New Zealand Ghosts & Other Haunts

06-10) 04:00 PDT Keddie, Plumas County -- It had been more than a year since she ran screaming from the inexplicable, dark things she saw there, yet Ashley Conte still shivered as she stood in front of the battered little house.

"Anyone with any brains will never set foot in there again," she said, mustering all the conviction her 16 years would allow. "You can never change what happened inside. The house should just be ripped down."

She wrenched her gaze from the twilight shadows creeping onto the boarded up windows. "It's haunted," she whispered. "Everybody knows it. Rip it down."

Whether the terrors Ashley and others say they saw inside Cabin #28 of the Keddie Resort -- chairs and bodies floating mid-air, carvings disappearing from walls -- were figments or genuine spooks is up for grabs. But what took place 20 years ago this spring is not.

Back then, a mother, her two children and a teenage friend were butchered here in a one-night frenzy so off-the-charts savage that to this day cops don't like to step inside the house.

The murders ruined this northern Sierra mountain resort, a 3,205-foot- elevation enclave so popular people used to drive hundreds of miles just to eat at its log-walled lodge. In short order, appalled tourists began staying away in droves. And even now -- spirits or not -- the specter of the killings continues to keep this pretty resort empty.

"It's spooky, a real ghost town," said Scott Lawson, director of the Plumas County Museum in nearby Quincy. "Nobody goes there, really. And I doubt anyone will until they find out who killed all those people.

"But that," he said, eyes going wide, "is the whodunnit of the century around here."

Twenty years ago, Keddie Resort was in the latest of many heydays dating from its founding in 1910, a placid getaway where you could rent one of 33 rustic cabins or a room in the hand-crafted, two-story lodge. The streams had great trout fishing, and pine-studded trails beckoned all around.

The Keddie Lodge restaurant was packed most every night with customers who came from as far as San Francisco to dine on barbecued bear ribs, sherry- basted racoon steaks -- all shot locally -- and fine wines.

"It was always a special, pretty place to go, a real draw," said Lawson.

Then came April 11, 1981.

Sometime between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. that day, 15-year-old John Sharp and his buddy, 17-year-old Dana Wingate, were seen hitchhiking from Quincy to Keddie Cabin #28. John had been living there for months with his 36-year-old mother, Glenna Sharp -- and once the two boys walked through the door, police say, the horror began.

A pair of killers either went in with the boys or were waiting with Glenna Sharp, and they tied up all three with duct tape and electrical wire. Soon after, John's 13-year-old sister, Tina, showed up and was bound, too.

What followed was a night of torture.

By the time the killers left 10 hours later, they had used steak knives and a claw hammer to such effect that the victims were barely recognizable.

"Whoever did this stabbed the victims so violently they bent one knife totally double from the force," said Sheriff's Patrol Commander Rod DeCrona. "They stabbed and pounded on everything in sight -- the walls, the people, the furniture. Everything."

He shuddered at the memory of first walking into the murder scene. "There was blood sprayed absolutely everywhere," DeCrona said. "You knew right away we were involved with a psychopath."

The carnage was only discovered the next morning by John's 14-year-old sister, Sheila, who had been at a sleepover next door. To the enduring surprise of police, nobody outside the charnel house had heard a thing.

And the mystery only deepened: Not only was the body of Tina, most likely killed at the scene, missing -- but three near-toddlers sleeping in one bedroom had been amazingly left untouched.

Tina's severed head was found three years later by a bottle-digger, 50 miles downhill at a waterfall. One of the children in the bedroom -- two were Sharp brothers, the other a play-pal -- remembered enough so police could make a sketch of two killers, but the boy was so young the picture's accuracy is considered questionable.

Thousands of leads and suspects have been picked over since then by deputies, the FBI and state investigators -- but nothing panned out, DeCrona said. A timeline of the case dominates three walls of the sheriff's office, tips still come in, and DNA samples were sent to the state crime lab just two months ago, but nobody's holding his breath.

"Usually in a crime like this, the killers get sloppy and leave more behind, " said DeCrona, sighing. "I wish it were that simple. We have no motive, no suspects."

Dana's father, Gary Wingate, thinks there were so many police agencies involved that they "stumbled over each other and fouled up the case." But he tries not to stew about it. He never even calls the Sharp family -- who declined requests through intermediaries to be interviewed.

"Nobody has the faintest idea who killed my son, so I long ago had to let this thing go or it would eat me alive," said Wingate, who lives near Quincy. "I don't think about it, I don't go to that ghost town and I have no idea if ghosts exist there.

"But I do know this. There is evil in this world, and evil was in that house that night."

Ashley Conte and her neighbors think the evil is still there.

People began to shun the resort after the killings, and within a year it was empty. The owners put Keddie up for sale in 1984 for $1.8 million -- and nobody bit.

Over the next decade or so, it rotted into a refuge for squatters and hobos,

and the county condemned most of the buildings. But in the past few years longtime owner Gary Mollath has gone on a furious restoration campaign that has the old resort looking pretty much as it did in 1981 -- sans people.

