Another illustration of how rural socio-spatiality conceals

That was the thesis of this book chapter from 2014, The Rural Lawscape:  Space Tames Law Tames Space, which elicited a great deal of controversy.  One controversial aspect--perhaps the most controversial among editors of the volume and workshop attendees in the run up to publication--was  my assertion that rural places could be more lawless because legal actors struggle to surveil rural locales, in part because of their vastness and because of the natural privacy associated with material distance.   

So I couldn't help feel a bit chuffed when I saw the news of where Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's associate, has been hiding out for months--on a 156-acre acre estate in rural New Hampshire.  The New Hampshire Union Leader's headline is "'A good place to hide:' New Hampshire locals had no idea Jeffrey Epstein ally holed up nearby."  Richard Valdmanis reported for Reuters.  An excerpt follows, beginning with a description of Maxwell's hideout, a "luxury timber-framed home perched on 156 acres of New Hampshire pine and oak forests boasts dramatic views of Mount Sunapee's foothills, but [ ] secluded enough to have kept her out of eyeshot of the tight-knit locals.

It was not until Thursday that other residents of this rural corner of New England knew her whereabouts, after FBI agents arrested her on charges she lured underage girls for the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse.

Maxwell's property is on the outskirts of Bedford, population 1,650, which features "white colonial homes, horse farms, stone walls and a historic covered bridge." Valdmanis quotes 53-year-old Laurie Colburn, whose home is less than a mile from Maxwell's estate,

I had no clue she was there.  Goes to show you, you don’t always know who your neighbors are.

The story quotes several other residents who also indicate they were oblivious to Maxwell's presence.  One, 74-year-old Alan Grandy, says:

People mainly know each other here, but there are plenty of places to hide away and not be seen.

Gandy said he'd gotten to know most people in town by "working for years at the counter in the local grocery store."

47-year-old Nate Herrick, an English teacher, commented:  

She’s right up to the Washington town line, and that is the smallest town in the world I ride my motorcycle along that road, and there’s just not much back there.

I have written a great deal about rural lack of anonymity.  In this case, it seems, Maxwell's anonymity was preserved because of the remoteness, the size of the landholding--and the fact that Maxwell had the fiscal resources to avail herself of the protective veil of rural privacy.