11 ms·

The Mystery of Deceased Hiker ‘Mostly Harmless’ Is at Long Last Solved

180 points by rdegges 6y ago

lol768 6y ago
This is a case that has interested me for a while.. Photos definitely look the same. It seems a bit odd that Collier County sheriff's office haven't been able to confirm this yet, though?
- bombcar 6y ago
  The sheriff's office has much higher requirements, including next-of-kin notifications, etc (and it appears said kin would want them to stay quiet). Once they can verify foul play wasn't involved, official interest can peter out.
matsemann 6y ago
The mystery was heavily discussed (>300 comments) here earlier (before this development in the story): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24981786 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24981786 Can be interesting to see how the speculation there was correct or not.
- howlgarnish 6y ago
  As far as I can tell almost all of it was wrong.
  - lastofthemojito 6y ago
    I feel like my comment aged pretty well. > It's possible that his family recognized him and just hasn't bothered to say anything publicly. Maybe he burned bridges in his previous life and folks would rather let it go than deal with interviews, etc. From the article: > His family has not responded to requests for comment > “There’s a reason no one reported him missing,” said a former roommate in Baton Rouge > an intelligent and troubled man who often struggled with personal relationships, particularly with his family
    - Exmoor 6y ago
      I wouldn't necessarily read too much into that. Sadly there have apparently been similar cases where family members have been harassed by anonymous internet users for not reporting their adult family members missing. Apparently law enforcement is now giving families a heads up during the identification process and allowing them to retain some level of anonymity. I've seen this specifically cited as the reason "Lyle Stevik"[0]'s name was never made public. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyle_Stevik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyle_Stevik
    - pwdisswordfish0 6y ago
      Your comment speculates that they intentionally chose to withhold information. The article tells a different story of someone who had enough people who knew and cared about him, but who also knew him as someone who lived in such a way that due to it not being unusual to go long stretches without contact with others, his disappearance and death could easily go unnoticed. And of course, when people did realize the dead hiker was theirs, they came forward. It's the whole reason this article was able to be written in the first place. These are two different pictures that aren't especially compatible. (It's bad enough to participate in those types of speculation fests, but even worse that at the moment the fog lifts and it should be approached with a newly sober attitude, you instead show up to pimp out your (wrong) theory.)
  - pvaldes 6y ago
    Being wrong most of the time in this cases is normal. Speculation is based in the limited set of data available at a given point. As the data slowly improves, the hypothesis will be replaced by better explanations. Is an iterative process. If we see for example an old fainted abdominal scar, without more additional data, the correct explanation would be to assume that it was made (or closed) by a surgeon. This will be the correct explanation in, lets say, 80% of the real cases. An attack or an accident would be the next logical candidates. People deliberately shooting themselves in the belly are really rare events so we should not choose this explanation in the first iterations without discarding the more probable candidates first. After discarding the other options, a case of mental issues and anorexia, maybe followed by eating too much [1] in a too fragile body would explain it [1] despite his extreme condition, he was eating and drinking, as the autopsy reveals. ... but after discarding the other options, there is still another remaining candidate that links together and explains practically all little strange details that seemed out of place in this history, and this candidate is prostate cancer.
irscott 6y ago
Hope this dude found what he was looking for. I think a lot of people can see themselves in this story. The desire to walk off and be alone and sure potentially to just give up and die somewhere. If he really just sat down and decided to starve or was so deeply depressed as to be unable to see he was slowly dying he had some deep issues that we'll probably never know the extent of. Any time something like this comes out it reminds me, especially during the holiday to season, to reach out intentionally to people I care about and make sure they know I've got their back. Just last week I did some sleuthing and found out an old friend had been incarcerated for 15 years for a drink driving crash that killed someone. I knew his family life was a mess and even though we hadn't talked in 10+ years I wrote him a letter to let him know someone was at least thinking about him. Whatever happened to this guy his story reminds us to take care of each other.
UI_at_80x24 6y ago
I am a fan of long-distance cycle touring, (and cycling in general)and the number of times that I've almost been hit (AND been a victim of a hit & run) is too high to count. I've done things like place a laminated info-sheet with my name, address, DOB, blood-type, etc. in my panniers in the hope that it would help identify the body if it ever came to that. I realized however that emergency responders probably won't find it, or won't look at it if they do find it. So I got a tattoo on my chest with name, DOB, blood-type and Drivers License number. These are 2 pictures, one showing a bare-loadout (activity: grocery shopping) https://photos.app.goo.gl/kq3rhXV6daFDtSVL8 https://photos.app.goo.gl/kq3rhXV6daFDtSVL8 And this is a a medium touring load-out: https://photos.app.goo.gl/fXgfsRWf8RCLPeTN8 https://photos.app.goo.gl/fXgfsRWf8RCLPeTN8 I think you could see why I assume a cop might never find emergency information.
- xwdv 6y ago
  I’d love to do a long distance cycling tour but the fear of being hit and killed is what will prevent me from truly enjoying it.
  - mikeyouse 6y ago
    Yeah same here. Just this week, the CFO of Sports Basement was among a group of riders struck and killed by a box truck driver who was high on meth. They were riding in a group with a support car and it still didn’t help. Just awful.
    - hodgesrm 6y ago
      I've done a lot of day cycling as well as bike touring. There's certainly risk in touring but it's not easy to disengage it from cycling in general. The practical problem in touring is you may end up on roads with (a) no shoulder, (b) heavy traffic, and (c) drivers who are not expecting to see bicycles. Oregon highway 140 from Klamath Falls to Medford was one of the scarier roads I've ever toured on. Stuff you might think is a death trap actually isn't. Logging trucks are terrifying for bicyclists, but by and large the drivers are really good and tend to pay close attention to the road. I'm more worried about the old fella driving his RV.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
interblag 6y ago
Interesting story. Given this is a tech forum, this page has a link to hiker's scanned notebook with the code in it, just in case anyone else is curious. https://www.colliersheriff.org/news/sworn-statement https://www.colliersheriff.org/news/sworn-statement
sixothree 6y ago
Wow. I was at University of Louisiana in 94 and vividly remember a specific group of people who would spend hours playing muds on those SparcStation 1's.
Waterluvian 6y ago
The article tells a touching story but it leaves me trying to piece together_exactly_ how he died. 83lbs with money and food in the tent. Did he just selectively starve himself as a symptom of some form of depression? I guess what I'm morbidly curious about is the ability to sit among food and starve yourself to death. I apologize if this sounds insensitive. I don't intend it to be so.
- ASalazarMX 6y ago
  This might be grossly miscalculated, but IIRC you lose 1~2 pounds per day of fasting. At 2 pounds per day, he fasted for 35 days to lose 70 pounds. If he was alone all that time, he had to get up and drink liquids periodically, or he would have died way before 35 days. It seems like he decided to go ascetically, sokushinbutsu style. The medication found in his stomach reinforces this speculation. He was missing for 90 days, but his body was in better shape than the humid summer would suggest, maybe he fasted for most of those 90 days, as sitting immobile would have saved calories and water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokushinbutsu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokushinbutsu
supernova87a 6y ago
How heartening and amazing it is about human beings the lengths we will go to rescue a total stranger from dying unknown in mystery, and lay his/her body and life to rest with some sense of resolution.

