Disaster Family Who Died Trying to Live 'Off the Grid' Told Loved Ones About Their Plan: 'We Tried to Stop Them' - Before leaving, they "watched some YouTube videos" about "how to live off the grid," a family member said

Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. Photo:
RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images

A family member of two sisters and a teen whose bodies were discovered "fairly mummified" in a remote Colorado campsite earlier this month said their deaths should serve as a warning: living in the wilderness without proper experience can be deadly.

On Tuesday, the Gunnison County Coroner's Office identified the individuals as Rebecca Vance, 42, Christine Vance, 41, as well as Rebecca’s 14-year-old son, according to a statement obtained by PEOPLE.

Trevala Jara, Rebecca and Christine's stepsister, told The Washington Post that the decision to "live off the grid" was made as Rebecca's fears about the world intensified.

"She didn’t like the way the world was going, and she thought it would be better if her and her son and Christine were alone, away from everybody," Jara, 39, told the newspaper. "She didn’t want the influences of the world to get to them. She really thought she was protecting her family."

Although Christine wasn't always planning on going, Jara told The New York Times she decided to come along "because she thought that if she was with them, they had a better chance of surviving."

“We tried to stop them. But they wouldn’t listen," she said while speaking with The Washington Post.

Not knowing where they planned on going, Jara told The Los Angeles Times that she asked Christine to send postcards to let her know they were safe, but the postcards never came.

Gunnison County Coroner Michael Barnes told The Colorado Sun that he believed that possibly malnutrition and "exposure to the elements" through a harsh winter last year contributed to their deaths, though current analyses on their cause of death are still pending.

The autopsy reports are still incomplete, and the office is awaiting a toxicology report, per The Los Angeles Times. Barnes also expressed concern about carbon monoxide poisoning, citing evidence that the family attempted to stay warm by burning materials, including vegetation in soup cans, inside their tent.

"At this point it appears that these three individuals began long term camping at the location near Gold Creek Campground in (approximately) mid-late July last Summer 2022 and attempted to stay through the winter," he told The Colorado Sun and CNN. He did not say when he believed they possibly could have died.

A hiker discovered one of the "heavily decomposed" bodies about 1,000 feet from a site near the Gold Creek Campground around 4:57 p.m. on June 9, according to the sheriff’s office. The bodies were discovered in a dark patch of timber, Gunnison County Sheriff Adam Murdie told The Colorado Sun.

The Gunnison County Sheriff’s Office went on to note that investigators “located the campsite and discovered two additional heavily decomposed deceased individuals within the campsite.”

Speaking with The New York Times, Jara said that Rebecca had "good intentions," but she was plagued with fears, which worsened during the pandemic.

"The fear overwhelmed her, most definitely," Jara told The Washington Post. "I did feel a shift in her."

Before they left, Jara told The Washington Post that the family "watched some YouTube videos" about "how to live off the grid" but had "no experience."

“YouTube and the internet is not enough,” Jara added while speaking with The Los Angeles Times.

She went on to tell the newspaper that she and her husband even tried to persuade them to use their RV and generator in the mountains as a test run. The idea appealed to Christine but not to Rebecca, who was certain they could "live on their own," Jara told the newspaper.

"[Rebecca] really thought she was saving her son and Christine by living by themselves and being off the grid," Jara added. "I really did not think it was going to get this far."

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[Ghostse]

Niggers sperging about wild animals BTFO, receiving a felting they will never recover from
People who predicted "Avoidable death by being completely unprepared" victorious, possess large dicks
People who specifically predicted "Fat city spics die from lack of food in the woods" on schedule to fuck animal spergs' mothers while they watch and cry.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-09-01/colorado-family-trying-to-live-off-the-grid-died-of-malnutrition-hypothermia

A14-year-old boy who was living off the grid with his mother and his aunt in the Colorado wilderness was down to 40 pounds when he died, according to autopsy reports.

The boy, his mother Rebecca Vance, 42, and his aunt Christine Vance, 41, all died of malnutrition and hypothermia, and the deaths were accidental, the autopsies found.

The Times obtained copies of the three autopsy reports through a public records request to the Gunnison County Attorney’s office after The Colorado Sun reported the story Wednesday.

