MORE TEARS ALONG THE HIGHWAY OF TEARS

Very sad to hear of the passing of a friend I met while reporting on Canada's Highway of Tears.

Ray Michalko was a former RCMP officer who quit the force after getting transferred to Vancouver where the style of policing was a little too genteel for his tastes.

In The Vanishing, this is how I described meeting Ray for the first time:

I met Michalko one morning at an east side Vancouver coffeehouse. At six-two, 240 pounds, with arms that take up more than his share of the table, Michalko, 64, still looks like he could handle himself in the Manitoba mining-town bar brawls where he cut his teeth as a Mountie. 

Michalko left the force after he was transferred to Vancouver, where they expect their cops to be more refined. “If somebody in Manitoba told you to fuck off,” he says, “you flattened him, and there was no flap. Here, it was a lot different.” 

After leaving the RCMP, Ray hung up his shingle as a private investigator. He mainly did insurance work, the bread and butter of any private dick, staking out deadbeats trying to scam disability insurance and snapping pictures of them moving refrigerators and playing golf. 

When a string of murders and disappearances of women and girls along Highway 16 reached into the double digits and started hitting the news, Ray was pissed that the cops weren't solving any of the cases. His wife Shirley finally got tired of Ray yelling at the TV every time the story appeared, so she told him to put up or shut up. 

From that moment on, Ray spent most of his free time working on the Highway of Tears. He worked pro bono, in one case taking a single Loonie from one victim's sister in exchange for the hundreds of hours and thousands of miles he put in trying to solve the murder. 

I spent quite a bit of time with Ray up in BC, visiting with victims' families, tracking down leads and potential suspects, visiting crime scenes, working on a TV crime show together, and even once meeting up in a secluded owl sanctuary like a couple of Cold War spies so he could hand off some documents.

Ray was a great story teller, and finally wrote a book about his experiences and his battles with the RCMP, "Obstruction of Justice: The Search for Truth on Canada's Highway of Tears." The title recalls the threats made against Ray by the RCMP after they told him to back off and he told them the same thing he used to flatten Manitoba morons for saying.

I never saw Ray dressed in anything except black. He liked the cloak and dagger stuff and the tough guy pose (even though he told me he actually based his investigative technique  on Detective Columbo's strategic bumbling). He was a genuine tough guy, but even more so he cared. He cared that justice wasn't being served and he cared, especially, when he saw First Nations victims marginalized and maligned. 

The Ray I watched stalking the back streets of Prince George and the trailer park reservations squatting along 16 to follow yet another faint cold-case clue in the hope of bringing closure to a family who felt forgotten by the authorities was the real Ray. 

He was a good man with big arms and a bigger heart who will be dearly missed.

My thoughts are with his family and the communities along the Highway of Tears who've lost one of their greatest friends and champions.     

RCMP Admits They're Getting Nowhere on Highway of Tears

Ten years ago, under immense pressure from the communities along Canada's Highway 16, the RCMP created E-Pana, a special police unit dedicated to solving murders along this infamous stretch of British Columbia.

Locals say at least 50 women and young girls have gone missing or have been found murdered along what they began calling the Highway of Tears. The police sifted through those cases and chose 18 to concentrate on.

At its height, E-Pana had 70 investigators and staff working the cases. And after stuffing all the details from each murder into a crime computer, they announced they had thousands of suspects--creating their own haystack they then tried to search for needles.

Using modern DNA techniques not available at the time of the murders, they connected one victim, 16-year-old Colleen MacMillen, to a US serial killer named Bobby Jack Fowler. Fowler, though, had already died in prison.

Currently, a Canadian serial rapist is being held in connection with the murders of two BC girls including the Highway of Tears case of Monica Jack, who was 12 at the time she was taken, though her body wasn't found for nearly 17 years.

Other than those two cases, however, there's been no resolution for the victims' families and the communities along Highway 16 that are still afraid that killers are stalking their daughters. After exhausting every new clue they could find, E-Pana has now scaled back to eight investigators.

In an interview during a town hall meeting about the investigations, RCMP Sgt Wayne Clary admitted that he's told families that the rest of these crimes may never be solved.

One thing that does help move the cases is pressure on the police from the community and the media, which is why they formed E-Pana in the first place. For many of the rest of these murders, it appears that the only way they'll be solved is by people in the local communities finally coming forward with more information.

As Clary said of the police effort, "We've turned over every stone we can."

For background on the Highway of Tears murders, you can read my story, The Vanishing, in Outside magazine.      

A Little Better News for the Barefoot Bandit. Plus: Big Discounts for You in the Freezer Section!

Colton Harris-Moore, retired airplane pirate and future serial entrepreneur, is continuing his quest to raise the cash necessary to cryogenically preserve his dying mother, Pam Kohler. Donations so far total only $2,115, but the good news is that Colton has managed to reduce the amount needed for the procedure from $308,000 to only $230,000 by recalculating fundraising costs and obtaining a membership for her in Alcor’s frequent freezer program.

Yes, of course, that last bit’s a joke. But it’s to make the point that this whole thing is not a joke.

Alcor is a real company that along with other cryonics organizations already have more than a thousand people (some just their heads, others full-body) held in industrial tanks “frozen” into a hopefully suspended animation (the animation and re-animation are the tricky parts). And Alcor does indeed have a membership program that offers a discounted rate for treatment, and Colton tells me that Pam is now a card-carrying member.

