This book is inspired by "Yuba County Five".Although this story is based on an actual life incident, the plot does not entirely portray "Yuba County Five" incidents. This story is not happening in Yuba or Plumas National Park, but in a fictitious country. The characters also come from my imagination (except that they all have some kinds of mental disabilities). If you would like to find out more about the case, I can provide you with the Wikipedia link or you can search.
Multiple Murder Possible Five Men Vanish In Wilderness
MARYSVILLE (AP) - Five slightly retarded men who vanished without a trace more than a week ago are the objects of an intensive hunt in a snowy wilderness rated as some of the roughest countries in California. "We don't know what happened to them -- we have a real mystery on our hands," declared Yuba County Undersheriff Jack Beecham, who said multiple murder is one possible explanation. If the missing men became confused and wandered into the forest, not much hope is held for their survival, said Sheriff Jim Grant. "I was up there myself one day and the only way I could get out was with a compass," he declared. "It's a very heavily forested country, rough and mountainous and rocky," added Beecham. "Some places you can only get in on horseback." Teams of deputies from Yuba and adjoining Butte counties, some 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, have been searching the mountains on horseback, with dogs, in four-wheel-drive vehicles and a helicopter -- to no avail. The men were to attend a basketball game the night of Feb. 25 at Chico and have gone back to their homes. But their car was seen abandoned the next day some 20 miles east, on a Plumas National Forest road closed farther on by snow. The elevation of the site is 4,400 feet. The missing men, who lived with their families and were part of a program for the mentally handicapped, are Jack A. Madruga, 30, Marysville; William Sterling, 29, Yuba City; Ted Weiher, 32, and Gary Mathias, both from Olivehurst, and Jack Huett, 24, Marysville. Madruga and Mathias had driver's licenses. The family and friends of the missing men have offered a $1,215 reward for information on where to find them. Grant and Beecham said the men were reported to be able to function very well with their retardation handicap -- except if placed in a stressful situation when their behaviour tended to "deteriorate." "We hate to guess what happened to them," said Grant. "They could have stopped to aid somebody, and the people they aided took advantage of them," Beecham noted that a study of the personality profiles of the missing men shows their disappearance to be totally out of character. The men were to play in a basketball game in the area the night of the day their car was found. "As time goes on it looks more and more like foul play," Beecham said. Grant said that among the tips received by deputies was a telephone call from a woman in Brownsville, 30 miles from where the car was found. "She said she saw four of them that Sunday," said Grant, adding he thought the men couldn't have walked that distance in the kind of terrain they were in. "The prevalent theory is it could be anything," said Beecham.
- credits to California Digital News Paper Collections.
-newspaper report appeared in Desert Sun in the year 1978
English is not the mother tongue. I am by no means an expert on English. There may be grammatical or linguistic mistakes in this work. You'll have to forgive the inconvenience.
