Kalifornien, Februar 1978: Am ! There was no sign of Mathias, aside from his tennis shoes, which had been left in the trailer. The autopsy showed that he had died of a combination of starvation and hypothermia. One of the strangest things about Shones encounter was that he said a little he saw a group of five men. Mathias had been in the Army, too, but was discharged because of psychiatric problems. Johnny Arismendez was arrested on suspicion of murder and Victor Arismendez for . They were often lovingly referred to as boys, despite being from 24 to 32 years of age. [2] The keys were not present, suggesting at first that the car had been abandoned because it might not have been functioning properly, with the intention of returning later with help; when police hot-wired the car, the engine started immediately, and the fuel gauge indicated the gasoline tank was one quarter full. 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. Joe Shones, age 55, was having car trouble and a mild heart attack. Joseph Schons of Sacramento told police he inadvertently wound up spending the night of February 2425 near where the Montego was found. 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. Did Prince Andrew fly on Jeffrey Epsteins plane Lolita Express? But all five friends wound up missing or dead. After the UC Davis team won their game, the five men went to pick up snacks & drinks, Joe Shones, age 55, was having car trouble. Not until the thaw came. Listen Now For our friends in the Deaf and Signing community, you can view an ASL version of this episode HERE. Of the group, Gary Mathias had the most severe mental health He was suffering from schizophrenia and was on medication to control his symptoms. Yuba County, California. He was driving up the gravel road to his cabin when his car became stuck in the snow and unfortunately, whilst trying to push his car out, he suffered a heart attack. Why had they hid from Shones? The county sheriffs department began searching for the men. samochd Los 5 de Yuba City, El Dyatlov Americano - Parte 1. The day after Weiher's body was discovered, searchers found the remains of Madruga and Sterling. How did a fun night out with the boys turn into a death sentence in some remote snowy mountains? The group aged between 24 and 32 years of age, had developmental disabilities and were all enrolled in a day program for mentally handicapped adults. They came across a strong stench emanating from some trailers maintained by the Forest Service. All the drama surrounding the duo. The plan was for them to watch the game and then come back home to get a good nights rest before their own basketball game the next day. He was pretty sick. [6] He was wearing a velour shirt and lightweight pants, but his shoes could not be found. But they did. Same when it comes to that woman and baby that Shones saw with the Yuba County 5, though Shones admitted he could have hallucinated everything. 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. [6], In an area to the northwest of the trailer, roughly a quarter-mile (400m) from it, searchers found three Forest Service blankets and a rusted flashlight by the road. In a second more mysterious version, whilst inside the car he heard whistling noises and saw what he thought were a group of men and a woman with a baby, walking in the light of another vehicles headlights. Perhaps, Shones thought, it belonged to the group he had seen earlier. This week, Georgia and Karen cover the disappearance of the Yuba County Five and the tragic Is there a rational explanation for what happened to the Yuba County Five? Not only were they stoked to spend a night out, they were also super excited to play in a basketball match themselves the very next day. Could they have been searching in the snow and been freaked out by his cars for help in this isolated area? Basketball. 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]. A year after their disappearance, police were no closer to solving the mystery. Selects: The Disappearance of the Yuba County Five. The Yuba County Five were a group of young men from Yuba City, California, with mild intellectual disabilities or psychiatric conditions, who attended a college basketball game at California State University, Chico, on the night of February 24, 1978.Four of themBill Sterling, 29; Jack Huett, 24; Ted Weiher, 32; and Jack Madruga, 30were later found dead; the fifth, Gary Mathias, 25, has . On Thursday, the New York District Attorney released crime scene photos showing blood spatter and the knife allegedly used by nanny Yoselyn Ortega to kill two young children in her care. Using CrimeDoor you can explore evidence, review thousands of case files, look into cold cases, and help unravel True Crimes most notorious unsolved mysteries. This was strange because it seemed none of the trailers life-saving amenities had been used. 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. 