Episode Transcript
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0:01
What is going on true crime
0:04
fans?
0:14
I'm your
0:16
host Heath and I'm your host Daphne and
0:18
you're listening to Going Less. Hello
0:21
everybody. Today's case was recommended
0:24
by CJ, Cassie, Judy,
0:26
Kaylee and Sarah. Thank
0:29
you all. We discussed this one briefly in
0:31
episode 316 on the
0:33
California Missing Five and we got a lot
0:35
of feedback from you guys that you wanted us to cover the
0:37
whole story and for good reason
0:40
because this story is just so
0:42
perplexing.
0:43
Yeah, it's definitely one of those cases
0:46
that kind of almost
0:47
has like a mystery to it. Oh,
0:50
there's a huge mystery. Huge mystery. Yeah,
0:52
I should say that. But I've been wanting to cover this case for
0:55
so long, so I'm so glad that you guys want to hear
0:57
it and that you guys recommended it. So let's
0:59
do it. All right, guys, this is episode 334
1:01
of Going West, so let's get into it.
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3:07
In February
3:07
of 1978 a
3:10
group of five men went missing in
3:12
the lush wilderness of Northern California
3:15
while on their way home from a college basketball
3:17
game.
3:20
After the snow melted in June four
3:23
of their bodies were recovered scattered
3:26
miles from their abandoned car.
3:29
As for the fifth member of their group he
3:32
mysteriously vanished altogether.
3:36
As their causes of deaths were revealed
3:38
police wondered what had driven the
3:40
men into the forest in the first
3:43
place and why things
3:45
unfolded the way they did. These
3:51
are the stories of Ted Weir,
3:54
Jack Madruga, Bill Sterling,
3:57
Jackie Hewitt and Gary Mathias.
4:01
Also known as the Yuba
4:03
County Five.
4:26
On the evening of Friday, February
4:28
24th, 1978, five friends were en route to a basketball game
4:34
excited for what should have been a routine
4:37
night out. All five
4:39
men resided in Yuba City and
4:41
Marysville in Northern California,
4:43
just north of Sacramento. They
4:46
were headed up to Chico, California, which
4:48
is about an hour away for a basketball
4:50
game between Chico State University and
4:53
the University of California Davis,
4:55
the latter of which they were rooting for. Four
4:59
of the men had slight developmental disabilities
5:01
and the fifth was navigating a mental health condition
5:04
but none of them let that deter
5:06
them from living fulfilling lives. But
5:08
sadly, the public didn't see it that way.
5:11
The way they were presented in the media could definitely
5:13
be considered quite derogatory.
5:17
Although their conditions do have some bearing
5:19
on the story, they're human beings
5:22
and reportedly wonderful human beings
5:24
who had some incredibly bizarre and tragic
5:26
things happen to them, as we're going to
5:28
get into. The five friends
5:31
originally met at a local vocational
5:34
rehabilitation center called the Gateway
5:36
Projects and all of them were passionate
5:38
about sports, particularly basketball,
5:41
and played together on the Gateway Projects
5:43
basketball team called the Gateway Gators.
5:46
And they had become quite skilled as a
5:48
team and they took their competition very
5:51
seriously.
5:52
The group was affectionately referred to
5:54
by their families as the boys. And
5:57
so we're going to call them the boys, even though they were young men.
5:59
They all had varying degrees of
6:02
capability to care for themselves, but
6:04
at the time, all five of them lived
6:06
at home with their families.
6:08
So let's talk about these fine gentlemen.
6:11
So Theodore Weir, who went by Ted,
6:14
is remembered for his kindness and openness
6:16
with everyone whose path he crossed.
6:19
One report called him, quote, friendly
6:22
and a trusting child's way, and
6:24
said that he, quote, waved at strangers and
6:26
brooded for hours if they did not wave
6:28
back. He held odd jobs
6:31
on and off as a janitor and an attendant
6:33
at a snack bar, and some believed that
6:35
he would now be considered to be on the autism
6:38
spectrum.
6:39
While he was friendly and sociable, his
6:41
family worried that he lacked common sense
6:43
that came naturally to others at his age.
6:46
And he was also reportedly not skilled
6:48
at managing his money, so his parents preferred
6:50
for him to stay home with them instead
6:52
of working. Though he was gregarious
6:55
and inquisitive, his family remembers that
6:57
he couldn't understand why cars needed to stop
6:59
at a stop sign and required an explanation
7:02
beyond that it was just for the safety of others
7:04
on the road.
7:06
And because of this, he was not permitted
7:08
to drive.
7:10
At the time of his disappearance, he
7:12
was 32 years old, making him the
7:14
oldest person in this group. Now,
7:17
he was friends with all four of the other guys,
7:19
but especially close to 24-year-old
7:22
Jackie Hewitt.
7:23
Now, Jackie was described by his family
7:26
simply as slow and had
7:28
unspecified physical and mental disabilities,
7:31
and he was believed to have an IQ of about 40.
7:34
Now, for reference, the average IQ score in
7:36
the United States is around 100. Jackie
7:39
also apparently had severe anxiety
7:42
around making phone calls, but luckily
7:44
his good buddy Ted was there to step in
7:46
and do the talking for him much of the time.
7:49
And it was sweet, because he was described as Ted's
7:51
loving shadow. Jackie
7:54
was shy and a homebody, but he
7:56
loved to spend time with his tight circle of
7:58
friends. Again, especially
8:00
Ted. 30-year-old
8:03
Jack Madruga was the only one
8:05
of the five who had never been formally
8:07
diagnosed with a disability but was described
8:09
by his mom as bashful and a slow
8:12
learner.
8:13
After graduating from high school, Jack
8:15
enlisted in the army, and upon his return
8:18
to Yuba City, he started working for the
8:20
Sunsuite Growers Farm, which was
8:22
based there.
