502 - Washington Favorites

On this Washington quilt episode, we revisit Karen and Georgia’s coverage of the Seattle cyanide poisonings from November 8, 2018 and the “Barefoot Bandit” from June 23, 2022. 

For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes.

Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello, and welcome to My Favorite Murder.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
After six years, we are back out on the road
and because of that, we're putting some quilt episodes together
for you.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
And so this episode features two of our favorite stories
from the state of Washington, just in time for our
Seattle tour stop.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
First, Georgia is going to tell the story of Stella
Nicol and the Seattle Cyanide poisonings.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
And then Karen will cover Colton Harris Moore, better known
as the Barefoot Bandit.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
And just so you guys know, we'll be in Seattle
on October twenty first and twenty second. A few tickets
are still available, so go to my Favorite Murder dot
com slash live to get yours.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
And until then, please enjoy this Washington Quilt episode.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Goodbye.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
Okay, Well, speaking of Seattle, Oh, I'm not going to
tell you too much about this because I want you
to kind of guess some shit. But this is basically
the Seattle Cyanide poisonings.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
My first guess was going to be Bigfoot, but I
guess that now that I hear the word cyanide, I'm
going to take I'm going to retract it.

Speaker 4 (01:19):
Okay, Okay, it's not Bigfoot. Okay, okay. June eleventh, nineteen
eighty six, right after my sixth birthday in Auburn, Washington.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Right after my sixteenth birthday, they we had a surprise party.
It was fun, cute.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
So Auburn, Washington. It's a summer about twenty five miles
outside of Seattle. Forty year old Susan Snow. She's a
mother of two teenage girls. She works as a bank manager.
She woke up at six am and started her normal
morning routine. She kissed her husband, Paul, who was a
long haul trucker, goodbye as he left for work, and

(01:52):
wished her fifteen year old daughter halea good morning. Goes
into her bathroom, plugs in her curling iron, starts to
get ready for work. But another one of her normal
things routines in the morning, which she did all the
time because she suffered from really painful headaches, she took
her pretty much daily dose of two extra strength etcedrin.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Capsules from the bottle in her kitchen. Oh shit, that's right.

Speaker 4 (02:19):
About forty minutes after she went into her bathroom to
get ready, her daughter Haley went into the bathroom to
see it was taking her mom so long, no I know,
and found Sue collapse on the floor of the bathroom.
Sue was unresponsive but had a faint pulse, and when
Haley called nine one one, she told them that it
seemed like her mother was asleep but with her eyes open.

Speaker 5 (02:39):
Oh no, I know.

Speaker 4 (02:40):
That's so awful, that's so sad. Gasping for breath and
her pulse fading. Sue's phone by helicopter to the hospital
where doctors work to determine what is even wrong with her.
They don't know how to help her because they can't
forget what's wrong. Maybe she slipped while getting ready and
hit her head, but she didn't have any bruises. Had
she been electrocated by the curling iron?

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Know?

Speaker 4 (03:01):
And nothing seemed to add up, And so doctors were baffled,
and just a few hours later, Sue Snow had died.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Shit.

Speaker 4 (03:08):
Yeah, during the autopsy on Sue Snow, this chick assistant,
she's the assistant medical examiner, Janet Miller. She's like, yo,
I fucking smell a very faint scent of bitter almonds. Yeah,
which I am I know from an experience, means cyanide.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Now you were pointing out yourself, Georgia, but you were
playing the part Janet is like Yore in the role
of Janet. Yes, Janet knows from experience that, like that's
the scent that bitter alments.

Speaker 4 (03:37):
Historically, Like the book that was written about this is
named bitter Almonds.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
Is it really yeah? Because also it's kind of a
play on word, as you'll see soon.

Speaker 4 (03:51):
The main medical examiner person was like, shut up, you assistant,
be quiet. I don't smell anything, and they're like, well,
and also it doesn't show any of the telltale signs
of cyanide poisoning, Like her skin wasn't bright, pink.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
That sort of thing. So she was like, blew her off.

Speaker 4 (04:06):
She was gonna just put down that she died of
natural causes, had an uni diagnosed heart issue, and Janet
h Then later this doctor comes in to say to
the main person, so what happened, and she starts to
tell her like, oh, it's just a hard issue. In
Janet's like, yo, motherfuckers, you should probably listen to me,
and like told another doctor was like, good, this pitch.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
Is not listening to me. You should listen to me.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
Awesome, amazing, and her fucking politeness and saying and not
staying in her lane might have saved a bunch of
other lives.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
I bet it did.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
I bet it did, because so when they sent Janet's
you know, tissue blood things, sure information. When it was tested,
it was verified that Snow had died of an acute
cyanide poisoning. And then I wrote and Janet Janet was
like ooh yeah, bitches and toasted her bad assness with
her friends that night. Probably don't you think they all
had Like Champagne was like, I fucking.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
Told this bitch it was. It was fucking scianide. Also
why resist Yeah, if you're looking into someone's.

Speaker 4 (05:08):
Death, a forty year old woman dies unexpectedly, there's no explanation,
and someone smells the faintest bit of fucking bitter almonds.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
And also just like it's that thing.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
How many years of corners being like, I guess it's
a it was a heart embalismard like seeing the hard
made up thing where it's like or look into.

Speaker 4 (05:26):
It right, or if one person smells almonds. And the
thing about cyanide too, is that the ability to smell
it is genetic, and twenty to forty percent of the
population don't carry the gene to detect it. Ooh, then
you shouldn't be allowed to be the corner, that's right,
or you should have someone who can.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yes, I don't know. These are the things we're going
to get solved in the next midterm election. That's right.
We're gonna have a ballot measure and it's going to
be great. Smell that smell that cyanide. Hey, does the
smell like cyanide to you? Then get the fuck out
of this department.

Speaker 4 (06:00):
Yeah, So investigators go and examine the contents at of
Sue's house and they discover that the source of the
cyanide is the bottle of extra strength et Ceterrian capsules
that both Snow and her husband Paul had used the
morning of Snow's death. Three capsules out of those that
remain in the sixty capsule bottle were found to be

(06:20):
laced with cyanide in toxic quantities. So the husband fucking
took some, she took some, and she died, And there
was three more in there. Whoa thatur cyanide laced right,
suspicious And so this murder by cyanide is a fucking
huge sensational news. Of course, across the nation and everyone
loses their shit, especially because just four years earlier was

(06:43):
the nineteen eighty two Chicago Tailanol murders that I covered
in episode forty three, where yes, I look that up.
That's one of my still one of my favorites. I
covered an episode for I covered. All I'm saying is
I'm not going to get into it because you no, no, no,
I know you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
But he's one of my favorites. Like that, you're referencing
your own story.

Speaker 4 (07:02):
Yeah, I just don't want to talk to so much about it.
But it is still like I love that case so much.
I still fucking think that Ted Kaczynski did it. I
think it's just like it's so crazy.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
It's it's such a fascinating story. It's really it's a
good listen.

Speaker 4 (07:15):
And then so of course the cho Chicago tiland onl
murders scared the ship out of everyone. Seven people died
when thailand al capsules had been laced with cyanide and
put back on store shelves, and those murders, four years
later and to this fucking day, have yet to be solved.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
I remember all of this, This is this was all
my teen years. Yeah, yeah, it was crazy.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
Do you remember this story? I do because because it
happened after and it had that thing of like, this
was before this a thing now that's happening all the time.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Right, it's the it's because it was before the silver
tabs that used to go on top.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
Of everything, right there used to You used to just.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Open stuff and there would just be cotton stuff to
the top. And that was the way that they kept
things safe for everybody.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
There wasn't even child proofing back then, no, there.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
Was kind of nothing. So it was that thing of like, yeah,
it doesn't make sense that anyone could have access.

