Jen Graves posted about this kid in morning news a couple days ago, but the “barefoot burglar” of Camano Island, Colton Harris-Moore, really deserves a Slog post of his own. And this CNN story about him today is pretty fantastic:
Police say Colton “Colt” Harris-Moore has been linked to crimes in five counties involving planes, luxury cars and boats. He’s known to alternate between squatting in vacant vacation homes, which he allegedly burglarizes, and roughing it in the woods.
Since November, police say, at least three small, private planes have been stolen and flown away. The latest to go missing crash-landed last week in a clearing in Granite Falls, Washington, after running out of fuel, police said…
Harris-Moore dropped out of high school and, according to Wallace, police believe he spent his teens burglarizing unoccupied homes on Camano Island, a vacation community of about 15,000 people off the Washington state coast. He became known as “the Barefoot Burglar,” because, investigators say, he preferred to prowl shoeless.
Gradually, Wallace alleges, Harris-Moore moved onto more sophisticated crimes.
Harris-Moore has a fan club on Facebook (the Stranger‘s Larry Mizell Jr. is a fan).
its all fun and games until someone gets hurt
Based on the article, the kid’s links to the airplane thefts seem circumstantial at best; basically a computer that they said he used had flight manuals in the browser history, or whatever, and thus they’re pinning several small aircraft thefts in two states on him.
Makes for a good story though.
I fucking love this kid. If only I had the balls to pull this kind of shit when I was his age.
@4: Well, there goes your future job as an Under-Secretary of Education in 2032.
Young burglars rule! Keep away from my laptop, kids.
My loose-limbed, wild-haired Cap Hill friends growing up always had weed to share: the one who delivered the papers would announce when a subscriber was on vacation, then the rascals would carefully burgle just a couple items from each empty house and sell the loot to buy the weed they shared so freely with those of us who never asked how they could afford it. (I didn’t find out until years later they’d had this burglary ring, and had stolen from my house as well!)
Those guys were were so beautiful and larcenous.
Yes, because stealing other people’s personal shit is fun, and funny.
I can forgive the kid, and even find his antics kind of cute, but if you’ve ever had someone rip off something that actually matters to you, you may recall wanting to find the people responsible and:
1) Ask them why they think they’re entitled to take your shit.
2) Pour gasoline on them and set them on fire.
If this little fucker stole my laptop out of my house, I’d definitely want to do both of those things.
The cops out there must be fucking idiots. It’s an island, for Christ’s sake! How hard can it be to find some snot-nosed little puke with delusions of grandeur hiding in the ferns? Maybe I’ll move there and set up a pot growing operation, or perhaps a prostitution ring. At least a couple rub-and-tugs.
why cant the mainstream find black or brown teen burglars adorable?
this country can be so…
What kind of disgust me is his Mother claiming that he’s a “Victim of the System”, that “Oh sorry, he just always had problems with authority figures” “He never had a father” “My Insurance won’t let him get tested for mental illness”. Way to not take responsibility.
And this line: “He’s probably dead already”
I got the feeling she’s doing what Jesse James’ mother did: exploiting her kid’s notoriety.
Yeah isn’t he cute and such a rebel. Except my house was burglarized this summer. Not by him, but I guess you never know. It sucks either way. Even with insurance, having someone in your house, break your door, violate your privacy, violate your sense of security, make a huge mess and steal your shit sucks. Then afterward for the next week or two jumping out of bed at every creek or noise you hear at 3am because you wonder if they’ve come back is not fun. So yeah let’s get past the rebel romance and the cute baby face. He can have his fun, and if I’m on the jury and he’s proven guilty, I’ll vote to throw his ass in prison a good long time.
Without a father, how did he end up with a hyphenated last name?
Did Charles Mudede join his fan page yet?
@13: Mudede only joins if the kid starts leaving screeds about how pregnant women are hideous and obliquely referencing Hegel.
Well it is possible to enjoy following the story and think it’s great as far a stories go and amazing that it’s real and not a movie, but still think he’s a rotten kid who deserves to go to jail.
This kid is an asshole. Stop celebrating him. He needs to be stopped before he hurts someone or gets himself shot.
i hope this pissbag gets shot!!
if i see this piece of shit little bitch i promise he’s dead!…fucking maggot. the mother sounds like she does what the blacks do when they fail…blame the system…lol…
Sounds like a typical young meth head already becoming a career criminal. I agree with 16. What a shame.
This ended badly for D.B. Cooper.
@ 18,
You’re an ass.
@ 19,
Or he pictures himself as the next Frank Abagnale Jr.
is that Grandy?