and eating out was not eating at Pizza Hut, Burger King or McDonald's; eating out consisted almost entirely of mooching a meal at a family friend or buddy's house. 

Lucille S., Dana foster mother, met and liked Johnny. She considered him a good kid and influence on Dana. Dana took an interest in and became a big brother to Johnny. The boys became practically inseparable.  Not to say they were perfect, they, like all teens smoked weed and grabbed beers. But they began to do positive things together. At the behest of his court appointed "big brother" Baha Bob, Detective Gamberg was teaching Dana Karate. Dana's immediate impulse was to see if it was OK for for Johnny to join their lessons, like any big brother would do. Detective Gamberg liked Johnny too. He too thought, beyond a little reefer and a pilfered beer once in a while, Johnny was a likable, good kid. It should also be noted that NO DRUGS WERE FOUND IN THE HOUSE OR ON ANY OF THE VICTIMS. Considering police actions/non-actions, finding drugs would be the perfect cover-up. That said, both boy's may have had/probably had THC and alcohol in the blood from their Saturday excursions.

5) The fact that there was more than one perpetrator seems the only possible conclusion. To subdue three people with two knifes and and two hammers, Sue, Johnny and Dana, would mean in all probability, a minimum of two perpetrators. The danger in criminal conspiracies, the more people involved, the more likely you are to be discovered. This secret was, in all probability, taken to Bo's grave in 1988 and Marty's grave in 2000. 

6) A truly bizarre footnote: Marty told his therapist that he killed Sue and Tina, but seemed to have been ashamed by the torture/murder of Johnny and Dana, disowning their murders. Normally, tough criminals would feel ashamed of killing women and little girls, far less so the torture/murder of 15 and 17-year-old teenage boys. The note to Marilyn Smartt is a lock on his guilt, the story he told his therapist is an odd exculpation. An odd note, Marty refers to the Plumas County Sheriff Doug Thomas, as Doug, not the Sheriff. His statement mentions several interactions with Doug the night before the murder. 

7) Note the "Jeffrey McDonald Defense," drug crazed hippies did it theory.  After murdering his family, Green Beret Doctor Jeffrey MacDonald faked injuries and blamed drug crazed hippies. Only problem, even drug crazed hippies have a motive for their actions and crimes, even "crazy hippies" would expect some payoff for their crime.

Remember Charlie Manson's insane murder spree was predicated on starting a race war, HELTER SKELTER, which would allow Charlie and his family to take over a devastated Los Angeles. One note on this photo montage of Tate/LaBianca Victims, the photo of "Gary Hinman" is not Hinman. It is Manson family member Bobby Beausoleil. I actually emailed him once and he told me that he gave Oscar Winning Child Actor Bobby Driscoll a lift in the Topanga Canyon in the mid-1960's.

I posted this after I read that the former Walt Disney/Leno and Rosemary LaBianca house was on the market in Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. I don't know if I could live in it. 

I wrote a page on my blog about Charlie Manson's first victim, the first killed and the first forgotten, teenager Steve Parent. http://briankeithohara.blogspot.com/2019/04/charles-manson-first-victim-teenager.html

Besides Johnny's toolbox, which he made in shop class and of which he was really proud, nothing else was missing from the crime scene. There was no money, the Sharp family was poor. 15-year-old Johnny was NOT a drug dealer, there were no drugs found on scene.  

Any audit would find there was NO unaccounted for money spent by or on Johnny. A neighbor's post about Johnny's basement bedroom said it was sparsely furnished, containing a bed, chest of drawers, clock/radio and a space heater.

Sex? No one on scene was raped, not Johnny, not Dana and not Sue according to the coroner who was a friend of the Republican Sheriff. That said, both boys' jeans snaps were undone and Dana zipper was almost all the way down. So we may never know the truth. Of course we will never know about what happened to 12-year-old Tina who was kidnapped from the scene by the murderers. 

It is speculated that Sue's panties were taken off and stuffed in her mouth and her nighty pulled up past her waist to humiliate her. It is also believed that her body position was changed by someone, probably by the person who put a blanket over her, in all probably Tina, Dana or Johnny. If true, they did it out of respect/love for her, most definitely not the perpetrators. Sheila Sharp said the blanket covered her mother when she arrived at 8 AM the next morning. And she ran out of the house upon discovering the carnage, seeking out the nearest adult. Sue's body was covered with a blanket when Sheila entered the house, so that happened before 8 AM Sunday morning. If Sue's body position was changed, it may or may not have been a police officer, but considering how badly the family was dragged through the mud and the investigation sabotaged by the officers on scene, it is not likely a police officer would have shown any kindness to these innocent victims. So, in the end, it was most probably Johnny or Tina, possibly Dana, who put a blanket over Sue's exposed body and put her in a more dignified position. 

