Colton Harris Moore: The Barefoot Bandit

There's a way to make an entrance. My destiny. It was now a conspiracy of witches. Download Veely today. Do you believe the teen known as the Barefoot Bandit has been caught? Police in the Bahamas say the most wanted teenage fugitive in America was captured after crash-landing a stolen plane on the island of Eleuthera. 19-year-old Colton Harris Moore could be facing dozens of criminal charges, including the theft of five airplanes. Colton Harris Moore is 17 years old when he escapes from a halfway house in Renton, Washington. He will remain free for more than two years. His story will become legend. His legend will become history. Holden Harris-Moore escaped from a group home in Renton last night. Harris-Moore was just 15 when he was arrested for breaking into homes, stealing valuables, and using computers to place fraudulent online orders. He was serving a three-year sentence when he escaped. So Whoa! Freeze! Yes, that's correct. Apparently a doer. There he is! Hold it! We're coming after you! Tonight there's an all-out search for Colton Harris Moore. Dressed in camouflage and armed with rifles, at least two separate agencies are looking for the teenage burglar. after he was spotted late last night. Today, a heavily armed tactical team searched the area around the Elger Bay store where Harris Moore was last seen. While the 17-year-old is 6'5 and 200 pounds, he is crafty and knows the woods. in the year he eluded law enforcement playing a frustrating game of cat and mouse. One of my sergeants came in and he says, hey boss, do you hear that Colton Harris Moore got out, you know, escaped? And I was not very happy because I knew where he was coming. He was coming back to his old stomping grounds and all these burglaries and the whole thing was going to start up over again, which it did. He had disabled the alarm where there was no alarm going to the police station. He took food and money, packages of hot dogs and beef jerky, potato chips, a whole rack of vitamin water. I mean, I don't know how he hauled all this stuff away. The undersheriff tells me there's been nine burglaries across Island County. in the last two weeks. Now he won't confirm that any of them are related or linked to Colton Harris Moore. Moore is accused of breaking into dozens of homes and then disappearing into the woods of Kamano Island. Island residents begin to notice strange charges to their credit cards from online stores. Outdoor gear, bear mace, computer hacking software, GPS systems. and porn. Items they will never see. Colton is gearing up for an adventure. He knew those woods. He grew up there. He knew every trail, every pathway. And he was building his camps in very, very thick brush where you couldn't even tell there was a trail to him. And he'd get in there and he'd stomp all of that, you know, the area down and put like a tent in there or some type of a lean-to or just even a sleeping bag. And we'd find his camp and he'd just move to another one. Not too sure how we actually met up. I think it might have been outside of school because he's a couple years younger than I am. Anybody can do a burglary. It don't matter if you're the dumbest person in the world. You can get through a window or get through an open door. I was looking for cash, he was looking for credit cards and... Laptops. Vacation homes are actually ideal to hit because of the fact, one, nobody's there. Two, a lot of people like to leave their stuff in the vacation home. Money, computers, cars. We were driving a stolen 2007 Mercedes Benz. Every time we took it, we parked it in the garage in the same exact spot. spot, washed the car, and filled the tank up for the people. So pretty much we went on a joy ride, but we at least filled your tank and cleaned your car. No matter what, you always have to look behind you. Sleep one night, gone the next morning. Never stay in one spot. It reminded me a lot of like I was when I was younger, you know? A kid that wanted to make some quick money and make a name for himself. Teen Houdini Colton Moore has been on the run since he escaped three months ago from a group home on Kamano Island. He had confessed to a string of burglaries. Now Deputy Sings Moore is stealing again. Everyone in the morning meeting loved the story idea. They wanted to know more about it. They wanted to know where is this kid, what's happening, what's going on, what has he done this time. You know, he's already escaped this halfway house. How can the law enforcement not catch him? I mean, everyone just started talking. We heard this name, Colton Harris Moore, as a teenage suspect behind these burglaries. I think that even if it had been an adult, there would have been a certain news value to it just in the sheer number of burglaries that had happened. But the fact that it was a kid who was committing these crimes, I think brought it to an entirely different level. Saturday morning, someone broke into a deputy's car, stealing a rifle, ammo. and a laptop. Then just yesterday someone targeted a firefighter's truck and fire station. As North Bureau Chief Rob Piercy reports, people believe that someone is Colton Harris-Moore. Investigators say there's nothing definitive that links Colton Harris-Moore to what happened here, but this is the part of Camino Island he knows. In fact, just a couple of years ago, he burglarized this home just across the street from the fire station twice. The fire station had been broken into. This infrared camera had been stolen. He had thought about it enough that a fire station may have an infrared camera, a device he could use to peer into homes to see if someone's in there before breaking in. Deputies launched an island-wide search today with help from canine units. They combed through wooded areas, down roads familiar to Moore without any luck. One morning he came and I figured he was hungry, like he was always hungry. And he loves my breakfasts because I make homemade hash browns that I grade up myself. And so I made him a big breakfast. We sat there and talked, and after he left, the cops came, and they asked me the same old question, have you seen Colt? I said, yeah, we just sat down and had breakfast together. God, did they get mad. And, well, you know that that's harboring, and I said, he's my kid. If he's hungry, I'm going to feed him. I don't care if it's harboring him or not. And, yeah, they were pretty mad about that. that drove the police crazy i mean imagine we got a kid that's living within a radius probably of a mile of his mom's place and they can't catch you know i think he had a little vendetta with the police and he wanted to steal their shotguns and their laptops and i think he wanted them to look foolish but i don't think most of us thought of him as a dangerous kid he just seemed like a kid and uh really hasn't been socialized and which is another part of the myth you kind of go well who is this kid you I mean he didn't really go through a school system did he? He kind of is self-taught in everything. I mean he learned how to steal. He did pretty well at it. When I first met him at Greenhill, the maximum security institution, we were out in the hall just talking. We got along, got to be friends. He was intelligent. The way he spoke, it just sounded like he was a smart guy. He was into, like, psychology and criminology, and I was interested in that as well. I think his mind was set on one thing, and that he could accomplish that goal, and he was so confident in it. I want to be a professional criminal. Colton chose to operate in small communities. One of those communities was the little town of East Sound on Orcas Island. This is a picturesque little community on a beautiful bayside with what you might expect in a tourist community. There are restaurants, there are gift shops, a couple of grocery stores, a hardware store, a bank, and that's the list of places. We discovered that Colton Harris, which we like to call him the cockroach, came in our second story window. And what he did was, we've got what we call the bullpen in the back, and he climbed up the fence, climbed up the... the roof and went into the window upstairs. He basically just walked into our store and started getting what he needed, and then he decided to break into our safe, which he did. And this is our remains of it, over $3,000 in our safe. He had big crowbars, and he just pounded it to death, and it really looks like he did pound it to death. A restaurant had surveillance video. He had been there at some point, stolen a credit card, then used the credit card to buy instructional materials on how to fly a plane, had it mailed to the restaurant, then... had apparently been monitoring, you know, the tracking number from FedEx or UPS, whoever it was that shipped it, broke in that night, stole his manuals. You know, the idea that you would use someone's credit card to buy something and then have it shipped to their place of business and then break into their business and steal it. You know, it's unreal. Colton sets up camp in the mountains and immerses himself in the solitude of nature. A human shadow, an island rumour, whispered over campfires. His real journey, however, is about to begin. It is the island's airport that brings him here. A chance to make a lifelong dream become a reality. I knew he loved planes since he was a little boy he wanted to be a pilot loved him a plane flew over and he said I can tell you what you're that was built who built it and what size engine it has it was an airplane spread books button talked about him all the time even had pictures of airplanes hanging up in his room Drew airplanes. So when he got out, he wanted to steal a plane and teach himself how to fly it. That was, that was his whole plan. Colton sets his plan in motion from his mountain campsite. Channeling his energy into the study of aviation, he steals and studies aircraft manuals, used thousands of online videos, and carefully watches the comings and goings of the small planes of Orcas Island. Music Music Authorities Believe the plane was stolen by drug runners. For the moment, the act that will make him a legend goes unnoticed. Colton vanishes into the wilderness. This is one of Colton's cap areas here. Because it's like