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Selects: The Disappearance of the Yuba County Five · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi everyone, It's me Josh and for this week's Select
0:03
Speaker 1: I chose our two thousand eighteen episode on the Mystery
0:07
Speaker 1: of the Yuba County Five. I was actually inspired to
0:10
Speaker 1: choose this one because I was recently a guest on
0:13
Speaker 1: another podcast called The Yuba County Five hosted by Shanon McGarvey.
0:18
Speaker 1: And it's actually a really fascinating deep dive into this
0:21
Speaker 1: long standing mystery, and it expands on and actually does
0:24
Speaker 1: a lot of updating on what we talked about in
0:27
Speaker 1: this episode. So if this one strikes your fancy, go
0:30
Speaker 1: check out the Yuba County Five podcast from Mopac Audio.
0:34
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, I hope you enjoy our episode
0:36
Speaker 1: on it. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production
0:45
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:54
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and
0:57
Speaker 1: there's Jerry over there. So this is stuff you should no. Yes,
1:03
Speaker 1: how you doing, Chuck? Do I look tired? Do you
1:07
Speaker 1: seem a little a little LOGI tired? Man? What's going
1:12
Speaker 1: on with you? I've just been waking up like too
1:15
Speaker 1: early for no reason, going to bed too late though,
1:17
Speaker 1: because if you go to bed early and wake up early.
1:20
Speaker 1: You're fine, well, going to bed late, sometimes not getting
1:26
Speaker 1: enough sleep, then going trying to go to bed super
1:28
Speaker 1: early to make up for it. But I don't know
1:32
Speaker 1: about this making up for a sleep depisode. I don't
1:34
Speaker 1: buy all that. I feel like we talked about it
1:36
Speaker 1: before that there's that that that doesn't actually work. Yeah,
1:40
Speaker 1: I'm just tired, that's all I can say. Sorry, man, Sorry,
1:43
Speaker 1: I'll live all right. I'm glad we killed some time
1:46
Speaker 1: before we got into this very mysterious sad story. It's
1:50
Speaker 1: a good one, though, isn't it. It is extraordinarily sad,
1:53
Speaker 1: probably the saddest true well, I don't know it's up
1:56
Speaker 1: there as far as true life true crime. Disappeared his
2:00
Speaker 1: go um, and it's the one about Gary Matthias. That's
2:05
Speaker 1: what they call it. They call it the Gary Matthias disappearance.
2:08
Speaker 1: But that really doesn't do it much justice, or it
2:10
Speaker 1: doesn't serve it well, because it was a lot more
2:14
Speaker 1: than Gary Matthias involved. Yeah, I've seen it more so
2:17
Speaker 1: called the Uba County five. But you know, I guess
2:21
Speaker 1: it just depends on where you're looking. I had not
2:23
Speaker 1: run across that. Oh yeah, Oh god, that makes me,
2:26
Speaker 1: wonder what all stuff I missed? Well, you know there
2:29
Speaker 1: were five guys, what so, No, there actually were five guys.
2:34
Speaker 1: There were five friends. Um, Gary Matthias was one of them,
2:37
Speaker 1: and there were four others. There was Ted Weir who
2:41
Speaker 1: was the oldest, he was thirty two. There was Jackie
2:45
Speaker 1: Hewitt he was the youngest, he was twenty four. There
2:49
Speaker 1: was Jack Madruga. I'm not sure what Ah was, but
2:53
Speaker 1: he was definitely between twenty four and thirty two. I'll
2:56
Speaker 1: tell you Bill Sterling. And then again Gary are Matthias
3:00
Speaker 1: And those five guys were a set of friends and
3:03
Speaker 1: they met at the Yuba City UH Vocational Rehabilitation Center
3:10
Speaker 1: for the what you would call today UM cognitively impaired
3:14
Speaker 1: or cognitively challenged. Yeah, because three of these guys, UM.
3:20
Speaker 1: Of course, this one article you have from nine seventy
3:23
Speaker 1: eight doesn't use appropriate terms anymore. But three of these
3:26
Speaker 1: guys were intellectually disabled UM or developmentally disabled. Not an
3:33
Speaker 1: exact like it's kind of hard to get an exact
3:35
Speaker 1: DIA diagnosis from these terms, really, but h. Madruga was undiagnosed.
3:42
Speaker 1: But according to his mom, uh, he was generally thought
3:46
Speaker 1: of as she said, as quote slow end quote. And
3:49
Speaker 1: then Matthias was the only one not diagnosed with a
3:55
Speaker 1: developmental disability, but he was under drug treatment for schizophrenia. Right,
4:01
Speaker 1: So all five of these guys had some sort of
4:05
Speaker 1: challenge going on in their life, right, exactly. So, so
4:07
Speaker 1: there's a lot of details you can kind of glean
4:09
Speaker 1: because you're absolutely right, Like reading the really great Washington
4:13
Speaker 1: Post article, which is basically the comprehensive document on the
4:17
Speaker 1: case from UM, you can kind of glean uh an
4:23
Speaker 1: idea picture of these guys. So they're just five friends,
4:26
Speaker 1: thickest thieves. Even within this this tight little group of friends,
4:31
Speaker 1: there's subgroups of even tighter friends like um Ted Weir
4:36
Speaker 1: and Jackie Hewitt were particularly close, and Bill Sterling and
4:41
Speaker 1: Jack Madrugo were particularly close. Um. They had like they
4:44
Speaker 1: were just these these five guys known as the Boys, right.
4:47
Speaker 1: They all lived at home with their parents. They were
4:50
Speaker 1: always going to live at home with their parents. It
4:52
Speaker 1: was just what what the plan was, um, Like I
4:56
Speaker 1: think Ted ted Weir had a had a job, um
5:03
Speaker 1: as a janitor and then later on as a snack
5:05
Speaker 1: bar clerk. Um. Basketball, Yeah, that was another one, and
5:11
Speaker 1: they actually all played together on the basketball team for
5:14
Speaker 1: the Vocational Rehab Center, basically like their hang out, the
5:16
Speaker 1: place where they hung out. They played basketball on that team.
5:19
Speaker 1: But um Jack madrew God's worth saying head a driver's license,
5:23
Speaker 1: whereas three of the other ones didn't, although Gary Mathias
5:26
Speaker 1: did as well. So these guys, they just they were friends.
5:28
Speaker 1: They like had a tight kinship together. They had very normal,
5:34
Speaker 1: reliable lives that were basically home centric, and when they
5:39
Speaker 1: were out doing stuff, you could expect them home for
5:42
Speaker 1: dinner kind of thing, like it was just a given. Yeah,
5:46
Speaker 1: I think that's that's super worth pointing out here. Early on,
5:48
Speaker 1: as they saw them more than one place, they said
5:52
Speaker 1: they referred to their lives as very predictable and scheduled,
5:57
Speaker 1: which is why this interesting. The events that occurred on
6:02
Speaker 1: February nineteen seventy eight were very very unusual. Right, So
6:06
Speaker 1: on February eight, the boys that's what their families all
6:10
Speaker 1: call them, because apparently all their families were at least
6:13
Speaker 1: in touch, if not friendly, with another. Yeah, I think
6:16
Speaker 1: they kind of supported one another. It sounds like as
6:18
Speaker 1: much as anyone did in ninety eight. Uh So, on
6:22
Speaker 1: this night, February twenty four, there was a Friday night. Um,
6:27
Speaker 1: the boys left their homes around Maryville and Ubis City
6:31
Speaker 1: in California, and they traveled I think about fifty miles
6:35
Speaker 1: north to cal State Chico which is now called Chico
6:39
Speaker 1: State University, and they went to go see their team.
