The Disturbing Case Of The "Mummified" Family In The Colorado Rockies

This video covers the disappearance and deaths of the Vance family in the Colorado Rockies.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:18):
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Give it a try if you think you could use
a little help. Hey there, folks. As you may know,
I don't often cover cases that are very recent. Sometimes

(02:07):
there is information that is unavailable or perhaps has yet
to be known by anyone. But I received a lot
of emails about this particular case, no doubt because of
the rather disturbing headlines it produced. Earlier this year, three
fairly mummified bodies found at remote Rocky Mountains campsite. Or
Colorado hiker finds three mummified bodies in remote campsite. I

(02:30):
get it. That is not something you tend to hear
every day. The question that usually comes next is something
akin to how could this happen? I can say I
was asking myself the very same question as the case
unfolded in the media and the months that followed. So
for those who have never heard anything about this case,
let's go over what the media was saying about it

(02:50):
back in July when the story first broke. Initially, all
we knew was that a hiker found a mummified body
at some remote location in the Colorado Rockies. Then authorities
found two more bodies zipped up in a nearby tent.
In fact, they discovered a whole little camp out there,
with lots of personal belongings and even a lean to shelter.

(03:10):
All of this happened around three hundred and fifty feet
from a location called the Gold Creek Campground in Gunnison County, Colorado,
which is also very remote. It's the type of campground
that's first come, first served only, and don't expect anything
except a piece of dirt and a vault toilet. Towards
the end of July, new information would come out revealing

(03:31):
the identities of the deceased. There were two adult sisters,
forty two year old Rebecca Vance, forty one year old
Christine Vance, and Rebecca's fourteen year old son, who was
not named due to his age. It appears that the
family initially lived in Colorado Springs before deciding to try
and live off the grid out in the Gunnison National Forest.

(03:53):
According to people close to the family, Rebecca didn't like
what she was seeing in society today, especially during and
after the pandemic, so she developed a plan to try
and live off the land. Initially, her sister Christine was
not on board, but she was eventually convinced. The fourteen
year old was reportedly excited to be living off grid

(04:13):
with his mom, but at the same time reluctant to
be away from the rest of the family and also friends.
So their family knew they were going to be living
off grid, though they didn't know exactly where. They obviously
must have expected to not hear from them for some time,
because no family members ever reported them as missing. In September,
it was revealed that the cause of death for all

(04:34):
three family members was hypothermia and malnutrition. Some outlets even
reported that the fourteen year old weighed only forty pounds
at the time of his death, So the deaths were
labeled an accident an inexperienced family who decided to live
off grid but were unprepared for the harsh Colorado winter. Still,
I can understand why people would have a lot of

(04:55):
questions about a case like this. If they drove into
the area, why couldn't they just leave once things seemed
to go bad? Could they really have been so unprepared
as to starve to death just seven miles from the
nearest town. Well, it's certainly not uncommon to hear of
the death of an inexperienced hiker or camper who tried
to take on a challenge they were grossly unprepared for.

(05:16):
It's quite a bit rarer to hear of a story
like that involving a family of three, especially when it
seems like they had multiple ways out of a bad
situation if they encountered one. I spent some time looking
into this incident, and we're going to go over a
much more detailed version of events. We're also going to
see the campsite in question, which will give you a
much better idea on what the area looked like. Fair warning,

(05:39):
this video might be a little more disturbing than the
usual because of pictures, video, and descriptions. To begin with,
let's go over the sequence of events from the initial
reporting to the Gunnison County Sheriff by a hiker who
said he came across a body in the woods. On
July ninth, twenty twenty three, the Gunnison County Sheriff's Office
received a report from a man hiking in the area

(06:02):
of the Gold Creek Campground. The man said he found
what he described as an older squatters camp and that
he had observed a severely decomposed mummy laying in the camp.
The next day, two members of the Sheriff's office set
out in the early morning in order to find the
location of the reported camp. It didn't take them too
long to find what they were looking for. The exact

(06:23):
location of the makeshift campsite was one hundred and fifty
yards due east of the Gold Creek Campground. This location
is across Gold Creek and not far from a road.
This is actually one of these seemingly rare instances where
we have bodycam footage of the discovery. This allows us
to experience the scene nearly exactly as deputies did when

(06:43):
they first arrived. I don't believe their body cams were
on initially because I noticed some key differences between what
the officers described finding in their report and what we
see on the video. Still, this is as close as
it gets to being there on scene at that time. Again,
fair warning, the footage is quite eerie, but I've blurred

