Joe Shones was having a heart blast . The 55 - yr - old Californian had felt fine just a few minutes antecedently , navigating his Volkswagen on a bare mess route near Rogers Cow Camp in the Plumas National Forest toseeif weather circumstance were good enough to bring his family along for a weekend expedition the following solar day . But as he drove further into the dark , snowdrifts slowed his tires . When he catch out to push his automobile , the exertion brought on a searing pain in the ass in his chest of drawers . It was February 24 , 1978 , and Shones was miles from help .
As he sat in his car wondering what to do , he remark two readiness of headlamp , one belonging to a pickup truck . hop he could flag down the passerby , he exited his vehicle and began screaming for assistance . He would later say he take in a group of men , one woman , and a baby . They retain walking , ignoring him . hour later , back inside his car , he saw what he thought were torch . When he went back out of doors to call into the darkness , no one responded to the sound of his vocalism .
Hours into his trial by ordeal and with his car still stuck and now out of gas pedal , Shones felt well enough to begin walk down the mountain road and toward a lodge roughly eight Roman mile off . He passed a 1969 Mercury Montego , but the fomite had no occupants . Perhaps , Shones call up , it belonged to the group he had seen earlier .
At the sentence , Shones waspreoccupiedwith his own emergency . But authorities would afterwards realize the biggest story to emerge from that colored , desolate road was n’t his brushing with decease . It was the fact that Shones had likely wound up being the last mortal to see Ted Weiher , Gary Mathias , Jack Madruga , Jack Huett , and Bill Sterling alive .
FIVE BELOVED “BOYS”
How these five men came to be on an inhospitable mountain road more than 50 mile from their homes in and around Marysville and Yuba City , California , was just one of the mysteries surrounding their disappearance . None of them was known to have any business on that part of the muckle . All five had cerebral disabilities or psychiatrical issues to various degrees ; all of them dwell with kinsperson , who keep a close oculus on them . They were often fondly refer to as “ boys , ” despite being from 24 to 32 years of age . An impromptu route trip was definitely out of character reference .
If authorities could n’t make any sense of how the chemical group ’s day had ended on February 24 , they at least had some idea of how it begin . Madruga , who owned the Mercury , drove his four friend to a collegiate basketball secret plan at the California State University , Chico . All were fervent basketball devotee , and even had a biz of their own scheduled for the following day , playing on a team representing the renewal center they all frequented .
At 32 , Weiher was the oldest , a former janitor who was closest to the youngest of the group , 24 - year - old Huett . Sterling and Madruga , an Army ex-serviceman , were another curing of best friends . Mathias had been in the Army , too , but was discharged because of psychiatric problems . He was schizoid , a status control by medication he had n’t bothered to bring along . There was no cause to believe he would n’t be home in time for his next Lucy in the sky with diamonds .
The game stop around 10 p.m. The “ boys ” stopped at a convenience store for junk food : Hostess pies , washing soda , confect bars . All five piled back into the Mercury and took off . But or else of driving south toward their homes just about 50 sea mile off , they inexplicablydrove east . And they travel for a very long clip . When Shones fleck their empty Mercury , the car had been driven roughly 70 nautical mile away from the Chico hoops plot .
In the early morning hours of February 25 , Shones made it to the Sir Oliver Lodge and was capable to get medical discourse . There was no reason to advert having seen the Mercury until newspapers began to blast out notices about the five human race who had gone missing that Friday . When Weiher and Sterling did n’t hail home , their mother commence call the parents of the others , and soon the police were involve .
On Tuesday , February 28 , authorities found the Mercury on the same flock road where Shones had last seen it , and where a parking area ranger had reported its location after hearing the missing persons bulletin . The junk nutrient had been run through , save for one one-half of a candy bar . The keys to the vehicle were gone . It had enough gaseous state to carry on on , but a snowbank had likely cause its tires to gyrate out . Madruga and the four other capable - bodied men should have been able to bump it without a lot of difficulty . Instead , it looked abandoned . Around them , constabulary go steady nothing but furrowed , dumb wood , barely an appealing option for the lightly dressed young men .