8) The misdirection, fake clues and outright lies told about the Sharp family by a few members of the local Keddie community are totally repugnant. This is the cruelest thing one can imagine, smearing innocent children, victims of torture and murder, like calling Johnny a drug dealer, Sue was also accused of this too. Absolutely no evidence has ever been turned up by police or researchers lending credence to this accusation, NONE! Sue and 12-year-old Tina were accused of being whores. Sue was actually shy and retiring. Everyone who knew her says she was NOT promiscuous.  She was taking business courses at the local community college and working very hard, impressing her professors with her effort and diligence. Just as with Johnny, if she was a drug dealer, she wasn't doing it right either.  The family home showed NO EVIDENCE of unaccounted money. It is only through perverted logic that anyone could accuse 12-year-old Tina of that, she could only be a victim of a sex crime, not a perpetrator of one. Some people also accuse Johnny of sex crimes, police investigation proved all of those stories to be FAKE.  Always generic charges with no evidence to back it up. There is absolutely no evidence or accusations to back this up either. The family was poor, they had no luxury items and an analysis of their lifestyle, revealed that all the money they had, they spent for necessities and was accounted for.  

9) Though Sheila had gotten pregnant, she had a boyfriend, something which happens, regrettably, in a lot of families. Tina had been molested in the Quincy trailer park by Daniel Workman French who was around 60-years-old. French also molested an unnamed 7-year-old girl at the same time. Sue's reaction was to immediately get her family the hell out of there. The morning of the massacre, Sue took Johnny and Dana to Quincy to Dana's foster home, she took Justin Smartt, Ricky Sharp and Greg Sharp to Little League practice, Greg was there to watch and cheer on his older brother, while she picked up groceries and visited friends in Quincy. When she was done, she picked up the boys and drove them home. That is exactly what millions of other good mothers would be doing on a Saturday morning.

10) Johnny's throat had been cut almost back to his spine, which would have taken incredible force on the part of his killer. That person KNEW Johnny was dying, then the question becomes, why smash the boy's skull until brain matter splattered all over the floor. That might happen, if you wanted to disguise the identity of your victim, like smashing Dana's teeth and jaw to prevent identification, but in this case served NO purpose. It was immediately obvious to friends, family and police who Johnny and Dana were. So that can't possibly be the motive. Rage at the boy, would explain it. The murderer didn't just want to kill Johnny, he wanted the boy to endure horrific suffering as he died. There is something else going on, well beyond necessity or the criminal enterprise involved. Possibly perverted sexual sadism or psychosis by the perpetrators suggest themselves as a secondary motive. But it is only a theory, the only theory which fits the horrific scene. Even if they were trying to pretend a stranger on stranger crime, disguising a victim's face through mutilation, doesn't work when the victims are found in their own home.

11) The more violent a crime scene, the more one of four types come into play. 

First the relationship of the perpetrator and his/her victims. Most murders are not from criminal enterprises, but among people who know each other. The most bloody, savage crimes are between people who are intimate and know each other well, expressing personal anger, betrayal and psychotic rage. Any policeman will tell you that domestic disturbance calls between family, friends or neighbors put them on highest alert and are the most dangerous.

A second cause, the mental state of the perpetrator. Jack the Ripper was insane. The savagery of his last murder, the killing of Mary Jane Kelly, in which Jack practically eviscerated his victim is proof of that. Scotland Yard's secret suspicion that paranoid, insane Aaron Kosminski was the murderer is probably 100% right, though they never caught him in the act, he had means, motive and opportunity. A surgeon's knife in the Scotland Yard Black Museum was said to belong to Jack the Ripper. If Scotland Yard knew it was Aaron Kosminski, then this knife was probably his, bought from a pawnshop.  Aaron spent the last 30 years of his life in an insane asylum starting in 1888. Aaron had caught a venereal disease from a prostitute at age 14/15/16 and blamed Whitechapel prostitutes for it.  Forever after he spewed out his venomous hatred for the prostitutes inhabiting Whitechapel, the poorest section of London. As FBI Profilers John Douglas and Roy Hazelwood said, the murderer probably lived in Whitechapel and was in all probability, far luckier than smart. They went on the record saying Jack the Ripper was either Jewish Polish Barber Aaron Kosminski or someone exactly like him. More curious, Scotland Yard has known for 130 years who Jack the Ripper was. Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Robert Anderson described Aaron Kosminski in his autobiography without naming his name. His Chief Deputy Inspector Donald Swanson wrote in pencil in the margin by that veiled description, in his personal copy of his boss's autobiography, the suspect was Kosminski. Which means all the suspects listed by Scotland Yard were phony to protect one insane man not responsible for his own actions. And the right thing to do.

Hazelwood and Douglas on a 100th Anniversary Documentary about Jack the Ripper, in which, they named Aaron Kosminski as their #1 suspect in 1988. My blog post about the case and Aaron Kosminski. http://briankeithohara.blogspot.com/2014/09/aaron-kosminski-was-jack-ripper-and.html

Third are amoral sociopaths, these are normally career criminals and sadists. They tend to hang out together. They have long criminal records of violent crimes and will never stop their crime sprees unless incarcerated. There is a 70% chance that the average criminal will stop their behavior after a long jail sentence or when they hit their 30's. Not so, sociopaths, they enjoy crime and inflicting pain, it is a lifetime profession. Two suspects who came under investigation for the Keddie Massacre, serial killers Otis O'Toole and Henry Lucas, were sociopaths. They were in California in 1980/1981, but dropped as suspects since they were nowhere near Keddie at the time of the killing. 

