502 - Washington Favorites

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Hello

and welcome to my favorite murder.

After six years, we are back out on the road.

And because of that, we're putting some quilt episodes together for you.

And so, this episode features two of our favorite stories from the state of Washington, just in time for our Seattle tour stop.

First, Georgia is going to tell the story of Stella Nicol and the Seattle cyanide poisonings.

And then Karen will cover Colton Harris Moore, better known as the Barefoot Bandit.

And just so you guys know, we'll be in Seattle on October 21st and 22nd.

A few tickets are still available, so go to myfavoritemurder.com slash live to get yours.

And until then, please enjoy this Washington quilt episode.

Goodbye.

Okay, well,

speaking of Seattle.

Oh,

I'm not going to tell you too much about this because I want you to kind of guess some shit.

But this is is basically the Seattle cyanide poisonings.

My first guess was going to be Bigfoot, but I guess that now that I hear the word cyanide, I'm going to take it, I'm going to retract it.

Okay.

Okay.

It's not Bigfoot.

Okay.

Okay.

June 11th, 1986,

right after my sixth birthday in Auburn, Washington.

Right after my 16th birthday.

We had a surprise party.

It was fun.

So Auburn, Washington, it's a suburb about 25 miles outside of Seattle.

40-year-old Susan Snow, she's a mother of two teenage girls.

She works as a bank manager.

She woke up at 6 a.m.

and started her normal morning routine.

She kissed her husband Paul, who was a long-haul trucker, goodbye as he left for work, and wished her 15-year-old daughter, Haley, a good morning, goes into her bathroom, plugs in her curling iron, starts to get ready for work.

But another one of her normal things, routines in the morning, which she did all the time because she suffered from really painful headaches, she took her

pretty much daily dose of two

extra strength excedrin capsules from the bottle in her kitchen.

Oh, shit.

That's right.

About 40 minutes after she went into her bathroom to get ready, her daughter Haley went into the bathroom to see what was taking her mom so long.

No.

I know.

And found Sue collapsed on the floor of the bathroom.

Sue was unresponsive, but had a faint pulse.

And when Haley called 911, she told them that it seemed like her mother was asleep, but with her eyes open.

Oh, no.

I know.

That's so awful.

That's so sad.

Gasping for breath and her pulse fading, Sue's flown by helicopter to the hospital where doctors work to determine what is even wrong with her.

They don't know how to help her because they can't figure out what's wrong.

Maybe she slipped while getting ready and hit her head, but she didn't have any bruises.

Had she been electrocuted by the curling iron?

No.

And nothing seemed to add up.

And so doctors were baffled.

And just a few hours later, Sue Snow had died.

Shit.

Yeah.

During the autopsy on Sue Snow, this chick, assistant, she's the assistant medical examiner, Janet Miller.

She's like, yo, I fucking smell a very faint scent of bitter almonds, which I am, I know from experience means cyanide.

Now, you were pointing at yourself, Georgia, but you were playing the part.

Janet is like, yo.

You were in the role of Janet.

Yes.

Janet knows from experience that that's the scent that bitter almonds.

Historically, historically, like the book that was written about this is named Bitter Almonds.

Is it really?

Yeah.

Because also, it's kind of a play on words.

It is.

As you'll see soon.

The main medical examiner person was like, shut up, you assistant.

Be quiet.

I don't smell anything.

And they're like, well, and also doesn't show any of the telltale signs of cyanide poisoning.

Like her skin wasn't bright pink, that sort of thing.

So she was like, blew her off.

She was going to just put down that she died of natural causes, had an undiagnosed heart issue.

And Janet,

then later, this doctor comes in to say to the main person, so what happened?

And she starts to tell her, like, oh, it's just a heart issue.

And Janet's like, yo, motherfuckers, you should probably listen to me.

And like told another doctor and was like, good.

This pitch is not listening to me.

You should listen to me.

Awesome.

Amazing.

And her fucking politeness and saying, and not staying in her lane might have saved a bunch of other lives.

I bet it did.

I I bet it did.

Because,

so

when they sent Janet's, you know, tissue, blood, things,

information.

Information.

When it was tested, it was verified that Snow had died of an acute cyanide poisoning.

And then I wrote, and Janet was like, boo yeah, bitches, and toasted her badassness with her friends that night, probably.

Don't you think they all had like champagne and was like, I fucking told this bitch it was, it was fucking cyanide.

Also, why

resist if you're looking into someone's death?

A 40-year-old woman dies unexpectedly there's no explanation and someone smells the faintest bit of fucking bitter almonds yeah and also just like it's that thing of how many years of uh coroners being like i guess it's a it was a heart embolism or like some weird made-up thing where it's like or look into it right or if one person smells almonds yeah and the thing about cyanide too is that uh the ability to smell it is uh genetic and 20 to 40 percent of the population don't carry the gene to detect it oh then you shouldn't be allowed to be the coroner?

That's right, or you should have someone who can.

Yes.

I don't know.

These are the things we're going to get solved in the next midterm election.

That's right.

We're going to have a ballot measure, and it's going to be great.

Smell that, smell that cyanide.

Hey, does it smell like cyanide to you?

Then get the fuck out of this war department.

Yeah.

So

investigators go and examine the contents of Sue's house, and they discover that the source of the cyanide is the bottle of extra strength eccedrin capsules that both Snow and her husband Paul had used the morning of Snow's death.

Three capsules out of those that remain in the 60 capsule bottle were found to be laced with cyanide in toxic quantities.

So the husband fucking took some, she took some, and she died.

And there was three more in there

that were cyanide-laced, right?

Suspicious.

And so this murder by cyanide is a fucking huge sensational news, of course, across the nation.

And everyone loses their shit, especially because just four years earlier was the 1982 Chicago Tylenol murders that I covered in episode 43,

where, yes, I looked that up.

That's one of my, still one of my favorites.

I covered an episode 43.

I covered.

All I'm saying is, I'm not going to get into it because you can't.

No, no, no, I know.

You know what I mean?

Please.

It's still one of my favorites.

I like that you're referencing your own story.

Yeah, I just don't want to talk too much about it, but it is still like, I love that case so much.

I still fucking think that Ted Kaczynski did it.

I think it's just like, it's so crazy.

It's such a fascinating story.

It really is.

It's a good lesson.

And then, so, of course, the Chicago Tylenol murders scared the shit out of everyone.

Seven people died when Tylenol capsules had been laced with cyanide and put back on store shelves.

And those murders, four years later, and to this fucking day, have yet to be solved.

I remember all of this.

This is, this was all my teen years.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was crazy.

Do you remember this story?

I do because it happened after, and it had that thing of like, this was before.

This is this a thing now that's happening all the time, right?

It's the, it's, um, because it was before the silver tabs that used to go on top of everything, right?

