Speaker 1: Hi everyone, It's me Josh and for this week's Select
Speaker 1: I chose our two thousand eighteen episode on the Mystery
Speaker 1: of the Yuba County Five. I was actually inspired to
Speaker 1: choose this one because I was recently a guest on
Speaker 1: another podcast called The Yuba County Five hosted by Shanon McGarvey.
Speaker 1: And it's actually a really fascinating deep dive into this
Speaker 1: long standing mystery, and it expands on and actually does
Speaker 1: a lot of updating on what we talked about in
Speaker 1: this episode. So if this one strikes your fancy, go
Speaker 1: check out the Yuba County Five podcast from Mopac Audio.
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, I hope you enjoy our episode
Speaker 1: on it. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and
Speaker 1: there's Jerry over there. So this is stuff you should no. Yes,
Speaker 1: how you doing, Chuck? Do I look tired? Do you
Speaker 1: seem a little a little LOGI tired? Man? What's going
Speaker 1: on with you? I've just been waking up like too
Speaker 1: early for no reason, going to bed too late though,
Speaker 1: because if you go to bed early and wake up early.
Speaker 1: You're fine, well, going to bed late, sometimes not getting
Speaker 1: enough sleep, then going trying to go to bed super
Speaker 1: early to make up for it. But I don't know
Speaker 1: about this making up for a sleep depisode. I don't
Speaker 1: buy all that. I feel like we talked about it
Speaker 1: before that there's that that that doesn't actually work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just tired, that's all I can say. Sorry, man, Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'll live all right. I'm glad we killed some time
Speaker 1: before we got into this very mysterious sad story. It's
Speaker 1: a good one, though, isn't it. It is extraordinarily sad,
Speaker 1: probably the saddest true well, I don't know it's up
Speaker 1: there as far as true life true crime. Disappeared his
Speaker 1: go um, and it's the one about Gary Matthias. That's
Speaker 1: what they call it. They call it the Gary Matthias disappearance.
Speaker 1: But that really doesn't do it much justice, or it
Speaker 1: doesn't serve it well, because it was a lot more
Speaker 1: than Gary Matthias involved. Yeah, I've seen it more so
Speaker 1: called the Uba County five. But you know, I guess
Speaker 1: it just depends on where you're looking. I had not
Speaker 1: run across that. Oh yeah, Oh god, that makes me,
Speaker 1: wonder what all stuff I missed? Well, you know there
Speaker 1: were five guys, what so, No, there actually were five guys.
Speaker 1: There were five friends. Um, Gary Matthias was one of them,
Speaker 1: and there were four others. There was Ted Weir who
Speaker 1: was the oldest, he was thirty two. There was Jackie
Speaker 1: Hewitt he was the youngest, he was twenty four. There
Speaker 1: was Jack Madruga. I'm not sure what Ah was, but
Speaker 1: he was definitely between twenty four and thirty two. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you Bill Sterling. And then again Gary are Matthias
Speaker 1: And those five guys were a set of friends and
Speaker 1: they met at the Yuba City UH Vocational Rehabilitation Center
Speaker 1: for the what you would call today UM cognitively impaired
Speaker 1: or cognitively challenged. Yeah, because three of these guys, UM.
Speaker 1: Of course, this one article you have from nine seventy
Speaker 1: eight doesn't use appropriate terms anymore. But three of these
Speaker 1: guys were intellectually disabled UM or developmentally disabled. Not an
Speaker 1: exact like it's kind of hard to get an exact
Speaker 1: DIA diagnosis from these terms, really, but h. Madruga was undiagnosed.
Speaker 1: But according to his mom, uh, he was generally thought
Speaker 1: of as she said, as quote slow end quote. And
Speaker 1: then Matthias was the only one not diagnosed with a
Speaker 1: developmental disability, but he was under drug treatment for schizophrenia. Right,
Speaker 1: So all five of these guys had some sort of
Speaker 1: challenge going on in their life, right, exactly. So, so
Speaker 1: there's a lot of details you can kind of glean
Speaker 1: because you're absolutely right, Like reading the really great Washington
Speaker 1: Post article, which is basically the comprehensive document on the
Speaker 1: case from UM, you can kind of glean uh an
Speaker 1: idea picture of these guys. So they're just five friends,
Speaker 1: thickest thieves. Even within this this tight little group of friends,
Speaker 1: there's subgroups of even tighter friends like um Ted Weir
Speaker 1: and Jackie Hewitt were particularly close, and Bill Sterling and
Speaker 1: Jack Madrugo were particularly close. Um. They had like they
Speaker 1: were just these these five guys known as the Boys, right.
Speaker 1: They all lived at home with their parents. They were
Speaker 1: always going to live at home with their parents. It
Speaker 1: was just what what the plan was, um, Like I
Speaker 1: think Ted ted Weir had a had a job, um
Speaker 1: as a janitor and then later on as a snack
Speaker 1: bar clerk. Um. Basketball, Yeah, that was another one, and
Speaker 1: they actually all played together on the basketball team for
Speaker 1: the Vocational Rehab Center, basically like their hang out, the
Speaker 1: place where they hung out. They played basketball on that team.
Speaker 1: But um Jack madrew God's worth saying head a driver's license,
Speaker 1: whereas three of the other ones didn't, although Gary Mathias
Speaker 1: did as well. So these guys, they just they were friends.
Speaker 1: They like had a tight kinship together. They had very normal,
Speaker 1: reliable lives that were basically home centric, and when they
Speaker 1: were out doing stuff, you could expect them home for
Speaker 1: dinner kind of thing, like it was just a given. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's that's super worth pointing out here. Early on,
Speaker 1: as they saw them more than one place, they said
Speaker 1: they referred to their lives as very predictable and scheduled,
Speaker 1: which is why this interesting. The events that occurred on
Speaker 1: February nineteen seventy eight were very very unusual. Right, So
Speaker 1: on February eight, the boys that's what their families all
Speaker 1: call them, because apparently all their families were at least
Speaker 1: in touch, if not friendly, with another. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: they kind of supported one another. It sounds like as
Speaker 1: much as anyone did in ninety eight. Uh So, on
Speaker 1: this night, February twenty four, there was a Friday night. Um,
Speaker 1: the boys left their homes around Maryville and Ubis City
Speaker 1: in California, and they traveled I think about fifty miles
Speaker 1: north to cal State Chico which is now called Chico
Speaker 1: State University, and they went to go see their team.
