We now know these men must have been the boys because of Madrugas Montego just down the road, but they werent the only people Shones reported to have seen. These are questions that may never be answered. One of them made a phone call from a nearby phone booth, and the other two stayed in the truck. In 1978, in Yuba County California, five young men vanish. No fire had been set in the trailer's fireplace, despite an ample supply of matches and paperback novels to use as kindling. On February 24, 1978, a group of friends from Yuba City in California;Gary Dale Mathias, Jack Madruga, Jackie Huett, Theodore (Ted) Weiher, and William Sterling; set out on a trip to watch a basketball game. Did Prince Andrew fly on Jeffrey Epsteins plane Lolita Express? They played basketball together through a Gateway program and were that night . However, no trace of him has ever been found. The disappearance at Dyatlov Pass is perhaps one of the most famous snowy mysteries the world over. Why? He hung up on them, they told sheriff's investigators. 1971 Press Photo Yuba City, CA Reporters at J.L. A propane tank connected to the trailer, which could have provided a ready source of heat and cooking fuel, was untouched. An impromptu road trip was definitely out of character. All either had some sort of intellectual disability or a mental health issue. [2], The mystery deepened after police towed the car back to the station for a more thorough examination. In the process of trying to free it, he realized he was beginning to experience the early symptoms of a heart attack and went back in, keeping the engine running to provide heat. Shones would admit he was very ill at the time of the sighting and could have hallucinated some of the details, but that didnt explain why the men bothered to abandon the car at all, or why they didnt acknowledge Shoness cries for helpunless he had somehow imagined the whole thing. Like Mathias, each man lived with his parents, all of whom referred to them collectively as "the boys". With so much food close by why wasn't he eating. [6], In an area to the northwest of the trailer, roughly a quarter-mile (400m) from it, searchers found three Forest Service blankets and a rusted flashlight by the road. It was the fact that Shones had likely wound up being the last person to see Ted Weiher, Gary Mathias, Jack Madruga, Jack Huett, and Bill Sterling alive. [6] On a table next to the bed were some of Weiher's personal effects, including his wallet (with cash), a nickel ring with "Ted" engraved on it, and a gold necklace he also wore. Madruga had held on to the keys to the car. Most of the reports were easily dismissed, but two of the sightings stood out. Perhaps, Shones thought, it belonged to the group he had seen earlier. Natural spring well houses and outhouse structures still stand, and evidence of bonfires clogs the property. Later, he clarified to police that he could not be sure of that, since at the time he was almost delirious from the pain he was in. Marduga still had the keys to the Mercury. The Yuba County Five Mysterious Death 1978 Mysterious Death , Exposure On the evening of Feb. 24, 1978, Gary Mathias and friends Bill Sterling, Jack Huett, Ted Weiher, and Jack Madruga loaded into Madruga's white 1969 Mercury Montego to drive to Chico, Calif., to watch the University of California, Davis men's. link True Crime Videos In the first part of this double-feature, we discuss the Dyatlov Pass incident of 1959. "And no explanations. Gary had been on medication ever since to manage his condition, which his father said would make him go haywire if he was off of the medication. The 55-year-old Californian had felt fine just a few minutes previously, navigating his Volkswagen on a desolate mountain road near Rogers Cow Camp in the Plumas National Forest to see if weather conditions were good enough to bring his family along for a weekend excursion the following day. Miles away from help, Shones thought he could flag down help. It was February 24, 1978, and Shones was miles from help. Why was that odd? True crime memes: Your strange obsession in a nutshell, 'The Kalief Browder Story': Most insane true-crime show ever. ", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yuba_County_Five&oldid=1142230284, February 1978 events in the United States, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Disappearance in unusual incident where four of his traveling companions died, This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 06:22. Selects: The Disappearance of the Yuba County Five. Detectives arrested two men Tuesday in connection with the cold case homicides of two young girls who were killed 43 years ago in Yuba County.Larry Don Patterson, 65, and William Lloyd Harbour, 65 . While scientists today believe that it was likely an avalanche that killed the hikers, others are not quite sure. Its players were in their 20s or early 30s and suffered from some form of . William Lee Sterling, who was Madruga's special friend and deeply religious, would spend hours at the library reading literature to help bring Jesus to patients in mental hospitals. Police have no idea. Where is Matthias? Thats the question people who learn about the Yuba County Five ask themselves when they hear this bizarre true crime story. In February 1978, five young men drove from Yuba City to Chico to watch a basketball game. The internet is divided on whether it was an outside force, Matthias himself, or some sort of accident that led the Yuba County 5 to their deaths & disappearance. They lay on opposite sides of the road to the trailer, 11.4 miles from the