The Road to Oroville

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On the evening of the 24th of February 1978, five friends from Northern California set off to watch a basketball game.

They never returned.

Months later, four of them were discovered dead in the remote wilderness of the Plumas National Forest, 70 miles from their intended destination.

The fifth man has never been found, alive or dead.

The disappearance of the men from Yuba County is a case we have explored before.

However, in the years since, Bedtime Stories has become aware of previously unavailable information.

that sheds an entirely different light on this infamous story.

Thanks to the work of one diligent investigative writer who graciously agreed to collaborate on this, we may finally be ready to revisit the tragedy of the Yuba County 5.

Before we begin, we must acknowledge the work of author Tony Wright.

In early 2024 after years of research and first-hand interviews, Tony published Things Aren't Right, The Disappearance of the Yuba County 5.

His book provides the foundation for this continuation and Tony himself has very kindly wrote this episode.

If you wish to explore the case in greater detail, you can find a link to Tony's book in the description.

In investigating this case, Tony examined police files, testimony and family memories to produce the most comprehensive account to date.

His work has not only uncovered new insights, but has also challenged many long-standing misconceptions about the men at the heart of this story.

For too long, the disappearance of the Yuba County 5 has been framed around their supposed disabilities, with the men often dismissed as helpless or childlike.

This characterization is misleading.

Each of them had strengths, routines and personalities that their families knew well.

They were socially awkward at times, but they were not the dimwits some commentators have since cruelly labelled them as.

They were capable adults with fulfilling lives, whose routines and bonds of friendship mattered deeply to them.

Understanding this is crucial.

It reshapes how we view not only the men themselves, but also the assumptions that have shaded this case for decades.

To appreciate why the narrative of vulnerability and incapacity has lingered so strongly, we must return to the events of the 24th of February 1978 and to the men at the center of this enduring mystery.

In the unlikely event that you have not heard this story before, we will provide a brief recap of what happened.

However, we strongly recommend going back and listening to our original episode on the case for a fuller account.

The five men at the heart of this case were Ted Weir, aged 32, Jack Hewitt, 24, Bill Sterling, 29, Jack Madruger, 30 and Gary Mathias, 25.

All were connected through a non-profit program called Gateway Projects, which provided employment, coaching and support for those living with developmental or psychiatric challenges.

Many pointed to their involvement with Gateway as proof that these men were slow or to use the terminology of the time mentally retarded.

This portrayal was deeply unfair.

In modern terms, most of the group would likely have been recognized as being on the autism spectrum, with traits consistent with what we now call as Spurgers.

They were not unintelligent nor incapable.

The only one with a diagnosed psychiatric illness was Gary Mathias, who had schizophrenia.

Yet even in his case, family members said he had been stable for two years thanks to treatment and medication.

The five shared a strong bond through basketball.

They played for Gateway's team, the Gators, and were due to compete in a big tournament on the morning of the 25th of February 1978.

The night before on the 24th, they drove Jack Madruger's 1969 Mercury Montego north from Yuba City to Chico to watch UC Davis take on Chico State.

The journey was about 50 miles and they cheered enthusiastically as UC Davis secured the win.

What happened on the drive home remains the central mystery.

Instead of following the main route south, the men somehow ended up far off course.

At some point near Oroville, the Montego left the highway and climbed several thousand feet into the Plumas National Forest.

It was winter, the roads snowbound, and none of the men were dressed for such conditions.

When Madruga's car became stuck in drifts of snow on a remote forestry track, the group were stranded.

What followed is pieced together only from fragments.

One man, Joseph Shones, later reported that on the same night, he too had become stuck in the snow just a short distance up the road.

He claimed to have seen or heard people outside during the night, though his recollections changed with retelling.

Beyond that, we can only infer.

What is known is stark.

The Montego was located not long after the search began, abandoned on a remote mountain road with a quarter tank of fuel, food and maps still inside.

But of the men themselves, there was no sign.

It wasn't until June, many months later, that motorcyclists stumbled across a Forest Service trailer 15 miles from the car.

Inside was Ted Weir.

He had succumbed to the cold and starvation after weeks of survival, losing nearly £80 in body weight.

