Chasing the Barefoot Bandit
Produced by Paul LaRosa and Sarah Prior
[This story previously aired on Nov. 13, 2010. It was updated on June 18, 2011]
Before Colton Harris-Moore became famous as an international fugitive, before he attracted more than 100,000 fans on Facebook and before he stole a single airplane, he was one very unpopular teenager back in his hometown of Camano Island, Wash.
"Colton Harris Moore is nothing but a thief, a criminal," Camano resident Josh Flickner says. "He's not Robin Hood. He's not Jesse James. He's not James Bond."
Colton's crime spree on this tranquil island began when he was just 10 years old. He soon advanced to breaking into homes, using stolen credit cards and stealing boats. Now, at age 19, he has a $10,000 price tag on his head and a bounty hunter on his trail.
This past summer, residents of Camano Island reached a breaking point and gathered to discuss rumors that were frightening everyone.
"We want him stopped," says a man at the gathering. "Most of us what him dead, period."
A crowd roars, "No," in response.
How did it come to this? Why would anyone want to kill this troubled teenager?
"I mean, he is a criminal," says Ashley Martin, who grew up with Colton on Camano Island. "But at the same time, there really is a little part of me that just really feels bad for him because I've known him, you know, almost my whole life."
Martin remembers Colton as "a very sweet little kid."
Classmate Jessica Wesson remembers a little boy who always loved animals and airplanes.
"He was really smart, very into airplanes. He had a Boeing book of all the planes that they actually made," she tells "48 Hours Mystery" correspondent Peter Van Sant.
"And did he tell you what he wanted to do for a living when he grew up?"
"He mentioned that he wanted to be a pilot," she replies. "When we heard he was stealing planes, I was like, well, that kinda makes sense."
Wesson says she never went to Colton's house. Maybe he didn't want her to see the dilapidated trailer where he grew up with his mother, Pam Kohler.
"Why do you think Colton went from being this sweet kid that you knew when you first met him into a criminal?" Van Sant asks.
"Probably his upbringing," Wesson replies. "I hear his mom wasn't so nice…"
"48 Hours" Investigator Paul Ciolino uncovered court records that showed a dozen calls to child protective services by the time Colton was just 14.
"The issue here with Colton is not so much what he did, but who created this kid," Ciolino explains. "There was physical abuse. There was mental abuse. There was physical neglect."
Author Bob Friel is writing a book about Colton's life called "The Barefoot Bandit: The True Tale of Colton Harris-Moore, New American Outlaw."
"I was having nightmares when I began to research his childhood… I would literally wake up in a sweat thinking about some things… Colt went through," Friel says. "His biological father was in and out of that trailer home that Pam was in."
Colton's father, Gordon Moore, has been mostly absent from his life. But when Colton was 12, Gordon was convicted of assault for choking the boy. Colton told a child services caseworker that his mother, Pam, was outraged - at him - for calling 911.
Colton had nowhere to turn. As one case worker wrote, "Colton wants mom to stop drinking and get a job and have food in the house, mom refuses."
"Pam chose beer over everything… It ruined his life," says Jacquie Staggs, who has known Pam since Colton was born.
Asked how Colton got his name, she says, "If you ask Pam, she'll tell you she named him after the beer."
"You're telling me that Pam named her son after Colt 45? The malt liquor?" Van Sant asks.
"Uh-huh. That's what she told me."
"48 Hours" wanted to try and meet Colton's mother. Investigator Paul Ciolino and Producer Sarah Prior joined Van Sant on a walk up the dirt driveway to find some answers.
"That's her house. Sarah, if she calls out, why don't you say that you're the one who left the note," instructs Van Sant.
A homemade sign out front shows Pam does not like visitors. It reads: NOTICE IF YOU GO PAST THIS SIGN YOU WILL BE SHOT.
Peter Van Sant: Hello, Pam?
Pam Kohler: Who are you?
Sarah Prior: Hi, I'm Sarah. I left you a note the other day from CBS…
Pam: I'm getting my shotgun right now.
Sarah: We just wanna talk to you, Pam. Can you just talk to us for a moment?
Pam: I'm getting my shotgun now. Get out of here!