Speaker 1: The cal State l A team beat up on cal
Speaker 1: State Chico and cal State l A actually eighty four,
Speaker 1: which would have pleased the boys tremendously. So they went
Speaker 1: to the game. That much is known, and then they
Speaker 1: left the game. That much is known too, because around
Speaker 1: ten o'clock when they left the game, they went to
Speaker 1: a convenience store called Bear's Market and they bought some stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: apparently that they were trying to kind of close up,
Speaker 1: and so the clerk was a little bit annoyed that
Speaker 1: they showed up. And these are the kind of details
Speaker 1: that aren't so important, but it just shows that, you know,
Speaker 1: they really did their investigating pretty thoroughly, including well, we'll
Speaker 1: we'll get to sort of the the lead investigator in
Speaker 1: a minute. But yeah, they bought just a few things.
Speaker 1: They bought a Hostess cherry pie, um, a Langendorf lemon pie,
Speaker 1: snickers bar, a Marathon bar, a couple of pepsis, and
Speaker 1: a court and a half of milk, which is to say,
Speaker 1: it's not like they were stocking up on food. They
Speaker 1: just got some uh some some snacks, right exactly for
Speaker 1: the drive back home fifty fifty miles about an hour. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The thing is is they they would have been fully
Speaker 1: expected back home, not just because there was you know,
Speaker 1: this was it wasn't like any of them to spend
Speaker 1: the night away, right except Matthias. He he had friends
Speaker 1: and he would stay out with friends sometimes. But um,
Speaker 1: the other four like they slipped in their bed at
Speaker 1: home every night. That's just what they did. So their
Speaker 1: families fully expected them to come back. Um. And another
Speaker 1: reason why they expected them to come back was because
Speaker 1: the next day, Saturday, they had a basketball game for
Speaker 1: their vocational rehab team, the Gateway Gators, and they they
Speaker 1: apparently were all extraordinarily excited about this game. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: again is just another point being made that there was
Speaker 1: these guys had every intention on coming home super excited
Speaker 1: about the game. I think Matthias even was kind of
Speaker 1: driving his mom a little batty, saying, you know, don't
Speaker 1: let me oversleep. Got this big game. Apparently the guys
Speaker 1: had their clothes laid out. Uh, and they were all
Speaker 1: super excited about this basketball game. Uh. And then they
Speaker 1: don't come home, and you know, these parents and grandparents
Speaker 1: start waking up at various points in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night or in the morning and start getting in
Speaker 1: touch with one another, you know, all verifying like your
Speaker 1: kids not there, your your kids not there. And they
Speaker 1: started to freak out. And by eight o'clock that evening,
Speaker 1: I believe the mother of Madruga actually finally called the cops. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the cops, um, we're kind of I don't have
Speaker 1: the impression that they were like, well this is I'm sure,
Speaker 1: this is fine. I think they got involved pretty early on.
Speaker 1: But things really picked up when I think on a Tuesday,
Speaker 1: that was that was Saturday night that they finally called
Speaker 1: the cops. And on Tuesday, Uh, Jack Madruga's car was discovered,
Speaker 1: and it was discovered in a very very unusual place, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what was this thing in old Mercury, Montego Yeah, sixty
Speaker 1: nine Montego a land yacht is what it was. And
Speaker 1: they found it. Um. And this was, by the way,
Speaker 1: this is Jack Madruga's prized possession. Like no one else
Speaker 1: drove the thing. He took pristine care of it. It
Speaker 1: was like his baby. His car was right, So to
Speaker 1: find it abandoned with the window one of the windows
Speaker 1: rolled down up a mountain road, which was, um, I think,
Speaker 1: seventy miles away from the basketball game, in a different
Speaker 1: direction away from their house. Right, so the basketball game
Speaker 1: was north of their homes. This was east of southeast
Speaker 1: of the basketball game and up a mountain road. It
Speaker 1: was extremely bizarre and also I'm sure quite worrying. When
Speaker 1: the families were already worried, I think finding this car
Speaker 1: like this probably really set them into panic mode. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: and here's where, uh in this article is very clear
Speaker 1: to say from that point on, nothing made any kind
Speaker 1: of sense. So here's a few things about the car
Speaker 1: that definitely don't add up. You might think, all right, there,
Speaker 1: you know, there was a snowstorm, so they drove up
Speaker 1: here and they got stuck. Apparently that is not true.
Speaker 1: The car stopped at about the snow line, and they
Speaker 1: said they did confirm that the wheels had spun some,
Speaker 1: but the car wasn't stuck, and these five dudes could
Speaker 1: have pushed it free pretty easily. Apparently, right, this thing
Speaker 1: number one, thing number two is that it had a
Speaker 1: quarter tank of gas still, so they didn't run out
Speaker 1: of gas. Right then when the cops hot wired the car,
Speaker 1: the keys were gone. Uh. And when the cops heartwired
Speaker 1: the cars started up immediately. There wasn't any engine trouble
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Yeah. The last thing they found
Speaker 1: were all these maps of California and um, so it's
Speaker 1: not like they had no way of knowing where they were.
Speaker 1: And then they found all the you know, all the
Speaker 1: rappers from the food items. Uh. The only thing, ironically
Speaker 1: that wasn't fully eaten was the marathon bar um, living
Speaker 1: up to his reputation. Right. See, I guess the toughest
Speaker 1: candy bar to get through. Yeah, that's that's how they
Speaker 1: build it, some weird cartoon cowboy. Yeah, so you know,
Speaker 1: that's the deal. The underside of the car wasn't damaged,
Speaker 1: which they say was pretty interesting because on this road,
Speaker 1: apparently there were a lot of deep, deep ruts. This
Speaker 1: thing kind of hangs low anyway, has a low hanging muffler,
Speaker 1: has these five dudes inside, these grown men. Uh. And
Speaker 1: there was no damage under the underside of this car,
Speaker 1: which means, you know a couple of things. If you
Speaker 1: kind of are surmising, which is the either the driver
Speaker 1: kind of knew where they were going and drove through
Speaker 1: the darkness with a lot of precision, or they just
Speaker 1: maybe drew drove really slow. Yeah, I think it was
Speaker 1: the ladder because I think Madruga did was probably would
Speaker 1: have been very unhappy that his car was on this
Speaker 1: road now. So I just took it slow and took
Speaker 1: it super slow. I saw somewhere that there wasn't even
Speaker 1: a large mud spot on it. It was they had
Speaker 1: taken it that easy. Yeah, And apparently Madruga uh didn't
Speaker 1: like the cold, he didn't like camping, so he wouldn't
Speaker 1: have known that road. It's not like there's a lot
Speaker 1: else to do up there but that, right, And evidently, uh,
Speaker 1: none of the boys were big into outdoorsy type stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's a really good point, Chuck. So like
Speaker 1: that none of them had any connection to that, to
Speaker 1: that area, and certainly not to that mountain. One of them,
Speaker 1: I think Sterling, Bill Sterling had been had gone camping
Speaker 1: with his family there eight years before. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: didn't even like I think they went back again and
Speaker 1: he was like, no, I don't want to go right,
Speaker 1: So he didn't like the outdoors, he didn't like the cold.
