Identified! FL - Big Cypress Natl Preserve, Male hiker, "Denim" & "Mostly Harmless", Jul 2018 - Vance Rodriguez

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Coffee56 said:
Saw this on another MH site and think it’s worth sharing. Age would be a little over the age range but not by much. I’m not sure why it’s a non family abduction with so little info. I don’t normally automatically think runaway but I think it’s possible here. I think maybe Scott and his sister may have just left.

26DMAK - Scott Curtis Fandel

View attachment 275767
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Additional info on the night they disappeared. Possible scenarios and suspects.

What Happened to the Fandel Children?
 
Coffee56 said:
Saw this on another MH site and think it’s worth sharing. Age would be a little over the age range but not by much. I’m not sure why it’s a non family abduction with so little info. I don’t normally automatically think runaway but I think it’s possible here. I think maybe Scott and his sister may have just left.

26DMAK - Scott Curtis Fandel

View attachment 275767
Click to expand...


Additional info on the night they disappeared. Possible scenarios and suspects.

What Happened to the Fandel Children?
 
GatorFL said:
We did a mail drop just once, the wife sent it out to a designated business on the FT and we picked it up there. No ID needed, I just told them "Hi I am Max Power and I have a package waiting" signed a paper and I was gone.

However I do think you need ID if you're picking up a drop at a post office. There is a website that lists all resupply points on the FT so I am assuming the AT as well. But, you need someone on the other end sending it out at the right time.

Also, most have a phone so they might tell their wife to send a different jacket or socks or whatever.

Looking back on that one mail drop, IIRC the website said that variety was important. You don't want to be consuming the same stuff on the trail because you get sick of it. Did MH get sick of his rations? Haven't thought about that yet but worth some others weighing in.
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BBM
This was my experience. You get sick of your food when you're thru hiking. Me? I had 33 different dinner recipes that I set up in advance. I introduced them gradually over the course of the hike, with pick ups every 4 days.
Testimony to food boredom.... A couple who were hiking the AT at the same time as me did some mathematical calculations about their food. They determined that the best weight/calorie/nutrition ratio was a certain combination of gorp. They mixed VATS of it. It would be their primary food. To make a long story short.... within a week or two, very large ziplocs full of gorp were being abandoned in shelters..... LOL It was no time at all before they were sick of the same ol' same ol'.
Another food strategy is to put up with the daily boredom of ramen+tuna, and eat variety when you get to town. On the AT, that could be as often as very 2 days. The AT is not exactly remote.

I also want to make a correction about weight gain.
My observation is that frequently men lose weight when they're thru hikers. In fact, if they start the trail on the stringy-side, they will almost certainly have to abandon the trip because they will get too thin.
Not so women! Often women will GAIN weight. The reason is that the weight gain is muscle, and muscle is heavier than the other options. IIRC I left the trail at 140 lbs and a size 4. I weighed maybe 120 and size 8 when I began.
And, in case you're curious, you don't just gain muscle in your lower body. Almost all thru hikers use trekking poles (it's probably the reason the AT is even possible for as many people as it is). All the women I knew had RIPPED arm and shoulder muscles from swinging those poles for 2000+ miles.

Floating around the thread, I've seen ideas that MH may have picked up some kind of disease that led to cachexia. Consider that almost all thru hikers spend a great deal of time in the shelters (even if they often sleep in a tent). There are mice and other rodents everywhere, droppings, nibble holes. Heck MH could even have had a mouse eat its way into his pack and left some unwelcome bacteria in his food supply.
And then there's the water issue.... some folks just don't care to treat their water; others think they're treating it, but don't have a process that works; others always treat theirs, but can still get sick (e.g. by cross-contaminating filter hoses). IMO MH could have had a water-born illness.
 
Any reports or evidence on whether he ate or planned to catch and eat fish? Maybe a back-up plan after (reportedly) missing a food drop? Some of these toxins might not be included in routine autopsy/PM. Don't know if physical signs are put up by each body of water or if they figure folks will check on-line? If already underweight or ill, toxins are even worse news. http://www.floridahealth.gov/progra...-consumption/_documents/advisory-brochure.pdf

Any way to find the brush-hogging/maintenance schedule for the site he was found? Attention and resources may have been diverted to deal with fires in the area.
 
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I found on my long searches of almost all the hiking groups on facebook, two people who where concerned that he might be in the Florida fires . One lady tagged another Mike Gormley, he didn't respond. I know he has been in touch with the collier police , but I'm not finding that the other person has. I don't want to post her name here but does anyone have a list of names as well as the trail names So that I can omit them please?
Feel free to pm me, but looking at the FT names I can't see her name there.
I also found hikers discussing "This is why they say to Take 3 grand with you". This is in regards to costs when hiking. So I think that is why he had all that money, some hikers take cash in case they can't get to a bank it seems. Plus There is the idea he didn't have a card although some swear to seeing him use one.
The Obsidian update is amazing news, I wonder what CM his closest match is?
 
