Comments by "Glamdolly" (@glamdolly30) on "The Scariest Disappearance I’ve Ever Covered - The Yuba County 5" video.
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Once his friend Ted had died, poor Gary would not want to remain in that shelter with his decomposing corpse. He really had no option (bar removing the body, which I doubt he had the stomach for), but to leave - and inadequately dressed in those harsh sub-zero conditions, that was a certain death sentence.
I suspect Joseph Schons, who had two criminal convictions for violence, got into some kind of road rage confrontation with the boys which spooked them into fleeing their car in terror and running into the mountains. Such an incident would not be out of character for the volatile, older Schons, and could also explain what had brought on his heart attack.
There were some suspicious elements to the accounts he gave police and others, which suggested he had not told the whole story. He could well have covered up the central role he played in the boys fleeing and ultimately dying, as a direct result of his aggression.
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So very sad, thank you for posting here and reminding us that this is an all too real and raw human tragedy for the people affected.
My heart goes out to the Mathias family. Bad enough to lose a beloved relative in such tragic circumstances. But for there to be such a hotly-debated mystery surrounding his disappearance and worse, that some crazy conspiracy theorists blame him, adds agonising insult to injury. That is a terrible injustice to him, and his loved-ones.
The tragic cause of the boys' deaths is only too clear. They all succumbed to the harsh elements at that time of year. What desperately sad irony that Gary and Ted had made it to a survival shelter 12 miles from the car, yet for whatever reason had been unable to use the life-saving resources of food and heat it contained.
The two big mysteries are surely why their car wound up so far from their normal route home that night, an apparently deliberate detour that no one who knew them could fathom. And why, once they drove there, they abandoned the car - apparently in a hurry - and embarked on a gruelling trek in sub zero temperatures, that none of them would ultimately survive.
I would add a third mystery - and that is the failure of the organised searches to find them before it was too late. Ted Weiher's autopsy confirmed he lived for around 13 weeks, and the same may also apply to Gary, who it would appear was with him. The Yuba Five's parents reported them missing promptly, the very next morning. And a warden located their vehicle that same day, though he didn't realise its significance and report it until February 28th.
Even so, the authorities had enough clues to mount an effective organised search from February 28th, just four days after they went missing. It's entirely possible Gary and Ted could have been rescued in time - they were likely both alive in that survival hut for up to three months. But Ted's body was not found until June - when a group of motorcyclists visited the survival shelter. What additional agony for Ted and Gary's loved ones to know they were alive in that shelter, awaiting rescue that never came.
May the 'Yuba Five' boys rest in peace, and may their loved ones too find peace, in their tragic loss.
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This YouTuber's repeated assertion that the survival hut was not heated because the inhabitants were 'too scared' to light a fire is total supposition on his part. In fact these men of limited intellectual ability may not have been thinking straight through stress, cold, dehydration/starvation, or a combination of all of those things. Fear may have had nothing to do with it!
There were paperback books in the shelter, which were an obvious source of combustible material to start a fire. But they were untouched. In addition, there was enough survival rations to feed them for many months, yet only a fraction of that food had been eaten and most lay unopened. This could have been a simple case of those items not belonging to them, so they decided they could not touch them.
Obviously in a life or death situation a person of sound mind would not be remotely concerned about taking what was not theirs, to sustain life. But these men were not typical, and didn't possess even basic common sense - the story about Ted staying in bed when his bedroom was on fire is a very relevant example here.
Too often people are hypothesising about the likely behaviour/assumptions of these men, without taking into account their limited logic and eccentric view of the world. They were not typical young men in their twenties and thirties!
This is further confirmed by the fact it wasn't even necessary to light a fire, because the survival shelter had a form of central heating. All that was required was the intelligence to locate the relevant valve, and turn it. The tragedy is there was ample food inside the shelter and an easy heating source, yet Ted was found deceased in bed, his emaciated, frost bitten corpse laying under a thin sheet, having starved and frozen to death over around 13 weeks (as confirmed by his beard growth). Known for his big appetite and chubby frame, his mummified remains weighed just 100 pounds.
The biggest mystery of this story IMO is why the authorities didn't organise a swift, effective search for these five unusually vulnerable men, methodically checking every survival hut within a 50 mile radius of their abandoned car. Had they only been found a few weeks earlier, then at least the two who made it to the shelter, Ted Weiher and presumably Gary Matthias, might have been saved. That would obviously have lessened the awful scale of this tragedy - it would also have answered many questions which with all of them dead, will forever remain a mystery.
I read that it was an especially bitter pill for Ted's family knowing how long he had been suffering and physically deteriorating in a bed inside that freezing cold hut, meaning there was a three-month window during which he could have been rescued. That rescue never came, is the ultimate tragedy.
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@tenderandmoist5011 It's an interesting discussion. Seems to me you may be second-guessing the Yuba Five as though they were a typical group of young men aged 24 - 32. But they were not, their combined issues, spanning mental illness, intellectual disability and a spectacular lack of common sense, means they were extremely untypical, and very vulnerable.
Two had some survival training from time spent in the military, but none of the men were independent. All still lived with their family and were supported by them to varying degrees, even to the extent of having their clothes laid out for them each morning. I don't believe we can assume they'd have responded in logical, predictable ways to any unexpected crisis, threat, or indeed to stress generally.
