Bill Ryan's Other Blog

Craig Lynch is a fellow who escaped from Hollesey Bay Prison (Suffolk, UK) back in September.  People escape from minimum security facilities all the time, so what’s the big deal about him?  In a manner reminiscent of Jack the Ripper’s or the Zodiac Killer’s taunts, Craig Lynch has been taunting the cops as egregiously as I can imagine someone doing, via Facebook. (For the clueless, I’m in no way equating what Lynch did with anything Jack the Ripper did.  Jack the Ripper sent many taunting letters to the police which is the only thing I’m saying is common).

If all we were talking about what an escapee taunting police, it wouldn’t be particularly noteworthy either. What’s amazing is the response to it.  In a redux of Natural Born Killers, Craig Lynch has become a celebrity of sorts.  Look at his Facebook page:

The image on this page is obfuscated a bit but he’s extending the finger you’d guess he was extending.  His affiliation if “F*** the System”.  Again, nothing amazing right?  What’s amazing is the number of Google groups dedicated to Craig Lynch.  The most popular one has 40,553 fans!  Even the Z-List groups about this guy have hundreds of users.

He updates regularly and has been free for several months.  He apparently does have some sense of decency in that he’s offended by the accusation that he’d rob or assault an old lady.  He’s definitely got a sense of humor, that’s for sure. 

Not too long ago, I posted about Evan Ratliff aka The Atavist.  He’s a freelance writer who’s job was to completely disappear for a month.  There was a $5,000.00 prize for finding him. And while he did a pretty good job of disappearing, they found him.  Keep in mind the people that found him were not members of law enforcement. Some of the posse were professional private investigators, but they managed to find him without a single subpoena.  They had no official authority and they found him pretty darned quickly.  Ratliff was very careful and took many steps to not get caught. 

By contrast, Lynch is no doubt using some care to not be caught but he’s being quite flagrant. And unlike Ratliff, he’s quick to post pictures.  It’s possible some of what he’s saying is meant to throw off investigators, but what one chooses to lie about invariably reveals quite a bit about what they are lying about.  It’s inevitable.

Now, the only reason the Ratliff contest as a challenge was b/c Law Enforcement couldn’t participate. (And God knows no one would ever look up an adversary or someone they didn’t like in a direct abuse of their power – Strange, I just experienced a really strange feeling of Déjà vu as I posted that link. I wonder why?) If Law Enforcement could participate and treat him as though he was a fugitive, I doubt he could have made it 72 hours unless he camped out in the woods or the middle of the dessert.

So why hasn’t he been caught?  God only knows. I’m guessing though, it’s NOT because English Law Enforcement officials are too stupid or incompetent to use the normal means (like the ones citizens used on Ratliff).  As the Ratliff case PROVED, there’s a WORLD of information you can compile find just using public sources.  So much so many might be inclined to believe someone had access to non-public information.  But that’d be stupid and clueless and like I said, there’s no way that’s the problem here.

So why can’t they find him?  I’m not familiar with British Law Enforcement procedures or the shackles they face, but I’m pretty sure it’s related to the latter.  I’ve been searching around for a while trying to find out why they’re having this much trouble, so far to no avail.  One thing I am sure of without knowing a single thing about English Jurisprudence – anyone that makes this much of a mockery of those in power isn’t going to get much leniency when he sits in front of a judge. 

CORRECTION:

I said that he escaped from a minimum security facility. That gives the impression they were somehow remiss.  From what I’ve recently come across he didn’t escape at all. He failed to return to prison after leaving on a one day pass. 

From the comments on Digg:

He failed to return from a day-pass. He was housed in an ‘open prison’ which allows for day job release, release for home visits and Sunday dinners, etc. with a 7pm curfew. This wasn’t much of an escape, and this guy is clearly a moron since he had less than a year to go after serving over 6.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/suffolk …
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2204824.stm

[tags]Craig Lynch, Craig Lazie Lynch, Hollesey Bay Prison, Evan Ratliff, The Atavist[/tags]