1981 USMC BASE TRIPLE HOMICIDE STILL UNSOLVED

A MOM and two children dead. Unsolved. Cold. Chilling. A teenager accused.

In 1981, two sisters and their children were living at USMC Camp Lejeune in North Carolina while their husbands were stationed in Alaska and Japan. On a warm summer evening when one of the sisters, a nurse, was working four pre-teen cousins camped out in a family vehicle. But when they entered the house the next morning they found a massacre and three family members dead. Sharon

Sager, 34, was found dead, her throat slit in the family room where three of her younger children were still sleeping. Connie Smith, 12, was dead in the living room. Her throat was also cut and she had a cut from below her left breast to her pelvis. Tyler Dash, 13, was found alone in an upstairs bedroom. His throat had been slit and he bled to death during the night. No forced entry. No robbery. No sexual abuse. There was Carlton Smith, 15, sleeping upstairs. He was arrested and spent five years in jail for pre-trial--then sprung on a technicality.

He told a local paper" "I didn't do it." And his cousin, Scott Sager, who was 4 at the time and found sleeping next to his dead mom believes him.

Sager said: “I had to know for myself. When I first looked into Butch’s eyes I knew he didn’t do it. He is innocent.” But the agency that investigated the case is just as confident Smith is guilty.

A defense lawyer said: "Try painting a white room red without getting one single drop of red paint on your clothes. That is what they want us to believe happened that night. There was a lot of blood, none of it on Butch Smith."

1981 TRIPLE HOMICIDE STILL UNSOLVED