Speaker 4 (08:03):
Right, it's good that anyone with a gloustick who can
glue the like the paper box back together, he put
it back on the shelves.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
Any weirdo they hire at the weirdo grocery store down
the street, that's right, can get into your business, That's right.
It's the thing you don't know, You don't realize it
until something terrible happens like this.

Speaker 4 (08:21):
Right, So this happens, and of course suspicion immediately falls
on Sue's husband, Paul, especially when he started wearing Hawaiian
shirts and shorts after the funeral, no, like he was
on fucking vaka no right, and he got angry when
investigator started questioning him. So of course everyone's like, dude,
it's Paul and he was Sue was his fourth wife. Oh,

(08:44):
the two daughters weren't from her previous marriages. They'd only
been married about seven months before Susan's death, and Susan
had found out that Paul had cheated on her with
an ex Jesus, but had decided to stay with him. Right,
So everyone's suspicious of him.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
Sorry, they'd only been married seven months and he'd already cheat.
Yeah maybe they.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
I don't know when he cheated, but yeah, I mean,
you might have cheated before they got married, but they
hadn't even married for seven months.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
Get married, don't I know, Just don't I know, just
don't please.

Speaker 4 (09:13):
But them they do well, they do okay, So everyone
was like, it's totally him, right, it's Hawaiian shirt, Joe,
Hawaiian shirt, dude, Yeah, okay. But then everything gets crazy
and mixed up when another tainted bottle from the same lot,
the same manufacturer lot was found in a grocery store

(09:34):
in near by Kent, Washington. Fuck the manufacturers of Exceedron
Bristol Myers lost their shit, recalled all extra strength Exceedron
products in the Seattle, Washington area, and a group of
drug companies came together to offer a three hundred thousand
dollars reward for the capture of the person responsible.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
That's pretty cool, right, the last cool thing any drug
company ever did. That's right before they started trying to
murder all of us.

Speaker 4 (09:57):
I have proof of something shitty they did in just
a second. That's pretty right.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
That's when.

Speaker 4 (10:03):
Okay, So then this money comes forth, and like we
need help finding this, and then this woman, bless her heart,
comes forward. Oh, this woman's name is Stella Nicol. She
tells authorities that on June fifth, So it's about a
week before Susan had died. About a week before her husband.
Sella's husband, Bruce, had come home with a headache from work,

(10:25):
took and a bunch of took him to take in
a bunch of eccentrins. He fucking strolled out onto the
deck to watch the birds and then suddenly collapse.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
Oh god.

Speaker 4 (10:34):
He was hanging by a helicopter to a Seattle hospital
and he died as well. But the doctor said that
the cause was emphysema at the time. And Stella said,
that doesn't make any fucking sense. He didn't have egzema.
Did I say in phisimo or did I say ez
You said great? She was like, he didn't have Maybe

(10:55):
he had exzema, but he didn't have Emphysyum.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
I can't drop dead from emphasema if you don't got it,
if you.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
Don't have it.

Speaker 4 (11:00):
Right, So she was like, fuck this shit, you need
to change. That's not true, right, Okay, So here's here's
all right. In what was supposed to be the nineteen
ninety one USA Network made for TV movie about this case,
oh called who killed Susan snow Right? This chick Stella,
our friend Stella over here, forty four year old Stella
was to be played by Peggy fucking Bundy. Yay Kaity

(11:24):
Cigal Katie Sigal, who is If you see this woman,
it looks.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
So much like her. I don't want to show you
a photo. It looks so much like her.

Speaker 4 (11:32):
It's like they basically wanted her to be Peggy Bundy,
but with like roots and like kind of look a
little worn and like she had lived a hard life. Yes,
you know what I mean? Yeah, and it looks exactly
like her. According to a nineteen eighty eight People article,
Stella was into quote bar hopping and skin tied dresses.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
She was just like a forty something year old.

Speaker 4 (11:52):
She just like to go to the fucking local watering holes,
smoke her capris with her skinny lighter in there, and
fucking drink and live, drink.

Speaker 3 (11:59):
And live and finally live her life. Live like a fish,
drink like a person. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (12:05):
And so she had married Bruce and he was into
that shit too, so they were like partying all the time.

Speaker 5 (12:10):
Awesome.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
Bruce was made in heaven exactly.

Speaker 4 (12:12):
Bruce was Stella's second husband in their life together in
a wash and they lived in a Washington straight state
trailer park. And apparently it was kind of a bummer
of a life though, okay, as I could imagine. Okay,
But unfortunately the plug got pulled on this film, this
made for TV movie because the drug company's Big Pharma

(12:33):
was like, no, no, no, you're not making us possibly
look bad, and they fucking pulled the plug.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
So because that's who actually controls entertainment, that's right, Big Pharma.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
So that means I don't know who was going to
play anyone else but ex calculate.

Speaker 4 (12:45):
So when Stella who was like, you need to keep looking.
He didn't die of on physema. When she heard about
the time that Sue's death, she was like, oh shit
and checked her lot number on her Etceterron It was
the same lot number as Sue Susan's wall whoa. Okay, yeah,
so she test confirmed the presence of cyanide in the

(13:06):
bottle that she had and in Bruce nichols remains, so
he had died from the same thing. Okay, So both
Paul Susan Susan says and Paul and our friend Stella
filed wrong for lawsuits against Bristol Myers, but the FDA
inspected the plant work the Etceterron lot had been packaged
and found no traces of cyanide. Still, Bristol Myers were

(13:26):
called all exceedric capsules in the United States, pulled them
from the shelves and warn consumers not to use any
they already had.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
So it's like a million dollar loss.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah, I don't think i've because if I remember correctly,
they were the white pills, right, I think extra strength etcetera.

Speaker 4 (13:44):
I think there's still At the time the ones that
you can pull apart and put shit in them? Really,
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Uh well, from what I remember, there were it was
looked like hard asprint, where I was like, how do
you do anything to that pille? But I could just
be remembering at that one who knows, who knows?

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Not me.

Speaker 4 (14:01):
So on June twenty fourth, just a couple of weeks
after Sue's death, a cyanide contaminated a bottle of extra
strength Anison three, which doesn't Aison three was the shit
I tell us Karen.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
Anison wasn't that one that was like like marketed toward
back pain. Oh yeah, I feel like it was also
dones remember dones backpills? No, doanes were like strictly backpills.
They were just cocaine. It was just numb you out
from like your C four down. That's right.

Speaker 4 (14:33):
Yeah, So a bottle of those were found at the
same store where Susan had bought her contaminated etcron and
those were contaminated as well. So on June twenty seventh,
Washington State put into effect a ninety day ban on
the sale of non prescription medication in capsules.

Speaker 3 (14:49):
I think a capsule capsules. Yeah, so I think that
it's the kind that you can tamper. It makes that
MULD make much more sense. Sure, but who knows.

Speaker 4 (14:56):
So investigators then at that point they started to get
bitious of someone specific who are from Stella, because she
turned over two bottles of exceterrin that she had bought
and she was like, these are the bottles that he
might have taken them from. But then she was like,
I bought them at two different locations at two different times,
so and they had both ended up being contaminated with cyanide.

