There's an update in the case of Casey Nocket, the horrible artist/attention whore who vandalized a slew of national parks and Instagrammed the whole thing. As Reuters reports, Nocket has now been named by the Parks Service as "the major suspect" in their investigation into the vandalism, and a spokesperson for the agency says they have evidence linking Nocket to acts of vandalism in eight different parks.
As reported earlier, Nocket went about documenting all her graffiti art-making on social media but after drawing the attention of Reddit and Modern Hiker magazine, she shut down her Instagram account.
An interesting sidebar: Los Angeles' KCET tells the story of Trevor Lee, a.k.a. trevlee on Instagram, who recently became the second-ever person to be charged in federal court for violating national park rules via evidence found on social media. While Lee was not rampantly vandalizing the parks like Nocket (he's actually a park concessionaire employee at Yosemite), he was charged with illegally camping where he wasn't supposed to, and lighting campfires in illegal places as well. Lee settled the case and charges were dropped.
No charges have yet been filed against Nocket, but it seems like only a matter of days before there are. And Parks Service spokesperson Kari Cobb indicates that this might be the biggest and most egregious vandalism case they've had to date. "As far as a widespread case like this, it's the first one I'm aware of," she says.
Previously: Despicable New York Woman Defaces Yosemite, Other Parks With Her Art