8:23
At the time of his disappearance, he
8:26
had just been laid off, but
8:28
more than anything, Jack was very
8:30
passionate about cars, and his
8:33
prized possession was a 1969 turquoise and white
8:36
mercury Montego, which he
8:38
had actually been driving the night that the men
8:41
disappeared. And he was
8:43
reportedly so proud of his car that
8:45
he wouldn't allow anyone else to
8:47
drive it.
8:48
Jack was especially
8:50
close with William Sterling, who went by
8:53
Bill.
8:54
Now, 29-year-old Bill was deeply
8:56
religious and loved to volunteer at the local
8:58
hospital, mostly reading religious texts
9:01
to patients. Bill struggled
9:03
with a learning disability and was described
9:05
as intellectually disabled, but
9:08
he was remembered as being incredibly
9:10
friendly and warm, but a bit of a hermit,
9:13
and he just loved staying close to home.
9:15
He was holding down a job as a dishwasher
9:17
before he went missing, but according
9:20
to his mom, this is going to piss all of us off.
9:23
He was kind of being taken advantage of
9:26
by his coworkers, and they would steal his
9:28
money while he was tending
9:30
to his work duties,
9:31
which is just beyond awful. So
9:34
to keep him safe, his mom just asked him to
9:36
resign from his position there because she just
9:38
didn't want people to continue to mess with him and
9:40
be as cruel as they were.
9:42
That's just so messed up. I literally
9:44
wish I had a time machine so I could go back in
9:46
time and slap those coworkers in the face.
9:48
God, I hate bullies.
9:50
Why would somebody do that? Yeah, and especially
9:52
to somebody that has learning disabilities,
9:55
that's just...
9:56
It's never okay, but it's especially
9:58
not okay in this case.
9:59
So 25 year old
10:02
Gary Mathias, who is the
10:04
final member of the five, had
10:07
been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
10:10
After graduating from high school, he, like
10:12
Jack, enlisted in the army. And
10:14
while stationed in Germany and struggling with
10:16
his mental health, Gary started experimenting
10:19
with drugs and drinking heavily.
10:22
Now, this addiction landed him in a psychiatric
10:25
discharge and he was sent back to the United
10:27
States where he was evaluated and
10:29
then diagnosed with schizophrenia.
10:32
So for the next three years, Gary spent
10:34
time at intermittent inpatient psychiatric
10:37
facilities. And according to Gary's stepfather,
10:40
his brain, quote, went haywire during
10:42
this time.
10:43
In one case during a stint at a facility
10:46
in Oregon, so not too far from his home
10:48
in Northern California, Gary is said
10:50
to have escaped and walked 500 miles or 800
10:53
kilometers back home to
10:56
Yuba city. Although
10:58
this has never been confirmed, this story
11:00
is always discussed in conjunction with
11:02
Gary Mathias.
11:03
Under
11:06
the weight of his new diagnosis, he struggled
11:08
with angry outbursts and was twice
11:11
charged with assault.
11:13
That said, in the two years before he disappeared,
11:15
he seemed like he was on a better path
11:17
while under a doctor's care
11:19
and started taking stelazine and cogentin.
11:23
So after regulating his symptoms with medication,
11:26
he was able to live without incident and
11:28
Gary was regarded as the most responsible
11:30
of his group of friends and therefore he
11:32
became like basically the de facto leader
11:34
here.
11:36
On the evening of February 24th, 1978, the men headed north
11:38
to Chico State University,
11:40
which
11:42
was a journey that would take just about an hour
11:45
like Daphne said.
11:47
Ted's grandma remember telling him that she thought
11:49
that he should bring a coat, but
11:51
Ted respectfully declined telling her that
11:53
he wouldn't need it because even though it was winter,
11:56
it was California and it wasn't going to get too cold
11:58
where they were going.
11:59
So around 6.30pm, the
12:02
five of them set out in Jack's Mercury, Montigo,
12:05
as Jack always was the driver of the group.
12:07
Now, hours later, they left
12:10
Chico State University around 10pm,
12:12
and they were in very good spirits after a win for
12:14
their team.
12:16
They then drove to a nearby grocery store
12:18
called Bear's Market, situated
12:20
just three blocks away.
12:22
And reportedly, I guess this cashier
12:25
was annoyed as he was trying to close up the
12:27
shop for the night and didn't really want to help any more
12:29
customers.
12:30
But still, the men purchased a Hostess
12:32
brand cherry pie, a
12:33
Langendorf brand lemon pie,
12:36
one Snickers bar, one marathon
12:39
bar, two bottles of Pepsi,
12:41
and a quart
12:41
and a half of milk. It's a good time if
12:43
you ask me. Sounds like a great time. So,
12:46
they were just ready to enjoy some yummy late
12:48
night treats on the drive home to celebrate. And
12:51
that is where the mystery begins.
12:55
Inexplicably, the boys
12:57
drove about 60 miles, or 90
13:00
kilometers, into the woods,
13:03
passing their turn off for their homes in Yuba
13:05
City and Marysville, and landing
13:07
them in Plumas National Forest,
13:10
which is in the mountains near the border of Nevada.
13:13
This journey would have taken them at least an hour
13:16
and 15 minutes, so just over
13:18
what it would have taken to get home. But
13:20
they were nowhere near home.
13:23
And it's weird because to get home to Yuba
13:25
City from Chico, even in 1978, they
13:28
would have needed to take major highways
13:30
home. But to get to this national forest,
13:32
almost half of their drive would have been
13:35
on a forested highway. So, a very
13:37
different landscape and visible difference
13:39
from the road that they had taken up to Chico
13:42
on the way there. And in a totally
13:44
different direction. And I'm going to put a map on
13:46
our socials if anybody wants a visual
13:48
of that.
