Criminology - The Yuba County Five

Episode Date: October 22, 2023

In 1978, five men disappeared in Northern California. Although some of their remains were eventually found, it only led to a more profound mystery, more questions, and countless theories about what happened to this group of men who've come to be known as the Yuba County Five. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss The Yuba County Five. Jack Huett, Ted Weiher, Bill Sterling, Jack Madruga, and Gary Mathias disappeared after a basketball game in 1978. Their car was found up a mountain road in the Plumas National Forest. None of the men were dressed for the cold weather. Four of the five men's bodies were found, but the discoveries only led to more questions. What happened to the men who became collectively known as The Yuba County Five? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 279 of the criminology podcast. This is Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morpher. Morf. How you doing, buddy? I'm doing great.

How you doing? I'm doing really well. I'm excited for this weekend, not only for this episode to come out, but it's also Parents Week at college. for both of my daughters. So my wife and I are excited to go and hang out with them. Yeah, you're going to do some partying with them too. I don't know how much partying will happen.

My oldest daughter who's been there for like five years has never wanted us to really come up for parents week. But my youngest who's a freshman, she's really excited. She's, I guess there's a schedule, there's things to do. And so she's, she's pretty on top of it. Oh, that's cool. I'm planning on doing some fishing. I've been doing a lot of fishing trying to outfish my seven-year-old son.

So fingers crossed that I can eat them this weekend. Yeah, you know, there's something about fishing. It's fairly cheap depending on how you're doing it. But to go out with your kids, because I do have a daughter that likes to fish too, that's some really good quality time. And like they say, a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work. That is absolutely true. Hey, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts.

We only had one, but it was a great one. Danita Briscoe. So we appreciate that, Danita very much. Yeah, thank you so much, Danita. And to everyone else that supports the show, we really can't thank you enough. If you'd like to support the show, go to patreon.com slash criminology. All right. It's time to jump into this week's case.

And boy, ma'am, do we have a big one? You know, we've covered some really mysterious missing persons cases on the show. And anytime, someone goes missing. Under mysterious circumstances, it's a real puzzle to try and figure out what happened to them. But when five people go missing together, all of them adults, that just brings the mystery to an altogether different level. And that's what we're talking about this week, the disappearance of five adult men in Northern California in 1978. Although some of their remains were eventually found, it only led to a deeper mystery, more questions and

countless theories about what happened to this group of men who've come to be known as the Yuba County Five. The Yuba County Five often referred to as the boys were five friends between the ages of 24 and 32. 22 year old Jack Jackie Hewitt was the youngest in the group, along with his best friend 32-year-old Ted Weir, who was the oldest of the group, and who Jackie thought of as a big brother. Another friend, 29-year-old Bill Sterling, had been friends with Ted for almost a decade, and Ted's best friend was 30-year-old Jack, Doc, Madruga. The four had recently become friends with 25-year-old Gary Matthias. All five men had mild intellectual disabilities or psychiatric conditions, and all of them attended the Yuba City Vocational Rehabilitation Center,

which provided services and helped teach employment and independent living skills to individuals with disabilities. Through the Gateway's project, the Center had its own basketball team, the Gateway Gators, complete with beige uniforms. All five of the men, Ted, Bill, Jackie, Doc, and Gary were proud Gators. On Saturday, February 25th, 1978, the Gateway Gators had a tournament in the Special Olympics. If they won the game, the team will get to spend a week's vacation in Los Angeles for free, and they would have been able to meet actress Sally Struthers from all in the family. Gary was fired up in advance of the game. According to the Washington Post, before the game, he told his family, we got a big game Saturday. Don't you let me over sleep.

On Friday night, each of the men laid out their clothes for the big game the next day. But before the game, the next day, they decided to attend a college basketball game in Chico. that Friday night, about an hour north of Yuba City, California, 50 miles away. The game that Friday night was at Chico State University against UC Davis, the group's favorite team. At about 5.40 p.m., the group hopped into Doc Madrugas, Turquoise and White, 1969 Mercury Montego, and headed to Chico. Of the group, only Doc and Gary could drive or had driver's licenses. The men made it to the game and watched as UC Davis won it, excited about the win and their own up coming tournament the next day. The group stopped at Beers Market and Chico on their way home.

It was just before 10 p.m., which irritated the store clerk because five men were walking into her store just minutes before she wanted to close up for the night. According to the Washington Post, they bought one hostess cherry pie, one Langendorf lemon pie, one Snickers bar, one Marathon bar, two pepsies, and a quart and a half of milk. It seemed as if it was just a group of guys excited about a big win and hungry after the game. Nothing seemed unusual to the clerk. As they left, the clerk watched him get back in their car before driving south, heading out of Chico.

