(apologies in advance for the length of this post, there's just a LOT to cover)..
I can only say for sure that nobody really knows the truth. But there's a lot of information available now, such as autopsy reports that state none of the victims had any kind of alcohol or drugs in their systems. John and Dana are said to have to smoked pot occasionally, and John drank (Dana might've but he wasn't supposed to, nor could he have drank much if he did - he was a severe diabetic). Sue Sharp used to drink, but at the time of the murders had quit entirely. There's strong indication that Sue was not involved with drugs at all, nor did she socialise with a lot of drug users.
So, therefore I'm inclined to believe that IF drugs were the true motive, then it was because John and Dana had been blamed for stealing some, or had come to know too much about a serious drug trafficking ring in the area (ie, not a couple of college kids selling baggies of pot to the locals, more like heroin and cocaine trade).
That's a big IF, though. The motive in this crime is not only hard to guess at but so covered by layers of BS and obfuscation that just thinking through it all is a total headache.
For example, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that perhaps Boubede was afforded some kind of immunity from proper prosecution of several serious crimes in his past.
And after the murders, Boubede carried on with various fake-advertising scams he'd been pulling for years across several states. He ripped members of the police force off for $125,000 in 1988, while posing as retired police chief 'Michael Desantis'. He was caught red-handed in an elaborate sting operation, was prosecuted under that bogus Desantis name (though the Chicago police fully knew who he was, due to his extensive record and the fact he'd used that name before) and never did any time for it, according to a member of his family.
In another interesting twist, it was noted by police in Keddie, 1981, that his other fake ID used in these scams, "Bobby Lake", was a membership card for The National Police Officers Association of America, for which he claimed to work selling advertising. It was signed by one "Frank Schira".
Boubede claimed the ID was the property of a former employee of the Association's magazine that had been handed to him, and he'd simply forgotten about it.
Mind you, Boubede also told the CADOJ agents after the murders that he was a former policeman who'd been shot in the line of duty, and had been retired for many years, after serving 18 years on the force - in Chicago. Working on the dates he gave, we deduced that Boubede would have been 8 years old when he "joined the force", a simple and obvious bit of arithmetic that might have explained this blatant discrepancy to the two experienced agents who were probably around Boubede's own age...:waitasec:
Now, it turns out that despite newspapers reporting that the Police Officer's Association mag that Boubede used as a front for his scams was a 'fictional' magazine, it really existed. And it was, indeed, run by a man named "Frank Schira".
So, on discovering this, I assumed the real "Bobby Lake" had his ID card stolen. But then I looked a little deeper into Frank Schira and the Association. I found articles like this:
From the Sarasota Journal, 1973
And this report, in which one can see Schira covering his *advertiser censored* with both hands while ratting out his long-time business partner.
So it turns out that this Police Association was a money-making racket run by a bunch of cops. And that Boubede was actually using a police-created scam to scam the police. :waitasec:
We're yet to discover whether the "Bobby Lake" ID bearing Schira's signature ever really existed. Of course, the signature could also be a fake. There is, however, ample reason IMO to suspect that maybe there's a whole lot more going there than meets the eye.
But wait, there's more!
It's curious that Boubede was not in prison when he died of heart failure just ten months after being arrested for this $125,000 scam against police. It's also curious that
this was not the only time he skated - in the late 50's/early 60's he was out of jail in record time more than once - for some pretty darned serious crimes.
For example, despite an extensive prior record for robbery and known associations with organised crime, Boubede was a free man just two years after being arrested for an armed bank robbery in which a police officer was shot (by Boubede's uncle and lifelong partner in crime, who got 30 years for the robbery and shooting - but died "of fright" in the courtroom minutes after being sentenced:waitasec
.
It goes on and on -- you can find out more at the Keddie forum site. The upshot is, some (including me) believe it was no coincidence that a DoJ agent experienced in organised crime was called in, did an astoundingly (and way beyond credibly) terrible job at interviewing Boubede and Smartt, let them both waltz out of town and never followed them up properly as major suspects.
As far as I can see, there's a pile of reason right there to suspect that the Keddie investigation was deliberately fudged, due to Boubede's involvement.
Martin Smartt confessed to his therapist that he murdered Sue and Tina because he believed Sue was trying to get Marilyn (his wife at the time) to seek a divorce. Tina was killed, he said, because she was a witness and had seen too much. Smartt does not elaborate on how Tina's body ended up at Camp 18. He stated that he did not kill John or Dana but doesn't say who did kill them, or why.
This confession was reported to PCSO in 1981. And Martin Smartt was never brought back in for questioning. He remained a free man, unhampered by any awkward questions about his blatant lies, his confession
and his fingerprints at the crime scene for the rest of his life.
Curiouser and curiouser.
However, all of this only offers possible explanation for a why a confessed murderer was never arrested. It does not discount the possibility that Martin Smartt and Severin John Boubede (both known users of "uppers" and other drugs) were somehow led to believe that John and Dana ripped some drugs off. Boubede certainly had sufficient criminal contacts to have organised a large drug deal. Maybe somebody messed that up, and blamed the boys (who Marty already hated "with a passion", according to his ex-wife).
In fact, Marty's ex-wife was the one person to openly benefit from the whole situation. She got rid of Marty -- who was abusive (he once pulled a gun on her and her kids, for example) and was known to stalk her and threaten her with death whenever she got the gumption to leave him (before taking him back..). Marilyn ended up in a live-in relationship with one of Marty's real good friends shortly after the murders. This would have been difficult, if not impossible, to achieve had Marty not been forced to skedaddle out of town on suspicion of a quad murder.
"Coincidentally" Smartt was heard by a police officer some time after the murders, screaming at this former good friend in jail cell in Quincy (from which both were soon released, presumably both being there for minor things) - "Tell them where the dope is, Meeks!" - among various threats of dire bodily harm.
I've been making posts regarding my thoughts on all that on the other forum, and won't reiterate them here.
But yes, perhaps a 'drug deal gone wrong' was what set the rampage off - though I doubt anyone at cabin 28 had any hand in it. At this point, we just don't know for sure what the motive is and there's several good possibilities, but to me that one seems not at all unlikely.
