The Stranger in the Woods_ The - Michael Finkel

inherited from her mother, and a couple of cherished hand-sewn quilts, but the real damage went deeper.
All Patterson wanted from her cabin was a place to escape the pressures of daily life, and Knight denied her
that. “I couldn’t leave my windows open, I couldn’t even go and sit by the beach without worrying,” she said.
“He stole every bit of my piece of heaven.”
“If someone needed food,” said Mary Hinkley, a victim of dozens of break-ins, “I would give them food.
Just ask. But we were invaded, completely invaded. I always feared he’d come in the night, when my
grandchildren were there. I despise this person. I’m ashamed I feel this way, but I do. I can’t think of
anything in my life I’ve been so bitter about.”
If Knight really wanted to live in the woods, many said, he should’ve done so on public lands, hunting and
fishing for food. And how was anyone supposed to know he wasn’t armed and dangerous? Even a single
break-in can be punishable by a ten-year prison sentence. Knight was nothing but a lazy man and a thief
times a thousand. He should be locked up in the state penitentiary, perhaps for life.
The person who was going to decide what punishment, if any, to seek against Knight was Maeghan
Maloney, the district attorney. Maloney grew up in Maine, in a blue-collar family, living in subsidized
housing. She was the valedictorian of her high school class and won a scholarship to Harvard Law. She’d
heard public opinion on Knight—free him now, incarcerate him forever—and she, too, was conflicted. “In a
lot of ways,” said Maloney, “the law is not set up for an outlier case like this.”
Knight himself was not seeking leniency. “There’s no justification for my stealing,” he said. “And I don’t
want people trying to justify my bad behavior in an attempt not to sully what they admire in me. Take the
whole package, good and bad. Judge me on that. Don’t cherry-pick. Don’t make excuses for me.”
“Everyone makes excuses,” said Terry Hughes, who witnessed Knight’s confession in the Pine Tree
dining room. “Criminals will deny, deny, deny. That’s what you deal with when you deal with criminals.
That’s the world we live in. I’m used to that world.”
Hughes said that he had never encountered a person as guilelessly straightforward about his crimes as
Knight. He just owned up to everything, Hughes pointed out. Knight had no problem admitting to a
thousand burglaries. He understood that it was wrong, he was embarrassed and remorseful, but there was
total acknowledgment. “Everything in my gut wanted to hate this guy,” said Hughes. “I’m a typical stubborn
jarhead. He stole food from a camp for disabled people. But I can’t hate him. You could work in law
enforcement a hundred years and never come across anyone like this.”
“It’s a very strange case, for sure,” said Knight’s pro bono defender, Walter McKee, who is renowned in
Maine for his work ethic and his expertise. McKee arrives at his office each day at three-fifteen a.m. He is
also a classical violinist, a mountaineer, a private airplane pilot, a father, and a husband. “Mr. McKee does
not sleep,” reports his firm’s website. He consented to waive Knight’s right to a speedy trial in order to
determine how best to proceed.
The modern hermit community—it exists—also debated Knight’s merits. On the Hermitary website is an
area called Hermit’s Slate, which is described as “a forum for hermits, solitaries, anchorites, recluses,
introverts.” Before you’re allowed to post there, the administrator of the Hermitary site, who uses the pen
name Meng-hu, must decide whether you are a legitimate hermit. There are currently more than a thousand
members; perhaps not surprisingly, there are seldom more than two or three online at once.
The general consensus among Hermitary denizens seems to be that Knight should not be considered a
hermit. He was more of an insult to hermits. Meng-hu wrote a blog post about hermits like Knight. “The
idea of a hermit who steals for a living confirms the worst stereotype of the ‘eremite as parasite,’ ” noted