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[man] Sometimes,
what the internet does

is it makes you think

you can understand somebody

or you know what
somebody's intentions were.

But, you don't.

[911 operator]
Collier County, 911.

What is the address
of your emergency?

[man] Um, I'm at Big Cypress
National Preserve.

Uh, we just found
a dead body.

[911 operator]
Are you on the trail?

[man] Yeah. I'm on the trail

and then the dead body

is at the Camp Nobles site.

It's in a tent, like,
I just... Like,

and it's, kind of, curled up,

like it's trying to get out.

[911 operator]
And did you check on it

to see if it was breathing
or anything?

[man] Yeah. I mean,
I didn't touch it,

I looked at it.

We yelled, "Hello?"

He looked really skinny

and really, um...

Like, I don't know,
it's like a weird color.

[911 operator]
All right. Thank you.

[David H]
This is Southwest Florida,

well-known
for the wildness,

the swamplands.

July is a very wet,
extremely hot month.

Not the time of year

you typically
have people camping.

It is out in the middle
of The Everglades.

We responded out to the area.

We approached the tent.

When we discovered the scene,

we observed
that he did appear

to be very thin,

thin to the point
that it's unnatural.

But we found that
he did have food

and we found a considerable
amount of cash.

So it was not like this person
was indigent

or had no resources available.

[lizard croaking]

[David H] There were notebooks

that had several pages

of what appeared to be codes.

You don't know
if it's the ramblings
of a madman

or if it's the writings
of a genius.

We quickly found that
there was nothing there

with a name on it.

No wallet, no credit cards,

no photo ID.

There was no cell phone,
no tablet.

We've got a guy out
in a campground,

we don't really know
who he is,

but, you know, you assume
that it's a local person.

How difficult
is this gonna be?

Two or three days,
we'll have this guy ID'd,

we'll get him back home
where he belongs.

And that certainly turned out
not to be the case.

[man] The Puritan Cleaners
team has earned

over 4,000 five-star reviews.

They are the reason
we can say,

"At Puritan, it's right,

it's ready, or it's free."

Need more time
getting laundry [indistinct]

at Puritan Cleaners
[indistinct]

[car engine starts]

[voice prompt]
At the next light,

turn right.

[Christie] If it gets too hot
or too cold,

say something.

Because there's no
happy medium in here.

This job is not
for the faint of heart.

I've actually been
in three wrecks.

I've been bitten by a dog.

Basically, by day,
I'm a mild-mannered
delivery person

who leaves clothes
at your door.

And at night, I'm on a laptop
or on my iPhone...

[car door closes]

[Christie] ... trying to get

unidentified people
identified.

In this country,
there are anywhere

from 30,000 to 80,000
unidentified people,

most don't have anybody
fighting for them.

They're forgotten about.

Well, they have me.

This is my first case.

I went onto Facebook
and I remember seeing

that there's a group
about him, and I was like,

"Oh, cool." So I hit "add,"

and I got in.

I just felt like
maybe I could help.

I never thought
it would get this far.

[David H]
The medical examiner's office

was unable to determine

the cause of his death.

He was at approximately
83 pounds total body weight.

That is beyond
extremely thin.

He was into
the malnourished territory.

There was no trauma,
no injuries,

no noted diseases,

no illicit drugs
in his system.

The only thing that it did
come back to was Tylenol.

That can stay in your system
from 24 to 72 hours.

So we thought that
within the last day or two

of his passing, he was still
fully functioning.

There's a truck stop
that was probably within

five or seven miles
from where he was located.

He could have
walked out to I-75

and he could have flagged
somebody down

if he needed assistance
that badly.

[David H] We ran fingerprints,

DNA through local, national,

and global databases.

No DNA, no fingerprints,
no dental records.

At this point,
it gets passed over

to our criminal researchers.

Hi.

Uh, my name is Kristin Adams.

I'm the...

Do you want me to say
Criminal Research Investigator

or Investigative Specialist,
which one?

I'll restart, but which one
do you want me to use?

When we have
an unidentified person,

we do check our missing
persons reports first.

When the traditional
ways of identification

were exhausted,
a flyer was completed

in an effort to obtain some
assistance from the community.

We put characteristics,
height, weight.

He did have a faint scar
on his abdomen

but no tattoos.

[David H] We tried to edit
the photographs

that we had from the scene

to have something
that wasn't graphic

to the point
that would be disturbing.

Well, it, kind of,
reminded me

of the caveman
in the GEICO ad, basically,

with his mouth
gaping wide open.

It's not a glamor shot.

We had to work
with what we had

so that if somebody
had saw him,

even with a full head of hair

looking like Grizzly Adams,

they would recognize him.

[Kristin] We released it
to the local media,

and then we also released it
on our social media.

[David H] We reached out
to the hiking community.

They posted it
on their websites.

We had a lot of people
start to reach out to us.

[monitor beeps]

That's when we found someone
that recognized him.

-[producer] Hi.
-Hi.

[laughs]

I guess I never really paid
much attention

to composites before,
but, um, August 2nd,

I was at work, and I decided
to take a quick break

and sat down
and opened up Facebook.

And as soon
as I saw the composite,

I knew who it was immediately.

I met him six months
prior to him being found

deceased on the trail.

At the time,
I was a trail angel.

A trail angel is just someone
who provides an unexpected act

of kindness to a hiker
on the trail,

whether it be water
or a snack or, um,

just something unexpected.

That morning, I put together
a little baggie of things,

crackers, Kool-Aid mixes.

And I found a hiker.

He was walking towards me.

It looked like an older man.

His eyes gave away that
he wasn't that old.

He had younger-looking eyes,
very beautiful eyes.

Oh, yeah, he was cute.
[laughs]

I introduced myself
to him as Kelly,

and he said,
"Well, I'm Mostly Harmless."

I just recognized
that it's a trail name,

didn't think twice about it

because every hiker
has a trail name.

It's usually given to them
by another hiker

based on something
that happens on the trail

or something they did
on trail.

A name comes up and it sticks.

I heard that he got
his trail name

when he was walking
into a campsite one evening,

and there were people
sitting around the campfire,

and they invited him
to join them

as long as he didn't bite.

And he told them
that he was mostly harmless.

I asked him if he was using
the Florida trail app

and he said, "Well,
I'm not carrying a phone."

And I said, "What do you mean
you're not carrying a phone?"

He's like,
"I just wanted to disconnect.

You know, sometimes
people wanna do that."

Uh, I thought it was kinda
reckless and dangerous.

[David H] People who wanna
get off the grid

typically still have
a cell phone.

The fact that he had no means

whatsoever to gain assistance

was something that we thought
was intentional and unusual.

I had a bunch of stickers
to promote Florida Trail,

and I said,
"If you don't mind,

can I take a picture of you
with the sticker?"

And he's like, "Not at all,"
so he held it up, smiled,

and I clicked his picture.

[David H] We had,
uh, a sense of hope.

"Oh. Somebody knows this guy."

[Kelly] I immediately went
to the Florida Trail group,

posted my pictures,

and start tagging names
in the comments.

It just... It just blew up.

The trail community
is like family.