about 120, 550 yards from where I live, and supposedly his mother lives a couple hundred yards the other direction. So this is actually ground zero. So this particular area, it's dark. I don't know what time it is, what, 430? It's very secluded here, unless you know it's here. You got a 360 degree view. You could see if somebody or something was coming at you. You'd be surprised how many different operations that we did when we got a little bit of intel on where he was at. And sometimes we'd get very close. One time, three of my deputies found one of his tents and all of his personal belongings. My three words. Come on. The dog was impounded because basically we knew he wanted how much he loved the dog and the dog was running loose, so it was a criminal offense. So I called the animal shelter the next day and they said they had her, but they couldn't give her to me because she was evidence. And I said, how can a dog be evidence? She's not going to get up on the witness stand and talk. Subtitles by the Amara.org community One night Colton picked me up in a beater truck and he drove back to this house that he said he was using real quick. And he had told me the lights were off. We get there and the lights are on. I stayed outside and I had a pack of cigarettes and I smoked the entire pack before he convinced me to come in. Colton dropped one of the glasses and I watched it in slow motion. I don't know why it was slow motion, but it dropped all really slow and then he ran past me. Hey! I saw the glass shatter and I turned around and ran. Ugh! Ugh! I think he just got really addicted to adrenaline. It's the most addicting drug you can ever get addicted to. Because once you have- Notorious teenage burglar from Camino Island may be island hopping. Authorities believe Colton Harris Moore is connected to several burglaries on Orcas Island. He went throughout the store with crowbars and opening doors, and I don't know exactly what all he used on the ATM. As the tales of his exploits grow, Colton Harris Moore's crime spree may be spreading too. Disabled, 8 out of 14 cameras. As he went, he was barefooted. He got almost $10,000. Now here's where this story makes a turn for the almost ridiculous. In addition to all those burglaries, Colton Harris Moore is suspected of stealing as many as two airplanes. Airplanes! Where did he learn how to fly? I remember just being sort of dumbfounded, thinking, how is that even possible? It just made it unbelievable and impressive. By the end of the day, every... Network affiliate in Seattle, I think, had been out to Orcas Island. Colton Harris Moore may have taught himself how to fly. The suspect may be island hopping with stolen boats and planes. Law enforcement officers have referred to Colton Harris Moore as a ghost with an uncanny ability to run from the law. A wild, wild man who... I was in Abbotsford, BC, Canada when I met Colton Harris-Moore. My car started making some funny noises, so I pulled off. This kid approached me, kind of out of nowhere. He had a black hoodie, military cargo pants. He had mud on his pants, maybe up to here. That kind of struck me as odd, like maybe he was hiding in a ditch or something. I said his name was Sean, and then asked me if I was headed east. So then we were both waiting for Jordy here to come pick us up. So he hopped into the back of my truck. That's right. And I asked him if it was uncouth of me to light up some of that green stuff or whatever. Yeah. I can't believe I just said that on video camera. Yeah. Yeah. We're heading through a construction zone. We started to duck down, like going through this construction zone. I'm like, oh man, that's alright. I don't have to hide from these guys or whatever. And we kind of joked about it. Are you a fugitive or something? Yeah, yeah. I asked him if he was a fugitive. He said, what? No, no, no, no, no. Didn't make you suspicious or anything? No, not at all. Once he told us about how it was so easy to sneak across from the US-Canadian border, then we kind of wondered. James offered to let him stay in his van at his house. So when you were just sitting by the campfire, what was he doing? Just sitting in silence? Sitting in silence, yeah. Just experiencing his high. We bagged him a lunch, me and my wife, and I gave him five or ten bucks cash and dropped him off on the on the number three highway. How long was it before you realized who this kid was? It was about two weeks. Headline says SWAT team comes forth for American Fugitives. I'm like, ah whatever, so I looked at it I was like, holy shit that's the guy, that's the kid. Cool. He wanted to be with me when I was in Maple Ridge. We made a place in Tyne, and he ended up stealing a BMW, a black BMW, and drove it out there and met me. I was out talking about stuff, drove around. He had a backpack full of money, and he wanted to go get a grapple hook and go rob malls, and we ended up driving over to an airport in Maple Ridge. They had a couple bunkers out there in the field. We ended up walking over there, checking out the planes. He was hoping that I would leave with him. But I just kept making excuses, saying, oh, I can't, I got stuff to do. And I kept telling him I would meet up with him somewhere else, somewhere else along the line. I didn't have the guts to go with him. I didn't want to, especially flying in a plane with him. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him, so... I was eating my lunch on that ridge over there and I could see the white of it from that far ridge. The bushes were knocked down so it was easy to tell that he came just on the other side of that stump and came down in and then it nosed in right there and it kind of reared up and twisted and then lit. They said even as slow as he could go, he still probably hit the ground doing about 60. Ten feet he was. could have hit that stump, you know, or even less. I looked it up, the number on the computer, and found out that it was stolen out of Idaho. I kind of guessed it ran out of gas with my guess, but then as things went on, I found out that it wasn't out of gas. He put it here on purpose. I brung the sheriffs back in so they could come look at it, and it progressed from there. I mean, there was everybody here, sheriffs and state patrols and border patrol and homeland security, and they were all up and down the road with SWAT crews and dogs and guns and rifles, and it was almost silly. Two days had already gone by. He ain't around here. I had got a text from my mom saying that a plane had crashed near our house. Did I see any action about it? And I said, no, I didn't know anything about it. I had just gotten home. There was some food missing and our passports were gone. My first inclination was to go look at windows and doors and could see where it had been pried open. So I... Decided to call 911, get somebody out here. He had to shut off all the lights and we just stood out there real quietly. He shut his car off. He said, did you, he looked over and he said, did you hear that? And I said, yeah, I did. And they geared up. They put on their full gear and started going. That's when the heart started racing a little bit for me. The officer said they scared him when they came up upon him, so he didn't have a chance to grab anything when he left. So everything he had with him, he left behind. They came out with a business-sized vinyl zipper deposit bag just stuffed full of money. The last I heard, they were over $20,000. SWAT teams fan out across Granite Falls today in search of a suspect considered armed and dangerous. Searching from the sky, this Homeland Security Black Hawk helicopter is outfitted with the most sophisticated people-finding electronics in the world. and yet not a trace of the burglary suspect had been found. One thing that doesn't match Harris Moore, the gunshot at deputies. He's never shown violence. There's definitely a sense of paranoia out here. I spoke with some firefighters. One said he just had his car stolen last night. A woman said she woke up and saw a tall kid roaming her house with a flashlight. Now, again, none of this is official, and this extensive search hasn't turned up anyone. Just the last moments, a burst of police activity here as deputies are chasing down every possible lead as they search for the team. And it seems as though authorities are going to great lengths not to get Colton Harris Moore's name tied up in all this for fear that he becomes some kind of... folk hero. Law enforcement was really afraid that he was starting to look like this hero that to other kids would think it was cool and that he was coming across as cool. Hey, this kid could steal a boat. This kid could steal a plane and he could make faces at law enforcement and keep on going. Law enforcement doesn't want some kid running around making them look like a fool and then being on the news looking like a hero. Holla the Colton craze. Colton Harris-Moore has been the talk of the town and now the country. T-shirt maker enjoys a spike in sales with his Colton Harris-Moore t-shirt that says, Mama tried. This is a tribute to the great Harris-Moore. Game of Man, he grew to take a stand. One day he found a way to get to fly. His name is Colton Harris Moore. And he's known as the Barefoot Bandit. I hadn't heard of the Barefoot Bandit until today. There have been videos of him everywhere. You turn on the news, you're gonna see him. They've been trying to catch him, but can't. I'm gonna get People trying to capitalize on him by selling t-shirts and coffee mugs and writing songs about him. Yes, that's all part and parcel of being a folk hero. This is a kid who fulfilled the ultimate fantasy. He wanted to fly, and he did. just that. Folk hero, anti-hero, whatever you want to call him. A lot of people and a lot of kids found true inspiration from this kid. We're on Camino Island. That's where Colton Harris-Morris is from. How do you steal an airplane? You don't steal an airplane. You steal off of airplanes. He didn't steal off of airplanes. He stole three airplanes. No, you... And the theft of at least three airplanes. How do you steal an airplane? He's taught himself to fly because he didn't have any training or anything. He's been on the run for like two years from the FBI and the cops. A