On the night of February 24, 1978, a group of five youths who were part of a mentally handicapped program attended a basketball game at California State University's college in Chico. They were Jack Madruga (30), William Sterling (29), Ted Weicher (32), Gary Mathias (25), and Jack Hewitt (24), all from the Marysville area of California. A group of men were looking forward to their special Olympic basketball tournament scheduled for the following evening in Sacramento. They planned to attend a college basketball game to gain their enthusiasm for their own game. Before leaving, they neatly arranged their basketball jerseys on the beds. If they win, they go to California Disneyland.
Unfortunately, five friends will never make it to their prize.
After a basketball game at a college in Chico, the men set out to return home. Everyone climbed into Jack's Mercury Coupe and drove to the store in downtown Chico to buy snacks and drinks on the way back. It was at about 22.00.
After leaving the store, the men seemed to disappear. A few days later, their abandoned car was found about 112 km away on the Pluma National Forest Road. It seemed that on the way home people for some reason turned off the motorway and drove east rather than south.
The investigation of the car did not reveal any signs of deliberate damage and showed that it was in working order, excluding the car breakdown. The car was full of candy wrappers, basketball programs, milk cartons and other things that indicated a good time.
Winter road Plum.
The place where the inverted Mercury was found was surrounded by deep snow. Looking at this was not an optimistic picture. The missing men were dressed only in light clothes, and the terrain was extremely mountainous and cold.
While men did suffer from mental disorders, they were all able to function normally. However, their families stated that their behavior tends to "get worse" if they are in a stressful situation (in such a situation, perfectly healthy people can have stress). However, it was completely uncommon for them to just disappear of their own accord, especially given the fact that they were all so excited about the upcoming basketball game. They were really looking forward to this game and could not miss it. According to their families, they would definitely not have driven down an isolated, unknown road in the middle of the night and simply left their car for no reason.
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Relatives and friends of the missing men all as one said that they would return home immediately after the game and would never voluntarily go to the mountains at night, because some of the men were especially afraid of the dark, and two - Stirling and Wiher - did not like cold weather and nature.
The sheriff suggested that they could have stopped to help someone, and those people took advantage of them.
The title is from The Tennessean.
Adding more to the mystery, testimony emerged from a witness who told police that he saw a Mercury compartment between 23:00 and 24:00 on 24 February. The witness, Joseph Shauns, got stuck in the snow while driving along the same Plum National Forest Road, where an abandoned car would later be found. Sean suffered a heart attack while trying to push his car out of the snow. While waiting for help, Shauns said two headlights appeared behind him and then stopped about 6 meters behind him. He said that a group of men got out of the car, got into a second car and drove away. Seans later said that he could not confirm with certainty that there was a second car: "I was semi-conscious, hallucinated and in deep pain." However, he confirmed that he had definitely seen the Mercury Coupe.
Mercury coupe - was a very noticeable car that would be unnoticed.
Shortly thereafter, another witness stated that he saw 5 men in a red 1950s pickup at about 2 pm on 25 February. The men were outside a store in Brownsville, about an hour's drive from where the abandoned coupe was found.
After the abandoned car was discovered, a severe snowstorm covered the area, obstructing prospecting and covering up potential tracks. Nevertheless, the mountain was searched by all available means: on foot, on horseback, with dogs, in four-wheel drive vehicles and in a helicopter. The initial search was exhaustive, but the search for the men was suspended a few weeks later.
The Yuba County Sheriff's Office said it will resume its search on the ground when new evidence emerges that the five men are still in the dense forest. While the search for land was stopped, the California patrol helicopter continued to sweep the area from the sky.
Entering Yuba County.
4 months later, when spring came, the melting of mountain snow revealed the tragic fate of the missing. A group of motorcyclists went to a trailer supported by the Forest Service, about 30.5 km from where the Mercury coupe was found. They noticed that the window was broken. Going inside, they found Weicher's decomposed body. His feet had severe gangrene after frostbite. They also found food, clothing, books, matches, and fuel that remained intact. There was enough food to feed the five men for over a year. It was found that Weicher lived in the trailer for up to 2 months before dying of hunger and hypothermia.
A late spring thaw found the bodies of Madruga and Sterling about 18 km from an abandoned car. Both died of hypothermia. The researchers speculated that one of them may have succumbed to the urge to sleep, which marks the final stage of hypothermia, and the other refused to leave. Soon after, Hewitt's father, who joined the search, found his remains 3 km from the trailer. Investigators believe that Hewitt was in the trailer with Weicher when he died, and then got scared, ran and got lost. Despite careful searches, Matthias was never found.
The discovery of the bodies raised even more questions. Why did they go uphill in deep snow instead of going downhill or staying in the car? Why does at least one of them - Weicher - live for more than 2 months in the forest, ignoring food, clothing and fuel around him?
It is a great pity for these young men and even more pity for their parents, who lived in suspense, hope and faith. This mysterious story went unanswered.