Remember how, in Catch Me If You Can, fugitive Leonardo DiCaprio kept calling Detective Tom Hanks to taunt him? Here is a convicted burglar doing the same thing, in real time on Facebook. Should we celebrate or fear him?

Craig 'Lazie' Lynch has been rising to folk hero status after absconding, in early September, from a prison in Suffolk Bay. (England! Which frees us up to celebrate him, because NIMBY.) He's been daring the cops to come find him with defiant photographs, and detailing the corporeal pleasures associated with freedom, ever since:

mmm i just had a 12lb venison steak. Roasted veg and chips, bangin meal.

I feel stuffed but still got room for the j.d's . Hope you enjoyed the meal babe's. We'll have to eat here again. Now to drive home in this shit weather. Hope we make it cos i'm ready to get in bed and un wrap somethin for afters x x.

Craig 'Lazie' Lynch Is thinkin, which lucky girl will be my first of 2010!!

Here's how he celebrated Christmas. The middle finger is blurred because I was forced to rely photographic middlemen, since Lazie hasn't accepted my friend request. (If my friendship is rejected by an escaped convict so indiscriminate as to send Facebook messages to the police, it will truly be a low point in my social networking career.)

YES YES i fuckin made it to Xmas i beat their fuckn system and i love it. I love you all my family my friends my lovers and all my supporters and fans i love the whole lot of you x x your the best merry xmas merry xmas merry xmas ho ho ho.

If any of you was doubtin my freedom. Here's proof. How the fuck could i get my hands on a bird like this in jail. ha ha.

But will Lazie last until 2010? His yuletide updates invited press coverage and a ramped up manhunt, with Facebook disabling various accounts and delivering data to law enforcement. To get around this—and to avoid the "haters and racists" populating his comment sections—Lazie has constructed a Byzantine web of personal profiles and fan pages, each with varying degrees of privacy.* At last count, he had 7300 fans and 1300 friends. He's skittish, too. A recent update read, "Oh No sirens!! Its happening," only to turn into a sigh of relief when the sirens weren't for him. A recent, baleful update reads:

well what can i say fellow friends. The run is nearly over. Sorry some of you had to find out like this. I know some of you might take offence that i never told you personally. But you know me. I Trust No One. Its the only way to be.

If we have learned anything from Hollywood fugitives, it's that the desire for human connection is always what does the lone wolf in—and Facebook udpates count. Lazie, woefully aware of this premise, announces in his bittersweet About Me: "You'll have a laugh with me but it will end in tears. It always does." Just don't pull a gun or anything when they come to get you, because then we'll feel like total jerks for cheering you on.

Click below for screengrabs. [DailyMail] [LondonTimes] [Facebook] [Facebook]

* Hiding from law enforcement with privacy settings is theoretically pointless, but the fact that this strategy has worked for three months suggests Suffolk cops are actually that out of touch. Also, after successfully evading the authorities for this long, if he is thinking anything at all, it is probably, "Gawd, am I so baller, I think I'll take another topless picture and brag about my sex life some more." Successfully evading The Man is a known ego boost and aphrodisiac.