Recently, the case of sociopaths and sadists Latalvis Cobbins and George "Detroit" Thomas and their three associates made the papers in Knoxville. They carjacked two kids, Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, who were coming home from a date on January 6, 2007. They kidnapped them and took them to their house by the railroad tracks. They raped Channon and sexually abused Chris repeatedly. They kept both kids alive, until police started closing in on them. Channon's cell phone was traced using her cell phone provider, the kidnappers had left her cell phone in her vehicle and turned on, it was constantly pinging the nearest cell phone tower, after finding the kid's car that led to a search of the surrounding neighborhood. These evil perpetrators took Chris in his underpants to the railroad tracks, raped him, then shot him in the head and then set his body on fire a half mile from their house. They returned to the house and raped Channon one last time, then strangled her into unconsciousness and then put her body in multiple garbage bags and dumped her in a trash barrel in the KITCHEN, waiting until police left the neighborhood to dispose of her body. Evidence shows that Channon was still alive when put in the barrel, her cause of death was suffocation. These murderers are the definition of evil. The worst penalty under the law is far more merciful than they deserve.

The fourth cause and very common criminal scenario, murder for profit, the person who is probably the most likely suspect tries to point the finger at stranger on stranger crime. What they don't realize most criminals commit crimes quickly, even if they kill their victim, it is one well placed stab or gun shot. Repeated shots or knife wounds are personal and evocative of a relationship with the victim. These perpetrators are very methodical and careful planning their crimes. They intend to confuse the crime scene, planting false evidence with well placed FAKE clues. 

The case of Dana Ewell, the son of a very rich rural California family, comes to mind. His girlfriend's father was an FBI agent. He spent the weekend with her family, after hiring a school friend to murder his Mom, Dad and Sister, leaving him as the soul heir to the family fortune. His assassin buddy, Joel Radovcich, worked very hard to make the crime look like a robbery gone wrong, ransacking drawers, stealing jewelry, credit cards and money. The murderer was simply a burglar caught in the act, firing a few gun shots from a weapon he brought with him, in quick succession, killing the family immediately after their arrival home, covering up his crime and making sure that there were no witnesses. The murder of his family was a crime for which, Dana Ewell had a perfect alibi. Dana was meticulous in planning the murder. Dana made sure the murder weapon was purchased by a third party, not traceable to one of the conspirators, in a private sale, with no documentation. As a final step Dana had the gun, stolen jewelry and credit cards buried, promising to pay his employee/assassin cash when he got the life insurance, but telling Joel that he could keep any cash he found. This was done so nothing turned up in pawn shops during the police investigation But he and his co-conspirator/hitman made one big and one small mistake, the didn't use a very common caliber handgun, bought on the black market, instead they chose a very rare, very expensive, very unique assault rifle manufactured by Feather Industries of Colorado for the murder weapon. Who brings an assault rifle to a burglary? On top of that this rifle had a unique rifling, one in 12 twist, which immediately led police to the weapon and aided in searching for anyone who bought or sold one. One of the recorded owners of this rare assault rifle revealed to police that he sold his gun. Finally he admitted, with some police prodding, that he had sold the gun to a friend of his, Joel Radovcich. Joel turned out to be a Santa Clara University Student and a college friend of Dana's. Now, having appeared on police radar, they began trailing the men. Dana used a combination of untraceable pay phones and pagers to communicate with his schoolmate and co-conspirator and set money drops to pay him stipends, until the insurance was paid. It was this secretive behavior by Dana, which quickly caused police to become convinced of his guilt. What first betrayed Dana Ewell's guilt was his cold attitude at his Mom, Dad and Sister's funeral. His Dad's brother was outraged by Dana's behavior at the funeral, he didn't seem to care at all. Dana even asked him about when his uncle, the will's executor, would be giving him more money in the middle of the funeral service.  

Dana Ewell today serving life in prison

Joel Radovcich, Dana Ewell's hitman who massacred his sister, mom and millionaire dad.

Though the Keddie Cabin Massacre has been portrayed as Murder for Profit, drugs or drug money, or some insane, senseless crime. But killing Sue, Tina, Johnny and Dana just doesn't fit those scenarios. There was NO drugs, there was NO money, an insane perpetrator could have never escaped capture without help, end of discussion. In all probability this murder arose out a personal quarrel which led to this family massacre. A convincing case can be made that the murderers were waiting Johnny to come home. They threw a knife in the wall to kill time. Sue was murdered quickly, but Johnny and Dana were tortured for hours.  Sue and Tina Sharp are probably the key to understanding what happened.  Sue captured first, possibly murdered first, though the blood on her feet may mean she was the last one killed in the house. Tina captured last was definitely murdered last. 

