The Disappearance Of FBI's Most Wanted 16 Year Old

flying in a stolen airplane Colton's mission was to escape the United States into Canada but as he quickly glanced at the gauges oh my God the planes running out of gas but he couldn't land at the airport there'd be federal agents there waiting to arrest disaster so he finds a flat patch within the mountains lines up the plane and puts down the flaps praise the God and now thank God he had actually made it out alive because Colton didn't have his pilot's license he'd actually never even flown an airplane because Colton was 16 years old stealing over six airplanes while committing 67 felonies in three different countries on the run from the FBI for three years Colton Harrison Moore is the most badass kid Outlaw I've ever read about hold that seat tight because it's going to be a wild ride now Colton Harris Moore was never the cool kid in school the bullies picked on him nobody talked to him and only wanted was what the other kids had a clean pair of shoes a simple haircut and parents who just gave a [ __ ] but his mom was an alcoholic his dad never paid the child support he lived in a trailer park and was forced this ground for food but one day as the bullies were picking a fight with Colton the new kid in class stands up to all of them a kid that had just got out of a two-year sentence from juvenile hall Harley iron Wing Davidson now just like Colt Harley's dad was out of the picture his mom was a junkie but hardly had the trappings of wealthy parents a new pair of shoes a laptop and hell even an iPod you see hardly at the age of 16 had served two years for residential burglary and they were all stolen now Colton had stolen food from the neighbors but to have everything a kid in the early 2000s would want for free it was enticing and Harley was gonna teach him meeting at the cul-de-sac at midnight Harley shows him how to pick a lock find the hidden spare keys and Lace down some basic rules don't Rob somebody's house if you know who lives there don't turn on the lights if you ever get caught or spotted just run and never feel guilty as per Harley's own words remember this ain't hurt nobody everything I've stolen is insured they'll just reimburse it through their insurance and get something even better wise words from someone who's clearly dealt with an insurance company breaking in the dozens of homes over the courses of weeks Colton's thrill was being able to just eat a good meal play some video games and take the spare change you found as lunch money now Colton knew this was bad but then again he wasn't hungry anymore and life was good but you gotta ask where were the police in all this with kids robbing dozens of homes well the San Juan Islands where they're from has extreme wealth division one in three homes in the area are vacation homes meaning that's a lot of empty houses all year round the perfect place for residential burglary but for Colton back at home life was actually getting worse his mom is now physically addicted to alcohol he had tried to check her in the rehab she said no he had brought AA handbooks for she burned them in front of his face and Child Protective Services were called dozens of times after physical fights broke out between the two all he wanted was his mom to get her act together so he could be a normal kid and not force the scrounge for food but no she would throw him out in the streets to survive on his own and he would set up a tent in the middle of the forest and there you go at the age of 15. now as the neighbors noticed their fridge is being raided a frozen pizza and tendies the murmurs of a mysterious boy who only broken just to eat spread fast across the island but other neighbors noticed a lot more than just Frozen tendies gone missing at the crack of dawn the FBI bust down the door at his mom's house they had a warrant in hand for Colton harrismore and it wasn't for stealing Frozen tendys but for committing identity theft his mom was shocked no way could have been sweet little Colt he didn't even live at the house anymore the FBI called BS on that searched the home and yeah Colt really didn't live there now tracking is sent with Bloodhounds they go deep into the woods and come across a tent stuffed at the brim as they unzit the door with their pistols drawn out piles of stuff falls out we're talking laptops boxes of jewelry telescopes credit cards driver's licenses checkbooks and it all linked back to Colt the cult himself was nowhere to be found once the trail had gone cold the feds wrapped it up and called it a day he was still hiding in that Forest now the next morning a handwritten note shows up on his mom's doorstep cops were here everything's on lockdown I'm leaving for weichi won't be back cops want to play huh well it's no low game it is war Colt had watched the whole thing go down from Far Away Now although the sheriff's there locally had no resources to actually catch him the FBI now would bring in professional manhunters made multiple warrants for his arrest and placed wanted posters all over town and Colton knew he couldn't