For nearly thirty years, he was
only a legend in small towns, a
ghost that slunk into homes at
night and survived on whatever
food he could steal without being
noticed by scared residents. Such
a phantom, most persuaded
themselves, couldn’t possibly live
in the nearby forest.
That phantom was finally arrested
for stealing last year, and he’s
being called the last true hermit.
When he was captured, the hermit
was out for a late night raid at the
Pine Trees Summer Camp near
North Pond in central Maine.
While searching through the
kitchen for food, he unknowingly
set off an alarm that led to his
arrest at the hands of Sergeant
Terry Hughes, a warden that had
become obsessed with capturing
the man known as the North Pond
Hermit.
Hughes, with the help of some
Maine state police, apprehended
the burglar and asked him his
name. He didn’t say a word, and
he had no identification on him. In
a broken voice, he admitted to the
state trooper, Diane Perkins-
Vance, that he was ashamed to
answer questions about himself.
His name, the trooper learned, was
Christopher Thomas Knight. He
was born in 1965, had no address
and no vehicle. He had gone to
live in the woods, alone, when he
was only 20 years old — now, he
was 47.
His way of life was truly
remarkable. He never lit a fire, as
he was afraid of being detected,
and moved only at night, sleeping
in a tent during the day. When he
was captured, he had no idea if
his parents were alive, and had
never even heard anything of the
internet. He admitted to
committing about 40 break-ins a
year to keep himself well-fed.
Before that night, April 4 of last
year, Knight had only said one
word to another human being in
the last 27 years. He said “hi” to a
passing hiker.
The man had long been a legend
in the nearby town of North Pond,
where residents were victims of
his break-ins for so long. But
most claim they didn’t really
believe that such a thing could be
true. After all, what man could
survive in the woods through the
freezing cold of a New England
winter?
Knight, somehow, managed it.
Unfortunately, he didn’t keep a
journal or snap any photos to
document his long time alone. He
had pledged, after all, to live his
entire life in secret after he went
to the forest as a young man, just
out of high school.
While, many have tried to contact
him since to hear his story, he
hasn’t been saying much. A writer
over at GQ managed to get a
short response letter from Knight,
staying in prison, the two of them
bonding over a shared love of
literature. Knight had stolen many
books during his time in the
woods.
They exchanged more and more
letters, Knight offering his regrets
on a life of crime and reflections
on the differences between the
two ways of life he had led. One
fascinating, surprisingly literate,
tidbit:
Solitude did increase my
perception. But here’s the
tricky thing—when I applied
my increased perception to
myself, I lost my identity.
With no audience, no one to
perform for, I was just there.
There was no need to define
myself; I became irrelevant.
The moon was the minute
hand, the seasons the hour
hand. I didn’t even have a
name. I never felt lonely. To
put it romantically: I was
completely free.
To learn more of his stunning
story, read the long feature article
at GQ.
Read more

