North Pond is situated between Waterville, Farmington and Skowhegan, and for the last 27 years or so someone had been breaking into the homes and camps in the area that surround the pond.  Legend had it that a hermit that lived in the woods was responsiible, it now turns out that legend was reality.

"It's been a myth, or legend, that a hermit was responsible," Maine State Trooper Diane Perkins-Vance told the Kennebec Journal on Tuesday. "That happens to be the case."

Christopher Knight, 47, was arrested at 1:15AM last Thursday, when officers arrived at his camp site on a slope in the woods they were only the second human contact that Knight made in the past 27 years.  The first interaction was with a hiker back around 1995.

Sgt. Terry Hughes of the Maine Warden Service made the arrest as Knight was carrying food from Pine Tree Camp in Rome, which serves children and adults with disabilities. Knight estimated he had broken into the camp more than 50 times over the years

Sgt. Hughes worked with the U.S. Border Patrol in Rangeley to set up some sort of alarm system at the Pine Tree Camp that would alert Hughes at his home when someone broke in. "I was extremely confident he would be apprehended," Hughes said. "I knew sooner or later he was going to trip that camera."  That moment happened Thursday morning.

Knight was wearing clean clothes, he had recently shaved and his haircut was normal.  He was also carrying money dating back to the 1990s, just in case he ever "had to go to the store".

Christopher Knight told arresting officers that he set up camp in the woods back in April 1986 directly following the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Russia, although he didn't give the event as the specific reason for his departure from society.

How many break-ins was Knight responsible for?  "I would say it's well over 1,000 burglaries," Perkins-Vance said. "He did it to survive. Everything he stole was to survive."

 

 

 

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