Tony thank you for being here you recently wrote a book on the uba County 5 it’s called things aren’t right um but tell us who you are and uh and and a little bit about your work on this case please sure I’m Tony Wright I’m the author of things aren’t right The
Disappearance of Ubbi County 5 an archist by trade and I’m a fan of True Crime Unsolved Mysteries and The Unexplained it was 2018 when I first heard about this case and wanted to read a book on the IBA County 5 nothing was available so I did some thinking and
Talked to a few people and decided to write my first True Crime book I have a job where I do quite a bit of research going through newspaper archives and uh other state and local archives to get research information and I’ve worked with police records before in my job so
I thought this would be a great use of my skills and I reached out to the families the media that covered the case and law enforcement that was involved in the case as well back in 1978 and it took about four years to work on the book Co kind of got in there
And really slowed everything down but the final result is this book and it’s been referred to as the Bible for the Ubi County 5 case which I’m happy to hear from my fellow Yubba County five researchers and so the case still has quite a bit of interest and
I’m glad to deliver this book to people that are interested in the case that either know quite a bit about the case or just brand new to the story yeah and I actually I would agree with the assessment in in terms of there weren’t many books out there I know Drew
B wrote a book um but yours I could describe it as a Bible because I don’t think I saw anything in there that you know I would have had to add or anything it seemed you covered all your seems like you probably talked to every last living person that had
Anything to do with this case um that you could find and I know that’s not easy because I tried to find them too because tracking people down is not easy sometimes um yeah so the information in there uh great uh yeah I wouldn’t have added anything
I learned a lot of new things especially stuff uh you had a lot of focus on who these who these men were by interviewing the family so there was a lot of great info in there um I’m going to put a little preamble to this interview where
I ask people to you know if you don’t if you’re not familiar with the UAC County 5 that you should maybe watch my video or buy your book whatever get a little familiar because we can’t go over all the details in this interview um we’re going to hit some broad Strokes just to
Refresh people people’s memories um but do you think you could briefly go over who the five men were without you know going into Super detail about you know their backgrounds if you want to get that read his book because there’s tons of information on each of the men but
Who were these Five Guys so there was Ted Weir he was the oldest of the group he was 32 years old he lived in the Maryville ubba city area just like the others he worked for the Gateway project which was an organization that provided jobs to people with disabilities and
Also to those who were struggling with mental illness and he was friends with Jack madrugo who was roughly 30 years old at the time of The Disappearance he was the driver of the group if you will because he owned a 1969 Mercury Montego and he was known as sort of a quiet um
Guy who enjoyed life and just loved doing things with his friends and family and he was friends with Bill Sterling who was about 29 years old at the time of his disappearance uh bill was deeply religious uh quiet guy but loved the bowl H there was Jackie hwit who was uh
Probably about 23 years old at the time that he disappeared uh Jackie was very good friends with Ted Weir they had a close Bond sort of Big Brother little brother Jackie loved his motorcycle he loved hanging out with his friends loved basketball loved to just go bowling or
Go to the roller skating rink with people like Ted Weir and just have a good time and there was Gary Matias who was about 24 25 years old at the time of his disappearance Gary was the one person in the group that had a mental illness he had he had been diagnosed
With schizophrenia he had been on a regimen of medications since since 1975 he was turning his life around after struggling with schizophrenia for probably maybe four or five years and Gary loved music Gary loved basketball he loved Sports uh they were all family people they all had their passions which
Included playing for the Gateway Gators which was the basketball team for the Gateway projects so they were active they all held jobs of some kind they did things with their families they were social they love to go out of town together go out of town with their families and either watch basketball
Games or just do whatever and so these men they were very productive they had dreams and they had great friendships and the families collectively refer to the group as the boys due to their intellect disabilities um they kind of saw them a little bit as childlike in ways with
Some of their behaviors and mannerisms but uh the five were good friends and they had big plans uh in life and their plans involved on February 24th 1978 to go to a basketball game in Chico California and the next day on February 25th the plan was to go down towards
Sacramento to be in a Special Olympics basketball tournament because if they won that tournament a few months or actually not a few months uh maybe about five months later uh they would be invited down to UCLA to be involved in the state Special Olympics tournament which involved a trip to Disneyland so
These guys were very very dedicated um to getting to that game and playing there but first thing was first they had to go see their favorite team UCD Davis playing a away game at Chico State on the 24th and it was that trip to Chico on the 24th that
Just it’s the mystery that’s where it begins and whatever happened we’re not too sure but they disappeared that night on February 24th coming home right and that was a good uh a good setup because right off the bat we know that they had plans big plans they were excited for so
This yes that’s not something you usually see in people who are intending to disappear so some people say maybe they intended to do this or that but that would kind of go against that um so let’s talk about February 24th we know they they travel North from uba City
They go to Chico that’s something like 46 miles right um I believe they traveled on Highway 99 I through your book I I you know realized there may have been some discrepancy between how many times they’ve done that or not or how many times they’ve made that trip or not
Um we don’t really know what they did in the end we can only guess um but we do know they attended the game they were there people saw them there um the game ends around 10 p.m. they go to a market they pick up some snacks they’re seen
Again there and after that they kind of drop off the map a little bit in terms of what we would have thought they would do we would think they would just head straight home right and right so who’s the next person to see them or where do next pop up that night well
They’re at the game they go to the convenience store after the game which is called Bears market and Cho they buy drinks they buy basically junk food and the person working behind the counter her name’s Mary Davis she was not too thrilled to see these guys walking in at
Closing time because you’re closing it’s Friday night you want to get home you’re kind of just done with the day but they come in they quick gather what they need they go up to the register they pay they walk out the door from there they get
Back on the highway home but instead of driving home they take a huge detour into the plumis national forest where they abandon their car on a snow covered Road in the middle of nowhere and the last person to see them is a man by the
Name of Joseph shones who is also on the same road middle of nowhere his car is broken down he’s suffered a heart attack a few hours earlier and he sees their car pull up and depending on what story you’re hearing from shon’s they either get out of the car or
There’s another car behind their car a supposed red pickup truck they either get in the pickup truck or they run into the woods it’s this is really the hard part for those of us who’ve been researching the case what part of shon’s story happened they either got out of
The car and ran away they got into another car and drove off but the car they were driving in that 1969 Mercury Montego owned and driven by Jack madruga is abandoned in the Plumas national forest and if you look at that on a map it’s 75 miles in the wrong direction
From home and if you’ve ever been up to the pluma National Forest it’s in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains it’s incredibly Rocky terrain and the temperature up there would have been much colder than it was down towards places like Orville Yuba City Marysville because it was below freezing they had a