Tragically, survival rations and heat sources, which might otherwise have saved his life, had been left unused in the trailer.

Over the following days, the skeletal remains of Sterling, Madruga and Hewitt were located in the woods nearby.

Only Gary Mathias was never recovered.

His shoes were found in the trailer, but no trace of his body has ever been located.

Decades later, the questions are as haunting as ever.

Why had the men driven into the mountains in the first place?

Why abandon the car when the road would have been the surest path back to safety?

Why did Weir fail to make use of the supplies that could have kept him alive?

And above all, what became of Gary Mathias?

The facts in this case ceased to add up the moment their car turned onto that mountain road.

From that decision onwards, every answer only seems to open the door to more unsettling questions.

When we strip this case down to its bare bones, One name comes up again and again.

Joseph Shoans.

As the person who claims to have last seen the men alive and the only one confirmed to have been on that mountain at the same time, almost every timeline, theory and official record hinges on his testimony.

But before Tony Wright, few people seem to show much interest in who Joseph Shones was and more importantly, how he might play into the mystery.

Shoes was 55 years old in 1978.

He was a local of Berry Creek, a small community located around the Auroville-Quincy Highway, and few people who lived there had many good things to say about him.

Most described him as abrasive, even something of a bully.

He was a heavy drinker and had a reputation for being quarrelsome in public.

This is significant for several reasons, but mainly because when the Uber County 5 went missing, residents of the Berry Creek area were shocked to find that the authorities were trusting Shones of all people.

But the truth is that they had no other choice, and neither do we.

So let's take a look at the events of the 24th of February from his point of view.

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That afternoon...

Shones had stopped at the Mountain House Lodge, a weathered bar and rest stop perched on the edge of the Plumas.

Staff recalled him drinking beers around 5 o'clock, after which he left and began to drive up towards the snow line.

At least one employee found this odd, as he was not only travelling away from Berry Creek, but that northern pass was notorious for trapping cars for hours.

According to Shones, whilst driving up the snowy incline, his Volkswagen beetle veered off the track into deep snow.

As he struggled to push the car free, he claimed to have suffered a heart attack.

Weak and gasping, he crawled back into his car, turned the engine over for warmth, and waited.

Hours slipped by.

Then, around midnight, he saw headlights and watched another car come to a stop about 100 yards behind him.

It was a Mercury Montego.

the same model later confirmed as Jack Madruga's car.

What happened next?

Well that depends on on which of Shones' many versions you believe.

In his first retellings he describes seeing five figures climb out of the car, pause and then retreat into the forest without a word.

In later accounts Shones claims he saw a red pickup truck trailing the men, driven by a man with a woman and a baby inside.

Sometimes he claimed to see the five jump into the bed of that truck.

Other times they simply melted into the darkness.

Whatever the case, he says he tried calling out for help, only to be ignored entirely.

By dawn the next morning, Shones had run out of fuel and was on the verge of freezing, so he began the eight-mile walk back down the highway towards Mountain House.

He would later say that he took a moment to investigate the Montego upon passing it, hoping that he might use it as a place to rest.

But upon looking at the objects in the back, which included either baby toys or clothes, he decided to just keep walking.

Either way, for a man who had just suffered a heart attack, walking this distance should have been impossible.

But after hours of what he described as torturous progress, he arrived at Mountain House.

Employees say he entered the lodge, ordered water and aspirin, and began talking.

However, he said nothing about being stranded in the mountains, nothing about his beetle getting stuck in the snow, nothing about having a heart attack and nothing about seeing five strangers in the night.

At least one witness claimed he repeated the phrase, I should have done this two years ago, several times, which he found odd.

For a man who should have been in urgent need of medical attention, his behaviour makes little sense.

After a few minutes, a couple at the bar offered him a lift home to Berry Creek.

Along the way, they say he complained constantly about the man's driving, which would again seem unusual for someone who had nearly died on a frozen highway just a few hours earlier.

Back home, Shones told his wife, Cindy, about his ordeal.

Though we can't verify what he said, we know that instead of rushing him to the hospital, Cindy focused on recovering his beetle.

With a local man's help, she returned to the mountains where they found Joseph's car.