I just got off the phone with Colton and he said how hard it is to get people to take this idea seriously. He knows it’s out there on the edge of experimental science, but he has full faith in technology advances and thinks the rest of us should too.

Colton now has such confidence and belief in cryonics that he says he’s going to form his own company when he gets out of prison. So, like the bennies early investors get in other crowdfunding plans, Colton is offering the full freeze treatment at his future cryonics company to anyone who donates at least $25 at SAVEPAMK That’s a savings of at least… well, it’s basically free compared to what established companies are charging. I think Colton may have priced this perk a little low, but maybe he plans to make it up in volume. For anyone thinking of donating, it’s about the cheapest out-there immortality insurance around, and much better than that name-a-star BS.

Part of the problem with cryonics is the image it has of a mad scientist reaching into a Frigidaire to dig out a can of Red Bull from between the frozen heads of his patients. (And if it didn’t have that image, it does now). The process, though, is a lot more involved than just tossing someone in a bait freezer. As Colton has several media interviews lined up in the coming days, I suggested he might explain a bit more about cryonics and how the bodies are actually vitrified—turned into glass—using cryoprotectants to freeze them without turning them to ice, which damages cells. But that probably doesn’t sound any less sci-fi and instead probably invokes the freeze ray scene from Rocky Horror.

So Colton has a very tough hill to climb with this effort. He knows that, but he’s still giving it his all. And regardless if this is a case of unresolved issues between them or just simply a son’s love for his mother, I respect his extraordinary effort and I’m impressed with his focus and management abilities.

I recently released an updated ebook version of The Barefoot Bandit in which I talk about how Colton and I finally connected a couple of years ago and whether the outlaw Colt that I came to know from living through his crime spree here on Orcas Island, tracking him all the way from the Pacific Northwest to the Bahamas, and doing all the research on his childhood, was very different from the Colton Harris Moore I now know as a friend. Spoiler alert: they’re not very different, other than the outlaw part. And that’s a good thing. 

BAD NEWS FOR THE BAREFOOT BANDIT

Colton Harris-Moore has been in custody since July 11, 2010, when Bahamian police captured him after shooting out the engines on his getaway boat during a nighttime chase. In those 69 months, Colton has seen his mother, Pam Kohler, only twice, once in a courtroom and once for a short prison visit.

It’s no secret that mother and son have had an often turbulent relationship. The dingy trailer they shared on Camano Island was the center of many wild storms while Colton was growing up. But both Pam and Colton have told me that there were also good times at their little spot amid the tall cedar and fir trees. They especially bonded over their shared love of animals and the outdoors. They raised chickens and pigs, and always had a dog for Colton to buddy around with. Pam cooked out for them on what she calls her “barbeque’r” every chance she got and took Colton camping as often as possible, teaching him the skills he’d need to survive on his own in the woods.

Despite their troubles and Pam’s personal struggles, Colton has always said he still loves his mom. His plans for as soon as he got out of prison included starting work so he could pay to level that old trailer and build Pam a little log cabin in its place.

Pam’s health hasn’t been great for a long time, and Colton became increasingly concerned about some breathing issues she had late last year. Knowing his mom isn’t the most cooperative of patients, Colton begged Pam to see a doctor, and finally resorted to bribing her with ice cream deliveries if she'd agree to the tests needed to get a diagnosis.

It wasn’t good. Colton’s mom has stage IV lung cancer—NSCLC for those who know about these things.

Those who’ve been reading Colton’s blog (Tidalsocata) know that he and I have been in frequent contact for the last 18 months. (I’ll write more about that in a later post) I’ve been very impressed by how Colton took charge of Pam’s care: arranging her transportation and new housing, and dealing with all the doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies as he sought the best treatments and therapies. He’s doing all of this while still holed up in Stafford Creek Correctional Center and limited to the exasperating prison phone and email systems. He has zero access to the internet and relies on friends to do any research he needs.

Colton’s prison term is over at the beginning of next year, but he’s eligible for a work-release program at the end of this July. On work-release, he’d overnight in a halfway house but be allowed to leave each day to go to work (he’s received multiple job offers). Colton says the best part of early release would be that he’d be better able to take care of his mom. Unfortunately, though, it looks like July will be too late.

Recently, the docs told Colton to give up, that Pam’s case is terminal. She missed her shot at a clinical trial, and now they say she and Colton should just get ready for her to pass within a couple of months.

So for those of you who know his story, what would you expect Colton to do next? Certainly not give up, even when it comes to death.

Colton is now raising money to get Pam treated at Alcor Life Extension Foundation (Alcor.org). And this is where truth meets science fiction, as Alcor specializes in cryonics: the process of vitrifying people at low temperature as soon as they die in the hopes that they can be reanimated sometime in the future.

Yes, insert Walt Disney frozen head joke here. By coincidence, though, I’ve been researching cryonics for a project I’m working on, and while definitely on the exploratory edge of medical science it’s nonetheless very intriguing. If you have faith in the continual leaps in technology we’ve seen in the last 30 years, and see how fast nanotech is advancing… then why not?

I can imagine 100 years from now an army of nanobots marching through my long-frozen skull repairing all the damage and stringing the synapses back up while my fresh new 20-year-old cloned body waits soaking in a saline bath on the other side of the lab. Or maybe it’ll take 200 years… how long won’t matter to those frozen inside the metal tubes.

So beyond the ethical questions of cryonics, beyond even the debate over its eventual viability, lies the reality of a son doing everything he can to help his mother in the hopes that at some point in the future they can revive their relationship.

