BAREFOOTIN'

So what’s the deal with Colton being the “barefoot burglar”?

Colt’s Wiki speculates that he takes off his shoes to “conceal his footprints.”

Sure, just like you’d take off your hat to conceal your hair color.

Colt’s mom told me that her little Huck Finn would spend a lot of the summertime barefoot. Nothing strange about that, even up here in the Pacific Northwest. The islands we live on in Puget Sound lie within rainshadows. We’re surrounded by the mountains of the Olympic Peninsula, Vancouver Island and, on the eastern side, the Cascades. The Olympics and the western hills of Vancouver Island are some of the rainiest places on the continent. Within their rainshadows, though, we get only a fraction of the precipitation (for instance, the San Juan’s receive half of Seattle’s rainfall), and it’s sunny and 72 for most of the summer. Nice weather for flip flops and barefoot beaching.

Colt has been seen barefoot at some crime scenes, though, including on the security tape from Vern’s Bayside Restaurant (and bar and pool hall) on Orcas Island. There have also been bare footprints found at several other scenes (including a plane hangar) that have yet to be concretely tied to Harris-Moore.

And therein lay a potential future big problem for Colt.

As one of the county sheriffs who’s been chasing Colt told me: “We take fingerprints, not toe prints.”

If/when Colt gets caught, his footprints — which are just as unique and identifiable as fingerprints — could give police the evidence they need to indict for more crimes than Colt’s currently wanted for.

Thus my wonder at the Wiki wackiness about Colt going barefoot “to conceal his footprints…”

If you leave shoe prints at a crime scene, the police need to first positively identify the shoe, and then positively tie you to those shoes, which can be very difficult or impossible if you put a layer between you and the purchase. But leave a bare footprint or toe print at the scene, and the police have incontrovertible proof you were there.

So why would he go barefoot? Just because he likes it? Maybe. There are a lot of people who enjoy the freedom of going shoeless — they even have clubs and support groups. Colt commits most of his crimes in the warmer months, then hibernates in the winter… so that fits.

Other security cameras have caught him on tape wearing shoes and boots, though. And his mom told me she bought Colt an expensive pair of running shoes and gave them to him while he was last in detention. That was nearly two years ago though… So here’s a theory:

Colt’s reportedly gone from 6’2” to 6’5” in that time. Makes sense, then, that his feet have grown as well. As a wanted man whose face has been all over the news and even on Wanted posters here in the Northwest, Colt can’t risk just sauntering in to the Foot Locker at the Everett Mall.

He breaks into vacation homes, but how many have size 14 or so shoes lying around? Colt also has a history of ordering merchandise online, but none of the police reports I’ve seen mention Zappos. Maybe he just has a hard time finding shoes that fit...

For the record, Colt, I only wear a 10.5.

OUTLAW UPDATES

It's now 631 days since Colt bolted from the prison home. Things have been relatively quiet on Camano and Orcas Island -- other than the pitter patter of television and radio production crews.

ABC Nightline got chased off Colt's property by the man I mentioned in my Outside article (Mr. Booby Trap). He also placed a new notice at the end of the driveway to go along with the NO TRESPASSING signs. This one announces that trespassers will be shot on sight.

An interesting moment in the Nightline segment was a sound bite from a neighbor who says he's heard Colt's mom yelling for Colt to be quiet. No one I've interviewed, though, believes Colt is currently on Camano.

This week, both Inside Edition and the Canadian newsmagazine 16:9 are here filming segments on Colt. Producers are running into problems with access, though, and most people involved are tired of talking about Colt and the case.

NPR also ran a segment on Colt last weekend. It was accurate except for the lead-in, which said he's been at large "for eight months." One bit of reporting that they've added is that Colt was in his pajamas when he escaped the group home. They also got a new quote from DJ Bob Rivers where he sews some doubt about whether Colt could have taught himself to fly. It's an interesting question that I'll have more on soon.

COLT MYTH-INFORMATION

According to my sources, there is absolutely no truth to the rumor that Colt will be taking over Conan O'Brien's 12:05 time slot on NBC.

NEWSSTAND

The January Outside with the Colt feature should be on all the newsstands today. I'm looking forward to seeing that Jacob Thomas illustration as a full size spread.