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. "I'm positive he never went up there on his own," she told the paper. [5], Inside the car was evidence suggesting the men had been inside it between when they were last seen and when it was abandoned. The police said she was "a credible witness" and they took her account seriously. As of late, his condition had greatly improved though, and he was able to work in his stepfathers gardening business. They found no sign of them, but a few days later, a Plumas National Forest ranger told investigators that he had seen the Montego parked along Oroville-Quincy Road in the forest on February 25. The real mystery is that Mathias was never found. On February 24, 1978, a group of friends from Yuba City in California;Gary Dale Mathias, Jack Madruga, Jackie Huett, Theodore (Ted) Weiher, and William Sterling; set out on a trip to watch a basketball game. . In one version, whilst he lay in his car, at about 11:30, he saw two sets of headlights coming up behind him - one was a car, and the other a pickup truck. Updated: 1:41 PM MST March 2, 2023. In the early morning hours of February 25, Shones made it to the lodge and was able to get medical treatment. Most likely, Madruga and Sterling died of hypothermia about halfway through the long walk to the trailer. yuba county 5 crime scene photos On Tuesday, February 28th, a forest ranger found Jack Madrugas car abandoned the car on an unpaved road near Oroville, in the Rogers Cow camp area, past Elke Retreat, at an elevation of 4,500 feet. At the time, Shones was preoccupied with his own emergency. In this week's episode, we revisit two of our favorite Patreon episodes. [2][5], Weiher's mother said ignoring someone's pleas for help was not like her son, if indeed he had been present. If Mathias went for help, where was his body? This eventually led to him being diagnosed with schizophrenia and being psychiatrically discharged. a mild heart attack. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 1971 Juan Corona arraigned at Yuba City California 9X8 Vintage Press Photo at the best online prices at eBay! Why? "Bizarre," says John Thompson, the special agent from the California Department of Justice who had joined the investigation. Heavy forestry clothing, which could have kept the men warm, also remained where it had been stored. Updated: 10:05 AM PDT April 8, 2022 YUBA COUNTY, Calif. A Linda mother is accused of drowning her two young boys in their home, the Yuba County Sheriff's Office said Thursday afternoon.. More baffling, Weiher was emaciated. A propane tank connected to the trailer, which could have provided a ready source of heat and cooking fuel, was untouched. Not much remained of Huett. But there had been no apparent attempt to start a fire despite the freezing temperature on the mountain. After the UC Davis team won their game, the five men went to pick up snacks & drinks for the drive home. They were competing to qualify for the paralympics and this next regional tournament would not only get them closer to that goal but closer to winning a week-long trip to Los Angeles. All five had intellectual disabilities or psychiatric issues to various degrees; all of them lived with family, who kept a close eye on them. About Us. Why didnt they attempt to move the car once it got stuck, instead of walking to nowhere in the middle of the night? Itsweird. February 24, 1978. Twitter reacts. At that time, no trace of the men was found. Why was a common question for investigators and the relatives of the men, but no answers were forthcoming. In 1978, in Yuba County California, five young men vanish. 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. Well, the last sighting of the Yuba County 5 wasdecidedly not. She recalled how he and Sterling had helped someone they knew get to the hospital after overdosing on Valium. Today, we're covering the true crime story of the Yuba County 5. Their clothes had been laid out the evening of the 24th, before they left for Chico with "Gateway Gators" on them, from the Yuba City vocational rehabilitation center for the handicapped where they all played basketball. At the time, he had not considered it significant, since many residents often drove up that road into the Sierra Nevada on winter weekends to go cross-country skiing on the extensive trail system, but after he read the missing persons bulletin, he recognized the car and led the deputies to it on February 28. In a storage shed outside, there was a years supply of c-rations. 