Timeline: The Bush Boys Saga

June 2003

Roen Horn, age 15 of Roseville, California runs away from home. He slips out the back door before the state child protection service can force him into treatment for an eating disorder. Roen does not believe he is sick and is afraid of being institutionalized.

His parents, Rodger and Diana Horn, report him missing to the Roseville police.

Kyle Horn, age 22, had recently been kicked out of the house. He finds Roen hiding from his parents, camping in a nearby forest. Kyle brings him food and supplies every few days.

July 2003

Kyle and Roen make their way to the Canadian border with 200 dollars and a tent. They enter Canada at the Osoyoos, British Columbia border crossing. They walk across on foot.

They hitchhike north through the Okanagan Valley. By now, Kyle has become Tom, and Roen is Will. They did not want people to know their real names. Roen explains he knew he could be forced into hospital if his parents or the police found him. So they take on the identities of Tom and Will Green, and start telling those they meet that they grew up in the bush outside Revelstoke, BC., about an hour's walk deep into forest.

The brothers end up camping for three months on the outskirts Vernon, BC.

Fall 2003

Tom and Will Green spend time in Vernon's public library, telling those who ask about growing up isolated from society, with their parents Mary and Joseph. Their story captures the imagination of the local media and soon even CNN in Atlanta is trying to get a television interview with the Bush Boys of BC.

March 10, 2004

At 6 foot 1 and weighing 84 pounds, Roen is noticeably underweight. Neither he, nor his older brother Kyle, believe he has an eating disorder. He has been following a fruit-only diet that he found on a raw food website. His condition gets so serious that Will is picked up against his will by the RCMP and is admitted to the psychiatric unit of Vernon's Jubilee Hospital.

March 30, 2004

Gillian Findlay, then co-host of the CBC current affairs program Disclosure, records the first television interview with Tom Green. With his younger brother in the hospital, the story focuses on why Tom Green and his parents, Mary and Joseph, will not come out of hiding and help their youngest son.

After the show goes to air, Disclosure receives an email from a Chad Horn in Roseville, California. He says he is the boys' older brother. Not bush boys after all; he reveals they are really Kyle and Roen Horn from the suburbs of Sacramento, California.

April 6, 2004

CBC Disclosure broadcasts a follow up story. Kyle is driven to the US border and returns home to the suburbs of Sacramento.

April 13, 2004

Roen Horn is discharged from the Vernon hospital. Authorities fly him back to California and he is immediately committed to a psychiatric ward. About two weeks later he is discharged and returns to life living with his parents.