Lot of snow up there so these guys were way off track to get home right and so that’s the last time anyone sees them alive is February February 24th 1978 it could be around 11 p.m. or it could be sometime after when it hits midnight February 25th right we’re thinking the last time
They’re seen is probably sometime between 11m and midnight um starting on that night of uh Friday February 24th 1978 okay and so and Joseph shones uh like you said his story has so much variation in it it’s really hard to pin anything down but from what we know
About that night he started out in Barry Creek which is um a little bit north of Orville up in the mountains kind of and he’s basically starts the Night Out by drinking um by all accounts he’s kind of an alcoholic in fact uh yes he hits a he
Hits a bar he has a few beers he goes to the mountainous bar he has some more and then he says something about wanting to go up and check on the snow and then he goes up there and he gets stuck right and then he has a heart attack while
Trying to get his vehicle out and um so one thing I learned learned from your book I hadn’t heard before was that shones may have had a condition called angina which is a heart condition that can cause a lot of the symptoms he described um what do you think about
This heart attack scenario do you think he had because we don’t really know because hippol and whatnot do you think he just he knew he was having an attack from this condition he had and maybe you know that occurred do you think he really had a heart attack do you think
It happened at all because he makes a lot of he he basically is able to change his story based on This Heart Attack by saying well I was hallucinating or I I wasn’t in my right mind what do you think about all that I honestly don’t know what to think
Sometimes I I want to give him the benefit of the doubt sometimes other times I think he he wanted to get a story to the best of his abilities to get some of the reward money because once the men went missing some reward money was posted which I believe if you
Adjust adust it for inflation it could be like 10 grand 12 Grand today so if you kind of need money and you give just enough information be like hey I got a story about those guys here’s the thing and I have to put all this together as
Best I can so the time he leaves mountainous as you said where he’s drinking beer um is probably 5:30 p.m. on February 24th maybe 6 o’clock at the lake so if he goes north of mountain house up into the plumis he basically Parks his car on a
Road that leads to Nowhere it’s in the middle nowhere it’s rutted it’s snow covered and he gets his car stuck but he wants to see the snow line my problem with his story of wanting to see the snow line is he could have just gone into mountainhouse and could have asked
Someone you know hey do you guys know the condition up the road do you do you know what’s going on what it looks like because I’ve talked to people that knew shones and what they’ve always been under the impression of is he was never truthful to them and there’s people have questioned his
Character for a long time and okay if he goes up there it’s 5 5:30 p.m. p.m. he has a heart attack if the guys don’t show up until 11 p.m. that’s like 5 hours he’s been up there if if you feel you’re having a heart attack and you’re on the
Brink of death um I think you’re going to do everything in your power to basically get somewhere get the help or do whatever you can but if he sees them at 11:00 between or there in Midnight they disappear he gets back in the car spends more time in his car and
Then eventually walks back to mountainous he’s been up and he gets to mountainous February 25th what 9 am 10: am uh and he’s been having a heart attack um it it’s just hard to put that together like you’re experiencing all that you’re doing all that you know you’re going through a heart attack
Because I’ve talked to people who’ve gone through heart attacks and they’ve talked about all the pain all the how tough it is just to do stuff and with shon’s being exposed to the elements walking from his car to mountainous and blow freezing temperatures like how did he not have like anything like
Hypothermia how was this condition not worsened and when he gets to the mountain house the next day after walking from his car roughly eight miles and it took him forever to get get there 5 to eight miles maybe he never tells anyone like hey I got a heart attack can
Someone call a squad or something and just get me to the hospital he doesn’t do that he’s like can someone drive me home and he asks for aspirin and he makes that comment too that I should have done this two years ago and odd Say by all accounts should
Have done what like you should have listened to your doctor two years ago she should exactly it could be on anything but you know yeah a mystery I should have gotten rid of that W bug I was driving two years ago like I I don’t I don’t understand it and the thing
About shones is he’s the last person to see these guys alive and reading all of his if you read all the information he gives to the papers the information that he gives to law enforcement it all contradicts itself yeah and you can connect the dots by looking at all the interviews that he
Gives uh probably it’d be like late February early March 1978 and his stories vary um he can say well I had a heart attack I don’t remember he talked to law enforcement twice they took notes from the interview with shones and you know getting back to
The fact that did he have a heart attack it’s hard to tell with shones because it it we weren’t there and uh judging by what he did it does look like it was as serious of a situation as it was yeah I would agree with that and one
One thing um I took away from your book as well you know is that when you think about it I’ve always you know well here’s this guy and he happens to be up in the snow on this night in this exact spot it it seems like what is what are
The chances that that could just happen but in your book exactly it’s one of those things that I I also question that because there’s stories of shon’s getting stuck in the snow and people helping him out like this is almost a regular thing that he did in that area
And that makes me qu well wait if he’s doing this all the time you know so this is like a trend with him he just drives his car into the snow places and people have to help him get out and and why is he doing that what I mean because you’ve
Heard those stories right that came out of people told you that right and was this just him being drunk and driving his car into the snow do you know and and that people would help have to help him in those scenarios from talking to I know talking
To one individual that knew him their answer was yes that they helped him multiple times they knew that he was constantly drinking according to their memory uh he had a drinking problem and if you look you know I looked at the police records and it gave a full
History on shones he has a history of drinking and driving yeah and it goes back back to the 1950s so sorry nothing’s changed since the 50s this guy has a pattern of being drunk in public which is in his record drinking and driving which is in his record and from people up there
Mountainous and also in that area of Barry Creek shones was known for being the local drunk and they said that they would his car would get stuck in the snow and the lady that waited on him at Mountain House said that she was surprised he drove North from Mountain
House because she knew he’d get stuck on the road and looking at the Snow Line like I said there’s nothing to look at um there was no frolicking in the snow he was going to do because I had heard you know from a few people that he was not the
Outdoorsman neither was his family and so there could have been a reason for him to go up that way maybe he didn’t want to explain why he went the way he did because even talking to a lot of people lived up in the plumis and sort of hearing some of their
Stories there’s just a lot of banana stuff that just go I mean it’s just absolutely bananas up there from illegal drug growing to meth labs to just just general Tom Foolery drunken fights craziness I mean it that’s kind of wild west yeah I think that’s important to the story too because it
Tells you like what kind of person shones might be you know in terms I mean we can get into theories later but it just goes to a theory I kind of have um about it all but one actually related to shon’s being stuck in that area I want
To get to is that I get a lot of I’ve gotten a lot of emails and comments about this inconsistency to me it it’s a little minute but a lot of people bring it up to me and that’s that shones talks about getting in his car and warming
Himself up in this VW Bug and I can’t tell you how many people I’ve had contact me and say that doesn’t work like that that you can’t have the heat I have my own Theory or opinion on that but what is your take on this thing uh
