The Barefoot Bandit: Colton Harris Moore

Possibly our most-requested subject. And if there's one thing you can about Ridiculous Crime...we do it for the People. So here it is...the strange but true story of Colton Harris Moore, AKA The Barefoot Bandit. Amateur pilot, well-practiced plane thief, and dog lover. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Elizabeth Dutton ZD so glad to see you, Good to
see you. Do you know it's ridiculous?

Speaker 3 (00:10):
I do. I do our email inbox.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Oh yeah, I don't even get close.

Speaker 4 (00:15):
It's ridiculous. The interns forwarded me this one though, That
is pretty good. Subject tv head fromhead from Jeff Hammer.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Okay, haad, it's a.

Speaker 4 (00:29):
Good afternoon, Ridiculous Crime crew. It has been brought to
my attention that, in true Henrico County, Virginia weirdness, there
was a guy in twenty nineteen wearing a TV on
his head leaving old box type TVs on people's porches
in the middle of the night. Links provided below. The
wild thing is that all of the sets left on

(00:51):
people's porches were operational. They identified the man the press
dubbed TV head, but to the best of my knowledge,
he was never charged, although he was suspected of committing
several burglaries in the area. I found out, yeah, I
found out about this talking to a colleague because here
on the opposite end of the state, a man was

(01:12):
recently arrested for taking a ride on a shopping buggy
out of a discount grocery store and riding it on
the highway. He told the arresting officer that he was
quote tired of walking everywhere. Somehow, that one didn't make
the local news. I've seen some weird things and dealt
with some really strange people in the sixteen years I've
worked in the private security and law enforcement fields. But

(01:34):
I think these two might take the cake.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Oh nice ones.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Jeff the TV head? How big is the TV on
his head? And is it wobbley? Is what happens?

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Is he a member of Parland Funkadelic? Perhaps good question?

Speaker 4 (01:51):
Is he is he the one behind the max headroom hacking?

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Have you seen the guy in New York who rides
around on a mini bike with a like a microwave
on his head. No slides up and then the microwave
door opens up and there's a guy's head in there,
and he's like he starts talking and he gives you
like safety advice, and then he closes it with a
flick of his head and he rides off on his
mini bikes. Cousin so New York.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah, it's amazing and ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Totally ridiculous. Thank you, mister Hammer.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
Thank you, Jeff Hammer.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
So, uh you got a second though, I got something
for you. It's totally ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
Yes, get like ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
I heard that about you. We get a lot of
requests for certain stories, right, and frankly, it's kind of
ridiculous that I have never covered this story. Why is
it taking me so long?

Speaker 3 (02:35):
What's wrong with you?

Speaker 2 (02:37):
I want to tell you, Elizabeth, the story of my
new favorite anti hero, the Barefoot Bandit Man. Theis Ridiculous

(03:07):
Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers. Heis and
cons It's always ninety nine percent murder free, a one
hundred percent ridiculous Yes, oh, Elizabeth arn Long before this
cat was known as the Barefoot Bandit, his government name
was Colton Harris.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
More, Colton Harris Colter.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
I'm gonna call him Colt Okay now born on March
twenty second, nineteen ninety one. He arrived in this world
in Washington State. You know the upper left corner of
the map. Yeah, place called Camono or Camano Island in
the San Juan Islands. I think it's Camono Islands now,
My man, Colt. He did not have a normal or
even what we call a safe childhood. He was, unfortunately,
was raised into a home that was headed for an

(03:49):
ugly split.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
Elizabeth.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, the divide occurred when he was a toddler. His
parents broke up. His father left him and his mother,
Pamela alone. They were left to live in a single
wide trailer in Washington. Yeah. So what made matters more
dire was the fact that his mother was a full
blown alcoholic. Oh god, yeah, rough, rough business for this kid,
which means also for her elementary school aged son. His

(04:12):
life was unstable, his home life chaotic, abusive, all the
bad things.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
Right, it's a great story, thank you.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Not only that he was also bullied at school, Elizabeth. Oh,
there was no escape for Coult. Yeah, right, finally one day,
but this is before he's a teenager. He runs away
from home. He spends his days living alone in the
forest on the Camino Islets. It's like a well rainforest ground.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Right, that must have been really peaceful for yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Except for he's a you know, almost a teenage boy.
He's a growing boy. So to eat, he breaks into
empty vacation homes I like that. Yeah, And now once
inside he finds that these homeowners they've left all sorts
of stuff inside their cabin, so he steals whatever he
needs to live in the woods. Tents, sleeping bags, camping supply,
you name it.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
The hermit.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah, very much like that, just the young version, right.
So eventually he comes back home to the trailer because
he's a boy and he can't stay out in the
woods forever. So at this point, Cult now he reached
school and he's trying his best to live a normal
life as he can, and he's going in and out
a juvie. It's rough, right, But he has a few friends.
He tells them of his forest adventures, trying to impress
them with what he does when they don't see him.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
One of his classmates this a girl named Christa Postma.
She would tell the press how her friend Colt would
often get in trouble at school. You know, as I've said,
but she also said the Cult was quote a nice kid,
and he quote seemed really smart, though he didn't know
how to put that into his schoolwork. I relate to
this kid, you know, I didn't know how to do
it either. So another classmate, he remembered how Colt would

(05:34):
sleep in class, you know, just put his head down
on the desk, the teacher called on him to embarrass him,
Colt would recite back what the teacher just said, like
near him, verbatim.

Speaker 4 (05:43):
I always feel like, if you're a teacher and a
kid falls asleep, like the first time, wake come up.
If it happens a lot, something's happening, right, I don't
have a home, and maybe just let the kids sleep.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
For real, right, be a little considerate, thoughtful yea. Anyway,
this kid, obviously he's an intelligent kid. He's able to
recite back to the teacher. He doesn't need to pay attention.
He gets bored, you know. Now after school, Krista and
Colt they would hang out together in this town. There
wasn't a lot of places for them to go, so
they'd hang out outside the local library. Now, one day,
this kid who's a couple of years older than them,

(06:13):
this kid, his name is Harley Davidson iron Wing.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
Stop the press is Harley.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Harley Davidson iron Wing. Now it is christ I love this. Yeah,
So she recalls old Harley Davidson iron Wing, and he
had an instant influence on Colt. As she put it,
when Colt quote wasn't around Harley, he'd be totally chill.
When Harley showed up, Colt would suddenly be all, I'm
so big and bad ou Right, you.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Got a friend named Harley Davidson Ironing, You'd.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Never go wrong in such a common story of people
like us, like punk kids. You're like, oh, yeah, my
friend Harley David's and iron Wing.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
That's like his government name, right.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
That's government name, that's not his street name. Yeah, that's amazing,
So naturally, Elizabeth, Harley Davidson iron Wing had been in
juvie and for two years, and he knew the ins
and outs of street. He knew the rules of how
to make it as a low level crimer. He taught
Colt everything he knew. So Harley Davidson iron Wing comes
from a similar background. Obviously home broken by divorce, raised

(07:10):
by a single mom. His mother is also a drinker,
she does drugs, also abusive. So these kids are they
totally get each other, right, two bad boys quickly bond.
His new mentor if you will, takes Colt under his
wing and teaches him how to iron criminally fly. Thank
you so, And this this point he teaches cult how
to pick locks, how to break into these nice expensive

(07:32):
luxury vacation homes on the island Harley Davidson, iron Wing.
He also shows him how to find the likely places
keys are hidden, like all the things you know, like, oh,
people don't like to do this, that kind of thing.

