Fugitive on run for seventeen years found living in cave by a drone

[breitling]

There was a similar case in the US. In the 70's, there was a crooked cop who was convicted (for some lewd acts) and had to surrender himself to prison. He chose to run instead and spent 22 years in the forest.

Eventually he couldn't take it anymore and surrendered himself. He was then given a suspended sentence citing that he already has been through enough.

Here's a podcast episode on that: https://snapjudgment.org/cop-out

[cr0sh]

Though nobody really knows what happened to him, and I think he's still on the FBI's most wanted list - here in Arizona we have the case of Robert Fisher:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_William_Fisher

Yep - he's still on the wanted list - going on 18-19 years now. It's unclear whether he's dead, hiding out, or what; all signs point to him at least escaping and "going into the wilderness". What's happened since that point is anyone's guess.

For that matter, though, the whole escapade has a lot of questions if you research it. The official story is that one day, he snapped, and decided to kill his wife and kids, then blow up their house (natural gas explosion - leveled it) - supposedly to try to hid the evidence of the murder. Then he took the dog with him in their SUV, ran off into the wilderness - then vanished. The dog and the SUV were found, and that was it.

There were questions (at the time) - theory, conspiracy, you name it - but I don't know what to make of them; it was all one weird thing in what would turn out to be a tumultuous year, and quickly overtaken by events and somewhat "forgotten".

The questions still remain as to why and what really happened - the official case states marital trouble, but none of it seems (but who knows what his mental state was) to rise to the level of what occurred, though the background seems a convenient explanation after the fact.

[ssully]

It sounds like he used the power of his job to rape several women. Now that he is free, it says he is helping fight police corruption and donates to organizations that help victims of sexual assault, but if I was one of his victims, I don't think I would feel justice is served just because he hid in the woods for 22 years. This is a pretty tricky scenario imo.

[gruez]

> He was then given a suspended sentence citing that he already has been through enough.

I wonder whether this is typical, or he was given special treatment.

[ajna91]

Interesting story, an interview with him here.

https://www.npr.org/2015/05/08/405191537/cop-out

[cheez]

Hmm... I could take this tradeoff.

[foxhop]

Wait he sufficiently exiled himself and rejoined nature, survived (likely alone) for 17 years, and they take him back to prison?

[really3452]

Right or wrong, a large function of the prison system is to ruin someone's life in a sufficiently public way for performing actions outside of the given society's norms and values to serve as a deterrent to those who would follow in their footsteps.

[melling]

He seemed to prefer his freedom to prison.

I’m not sure why so many people think it’s an equivalent punishment.

Don’t people think that he would’ve been willing to hurt others who crossed his path in order to keep his secret?

[sandworm101]

He wasnt "alone". He was getting food somewhere. He had lots of stuff he couldnt make himself. And someone had contact enough to report his location. Id bet he was stealing from locals.

[sixplusone]

The other side of the punishment is to show to the victims and law abiding citizens that justice is carried out.

The criminal has decided to break the social contract, our agreed rules and impinge on our peace and freedom; therefore society will now impose a sentence on him, restoring some balance, easing minds.

[numlock86]

While I sort of get your point: What would be your ideal alternative? Just let him keep going on?

[Kneecaps07]

While I'm kind of on your side, there is an argument to be made for hauling him back in. If you know he's there and let him live there, you set a precedent: "It's OK to escape from prison as long as you live in the woods."

[PhasmaFelis]

The article says he was imprisoned for "trafficking women and children." Assuming that's accurate and not Chinese propaganda, I'm fine with the idea of permanently cutting him off from potential victims.

[hatsunearu]

That's the reason why the statute of limitations exist (at least one of em)

[mytailorisrich]

I don't know in China but in many countries not only do they take you back to prison to resume time where you left off but evasion is a further offence that gets you extra time.

[narag]

They guy had managed to inflict himself punishment at no cost to taxpayers. At least victims will have some relief, otherwise it's a waste of time.

[sverige]

It's unclear from the article what his crime was, only that he escaped from a prison camp. It could be that his only crime was being Tibetan or Uighur or a member of Falun Gong or that he said something against the government. It's China, so the only 'victims' might be the prison guards on whose watch he escaped.

[interestica]

He had a source of water and fuel. But what did he eat? The "household rubbish" suggests he had some sort of supply line?

[MisterTea]

> Yongshan police received clues about Song's whereabouts in early September, they said on their WeChat account.

So there is no tech or surveillance story here. Only the use of a relatively common high tech gadget aiding good old fashioned police work.

[maerF0x0]

His crime is sufficiently distateful that I dont want to defend him specifically. But the overall subject raises interesting questions about enforcement of laws and their applicability as enforcement approaches perfect. (ie 100%)

For example consider speeding laws we can actually approach perfect enforcement using GPS data and engine management. But then the question becomes how does the archaic law morph when perfectly applied? Should _every_ driver who _ever_ speeds be charged the fine? That is roughly every driver every time they drive whom uses the highways near me. And how often should they be charged? Each time they exceed the speed limit (for example if speedlimit is 65 and I brake to 64, then speed to 66 several times, is that several tickets?) ...

