RedHanded - Episode 115 - The Yuba 5

Episode Date: October 10, 2019

In 1978, five men piled into a car after a local basketball game, they stopped at a shop to pick up some snacks and then they vanished. The next day their car was found on a mountain road, without a scratch, half a tank of petrol and in perfect running order. Why would the men have left the car and entered the freezing wilderness? It wasn’t until the summer that four of the men were found, well at least their bodies were...but the discoveries only deepened the mystery; one of the men was even found in a trailer, surrounded by food - but had seemingly starved to death. To this day Gary Mathias, man number five, remains missing - leaving us asking the question what happened to the Yuba 5?   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. And welcome to October 2nd episode episode Halloween Spectacular.

We've been talking a lot recently because we've been travelling loads about the favourite cases that we've covered on the show. And for me, Amy Bradley kept popping up because I quite like a mystery and it's one I've never stopped thinking about. And we know that you lot quite like a mystery as well. So we've got a real head scratcher for you for our second October spooktacular episode of the month. And if you already know it, mind your business and keep it to yourself. Don't ruin it for everyone else. We're going to the exact same place that we went to every single live show. We are going to California in the 70s because we can't get enough, apparently.

Just absolute glutton for punishment over here. I mean, they just loved killing everybody at that time. So it is only natural that we would be attracted to it. Was it all the lead in the air or something? All the lead in the air. Quite possibly. I think it was genuinely like all the petrol fumes before they started making unleaded petrol. And it was like making everybody crazy and kill each other.

I read something about it. I'll find an article. Back yourself up. Cover your ass with some hard facts. I'll find an article. Back yourself up. Cover your ass with some hard facts. I'll come back with some facts next episode. So let's get going. On the evening of the 24th of February 1978, a group of five mates aged between 24 and 32 went to go and watch a college basketball game in the town of Chico.

These five men would become known to the press as the Yuba County Five, because that's where they were from, or just the Yuba Five, if you are lazy like me. The basketball team these five mates had gone to support was called UC Davis. They were playing an away game in Chico, and they won. So the group of men left the game in pretty high spirits. They were about 50 miles from their homes in Yuba County and Marysville, some of them, which is quite close together. So some of them lived in Yuba, some of them lived in Marysville, but it's not far enough of a distance away to be statistically significant, I don't think. So after the game, they were pretty pleased with themselves. They headed

to a corner shop to stock up on treats and snacks for the drive home. And the guys bought something called a Hostess cherry pie which i don't know what that is something else called a langdorf lemon pie two pepsis and a quart and a half of milk adults need to stop drinking milk i'm not on board i'm just not on board the number of times i get on a train and there's someone just opposite me drinking that blue top milk it's bizarre behavior but i feel like americans do that though don't they they eat like pie and drink milk and i'm down with pie i can do pie no problem no but i think they like that as a pairing oh i see and in some places they do weird things like i think in wisconsin they put like cheddar on top of apple pie oh but cheese on top of a welsh cake is quite nice and

they're sweet i don't know you guys know i'm not having it i think that's what ed gein used to do put cheddar on top of apple pies so you will read in quite a lot of places that these chaps also bought a snickers bar and a marathon bar at this corner shop but i am under the impression that marathon bars and snickers bars are actually the same thing i think snickers bars used to be called marathon bars and then they changed their name at some point in history so we've already cracked this one wide open you are welcome you are correct about i think i am too and i was amazed in the amount of places i am read about it they were like oh a snickers bar and a marathon bar and i was like they're the same thing like opal fruits and starburst. Yes, I believe that is the case. We're so smug, someone's going to yell at us on the internet.

You know what? It's water off a duck's back at this point. Yay. I just want you to post, guys. Post whatever you want. How will you know when you've made it? When I don't care what anyone says to me on the internet. So while they're buying their marathon bar,

I'm going to assume it was called a marathon bar back then because we're in the 70s. I'm not quite sure when they changed the name. Specifically, I think they changed it in the uk to a different time in the us so i don't want to say just in case they bought their food and they pissed off the person who was working in the shop because it was just about 10 p.m and they wanted to close but that didn't really bother the group of men and they gathered their grazing fodder and headed back to their car which was a 1967 mercury montego this is a very American looking car with a massive, massive front bit.

Like where the bonnet is, it just seems to go on for like 700 years. Like I just don't think we had those cars here ever. I was trying to think of a way to describe it. And you know the car that Eminem drives in 8 Mile? Yeah. It's kind of like, it's just like very long. It's a very long, very low car. And this particular one was turquoise and white.

And in that corner shop, buying all of their treats and snacks was the last time that all five of those men were seen alive. So when the parents of the men woke up the next morning to find their son's beds empty, panic set in and they all rang around the parents of the other members of the group to find out if their sons had also not come home. And if you're wondering why these fully grown men were living with their parents, and why their parents were so rattled by them not having come home that night, that's because all five of these men had varying levels of intellectual disability, and some also had severe mental health problems. The mates all knew each other through a

rehabilitation centre for adults with disabilities called Gateway and it was in their hometown of Yuba City. All five men were on the basketball team called the Gateway Gators, which is a great name. I love it. Amen. And they had a big game on the morning that they had vanished and most of the blokes had been so excited about that game that they had laid out their uniforms a night before in preparation and one of them had even asked his mum to wash his trainers for him because he had accidentally scuffed them while trying them on so they're obviously really keen to look their best and they're so excited so it's obviously incredibly surprising and alarming that they haven't turned up when they've got this basketball

