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- [00:02]
Paisha Eaton
This is exactly right.
- [00:07]
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Mandy
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Paisha Eaton
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Paisha Eaton
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Mandy
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Hannah Smith
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- [01:57]
Paisha Eaton
Welcome to the Knife Off Record. I'm Paisha Eaton.
- [02:00]
Hannah Smith
I'm Hannah Smith. Before we get into this episode, real quick, if you are enjoying the show, first of all, thank you for listening. But would you do us a favor and go and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen? It really does help us so much. We're a new show and we're still trying to get the word out. So if you like what we're doing, it would just mean a lot to us. Thank you so much for your support. If you really want to go above and beyond, you could send your favorite episode to a friend if you think they would like it. Thanks again.
- [02:29]
Paisha Eaton
Yeah and you can also follow us on Instagram where we post clips and when we can, we respond to questions and like to update listeners. So make sure you follow henifepodcast on Instagram and bluesky. You can also send us an email at the knifexactlyrightmedia.
- [02:44]
Mandy
Com.
- [02:45]
Paisha Eaton
This week we have a collaboration with Mandy and Melissa from Moms and Mysteries. Moms and Mysteries, formerly known as Moms and Murder, is a true crime podcast hosted by Mandy and Melissa, two friends who do deep dive into a new case each week. It's conversational in tone and Heavy on levity. You'll really enjoy their original takes on both well known cases and lesser known true crime stories.
- [03:13]
Hannah Smith
We had such a good time doing this episode with them. They are pros. They've been making their podcast for over eight years now, which is amazing. And Melissa has another podcast I want to shout out. She launched it in 2021. It's called criminality. And they dive into the true crimes of reality stars, which sounds.
- [03:32]
Paisha Eaton
We could definitely get into that.
- [03:34]
Hannah Smith
Yes. So in this episode, we are going to bring you two crime stories. Patia and I brought a crime story and Mandy and Melissa also brought one. Patia and I cover the murder of Richard Chaelin, and Mandy and Melissa talk about the Barefoot Bandit. They're really different stories, but both pretty fascinating. And again, we just loved meeting Mandy and Melissa. So let's get into the episode. All right, so the story that we have today is the story of Sally Chaelin. I'm going to start the story in 2010. Sally, whose real name is Georgina, by the way, but she goes by Sally and Richard Chaelin, had been married for 31 years. They had two sons who were both grown, both in their 20s. In 2010, Sally was 56 years old and Richard was 61. They lived in Surrey, England, which is southwest of London. And about a year prior, in 2009, Sally had actually moved out of their family home. Their youngest son, David, was living with Sally and their oldest son was living on his own. So Richard was the only one living in the house that they, you know, had lived in for years and raised their sons in. And the reason for this was that they were going to get divorced, but they actually had. They were actually in the midst of reconciling. So on the morning of August 10, 2010, 2010, Sally went over to their family home where Richard was living with the idea that they were gonna spend the day cleaning out the garage, getting ready to sell the house. And one of the ideas they had was they were gonna use some of this money from the house sale to go on a trip to Australia together. But before they started cleaning out the house, they wanted to make breakfast. So Sally actually left, went to the store to go buy bacon and eggs to make breakfast. She would later say that she had the suspicion that Richard told her to go to the store to buy these ingredients to try to get her out of the house. And she was suspicious about this. So when she got back, she checked his phone and it showed a phone call between Richard and this woman, Susan Wilke. This was a person that Sally was already suspicious of that. She had googled the day before and it turns out Richard had met this woman, Susan Wilkie, on a social networking website called Dinner Dates. And when Sally asked Richard about this, he responded with, don't question me. So Sally made breakfast. Richard sat down at the table to eat this breakfast and when he did, Sally took a hammer from her purse and hit him over the head more than 20 times until he was almost dead. She then stuffed a tea towel into his mouth to make sure he was dead. She wrapped his body in some old curtains and wrote a note and left the note on his body that read, I love you, Sally. And then she left. She went back to the house where she was living. The next morning she got up, she drove her 23 year old son David to work and then she left Surrey and drove 75 miles south to Beachy Head in East Sussex, England, which is on the southern coast and has these massive cliffs that overlook the ocean. It's beautiful from pictures I looked at online, but sadly, it's also a very common place for people to go and end their life by jumping off the cliffs. And actually in 2010 the Wall Street Journal listed it as one of the among the top three most common suicide spots in the world. And if you go there, there are signs with phone number, with the phone number to the Samaritans, which is a charity aimed at providing emotional support to people. And they're available 24 7. And the local community and the police are also aware of this. So they're sort of on the lookout for people that might be trying to do this. Reportedly, Sally called her cousin and confessed to killing Richard and said she planned to jump from the cliffs. But the police were called and it took three hours of them talking to her to convince her to come away from the ledge. And she was taken into custody and charged with the murder of Richard Chaelin. The police discovered his body around 1pm on Sunday, which was the next day, and a postmortem exam that was conducted determined his cause of death to be severe blunt trauma to the head.
- [08:19]
Paisha Eaton
So Sally immediately admits to having killed Richard and so she's taken into custody at that point. And this is August of 2010. And so during her time in custody, she is assessed by two different psychologists, forensic psychologists, and the first one of those, he, we'll get into her trial. But he said that he did not conclude that Sally had been suffering from any mental disorders or personality disorders. Then a second forensic psychologist also assessed Sally and his conclusion was different. He said that he believed she was suffering from a depressive disorder.
- [09:05]
Melissa
He.
- [09:05]
Paisha Eaton
He also noted that Sally told him about sexual and physical abuse by Richard that included that Richard would rape her as a form of punishment, and that she hoped that when he did this, it would sort of make him happy and make him love her, and she's a woman in distress. So this trial takes place in June of 2011, and the trial takes place over seven days. And during her trial, Sally is portrayed by the Crown as constantly checking Richard's phone and email, being jealous and possessive, and having said at one point, if I can't have him, then no one can. And the jury was also told that Sally had been stalking Richard online, spying on him, listening to his voicemails. It was really a picture of a scorned lover, a woman who refused to move on from her failed marriage and salvation. Sally's defense relied partially on something called diminished responsibility, which means, yes, she's saying that she killed him, but her responsibility for killing him cannot be murder, because she was experiencing things in the marriage that were taking away her capacity to think clearly. So Sally's defense during her trial is saying, you know, is introducing this concept of diminished responsibility. They're basically asserting that although Sally broke the law by killing Richard, her mental capacity was impaired, and this ought to protect her from full criminal responsibility. And the goal here is that Sally doesn't end up with a murder conviction, but instead manslaughter, because manslaughter carries a much lighter sentence, and they felt it was appropriate given what she experienced during her marriage to Richard. Unfortunately, Sally is convicted by a unanimous jury in June 2011 after only 11 hours, and they convict her of murder. So she appeals her conviction, but it was upheld. The only thing that comes her way is that her sentence is reduced from a minimum of 22 years to a minimum of 19 years served. And the entire time that this is going on, ever since Sally is charged at all, she has the support of her family and other people who are standing in solidarity with Sally as a victim of domestic abuse. But, you know, we've learned so much about domestic abuse since 2010 and have so much more language around what that can really mean. And so, as her legal team is preparing for another appeal, this whole other picture of Sally's marriage begins to emerge.
- [11:57]
Hannah Smith
Through interviews with her attorney, she starts to sort of open up, and we learn about, like, what was actually going on inside their marriage. And, you know, it goes all the way back to the beginning. And actually, Sally was only 15 years old when they first met, and Richard was 22, you know, so she was still basically a child, a baby. Yeah, yeah. And there basic, there's accounts that you know, he was controlling like pretty much right off the bat. He would control like how she acted and wanted to control sort of like who she talked to. And she was still in school, but she would stop by his apartment after school to clean and cook for him.
- [12:48]
Melissa
Oh my gosh.
- [12:50]
Hannah Smith
You know, this was like, I think this was like 1970 or something. So definitely different times, but still pretty alarming. And she got pregnant at 17 and ended up having a late term abortion. Her older brothers brought her to have this done and they then confronted Richard about this, you know, as like protective older brothers. And he supposedly said like, kind of like shrugged it off and said it could have been anybody's like baby.
- [13:22]
Mandy
Oh gosh.