12) LIES, SMEARS AND THE TRUTH

Johnny was NOT a Drug Dealer.

Johnny was NOT Stupid, reports are that he was of average to above average intelligence.

Tina was NOT a 12-year-old whore, she was molested twice, her first molester was in prison at the time of the murders. The 2nd time Tina was molested by an adult who got her pregnant and quite possibly murdered her and her family, which is a very serious crime.

Tina was a little slow, but she was sweet and tried to please adults. People liked her. 

Sue was NOT Promiscuous. She dated only a few men. She rejected Marty Smartt 

Sue fled one abusive relationship, she had NO intention of a 2nd.

Sheila got pregnant from her boyfriend. Sue took her to Portland, where her baby was adopted. Which at the time, was the intelligent, responsible thing to do.

There is absolutely no evidence that Dana and Johnny were gay, No one cares either way.

Jim Sharp, Sue's ex-husband, did not have the address in Keddie and had not seen his kids since their move to California. He was immediately eliminated as a suspect.

There are too many reports of strangers in town to be coincidental. Keddie had only 66 inhabitants. A lot of people are suspected of deliberately spreading misinformation and creating phantom suspects to cause confusion and protect the guilty party/parties.  

Johnny and Dana lost so much blood, they bled to death, exsanguination, that neither boy's time of death could be determined with any degree of accuracy. Sue's time of death was between 12 midnight and 2 AM. Because of this it is impossible to determine the sequence of events.  

The bloody fingerprint on the stair by Johnny's downstairs bedroom was NOT saved, nor was it ever compared to any suspect(s) by police. 

Justin's BLOODY SHOES were turned over to Chief Doug Thomas the next morning by his Mom, Marilyn Smartt. No one believes that the 12-year-old had anything to do with the crime. Subsequently, the Plumas County Sheriff's Office lost Justin's shoes. 

During his interview of Justin and Marilyn, Chief Thomas says that Johnny, Dana and Tina's bodies were dead in the living room. Sue and Tina were roughly the same size. Justin IMMEDIATELY interrupts and says:

"That's not Tina in there, it's Sue. Tina is missing. Look down by the river." 

Marilyn Smartt (mother of Justin), later claimed she had found a bloody jacket belonging to Tina in her basement and had turned it in to police, though no official record of this exists. Wikipedia

 

Dana Wingate had been over at Plumas County Detective Gamberg's house the day before the murder, simply as a neighbor and friend. Gamberg had taught both Dana and John martial arts. Sheriff Hagwood took classes with both Dana Wingate and John Sharp at Quincy High School. Gamberg and Hagwood liked both Dana and John and considered them to be their friends. To Gamberg and Hagwood, this case was and is personal.

The pond in which Marty's missing blue hammer was found, Detective Gamberg points to the exact spot. This wasn't I misplaced a hammer like Marty Smartt claimed, somebody dumped it there on purpose.

The boy's route home the night they died. Quincy is at the bottom of the road to the left and Keddie is by the route label at the top on that same road. 

Gamberg is no stranger to homicide cases. From 1974 until his retirement in 1994, he worked all but one of Plumas County’s cases. The one he missed — or more accurately wasn’t allowed to cover — was the Keddie murder case, he said recently. 

In April 2018, Plumas County Special Investigator Mike Gamberg and new Plumas County Sheriff Hagwood stated that DNA evidence recovered from a piece of tape at the crime scene matched that of a known suspect. Reflecting on the initial "investigation", both said it was either incompetence or conspiracy. Sheriff Hagwood went to school with John and Dana. He was also their friend. He promises that they will get justice.

It pays to have the sheriff as a friend if you are going to commit mass murder. And the  one murder, which should never be left unsolved is the murder of a child. Anyone who obfuscates an investigation the murder of a child, is equally guilty of the crime. And the innocent victims call out for justice from the grave. 

The most complete story about Keddie is this documentary by Keddie 28

https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=keddie%20cabin%2028%20murders%20case-%20keddie28&epa=SEARCH_BOX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nK-dIY2c1s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owOehiQ5jKc&t=971s

http://keddie28.com/index.html

Final note the violence inflicted on the boys was far beyond what was necessary. Sue's death was fairly quick, but the two boy's deaths were inflicted with as much pain as the perpetrator's could inflict. The coroner indicates John's throat wound was gushing blood, John was dying, why then would the same person, or someone else, smash his head/skull with a hammer until brain matter was splattering the scene; or attacking Dana after his many head wounds, broken teeth, then killing him off by strangling him. Strangling someone or stabbing them to death is a deeply personal, an intimate crime. You are touching them, you are looking at them, looking in their eyes, as you feel life draining from them. Firing a gun and killing someone from a distance is much easier.  

A profiler of the Jack the Ripper Murder said a universally common trait of murderers over 30 is not wanting to get blood on them. They much prefer using some intermediary means to kill them, poison, a gun from a distance, cutting brake lines, causing a wreck,  over a knife or strangulation.  Or the proverbial blunt instrument from behind, where they don't have to see their victim die. Whoever attacked John cut his throat, preventing him from crying out, then smashed his head with a hammer as the boy bled to death. Dana was strangled from the front, while sitting down, probably on the sofa, established by post mortem lividity, where blood settled in his body once his heart stopped beating.  but again, you see and hear the person dying, feel them dying. Not many people could do that. 

