The Barefoot Bandit

by Bob Friel

  From all available records, it appears Melanie stayed faithful to Colt: the cops were never able to get her to roll over and speak.

  At least one of the times they grabbed Melanie, the cops did it specifically to try to lure Colt into coming to rescue her. If this was a war, Melanie was, for a while, a POW.

  North and east of CASA lie patches of woods, and that’s where a squad of deputies hid to wait for Colt. To ensure their success, they also stationed two deputies inside the animal shelter. Anyone approaching the CASA compound had to cross at least one road and some open ground before getting to the building or the little copse of trees just south of the fenced dog pens. If the officers outside saw someone approaching, they’d radio the inside team. If somehow Colt or an “affiliate” was able to sneak up to the building unseen, the deputies inside would hear him breaking in and would call in the outside troops. They all settled in, daring Colt to try to break Melanie out of the slammer. They waited… and waited… and waited. Sometime in the night, the ambush went askew. According to a source familiar with the operation, the officers inside CASA left their positions because they got cold. They snuck out stealthily so Colt, if he was watching, wouldn’t see them and realize it was a trap. They did such a good job, though, that the cops staked out in the woods didn’t know they’d left.

  The inside officers eventually returned to their post and once again the trap was set. Only one problem: no bait. Melanie was gone. Someone had gotten past the surveillance, found the right cage, sprang Melanie, and then made it out again—this time with beagle in tow—all without being seen. Or heard, as anyone who’s ever walked into a kennel knows the racket the dogs make whenever someone new walks in.

  That’s the kind of stuff legends are made of.

  Chapter 19

  If Colton left the island after the tent raid, he didn’t leave for long. In early October, he escalated his war against law enforcement by stealing a digital camera from a Washington State Patrol car. Shortly after, he showed up at the trailer to play paparazzi, taking several pictures of Van. On the twentieth of that month, an Island County deputy taking another swing through the woods around Pam’s reported that he heard someone “crashing through the brush” and suspected it was Colton. He gave chase and stumbled onto another campsite. Melanie was there again, tied to a tree. A search recovered two cell phones and a copy of Flight Training magazine addressed to Eric Moore at Pam’s address. Records show that Colton had been receiving the magazine designed for student pilots for at least six months.

  The deputy also found a camera, the Canon Powershot stolen from the WSP police car. A quick scroll through the photos showed a smiling face that the deputies instantly recognized as Van Jacobsen. One of the photos showed Van mugging for the photographer with his finger up his nose. The cops asked Van to come down for a chat and he admitted that Colt had come by and taken pictures.

  In the November election, Mark Brown won the Island County sheriff’s job and prepared to take over the following January. He would inherit a force with budget issues and the inability to catch a teenage serial burglar running wild on the skinny south end of Camano Island.

  With the heat increasing, Colt began to concentrate on the less-invasive custom credit card thefts. Maxine K., the spritely eighty-something grandma who’d been losing ice cream and pizza, received a call from the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office. Lying just south of Island County, Kitsap is a fragmented peninsula that branches into Puget Sound between the Seattle-Tacoma metro area and the Olympic Peninsula. A Kitsap deputy told Maxine that one of their residents who’d been visiting Camano had an unauthorized online charge on his credit card and that the package was scheduled to be delivered to her house.

  When the package arrived, Maxine called the Island County Sheriff’s Office. A deputy came out and, according to Maxine, said, “Hmmm,” and went back to the office to figure out what to do, leaving the package with her. In the meantime, a power company service truck showed up to deal with an outage next door. Maxine’s phone rang.

  “It was some fella who said, ‘I’m so-and-so and I live at the end of your street… ’” Maxine, who’d been living there full-time for fifteen years and had island connections going back much longer, replied, “No, you don’t. Nobody by that name lives here.

  “He asked me why the power company truck was out front… I was very suspicious of him.” After Maxine hung up with the mystery caller, the Island County deputy phoned back and told Maxine that they couldn’t take the package, saying that “it was Kitsap County’s problem.” Maxine told the deputy about the strange caller. The deputy ran the name and told Maxine that it was the name of a resident, but not anyone living where the caller said he did. And it definitely wasn’t someone who lived where he could see the power company truck near Maxine’s. It was, said the deputy, the name of one of Pam Kohler’s neighbors on Haven Place.

