I couldn’t imagine how terrifying if must be to have paranoid schizophrenia and be stranded while needing to take care of another person, I feel so bad for Gary
right, with my mental issues I don't even have paranoid or delusional symptoms and I can't imagine going off my meds. everyone would be so fucked up in that situation, plus being ill plus in withdrawals from meds? absolutely terrifying. maybe he was violent before but I can't help but feel for him
@@RisingRevengeance I 100% agree, my delusions get really bad and without meds itd be hard to take care of myself let alone other people. He most likely tried his absolute hardest to figure out what was real and what wasnt. I understand why he didnt start a fire that couldve made things much worse mentally and physically if he wasnt 100% stable. Honestly after Ted's death he most likely wandered off really out of it, he wouldve been the last one alive and being alone in that state wouldve been very hard mentally.
@@RisingRevengeanceCaregiving is difficult in the best of circumstances. Fighting mental illness and being in primitive conditions makes whatever efforts he took all the more heroic.
@@hannah.montana2194fr I've had a dangerous fever while getting off of a medication the correct way! Suddenly stopping can kill you with some psychiatric medications. Adding in those kinds of symptoms... if anything he's amazing for trying to take care of him like that! A true friend till the end.
@@N0va6669 I was actually thinking about how great a movie/video game you could make out of the story, but idk. With how recent it is and the boys' disabilities I think it would be hard to do the story justice. Something inspired by this story would be amazing though, like The Long Dark with psychological horror elements.
the thought that Gary could have even carried Ted the rest of the way there in an attempt to save at least one of his friends breaks my heart. The finger pointing at Gary and the infantalization of the others upsets me so much. the fact that this case could possibly have more evidence if police and investigators had viewed them as people instead of disabilities.
They are mentally disadvantaged. They are not savants. People wishing washing they got an aha moment and solve the issue unorthodoxically are not realistic
Oh PLEASE. He assaulted women and girls, snuck into peoples houses at night and assaulted many people. Stop pretending that’s a good person. Schizophrenia doesn’t make you a sexual predator
@@beanybabyrabie it does greatly affect your mental health and ability to interact with the world. Once Gary had the ability to properly threat his issues he became better. And he certainly isn't the type of person who would hurt his friends if what we know is anything to go by. He attacked people who to him would be strangers and there were many unreported cases. I think his crimes caused the boys to go up cause Josef was one of the Victims and a pissed off drunk at that.
@@beanybabyrabie oh! i didnt realize you were a doctor!!! wheres your degree? grow up. yes he did those things and those people NEVER have to forgive him. you NEVER have to forgive him. He did do those incredibly shitty things. and im sure he never forgave himself. and yet. he still got better because he was offered the help he needed and he took it and put forth effort to get better. Gary suffered from one hell of a head injury as a kid, which can absolutely fuck you up enough to make you violent and creepy and even give you paranoid schizophrenia. there are several cases even in modern times of this happening (its actually very interesting, you should look into it. there was even a dr phil episode where they discovered something similar about a little girl and got her help). the only difference is that we know more about it in modern times and provide help in childhood before these kids become adults. Gary got help for it later than he shouldve. and He still put in the effort not only to get better with this opportunity given to him, but he ALSO made efforts to make up for the shitty things he did in his unwell state. and im sure he understood if those people chose not to forgive him. he put in so much effort to get better and looked after his friends with a fierce care. there is literal proof that must have taken care of Ted for weeks before Ted finally died because Ted was alive long enough to grow facial hair. you can hate him and call him a horrible person, but he did that and you cant erase that fact. you should be more upset that his parents just... let it happen instead of getting him the help he needed sooner. this shit had been happening since he was a kid after he got a severe head injury and they JUST LET IT HAPPEN? anyway, you're a PRIME example of the people i was talking about who only see a monster because of his disability and therefore causing the boys to never get a proper investigation that they deserved. thanks for being a perfect example on what i was talking about!
Under your theory. gary’s last few days must have been extremely terrifying. A paranoid schizophrenic scared of going missing since childhood and thats exactly what happens, not only that, but he was likely the last to go. So he had to witness all of his friends one by one drop dead before being left all alone, unmedicated, and extremely likely fearful someone is chasing you which probably made him leave the trailer in the first place.
From your description I would imagine that he would have been looking forward to death and probably had a real calming effect when he realized that it was finally over.
I think Gary's death was suicide. Since a major symptom of Schizophrenia is hallucination, he would have been seeing hallucinations of the "chaser" and possibly his dead friends. So maybe he hid himself deep into the forest running away from those hallucinations and killed himself before the same thing begins again.
It’s also possible (speaking as someone who has obsessive paranoia) he saw what was happening around him, believed if he was found that no one would believe what had happened (understandably in my mind) and he just left. It would be better to risk death that to be in a situation where everyone around you would persecute you for the rest of your life.
I’m also wondering if they knew the others were dead. Like not definitively, but in the sense that they had a feeling Sterling, Madruga and Huett were dead. If not, they were probably thinking that the others had been rescued, and that they would be found soon
The idea of Gary writing those affirmations and practicing old coping methods in attempt to stay strong while his medication was wearing off is absolutely heartbreaking. Nonetheless, while caring for his dying friend and mourning the deaths of the others.
It also shows what a strong, clever, and insightful guy he was. Like, he knew what to do during a crisis, even if it could only ever help to a point. That is more than most people would be able to do.
Ty for this. My brother had schizophrenia and, he wasn't always the best, he never had evil in his heart. Mostly he kept to himself because of the schizophrenia.
I can't even begin to imagine the horror that Jack's father must have felt seeing his son's jacket, picking it up, only for his SPINE to tumble out of it, good lord
The spine would’ve been clean, either. We’re not talking polished bone. There would have still been dried flesh and blood and probably even other bodily fluids on it, as well as the coat, which must’ve smelled horrible once the spine unstuck from it. A horrible experience, which I hope never occurs again.
Someone in a red truck saw those boys and decided to harass them. The boys drove off in a panic up that mountain followed by the red truck. The boys got stuck and bailed out of the car, running off. The people in the red truck got out and maybe tried to call them back, realizing their joke went too far. They then drove off and never fessed up because the boys lost their lives. That's my theory.
I also think the same. It is most likely why they even went that road in the first place. The evidence doesn't provide much as there's no way anyone could identify those boys except for a drunkard who defecated and hallucinated.
I have genuinely never heard ANYONE talk about the fact that Gary was getting medicated, and was benefiting greatly from it. I have heard people relay this case before many times, and Gary is always written off as being dangerous because of his mental health with no regard to the fact that he was getting treatment and doing well at the time of the disappearance. Thank you for actually taking this man and his disorder seriously.
@@Socrates526they weren’t if they’d neglected to note he always took his meds, based on how his behavior was greatly improved. You can cover his symptoms, and behaviors, but that needs to include the history of the behavior. ESPECIALLY when he’s writing his mantras to fry and stay grounded in the midst of a genuinely horrible situation.
Not only was he medicated, but most people with schizophrenia are only a danger to themselves and not others. My uncle had schizophrenia and was such a sweet and amazing guy. He made beautiful art and loved animals. He and my cat were besties
@@marstar9410 yeah. Gary definitely did things that hurt others (groping, punching a guy, breaking into a house) but from his history, it didn’t sound like he did those with the purpose of causing harm, but rather for his own benefit. If he really loved his friends then I don’t see what the benefit to him would be from killing them or putting them in a dangerous situation on purpose, especially if he was going to just disappear after it too (plus the note it is evident he took care of one of his friends in the trailer. Why bother doing that if it was intentional). If he wasn’t on medication then I could see how this could have been an accident, an impulsive trip because something in his mind wanted to go to the woods, but he was on meds and was doing great so that doesn’t see, 100% likely.
Honestly probably the first video I've seen on this story that hasn't actively demonised Gary but rather treats him as a human being. Also first video that hasn't overstated the men's disabilities and totally minimised them to that. Honestly refreshing to see.
I think wendigoon is very good at viewing things from the perspective of others and the logistics what actions people would take versus what people expect them to take based on prejudice.
I was going to say something along these lines, but you put it better than I could. Wendigoons humanity and non-linear approach to these cases that have been covered a billion times is extremely refreshing.
The thought that two of them may have refused to leave eachother and died in the snow, the thought that gary took care of his last remaining friend for 2-3 months, playing cards, feeding him, eventually mummifying him, all while suffering from schizophrenia and freezing cold, the fact that he left alone without a trace
And the fact people chalked it up to gary just being the “crazy schizo” stereotype who lead them out there to die and essentially killed them all because the rest of them where “too feeble minded” to stop it is disgusting
@@vidgamarr5126and continue to spread the stereotype that being schizophrenic is most dangerous for those around you and not yourself. You’re the type to love the movie Split, aren’t you?
I can't imagine having to make the choice between searching for your child and possibly finding their decayed remains, and staying at home and doing nothing while having to trust orher people to do the search, knowing you could have possibly found them if only you were there. I'd probably look and take the risk of being traumatized forever.
Living in Yuba, you kinda hear this story go around, like everyone knows it by the time they’re 15, but you just kinda take it as ‘the town legend’, it’s a local joke to beware of Gary, the one who survived, he’ll getcha and take you up the mountain, now hearing all the details is… really upsetting.
Imagine dying horribly and because your body wasn't found like the others, people just start treating you like some boogeyman who's lurking around the area. As if this case wasn't tragic enough.
There are people up the hills, for real. Even in socal, there are definitely camps either drug runners or something else, they say a lot of people go missing in those camps, they pack up and leave just to leave very little evidence.
Right?? When he got the end of the definitive evidence and I noticed there was a lot of video left, I actually got really excited. I love that all of these videos have a very campfire-ey feel to them, it's really like having a ghost story being told you.
@@morgangunning30When I got dumped in December I was the exact same way. I don't know your situation, so I won't say "everything will be okay", but I can promise you that at some point things will get a bit easier
my brother has down syndrome and he absolutely would know to push the car. even if he doesn’t know the underlying reasons that pushing would help, he’d be able to work that out. the idea that all five of the men wouldn’t know to push is ridiculous
Especially when most of them are very familiar with working on cars too, not even mentioning how one of the boys seem to simply have a social disorder. That’s before mentioning the fact they have a former member of the military who has no intellectual disability at all, it’s honestly insulting to the memory of these men to say they got stuck and didn’t know how to push a car
I don't know how dense the snow is in California, but I know that sometimes it takes a lot of force to push a car out of the simplest situations. my mom got my car stuck once in a snow pile when pulling into our driveway (I thought I shoveled enough and didn't hear the end of it until the snow melted), but even though it was only 3-4 inches of snow, that car did not want out. So I think they all tried to get the car out, failed, and thought to stick together. Only to go the wrong way when they tried to head back down the mountain to get some help, maybe because they thought they got turned around at some point.
@@openyathirdeye6894 honestly? it was truck that just happened to be in the same area around the same time as everyone else. They might have followed the guy in the Volkswagen Beetle, maybe because they saw him swerving and thought they'd pull him out after he went off the road. eventually realized they didn't know where they were, so assumed this guy did. ended up on a mountain at the worst time and the one guy that was in the military might have remembered there was a survival zone up the mountain a ways. they tried to get there and all tragically died to the elements slowly
As someone with schizophrenia, it can’t be overstated how crazy it is that Mathias could do literally anything while going through withdrawal from his meds. I dropped from a high dose to a medium dose of Geodon and it basically left me bedridden for a couple of days. I would not wish antipsychotic withdrawal on my worst enemy.
ayeee i take geodon/ziprasidone too. but yeah, withdrawal is brutal for me as well, it often induces more hallucinations because of the insomnia that comes along with it
@@solaresaresis it rude to ask what you hallucinate? I heard stories of people who tried drugs like ayahuasca and wondered if that’s similar to what schizophrenics see
"He saw his son's jacket, and when he picked it up, his son's spine fell out." is one of the most disturbing things I've heard. Thank/screw you for telling this fascinating story.
@@aidanhansen793Just imagine the shock and horror that man went through when that happened, probably one of the worst things for a parent to experience
If Ted hated fire, then it makes sense Gary couldn't use some of the more intensive warming equipment. Imagine keeping your friend calm and warm at the same time
The one thing about this that has bothered me throughout the entire video is that most of the boys were doing things they never would have done. Scared of the woods, the dark, etc. ended up going to the woods in the dark. Why did they even take the detour?
perhaps the reason Gary never started a fire or turned on the gas for warmth was because of Ted's aforementioned fear of fire? obviously a terrible choice for the sake of survival, but it seemed in that moment all Gary cared about was making sure his friend was comfortable, and he knew starting a fire would stress him out. A really tragic case regardless, i hope all these boys are resting easy now.
@@T-adley14if there wasn't a space heater then they wouldn't have been able to heat with the electricity (barring the small amounts of heat that the electrical devices generate)
Imagine jacks father. Your son has been missing for several months, and of all the people searching, you happen to be the one to find something that belonged to him, and you pick it up, and his spine falls out. The sheer horror and disgust must have been unworldly.
I felt terrible for him when I heard that. That’s a detail I don’t remember ever hearing before. I don’t know how I could live after seeing that. My heart would be broken even further and mind would be haunting me so much I think I’d be suicidal at some point. I’m probably missing something pretty obvious here but I wonder where the rest of his skeleton was? Why was just his spine there? I can see him getting eaten and picked at by animals, maybe pieces of him getting dragged off but it seems odd that only his spine remained.
@@MightyMoon1well to be *completely speculative* it was probably that the spine was the only thing that came with the jacket when the father pulled on it. A vertebrae could have been caught on the inside and was disloged by picking it up The remainder of his bones were probably under the jacket and in the nearby area
@@Zaybith_7yeah, I feel it could’ve been a partial spine, could have been the thoracic segment/part of it since he certainly would’ve been clutching the jacket to himself, and parts could’ve caught on the jacket.
I do really like the idea that Gary did everything he thought he could to save the others. That despite whatever schizophrenic episodes he may or may not have been experiencing in that trailer, he was sound enough to look after Ted.
The detail of the positive affirmations etchings found in the cabin really got to me. Thinking about Gary just trying to keep himself stable while he was withdrawing from his meds, in a traumatic situation, so he could take care of himself and his friend.
I believe that taking care of Ted staved off the worst of the negative effects and after losing Ted Gary just succumbed and walked off into the wilderness.
My theory. Volkswagen dude had road rage chased the boys off the road, passed out drunk, next morning woke up and saw they didn’t go back to their car and panicked.
idk man i agree with wendigoon with how he doesnt believe the heart attack from him, but if he did have some heart condition why would he already be engaging in something that would make it even worse than it already is yk? but who knows it could be possible
2 problems with your theory is that 1. Jacks montego wasn't "off" the road. It was still on the road, it just lost traction and couldnt continue forward without external intervention (pushing) . 2. Joseph Slone's Volkswagen Beetle was found 100 yards *IN FRONT* of Jack's Mercury Montego. If he was "chasing the boys" wouldnt the car be.... y'know *behind* the Montego...? You kind of have to be behind something to chase it... Not to mention you think he miraculously passed out drink literally the moment after the alleged chase stopped 😂. So Joseph was capable of not only driving, but driving at a high rate of speed and lucidly enough to chase a vehicle up a mountain road in a fit of road rage, but magically as soon as the intended target of the chase gets stuck he passes them and suddenly not more than 30 seconds later he's on the side of the road passed out drunk 😂. *THEN* the boys see that their would be chaser has passed them and come to a stop in front of them. So why would they ditch the car and walk *forward* y'know *towards* the car of the maniac who chased them just to walk up the trail..... and as they pass the car they see the guy who was chasing them passed out. So then why would they not *go back to the Montego and get it unstuck and leave going back down the hill* 😂. It sounds like you didnt even put any actual effort or thought into this theory all, and in order to actually come up with theories that have any merit you need to be capable of using your brain, which it seems you cannot.
The legend about Gary writing his affirmations as he fought to survive and take care of his dying friend is truly heartbreaking. Same with the detail about candles and playing cards being used. In his final moments- even as he was battling unmedicated schizophrenia- he acted with so much compassion and determination. Even if it’s just a legend, it says a lot that there are local people out there who want to believe it.
Same with the story of him allegedly defending his more disabled friend from mockery at the basketball game Even if they aren't true, it is confirmed by many he was defensive of his friends and it makes me sad how much people seem to dehumanize him into some emotionless psychopath who would have been willing to kill all his friends at any moment, especially when it's pretty obvious he was proven to be taking care of a dying ted the best he could
This. When Wendigoon first told the story, the only thing I thought Gary could have done wrong was ''not light a fire'' because he was struggling with his unmedicated schizophrenia/paranoia and was scared something would happen to him and his friend if they were found. Schizophrenic people always get portrayed as monsters in medias when in reality they can be perfectly ok people. My teacher had a schizophrenic friend who the only thing he heard as voices (he thought it was God) was ''take care of stray cats and feed them'' which is pretty sweet.
What’s interesting too is you mentioned gary’s tennis shoes were found at the trailer, but ted’s leather boots were missing and never found. It would make a lot of sense for Gary, after Ted dying, to take his boots instead of the tennis shoes, to try and trek out of the snowy forest. Obviously boots would be the much better option for hiking through deep snow.
yeah. The people who think Gary went apeshit hollywood psychonuts and was responsible for the whole thing are...misguided, at best. He's very definitely dead, nothing left of his body.
Immediately when he mentioned Gary's tennis shoes were left and Ted's boots were missing I thought "Oh he must have took his instead, it would be better for walking in snowy woods"
i've seen a number of docs on this case, and i've never believed gary did anything malicious. i can't imagine how afraid he was, taking care of his friend and knowing that he was going to lose his grasp on reality. not being able to trust your own mind is a special kind of hell. i hope one day the families get answers.
@ripwednesdayadams Nothing about a an already violent person with a mental illness freaking out I'm a life or death situation and killing people seemed plausible to you? Lol
@@SirRavixofFourhornhe medication was likely still in effect while the other boys died. So unless his medication magically stopped working and he somehow immediately snapped and started killing his best friends (not how schizophrenia works btw), killing 2 of them with his bare hands at the beginning then running after the others for a total of 20 miles before killing one, sparing one, then feeding and taking care of the one he spared, Yes, it does not seem plausible
Your theory is the most plausible. I 100% think they got spooked and ran into the woods where they became disoriented. Especially in the cold and dark. I don't believe Gary Mathias did it either. Especially with the evidence he cared for one of the young men in the trailer for weeks and weeks. What a sad story. ETA: You did an awesome job with this! You didn't make it all supernatural but instead told it as the real tragic story it was all while showing amazing compassion. Great video!