game that they're so highly anticipating yeah Yeah, totally. And I think, you know, laying out your clothes the night before is quite a childish thing. And quite a lot of people in articles that you read about this refer to them as boys. I'm not going to do that because they are fully grown men, but they are quite childlike in their actions in some respects. And they were actually right to be excited about the game. All of the group bar one were really, really well liked by everyone at the Gateway Centre. They were athletic and their team stood a really good chance of winning the game that morning. Some people even called this group the studs of the special needs community. I'm not totally sure how I feel about that. But if the Gateway Gators did win this

basketball game, they would all get to go to Disneyland and meet all in the family actress Sally Struthers have you ever been to disneyland um disneyland paris not disney world oh so no no but also like what a weirdly specific prize they get to go there and they meet this random actress from a random tv show what i know really strange a friend of mine um lives in california and she went to disneyland with her boyfriend recently um and going to disney Disneyland as an adult is something I've always quite wanted to do and she said they had the best day but at the end of the night when they're closing the park they do this big parade and it's a big like fireworks display and you all like sit around like waiting for it

and part of this display is they put a real live human pretending to be Tinkerbell on this wire and she sort of zooms up to the top of Cinderella's palace it's really fucking high up and like possibly quite dangerous. But they had to call off the parade that night because it was too windy to put Tinkerbell on the wire. And Darcy said that they're all sitting around with all of these families waiting for this parade. And then an announcement comes over the tannoy that the firework show has to be cancelled because of the weather. And she was like, and then I witnessed a thousand simultaneous toddler breakdowns. And it was the best thing I have ever seen in my life. Nothing at Disneyland that day could have topped seeing all of these families just lose their fucking shit in the same second.

Wow. Serious. It's serious. You paid good money for that. I'm tired. It's the end of the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They do have parades like throughout the day.

But I think the one at the end of the day is like the biggest and worst one. Yeah, they had one when I was in Paris. It's fun. It's fine end of the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They do have parades like throughout the day, but I think the one at the end of the day is like the biggest and best one. Yeah, they had one when I was in Paris. It's fun. It's fine. Cool. Thanks, Disneyland. I don't know. So overall, it really didn't seem like winning this basketball game

was an opportunity that the five would have missed lightly. So that begs the question, why didn't they come home? What happened after they bought their milk and snickers bars in chico to figure it out we should probably find out who the group were and what challenges they faced but before we get into that the absolute best article you can read on this case is a two-parter from the sacramento bee written by benji eagles um if you want to go over some of these details again find that article you can find it easily online and it's absolutely got the most information the most uh what i would say the most accurate information's out there so first off let's start with jack

madruga he was 30 years old and an army veteran since his discharge he had been working as a dishwasher at a dried fruit company called sun sweet growers and there are two jacks in this story so um hold tight try hard this first jack was fired from his dishwashing gig when he couldn't manage to use the new dishwashing equipment that the company had bought. He was described by some of his family members as being, quote, slow in his thought process. Jack Madruga was one of the only members of the group to have a driving license. And it was his car that the group took to the basketball game in Chico that fateful night. He loved his car and he never let anyone else drive it.

Next up, we have Bill Sterling, who was Jack Madruga's best mate. He was 29 years old, so a year younger than Jack, and he also had some military experience. He worked at an Air Force base as a dishwasher in the early 70s, but he left after his mum found out about the other airmen who were intentionally getting Bill drunk and stealing his money. Bill was very religious and spent hours reading up on the scriptures and read the Bible to patients in psychiatric hospitals. He had spent quite a lot of his youth inside the very same hospitals. And then we have the oldest of the group, whose name was Ted Weir, I think is how you say that. He was 32 and a really friendly guy.

But according to his family, he had trouble with basic instructions. He was never sure if he actually needed to stop at a stop sign, for example. And once he spent $100 on pencils for no apparent reason. And in another example of a lack of common sense, when his parents house caught on fire, he refused to get out of bed because he was adamant that he needed enough sleep to be able to do a good job at work the next day. His brother had to physically drag him out of a burning house. At the time of his disappearance, Ted had recently left his job as a janitor. He wasn't great at holding down jobs, but Ted was great at making new friends. And his favourite friend was the fourth member of the Uber Five, and also the youngest of the group. And his name was Jack Hewitt, so this is Jack

number two. Ted loved ringing Jack and reading to him funny names that he'd found in the phone book which i think is hilarious and like so innocently sweet jack hewitt loved getting these calls and loved hanging out at the gateway center he faced the most severe intellectual challenges of the whole group he was illiterate he struggled to use a phone and was almost totally dependent on his mum he really hated staying away from her. He would never have voluntarily stayed away overnight. But he was quite happy hanging out with his mate Ted at the Gateway Centre. Ted looked out for Jack Hewitt quite a lot. Last of all, we have the odd one out, 25-year-old Gary Mateus. He did not have any intellectual

disabilities to speak of like the rest of the group but he did have pretty severe mental health and substance abuse problems he had a pretty normal time in high school he played hand egg and if you don't understand that reference you need to go back and binge the entire catalogue and he also sang in the local band and this is um total conjecture but he probably did all right with the ladies too yeah man if you're paying hand egg and you're singing in a band in high school, you are getting the ladies for sure. I reckon so. I guess it depends what type of band, but probably I reckon so. There is only one type of teenage band. We all know it. And in his sophomore year, which I think is the equivalent to like year 10 here in the UK. I think it is because I think in America they finish high school at 17, whereas we finish at 18.

