The Disappearance of the Yuba County Five

• 💡 On February 24, 1978, five men from Yuba County, California, vanished after attending a college basketball game, never returning home.
• 📌 The group, known as "the boys" by their parents, were sports enthusiasts and part of a community team through the Gateway Center, which supported individuals with disabilities.
• 🧠 Four of the men had learning or cognitive disabilities, while the fifth, Gary Mathias, had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, making their unusual actions particularly puzzling.

The Abandoned Car and Initial Search

• 🚗 The group's driver, Jack Madruga, drove his 1969 Mercury Montego 50 miles north to Chico for the game, with the team having a significant Special Olympics tournament game the next day.
• 🗺️ Instead of returning home, the car was found days later 70 miles away in Plumas National Park, off-route in a snowy, mountainous area, in good condition but stuck.
• ⚠️ An initial search effort was launched, but severe winter conditions and heavy snow forced investigators to call it off until the snow melted, leaving the parents to continue searching.

Conflicting Witness Accounts

• 💬 Joseph Schons, stranded in the same area due to a heart attack, claimed to have seen a pickup truck with a woman and baby, and later five men (possibly the Yuba County Five) who ignored his calls for help.
• 🏪 A store employee later reported seeing four men (believed to be Hewitt and Sterling) in a red pickup truck on March 3rd, making a phone call, which was corroborated by the store owner.
• ❌ These sightings were out of character for the men, especially Hewitt, who disliked using the phone, and added confusion to the search efforts.

Tragic Discoveries and Lingering Questions

• 🌲 Four months later, in June, motorcyclists discovered Ted Weiher's body in an abandoned forest service trailer, having died of exposure and starvation, despite ample food and supplies being available.
• 🧩 Weiher had lost 80 pounds and grown a beard, suggesting he had survived for 8-13 weeks, with evidence of cans opened by a military-style can opener, likely belonging to Madruga or Mathias.
• 💔 Subsequently, the bodies of Madruga, Sterling, and Hewitt were found spread across the area, also succumbing to the elements, with Madruga still holding his car keys.
• 🔍 Gary Mathias was never found, and the mystery remains as to why the men drove off-route, why they didn't use the available supplies in the trailer, and the true nature of their final weeks.