The one exception is sexual or intimate rage murders which very often are overkill. Now, Sue dated and was not promiscuous, neither were her children.  Unless it some sort of one sided "Idee Fixe" or OBSESSION, where the person was consumed with desire and had been rejected. Marty is said to have asked Sue out on a date as his relationship with Marilyn declined. But that seems incidental. He asked a lot of girls out, part of the reason his marriage was in trouble. And, of course, the issue of Marty and Tina. 

Tina's kidnapping from the scene, dead or alive is again important. FBI Profiler John Douglas is almost 90% + sure to be right, the person(s) who did this knew Tina, Sue, John Sharp and quite possibly Dana Wingate. 

The last point of the vast overkill and savagery in murdering Dana and Johnny, the fact that Dana's pants were unbuttoned and his zipper halfway down, may or may not mean anything. But vicious savage OVERKILL murders are very often sex crimes. 

John was a feisty kid experimenting with drugs but never presented himself as a disciplinary problem and had good relationships with teachers and adults. John and Dana went to Dana's foster home in Quincy. His foster family thought very highly of him. Dana's natural family had a high opinion of him too, regardless of the minor league trouble he got into. 

And Tina's pregnancy would be a totally logical motive for murder.

What troubles me is, a few, select neighbors, describe, 12-year-old Tina as a sex kitten. Her teachers describe Tina as sweet and polite and as a diligent, though slow student. She and John had good dispositions and were well liked by the people who got to know them. A few people say things attacking the Sharps, which don't fit the consensus of people who knew them. A police department which seemed to have no interest in solving this crime was amplified by people naming far, far too many suspects or blaming the victims. Over and over again, apart from the smears, you keep coming back to the fact that Sue, Tina, John and Dana had less reason to be the victims of murder than almost anyone else.  

The only real mystery resulting from the Keddie Cabin #28 Massacre is what the hell were the Plumas County Sheriff's Department up to that night and subsequently? They were more help to the murderers than they ever were to the INNOCENT victims.  

Amazingly, the Detective interviewing survivor, 10-year-old Rick Sharp, "ACCIDENTALLY" CUTS OFF THE TAPE RECORDER, seconds after the boy's interview began.  

In his conversation Justin repeated the story of his dream as an allegorical segment of "Love Boat" Where Sue, Johnny and Dana were murdered on a small boat on the Ocean. Odd footnote, Justin's shoes had blood on the souls, mysteriously, Plumas County Sheriff's Department lost them and Tina's jacket.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfFeNT8Uanw

The key to understanding the crime is determining who the target was and who was collateral damage. Tina's body was the only one missing, why? As a motive or a machination or a deliberate false lead planted by the murderers? And why were the three boys in the back bedroom unharmed. This fact alone, is one of the most damning pieces of evidence against Marty Smartt. His son Justin was in that room and unharmed, while the living room was drenched in blood 

Now, for the bottom line, in the Cabin 28 Documentary/House Tour, Rick Sharp says very clearly that Justin was ordered back into the bedroom by MARTY and that MARTY shut the door. The door to the boy's bedroom was NOT completely shut before that point, so when Justin was hiding behind the door, looking out the crack he saw what was going on. Justin's shoes had blood on their souls. After Marty and his henchman, Bo left, Rick said that Justin went out and looked at Sue and this may have been when someone put a blanket over Sue and rearranged her legs for the sake of decency, unless done earlier by Tina, Johnny or Dana. Marty was accused of beating Marilyn and Justin. He was known for a vicious temper and violence. Everyone in that house was TERRIFIED of Marty before and after the murders.

Cabin 28 Tour with Sheila and Rick Sharp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBb51LGOiOA  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxFRi9yppyo

I would like to end by saying Johnny Sharp and Dana Wingate are heroes and that is the way that they should and deserve to be remembered. Tina and Sue Sharp were innocent victims of a crime. We, Irish, hold wakes for the dead, not to mourn their death, but to celebrate the dear, departed's life. So let it be with Sue, Tina, Dana and Johnny. 

Justice doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. Florida's Dozier School for Boys, where real crimes were committed.

In 2012, Dozier Reform School for Boys in Bible Belt Law and Order Florida was shut down and the land sold to a developer. As construction crews moved in they were horrified to find graves everywhere at the facility. Investigators were brought in and began digging up the boys in the 100 year old facility. Originally believed to be one cemetery, now believed to be three, with no records as to who was buried where. After the story made the press, boys came forward to tell the story of years of torture and murder at the facility.














































What amazed me most was the number of very young boys sent to the prison, for minor incidents. Today, many of their offenses wouldn't even be considered a crime. Showing disrespect for parents and teachers, running away from home, even an abusive home, could get you a one or two year prison sentence.



