Key facts
- Name: Gary Dale Mathias
- Born: 1952
- Age at disappearance: 25
- Last seen: February 24, 1978
- Location: Plumas National Forest, California (after a basketball game in Chico)
- Height / build: 25-year-old Army veteran; diagnosed with schizophrenia, treated with Stellazine and Cogentin
- Status: Still missing — the only one of the Yuba County Five never found
- Investigating agency: Yuba County Sheriff’s Office
The wrong road
On the night of February 24, 1978, five friends from Yuba County — Gary Mathias, Jack Madruga, Jackie Huett, Ted Weiher, and Bill Sterling, ages 24 to 32 — drove to Chico State to watch a college basketball game. They were regulars at a local day program, men with mild intellectual disabilities or psychiatric conditions who were known, liked, and deeply attached to their routines. They were supposed to drive straight home afterward.
Instead, their car — Madruga’s 1969 Mercury Montego — was found days later abandoned on a high mountain dirt road in the Plumas National Forest, some 70 miles in the wrong direction, stuck in snow. The car was in good working order. Investigators said it could easily have been pushed out of the snowpack. Nobody could explain why it was there, or why five men who loved their routines had driven into the mountains at all.
Four of them would be found dead. Gary Mathias would never be found at all.
The trailer
When the snow melted in June 1978, the forest gave up its grim inventory. Ted Weiher’s body was found inside a U.S. Forest Service trailer about 20 miles north of the abandoned car. He had survived for as long as three months after the men were last seen — and then starved to death. The trailer held an ample supply of food and heating materials. He had used almost none of it. He was missing his shoes.
The remains of Madruga, Sterling, and Huett were found scattered in the surrounding area, reduced by scavenging animals, dead of hypothermia.
And in the trailer, investigators found Gary Mathias’s own shoes.
The shoes suggested Mathias had been in that trailer too — had survived for some time beyond that February night — and then walked out into the snow. He has never been found.
Who Gary was
Of the five, Gary carried the heaviest burden. He had served in the U.S. Army in Germany, and afterward his schizophrenia went untreated in stretches. He would stop taking his medication and lapse into a disoriented psychosis that usually landed him in a Veterans Administration hospital. “Went haywire,” his stepfather Bob put it. Police records showed he had become violent on occasion and had been charged with assault twice.
None of that explains a mountain road in February.
A local man later told police he had spent that same night in his own car a short distance from where the Mercury was found. He said he saw and heard people around his car, twice called out for help, and each time they went silent and turned off their flashlights. The distance between the car and where the bodies were found has fed suspicions of foul play ever since.
Theories: what might have happened
He wandered off in a psychotic break. The strongest thread for investigators: an unmedicated young man with schizophrenia, lost in a blizzard, separating from the group. What supports it: his history, the shoes left behind in the trailer, the absence of any sign of violence. What undercuts it: it doesn’t explain how five routine-bound men ended up 70 miles off course in the first place.
Foul play. The witness who heard people go silent in the dark. The car abandoned in working order. The trailer full of food that starving men wouldn’t touch — as if someone had told them to wait. What supports it: almost every detail of the case feels staged or coerced. What undercuts it: no suspect, no motive, no evidence of another party has ever been established. This remains suspicion, not proof.
He survived and was never identified. Every few years someone suggests Mathias walked out of those mountains and lived on, unrecognized. What undercuts it: a man in acute psychiatric crisis, shoeless, in February snow, with no money and no plan — and 48 years of silence since.
Have information?
Contact the Yuba County Sheriff’s Office at (530) 749-7777. In an emergency, dial 911.
Timeline
- 1952 — Gary Dale Mathias is born.
- February 24, 1978 — Mathias and four friends attend a basketball game at Chico State and vanish on the drive home.
- Days later — Madruga’s Mercury Montego is found abandoned on a mountain road in Plumas National Forest, far off their route.
- June 1978 — Four bodies are recovered after the snow melts; Weiher in a Forest Service trailer, the others nearby. Mathias’s shoes are found in the trailer. Mathias himself is never found.
- 2022 — The case is featured in Netflix’s Files of the Unexplained.
- February 2028 (upcoming) — The 50th anniversary of the disappearance.
- Today — Still missing.
FAQ
Is Gary Mathias still missing?
Yes. As of October 2026, Gary Mathias has been missing for more than 48 years. He is still listed as a missing person by the Yuba County Sheriff’s Office and in the NamUs database.
What happened to the Yuba County Five?
Five friends vanished after a February 1978 basketball game in Chico. Four — Bill Sterling, Jack Huett, Ted Weiher, and Jack Madruga — were found dead that June in Plumas National Forest. Gary Mathias was never found. The case is often called the “American Dyatlov Pass.”
Was Gary Mathias schizophrenic?
Yes. Mathias had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and was prescribed Stellazine and Cogentin. His family said he sometimes stopped taking his medication and became disoriented.
Why didn’t the men eat the food in the trailer?
Nobody knows. Ted Weiher starved over weeks inside a trailer stocked with food and heating fuel he never used — one of the case’s most disturbing details, and a major reason foul play has never been ruled out.
Where was their car found?
Madruga’s 1969 Mercury Montego was discovered abandoned on a remote, snowbound dirt road in Plumas National Forest, roughly 70 miles off the men’s route home — in working order, with no explanation for why it was there.
Is there a book about the Yuba County Five?
Yes. Author Tony Wright re-examined the case in Things Aren’t Right, and the case has been covered by the Stuff You Should Know podcast and Netflix’s Files of the Unexplained.
Sources
- Official / law enforcement: Yuba County Sheriff’s Office (case contact (530) 749-7777); NamUs missing-person listing for Gary Mathias.
- News: 983 The Snake, “UNSOLVED: Four Of 5 Friends’ Bodies Found On CA Mountain In 1978” (http://983thesnake.com/unsolved-four-of-5-friends-bodies-found-on-ca-mountain-in-1978/).
- Reference: Wikipedia, “Yuba County Five” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuba_County_Five) (retrieved Oct 2026).
- Media: Netflix, Files of the Unexplained (2024); Stuff You Should Know, “Selects: The Disappearance of the Yuba County Five”; Tony Wright, Things Aren’t Right (book).
Found an error? Tell us via the About page and we will fix it promptly and note the change here. Last verified October 2026.