13:49
Yeah, I mean, that's one of the strangest things,
13:51
is that it was in the complete opposite direction.
13:53
Yeah, and this is, like you said, where the mystery
13:55
begins. This is the first weird thing,
13:57
is why did they go this way?
13:59
So meanwhile, their families
14:02
waited anxiously for them to return home
14:04
after the game. But none of the boys were
14:06
known to venture off on their own at all. And
14:09
they all had a basketball game the next morning
14:11
with their adult league, again, the Gateway
14:13
Gators, that they never
14:15
would have missed. So when they didn't come home
14:18
on time, it was very confusing.
14:20
Like they had been preparing for the game for
14:22
weeks. And they were even in the running to
14:24
qualify for an all expenses paid trip
14:26
to Los Angeles if they won this tournament
14:29
that the game was part of. And as we've
14:31
made clear, they absolutely loved
14:33
basketball. And they were extremely
14:35
excited to play this game. Like one of the boys even
14:38
laid out his uniform before heading
14:40
to the Chico State game. And he told
14:42
his mom, quote, we got a big game Saturday.
14:44
Don't you let me oversleep.
14:46
That's just really sweet. And
14:48
you said that I know they were so excited. So
14:51
when,
14:52
you know, they didn't come home, their family
14:54
just knew that they would not miss their
14:56
game on purpose. So they were just
14:59
baffled and completely concerned
15:01
right away.
15:02
The following morning, so more than 12
15:05
hours after they had departed for the basketball
15:07
game in Chico, Jack's mom called
15:09
the police to report her son missing.
15:12
But because he was an adult, they encouraged
15:15
her to wait another 24 hours suggesting that he
15:18
had taken off for the evening of his own volition
15:21
and that he would be back later that day.
15:23
You guys know the drill. But their parents
15:26
knew better. Around five
15:28
o'clock that morning, Ted's mom had woken
15:30
up to check that he had gotten home okay, but
15:32
she found his bed empty. So
15:34
she called Bill's mom who said that she had been
15:36
up all night waiting for Bill to return
15:39
and that she hadn't heard a word from him.
15:42
Bill's mother had already called Jack's mom
15:45
by this time. And Ted's mom spoke
15:47
with both Jackie's mom and Gary's
15:49
stepfather. And no one
15:51
heard from their sons.
15:53
By 8 p.m. that evening, they
15:56
convinced the police to take missing persons
15:58
reports for their sons just not to be
15:59
knowing that something was very wrong
16:02
here.
16:03
But let's move back into the woods for a moment.
16:05
So a local forest ranger named Willard
16:07
Burce came upon an empty Mercury
16:10
Montego on the side of a snowy road
16:12
in the Plumas National Forest.
16:15
Assuming that it was a hiker or skier who
16:17
had left it there for the day and was coming back for
16:19
it, he didn't think twice originally. But
16:22
on February 28th, so
16:24
four days after the men disappeared and
16:27
three
16:27
days after Willard discovered the car,
16:30
he saw the report of the missing five on the news
16:32
and realized that the Mercury Montego may
16:35
be connected to this case.
16:37
Now the car was found on the side of an unpaved
16:40
road near Rogers Cow Camp, which
16:42
is a campground in a remote part of the Plumas National
16:44
Forest at an elevation of over 4,500
16:46
feet.
16:49
The campground was closed in the winter,
16:51
but was known to have visitors engaging in
16:54
cross-country skiing, hiking,
16:56
and snowshoeing, despite the harsh
16:58
weather.
16:59
However, it was not common for cars
17:01
to sit there overnight.
17:03
So Willard reported his discovery to the police
17:05
who came to check out the car immediately.
17:08
And when they did, it
17:10
was positively identified as
17:12
Jack's car. They
17:14
processed the car for fingerprints and blood,
17:17
but no evidence of foul play was found.
17:20
One of the rear windows had been left open
17:23
and the remnants of the snacks from Bear's Market
17:25
were still inside.
17:27
Everything had been consumed except for half
17:30
of the Marathon Bar, which is a now
17:32
discontinued chocolate caramel candy bar.
17:35
So inside the glove box were multiple
17:37
maps, including a map of the United States
17:40
and also a map of California, because
17:42
remember, it is 1978, so no GPS here. The
17:46
car was in a snow drift or a
17:48
large mound of snow,
17:50
but it could have been easily freed with the five
17:52
men working at it.
17:54
The keys to the car were missing, but police
17:56
were able to hotwire it to get it started. And
17:58
with this, they uncovered it. It uncovered that it worked
18:01
perfectly fine and even still
18:03
had a quarter tank of gas in it. So
18:05
why they stopped and where they went was
18:08
an immediate mystery.
18:11
Dressing for the mild temperatures of a northern
18:13
California winter,
18:14
none of the boys were equipped with any
18:16
clothing to withstand the freezing temperatures
18:19
of the mountains.
18:20
And like I had mentioned before, they didn't even bring
18:22
any coats because they were only going to be sitting
18:24
inside of a basketball game and then sitting
18:26
inside of a car for an hour drive.
18:29
Angeli police observed
18:31
that the undercarriage of the car was
18:34
in pristine condition,
18:36
which is a feat that would have been nearly impossible
18:39
to accomplish given the rocky
18:41
snowy terrain and the pothole
18:43
laden dirt road that they would have driven on to
18:46
get to the spot where the car was parked.
18:49
There were no dents, scratches or
18:51
mud even though the muffler had
18:53
been low to the ground and there were five grown
18:55
men in the car.