Speaker 5 (07:42):
Right.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
He gives Colt also with his rule book for vacation
home robberies.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
I would love a copy of this rule book.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Well, I got four rules for it. If you watch.
Number one, don't rob somebody's house if you know who
lives there.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
It's a good one.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Good advice because they could recognize you. And also it's
just not nice to two. There's that as well. Number
two don't turn the lights on ever. Yeah right, Also
good advice because you don't want to call attention to your.

Speaker 4 (08:08):
Crimeerprints all over you always with the fingerprints.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Number three, if you get spotted, run, Okay, I like that,
it's probably the best advice. Don't hesitate.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
Run.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
And number four, lastly, never feel guilty. Once you choose crime,
you've already crossed over. It's too late to be guilty,
so guiltless.

Speaker 4 (08:29):
I mean, I'm cutting these guys a lot of slack
because they're too like troubled kid kids.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
Yeah, breaking into vacation home.

Speaker 4 (08:36):
Yeah, I have a vacation home, so you know, go forth,
But these kids are going to grow up.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
It's the problem.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
You're talking to my youth, Elizabeth. You don't know what
they could grow up into. Now, with this general rule
book guiding him, Colt goes to work as a break
in artists. Right so, he and old Harley Davidson, they
work as a team. They break into the luxury vacation
homes all over the island. Harley Davidson, iron Wing. He's
a fan of electronics. He also likes jewelry. He likes
expensive portable items that he can pawn, right, yeah, Colt.

(09:05):
He likes to steal food. He often will go into
the houses and make himself a hot meal.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
Good for him.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
He's a kid, so he also likes to play video games.
So like, while Harley Davidson's casing the house, he's making
like some hot oatmeal and goes sits down to play
the game of like whatever right now. He's also a
teenager at this point, so he likes to steal nice clothes,
anything that fits him that might freshen his drip. The
other kids won't make fun of and over the years,
Colt continues to get into trouble and he gets caught,
you know, and then the police take him back to

(09:30):
his mother's place. Sometimes he gets put in juvenile hall.
As I've said, you know, she'd have to come and
collect him, and then that'd be embarrassing for him. When he's fifteen,
his mother is also getting irritated with this whole thing.
She kicks him out of the house. She's like, I've
had it with him fifteen. She's done with it. So
now where does Colt go?

Speaker 3 (09:48):
To the woods?

Speaker 2 (09:48):
He moves back into the forest. So he lives like
a real world Peter Pan there on his own never
never Land, and he continues to break into vacation homes,
mostly just to eat into amuse him, right, But he's
a kid, so he also signs of his crimes. Yeah,
he doesn't always follow the old rule book of Harley
David's an Iron Wing. So the word spreads on the islands.
Some locals they talk, compare notes, they determine there's probably

(10:10):
some teen boys breaking in. So this casual man begins
to find this kid. Now, Elizabeth, I think I need
to do a better job explaining this island. You have
to understand, this island is like one third vacation homes. Yeah,
he just failed. It's a happy hunting ground for a
teenage boy.

Speaker 4 (10:25):
And if you're in, if you're impoverished, it's like rubbing
it in your face. Oh that this like dichotomy between
the people who actually live their year round and struggle
and then the people who swan in, yes and have
a great time totally.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, And the rest of them are there doing like
menial tasks that can help these people, like oh, let
me weld your tanks for your home or whatever.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
So at this point he's uh, he starts getting a
little more aggressive in his approach as he gets older,
and he starts to feel this bitterness in this division,
if you will. Socially, he starts to steal things like identities.
So what that means is he steals credit cards. And
then he learned to become a better thief because rather
than breaking into homes, he now has owner's credit cards.
So what does he do? Ye uses their computers and

(11:07):
then he pulls a full on Elizabeth and he goes
online shopping and has stuff just delivered to the house
and he just steals it from the front port.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
What have you heard?

Speaker 2 (11:16):
So he has like all kinds of stuff delivered to
these vacation homes for him to steal later, and he'd leave,
circle back, come back on like a oh my deliveries here,
I got to go back to the house. Boom. He
gets his packages. Mostly though he's purchasing like survival gear
and food. I don't want to give you the wrong idea.
He's not like buying like four wheelers. But he comes
to collect it and he goes back to the forest. Now,
eventually the locals they get the police to start paying

(11:38):
attention to this because it's starting to ratchet up and
the crimes that the locals are gossiping about. Everybody's talking
about it. Cops are fine, we'll investigate. So they go
out and they find evidence. Oh there's truly are deliveries
being brought out to houses that are unoccupied. So they
start finding also evidence of identity theft. They're like, oh man,
this is definitely happening. So the local cops are like,
this is above our pay right. Yeah. They call in

(11:59):
the FBI. Wow. Yeah, So the field agents arrive. They
searched the rainforest.

Speaker 3 (12:04):
Camano Island mail fraud.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, it's once at that point, is your federal Yeah,
so he They quickly, the FEDS. They quickly locate Colt's campsite,
or rather one of his campsites, because he's got multiple campsites,
but it's this is his main campsite. And the kid
has a cash of credit cards, check books, driver's licenses,
stolen laptops, oh, iPads, yeah, jewelry, all sorts of stuff, right,

(12:26):
but also the food and the survival equipment. So what
they don't find, oh is Colt. Oh he's gone. He
hears the FBI's choppers and the field agents, is like
kind of rummaging around in the woods, cuts out, disappears.
Not even the local police seeum, he sneaks off. So
where does he go, Elizabeth, He's now out of the
woods to the big city. Goes back to his mother's trailer. Oh,
but he sees the FBI going to his mother's trailer

(12:48):
and the agent server with a warrant for his arrest,
so he dips out of there. The local cops post
wanted posters all over the island.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah. Meanwhile, Colt's still on the lamb. No one's got
to him. He's somewhere out there in the wood, lurking
like Bigfoot. It's just a matter of time before he'll
strike again because he has to. He's gonna get hungry, right,
so he breaks into a vacation home. The local police
and FBI agents, they're patrolling everywhere waiting for him to strike. Right. Finally,
this night, when he finds his unoccupied home and breaks in,

(13:16):
he does what he normally does. He makes himself a
hot meal. Right, but he makes one mistake. He forgets
again what Harley David's and Iron Wing told him in
the Simple Rule Book for break in Artists.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
Did he turn the lights?

