Disappearance of Gary Mathias

They've become symbols of the town's identity, a permanent reminder of the day the earth apparently opened up and gave up a couple of secrets.

Now, let's take a look at the frozen mystery of the Yuba County Five.

The case of the Yuba County Five, often referred to as the American Diablo Pass, is arguably the most heartbreaking and baffling disappearance in the history of Northern California.

It's a mystery defined by a series of nonsensical decisions that led five young men away from a celebratory night out and into a frozen, desolate death.

On February 24th, the anniversary was just recently here, 1978, five men from Marysville and Yuba City, Bill Sterling, age 29, Jack Madruga, age 30, Ted Wire, age 32, Jack Hewitt, age 24, and Gary Matthias, age 25, drove to Chico to watch a UC Davis basketball game.

The fact that Matthias' shoes were found inside the trailer, suggesting he was there with Weir, but his body was never found, has led some to wonder if he survived longer than the others.

So the whole mystery defies logic.

The mystery of the Yuba County Five is a collection of whys that have no answer.

And, uh, s- you know, that's, that's my contribution to the DB Cooper case, of course.

And then I had another one which I know you're really familiar with, called Out Of Bounds: What Happened To The Yuba County Five?, a story that you covered, of course, on your YouTube channels.

Uh, where, uh, five guys, uh, went, uh, missing in, uh, February of 1978 from Yuba County, California.

Four of the men had, uh, intellectual disabilities, and another, uh, the fifth member, Gary Mathias, uh, had schizophrenia.

Kind of blew up on YouTube about five years ago when, uh, various YouTube channels started covering the story, and it's, uh, picked up a lot of ground.

We learned a whole lot more about that case.

A friend of mine, Tony Wright's, recently written a book that's doing really well called Things Aren't Right: The Disappearance Of The Yuba County Five.

And, um, I have a group, including Tony Wright, that we, we communicate a lot about the case and, and really trying to, uh, put forward some answers of what could have happened to these, uh, five guys.

Down in the valley, five young men piled into a turquoise and white 1969 Mercury Montego.

They were local boys, Ted Weir, Jack Hewitt, Bill Sterling, Doc Ferry, and Gary Matthias.

They ranged in age from twenty-four to thirty-two, but their families just called them the boys.

Now, you got to understand, these weren’t your typical roughneck mountain men.

Jack's own father was the one who found his son's backbone resting under a manzanita bush.

They had succumbed to hypothermia in the deep snow.

But Gary Matthias, the one who needed his medication, he vanished like smoke in the wind, my friend.

Not a scrap of his clothing, not a bone, not a clue has ever been found.

They were Jack Madruga, 30, Ted Weier, 32, Bill Sterling, 29, Jackie Hewitt, 24, and Gary Mathias, 25.

In the decades since their disappearance, the Five Friends have become widely known as the Yuba County Five, although that was not the name generally used for them at the time.

In 1978, contemporary news reports typically referred to them simply as the Five Missing Men, while their families affectionately referred to them collectively as the Boys.

The young men lived in Yuba City, Marysville, and the surrounding area.

At another point during the night, Shones believed he saw lights again and once more called for help but again received no response.

He also later reported seeing what he thought were flashlights moving in the darkness.

It's tempting to imagine that Shones had witnessed the arrival of the Yuba County Five.

His location and the timing make the possibility intriguing, but his account has to be treated cautiously.

Well, the plan worked perfectly.

As one staff member ran after the distracting child inside the facility, Serenity seized the moment, pushed open an exterior door, and ran out into the cold.

The remaining staff member chose to stay inside to supervise the other children rather than give immediate chase.

As Serenity hurried across the campus path and into the main parking lot, an incoming visitor, her grandmother dropping off a child, witnessed her running.

Recognizing that Serenity was a resident and likely fleeing, the grandmother reversed her vehicle back to the main building to ring the doorbell and alert the staff.

Now, one of the most controversial aspects of the case is the timeline immediately following the escape.

Rather than calling law enforcement the moment a high-risk child vanished into subfreezing temperatures without winter attire, the on-call supervisor instructed staff to conduct an internal search first.

For one hour and twenty minutes, staff members searched the immediate grounds on foot and in vehicles.

Down in the valley, five young men piled into a turquoise and white 1969 Mercury Montego.

They were local boys, Ted Weir, Jack Hewitt, Bill Sterling, Doc Ferry, and Gary Matthias.

They ranged in age from twenty-four to thirty-two, but their families just called them the boys.

Now, you got to understand, these weren’t your typical roughneck mountain men.

Jack's own father was the one who found his son's backbone resting under a manzanita bush.

Ted succumbed to hypothermia in the deep snow.

But Gary Matthias, the one who needed his medication, he vanished like smoke in the wind, my friend.

Not a scrap of his clothing, not a bone, not a clue's ever been found.

They were local boys.

Ted Weir, Jack Hewitt, Bill Sterling, Doc Ferry, and Gary Matthias.

They ranged in age from 24 to 32, but their families just called them the boys.

Now, you gotta understand, these weren't your typical roughneck mountain men.

Jack's own father was the one who found his son's backbone resting under a manzanita bush.

Ted succumbed to hypothermia in the deep snow.

But Gary Matthias, the one who needed his medication, he vanished like smoke in the wind, my friend.

Not a scrap of his clothing, not a bone, not a clue has ever been found.

They were local boys.

Ted Weir, Jack Huett, Bill Sterling, Doc Ferry, and Gary Mathias.

They ranged in age from twenty-four to thirty-two, but their families just called them the boys.

Now, you got to understand, these weren't your typical roughneck mountain men.

And then I had another one, which I know you're really familiar with, called Out of Bounds.

What happened to the Yuba County five? A story that you covered, of course, on your YouTube channels where five guys went missing in February of 1978 from Yuba County, California.

Four of the men had intellectual disabilities.

And another, the fifth member, Gary Mathias, had schizophrenia.

You know, I think those are three of the top.

Every one of them a good read.

And yeah, I've referenced the Yuba County Five for a couple of different videos.

And I even had some questions that I had you verify when my wife was writing the script for the most recent video where we covered the Yuba County Five.

Again, I don't know what's taking them, but something is.

And also, I don't know if you're familiar with the Yuba County Five, no one really knows what happened with those five gentlemen.

And the problem with them is they were – All right.

I think for the timeframe, people were just being inconsiderate when they said they were slow because one worked on his car all the time and they were able to drive to basketball games and hang out.

In fact, a couple of weeks ago, I had Drew Beeson on.

He's an author.

He wrote a book about the Yuba County Five, among other things.

He wrote about D.B. Cooper and Zodiac Killer.