Dead Appalachian hiker ‘Mostly Harmless’ left trail of mystery: doc

This story is about suicide. If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

In 2018, the emaciated body of an unidentified man was found in the Florida desert, creating a mystery that lasted nearly three years.

The case of Vance John Rodriguez, known as “Mostly Harmless” by the hiking community, is being examined in a new Max documentary, “They Called Him Mostly Harmless,” from Emmy Award-winning director Patricia Gillespie.

“There’s a bigger story to this mystery,” Gillespie told Fox News Digital. “It’s about how we live our lives online and the myth-making that happens in the digital space. It’s not just about Mostly Harmless, but it’s also about the community, the hiking community, that came together to find it. And I think “A lot of that generosity is overlooked online: people who are willing to donate their time to try to help bring answers to someone’s family.”

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Hiker Brandon Dowell met Rodriguez, who also called himself “Denim” for wearing jeans, eight months before Rodriguez died. The two men met in Georgia.

“I thought I was going to camp alone that night,” Dowell told Fox News Digital. “I looked up and saw this guy, this lanky guy, walking out of the woods. My first impression was, ‘Man, this guy looks like he’s been out for a long time.’ You can see the wear and tear on his backpack. He looked tired and exhausted”.

The couple quickly bonded over everything: difficult childhoods, their parents, girlfriends and the discouragement of society. But when it came time to part ways the next day, Rodriguez, 42, refused to keep in touch.

“I remember asking him, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to exchange emails or something?'” Dowell recalled. “He just shook his head. He seemed really sad about it. We shook hands and that was it. It was hard. You want to hold on to that connection, but that’s how things are on the road. Maybe you’ll see it.” again later, maybe not. It’s great. You will meet new people that same day and everything will be fine. But it was strange. He wanted to keep me in touch.”

When it was later learned that a body had been found inside a yellow tent, Dowell didn’t think much of it. The body was found without a wallet, phone or identification. There was an abdominal scar, but no distinctive tattoo.

Investigators discovered $3,500 in cash, notebooks with computer codes scribbled on them, and abundant food supplies. The deceased weighed only 83 pounds and his DNA, along with his fingerprints, did not return any results in any database. No loved ones called about a missing family member.

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Once the hiker’s photo circulated, many told stories of meeting the stranger along the Appalachian Trail. Some remembered his unusually large backpack, his chubby cheeks, and his friendly demeanor.

It seemed mostly harmless.

The researchers were stumped. But thousands of Internet sleuths pressed on. Many amateur sleuths flocked to a Facebook group dedicated to identifying the deceased hiker.

“I’m 1000% sure they were helpful,” Gillespie explained. “I don’t think there would be the resources to solve this case without them. I think a lot of the problems we talk about in the detective community are Internet problems. I think there are problems in how we, as people, relate to each other online. … We make a lot of assumptions about each other on the Internet and on social media in particular. Anything in that environment leads to and creates an outrage machine.”

The frenzy to identify the unknown hiker reached a fever pitch with the discovery of Ben Reynolds. He created an online journal where he details how hiking helped him cope with his cancer diagnosis. Numerous cyber detectives were so convinced that he was the hiker in question that his family became the center of the harassment.

But it was Christie Harris, a delivery girl from Virginia who had always dreamed of being an FBI agent, who received a tip. She finally gave a name to a face. The man, “Mostly Harmless,” was also Rodriguez, a Baton Rouge native. His identity was confirmed by the police in 2021.

When Rodríguez’s identity became known, so did his past. The documentary alleged that Rodriguez was a loner who struggled with his mental health and played computer games for hours. He became increasingly obsessed with coding. Several ex-girlfriends claimed that he was emotionally and physically abusive, while others noted that he isolated himself from his family.

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According to Wired.com, Rodriguez intended to commit suicide when he was 15 years old. After shooting a gun in his stomach, he decided to live and raised his hand as a truck passed by. He was saved and was left with a surgical scar on his abdomen.

In 2017, Rodriguez abandoned his passport, wallet and credit cards in his New York City apartment. From there, he spent the next 15 months in the forest. Along the Appalachian Trail, he encountered several hikers who described him as a warm, friendly person with kind eyes.

“(This story) was one of the challenges I wanted to take on,” Gillespie explained. “How can someone who the Internet sees one way become someone so completely different? People like Brandon met him in real life and saw him in an incredibly positive light. And it turned out that he did some not-so-good things.” life. There is this tendency, especially in the digital space, to see things in black and white, to see people as good or bad. The reality is that people can be both.”

Gillespie said his team contacted Rodriguez’s family. They refused to participate.

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“They have been forced to come out into the public arena because this case became a massive phenomenon on the Internet,” he said. “When Mostly Harmless came into the public eye, that also brought his family into the public eye. That was long before I came on the scene. I respect his family’s decision not to want to come forward and be publicly associated with It. I “I try a lot as a filmmaker not to pressure people to tell their story, but rather to empower them so that they feel prepared to tell their story.”

In the film, Dowell noted that there are “a lot of people hurt along the way.”

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“Many people are in periods of transition,” he explained. “It can be a divorce, it can be the loss of a loved one. It’s a big life event that puts them in a state where they need to step away. They need to go and figure things out. So, there are a lot of people on The Path Is Like that. It takes a big event in your life to push you to the point where you think, ‘I need to spend six months walking in the woods, not showering every day, and being dirty.’ Of course, it may be a love of adventure, but it’s not always. For me, the trail was the place where I was able to really discover my life. It was a mental reset.”

Gillespie said it took a long time to finally identify Rodriguez because “I didn’t want him to be found.” Those who knew Rodríguez confirmed that sentiment.

Dowell admitted he had a hard time exposing the “lovely person” he met along the way.

“We had talked about abuse by parental figures,” he reflected. “That was something we connected with and talked about for a while and how it affected us. It never came up that he started to continue the cycle of abuse. If he had stayed, I would have hoped he would.” I’ve tried to do better.”

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The circumstances surrounding Rodríguez’s final hours remain a mystery. But, according to the documentary, it is likely that he chose to starve himself. No crime was suspected.

Dowell has since written a song about meeting his band Bombadier. He said the experience has helped him cope with the news that he, along with the rest of the hiking community, had discovered.

“He dropped everything and just walked away,” Dowell said. “I didn’t have a cell phone or anything. And, for me, that was great… Sometimes there’s room for forgiveness. Sometimes there isn’t. I’m still trying to figure it out.”