180 points by rdegges 6y ago

This is a case that has interested me for a while.. Photos definitely look the same. It seems a bit odd that Collier County sheriff's office haven't been able to confirm this yet, though?

bombcar 6y ago
The sheriff's office has much higher requirements, including next-of-kin notifications, etc (and it appears said kin would want them to stay quiet). Once they can verify foul play wasn't involved, official interest can peter out.

matsemann 6y ago

The mystery was heavily discussed (>300 comments) here earlier (before this development in the story): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24981786 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24981786 Can be interesting to see how the speculation there was correct or not.

howlgarnish 6y ago
As far as I can tell almost all of it was wrong.
- lastofthemojito 6y ago
  I feel like my comment aged pretty well. > It's possible that his family recognized him and just hasn't bothered to say anything publicly. Maybe he burned bridges in his previous life and folks would rather let it go than deal with interviews, etc. From the article: > His family has not responded to requests for comment > “There’s a reason no one reported him missing,” said a former roommate in Baton Rouge > an intelligent and troubled man who often struggled with personal relationships, particularly with his family
  - Exmoor 6y ago
    I wouldn't necessarily read too much into that. Sadly there have apparently been similar cases where family members have been harassed by anonymous internet users for not reporting their adult family members missing. Apparently law enforcement is now giving families a heads up during the identification process and allowing them to retain some level of anonymity. I've seen this specifically cited as the reason "Lyle Stevik"[0]'s name was never made public. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyle_Stevik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyle_Stevik
  - pwdisswordfish0 6y ago
    Your comment speculates that they intentionally chose to withhold information. The article tells a different story of someone who had enough people who knew and cared about him, but who also knew him as someone who lived in such a way that due to it not being unusual to go long stretches without contact with others, his disappearance and death could easily go unnoticed. And of course, when people did realize the dead hiker was theirs, they came forward. It's the whole reason this article was able to be written in the first place. These are two different pictures that aren't especially compatible. (It's bad enough to participate in those types of speculation fests, but even worse that at the moment the fog lifts and it should be approached with a newly sober attitude, you instead show up to pimp out your (wrong) theory.)
- pvaldes 6y ago
  Being wrong most of the time in this cases is normal. Speculation is based in the limited set of data available at a given point. As the data slowly improves, the hypothesis will be replaced by better explanations. Is an iterative process. If we see for example an old fainted abdominal scar, without more additional data, the correct explanation would be to assume that it was made (or closed) by a surgeon. This will be the correct explanation in, lets say, 80% of the real cases. An attack or an accident would be the next logical candidates. People deliberately shooting themselves in the belly are really rare events so we should not choose this explanation in the first iterations without discarding the more probable candidates first. After discarding the other options, a case of mental issues and anorexia, maybe followed by eating too much [1] in a too fragile body would explain it [1] despite his extreme condition, he was eating and drinking, as the autopsy reveals. ... but after discarding the other options, there is still another remaining candidate that links together and explains practically all little strange details that seemed out of place in this history, and this candidate is prostate cancer.

