Desert Sun, 9 March 1978 — Multiple Murder Ppssible Five Men Vanish In Wilderness [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Multiple Murder Possible Five Men Vanish In Wilderness

MARYSVILLE (AP) - Five slightly retarded men who vanished without a trace more than a week ago are the objects of an intensive hunt in a snowy wilderness rated as some of the roughest country in California. “We don’t know what happened to them -- we’ve a real mystery on our hands,” declared Yuba County Undersheriff Jack Beecham, who said multiple murder is one possible explanation. If the missing men became confused and wandered into the forest, not much hope is held for their survival, said Sheriff Jim Grant. "I was up there myself one day and the only way I could get out was with a compass,” he declared. "It's very heavily forested country, rough and mountainous and rocky.” added Beecham. "Some places you can only get in on horseback.” Teams of deputies from Yuba and adjoining Butte counties, some 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, have been searching the mountains on horseback, with dogs, in four wheeldrive vehicles and in a helicopter -- to no avail. The men were to attend a basketball game the night of Feb. 25 at Chico, and were to have gone back to their homes. But their car was

seen abandoned the next day some 20 miles east, on a Plumas National Forest road closed farther on by snow. The elevation of the site is 4,400 feet. The missing men, who lived with their families and were part of a program for the mentally handicapped, are Jack A. Madruga, 30, Marysville; William Sterling, 29, Yuba City; Ted Weiher, 32, and Gary Mathias, both from Olivehurst, and Jack Huett, 24, Marysville. Madruga and Mathias had driver’s licenses. The family and friends of the missing men have offered a $1,215 reward for information on where to find them. The men, Grant and Beecham said, were reported to be able to function very well with their retardation handicap -- except if placed in a stressful situation when their behavior tended to "deteriorate." “We hate to guess what happened to them,” said Grant. "They could have stopped to aid somebody, and the people they aided took advantage of them.” Beecham noted that a study of the personality profiles of the missing men shows their disappearance to be totally out of character. The men were to play in a basketball game in the area

the night of the day their car was found. "In fact, as time goes on it looks more and more like foul play," Beecham said. Grant said that among the tips received by deputies was

a telephone call from a woman in Brownsville, 30 miles from where the car was found. "She said she saw four of them that Sunday,” said Grant, adding he thought it

was impossible for the men to have walked that distance in the kind of terrain they were in. “The prevalent theory is it could be anything," said Beecham.

AP l.asrrphtu Huett, William Sterling, Jack Madruga, Ted Weiher and Gary Mathias.

FIVE WHO VANISHED Yuba and Butte County deputies are searching a snowy California wilderness for these five men, who disappeared more than a week ago. They are, from left, Jack