Colton is raising money at this GoFundMe site: Save PamK

Bob

SKULLDUGGERY

It occurred to me that I might want to explain the macabre change in my blog background. 

No, I haven’t gone Goth (again), and it wasn’t because we’ve just emerged from the rainiest, gloomiest Northwest winter in recorded history (a new puppy in the house tends to keep you too busy for the blues).

The original background image for Outlaws & Outcasts was simply the Wild Westiest stock wallpaper they had on blogger. I’ve always wanted to personalize it. But how? I decided, at least for the moment, to change it to an image that fits what I'm currently working on. I took the shot of the skull inside Actun Tunichil Muknal, a spectacular cave in Belize that I’ve explored multiple times over the last 16 years.

Same cave, different victim. Photo by Bob Friel

The skull belongs to a victim (or honoree, depending on your point of view) of human sacrifice. Maya priests led its owner into the cave, which they considered the entrance to Xilbalba, the “Place of Fear,” dwelling place of the Death Gods as well as the Rain God, Chac. More than a mile deep inside the cave, they carried out the ritual killing to appease the higher ups of the underworld.

Actun Tunichil Muknal was an active sacrificial site circa AD 250-900, the Maya Classic Period, with a lot of that activity in the latter years when a drought hit Central America and the Maya were desperately trying to persuade Chac to make it rain.

The skull, human sacrifice, and related Maya traditions (among many other cultures’ traditions) are related to a project I have in the works, so I felt it fitting to plaster my page with a momento mori. I hope to be able to announce something about the project here later this year.

As the skull might counsel: East, Drink, and Be Merry.

Bob

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HIGHWAY OF TEARS UPDATE

After years of a whole lot of nothing happening to improve conditions along a deadly stretch of Canada’s Yellowhead Highway, aka “16,” and notoriously known as The Highway of Tears, it looks like there’s finally some governmental action.

Depending on whose figures you go with—the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the First Nations’ officials and activists—there have been between 18 and 100-or-so women and girls gone missing or found dead along the 450-mile length of Highway 16 between Prince George and its western terminus at Prince Rupert.

(For full background on the chilling story and the factors that make this lonely road through British Columbia so dangerous, see my Outside magazine piece The Vanishing )

Multiple Canadian inquiries about the disappearances going back more than three years have come up with obvious common-sense solutions to mitigate some of the most important risk factors for women traveling the highway, especially financially strapped First Nations women without their own means of transportation. Now, finally, after the recent change of Canadian federal government and an email scandal related to the issue in the BC Transportation Ministry, comes concrete action in the form of a few Loonies (Canadian dollars) earmarked for the Highway 16 improvements.

Women forced to hitchhike along the highway to get to jobs, visit relatives, collect government checks or just go anywhere have always had among the highest risk of abduction. The lack of convenient, affordable public transport for the economically struggling First Nations people of Northern BC was the glaring problem with the simplest solution. Not that simple means easy. It’s a long highway, and a couple big buses running the road each day wouldn’t solve the problem for people who live in such small, scattered communities.  

What’s needed is a tribal transportation system where each of the settlements could have access to its own vans or buses in addition to better access to the province’s regular bus system, BC Transit. And that’s what’s finally happening.

According the CBC, of the $3 million (CAD) that will be spent on a new Highway 16 safety program, about half will go to “extend and enhance” BC Transit so it can better serve these communities. More importantly, $900,000 will be spent over three years to buy vans and to train drivers for provide transport for the most remote First Nations settlements.

Another $500,000 will go toward installing transit shelters and webcams along the highway.

For those following the story of 20-year-old Madison Scott’s tragic disappearance covered in The Vanishing, unfortunately there have been no promising leads. Family, friends, and members of her community in Vanderhoof, BC, continue to search and to hope.           

Latest Barefoot Bandit / Colton Harris-Moore “News”

Long time no write! 

I didn’t want to comment on the latest spate of news stories about Colton and 20^th Century Fox, but since almost all of them have factual errors, I figured I’d let you guys know the real story.

First, as anyone who read the book knows, Colton took five planes, not three. And way more than one boat. Not that it’s likely something he’d want to brag on, but let’s keep the record straight.

The first story that appeared in a Seattle paper also stated that Colton was already out of prison and in a halfway house. That is not true. It said he’ll be a free man in March. Not true.

Colton continues to serve his sentence in a Washington State prison. He’s doing as well as can be expected in there, he’s working on a series of productive projects, studying a lot, and looking forward to his future.

The main thrust of the recent articles makes it sound like 20^th Century Fox suddenly rushed in to pay Colton’s restitution in return for his movie rights. Not exactly true.

During negotiations of Colton’s plea deals and sentencing back in 2011/early 2012, Fox offered to option his life rights for a movie they planned to make based on my book, which they had already optioned. Colton, who said he’d prefer no movies or books or anything else about him would ever get released, agreed to the Fox deal but only on the condition that the amount they offered was enough to repay all his victims.

No matter what happened, Colton was going to be ordered to repay the victims. Under normal circumstances, that means a convicted criminal serves out his prison term, gets out, hopefully finds some kind of job, and begins making small payments until he covers what’s due. In the case of Colton’s victims, that would have meant waiting at least five years to start seeing any money at all and, unless he got out and found a high-paying job right away, they might not have been fully paid off for another dozen or more years.  