You’ve you’ve heard of that I’m assuming I’ve heard I’ve heard both sides of the story but one person that I saw that they had posted on their blog they said you know their VW Bug did all right in the winter and the heat worked yeah but I’ve talked to other people who
Complained about you know had many grievances against voltzwagon in general but they were but they were but they were uh bug owners and they said yeah with the air cooled engine you you’d probably get some air going but it’s not quite you know the best if it’s not
Going to do a lot um but if shones is in the car and it’s not doing a great job of heating up the car um how much gas did he have in the tank that day if you’re G to let your because I live in the midwest sometimes you’re
Going to let your car run uh when it’s cold it gets below freezing here those days are just terrible I I get it but to just like sit in a car that’s been idling in the snow it you you’ve got a lot going on here especially with
That VW and if it’s not generating heat what’s the point of running the car so if he turns off the car now he’s exposed to the elements if he’s exposed to the elements hypothermia is going to kick in at some point um especially if he starts walking the mountainous because if
There’s snow on the road and snow on the ground and he’s not wearing the proper clothing uh he falls down gets wet from the snow and the mud and the rain and whatever I mean that’s it that’s miserable you’re absolutely just playing a dangerous game if you somehow get get your clothes wet
Your shoes wet and you’re walking in the freezing temperatures and it it’s hard to tell what shones was doing in that car because his stories vary from he’s laying down in the car he’s got a window open with his legs hanging out I mean it varies yeah that’s an
Interesting point I didn’t remember that being part of my research that when he he was in the car with his legs hanging out for a while which would really negate the heat factor of being in the car but I think he gets in at some point
Right Andes the door he has to he really does yeah and you know I guess my take on the whole thing this this Theory uh of you know that it doesn’t make sense that he would get you know I I had a car it was an early 70s car back in the day
And its heater didn’t work um but even with the engine on I remember the engine generated a good good amount of heat even in Winter that you know I could be fairly comfortable just sitting in the car with the engine running now it wasn’t a VW so I can’t
Make make a one toone comparison um but I would got to think if he had the engine running it would be at least slightly warmer than if you were just standing outside in the wind you know at least you’re protected from the wind maybe you’re getting a little heat
Coming off so I don’t think it’s like completely out of this world that he could have stayed alive in there maybe right know um that’s just for the people that always send me that theory that’s for you um yeah you know I don’t think it’s a Smoking Gun or anything no uh but
Okay so we know shones gets a ride home and he he passes out you know he’s he’s had a long night um and and what happens then like his wife and daughter come home they see him in bed kind like hey what’s up according to the police report or the
Sheriff’s report shones tells his wife that the cars up in the plumis and you know he had quite the night so instead of taking him directly to the hospital his wife goes and tries to get the car so if this guy’s having a heart attack what are you gonna do you gonna
Take him to the hospital or you gonna go get your car and that’s what she did she went to get the car with her daughter and another person and you know I I’m sorry to interrupt you but it it’s one of those things when you say it like it makes me
Think like the angina like maybe this is something he’d experienced before and was they were used to it almost oh this just happens occasionally he has this and he like because they didn’t seem like totally like it was an emergency do you have that same kind of feeling about
It that’s exactly the the way I feel because it’s like you know even the talk of him walking as far as he did to mountainous and the amount of time and you just walk in and you’re just like H I just need some aspirin yeah either I mean if you’re having a heart
Attack and you feel like you’re a goner the first thing you want to do is like right get help and I don’t know how insurance was at the time for people and what you know what an ambulance ride would cost you out of pocket I I have no idea right and
Maybe he wasn’t one for doctors I don’t know but the thing about this guy is it you know if he’s having this big of a heart attack as he is why do you go get the car someone else you could have asked someone else you know to get it
For you or you could have gone back to get it um it certainly establishes priorities like what their priorities were which is interesting you know yeah and it’s a little bit strange because they go to get the car but you know they don’t bring really anything
With them equipment wise to get the car because they realized that Joe killed basically drained the the battery and he used up all the gas in the car so what they have to do is go home and then come back so they do this on Saturday they come back again on Sunday
Get the car freed and then that’s that right and they see the monteo there at the time but don’t really think anything of it right right and other people are up there as well at the time uh they see the car think nothing of it uh there was other
People up there just hanging out doing whatever and they said yeah we saw that car um and there was a guy up there I think he was like cross country skiing or something and he said yeah I saw shon’s car and I saw uh the Montego
And you know it must be typical for them just to see these cars up there um and with the car up there it’s not reported missing or not reported to the IBA County Sheriff office until Tuesday the 28th so that car had been up there for a
Period of time and shon’s car is long gone yeah by the time they find Jack madruga is Montego so it’s like okay there’s a big gap in time here where that Cargoes missing nobody mentions anything about this Montego being up in the plumis uh nobody reports anything
And or you know says anything to anyone else especially showns when he gets into mountain house he never says anything about the Montego they interviewed like four people who were there with him that morning they said he said nothing about the Montego and all he talked about was
Himself yeah and so it wasn’t until like I think it was a forest service ranger you I mean I guess they they put out some sort of APB on the monteo eventually and then a forest service ranger sees it up there and then reports it it happens kind of like that and
That’s how they finally find it what happened was the guy who worked for the forestry service did see the car and he was watching the news and then two and two okay in his head he’s like oh that’s that car so he calls I believe it’s the bu County
Sheriff’s Department because it’s bu County where the car is abandoned four of the Five Guys live in Yuba County so on Saturday the 25th at 8:00 pm the parents were actually able to put out a missing person’s bulletin they wanted to do it first thing Saturday morning but
The law enfor or Sheriff’s Department was like no no no no they’re they’re adults can’t do that so by the 28th they get word that hey we found the car that these guys were driving it’s up in the plumis National Forest 75 miles away from Marysville ubba City so law enforcement and the
Families kind of get up that way to figure out like okay why are they up here how’ they get up here um yeah yeah it was that forestry service worker that yeah had they not said anything who knows when they would have found that car exactly because it’s in such an odd
Place that and because people go up there and they do stuff in the snow and so I guess all the people that saw it previously they don’t really think anything of it they think maybe this person’s out there CrossCountry or or something or other and uh but we finally
They do finally find it and there’s not much odd about it well what’s odd about it is that there’s not much odd about it because there’s still gas in the car it’s stuck but not terribly stuck in the snow um we there’s a window on the driver’s side rolled partially down
Which was unusual because Jack madruga they said he wouldn’t leave his car like that in such a such a state which so I believe is that correct as far as yes okay and so the vehicle is just in this odd state where it doesn’t make sense why they
Would have left it there and where they’ve gone and this kind of kicks off the search up in plumis where now they know they must be here somewhere and they’re look and it’s a if you even look on it in like a topographic map that place is rough it’s all steep you’ve
