On September 6, 1992, multiple hunters who were looking for shelter for the night came upon the converted bus McCandless had been staying in. Upon entering, they smelled what they thought was rotting food and discovered "a lump" in a sleeping bag. The hunters quickly radioed police, who arrived the following day. They found McCandless's decomposing remains in the sleeping bag. It is theorized that he died from starvation two weeks before the body was found.
In September 1992, four months before she died, Hepburn went to Somalia. Calling it "apocalyptic", she said, "I walked into a nightmare. I have seen famine in Ethiopia and Bangladesh, but I have seen nothing like this – so much worse than I could possibly have imagined. I wasn't prepared for this".