But if he signed with Fox, Colton could start repaying his debt immediately. Fox agreed to the amount, and the federal attorneys drew up a lengthy plea deal that unequivocally states that Colton can never personally profit from anything related to his notoriety as the Barefoot Bandit. He also cannot try to skirt the deal and help, say, a member of his family profit from it. The agreement states that any money collected via deals like the one with Fox would all go to pay restitution. Any money ever collected above and beyond the approximately $1.2 million he owed would go to the government. This deal, as written, follows Colton for the rest of his life.  

Once the plea deal was signed and Colton sentenced, Fox began making option payments—smaller payments that pay down the balance and keep the contract alive—every 18 months. So, his victims started receiving restitution three years ago.

This latest news is because someone leaked the info that Fox had decided to pay off the full balance of their contract with Colton. I don’t know the exact figures, but based on typical option percentages it’s probably a lump between $800,000 and $960,000. Whatever the number is, Fox paid that to the government and it will now be distributed to the victims.

Also, as I reported here some time ago, the judge’s order states that private victims would be paid back before insurance companies. Colton has repeatedly stated his remorse, particularly for the private victims and mom-and-pop shops he stole from here on Orcas Island.

So dem’s the facts. As usual there is the online debate in the comments sections after the stories. Even with the erroneous facts in the recent pieces, the reporters have all still clearly said the money goes to the victims. That hasn’t stopped some commenters from either decrying or cheering that Colton is getting paid. (Yes, the money is paying off Colton’s debts so it does benefit him, but they’re writing as if he’s pocketing the cash). 

The dumbest comment I’ve read online regarding this whole thing came from someone complaining that the US Marshals were being paid off before other victims. Uh, the US Marshals receive the money, yes, but that’s in order to pay it out to the victims.

So the other questions: What does this all mean for the movie? Do we finally know which heartthrob will play Colton? Will Bill Murray agree to play me? Will they ever find a dog cool enough to play Murphy? Will Hollywood make a few minor changes in the story to make it more bankable, such as moving all the action to a South Pacific island where Colton, now a Chinese violin prodigy, will steal submarines instead of airplanes in order to foil a band of international terrorists bent on financing their nefarious deeds by poaching Russian sturgeon and smuggling the caviar into the Middle East?

Um… I don’t know. This is all being held pretty close to the vest down in LA. The Fox payoff could be read as a positive sign that the movie is moving forward. On the other hand, every month or so there’s a movie released based on a true story that happened 10, 50 or 100 years ago (or in the case of the upcoming Heart of the Sea, the event happened almost 200 years ago and the latest book about it, on which the movie is based, came out 15 years ago!).

Unless the story is about someone fighting crime or aliens while wearing ballerina tights, Hollywood seems in no rush to get it to the screen.  

  

    

SERIAL KILLER LEGEBOKOFF FOUND GUILTY

After three months of trial; 93 witnesses for the prosecution; and three hours of chilling, remorseless testimony in his own defense that only succeeded in damning him as a heartless psychopath, Cody Alan Legebokoff has been found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of Loren Leslie, Jill Stuchenko, Cynthia Maas and Natasha Montgomery.

He is officially Canada's youngest serial killer.

HIGHWAY OF TEARS SERIAL KILLER UPDATE

The trial of the young Canadian psychopath I first wrote about in my Highway of Tears story for Outside Magazine’s TheVanishing and for CBS 48 Hours, is finally over. 

It’s been a bizarre, creepy and at times horrifying event that began with Cody Legebokoff, 24, showing up in court looking like a corn-fed version of Walter White from Breaking Bad, complete with shaved head and a chinstrapped goatee—strange choice for someone pleading not guilty. 

In a strange twist at the very end of the trial, Legebokoff, who was charged with four counts of first-degree murder, tried to end run the system and plead guilty to second-degree murder.

However, the crown prosecutor didn’t accept the plea, and with good reason. By Legebokoff’s own admission, he was present and involved in the murders of all three women from Prince George, as well as a legally blind 15-year old whose family came from the same small BC town his did. 

(To clarify: None of these victims were on the official Highway of Tears list, though the teenager, Loren Leslie, probably would have been if Legebokoff hadn't been immediately tied to the crime and subsequently cleared of other Tears murders. I've followed this case because Legebokoff was caught while I was working the Highway of Tears story and because these murders all happened in towns I visited along the infamous Highway 16.) 

For his defense, Legebokoff—who was 19 at the time of the first murder—took the stand and in stilted, barely literate, and cold-hearted testimony described each of the murders.

He told the jury that the three Prince George women—Jill Stuchenko, 35, Cynthia Maas, 35, and 23-year old Natasha Montgomery—were all drug users deep in debt to their dealers. He claimed it was their dealer (who he identified only as “X” because he definitely didn’t want to be known as a “rat”) who actually killed them. 

All Legebokoff said he was responsible for was letting X, along with his friends, Y and Z, kill the women in his apartment. Oh, and he provided and handed them the murder weapons, which included a picaroon—a wicked-looking logging tool that would be right at home on a Medieval battlefield. And, of course, Legebokoff also said he watched throats get slit, heads get bashed, and lots of blood get spilled on his couch and splattered on his walls. And he did nothing to stop it, because, you know, he's a party guy. 

The Crown prosecutors rebutted his version with blood spatter and other physical evidence that was inconsistent with Legebokoff’s tale, as well as all the inconsistencies and obvious lies he’d fed to police investigators from the start.     

Legebokoff’s own attorneys told the jurors that they didn’t expect them to believe every word of their client’s testimony.