So there was shock
that this was our hiker

and he was deceased.

Other trail angels
were tagging people

that I hadn't tagged.
It moved fast.

You know, people were
throwing out ideas,

"Check here, check there,"

then it started branching out

to the Appalachian Trail
groups.

The hikers,
kind of, flooded in

and they gave their pictures
and what they knew.

[Kelly] There was a GoPro
video that someone had shot.

There had to have been
25, at least, people

that definitely
crossed his path.

He was seen in Georgia,

he was seen in North Carolina.

[Brandon] I was shocked

because I thought,
"Holy shit.

Like, look at this,
this is Denim,

this is the guy
I camped with."

He introduced himself to me
as Denim,

and I never heard
Mostly Harmless

until after everything
came out.

[MJ] He had a good feel
about him.

He was quiet, though.

[Mike] I remember thinking
he's friendly,

easygoing.

It came out that
he had worked in IT

and that he was really great
with computers.

[Mike] His backpack,
it was huge.

That was, kind of, unusual.

There was small bits

of personal information
that he would reveal.

[Brandon] We connected
every Doctor Who in sci-fi.

They came up that
he probably was from Brooklyn.

Somebody would say Brooklyn,
somebody would say The Bronx.

He said that
he was from Louisiana.

I would get Sarasota
and Saratoga.

Each contact, each bit
of information that we had

was very repetitious.

"Yeah, I met him.
Yeah, here's a picture.

Yeah." But no,
I didn't get a name.

"What's his name?"
And I'm like, "I don't know."

I think we figured
at some point,

someone's going to say,

"Oh, sure, that's so and so."

"No, we didn't get a name.
No, we didn't get a name.

No, we didn't get a name."

He never seemed
to give that information.

[Kelly] I was, like,
"Hopefully,
somebody has something

so we can identify this guy."

"Oh, my gosh.
This is so easy.
What's his name?

Somebody had to get his name."

[David H] The hiking community
helped us

develop a history
from where he was first seen

to where he wound up.

We began to realize
that he had been traveling

the Appalachian Trail

from the north area
towards Florida.

This wasn't just
a Florida hiker.

He traveled over
thousands of miles.

[David H]
This is pretty unusual.

We started researching
the trail,

the AT, as they call it.

I believe over 3,000 attempt

the Appalachian Trail
alone itself every year.

[Kristin]
There are portions of it
that are heavily traveled,

and then there are portions
where it's very desolate.

You have to have a certain
level of fitness,

a certain level
of determination

that you wanna do this,
that you're gonna
reach this goal

regardless of what
is standing in your way.

[David H] It's a very
close-knit community.

[MJ] The trail is full
of people who have made time

in their lives
to be introspective.

[Kelly]
People do come to the trail

as a way to escape.

A lot of hikers
come from all over

and they end up
in what they call bubbles,

and they end up
hiking together

for short term or long term.

[Christie] He crossed paths
with a lot of people.

We figured out
who he was as a person

could give ideas
of how he got to where he was

and where
we could possibly look.

I noticed that
there was a hiker

in the Facebook group,
Magpie.

He kept coming
in contact with her,

and I got the impression
that they bonded.

-[dog barking]
-[MJ] I love it, you know,
I wanna make...

[dogs barking]

[MJ] I think all the times
I met him

were in October of 2017.

[dogs barking]

[indistinct chatter]

[woman] Come on.

[MJ] CJ. He won't come.

Kitty, kitty.

Well, I talk a lot.

Most people hiking
are in a big hurry,

especially the young men.

I am never surprised
that an old lady like myself

is easily dismissed
as irrelevant.

So, yes, I was, um,
pleasantly surprised

that this young man
would talk to me.

I was 68 when I said,

"Oh, I'm gonna do about half
the Appalachian Trail."

And I had friends
who, kind of, laughed

and acted like,
"That's just really hard."

I wanted to see
if I could still do it.

And that's when I met him.

I was just walking up
the trail

and this guy was coming down
and he stopped.

I noticed his pack
was abnormally large and...

Which is a little bit
unusual for a hiker...

A thru-hiker, especially.

He asked me why my name
was Magpie, and I said,

"Oh, because it's a big
noisy bird,

but I don't like
shiny objects."

He said, "That sounds like

something a magpie
would say."

So he immediately reached
into his trash bag

and he handed me

a shiny gum wrapper.

I wish I'd saved it.

I live for the connection
with people

and I don't always have it.

Oh, I just felt like
I knew him,

knew him from the inside,
his soul, if you will.

I felt that in my spirit,

it's like in my heart.

He was kind to me.
What can I say?

I cannot say that any better.
He was kind.

I did not know him
as Mostly Harmless.

Uh, I knew him only as Denim.

That was his early trail name.

I said, "Was that because
you were hiking in blue jeans

when you first started?"

And he readily, uh, said yes.

Later on, I met him again
at this little cafe.

I saw him sitting there
with a young woman.

I didn't expect to see him.

But he did,
kind of, call me over.

After we had chatted
for a while,

I came up with the idea of,

"Well, what's your real name,
Denim?"

And he acted like
he didn't wanna say.

And so I said,
"Well, if we guess it,

will you tell us?"

Oh, yeah, he'd do that.

So I just went down
the alphabet.

It was just for fun.

But I think he did
tell me his name.

But I could not remember.

[Kelly] He started the trail
wearing jeans.

That's a no-no.

You want the thinner cloths,

the wick-away moisture,
that kind of thing.

For experienced hikers,
they would know
not to wear jeans.

They would know not to carry
a very heavy backpack.

This is somebody who,
for whatever reason,

decided to start hiking
in the recent past.

[birds chirping]

[Christie]
Doing the Appalachian Trail
on the fly

is like going
from walking around

the block to running
the Boston Marathon.

You just don't do it.

[David H] And when you take
into consideration

that he had
fairly expensive gear

and that the gear
seemed fairly new,

you think, "Oh, wait a minute.

There's something here
that we can look into."

We released another bulletin,
additional photos of him,

including one of his tent.

We were always hopeful

that one more person
would contact us.

I just needed that one tip.

And then a gentleman
called and said

that he recognized his tent

from this flyer on Facebook

and said that he had sold that
to our decedent.

So we looked through receipts
to see if anything

could give us a clue
to his identity.

We determined he used cash,

but the business owner
realized that he must have

stayed at the hostel
next door.

And that hostel would
not allow the hikers

to sign in
under a trail name.

They required an actual name.

We looked through the logbook

of everyone that stayed there

and found that
he had signed in

under a name.

[David H]
And we thought, "Okay.

We have something
to work with."

We located
several Ben Bilemys.

We reached out
and made contact.

Obviously, they were alive

and they were not
my deceased hiker.

We came up empty-handed.

And we knew at that point
that he had just chosen

to use an alias
for signing in.

[David H] He was definitely

trying to stay anonymous.

A fake name and a trail name,
and that's all we had.

If he's going to this extent,

putting this much effort

into leaving no footprint,

maybe there's a reason for him
not wanting to be identified.

This person may have
been a suspect

in a crime that occurred
somewhere else.