6:42
Speaker 1: The cal State l A team beat up on cal
6:45
Speaker 1: State Chico and cal State l A actually eighty four,
6:49
Speaker 1: which would have pleased the boys tremendously. So they went
6:52
Speaker 1: to the game. That much is known, and then they
6:54
Speaker 1: left the game. That much is known too, because around
6:57
Speaker 1: ten o'clock when they left the game, they went to
6:59
Speaker 1: a convenience store called Bear's Market and they bought some stuff. Yeah,
7:03
Speaker 1: apparently that they were trying to kind of close up,
7:06
Speaker 1: and so the clerk was a little bit annoyed that
7:08
Speaker 1: they showed up. And these are the kind of details
7:10
Speaker 1: that aren't so important, but it just shows that, you know,
7:15
Speaker 1: they really did their investigating pretty thoroughly, including well, we'll
7:19
Speaker 1: we'll get to sort of the the lead investigator in
7:22
Speaker 1: a minute. But yeah, they bought just a few things.
7:25
Speaker 1: They bought a Hostess cherry pie, um, a Langendorf lemon pie,
7:29
Speaker 1: snickers bar, a Marathon bar, a couple of pepsis, and
7:33
Speaker 1: a court and a half of milk, which is to say,
7:36
Speaker 1: it's not like they were stocking up on food. They
7:39
Speaker 1: just got some uh some some snacks, right exactly for
7:44
Speaker 1: the drive back home fifty fifty miles about an hour. Yeah.
7:49
Speaker 1: The thing is is they they would have been fully
7:53
Speaker 1: expected back home, not just because there was you know,
7:56
Speaker 1: this was it wasn't like any of them to spend
7:59
Speaker 1: the night away, right except Matthias. He he had friends
8:03
Speaker 1: and he would stay out with friends sometimes. But um,
8:06
Speaker 1: the other four like they slipped in their bed at
8:09
Speaker 1: home every night. That's just what they did. So their
8:12
Speaker 1: families fully expected them to come back. Um. And another
8:15
Speaker 1: reason why they expected them to come back was because
8:17
Speaker 1: the next day, Saturday, they had a basketball game for
8:21
Speaker 1: their vocational rehab team, the Gateway Gators, and they they
8:25
Speaker 1: apparently were all extraordinarily excited about this game. Yeah, which
8:29
Speaker 1: again is just another point being made that there was
8:33
Speaker 1: these guys had every intention on coming home super excited
8:36
Speaker 1: about the game. I think Matthias even was kind of
8:40
Speaker 1: driving his mom a little batty, saying, you know, don't
8:43
Speaker 1: let me oversleep. Got this big game. Apparently the guys
8:47
Speaker 1: had their clothes laid out. Uh, and they were all
8:50
Speaker 1: super excited about this basketball game. Uh. And then they
8:53
Speaker 1: don't come home, and you know, these parents and grandparents
8:57
Speaker 1: start waking up at various points in the middle of
8:59
Speaker 1: the night or in the morning and start getting in
9:01
Speaker 1: touch with one another, you know, all verifying like your
9:05
Speaker 1: kids not there, your your kids not there. And they
9:07
Speaker 1: started to freak out. And by eight o'clock that evening,
9:10
Speaker 1: I believe the mother of Madruga actually finally called the cops. Yeah,
9:15
Speaker 1: and the cops, um, we're kind of I don't have
9:19
Speaker 1: the impression that they were like, well this is I'm sure,
9:21
Speaker 1: this is fine. I think they got involved pretty early on.
9:24
Speaker 1: But things really picked up when I think on a Tuesday,
9:27
Speaker 1: that was that was Saturday night that they finally called
9:30
Speaker 1: the cops. And on Tuesday, Uh, Jack Madruga's car was discovered,
9:35
Speaker 1: and it was discovered in a very very unusual place, right, Yeah,
9:39
Speaker 1: what was this thing in old Mercury, Montego Yeah, sixty
9:43
Speaker 1: nine Montego a land yacht is what it was. And
9:47
Speaker 1: they found it. Um. And this was, by the way,
9:50
Speaker 1: this is Jack Madruga's prized possession. Like no one else
9:54
Speaker 1: drove the thing. He took pristine care of it. It
9:57
Speaker 1: was like his baby. His car was right, So to
10:00
Speaker 1: find it abandoned with the window one of the windows
10:03
Speaker 1: rolled down up a mountain road, which was, um, I think,
10:08
Speaker 1: seventy miles away from the basketball game, in a different
10:13
Speaker 1: direction away from their house. Right, so the basketball game
10:16
Speaker 1: was north of their homes. This was east of southeast
10:20
Speaker 1: of the basketball game and up a mountain road. It
10:23
Speaker 1: was extremely bizarre and also I'm sure quite worrying. When
10:27
Speaker 1: the families were already worried, I think finding this car
10:30
Speaker 1: like this probably really set them into panic mode. Well yeah,
10:34
Speaker 1: and here's where, uh in this article is very clear
10:36
Speaker 1: to say from that point on, nothing made any kind
10:39
Speaker 1: of sense. So here's a few things about the car
10:42
Speaker 1: that definitely don't add up. You might think, all right, there,
10:47
Speaker 1: you know, there was a snowstorm, so they drove up
10:50
Speaker 1: here and they got stuck. Apparently that is not true.
10:53
Speaker 1: The car stopped at about the snow line, and they
10:56
Speaker 1: said they did confirm that the wheels had spun some,
10:59
Speaker 1: but the car wasn't stuck, and these five dudes could
11:02
Speaker 1: have pushed it free pretty easily. Apparently, right, this thing
11:05
Speaker 1: number one, thing number two is that it had a
11:08
Speaker 1: quarter tank of gas still, so they didn't run out
11:10
Speaker 1: of gas. Right then when the cops hot wired the car,
11:13
Speaker 1: the keys were gone. Uh. And when the cops heartwired
11:16
Speaker 1: the cars started up immediately. There wasn't any engine trouble
11:19
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Yeah. The last thing they found
11:22
Speaker 1: were all these maps of California and um, so it's
11:27
Speaker 1: not like they had no way of knowing where they were.
11:30
Speaker 1: And then they found all the you know, all the
11:31
Speaker 1: rappers from the food items. Uh. The only thing, ironically
11:36
Speaker 1: that wasn't fully eaten was the marathon bar um, living
11:40
Speaker 1: up to his reputation. Right. See, I guess the toughest
11:44
Speaker 1: candy bar to get through. Yeah, that's that's how they
11:47
Speaker 1: build it, some weird cartoon cowboy. Yeah, so you know,
11:50
Speaker 1: that's the deal. The underside of the car wasn't damaged,
11:54
Speaker 1: which they say was pretty interesting because on this road,
11:57
Speaker 1: apparently there were a lot of deep, deep ruts. This
12:00
Speaker 1: thing kind of hangs low anyway, has a low hanging muffler,
12:03
Speaker 1: has these five dudes inside, these grown men. Uh. And
12:07
Speaker 1: there was no damage under the underside of this car,
12:10
Speaker 1: which means, you know a couple of things. If you
12:12
Speaker 1: kind of are surmising, which is the either the driver
12:15
Speaker 1: kind of knew where they were going and drove through
12:19
Speaker 1: the darkness with a lot of precision, or they just
12:22
Speaker 1: maybe drew drove really slow. Yeah, I think it was
12:26
Speaker 1: the ladder because I think Madruga did was probably would
12:30
Speaker 1: have been very unhappy that his car was on this
12:32
Speaker 1: road now. So I just took it slow and took
12:34
Speaker 1: it super slow. I saw somewhere that there wasn't even
12:37
Speaker 1: a large mud spot on it. It was they had
12:40
Speaker 1: taken it that easy. Yeah, And apparently Madruga uh didn't
12:44
Speaker 1: like the cold, he didn't like camping, so he wouldn't
12:47
Speaker 1: have known that road. It's not like there's a lot
12:49
Speaker 1: else to do up there but that, right, And evidently, uh,
12:53
Speaker 1: none of the boys were big into outdoorsy type stuff.
