'Is he a good guy or a bad guy?': an online hunt to solve a shocking death

Sometime before 23 July 2018, a man later known to millions as Mostly Harmless died in his tent in a Florida swamp. His body was found in the morning by hikers in Big Cypress natural preserve, whose 911 call opens They Called Him Mostly Harmless, a new Max documentary on the case and the internet sleuths who sought to reunite the hiker with his loved ones. The caller described him as unnaturally thin, discolored, alone.

The man was, indeed, emaciated; at 5ft 8in, he weighed only 83lb. An autopsy found no drugs in his system other than Tylenol, no tattoos and what was described as a “small scar” on his abdomen. He had food in his tent, plenty of cash and relatively expensive camping equipment. He had a notebook full of what appeared to be code, or maybe the scribblings of a madman. He died a few miles from the highway – presumably, if he needed help, he could have walked a short distance to find it. The official cause of death was inconclusive.

There was no missing persons report in the area, so authorities in Collier county, Florida, Photoshopped an image of his face to look less like a corpse and released it publicly. “It kinda reminded of the caveman in the Geico ad,” says Christie Harris, an internet sleuth who took up the case, says in the film. Nevertheless, the sheriff’s office assumed someone – a friend, a family member, an acquaintance or one of the many people who frequent the Florida trails – would recognize him from the jarring composite and provide a name.

This proved more than bedeviling, and that’s where They Called Him Mostly Harmless shifts from a story about a mystery body found in the woods to a story about the internet, the things we project on to other people and the razor’s edge between healthy and unhealthy obsession. And in particular, the experience of true crime communities. The film doesn’t fully embrace the conventions of a genre often maligned, fairly or not, for exploitative tactics. But it also deeply understands the human desire for answers, and to help find them.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/feb/08/they-called-him-mostly-harmless-max

Something I will probably watch....