There used to you used to just open stuff and there would just be cotton stuff in the top, and that was the way that they kept things safe for everybody.

There wasn't even child-proofing back then, no, there was kind of nothing, so it was that thing of like, yeah, it doesn't make sense that anyone could have access, right?

It's it's good that anyone with a glue stick who can glue the like the paper box back together can put it back on the shelves.

Any weirdo they hire at the weirdo grocery store down the street

can get into your business.

That's right.

It's the thing you don't know, you don't realize it until something terrible happens like this.

Right, so this happens, and of course, suspicion immediately falls on Sue's husband, Paul, especially when he started wearing Hawaiian shirts and shorts after the funeral.

No.

Like he was on fucking vacay.

No.

Right?

And he got angry when investigators started questioning him.

So of course everyone's like, dude, it's Paul.

And he was, Sue was his fourth wife.

Oh.

The two daughters were from her previous marriages.

They'd only been married about seven months before Susan's death, and Susan had found out that Paul had cheated on her with an ex.

Jesus.

But had decided to stay with him.

Right?

So everyone's suspicious of him.

Sorry, they'd only been married seven months and he'd already cheated on her?

Yeah.

Maybe they, I don't know when he cheated, but yeah.

I mean.

He might have cheated before they got married, but they had only been married for seven months.

Get married?

Just don't

cheat.

I know.

Just don't.

I know.

Just don't.

Please.

But

then they do.

Then they do.

Okay.

So everyone's like, it's totally him, right?

It's Hawaiian shirt, Joe.

Hawaiian shirt, dude.

Yeah.

Okay.

But then everything gets crazy and mixed up when another tainted bottle from the same lot.

the same manufacturer lot was found in a grocery store in nearby Kent, Washington.

Fuck.

The manufacturers of Excedrin, Bristol Myers, lost lost their shit, recalled all extra strength Excedrin products in the Seattle, Washington area, and a group of drug companies came together to offer a $300,000 reward for the capture of the person responsible.

That's pretty cool.

Right.

The last cool thing any drug company ever did.

That's right.

Before they started trying to murder all of us.

I have proof of something shitty they did in just a second.

It's pretty great.

That's when, okay, so then this money comes forward.

I'm like, we need help finding this.

And then this woman, bless her heart, comes forward.

oh this woman's name is stella nickell

she tells authorities that on june 5th so it's about a week before susan had died uh about a week before

uh her husband stella's husband bruce had come home with a headache from work took in a bunch of took in to take in a bunch of exedrins he fucking strolled out to onto the deck to watch the birds and then suddenly collapsed oh god he was taken by a helicopter to a seattle hospital and he died as well but the doctor said that the cause was emphysema emphysema at the time.

And Stella said that doesn't make any fucking sense.

He didn't have

eczema?

Did I say emphysema or did I say eczema?

You said emphysema.

Great.

She was like, he didn't have, maybe he had eczema, but he didn't have emphysema.

You can't drop dead from emphysema if you don't got it.

If you don't have it, right?

So she was like, fuck this shit.

You need to change.

That's not true, right?

Okay, so here's, here's, all right.

In what was supposed to be the 1991 USA Network made-for-TV movie about this case

called Who Killed Susan Snow?

Right.

This chick Stella, our friend Stella over here, 44-year-old Stella, was to be played by Peggy fucking Bundy.

Yeah.

Katie Seagal.

Katie Seagal.

Who is, if you see this woman, it looks so much like her.

I want to show you a photo, but it looks so much like her.

It's like they, they basically wanted her to be Peggy Bundy, but with like roots and like kind of look a little worn and like she had lived a hard life.

Yes.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And it looks exactly like her.

According to a 1988 People article, Stella was into, quote, bar hopping and skin-tied dresses.

She was just like a 40-something-year-old who just liked to go to the fucking local watering holes, smoke her caprice with her skinny lighter in there and fucking drink.

And live.

Drink and live.

And finally live her life.

Live like a fish, drink like a person.

Yes.

And so she had married Bruce, and he was into that shit too.

So they were like partying all the time.

Awesome.

Match made in heaven.

Exactly.

Bruce was Stella's second husband and their life together in a wash.

And they lived in a Washington state trailer park.

And apparently it was kind of a bummer of a life, though.

Okay.

As you could imagine.

Okay.

But unfortunately,

the plug got pulled on this film, this made-for-TV movie,

because the drug company's Big Pharma was like, no, no, no, you're not making us possibly look bad.

And they fucking pulled the plug.

Because that's who actually controls entertainment everything.

That's right.

Big pharma.

So, that means I don't know who was going to play anyone else, but we can speculate.

So,

when Stella, who was like, you need to keep looking, he didn't die of emphysema, when she heard about Sue's death, she was like, oh, shit, and checked her lot number on her Exhedron.

It was the same lot number as Susan's bottle.

Whoa, okay.

Yeah.

So

test confirmed the presence of cyanide in the bottle that she had and in Bruce Nichols' remains.

So he had died from the same thing.

So both Paul,

Susan's husband Paul, and our friend Stella filed wrong-for-less suit lawsuits against Bristol Myers, but the FDA inspected the plant where the Excedrin lot had been packaged and found no traces of cyanide.

Still, Bristol Myers recalled all Excedrin capsules in the United States, pulled them from the shelves, and warned consumers not to use any they already had.

So it's like a million-dollar loss.

Yeah.

I don't think I've, because if I remember correctly, they were the white pills.

Right.

I think.

Extra strength, etc.

I think they're still at the time the ones that you can pull apart and put shit in them.

Really?

I don't know.

Well, from what I remember,

looked like hard aspirin.

Yeah.

Where I was like, how do you do anything to that pill?

But I could just be remembering it that one way.

Who knows?

Who knows?

Not me.

So on June 24th, just a couple weeks after Sue's death, a cyanide-contaminated bottle of extra strength, anisin 3, which doesn't Anisin 3 was the shit.

Tell us, Karen.

Anisin, wasn't that one that was like

marketed toward back pain?

Oh, yeah.

I feel like it was.

Also, Dones.

Remember Dones' back pills?

No.

Don't's were like strictly back pills.

They were just cocaine.

It just numb you out from like your C4 down.

That's right.

Yeah.

So a bottle of those were found at the same store where Susan had bought her contaminated Excedrin, and those were contaminated as well.

So on June 27th, Washington state put into effect a 90-day ban on the sale of non-prescription medication in capsules.

So I think a capsule.

Yeah, so I think that it's the kind that you can tamper.

That would make much more sense.

Sure, but who knows?

So investigators then, at that point, they started to get suspicious of someone specific

who are from Stella because

she turned over two bottles of Excedrin that she had bought.

And she was like, these are the bottles that he might have taken them from.

But then she was like, I bought them at two different locations at two different times.