Been up there yeah I’ve been up there a couple times and it’s uh during the day and during the night and it’s rough it’s rough today are the I mean I gota imagine the roads are a little better but it it did you go walking around in the forest and stuff
Around that area I didn’t go walking walking around the forest I did mostly driving from Maryville Yuba City up to the first time I got to get up to the road near Rogers Cow Camp where they abandoned the car so that was that was a
Heck of a drive but I went up there with the ubba county sheriff’s department they were kind of showing me around I did walk around some and just getting a feel for the land I mean it’s not you’re just not walking into Walden you’re not thrill like I’ll just walk
Right into the woods yeah no it’s it’s it’s it’s pretty rough up there and there’s a few times I was kind of getting a lay of the land and I’m thinking man this is some rough walking if you got to do it but at the time uh
So the roads are paved now but at the time there was a certain point where the roads weren’t paved right so you’re kind of driving on these grally roads and they were stuck right they they’ve been they had been off paved Road for a couple hundred yards I believe is that
Yes correct yeah so for madruga to drive on a road that they referred to as rutted they didn’t by the fact that he would drive up that road because he once refused to drop off Jackie hu at his house because he didn’t like the road near Jackie’s
House because it it was maybe there were some potholes and he didn’t want to hit a a pothole and hurt his car damaged his underc carriage or anything like that so but the car when they drove up the road was driven carefully right slowly up that road and it leads to Nowhere it
Doesn’t connect to a high I mean once you you hit a certain point up in the plumis you’re in the middle of nowhere especially at night I was driving up there at night and I’m thinking like no way and how would I do this uh again
Just driving up here did they make it was it kind of a little scary almost just being yeah it’s kind of freaky because it’s like these winding roads middle nowhere Pitch Black in spots which is really interesting because some of the kids the uba F they were afraid
Of the dart they didn’t like the snow this is not their environment they like yeah they weren’t I mean they do stuff Outdoors like go swimming or hunting fishing with their families but overall it wasn’t their big thing to go up into the plumis you know just to hang out in the snow
And they weren’t you know overall they weren’t big in the snow there was a few of them that were just not a fan of the dark um so to be in that situation with all these negatives I don’t like being outdoors I don’t like being cold I don’t
Like the snow I don’t like the dark I don’t like being away from home then why are they there and it’s not making any sense whatsoever that they would take that crazy detour because if you drive that road it winds up into the foothills of the mountains and there’s places to
Turn around because if they got lost Jack muga could have been like n we’re we’re going the wrong way because there’s something you cross at Lake Orville called The Bidwell bar bridge which is this curving bridge that spans over the over Lake Orville so if madruga hits that and drives over it
He would Pro he should have known like no this is Lake orille I shouldn’t be it would been a a total red flag that this is we don’t go this way yeah and I drove it at night and it wasn’t lit up but still I it’s you know you’re on the
Bridge and these guys and especially Jack muga and his Driving Experience should have known that I’m not driving over a bridge to get back to Maryville or Yuba City because there’s two highways that run parallel to each other 70 which would take you in the Marysville and 99 which takes you into
Yuba City if if he was on one of those roads he would know they’re not winding roads with snow and you don’t cross a big bridge and there’s sort of another sort of like uh bridge that sort of spans over a valley that they crossed over and ruga would have known and you
Know especially when you start seeing pine trees and rocky roads and stuff like that you’re going up yeah like yeah that’s a clear indicator we’re we’re not head we’re not in Kansas anymore right and so there’s a you know I guess everyone’s confused as to why the car would be
There the sheriff the parents everyone no one knows what’s going on but they start the search there um I want to get into some other things so I don’t want to spend too much time on like the search and stuff because I guess they
Didn’t find a lot they got a lot of like reports of sightings and I’ll I guess I’ll ask you really quick did you find any of those to be particularly relevant uh the multiple different sightings of the boys at different areas um did you find them to be
Compelling in any way other than you know okay none uh so they start receiving information on the men being missing probably I would say maybe starting around Sunday the 25th Monday the oh no maybe Sunday on the 26 Monday the 27th they might start a few things trickle in where people claim
They saw them near Sacramento uh which was the bulk of some of these sightings was the Sacramento area and Sacramento is about 40 45 minutes south of yba City something like that um people just said oh I saw someone who looked like they had a disability and sort of fit that uh
You know whatever they had in their mind is what someone with a disability looks like right um they said oh that’s got to be them because there was one setting was at a roller Rank and that caught the attention of the authorities because they love to go roller skating and they
Went down there and found out like no it wasn’t them it wasn’t their car um they’re seen like a a couple of them are seen in a movie theater or at a bar uh someone claimed that they saw maybe one or two of them hanging around a hotel
Somewhere um which is completely out of character the worst one was the lady who claimed to see all five of them at a convenience store which would have been I think 50 60 miles south of where the car was abandoned but they’re wearing different clothes it’s
The like Jackie hwit was on the phone talking to someone but he wasn’t someone who was big on talking on the phone didn’t care for it and they’re all wearing different clothes and people bring that one up to me because of the red truck they say well
There was a red truck there and and Shan said he saw a red truck so they it’s got to be real and it’s got to be connected but I don’t think so no that that’s and this red truck man if it’s connected to the story I I would love to know but it
It’s something that just keeps coming up that there’s this pickup truck that apparently followed the men up into the plumis and it’s tied to their disappearance but the person who made the claim of seeing the men at another convenience store they’re wearing different clothes and when they were
When the remains of four of the five were found the clothes that were found match the clothes they were wearing the night they disappeared right so you went and put on the clothes take off the clothes and if you could go home why wouldn’t you just go home you know what
I mean yeah if they had made it 60 miles south and they’re in a truck why not go home and that story in my opinion is very frustrating because I don’t believe anything that came out of the lady’s mouth that made that claim I think she wanted the reward money and it
Was just one of those convenient stories where you know either she was going to split it with somebody like either the owner of the store who could have corroborated her story right again it’s like you know 10 to 12,000 and if you’re hard up for cash
You know why not make up a story and there’s a lot of sightings of the men that people claim the furthest one that I saw from uh the car was Los Angeles where there’s a student at USC she’s riding the bus and claimed that some of the
Guys got on the bus and was riding around downtown LA with her and they kind of looked into it and wasn’t true right and I guess a point I would make is that you know if if anyone you know just from watching this channel long enough you’ll realize that it’s not
Uncommon to get these sightings and almost any missing person’s case especially one that’s really high-profile um right sightings just start pouring in randomly of people that are sure they saw this individual and then often times it turns out there’s just no possible way they could have people are mistaken they have ulterior
Motives you never really know what’s going on but uh yeah just because someone says they saw somebody it doesn’t really mean they did it’s true and it’s it’s super frustrating because they have to follow these leads and follow up on every phone call and they they had some absolutely
