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The Yuba County Five – A Case Reclassified

For forty years, the disappearance of the Yuba County Five was a tragic accident. But a recently released official memo reclassifies the case as a homicide, revealing authorities now believe the men were victims of foul play.

A remote mountain road at night, covered in snow. Headlights illuminate tyre tracks leading into a dark, eerie pine forest, representing the mysterious final journey of the Yuba County Five.

On 28 February 1978, police found a car abandoned high in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It belonged to five young men from Yuba County, California, who went missing. The car had plenty of petrol and was only lightly stuck in snow, yet the men had vanished from it.

When police examined the vehicle’s undercarriage, the exposed framework underneath, they found it was pristine. There were no signs that a panicked or unfamiliar driver had navigated the rugged mountain road at night.

For forty years, this was officially filed as a tragic misadventure. The story went that five vulnerable young men got lost, abandoned their car and died in the wilderness. Case closed.

But in October 2020, the Yuba County Sheriff’s Office produced an internal memorandum that changed the case entirely. It quietly reclassified the disappearance of Gary Mathias, one of the five, as a “missing person/homicide” case, stating he was believed to be a “victim of foul play”. The memo included a clear directive – this information was not to be shared with his family.

The evidence never really supported the ‘got lost’ theory. Now we know that, in private, the authorities do not believe it either. The case is not one of accidental death; it is an active, unsolved crime.

Investigation Files: Part of the Yuba County Five case archive. Read the other reports:

→ The Compromised Witness
→ The Gold Waltham Watch
→ When the System Breaks

A Simple Trip Home

Friday night, 24 February 1978, should have been simple. Five friends from Yuba County drove fifty miles north to Chico to watch a college basketball game. They had a good reason to get home as the next morning was their own championship, a Special Olympics basketball tournament their team, the Gateway Gators, was set to compete in. This was not a group likely to take a spontaneous detour.

The details don’t tally up if you only look at the men as a group. Their individual personalities are key.

  • Jack Madruga, 30, was a US Army veteran and owned the 1969 Mercury Montego. His family insisted he was meticulous about his car, hated the cold, and would never have willingly driven on an unfamiliar mountain road.
  • Bill Sterling, 29, was deeply religious and a close friend of Madruga’s. He had a known dislike of the area where the car was found, after a bad fishing trip there as a child.
  • Jackie Huett, 24, was the most dependent of the group and looked to his friend Gary Mathias for guidance.
  • Ted Weiher, 32, worked as a janitor. His family said he lacked ‘common sense’, suggesting he might have followed a stranger’s instructions without question, making him particularly vulnerable.
  • Gary Mathias, 25, was different. He hadn’t been diagnosed with an intellectual disability, but he was an Army veteran diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia while serving in Germany. By 1978, his doctors at a Veterans Affairs hospital considered him stable on his medication.

The last confirmed sighting of the men was around 10 p.m. at Behr’s Market in Chico, where they bought snacks for the drive home. From there, they should have driven south to Yuba City. Instead, their car was found four days later, seventy miles away in the opposite direction, high in the mountains.

The Yuba County Five: Route Contradiction

Point of Departure (10 p.m.)

Behr's Market in Chico, California, after watching a basketball game.

The Intended Path

A simple 50-mile drive south, home to Yuba City/Marysville for their own basketball tournament the next morning.

The Contradiction

Instead of driving south, the car travelled in the opposite direction, northeast through the town of Oroville and up a remote mountain road.

Actual Location Found

The car was discovered abandoned 70 miles from Chico, at an elevation of 4,500 feet in the Plumas National Forest.

The Car on the Mountain

The Mercury Montego was found on a remote, unploughed service road in the Plumas National Forest, at an elevation of 4,500 feet. The location was not a simple wrong turn, it was a major deviation that required driving through the town of Oroville to reach the mountain route.

The car wasn’t abandoned because it was broken. When police bypassed the ignition, the engine started at once. The keys were missing. It had a quarter of a tank of petrol left. The car was stuck in a snowdrift, but investigators noted five healthy men could have pushed it free with little effort.

The most damning piece of physical evidence was the car’s undercarriage.

The Oroville-Quincy road is rough, full of potholes that would challenge any vehicle, especially at night. A driver who was lost would almost certainly have hit something. Police examinations found no dents, no scrapes, not even mud on the low-hanging exhaust. This was not the mark of a panicked drive, it suggested a slow, careful, and precise journey by someone who either knew the road or was being forced to avoid every hazard.