The creepiest and most cold-blooded part of Legebokoff’s testimony detailed the death of the teenager, Loren Leslie. As her father, Doug, told me, Loren was a sensitive, talented, over-trusting 10^th grader who never let her vision problems slow her down. She even studied martial arts, though that wouldn’t have helped this small, nearly blind young girl fight back against the 6’2” 220-pound former hockey player when they were parked on an abandoned logging road way out in the sticks on a pitch black, snowy night.

Though their grandparents grew up together, Legebokoff found Loren while trolling social media looking for sex. He pressed her to meet in person, though their text messages showed she explicitly wasn’t interested in anything “sexual.”

On a frigid northern BC Saturday night, November 27, 2010, a young mountie named Aaron Kehler saw a black pickup come skidding out of the woods near the town of Vanderhoof. As the truck sped down the road, constable Kehler lit it up and pulled it over. When he got a look at the driver, he knew something was wrong. It was only good timing and good police instincts that led to Legebokoff’s capture near the scene of Loren’s slaying. 

Kehler testified that Legebokoff, then 20, had blood on his face and legs, and that there was a pool of blood in the truck. Legebokoff began flinging bullshit, first saying he and a friend had been poaching deer, and volunteering the disturbing fun fact that after his friend had shot the deer, Cody finished it off by repeatedly whacking the injured animal with a pipe.

While detaining Legebokoff in his car, the mountie called in a wildlife officer to hike up the logging road and check for the deer. He obviously sensed there was something way off about the kid’s story—and way off about the kid—because he also told the wildlife officer to be prepared to find something much worse than a dead deer. Up the road, he found Loren Leslie, bludgeoned and slashed to death, and with her pants around her ankles.

Caught literally red-handed, Legebokoff then tried hitting the cops with a whole stockyard of bullshit. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, when I was whacking the deer, I happened to find a dead girl up there on the skid road. I grabbed her monkey backpack and her phone, then I touched her, which got some of her blood on me. 

Legebokoff said he didn’t know Loren… then he did. But no way did he have sex with her… then he did, twice. But absolutely no way did he kill her! In fact, he said, she killed herself, probably because she wasn’t happy about having had sex with him, but mainly, he said, because she was crazy.

No matter that forensics showed the great number of blows and stabs Loren suffered before she died, a couple of days after his arrest, Legebokoff told investigators: “The bitch went fucking psycho” and starting hitting herself and stabbing her own throat. 

He said that after she attacked herself, instead of trying to help, he stood there for several minutes and watched her die.

During the trial, a woman who says she was Legebokoff’s girlfriend at the time testified that he told her Loren had beaten and stabbed herself, but that he had “put her out of her misery” by smashing her skull a couple of times with a pipe wrench.

Right now, the Legebokoff jury is deliberating. If they determine that he planned any of the murders, or committed them in relation to a sexual assault, he’ll be found guilty of first-degree murder. They can also find him guilty of second-degree murder or manslaughter for each of the charges. 

Of course they could also find him not guilty, but that’s not going to happen, especially with this animal whose main priority seems to be that he not be known of as a rat.

That would be an insult to rats.  

      

SITTIN' ON DE DOCK OF EBAY...

Just got a note from our friends helping man's best friends down in Raymond, Washington. Ebay said they had to rejigger the auction of a framed collection of Colton Harris-Moore's donation to Vetter's Animal Hospital along with the police lab reports, etc, so it complies with their charity designation.

You'll still find it under the mobster memorabilia, but for some reason, because they refiled it all the previous bids were wiped away. So, if you bid... rebid. If you didn't, here's your chance for a deal because the basement bid is less than half price what it reached when I checked on Saturday.

Remember that all proceeds go to help the pups and kitties. You can find the offer here: Colton's Vet Note

BAREFOOT BANDIT / COLTON HARRIS-MOORE MEMORABILIA

We’ve had plaster casts of bare footprints left after a chase on Orcas Island. We’ve had his mom trying to sell a confidential list of crime victims eligible for restitution. We’ve even had former prison mates of Colton’s selling letters written to him by his mom…

The latest offering of Colton Harris-Memorabilia, however, is something different: It’s of proven, police-sworn provenance showing that it’s legit; it’s famously tied to his spree and was covered in every newspaper, book, and TV story; and the money earned from its sale is going to a great cause.

This new framed collection of Barefoot Bandit souvenirs is now up on Ebay, listed under “Historical Memorabilia/Gangsters & Criminals.” 

You can see it here: http://tinyurl.com/m8crbue .

Inside the frame you’ll find the $100 Colton left at the Vetter Animal Hospital in Raymond, Washington once he left Orcas Island and began his cross-country road trip that ended with the flight to the Bahamas on the 4th of July.

It was universally reported at the time that Colton left a $100 bill, but we discover that no, it was a collection of bills including $20s, $10s, $5s, $1s and even three $2s. Along with the fanned bills are the police report, evidence bag, and the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab report stating they recovered Harris-Moore’s fingerprints on one of the bills and on the famous note that read:

“Drove by, had some extra cash. Please use this money for the care of animals”

The original note was written on a page torn from the owner’s manual of a car Colton had stolen. So that was returned to its owner. The frame does, however, include a copy of the note.

The bids have already topped $1,000. According to Vetter’s, all proceeds of the sale will benefit the Harbor Association of Volunteers of Animals, which is an animal welfare group in Raymond involved with only no-kill shelters.

