America's Most Wanted Teen-Aged Bandit

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar....html?iid=tsmo
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Visitors hoping to catch a glimpse of the bald eagles on Camano Island
in Washington State's Puget Sound are more likely to see a different
bird in the sky: a police chopper skimming the cedar forests in search
of an outlaw. Colton Harris-Moore, a gangly 18-year-old with furtive
eyes and a dimpled chin, has been on police blotters since he was
accused of stealing a bike at the age of 8. Since then, he is suspected
of having committed nearly 100 burglaries in Washington, Idaho and
Canada. Police allege that he graduated from bikes to cars, then to
speedboats. Lately, he is suspected of stealing three small aircraft —
all the more impressive given that he has never taken a single flying
lesson. (See the top 10 crime stories of 2009.)

Harris-Moore, 6 ft. 5 in. (1.96 m), has become a legend in the Pacific
Northwest — T-shirts bearing his face or the words FLY, COLTON, FLY are
big sellers in Seattle — and on the Internet. His Facebook fan club has
8,000 members, and a hokey ballad on YouTube sings his praises.
Harris-Moore's supporters see a deeper meaning to his popularity: During
hard economic times, they say, why not celebrate a poor boy who robs
from the island vacation homes of Seattle's dotcom gazillionaires? But
Harris-Moore apparently steals just as often from Camano's ordinary folk
as he does from the rich. (See the top 10 Facebook stories of 2009.)

He had a rough past. Harris-Moore's abusive father walked out after
choking him during an argument at a family barbecue. His mother raised
him in a mobile home dragged into the woods on the island's South End,
which, as local writer and stained-glass artist Jack Archibald says, has
"basically one main road, a two-lane blacktop that loops around like a
belt on a skinny fella."

Some locals speculate that Harris-Moore burgles not for the money but to
experience the fantasy of the happy home life he never had as a child.
According to local sheriffs, he often slips into a house just to soak in
a hot bath or steal mint-chip ice cream from the fridge — a "Goldilocks
thing," one investigator says. Initially, Harris-Moore seemed to steal
only what he needed for life in the woods. "He's a survivalist," says
Archibald. The teenager allegedly used one homeowner's computer and
credit-card information to order bear mace and a pair of $6,500
night-vision goggles. (See the top 10 gadgets of 2009.)

His recent alleged crimes have been more brazen. He's been accused of
stealing speedboats to travel to nearby islands to plunder empty homes.
In November 2008, police suspect that Harris-Moore hot-wired a Cessna
that belonged to a local radio DJ — he'd ordered a flying manual on the
Internet — and crash-landed it 300 miles (about 480 km) east on an
Indian reservation. Since then, he may have stolen two other planes,
both of which were later found crashed. He apparently walked away from
the wrecks, miraculously unharmed. On Fox News, Harris-Moore's mother
Pam Kohler outraged her tut-tutting interviewer by saying, "I hope to
hell he stole those planes. I'd be so proud. But next time, I want him
to wear a parachute."

So where is he now? When police recently retrieved a stolen
Mercedes-Benz on Camano, they discovered a camera with a photo that
Harris-Moore had snapped of himself. The manhunt has become more
intense. Before slipping away from a police raid on his mother's
trailer, Harris-Moore left a note: "Cops wanna play huh!? Well its no
lil game.....It's war! & tell them that." Authorities say he then broke
into a deputy's car and stole, among other things, an assault rifle. He
is now considered armed and dangerous. "He's not evil, but he's not
Robin Hood either," says artist Jack Gunter, an island resident. "Unless
he's stopped, chances are he'll end up a career criminal — or dead."

That, of course, would only add to his legend. To his young fans,
Harris-Moore is known as "the Barefoot Burglar" because he once kicked
off his shoes to flee deputies chasing him in the woods. One of his
admirers — a young, tattooed waitress at the Viking Restaurant in nearby
Stanwood, on the mainland — says that one night last month, she saw a
tall young man sprinting down the street. "He was barefoot, and he was
laughing. I wanted it so much to be Colton."