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The Keddie Murders: Secrets, Suspects, and Missing Pieces · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: In the early nineteen eighties, Sue Sharp was ready to
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: embrace a fresh start, leaving behind a turbulent marriage and
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: relocating to the serene woods of California with her five kids.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: But little did she know the quiet life she'd hoped
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: for was about to turn into a chilling nightmare. Imagine
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: pulling into your new home, Cabin twenty eight, once the
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: home of a local sheriff, only to have it become
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the epicenter of one of the most horrifying mysteries in
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: the area. Just five months after getting settled in, Sue's
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: hopeful life would spiral into darkness on a tragic night
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: turned their home into a crime scene as screams echoed
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: in the stillness. Lives would be forever altered, leaving unanswered
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: questions and a haunting search for justice. Originally, Sue, fifteen
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: year old John, fourteen year old Sheila, twelve year old Tina,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: ten year old Ricky, and five year old Greg all
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: moved into a trailer together, but about a year later,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Sue managed to move them all into a cabin and Keddy,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: giving the family much more space to live in, and
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: it was a good neighborhood too. Before the Sharps moved in.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Cabin twenty eight was actually the home of the local sheriff,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: and now it was going to be the place where
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Sue was going to raise her five kids. Five months
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: went by and Sue's cabin was alive with a hustle
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: and bustle of young teenagers and growing boys. Ricky and
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Greg had their twelve year old friend and neighbor, Justin
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Eason over for the night. John also had his seventeen
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: year old friend Dana Wingate over too, but the girls
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: were out. Sheila was staying over to friends, but Tina
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: was only across the street at Cabin twenty seven. She
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: ended up staying there until about ten o'clock that night
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: before coming home. Sue Sharp had also been invited out
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: by the neighbors over at Cabin twenty six. They were
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Justin Eason's mother, Marylyn, and his stepfather Martin Smart. Martin
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: was an army vet who now worked as a chef
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: in one of the local bars. He also had an
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: army friend over that weekend named Severin John Bobadie or
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Bow as he liked to go by. It was Martin's
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: night off, so he, Marilyn and Bo decided to go
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: down to the bar that Martin worked at get some drinks.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: They stopped on the way to invite Sue Sharp to
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: join them, but she still had the young boys in
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the house and decided against it. The Smart party then
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: left for the bar, but that was unfortunately the last
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: time that anyone remembers seeing Sue Sharp alive. When her daughter,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Sheila Sharp, arrived home the following morning, she was hit
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: by a terrible smell. She couldn't tell what it was,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: but concerned, she walked through the house until she got
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: into the living room. She then found her older brother
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: John and his friend Dana tied up on the floor
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: and covered in blood. Beside them was a yellow blanket
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: draped over what seemed to be another body. Terrified, Sheila
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: then ran out of the house, screaming and shouting for help.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: She ended up returning to the cabin that she'd stayed
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: in the night before, and the family there rushed back
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: to the scene. Remarkably, the young boys and their friend,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Justin Esen were unharmed. They were pulled through a bedroom
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: window to safety while the rest of the neighborhood waited
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: for the police to arrive. The Plumus County Sheriff's office
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: was the first to respond, but the investigation quickly devolved
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: into complete chaos. Inside they found the remains of John, Dana,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: and Sue. Each of them had been bound with medical
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: tape and electrical cords from around the cabin. Sue had
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: been lying under the blue blanket, only wearing a robe
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: and naked from the waist down. Her underwear had been
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: stuffed into her mouth to gag her. Both she and
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: John had been beaten with the same hammer before being
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: stabbed to death. Both suffered multiple stab wounds to the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: chest and neck, and it was these stabbings that would
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: ultimately be what killed them. Dana had been beaten with
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: a different hammer. She had been strangled and ended up
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: dying from asphyxiation. Inside the cabin, the investigators found two
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: kitchen knives, one of which had been bent out of
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: shape because of the brute force used behind the attacks.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: They also found one of the hammers that they believed
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: had been used to subdue the victims. Scattered around the
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: house and leading to twelve year old Tina's bedroom were
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: pools of blood and spatter. Tina's bed was also covered
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: in drops of blood. It was only then that the
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: investigators realized that there was potentially one more victim in
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: this case, even though at that point Justin Eson had
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: been trying to tell them for hours that Tina Sharp
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: was actually missing. A wild man hut ensued, where law
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: enforcement and volunteers scoured the neighborhood with what had happened
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: to her mother and now that Tina herself was missing,
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  Speaker 1: The investigators feared that the motive behind the killings and
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: kidnapping was sexual. It was possible that the people who
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: had done this had taken Tina to keep her alive
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: and to abuse her even longer. This fear fueled the
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: search for Tina and had also spurred on the investigation.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: But right in the forefront of every one's minds was
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: one simple question, why had the youngest children been left
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: alive and unharmed. Not only that, but all three boys,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: the two Sharp sons and their friend Justin claimed that
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: they had slept through the night and had not heard
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: the brutal murders happening in the room right beside theirs ranger. Still,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: the next door neighbors on the other side of the
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: cabin remembered hearing screams at around one thirty in the morning.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: The sound was so loud that they ended up getting
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: up to investigate themselves, but when they didn't hear the
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: sound again, they went back to sleep. Was it possible
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: that the boys really did sleep through the screams that
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: were loud enough to wake the neighbors, or is it
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: possible that there was something else going on? An interview
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: with Justin Esen's stepfather, Martin Smart, certainly made the investigators
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: think so. He told the detectives that both he and
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: his friend Bou suffered from PTSD during their time in Vietnam.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: In the investigator's eyes, this was one strike against him already.