What happened after that remains a mystery to this day. So a group of guys goes into a store. They buy, you know, some things. One thing that jumped out of me was the Marathon Bar. And I don't know how many people listening will remember. They haven't made it in quite a long time. But Marathon was like my favorite candy bar of all time when I was younger. Is that the real long, thin one that's like chocolate and caramel?

Yeah. It almost looked like a ladder. It was just chocolate and caramel. And I remember the package actually had a ruler like on the side of it to kind of tell you how long it was, I think. Now, you can still find something similar. Cadbury came out with this one called a curly-whirley, which is essentially the same thing. But that was my favorite candy bar as a kid.

Yeah. And I think everyone in listening can probably identify going into store celebrating a big game, maybe you got the munchies, whatever it is. You've got a group of friends and everybody's just grabbing random stuff off the shelf. So it seems like this is sort of that situation, nothing unusual here. No, and that was my other big takeaway. I mean, this is something that you. would see happen in town after town across the country on a Friday night all over,

right? People stopping in getting some snacks, something to drink, very, very normal. But none of the men made it home that night and their families began to worry. Most of these men were guys who really stuck to a routine. And so any deviation from those routines would cause concern for their family. Bill's mother woke up at 2 a.m. on Saturday morning February the 25th and noticed he wasn't home. She called Jackie's mom, who confirmed they weren't there either at 5 a.m. Ted's mother called Bill's mother. Jackie's sister-in-law walked down to the Matthias house and found that Gary hadn't return that night either. At 8 a.m. Melba Madruga called the police and tried to report Doc

missing. She was told to call back if 24 hours had passed and he didn't return. But just 12 hours later at 8 p.m., extremely worried and likely bolstered by the other four families, she went back to the police department and insisted that she be allowed to file an official missing persons report. So it is the 70s. It doesn't shock me that. the police would have said, hey, they have to be missing for 24, 48 hours, something like that. And technically, you know, these guys were adults. But as we said, they all had intellectual disabilities or psychiatric condition. So you would have thought or you would like to have thought that the police would have taken that into account.

And one thing we talk about, especially in these older cases, when somebody goes missing, and especially if it's a young person like a child or a teenager, the times back then when the police would say, well, maybe they just ran away or they're out having fun, they'll be back. And they didn't seem to take it seriously. But here, as you mentioned, they're adults. So maybe there's not as much worry since they, you know, could choose to go away and come back. But for all five of them to be missing with no word to their families, obviously that seemed unusual to them enough to insist that the missing

person's report was filed. And that's a great point, right? That's another extenuating circumstance. And I just think, and I don't want to paint a bad picture of the police back in the 70s, but I just don't know if they did that enough, looked at all the circumstances, is almost like they had Pat answers for different scenarios. And they just kind of stuck with those in a lot of cases. And as we know, those first 24 to 48 hours in a missing person's case, they're the most crucial time that you should be looking for someone in that. Unfortunately, back then, it was sort of the opposite. They let that time slip away a lot of times. On Monday, February 27th or Tuesday the 28th, Doc's 1967 Mercury Montego was found abandoned. Some of the news articles from the time indicate one day or the other, and it's possible the car is found in the overnight hours between both days.

What's clear is that the car was not anywhere along the route that the men should have taken from Chico south the Yuba City. Instead, it was parked 70 miles northeast of Chico, stopped at a 45,000 feet elevation on a steep, narrow mountain road in the Plumas National Forest, just at the snowline. A Plumas National Forest Ranger confirmed that he had spotted the car on Saturday, February 25th, but at the time he saw it, there was no bullos or alerts about the men or their car being missing. So the Ranger didn't check the car out.

None of the men were with the car, and there were no footprints around it to point to where they may have gone. The car's driver's side window was rolled down and it had been left unlocked. Questions immediately filled the minds of investigators. This car was Doc's pride and joy. Why would he leave it unattended and even open to the elements? And really, why would the five have abandoned the car at all? It was a frigid night. and none of the five men had been dressed for snow.

They were dressed for a heated car and an indoor basketball game. The first thought was that the car had mechanical issues or was out of gas. Investigators checked the gas tank and found that there was still a quarter tank. It wasn't out of gas. The keys were missing, so officers had to hotwire the car and it started right up. With no sign of mechanical trouble, investigators thought maybe the car, had gotten stuck in the snow. There was evidence that the car's tires had spun.