Gary Mathias was my uncle. His sister Sharon was my mother. I appreciated your video and expressing my uncles mental illness with compassion rather then treating him as the villain like many others have done. Thank you for taking the time to put this together. To everyone; Please remember his family is still here and watching these videos too… and still grieving his loss for 45 years now…
I believe, like Wendigoon seems to, that your uncle in fact most likely died a hero. Why they got lost is pretty irrelevant, but the evidence we have suggests that Gary successfully led the way to shelter, they simply weren't as capable as he and Gary, try as he might, could not save them. His compassion and dedication to his friends is evident in the state of Ted's remains and the cabin where Gary attempted to nurse him back to health. As someone who has experienced it before, I can say that suddenly going off your medication causes the symptoms to return in force. Gary was struggling with his illness the whole time that he was trying to save Ted's life, and afterward as he lived beside the corpse of his friend. Your uncle is a tragic figure who should be remembered for his courage and fellowship.
The thought that Gary, who loved his friends so much, he'd pick a fight to defend them, might've been trying his hardest to keep them all alive only for them to die one-by-one in front him but ultimately being forced to leave them behind while dealing with his waning medication genuinely broke my heart. It's so sad, I can't stop thinking about it.
@@JDoe-gf5oznever work in law inforcement/detective institutions. If THAT'S all the "proof" you need that he killed them, your opinions are worthless and you shouldn't be taken seriously even a little.
Let me be totally honest with you. I really appreciate how you humanize your subjects, not just “they were all mentally handicapped” or “they just kept this irradiated man alive for three months”. Youre a quality guy for doing that
TBH, as an autistic person, I would armchair diagnose two of them (I don't remember the names lol) as autistic. They seem to fit a lot of the criteria. They do a lot of things and showed a lot of behaviors that me and many other autists have, and perhaps they were good enough at masking to go mostly unnoticed by everyone else. Edit: I think Ted and Jack Madruga were the ones I was talking about, Ted, and the guy who really liked his car. I totally could be wrong though, this is just my crackpot theory.
Many of these stories ive heard of before, but Wendigoon goes about it with a totally different perspective that makes the story that i believed i had an otherwise simple understanding of, sound like that something totally new to me. Like i thought the irradiated man story was a cruel against-his-will experiment to see how long a human can last but now i understand that they and even himself wanted to survive. They pulled the best doctors from around the ENITRE world to save that mans life. It wasnt an act of malign curiosity it was a genuine attempt to save someones life from a force of sheer nature
i like how he doesn’t really get into the supernatural stuff that could easily be slotted into the missing parts of information is very respectful. like obviously it’s easy to just make a story like this into some campfire scary story about a mysterious force that compelled all these men to run into the woods and die, it takes away from the aspect that these are REAL people that REALLY died for some unknown reason. and as fun as it is to speculate on supernatural forces it’s definitely not as respectful to just turn it into another scary story. it is a truly horrific tragedy and i think he covered it greatly here. justice for Gary fr, no Gary slander will be tolerated after hearing this version of the story 😤
Yeah, I like scary supernatural stories sometimes. But I never believe they are true. In a case like this where five men actually went missing, I want to know what really happened. And that means leaving out the supernatural stuff, since I already know that didn't happen.
i noticed that Ted was scared of fire which might relate to why no fires were started inside of the trailer. maybe gary went to the shed to see what was inside but ted being scared of fire did not want there to be a fire. which is incredibly chilling and heartbreaking for gary because he wants to help his friend but he is terrified of the thing that could save him.
@@mateosvargas3669 This was back in the day when improperly used heaters were fire hazards, plus the gas itself carried a (probably small if the heater was used correctly) risk of blowing up. It makes perfect sense to me, as someone who's also afraid of fire, that he would rather take his chances with the cold than with an unfamiliar heater.
That's what I thought too. I hadn't heard that Ted was afraid of fire before, but knowing that now the lack of fire and untouched heater both make perfect sense. I, as someone who is afraid of fire, would rather take my chances with the cold than risk burning to death from an out of control fire or being blown up by an unfamilar heater filling the trailer with too much gas.
id thought about that but why ,if they were forced,would whoever take the car just leave it up a mountain? I thought,a car jacking at first but,still doesn't make sense
It just means they didn't intend to leave the car, their reason for going up there could be as simple as taking a detour to prolong their time together.
My takeaway from this whole thing is that Gary was a great friend and a real trooper to the end, loosing grasp on reality yet continuing to care for his last friend and even covering him up when he eventually died is hearth breaking and really sweet at the same time
@@JDoe-gf5oze wasn't f***ing delusional when all of this started. He was medicated. Three of the five died within the first two days of the disappearance. It takes more than two missed days of medication to undo the level of progress he achieved. Stop commenting, you're a neanderthal.
Maybe the flashlight and three blankets were from Gary coming back down the trail the first night after getting Ted safely to the cabin, looking for the other three to try to get them there as well, before something forced him to abandon his search.
10:59 I am completely unaware of this case, aside from the title sounding vaguely familiar to me. But after hearing the description of each of the first four “Yuba boys”, the instant he began to describe Gary, my inner lazy small-town sheriff immediately screamed, “Open and shut case!”
I realized in the middle of this that Gary would’ve been unmediated during all those weeks he spent with Gary. It’s terrifying how as he’s trying to take care of his friend he’s losing control on his sense of reality and that could’ve been why he left. Maybe Ted dying pushed him over the edge and he left only to die somewhere we’ll never know about. When you hear someone has mental illness, all you see is the mental illness and you forget that they love people and care about others and have goals like anyone else. It’s so goddamn tragic.
I think the reason why Gary didn’t light a fire or turn on the gas to get warm wasn’t because what chased him up the mountain was so scary he couldn’t dare make anything that get them caught I think he probably had a scizo attack and believed that something was JUST outside the cabin waiting for them to come out so he stayed their for a couple months and once Ted died he decided that he might as well take his chances and make a run for it
He could have had a psychotic break, and both didn't want to leave his friend, but "couldn't risk a fire" so he stayed in the cabin with him until he either got well enough to leave together, or waited until he passed away, then risked the climb back down himself and just didn't make it. **Something** spooked those boys up that mountain though.
@@Bigfortniteguylovesfortnitethey might not care, and it might not affect them, but it DOES affect people living with similar disabilities today as well as their families. Creating negative stereotypes and stigmas can absolutely harm disabled people.
It's incredibly sad to think that Gary may well have done everything he could to help his friend before his mental health degraded due to a lack of essential medication. It's worse that if that was the case the man most people blame for their deaths was the one who did the most to help them all.
@@alexc4731yeah for all intents and purposes Gary’s 500 mile trek proved that he can move silently and unnoticed as a vagrant, since his parents didn’t even know he’d left until he was on their porch. It’s likely he made it back alive and after seeing news articles and reports calling him the culprit, he ran from the area and likely survived for some time on the lam.
Friend. As someone who lives with schizophrenia, I can not put to words the feelings that I have over just.. like.. the benefit of the doubt you give Gary, despite his many faults and acting out. We're not monsters, and I know it's stupid, but it means so much to see someone with your clout and pull to just treat us like people. You're a very bright light in a very dark world. And as always, you're welcome for watching.
You can tell that he has empathy and values human life. To truly care is a blessing and a curse, much like (but very different from) other peoples struggles. It’s not hard to use your pain to empathize with others, even if you cannot understand- you should at least try. No one should die or suffer more simply for being different.
It's really not about your morals but rather your brain playing tricks on you. A man beat his mother to death not because of malice but because he believed she was covered in bees and he was beating them off. Bloody and brutal but I don't doubt the kid loved his mom and felt sickened he did that.
I felt the exact same way. As another paranoid schizophrenic person, we are so demonized through media and society. It made me so emotional that Wendigoon gave Gary the benefit of the doubt and didn't use his mental illness as a guilty sentence.
During my education studies i had a “sponsorship” where i would be a “big sister” for a special needs kids (11y/o) at his after school day care (in the school, so i would come to meet him) and would often meet his classmates. Many were exactly like this. Innocent to a fault. Had an older kid (16-17 y/o) with ID and OCD who seemed to take a liking to me and would often try and join in when we were doing “homework” (they never get homework, we just practiced writing words), but his OCD and need for organizing would turn it into him trying to put things back, sometimes even as we used them. Like we would use colored pencils and he would take the one we put down and put them into the box or start talking about him being in charge of the classroom and start cleaning up (it was clean) until the teacher would tell him to get out and let us work lol. His intentions were good, he was good friends with my kid, but he had no understanding of boundaries, not being part of something or that making a mess is ok when you are doing crafts and that the cleaning comes AFTER the activity, not while performing the activity…. I have many such stories, my time with them was the most exhaustingly fun i had, though also let me see the sadder parts of it, like how on my second day one of the kids got an epileptic episode or how the “big sister” of my kids best friend decided she didn’t want to do this anymore after only two/three meetings and then just canceled or outright didn’t come without notifying at all - something that is hurtful to any kid, but is even worse for a kid with middle to low functioning autism. He would cry to me and ask to be with us during sessions… it would break my heart because they wouldn’t let me be his big sister too (conflict between the kids sessions and what not). At the end of the year i met his mom and she was so thankful that i tired to include him with us as much as possible, that i cried all the way back home. He would always have the biggest smile seeing me, drooling all over my shirt, and he was just shining from happiness…. I miss all those kids so much… even the ones who would just hit me as a form of getting my attention, because once you gave them the time to know you and understand you and you them, they would so much of their world and its so colorful! Im sorry i went on a rant, its been a year and every time i think of them i get emotional because they taught me so much about life (i suspect i am on the spectrum, diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and was advised to get an autism diagnosis, but i don’t have the money) and i am endlessly thankful for them seeing me as their friend.
It's cool my oldest son is high functioning and one of his cousins is non verbal and the other talks but he can't be still. I was their caretaker for a while and they are so sweet . It's a good experience to be with them .
I was listening to the video from another room at that point and was like "oh no, my heart breaks for that father, what a terrible thing to find your sons own jacket..." and then Wendi quickly followed up with the spine falling out and it made my stomach turn. Good God only knows how a parent could even fathom that combination of events on top of everything else...
Everybody nowadays is walking around with a smartphone. I’m surprised more murderers don’t record their deaths and send them to all their contacts. I cannot think of anything more vicious. Shoulda bought me that Nintendo, mom.
My mom and aunts actually knew one of the boys. He went to their church and played for the church baseball team. She said that she watched your video and out of all of the ones she's seen on the topic yours is her favorite. She appreciated the fact that you covered in detail what everyone's disabilities were and didn't pin the blame on solely one person. So, because my mom asked, Thank you very much on how you covered this topic. It is appreciated by at least four people who knew one of them
Yeah, my cousin's brother's best friend's girlfriend's foster child knew someone in Georgia who had heard about this happening after getting out of rehab.
I really appreciate that Wendi took the time to explain thoroughly their mental capacities and disabilities, it is really more respectful than writing them all off as having a mental capacity less than that of a toddler. I’m disabled, special education stating from 7th grade - whenever I left in person school because I was doing horribly. Even with this, I can guarantee that I would at one point know to push a car. Mental handicap doesn’t mean someone is stupid or incapable of thought. Let alone all 5 not thinking of that. I don’t know what happened, but the idea of people claiming that there wasn’t foul play simply because they think the boys were inept is horrible.
The thought that one of the boys may have died in the snow and one of the others couldn't leave his side and died with him is absolutely heartbreaking. I've watched videos and read theories about these guys before, but the way Wendigoon layed the details and what I think to be more credible and realistic theories out in this video really got to me. I don't know whether to love or hate him for this.
@@18aplateindoors I don't know where you got that, but there are several cases of dogs eating the dead bodies of their owners after starving for a few days.
@@18aplateindoors except it's not a fact. if a pet has not been fed for a while they will nip at their owners to try and wake them up and if they taste blood their instincts will kick in if they've been starving for a few days. this not a cat or a dog thing, we're talking about animals here.
@@avelynn5976 yo u can say or think whatever u want but I’m telling u exactly what my neighbor who has been working for colonies that clean up like crime scenes and self deletings, etc, and multiple times she has came into a house with a man dead and a dog layed down dead next to him and houses with cats and the cats start to eat at the people but think whatever u want it doesn’t matter to me at all tbh
Something about Gary staying with Ted for months just to keep him safe and care for him breaks my heart, not alot of things in cases like these bring me to tears like that, knowing they were both probably cold and scared, and imagining how Gary felt most likely watching Ted die and knowing the other 3 were already gone too, being all alone must have been terrifying. I do believe that he must have died in the wilderness too, but the fact he's never been found terrifies me.
I can't imagine how scary it is because his medication wearing off and being paranoid with the knowledge of someone being after you that made you too scared to light a fire in the first place AND being all alone Not only was it sad but also probably pretty frightening too
He likely could have used the supplies to get himself back down the mountain to safety, too. But he stayed with Ted until Ted passed. I think he started to head back after that, but it was too late at that point to make it.
@@sohji9412 Well if someone or something had driven them up there... I doubt his paranoid schizophrenia woulda let him think that it was safe to travel back down.
@@almond3066 oh definitely. i don't have schizophrenia but i have bipolar disorder. not being able to get my medication is a complete phobia. its one of my worst fears. i can't imagine going through withdrawals and the growing paranoia while watching my loved ones die. i'd be surprised if Gary didn't unalive himself.
@@TheLikenessOfNormalI don't have schizophrenia, but I experience occasional random paranoia (not sure if the proper term, this is the one I use). I'm lucky that it's not too intense, lol. If someone or something was chasing me or I had convinced myself that someone or something was chasing me, I'd probably drop on the spot or run as far away as I possibly could get. I can only imagine how it would feel to have that intense "something is wanting to hurt me" feeling coupled with having issues understanding what was and wasn't reality. It must have been absolutely terrifying
From what little I know of Schizo, the meds were more than worn off by the time Gary was wrapping up Ted in those blankets. They were most likely worn off while he was caring for Gary. This would mean that despite suffering possible withdrawal symptoms and fighting the paranoia schizophrenia itself, he was devoting everything to trying to help his friend. Imagine fighting demons inside of you that terrified you and made you go crazy, while simultaneously fighting off horrible weather and increasingly poor odds of survival in the wilderness. All while trying desperately to keep your best friend, this person you cared for deeply and desired to protect, alive for just a little bit longer. And then having to wrap them in blankets because burying them is not an option in the snow. It’s beyond tragic. Horrifying and disheartening. Yet, in a way, Gary was a fighter and was a hero for as long as he could try. I would theorize that his mindset was so entirely focused on his own survival, as well as Ted’s, that he managed to fight off his mental illness. His mind simply have the time or energy to have serious schizophrenic episodes. Under immense survival pressures, true character is revealed. This will bypass even mental illness to an extent. So even if Wendigoon’s theory might be wrong, we should know for sure that Gary was this protecting and caring guy provided all the evidence that almost proves Gary was Ted’s last lifeline.
As someone with schizophrenia, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for being kind and understanding, because I can not put in words how afraid I am of people seeing me as a threat to others. Thank you.
I've had a number of friends and acquaintances with different types of schizophrenia, and they're all wonderful people whose brains battle against them. It's a cruel condition, but it doesn't define any of them. (HUG)
I know, right?! I’m also schizophrenic, and I only open up to people who are understanding because usually, when they don’t they think I’m crazy or become cautious. We can’t help being neurodivergent. Kind people are such a breath of fresh air, especially when they advocate for people like us and look into the subject with care. -w-
@@SewardWriterIt is seriously cruel, it makes daily life difficult and I don’t even want to wake up some days. I hope they’re getting the help they need, and I hope you have a good day.
an alternate reason why Gary stayed in the cabin without using the torches or heater (other than him being off his meds) is he didn’t realize how bad off he was and wanted to conserve his resources not knowing how long he’d be there
Almost like how a lot of people died of dehydration out in the desert despite having plenty of water in their containers, they want to ration out their supplies and underestimate how much they need to survive.
My husband and I did this when our apartment was on fire. Our bedroom and apartment were filled with smoke, the only reason we got up was because the dog wouldn’t go back to sleep. Like we actually talked about it-we didn’t want to get up because my husband had a big day at work.
I woke up to a chair in my bedroom being on fire. No smoke alarms. Funnily enough, when the thick black smoke from burning synthetic materials fills most of the room and you have to drop to the ground to get air that your body doesnt violently reject, it has a way of motivating you
My stepfather was a very lovely man who was consumed by schizophrenia. He was managing very well, nobody could tell anything was wrong. He was devoted to the church he attended, donated to the church and helped people in that comunity. He married my mom and shortly after that stopped taking his meds as he thought life is going so good he didn’t need them. In 18 months after they married and my brother was born, he slowly became worse to the point we had to leave for our own safety. As we could retrace from what our home looked like, the last two weeks of his life were the most horrible thing that anybody could go through. Unfortunately he died at christmas after a car crash, while trying to keep up some normalcy and trying to finish building our house. Even tho those were the worst times in my life, after ten years I still can’t comprehend how such a lovely and patient person could be taken over by their own mind.
Just imagining how hard you would have to fight to keep it together given the situation to look after Ted is exhausting. Imagining working that hard while battling my own paranoid schizophrenia is overwhelming. The idea of fighting so hard no just for himself but for the sake of his dying friend just breaks my heart.
Another thing I bet Gary had to deal with is withdrawal. I know with my antidepressants and dealing with withdrawal I couldn't leave my bed without extreme difficulty and couldn't walk in a straight line. Gary going through withdrawal from medication available at the time sounds awful. I have so much respect for him.
Malice? No. Bad decisions and mistakes? Yes. Ted was kept alive for MONTHS by Gary, and he was wrapped well head to toe in blankets when they found him. You don't murder your friend and then lay them to rest like that after having tried your best to keep them alive for that long. Something else happened to those boys, and somewhere out there, Gary is waiting to be found and put to rest himself.