Outrageous people getting in touch with them like their theories on what happened to the guys and it’s like oh man like I I’m I felt sorry for law enforcement having to deal with all these dead ends but you know they would have to look at they’d have to follow
Some of these leads and figure out what to do right um so let’s fast forward a bit because I want to make sure we have plenty of time to uh spend on the recovery and and theories and stuff um so let’s fast forward to June 4th 19
78 um can you describe a little bit about what happened that day the motorcyclists up in the plumis and what they found yeah there were three uh guys on a motorcycle trip up in the plumis area uh was a father his son and a family friend they had been riding
Around all day and for whatever reason they thought they could get around some of the roads but the weather had been really bad in California much like how it is now a lot of snow rain mudslides and some of the roads they were trying to travel were you know
There were trees down and it was not quite the the fun trip they had planned but they knew at some point they had passed a place called The Daniels Inc Campground and that site had a map of the area and they thought if they looked
At the map of the area they can figure out a good way to get back home but when they went back to look at the map they noticed that there was a strange smell in the areaa and they kind of knew what it was but didn’t want to say what it
Was they kind of rode around a little bit and come they came across up or They Came Upon some fire trailers that were used by the forestry service for workers to use if they’re stationed up there and they had like beds and food in them and
The son of one of the writers noticed that the smell was coming from on the trailer they looked and saw that a window had been opened in the trailer and they looked in saw someone was in the bed and kind of knew something was wrong they called the sheriff’s department after
Like riding down to a Denny’s or somewhere and when law enforcement finally showed up excuse me they um went up to the trailer and that’s where they found Ted Weir Weir was on one of the beds he had blankets over him he had
Lost 80 to 100 PB he was 200 lb at the time of his disappearance he was wearing the same clothes they found like his ring next to the bed and like I said the clothes were just a match to the day he went missing and there were cans of food open in the
Trailer uh which were SE ration cans military Meals and things like that so someone had been in the trailer they had also found Gary matias’s tennis shoes in the trailer and so that was the beginning of the discoveries of the men and then days after Ted’s found the
Remains of Jack madruga and Bill Sterling are found south of the trailer about a mile or two and then after they’re found about a day or so the remains of Jackie huitt are found after that they have four of the men’s missing you know the four of the men’s remains
Have been found and that is early June 1978 and they kind of spend part of the rest of the month trying to find Gary but before the month ends they put an end to the search for Gary maias and he’s never been found sense right and so one of the things we
Know is that Gary his shoes were found in the trailer so we can make a we can make a good assumption that he was there with Weir um one of the things that was frustrating to me when I covered this case was this idea that a snow cat had
Gone up to the trailer to knock off snow from the roofs we knew it happened but I could never really find what route they took because if you look at the spread of the bodies of madruga Sterling and huitt it looks like they took the longest route possible to get to the tra
And I always wondered did the snowcat really do that same route that long route do you know anything about whether or not that was the route it took this long kind of looping route to get to the trailers I’m not 100% sure about what the route would have looked like but to
Get from the car that to get from the abandoned car to the trailers you’re going to go like Northwest along these roads that sort of Wind Through the Sierra Nevada yeah in the plumis and it ends up being like 12 miles even though it’s five miles across
The land it’s just the way that the roads are done very windy yeah yeah and we thought it was and talking with some other ubic County 5 researchers we think they did that path the path that they followed to the trailers just because the trailers from what I was told are were relatively
New they wanted the snow off the roof to avoid any kind of damage or leaking of snow into the trailer and if they saw that path they probably decided to follow that right path path of least resistance almost but even though going upward kind of uh goes
Against that idea but still it would be the obvious path to follow yeah and even one of the investigators from IBA County Sheriff’s Department who was up there said for for them to get to the car to those trailers to make that Journey along the road is just unbelievable it
Really is yeah like how how did they he was even baffled how they did that walk in those conditions yeah because people have to remember they were basically in their you know the lower part of California clothes you know they you know lightweight clothing it’s freezing
Out they don’t have the right even shoes for it those shoes will get wet and cold real quick that they were you know and uh and when you’re in a I find if you’re in a group of people things take a lot longer than if you’re just one person
Walking because if you’re one person walking you you know what you need to do and you have to motivate yourself and that’s it if you’re in a group and somebody starts lagging behind a little bit you’re going to be trying to stop we got to get this person up and moving
Again you know and it takes longer so this was probably a very long and arduous trick that they took yeah and I I find it hard that they would have left anyone behind knowing how the five were as friends and the kind of people that they were in general
I I I find it hard to believe they would leave someone behind out of the group if you know Sterling people feel like Sterling madruga could have been the first two to fall behind and then Gary Ted and Jackie made it to the trailer one Theory I’ve had is that they all
Made it to the trailer and maybe Gary was the first to leave because he didn’t have his medication and maybe he decided to take someone else’s shoes um that that’s definitely a possibility and when Gary left whatever way Gary took he never was found again and then the
Next person or persons that would have left could have been Jack matuga and Bill Sterling they could have said hey Gary hasn’t come back let’s go look uh and then it’s belied Jackie huitt left after Ted Weir passed away it could have been too much for him
And you know that’s why they were found where they were found interesting but again these are only theories and it would just it’s hard to imagine them leaving someone behind I but again if they’re experiencing hypothermia um lack of food lack of water uh um all this
Sort of creates this perfect storm where you almost have you’re you’re Delirious you’re there’s really no common sense because of you know when hypothermia hits you it’s it’s it’s absolutely horrible and if you’re not going to warm yourself up you’re you’re doomed so and that’s and that’s another thing too I
Mean they got to the trailer where they found Ted Weir I mean there was a something they could have just turned you know the yeah the Noz yeah and they couldn’t they didn’t do that but they said the snow could have covered the gas or the propane canister whatever
Whatever canister it was outside the trailer and they probably wouldn’t have seen it at the time this reminds me actually of something that I wanted to ask you because it was something I couldn’t find an answer to um it and that is people often talk about why
Didn’t they make a fire in there and I always said I’ve never seen any evidence that there was like some place to make a fire in there like some some you know any wood stove or anything I’ve never heard any reference to that all my understanding was that the heating was
Based off of uh gas and to me the idea of them just like starting a fire someplace in the trailer might have been frightening to we or maybe both the guys that were in there but what what is your take on this fire starting a fire
Thing you know I talked to some of the family members and there was even some quote at the time they didn’t start a fire which surprised them um they thought because if you look at there is film U of the trailer and the trailer where Ted’s founds here and there’s another one like
Right across the way and there could have been some space where they could have tried to set something on fire maybe burn some stuff in the barrel like outside yes I mean okay so is that what they’re talking about I always thought they were talking about like inside to heat because you
