HORROR inside abandoned cabin | The Yuba City 5 story

there is a very famous mystery called the diatlov pass incident that occurred in the 50s in russia where you had nine highly experienced hikers go out on an expedition and then not turn up at their rendezvous point when a huge search party is launched and they're discovered the circumstances under which they are found are truly baffling i mean you had people with clothes some without you had people that were mildly radioactive you had people that were missing body parts and none of it really fit the narrative that there had been an avalanche or that they had died of hypothermia it was almost like something had attacked them but we have no idea what it was and so that mystery has endured for years for decades and so today's story is referred to as the american d'atla pass incident because you have a group of people that go missing inexplicably and then are located under baffling conditions and just like the original diatlov pass we know in today's story what happened to them for the most part we just don't know why but before we get into today's story if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format then you come to the right channel because that's all i do here and i upload three to four times a week if not more and so if that's something you're interested in i would encourage you to gently karate chop the like button and then subscribe to this channel and turn on all post notifications so you don't miss any of my weekly uploads alright let's get into today's story [Music] today's story takes place in 1978 and it focuses on five young men that were best friends basically inseparable who all lived in yuba city california and they came to be known as the yuba city five these five young men were all either mildly intellectually disabled or had a mental health disability but they were all very high functioning jack hewitt was the youngest of the group he was 24 years old he was fairly uncomfortable in social situations and didn't do well around strangers but around his four best friends he blossomed and was incredibly funny and lighthearted and got along extremely well ted wheeler was the oldest of the group he was 32 and he kind of took a a big brother approach to jack hewitt he kind of looked after jack specifically those two were very very close and ted was known to actually occasionally make phone calls on jack's behalf when jack felt uncomfortable calling a stranger on the phone you know ted would step in and be the bigger brother and make those phone calls for him bill sterling was 29 years old and he was deeply religious he would spend a lot of his time going to the library where he would read christian literature jack madruga was 30 years old and he was an army veteran however he had been discharged from the army after a medical evaluation determined that his his iq was too low so he was discharged from the army he was the designated driver of the yuba city five because he was the only one of the five that had a driver's license jack loved being the driver because he loved his white and turquoise montego in 1969 montego it was like his prized possession and he felt very proud driving the group around last but not least you have gary mathias who was the unofficial ringleader of the group he was 25 years old he also was an army veteran and he as well had been discharged following a medical evaluation where they diagnosed him with schizophrenia so he was discharged and he went back home to yuba city to move in with his parents initially when he came home he really struggled they hadn't they hadn't found a good way to manage his his diagnosis but eventually his doctor found the right mixture of medications and treatment and he totally stabilized and in fact was able to even hold down a job working part-time with the stepfather in his gardening business now what really brought this group of five men together was their shared love of sports really basketball specifically when they got together they were either talking about basketball watching basketball or playing basketball the gateway program that they were all enrolled in the voc rehab program they had a basketball team and so they all played on that basketball team and they were super passionate about that team in february of 1978 their basketball team along with a host of others were slated to compete in a tournament where the winners of this tournament would get a free trip out to los angeles and so the yuba city five was so excited about this tournament their tournament was supposed to start on february 25th 1978 but their favorite basketball team uc davis was playing just 50 miles away from them in chico california on february 24th so the night before their big tournament so they decide that they want to go watch this game right they want to go out to chico and root on their favorite team but make sure they're back in time so they can get a good night's sleep before their tournament starts on the 25th so they load up in madruga's montego they drive to 50 miles out to chico california and they root on their team uc davis who ends up winning the game now there were multiple witnesses that saw the yuba city 5 at this basketball game so we know they were there following the game the boys loaded up into madriga's montego and they drove a short distance to a little convenience store in chica where they got sodas and cartons of milk and some snacks and the shop owner would actually say to investigators that he remembers them because they came in at about 10 pm and it was when he wanted to close down the shop and so he remembers feeling annoyed when this big group you know five men come in and they're buying a bunch of stuff because it delayed the shop owner's ability to close down the store that sighting at the convenience store would prove to be the last time anyone would see the boys alive so that night some of the boys parents had stayed awake to wait for their son to come home and when they didn't and it was starting to get late the parents started calling each other to ask if they had seen their son and no one had and so not only was it strange because the boys always told their parents and loved ones where they were going to be but the idea that they would jeopardize a good night's sleep before this tournament that they had been obsessing about just seemed very very uncharacteristic and so by very early the next morning all the families called the police and said something is wrong so the police officer in charge of the investigation was lieutenant lance ayers ayers had gone to high school with ted weir so he had a personal connection to this investigation and was more motivated than perhaps he would have been otherwise to make sure they are doing everything in their power to find these boys when the first few hours of the search don't turn anything up lieutenant ayers decides that he's going to greatly expand their search radius it was because of this expanded search that just a few days later they were able to locate jack madruga's montego car presumably after the boys had gotten their snacks and drinks at the convenience store around 10 p.m they would have been driving straight back to yuba city because they had that big basketball tournament the next morning but the car was found 70 miles away from yuba city away from chico up in a remote forest on a dirt road the families of the boys had no idea they couldn't even speculate why that car would have driven up that access road into this remote forest there was no reason they'd be going up there at least none that the families would have any understanding of in addition to the strangeness surrounding why it was 70 miles away up in some remote forest it also didn't make any sense that the boys had abandoned the vehicle even though it was covered in snow there was no indication that it had been stuck in snow there was a quarter tank of gas so it didn't run out of gas there were no keys in the ignition so when the police had to hot wire it to drive it back the car ran just fine so there was no mechanical issues or any engine issues they literally put it in park in the middle of nowhere and got out and