(15:19):
So a total of five bottles had been found to
be contaminated in the entire fucking country. And they thought
it was really weird that Stella had bought two of
those at two different places. Quite a coincident, Quite a
weird coincidence. Then, Okay, examinations of the contaminated bottles by
the FBI crime lab. They opened up these capsules and
they found that there wasn't just cyanide in them. They

(15:40):
also contained this weird thing of little flecks of these
green crystals throughout the cyanide. They were like, what the
fuck is this? This is really weird.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
No algae destroyer uh oh from a fish tank, from
a home fish tank.

Speaker 4 (15:58):
Hey, okay, who has a fucking home fish tank?

Speaker 3 (16:02):
Cobby, our girl, Stella Sella, Stella the Mermaid, Stella, the Mermaid.

Speaker 4 (16:06):
Stella has a fucking home fish tank, habit girl.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
So wait, they were breaking down like every chemical compound
like what touched these pills.

Speaker 4 (16:15):
They probably would have never fucking found her if this
hadn't been the case, because what they think happened is
that she maybe she had a mortar and pastel or
whatever the fuck, crunched that shit in her fucking that
was her algae cruncher, and she never cleaned it out,
crunched that fucking cyanide off and the same thing, and
so it's just cross contamination, girls, not even on purpose.

Speaker 3 (16:34):
She did it to herself. She did it to her
fucking like so simple.

Speaker 4 (16:38):
So guess what else our good friend life insurance policy,
oh comes into play?

Speaker 3 (16:43):
Sure it does. That always does, it always does.

Speaker 4 (16:45):
It's not just for fun, no, So Stella had taken
out a total about seventy six thousand dollars in life's
insurance coverage on her husband, which in today that's nineteen
eighty eight and today's money, is it.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
That's easily eight hundred and fifty two thousand dollars. That's
right to the fucking penny to the penny. However, if
his death was accidental, she got an additional one hundred
thousand dollars. Okay, aside from the fact that this is
such a fucked.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
Every time we tell stories like this, and it's basically
just people being like, I'm going to cash in on
the person i'm married, right, which in and of itself.

Speaker 4 (17:20):
Is discussed I'm done with this life. I'm going to
cash in on them.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
I'm going to cash in on a human being. Yeah,
but then she kills someone's mom also, right, Okay, So
here's the thing. Okay, So that's why I remember she
was fighting with emphysema. Doctor, Oh, it's not in panzema.
I know it's not a panzema. It's because she needed
him to say it was a fucking.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
Accidental debt, right, so she could.

Speaker 4 (17:43):
Get that extra seventy six thousand dollars or eight hundred
and twenty six million in today's money was not enough
for her. She needed an extra hundred thousand. So then
they were able to investigate what.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
I'm sorry, I just thought of what if it was
all so that she could buy more and more tropical fish.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
She needed more algae destroyers.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
She she loved those fish. She had these huge angel fish.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
But they lived in a trailer too. Yeah, but sometimes
you just eat. That's she funneled all the money into
that fish tank so that they were like, we don't
need a house. Yeah, what we need is a great
house for these fish. I just think of how like
how like humid and smelly it was in that trailer
with that huge fish tank. Huh with that, with that
nine x twenty five tropical fish tank, that was like

(18:31):
everyone you see in a wrapper's house. Yeah, cribs. Yeah?

Speaker 4 (18:35):
Or what about that TV show where they make fish
tanks called Tank?

Speaker 3 (18:39):
Is it? I think it's called Tank. I'm getting a
nod from Stevens. Yes, Stephen, do you watch Tank? Stephen's
so excited. No, but I did watch you. I did
watch one episode specifically, but I think it was like Kevin's.

Speaker 4 (18:50):
Small when you're like in the hotel room or like
a bar, like the hotel bar more like, and it
just happens to be Oniere, Like what the fuck? They
made a whole show of this. But it's actually kind
of kind of good, I.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
Have to say.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
In any action movie if they come in and shoot
up the bad guys, like shark Tank totally, and then
you see the wave that comes out.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
That's probably the most excited I get. That's got to
be a really expensive budget.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, because you shoot that once and then you have
to take it again, which means you have to roll
in a brand new fish tank.

Speaker 3 (19:19):
And also because of the fucking peta. You can't kill
those fish. No, those are all just rubber fish with
little motors. No, it's I was like, wow, how did
you know that, Karen? Did you guys do that in baskets? Yep,
on baskets we like to kill fake fish all the time.
It's like a thing. Okay, So Tang it's called tanks. Oh,
look at they tank toasts there. They love fish. That's

(19:43):
real fun. This is all in Spanish, Stephen, is this
a Spanish show? No?

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Oh, it's on Animal Planet. Yeah, please watch Tanked, everybody
her new favorite. It's from twenty twelve.

Speaker 4 (19:55):
So Stella takes a polygraph test in November of nineteen
eighty six, fails it. But unfortunately, there's no concrete evidence
proving that she ever purchased cyanide, and authorities aren't able
to build a strong enough case to support her. There's
there's no prints on any of the bottles anything like that.
There's no video evidence of her putting the bottles back
on the shelves, right, So, like, we fucking have nothing,

(20:16):
And it's possible that this case would have even gone
cold and no one would have been arrested except for
her daughter, who fucking hated her.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
Oh shit, yeah girl, Okay.

Speaker 4 (20:27):
So twenty seven year old Cynthia Hamilton, who would have
been played by a fucking hard lifed Molly Ringwald. Oh shit, yeah, okay,
but in a good way, but like pretty, but like
chain smoke.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
Everyone chain smokes. Yeah, it's like is it northern or
Central Washington? Yes?

Speaker 4 (20:45):
Yeah? And they and she was in and out of
her mother's life free years. When Cindy, the daughter, was
nine years old, Stella had hit her with a curtain
rod so hard it at Bruce Cindy's legs. So Stella
was pretty abusive.

Speaker 5 (20:58):
Oh shit.

Speaker 4 (21:00):
And Stella had been charged in order to go to
counseling and said that. But Stella en denied ever hitting
her daughter and said that her daughter made the whole
thing up because she was jealous of her.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
The nine year old girl was jealous of her.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Oh no, so she basically Cindy, that's the daughter's Yeah,
Cindy has a total sociopath of a mother.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
Yeah, okay, Cindy. Cindy's got Cindy from.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
An early age is like, oh shit, my mom is
capital a crazy right, But.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
Cindy has a conscious, constant chance.

Speaker 5 (21:30):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
Where are we? Number two?

Speaker 4 (21:32):
Cindy has a conscience yes, and is like this, this
isn't right. I need to talk to the fucking authorities
about this. And even though it was her stepdad. So
in January of nineteen eighty seven, Cynthia Cindy approaches the
police with information. She said that her mother had spoken
to her many times about wanting her husband dead. Cindy's stepdad, Stella,
had told Cindy that after that, ever since Bruce had

(21:55):
quit drinking, he was a bore.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Now listen, as someone who's quit drinking, I know that
that's a fact. Things get way less dramatic when you're
not shitfaced every ding.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
She said.

Speaker 4 (22:06):
He prefer to stay home and watch television, which I'm like,
I drink and that sounds great to me.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
It's the best when you're sober and drink. You know
how fucking hard it is to go out into the
world sober and just like just get that white hot
light of reality shown on you everywhere you go. No,
I don't try it.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Oh you gotta try it. It's hilarious, but it's much
easier to stay home.

Speaker 4 (22:28):
Yeah, So they had stuff going into bars together, so
she was like, this guy's a boor.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
I'm Peggy Bundy.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
Also bars when you're sober, like about thirty five minutes,
you can have fun, but you have to know when
to go home because people start repeating themselves and it
is a disaster area.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
I gotta I support you one hundred percent.