go back home he was truly on his own and for a town that didn't have a lot going on everyone was focused on trying to catch him now we started stealing cars and boats and purchased lock picks and night vision goggles with the stolen credit cards he would hide out in the empty homes when the FBI helicopters were overhead the police had pulled up to several homes he was in the middle of breaking into and managed to escape every time homeowners came back the scene colches chilling on their couch only to vanish out the door the next Without a Trace and the local newspaper was listing burglaries by the day for months so to outrun the FBI with professional manhunters for months at the age of 15 I'm not going to condone it but that's impressive but if we're as smart as we think Colt is he had one nasty habit leaving the lights on and when residents noticed the lights on in the one neighbor's house who was gone on vacation they called the cops now dozens of officers surrounded the home without the sirens and lights he couldn't run this time and he had been caught red-handed now at the age of 16 any charges Colton would face would it not show up on his record as an adult theoretically he could still turn his life around and while his mom often made excuses for his criminal Behavior this time the kid was gonna have to face the music so Colt pleaded guilty to three counts of residential burglary and with this history of evading the FBI for months at a time sentenced to three years at a maximum security Juvenile jail and the entire town could sleep at night now while in Juvenile jail Colton once again was the weird kid kids pushed him around stole his commissary money but these weren't just kids this time they were full-on gang members [Music] so he isolates himself and filled his days reading about flying airplanes and focused on his schoolwork his grades got better he did as he was told he had planned to get a college degree once he got out and it seemed that with some structure he was actually going to change for the better so in 10 months of this good behavior he was transferred into a fenceless group home the kid that had outrun the FBI but now with the freedom to wear the clothes he wanted and be around kids who weren't in there for violent assault charges Colt was flourishing and although he still had two years left in a sentence that it felt like he was given another chance at life as the guards did their midnight body count they noticed the window unlocked the bed was empty Colton was missing he had escaped with an hour Head Start now Front Page News striking fear into the locals residents were Furious the kid they'd spend all of this time trying to catch and to think that he wouldn't Escape I mean come on his mom went to the press and pleaded for him to turn himself in and Colt was left with two choices now escaping from Juvenile jail could add up to four years on top of your sentence but the police were so desperate to catch him because of the whole goose chase they publicly said they would only give him an additional 28 days if he turned himself in so we get out of 19 start his life with nothing on his record or hide his identity with the worn out for his arrest for the rest of his life and as a 17 year old kid now with his brain not fully developed the kid kept running so with the heat on his mom's house Cole thought maybe his old friend Harley ironwing Davidson could give him a place to hide out maybe even some help but soon he found out that Harley was now in prison he had tried to steal a thousand pounds safe from his mom's church so with nowhere to go Cole began breaking in the homes purchasing the lockpicks the night vision goggles with stolen credit cards all to make his burglaries even easier and for three months Colt is breaking into dozens of homes and the police have no idea where he's at until the police were in pursuit of a Mercedes-Benz driving a hundred miles an hour down the road now the car veered off in the parking lot crashed into a tree and when police pulled up it looked as if the driver had jumped out of the car while it was moving and ran off into the forest now inside the car they found a backpack that was filled with the stolen credit cards driver's licenses night vision goggles and a digital camera that had these photos on it it was Colton Harris Moore with that goddamn Mona Lisa Smile soon the image was on wanted posters all over the county now throughout that summer hundreds of residents called 9-1-1 with encounters and sightings of cult he even had encounters with the police but every time he kept getting away but how is that possible you might ask it's estimated that 80 percent of all burglaries are committed by people on drugs but cult he was sober every house he broke into always had the alcohol untouched he didn't have a car so they couldn't pull him over he lived off of the grid and most importantly the kid was young and healthy but as the legend of Colton Harrison grew with this Facebook fan page at 15 000 members the town was on edge the gun shop sold out of ammos and shotguns security