On February 24, 1978, five men drove from Yuba City to Chico, California to watch a college basketball game. It was supposed to be a simple night out.

They never came home.

Days later, their car was found abandoned on a remote mountain road in Plumas National Forest — undamaged, fueled, and locked. Four sets of footprints led uphill into the snow.

What followed was a months-long search, a remote forest service trailer stocked with supplies, one man who survived for weeks, and one who was never found at all.

In this episode, we examine the facts surrounding the Yuba County 5 case — who these men were, what we know happened that night, and the theories that continue to surround their disappearance.

Was this misadventure? Panic? Mental health? Foul play? Or simply a tragic chain of decisions made in the dark?

This is a story about routine, vulnerability, autonomy, and how quickly ordinary can turn into irreversible.

Key Names

William Sterling

Jack Hewitt

Jack Madruga

Ted Weir

Gary Mathias

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Credits

Research & Writing: Jenn Syx

Production: House of Syx

Hosted by: Jenn Syx & Jared Syx

is rainy and cold and yucky outside. It sucks. It does. And so we are

here to bring you some joy with some very awful stories. That’s what we

do here on this podcast. Have you ever heard of the Yuba County? Five

Yuba County? Yuba County? Yuba County five.

know that story. No, you’ll have, you’ll I’ll tell it to. You’ll it to

me someday. It’s probably very exciting. Yeah. That was a stupid joke

anyway. Yep. Yuba County five. Yep. You don’t know what it’s about.

No. It includes five people. Check. Yep. Yep. So I’m breaking my rule

just a little bit and I’ve actually gone past my line in the sand for

timeline Ah, ah, okay.

the rules a little bit here. That’s all right. It’s all right.

sad ’cause it, it, uh, involves some vulnerable humans, which I guess

we’re all v vulnerable. We’re just, you know, soft bags of flush.

all are in some way, but, uh, this is a little bit extra. So it is very

sad and I’m going to try to be as sensitive as possible. Um, don’t cry.

Not today, not today. I’ve already covered my quota of crying today.

True. So, which is really funny because I don’t cry very much.

it’s just a little stressful. So sometimes you gotta stop watching the

news and turn it off and take a mental health break and just be with

your family, be with your pets and your kids, and your spouses and your

friends, and you gotta take a moment to enjoy the things that you’re

supposed to enjoy in life.

what were the, um, the PSAs that were for, for afterschool specials and

stuff, they were called something really specific. I only remember the

one that was, uh, I’m just a bill. On Capitol Hill.

the eighties that goes, it is 9:00 PM do you know where your children

are? And most parents in the eighties were like, you know what? As a

matter of fact, I’ve forgotten. Yeah. Right.

garden hoses and luck most of the time. I liked it. I mean, you liked,

but I’m older than you. So I lived a little bit, I was, you know, a

little bit more in the eighties than you. You lived through the

eighties. I was 100% alive, underst through the entirety of the

eighties.

um, you’re trying to like have a, like a wise moment here. No. ’cause I,

that’s bullshit when people do that to me. We just talked about that.

You know what? You’re as wise as you are wise. Thanks and you are

welcome. Alright. Bringing, bringing the heaters. I don’t know what that

means.

the Yuba County five. Okay. All righty. There’s a train in the

background people. I’m just gonna keep going. There’s nothing that I can

do about it ’cause we live near some tracks. Wow. You’d think that it

was in our backyard, but it’s really not that close.

little step back in time. So let’s go back to the 1970s. , And I will

disabilities looked different than it does today. And it also a

generation earlier where they were just like, Nope.

and that’s what happened.

developmental disabilities, they work jobs. They joined leagues, they

went out together. They were expected to move through the world without

constant supervision.

Northern California, familiarity carried more weight than people

realized. Faces were known habits were predictable. When a group of men

did something that they’d done before, it didn’t register as risk,

regardless of who those men were and how they functioned in society,

normal behavior was.

going around like they should be. And safety in that environment was

something people assumed rather than something that they actively

monitored. Trouble was expected to look obvious. You were supposed to

know, like, be able to tell just by what was going on there.

miss. And subtle problems didn’t necessarily trigger alarms because they

didn’t look like emergencies. I’m going somewhere with this. All right,

I’m, I’m, I’m lay in the groundwork here because this case sits in that

gap between what felt ordinary and what should require some actual

attention.

case here and we are going to talk about the five men that are at the

center of this. All right? So I’m gonna give a little bit of details.