Speaker 1: And then I think ted uh Ted Weir had gone
Speaker 1: deer hunting or something once with friends way west of
Speaker 1: the area. Um but still, I mean enough that you
Speaker 1: could that was it was a lead that the cops
Speaker 1: were to chase down. Um. But but then too, he
Speaker 1: didn't enjoy himself and he didn't like the woods either,
Speaker 1: So there was no let's go hang out in the
Speaker 1: woods kind of thing going on here. Just everything about
Speaker 1: the fact that they found this car and where they
Speaker 1: found it, in the state they found it in was
Speaker 1: really bizarre and really worrying. Should we take a break?
Speaker 1: I think we should. Man, all right, you and I
Speaker 1: are going to go hang out in the woods and
Speaker 1: we'll be back right up to this. So I've never
Speaker 1: swept the woods before. That was really interesting, right, It's
Speaker 1: not spick and span out here. So um, So they
Speaker 1: find the car, and when they find the car, Chuck.
Speaker 1: I think it was the next night after they had
Speaker 1: gone missing, a storm blew into the area and it
Speaker 1: dumped like almost a foot of snow on the mountain.
Speaker 1: This is February in the mountains in California. UM, I
Speaker 1: would guess the Sierras, is what it sounds like, right, So, yeah,
Speaker 1: Cheek is in the Chicos, in the Sierra Nevadas. I
Speaker 1: think it's north of Sacramento. So it would be very
Speaker 1: very cold and the snow would be pretty tough to
Speaker 1: get through. Um So, but they still tried. They got
Speaker 1: guys on horseback, they got helicopters out, they looked for him,
Speaker 1: but they found nothing. They found not one bit of
Speaker 1: of um and not a single trace of these guys
Speaker 1: after just the car and that was it. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: snow certainly didn't help anything because it would not be
Speaker 1: until June. On June four, after this thing, you know,
Speaker 1: the mountain faws out somewhat when these uh Sunday you
Speaker 1: know motorcycle bikers, they'll go right around the mountains. They
Speaker 1: went into an old Forest service trailer camp at the
Speaker 1: end of a road and said, do you smell something
Speaker 1: that smells like perhaps a dead body, And sadly it
Speaker 1: was Ted Weir. And this is where things get even stranger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the I think the trailer caught their attention, but
Speaker 1: what caught their attention even further was that a window
Speaker 1: had been broken to get into the trailer and then yeah,
Speaker 1: like you said, what really called their attention was the
Speaker 1: smell in the sight of of ted weirds decomposing body.
Speaker 1: But what got what made it very, very weird is
Speaker 1: one he's wrapped in sheets tucked under his head in
Speaker 1: a way that like he couldn't have possibly tucked himself.
Speaker 1: So somebody had tucked him in like that and he
Speaker 1: ted weird been a portly fellow. Um. Cynthia Gorney, who
Speaker 1: wrote the Washington Post article on this this case in
Speaker 1: calls him, um, beer belly handsome, which I've never heard
Speaker 1: those words put together in my entire life. I think
Speaker 1: that's what I am. Sure, sure i'd call you beer
Speaker 1: belly foxy. Okay, okay, so um, but he was beer
Speaker 1: belly hands he was. He was a thick guy. He's
Speaker 1: like five ten, two hundred pounds. He had a few
Speaker 1: extra pounds on him right when they found him, though,
Speaker 1: he weighed about a hundred and twenty a hundred to
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty pounds, which means that between the
Speaker 1: time that they went missing and the time that he died,
Speaker 1: he'd lost anywhere between eighty and a hundred pounds. Yeah.
Speaker 1: A couple of more interesting tidbits. He his leather shoes
Speaker 1: were gone and missing completely. Um. On the little night
Speaker 1: stand by his bed was his his own ring because
Speaker 1: it had his name engraved on it, his gold yeah,
Speaker 1: ted his gold necklace, his wallet with money uh. And
Speaker 1: then weirdly a watch that was not his. It was
Speaker 1: a gold Waltham watch that had a missing crystal. Uh.
Speaker 1: And all of the families said that this No, none
Speaker 1: of our kids had this watch. So that's one interesting tidbit.
Speaker 1: And the other is that he had a big, full
Speaker 1: beard that indicated that he lived in that cabin for
Speaker 1: anywhere from eight to thirteen weeks. And what's really really
Speaker 1: underving about the thirteen week one thirteen week number is
Speaker 1: that if he survived thirteen weeks, that means that he
Speaker 1: would have died just days before for his body was found.
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yes? Did you did you do the math?