car. They even seemed to be trying to conceal their presence since they momentarily shut off the flashlights they had been shining. Up in the mountains above the Feather River, the snow-drifts sometimes rose to 15 feet. . Police believed their bodies had simply given up before they found shelter while Weiher and others marched on. Then Colusa County District Attorney John Poyner authorized needed search warrants for the investigation and said he would prosecute the crime if it occurred in his county. These were individual canned, pre-cooked, and prepared meals issued to the U.S. military. The keys to the vehicle were gone. At 5:30p.m., about 150 feet (46m) up the road, he, too, had gotten stuck in the snow. Later, he saw what he believed were flashlights. Check out our sponsors! It could not be determined how long those items had been there. In 1978, five young men disappeared after seeing a basketball game, never to be seen alive February 24, 1978. More baffling, Weiher was emaciated. The case has been called the Mathias Group Incident, the Yuba City Five Case and the American Dyatlov Pass incident. Well, the last sighting of the Yuba County 5 wasdecidedly not. To this day, no one knows why these four young men died in snowy mountains that were so far from home. Wikipedia, Public Domain "The Boys" Go Missing Twitter reacts. The fifth, however, remains missing to this day. Weiher had lost nearly half his 200 pounds (91kg); the growth of his beard suggested he had lived as long as thirteen weeks from when he had last shaved. The Davidson County Sheriff's Office has released photos of the Corbett home taken the night Jason Corbett was bludgeoned to death in his bedroom. The boys stopped at a convenience store for junk food: Hostess pies, soda, candy bars. As mentioned before, they were homebodies. The Strange Disappearance Of The Yuba County 5 - America's Dyatlov Pass Incident From the true crime case The Yuba County Five. Deputies think that one of them may have given in to the need to sleep that comes with the last stages of hypothermia, while the other stayed by his side and died the same way. No trace of the men was found other than the car. On the ground, officers tried to use horses to get around on the rocky roads. If youre interested in the Dyatlov Pass that the other name for this case refers to, then you might want to check out the horror movie. In addition, there was a huge supply of freeze-dried meals. The five young men who made up the Yuba County Five, Gary Mathias, Bill Sterling, Jack Huett, Ted Weiher, and Jack Madruga, ranged in age from mid twenties to early thirties. Joseph Schons of Sacramento told police he inadvertently wound up spending the night of February 2425 near where the Montego was found. A woman reported seeing the five men in a red pickup truck on Saturday and Sunday, about an hours drive from the site of their abandoned car. When authorities lifted the veil, they found Weiher, his shoes missing and his feet badly frostbitten. In 1978 five friends with intellectual disabilities ended up driving into the wilderness for no apparent reason and four of their remains were later found there. OR, could one of them have Sean brings us the story of five men from Yuba City, California who went missing under unusual February 24, 1978. The plan was for them to watch the game and then come back home to get a good nights rest before their own basketball game the next day. Madruga and the four other able-bodied men should have been able to dislodge it without a lot of difficulty. Read more Print length 152 pages Language English Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe Publication date It was later identified as Weiher's. VIEW and share photos of real crime scenes. Heavy forestry clothing, which could have kept the men warm, also remained where it had been stored. They decided to drive to Chico that night to cheer on the UC Davis basketball team in an away game against Chico State. The next day, their car was discovered in a lonely mountain road. They had set out on what should've been a quick road trip to watch their favorite basketball team in a neighboring town. [2][5], After that, Schons said at first, he recalled a pickup truck parking 20 feet (6m) behind him briefly, and then continuing on down the road. He saw a group of men, a woman, and a baby walking together, but they ignored him calling for help. At their homes, some of their parents waited up to make sure they returned. Schons shared with the police that he had been on the same road as the Yuba County 5 that night - he had been checking out skiing conditions at a lodge he owned. All five had intellectual disabilities or psychiatric issues to various degrees; all of them lived with family, who kept a close eye on them. Looking out, he saw a car parked behind him, headlights on, with a group of people around it, one of which seemed to him to be a woman holding a baby. Police and the families never ruled out foul play. Jack had low I.Q. According to the Daily Mail, the District Attorney publicized the gruesome photos a week after they were presented to a jury. Some of the rations in and around the trailer were eaten but much of it was untouched. Why had they hid from Shones? These five friends were part of a locally sponsored team for the mentally disabled called the Gateway Gators. The clerk remembers this as it was right before closing, so she was annoyed by having to get a large group checked out before closing and heading home herself. Every day you've got a thousand leads. [2], Searchers returned to Plumas, following the road between the trailer