Put your sympathy shoes back on, America: The so-called Barefoot Bandit has finally been caught.
Nineteen-year-old Colton Harris-Moore of Camano Island, near Seattle — who adopted his alliterative nickname owing to his habit of leaving chalk footprints at the scenes of his alleged crimes — was captured on northern Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas following two years of suspected robberies and home invasions, including a string of getaway car, boat and airplane thefts.
Harris-Moore gained a small degree of Internet fame — a Facebook fan page in his name boasts some 58,000 members, along with pleas to “Free Colton!” and “Let Colton Fly!” — after he escaped from a Washington state halfway house in 2008, allegedly leading police authorities across the United States on a convoluted and often mysterious crime spree.
Bahamian police officials say Harris-Moore was nabbed early yesterday morning as he attempted to dock a boat — probably stolen. The intrepid criminal is thought to have crash-landed on Great Abaco island following a 1,000-mile flight on a stolen single-engine airplane, conducted with absolutely no formal flight training.
