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

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