Speaker 5 (22:48):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (22:49):
This is why I never beg you to come out
to like bars and hicks, Like, why would I you
have to come here? There's like really bad natchos, there's
nothing to offer you.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
There's really hard to follow conversation about things you don't
care about. Right.

Speaker 4 (23:01):
So, Cindy also claimed that her mother had spoken to
her about what the two of them could do with
the life insurance.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
Money if Bruce were dead.

Speaker 4 (23:08):
Oh no, but Cindy said that her mother had even
told her that she had tried to poison Bruce previously
with the plant foxglove, which I guess is a poisonous plant.
It's very witchy of her, but it didn't work. But
still there's no smoking gun. Cindy hadn't seen Stella put
the poison into the pills, and Stella had never confessed
anything to her daughter. And then Cindy told authorities that
after the Then Cindy was like, you know, oooh shit,

(23:32):
just throw a pen at the microphone. Oh, I want
to also say okay, okay, hold on boop, let me think.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (23:39):
But then Cindy was like, you know what might work?
My mom started after the foxglove thing. My mom started
to check out books on poison at the fucking library.

Speaker 5 (23:46):
Girl.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
This is like that part of seven where they just
go and they look up all the books.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
The person looked, that's right, and they did that.

Speaker 4 (23:53):
They got a fucking search warrant or whatever. They got
all the books. They found the books that she had
checked out out at the Auburn Public Library and showed
that she had checked out numerous books about poisons, including
a book called human Poisoning.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
Oh get a little more subtle, and.

Speaker 4 (24:10):
Native and cultivated plants and deadly harvest. So they fucking
fingerprint that shit. Yeah, act fingerprints that shit.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
It only has roughly fifteen hundred fingerprints, that's right.

Speaker 4 (24:23):
But they also subpoened her I don't know, you know
card for sure, Yeah, and saw that she had checked
it out. They found her fingerprints on it, including the
page that belonged to Cyanide, and they have their.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
What they can do.

Speaker 4 (24:37):
And also, so what they think happened was that she
poisoned her husband.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
He died. The doctor wouldn't would only say it was
on phazma.

Speaker 4 (24:47):
So to get it back to the fucking poison she
went out after that and put poison fucking bottles on
the shelf.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
Oh my godness.

Speaker 4 (24:54):
So the reason Sue died a week later is because
those bottles hadn't been on the shelf yet. So if
the doctor had been like he got poisoned and it
was accidental poisoning.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
She would have gotten her money and left it alone, right,
But she went out and basically.

Speaker 4 (25:07):
Not saying it's the doctor's fault at all, but she
went out to garner more attention to get that accidental
death and killed Sue and killed Susan snow. Wow, isn't
that fucking awful. Yeah, really, so it is. So on
December ninth, nineteen eighty seven, Stella Nichols indicted by a
federal grand jury on five counts of product tampering, including

(25:27):
two which results in the deaths of Susan Snow and
Bruce Nichols.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
So she's not.

Speaker 4 (25:31):
So's it's federal because after the tailanol murders.

Speaker 3 (25:35):
They the FBI.

Speaker 4 (25:39):
Did a strict new federal Anti Tampering Act and it
was like super strict, you can't tamper with drugs. So
that's why it was federal. But so she wasn't tried
for their murders. Oh it was tampering that led.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
To the deaths of these two people.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
Why because that sentence would be longer something that was
a bigger deal.

Speaker 3 (25:55):
I don't know. So you said that just like my cousin.
I I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (26:02):
So she goes to trial in April nineteen eighty eight.
Cindy agrees to fucking testify against her mother as long
as her mother doesn't get the fucking death penalty, and
they're like, oh, great, that won't happen.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
Talk about Wow, what a complex relationship.

Speaker 4 (26:15):
Better Yeah, Stella's found guilty on all charges. She becomes
a first person charged and convicted under this Federal Anti
Tampering Act. She sentenced to two ninety year terms for
the charges relating to the deaths of Susan Snow and
Bruce Nicol, and three ten year terms for the other
product tampering. She'll be eligible parole in this this fucking year.

(26:36):
Oh at seventy three years old. Jesus, So, I think
they're trying to also get the figure out a way
that to a charge her with murder as well. Yeah,
but she fucking is like, I am innocent. This is
some bullshit. She's doing all these like appeals and shit
because she said there's a bunch of evidence that was
never turned over to the defense. She also claims that
her daughter lied in order to get that Remember that

(26:58):
three hundred thousand dollars that was offered to be people
who could help out the draw companies. Yep, the daughter
got two hundred and fifty thousand of that money.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
So it's almost like she said, she said, like she's
doing it for money.

Speaker 5 (27:09):
She's doing it for yeah wow.

Speaker 3 (27:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (27:11):
So but fucking stell and Nicol continues to maintain her innocence. Yeah,
a girl an No, girl doesn't look good for you.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
It does. There's too many coincidences. There's too many, and
that's just Seattle Cyanide poisonings.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
That's amazing because I remember the Exceedron one coming after Thailand.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
All yeah, I did not know it was that involved.

Speaker 4 (27:34):
In crazy Yeah, how did I? I didn't really know
about it either, so nuts.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
Well, then the story I'm going to follow that one
up with is basically Hannah suggested this to me because
it's it's basically kind of her hometown. It's a story
she remembers happening. She's from basically Washington State, and she
remembers this kicking off and it was basically one of
those things that took over. Everybody knew about it, people

(28:03):
were following it in the news. It's this crazy story.
So thanks Hannah for the suggestion. So the sources for
this story today, there's a bunch of articles from haroldnett
dot Com, one by Jackson Holtz, one by Eric Stevick,
one by Noah Hagland. Then there's an article by Ryan

(28:23):
Owens and Sarah Nettter for ABC News, an article by
Patrick Opman CNN there's a New York Times article by
William Yardley. There's a Komo TV staff article, and there's
a cr Douglas article for Fox thirteen Seattle. There was
an episode of forty eight hours about this case. CBS

(28:44):
news article written by Paul Rosa Sarah Pryor, and there's
an article from the Seattle Times by a writer named
Evan Bush. And if you and there's more sources, you
can check the show notes for This is the story
of Colton Harris Moore, also known as the Barefoot Bandit Okay.

(29:05):
Colton Moore is born March twenty second, nineteen ninety one,
in Mount Vernon, Washington. He grows up in a trailer
in the woods on Southern Camano Island, which is about
an hour north of Seattle on Puget Sound, so his
home life's chaotic. His mother, Pam drinks while she's pregnant
with Colt. This impacts his neuro cognitive development. His father, Gordon,

(29:28):
is a drug user who gets sent to prison when
Colt is still a toddler. Then, when Colt is four,
his mom remarries to a man named William Kohler, who,
according to Pam herself, had a criminal history and a
heroin addiction, So not great stuff happening in that trailer
in the forest.

Speaker 5 (29:48):
So all that would be hard enough to deal with.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
But then Pam is said to be verbally, physically, and
emotionally abusive all throughout Colt's childhood. According to his aunt Sandra,
who is Pam's sister, when Pam drinks, she gets belligerent
and violent and is known to break her son's toys
as a punishment to him. So not great stuff. Yeah,

(30:11):
their neighbors hear Pam screaming at Cult all hours of
the day and night.