The biggest mystery is honestly why were they there. At the time of the incident, you need to be purposefully travelling to the area where the boys got out of their car from where they left and they had no plans or reason to be there as they were preparing for an event at the time as well. Everything else makes sense given what the families, witnesses and police say about the situation and boys. The main issue at the site is why did they leave as they did which can be explained by looking at the main witness and he seemingly has bad blood with Gary from when Gary was not medicated. So the why they were there is the biggest mystery that needs to be solved. Were they harassed by some people who then chased them off their path leading them to follow the primary witness up the mountain or something else
@@beanybabyrabie eitherway, Gary had shown great care and love to his friends and the families do not think he was capable of doing such a thing even as his meds wore off
@@victory8928 one of the boys had a friend along the highway that lead up in the mountain, you had to take a certain exit which they missed because the road was dark. I feel like they were trying to see their buddy and then while waiting for the exit to come up they missed it and then thinking it was still coming up they ended up just driving straight until they ended up at a dead end, as to why they didn’t turn around and just drive back down, thats the part that doesn’t make sense to me. One thing we often take for granted is how much we use gps to get around, its hard finding your way around a city you don’t know in broad daylight let alone a dark mountain pass with no gps and then getting lost, maybe where they ended up had them so turned around they decided to stay until morning to gather their bearings and then something happened in the night.
Plus, one possible explanation for Gary not lighting the fire, Ted was afraid of fire. It's bittersweet to think that Gary was trying to be considerate of his buddy's feelings, even in the most dire of situations
If i ever am responsible for an unsolved case or know what happened, i would leave a letter after my death explaining it because no matter what horrible things may have happened, nothing is worse than not knowing.
@@laininbluescourt That does make sense. Evolutionarily speaking, the woods at night is not a safe place given you might get gobbled up by wolves or bears or cougars. That being said, I think the woods are very peaceful and serene, especially at sunset and at night.
@@danielthemaniel7934 They way I see it as there are multiple types of woods. There’s the “woods” that’s like a spot of green out in a city somewhere, there’s the woods that most of us have gone into that actually can be pretty peaceful and stuff, and then there’s the Woods. Where men die and the forest creatures call home.
True that lol I life in the middle of the woods out in the country to where my porch light is it aside from the moon and once the sun goes down I don’t like to stray too far from that porch
I've researched this topic before and I am an adamant supporter of Gary's innocence. He has an upstanding citizen on his meds and always protected his friends. Even after his meds wore off he still kept Ted alive for months. A man who will do that would not kill his friends.
The problem with that assertion is that schizophrenia is characterized by EXTREMELY disordered thinking. I can't say what he was thinking; NOBODY can. That's why although I FEEL like Gary wouldn't have hurt or killed his friends, I can't rule it out with absolute certainty, sadly...
@@geoffreyentwistle8176 My father has schizoeffective disorder. I can tell you that even though paranoia and disordered thinking are the main traits of an episode, a victim can still tell who their friends and family are.
I don't think he hurt any of them intentionally. He was a paranoid schizophrenic. He may have had an episode possibly believing someone was following them so he tells his friends that they have to hide. The rest of them with their lower mental ability may have just trusted him without questioning it. Remember another one seemingly had a lack of common sense so he probably just agreed with Gary that they had to run and with two out of five saying they had to go the rest surely followed.
One interesting detail that you didn't talk about is the fact that, according to wikipedia, "The Montego's undercarriage had no dents, gouges or even mud scrapes, not even on its low-hanging muffler, despite having been driven a long distance up a mountain road with many bumps and ruts. Either the driver had been extremely careful or it was someone familiar with the road, a familiarity Madruga was not known to have; his family said that Madruga would not have let someone else drive the car."
@@absurdum-the-artist I don't think it sounds odd - he loved his car and worked on it all the time. He would have driven his car carefully because he really cared about it, and knew that he would have to fix any damage to it later
Having driven an ordinary sedan on roads most people wouldn't take their pickups numerous times I see nothing out of the ordinary with it. My question would be 'why in the world would anyone expect any damage to the vehicle from driving on a paved road?'. We're not talking today's plastic air dam garbage that can't even clear a standard curb, this was an 8'' clearance car.
It’s suspicious to me that a red truck was a seen by three different strangers at three different points in the timeline. Hunting before the night of the disappearance, during the night of the disappearance, and two days after. It is weird Ted was seen hunting with a stranger.
As soon as I heard that Gary had paranoid schizophrenia I knew what the most popular theory would be. As someone with schizophrenia, I cannot thank you enough for your sensitivity and compassion regarding an illness most people tend to immediately use as an open and close type of out. I was a little disheartened at the first mention of the most popular theory, but you did an excellent job handling it. Bravo!
As a person who is schizophrenic myself, I'll admit my heart sank hearing the theory, but then I was pleasantly surprised when Wendigoon didn't just buy into it and end the video there. People with schizophrenia aren't evil or even bad, we're all just people with a devastating disease that's been hiding in our genes or our environment until it strikes. It's not some punishment from god for being a bad person, it's just an illness.
BPD and schizophrenia related disorders are still SO demonized in media and pop culture. This is what we should be talking about when it comes to mental health acceptance and education!
I feel like at worst Gary’s schizophrenia spooked him into going up the mountain. And because he was the leader maybe the other boys believed what Gary was scared of was real and followed him.
@@soph5306At worst, yeah Though my hunch is probably that a group of people who knew of Gary's past, or were one of the people Gary wronged and hasn't forgiven him in the slightest, wanted to get the Boys for whatever reason, so the Boys probably ran because of it, and knowing how Gary is protective of them, he probably concluded that he'd rather run and not get the others hurt, instead of fighting them off like I assume would be the case when it's just like one or two people, so I think it was a noticeably numerous amount in that group.
Hearing you talk about the ups and downs of Gary's battle with schizophrenia, ending up doing much better with medication and making strong friendships was both heartwarming and heartwrenching knowing where the story would end up and how the media would portray him. I can't thank you enough for not putting so much weight on the boys' mental handicaps and disorders, and actually recognizing them as people rather than an extension of their conditions.
Exactly. I also struggle with mental illness, but even on my worst days/months, I can't imagine doing anything to hurt my friends. If anything, I would do something desperately unethical to someone else trying to hurt them.
...but he was on medication, which might explain him doing something like this. It could have been he didin't take the medicine for a while even. His violent tendencies were common place, as explained in this very video, and the boys were displaced, and hid from SOMEONE, and then, later, were either killed or ran away several hundreds of meters.
@@revisit8480 You're telling me that you equate punching somebody, getting in bar fights and not respecting boundaries to killing your closest friends on purpose?? You'd rather believe that a Gary killed the other boys for 0 reason, when evidence shows he cared for Ted for weeks in the cabin? The boys' corpses weren't hidden by anything other than heavy snow and natural elements, which tend to hide things.
Additional Information: When The Missing Enigma did his video on the case, he asked the authorities involved in the case for additional case files, but was refused public access, because Gary Mathias is still missing, and believed, but not confirmed, to be the victim of foul play. So it seems that the FBI and the sheriff department share the sentiment that Gary tried to save his friends, and that the boys were forced up the mountain.
@@steele_heart77 better yet, imagine a three letter agency and the general public agreeing on common grounds. Since it seems both them and the (modern) public share the opinion that Gary wasn't responsable
i can't imagine how terrified gary must've been... just feeling your sanity slowly slip away while watching your friends die... i hope he's at peace wherever he is
Here's my rule of thumb: Never trust a grieving family when they talk about possible motives of other people especially when it's contradicted by other people statements. Absolutely take it into consideration but never hold it higher than other evidence. EVERYONE said on his meds he was an upstanding citizen he got his life together, but all the family held onto was "well he had a criminal past and was violent!" Completly disregarding and the facts that he has grown, sought help and changed his behavior and made amends. They just needed someone to hate and to blame.
"on his meds" being a key phrase. He certainly ran out at some point during this ordeal. Not saying that he became violent, but there's plenty of danger you can put people in and through without a closed fist.
@@bronsontolliver9027owever considering everyone’s cause of death, that seems unlikely; gary’s body was never found, and so we have no idea of what condition he was in. for all we know his hands were frostbitten and he could no longer open cans eventually, which is when they stopped using the rations. honestly gary being an aggressor of any kind in this case is like… a wildly out there theory when you look at what little evidence there is tbh. at most by the time his meds wore off he may have still been too paranoid and scared to turn on heating or start a fire - and ted was scared of fire, so he might have not wanted one to be started. wrapping up a body is usually a sign that a person cares for the person and he may have even stayed with his body in the trailer for some time before leaving, in which case covering it is what most people would do. i would guess he wandered off afterward either to try and get to civilization or to die (bc all his friends are dead and he’s probably still suffering from medication withdrawals) or just bc sometimes schizophrenic ppl do that during episodes and god knows thats enough to send you into one. someone will probably find a skeleton that gets dna matched to the guy up in the mountains somewhere one day & then the only real mystery will be why they went up there in the first place 🤷🏻♀️
Gary’s past wasn’t an issue when they were all hanging out to begin with. Plus, Gary tended to sexually assault women and then fight their boyfriend/husband, why would he turn on his friends?
@@nckojita Not once did I say that I believe he harmed any of his friends nor did I say he became aggressive. A man "too paranoid and scared to turn on heating or start a fire" was a mortal danger to Ted.
This is the first case that made me cry outright. I can’t imagine Gary’s horror at having to write affirmations while he was in withdrawal and also taking care of Ted. That’s just a terror I can’t get over. Thank you for being so empathetic while retelling this case.
literally, im sure Gary remembered what it was like to be unmedicated and didnt want to seep back into that while not having a supply of medication. Gary seems like a really great guy, and just needed medication to keep things out of his control in check.
it’s so upsetting to think that instead of getting themselves to safety they waited next to their dead or dying friend so they wouldn’t be alone. whatever happened inside the trailer is the most heartbreaking part for me. it seems like gary tried so hard to keep ted alive, even after his medication wore off. ted having gary’s shoes, and being wrapped in 7 blankets it feels like he was willing to risk his life to try and keep ted as warm as possible
Ted might be the thing having going, and if ted became a pretty responsibility person, it comes usually with guilt having people die under your watch. And 3 died in a move that was a good guesss probably to safety, following tracks. Ted might be the reason he wanted to kive anymore, especially given that conditions would get to a person with no baggage too. like anyone there would get wonky and in a dark place, add a sudden withdrawl, that really messes with you, never do sudden withdrawls. and the felt guilt in his mind, its probably why he did unalive by snow loosing ted. He did not deserve any suspicion, :( its just tragic , but blaming him wtf
This story is like a pinnacle of horror and heartbreak at the same time. It could’ve had so many good endings. But it’s like we live in a reality where everything went bad. Just tragic.
Another tragic detail if Wendigoon's theory is correct; consider the fact that the families' didn't trust Gary. Gary most likely was very aware that people didn't trust him, especially if he was going around making amends, as that would require him to acknowledge the affect he had on other people. After everyone died, Gary could very well have, along with guilt and grief, felt fear over what people might think. I don't think it'd be a stretch for him to worry people would blame him, since, well, they did. If he's also by now a couple months off his medication, I think it makes more sense he might panic and just want to run away. I haven't finished the video yet so forgive me if I'm just repeating something,,,,
I also have some serious suspicions about Gary. He’s almost definitely dead too, but he’s got a LOT more red flags pre-incident than the other other guys.
@@CharlieApplesit could’ve even been as simple as something like he panicked and ran off and they were trying to look for him, but I think whatever the reason if for them being out there probably started with him
I think, if something scared the guys bad enough to go to the mountains, Greys schizophrenia got the better of him. People without any prior history of mental illness can go paranoid if something spooks them hard enough. A real "their chasing me" moment could have set off Gery. It could very well be that he and ted were relatively safe once they hit the cabin, but Gery couldn't start the cabin because he still believed they were after him.
i think the reason they didn’t even try to start a fire because of Ted’s fear of fire. To me, that seems to be the reason Ted was wrapped in blankets, Gary was so protective of them that i think he was more concerned with keeping Ted alive that, even though they couldn’t start a fire, Gary did anything to keep Ted safe without any real regard to himself
I had trouble keeping track of the names, so I never made that connection. That definitely sounds like a possibility for why a fire was never made, especially since they would have been in that cabin for months.
Do you really think Gary, who had been in the military and had some experience of outdoor suvival, would just respect Ted's phobia of fires and not make one? Even if it meant the death of them? Maybe they were chased and Gary didn't want to light a fire in order to not be found. And then they slept through the night, and because Gary couldn't take his medicine that very next day he went completely haywire?
@@pancake1751 again, Gary was very protective of his friends. I feel like he definitely would’ve wanted Ted to feel safe when they were probably terrified. Also, to add onto what you mentioned about his medication, it probably never occurred to him to turn on the gas.
My son had schizophrenic and took his life. He refused medication. I didn't know until the last 2 years. But then, there was an event that was extremely sad that flipped a switch in his brain. From then on, he was catatonic. Maybe, ultimately, something similar happened from the stress of the situation and Gary did too.
1:30:59 this kind of predicament reminds me of the Smalls Lighthouse tragedy that described two people staying behind to guard the tower but due to horrible storms, boats with supplies or people to rotate their shift, couldn't reach them so they were stranded. One of them died and because it was well-known these two fought a lot, the guard that stayed alive, couldn't throw the corpse to the sea out of fear that people would accuse him of being the killer. However, as the body was decomposing, he put it outside in the balcony/window and tied it up but the wind blew hard, making it look as if the dead man was waving. That is absolutely haunting to me - imagine being stuck for months in a lighthouse during a storm, having a corpse "wave" at you from outside the window. I would have gone mad.
Ooh I remember the Lore Podcast covering this event, such a chilling scene to imagine. I think it’s Episode 23 - Rope & Railing One of his earlier episodes (which I think were the best)
ik Wendigoon (and you) don't think Gary was mainly responsible for what happened, but I'm sure his presence as their "leader" didn't help, like... all I'm saying is it's probably not a good idea to make a violent schizophrenic the leader and decision maker of your friend group, esp of men who are less mentally competent than him. That seems like it would lead to exactly the situation that we see here, unfortunately. I'm not saying he intentionally hurt them btw, but schizophrenia, if he really had it (even on modern medication) distorts your view of reality and can make you make really weird decisions, so even if he was trying his best to keep them all alive, he might've unintentionally made a few decisions for the group that were not the best for them and may have ignored some of their opinions.
@@thekamotodragon sounds like you just disregarded everything wendigoon said about his medication and him getting better just to do the typical "well he's a violent man and schizo, so it must've been him, even by accident"
@@dankerbell *sigh* clearly you didn't read my comment all the way through. I never said "it must've been him" I said some of his decisions may have contributed to their final fate. Also, I listened to everything Wendi said, but have you actually ever interacted with someone who has schizophrenia but is on medication? I have, and my point was that, even on medication, they can still be unpredictable and irrational sometimes, esp for violent schizophrenics. That's not to insult him or demean his character in any way, he may have had the best of intentions but simply to point out that even if it seemed he was doing great, that condition can "strike" at any moment and while the medication can make it so you don't start having paranoid thoughts and delusions, it can still effect how you perceive the world and your decision making abilities, unfortunately. It's a very tragic mental illness. I hold nothing against Gary, and he probably did his very best considering the situation, but we have to be realistic and consider that many of the boy's mental conditions may have contributed to the scenario they found themselves in, to rule that out just to be more politically correct is asinine.
what really gets me is that gary seemed so determined to help his friends survive that even as he was most likely going through med withdrawals he was writing self-affirmations on any piece of paper there was to (in my opinion) keep himself sane enough in order to protect and care for Ted as best as he could
The detail about the cards hit me real hard for some reason. I'm imaging Gary finding a pack of cards and cajoling his sick, bedridden friend who can't walk anymore due to the frostbite into playing in an attempt to keep their spirits up. It was probably the last thing to make Ted smile before he passed. That would be hard enough without coming down from your meds and knowing you're slowly losing your mind. I can't imaging trying so hard to stay strong for someone, and then they die anyway.
He might , ok i guess and we will nevr knew, but given his knack for survival, maybehe felt guilty he couldnt even save ted, and shizophrenia wont help, and the pressure ayone would crack under. Maybe he thought he isnt worth living if he failed them made worse by all kinds of psychologivcalissues anone would get there. Maybe he just lost all will to live joining them :( I dont know, but i dont think he wanted to surviv anymore and maybe was haunted by the situation and additional sshizophrei and whtever trauma anyone would have there.. We cant ever know, but given how he is decribed, loosing ted after the others, might have broken him with guilt. oh god he i some real life tragic hero. or might be, we cant know rally.
@@e.c.winner7252I was thinking the same thing but I feel like it might be executed best as a documentary commentating on the stereotypes that mentally ill people experience and how they are still humans with hearts
The detail that they laid their basketball uniforms out on their beds because they were so excited broke my heart. What a tragic case, thank you Wendigoon for sharing this with so much compassion for the boys.
Ty for not minimizing the intellect of these guys or just blaming Gary. This case fascinates and haunts me and it's rare to see coverage of it that truly explores how bizarre it really is. These guys did not just wander off ffs.
I have a son with a mental health issue and he still is genius. Also i think they are at Chico state number one party college from personal knowledge as an alumni. They easily could've picked up acid or laced weed. They are out in a party city having a fun night. Could've ended up in the wrong place on a bad trip. Then wandered off instead of thinking hey let's push the car out, the might of wanted to get out and explore, mushrooms and acid can sometimes take all fear away. Usually when running from something scary you hide not remain in clear sight heading up a path to a cabin.
@@briannesmith5040good theory but i think, if they were absolutely blazed like you said, the car drive would have probably ended way earlier or atleast caused someone on the highway to notice them
@@briannesmith5040interesting theory. Hadn’t heard this one and there is definitely a chance that is exactly what happened. They got lost and when the trip really got bad, they decided to get out of the car. The rest is history.
It has always been thought that only Ted and Gary were in the trailer. This is based on the body and sneakers. The assumption is that the other three died on the trail. However, it makes more sense for Jackie to have also been there. My theory is that Gary found some food and opened it for everyone. He quickly left to get help and took Teds boots, a flashlight and blankets with him. He died someplace in the woods. Jackie stayed with Ted but being very disabled was unable to turn on the gas, build a fire, open the food containers etc. He wrapped Ted up in sheets and left after he died or before when he figured that Gary wasn’t coming back with help. He attempted to walk back down the trail but died on the way. The idea of Gary staying for months as some speculate without his having his medication seems unlikely.