The family had been missing since October 2022. They were discovered in July when a hiker found the boy’s remains outside of a tent in a remote campsite in the area of Gold Creek Campground, east of Gunnison, in the Colorado Rockies, the reports said. The next day, investigators discovered the remains of Rebecca Vance and Christine Vance inside the tent. Evidence at the campsite suggested that the family was trying to live off the grid but desperately struggled, Michael Barnes, the Gunnison County Coroner who authorized the autopsies, told The Times.

Investigators found empty food containers at the campsite, "but almost no actual food was present in the tent or in the vicinity," the reports said. They also found survivalist guides scattered around the site.

The campsite was located at about 9,500 feet in elevation, and it was a harsh winter, the reports said, with several feet of snowfall and several days of below-zero temperatures. Officials had also said there was a lean-to — a type of crude shelter — near the campsite, indicating they tried to escape the elements.

The family members were all "very thin," and wearing several layers of clothes when found, the autopsies said. They also each wore a necklace with a cross — Rebecca Vance also wore a whistle. No injuries contributed to their deaths.

Rebecca Vance, Christine Vance and Rebecca’s 14-year-old son disconnected from the modern world in July 2022 and headed into the Colorado Rockies, Vance’s stepsister, Trevala Jara, told The Times. Jara said Rebecca had become fearful of the state of the world during the pandemic and concluded she needed to live off the grid to protect her teenage son. Christine Vance, also Jara’s stepsister, decided to join them, thinking they’d have a better chance at survival as a trio.

Christine and Rebecca Vance, along with Rebecca's son, were inexperienced, and Jara said she tried to stop them, but Rebecca Vance was certain they could "live on their own."

cold and literally starving is a horrible way to go, the teen was 40 pounds at time of death. That is horrific.

At the same time, I cannot stop laughing because of just how fucking retarded these people were. These deaths were completely avoidable and the only one I feel remotely bad about is the literal child who was drug along on this journey of utter retardation.

"They also found survivalist guides scattered around the site."
Goddamit this is like a gallows humor laugh spectacular. While you're becoming a walking skeleton, here's some reading about how to minimize your carbon footprint while digging a latrine. The chapter about planting a vegan garden will really help if we somehow don't starve to death before spring.

They didn't even bring tents, they built a janky ghettoass lean-to. And everything was in "containers" which I'm going to guess means a bunch of Takis bags swirling around the place.

Maybe instead of reading about how to "Take only photographs, leave only footprints" you should have read up on the Donner party instead.

Just using the last of your strenght to turn over and in a dry whisper say to the barely breathing skeleton that is your child "At least we're free of COVID".

 

[Criticallacitirc]

Would be interesting to know who were the ones that died at the camp and who died away from it.

Guessing the women died of exposure or carbon monoxide and the son tried to go for help but also succumb to the elements.

Kinda what I figured it was the boy outside of the tent/camp. The women went first in the tent and he unsuccessfully tried to leave.

 

[beepbopisuckcock]

so they wanna be like "i tried to stop them" yeah ok.
but no call to police to get the kids or detain mom for taking her kids to a tent in the middle of winter?
sounds like a lot of people knew about this going on before anyone died. just saying.

she took her kids to a place with no house in the middle of winter in colorado.
she clearly was not a survivalist and just afraid with kids and it doesn't sound like the father is around to have taken the kids out of the problem.

whoever knew should be in trouble for knowing about it and not calling police.
no one sane would do this, there were kids, but mopesy the friend is all "i tried to stop them" yeah ok buddy.
no one called police to help.

no one helped. isn't it crazy how much NO ONE helps?
people fear calling police because they're dirty and have shit to hide so suddenly no one is calling the police?
that's a lot of dirty mother fuckers then, i didn't know so many people just see life for the thrills and ditch when someone starts choking.
it's like when two stupid friends start having one get hurt and their like "lawl wat r u doing???" instead of understanding something is wrong.

friends sitting at home nice and warm are all like "we told her not to" and waited for them to die.
this is people KNOWING someone and their kids might die and then acting like they REALLY couldn't call the police for this shit.
the people who knew should face charges.

The friends were incredibly based. Never talk to the police.