One of the coolest and most valuable things about this piece of history is that it speaks directly to one of the most interesting discussions about Colton and some of his actions, our reactions to it all, and fame—including both the seeking and reverence of it.

Colton always professed a love of animals and an interest in animal welfare, so it’s certainly in character that he would leave a donation with an animal hospital. Some folks, however, might wonder where he got the cash to make the donation.

That then leads to the Robin Hood debate: that he stole from the rich to give to the poor dogs. When I talk about this in my book, though, I have to remind readers that many of the crime victims were not rich, and most of what he stole (during the time after he fled the halfway house) went to support himself while he was on the run. Still, he made the gesture… And around we go.

What’s even more interesting about this episode, though, is that Colton repeatedly insisted during and after his run that he didn’t want the attention, that he didn’t understand why people were making a bid deal over him, about how silly the people following on his Facebook groups were. And, of course, how he hatred the press who covered him, all of whom he called “paparazzi.”

So why then instead of leaving the money anonymously—since, after all, anything he did during these months made the news—did he sign the note he left at Vetter’s:

“Colton Harris-Moore (AKA “The Barefoot Bandit” Camano Island)”?

That, to me, makes this the coolest piece of Barefoot Bandit memorabilia we’ve seen. Hang it up and start the debate: Was Colton a hypocrite? Just naive? Or was he brilliant enough to realize that he could multiply his donation to the animals more than tenfold by signing it with his real name then becoming more famous by stealing another plane, getting arrested after a shootout in the Bahamas and going to prison, knowing all along that the evidence would be returned to the animal hospital so they could auction it off?

It's the ultimate conversation piece--and it's a hell of a lot easier to display in your living room than a broken airplane. 

And to top it off, the money goes to a great cause! 

I hope the bids go sky high. 

WILD LIFE

A Spirit Bear, or kermode, hunts salmon in a rainforest stream. Photo: Bob Friel

While I've been off the outlaw (and outcast) trail for a little while to work on a couple upcoming projects, I've also been able to get back to one of my first passions: wildlife and adventure photography. Along with my life-long fascination with sharks and whales, I dig lions and tigers and bears... and jaguars, leopards and cheetahs.

On the newsstand this week is the March issue of ISLANDS magazine, and in their cruise roundup is a short feature I wrote about a sailing adventure I took through British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest.

We boarded Emerald Isle's ketch Nawalak in Ketchikan, Alaska, and cruised south into the last great temperate rainforest. The Great Bear is named for a rare variant of the black bear called the kermode, whose fur is a creamy white with tawny touches. Local First Nations tribes revere it as the Spirit Bear.

Along with the ghostly white bears, we had close encounters with "regular" black bears and their awesome cousins the grizzlies as well as rainforest wolves, humpback whales, eagles, porpoise, spawning salmon, and some of the most amazing scenery I've experienced.

While the ISLANDS story only had space for one or two pictures from the trip (I haven't seen the issue yet), I've created a slideshow of more images at my photo site: Great Bear Rainforest



    

HUFFPOST LIVE

I'll  be appearing on Huffpost Live -- today at 1:30 PM EST (10:30 AM PST) -- for a segment on "Criminals We Love." The panel will be discussing the Mountain Man of Utah, the Hermit of Maine, and Colton Harris-Moore our own Barefoot Bandit.

HuffPost Live "Criminals We Love"

Another Quick Colton Harris-Moore Update

According to San Juan County prosecutor Randy Gaylord, the victims of the Anacortes plane theft (which Colton Harris-Moore pleaded guilty to once but is now being charged with a second time by Skagit County) are indeed already on the restitution list.

Says Gaylord: “The restitution order included $27,606.12 to Global Aerospace for repair of the 2008 Cirrus SR-22, N47LG (parts and labor)."

Global Aerospace is a California-based insurance company that specializes in aviation. They, presumably, held the policy on the Anacortes Cirrus and already reimbursed the plane's owners for the repairs, and thus they would be the ones eligible to seek restitution from Colton. 

For now, Harris-Moore's best chance to pay that restitution, which totals more than $1.3 million, lies with a potential movie deal where 20th Century Fox agreed to pay for Colton's life rights, with all of his proceeds going to the crime victims.   

LET'S PLAY DOUBLE JEOPARDY!

Answer: Colton Harris-Moore

Question: Who cannot be charged (again) for the theft of the Cirrus SR22 from Anacortes airport?

Oops goes the prosecutor… Not only did the Barefoot Bandit plead guilty to the federal crime of piloting the Anacortes Cirrus without an airman’s cert, the charge was also a last-minute addition to the collection of capers wrapped up in Colton’s Washington State plea deal. Since the plane landed on Orcas Island in San Juan County, our prosecutor out here, Randy Gaylord, added the crime under his jurisdiction.  

The good news for Colton is that this means Skagit County cannot try him for a crime he’s already pleaded guilty to and is serving time for.

Bad news for Colt is that Skagit filed two charges, one for the plane and another for breaking into the airport to get the plane. That charge was not included in the previous deal and could be prosecuted.

The airport charge, though, is burglary in the second-degree. First timers found guilty of this charge in Washington State usually don’t even go to jail. Folks with slight criminal records might get a few months. Colton, of course, has a book-length rap sheet at this point. The Skagit prosecuting attorney also asked for “exceptional” sentencing provisions, which means the judge could go above guidelines. In the big book (the one that they throw at you) most felony charges, including burglary 2, carry a ten-year max.

