Family Road trip introduction
Last August an Australian family Tromp of farmers
Mother, father, three adult children
29, 25, and 22
Owned a berry farm where they all worked 7 days a week
“Pick your own fruit”
Left home on a spontaneous road trip
Left without credit cards, cell phones, or passports
Left home unlocked and horses
Cash only trip
Meant to be off the grid
Family drove from Silvan (Outside Melbourne in Victoria southern Australia)
8 hours north to Bathurst in New South Wales (3 hours outside Sydney)
Unlike the rest of the family, Mitchell Tromp brought his cell phone
Mitchell was told to throw his phone out the window 19 miles out the window
Convinced it was being used to track them
Mitchell left the family around 7 the next day
The family then left Bathurst and went toward the jenolan caves (which look lovely)
At the Jenolan Caves the two girls also escaped from their family
Stole a car and drove to Goulburn
Reported their parents to the police
Then Split up
The oldest girl (29) was seen again in the back of a man’s pickup truck
She was catatonic and did not know her name or where she was
The youngest girl (22) made it back home
Police were already there
The home was unlock and messy
Police discovered that the Tromp’s had been going through years worth of their own financial records before leaving town
Several piles of documents throughout the home
“The piles were very ordered and they were clearly looking for something”
The Boy (25) made it home shortly after on a train
Meanwhile, The two parents drove back toward their hometown before splitting up in a town called Wangaratta
The wife went back north while the husband stayed in the area
Around that time, a couple playing Pokemon go was tailgated by a car that was the same make and model and the Tromp’s
When they couple slowed down, the car did too
When they stopped, the man in the car got out, ran toward them, then stopped in the middle of the road and stared at them
Then walked into the woods and disappeared
Police searched the woods but didn’t find anyone
Car still had keys in the ignition
A nearby hotel had a room broken into as well
Police believe he may have stayed there for the night
Mrs. Tromp went back north via public transportation
Tried to book a hotel in Yass
Someone took her to a hospital
Hospital staff recognized her and called the police
Five days later, Mr. Tromp was found wandering down a road in Wangaratta
Questioned by police and given a mental health assessment before being let go
He flipped off the media who were waiting outside
The two younger children publicly thanked the police for finding their father
Said they still didn’t know what happened
In May of 2018, things seemed to be pretty back to normal
The farm has been dialed back a bit
Theories
Family didn’t have any history of mental illness
No drug use
No religion or cults
Poisoned
No real evidence to support theory
Maybe they owed someone money
Family planned originally to leave the country
Financial record had been gone through
Kids were allowed to leave
Everything seems normal again
Folie A Deux (Not the Fallout Boy album)
Psychiatric syndrome in which a delusional belief or hallucination is passed from individual to another
Most commonly diagnosed when the individuals live in close proximity
Often with social or physical isolation