Know Weir is in there he’s probably immobile and probably freezing and so I always assumed they were talking about heating the trailer somehow and that’s what always confused me I guess yeah I think they might have tried heating the trailer itself they probably didn’t have anything in there other than a candle
Which is not going to generate enough heat to save anybody I don’t care who you are um but what’s also um frustrating is there could have been a way outside they could have started a fire to create smoke and if they would have created the smoke someone could have been alerted to that
And saying something’s on fire something’s burning um it it and they even used a helicopter to look for the guys and it seemed to have been used more than once and they claimed to have covered pretty good territory with the helicopter and it’s all part of the
Mystery like did you see the trailers did you which way did because that’s another thing we’re missing we do not have a map showing like yeah this is the area we searched right this is where we went and this is what we covered um n none of that’s available so at in the
End with the trailer being to the northwest of them or I’m sorry to the northeast of the car not to Northwest it’s still like okay how far did you go to look with the helicopter with your search and rescue teams because they were up there March and
Probably part of April um I know they really weren’t up there much in May but like when you were doing all this work when you had people up there what were you doing where did you go and in the end the US Force service said we told you about those
Trailers and everyone just started saying oh no he didn’t he didn’t tell us anything about those trailers uh we didn’t know about them and another problem was you had IA County Sheriff’s Office bu County Sheriff’s Office uh the trailer where the where Ted Weir and the
Some of the bodies were found uh was in plumis county and then there’s Suter County because Bill Sterling was from Yuba City so and then you had California sort of their Department of Justice involved too so you have a lot of jurisdictions coming in uh search and rescue teams from other areas the
Helicopters from the California Highway Patrol how much information’s being shared how well are people effectively communicating you know search and rescue efforts to each other it it’s just it’s sad and it’s frustrating because I I do believe the forestry service when they said like hey we told you about these
Trailers you should go check them and one of the family members was told that oh they wouldn’t have made it they you know because of their disabilities they they would have never found their way to those trailers it’s they couldn’t have done that yeah but
They did so if they made it there it’s it’s like they’re they’re being underestimated for their you know for their developmental disabilities or or mental illness and I think that still uh makes the fames mad to this very day and it’s part of the reason like they keep
Track of a lot of these videos that come out on YouTube or the podcasts that come out yeah and they always they immediately go to the comment section because they want to know what people think and you know it’s it’s either the same thing well Gary’s crazy because he
Has schizophrenia and the guys all had disabilities and they weren’t smart so there always a cop out I think to try and find an easy answer that they didn’t really have to look into um yeah and they say well they got lost but at the same time you know Drew
B brought this up to me when when I first started talking to Drew he said hey these guys don’t have a record of getting lost because they would take out of town trips but there’s never a story someone had like oh well you know that one time
They went out of town they got lost none of the family members mentioned anything about these guys getting lost before they said they had been the chico before so if they’ve gone to Chico they know how to get back and another thing is um which is really
Strange the day before they went missing they decided to have basketball practice and they would typically practice inba City but the where they would practice it hey we got a thing going on tonight sorry I just can’t use the gym but Bill Sterling wanted to practice and his mom’s like
Call around to places see what’s open and he said I found a gymnasium she’s like great where is it he said uh it’s down drive to a school that they may have never visited um they’re back you know what I mean so um it what what bugs me is like they they
Keeps see they get lost I’m like Jack madria is from lar R California he’s you know his family says he’s driven to Chico he’s been to Sacramento he’s driven to other communities he’s never had an incident um he was a reliable driver he just doesn’t disappear sorry and them
Getting lost I I know in Jack madruga family who I interviewed said he would have known well enough to turn around and go home and something happened that night where it something LED them to that road either something some perceived danger that they knew was coming they were trying to get away from
Someone or a group of people for whatever reason and and that’s what I believe like something went down that night and they were trying to get away and things just progressively just got worse and worse and worse and it just because there was no reason for them to
Leave the car they could have stayed in Jack Mug’s car and stayed warm you just don’t all get out of a car and leave um I wanna I want to backtrack for one second because there’s this there’s this question that it’s kind of a debate a little bit that I’ve seen happening
Between people and it’s comment I get a lot about um this case especially in my presentation of it too because I guess I guess what I said about it it’s different from what other people have thought in terms of U and in your book I
Saw it brought up a lot uh not by you but by people you know you interviewed and that’s in in any Theory involving the that Jack madruga and Bill Sterling died on the way to the trailer those theories especially in your book often have Jackie hwit making that it
Him making it there too alive yes it’s my it’s my position that if if Sterling and madruga died on the way there huitt likely did too do you know why people think huitt made it to the trailer when as far as I can tell there’s no evidence he ever was in
There as far from what I remember um Jack so okay so as as far as the parents go the last of the parents to die was Jackie ht’s dad and that was around 2018 he was the last surviving family member to be interviewed he was interviewed by a company called Mopac
Audio who did a Yuba podcast and in his interview he claimed that when he went into the trailer he saw something written down in Jackie’s handwriting um and people who I’ve talked to who knew Ted and Jackie would say there’s no way though Ted would have left Jackie
Behind or vice versa the bond that they had the Friendship they had like leaving a friend behind the die um and thinking about that myself I I just can’t bring myself to believe that Ted would let Jackie just go off like that and Parish I mean it’s interesting there’s there’s and I
I’ve had discussions with you know four of the five families uh Sterling’s family was the only one that didn’t want to be interviewed but that’s been consistent with them over the years but the other families I’ve talked to said you know it’s either doc stayed back with Bill Sterling or Bill Sterling
Stayed back with Jack madrugo when doc was Jack Mader’s nickname uh when when they were walking to the trailer that’s a possibility or they could have left together to go find help um but they said to see those two close to where they were they felt that for whatever
Reason those two were together but other people people that I’ve talked to familywise if they were going to put money on people getting into the trailer it would have been Gary Ted and Jackie all getting into the trailer together um see someone emailed me and they did say that thing about Jackie hitt’s
Father saying that I I didn’t know where they got that information so they got it from a pod but I when they told me that my immediate thought was if you’re going to say that there was evidence that Jackie hwit was in the trailer then you’re almost saying that Lance AES wasn’t
Really invested the lead investigator he wasn’t really invested in in solving this thing because there was never anything in the case File about evidence Jackie was in the trailer and and I feel like they wouldn’t have ignored that and in addition to that when you look at the
State of decomposition on all three of the bodies Jackie hwit was maybe more if not equally decomposed as all the other two men I mean they found his bones you and and he was must have been out there at least as long as madruga and Sterling in my opinion
Because he was there there wasn’t much meat left on the bones so to say I mean he was quite skeletonized and yeah that to me says he must have been there for a while and and and I got to think you know Ted Weir his his feet were so frostbitten uh and he