- [13:22]
Hannah Smith
She also told her attorney that around this time, like around like age 17ish, she confronted Richard because she found out that he was still like sleeping with other women and he dragged her down the stairs and threw her out of the apartment. She said that she was basically afraid from then till the throughout their whole relationship of like confronting him or pushing too hard in case he might react physically again like that. They ended up getting married. Her Sally's mom never liked him, didn't want them to get married, but people say like, she just like, really like seemed to love him and, and always hoped that things would get better. He was really into cars. He would end up going on to start a car dealership and was very successful and like, like made pretty good money. Their home, their family home in Surrey in 2010 was estimated to be worth about £1 million. But you know, things didn't quite, you know, things didn't get better. Neighbors and friends would later say that he would often criticize her in public and like in social settings, often commenting on her weight, you know, that she was, she did all the cooking, all the cleaning, took care of all the household stuff for them while he worked. So she was mostly a homemaker while the kids were little. But then when their youngest turned 13, she went and got an admin job. But then her husband Richard then required her to use her salary that she got from her job to pay for all of the household expenses. And he kind of kept his money for himself and he would buy himself expensive cars and watches and go to Grand Prix events. Their youngest son, David, ever since his mom was arrested and charged, has become an advocate for his mother's release. And he recently wrote a book called the A Story of Control Violence and my mother. And he talks about a lot about what he observed of his parents growing up. You know, he talked about his dad being this sort of like looming presence. And he really, he watched as his dad would criticize his mother and come home and just criticize like the food that she cooked. He said that beyond that, his dad was very controlling, like, very controlling of things like the television. Even when he was gone all day at work, he didn't want his mom or the boys watching TV because he said it would like diminish the life of the television.
- [15:44]
Mandy
Oh my gosh.
- [15:45]
Melissa
What? That's like taking, you know, you always hear about like dad things, you know, like they always want you to shut off the lights or they always want you to do this, but like not watching TV because you're scared that it's going to diminish. The life of the TV is a new extreme of just dad ism.
- [16:03]
Hannah Smith
Totally. Yeah. Totally different than like shut the door, don't air condition the whole neighborhood. Right.
- [16:09]
Paisha Eaton
I've heard that before.
- [16:10]
Melissa
Classic dad.
- [16:12]
Hannah Smith
Um, but yeah, it was just like this like pattern of him being incredibly controlling. And he also controlled who Sally could be friends with. So one time she was like cooking in the kitchen. She was going to host a new friend that she'd met. And Richard didn't like this. So he just like threw the food across the room and said, well, I guess you can't have her over anymore. So there's definitely a pattern of him controlling her, isolating her, not wanting her to have friends. And then it sounds like he also was continually having affairs like that happened when they first met. And it sounds like it never really stopped. Certain times Sally seemed to sort of be believing him. And other times she would question him. Their son David remembers when he was around 18 that he found out about some affairs his dad was having. And he even confronted his dad and he said his dad just would never hear any of it. He wasn't receptive to anyone else's feedback. And over and over, anytime Sally would question him about something in their marriage, he would say the same thing. He would say, don't question me. Which is interesting cause that's like the last thing he said to her, you know, before she killed him. In 2004, Richard and Sally, they went to Australia for a family's wedding. Richard brother lived there with his sister in law. And even his family remembers seeing him interact with Sally and thinking that something was wrong. They didn't like the way he was treating her. Reportedly he just only wanted to dance with all the young women at the wedding and wouldn't dance with Sally seemed to be like just to, just to embarrass her or something. And Richard's sister in law spoke with her at that time and, and asked her how things were going. And she said she told her, if I left Richard, he would make my life hell. He was also charged with fraud in 2006. He owned a Ferrari which cost him £92,000 and he had taken it to an F1 track in Belgium and wrecked it. And instead of reporting it, he shipped it back to Surrey and tried to make an insurance claim saying that it was hit by a truck. So that's wild. But they like figured out what was going on. He was charged with fraud. By 2009, Sally, you know, her, her sons were older and her son David specifically was very like supportive of her trying to get out of this marriage. She had finally left Richard. She had a small amount of family inheritance which she used to buy a small house a few blocks away. And, you know, she had finally done it. I mean, she was in her 50s at this point and she had started dating him when she was 15 years old, so. So that's like, you know, her whole life, basically. Yeah. And according to her friends and family, it just was really difficult. She couldn't really figure out how to do things without him. She was distraught and soon she was hoping to get back together with him. Richard, on the other hand, I think, used this as a way to manipulate her further and said that he would start to reconcile with her only under the circumstances that she agreed to get legally divorced. He wanted to give her £200,000, which would be far less than she would actually be entitled to. And she had to agree in writing that when they went out in public, she wouldn't talk with strangers and she would never interrupt him when he talked.