18:57
But Jack's parents say that he cared
18:59
so much for that car
19:01
that he had likely made great efforts
19:04
not to damage it. His
19:06
parents also maintain that he wouldn't have let
19:08
anyone else drive the car. According
19:11
to the Washington Post report of the discovery,
19:14
quote, the driver had either used
19:17
astonishing care and precision,
19:19
the investigators figured, or else he
19:21
knew the road well enough to anticipate every
19:24
rut. But his family said that
19:26
Jack hated camping and hated
19:29
being out in the cold and that he was completely
19:31
unfamiliar with that area. So he would
19:34
not have known to, you know,
19:36
anticipate every rut as they say. Sure.
19:39
According to their families, none of them knew
19:41
that region and most didn't
19:44
care to be away from home, especially in
19:46
such harsh conditions. Like there would be no
19:48
reason for it. So why did
19:50
they go up there and where did they end
19:53
up? This canvassed
19:55
the immediate vicinity expanding gradually,
19:58
but when they found no sign of
19:59
Investigators called off the search a
20:02
month later on March 30th, 1978, pending new information.
20:08
With the snow, the cold weather, and
20:10
the inaccessible wilderness, there was very
20:12
little that the police could do to continue their
20:14
efforts at that time, and they were just
20:17
so stumped that they even consulted psychics.
20:20
One claimed that the boys had been abducted and taken
20:23
to either Arizona or Nevada,
20:25
and another claimed that they were murdered in
20:27
Oroville, California, which is about an hour
20:29
southwest of where they abandoned their
20:32
car.
20:33
According to that psychic, the
20:35
boys were murdered inside a two-story
20:37
red-colored house with a gravel
20:39
driveway, but nothing ever came
20:42
of these claims, and you're going to see why. On
20:45
the day that their car was searched, the area
20:47
got 9 inches of snow, so
20:50
even with snowmobiles, police
20:52
really struggled to turn up any sign of the
20:54
missing men. And it would take
20:57
months before new information came
20:59
in, but in the late spring of 1978, another
21:03
discovery was made.
21:05
This one far more shocking
21:08
and horrifying than the last.
21:10
On Sunday, June
21:13
4th, 1978, a group of motorcyclists
21:16
out for a ride stumbled upon a Forest
21:18
Service trailer near the Daniel
21:20
Zink campground.
21:22
Noticing a shattered window, they
21:24
got closer to inspect the damage,
21:27
but inside on a bunkbed,
21:30
they found the remains of an adult
21:32
man. It was Ted
21:35
Weir.
21:52
Thanks for watching guys! Before
22:03
that quick break, Daphne was telling
22:05
us that months after the boys went missing,
22:08
in June of 1978,
22:10
some motorcyclists came across a trailer
22:13
near a campground in Plumas National Forest,
22:16
and inside was the body of
22:18
Ted Weir.
22:20
The trailer that housed Ted's body was
22:22
thick with the smell of decomposition.
22:25
He had been left on the bottom bunk of two
22:27
bunk beds, and his body had been wrapped
22:30
tightly in eight sheets, as
22:32
if he were some sort of mummy.
22:35
In an autopsy performed the next day,
22:38
the medical examiner determined that his cause of
22:40
death was starvation and
22:42
hypothermia.
22:44
But shockingly, he had been alive
22:46
for months before his
22:48
body was discovered.
22:50
In the evening that the men disappeared, Ted
22:53
had no facial hair.
22:54
But judging by the amount of outgrowth in
22:56
his beard, he had been alive for between 8
23:00
to 13 weeks after his disappearance,
23:03
meaning that he may have died just shortly before
23:05
he was discovered. That's just crazy.
23:08
Such a wild fact. And just really sad
23:10
to realize that, that he was
23:13
there while his parents and all the
23:15
other parents were searching, just
23:17
tirelessly in that area and he was right there
23:19
alive?
23:20
Well that also meant that
23:22
as investigators combed the area for any
23:24
clues, he was actually alive, waiting
23:27
to be found in a nearby trailer.
23:30
So Ted had lost about 100 pounds
23:32
since he disappeared, and he had ganged
23:34
green and his feet were badly frostbitten.
23:37
But his shoes were nowhere to be found. I
23:39
mean that's crazy too, just knowing within that
23:41
time, he's just alive and losing 100
23:45
pounds from starvation. Like that's
23:47
horrible
23:48
to think about. Exactly, and
23:50
instead of his shoes being found,
23:52
instead it was actually Gary's that
23:54
had been left in their place.
23:57
But the most curious detail found at the
23:59
trailer was that it was fully
24:01
stocked for residents. Though
24:03
Ted had clearly been freezing, there was
24:05
a broken window that he didn't attempt to fix.
24:08
And inside the trailer were matches, firewood,
24:12
butane, propane tanks for heating,
24:14
and even clothing for extreme winter. Just
24:17
so bizarre.
24:18
But despite those supplies, it appeared
24:20
that he had never lit a fire. One
24:23
investigating officer, Yuba County Lieutenant
24:26
Lance Ayers, had actually gone
24:28
to high school with Ted,
24:29
and he took a special interest in finding the boys
24:31
when they disappeared.
24:33
But the authorities were stumped as to why
24:35
none of the resources in the trailer had been used.
24:38
Lance said, quote, no one had touched
24:40
the propane tank in another shed outside either.
24:43
All they had to do was turn that gas on, and
24:45
they'd have gas to the trailer and heat. Well,
24:48
here's another really bizarre
24:51
detail. So although Ted had starved
24:53
to death, there was a pantry
24:55
fully stocked with food. In
24:58
fact, there was enough food to have kept
25:00
all five men alive for
25:02
a year.