The first big mystery is why their car ended up in that location at all. They had taken a big detour from their route home, and it's not thought likely they could have got lost. I seem to recall Gary Mathias had a friend who lived in that general direction, and one theory is that in high spirits after their favourite team won the college basketball match, he persuaded the others to drop by and visit his pal on the way home.
But obviously like so much else, that's pure conjecture (the Yuba Five case reminds me how much more information we have today about much mysteries thanks to cellphones - and obviously had cellphones been commonly carried in 1978 as they are today, the guys may have been able to call for help, and might never got into trouble).
You're right, a typical group of young men might not be scared of 'an old drunk guy' like Joseph Schons (in fact he was only 55 at that time). But I feel it's totally feasible the Yuba Five were intimidated by him, if he was belligerent and threatened them with a weapon (his criminal history, with two convictions for assault, should not be overlooked here).
There are many reasons to suspect Joseph Schons was not fully honest in his evidence, and that alone throws up a red flag to me. I'm troubled by his claim to have seen an unidentified group of people, including a woman with a baby, when he needed help in the throes of a heart attack after his car broke down. He said he called out to them for help, but the group fell silent and turned off their flashlights. So he said he was forced to walk through the snow to find assistance - seeing Jack Madruga's abandoned car, en route.
Schons' story strikes me as a possible attempt to distance himself from the boys. He claimed to have seen their car but not them, maintaining he had no personal interaction with any of them. In addition his account introduced other potential suspects, in the form of the mysterious group of strangers he said had failed to help him. Those people were never traced, and obviously may not exist.
Incidentally there's no evidence the Yuba Five's car was irretrievably stuck in snow (police judged they could easily have pushed it out of any snowpack it was in), and that's another major aspect of the mystery. The car was not stuck, had not broken down, and had sufficient gas in the tank to get them home.
The two, $64,000 dollar questions in the 'Yuba County Five' story are why did the men wind up driving to that location, and why when they got there, did they leave the safety of that vehicle, to embark on what turned out to be a kamikaze 12 mile trek in sub-zero temperatures none would ultimately survive?
There's a huge clue in the fact the driver's window was left open. Jack Madruga loved his 1969 Mercury Montego - his parents said it was his pride and joy, and there's no way he'd have left it unlocked, least of all with any windows open. For the car to have been left like that suggests some kind of emergency, an unexpected event or a crisis they had to escape, without delay.
I get the feeling both the baffling location the vehicle was left in, and the group's decision to abandon it, point to them fleeing from someone - logically, another motorist who had first pursued them in a vehicle, and then confronted them face to face/on foot. But obviously none of them survived to tell the tale, so all any of us can do 46 years later is speculate and throw theories around.
If there was a confrontation, the location of the men's bodies some considerable distance away suggests they survived it. It was the harsh elements that killed them, and the biggest tragedy of all is surely the failure of the organised search efforts. Ted Weiher lay starving, freezing and frost-bitten in that survival shelter for an estimated 13 weeks, as his beard growth confirmed. That's a hell of a long time to wait for rescue!
The five men were reported missing promptly by their parents, the very next morning, February 25th. And a ranger found their car on February 25th too (though he realised its significance and reported it to authorities on February 28th). So the alarm was raised early that the five were vulnerable missing men, whose disappearance was out of character. They were playing an important basketball match for their team 'The Gateway Gators' the following day, February 25th, it was so important some had asked their parents to be sure to wake them early to prepare. They would not have missed it.
The failed search for the men is troubling. Surely a prompt and methodical organised search of the relevant area, and crucially, all the survival cabins in it, could have at least located Ted and Gary Mathias inside the hut well within three months - ie in time to save them? The survival hut Ted and Gary took shelter in was just 12 miles from the abandoned car.
Ted's poor family were obviously devastated to learn he had been alive for all that time, but rescue never came. Ditto Gary, who it appears left the shelter and walked to his death at some point, probably after Ted died. Presumably Gary was suffering swollen and painful, frost-bitten feet like Ted from their gruelling, 20 mile hike to the shelter in sub-zero temperatures, which would explain why his own shoes were found, but Ted's larger shoes were missing.
Neither Gary's remains nor Ted's shoes were ever found, which has led to all kinds of conspiracy theories blaming Gary in some way (some even speculate he murdered the others and survived). I don't think Gary harmed any of his friends, an assumption based on his schizophrenia and some previous incidents of violence. But the longer he went without medication for his condition, the more mentally unstable and unable to make good decisions he'd have become.
Perhaps he experienced escalating paranoia, and believed the food rations in the hut were poisoned, so stopped himself and Ted from eating them (only a fraction were used, with many months worth of food that could have saved them, left unopened). Though his autopsy proved Ted had contracted blood poisoning through infected frostbite wounds, and may have simply been too sick to eat.
The hut even had a form of central heating, which merely required the correct valve to be turned - but it seems even Gary, with his average IQ and army/survival training, was unable to master it.
The three men who almost certainly died first, exposed to the elements, arguably got the better deal. Ted and Gary's extended ordeal over 13 weeks in a freezing survival hut, awaiting rescue that never came, is utterly horrific to contemplate.
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