The White House was where guards took boys, stripped them naked or to only their underpants and beat and tortured them. Notice that the "paddle" above has studs in it to rip into the boys' flesh. That proves these were not punishments, they were Bible Belt "christian" TORTURE OF CHILDREN. They stripped the boys so there wouldn't be and blood stains to explain or wash out of clothes. Before the "white house" was torn down, its history still speaks for itself. 

The Dozier School for Boys in Conservative Bible Belt Florida. Northern Florida is as Bible Belt as Mississippi or Alabama. Boys as young as 10-years-old were sent to Dozier after Juvenile Court hearings for truancy, shoplifting, even stealing a candy bar, for being disrespectful to their parents or a teacher, running away from home or orphanages, smoking cigarettes, drinking a beer, etc. If there ever was a living hell, Dozier was it. Guards would beat the crap out of the boys for minor offenses, a smart remark to a guard, wetting the bed, talking after lights out, missing church, not working hard enough in the citrus fields around the facility where the boys were farmed out as slave  labor. They worked 12 to 16 hour days for no money. Guards were paid extra to supervise the boys. It was to their personal profit to beat extra effort out of the slave labor.  Many sadistic guards would take a "lazy" or complaining boy to the White House, strip them naked or left them in only their underpants, so the boy's clothes wouldn't be stained with blood for everyone to see. They then beat the boys until they collapsed or were unconscious. Screams echoed throughout the facility and everyone knew what was going on. The warden also made money on the deal, he got a kickback from the owners of the farms and orchards. 
For repeat offenses, serious offenses or if you were sick and couldn’t work in the fields or shirked on the job, you were sent to the "White House" for serious torture.  That was when the beating and worse began, screams of the boys  would fill the night air almost every night at the facility. Sometimes you knew that sudden silence meant that the guards had sent a kid to intensive care in the primitive infirmary or possibly murdered a boy. 
After extended vicious torture, including sexual torture, some of the boys died. The guards then dumped the boy's body  in what they called the garbage pit. Those screams would be the one thing that none of the boys would ever forget. They were terrified and had nightmares the rest of their tortured lives. Beatings and torture were a part of every boy's life there.  If one of the boys was murdered, the warden would then write a letter to his Mom and Dad saying their boy had run away. Everyone who worked there heard screams of the boys  as they were beaten, tortured and murdered, they knew the truth. The guards would send a squad of boys weekly into the "White House" to wash the blood, brains, urine and feces off the floor and walls.

A boy apparently from the 1950's who didn't make it out alive and his buddies in death. The crosses are a much later addition. Roger Dean Kiser created the White House Boys to tell the truth and take up a collection to bury the boys who were buried at the prison.

One boy told a poignant story. He met a 10-year-old. He had just been sent there for being truant. Apparently the kids in school found out that he wet the bed. They started teasing him unmercifully. He finally stopped going to school. The boy was arrested and a judge quickly sent him to Dozier. He continued to wet the bed. Immediately after his arrival the guards started beating and torturing him for wetting the bed. They broke his arm during one torture session in the first week he was there. Doctors know that bed wetting is a medical condition over which the boy had no control. The guards, doctors, nurses, administrators and staff didn't care. He created a problem for them and he was going to pay for it.  They took him, stripped him naked, punched and kicked him in the nuts and then beat the hell out of him for 15 to 30 minutes. His screams only made the guards angrier. Within a month of his arrival, the guards beat him to death. His body was dumped in the "garbage pit" and quickly forgotten. "Life" continued at the prison, screams filling every night and every boy with terror. 
The warden sent this boy’s parents his usual threatening letter saying that he had run away and they would be arrested if they hid him, while at the same time he knew that this boy’s corpse had already started rotting in the facility "garbage pit," the name given to it by the guards and staff. The crosses are a much later addition. Most of the boys' graves have no marker.  
A lot of boys were sent to jail for crimes like shoplifting, truancy, disrespecting parents and teachers, but some ended up with the death penalty. A penalty for some things which weren't even crimes. Getting tough on crime and juvenile delinquents obviously means something very different to conservatives and liberals. This was what Law and Order meant in the Bible Belt for God Fearing Conservatives. 

https://officialwhitehouseboys.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_School_for_Boys

Gregory Sampson's parents asked Gov. Ron DeSantis for help getting their son's body back. Sentenced to prison for truancy, he would never leave alive. He disappeared after a few weeks. The boys who survived the living hell of Dozier, many were forced to dig graves in the swamps around the facility. Some boys report guards bragged about boys being fed to the alligators around the facility, for things like resisting being raped by these same guards.



You may remember Pam Bondi Conservative Law and Order Republican Attorney General of Florida, who took a donation from Donald Trump and then immediately dropped an investigation of Trump "university," which was forced to drop university from its title because that claim was fraudulent and the Trump Foundation. She also served as Trump's Impeachment Defense Attorney. CharityWatch a charity watch dog, which refused to rate the Trump Foundation because they couldn't find ANY CHARITABLE ACTS by the TAX FREE ORGANIZATION. Trump Foundation spent money on Trump Luxury Golf Club Flag Poles, to pay off Trump Organization Legal Fees and Law Suit Settlements.