25:04
Oh my God. But only 12
25:06
cans of food had been emptied and they were
25:09
discarded on the floor. Whereas all this
25:11
other food was just
25:12
like in the cabinets, just right
25:14
there. And again, if they had been there for weeks,
25:17
you would imagine they would have found it. You
25:19
know, it's just,
25:20
the whole thing is just so weird. Or they would have
25:22
eaten more, you know, throughout that time. So
25:24
upon the discovery of Ted's body,
25:27
investigators set off to find the rest
25:29
of the men, wondering if at one time
25:32
they'd all been in the trailer together.
25:35
Ted's frostbitten feet may
25:37
have been the result of trying to seek help or
25:39
looking for the other men, but it's also possible
25:41
that Gary had gone out to get help and
25:44
had maybe like swapped out shoes
25:46
because Ted's were bigger and Gary's
25:49
feet had swollen from frostbite.
25:51
They believe that this pointed
25:53
to the conclusion that at the very least,
25:56
Ted and Gary had both made
25:58
it to the trailer.
25:59
But if only they did,
26:01
how did they get separated from the others and why
26:04
did they exit Jack's car in the first
26:06
place? The
26:08
broken window of the trailer had also been
26:10
too small for Ted Weir to climb
26:12
through, so someone else must have let him
26:14
in.
26:15
But with no sign of the other boys,
26:18
it was really hard to figure out exactly who had
26:20
been in the trailer and what happened. So
26:22
investigators fanned out from the trailer,
26:25
which was as many as 20 miles
26:27
or 32 kilometers from
26:30
where the car had been found. Sources
26:33
vary on this, but the most we found said 20
26:35
miles. And if it was 20 miles,
26:38
that means that it would have taken them at least 10 hours
26:41
on foot
26:43
to reach this area. Yeah, that's a long
26:46
walk, especially in the snow.
26:47
Absolutely. And without the proper
26:49
clothes. So the distance between
26:52
where their car was abandoned and the
26:54
Daniel Zink campground, which is near
26:56
where the trailer was situated, is 11 miles
26:59
or 17 kilometers via the access
27:01
road. However, it's likely that they
27:04
did not walk along the road together
27:06
and took a longer way through the woods because they
27:09
probably didn't know where they were or where the road
27:11
would have been.
27:12
The day after Ted's remains
27:14
were confirmed to belong to him, the
27:17
remains of two more men
27:19
were found
27:20
on Tuesday, June 6th, 1978. The
27:24
bodies of Jack Madruga
27:26
and Bill Sterling were recovered.
27:29
Now the two were found very
27:32
near to each other on opposite sides of
27:34
a dirt canyon road, just a few
27:36
miles from where the car had been abandoned.
27:40
Jack's remains had been greatly diminished
27:42
by animals and he lay face up near
27:44
a stream of water, still clutching
27:47
his watch in his right hand. Bill
27:50
was nearby and only his bones
27:53
remained. And like the precise location
27:55
of the trailer, the distance between
27:57
the bodies and the car has been widely
27:59
disturbed.
27:59
with sources stating that Jack
28:02
and Bill had walked anywhere between 2
28:04
and 11 miles from the location
28:07
of the car to their final resting
28:09
places. So
28:10
it's hard to speculate on this because for some
28:12
reason there is so
28:15
many inconsistencies with the distance. So
28:18
they were found to have died also from hypothermia
28:21
and police believe that neither of them ever
28:23
made it to the trailer. It's
28:26
likely that one of the men laid down to
28:28
go to sleep feeling tired as a side
28:30
effect of the hypothermia. And because
28:33
Jack and Bill were so close it's
28:35
possible that the other laid down near
28:37
them just in an effort to not leave
28:39
them alone and then wound up freezing
28:42
to death as well.
28:43
On June 7th the remains
28:46
of the fourth member of their group was
28:48
found. The families
28:51
of the five men were in the area canvassing
28:53
alongside the police and while Jackie
28:55
Hewitt's father was searching the area
28:58
he came across an item of Jackie's
29:00
clothing. And
29:01
when he picked it up a piece
29:04
of Jackie's backbone fell
29:06
to the ground.
29:07
He was in the vicinity of the trailer
29:10
but not inside so he was much closer
29:12
to Ted and where Gary
29:14
would have been but Gary we're
29:17
going to talk about next. So just
29:19
northwest of the trailer searchers recovered
29:22
a rusty flashlight and three
29:24
forest service blankets but there's
29:26
no guarantee that these items were connected
29:28
to the disappearance of the men
29:30
but this was found as well. So
29:34
as Daphne mentioned we're now going to talk about Gary. So
29:37
Gary was actually still nowhere to be found
29:40
which is just one more confounding piece
29:42
of this crazy puzzle.
29:44
But with no sign of him investigators
29:47
from three counties called off searches
29:49
pending more information that they hoped would come
29:51
in with a tip. Now strangely
29:53
though there have been many tips and even potential
29:56
sightings Gary Matthias
29:57
has never. been
30:00
found. So what really
30:02
happened in the mountains that winter night?
30:05
One eyewitness believes that they were the last
30:07
person to see the men alive.
30:09
A man named Joseph Shaughns came
30:11
forward to the police to tell them that he was with
30:14
the men the night that they went missing.
30:16
So Joseph claims that on the evening
30:18
of Friday, February 24th,
30:21
the night that the boys were last seen,
30:23
he was headed up to the mountains to see how bad the snow
30:26
conditions were that night, just hoping
30:28
to bring his wife and daughter up there for the weekend.
30:31
He told the police that he owned a cabin in the
30:33
Plumas National Forest, though
30:35
that has been disputed for years. And
30:38
many people have poked holes in various parts of his
30:40
story, including his claim of property
30:42
ownership, but anyway. When
30:44
Joseph reached the snow line that evening
30:46
around the same time that the men had left for the basketball
30:49
game, his Volkswagen Beetle
30:51
became stuck.