Stick with me because you know, I think that it’s important to talk

about these people and make sure that we give them their due.

first we have William Sterling, 29. He lived with his parents. He is

reported to have a mild intellectual disability. We don’t really know

what that means because they didn’t really give it any more thought than

that. All right? That’s, that’s what we have.

for sports. Sports is at the center of this, okay? Especially

basketball. He followed routines closely and took pride in doing things

the right way. Now I get that because I’m a rule follower, and if there

is a rule, I will follow it. Unless it’s stupid, then I don’t want to.

He’s the youngest of this group. He has reported to also have a mild

intellectual disability. I don’t exactly know what that means. He lived

with his parents as well. He was quiet, good natured, and eager to fit

in. He followed the lead of others and rarely pushed against

expectations.

some, uh, personality. Okay. Yeah. He is 30 now. He’s usually the driver

of the group. Okay. Because he has a car and he is regarded as having

learning differences or cognitive challenges. Uh, he liked the

responsibility of owning a car.

dependable. Jack, like things to go according to plan. I also understand

that because when things don’t go according to plan, I don’t want

anything to do with that. I get it. We have Ted Weir. He’s 32, lived

with his parents also learning differences in challenges deeply attached

to routine and structure. There’s a theme here. He could become anxious

when plans changed and he depended heavily on familiar patterns to feel

safe.

does not have learning or cognitive disabilities. He had been diagnosed

with paranoid schizophrenia. Okay. And had been prescribed medication to

manage it. All, all good. He lived independently in an, in an apartment.

He’s the only one that lived by himself.

unfamiliar situations. His family later emphasized that he was stable.

He was thoughtful and resourceful, but consistency mattered. He was

under the care of the VA and civil mental health services. So he was

being monitored even though he lived by himself and his family remained

actively involved in his life, his condition, his his stability.

they were not just acquaintances. They played organized basketball

together as a part of a team called the Gateway Gators. Okay. It was a

local group supported by a community program for adults with cognitive

and developmental differences in the Yuba City Marysville area, which

we’re just going to go forward and just say Yuba City.

and then spent time outside of that together as well. And this is where

many of their family said their friendships solidified. All right. They

bowled together, they went to dances. This is like a core group of

friends.

Hewitt worked at the same job through a community placement program.

Jack Madrea was usually the driver when they went out together ’cause he

had a car. Remember William Sterling was deeply invested in sports and

tried to never miss a game.

the group more recently, the other than the others, but had integrated

quickly into their routines in social life.

like a part of the story and it’s very integral to their lives, and I

think that’s amazing.

noise. Uh, squeaking of the shoes. Yeah. You hate it all. It’s, and my

parents, uh, I grew up in Arkansas and I, my parents had season tickets

to the Arkansas Razorbacks and we would go to all of the games all the

time and sit in these seats and there was a guy behind us that they were

metal walls on the side where the seats were, and the guy would bang on

the metal walls.

hatred of basketball. Yeah. Anytime he would get excited or a bad play

call or something like that, he would bang annoying on the walls. That’s

annoying. Yeah. Yeah. A metal wall.

floor that’s high. Like get what? Can you, can they not have noise

dampening situation on those floor? I guess the ball wouldn’t bounce,

right? I take it back. That was dumb. Anyhow. I a yay. So all five

either lived with family or within systems that assumed proximity,

predictability, and some degree of oversight they were being cared for.

recreation nights, sporting events. They were capable of moving through

familiar environments independently, but they depended on those

environments to stay familiar. Right. Okay.

parallels here now, by the late 1970s, community-based programs had

largely replaced institutional care for adults with disabilities.

different diagnosis. Seas often shared the same vocational placements,

recreation leagues, and social programs. Not because that they were

identical, but because those were the only structures that existed. So

today, somebody like Gary with a mental illness, I don’t think that he

would

disabilities.

good sense. But for all in, for all, everybody explains like he was a

nice guy and then this was a good group of friends. So I don’t think

that that matters to this particular story. I’m not foreshadowing

anything. Nothing about this group suggested the night would require

more than a plan. That’s the context in which this whole situation

begins. All right, so the plan for the night was simple.

to drive from Yuba City to Chico to watch a college basketball game. Uc.

Davis was playing Chico State at California State University in Chico. I

have never heard of any of those. I have heard of California. Yeah, I

think I’ve heard of

it could, it’s

you know what kind of car that is? Nope. Not a, no. Let’s look this

be simpler, simpler, similar, if I had to guess.

means. Like that. Yeah, it’s similar to an LTD. I don’t know when an LTD

is. That’s what Gome had.