Speaker 5 (30:15):
She's also a neglectful parent.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
Cult as a child often asked the adults in his life,
like teachers and his friend's parents, if he could have food,
and court records indicate that Pam basically did not make
sure the Cult went to school, so he missed a
ton of school. All this has a negative effect on
him growing up. When he does go to school, he
bullies other students he defies as teachers as Psychological evaluation

(30:40):
years later states that Culton has a long term history
of psychiatric and behavioral difficulties. He's also been prescribed a
wide range of psychiatric medications, including antidepressants, stimulant medications, mood stabilizers,
and even anti psychotic medication. And he was also a
different points diagnosed with the Russian attention deficit disorder and

(31:02):
intermittent explosive disorder. So when CPS gets called, in which
they did, they were multiple times throughout Colt's childhood, the
caseworkers would recommend that Pam seek counseling for her son.
She would decline. When he's ten years old, he's removed
from the home for three days, but they CPS has

(31:25):
to close the investigation due to lack of cooperation from Pam. Yeah,
that seems against Like, yeah, we get that she's not cooperating.

Speaker 5 (31:35):
That's why CPS got called in the first.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
Place, right, Like lack of cooperation by the abuser is
yet a reason to cancel the case.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
So that second husband, William, dies when Colt is eleven,
and then Pam soon enters another relationship with a man
who moves into the house, who Pam would later describe
as not playing with a full deck. He was an
alcoholic and and ultimately Pam ends the relationship. At some point,
Colt's biological father, Gordon, returned to the home after he's

(32:07):
released from prison, and in May two thousand and three,
when Colt is twelve, he calls nine one one reporting
Gordon pushed him to the ground and grabbed him by
the throat, and when police arrived, Gordon flees to the
woods nearby, but the police end up arresting him and
taking him to jail. And after that, Gordon cuts off
contact with Pam and Colt and he moves to Las Vegas,

(32:29):
and Pam basically blames Colt for that happening.

Speaker 5 (32:34):
So by the time.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
Colt is fifteen years old, CPS has responded to twelve
separate incidents at the Moor Home. So really rough childhood.
Later that same year, in November of two thousand and three,
twelve year old Colt is accused of breaking into a
business in the city of Stanwood and then breaking into
Stanwood Middle School, stealing a laptop in CDs and defacing

(32:57):
a bulletin board.

Speaker 5 (33:00):
Sorry it just sounds funny, you know.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
He wrote fuck you on like some kind of a
bulletin board in a way that they couldn't get off.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
Pretty sure I did something like that as a kid too,
you know.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
You know, if you can't stay home and everything really sucks, there.
People are really shitty there. You're going to go fuck
some stuff up as a kid is a way of saying,
will someone please step in?

Speaker 1 (33:22):
Totally?

Speaker 2 (33:23):
Totally, So, he pleads guilty to possession of soul and property.
He sentenced to six months supervision and fifty six hours
of community service. A social workers report notes Colton wants
mom to stop drinking and smoking, get a job, and
have food in the house.

Speaker 5 (33:40):
Mom refuses.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
So that's a rough encapsulation of what life is like
for a twelve year old cult in two thousand and four.
So it's a year later, Colts probation officer writes, Coltan
his mother share a tumultuous relationship. Colton's mother reported to
me that he is violent at home on a near
daily base. He recently broke the telephone in order to

(34:02):
prevent her from calling the police. She then showed me
a mark on her forearm of how he had bit
her and went after her with a boat.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
Oar, my god.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
His mother reported how Colton is now medicated and complying
with taking his medications, and his behavior has not been
hostile toward her. He's thirteen years old, so basically he's
giving what he's gotten, and then he's.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
In trouble for it. He's reacting.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
In December two thousand and five, a police report is
made alleging that fourteen year old Colt assaulted his mother.
In the summer of two thousand and six, Colts due
to appear in court at Denny Juvenile Justice Center in Everett,
but he's so scared of going back into detention that
he runs away. The day before his hearing. He starts
breaking into homes on Comano Island and watching internet porn

(34:50):
on the residen's home computer.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
Yeah, that sounds great.

Speaker 5 (34:54):
Right, He's like, I'm not going to get in trouble
for this, all right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
He breaks into unoccupied vacation homes through skylights and then
squats in the homes for several days before moving on
and taking food and portable electronic devices with him. When
he's not vacation home squatting, he camps out in the woods.
And by this point he's dropped out of school. He's
only in the ninth grade. Oh my god, he's a

(35:20):
child Stone.

Speaker 5 (35:21):
Yeah, he's a baby.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
In January two thousand and seven, after six local burglaries,
the Island County Sheriff's Office puts up wanted posters with
Colts picture and his information. Basically, there's fifteen thousand people
on this island and that's usually when the.

Speaker 5 (35:37):
Vacation people are there.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah, there's five thousand households, so it's a tiny place.

Speaker 5 (35:42):
Like you know.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
Everyone knows that this is Colt doing it, so stories
about his exploits start appearing in the media, and within
a matter of weeks, a local resident notices that there
are lights on inside what should have been an empty
vacation home. The police are alerted and when they arrive,
they tell Colt that the house is surrounded, even though

(36:04):
it's actually not. They had just set up flashlights to
make it look like there was cops all around the house.

Speaker 5 (36:09):
Oh my god, but there weren't.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
So Colt falls for it and he comes out and
gives himself up. In court, he pleads guilty to three
of the twenty three felony charges against him. His aunt,
Sandra writes to the court in support of her nephew,
saying quote, I love that boy like one of my
own kids. I think he got mixed in with the
wrong crowd and he got himself in too far. Colt

(36:32):
is sentenced to three years confinement and ordered to stay
in a group home in Renton, Washington. So, on April
twenty second, two thousand and eight, seventeen year old Colt
Like basically breaks out of this group home. He sneaks
out a window and he goes on the run, and
soon South Camano Island residents are reporting break ins to
the police. So a couple months later, he allegedly steals

(36:55):
his neighbor's Mercedes and crashes it into a pro painting
behind a cafe.

Speaker 5 (37:00):
Who this is?

Speaker 2 (37:03):
What's the Can you think of the word for it
where it's like when you're doing bad but it doesn't
hurt anybody.

Speaker 5 (37:09):
They have that word for it.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
It's like reckless, like there's no direct victim, but it's
like it's hijinks. Would yeah, but no, but yeah, official
police shenanigans.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
There's a term for it that's essentially like you're behaving.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
Badly and they knock it off.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
I just think it's funny to be like, I'm just
gonna there's all these rich people everywhere. I'm just gonna
steal their ship and fuck it up and like just
do what I want because fuck everything. He flees the scene,
but he leaves behind his backpack containing his journal, stolen
credit cards, a GPS, his cell phone, and a digital
camera that he used to take selfies with. Dude, they

(37:58):
kind of know it's him, so a couple months later
he steals money from an but they still haven't caught him.

Speaker 5 (38:03):
They just know they find his stuff there.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
Basically, in September of the same year, he steals money
from an ATM on Orches Island and in the process
cuts himself and leaves blood on the machine so they're
able to take DNA like basically to later compare it
with other crimes because he's he is breaking the law.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
Yeah, it's not.

Speaker 5 (38:23):
It isn't.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
Hyjie ser shenands. On November twelfth of the same year,
he breaks into a locked airplane hangar on Orchis Island
and he steals a Cessna one eighty two airplanes worth
about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He has never
had a flying lesson, he doesn't even have his driver's license,
and the plane belongs to Seattle radio personality Bob Rivers

(38:47):
at one o two point five k z ok, so
he somehow figures out a way to fly it over
the Cascade Mountain range. Yes, he's threw a wide out
at thirteen thousand feet and all these wind gusts.