So, and they had both ended up being contaminated with cyanide.

So, a total of five bottles had been found to be contaminated in the entire fucking country.

And they thought it was really weird that Stella had bought two of those at two different places.

Quite a coincidence.

Quite a weird coincidence.

Then, okay, examinations of the contaminated bottles by the FBI crime lab.

They opened up these capsules and they found that there wasn't just cyanide in them, they also contained this weird thing of little flecks of these green crystals throughout the cyanide.

Uh-oh.

And they were like, what the fuck is this?

This is really weird.

Cyanide?

No.

Okay.

Allergy destroyer.

Uh-oh.

From a fish tank?

From a home fish tank.

Hey.

Okay.

Guess who has a fucking home fish tank hobby?

Our girl, Stella.

Stella.

Stella the mermaid.

Stella's a mermaid.

Stella has a fucking home fish tank habit.

Girl.

So, wait, they were breaking down like every chemical compound.

Yeah.

Like, what touched these pills?

They probably would have never fucking found her if this hadn't been the case.

Yeah.

Because what they think happened is that maybe she had a mortar and pestle or whatever the fuck, crunched that shit, her fucking, that was her algae cruncher.

And she never cleaned it out, crunched that fucking cyanide up in the same thing.

And so it's just cross-contamination.

Girl.

It's not even on purpose.

She did it to herself.

She did it to her fucking, like, so simple.

So, guess what else?

Our good friend life insurance policy comes into play.

Sure, it does.

It always does.

It always does.

It's not just for fun.

No.

So Stella had taken out a total of about $76,000 in life's insurance coverage on her husband, which in today, that's 1988.

And today's money is...

That's easily $852,000.

That's right.

To the fucking penny.

To the penny.

However,

if his death was accidental, she got an additional $100,000.

Okay,

aside from the fact that this is such a fucked, every time we tell stories like this, and it's basically just people being like, I'm going to cash in on the person I'm married to,

which in and of itself is disgusting.

I'm done with this life.

I'm going to cash in on this person.

I'm going to cash in on a human being.

But then she kills someone's mom also.

Right.

Okay.

So, so here's the thing.

Okay.

So

that's why I remember she was fighting with the doctor, with emphysema doctor.

Okay.

It's not emphysema.

I know it's not emphysema.

It's because she needed needed him to say it was a fucking accident.

Dental death.

Right.

So she could get that extra, because $76,000 or $826 million in today's money was not enough for her.

She needed an extra $100,000.

So then they were able to investigate.

What?

I'm sorry, I just thought of what if it was all so that she could buy more and more tropical fish.

She needed more algae destroyers.

She loved those fish.

She had these huge angel fish.

Well, they lived in a trailer, too.

Yeah, but sometimes you just, that's, she funneled all the money into that fish tank so that they were like, we don't need a house.

Yeah.

What we need is a great house for these fish.

I just think of

how like humid and smelly it was in that trailer.

With that huge fish tank.

With that.

With that 9 by 25 tropical fish tank that was like everyone you see in a rapper's house on cribs.

Yeah, or what about that TV show where they make fish tanks called Tanked?

Is it?

I think it's called Tanked, is it?

I'm getting a nod from Stephen.

Yes.

Stephen, do you watch Tanked?

Stephen's so excited.

No, but

I did watch one episode specifically, but I think it was like Kevin's.

It's on when you're like in the hotel room or like a bar or like the hotel bar more like, and it just happens to be on.

You're like, what the fuck?

They made a whole show of this, and it's actually kind of good.

I have to say, in any action movie, if they come in and shoot up the bad guy's like shark tank that he has.

Totally.

And then you see the wave that comes out, that's probably the most excited I get.

That's got to be a really expensive budget, yeah, because you shoot that once and then you have to take it again, which means you have to roll in a brand new fish tank.

And also, because of the fucking PETA, you can't kill those fish.

No, those are all just rubber fish with little motors.

No,

I was like, wow, how did he know that, Karen?

Did you guys do that in baskets once?

Yep, on baskets, we like to kill fake fish all the time.

It's like a thing.

Okay,

so

tanks.

It's called tanks.

Oh, look at these two tank toasts.

They're, they love fish.

That's real fun.

This is all in Spanish, Stephen.

Is this a Spanish show?

No.

Oh, it's on Animal Planet.

Yes.

Please watch Tanked, everybody.

Our new favorite show.

It's from 2012.

So Stella takes a polygraph test in November of 1986, fails it.

But unfortunately, there's no concrete evidence proving that she ever purchased cyanide, and authorities aren't able to build a strong enough case to support her.

There's no prints on any of the bottles, anything like that.

There's no video evidence of her putting the bottles back on the shelves.

So, like, we fucking have nothing.

And it's possible that this case would have even gone cold and no one would have been arrested except for her daughter who fucking hated her.

Oh, shit.

Girl.

Okay.

So, 27-year-old Cynthia Hamilton, who would have been played by a fucking hard-lifed Molly Ringwald.

Oh, shit.

Yeah.

Okay.

But in a good way, but like pretty, but like chain smoke.

Everyone chain smokes.

Yeah.

It's like, is it northern or central Washington?

Yes.

Yeah.

And they, and she was in and out of her mother's life for years.

When Cindy, the daughter, was nine years old, Stella had hit her with a curtain rod so hard it had bruised Cindy's legs.

So Stella was pretty abusive.

Oh shit.

And Stella had been charged and ordered to go to counseling and said that, but Stella denied ever hitting her daughter and said that her daughter made the whole thing up because she was jealous of her.

A nine-year-old girl was jealous of her.

Oh no, so she basically, Cindy, that's the daughter's name.

Cindy has a total sociopath of a mother.

Yeah.

Okay.

Cindy's, Cindy's got.

Cindy from an early age is like, oh shit, my mom is

capital A crazy.

Right.

But Cindy has a conscious, conscience.

That's right.

Where are we?

Number two.

Cindy has a conscience.

Yes.

And is like,

this isn't right.

I need to talk to the fucking authorities about this.

And even though it was her stepdad.

So in January of 1987, Cynthia, Cindy approaches the police with information.

She said that her mother had spoken to her many times about wanting her husband dead.

Oh, wow.

Cindy's stepdad.

Stella had told Cindy that after, that ever since Bruce had quit drinking, he was a bore.

Now, listen,

as someone who's quit drinking, I know that that's a fact.

Things get way less traumatic when you're not shit-faced every day.

She said he preferred to stay home and watch television, which I'm like, I drink, and that sounds great to me.

It's the best.

You can't be a bore and drink.

Do you know how fucking hard it is to go out into the world sober and just like, just get that white, hot light of reality shone on you everywhere you go?

No, I don't try it.

Oh, you got to try it.

It's hilarious.