Inside, police found snack wrappers, basketball programmes, and a neatly folded road map of California. The map hadn’t been used. If they were lost, they never tried to check.

Police examinations found no dents, scrapes, or even mud on the undercarriage or its low-hanging muffler. This pristine condition implies that the car was not driven by a panicked or lost driver.

Yuba County Sheriff's Department, Vehicle Examination Summary, 1978

The Witness on the Road

There is only one known eyewitness from that night. Joseph Schons, a 55-year-old from Sacramento. His testimony is both crucial and deeply flawed.

Schons had driven up the same mountain road when his own car got stuck in the snow. While trying to free it, he suffered a confirmed heart attack. Lying in agony, he reported seeing other people on the road. His account, however, changed over time. At first, he told police he saw the headlights of a car and a pickup truck. Later, he described hearing whistling and seeing a group of people, which he thought included a woman holding a baby. When he called for help, the group went silent and their lights went out. Hours later, he saw torchlight beams that also vanished when he shouted.

It’s pretty obvious a man suffering a severe heart attack is not a reliable witness. His perceptions could easily have been distorted by pain and fear. His presence is confirmed; he walked miles for help the next morning and passed the abandoned Montego. But his testimony is not solid evidence of who was on that mountain, only that other people may have been there.

The Compromised Witness

  • Severe Medical Trauma: Joseph Schons suffered a confirmed heart attack immediately before his observations. Extreme pain, fear, and potential oxygen deprivation can severely distort perception and memory.
  • Inconsistent Accounts: His story changed in the telling. An initial report mentioned only a car and a pickup truck, while a later version described a group of people, whistling, and a woman with a baby. This makes it impossible to establish a definitive sequence of events.
  • Unreliable Evidence: Due to his compromised state, his testimony cannot be treated as a factual account. It only serves as a potential indicator that other people may have been on the mountain, not as reliable proof of who they were or what they were doing.

The Paradox at the Trailer

The spring thaw revealed a scene that raised baffling questions.

On 4 June 1978, motorcyclists found a broken window on a US Forest Service trailer, 19 miles by road from the abandoned car. Inside was the decomposed body of Ted Weiher.

The post-mortem revealed Weiher had lost nearly 100 pounds. Beard growth showed he had survived for eight to thirteen weeks after vanishing. He died of starvation and hypothermia. His feet were severely frostbitten and gangrenous, meaning the tissue had died, a condition that would have left him in excruciating pain and likely unable to move. This explains why he couldn’t get to the supplies himself. He was on a bed, wrapped in eight sheets, as if someone had cared for him.

The tragedy took place in a place of abundance.

  • Food: A storage shed outside held a year’s supply of C-rations, tinned military meals, and other food. Only a few tins had been opened and eaten.
  • Heat: A full propane tank was connected to a heating system, but it was never turned on. There were matches and kindling, but no fire was lit in the fireplace.
  • Clothing: Heavy forestry clothing lay inside, untouched.

Weiher was not alone. Investigators found a pair of Gary Mathias’s trainers inside the trailer. Weiher’s leather shoes were missing. The logical conclusion is that Mathias, perhaps because his own feet were swollen, took Weiher’s larger shoes and left his behind.

The food tins had been opened with a P-38, a small can opener issued to the US military. Of the five men, only the two Army veterans, Madruga and Mathias, would have known how to use it. Since Madruga’s body was found elsewhere, it must have been Mathias in the trailer with Weiher.

One final item was on a table – a gold Waltham watch that none of the families recognised. This is the only physical clue that an unknown person may have been at the scene.

The failure to use life-sustaining resources for thirteen weeks is not explained by incompetence alone. One theory, from Mathias’s stepfather, is that they were hiding in terror, afraid to make smoke or light that might reveal their location to whatever had driven them there.

The Paradox of the Trailer: Supplies vs Usage

Resources Available Resources Used
A full propane tank connected to a heating system. None. The heating system was never turned on.
A year’s supply of C-rations (tinned military meals) and other food in a storage shed. Minimal. Only a handful of tins were opened over a period of up to 13 weeks.
Matches and paperback books suitable for kindling a fire. None. No fire was ever lit in the fireplace.
Heavy forestry clothing that could have protected from the cold. None. The clothing was left untouched.

This failure to use life-sustaining resources is a central, unexplained contradiction in the case.

