Crime Seen | Episode 92: THEY CALLED HIM MOSTLY HARMLESS

[00:00:00] Special agent will Trent.

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[00:00:24] Will Trent, new Tuesdays, 8-7 Central on ABC, and stream on Hulu. The True Crime Review Podcast where we get to the heart of how True Crime stories are told. You can get this podcast along with all the fantastic reality TV content by subscribing to robhazawebsite.com slash rahapups feed. That's robhazawebsite.com slash r-h-a-p-u-p-s feed. We'd love it if you would subscribe to our dedicated feed as well. Please go to to check it out. Yeah. And what did we watch this week? This week we watched, they called him mostly harmless on Max. It was produced and directed by Patricia Gillespie, who also produced and directed the fire that took her. Oh, wow. the documentary is 89 minutes long. We love to hear that. Vance Rodriguez was a hiker whose body was found in July 2018 in big Cyprus National Preserve in Florida. He remained unidentified for two years as those who met him

[00:04:23] on the trail knew him as mostly harmless. His family has not commented publicly, nor do they appear in the documentary. Also, if you don't, you haven't realized it, it's just us this week. So just me and Sarah. Just family.

[00:05:40] Yes, it's all of the family today.

[00:05:43] Sarah, what were your thoughts on this documentary? It's not quite a rabbit hole, some kind of desire trail with the documentarian. I think she is really something and I want to go back and look at other of her previous work as well. I think she's fantastic. And so I didn't know this particular story. And oh, I just thought it was fascinating. What about you, Murray? I completely agree with all of that. Like it was such an interesting journey because I had no idea about any of this case.

[00:08:20] And so, and I thought, I think the documentary

[00:08:25] and was really kind of hilarious of swerve of it all. And I liked that we weren't like taken down the wrong path intentionally.

[00:09:41] Like I like how she would go to like,

[00:09:44] oh, we found this coding stuff.

[00:09:47] And now we're going through the game. image 370 and here like MH370 will go off on this branch and this tangent tell you why it's not it but then be like but it could be and you're like wait yeah you know they still try to leave it kind of ambiguous and it's just like and then even at the even at, much less that they all have these trail names. So we even see the login for one of the lodges is, and they insist that you use your real name, but it has your real name, and then it has trail name, and you put your

[00:12:22] trail name as well. And I it one. I mean, that was amazing. I completely agree. I think the way they took it, how it started off on like a micro level of we get the infamous, of course, it's always a 911 call that starts off a true crime

[00:13:42] documentary. And we get like the police are like, Brandon, we go, OK, you met him. And then much later in the documentary, he comes back and he talks about the resonating effect of this meeting

[00:15:01] with mostly harmless.

[00:15:03] And we see him as early childhood education And it's interesting because you see the photographs of hikers with the huge packs with everything and Kelly goes out with a little, you know, crossbody bag with a few crackers in the middle. Oh my God. Are you going out to feed the hikers, like going down to the pond to feed the ducks? I was cracking up. I was like, hold up.

[00:16:21] And then I had James, I had to watch it is Waterboy. And he is the last to see mostly happens. But even like Mike Gormley's story, he was hiking and he finished his hike and he put his thumb up for a lift. And the driver said, Oh, we're passing another hike. Do you want to go and say hello? And I just what? But because I was now sticked in the hiking community, I thought, yeah, I can.

[00:17:41] That makes sense.

[00:17:42] And he stopped and he spoke to mostly harmless.

[00:17:44] And a lot of people noted that his pack was very big.

[00:18:48] folks in not that the others are not wholesome, but the whole the way they received this man amongst them and judged him for his actions as they experienced them. Now Magpie Marge

[00:18:58] she says yes of course I believe the women of course I do. That was not the man I met

[00:20:03] She felt like she was a part of the trail community. She was not one of the people who

[00:20:04] met mostly harmless, I believe, right?

[00:20:06] She never encountered him.

[00:20:08] But once she saw his story and her being an outdoor enthusiast

[00:20:13] and in the trail community, that's

[00:20:17] how she got caught up in this case.

[00:20:19] She said she does not identify as a member

[00:20:21] of the true crime community.

[00:20:22] I thought it couldn a dead end. But I did like that that piece, the coding and all that, introduced journalist Nicholas Thompson who wrote for Wired. Like the police had to continuously put out information on this case because they just

[00:21:42] weren't getting anything. They had to put out a composite. Once they got the pictures,

[00:22:45] So other things were going on at the time and he was sort of sick of this two sidesism and writing about that.

[00:22:47] So he thought, I'll just publish the story.

[00:22:50] It's not a political story.

[00:22:52] It doesn't have an ending, but I will put it out there and it got a million hits in four

[00:22:56] days.

[00:22:57] Yeah, yeah.

[00:23:00] And it just drew attention to these Facebook groups. because it's like gold, but it's like a train wreck. It was like a train wreck that you could not take your eyes away from, in a sense, because you know, she's talking about how she wanted to be an FBI profiler, but when she was younger, her family's house was completely engulfed in flames, so she didn't have money to go to college

[00:24:20] or anything like that. And so she ends up in this case. And she's genuinely upset about Tabitha. So, and I'm sorry to Tabitha and Tabitha's. Yeah, this is awful. But there was something so

[00:25:41] salacious. Yes. It's comedic and it's salacious.

[00:25:44] Parity of it all.

[00:25:46] She's crying, I did it. I did it. Yeah. And Natasha says it was a collective effort of thousands of people. Yeah. So because part two is quickly Christie versus Natasha because in the original Facebook group, like you said, Christie becomes the gatekeeper of information.

