7 ms·

Inside the Mind of Thru-Hiking's Devious Con Man

80 points by fern12 9y ago

dogruck 9y ago
Summary: Profile of a moderately successful con-man, who preys on the community of outdoor enthusiasts. He’s been caught, and jailed, multiple times. If you enjoy reading about con-men, I suggest reading about John D Rockefeller’s father: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rockefeller_Sr https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rockefeller_Sr.
- jnty 9y ago
  That isn't a particularly illuminating article - is there more information elsewhere?
  - pgl 9y ago
    There's more meat here: http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/c/chernow-titan.html http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/c/chernow-titan.html
    - dogruck 9y ago
      Ah, yes, thank you. I read the biography Titan earlier this year — great book. And that’s where I learned about John D’s father.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
V2hLe0ThslzRaV2 9y ago
>> "As she went through Caldwell’s things, she found a little black notebook of Caldwell’s in the backseat. It contained all of his contacts and even some of his passwords. On July 26, Trent used the information from the book to access his Facebook account, which had become, in recent years, a living record of the man that Caldwell longed to be. Trent decided to start editing it, to make it reflect, more clearly, the man who he truly was. She took down the profile picture of him as a bearded mountain man and replaced it with a shot of him in an orange prison jumpsuit." Guessing few will make it to the end of the article, but was shocked to read the above, since the victim literally provided statements and evidence of them committing a federal offense.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  I highly doubt the jerk will sue, after all his statement included the little gem that since she gave him the keys and she got the car back without damage. By that same token he gave her the notebook and he can change his page back with 'no damage'.
  - piker 9y ago
    He doesn't have a choice -- it's a crime against the state. Only the USA has the ability to pursue or drop the case.
  - astura 9y ago
    Suing it's not the concern, the concern is being convicted of a crime. Totally different things.
- RyanOD 9y ago
  Editing someone's Facebook page is a federal offense?
  - sp332 9y ago
    While the CFAA has been interpreted very broadly, this would violate it pretty specifically. And if it's not the CFAA, it's at least fraud.
    - RyanOD 9y ago
      Interesting. I guess I still think of social media as nothing more than goofy, leisure time activities. Hard for me to think of it as associated with fraud or any other crime...but, the times there are a changin'...
      - sp332 9y ago
        Well it can be pretty personal. Plus they changed his profile picture to something intentionally damaging. If you log in as someone else, you get access to their private messages. You can send messages or make posts as them or delete old ones. You can see a history of where and when they logged in. You get access to photos and posts they haven't made completely public. Anyway if you're not lucky enough to have friends and customers physically nearby, social media could be your only connection to close friends or critical business contacts. Messing with that could really make someone's life difficult.
cko 9y ago
>> Borton says she knew something was off about Caldwell the moment she let him stay with her. >> “What was missing?” she says. “The heart.” Two things stand out about this article — one is the, um, diversity of human behavior. I wonder if I have a Jeff Cantwell in my life and if I’d be able to tell. I consider myself both analytical and introspective but also easy to garner sympathy from. This woman Borton was apparently able to tell, though it could also be revisionist memory. >> I knew he was starting to see me as another mark, but I still felt guilty about saying no. I saw how easy it was to be charmed by him. Yup, sounds like how I would feel. Secondly, the article didn’t really go into detail, but it seemed like he was in and out of prison no problem, despite violating parole. Why did he keep qualifying for parole then? That seemed odd to me.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  (Mostly) petty non violent crimes, overflowing jails and prisons.
- itronitron 9y ago
  Yeah, Borton knew something was off because she had the benefit of experience, being in her 60's
pcunite 9y ago
I think I've come across this type of person before, at least the same language they use. They speak of incredible adventure or success, followed by incredible lows. At the moment, they only need a few bucks ... maybe I can be apart of their life story. Kinda sounds like some of you! ~snicker
narrator 9y ago
This article really gives me a feel for what it's like to live on the very bottom rung of society: the petty ex-con. It's lower than living as an illegal immigrant or someone on disability payments. The crimes this guy commits are so petty that the criminal justice system isn't even that interested in him.
- FireBeyond 9y ago
  Right, like it says, "the payoff is often dwarfed by the investment of time/energy".
wyldfire 9y ago
Gee, I guess I'm a bit of a sucker. I find myself pitying this man. He seems to have had no opportunity to bond with either a mother or a father. > the true motivation of the swindler is never money. “They want to have power over other people,” she says. “What is more controlling than the most intimate thing of all?” Indeed, I suppose if I had grown up like he had I'd feel very much powerless. True -- Caldwell is bad news and he is really doing harm to his victims, but I think I understand some of what motivates him.
- reverend_gonzo 9y ago
