Relatives of the teenager who died alongside his mother and aunt while trying to live off the grid at a remote camp in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains find solace in the fact that he was found with a rosary.
“God was with them,” the boy’s surviving aunt, Trevala Jara, tearfully told CBS Colorado.
The 14-year-old boy’s mummified body was discovered by a hiker in the Gunnison National Forest in July. The remains of his mother, Rebecca Vance, 42, and his sister, Christine Vance, 41, were found by deputies the next day.
The rosary she found with the boy, Jara explained, was a particularly blessed set of beads that she gave to her stepsisters and nephew 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 of children his age, autopsies released this week revealed.
The coroner ruled that Rebecca, Christine and the child, whose name has not been publicly identified, died of malnutrition and hypothermia.
The trio left Colorado Springs last year and wanted to try living off the grid in the wild, relatives explained when the bodies were found.
Trevala Jara (center) gave her stepsisters Rebecca and Christine the rosary that was found with the body of Rebecca’s son, she 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 cell phone connection, no water, no electricity. We had an RV there with a generator,” she told the station about the remote location.
Jara (left) says Christine Vance was more outgoing than her sister Rebecca.AP
Rebecca felt “that with everything changing [due to the pandemic] and everything, that this world is going to end,” Jara said about his late stepsister.
“[They] “I wanted to be away from people and the influences of what people can do to each other.”
While Rebecca was reserved and intellectual, Jara remembered Christine as more outgoing.
Initially he did not agree with the plan to abandon contemporary society, but he let himself go because “he did not want our sister and our nephew to be alone,” Jara lamented.
Rebecca, Christine and the teenager were found dead in a remote area of the Gunnison National Forest in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.
However, despite their determination, Rebecca and Christine only watched YouTube videos to prepare, she said.
When authorities examined the group’s camp after the bodies were found, they found a mess of empty food containers and survival books, as well as a shed near a campfire, CBS said.
Jara remembered Rebecca’s son as a homeschooled math prodigy. 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 at all. “I can’t wait to get to the point where I’m happy and all I can think about are the memories,” she said of the heartbreaking weeks since the bodies were discovered.
Unfortunately, the trio was not prepared for the elements.KREX
“Why would you want to do this knowing you would leave me behind? Why didn’t you listen to me and my husband? she cried.
If anything, Jara added, he hopes his relatives’ tragedy encourages others to think twice before trying to survive off the grid.
“May you strive to experience some of those difficulties but may you have that lifeline,” he warned.
“Because if you don’t have experience, you need that lifeline, you need it. Seeing it and doing it is totally different.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn