"Barefoot Bandit" Colton Harris-Moore Still on the Move, Say Cops
NEW YORK (CBS) A man believed to be Colton Harris-Moore, the teenage fugitive from the Pacific Northwest, is continuing to move east and has abandoned his latest stolen car in Dallas City, Ill., a small town that sits on the Iowa border.
PICTURES: Barefoot Bandit on the Run
The car found in Dallas City is a 2010 white Chevrolet HHR that was reported stolen from Ottumwa, Iowa earlier this week. The driver tried and failed to cross a creek and the car got snuck, according to Hancock County Sheriff John Jefferson. The creek was especially high because of recent rains.
"The windows were broken out with a shovel that was inside the car," Jefferson said. "We don't know if he did that out of anger or in an attempt to hide his fingerprints but all the windows were broken."
The car, belonging to the city water department in Ottumwa, was easy pickings, because the driver left the keys in the ignition, according to Ottumwa police.
PICTURES: Barefoot Bandit on the Run
Sheriff Jefferson said the area where the car was abandoned is heavily wooded and rural, and he has alerted homeowners in the area to be on the lookout for the driver.
He said the area has its share of empty cabins and some farmers there had private airstrips. Johnson said his 9-man police force is checking the area as part of their regular patrol.
There is still no definitive evidence the car thief and burglar is Harris-Moore but a police crime lab is investigating evidence found at a home in Yankton, South Dakota.
A family returning from vacation surprised the burglar there, and he left behind a lot of forensic evidence, including DNA.
Fueling suspicion that the man is Harris-Moore is his description as a tall, lanky young man, and a series of car thefts and break-ins at regional airports along the man's route as he travels from west to east. Along the way, cars and break-ins have been reported in Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa and now Illinois.
Complete "Barefoot Bandit" Coverage on Crimesider.
