S04 Episode 7: Called to the Forest (Pt.2 of 2)

the night the five men went missing. Shahns was making his way into Plumus National Forest along the Aureville to Quincy Road. Fifty five year old Sons had been checking to see if the road would be accessible for a trip he planned to take that weekend when his Volkswagen bug got suddenly stuck in the snow. After trying unsuccessfully to push it out, Sons felt a painful tightening in his chest and immediately got back inside the vehicle to catch his breath. Unbeknownst to him at the time, he

had suffered a mild heart attack. Being in such discomfort, he decided his best hope as to keep the engine running and try to stay warm until it passed or until someone else came by who could help. Drifting in and out of consciousness as the pain in his chest intensified, it was about eleven thirty PM when Sons was startled awake by what he took to be two sets of headlights driving in from behind him, one belonging to a

car and the other to a pickup truck by. Now unable to move, he could only watch in desperation as the lights passed him by and disappeared around the next bend. Thirty minutes later, after hearing what he thought were people whistling nearby, Shns gathered the strength to investigate. Stumbling along in the dark, he followed what he now took to be voices until he came across a car seemingly parked up by the road and a number of silhouetted figures

moving about in front of its headlights. Shns later described one of them as possibly being a woman who was carrying a baby, with all the other figures being men. When Shahns called out for help, the talking ceased immediately. Moments later, the headlights switched off plunged into complete darkness. Shons angrily called out again for help, but got no response. Suddenly, feeling a little exposed, he swiftly turned round and headed

back to his car. A short time later, he caught sight of what he assumed to be the beams of flashlights moving about in the forest around him. Calling out once more for help, he could only watch in desperation as one by one the beams of light were switched off in response. When Schonz's engine eventually cut out at four am, he had little choice but to strike out for the nearest inhabited place that he could find. Remembering the vehicle he had seen from the night before, he

decided first to check if it was still there. Sure enough, just where it had been the night before, he found What he could see then was a turquoise Mercury Montego, but no sign of its previous occupants anywhere. Despite suffering from a heart attack at the time, Joseph Shns eventually walked five miles to a nearby lodge house, from where

he was later taken home by its manager. When explaining all this to the police later, although there was little doubt he had seen the abandoned car, Shns cautioned that since he wasn't entirely lucid at the time, not everything he thought he had seen could be trusted. Either way,

it was certainly something to go on. What's more, if a fifty five year old man suffering a heart attack was able to walk five miles down the road to safety, there was reason to hope that the five men from Yuba County, Bill Sterling, Jack Madruga, Jack hewet Ted Weiher, and Gary Matthias could have done the same, provided they were indeed the men that Shans had seen. Under sheriff of Jack Beecham received another break shortly after, when a print dusting of the car revealed no other marks inside

apart from those belonging to the missing men. Though it wasn't conclusive, it seemed to suggest at least that the car had not been stolen. By the end of that first day, nine inches of snow fell across the Plumous National Forest region, further complicating the search. Buoyed by Schanz's witness statement, however, the various local sheriff's departments expanded their search to as far as Buck's Lake, some twenty miles

up the road from where the car was found. Having discovered that Bill Sterling's family owned a cabin near the lake, there was a chance that the men might have tried to reach it, but again, no footprints, clothing, or any other sign of them could be found. Back in the Uber City area, the families of the missing, crippled by worry, continued to wait helplessly for any sign of their sons

and brothers. With the police continuing to draw a blank, some of the parents suggested contacting a psychic, in the expectation that even if they couldn't give them any clues, it might at least give them some hope. Doctor Gloria Daniel was a member of the Church of Zadi, an organization that claimed to teach its members how to become psychic. Although Daniel had not come officially recommended by the Yuba County Police, it is said that she had successfully helped

them with similar cases in the past. On the morning of Friday, March third, a handful of family members gathered together with doctor Daniel and watched expectantly as she ran her hands through a series of clothes belonging to the missing men. Then she sat back and closed her eyes. After a short pau with the relatives in wrapped silence, Daniel began to speak. She could see people gathered together in a shack or a cabin in a wooded hilly area,

somewhere near a body of water, she said. And something else, a small detail, A row of men tucked into what looked like green sacks made of canvas, sleeping bags. Perhaps, she thought, So, they're still alive, asked one of the relatives. Hopefully. Doctor Daniel hesitated, then opened her eyes. I'm afraid that is all I can tell you, she said. By Saturday, March fourth, as the search entered its second week, the Butte and Plumas County sheriffs began to question the merits

of continuing. With the recent storms showing no sign of letting up and the snow continuing to fall heavily, they decided to pull back their resources for under Sheriff Jack Beecham, who was supervising the entire search, and his superior Sheriff Grant. However, there was no question of calling it off any time soon. Not only did the men's lives depend on it, but the entire reputation of the Uber County Police Department was