 

[NevskyProspekt]

It’s something I have always had a slight hankering for - bugger off to applecross or somewhere like that and live in a Croft.
I think if I was younger I might still try but I’d want a strong bloke with me. I grow my own veg, I can fix a lot of stuff, I can make clothes, equipment etc and even then I’m aware that being totally self sufficient is very hard to do. There’s a lot of planning, and a lot of skills needed to set up and maintain own power, water and food supply.
I admire anyone who can do it. I just try to be a tiny bit less dependent on the main system and enjoy picking up older skills. This winter I’m going to have a crack at learning wood carving. But I’m aware that’s hobby level, and that trying to survive isn’t so easy.

If you're going out to Applecroft you also have to deal with Nucklavees and shit. Those buggers are annoying.

 

[Johan Schmidt]

This seems less of a 'lived off the grid' and more 'Long form suicide.' Becoming willingly homeless if you will. Even here in the UK, with mild winters and easy summers. I'd want at minimum, a cabin, a stove inside said cabin that vents to the outside, a place to store and dry wood, and two ways to haul my retard ass back to the nearest town if things go wrong - ideally a car, and at worst a clear way of walking there inside of a day.

That's assuming I already have food, water, and sleeping arrangements already accounted for.

 

[mold]

I"m amazed more of you aren't picking up on the 'don't leave the hive, don't leave your pod, don't even try, you will die, you need the system' messaging sprinkled through this entire thing.

ok but that's true for most people

I grew up in a city but got a lot of good outdoor education and I live in a smaller city with good access to the outdoors now. I'm shocked at how retarded people have gotten. People go off trail and die all the time. They drown in unbelievably stupid ways. They leave the hive, they leave their pod, they try, and they do in fact die.

 

[Otterly]

If you're going out to Applecroft you also have to deal with Nucklavees and shit. Those buggers are annoying.

Keep a constant kelp fire going…
Applecross is lovely. It’s somewhere really unique

 

[jertzog]

The disconnect in learning how to camp is as tragic as that of learning how to cook. Boomers have truly been a scourge on civilization.

 

[Troutsmacked]

I mean not to sound unsympathetic but wouldn't you get in your car and go back to civilization just long enough to get food at some point before sitting there and starving to death?

 

[Betonhaus]

I mean not to sound unsympathetic but wouldn't you get in your car and go back to civilization just long enough to get food at some point before sitting there and starving to death?

Did they pack a compass?

 

[Coo Coo Bird]

Teen found dead trying to live off the grid with mom and aunt weighed only 40 pounds: autopsy (Archive)

The teenage boy whose body was found in the Colorado wilderness after he tried to survive off the grid along with his aunt and mother weighed just 40 pounds at the time of his death, according to a newly released autopsy report.

The unidentified 14-year-old died alongside his mother, Rebecca Vance, 42, and his aunt Christine Vance, 41, sometime after the trio decided to abandon civilization in Colorado Springs last summer despite having little outdoor survival experience.

All three died of malnutrition and hypothermia, according to the Gunnison County Coroner’s Office autopsy reports obtained by the Colorado Sun.

The young boy wasted down to less than half of the average weight of boys his age, which is 112 pounds, according to the CDC.

Empty food cans and survival guides littered the remote campsite in Gunnison County where the bodies were discovered in July, but there was no food — or heaters — in sight, the Sun reported.

A hiker found the boy’s mummified body on July 9 near Gold Creek Campground, and investigators who responded discovered the remains of his aunt and mother inside a blue tent at the isolated encampment more than 100 miles from their former home in Colorado Springs.

The stepsister of the two women previously told The Post that the teenager had mixed feelings about his mother’s plan to live off the land.

“He was scared and excited at the same time,” Trevala Jara said in late July. “He was only 13 when they left. He didn’t know what living off the grid entails at all, but he wanted to be with his mom.”

Jara said his mother, Rebecca, wanted to start a new life by escaping to the wilderness and convinced her younger sister to join them.

“It was Becky’s idea,” Jara said. “At first Christine didn’t want to go, but she changed her mind. She felt like they had a better chance at living if she went with them. And she didn’t want our sister and nephew to be alone.”

Rebecca — who was described by her relatives as an introvert who was not particularly outdoorsy — couldn’t be swayed from her plans despite the family’s pleas, Jara added.

The single mom refused to tell family members where they planned to camp out or how they would survive Colorado’s harsh winters. The family left without much preparation aside from watching YouTube videos on how to survive in the great outdoors, according to Jara.

The trio were reported missing in October.

All of their bodies were extremely thin and significantly decomposed, according to the autopsy reports. The coroner said they likely died sometime last winter.