Speaker 1: I did the math because think about so they disappeared
Speaker 1: on February and he was found June four, So you've
Speaker 1: got a I really really hope I call on the
Speaker 1: Saints that that not to have been the case, like
Speaker 1: that he perhaps died a couple of days before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that he he would have expired like like weeks
Speaker 1: before that. There was just no chance for him, like
Speaker 1: if he was destined and doomed to die. I really
Speaker 1: hope it wasn't a couple of days before they found
Speaker 1: his body after starving for thirteen weeks. Yeah. And to
Speaker 1: cap it off, I don't think we we've mentioned yet,
Speaker 1: this cabin was almost twenty miles from their car. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: so in the middle of the night. Uh. And at
Speaker 1: this point, this is this is all we know is
Speaker 1: about Ted in our story, he walked or ran almost
Speaker 1: twenty miles in four to six ft snow drifts to
Speaker 1: go to this trailer, where he spent the next two
Speaker 1: to three months slowly dying. Yeah. So okay, that's pretty
Speaker 1: weird in and of itself. And they found that his
Speaker 1: feet were terribly frost bitten, right, which is why his
Speaker 1: shoes were off. But again his shoes were missing. Um,
Speaker 1: what gets even weirder. And this is just where the
Speaker 1: case truly turns. Bizarres, one of the Yuba County Sheriff's
Speaker 1: deputies are under sheriff, called it Bizaar's Hell is like
Speaker 1: the quote of this story, Um, this this the trailer,
Speaker 1: the cabin was actually like a forest Service trailer and
Speaker 1: it was an emergency trailer from what I understand, and
Speaker 1: it was fully stocked with a year's worth of food
Speaker 1: that would have kept all five of those boys alive
Speaker 1: for a year. It was built to keep you alive,
Speaker 1: yes exactly. And they found it, but they didn't put
Speaker 1: it to use. Now, let's not to say that they
Speaker 1: didn't find the food. There was. There were twelve rations
Speaker 1: like um sea rations like army meals opened and eaten,
Speaker 1: but that was it. The other stuff wasn't touched. There
Speaker 1: was a whole locker of other dehydrated food and like
Speaker 1: fruit cups and stuff that hadn't been touched at all. Okay,
Speaker 1: and bear in mind, this is all right here while
Speaker 1: Ted ted Weir is starving to death. Yeah, so all
Speaker 1: this food is there. Uh, they found out The investigators
Speaker 1: determined that there had not been a fire built, even
Speaker 1: though there were paperback novels, there was wood, furniture, there
Speaker 1: were matches, like everything was there to build a fire.
Speaker 1: And not only that, but there was a propane tank
Speaker 1: that all they had to do, Uh, it was in
Speaker 1: another shed outside. All they had to do was open
Speaker 1: this thing on and they would have actually had gas heat, yes, Het, right,
Speaker 1: they didn't. They also didn't even um cover up the
Speaker 1: broken window that they used to get into the trailer.
Speaker 1: It's just weird, just bizarre decision after bizarre decision, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there's one other thing in the trailer that that is,
Speaker 1: um pretty interesting. They find Gary Matthias's tennis shoes. So
Speaker 1: Gary mathias Is tennis shoes are there, and um, Ted
Speaker 1: Weir's shoes leather shoes are missing. Uh. And what they
Speaker 1: think possibly is that Gary Matthias was in the trailer
Speaker 1: with Ted. Ted had terrible frostbite. Ted would have had
Speaker 1: bigger feet than Gary. Gary probably had frostbite too, so
Speaker 1: he used Ted's shoes to put them on and go
Speaker 1: back out into the wilderness. Yeah. I mean they pretty
Speaker 1: much determined that probably all five of those guys were
Speaker 1: in here at one point. Okay, so I have to
Speaker 1: say that's that's I don't think that's true really because
Speaker 1: that's what I saw. So I think so what I
Speaker 1: saw was that they so, okay, we should probably tell
Speaker 1: everybody that the we should continue on, Chuck. But the like,
Speaker 1: I think a day after they found Ted Weir, they
Speaker 1: started looking around the area and they started finding the
Speaker 1: other boys remains. Yeah, and you know this is thanks
Speaker 1: to what I said would be sort of the lead investigator, uh,
Speaker 1: Uba County Lieutenant Lance Ayers, who actually had gone to
Speaker 1: high school with We're uh didn't know him that well,
Speaker 1: but he was really consumed by this case UM and
Speaker 1: seems sort of obsessed with trying to solve it to
Speaker 1: the point where he was chasing down leads from psychics.
Speaker 1: At one point, Yeah, apparently he met with a psychic
Speaker 1: who um I told him that the boys were in
Speaker 1: Araville or had been murdered in a red house either
Speaker 1: brick or stained in Oraville with the house number UM
Speaker 1: either four four seven to three or four seven five three.
Speaker 1: And Lance Ayers was so consumed with this that he
Speaker 1: actually drove every street of Oraville over a two day
Speaker 1: period trying to find that house based on the tip
Speaker 1: of a psychic. That's how Upset TV came with this case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we've put a pen in our were they all
Speaker 1: in the cabin debate? We're coming back to that right right,
Speaker 1: All right, So now we pick up a story of
Speaker 1: a man named Joseph Shoens, and this is where things
Speaker 1: get even more odd. So this guy was fifty five
Speaker 1: years old. He got in touch with the cops because,
Speaker 1: you know, some strange things that had happened that night
Speaker 1: of the disappearance. He was gonna go camping with his family,
Speaker 1: um on you know, up that road, and so he
Speaker 1: decided to take his little Volkswagen Beetle um around five
Speaker 1: thirty that evening just to check out the snow line
Speaker 1: to see if it was passable and if it was
Speaker 1: going to be safe to take his family camping that weekend.
Speaker 1: He found out it was not. Yeah, he got his
Speaker 1: his car stuck right right above the snow line. And
Speaker 1: this was to be about fifty yards further than where
Speaker 1: that mercury would eventually be found. Right, so he has
Speaker 1: um he gets out to push a push his Beetle
Speaker 1: right and has a heart attack. He's he's fifty five
Speaker 1: in this nine, which means he he lived on nothing
Speaker 1: but scotch and steak. So you can imagine that that
Speaker 1: was the outcome, right when you have to push your
Speaker 1: Volkswagen Beetle and um, he's like in a bad spot
Speaker 1: right there. He's a phone in the wilderness at the
Speaker 1: snow line of a mountain eight miles away from help.
Speaker 1: That the place that he had stopped to actually get
Speaker 1: a drink probably of scotch on the way up the
Speaker 1: mountain to check out the snow line had been eight
Speaker 1: miles back in the other direction. So he very wisely
Speaker 1: like leaves his car running with the heater on and
Speaker 1: just lays there and tries to collect himself and gather himself.