  At this moment, Island County had a clear bead on Colton; he’d even baited his own trap. Maxine couldn’t believe it when the deputy told her they weren’t going to do anything about it.

  Maxine had brought the package inside, but when the Island County Sheriff’s Office told her and her elderly husband they were on their own, her husband said, “Forget this,” and set the box outside. Their house sits a good thirty yards from the main road and isn’t visible from the street—no casual passerby could see the package.

  “Of course,” says Maxine, “the next morning it was gone.”

  The police still didn’t come out, but Maxine and her husband found tracks and figured out where Colt had been hiding. At the top of their driveway, above a sign that reads CAMP RUNAMUCK, is a forest-green plywood treehouse they’d built for their grandkids. It was a pretty luxe structure in its day, accessed by a ladder and featuring a Plexiglas window that provides a nice view of the front of the house—ideal to see deliveries.

  LOCAL KIDS LIKE KORY occasionally ran across Colton as he roamed the island. “He always had that dog with him… I don’t know how he fed it.” Kory says that at first, none of the South End kids had any thought of turning Colton in. Most of them were having their own troubles with the deputies. That didn’t mean Colton was safe, though. He had a close shave after leaving a house Kory says he’d just burgled. “We saw him head into the woods and one of the guys who lived at the house came out, drunk, with a bottle of booze in one hand and a shotgun in the other. He was pissed because he said Colton had stolen some of his electronics, and he shot at him, trying to hit him. He missed, though, and then Colton was gone into the trees.”

  Colton himself was seldom without a weapon of some sort, often a knife, but according to Harley and the police, there were also handguns. “Colt had done a burglary in which we knew guns were taken,” says Chris Ellis. “He’d escalated to being armed and then graduated to guns. My deputies and I knew from that point on that any interactions with him might be deadly.” Colton said he packed a gun because he was associating with some tough guys around this time and he was nervous about them possibly coming after him. Harley—all five feet six inches and 135 pounds—was actually the duo’s muscle instead of Colton, who now stood six-foot-two.

  “Colt had a couple of kids trying to jack him for money,” says Harley. “I stopped them. I may be short, but I grow a couple of inches when I’m mad… Colt always said I was like a blowfish that way.”

  Colton’s childhood friend, Anne, had started dating Harley a few months before his and Colt’s crime spree became the talk of the town. “He smoked pot and had friends who could get alcohol, so he was cool… It was kinda a bad-boy thing,” says Anne. “And here Harley turns out to be this perfectly polite, immaculate gentleman. Never said a bad thing about anyone. Even my dad, who hates everyone, was impressed and thought he was a great guy.”

  Harley, though, didn’t tell Anne what he and her old friend Colton were up to, and she only found out when she got into a bit of trouble herself. “I got caught shoplifting, and me and my best friend are in the back of the Stan
wood police car talking about how we were going to tell Harley about it. Suddenly the cop slams on the brakes, turns around, and says, ‘You don’t mean Harley Ironwing, do you?’ And I’m like, ‘Umm, yes, why?’ When we got to the cop shop, he started questioning me about Harley and Colt breaking into places and do I know anything about it. I’m like, ‘No, but I’m gonna beat his ass when I see him.’”

  In January, Sheriff Mark Brown was sworn in and immediately ordered more resources sent to Camano to catch Colton, saying that the fifteen-year-old was “causing havoc over there.” Brown attended a community meeting held on the island to address the increasing anger and frustration. Residents came with questions, including, says Chris Ellis, “Why can’t you do your f’n job?” According to the Boyles and others who attended, the sheriff didn’t have many answers. “He didn’t share any information,” says Louise. Instead, he spent most of the time seemingly blaming the victims. “He asked, ‘Well, how many of you have a locking mailbox? How many of you have security lights outside?’ He just kept slamming us, and when at one point I mentioned that we had been out of town when something happened, he said, ‘See, you go out of town all the time.’ I was so mad.”