Later, Pam changed her mind. Off camera, she told "48 Hours" she's always been a good mother to Colton. She also showed us a collage he made when he was 15, filled with images of things Colton might say he was missing in life: money, food and, of course, airplanes.
"When Colton Harris-Moore would break into a vacation home… he would use the shower. He would wash his clothes and he would sleep on the bed or sleep on the couch," Friel says. "…He was not the traditional kid breaking in to steal booze and damage a house."
But along the way, Colton did more than more just grab a snack and a shower. He stole laptops, iPods, cell phones and jewelry.
Read a letter from one of Colton's alleged victims
Colton's former partner in crime and self-described brains of the operation is Harley Davidson Ironwing.
"Would you say you brought Colton into the world of crime?" Van Sant asks Ironwing.
"I would say I brought him into the world of burglaries," he replies.
"What did you guys do together?"
"Hit houses. Stole cars."
"Did he ever tell you he wanted to be a pilot one day?"
"No. He just wanted to steal planes and just fly 'em. …I have countless people that blame me for what he is today."
Learn more about Harley Davidson Ironwing
By 2006, Colton was 15, more than six feet tall, and wanted by the law. He ate food where he could, stealing from vacant houses, and spent months from the cops in the woods, in vacation homes and even a tree house on a neighbor's property.
The citizens and police were sick of it. Acting on a tip, deputies went to his mother's house to arrest him. All they found was a note that Colton left for his mother, which reads: "Cops want to play, huh? Well, it's not no lil game. It's war and tell them that."
"Colton says, 'It's war.' What do you think he means?" Van Sant asks Ironwing.
"Come and catch me if you can," he replies. "It's a war of the minds. He wants to show them they aren't as smart as they think they are."
It was now February 2007. After several narrow escapes from the law, Colton broke into a house while the owner was out of town. A neighbor saw a light on and called the police. After a tense two-hour standoff, Colton was finally arrested. He didn't seem to like the media attention.
Colton was sentenced to three years in the juvenile system. Just one year later, in April 2008, he climbed out the window of a halfway house.
The chase was back on."The San Juan Islands are a wonderful place to live. We're a very tight knit community," says Colleen Armstrong, editor of the local newspaper.
And the jewel of the San Juan Island chain, says Armstrong, is beautiful Orcas Island. "We are covered in evergreens and cedars and Madrona trees and fir and wildlife and pristine water."
But residents say everything changed two years ago when Colton Harris-Moore fled to this island after escaping from a juvenile facility near Seattle.
"Colton Harris-Moore is a one man crime wave," says Armstrong.
Once the sun went down, Colton allegedly crept through the small village of Eastsound, making off with whatever he could carry.
"Money, lots of money, tools from the hardware store, food from markets, cash from ATMs," Armstrong tells Van Sant. "You name it, he's taken it."
Colton allegedly burglarized the Orcas Homegrown Market three times, transforming owner Kyle Ater from a serene organic grocer into Dirty Harry.
"I feel like I've been put in the situation where I have to defend my personal property," he explains. "I keep a gun with me because… I need to be ready."
Ater feels shaken by what he says Colton left behind after a break-in in February.
"I came in and there was large footprints… there were 39 of them. Giant footprints," he tells Van Sant as they walk through the store. "They went all the way around the deli, and then they kinda turned. And so he'd done everything he'd done in the store and then he was going out the side door with footprints and it said, C-YA!"
Photos: Life & Crimes of the Barefoot Bandit
Facing bankruptcy if Colton struck again, Ater started sleeping in his store each night with his two large dogs.
"This is my whole life, my whole livelihood, and my family's livelihood. So I have to be prepared to defend my own," he says.
Ater believes Colton is still in the area. "Yeah, right now I think he's in Deer Harbor… He was in a four-story home over there, had the heat turned on, popcorn all over the place. I guess he likes popcorn."
Colton spent months on Orcas Island, allegedly committing more than 20 break-ins and burglaries. Police released surveillance camera photos from a local market. Legend grew that he was now hiding out somewhere in the forest.
"This is his stomping grounds," Colleen Armstrong explains. "What you're looking at is Colton's land. He could be out there camping, foraging. He could be watching us right now, for all we know."