Speaker 1: And that is a mild heart attack, we should point out,
Speaker 1: but enough that if you, Joseph shown, you are probably
Speaker 1: freaking out on not trying to u diminish like his
Speaker 1: danger level. But it wasn't like, uh, he was like
Speaker 1: laying there near death like he would eventually hike eight
Speaker 1: miles out right after this heart attack. Yes, so he
Speaker 1: but but while he was laying there trying to like
Speaker 1: gather his strength again. So this happened about five thirty
Speaker 1: And he said a couple hours after that, some um
Speaker 1: a car at least one but probably two cars, and
Speaker 1: one of them would have been a pickup truck, came
Speaker 1: up and had their lights on, and he saw the
Speaker 1: silhouettes of some men and a woman with a baby,
Speaker 1: and he said he called out to them, and they
Speaker 1: ignored it and turned off the lights, and he got
Speaker 1: back in his car, and he said he laid there
Speaker 1: for another few hours before he heard some whistling sounds
Speaker 1: and some flashlight beams a little further down the mountain,
Speaker 1: probably about fifty yards. Uh. And that would have been
Speaker 1: a couple of hours, probably about five or six hours
Speaker 1: after his um his heart attack. And they think that
Speaker 1: the second group at least was the the five boys
Speaker 1: with Gary Matthias. Yeah, and well I think at this
Speaker 1: point they were right outside his car window. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: again he gets out, calls for help, and the whistling
Speaker 1: sounds stopped, and the flashlights get turned off, and so
Speaker 1: he goes back in his car and lays back down,
Speaker 1: and he's like to two groups of people have come
Speaker 1: up this mountain. I'm having a heart attack here, and
Speaker 1: somehow calling for help has chased both of both of
Speaker 1: them off, both groups off. Yeah. So that that Volkswagen Beetle,
Speaker 1: like I can tell you from experience, had of like
Speaker 1: an eight gallon gas tank, so it eventually runs out
Speaker 1: of gas. Um it Also now they think about it
Speaker 1: doesn't have a very efficient heating system, like, uh, my
Speaker 1: first Beetle didn't even have a fan. We just called
Speaker 1: it the ankle burner, Like if you when you turned
Speaker 1: on the heat, it literally just opened vents on the
Speaker 1: floorboard that like came straight off the engine. Wow, that's
Speaker 1: that's sharp design. So you wouldn't even like you had
Speaker 1: to be moving for there to be actually a hot
Speaker 1: air running through it. Man. But I do know that
Speaker 1: I had another Beetle that had that did have a
Speaker 1: little fan end. So let's just presume that Shans had
Speaker 1: the fan. I'm not going to I'm going to presume
Speaker 1: the opposite, Okay, I'm going to presume that this was
Speaker 1: a hellish experience for him in every way, all right.
Speaker 1: So eventually the car runs out of gas. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: still dark, and he manages after this heart attack, like
Speaker 1: I said earlier, to walk eight miles to a lodge
Speaker 1: called the Mountain House. Is that where he had gotten
Speaker 1: the drink? Yeah? All right. So he comes back and
Speaker 1: they're like Showans, and he's like, don't shows me. You
Speaker 1: have no idea what I've been through. Uh. It turns
Speaker 1: out it's pretty serious. And on the way out he
Speaker 1: passes this Montego sitting empty in the middle of the
Speaker 1: road about fifty yards further down the mountain behind his car,
Speaker 1: where he stopped at the snow line. That's right. So
Speaker 1: Showance doesn't think much of this. He just is like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well there's a car in the middle of the road
Speaker 1: the snow lines here. I'm not the only one who
Speaker 1: got stuck last night. Those guys are jerks for not
Speaker 1: coming to my aid when I shouted for help. And
Speaker 1: he he doesn't think much of it until all of
Speaker 1: a sudd on the news he starts seeing these reports
Speaker 1: of these five guys who went missing the same night
Speaker 1: that he had his heart attack on the same road,
Speaker 1: in the same mountain, and he came forward and the
Speaker 1: cops figured out like that, Joseph Shohnes was probably the
Speaker 1: last person to see those five guys alive. Uh. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're silhouettes at least. Yeah. Uh should we take a break?
Speaker 1: I think so. Man, all right, we're gonna take a
Speaker 1: break and get to some more uh sad discoveries right
Speaker 1: after this. Okay, we're back, Chuck, we are you promised,
Speaker 1: more said discoveries laid on him. All right. So the
Speaker 1: next day, after Weird's body had been found, you know,
Speaker 1: the search is really on at this point. Uh, they
Speaker 1: found a few things. They found the remains of Sterling
Speaker 1: and Madruga there on different sides of the road. Uh,
Speaker 1: that same road that led to the trailer, but about
Speaker 1: eleven and a half miles from the car, right, so
Speaker 1: presumably another what nine miles from the trailer, Yes, which
Speaker 1: is why I think that they never made it to
Speaker 1: the trailer. Put a pin in that. Uh. Madruga had
Speaker 1: very gruesomely been partially eaten by animals, of course up
Speaker 1: there on the mountains, probably after he had died though, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it sounds like all of this was they
Speaker 1: succumbed to nature and then the animals kind of took
Speaker 1: it from there, right. Uh, So they dragged his body
Speaker 1: to a stream. Uh, he's laying their face up, they said,
Speaker 1: with his hand curled around his watch. And then Sterling
Speaker 1: was in the woods and very gruesomely they said that
Speaker 1: his remains were, or his bones I guess, were scattered
Speaker 1: over about fifty ft yes. And then I think a
Speaker 1: day or so after that, there was another search party
Speaker 1: that was launched, and Jackie Hewitt's father insisted on being
Speaker 1: a part of it, and Jackie Hewitt was still missing,
Speaker 1: and very sadly his dad was the one who discovered
Speaker 1: his remains. He found um, his son's I think spine
Speaker 1: is what he came upon. Yeah, in the same road,
Speaker 1: a lot closer to the trailer though, but he right,
Speaker 1: like just a quarter mile or something, right, Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's about right, something very very close to it.
Speaker 1: And they also found, um, his his clothes. They knew
Speaker 1: it was him because he was His levies and his
Speaker 1: shirt were also found nearby, and so were um. He
Speaker 1: was wearing very stylish platform shoes called get Their's, which
Speaker 1: I had to look up and they were actually pretty fresh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not nothing the kind of shoes that you want to
Speaker 1: be hiking around the snowy woods in. No, definitely not.
Speaker 1: I mean again, platform shoes. They're like, um, you know
Speaker 1: that that uh that rubbery sold thing that like you
Speaker 1: find in like Clark's, like Clark Wallabyes, like the thick
Speaker 1: rubbery so I think it's called crepe sold They were
Speaker 1: like those, but platform shoes and like a rippley bottom. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably look at these things. Yeah, they're probably the worst,
Speaker 1: the worst hiking shoes you could ever imagine what these
Speaker 1: would be good for actually catching ladies? Probably, right, I guess.
