Kennebec County Sherrif's Office / Kennebec County Sherrif's Office / AP
Christopher Knight, believed to be the North Pond Hermit, in a booking photo after his arrest last week. Police say he's been living in the woods for 27 years.
By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News
The family of a Maine man who lived like a hermit in the woods for 27 years thought he had run off to New York City, a neighbor says.
Police said Christopher Knight's relatives didn't report him missing when he vanished as a 19-year-old in 1986. He didn't surface until last week when he was nabbed during a burglary not far from a makeshift campsite he'd called home for nearly three decades.
Robert Milliken, who knows the family, told the Kennebec Journal that Knight disappeared soon after graduating from high school.
"They thought he had taken off and gone to New York City, a country boy," he said.
About a year later, they found a campsite in the woods behind the family home in Albion and wondered if Knight had been holed up there all that time.
By then, Knight had gone further afield, walking into the woods of Rome, Maine and building a hideout from items he allegedly stole from camps around two nearby ponds.
Kennebec County Sherrif's Office / AP
The camp in Rome, Maine, where authorities believe Christopher Knight lived like a hermit for decades.
The man dubbed the North Pond Hermit told police that with the exception of a chance encounter on a trail, he avoided human contact for 27 years. He stole food, clothing and supplies, committing more than 1,000 burglaries, police said.
"He never left the woods," Maine State Police spokesman Steve McCausland told NBC News.
Knight, 47, was carrying $300 in cash when he was arrested but never spent any money.
"Everything at his campsite was stolen except his eyeglasses. He had clothing, food, tools, propane tanks, a tent, sleeping bags ? everything you'd need to subsist on for almost three decades," McCausland said.
He kept up on current events with a portable radio.
"During the winter months, he didn't want to leave his camp because it would make tracks on the snow, so he read. All his books were stolen," McCausland said.
He said it was strange that no one had ever seen Knight.
"This is not a remote, desolate site," McCausland said. "He was within a mile of a traveled highway."
Erin Rice, the marketing director for the Pine Tree Camp for disabled adults and children, said there had long been rumors of a thieving hermit.
"It was like a legend. You heard the stories but never imagined it was true," she said.
Knight was breaking into Pine Tree last Thursday when he tripped an alarm, police said. He's charged with one burglary, but could face dozens more charges.
Police said he's been cooperative but has not been able to explain why he went into isolation.
"He is doing well in his new environment, which happens to be a jail cell," McCausland said.
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