"And he'd have a big smile on his face?" Van Sant asks.
"Yes, he would. He'd be loving every minute of it."
Colton did seem to be enjoying himself. He used stolen cameras to snap self portraits. One of those became the iconic shot of the Barefoot Bandit featured on wanted posters everywhere.
"Is the sheriff's department - are they embarrassed by this, the fact that they haven't been able to find this kid?" Van Sant asks Armstrong.
"I think it's incredibly frustrating. Very, very frustrating," she replies.
With the sheriff stymied, "48 Hours" decided to track Colton.
Local realtor Suzanne Vidal invited "48 Hours" inside a vacation house that she thought had sat empty for the past eight months. Once inside, it's clear a stranger has been here.
"I have a strange feeling that somebody's been on the beds," Vidal says as she walks through the house. "It almost looks like somebody's been on the bed, doesn't it?"
Besides a depression in a bed, Vidal also notices a toilet seat was up, "like a man had used it." Then, more evidence: an unlocked back door that the realtor was certain had been locked.
"You know, actually, if you look at the table, there's food on the table," she tells Van Sant.
Then she notices popcorn. "You know he eats popcorn everywhere he goes," says Van Sant.
"No! Don't you tell me that!"
"I'm very serious. The places that he's found, generally there's a lot of popcorn around."
Vidal calls the sheriff and a deputy quickly responds. The house was dusted for fingerprints.
Was Colton here? The sheriff's department won't say, but these kinds of discoveries drive the locals over the edge.
"He gets an adrenaline rush from rippin' people off," says Marion Rathbone, who operates Verns, a local restaurant.
"Colton Harris-Moore," she says, "is a punk-ass kid who has caused more damage… to more of the small people, the little people… He's a piece of crap."
Rathbone says Colton scaled the side of her building with Spiderman-like moves, climbing in through a small opening.
Security camera video shows the burglar running through the restaurant - someone who looks very much like Colton and is clearly barefoot.
Rathbone says the thief stole $15,000 from her safe-her entire summer's profit.
"And after I pulled myself up off the floor - because I dropped to my knees - all I kept saying was 'Oh my God, oh my God.'"
And, Rathbone says, it wasn't the first time that Colton had broken in.
"He had been in this office a week before and used one of the credit cards that I had stashed on my computer to order a 'How to Fly a Small Aircraft' DVD," she explains.
"How To Fly A Small Aircraft" DVD? Is this really the way Colton taught himself how to fly? In the fall of 2008, Colton Harris-Moore stole a Cessna single-engine aircraft from a hangar on Orcas Island, Wash. The plane belonged to Seattle radio personality Bob Rivers.
"The day my plane was stolen… It was a brutal, gusty, windy day," says Rivers.
With no formal training, Colton made his fearless first flight over the Cascade Mountain Range through wind gusts coming from every direction.
Just this week, "48 Hours" learned exclusive details about that flight. As he flew over the mountains, Colton found himself trapped in a whiteout at 13,000 feet.
"That must have been a terrifying flight," remarks author Bob Friel.
It was. There was vomit in the cockpit and our sources say Colton felt he was going to die. Miraculously, he made it… flying 250 miles from Orcas Island to a field outside Yakima, Wash., where he crashed. Incredibly, Colton simply walked away.
So how did this high school dropout learn to fly?
"When Colton wants to learn something, Colton will do that," Friel says. "He will accomplish that… unlike anyone I've ever experienced before."
Colton apparently taught himself using that flight DVD he'd ordered online with a stolen credit card.
The sophisticated graphics on the DVD, distributed by a company called Sporty's, mimic the computerized controls in many modern planes.
"I had the hardest time, when I began researching this story, getting pilots to believe that this could possibly be this 17-year-old kid," says Friel.
And "48 Hours" has been told Colton also studied the Cessna's manual before that first flight.
"Even people who were obsessed with flying, loved airplanes, knew everything about airplanes - they would've killed themselves," Friel says. "Colt was able to pull it off."
After he fled the downed plane, "48 Hours'" sources say Colton hopped a freight train to Reno, Nevada. He lied about his age and got a job at a casino where he worked for six months.