  You can absolutely pity someone, while still not tolerating the behavior and reinforcing bad behavior by giving them things. Understanding where someone comes from is empathy. That's a good thing to have and doesn't make you a sucker. However, at some point in his life, he became an adult and has to take responsibility for his actions. If you keep giving a pass because of trauma that happened in his childhood, that now makes you a sucker. If anything, society should try to provide people like this with counseling, psychological support, etc. However, at some point, they still have to make the choice to be a contributing member of society.
- Theodores 9y ago
  The guy has a flavour of narcissistic personality disorder hence the ability to 'con' and the complete lack of empathy. Not to mention the delusions of grandeur and no friends, i.e. people known for years rather than weeks. There is no mention of narcissistic rage though, maybe when he went crazy he upped and left town rather than start shouting, so perhaps his personality disorder was in the same cluster as narcissistic personality disorder. Whatever the label, it all started to go wrong for him right from the beginning. If his parents went their separate ways at 10 months, who was there at 5 months when he was learning to smile? Why is it that babies learn to smile so young? They imitate and some parents are beaming ear to ear with smiles, despite the lack of sleep. Others not. I imagine a year in or when his mum started to have new boyfriends she didn't like having him as a constant reminder of that guy who left her, the father. So the next thing is the disruption. A 'normal' child has 24/7 attention on them when they are two years old, it is all about them, they have no need to attention seek. This child can go to dinner parties with the parents and be passed around with all the attention on them. Meanwhile, the child not given that attention has to seek attention by being disruptive. They get positively banished and the idea of being the loved center of attention just doesn't happen. School comes along and again, disruptive child gets excluded, out in special rooms and not on the team. In this time excluded from the rest a lot can be learned about stuff through books and screens, so although reading is brilliant, it is also living life second hand, not through experience. So, on to the developed adult pathology. The narcissistic injury has to be hidden from the world behind this mask of a fake identity. So an identity is just taken wholesale, off someone else. In this instance he did steal a hiker's name and outfit, probably even the tattoos were stolen, all to create this mask. People get genuinely taken in by the mask, they think it is all real until 3 months later when they start to get drawn in even deeper by the mask. Fundamentally a full time narcissist without financial backing from a family estate or the dad that did run away will not be able to generate income on their own. This is because they are unemployable. They don't get the whole premise of work, they are still that disruptive child behind that mask and they do not think of others. So they are obliged to be a con artist. They live off the largess of others, not lined up as marks, it just works out that way, the pattern is set. The relationships this guy made went fabulously at the start with 'love' from the marks able to explain away that missing money or that missing ability to care. Eventually suspicions do get aroused and people get tired of the narcissist. But they keep trying to reel them back in with feigned remorse, e.g. the letters to say 'sorry'. This is actually felt in a second-hand way by the real character behind the mask and they do know that they have just burned someone, they just don't feel it. The true narcissist will not believe in personality disorders or psychiatry. They don't want to know that for the same reasons a smoker does not want to know the truth about cancer. They actually have no idea about their condition or what they can do about it, even if they do get to read the wikipedia pages pertinent to the topic. They will be set in this pattern for life. One problem with 'the mask' is that it is set in time. So this guy things he is some hip climbing type. That is the mask. This will have to be worn and clung onto until old age, even if being on the run another identity has to be assumed. So what I found intriguing about the article was a complete lack of psychiatry and the on-the-couch diagnosis of something out there in the narcissism spectrum. We all could do with education in this area just to save a lot of time. We also need to have those in the front line - police, medical staff, HR professionals, better able to not be taken in by these people. To varying degrees we were all neglected as children, to varying degrees we were all overly smothered with love as children, we all have imbalances and levels of narcissism, sometimes healthy, sometimes not. But then there are con-men like this guy that are so far off the scale it is hard to identify with them as human once the mask slips.
televod 9y ago
There's a guy who goes by "Ian" and he's been riding his bicycle up and down the west coast for years, pulling small-time grifts. I met him while touring between Portland and SF in the summer of 2010 and his story seemed fishy, then was surprised to see him pop up on a Portland bike blog: https://bikeportland.org/2012/05/30/oregonians-come-to-aid-of-stranded-bike-tourist-72522 https://bikeportland.org/2012/05/30/oregonians-come-to-aid-o... He told us he was a former aircraft mechanic for Quantas and had been given lifetime unlimited airfare, and was spending his retirement touring every continent. Had a story about every topic we brought up, and I think his angle was at least partly about impressing us with his adventures. He didn't ask for money directly but it was implied that he needed some. Another group of cyclists showed up before the conversation got too awkward and we took the opportunity to turn in for the night and let him work his magic on the newcomers instead.
jenkstom 9y ago
Classic Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

