The Keddie Murders of Cabin 28: Suspects and Reopened Case

The Keddie murders at Cabin 28 refer to the April 11, 1981, killings of four people inside a rental cabin at the Keddie Resort in Plumas County, California: Glenna “Sue” Sharp, 36; her son John Sharp, 15; John’s friend Dana Wingate, 17; and Sue’s 12-year-old daughter Tina Sharp, who was abducted from the cabin and killed elsewhere. Nearly 44 years later, no one has been charged. Investigators have long focused on two men who lived across the street, both now dead, and a reopened investigation has produced DNA and physical evidence that authorities say points to a living suspect.¹

What Happened Inside Cabin 28

Sue Sharp lived in Cabin 28 with her five children. On the night of April 11, 1981, her 14-year-old daughter Sheila was staying at a neighboring cabin. John Sharp and Dana Wingate caught a ride home sometime between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. In a back bedroom, three younger boys were asleep: Sue’s sons Rick (9) and Greg (5), and Justin Smartt (12), the son of a neighbor who was spending the night.²

The violence in the living room was severe. The attackers used hammers, knives taken from the home, and a BB or pellet rifle as a blunt weapon. Sue Sharp and John Sharp both had their throats cut. Dana Wingate was manually strangled and beaten about the head. The victims’ hands and ankles were bound with white medical tape, and Sue Sharp was gagged with a blue bandana and tape. Blood covered the walls, ceiling, and furniture.²

Tina Sharp was taken from the cabin alive. The three boys in the back bedroom were not harmed. The Seabolt family in neighboring Cabin 27 later said they heard nothing.

At about 8 a.m. on April 12, Sheila Sharp walked back into Cabin 28 and found the bodies. She ran next door for help, and because the Seabolts had no phone, someone sprinted to the resort lodge. Co-owner Jan Albin called the Plumas County Sheriff’s dispatch at 8:05 a.m.² When deputies arrived, they realized Tina was missing.

Three years later, a man searching for bottles near Camp 18, roughly 80 miles from Keddie and about five miles from Feather Falls, found a human skull and bones. An anonymous caller then contacted Butte County dispatch asking whether authorities were linking the find to “the murder up in Keddie up in Plumas County a couple years ago where a 12-year-old girl was never found.” The remains were Tina’s.²

The Two Main Suspects

Investigators focused early on two men who lived in Cabin 26, directly across from Cabin 28: Martin “Marty” Smartt and his friend Severin John “Bo” Boubede. Witnesses placed both men at a local bar the night of the murders and back in the area afterward.

Martin Smartt

Smartt worked as a cook at the Keddie Resort and attended a typing class at Feather River College with Sue Sharp. Investigators came to believe Smartt and Sue had been involved and that Smartt was jealous and possessive. A central element of the suspected motive: Sue had been counseling Smartt’s wife, Marilyn, about leaving him because of his abuse and infidelity.³

Weeks after the killings, Smartt wrote a letter to Marilyn that investigator Mike Gamberg later called “damned sure close” to a confession: “I’ve paid the price of your love & now that I’ve bought it with four people’s lives, you tell me we are through. Great! What else do you want?” Marilyn reportedly gave the letter to the Sheriff’s Office at some point but later said she did not remember doing so, though she recognized her husband’s handwriting.³

Smartt also allegedly confessed to a therapist at a Veterans Administration facility in Reno during what the counselor recalled as their seventh session. According to the counselor, Smartt said: “I killed the woman and her daughter, but I didn’t have anything to do with the [boys].” Of Tina, Smartt reportedly said, “She saw the whole thing. I couldn’t have a witness.” When urged to turn himself in, Smartt allegedly smiled and said he had beaten a polygraph: “Those things are easy to beat. I was lying, and they let me go!” The counselor reported this to California Department of Justice special agents Harry Bradley and P.A. “Mike” Crim, who, according to the counselor, dismissed it as hearsay.⁴ Smartt died in 2006, never charged.