Speaker 1: I mean they're pretty they're pretty cool that that wavy
Speaker 1: soul though looks so strange. Well I look that up.
Speaker 1: It's it's to keep your center of balance when you're
Speaker 1: way up there. Okay, yeah, well that makes more sense. Then. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there were there was a lot of thought put into
Speaker 1: those shoes. Uh. And then finally the next day there
Speaker 1: was a skull discovered about a hundred yards downhill, and
Speaker 1: that was the final remains from Jackie Hewitt. So they
Speaker 1: found everybody, every dy that is, except for Gary Matthias.
Speaker 1: He was still missing and he's he still is. Actually,
Speaker 1: if you go on the Yuba County Sheriff's website on
Speaker 1: their missing person's page, he's still listed there. Yeah, his
Speaker 1: shoes were inside again and that trailer um, which you
Speaker 1: know that They can't say anything for sure, though, but
Speaker 1: it suggests that he was in there at one point,
Speaker 1: and they surmised that he may have, like you said,
Speaker 1: taken them off to where the leather shoes guests, presumably
Speaker 1: because they were warmer, or his feet were frost bitten
Speaker 1: and had swollen, so he needed the bigger shoes um
Speaker 1: to strike out back outside like he was. He was like,
Speaker 1: I can't go out there barefoot, and I can't get
Speaker 1: my tennis shoes on any longer. Yeah, And so to
Speaker 1: deal with Matthias, like we said, he was under treatment
Speaker 1: for schizophrenia. UM. He was in the army in Germany,
Speaker 1: and apparently UM had occasions post war where he had
Speaker 1: become violent. He was charged with the salt a couple
Speaker 1: of times. But UM all accounts say that for the
Speaker 1: at least the last two years he had really been
Speaker 1: on his meds. He had been working in his stepdad's business.
Speaker 1: He was They called him one of the our sterling
Speaker 1: success cases, as doctor did. Yeah, and they were really,
Speaker 1: you know, he was really coming around and hadn't had
Speaker 1: any what is his dad he said, he called them
Speaker 1: haywire episodes. Yeah, I hadn't had one of those in
Speaker 1: in a in a couple of years. And the stepfather
Speaker 1: said that he had. He had been taking his meds
Speaker 1: the week he disappeared, right, and his stepfather would know
Speaker 1: because his stepfather owned a gardening business, and um Gary
Speaker 1: Mathias had been working with him side by side for
Speaker 1: a couple of years by that time. So he he
Speaker 1: also didn't seem like one to really mince words or bs.
Speaker 1: So I take him for his word that his his
Speaker 1: son was fully medicated and his schizophrenia was under control.
Speaker 1: It sounds like so. Um, the problem is is he
Speaker 1: hadn't taken his pills with him, so if he did survive, Um,
Speaker 1: he he had, he had gone without him. He left
Speaker 1: him at home, and the reason why he left him
Speaker 1: at home is because he fully expected to be back
Speaker 1: home a couple hours after he left for the basketball game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no more evidence that, Like, it's just really bizarre that
Speaker 1: they went anywhere but home, and that raised a lot
Speaker 1: of questions for the families. Um. Back in the day,
Speaker 1: the I think Madruga's mom, Mabel, was very vocal about
Speaker 1: her belief that, um, somebody had either tricked or threatened
Speaker 1: her son and the other boys into going up that
Speaker 1: mountain or um it was somebody else was was responsible
Speaker 1: for for this series of decisions. Yeah. So they learned
Speaker 1: a few things afterwards that are sort of clues but
Speaker 1: never ended up solving anything. Um. One is that a
Speaker 1: snow cat for a service snow cat had been up
Speaker 1: that road. I think what the just the day before
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I think and packed in a path of
Speaker 1: snow so it was walkable. So they you know, it
Speaker 1: led up to that trailer, and they surmised that the
Speaker 1: boys may have this might have been the only walkable
Speaker 1: path forward, so they might have followed that path to
Speaker 1: the trailer. Uh. They hired a water witcher at one
Speaker 1: point and uh he was in Paradise, California, and he
Speaker 1: said that he fixed his little uh is it dibbening
Speaker 1: or divining divining rod to pick up human minerals and
Speaker 1: traces of humans. That led them to another cabin where
Speaker 1: they found a disposable lighter and this was about three
Speaker 1: quarters a mile from the trailer where they found the body.
Speaker 1: And all the parents said, no, like, they didn't have
Speaker 1: a lighter like this. The guys didn't carry a lighter, right,
Speaker 1: So there were a lot of dead ends like that.
Speaker 1: And then like that, for example, that watch that had
Speaker 1: been found with Ted weird that it was sing it's
Speaker 1: crystal and you know, all the families said, that wasn't
Speaker 1: any of our boys watch. I mean, it could be
Speaker 1: totally meaningless. It could have been a forest ranger who
Speaker 1: had left the watch behind because it had broken or
Speaker 1: something like that. But that's most of the evidence in
Speaker 1: this case, or just those just little dead ends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that Gary Mathias apparently knew some people, and they're really
Speaker 1: just sort of reaching at this point new people in Forbestown,
Speaker 1: which is about halfway between Chico and Uba City, And
Speaker 1: apparently the turn is easy to miss, and there was
Speaker 1: some speculation like maybe he was taking his buddies to
Speaker 1: go see these people he knew got lost, but apparently
Speaker 1: those friends were like, we hadn't seen him in years,
Speaker 1: and it would be really like unlikely that he just
Speaker 1: would have randomly come to visit. Yeah. I could also
Speaker 1: see the other boys not wanting to go along with
Speaker 1: that too, because they had that basketball game in the
Speaker 1: morning that they all wanted to be um fresh as
Speaker 1: a daisy for it too. Yeah. And and like Gary
Speaker 1: Mathias had been badgering his mom, I think, like you said,
Speaker 1: to make sure he didn't oversleep the next morning because
Speaker 1: he was excited about that basketball game too. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: the thing is, though, Chuck, is even if let's say
Speaker 1: that is the case, Let's say that they all got
Speaker 1: a wild hair and they decided to go see Gary
Speaker 1: Mathias's friend and they started up this mountain because they
Speaker 1: got lost. They missed the turn off and ended up
Speaker 1: on a mountain road at the snow line. I thought
Speaker 1: the car was stuck. What why why would all of them,
Speaker 1: all of them collectively and individually, say well, let's go
Speaker 1: up rather than back down. Let's go up into the snow.