It was stuck in the snow, but barely. Though the tires had no traction on their own, the men would have been able to easily push the car, freeing it and then have been able to drive away. Despite being found on a rutted dirt road, the underside of the Montego was clean and unscratched. During the search for the men, rescue vehicles that had driven up the mountain were slightly damaged.

but Doc's Montego wasn't. Someone had very carefully driven the car up the mountain, so slowly and with such caution that it really didn't even get mud splashed on it. No rocks flung off the tires and dened the car anywhere. Most people feel it safe to assume that this was Doc driving, his beloved Mercury up that road, taking his time as not to damage it. That only led to more questions.

Why were the men up there at all? According to everyone that knew Doc, he hated the cold and camping, so there's no way he knew about this road. road and knew every bump and rut that would be in it and exactly how to drive on it to avoid them. Because Doc never let anyone else drive his car, Doc's family assumed that it had been him driving the car that carefully went up the mountain. But again, why go there at all? And what happened to the group after they got stuck? Searches of the area came up empty. The story of five

missing friends made headlines as their worried families waited for answers. Some answers, mostly leading to only new questions, started to come on June 4th, a little over three months after the men vanished. A group of people exploring the forest had stumbled upon a forest service trailer and noticed an awful smell

coming from the trailer's broken window. Then under Sheriff Jack Beecham told the Sacramento Bee, when you got up in that area, you could smell the death. It was horrible, that stench. 19.4 miles up the road from Doc's car near the Daniel Zink campground. They discovered the body of Ted Weir on one of the bunks inside.

It was determined that he had frozen to death, but apparently he had survived quite some time. After arriving at the trailer, when he was last seen in February, Ted was easily 200 pounds. But his body weighed just 100 to 120 when he was found. His beard continued to grow for an estimated eight to 13 weeks. He had suffered from extreme frostbite on his feet. His shoes were missing. Someone else had tucked him in under eight sheets. A watch that did not belong to any of the missing men.

According to their families was found near his body. It was missing its crystal, the glass that covers the watch face. It turns out that a forest service snow cat had played. the road on February 23rd, leaving a path of tightly packed snow leading to the trailer. After abandoning the car, the men may have seen the trail from the snow cat and followed it, either because it was easier to walk in that snow or because they were thinking that a snowplow meant someone had to be close by. This is very reminiscent of the movie Into the Wild.

Have you ever seen that? No, no, I haven't. It's a really good movie from 2007 about true story about Christopher McCanness who went up into a cabin, an abandoned bus actually in Alaska and got stuck there. And he lived there and survived for a long time before he finally perished from malnutrition and stuff. But this is very reminiscent of that. Well, as I was going through that description, it was heartbreaking to me to think about. You know, man going from, let's say, 200 pounds down to 100 or 120, that amount of time in the cold with little to no food, I can only imagine how horrifying that must have been. Searchers began to search the area around the service trailer where Ted's body was found, and the next day on June 5th, the remains of Doc and Bill were found.

They were on different sides of the road leading to the trailer, over 11 miles from the car. Doc's remains had been dragged by animals, finally settling near a stream. The keys to the Montego were still in the pockets of his pants. Bill's skeletal remains, all that was ever found of him, were scattered over a 50-foot area. After getting news that three of the men's remains were found, friends and family descended on the area in an effort to help search it. Closer to the trailer, on the same road that Doc and Bill were found on either side of, on June 7th, Jackie Huitt's own father, Jack, found his son's jacket.

When he picked it up, Jackie's spine fell out of it. Nearby, a pair of Levi's, Jackie's distinct shoes with ripple souls, and a few more bones were found. The next day on June 8th, an assistant chair from Plumas County found Jackie's skull 100 yards downhill from the rest of his remains. So four of the men's remains had been found, but there was no sign of Gary Matthias during the search. To this day, only his shoes, which were found inside the trailer with Ted. have been found. Also inside the trailer were matches and multiple paperback books, but no fire had been started. In an effort for anyone to keep warm, over two dozen empty C ration cans proved that someone had tried to sustain themselves there. The rations had to be opened with a P-38 Army-issued can opener, which many suspect only Gary and Doc, who were both military veterans, would have known how to used, police discovered that the rations had been taken from an outside storage shed that someone had broken into. But strangely, inside of that same shed, there was a locker full of enough

dehydrated food for all five of the men to have survived for an entire year. No one had tried to break into that locker. A second outdoor shed had a propane inside, which could have been used to provide heat to the trailer. No one had touched it. The propane tank could have been hooked up to the trailer. And as Yuba County, Lieutenant Lance Ayers told the Washington Post, all they had to do was turn that gas on and they'd have had gas to the trailer and heat. Lieutenant Ayers had gone to school with Ted and his brothers at Marysville High School so desperate to find the missing men. He had contacted psychics, hoping that they could help.

help. He had tried to talk Jack Hewitt out of joining the search, fearing the very worst, finding the remains of his own son. As we know, that's exactly what happened. Like no other case in his career, heirs wanted answers in this case. Yuba County, under Sheriff Jack Beecham, called the case bizarre as hell when he spoke with a group of reporters about it. So I think on one hand, the families of at least four of the men had answers. They had the remains of their loved ones back, and it wasn't the outcome they were hoping for. But for the fifth family, Gary's, they still didn't have any answers as to where he was. Well, you said they had answers. They had some answers.