Was immobile for that and I mean I I don’t know these guys personally but you know I mean if their feet were all starting to get like that you have to to wonder you know the only guy that really has shown that he could really endure that kind of pain maybe
Was Maas because he he did some long TS on on foot across the country and and and endured that kind of thing I don’t know what do you think about that and I mean all valid points and I I had the same feelings about you know learning about decomposition and the people that
Put together the Mopac audio uh I think they talked to an anthropologist and a doctor about how long does it take to get for I mean it’s very morbid but for bodies to Decay like that um and they talked about how surprising it is that
You could go from point A to point B um now yeah with the temperature and with the thaw up there um animals unfortunately getting involved in this um it it the way that these bodies did decompose um they did say from their experience the way bodies do decompose I
Don’t want to get too graphic but uh they said at times you are surprised to see how it gets from one point to another um I’m not an expert in the field so I don’t want to be quoted on that directly I I I I I do completely
Understand your point of view especially like with Jack madruga Bill Sterling and Jackie hwit and yeah with Ted having frostbike we did Mopac audio did talk to someone I heard that interview that had experience with frostbite and they say when that kicks in especially if it’s in your feet walking becomes unbearable
So how you can do a TW they they were shocked that if they could do this 12 mile walk with frostbite right um because and I guess you know wasn’t Jackie wasn’t Jackie ht’s body found like a mile maybe a little bit more from the trailer itself on the and so to me
You know if he was at the trailer and then he left and we’re saying he only could make it a mile I mean either he was in horrible condition and he just decided to go out in horrible condition and died after a mile but to me that just sounds kind of
Weird why would he leave in the first place if he was in such bad condition why it seems like you know if you know going the other direction we’re saying he was walked almost 11 miles and would have collapsed which feels a lot you know I don’t know it’s one of those
Small points I get a lot of comments about and uh and a lot of questions about you know who made it to what at what time you know but we really we we don’t know I I fully could believe in your theory that they all made it there
In some sense you know um and that maybe they you know but then again you know we’re dealing with the situation where well we’re saying Jack you only made it a mile out from the trailer you must have been in horrible you know I don’t know it’s uh it’s hard to tell because
But even inside the trailer 30 of the roughly 30 SE ration cans were open right which is not a lot for four people across or five people across how many months were they exactly they think Ted weer was alive for eight to 12 weeks something like that yeah and I mean his
Cause of death was pulmonary edema which I believe that’s the pronunciation of the term but yeah I mean if you if you’re resting on your back uh and you have all that pressure on your chest that’s incredibly painful along with the frostbite and he was experiencing I
Think Gang Green from an infection like a sort of like a blood infection as well so yeah it wasn’t I mean it was the clock was definitely ticking for all of them but you know knowing Ted how he was able to manage for so long horrifying it it’s very rough
Conditions and and like we said like you know people get to the trailer and then they leave how long were they at the trailers what we don’t know could they have been in there a day or two could they have just gotten there and said
Okay Ted has a place to rest maybe we can I don’t know what kind of second when you can get um what happened and it it’s it’s all of these unknowns within the IBA County 5 case that we’ve been trying to put together since 1978 because the big reason is why they exit
To go into Orville because the only way they could have ended up on that road is if they went into the town of Orville which we’ve theorized that they could have had to stop and use a restroom or something happened where they had to pull off you know the highway and maybe
Somebody wanted to get something uh that they didn’t have a bears Market or whatever and something happens in Orville once they park the car somewhere they meet up with some people they know who have unfinished business with someone or some of them in the group or they run into some drunk
People in the community who might have you know seen that the guys were you know development developmentally disabled and uh may have wanted to start a fight or something and there’s all these questions because you got to get on that orille Quincy highway to get into the plumis and once you’re in the
Plumis you of all the roads that they pick they pick the the one that’s like middle nowhere um like towards a point that I talked to someone who worked in the plumis at the time they said there’s a point where they would have driven and the road would have been like there
Would have been a chain across the road uh blocking it saying you can’t can’t keep going so let’s see they see that sign or those chains they could have just turned around on the road pulled back onone that way down the hill okay but why’ they go up a side road that
Went nowhere and there’s nothing as far as signage that would have said oh yeah this connects to Highway whatever it didn’t and yeah there was a oh go ahead I was you certainly get the feeling that whatever drove them up there there was some unknown force behind it and but
What what kind of confounds that statement in a way is that madruga had his keys on him they were found yes body so the idea that someone else drove the car seems odd at that point that M would have the keys back at somehow and he’s
The one driving right and so if he’s the one driving how do you get them up there you know or you D is someone driving behind them which you know there is some some evidence to support that with one of shon’s own stories well no yeah yeah
Yeah you know he talks about I don’t he talks about so many things but you know one of his one of his stories was that a car followed him so closely that it made him so angry and and then he got stuck and then another one he’s saying somebody was following the boys
Essentially and you know and so it’s who’s following who and what’s you know they’re completely different stories and it makes me angry just thinking about it sometimes because it it’s like it sends you in completely different directions each time you know yeah I was talking to
A few people who had experiences in the plumis where they were just riding around up there and they just come across people and they were not very friendly and asking them like what are you doing up here why are you up here what’s going on and one
Person uh I was talking to said they were just taking like their motorcycle out they were riding around and they came on a road and the car was sort of at an angle and there was a guy with a gun almost like some sort of like walking dead in you know kind of
Scenario um where you’re running into some of these people and guy’s like what are you doing up here he’s like just ride my bike and he’s like go home and the guy’s like fine and I I’ve I’ve heard that from people like man there’s a different group of people up there in
The pomus I mean it’s you run across the wrong person it’s going to be you know it’s gonna be rough yeah and is that something that could have happened possibly I don’t know but I’ve always had the feeling that a gun was involved when I picture it in my head five has to
Be Five Guys running upwards you know like you don’t you don’t just go up you know they knew where they came from and they knew where they could get to maybe the mountain house or whatever running down is the obvious choice if you are free and stuck in that area but they
Went up and that really sounds like someone forced them up said go run up this way you know almost and the only way to do that with five guys like that would you know someone would need to have like a gun or you outnumber them by
A great deal you know and uh and and you know in my in my video I made on it I kind of proposed that maybe this was shones who I don’t think I outright said he would have a gun but that was always my thought maybe he had a gun and did it
You know I didn’t want to say it at the time but but now now you know but that doesn’t solve the problem of how did they get there right Theory and that’s what the parents were asked when you know they were looking for the guys and