So the question is: When someone from Skagit County heads down to the court to take back the paperwork for the first degree plane theft charge, do they just quietly grab the entire packet and drop the whole thing? By filing a charge that will be dismissed due to double jeopardy statutes it shows that they haven’t spent too much time yet doing research on the case. If they release the other count, they can drop the risk that they’ll waste taxpayers’ money on a prosecution that seems likely not to add any time to Colton’s sentence.

As for the victims… presumably the Anacortes plane owners (or their insurance company) are already even on the restitution list. I’m checking that now.     

ANOTHER SHOE DROPS FOR BAREFOOT BANDIT

Almost three years to the day after a stolen plane nearly crashed the 2010 Winter Olympics, Colton Harris-Moore has been charged with the crime. Well, re-charged… 

On February 10, 2010, with security on both sides of the Canadian/Washington State border supposedly on double-extra-super high alert for the Vancouver Olympic games, a red-and-white Cirrus SR22 with the tail number N47LG was stolen from an Anacortes airport in Skagit County, Washington. Air traffic controllers – unaware it had been pirated – tracked the plane on radar from the moment it lifted off. The Cirrus not only flew to the edge of the Olympic no-fly zone, it was also transmitting the wrong transponder codes. Fighter planes stood by ready to scramble, but the order was never given, and the radar contact eventually disappeared over Orcas Island.

The following morning, the $650,000 plane was found stuck in the mud alongside the Orcas Island Airport’s taxiway. Three things made Orcas residents (as well as a host of law enforcement agencies) immediately suspect Colton Harris-Moore.

The SR22 was the same model Colton had stolen the year before for his first night flight – which took off from San Juan Island and also landed on Orcas.

Soon after the Olympic plane landed, there was a high-profile burglary at Orcas Home Grown Market where – after emptying the registers and busting open the surveillance system – Colton had famously spent the time to draw 39 chalk footprints along with a jaunty “C-Ya!”

The third factor that led to suspecting Colton was… well, duh, this was a plane theft.

After Colton was finally caught in July 2010, the theft of the Anacortes Cirrus was included in negotiations when Colton’s defense attorneys, John Henry Browne and Emma Scanlon, attempted to broker a “global” plea deal. Even once the feds split off into a separate deal that included all the crimes charged in states other than Washington, the defense team tried to strike a deal with all the various Washington jurisdictions. After long delays, the Skagit prosecutor finally pulled out of the negotiations and withdrew his charges while reserving the right to arrest CHM for the plane theft at a later date.

That date turned out to be February 8, 2013.   

As far as the outcome if this goes to trial – and Colton’s possible defense against these new old charges… It looks like a tough one to escape for the Barefoot Bandit. Beyond the physical evidence police collected at the scene and the Cirrus’s Pilot Operating Handbook found in the “nest” Colton made in an Orcas hangar, the stickiest fact is that as part of his federal plea agreement, Colton has already admitted to flying Cirrus N47LG from Anacortes to Orcas. He pleaded guilty to piloting that plane without a valid airman’s certificate – a federal offense.

It remains to be seen whether this will add up to more time in prison for Colton or simply be a waste of time and money just to add another concurrent sentence that he can serve along with his federal and Washington State sentences.

Colton currently resides in Stafford Creek Corrections Center serving out his 87-month WA State sentence and his 78-month federal sentence. The Skagit County prosecuting attorney, Rich Weyrich, has reportedly asked a judge to allow for “exceptional” sentencing provisions for these new charges, presumably so he can try for a sentence that will keep Colton Harris-Moore in prison beyond his current time due.

The plane theft would normally carry a maximum sentence of 10 years, with sentencing guidelines bringing that down to five or six years. By my calculations (I’m not a lawyer, so if you’re considering stealing five planes, a dozen boats, a bunch of cars and other stuff, don’t calculate your prison time by my estimates; please consult a real attorney), Colton has about three years left inside on his current sentences, followed by probation. He’s been in custody since July 11, 2010 when he was captured in the Bahamas after a 3 a.m. boat chase that ended when Bahamian police shot out Colt’s escape boat’s engines.

Colton’s flamboyant defense attorney John Henry Browne has responded to the resurrected charges by questioning whether his client or the Skagit prosecutor is the juvenile in this case.  

THE BAREFOOT BANDIT, NAUGHTY & NICE FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Just received this from my publisher in time for the first gifting season since The Barefoot Bandit was released, making it a cheap ($3 eBook and $10 hardcover!) stocking stuffer for the readers on your list:

We wanted to let you know that Hyperion has lowered the price of several of our key backlist ebook titles, including THE BAREFOOT BANDIT, for the holidays. These ebooks are available at a temporary low price (most are $2.99 or below, depending on the e-tailer) from now through 1/8.

AMAZON

B&N NOOK

APPLE iTUNES

HIGHWAY OF TEARS TV

British Columbia's tragic tale of missing and murdered women along its "Highway of Tears" is getting its highest profile attention this Saturday when CBS 48 Hours airs a full hour on the story.

I've been working with the CBS team on this ever since my article on the highway, The Vanishing, appeared in Outside Magazine last summer. It's a tough topic with a lot of sadness and anger, especially since none of the cases had been solved, leading to a lot of frustration among the victims' families and their communities.

Remarkably, during the filming of the show there was a huge break in the case. It doesn't solve everything, but it's a big step and offers a lot of hope to the many families still waiting for answers.

Here's a sneak peek at the beginning of the show, which will air on CBS this Saturday, November 17, at 10 PM.