But what caused it? What exactly happened? I think those answers are still missing. And I guess you could say the mystery sort of started here once they were found because there were no conclusions that could be drawn. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible.

A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. A quarter mile northwest of the trailer, the opposite direction that Jackie, Doc, and Bill had been found. Authorities found three wool blankets from the Forest Service, probably taken from the trailer, and a rusted two cell flashlight switched to the off position. They were lying to the side of the road. About three quarters of a mile northwest of the trailer, a disposable plastic lighter was found. None of the men were known to carry a lighter.

On June 19, 1978, the search for the remains of Gary Matthias and any other clues about what happened to the five men was officially called off. News of the missing men, along with rumors and theories of what happened to them, spread locally. And eventually the case would become a favorite of online sluice to discuss. Well, and morph, if you think about it, how could it not? There's a lot of mystery here. You know, why did these men and the car end up where it did? Why did it get stuck there? Why did they abandoned it and just what happened to each of them after that point. The trailer has been torn down, but the Daniel Zink campground is still there. And on Google Maps, you can see a clearing where the trailer used to be. Unfortunately, this means we can't really look at the trailer or the sheds with the food

and the propane inside. The sheriff's office only allows people to view the case file at their station and doesn't allow any photographs or reproductions. Because the men were thought to be intellectually disabled to various extents, it was easy for some to theorize that they had simply taken a wrong turn, didn't think to turn around, got stuck in the snow, and found their way to the trailer after getting stuck, and just didn't think to start a fire. And then I think you could add on top of that, didn't think about trying to break into one of these sheds, where they would have found, you know, more food. They would have found, let's say, the propane. Now, the families don't believe that the boys made a wrong turn. Four maps still folded in the car's glove box support this,

even if they had made a wrong turn and gotten stuck. None of their actions after that seemed to make any sense. We mentioned earlier. The car was barely stuck. And five of them working together should easily have been able to get it free. The missing men's family, have always felt that there was some unknown piece of the puzzle and more than meets the eye. Doc's mother Melba was quoted in the Billings Gazette saying, We know there's more to it than what's been said. She also told the Washington Post, there was some force that made him go up there.

Ted's sister-in-law had a theory that what happened to them may have been due to something that they saw at the basketball game in Chico that night. She told the Washington Post, they seen something at that game at that parking lot. They might have seen it and didn't even really. as they've seen it. What, if anything, the men saw at the game, that ultimately led to what happened to them remains unknown. And it doesn't surprise me in the least that the missing men's families would think that there's more to this. You see that in a lot of the missing person's

cases that we do. Families just trying to come up with some explanation around what is found, what is known, and they're putting for some theories. And how do you discount those theories based on the information we have? I think it's pretty hard to do. And I think we need to talk about each of the missing men a bit more. Maybe there's something in their background that may shed light on what did or didn't happen. Jackie had a speech impediment and he also had phone anxiety refusing to make phone calls.

He couldn't read or write. when they went out together, it was Ted who would call both sets of their parents. While Jackie was very reliant on his parents at home and Ted while out, Ted had his own idiosyncrasies or limitations. Ted once tried to make his family let him sleep through a house fire at his parents' home in Linda, California. To him, it was simple. He refused to get up because he needed sleep because he had work in the morning. One of his brothers had to physically drag him out of the house, basically against his will. Doc had no diagnoses, but was described as a bit slow.

He was able to work as a dishwasher for Sunsweet growers and own his own car. He had been an Army truck driver from 1966 to 1968. Doc helped Bill get a job at Sunsweet, but he was fired because he was unable to figure out how to use the equipment when it was replaced. When he got another job as a dishwasher at Beale Air Force Base, airman there would routinely get him drunk and then steal money from him. As a result, his mom made him quit and started giving him a $15 weekly allowance. While Gary did eventually have struggles with his mental health, he seemed to have no issues until his sophomore year in high school

when a bad LSD trip sent him to the psychiatric hospital. He continued to use drugs, even while in the armed. Army. In February 1973, Gary was arrested for going AWOL and eventually given a medical discharge due to a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. In 1975, Gary went to Yuba College for a short time before moving to Oregon to stay with his grandmother. Weeks later, when his mother and stepfather called him to ask him to come home, he simply hung up the phone. Five weeks later, he showed him. He showed up on their porch. He had walked over 500 miles from Portland, Oregon to Marysville, California. He had made it the whole way, only eating dog food left outside and stealing milk left on porches