They didn’t have much of Clues they said hey if someone comes up to a gun to your son how do you think they’d react everyone’s like well they’d be complicit they’d comply uh with a person with a gun and follow orders um and and that’s been mentioned quite a bit with this
Case is that someone probably had a gun and it’s the reason why the window was rolled down partially on the Montego is that madruga or someone in the car could have been talking to someone and they could have just pulled a gun on them and like get out because it also explains
Why five people would exit a car um well someone and I know people said well they were stuck and they freaked out well you know you could get out of the car and and try walking down the road uh towards um a place like mountainhouse
And the person I talked to that did work for the forestry service said when you get up into the plumis in certain areas during the winter time it’s beyond I mean he said it was super easy to get lost up there and to get disoriented because there was just something about
The place where if you start walking you want to make sure that you’re like marking your path or you’ve got a good sense of direction or you got a compass or something because it’s he he says it’s just kind of scary it could be scary up there and downright
Overwhelming being up in the plumis that time of year especially when you got snow everywhere and it’s just like an unforgiving landscape so well um I know you got to go real soon um but I just want to ask you know I’m sure people are going to wonder you’ve done a tremendous
Amount of research on this case your book again called things aren’t right it’s a great I’ll link it in the description so people can go and buy it if they want it’s got it has all the information you could ever want on the case but you’ve looked into this so
Much is there do you have a certain Theory you lean towards I’m not necessarily concrete or anything or do you have a certain someone you think might have been holding that gun you think may have been used where do you kind of go on this do you do you lean
Any direction not towards one person in particular I know that there is a possible there’s a lot of names that have come up over the years where people say you know you got to look at this person you gotta look at this person and sometimes you find names of people by
Talking to certain people like well there was this person and then there was this person what I what I believe is they exited the highway at Orville for a reason and I think it was either use the restroom or to do something and when they exited and wherever they
Stopped something happened at the place where they stopped and everything just began to unravel and I think they knew something was about to go down and it was serious and they decided to make a run for it and get away from the problem and that was unsuccessful
And either they’re forced up the road by someone or they get chased by someone and it’s the reason why the car is abandoned in the middle of nowhere it’s why they never stayed in the car um I mean they could have waited till morning to to get out of the car or
Find help and it it just didn’t happen and and that’s been my theory for a long time because when you get when you see oh they got lost you know I I’ve driven that way up into the plumis twice during the day and during the night you got plenty of places to turn
Around and there’s no way you make this drive by accident I mean it’s because if you drive around Marysville if you drive around giba City you drive up towards Chico it’s flat there’s you’re going to see trees especially because th it’s the area is tied to agriculture so you know
What the lay of the land is and you can see the the foothills of Sierra in the distance and once you’re up there you know you’re not heading home you’re going way far away from home and so something really went wrong and things weren’t right at the time and
It’s driven a lot of people crazy I mean this uh February 24th is coming up so this will be the 46th anniversary of the case uh because last year was the 45th and we’re still no closer to having any answers than we were back then and I’m
Hoping the book kind of jump start someone’s memory or allow someone to come forward and say hey this is what I know this is what someone told me because I’ve heard that myself from people in the area they’re like well this is what we heard happened I’m like
Well that’s pretty serious um and it’s something I don’t say public public because it’s like it’s just a rumor there’s a lot of rumors yeah and if there’s truth to the rumor then please help you know what I mean because what’s interesting is like you have all these
People who aren’t close who don’t know each other who are just random people in the area and they’re all kind of telling similar stories how does that happen I mean that’s it’s quite a I mean it’s quite a I don’t know urban legend on one hand it could
But at the same time if there’s fact to this you’re going to have to start connecting the thoughts and figure out like what happened to these guys but I I truly think whatever happened i’ I’ve often felt like the person that it was connected to was probably Gary maias I I
Think for whatever reason oh someone yeah someone that night may have you know they saw he might had a lot of enemies right yeah I mean Gary you know a month or two before the guys went missing had a couple fights at two parties and it could have been some
Unfinished business between this person and Gary and I think things could have gotten I it’s easy for things to get out of hand and I think that’s what could have happened that night again no solid evidence no concrete proof it’s just a theory and um I’m glad that so many
People are interested in the case and I’m glad that you had a chance to work on the video as well and I like the fact that you were able to look through the yba county sheriff’s department files as well and look through you know all the you know research information that we
Have and to continue to bring the story out there because if you look at like all the YouTube channels and podcasts I mean this story is popular not only in the United States but around the world and it’s a mystery that people have been talking about since 2018 when the story
Came back and I don’t know the person that brought the story back back into the spotlight but I’m glad they did because um this story could have been buried in time and nobody really caring and um I’m discovering there’s a lot of people who care and people are doing
Research in other countries on the case and really want this mystery solve so it’s great to see people like yourself out there doing the right thing and doing great work and trying to bring this story back into the spotlight and just giving people you know something to
Think about with this case and help out with theories and anything I mean it’s greatly appreciated yeah no thank you and I appreciate your work as well it was really cool to see someone who had uh interviewed all the family members um you I remember when I tried to get in
Touch with some of the family I remember I contacted one of them and they said they were they couldn’t talk to me because they had signed a contract with someone who was making a documentary about the thing and so I was like whoa there’s some somebody’s making a documentary in the background somewhere
About this I don’t know what it is but um so it was great to actually hear from the families through your book and um I anyone who is interested in this um on any level should check uh check out Tony’s book it’s called things aren’t right um it’s it’s got all the
Information you’d ever want I mean it’s very thorough like you said there’s nothing I would I could have thought to add to it and um and you don’t put a lot of you know I I like to also comment you don’t put a lot of your own stuff in
There until the end you know at the end you kind of go this is kind of what I think after but mostly you let the people do the talking who were involved in the case that’s important I appreciated that good you know there wasn’t a lot of your own narrative in
There which is great yeah a lot of these people never had a chance to talk to the press and it was their time to get what they wanted off their chest and I’m like let you know just share what you want to share and I’m glad that they did and I’m
Glad that they’re um you know they’re in the book and you can hear what they have to to say and it it’s uh great knowing that um still in contact with the families and we formed a great friendship and bond and you can’t beat that yeah yeah that’s great um so again
People check out the book things aren’t right link in the description um anything else you want to add Tony or are we good we are good thank you for having me on the show um like I said the two-part video series you did was great I really appreciate it um thank you all
Please check out the book and uh we’ll talk again sooner than later absolutely thanks Tony
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