 

Major Success in Highway of Tears Serial Killer Case

Bobby Jack Fowler circa 1972

Good police work by the persistent Mounties in the Vancouver forensics lab resulted in the oldest DNA offender hit in INTERPOL history and the solving of a terrible crime that happened nearly 40 years ago.

According to RCMP Inspector Gary Shinkaruk who heads the Special Projects Unit in Northern British Columbia, in July of 2007, technicians were able to sequence DNA from evidence found with the body of 16-year-old Colleen MacMillen who’d been murdered and dumped on a logging road back in 1974.

The results, though, didn’t match any of the DNA profiles in the Canadian databases. Early this year, they decided to try again, this time using a more advanced sequencing technology that allowed them to run the profile with INTERPOL (the international organization which connects police forces from 190 countries, allowing them to cooperate on investigations). Interpol, in turn, ran the profile with the FBI’s CODIS (Combined DNA Index System), which connects samples from federal, state and local US police forces. And that’s when bells started ringing.

Down in Oregon, they had the DNA profile of a monster named Bobby Jack Fowler. Fowler was a rapist, kidnapper, arsonist, alcoholic bar-brawler, and all-around asshole who drifted from state to state and up into Canada working as a roofer and at other blue collar jobs. He was serving time in an Oregon prison for rape and kidnapping when, in 2006, lung cancer cheated the lethal-injection needle Fowler might have gotten if Oregon prosecutors could nail him for as many as seven murders – including four teenage girls –they now believe he committed.

Fowler’s history of violent sexual attacks, his MO of hunting female hitchhikers (all four of the Oregon girls were taken from roadsides), and his timeline that puts him in Canada in the 1970s – and of course now the evidence that he killed 16-year-old Colleen MacMillen – has the RCMP’s E-Pana Unit looking at him as the lead suspect in at least two more of their Highway of Tears cases – and there are another seven where he hasn’t yet been ruled out as the killer.

The two cases they believe show strong links to Fowler are the murders of Pamela Darlington and Gale Weys, both 19 years old when they were last seen hitchhiking along one of BC’s desolate, rural highways. In November 1973, Darlington was beaten to death and later found at a park near Thompson River, partially clothed with bite marks on her body. At the time, a train crew passing through Kamloops noticed a man in a 1950s Chrysler driving suspiciously, trying to race the train to first one then another crossing. Fowler, police say, is known to have preferred old cars, beaters, that sources report he drove until they died.

Gale Weys was last seen at 9:30PM on an October night in 1973 when she left her job at a service station and walked out to the road to hitchhike home to her parents’ house in Kamloops, BC. Her nude, decomposed body wasn’t found until a year later.

Fowler was arrested in 1995 when he beat a woman and attempted to tie her up after telling her that he knew women liked to get raped. She escaped by jumping naked from a motel room’s second story window. Fowler died in jail at age 66 while serving time for those charges.

With two 19-year-old girls taken within a month in 1973... then Colleen MacMillen murdered less than a year later... And four Oregon teenagers in the 1990s… These crimes could just be the beginning of the horrific story of Bobby Jack Fowler.  

Seeing as serial killers are usually at their most prolific during their 20s and 30s, and Oregon investigators convinced that this sadistic psychopath was still murdering girls in his mid-50s, you have to assume that there are an awful number of cold cases going back to at least 1960 that police across the U.S. and Canada will be reviewing very closely to see if there are any links to Bobby Jack Fowler. 

      

American Named in Highway of Tears Serial Killer Case

Bobby Jack Fowler, an Oregon man who died in prison in 2006 while serving a 16-year sentence for kidnapping and attempted rape, was named as the killer behind a nearly 40-year-old cold case that's part of British Columbia's infamous Highway of Tears.

In August 1974, 16-year-old Colleen MacMillen left her home in Northern BC to go to a girlfriend's house. She walked out to the main road and stuck out her thumb -- hitchhiking is still a common way for young people to get around the rural area where she lived, and was even more common back in the 70's.

When Colleen was late getting home, her parents began searching for her. It wasn't until September, though, that her body was found ditched on a logging road.

Colleen's murder is just one of dozens of cases of girls and women killed or gone missing along three lonely highways that run through Northern British Columbia. Several times over the past decades, the Canadian police have created special units to investigate whether a serial killer -- or serial killers -- could be involved. They've looked at American suspects before, including Ted Bundy, the psychopathic necrophiliac who, during the 70's, lived and hunted victims in Washington State and was known to visit Canada. However, no firm connection could ever be made to any suspect in a Highway of Tears case, until just recently.

RCMP officials say that it was DNA preserved from Colleen's crime scene that finally broke the case when it matched DNA that had been collected from Fowler and held in a database of known offenders. Officials in Oregon now say they're looking at Fowler as a potential serial killer on the US side of the border as they try to tie him to the 1995 deaths of two teen girls in Oregon.

The good news from the Canadian side comes from the latest special unit to tackle the highway murders: the RCMP's E-Pana. For the complete story of E-Pana and the Highway of Tears, see my feature The Vanishing in Outside Magazine. If this information holds true (and the RCMP sound very confident that it will) this will be the first success in a high-profile series of cases. E-Pana has spent more than $20 million on their investigation of 18 of the highway murders since 2005. Those specific cases were chosen because police felt they were potentially similar enough that there could be at least one serial killer involved.

With police now saying that Bobby Jack Fowler was indeed hunting for teenage girls along Canada's roads, the question now is whether he can be linked to any of the other cases -- or even more unsolved cases in the US.