[crows cawing]

[eerie music playing]

[MJ] Anytime somebody said
he was a criminal,

I thought, "I don't think so.

I don't think so."

Just didn't fit anything
I knew about him.

He let people take
pictures of him.

How can this guy stay hidden?

We began to realize
that any possibility

was in play for this case.

Initially, we attempted
all traditional methods

of identifying our decedent.

We were grasping at anything
we could at that point.

The notebook
which had computer code,

it was mathematical
equations,

things that frankly
we looked at

and didn't understand.

We knew it was a long shot,
but at that point,

we wanted to exhaust
every possible resource.

All right,
let's release the notebooks.

Let's see if anybody
can recognize it.

[Nicholas]
My name is Nicholas Thompson.

I'm the CEO of The Atlantic.

And I was formerly
the Editor-in-Chief of WIRED.

I was checking my email

and I got a note
in the secret tip jar I keep

for story ideas,

saying, "Hey, there's
an interesting case

about a hiker
who disappeared."

It was the sort of
this incredible tale.

WIRED is a magazine about
the big issues in tech.

For example, privacy.

Recognizing just
how hard it is

to disappear in 2020

that I thought,
this is really interesting.

So I said, "You know what?
I can make this a story."

As I started investigating,

the authorities had released
the notebooks publicly,

and no one knew what it was.

Could he be mining Bitcoin?

Could he be writing
JavaScript?

And then the notes
were posted online,

and it turned out, these were
instructions in code

for a game called Screeps.

It's a programming game
for programmers

where you basically create
worlds and fortresses.

But it was not like a game
where you go in

and you try to shoot
the robots.

You write code,

which will both protect
your fortress

and attack other people's
fortresses or raid them.

And even when you're not
playing the game,

your code is running.

So this hiker had built
a world and a game

that was still playing
even while he was gone.

There was this sense that
you could reverse engineer,

that you could figure out,
"Oh, this is the code,

so we must find a character
who plays like that code."

And so people went
into Screeps

and they tried to find
the identity

of Mostly Harmless.

But they weren't
able to get anywhere.

And then people in
the Facebook group

contacted Screeps
administrators,

but people who invented it
are programmers

making a game
for programmers.

Programmers tend to care
a lot about privacy.

So yeah,
they protected his privacy,

and it ended up
being a dead end.

I have no doubt
that part of the reason

it was so hard to find
Mostly Harmless

was because he was
very good at tech

and worked very hard
to not create a digital trail,

and to erase
whatever he had left.

Someone somewhere
was missing him,

but they didn't know
he was gone.

He had to have
a family somewhere.

The longer it got,
the less likely it was

he was gonna be named.

So I had to do something.

Basically, I clock out

and I'll sit down
at a computer.

I come here because
the internet's better.

I spend most of my life here.

I myself read pretty much
physically everything

on the internet
that I can find about him

and then I memorized it.

And then the person
that owned the group,

she came to me and said,
"You know the case very well."

I go, "Thank you. Yes."

And she goes, "Would you like
to be a moderator?"

And I'm like, "Yes."

When I was younger,
I wanted to join the FBI

and I wanted to be
a profiler.

And then my family,

the house burned
to the ground.

We lost everything we had.

My dreams had to be
put on hold.

I couldn't afford to go
get a college degree.

I just channeled
all that energy

into the finding a name,

finding a loved one,

finding that person.

He was not getting
internet famous

fast enough for my taste.

And I figured
I had to start somewhere.

We went literally
from Maine to Florida,

county by county,

calling and emailing
every police agency,

every media outlet,

trying to get some attention.

I'm here to do a job,

and that's to get him
his name back,

no matter what.

[David H] The first
six months were busy,

a lot of activity,
a lot of information.

By this point in
the investigation,

we've had hundreds of tips.

The vast majority were...
not helpful.

The frustration
just started to set in.

We had exhausted

all of our traditional tools
in our toolbox.

We didn't have any
new doors to open.

Shit. What else can we do?

At a certain point,

you have to look
outside the box.

The Collier County
Sheriff's Office,

under the direction
of Sheriff Kevin Rambosk,

presents Sworn Statement,

a podcast covering local cases
and public safety issues,

all unfolding right here
in Southwest Florida.

And then the great idea
for the podcast came up.

It's not something
that I'm aware

that we have done before.

[Kristine]
Let's say you wanted

to disappear tomorrow.

What would you do?

Well, for starters,
you'd ditch your cell phone.

Everything from your name
to your location

and bank accounts
are tied to it,

and you'd want to get rid
of your social media
accounts too.

I know that true crime
is a huge genre.

Let's try to reach out
to that community

to try to, kind of,
put the pieces together.

[Kristine] The first three
episodes of this podcast

will focus on the mystery
of the deceased hiker,

known as Mostly Harmless.

If I wanted
to disappear tomorrow,

it would be impossible.

I cannot scrub the internet
of my likeness.

He was such a mystery,

and I think
that that was something

that, kind of, piqued
everyone's interest.

[Christie] The group grew

because the word
was getting out.

[Kristine] We got 10,000
or 12,000 listens

that first couple months.

When we hear stories
like this

of a man who died alone,

not having breathed
his real name

to a single soul for the last
year of his life,

we wanna know why.

[Natasha]
I do not identify as a member

of the true crime community.

The outdoor world, like,
is just to me, it's,

like, it's home, you know.

There is a commitment
to the outdoor world,

like, we take care
of each other.

We're not gonna leave
each other behind.

If someone gets hurt,
you get them out.

And I think
that played a big factor

in how I felt
about this case.

This was a member
of my community.

This was an outdoor person

and I had to take care of him.

I don't know anything
about sleeping cases.

I didn't think I was a person
who could do that.

But I had been home
with COVID

and I'm not sure
what to do with myself.

And I started digging
further on Google

and that's how I ended up
finding the Facebook group.

So I joined the group,
and it was chaos.

Christie Harris was the sole
moderator for the group

and everyone was just,
kind of, coming in,

doing these weird
random posts.

[Christie]
His case brought the crazies

out of the woodwork.

There were theories

that he could have been
an international spy.

Oh, yeah. The time traveler.

Someone thought
he may have been an alien.

Okay. Let's just work
with what we have.

I don't wanna dissuade
people from calling.

We want any and
all information.

We hope for good information.

Another person thought
he may have been a ghost,

like, an actual
reincarnated ghost

that was walking the earth.

Whenever one woman
saw a picture

of him standing in front
of those billboards,

he's standing too close to it,

so she decided
he couldn't see,

and he couldn't find
the food in his tent.

Yeah. This is, kind of, dumb.

[Kristin] Sometimes the leads
weren't actionable and...

Though they believed in them
very strongly.

[Natasha] A lot of the stuff,
it was just distractions

from accomplishing the task,

figuring out
who the hell this guy is.

I think we really, really
thought we were gonna get

the solution from something
that he told a hiker.

So I read the account

by a hiker named
Brandon Dowell

who met Mostly Harmless
in Georgia.

[Brandon] I think
there's a lot of hurt people

on the trail.

There is an interesting
dichotomy of people having

the time of their lives
and people also

having this time
of growth and healing.