Your theory is possible but I do believe Gary was the last to go I think they were chased up there by an unknown force maybe by the only known nearby witness joseph schoens somehow they abandoned the car when they had no choice but to run they may have l got lost or seperated atbone point hard to say but eventually ted and Gary find the trailer break in stay there hiding, and stuck in bad conditions to where Ted eventually died and Gary who was probably going insane at that point ran off after ted died and eventually dropping himself maybe natural elements dissolved his remains away this case is so sad and scary I wonder if someone can make a movie about this one day Maybe it will help bring the story back
It is really sad when you hear a case like Gary. He seemed like a legit case of someone able to turn around and even in his darkest moments did everything he could to hold it together for his buddies. It's a bitter sweet story. God bless these souls.
All that determination and will-power to hold out as long as possible, just to be blamed for absolutely everything by the family members. That is pretty tough
yeah i think wendigoon's story tracks, it's obvious gary was struggling (who isn't?) and a lot of the stigma surrounding him always seemed unfair to me but i doubt he had any ill intentions throughout
I never heard the detail about the spine before. That is horrifying. I can't imagine thinking you found a sign that will help you find your missing son, only to have his bones fall at your feet.
1:30:40 Not only did he watch his friends die but as you mentioned earlier his medication would've only lasted him so long so he ultimately wandered out into the woods to die suffering from schizophrenia the whole while which is the most horrific aspect in my eyes
and the fact he was blamed after having such clear signs of caring for his friend until the end! i have delusions (not full on schizophrenia) and honestly knowing all my friends died AND having to cold turkey meds that clearly helped in becoming stable would have sent me off the edge almost immediately
Having woken up to my room being on fire, I can somewhat relate to Ted's comment. I literally looked at the curtain to my room burning, thought it was the sun rising, walked out to the bathroom, and then realized while in there, that the sun had not yet even begun to rise. If not for that, I'd have probably gone back to sleep. So yeah, people can be real dumb when waking up.
Literally as SOON as there's someone with a mental illness or condition involved, people just automatically point to that as the root cause, so thank you for being reasonable and explaining why that might not be. I've never thought Gary did it, but his condition just instantly makes people think he did Just Because "well he was schizophrenic, so OBVIOUSLY!!"
While there is clearly too much blame put on Gary, it is likely that some strange details in the case could be a result of his schizophrenia. If he believed they were being followed/hunted or had trouble discerning reality, that is likely why the fire and gas were never used (especially if there really was a weird red pickup truck, as Shone said)
Gary, was treated, pretty sucessful, he found a sucssful tratment. Which makes that even more infuriating. Like even if he had symptoms, he would likely know how to dal with it somewhat, and no harm anyone .
@@beepbop6542 But thats no blame on him, they just didnt want to trigger a psychosis probably. I mean its hard to not go crazy in such a situation, and it was a good call if they had tried to find them earlier, and you dont want to fuel any psychosis while surviving. Its not unreasonable to not try triggering his symptoms, its hard enough to not freak out there for a person with no baggage..
Gary's demise is the saddest death I've ever come across. Doubly so if he had to watch all his friends die while losing his mind just because he wanted to get high with his friends. That guilt is unimaginable.
Really? The death of a sexual predator is the saddest one you have heard? In a world where women (and girls and boys) are killed daily after being tortured/sold/sexually assaulted, and with many of those cases talked about in podcasts and TH-cam, this is the one the saddest one? Holy sh*t, the bar is really low for men I swear
@@JohnDoe-rr1fz So you think it’s okay to glorify and feel bad for sexual predators who threatened to kill little girls? (Gary was clearly a misogynistic pos who was dangerous to women, note how he only groped women and only threatened to kill a little girl). Plenty of people (men and women) are severely mentally ill and even have violent impulses because of it, but his worst impulses were aimed at women specifically, that was him, not his mental illness. Tell me, if the story was about a group of girls, and one of them had a history of predating on men and threatening to kill little boys, would you feel sorry for her? Would you ignore what she did and focus on how sad her death was?
Just a small thought on the P38 can opener, there may already have been one at the cabin to open the cans. It would seem likely that the Forestry Service either procured surplus military supplies or just bought them from the same source given that the government already used the design.
True though most people I know that are civilians have no idea how to use one, or what it even is when looking at it. Gary could have showed the boys how to use one at some point but it's probably a pretty good bet that he would be the most likely to use one. Then again, this was a different time. Maybe most civilians from this era did indeed know what a P38 is and how to use it. I wasn't there so I definitely don't know.
@@karmalotto8587 It'd depend on the kind of can opener that was most common then, though I'd wager that can openers similar to the P38 were common enough. If you knew how to use of those, you could probably work out how to use a P38 quickly enough. There boys were not academically gifted, but they were of functional intelligence. Also, you have to consider that these cabins are expressly put in place to help people survive in these places. You have to take into account that they may not have any utensils with them at all. You also want this to be cheap, and the P38 is a stamped piece of sheet metal, can't make it much cheaper than that. Even more so if you can obtain them from the military second hand, which is where my thinking came from. Granted, maybe they're trickier to use than other manual, lever based can openers, I can't say, I've never used a P38 or any similar designs, so I can't really say.
The fact that Ted was wrapped up the way he was shows respect. If Gary was a cold blooded killer, he would have just left the body. Also, Gary probably took off because he knew he would be the scapegoat being he was the only one left alive. So I don’t blame him for taking off.
I dont believe Gary killed him, but i think some killers do actually for example cover the victim or atleast face with something. Its kinda like act of remorse, and guilt because not all killers are full blown psychopaths. Even though i dont suspect him for example though if he would have had some kinda psychotic fit due to his mental illness, and wiuld gave killed him he could then be remorseful or some kinda delusion could be motive. I think what actually happened as his friend died he would have also been in extremely bad condition likely at that point both physically, and mentally he then maybe as last resort took off to find safety, but been weak, and such just died in the woods. Also i feel if wendigoon is correct, and they were scared of someone him been literally paranoid schitzophrenic might have made him extremely well paranoid maybe explaining why he didnt build fires, and all that
Just to add, my dad friend had a surgery gone wrong and had oxygen shortage in brain or something similar, making him lose him sanity. Even on meds sometimes he would be almost normal, then he would accuse my dad of being demon and that god told him to kill all demons (common in mentally unwell people)
It might just be projection of what I would have done if I was Gary, but I had kinda thought that maybe he'd left because he didn't want to be in the place that his friend had passed away because of emotions, and he didn't have the heart to remove the body and put it back out in the cold that he succumbed to, but that was what I'd built up in my head during the video. Or at least what I hope for. I'm sure realistically he would have had other reasons to leave, but again, probably projection.
No a person capable of killing eouldnt wrap their body..... A real killer.... someone who's so obsessed with killing g they possibly plan it in their head n all that most likely would have some form of ritual or respect for people.... Most likely he killed them or another group did and made sure he was never found so it looks so
Here’s a minor correction for your video - I’m from Yuba City and this is a common mistake for those that aren’t from there. Yuba City is in Sutter County, not Yuba county. The boys lived in Sutter County (Yuba City), but they went missing in nearby Yuba County, hence why they were called the Yuba County 5.
Hell, I’m from Chico/Paradise - where my mother use to work at the Yuba City Save-Mart; and we ended up living with someone in Yuba City, after losing our home in the Campfire, back in 2018.. And I still get the counties and towns confused.
Sometimes I think the people who named places made them confusing on purpose lol. Reminds me of how when I lived in Atlanta there were tons of things called 'peachtree' - Peachtree hills, Peachtree road, etc etc. (at least from what I remember - I was 12)
As a schizophrenic person thank you very much for this. I can’t imagine the pain Gary must’ve gone through during all of that. My theory is that after Ted died Gary’s last nerve snapped, his last vestige of reality that he fought so hard to preserve gone, leading him to lose it and wander off into the wilderness, practically catatonic. Even if you were a perfectly mentally healthy person this kind of situation would make you snap, add on psychotic illness and that level of suffering makes my eyes water.
I agree that anyone could snap from having to sit and watch someone you care about die. I hope that if he did wander off, he might just have clicked off and didn't experience much pain
I came here to say exactly this. One of my dear friends is also schizophrenic, and I'm bipolar with occasional psychotic episodes, and seeing someone not immediately demonize Gary for his schizophrenia was such a relief. People are so quick to say "yup, this person has Evil Disease, they must be responsible" because people have such hatred for cluster-b disorders and see us as inherently evil.
Bill going to the hospital and reading the Bible and Prayers to the sick is so wholesome. I feel so bad for these men, especially as a disabled person myself. Edit: the people in this thread need to calm down
I have sleep semi-regular sleep paralysis, but a weird type. Ted rolling over is something both relatable, and terrifying.Lemme explain: I wake up fully lucid, but unable to move with any efficiency. I can move my hips, and curl my toes. Fully awake and aware of my situation. No "demons," no dream-like things except for the fact it feels like being wrapped in weighted clothing. To break free of it (yeah it's so regular I learned how to break free,) I have to use all my will to move just enough to begin using my body's momentum. With all my mental will, lean a bit to the left, then try to roll the right, and repeat. Usually on the 3rd or 4th try it works. I usually wake up, snap fully to reality, and start gasping or scream; both of terror and the amount of effort required to break out. It's not physically taxing, it's a battle of will in my brain lol. The thought of being in that state with a *fire???* Oh my...
@@XXMatt0040XXI have this too! I have never heard anyone else have it! I usually explain it as me waking up "in a panic attack", because that's what it usually feel like for me. I can't move, I'm not in danger, fully awake, fully aware, but because I can't feel a whole lot, my brain slowly begins freaking out because usually I can feel everything (like, my fingertips and toes are always "awake"). I can usually wriggle my body and on occasion I can fully sit up before my back gives out and I fall right back down. When panic sets in, I do however begin whining and curling up. Very uncomfortable, haha. I'm weirdly happy that someone else also has this type of paralysis!
I heard this case years ago and my theory was always that a group of men (bullies) followed the boys out of the basketball game to harrass them. The boys left and so did the men, but then they saw them at the store buying candy and things and decided to chase them. The boys panic, drive up the mountain, get their car stuck, and then abandon the car and run into the woods. They then ended up getting disoriented and separated. Ted and Gary make it to the trailer but were too afraid to start a fire for fear that these men would see the smoke and find them, and ended up dying too. And yes, I think there are people alive now who know exactly what happened but they're covering for the ones responsible.
@@satoshiwasareptiloid3777 alright I guess that's fair, it just seems odd especially considering the weather conditions being as harsh as they are and the clothing they wore
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@@lpc9929good
I couldn’t imagine how terrifying if must be to have paranoid schizophrenia and be stranded while needing to take care of another person, I feel so bad for Gary
right, with my mental issues I don't even have paranoid or delusional symptoms and I can't imagine going off my meds. everyone would be so fucked up in that situation, plus being ill plus in withdrawals from meds? absolutely terrifying. maybe he was violent before but I can't help but feel for him
If this theory is right then it really goes to show how much he cared for his friends to fight through whatever he had going on in his head
@@RisingRevengeance I 100% agree, my delusions get really bad and without meds itd be hard to take care of myself let alone other people. He most likely tried his absolute hardest to figure out what was real and what wasnt. I understand why he didnt start a fire that couldve made things much worse mentally and physically if he wasnt 100% stable. Honestly after Ted's death he most likely wandered off really out of it, he wouldve been the last one alive and being alone in that state wouldve been very hard mentally.
@@RisingRevengeanceCaregiving is difficult in the best of circumstances. Fighting mental illness and being in primitive conditions makes whatever efforts he took all the more heroic.
@@hannah.montana2194fr I've had a dangerous fever while getting off of a medication the correct way! Suddenly stopping can kill you with some psychiatric medications. Adding in those kinds of symptoms... if anything he's amazing for trying to take care of him like that! A true friend till the end.
Imagine being Gary alone in the woods after watching everyone die and having schizophrenia during all of it, this is pure horror content
No kidding...
good video game idea bc of how terrifying that would be
@@N0va6669 I was actually thinking about how great a movie/video game you could make out of the story, but idk. With how recent it is and the boys' disabilities I think it would be hard to do the story justice. Something inspired by this story would be amazing though, like The Long Dark with psychological horror elements.
Just play "the Long Dark" and pretend your Garry.
@@thenorthernwoodsman3455 The saddest part is that you can never really win in The Long Dark, so there's no escape for Gary or any of the boys :,(
the thought that Gary could have even carried Ted the rest of the way there in an attempt to save at least one of his friends breaks my heart. The finger pointing at Gary and the infantalization of the others upsets me so much. the fact that this case could possibly have more evidence if police and investigators had viewed them as people instead of disabilities.
Agree the police set up too small a search radius thinking that they could not travel far and because of that the last survivors died.
They are mentally disadvantaged. They are not savants. People wishing washing they got an aha moment and solve the issue unorthodoxically are not realistic
Oh PLEASE. He assaulted women and girls, snuck into peoples houses at night and assaulted many people. Stop pretending that’s a good person. Schizophrenia doesn’t make you a sexual predator
@@beanybabyrabie it does greatly affect your mental health and ability to interact with the world. Once Gary had the ability to properly threat his issues he became better. And he certainly isn't the type of person who would hurt his friends if what we know is anything to go by. He attacked people who to him would be strangers and there were many unreported cases. I think his crimes caused the boys to go up cause Josef was one of the Victims and a pissed off drunk at that.
@@beanybabyrabie oh! i didnt realize you were a doctor!!! wheres your degree? grow up. yes he did those things and those people NEVER have to forgive him. you NEVER have to forgive him. He did do those incredibly shitty things. and im sure he never forgave himself. and yet. he still got better because he was offered the help he needed and he took it and put forth effort to get better. Gary suffered from one hell of a head injury as a kid, which can absolutely fuck you up enough to make you violent and creepy and even give you paranoid schizophrenia. there are several cases even in modern times of this happening (its actually very interesting, you should look into it. there was even a dr phil episode where they discovered something similar about a little girl and got her help). the only difference is that we know more about it in modern times and provide help in childhood before these kids become adults. Gary got help for it later than he shouldve. and He still put in the effort not only to get better with this opportunity given to him, but he ALSO made efforts to make up for the shitty things he did in his unwell state. and im sure he understood if those people chose not to forgive him. he put in so much effort to get better and looked after his friends with a fierce care. there is literal proof that must have taken care of Ted for weeks before Ted finally died because Ted was alive long enough to grow facial hair. you can hate him and call him a horrible person, but he did that and you cant erase that fact. you should be more upset that his parents just... let it happen instead of getting him the help he needed sooner. this shit had been happening since he was a kid after he got a severe head injury and they JUST LET IT HAPPEN? anyway, you're a PRIME example of the people i was talking about who only see a monster because of his disability and therefore causing the boys to never get a proper investigation that they deserved. thanks for being a perfect example on what i was talking about!
Under your theory. gary’s last few days must have been extremely terrifying. A paranoid schizophrenic scared of going missing since childhood and thats exactly what happens, not only that, but he was likely the last to go. So he had to witness all of his friends one by one drop dead before being left all alone, unmedicated, and extremely likely fearful someone is chasing you which probably made him leave the trailer in the first place.
From your description I would imagine that he would have been looking forward to death and probably had a real calming effect when he realized that it was finally over.
completely horrifying
I think Gary's death was suicide. Since a major symptom of Schizophrenia is hallucination, he would have been seeing hallucinations of the "chaser" and possibly his dead friends. So maybe he hid himself deep into the forest running away from those hallucinations and killed himself before the same thing begins again.
@@kimjangseason455 hard to say with what all they had been through, but possible.
It’s also possible (speaking as someone who has obsessive paranoia) he saw what was happening around him, believed if he was found that no one would believe what had happened (understandably in my mind) and he just left.
It would be better to risk death that to be in a situation where everyone around you would persecute you for the rest of your life.
Thinking about how Ted and Gary were still alive for so long after people stopped searching is a real gut punch.
So sad. They probably thought people were still searching for them too but gave up on hope after a while
If only they decided to continue the search, their families and other people would of gotten a greater insight into what could of happened to them.
The Andes Disaster Team: skill issue
I’m also wondering if they knew the others were dead. Like not definitively, but in the sense that they had a feeling Sterling, Madruga and Huett were dead.
If not, they were probably thinking that the others had been rescued, and that they would be found soon
yep
The idea of Gary writing those affirmations and practicing old coping methods in attempt to stay strong while his medication was wearing off is absolutely heartbreaking. Nonetheless, while caring for his dying friend and mourning the deaths of the others.
Definitely messed up
Yes very heart breaking
That part made me feel really icky inside, it truly is heartbreaking.. :((
It also shows what a strong, clever, and insightful guy he was. Like, he knew what to do during a crisis, even if it could only ever help to a point. That is more than most people would be able to do.
Ty for this. My brother had schizophrenia and, he wasn't always the best, he never had evil in his heart. Mostly he kept to himself because of the schizophrenia.
I can't even begin to imagine the horror that Jack's father must have felt seeing his son's jacket, picking it up, only for his SPINE to tumble out of it, good lord
God i hope that man got therapy for that
@@kinnelyuwu5771 back then therapy hadn't been invented yet
That part made me feel lightheaded. 🫥
I'm about to lose sleep just from reading your comment.
The spine would’ve been clean, either. We’re not talking polished bone. There would have still been dried flesh and blood and probably even other bodily fluids on it, as well as the coat, which must’ve smelled horrible once the spine unstuck from it. A horrible experience, which I hope never occurs again.
Someone in a red truck saw those boys and decided to harass them. The boys drove off in a panic up that mountain followed by the red truck. The boys got stuck and bailed out of the car, running off. The people in the red truck got out and maybe tried to call them back, realizing their joke went too far. They then drove off and never fessed up because the boys lost their lives. That's my theory.
This is sickeningly realistic :( I believe this one
Good theory
i’ve always thought this too.
I also think the same. It is most likely why they even went that road in the first place. The evidence doesn't provide much as there's no way anyone could identify those boys except for a drunkard who defecated and hallucinated.
this is awful, but also realistic
I have genuinely never heard ANYONE talk about the fact that Gary was getting medicated, and was benefiting greatly from it. I have heard people relay this case before many times, and Gary is always written off as being dangerous because of his mental health with no regard to the fact that he was getting treatment and doing well at the time of the disappearance. Thank you for actually taking this man and his disorder seriously.