cameras were placed everywhere and residents assumed every crime in the town was Colt's fault I mean a 17 year old burglar with Nothing Left to Lose yeah that's going to keep you up at night stalking the local airport on the orcas islands for Days Colt was hiding out in the forest watching the takeoffs and landings he knew when the staff worked where they would be at and took action Before Sunrise he walked up to a brand new Cessna 182 Skyline he had flown this plane in video games hundreds of times he had knew roughly how to fly it maybe even how to start it he found the keys on the seat read the owner's manual rolled the plane out to the runway and without much thought started the engine and took off now flying into the mountains Colin couldn't believe it that adrenaline bursts have actually flying a plane without a license now you may wonder how is this possible wouldn't Air Traffic Control see a random plane that never reported itself and maybe think it's a little suspicious well in America if you don't cross any restricted flying areas and stay under 18 000 feet you're free to fly wherever the [ __ ] you want but you see in flying Landing is the hardest part and once Colt looked at the gas gauge and realized he was almost out because he never checked it before he left he needed the land now so he finds a flat patch within the mountains lines up the plane praise the God and the landing gear was destroyed the propeller was twisted up and once Colt woke up from being knocked out he threw up all over the plane after six months of no reported break-ins or burglaries within the area local stock Colt maybe was done maybe even dead but his war against the police was still very on so arriving in the town six months later he gets into a police car he steals the officer's cell phone ticket book breathalyzer laptop and his mp15 assault rifle with the box of rounds so far Colt hadn't harmed anyone physically but now he was armed who knew what he was capable of if he gets backed into a corner because of everything that he's done you know if he has a weapon I I wouldn't put it past him to use it now while some saw the act as daring others loved that a kid was sticking it to the cops living life on his terms a Robin Hood that didn't give back to the poor but instead had a fan club selling merch with his face on it and Colin made sure to give his fans a great show so on September 8th he steals a quarter of a million dollar boat and heads towards the Friday Harbor there he stalks the local airport and steals a million dollar airplane this time he made sure it was filled with gas and crash lands it all the way back on the orcas Islands now the police knew he was there on the orcas Islands maybe at the airport or the dock somehow he gets through the police barricade steals a twin engine boat goes full speed all the way up towards Canada and illegally crosses the border so over the course of a week it commits a more burglary steals a couple more cars and road trips all the way across to Creston Canada literally the middle of North America there he steals an Escalade and heads down the boniverse ferry in Idaho mind you this is a kid doing all of this now the one smart thing Colt never did was fill his car up with gas at a gas station you know they have security cameras they track the cars easily the police could see where you are probably going so if a car ran out of gas that colt stole he would just leave it there break into another one and steal that until he got to his next spot pretty smart kid honestly a day later he steals another airplane and flies all the way from Idaho back to Granite Falls Washington where he actually lands the plane safely in the middle of the mountains now pretty soon the local hump Town once again had a huge burst in burglaries he's doing the usual living in the empty vacation homes eating stolen tendys and also bringing a ton of heat you see aircraft theft is one of the rarest forms of theft in the world now rumors at the time were that it was some Rogue pilot who had stolen the plane to go on a quick trip to impress some girl he was seen but they couldn't be any more wrong it was a kid now even with the police swarming his hometown Colt starts breaking into grocery stores stealing thousands of dollars in cash and leaving Footprints with the tagging see ya now he's doing all this Barefoot and the media christened him with the name the Barefoot Bandit a stolen airplane and grocery store burglary complete was Telltale chalk out lines of bare feet as folks on Washington State's San Juan Islands worried the burglar known as the Barefoot bandit has returned first I thought it was a joke police think the burglary is the handiwork Halton Harris Moore the teen is suspected of stealing airplanes boats and luxury cars and breaking into dozens of homes and businesses in the area only to disappear into the woods Without a Trace no people fell in love with coal he had a huge fan base mind you it's 2010 the recession's still on Bankers got bailed out corporations got billions the common man was kind of screwed out of all of it