In their search for their son, the Danian family learned that shortly before his disappearance, Isaac, who was 20 years old at the time, fell under the sway of an online COVID-19 conspiracy theorist named Matthew Mellow (pictured above). With a history of depression, Isaac had grown increasingly paranoid around that same time period. In the note to his parents and siblings, he urged them to prepare for society's eventual end and through any means possible, avoid COVID testing and vaccines. Isaac wrote, sell everything you own and find a bunker (via CNN).
Isaac did contact his parents once after his initial disappearance, about one month later. The last time Isaac's family heard from him, his parents received a text message with a picture of their son alongside a man they'd learn later was Shukree Abdul-Rashed. Both men held freshly caught fish and were grinning widely, somewhere out at sea. At Mellow's urging, according to The Times reporting, Isaac and Abdul-Rashed, another Mellow follower, had set sail across the Pacific on a boat captained by a man named Mike Schmidt. Their goal: find a place free from the virus and restart society. On a different boat, Mellow would follow a short time later (per NYT).
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