  Brown said he was giving the community some much-needed straight talk about what was making them such easy targets.

  The meeting illustrated growing fractures in the community regarding Colton. “Colt had been driving us crazy for a long time, and we really wanted him caught,” says Louise. “But we didn’t want him harmed and we didn’t think he ought to be put in prison for the rest of his life.” However, she says that a lot of those who came out were very hostile. “There was a lot of talk of guns, questions for the sheriff on where to buy them and where to go for shooting practice. I think a lot of people were more scared than they needed to be. And not just the old people. There was a young woman, around nineteen, and she was so terrified that when her husband drove in to work at four-thirty in the morning, she’d drag herself out of bed so he could drop her off in Stanwood at a fast-food place until the sun came up and she’d feel safe enough to take a bus back home. She was just shaking, petrified, when she told her story.”

  Louise says the sheriff and other deputies did nothing to allay those fears. The word that went out was to form neighborhood watches and to be careful if you saw Colton because he could be dangerous. “We got the sense that the deputies were embarrassed because they couldn’t catch him and so they wanted to kill him, that’s why they were talking so much about him having guns.”

  Kory says that there was a certain subgroup of “bad-ass cops” on Camano at that time. He’d had some experiences similar to Colton’s, including being on the run under an Island County warrant for a year. “Those guys kept showing up at my mom’s house basically telling her that they were going to beat me up when they caught me.” Kory says the same deputies were letting it be known around the island that it was not going to be pretty when they caught up with Colton. “Part of the reason he kept running was because he didn’t want to get hurt.”

  “What my boys [the Camano deputies] were dealing with at the time was that there were people on the South End who were helping Colt, leaving food out for him,” says Chris Ellis. “We could never prove it, but there was no way he was doing what he was without help. On the other extreme, we had people telling us, ‘Why don’t you just shoot his ass?’ I had one guy come in to my office to tell me he’d been out in the woods with his compound bow, looking for Colt. He said, ‘Silent death, man!’ I told him, ‘Thanks for your help, but take your bow home.’ Of course, it was an embarrassment to the sheriff’s office that we couldn’t catch Colt. So I think the actual statement was, ‘We need to catch him before somebody gets hurt,’ and it was implied that Colt might be that somebody.”

  Bev and Geof Davis say that the tension on the island had built to an incredible level. They heard the threats and feared Colton would end up beaten or worse, so Bev wrote Colton an email:

  Hi Colt,

  We’d ask how’s it going but we know all is not going well. We are writing to let you know we pray for you daily. We pray that you’ll be safe, warm and dry. We are so sorry that we weren’t able to do anything to help you Colton! We sure did want to. Geof thinks of you every time he sees the boat show ads on TV or some other function he thinks you’d enjoy going to.

  There is nothing that any of us can do now to change the past, but there is your future to look to. It CAN become a GOOD life for you Colton!

  You have already won all of the battles with the Camano Cops. They can’t catch you and they know it now! Why don’t you quit while you’re the winner?

  Geof and I will go with you ANYTIME you are ready. We will take pictures of you before we go so we have proof that you didn’t have any scratches or bruises. We will see to it that you aren’t hurt!

  We are VERY afraid for you Colton. The cops are making it seem like you are dangerous and that makes it VERY dangerous for you! Homeowners and cops will now be forgiven for shooting you and I’m sure a lot of the cops want to! PLEASE email me and tell me it’s NOT true that you are packing! If you are… your death will be justified. You are only 15 Colton. That is too young to die. At least in jail you’ll be fed, have a bed and be warm. And I’ll bet you’ll be out in 3 months. PLEASE Colton! Turn yourself in before you get badly hurt or killed. Like I said, Geof and I will do ANYTHING for you that we can. Anytime you’re ready!

  Please go in now while it’s still your choice. Go in a winner!

  If you have a gun… GET RID OF IT! Bring it to me if it’s not stolen… I’ll buy it!

