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Speaker 1: This is unexplained and you're listening to the second and

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Speaker 1: final installment of season four, episode seven, called to the Forest.

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Speaker 1: After scouring everywhere within a five mile radius of the

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Speaker 1: abandoned Mercury Montego, the Yuba County Sheriff's Office had found nothing.

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Speaker 1: By the end of the day. However, they would have

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Speaker 1: their first significant lead. It came from a man named

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Speaker 1: Joseph Shns. Around five fifty pm on Friday February twenty fourth,

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Speaker 1: the night the five men went missing. Shahns was making

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Speaker 1: his way into Plumus National Forest along the Aureville to

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Speaker 1: Quincy Road. Fifty five year old Sons had been checking

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Speaker 1: to see if the road would be accessible for a

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Speaker 1: trip he planned to take that weekend when his Volkswagen

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Speaker 1: bug got suddenly stuck in the snow. After trying unsuccessfully

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Speaker 1: to push it out, Sons felt a painful tightening in

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Speaker 1: his chest and immediately got back inside the vehicle to

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Speaker 1: catch his breath. Unbeknownst to him at the time, he

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Speaker 1: had suffered a mild heart attack. Being in such discomfort,

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Speaker 1: he decided his best hope as to keep the engine

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Speaker 1: running and try to stay warm until it passed or

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Speaker 1: until someone else came by who could help. Drifting in

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Speaker 1: and out of consciousness as the pain in his chest intensified,

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Speaker 1: it was about eleven thirty PM when Sons was startled

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Speaker 1: awake by what he took to be two sets of

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Speaker 1: headlights driving in from behind him, one belonging to a

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Speaker 1: car and the other to a pickup truck by. Now

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Speaker 1: unable to move, he could only watch in desperation as

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Speaker 1: the lights passed him by and disappeared around the next bend.

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Speaker 1: Thirty minutes later, after hearing what he thought were people

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Speaker 1: whistling nearby, Shns gathered the strength to investigate. Stumbling along

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Speaker 1: in the dark, he followed what he now took to

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Speaker 1: be voices until he came across a car seemingly parked

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Speaker 1: up by the road and a number of silhouetted figures

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Speaker 1: moving about in front of its headlights. Shns later described

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Speaker 1: one of them as possibly being a woman who was

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Speaker 1: carrying a baby, with all the other figures being men.

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Speaker 1: When Shahns called out for help, the talking ceased immediately.

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Speaker 1: Moments later, the headlights switched off plunged into complete darkness.

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Speaker 1: Shons angrily called out again for help, but got no response. Suddenly,

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Speaker 1: feeling a little exposed, he swiftly turned round and headed

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Speaker 1: back to his car. A short time later, he caught

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Speaker 1: sight of what he assumed to be the beams of

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Speaker 1: flashlights moving about in the forest around him. Calling out

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Speaker 1: once more for help, he could only watch in desperation

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Speaker 1: as one by one the beams of light were switched

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Speaker 1: off in response. When Schonz's engine eventually cut out at

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Speaker 1: four am, he had little choice but to strike out

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Speaker 1: for the nearest inhabited place that he could find. Remembering

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Speaker 1: the vehicle he had seen from the night before, he

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Speaker 1: decided first to check if it was still there. Sure enough,

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Speaker 1: just where it had been the night before, he found

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Speaker 1: What he could see then was a turquoise Mercury Montego,

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Speaker 1: but no sign of its previous occupants anywhere. Despite suffering

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Speaker 1: from a heart attack at the time, Joseph Shns eventually

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Speaker 1: walked five miles to a nearby lodge house, from where

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Speaker 1: he was later taken home by its manager. When explaining

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Speaker 1: all this to the police later, although there was little

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Speaker 1: doubt he had seen the abandoned car, Shns cautioned that

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Speaker 1: since he wasn't entirely lucid at the time, not everything

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Speaker 1: he thought he had seen could be trusted. Either way,