and the site of the Montego. A day after search parties were sent out, Madruga and Sterlings bodies were found about 11 miles from the Mercury Montego. Either the driver had been extremely careful, or it was someone familiar with the road, a familiarity Madruga was not known to have; his family said that Madruga would not have let someone else drive the car. Hours into his ordeal and with his car still stuck and now out of gas, Shones felt well enough to begin walking down the mountain road and toward a lodge roughly eight miles away. The store owner corroborated her account. Valerie Lane and Doris Derryberry [Photo Credit: Yuba County Sheriff's Department] Valerie Lane and Doris Derryberry were two young girls who were murdered by Larry Don Patterson and William Lloyd, and their bodies were found in a wooded area in Yuba County, California, more than 45 years ago. Yuba County Five Case Analysis | Unexplained Disappearance and Deaths - YouTube This video answers the question: Can I analyze the case of "Yuba County Five?"Support Dr. Grande on. Is Hailey Bieber obsessed with Justin Biebers ex Selena Gomez? Ortega, 55, is charged . The search teams nearly lost men themselves two days later, as their Snow-cats struggled through the drifts. Mathias took Stellazine and Cogentin, both used in the treatment of schizophrenia. This about the unsolved case of the Yuba County Five, and how five men disappeared and died, leaving no trace: read to find out more. Several days after their initial disappearance, the group's car, a Mercury Montego, was found abandoned in a remote area of Plumas National Forest, California, on a high mountain dirt road that was far out of their way back to Yuba City. Janney plays Sue Buttons . CAUTION, CRIME SCENE PHOTOS! Joseph spent the rest of the night in his car before walking back down the mountain in the morning. His car had gotten stuck in the snow, and pushing it out by himself brought it on. To add to the mystery, a man was stopped nearby, his car was stuck in the snow. NEW! [6], Even knowing that four of the five men had died in the Sierra, investigators still could not completely explain what had led to their deaths. The flashlight was slightly rusted and had been turned off. For roughly three days, police had no break in the case, until finally a park ranger noted that he had seen a car matching the description of Madruga's on the night of the 25 th.On February 28, police located the vehicle. The family identified the 10-year-old as Frankie Rosiles. All the conspiracies about this financier, 'America's Most Wanted': Behind the most tragic true-crime story ever. Jack Antone Madruga, a high school graduate, and Army veteran was laid off in November 1977 from his job as a busboy for Sunsweet Growers. Today, Yuba City Police Department still has the investigation while the prosecution was left with the state Attorney General's office. When morning came and they had not, the police were notified. [4] Madruga, the only member of the group besides Mathias who had a driver's license, drove the group 50 miles (80km) north to Chico in his turquoise and white 1969 Mercury Montego. How did they walk in normal shoes without outdoor clothing so far in snow several feet thick? vanished while driving home from a basketball game. Is Ice Spices new boyfriend Pete Davidson? Yuba County, California. Sterling was in a wooded area, scattered over about 50 feet. Eventually . [2], In response to local media coverage of the case, police received several reports of some or all of the men being sighted after they had left Chico, including some reports of them being seen elsewhere in California or the country. What had brought them to the middle of nowhere and why had Shones seen them with a woman and a baby? He didnt think much about what hed seen until he heard about the disappearances. The next night, Archie and his buddies went out in search of victim number one. Melba Madruga, Jack's mother, toldTheWashington Post that she believed "some force" had led the group astray. When you hear of the Yuba County 5, they tend to be collectively referred to as the boys by those that knew them. Investigators could not determine why the car was abandoned, as it was in good working order and could easily have been pushed out of the snowpack it was in. Around nine inches of snow dropped on the upper mountain. In this week's episode, Emilie and Shannon discuss the unsettling and still unsolved case of the Could the "boys" from Yuba County have been targeted by a stranger? The internet is divided on whether it was an outside force, Matthias himself, or some sort of accident that led the Yuba County 5 to their deaths & disappearance. "We know good and well somebody made them do it," she said. It wasnt until June when the snow in the mountainous area had mostly melted away that motorcyclists helped make a break in the case. In February 1978, five young men headed from their home in Yuba County, California to catch a college basketball game - and never came home. He felt fine, especially for 55, and he'd decided that day to venture up a lonely road through the Plumas National Forest, close to Rogers Cow Camp . Ted Weiher's sister-in-law has theorized that the men may have seen something take place at the basketball game that prompted someone to chase them. Why did the Yuba City men get lost that night and end up on the mountain? samochd Los 5 de Yuba City, El Dyatlov Americano - Parte 1. An anthology of True Crime headlined by the strange disappearance of the Yuba County Five.When Joe Shones left his house on February 24, 1978, he seemed to be in