海角大神

Eric Frein sightings: How 'wilderness ninja' has outfoxed 1,000 cops

Law enforcement officials are shifting the focus of the massive manhunt for Eric Frein following two sightings of the alleged sniper in northern Pennsylvania. 

Two fresh sightings of alleged sniper Eric Frein have resulted in more closed public schools in northern Pennsylvania and a听shift in a massive manhunt to near where Mr. Frein went to high school 鈥� and where he was a member of the high school rifle team.

The pressing question of how a single man has outmaneuvered 1,000 trained law enforcement officers in the Pocono Mountains听for over five weeks suggests that Frein has used a home-field advantage, long-term planning, and survival skills to resemble a 鈥渨ilderness ninja,鈥� a term some use to describe a rare breed of native scouts who can, in essence, morph into shadows.

But while true native scouts are bulwarks for good, Frein has 鈥済one to the dark side,鈥� says Shane Hobel, the founder of the Mountain Scout Survival School in New York鈥檚 Hudson Valley.

鈥淭his guy is on a totally different parallel [than a native scout] but it is a parallel,鈥� says Mr. Hobel. 鈥淭hat makes him a dangerous individual, and the fact that he鈥檚 got sniper capability makes it even more dangerous.鈥�

A self-taught survivalist and crack rifle shot, Frein is alleged to have killed one state trooper and wounded another in a brazen听midnight听ambush on a rural police barracks in Blooming Grove, Pa., on听Sept. 12.听

Tom Brown, the legendary American tracker and founder of the Tracker School in Manahawkin, N.J., says听that Frein likely planned the attack and escape for years. That鈥檚 corroborated, says Mr. Brown, by stories about Frein disappearing from work for weeks at a time, likely to prepare food caches and find hidden shelters. The fact that searchers have failed to spot Frein with heat-sensitive scanners suggests he may be hiding in caves.

After five weeks of searching, police have at times come听titillatingly听close to Frein, spotting him on several occasions and finding several camp spots, including one with a rifle, ammunition, and a diary that recounts the shooting in cold-blooded terms.

Police insist they鈥檙e close to capturing Frein, believing that he is increasingly feeling stressed and cornered.

The most recent possible sightings 鈥� including听Monday听near a post office in Swiftwater, Pa., and three days earlier near Pocono Mountain East High School 鈥� seem to corroborate those observations. Those sightings suggest that Frein 鈥渋s going to be making mistakes,鈥� says Mr. Brown.听

Hampering the search, he adds, is that police have to be 鈥渧ery, very cautious. When you鈥檙e dealing with a man with sniper capabilities, a tracker is torn between looking at tracks on the ground and then worry that someone can drop you at 300 yards, even 500 yards. Then you don鈥檛 know if his place is going to be tripwired. It鈥檚 nerve wracking.鈥�

But the failure so far of the police and military-style manhunt to flush Frein, and given repeated failures to close in on him after spotting him, suggests to some American trackers that there are deeper flaws with the police approach.

Too few of the searchers in pictures have 鈥渕ud on their knees,鈥� observes Brown, suggesting that officers aren鈥檛 spending enough time crawling through underbrush and through small caves.

In that light, there鈥檚 likely increasing pressure on police to call in civilian trackers like Brown, who has participated in dozens of search operations, including ones where he鈥檚 been shot and stabbed.

Search crews appear to have waded out of their depth with "guys flown in from somewhere else to go onto Frein's playing field," says Hobel. 鈥淎t the same time, I鈥檝e got to support the searchers 鈥� they鈥檙e out there in the landscape, against an enemy they鈥檙e unfamiliar with, moving in a way they鈥檙e not trained, and basically going into guerrilla warfare.鈥�

Given his penchant for war games and authentic Serbian Army fatigues, Frein, whom authorities say has a deadly beef with police, is clearly skilled, highly motivated, and fueled by a dark anti-police philosophy.

It's still unclear what drives Frein's anti-government and anti-police philosophy, but his fascination with the Serb Army could offer clues. Much like the former Confederacy in the US, Serbs have a听deep sense of a defining听"lost cause"听in their culture,听epitomized by the Serbian army's failure to stanch the Ottoman Empire's advance into Europe听at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. Atrocities suffered by Serbs at the hands of Croatian fascists and German Gestapo in World War II, largely ignored by the West,听only fueled a national sense of grievance.

But referencing Christopher Knight, the so-called North Pond Hermit, who lived for 27 years in the backwoods of Maine, surviving mainly on pilfered goods before his arrest in 2013, Brown notes that that hermit 鈥渨asn鈥檛 a survivalist, he was just a thief in the woods 鈥� and that鈥檚 what this guy is going to become. Unfortunately, if he鈥檚 not mentally stable, somebody innocent is going to get themselves hurt.鈥