- [19:38]
Mandy
Ugh, I hate this guy.
- [19:39]
Hannah Smith
Yeah, so she, you know, agreed to it, but she was also suspicious that maybe he was just using this as an excuse to get legally divorced from her and keep most of their assets under the guise that they were gonna reconcile. So that was sort of the situation leading up to that day in August of 2010. Her divorce attorney said that she had started and then stopped divorce proceedings 13 times. So there was a lot of just like indecision. And she had become obsessed with trying to find out if he was still cheating on her. You know, it sounds like she was hoping that he had changed, but also wondering if he was just still doing the same thing.
- [20:22]
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- [20:56]
Paisha Eaton
As Sally dives deeper into what was going on in her marriage with her legal team through this appeals process, it becomes clear the extent of the abuse that she was experiencing. And so in February 2019, which you know, she was convicted of murder back In June of 2011, she's been imprisoned this entire time. In February of 2019, she has a new legal team and it consists of her solicitor whose name is Harriet Wistrick and she's actually the director of the center for Women's justice in the uk. Their mission is to hold the state accountable and challenge discrimination in the justice system around male violence against women and girls. She also has a woman named Claire Wade on her side who is her trial attorney. And her practice really dives into murder, manslaughter, sexual offenses and serious violence in the context of domestic homicide. So these two attorneys team up for Sally's defense and they get her appeal seen by a three judge panel. And part of what comes out during that appeal is that there's this new term called coercive control that has come to light. And it really speaks to honing in on why Sally had that diminished responsibility that her defense said she had way back in 2011. And there's an American professor named Evan Stark who never assessed Sally personally, but can really speak to this term, of course, of control. So he actually spoke during her appeal and he is quoted as saying that course of control was designed to subjugate and dominate, not merely to hurt. It achieves compliance by making victims afraid, depriving them of their rights, resources and liberties without which they cannot defend themselves. Escape, refuse demands or resist. It produces a hostage like condition of entrapment. And at the time of her trial, he says it was not widely understood. So these judges, you know, are going to determine if she's going to spend another 10 plus years in prison. And outside the courthouse there's people holding signs. Free Sally. Her sons are still there, standing by her side. You know, as Hannah mentioned, people who were on Richard's side of the family had even witnessed the abuse. After this appeals process, Sally wins. And the crown that had initially convicted her wanted a retrial. They didn't get it. She is her. Her charge was reduced from murder to manslaughter. And so she was released because she had already served that time. Her manslaughter sentence would have been over nine years, which she had already then served. And so she was released and her son, who Hannah mentioned, said it just an incredible experience to watch his mom walk out a free woman and for people to understand that she wasn't this, you know, cruel murderer. She was a woman who was experiencing coercive control and didn't know a way out. And I think also learning so much about her history and this being her first relationship from when she's 15, it's like that. I mean, you don't know anything else. I can see why she filed so many times and then tried to reconcile. It's like your whole self worth is tied up in this person because you don't know anything different.
- [24:24]
Mandy
She's only been an adult with him. That's her whole adult life. But it makes me think of like you do hear those relationships, like 20 something 15. And you have to wonder like how much of that is because, I mean, obviously there's laws against it, but how much of that is because they are just looking for someone to be able to control and manipulate, even if that doesn't seem like their intention. Like there's really no reason a 22 year old and a 15 year old should be getting together. That's again, a baby. Like that's just a person starting their.
- [24:56]
Paisha Eaton
Life so totally and it's unreal. And in the wake of her appeal, this term coercive control, they're realizing, okay, this applies to the case of these other women who are imprisoned on these murder charges because we didn't have an understanding of domestic abuse and coercive control like, you know, at the time of their trial like we do right now. And so there were successful appeals following Sally's successful appeal because of this sort of ability to convey to the judges what she was actually experiencing.