He's rented out a couple of the best cabins, and says he hopes to rehab the rest enough to reopen in a year.

But first there is Cabin #28 -- dubbed "The Murder House" by locals -- to contend with.

The condemned building's yellow-and-white paint is flaking, doors are nailed shut and most windows are covered with plywood. Bums and kids -- including Ashley, Mollath's stepdaughter -- have often broken in for kicks, but by several accounts they all flee in a hurry.

Ashley said that aside from seeing murky forms and rocking chairs in the house, she once saw a pitchfork and the word "no" carved in the kitchen door. "When we went back a half-hour later, the words and the pitchfork were gone," she said.

Other locals, including 22-year-old Forest Jones, said they heard moans, doors slamming and footsteps when the house was obviously deserted.

Others don't buy all the spooky stuff.

"I hate it when people call this a ghost town," said Lynn Seavy, 46, who lives next to The Murder House. "Keddie is a nice, peaceful place where you can hear the wind in the trees. I wish people would get over what happened."

Mollath's solution is just as his step-daughter suggests.

"That house has been such a negative point for so long that I intend to tear it down and put a park there," Mollath said. "Then I'm going to open this place back up and cater to groups -- with people traveling closer to home now, I think the timing will be just right.

"I want people to come and say, 'Wow!' when we start up again. Not be scared."

Before he flings open the gates, though, he'd better do more than just raze The Murder House, maintains Annette Martin, a psychic in Campbell who advises police throughout the nation on murder cases.

The trouble in Keddie, she said, is that because the mayhem was so abhorrent, the victims's ghosts are probably in shock and don't know they are dead. So even if their house is demolished, "they'll still be there, hanging out."

"We often find this type of poltergeist activity in cases like this, especially if people were chopped up," said Martin. "My guess is that the 'no' the girl saw was the victims still trying to say 'no' to their killers. There is unresolved business there."

The only way to cleanse the area of spirits, she said, is to have someone spiritual perform a healing ceremony after the house is gone.

"Otherwise, whatever is in its place will be haunted," Martin said. "And it will stay haunted."

Oh now that is a good story! Great find Sam. I often wonder what happens in other houses that have had very well publicised murders etc happen in them. The Ramsey house, the houses in NZ like the Bain home (we know that got burnt down eventually) - Dahmer's apartment? etc....

Wouldnt it be great to know who/why the next tenants live there if any?

Kinda freaky really.

Yep great story.

Thanks

I found the story while searching a movie called "the strangers" which is loosely based on the murders.
After posting I found a related site that had photos from inside cabin 28, while the site is related to the crime and is in no way related to supernatural there did appear to be orbs and funny whisps within the photos that I noticed, however they are not highlighted or made reference to in any way.

There's actually its own website too, I havent had a good look around it yet, but its fairly easily searchable under keddis or cabin 28.

Yeah theres a site where someone has interviewed alot of the community about it, and theres an interview with one of the kids who were asleep in the other room. The biggest theory is that he was a 3rd party and knows who the two killers are.

The person who did the site?

That would be a bit freaky if he knew/were invovled.

Scary thing is, is that the surviving sister, and suspected killers brother, ex-wife and step son all post on the websites forum.

keddiemurdersmovie.com

That's seriously keeping it all in the family! Skeery!

Yeah - seems to me like its a small community keeping it all under wraps and not speaking out

Unfortunately that sort of thing does happen, although when kids are involved its really really sad.

I can see why a movie was made. It sounds gory as heck! I imagine that because it's unsolved there would be plenty of insane theories.
As for whether it's haunted, who know's, but it would no doubt be spooky going in there just because of what happened.
Quote from article: "But I do know this. There is evil in this world, and evil was in that house that night."
I wonder if he was refering to the evil that men do or the other type of "Evil" (with a capital 'E').

I think perhaps a bit of both Josie - man can certianly perpetuate evil, but some men are Evil.

I had a really good read thru the forums on the cabin 28 site last night - cos I was bored. It was disgusting yet weirdly compelling - like watching a train wreck in slow motion....

I totally see what you mean Sam - the forum is basically made up of the whole town of Keddie - slinging mud at each other and slandering each other.....

I feel so sorry for the kids involved that day. Its filthy behaviour by adults

I think the drama of the adults and their inter-connections is what it all boils down to, the kids are just in the mix of things. And to me it also sounds like a bit of a botch up by the police too.

From the description of the frenzied attack im in awe that there was little evidence left behind for the police to make an arrest.

Or no one heard anything - the next cabin was literally just 20m away and people were in it at the time. Amazing.

weird shocking story

What Oz said, having a look at the website now, kind of disappointed from the quality of there forum (posts, that is)

I'v developed a theory that has likely been explored, and I won't go into it for I have no evidence.

That is one horrifying story all right, I went to the website and felt physically ill looking at the photos etc.

Not bad sam a great story and find!