resting on it too. It was only the year before that then Under Sheriff Lloyd Finlay was arrested on charges of corruption, having been accused of stealing weapons, money, and other valuable articles from the county evidence room. The dye who had prosecuted him believed the crimes were merely symptomatic of a corrupt undercurrent in local police practices which had

been left unchallenged for too long. The case had been dragging on for almost a year by now, with it looking increasingly lightly that Finley was indeed guilty, finding the five missing men alive was the perfect opportunity to win back the community's trust for under Sheriff Beecham, who had been drafted in to replace Lloyd Finley and Sheriff Grant facing reelection later that year. The personal stakes could barely

have been any higher. At the beginning of that second week, having put posters up of the missing men all across the Uber and Sutter area, and with the reports of their disappearance a daily feature in the local news, the pair finally had another lead to follow up. Carol Waltz was the owner of a local store in Brownsville, another foothill town of the Sierra Nevada just south of Oraville.

Waltz had been working on Saturday, February twenty fifth, the day after the men had last been seen, when two men matching the descriptions of Jack Hewett and Gary Matthias came into her store. The pair were said to have bought a variety of snack foods before heading back outside to eat. A second witness also called that same day, claiming to have seen at least four of the men

at the same store. The day after, two of them, who she took to be Bill Sterling and Ted Weir, were sitting in a red pickup truck, while two others, who she assumed to be Jack Madruga and Jack Hewett, were seen at a telephone booth nearby. Having previously focused their search to no avail on the immediate vicinity of the abandoned car, Beecham now feared that he had missed a trick. In response to the possible sighting in Brownsville, he promptly split the investigation into four parts, with the

Mountain search still continuing. One unit was instructed to go back over all the evidence they had, tracing the men's movements up to the night that they disappeared. Another would focus on reinterviewing the family and friends, while the fourth focused its energies on trying to locate any more witnesses from Brownsville. Of immediate interest was the description of the pickup truck, now mentioned by two separate witnesses. A short

time later. One friend of Garry Matthias's suggested he might have taken the men to visit friends in nearby Forbestown, but when the police contacted them, they claimed not to have heard from Garry for months. A fund set up by the desperate families for any vital information raised almost three and a half thousand dollars, but failed to yield any significant leads. On and on, the exhaustive search continued, entering a third and then a fourth week, but still

the men could not be found. The police also failed to find any trace at the apparent pickup truck. On March twenty first, nineteen seventy eight, under Sheriff Beecham had no choice but to make the painful decision to call off the search. After hundreds of hours, having used almost one hundred personnel, sniffer dogs, helicopters and snowmobiles, the five friends who had supposedly left home merely to watch a game of basketball, had completely vanished off the face of

the earth. Are you always taking care of your family? Do you often take care of others and not yourself? Now it's time to take care of yourself, to make time for you. You deserve it. Tele a doc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best, feeling like yourself again. With teledoc, you can speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video. Therapy appointments are available seven days a week from seven

am to nine pm local time. If you feel overwhelmed sometimes, maybe you feel stressed or anxious, depressed or lonely, or you might be struggling with a personal or family issue, teledoc can help. Teledoc is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they make it easy to change counselors if needed. For free. Teledoc therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app or visit teledoc dot com Forward slash

Unexplained podcast today to get started. That's teladoc dot com slash Unexplained Podcast. With the search having wound down, one deputy was put in place of collecting any further information that might come to light. Having gone to Marysville High School with ted Weer and his brothers. Deputy Lance Heirs had been affected by the men's disappearance, perhaps more than most, taking it as his personal mission to bring closure to

the families, in whatever shape that may take. For the next few months, Heirs spiritedly followed up on each and every piece of information that came in, from apparent sightings of the men in Sacramento to as far as Ontario and Tampa in Florida. He chased them all to no avail. When one local psychic claimed that the men had been murdered in Oroville in a two story house numbered either four seven two three or four seven five three, Airs spent two days driving the streets for any sign of it,

but no such house existed. On some nights, Deputy Airs, dreaming that he had found them, would find himself walking toward them with open arms, only to wake up alone in the cold darkness of his bedroom, his arms still outstretched before him. By the end of May, even the families had begun to lose hope of ever finding out what had happened to their children. But high up on the mountain, the snow was steadily beginning to thaw, and soon it would be time to begin letting up some

of its secrets. On the afternoon of June fourth, three bikers went for a week end ride through plumous forest. Heading along the Oureville to Quincy road, they decided to take a turn eastwards on to one of the narrower forest roads that headed higher up into the mountain. A short time later, the group pulled into the dawn annual Zinc campground, located about three miles deeper into the forest