80 points by fern12 9y ago

Summary: Profile of a moderately successful con-man, who preys on the community of outdoor enthusiasts. He’s been caught, and jailed, multiple times. If you enjoy reading about con-men, I suggest reading about John D Rockefeller’s father: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rockefeller_Sr https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rockefeller_Sr.

jnty 9y ago
That isn't a particularly illuminating article - is there more information elsewhere?
- pgl 9y ago
  There's more meat here: http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/c/chernow-titan.html http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/c/chernow-titan.html
  - dogruck 9y ago
    Ah, yes, thank you. I read the biography Titan earlier this year — great book. And that’s where I learned about John D’s father.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

V2hLe0ThslzRaV2 9y ago

>> "As she went through Caldwell’s things, she found a little black notebook of Caldwell’s in the backseat. It contained all of his contacts and even some of his passwords. On July 26, Trent used the information from the book to access his Facebook account, which had become, in recent years, a living record of the man that Caldwell longed to be. Trent decided to start editing it, to make it reflect, more clearly, the man who he truly was. She took down the profile picture of him as a bearded mountain man and replaced it with a shot of him in an orange prison jumpsuit." Guessing few will make it to the end of the article, but was shocked to read the above, since the victim literally provided statements and evidence of them committing a federal offense.

jacquesm 9y ago
I highly doubt the jerk will sue, after all his statement included the little gem that since she gave him the keys and she got the car back without damage. By that same token he gave her the notebook and he can change his page back with 'no damage'.
- piker 9y ago
  He doesn't have a choice -- it's a crime against the state. Only the USA has the ability to pursue or drop the case.
- astura 9y ago
  Suing it's not the concern, the concern is being convicted of a crime. Totally different things.
RyanOD 9y ago
Editing someone's Facebook page is a federal offense?
- sp332 9y ago
  While the CFAA has been interpreted very broadly, this would violate it pretty specifically. And if it's not the CFAA, it's at least fraud.
  - RyanOD 9y ago
    Interesting. I guess I still think of social media as nothing more than goofy, leisure time activities. Hard for me to think of it as associated with fraud or any other crime...but, the times there are a changin'...
    - sp332 9y ago
      Well it can be pretty personal. Plus they changed his profile picture to something intentionally damaging. If you log in as someone else, you get access to their private messages. You can send messages or make posts as them or delete old ones. You can see a history of where and when they logged in. You get access to photos and posts they haven't made completely public. Anyway if you're not lucky enough to have friends and customers physically nearby, social media could be your only connection to close friends or critical business contacts. Messing with that could really make someone's life difficult.

cko 9y ago

>> Borton says she knew something was off about Caldwell the moment she let him stay with her. >> “What was missing?” she says. “The heart.” Two things stand out about this article — one is the, um, diversity of human behavior. I wonder if I have a Jeff Cantwell in my life and if I’d be able to tell. I consider myself both analytical and introspective but also easy to garner sympathy from. This woman Borton was apparently able to tell, though it could also be revisionist memory. >> I knew he was starting to see me as another mark, but I still felt guilty about saying no. I saw how easy it was to be charmed by him. Yup, sounds like how I would feel. Secondly, the article didn’t really go into detail, but it seemed like he was in and out of prison no problem, despite violating parole. Why did he keep qualifying for parole then? That seemed odd to me.

maxerickson 9y ago
(Mostly) petty non violent crimes, overflowing jails and prisons.
itronitron 9y ago
Yeah, Borton knew something was off because she had the benefit of experience, being in her 60's

pcunite 9y ago

I think I've come across this type of person before, at least the same language they use. They speak of incredible adventure or success, followed by incredible lows. At the moment, they only need a few bucks ... maybe I can be apart of their life story. Kinda sounds like some of you! ~snicker

narrator 9y ago

This article really gives me a feel for what it's like to live on the very bottom rung of society: the petty ex-con. It's lower than living as an illegal immigrant or someone on disability payments. The crimes this guy commits are so petty that the criminal justice system isn't even that interested in him.