They do because they do like an extra year at uni than us, I think. Mm, yeah. So during this year, Gary wound up in a psychiatric ward after a particularly bad hallucinogenic trip. After school, Gary also went into the army and that was when things started to go

severely wrong for him. He was stationed in Germany for a few years until he went able. When he was found, he punched two sergeants squarely in the face, and he was totally naked. Later, he would claim that he thought that this would be the quickest way to get himself out of the army. Accurate. It probably is one of the quickest ways. I think so. I think punching two sergeants totally stark is a fast track back home, I think. Yeah. I'm out. Bye. Bye, guys. And he got his wish. He was discharged on medical grounds following a paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis.

And when he got home, Gary still couldn't keep out of trouble. He sexually assaulted his cousin's 17-year-old wife while she slept. He's into pretty big trouble and when his cousin called 9-1-1 gary reportedly said quote good i want to go back to jail i guess maybe he just maybe he quite enjoyed because he'd spent time in psychiatric hospitals maybe he just wanted to go back somewhere where it was like more regimented i don't know i mean possibly but i also think at this stage like he's not medicated right now like he is severely unwell um so i don't know whether it's a rational decision he was even sure what he wanted yeah so again obviously gary got his wish and he served eight

months inside after pleading guilty to assaulting a police officer and his assault with intent to rape charges were dropped as part of the plea deal, which is fantastic. Great. Just a little rape. Don't worry about that one. Punching a policeman. Oh, my God. Maybe I should explain this. So punching the policeman, that charge is not the same as punching the sergeants. He actually assaulted a police officer when he got home. And then he was waiting to be charged with that when he assaulted his cousin's wife.

So he's done two pretty major things within a few months of being home after being discharged from the army. But again, he is very, very unwell at this point. So after he was released, it wasn't long before Gary was nicked again for shooting methamphetamine and taking Benzedrine. He rambled to police about how he wanted to stab a woman in the jaw. So yeah, he's not doing great. And he also threatened to kill a friend's daughter, who was just three years old. But he appears to have gotten away with that one with no real consequences. In 1974, so that's four years before the Uber 5 went missing, Gary Matias was admitted to a state mental hospital. And they managed to keep hold of

him for just two days before he escaped and hitchhiked his way back to his parents house in Marysville still wearing his hospital pyjamas. The next year a similar thing happened. Gary had moved to Oregon to live with his gran and his parents begged him to come home but they didn't hear from him for five weeks until one day he just showed up on his parents doorstep. He had walked from Portland to Marysville. That is 540 miles. And he'd been eating dog food and stealing milk off people's porches to survive on his way. So he's not adverse to a long walk. It's something that we will come across again later in the story. Foreshadowing. Once back in Marysville, Gary broke into a couple's house in the middle of the night.

He punched a hole through the window of the front door and told the terrified inhabitants that he was looking for a ring that he needed to return to satan when the police asked gary what he had been doing in the house he told them that he was the landlord of the property and he needed to collect his rent i know that some people can have some pretty shitty landlords but showing up in the middle of the night and punching a hole through the front door is maybe not and telling them you're looking for a ring from satan maybe not gary um but the point we're trying to prove here is that he's really not very well at all he's very delusional and possibly psychotic and this incident proved to be the final straw and after this gary received consistent help and really sorted himself out he was prescribed anti-psychotic medications and he

managed to keep on top of everything. In the two years before his disappearance, he didn't have a single outburst. Good for him. Exactly, yeah. Go Gary. Go Gary. He worked for his stepfather's gardening business

and started hanging out at the Gateway Centre, which is where he met the other four men that make up the Uber 5. And nobody's quite sure how Gary managed to enrol in the Gateway Rehabilitation Program seeing as he didn't actually have any intellectual disabilities but that's neither here nor there because he did. But that didn't mean that the two Jacks, Ted and Bill, were super comfortable with Gary being around.

They weren't. He was quite clearly different from them but nevertheless he was allowed to tag along with them to the basketball game in Chico. The dynamic between the other four men and Gary is very apparent throughout the story because the challenges he faces are very different to the rest of them. And I can see why people think that Gary is this manipulative force in what happens in the rest of the story, just because he does not have the intellectual disabilities that the others have. He knows what a stop sign means, like he's just facing different challenges to the rest of them and also he's the only one that's violent or has

been violent in the past and also gary was the only other member of the group other than jack madruga who had a driving license but that doesn't mean that jack number one would have let gary drive his precious car but could jack number one be persuaded? Possibly. Exactly. So now that we know who we're talking about, let's get back to the day after the night in question. The families of the Uber 5 made contact with local authorities at about eight that evening. And sort of luckily for them, there had already been a break in the case. 55 year old Joe Shones had been out about the evening of the 24th of February, and he had been driving his Volkswagen around in the Plumas National Park in the Sierra Nevada mountains in Northern California.