so in rejection of all of that colt took life into his own hands and was living life on his own terms outsmarting not only the police and the DHS and the FBI but the government itself though by now City officials on the island informed all of the residents that there were now dozens of armed bounty hunters stalking the forest looking for coal creeping in their backyards searching in the empty homes but cult was already long gone on the morning of May 30 of 2010 a letter shows up on the front doorstep of an Oregon animal hospital drove by had some extra cash please use this money for the care of the animals Colton Harris Moore aka the Barefoot Bandit for his Legion of Facebook fans I gotta say that's a smooth move I mean who could hate a kid that was from a rough home who just love some animals but what it really implied was you can't catch me because Colt had stolen a full-on racing bow and drove all the way towards Oregon where he had talked over the phone with some attorneys about selling the rights to his life story for a potential movie but people knew the story just couldn't end well we're talking stolen planes stolen guns stolen boats so another attorney's office comes forward and makes a deal with gold now you see an anonymous donor said that if Colt turns himself in Colt would get fifty thousand dollars and the attorney's office would represent him at court all for free but that deal was to expire within five days we're talking about a fugitive collecting his own Bounty unheard of but five days later not a word from Colt net Anonymous donor is still to this day unknown now the FBI was showing up to his mom's house every day searching the home warning her that heartbreaking a fugitive it's a felony but all she wanted to know was was her son even alive and she would fall deeper into the pit of alcoholism now over the course of a week you start stealing several more cars and starts road tripping all the way to Yankton South Dakota now arriving at midnight he needed a place to kind of hang out so we cased out several homes in the area until he found the one with no cars in the driveway he thought if they weren't home by midnight they were probably gone on vacation hungry and filthy puts his clothes in the washer at the house he heats up the oven and makes some frozen tendies for himself he goes upstairs gives himself a haircut with the trimmer he found he finally hopped in the shower to relax after a long week of road tripping at 3am the Clark family had come back from a long vacation but their eyes half asleep they headed inside the house with their bags ready to just pass out but something was off the TV was still on Jello containers were stacked on the floor Frozen tendies were heated up now as the dad walks into all of the rooms he notices at the end of the hallway the bathroom door is slightly open and as he reaches out to open the door it slams shut the dad a 340 pound dude muscles the door open until a naked man covered in lotion Sprints towards out the basement now the dad's chasing get out of the house get out of the house and by the time he got to the basement with his adrenaline pumping a red laser pops up on his chest quote let it be known that he was armed now the dead locks the basement runs to the car with his family inside breaking the garage door as he's backing out and heads over to his neighbor's house to call 9-1-1 now Colt's freaking out he doesn't know what to do his clothes were still in the washer I mean he's literally trapped in the basement minutes later as the officers swarmed the house on the lookout for a naked man covered in lotion with the gun there was no way on God's green earth Colt was going to get out of this one but once the SWAT team bashed in the door and the canines were let loose and after an hour of searching every nook and cranny of that house no one was inside so with the forest close by Bloodhounds and helicopters with thermal cameras are searching all over the area but Colt had escaped and this time it was close holy now you see Colt had smashed the washer to grab open his clothes spilling gallons of water into the basement grab this bag and because he was so skinny slipped out of the basement window broke into the neighbor's house and stole their car keys and did that real fast and after the Clark family was shown a mug shot of colon they confirmed that the naked man with the gun covered in lotion was Colin Harrison now while the FBI didn't know exactly where he was headed or where he was they had a rough idea Colt loved to steal near small airports now within the week Homeland Security held meetings with every private plane owner in all of the surrounding states warning them of the Barefoot Bandit they told the pilots to lock their planes make sure they were safe don't leave the keys on the seat and Cole actually knew about these meetings because he had saw Homeland Security going around now for a week Colton was waiting out in the forest near the Monroe County Airport you know reading the magazines he took surviving off the food he stole and he was waiting to find the perfect