San Juan County Sheriff's deputy said he nearly caught Harris more in the woods and had him in his flashlight and then he virtually vaporized in front of me. He recalled Colton laughing loudly from the woods when he realized he had eluded them. You see this and you're like, wow, a 19-year-old who's that smart, does all that stuff, and the FBI can't even find him. You're kind of like wanting to root for him, even though you know what he's doing is wrong and everything. He's not violent. He's a thief, but he's not violent. I think he's kind of cool. You can get T-shirts. There are several places where you can buy T-shirts now. Yeah, let's see how many friends and fans he has when they catch him and send him to jail. I have a feeling he's going to be all alone. First time I met him was there was an alarm at one of our local elementary schools. And myself and another deputy responded there and found an open door. So we went in and we searched the building high and low. And it was real obvious that somebody had been inside the building because all the drawers and the teachers'desks were pulled out, closets were open. Somebody was looking for something. Well, the deputy that was with me opened a closet door and there was standing this little boy, all of about 10 years old, and it was Colton Harris Moore. People should look more at who he is instead of what he's done, because what he did is completely different from who he is. I think he's been in survival mode a long, long time. Colton didn't know how to stop. That was all he knew. Sometimes when you don't have the chance to prove yourself as a child, you get off onto a wrong track. And he got off onto a wrong track. He was a great kid. He probably still is, deep down underneath. Colton would wait by the side of the road in the hitchhike, and he was about 10. And one day, this man picked him up. And about halfway to wherever they were headed, Colton said to him, you know, my dad's really a jerk. That's something... if you think about a 10-year-old, you know, out on the road hitchhiking, that would tell a neighbor, someone he probably didn't know that well, that his dad was a jerk. Gordy left when Colt was about two or three. Well, he kept leaving and kept leaving and would come back and then he finally left for good. I think he just didn't like living out in the country. That far away from beer, to tell you the truth, and he never paid child support. So I had a rough time. He told me his mom was a sheriff and his dad was a pilot in the Air Force. They told everybody, but I guess... That's not how, that's not what it is. His home life, it was rotten. I have never heard my life, a mother, use the words that she used against him at times. I mean, it would make me want to leave home at an early age. I think he started breaking into houses just to see how other people live because there's the dilapidated trailer that he lives in and new houses being built all around that are, you know, nice. I think it was a kid. He knew he was doing wrong. But I don't think it was criminal intent. There was no intervention to help this kid by anybody. There was trouble at school, trouble with the police and CPS. All those things had trouble with this little boy, and not anybody stepped in. Nobody. Come O'Core News starts right now. Turning a teen outlaw into a hero. First on TV and now on newsstands, the story of Colton Harris Moore is getting more national attention. The coverage is revealing a lot about his past. We're set back from everything along a dirt road. This is the entrance to Colton Harris Moore's house. You can see there are several no trespassing signs out here now, adding to the mystery behind his life and really the neighborhood tension. She certainly wasn't come on in and sit down and have a cup of tea, but she was willing to talk. The main thing I get angry about are him being accused of things that I know dang well he didn't do. Are you hiding him from police? God, no. He lives with friends. So there are friends that are providing him refuge? Yes. So you don't think that he's escaping into the woods? You don't think he's living in the woods? I know dang well he ain't. How do you know that? Because I've talked to him. Pamela Kohler spoke with us today on the condition that we not show her face. Because she doesn't want to be targeted by all the folks out here who know all about her son. This is where Colton Harris Moore grew up. Just Colton and his mom for most of his life. If he flew planes, I'm proud. How come? Because he would have had to teach himself. Kids do what they want to do. It isn't the parents'fault. Is it the parents'job, though, to steer them in a different direction? Sure. But not all kids can be steered. I called his mother and said, what are you gonna... If you could give him a Christmas present, what would you give him? And she told me she would give him a bulletproof vest. Running away from the law sure would be fun. Menace to adults, but a hero for kids. Sure it's hard to realize on the run, But you've got family in all of us kids. Please call, say, and steal a plane for me. The next time that we were out at Orcas Island after another plane had been hard-landed, we went to a grocery store where the surveillance system had been dunked. in some tank of water to try and destroy it. He had taken the time to draw chalk footprints throughout the store of these big bare feet, and written at the entrance was, See ya. Just sort of flippin'. The sort of thing that you might see written in a text message from one teenager to another. Well, police believe it was Colton Harris Moore. who hit a number of businesses last year. But it is certainly the speculation of the town that he's back. Deputies are still on the lookout for Colton Harris Moore. Now, several residents of Orcas Island told us they'd be patrolling overnight with flashlights and radios to keep Harris Moore from striking again. I think we're well beyond the Robin Hood stage. We're into the John Dillinger stage. Behind me is a hangar belonging to a friend of mine. It had been entered several times by Colton Harris Moore. He'd set up this little nest there. And he had food, water, clothes, stolen property, flight manuals. And the deputies could be running around like chickens with their head cut off while he's sitting up there laughing at them. I think he did plan to take my friend's airplanes, but he subsequently stole the wife's truck out of here and used that in another escapade. He had been in my friend's house making phone calls. So the plan was for the FBI SWAT team to take up position in the forest and around the house and hopefully Colton would appear. I'm not sure who was more surprised, but obviously he met the gentleman inside, and his response is really quite thoughtful. As soon as I'm confronted, I'm going to run because that's my best. The authorities say they're closing in on a teenage fugitive in the San Juans, the infamous barefoot bandit Colton Harris Moore. We're talking about the FBI and several local police agencies all converging in to try to corner this teenager. But after two and a half years on the run, authorities may finally have Colton Harris Moore right where they want him. Intro music We woke up about 1.30, the helicopter basically hovering right above our house. At about 6 in the morning, my husband came out to feed chickens and do our morning chores, and that's when he discovered there was footprints going through our property. He went right and saw the chicken coop and went into it and then came out and the tracks led away from the coop. This one was found right about underneath where I'm standing. And then this one was found over by our pit. pickup truck that was parked over by our chicken coop. What gave you the idea to do that? County deputy. Oh, yeah? He had made a comment about, since you're the only one that has anything like this, you should make casts and put them on eBay and see what you can get for them. And so we tried it, and we had a lot of people look at them, and we set the price high, and I ended up getting two death threats on eBay. We hope that you're the one he kills because you're enabling him. to proceed with his criminal career. And so, yeah, I mean, and we were just doing it all and just as fun. I'm probably going to end up on the side of the chicken coop. For months, there is no sign of Colton. Some speculate that he's left the island or died alone in the wilderness or drowned in the ocean. Unsettling rumors reach Kamaino Island. I told some news media, I said, write this, tell him to contact me somehow, because I'm very worried. We knew he had stolen a boat and gone to Friday Harbor. And stole one there, went to Lopez Island. Stole another one on Lopez Island. Actually caught on video and took that to Camino Island. People were just angry and frustrated on two levels, that people were elevating him to this level of folk hero and angry that he hadn't been caught yet and that, you know, they might be next. If he was on Camino Island, he would be shot. I knew that. And that scared the hell out of me. We want him stopped. Most of us want him dead. Period. You guys probably don't want to hear it, but this guy is actually pretty sharp. He calls himself a recovery agent. In other words, a bounty hunter. Hunter. He and other agents are pledging free of charge to help find Colton Harris Moore. We're going to be here physically. We're going to be on site. Not every day. Nobody knows when we're going to be here. He doesn't know when we're going to be here. We've already started to get tips. Tips I'm sure the police don't have. There's a little formula for catching a fugitive, and it's eliminate the places that they're comfortable. We were watching hangars on the islands, marinas. We had boats patrolling the marina area. We had teams set up all over the place in vehicles. You know, it was locked down. Well, this was an unusual opportunity to get a glimpse of work that's normally hidden. Three groups of masked searchers hit the woods and beaches on Camino Island, waiting for Colton Harris Moore to show himself. Most guys, when they're on the run, the quiet is good, low profile, I'm going to find a place, and melt into the woodwork. And his was the exact opposite. His was like... Here we go. Try to find me. Catch me if you can. The infamous barefoot bandit left a calling card at an animal hospital in Raymond. A worker there found a note with $100 to be used for the animals, signed Colton Harris Moore. We realized very quickly that he had moved south. Of course, the note was kind of a dead end. giveaway at the veterinary clinic that, you know, that it was in fact him. He signed it with his name. There's a clue. Colton hopscotches across the country, leaving a trail of stolen cars. Driving each until it runs out of gas. He breaks into a half dozen airports looking for just the right plane to execute his plan. Airport to airport, state to state, the authorities are left days behind. 