(07:03):
out any images of human remains, so there is nothing
overtly graphic about it. You're after a hive. Now that

(09:57):
we've seen what the location looked like on the ground,
let's go over some of the specifics of what was found.
The first thing officers note in their report was a
large amount of tissue, paper and excrement spread throughout the area,
and of course the eight by eight foot gray dome
tent set up in a small clearing within the pine trees.
As they approached, they encountered remains of a human male

(10:19):
on the ground about thirteen feet from the front of
the tent. It appeared to them that the body had
been out in the elements for a number of months.
The face was black, dried out, and unidentifiable. They note
that the body was lightly clothed in a black top
and gray sweatshirt, but with no shoes or socks. As
they continued their search, they discovered a significant number of

(10:41):
clothing items strown around the area. Trash also littered the
campsite in an indiscriminate fashion. The majority of it consisted
of old tin cans and packaging for granola bars and
ramen soup. The gray tent was closed when they arrived
in the area. There were a number of shoes sitting
outside of the tent, along with more more clothing and
assorted packs and bags. A small three foot shovel and

(11:04):
a cooking pot was laying near the tent. Officers then
note a large pile of feces located within about ten
feet of the tent and at the base of a
pine tree. The body that was discovered outside was on
the other side of this same tree. North of the
tent area was what officers described as a contained wood
structure made of pine poles and sticks, which contained additional

(11:27):
small packs. Nearby, they found a large, matted clump of
black hair, which the officer believed to be human in origin.
No explanation for this find has ever been presented, nor
can I find anything about the hair being tested. But
if the hair was real human hair, perhaps one of
the women cut some of their hair off while staying
at the location. The officers started searching the assortment of

(11:50):
hiking packs and bags looking for some form of identification,
but they only found assorted clothing, first aid kits, and
personal items including fire started sewing kits, survival items, and
other things. Another bag contained dry grass and small sticks,
presumably for starting fires. After searching all the packs and

(12:10):
bags outside, the officers went to the front of the
tent and unzipped it to find a second body laying
just inside the opening. This body was also lightly clothed,
with the exception of having no shoes or socks, and
was laying on top of a sleeping bag. A third
body was noticed laying right next to this one, but
it was completely zipped up inside a sleeping bag. In total,

(12:32):
they had found three bodies, one male outside on the
ground and two females inside the tent. None of the
bodies exhibited any outward signs of trauma that the officers
could see. They then arranged for a corner to respond
to the scene and remove the bodies from the area.
Officers then began searching bags that were inside the tent
and found one Colorado driver's license for Christine Vance. They

(12:56):
also found a small cylindrical camp stove near the tent entrance.
Inside they found burnt organic material. Nearby were several other
cans filled with kindling and small wood pieces. Other items
found in the tent include water purification equipment, books, and journals. Afterwards,
officers returned to the main road and waited for the

(13:16):
corner and a search and rescue team to arrive before
moving further. As the corner and others arrived on scene,
the bodies were all placed into bags and removed from
the area. There was a continued search of the remaining
bags and of the tent for any evidence, but nothing
of any significance was found. Afterwards, officers set out trying

(13:36):
to determine what event could have led to this grim situation.
They knew that a two thousand and six Hyundai Elantra
registered to Rebecca Vents was seen parked in the area
by U S Forest Service in September of twenty twenty two.
That same vehicle was towed from the area by Forest
Service in November of that same year. The officers noted

(13:58):
that a significant number of the clothing items, including undergarments,
had been cast aside and appeared to have been soiled
with human feces. In addition, they noted that the area
in general was strown with feces. This led officers to
consider the fact that all three individuals may have been
sick with something like giardia, an intestinal parasite which can

(14:19):
cause diarrhea, abdominal pain, dehydration, and other symptoms. It can
spread through contaminated food, water, even objects. Most commonly, it
is transmitted through contaminated drinking water, like from lakes or rivers. Usually,
these water sources are contaminated by the feces of animals
or even humans, hence the alternative name for giardia beaver fever.