30:53
And as he tried to free himself from the snow,
30:56
he suffered a mild heart attack. So
30:59
alone now and on the mountain by himself
31:01
and with the cold of the night encroaching,
31:03
he retired to his car to stay warm and wait
31:06
for help.
31:07
And as he drifted in and out of sleep, he
31:10
claims that he saw flashlights and
31:12
multiple men surrounding a car parked
31:14
just ahead of him. He
31:17
called out for help but remembered that as soon
31:19
as he did, the flashlights were turned
31:21
off and the men either fled the area
31:24
or went back inside their car.
31:27
But police have questioned this because
31:29
there was no evidence that the boys had flashlights
31:32
with them that evening, let alone multiple
31:34
flashlights. Joseph also
31:36
claims that he saw a red truck pull up
31:39
and watched as a group of men and a woman with
31:41
a baby walked by,
31:42
and he again called out for help but said
31:45
that he was ignored.
31:46
Then when it started to get light out, he
31:48
climbed out of the car, which was out of gas by
31:51
then, but
31:51
everyone who had been there that previous
31:54
night was gone. The only sign
31:56
of them being Jack's white and turquoise,
31:58
Mercury Montego.
32:00
which was parked just ahead of Joseph on the
32:02
road.
32:03
He proceeded to walk about eight miles or 12
32:06
kilometers to seek help.
32:07
Now, doctors confirmed that he did,
32:10
in fact, suffer a cardiac event, but
32:12
police could not confirm his account of the evening
32:15
that the men disappeared.
32:17
It's possible that in Joseph's heightened
32:19
state, he imagined or possibly
32:22
exaggerated what he saw that evening,
32:24
but there's been a lot of discourse surrounding whether
32:26
or not Joseph is a reliable witness.
32:29
A neighbor of his claimed that he was constantly
32:32
drinking,
32:33
weaving tall tales and
32:35
doling out what the neighbor described as bad
32:37
advice.
32:39
But the question everyone had was why
32:41
the boys went to the mountains in the first
32:44
place. Many don't believe
32:46
it's possible that this was an accident
32:48
because they had driven so far into
32:50
the forest and the road where the car was eventually
32:53
found on had been snow covered
32:55
and unpaved. But with the car
32:57
in perfect working order,
32:59
why hadn't they turned around? And
33:01
if they had been lost, why hadn't they consulted
33:04
the maps that they had with them?
33:06
The families maintain that while the actual
33:08
deaths of the men may have been accidental, the
33:11
reason they went to the mountains was intentional
33:14
and it was to get away from something or
33:16
someone. Gary's
33:19
stepfather said, quote, I can't understand
33:21
why Gary would have been that scared. All
33:24
those paperbacks and they didn't even
33:26
build a lousy fire. I can't
33:28
understand why they didn't do that unless they
33:31
were afraid. Bill's
33:33
sister echoed, quote, someone
33:35
made them go up that road. Bill
33:37
didn't like the snow. They knew that
33:39
it was cold up there. Jack wouldn't
33:41
have driven his car up there because he likes
33:44
it too much. Despite
33:46
their eventual fate, countless sightings
33:49
and tips of the men poured in. They were supposedly
33:51
spotted in Tampa, California Ontario,
33:54
California, and at a movie theater in
33:56
Sacramento, California, accompanied
33:59
by an older man.
33:59
but as we know,
34:01
they died in those woods. But
34:03
three of the most credible sightings
34:06
made little sense in the timeline of their
34:08
deaths, but made for popular theories.
34:11
So in March of 1978, shortly after
34:14
the men disappeared, but before they were found,
34:16
a local Yuba County woman named Debbie
34:19
Lynn Reese claimed that she received
34:21
multiple calls from their killer.
34:25
In the first one, the killer reportedly
34:27
said, quote, I know where the five
34:29
missing men are. But before she
34:31
could ask him more questions, the guy
34:33
hung up. Later,
34:36
she received a call in which the man said, quote,
34:38
I need help because I hurt those guys
34:41
real bad.
34:42
When Debbie asks who he hurt, he said,
34:45
quote, don't play dumb with me. And
34:47
again, hung up.
34:48
He called back a third time
34:51
and told her that all five men were
34:53
dead. She responded, they're
34:55
all dead, to which he said, they're
34:58
all dead, and then hung
35:00
up.
35:01
Debbie reported this, but
35:03
police never found out who called her and
35:05
why. And I just wonder
35:07
why, like, why this random
35:10
woman in the area and just the lack
35:12
of details makes it hard to believe this guy really
35:14
knew anything like he was probably just
35:16
some asshole.
35:17
Like, what's the point of calling
35:19
a random woman who's not connected to the
35:21
five men?
35:22
And also, is it possible that she's just
35:25
making up this story for clout? Because how are
35:27
they supposed to check
35:28
and make sure that this is actually credible?
35:30
Yeah, I think either she is or he is because
35:33
why would this guy be calling her? And also,
35:35
if it would be different if they were all found
35:38
to be murdered, or if he had given more specific
35:40
details before they were found that
35:43
connected to what was actually at the scene, but
35:45
like,
35:46
none of this connects. Well,
35:49
another sighting of the men actually tied in with
35:51
Joseph Shawn's report of seeing a red pickup
35:53
truck. A man who worked
35:55
at a convenience store in Brownsville, which is
35:57
about an hour south of where the men disappeared, claims
36:00
that he saw them before four
36:03
of the men were recovered deceased.
36:05
They pulled up in a red pickup truck and
36:08
someone who looked like Jackie Hewitt hopped
36:10
out and made a phone call at the store's payphone.
36:14
The men then retreated to the truck and then after
36:16
this they just left.
36:18
But why would they have gone back to their trailer
36:20
and died after being so close to help and
36:22
civilization?