12:57
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's a really good point, Chuck. So like
13:00
Speaker 1: that none of them had any connection to that, to
13:03
Speaker 1: that area, and certainly not to that mountain. One of them,
13:06
Speaker 1: I think Sterling, Bill Sterling had been had gone camping
13:11
Speaker 1: with his family there eight years before. Yeah, and he
13:14
Speaker 1: didn't even like I think they went back again and
13:16
Speaker 1: he was like, no, I don't want to go right,
13:18
Speaker 1: So he didn't like the outdoors, he didn't like the cold.
13:21
Speaker 1: And then I think ted uh Ted Weir had gone
13:25
Speaker 1: deer hunting or something once with friends way west of
13:29
Speaker 1: the area. Um but still, I mean enough that you
13:32
Speaker 1: could that was it was a lead that the cops
13:34
Speaker 1: were to chase down. Um. But but then too, he
13:37
Speaker 1: didn't enjoy himself and he didn't like the woods either,
13:40
Speaker 1: So there was no let's go hang out in the
13:43
Speaker 1: woods kind of thing going on here. Just everything about
13:46
Speaker 1: the fact that they found this car and where they
13:48
Speaker 1: found it, in the state they found it in was
13:51
Speaker 1: really bizarre and really worrying. Should we take a break?
13:54
Speaker 1: I think we should. Man, all right, you and I
13:56
Speaker 1: are going to go hang out in the woods and
13:58
Speaker 1: we'll be back right up to this. So I've never
14:25
Speaker 1: swept the woods before. That was really interesting, right, It's
14:28
Speaker 1: not spick and span out here. So um, So they
14:33
Speaker 1: find the car, and when they find the car, Chuck.
14:35
Speaker 1: I think it was the next night after they had
14:39
Speaker 1: gone missing, a storm blew into the area and it
14:43
Speaker 1: dumped like almost a foot of snow on the mountain.
14:45
Speaker 1: This is February in the mountains in California. UM, I
14:49
Speaker 1: would guess the Sierras, is what it sounds like, right, So, yeah,
14:53
Speaker 1: Cheek is in the Chicos, in the Sierra Nevadas. I
14:57
Speaker 1: think it's north of Sacramento. So it would be very
15:01
Speaker 1: very cold and the snow would be pretty tough to
15:03
Speaker 1: get through. Um So, but they still tried. They got
15:07
Speaker 1: guys on horseback, they got helicopters out, they looked for him,
15:10
Speaker 1: but they found nothing. They found not one bit of
15:16
Speaker 1: of um and not a single trace of these guys
15:18
Speaker 1: after just the car and that was it. Yeah, the
15:21
Speaker 1: snow certainly didn't help anything because it would not be
15:24
Speaker 1: until June. On June four, after this thing, you know,
15:28
Speaker 1: the mountain faws out somewhat when these uh Sunday you
15:32
Speaker 1: know motorcycle bikers, they'll go right around the mountains. They
15:35
Speaker 1: went into an old Forest service trailer camp at the
15:39
Speaker 1: end of a road and said, do you smell something
15:44
Speaker 1: that smells like perhaps a dead body, And sadly it
15:48
Speaker 1: was Ted Weir. And this is where things get even stranger. Yeah,
15:52
Speaker 1: so the I think the trailer caught their attention, but
15:55
Speaker 1: what caught their attention even further was that a window
15:57
Speaker 1: had been broken to get into the trailer and then yeah,
16:01
Speaker 1: like you said, what really called their attention was the
16:03
Speaker 1: smell in the sight of of ted weirds decomposing body.
16:07
Speaker 1: But what got what made it very, very weird is
16:09
Speaker 1: one he's wrapped in sheets tucked under his head in
16:13
Speaker 1: a way that like he couldn't have possibly tucked himself.
16:16
Speaker 1: So somebody had tucked him in like that and he
16:20
Speaker 1: ted weird been a portly fellow. Um. Cynthia Gorney, who
16:24
Speaker 1: wrote the Washington Post article on this this case in
16:28
Speaker 1: calls him, um, beer belly handsome, which I've never heard
16:33
Speaker 1: those words put together in my entire life. I think
16:35
Speaker 1: that's what I am. Sure, sure i'd call you beer
16:39
Speaker 1: belly foxy. Okay, okay, so um, but he was beer
16:43
Speaker 1: belly hands he was. He was a thick guy. He's
16:45
Speaker 1: like five ten, two hundred pounds. He had a few
16:47
Speaker 1: extra pounds on him right when they found him, though,
16:50
Speaker 1: he weighed about a hundred and twenty a hundred to
16:54
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty pounds, which means that between the
16:57
Speaker 1: time that they went missing and the time that he died,
17:01
Speaker 1: he'd lost anywhere between eighty and a hundred pounds. Yeah.
17:05
Speaker 1: A couple of more interesting tidbits. He his leather shoes
17:10
Speaker 1: were gone and missing completely. Um. On the little night
17:14
Speaker 1: stand by his bed was his his own ring because
17:17
Speaker 1: it had his name engraved on it, his gold yeah,
17:20
Speaker 1: ted his gold necklace, his wallet with money uh. And
17:24
Speaker 1: then weirdly a watch that was not his. It was
17:27
Speaker 1: a gold Waltham watch that had a missing crystal. Uh.
17:32
Speaker 1: And all of the families said that this No, none
17:35
Speaker 1: of our kids had this watch. So that's one interesting tidbit.
17:40
Speaker 1: And the other is that he had a big, full
17:44
Speaker 1: beard that indicated that he lived in that cabin for
17:48
Speaker 1: anywhere from eight to thirteen weeks. And what's really really
17:51
Speaker 1: underving about the thirteen week one thirteen week number is
17:55
Speaker 1: that if he survived thirteen weeks, that means that he
17:58
Speaker 1: would have died just days before for his body was found.
18:02
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yes? Did you did you do the math?
