The Stranger in the Woods_ The - Michael Finkel

gravity of the proceedings, they might sound humorous.
“On or about July 14, 2008,” Maloney intones, “Mr. Edmund Ashley reported items stolen from his
camp in Rome, Maine. The items stolen were batteries, food, and soda, with an approximate value of
eighteen dollars.”
Justice Mills asks for Knight’s plea.
“Guilty,” he says, scarcely audible.
“A seasonal resident’s kitchen window had been forced open,” Maloney continues, “and food items, along
with a pair of men’s size thirty-eight jeans and a leather belt, had been stolen, with a value of approximately
forty dollars.”
“Guilty.”
On it goes, eleven more times. “Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty and for no other reason?”
asks Justice Mills when it’s done.
“Yes.”
“Do you understand what we’re doing?”
“Yes.”
“I am satisfied that Mr. Knight’s pleas are voluntary,” says Mills. Then she reviews the conditions of his
sentence. Knight will serve a total of seven months in jail—he has another week to go—and, once released,
must seek psychological counseling. He needs to call his case manager every day. He has to appear in court
every Monday at eleven a.m. so Mills can review his progress. These rules will be in effect for at least one
year, and if he breaks any of them, he could be subject to as much as a seven-year term in the state prison.
He is also fined a total of about $2,000, to be distributed to his victims. He will live at home, with his
mother, and must find a job or go to school, and he must perform community service. He may not contact
any of his victims or leave the state of Maine, and he is prohibited from using or possessing alcohol. He will
be subject to random drug and alcohol testing.
“Obviously,” Mills adds, “you can’t get involved in any further criminal trouble of any kind—do you
understand that, Mr. Knight?”
“Yes.”
“Any questions or anything else you would like to say, Mr. Knight?”
“No,” he says, and the hearing is over.
A few hours later, I visit Knight in jail for the final time. It’s our ninth one-hour visit over the course of
two months, encompassing four trips to Maine. There are telephones in jail, but he has steadfastly refused to
make a call, though we speak through receivers during our visits. He hasn’t placed a phone call in thirty
years, and even before he went into the woods, he didn’t like phones.
“People earnestly say to me here, ‘Mr. Knight, we have cell phones now, and you’re going to really enjoy
them.’ That’s their enticement for me to rejoin society. ‘You’re going to love it,’ they say. I have no desire.
And what about a text message? Isn’t that just using a telephone as a telegraph? We’re going backwards.”
When he hears how songs are now shared and downloaded, Knight is equally unimpressed. “You’re using
your computers, your thousand-dollar machines, to listen to the radio? Society is taking a rather strange
turn.” He says he’ll stick with vinyl records.
With his release imminent, Knight seems more unsettled than ever. He scratches furiously at his knees.