3 51 Cleveland V eight in it. That was like fast as shit. That’s why.

And the air conditioner would parts your hair because it was so strong,

because the goddamn, uh. V eight, you know, being so strong. Oh yeah. It

was hilarious. Tini drove, a dad used to give her a shit.

wasn’t sport. No, it was ugly. He, it was, it was a land yacht. That one

was sporty. Uh, I don’t think, maybe

the game, return home afterwards. The next day. Was important to them as

well. All five were scheduled to play in a Special Olympics basketball

tournament. Families later said that they took those commitments

seriously.

had already been finalized for the next day. So they had a lot going on.

They had some serious plans happening here. Okay. There is no indication

that they intended to stay overnight or deviate from the plan. The men

were only wearing light coats against the cool temperatures of the upper

Sacramento Valley at night at that time of the year.

or supplies and nothing suggests they expected the night to extend

beyond the game and the drive home. I’m, so that’s, you know that you’ll

probably have to cut this out, but like all I can picture is four.

People with some type of needs.

of, I’ll just say special needs, I mean, of some sorts. And then a fifth

person taking care of them all with diagnosed schizophrenia. Like John,

John, John. This is like, yeah, I, what a great group to hang out with

in a car. Like I would, I would wanna listen to the conversations going

on in this car.

themselves probably. So this feels like they shouldn’t have, but again,

we’re in the seventies, right? These men were afforded a certain amount

of normalcy, which is great. Right. At the same time, it feels like this

is something that they shouldn’t have been doing.

a lot of, uh, retellings of this situation, people call them boys.

That’s used a lot. And I think it’s because of their disabilities and

their cognitive abilities. Right. And I feel that that’s somewhat rude.

I think people tend to infantalize. Right.

to say if that’s not it. Exactly. But yes, I think they tried to put

some level of label. Yeah. And I, and I purposefully chose not to do

that because they were men. Right. And they were independent and they

were living, they were living fulfilling lives for the, for this time

frame.

trying to give them as much respect as I possibly can in a, you know,

you, uh, the, every time that I’ve heard this story, that I’ve watched

other podcasts and things about them, I think about.

and obviously it’s because we have the lens of knowing what happened

now, but I don’t know. I don’t know what happened yet. You’re about to.

All right, so they arrive in Chico and they attend the basketball game.

Everything goes as planned. The group was expected home early Saturday

morning on February 25th.

little bit longer, so when they didn’t arrive and didn’t call, family

members woke up and noticed that something’s off. Parents began phoning

each other around 5:00 AM on Saturday morning.

exception of.

realized that all five were unexpectedly absent, so the families call

the police. And according to later reporting, one mother was told by

deputies that since the men were adults, law enforcement would generally

check again later, before filing a report, which was common procedural

at the time.

documentaries, you hear they have to be missing for 48 or 24 hours

before a missing, missing person report can be, uh, submitted. That is

not true. Just so you are all aware, you can report a person missing as

soon as possible, as you know, is something that is wrong.

Something’s going on. It’s not right. This is not normal. And woe.

Behold, anybody that tries to keep me from filing a missing persons

report, I’ll tell you that much. ’cause they’re not gonna listen to me,

damnit, something’s not right and I know it. What’d you do with his

body?

reports from Concerned Family, they started taking it seriously. Like

obviously something’s going on here. So they began a search and they

eventually tracked down the men’s activities that night. Which we’ll get

back to in a second, but we’re gonna go in real time as to what, what

all the families knew.

Service Ranger saw the abandoned mercury Montego in a snowbank on a

remote mountain road in Plumas National Forest, , which is near Rogers

Cow Camp, and at an elevation of approximately 4,400 feet, which is way

far from the expected route home.

Ranger initially assumed the vehicle belonged to a winter skier or

something, rather than somebody missing because there was no bolo or

alert out at this point in time because they told the families, well,

these are adults, you gotta give it some time.

27th. So immediately delaying the discovery of the location to law

enforcement, right? So when the deputies finally did find out and they

reached the car, so the location where the car was found, the road was

snow covered, but not impassable.

damaged, stuck, or disabled, but the keys were missing and the car was

locked. Okay? There was enough fuel in the tank for the car to continue

driving. It did not run outta gas. Investigators noted that the vehicle

could have been turned around and driven back down the mountain.

were no clear signs of a struggle inside or around the car, and four

distinct sets of footprints were reported leading away from the car and

moving uphill into the deeper snow. There were no other footprints

indicating that this was a forced situation or a panic situation.