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Speaker 1: it was certainly something to go on. What's more, if

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Speaker 1: a fifty five year old man suffering a heart attack

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Speaker 1: was able to walk five miles down the road to safety,

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Speaker 1: there was reason to hope that the five men from

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Speaker 1: Yuba County, Bill Sterling, Jack Madruga, Jack hewet Ted Weiher,

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Speaker 1: and Gary Matthias could have done the same, provided they

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Speaker 1: were indeed the men that Shans had seen. Under sheriff

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Speaker 1: of Jack Beecham received another break shortly after, when a

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Speaker 1: print dusting of the car revealed no other marks inside

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Speaker 1: apart from those belonging to the missing men. Though it

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Speaker 1: wasn't conclusive, it seemed to suggest at least that the

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Speaker 1: car had not been stolen. By the end of that

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Speaker 1: first day, nine inches of snow fell across the Plumous

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Speaker 1: National Forest region, further complicating the search. Buoyed by Schanz's

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Speaker 1: witness statement, however, the various local sheriff's departments expanded their

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Speaker 1: search to as far as Buck's Lake, some twenty miles

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Speaker 1: up the road from where the car was found. Having

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Speaker 1: discovered that Bill Sterling's family owned a cabin near the lake,

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Speaker 1: there was a chance that the men might have tried

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Speaker 1: to reach it, but again, no footprints, clothing, or any

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Speaker 1: other sign of them could be found. Back in the

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Speaker 1: Uber City area, the families of the missing, crippled by worry,

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Speaker 1: continued to wait helplessly for any sign of their sons

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Speaker 1: and brothers. With the police continuing to draw a blank,

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Speaker 1: some of the parents suggested contacting a psychic, in the

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Speaker 1: expectation that even if they couldn't give them any clues,

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Speaker 1: it might at least give them some hope. Doctor Gloria

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Speaker 1: Daniel was a member of the Church of Zadi, an

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Speaker 1: organization that claimed to teach its members how to become psychic.

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Speaker 1: Although Daniel had not come officially recommended by the Yuba

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Speaker 1: County Police, it is said that she had successfully helped

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Speaker 1: them with similar cases in the past. On the morning

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Speaker 1: of Friday, March third, a handful of family members gathered

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Speaker 1: together with doctor Daniel and watched expectantly as she ran

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Speaker 1: her hands through a series of clothes belonging to the

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Speaker 1: missing men. Then she sat back and closed her eyes.

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Speaker 1: After a short pau with the relatives in wrapped silence,

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Speaker 1: Daniel began to speak. She could see people gathered together

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Speaker 1: in a shack or a cabin in a wooded hilly area,

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Speaker 1: somewhere near a body of water, she said. And something else,

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Speaker 1: a small detail, A row of men tucked into what

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Speaker 1: looked like green sacks made of canvas, sleeping bags. Perhaps,

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Speaker 1: she thought, So, they're still alive, asked one of the relatives. Hopefully.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Daniel hesitated, then opened her eyes. I'm afraid that

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Speaker 1: is all I can tell you, she said. By Saturday,

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Speaker 1: March fourth, as the search entered its second week, the

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Speaker 1: Butte and Plumas County sheriffs began to question the merits

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Speaker 1: of continuing. With the recent storms showing no sign of

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Speaker 1: letting up and the snow continuing to fall heavily, they

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Speaker 1: decided to pull back their resources for under Sheriff Jack Beecham,

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Speaker 1: who was supervising the entire search, and his superior Sheriff Grant. However,

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Speaker 1: there was no question of calling it off any time soon.