And, you know,
if you're looking

for that kind of
companionship,

I think you'll find it.

And I think that's
what happened

with me and Denim.

[woman laughs]

Don't rush me.

[Brandon] Everybody's Russian.

I first started going
to the trail

when I was 17.

I was just dealing
with so much, like, anger

and I felt it would
solve my problems

to, kind of, pack up and go

and just go hike and restart

and maybe not come back.

The trip where I met Denim,

I wanted to go out
for a couple days.

I got to Amicalola.

I hiked out that morning

and ended up at Springer
Mountain Shelter.

Maybe an hour or two
after I got there,

I see this scraggly man
walking up

and I'm like, "Oh, gosh.

He looks like he's been out
for a long time."

I was glad to see him
because, you know,

you just want someone
to talk to, hang out,

have some friends around
the fire with you,

because I didn't have a lot
of friends in school.

And we talked about a lot
of things over dinner.

It was a lot of sci-fi girls
and childhood.

He told me, you know,
"I just went

through a breakup
not too long ago."

It seemed like it was fresh
in his mind, you know,

to mention one
specific breakup.

As the night continued,
you know,

things did get deeper.

You know, we talked
more about childhood.

The only story in particular
that I remember is

his dad took him out
into the yard one day

and tried to fight him.

I remember him telling me
that he just walked away.

It seems like
he wanted to get away
from them, you know.

I understood.

When I was three,

my stepdad, Rob,
came into the picture.

I don't know if I'm allowed
to say his name but,

fuck that guy, so whatever.

He immediately just began
this campaign of terror

in the household.

Denim, he had been there,
same place.

To connect with somebody
on that level

was really special.

And we had breakfast together
the next morning.

I just remember he ate a lot.

He ate and ate and ate.

We packed up
and we walked to the junction

of the Appalachian Trail
and the Benton MacKaye Trail.

And I asked him
if he was sure that,

you know,
he didn't wanna keep in touch.

And he just kind of
looked at me real sad

and shook his head no,

and we shook hands
and that was it.

We parted ways.

You always think
that somebody is going to say,

"Hey, you know,
I had a friend,

I had a brother, I had a son,

and I can't find him,
can't get in touch with him."

And it was about maybe a year

and no one had come forward.

[Natasha] He's broken up
with his girlfriend

and he was abused
by his father.

A lot of people started
speculating then

because of the history
of abuse

that he may not have family
looking for him.

So if no one is looking
for Mostly Harmless,

the hikers were
the only people we knew

that actually had talked
to this person.

And I became obsessed with,
like, finding new hikers

and talking to new hikers.

But I was immediately told
by Christie Harris

that that was not
something I could do.

I had decided that the hikers

were pretty much useless.

[Natasha] Everything had to be
done through Christie.

Posts had to be
Christie-approved.

Searches had to be
Christie-approved.

If you wanna submit something

to call your county
sheriff's office,

guess who you had to tell
you're gonna do that?

Sometimes,
you have to be the hammer

and, frankly, not be nice
to get stuff done.

She sent me a message
and said,

"You should go fuck yourself.

I've already heard from people
that say they don't like you."

I was trying, in my opinion,
to keep order.

I can't get the job done
of what I want to do

if I've got,

"Blah, blah, blah,
Natasha's doing this.

Blah, blah, blah,
September is doing this."

The atmosphere was hostile.

[Christie] I felt like
I was a babysitter,

a referee,

and in some cases,
a punching bag.

I was told I was stupid.

I was told I was an idiot.

That's the red line for me.

I hated being treated
like I was nothing.

And I just said
I've had enough of this.

Fuck you.

I cruised through those
groups occasionally

to see if there's
any new threads

or any new information
or whatnot.

When it starts to get,
you know,

Days of Our Lives
like that, I just...

I move on.

Christie quits

and the group is a burning

dumpster fire at this point.

So I message the woman
who had started the group

and said, you know,
"Your group doesn't
have a moderator.

You might wanna get one
so that it can, like,

actually function."

And she responded back
that the group

could then pick who was gonna
be the next moderator.

Within two days,
I was the moderator

because the group had selected
me to be the moderator.

For 17 years,
I was the operations manager

of a canoe and kayak company.

A lot of people often
would think

I was the owner
of the company

just because of the amount
of leadership I would take.

But I wasn't listening
to as much.

My ideas were passed
over where...

And I came to found out
that all women's pay

at that company
was suppressed.

Men were making $5 more
an hour.

So I had been feeling greatly
underappreciated.

So when I first
joined the group,

I felt like this was
the opportunity

to try something new.

I wanted to approach this
from a standpoint of, like,

this is my person
I care about.

How would I want
that case treated?

Let's get organized.

What's been done,
what hasn't been done,

let's create an album,

not just a scattering
of photos throughout
the group,

that is all of our people
who we still need to talk to.

That was the moment
that I realized

no one has talked
to Mike Gormley.

He was the last person
that we know of

that saw
Mostly Harmless alive.

[bell ringing]

[country music playing]

[Mike] ♪ Bow to the partner
And the corners too ♪

♪ All four ladies,
Chain across ♪

My name is Mike Gormley.

♪ Sides, face your partner ♪

My trail name is Water Boy.

♪ Grand square,
One, two, three, turn ♪

♪ And a one, two, three ♪

Back in 2015 and 2016,

I attempted to hike
the Appalachian Trail.

♪ Ladies, center
The men, sashay ♪

That's where
I first experienced

what trail magic was.

♪ Wheel around ♪

♪ Lines forward, up
And you come on back ♪

♪ Join your... ♪

Supposedly,
I was the last hiker

to see Mostly Harmless
before he was found.

♪ Promenade right there,
Promenade ♪

♪ Go walking around
The square ♪

♪ When you get back home ♪

♪ Bow to the partner,
Corner by the hall ♪

♪ That's it, that's all
All right ♪

Thank everybody in your square
and we'll take a break.

[all] Thank you.

Thank you, thank you,
thank you, thank you.

[creatures chittering]

[Mike] Around April 13th or so
is the day I ran into him.

It was like 85 degrees
out that day.

I just decided
that it was best

that I get off the trail.

I got to the roadway,
took the chance,

and stuck out my thumb
and tried to...

Tried to hitch a ride
and this guy stopped

in a pickup truck.

We were driving along
and, all of a sudden,

he saw someone
along the roadside.

He says, "Well, there's
a hiker right there.

You wanna go back
and talk to him,

chat a little?"
And I said, "Sure."

And here's my first picture
that I took

when I met Mostly Harmless.

I noticed his cheeks
are, um, quite pudgy,

you know, like he's well-fed.

When I observed that his pack
was awful large, and I say,

"So what do you got in there
that weighs so much?"

He goes, "Well, I got...

I got winter clothes
in there."

And I'm thinking,
mid-April in Florida,

you're not gonna need
winter clothes anymore.

And I said, "Just give me
your winter clothes.

I can send them back for you."
And he declined.

He says, "Oh, I'll just keep
them a little bit longer,"

which seemed a little bit
strange to me.