But it's much easier to stay home.

Yeah.

So

they had stopped going out to bars together.

So she was like, this guy's a bore.

I'm Peggy Bundy.

Also, bars when you're sober.

Oh.

Like

about 35 minutes, you can have fun, but you have to know when to go home because people start repeating themselves, and it is a disaster area.

I got it.

I support you 100%.

Thank you.

This is why I never beg you to come out to like bars and shit.

Because I'm like, why would I?

You have to come here.

There's like really bad nachos.

There's nothing to offer you.

There's really hard to follow conversation about things you don't care about.

That's right.

So

Cindy also claimed that her mother had spoken to her about what the two of them could do with the life insurance money if Bruce were dead.

Oh, no.

But Cindy said that her mother had even told her that she had tried to poison Bruce previously with the plant Foxglove,

which I guess is a poisonous plant.

Very witchy of her,

but it didn't work.

But still, there's no smoking guns.

Cindy hadn't seen Stella put the poison into the pills, and Stella had never confessed anything to her daughter.

And then Cindy told authorities that after that, but then Cindy was like, you know, oh, shit.

Just threw a pen at the microphone.

Oh, I want to also say, okay, but that, okay, hold on.

Boop.

Let me think.

Okay.

But then Cindy was like, you know what might work?

My mom started, after the Fox Club thing, my mom started to check out books on poison at the fucking library.

Girl, this is like that part of seven where they just go and they look up all the books the person looked at.

That's right.

And they did that.

They got a fucking search warrant or whatever.

They got all the books.

They found the books that she had checked out at the Auburn Public Library and showed that she had checked out numerous books about poisons, including a book called Human Poisoning.

Oh, girl.

Be a little more subtle.

Cover it up.

Native and cultivated plants and deadly harvest.

So they fucking fingerprint that shit.

Yeah.

The FBI fingerprints that shit.

It only has roughly 1,500 fingerprints on it.

That's right.

But they also subpoenaed her, I don't know, you know, card for sure.

Her information.

Yeah.

And saw that she had checked it out.

They found her fingerprints on it, including the page that belonged to cyanide.

And they have their what they can do.

And also, so what they think happened was that that she poisoned her husband.

He died.

The doctor wouldn't, would only say it was emphysema.

So to get it back to the fucking poison, she went out after that and put poisoned fucking bottles on the shelf.

Oh my gosh.

So Sue, the reason Sue died a week later is because those bottles hadn't been on the shelf yet.

So if the doctor had been like, he got poisoned and it was accidental poisoning.

She would have gotten her money and left it alone.

Right.

But she went out and basically.

Not saying it's the doctor's fault at all, but she went out to garner more attention to get that accidental death.

And killed Sue.

And killed Susan Snow.

Wow.

Isn't that fucking awful?

Yeah, it really is.

So it is.

So on December 9th, 1987, Stella Nichols indicted by a federal grand jury on five counts of product tampering, including two which resulted in the deaths of Susan Snow and Bruce Nichols.

So she's not, so the F, it's federal because after the Tylenol murders,

the FBI

did a strict new federal anti-tampering act, and it was like super strict.

You can't tamper with drugs.

So that's why it was federal.

But so she wasn't tried for their murders.

It was tampering that led to the deaths of these two people.

Why?

Because that sentence would be longer or something.

Like it was a bigger deal.

I don't know.

So

you said that just like my cousin Eileen.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

So she goes to trial in April of 1988.

Cindy agrees to fucking testify against her mother as long as her mother doesn't get the fucking death penalty.

And they're like, great, that won't happen.

Talk about, wow, what a complex relationship that is.

Yeah.

Stella's found guilty on all charges.

She becomes the first person charged and convicted under this federal anti-tampering act.

She's sentenced to two 90-year terms for the charges relating to the deaths of Susan Snow and Bruce Nicol, and three 10-year terms for the other product tampering.

She'll be eligible for parole in this fucking year

at 73 years old.

Jesus.

So I think they're trying to also get those, figure out a way to charge her with murder as well.

But she fucking is like, I am innocent.

This is some bullshit.

She's doing all these like appeals and shit because she said there's a bunch of evidence that was never turned over to the defense.

She also claims that her daughter lied in order to get that.

Remember that $300,000 that was offered to people who could help by the drug companies?

The daughter got $250,000 of that money.

So it's almost like she said, she said, like, she's doing it for money.

She's doing it for money.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

So, but since, but

fucking Stella Nickel continues to maintain her innocence.

Yeah, but girl.

I know, girl, it doesn't look good for you.

It does.

There's too many coincidences.

There's too many.

And that's the Seattle cyanide poisonings.

That's amazing.

Because I remember the Excedrin one coming after Tylenol.

Yeah.

I did not know it was that involved.

Crazy.

Crazy?

Yeah.

How did I?

I didn't really know about it either.

So nuts.

Yeah.

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Well, then the story I'm going to follow that one up with is basically Hannah suggested this to me because it's basically kind of her hometown.

It's a story she remembers happening.

She's from basically Washington state

and she remembers this kicking off.

And it was basically one of those things that took over.

Everybody knew about it.

People were following it in the news.

It's this crazy story.

So thanks, Hannah, for the suggestion.

So the sources for this story today: there's a bunch of articles from HeraldNet.com, one by Jackson Holtz, one by Eric Stevick, one by Noah Haglund.

Then, there's an article by Ryan Owens and Sarah Nedder for ABC News, an article by Patrick Oppman, CNN.

There's a New York Times article by William Yardley.

There's a KOMO-TV staff article, and there's a C.R.

Douglas article for Fox 13 Seattle.

There was an episode of 48 Hours about this case.

CBS News article written by Paul La Rosa, Sarah Pryor, and there's an article from the Seattle Times by a writer named Evan Bush.

And if you, and there's more sources you can check the

show notes for.

This is the story of Colton Harris Moore, also known as the Barefoot Bandit.

Okay.

Colton Moore is born March 22nd, 1991 in Mount Vernon, Washington.

He grows up in a trailer in the woods on southern Kameno Island, which is about an hour north of Seattle on Puget Sound.

So his home life's chaotic.

His mother, Pam, drinks while she's pregnant with Colt.

This impacts his neurocognitive development.

His father, Gordon, is a drug user who gets sent to prison when Colt is still a toddler.

Then when Colt is four, his mom remarries to a man named William Kohler, who, according to Pam Pam herself, had a criminal history and a heroin addiction.

So, not great stuff happening in that trailer in the forest.

So, all of that would be hard enough to deal with.

But then, Pam is said to be verbally, physically, and emotionally abusive all throughout Colt's childhood.

According to his aunt Sandra, who is Pam's sister, When Pam drinks, she gets belligerent and violent and is known to break her son's toys as a punishment to him.

So, not great stuff.