FireBeyond 9y ago
Right, like it says, "the payoff is often dwarfed by the investment of time/energy".

wyldfire 9y ago

Gee, I guess I'm a bit of a sucker. I find myself pitying this man. He seems to have had no opportunity to bond with either a mother or a father. > the true motivation of the swindler is never money. “They want to have power over other people,” she says. “What is more controlling than the most intimate thing of all?” Indeed, I suppose if I had grown up like he had I'd feel very much powerless. True -- Caldwell is bad news and he is really doing harm to his victims, but I think I understand some of what motivates him.

reverend_gonzo 9y ago
You can absolutely pity someone, while still not tolerating the behavior and reinforcing bad behavior by giving them things. Understanding where someone comes from is empathy. That's a good thing to have and doesn't make you a sucker. However, at some point in his life, he became an adult and has to take responsibility for his actions. If you keep giving a pass because of trauma that happened in his childhood, that now makes you a sucker. If anything, society should try to provide people like this with counseling, psychological support, etc. However, at some point, they still have to make the choice to be a contributing member of society.
Theodores 9y ago
The guy has a flavour of narcissistic personality disorder hence the ability to 'con' and the complete lack of empathy. Not to mention the delusions of grandeur and no friends, i.e. people known for years rather than weeks. There is no mention of narcissistic rage though, maybe when he went crazy he upped and left town rather than start shouting, so perhaps his personality disorder was in the same cluster as narcissistic personality disorder. Whatever the label, it all started to go wrong for him right from the beginning. If his parents went their separate ways at 10 months, who was there at 5 months when he was learning to smile? Why is it that babies learn to smile so young? They imitate and some parents are beaming ear to ear with smiles, despite the lack of sleep. Others not. I imagine a year in or when his mum started to have new boyfriends she didn't like having him as a constant reminder of that guy who left her, the father. So the next thing is the disruption. A 'normal' child has 24/7 attention on them when they are two years old, it is all about them, they have no need to attention seek. This child can go to dinner parties with the parents and be passed around with all the attention on them. Meanwhile, the child not given that attention has to seek attention by being disruptive. They get positively banished and the idea of being the loved center of attention just doesn't happen. School comes along and again, disruptive child gets excluded, out in special rooms and not on the team. In this time excluded from the rest a lot can be learned about stuff through books and screens, so although reading is brilliant, it is also living life second hand, not through experience. So, on to the developed adult pathology. The narcissistic injury has to be hidden from the world behind this mask of a fake identity. So an identity is just taken wholesale, off someone else. In this instance he did steal a hiker's name and outfit, probably even the tattoos were stolen, all to create this mask. People get genuinely taken in by the mask, they think it is all real until 3 months later when they start to get drawn in even deeper by the mask. Fundamentally a full time narcissist without financial backing from a family estate or the dad that did run away will not be able to generate income on their own. This is because they are unemployable. They don't get the whole premise of work, they are still that disruptive child behind that mask and they do not think of others. So they are obliged to be a con artist. They live off the largess of others, not lined up as marks, it just works out that way, the pattern is set. The relationships this guy made went fabulously at the start with 'love' from the marks able to explain away that missing money or that missing ability to care. Eventually suspicions do get aroused and people get tired of the narcissist. But they keep trying to reel them back in with feigned remorse, e.g. the letters to say 'sorry'. This is actually felt in a second-hand way by the real character behind the mask and they do know that they have just burned someone, they just don't feel it. The true narcissist will not believe in personality disorders or psychiatry. They don't want to know that for the same reasons a smoker does not want to know the truth about cancer. They actually have no idea about their condition or what they can do about it, even if they do get to read the wikipedia pages pertinent to the topic. They will be set in this pattern for life. One problem with 'the mask' is that it is set in time. So this guy things he is some hip climbing type. That is the mask. This will have to be worn and clung onto until old age, even if being on the run another identity has to be assumed. So what I found intriguing about the article was a complete lack of psychiatry and the on-the-couch diagnosis of something out there in the narcissism spectrum. We all could do with education in this area just to save a lot of time. We also need to have those in the front line - police, medical staff, HR professionals, better able to not be taken in by these people. To varying degrees we were all neglected as children, to varying degrees we were all overly smothered with love as children, we all have imbalances and levels of narcissism, sometimes healthy, sometimes not. But then there are con-men like this guy that are so far off the scale it is hard to identify with them as human once the mask slips.

televod 9y ago

There's a guy who goes by "Ian" and he's been riding his bicycle up and down the west coast for years, pulling small-time grifts. I met him while touring between Portland and SF in the summer of 2010 and his story seemed fishy, then was surprised to see him pop up on a Portland bike blog: https://bikeportland.org/2012/05/30/oregonians-come-to-aid-of-stranded-bike-tourist-72522 https://bikeportland.org/2012/05/30/oregonians-come-to-aid-o... He told us he was a former aircraft mechanic for Quantas and had been given lifetime unlimited airfare, and was spending his retirement touring every continent. Had a story about every topic we brought up, and I think his angle was at least partly about impressing us with his adventures. He didn't ask for money directly but it was implied that he needed some. Another group of cyclists showed up before the conversation got too awkward and we took the opportunity to turn in for the night and let him work his magic on the newcomers instead.

jenkstom 9y ago

Classic Narcissistic Personality Disorder.