'Unnecessary Deaths': Relatives Mourn Colorado Family Who Died Off The Grid: Background, More

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Last edited Sun Jul 30, 2023, 09:34 AM - Edit history (2)

- "Unnecessary deaths": relatives mourn US family who died off the grid,' The Guardian, July 29, 2023. Ed. - Trevala Jara remembers her stepsister Becky Vance as a ‘caring and loving person’ who thought she was ‘saving’ her son and sister Christine Vance.

Abandoning human civilization for a life of adventure in the mountains is a fascination for many, but for one Colorado Springs family the dangers of living off the grid were made brutally apparent. Last week, the remains of Rebecca “Becky” Vance, 42, her sister Christine Vance, 41, and Becky’s 14-year-old were found at a remote campsite a year after setting off for a new life in the Rocky Mountains.

“I’d had a feeling around March that something had happened to them and wanted to go to the mountains to see if they were up there,” Becky and Christine’s stepsister Trevala Jara, 39, said. “But those mountains are huge. Where would you start? The story of the Vance sisters, and of a mother’s effort to protect her son from society, has threaded into a prevalent social narrative: that the best way to deal with uncertainties in the world is to detach from it. But their experiment ended badly.

After their decomposed remains were discovered by a hiker at a remote campsite in the mountainous Gunnison county earlier this month, sheriffs soon discovered two more. The trio had set off last August, dropping their off possessions at Jara’s home in Colorado Springs before they left. “My elder sister Becky had become fearful of the way the world was going. It wasn’t going the way she wanted it to be, or the way it should. Honestly, I’m with her on that. It isn’t. Big time. There’s more shootings, hate crimes."

Covid is pretty much what broke the camel’s back. Everyone felt the atmosphere change. People changed. The economy changed. Politics changed. Everything changed. They didn’t like it, especially Becky,” Trevala said. “I’m angry,” she added, from the living room of her home. “My sisters and my nephew are unnecessary deaths and so, yes, I’m pissed.” Becky, a single mother, was afraid of the influence the world would have on her son, Trevala said. She was a “caring and loving person” who “thought she was saving her son and Christine by going off and being by themselves and not letting the world influence them”... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/29/colorado-springs-family-died-off-the-grid
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- BBC News, 'Colorado family members die trying to live 'off the grid', July 27, 2023,
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66321392
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- A few days after the initial story, I read that the group was only 9 miles from a town, but I can't find the article.