They played basketball together through a Gateway program and were that night . There are so many strange things about this true crime case which is sometimes called Americas Dyatlov Pass, that its hard to compact into one article. Four of themBill Sterling, 29 . Doctors later confirmed that he had indeed experienced a mild heart attack. There was no sign of the men and no indication of why they had abandoned their operable car. [5], The other notable report was from a woman who worked at a store in the small town of Brownsville, 30 miles (48km) from the point where the car had been abandoned, which they would have reached had they continued down the road from where the car had been found. Forest rangers searched the area for five days and found no trace of the men, but soon after the search began,a severe blizzard moved into the area, covering any potential tracks. The junk food had been consumed, save for one half of a candy bar. He hung up on them, they told sheriff's investigators. Breaking News in Yuba County - Rotten Tomatoes On Tuesday, February 28, authorities found the Mercury on the same mountain road where Shones had last seen it, and where a park ranger had reported its location after hearing the missing persons bulletin. Aaron Carter's mother posts photos from death scene, seeks homicide 2023 Minute Media - All Rights Reserved. Four of themBill Sterling,29; Jack Huett,24; Ted Weiher,32; and Jack Madruga,30were later found dead; the fifth, Gary Mathias, 25,[1] has never been found.[2]. Unfortunately, as he did, he started suffering a heart attack. [2], After the Davis team won the game, the group got back into Madruga's car and drove a short distance from the Chico State campus to Behr's Market in downtown Chico. To this day, no one knows why these four young men died in snowy mountains that were so far from home. Gary Mathias, 25; Bill Sterling, 29; Jack Huett, 24; Ted Weiher, 32; and Jack Madruga, 30 were all friends. This proved to be the last time any of them were seen . Police found no evidence of foul play at the site of the car, but the car was unlocked, one window was down and the keys were nowhere to be seen. The keys were gone and there was evidence of the boys having stopped at a convenience store for snacks. No trace of the men was found other than the car. Jake Paul vs. Tommy Fury: Who made the most money from their fight? Several months later, in June, the body of Ted Weiher was found in a trailer with missing shoes and badly frostbitten feet. Hours into his ordeal and with his car still stuck and now out of gas, Shones felt well enough to begin walking down the mountain road and toward a lodge roughly eight miles away. It was getting cold after he wasnt able to keep the cars AC heat running anymore, but to his relief he saw headlights in the distance. $19.99 + $4.99 . When morning came and they had not, the police were notified. Did they somehow leave the car and lose the keys. Breaking News in Yuba County isn't in on the joke, it is the joke It was later identified as Weiher's. [2], Police in Butte and Yuba counties began searching along the route the men took to Chico. About Us | Sutter County Sheriff, CA His car had gotten stuck in the snow, and pushing it out by himself brought it on. Police and the families never ruled out foul play. The men, panicking, may have believed their car was stuck and that they needed to get help. The area in which the incident took place was named Dyatlov Pass in honor of the group's leader, Igor Dyatlov. A still-unsolved mystery, the Yuba County Five . The five were on a team for the mentally handicapped called the Gateway Gators, who were set to participate in a week-long tournament sponsored by the Special Olympics. Tickets from the UC Davis game were also there so it was clear they had at least made it to the game to cheer on the team. How did the group end up around a trailer 19 miles from the car? Using CrimeDoor you can explore evidence, review thousands of case files, look into cold cases, and help unravel True Crimes most notorious unsolved mysteries. [2][5], After that, Schons said at first, he recalled a pickup truck parking 20 feet (6m) behind him briefly, and then continuing on down the road. Did Prince Andrew fly on Jeffrey Epsteins plane Lolita Express? 5 'Boys' Who Never Come Back. Huetts skeletonized remains were found shortly after. [4] Madruga, the only member of the group besides Mathias who had a driver's license, drove the group 50 miles (80km) north to Chico in his turquoise and white 1969 Mercury Montego. True crime: This is the terrifying story of the Yuba County Five, Oakland County Child Killer: This unsolved case will give you chills, Los Angeles County is going back to work: Everything you need to know. This week, Emma teaches Brian about the Yuba County Five and their mysterious deaths. He was pretty sick. Several days after their initial disappearance, the group's car, a Mercury Montego, was found abandoned in a remote area of Plumas National Forest, California, on a high mountain dirt road that was far out of their way back to Yuba City. (KTXL) A vigil is planned Thursday for the 10-year-old boy who was killed in a drive-by shooting in Yuba County. MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: The Yuba County Five - Crime Junkie Podcast Gary Matthias was one of the five who didnt have a mental disability. They found no sign of Gary Mathias. [2], Police could not figure out why the men had abandoned the car. He weighed just 120 pounds at the time of his death. The clerk remembers this as it was right before closing, so she was annoyed