Murder Mayhem UK
Murder Mayhem UK
The Yuba County Five
0:00
-6:41

The Yuba County Five

In February 1978, five young men set out from Yuba City, California, to watch a college basketball game. They laid out their uniforms for their own big game the next day, bought snacks for the drive, and piled into a 1969 Mercury Montego. They were never seen alive again.

Days later, their abandoned car was discovered miles off their return route in the snow-dusted, rugged terrain of Plumas National Forest. The car was fully functional, but the men had mysteriously vanished into the mountain wilderness. Months later, a horrifying scene emerged: four of the five bodies were found miles from the vehicle one inside a Forest Service trailer surrounded by enough unopened rations and fuel to keep the entire group alive for months. The fifth man, army veteran Gary Mathias, vanished without a trace.

Why did five men abandon a working vehicle to march into a freezing forest?

What kept them from using the survival supplies right in front of them?

And who or what were they running from?

Join host Sam H Arnold on Murder Mayhem UK as we unpack the chilling, bizarre details of the "American Dyatlov Pass - a baffling historical mystery that has left investigators and families haunted for over four decades.

Listen now and subscribe! For more deep dives into history's most unsettling cases, check out the Murder Mayhem UK Substack.

Discussion about this episode

User's avatar

Ready for more?