The men were not found in the immediate area around the car. Okay. This

location of the car is a route inconsistent with the most direct or

logical drive home. So this is just weird, this car, but this discovery

shifted the search dramatically from a missing person along a known road

to a wilderness search in remote terrain.

In February. Mm-hmm. This is not Okay.

snow, terrain and drifting. So once the footprints led away from the

road and then disappeared, authorities shifted from a roadside search to

a large scale wilderness search. And this included sheriff’s deputies

search and rescue teams, volunteers, national guard helicopters, even

when the weather allowed.

normally go to seek help. They don’t go up the mountain, they go down.

Uh, they also were looking in cabins, ranger stations, any kind of

shelter along the way, but they were also paying attention to roads,

creeks, ravines, things like that. So they were, they were doing their

due diligence here, and this is an important factual point.

of the early effort was focused on lower elevations and likely routes

back to. Civilization, right? But weather has severely limited the

search. Because of heavy snowfall. They started to see blizzard

conditions, and there were even risks of avalanches at the time.

least one search team reportedly had to be rescued after becoming

trapped in the snow. So as a result, large sections of the area could

not be safely searched, and some efforts were suspended to be resumed.

Later, later, later, resumed later.

about it. I just keep,

because. Most of the people that listen to this podcast won’t hear all

of the trip ups because I edit it. ’cause nobody wants to hear all of

that

times ’cause it comes out weird.

did then. And then I’ll say it like four times in a row and he just sits

here. He just sits here and takes it in and listens to it. And it’s

just, it’s gotta be boring ’cause you gotta look just as enter.

Interesting. Interested. See the fourth time I say the sentence versus

as this, the first time time I say the I get sentence, I usually get

more interested.

wonder also if people watching are like, why did he just look at her

like that? That’s because I said the same sentence 17 times. Right. And

he is like, it’s still going. It’s happening. It’s not happening.

Anyhow. Despite this extensive searching, none of the men were found, no

personal belongings were recovered beyond the car, and no definitive

explanation emerged After weeks of searching with no success.

the case remained open, obviously, but they’re still in the, in the dead

of winter right here. They just had to wait. At this point, the car was

there, they saw the footprints, and then for months there was nothing. ,

So during the search and rescue efforts, police start tracking down the

men’s activities that night, and they have pieced together the following

chain of events.

won, the five men walked back to MAD’s car and drove a short distance to

PM closing time. This is noted specifically by the store clerk because

she was annoyed that somebody came in.

right before closing, and she remembered the group, uh, filling their

arms with snacks, sodas, and cartons of milk before paying and leaving.

This was the last time any of them were definitively seen alive.

Market, the five men got back into Jack MAD’s car and left Chico. , No

witnesses reported any kind of distress, urgency, conflict at that

point. Now we do have an, an alleged sighting of the men, and this is

from Joseph Scho.

you will find in any discussions about this case and has been documented

extensively.

why. There is a man named Joseph SHOs in his mid fifties, driving in the

Plumas National Forest area on the night his car got stuck in the snow

while he was checking snow pack ahead of a planned cabin trip. I don’t

know what that means.

heart attack, and he was waiting it out in his car. He actually did

experience a heart attack, and that was later medically confirmed. But

this is why this is’ necessarily reliable because he was having a

medical emergency. It’s kind of hard to pay attention when you’re having

a, I have never had a heart attack, but I imagine it’s hard to pay

attention when you’re having a heart attack.

and silhouettes of people, a group, including what he thought were

several men. Possibly including individuals who could have been the

missing men stopped nearby. One version of this reported seen additional

figures may be a woman and child near his car that night, but that has

never been verified.

help. The, the car lights went out and the voices went silent. Once this

serious medical situation passed, he walked down the mountain and this

we have confirmed he passed the abandoned mercury montego. He said that

there were no people around it.

witness. It, the sightings did occur in the same general area where the

Mercury found. Obviously he saw the car, but it’s really hard to say

whether he saw those men or not. It’s like impossible to say. Um,

things like this, have made claims that he was known locally for alcohol

abuse and dishonesty.