  Love,

  Geof and Bev

  IF YOU NEED HELP, ASK GOD

  IF YOU DON’T NEED HELP, THANK GOD

  After the police found several of his camps, Colton developed a group of what he considered safe houses, unattended homes where he hid out. He moved among them, never staying too long. At one of them, on Sea Song Lane one mile south of Pam’s trailer, he used the owner’s computer to send and receive messages on his 90210 Myspace account and to check emails sent to his mellenie010@hotmail.com address. He also used the homeowner’s computer to do some online shopping.

  Apparently looking for some last-minute Christmas gifts, Colt ordered three containers of bear mace on December 23. He bought them using the name of a local resident who was away on a three-week vacation with his wife. While they were gone, Colt had been Goldilocksing in their home: sleeping in their bed, showering in their bathroom, eating in their kitchen, and even motoring around the island in their Mercedes.

  On January 17, at 5:58 a.m., the Sea Song computer was booted up again, this time in an attempt to purchase a membership on Barelytwinks.com using the identity of a seventy-two-year-old Camano woman who was battling breast cancer—definitely not the demo of Barelytwinks, a site dedicated to images of slender young gay men, aka Twinkies or Twinks.

  A few days later, Colton was online at Sea Song all night, until nearly 6 a.m. He shopped at the designer clothing Web site Raffaello Network, then ordered a computer program called Evidence Eraser. At 5:45 a.m., he read an email from pam@camano.net about buying property on a private island in South America.

  On January 22, a deputy on patrol in his black ICSO Dodge Charger spotted a Ford Expedition doing 68 in a 40. The officer U-turned and popped on his lights, expecting the driver to pull over. Nope. Instead, the driver of the big SUV gunned it and took off with the Charger in pursuit. The chase didn’t last long, though, as the Ford screeched into a sharp turn onto a side street. The tires had no chance of holding the three-ton truck on track and it skidded off the road, taking out a STOP sign and smashing into a tree. Both doors instantly swung open and two guys bailed. The deputy recognized Harley Davidson Ironwing jumping out of the passenger side before both suspects escaped on foot.

  The Expedition turned out to be stolen, and later that week Colton wrote an email that read: “Do I have a story to tell you involving a driver of a 2007 Expedition with Harley as a passeng
er and a cop.” He sent another message to the email address Babygirl that reads: “I can’t get into any more trouble, I’m wanted state-wide.”

  On the twenty-seventh, though, Colton was back shopping for trouble, ordering $33 worth of bump keys and more pepper spray under the name Jim Pettyjohn, a victim who at this point had no clue that a burglar had been in and out of his home more than once while he, his wife, and their dogs had been asleep in the next room.

  SHERIFF BROWN DETAILED EVEN more deputies to Camano and put out a request for the public to step up their participation in the capture of Colton Harris-Moore, asking them to call a tip line with any information. Wanted posters featuring both Colton and Harley were plastered onto nearly every storefront on the island.

  Brown also used a system of E-lerts, emails that kept residents apprised of updates in the chase and solicited leads. Tips poured in. “We got them every day and chased them all down,” says Chris Ellis. “Some didn’t pan out. One caller said, ‘I think I saw Colton Harris-Moore, he’s got a dog and a backpack on,’ so we rolled. It turned out to be a black guy about five-foot-eight tall.” Other calls were more promising. On February 1, a tip came in from a housekeeper who suspected Colton had been staying inside a home she took care of on South Camano Drive, about three hundred yards north of the Sea Song house. One deputy responded and entered the home, while a second arrived later, at 6:30 p.m., just as a truck was pulling down the driveway. The officer ducked behind a horse trailer and let the truck pass without challenging it. When he got to the house, the other deputy told him that someone had been inside and “he just stole the truck.”

  While they were talking, headlights came back up the drive. The cops split up and took cover as Colton and Harley walked into the kitchen. One deputy, positioned in a bedroom, was close enough to hear the burglars talking as well as the chatter from the police scanner one of them was carrying. He heard them mention a credit card, happy that it had a $15,000 limit. One of them, presumably Colt, told the other expansively, “Order anything you want.”