that hadn't been taken inside yet. Because of this, his mom told the Sacramento Bee back in February in 1978, there's no doubt in my mind. If he is physically able, he would be coming home right now. I think that based on the background and experiences of the Yuba County Five, that things that seem obvious are easy to us or things we know we wouldn't do in certain situations might not be the same for the group. Though they couldn't care for themselves completely and weren't fully independent, they were able to travel and socialize. For the men, all but Gary, who's often thought of as the leader of the group had gone to Sacramento the night before they disappeared, and they had made it back home safely.

Sacramento is about 45 miles south of Yuba City, just about the same distance Chico was to the north. So I think it's safe to say more that all five of the men had some limitations. They had some things going on in their lives, but it seemed as though many of them were able to be fairly independent, or at least independent in within a group setting, if that makes sense. They could all go out together, do something, come back home safely. That was proven.

Yeah, we mentioned that Gary was resourceful enough to make it all the way home 500 miles on foot and only eat dog food. We talked about them having jobs, being in the army, having drivers licenses, some of them. So it's clear that they had. had skills that you think would have helped them in some ways. And in a survival situation, I know for a fact that I couldn't walk 500 miles from Portland, Oregon to Marysville, California. In any situation, I'm not making it.

Yeah, I'm right there with you. Eventually, some people began to suspect or point fingers at Gary as being responsible for what happened. We mentioned how he had walked all the way from Portland to Marysville to get. home eating dog food on the way to survive. Later that same year, he broke a window to get into a home waking the couple inside. He was clearly having some type of psychotic episode telling the couple it was his home and he was there for the rent and also explaining that he was searching for a ring to deliver to Satan. For two years though, Gary had been stable and working with his

stepfather, Gary was on a weekly medication regiment, taking Stelazine and Cogentin to help control symptoms of schizophrenia, which he had started to experience around 1973 while he was serving in the army and stationed in Germany. According to a Washington Post article from 1978, Gary took his medications the week he and the other four men disappeared. But there has long been speculative. But there has long been speculation that he was unmedicated on that night. Unsolved Mysteries producers approached the five families with an offer to cover the case on an episode. All the families agreed to participate in the episode except for Gary's. This led to some animosity and suspicion that perhaps the Matthias family knew more about what

happened that night than the other families did. Well, some people blamed Gary for the group's demise that he did something intentional that led to it. Others think that he may have been to blame even if he didn't do anything on purpose. He knew people in Forbes Town, just east of the Orville Dam. The turnoff to Forbes Town was easy to miss and would have left the group headed right up to where the mercury was found. It's been theorized that maybe he had convinced the rest of the group to stop off for a quick visit with his friends in that area.

But one problem with his theory is that the rest of the group were such sticklers for routine and were excited for their game that they might not have agreed to go. They would have wanted to go home and get some sleep. Gary himself had been worried about oversleeping. so why would he make them all take a detour on the way home? Another issue is that Gary's friends in Forbes Town hadn't spoken to him in years. In the end, nothing points to Gary where anyone else is being involved or responsible for whatever befell the group. And we see this a lot, more if you know, whether it's online sluice or it's just people commenting on these types of cases.

It always leads to speculation because that's really all you have. trying to develop theories about what may have happened that night. But oftentimes those theories, they kind of point to a particular person. And it can lead to some negative consequences. And one of those being that, you know, it casts a bad light on an individual as maybe being responsible for what happened to the group. And in this case, a lot of the fingers seem to have been pointed at Gary without a lot to really back it up, I guess. And I guess it's human nature to want to figure things out and think of things from different angles.

And he was the only one who wasn't found. You know, he's got this history of breaking into a home and scaring the people there. So, you know, I think it's only natural that people, some people would think that. But again, there's no proof in it. any way that he had anything to do with what happened to the men. Adding to the mystery of it all, one man claimed to have seen the men up on the mountain that night. And what he had to say is one of the most bizarre parts of the case. 55-year-old Joseph Shans had headed up the mountain alone around 5.30 p.m. on the 24th,

intending to check the snowline for an upcoming ski trip with his wife and child. The Volkswagen Beetle he was driving got stuck, just 50 yards past the snow line as he tried to dig himself out of the snow. He fell to crushing chest pain. He knew right away he was having a heart attack, alone, stuck on a mountain, and it was getting dark. He got back into the beetle and left it running and laid there, trying to keep warm and figure out what to do. According to Sean's, some sort of whistling noise got his attention. and he got out of the car hoping to flag someone down to help him. Down the road from his car, he saw a group of men and one woman who was holding a baby.