Then, on Sept. 11, 2009, Colton resurfaced in a big way. He was back home in Washington State where authorities say he stole a second plane, this time making a dramatic nighttime landing on Orcas Island.
Colton's daring exploits inspired several fan clubs on Facebook and tens of thousands signed up.
"I think he loves the media attention," San Juan Island newspaper editor Colleen Armstrong says. "He absolutely does monitor the Internet, our website, Facebook, Twitter, blogs - you name it, he's reading it."
Overnight, the legend of Colton Harris-Moore went viral and he became his own cottage industry. People began selling 'Fly Colton Fly' t-shirts, urging him to go for it.
Some even wrote songs:
Listen to "Barefoot Bandit" by Negative Zero
It was now a year-and-a-half since Colton had escaped from that halfway house. He crossed the border into Canada, allegedly stole two guns and then crossed back into the United States without anyone stopping him. As he sought planes to steal, he traveled from one tiny airport to another, where security was low and the planes were easy pickings.
How Do You Steal a Plane, Anyway?
"When I arrived here, the plane was gone. This door was open," says Pat Gardiner outside a hangar.
Authorities say the Barefoot Bandit had struck again, this time in Idaho, bagging his third plane in less than a year.
Photos: Pat Gardiner's crashed plane
"You could say Colton Harris-Moore's life is very similar to a video game," Friel says. "This is a game to him."
But it was not a game for the Department of Homeland Security, which has now joined the investigation. And when that third plane was located in a field in Granite Falls, Wash., police closed in, but backed off when they heard a gunshot.
"From that point, things became very serious for Colton Harris-Moore," Friel continues. "To him, it may have just been a higher level of the video game. For the law enforcement… they treated him as armed and potentially dangerous."
Colton, now suspected of at least 65 crimes, decided to lie low. He did not reappear until February 2010, allegedly stealing his fourth plane: this one a $650,000 Cirrus.
Authorities say Colton was aloft just 10 minutes, flying from Anacortes, Wash., and back to the now familiar airport on Orcas Island. And once again, authorities were hot on his trail.
After getting a tip that Colton was hiding somewhere on Turtleback Mountain, they pounced.
Homeowner Hi Stickney saw the response first hand.
"I was sleeping in this bed here and I hear a doorbell ring… [It was] about 1:30 or quarter to 2 in the morning," he recalls. "So I roll out of bed… and here's a helicopter hovering maybe a 100 yards off the window… with the lights going…shining down."
Stickney rushed to answer the front door. "And I see FBI across the chest of this guy's uniform and then I see over his shoulder, two or three police cars and FBI cars… 10 or 12 people milling around in uniforms out there. And then I think, 'That's it.'"
The next morning police found footprints in the mud.
The infamous Barefoot Bandit had done the impossible. Surrounded on all sides, he escaped. But the Colton video game was veering into the danger zone.By the spring of 2010, Colton Harris-Moore's audacious aerial joyrides, including four airplane thefts, had put him on the radar of law enforcement in two countries. He had been on the run for two years.
"Up here in the Northwest, we have the border patrol looking for him. We have the Canadian officials looking for him. We have Homeland Security, the FBI," says "48 Hours" Investigator Paul Ciolino. "I mean, he's getting more attention in the United States than Bin Laden does."
While "48 Hours" was on Orcas Island with Ciolino, Colton slipped away once again. A boat was stolen from a nearby island and authorities believe a man, captured on a security camera, is Colton Harris-Moore.
Asked why Colton is getting so active, Ciolino says, "He's gotta keep moving 'cause if he sits still, they're going to catch him."
Colton began moving south, pausing just long enough to leave a note with $100 in cash at a veterinary clinic in Raymond, Wash. He asked the money be used for "the care of animals."
"It's admirable that he loves animals," Ciolino says, "but I mean, it doesn't help him."
That donation gave the sheriff's deputies back on Colton's home turf an idea of where he was heading. They warned several police jurisdictions in the area and began tracking car thefts in Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming.
Then, Colton surfaced in tiny Yankton, S.D.
Yankton resident Kelly Kneifl, his wife, and their four young children were returning home from a family vacation at 3 a.m.