off the main road. The bikers pulled over and made their way to a large forest service cabin at the back of the site, hoping to find a map of the local area. Approaching the building, having just noticed a window that had been smashed in, the riders were hit by a sweet, putrid stench coming from inside. Going in to investigate further, the bikers soon located the source of the smell. There, stretched out on a camp bed before them, lying under multiple layers of darkly stained sheets, they could

clearly see the outline of a steadily decomposing body. When the call came into the Yuba County Sheriff's office later that day, under Sheriff Beecham grabbed his hat and made his way to the nearest patrol car, arriving to find forensics and deputies from the Plumous County Sheriff's Office already there. Beecham could tell by the look on their faces that they had found. One of them covering his nose from the stench. Beecham made his way into the cabin and

approached the body. With the sheets now rolled back, he could see the emaciated figure lying underneath the way the cordroy trousers had been rolled up to reveal clear signs of gangrene on the legs. Next to it, on a side table lay a brown wallet, a bead necklace, and a ring. Beecham picked it up and examined the engraving on the inside, which read simply ted. The body would later be formally identified as that of thirty two year old Ted Weier, last seen alive almost a hundred days before.

The pathologist ruled the cause of his death to be the result of a pulmonary edema brought on by exposure, having survived for up to six weeks after he had first gone missing. To get to the cabin, Wea would have to have tracked almost twenty miles up hill in minus temperatures through six foot snowdrifts in the middle of the night. The shirt and Cordroy trousers found on his

body were the only clothes he had been wearing. What's more, he had most likely been sheltering in the cabin alive and reasonably well throughout the entirety of the original search, but Beecham couldn't understand it. A cursory look around the service cabin revealed thirty one cans of food that had been taken from a storage locker and eaten, but an

entire other locker's worth that had been left untouched. Propane gas linked to a heating system was also discovered, as well as stoves and matches, but also books and furniture that could easily have been used as fuel for a fire. None of it had been utilized. And then there were the missing shoes. Weir had been wearing a pair of sturdy leather shoes the night he went missing, but when

they found his body, his shoes had gone. They did, however, find another pair of shoes left in the cabin, a pair of tennis shoes that had belonged to Garry Matthias, a recently burned out candle, suggested that perhaps someone else had also been there too, long after Weir had died, but had since left. The discovery of Weir's body prompted an immediate response from the Plumus and Uba County police, reconvening the search they had called off three months previously.

Two days later, tracing likely lines from the service cabin back to where the Montego had been abandoned, officers soon uncovered another body, or what was left of it. It was found roughly halfway between the cabin and the abandoned car, lying face up next to a small stream. The face and extremities had been eaten away by forest animals sometime after death. Car keys found in the trouser pockets revealed it to be the body of thirty year old Jack Madruga.

Later that day, not far from Madruga's body, more human bones were discovered scattered across an area of roughly fifty feet. It was all that was left of twenty nine year old Bill Sterling that those three had now been discovered was understandably devastating for the relevant families, but equally so for those of Garry Matthias and Jack Hewett, with neither having been heard from in over a hundred days. In all likelihood, they hadn't made it out of the forest

alive either. Believing it to be only a matter of time before the others would be found, scores of volunteers joined the police to help speed up the search. On the morning of June eighth, Jack Hewett's father, also named Jack, arrived to help. Deputy Lance. Heirs, who had been entrusted with the case after the initial search had been ended, did his best to discourage him from joining in, but

Jack would not be dissuaded. A few hours later, searching an area of roughly five miles from the cabin where were had been found, Jack spotted something out of place in the undergrowth. It was a faded Levi's denim jacket. He immediately recognized it as his sons. When he picked it up from the ground, a human spine fell out of it. Jack recoiled in horror as police quickly gathered round to take it from him. Hewett's skull was found a further one hundred yards down the hill, barely a

quarter of a mile away. Investigators also found three wall blankets and flashlights, which had likely been taken from the service cabin but no matter how hard they looked, they found no sign of Garry Matthias. After two further weeks under Sheriff Jack Beecham called off the search for a

second time. The bodies, or rather remains, of the four men that had so far been found had been placed into green canvas bags after all, just as supposed psychic doctor Daniel had apparently seen, only they weren't sleeping bags but body bags. Bill Sterling, Jack Madruga, and Jack Hewett's deaths were all found to have been the result of hypothermia,

with no apparent signs of foul play. That their bones and bodies were in the state that they were was thought merely to have been down to the animals that got to them after they died. All that was left for Beecham was to try and piece together exactly what happened, and he knew just where to start. Beecham had his doubts about the twenty five year old Garry Matthias from the beginning. Where the others had intellectual disabilities of one

