America's most arrested man dies at age 74 after more than 1,500 busts and 6,000 days in jail
- Henry Earl, a homeless alcoholic Kentucky man died at the age of 74 last week
- He was described as charismatic with a great sense of humor by people
- Earl was buried at the Owenton Cemetery by rehabilitation facility workers
Henry Earl from Lexington, Kentucky, who was arrested more than 1,500 times in his career of criminality, was buried at the Owenton Cemetery last week.
His epic law-unabiding - mostly public intoxication - made the homeless man nicknamed 'James Brown' and something of a legend in his city.
He had spent the final years of his life in obscurity at the Owenton Healthcare and Rehabilitation Facility.
- Henry Earl, who has been dubbed as 'America's most arrested man' for spending thousands of days in jail died at the age of 74 last week
Earl, who started drinking at the age of 18 after his adoptive mother died and began his career of criminality in the 1970s at the age of 20, was described as a charismatic with a great sense of humor.
'He was a character, he had a wonderful sense of humor,' said Ginny Ramsey, founder of Lexington's Catholic Action Center, who knew him for decades.
She also described him as gentle soul with a free spirit.
'We'd say now Henry Earl, you need to be in by 9:30 or 10 o'clock. The weekends you can stay out till 11. Well, he tried, but wasn't quite ready.
'When we wouldn't see Henry Earl for awhile, everyone would get concerned, we thought he'd die in the streets. He didn't die in the streets,' she told LEX18.
- Earl, who started drinking at the age of 18 after his adoptive mother died and began his career of criminality in the 1970s at the age of 20, was described as a charismatic with a great sense of humor
The man with many mugshots: Earl never takes the same mugshot twice, as evidenced in the above collage from just a few of his arrests in Kentucky
Two of the Owenton Facility's employees who cared for Earl in his final days and attended the ceremony described him as pleasant man who tried to make people laugh.
Kirsten Dempsey told the channel 'he was a very pleasant man, always a good time, always tried to make people laugh' while Charlotte Woods joked 'you could ask him "what's your name?" and he'd say James Brown'.
Earl's arrest history goes as far back as July 1970 when he was in his twenties for carrying a concealed weapon, according to The Smoking Gun, which has followed his career. He would go on to be arrested 33 more times that decade.
Since then, Earl has been gradually increasing his frequency of arrests.
In the 1980s, Earl picked up the pace with 230 arrests, most due to public drunkenness or disorderly conduct. But it wasn't until 2008, that Earl gained national attention when he found himself in court for his 1000th arrest for public intoxication.