(14:42):
The vance's campsite was close to a number of small
ponds and also Gold Creek. They likely would have got
some of their water from one of these locations. Officers
also considered that perhaps the family died during a time
where there was simply too much snow for them to
travel any further from the tent. All three were noted
to be extremely skinny and likely suffering from malnutrition and

(15:04):
starvation from a lack of food. While there were a
number of food cans found in the vicinity of the camp,
there was not enough cans found that would have supported
three adults through the winter. Much of their food, like
the ramen noodles, also had little nutritional value to support
people trying to survive in a winter. The twenty twenty
two to twenty twenty three winter in the area was

(15:27):
known to have been quite severe. There was at least
several feet of snowfall in the months that they were missing,
and several days of below zero temperatures. The fact that
the nylon domed tent was still standing was an indication
that someone may have still been alive for a good
portion of the winter in order to continually knock off
the snow accumulations to prevent the tent from collapsing. The

(15:48):
officers theorized that the male victim located outside the tent
may have been the first to pass away, and the
other two females removed the body from the tent and
placed it outside. In addition, the male decedent was found
without shoes or socks on which supports a theory that
he died inside the tent and was later removed. The
officers found a number of books among the family's belongings

(16:11):
which covered a wide range of subjects, including gardening, high
altitude gardens, edible plants, and a number of seeds such
as carrots and other vegetables. This indicated to authorities that
the family was planning to stay in this area for
quite some time. The choice of location for their camp
also indicated that they had very little practical experience in

(16:32):
the area of outdoor survival. The officers note that it
was some distance away from a reliable water source and
that the tools they brought were insufficient to maintain any
type of lengthy camp site. They also did not see
any place where a garden capable of supporting three people
would have been possible without a lot of work. One
fishing pole was found, which would have been their only

(16:53):
source of obtaining animal protein, something that would have been
impossible to use in the snowy months of the year.
Special note was taken of the small wood burning can
about the size and shape of a jet boil cooker
found near the head of one of the victims in
the tent. The inside of the tent was also covered
in black soot, showing that they had been using this

(17:14):
can as a stove inside the tent itself, either to
keep warm or cook food, or both. The possibility that
carbon monoxide poisoning may have killed the two in the
tent was something that authorities theorized. However, they could not
come to a conclusive theory as to what exactly happened
at the time because there were so many possibilities. This

(17:35):
was an inexperienced family who attempted to survive a Colorado
winter in the mountains with insufficient equipment, The chances that
they could have ever survived the winter was highly unlikely.
On the evening of July tenth, the coroner got in
touch with Donald Vance, who was the father of Christine
and Rebecca. Donald reportedly told the coroner that he thought

(17:55):
both girls lost their jobs during the pandemic and would
not put it past them to try and survive on
their own out in the wilderness. He also said that
he had not spoken to either of them since July
of twenty twenty two. Donald said that both girls lived
together with Rebecca's fourteen year old son, and that the
three of them were always together and it would be
unlikely for anyone else to have been with them. More

(18:18):
information on the family was provided after the coroner called
Travala Jara, a half sister to Christine and Rebecca. Travlla
stated that in the last one to two years, Rebecca
had become paranoid of the government and wanted to move
off grid, so she began making plans to do just that.
It was Travalla's understanding that the three family members left

(18:40):
Colorado Springs in July of twenty twenty two to embark
on their journey to live off the land. She said
that Christine did not really want to go, but also
did not want Rebecca and her son to go by
themselves and apparently started buying into Rebecca's paranoia. Travalla was
also not made aware as to the exact location the
three planned on going to, and that she was just

(19:02):
waiting to hear from them once they got established. She
said this was why a missing persons report was never
filed with any authority. Later, deputies contacted a woman named
Alexandria Caskowitz on July twelfth, twenty twenty three. Alexandria was
another half sister to Christine and Rebecca. She stated that
about one year ago, Christine and Rebecca sold all of

(19:24):
their possessions in order to move off grid. She did
not know where they moved to and had not heard
from them in over a year. This same day, the
coroner was able to positively identify the bodies through dental
and fingerprint records. He identified Rebecca as the person closest
to the front door of the tent and Christine as
the body behind her zipped up in the sleeping bag.

(19:46):
A third body found outside the tent had not yet
been positively identified, with the coroner planning to use DNA
comparison to do so. On August twenty seventh, twenty twenty three,
authorities received a call from a man who stated that
he was the father of Rebecca's fourteen year old son.
He said he was heartbroken over the news, and that
approximately one year prior, Rebecca had told him that they

(20:08):
were going to move to West Virginia to be closer
to her father. She also told him that the place
they were moving to did not have internet or Wi Fi.
He thought it was odd at the time, and by
August of twenty twenty two, he stopped hearing from Rebecca altogether.
He attempted to call and text, but never received a response.
He said that Rebecca's phone was disconnected in December of

(20:29):
twenty twenty two, and after that he had no way
of getting in touch with her. He eventually heard from
other family members that Rebecca had gone to live off grid,
but no one in the family knew where that was.
Ever since he heard of the finding of the remains
in the Gunnison area, he had been racking his brain
as to why they would choose Gunnison in the first place.

(20:50):
To him, it made no sense due to its harsh
winter environment, and he's not wrong. If any planning went
into this off gride excursion, and it sounds like there was,
you would think that the family had some idea of
the winter weather conditions of the place they had planned
to live. The next day, on August twenty eighth, the
coroner released the autopsy results for Christine, Rebecca, and Rebecca's son.

(21:13):
All three reports indicated that the cause of death was
malnutrition and hypothermia, but the manner of death being an accident,
Let's take a moment to go over the autopsies. Some
rather ignorant news sources reported that Rebecca's son weighed only
forty pounds at the time of his death, which is
absolutely ridiculous. I don't know who they got writing these things.

(21:34):
The mummified body that was found weighed that much, which
is to say, the body that had almost all of
its water removed weighed forty pounds. I'll briefly remind you
that the body is mostly made up of water, so
a mummified body weighing forty pounds isn't necessarily bizarre. It
is certain that all three family members were starving and

(21:55):
malnourished when they died. However, the fourteen year old's body
was so dry that no tess could be done for
toxicology or carbon monoxide poisoning. He was wearing multiple layers
of clothing at the time of death, as well as
a rosary around his neck. Nothing to abnormal was found
during the autopsy. Christine's autopsy showed that she was also
very thin, but still had enough fluid in her body

(22:17):
to perform toxicology tests. All of them came back negative,
and she also had a normal carbon monoxide saturation in
her blood. She weighed ninety six pounds at the time
of discovery. She was also clad in multiple layers of
thin clothing and wore a rosary around her neck. She
had some slight abrasions to her head and torso, but
nothing that wouldn't seem to come from spending many months

(22:40):
working and living off grid. Rebecca's autopsy was very similar,
negative findings on toxicology and carbon monoxide poisoning, multiple layers
of cloth, and a wooden cross around her neck. She
weighed about one hundred pounds at the time of her finding.
She also had multiple small abrasions but nothing serious, so overall,

(23:01):
nothing seriously unusual in all of the autopsy findings. Also
take this moment to remind folks that finding a cause
of death in these situations is often based on the
circumstances surrounding them. Like with hypothermia, when someone freezes to death,
there is typically very little physical evidence at autopsy. Therefore,
it is a determination usually made by the exclusion of

(23:24):
other evidentiary factors, but also with consideration to the circumstances
surrounding the death. That's why the exact wording of the
cause of death here is the cause of death is
best attributed to malnutrition and hypothermia, because what do we know, well,
they were incredibly thin and starving, and it was also
brutally cold while they were in the area. There are

(23:46):
no other obvious causes of death written on the body,
so the determination is made for what is most likely
given the circumstances. In this case, we know they're thin
and they endured a harsh winter, so the cause of
death is most likely malnutrition and hypothermia. Having gone over
this case in significant detail, we can see a little

(24:07):
more clearly how things happened. It appears the family left
for the mountains sometime in July of twenty twenty two.
They took their two thousand and six Hyndaei Lantra and
parked somewhere nearby, likely the Gold Creek Campground. Their car
would be towed in November, over two months into their
stay and right around the time weather really starts to

(24:27):
turn bad. It's hard to say what their plan was
for the vehicle. Perhaps they thought that this location was
so deep in the mountains that the Forest Service wouldn't
tow it. I have to assume the family did not
intend or believe that their car would get towed, because
it was their only way out of the area in
the case of emergencies or if they needed supplies, or

(24:48):
if they wanted to contact their families. In simplest terms,
their car getting towed was likely a death sentence for
this family. I would imagine there came a point during
their stay where they tried to leave by going back
to their vehicle, only to find it gone. Cell Phones
would likely have been useless, as most parts of this
area are a complete dead zone, with the occasional area

(25:09):
of poor coverage. I did not read anything about authorities
finding any cell phones belonging to the family, which does
seem a bit odd. Maybe they simply weren't mentioned, but
it would have been interesting to see what their call
history was, or if they attempted to contact authorities at all.
It's difficult to be too critical of the family's decisions
without knowing what exactly their plan was. Sure, we have

(25:32):
secondhand information that they wanted to just ride off into
the wilderness and live off grid, but for all we know,
their initial plan could have been to spend the rest
of summer and part of fall living and working at
that location, and then leaving for the winter, only to
find that their car was towed. We don't know exactly
how much food they brought, but It was obviously not