Speaker 2 (13:27):
He turns on a light while he eats his hot
meal by himself. The neighbors see the light through the trees.
These neighbors, Elizabeth, they're like you. They're busy bodies. So
they know no one's supposed to be in that house.
We know that the lenders are gone. Yeah, so the
neighbors call the cops. The cops have been waiting for this.
They race across the island, They surround the vacation home.
Now they're smart. They pull up without turning on their lights,

(13:47):
without turning on their sirens, just silent descent. Right, they're
able to sneak up on the vacation home and catch
Colt unaware. Boom gets arrested. February two thousand and seven,
Colton Harris Moore crime spree comes to a sudden screeching stop.
He's charged with twenty three criminal charges.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yikes.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah, once these charges all get sorted out and the
lawyers confirm, though, they eventually agree to have Colt plead
guilty to just three charges because he is a kid, right,
so the prosecutors are satisfied. His sentence. He gets three
years at a maximum security juvenile detention film. Oh wow,
I didn't even know they had maximum security juvenile Yeah.
I mean, of course, but I just thought they'd kind
of put him like in the yard with the adults,

(14:27):
but like separated by offense, you know, like you got
to go to the real prison. But we got a.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
Specials place for you, the kid's table.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah exactly, No, they have their owns anyway, Colt. He
takes all this in stride. In fact, his behavior improves Elizabeth.
He settles into this rhythm of life in a maximum
security juvie facility. He's chom, a model prisoner exactly. He
likes the attention, the structure works for him. He gets
rewarded for his good behavior, transferred to a lower security facility,
a residential treatment center. Right because he may or may

(14:55):
not have fetal alcohol syndrome or some damage from his mother.

Speaker 4 (14:58):
Say, goodness, you know, I think this kid's been up
against it from.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
Birth, completely up against it is the best way to
put it. Now, this new group home that they put
him in, it has no fence, has no prison guards,
just like a nice place for people to rehabilitate. Right.
Short two months after he's transferred there for good behavior,
Colt opens an unlocked window and he's gone. So now
it's April two thousand and eight. Cold is once again free,

(15:23):
ready to get back to his criming ways. Oh boy, Okay, Lizabeth,
let's take a little break. Now you got to know
the boy, and after these ads, I'll tell you how
this story gets crazy and he earns his gnome to
crime the Barefoot bandit. Oh, Elizabeth, Darren, how do you

(15:57):
like my man Colt and Harrison more fascinating? Right?

Speaker 3 (15:59):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Well, okay, so at this point he's about to become
like a real bona fire criminal because now he's been
inside outside, he's been, he's been, he's had his cherry
broken by the cops where he's like, oh, you're going
three away, and he gets he escapes. So now he's
on the.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
Lamb and he grows up, and he grows up.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
Convicted criminal, all right, So he breaks out the group
home Colt. He goes back to his old stomping grounds.
He goes right back to Commono Island or Camano Island.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
Interesting, I know those.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
It didn't take him long for the local authorities to
hear about a new wave of vacation home breaking, and
then they hear the cult escape from Juvie. So they
put two and two together. They get to four on
their own, and they go only scour the woods of
the forest. This is of course, also accompanied by all
kinds of news stories, because now he's making these. The
local cops look about his incompetent as Keystone cops. So

(16:44):
like local outlets like Oregon Live, Seattle Times, the host
intelligence or they're writing about this. Now the national media
now catches wind of the story. They send reporters out
to go go see if there's something there, right, national
news folks. They find his mother's trailer they talk to
on camera, where she pleads for leniency for her poor
troubled son. She also asked her son, if he's watching,

(17:06):
to turn himself in.

Speaker 4 (17:07):
You know what again, I think I've said this before.
My advice is that any event of a natural disaster
or some sort of criminal event, do not get interviewed
by the television stations.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
Just very deal will come from that.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
It won't and so just no comment.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
Best you'll go viral and not in the way you
probably think.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
So, now do you think caught these interviews and he
turned himself in? No? No, no, he did not.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
Know because he's not turning on TVs and listening.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
He's out there with Bigfoot.

Speaker 4 (17:36):
Yeah, but he's also if he breaks into a vacation home,
he's not like, well, let's see what's on the news.
You right to the video games, play some video games,
and then bounce out.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
So for the next three months, he keeps evading the
local police, he keeps breaking into homes, he keeps stealing,
keeps cooking himself hot meals. He also starts now to
steal cars because he's like sixteen, Yeah, so he starts
taking those out for joy rides. And these drives. They're
a new wrinkle for him because it is his profile
on the island. Now he's spinning around and there's cops
in cars. It's not they kept finding him in the woods.

(18:05):
Now just on a street.

Speaker 4 (18:06):
Well, and there's a big difference between like stealing a
box of mac and cheese and the water used to
boil the Posita versus there goes my car.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, there's my that's my BMW.

Speaker 3 (18:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
So he gets caught, and this is July eighteen, two
thousand and eight. My man Colt gets spotted by the cops.
At the moment, he's driving a stolen whip, a black Mercedes,
Oh Dad, going one hundred miles an hour. Whoa dand
cops give chase. They keep in mind Cold hasn't been
driving for long. No one really taught him. He's just
been learning on.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
His own, like you know, grand theft autos.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
Pretty much. Going as fast as he is chased by
the cops, the expected occurs, he crashed, but being my
man Colt, it doesn't go the way you would think.
He does crash the black Mercedes. You're right about that.
But just before he crashes the car, he leaps from
the speeding car, oh way, and the black Mercedes goes
slams into a tree. The cops screeched to a halt,
and Colt, unharmed, runs for it disappears back into the woods.

Speaker 4 (18:57):
He has the confidence of a kid who's just watched
and stuff and not been real and.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Still has also like the bones and the like ligaments
and attendance of a kid as well. He can take
that kind of His cardilage doesn't go what are you doing?

Speaker 3 (19:09):
That's like if I get out of a car too fast, ode.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
I'm lucky if I have cartilage in places still, And
I'm like, oh, hey, there's cartage between those bones. Yes, yeah,
So the cops they searched the stolen Mercedes he left behind,
the one smashed into the tree. Right, the police they
find this treasure trove of evidence. There's stolen cell phones,
there's credit cards, also importantly a digital camera. Oh. On
this digital camera, the cops find pictures of Colt. He's

(19:33):
got like selfies. Yeah. Oh, he's also got pictures of
his campsite. Right, and the cops they're able to locate
this campsite, and they go out to the campsite. What
do they find? They find his dog. You see, he
had a dog and he left him at the campsite.
So he wasn't very far away. And then the cops
they find this pooch named Melanie, right, and the cops
they take they take Melanie the dog. This changes the

(19:54):
complexion of Colt's crime sprees. Yeah, I'm serious. The dude
goes full on john Wick.

Speaker 3 (19:59):
Is this say? This is like this is his origins?

Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yes? I mean he doesn't go full john he goes
like ten percent john Wick because there's no guns, but
also like anger about the dog. That's all there.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
I feel it. So he writes, I can see that.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Oh like you would, you would totally identify with this
kid's Like, well, here, I'll just tell you. So he
writes a note, sends it to his mother because he's
still in contact with her all the time. So the
note is about the cops grabbing Melanie. It reads, quote,
the cops want a play, huh it's war? Tell them that. Yeah,
so Colt coming for the cops this point, Elizabeth. He's
still on the lamb right, and he's also convicted. So anyway,

(20:33):
the locals are worried and scared about this guy. Think
maybe he's armed, maybe he's dangerous, you know. Sightings of
Colt get reported all across the island. He's here, he's there,
he's everywhere. Right. The locals starts to stock up on
firearms and ammo right, and I'm talking mostly like the
vacation own people, not the local one.

