In February 1978, five young men from Yuba County, California, vanished after attending a college basketball game. Four of them were eventually found dead in the remote Plumas National Forest, while the fifth man has never been located to this day.
Their disappearance and the strange circumstances that followed have puzzled investigators and the public for decades. The case became known as the mystery of the Yuba County Five, a story filled with unanswered questions and unsettling details.
An ordinary night out
On 24 February 1978, Bill Sterling, 29, Jack Huett, 24, Ted Weiher, 32, Jack Madruga, 30, and Gary Mathias, 25, travelled 50 miles north from Yuba City to California State University in Chico to watch a basketball game.
The men, all close friends, were from Yuba City and nearby Marysville. They often played together on the Gateway Gators, a basketball team for players with intellectual disabilities or learning difficulties, supported by a local programme designed to encourage social activities.
Weiher and Huett had intellectual disabilities. Sterling and Madruga were described as “slow learners,” while Mathias was a US Army veteran diagnosed with schizophrenia. In 1978, Mathias was stable, taking medication and living with his parents in Marysville.
After UC Davis won the game, the group stopped at Behr’s Market in Chico before heading home. A store clerk, closing for the night, remembered them arriving just before 10pm, buying snacks, sodas, and milk. No one saw them again.
The man who never came back
Gary Mathias had a different background from the others. Born in 1952 in Yuba County, he had served in the Army in West Germany, but developed drug problems and was diagnosed with schizophrenia, leading to a psychiatric discharge.
He returned home to Marysville, living with his parents while receiving outpatient treatment at a local mental hospital. His early years back were troubled, with arrests nearly occurring, but by 1978, doctors called him “one of our sterling success cases.”
Mathias took medication regularly and worked part-time in his stepfather’s gardening business. Outside of work, his life revolved around sport and his friendship with the other four men, who were known by their families as “the boys.”
A car in the mountains
When the men failed to return home, their families contacted the police the next morning. Search teams from Butte and Yuba counties began looking along their route to Chico, but found nothing in the initial hours and days.
On 28 February, a Plumas National Forest ranger recognised Madruga’s turquoise and white 1969 Mercury Montego coupe from missing persons notices. He had seen it parked along Oroville-Quincy Road, a remote mountain route, on 25 February.
The location baffled investigators. It was 70 miles from Chico and far from any direct route home. The road climbed to 4,400 feet and ended where seasonal closure began due to snow. The men had not carried winter clothing.
Madruga disliked cold weather and had never driven into the mountains. Sterling had visited the area once for fishing but had not enjoyed it. Their families could not explain why they would be there late at night in winter.
The Montego was in good condition. It had a quarter tank of petrol and no mechanical problems. It was stuck in shallow snow, but police believed five men could have freed it easily without difficulty. The car keys were missing.
The undercarriage had no damage, suggesting careful driving on a rough road. Inside, police found basketball programmes, empty snack wrappers, drink containers, and a neatly folded road map of California. Nothing explained why the men had abandoned the car.
The day the car was found, a severe snowstorm struck the area, forcing searchers to halt operations. Snowcats were used, but crews nearly became lost themselves. Apart from the car, there was no sign of the missing men.
A strange sighting
Public appeals led to multiple reports of sightings. Most were dismissed, but two stood out. One came from Joseph Schons, a Sacramento man who had driven to check on his mountain cabin on 24 February.
Schons’s car became stuck, and while trying to free it, he began experiencing chest pains. Around midnight, he saw headlights behind him and a group of people, including someone who looked like a woman holding a baby.
He called for help, but the group went silent and turned off their lights. Later, he saw flashlights, which also went out when he called again. He recalled a pickup truck stopping briefly before driving away.
By morning, his fuel had run out. His chest pain eased enough for him to walk eight miles to a lodge for help, passing the Montego where he thought he had heard voices during the night.
Doctors confirmed he had suffered a mild heart attack. Weiher’s mother later said her son would not have ignored someone asking for help, recalling times when he had assisted others in emergencies.
The second sighting came from a woman in Brownsville, 30 miles from the car’s location. On 3 March, she told police she had seen four of the men in a red pickup truck the day after they disappeared.
Two, identified as Huett and Sterling, were outside at a payphone while the other two went inside a store to buy burritos, chocolate milk, and soft drinks. The store owner confirmed her account to investigators.
The thaw brings grim discoveries
In June, after the snow melted, the first major breakthrough came. On 4 June, motorcyclists discovered a US Forest Service trailer almost 20 miles north of the abandoned car. Its front window had been broken.
Inside was the body of Ted Weiher, wrapped in eight sheets, including over his head. He had died from a combination of starvation and hypothermia. His beard growth indicated he had survived more than three months after going missing.
Weiher had lost nearly half his body weight. His feet were frostbitten to the point of gangrene. On a table beside the bed were his wallet, a gold necklace, a nickel ring engraved “Ted,” a partially melted candle, and a gold watch not belonging to him.
Nearby, matches, paperback novels, forestry clothing, and a butane heating system were untouched. In a shed outside, a large supply of dehydrated food capable of feeding all five men for a year had not been opened.
A dozen C-rations had been eaten, possibly opened with a military P-38 can opener known to Mathias or Madruga. Investigators could not explain why the larger supply and heating system were never used.
More remains along the road
On 5 June, searchers found the remains of Madruga and Sterling 11 miles from the car, on opposite sides of the road leading to the trailer. Both had died of hypothermia and been partially scavenged by animals.
Two days later, Huett’s father found his son’s backbone under a bush two miles northeast of the trailer. His shoes and jeans were nearby. The next day, his skull was found 300 feet away. His cause of death was hypothermia.
Three Forest Service blankets and a rusted flashlight were found beside the road a quarter-mile northwest of the trailer. Inside the trailer were Mathias’s shoes. No other trace of him has ever been found.
Unanswered questions
Investigators believed the men might have followed snowcat tracks from the road to the trailer after abandoning the car. Madruga and Sterling could have died from hypothermia along the way, followed by Huett.
Mathias and Weiher may have reached the trailer but hesitated to use the supplies for fear of being accused of theft. The sheets covering Weiher suggest someone else was present when he died.
Mathias, without his schizophrenia medication, might have tried to go for help wearing Weiher’s shoes if his own feet were frostbitten. His fate remains completely unknown.
Forty-seven years later, the Yuba County Five case has no definitive explanation. Every detail that emerged only deepened the mystery, securing its place among the most perplexing unsolved cases in American history.