good health. There they bought snacks along with sodas and cartons of milk to drink. It was shortly before the store's 10 p.m. closing time; the clerk later remembered the men because she was annoyed that such a large group had come in and delayed her from beginning the process of closing the store for the night. He called to them for help, but they stopped talking and turned their headlights out. After the UC Davis team won their game, the five men went to pick up snacks & drinks for the drive home. For the families of these young men, the sense of heartbreak and loss is just as strong today as it was over forty years ago. . , and although in this horror movie things turn supernatural, the parallels between it and the Yuba County Five story are strong. Unfortunately, as he did, he started suffering a heart attack. The vigil is planned for 6 p.m. at Olivehurst Linda Little League field. At that time, no trace of the men was found. Investigation. Soon, police found two other corpsesthose of Sterling and Madruga4.5 miles away from Weiher's remains. Many people knew this group of friends around town. She owned a store there, where two of the men came in to buy food. How these five men came to be on an inhospitable mountain road more than 50 miles from their homes in and around Marysville and Yuba City, California, was just one of the mysteries surrounding their disappearance. This witness told police that he had seen and heard people around the car that night, and twice called for help, only for them to grow silent and turn off their flashlights. Several bed sheets in a shroud were tightly tucked over his body, indicating that someone else had been with him in the trailer as he could not have bundled himself up in this manner. It had enough gas to continue on, but a snowbank had likely caused its tires to spin out. They never returned home. "Not tonight." In February of 1978, a group of five men went to a basketball game and didn't come home. On Thursday, the New York District Attorney released crime scene photos showing blood spatter and the knife allegedly used by nanny Yoselyn Ortega to kill two young children in her care. Were they forced to go up the Bucks Lane on the way to Palmetto City, did they decide themselves to take a detour or did they take a wrong turn? The next day, a deputy sheriff found a skull downhill from the bush, 300 feet (91m) away, confirmed by dental records later to have been Huett's. It was possible, police believed, that the group had decided to follow the tracks it left, through snowdrifts 46 feet (1.21.8m) high, to wherever they led, in the belief that shelter was not too far away. At 32, Weiher was the oldest, a former janitor who was closest to the youngest of the group, 24-year-old Huett. Rhoades, a long-haul trucker, converted the sleeper cab of his 18-wheel semi truck into a small, makeshift sex chamber where he would torture his victims and rape them for weeks on end. The junk food had been consumed, save for one half of a candy bar. "You need . In this week's episode, we revisit two of our favorite Patreon episodes. There was no reason to mention having seen the Mercury until newspapers began to blare out notices about the five men who had gone missing that Friday. Updated: 1:41 PM MST March 2, 2023. Shones later came forward with his story when the news broke about the disappearances, making him the last person to see the five alive. Shones said he saw a woman as well, and that he also heard a babys cry. Since it was locked, they may have believed it was private property, and may have feared arrest for theft if they used anything else they found there. Inside the trailer, authorities found heavy clothing, matches, playing cards, books, wooden furniture, and other materials which could have easily been used to start a fire. They entertained a number of eyewitness sightings of the men, including one where they were driving the pickup Shones had mentioned, but none seemed plausible. They werent the type to stay out very late or make spontaneous plans. There was no reason to believe he wouldnt be home in time for his next dose. The game ended around 10 p.m. All five either had slight intellectual disabilities or psychiatric disorders. The atmosphere was jubilant. They continues walking, ignoring him. The whole case is weird. There was nothing left of him but bones. Rating: R (Sexual Content|Language|Some Nudity|Violence . It was a man named Joe Shones who alerted them about it. Then, in June 1978, a man riding his motorcycle through the area noticed a broken window on a forest service trailer. Several paperback booksperfect for fireswere also left untouched. Turns out I totally missed a book that was published last December full of exclusive new interviews with family . Police and the families never ruled out foul play. Schons stayed in his car until it ran out of gas, then walked eight miles down to get help, passing Madrugas car on the way. The Yuba County 5 remains one of the most baffling puzzles within the true crime community. Ted's feet were also badly frostbitten. reply | flag message 3: by Fishface (new) Sep 28, 2019 10:01AM Johnny Arismendez was arrested on suspicion of murder and Victor Arismendez for . Debris recovered from the scene indicated the vehicle was a white Mercedes, and the Yuba County Sheriff's Office was able to identify the car using a license plate reader system, according to. Miles away from help, Shones thought he could flag down help. Photo via Pinterest. The men lived in Yuba City and nearby Marysville. Why do that unless something more frightening was right behind them?