18:05
Speaker 1: I did the math because think about so they disappeared
18:07
Speaker 1: on February and he was found June four, So you've
18:10
Speaker 1: got a I really really hope I call on the
18:17
Speaker 1: Saints that that not to have been the case, like
18:21
Speaker 1: that he perhaps died a couple of days before. Yeah,
18:24
Speaker 1: that that he he would have expired like like weeks
18:27
Speaker 1: before that. There was just no chance for him, like
18:29
Speaker 1: if he was destined and doomed to die. I really
18:32
Speaker 1: hope it wasn't a couple of days before they found
18:34
Speaker 1: his body after starving for thirteen weeks. Yeah. And to
18:38
Speaker 1: cap it off, I don't think we we've mentioned yet,
18:41
Speaker 1: this cabin was almost twenty miles from their car. Oh yeah,
18:45
Speaker 1: so in the middle of the night. Uh. And at
18:49
Speaker 1: this point, this is this is all we know is
18:50
Speaker 1: about Ted in our story, he walked or ran almost
18:55
Speaker 1: twenty miles in four to six ft snow drifts to
18:59
Speaker 1: go to this trailer, where he spent the next two
19:02
Speaker 1: to three months slowly dying. Yeah. So okay, that's pretty
19:07
Speaker 1: weird in and of itself. And they found that his
19:09
Speaker 1: feet were terribly frost bitten, right, which is why his
19:12
Speaker 1: shoes were off. But again his shoes were missing. Um,
19:16
Speaker 1: what gets even weirder. And this is just where the
19:19
Speaker 1: case truly turns. Bizarres, one of the Yuba County Sheriff's
19:22
Speaker 1: deputies are under sheriff, called it Bizaar's Hell is like
19:25
Speaker 1: the quote of this story, Um, this this the trailer,
19:30
Speaker 1: the cabin was actually like a forest Service trailer and
19:33
Speaker 1: it was an emergency trailer from what I understand, and
19:37
Speaker 1: it was fully stocked with a year's worth of food
19:41
Speaker 1: that would have kept all five of those boys alive
19:45
Speaker 1: for a year. It was built to keep you alive,
19:48
Speaker 1: yes exactly. And they found it, but they didn't put
19:50
Speaker 1: it to use. Now, let's not to say that they
19:52
Speaker 1: didn't find the food. There was. There were twelve rations
19:57
Speaker 1: like um sea rations like army meals opened and eaten,
20:02
Speaker 1: but that was it. The other stuff wasn't touched. There
20:05
Speaker 1: was a whole locker of other dehydrated food and like
20:08
Speaker 1: fruit cups and stuff that hadn't been touched at all. Okay,
20:12
Speaker 1: and bear in mind, this is all right here while
20:15
Speaker 1: Ted ted Weir is starving to death. Yeah, so all
20:20
Speaker 1: this food is there. Uh, they found out The investigators
20:24
Speaker 1: determined that there had not been a fire built, even
20:27
Speaker 1: though there were paperback novels, there was wood, furniture, there
20:30
Speaker 1: were matches, like everything was there to build a fire.
20:34
Speaker 1: And not only that, but there was a propane tank
20:39
Speaker 1: that all they had to do, Uh, it was in
20:41
Speaker 1: another shed outside. All they had to do was open
20:43
Speaker 1: this thing on and they would have actually had gas heat, yes, Het, right,
20:49
Speaker 1: they didn't. They also didn't even um cover up the
20:52
Speaker 1: broken window that they used to get into the trailer.
20:56
Speaker 1: It's just weird, just bizarre decision after bizarre decision, right. Yeah.
21:01
Speaker 1: So there's one other thing in the trailer that that is,
21:05
Speaker 1: um pretty interesting. They find Gary Matthias's tennis shoes. So
21:11
Speaker 1: Gary mathias Is tennis shoes are there, and um, Ted
21:15
Speaker 1: Weir's shoes leather shoes are missing. Uh. And what they
21:19
Speaker 1: think possibly is that Gary Matthias was in the trailer
21:23
Speaker 1: with Ted. Ted had terrible frostbite. Ted would have had
21:27
Speaker 1: bigger feet than Gary. Gary probably had frostbite too, so
21:31
Speaker 1: he used Ted's shoes to put them on and go
21:34
Speaker 1: back out into the wilderness. Yeah. I mean they pretty
21:38
Speaker 1: much determined that probably all five of those guys were
21:43
Speaker 1: in here at one point. Okay, so I have to
21:46
Speaker 1: say that's that's I don't think that's true really because
21:49
Speaker 1: that's what I saw. So I think so what I
21:54
Speaker 1: saw was that they so, okay, we should probably tell
21:56
Speaker 1: everybody that the we should continue on, Chuck. But the like,
22:00
Speaker 1: I think a day after they found Ted Weir, they
22:03
Speaker 1: started looking around the area and they started finding the
22:05
Speaker 1: other boys remains. Yeah, and you know this is thanks
22:10
Speaker 1: to what I said would be sort of the lead investigator, uh,
22:13
Speaker 1: Uba County Lieutenant Lance Ayers, who actually had gone to
22:17
Speaker 1: high school with We're uh didn't know him that well,
22:20
Speaker 1: but he was really consumed by this case UM and
22:23
Speaker 1: seems sort of obsessed with trying to solve it to
22:26
Speaker 1: the point where he was chasing down leads from psychics.
22:30
Speaker 1: At one point, Yeah, apparently he met with a psychic
22:33
Speaker 1: who um I told him that the boys were in
22:37
Speaker 1: Araville or had been murdered in a red house either
22:41
Speaker 1: brick or stained in Oraville with the house number UM
22:45
Speaker 1: either four four seven to three or four seven five three.
22:49
Speaker 1: And Lance Ayers was so consumed with this that he
22:52
Speaker 1: actually drove every street of Oraville over a two day
22:55
Speaker 1: period trying to find that house based on the tip
22:58
Speaker 1: of a psychic. That's how Upset TV came with this case. Yeah,
23:02
Speaker 1: so we've put a pen in our were they all
23:05
Speaker 1: in the cabin debate? We're coming back to that right right,
23:09
Speaker 1: All right, So now we pick up a story of
23:11
Speaker 1: a man named Joseph Shoens, and this is where things
23:15
Speaker 1: get even more odd. So this guy was fifty five
23:18
Speaker 1: years old. He got in touch with the cops because,
23:22
Speaker 1: you know, some strange things that had happened that night
23:24
Speaker 1: of the disappearance. He was gonna go camping with his family,
23:28
Speaker 1: um on you know, up that road, and so he
23:30
Speaker 1: decided to take his little Volkswagen Beetle um around five
23:34
Speaker 1: thirty that evening just to check out the snow line
23:37
Speaker 1: to see if it was passable and if it was
23:39
Speaker 1: going to be safe to take his family camping that weekend.
23:42
Speaker 1: He found out it was not. Yeah, he got his
23:44
Speaker 1: his car stuck right right above the snow line. And
23:47
Speaker 1: this was to be about fifty yards further than where
23:51
Speaker 1: that mercury would eventually be found. Right, so he has
23:56
Speaker 1: um he gets out to push a push his Beetle
23:59
Speaker 1: right and has a heart attack. He's he's fifty five
24:01
Speaker 1: in this nine, which means he he lived on nothing
24:04
Speaker 1: but scotch and steak. So you can imagine that that
24:07
Speaker 1: was the outcome, right when you have to push your
24:09
Speaker 1: Volkswagen Beetle and um, he's like in a bad spot
24:13
Speaker 1: right there. He's a phone in the wilderness at the
24:16
Speaker 1: snow line of a mountain eight miles away from help.
24:19
Speaker 1: That the place that he had stopped to actually get
24:22
Speaker 1: a drink probably of scotch on the way up the
24:25
Speaker 1: mountain to check out the snow line had been eight
24:27
Speaker 1: miles back in the other direction. So he very wisely
24:30
Speaker 1: like leaves his car running with the heater on and
24:33
Speaker 1: just lays there and tries to collect himself and gather himself.