Speaker 3 (20:51):
Imagine fears he's never no.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Never done anyone hard, violent, No, not at all. So
Colt realizes if he stays on this island, he will
eventually be caught again. So he can only hide out
in the forest for so long. So he tries a
new tech. What's he do, Elizabeth, I have no idea
steals a boat. Got to get off the island smart,
So he makes a run for it to a new island,
a place called Orcas Island. Right like, it goes like

(21:14):
I'm found by an orca, Like this is Orcas Island.

Speaker 3 (21:18):
When they attack boats, Oh my god, yes, oh my god.
That makes me so happy.

Speaker 4 (21:22):
I get like high reading articles about how killer whales
after yachts.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Totally destroy them, and you're like, oh, tell me more.
It's like how I feel about elephants when they go
and take it after people. Yeah, side with elephants. I'm sorry.
I figured they must have done something wrong. I've never
seen an elephant just decide I'm gonna go after them.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
Their total sweet peas.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yeah, and they have long memories from what I understand.

Speaker 3 (21:44):
So and he never forgets.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
He ditches his boat when he gets over to Orcas
Island and he treks into the woods because you know,
that's what he knows. He camps out, finds a nice
spot in the woods near a local airport.

Speaker 3 (21:54):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
Now, Colet always love planes as a boy. He'd watch
them fly overhead. He could identify them by their cillorette.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
I would imagine there's like seaplanes all over the place.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
Exactly, a lot of puddle jumpers, all sorts of planes. Interesting,
a lot of also small aircraft for people flying in
from air. A lot of these islands on the airfields.

Speaker 3 (22:10):
So that's like how they get around soup.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
So his mother, she would recall, like to the press
about how her son as a boy, just loved planes
right he he could. She would buy him balsa wood models,
like the old school balcewood models, and he would build those.
He also she bought the books about planes, she told
one reporter, and I quote from the time he was
a little kid. He could look up at any plane
in the sky and tell you what make it was

(22:34):
what engine it had when it was built, and weather
was a good safe one.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
Now, at school he would spend his time obviously playing
Microsoft flight Simulator, right, So if you checked his MySpace page,
you'd find he listed his occupation as pilot, which reminded
me of that guy you told me about on Reddit
the the a t a guy who was like, uh,
his girlfriend got mad because he told people at her
work dinner party he was a pilot.

Speaker 4 (22:58):
He was introducing himself as pilot. Yeah, her work functions.
And the truth of the matter is he just he'd
never flown. He had flight simulator going in like a
special room in his house.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
Like ten thousand hours on flight.

Speaker 4 (23:10):
Simulator exactly, and it was just like but he would
he would brag about it, but not about being just
sitting in his chair.

Speaker 3 (23:16):
But yeah, and it went on from there.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
But well, that's how I kept picturing this kid. I
was like, oh, yeah, here we go, another flight simulator pilot.
So there he is camping in the forest. It surrounds
his local airport. He's watching the small planes land, he's
watching them take off, he's clocking the workers. He figures
out the schedules, the rhythms, and he starts to plan
his next move. What do you think he did, Elizabeth, Well,
that's right, he stole the plane, my man, amazing.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
So he knows from flight simulator.

Speaker 4 (23:43):
It's got to be brutal to be like hanging out
in the woods and seeing this freedom flying over you.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
They can go wherever they want.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
Yeah, and you need to go off an island. People
are after you. Yeah, you're like, you're a kid. You're like,
I can do that.

Speaker 3 (23:53):
I totally do that.

Speaker 4 (23:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
Do you think he managed to like go out and probably? Well,
rather me tell you about, Elizabeth, I'd like you to
close your eyes. I like you to picture it. It's
a November on a place called Orchis Island in the
San Juan Chain of Islands. They're off of the coast
of Washington State. It's right around sundown, and you, Elizabeth,
are the little angel on the shoulder of a wayward boy.

(24:18):
You are both there at the stand of trees at
the edge of the woods, and the boy gazes at
an airfield. You tell him not to do what you
hear him thinking. But the little devil on his other
shoulder scoffs and laugh and he says, you know you
want to do it, do it now. Without warning, the
teenage boy hops over the deer fence runs towards the airfield.
You hang on to his shoulder as he runs for

(24:39):
a Cessna one eight two sky lane. It's a simple
plane to fly. It's a sort of plane that beginners
get comfortable flying alone. It's the VW Bug of airplanes.
Now there's one sitting alone in a hangar, and the
kid runs right for that hanger. He's a big boy.
This kid is six foot five wa His six foot
five frame lumbers across the grass and he makes it
to the hangar. You try to reason with the boy,

(25:00):
tell him you've had your fun, time to go home,
But he listens to the little devil instead, and he
picks the lock door. The door swings open. The teen
sneaks in. He finds keys hanging on a hook. You
plead with him to stop what he's doing. Someone could
get hurt. You're something of a worry word, Elizabeth, and
he ignores you again. Instead, he climbs into the Cessna,
but he doesn't start it up right away. That's a

(25:22):
relief for you. Instead, he finds the manual. He reads it.
You're glad that he's checking the section on autopilot safety first,
you think. Plus, you know he has played a ton
of Microsoft flight simulator in the game. The Cessna one
eighty two is the dashboard you learned to fly on.
Now he's sitting behind the real deal. He studies the manual,
compares the real dashboard to what he knows to see

(25:44):
if it's all the same gauge's same controls. By sunrise,
he feels he's got it. He spent the entire night studying,
So now he hops out, goes to open the roll
top door of the hanger. You suggest to him, you've
had your fun, now time to go, But the little
devil on his shoulders forget her. You deserve to have
some fun now cold agrees with him. Now not you,

(26:04):
So he grabs the planes tobar and uses the full
leverage of a six foot five frame two hundred pounds
to push the plane out of the hangar. You beg
and plead for him to stop. On the tarmac. He
hops into the stolen Cessna, fires up that two hundred
and twenty five horspower fuel injected engine. You argue, you plead,
you guilt, but no one is listening to you. Elizabeth.