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Speaker 1: Not only did the men's lives depend on it, but

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Speaker 1: the entire reputation of the Uber County Police Department was

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Speaker 1: resting on it too. It was only the year before

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Speaker 1: that then Under Sheriff Lloyd Finlay was arrested on charges

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Speaker 1: of corruption, having been accused of stealing weapons, money, and

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Speaker 1: other valuable articles from the county evidence room. The dye

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Speaker 1: who had prosecuted him believed the crimes were merely symptomatic

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Speaker 1: of a corrupt undercurrent in local police practices which had

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Speaker 1: been left unchallenged for too long. The case had been

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Speaker 1: dragging on for almost a year by now, with it

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Speaker 1: looking increasingly lightly that Finley was indeed guilty, finding the

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Speaker 1: five missing men alive was the perfect opportunity to win

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Speaker 1: back the community's trust for under Sheriff Beecham, who had

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Speaker 1: been drafted in to replace Lloyd Finley and Sheriff Grant

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Speaker 1: facing reelection later that year. The personal stakes could barely

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Speaker 1: have been any higher. At the beginning of that second week,

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Speaker 1: having put posters up of the missing men all across

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Speaker 1: the Uber and Sutter area, and with the reports of

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Speaker 1: their disappearance a daily feature in the local news, the

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Speaker 1: pair finally had another lead to follow up. Carol Waltz

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Speaker 1: was the owner of a local store in Brownsville, another

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Speaker 1: foothill town of the Sierra Nevada just south of Oraville.

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Speaker 1: Waltz had been working on Saturday, February twenty fifth, the

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Speaker 1: day after the men had last been seen, when two

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Speaker 1: men matching the descriptions of Jack Hewett and Gary Matthias

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Speaker 1: came into her store. The pair were said to have

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Speaker 1: bought a variety of snack foods before heading back outside

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Speaker 1: to eat. A second witness also called that same day,

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Speaker 1: claiming to have seen at least four of the men

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Speaker 1: at the same store. The day after, two of them,

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Speaker 1: who she took to be Bill Sterling and Ted Weir,

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Speaker 1: were sitting in a red pickup truck, while two others,

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Speaker 1: who she assumed to be Jack Madruga and Jack Hewett,

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Speaker 1: were seen at a telephone booth nearby. Having previously focused

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Speaker 1: their search to no avail on the immediate vicinity of

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Speaker 1: the abandoned car, Beecham now feared that he had missed

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Speaker 1: a trick. In response to the possible sighting in Brownsville,

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Speaker 1: he promptly split the investigation into four parts, with the

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Speaker 1: Mountain search still continuing. One unit was instructed to go

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Speaker 1: back over all the evidence they had, tracing the men's

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Speaker 1: movements up to the night that they disappeared. Another would

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Speaker 1: focus on reinterviewing the family and friends, while the fourth

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Speaker 1: focused its energies on trying to locate any more witnesses

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Speaker 1: from Brownsville. Of immediate interest was the description of the

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Speaker 1: pickup truck, now mentioned by two separate witnesses. A short

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Speaker 1: time later. One friend of Garry Matthias's suggested he might

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Speaker 1: have taken the men to visit friends in nearby Forbestown,

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Speaker 1: but when the police contacted them, they claimed not to

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Speaker 1: have heard from Garry for months. A fund set up

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Speaker 1: by the desperate families for any vital information raised almost

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Speaker 1: three and a half thousand dollars, but failed to yield

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Speaker 1: any significant leads. On and on, the exhaustive search continued,

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Speaker 1: entering a third and then a fourth week, but still

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Speaker 1: the men could not be found. The police also failed

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Speaker 1: to find any trace at the apparent pickup truck. On

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Speaker 1: March twenty first, nineteen seventy eight, under Sheriff Beecham had

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Speaker 1: no choice but to make the painful decision to call

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Speaker 1: off the search. After hundreds of hours, having used almost

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Speaker 1: one hundred personnel, sniffer dogs, helicopters and snowmobiles, the five

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Speaker 1: friends who had supposedly left home merely to watch a

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Speaker 1: game of basketball, had completely vanished off the face of

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Speaker 1: the earth. Are you always taking care of your family?

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Speaker 1: Do you often take care of others and not yourself?