Uh, there’s also one claim that he may or may not have shit his pants

while he had this medical emergency.

substantiated by the reports of the day. These were, these came about

later, right?

when dishonesty happens about, and I don’t think anybody’s purposely

been dishonest about it.

look, if you are gonna shit your pants, a heart attack is the time to

shit your pants. Okay. Noted. I feel like that’s one of those times

where you’re like, well, I shit my pants, but you know, like I was

having a heart attack like, whatcha gonna do?

attack on me. That’s A, but b, if, if you shit your pants, I’m gonna

have a hard time not talking about it. At some point later in our lives,

I Okay, that’s, yeah. Okay. I haven’t shit my pants ever. Just

What about you? I’m not gonna talk about it. So you’re saying that you

guys have more issues than, than that. So you’re saying you shit your

pants, you’re saying there’s a chance.

floating around online that claims men were seen in a red pickup after

the disappearance. Um, there’s no, I don’t have any primary reporting

that proves this, so I can’t say that it is or isn’t true. And somehow

these, this red pickup is associated with the situation that Joseph

Schone saw, and then somehow they were like, we, there’s no, we don’t

have it.

this is all happening in February. Months go by, and now we are in early

I saw your eyes going up and down watching him. Uh, it wasn’t

intentional. It really was. I didn’t even know.

was occurring, so, oh, okay. So anyways, so by early June, snow in the

Plumas National Forest had begun to melt enough to make higher

elevations accessible. Again, search efforts resumed in areas that had

been unsearchable during the winter.

area near Rogers Cow Camp. Who is Roger and why does he have cows at his

camp? Maybe it’s a, is it like a, maybe it’s a camp for cows, like just

for cows Or is it a camp for people to go to spend time with cows or is

it like a ranch? It could be a ranch, but how is that a cow camp?

Forest service trailer. The trailer was used as a seasonal shelter by

multiple people. It was stocked with supplies. It was not locked in a

way that made entry impossible, but it was secure against the elements.

They looked inside and they see a body and they nope, right out of there

and they call authorities ’cause they don’t want anything to do with

this.

with it. They were like, shit, ring. Ring help. All right, so that’s how

that happened. Inside the trailer investigators found Ted Weir and he is

no longer living. All right. He was found on a bed wrapped in several

sheets. He showed extreme weight loss.

able, unable to walk effectively, he was found wearing shoes that did

not belong to him. Gary Math’s shoes were found inside the trailer.

These are two things that have been said. They never say that Ted was

wearing Gary’s shoes.

there’s not, right? I don’t know. , We are had been eating some food

from the trailer. Several cans had been open and there was a P 38

military style can opener in the trailer. Do you know what that looks

like? It’s the most bake of a, it’s one where they don’t have a handle

on it.

pieces of metal. One has a notch and the other one doesn’t, and it’s

held together by a screw. I had to look it up ’cause I’m like, what does

that even mean? So it, I, I’ll get to it. Um, he had beard growth

indicating weeks, not days of survival.

weeks after the disappearance. Mm-hmm. And this estimation comes from

the degree of starvation that he was experiencing, the condition of his

tissues, beard growth and environmental exposure patterns. I’m gonna try

to be as clinical as, you know, how I get, I get a little, uh, sad when

I talk about this stuff, so I’m trying to be mm-hmm.

happened. Okay. So, uh, we was extremely weakened by the starvation and

although food had been opened, the record does not establish whether he

opened it himself. There is suggestion that when he was getting weak, he

would not have been able to operate this can opener.

unable to operate a can opener of this style due to his cognizant

mm-hmm. Cog

still a can opener, right? Like you can figure out how to open like,

this man was not dumb. He was not. And I don’t like the implications.

he, he survived for a great deal of time. Inside the trailer, there was

a large supply of food, canned goods, dehydrated meals, a propane tank

and heating source that had been used, evidence of food that had been

open and partially consumed.

have survived in this trailer for a great deal of time. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

That’s what it was there for. In fact, it was to save people that got

stuck out on the mountain, right? Yep, yep. But much of the food

remained untouched. The trailer was roughly 11 to 12 miles from the

abandoned car.

appeared to have been made by forcing open a window, not a door. That

meant he, he got there and he was fine to some degree. Now as they

continue to search around, Jack Hewitt was found about two miles from

the trailer. He is also deceased and so, so sadly his father was

involved in the search and present.

was exposure. There was no sign of trauma, no sign of long-term

survival. He was partially decomposed ’cause it was, he was outside.

trailer in a, in a wooded area positioned between the trailer and the

abandoned car.

