Thompson asked, "You had to look at the face of every White man between the age of 25 and 60 who's listed as missing in the entire United States? But then I thought back to my phone call to the friend of Daryl McKenzie. ", In the podcast, Gill notes that Mostly Harmless obeyed the cardinal rule of hikers across the nation. Or, 'Could it be that person?'" It wasn't entirely the answer that the people who'd been working on his case wanted to hear. Mostly Harmless told people along the way that he started hiking in New York in April, and this is where his trail name Denim came from. They also included what he was wearing, a beige shirt with green shorts and black Salomon hiking boots, and the type of tent he was found in, a yellow Brooke-Range 2-person tent. Who was Ben Bilemy/Mostly Harmless/Denim? The mystery appeared to be solved. Denim said that his dad was abusive and he didnt speak to his parents but talked about a sister, and he mentioned that he had an ex-girlfriend. Can anyone explain this to me? 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. On July 23, 2018, at 8.27 pm, hikers, Nichalaus Horton and Logan Buehl, found a male body in a yellow Brooke-Range 2-person tent. As I tried to make sense of Rodriguez, I thought about a man I know named Jesse Cody who I had raced against in high school cross country. He was trying to escape a medical diagnosis. They should have been red flags. She stayed with him, despite her foreboding. That was my thought he new he was ill but just wanted to go off the grid and explore nature. "If he was trying to stay anonymous, that would be one giveaway. The Collier County Sheriffs Office even released a podcast on the mystery in an effort to bring more attention to the case. I bought Facebook ads on my personal page to promote my story in the region of Louisiana where I thought his relatives likely lived. Editor: Emanuele Secci. My husband is a software engineer and says the notes are legit code but dated. But his real name remained a mystery. But then, as he lay bleeding to death, he decided to live. There is a Scott Shafer that was missing but hes been found is that the one youre referring to? He also told her that he had some health issues and needed/wanted to do the trip while he still could. Over the following weeks and months, tons of fellow hikers and trail angels came forward with pictures and stories about the kind, quiet man they knew as Mostly Harmless, who was thru-hiking the AT. David Hurm, a detective with the Collier County Sheriff's Office in Naples, Florida, said. Does anyone know if the notes about food towards the top of the notes list have to do with the game hes describing? Can you say that much? Rodriguez kept working remotely for Shoppers Choice for about a year, then quit and lived off his savings. He pulled out a piece of paper with a map of Florida on it and a line drawn where the trail should be. How did that happen? The people on the trail didn't spend years with him to see how he handled ups and downs. When his landlord gained access to his apartment eight months later, he found unopened food as well Rodriguezs passport, wallet, and credit cards, suggesting that Rodriguez left in a hurry with little advance planning. He was depressed and moody his whole life, Godso recalls. Those I asked said his Screeps knowledge was okay but the notes indicated he was a highly skilled Programmer, Yes, his notes are posted above. Autopsy says bowels were unremarkable. But his real name remained a mystery. 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. I needed a mind-altering jolt. If he had been trying to escape something, it was himself. They had been lighting candles in an effort to bring someone back to his familyonly to learn that he had completely cut himself off from them. More than one and a half million people read the story and looked at photos that other hikers had posted. He was trying to escape someone who wanted to hurt him. Sadly looks like his name is out all over the web on sites regarding MH. And while he had no cell phone or identification, his possessions included backpacking gear, food, and nearly $4,000 in cash. Someone else met Mostly Harmless on the FT, near Paisley, Florida. He had traveled without a phone or an ID. The buyer pays the same price as they would otherwise, and your purchase helps to support The Trek's ongoing goal to serve you quality backpacking advice and information. 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. On December 23, 2020, journalist Jason Nark released an updated article about MHs former life as Vance Rodriguez. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. I know it cant be easy to process all of this. This article appears in the March 2021 issue. He had a twin sister and an older brother. To go through the trail blind was naive, I thought that was a bad decision. You know, you don't leave someone behind," said Natasha Teasley, who manages a canoe and kayak company in North Carolina. Thank you so much for coming forward. Especially, that you had to learn about it this way. The scar resembles the scar from MOAS surgery, used to treat appendix cancer. Meanwhile, the dedicated Facebook hunters kept going. East coast-based writer and backpacker trying not to get lost in the woods. Oh, no, Daryl, she said as her voice quavered. He appeared to suffer from some mental health issues, but, according to Marie, he refused conventional medicine. Poor soul RIP. His poor family just finds out and now everyone has his name. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. I remember faces exceptionally well. Its not the same person. It's a postscript to the strange story of Mostly Harmless: an effort to give names to the nameless. He was handsome in a general, familiar kind of way. He appeared to have been kind. 2023 Cond Nast. And his friends in Louisiana just thought he was in a long-ass outage, as Marie puts it. The thing about mysteries is that they are most exciting when youre still trying to solve them, when you can write in your own theories, fantasies, or fears. In the schools computer lab, he came to know a man named Randall Godso. He met hundreds of people on the trail, and seemed to charm them all. He told people he was from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and that he worked in tech in New York. He came back the next day and stayed from the 24th until the 26th. I think he could be a space alien, one reader wrote to me. Vance John Rodriguez, a k a Vaejor, was born in February 1976 near Baton Rouge. I didnt so much care about his name as his story. Im in contact with the detective on the case. Jenny Odell Can Stretch Time and So Can You. James and Michelle Butler: The Senseless Murder of 21-Year-Navy Veteran and Wife. Look up rabbit starvation. But eventually he would snap out of it. We enlisted the help of the Lafayette Parish County Sheriffs Office, which made contact with his family. Notebook was pseudocode for a MUD, multi user dungeon, we both played on them a lot. She burst into tears. There is at least one photo of the family at a table that I believe Vance is in (back, right). Denim said that his dad was abusive and he didnt speak to his parents but talked about a sister, and he mentioned that he had an ex-girlfriend. That's what he called himself when he was on the trail, and off the grid. It was only 4 months before he would be discovered deceased. Everyone knew that he had started walking south on the Appalachian Trail from New York a year and a half before. It might be helpful to know what worked in this case. Kelly said she was worried about Mostly Harmless because he seemed new to hiking, not having a phone and carrying an unnecessarily enormous tent were rookie mistakes. Just want to say, for everyone who has not followed CCSOs requests for his name and that of his family to not be released until they confirm through DNA and announce it officially, it is EXTREMELY inappropriate and harmful for anyone to reach out to this mans family. Only a handful of doctors perform that type of surgery in the US. Submissions should outline a mystery and provide a link to a more detailed review of the case such as a Wiki article or news report. No phone, no ID, no credit cards; there was his hiking gear, a notebook, and $3,640 in cash. Scan this QR code to download the app now. Police were able to confirm that the unidentified man had used the alias Ben Bilemy to register at several hostels while hiking. First published on February 21, 2021 / 9:51 AM. He told Kelly that he had started in New York and was heading down to Key West. There were no signs of drugs or excessive alcohol use. They shared photos of him, created flyers, organized online groups to raise awareness of his story. giardiasis? There have been rumors about his name circulating for the last few weeks, but this is the first official confirmation I've seen. Unidentified and Mostly Harmless has been identified as Vance Rodriguez. There are dozens of surgeries that could have resulted in that scar. We know that he started out in NY, hiked the AT all the way to the FT. Sarasota and Ft. Meyers are not part of the FT and completely out of the way. He must have been smart. I do believe Mostly Harmless is Vance. The mystery of Mostly Harmless captivated and inspired thousands of people. "And we do more of a relationship search instead of an exact match. And I would have paid him literally anything he asked. It inspired a group that has committed itself to trying to solve other cold cases. Reddit threads, Facebook groups, and online forums dedicated to solving cold cases popped up all over the internet. Scar was from a self-inflicted gunshot wound when he was young. His fingerprints werent in any database and his image didnt turn up any results when run through facial recognition software. And they were ingenious. And so a group focused on digital forensics went through the accounts of every possible user who had been on Screeps up until April 2017, the date Mostly Harmless had given other hikers for when hed begun his journey. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Someone else met Mostly Harmless on the FT, near Paisley, Florida. 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