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Speaker 1: Download the app or visit teledoc dot com Forward slash

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Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast today to get started. That's teladoc dot com

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Speaker 1: slash Unexplained Podcast. With the search having wound down, one

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Speaker 1: deputy was put in place of collecting any further information

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Speaker 1: that might come to light. Having gone to Marysville High

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Speaker 1: School with ted Weer and his brothers. Deputy Lance Heirs

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Speaker 1: had been affected by the men's disappearance, perhaps more than most,

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Speaker 1: taking it as his personal mission to bring closure to

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Speaker 1: the families, in whatever shape that may take. For the

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Speaker 1: next few months, Heirs spiritedly followed up on each and

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Speaker 1: every piece of information that came in, from apparent sightings

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Speaker 1: of the men in Sacramento to as far as Ontario

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Speaker 1: and Tampa in Florida. He chased them all to no avail.

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Speaker 1: When one local psychic claimed that the men had been

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Speaker 1: murdered in Oroville in a two story house numbered either

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Speaker 1: four seven two three or four seven five three, Airs

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Speaker 1: spent two days driving the streets for any sign of it,

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Speaker 1: but no such house existed. On some nights, Deputy Airs,

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Speaker 1: dreaming that he had found them, would find himself walking

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Speaker 1: toward them with open arms, only to wake up alone

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Speaker 1: in the cold darkness of his bedroom, his arms still

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Speaker 1: outstretched before him. By the end of May, even the

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Speaker 1: families had begun to lose hope of ever finding out

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Speaker 1: what had happened to their children. But high up on

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Speaker 1: the mountain, the snow was steadily beginning to thaw, and

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Speaker 1: soon it would be time to begin letting up some

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Speaker 1: of its secrets. On the afternoon of June fourth, three

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Speaker 1: bikers went for a week end ride through plumous forest.

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Speaker 1: Heading along the Oureville to Quincy road, they decided to

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Speaker 1: take a turn eastwards on to one of the narrower

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Speaker 1: forest roads that headed higher up into the mountain. A

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Speaker 1: short time later, the group pulled into the dawn annual

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Speaker 1: Zinc campground, located about three miles deeper into the forest

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Speaker 1: off the main road. The bikers pulled over and made

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Speaker 1: their way to a large forest service cabin at the

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Speaker 1: back of the site, hoping to find a map of

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Speaker 1: the local area. Approaching the building, having just noticed a

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Speaker 1: window that had been smashed in, the riders were hit

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Speaker 1: by a sweet, putrid stench coming from inside. Going in

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Speaker 1: to investigate further, the bikers soon located the source of

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Speaker 1: the smell. There, stretched out on a camp bed before them,

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Speaker 1: lying under multiple layers of darkly stained sheets, they could

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Speaker 1: clearly see the outline of a steadily decomposing body. When

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Speaker 1: the call came into the Yuba County Sheriff's office later

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Speaker 1: that day, under Sheriff Beecham grabbed his hat and made

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Speaker 1: his way to the nearest patrol car, arriving to find

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Speaker 1: forensics and deputies from the Plumous County Sheriff's Office already there.

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Speaker 1: Beecham could tell by the look on their faces that

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Speaker 1: they had found. One of them covering his nose from

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Speaker 1: the stench. Beecham made his way into the cabin and

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Speaker 1: approached the body. With the sheets now rolled back, he

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Speaker 1: could see the emaciated figure lying underneath the way the

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Speaker 1: cordroy trousers had been rolled up to reveal clear signs

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Speaker 1: of gangrene on the legs. Next to it, on a

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Speaker 1: side table lay a brown wallet, a bead necklace, and

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Speaker 1: a ring. Beecham picked it up and examined the engraving

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Speaker 1: on the inside, which read simply ted. The body would

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Speaker 1: later be formally identified as that of thirty two year

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Speaker 1: old Ted Weier, last seen alive almost a hundred days before.