24:37
Speaker 1: And that is a mild heart attack, we should point out,
24:39
Speaker 1: but enough that if you, Joseph shown, you are probably
24:42
Speaker 1: freaking out on not trying to u diminish like his
24:46
Speaker 1: danger level. But it wasn't like, uh, he was like
24:50
Speaker 1: laying there near death like he would eventually hike eight
24:53
Speaker 1: miles out right after this heart attack. Yes, so he
24:57
Speaker 1: but but while he was laying there trying to like
25:00
Speaker 1: gather his strength again. So this happened about five thirty
25:04
Speaker 1: And he said a couple hours after that, some um
25:08
Speaker 1: a car at least one but probably two cars, and
25:11
Speaker 1: one of them would have been a pickup truck, came
25:13
Speaker 1: up and had their lights on, and he saw the
25:15
Speaker 1: silhouettes of some men and a woman with a baby,
25:18
Speaker 1: and he said he called out to them, and they
25:22
Speaker 1: ignored it and turned off the lights, and he got
25:25
Speaker 1: back in his car, and he said he laid there
25:28
Speaker 1: for another few hours before he heard some whistling sounds
25:32
Speaker 1: and some flashlight beams a little further down the mountain,
25:36
Speaker 1: probably about fifty yards. Uh. And that would have been
25:40
Speaker 1: a couple of hours, probably about five or six hours
25:42
Speaker 1: after his um his heart attack. And they think that
25:47
Speaker 1: the second group at least was the the five boys
25:52
Speaker 1: with Gary Matthias. Yeah, and well I think at this
25:55
Speaker 1: point they were right outside his car window. Yeah. So
25:58
Speaker 1: again he gets out, calls for help, and the whistling
26:02
Speaker 1: sounds stopped, and the flashlights get turned off, and so
26:05
Speaker 1: he goes back in his car and lays back down,
26:08
Speaker 1: and he's like to two groups of people have come
26:10
Speaker 1: up this mountain. I'm having a heart attack here, and
26:13
Speaker 1: somehow calling for help has chased both of both of
26:15
Speaker 1: them off, both groups off. Yeah. So that that Volkswagen Beetle,
26:19
Speaker 1: like I can tell you from experience, had of like
26:21
Speaker 1: an eight gallon gas tank, so it eventually runs out
26:25
Speaker 1: of gas. Um it Also now they think about it
26:30
Speaker 1: doesn't have a very efficient heating system, like, uh, my
26:34
Speaker 1: first Beetle didn't even have a fan. We just called
26:37
Speaker 1: it the ankle burner, Like if you when you turned
26:39
Speaker 1: on the heat, it literally just opened vents on the
26:43
Speaker 1: floorboard that like came straight off the engine. Wow, that's
26:47
Speaker 1: that's sharp design. So you wouldn't even like you had
26:50
Speaker 1: to be moving for there to be actually a hot
26:52
Speaker 1: air running through it. Man. But I do know that
26:56
Speaker 1: I had another Beetle that had that did have a
26:59
Speaker 1: little fan end. So let's just presume that Shans had
27:02
Speaker 1: the fan. I'm not going to I'm going to presume
27:05
Speaker 1: the opposite, Okay, I'm going to presume that this was
27:07
Speaker 1: a hellish experience for him in every way, all right.
27:10
Speaker 1: So eventually the car runs out of gas. Uh, it's
27:14
Speaker 1: still dark, and he manages after this heart attack, like
27:17
Speaker 1: I said earlier, to walk eight miles to a lodge
27:20
Speaker 1: called the Mountain House. Is that where he had gotten
27:22
Speaker 1: the drink? Yeah? All right. So he comes back and
27:25
Speaker 1: they're like Showans, and he's like, don't shows me. You
27:29
Speaker 1: have no idea what I've been through. Uh. It turns
27:32
Speaker 1: out it's pretty serious. And on the way out he
27:35
Speaker 1: passes this Montego sitting empty in the middle of the
27:39
Speaker 1: road about fifty yards further down the mountain behind his car,
27:42
Speaker 1: where he stopped at the snow line. That's right. So
27:45
Speaker 1: Showance doesn't think much of this. He just is like, Okay,
27:48
Speaker 1: well there's a car in the middle of the road
27:49
Speaker 1: the snow lines here. I'm not the only one who
27:51
Speaker 1: got stuck last night. Those guys are jerks for not
27:54
Speaker 1: coming to my aid when I shouted for help. And
27:57
Speaker 1: he he doesn't think much of it until all of
27:59
Speaker 1: a sudd on the news he starts seeing these reports
28:02
Speaker 1: of these five guys who went missing the same night
28:05
Speaker 1: that he had his heart attack on the same road,
28:06
Speaker 1: in the same mountain, and he came forward and the
28:10
Speaker 1: cops figured out like that, Joseph Shohnes was probably the
28:14
Speaker 1: last person to see those five guys alive. Uh. Well, yeah,
28:20
Speaker 1: they're silhouettes at least. Yeah. Uh should we take a break?
28:24
Speaker 1: I think so. Man, all right, we're gonna take a
28:26
Speaker 1: break and get to some more uh sad discoveries right
28:29
Speaker 1: after this. Okay, we're back, Chuck, we are you promised,
28:59
Speaker 1: more said discoveries laid on him. All right. So the
29:02
Speaker 1: next day, after Weird's body had been found, you know,
29:06
Speaker 1: the search is really on at this point. Uh, they
29:09
Speaker 1: found a few things. They found the remains of Sterling
29:13
Speaker 1: and Madruga there on different sides of the road. Uh,
29:16
Speaker 1: that same road that led to the trailer, but about
29:19
Speaker 1: eleven and a half miles from the car, right, so
29:23
Speaker 1: presumably another what nine miles from the trailer, Yes, which
29:27
Speaker 1: is why I think that they never made it to
29:29
Speaker 1: the trailer. Put a pin in that. Uh. Madruga had
29:35
Speaker 1: very gruesomely been partially eaten by animals, of course up
29:39
Speaker 1: there on the mountains, probably after he had died though, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
29:43
Speaker 1: I think it sounds like all of this was they
29:45
Speaker 1: succumbed to nature and then the animals kind of took
29:48
Speaker 1: it from there, right. Uh, So they dragged his body
29:52
Speaker 1: to a stream. Uh, he's laying their face up, they said,
29:55
Speaker 1: with his hand curled around his watch. And then Sterling
29:58
Speaker 1: was in the woods and very gruesomely they said that
30:02
Speaker 1: his remains were, or his bones I guess, were scattered
30:05
Speaker 1: over about fifty ft yes. And then I think a
30:09
Speaker 1: day or so after that, there was another search party
30:11
Speaker 1: that was launched, and Jackie Hewitt's father insisted on being
30:15
Speaker 1: a part of it, and Jackie Hewitt was still missing,
30:18
Speaker 1: and very sadly his dad was the one who discovered
30:20
Speaker 1: his remains. He found um, his son's I think spine
30:25
Speaker 1: is what he came upon. Yeah, in the same road,
30:28
Speaker 1: a lot closer to the trailer though, but he right,
30:31
Speaker 1: like just a quarter mile or something, right, Uh yeah,
30:34
Speaker 1: I think that's about right, something very very close to it.
30:38
Speaker 1: And they also found, um, his his clothes. They knew
30:41
Speaker 1: it was him because he was His levies and his
30:44
Speaker 1: shirt were also found nearby, and so were um. He
30:47
Speaker 1: was wearing very stylish platform shoes called get Their's, which
30:52
Speaker 1: I had to look up and they were actually pretty fresh. Yeah,
30:54
Speaker 1: not nothing the kind of shoes that you want to
30:56
Speaker 1: be hiking around the snowy woods in. No, definitely not.
30:59
Speaker 1: I mean again, platform shoes. They're like, um, you know
31:02
Speaker 1: that that uh that rubbery sold thing that like you
31:06
Speaker 1: find in like Clark's, like Clark Wallabyes, like the thick
31:10
Speaker 1: rubbery so I think it's called crepe sold They were
31:12
Speaker 1: like those, but platform shoes and like a rippley bottom. Yeah,
31:17
Speaker 1: probably look at these things. Yeah, they're probably the worst,
31:21
Speaker 1: the worst hiking shoes you could ever imagine what these
31:24
Speaker 1: would be good for actually catching ladies? Probably, right, I guess.