Yeah.

Their neighbors hear Pam screaming at Colt all hours of the day and night.

She's also a neglectful parent.

Colt, as a child, often asked the adults in his life, like teachers and his friends' parents, if he could have food.

And court records indicate that Pam basically did not make sure that Colt went to school.

So he missed a ton of school.

All this has a negative effect on him growing up.

When he does go to school, he bullies other students.

He defies his teachers.

A psychological evaluation years later states that Colton has a long-term history of psychiatric and behavioral difficulties.

He's also been prescribed a wide range of psychiatric medications, including antidepressants, stimulant medications, mood stabilizers, and even antipsychotic medication.

And he was also, at different points, diagnosed with depression, attention deficit disorder, and intermittent explosive disorder.

Wow.

So, when CPS gets called in, which they did, they were multiple times throughout Colt's childhood, the caseworkers would recommend that Pam seek counseling for her son.

She would decline.

When he's 10 years old, he's removed from the home for three days, but CPS has to close the investigation due to lack of cooperation from Pam.

Yeah, that seems

against like, yeah, we get that she's not cooperating.

That's why CPS got called in the first place.

Right.

Like lack of cooperation by the abuser is a reason to cancel the case.

So that second husband, William, dies when Colt is 11.

And then Pam soon enters another relationship with a man who moves into the house who Pam would later describe as not playing with a full deck.

He was an alcoholic.

And ultimately, Pam ends the relationship.

At some point, Colt's biological father, Gordon, returns to the home after he's released from prison.

And in May 2003, when Colt is 12, he calls 911 reporting Gordon pushed him to the ground and grabbed him by the throat.

And when police arrive, Gordon flees to the woods nearby, but the police end up arresting him and taking him to jail.

And after that, Gordon cuts off contact with Pam and Colt, and he moves to Las Vegas.

And Pam basically blames Colt for that happening.

So by the time Colt is 15 years old, CPS has responded to 12 separate incidents at the Moore home.

So really rough childhood.

Later that same year, in November of 2003, 12-year-old Colt is accused of breaking into a business in the city of Stanwood and then breaking into Stanwood Middle School, stealing a laptop and CDs and defacing a bulletin board.

which sorry, I just, it just sounds funny.

You know, he wrote fuck you on like some kind of a bulletin board in a way that they couldn't get off.

Pretty sure I, I did something like that as a kid too, you know?

You know, if you can't stay home and everything really sucks there and people are really shitty there, you're going to go fuck some stuff up as a kid is a way of saying, will someone please step in?

Totally, totally.

So.

He pleads guilty to possession of stolen property.

He's sentenced to six months supervision and 56 hours of community service.

A social worker's report notes, Colton wants mom to stop drinking and smoking, get a job, and have food in the house.

Mom refuses.

So that's a rough encapsulation of what life is like for a 12-year-old Colt.

Jesus.

In 2004, so it's a year later, Colt's probation officer writes: Colton and his mother share a tumultuous relationship.

Colton's mother reported to me that he is violent at home on a near-daily basis.

He recently broke the telephone in order to prevent her from calling the police.

She then showed me a mark on her forearm of how he had bit her and went after her with a boat oar.

My God.

His mother reported how Colton is now medicated and complying with taking his medications and his behavior has not been hostile toward her.

He's 13 years old.

So basically he's giving what he's gotten.

Right.

And then he's in trouble for it.

Right.

He's reacting.

In December 2005, a police report is made alleging that 14-year-old Colt.

assaulted his mother.

In the summer of 2006, Colt's due to appear in court at Denny Juvenile Justice Center in Everett, but he's so scared of going back into detention that he runs away the day before his hearing.

He starts breaking into homes on Kameno Island and watching internet porn on the resident's home computer.

Yeah, that sounds great.

He's like, I'm not going to get in trouble for this.

All right.

Yeah.

He breaks into unoccupied vacation homes through skylights and then squats in the homes for several days before moving on and taking food and portable electronic devices with him.

When he's not vacation home squatting, he camps out in the woods.

And by this point, he's dropped out of school.

He's only in the ninth grade.

Oh my God, he's a child still.

Yeah, he's a baby.

In January 2007, after six local burglaries, the Island County Sheriff's Office puts up wanted posters with Colt's picture and his information.

Basically, there's 15,000 people on this island, and that's usually when the vacation people are there.

Yeah.

There's 5,000 households.

So it's a tiny place.

Like, you know, everyone knows that this is Colt doing it.

So stories about his exploits start appearing in the media.

And within a matter of weeks, a local resident notices that there are lights on inside what should have been an empty vacation home.

The police are alerted.

And when they arrive, they tell Colt that the house is surrounded, even though it's actually not.

They had just set up flashlights to make it look like there was cops all around the house.

Oh my God.

But there weren't.

So Colt falls for it and he comes out and gives himself up.

In court, he pleads guilty to three of the 23 felony charges against him.

His aunt Sandra writes to the court in support of her nephew saying, quote, I love that boy like one of my own kids.

I think he got mixed in with the wrong crowd and he got himself in too far.

Colt is sentenced to three years confinement and ordered to stay in a group home in Renton, Washington.

So on April 22nd, 2008, 17-year-old Colt like basically breaks out of this group home.

He sneaks out a window and he goes on the run.

And soon South Kameno Island residents are reporting break-ins to the police.

So a couple months later, he allegedly steals his neighbor's Mercedes and crashes it into a propane tank behind a cafe.

This is, what's the, can you think of the word for it where it's like, when you're doing bad, but it doesn't hurt anybody?

They have that word for it it's like reckless yeah like there's no direct victim but it's like exploits it's not hijinks exploits exploits what'd you say stia shenanigans

yeah but no but yes

official police shenanigans

There's a term for it that's essentially like you're behaving badly and right.

There's no like knock it off.

Yeah, yeah.

I just think it's funny to be like, I'm just gonna, there's all these rich people everywhere.

I'm just gonna steal their shit and fuck it up and like just do what I want because fuck everything.

He flees the scene, but he leaves behind his backpack containing his journal, stolen credit cards, a GPS, his cell phone, and a digital camera that he used to take selfies with.

Dude.

They kind of know it's him.

So a couple months later, he steals money from an, but they, they still haven't caught him.

They just know they find his stuff there, basically.

In September of the same year, he steals money from an ATM on on Orcas Island and, in the process, cuts himself and leaves blood on the machine.

So they're able to take DNA for, like, basically to later compare it with other crimes because he's, he is breaking the law.

Yeah.

It's not, it isn't hijinks or shenanigans.

On November 12th of the same year, he breaks into a locked airplane hangar on Orcas Island and he steals a Cessna 182 airplane worth about $150,000.

He has never had a flying lesson.

He doesn't even have his driver's license.

