On the morning of April 11, 1981, 14-year-old Sheila Sharp returned from a neighbor’s house after a sleepover and stumbled upon the most disturbing and gruesome scene that she and the rest of Keddie, California, had ever seen.
As she opened the door, she discovered three bodies on the living room floor of the infamous Cabin 28.
It was Sharp’s mother, Sue, brother John and his friend Dana, laying in a pool of blood, bound with medical tape and appliance wire. The trio had been stabbed, bludgeoned, and strangled to death.
Sheila’s 12-year-old sister Tina was missing, while her two younger brothers, Rick and Greg, and their friend Justin were left unharmed during the violent ordeal.
Although the Sharps’ cabin did not indicate forced entry, detectives were able to recover an unidentified fingerprint from a handrail that led to the cabin’s back door. Detectives also discovered that the telephone had been left off the hook, and the lights had been shut off with all the drapes fully closed.
Various weapons were found at the scene, including a table knife, a butcher knife, and a bloody hammer. Some evidence, such as a second bloody knife, turned up in a trash bin behind the Keddie general store.
Three years after the slayings occurred, part of a skull was found 29 miles away near Camp Eighteen in neighboring Butte County. The discovery prompted a thorough examination of the area, revealing a jawbone and several other bones. The fragments were eventually determined to belong to the missing girl Tina.
The discovery of Tina’s remains raised even more questions than before.
Why were the remains of Tina found so far away from Cabin 28? How could murder with so much evidence remain unsolved?
Forty years after the incident, the quadruple murder in the woods still baffles the nation. With new significant evidence emerging thanks to the meticulous work of the local authorities, the mystery of Cabin 28 could soon be solved.