When we were talking, he's...
He wanted to know

if there was any campsites
up ahead.

And this is the view
at Nobles campsite.

The campsite that
I mentioned to him

is where they found him,

some two and a half
months later.

The last picture known of him
before he was found.

When I realized
that maybe he had

just only hiked
five miles further

and that was the end
of his hike

for two and a half months,

it made me a little
curious as to,

"Oh, gee.
What's going on here?"

Was it foul play or just
what was it, you know?

[Natasha] People,
like, started to wonder,

"How could you go
from being this person

to the person in the tent
who is completely skeletal?"

[David H]
He had food with him.

We were unable to determine

if it was an intentional act
on his part not to eat.

I would say
if he was planning

on keeping his winter clothes

that he was not planning
on dying.

[MJ] I didn't think he was
the type that would just

commit suicide
or starve himself to death.

I just thought
something went wrong.

Maybe he got sick or maybe,
you know, he caught some bug.

[Natasha] Maybe a snake bite.
Did somebody harm him?

I didn't know.

I didn't have a theory
that made sense.

[MJ] But the sheriff's
office said,

"We don't suspect foul play."

My little brain went,
"Are you sure?"

All this leads back
to the idea of, like,

"Oh, how did he die?"
We still don't know.

Most people don't just
lay down in a tent

and die, you know?

He left this world
utterly alone.

No one should ever be alone.

[Christie] For me,
with Jane and John Does,

it's the story.

It's about the story
of the person.

It's really the underdog.

I've always felt
like an underdog.

Everything I have in life,
I've fought,

kicked, punched,
and scratched my way to.

[Kelly] Up, up.

[Christie]
I live with my sister

in an extended stay hotel.

Let's get your shoes off.

There you go.

And we've been there
for about nine years.

Do you need a drink?

[Kelly] No.

Do you need me
to stand on my head?

[Kelly] No.

Do you say anything
besides no?

-[Kelly] No.
-[laughs]

When I can, I jump into
the world of true crime...

[woman] Somebody takes
your daughter.

[Christie] ... to escape
from everything else.

[woman] You'll do anything...

to find your child.

[somber music playing]

[Christie] I couldn't deal
with the fact of him sitting
in a basement

waiting for someone
to identify him in some way.

It didn't sit right with me.

I decided that I'm just
gonna open my own group

and go for it.

A few people came with me
from Natasha's group.

But with the new group,
I had more power,

more control.

The group was also smaller,

which made it a lot easier
to handle.

And then,
we had someone in the group

filed a FOIA request
to get the case file.

I got it all at once.

I got the case file
and the autopsy report

and the autopsy photos.

I was horrified
the first time I saw them.

It looked like a bag of bones
with skin over it.

On the first flyer that

the Collier County Sheriff
put out,

it included what they called
a small scar on his abdomen.

But then I saw the picture
with the autopsy report

and I'm going,
"What in the world?"

That was the understatement
of the century.

[Natasha]
Small abdominal scar?

Yeah, it's not a small
abdominal scar at all.

[Christie] I was utterly
outraged when I realized that

his autopsy
was an afterthought.

That if they miss this,
what else did they miss?

The scar really led
me down the road of, "Okay,

what was wrong with him?

What happened
to cause that scar?"

[Natasha]
People started saying like,

there had to have been
a significant surgery.

And there was this belief
that he had cancer.

Cancer's never mentioned
in the autopsy,

so that leaves it wide open.

But you can't go calling
hospitals and say like,

"Did you diagnose someone
with cancer? Who was it?

You know, we're trying
to identify this guy."

So people did searches
for Appalachian Trail
and cancer,

and found this blog.

This blog was about hiking
the Appalachian Trail

because of a cancer
diagnosis.

[Christie]
It was, okay, I'm sick.

I'm taking control of my life

and I'm going out
on my own terms.

[Natasha]
The only picture on the blog

is in the back of a body,

and the blog does
just randomly end.

[Natasha] People then circled
back around on the fact

that Ben Bilemy was the name
used in the youth hostel.

Everyone assumed this Ben
Bilemy could be Ben Reynolds

using Ben Bilemy as an alias.

[Christie] I saw that blog,
and I'm like, "That's him."

But there are a few rules
to sleuthing.

You never, ever go real life,

because it is not your job
to tell a family member

that their loved one
may be deceased.

With Ben Reynolds,

other people really went
real life.

-[dogs barking]
-[Bill] Shh.

My name is Bill Powell,
aka Ben Reynolds.

Uh, I am still alive.

In 2012, I was diagnosed
with a brain tumor.

It's why I hit the trail.

That blog was mainly for me.

It was really my little
therapy journal.

To protect my identity,

I hiked under the name,
"Ben Reynolds".

Ben Reynolds I pulled
out of a hat.

I think I was listening
to a lot of Ben Folds Five
at the time.

Got back
and then all of this starts.

January of 2020,
a bunch of years later,

I started getting messages,
"Do you know Mostly Harmless?

Are you Mostly Harmless?

Are you dead?"

The inbox started filling up,

the social profiles
started filling up.

I was getting messages,
emails all week long,

weekends, asking me,

"How can you prove
you're not this dead guy?"

There's no logic.

It just became insane.

My father, who's getting
messages from my sister,

my friends, anyone
that liked any of my posts,

things get crazier
and crazier.

Right by June of 2020,
it was 887 people.

-Hold it up like this.
-No, no, no.

[Bill] No, you got it.
No, you did it on your mom.

You... There was definitely
a concern

that this could leak
over to my family.

And that's when I really
dove head first into it.

I'm gonna have to get
real deep and proactive

and take it to these groups

and say,
"Look, I'm Ben Reynolds.

This is my story. Stop it."

So I would join all
the Facebook groups I could.

That was super eye-opening,

eight to ten Facebook groups,

multiple Reddit, Subreddits,

websites dedicated
to this guy.

I went, wow, this is...
This is insane.

That I'd have to go in and,
you know, debunk it all,

admonish everyone
that tried to do this,

explain that I'm alive.

This admin says,

"How do I know
that you're Ben Reynolds?"

And my response is,
"Oh, for fuck's sake."

Despite me telling them
that I'm not dead,

they would tell me, "Well,
we can't rule you out."

Things get crazier
and crazier.

It was like, oh, here's
a picture from the blog

and deconstructing
my body language

and, you know, looking
for the types of cancer

and extrapolating that
to the body position

of Mostly Harmless
in the tent.

People wouldn't take my word
for it

because my name said
Bill Powell.

And so splinter groups formed

that dove
into the Ben Reynolds mythos

and they post this picture of
a Ben Reynolds in Australia.

And they started
going down the path

of harassing this guy.

Anything can happen
with the internet and sleuths,

anything, and they're crazy.

The consequences that were
playing through my mind,

someone will show up
at my daughter's school.

Who knows?

Finally, I posted
to Natasha's group

and said, "This is what I go
through on a daily basis."

[Natasha]
When I finally met Bill,

his life had been turned
upside down for a long time.

I would shut that shit down
so fast.

[Bill] There are people
on the other end

of these investigations.

This is not a competition.

It is not a reality show.