2,000 miles, nine states, nearly a dozen stolen cars. Colton finally finds his plane in Bloomington, Indiana. He camps in a nearby patch of woods and watches, waiting for just the right moment. Time, don't you fly away on me Release me from the earth over the sea Don't you fly away on me His final flight takes him 1,200 miles south to Abaco Island in the Bahamas. Don't you fly away on me We were on the south side fishing for mutton snappers, and we saw the plane coming from the west. And it made, I don't know, maybe six, seven circles around the area. And he did a very good job putting the tail down first, and then when he slowed down so much, the nose dipped over. But they said the plane was probably able to repair if somebody wanted to put the money into it. That's how good a job he did. Gather on my children, let me tell you about this man Who stole a plane from the USA and crashed in my Bahama land The barefoot bandit might be basking in the Bahamas Investigators say a stolen plane from Indiana crashed landed off the coast of one of the islands yesterday The FBI's got agents down in the Bahamas working with local police there to try and... Catch Harris Moore. There's now a $10,000 reward for information that leads to his arrest. Came in and opened my shop, found that the door was broken into. Two Gatorades, two sodas, about three chips, broken to my cash drawer. Also, the police found that a lady's house was broken into and her vehicle was stolen. I normally check the security cameras to make sure nothing happened the previous night. I noticed that all the cameras in the downstairs area have been turned towards the wall. They call them the barefoot bandits all over the evening news. That's right. This boy ain't need to use no shoes. Tip toe and run and people living room in the nighttime. I looked around, there was nothing missing, nothing really damaged except for the door which had been waged open with a crowbar or some other tool. The night that he broke into our place, he stole the boat and drove the boat down to Eleuthera. The Barefoot Bandit has once again given police the slip. Police initially felt they'd find the young man quickly, but now the chief is backtracking and says it's possible Harris Moore was never even there. For one week, Colton Harris Moore is the biggest news story in the world. The barefoot kid from Kamaino Island showed them all. For all his fame, Colton must have felt more alone than ever, 3,000 miles from home. It's about two or three in the afternoon, this young man seen my internet sign and he said, ma'am, you think I could plug in with my laptop to your access? I need to talk to my mom. I haven't talked to her in over a month or something to that effect. I said, sure. He says, I don't have any money. I said, that doesn't matter to me. Just make yourself at home. And I went back and I said to him, I said, would you like me to make you a sandwich? And he said, but I don't have any money. I said, I'm offering you a sandwich. Would you like one? So I made him a sandwich. He stayed there for a while, thanked me. And left. Actually, I kept a lot of people, not just me, on the island. We heard about his background, that he had a bad upbringing. He lived in the bush. My heart went out to him because my kid's father, he's dead now, but he left me alone with them three to bring up my own. Thank God I had parents and my nephew next door. And I had help, but that little kid, no. I had no bad feelings. I didn't want him to catch him. No. Perhaps Colton became lost in his own legend. Or his thirst for adrenaline became more powerful in his need to be free. Maybe he just felt the need to write the ending to his own story. We were right over there on the dock and out of nowhere this guy came in on a boat and all of us was looking to see who he was. This kid in this 13 foot Boston Wheeler comes in supposed to be spun like it was a jet ski. When he came close, he's like, he's the barefoot bandit. I'm Colton Harris Moore. I played dumb. I was like. I don't know who the barefoot bender is because they were given a big reward So I wanted him to come in so I could catch him and he kept saying repeatedly Call the cops for me man or call the boats or something. I want to have some fun call FBI call the chopper He's like well, I want to get chase. I'm bored I was like what this kid into we're calling some of our bodies that that has a boat He's like, you know, 13 foot Boston. Well, if you guys coming over you might see him Colton Harris Mars like like, why are you on the phone? I'm out of here. I don't want to talk anymore. And then took off. I got a phone call that they saw this white guy saying that he's Colton Aaron Smart. I jump in my boat, me and like 11, 12 of my friends. They keep telling me, let's go, let's go. It's a reward. It's a reward. I saw this little skiff with this white boy in the boat. And he was like smiling. And he took off with speed. I took off with speed. We chased them up and down the harbour, up and down, up and down. I've been driving boats just about all my life. I've been to captain's school, I have captain's license. But to him, he looks like he has some good skills. To put that move on me, that's unbelievable. Midnight, there was a boat coming in from the southern end here and they were screaming outside in the area. They were screaming and chasing him. He had them like over 200 yards, but they thought he ran down that way. But by that time, he was already here and I'm watching the speed he's coming with. There's a white guy, white people running, I told you, in trouble, you see? He ran right into me, right in, I said, stop. So I said, what's up? He said, he's trying to kill me. I said, who's trying to kill you? He spin around here, he grab these bush, he break these down and just hit it. straight out into the property. I ran behind him. I was 50 yards behind him. I took my phone out of the pocket and I called a detective called Hart, the police puller. I said, he's right in the bush here. I said, what we need to do is quarantine this whole property. So he had to just sit quietly. We didn't hear nothing. I got word that this individual was on the ground. I realized that, oh boy, this is it. We need to go for the big one. We need to go for the catch. Rally all of the troops, the on-duty officers, as well as the off-duty officers. We need to mount an operation. We were all out that night and the dockhand, Rodney, he comes running. He goes, hey, y'all won't believe it, the bandit just put a boat right next to y'all boat. Y'all want to go check y'all boats out. I said, man, if he ran up and down his dock, we got him on undone surveillance. And sure enough, oh man, that is the dude. We figured, okay, he's come, he's gone, he wouldn't be very smart to come back to the same place. Probably three minutes later, the officers start coming down from up top. We had two teams of officers on the ground. One team of officers were actually pre-staged in that Ramara Bay area, whereas the other was mobile, checking the beaches, checking the marinas, communicating with the security officers and so forth. He come right down through this thick patch of bush here. And he snuck himself right across this little picket fence and he rumbled himself through these bushes here and he come on the side of this lady property and as he came through here this is where he blew himself into the water. We were all hanging on the dock right here and everybody was just, man, that's not right. Both leaving with no lights and real slow out the marina. Okay, he's stolen a boat. Okay, there's cops. Okay, they want to go catch him. We're the only people available to help them out. So, we just kind of jumped right in and got the cops on the boat and ran out there. Ronald's driving the boat and I'm kind of hanging over Ronald like this. Yeah, I'm getting the radar going.. As you can actually see right now, we've just gotten on the sandbar. You can see the water's a lot shallower. Right here. This is where he was, right here. He was actually sitting on his sandbar. And the green part is the shallowest part of the sandbar, and that's why we were able to catch up to him. It wasn't actually stuck, it was kind of... But he didn't trim up the engine, so the engine was actually going... through the sand.. Right around here is when we actually came up on him and started shouting at him. Shut down the engine. You're caught. You've got nowhere to go.. And basically, at that point, he's going to put the gun to his head, say he's going to kill himself. I can't go back. I'm not going to go back. Ronald and I were looking at the GPS. We noticed that he was getting into deep water. You can see him go from this motion, where he was steering, to turning around and throttling up on the boat. And at that point, Ronald told the officers, like, if you guys want to stop him, you know, it's going to have to happen soon, and you have to shut the engines. So we said, he's taking off, he's taking off. They got him. The Royal Bahamian Police Force did what no U.S. cops could. They ended the run of the barefoot bandit. All I'm gonna say is I'm he's safe and I'm happy and I love him and I miss him. How soon will you see him? When you gather around me people, I sing you a song Sing it to your right, and you still might think it's wrong About a young man by the name of Colton Harris Moore I'll sing you a song, in case you haven't heard it before Camino Island, Washington, crime was all he ever knew His daddy went to jail when he was only two