And the plane belongs to Seattle radio personality Bob Rivers at 102.5 K-A-Z-O-K.

So he somehow figures out a way to fly it over the Cascade mountain range.

What?

Yes.

He's through a wide out at 13,000 feet and all these wind gusts.

It was not ideal.

Okay, how do you even get a plane off of of the fucking runway?

They think that he taught himself how to fly using simulation software on laptops and studying plane manuals for hours.

For hours.

So what usually takes people fucking months and months probably.

Yeah, I bet you this kid was very smart.

It's one of those annoying things where it's like, if you had had a shot in life, you would have

made something of yourself.

Right.

Or been a way better burglar.

But either way,

once I got to this part, I was just like a 17 year old steals a cessna and is able to fly it somewhere oh my god like what 17 year old do you know that could like steal a car and drive it down the street much less

an airplane he's never flown before okay so he ends up crashing the plane 300 miles away on the yakima indian reservation when police get to the scene where the plane crashes, they don't find Colt, but there is vomit inside the plane.

And they take a sample, compare it to the DNA, and now they know that the ATM crime and this airplane ceiling is Colts.

Okay,

this police department is too well-funded if they're doing DNA tests on what is clearly fucking 17-year-old.

Like, it's clearly him.

You don't need to DNA test shit.

But they get that proof.

They've got that locked-in proof.

But here's what I love more than that.

He stole the plane.

He's flying the plane.

And then he gets sick.

He gets like basically so nervous, he barfs while he's flying in like bad weather i mean he just had actual seasickness what's up in the air motion sickness thank you yeah could i mean if it was bad weather yeah turbulence would have could have made him throw up it's pretty amazing so the investigators look into more unsolved cases of burglaries and associated offenses that colt could have been responsible for

and there are over 70 cases throughout the pacific northwest and that includes Washington State, Idaho, Oregon, and several locations in Canada.

It's basically residential and commercial burglaries, bank burglaries, vehicle thefts, boat theft, aircraft theft, and assault of police officers.

Colt is alleged to have stolen or destroyed around $3 million worth of property.

Wow.

Rich people have insurance, so I don't feel bad for that.

That's right.

There was probably a couple of like the whatever boats he stole that the people were like, ooh, thank God.

Yeah.

I had my laptop on there and like then they got an extra thousand bucks or whatever.

My Krueger Rands, right?

They're also missing.

So finally, on March 12th, 2009, a felony warrant is issued for his arrest.

So now it's, it's, now it's big time.

Um, but before that, they can exercise that warrant, they have to find him first.

On September 11th, 2009, Colt steals a Cirrus SR-22 plane worth about a half a million dollars

from a town called Friday Harbor, also in Washington state.

Oh my God.

And he crash lands the plane back on Orcas Island.

So he's kind of doing it all around in the same area.

Oh my God.

He's, you know, who's, I'm, I'm just picturing Bart Simpson this entire fucking case.

Yes.

Yes.

Completely.

He does.

He's just like, how else can I show that I don't give a fuck?

Right.

Like, right.

Yeah.

I'm just going to do what I want.

Okay.

So after the crash, Colt is seen walking away from the wreckage by a police officer, but for some inexplicable reason, the cop fails to detain Colt.

He like fist pumps him as he walks away.

Yeah, he's kind of like, you walked away from that?

Amazing.

The same month, Colt makes his way to Canada in a stolen boat, subsequently making his way back to the U.S.

through British Columbia.

And so obviously undetected.

Like, how did he do that?

Yeah.

A couple weeks later, on September 29th, Colt steals a Cessna T-182T from a hangar in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, and he leaves bare footprints on the ground.

He takes off in the plane in Idaho, and he again flies back over the Cascades, but he crash lands 60 miles away near Snohomish, Washington, because he runs out of fuel while he's flying.

On October 1st, 2009, a logger near Granite Falls finds that plane wreck.

The police trace barefoot prints from the crash site to a camp in the woods, but there's no sign of Colt.

The next day, a second local felony arrest warrant is issued for Colts, and he's charged with forced entry burglary in the second degree.

A few days later, SWAT officers searching the area for Colt are fired at by an unknown assailant.

Okay, that's bad.

So now Colt, this is going on and building to such a degree that now in the media, Colt is being called the barefoot bandit.

Okay.

I can't imagine like being from one of these small towns and like knowing that this person is.

Yeah, he's just gonna,

he's gonna steal your shit and he's gonna do what he wants with it.

Yeah.

Kind of exciting for like if Hannah is young and reading about this being like, oh my God.

And you're excited.

She said they tracked it, like they paid attention to it.

And watch it on the news.

And what it's, it's crazy.

Even though he usually wears shoes, the moniker sticks.

So the barefoot thing only only happened a couple of times.

When Colt's mother, Pam, hears about the latest theft, she says, I'm proud of him.

I was going to send him to flight school, but I guess I don't have to.

But next time, I want him to wear a parachute.

Colt's popularity as a pseudo-modern folk hero gains support when a member of the public starts a Facebook page for him, of course, because remember, it's 2009.

The page eventually gets more than 100,000 followers.

And it has posts that say things like, let's hope that he remains healthy, free, and at large for a long time.

Fly, Colton, fly.

That sounds like Pam to me.

It gets so popular, they actually start making t-shirts, tote bags, and mugs.

And they have Colt's picture on them with the caption, Mama Tried.

But Kameno Island locals who've had their belongings stolen or damaged are not amused.

They actually end up launching their own counter blog in an attempt to raise money so they can hire a bounty hunter to track Colt down.

Man, he's giving them life.

Like

he's making these people who just sit at home watching fucking everybody loves Raymond every night.

It's like making their lives exciting.

You're welcome.

That's right.

You know?

Now it's becoming international news.

Reporters from all over the globe travel to Kameno Island to report on the search for the barefoot bandit, and they all want to talk to his mother, Pam.

Pam publicly encourages Colt to escape to a country country that doesn't extradite to the U.S.

So the entire time Colt's on the run, he calls his aunt Sandra once a month to let her know he's okay.

Aunts, aunties, aunties.

What's up?

You can always count on us not to turn you in.

We would never, I'll never turn Nora in for any crime.

Aunties don't snitch.

That's their new saying.

You can stay at our house.

Yeah.

Sandra pleads with her nephew to please turn himself in.

But just to him, privately.

Yeah, right.

just to him um but he tells her every time that he's not ready to stop just yet okay

on december 11th 2009 the u.s district court in seattle issues a federal warrant for colt's arrest because of the aircraft theft from idaho in september So it's everything's kind of stacking.

By February 2010, 18-year-old Colt has been eluding police for nearly two years at this point.

Wow.

I mean, two years on the run.

It's like a reality show.

Colton on the run, you know?

Yep.

Whatever.

