The Feather Thief

Johnson details his interview with Edwin Rist. Johnson’s main goal for the interview was to figure out who Edwin Rist really was. Throughout his investigation, Johnson had uncovered many versions of Edwin, ranging from a brilliant thief who master-minded one of the great heists of the 21st century to a kid who allowed his obsession to drive him to commit a crime. While Johnson had 284 questions for Edwin, he really hoped to address two. The first being whether Edwin really had Asperger’s syndrome; the second being whether Long was his accomplice and still had the missing skins.

To help make Edwin more comfortable, Johnson started the interview by discussing Edwin’s childhood and career as a flautist. Johnson then begins asking Edwin about the heist and his sentencing. Like many other fly-tiers, Edwin believes it is shameful that museums horde bird skins. He firmly believes that they no longer hold value to the scientific community, even wrongly stating that researchers can no longer extract DNA from the specimens. Johnson explicitly asked about Edwin’s diagnosis with Asperger’s syndrome. Edwin seemed to cast doubt on his own diagnosis, which made Johnson more strongly believe that Edwin did not actually have Asperger’s syndrome.