So many podcast of people claiming to be good people and this is the first I’ve heard him covered like this.
Everyone was taking his schizophrenia very seriously.
@@Socrates526they weren’t if they’d neglected to note he always took his meds, based on how his behavior was greatly improved. You can cover his symptoms, and behaviors, but that needs to include the history of the behavior. ESPECIALLY when he’s writing his mantras to fry and stay grounded in the midst of a genuinely horrible situation.
Not only was he medicated, but most people with schizophrenia are only a danger to themselves and not others. My uncle had schizophrenia and was such a sweet and amazing guy. He made beautiful art and loved animals. He and my cat were besties
@@marstar9410 yeah. Gary definitely did things that hurt others (groping, punching a guy, breaking into a house) but from his history, it didn’t sound like he did those with the purpose of causing harm, but rather for his own benefit. If he really loved his friends then I don’t see what the benefit to him would be from killing them or putting them in a dangerous situation on purpose, especially if he was going to just disappear after it too (plus the note it is evident he took care of one of his friends in the trailer. Why bother doing that if it was intentional). If he wasn’t on medication then I could see how this could have been an accident, an impulsive trip because something in his mind wanted to go to the woods, but he was on meds and was doing great so that doesn’t see, 100% likely.
Honestly probably the first video I've seen on this story that hasn't actively demonised Gary but rather treats him as a human being. Also first video that hasn't overstated the men's disabilities and totally minimised them to that. Honestly refreshing to see.
That's why wendigoon is goat
I didn't notice anything about the Nexpo video that was a problem but I also haven't watched it in a while.
I think wendigoon is very good at viewing things from the perspective of others and the logistics what actions people would take versus what people expect them to take based on prejudice.
The missing enigma did a good job of that to his video is also very good
I was going to say something along these lines, but you put it better than I could. Wendigoons humanity and non-linear approach to these cases that have been covered a billion times is extremely refreshing.
The thought that two of them may have refused to leave eachother and died in the snow, the thought that gary took care of his last remaining friend for 2-3 months, playing cards, feeding him, eventually mummifying him, all while suffering from schizophrenia and freezing cold, the fact that he left alone without a trace
Heavy stuff
And the fact people chalked it up to gary just being the “crazy schizo” stereotype who lead them out there to die and essentially killed them all because the rest of them where “too feeble minded” to stop it is disgusting
@@mrselfdestruct7605 absolutely. He clearly was doing his best to keep him alive, and NOT leave him alone. So distressing
Would make a pretty good movie. Like a demented version of mice & men.
@@vidgamarr5126and continue to spread the stereotype that being schizophrenic is most dangerous for those around you and not yourself. You’re the type to love the movie Split, aren’t you?
“Once he lifted his sons jacked a spine fell from it”
That really messed me up…
No human should have to go through that…
I can't imagine having to make the choice between searching for your child and possibly finding their decayed remains, and staying at home and doing nothing while having to trust orher people to do the search, knowing you could have possibly found them if only you were there. I'd probably look and take the risk of being traumatized forever.
No one comments on the coincidental nature of this.
@@scepteredisleMe when I'm onto nothing:
Living in Yuba, you kinda hear this story go around, like everyone knows it by the time they’re 15, but you just kinda take it as ‘the town legend’, it’s a local joke to beware of Gary, the one who survived, he’ll getcha and take you up the mountain, now hearing all the details is… really upsetting.
Imagine dying horribly and because your body wasn't found like the others, people just start treating you like some boogeyman who's lurking around the area. As if this case wasn't tragic enough.
There are people up the hills, for real. Even in socal, there are definitely camps either drug runners or something else, they say a lot of people go missing in those camps, they pack up and leave just to leave very little evidence.
Bro I'm from yuba county and this is the first time I've heard about it and I've never heard anyone talking about it😂😂
Aw man that's just cruel
@@leatherman180guess you’re just 14 then lol
You know you’re in for a wild ride when Wendi runs out of “definitive evidence” with an hour left in the video
In minecraft, of course.
@@rake10 of course, of course, that goes without saying
In dayz in Fortnite
@@yungbeetrootftc❤❤n
Right?? When he got the end of the definitive evidence and I noticed there was a lot of video left, I actually got really excited. I love that all of these videos have a very campfire-ey feel to them, it's really like having a ghost story being told you.
Unironically, the drunk uncle vibe you bring to your videos is probably one of the most comforting and enjoyable video formats on the platform.
I've never been able to describe why I love his content as much as I do. Thank you kind stranger.
can confirm, got dumped a week ago and wendigoon is the only thing that I can find joy in watching right now. always so comforting
@@morgangunning30squad
@@morgangunning30When I got dumped in December I was the exact same way. I don't know your situation, so I won't say "everything will be okay", but I can promise you that at some point things will get a bit easier
@@morgangunning30oh my
my brother has down syndrome and he absolutely would know to push the car. even if he doesn’t know the underlying reasons that pushing would help, he’d be able to work that out. the idea that all five of the men wouldn’t know to push is ridiculous
Especially when most of them are very familiar with working on cars too, not even mentioning how one of the boys seem to simply have a social disorder. That’s before mentioning the fact they have a former member of the military who has no intellectual disability at all, it’s honestly insulting to the memory of these men to say they got stuck and didn’t know how to push a car
anyone who can hold a job, work farm work, get a drivers license, hell, play basketball, or hell, join the fucking military would know to push a car.
I don't know how dense the snow is in California, but I know that sometimes it takes a lot of force to push a car out of the simplest situations. my mom got my car stuck once in a snow pile when pulling into our driveway (I thought I shoveled enough and didn't hear the end of it until the snow melted), but even though it was only 3-4 inches of snow, that car did not want out. So I think they all tried to get the car out, failed, and thought to stick together. Only to go the wrong way when they tried to head back down the mountain to get some help, maybe because they thought they got turned around at some point.
@@MiniCerberus991then explain the pickup truck
@@openyathirdeye6894 honestly? it was truck that just happened to be in the same area around the same time as everyone else. They might have followed the guy in the Volkswagen Beetle, maybe because they saw him swerving and thought they'd pull him out after he went off the road. eventually realized they didn't know where they were, so assumed this guy did. ended up on a mountain at the worst time and the one guy that was in the military might have remembered there was a survival zone up the mountain a ways. they tried to get there and all tragically died to the elements slowly
As someone with schizophrenia, it can’t be overstated how crazy it is that Mathias could do literally anything while going through withdrawal from his meds. I dropped from a high dose to a medium dose of Geodon and it basically left me bedridden for a couple of days. I would not wish antipsychotic withdrawal on my worst enemy.
ayeee i take geodon/ziprasidone too. but yeah, withdrawal is brutal for me as well, it often induces more hallucinations because of the insomnia that comes along with it
@@solaresaresis it rude to ask what you hallucinate? I heard stories of people who tried drugs like ayahuasca and wondered if that’s similar to what schizophrenics see
I lost my oldest to this problem, he self medicated w some fentanyl laced Xanax and died 2 yrs ago
@@kylesyx8432very sorry for you’re loss
@@kylesyx8432may they rest in peace and be happy in the after life, I’m sure they’re waiting for you with open arms :((
"He saw his son's jacket, and when he picked it up, his son's spine fell out." is one of the most disturbing things I've heard. Thank/screw you for telling this fascinating story.
I heard that and immediately came to the comments to see if anyone mentioned it
yea that one was insane and will definitely stick with me
@@aidanhansen793Just imagine the shock and horror that man went through when that happened, probably one of the worst things for a parent to experience
Normal things I've heard. Cock/suck
The courage it takes to investigate alone. The father definitely wasn’t spineless.
If Ted hated fire, then it makes sense Gary couldn't use some of the more intensive warming equipment. Imagine keeping your friend calm and warm at the same time
I was thinking about this as well
ok
That is heartbreaking.
@@danhtranquoc3745ok?
@@danhtranquoc3745??
The one thing about this that has bothered me throughout the entire video is that most of the boys were doing things they never would have done. Scared of the woods, the dark, etc. ended up going to the woods in the dark. Why did they even take the detour?
someone said Joseph actually ran the guys off the road to begin with
perhaps the reason Gary never started a fire or turned on the gas for warmth was because of Ted's aforementioned fear of fire? obviously a terrible choice for the sake of survival, but it seemed in that moment all Gary cared about was making sure his friend was comfortable, and he knew starting a fire would stress him out. A really tragic case regardless, i hope all these boys are resting easy now.
Well it was mentioned there was electricity...
@@T-adley14if there wasn't a space heater then they wouldn't have been able to heat with the electricity (barring the small amounts of heat that the electrical devices generate)
Didn't Ted literally sleep through a house fire?
@@inthefort6003 that's where he PICKED UP his fear of fire.
@@inthefort6003 wendigoon mentions at around 7:20 that Ted developed a fear of fire after the house fire
Imagine jacks father. Your son has been missing for several months, and of all the people searching, you happen to be the one to find something that belonged to him, and you pick it up, and his spine falls out. The sheer horror and disgust must have been unworldly.
I felt terrible for him when I heard that. That’s a detail I don’t remember ever hearing before. I don’t know how I could live after seeing that. My heart would be broken even further and mind would be haunting me so much I think I’d be suicidal at some point.
I’m probably missing something pretty obvious here but I wonder where the rest of his skeleton was? Why was just his spine there? I can see him getting eaten and picked at by animals, maybe pieces of him getting dragged off but it seems odd that only his spine remained.
@@MightyMoon1well to be *completely speculative* it was probably that the spine was the only thing that came with the jacket when the father pulled on it.
A vertebrae could have been caught on the inside and was disloged by picking it up
The remainder of his bones were probably under the jacket and in the nearby area
@@Zaybith_7yeah, I feel it could’ve been a partial spine, could have been the thoracic segment/part of it since he certainly would’ve been clutching the jacket to himself, and parts could’ve caught on the jacket.
Such a horrific image and utterly inconceivable.
Step on a crack you break yo momma's back
I do really like the idea that Gary did everything he thought he could to save the others. That despite whatever schizophrenic episodes he may or may not have been experiencing in that trailer, he was sound enough to look after Ted.
That’s what really got me about this story. He had to have been fighting so so hard to take care of Ted 😢💔
To survive in the cold for as long as Ted did is a testament to Gary's skill.
The detail of the positive affirmations etchings found in the cabin really got to me. Thinking about Gary just trying to keep himself stable while he was withdrawing from his meds, in a traumatic situation, so he could take care of himself and his friend.
@@Disaster724 And he lovingly wrapped Ted's body up after he passed.
I believe that taking care of Ted staved off the worst of the negative effects and after losing Ted Gary just succumbed and walked off into the wilderness.
My theory. Volkswagen dude had road rage chased the boys off the road, passed out drunk, next morning woke up and saw they didn’t go back to their car and panicked.
That sounds plausible, maybe him and Gary had an altercation that ended in the other 3 less high-functioning guys running into the woods.
idk man i agree with wendigoon with how he doesnt believe the heart attack from him, but if he did have some heart condition why would he already be engaging in something that would make it even worse than it already is yk? but who knows it could be possible
@@bloomsiee8867 I mean, if he was pass out drunk I don't imagine he'd be acting the most logically
2 problems with your theory is that 1. Jacks montego wasn't "off" the road. It was still on the road, it just lost traction and couldnt continue forward without external intervention (pushing) .
2. Joseph Slone's Volkswagen Beetle was found 100 yards *IN FRONT* of Jack's Mercury Montego. If he was "chasing the boys" wouldnt the car be.... y'know *behind* the Montego...? You kind of have to be behind something to chase it...
Not to mention you think he miraculously passed out drink literally the moment after the alleged chase stopped 😂. So Joseph was capable of not only driving, but driving at a high rate of speed and lucidly enough to chase a vehicle up a mountain road in a fit of road rage, but magically as soon as the intended target of the chase gets stuck he passes them and suddenly not more than 30 seconds later he's on the side of the road passed out drunk 😂.
*THEN* the boys see that their would be chaser has passed them and come to a stop in front of them. So why would they ditch the car and walk *forward* y'know *towards* the car of the maniac who chased them just to walk up the trail..... and as they pass the car they see the guy who was chasing them passed out. So then why would they not *go back to the Montego and get it unstuck and leave going back down the hill* 😂.
It sounds like you didnt even put any actual effort or thought into this theory all, and in order to actually come up with theories that have any merit you need to be capable of using your brain, which it seems you cannot.
@@JackTheripper911 I had this video playing in the background while I was working an office job man cut me some slack
The legend about Gary writing his affirmations as he fought to survive and take care of his dying friend is truly heartbreaking. Same with the detail about candles and playing cards being used. In his final moments- even as he was battling unmedicated schizophrenia- he acted with so much compassion and determination. Even if it’s just a legend, it says a lot that there are local people out there who want to believe it.
Same with the story of him allegedly defending his more disabled friend from mockery at the basketball game
Even if they aren't true, it is confirmed by many he was defensive of his friends and it makes me sad how much people seem to dehumanize him into some emotionless psychopath who would have been willing to kill all his friends at any moment, especially when it's pretty obvious he was proven to be taking care of a dying ted the best he could
This. When Wendigoon first told the story, the only thing I thought Gary could have done wrong was ''not light a fire'' because he was struggling with his unmedicated schizophrenia/paranoia and was scared something would happen to him and his friend if they were found. Schizophrenic people always get portrayed as monsters in medias when in reality they can be perfectly ok people. My teacher had a schizophrenic friend who the only thing he heard as voices (he thought it was God) was ''take care of stray cats and feed them'' which is pretty sweet.
@@GayToBeHerei dont think him not lighting a fire was wrong they were clearly being hunted
@@GayToBeHere That is just too sweet 😢
What’s interesting too is you mentioned gary’s tennis shoes were found at the trailer, but ted’s leather boots were missing and never found. It would make a lot of sense for Gary, after Ted dying, to take his boots instead of the tennis shoes, to try and trek out of the snowy forest. Obviously boots would be the much better option for hiking through deep snow.
this is what i thought too
yeah. The people who think Gary went apeshit hollywood psychonuts and was responsible for the whole thing are...misguided, at best. He's very definitely dead, nothing left of his body.
Immediately when he mentioned Gary's tennis shoes were left and Ted's boots were missing I thought "Oh he must have took his instead, it would be better for walking in snowy woods"
That's exactly what I thought as soon as he mentioned that
The only issue if what size shoe did they both wear?
i've seen a number of docs on this case, and i've never believed gary did anything malicious. i can't imagine how afraid he was, taking care of his friend and knowing that he was going to lose his grasp on reality. not being able to trust your own mind is a special kind of hell. i hope one day the families get answers.
I agree. I think he did everything he could to save his friends in an emergency situation, it's so sad to think about how he must have felt.
ok
same, nothing about that theory made a lick of sense. i think blaming gary was a convenient excuse.
@ripwednesdayadams Nothing about a an already violent person with a mental illness freaking out I'm a life or death situation and killing people seemed plausible to you? Lol
@@SirRavixofFourhornhe medication was likely still in effect while the other boys died. So unless his medication magically stopped working and he somehow immediately snapped and started killing his best friends (not how schizophrenia works btw), killing 2 of them with his bare hands at the beginning then running after the others for a total of 20 miles before killing one, sparing one, then feeding and taking care of the one he spared,
Yes, it does not seem plausible
Your theory is the most plausible. I 100% think they got spooked and ran into the woods where they became disoriented. Especially in the cold and dark.
I don't believe Gary Mathias did it either. Especially with the evidence he cared for one of the young men in the trailer for weeks and weeks. What a sad story.
ETA: You did an awesome job with this! You didn't make it all supernatural but instead told it as the real tragic story it was all while showing amazing compassion. Great video!
Gary Mathias was my uncle. His sister Sharon was my mother. I appreciated your video and expressing my uncles mental illness with compassion rather then treating him as the villain like many others have done. Thank you for taking the time to put this together. To everyone; Please remember his family is still here and watching these videos too… and still grieving his loss for 45 years now…
I hope you and your family have a modicum of peace about the situation. God bless you all.
Thank you 💗
So sorry to hear this, hope you can find closure one day
i hope your family the best
I believe, like Wendigoon seems to, that your uncle in fact most likely died a hero. Why they got lost is pretty irrelevant, but the evidence we have suggests that Gary successfully led the way to shelter, they simply weren't as capable as he and Gary, try as he might, could not save them. His compassion and dedication to his friends is evident in the state of Ted's remains and the cabin where Gary attempted to nurse him back to health. As someone who has experienced it before, I can say that suddenly going off your medication causes the symptoms to return in force. Gary was struggling with his illness the whole time that he was trying to save Ted's life, and afterward as he lived beside the corpse of his friend. Your uncle is a tragic figure who should be remembered for his courage and fellowship.
The thought that Gary, who loved his friends so much, he'd pick a fight to defend them, might've been trying his hardest to keep them all alive only for them to die one-by-one in front him but ultimately being forced to leave them behind while dealing with his waning medication genuinely broke my heart. It's so sad, I can't stop thinking about it.
@@JDoe-gf5ozStop, no he did not. He clearly, even through his mental issues, loved his friends and did what he could to save their lives.
@@JDoe-gf5oznever work in law inforcement/detective institutions. If THAT'S all the "proof" you need that he killed them, your opinions are worthless and you shouldn't be taken seriously even a little.
Sounds like the plot of a horror TV show, if it wasn't so real and true
@@j-wilk4835 IRL horror is the scariest horror
@@Hawkeye83627 You have no evidence of that. The families didn't trust him and we don't actually know what happened after they disappeared.
Let me be totally honest with you. I really appreciate how you humanize your subjects, not just “they were all mentally handicapped” or “they just kept this irradiated man alive for three months”. Youre a quality guy for doing that
Truuuee
TBH, as an autistic person, I would armchair diagnose two of them (I don't remember the names lol) as autistic. They seem to fit a lot of the criteria. They do a lot of things and showed a lot of behaviors that me and many other autists have, and perhaps they were good enough at masking to go mostly unnoticed by everyone else.
Edit: I think Ted and Jack Madruga were the ones I was talking about, Ted, and the guy who really liked his car. I totally could be wrong though, this is just my crackpot theory.
