Internet sleuths attempt to ID dead hiker

[Monello]

This is a fascination story. The short story is a guy is found dead in a tent near a hiking trail. No ID, no wallet but has $3,500 in a plastic bag. He has a nickname but nobody knows his real name. He hiked 1,400 miles from New York to Florida. There are dozens of pictures, hundreds of encounters and 1 video of him. DNA testing identified him as having Cajun roots. 2 years later, after untold hours of research, the name is finally IDed.

In Adventure Journal 17, summer 2020, we published a story called “The Ghost in the Tent,” by journalist Jason Nark, who had been trying to decipher the mystery of a man known only by his trail name, Mostly Harmless, whose emaciated body was found in a tent by day hikers in Florida. Harmless had hiked from New York to Florida and there was food and money in his tent, but no identification, and neither Collier County detectives nor amateur web sleuths could figure out his real name, find his family, or uncover friends.

We can now confirm that Mostly Harmless was Vance Rodriguez, a technology worker originally from Louisiana but in recent years based in Brooklyn, New York. After our print story was published, Nark continued his reporting and on December 16 he connected with Rodriguez’s former roommate, who is certain that the hiker known as Mostly Harmless is Rodriguez. Three other friends of Rodriguez also confirmed to Adventure Journal that the hiker in the photos is the man they knew as Vance Rodriguez. A former girlfriend said she is “100 percent sure” Harmless is Rodriguez. A previous DNA test conducted by an outside lab showed that Harmless has Cajun ancestry.

The Mystery of Deceased Hiker 'Mostly Harmless' Is At Long Last Solved (adventure-journal.com)

UPDATE: DNA from the unidentified hiker Mostly Harmless/Denim/Ben Bilemy shows he has significant Cajun ancestry and ties to Louisiana, forensic genealogists at Othram report : AppalachianTrail (reddit.com)

The Unsettling Truth About the ‘Mostly Harmless’ Hiker | WIRED