His Motive is unclear. Speculation is wide. Ask and ye shall receive many theories. He is anti-government. He resents the police because of an arrest and jailing for theft several years ago. He is a deluded war re-enactor who is “playing Army.” Many point to the precision shot made to the groin of the surviving trooper, and are convinced that Frein, a marksman, was sending a message.
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Eric Frein, wanted for murdering a Pennsylvania State Trooper, was spotted near the post office last week in this rural crossroads snug in the Pocono Mountains. Schools were closed. Children were kept inside. At night they sleep in their parents’ bedrooms. Anyone in Monroe County who has a gun has it ready.

“They saw him up by the school, too, second time in two days,” said a woman who looked around cautiously as she quickly picked up her mail at the Swiftwater Post Office.

“No, no, no name, no name, I live alone,” she said in a low voice, as if Frein might hear. “He’s desperate. I don’t need no trouble.”

Frein, 31, has been on the run since Sept. 12, when he ambushed two state troopers at the police barracks in Blooming Grove, killing Corporal Byron Dickson, 38, and critically wounding Trooper Alex Douglass, who took a direct hit to the crotch.

Motive is unclear. Speculation is wide. Ask and ye shall receive many theories.

He is anti-government. He resents the police because of an arrest and jailing for theft several years ago. He is a deluded war re-enactor who is “playing Army.” Many point to the precision shot made to the groin of the surviving trooper, and are convinced that Frein, a marksman, was sending a message.

“I think he prepared for years for this moment,” said a man who told me he roomed with Frein for two years. “He said he fought with the Serbian Army, but that’s just a bunch of (nonsense). He makes his tea with a Turkish tea set. He smokes Serbian cigarettes. He dresses like a Serbian soldier. He practically memorized ‘The Art of War’ by Sun Tzu. I seen him every night, reading it. That’s why they can’t catch him. Eric knows the art of war; they know how to write tickets. His endgame? To be a legend.”

John Mullins, manager of Pocono Mountain Firearms in Cresco, dismissed the spate of Frein sightings as “one big crock.”

“Why would this guy run out of the woods in daylight, run through someone’s backyard, and then back into the woods? If he’s on the move, it’s at night. He’s moved further and further into the woods, if he’s even around anymore.”

Frein’s name evokes revulsion in this part of northeastern Pennsylvania. But his story confounds, especially among hunters who know the difficulties of spending just a few days in the vast, uninhabited, wild country between Monroe and Pike counties, the locus of the search.

So far, Frein has eluded a force of 1,000 searchers equipped with drones, heat detectors, infrared cameras and the “Rook,” a six-ton, armored seige vehicle.

Frein has put down scented clothes dryer sheets and cayenne pepper to throw off police sniffer dogs. His insulated clothing conceals body heat. He has set up decoy campsites. He has hundreds of cabins, vacation homes, abandoned and foreclosed houses in which to hide.

“This is unprecedented,” said Jere Dunkelberger, owner of Dunkelberger’s Sports Outfitters in Stroudsburg. “It’s not a level playing field. He’s in his element; the police aren’t. It’s like a hunter chasing a white tail deer. That white tail, he knows the woods. It’s his home. This guy, Frein, those woods are his home.

“Let me put it this way,” said Dunkelberger, who has hunted in the area for 50 years. “In Pennsylvania, on the first day of deer season, there is upwards of 1 million hunters in the woods all over the state. Up here, in these parts, there are thousands of hunters in the woods. And when I’m out there, I could go the whole day without seeing one other hunter.”

At the Frogtown Chop House, not far from where Frein was spotted, the happy hour crowd drifted in.

Proprietor Eric Noone stood behind the bar and, wearily, said, “Helicopters been over my house every night.”

“There’s a lot more that this kid is into than we’ll know until he’s found, stuff they’re (the authorities) keeping under their wing,” Noone said. “Because if it was just a vendetta against the state police, why are we seeing FBI, ATF (U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) and Border Patrol? Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization) was here for a couple of weeks. Interpol! Interpol don’t come and stay for weeks for some nut in the woods.”

Late afternoon darkened as happy hour roared to life at the Frogtown Chop House. The bar is cozy. The cheerful fireplace cast shadows, lending to storytelling and speculation about the fugitive Frein, wanted for murder, armed, dangerous, desperate, and in the vicinity.

A patron looked up from his friends. Shock streaked across his face.

“There he is! At the window!”

Heads snapped around. Conversation paused. No one was at the window.

“Got ya’s,” the man said.

There was laughter, not all of it nervous.

http://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/news/columnists/jd-mullane/the-legend-of-eric-frein/article_adbba80a-17d3-542d-8825-6f4020d1195b.html