WASHINGTON (TIP): A man who lived like a hermit for nearly three decades in a makeshift camp in the Maine woods could be responsible for more than 1,000 burglaries for food and other staples, police have said. Christopher Knight, 47, was arrested last week after triggering a motion sensor set up by a game warden while stealing food from a camp for people with special needs.

Knight, who has become known as the ‘North Pond Hermit’ in local lore, is thought to have lived in the woods for 27 years with virtually no human contact. Police have said that Knight treated the camp, near the small Maine town of Rome, as a ‘local Walmart’, regularly stealing supplies from it when needed.

According to the Kennebec Journal, Knight was arrested after authorities had inspected his encampment earlier in the day in the woods of Rome.