me.” Kory says the same deputies were letting it be known around the island that it was not going to be pretty when they caught up with Colton. “Part of the reason he kept running was because he didn’t want to get hurt.”
“What my boys [the Camano deputies] were dealing with at the time was that there were people on the South End who were helping Colt, leaving food out for him,” says Chris Ellis. “We could never prove it, but there was no way he was doing what he was without help. On the other extreme, we had people telling us, ‘Why don’t you just shoot his ass?’ I had one guy come in to my office to tell me he’d been out in the woods with his compound bow, looking for Colt. He said, ‘Silent death, man!’ I told him, ‘Thanks for your help, but take your bow home.’ Of course, it was an embarrassment to the sheriff’s office that we couldn’t catch Colt. So I think the actual statement was, ‘We need to catch him before somebody gets hurt,’ and it was implied that Colt might be that somebody.”
Bev and Geof Davis say that the tension on the island had built to an incredible level. They heard the threats and feared Colton would end up beaten or worse, so Bev wrote Colton an email:
Hi Colt,
We’d ask how’s it going but we know all is not going well. We are writing to let you know we pray for you daily. We pray that you’ll be safe, warm and dry. We are so sorry that we weren’t able to do anything to help you Colton! We sure did want to. Geof thinks of you every time he sees the boat show ads on TV or some other function he thinks you’d enjoy going to.
There is nothing that any of us can do now to change the past, but there is your future to look to. It CAN become a GOOD life for you Colton!
You have already won all of the battles with the Camano Cops. They can’t catch you and they know it now! Why don’t you quit while you’re the winner?
Geof and I will go with you ANYTIME you are ready. We will take pictures of you before we go so we have proof that you didn’t have any scratches or bruises. We will see to it that you aren’t hurt!
We are VERY afraid for you Colton. The cops are making it seem like you are dangerous and that makes it VERY dangerous for you! Homeowners and cops will now be forgiven for shooting you and I’m sure a lot of the cops want to! PLEASE email me and tell me it’s NOT true that you are packing! If you are… your death will be justified. You are only 15 Colton. That is too young to die. At least in jail you’ll be fed, have a bed and be warm. And I’ll bet you’ll be out in 3 months. PLEASE Colton! Turn yourself in before you get badly hurt or killed. Like I said, Geof and I will do ANYTHING for you that we can. Anytime you’re ready!
Please go in now while it’s still your choice. Go in a winner!
If you have a gun… GET RID OF IT! Bring it to me if it’s not stolen… I’ll buy it!
Love,
Geof and Bev
IF YOU NEED HELP, ASK GOD
IF YOU DON’T NEED HELP, THANK GOD
After the police found several of his camps, Colton developed a group of what he considered safe houses, unattended homes where he hid out. He moved among them, never staying too long. At one of them, on Sea Song Lane one mile south of Pam’s trailer, he used the owner’s computer to send and receive messages on his 90210 Myspace account and to check emails sent to his mellenie010@hotmail.com address. He also used the homeowner’s computer to do some online shopping.
Apparently looking for some last-minute Christmas gifts, Colt ordered three containers of bear mace on December 23. He bought them using the name of a local resident who was away on a three-week vacation with his wife. While they were gone, Colt had been Goldilocksing in their home: sleeping in their bed, showering in their bathroom, eating in their kitchen, and even motoring around the island in their Mercedes.
On January 17, at 5:58 a.m., the Sea Song computer was booted up again, this time in an attempt to purchase a membership on Barelytwinks.com using the identity of a seventy-two-year-old Camano woman who was battling breast cancer—definitely not the demo of Barelytwinks, a site dedicated to images of slender young gay men, aka Twinkies or Twinks.
A few days later, Colton was online at Sea Song all night, until nearly 6 a.m. He shopped at the designer clothing Web site Raffaello Network, then ordered a computer program called Evidence Eraser. At 5:45 a.m., he read an email from pam@camano.net about buying property on a private island in South America.