Pro-Life Bible Belt Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that no guards would be prosecuted for the torture and murders at Dozier. Her reasons were the cases would be the boys word against the guards, the guards were too old to prosecute, but apparently the boys weren't too young to be tortured and murdered, by her logic, it would cost too much to prosecute, especially after relevant records had been "accidentally" deleted and destroyed and her office had more important things to do.  
  

I was about twelve or thirteen years old, when the Duval County Juvenile Court sentenced me to the Florida School for Boys at Marianna for running away from the Children's Home Society orphanage in Jacksonville, Florida. Early one morning Doctor Robert Loyal Currie called me to the head office. He told me that I would soon visit the ‘White House,’ which was a torture room for boys who broke one of their many rules or tried to escape. I was sent to the school for trying to escape from the Children's Home Society orphanage in Jacksonville. I had been incarcerated there for 10 years for the ‘crime’ of having no parents to care for me.

After a beating which lasted over 30 minutes:

"Talk like that around here will have you wake up dead tomorrow morning, sonny boy," said the man, as he squinted his eyes and pointed his finger at me.

I slowly walked into the bathroom and closed the door. I looked in the mirror. There was dried blood all over my black and blue face, my hair and in my mouth. I took my torn shirt off, which was hanging from the waistband of my pants and then I turned around and looked into the mirror. My back was black and blue, and also bloody. I almost panicked out of my mind when I saw my reflection. I looked like a monster. I started to cry, but I covered my mouth with both hands so no other boys would hear me. I loosened my belt buckle to get my pants down. It was very painful, but the worst was yet to come. Once they were down, I noticed that my legs were all bloody and my skin was black in color.

I stood over the toilet and tried to urinate, but it just would not come out. I decided to take my underwear down and sit on the toilet until I could go, but the underwear would not come off; it was stuck to my rear end and legs. The cotton material had been beaten into the skin of my buttocks and was dried with blood. I pulled my pants back up and washed my face, mainly because I did not want the other boys to see that I had been crying. I was so scared that I could not stop shaking.

Finally, I walked back into the outer office and saw Mr. Sealander, my cottage house parent, standing by the doorway. He took me back to my cottage. He called the office to complain about what happened to me. Then he took me to the hospital where the old nurse, Ms. Womack, and Doctor Wexler sutured up the tears to my buttocks and soaked me in Epsom salts. With tweezers, she pulled the remaining pieces of underwear from my skin.

PLEASE GO TO THIS WEBSITE TO READ THE STORY, IF YOU HAVE THE STOMACH FOR IT, REGARDLESS PLEASE CONTRIBUTE TO THE FUND TO RETURN THESE BOYS TO THEIR FAMILIES AND BURY THEM WITH PEOPLE WHO LOVED THEM.

http://thewhitehouseboys.com/indexspare.html


http://thewhitehouseboys.com/AmericanOrphan/americanorphan/index.html

THE NIGHTMARE NEVER ENDS, in the spring of 2019, 27 more boy's graves were found at Dozier. 

If you look at normal mortality charts for boys 8 to 18-years-old there should be no more than 5 boys' deaths during the 100 years Dozier was open. But there are probably over 100 boys buried there, many showing sign of violence, broken bones, fractured skulls, some were shot  in the back. There were very few violent or serious criminals at Dozier. There were far, far many more runaways, abused boys, truants, shoplifters and abandoned children there. Shame on the Bible Belt,  US and Florida GOP Attorney General Pam Bondi. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/us/dozier-school-boys-graves.html


The dichotomy, Liberal Democrats would seek to reform the system, limiting the reasons boys were sent to prison and hire better staff, while tough "law and order" Republican Bible Belt Conservatives would try to fill up the facilities, make a profit from the boy's slave labor and cover-up the atrocities committed there.

In Republican Idaho things haven't progressed much,  a 12-year-old boy was beaten, tortured and arrested for NO CRIME. This happened a couple of years ago. 

A 13-year-old Albuquerque boy was arrested by a campus cop, handcuffed, taken to a REPUBLICAN PRIVATE, FOR PROFIT JUVENILE PRISON, STRIPPED NAKED, CAVITY SEARCHED AND THROWN IN A CELL WITH RAPISTS AND MURDERERS. What was his "crime"? He was burping in class. After a week in jail, the judge hearing the case threw it out as an act of over-reaction. However Republican Governor Susana Martinez(R-NM) demanded the case be appealed. Finally, reaching Chuck Grassley/Mitch McConnell's Republican packed 10th Federal Circuit Court, which ruled burping boys should be put in prison. Boys are TORTURED AND RAPED IN JUVENILE PRISONS, no boys deserves that, but can you imagine a boy being RAPED FOR BURPING? If you listen quietly you can hear a boy's screams from REPUBLICAN PRIVATE, FOR PROFIT PRISONS.

https://jonathanturley.org/2016/08/01/tenth-circuit-rules-officials-were-justified-in-arresting-and-criminally-charging-13-year-old-for-burping-in-class/

THE SPIRIT OF DOZIER BOYS PRISON LIVES ON IN REPUBLICAN HEARTS AND PRIVATE FOR PROFIT JUVENILE PRISONS. Which apparently only make money when they are full. Republicans Certainly know how to make money. You can tell from the screams of their victims. Boys are tortured and raped in prison, but for BURPING? 

