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

[JudgeJoe]

I’m just now catching back up after checking on my bison herd, no new babies yet! Ok so please no one become offended at my comments please, I do not mean them to be offensive or to attack anyone for anything. But can we recap?
1) he spent cash. Police checked For accounts. So ATM’s seem like a dead end. Police checked receipts, etc.
I have a degree in criminal justice and family in various LE agencies so I know they would have checked all these things out like receipts from stores, serial numbers off of his watch, poles, hiking equipment, notepads...
& they came up with nothing.
2) according to ME report he died of CACHEXIA AKA:”wasting disease.” This is a RESULT of an underlying illness. The illness could have been new or old... like just as an example only: diabetes. The man who discovered the treatment for diabetes ground up the pancreas of stray dogs and gave it to people dying of wasting disease. Before that time, people wanted away no matter how much they ate due to the illness. They died of CACHEXIA but the underlying illness was diabetes.
3) BB supposedly Started hiking (Southbound) in April 2017 in New York.
4) he told hikers he could only do about 10 miles a day, & he wanted to do the hike while he still could. I would say the exact same thing to someone.. “I’m only doing 10 miles a day while I still can..” but for me it would be due to my bad knees, plantar fasciitis & Sore back, plus age mixed in. I have osteoarthritis and it can get bad especially when it’s cold and rainy. So did he actually mention that he definitely had a specific serious medical “disease” he was possibly dying of? Or did he simply say “... l10 miles a day while I still can...” and someone just interpreted that to mean he had some serious medical condition? So many unknowns here.
5) His watch is brought up a lot, which is probably just the cheap a Skmei brand. Looks exactly like it. But that info doesn’t identify the hiker. Unless his watch was one that specific agencies use (like police) then maybe that info “might” be helpful. Or if it had an engraving on it... but other than those things I don’t see how knowing the where the watch went will help to actually identify this guy. It’s the identity of the guy not the watch that is the question. Here is a photo of BB wearing watch & a link to the exact watch I believe he was wearing in case someone believes that might help anyway:
SKMEI Sport Watch Digital Watch Quartz Fashion Water Resistant / Waterproof Quilted PU Leather Black Analog - Digital - Black Yellow Red Two Years Battery Life / Alarm / Calendar / date / day 2020 - US $14.29

6) we know police have pretty much exhausted all identifying factors such as fingerprints and names in national databases etc. So this is why I personally believe BB is not his real name & probably not even close to his real name.
7) based on what I have personally read/ seen... if he was truly in IT or the Tech industry, he would know exactly how to avoid digital footprints. I believe he probably worked in some type of security IT & knew how to go off the grid “like a Boss”!
8) was he ever reported missing? Probably not, but there are people missing that do not make it into the “public” missing persons database. The police have access to the other databases so apparently, after checking them all, it has come down to DNA for an answer.
9) It’s the DNA that will identify him at this point. As a person who has helped LE and the media find answers this way... I can tell you once the DNA is in, it will take a little time. You basically have to find the common DNA link to others in the database, THEN find the common ancestor, THEN start working the genealogy backwards to narrow it down. I’ve done some genealogy work that took less than 10 minutes to solve (For media) and some that I’m still working on after a few years. So let’s all hope that there is a close enough family member to BB that will help identify him! I think there will be, especially since it has gotten cheaper to do the testing now.

Per #4, yes. He did tell fellow hikers that he had a debilitating illness. I interpret that he did not just mean he had knee problems or a bad back.
“He told fellow hikers that he had worked in the tech industry. He also shared that he was hiking the trail before he could be disabled by some unspecified illness.”
Cold Cases Heat Up with New Forensic DNA Methods

 

[JudgeJoe]

