Author tells tale of ‘Barefoot Bandit,’ the new ‘American Outlaw’
Mar 22, 2012, 5:02 PM | Updated: Mar 23, 2012, 11:21 am
"The Barefoot Bandit: The True Tale of Colton Harris-Moore, New American Outlaw," by Bob Friel.
 “The Barefoot Bandit: The True Tale of Colton Harris-Moore, New American Outlaw,” by Bob Friel. |
When author Bob Friel moved to Orcas Island in 2007, he had hoped to find a peaceful place to write amid the isolated calm of the San Juans. Instead, he was swept away by the “one-kid crime wave” that was Colton Harris-Moore; compelled to write the story of a troubled teen whose two-year run from the law would become the “stuff of legends.”
“I’ve been writing professionally for 25 years, and I have never had a story that has hunted me down and kind of demanded that I write it,” Friel said. “It was amazing that this story happened to wash up on this tiny island where I’m living.”
It was on Orcas Island that Harris-Moore would infamously steal his first plane, and where Friel would decide to write his new book, “The Barefoot Bandit: The True Tale of Colton Harris-Moore, New American Outlaw,” which has been hailed “as incredible as it is true.”
While some might call it luck that the story of a lifetime seemingly fell at Friel’s doorstep, it was with the savvy of a seasoned journalist that Friel tracked the teen bandit (who he affectionately refers to as “Colt”), eventually finding himself on the tropical island where his flight from justice would end.
“Fast forward all the way to the end of it and where Colt chooses to go is the Bahamas, which are like a second home to me,” Friel said. “So I wound up being the only journalist who was on the island where Colt had his famous last boat chase […] I was the first one at the boat as soon as daybreak came.”
But it is the lesser-known tales of the “Barefoot Bandit” that Friel is most proud of. His favorite part of the book is a humorous story of how “Colt” freed his pet dog from police captivity.
“The police held Colt’s dog as POW at one point, and he liberated her,” Friel recalls, and reads a passage.
“Someone had gotten past the surveillance, found the right cage, sprang Melanie, and then made it out again,” he reads. “This time with beagle in tow – all without being seen. That’s the kind of stuff that legends are made of.”