“ This case is off-the-wall as underworld , ” Yuba County undersheriff Jack Beecham state reporters .
organise a search political party in the midst of winter was no loose task , especially when it intend combing throughrough terrainfilled with rocky surfaces , wooded way , and snow - overcompensate slopes . helicopter follow the region from above . On the ground , officers tried to expend horses to get around on the bouldered roadstead . They harbour a issue of eyewitness sighting of the men , include one where they were push the pickup Shones had remark , but none seemed plausible . Their families raise a$2600 rewardfor information , petitioned psychics , and waited by their phone , but heard nothing . Not until the thaw came .
THE BODY IN THE TRAILER
In June of that twelvemonth , a small group of weekend motorcyclists came across an abandon forest service trailer on a encampment site . Curious , they proceed in spite of appearance . They found a body tuck into a bed , drape in sheet from headspring to toe . When authorization rescind the veil , they found Weiher , his shoes leave out and his feet ill frostbitten . The dawdler was over 19 stat mi from the Mercury .
Soon , police establish two other remains — those of Sterling and Madruga—4.5 miles away from Weiher ’s corpse . Policebelievedtheir bodies had simply given up before they found shelter while Weiher and others edge on . Madruga had held on to thekeysto the car .
Huett ’s bones were found not long after . There was no foretoken of Mathias , aside from his lawn tennis shoes , which had been go forth in the trailer . Almost certainly , he had taken Weiher ’s leather shoes , though police had no real idea why .
If police and the families of the men were ask law of closure from the find of their organic structure , they were n’t about to get it . What puzzled them most was how Weiher was found emaciated , despite the fact that the prevue been stocked with spate of canned and dry food and a can opener . From his beard ontogenesis , they knew Weiher had been living there anywhere between eight and 13 workweek . Yet only about 12 cans had been opened , and he had not rag to sprain on the propane tankful , which would have provided heat energy for the entire trailer . Several paperback books — perfect for fervour — were also leave behind untouched . No one had even annoy to overcompensate the humiliated windowpane they had smashed in to get inside .
speak to Shones proved even more frustrative . It was fair enough that he had seen the men scratch out from a car they believed to be stuck , but who was the charwoman and the child ? Shones would take on he was very ill at the time of the sighting and could have hallucinated some of the details , but that did n’t excuse why the human rag to empty the railroad car at all , or why they did n’t recognise Shones ’s cries for help — unless he had somehow imagined the whole thing .
“TRICKED OR THREATENED”
“ Why ” was a common question for investigators and the relative of the military man , but no answers were coming . Why did the military man sour east in the first office ? Why did n’t they set about to move the car once it got mystify , instead of walk to nowhere in the middle of the nighttime ? Was it by hazard they came across the house trailer , or did someone lead them there ? Why not start out a fire for warmth ? If Mathias went for help , where was his body ?
A year after their disappearing , law wereno closerto solving the whodunit . Mathias ’s soundbox has never turned up . There was never any account for their strange determination to plough toward unfamiliar district . Weiher on the face of it walked nearly 20 miles to the laggard in cold conditions , despite having left his coat at home . None of the men thought to take the air downhill , from where they make out , and alternatively faced the treacherous and unfamiliar path ahead .
police force never ruled out foul gambol , nor did the families . Melba Madruga , Jack ’s female parent , toldThe Washington Postthat she believe " some force " had led the group astray . " We bang serious and well somebody made them do it , " she say . To theLos Angeles Times , shesaidit was unimaginable for her to believe Madruga would ever drive his railway car , which he prized , into an field where it might be damaged . He had even left a windowpane rolled down , something he would never unremarkably do . " I ’m positively charged he never move up there on his own , " she told the paper . " He was either tricked or jeopardize . "
Ted Weiher ’s babe - in - natural law has theorize that the piece may have check something take place at the basketball secret plan that prompted someone to track them . Police were never able to establish grounds for pursuit , but no one could throw off the idea that the man seemed to be determined to move forward . Why do that unless something more horrendous was right behind them ?
" Bizarre as inferno " was Beecham ’s summary . To engagement , there has n’t been any grounds to contradict him .