I suspect that most of our laws have been written without grace/forgiveness knowing that we used to only catch a small percentage of perpetrators, and likely the most egregious of them (assuming frequency & magnitude would increase probability of being caught). What ought do if that percent sky rockets, but the laws were designed for the former value?

[naasking]

> I suspect that most of our laws have been written without grace/forgiveness knowing that we used to only catch a small percentage of perpetrators

Or that we can choose not to prosecute in order to use their testimony against a bigger fish. It's called prosecutorial discretion, and it seems reasonable at first, but it's responsible for the slow encroachment of government in all aspects of private life. After all, why change or protest a law you break every day if it will never be used against you?

Everyone probably breaks multiple laws a day without realising it.

If everyone that broke any law had to be charged and prosecuted, we would have a much more politically engaged populace, a much more efficient process to appeal judgements and repeal unjust laws.

[oxplot]

Worth thinking about when this law came into effect and limitations of technology at that time. Given GPS data, it's possible to ensure the car never exceeds the speed limit and hence, perfect enforcement of the law may result in no more fines (or even less) as it does now. There is of course safety implications of forcing cars under a speed limit which the law would be taking into effect, which is yet another twist making the perfect enforcement unlikely.

[chiefalchemist]

I've watched "Alone" on the History Channel from time to time. One of the things that surprised me was how the contestants were affected mentally. Often enough they tap out not from lack of food, but from lack of human contact.

It's amazing this guy survived. It's close to a miracle he did it alone.

[tyingq]

Establishing a new identity wasn't a huge task when we were paper based. A pretty common approach was finding someone that died young, roughly your age, in a rural or religious community that probably didn't file the right papers to document the death. Or somewhere small enough that destroying the single paper in a file accomplished the same.

Then bootstrap that up from a birth certificate to a social security card and so on.

I imagine it's not that simple anymore.

[cameronbrown]

It's strange to imagine how much the world has changed in 17 years, from this guy's perspective.

[mcv]

Yeah, I bet he didn't expect to be found by drones. That's got to be the most immediate confrontation with how much the world has changed.

[thinkingemote]

I beg to differ. For example Enemy of the State which dealt with aerial surveillance was released 21 years ago.

Predator drones were deployed in the middle east in 2000 but were in use from 1995 in the Balkans. Quadcopters are new though.

17 years and people were living online lives. With Web 2.0 which began a couple of years later around 15 years ago. There's not much that has changed fundamentally which could cause a psychological shock.

Now, if he was on the fun since 1980 maybe ... but 2002 was just around the corner (at least for the type of people who read HN).

[lsllc]

The concept of a drone and being discovered by one was probably quite a shock to him.

I guess a re-do of "My Side of the Mountain" would be completely different in 2019!

[mido22]

There is a recent chinese movie along the same theme "Ash is purest white". A person is jailed around 2002 and released about 10 years later and the whole world has changed.

[efa]

Living in a cave not able to leave maybe slightly better than a jail cell? Of course I'm not sure what other horrors he faced in a Chinese prison.

[SamuelAdams]

Personally I would rather live in a cave. When you're in a jail cell, you might end up on an operating table because some wealthy someone needs a new liver, and yours was a match. This person did live in exile, but he lived nonetheless. To some life itself is more important.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...

[solatic]

What defines a prison is not the lock on the door, but who controls the key.

[dangerface]

The article says he escaped from prison camp which I assume is a work camp.

[gxs]

I wonder if he'd had means, not a lot just a few thousand dollars, he would have been able to remain free.

Maybe moving completely out of the area, buying a used car cash and driving to another state entirely?

Somehow getting himself into Mexico and boarding a ship somewhere in south america or asia?

I wonder if these days with all the surveillance it really takes living in a cave to get away from law enforcement.

[TheBeardKing]

And how much longer before they use facial recognition to identify the fugitive then execute the arrest?

[wil421]

Execute made me think of Judge Dredd. What the movies gets wron is it won’t be a person who is the Judge it will be an AI. Fugitive match found, sending drones to confirm, deploying Cop AI, running Judge routine, sentenced to death. I am the law.

[CriticalCathed]

How much longer before governments, at society's request, use autonomous drones and facial recognition technology to execute enemies of the state and petty criminals remotely?

[dangerface]

Dunno why people are down voting you, china already does this.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2157883/dron...

[Someone]

Reminds me of the famous examples of Japanese soldiers fighting on after 1945, two of them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teruo_Nakamura, on separate islands) until 1974.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout even mentions “Shigeyuki Hashimoto and Kiyoaki Tanaka joined the Malayan Communist Party's guerrilla forces to continue fighting, returning to Japan in January 1990”)

[leon1717]

Might be a good twist: it's a state sponsored DJI ads, PRC gently saves the drone industry.

[NTDF9]

What an amazing script for a movie

[billpg]

Julian Assange?