"My wife stepped back here and screamed," Kneifl explains, going through the door where his wife saw an intruder. "And I went bolting past her, opened this door. And right there was a young man, naked, turning around, running away from me. And I started to chase him down the stairs. 'Get out of my house, get out of my house.' And about right here that I could see a laser light pointing at me. And he said, 'Stop I've got a gun. I'll shoot, I'll shoot.'"
Kelly called 911, but by the time police got there, Colton was gone.
"He's a potential killer at that point… if that was a gun aimed at a chest, obviously," says author Bob Friel, who is writing a book about Colton.
It was a very close call, but Colton continued his summer run, allegedly stealing cars and breaking into one small airport after another across the Midwest.
"Where would he have gone if he'd gotten an airplane, do you think?" Van Sant asks Ciolino.
"Well, I think he makes the big jump. He gets 200, 300 miles away real quick."
This time, Colton had much bigger plans and leapfrogged over the rest of the United States.
"48 Hours'" pursuit of Colton Harris-Moore takes a dramatic turn because Colton has taken a dramatic turn. He allegedly stole an airplane in Bloomington, Ind. and flew it 1,200 miles to Abaco Island in the Bahamas, where the plane crash landed.
With the help of some locals, "48 Hours" hired a couple of boats and set out across the shallow Bahamian waters towards the mangroves where the plane is located.
After transferring to a smaller boat to get through the shallow areas, Van Sant and company set out on foot, walking for an hour through muck to get to the plane visible in the distance - about a mile away.
Follow '48 Hours'" two-day journey to get to the crashed plane
But as dusk approaches - and with a 40-minute walk still ahead - the group decides to head back to town. They finally made it to Colton's plane by helicopter the next day.
The landing skid path is about 50 yards long and Colton lost a landing gear as he was making his crash landing. He managed to keep the plane level somehow; the plane's nose is in the grass.
At the plane, Van Sant finds the doors on the aircraft are locked. This is a crime scene, but looking inside, there's no blood and no evidence whatsoever that Colton was injured in this crash landing. Colton got out of that plane and headed into the island.
Hot on the trail of the Barefoot Bandit, the next stop is Marsh Harbor, Abaco Island's biggest town.
At the police station, Van Sant gets a lead which turns out to be false.
"48 Hours" then heads to town, where there's been a series of break-ins.
"He opened up the window, he went inside, took $150 from the cash register and… took just a T-shirt," says dive shop employee Kristin Jones.
"The police was here, the security company had called," Gary Martin Sawyer says of a break-in at a local gas company. "They had the building surrounded. It looked like a Hollywood scene."
And at night, he hit Curlytails restaurant next to the local marina.
Colton is everywhere… but nowhere. The Royal Bahamian Police vow they will find him.
"We should be able to take him down and have him in custody in the quickest possible time," says Commissioner Hanna.
At week's end, there is still no sign of Colton; but then Colton finds himself in his biggest jam yet. While "48 Hours" was looking for Colton Harris-Moore on Abaco, he'd already allegedly stolen a yacht and escaped to the nearby Bahamian island of Eleuthera.
We headed there too, and found James Coakley, who says a barefoot Colton was hanging around his bar.
Coakley says Colton broke into his club and allegedly stole some snacks and water and made himself at home, possibly sleeping on a pool table.
The next night, Colton was spotted in the water near Coakley's club in a boat he'd apparently stolen. He was talking to some local teens standing on the shore.
"And they asked him, 'Are you the guy who's going around with the airplanes,' and he said, 'Yes,' says author Bob Friel.
Knowing there was a $10,000 reward, the teens quickly jumped in a boat and gave chase. Colton fled to nearby Harbour Island.
"I saw a boat pull up at the end of this dock… I saw a young man took off of the dock," says Kenny Strachan, a security guard at the Ramora Bay Resort, just across the water from Coakley's Club.
"I see him like he's running fast, and he's breathing real hard and excited," he says.
Security footage captured the moment.
"And he was just running with some object in his hands and as I kept looking at him, it seems to be a gun," Strachan tells Peter Van Sant.
Asked what was he thinking when he saw the gun, Strachan says, "When I see him, I get excited… and he ran towards me and he said, 'They're trying to kill me.' And I'm looking, 'Who is trying to kill you?'"