(26:25):
Colt points the nose of the plane south. He taxis
down the runway. This is it, it's really happening. At
the end of the runway. Is the ocean well, Puget sound.
You tell Colt that he doesn't get his takeoff right,
he's gonna be a bad please to crash. The devil's
his go ahead. Colt pops the plane's toe breaks, He
grabs the throttle pushes it forward. The propeller's plane engine

(26:46):
roars to life. The aircraft starts to roll forward, quickly
picking up speed. The airstrip is short. It's also thin.
You argue, do not do this too late. Now hold on, Elizabeth,
because the plane's about to roll right off the runway.
Colt smashes down on the right rudder pedal. That counteracts
the pull of the propeller's spin and the torquet generates.
Quick thinking, you say to him, you remind cult that

(27:08):
he could still turn off the plane engine and get out.
The plane continues to pick up speed. The propeller chops
at the air The plane reaches sixty miles an hour.
That's the magic number. You feel the plane lift up
from the runway and it takes off you see the
sun is also lifting up over the eastern horizon, cresting
over Mount Baker, which is blanketed in snow. It's like

(27:28):
dyllic Don's first leg. Colt banks the Sestana towards the
rising sun, Elizabeth. Nothing for you to do now but
enjoy the view. Colt turns again heads south. He can
see his home from here, well, his home, Camano Island.
Colt continues flying south by southeast over the forested woods
of mainland western Washington. Next you see Seattle, which looks

(27:49):
beautiful from the air. Look, there's Pike Street Market, you
hear yourself saying, Colt flying at the ceiling of ten
thousand feet, close enough to see the faces on the
ground still, and also it's early so the city is
mostly asleep. Once he flies past Seattle, he aims for
the next SPECS thing he can see from a distance,
a snow capped Mount Rainier. You comment on how pretty

(28:09):
it looks in the morning light. The little devilt imitate you.
Oh help, Then he laughs, and again Colt follows his advice.
He follows the Cascade Mountain range heading east. You tell
him mountains make for very choppy air. Read turbulence. You
try to remind cult that he's in a tiny propeller
plane flying for the first time ever. Also, it's November,

(28:32):
storm grade winds. They come ripping off the Cascade Mountains.
Soon enough, the Cessna gets hit by a storm force wind.
The Little Devil laughs gleefully as the tiny plane is
cast about in the sky like some small ship and
storm toss seas. Only these seas are the sky. One
wind verse hits the Cessna like an invisible dump truck,
smashing into the Blaine. The Sesta bucks and falls out

(28:54):
in the sky. Somehow, Colt recovers all his hours of
flight simulator and indeed paid off. The Little Devil urges
them on, good, come on, go down. Meanwhile, you're giving up,
arguing you've just closed your eyes. Colt is in heaven
for a few hours. He enjoys this rare view. Finally,
at eleven am, the fuel gate says fun time over.
At this point, three hundred miles from where he took off,

(29:16):
somewhere over Yakama Indian Reservation. You suggest, oh, look a
rural airfields to land, but the Little Devil says, no.
Crash the plane and Colt listens to him. Kid Colt
tries to spot a soft place to crash land. He
points the nose of the propeller plane at the earth.
You scream, you hit it. As the plane plummets and

(29:36):
the ground rushes up, you race for impact and count
down with cold five. Four, three, You shake your fist
at the little devil on the Colt's shoulder. Two one.
The plane slams into the ground. It skips over the
dirt like a stone on a pond, and it slams
back to the earth. The propeller and the ancient chew
up dirt and prairie until finally the plane stops slide,

(30:00):
fighting over tall scrub grass and comes to a gentle stop.
The little Devil looks over at you and says, see,
I told you he could do it. Oh my god,
is Elizabeth. I know it's a low bar, but in
my book, any crash landing you can walk away from
is a successful way.

Speaker 3 (30:17):
We say so a couple a couple of notes on this.
I like that. I think you wrote yourself into the
picture it as the devil.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
What what are you talking about his shoulder? I don't
know what you're talking about.

Speaker 4 (30:28):
And to find out that he's six foot five to
tell you that it's got to be really tough.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
He's got this.

Speaker 4 (30:35):
Giant man body that most men will never achieve at
that height.

Speaker 3 (30:39):
And like, but he's got the brain of a kid
and a brain that you know.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Has the impulse control of a kid.

Speaker 4 (30:44):
Yeah, and like his you know, so you have this,
it's got to be so difficult to navigate the world
that way. God, and the fact that he could study
a manual all night, and so he has.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
These skills really really smart.

Speaker 4 (30:56):
And it's like I hate when people say, oh, you know,
he could have they could have just directed him purely
to that kind of education. What they need to do
is understand the soft skills of education of what he
was lacking to be able to apply that, you know,
to whatever.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
He needed a holistic approach as opposed to just a
skills based approachable. He needs to do this test and
showed this person he passed this test and go on
to make money.

Speaker 4 (31:18):
Right exactly, help the boy become When you said he
was six or five, all of a sudden, I'm like,
oh poor.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
Yeah, I wait until you're seeing him in motion. Yeah yeah,
all right, well respect him a man cult right now?
His mother she hears about what her son has done,
because the reporters come to send her as soon as
this gets reported, and she says, and I quote, evidently
he didn't need flight school. So not your typical motherly response,
I'll admit, but we already knew that about her now

(31:46):
his mother, Pamela. She also told reporters who came a
call and quote, I'm not saying it's right, but if
he flew those planes, I'm very, very proud of him.
Oh yeah, So at least his mom's proud of him.
And tell him that, you know, to the TV media,
and he's catching it apparently. Anyway, She also hopes her
son will start wearing a parachute whenever he steals a plane.
She is, after all, a mother still anyway. Meanwhile, back

(32:07):
to the crash site, the plane's total course, house cold.
He's okay, he survives, totally, totally fine. He walks away unharmed.
When the police arrived, no colt, he's gone. Only thing
that they find is his vomit on the dashboard of
the plane. So apparently he hit and then puked. Right
the puke just tells the cops what cult ate for breakfast.
That's the only clues they have to go on.

Speaker 4 (32:29):
Yeah, I mean he might have gotten like a.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Like a concussion. Yeah, I'd be willing to bet you
got a concussion. Maybe even like a bruise on his
face or broken nose, something like that cracks some webs.
But he was not, like he was able to walk
away and didn't need immediately go to the hospital.

Speaker 4 (32:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
So, And there's also no signs of which way he
disappeared back into the woods. Gone, Yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
And he's three hundred miles away from home.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah, exactly. So at this point, Colt is like he's
basically Bigfoot with a stolen plane. You know, he's just
he goes disappears into the woods. The only difference between
him at Big Food is the stolen plane. So what
does Colt do now that he's officially a pilot?

Speaker 3 (33:03):
Steals another point?

Speaker 2 (33:04):
No, he steals a car. There's a trick question. He
drives that until he gets he runs out of gas.
And then why does he do that? Because rather than
hit a gas station where there are cameras which the
police can use to track down his movement, he ditches
the stolen car, then steals a new one. He's literally,
as you've said, going through life like Grand Theft Auto
the Cult version. Now it's spring of two thousand and nine.

(33:26):
At this point, Cult is still successfully on the run,
so he does what other older criminals do. He goes
back home. He returns to Kamlo Islands and for the
next two months he lays low, really well kind of.
He hits a few homes and then disappears. And then
in June of two thousand and nine, he's feeling bored
of a or maybe a little rambunctious, and Colt breaks
into a police car. He steals a rifle and a

(33:47):
box of AMMO. Then he melts back in the woods.
So now it's Bigfoot with a rifle. Summertime passes, September
rolls around. He decides to time to island top again.
So he steals now a quarter of a million dollar
luxury boat. He's still a two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars luxury boat.

Speaker 3 (34:03):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
Takes off for a place called Friday Harbor over in
San Juan Island. Once he's there, he cases that island
and what did he do? He gets an itch to
go flying. Oh my gosh, so second little break can
after this, I will come back and tell you how
my man cold gets back into the skies. Were back, Elizabeth, Hi,

(34:39):
how you dig him? A man?

