
Inside the Mind of Thru-Hiking's Devious Con Man - fern12
https://www.outsideonline.com/2243621/appalachian-hustle
======
V2hLe0ThslzRaV2
>> "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
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
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.

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pcunite
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

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wyldfire
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.

~~~
Theodores
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.

~~~
wu-ikkyu
>con-men like this guy that are so far off the scale it is hard to identify
with them as human

We should be very careful when labeling humans as subhuman. Not only is it a
psychoanalytical cop out but it is the age old excuse for some of the most
atrocious human rights abuses.

This is a man is a small time thief with social issues who manipulates people.
What is so inhuman about that? Are social problems, thievery, and manipulation
not common phenomenon in human societies?

~~~
valuearb
“This is a man is a small time thief with social issues who manipulates
people. What is so inhuman about that? Are social problems, thievery, and
manipulation not common phenomenon in human societies?”

Saying it that way doesn’t allow you to write 2 pages of pseudo-psychological
“analysis” of a person we’ve never met.

------
cko
>> 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
(Mostly) petty non violent crimes, overflowing jails and prisons.

------
dogruck
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
That isn't a particularly illuminating article - is there more information
elsewhere?

~~~
pgl
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
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.

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narrator
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
Right, like it says, "the payoff is often dwarfed by the investment of
time/energy".

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televod
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-o...](https://bikeportland.org/2012/05/30/oregonians-come-to-aid-of-
stranded-bike-tourist-72522)

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.

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jenkstom
Classic Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