They were illuminated by the glow of another car's headlights. He could hear voices, so he called out to them for help. But he was weak, and he wasn't sure if the group had heard him. If they did, they didn't acknowledge him. Everything went quiet and the headlights went dark. Sean's got back into his car and tried to wait for morning. After a few hours, he saw lights moving outside of this car. he realized that there were flashlight beams, so he got back out of the car and cried out for help.

Again, the lights went out, and everything was silent. Sean's laid in his beetle, trying to stay warm and trying to stay alert in case someone passed by. Unfortunately for him, no one did, and the car ran out of gas, and it wouldn't stay warm in the car for very long. Though it was still dark, he decided to walk eight miles back down the road to Mountain House, a lodge that he had stopped that on his way up the mountain. on the way he passed Doc's empty Mercury Montego. He was sure it was parked exactly where he had heard the voices and seen people. But by now they were all gone.

And there was just an empty car sitting there. So this is a very interesting story on a number of levels. You know, you have this guy, Shans, who believes he's having a heart attack. Now, he's also saying that he sees people. He's seeing headlights, flashlights. he's calling out to people. They're not responding to him. And at some point, he makes the decision to walk eight miles back down the mountain while he thinks he's having a heart attack.

That part is kind of amazing. Yeah, first we talked about Gary walking 500 miles and now he's walking eight miles after having a heart attack. So that's pretty compelling. And what's so interesting is if what he's seeing, what he described is accurate, it just adds more to the mystery because you've got this group of people walking around with flashlights and he sees a woman and a baby with them. So now it's really getting strange. Yeah. If he had only said that he saw a group of men, well, that would be one thing. And you could maybe say, well, this is the five men that we're talking about or some part of the five men. But the woman holding a baby brings in a, a

a whole different element to the story. Now, Sean's admitted to the LA Times in 1978 of the incident that he was half conscious, not lucid, hallucinating, and in deep pain. And who wouldn't be, if you think you're having a heart attack, if he was having a heart attack, some people doubt his story, partially due to his reputation as someone who liked to make up stories and who would often get lost and stuck while driving drunk and partially because while some parts of his story changed, like how many people he saw that night and how many vehicles were there, the one that stayed the same didn't make sense. Apparently the model VW Beetle that Shans was driving that night did not keep the heater running if the car was only idling. So he could not have simply

laid there in the car staying warm with the heat on. It's not clear. It's not clear. if revving the engine here and there would have kept the heat going. But you could see that if that happened and combined with him yelling out in pain, it could have seemed intimidating to the group. Would it have been enough, though, for them to run off into the freezing dark woods? There are some who think that it may have been Sean's himself who had something to do with forcing the men up the mountain. Like in many of these unsolved cases, there's no shortage of rumors you can't quite track

down the origin of. It's believed that Sean's 18-year-old daughter may have had a disability and been involved in the Gateway Project. And if so, it's possible she knew one or all of the men. It does seem odd that he would be stuck having a heart attack, just yards away from the men who would also get stuck. Neither the cars were good choices for that road on that night. Was walking down the mountain to the lodge part of the alibi? And as for the heart attack, doctors apparently were able to confirm somehow that Shans had once had a heart attack, but it was unclear when. Authorities were encouraged not to press him too hard to avoid agitating his condition.

Sean's was later busted for growing marijuana, leading many to wonder if one of the men had stopped off that night to pick some up from him. But that still doesn't explain what happened after. And again, here's another theory that, you know, you can look at and try to make sense up. Now, does it seem plausible? Maybe. You know, I don't know about these five guys meeting this man all the way up the mountain to get some marijuana. That part kind of jumped out at me as being a little strange.

But the one thing I will say is that it is true that a mercury Montego and a VW beetle are not good cars to be driving up snow. covered mountains in. Yeah, you think that they would choose if they were going up there to use like a four by four truck or Jeep or something along those lines. So, and that's, again, just adds to the mystery of why they'd be up there

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growtherapy.com slash book now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Assuming Sean's was telling the truth and he really was just stuck on that road, completely independent of the Yuba County five, then who else might have had the motive to chase them up? up there that night. Under Sheriff Jack Beecham's theory was that they were either forced or manipulated up that mountain. While it may not usually be easy to get the upper hand on a group of adult men, Beecham told the Sacramento beat, all five were in such a condition that they could be easily taken advantage of. It could have been a hate crime, some kind of prank. Someone familiar with the Gateway Project saw their Gateway Gator shirts.

followed them, chase them or tricked them, leaving them stuck up on that mountain. The Gateway Project and other similar programs for individuals with disabilities were having issues at the time with crime. Eight of these locations had been set on fire, some multiple times. Cars were firebombed and Gateway employees were attacked. There is talk of a town bully that would have found that kind of thing very fun. He's often referred to online as a preacher. or pastor, though he wasn't in 1978.