He allegedly steals a plane from a town called Anacortis and he flies it over to Orcas Island, somehow escaping the attention of Vancouver air traffic controls.

He's like going out and stealing stuff and bringing it back to Orcas Island.

Yeah.

Now everyone is on the hunt for Colt, U.S.

Customs and Border Patrol, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the FBI, the U.S.

Coast Guard, officers from six different Washington counties with tracker dogs, SWAT teams, and police helicopters with infrared heat sensors.

Oh, dear.

And yet they cannot find him.

Damn.

So soon after this, Colt breaks into an Orcas Island deli and eats an entire cheesecake.

What?

Wait, was it called the cheesebox?

Oh, if only.

Oh, he eats an entire cheese.

What a weird detail.

He's truly living.

He also vandalizes the security system and causes $6,500 worth of damage.

He then draws 39 bare feet on the floor with chalk, with prints leading out the door, and then the letters C-Y-A, SI-Y, scrawled next to the footprints.

Oh, my.

That's a little intense.

39 footprints.

Yeah.

He spends months hiding out on Orca's Island.

He commits more than 20 break-ins and burglaries, allegedly, while he's there.

Police release surveillance camera photos from Island Market in the hope that somebody will recognize him.

And word spreads that Colt is hiding out somewhere in the woods.

So on May 31st, 2010, Colt leaves, you're going to like this one.

He leaves $100 at Vetters Animal Hospital in Raymond, Washington, with a note that says, drove by, had some extra cash.

Please use this money for the care of animals.

Signed, Colton Harris Moore, aka the barefoot bandit.

Okay, well, now we just love him.

Now we love him.

He's a modern day Robin Hood kind of.

Yeah.

On June 1st, 2010, he steals

a $450,000 fishing boat from Ilwako, not far from Raymond, to cross the Columbia River.

And that boat ends up being recovered in Warrington, Oregon.

From there, Colt steals a series of cars and heads east across Oregon and Idaho.

11 days later, on June 12th, authorities in Spearfish, South Dakota find an abandoned vehicle with Washington plates.

Then on the night of June 18th, Colt pries open the doors at the airport in Norfolk, Nebraska.

He uses a broom handle to try to force open a cockpit window, hoping to unlock the plane, but it doesn't work.

So instead, he steals an escalade from the airport and he drives it to Iowa and dumps it when he gets there.

He then steals another car, drives that to the airport in Ottumwa, Iowa, where he again tries to break into a plane, but again, the barefoot bandit fails.

So he steals yet another car and he drives to Dallas City, Illinois, but from there, the authorities lose track of him.

And then in late June of 2010, another...

another arrest warrant is issued for him, this time from Madison County, Nebraska, with counts of break-ins, vehicle theft, and an attempted airplane theft.

So basically, as he's going through and breaking, you know, doing all his little crimes and his break-ins and things just behind him, the warrants are piling up state by state.

On July 3rd, 2010 in Bloomington, Indiana, Colt steals a four-seater Cessna 400 airplane worth $650,000, Monroe County Airport.

During this flight, he takes videos of his journey from inside the cup.

Oh my God.

Was he live streaming?

I don't know, 2010.

It might have been too early for that, but he does have him on his phone.

This time, he flies himself to the Bahamas and then he crashes the plane in shallow waters off the coast of Great Abaco Island.

All right.

Now we're talking about him.

Finally, he's going somewhere exciting.

Yeah.

Soon after that, break-ins are reported all across the island.

So the FBI now is involved and they're offering a $10,000 reward for information information leading to the arrest of Colton Harris Moore.

Special Agent Stephen Dean says, quote, we want to get him.

He's turned from a regional nuisance into an international problem, end quote.

So U.S.

law enforcement traveled.

to the Bahamas where they launch a full-scale search and put up wanted posters.

There's CCTV footage that captures brief images of Colt visiting bars and restaurants in the area.

So he's living his life, Eva.

He's on bandit vacation.

Oh my God.

Pam hires an entertainment lawyer named Yagal Lewis to field inquiries from parties offering to buy the rights to Colt's story for book and movie deals.

But she's not interested in speaking to reporters.

She puts up a sign at the end of the road.

like her driveway to the trailer that says if you go past this sign you'll be shot shit

but pam has changed her attitude about her son being on the run.

Now she says that she wants him to turn himself in before anyone gets hurt.

By this point, Colt's image has been broadcast throughout the Bahamas.

So people there actually know who he is and what's going on.

Because again, he's gone to a small island community.

Right.

And gotten away with it.

Yeah.

Gotten public.

Yeah.

On July 7th, 2010, Bahamian ferryboat captain Freddie Grant sees somebody matching Colt's description swimming on the northern end of Eleuthra Island.

So Freddy's noticed also that the ignitions to a bunch of the ferries have been messed with and damaged.

And he can put two and two together.

So three days later on July 11th, around three in the morning, Kenny Strahan, the security director of Ramora Bay Marina and on Harbor Island, sees somebody running away from the boat docks.

toward the marina's exit and he's sure that it's colt so he pursues this person on foot and when he catches up to him he realizes it really is the barefoot bandit himself and he realizes the barefoot bandit now has a gun.

So

Kenny backs off.

He calls the Bahamian police and meanwhile Colt runs back toward the docks, climbs into a boat that had the keys left in the ignition and takes off.

When police arrive, they also commandeer a boat and they take off after him.

They fire at the boat's engines that Colt is driving.

Some of them actually have Uzis.

So this becomes like a real pursuit.

They basically force Colt to surrender.

As the police scream at Golt to put his gun down, he puts it to his head, threatening to kill himself because he says he cannot go back to jail.

The police move closer.

Colt then throws his gun and his laptop overboard.

And basically, the wild ride is finally over for the barefoot bandit.

When 19-year-old Colton Harris Moore is arrested, he's photographed walking barefoot with his ankles shackled.

Authorities fly him to Nassau for processing.

Colt is not showing any signs of fear or distress at this point, and

they actually go back and find both his gun and his laptop.

His backpack is seized upon arrest, and inside, the police find a Boy Scouts of America certificate, two fifth grade class photos, some airplane sketches, and a Waffler PPK, which is the same gun that James Bond uses.

So this is a little boy.

Right.

On July 13th, 2010, Colt pleads guilty to entering the Bahamas illegally.

So you can't just fly to the Bahamas.

You got it?

Fly there, crash

and then go swimming the way he did.

That's a no.

Now we know.

It's good to know, everyone.

Now we know.

Yeah.

He's sentenced to three months in jail or a $300 fine.

Pam wires him the money and pays the fine.

Colt's deported by the U.S.

Attorney's Office and flown back to Miami, where he is taken to federal jail.

Following Colt's arrest, Pam issues a statement saying she's relieved her son is safe and that no one's hurt.