Speaker 3 (34:41):
This is so good.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
See why it's my new favorite anti hero and what
I relate to him so much? He is for me
The road untaken? Yeah, the path are passing. The wood
diverged and I took the one less interesting. So anyway,
my man called, he's at this point. I told you
he's got an itch to go flying again. He's like
land of the last plane, So do this again? So

(35:04):
and he also needs to get off an island. So
he goes down and he finds a local airfield because
I remember I told all these islands have these small
little airfields. He finds that one he spots another plane,
not assessmin of this time. This time it's a Serrus
SR twenty two. That's a plane he fancies. It's a
nice plane, right, So he waits for his opportunity. Then
he sneaks onto the airfield, climbs into the cockpit, starts
the engine, taxis down the runway, and he steals away

(35:25):
into the sky. Colt still hasn't learned how to fly
a plane, though, other than the manual he read right,
So again he has to crash it. He knows basically
how to handle a plane in the sky, but he
can't get them down out of the sky, right, so
crashes it on Orches Island. Back to Orchis Island right now,
Elizabeth Orchis Island is home to four thousand full time residents, okay,

(35:45):
mini part time residents. The island boasts all kinds of
vacation homes for real money, like Microsoft millionaires, Boeing contractors.
Most famous resident Gary Larson of the Far Side fame. Yeah, right,
so Colt he survives plane crash onto Gary Larson's island,
and the crash planned it sends up this cloud of smoke, right,

(36:05):
and I've got all these rich people on this island.
So the authorities come out to investigate. They think maybe
Gary Larson crashes helicopter or whatever. I don't know. They discover,
oh my god, this is plane crash, but no pilot.
They put two and two together and it's cold. So
the police spring into action, right. They erect roadblocks, they
close the docks, the marine is They alert the local
airfield to be on high alert. We're gonna catch this.
Sob this time, I don't know how he does it.

(36:27):
I'm impressed by the fact he does. But somehow cult
evades the roadblocks, the closed harbor, the marina. Somehow he
sneaks down to the water line and he steals a boat.
And he races away in a stolen speed boat. Where
to go now, Canada. He's getting international with it, all right,
So he jumps the all the cops on his tail
and he makes it over the watery border to Canada.

(36:51):
Now he keeps playing his one man game of cult GTA.
He breaks into homes, he commits more burglaries, he steals
some cars, he ditches them, steals more cars. Ben he
finds in himself in the place called Creston, Canada, A
little place now. I guess he gets tired of snacking
on poutine because he quickly dips back down the lower
forty eight. He steals a car, drives back across the

(37:11):
border into a town called Bonner's Ferry in Idaho. Now
he goes to the local airport because he loves those,
and he promptly steals a Cessna one eighty two, his
third stolen plane. He flies this one same as the others,
really well in the sky. He flies two hundred and
fifty miles west back to Washington and then in a
town called Granite Falls, he successfully crash lands the plane.

(37:33):
By this point, the national news media is loving this
crazy kids kid who just keeps stealing planes and crashing
him and walking away. Yeah, so my man called, He's
stolen planes, crashed them, survive, stolen expensive boats, escape the US,
escape the fbis, he's stolen cars. He just left them,
dotting the landscape like he's a vehicular Johnny Appleseed right. Naturally,
all the usual suspects begin to profit off this kid's story. CNN, Fox,

(37:57):
CBS News, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, Today's Show on NBC,
all of them. They send out the reporters to document
his crime spreees. They all start to profit off his escapades.
As his stories keep going viral, go international. He's now
got a Facebook fan page. It starts popping off, Elizabeth.
There are kids in Australia who were wearing T shirts
that say fly Colt and fly You're kidding. Kids in

(38:20):
Italian City's wearing shirts to say Mama tried for cult.

Speaker 3 (38:24):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
He was out an international folk hero for teens.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
So cult is at this point laying low on the island.
He still needs to eat, still a grown boys six
foot five, so you know he's hungry. His hunger cannot
be denied, so he breaks into a grocery store steals
food and some money. He also leaves footprints intentionally, he
leaves chalk outlined footprints of his bare feet. What see,
I'm telling you, yes, he's bigfoot with a stolen plane.

(38:48):
But they don't they like the press somehow misses that
he's like doing like a bigfoot thing. But they instead
they refer to this chalk outlined feet and they give
him the nickname the barefoot bandit. Okay, I mean, yeah,
it's got good alliteration. But clearly the man is doing
a barefoot thing in the bigfoot area and he goes
out to the woods.

Speaker 4 (39:04):
I mean, come on, do you imagine growing up like
bigfoot banded. How much the bigfoot bandits legs must have
ached to be young and six.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
Oh yeah, his bones are just stretching it. You can
watch them go like a plant. Yeah yeah, huh. So
at this point, my big foot banded with a stolen plane, right,
the press are all excited. But also I forgot to
tell you when he did that he left the chalk
outline of his own feet in the store. He also
left a note for the cops. Really three letters, see

(39:36):
dash y, a exclamation point, see you.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
The media loves this. They brought on this once again.
The cops and the authorities are furious. They're embarrassed. They're
made to look like fools by the teenage boy Clever.
So what do they do, well, the local cops they
called the FBI back. Can you guys try again.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
Bail state police they could.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Oh, yeah, they've they've been doing that, but it's Washington
State Police. Like Oregon. Washington don't really have like the
same levels a place to say California, We're used like
CHP or like sometimes I don't message John. In Oregon,
this is like as few as eight highway patrol on
patrol at any one time, eight officers in the entire state.

Speaker 3 (40:12):
Whole state.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
Wow, blow me away, anyway. So at this point they
call the FBI back in. They also call Homeland Security. Yes,
the federal alphabet agents starts swarming over island, upsetting all
the well heeled locals. This is not why they came
to live in and out of the way island. Elizabeth. Yeah,
at this point it's May. At the end of the month,

(40:34):
cops discover a new note and one hundred dollars bill
taped to the door of a vet clinic. The note is,
of course from Colt, and I quote drove by, adds
some extra cash. Please use this money for the care
of animals Colton Harris Moore Aka it's a barefoot bandit.

Speaker 3 (40:49):
Oh Colton.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yes, so he's leaving money at that to take care of.

Speaker 3 (40:54):
Animals, all in the name of Melanie.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
Yeah, telling you it is. That's his motivation. That's where
he flips and twists and turns and everything becomes like
the war. So that same day he goes down to
the docks. He finds a super expensive racing boat and
he likes it, so he steals it. Boom, he takes
off to Oregon. Now, my favorite part, Elizabeth, is how
he calls his attorney from this now stolen go fast boat. Yes,

(41:17):
the man's got an attorney and he's got a phone.
So what is he to want to talk about. He's
arranging his negotiated handover to the Feds. No, no, he's not.
Is he negotiating the movie rights for his life story? Yes?
Yes he is. Wait, he wants a lawyer to ask
for top dollar for any potential movie to be made
about him, his life and his crimes. Oh my god,
of course. Then he goes. He hides out again. Soon enough,

(41:38):
he grows bored, so Colt steals a car, drives to
yanked In, South Dakota. Yankton Wood. That's a town that
should be fel familiar to the fans of the show Deadwood,
the Yankedon people. Yeah right, So Yankton, that's where we are, Yankton,
South Dakota. And Colt sets up shop, starts casing some
houses he plans to break into. He finds this one
fitting house, breaks in, makes himself at home, makes himself

(42:00):
a hot meal. He also takes off his dirty clothes
and he does a load of laundry. Then he goes
and he takes a hot shower. You know, he may
have broken in, but essentially he's just stolen a home
for himself. That's what he's done, right, But the house
he selected is not a vacation home. It looks like
a vacation home, it's not a vacation home. Elizabeth, the
family just happened to be away. Ironically, on vacation.

