family of three went to live off grid in remote Colorado, found starved to death a year later [View all]

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Three found dead at campsite were members of Colorado Springs family who planned to live 'off grid'


The decomposed and partially mummified bodies of three people who were recently found at a remote western Colorado campsite were two adult sisters and one woman's 14-year-old son, Gunnison County Coroner Michael Barnes said.

The deceased are Christine Vance, 41; Rebecca Vance, 42, and Rebecca's son, all from Colorado Springs. Two were found in a tent down the road from a campsite in the Gunnison National Forest about nine miles (14.5 kilometers) from Ohio City, Colorado, Gunnison County Coroner Michael Barnes said in an interview Tuesday. Officials have not named the son because he is a minor.

Their bodies showed signs of malnourishment, with two in the tent and one outside. Though a cause of death has yet to be determined while authorities wait for toxicology reports to be processed, the group may have succumbed to starvation, freezing temperatures or carbon monoxide poisoning from trying to make fire to stay warm, Barnes said.

The three likely started camping in July 2022 and died sometime over the winter. Family members told Barnes that the group embarked on a trip last summer and planned to live “off the grid.”

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“I wonder if winter came on quickly and suddenly they were just in survival mode in the tent,” Barnes said. “They had a lot of literature with them about outdoor survival and foraging and stuff like that. But it looked like they supplied at a grocery store.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/three-found-dead-at-campsite-were-members-of-colorado-springs-family-who-planned-to-live-off-grid/ar-AA1elD3i

From left: Rebecca Vance's 14-year-old son, Rebecca Vance, Trevala Jara, Christine Vance and Tommy Jara. The photo was taken days before the three campers headed to a remote camping area in Gunnison County.



“(Rebecca) was fearful of a lot of things with the way she thought the world was going,” said Jara, who grew up with Christine and Rebecca. “She was actually trying to save her son, and our sister.”

In early August, a couple of days before they set off for Gunnison, the Vance sisters stopped by Jara’s home in Security to drop off some family possessions and “to say goodbye,” Jara said. While they were there, Jara and her husband, Tommy, attempted to talk them out of leaving.

“We tried to stop them,” Jara said. “But they wouldn’t listen. Their minds were made up.”

The campers told no one but Jara and her husband what they were planning to do.

"But they wouldn't tell us where they were going," she said.

Jara was concerned that her sisters and nephew were courting danger, particularly because they had no outdoor survival experience.

“You can’t go on the internet and watch videos on how to live off the grid, and then actually do it, if you have no experience,” Jara said. “You just can’t do that. They died of starvation because they weren’t prepared.”

https://gazette.com/news/local/colorado-springs-based-campers-found-dead-in-gunnison-county-were-trying-to-live-off-the/article_9769319e-2b28-11ee-a55b-c3059a004492.html