plane to escape the country now Colton knew his limits he would only steal planes that he had flown in video games which is insane to think about and on the 4th of July that moment happened during the sunrise Colt snuck into the hangar and rolled out a brand new Cessna 400 about a 700 000 plane with the keys on the seat he made sure to fill it up with gas went through the Pilot's checklist started the engine took off in the plane and headed down south happy 4th of July now doing the math the Cessna 400 should be able to go all the way to Cuba on one tank of gas if there was no crazy winds now Cuba's got its benefits there's no extradition treaty and even though Colton didn't speak Spanish he figured out but instead of Cuba he had actually flown towards the Bermuda Triangle and of course started the run out of gas and needed to land ASAP now flying over water is dangerous there is no emergency landing but luckily cult was near some islands so in between the sand and the palm trees he finds a patch of land lines up the plains puts down the flaps praise the God and he lands as the wheels touch the ground they got stuck in the wet sand absolutely destroying the aircraft and it would set off the emergency locator transmitter he managed to keep it level somehow as you can see the nose is in the grass he got out of that plane reportedly uninjured and headed into the island because within seconds it had sent a SOS signal to the U.S Coast Guards via GPS and Colt knew he needed to get the hell out of there now when the U.S Coast Guard received the signal they contacted the owner of the Cessna 400 Mr Miller you know to see if they actually needed the help in the Bahamas was it real was it a false alarm now imagine yourself owning a 700 000 plane in Indiana but today it's the fourth of July you're relaxing but you get a call from the U.S Coast Guards about your plane crashing in the Bahamas you would be freaked out now this came as a shock because remember when Homeland Security held those meetings with all the private plane owners warning them of this kid flame Thief well the owner of that plane Mr Miller wasn't there and after the staff at the hangar confirmed this sn400 wasn't there anymore the U.S Coast Guard and Bahamian Defense Force were told the craft was stolen and most likely it was Colton Harris Moore in the fifth plane he had stolen now within minutes of the crash landing Colin walked Barefoot into the jungle and towards the first sight of Civilization now he had actually picked a really good time to come to the Bahamas it was Fourth of July weekend tourists are everywhere so a random white kid in the city it makes sense so it was Colt broken into some cars and some homes he had survived squatting in the empty vacation homes plastered all across the island but as the week went on the military locked down all of the airports police were brought in from other islands and wanted posters replaced all across of Colt's face Bahamas police have been searching for The Fugitive for days since a stolen plane was found ditched offshore but he'd been staying a step ahead of the Manhunt Colby Curry said Harris Moore had a beer in his bar Tuesday night he doesn't look like the average guy just came in to get a drink it really looked like no one terrified still the FBI's wanted poster warns Harris Moore could be where else could he go and Island hop away it was the party on the bluff music blasting tiki torches cheap liquor tourists parting all on the Harbor but from the ocean a boat Glides in towards the dock and a white boy yells did you hear about the plane I crashed music cuts and a local replies who are you Colton Harris holy hell this was the kid from The Wanted posters armed and dangerous stolen planes all over the world but the local just played it cool he asked Colt why he was so far from home too many cops so uh where are your cups then the local replied well we don't really have that many cops we'll call them I'm bored I want to get chased and as the man thought it was a joke started laughing call the cops I want to get chased for real call them and as the local pulled out his phone Colt started up his engine and screamed I'm gone read about me on the internet and took off towards the bay and all the locals could think was what the f was that now his Colt was flying across the bay towards the light over at the Harbor Island filled with hotels and docks it was the perfect place to go to to hide out from the cops and all also maybe to find a better boat Colt grabbed this pistol a bag and sprinted towards the hotel but then a security guard starts chasing after him but once the guard saw that pistol he backed off realizing he didn't get paid that much but the guard would call the cops and he would go back to coltsbo and made sure to take the keys so Colt couldn't get away so that call went out to everyone on the island the police security guards armed citizens for searching even the military was looking for Colt now so with the weapons drawn search teams are combing the island for the next few hours police are patrolling all of