He was checking out the weather conditions because he wanted to bring his family up there the next day. But spoilers, because the weather in the Sierra Nevadas in February is never going to be great. There was obviously fuckloads of snow. Also, Volkswagen is not the car that you tackle that kind of terrain in. Come on, Jo. I know, I feel like Volkswagen, Sierra Nevada, February are not words that should go together. This wasn't going to go well for you, Jo, honestly.

Yeah, you're not like dropping the kids off at school. This is a bad move. Plumas National Forest is about 70 miles away from where the Uber 5 saw their basketball game in Chico, but in completely the wrong direction. It's like the opposite way. To go home, they needed to go south, and instead they went east. 70 miles east.

So this story may seem irrelevant, but don't worry. We're getting there. As predicted, with Joe out in his Volkswagen, the car soon gave up. And when it did, he got out and started to push his little car out of the snow. But then he had a heart attack. Joe was in real trouble. There was no one around to help him and he's totally on his own. So he switched to survival mode and climbed back into his car, turned on the engine and the heater and waited until the pain stopped or someone came to help him, whichever came first. Soon he saw a set of headlights approaching,

and Joe immediately thought that these must belong to a pickup truck. Joe gathered his strength and got out of the car, shouting for help and attempting to flag down the passing vehicle, but it didn't stop. And later that same night, Joe claimed that he saw a group of men, a woman, and a baby walking through the forest. He shouted at them to help him, but they too didn't stop. Joe got back in his car and waited for the sun to come up. He said himself after the incident that he was, quote,

half-conscious, not lucid, hallucinating and in deep pain. But he managed to walk eight miles down the mountain to a lodge that he knew had people in it, and there he managed to get some medical treatment. Joe survives, by the way. On his way down to the lodge that he knew had people in it and there he managed to get some medical treatment. Joe survives, by the way. On his way down to the lodge that he knew had people in it, he walked past a 1967 turquoise and white Mercury Montego. It was empty and it had just one window open. It was the very same Mercury Montego that belonged to Jack Madruga, but the Mercury was very much not a pickup truck so if Joe is right it couldn't have been the car that he saw the headlights of and this meant just one thing after the basketball instead of driving

50 miles south to their homes in Yuba and Marysville the Yuba 5 had inexplicably driven 70 miles east into the Plumas National Forest in February. And not only that, not only had they driven 70 miles in the wrong direction, they'd abandoned the car. And if you think that doesn't make any sense, screw your best thinking hat on, because it's only going to get more mind-crunchingly confounding from here on in. So authorities found the Mercury Montego on the 28th of February, exactly where Joe Shones had said it was.

Inside the car were empty junk food wrappers and the only thing that was left was half a Snickers slash marathon bar. In the glove compartment were four neatly folded maps of Northern California. The keys to the car were nowhere to be found but it had a quarter tank of petrol still left. The car was a bit stuck in the snow but not like irrevocably. It certainly wasn't something that five grown men, especially two with army training, couldn't have pushed out. On top of that, the car wasn't damaged at all. Even after four nights in the freezing cold, the engine started way you need to get yourself a 1986 or whatever this was

amazing and stranger than the fact that this car started immediately was that the undercarriage displayed almost no scratches which for a heavy car carrying five fully grown men. So this car is like packed to capacity. And it's a low car anyway. And on mountain terrain in the dark. That is totally remarkable. So authorities thought that either the driver had been impossibly careful on the road or whoever was driving knew the road so well that they knew where the potholes were and they managed to avoid them. Now, Jack Madruga, as we know, never let anyone else drive his car. And we also know that he didn't know that area at all. He hated camping, outdoors and the cold.

And he had never been to Plumas National Forest in his life until now. So the next step was a search. But getting a search party together in winter in the mountains is unsurprisingly quite difficult. But the authorities gave it a really good crack. They got in helicopters, horses, and 6,000 hours were put into the search. The families of the five men got together a reward of $2,600, but it didn't help. There were a few people who came forward, as always happens, claiming that they'd seen the five men in like Tampa or Toronto. But none of these places led anywhere because obviously they had made it up.

So after weeks, there were absolutely no leads. And the Uber 5 were still nowhere to be found. Nobody knew why the five men who hated camping the dark and being away from home would have driven 70 miles in the wrong direction into a national park in winter. We've had this conversation a few times. I think being from the UK, we take the weather for granted quite a lot. It's quite rare that we have such severe weather that people die. But in somewhere like the Sierra Nevada mountain range, it's dangerous. Like the weather is so severe that you're going to die. Yeah, if you're not not incredibly careful you don't know what you're doing but in the uk if you wandered into a forest in winter you would probably be okay

unless it was like ben nevis or something or snowden yeah i mean you're not just gonna like wander off like a national trust path and like end up dead like it's just not gonna happen yeah it's pretty unlikely i would say that's what gives it so much weight that these five men, four of whom have severe intellectual disabilities, abandon their car, which is the only thing protecting them from the weather, and apparently just walk into a forest full of snow in the dark. And the Sierra Nevada is like serious business. Yeah. It's Donner Party.

Exactly. Like where they all died. And they have maps in the car and they leave them in the car. And the car is still working and has petrol. So much of it doesn't make sense as to why they leave the car. What do you think of the fact

that the undercarriage is so undamaged? Do you think someone else was just driving or do you think that Jack was just driving very, very carefully? I don't know. I think they did enough of the mountain road that it's just astonishing that it wasn't damaged, especially full of men. Obviously, the only other person with a driving license is Gary.