As he had claimed, the battery was dead and the fuel tank was empty.

But more importantly, they saw another vehicle abandoned nearby, the Mercury Montego.

It wasn't until the following day that Joseph was taken to the hospital.

But here, we once again run into verification problems, namely the fact that the medical records of his stay seemed to have disappeared.

Cindy would also claim that he was inconsolable and unable to talk about what had happened the night before without breaking down.

Once more this seems to run contrary to his behaviour in the bar the previous morning, where he appeared completely unshaken.

It was only in the ensuing weeks that Shones inserted himself into the narrative surrounding the missing men.

He gave interviews to law enforcement, newspapers, and even the worried families.

However, it seemed that this story changed depending on the day and with whom he was talking.

Sometimes he mentioned drinking only a beer or two, or the times six or more.

Sometimes there was a truck with a man, woman and baby.

and sometimes there wasn't.

To police, he hinted that the men may have been abducted.

To journalists, he suggested that they had simply ignored him.

And yet he remained the only witness who could place them on that road.

The contradictions led many to doubt him.

Some thought he might be angling for the $10,000 reward, adjusted for inflation, the families had offered for information.

Others wrote him off as lonely, embellishing or even fabricating stories to gain attention.

But there is also the possibility that he was hiding something darker.

He had a reputation for throwing his weight around, drinking too much and acting unpredictably.

Some wondered if he had perhaps crossed paths with the five men and played at least some role in their decision to leave their car that evening.

Because even to this day, the idea that the men would abandon the shelter of the car leaves people baffled.

According to the vehicle specifications, it could have idled for anywhere from five to eight hours on a quarter tank of fuel, long enough to keep them warm through the night.

The only way the men, two of whom had military training, would leave that relative security would be if it was not safe on that road for some reason.

This has led many to focus on the sometimes there, sometimes not factor in Shones' story, the red truck.

If this part of his tale is genuine, then there were others present that night.

As to what role, if any, they played in the men's disappearance, it is all lost in the ever-shifting recollections of Joseph Shoans.

For nearly half a century, the case of the Yuba County 5 has generated theories, some tame, some bizarre.

The problem is that few, if any, can satisfy the four key mysteries at the heart of the story.

Why did they turn up that road instead of going home?

Why did they leave the car after getting stuck?

Why did one or more of them live for several weeks or possibly even months in a trailer filled with food and provisions and never once attempted to seek help?

Lastly, what became of Gary Mathias?

Many agree that it's possible the men were chased up the mountain road.

If they were hiding from someone, someone, it would explain why they abandoned the car and why they chose to stay in the trailer.

But who was chasing them and why?

Previously mentioned theories about potential altercations after the basketball game can somewhat be dismissed.

They would almost certainly not have stopped at the convenience store for snacks if someone was pursuing them, and they would have likely not driven the 23 miles to Auroville before deciding to make a run for the mountains.

If they needed help, the city would have been the best place to find it.

But what if the altercation took place in Oroville?

Matthias had friends there, so it might have been a potential stop, and since the men were adults in good spirits, it's not impossible to imagine them stopping somewhere else along their route.

This matters because back then, the town was considered quite rough around the edges, with a reputation for drunken fights and unsavoury company.

With their perceived disabilities and awkward social skills, the men would unfortunately have been prime targets for locals looking to cause trouble.

Some have suggested that Madruga and his friends could have been harassed, mocked and chased away.

In that scenario, driving into the Plumas may have been a desperate attempt to shake pursuers.

This might also explain why there was an open California roadmap found in the back seat.

Had the men been looking for a way off the road before getting stuck.

If they had been chased, this would also explain why they would have abandoned their car, as it would have instantly been spotted by their pursuers.

For those who think it unlikely that the men would have been targeted so randomly, there is another version of this theory.

It focuses on Gary Mathias, the only person who was never found.

Some Auroville residents claim that Gary had clashed with some locals locals in recent months, even getting into a fight with an unknown man at a party.

There are also stories indicating he had a confrontation with a man named Farron Delozier, who just so happened to be married to Jack Hewitt's sister.

Could someone with a grudge against Matthias have spotted him and forced the group up the mountain road?