There's a way to make an entrance. My destiny. It was now a conspiracy of witches. Download Veely today.

Do you believe the teen known as the Barefoot Bandit has been caught? Police in the Bahamas say the most wanted teenage fugitive in America was captured after crash-landing a stolen plane on the island of Eleuthera. 19-year-old Colton Harris Moore could be facing dozens of criminal charges, including the theft of five airplanes.

Colton Harris Moore is 17 years old when he escapes from a halfway house in Renton, Washington. He will remain free for more than two years. His story will become legend. His legend will become history.

Holden Harris-Moore escaped from a group home in Renton last night. Harris-Moore was just 15 when he was arrested for breaking into homes, stealing valuables, and using computers to place fraudulent online orders. He was serving a three-year sentence when he escaped.

So Whoa! Freeze! Yes, that's correct. Apparently a doer.

There he is! Hold it! We're coming after you! Tonight there's an all-out search for Colton Harris Moore.

Dressed in camouflage and armed with rifles, at least two separate agencies are looking for the teenage burglar. after he was spotted late last night. Today, a heavily armed tactical team searched the area around the Elger Bay store where Harris Moore was last seen. While the 17-year-old is 6'5 and 200 pounds, he is crafty and knows the woods.

in the year he eluded law enforcement playing a frustrating game of cat and mouse. One of my sergeants came in and he says, hey boss, do you hear that Colton Harris Moore got out, you know, escaped? And I was not very happy because I knew where he was coming.

He was coming back to his old stomping grounds and all these burglaries and the whole thing was going to start up over again, which it did. He had disabled the alarm where there was no alarm going to the police station. He took food and money, packages of hot dogs and beef jerky, potato chips, a whole rack of vitamin water. I mean, I don't know how he hauled all this stuff away.

The undersheriff tells me there's been nine burglaries across Island County. in the last two weeks. Now he won't confirm that any of them are related or linked to Colton Harris Moore.

Moore is accused of breaking into dozens of homes and then disappearing into the woods of Kamano Island. Island residents begin to notice strange charges to their credit cards from online stores. Outdoor gear, bear mace, computer hacking software, GPS systems. and porn. Items they will never see.

Colton is gearing up for an adventure. He knew those woods. He grew up there.

He knew every trail, every pathway. And he was building his camps in very, very thick brush where you couldn't even tell there was a trail to him. And he'd get in there and he'd stomp all of that, you know, the area down and put like a tent in there or some type of a lean-to or just even a sleeping bag. And we'd find his camp and he'd just move to another one. Not too sure how we actually met up.

I think it might have been outside of school because he's a couple years younger than I am. Anybody can do a burglary. It don't matter if you're the dumbest person in the world. You can get through a window or get through an open door.

I was looking for cash, he was looking for credit cards and... Laptops. Vacation homes are actually ideal to hit because of the fact, one, nobody's there.

Two, a lot of people like to leave their stuff in the vacation home. Money, computers, cars. We were driving a stolen 2007 Mercedes Benz.

Every time we took it, we parked it in the garage in the same exact spot. spot, washed the car, and filled the tank up for the people. So pretty much we went on a joy ride, but we at least filled your tank and cleaned your car.

No matter what, you always have to look behind you. Sleep one night, gone the next morning. Never stay in one spot.

It reminded me a lot of like I was when I was younger, you know? A kid that wanted to make some quick money and make a name for himself. Teen Houdini Colton Moore has been on the run since he escaped three months ago from a group home on Kamano Island. He had confessed to a string of burglaries. Now Deputy Sings Moore is stealing again.

Everyone in the morning meeting loved the story idea. They wanted to know more about it. They wanted to know where is this kid, what's happening, what's going on, what has he done this time.

You know, he's already escaped this halfway house. How can the law enforcement not catch him? I mean, everyone just started talking. We heard this name, Colton Harris Moore, as a teenage suspect behind these burglaries.

I think that even if it had been an adult, there would have been a certain news value to it just in the sheer number of burglaries that had happened. But the fact that it was a kid who was committing these crimes, I think brought it to an entirely different level. Saturday morning, someone broke into a deputy's car, stealing a rifle, ammo. and a laptop.

Then just yesterday someone targeted a firefighter's truck and fire station. As North Bureau Chief Rob Piercy reports, people believe that someone is Colton Harris-Moore. Investigators say there's nothing definitive that links Colton Harris-Moore to what happened here, but this is the part of Camino Island he knows. In fact, just a couple of years ago, he burglarized this home just across the street from the fire station twice.

The fire station had been broken into. This infrared camera had been stolen. He had thought about it enough that a fire station may have an infrared camera, a device he could use to peer into homes to see if someone's in there before breaking in. Deputies launched an island-wide search today with help from canine units. They combed through wooded areas, down roads familiar to Moore without any luck.

One morning he came and I figured he was hungry, like he was always hungry. And he loves my breakfasts because I make homemade hash browns that I grade up myself. And so I made him a big breakfast. We sat there and talked, and after he left, the cops came, and they asked me the same old question, have you seen Colt? I said, yeah, we just sat down and had breakfast together.

God, did they get mad. And, well, you know that that's harboring, and I said, he's my kid. If he's hungry, I'm going to feed him.

I don't care if it's harboring him or not. And, yeah, they were pretty mad about that. that drove the police crazy i mean imagine we got a kid that's living within a radius probably of a mile of his mom's place and they can't catch you know i think he had a little vendetta with the police and he wanted to steal their shotguns and their laptops and i think he wanted them to look foolish but i don't think most of us thought of him as a dangerous kid he just seemed like a kid and uh really hasn't been socialized and which is another part of the myth you kind of go well who is this kid you I mean he didn't really go through a school system did he?

He kind of is self-taught in everything. I mean he learned how to steal. He did pretty well at it.

When I first met him at Greenhill, the maximum security institution, we were out in the hall just talking. We got along, got to be friends. He was intelligent.

The way he spoke, it just sounded like he was a smart guy. He was into, like, psychology and criminology, and I was interested in that as well. I think his mind was set on one thing, and that he could accomplish that goal, and he was so confident in it. I want to be a professional criminal.

Colton chose to operate in small communities. One of those communities was the little town of East Sound on Orcas Island. This is a picturesque little community on a beautiful bayside with what you might expect in a tourist community. There are restaurants, there are gift shops, a couple of grocery stores, a hardware store, a bank, and that's the list of places. We discovered that Colton Harris, which we like to call him the cockroach, came in our second story window.

And what he did was, we've got what we call the bullpen in the back, and he climbed up the fence, climbed up the... the roof and went into the window upstairs. He basically just walked into our store and started getting what he needed, and then he decided to break into our safe, which he did.

And this is our remains of it, over $3,000 in our safe. He had big crowbars, and he just pounded it to death, and it really looks like he did pound it to death. A restaurant had surveillance video.

He had been there at some point, stolen a credit card, then used the credit card to buy instructional materials on how to fly a plane, had it mailed to the restaurant, then... had apparently been monitoring, you know, the tracking number from FedEx or UPS, whoever it was that shipped it, broke in that night, stole his manuals. You know, the idea that you would use someone's credit card to buy something and then have it shipped to their place of business and then break into their business and steal it.

You know, it's unreal. Colton sets up camp in the mountains and immerses himself in the solitude of nature. A human shadow, an island rumour, whispered over campfires.

His real journey, however, is about to begin. It is the island's airport that brings him here. A chance to make a lifelong dream become a reality. I knew he loved planes since he was a little boy he wanted to be a pilot loved him a plane flew over and he said I can tell you what you're that was built who built it and what size engine it has it was an airplane spread books button talked about him all the time even had pictures of airplanes hanging up in his room Drew airplanes.

So when he got out, he wanted to steal a plane and teach himself how to fly it. That was, that was his whole plan. Colton sets his plan in motion from his mountain campsite. Channeling his energy into the study of aviation, he steals and studies aircraft manuals, used thousands of online videos, and carefully watches the comings and goings of the small planes of Orcas Island. Music Music Authorities Believe the plane was stolen by drug runners.

For the moment, the act that will make him a legend goes unnoticed. Colton vanishes into the wilderness. This is one of Colton's cap areas here. Because it's like about 120, 550 yards from where I live, and supposedly his mother lives a couple hundred yards the other direction. So this is actually ground zero.

So this particular area, it's dark. I don't know what time it is, what, 430? It's very secluded here, unless you know it's here. You got a 360 degree view. You could see if somebody or something was coming at you.