I don't think Gary knows this road particularly well either. So I don't think it was him. So maybe there is a mythical sixth person who knows the road and he's the one that takes them. Maybe he was at the basketball game and they somehow fit him into this car and drive 70 miles. Everyone's crammed too many people into a car if you're just going to like the shop. But driving 70 miles with an overloaded car is pretty dangerous. And if he loved his car so much, he wouldn't have wanted to damage it. And that would definitely damage it.

I think even if they'd met someone at the basketball game who was like, I'll take you guys somewhere really cool. Let me drive the car. I'll take you. We'll all just like pile in and go. they had no idea you know that they were being driven in totally the wrong direction or something but i kind of don't buy that they're not that unaware of the situation and also like we know like we keep saying jack is very unlikely to have let someone else drive the car right unless he was threatened possibly possibly. That's the other idea. that they were able to avoid every single

rock or pothole if you're right driving someone else's car and you're like i don't know threatening this group of men and abducting them or whatever what the fuck do you give a shit if the undercarriage gets damaged exactly yeah why are you driving so carefully that you're preserving someone else's car like why would you care absolutely nobody could figure out why the group would have abandoned a perfectly functioning car and headed further into a frozen forest on foot. And if they left the game at 10pm and they've driven 70 miles, it must be almost midnight by the time they get out of the car. And they're afraid of the dark. And they're on mountain terrain.

Like, it could have been even later for you to drive 70 miles in that condition. Yeah, exactly. And even if you're not afraid of the dark that would be fucking scary presumably to carry on on foot you must think that is your only option and this is the thing it's like why is that the only option because like we said the car works exactly i don't understand and the sheriff of the area jim grant this gives you a really good idea of just how scary it is up there he's the sheriff of the area he knows the terrain inside out. And he said during the winter that the Uber 5 went missing, even he couldn't get down the mountain without a compass.

Here's an idea. I'm not sure how far I buy into it. The police and park rangers later figured out that a snowcat, like one of those big snow vehicles that like pushes snow out of the way, had carved a path into the snow on the 23rd of February around where the car was found. So it's possible, maybe, that the men thought that there were rangers around them who could help because they've seen this path in the snow. Maybe they walked off to try and find them.

But I still don't really understand why they got out of the car. And this is the thing, I just feel like even if you're not making good decisions, like, you know, let's get out of the car and wander off into the dark because we see this path. I just feel like fear would override anything like that. Like I get not wanting to split up, but in pure survival, survival sense, I don't know why the whole group would get out of the car. Surely you would send someone as a scout or maybe in pairs yeah i just think even if they hadn't been thinking that logically about it the fear would have been for me anyway fear would have been so overwhelming i'd have just wanted to stay in the car and been like we'll just wait until something yeah i would have stayed in the car and be like let's sleep until the sun comes up and figure it out exactly this is the thing it's like it feels too like something

was imminently forcing them forward to make a decision, make a decision, make a decision. And if there's five of you in a car, you ain't freezing to death. Like it's going to be fucking warm in there. And also like I wouldn't be that scared if I was in a car with five people. I'd just be like, look, let's just go to sleep and we'll figure it out in the morning. It'll be OK. And also, I do have to admit, when we were doing this and I was like reading your notes, I was like snow cat had carved a path what the fuck like what just a giant cat it was an ocelot it was Lancelot the ocelot luring them out of the car the thing is just like we sound the authorities were completely stumped they decided to do our very favorite thing and let some psychics have a go at tracing the men. My particular favourite was a person who is described as a, quote, body witcher, which is a great thing.

Great name. I love it. It's the name of my upcoming album. Body witcher. It's just like really intense drum and bass. I love it. I love it. And this body witcher character, well, he's particularly intriguing because he brought his very own magic

stick in an attempt to find the bodies of the men needless to say that um he was very unsuccessful but he had a go he told the police that um his magic stick could find human particles on stuff like kind of you know like water dredging like i think like this it's like an old romany thing where like if you've got i think it's a birch twig if if there's water underground yeah it'll it'll like shake when there's water i think it's a similar idea but with dead bodies yep that's his whole vibe is this magic stick will tell me where there are body bits but he doesn't really manage to help so there we go now they didn't just use one psychic they use multiple and another psychic told authorities that the men had been killed

in a two-storey red house in nearby Auroville, with the number 4723 or 4753. But, of course, neither of these houses existed. The gall, the absolute gall to be like, oh, I'm just going to make up some shit that is very easily unproven like outrageous how dare you this is the thing i this is the thing i don't understand it's like why lie about things that you can so easily be yeah proven wrong on it's very bizarre behavior there were no further leads after this and as the months passed sadly people sort of forgot about the missing men

until that is, June rolled around And the snow finally began to thaw And a group of what people refer to as, quote, weekend motorcyclists Reported an abandoned service trailer in the forest that absolutely stank I love the idea of weekend motorcyclists What does it mean? I think it's people like me who go to Asia And then have no business being on a motorbike And get on a motorbike and I think it's people like me who go to Asia and then have no

business being on a motorbike and get on a motorbike and then crash it and then cause all sorts of problems. Because yes, I did do that. And I have the stitches in my head to prove it. Yeah, they're like, they're not part of the Hells Angels. They're like weekend motorcyclists. Is it like those people who like if you're ever driving like in the country on a Sunday, and you just get stuck behind 75 cyclists all in Lycra I imagine it's like that but slightly less annoying because they're actually moving quite quickly this is the thing I think it's like when you go down the country roads and you see a bunch of like children on horses and you they're just like get out the fucking way like you shouldn't