Many argue that it seems more plausible than a complete stranger doing the same.

In our first episode, we mentioned how in 2017 a person claiming to be Hewitt's sister-in-law came forward to state that Matthias had been attacked and thrown off a bridge, causing his friends to panic and flee for their lives.

This could theoretically explain why Matthias was never found, and there is indeed a large bridge, the Bidwell Bar Bridge, at the entrance to the highway.

This could be further supported by the fact that some claim shell casings were found at the entrance to the mountain pass.

If someone had shot at the men, they would have been well justified in driving further into danger.

It sounds like a long shot, but the fact that a couple of Jack Hewitt's extended family members seem to be involved raises a lot of questions.

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Others point to a similar occurrence, only this time the suspect is a town bully, mentioned by Gary's family.

In the 1990s, rumors even circulated that this man had confessed during a church service to leading a group of disabled men to their deaths.

No direct witness ever came forward to substantiate the story, but it fed into the idea that someone in the community knew more than they were letting on.

It's possible that this has to do with yet another frequently overlooked facet of the story.

The fact that Gateway Projects, the local program that supported people with disabilities, had been the subject of targeted harassment for years.

Between 1975 and 1976, a local who was never identified set off a spate of arson attacks on Gateway facilities, even setting several cars alight.

The most shocking incident came on the 6th of April 1975, when Gateway's director, Donald Garrett, answered a knock at his apartment door and was doused in fluid before being set ablaze.

He died almost instantly.

The crime was never solved, though rumours swirled about jealous lovers, grudges and feuds.

It's been theorised that one or more members of the Yuber County 5 may have known something about the arsonists' identity.

If true, then their disappearance could have been an attempt to silence them permanently.

Some researchers have discovered a possible suspect for the arsons and murder of Donald Garrett, but no name has yet been disclosed.

Of course, this wouldn't be bedtime stories if we didn't consider at least one possibility involving the paranormal.

And when we revisit the details of this case, there is one particular police report that stands out as curious.

It records a witness, Janet Kathleen Nzeira, who told investigators that Gary Mathias had confided in her more than once about a recurring dream.

In it, he claimed that he and several others would one day vanish, taken away alongside strange lights and people from outer space.

At the time, her statement was dismissed as irrelevant.

They simply depicted the ramblings of a man known to suffer from psychiatric illness.

But placed alongside what happened to the men, it becomes harder to ignore.

What if Gary's nightmare was not delusion but premonition?

What if his illness allowed him to somehow tap into a higher plane of consciousness?

And what if, on the night of the 24th of February 1978, something far stranger really did occur on that lonely mountain road?

There have been many accounts both in America and elsewhere of vehicles pursued by unidentified flying objects.

Drivers report being followed for miles by glowing lights in the sky, sometimes experiencing engine trouble, strange interference or overwhelming dread.

The Auroville-Quincy Highway, which the men travelled that night, would have been almost deserted at that hour.

Outside of the town limits, there were no street lights, no traffic and no houses for long stretches.

only blackness on either side of the road.

In such an isolated setting, an encounter with something unusual could have been terrifying.

If a light or object descended upon the car, it might explain why the men suddenly left the main highway and drove up into the Sierra foothills.

Turning onto a remote Forest Service road rarely used by the public may have been a desperate attempt to escape whatever was following them.

The men might have witnessed something extraordinary, something so disturbing that it sent them scattering into the forest.

If Gary Mathias had indeed been taken in full view of his friends, the panic that followed could explain why they fled blindly into the freezing wilderness.

Their decision to leave the road in the car might not have been a rational choice at all, but a reaction to sheer terror.

It is, of course, a far-fetched idea.

and most would say an unlikely one.

The more plausible explanation is that some very human element, whether foul foul play, misdirection or tragic confusion, forced the men off the highway that night and up into the mountains, where events spiralled beyond their control.

Which brings us back to Joseph Shones.

Many agree that his story is too rife with inconsistencies to be worthwhile.

The most interesting part of his tale is not seeing the men, but the possible existence of a red pickup truck on the mountain that night.

Was it the pursuers or were they some locals who attempted to help the stranded men?