Speaker 5 (39:05):
It was not ideal.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
Okay, how do you even get a plane off of
the fucking runway?

Speaker 2 (39:11):
They think that he taught himself how to fly using
simulation software on laptops and studying plane manuals for hours.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
For hours, So what usually takes people fucking months and months?

Speaker 3 (39:24):
Probably?

Speaker 5 (39:24):
Yeah, I bet you this kid was very so right.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
It's one of those annoying things where it's like, if
you had had a shot in life, you would have
yes made something of yourself right or been a way
better burglar.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
But either way, once I got to this part, I
was just like a seventeen year old steals a Cessna
and is able to fly it somewhere. Oh my god, Like,
what seventeen year old do you know that could like
steal a car and drive it down the street, much
less an airplane he's never flown before. Okay, So he
ends up crashing the plane three hundred miles away on

(39:58):
the Yakama Indian Reservation. When police get to the scene
where the plane crashes, they don't find Colt, but there
is vomit inside the plane and they take a sample
compared to the DNA, and now they know that the
the ATM crime and this airplane ceialing is Colt.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
Okay, this, this police department is too well funded if
they're doing DNA tests on what is clearly fucking seventeen
year old, Like it's clearly him.

Speaker 5 (40:26):
You don't need a DNA.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
But now, but they get that proof, They've got that
locked in proof. But here's what I love more than
that he stole the plane. He's flying the plane and
then he gets he gets like basically so nervous. He
barfs while he's flying in like bad weather. I mean
I just had actual seasickness. Yeah, motion sickness, thank you.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
Could I mean, if it was bad weather, turbulence would
have could have made him throw up.

Speaker 5 (40:53):
It's it's pretty amazing.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
So the investigators look into more unsolved cases of burglaries
and associated offenses that Colt could have been responsible for.
And there are over seventy cases throughout the Pacific Northwest,
and that includes Washington State, Idaho, Oregon, and several locations
in Canada. It's basically residential and commercial burglaries, bank burglaries,

(41:19):
vehicle thefts, boat theft, aircraft theft, and assault to police officers.
Colt is alleged to have stolen or destroyed around three
million dollars.

Speaker 5 (41:29):
Worth of property.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
Wow, rich people have insurance. I don't feel bad.

Speaker 5 (41:33):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
There's probably a couple of like the whatever boats he
stole that the people were like, oh, thank god.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
Yeah, we like to go laptop on there, and like
the Mega an extra thousand bucks or whatever.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
My kruegerrands, right, they're also missing there. So finally, on
March twelfth, two thousand and nine, a felony warrant is
issued for his arrest. So now it's it's now it's
big time. But before that they can exercise that warrant,
they have to find him first. On September eleventh, two
thousand and nine, Colt steals a Cirrus SR twenty two

(42:06):
plane worth about a half a million dollars from a
town called Friday Harbor, also in Washington State.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
And he crash lands the plane back on Orches Island.
So he's kind of doing it all around in the
same area.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
He's you know, I'm just picturing Bart Simpson this entire
fucking yes.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
Yes, completely he does. He's just like, how else can
I show that I don't give a fuck?

Speaker 1 (42:33):
Right?

Speaker 5 (42:34):
Like, right, Yeah, I'm just gonna do what I want. Okay.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
So after the crash, Colt is seen walking away from
the wreckage by a police officer, but for some inexplicable reason,
the cop fails to detain Colts.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
He like fist pumps him as he walks away. Yeah,
he's kind of like, you walked away from that? Amazing.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
The same month, Colt makes his way to Canada in
a stolen boat, subsequently making his way back to the
US through British Columbia and so obviously undetected, Like how
did he do that? A couple weeks later, on September
twenty ninth, Colt steals a Cessna T one eighty two
T from a hangar in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, and he

(43:16):
leaves barefootprints on the ground. He takes off in the
plane in Idaho and he again flies back over the Cascades,
but he crash lands sixty miles away near Snahomish, Washington
because he runs out of fuel while he's flying. On
October first, two thousand and nine, a lagger near Granite

(43:37):
Falls finds that plane wreck. The police trace barefoot prints
from the crash site to a camp in the woods,
but there's no sign of Colt. The next day, a
second local felony arrestaurant is issued for Colts and he's
charged with forced entry burglary in a second degree. A
few days later, SWAT officers searching the area for Colt

(43:59):
are fired at by an unknown assailant.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
Okay, that's bad.

Speaker 5 (44:04):
So now Colt.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
This is going on and building to such a degree
that now in the media, Colts is being called the
barefoot bandit.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
Okay, I can't imagine like being from one of these
small towns and like knowing that this person is.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Yeah, he's just gonna he's going to steal your shit.
He's going to do what he wants with it.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yeah, kind of exciting for like if Hannah is young
and reading about those being like.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Oh my god, she said they tracked it, like they
paid attention to it and watch it on the news
and what It's crazy. Even though he usually wears shoes
the moniker sticks, so the barefoot thing only happened a
couple times. When Colt's mother, Pam, hears about the latest theft,
she says I'm proud of him. I was going to
send him to flight school, but I guess I don't

(44:48):
have to. But next time I want him to wear
a parachute. Colt's popularity as a pseudo modern folk hero
gains support when a member of the public starts a
Facebook page for him, of course, because remember it to
thousand and nine. The page eventually gets more than one
hundred thousand followers, and it has posts that say things
like let's hope that he remains healthy, free, and at

(45:09):
large for a long time. Fly Colton Fly, So that
sounds like pam to me. It gets so popular they
actually start making t shirts, tote bags, and mugs, and
they have Colts picture on them with the caption Mama tried.
But Camano Island locals who've had their belonging stolen are

(45:29):
damaged are not amused. They actually end up launching their
own counter blog in an attempt to raise money so
they can hire a bounty hunter to track Colt down.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
Man, he's given them life, Like he's making these people
who just sit at home watching a fuck and everybody
loves Raymond every night. He's like making their lives exciting.
You're welcome that's right, you know. Now it's becoming international news.
Reporters from all over the globe travel to Kmaano Island
or report on the search for the Barefoot Bandit, and

(46:03):
they all want to talk to his mother, Pam. Pam
publicly encourages Colt to escape to a country that doesn't
extradite to the US. So the entire time Colt's on
the run, he calls his aunt Sandra once a month
to let her know he's okay. Ant's Auntie's auntie. You
can always count on us not to turn you in.

Speaker 5 (46:24):
We would never. I'll never turn nor in for any crime.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
An anties don't snitch, that's not new sing. You can
stay at our house.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
Sandra pleads with her nephew to please turn himself, but
just to him, Yeah, right, just to him. But he
tells her every time that he's not ready to stop
just yet. On December eleventh, two thousand and nine, the
US District Court in Seattle issues a federal warrant for
colts arrest because of the aircraft theft from Idaho in September.

Speaker 5 (46:57):
So it's everything's gonna.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
Stacky, okay.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
By February twenty ten, eighteen year old Colt has been
e looting police for nearly two years.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
At this wow, I mean two years on the run.
It's like a reality show Coulton on the Run, you know. Yep.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
He allegedly steals a plane from a town called Anna
Cordis and he flies it over to Orches Island, somehow
escaping the attention of Vancouver Air Traffic Control. He's like
going out and stealing stuff and bringing it back to
Orches Island. Yeah. Now everyone is on the hunt for Colt.
US Customs and Border Patrol, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,

(47:36):
the FBI, the US Coast Guard, officers from six different
Washington counties with tracker dogs, swat teams, and police helicopters
with infrared heat sensors.