[David H]
The online sleuth groups,

they get caught up
in the romance of it,

the mystery of it.

They get very gunman
on the grassy knoll.

We didn't wanna open
more possibilities

on why he died or how he died.

We wanted to narrow our focus

to identify who he is.

[David M] I'm, uh, David
Mittelman, uh, CEO of Othram.

[Kristen]
I'm Kristen Mittelman.

I'm the Chief Business
Development Officer
at Othram.

[David M] DNA is pretty much
all we've ever done.

My wife is a biochemist
by training,

a little bit different
than the genetics background
I have.

Othram's a company
that supports law enforcement
investigations.

Basically, we focus
on human identification

from crime scenes.

[Kristen] Is there anything
else you know about it

that's strategizing
business-wise?

I thought we should take
some more notorious cases.

This case was really unique
and that there was a lot

of, uh, attention drawn
to the case.

There was an online
Facebook group

with thousands of folks
that were working on it.

[Kristen] Do you know
what evidence we got?

-The skeletal remains.
-[man] Yeah.

-[producer] Okay.
-Does it look awesome?

Can you see the little, uh,
DNA thing on my hat?

-It's very important to me.
-[producer] Yes, I can.

If you just wanted to look
at a bunch of DNA,

uh, it looks a lot like,
um, like this.

And these are basically
the positions along

what's called the human
reference sequence.

You can cluster them using
principle component analysis
and figure out--

[producer speaking]

All right, sure.

There's 3 billion positions
that describe your DNA.

Traditional forensic testing
right now that the police use

to identify people looks at
10 markers in someone's DNA.

The sequencing that we do
here at Othram looks at tens

of thousands to hundreds
of thousands of markers.

The technology that Othram
is using is new,

the ideas are new.

They look for similarities
between the DNA

you have stored
and the person you found.

And you can say, oh,

these DNA is pretty close
to people from this region

or it's pretty close
to this family.

So you don't get a precise
match, you get a clue.

[David M] When we got ahold
of law enforcement,

we offered to develop
a DNA profile

to get a few more clues
about who this person
might have been.

Othram is private.

My understanding, this
particular DNA profile testing

would cost $5,000.

The police department
doesn't have funding for this.

This is not something
that cities

and municipalities
have funding for.

You know, we thought it over
and we figured

there's enough people that are
really interested,

uh, in who this guy was
and then trying to help him

get back to family.

I think it's a little
unorthodox to recommend

crowdfunding a case, but, uh,
but we threw it out there.

And I gave an outstanding yes.

You want us to fundraise
for this? We can do that.

Like, that's something
tangible we can do.

It ain't my money
and it's a tool I can use

to solve a crime,
it's worth it.

[Natasha]
They quickly built a website

for people
to be able to donate.

This all happened so fast.

Everyone within the group
was really caught up

in this, like, energy.

We're really doing this.

And I believe
it was eight days later,

we had $5,000 raised.

And the energy
was out the roof,

like celebratory posts
and people popping champagne

and all this type of thing
on the group.

And so, they sent us
the skeletal remains
and we got started.

[Nick] I thought Othram
will solve it.

Finally, there's going
to be a solution.

At the same time, we were
getting outside negativity,

like there were haters who
were hating on the process.

No, I didn't care
what they did, honestly.

Um, yeah.

And then, we had to wait
for the DNA to run.

It takes Othram about six
to eight weeks

to create a profile.

[Natasha] It became this
intense waiting game.

That's when everyone got
really, really stir crazy.

Christie's group post
would be created saying like,

"Power-hungry Natasha
is doing this

or Natasha and all of her
minions are doing that.

She was feeding this, "You've
all been led into a trap.

They took your money and
they're not gonna deliver."

There was a public shaming
of me

where Christie tells people
publicly that I'm an idiot

and I don't know
what I'm doing.

People saying like,
"Oh, this cow who, like,

is trying to do this
so that she can be famous,"

or, you know, that I'm in
love with Mostly Harmless.

Then some horrible things
were said to me

through private message.

I got a message saying
that Christie Harris knew

what she was doing
and I didn't know anything

and, um,
that I should kill myself

so that the case
could get solved.

[sighs]

And that hurt really bad.

Okay. There you go.
There you go.

I've dealt with suicidal
ideation throughout my life,

actually since
I was a young child.

You wanna think you're doing
something good
for this person,

you wanna think
you're doing something great.

And I tried
to pull back actually

from the case a little bit,
but I'm too...

I'm too hardheaded
for my own good.

I wanted to see this through.

And then all of a sudden,

there's this message

of Christie Harris
has solved the case.

Christie Harris has figured
out who Mostly Harmless is.

[Christie] I was hoping that
I would beat the science.

I have thought posting him
in a lost loves forum

wasn't a bad idea.

And we happened to get
a nibble from someone.

She gave me the name
of Ronald Newman.

The story I was told
was that Ronald Newman

had been disowned by his
family because he was gay.

When I opened the email
with the picture in it,

I looked at it
and I stared at it.

It looked like him.

It looked like
Mostly Harmless.

Christie Harris called me
very convinced that
it was this particular person.

Like, almost like talking
in hushed tones.

She said, "I know who he is.

I know
who Mostly Harmless is."

I'm like, "Okay, great.

What can you tell me?"

So this is the picture that
Christie has sent to everyone

to prove that Ronald Newman
is Mostly Harmless.

This is the picture...

who draws a beard
on a yearbook photo

to prove someone is someone
that they're not.

It certainly was... It was
odd, I think, to see it.

But I said, "Okay.
All right. I will...

I will look into it
and I will call you back."

And Mr. Newman,
he ended up calling me.

So... And talking to me,
and he was very confused,

obviously, as to why
I was looking for him

and wondering
if he was missing.

[sighs]

Hang on.

It's that moment, oh, damn it.

I thought it was over.

I felt like a joke.

I was afraid I was gonna
look like an idiot.

Misidentifications
happen every day.

Law enforcement
misidentifies people.

But I was trashed.

Have you had someone go,

"You're a fucking
stupid idiot.

You've made yourself
look stupid,"

and "Go kill yourself."

I was so done.

I had been called
so many names.

I couldn't see straight.

I was done.

[Nick] You get pulled in,
you get excited,

and you wanna solve it
so much,

you know, you can go
right through that stop sign.

People are drawn to this.

People want to read
this story.

So at some point I thought,
"You know what?

I'm just gonna write the story
and let's just run it."

The presidential election
was coming.

And I wanted a break
from the politics

for at least
a couple of hours.

It was wonderful to be able
to work on something

where it wasn't team blue
and team red.

All of these
different Americans

from all of these
different states,

all of these
different backgrounds

were using the internet
and using technology

to do something good.

And then, you know,
the story goes live.

And then it went banana cakes.

And suddenly it was,
you know, massively

the most red thing
we'd had in a while.

[Kristen] Over a million
people viewed the article

and the group blew up.

Literally thousands of people
joined the group

in just a short period
of days.

The assumption was if
he really did work in tech,

someone who worked with him
or knew him will read WIRED

and we'll figure out
who he was.