36:24
It just didn't make any sense.
36:27
Now another sighting came after four out of the five
36:29
men had been found deceased and this was
36:32
Jack Madruga's niece Kathy went
36:34
out for dinner at a local Yuba County restaurant
36:36
and swore that she spotted Gary Mathias
36:39
at the bar
36:40
who at the time was the only one
36:43
who hadn't been found and still
36:45
has not been found to this day.
36:48
So alarmed she ran to use the restaurant's
36:50
phone to call the police but by the time
36:52
they arrived this mysterious man or
36:54
this you know mysterious Gary was
36:56
gone.
36:57
And there's been plenty of discourse and conjecture
36:59
but zero confirmed sightings
37:02
of Gary.
37:03
The internet is rife with theories about
37:05
where Gary could have gone and what may have happened
37:08
to land the boys in the mountains in the first place
37:10
and one theory is that the boys set out with the
37:12
goal of proving to their friends, their family,
37:15
and their community that they could live on
37:17
their own.
37:18
Which just doesn't make sense to me like they
37:20
just got some dessert from the store
37:23
they were excited they're ready for
37:25
their game the next day like why would they
37:27
pick that time to go off
37:29
and do this like I don't see that happening.
37:31
But also the fact that they
37:34
it didn't seem like they were trying to live on their
37:36
own they didn't light any fires they hardly
37:38
ate any of the food that was in the pantry
37:40
so
37:41
I kind of think this theory is bullshit.
37:43
And I don't think they would have died to prove
37:45
a point. Well another is that
37:47
they had gotten turned around making a stop
37:49
on their way home because Gary had friends
37:52
in Forbstown California which
37:54
is in between Chico and Yuba City.
37:57
The road that they would have taken to visit these friends is
37:59
so incredible.
37:59
conspicuous that it's possible
38:02
that Gary encouraged the group to stop by
38:04
to visit these friends
38:05
but then they took a wrong turn and that's
38:08
how they wound up in the forest instead.
38:10
And some have posited that Ted, who was
38:13
kind and very gentle, felt
38:15
so guilty for stealing the food from inside
38:17
the trailer
38:18
that he would starve to death before he took
38:20
food from the forest service. Which is so
38:22
sad and I hope that's not true. I really hope
38:25
that's not the case. Similar to
38:27
the notorious cluster of missing persons
38:29
cases in NorCal's Humboldt County, known
38:32
as the Humboldt County Missing Five, which
38:34
we did cover in episode 220, some think
38:36
that the men ran into a drug
38:38
smuggling operation and then they were killed
38:41
to keep them quiet.
38:42
But this seems also pretty unlikely
38:44
given that they vanished during a snowy winter
38:47
night
38:47
and they were also found to have died of natural
38:49
causes and not homicide.
38:52
At least as far as we know. Now some
38:55
people point the finger at Gary himself.
38:57
Now because he was the only one who was not
38:59
intellectually disabled, some feel
39:02
that he may have had more information than he was
39:04
sharing with his friends. And he also
39:06
relied on medication to treat his schizophrenia
39:09
and left in the wilderness without it, he
39:12
may have been suffering delusions that caused
39:14
him to prey on the rest of the group.
39:15
But this is just what some people are throwing
39:18
around since he's never been found, but
39:21
for all we know, he is as much as
39:23
a victim as the rest of them and doesn't
39:25
deserve to be speculated on.
39:27
But because of the rumor that he had walked
39:29
about 500 miles
39:30
or 800 kilometers from Oregon, after
39:34
he was fleeing from that psychiatric hospital there,
39:37
many people believe that he did the same that winter,
39:39
walking off into the forest alone and
39:41
leaving his remaining friends to die.
39:44
Some feel that because his
39:46
father and sister did take their own lives
39:48
from mental health issues later, it
39:51
meant that they were concealing a secret
39:53
for Gary and that the guilt had become
39:56
unbearable and that was the reason. But
39:59
actually a few new members of the
40:01
boys families agree with this
40:03
possibility. So apparently
40:05
unsolved mysteries attempted to
40:07
center an episode on the Yuba County 5
40:10
and Gary's family were the only
40:13
ones who refused to participate.
40:16
So obviously the other families found
40:18
this very
40:19
suspicious. Ted's
40:21
brother Dallas stated quote, no
40:23
one pulled a trigger on the boys, but
40:26
something or someone
40:28
killed them.
40:29
He claimed that he believed that Gary
40:31
set up his friends knowing that
40:33
they would die out there, although
40:36
the motive for this is unclear, but
40:38
they couldn't understand why the family wouldn't participate
40:41
in the show if it would garner interest
40:43
and possibly answers. Dallas said quote,
40:45
that's just suspicious. I'm not saying they
40:47
knew, but well, you can probably
40:50
guess what I think. However,
40:52
again, just like he said, it
40:54
is just as possible that Gary, like
40:57
the others, was also a victim of the
40:59
severe weather conditions that evening and
41:01
that they just haven't found him yet. The
41:04
one thing the families can agree on, however,
41:07
is that the men were threatened, scared
41:10
off or even chased by someone
41:12
and that it caused them to knowingly drive
41:15
over an hour in the wrong direction
41:18
and directly into treacherous
41:20
winter terrain. And it's thought
41:22
that this could be because they were
41:24
looked down upon by some members of their community
41:27
and not honored as the individuals
41:29
that they were, which is so awful.
41:32
And it could go along with what I mentioned earlier
41:34
about Bill Sterling's mom, you
41:36
know, wanting him to quit his dishwasher job
41:38
because of his coworkers and how
41:40
they were stealing money from him and really taking
41:43
advantage of him. So for all we know, they
41:45
encountered someone at the market in Chico
41:48
and were being followed or something. Like it
41:50
would have been a long drive just to follow them or mess
41:52
with them. But to me,
41:54
it holds weight that the very people
41:56
who actually knew these young men very
41:59
well, their own...