the harbors there was no way Colt was gonna get out at 3 30 a.m one of the officers walked off of the dock to go to the bathroom and as he's doing his business he heard a man run outside jump in a boat and take off God damn it it was Colt hiding in the bushes waiting for that perfect moment the entire time officers with machine guns and police boats started chasing him out of the bay but there was no way to actually catch him because the boat that quote had stolen was fully capable of outrunning the cops and even better had a full tank of gas see while the ocean was quiet the Roar of the engines could be heard all across the island and as Colt looked back watching the police lights Fade Into The Horizon he couldn't help but smirk but just as the boat starts losing speed he'd realized he had just hit a sandbar and had beached the boat he gives it more gas but it only dug him in even deeper you see when Colt was looking at the cops he had missed the boat's GPS warning of the upcoming Sandbar and now he was stuck his two-year long run comes down to this and honestly he froze and held his gun to his head now for minutes with the officers he refused to put his hands up until Colt fired one shot at the officers and gassed up the boat hoping to make some last Escape but the police would pepper the side of his boat with 20 rounds all throughout the boat's hole as the smoke cleared Colt Rose's hands and he was placed in the handcuffs he was done now what's insane is that the Bahamian police actually captured Colt without anyone getting killed that wouldn't happen in the U.S let's be honest now Colt was wanted by the FBI the U.S Marshals dozens of police departments Homeland Security Canadian mounties and the Bahamian government and they all wanted him to pay for his crimes but the Bahamian government had their first pick in men were they proud of it parading called around on that perp walk and with five burglaries three boat thefts possession of a loaded firearm firing at an officer that's probably going to get you a decade at the infamous Bahamian Fox Hill prison considered one of the worst prisons in the world but they only had one charge for Colt and that was not presenting his passport when he entered the country Colton Harris Moore was captured Sunday in the Bahamas after a high-speed boat chase with authorities he was fined 300 which the U.S embassy paid and sent back to the U.S police officials they're all smiling juggling you know so he got a slap on the wrist basically so I don't think he's too worried about it I think he's got some more problems waiting for him in the states though Now American prosecutors had to Wrangle 67 felonies in three different countries and wrap it up all into one court case and honestly he was looking about 20 to 30 years in prison now Colton had hired one of the most infamous attorneys in the game the guy that you call when the evidence is stacked against you John Henry Brown never heard of it Ted Bundy's attorney now they had calculated the restitution for the planes the cars the homes the search operations at a staggering 1.4 million dollars that colt was gonna pay now remember that whole movie deal he was trying to set up selling his life story well the courts mandated that to pay back all of the victims he was going to sell the rights to his life story for a potential movie to Fox Entertainment for one million dollars and then let's say that the victims are paid back in full one day he still could never make money from anything about his life story we're talking books t-shirts video games anything and while this may seem harsh the courts wanted it to be known that crime doesn't pay now attorney Brown's specialty isn't defending the crimes but rather why they happen now they showed that Colt's home life really was that bad his mom never fed him his dad never paid the child support his mom drank during her pregnancy and diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome and Colt said he was going to go to college after this and he was going to get his life together and the court felt sympathy for Colt including the judge stating I think this case is a tragedy but also a Triumph of human spirit I sympathize with the defendant for his terrible upbringing that he had it was a tragedy he had to steal food to endure an alcoholic and abusive mother but nevertheless the sentence is six years I wish him well now a decade later in out of prison we don't know much about Colt about what he's up to today now from the few interviews he's given he spoke about hating the moniker the Barefoot Bandit and he wishes to move on from that and now I actually contacted Colt to honestly hear the side of the story what has he been up to what is he doing but I got no response I called him emailed him even visited him in Washington friends say that uh he changed his number and he went off of the grid and no one knows where he's really at

Channel: Vince Vintage

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Id: 9c1HlnwthwY

Length: 28min 8sec (1688 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 02 2023