You'd be surprised how many different operations that we did when we got a little bit of intel on where he was at. And sometimes we'd get very close. One time, three of my deputies found one of his tents and all of his personal belongings. My three words. Come on.

The dog was impounded because basically we knew he wanted how much he loved the dog and the dog was running loose, so it was a criminal offense. So I called the animal shelter the next day and they said they had her, but they couldn't give her to me because she was evidence. And I said, how can a dog be evidence? She's not going to get up on the witness stand and talk. Subtitles by the Amara.org community One night Colton picked me up in a beater truck and he drove back to this house that he said he was using real quick.

And he had told me the lights were off. We get there and the lights are on. I stayed outside and I had a pack of cigarettes and I smoked the entire pack before he convinced me to come in. Colton dropped one of the glasses and I watched it in slow motion. I don't know why it was slow motion, but it dropped all really slow and then he ran past me.

Hey! I saw the glass shatter and I turned around and ran. Ugh!

Ugh! I think he just got really addicted to adrenaline. It's the most addicting drug you can ever get addicted to.

Because once you have- Notorious teenage burglar from Camino Island may be island hopping. Authorities believe Colton Harris Moore is connected to several burglaries on Orcas Island. He went throughout the store with crowbars and opening doors, and I don't know exactly what all he used on the ATM. As the tales of his exploits grow, Colton Harris Moore's crime spree may be spreading too.

Disabled, 8 out of 14 cameras. As he went, he was barefooted. He got almost $10,000. Now here's where this story makes a turn for the almost ridiculous. In addition to all those burglaries, Colton Harris Moore is suspected of stealing as many as two airplanes.

Airplanes! Where did he learn how to fly? I remember just being sort of dumbfounded, thinking, how is that even possible? It just made it unbelievable and impressive.

By the end of the day, every... Network affiliate in Seattle, I think, had been out to Orcas Island. Colton Harris Moore may have taught himself how to fly.

The suspect may be island hopping with stolen boats and planes. Law enforcement officers have referred to Colton Harris Moore as a ghost with an uncanny ability to run from the law. A wild, wild man who...

I was in Abbotsford, BC, Canada when I met Colton Harris-Moore. My car started making some funny noises, so I pulled off. This kid approached me, kind of out of nowhere. He had a black hoodie, military cargo pants.

He had mud on his pants, maybe up to here. That kind of struck me as odd, like maybe he was hiding in a ditch or something. I said his name was Sean, and then asked me if I was headed east.

So then we were both waiting for Jordy here to come pick us up. So he hopped into the back of my truck. That's right.

And I asked him if it was uncouth of me to light up some of that green stuff or whatever. Yeah. I can't believe I just said that on video camera.

Yeah. Yeah. We're heading through a construction zone.

We started to duck down, like going through this construction zone. I'm like, oh man, that's alright. I don't have to hide from these guys or whatever. And we kind of joked about it. Are you a fugitive or something?

Yeah, yeah. I asked him if he was a fugitive. He said, what? No, no, no, no, no. Didn't make you suspicious or anything?

No, not at all. Once he told us about how it was so easy to sneak across from the US-Canadian border, then we kind of wondered. James offered to let him stay in his van at his house.

So when you were just sitting by the campfire, what was he doing? Just sitting in silence? Sitting in silence, yeah.

Just experiencing his high. We bagged him a lunch, me and my wife, and I gave him five or ten bucks cash and dropped him off on the on the number three highway. How long was it before you realized who this kid was?

It was about two weeks. Headline says SWAT team comes forth for American Fugitives. I'm like, ah whatever, so I looked at it I was like, holy shit that's the guy, that's the kid.

Cool. He wanted to be with me when I was in Maple Ridge. We made a place in Tyne, and he ended up stealing a BMW, a black BMW, and drove it out there and met me. I was out talking about stuff, drove around.

He had a backpack full of money, and he wanted to go get a grapple hook and go rob malls, and we ended up driving over to an airport in Maple Ridge. They had a couple bunkers out there in the field. We ended up walking over there, checking out the planes.

He was hoping that I would leave with him. But I just kept making excuses, saying, oh, I can't, I got stuff to do. And I kept telling him I would meet up with him somewhere else, somewhere else along the line. I didn't have the guts to go with him. I didn't want to, especially flying in a plane with him.

I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him, so... I was eating my lunch on that ridge over there and I could see the white of it from that far ridge. The bushes were knocked down so it was easy to tell that he came just on the other side of that stump and came down in and then it nosed in right there and it kind of reared up and twisted and then lit.

They said even as slow as he could go, he still probably hit the ground doing about 60. Ten feet he was. could have hit that stump, you know, or even less. I looked it up, the number on the computer, and found out that it was stolen out of Idaho. I kind of guessed it ran out of gas with my guess, but then as things went on, I found out that it wasn't out of gas. He put it here on purpose.

I brung the sheriffs back in so they could come look at it, and it progressed from there. I mean, there was everybody here, sheriffs and state patrols and border patrol and homeland security, and they were all up and down the road with SWAT crews and dogs and guns and rifles, and it was almost silly. Two days had already gone by. He ain't around here. I had got a text from my mom saying that a plane had crashed near our house.

Did I see any action about it? And I said, no, I didn't know anything about it. I had just gotten home.

There was some food missing and our passports were gone. My first inclination was to go look at windows and doors and could see where it had been pried open. So I... Decided to call 911, get somebody out here. He had to shut off all the lights and we just stood out there real quietly.

He shut his car off. He said, did you, he looked over and he said, did you hear that? And I said, yeah, I did.

And they geared up. They put on their full gear and started going. That's when the heart started racing a little bit for me.

The officer said they scared him when they came up upon him, so he didn't have a chance to grab anything when he left. So everything he had with him, he left behind. They came out with a business-sized vinyl zipper deposit bag just stuffed full of money. The last I heard, they were over $20,000. SWAT teams fan out across Granite Falls today in search of a suspect considered armed and dangerous.

Searching from the sky, this Homeland Security Black Hawk helicopter is outfitted with the most sophisticated people-finding electronics in the world. and yet not a trace of the burglary suspect had been found. One thing that doesn't match Harris Moore, the gunshot at deputies. He's never shown violence.

There's definitely a sense of paranoia out here. I spoke with some firefighters. One said he just had his car stolen last night.

A woman said she woke up and saw a tall kid roaming her house with a flashlight. Now, again, none of this is official, and this extensive search hasn't turned up anyone. Just the last moments, a burst of police activity here as deputies are chasing down every possible lead as they search for the team.

And it seems as though authorities are going to great lengths not to get Colton Harris Moore's name tied up in all this for fear that he becomes some kind of... folk hero. Law enforcement was really afraid that he was starting to look like this hero that to other kids would think it was cool and that he was coming across as cool. Hey, this kid could steal a boat. This kid could steal a plane and he could make faces at law enforcement and keep on going.

Law enforcement doesn't want some kid running around making them look like a fool and then being on the news looking like a hero. Holla the Colton craze. Colton Harris-Moore has been the talk of the town and now the country. T-shirt maker enjoys a spike in sales with his Colton Harris-Moore t-shirt that says, Mama tried.

This is a tribute to the great Harris-Moore. Game of Man, he grew to take a stand. One day he found a way to get to fly. His name is Colton Harris Moore. And he's known as the Barefoot Bandit.

I hadn't heard of the Barefoot Bandit until today. There have been videos of him everywhere. You turn on the news, you're gonna see him. They've been trying to catch him, but can't. I'm gonna get People trying to capitalize on him by selling t-shirts and coffee mugs and writing songs about him.

Yes, that's all part and parcel of being a folk hero. This is a kid who fulfilled the ultimate fantasy. He wanted to fly, and he did. just that. Folk hero, anti-hero, whatever you want to call him.

A lot of people and a lot of kids found true inspiration from this kid. We're on Camino Island. That's where Colton Harris-Morris is from. How do you steal an airplane? You don't steal an airplane.

You steal off of airplanes. He didn't steal off of airplanes. He stole three airplanes. No, you... And the theft of at least three airplanes.

How do you steal an airplane? He's taught himself to fly because he didn't have any training or anything. He's been on the run for like two years from the FBI and the cops.