Speaker 5 (47:48):
And yet they cannot find him.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
So soon after this, Colt breaks into an Orches Island
deli and eats an entire.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
Cheesecake what wait, was it called the cheesebox?

Speaker 5 (48:02):
Oh? If only?

Speaker 2 (48:04):
Oh he eats an entire she What a weird detail.
He's truly living. He also vandalizes this security system and
causes sixty five hundred dollars worth of damage. He then
draws thirty nine bare feet on the floor with chalk
with prints leading out the door and then the letters
CYA ciya scrawled next to the footprints.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
Oh my, that's a that's a little intense thirty nine footprints.

Speaker 5 (48:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
He spends months hiding out on Orca's Island. He commits
more than twenty break ins and burglaries allegedly while he's there.
Police release surveillance camera photos from island market in the
hope that somebody will recognize him, and word spreads that
Colt is hiding out somewhere in the woods. So on
May thirty, first, twenty ten, Colt leaves You're gonna like

(48:54):
this one. He leaves one hundred dollars at Vetter's Animal
Hospital in Raymond, Washington, with a note that says drove
by had some extra cash. Please use this money for
the care of animals, Signed Colton Harris Moore aka the
Barefoot Bandit.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
Okay, well, now we just love him.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
Now we love him.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
He's a modern day Robin Hood kind of yeah. On
June first, twenty ten, he steals a four hundred and
fifty thousand dollars fishing boat from Ilwaco, not far from Raymond,
to cross the Columbia River, and that boat ends up
being recovered in Warrington, Oregon. From there, Colt steals a
series of cars and heads east across Oregon and Idaho.

(49:38):
Eleven days later, on June twelfth, authorities in Spearfish, South
Dakota find an abandoned vehicle with Washington plates. Then, on
the night of June eighteenth, Colt pries open the doors
at the airport in Norfolk, Nebraska. He uses a broom
handle to try to force open a cockpit window, hoping
to unlock the plane, but it doesn't work, so instead

(50:01):
he steals an escalade from the airport and he drives
it to Iowa and dumps it when he gets there.

Speaker 5 (50:08):
He then steals another car, drives that to the.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
Airport in a Tumwa, Iowa, where he again tries to
break into a plane, but again the barefoot bandit fails,
so he steals yet another car and he drives to
Dallas City, Illinois, but from there the authorities lose track
of him, and then in late June of twenty ten,
another arrest warrant is issued for him, this time from

(50:33):
Madison County, Nebraska, with counts of break ins, vehicle theft,
and an attempted airplane theft. So basically, as he's going
through and breaking, you know, doing all his little crimes
and his break ins and things, just behind him, the
warrants are piling up state by state. On July third,
twenty ten, in Bloomington, Indiana, Colt steals a four seater

(50:55):
Cessna four hundred airplane worth six hundred and fifty thousand
dollars Monroe County Airport. During this flight, he takes videos
of his journey from inside the company.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
Oh my god, he live streaming.

Speaker 5 (51:10):
Twenty ten.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
It might have been too early for that, but he
does have him on his phone.

Speaker 5 (51:15):
This time.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
He flies himself to the Bahamas and then he crashes
the plane in shallow waters off the coast of Great
Abaco Island.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
All right, now we're talking.

Speaker 5 (51:27):
Finally he's going somewhere. Exciting.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
Soon after that, break ins are reported all across the island.
So the FBI now is involved and they're offering a
ten thousand dollars reward for information leading to the arrest
of Colton harris More. Special Agent Stephen Dean says, quote,
we want to get him. He's turned from a regional

(51:49):
nuisance into an international problem.

Speaker 5 (51:52):
End quote.

Speaker 2 (51:54):
So US law enforcement traveled to the Bahamas, where they
launch a full scale search and put up wanted posters.
Their CCTV footage that captures brief images of cult visiting
bars and restaurants.

Speaker 5 (52:07):
In the area. So he's living his life. He's on
bandit vacation.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
Pam hires an entertainment lawyer named Yagel Lewis to field
inquiries from parties offering to buy the rights to coult
story for book and movie deals, but she's not interested
in speaking to reporters. She puts up a sign at
the end of the road like her driveway to the trailer,
that says if you go past this sign, you'll be shot.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
Shit.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
But Pam has changed her attitude about her son being
on the run. Now she says that she wants him
to turn himself in before anyone gets hurt. By this point,
Colt's image has been broadcast throughout the Bahamas, so people
there actually know who he is and what's going on,
because again he's gone to a small island community right
and gotten away with it.

Speaker 1 (52:57):
Yeah, got in public.

Speaker 5 (53:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
On July seven to twenty ten, Bahamian ferryboat captain Freddie
Grant sees somebody matching Colt's description swimming on the northern
end of a Luthra Island. So Freddy's noticed also that
the ignitions to a bunch of the fairies have been
messed with and damaged, and he can put two and
two together. So three days later, on July eleventh, around

(53:23):
three in the morning, Kenny Strahan, the security director of
Remora Bay Marina and on Harbor Island, sees somebody running
away from the boat docks toward the marina's exit, and
he's sure that it's cult so he pursues this person
on foot, and when he catches up to him, he
realizes it really is the Barefoot banded himself, and he

(53:44):
realizes the Barefoot bandit now has a gun, so Kenny
backs off. He calls the Bahamian police, and meanwhile Colt
runs back toward the docks, climbs into a boat that
had the he's left in the ignition, and takes off.
When police arrive, they also commandeer a boat and they

(54:07):
take off after him. They fire at the boat's engines
that Gold is driving. Some of them actually have oozzis,
so this becomes like a real pursuit, they basically force
Colt to surrender.

Speaker 5 (54:20):
As the police scream at Gold to put.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
His gun down, he puts it to his head, threatening
to kill himself because he says he cannot go back
to jail. The police move closer. Colt then throws his
gun and his laptop overboard, and basically the wild ride
is finally over for the Barefoot Bandit. When nineteen year
old Colton Harris Moore is arrested, he's photographed walking barefoot

(54:45):
with his ankles shackled. Authorities fly him to Nassau to
be for processing. Colt is not showing any signs of
fear or distress at this point, and they actually go
back and find both his gun and his laptop. His
back is seized upon arrest, and inside the police find
a boy Scouts of America certificate two fifth grade class photos,

(55:08):
some airplane sketches, and a Waffler PPK which is the
same gun that James Bond uses. So this is a
little boy.

Speaker 5 (55:16):
Right.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
On July thirteenth, twenty ten, Colt pleads guilty to entering
the Bahamas illegally. So you can't just fly to the Bahamas,
you got it fly Their crash and.

Speaker 5 (55:27):
Then go swimming the way he did. That's no. Now
we know.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
It's good to know everyone.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
Now we know, he's sentenced to three months in jail
or a three hundred dollars fine. Pam wires him the
money and pays the fine. Colts deported by the US
Attorney's office and flown back to Miami, where he has
taken to federal jail. Following Colt's arrest, Pam issues a
statement saying she's relieved her son is safe and that
no one's hurt. She also says she's looking forward to

(55:54):
seeing him soon, having not seen him for two years.
Colts followers on social media get behind his defense, and
they donate money for his legal costs. Pam joins the
plea for assistants, saying, quote, now there's not a break
in or a theft in the entire Northwest that the
media or law enforcement doesn't put rush to pin on Colt.
We have no way of knowing what charges will be

(56:15):
filed against him. The media has already convicted him as
the Barefoot bandit and created widespread accusations and perception of guilt. Eventually, though,
Colt will have to fight for his freedom against the
full force of the legal system end quote.

