Colton Harris-Moore started his criminal career at age 8 after stealing a bike. In the decade since then, the now 18 year old is suspected of having committed nearly 100 burglaries in Washington, Idaho and Canada. Police say that he’s moved on from bikes to cars, speedboats and lately, small planes. The fact that he’s never taken a flying lesson doesn’t seem to hold him back from his aerial escapades.
The 6 foot 5 inch teenager has become something of a popular icon in the Pacific Northwest. T-shirts with his picture or the words “Fly, Colton, fly” are big sellers in Seattle and on the Internet. His Facebook fan club has 8,000 members and there is at least one ballad on YouTube about the young criminal mastermind. His fans seem to think of him as a young Robin Hood, stealing from the vacation homes of Seattle’s elite. The unfortunate truth is that Colton takes just as much from the ordinary people of his home town on Camano Island in Washington’s Puget Sound as he does from the rich.
Colton’s life may sound a lot like an adventurous movie (“Catch Me If You Can,” the story of another young criminal, comes to mind) but his childhood was anything but entertaining. His abusive father finally abandoned Colton and his mother after choking Colton during a family barbecue. His mother raised him in a mobile home dragged into the woods on the island’s South End.
Some of Colton’s neighbors believe that he burgles less for money and more for the fantasy experience of having a happy home. The local sheriffs say he often slips into a house just to take a hot bath or steal some mint-chip ice cream. Initially, he seems to have only stolen to survive. Now he’s getting more brazen. Most recently stealing a series of planes that he seems to be learning to fly by trial and error, though he did order a flight manual on the internet before stealing the first one. His mother Pam Kohler doesn’t object to her son’s career choice. She told Fox news, “I hope to hell he stole those planes. I’d be so proud. But next time, I want him to wear a parachute.”