A San Juan County Sheriff's deputy said he nearly caught Harris more in the woods and had him in his flashlight and then he virtually vaporized in front of me. He recalled Colton laughing loudly from the woods when he realized he had eluded them. You see this and you're like, wow, a 19-year-old who's that smart, does all that stuff, and the FBI can't even find him. You're kind of like wanting to root for him, even though you know what he's doing is wrong and everything. He's not violent.

He's a thief, but he's not violent. I think he's kind of cool. You can get T-shirts.

There are several places where you can buy T-shirts now. Yeah, let's see how many friends and fans he has when they catch him and send him to jail. I have a feeling he's going to be all alone.

First time I met him was there was an alarm at one of our local elementary schools. And myself and another deputy responded there and found an open door. So we went in and we searched the building high and low.

And it was real obvious that somebody had been inside the building because all the drawers and the teachers'desks were pulled out, closets were open. Somebody was looking for something. Well, the deputy that was with me opened a closet door and there was standing this little boy, all of about 10 years old, and it was Colton Harris Moore.

People should look more at who he is instead of what he's done, because what he did is completely different from who he is. I think he's been in survival mode a long, long time. Colton didn't know how to stop.

That was all he knew. Sometimes when you don't have the chance to prove yourself as a child, you get off onto a wrong track. And he got off onto a wrong track.

He was a great kid. He probably still is, deep down underneath. Colton would wait by the side of the road in the hitchhike, and he was about 10. And one day, this man picked him up. And about halfway to wherever they were headed, Colton said to him, you know, my dad's really a jerk. That's something...

if you think about a 10-year-old, you know, out on the road hitchhiking, that would tell a neighbor, someone he probably didn't know that well, that his dad was a jerk. Gordy left when Colt was about two or three. Well, he kept leaving and kept leaving and would come back and then he finally left for good. I think he just didn't like living out in the country.

That far away from beer, to tell you the truth, and he never paid child support. So I had a rough time. He told me his mom was a sheriff and his dad was a pilot in the Air Force. They told everybody, but I guess... That's not how, that's not what it is.

His home life, it was rotten. I have never heard my life, a mother, use the words that she used against him at times. I mean, it would make me want to leave home at an early age. I think he started breaking into houses just to see how other people live because there's the dilapidated trailer that he lives in and new houses being built all around that are, you know, nice. I think it was a kid.

He knew he was doing wrong. But I don't think it was criminal intent. There was no intervention to help this kid by anybody. There was trouble at school, trouble with the police and CPS. All those things had trouble with this little boy, and not anybody stepped in.

Nobody. Come O'Core News starts right now. Turning a teen outlaw into a hero. First on TV and now on newsstands, the story of Colton Harris Moore is getting more national attention. The coverage is revealing a lot about his past.

We're set back from everything along a dirt road. This is the entrance to Colton Harris Moore's house. You can see there are several no trespassing signs out here now, adding to the mystery behind his life and really the neighborhood tension. She certainly wasn't come on in and sit down and have a cup of tea, but she was willing to talk. The main thing I get angry about are him being accused of things that I know dang well he didn't do.

Are you hiding him from police? God, no. He lives with friends.

So there are friends that are providing him refuge? Yes. So you don't think that he's escaping into the woods?

You don't think he's living in the woods? I know dang well he ain't. How do you know that? Because I've talked to him. Pamela Kohler spoke with us today on the condition that we not show her face.

Because she doesn't want to be targeted by all the folks out here who know all about her son. This is where Colton Harris Moore grew up. Just Colton and his mom for most of his life. If he flew planes, I'm proud. How come?

Because he would have had to teach himself. Kids do what they want to do. It isn't the parents'fault.

Is it the parents'job, though, to steer them in a different direction? Sure. But not all kids can be steered. I called his mother and said, what are you gonna...

If you could give him a Christmas present, what would you give him? And she told me she would give him a bulletproof vest. Running away from the law sure would be fun. Menace to adults, but a hero for kids.

Sure it's hard to realize on the run, But you've got family in all of us kids. Please call, say, and steal a plane for me. The next time that we were out at Orcas Island after another plane had been hard-landed, we went to a grocery store where the surveillance system had been dunked.

in some tank of water to try and destroy it. He had taken the time to draw chalk footprints throughout the store of these big bare feet, and written at the entrance was, See ya. Just sort of flippin'. The sort of thing that you might see written in a text message from one teenager to another.

Well, police believe it was Colton Harris Moore. who hit a number of businesses last year. But it is certainly the speculation of the town that he's back. Deputies are still on the lookout for Colton Harris Moore. Now, several residents of Orcas Island told us they'd be patrolling overnight with flashlights and radios to keep Harris Moore from striking again.

I think we're well beyond the Robin Hood stage. We're into the John Dillinger stage. Behind me is a hangar belonging to a friend of mine.

It had been entered several times by Colton Harris Moore. He'd set up this little nest there. And he had food, water, clothes, stolen property, flight manuals. And the deputies could be running around like chickens with their head cut off while he's sitting up there laughing at them. I think he did plan to take my friend's airplanes, but he subsequently stole the wife's truck out of here and used that in another escapade.

He had been in my friend's house making phone calls. So the plan was for the FBI SWAT team to take up position in the forest and around the house and hopefully Colton would appear. I'm not sure who was more surprised, but obviously he met the gentleman inside, and his response is really quite thoughtful.

As soon as I'm confronted, I'm going to run because that's my best. The authorities say they're closing in on a teenage fugitive in the San Juans, the infamous barefoot bandit Colton Harris Moore. We're talking about the FBI and several local police agencies all converging in to try to corner this teenager. But after two and a half years on the run, authorities may finally have Colton Harris Moore right where they want him. Intro music We woke up about 1.30, the helicopter basically hovering right above our house.

At about 6 in the morning, my husband came out to feed chickens and do our morning chores, and that's when he discovered there was footprints going through our property. He went right and saw the chicken coop and went into it and then came out and the tracks led away from the coop. This one was found right about underneath where I'm standing.

And then this one was found over by our pit. pickup truck that was parked over by our chicken coop. What gave you the idea to do that? County deputy.

Oh, yeah? He had made a comment about, since you're the only one that has anything like this, you should make casts and put them on eBay and see what you can get for them. And so we tried it, and we had a lot of people look at them, and we set the price high, and I ended up getting two death threats on eBay. We hope that you're the one he kills because you're enabling him.

to proceed with his criminal career. And so, yeah, I mean, and we were just doing it all and just as fun. I'm probably going to end up on the side of the chicken coop.

For months, there is no sign of Colton. Some speculate that he's left the island or died alone in the wilderness or drowned in the ocean. Unsettling rumors reach Kamaino Island. I told some news media, I said, write this, tell him to contact me somehow, because I'm very worried. We knew he had stolen a boat and gone to Friday Harbor.

And stole one there, went to Lopez Island. Stole another one on Lopez Island. Actually caught on video and took that to Camino Island.

People were just angry and frustrated on two levels, that people were elevating him to this level of folk hero and angry that he hadn't been caught yet and that, you know, they might be next. If he was on Camino Island, he would be shot. I knew that. And that scared the hell out of me. We want him stopped.

Most of us want him dead. Period. You guys probably don't want to hear it, but this guy is actually pretty sharp.

He calls himself a recovery agent. In other words, a bounty hunter. Hunter. He and other agents are pledging free of charge to help find Colton Harris Moore. We're going to be here physically.

We're going to be on site. Not every day. Nobody knows when we're going to be here. He doesn't know when we're going to be here.

We've already started to get tips. Tips I'm sure the police don't have. There's a little formula for catching a fugitive, and it's eliminate the places that they're comfortable. We were watching hangars on the islands, marinas. We had boats patrolling the marina area.

We had teams set up all over the place in vehicles. You know, it was locked down. Well, this was an unusual opportunity to get a glimpse of work that's normally hidden. Three groups of masked searchers hit the woods and beaches on Camino Island, waiting for Colton Harris Moore to show himself. Most guys, when they're on the run, the quiet is good, low profile, I'm going to find a place, and melt into the woodwork.

And his was the exact opposite. His was like... Here we go. Try to find me. Catch me if you can.

The infamous barefoot bandit left a calling card at an animal hospital in Raymond. A worker there found a note with $100 to be used for the animals, signed Colton Harris Moore. We realized very quickly that he had moved south.