31:29
Speaker 1: I mean they're pretty they're pretty cool that that wavy
31:32
Speaker 1: soul though looks so strange. Well I look that up.
31:35
Speaker 1: It's it's to keep your center of balance when you're
31:37
Speaker 1: way up there. Okay, yeah, well that makes more sense. Then. Yeah,
31:41
Speaker 1: there were there was a lot of thought put into
31:42
Speaker 1: those shoes. Uh. And then finally the next day there
31:48
Speaker 1: was a skull discovered about a hundred yards downhill, and
31:52
Speaker 1: that was the final remains from Jackie Hewitt. So they
31:57
Speaker 1: found everybody, every dy that is, except for Gary Matthias.
32:02
Speaker 1: He was still missing and he's he still is. Actually,
32:05
Speaker 1: if you go on the Yuba County Sheriff's website on
32:08
Speaker 1: their missing person's page, he's still listed there. Yeah, his
32:11
Speaker 1: shoes were inside again and that trailer um, which you
32:16
Speaker 1: know that They can't say anything for sure, though, but
32:19
Speaker 1: it suggests that he was in there at one point,
32:21
Speaker 1: and they surmised that he may have, like you said,
32:23
Speaker 1: taken them off to where the leather shoes guests, presumably
32:26
Speaker 1: because they were warmer, or his feet were frost bitten
32:30
Speaker 1: and had swollen, so he needed the bigger shoes um
32:34
Speaker 1: to strike out back outside like he was. He was like,
32:38
Speaker 1: I can't go out there barefoot, and I can't get
32:40
Speaker 1: my tennis shoes on any longer. Yeah, And so to
32:43
Speaker 1: deal with Matthias, like we said, he was under treatment
32:45
Speaker 1: for schizophrenia. UM. He was in the army in Germany,
32:49
Speaker 1: and apparently UM had occasions post war where he had
32:53
Speaker 1: become violent. He was charged with the salt a couple
32:56
Speaker 1: of times. But UM all accounts say that for the
33:01
Speaker 1: at least the last two years he had really been
33:04
Speaker 1: on his meds. He had been working in his stepdad's business.
33:07
Speaker 1: He was They called him one of the our sterling
33:10
Speaker 1: success cases, as doctor did. Yeah, and they were really,
33:13
Speaker 1: you know, he was really coming around and hadn't had
33:16
Speaker 1: any what is his dad he said, he called them
33:19
Speaker 1: haywire episodes. Yeah, I hadn't had one of those in
33:22
Speaker 1: in a in a couple of years. And the stepfather
33:25
Speaker 1: said that he had. He had been taking his meds
33:28
Speaker 1: the week he disappeared, right, and his stepfather would know
33:30
Speaker 1: because his stepfather owned a gardening business, and um Gary
33:33
Speaker 1: Mathias had been working with him side by side for
33:36
Speaker 1: a couple of years by that time. So he he
33:39
Speaker 1: also didn't seem like one to really mince words or bs.
33:42
Speaker 1: So I take him for his word that his his
33:45
Speaker 1: son was fully medicated and his schizophrenia was under control.
33:49
Speaker 1: It sounds like so. Um, the problem is is he
33:54
Speaker 1: hadn't taken his pills with him, so if he did survive, Um,
33:59
Speaker 1: he he had, he had gone without him. He left
34:02
Speaker 1: him at home, and the reason why he left him
34:04
Speaker 1: at home is because he fully expected to be back
34:06
Speaker 1: home a couple hours after he left for the basketball game. Yeah,
34:11
Speaker 1: no more evidence that, Like, it's just really bizarre that
34:15
Speaker 1: they went anywhere but home, and that raised a lot
34:17
Speaker 1: of questions for the families. Um. Back in the day,
34:22
Speaker 1: the I think Madruga's mom, Mabel, was very vocal about
34:29
Speaker 1: her belief that, um, somebody had either tricked or threatened
34:35
Speaker 1: her son and the other boys into going up that
34:38
Speaker 1: mountain or um it was somebody else was was responsible
34:44
Speaker 1: for for this series of decisions. Yeah. So they learned
34:49
Speaker 1: a few things afterwards that are sort of clues but
34:53
Speaker 1: never ended up solving anything. Um. One is that a
34:57
Speaker 1: snow cat for a service snow cat had been up
35:00
Speaker 1: that road. I think what the just the day before
35:03
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I think and packed in a path of
35:07
Speaker 1: snow so it was walkable. So they you know, it
35:10
Speaker 1: led up to that trailer, and they surmised that the
35:14
Speaker 1: boys may have this might have been the only walkable
35:16
Speaker 1: path forward, so they might have followed that path to
35:19
Speaker 1: the trailer. Uh. They hired a water witcher at one
35:22
Speaker 1: point and uh he was in Paradise, California, and he
35:27
Speaker 1: said that he fixed his little uh is it dibbening
35:30
Speaker 1: or divining divining rod to pick up human minerals and
35:35
Speaker 1: traces of humans. That led them to another cabin where
35:38
Speaker 1: they found a disposable lighter and this was about three
35:43
Speaker 1: quarters a mile from the trailer where they found the body.
35:47
Speaker 1: And all the parents said, no, like, they didn't have
35:50
Speaker 1: a lighter like this. The guys didn't carry a lighter, right,
35:53
Speaker 1: So there were a lot of dead ends like that.
35:55
Speaker 1: And then like that, for example, that watch that had
35:58
Speaker 1: been found with Ted weird that it was sing it's
36:00
Speaker 1: crystal and you know, all the families said, that wasn't
36:03
Speaker 1: any of our boys watch. I mean, it could be
36:06
Speaker 1: totally meaningless. It could have been a forest ranger who
36:09
Speaker 1: had left the watch behind because it had broken or
36:11
Speaker 1: something like that. But that's most of the evidence in
36:15
Speaker 1: this case, or just those just little dead ends. Yeah,
36:18
Speaker 1: that Gary Mathias apparently knew some people, and they're really
36:22
Speaker 1: just sort of reaching at this point new people in Forbestown,
36:26
Speaker 1: which is about halfway between Chico and Uba City, And
36:30
Speaker 1: apparently the turn is easy to miss, and there was
36:33
Speaker 1: some speculation like maybe he was taking his buddies to
36:36
Speaker 1: go see these people he knew got lost, but apparently
36:40
Speaker 1: those friends were like, we hadn't seen him in years,
36:42
Speaker 1: and it would be really like unlikely that he just
36:44
Speaker 1: would have randomly come to visit. Yeah. I could also
36:46
Speaker 1: see the other boys not wanting to go along with
36:49
Speaker 1: that too, because they had that basketball game in the
36:52
Speaker 1: morning that they all wanted to be um fresh as
36:54
Speaker 1: a daisy for it too. Yeah. And and like Gary
36:57
Speaker 1: Mathias had been badgering his mom, I think, like you said,
37:00
Speaker 1: to make sure he didn't oversleep the next morning because
37:02
Speaker 1: he was excited about that basketball game too. Yeah. So
37:06
Speaker 1: the thing is, though, Chuck, is even if let's say
37:08
Speaker 1: that is the case, Let's say that they all got
37:10
Speaker 1: a wild hair and they decided to go see Gary
37:12
Speaker 1: Mathias's friend and they started up this mountain because they
37:16
Speaker 1: got lost. They missed the turn off and ended up
37:19
Speaker 1: on a mountain road at the snow line. I thought
37:22
Speaker 1: the car was stuck. What why why would all of them,
37:26
Speaker 1: all of them collectively and individually, say well, let's go
37:30
Speaker 1: up rather than back down. Let's go up into the snow.
