YUBA COUNTY FIVE

1. Public Record

24 February 1978. Five men from a Yuba County program drive Jack Madruga's car fifty miles to a Chico State basketball game. Ted Weiher, Jackie Huett Jr, Jack Madruga, Bill Sterling, Gary Mathias. After the game they buy snacks at a convenience store. They do not come home. On the 28th the car sits in shallow snow on the Oroville-Quincy Highway, seventy miles the wrong way, keys in it, no snow on the seats that would say they walked far in a storm they could not have driven through easily.

Months later a trailer in the Plumas forest yields Weiher, dead, dead for a long time, a little food eaten, sneakers missing, a forest-service trailer that had a stock of tins they barely touched. Sterling and Madruga in the woods. Huett's spine later. Mathias never. Mathias is the one with the army past, the drugs, the dream a friend said he had about disappearing. Coach Robert Pennock had already told a sergeant he might flip. The four who were found did not have to be up that road. Mathias is the name the file still waits on.

A game. A car pointed the wrong way. Four bodies. One empty place.

2. Date of Incident

Game night 24 February 1978. Car 28 February. Trailer and woods later that spring.

3. Location

Chico to Oroville-Quincy Highway and Plumas forest. Approximate 39°50 N 121°10 W.

4. Official Narrative

Missing persons, then exposure. Official narrative does not close Mathias. No murder charge that stuck to a second party.

5. Witness Layer

The five. Families. Pennock. Janet Enzerra on Mathias's dream. Sheriff paper.

Could possibly flip out at any time.

He had repeatedly told Enzerra of a dream where he and several other people would disappear.

6. Recovery Logistics

Car first. Trailer later. Three more in the trees. Mathias not in any of them.

7. Assessment

A wrong-road file. Keep the snacks and the game so the night starts ordinary. Keep the tins uneaten. Mathias is not a verdict. He is the missing fifth. Do not write the four as children who wandered because a car can be driven by someone who knows a mountain. Do not write a cult because a trailer was cold.

8. Materials & Remains

Madruga's car. The trailer. Four identifications. An open name.

9. Key Personnel

Ted Weiher / Jackie Huett / Jack Madruga / Bill Sterling : Found.

Gary Mathias : Not found.

Robert Pennock : The coach's line.

10. Aftermath

Yuba County still says five. Four graves. One poster. The highway still climbs the wrong way out of the valley.

11. Current Archive Status

Status: 24 Feb 1978. Car wrong way. Four recovered. Mathias open.

Confidence: High that the five left a game and that the car was found days later on a mountain road. High that four died of exposure-related causes in that forest. Low that Mathias's end is known. Low that a second party has been proved.

Filing note

Five seats after a basketball game, a bag of snacks, a car on a road that was not the way home, a trailer full of food barely touched, four bodies the snow gave back slowly, a fifth name that never came out of the trees.

A dream where he and several other people would disappear. Written down after. It does not solve the road. It sits on the page like a cold coincidence.