After that story ran

and it became this
big viral hit,

and had more
than a million readers,

a million and a half readers,

then I was kind of stunned

that his identity
wasn't found.

It showed that his act
of disappearing

was even more deliberate,

carefully crafted, and
effective than I had thought.

It's hard to disappear
and create an identity

that 100 people who meet you
can't figure out, right?

It's somewhat harder
to create an identity

that 1,000 people hunting
on Facebook

can't figure out.

But how on earth

can a million people
read a story in WIRED

full of photographs
about a guy who's probably

in the WIRED community

fairly closely

and not find the guy?

[Kristen] I don't know what
you're capable of hiding

or not hiding
on the internet,

but I can tell you
that if there's DNA, um,

we can identify you.

[David M] When you have
a person that's unidentified

and you know
their DNA markers

and you can kind of cluster
them around known populations

of people that have
a similar set of markers,

that gives you a clue
as to where

this unidentified person
is from.

In this case,

we had run
the laboratory work,

did the DNA testing
and the research.

And, um, we had a update.

We have a couple
really good leads.

We were able to build
a really great profile.

And what I can tell you

is that there are
a good number of matches

that tie us back to Louisiana.

[Natasha] Six thousand people
watched the Facebook Live.

And people
are over the moon excited.

We now know

that he actually does have
family in South Louisiana.

The verification
was what we needed

to get people to take action.

[Christie] The DNA results
were released

in a Facebook Live
in Natasha's group,

which I had no access to.

I had a group member
who came and told me.

And then I go,
I can't let this go.

I can't.

I won't let this go.

I walked back
into my group and I go,

"Do you wanna pick up
the case

of Mostly Harmless again?"

All I got was yes.

And I was back in it again.

Anything related
to Louisiana,

we were going to flood it.

We put a lot of flyers out
towards news stations

and their missing persons
pages, things like that

so they can get
the information out

to the people
that may have known him.

[man] Why did Mostly Harmless
start hiking?

I started running
Facebook ads

for my WIRED story,

targeted at people
in Louisiana.

[Natasha] All of a sudden,
every single Facebook group

related to South Louisiana
in any way, shape, or form

was bombarded.

[notification dings]

[Christie] Enough.

This has to end.

And then December 16th, 2020,

picked up my phone

and I go over to the post

in the group Missing in
Louisiana.

There was a comment there
that said...

It said,
"Christie, I know who this is.

I know this story

and I'm going to email you
right now."

And I'm like, "What?"

And there it was.

It says,

"Christie, his name
is Vance Rodriguez.

My husband worked with him
in Shoppers Choice."

And there you see...

a picture.

I looked at his eyes
and I knew...

it was him.

[Natasha] I can see it
with my own eyes,

but I still... My brain
doesn't truly believe

that it's the case.

[Nick] Yeah.

Wow.

Message just came in.
This is him.

Poor guy.

And I was like,
"Oh, my gosh. I did it."

[sobs]

So there were two people

who basically hit
on the same day.

A person he had worked with
and a former roommate.

I screenshot it and sent it
to law enforcement

with an email that said,
"I think we got him."

[keyboard clicking]

[Kristin]
Heard from multiple people

that it was him.

It was a collective effort

of thousands of people
to solve this case.

[David H] Kristin located
contact information

for the family
of Vance Rodriguez.

And we closed the office door
and we just called the family.

[phone rings]

[Kristin] There seemed
to be some disbelief,

just kind of shock.

We explained
the situation to them.

They responded that
they in fact did have a son

by the name
of Vance Rodriguez.

They didn't know
he was missing.

They thought
he had moved to New York,

and they had no contact
with him for several years.

[Natasha]
He was telling the truth.

He told people that
he had originally lived

in Baton Rouge
and was from Louisiana,

um, that he worked in tech.

He told a lot of things
about himself.

[Nick] I thought he was maybe
30 at the most,

and it turns out he was 41.

Your hope as a journalist
is that when we figured out
his name,

you would find out some
incredible redemptive story.

But when we found out
his name,

we didn't realize

that all the things that
we would learn about Vance.

I immediately went
into full-on reporter mode.

I did public record search
of where Vance Rodriguez

of that age range had lived
and found his building.

Spoke to the landlord
of the building.

He had paid
six months of rent.

He had left his passport,
his wallet,

and everything inside
of his old apartment.

It's absolutely, uh,
I'm walking away from my life.

I'm closing the door
on my life,

locking it and walking away
from my life.

I found a woman
who appeared to have lived
in the same building.

Turned out
it was his girlfriend.

They had broken up.

I learned that he had been
abusive in ways

that I didn't probe on.

I don't know exactly
the contours of,

but he seemed like...

a bad, bad man.

It seems like there
was trouble with women

for a long time.

There were
at least three women
who have come forward

and said that
they were abused by him.

[Nick] There's another
girlfriend from Louisiana,

his mother posts on Facebook

that, you know,
he was so cruel

that he broke her daughter.

[Brandon] Yeah. I don't...
I don't really know

what to say
about these articles.

You know, it's...

a lot of information
to digest.

Uh, it was a quote
from his ex.

She wrote on a Facebook page,

"Apartment 950 a month,

bill's 300 a month,

standing up to the monster
that beat you up

emotionally and physically
for five years.

Priceless."

He seemed sincere
and he seemed...

compassionate to me.

Like, he understood, you know.

But he was abusive it seems.

And that was certainly
very shocking to me.

100% unacceptable.

You can't...
You can't hit anybody.

Women, men, nobody gets hit.

Nobody gets hit
or abused or hurt or whatever.

It doesn't happen
or it shouldn't happen.

Being in a relationship
similar to what was described

about Mostly Harmless,

I hated to know
that he was an abusive person.

It's not my job to judge

whether he abused
those women or not.

I don't know.

I was shocked and appalled

by the number of women

who just inherently
did not believe

his former girlfriends.

Vance was...
Vance was a bad guy.

I believe the women that say

that he did
the abusive things.

Yes.

Did I project
who I wanted him to be?

Yeah, probably a little

because I always see
the best in people.

[Nick] We drew this image
of this guy

who was kind of a lost soul.

[MJ] The group made him into
some kind of a handsome hero.

[Christie] He just had
this familiar face to him.

And I guess people
just made it personal.

People want to project
who they want someone to be.

You don't know this guy.

You only know the pictures
that you have seen.

You only know
the stories you've heard.

You've never met this guy.

I tried to come up
with my own mental composite

of who is this man?

What I knew about him already

and what I was just finding
out about his past.

I guess there was more to him,

a dark side
I didn't know about.

It was a gut punch.

Like, honestly,

I stopped wanting to know
a lot more about who he was.

The great mystery
is why did no one find him?

And part of it is 'cause
he did a really good job

of erasing his tracks.

And the sad part of it

is because no one
was looking for him

'cause he was an asshole.

One of the great questions

was why this guy
had been known

as Mostly Harmless
out on the trail.

And once Vance's name
was discovered,

we realized that his Screeps
username was vaejor,

which is a combination
of Vance John Rodriguez.

[Natasha]
We had assumed all along

that he had gotten
the trail name

Mostly Harmless in Georgia.