- [25:32]
Mandy
Oh, wow, that's amazing.
- [25:33]
Melissa
That is such a wild story. Not one that I can personally relate to. I only can relate to the part of the story of meeting your spouse very young. I was 17 when I met my husband. We're actually about to celebrate our 20 year togetherness anniversary next week. But I relate to the feeling of just like not knowing any other, anything different. You know, whenever you don't know, you don't know. Even if you know that you don't want to be in the situation you're in, it's really scary to think about leaving that situation and going off into something that you don't even know, you know at least the devil you know is better than the one you don't, or whatever the phrase is. You know, you kind of know what you're into with what you've been used to, but if you leave and go off on your own, you don't know really what you're getting into. So you can see how that would be really scary for someone who got into that type of relationship when they were only 15 years old. It's just really hard.
- [26:23]
Paisha Eaton
Oh, especially like, living under this threat, like, he's gonna make her life hell if she divorces him. And it's like, okay, well, what does that mean? Cause my life was already so terrible with you, like, so scary.
- [26:35]
Mandy
How could it be worse?
- [26:36]
Melissa
Absolutely.
- [26:37]
Paisha Eaton
Yeah.
- [26:37]
Mandy
So this week's story feels a little like a movie. Like, if we told you this was a Netflix plotline, you'd probably believe us, but you'd still be like, well, maybe, maybe not. I'm not sure. So we're talking about this lanky teenager from a small island town who. Who escapes from a halfway house and goes on the run. But not just any run. This kid steals cars, he breaks into homes, he hacks computers, he flies actual airplanes that he taught himself how to fly. And he learned all of this on YouTube. And he does it all. This part is unfortunate. Barefoot. Have you guys.
- [27:12]
Melissa
Melissa hates that part.
- [27:16]
Mandy
I don't care how good his feet are, anybody's feet, I don't want to see them. But have you guys heard of Colton Harris Moore, the Barefoot Bandit?
- [27:25]
Hannah Smith
I have not.
- [27:26]
Mandy
Oh, this is such a treat. I'm so excited to be bringing this to you. What a big day for us. So Colton Harris Moore, he is 6 foot 5, 200 pounds by the time he reaches his full Internet legend status. So he is someone that lives in the woods. He's slipped through police traps. He's somehow captured the imagination of thousands of people who were rooting for him online. Think like Luigi that we just had going through the news, like Mangione, like that kind of a hype though, and people following his story, like when Facebook was still kind of early days and stuff. But as wild and as meme worthy as his case is, it's also sad and messy because he wasn't some kind of anti hero or anything. He was just a teenager who has been failed by really every system in his life.
- [28:14]
Melissa
Yeah. So Colton was born in 1991 and he grew up in Camano Island, Washington. So this is a very tight knit island with only about 1500 residents. So you're thinking like it's in Washington. Woodsy, quiet. This is the kind of place that you really want to escape to or get away to. Not the kind of place that you're usually running away from. But as we said, Colton didn't really have the peaceful small town life that, you know, you would expect a child growing up in this area to have. His dad left when he was just around two or three years old and was in and out of his life until he finally disappeared for good. And his mom struggled with addiction and mental health issues. She reportedly would let Colton just kind of come and go as he pleased. And that was even during the height of his crime spree, you know, she was still allowing him, you know, free access to her home.
- [29:07]
Mandy
And she would straight up be like, my son was hungry and he came over and what do you want me to do? Not feed them? When the police are like, you're Aiden and abetting, you know, a criminal, she's like, my son's hungry, I'm going to feed him. So she did not. She was not to be messed with in this entire story.
- [29:22]
Paisha Eaton
No.
- [29:22]
Melissa
So by the time Colton was seven, he had already been arrested. Seven years old, which is heartbreaking and also, like, what happened? Right? I'm sure that's probably what everyone's thinking. What would a 7 year old possibly do? Well, he didn't hurt anyone, but he would sneak into vacation homes, literally looking for food and shelter, though. So, like, you have this little kid that's breaking and entering into vacation homes because he's hungry and he wants a place to rest. So his behavior, though, did escalate over time. Not necessarily because he was a bad person, but literally it was a means of survival for him. And eventually he did end up in a juvenile detention center and then a halfway house. And that's where things really took a sharp turn for him.
