Mike Hannigan was the very scourge of Woboro County. In fact, he was the scourgiest, and he knew it. Posters, printed by the Woboro County Police Department, were tacked to lamp posts in three states, reading, “Mike Hannigan is Wanted Dead or Alive.” He was fifth most wanted in the entire country. He terrorized indiscriminately, plundering banks, internationally owned supermarket franchises, local coffee roasters and one cooperatively owned second-hand bicycle shop. The gutsy pirate gained legendary status via his theatrical escapades, which often involved evading law enforcement with gleeful, even foolhardy panache. But his career has ended abruptly, after a spontaneous firefight between him and the Woboro Sheriff late last night. Hannigan was hit twice, and rushed to a nearby hospital. At midnight, medics finally declared the outlaw dead or alive. At last, there is peace.

“I couldn’t believe the news at first,” an anonymous Woboro resident told the press. Perhaps it was difficult, at first, to envision a Woboro without Mike; after all, despite his reputation, he did put Woboro on the map. Any disbelief about Hannigan’s condition was put to rest in a statement by the Woboro County Hospital, where Mike currently resides under stringent security. The statement confirmed that the criminal “is in fact dead or alive. While it was unclear, in the immediate aftermath of the incident, whether his condition would lean gradually towards one end of the spectrum or another, his condition has stabilized, and he is now certainly dead or alive, and definitely not both at once and certainly not neither.” It appears that, at last, the State has gotten its wish, and Woboro is now one outlaw safer.

This diagnosis has come as a relief to members of county and state government. WCPD Sheriff Peter Dickey, who fired the perhaps-fatal shot, seems satisfied. “It’s justice served, you know? Like, we got we asked for.” Woboro county representative Barbara Kinney also expressed relief at the news, “I’m just glad he’s off the streets, he’d been terrorizing us for too long.” Others express concern. “I wish we made the posters a bit more specific,” said Marcus Dubois, a graphic designer who created WCPD’s ‘wanted’ posters, which clearly indicated the desired health status of the outlaw upon his arrest. For the most part, Mike’s death or life seems to elicit a cathartic exhale from those the communities he terrorized in Woboro. Joe Pesaccio, a co-manager at Red Wheels, the cooperatively owned second-hand bicycle shop robbed by Mike Hannigan in 2012, (he points out that his is the third most popular cooperatively owned second-hand bicycle shop in Woboro county), sums up the general community sentiment, “I can rest easy knowing Mike’s finally dead or alive.”

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