Speaker 1 (56:29):
Doesn't sound like our Pam. That sounds like through a lawyer.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
Well, that also sounds like the most insane rationalization of
a public series of crimes that this person very gleefully committed.
It's like, you don't get to go back now and
be like, can you believe they're pin in all these.

Speaker 5 (56:44):
Crimes on him?

Speaker 2 (56:45):
It's like, yes, he did, like fifty crimes in a row,
So yes, I do believe it. Ye, Pam is pulling
what we call my family being a day late and
a dollar short. So on July twenty first, twenty ten,
Colts transferred to the Federal Detention Center in Seattle, and
he appears in court the next day where he waves
his right to a preliminary hearing and a speedy trial.

(57:07):
So on November eighteenth, he pleads not guilty in federal
court to charges of interstate transportation of a stolen plane
so specific a plane boat and gun stolen, of being
a fugitive in possession of a firearm, and flying without
a pilot's license. And that same month, forty eight Hours
did an episode about Colt's exploits, so you can watch

(57:30):
that in.

Speaker 5 (57:31):
Streaming services everywhere.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Both Pam and her sister Sondra write letters to the
court in an attempt to explain what has led to
Colt's antisocial behavior.

Speaker 5 (57:40):
Here's what Pam writes.

Speaker 2 (57:41):
Quote, this boy has had many disappointments all his life.
His stepfather died and our dog and this has had
severe effects on Colt and I. He does things without
thinking of the end results.

Speaker 5 (57:54):
End quote.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
Court proceedings continue throughout twenty eleven. In March, the FBI
confirmed that the reward money is split among the officers
who arrested Colt, as well as Kenny Strahan and On
June seventeenth, twenty eleven, Colt pleads guilty to all seven
counts on the federal indictment. Under his plea deal, he
agrees to forfeit any profits from selling publishing rights to

(58:18):
his story. In August twenty eleven, Twentieth Century Fox pays
more than a million dollars in exchange for the rights
to colt story. The studio sends the money directly to
the US Marshals to distribute it amongst Colt's victims. Interesting
that September, a psychological evaluation finds that Colt's delinquent behavior

(58:38):
is driven by depression PTSD and you know, basically suicidal tendencies.
He was risking his life every time he flew one
of those planes that he did not fly. The psychologist
notes that Colt has a low risk of reoffending favorable
prognosis with appropriate intervention. On to Summer sixth teenth, twenty eleven,

(59:00):
Cult is sentenced by the State of Washington to seven
years in jail plus three years of supervised probation. Judge
Vicki Churchill says, quote, this case is a tragedy in
many ways, but it's a triumph of the human spirit
in other ways. The judge notes that Colt has genuine
remorse for his crimes. As a high profile convict, Colts

(59:23):
initially placed in solitary confinement for his own protection, which
must be horrifying. On January twenty seventh, twenty twelve, the
Federal District Court of Seattle sentences Cult to six and
a half years in prison. He'll serve both state and
federal sentences concurrently, and it's determined that he owes his
victims one point three million dollars in restitution. Ye two

(59:45):
months after Colt goes to prison. Author Bob Friel publishes
a book called The Barefoot Bandit The True Tale of
Colton Harris Moore, New American Outlaw. In twenty ten, two
documentaries are released about his experiences, and twenty sixteen, his mom,
Pam Cohler, dies.

Speaker 5 (01:00:03):
Of lung cancer.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
In twenty sixteen, Colt pleads to get out a prison
early to work at his lawyer's law firm during the summer.
According to Colt's attorney, the two had agreed years before
the cult could work part time at his law firm
doing clerical work. At the same time Colt would be
looking for a full time job and eventually go to college.

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
His attorney says, cults criminality grew out of poverty, not
a desire to harm people or cause trouble. In September
twenty sixteen, Colts transferred from Stafford Creek Corrections Center in
Aberdeen to a work release facility in Seattle. He starts
working for his lawyer, but he hopes one day to
study aeronautical engineering.

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
In December twenty sixteen, twenty five year old Colt is
released from his work release program, remains under supervision. He
starts to GoFundMe to raise one hundred and twenty five
thousand dollars for private and commercial pilot license training and
helicopter certification, but the Federal Probation Office shuts that down,

(01:01:09):
and he's saying that the sixteen hundred dollars that was
raised so far goes directly to his victims. Cult responds
publicly on Twitter saying that his stream is crushed, and
his lawyer states that Colt didn't consult with him before
starting the GOP on me so. In April twenty nineteen,
Colt asks the court for his supervised release period to

(01:01:29):
be shortened. He wants to be allowed to visit friends
overseas and accept work outside of Washington State to attend
engagements as a motivational speaker. Colt claims the work will
help him pay off the restitution he still owes his victims,
telling the court quote, I've learned from my past. I
do not run from it, but instead try to embrace
it for the better. I hope to serve as a

(01:01:50):
model for people who have hard lives and who feel hopeless.
I saw it every day when I was confined, and
I've seen it in the world upon release end quote.
In May twenty nineteen, his request was denied and he
was ordered to complete his probation. Not much is known
about him today, although on his LinkedIn profile he describes

(01:02:12):
himself as quote former international fugitive turned entrepreneur focused on education,
progress and success. Life is what you make it. My
intention is to build connections with people who are both
clearly motivated and with whom may lead to a mutually
beneficial outcome along the lines of problem solving, productivity, and

(01:02:33):
accomplishing goals.

Speaker 5 (01:02:35):
This is what it's all about.

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
Yeah, can we get a ted talk please?

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
I mean, and that's the unbelievable story of the Barefoot
bandit Colton harris More. Yeah, holy shit, he went on
what we call in the business a spree.

Speaker 5 (01:02:52):
He really did it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
Wow. I have literally never heard a single piece.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
Of that before same, and it was like happening like
by at that point, like it was happening on social media.
That's the craziest part, like that modern. Yeah, and I'd
never ever seen a thing yea wow, Yeah, good job
and thank you, good job.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
Colton.

Speaker 5 (01:03:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
I mean, listen, you know, breaking the law isn't isn't
the way, but sometimes, you know, sometimes and you're depressed
and like.

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
Like stealing airplanes and flying them when you don't know
how to is kind of the.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
Way the bandit part. Yeah, he's like a yeah, he's
like A.

Speaker 5 (01:03:40):
He's just kind of doing it. I don't know, it's
just like he's doing something at least.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
Yeah. Yeah, it's like impressive. You don't want to like,
you don't want to support it.

Speaker 5 (01:03:53):
You don't want to celebrate it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
Yeah, but it's also like, wow, you know, he didn't
hurt He didn't hurt anybody, hurt anybody, I mean physically people.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
He could have killed people, crashing mills queens absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
Could have killed people. And he had guns on him,
which is not great.

Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
It isn't great. But then the second he got called
on and he threw it in the oce.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
Yeah, that's true. So wow, I don't know, yeah, I
don't know. Wow that was That was a really fun story.
Thank you for staying sexy and don't get murdered. Goodbye, bye, Elvis.
Do you want to cook? He?

Speaker 6 (01:04:36):
This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.

Speaker 6 (01:04:41):
Our editor is Aristotle osce Vedo.

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.

Speaker 6 (01:04:45):
Our researchers are Maaron McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

Speaker 1 (01:04:48):
Email your homecounts to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.

Speaker 6 (01:04:51):
Follow the show on Instagram at my Favorite Murder.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
And now you can watch us and exactly, writes YouTube page.
While you're there, please like and subscribe.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
Good byebye m