If it was the latter and the men did climb into the truck bed, why didn't whoever was driving the truck also help Shones?

And how did Weir, if ostensibly rescued, come to spend weeks or even months at a Forest Service trailer?

One of the most curious aspects relating to the red truck is Shones' statement that he saw either baby clothes or baby toys in Madruga's car on the morning he headed back down to the lodge.

The police reports mention no such items, but since the Montego was not found until the 28th, there would have been plenty of time for someone to come back and retrieve them.

Admittedly, Shones' infrequent insistence that there was a woman with a baby in the truck is odd.

and would seem to indicate an innocent family stopping to render aid to the men.

But if this was the case, why have they never come forward to tell their side of the story?

What seems most consistent about Shones' accounts is that he is not a reliable witness.

The tale of the heart attack, when coupled with his subsequent 8-mile walk through freezing conditions, does seem far-fetched.

With a $10,000 reward in place for those who provided information about the missing men, it seems entirely possible that Shones and even his wife fabricated the entire story.

Still, his appearance at the bar that morning indicates that he was on the mountain the previous night, for one reason or another.

This leads us to one final, darker possibility.

To consider it properly, We need to reiterate just how isolated the road was where the Mercury-Montego was discovered.

Today it carries a layer of asphalt, complete with road markings and is relatively easy to travel, but in 1978 it was little more than a narrow forest service track, rough, remote and seldom used by the public.

With that in mind we are left to ask just what are the odds of a shady character like Joseph Shones being on that very road on that very night when one of the most enduring mysteries in US history occurred.

Thieves often use staged distress like broken down cars in order to take advantage of unsuspecting victims.

Perhaps Shones had agreed to partake in such a ruse, pretending to have car trouble whilst waiting for someone to come by and render aid.

Maybe the people in the red truck flagged the men down near Oroville, claiming that their friend or family member had gotten stuck on the mountain road and needed five strong men to help push their car out.

A child in the car would certainly be disarming and give the impression of safety.

When they arrived at the Volkswagen Beetle, Shoans, the people in the truck or all of them could have robbed the men at gunpoint.

But what if something went wrong?

What if Matthias fought back and was killed, sending the other men running into the woods?

Worried that they might return and report the incident to the police, the family and Shoans might have waited in their vehicles, giving them time to clean up the scene.

And maybe, when the men didn't show up the next day, the thieves took the keys from the car, split the money, what little of it there was, and went their separate ways, convinced that the wilderness would deal with their victims, which, unfortunately, it did.

It is thought that only Weir had managed to make it to shelter.

but he was in no shape to seek help.

He lived for weeks on what food he could find, but eventually succumbed to the elements.

As for Shones, the morning after the robbery, he realised that his car wouldn't start for real, forcing him to travel back down to the lodge.

When the investigation began, he knew that employees would be able to place him on the mountain that night, and he concocted the whole heart attack story as a cover.

This chain of events, while speculative, does tie together many of the loose ends.

It explains nearly everything about that night including why the people in the red truck never came forward and why it only sometimes appears in the story.

Shones may have been having trouble separating fact from fiction and once he slipped up about the truck he had to weave it into the overarching story.

Unfortunately Shones has long since passed away.

and took the truth of those events with him.

The Uber County 5 did not simply vanish.

They travelled up a road they had no business driving on, where they abandoned a perfectly good car for a perilous 15-mile trek in deep snow.

Why?

That's the question that has hung bleeding in the air for nearly 50 years.

Fortunately, Tony Wright's book and the work of other independent researchers have brought fresh attention to long-overlooked details, particularly the shifting testimony of one Joseph Shones.

For the families of Ted Weir, Jack Madruger, Bill Sterling, Jackie Hewitt and Gary Mathias, this offers a measure of comfort that one day, the truth of what happened on that frozen February night might finally come to light.

Decades later, The fate of the Yuba County 5 continues to haunt the silence of the Plumas National Forest.

The tragedy lies not only in their loss, but in the unanswered questions that still surround their final journey.

Until those mysteries are resolved, their story endures.

A reminder of lives cut far too short, of five friends who set out together but never returned home.

May they rest in everlasting peace.

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