be here but anyway these people are rather helpful in the fact that they do find this trailer and they do report it to the police because it stinks. So the park rangers thanked the bikers for their heads up and went to investigate the stinky trailer. And you probably know where this is going. And if you don't, then I don't think you understand you're listening to a true crime podcast. Because in the trailer, there was a bed. And in that bed was the rotting corpse of the eldest of the uber five group it was ted weher the trailer was 19 miles away from where the car was discovered ted had

clearly had a terrible time of it before he died once a heavyset guy he was now emaciated he lost somewhere in the region of a hundred pounds a hundred pounds That's like how much I weigh. That's fucking crazy. It's like an entire person. But it gets even more mad because there was plenty of food in the trailer. He could have fed himself and the rest of the group for a whole year, never mind just a few months. But only 31 cans of food had been opened. I do not understand.

This reminds me of like, you've obviously seen Seven. It reminds me of like the sloth guy. But why? There's food. He's not tied to the bed. We're going to find out. Sorry. No, you're right. Ignore that. The cans that had been opened had been opened using a military issue can opener called a P-38. And these things are a real pain in the ass to use. And only Jack Madruga and Gary Matias would have known how to use one, thanks to their army days. Why are they making secret can openers that only people who have been trained in the military know how to use? Because I think they're very small, and a normal can opener is quite big,

whereas this type of can opener is like the one on a Swiss army knife. You really have to stab it. Okay, I see. Fair. So, Ted's shoes were missing and his feet were so badly frostbitten that gangrene had set in and five of his toes had fallen off. His trousers were rolled up above the knee

and he was under 12 sheets when he was found. And it was determined from the growth of his beard that Ted had survived between four to six weeks before he finally died of exposure and a pulmonary edema. Here's another weird thing. There was a propane tank outside the trailer which would have heated the whole thing and plenty of paper to burn inside the trailer itself

but it appears that Ted didn't either. He hadn't even attempted to cover the window after he or someone else had broken into the trailer so he's just lying there in winter with an open window with all of the tools he needed to survive but not doing anything about it the propane tank would have heated the whole trailer and ted would have had a much better shot at survival and when we're talking about ted breaking the window or someone else we're saying someone else because not only were ted's shoes missing, Gary Mathias' tennis shoes were found in the trailer. So maybe they had swapped.

Ted had much bigger feet than Gary, but Ted was wearing much sturdier shoes, more suited to very difficult walking in a massive scary forest than tennis shoes are. So maybe Gary had said that he was going to go and get help and he needed better shoes for a better shot. I imagine they were all in quite a sorry state by that stage. had said that he was going to go and get help and he needed better shoes to for a better shot I imagine they're all in a quite a quite sorry state by that stage Ted's wallet was also found in the trailer still full of cash and there was a yellow watch that Ted's family said was not his and none of the families of the other men recognized the watch either here's my theory yes it's confounding that there's food and there's warmth and he doesn't do either thing about them but his feet are fucking falling off i think right that maybe god knows how long it took them to get to the trailer but they find the trailer maybe ted is the most injured out of

all of them and they say you lie down here we will go and they just don't come back possibly i can completely see if you're both of your legs are like consumed with gangrene you're not going to walk outside to turn on a propane tank are you and you're not going to walk into the cupboard to like feed yourself you're just going to wait for your mates to come back and help you that's true that does make the most sense of all of it it's just how quickly does frostbite and gangrene sort of spread i guess like you said we don't know how long it took them to get there maybe he was already in that state by the time they put him into that bed, in which case they just didn't realize that he wasn't able to move or walk and they left him. And he starved to death,

surrounded by food. Good point. He was hip hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses.

I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is the rise and fall of Diddy. Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life.

I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus.

In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came

across purely by chance but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding and this time if all goes to plan we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Two days after the trailer discovery, the bodies of Jack Madruga and Bill Sterling were found eight miles closer to the car than Ted's body on the opposite side of the mountain. Jack Madruga had been pulled apart by animals.

He still had the car keys in his pocket. The coroner ruled that he had died of exposure. So don't worry, he wasn't attacked by animals when he was alive. He dies of exposure. I think I'd rather be attacked by animals. That's a quicker way to go than death by exposure. Oh, I don't know. But in that cold, I i feel like don't you just sort of fall asleep and die i think it's a pretty long time before you just fall asleep and die i just can't imagine the fear like there's

been very few times in my life where i have been like shit i think i'm in serious trouble now like this genuinely might be the way i go out oh yeah, yeah. I've been there. And I feel like that feeling is so consuming. And just to feel like that, like completely on your own, on the side of a mountain when your feet are falling off. Oh, God, I can't even. Oh, what a feeling. Horrible.

No, it's true. And like I said to you when we were on tour, I've been watching The Terror. If anyone's not been watching it, I'd recommend it. It's very good. Oh, shit. I forgot about that.