Consistent with animal activity. Yeah, right. It wasn’t

of exposure and his remains were partially scattered. No signs of

violence, no signs of prolonged survival.

along the general route between the trailer and the car, but closer to

the trailer than the car. I don’t know why this matters to me, but it

does apparently, , his cause of death was exposure. No signs of trauma,

partially decomposed, but also no evidence that he survived for weeks.

’cause of it. , Gary Mathas has never been found. Hmm. Not alive. Not

dead, not remains. Not any personal effects. Nothing. He’s never been,

we don’t know. Hmm. Okay. So. Before June, the working theory centered

on this group of men getting lost and then succumbing to the elements.

survived for weeks he had shelter in food. , This is where the case

stops being about where they went and starts being about why their

survival failed because of the car and the situation and how it was

found. , Why it was even necessary, why it was even necessary.

they would’ve been cold, but they would’ve been fine. Sure, because it

was found a couple days later. In theory, actually, it was actually

found the very next day by a park, by a ranger.

in the late 1970s. You know, I like having this, , what did not exist at

the time? There was no national missing persons database. There’s no

Amber Alert style, , rapid mobilization, if you will. Obviously cell

phones. We have no GPS. There’s no standard protocol for adults, missing

adults that have, that are vulnerable.

adult is missing overnight, that it’s a problem to the police in the

1970s, adults could not legally be declared missing immediately. Police

often required evidence of foul play or evidence the person was

endangered or being abused.

it really, I don’t, just don’t think they knew any better. I don’t think

this was malicious by any means, but I will say here that. For the

standards of the time, law enforcement did everything that they were

supposed to do, they did it all right.

pressed, they launched searches along the expected route. They involved

search and rec rescue. They escalated to the National Guard. They

continued searching for weeks even though they had no result. And then

they resumed searches when the snow melted and they could better access

these areas.

uh, dismissing family claims outright. , Once the car was found, the

response inten intensified. So they actually did everything right. They

were just hindered by the tools available at the time.

else.

the first time I’ve ever said that on this podcast, they did everything

right. Right. They just didn’t have all the tools. Have I said that

before? I don’t think so. Most of the cases that we, that we cover are

old. Yeah. And, and they don’t have the tools.

fingerprinting in some of the cases that we’ve covered. So, I mean, also

I would like to point out that a lot of times they just t trample all

over it and they let the neighbors come in the house. Thank you. That’s

your favorite part. There are no neighbors here.

the neighbor. I don’t even, I still don’t know what that means. I’m

gonna have to look that up. So the system definitely showed its limits

here. Adult autonomy was working against them because the men were

adults there. There just was no sense of urgency.

vulnerable adults. So I think that that’s really sad, but. You know,

disability was not really operationalized at the time. Right. There just

wasn’t, the police treated it as there are five missing men. Right.

Well, I don’t know. Anyways.

happened. So we gotta theorize, and this is a long fricking list. Okay.

Okay. Okay. So I’m gonna try to get through them quickly. So the first

theory, theory number one is misadventure, disorientation and then

exposure. Right. The men became ex disoriented after leaving Chico.

perceived danger or believed that the car was stuck. Maybe, , Ted Weir

had reached shelter and others did not. So this implies that they went

off trekking through the snow, trying to find safety. Some of them got

lost along the way. Ted made it to shelter.

that it’s Gary because the other men were, were further back. ,

Contributing evidence to this is that the car was operational. It had

fuel. It was locked, four sets of . Footprints led away from the car

uphill, oddly enough. , There was no signs of violence, autopsies, list

exposure, wilderness, terrain, winter conditions.

some way, Gary Mathas was a contributing factor or variable because he

was not , cognitively disabled. He had a mental health issue instead, ,

he was the most independent member of the group and he did rely on

medication for his paranoid schizophrenia.

influenced the men to get out of the car or go the way that they did,

and he and Ted made it to the shelter, the others didn’t. And then he

just noted Ray out of there for some reason. Right, right. For any

reason. I mean, either he was going to find help.

is brought up, I’m going to be honest, they paint Gary in a poor light

as, and he was up to no good because he had paranoid schizophrenia and

he therefore he was up to, I really get upset about that because that

implies that people with schizophrenia are up to no good and that is

false.

you have schizophrenia, I, you could be up to no good and not mean to.