by having to get a large group checked out before closing and heading home herself. Marduga still had the keys to the Mercury. All five either had slight intellectual disabilities or psychiatric disorders. NOTE: This is an update to my original report found here So while getting pictures together for the page on the Yuba County 5, I stumbled across a Reddit post that had been made 18 days ago. He saw a group of men, a woman, and a baby walking together, but they ignored him calling for help. 1971 Press Photo Yuba City, CA Reporters at J.L. The authorities and the boys parents alike wondered what on Earth they had been doing on this dirt mountain road. She recalled how he and Sterling had helped someone they knew get to the hospital after overdosing on Valium. When Shones spotted their abandoned Mercury, the car had been driven roughly 70 miles away from the Chico basketball game. [2] The sheets all over Weiher's body also suggested that one of the others had been there with him, as his gangrenous feet would have been in too much pain for him to pull them over his body himself. But as he drove further into the night, snowdrifts slowed his tires. There was also the theory that Mathias convinced the group to head toward Forbestown, an area between Chico and the mountain road, so he could visit a friend who lived there. The men consumed 36 of the meals but left the majority of them untouched. "Not tonight." This Sutter County California Most Wanted List posts the top 50-100 fugitive criminals on the run. [2], One question was its location, 70 miles (110km) from Chico, far off any direct route to Yuba City or Marysville. "All they had to do was turn that gas on," says Yuba County Lt. Lance Ayers, "and they'd have had gas to the trailer, and heat.". PDF Corpsewood manor crime scene photos - Weebly This week Spencer and Ryan recount the strange Five young men travel to a basketball game and disappear. For roughly three days, police had no break in the case, until finally a park ranger noted that he had seen a car matching the description of Madruga's on the night of the 25 th.On February 28, police located the vehicle. A night out creeps into true crime territory The boys had used Madruga's 1969 Mercury Montego to drive to the UC Davis game in Chico, California on February 24, 1978. It wasnt until June when the snow in the mountainous area had mostly melted away that motorcyclists helped make a break in the case. You see, Shones had been stuck in a snowdrift the night of the boys basketball outing. Breaking News in Yuba County - Wikipedia Following the game, the five men visited a local store and purchased snacks and drinks, shortly before 10pm. Why do that unless something more frightening was right behind them? The Mercury Montego was slightly stuck in the snow, but it wasnt anything five healthy young men couldnt have handled pushing out. Is Hailey Bieber obsessed with Justin Biebers ex Selena Gomez? Its players were in their 20s or early 30s and suffered from some form of . Janney plays Sue Buttons . However, watching the creepy flick will remind anyone familiar with the case of the Yuba County Five of those poor, lost young men. If you come across them, do not attempt to apprehend them yourself. Sterling's father had once taken his son to the area near where the car was found for a fishing weekend, but the younger man had not enjoyed it and remained at home when his father took later trips there. Deputies think that one of them may have given in to the need to sleep that comes with the last stages of hypothermia, while the other stayed by his side and died the same way. Candy wrappers, milk cartons and basketball programs were in the car but maps were left in the glove compartment. Shones said he cried for help but got no reply. Rhoades, a long-haul trucker, converted the sleeper cab of his 18-wheel semi truck into a small, makeshift sex chamber where he would torture his victims and rape them for weeks on end. Could be violent to some. Visalia Woman Christine Adams Found Dead In Yuba County; Husband Her mother had been recently widowed and it's a fair question to ask how much one person can stand. Search parties were sent to investigate and more bodies were found. Chico to Yuba City is a straight down Highway 70 through the Central Valley in low-lying land with no snow at this time of the year. Joseph Schons of Sacramento told police he inadvertently wound up spending the night of February 2425 near where the Montego was found. Also known as America's Dyatlov Pass, this missing persons case is incredibly bizarre and cr. Northwest of the trailer, about a quarter-mile away, searchers found three wool forest service blankets and a two-cell flashlight lying by the side of the road. Dyatlov Pass refers to the unsolved deaths of nine hikers in the northern Ural Mountains in the Soviet Union (now Russia) between 1 February and 2 February 1959. The next day, their car was Five men from Yuba City, California, disappeared in 1978 after a trip to a nearby town. . None of them was known to have any business on that part of the mountain. Uncover secrets about the cold case of the 'Yuba County Five' - Podsauce The five young men who made up the Yuba County Five, Gary Mathias, Bill Sterling, Jack Huett, Ted Weiher, and Jack Madruga, ranged in age from mid twenties to early thirties. Several bed sheets in a shroud were tightly tucked over his body, indicating that someone else had been with him in the trailer as he could not have bundled himself up in this manner. There was no sign of Mathias, aside from his tennis shoes, which had been left in