Yeah, no, I'm going to watch it. People freezing to death. Good show. Good show. So that's Jack's story. And as for Bill, there were only bones left by the time that they found him. So no cause of death has ever really been agreed on for him. So that leaves us now, because we can account for Ted,

we can account for Jack, and we can account for Bill. That leaves us with Jack Hewitt, so Jack number two, and Gary Mateus, who is still missing. Two days after Jack Madruga and Bill were found, Jack Hewitt's dad went against all advice and continued to look for his son on the mountain. And on the 8th of June, he found his son's jacket near the trailer where Ted had died. And as he picked up the jacket, his son's spine fell out. What Ted had died and as he picked up the jacket his son's spine fell out. What a shock though. I mean yeah you would be. Wow. Then his skull was eventually

found about 50 feet away. The body of Gary Mateus has still never been found which obviously makes a lot of people think that this was all his fault that this dangerous paranoid schizophrenic planned the whole thing and took advantage of his intellectually challenged friends that he had groomed at the gateway centre but like why? Yeah I'm not sure how on board I am with that but let's see what evidence we have before I completely spunk my load on this one Gary's tennis shoes were in the trailer

he would have known how to use the difficult army can opener he had a history of violence and he had walked long distances because he felt like were in the trailer. He would have known how to use the difficult army can opener. He had a history of violence and he had walked long distances because he felt like it in the past. So that's all the pro column of why this might be all his fault. But he did have all of his mental health issues under control when he went missing. His doctor called him one of their, quote, sterling success cases. So he had not taken his medication with him to the basketball game in chico but surely that was because he thought he was going home the same day i would be more worried if he'd taken it with him because he's like i'm out for the night but then on the other hand in

1978 a police interviewed a friend of gary's who described him as a quote very violent person who hated women and there's another theory theory that Gary had friends in Forbes Town, which is basically the halfway mark between Chico and Yuba. So maybe he persuaded the rest of the group to stop off on their way back from the game and then they got lost and ended up on the mountain. And then they panicked and abandoned the car, got hopelessly lost, separated and died. And there are a lot of things I like about that theory, but who goes to visit their friends at 10 o'clock at night? And also, those particular friends in Forbes Town hadn't seen Gary in over a year.

So it would have been very peculiar for him to drop in on them so late at night with his four mates. The only thing I can think like, who do you visit that late at night? Drug dealers. But that's making so many assumptions. It's making an assumption that Gary is totally fucking relapsing into his like substance abuse problems. He's got some drug dealer mates that he knows lives up in Forbes town. He goes to a basketball game and then convinces his like four mates to drive them there so he can buy something. But it seems very far to get some meth. I mean, yeah. I don't think I like the Forbes town theory that much just because I think it's, I don't think that he was back on the substance abuse train. But like, if he was, for example,

he would have known someone in Uber. It seems completely bizarre that he would concoct this plan of like, I'm going to go to this basketball game and then I'm going to make these people that like, don't really like me drive 50 miles the wrong way so I can go and pick up. Yeah. I mean, I don't particularly like that

either. And I think it's like we said, we're having to make a lot of assumptions about Gary that have never been solidified at all. So about three weeks after the Uber 5 went missing, a lady called Debbie Lynn Reese received a very odd phone call. So the man on the other end of the line said, quote, I know where the missing five men are. The next day, he rang again and said, quote, I need help because I really hurt those guys bad. And again the next day.

And this time he said, quote, Those five guys are dead. They're all dead. This could have been quite an interesting lead. But if Ted's beard is anything to go by, the Uber 5 were not dead at the time that this call was made. Because remember, Ted's beard indicated that he had survived like between four to six weeks. So by the time this call's coming in, this person telling them that

they're already dead, we know that Ted probably wasn't. So let's go back to Joe Schoen's sighting on the night that the five went missing. If we assume that he was really the last person to see the men alive, who was the woman and the baby that they were with? Had the group gone to meet a mysterious woman in the mountains? Possibly. However, I'm not sure we can put much stock in anything at all that Joe Shones says. He had just had a heart attack and by his own admission, he was hallucinating. But having said that, but saying that, the Mercury Montego was exactly where Joe had said it would be. I don't know how I feel about Joe, man. Like the car being where he said it was fine.

But he sees that in the morning when he's slightly recovered and he's walking down i think seeing a group of men with a woman and a baby in the forest in the middle of the night when you're by your own admission hallucinating i don't know man like i'm not sure we can say that he was the last person to see them alive no i don't think so either and i think seeing people like he was desperate he was fucking stark he was having a heart attack he's in freezing cold he was probably hallucinating seeing people and like you said he yelled at them and they didn't even look at him like i don't know yeah i agree with you yeah so ted weir's family are still convinced that the men saw something at the basketball game that night in february 78 which prompted them to go to the mountains maybe they were being chased by someone but the police were never able to ascertain if the men were pursued

on the mountain and if they were being pursued on the mountain they would have been driving pretty quickly and the car would have been damaged. Exactly. Jack Madruga's family told the Washington Post that they are convinced that some mysterious force made the men change their course. Jack's mum said quote we know good and well that someone made them do it. She remains positive that Jack would never have abandoned his car certainly not leaving the window open she said to the la times i think she said i am positive that he never went up there on his own he was either tricked or threatened many people believe that it was gary who was doing the tricking and or the threatening but i don't really understand why like he definitely is the odd one out of the group i can see why people automatically go to

