Hermit Arrested: Why Did Christopher Knight Spend 27 Years Alone In Maine Woods?

Christopher Knight, 47, who lived as a hermit in the central Maine wilderness for the last 27 years, was arrested last Thursday as he carried meat and other food supplies from Pine Tree Camp in Rome, which serves children and adults with disabilities. He is accused of committing more than a thousand burglaries under the cover of night, entering camps near his makeshift hut and stealing food and supplies.

Knight told authorities that he first went into the woods near Rome, Maine -- about 20 miles north of the state capital Augusta -- 27 years ago, two years after he graduated high school. In a senior yearbook dredged up by the Kennebec Journal, he is listed as having joined no clubs or activities, and for future plans said he would be a computer technician.

"He claims he hadn't had a conversation with another human being since the mid-1990s when he encountered someone on a trail," Maine State Trooper Diane Perkins-Vance told the Journal. "I was the first person he talked to since the 1990s."

Knight reportedly told Diane Perkins-Vance that he had always been interested in hermits but had no deeper explanation for heading into the woods, saying he frequently asks himself the same question.

Knight had long since become a kind of local legend -- the "North Pond Hermit" -- famous for his elusiveness and for his practice of stealing food, clothes and other essentials. In June 2005, the Morning Sentinel published a story about the "hermit of North Pond," who, it said, "for the last 15 years has been picking his way through dozens of the 300 or so camps around North Pond."

He was finally caught after a warden determined to set up surveillance equipment designed to trigger an alarm at his home if someone entered the dining hall of the Pine Tree Camp after hours. When the alarm was tripped last Thursday morning, the warden rushed to the site and greeted Knight as he exited the dining hall, identifying himself as a warden before placing him under arrest. Knight would've made off with about $280 worth of food.

At the time, Knight had a wad of bills on him. Some of the money dated back to the 1990s and was moldy. Perkins-Vance said Knight told authorities "he carried it in case he ever needed to go to a store someday."

Knight is currently being held at the Kennebec County jail in lieu of $5,000 cash bail, on charges of burglary and theft.