Each was wearing several layers of clothing and necklaces with cross pendants around their necks, the reports state.


The campsite where the bodies were found was slammed with heavy snowfall and several below-freezing days last winter, the local newspaper reported.

 

[Mepsi Pax]

Funny article, probably 9/10 as far as these things go

I was advanced (in autism) for my age, but 14 is still WAY too fucking old to just sit there with your insane fat female caretakers and starve to death over the course of months. What'd they do, tell him santa was gonna give him COVID if he didn't stay in the woods and die?

An entire broken family of retards. Truly exceptional. We've got a real bright future ahead of us

 

[Sparkling Yuzu]

drinking water from a still pond

Yummy yummy pond scum and parasites.

The rest of the family clearly wasn't being blunt/mean enough about how ignorant they were being. Literally "you're being a retard and I'm going to call CPS on your ass for daring to plan on dragging your kid into that."

Too bad they didn't, then the 13 yr old son would still be alive.

 

[duckbutter&toejamsandwich]

Yummy yummy pond scum and parasites.

I'm sure they really enjoyed the giardia that's in most of the water in that area.

 

[AnOminous]

"They also found survivalist guides scattered around the site."
Goddamit this is like a gallows humor laugh spectacular.

I have some amazing advice.

If you're starving to death, try EATING SOME FUCKING FOOD YOU RETARD!

 

[Comandante Marcos]

One article that showed up in one of my phone feeds (sorry, no link bc I don't phonepost like a retard) suggested that Becky apparently got fucked in the head by the whole covid shitshow and apparently became convinced that Murika was gonna turn into a irl version of The Stand and decided that the only way to survive was to walk into the wild like McCandless. The poor kid had no choice in the matter bc he was only 14 and the sister apparently tagged along to try to talk Becky out of her delusion or failing that at least help out somewhat.

They were from Colorado Springs, I've never been there personally but any place with that sort of critical mass of military (Fort Carson, AF Academy, Cheyenne Mountain is back online) and the type of people attracted by it means that it's likely swimming in weekend survivalists, similar to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. In a country where even the Town of Cowtip has a huge tent city I imagine that Colorado Springs has big encampments full of old GI's who couldn't forget what they saw in hajjilandia and who simply defaulted to their happy place.

All that makes living in a tent in the wild in winter look like a piece of cake to somebody who is either fucktarded or trashed on the constant drumbeat of fear out of the electronic jewbox or both. These particular retards actually got to the point where they were pretty much living skeletons, and by the time you get to that point, esp in a Ozark Trail brand tent in the middle of the Rockies in winter your body starts to literally consume your brain. The boy was likely told to somehow get food or something and was swallowed up by snow, and the two women were too weak to look for him so they died shortly thereafter. Fucking horrifying in any case.

I wonder how many more peopleemaciated mummies are out in Murika's wildernesses bc they believed that the jewbox was telling the truth that the world was ending and they had to get out of dodge to save themselves. Fucking journoscum need to realize that their horsespew has consequences, even though yeah they're paid by the minute.

 

[Ghostse]

I have some amazing advice.

If you're starving to death, try EATING SOME FUCKING FOOD YOU RETARD!

The Sam Kinison strategy.

 

[Agamemnon Busmalis]

Just using the last of your strenght to turn over and in a dry whisper say to the barely breathing skeleton that is your child "At least we're free of COVID".

They must have spent all of the good weather before winter decorating the "In This Camp, We Believe: Love is Love, Black Lives Matter, and Science is Real" sign.

How did nobody at all ask any questions about where they went and why did Jara not even contact the police with concerns at any point? Like if they went on their own, OK, but they took a child with them!

 

[Sithis]

Surviving off grid in the woods is not actually as hard as these retards make it seem, but location location location. You have to go somewhere that doesn't get extreme weather one way or the other. The Appalachians are much better for roughing it than the western mountain ranges for this reason, you get a lush environment with comparatively fewer/smaller predators, more abundant wildlife and lots more shelter from weather. You have to make sure there is an abundance of small animals that you can catch and eat year round, and you have to have a source of clean water. Oh and don't do retarded shit like burn fires in enclosed spaces without ventilation.

 

[Troutsmacked]

Did they pack a compass?

I guess I was just assuming they weren't so retarded that they wouldn't even take note of where the nearest town was.