On January 22, a deputy on patrol in his black ICSO Dodge Charger spotted a Ford Expedition doing 68 in a 40. The officer U-turned and popped on his lights, expecting the driver to pull over. Nope. Instead, the driver of the big SUV gunned it and took off with the Charger in pursuit. The chase didn’t last long, though, as the Ford screeched into a sharp turn onto a side street. The tires had no chance of holding the three-ton truck on track and it skidded off the road, taking out a STOP sign and smashing into a tree. Both doors instantly swung open and two guys bailed. The deputy recognized Harley Davidson Ironwing jumping out of the passenger side before both suspects escaped on foot.
The Expedition turned out to be stolen, and later that week Colton wrote an email that read: “Do I have a story to tell you involving a driver of a 2007 Expedition with Harley as a passenger and a cop.” He sent another message to the email address Babygirl that reads: “I can’t get into any more trouble, I’m wanted state-wide.”
On the twenty-seventh, though, Colton was back shopping for trouble, ordering $33 worth of bump keys and more pepper spray under the name Jim Pettyjohn, a victim who at this point had no clue that a burglar had been in and out of his home more than once while he, his wife, and their dogs had been asleep in the next room.
SHERIFF BROWN DETAILED EVEN more deputies to Camano and put out a request for the public to step up their participation in the capture of Colton Harris-Moore, asking them to call a tip line with any information. Wanted posters featuring both Colton and Harley were plastered onto nearly every storefront on the island.
Brown also used a system of E-lerts, emails that kept residents apprised of updates in the chase and solicited leads. Tips poured in. “We got them every day and chased them all down,” says Chris Ellis. “Some didn’t pan out. One caller said, ‘I think I saw Colton Harris-Moore, he’s got a dog and a backpack on,’ so we rolled. It turned out to be a black guy about five-foot-eight tall.” Other calls were more promising. On February 1, a tip came in from a housekeeper who suspected Colton had been staying inside a home she took care of on South Camano Drive, about three hundred yards north of the Sea Song house. One deputy responded and entered the home, while a second arrived later, at 6:30 p.m., just as a truck was pulling down the driveway. The officer ducked behind a horse trailer and let the truck pass without challenging it. When he got to the house, the other deputy told him that someone had been inside and “he just stole the truck.”
While they were talking, headlights came back up the drive. The cops split up and took cover as Colton and Harley walked into the kitchen. One deputy, positioned in a bedroom, was close enough to hear the burglars talking as well as the chatter from the police scanner one of them was carrying. He heard them mention a credit card, happy that it had a $15,000 limit. One of them, presumably Colt, told the other expansively, “Order anything you want.”
One then asked the other if he brought “the bullet.” The answer was yes, and the deputy listened to what he described as the sounds of a round inserted into a clip and the clip jacked into a handgun. He then heard Colton tell Harley, “The apple juice is for you.” As Harley was about to take a sip, the deputy jumped out of the bedroom and shouted, “Stop! Police!”
Harley says the cop came out with his gun drawn. The officer says Harley froze for a second and dropped the glass of juice, which shattered on the floor. Colt was already out the door.
As the deputy yelled, “On the ground!” Harley snapped out of it and followed Colt. The cop held his fire, and both fugitives got away.
THE FOLLOWING DAY, ANOTHER hot tip came in: it was delivery time for a package that Colton had shipped to the victim of an earlier burglary. He’d put in a special request that the package be dropped off at the home’s gate, a rock-and-wrought-iron affair complete with lion statues protecting a driveway lined with tall cedars. Two deputies fixed up a decoy Express Mail package and, at 5:45 p.m., already dark, dropped it off, then hid in the woods across the street. A half hour later, a vehicle slowly cruised by. The cops then heard footsteps on the gravel drive. Both deputies saw Colton, dressed in a dark sweatshirt and baggy jeans, going for the package. One ran