A Tale of Two Lost Boys, With Two Very Different Endings. 

Steve McQueen was a lost soul who found happiness and gave hope to other boys who reached the same Crossroads.  Charles Manson was a nightmare who destroyed every life he touched.

Charles Manson, future mass murderer, right before he got sent to hell in Juvenile Hall in Indiana

No excuses for what Charles Manson did, but once you know about his childhood, neglect, alcoholism, horrific beatings and physical abuse by his prostitute mother, then being sold by his Mom for a pitcher of beer and the horrific time he spent in Juvenile Hall, you probably won't be able to forgive him, but his life will make sense to you. At the age of 13, Manson was sent to the Gibault School for Boys in Terre Haute, Indiana and it was a nightmare beyond comprehension. Can't even begin to discuss what happened to him there. But we know that he was viciously beaten and tortured by the cruel, sadistic guards, as all the boys were, and repeatedly raped by the older boys. Charles repeatedly tried to escape, but failed, bringing even worse torture and beatings down upon himself. There is even a report that he tried to kill himself.  Not surprisingly he immediately became a career criminal when he escaped. You do that to a kid and that is what you end up with.

Steve McQueen

"I'm not a great actor - let's face it. I don't have a great deal of scope. There are certain things I can do, but when I'm bad, I stink. There's something about my shaggy dog eyes that makes people think I'm good. I'm not all that good." Steve McQueen

Same story, different ending. Steve McQueen's mother was an alcoholic morally free spirited woman who actually tried to put him to work in the business once when she was short of rent. She literally tried to sell him for sex to a neighbor for money. She had a hard life and always saw Steve as part of the reason, a burden. She was never consistently capable of taking care of her kid. Luckily for Steve, she periodically left him with her uncle Claude and his family, who gladly took Steve in. Steve would tell people that the happiest times in his childhood were with his uncle Claude in Slater, Missouri. Steve lived with his uncle on his farm in the country and was  finally happy. Steve made  a lot of friends and reveled in the simple country life. Then, regrettably, for whatever reason, his Mother would come and get him, then Steve would be miserable again. Then she would get tired of him and ship him back to Uncle Claude. Uncle Claude begged her to let Steve stay, but family disapproval of a mother abandoning her son always brought her back to reclaim him. This happened repeatedly up until she and his stepfather moved to California when Steve was 14. 

"The day I left the farm Uncle Claude gave me a personal going-away present−a gold pocket watch, with an inscription inside the case. The inscription read: "To Steve – who has been a son to me.""  Steve kept that watch the rest of his life and considered it his most valuable possession. His son now has Steve's watch.

Mom married a series of cruel vicious bullies, who would beat the crap out of Steve repeatedly. Not to say Steve wasn't a handful. He got caught by police for stealing hubcaps, truancy and other offenses. Basically it was a toxic relationship all around. Finally, for convenience sake, so they wouldn't have to support him anymore, they had Steve committed to the state of California as an incorrigible juvenile delinquent. For the second time Steve caught a break. He got sent to the Boy's Republic in Chino. It was a well run facility where the boy's felt cared about by a supportive staff and administration who always put the boy's best interest first. Steve was happy for the first time since he left Uncle Claude's farm. Additionally Steve received a good education and training. Steve said that being sent to the Boy's Republic saved his life. Every year he would go back and talk to the boys, bring them presents and encourage them and help them anyway he could. He would play flag football and shoot baskets with the boys and answer any questions they had. He said that the boys there made him feel like he belonged, that they were all his brothers. When he went back, he was just a big brother checking on his little brothers. He felt that paying that debt might save another kid's life, like one decent, compassionate judge had saved his. Steve was more than willing to repay that debt and proud to do it.

Legendary San Francisco Detective Inspector Dave Toschi was the model for both Lt. Frank Bullitt in  "Bullitt"(1968) and Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry"(1971). Toschi became friends with former reform school alumnus McQueen but was less than impressed with Law and Order Republican Clint Eastwood. Toschi said he didn't like phonies. 

If you saw the terrific movie "Zodiac"(2007) the hero is SFPD Detective Dave Toschi. Toschi liked Mark Ruffalo too. And considered Zodiac tied with Bullitt in portraying his career.

Remember, my dad came out of a shaky background, and I think I benefited from the neglect his mom had shown him. He never knew his father, his mother drank a lot, and at one point a judge put him in a place called Boys Republic, where the motto still is “Nothing without labor.” He told me they turned his life around. Chad McQueen

Steve McQueen was the ultimate in Cool since James Dean passed away.