Keddie Murders - Details of The Crime

Details of The Crime

Glenna "Sue" Sharp, 36, and her five children had been renting the cabin since November 1980. On the night of April 11, 1981, Sue was home with her daughter, Tina, her two youngest boys, and a young friend of the boys, Justin, who was staying the night. Her oldest son, John, and his friend Dana Wingate, had spent the day in nearby Quincy and were also going to stay the night at cabin 28. John and Dana were last seen hitchhiking from Quincy to Keddie. The crime may already have been in progress when they arrived at the cabin.

At approximately 8 am on the morning of April 12, Sheila Sharp, upon returning from the sleepover next door, discovered the bodies of Sue, John and Dana in the cabin's living room. All three victims had been bound with medical tape and electrical appliance wire. Later, Tina Sharp was determined to be missing from the cabin.

Examination of the bodies determined that each of the victims had been bludgeoned with a claw hammer, and Sue and John had been stabbed repeatedly, including both being stabbed once in the throat. Dana Wingate was also manually strangled and bludgeoned with another weapon. An inexpensive steak knife discovered at the scene had been used so forcefully that the blade had bent approximately 25 degrees.

The case grew cold, but in 1984 the cranium portion of Tina Sharp's skull was recovered near Camp Eighteen, a geodesic distance of roughly 29 miles from Keddie. Months later, after an anonymous caller to the Butte County Sheriff's office claimed the skull was Tina's, the Camp Eighteen area was searched again for several hours over a period of days. The jawbone and dozens of other bones were found, along with other potential evidence. From these discoveries, no new information regarding the crime surfaced in the media. The murders remain unsolved to this day.