Laura Avery said:
I found on my long searches of almost all the hiking groups on facebook, two people who where concerned that he might be in the Florida fires . One lady tagged another Mike Gormley, he didn't respond. I know he has been in touch with the collier police , but I'm not finding that the other person has. I don't want to post her name here but does anyone have a list of names as well as the trail names So that I can omit them please?
Feel free to pm me, but looking at the FT names I can't see her name there.
I also found hikers discussing "This is why they say to Take 3 grand with you". This is in regards to costs when hiking. So I think that is why he had all that money, some hikers take cash in case they can't get to a bank it seems. Plus There is the idea he didn't have a card although some swear to seeing him use one.
The Obsidian update is amazing news, I wonder what CM his closest match is?
Click to expand...

I posted this earlier, but one of my many outlandish theories about MH's death is about smoke inhalation, that lead to his death and eventual rapid weight loss, which would give the illusion of starving to death.

This is just one of my many intrusive thoughts and theories that come to me at random.
 
Laura Avery said:
I found on my long searches of almost all the hiking groups on facebook, two people who where concerned that he might be in the Florida fires . One lady tagged another Mike Gormley, he didn't respond. I know he has been in touch with the collier police , but I'm not finding that the other person has. I don't want to post her name here but does anyone have a list of names as well as the trail names So that I can omit them please?
Feel free to pm me, but looking at the FT names I can't see her name there.
I also found hikers discussing "This is why they say to Take 3 grand with you". This is in regards to costs when hiking. So I think that is why he had all that money, some hikers take cash in case they can't get to a bank it seems. Plus There is the idea he didn't have a card although some swear to seeing him use one.
The Obsidian update is amazing news, I wonder what CM his closest match is?
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I contacted her way back in the beginning of this case. She had already been in touch with the police and didn't have any more info.
 
iamnotagolem said:
How frustrating will it be when it’s solved and if the family chooses not to release his name?
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Not important to me, at all.

I want him to be put to rest the way he wished to be put to rest, and knowing that will make me ecstatic.

However, I can fully relate to why it would be frustrating. We have all put a lot of effort into helping identify him, and he practically feels like an old friend at this point.

There are older cases I would love to solve, who really deserve their identity back. I have a lot of hope for MH because of how recent it is. Sadly, a case like "Little Jane Doe" from St Louis may never be solved due to the passing of time, recollections, and information preservation.
 
LSS said:
Any reports or evidence on whether he ate or planned to catch and eat fish? Maybe a back-up plan after (reportedly) missing a food drop?
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Snipped for focus. If you miss a food drop, you just buy food. MH had plenty of money. Many many thru hikers re-supply their food at gas stations. Post offices where you pick up the food drops are generally (though not always) in the vicinity of food supply. Even a convenience gas station would work; a cafe; a country store... Then there's hitch-hiking. I wouldn't dream of hitch-hiking anywhere, but I hitch-hiked all over the place when I was a thru hiker. I've even bummed lifts in a Burger King.
MH would have been totally in the groove of hitch-hiking. No food drop, no problem.
The only thing for which there would be no substitute: if he had shipped prescription medicine to himself. But some sign of prescription would presumably have shown up in the tent, or he could have asked for a new prescription. It would also have shown up in blood analysis.
 
lonewanderer said:
I posted this earlier, but one of my many outlandish theories about MH's death is about smoke inhalation, that lead to his death and eventual rapid weight loss, which would give the illusion of starving to death.

This is just one of my many intrusive thoughts and theories that come to me at random.
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They would have found smoke damage in his throat and lungs.

I'll bet they ruled out the obvious, like CO poisoning from cooking inside a tent.

It has to have been some disease process, IMO. Tapeworms or other parasites, they would have discovered in fecal matter or his brain. If he traveled to a developing country, he could have got something unidentifiable, even years ago.
Was there discussion above about AIDS? But surely that would have just taken a lab test? But if he missed AIDS medication in a food drop, he'd be toast, unless maybe he went to an ER. I suppose he could have called an AIDS hotline, if he had AIDS and ran out of meds, but he didn't have a phone? Maybe he even deliberately went off meds when he got on the trail? A kind of death wish?
 
It's over, everybody. We know who he is. Like most of us imagined all along, it just took the right person seeing the right photos/media and we have an Id. Expect an official announement soon. God bless all the thousands of people who took this case on. It pays off.


131890980_240637997411277_6640389255185675443_n.jpg
 
Narkj said:
It's over, everybody. We know who he is. Like most of us imagined all along, it just took the right person seeing the right photos/media and we have an Id. Expect an official announement soon. God bless all the thousands of people who took this case on. It pays off.


131890980_240637997411277_6640389255185675443_n.jpg
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Wow, I can’t believe it: after all this time. I am so happy and await further updates.

Everyone has worked so hard on this case!
 
Thanks for posting that picture, and massive kudos to everyone who worked on this! I'm so glad that those who knew him and cared about him can be informed, but it's heartbreaking at the same time. First he was a nameless hiker who passed away, now he is a person with a name – as if he died twice, somehow.
 
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