Early last week, authorities in Utah arrested Troy Knapp, the notorious "Mountain Man" outlaw who had been robbing and defacing cabins in the southern portion of the state for nearly a decade. Two days later, officers from the Maine Warden Service arrested a legend known to locals as "the backpack burglar," who had been living alone deep in the woods of Central Maine, burglarizing camps for 27 years.

Until Monday, almost no one had seen Troy Knapp in nine years. The tattooed, red-haired drifter had more or less disappeared in 2004, after the latest in a string of prison stints, and the number of people who had laid their eyes on him—let alone spoken with him—could be counted on two hands.

In 1984, "mountain man" Don Nichols kidnapped professional athlete Kari Swenson, accidentally shot her, left her wounded, and escaped into the woods where he escaped law enforcement for five months. Anyway, he's up for parole again.