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Speaker 1: The pathologist ruled the cause of his death to be

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Speaker 1: the result of a pulmonary edema brought on by exposure,

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Speaker 1: having survived for up to six weeks after he had

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Speaker 1: first gone missing. To get to the cabin, Wea would

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Speaker 1: have to have tracked almost twenty miles up hill in

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Speaker 1: minus temperatures through six foot snowdrifts in the middle of

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Speaker 1: the night. The shirt and Cordroy trousers found on his

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Speaker 1: body were the only clothes he had been wearing. What's more,

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Speaker 1: he had most likely been sheltering in the cabin alive

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Speaker 1: and reasonably well throughout the entirety of the original search,

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Speaker 1: but Beecham couldn't understand it. A cursory look around the

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Speaker 1: service cabin revealed thirty one cans of food that had

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Speaker 1: been taken from a storage locker and eaten, but an

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Speaker 1: entire other locker's worth that had been left untouched. Propane

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Speaker 1: gas linked to a heating system was also discovered, as

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00:19:04,760 --> 00:19:08,720
Speaker 1: well as stoves and matches, but also books and furniture

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00:19:08,960 --> 00:19:11,760
Speaker 1: that could easily have been used as fuel for a fire.

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Speaker 1: None of it had been utilized. And then there were

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Speaker 1: the missing shoes. Weir had been wearing a pair of

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Speaker 1: sturdy leather shoes the night he went missing, but when

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Speaker 1: they found his body, his shoes had gone. They did, however,

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Speaker 1: find another pair of shoes left in the cabin, a

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Speaker 1: pair of tennis shoes that had belonged to Garry Matthias,

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Speaker 1: a recently burned out candle, suggested that perhaps someone else

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00:19:44,520 --> 00:19:48,040
Speaker 1: had also been there too, long after Weir had died,

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00:19:49,240 --> 00:20:00,359
Speaker 1: but had since left. The discovery of Weir's body prompted

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00:20:00,359 --> 00:20:03,440
Speaker 1: an immediate response from the Plumus and Uba County police,

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00:20:04,040 --> 00:20:07,440
Speaker 1: reconvening the search they had called off three months previously.

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Speaker 1: Two days later, tracing likely lines from the service cabin

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00:20:13,080 --> 00:20:16,800
Speaker 1: back to where the Montego had been abandoned, officers soon

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00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:22,640
Speaker 1: uncovered another body, or what was left of it. It

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00:20:22,680 --> 00:20:26,359
Speaker 1: was found roughly halfway between the cabin and the abandoned car,

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Speaker 1: lying face up next to a small stream. The face

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00:20:31,560 --> 00:20:35,400
Speaker 1: and extremities had been eaten away by forest animals sometime

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Speaker 1: after death. Car keys found in the trouser pockets revealed

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Speaker 1: it to be the body of thirty year old Jack Madruga.

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Speaker 1: Later that day, not far from Madruga's body, more human

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00:20:50,520 --> 00:20:54,920
Speaker 1: bones were discovered scattered across an area of roughly fifty feet.

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Speaker 1: It was all that was left of twenty nine year

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00:20:58,400 --> 00:21:03,520
Speaker 1: old Bill Sterling that those three had now been discovered

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00:21:03,840 --> 00:21:08,040
Speaker 1: was understandably devastating for the relevant families, but equally so

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00:21:08,440 --> 00:21:12,960
Speaker 1: for those of Garry Matthias and Jack Hewett, with neither

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Speaker 1: having been heard from in over a hundred days. In

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00:21:15,800 --> 00:21:18,760
Speaker 1: all likelihood, they hadn't made it out of the forest

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00:21:18,800 --> 00:21:23,600
Speaker 1: alive either. Believing it to be only a matter of

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00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:27,200
Speaker 1: time before the others would be found, scores of volunteers

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00:21:27,280 --> 00:21:31,359
Speaker 1: joined the police to help speed up the search. On

