Computer hiker’s death remains a mystery

After searching two years, police in Florida have identified a hiker found dead in a tent. His last official residence had been in New York, but he arrived there from Louisiana, still working remotely for a company in Baton Rouge.

I did not follow the case, so I never saw his photograph until after authorities identified him. Once I did, though, I remembered meeting him in Hammond in 2012.

Returning to Louisiana after working 12 years in California, I applied for a software development job in Hammond. I did not get that job. In fact, I assumed the job went to the bright, young programmer who sat talking to me the 45 minutes we waited. I have worked in Information Management since the 90s, and I certainly would have hired him.

I never forgot his face or his personality, but mostly, I remembered his surname. Born in Lafayette, he described a Cajun heritage, but I expected someone with a name like Rodriguez to have been born much farther south.

Two hikers found Vance John Rodriguez’s body on July 23, 2018, inside a tent deep within Florida’s Big Cypress National Preserve.

Inside the tent, setup 5 miles north of Interstate 75 in Collier County, Florida, detectives also found hiking gear, two notebooks, and $3,640 in cash. Nothing inside disclosed his identity. No phone, ID, or credit cards.

When the hikers called out and no one answered, one of them, Nick Horton of Fort Lauderdale, peered into the tent. He saw the man sitting upright, his body twisted, and his eyes wide open. The hiker appeared to have starved to death, five miles from a major highway, with money and food next to him.

“Uh, we just found a dead body,” Horton told the 911 dispatcher.

Two days later, the medical examiner’s office performed an autopsy, finding the body “markedly cachectic,” meaning his muscles had all but wasted away. Reporters initially believed his recorded weight, eighty-three pounds, was a mistake. It wasn’t. The dead man’s stomach was empty, with only ibuprofen and antihistamines found in his bloodstream. In the oppressive South Florida heat, his body remained intact, leading the medical examiner to believe he had not been dead long.

“Although the autopsy did not show foul play in his death, our detectives worked tirelessly to identify him,” the Collier County Sheriff’s Office reported via social media.

Initially, the sheriff’s office worked to identify Rodriguez through traditional methods, combing missing person databases for matching fingerprints or dental records. A Texas DNA lab pointed investigators to relatives in Assumption Parish, Louisiana, but that was as close as they came before reaching out to the public.

The sheriff’s office posted a bulletin, including a composite sketch and describing him as between 35 and 50 years old. He had salt and pepper hair and beard, and excellent teeth. He was 5-foot-8 and weighed just 83 pounds.

Seeing the bulletin on social media, fellow hikers remembered meeting him and sent investigators dozens of photos.

The story of the unidentified hiker aired on national newscasts and in news magazines. Social media groups emerged as armchair detectives worked to identify the hiker they called “Mostly Harmless.”

According to friends who saw the photographs of him on the trail, he looked healthier than ever. He was smiling. Everyone liked him.

In December 2020, a former co-worker in Baton Rouge saw Rodriguez’s photo online and phoned the Collier County Sheriff’s Office and provided more information. The Collier County Sheriff’s Office contacted the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office and together tested a familial DNA sample that positively identified Vance Rodriguez.

Born in Baton Rouge, February 1976, Vance John Rodriguez had a twin sister and an older brother. He told friends over the years that his father had deeply hurt him, but never provided details. At 15, Rodriguez attempted suicide, allegedly shooting himself in the stomach with a shotgun, and his parents had him institutionalized. At 17, with the consent of Rodriguez’s parents, a Lafayette court emancipated him. He attended the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where he excelled in computer programming.

After I met him in Hammond in 2012, he accepted a job programming for Shopper’s Choice Home Appliances in Baton Rouge. In 2013, Rodriguez moved to New York City, still working remotely for Shopper’s Choice until 2015.

On a Saturday night in September 2016, a terrorist set off a bomb on West 23rd Street in Manhattan injured Rodriguez’s girlfriend. Afterward, she developed post-traumatic stress disorder, and wanted nothing to do with anyone.

In 2017, authorities believe Vance Rodriguez set out to hike the Appalachian Trail, leaving behind unpaid rent and most of his belongings, including his computers and all identification and financial records. Fellow hikers told police Rodriguez spent several months hiking south to Florida, using only paper maps.

Although authorities have now identified the deceased hiker who I met in Hammond eight years ago, the secret of how and why Vance John Rodriguez died remains a mystery.