form or another, Matthias had no such thing. Early on in the investigation, Beecham learned from Matthias's family that his involvement with the Gateway project, and how he met the others in the first place, was due to his struggles with schizophrenia. What Beacham also discovered, however, was that his history was a little more complicated than that. Matthias had in fact been in and out of psychiatric hospitals since the age of fifteen, first being committed after seemingly having

suffered an adverse reaction from taking hallucinogenic drugs. After being drafted into the army at the age of eighteen, despite his clear medical records, Matthias is said to have suffered another psychiatric breakdown as the result of his continued drug use. At one point, Matthias was arrested after going a wall while waiting in his cell. He demanded to speak to the officers on duty, only to attack them when they opened his door. Matthias had stripped completely naked before carrying

out the attack. Around the same time, the nineteen year old Matthias, now living back home in Olivehurst, went to visit his cousin. At some point in the night, Matthias was discovered sexually assaulting his cousin's wife while she slept. After being charged with assaulting a police officer and intent to rape. Matthias was facing up to twelve years in prison, but eventually accepted a plea deal and served only eight months.

After his release, Matthias's behavior became ever more erratic. With his drug use escalating, he found himself increasingly on the wrong side of the law. There were a number of bar fights, as well as complaints of disturbing the peace. One time, Matthias is even said to have turned up high at the house of a couple he knew, telling them he was going to stab a woman in the jaw.

Two subsequent attempts to have him committed ended in failure when Matthias managed to escape on one account by crawling out of a storm drain. In nineteen seventy five, Gary Matthias enrolled at Huber College, but struggled with both its conventions and fitting in with other students. Eventually he moved out to Oregon in Washington State to live with his grandmother, only to turn up at his mother and stepfather's house

weeks later tired and disheveled. He had apparently walked the five hundred and forty mile journey home, eating food he found along the way to stay alive, all of which, for Beecham, made Matthias not only a potential candidate for the murder of the other men, or at least to have led them astray, but also one who might even have been capable of getting out at the forest alive. That Gary Matthias has never been found only serves to

heighten this theory. It has also been speculated that at least Matthias and possibly Jack Hewett had made it to the service cabin with Ted Weir, only to leave soon after, with Matthias being the one most likely to have taken weird shoes. Unless Gary Matthias is found to have survived after all, it is unlikely there will ever be an answer as to what exactly happened on that mysterious night

in February nineteen seventy eight. Why five men found themselves driving high up into the Sierra Nevada Mountains seventy miles in the wrong direction. Why having gone as far as they could, the men then seemingly abandoned their car and undertook a treacherous journey through thick forest and six foot snowdrifts, reaching ever higher into the mountains, only to find death

waiting for them at the end of it. Much has been made about the men's intellectual capacities, suggesting this may have been a significant factor in what could have been little more than a horrifically wrong turn. Some have suggested this might also account for why those who made it to the forest to serve his cabin didn't eat the

food and engage the heating apparatus to survive. Others suggest that, due to their innocence with such things, a worry that they were breaking the law made them too afraid to do so. As for Garry Matthias, despite under Sheriff Beecham's reservations in the time leading up to his disappearance, he

appeared to have turned his life around. Not only was he holding down a steady job, but having finally been treated properly for his schizophrenia, of which most of his erratic behavior was likely just a symptom, he hadn't suffered any negative effects from it for over two years. Once lost in the forest, however, we could only speculate how quickly he may have deteriorated without his medication. Certainly, for Garry's mother and stepfather, theirs was an especially difficult anguish,

Not only did. They never get closure, but in the absence of it, they were also forced to endure the inevitable suspicions that arose once Garry's past came to the attention of the public. Like many of the other parents, Garry's mother and stepfather had also joined in with the search for the missing men. His stepfather, Robert, had spent most of his time hunting for Garry's distinctive, thick, black rimmed glasses, reasoning that if a bear had taken him,

it would have at least left those uneaten. In all the time spent waiting for news of her son's whereabouts, Garry's mother, Ida refused to turn on her television to afraid of what she might find out. But no news ever came. She would spend the rest of her life looking for him. I'd like to thank Ryan Vaughn's in New York for bringing this extraordinary story to my attention. If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and would like to help support us, you can now go to Unexplained podcast

dot com forward slash support. All donations, no matter how large or small, are massively appreciated. All elements have Unexplained are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or Twitter at

Unexplained odd and Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward slash Unexplained Now, it's time to take care of yourself. To make time for you. Teledoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video anytime between seven am to nine pm local time, seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app or visit telldoc dot com, Forward slash

Unexplained Podcast Today to get started. That's t e l a d oc dot com Slash Unexplained Podcast