She also says she's looking forward to seeing him soon, having not seen him for two years.

Colt's followers on social media get behind his defense and they donate money for his legal costs.

Pam joins the plea for assistance saying, quote, now there's not a break-in or a theft in the entire Northwest that the media or law enforcement doesn't rush to pin on Colt.

We have no way of knowing what charges will be filed against him.

The media has already convicted him as the barefoot bandit and created widespread accusations and perception of guilt.

Eventually, though, Colt will have to fight for his freedom against the full force of the legal system.

End quote.

Doesn't sound like our Pam.

That sounds like through a lawyer.

Well, that also sounds like the most insane rationalization of a public series of crimes that this person very gleefully committed.

It's like, you don't get to go back now and be like, can you believe they're pinning all these crimes on him?

It's like, yes, he did like 50 crimes in a row.

So yes, I do believe it.

Pam is pulling what we call my family being a day late and a dollar short.

So on July 21st, 2010, Colts transferred to the Federal Detention Center in Seattle, and he appears in court the next day where he waives his right to a preliminary hearing and a speedy trial.

So on November 18th, he pleads not not guilty in federal court to charges of interstate transportation of a stolen plane.

Wow.

So specific.

Yeah.

A plane boat and gun stolen of being a fugitive in possession of a firearm and flying without a pilot's license.

And that same month, 48 Hours did an episode about Colt's exploits.

So you can watch that.

and streaming services everywhere.

Both Pam and her sister Sandra write letters to the court in an attempt to explain what has led to Colt's antisocial behavior.

Here's what Pam writes: quote, this boy has had many disappointments all his life.

His stepfather died, and our dog, and this has had severe effects on Colt and I.

He does things without thinking of the end results.

End quote.

Court proceedings continue throughout 2011.

In March, the FBI confirms that the reward money is split among the officers who arrested Colt as well as Kenny Strahan.

And on June 17th, 2011, Colt pleads guilty to all seven counts on the federal indictment.

Under his plea deal, he agrees to forfeit any profits from selling publishing rights to his story.

In August 2011, 20th Century Fox pays more than $1 million in exchange for the rights to Colt's story.

The studio sends the money directly to the U.S.

Marshals to distribute it amongst Colt's victims.

Interesting.

That September, a psychological evaluation finds that Colt's delinquent behavior is driven by depression, PTSD, and

basically suicidal tendencies.

He was risking his life every time he flew one of those planes that he didn't know how to fly.

And he's crazy.

The psychologist notes that Colt has a low risk of reoffending favorable prognosis with appropriate intervention.

On December 16th, 2011, Colt is sentenced by the state of Washington to seven years in jail plus three years of supervised probation.

Judge Vicki Churchill says, quote, This case is a tragedy in many ways, but it's a triumph of the human spirit in other ways.

The judge notes that Colt has genuine remorse for his crimes.

As a high-profile convict, Colt's initially placed in solitary confinement for his own protection, which must be horrifying.

On January 27th, 2012, the federal district court of Seattle sentences Colt to six and a half years in prison.

He'll serve both state and federal sentences concurrently, and it's determined that that he owes his victims $1.3 million in restitution.

Two months after Colt goes to prison, author Bob Friel publishes a book called The Barefoot Bandit, The True Tale of Colt and Harris Moore,

New American Outlaw.

In 2010, two documentaries are released about his experiences.

In May 2016,

His mom, Pam Kohler, dies of lung cancer.

In 2016, Colt pleads to get out of prison early to work at his lawyer's law firm during the summer.

According to Colt's attorney, the two had agreed years before that Colt could work part-time at his law firm doing clerical work.

At the same time, Colt would be looking for a full-time job and eventually go to college.

Wow.

His attorney says Colt's criminality grew out of poverty, not a desire to harm people or cause trouble.

In September 2016, Colt's transferred from Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Aberdeen to a work release facility in Seattle.

He starts working for his lawyer, but he hopes one day to study aeronautical engineering.

Yeah.

In December 2016, 25-year-old Colt is released from his work release program, remains under supervision.

He starts a GoFundMe to raise $125,000 for private and commercial pilot license training and helicopter certification.

But the federal probation office shuts that down.

and saying that the $1,600 that was raised so far goes directly to his victims.

Colt responds publicly on Twitter saying that his stream is crushed.

And his lawyer states that Colt didn't consult with him before starting the GoFundMe.

So in April 2019, Colt asks the court for his supervised release period to be shortened.

He wants to be allowed to visit friends overseas and accept work outside of Washington state to attend engagements as a motivational speaker.

Colt claims the work will help him pay off the restitution he still owes as victims, telling the court, quote, I've learned from my past.

I do not run from it, but instead try to embrace it for the better.

I hope to serve as a model for people who have hard lives and who feel hopeless.

I saw it every day when I was confined, and I've seen it in the world upon release, end quote.

In May 2019, his request was denied and he was ordered to complete his probation.

Not much is known about him today, although on his LinkedIn profile, he describes himself as quote, former international fugitive turned entrepreneur

focused on education, progress, and success.

Life is what you make it.

My intention is to build connections with people who are both clearly motivated and with whom may lead to a mutually beneficial outcome along the lines of problem solving, productivity, and accomplishing goals.

This is what it's all about.

Yeah, can we get a TED Talk, please?

I mean,

that, and that's the unbelievable story of the barefoot bandit Colton Harris Moore.

Yeah.

Holy shit.

He went on what we call in the business, a spree.

He really did it.

Wow.

I have literally never heard a single piece of that before.

Same.

And it was like happening like by at that point.

like it was happening on social media that's the craziest part it's like that modern yeah and i had never ever seen a thing yep wow yeah good job and thank you good job colton yeah i mean listen

you know breaking the law isn't isn't the way but sometimes

you know sometimes you're 17 and you're fucking depressed and like

Like stealing airplanes and flying them when you don't know how to is kind of the way.

The bandit part.

Yeah.

He's like a, yeah, he's like a he's just kind of doing it yeah i don't know yeah it's just like he's doing something at least yeah yeah it's like impressive you don't want to like you don't want to support it you don't want to celebrate it yeah but it's also like wow you know he didn't hurt he didn't hurt anybody he didn't hurt anybody I mean, he physically killed people.

He could have killed people crashing those planes.

He absolutely could have killed people.

And he had guns on him, which is not great.

It isn't great, but then the second he got called on it, he threw it in the ocean.

Yeah, that's true.

So, wow, I don't know.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Wow, that was a really fun story.

Thank you for staying sexy.

And don't get murdered.

Goodbye.

Bye-bye.

Elvis, do you want a cookie?

This has been an exactly right production.

Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Wally Smith.

Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

This episode was mixed by Liana Scolaci.

Our researchers are Maren McGlashen and Allie Elkin.

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Goodbye.