Speaker 1: Supposedly the snow driss for six eight ft um and
Speaker 1: even if it was packed down with the snow cat,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense to go forward unless they thought, well,
Speaker 1: the last side of civilization behind us was too far right,
Speaker 1: Maybe there's something up here which is a thing that's
Speaker 1: a that's an economic theory called sunk cost, where you're
Speaker 1: so invested in something, you're so far along that you
Speaker 1: don't want to just stop and turn back or or quit.
Speaker 1: So it's possible that that was that aided in their
Speaker 1: decision making. But again, okay, so then let's say that
Speaker 1: they're like, okay, the snow cat track is gonna lead
Speaker 1: us to safety or something. When they get to the trailer,
Speaker 1: like why not eat the food? Why not make a fire?
Speaker 1: I can I can even see missing the propane tank,
Speaker 1: just not being you know, um, just with it enough
Speaker 1: from the harrowing experience that you could just totally miss
Speaker 1: the propane tank. And I even think that your trailer
Speaker 1: is going to have that kind of thing. But the
Speaker 1: food that you've already started to eat, that you already
Speaker 1: show you have a can opener and know how to
Speaker 1: use it. Like, how do you just starve to death
Speaker 1: after that? Well, I mean the food. The other food
Speaker 1: was in a locker they never opened apparently. But like,
Speaker 1: if you're there, especially for two to three months, like
Speaker 1: you're turning over everything, You're lighting a fire with whatever
Speaker 1: you can get your hands on. Those plenty of stuff
Speaker 1: to make a fire. Uh. What's up with the supposed
Speaker 1: woman and the baby? That could be chalked up maybe
Speaker 1: pretty easily to uh what was his name? Snopes, shoots shows,
Speaker 1: Shans Snopes snoop talk that could be chalked up to
Speaker 1: him in the state of a heart attack in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night, just sort of seeing things could
Speaker 1: have been or could have just been an entirely different
Speaker 1: party of people who had nothing to do with it
Speaker 1: or everything to do with it, But it could have
Speaker 1: They could have been there too. I mean it was
Speaker 1: you know, it was a mountain. Some people lived on it.
Speaker 1: Some people apparently like camp there, which is what Shones
Speaker 1: was scouting for. You know, how did Matthias never get
Speaker 1: found at all? I don't know I saw him. I think, Uh,
Speaker 1: I think. At the end of the WAPO article, um
Speaker 1: Cynthia Gorney, the journalist, says that, um, probably, you know,
Speaker 1: he laid there on the snow somewhere that they just
Speaker 1: didn't find or overlooked, or he got buried in the snow,
Speaker 1: and then when the thaw came, he sunk down to
Speaker 1: the ground and was covered over by some some mountain vines.
Speaker 1: I guess so. But it seems like after all these
Speaker 1: years a bone or one of those leather shoes or
Speaker 1: something would have been found. Yeah, you'd think both of
Speaker 1: those would still be intact. Yeah, I mean, what I
Speaker 1: did not see was any sort of speculation that he
Speaker 1: had had any nefarious like actions. Um, but we did
Speaker 1: put a pin in something. I don't remember what it was.
Speaker 1: I saw a couple of theories that they they speculate
Speaker 1: that all of these guys went to the cabin at
Speaker 1: one point and maybe, uh, we are wasn't doing so well,
Speaker 1: so they all set out independently to go look for
Speaker 1: help and each died or maybe in pairs, maybe since
Speaker 1: the two guys were kind of found together. But I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, it's all just speculation. You saw
Speaker 1: that they don't think they were all there? Yeah, what
Speaker 1: I saw was that um Jackie Hewitt and um Bill
Speaker 1: Sterling and um Jack Madruga hadn't had never made it
Speaker 1: to the to the trailer, that they would have split
Speaker 1: up on the way up. No, No, that they were,
Speaker 1: That they had um or died during that twenty mile hike. Yes, interesting.
Speaker 1: And then Ted and Gary had continued on upped and
Speaker 1: made it, made it to the trailer, and then what
Speaker 1: I think happened after that was Gary nurse Ted. Gary
Speaker 1: had been in the army and the can opener that
Speaker 1: was there was actually a very simple thing called the
Speaker 1: P thirty eight, but you kind of had to have
Speaker 1: been in the army to to know how to use it,
Speaker 1: and Ted wouldn't have been and Gary would have been,
Speaker 1: So I think Gary may have stayed, probably fed both
Speaker 1: of them, and then like you said, seeing Ted was
Speaker 1: not doing so well, set out again with Ted shoes
Speaker 1: and died um going off to get helps somehow, That's
Speaker 1: what I think happened. Yeah, I would have think they
Speaker 1: get split up on the way up though, Like I
Speaker 1: just don't even know, like these guys would have died
Speaker 1: that quickly on on the way on this twenty mile hike,
Speaker 1: I mean six to eight foot snow drifts. That's cold. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they're also on this snow packed trail supposedly. Sure,
Speaker 1: but they also have like they're dressed for mild weather,
Speaker 1: Like they didn't have jackets, sweaters, their shoes were like
Speaker 1: like like converse kind of things, aside from the the
Speaker 1: platform shoes that, like I did, it's entirely possible that
Speaker 1: twenty mile hike up a mountain they succumbed to the weather. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you also, like it was hard to determine what
Speaker 1: level of intellectual impairment these boys had, so I don't
Speaker 1: know how much that plays into it, if at all.
Speaker 1: Like when they get to this cabin, like did um
Speaker 1: Matthias is because you know he didn't have his meds
Speaker 1: after that, did he start kind of breaking down with
Speaker 1: with some episodes of schizophrenia and leave? Did the other
Speaker 1: guy not fully understand? I mean at that point, he's
Speaker 1: exhausted and maybe hurt and scared. Was he not even
Speaker 1: able to figure out maybe to light a fire light
Speaker 1: of fire or how to use that can opener or
Speaker 1: maybe he felt he couldn't get out of bed because
Speaker 1: of his feet. Yeah, and he he was just stuck
Speaker 1: there after Gary struck out to go get help that
Speaker 1: there was nothing he could do, and the poor guy
Speaker 1: starved to death. But what were they doing up there
Speaker 1: to begin with? That's the basic root of this whole thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's that's why they call this the American diet
Speaker 1: law pass Right, we gotta do an episode on that
Speaker 1: one too. But because there's some there's like a mystery
Speaker 1: within a mystery within a mystery, there's so many many
Speaker 1: like other mysteries. Yeah, that that just kind of um
Speaker 1: crescendo from the first mystery, which is what were they
Speaker 1: doing there? Yeah? Well, like and like you said, some
Speaker 1: of the parents firmly believe like they witnessed something at
Speaker 1: this basketball game and we're then chased up this mountain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I don't even know what that means, like like
Speaker 1: they witnessed a crime, I came after him or something.
