Yuba County

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.

Jack Hewitt's backbone was found nearby by his own father during a search.

Gary Matthias has never been found.

Now, there's some competing theories in this Yuba County mystery.

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.

And these guys disappeared without a trace back, uh, in early February of '78, and it's one of the most baffling American mysteries of all time.

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.

Three of the others would be found along the mountain road below him, and the fifth has never been found at all.

The men the press would come to call the Yuba County Five lived in the flat farm country around Marysville and Yuba City, about 40 miles north of Sacramento.

Ted Wire was 32, a warm, talkative man who'd worked as a janitor and on a utility crew.

Jack Madruga, 30, was an Army veteran who'd driven trucks for the service and who had recently been laid off from a job at a fruit packing plant.

Gary Mathias was 25, an Army veteran who'd been diagnosed with schizophrenia while stationed in Germany.

His early 20s had been rough, with hospitalizations, arrests, and psychotic episodes that sometimes ended with him walking extraordinary distances.

By 1978, though, he was widely described as a success story, which is something that I've seen other accounts of the Yuba County Five miss.

He was on a steady regimen of antipsychotic medication, worked in his stepfather's gardening business, and hadn't had a serious episode in years.

California had a statute on the books, Section 2615 of its Welfare and Institutions Code, that made it a misdemeanor to bring any indigent non-resident into the state, a law known as the Anti-Okie Law.

In December of 1939, a lay preacher named Fred Edwards drove from Yuba County, California to Texas, picked up his wife's brother, Frank Duncan, and brought Duncan, Duncan's wife, and their newborn daughter back to live in his house.

Edwards was prosecuted for it.

He was convicted and given a six-month suspended sentence for driving his own destitute relatives home.

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.

Jack Huett's backbone was found nearby by his own father during a search.

Gary Matthias has never been found.

Now, there's some competing theories in this Yuba County mystery.

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And now we're going to head to the heart of gold country, to the Yuba River.

Close to 200 years ago, people from all over the world flocked here to California to rivers like this one in search of gold.

These days, they're back at it.

Look at that.

It's like a constellation of stars.

Puckett, by the way, is buck naked right now, which is not uncommon for swimmers on this stretch of the Yuba, but I've never seen anybody pan for gold naked until now.

This is a beautiful stretch of river with sun-warmed giant boulders polished by glaciers and pools of turquoise water that almost glows.

Yeah.

Like, he goes from being average to, like, Yuba County 5 because of his...

His inability to shut up.

There are a few specific things that I go over in the new video.

Okay.

uh but also it sounded the evidence would suggest that they do have a security system got it either way

uh yeah they gave ten dollars thank you very much and asked uh didn't see if you answered this before but i'm a paramedic that is from yuba city the yuba where the yuba county five is from and now i live near where they went missing i'd love to take pics uh and fill in some lore oh

We should talk.

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 Dyatlov 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 Weiher, age 32, Jack Huett, age 24, and Gary Mathias, age 25, drove to Chico to watch a UC Davis basketball game.

Jack Hewitt's backbone was found nearby by his own father during a search.

Gary Matthias has never been found.

Now, there's some competing theories in this Yuba County mystery.