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  Speaker 1: But then Martin admitted that he and Bo actually left
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: the house not once, but twice that night. They first
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: went with Marylyn out to get drinks at the bar
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: that Martin worked at, but they left when they thought
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: that the music was too loud. They all then went home.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Marylyn went to bed, and Martin called the bar to
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: complain about the music to the manager. He and Bow
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: then got up and went back to the bar, leaving
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Marylyn behind. Finding his behaviors, suspicious investigators called all three
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: down to the station to conduct interviews there. Marylyn told
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: them that she and Martin had separated only days after
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: the murders because he was violent and abusive and he
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: had a vicious temper. That was another strike for Martin,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: and to put the final nail in the coffin, the
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: investigators had him do a polygraph test. This is where
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: the case would turn again, and almost unbelievably, it would
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: turn in Martin's favor. Martin passed the polygraph and then
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: was cleared of all suspicions. He was then allowed to
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: leave town and never came back. In the months that followed,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: someone stepped forward with another constantly changing version of events.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Justin Esen. He'd first claimed to have slept through the
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: night and not heard anything, but then he told investigators
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: that during the night he'd had a strange dream. In it,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: he claimed to have witnessed the murders of Sue, John,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: and Dana. In this dream, he said that he hid
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: behind the door as two men tied up John and
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Dana and killed them. Tina had then interrupted the killers
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: at work, and they rushed her out the back door
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: as she called for help, never to be seen again.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Justin worked with an artist to come up with composite
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: sketches of these men. The artist was a friend of
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: the sheriff's and wasn't actually a qualified artist or the
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: one that the department usually used to draw up witness sketches.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: When the true state of the investigation came to light,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: the Plumus County authorities were furious. Not only had the
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: investigators mishandled information, but they'd also let one of their
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: prime suspects get away simply because he'd passed a polygraph test.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: By then, Bo had moved to Chicago, where he was
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: later caught in a scam that involved stealing money from
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: police officers, but he would die before facing any jail time. Martin, however,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: was very much alive and had moved out of town.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: On the way out, he'd stopped in Nevada to send
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Marilyn a letter. In it, he wrote quote, I've paid
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: the price of your love, and now I bought it
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: with four people's lives. This letter was never admitted into evidence.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: With their lead suspects gone, the investigators had nothing to
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: work with. No new leads turned up anything substantial, and
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: twelve year old Tina remained missing. That was until nineteen
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: eighty four, when a bottle collector discovered what appeared to
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: be the upper part of a skull about thirty miles
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  Speaker 1: out from Ketty. Months later, an anonymous caller left a
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: tip claiming that the skull belonged to Tina Sharp. DNA
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: testing revealed that the caller had been telling the truth.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: The identity of this caller was never determined, and the
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: call wasn't officially documented. It wasn't discovered until years later,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: when another detective found it at the bottom of an
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: evidence box. Martin Smart remained a freeman and died in
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: two thousand. Shortly after that, the therapist that he usually
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: worked with came forward to the Plumis County Sheriff's office
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and said that Martin had admitted to him that he
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: killed Sue and Tina Sharp. That's ten Minute Murder for today,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: brief and beinge able true crime. I'm Joe. I'm the host,
• 10:42
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• 10:45
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• 10:47
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• 10:50
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• 10:53
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• 11:02
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• 11:07
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• 11:13
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• 11:16
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• 11:19
  Speaker 1: convicted kidnapper and alleged serial killer, who, by the way,
• 11:23
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• 11:26
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• 11:32
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• 11:38
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• 11:41
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  Speaker 1: I'm not going to spoil it for you, but it's
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• 12:08
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