Maine hermit who burgled neighbors' homes draws sympathy from some

Katharine Q. Seelye reported for the NYT from North Pond, Maine, on the public response to the arrest a few months ago of Christopher Knight, 47, who had been living in self-imposed exile in Maine Woods for 27 years. Knight has confessed to committing more than 1000 burglaries from the homes of area residents during that time.  He was caught red-handed this spring stealing bacon, coffee and marshmallows from a camp for the disabled.  Seelye reports:

[Neighbors] were unnerved that a local legend of a hermit-burglar had turned out to be true, that someone really had been lurking in the woods all this time watching them and studying their habits: when they would be home, when they would stock their freezers. 

But to some, he was a figure of sympathy, like Boo Radley, the recluse in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Like Boo, Mr. Knight was initially feared but came to be seen not as someone who was dangerous but as someone who needed to be protected.

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He had lived in someone else’s woods, undetected under camouflage-colored tarps and completely off the grid; he paid no taxes, had no address and never used a cellphone.

North Pond is in in the Belgrade Lakes area of central Maine, part of Kennebec County, which includes Augusta.