left they looked inside the vehicle and all that was in there was some wrappers and cans and cartons from the snacks that they had presumably been eating since they left that convenience store but no keys all the doors were shut one window was down slightly and some wrappers that was it so the search shifts to now looking exclusively in the area that this car was found and over the first couple of days following the discovery of the car they're looking everywhere and there's no sign of the boys and then unfortunately a massive snow storm rolls in and basically covers everything to the point where it's impossible to search and they had to abandon the search until the early spring when the snow had melted a bit during this waiting period the families of the boys put out rewards were requesting information from everyone and anyone that had it the police were fielding thousands of tips and unconfirmed sightings about where they could be but none of it amounted to anything they made no progress they had no idea where these boys were on june 4th 1978 so just a little over three months after the boys had gone missing some motorcyclists that had been on a long road trip happened to be up in those mountains on those dirt roads near where the montego the car had been discovered they were about 20 miles from that point and they had found this cul-de-sac that they parked their bikes in and they decided to just kind of stretch their legs and they looked down a little ways off the cul-de-sac and they see this old looking trailer and they decide just out of curiosity to just kind of walk over and see what it is it would turn out that it was a trailer maintained by the forestry service but it really hadn't been up kept in a long time and so as they're walking over they see that one of the windows has been broken and they think okay it's more than likely abandoned and they think they're just going to open the door poke their head in and just see what's in there just purely out of curiosity because they're kind in the middle of nowhere and they're just curious so they go up and they open the door and they're immediately hit with this horrible horrible smell and they shut the door and they're like i don't know what's in there it smells like death it would turn out that it was death it was one of the yuba city five it was ted weir who was the oldest of the group who looked after jack who was the youngest of the group it was his body the mystery really only deepens when you go inside the trailer ted weir was found wrapped in eight blankets on this bed inside of this trailer his feet were badly frostbitten and gangrenous he looked like he had lost about 50 percent of his body weight and he had growth on his face like his beard that showed he had been laying there almost certainly for about 13 weeks ted had died from a combination of starvation and from exposure to the elements but in the trailer in plain sight were loads of fire making materials you had paperback books you had kindling you had matches you had firewood in addition to the fire making material there was additional clothing heavy clothing like for cold weather there was lots of food like sea rash it's military sea rations where you can basically pop it open and you have some food enough to to feed someone for at least a year so there's food in plain sight there's fire making supplies in plain sight and also there was a propane tank out back that was basically full that if they just turned it on they could have turned on the heat inside of the trailer and then you would have you would have had heat for quite some time but there was no signs that any of these supplies were ever touched now one could potentially make the case that perhaps ted you know lacks the common sense to make a fire and to use up all the resources that were right in front of him but gary matthias his shoes were inside of that trailer and gary was in the army and i was in the military and i can tell you that the number one thing you're taught pretty much no matter where you go in the military is how to survive you're taught to be resourceful and to use things in front of you to stay alive and it just seems very strange that if you had gary in there that he wouldn't have immediately started a fire or at least instructed the group to start a fire and eat the food turn on the gas tank those are things that are just basic life-saving skills a day after weir's body is found inside of that trailer searchers discover sterling and madruga's remains located approximately 11 miles from where the car had been located their remains showed signs of significant predation animals had gotten to their remains since there wasn't much left of them but from what was left investigators were able to determine that both had passed away from hypothermia two days after madruga and sterling's remains are found jack hewitt's remains are found as well two miles from the trailer where weir had been found and jack hewitt had also died of hypothermia so four of the five have been located leaving gary matthias who to this day has never been found the only thing that investigators discovered was about a quarter mile away from the trailer where weir was found they found a bunch of blankets and a flashlight it seems like that could have been where gary at one point had been but they don't know for how long and they don't know where he went after that so in addition to wondering where gary went you gotta ask yourself why did these five men drive 70 miles out of the way the day before they knew they had this big basketball tournament that they were not about to jeopardize why did they drive 70 miles away onto a remote dirt road in a remote forest why did they then suddenly park their car turn it off take the keys out shut the doors and then hike 20 miles in the dead of night in a snowstorm to some random trailer and then get in the trailer where there's ample food there's ample blankets and additional clothes but use none of it and die over a 13-week period from starvation and exposure why and so there's many theories as to why this happened ranging from you know gary mathias is somehow responsible and that's why we haven't found him yet to they simply took a wrong turn and that's how they wound up in this mountain in the middle of nowhere but none of it really accounts for the purposefulness of all of their travel if they had gotten lost police believe they would have been maybe driving in loops they wouldn't have just driven in a straight line reached this point in the road and then gotten out it's not consistent with being lost so we don't know why they wound up on that road or why they decided to go to that trailer or what caused them not to use the supplies but something happened something forced them to do this and to this day we don't know what it was so i'd love to hear your theories as to why the yuba city 5 did what they did give me your best theory and i'll do my best to go through and respond to as many as i possibly can if you like this story and you want to hear more like it i post stories like this three four five times a week and if that's something you're interested in i would encourage you to gently karate chop the like button and then subscribe to my channel and turn on all post notifications so you don't miss any of those weekly uploads if you want to get in touch with me you can send me a direct message on instagram where my handle is john ballen416 also i'm very active on tick tock where my handle is mr ballin just like my youtube page so wherever i see you i just appreciate your support it's really been a blast making these videos and it just means the world to me that so many people are as interested in these stories as i am so thank you all for your support thank you for watching to the end of this video and until next time i'll talk to you soon

Channel: MrBallen

Views: 1,023,672

Rating: 4.9659305 out of 5

Keywords: scary, yuba city 5, yuba county 5, unsolved mystery, unsolved, terrifying, story, scary story, missing person, mystery, strange, dark, mysterious, mrballen

Id: cCazlvLGPhA

Length: 15min 42sec (942 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 23 2020