What is documented
The Sacramento Bee examined case evidence with the sheriff’s permission and interviewed relatives and investigators. It reports that the car was found on 28 February, four sets of remains in June, and Gary Mathias remains missing.
ARTISTIC ARCHIVE
1978Under review
Yuba County Five
Five men vanished after a basketball game in February 1978. Four were later found dead; Gary Mathias has not been found.
All cases ↗What it explains
Cold and starvation help explain some of the deaths described in the records, but do not explain why the group drove onto the mountain road or what happened to Mathias.
What remains open
The detour and Mathias’s fate remain unresolved. UNDER REVIEW describes our own pending check of the sheriff’s files; the second link leads to the official records office.
PROVENANCE / SOURCE
Sources
The Sacramento Bee: reporting based on sheriff case files and interviews, 2019 ↗ Yuba County Sheriff's Office: Records Unit ↗Change log
2026-09-30 — Record published with a source and stated limits.