Colton fled onto the island and word quickly spread boat to boat at the marina.
American Jordan Sackett was aboard his family's yacht. "And everybody was on high alert that he was on the island and that he was around," he says.
Then suddenly, as police were searching for the Barefoot Bandit, Sackett saw a boat roar away. It was Colton.
The cops showed up with UZIs and shotguns, but they had no boat. They asked Sackett if they could use his. He, in turn, asked his parents for permission.
"How did that go?" Van Sant asks. "'Mom, dad can I take this boat and these armed officers to pursue an armed suspect? Is that okay with you guys?'"
Sackett replies, "They were a little shocked at first… but it was almost as if like, 'Gotta go get him.'"
Police jumped in and with Jordan Sackett at the wheel and two of his buddies on board, they headed off in hot pursuit. Colton had a 5-minute head start and was heading for open ocean until he hit a sandbar and ran aground.
Police quickly closed in.
"At this point, we're basically about 50 feet behind him," Sackett explains, taking "48 Hours" to the same location. "Colton was saying 'Stay back…don't come any closer… I'm going to kill myself.'"
Colton's final moments of freedom
But was that just a ploy to buy time? As Colton's boat churned toward deeper water and freedom, the three Americans say they suggested that the police shoot out the engines on Colton's boat, and they did.
"Basically decided it was shoot the engines or he was going to get away," Sackett recalls. "It was crazy! Guns are going off everywhere… and we're all ducking down to make sure that we're not getting fired upon. The first shot fired was a shotgun which hit the back left engine and basically shut it down immediately… And once the firing stopped, he popped back up. He said, 'Don't shoot. I can't hear anything.'"
On July 11, after a two-year odyssey when he was suspected of committing nearly 100 crimes - stealing 11 boats, 14 cars, three guns and five planes - Colton Harris-Moore was finally arrested.
In video exclusive to 48 "Hours," the police question Colton, now outfitted in a bulletproof vest. They offer him food and water, which he declines, and check out the world's most famous bare feet.
They also ask where he got his gun - a Walther PPK, the same type used by James Bond. Colton says he doesn't remember and they all share a laugh.
The next day when he is taken from Eleuthera to Nassau, it's clear his legend has traveled with him.
"We love you Barefoot Bandit!" yells a man in the crowd.
Standing on the tarmac Colton does not disappoint, appearing barefoot before the international media.
He may have attracted the world's attention, but Colton wanted no part of the cameras all around him.
Back on Camano Island, Colton's mother, Pam Kohler, takes the news of her son's arrest in stride. "He's safe and I'm happy and I love him and I miss him."
By the time Colton is taken to court a few days later, he is barefoot no more.
The court hearing is quick. Colton is fined $300 for an immigration violation and deported. The Bahamian authorities do not charge Colton with any other crimes.
The next day, Colton was back in the U.S. This time he is in a jail cell, represented by renowned Seattle Defense Attorney John Henry Browne.
"He doesn't know what's going on," Browne says. "You know, he's a 19-year-old kid and you know, the whole media thing freaks him out."
Colton packed a lot of life into those 19 years, but at heart, he appears to still be that hungry little kid from Camano Island, Wash.
In the backpack he carried - recovered after his arrest - police found sketches of airplanes and a few remnants of a more innocent time: two photos from the fifth grade and a Boy Scouts of America certificate.
Exclusive photos: Inside Colton's backpack
"This is an incredibly sad story," Ciolino says. "I mean, he's been failed at every step of the way. Where does this kid go to reclaim his childhood? …We created this criminal and he survived the only way he knew how…"
Today, this troubled and brilliant teenager, who once dreamed of flight, is now grounded.
Colton Harris-Moore indictment
On Nov. 10, Colton was indicted on federal charges for stealing two planes, guns, a boat, and flying without a license. He faces up to 10 years behind bars, where all the Facebook friends in the world can't help him.
Colton Harris-Moore will appear in federal court on Thursday, Nov. 18. He faces additional charges in several other states.
Colton and his mother have not seen each other since his arrest. She's had offers to buy Colton's story and has hired a well-known entertainment lawyer.