Many of these stories ive heard of before, but Wendigoon goes about it with a totally different perspective that makes the story that i believed i had an otherwise simple understanding of, sound like that something totally new to me. Like i thought the irradiated man story was a cruel against-his-will experiment to see how long a human can last but now i understand that they and even himself wanted to survive. They pulled the best doctors from around the ENITRE world to save that mans life. It wasnt an act of malign curiosity it was a genuine attempt to save someones life from a force of sheer nature
that didnt take any honesty
Gotta love the people who make fun of others for saying a phrase.
i like how he doesn’t really get into the supernatural stuff that could easily be slotted into the missing parts of information is very respectful. like obviously it’s easy to just make a story like this into some campfire scary story about a mysterious force that compelled all these men to run into the woods and die, it takes away from the aspect that these are REAL people that REALLY died for some unknown reason. and as fun as it is to speculate on supernatural forces it’s definitely not as respectful to just turn it into another scary story. it is a truly horrific tragedy and i think he covered it greatly here. justice for Gary fr, no Gary slander will be tolerated after hearing this version of the story 😤
Yeah, I like scary supernatural stories sometimes. But I never believe they are true. In a case like this where five men actually went missing, I want to know what really happened. And that means leaving out the supernatural stuff, since I already know that didn't happen.
i noticed that Ted was scared of fire which might relate to why no fires were started inside of the trailer. maybe gary went to the shed to see what was inside but ted being scared of fire did not want there to be a fire. which is incredibly chilling and heartbreaking for gary because he wants to help his friend but he is terrified of the thing that could save him.
yes!! i couldn’t believe this wasn’t mentioned
Omg, I've never heard anyone posit that theory before but it makes so much sense!
@@mateosvargas3669maybe he didn't fully know how it worked and was scared it might start a fire
@@mateosvargas3669 This was back in the day when improperly used heaters were fire hazards, plus the gas itself carried a (probably small if the heater was used correctly) risk of blowing up. It makes perfect sense to me, as someone who's also afraid of fire, that he would rather take his chances with the cold than with an unfamiliar heater.
That's what I thought too. I hadn't heard that Ted was afraid of fire before, but knowing that now the lack of fire and untouched heater both make perfect sense. I, as someone who is afraid of fire, would rather take my chances with the cold than risk burning to death from an out of control fire or being blown up by an unfamilar heater filling the trailer with too much gas.
Yeah the fact that knowing they all have a distaste for nature completely contradicts the idea they went up the mountain willingly.
id thought about that but why ,if they were forced,would whoever take the car just leave it up a mountain? I thought,a car jacking at first but,still doesn't make sense
@@boredweegie553 a car jacking wouldn't require a 70 mile drive. Perhaps it was someone they all knew.
It just means they didn't intend to leave the car, their reason for going up there could be as simple as taking a detour to prolong their time together.
@@MrBombastic302How do you explain the open window on the car?
53
My takeaway from this whole thing is that Gary was a great friend and a real trooper to the end, loosing grasp on reality yet continuing to care for his last friend and even covering him up when he eventually died is hearth breaking and really sweet at the same time
@@JDoe-gf5oze wasn't f***ing delusional when all of this started. He was medicated. Three of the five died within the first two days of the disappearance. It takes more than two missed days of medication to undo the level of progress he achieved. Stop commenting, you're a neanderthal.
@@JDoe-gf5ozwhy would you think that? he clearly cared a lot about his friends etc
@@JDoe-gf5ozi seriously doubt he killed them purposely
@@JDoe-gf5oz bruh watch the video and actually comprehend it
@@JDoe-gf5ozstop spreading intentioal misinformation schizophrenia has nothing to do with killing people you care about
Maybe the flashlight and three blankets were from Gary coming back down the trail the first night after getting Ted safely to the cabin, looking for the other three to try to get them there as well, before something forced him to abandon his search.
This lumberjack is a pretty good story teller.
Almost as if he might have been involved 🤔
10:59 I am completely unaware of this case, aside from the title sounding vaguely familiar to me. But after hearing the description of each of the first four “Yuba boys”, the instant he began to describe Gary, my inner lazy small-town sheriff immediately screamed, “Open and shut case!”
Lumberjacks and lumber country were the source of a lot of popular cryptids. Ex. Bigfoot, The Jackalope, Hodag, Squonk and more.
@@moss_fetttt and the Hide-behind
Giving mrballen a run for his money!
I realized in the middle of this that Gary would’ve been unmediated during all those weeks he spent with Gary. It’s terrifying how as he’s trying to take care of his friend he’s losing control on his sense of reality and that could’ve been why he left. Maybe Ted dying pushed him over the edge and he left only to die somewhere we’ll never know about. When you hear someone has mental illness, all you see is the mental illness and you forget that they love people and care about others and have goals like anyone else. It’s so goddamn tragic.
my exact thought. i understand this mindset. he just wouldn't be able to deal, especially if he felt he failed to protect everyone.
@@em-qd7wpI don’t even want to imagine the despair he must’ve been feeling…
I think the reason why Gary didn’t light a fire or turn on the gas to get warm wasn’t because what chased him up the mountain was so scary he couldn’t dare make anything that get them caught I think he probably had a scizo attack and believed that something was JUST outside the cabin waiting for them to come out so he stayed their for a couple months and once Ted died he decided that he might as well take his chances and make a run for it
@@softpucks9642 he had to go out to the sheds to get rations.
He could have had a psychotic break, and both didn't want to leave his friend, but "couldn't risk a fire" so he stayed in the cabin with him until he either got well enough to leave together, or waited until he passed away, then risked the climb back down himself and just didn't make it.
**Something** spooked those boys up that mountain though.
I appreciate that you treat the boys as PEOPLE and not reducing them solely to their disabilities
@@Bigfortniteguylovesfortnite weirdly aggressive there
@@Bigfortniteguylovesfortnite You could still treat them with respect?
bare minimum but a lot of people dont do that unfortunately
@@elvenbugsyes. that is the point.
@@Bigfortniteguylovesfortnitethey might not care, and it might not affect them, but it DOES affect people living with similar disabilities today as well as their families. Creating negative stereotypes and stigmas can absolutely harm disabled people.
Jesus fuck... thank you for humanizing Gary. What people did to him out of convenience was terrible. Your alternate perspective was so necessary here
It's incredibly sad to think that Gary may well have done everything he could to help his friend before his mental health degraded due to a lack of essential medication. It's worse that if that was the case the man most people blame for their deaths was the one who did the most to help them all.
Want something even worse to think about? If he WAS alive after he may have never came out and said anything because everyone blamed him.
Sometimes the goodest people suffer the most. No good deed gos unpunished.
@@alexc4731yeah for all intents and purposes Gary’s 500 mile trek proved that he can move silently and unnoticed as a vagrant, since his parents didn’t even know he’d left until he was on their porch. It’s likely he made it back alive and after seeing news articles and reports calling him the culprit, he ran from the area and likely survived for some time on the lam.
Friend. As someone who lives with schizophrenia, I can not put to words the feelings that I have over just.. like.. the benefit of the doubt you give Gary, despite his many faults and acting out. We're not monsters, and I know it's stupid, but it means so much to see someone with your clout and pull to just treat us like people. You're a very bright light in a very dark world.
And as always, you're welcome for watching.
You can tell that he has empathy and values human life. To truly care is a blessing and a curse, much like (but very different from) other peoples struggles. It’s not hard to use your pain to empathize with others, even if you cannot understand- you should at least try. No one should die or suffer more simply for being different.
I hope more people show you guys that we don't think you're monsters
It's really not about your morals but rather your brain playing tricks on you. A man beat his mother to death not because of malice but because he believed she was covered in bees and he was beating them off. Bloody and brutal but I don't doubt the kid loved his mom and felt sickened he did that.
I felt the exact same way. As another paranoid schizophrenic person, we are so demonized through media and society. It made me so emotional that Wendigoon gave Gary the benefit of the doubt and didn't use his mental illness as a guilty sentence.
@@macifesting2193there are people in your walls and you’re being watched
The idea of you still making videos 5-10 years from now is deeply comforting.
I’ll CERTAINLY still be listening then if he’s posting content like this!
I hope I'll be in med school by then
do you think TH-cam will exist still
@@SharperTipbest wishes 😀
probably
During my education studies i had a “sponsorship” where i would be a “big sister” for a special needs kids (11y/o) at his after school day care (in the school, so i would come to meet him) and would often meet his classmates. Many were exactly like this. Innocent to a fault. Had an older kid (16-17 y/o) with ID and OCD who seemed to take a liking to me and would often try and join in when we were doing “homework” (they never get homework, we just practiced writing words), but his OCD and need for organizing would turn it into him trying to put things back, sometimes even as we used them. Like we would use colored pencils and he would take the one we put down and put them into the box or start talking about him being in charge of the classroom and start cleaning up (it was clean) until the teacher would tell him to get out and let us work lol. His intentions were good, he was good friends with my kid, but he had no understanding of boundaries, not being part of something or that making a mess is ok when you are doing crafts and that the cleaning comes AFTER the activity, not while performing the activity….
I have many such stories, my time with them was the most exhaustingly fun i had, though also let me see the sadder parts of it, like how on my second day one of the kids got an epileptic episode or how the “big sister” of my kids best friend decided she didn’t want to do this anymore after only two/three meetings and then just canceled or outright didn’t come without notifying at all - something that is hurtful to any kid, but is even worse for a kid with middle to low functioning autism. He would cry to me and ask to be with us during sessions… it would break my heart because they wouldn’t let me be his big sister too (conflict between the kids sessions and what not). At the end of the year i met his mom and she was so thankful that i tired to include him with us as much as possible, that i cried all the way back home. He would always have the biggest smile seeing me, drooling all over my shirt, and he was just shining from happiness…. I miss all those kids so much… even the ones who would just hit me as a form of getting my attention, because once you gave them the time to know you and understand you and you them, they would so much of their world and its so colorful!
Im sorry i went on a rant, its been a year and every time i think of them i get emotional because they taught me so much about life (i suspect i am on the spectrum, diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and was advised to get an autism diagnosis, but i don’t have the money) and i am endlessly thankful for them seeing me as their friend.
It's cool my oldest son is high functioning and one of his cousins is non verbal and the other talks but he can't be still. I was their caretaker for a while and they are so sweet . It's a good experience to be with them .
You seem like a really kind and sweet person. Thank you so much for what you do.
Hearing how jacks dad found him makes me feel sick, I can’t imagine a more painful and heartbreaking experience
I was listening to the video from another room at that point and was like "oh no, my heart breaks for that father, what a terrible thing to find your sons own jacket..." and then Wendi quickly followed up with the spine falling out and it made my stomach turn. Good God only knows how a parent could even fathom that combination of events on top of everything else...
Everybody nowadays is walking around with a smartphone. I’m surprised more murderers don’t record their deaths and send them to all their contacts. I cannot think of anything more vicious. Shoulda bought me that Nintendo, mom.
Right? Like, even if he was prepared for his son to not be found alive it's a whole other level to find the corpse/body parts
@@TheRealCaptainFreedomwtf man, this isn’t the time or place for this.
@@urgae9125 Says you.
I don’t think anyone is appreciating Wendi’s girl being an absolute trooper holding her breath for that magic spoon ad enough
Literally! the one time I saw her talk she genuinely made me laugh I hope they do a vid together sometime
Haha yeah.... holding her breath
Comments like this are seriously pathetic
Bro she wasn’t acting… she’s still reported missing.
@@burtemis1 She's going to be the subject of his new video
My mom and aunts actually knew one of the boys. He went to their church and played for the church baseball team. She said that she watched your video and out of all of the ones she's seen on the topic yours is her favorite. She appreciated the fact that you covered in detail what everyone's disabilities were and didn't pin the blame on solely one person. So, because my mom asked, Thank you very much on how you covered this topic. It is appreciated by at least four people who knew one of them
Aw :) @wendigoon
do your mom and aunts live?
@@eduardocolella they do. As does my grandmother who remembers as well
Yeah, my cousin's brother's best friend's girlfriend's foster child knew someone in Georgia who had heard about this happening after getting out of rehab.
could I talk to them, you think?@@Pharaoh_Queen
I really appreciate that Wendi took the time to explain thoroughly their mental capacities and disabilities, it is really more respectful than writing them all off as having a mental capacity less than that of a toddler.
I’m disabled, special education stating from 7th grade - whenever I left in person school because I was doing horribly. Even with this, I can guarantee that I would at one point know to push a car. Mental handicap doesn’t mean someone is stupid or incapable of thought. Let alone all 5 not thinking of that. I don’t know what happened, but the idea of people claiming that there wasn’t foul play simply because they think the boys were inept is horrible.
The thought that one of the boys may have died in the snow and one of the others couldn't leave his side and died with him is absolutely heartbreaking. I've watched videos and read theories about these guys before, but the way Wendigoon layed the details and what I think to be more credible and realistic theories out in this video really got to me. I don't know whether to love or hate him for this.
Wendigoon does it to us often. The way he humanizes the objects of the story is one of a kind.
That’s what a dog does if u pass away because they’re so loyal, where as a cat will start to eat u so it’s can survive, just a fun fact lol
@@18aplateindoors I don't know where you got that, but there are several cases of dogs eating the dead bodies of their owners after starving for a few days.
@@18aplateindoors except it's not a fact. if a pet has not been fed for a while they will nip at their owners to try and wake them up and if they taste blood their instincts will kick in if they've been starving for a few days. this not a cat or a dog thing, we're talking about animals here.
@@avelynn5976 yo u can say or think whatever u want but I’m telling u exactly what my neighbor who has been working for colonies that clean up like crime scenes and self deletings, etc, and multiple times she has came into a house with a man dead and a dog layed down dead next to him and houses with cats and the cats start to eat at the people but think whatever u want it doesn’t matter to me at all tbh
Wendigoon: This is a very spooky story where viewer discretion is advised.
Also Wendigoon: Magic Spoon is life, Magic Spoon is eternal.
Too bad the boys didn’t have any Magic Spoon :(
Magic spoon may just be the coming of the anti christ as it's officially taken grasp of our wholesome, devout, Wendidad
I love how you can just see a dead body floating in his pool in the background after the very quick cut.
Gotta fund that habit
My farts are better than Wendigoon's farts
Something about Gary staying with Ted for months just to keep him safe and care for him breaks my heart, not alot of things in cases like these bring me to tears like that, knowing they were both probably cold and scared, and imagining how Gary felt most likely watching Ted die and knowing the other 3 were already gone too, being all alone must have been terrifying. I do believe that he must have died in the wilderness too, but the fact he's never been found terrifies me.
I can't imagine how scary it is because his medication wearing off and being paranoid with the knowledge of someone being after you that made you too scared to light a fire in the first place AND being all alone
Not only was it sad but also probably pretty frightening too
He likely could have used the supplies to get himself back down the mountain to safety, too. But he stayed with Ted until Ted passed. I think he started to head back after that, but it was too late at that point to make it.
@@sohji9412 Well if someone or something had driven them up there...
I doubt his paranoid schizophrenia woulda let him think that it was safe to travel back down.
@@almond3066 oh definitely. i don't have schizophrenia but i have bipolar disorder. not being able to get my medication is a complete phobia. its one of my worst fears. i can't imagine going through withdrawals and the growing paranoia while watching my loved ones die. i'd be surprised if Gary didn't unalive himself.
@@TheLikenessOfNormalI don't have schizophrenia, but I experience occasional random paranoia (not sure if the proper term, this is the one I use). I'm lucky that it's not too intense, lol.
If someone or something was chasing me or I had convinced myself that someone or something was chasing me, I'd probably drop on the spot or run as far away as I possibly could get.
I can only imagine how it would feel to have that intense "something is wanting to hurt me" feeling coupled with having issues understanding what was and wasn't reality. It must have been absolutely terrifying
From what little I know of Schizo, the meds were more than worn off by the time Gary was wrapping up Ted in those blankets. They were most likely worn off while he was caring for Gary. This would mean that despite suffering possible withdrawal symptoms and fighting the paranoia schizophrenia itself, he was devoting everything to trying to help his friend.
Imagine fighting demons inside of you that terrified you and made you go crazy, while simultaneously fighting off horrible weather and increasingly poor odds of survival in the wilderness. All while trying desperately to keep your best friend, this person you cared for deeply and desired to protect, alive for just a little bit longer. And then having to wrap them in blankets because burying them is not an option in the snow.
It’s beyond tragic. Horrifying and disheartening. Yet, in a way, Gary was a fighter and was a hero for as long as he could try. I would theorize that his mindset was so entirely focused on his own survival, as well as Ted’s, that he managed to fight off his mental illness. His mind simply have the time or energy to have serious schizophrenic episodes.
Under immense survival pressures, true character is revealed. This will bypass even mental illness to an extent. So even if Wendigoon’s theory might be wrong, we should know for sure that Gary was this protecting and caring guy provided all the evidence that almost proves Gary was Ted’s last lifeline.
As someone with schizophrenia, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for being kind and understanding, because I can not put in words how afraid I am of people seeing me as a threat to others. Thank you.
Hes not the only one. I dont see you as a theeat either : )
Hope your ok. May the world be kinder than the past has been to you
You're a human being, not an accident waiting to happen, Juan! And like me, there are many others outside who will look at you for your humanity.
I've had a number of friends and acquaintances with different types of schizophrenia, and they're all wonderful people whose brains battle against them. It's a cruel condition, but it doesn't define any of them. (HUG)
I know, right?! I’m also schizophrenic, and I only open up to people who are understanding because usually, when they don’t they think I’m crazy or become cautious. We can’t help being neurodivergent. Kind people are such a breath of fresh air, especially when they advocate for people like us and look into the subject with care. -w-
@@SewardWriterIt is seriously cruel, it makes daily life difficult and I don’t even want to wake up some days. I hope they’re getting the help they need, and I hope you have a good day.
an alternate reason why Gary stayed in the cabin without using the torches or heater (other than him being off his meds) is he didn’t realize how bad off he was and wanted to conserve his resources not knowing how long he’d be there
Almost like how a lot of people died of dehydration out in the desert despite having plenty of water in their containers, they want to ration out their supplies and underestimate how much they need to survive.
possibly but for him not to have used a single one the entire time seems a bit weird if that was his strategy
@@JojiUrHomie he was also a schizophrenic, that probably had a hand in too.
Didn't Ted hate fire?
@@katethielen3883 yeah
Waking up and seeing your ceiling on fire only to go back to sleeping is honestly concerning levels of relatable
That and spending a hundred dollars on pencils. Maybe it’s the autism but he’s so real for that one.