irscott 6y ago

Hope this dude found what he was looking for. I think a lot of people can see themselves in this story. The desire to walk off and be alone and sure potentially to just give up and die somewhere. If he really just sat down and decided to starve or was so deeply depressed as to be unable to see he was slowly dying he had some deep issues that we'll probably never know the extent of. Any time something like this comes out it reminds me, especially during the holiday to season, to reach out intentionally to people I care about and make sure they know I've got their back. Just last week I did some sleuthing and found out an old friend had been incarcerated for 15 years for a drink driving crash that killed someone. I knew his family life was a mess and even though we hadn't talked in 10+ years I wrote him a letter to let him know someone was at least thinking about him. Whatever happened to this guy his story reminds us to take care of each other.

UI_at_80x24 6y ago

I am a fan of long-distance cycle touring, (and cycling in general)and the number of times that I've almost been hit (AND been a victim of a hit & run) is too high to count. I've done things like place a laminated info-sheet with my name, address, DOB, blood-type, etc. in my panniers in the hope that it would help identify the body if it ever came to that. I realized however that emergency responders probably won't find it, or won't look at it if they do find it. So I got a tattoo on my chest with name, DOB, blood-type and Drivers License number. These are 2 pictures, one showing a bare-loadout (activity: grocery shopping) https://photos.app.goo.gl/kq3rhXV6daFDtSVL8 https://photos.app.goo.gl/kq3rhXV6daFDtSVL8 And this is a a medium touring load-out: https://photos.app.goo.gl/fXgfsRWf8RCLPeTN8 https://photos.app.goo.gl/fXgfsRWf8RCLPeTN8 I think you could see why I assume a cop might never find emergency information.

xwdv 6y ago
I’d love to do a long distance cycling tour but the fear of being hit and killed is what will prevent me from truly enjoying it.
- mikeyouse 6y ago
  Yeah same here. Just this week, the CFO of Sports Basement was among a group of riders struck and killed by a box truck driver who was high on meth. They were riding in a group with a support car and it still didn’t help. Just awful.
  - hodgesrm 6y ago
    I've done a lot of day cycling as well as bike touring. There's certainly risk in touring but it's not easy to disengage it from cycling in general. The practical problem in touring is you may end up on roads with (a) no shoulder, (b) heavy traffic, and (c) drivers who are not expecting to see bicycles. Oregon highway 140 from Klamath Falls to Medford was one of the scarier roads I've ever toured on. Stuff you might think is a death trap actually isn't. Logging trucks are terrifying for bicyclists, but by and large the drivers are really good and tend to pay close attention to the road. I'm more worried about the old fella driving his RV.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

interblag 6y ago

Interesting story. Given this is a tech forum, this page has a link to hiker's scanned notebook with the code in it, just in case anyone else is curious. https://www.colliersheriff.org/news/sworn-statement https://www.colliersheriff.org/news/sworn-statement

sixothree 6y ago

Wow. I was at University of Louisiana in 94 and vividly remember a specific group of people who would spend hours playing muds on those SparcStation 1's.

Waterluvian 6y ago

The article tells a touching story but it leaves me trying to piece together_exactly_ how he died. 83lbs with money and food in the tent. Did he just selectively starve himself as a symptom of some form of depression? I guess what I'm morbidly curious about is the ability to sit among food and starve yourself to death. I apologize if this sounds insensitive. I don't intend it to be so.

ASalazarMX 6y ago
This might be grossly miscalculated, but IIRC you lose 1~2 pounds per day of fasting. At 2 pounds per day, he fasted for 35 days to lose 70 pounds. If he was alone all that time, he had to get up and drink liquids periodically, or he would have died way before 35 days. It seems like he decided to go ascetically, sokushinbutsu style. The medication found in his stomach reinforces this speculation. He was missing for 90 days, but his body was in better shape than the humid summer would suggest, maybe he fasted for most of those 90 days, as sitting immobile would have saved calories and water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokushinbutsu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokushinbutsu

supernova87a 6y ago

How heartening and amazing it is about human beings the lengths we will go to rescue a total stranger from dying unknown in mystery, and lay his/her body and life to rest with some sense of resolution.