- [30:10]
Mandy
So it was just days before his 17th birthday that Colton escaped the halfway house. Not in like a chaotic middle of the night, you know, running through in slow motion kind of thing, but more like a very carefully planned out route through the woods that he knew all of the woods. Like, he literally grew up there and in there. He was someone who lived in the woods a lot. And from there, he launched one of the most bizarre and infamous two year crime sprees we have ever seen. He knows the woods, like I was saying, better than anyone. He would build a camp, he would stash his supplies. He'd even set out little hideouts near the houses that he was targeting. And police would like, like, randomly stumble into his camps and think they're close to getting him. But within hours, he realizes they've seen it, and he's off to a new place. One thing I read was, like, during this time, he was in the woods, he was, like, a mile away from his mom. Like, he was in a very small area, and they could not catch this kid at all. But it went further. Not just breaking and, you know, stealing food and stuff. Locals start noticing strange things, like their credit cards are being used online to buy things like bear spray or computer hacking software or GPS tools and, of course, porn. He wasn't just stealing random things. He was literally studying, researching, and upgrading his gear. In one particularly bold move, he broke into a police station, disabled their alarm system, and was able to make out with a few things. And another time, he broke into a fire station. Here's where I say he's kind of pretty smart. Install an infrared camera. That way he could scan houses to make sure no one was in the house before he would break in. That way, you know, he's just going in, getting what he needs, and he's leaving.
- [32:02]
Melissa
Smart for thinking of having, like, thermal imaging before you break into someone's home just to make sure they're not there. I appreciate that very much. For his safety and the homeowner as well, but also not really smart to get one from a fire station just fine.
- [32:20]
Paisha Eaton
I can only imagine how law enforcement felt like, he's breaking into our facilities and we cannot catch him.
- [32:27]
Mandy
It's got to be.
- [32:28]
Melissa
But to use our equipment against us, basically, like, to use, you know, like, it's. It's all just completely bizarre to even think that a teenager, like, was responsible for this.
- [32:38]
Hannah Smith
Can I ask a question real quick?
- [32:40]
Melissa
Sure.
- [32:40]
Hannah Smith
So you had mentioned, like, okay, so he's using credit cards. I'm guessing that's because he's breaking into people's homes and maybe, like, taking their wallet or something. And you had mentioned that he was also buying porn. Did he have, like, what was his connectivity as far as. Did he have, like, Internet access? Did he have a phone?
- [32:58]
Mandy
He had a laptop. I don't remember if he had a phone, but he did have a laptop. Like, as the story goes on, he literally will post pictures of himself on Facebook laying in the woods, and everyone's trying to figure out where he is, where he is, I mean. And you'll hear more about the credit card thing in a minute. It's probably my favorite part of the story.
- [33:20]
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- [33:54]
Melissa
So eventually, by the time he was, you know, in his teen years, he now has found a partner in crime for some of his crime adventures. And this was a friend of his named Harley. So the two of them started breaking into vacation homes together. And Harley later said that he was mostly just in it for the cash. But Colton was always looking for other things. As Melissa was saying, laptops, credit cards, anything, any tool or anything that he could get his hands on that might help him stay one step ahead of the authorities. They would even find keys to cars, and they would go take these cars on joyride. So grand theft auto, now they're just all the crime stacking up. But in a weird twist of conscience or maybe chaos, they would sometimes return the car full of gas, cleaned, and park it back in the driveway.
- [34:40]
Mandy
Can you imagine coming home and thinking, someone's messed with my car, but I have a full tank of gas, and they cleaned it. I don't know that I would call the police. I'd be like, this was the, you know, the car angel, the car cleaning fairy, visited me.
- [34:54]
Paisha Eaton
I feel like if I'm one of these owners of a vacation home, this is like the lure of the island. And I want to break in, right?
- [35:02]
Mandy
I want to be next, right?
- [35:03]
Melissa
No kidding. So it was around this time that residents started calling Colton teen houdini, which I feel like is very apt considering that they really could not find him. And he would appear and disappear and just continue to confuse law enforcement every step of the way. So as words spread about this barefoot bandit teen genius that was just slipping through the cracks and, you know, was not able to be captured. That was how kind of this legend was born. And there were really early YouTube videos about it. Facebook fan groups started popping up. There were even people making and selling t shirts with his name or, you know, barefoot bandit, like, some funny. Like, it was just a big joke, but it really wasn't a joke. So that's where it's, like, very ironic.
