Eighteen-year-old Colton Harris-Moore is achieving folk hero status as the “Barefoot Bandit” in the US and Canada after a string of burglaries and daredevil escapes from the law.
Romanticized by some as a “Billy the Kid” figure but regarded by others as a common thief, Harris Moore has a criminal record stretching back to when he was just 12 and a penchant for kicking off his shoes before fleeing.
Caught in 2007 and sentenced to detention in a halfway house near Seattle, the teenager from Camano Island, north of Seattle, escaped the following year and his legend began to grow.
PHOTO: AFP
Shortly after breaking out, he was being pursued driving a stolen Mercedes-Benz near his mother’s home when he jumped from the moving vehicle and ran into the woods, leaving police with a wrecked car filled with loot.
Among stolen possessions recovered was a digital camera the fugitive used to take a self-portrait. The photograph, complete with self-assured smirk, has become the public face of a teenage robber who has now become an Internet idol.
Burglaries continued on Camano Island and while Harris-Moore remained out of sight police and neighbors were sure it was him behind the thefts. Within months he was suspected of more than 50 buglaries across three counties.
For the next year, Harris-Moore, a 1.98m giant who obviously stands out in a crowd, was a ghost as far as the police were concerned.
Then, in September, on the remote San Juan Islands that straddle the watery border between Washington State and Canada’s Vancouver Island, he was spotted on a surveillance tape during an attempted robbery.
While stealing US$2,500 from the ATM machine of another business the same night, he cut himself, leaving traces of blood that were matched to his DNA.
Much to the consternation of police officials, his re-emergence again captured the public’s imagination as more tales emerged of his uncanny ability to outmaneuver the authorities.
The “Barefoot Bandit” legend took on a new dimension in October when a private plane crashed near the Cascade Mountains east of Seattle. It had been stolen in Idaho, near where a rash of burglaries had occurred.
Searchers never found the pilot, but a few days later, an intruder was reported at a nearby home. When police arrived, the suspected burglar ran into the woods and fired a gun at them.
Harris-Moore’s mother, Pam Koehler, didn’t doubt her son could be a pilot if he wanted to be.
“He’s smart. He took an IQ test a few years ago and he’s three points below Einstein,” she said.
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