On the way, he met several people who took pictures of him. She would ask him if he wanted to travel, and he would respond that he didnt need to go anywhere because he could easily look at pictures online. The eyes with dark circles around them. People sent me theories about who he could have been or what he might have been doing. Even though he was kinda a shitty person the amount of balls it takes to just leave everything is admirable. Watch Live: Closing arguments begin in double murder trial of Alex Murdaugh, Ex-Georgia star Jalen Carter was racing in deadly crash, arrest warrants allege, Watch Live: Garland testifies amid ongoing special counsel investigations, Fiery train crash in Greece kills dozens, many of them students. "The thing that stood out to me first was his beard. Great read. And, of course, people thought they knew who he was. It was only 4 months before he would be discovered deceased. The city was filled with constant motion, but that seemed to render him catatonic. In Gormley's photos, Mostly Harmless is not smiling, as he was in many other photos. COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. After more than two years, the identity of the deceased hiker who went by the trail name . What happened next involved a huge number of man hours and DNA testing to try and discover the identity of this mystery man, who was quickly established to be hiking under the names Mostly Harmless and Denim along the Florida Trail (FT). But I hadnt focused on all the pain that could bring. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Was he struck down by a trail illness e.g. But over the next two years the case slowly gathered attention. . I hadn't seen this article yet, and it is very well done and gives honest reflections that I think we often run into with mysteries like this. Story produced by Alan Golds. In 2018, an Uber autonomous vehicle fatally struck a pedestrian. Investigators tried to match the bodys fingerprints to those in national databases, but no match was found and then missing persons cases in the area were checked, again with no result. A few phone calls later and it was clear the lead was a red herring. If he had been trying to escape something, it was himself. I think it just hurts that he was capable of being this person with complete strangers, but when it came to us he couldn't even be a decent human being to treat me or my body with any dignity., As he traveled down the Appalachian Trail, Vance Rodriguez was unencumbered by obligations and flush with cash from his time in tech. Members of the group lit candles for him. The thru hiker, who went by trail names "Denim" and "Mostly Harmless," interacted with others along the Appalachian and Florida trails. He was quiet but not, to his coworkers, perversely so. Still, months went by with no positive ID. "Mostly Harmless" has been formally identified as Vance Rodriguez. David Hurm, a detective with the Collier County Sheriff's Office in Naples, Florida, said. K, who asked for anonymity because of the public obsession about the hiker, was then finishing college in upstate New York. "As soon as I saw the pictures I knew immediately it's like, 'Oh, that's Vance!'" Id wanted to help identify the missing hiker. They traveled back and forth to visit each other. At 17, with the consent of his parents, Rodriguez was emancipated by a Lafayette, Louisiana, court. "I do a lot of hiking and things like that, And that's part of the agreement we all know that we look out for each other. Im the Operator: The Aftermath of a Self-Driving Tragedy. They were contacted . He had a long scar on his abdomen and readers diagnosed potential illnesses. It had to be him. He also told her that he had some health issues and needed/wanted to do the trip while he still could. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. mariah carey and michael jackson relationship mostly harmless autopsy pictures. He had spent his life in Louisiana and welcomed the change. Around this time, according to K, Rodriguez also made a threat that was both terrifying because of his skills and ironic because of the anonymity he was about to seek: He threatened to dox K if she ever left him. Hed go for a year without smiling or being nice to people, Godso recalls. He would go on what Marie and other friends called outages, where he lay immobile for days, refusing food and all human contact. Testing there would cost $5,000, money not in the Collier County Sheriff's Office budget. Thank you for sharing. November 22-26, 2017 - Hiawassee, GA. Mostly Harmless checked into Top of Georgia Hostel & Hiking Center under the name "Ben Bilemy", which was more than likely an alias since hikers were not allowed to check in under their trail names. His eyes were wide open and he was looking right at me. The hikers quickly called 911. But then I thought back to my phone call to the friend of Daryl McKenzie. Both these pictures were taken by Kristin Ernst Vanpelt and posted in the comments section of the Collier County Sheriff's Office post. Im sketching in details in the half light. Reminds me of Chris Mccandless who I thought was a v interesting & at one point inspiring individual of mine, Wow. In . The man called himself Mostly Harmless because it was said he enjoyed the work of Sci-Fi Writer Douglas Adams and the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series. "[3] There were no signs of foul play. Pretty inappropriate that, contacting a friend of someone and basically alluding to their death without confirmation that it was even them. You deserve to be treated with dignity. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. In 2018, fellow hikers discovered an unidentified deceased person on a trail in Big Cypress Preserve, Florida. Body found July 23, 2018, Noble's Camp, Big Cypress National Preserve, Collier County, Florida. I began searching for details to validate the tale. Listen to the podcast here. He checked out the next days since the hostel was closed for Thanksgiving on the 23rd. His DNA, dental information, and fingerprints did not match known missing person reports in any database. There was nothing significant in the report, but it seemed that the male had previous surgery at some point. Surfing online, she became fascinated by the case of Mostly Harmless. "My phone stays blown up all the time with people sending me messages like, 'Could it be this person?' They had a bead on a user named Vaejor. And so, no one would remember him [that way], I'm sure. A comment on the Mountain Crossings post said that Mostly Harmless had made it to Springer. But the man whose journey had ended in the yellow tent wasnt who anyone thought or hoped. So did other hikers. Joshua Angrist and Jrn-Steffen . He wasnt wearing black and he didnt have his signature long flowy hair he did at Shoppers Choice. Rodriguez's identification aired as a segment on CBS News Sunday Morning on February 21, 2021. The mystery of the identity of Mostly Harmless was finally solved in January 2021, thanks to a combination of DNA testing, crowdfunding, and public outreach. Criminology. The Collier County Sheriff's Office issued a bulletin to attempt to identify the hiker. . Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. He had long, dark hair almost down to his waist. And his friends in Louisiana just thought he was in a long-ass outage, as Marie puts it. What a great story! After the case was solved, and after some of the dark things about Rodriguez had come to light, I corresponded with Sahar Bigdeli, the woman whod tried to get his teeth analyzed. Last week, he was identified as 44-year old Vance Rodriguez when friends of his stumbled upon photos on the internet. Im sketching in details in the half light. Meanwhile, the dedicated Facebook hunters kept going. "If he was trying to stay anonymous, that would be one giveaway. But a new high-tech tool held out hope. K, if youre out there and see this, my heart broke when I read this quote: but when it came to us he couldn't even be a decent human being to treat me or my body with any dignity.. . The surgeries that followed were the cause of the scar that had so intrigued the Facebook group. When she asked him if he was using the Florida Trail (FT) Guide app, he said no because he didnt have a phone since he was wanting to disconnect. ", "It's not really a difference; it's a difference in when you're talking to him,'"he replied. Facebook tipsters quickly linked a composite image of the man to photos taken of him during his hike along the Appalachian Trail, beginning in 2017. I hope they are able to move on in health and healing. To go through the trail blind was naive, I thought that was a bad decision. Updated February 2021 - Vance Rodriguez identified as Mostly Harmless, Warning: The article contains some disturbing images. Kelly gave a sticker, which said FT thru-HIKE, to Mostly Harmless and took a picture of him with it. The nose was the same. What about his past that you talked about? Marie recognized the face and she knew all about the scar. The process of mapping a family tree can take days, weeks or months to produce a possible, distant relative. He was trying to escape someone who wanted to hurt him. I told my editor, who got obsessed too, and she found a Facebook page for a Daryl McKenzie that hadnt been active since 2017, the year Mostly Harmless started his trek. Thompson asked Godso, "All the people who met him on the trail describe them as friendly, amiable, easy to talk to, whereas all the other people who knew him in real life, describe him as a little distant, little bit of a loner. The results showed that Mostly Harmless was probably from Assumption Parish in Louisiana. Yet somehow Mostly Harmless had escaped the digital dragnet. Death of Vance Rodriguez. The Unsettling Truth About the 'Mostly Harmless' Hiker. She helped form a Facebook group to try to identify him, named for an alias he sometimes used: Ben Bilemy. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/unsettling-truth-mostly-harmless-hiker/amp. [6] An official announcement from the Collier County Sheriff's Office was released on January 12, 2021. Updated: January 13, 2021 12:03 AM EST. We hear one part of a story and add another part that we hope might be true. Id written about his story and posted it online. He self-medicated with drinking and chocolate, she says. There have been rumors about his name circulating for the last few weeks, but this is the first official confirmation I've seen. All rights reserved. The effort eventually reached a former colleague, who recognized a local called Vance Rodriguez and reached out to the Collier County Sheriffs Office. By September 9, 2020 Uncategorized. Articles appeared online, including one that Thompson wrote for Wired Magazine which was read by 1.5 million people. People began to come forward with information about their encounters with Mostly Harmless after the story took hold . The group grew to more than 6,000 members. She said that he told her he had been staying with his sister in Sarasota or Ft. Meyers FL area before starting the FT. She said he told her about working in the tech field. He had signed in at hostels as Ben Bilemy, which, with some creative effort, could be read in reverse as Why me, lib? And sometimes they just let their imaginations fly. I worked with Vance in Louisiana for a short time. He previously hiked from New York along the Appalachian Trail (AT). The companys codebase is still filled with notations of VR, for code that Rodriguez wrote. The many people who met him didnt sense the dark, brooding, sometimes dangerous person who left Brooklyn. Another hiker met Mostly Harmless, who he knew as Denim, at a shelter at Springer Mountain. Earth is now "mostly harmless." By summer, the hiker was in Virginia, where he walked about a hundred miles with a 66-year-old woman who went by the trail name . The puzzle was formally solved today, when Othram confirmed that the DNA of the hiker matched that of Rodriguezs mother. 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