the trailer. From his beard growth, they knew Weiher had been living there anywhere between eight and 13 weeks. His car had gotten stuck in the snow, and pushing it out by himself brought it on. It had enough gas to continue on, but a snowbank had likely caused its tires to spin out. True Crime Out Loud B and Jen Coast2CoastCrime Coast2CoastCrime The Women of Death Row Mariel and Amanda True Crime & Consequences Kari & Brian Current Inside Crime with Angeline Hartmann Angeline Hartmann: Journalist and Crimefighter True Crime and Coke truecrimeandcoke Unnatural: A True Crime Podcast Emily and Andy Schons called for help and the lights turned off and the whistling sounds stopped. , and although in this horror movie things turn supernatural, the parallels between it and the Yuba County Five story are strong. Then Colusa County District Attorney John Poyner authorized needed search warrants for the investigation and said he would prosecute the crime if it occurred in his county. The suspect . Why had they hid from Shones? They would have to have gone east for a long time from Chico, instead of south towards their homes. [2][5], Weiher's mother said ignoring someone's pleas for help was not like her son, if indeed he had been present. There was no reason to mention having seen the Mercury until newspapers began to blare out notices about the five men who had gone missing that Friday. Where is Matthias? When they opened the door, they were overcome by the odor of what turned out to be a decaying body inside. Off the job, outside of his family, he was close friends with four slightly older men who either had slight intellectual disabilities (Sterling and Huett) or were informally considered "slow learners" (Weiher and Madruga, also an Army veteran). It was a man named Joe Shones who alerted them about it. She owned a store there, where two of the men came in to buy food. The wrappers and empty cartons and cans they had purchased in Chico were present, along with programs from the basketball game they had watched and a neatly folded road map of California. None of the men's families could speculate as to why they might have driven up a long and winding dirt road[a] on a winter night deep into a high-elevation remote forest, without any extra clothing and on the night before a basketball game they had been discussing excitedly for several weeks. The Theories "They seen something at that game, at the parking lot," says Ted Weiher's sister-in-law. At 32, Weiher was the oldest, a former janitor who was closest to the youngest of the group, 24-year-old Huett. Have you noticed theres been no mention of Matthiass body? The next day, their car was discovered in a lonely mountain road. The whole case is weird. A forest service Snowcat ran up the road to the trailer on February 23rd, leaving a packed path in the snow that the men might have followed. A propane tank connected to the trailer, which could have provided a ready source of heat and cooking fuel, was untouched. Shones staggered back in his car while he let the heart attack pass and then wondered what on Earth he would do to get himself out of the mess he was in. He had driven up there, where he had a cabin, to check the snowpack in advance of a weekend ski trip with his family. The Crime and Chaos of 'Breaking News in Yuba County' - NBC Los Angeles reply | flag message 3: by Fishface (new) Sep 28, 2019 10:01AM In this week's episode, Emilie and Shannon discuss the unsettling and still unsolved case of the Could the "boys" from Yuba County have been targeted by a stranger? [3] The eventual discovery of four of the five men's bodies seemed to suggest otherwise, but raised even more questions about what had happened that night, and whether at least one of them might have been rescued. The Russian case is as mysterious as the Mathias Group in Californias Plumas National Forest. There was a half moon that night, a winter moon in a cloudless sky. Similarly, another shed nearby held a butane tank with a valve that, had it been opened, would have fed the trailer's heating system. When not talking and writing about pop culture (especially superheroes or any show with a paranormal bent), freelance writer Bec Heim is usually tackling her mountain of books, writing scripts or stories, or listening to podcasts. If authorities couldnt make any sense of how the group's day had ended on February 24, they at least had some idea of how it began. Joe Shones was having a heart attack. ", "There was some force that made em go up there." Joe Shones, age 55, was having car trouble and a mild heart attack. A witness later came forward, a local man who said he had spent the same night in his own car, a short distance away from where the Montego was found. The next day, they found remains that were later identified as those of Madruga and Sterling on opposite sides of the road 11.4 miles (18.3km) from where the car had been. VIEW and share photos of real crime scenes. 2017's British wilderness horror The Ritual, directed by David Bruckner and written by Joe Barton, has not been officially attributed to any particular true story. Weiher had lost nearly half his 200 pounds (91kg); the growth of his beard suggested he had lived as long as thirteen weeks from when he had last shaved. Is Ice Spices new boyfriend Pete Davidson? Some, including Weihers family say this could have been a result of Weihers mental state and the fact that he sometimes lacked common sense, but others think this is a thin explanation. Despite finding evidence that Matthias was in the trailer with Weiher at some point, they never found Matthias.