Speaker 3 (42:20):
Oh no.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
So at three am, the family returns home. The Clark
family comes back from their vacation. When mister Clark walks
into the family home, he senses something just ain't right.
You know what that is? Lights are off, that's not it.
The weird thing is the TV is on. He's like,
I know, I did not leave the TV on.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
He's a super observer like you yeah, yeah, Now I
would have noticed that Colt left the remainder of his
hot meal on the kitchen counter. That's what we're to
cut my eyes. So mister Clark, from these two clues,
he's able to determine there's someone in the house. He
tells his family stay out, and he searches the family home.
He creeps through the hallways looking for this interloper. In
the hallway, he notices at the end the bathroom lights
on the door is a jar. Oh boy, Colt, here's

(42:58):
footsteps approach. But he doesn't jump out in surprise and
attack mister Clark. No, instead, he jumps out and just
runs past him. So mister Clark gets his six foot
five guy running back him at three am or three
thirty probably at this point, and then he hears the
guy rush through his house and he recognizes the sound.
He hears him run down into the basement, and then
he also recognizes, wait, I know where he is. He

(43:20):
rushes and locks the door. He's trapped Colt in his basement.
Then he phones the police. The cops rush out to
the house. You know exactly who this guy is. They're geeked, Elizabeth.
Yea Colt trapped in a basement with no escape. They
have him finally, make fun of us. The cops arrive
at the Clark home and they enter the premises. They
search the home. They go down to the basement, flashlights drawn.

(43:40):
Just imagine shafts of light peering through the dark. And
what do they find, Elizabeth, don't guess. I'll tell you.
Colt is gone. He grabbed his laundry from the washing machine.
That's why he ran down to the basement. He grabbed
his other stuff, and then he wriggled out of a
basement window, squeezed out gone. He maybe six foot five,
he still weighs two hundred pounds. He's a thin, big boy.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
So he doesn't run far though. He runs to a
neighbor's house. There he breaks in find some car, Keys
steals the neighbor's car, drives off my cot man. Colt
gets away yet again.

Speaker 3 (44:11):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
The local cops and the FEDS now they know that
they've got this kid, Colt, and and he's gonna break
a run for a local airfield, right like that's his
way or he can't get to a boat. He can't
be this isn't an island. So they say watch the airport, right,
this high alert works. No plane gets stolen, and then
caution wears off. Days pass. One week later, on the

(44:31):
fourth of July, when everyone's totally distracted, Colt sneaks onto
the airfield. Get this, Elizabeth, he steals a plane.

Speaker 4 (44:39):
He's gonna have great views of fireworks, totally amazing expensive
Cessma this time, not like on a small training plane
like the first couple.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
This time he steals a Cessna four hundred. It's worth
seven hundred thousand dollars. Oh dang, Yeah, Colt steals the
plane because you know he plans to fly further than
he's ever flown before. This is a real like, oh,
I can fly to New York in this plane. Oh,
his plan to fly to Cuba. So he taxes he
his newly stolen plane down the runway. He climbs back
into the sky, up there among the clouds, where he

(45:06):
likes it. He flies across the US. He flies all
the way to the Atlantic. Then he turns and heads
for Cuba. But he's not a trained pilot, so he
misjudges one thing, his fuel. Somewhere over the Atlantic, he
realizes he's almost out of fuel and he will not
make it to Cuba. So what does he do now, Elizabeth?
He spots the Bahamas on the horizon. He flies for

(45:28):
the islands and he makes it barely to the Bahamas,
where he crash lands. The seven hundred thousand dollars beauty
of a plane plays destroyed, but my man Cold walks
away unharmed. Cold Boom another successful landing. Colt walks to
a fishing village where he promptly breaks into local stores
and steals some food. He's hungry again, so then he's

(45:50):
still hungry, so he breaks into some restaurants and then
gets some more, throwing teenage boy, what are you gonna do?
Always starving? So in the news coverage of Cold story,
there's this one woman who I caught who was like
once kind of cult and I kind of wanted to
include her because she gives us a little perspective on him.
She cared for him when he was a she's a
foster mother, but she cared for him like a foster mother.
So she sees this at risk youth and she's part
of a program helping kids, and she tries to help

(46:12):
this wayward boy. And she spoke with the press at
this around this time when people start going, why is
this kid doing it? She someone finds her and she says, well,
she believes and I quote Colt didn't intend for all
this to happen. It's gotten away from him now, right,
She hadn't met him when he was fourteen, before he
started stealing planes, when he was just doing court ordered
community service, right, that kind of stuff. He's so one
day he arrives and she's running the court ordered community

(46:34):
service in a park, cleaning up. He arrives without any lunch.
She notices it. She recalls, quote, I fed him, gave
him water, and he was just so very grateful. Now
she also noticed it. He was a hard worker. He
was smart, as I've pointed out, he knew a quote
ridiculous amount of knowledge of local plants, and he was
kind hearted, much like her, and she said, and I quote,
he really struck me as a good hearted kid who'd

(46:55):
always been looked at with negative expectations. It didn't have
a lot of motivation to feel good about his life,
yet when given an opportunity, I mean, he just worked
his butt off. How is it possible that all these
groups of people and systems in place miss children like
this over and over again? So yeah, she also recalled,
by the way, when Colt was done with his community service,

(47:17):
he biked back ten miles to this park where she worked,
and he met her and it was like just kind
of checking in. She remembers how, and I quote, he
was kind of shy, handed me three small bags and
just said here. I told him we had a very
small budget for new plants, and he'd gone out and
hand harvested seeds from local flowers that he thought would
grow well in the park. I said, oh my god,
thank you so much. And he's like, yeah, all right,

(47:39):
turned around and said thank you for being so nice
to me. I was literally teary eyed.

Speaker 3 (47:43):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
And I told you all that because I wanted you
to keep that in mind as I keep calling him
my man Clt. Right, he's tea, he's a teenage kid.
He's on the run. And I know, yes, he's crashed
a stolen seven hundred thousand dollars plan that he stole
into the Bahamas, Right, but he made it to the Bahamas, right,
I'm still on his side. Yeah, So next stop, Cuba.
Do you think he makes it?

Speaker 3 (48:03):
Does he pull a tupac? No?

Speaker 2 (48:05):
After the plane crash is discovered, because remember he's sending
up smoke signals. Basically, local authorities track down the stolen
plane and they tell the US authorities, Oh, this is
one of yours. They tell the Bahamian authorities to hold
the pilot, right, and they say, if you catch him,
hold them. We'll be there as soon as we can
get there. The locals they put up wanted posters of
this kid, Colt Harris More because that's what the FEDS
tell them. Yeah. Knowing that the heat is now on.