Of course, the note was kind of a dead end. giveaway at the veterinary clinic that, you know, that it was in fact him. He signed it with his name.

There's a clue. Colton hopscotches across the country, leaving a trail of stolen cars. Driving each until it runs out of gas.

He breaks into a half dozen airports looking for just the right plane to execute his plan. Airport to airport, state to state, the authorities are left days behind. 2,000 miles, nine states, nearly a dozen stolen cars. Colton finally finds his plane in Bloomington, Indiana. He camps in a nearby patch of woods and watches, waiting for just the right moment.

Time, don't you fly away on me Release me from the earth over the sea Don't you fly away on me His final flight takes him 1,200 miles south to Abaco Island in the Bahamas. Don't you fly away on me We were on the south side fishing for mutton snappers, and we saw the plane coming from the west. And it made, I don't know, maybe six, seven circles around the area.

And he did a very good job putting the tail down first, and then when he slowed down so much, the nose dipped over. But they said the plane was probably able to repair if somebody wanted to put the money into it. That's how good a job he did.

Gather on my children, let me tell you about this man Who stole a plane from the USA and crashed in my Bahama land The barefoot bandit might be basking in the Bahamas Investigators say a stolen plane from Indiana crashed landed off the coast of one of the islands yesterday The FBI's got agents down in the Bahamas working with local police there to try and... Catch Harris Moore. There's now a $10,000 reward for information that leads to his arrest. Came in and opened my shop, found that the door was broken into. Two Gatorades, two sodas, about three chips, broken to my cash drawer.

Also, the police found that a lady's house was broken into and her vehicle was stolen. I normally check the security cameras to make sure nothing happened the previous night. I noticed that all the cameras in the downstairs area have been turned towards the wall. They call them the barefoot bandits all over the evening news.

That's right. This boy ain't need to use no shoes. Tip toe and run and people living room in the nighttime.

I looked around, there was nothing missing, nothing really damaged except for the door which had been waged open with a crowbar or some other tool. The night that he broke into our place, he stole the boat and drove the boat down to Eleuthera. The Barefoot Bandit has once again given police the slip.

Police initially felt they'd find the young man quickly, but now the chief is backtracking and says it's possible Harris Moore was never even there. For one week, Colton Harris Moore is the biggest news story in the world. The barefoot kid from Kamaino Island showed them all. For all his fame, Colton must have felt more alone than ever, 3,000 miles from home.

It's about two or three in the afternoon, this young man seen my internet sign and he said, ma'am, you think I could plug in with my laptop to your access? I need to talk to my mom. I haven't talked to her in over a month or something to that effect. I said, sure.

He says, I don't have any money. I said, that doesn't matter to me. Just make yourself at home. And I went back and I said to him, I said, would you like me to make you a sandwich? And he said, but I don't have any money.

I said, I'm offering you a sandwich. Would you like one? So I made him a sandwich. He stayed there for a while, thanked me.

And left. Actually, I kept a lot of people, not just me, on the island. We heard about his background, that he had a bad upbringing.

He lived in the bush. My heart went out to him because my kid's father, he's dead now, but he left me alone with them three to bring up my own. Thank God I had parents and my nephew next door.

And I had help, but that little kid, no. I had no bad feelings. I didn't want him to catch him.

No. Perhaps Colton became lost in his own legend. Or his thirst for adrenaline became more powerful in his need to be free.

Maybe he just felt the need to write the ending to his own story. We were right over there on the dock and out of nowhere this guy came in on a boat and all of us was looking to see who he was. This kid in this 13 foot Boston Wheeler comes in supposed to be spun like it was a jet ski.

When he came close, he's like, he's the barefoot bandit. I'm Colton Harris Moore. I played dumb. I was like. I don't know who the barefoot bender is because they were given a big reward So I wanted him to come in so I could catch him and he kept saying repeatedly Call the cops for me man or call the boats or something.

I want to have some fun call FBI call the chopper He's like well, I want to get chase. I'm bored I was like what this kid into we're calling some of our bodies that that has a boat He's like, you know, 13 foot Boston. Well, if you guys coming over you might see him Colton Harris Mars like like, why are you on the phone? I'm out of here. I don't want to talk anymore.

And then took off. I got a phone call that they saw this white guy saying that he's Colton Aaron Smart. I jump in my boat, me and like 11, 12 of my friends. They keep telling me, let's go, let's go.

It's a reward. It's a reward. I saw this little skiff with this white boy in the boat.

And he was like smiling. And he took off with speed. I took off with speed. We chased them up and down the harbour, up and down, up and down. I've been driving boats just about all my life.

I've been to captain's school, I have captain's license. But to him, he looks like he has some good skills. To put that move on me, that's unbelievable. Midnight, there was a boat coming in from the southern end here and they were screaming outside in the area. They were screaming and chasing him.

He had them like over 200 yards, but they thought he ran down that way. But by that time, he was already here and I'm watching the speed he's coming with. There's a white guy, white people running, I told you, in trouble, you see?

He ran right into me, right in, I said, stop. So I said, what's up? He said, he's trying to kill me. I said, who's trying to kill you?

He spin around here, he grab these bush, he break these down and just hit it. straight out into the property. I ran behind him. I was 50 yards behind him. I took my phone out of the pocket and I called a detective called Hart, the police puller.

I said, he's right in the bush here. I said, what we need to do is quarantine this whole property. So he had to just sit quietly.

We didn't hear nothing. I got word that this individual was on the ground. I realized that, oh boy, this is it.

We need to go for the big one. We need to go for the catch. Rally all of the troops, the on-duty officers, as well as the off-duty officers.

We need to mount an operation. We were all out that night and the dockhand, Rodney, he comes running. He goes, hey, y'all won't believe it, the bandit just put a boat right next to y'all boat. Y'all want to go check y'all boats out. I said, man, if he ran up and down his dock, we got him on undone surveillance.

And sure enough, oh man, that is the dude. We figured, okay, he's come, he's gone, he wouldn't be very smart to come back to the same place. Probably three minutes later, the officers start coming down from up top. We had two teams of officers on the ground.

One team of officers were actually pre-staged in that Ramara Bay area, whereas the other was mobile, checking the beaches, checking the marinas, communicating with the security officers and so forth. He come right down through this thick patch of bush here. And he snuck himself right across this little picket fence and he rumbled himself through these bushes here and he come on the side of this lady property and as he came through here this is where he blew himself into the water. We were all hanging on the dock right here and everybody was just, man, that's not right. Both leaving with no lights and real slow out the marina.

Okay, he's stolen a boat. Okay, there's cops. Okay, they want to go catch him.

We're the only people available to help them out. So, we just kind of jumped right in and got the cops on the boat and ran out there. Ronald's driving the boat and I'm kind of hanging over Ronald like this. Yeah, I'm getting the radar going..

As you can actually see right now, we've just gotten on the sandbar. You can see the water's a lot shallower. Right here.

This is where he was, right here. He was actually sitting on his sandbar. And the green part is the shallowest part of the sandbar, and that's why we were able to catch up to him. It wasn't actually stuck, it was kind of... But he didn't trim up the engine, so the engine was actually going...

through the sand.. Right around here is when we actually came up on him and started shouting at him. Shut down the engine. You're caught. You've got nowhere to go..

And basically, at that point, he's going to put the gun to his head, say he's going to kill himself. I can't go back. I'm not going to go back.

Ronald and I were looking at the GPS. We noticed that he was getting into deep water. You can see him go from this motion, where he was steering, to turning around and throttling up on the boat. And at that point, Ronald told the officers, like, if you guys want to stop him, you know, it's going to have to happen soon, and you have to shut the engines. So we said, he's taking off, he's taking off.

They got him. The Royal Bahamian Police Force did what no U.S. cops could. They ended the run of the barefoot bandit. All I'm gonna say is I'm he's safe and I'm happy and I love him and I miss him.

How soon will you see him? When you gather around me people, I sing you a song Sing it to your right, and you still might think it's wrong About a young man by the name of Colton Harris Moore I'll sing you a song, in case you haven't heard it before Camino Island, Washington, crime was all he ever knew His daddy went to jail when he was only two

Transcript for:Colton Harris Moore: The Barefoot Bandit

Transcript for:
Colton Harris Moore: The Barefoot Bandit