Now that’s, you could not mean to do things that you do. That is true. I

mean, there are reports of people with schizophrenia that have

hallucinations, right? They hear things they could act on them.

situation is that he was acting normally. He was following his routines

and that implies that he was on his medication properly. I can’t say any

more than that without being Yeah, right. I know.

there, there’s just, okay.

involvement. People 1, 2, 7, I don’t even know, but this red truck is

implied that people stopped the car and they made the men get out of the

car, and then things deterior deteriorated from there. Somehow Ted and

Gary got away, the other four lost along the way, and then.

five? Five I, because I’m five. You know, I, I still felt like we went

from two to four, but you know, I wasn’t, well, I’m skipping some

because some of ’em are dumb. Oh, there you go. Okay. ’cause technically

this really, you shouldn’t assign number number eight, Ron Theory number

eight.

numbers. That’s true. But as I’m reading them, ’cause you gotta realize

it takes me like hours to research these things. Yeah. And so when

you’re in the middle of it, you’re just like, oh, I gotta get another

theory in there.

number eight is that they intentionally ran away. Okay. They were like.

They, they’re choosing to abandon their lives. They just wanna

disappear. They’re tired of all this adult supervision and they’re not

taking it anymore. Mm-hmm. And so they drove up that road and then got

out.

later because this is stupid. They had plans to be in the Special

Olympics the next day. They had a basketball game to play. This is a big

deal. Yeah, right. They were really excited about it. So this is stupid.

Okay. Theory number nine, you’re not gonna like this one.

aliens. They were abducted by aliens and then apparently spat right out.

And they don’t gimme this bullshit. They people bring it up. It’s

stupid. Now going back to theory number seven, ’cause I skipped it, but

I wanna talk about it again. Holy shit.

before the car was abandoned.

picked up Gary. Gary, I don’t know. He took the keys. Right. Keys were

never found by the way, ever. Okay. With any other personal possession.

Keys were never found. So Gary takes the keys with him and the guys are

like, oh no.

And then all, all of the things happened that we said, so, so that’s

theory number seven. Okay. That’s all the theories. Okay.

happened? Uh, some of what you just said, because there were four foot,

you know, there were four sets of foot, uh, print.

been covered up or whatever by a new snow,

He had, yeah, he had, he had milked right out for whatever reason or

another. Maybe he was tired of their shenanigans, I don’t know. Uh, so

yeah, he was out.

like, well, what now we gotta start walking. And uh, if they did have

some, um, challenges with the way that they thought, their thought

process, they didn’t know what to do, they just walked in the woods. So

yeah, I think that would be what happened.

don’t know. Why do you think they were there in the first place? Uh,

good question. I mean, I wasn’t thinking of that yet. Uh, should have.

Uh,

That’s weird. Yeah. Yeah. That’s really weird. So, you know, they had

made this drive before.

were familiar with the route, and I think that they would’ve

pride in this car. I don’t think that he would’ve left it. Yeah. If he

didn’t think that he had to. My thought is that. It was night. They were

probably familiar with this drive, but it was nighttime and they just

took a wrong way for whatever reason. And they got to a spot, I think,

that they could have just gotten out.

wrong way, and they got out of the car to maybe assess the situation and

they were talking. I feel like it makes perfectly good sense that

tensions could have been high. Mm-hmm. And one of ’em like threw the

keys or dropped the keys.

panicked. I feel like it’s entirely possible. Y Gary could have just

walked down the road even right. Where his footprints wouldn’t have been

captured. Right. And the other four, you know, for whatever reason, felt

like the car wasn’t safe anymore and they just didn’t know any better

and they walked into the snow to try to get help.

I can imagine that they locked the car to keep it safe because they were

responsible guys. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then it’s, it’s also entirely

possible because they said that Ted was fine, found, wrapped in a

blanket, and that some it, it appeared as if somebody had been taken

care of him.