But here we are

on Screeps,
on the Screeps Slack,

and he's saying,
"I'm mostly harmless."

And this is January, 2017

shortly before he started
out on his hike.

And there's a book
called Mostly Harmless,

that's a part
of the Hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy.

[Nick]
I think he chose the name.

It may have just been
that he read the book.

He liked the book.

He recognized
that Mostly Harmless

is a pretty great phrase.

It's because
if you're mostly harmless,

you're also partly harmful.

It suggests someone who knew
something about his past

and was trying
to move away from it,

but was also aware of it.

[MJ] I've talked to people
who are abused.

If someone in your family
abuses somebody

and it's not resolved,

you end up doing
some abuse yourself.

[Nick] I never spoke
with his parents.

I sent several messages
to his sister

after I knew that she had been
notified by the police.

And she said,
she just didn't wanna talk

and the family wouldn't talk.

All of his friends knew

that he had
a terrible relationship

with his family.

He spoke of abuse
from his father,

though they didn't know
what kind of abuse.

I learned from court records,

he had been legally
emancipated from his family

at age 17.

You become...

independent when you're 18,

like... So what exactly
has to happen to have yourself

want to be emancipated
from your parents at that age?

I never talked to anybody
who knew the answer to that.

[Natasha] Talking to the one
friend from college

who knew anything
about the family,

his mental health
was pretty much

a dominant part of his life.

He would have these moments

where he would just stop
interacting with people.

He would go to his room,
he'd go to other places,

um, and he would stop eating.
He'd stop showering.

He would stop caring
for him himself,

um, for days, weeks,
and even months.

[Nick] The phrase that made
the most sense was outages

where he would
just shut down.

[Natasha]
And then, his friend Shelly,

she told me
when he was a teenager,

he had gone into a field

and shot himself
in the stomach.

While he was laying
there bleeding,

he changed his mind

and was able to drag himself

out of the field
and go get help.

The scar was not cancer.

It was not from any disease.

The scar was from a trauma.

It was from a gunshot wound.

My understanding was that

his parents wanted to get him
mental health assistance

after his suicide attempt,

and that was the reason
he no longer wanted

to have a relationship
with his family.

It's very possible this fist
fight that we hear about

had to do with wanting
to get their son assistance,

wanting to get him help.

Um, I can only assume

that his parents
cared about him.

[MJ]
At the beginning I thought,

"Oh, no, he wouldn't have
committed suicide."

Sort of, like, that's not
the image I had of him.

When I read that he had tried
it when he was 16

and the... And the depression.
I said, "No, he did."

I really didn't think
it was suicide.

I never really did,
to be honest.

In my opinion,
he took to one of his outages

and it just went too far.

[Brandon]
Maybe he starved himself.

It seems like a terrible
way to go,

but I mean, I don't know.

I don't know why he died.

Maybe the whole trip
was about, uh, penance.

You know, paying back
for the stuff I had done.

I need to suffer.

If I kill myself,
is it enough?

[Natasha]
I think he killed himself.

I think he intentionally
starved himself to death.

The book Mostly Harmless
by Douglas Adams

starts to come back up
in your mind.

[Nick] It's one in a series

called The Hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy,

and the main character is
traveling around the galaxy,

making an atlas
for other travelers.

[Natasha] The book ends with
the destruction of the world.

The main characters are
kind of coming to their peace

with the imminent end of life
as they know it.

[Nick]
"This is not your home,"
said, Trilian Steel,

keeping her voice calm.
"You don't have one.

None of us has one.

Hardly anybody
has one anymore.

They don't even have
any memory of who they are

and what they're for."

[Kelly] " A tremendous feeling
of peace came over him.

He knew that it lasts
for once and forever.

It was now all finally over."

[Christie]
It feels a little bit like

his trail name
was his suicide note

to a certain degree.

[Brandon] I feel like
we could have been...

Could have been pals,
you know,

and that just really stinks.

You know, someone who...

offered me so much compassion
and kindness.

Hey Bennett, can you rejoin
the group, please?

[Bennett speaking]

What kind of story?
A true story?

It almost feels like a...
Like a parallel me

that just happened to go
in a different direction.

Go, go, go, go, go.

I don't think Denim
got the support he needed

to really heal.

I think he felt
really isolated

and felt like no one
wanted him around.

So, I'm gonna play a song
that is called,

"I've been Thinkin'"
from my band, Bombardier.

And, uh, it's about Denim

and the time I spent with him

and also about myself

and how I relate to him.

[guitar plays]

He was a person
that died too soon,

you know, and it's sad to see.

He had a lot to offer.

♪ I've been thinkin' ♪

♪ About running away again ♪

♪ About calling off
My friends ♪

♪ Just to tell 'em
That I'm never coming back ♪

[Nick]
There is Mostly Harmless.

And then there's
Vance Rodriguez, right?

Who exists until the moment

he goes
into Harriman State Park.

And Mostly Harmless
is a compelling character

even if Vance Rodriguez
is less so.

♪ I've been thinking... ♪

[man] Today, I'm pleased
to announce

that after
more than two years,

we now know the identity
of the deceased hiker

who went by the trail name,
Mostly Harmless.

And the family
made arrangements

with the medical
examiner's office.

Vance was brought home.

They had a ceremony for him.

[Brandon] ♪ Walk on Monday
Walk on Tuesday ♪

[MJ] I think I could see
the real him.

It was the eternity
that was in that moment.

I knew him then.

So I think a lot of us
miss him,

missed the one that we knew.

Maybe he's looking down
and laughing at all us now

or saying, "Oh, wow,
I wish I had stayed alive.

These people really loved me."

I would encourage him
to live on, I would
probably say, "Hang in there,

um, get some help."

[MJ] Goodbye for now, Denim.

But since coincidence,

let us meet
four times already.

I will look
for a fifth chance encounter.

I believe
that it's quite possible.

[Brandon] ♪ Walk on Monday
Walk on Tuesday ♪

[Natasha] Within sleuthing,
there are people

who feel unseen
and feel unheard

and feel invisible
in the world.

This is a way
that they can be seen

through these people.

And this is a way
to get closure in your life

for things that you're never
gonna get closure for.

[Brandon] ♪ Walk on Sunday
What was my name? ♪

[Natasha] I don't plan
on sleuthing again,

like I want more
real life experiences,

but sleuthing for this case
showed me I'm unstoppable.

And so I'm deciding then that
I was going to do this thing

that I've been dreaming
of doing my whole life,

which is opening
my own company

and bring the outdoors
to everybody

who wants to go outside.

[Christie]
I am glad I did not quit.

I am glad
I saw this to the end.

I really am.

I think when I found him,

I found me...

and realized this is
what I'm supposed to be doing.

And that's a very
powerful thing.

This is what I'm supposed
to be doing.

[laughs]

Oh, my God.

Um, now I saw that message.

I'm gonna tell you this.

I'm in front of a filming
camera right now.

Uh...

What?

I gotta walk out.

[door opens]

We've got this story...

that Tabitha was decapitated.

[phone ringing]

Oh, God.

Hey, Mrs. Young.
What's going on?