Bob Friel - The Barefoot Bandit

A FEW MINUTES AFTER the Dr. J took off, Moss arrived at the dock and commandeered another civilian boat. This one, though, wouldn’t crank, so they tried another. That started, and with Moss, five cops, and the captain aboard, it too roared off into the pitch-black night.

It was the first time the chief inspector had been out on a boat after dark in this area. Fortunately, he wasn’t driving, because the deceptively calm bay hides a nasty surprise for anyone who is unfamiliar with the local waters or is in too much of a rush to check the charts.

COLT, NEVER ONE TO be afraid of going full speed at night when the adrenaline surfing comes in even bigger waves, blasted south along Harbour Island. The few lights burning on shore and the slightly blacker black of the land were all he could see. However, all he had to do was make it to the end of the island, just 1.1 miles from Romora, and he’d be able to pick out the smudge on the horizon that marked the inlet leading to open water and continued freedom.

Colt had not only gotten his chase, he’d toyed with the locals, dodged the cops, and then ninja’d himself right under their noses for yet another spectacular escape. He had an excellent boat and plenty of good-life islands within reach. Colt had broken through to unlock whole new levels of the game.

Then, suddenly, everything went to shit. Three-quarters of a mile south of the marina, the Intrepid abruptly slowed as if the seawater had turned to Jell-O. The engines growled and the propellers churned. Colt pulled back the throttles. He’d hit a sandbar.

TWO THINGS CONSPIRED TO finally end the Barefoot Bandit’s long run. First was the sandy shoal that stretches more than halfway across the bay between Briland and North Eleuthera. To get to the Whale Point cut, boaters have to first steer toward the Eleutheran shoreline to skirt the bar. It’s marked on charts and obvious on satellite photos. It’s also easy to spot during the day when the shallows glow a brilliant aquamarine compared to the deeper blue surrounding waters. At night, though, it’s invisible.

The other thing that got him was also invisible that night. One of Colt’s first fascinations and one of his very first words—the moon—betrayed him. Hitting its darkest phase that morning, the new moon brought dramatic tides. It’d sucked water off the sandbar until it sat dead low tide at 2:22 a.m., less than an hour before Colt showed up. A few hours and another eighteen inches of incoming tide later, and he would have skimmed right across.

Same thing if he’d been aboard the little Whaler he left tied at the dock.

ABOARD THE DR. J, Ron Billiot knew all about the sandbar. He slowed as he neared the shallows, and they flicked on the spotlights. A light-colored hull popped out of the darkness. Dr. J idled closer and the men aboard her could see Colt at the controls of the Intrepid’s center console, one hand on the throttles, one on the wheel. The police began shouting at him: “Stop!” “It’s over!” “You’re caught!” “Put your hands up!”

Colt’s hand came up; it was holding a pistol, though, and he fired.

The officers, each with an Uzi or shotgun aimed at Colt, saw the muzzle flash but didn’t return fire. They yelled at him to drop his weapon.

Colt hollered back, telling them to get the lights off him. Then he screamed, “Don’t come any closer! I’m not going back to jail! Don’t come any closer or I’ll kill myself!”

The two boats were only about fifty feet apart when the cops saw Colt lift the pistol to his head, shouting, “Go away! I’ll kill myself!”

The cops weren’t going away, though, and unlike at Granite Falls, they weren’t backing off. After a few tense moments, Colt pulled the gun away from his head. But he wasn’t giving up. Colt turned back to the boat’s controls and pushed the throttles forward. The Intrepid dug down in the stern, the props chewing into the bottom, but slowly it began to make headway. Colt had bogged down at the shallowest part of the bar, and now his boat’s powerful engines were plowing through the sand, taking him toward deeper water.

Aboard the Dr. J , Billiot told Sergeant Hart that if the Intrepid got just a little farther it’d be off the sandbar and they’d never be able to catch it. The Barefoot Bandit would get away again.

BACK AT ROMORA BAY, Kenny Strachan stood on the dock staring out at the black water when he heard what sounded to him like a war. “Bloom-bloom-bloom-bloom-bloom! On and on and on. I thought, Oh my God, they killed him!”

THE FIRST SHOTGUN BLAST hit the portside outboard engine. Other officers fired their Uzis, the 9mm bullets spraying the starboard engine. At least two rounds went toward the center console where Colt was standing. One passed through the stainless-steel piping in the middle of his seat, then tore through the cushion, and cracked the windshield. A second bullet punched into the steel pipe behind the seat and ricocheted inside until it was spent. Another round went well high and ripped into an aluminum outrigger ten feet above the waterline.

Bullets and shotgun pellets filled the air. Rounds careened off the outboards’ engine blocks and exploded back out, showering the boat with shrapnel. The police officers finally ceased fire after pumping at least twenty rounds into the Intrepid.

Acrid smoke filled the still night air. The only sound was the soft rumble of the Dr. J ’s engines.

“Stop shooting! I can’t hear! I can’t hear!” Colt rose from the deck of the Intrepid screaming and waving his arms.

The police shouted for him to put up his hands, but Colt was still thinking. He opened his backpack and reached inside. Hart told Billiot to move in closer and the cops lined up with guns ready, yelling, “Drop your weapon! Show us your hands!” Instead, Colt pulled out his laptop and threw it over the side, followed by his GPS and iPod. Finally, he tossed his pistol and backpack into the sea.

When the Dr. J came alongside, the cops ordered Colt down on the deck. Once they saw that he didn’t have any more weapons, they jumped across and handcuffed him. At that point, officers say, a calmness came over Colt. All he said was “You should have killed me.”

MOSS’S BOAT ARRIVED AND officers jumped into the waist-deep water to try to find the gear Colt had thrown overboard. His backpack floated, and they picked that up, but now with three boats churning the shallows there was an underwater sandstorm and they couldn’t see anything on the bottom. Both captains marked the spot on their GPS. The cops transferred Colt to the Dr. J and a tow line was rigged for the Intrepid since both of its engines had been destroyed. At 3:15 a.m., they started back toward Romora Bay.

After the guns had gone silent, Kenny held his breath, fearing the worst. A few minutes later, his cell phone rang. “They say, ‘Kenny, we got him.’ And my God! I’m so glad they didn’t kill him.”

Moss received a radio call that a large crowd had gathered—or at least large for three in morning on Briland. About forty people were milling around the marina. “I didn’t know if they wanted to just observe or if they wanted to harm the suspect,” he says. “So we wanted to clear the path.” Those allowed to remain were guests off the boats in the marina, Kenny, and the police and Crime Watch folks.

When the Dr. J arrived and they lifted Colt out of the boat, the onlookers crowded around with cell phone cameras while police ordered, “Stand back! Stand back!” Moss hadn’t been able to get ahold of his police car by radio, so they’d backed a red golf cart down to the dock. As the cops steered Colt toward it, the crowd pushed in.

“Some Americans was yelling, ‘Shame on you!’” says Kenny. “And Bahamians was sayin’, ‘Don’t come here, this no place for you to be! You come to Briland and get caught!’ Everyone was trying to get his picture, but he kept his face down and wouldn’t talk to anyone. I felt so sorry for him because he was not that kind of hard-core criminal like they thought he was.” Kenny helped them load Colt onto the cart and rode along to the edge of the property.