Mysterious Hiker Found Dead On Florida Trail May Be From Brooklyn

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK – Florida police followed every possible lead to try and identify "Mostly Harmless," a mysterious trail hiker who died of starvation with about $3,600 in cash in his kit.

But the life and death of the 83-pound man who had perfect teeth, probably loved "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and may have come from Brooklyn remain a mystery, so the Collier County Sheriff's Office is trying something new.

It's launching a podcast.

"Let's say you set out into the woods to disconnect, you're gone for months and months, and one day you die in the middle of the Florida Everglades, " host Kristine Gill asks her listeners to imagine.

"How long do you think it would take before someone figured out who you were?"

That's the question Gill hopes her podcast, Sworn Statement, will answer.

Gill, a former Naples Daily News reporter and current media relations specialist for the Collier County Sheriff's office, launched the three-episode series last week.

"We're not just rehashing it for the sake of rehashing it," Gill told Patch in a phone interview. "[We're] trying to find out where this guy might actually be from."

Sworn Statement's story opens the evening of July 23, when two hikers in south Florida's Big Cypress National Preserves find a dead body that will later be identified only by his nicknames on the trail: Mostly Harmless, Denim and Ben Bilemy.

"His body was kind of twisted," says Nichalaus Horton, the hiker who found Mostly Harmless and called 911. "His eyes were wide open and he was looking right at me."

The audio cuts to Horton's 911 call.

"Did you need police fire or medical?"

"We just found a dead body."

It's these moments that make Sworn Statement unique, Gill said. Even though the podcast pays homage to Serial (with seemingly unrelated tangents that provide telling background, scratchy audio clips from phone interviews with key witnesses and, of course, lots of eerie ambient music), Gill can provide something that other true crime podcasts cannot.

"When I listen to that kind of stuff, what's missing is actual detectives," said Gill, who professed to be a big Serial fan. "But we have access to people closest to the case. And there's no crime element so we can pretty much put our cards on the table."

Kevin O'Neill, a homicide investigator with the Collier County Sheriff's Office, is a frequent guest on the podcast and provides insight on made Mostly Harmless impossible to track.

It's not just that Mostly Harmless had no phone, credit cards or ID, O'Neill explains, it's that he left no public trace.

"You're hoping somewhere along the line, somebody has reported him missing or he has some sort of background which we can check through his fingerprints," O'Neill says. "All checks came back negative."

Episodes two and three detail the social media blasts that help police locate dozens of people who spent time with Mostly Harmless in the months before his death.

Kelly Fairbanks, 47, was the first to match a police composite to the hiker she met in Florida on Jan. 24, 2017.

"He just seemed like a super nice person, he had such kind eyes," said Fairbanks, one of many self-described trail angels who offer showers, meals and any help they can to hikers.

Fairbanks worried about Mostly Harmless, who told at least two other angels he hailed from Brooklyn, because he seemed new to hiking, didn't have a phone and was carrying a needlessly enormous tent – a rookie mistake.

"To go through the trail blind was naive," she said. "I thought that was a bad decision."

Fairbanks has since rallied fellow trail angels to share information about the anonymous hiker, who told passersby he spent a decade in the tech industry and was working on a hikers' app. Photos show him wearing knee braces, and Fairbanks believes he died because his knees gave out on him.

The photos also show him smiling.

"Every picture he has a huge smile on his face," said Fairbanks. "I'm just grateful I got to meet him."

Mostly Harmless declined Fairbanks' offer for a shower and place to stay, she said.

"We just wished him happy trails and sent him on his way," she said. "He died doing something he loved."

Mike Gormley, another trail angel, was the last known person to see Mostly Harmless, according to the podcast. Mostly Harmless told Gormley he was headed toward Key West with a 50-pound pack on his back in Florida's mounting heat, and the Trail Angel became concerned.

"I even offered to him to take his winter clothes off him and mail them back to him, but he declined," Gormley says. "If he was trying to stay anonymous, that would be one giveaway."

And, as Gill puts it, "That's it." The trail ends.

"All we have are a dozen photos of a man, a vague backstory, about 100 people who recall having seen him hiking within the past year," said Gill. "Still no identification."

In the podcast, Gill notes that Mostly Harmless obeyed the cardinal rule of hikers across the nation. He left no trace.

Anyone with information about Mostly Harmless' identity is asked to call the Collier County Sheriff's Office at 239-252-9300.