37:34
Speaker 1: Supposedly the snow driss for six eight ft um and
37:37
Speaker 1: even if it was packed down with the snow cat,
37:39
Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense to go forward unless they thought, well,
37:44
Speaker 1: the last side of civilization behind us was too far right,
37:47
Speaker 1: Maybe there's something up here which is a thing that's
37:50
Speaker 1: a that's an economic theory called sunk cost, where you're
37:53
Speaker 1: so invested in something, you're so far along that you
37:56
Speaker 1: don't want to just stop and turn back or or quit.
37:59
Speaker 1: So it's possible that that was that aided in their
38:02
Speaker 1: decision making. But again, okay, so then let's say that
38:05
Speaker 1: they're like, okay, the snow cat track is gonna lead
38:08
Speaker 1: us to safety or something. When they get to the trailer,
38:10
Speaker 1: like why not eat the food? Why not make a fire?
38:13
Speaker 1: I can I can even see missing the propane tank,
38:15
Speaker 1: just not being you know, um, just with it enough
38:19
Speaker 1: from the harrowing experience that you could just totally miss
38:22
Speaker 1: the propane tank. And I even think that your trailer
38:25
Speaker 1: is going to have that kind of thing. But the
38:26
Speaker 1: food that you've already started to eat, that you already
38:29
Speaker 1: show you have a can opener and know how to
38:31
Speaker 1: use it. Like, how do you just starve to death
38:34
Speaker 1: after that? Well, I mean the food. The other food
38:37
Speaker 1: was in a locker they never opened apparently. But like,
38:40
Speaker 1: if you're there, especially for two to three months, like
38:44
Speaker 1: you're turning over everything, You're lighting a fire with whatever
38:48
Speaker 1: you can get your hands on. Those plenty of stuff
38:50
Speaker 1: to make a fire. Uh. What's up with the supposed
38:54
Speaker 1: woman and the baby? That could be chalked up maybe
38:57
Speaker 1: pretty easily to uh what was his name? Snopes, shoots shows,
39:02
Speaker 1: Shans Snopes snoop talk that could be chalked up to
39:07
Speaker 1: him in the state of a heart attack in the
39:09
Speaker 1: middle of the night, just sort of seeing things could
39:11
Speaker 1: have been or could have just been an entirely different
39:14
Speaker 1: party of people who had nothing to do with it
39:17
Speaker 1: or everything to do with it, But it could have
39:20
Speaker 1: They could have been there too. I mean it was
39:22
Speaker 1: you know, it was a mountain. Some people lived on it.
39:25
Speaker 1: Some people apparently like camp there, which is what Shones
39:28
Speaker 1: was scouting for. You know, how did Matthias never get
39:31
Speaker 1: found at all? I don't know I saw him. I think, Uh,
39:35
Speaker 1: I think. At the end of the WAPO article, um
39:40
Speaker 1: Cynthia Gorney, the journalist, says that, um, probably, you know,
39:45
Speaker 1: he laid there on the snow somewhere that they just
39:48
Speaker 1: didn't find or overlooked, or he got buried in the snow,
39:52
Speaker 1: and then when the thaw came, he sunk down to
39:53
Speaker 1: the ground and was covered over by some some mountain vines.
39:58
Speaker 1: I guess so. But it seems like after all these
40:00
Speaker 1: years a bone or one of those leather shoes or
40:04
Speaker 1: something would have been found. Yeah, you'd think both of
40:07
Speaker 1: those would still be intact. Yeah, I mean, what I
40:10
Speaker 1: did not see was any sort of speculation that he
40:13
Speaker 1: had had any nefarious like actions. Um, but we did
40:19
Speaker 1: put a pin in something. I don't remember what it was.
40:23
Speaker 1: I saw a couple of theories that they they speculate
40:25
Speaker 1: that all of these guys went to the cabin at
40:28
Speaker 1: one point and maybe, uh, we are wasn't doing so well,
40:33
Speaker 1: so they all set out independently to go look for
40:36
Speaker 1: help and each died or maybe in pairs, maybe since
40:41
Speaker 1: the two guys were kind of found together. But I
40:43
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, it's all just speculation. You saw
40:45
Speaker 1: that they don't think they were all there? Yeah, what
40:50
Speaker 1: I saw was that um Jackie Hewitt and um Bill
40:54
Speaker 1: Sterling and um Jack Madruga hadn't had never made it
40:59
Speaker 1: to the to the trailer, that they would have split
41:01
Speaker 1: up on the way up. No, No, that they were,
41:05
Speaker 1: That they had um or died during that twenty mile hike. Yes, interesting.
41:11
Speaker 1: And then Ted and Gary had continued on upped and
41:16
Speaker 1: made it, made it to the trailer, and then what
41:18
Speaker 1: I think happened after that was Gary nurse Ted. Gary
41:22
Speaker 1: had been in the army and the can opener that
41:24
Speaker 1: was there was actually a very simple thing called the
41:27
Speaker 1: P thirty eight, but you kind of had to have
41:30
Speaker 1: been in the army to to know how to use it,
41:33
Speaker 1: and Ted wouldn't have been and Gary would have been,
41:35
Speaker 1: So I think Gary may have stayed, probably fed both
41:40
Speaker 1: of them, and then like you said, seeing Ted was
41:42
Speaker 1: not doing so well, set out again with Ted shoes
41:45
Speaker 1: and died um going off to get helps somehow, That's
41:49
Speaker 1: what I think happened. Yeah, I would have think they
41:52
Speaker 1: get split up on the way up though, Like I
41:54
Speaker 1: just don't even know, like these guys would have died
41:57
Speaker 1: that quickly on on the way on this twenty mile hike,
42:01
Speaker 1: I mean six to eight foot snow drifts. That's cold. Yeah,
42:05
Speaker 1: but they're also on this snow packed trail supposedly. Sure,
42:08
Speaker 1: but they also have like they're dressed for mild weather,
42:13
Speaker 1: Like they didn't have jackets, sweaters, their shoes were like
42:16
Speaker 1: like like converse kind of things, aside from the the
42:20
Speaker 1: platform shoes that, like I did, it's entirely possible that
42:25
Speaker 1: twenty mile hike up a mountain they succumbed to the weather. Yeah,
42:30
Speaker 1: And you also, like it was hard to determine what
42:34
Speaker 1: level of intellectual impairment these boys had, so I don't
42:41
Speaker 1: know how much that plays into it, if at all.
42:45
Speaker 1: Like when they get to this cabin, like did um
42:48
Speaker 1: Matthias is because you know he didn't have his meds
42:51
Speaker 1: after that, did he start kind of breaking down with
42:54
Speaker 1: with some episodes of schizophrenia and leave? Did the other
43:00
Speaker 1: guy not fully understand? I mean at that point, he's
43:02
Speaker 1: exhausted and maybe hurt and scared. Was he not even
43:07
Speaker 1: able to figure out maybe to light a fire light
43:09
Speaker 1: of fire or how to use that can opener or
43:12
Speaker 1: maybe he felt he couldn't get out of bed because
43:14
Speaker 1: of his feet. Yeah, and he he was just stuck
43:18
Speaker 1: there after Gary struck out to go get help that
43:22
Speaker 1: there was nothing he could do, and the poor guy
43:24
Speaker 1: starved to death. But what were they doing up there
43:26
Speaker 1: to begin with? That's the basic root of this whole thing. Yeah,
43:30
Speaker 1: but that's that's why they call this the American diet
43:34
Speaker 1: law pass Right, we gotta do an episode on that
43:37
Speaker 1: one too. But because there's some there's like a mystery
43:39
Speaker 1: within a mystery within a mystery, there's so many many
43:42
Speaker 1: like other mysteries. Yeah, that that just kind of um
43:46
Speaker 1: crescendo from the first mystery, which is what were they
43:49
Speaker 1: doing there? Yeah? Well, like and like you said, some
43:53
Speaker 1: of the parents firmly believe like they witnessed something at
43:56
Speaker 1: this basketball game and we're then chased up this mountain. Yeah,
44:03
Speaker 1: Like I don't even know what that means, like like
44:05
Speaker 1: they witnessed a crime, I came after him or something.