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00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:35,760
Speaker 1: the morning of June eighth, Jack Hewett's father, also named Jack,

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Speaker 1: arrived to help. Deputy Lance. Heirs, who had been entrusted

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00:21:41,400 --> 00:21:43,879
Speaker 1: with the case after the initial search had been ended,

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Speaker 1: did his best to discourage him from joining in, but

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Speaker 1: Jack would not be dissuaded. A few hours later, searching

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Speaker 1: an area of roughly five miles from the cabin where

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00:21:55,240 --> 00:21:58,840
Speaker 1: were had been found, Jack spotted something out of place

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00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:03,320
Speaker 1: in the undergrowth. It was a faded Levi's denim jacket.

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00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:09,080
Speaker 1: He immediately recognized it as his sons. When he picked

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00:22:09,080 --> 00:22:12,520
Speaker 1: it up from the ground, a human spine fell out

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00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:17,639
Speaker 1: of it. Jack recoiled in horror as police quickly gathered

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00:22:17,760 --> 00:22:21,840
Speaker 1: round to take it from him. Hewett's skull was found

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00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:26,119
Speaker 1: a further one hundred yards down the hill, barely a

306
00:22:26,200 --> 00:22:30,040
Speaker 1: quarter of a mile away. Investigators also found three wall

307
00:22:30,119 --> 00:22:33,920
Speaker 1: blankets and flashlights, which had likely been taken from the

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00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:39,000
Speaker 1: service cabin but no matter how hard they looked, they

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00:22:39,040 --> 00:22:44,520
Speaker 1: found no sign of Garry Matthias. After two further weeks

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00:22:45,119 --> 00:22:48,359
Speaker 1: under Sheriff Jack Beecham called off the search for a

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00:22:48,400 --> 00:22:53,520
Speaker 1: second time. The bodies, or rather remains, of the four

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00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:57,320
Speaker 1: men that had so far been found had been placed

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00:22:57,359 --> 00:23:01,720
Speaker 1: into green canvas bags after all, just as supposed psychic

314
00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:06,800
Speaker 1: doctor Daniel had apparently seen, only they weren't sleeping bags

315
00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:14,920
Speaker 1: but body bags. Bill Sterling, Jack Madruga, and Jack Hewett's

316
00:23:14,960 --> 00:23:18,280
Speaker 1: deaths were all found to have been the result of hypothermia,

317
00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:23,119
Speaker 1: with no apparent signs of foul play. That their bones

318
00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:25,679
Speaker 1: and bodies were in the state that they were was

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00:23:25,720 --> 00:23:27,919
Speaker 1: thought merely to have been down to the animals that

320
00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:32,960
Speaker 1: got to them after they died. All that was left

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00:23:32,960 --> 00:23:36,760
Speaker 1: for Beecham was to try and piece together exactly what happened,

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00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:49,159
Speaker 1: and he knew just where to start. Beecham had his

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00:23:49,240 --> 00:23:52,400
Speaker 1: doubts about the twenty five year old Garry Matthias from

324
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:56,640
Speaker 1: the beginning. Where the others had intellectual disabilities of one

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00:23:56,680 --> 00:24:01,959
Speaker 1: form or another, Matthias had no such thing. Early on

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00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:06,119
Speaker 1: in the investigation, Beecham learned from Matthias's family that his

327
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:09,119
Speaker 1: involvement with the Gateway project, and how he met the

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00:24:09,160 --> 00:24:12,160
Speaker 1: others in the first place, was due to his struggles

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00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:17,760
Speaker 1: with schizophrenia. What Beacham also discovered, however, was that his

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00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:23,400
Speaker 1: history was a little more complicated than that. Matthias had

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00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:26,359
Speaker 1: in fact been in and out of psychiatric hospitals since

332
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:31,280
Speaker 1: the age of fifteen, first being committed after seemingly having

333
00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 1: suffered an adverse reaction from taking hallucinogenic drugs. After being

334
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:39,720
Speaker 1: drafted into the army at the age of eighteen, despite

335
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:43,240
Speaker 1: his clear medical records, Matthias is said to have suffered

336
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:47,120
Speaker 1: another psychiatric breakdown as the result of his continued drug use.