Sorry my posts are soo freakin long. Geez did you read all that above until your eyes crossed? OK- so Here some things I checked out and it didn’t involve water bottle brands, watches, tents etc... if that sounded sarcastic it’s not meant to be only trying to steer the conversation to a more logical direction.
1) Screeps (Screeps.com is one game he had been working on in his notepad) if you go to their user forum... they have people posting things about the game. There are a couple of them from the US that were posting pretty regular until about the time BB went off the grid. One of those guys posting issues, addressed specifically some of the things BB had written in his notebooks like rooms/towers/spawning creeps... I think that is possibly a good place to look.
2) I don’t believe the code he was actually working on in his notes would have ever been a code in use though, since he was still writing the code! So I don’t believe that particular code would help identify him. But I do believe “IF” he was even a member of that forum, someone may recognize his “style” as someone that used the game & then stopped around that time. You can go to Screeps.com & research for yourself. This game is basically for helping to teach people how to improve their code writing. But it doesn’t mean they are new to code, just this particular code program as one guy stated he had been doing code for years and had trouble in that game.
yeah... I creeped on a lot of their conversations in the forum, lol.
3) I researched on linkedIn a guy that developed the AI code for Screeps that is used in the game. He is out of Brooklyn, NY. I’m not posting his linkedIn page because he is not affiliated at this time with BB that anyone knows of, & is just a person like us who may not want any of their personal & work info linked to this case out in the interwebs ether for all eternity when they may not know anything about BB.
4) a TECH company hiring in The upper New York/Canada area put out a notice in 2016/ 2017 that they Wanted job applicants to use Screeps As part of their hiring process. They wanted to see the applicants ability to write code in the game and present it to them as a qualification for their company.
Can any of these type things help identify this guy? Even if he lied about everything else he said (from Brooklyn, sister in Florida) the only thing that appears to be a Potential lead is the contents of the notepad. And that’s only if he is one of the couple of guys who was posting in the Screeps forum $ then quit about the same time BB goes on the AT.
5) these things above are what I looked into... I thought they might be more productive than tent brands or watches but at this point who knows? It ALL may be irrelevant but at least I feel like I am making an effort into finding out something about a missing person, as I am sure each and everyone of us all trying to do.
I can do mind blowing theories too though: although not likely... what if BB was brought up from a young age by an abductor... & he didn’t know he was abducted... would he have been a case just like the child abducted “Steven Stayner” who knew he had been abducted but was told by the abductor he had gotten custody & parents didn’t want him anymore... got Steven a new identity & although Steven could have escaped several times... he never knew how to do it. What if this guy is a case like that who was someone who went missing decades ago, then either did leave or escaped or the abductor died? He may not know who he is... he may have had ID on him but it was falsified... he may not have known any of that... and if he said he had a sister... it could be that she could have been a victim too and neither of them knew anything? Except now BB is deceased. And no one can find a TRUE identity him from the things he left behind.
it really looks to me though that he KNEW what he was doing by living the way he did though, for whatever reason. He was probably just harmless but wanting to escape from some horrible event. Whether that is stress, PSTD, depression, etc. I said it a few times but will say it again... Who Knows? WHAT will help actually IDENTIFY him?

As for #5, there was some discussion early on about him being abducted at an early age. All just conjecture of course.
But for your last question, what will ID MH aka BB? I think we’re down to forensic genealogy & facial recognition software. MOO.

 

[IndieCindy]

As for #5, there was some discussion early on about him being abducted at an early age. All just conjecture of course.
But for your last question, what will ID MH aka BB? I think we’re down to forensic genealogy & facial recognition software. MOO.

EXACTLY!

 

[IndieCindy]

Per #4, yes. He did tell fellow hikers that he had a debilitating illness. I interpret that he did not just mean he had knee problems or a bad back.
“He told fellow hikers that he had worked in the tech industry. He also shared that he was hiking the trail before he could be disabled by some unspecified illness.”
Cold Cases Heat Up with New Forensic DNA Methods

Did he ever say what the debilitating illness was? For me it’s osteoarthritis. It hinders my ability to do too much anymore. NotTalking just aches and pains but ability to move. So my question is more along the lines of : did he actually NAME the illness? I just never could find anywhere he said what the actual illness was and I have read everything from various legit sights.

 

[JudgeJoe]

Did he ever say what the debilitating illness was? For me it’s osteoarthritis. It hinders my ability to do too much anymore. NotTalking just aches and pains but ability to move. So my question is more along the lines of : did he actually NAME the illness? I just never could find anywhere he said what the actual illness was and I have read everything from various legit sights.

Nope, not that I’ve seen reported. But “debilitating” was my word- or maybe I stole it from OP?

MH’s/BB’s word was “disabled”. As reported, “...hiking the trail before he could be disabled by some unspecified illness.”