Hemingway, I wrote, was one of
my favorites. It seemed that
Knight was shy about everything
except literary criticism; he
answered that he felt "rather
lukewarm" about Hemingway.
Instead, he noted, he'd rather read
Rudyard Kipling, preferably his
"lesser known works." As if
catching himself getting a little
friendly, he added that since he
didn't know me, he really didn't
want to say more.
Then he seemed concerned that
he was now being too unfriendly.
"I wince at the rudeness of this
reply but think it better to be clear
and honest rather than polite.
Tempted to say 'nothing personal,'
but handwritten letters are always
personal." He ended with: "It was
kind of you to write. Thank you."
He did not sign his name.
I wrote him back and sent him a
couple of Kiplings (The Man Who
Would Be King and Captains
Courageous) . His response, two
and a half pages, felt as raw and
honest as a diary entry. He was
suffering in jail; the noise and the
filth tore at his senses. "You
asked how I sleep. Little and
uneasy. I am nearly always tired
and nervous." In his next letter, he
added, in his staccato, almost
song-lyric style, that he deserved
to be imprisoned. "I stole. I was a
thief. I repeatedly stole over many
years. I knew it was wrong. Knew
it was wrong, felt guilty about it
every time, yet continued to do it."
We exchanged letters throughout
the summer of 2013. Rather than
becoming gradually more
accustomed to jail, to being
around other people, Knight was
deteriorating. In the woods, he
said, he'd always carefully
maintained his facial hair, but now
he stopped shaving. "Use my
beard," he wrote, "as a jail
calendar."
He tried several times to converse
with other inmates. He could force
out a few hesitant words, but
every topic—music, movies,
television—was lost on him, as
was most slang. "You speak like a
book," one inmate teased.
Whereupon he ceased talking.
"I am retreating into silence as a
defensive move," he wrote. Soon
he was down to uttering just five
words, and only to guards: yes;
no; please; thank you. "I am
surprised by the amount of
respect this garners me. That
silence intimidates puzzles me.
Silence is to me normal,
comfortable."
He wrote little about his time in
the woods, but what he did reveal
was harrowing. Some years, he
made it clear, he barely survived
the winter. In one letter, he told
me that to get through difficult
times, he tried meditating. "I didn't
meditate every day, month, season
in the woods. Just when death
was near. Death in the form of too
little food or too much cold for too
long." Meditation worked, he
concluded. "I am alive and sane,
at least I think I'm sane." As
always there was no formal
closing. His letters simply ended,
sometimes mid-thought.
He returned to the theme of sanity
in a following letter. "When I came
out of the woods they applied the
label hermit to me. Strange idea to
me. I had never thought of myself
as a hermit. Then I got worried.
For I knew with the label hermit
comes the idea of crazy. See the
ugly little joke."
Even worse, he feared his time in
jail would only prove correct those
who doubted his sanity. "I
suspect," he wrote, "more damage
has been done to my sanity in jail,
in months; than years, decades, in
the woods."
His legal proceedings were mired
in delays, as the district attorney
and his lawyer tried to figure out
how justice could be served in a
case entirely without precedent.
After four months in jail, Knight
had no clue what punishment
awaited. A sentence of a dozen or
more years was possible. "Stress
levels sky high," he wrote. "Give
me a number. How long? Months?
Years? How long in prison for me.
Tell me the worst. How long?"
In the end, he decided he could
not even write. "For a while writing
relieved stress for me. No longer."
He sent one last, heartbreaking
letter in which he seemed at the
verge of breakdown. "Still tired.
More tired. Tireder, tiredest, tired
ad nauseam, tired infinitum."
And that was it. He never wrote
me again. Though he did finally
sign his name. Despite the
exhaustion and the tension, the
last words he penned were wry
and self-mocking: "Your friendly
neighborhood Hermit, Christopher
Knight."
·
·
·
Three weeks after his final letter, I
flew to Maine. The Kennebec
County jail, a three-story slab of
pale gray cinder blocks, permits
visitors most evenings at six
forty-five. I arrived early. "Who
you here to see?" asked a
corrections officer.
"Christopher Knight."
"Relationship?"
"Friend," I answered
unconfidently. He didn't know I
was here, and I had my doubts
he'd see me.
I sat on a bench as other visitors
checked in. Beyond the walls of
the waiting room, I could hear
piercing buzzers and slamming
doors. Eventually an officer
appeared and called out, "Knight."
He unlocked a maroon door and I
stepped inside a visitors' booth.
Three short stools were bolted to
the floor in front of a narrow desk.
Over the desk, dividing the booth
into sealed-off halves, was a thick
pane of shatterproof plastic.
Sitting on a stool on the other
side of the pane was Christopher
Knight.
Rarely in my life have I witnessed
someone less pleased to see me.
His lips, thin, were pulled into a
downturned scowl. His eyes did
not rise to meet mine. I sat across
from him, and there was no
acknowledgment of my presence,
not the merest nod. He gazed
someplace beyond my left
shoulder. He was wearing a dull
green overlaundered jail uniform
several sizes too big.
A black phone receiver was
hanging on the wall. I picked it up.
He picked his up—the first
movement I saw him make.
I spoke first. "Nice to meet you,
Chris."
He didn't respond. He just sat
there, stone-faced. His balding
head shone like a snowfield
beneath the fluorescent lights; his
beard was a mess of reddish
brown curls. He had on silver-
framed glasses, different from the
ones he'd worn forever in the
woods. He was very skinny. He'd
lost a great deal of weight since
his arrest.
I tend to babble when I'm
nervous, but I made a conscious
effort to restrain myself. I recalled
what Knight wrote in his letter
about being comfortable with
silence. I looked at him not
looking at me. Maybe a minute
passed.
That was all I could endure. "The
constant banging and buzzing in
here," I said, "must be so jarring
compared with the sounds of
nature." He shifted his eyes to me
—a small victory—then glanced
away. His eyes are light brown. He
scarcely has any eyebrows. I let
my comment hang in the air.
Then he spoke. Or at least his
mouth moved. His first words to
me were inaudible. I saw why: He
was holding the phone's
mouthpiece too low, below his
chin. It had been decades since
he'd used a phone; he was out of
practice. I indicated with my hand
that he needed to move it up. He
did. And he repeated his grand
pronouncement.
"It's jail," he said. There was
nothing more. Silence again.
I shouldn't have come. He didn't
want me here; I didn't feel
comfortable being here. But the
jail had granted me a one-hour
visit, and I resolved to stay. I
settled atop my stool. I felt
hyperaware of all my gestures, my
expressions, my breathing. Chris's
right leg, I saw through the
scuffed window, was bouncing
rapidly. He scratched at his skin.
Photo: Jennifer Smith-Mayo
My patience was rewarded. First
his leg settled down. He quit
scratching. And then, rather
shockingly, he started talking.
"Some people want me to be this
warm and fuzzy person. All filled
with friendly hermit wisdom. Just
spouting off fortune-cookie lines
from my hermit home."
His voice was clear; he'd retained
the stretched vowels of a Down
East Maine accent. And his words,
when he deigned to release them,
could evidently be imaginative and
entertaining. And caustic.
"Your hermit home—like under a
bridge?" I said, trying to play
along.
He presented me with an achingly
long blink.
"You're thinking of a troll."
I laughed. His face moved in the
direction of a smile. We had made
a connection—or at least the
awkwardness of our introduction
had softened. We began to
converse somewhat normally. He
called me Mike and I called him
Chris.
He explained about the lack of eye
contact. "I'm not used to seeing
people's faces," he said. "There's
too much information there. Aren't
you aware of it? Too much, too
fast."
I followed his cue and looked over
his shoulder while he stared over
mine. We maintained this
arrangement for most of the visit.
Chris had recently been given a
mental-health evaluation by
Maine's forensic service. The
report mentioned a possible
diagnosis of Asperger's disorder,
a form of autism often marked by
exceptional intelligence but
extreme sensitivity to motions,
sounds, and light.
Chris had just learned of
Asperger's while in jail, and he
seemed unfazed by the diagnosis.
"I don't think I'll be a spokesman
for the Asperger's telethon. Do
they still do telethons? I hate
Jerry Lewis." He said he was
taking no medications. "But I don't
like people touching me," he
added. "You're not a hugger, are
you?"
I admitted that I do at times
participate in embraces.
"I'm glad this is between us," he
said, indicating the glass. "If there
was a set of blinds here, I'd close
them."
There was a part of me that was
perversely charmed by Chris. He
could seem prickly—he is prickly—
but this was merely a protective
cover. He told me that since his
capture, he'd often found himself
emotionally overwhelmed at
unexpected moments. "Like TV
commercials," he said, "have made
me teary. It's not a good thing in
jail to have people see you
crying."
Everything he said seemed candid
and blunt, unfiltered by the safety
net of social niceties. "I'm not
sorry about being rude if it gets to
the point quicker," he told me.culled from the internet