337
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:51,800
Speaker 1: At one point, Matthias was arrested after going a wall

338
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:55,960
Speaker 1: while waiting in his cell. He demanded to speak to

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00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:58,920
Speaker 1: the officers on duty, only to attack them when they

340
00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:03,919
Speaker 1: opened his door. Matthias had stripped completely naked before carrying

341
00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:08,720
Speaker 1: out the attack. Around the same time, the nineteen year

342
00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:12,560
Speaker 1: old Matthias, now living back home in Olivehurst, went to

343
00:25:12,640 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 1: visit his cousin. At some point in the night, Matthias

344
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 1: was discovered sexually assaulting his cousin's wife while she slept.

345
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:25,159
Speaker 1: After being charged with assaulting a police officer and intent

346
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:28,719
Speaker 1: to rape. Matthias was facing up to twelve years in prison,

347
00:25:29,280 --> 00:25:32,679
Speaker 1: but eventually accepted a plea deal and served only eight months.

348
00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:39,880
Speaker 1: After his release, Matthias's behavior became ever more erratic. With

349
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:43,639
Speaker 1: his drug use escalating, he found himself increasingly on the

350
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:46,679
Speaker 1: wrong side of the law. There were a number of

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00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:49,680
Speaker 1: bar fights, as well as complaints of disturbing the peace.

352
00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:54,239
Speaker 1: One time, Matthias is even said to have turned up

353
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:57,000
Speaker 1: high at the house of a couple he knew, telling

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00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:59,240
Speaker 1: them he was going to stab a woman in the jaw.

355
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 1: Two subsequent attempts to have him committed ended in failure

356
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 1: when Matthias managed to escape on one account by crawling

357
00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 1: out of a storm drain. In nineteen seventy five, Gary

358
00:26:12,560 --> 00:26:16,360
Speaker 1: Matthias enrolled at Huber College, but struggled with both its

359
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:21,040
Speaker 1: conventions and fitting in with other students. Eventually he moved

360
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:24,240
Speaker 1: out to Oregon in Washington State to live with his grandmother,

361
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:27,200
Speaker 1: only to turn up at his mother and stepfather's house

362
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 1: weeks later tired and disheveled. He had apparently walked the

363
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 1: five hundred and forty mile journey home, eating food he

364
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:40,200
Speaker 1: found along the way to stay alive, all of which,

365
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:43,919
Speaker 1: for Beecham, made Matthias not only a potential candidate for

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00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 1: the murder of the other men, or at least to

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00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:50,400
Speaker 1: have led them astray, but also one who might even

368
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 1: have been capable of getting out at the forest alive.

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00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:58,879
Speaker 1: That Gary Matthias has never been found only serves to

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00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 1: heighten this theory. It has also been speculated that at

371
00:27:04,359 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 1: least Matthias and possibly Jack Hewett had made it to

372
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:11,440
Speaker 1: the service cabin with Ted Weir, only to leave soon after,

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00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:14,879
Speaker 1: with Matthias being the one most likely to have taken

374
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:26,440
Speaker 1: weird shoes. Unless Gary Matthias is found to have survived

375
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 1: after all, it is unlikely there will ever be an

376
00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:32,480
Speaker 1: answer as to what exactly happened on that mysterious night

377
00:27:32,680 --> 00:27:37,760
Speaker 1: in February nineteen seventy eight. Why five men found themselves

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00:27:37,840 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 1: driving high up into the Sierra Nevada Mountains seventy miles

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00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 1: in the wrong direction. Why having gone as far as

380
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 1: they could, the men then seemingly abandoned their car and

381
00:27:50,040 --> 00:27:55,440
Speaker 1: undertook a treacherous journey through thick forest and six foot snowdrifts,