this must be his fault because on top of the fact that he's different to the rest of them his body has never been found and he has a history of violence and he's not intellectually disabled like the others blah blah blah however even though his body hasn't been found and finding bodies on a mountain like that is probably quite difficult. I don't think that Gary is alive. And undersheriff Jack Beecham agrees with me. Gary had left his medication at his house in Yuba. So if he was on the mountain, he was on it without any medication. And given his track record, he would have found it extremely difficult

to stay out of trouble if he was off his medication and alive. And even though Gary had walked long distances before, like we said, surviving solo on a mountain like the Sierra Nevadas in deepest winter, surrounded by between eight to ten feet of snow, would have been an impossible task even for the hardiest soldier. And even when he did go on his long like shoelace express journeys, he always came home to his parents. He was definitely in the cabin. We know that because his shoes were there. So like we said, perhaps he took Ted's sturdier shoes

and went off to find help and died on the way. I find it easier to understand why Ted didn't turn on the propane tank because his feet were literally falling off. He would have been terrified and in agony. Perhaps walking outside to turn on the propane tank because his feet were literally falling off. He would have been terrified and in agony. Perhaps walking outside to turn on the propane tank was just more than he could manage by the time that he had got to the trailer. So perhaps Ted had wrapped himself up in the bed, waited for his friends to return and just given up. Maybe the other men all went to find help and that would explain why 31 cans of food were gone from the trailer. Maybe they split up and all died of exposure on their quest to help their most injured friend, Ted.

For me, I can understand everything that happens when they get on the mountain, apart from the mystery watch that doesn't belong to any of them. But that trailer was abandoned. Someone else was in it before them. It could have been anyone. It's like, how many people will have stayed in there? Exactly. Like, there's a propane tank that works outside it's somebody was there before them there's all that food right so like i can kind of even ignore

the watch i'm definitely ignoring joe shones the biggest mystery for me is why they drove east in the first place and why they got out of the car everything that happens after that point i can kind of square away it's just that initial decision to drive in the wrong direction and abandon the car that I just cannot explain I completely agree I think we've been able to give pretty reasonable answers for what happened when they were in that situation I think you're totally right Ted is the most injured they get to the trailer one by one they're sort of going out to... I think Gary probably went first. And then when he didn't come back, the next one went, the next one went, the next one went.

And Ted stayed in bed. And eventually just died. Yeah, maybe it was like a hint of Kifex situation where they're all in the trailer and then someone doesn't come back. So another one goes to find them, they don't come back. And then it's like one after the other after the other. I don't think we can even put too much stock.

Was it Jack and Bill, their bodies being found so close together because they were being dragged around by wild animals? They could have been anywhere. I don't think it's that mysterious how they met their demise. It's why they met their demise, why they got out of the car, why they drove in totally the wrong direction in the first place, why they abandoned the car that was working and still had enough petrol in it. None of that makes any sense. I do kind of agree with Jack's mum that they were tricked or threatened. I think more likely tricked. And Beecham, the

undersheriff, is convinced that Gary did have something to do with getting the men onto the mountain. He just has no idea what that something was. And this case has never been far from Jack Beecham's mind in his 50 years working in law enforcement. He spent more time with this mystery than anyone else and all he could come up with was that the case of the Uber 5 was quote bizarre as hell. And no matter how many YouTube clips we watch I'm really not sure that I can do any better than that. Honestly, I just don't know. No, nor do I, nor do I.

Absolutely not as to why they left. Exactly, yeah. So there you go, Yuba 5, mystery, mystery. We haven't done mystery in fucking ages. Happy mysteries. And God, we're already two weeks into October. This is crazy. What's going on?

This is nuts. Oh God. And October is a very long month. We've got five Thursdays in October. Oh, bloody hell. Lucky you. Yeah. And double trouble in the last week.

Exactly. Double trouble. Those of you who listened to the end, you all know what that means already. So I'm not going to tell you again. But anyway, so if you guys would like to, you can come and follow us on Red Handed, the pod, on all the different social medias. Like we said, I don't think we said it before we started recording, Hannah and I are going to Crete next week, which is going to be super exciting. We'll probably be

there while this is coming out. We'll be in Crete when this comes out. We're in Crete. Hey, we're in Crete. Come follow us on social media and you can look at some random Instagrams of us in Crete because that will be fun. I'm going to have so much classics time. I know. Lots of ruins for Hannah. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. So you can do that. And if you would like to support the show, you can also do that by going to buy some

merch at redhandedshop.com. And you can also support the show on patreon.com slash redhanded. And here are lots and lots and lots of lovely people who have done that. So thank you very much. Meg Peters, Elisa Rios, Laura Sarah Herbert, Manuela Dasinger, Charlene Sneddon, C. Evans, Alicia, Carly Cash, Becky Smith, Nigel LaRue, Tasha, Robert Crackles, that's a great surname, Love it. Erica Berg. Star Lauren Sokolowski. Okay. Elle Clifford. Kristen Buford.

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Sarah Parrott. Erin Norton. Roxanne Koopman. Ellie Burian. Carrie. Vicky Prigden, Jessie Leanne Aikerman, Tessa, Abby Metcalf. What did I say?

Oh. Whoa. Tessa Leanne Aikerman, Abby Metcalf, Donnybrook71, Michaela Q. Yes, all right. Joel Cardinal, Alex Alex O Ashley Heller Oh, maybe that's another of the Cody Hellers Emma Maringott Tatiana Larson

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But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder.

Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts.

But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today.