COLT MYTH-INFORMATION

There’s been some outrageous reporting and rumor-mongering around Colt’s story. Mythologizing that always happens around an outlaw character like this is entertaining (Colt’s seven feet tall; he’s the spawn of D.B. Cooper and a female sasquatch; he winters in the Pakistani mountains hunting Osama Bin Laden). But bad reporting isn’t.

Many published stories have gotten facts and timelines wrong — no big deal unless you’re into facts and accuracy. The rankest piece of feckless and nearly fact-less reporting I’ve seen so far comes from this article in England’s The Sunday Times. I'd say it was only good for fish wrap, but you wouldn't want to stink up your fish by putting it inside this rag. There’s no byline to the story, which should tell you something. Maybe Rupert Murdoch wrote it himself.

I’ll be posting some of my favorite lines from the story along with some fact-checking by me because I think Colt's story is compelling enough without the bullshit. Here's the first:

“His [Colt's] weakness is pizzas, which he asks to be delivered at the edge of the woods.”

Uh, no. Sure, Colt loves pizza like every other sauce-blooded American teenager, but he doesn’t have them delivered to the woods. Has anyone ever tried asking Papa John to drop off a sausage and pepperoni to the third oak tree south of the bridge? This bunkum is derived from combining the factual story about one of the times Colt got arrested with, I assume, way too much lager.

The Island County police came to his mom’s property looking for Colt during one of his first times on the lam and they found a tent set up under the cedar trees. Pizza boxes were piled in the campsite. The next time they drove down the gravel road in front of the property, they saw the local pizza guy. They stopped him, and when he said he was making a delivery to Colt’s mom, they took the pizza and borrowed the delivery guy’s jacket, which one of the cops put on over his uniform. He knocked on the trailer door, and… whaddayaknow, Colt answered. On went the cuffs.

I asked Colt's mom, Pam, about that night. “I actually told the cops that it had been a good idea,” she said. “I had to hand it to them: They got him that time.”

As a side note related to tasty, tasty ‘za: Somehow a rumor started on Colt’s Facebook site that he’d been sentenced to three years in prison for stealing two slices of pizza. The amount of detail was incredible: “Dude, he didn’t even get to eat it!”

Totally untrue. Colt was sentenced to three years in juvenile prison after he plead guilty to three out of 23 counts of burglary and possession of stolen property — none of which were slices of pizza. The stuff included cameras, jewelry, remote-control toys and computer equipment.

Next up on the BS meter:

“Colt thanks his victims by leaving them notes and cheeky photographs of himself.”

And if you haven't read the full feature story in Outside Magazine yet, check it out. The Ballad of Colton Harris-Moore.

OUTSIDE MAGAZINE

My feature story on Colton Harris-Moore will arrive on newsstands January 12th and is already on Outside Magazine's website here: The Ballad of Colton Harris-Moore. Colt is still at large more than 616 days after escaping incarceration. As of yesterday, his mom tells me that he called and that he's doing fine and had a nice holiday. Response from Washington State law enforcement and the FBI: Grrrrrr.

I'll continue to update and report on all facets of this story right here at Outlaws & Outcasts.

COLT’S FANS: Reasonable or Reprehensible?

At first, the media sensationalized Colt’s story with jaunty newspaper and TV headlines comparing him to Frank Abagnale of Catch Me If You Can fame (remember, that movie was primarily a comedy that had you rooting for con man Abagnale as played by DiCaprio). However, after law enforcement officials and some commentators came out strongly saying that it was wrong, even deplorable, to give the kid that kind of attention, the media began chewing on its own tail. There was a rash of law-and-order backlash, hissy fit articles, and TV talking heads denigrating the Facebookies on Colt’s fan club for “romanticizing” a criminal. Once the police and mainstream press staked out a clear position that the Colt “hero” cult was, as one said, “disgusting,” the effect was instantaneous and utterly predictable: The Colton Harris-Moore Fan Club gained 3,000 members in a single day. Since then, again and again, each time there’s a new story that busts on Facebook fans, the club grows bigger.