[00:27:03] She is the one who decided to you know? And to the point where Christy basically is ran out of the group, and then Natasha is voted as the moderator of the group. And then Christy starts her own Facebook group to pick up the case. And it's so funny because it's feeling like Christy,

[00:28:24] and I don't wanna act like Natasha was again, lead on the internet and she thinks she finds the guy and then the picture where the beard is drawn on and she finds out that it is not the guy and then she starts getting death threats and she's like can you imagine and it's like it's just so many bad like takes that it shows you it shows you

[00:29:40] the pros and the cons of the international scene because not only do we get that portion but we get and be like, hey, guys, no, it's me. And then all these people be like, shut up. It's not you, you know what I'm saying? Well, if it's you, you're dead. It just showed, I love that they showed again that they're down side of it because once a theory takes off in the internet sleuthing world, people run with it.

[00:31:02] And even when it's debunked, people still run with it.

[00:32:07] circumstances, Sarah, like that she's living under. And it's just, it's so hard. It's so hard not to be like, this is exactly what people think Internet sleuths are like.

[00:32:13] Yes, yes. She is living in a long stay hotel.

[00:32:19] It's an extended stay.

[00:32:21] Yeah, right. Yes, she and her sister.

[00:32:23] Yes, her and her sister are in an extended stay hotel. I don't know if they have those she was very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,

[00:33:42] very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,

[00:33:45] very, very, very, very, very, very,, whatever the next case is. She says, oh, I'm being filmed at the moment.

[00:35:00] And then we get the news.

[00:35:02] The outburst. I think they had to be a little, like they couldn't tell the full story about how they traced the DNA, right? Because I think the family didn't wanna participate in the documentary. So they were able to trace the DNA to I guess him having relatives in South Louisiana. And from there, because Natasha's group got this information,

[00:36:26] Christie who had spies then everybody's like, yeah, we did it, we did it, we gave him a name. And then it's like, oh no, we gave him a name. And now that like women are coming forward and saying he was abusive, you know, like a lot of stories are being uncovered. And then you're again, getting some of the internet backlash to people not believing the women of people who had,

[00:37:44] who had projected certain characteristics on him, The interesting thing there is that we do know the family retrieved the body and buried it. So there was still people who cared about him. We hear about his mental health issues. We hear about him shutting down at college and he would just stop talking, stop bathing and stop eating because one of the things is he died basically of starvation in a tent

[00:39:00] with food in it.

[00:39:01] So that was one of the things that was very curious to the police.

[00:39:04] So there's food right there. like getting out of it, you know? So, and that's, I mean, that's the end of mostly harmless story. We do find out that Natasha starts her own like, like a adventurous company called Two Sisters, like Adventures. She is an inclusive, it's an inclusive adventure company and I thought, oh, Natasha, good for you.

[00:40:21] Yeah.

[00:40:22] And Christy is still sleuthing, you know?

[00:41:28] his tumultuous childhood and mostly harmless discussion of his tumultuous childhood and how they bonded very intimately. And then that as I say he goes on Brandon says you

[00:41:34] know we sort of diverged in the paths that we took. And all the while his turtle is

[00:41:40] I guess it's a terrapin because it's magnifying glasses are you going to rate? They call it him mostly harmless out of a possible five.

[00:43:00] I wish I wasn't going first.

[00:43:05] This is an excellent documentary. I don't know why. Yeah, right? Isn't that weird? I don't know why. Oh, you're out of five as well, I guess. And you're right, I strongly recommend it. And I think mostly what kind of tempers it is our experience. We can talk about a little bit behind the scenes,

[00:44:21] but mostly harmless dropped on Thursday, February 9th.

[00:45:25] I'm coming back and watch it and I went back and it wasn't there. But you went down, you asked Reddit didn't you? I had to because I was I thought I was crazy for a second and

[00:45:31] Luckily Reddit pulled through like they always do and other people were like, yo

[00:45:36] it was up there and now it's gone and

[00:45:39] There was a rampant speculation of what could have happened

[00:45:43] the internet

[00:45:45] I mean of course right and it kind of

[00:46:45] Yes, so I'm I'm really upset at the provider, but it's a distributor But I think the property itself was pretty decent. So maybe this is a soft five hard recommend

[00:46:51] From like that and it's a bit it's a bit scary because all year so far touch wood

[00:46:57] We've had like very very good properties to talk about

[00:47:01] Mm-hmm exactly

[00:47:03] Yeah, that that's our thoughts are mostly harmless

[00:48:07] of this one, I don't think I've seen it on Netflix. So I'll look into it, I'll see if I can give it a watch if I have the time to be quite honest. But that is very interesting. Netflix has been

[00:48:14] showing a lot of these types of documentaries where there's women who are associated with these

[00:48:20] horrendous men and the debate on where they complicit or where they victim is centered properly. So check out Death by Fame season two on max or ID discovery app as well. Sarah what do you have to recommend to our listeners? Well I'm going to recommend Cha Chilla which is on max. It's the story of the kidnapping of 26 children and their bus

[00:49:43] driver in 1976 and no spoiler because it happens in the first two minutes they You can follow crime scene on Twitter at crime scene RJP. That's crime S E E in R I J P or email us at crime scene R J P at gmail.com. We're on tiktok at crime.cine and our other social media at crime scene podcast. And remember to subscribe to our feed.

[00:51:01] Rob has a website.com slash crime feed.

[00:51:04] It makes a big difference. double shout out. Yeah, who stepped in for Matt while we talked about a very wild weekend wrestling. I mean, just nuts bananas. So go check that out by going to Rob has a website.com slash wrestling feed. Please subscribe. Rate're continuing to have so much fun. So come on over to the Kickback. You're always welcome. You can go to recapkickback.com to subscribe to all of the podcasts over there.

[00:53:42] Sarah, what are we watching next week?