I’m married to someone with debilitating arthritis, so I’ve witnessed the progression of the condition for over 2 decades. But when I think of becoming “disabled” by an illness, I think MS, muscular dystrophy, Lou Gehrig's, etc. Who knows what Mostly Harmless meant?

 

[IndieCindy]

Per #4, yes. He did tell fellow hikers that he had a debilitating illness. I interpret that he did not just mean he had knee problems or a bad back.
“He told fellow hikers that he had worked in the tech industry. He also shared that he was hiking the trail before he could be disabled by some unspecified illness.”
Cold Cases Heat Up with New Forensic DNA Methods

That is the first time I have heard the story like that. The actual people he talked to said that he said that he stated he could only do about 10 miles a day... and he wanted to hike the AT while he still could. Now this story (at the DNA site) gives a different spin to what he said to other hikers. I think things get lost in translation sometimes. Just looking at this from logical perspective. Since we don’t know what words actually came out of his mouth unless the hikers he spoke to a saying word for word what he said.. then us, as the public are getting not only hearsay, but it’s hearsay that a hiker interpreted from the conversation they had with the hiker to now what the article is interpreting the hiker to be saying about what BB said to them... if you follow my meaning here. But that’s really all we can know for sure is what the hikers said that BB said. Which isn’t much concise info into how sick he was and from what we know of the ME report... he did NOT have any Debilitating illness, right? So that seems a moot point, and not sure why the story on the DNA would even mention that hikers said that BB had said that. JMO though.

 

[IndieCindy]

Sorry if my post seems argumentative , they are not meant that way.. merely debating. I think everyone had good info & sometimes it takes group discussion into all areas to come up with something that can be used to help solve the puzzle. This particular case though is probably only going to be solved based on The DNA.

 

[JudgeJoe]

Sorry if my post seems argumentative , they are not meant that way.. merely debating. I think everyone had good info & sometimes it takes group discussion into all areas to come up with something that can be used to help solve the puzzle. This particular case though is probably only going to be solved based on The DNA.

It’s all good. Reporter paraphrasing hiker paraphrasing MH/BB. Or quoting as recalled. Could certainly all be botched up at this point. Idk. I’ve been interested in this case from the start. Spent time on AT, hiking, camping, Everglades, Big Cypress, etc. Can’t stand that he’s not ID’d yet. Forensic genealogy & facial recognition! Just say’n.

 

[othram]

We are betting on DNA too

@IndieCindy @JudgeJoe

 

[branmuffin]

Sorry my posts are soo freakin long. Geez did you read all that above until your eyes crossed? OK- so Here some things I checked out and it didn’t involve water bottle brands, watches, tents etc... if that sounded sarcastic it’s not meant to be only trying to steer the conversation to a more logical direction.
1) Screeps (Screeps.com is one game he had been working on in his notepad) if you go to their user forum... they have people posting things about the game. There are a couple of them from the US that were posting pretty regular until about the time BB went off the grid. One of those guys posting issues, addressed specifically some of the things BB had written in his notebooks like rooms/towers/spawning creeps... I think that is possibly a good place to look.
2) I don’t believe the code he was actually working on in his notes would have ever been a code in use though, since he was still writing the code! So I don’t believe that particular code would help identify him. But I do believe “IF” he was even a member of that forum, someone may recognize his “style” as someone that used the game & then stopped around that time. You can go to Screeps.com & research for yourself. This game is basically for helping to teach people how to improve their code writing. But it doesn’t mean they are new to code, just this particular code program as one guy stated he had been doing code for years and had trouble in that game.
yeah... I creeped on a lot of their conversations in the forum, lol.
3) I researched on linkedIn a guy that developed the AI code for Screeps that is used in the game. He is out of Brooklyn, NY. I’m not posting his linkedIn page because he is not affiliated at this time with BB that anyone knows of, & is just a person like us who may not want any of their personal & work info linked to this case out in the interwebs ether for all eternity when they may not know anything about BB.
4) a TECH company hiring in The upper New York/Canada area put out a notice in 2016/ 2017 that they Wanted job applicants to use Screeps As part of their hiring process. They wanted to see the applicants ability to write code in the game and present it to them as a qualification for their company.
Can any of these type things help identify this guy? Even if he lied about everything else he said (from Brooklyn, sister in Florida) the only thing that appears to be a Potential lead is the contents of the notepad. And that’s only if he is one of the couple of guys who was posting in the Screeps forum $ then quit about the same time BB goes on the AT.
5) these things above are what I looked into... I thought they might be more productive than tent brands or watches but at this point who knows? It ALL may be irrelevant but at least I feel like I am making an effort into finding out something about a missing person, as I am sure each and everyone of us all trying to do.
I can do mind blowing theories too though: although not likely... what if BB was brought up from a young age by an abductor... & he didn’t know he was abducted... would he have been a case just like the child abducted “Steven Stayner” who knew he had been abducted but was told by the abductor he had gotten custody & parents didn’t want him anymore... got Steven a new identity & although Steven could have escaped several times... he never knew how to do it. What if this guy is a case like that who was someone who went missing decades ago, then either did leave or escaped or the abductor died? He may not know who he is... he may have had ID on him but it was falsified... he may not have known any of that... and if he said he had a sister... it could be that she could have been a victim too and neither of them knew anything? Except now BB is deceased. And no one can find a TRUE identity him from the things he left behind.
it really looks to me though that he KNEW what he was doing by living the way he did though, for whatever reason. He was probably just harmless but wanting to escape from some horrible event. Whether that is stress, PSTD, depression, etc. I said it a few times but will say it again... Who Knows? WHAT will help actually IDENTIFY him?