There's an article in the Marysville Appeal Democrat that discusses a man who had gone from sinner to preacher. The man had been sentenced to 25 years to life in prison under California's three strikes law in 1998, but in 2014, he was released after the law has changed. If he had any involvement, maybe he'll find it in himself to talk one day. Then again, there's nothing that directly points to his involvement in the Yuba County Five case. The main suspect in this case, or at least one who's been discussed online, is actually the ex-husband of Gary's sister.

It was known to have a violent temper. His sister and the man had two small children and were going through a divorce at the time the group vanished. This makes some wonder if it could have been Gary's sister and her child on the mountain that Sean's claims he saw, or if it's just a coincidence. But here again, you know, these things that we're talking about, bringing different people, you know, potentially, into the case is the exact reason, morph, that this type of case draw so much attention from the online sluice. You have a lot of areas to explore here. Now, what you don't have is a lot of evidence backing up the different theories, but that doesn't stop people from looking into them or trying to figure out which theory they think is more likely than another.

Yeah, because there's a lack of real solid evidence in any one direction. Everybody with a theory that hasn't been ruled out could possibly be right. And that's the draw of a mystery such as this. So what exactly happened? That February night in 1978, we may never know. Why was Gary the only person whose remains were never found? Gary's tennis shoes were found in the trailer. It seems as though he made it to the trailer, perhaps with the others.

It also seems likely that at the very least, Ted, Gary, and Jackie made it to the area near the trailer. Most assumed that they all made it inside. Doc may have made it too and decided to go back out to try and roll up his car window or find help, Bill may have also made it, but decided to go back with Doc. But it's also possible that they both succumb to the elements before even making it to the trailer. Gary was there at the trailer at least long enough to swap his shoes with Ted's, perhaps. Remember, Gary had been wearing tennis shoes that night, which were later found in the

trailer. And Ted's shoes were not found with him. They were leather. They would have done better in a track through the snow. Ted's feet were also bigger. So if Gary's feet were swollen at all from frostbite, Ted's would have been more comfortable. So perhaps Gary wore Ted's shoes and went for help leaving his own behind and met his fate out in the elements. The blankets and flashlight found, assuming Gary was carrying them, indicate to some that he left the trailer first, probably that night with the flashlight and maybe even the lighter. He may have told the rest of the group he was going for help. Doc was able to use a P-38 can opener from his time in the army. So if we assume the others didn't know how to open cans with one, Doc would have been there long

enough to open 31 cans. There's an alternate theory with the can opener that either Doc or Gary opened all the cans that were inside the trailer before leaving. Each man knowing that his friends wouldn't be able to survive without the food if anything happened to him. Looking at a photo of that can opener online, it looks like you could use the sharp part of it or the notch to open a can even if you didn't know exactly what you were doing. And that's one of the questions that, that I had is, as we've talked about this multiple times,

this P38 can opener from the army, would it be that hard for someone who had never used it to open a can with it? And my thought was, no, you could probably figure it out. I mean, we're not talking about building a rocket to get to the moon here. Yeah.

But I think getting back to most of us would probably think that. But then again, we know that they did have some disabilities, perhaps learning disabilities. One of them was fired from his job because he couldn't figure out how to use equipment that they had there. So, you know, it could be a situation like that where they just couldn't figure it out. But obviously, somebody got the cans open. In his book, Out of Bounds, what happened to the Yuba County Five, author Drew Beeson, actually notes, cause of death as pulmonary edema or wet lung. This can be caused by injury that causes sepsis or by extreme hypothermia.

Ted would have been experiencing acute respiratory distress syndrome, which could have included shortness of breath, confusion, and extreme fatigue. This could have caused Jackie to finally try to run for help out of desperation to save his friend, only to meet the same fate as the others. Despite all the efforts that went into trying to find out just what happened to the Yuba County 5, we don't have answers.