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00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:59,080
Speaker 1: reaching ever higher into the mountains, only to find death

383
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 1: waiting for them at the end of it. Much has

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00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:07,120
Speaker 1: been made about the men's intellectual capacities, suggesting this may

385
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:09,680
Speaker 1: have been a significant factor in what could have been

386
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 1: little more than a horrifically wrong turn. Some have suggested

387
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:17,439
Speaker 1: this might also account for why those who made it

388
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:20,080
Speaker 1: to the forest to serve his cabin didn't eat the

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00:28:20,119 --> 00:28:25,760
Speaker 1: food and engage the heating apparatus to survive. Others suggest that,

390
00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:28,920
Speaker 1: due to their innocence with such things, a worry that

391
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 1: they were breaking the law made them too afraid to

392
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: do so. As for Garry Matthias, despite under Sheriff Beecham's

393
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 1: reservations in the time leading up to his disappearance, he

394
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 1: appeared to have turned his life around. Not only was

395
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:48,760
Speaker 1: he holding down a steady job, but having finally been

396
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:52,000
Speaker 1: treated properly for his schizophrenia, of which most of his

397
00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:56,120
Speaker 1: erratic behavior was likely just a symptom, he hadn't suffered

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00:28:56,120 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 1: any negative effects from it for over two years. Once

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00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 1: lost in the forest, however, we could only speculate how

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00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:10,000
Speaker 1: quickly he may have deteriorated without his medication. Certainly, for

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00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:14,560
Speaker 1: Garry's mother and stepfather, theirs was an especially difficult anguish,

402
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:18,280
Speaker 1: Not only did. They never get closure, but in the

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00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:20,960
Speaker 1: absence of it, they were also forced to endure the

404
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:25,120
Speaker 1: inevitable suspicions that arose once Garry's past came to the

405
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 1: attention of the public. Like many of the other parents,

406
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 1: Garry's mother and stepfather had also joined in with the

407
00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:37,840
Speaker 1: search for the missing men. His stepfather, Robert, had spent

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00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:41,320
Speaker 1: most of his time hunting for Garry's distinctive, thick, black

409
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 1: rimmed glasses, reasoning that if a bear had taken him,

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00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:50,320
Speaker 1: it would have at least left those uneaten. In all

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00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 1: the time spent waiting for news of her son's whereabouts,

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00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 1: Garry's mother, Ida refused to turn on her television to

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00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:01,400
Speaker 1: afraid of what she might find out. But no news

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00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 1: ever came. She would spend the rest of her life

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00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 1: looking for him. I'd like to thank Ryan Vaughn's in

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00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 1: New York for bringing this extraordinary story to my attention.

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Speaker 1: If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and would like to

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00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:24,680
Speaker 1: help support us, you can now go to Unexplained podcast

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00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 1: dot com forward slash support. All donations, no matter how

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00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 1: large or small, are massively appreciated. All elements have Unexplained

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00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:39,720
Speaker 1: are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and

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00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:42,640
Speaker 1: rate the show on iTunes, and feel free to get

423
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:45,479
Speaker 1: in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories

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00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation

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00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:52,240
Speaker 1: of your own you'd like to share. You can reach

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00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:56,760
Speaker 1: us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or Twitter at

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00:30:56,840 --> 00:31:01,800
Speaker 1: Unexplained odd and Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward slash

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Speaker 1: Unexplained Now, it's time to take care of yourself. To

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Speaker 1: make time for you. Teledoc gives you access to a

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Speaker 1: licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best.

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Speaker 1: Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video anytime

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Speaker 1: between seven am to nine pm local time, seven days

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Speaker 1: a week. Teledoc Therapy is available through most insurance or employers.

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Speaker 1: Download the app or visit telldoc dot com, Forward slash

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Speaker 1: Unexplained Podcast Today to get started. That's t e l

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Speaker 1: a d oc dot com Slash Unexplained Podcast