John “Bo” Boubede

Boubede had a long criminal record, including armed robbery time at Stateville prison in Joliet, Illinois, and time in California. He used aliases such as “Bobby Lake” and “John DeSantis,” and had falsely claimed to be a retired Cook County Sheriff’s deputy. He also had alleged ties to organized crime in Chicago, including a mentor relationship with Jimmy Rini, described as an enforcer for the Chicago Outfit, and alleged activity in Las Vegas during Tony Spilotro’s era.⁴

Those connections, investigators believe, help explain an unusual choice in the hours after the murders. When Sheriff Doug Thomas called the DOJ for help, the agency sent agents from its organized crime unit rather than homicide investigators, and DOJ agents were reportedly flying over the crime scene by noon on April 12. Gamberg later said that decision “only makes sense when you consider Boubede’s background,” and raised the question of whether the DOJ had a pre-existing interest in protecting him.⁴ Both Smartt and Boubede left Plumas County shortly after being interviewed by the DOJ in 1981. Boubede died around 1988.

Why Nobody Was Ever Charged

Later reviewers found that the original 1981 investigation, led by Sheriff Doug Thomas with help from the California DOJ and the FBI, was deeply flawed. The case history log, which should have tracked every investigative action, went missing entirely. Physical evidence was disorganized, improperly stored, or never cataloged. A freezer used to preserve biological evidence was turned off at some point, contaminating its contents.²

Leads went nowhere. The therapist’s report of Smartt’s alleged confession produced no action. A cassette tape of the anonymous caller who referenced Tina Sharp’s remains was later found inside a sealed evidence envelope that had never been opened.¹ Mike Gamberg, who was a deputy with homicide experience in 1981, has said Sheriff Thomas excluded him from the investigation and ignored his leads.

DNA testing was not a standard forensic tool in 1981, which limited the technology available. But the problems went well beyond technology. Gamberg put it this way: “This case is as screwed up as a soup sandwich. It’s not about what was done, but what was not done.”² Sheila Sharp has gone further, saying she was told suspects were told to leave town: “To me that means it was covered up.”⁵

What the Reopened Investigation Has Found

The case sat largely untouched for more than three decades. In 2013, Plumas County Sheriff Greg Hagwood, who took office in 2010, formally reopened it and appointed Gamberg as special investigator.¹ Gamberg reorganized the files and evidence, re-interviewed people connected to the case, and sent items for forensic testing that was unavailable in 1981.

The renewed effort has produced several developments.

Investigators identified DNA on a strip of white medical tape found near Sue Sharp’s body. According to Gamberg, the DNA matches a “known living suspect.” He said he had the DNA profile for several years before obtaining the comparison samples needed to confirm the match.²
In 2016, a man using a metal detector in a dried-up pond near the Keddie Resort entrance found a steel, blue-handled claw hammer. It matched the description of one Smartt had told DOJ agents he had lost shortly after the murders. The hammer was submitted to the DOJ for forensic testing.³⁶
Gamberg located the sealed, never-opened envelope with the cassette of the anonymous caller who referenced Tina Sharp’s remains. The recording has been submitted for voice comparison analysis.¹
During his review of the files, Gamberg discovered an unopened bag of evidence that had never been entered into the official chain of custody.

Hagwood and Gamberg have said they believe as many as six people were involved in the murders or the subsequent cover-up. Smartt and Boubede are dead, but investigators say they have identified other living individuals who either participated after the fact or possess firsthand information. Authorities have not publicly named them.² As Hagwood put it: “There are people locally who know more than they’ve said, and I believe we’ve identified some of them, and we know who they are, and we know where they are.”

Where the Case Stands Now

As of January 2025, the Keddie murders remain officially unsolved and open with the Plumas County Sheriff’s Office. No one has been charged.⁷ Author David Keller, who spent 20 years researching the case, published Solving Keddie in January 2025 and stated that the case is “now almost 44 years unsolved, when it could have been solved.”

Hagwood has framed continued work on the case as an obligation to the family: “There is not an expiration date on homicides, and to the extent that we have surviving siblings and family members, it is our fundamental obligation to them to understand who did this and why.”² Anyone with information can reach the Plumas County Sheriff’s Office tip line at 283-6360.

1
People. Keddie Cabin 28 Murders: New Investigation by Sheriff Hagwood
2
Plumas News. Keddie Murders Revisited
3
Plumas News. Keddie Murders Revisited: Following the Clues
4
Plumas News. Keddie Murders Revisited Part 3: Hypnosis, Counselors, Revelations, Mob Connections
5
Oxygen. The Cold Case of the Keddie Cabin Murders
6
People. Keddie Cabin 28 Murders: 5 Things to Know
7
Plumas Sun. Keddie Case Focus of David Keller’s Book