- [35:51]
Mandy
So the barefoot thing, though, he was doing this all the time in the woods, everywhere. I don't know that it was necessarily. He didn't like shoes or he liked his feet or he had a thing with me. I don't know. But it was very, like, obvious everywhere he went, because they Would see his footprints. One time, he even pours, I think, flour somewhere, like, on the ground and walks through it so they could see it. Like he was leaving his calling card everywhere. And unfortunately, his calling card is feet.
- [36:15]
Hannah Smith
I can't.
- [36:16]
Mandy
Yuck. I know.
- [36:17]
Paisha Eaton
It's too much after all of the lengths that he went to.
- [36:21]
Mandy
I know, I know. But he really. He. The thing with him is he really does think he's smarter than everyone. And in some ways, he is smarter than a lot of people.
- [36:29]
Melissa
He.
- [36:30]
Mandy
He has, like, a will, a determination, like, he's doing this for himself. And he hasn't had a lot, even education. He really hasn't had a whole lot hurting anyone.
- [36:39]
Melissa
That's the other part about.
- [36:41]
Hannah Smith
Yeah.
- [36:41]
Mandy
Yes and no. You know, there's no victims, but they're kind of odd, if you think about it. If somebody brought them to my house, and just, like, that sense of security, you lose that sense of security. So in that sense, like, oh, well, I.
- [36:53]
Melissa
Absolutely. I mean, he's not physically, like, going out and looking for people to, like, assault or anything. So I feel like. Of course. Of course this is still wrong, and these are still crimes. Absolutely. I just mean he's not out.
- [37:03]
Mandy
He's not, you know, physically hurting, harming people.
- [37:05]
Melissa
Right. He's not out there, like, looking to, like, actually hurt people. And, you know, unless you have.
- [37:10]
Mandy
In a physical way, then he's gonna take it from you.
- [37:13]
Melissa
Unless his feet get all over your stomach.
- [37:15]
Mandy
Yeah. Gross. Burn it down. So at one point, police find one of his recent camps, and they spotted something unusual. They found his dog. And so he very much loved this dog. The police decide we're gonna take the dog in, and they hoped that it would lure Colton in, and it did. Sort of. Instead of turning himself in, though, would you like to guess what happened? Anyone?
- [37:38]
Hannah Smith
He stole the dog.
- [37:40]
Mandy
Thank you. He broke in, stole the car, dog.
- [37:42]
Hannah Smith
I mean, it was his dog. I don't know if it counts as.
- [37:44]
Mandy
Stealing, but we don't know the original place that he got this dog from, to be honest. He stole someone's dog out of the. Out of there. This was kind of funny to me. They called his mom, who he had, like, a relationship with, but it was obviously very rocky. She was like, let me get his dog. And they were like, absolutely not. This dog is part of evidence. She's like, like, what? It's not evidence, but come on. She would have been like, hey, Colton, here's some eggs, and here's your dog. She was not gonna stop him or, you know, not give him, his dog, so. And then there are the planes. Colton was obsessed with aviation. He could actually identify aircrafts by the sound of their engines as they went over him. He would sit by the airfields and watch them take off and land. He would steal credit cards and use them to buy flight manuals online. And if you're like, wait a minute, why is he using credit cards? How is this stuff getting to him? He doesn't have an address.
- [38:39]
Melissa
Right, Right.
- [38:41]
Paisha Eaton
Good question.
- [38:42]
Mandy
One time, he stole a credit card from a restaurant, got the tracking number, had it sent to the restaurant. When he saw that the tracking number said delivered, he broke in and got the book and got back out. So he needed the Internet as part of this, for sure. He taught himself everything. As I said, he has this manual, these books. He's reading them. He's watching thousands of hours on YouTube, which I can't remember how much was even on YouTube at the time. He's doing everything he can to learn about flying, literally anything to become a pilot. He wasn't really interested in becoming a pilot. At some point in his life, he was literally studying for the moment he could try it for real, which is.
- [39:23]
Melissa
A great way to. Great attitude to have towards flying an airplane.