I would probably think I'm having a nightmare
My husband and I did this when our apartment was on fire. Our bedroom and apartment were filled with smoke, the only reason we got up was because the dog wouldn’t go back to sleep.
Like we actually talked about it-we didn’t want to get up because my husband had a big day at work.
I woke up to a chair in my bedroom being on fire. No smoke alarms. Funnily enough, when the thick black smoke from burning synthetic materials fills most of the room and you have to drop to the ground to get air that your body doesnt violently reject, it has a way of motivating you
Buddy of mine pretty much had this happen. He's not nuts so he didn't go back to sleep but you know
My stepfather was a very lovely man who was consumed by schizophrenia. He was managing very well, nobody could tell anything was wrong. He was devoted to the church he attended, donated to the church and helped people in that comunity. He married my mom and shortly after that stopped taking his meds as he thought life is going so good he didn’t need them. In 18 months after they married and my brother was born, he slowly became worse to the point we had to leave for our own safety. As we could retrace from what our home looked like, the last two weeks of his life were the most horrible thing that anybody could go through. Unfortunately he died at christmas after a car crash, while trying to keep up some normalcy and trying to finish building our house. Even tho those were the worst times in my life, after ten years I still can’t comprehend how such a lovely and patient person could be taken over by their own mind.
Just imagining how hard you would have to fight to keep it together given the situation to look after Ted is exhausting. Imagining working that hard while battling my own paranoid schizophrenia is overwhelming. The idea of fighting so hard no just for himself but for the sake of his dying friend just breaks my heart.
Another thing I bet Gary had to deal with is withdrawal. I know with my antidepressants and dealing with withdrawal I couldn't leave my bed without extreme difficulty and couldn't walk in a straight line. Gary going through withdrawal from medication available at the time sounds awful. I have so much respect for him.
And all after losing his other 3 close friends. I just know he poured everything into saving Ted and still lost him. 💔
yes! people underestimate the withdrawal from psych medication. It absolutely sucks and can sometimes be life-threatening depending on the kind.
Malice? No. Bad decisions and mistakes? Yes. Ted was kept alive for MONTHS by Gary, and he was wrapped well head to toe in blankets when they found him. You don't murder your friend and then lay them to rest like that after having tried your best to keep them alive for that long. Something else happened to those boys, and somewhere out there, Gary is waiting to be found and put to rest himself.
true. these boys were literally like brothers I wouldn't believe that Gary offed his brothers.
The biggest mystery is honestly why were they there. At the time of the incident, you need to be purposefully travelling to the area where the boys got out of their car from where they left and they had no plans or reason to be there as they were preparing for an event at the time as well. Everything else makes sense given what the families, witnesses and police say about the situation and boys. The main issue at the site is why did they leave as they did which can be explained by looking at the main witness and he seemingly has bad blood with Gary from when Gary was not medicated.
So the why they were there is the biggest mystery that needs to be solved. Were they harassed by some people who then chased them off their path leading them to follow the primary witness up the mountain or something else
Some people who murder others LITERALLY adorn their bodies, cover them respectfully, wash them etc….. what you said is not necessarily true
@@beanybabyrabie eitherway, Gary had shown great care and love to his friends and the families do not think he was capable of doing such a thing even as his meds wore off
@@victory8928 one of the boys had a friend along the highway that lead up in the mountain, you had to take a certain exit which they missed because the road was dark. I feel like they were trying to see their buddy and then while waiting for the exit to come up they missed it and then thinking it was still coming up they ended up just driving straight until they ended up at a dead end, as to why they didn’t turn around and just drive back down, thats the part that doesn’t make sense to me. One thing we often take for granted is how much we use gps to get around, its hard finding your way around a city you don’t know in broad daylight let alone a dark mountain pass with no gps and then getting lost, maybe where they ended up had them so turned around they decided to stay until morning to gather their bearings and then something happened in the night.
Plus, one possible explanation for Gary not lighting the fire, Ted was afraid of fire. It's bittersweet to think that Gary was trying to be considerate of his buddy's feelings, even in the most dire of situations
No get real....
You aren't going to freeze to death or allow someone to freeze to death.....
Are you really that niave?
... Oh god I hadn't thought about that and now I am disturbed
@@juliadwiggins-jo3fo I didn't say it was smart, my dude.
Put that doesn't explain the gas valve he could've turned. Lighting a fire wasn't his only option.
@@juliadwiggins-jo3foL
If i ever am responsible for an unsolved case or know what happened, i would leave a letter after my death explaining it because no matter what horrible things may have happened, nothing is worse than not knowing.
I agree but yet some just have be regrets or inner feelings and die with pride no matter what
Feeling unwelcome in the woods at night is such an accurate way to describe why its such an unsettling place to be
I love the woods at night 🌈
@@robertschnobert9090 I don't, I just get a weird vibe from them, like instinctively
@@laininbluescourt That does make sense. Evolutionarily speaking, the woods at night is not a safe place given you might get gobbled up by wolves or bears or cougars. That being said, I think the woods are very peaceful and serene, especially at sunset and at night.
@@danielthemaniel7934 They way I see it as there are multiple types of woods. There’s the “woods” that’s like a spot of green out in a city somewhere, there’s the woods that most of us have gone into that actually can be pretty peaceful and stuff, and then there’s the Woods. Where men die and the forest creatures call home.
True that lol I life in the middle of the woods out in the country to where my porch light is it aside from the moon and once the sun goes down I don’t like to stray too far from that porch
I've researched this topic before and I am an adamant supporter of Gary's innocence. He has an upstanding citizen on his meds and always protected his friends. Even after his meds wore off he still kept Ted alive for months. A man who will do that would not kill his friends.
Still curious that the rations were opened with 2 different can openers, though one of the boys in the house was deemed incapable of doing anything
@gewfbaulle6883 could be one was used until it either got too dull or broke. Or both were used to save the blades on them
The problem with that assertion is that schizophrenia is characterized by EXTREMELY disordered thinking. I can't say what he was thinking; NOBODY can. That's why although I FEEL like Gary wouldn't have hurt or killed his friends, I can't rule it out with absolute certainty, sadly...
@@geoffreyentwistle8176 My father has schizoeffective disorder. I can tell you that even though paranoia and disordered thinking are the main traits of an episode, a victim can still tell who their friends and family are.
I don't think he hurt any of them intentionally. He was a paranoid schizophrenic. He may have had an episode possibly believing someone was following them so he tells his friends that they have to hide. The rest of them with their lower mental ability may have just trusted him without questioning it. Remember another one seemingly had a lack of common sense so he probably just agreed with Gary that they had to run and with two out of five saying they had to go the rest surely followed.
One interesting detail that you didn't talk about is the fact that, according to wikipedia, "The Montego's undercarriage had no dents, gouges or even mud scrapes, not even on its low-hanging muffler, despite having been driven a long distance up a mountain road with many bumps and ruts. Either the driver had been extremely careful or it was someone familiar with the road, a familiarity Madruga was not known to have; his family said that Madruga would not have let someone else drive the car."
That’s so odd
@@absurdum-the-artist I don't think it sounds odd - he loved his car and worked on it all the time. He would have driven his car carefully because he really cared about it, and knew that he would have to fix any damage to it later
Having driven an ordinary sedan on roads most people wouldn't take their pickups numerous times I see nothing out of the ordinary with it. My question would be 'why in the world would anyone expect any damage to the vehicle from driving on a paved road?'. We're not talking today's plastic air dam garbage that can't even clear a standard curb, this was an 8'' clearance car.
@@knurlgnar24wasn’t the road unpaved and gravely?
@@Caffeine_Addict_2020it’s odd if they were speeding up the mountain bc they were being chased
It’s suspicious to me that a red truck was a seen by three different strangers at three different points in the timeline. Hunting before the night of the disappearance, during the night of the disappearance, and two days after. It is weird Ted was seen hunting with a stranger.
As soon as I heard that Gary had paranoid schizophrenia I knew what the most popular theory would be. As someone with schizophrenia, I cannot thank you enough for your sensitivity and compassion regarding an illness most people tend to immediately use as an open and close type of out. I was a little disheartened at the first mention of the most popular theory, but you did an excellent job handling it. Bravo!
As a person who is schizophrenic myself, I'll admit my heart sank hearing the theory, but then I was pleasantly surprised when Wendigoon didn't just buy into it and end the video there. People with schizophrenia aren't evil or even bad, we're all just people with a devastating disease that's been hiding in our genes or our environment until it strikes. It's not some punishment from god for being a bad person, it's just an illness.
BPD and schizophrenia related disorders are still SO demonized in media and pop culture. This is what we should be talking about when it comes to mental health acceptance and education!
Also schizophrenic and 100% agree. Schizophrenia needs to be more openly talked about in a better way. It’s always stigmatized as if we’re bad people
I feel like at worst Gary’s schizophrenia spooked him into going up the mountain. And because he was the leader maybe the other boys believed what Gary was scared of was real and followed him.
@@soph5306At worst, yeah
Though my hunch is probably that a group of people who knew of Gary's past, or were one of the people Gary wronged and hasn't forgiven him in the slightest, wanted to get the Boys for whatever reason, so the Boys probably ran because of it, and knowing how Gary is protective of them, he probably concluded that he'd rather run and not get the others hurt, instead of fighting them off like I assume would be the case when it's just like one or two people, so I think it was a noticeably numerous amount in that group.
Hearing you talk about the ups and downs of Gary's battle with schizophrenia, ending up doing much better with medication and making strong friendships was both heartwarming and heartwrenching knowing where the story would end up and how the media would portray him. I can't thank you enough for not putting so much weight on the boys' mental handicaps and disorders, and actually recognizing them as people rather than an extension of their conditions.
Exactly. I also struggle with mental illness, but even on my worst days/months, I can't imagine doing anything to hurt my friends. If anything, I would do something desperately unethical to someone else trying to hurt them.
...but he was on medication, which might explain him doing something like this. It could have been he didin't take the medicine for a while even.
His violent tendencies were common place, as explained in this very video, and the boys were displaced, and hid from SOMEONE, and then, later, were either killed or ran away several hundreds of meters.
@@revisit8480 You're telling me that you equate punching somebody, getting in bar fights and not respecting boundaries to killing your closest friends on purpose?? You'd rather believe that a Gary killed the other boys for 0 reason, when evidence shows he cared for Ted for weeks in the cabin? The boys' corpses weren't hidden by anything other than heavy snow and natural elements, which tend to hide things.
Additional Information:
When The Missing Enigma did his video on the case, he asked the authorities involved in the case for additional case files,
but was refused public access, because Gary Mathias is still missing, and believed, but not confirmed, to be the victim of foul play.
So it seems that the FBI and the sheriff department share the sentiment that Gary tried to save his friends, and that the boys were forced up the mountain.
This case is pretty confusing, glad the police and the FBI are agreeing on a theory.
woah thats pretty interesting
@@LifeSimplifiedvns Imagine a three letter agency getting enough of their shit together to agree on something
@@steele_heart77 lmao
@@steele_heart77 better yet, imagine a three letter agency and the general public agreeing on common grounds. Since it seems both them and the (modern) public share the opinion that Gary wasn't responsable
i can't imagine how terrified gary must've been... just feeling your sanity slowly slip away while watching your friends die... i hope he's at peace wherever he is
Here's my rule of thumb: Never trust a grieving family when they talk about possible motives of other people especially when it's contradicted by other people statements. Absolutely take it into consideration but never hold it higher than other evidence. EVERYONE said on his meds he was an upstanding citizen he got his life together, but all the family held onto was "well he had a criminal past and was violent!" Completly disregarding and the facts that he has grown, sought help and changed his behavior and made amends. They just needed someone to hate and to blame.
"on his meds" being a key phrase. He certainly ran out at some point during this ordeal. Not saying that he became violent, but there's plenty of danger you can put people in and through without a closed fist.
@@bronsontolliver9027owever considering everyone’s cause of death, that seems unlikely; gary’s body was never found, and so we have no idea of what condition he was in. for all we know his hands were frostbitten and he could no longer open cans eventually, which is when they stopped using the rations. honestly gary being an aggressor of any kind in this case is like… a wildly out there theory when you look at what little evidence there is tbh. at most by the time his meds wore off he may have still been too paranoid and scared to turn on heating or start a fire - and ted was scared of fire, so he might have not wanted one to be started. wrapping up a body is usually a sign that a person cares for the person and he may have even stayed with his body in the trailer for some time before leaving, in which case covering it is what most people would do. i would guess he wandered off afterward either to try and get to civilization or to die (bc all his friends are dead and he’s probably still suffering from medication withdrawals) or just bc sometimes schizophrenic ppl do that during episodes and god knows thats enough to send you into one. someone will probably find a skeleton that gets dna matched to the guy up in the mountains somewhere one day & then the only real mystery will be why they went up there in the first place 🤷🏻♀️
Gary’s past wasn’t an issue when they were all hanging out to begin with. Plus, Gary tended to sexually assault women and then fight their boyfriend/husband, why would he turn on his friends?
needing to blame others is a major reaction of a traumatic event, makes sense
@@nckojita Not once did I say that I believe he harmed any of his friends nor did I say he became aggressive. A man "too paranoid and scared to turn on heating or start a fire" was a mortal danger to Ted.
This is the first case that made me cry outright. I can’t imagine Gary’s horror at having to write affirmations while he was in withdrawal and also taking care of Ted. That’s just a terror I can’t get over. Thank you for being so empathetic while retelling this case.
literally, im sure Gary remembered what it was like to be unmedicated and didnt want to seep back into that while not having a supply of medication. Gary seems like a really great guy, and just needed medication to keep things out of his control in check.
Literally shaking and crying rite nao
it’s so upsetting to think that instead of getting themselves to safety they waited next to their dead or dying friend so they wouldn’t be alone. whatever happened inside the trailer is the most heartbreaking part for me. it seems like gary tried so hard to keep ted alive, even after his medication wore off. ted having gary’s shoes, and being wrapped in 7 blankets it feels like he was willing to risk his life to try and keep ted as warm as possible
Ted might be the thing having going, and if ted became a pretty responsibility person, it comes usually with guilt having people die under your watch.
And 3 died in a move that was a good guesss probably to safety, following tracks. Ted might be the reason he wanted to kive anymore, especially given that conditions would get to a person with no baggage too.
like anyone there would get wonky and in a dark place, add a sudden withdrawl, that really messes with you, never do sudden withdrawls. and the felt guilt in his mind, its probably why he did unalive by snow loosing ted.
He did not deserve any suspicion, :( its just tragic , but blaming him wtf
This story is like a pinnacle of horror and heartbreak at the same time. It could’ve had so many good endings. But it’s like we live in a reality where everything went bad. Just tragic.
Ted being scared of the dark, the woods, and fire honestly just sounds like common sense.
Ted is just that nigga
Who wouldn't be afraid of fire if you woke up and your room was on fire
yeah those are pretty instinctual fears to have
@@greywithana2678 Very good point (I forgot about that)
bitches be like "how are you scared of wild animals and unexpected factors of nature"
my brother in christ that's how fear keeps us alive
Another tragic detail if Wendigoon's theory is correct; consider the fact that the families' didn't trust Gary. Gary most likely was very aware that people didn't trust him, especially if he was going around making amends, as that would require him to acknowledge the affect he had on other people. After everyone died, Gary could very well have, along with guilt and grief, felt fear over what people might think. I don't think it'd be a stretch for him to worry people would blame him, since, well, they did. If he's also by now a couple months off his medication, I think it makes more sense he might panic and just want to run away.
I haven't finished the video yet so forgive me if I'm just repeating something,,,,
I also have some serious suspicions about Gary. He’s almost definitely dead too, but he’s got a LOT more red flags pre-incident than the other other guys.
@@CharlieApplesit could’ve even been as simple as something like he panicked and ran off and they were trying to look for him, but I think whatever the reason if for them being out there probably started with him
I think, if something scared the guys bad enough to go to the mountains, Greys schizophrenia got the better of him.
People without any prior history of mental illness can go paranoid if something spooks them hard enough. A real "their chasing me" moment could have set off Gery.
It could very well be that he and ted were relatively safe once they hit the cabin, but Gery couldn't start the cabin because he still believed they were after him.
@@CharlieApples He actually doesn't.
i think the reason they didn’t even try to start a fire because of Ted’s fear of fire. To me, that seems to be the reason Ted was wrapped in blankets, Gary was so protective of them that i think he was more concerned with keeping Ted alive that, even though they couldn’t start a fire, Gary did anything to keep Ted safe without any real regard to himself
I had trouble keeping track of the names, so I never made that connection. That definitely sounds like a possibility for why a fire was never made, especially since they would have been in that cabin for months.
Im not sure, furnaces could heat the cabin, btut it could appear not to be an accual fire. Tragic, this whole thing is.
You cannot light a fire indoors. You will die from CO2 poisoning
Do you really think Gary, who had been in the military and had some experience of outdoor suvival, would just respect Ted's phobia of fires and not make one? Even if it meant the death of them?
Maybe they were chased and Gary didn't want to light a fire in order to not be found.
And then they slept through the night, and because Gary couldn't take his medicine that very next day he went completely haywire?
@@pancake1751 again, Gary was very protective of his friends. I feel like he definitely would’ve wanted Ted to feel safe when they were probably terrified. Also, to add onto what you mentioned about his medication, it probably never occurred to him to turn on the gas.
My son had schizophrenic and took his life. He refused medication. I didn't know until the last 2 years. But then, there was an event that was extremely sad that flipped a switch in his brain. From then on, he was catatonic.
Maybe, ultimately, something similar happened from the stress of the situation and Gary did too.
1:30:59 this kind of predicament reminds me of the Smalls Lighthouse tragedy that described two people staying behind to guard the tower but due to horrible storms, boats with supplies or people to rotate their shift, couldn't reach them so they were stranded. One of them died and because it was well-known these two fought a lot, the guard that stayed alive, couldn't throw the corpse to the sea out of fear that people would accuse him of being the killer. However, as the body was decomposing, he put it outside in the balcony/window and tied it up but the wind blew hard, making it look as if the dead man was waving. That is absolutely haunting to me - imagine being stuck for months in a lighthouse during a storm, having a corpse "wave" at you from outside the window. I would have gone mad.
That is actually terrifying
Ooh I remember the Lore Podcast covering this event, such a chilling scene to imagine.