(48:27):
When he sees one of his wanted posters, Colt does
what he does best. He cuts and runs, don't hesitate. Run,
So he steals another go fast boat and he takes
off for Harbor Island, assuming this is one of the
bigger islands in the Bahamas, assuming that'll be a bigger,
better place for him to hide out. Okay, he makes it.
He docks the boat, sneaks down to a luxury hotel
to like hide out, let the coolick, you know, let
the heat blow over, maybe find maybe it'll quick score somewhere.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
Instead, security guards spot him, They recognize, you know, belong here.
They give chase. Colt tries to run, but at this
point he's grabbed a gun somewhere, so he turns back,
flashes a gun. The secure guards see that if they
turn they run away. They go and they call the cops. Right,
we're gonna need backup. Cops mobilize. Also local federal agents,
also the military. Everybody on this Bahamian island are all

(49:11):
searching for this kid, all of them armed right, hunting
my man Colt. At this point is July eleventh, twenty ten.
Colt is desperate to get to Cuba. So what does
he do? Steals another go fast boat. This is his
last chance. Yes, so he's get spotted though it gets
like three point thirty in the morning. When he steals it.
The cops they go and they rush and fire up
their own boats. So now the chase is offat chase.

(49:34):
Colt leads them to the open ocean. He's gonna make
a run for it, headed to Cuba. I man, he
thinks that's Cuba, so then I hope it's not Dominican Republic. Anyway,
He's on the open ocean, right, colt speedboat is way
faster than the cops watercraft. In the dark of the night,
they're on the ocean, racing to Cuba. Colt escapes the
Bahamian cops, but his luck finally runs out in the

(49:54):
dark of night, his speedboat slams into a sandbar. That's
how the Bahamian cops able to catch up to him.
And when this is where it gets wild, to make
sure he can't escape again, what do they do. They
pull out those guns and just start firing on them.
Oh no, oh, yeah, they fire on the speedboat, but
not at the kid. They shoot out the engines so
that way he can't They they basically disabled the boat,

(50:15):
so Cold is now captured, taken into custody the Behaming authorities.
They parade their capture in a walk of shame on
the island. Yeah, tropical purp walk right, Yeah, so the
authorities they only have Cold on one solitary charge though
failure to present his passport, So he gets fined three
hundred dollars. And they're about to like let him go,
and the US are like, you have to hold him.

(50:35):
He will be right there. Take the two days. So
they get there, they arrive, they take the kid into
custody where he gets transported to Miami. The Americans they
got plenty of charges, they got to got charge. Yeah,
so they throw sixty seven felony charges at Colt that
would have resulted in maybe twenty thirty years in federal prison.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
Yeah. The total for all of his damage and the
cost of the man hunt, they're saying was one point
four million dollars. That's what he now owes in restitution
to victims and to the state. Now, remember I told
you he called his lawyer from his go fast vote
to negotiate the sale of his life story to Hollywood. Yeah,
well he was on something there. He sells his life
rights to twentieth century Fox for exactly one point four

(51:14):
million dollars because he cannot profit from his crimes, but
he can send it all into restitution. Sce gets exactly
that in his trial. The cult's the lawyer he pleads
for lniency. He's like, he's a kid. Look at him, right,
They sight his upbringing, his home, his abusive parents, the
bully against school. The judge and the jury. They listen
to all this, right, and they feel bad, just like
you and I do. From a man cult. The judge

(51:34):
even says, and I quote, I think this case is
a tragedy but also a triumph with the human spirit.
I sympathized with the defendant for his terrible upbringing that
he had. It was tragedy that he had to steal
food to endure an alcoholic an abusive mother. But nevertheless,
the sentence of six years and I wish him well.
Six years boom yeah, just like that, he's sentenced for

(51:54):
a few heads off to federal prison. He's since been released.
Six years isn't bad considering what he was possible looking at.
So there you go, Elizabeth, the story of the Barefoot
Bandit or aka the Bigfoot Bandit. I prefer it. He's out,
he got released.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
Wow, I hope he's doing well.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
What's a ridiculous takeaway there? You know?

Speaker 4 (52:12):
I think that like early childhood intervention is so key, yes,
you know, and it's age zero, simple stuff that, like
just the attention nutrition, you know, definitely, yes, that makes
such a huge difference that you know, if a kid's hungry,
they can't pay attention, and they're not.

Speaker 3 (52:29):
Their brain doesn't develop in the way it should.

Speaker 4 (52:31):
This kid like so smart and clever, you know, it's
just what a waste, My god, it's your takeaway.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
I just related to him very much, like all the
whole time, like I you know me, I love planes.
I would have always wanted to steal a plane. I
think the only thing is that the difference is our
relationship store a mother. The reason why would would have
killed my mother? Yeah, and so I didn't do it
for that reason, whereas he's like, you know, yeah, she's
already taken care of that. I don't have to worry

(53:00):
about that. So I think that's what it is. It's
just like the the he couldn't be guilted or whatever, exchange,
whatever it is that they kept me. But the bond
between you know, a boy and his mother the only
thing they kept me from doing more serious crimes. Yeah wow, yeah,
So there you go. Thanks mom, I know, right, So
thank your mother, call your grandmother and thank your mother.
So you're in the mood for a talkback. I am

(53:22):
after that one. D can you favor this one? Oh
my god, I love get.

Speaker 5 (53:38):
I downloaded the iHeart app specifically to tell you, Elizabeth,
how disappointed I am that the joke of you not
watching TV is over. I don't like Scandal era Elizabeth.
I giggled so hard at the jokes that you didn't

(53:59):
watch any TV but somehow knew about all TV. I
miss it, but still love you. Thanks for the show.

Speaker 4 (54:06):
Oh my god, I'm sorry to disappoint I really am,
but I had to stand in my truth.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
I'll tell you this much. She doesn't listen to radio
doesn't work well as always.

Speaker 4 (54:21):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
You can find us online at Ridiculous Crime on your
social media's and we have our website that we love.
Go check it out ridiculous crime dot com. There you
can give a you know, a review of you. You
can tell us about you on the website, so go
there and tell us about you. Also, if you'd like,
you can go to the iHeart app, download it and
you can leave us talk back again. You can tell
us about you, or you can tell us about things

(54:42):
you found, or you just tell us.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
About joke disappointed you or Elizabeth.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
Also, you can always email us if you like a
Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Please type in dear
producer d thanks for listening. We will catch you next time.
Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett,
produced and edited by the Harley Davidson Iron Wing to

(55:08):
Our Colt Harris Moore, Mister Dave Houston, and starring Analys
Rucker as Judith. Research is by amateur pilots Marissa Brown
and Andrea Song Sharpened Tear. Our theme song is by
Bad Boys of the Pacific Northwest Thomas Lee and Travis Dunton.
The host wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair
and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andrea Hotel. Accommodations provided

(55:31):
by the Omni. Executive producers are Ben hot Meal, Bowlin
and Nol Survival Knife, Brown.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
Dick, Why say It one more time?

Speaker 2 (55:47):
Geek We Cry.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts.
My Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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