A boy from Colorado died while living alone in the Rocky Mountains, almost a year after his mother and aunt took him away because they were afraid of pandemic theories. He kept a diary that showed a scary picture of his life.
The torn notebook that was found next to the frozen body of 13-year-old Talon Vance began in a happy mood but quickly turned sad as he wrote about his grief over having to leave his friends and his mental breakdown at an Arby’s.
Talon was found dead outside of a tent in July 2023. He weighed less than 40 pounds. The bodies of his mother, 42-year-old Rebecca “Becky” Vance, and aunt, 41-year-old Christine Vance were also found there.
In 2022, the three left their home in Colorado and set up a tent near Gold Creek Campground, which is about an hour’s drive from Gunnison, Colorado, to live off the grid and “escape society.”
As they were getting ready to leave, Talon said goodbye to his Roblox friends. He wrote about it in his notebook for 24 pages, according to Tom Conover of Outside Magazine.
“NOOO COME BACK,” wrote a gamer with the name Fluffy.
Someone else wrote, “Please, I will do anything for you to come back.”
They stopped at Arby’s for food at one point in their trip, and Talon wrote that he was crying because “nothing feels the same.”
“Everything feels different now [sad face], and I also had a mini-breakdown at Arby’s,” he wrote.
He also wrote that his aunt took him to the store and let him choose a treat.
“When I was having a meltdown, she took me to Safeway and let me choose any candy I wanted! Because I was so sad, nothing sounded good to me anymore. I chose mostly chocolate for mom, and then Aunty suggested fruit snacks for me, and I said “OK.”
Family members who are still in shock over what happened said they didn’t know their escape would last forever.
Treatela Jara, Becky’s stepsister, told The Independent that she was so upset that she couldn’t even read the diary entries.
The diary entries were given to Conover by Emma, Talon’s half-sister. Emma told him that the pages smelled like smoke from a campfire.
Family members said that none of the three had experience with survival in the outdoors, but some of the entries showed that Talon’s mother had been trying to get him ready for the trip by telling him to learn survival skills like how to tie knots.
“Make a square knot!” His last writing had a happy face at the end. It said, “Right over left, Left over right.”
“Side note: I did the trucker’s hitch first try!!” he said as he went on to explain how to tie a clove hitch, a bowline, a Japanese square lashing, and a timber hitch.
He wrote about having to leave his “stinky” cat Oreo behind right before the family left Colorado Springs.
He wrote, “Oreo always sat on our laps when we were on the couch.” “On July 29, Oreo sat down between my mom and me while we were practicing knots and ropes.” I spent a lot of time working on the couch while I was in online school. Oreo would plop on me because of that. Oreo laid down on me for the last time on July 29.
The cat was left with Trevela Jara before the trip with the other two.
In the past, Ms. Jara told The New York Times that her stepsister was so “disappointed with the state of the world” that she was determined to live in a faraway place away from things that stress her out in the modern world.
“She meant well,” she said. “She thought she was keeping her son and Christine, our sister, safe because she didn’t want them to see what she saw the world turning into.”
Ms. Jara also said that the COVID-19 pandemic made her even more worried about the state of the world.
Christine, Becky’s sister, didn’t want to go at first, but she joined the mother and son “because she thought that if she was with them, they had a better chance of surviving.”
Gunnison County officials found three “heavily decomposed” bodies at the Rocky Mountain campsite in July 2023. One of the bodies was Talon, which was found by a tourist. The bodies of the sisters were found in the tent nearby.
Investigators later said that their shelter, which they called a “eighty-dollar Walmart tent,” wasn’t warm enough for the harsh winter in the woods, and they didn’t have the right gear to stay alive.
Investigators did find a fishing rod at the scene, but no guns or knives. In the winter, the lakes are frozen and can’t be reached. They also found a Bible, four fantasy-themed Choose Your Own Adventure books, and Becky’s journal, which had specific information on how to identify plants and find food at high elevations.
The exact date that the three people died is unknown, but an exam revealed that they died of not getting enough food and being too cold.