Family members of a teenage boy who died with his mother and aunt while trying to live off the grid at a remote campground in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains found comfort when he was found with a rosary.
“God is with them,” the boy’s surviving aunt, Trevala Jara, tearfully told CBS Colorado.
The mummified body of the 14-year-old boy was discovered by a hiker in the Gunnison National Forest in July. The bodies of her mother, Rebecca Vance, 42, and her sister, Christine Vance, 41, were found by the sheriff the next day.
The rosary found with the boy, Jara explained, was a set of highly blessed beads that he had given to his stepsisters and nephews before they ventured into the woods last summer.
At the time of his death, the teenager weighed just 40 pounds – less than half the average weight for boys his age, an autopsy released this week revealed.
The coroner ruled that Rebecca, Christine, and the boy, who has not been publicly named, all died of malnutrition and hypothermia.
The trio left Colorado Springs last year and wanted to try living off the grid in the wilderness, family members explained when the bodies were found.
Trevala Jara (centre) gives his half-sister Rebecca and Christine the rosary found with Rebecca’s son’s body, he said. Courtesy of Trevala Jara
Jara previously told CBS Colorado that she and her husband begged Rebecca and Christine to use their mountain property instead of heading into the unknown, but they refused.
“There is no mobile phone connection, no water, no electricity. We have an RV there with a generator,” he told the remote location station.
Jara (left) says Christine Vance is friendlier than her sister, Rebecca.AP
Rebecca felt “with everything changing [due to the pandemic] and all, that this world is going to end,” Jara said of his late half-sister.
“[They] want to get away from the crowd and the influence people can have on each other.”
Although Rebecca was quiet and intellectual, Jara remembers Christine as more sociable.
He initially didn’t go along with the plan to leave contemporary society, but was swayed because “he didn’t want our sister and niece to be alone,” Jara laments.
Rebecca, Christine and the teenager were found dead in a remote area of the Gunnison National Forest in the Colorado Rockies.
Despite their determination, however, Rebecca and Christine only watched YouTube videos to prepare, he said.
When authorities searched the group’s campsite after the bodies were found, they found empty food containers and survival books, as well as a lean-to near a fire pit, CBS said.
Jara remembers Rebecca’s son as a homeschool math whiz. He even considered kidnapping the group to prevent them from endangering themselves in the wild, he told the outlet.
“I don’t wish this on anyone. I can’t wait to get to the point where I’m happy and all I can think about is the memories,” he said of the heartbreaking weeks since the body was found.
All three of them are less prepared for the elements.KREX
“Why do you want to do this because you know you will leave me? Why don’t you listen to me and my husband?” he is crying.
If anything, Jara added, he hopes his brother’s tragedy will encourage others to think twice before trying to survive off the grid.
“That you put yourself where you can have some of those hardships but have that lifeline,” he warned.
“Because if you don’t have experience, you need that lifeline, you need it. Watching it, and actually doing it are completely different.”
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