Discovery of the Other Men

As the snow retreated in June, searchers found the other men scattered between the car and the trailer. The remains of Jack Madruga and Bill Sterling were on opposite sides of the service road, both dead from hypothermia.

The last to be found was Jackie Huett. His father, part of the search party, discovered his son’s jeans and shoes in the undergrowth. His backbone was found inside the clothing. The journey from the car was nineteen miles through deep snow in light clothing, a lethal trek.

Gary Mathias was never found.

The Trail of Remains - A 19.4-Mile Journey

  1. MILE 0

    The Abandoned Car

    The journey on foot began here, where the men left their functional 1969 Mercury Montego stuck in a snowdrift.

  2. ALONG THE ROUTE

    Remains of Madruga, Sterling & Huett

    The bodies of three of the men were discovered at various points along the service road between the car and the trailer. All had died of hypothermia.

  3. MILE 19.4

    The Forest Service Trailer

    Ted Weiher was found inside, having died of starvation and hypothermia after surviving for weeks. Gary Mathias's shoes were also in the trailer, but he was missing.

The Official Investigation

When Melba Madruga first tried to report her son missing, the Sheriff’s Department told her to wait 24 hours, costing them valuable time. After the car was found, a massive snowstorm forced authorities to suspend the search, ending any chance of rescue for anyone still alive.

The most significant alleged failure involves the Forest Service trailer. Two Forest Service workers later claimed they had told Butte County authorities about the trailer early in the search. If that information was acted upon, a search in late February could have found Weiher and Mathias alive. It points to a catastrophic breakdown in communication.

The 2020 Reclassification

For decades, the official cause of death was accidental, and the public story was that the men simply got confused.

Then, in 2020, things changed. An internal Yuba County Sheriff’s Office memo dated 8 October 2020, released in 2023, stated:

‘Gary Matthias is believed to be a victim of foul play. This case remains open as a missing person/homicide case. It is in the best interest of all involved that this letter not be forwarded to the Matthias family’.

This document shows that authorities now privately view the case as a potential homicide, contradicting forty years of public statements. It positions Gary Mathias not as someone who led his friends to their deaths, but as a victim himself. What evidence prompted this, and why was it deliberately kept from the family?

The 2020 Reclassification Memo

Gary Matthias is believed to be a victim of foul play. This case remains open as a missing person/homicide case. It is in the best interest of all involved that this letter not be forwarded to the Matthias family.

Yuba County Sheriff's Office, Internal Memorandum, 8 October 2020

The Unanswered Questions

The official story of the Yuba County Five is broken.

The theory of five men simply getting lost is refuted by the undamaged car, the paradox of the trailer, and most of all, by the Sheriff’s Office’s homicide classification. The theory that Gary Mathias had a psychotic break is contradicted by the same memo that names him as a victim.

The idea that the men were coerced or chased by someone else provides the most coherent explanation for the facts. The 2020 memo gives this theory official weight.

Forty-six years later, the case is defined by what we still don’t know. Until these questions are answered, the Yuba County Five remains an unsolved crime.

  • What made them take a 70-mile detour from their route home?
  • Who drove the Montego so carefully that its undercarriage was left undamaged, and why?
  • Why were the car keys missing?
  • Who did the gold Waltham watch in the trailer belong to?
  • Why was the food and fuel at the trailer not used for up to thirteen weeks? Was it inability, or fear?
  • What made Gary Mathias leave the trailer, and why did he take Ted Weiher’s shoes?
  • What specific evidence led the Sheriff’s Office to reclassify the case as a homicide in 2020, and why was this kept from the family?
  • And finally, what happened to Gary Mathias, and where are his remains?

Sources

Sources include: official law enforcement documents, most notably the Yuba County Sheriff’s Office internal memorandum from 8 October 2020 which reclassified the case as a potential homicide; original investigation files from the multi-jurisdictional response involving Yuba, Butte, and Plumas counties; forensic analysis of the two primary scenes, including the pristine condition of the abandoned 1969 Mercury Montego and the paradoxical state of the U.S. Forest Service trailer; detailed analysis of the sole eyewitness testimony of Joseph Schons and its compromising factors; interviews with and accounts from the victims’ families regarding the men’s personalities, habits, and the events surrounding their disappearance; historical and analytical comparisons with other unsolved cases, particularly the 1959 Dyatlov Pass Incident, for its parallels in paradoxical evidence; extensive journalistic and media reporting on the case over four decades, including digital case file releases following Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests; and public digital archives and case summaries that have compiled evidence and witness statements for public review.

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