41:59
families feel deeply
42:02
that the circumstances of their deaths do not
42:04
make any sense and believe that they were
42:06
being targeted or threatened by someone.
42:09
And it's also possible that maybe
42:11
they had cut somebody off on the road or
42:13
maybe this was a traffic situation
42:16
and that that's how they were followed. And
42:18
maybe they were thinking we just need to like get away from
42:20
this person as fast as we can got turned
42:22
around went the you know the opposite direction
42:25
and that's how they ended up there. I mean I mean who
42:27
really knows there's so many possibilities
42:29
and you really could speculate for hours
42:32
or days talking about this case.
42:34
Yeah I mean there are some horrible people
42:36
out there and again just the fact that all
42:39
like everybody across the families believe
42:42
that
42:43
like they know them they know what their personalities
42:45
are like they know what they're capable of what they're not
42:47
capable of. So the fact that all these
42:50
details don't make any sense to them like
42:53
it's not like they're saying oh yeah you know maybe
42:55
they just drove out there and they got
42:57
lost like nobody is saying that they're all saying
43:00
this is not right like they're they know
43:02
better than this and none
43:05
of this is connecting like somebody somebody
43:07
has to be involved like that that to me just
43:10
again it just holds a lot of weight.
43:11
Well and to talk a little bit more about how
43:14
the boys were kind of perceived
43:16
in the public
43:17
well in 1975 almost exactly three years before the
43:21
boys vanished
43:22
gateway projects where the five met
43:24
and played basketball
43:26
was vandalized and a hateful act
43:28
of arson to alert the community that
43:30
the disabled were not welcome there.
43:33
F you what do you mean? What in the fuck
43:35
why would some oh my god I just I can't
43:37
I can't with people like this.
43:38
Everything that you're about to talk about is
43:40
so yeah well
43:43
and then you know in February the gateway
43:45
project's building was burned to the ground
43:47
by an arsonist and everything
43:50
inside was completely lost
43:52
like everything burned.
43:54
That same year an assailant hurled
43:56
a Molotov cocktail
43:58
through the window.
43:59
Also, the center was issued bomb threats
44:02
and cars were set ablaze.
44:05
In April of that year, the Gateway Program
44:07
Director was murdered
44:08
after someone tossed flammable
44:10
liquid on him and set him on fire.
44:14
What is
44:14
wrong with these people? I don't understand.
44:18
So it's safe and very
44:20
sad to say that they were not necessarily
44:23
welcomed in their own community.
44:25
One police sergeant announced to the media, quote,
44:28
Apparently someone really has it in for
44:30
gateway projects for some reason or another.
44:33
Aside from that, we don't have much else.
44:35
We have to assume that the attacks are all
44:37
related because they were all associated
44:40
with Gateway.
44:41
It's just so sad. So Jack's
44:44
mother said, quote,
44:45
there was some force that made them
44:48
go up there. They wouldn't have fled off in
44:50
the woods like a bunch of quail. We
44:52
know good and well that somebody made
44:54
them do it. We can't visualize
44:57
someone getting the upper hand on those five
44:59
men, but we know it must have
45:02
been. Sadly,
45:04
there have been no developments
45:07
in the case of the Yuba County Five in
45:09
the 45 years since it happened.
45:12
But if you have any information
45:14
about the deaths of Ted Weir, Jack
45:17
Madruga, Bill Sterling, and
45:19
Jackie Hewitt or the whereabouts
45:22
of Gary Mathias, please
45:24
contact the Yuba County Sheriff's Department
45:28
at 5 3 0 7 4 9 7 7 7.
45:45
Thank you so
45:45
much, everybody, for listening to this episode
45:48
of Going West.
45:49
Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this
45:51
episode. And on Tuesday, we'll have an all
45:53
new case for you guys to dive into.
45:55
I just this case is so complicated
45:58
because it doesn't make.
45:59
sense to me why they would go that
46:02
way anyway, why they would get out
46:04
of the car in the first place,
46:05
why the car was still filled with gas.
46:07
As we know, the the window was
46:10
down. So like, why was the car window
46:12
down? You know, why did they walk
46:14
so far into the woods? Were they running
46:16
from something? Were they confused as to where
46:19
they were? Like, why not just stay
46:21
in the car and turn around? Like, that's
46:23
why I really think that somebody else is involved
46:25
because it doesn't make any sense that all
46:28
of their heads put together, that
46:30
they wouldn't kind of team up and think about,
46:32
you know, how to turn around how to fix this situation, but
46:34
that they all just ran separately? Like, why?
46:37
Like, yeah,
46:37
why? I think that's the most interesting
46:39
thing to me is the fact that they
46:42
didn't stay together in a group. Like, there
46:44
were, you know, people were going off in groups
46:46
in different, different ways,
46:48
different directions. And then where is Gary?
46:50
Like, none of it makes sense. And these poor
46:53
families have no answers as
46:55
to what happened to their boys
46:57
and why. Like, there are so many
46:59
questions in this case. So please make
47:01
sure that you share enough time has passed.
47:04
Hopefully answers will come soon.
47:07
But thank you guys so much
47:07
for listening. Yeah. And also thank you guys for
47:10
recommending this one because I know a lot
47:12
of you guys have in the past and after
47:14
we did that episode and you guys had suggested
47:17
it, that we cover the full story. We
47:19
were just really excited to do it. Yeah.
47:21
So, so glad. So thank you
47:23
guys so much. We will see you next week. All
47:26
right, guys. So for everybody out there in the world,
47:28
don't be a stranger.
48:08
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