Of course the fan club itself has a good number of posts from people who flame anyone in the “Fly, Colton, Fly” camp as pathetic. So what’s up with the back and forth? If you follow the story and root for Colt to stay free, you’re a crook? If you want him to get caught or killed, you’re a narc? Rebellious kids with computers love Colt, but mature adults who get their news the old fashioned way (interrupted by erectile dysfunction and constipation commercials) hate him? Anarchists for Colt; conservatives for cops? Or is it more complicated than that?

Professor Graham Seal literally wrote the book about the English-speaking world’s long-time fascination with outlaw legends and what makes us elevate criminals to some kind of hero status (I’ll discuss whether Colt should be considered an anti-hero or Byronic hero in a later post). I asked Seal if today’s tough, recessionary times make it ripe for an outlaw break out. “Economic hardship does produce outlaw heroes,” he says, naming John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd who shot their way out of the Great Depression and into the public eye.

What about the bickering between the “Colt’s cool” and the “Colt’s just a douchebag crook” crowds? Seal says “Outlaw heroes aren’t celebrated simply because they’re criminals — there are always plenty of those around.”

Indeed, talk to the police in Island County (Colt’s home) and you find that Colt’s not even their most prolific criminal.

“We just arrested and convicted a young man named Nicholas Yost, who we believe did twice as many burglaries around here as Colton,” says Island County detective, Ed Wallace. “But nobody’s talking about him.”

And then there’s the 20-year-old former accomplice of Colt’s from the nearby town of Stanwood, a guy who also carries a rebel-ready handle — Harley Davidson Ironwing — and also escaped from a group home. But neither Nick nor Harley have fan clubs, let alone ones with more than 15,000 members from all over the world. Why not?

To really make it into the outlaw pantheon, professor Seals says, the guy (and it’s nearly always a man, he says) has to go beyond common criminality. He also needs “a few actual or mythic characteristics, such as the ability to elude capture… as well as a bit of style.”

Nicholas Yost’s m.o. was to smash down people’s doors, steal and then pawn their TVs. Boring and thuggish. Colt, at least while he’s on the run, often breaks into unoccupied vacation homes in tourist destinations just to shower, sleep and forage for food and cash — basically living off the fat of the land.

Colt’s eluded capture for long periods of time: first for seven months and this latest time for over 18 months. He’s also escaped many close calls with police. Harley Davidson Ironwing? Yes, he escaped (or rather just didn’t come back after a day of work release from a prison home), but he got caught five days later shoplifting in a mall.

Now add in Colt’s manner of escape and evasion: Allegedly stealing boats, luxury cars and even planes when he wants to get someplace else quick. Hell, when James Bond gets into a tight spot and needs to escape whatever idiosyncratic, pussy-petting psychopath who wants to rule the world that week, he commandeers the nearest boat, sports car or plane … and sells a lot of movie tickets. Even if you’re a law-abiding citizen or a Colt hater, you gotta admit he’s got something like style, or if not, at least a big pair of brass danglies.

I don’t think reasonable people are minimizing Colt’s many, many victims. And no, I’m sure none of them would, as is the most common bitch, “like it if he robbed their house.” The one constant refrain of his “supporters” seems to be “Don’t hurt anybody!” Seal agrees when I theorize that Colt’s non-violence is essential to making it socially acceptable to root for him.

So, I think that saying it’s abhorrent to acknowledge, even grudgingly admire what this now 18-year-old kid with very little education, guidance or support has done while on the run is like saying that no one should ever call attention to the sun being shiny, because it also gives people skin cancer.

From computer hackers to Hell’s Angels to Osama Bin Laden, charismatic outlaws always attract their own constituency of supporters and romanticizers. Even Eric Rudolph -- the anti-abortion, anti-gay murderer and Olympic bomber -- found succor and sympathy in the hills of Appalachia. For awhile, “Run Rudolph Run” T-shirts were all the rage at white supremacist hoedowns. With Colt, at least until he crosses a vaguely defined line of the acceptable outlaw code by physically hurting someone, there will exist a broader appeal. For now, it’s relatively clean and easy for “fans” to think of him as Denis the flying Menace, as their Jesse James Bond.

Stay tuned for more with Professor Seal on the psychology of why we sympathize with outlaws like Colt.