Cover Story: Catch Me If You Camp

Just after midnight on July 18, 2008, Shirley Morgan, owner of Camano Island's Elger Bay Cafe, received a phone call from the police informing her that her restaurant had been struck by a car.

Hours earlier, Deputy William Vaughn of the Island County Sheriff's Department had spotted a black Mercedes-Benz, which was being driven erratically. Riding shotgun in Vaughn's cruiser was Lucas Adkins, a civilian and sheriff's department intern. As the Mercedes sped northward up the lonely two-lane road that winds around Camano's heavily forested southern half, Vaughn gave chase.

When the Benz neared the intersection at Mountain View Road, its driver hung a sharp left into the cafe's parking lot and exited the vehicle. Still in gear, the car rolled across the asphalt and into the building's back end. According to police reports, Vaughn observed the vehicle's occupant flee on foot, drop down a hill, and break for the forest. But it was the intern who first identified the suspect, whose tall, lanky frame and boyish face were recognizable even in the darkness.

Adkins told the detectives who arrived at the scene that the suspect looked like Colton Harris-Moore, Camano Island's most infamous son and the state of Washington's youngest serial fugitive—the so-called "Barefoot Burglar." (Harris-Moore earned the nickname after witnesses reported seeing him running without shoes.)

In the dead of night, the restaurant—one of a trio of conjoined businesses, including a gas station and bait shop—was naturally empty of patrons. But there was a problem, police told Morgan. The car had plowed into a storage dumpster. Weighed down by spent cooking oil, it had absorbed much of the impact. But the crash had caused it to crush a pipe connected to the cafe's industrial-sized propane tank. The deputies had turned off the gas, but the pipe would need to be repaired. All told, the incident cost Morgan $400.

"He didn't do it intentionally," says Morgan of Harris-Moore, "but when you're that reckless, dangerous things like that can happen."

Island County Sheriff Mark Brown, the man who had made it his agency's priority to catch the teen, was less charitable, telling the Everett Herald: "I'm convinced it was him. He spit in the eye of law enforcement. He spit in the eyes of the juvenile services that tried to help him, and he spit in the eye of the citizens that have tried to help him."

The Mercedes Harris-Moore drove and ditched belonged to his neighbor, Carol Star. She was in Colorado when police reached her, and told them that no one had permission to use her car and that whoever it was must have stolen it. Police later found a sliding door at her house, located near Harris-Moore's childhood home, completely removed.

A search of the car turned up a red-and-black backpack also belonging to Star. It was filled with items Harris-Moore had pilfered since walking away from a Renton group home that April—credit cards, a cell phone, a digital camera, a GPS unit—and a smattering of personal belongings, including a journal with his name inscribed on the inside front cover.

From the camera, investigators would later obtain the now-iconic photo that has been published in newspapers around the world. Taken by himself in what appears to be the woods, Harris-Moore is pictured lying on his back, wearing a black polo shirt with a Mercedes-Benz logo embroidered across the chest and a shit-eating grin across his face.

"That was how most of the island found out that he was back," says Morgan.

Morgan, 61, has lived on Camano since long before Harris-Moore became a thorn in the collective side of the island's residents. Thirteen years ago, she left Arlington, Wash., in search of new digs. She found Camano, a 40-square-mile island separated from the mainland by the Davis Slough, and promptly fell in love. Her cafe, one of a handful of eateries on the island, is the kind of place where semi-retired residents mix easily with well-heeled vacationers while conversing about topics of import—namely fishing.

"It's a laid-back, peaceful place," says Morgan. "There's not usually a lot of drama,"

But there have been momentary breaks in the tranquility, many of which have come courtesy of Harris-Moore. While most kids his age are shambling through their freshman year of college, the 18-year-old has become a local legend, much to the displeasure of his hometown's adult population.

At age 16, Harris-Moore was already a prolific, if sloppy, burglar. Facing a felony charge in 2006, he absconded and disappeared into the island's forested wilds. After seven months he was caught, only to escape and disappear again after serving just one year of a three-year sentence—this time through a window of a Renton juvenile-rehabilitation facility.

In the year since his escape, Harris-Moore has officially been named as a suspect in two separate incidents in which the perpetrator stole and then took a joyride in a single-engine airplane, and is rumored to be the culprit in a third. The parallels to another famous teenage fugitive, Frank Abagnale Jr., whose own enthusiasm for impersonating airline pilots was captured in the film Catch Me if You Can, are obvious. As of this writing, Harris-Moore is still at large.