What did he gain at the end of the day ? The guy is crazy!

Mr lonely welcome to the real world

Orisirisi

Such is life. If there is no terrorist attack their they should him to continue.

this news is long sha....but all I've got say is that..."everyday is for the thief....one day for the owner"

D post long, but i win am
Eeya i just pity d man

:oi don blief all dis craps joor

Forget it OP. This news nor fit enter frontpage. Make we bet

mtchew

If ah hear. Abeg make una find another lie sell. Me aah don't believe this

I no grab

Thank God he is not a black man if not they would have claimed that d place is his natural habitat.

chimerase2: I no grab

Let ur neighbour grab it for you.

kolubo: Let ur neighbour grab it for you.

Hoe-kay

chimerase2: Hoe-kay

Now i understood why you can't grab it.

akraym: Forget it OP. This news nor fit enter frontpage. Make we bet

i wasn't thinking of front page,i just felt like sharing it...you grab?

What a man!

ok

Hebephrenic Schizo

akraym: Forget it OP. This news nor fit enter frontpage. Make we bet

make I keep evidence just incase you try to modify diz comment

in naija, dis man is nt sufferin 4rm asperwhatever...he is mad.

ginajet: make I keep evidence just incase you try to modify diz comment

lol,you bad o.no be fp dey worry me

I'm sure he must have forgotten how to talk when they discovered him

akraym: Forget it OP. This news nor fit enter frontpage. Make we bet

Funny but I agree.

How did he survive the cold? Anyway, if he managed to get hold of some beer and weed, the life must 've been worth the stress!!!

Is dat not camp gas I am seeing there? Since he did nt mix with people for over 20yrs how did he manage to fill dat gas?

This man is indeed the loneliest person on Planet Earth.

These yeye english people!