Much of what you've posted has been already been discussed in other threads: Screeps, abductions, watches, illnesses, etc.

A poster on here, a journalist, (you've mentioned him in prior posts)has done extensive investigation into the Screeps aspect, and has been given most information regarding MH's PM, his belongings, etc from LE.

He posts on here sporadically, last time I believe to advise us he'd written a fairly long article regarding this UID in a magazine.

Sometimes, the only advice I can give to new posters is to read the threads and the timelines provided. It's only FIVE threads!! Some threads on WS are into their 50th+! It would take a good chunk out of your life to read those!

 

[GatorFL]

4) he told hikers he could only do about 10 miles a day, & he wanted to do the hike while he still could. I would say the exact same thing to someone.. “I’m only doing 10 miles a day while I still can..” but for me it would be due to my bad knees, plantar fasciitis & Sore back, plus age mixed in. I have osteoarthritis and it can get bad especially when it’s cold and rainy. So did he actually mention that he definitely had a specific serious medical “disease” he was possibly dying of? Or did he simply say “... l10 miles a day while I still can...” and someone just interpreted that to mean he had some serious medical condition? So many unknowns here.

9) It’s the DNA that will identify him at this point. As a person who has helped LE and the media find answers this way... I can tell you once the DNA is in, it will take a little time. You basically have to find the common DNA link to others in the database, THEN find the common ancestor, THEN start working the genealogy backwards to narrow it down. I’ve done some genealogy work that took less than 10 minutes to solve (For media) and some that I’m still working on after a few years. So let’s all hope that there is a close enough family member to BB that will help identify him! I think there will be, especially since it has gotten cheaper to do the testing now.

Snipped by me.

4. I don't think he ever named a disease or illness to anyone. It was "while I still can" but you have to take into account these were random hikers meeting him and not realizing their conversations could be so impactful at a later date.

9. DNA is in. Othram had a pretty good live chat a couple weeks back and the DNA they got from him was better than expected.

 

[othram]

Snipped by me.

9. DNA is in. Othram had a pretty good live chat a couple weeks back and the DNA they got from him was better than expected.

Indeed. DNA is good. Draft sequencing complete. Full sequencing + genealogy kit will be ready by end of month (or sooner) and then we start genealogy.

 

[IndieCindy]

Yep

 

[IndieCindy]

Much of what you've posted has been already been discussed in other threads: Screeps, abductions, watches, illnesses, etc.

A poster on here, a journalist, (you've mentioned him in prior posts)has done extensive investigation into the Screeps aspect, and has been given most information regarding MH's PM, his belongings, etc from LE.

He posts on here sporadically, last time I believe to advise us he'd written a fairly long article regarding this UID in a magazine.

Sometimes, the only advice I can give to new posters is to read the threads and the timelines provided. It's only FIVE threads!! Some threads on WS are into their 50th+! It would take a good chunk out of your life to read those!

