Colton Harris Moore was finally caught in The Bahamas, taken into custody after a water chase in which Bahamian police opened fire on his boat, disabling the engine. Colton grew up as a poor boy in a single mother household in Camano Island, Washington, learning to steal from a young age. He spent a great deal of time in the thick evergreen woods of Island County, into which he would disappear after burglarizing houses and businesses.
The teenager taught himself to fly by watching instructional videos and using flight simulators, and soon began stealing planes, which he used to leave his pursuers in the dust. After the net started closing in on him in Washington state, he fled across the country, stealing a number of cars to make his way to the midwest, where he broke into an airport and stole a Cessna, flying it to the Bahamas and crash-landing the plane near the beach of Abaco Island.
In the Bahamas, rather than maintain a low profile and hide out, Colton broke into several homes and businesses, stole boats and hung out in bars. Eventually, his brash defiance of the law led to his capture on Eleuthera Island, and now he’s facing time in a Bahamian prison, and eventual extradition to the US, where he will certainly face numerous charges, and the prospect of a long stint in prison.
In the meanwhile, his mother, Pam Kohler, is lining up book and movie deals, from which she hopes to profit. Colton Harris Moore’s life as a free man may be essentially over at this point, but at least the mother who did such a lousy job of raising him will get something out of the waste of a young life.