(25:53):
enough to last for the winter, and authorities said as much.
So either they greatly misjudged how much food they would
be needing to serve, or they did not plan to
stay for the winter but instead were forced into it.
It doesn't make much sense for them to even desire
to stay the winter there, as they did not have
a good shelter built, and the three of them staying
in a tent all day doesn't seem desirable. So the

(26:15):
question remains, did they really want to try and survive
the winter there or were they simply forced into it
by the removal of their vehicle. I suppose an argument
could be made for either, or even a combination of
the two. There is plenty of evidence showing that this
family was woefully unprepared and inexperienced. It might not be
so surprising if they did think that they could survive

(26:37):
the winter in this situation. They really should have left
a note on their car. I'm sure they didn't want
the Forest Service knowing that they wanted to live out there,
but still you could leave a note on the car
saying you're camping in the area. If I was in
that situation, I would have been checking on the vehicle
daily because it wasn't far from the camp. It really
could be that they thought this spot was so remote

(26:59):
that the forests wouldn't mess with their car. This is
just one assumption of many that the family seems to
have made and later paid a heavy toll for. They
should have told friends and family their location in case
something went wrong. They should have given a time frame
to family members in terms of how long they would
go without contact, something like we'll check in every two

(27:20):
weeks and if we don't, contact authorities. None of these
things were done, and as a consequence, this family was
never even considered missing. One other thing I want to
mention are the reports that the family got this idea
for living off grid by watching a lot of YouTube videos.
There are, of course a lot of videos on YouTube
about outdoor survival and bushcraft. Many of them are quite

(27:42):
good and provide a lot of information, but many videos
that show an individual building and off grid cabin somewhere
in the deep woods can be seriously deceiving. Obviously, these
types of videos are usually heavily edited for time. Sometimes
they even have help hidden off screen. Oftentimes they make
the process look smooth or maybe even easy mistakes or

(28:03):
hardships can often be edited out if they don't fit
in with the general feel the creator is trying to present.
The ultimate fact is we are typically only viewing the
smallest fraction of the actual process it takes to set
up and build an off grade cabin or camp. This,
in turn, can deceive some people into thinking these things
are easier than they really are. I've been guilty of

(28:25):
similar things in the past. Early on, when I did
some of my on scene investigations, I would just appear
at the desired location through the magic of editing, not
showing the long process it took to actually travel and
hike there. Now obviously I can't show the full hike
because that would be boring, But nowadays I think it's
important to at least partially show the hiking and hardships

(28:46):
involved in getting to locations. If you watch my Charles
McCuller video, I failed to even get to where I
wanted to go. It wasn't the first and won't be
the last time that kind of thing happens, but I
think it's still important to include it because it shows
that things aren't always as easy as they appear. Things
don't always go according to plan, Sometimes it involves a

(29:07):
lot of suffering, so people should take that into account
before attempting something similar on their own. Was the Vance
family probably misinformed on the ease of living off grid?
It certainly seems so. Did mental illness play a part
in Rebecca Vance's desire to leave society? Possibly? In reality,
things like this happen more often than you might think.

(29:29):
Somebody gets the idea to try and live off grid
or attempt bushcraft on their own, they might be inexperienced
and in for a hard lesson. Other times, the lesson
can be far more severe. The Vance family was likely
ill prepared to take on this challenge at every level.
But whatever their plan was their rout of escape, their
only salvation was taken away when their vehicle got towed.

(29:53):
The sad part is they probably died slowly. Over a
period of time. They likely got too weak to do
much of anything, especially if they got sick from contaminated water.
To top it all off, In analyzing this case, I'm
not trying to place blame, especially not on people who
are not here to defend themselves, but this is certainly
a case to learn from if you have an interest

(30:14):
in outdoor survival, bushcraft, or living off grid. Then ease
into that lifestyle. It's not necessary to dive into the
deep end right off the bat. More than anything, always
have multiple contingencies in case of emergency. It would have
been smart to prepare for an eventuality where the car
would no longer work, or even if it got towed.

(30:35):
Having an emergency transponder would be essential in doing what
the vances were attempting. It's also necessary to let people
know where you are and to have set check in
times with family members. These types of incidents are rare,
but no less tragic. They are also avoidable. Hopefully, cases
like this stand as a lesson for people in the

(30:55):
future who are interested in moving their life off the grid.
Next time, Thanks for watching.