I think it’s Episode 23 - Rope & Railing
One of his earlier episodes (which I think were the best)
WAIT ISNT THIS A MOVIE
Sounds like The Lighthouse which I think was based off that
Ahh, no, I'd go fix the arm and tie it down properly. 🤷🏼♀️ yeah sounds like movie The Lighthouse.
I don’t believe for a second that Garry intentionally hurt them.
If he wanted them to die why would he go through so much trouble to keep Ted alive?
Its probably more a case of him being in a paranoid state, caused by his illness.
@@ParumPirumparanoid that whoever chased them up, we’re still looking for them. Because of the paranoia, he made them stay in the shelter
ik Wendigoon (and you) don't think Gary was mainly responsible for what happened, but I'm sure his presence as their "leader" didn't help, like... all I'm saying is it's probably not a good idea to make a violent schizophrenic the leader and decision maker of your friend group, esp of men who are less mentally competent than him. That seems like it would lead to exactly the situation that we see here, unfortunately. I'm not saying he intentionally hurt them btw, but schizophrenia, if he really had it (even on modern medication) distorts your view of reality and can make you make really weird decisions, so even if he was trying his best to keep them all alive, he might've unintentionally made a few decisions for the group that were not the best for them and may have ignored some of their opinions.
@@thekamotodragon sounds like you just disregarded everything wendigoon said about his medication and him getting better just to do the typical "well he's a violent man and schizo, so it must've been him, even by accident"
@@dankerbell *sigh* clearly you didn't read my comment all the way through. I never said "it must've been him" I said some of his decisions may have contributed to their final fate. Also, I listened to everything Wendi said, but have you actually ever interacted with someone who has schizophrenia but is on medication? I have, and my point was that, even on medication, they can still be unpredictable and irrational sometimes, esp for violent schizophrenics. That's not to insult him or demean his character in any way, he may have had the best of intentions but simply to point out that even if it seemed he was doing great, that condition can "strike" at any moment and while the medication can make it so you don't start having paranoid thoughts and delusions, it can still effect how you perceive the world and your decision making abilities, unfortunately. It's a very tragic mental illness. I hold nothing against Gary, and he probably did his very best considering the situation, but we have to be realistic and consider that many of the boy's mental conditions may have contributed to the scenario they found themselves in, to rule that out just to be more politically correct is asinine.
what really gets me is that gary seemed so determined to help his friends survive that even as he was most likely going through med withdrawals he was writing self-affirmations on any piece of paper there was to (in my opinion) keep himself sane enough in order to protect and care for Ted as best as he could
It's too bad he didn't write out what happened to them
@@NickyBlue99 The poor man probably was thinking more of how to survive now than on leaving any record behind.
Thank you. Yours was the best explanation I've seen, and I've followed this story for maybe 10 years, and watched and read everything available.
The detail about the cards hit me real hard for some reason. I'm imaging Gary finding a pack of cards and cajoling his sick, bedridden friend who can't walk anymore due to the frostbite into playing in an attempt to keep their spirits up. It was probably the last thing to make Ted smile before he passed. That would be hard enough without coming down from your meds and knowing you're slowly losing your mind. I can't imaging trying so hard to stay strong for someone, and then they die anyway.
He might , ok i guess and we will nevr knew, but given his knack for survival, maybehe felt guilty he couldnt even save ted, and shizophrenia wont help, and the pressure ayone would crack under.
Maybe he thought he isnt worth living if he failed them made worse by all kinds of psychologivcalissues anone would get there. Maybe he just lost all will to live joining them :(
I dont know, but i dont think he wanted to surviv anymore and maybe was haunted by the situation and additional sshizophrei and whtever trauma anyone would have there..
We cant ever know, but given how he is decribed, loosing ted after the others, might have broken him with guilt. oh god he i some real life tragic hero. or might be, we cant know rally.
I feel like this could be an excellent movie, if handled properly.
@@e.c.winner7252I was thinking the same thing but I feel like it might be executed best as a documentary commentating on the stereotypes that mentally ill people experience and how they are still humans with hearts
The detail that they laid their basketball uniforms out on their beds because they were so excited broke my heart. What a tragic case, thank you Wendigoon for sharing this with so much compassion for the boys.
Ty for not minimizing the intellect of these guys or just blaming Gary. This case fascinates and haunts me and it's rare to see coverage of it that truly explores how bizarre it really is. These guys did not just wander off ffs.
I have a son with a mental health issue and he still is genius. Also i think they are at Chico state number one party college from personal knowledge as an alumni. They easily could've picked up acid or laced weed. They are out in a party city having a fun night. Could've ended up in the wrong place on a bad trip. Then wandered off instead of thinking hey let's push the car out, the might of wanted to get out and explore, mushrooms and acid can sometimes take all fear away.
Usually when running from something scary you hide not remain in clear sight heading up a path to a cabin.
@@briannesmith5040good theory but i think, if they were absolutely blazed like you said, the car drive would have probably ended way earlier or atleast caused someone on the highway to notice them
@briannesmith5040 there is no evidence that any of the boys were doing drugs.
@@briannesmith5040interesting theory. Hadn’t heard this one and there is definitely a chance that is exactly what happened. They got lost and when the trip really got bad, they decided to get out of the car. The rest is history.
@@briannesmith5040 that's an interesting and great theory
It has always been thought that only Ted and Gary were in the trailer. This is based on the body and sneakers. The assumption is that the other three died on the trail. However, it makes more sense for Jackie to have also been there. My theory is that Gary found some food and opened it for everyone. He quickly left to get help and took Teds boots, a flashlight and blankets with him. He died someplace in the woods. Jackie stayed with Ted but being very disabled was unable to turn on the gas, build a fire, open the food containers etc. He wrapped Ted up in sheets and left after he died or before when he figured that Gary wasn’t coming back with help. He attempted to walk back down the trail but died on the way. The idea of Gary staying for months as some speculate without his having his medication seems unlikely.
Your theory is possible but I do believe Gary was the last to go I think they were chased up there by an unknown force maybe by the only known nearby witness joseph schoens somehow they abandoned the car when they had no choice but to run they may have l got lost or seperated atbone point hard to say but eventually ted and Gary find the trailer break in stay there hiding, and stuck in bad conditions to where Ted eventually died and Gary who was probably going insane at that point ran off after ted died and eventually dropping himself maybe natural elements dissolved his remains away this case is so sad and scary I wonder if someone can make a movie about this one day Maybe it will help bring the story back
It is really sad when you hear a case like Gary. He seemed like a legit case of someone able to turn around and even in his darkest moments did everything he could to hold it together for his buddies. It's a bitter sweet story. God bless these souls.
yea i truly believe gary fought himself to keep them safe for as long as he could. I hope the full story comes out one day
All that determination and will-power to hold out as long as possible, just to be blamed for absolutely everything by the family members. That is pretty tough
yeah i think wendigoon's story tracks, it's obvious gary was struggling (who isn't?) and a lot of the stigma surrounding him always seemed unfair to me but i doubt he had any ill intentions throughout
@@samuelrobinson5842at least Jack Huett’s brother and sister in law don’t think he did it. They spoke on a podcast about it
I never heard the detail about the spine before.
That is horrifying.
I can't imagine thinking you found a sign that will help you find your missing son, only to have his bones fall at your feet.
Yea that detail was very upsetting to me. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the horror and sadness the father felt in that moment
That poor father :(
Absolutely horrifying. No one should have to go through that.
yeah, jesus
ok
1:30:40 Not only did he watch his friends die but as you mentioned earlier his medication would've only lasted him so long so he ultimately wandered out into the woods to die suffering from schizophrenia the whole while which is the most horrific aspect in my eyes
I know it’s so sad
and the fact he was blamed after having such clear signs of caring for his friend until the end! i have delusions (not full on schizophrenia) and honestly knowing all my friends died AND having to cold turkey meds that clearly helped in becoming stable would have sent me off the edge almost immediately
I appreciate your passion for the boys and this case. You're the best person to speak about it.
Having woken up to my room being on fire, I can somewhat relate to Ted's comment. I literally looked at the curtain to my room burning, thought it was the sun rising, walked out to the bathroom, and then realized while in there, that the sun had not yet even begun to rise. If not for that, I'd have probably gone back to sleep. So yeah, people can be real dumb when waking up.
Lol, that’s pretty hilarious
Don't believe you.
@@MultipleVictims If you don't believe it, why are you commenting on it?
Literally as SOON as there's someone with a mental illness or condition involved, people just automatically point to that as the root cause, so thank you for being reasonable and explaining why that might not be. I've never thought Gary did it, but his condition just instantly makes people think he did Just Because "well he was schizophrenic, so OBVIOUSLY!!"
While there is clearly too much blame put on Gary, it is likely that some strange details in the case could be a result of his schizophrenia. If he believed they were being followed/hunted or had trouble discerning reality, that is likely why the fire and gas were never used (especially if there really was a weird red pickup truck, as Shone said)
well it happened 40 years ago when we knew very little about mental disabilities so you cant be too hard on the people who thought that
@@SHITSWEEEKyes you can lol
Gary, was treated, pretty sucessful, he found a sucssful tratment. Which makes that even more infuriating. Like even if he had symptoms, he would likely know how to dal with it somewhat, and no harm anyone .
@@beepbop6542 But thats no blame on him, they just didnt want to trigger a psychosis probably.
I mean its hard to not go crazy in such a situation, and it was a good call if they had tried to find them earlier, and you dont want to fuel any psychosis while surviving.
Its not unreasonable to not try triggering his symptoms, its hard enough to not freak out there for a person with no baggage..
Gary's demise is the saddest death I've ever come across. Doubly so if he had to watch all his friends die while losing his mind just because he wanted to get high with his friends. That guilt is unimaginable.
Really? The death of a sexual predator is the saddest one you have heard? In a world where women (and girls and boys) are killed daily after being tortured/sold/sexually assaulted, and with many of those cases talked about in podcasts and TH-cam, this is the one the saddest one?
Holy sh*t, the bar is really low for men I swear
@@FanyLI Bad bait.
@@FanyLIthis doesnt have shit to do with men vs women, all your comments have this weird energy behind them
@@JohnDoe-rr1fz So you think it’s okay to glorify and feel bad for sexual predators who threatened to kill little girls? (Gary was clearly a misogynistic pos who was dangerous to women, note how he only groped women and only threatened to kill a little girl). Plenty of people (men and women) are severely mentally ill and even have violent impulses because of it, but his worst impulses were aimed at women specifically, that was him, not his mental illness.
Tell me, if the story was about a group of girls, and one of them had a history of predating on men and threatening to kill little boys, would you feel sorry for her? Would you ignore what she did and focus on how sad her death was?
@@dragonace119 so is it bait to point out that people are glorifying a sexual predator?
Just a small thought on the P38 can opener, there may already have been one at the cabin to open the cans. It would seem likely that the Forestry Service either procured surplus military supplies or just bought them from the same source given that the government already used the design.
True though most people I know that are civilians have no idea how to use one, or what it even is when looking at it. Gary could have showed the boys how to use one at some point but it's probably a pretty good bet that he would be the most likely to use one.
Then again, this was a different time. Maybe most civilians from this era did indeed know what a P38 is and how to use it. I wasn't there so I definitely don't know.
Agreed
@@karmalotto8587 It'd depend on the kind of can opener that was most common then, though I'd wager that can openers similar to the P38 were common enough. If you knew how to use of those, you could probably work out how to use a P38 quickly enough.
There boys were not academically gifted, but they were of functional intelligence.
Also, you have to consider that these cabins are expressly put in place to help people survive in these places. You have to take into account that they may not have any utensils with them at all. You also want this to be cheap, and the P38 is a stamped piece of sheet metal, can't make it much cheaper than that. Even more so if you can obtain them from the military second hand, which is where my thinking came from.
Granted, maybe they're trickier to use than other manual, lever based can openers, I can't say, I've never used a P38 or any similar designs, so I can't really say.
The fact that Ted was wrapped up the way he was shows respect. If Gary was a cold blooded killer, he would have just left the body.
Also, Gary probably took off because he knew he would be the scapegoat being he was the only one left alive. So I don’t blame him for taking off.
I dont believe Gary killed him, but i think some killers do actually for example cover the victim or atleast face with something. Its kinda like act of remorse, and guilt because not all killers are full blown psychopaths. Even though i dont suspect him for example though if he would have had some kinda psychotic fit due to his mental illness, and wiuld gave killed him he could then be remorseful or some kinda delusion could be motive.
I think what actually happened as his friend died he would have also been in extremely bad condition likely at that point both physically, and mentally he then maybe as last resort took off to find safety, but been weak, and such just died in the woods. Also i feel if wendigoon is correct, and they were scared of someone him been literally paranoid schitzophrenic might have made him extremely well paranoid maybe explaining why he didnt build fires, and all that
He might have killed him and show remorse later.
Just to add, my dad friend had a surgery gone wrong and had oxygen shortage in brain or something similar, making him lose him sanity. Even on meds sometimes he would be almost normal, then he would accuse my dad of being demon and that god told him to kill all demons (common in mentally unwell people)
It might just be projection of what I would have done if I was Gary, but I had kinda thought that maybe he'd left because he didn't want to be in the place that his friend had passed away because of emotions, and he didn't have the heart to remove the body and put it back out in the cold that he succumbed to, but that was what I'd built up in my head during the video. Or at least what I hope for. I'm sure realistically he would have had other reasons to leave, but again, probably projection.
No a person capable of killing eouldnt wrap their body.....
A real killer.... someone who's so obsessed with killing g they possibly plan it in their head n all that most likely would have some form of ritual or respect for people....
Most likely he killed them or another group did and made sure he was never found so it looks so
Here’s a minor correction for your video - I’m from Yuba City and this is a common mistake for those that aren’t from there. Yuba City is in Sutter County, not Yuba county. The boys lived in Sutter County (Yuba City), but they went missing in nearby Yuba County, hence why they were called the Yuba County 5.
Hell, I’m from Chico/Paradise - where my mother use to work at the Yuba City Save-Mart; and we ended up living with someone in Yuba City, after losing our home in the Campfire, back in 2018..
And I still get the counties and towns confused.
"Disappearance of the Yuba County 5" had a nice ring to it tho
I live in Sutter and I always confused them
Just chiming in to say what a small world. I live in Chico.
Sometimes I think the people who named places made them confusing on purpose lol. Reminds me of how when I lived in Atlanta there were tons of things called 'peachtree' - Peachtree hills, Peachtree road, etc etc. (at least from what I remember - I was 12)
As a schizophrenic person thank you very much for this. I can’t imagine the pain Gary must’ve gone through during all of that. My theory is that after Ted died Gary’s last nerve snapped, his last vestige of reality that he fought so hard to preserve gone, leading him to lose it and wander off into the wilderness, practically catatonic. Even if you were a perfectly mentally healthy person this kind of situation would make you snap, add on psychotic illness and that level of suffering makes my eyes water.
Oooooohhh im in ypur walls ooooohhhhhh
@@VEV-cu6no🤓🤓
I agree that anyone could snap from having to sit and watch someone you care about die. I hope that if he did wander off, he might just have clicked off and didn't experience much pain
I came here to say exactly this. One of my dear friends is also schizophrenic, and I'm bipolar with occasional psychotic episodes, and seeing someone not immediately demonize Gary for his schizophrenia was such a relief. People are so quick to say "yup, this person has Evil Disease, they must be responsible" because people have such hatred for cluster-b disorders and see us as inherently evil.
@@VEV-cu6nostfu
50:55 Wendigoon putting up “intelliGIANT” just really proves his love for the nephilhim concept, beautiful
Bill going to the hospital and reading the Bible and Prayers to the sick is so wholesome.
I feel so bad for these men, especially as a disabled person myself.
Edit: the people in this thread need to calm down
What is your disability?
@@p3pable does it matter?
@@p3pableNone of your business.
Same. I'm also disabled and while I'm not religious, religion is important to many disabled people
@@ronnielacherdamn nigga chill
Ted seeing his ceiling on fire and just rolling over to go back to sleep is such a relatable mood.
'this is fine' dog
can’t be bothered
I have sleep semi-regular sleep paralysis, but a weird type. Ted rolling over is something both relatable, and terrifying.Lemme explain:
I wake up fully lucid, but unable to move with any efficiency. I can move my hips, and curl my toes. Fully awake and aware of my situation. No "demons," no dream-like things except for the fact it feels like being wrapped in weighted clothing. To break free of it (yeah it's so regular I learned how to break free,) I have to use all my will to move just enough to begin using my body's momentum. With all my mental will, lean a bit to the left, then try to roll the right, and repeat. Usually on the 3rd or 4th try it works. I usually wake up, snap fully to reality, and start gasping or scream; both of terror and the amount of effort required to break out. It's not physically taxing, it's a battle of will in my brain lol.
The thought of being in that state with a *fire???* Oh my...
@@XXMatt0040XX any idea why it happens to you so much?
@@XXMatt0040XXI have this too! I have never heard anyone else have it!
I usually explain it as me waking up "in a panic attack", because that's what it usually feel like for me. I can't move, I'm not in danger, fully awake, fully aware, but because I can't feel a whole lot, my brain slowly begins freaking out because usually I can feel everything (like, my fingertips and toes are always "awake"). I can usually wriggle my body and on occasion I can fully sit up before my back gives out and I fall right back down.
When panic sets in, I do however begin whining and curling up. Very uncomfortable, haha.
I'm weirdly happy that someone else also has this type of paralysis!
I heard this case years ago and my theory was always that a group of men (bullies) followed the boys out of the basketball game to harrass them. The boys left and so did the men, but then they saw them at the store buying candy and things and decided to chase them. The boys panic, drive up the mountain, get their car stuck, and then abandon the car and run into the woods. They then ended up getting disoriented and separated. Ted and Gary make it to the trailer but were too afraid to start a fire for fear that these men would see the smoke and find them, and ended up dying too. And yes, I think there are people alive now who know exactly what happened but they're covering for the ones responsible.
I agree with you
Also the bullies ran away when they heard yelling from that one car thinking they were caught that’s when they booked it
I like this theory and it makes sense, but why was window rolled down?
@@foreverareaper191 It's a pretty normal thing to do when you get stuck, to see if the tires are spinning at all etc.
@@satoshiwasareptiloid3777 alright I guess that's fair, it just seems odd especially considering the weather conditions being as harsh as they are and the clothing they wore