What's clear is that the group of missing men were cared about. Donald J. Larson, executive director of Gateway, told the Sacramento B. They were all damn good guys. And former under-Sherf Beecham said, I very much regret that we were unable to find those children, and they were children. But I'm also convinced that we did everything in our power to locate them. and find out what happened. A February 1979 op-ed in the Orville Mercury Register, written by the cloth, weir, Hewitt, and Sterling families asked,

when your son leaves home with friends to go to a basketball game, do you always put your arms around him, give him a kiss, and remind him how much you love him. Then it warns, you really should, he may never come back to you. And that's something that, you know, comes up in many, many cases. You know, there is a point in a lot of these where what seems to be kind of a routine, everyday thing, right? Somebody leaving the house to go somewhere ultimately turns out to be the last time that

their family ever sees them. Maybe it's a conversation on the phone. Maybe it's them walking out the door. and I think this warning, as they put it, really is true. Yeah, I agree with you. And I think that's why it's always important to say goodbye to people, leave on good terms and you never know when something like this is going to happen on a pretty much routine day. But as we wrap up this case, you know, we've said it multiple times,

but there's mysteries on top of mysteries here. You know, first for me is why do you? did the group end up on that mountain where they did? At some point, did they make the decision to go up there? Did they take a wrong turn? Or was it something a little more sinister where they were being chased or someone forced them up the mountain? Because I do think in this case, you kind of have to look at whether this was a terrible accident on the part of these five men that resulted in their deaths or there was something or someone or multiple people who contributed to it. I think that's one of the big questions to try to answer right off the bat because you can

easily see where there's nothing sinister about this case at all. They make a wrong turn. They end up on top of this mountain. They can't figure out how to get the car out of the snow and they succumb to the elements. They're not dressed for it, right? They're not dressed to go camping. They're dressed for a warm car ride and a basketball game indoors. Well, in that scenario only leads to more questions because you would think, or at least I would,

if I was in the situation, I would see myself sitting in the car, it had gas. was running, there was nothing mechanically wrong with it, sitting in the heat and staying there hoping somebody would come by. So we have to wonder, you know, if it was just an accident, they were there accidentally, they got stuck, why did they get out in the first place? And I wonder if it's a case of some of them were followers of one in particular. And if he said, let's go walk, we'll find somebody, then maybe they would have just agreed and went with him. And that sealed their fate. Yeah, that's the part we just don't know, right? Obviously, at some point, they found this trailer. And then did one or more people make the decision that, well, we're not going to be able to

survive in this trailer. Somebody has to go find help. Again, just so many questions. And I wonder if any one answer could be determined. Maybe it would sort of allow the other pieces of the puzzle to fall in the place and we can figure out exactly what happened. But as of now, it doesn't seem like there's any answers. No, but I think you're right. A lot of times when you can answer one question, that leads to kind of a domino effect of things starting to fall into place. But obviously, we're many years on from when this occurred. So if those questions haven't been answered by now, I think there's a very low likelihood that they ever will be. My thought is that this case is going to remain a mystery, a case that is speculated on by,

you know, people online and in the true crime community. You know, the other thing that that I really want to touch on is this Sean's guy. You know, we're finding it hard to figure out why the Yuba 5 were up on that mountain. Now this guy said that he was going up there in advance of a ski trip to check out to snowline. Okay. I get that. But you're going up there in a 1970s VW beetle. And then there's the story about, you know, having a heart attack, seeing the light, seeing the woman with a baby.

Again, I don't want to cast doubt on that guy. Now, many people have. They've come out and blatantly. called him a liar or a person who liked to make up stories. And then while he's experiencing this heart attack, he makes this eight mile walk down to the lodge. I'm not saying it didn't happen. What I'm saying is a lot of people have called it into question. Yeah. And if he's not hallucinating in his story is true, then who was this other woman with the baby and what happened? And that's just, again, it's another rabbit hole that you can just go down.

with this case. But again, if you could figure out which parts are absolutely 100% true, then I think you could start to travel in a direction. You know, if there was actually a woman and a baby up there, could that have been Gary's sister? And then does that bring in the ex-husband who was known to have a violent temper? It does seem strange that that's where he, he would have made his move or tried to seek revenge on what, these five guys? Why? Again, all we can do is speculate, but you'd have to say this is one of the stranger missing person stories that we've done in a long time, namely because you have five adults who essentially go missing, wind up dead. And one of their bodies has never been found.

And unfortunately that not only leaves his family is still without peace of having his remains back, but it continues to just provide more fuel to this case. And people speculate that maybe he's involved and had something to do with it. And the finding of his body might have been that piece of the puzzle that broke it open, that gave the investigators the information they needed to kind of put the puzzle pieces together. We don't know because it never happened. But that's it for our episode on the Yuba County 5. If you love the show and you haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating, leave a review.

Also, keep telling your friends that word of mouth about the criminology podcast really helps us out. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Axeer slash Twitter with the handle at criminology pod. You can also find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash. Criminology Podcast, or you can join our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans. So that's it for another episode of Criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode.

So until then, for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.