Gary made it to the shelter with Ted and tried to take care of him and

realizing that he was deteriorating and he wasn’t gonna make it, that he

needed to go get help. And he left. I mean, people are lost in the woods

and never found all the time. I know.

understand that. It’s also the snow. I mean, what if two of one of them

were walking? Like, what if Gary took the lead and then said, walk in my

footprints and somebody else walked directly behind him. Sure, Sure,

clear, I don’t think that there was any foul play. Mm-hmm. I think that

this, I don’t think anybody else was involved. I think if Joseph Sean’s

account was real and he did see what he thought he saw, it could have

just been the men out of their car that were talking.

might have been the catalyst for them to run into the woods. ’cause they

were like right. Right. For whatever reason, they sense danger. Yep. And

they didn’t, they didn’t know what it was. That’s entirely possible that

his shout forced them into the woods.

a heart attack. Poor man. I don’t, yeah. The reason that I decided to do

this is just, it’s just a really haunting and, and sad story. Well,

yeah. And the fact that, that we’re all good friends and shared unique

qualities in terms of their challenges, but all became good friends and,

uh, then tragedy struck.

frightening how thin the margin is. If they had just made a different

turn or, yeah.

road, or it was a different, it was a warmer night or. I don’t know, one

person didn’t go, or the, it’s just, yep.

change after it happened? Hmm. Nothing. Right? Almost nothing. Uh, it’s,

this is the sad part. There is no sweeping reform. There’s no law named

after them. Yeah. Or o overhaul of missing persons procedures because of

what happened.

they quietly exposed gaps in the system of how these people are

certainly treated, but how they’re managed, , on a day-to-day basis. So,

um, the concept of the vulnerable adult in missing persons

investigations became very apparent. , Earlier reporting thresholds for

missing adults.

seriously ’cause that’s not true. I think they’ve always taken cases

more seriously. But I think even the show called the first 48. The first

48 are important. Correct. Because. I said that. Yeah. That’s where and

when everything happens. Right. Well, so, and I wanted to ask this,

’cause I thought about it earlier when you talked about the missing

person.

adults the whole time anyway. When did, um, when did Adam, you know, the

young child that disappeared and, and was Adam Walsh? Yeah, thank you. I

couldn’t remember his last name for I know the father, you know

seventies or early eighties?

the first, I’m gonna look it up. That’s when some of the missing per,

that’s when John Walsh made some of the missing persons, uh, changes,

didn’t he? Or, I mean, because he,

so many, right. Of these, uh, things.

John Walsh is a reason for many sweeping reforms that happen in missing

cases. Now, Adam Walsh was a little boy. He was, it was, we’re not

talking about an adult, we’re talking about a child. Exactly. He was six

years old, um, at the time. And I think there are cases that have come

across that really made changes like the Amber Alert, the,

brought it up. I don’t know where you were going with this. I know. ’

thought about that ’cause it was so significant when we were talking

about the, um, missing persons and how that’s handled, et cetera, back

then.

that just because he was interesting because he wasn’t really. An

activist until after agreed what happened to his son, which was

absolutely horrific. Yep. And he really jumped in to change how missing

children are treated.

moment, but it was, you know, he almost got me crying, bringing up Adam

Walsh, that one?

First of all, thank goodness it happens in the eighties. That’s a case I

won’t touch, but

now about this case. ’cause I think we understand the context a little

bit better. We understand, , their vulnerability without stripping them

of dignity, which they should have.

necessarily malicious. . So, yeah, I think, you know, these men did

everything that they were supposed to do in a, everything they could do

to stay safe in a world where they weren’t really protected very well,

that we just didn’t really understand how to protect them properly.

sucks. I don’t like that. I know. That’s why I have a podcast. So you

would think that I’d be like, yeah. Yay. Mystery. Yep. But not so much.

When the mystery is just sad. Like I go all excited into these cases and

then I get to the end of it and you bring yourself down.

of tears at least seven times in this discussion. I’ve held it together.

Let’s close it up out on an On an uptick. An uptick

sucked. It’s not good. You’re like, you’re like, well, my day’s gone.

All the crap. The, the weather just got gloomier. Yeah.

that it’s, it’s a tragedy of what happened to these men, but I think

that we are drawn to mysteries and we want to solve them.

It’s. That’s what happens. So, yeah. , If you’re new here to the House

of Syx, , we release episodes every other Tuesday. I’m doing pretty good

at that. You are? ,

YouTube, TikTok. Except don’t watch those.

like us. You should subscribe, you should comment and tell us what you

thought or make suggestions for what we cover in the future. If you

don’t wanna be bummed out. True. Okay. Do it. Do it. Yeah. I got some

mysteries coming your way. , Yeah. Yeah.

share. Let’s talk about share. I like share ’cause if you believe Yeah.

I’m not gonna do my do it. No, I’m not gonna do it. Can’t do it.

No. I’ve gotta be in the moon. I can’t do it.

when I do that anyway. Right. So until next time, stay outta the

mountains and light jackets and you know, like keep your keys on you

’cause safety first. Bye. Bye.