Speaker 1: That's what Ted Weird sister in law always believed. And
Speaker 1: speaking of Ted Weir, you got anything else on this, no,
Speaker 1: except to only say if that was the case, then
Speaker 1: why was the car seemingly driven very slowly and carefully
Speaker 1: up this road? If they were being chased. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: So you make a good point. And I think I
Speaker 1: saw that elsewhere too, that that like that virtually proves
Speaker 1: that they weren't chased. If anything, it shows that they
Speaker 1: that that says something happened to them and somebody ditched
Speaker 1: their car. Who who knew the area? I think more
Speaker 1: likely um Jack Madrugo. It just would have driven extraordinarily
Speaker 1: slowly because this is his, his baby car. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: all just very sad. I think it's just one of those.
Speaker 1: It's probably like Okam's razor. It's probably the most simple
Speaker 1: explanation is you know, maybe they just went on a
Speaker 1: little joy ride, got a little lost, got turned around
Speaker 1: in the woods, and succumbed to nature. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: find this. I said at the beginning that this is
Speaker 1: just a very sad story to me. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that got me was in that Washington Post
Speaker 1: articles called five Boys Who Never Come Back by Cynthia Gorney.
Speaker 1: You can find it online. But um they she describes
Speaker 1: Ted Weir as you're ready for this that Ted got
Speaker 1: a good chuckle out of phoning Bill Sterling and reading
Speaker 1: from newspaper items or a ball names from the telephone
Speaker 1: book like that's what he was into, that's what made
Speaker 1: him happy. And I'm sure Bill Sterling thought it was
Speaker 1: hilarious too, But like they were just this group of
Speaker 1: friends and can't you just imagine my kid, we're like
Speaker 1: going through the phone book looking for silly names and
Speaker 1: going and picking up the phone and calling his friend
Speaker 1: Bill Sterling and saying, Bill, get a load of this one,
Speaker 1: and Bills just laughing on the other end of the line,
Speaker 1: and like that they just had like this such a
Speaker 1: pure life, like almost like an enviable life in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, and that they died so horribly is
Speaker 1: just just bitterly sad to me. Yeah, I mean, they
Speaker 1: weren't troublemakers and even um, even the one who had
Speaker 1: had gotten convicted of assault a couple of times. Gary, Yeah, Gary,
Speaker 1: it seems like all signs point to the his mental
Speaker 1: illness is playing a big factor in that which he
Speaker 1: had gotten in check, right, exactly. All very sad. It
Speaker 1: is very sad. Well, if you have any theories on
Speaker 1: the what you call him the Ubi City six five,
Speaker 1: Uba County or Uba City five, Ubis City five, um,
Speaker 1: we want to hear him. You can find all of
Speaker 1: our social media connections on our website Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know dot com and if you like, you can also
Speaker 1: send us an email to shoot it off to Stuff
Speaker 1: Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com. Wait, we haven't
Speaker 1: done listener mail, have we know? You're just gonna let
Speaker 1: me keep going, weren't you? You know? All right? Well,
Speaker 1: hold on, everybody, hold on, don't stop yet, don't stop yet.
Speaker 1: Since I said some stuff I'm not supposed to say,
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. Yes. And speaking of which,
Speaker 1: this listener mail is rated rated R. Okay, that's all
Speaker 1: I'll say. Use the S word no, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: use curse words. It's just um talks very frankly about
Speaker 1: sex and it's good. P s A though, so we
Speaker 1: know the stuff. Uh. And this is from Emily, not
Speaker 1: my wife. Hey, guys, listen to the Select episode on
Speaker 1: condoms the other day. Thanks for all the great info.
Speaker 1: Appreciate you covering topics maybe slightly controversial or divisive and
Speaker 1: do so with such grace. I wanted to throw a
Speaker 1: little extra P. S A in there though, for your listeners.
Speaker 1: Most people are aware that you can and should use
Speaker 1: condoms to prevent pregnancy and or s t I S
Speaker 1: when a penis is involved, but there's far less awareness
Speaker 1: about protection when you've only got vaginas in the mix.
Speaker 1: Although you certainly can't get pregnant, it is possible to
Speaker 1: spread or contract an s t I from sex between
Speaker 1: two women or other vagina having people. But you can
Speaker 1: greatly reduce your risk of this by using a dental dam.
Speaker 1: It's a sheet of latex placed over the bulba or
Speaker 1: anus for oral sex. That's all, uh, And that's all
Speaker 1: there really is to it. If you don't have one
Speaker 1: on hand, you can safely d I Y one by
Speaker 1: unrolling a regular condom, cutting off the clothes end and bam,
Speaker 1: it's a dental dam. In the case of digital sex,
Speaker 1: not as in computers, as in fingers, latex gloves are
Speaker 1: perfect or perfect for the job. Of course, these can
Speaker 1: also be used by absolutely anyone. There's a lot more
Speaker 1: awareness of protection for heterosexual and male homosexual couples, and
Speaker 1: not a lot for queer women. Well that's my stuff
Speaker 1: you should know, and now you know it. Thanks for
Speaker 1: consistently great work and outstanding effort and educating and entertaining
Speaker 1: us every week and Happy Pride month. Uh And she
Speaker 1: wrote back, I just realized I gave an incomplete d
Speaker 1: I Y instruction. You would cut off the close end
Speaker 1: of the condom uh, and the ring on the open end,
Speaker 1: then cut down the middle and now it's a flat sheet. Bam.
Speaker 1: So that is from Emily. Thanks a lot, Emily, Happy
Speaker 1: Pride Month. Indeed good info. Uh yeah, it was good info.
Speaker 1: And if you out there want to send us good info,
Speaker 1: I already said it. I said it once and I'll
Speaker 1: say it again. You can find all our social stuff
Speaker 1: on stuff you should Know dot com, and you can
Speaker 1: send us an email to stuff podcast at how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my Heart Radio,
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