Yep:
Correct. Exactly what I was saying. Perhaps you read my post wrong? & Yes, I have read the threads. I read the reporters info. I read the Old newspaper articles. I’ve read various links. That’s why I was basically asking in my long post: “WHY” was there still discussion on the items he had on him. Nothing more. The police were way beyond that point, unless people just want to know for their own curiosity where things were bought, which is fine, I’m a curious person too but it won’t shed any new light on the persons actual identity. The police have already been all over those things and there was nothing new to be learned from any of it.
So just like you said... I was wondering why it was still being discussed. Seems like it’s been hashed out plenty on the threads. I just now got around to listening to the last podcast by CCSO And I now see that the things that I WAS sincerely asking about... (the forums at Screeps & who QUIT writing on them 3 years ago) has now been discussed by the police in that podcast. Again, I think it’s a waiting game on DNA now. Can’t wait for an update to this puzzle. I hope his family will be able to finally reclaim him.

 

[MadMcGoo]

So many questions. I think a lot of them will remained unanswered even after he is identified. Something tells me he’d have preferred it that way though.

- Impatiently waiting.

 

[folieadeuxnola]

Hi Ya'll .... Just Following.

 

[Blueberry2720]

So many questions. I think a lot of them will remained unanswered even after he is identified. Something tells me he’d have preferred it that way though.

- Impatiently waiting.

I agree. Like the Lyle Stevic case. Once he was identified, the family requested no new information be released to the public. They thought he had just gone off to live his own life somewhere and for whatever reason(s), did not maintain contact with his family. They decided to respect him, and to not go searching for him or publicly try to beg him to contact them. They felt it was his choice to disappear, and they felt they needed to honor that. There may have been family "issues" that caused them to come to this conclusion, or perhaps some history of behavior on his part that pointed to him eventually parting ways with his family. His family was glad, from a closure standpoint, that they found out what happened to him. But they weren't initially concerned when he cutoff contact with them, felt that it was out of character, or worried that he had met with foul play, etc. So, we never found out his real name, anything about his life, family, work, etc. All we knew at the end was that he had been positively identified and his family was informed.

As for our hiker friend, we here at Websleuths have tried to scrape the bottom of every barrel we could find, and we may end up with the same type of ending - nothing - not even a name.
JMO

 

[Curious_in_NC]

There were in fact loose pages. Looked like they had been ripped out of the little notebook. Looked like they had been trashed because they had some stains on them like someone spilled a drink or something on them.

Looking at the photos, it looks like 2 of the stained loose pages may have been in the trash bag (see picture at message #114 this thread) and the third was with the open notebooks, found with the ziploc bags they were presumably stored in, in the tent. The notebooks were clearly very important to him, and likely the last thing MH read.

I have tried to make sense of the loose page from the small notepad with columns of numbers on it. Maybe it is output from some calculations. There are repeating patterns and notation that could be variables (T5, D1, P1, C19, etc.), and also line numbering on the left (0, 5, 10, etc.). Maybe these are nutrition values or protein bar calculations, but I can't make sense of them if they are. My apologies if this was discussed elsewhere and I missed it.

 

[Laughing]

Young man may have started the Appalachian Trail, left to hold down a tech job, returned as our mysterious Denim???

ME - PA/ME- Thomas Jacoby, 18, sent letters after missing, belongings found in trash, Millinocket, 1991

Serious time gap, I know
Indications of foul play in Maine, I know

But now we have something different to talk about for a day or so....

 

[JudgeJoe]

Young man may have started the Appalachian Trail, left to hold down a tech job, returned as our mysterious Denim???

ME - PA/ME- Thomas Jacoby, 18, sent letters after missing, belongings found in trash, Millinocket, 1991

Serious time gap, I know
Indications of foul play in Maine, I know

But now we have something different to talk about for a day or so....

Huh. Don’t think TJ is MH, but could see possible similarities in what could have been the trigger. For TJ, his fam “broke-up” from divorce. Perhaps something similar with MH. If his parents were killed in an auto accident, for example, no one would be looking for him. And if he did have a pre-existing condition, maybe he just thought, screw it. I’m going to spend my last couple years in nature. What better way to go than sitting quietly in trees after AT plus FL?