14 DAY TRIAL // Hollywood movies have a tendency to glorify the 'bad boys,' but the realities of a 'life of crime' aren't exactly glamorous. What's more, those on the wrong side of the law aren't exactly the criminal masterminds of Sherlock Holmes movies. What it comes down to is that, sooner or later, you're going to end up in jail. That said, who's to say that you can't have a little fun before the inevitable conclusion, which is what Craig Lynch tried to do while on the run having escaped from prison. Most people in his situation would try to keep a low profile, but he decided a Facebook profile was more fun. The British police took as much Facebook mocking as they could and finally caught up with him for a little offline chat to the disappointment of his 40,000 Facebook fans.
The man had escaped from a minimum-security prison in September, apparently close to the end of his seven-year term for aggravated burglary. While on the run he maintained a rather popular Facebook page, updating it with interesting trivia like what stake he had for dinner and hints to shrewd plan to remain undetected. His most popular entries, though, were the ones mocking his pursuers, sometimes having less then kind words for their efforts.
He quickly became somewhat of an Internet phenomenon, in itself not exactly much of a feat as thousands of much more popular YouTube kittens would attest, with t-shirts, always on the cutting edge of Internet memes, and YouTube tributes in his name. His Facebook page had 40,000 fans two weeks ago when Facebook finally shut it down.
Eventually, the police caught up with him and he was arrested a couple of days ago in southern England. It wasn't specified if Facebook was involved in the investigation or if the information it might have provided was helpful in his apprehension. "Nearly 12,000 inmates have fled open prisons [in the UK] since 1995," the Daily Mail also informs. It's unclear how many of those set up Facebook fan pages.