Post by kmik on Dec 12, 2020 15:58:48 GMT -6
These two stories were published in the SF Examiner. The first one is dated Monday,April 13, 1981 and the second one is dated Tuesday, April 14, 1981. Wade Meeks and Kellie Wilkerson are interviewed in the Tuesday paper and Kellie had just been to the post office to get the mail (are we to assume this was on Sunday?). The Monday article said that autopsies "are being conducted today (Monday) and the Tuesday paper said that "yesterday (Monday) only a few people walked along the towns two streets". The Tuesday paper is the one that Wade Meeks was interviewed for. We know Wade was in Keddie getting Marilyn on Sunday but it's obvious he was also there Monday morning when he was interviewed for the Tuesday article. (And Marty was gone to Reno on Monday and is probably why he and Marilyn went back).
SF Examiner 13 April, 1981, Monday:
Three brutal murders, missing girl mystify Plumas County By Steven Capps Examiner Staff Writer KEDDIE, Plumas County A missing 12-year-old girl who may have witnessed the slayings of her mother, brother and a neighbor boy or who may be dead herself was sought today as one of the only firm leads in brutal crime that rocked this tiny mountain hamlet yesterday. Tina Sharp, a slight, blond 12-year-old vanished from her home here sometime Saturday night, the same night her mother, Glenna Susan Sharp, her brother John, 16, and 17-year-old neighbor, Dana Wingate, were trussed and slain in one room of the small, tidy five-room home. "We are operating on the theory that Tina was abducted," said Plumas County Sheriff Doug Thomas. "Two agents from the FBI will be joining our investigation this afternoon." Thomas said there were no suspects and no motive established for the slayings, the worst in this mountain county since the sensational, and similar, murders of Guard Young and three children in Chester 29 years ago. He characterized the investigation at this point as "a fishing expedition," saying there were "just hundreds of leads to check out" This is the most heinous crime, most atrocious homicide in Plumas County since then," a tired Thomas told The Examiner this morning. "We have homicides like anybody else but not like these." Autopsies were being conducted by the state Department of Justice in Sacramento this morning and Thomas, who also is the county coroner, said he did not have "even a preliminary cause of death." The bound bodies had been savagely beaten and two bloody knives and a hammer were found near them. "There was lots of blood splattered on the three walls," Thomas said. He said it is a "likelihood" that the victims knew their killer. Sharp's former husband was at his military station in the east and a boyfriend who was questioned "had a pretty good alibi," the sheriff said. He added that a former boyfriend will also be questioned but declined to name anyone as a suspect The bodies were discovered about 8 a.m. yesteday by another daughter. Sheila, 14, who had spent the night at a friend's home. Three other children, Ricky and Greg Sharp, 9 and 5, and another neighbor child, whose identity was not released, slept through the murders in an adjacent room. They were not harmed. Thomas said Sharp's husband is in the Navy and is currently stationed in Connecticut Sharp had lived in the Quincy area for about a year and a half, moving there from Connecticut The house No. 28 Keddie Resort Rd. in which she and her five children lived was one of a cluster of about 25 small resi dences strung along Spanish Creek, a tributary of the Feather River, since last November. Keddie is at the 3,000-foot elevation about seven miles northwest of Quincy. It had a population of 302
SF Examiner 14 April, 1981, Tuesday:
Sierra resort is rocked by nightmare murders in cabin By Steven A. Capps Examiner Staff Writer KEDDIE, Plumas County It was a nightmarish murder, they said, the kind you hear about in big cities. It certainly couldn't happen in a shady Sierra town like Keddie, just over the little green bridge along the banks of Spanish Creek. "We have homicides like anyone else," said Plumas County Sheriff Doug Thomas, pausing in front of the picket fence that surrounds the small yellow cabin. "But not this." The cabin, built among several big Ponderosa pines about 100 yards from Spanish Creek, is where a 36-year-old mother of five, her son and a neighbor boy were hacked and bludgeoned to death this weekend. A third child, Tina, 12, daughter of the slain woman, is missing. Authorities searched along the creek and around other cabins in the area, but gave up yesterday. "We feel she was abducted," said Thomas. Killed were Glenna Susan Sharp, her son Johnny, 16, and Dana Wingate, 17. The woman's two other boys Ricky, 9, and 'Gary, 5 were in another room of the cabin the night of the killings and were unharmed. Her fifth child, Sheila, 16, stayed overnight at a friend's home and found the bodies when she returned home Sunday morning. 'Investigators were still working inside the cabin yesterday, searching for any clues that might lead to the killer. The inside walls were splashed with blood. Next to where the bodies were found in the front room were three blood-soaked weapons a claw hammer, a butcher knife and a steak knife. There also were slash marks on the walls, Thomas said, "like somebody jabbing knives into it." Thomas said it was "a likelihood" that the family knew the killer because the two other Sharp boys slept through the killing. They, like nearby neighbors, said they heard no screams. The Sharps' cabin is one of about 30 that line the two narrow roads of Keddie, a small, forgotten resort town about 100 miles north of Lake Tahoe near Quincy. Not many tourists come here' any more. Most of the cabins are rented permanently to railroad workers and students who attend Feather River College down the road. Sharp, who moved to nearby Quincy from Connecticut about a year and a half ago, decided to rent the cabin in Keddie last November. "Probably because, the rent was cheaper," said Thomas. The woman was unemployed. Her estranged husband is in the Navy stationed in Connecticut Thomas said the husband was not a suspect, nor was. a "boyfriend" he said she had been seeing. But there was" a third man, whom Thomas described as a "past boyfriend" who still had not been questioned. "We have no suspects at this time," said Thomas. "You just go slow. At this point, we're on a fishing expedition." As the investigation continued, the town of Keddie seemed almost too quiet. It was once a popular resort. The train used to stop on the hill, leaving city folk to fish for trout down on Spanish Creek or just relax on the porch of the Keddie Resort Lodge. Yesterday, only a few people walked along the town's two streets. "Yeah, this hurt me. It's hurt me deep," said Dale Meeks, 19, a friend of the Sharp family. "In the first place, things like this arent suppose to happen up here. In the city, maybe, but. . ." He said his thoughts were with Tina, the missing girl, and not the victims. "We can't do anything for Sue now," he said. "We can't do anything for Johnny and Dana. But we're really afraid -for Tina. What if the guy molests her? "I'll tell you one thing," said Meeks, gazing into the trees. "If I was the first to find this guy, whoever he is, I'd be the first to kill him." Kathy Koris works at the Keddie Resort Lodge, tidying it up for the tourists who usually come in the spring for the trout fishing. She, like her friends and neighbors, is frightened. "It's such a shocker," she said. "Everybody's scared. They're all keeping their doors locked." She paused for a minute, started to walk back toward the lodge, then turned around. "I guess it's going to be quite a while before this wears off, huh?" Kellie Wilkinson, 16, was returning from the tiny trailer that serves as the town's post office. She carried an advertisement in her hand, her only piece of mail. "Yeah, I knew Tina," she said, but she didn't want to talk about the missing girl. "I'm scared," she said quietly. "I'm locking the doors, definitely." She walked her bike back up the path to her home, a small cabin up on the hill, not far from Spanish Creek.