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Perkins-Vance called dispatch and learned that Knight had no criminal record. Knight admitted that everything he possessed in the world, he'd stolen, including the clothes he was wearing, right down to his underwear. He said he stole only food and kitchenware and propane tanks and reading material and a few other items. He confessed that he'd committed approximately forty robberies a year while in the woods—a total of more than a thousand break-ins. He had never in his life sent an e-mail or even seen the Internet. He'd not made one phone call or driven in a car or spent any money. He said he didn't know if his parents were alive or dead. He never lit a fire, for fear that smoke would give his camp away. Knight stated that over all those years he slept only in a tent. He was 20 years old at the time, not long out of high school. The nuclear meltdown took place in 1986, the same year, Knight said, he went to live in the woods. He had long ago lost the habit of marking time in months or years this was just a news event he happened to remember. Knight thought for a bit, then asked when the Chernobyl nuclear-plant disaster occurred.
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He said he had no address, no vehicle, did not file a tax return, and did not receive mail.
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His name, he revealed, was Christopher Thomas Knight.
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But over the next couple of hours, he gradually opened up. He spoke haltingly, uncertainly the connection between his mind and his mouth seemed to have atrophied from disuse. When Perkins-Vance asked why he didn't want to answer any questions, he said he was ashamed. She removed his handcuffs and gave him a bottle of water. Hughes left the suspect alone with Perkins-Vance. The officers searched him, and no identification was located. But he wore a nice Columbia jacket, new Lands' End blue jeans, and sturdy boots.
#The strange story of the last true hermit skin
His skin was strangely pale his glasses, with chunky plastic frames, were extremely outdated. Perkins-Vance soon arrived, and the burglar was placed, handcuffed, in a plastic chair. It was one thirty in the morning on April 4, 2013. The thief complied, no resistance, and lay facedown, candy spilling out of his pockets. The burglar eased out of the dining hall, and Hughes used his left hand to blind the man with his flashlight with his right he aimed his. If the man stepped into the forest, Hughes understood, he might never be found again. Before Perkins-Vance could get there, the burglar, his backpack full, started toward the exit. Hughes used his cell phone, quietly, and asked the Maine State Police to alert trooper Diane Perkins-Vance, who had also been hunting the hermit. Was this really the North Pond Hermit, a man who'd tormented the surrounding community for years—decades—yet the police still hadn't learned his name? The person stealing food appeared entirely too clean, his face freshly shaved. He raced to the camp in his pickup truck and sprinted to the rear of the dining hall. The device remained silent in the kitchen but sounded an alarm in the home of Sergeant Terry Hughes, a game warden who'd become obsessed with catching the thief. Newly installed in the Pine Tree kitchen, hidden behind the ice machine, was a military-grade motion detector. The key was attached to a plastic four-leaf-clover key chain, with one of the leaves partially broken off. On a previous raid at Pine Tree, he'd stolen a key to the walk-in, and now he used it to open the stainless-steel door. Burgers and bacon were in the locked freezer. Then, into his backpack, a bag of marshmallows, two tubs of ground coffee, some Humpty Dumpty potato chips. Ten rolls of Smarties, stuffed in a pocket. With an expert twist of a screwdriver, he popped open a door of the dining hall and slipped inside, scanning the pantry shelves with his penlight.Ĭandy! Always good. It was cold and nearly moonless, a fine night for a raid, so he hiked about an hour to the Pine Tree summer camp, a few dozen cabins spread along the shoreline of North Pond in central Maine. The hermit set out of camp at midnight, carrying his backpack and his bag of break-in tools, and threaded through the forest, rock to root to rock, every step memorized. Photo: Andy Molloy/ Kennebec Journal/ AP Photo