44:08
Speaker 1: That's what Ted Weird sister in law always believed. And
44:13
Speaker 1: speaking of Ted Weir, you got anything else on this, no,
44:16
Speaker 1: except to only say if that was the case, then
44:19
Speaker 1: why was the car seemingly driven very slowly and carefully
44:22
Speaker 1: up this road? If they were being chased. Oh okay,
44:25
Speaker 1: So you make a good point. And I think I
44:27
Speaker 1: saw that elsewhere too, that that like that virtually proves
44:31
Speaker 1: that they weren't chased. If anything, it shows that they
44:36
Speaker 1: that that says something happened to them and somebody ditched
44:39
Speaker 1: their car. Who who knew the area? I think more
44:42
Speaker 1: likely um Jack Madrugo. It just would have driven extraordinarily
44:46
Speaker 1: slowly because this is his, his baby car. Yeah, it's
44:49
Speaker 1: all just very sad. I think it's just one of those.
44:52
Speaker 1: It's probably like Okam's razor. It's probably the most simple
44:55
Speaker 1: explanation is you know, maybe they just went on a
45:00
Speaker 1: little joy ride, got a little lost, got turned around
45:03
Speaker 1: in the woods, and succumbed to nature. Yeah, so I
45:08
Speaker 1: find this. I said at the beginning that this is
45:11
Speaker 1: just a very sad story to me. And one of
45:14
Speaker 1: the things that got me was in that Washington Post
45:17
Speaker 1: articles called five Boys Who Never Come Back by Cynthia Gorney.
45:21
Speaker 1: You can find it online. But um they she describes
45:26
Speaker 1: Ted Weir as you're ready for this that Ted got
45:31
Speaker 1: a good chuckle out of phoning Bill Sterling and reading
45:34
Speaker 1: from newspaper items or a ball names from the telephone
45:37
Speaker 1: book like that's what he was into, that's what made
45:40
Speaker 1: him happy. And I'm sure Bill Sterling thought it was
45:42
Speaker 1: hilarious too, But like they were just this group of
45:44
Speaker 1: friends and can't you just imagine my kid, we're like
45:47
Speaker 1: going through the phone book looking for silly names and
45:50
Speaker 1: going and picking up the phone and calling his friend
45:53
Speaker 1: Bill Sterling and saying, Bill, get a load of this one,
45:56
Speaker 1: and Bills just laughing on the other end of the line,
45:59
Speaker 1: and like that they just had like this such a
46:01
Speaker 1: pure life, like almost like an enviable life in a
46:06
Speaker 1: lot of ways, and that they died so horribly is
46:09
Speaker 1: just just bitterly sad to me. Yeah, I mean, they
46:13
Speaker 1: weren't troublemakers and even um, even the one who had
46:17
Speaker 1: had gotten convicted of assault a couple of times. Gary, Yeah, Gary,
46:21
Speaker 1: it seems like all signs point to the his mental
46:24
Speaker 1: illness is playing a big factor in that which he
46:26
Speaker 1: had gotten in check, right, exactly. All very sad. It
46:30
Speaker 1: is very sad. Well, if you have any theories on
46:33
Speaker 1: the what you call him the Ubi City six five,
46:37
Speaker 1: Uba County or Uba City five, Ubis City five, um,
46:41
Speaker 1: we want to hear him. You can find all of
46:43
Speaker 1: our social media connections on our website Stuff you Should
46:46
Speaker 1: Know dot com and if you like, you can also
46:48
Speaker 1: send us an email to shoot it off to Stuff
46:51
Speaker 1: Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com. Wait, we haven't
46:55
Speaker 1: done listener mail, have we know? You're just gonna let
46:58
Speaker 1: me keep going, weren't you? You know? All right? Well,
47:01
Speaker 1: hold on, everybody, hold on, don't stop yet, don't stop yet.
47:05
Speaker 1: Since I said some stuff I'm not supposed to say,
47:08
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. Yes. And speaking of which,
47:13
Speaker 1: this listener mail is rated rated R. Okay, that's all
47:18
Speaker 1: I'll say. Use the S word no, but it doesn't
47:21
Speaker 1: use curse words. It's just um talks very frankly about
47:24
Speaker 1: sex and it's good. P s A though, so we
47:27
Speaker 1: know the stuff. Uh. And this is from Emily, not
47:31
Speaker 1: my wife. Hey, guys, listen to the Select episode on
47:34
Speaker 1: condoms the other day. Thanks for all the great info.
47:37
Speaker 1: Appreciate you covering topics maybe slightly controversial or divisive and
47:41
Speaker 1: do so with such grace. I wanted to throw a
47:43
Speaker 1: little extra P. S A in there though, for your listeners.
47:47
Speaker 1: Most people are aware that you can and should use
47:49
Speaker 1: condoms to prevent pregnancy and or s t I S
47:51
Speaker 1: when a penis is involved, but there's far less awareness
47:54
Speaker 1: about protection when you've only got vaginas in the mix.
47:58
Speaker 1: Although you certainly can't get pregnant, it is possible to
48:01
Speaker 1: spread or contract an s t I from sex between
48:04
Speaker 1: two women or other vagina having people. But you can
48:08
Speaker 1: greatly reduce your risk of this by using a dental dam.
48:11
Speaker 1: It's a sheet of latex placed over the bulba or
48:13
Speaker 1: anus for oral sex. That's all, uh, And that's all
48:17
Speaker 1: there really is to it. If you don't have one
48:19
Speaker 1: on hand, you can safely d I Y one by
48:21
Speaker 1: unrolling a regular condom, cutting off the clothes end and bam,
48:25
Speaker 1: it's a dental dam. In the case of digital sex,
48:29
Speaker 1: not as in computers, as in fingers, latex gloves are
48:32
Speaker 1: perfect or perfect for the job. Of course, these can
48:35
Speaker 1: also be used by absolutely anyone. There's a lot more
48:38
Speaker 1: awareness of protection for heterosexual and male homosexual couples, and
48:41
Speaker 1: not a lot for queer women. Well that's my stuff
48:45
Speaker 1: you should know, and now you know it. Thanks for
48:47
Speaker 1: consistently great work and outstanding effort and educating and entertaining
48:50
Speaker 1: us every week and Happy Pride month. Uh And she
48:54
Speaker 1: wrote back, I just realized I gave an incomplete d
48:56
Speaker 1: I Y instruction. You would cut off the close end
48:59
Speaker 1: of the condom uh, and the ring on the open end,
49:04
Speaker 1: then cut down the middle and now it's a flat sheet. Bam.
49:09
Speaker 1: So that is from Emily. Thanks a lot, Emily, Happy
49:12
Speaker 1: Pride Month. Indeed good info. Uh yeah, it was good info.
49:19
Speaker 1: And if you out there want to send us good info,
49:21
Speaker 1: I already said it. I said it once and I'll
49:23
Speaker 1: say it again. You can find all our social stuff
49:25
Speaker 1: on stuff you should Know dot com, and you can
49:27
Speaker 1: send us an email to stuff podcast at how Stuff
49:31
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
49:36
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my Heart Radio,
49:40
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
49:43
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.