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). Shones later came forward with his story when the news broke about the disappearances, making him the last person to see the five alive. [2], One question was its location, 70 miles (110km) from Chico, far off any direct route to Yuba City or Marysville. Two days later, just off the same road but much closer to the trailer, Jackie Huett's father found his son's backbone along with a pair of Levis and ripple-soled "Get Theres" shoes. [2], Weiher's body was on a bed with eight sheets wrapped around it, including the head. When they opened the door, they were overcome by the odor of what turned out to be a decaying body inside. As for getting a real answer in the case, we may never know unless someone talks or, maybe, Mathais is found. Since it was locked, they may have believed it was private property, and may have feared arrest for theft if they used anything else they found there. The keys to the vehicle were gone. The junk food had been consumed, save for one half of a candy bar. The Yuba County Five were young men from Yuba City, California, all with mild intellectual disabilities or psychiatric conditions, who attended a college basketball game at California State University, Chico on the night of February 24, 1978. However, the discovery of the car raised more questions than it answered. [2] Autopsies showed that they both died of hypothermia. Miles away from help, Shones thought he could flag down help. Investigation. Weiher's brother told the Los Angeles Times that while driving to Brownsville in a different car in apparent ignorance of the basketball game seemed completely out of character for them, the owner's description of the two men's behavior seemed consistent with them, as Weiher would "eat anything he could get his hands on" and was often accompanied by Huett more than any of the other four. 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. Some of the rations in and around the trailer were eaten but much of it was untouched. Bianca Myrtil is a writer and freelance editor. One of them made a phone call from a nearby phone booth, and the other two stayed in the truck. However, in 2017 David Bruckner directed a movie that seems to be largely based on the Yuba County Five. This Sutter County California Most Wanted List posts the top 50-100 fugitive criminals on the run. The five would either play sports together or watch them. For the families of these young men, the sense of heartbreak and loss is just as strong today as it was over forty years ago. 12A 43-year-old man was detained on a warrant this week for allegedly murdering his wife who was found dead inside a residence in the 17000 block of Indiana Ranch Road, Challenge . 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. [2], The mystery deepened after police towed the car back to the station for a more thorough examination. Authorities would later discover that a Snowcat vehicle had pushed snow aside to cut a path toward the trailer on February 23, which may have given the men some hope they were in an area where Forest Service employees might soon return. Where is Matthias? Yuba County Five Case Analysis | Unexplained Disappearance and Deaths - YouTube This video answers the question: Can I analyze the case of "Yuba County Five?"Support Dr. Grande on. To date, there hasnt been any evidence to contradict him. but hadnt been diagnosed as mentally disabled and both he and Gary had served in the U.S. Army and had drivers licenses. There they bought snacks along with sodas and cartons of milk to drink. In her free time, Bianca enjoys stabilizing dangling modifiers and walking her cat. The trailer had food and propane. Why not start a fire for warmth? In the process of trying to free it, he realized he was beginning to experience the early symptoms of a heart attack and went back in, keeping the engine running to provide heat. The Gateway Gators was a collegiate basketball team at the rehabilitation center of Yuba City, California. 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. The initial investigation by Yuba County police was frustrated by the snowfall in the region that winter. Is Netflix's 'The Imposter' its most terrifying true-crime story yet? The trailer was 19 miles away from the car. 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 area in which the incident took place was named Dyatlov Pass in honor of the group's leader, Igor Dyatlov. At 5:30p.m., about 150 feet (46m) up the road, he, too, had gotten stuck in the snow. Weihers decaying body was found lying on a bed wrapped in eight sheets. Following the game, the five men visited a local store and purchased snacks and drinks, shortly before 10pm. . Besides, who knows. The atmosphere was jubilant. Weiher was missing his shoes, and investigators found Mathias' own shoes in the nearby woods, suggesting Mathias also survived for some time beyond the last night they were seen alive. How these five men came to be on an inhospitable mountain road more than 50 miles from their homes in and around Marysville and Yuba City, California, was just one of the mysteries surrounding. The game ended around 10 p.m. Why did the Yuba City men get lost that night and end up on the mountain? [2] For whatever reason, the men had left the Montego; they had, instead of going back down the road (where they had passed the lodge that Schons later returned to), continued along the road in the direction they were originally going. Then, in June 1978, a man riding his motorcycle through the area noticed a broken window on a forest service trailer. As mentioned before, they were homebodies. In 1978, a group of five friends disappeared after attending a college basketball game. Schons called for help and the lights turned off and the whistling sounds stopped.