- [39:27]
Mandy
I mean, really, why do it later when you could do it now? Not great, right?
- [39:32]
Melissa
And lucky for Colton, he didn't have to wait very long. The opportunity came a lot sooner than he or anyone ever expected. In the midst of all these news reports about this kid, he stole his first airplane and promptly crashed it. But somehow, YouTube flight school survive, and he got away. He slipped away. The authorities actually didn't even suspect Colton was behind this plane theft and crashing, because literally, why would you think that this kid, barefoot Bandit, you wouldn't put that together and think, well, maybe he now has stolen an airplane. They actually assume that the plane was stolen and crashed by a drug runner who crashed the plane and took off. But one little plane crash, though, was not going to stop our friend Colton. He just really kept right going from that point. He broke into six different airports just trying to find the right plane. I don't know how he was like, eeny, meeny, miny, mowing this or something.
- [40:27]
Mandy
I mean, he.
- [40:28]
Melissa
I don't know how he was.
- [40:29]
Mandy
He knew how to fly, I guess, based on.
- [40:30]
Melissa
I guess.
- [40:31]
Mandy
And he was, like, looking for a very specific one. I guess he didn't learn to fly a lot of them. So it should have been millions of hours on YouTube. And maybe he could have just had his pick of the litter.
- [40:40]
Melissa
I wonder if it's like, you know, when you're learning how to drive a car or even when you're purchasing a new vehicle, like I know that I look at driving smaller car differently than driving like a big thing. Sometimes I get freaked out if I think about like, could I drive a semi truck? Like, I couldn't do that. Maybe it was the same with the plane. Maybe he was like, I can't take a passenger. I can't take a 737. Right. Like I can't drive. He at least knew that much. He had to find like a small enough plane that he thought he could, could handle.
- [41:08]
Paisha Eaton
Right.
- [41:08]
Mandy
Know your limits, you know?
- [41:09]
Melissa
Yeah.
- [41:09]
Hannah Smith
I'm imagining these are like, you have.
- [41:11]
Melissa
To know your limits.
- [41:12]
Hannah Smith
Not commercial Cessnas and stuff. Yeah.
- [41:14]
Mandy
But wouldn't it be great if he.
- [41:15]
Paisha Eaton
Did pretty wild, which there's so many of those little planes up there getting to the. The islands.
- [41:22]
Mandy
Right, Exactly. So he really could just get them.
- [41:25]
Melissa
There's true. So over the course of this spree, he did find a few different airplanes that suited his fancy. He actually stole several and crashed at least four of them, but somehow walked away unscathed every sing time. Either he's like got nine lives or he's just not flying very high and is a very lucky person. But by now the Internet was bought in. Everybody was in on this story. Everybody wanted to know more. He had thousands of Facebook friends. And as Melissa was saying, he's loving it. He loves the attention. He's posting pictures of himself just laying in the woods, just taunting the police and the authorities that are looking for him. Enjoying the fact that people are literally writing songs about him. They're using his mug shot and putting it on merch. They're calling him a modern day rock Robin Hood. At one point, a veterinary clinic employee in Raymond, Washington found a hundred dollar bill and a handwritten note that read, I had some extra cash. Please use it for the animals. And it was signed Colton Harris Moore, AKA the Barefoot Bandit. I don't know, he did seem like he was an animal person, so maybe it was him. But you know, sometimes I'm like, people do weird things.
- [42:33]
Mandy
Had some extra cash.
- [42:34]
Melissa
Strangers do weird things.
- [42:35]
Mandy
No, buddy, you stole that.
- [42:37]
Melissa
You need the cash.
- [42:38]
Mandy
It is very Robin Hood, I guess, guess to have done that.
- [42:41]
Melissa
Yeah, it is.
- [42:43]
Mandy
So some people are of course rooting for him, but others are exhausted, especially the local police department. I can't imagine having to stand up there and say we still can't find him. And they're like, his feet are on the Windows, we still don't know where he is. Like, that has to get old really quick. But of course, Colton's actions weren't completely harmless. He did leave people afraid in their own homes. As I was saying before, he broke into government vehicles, he stole guns. Law enforcement across multiple states spent countless hours and resources trying to find him. And he would just keep moving. He'd steal a car, drive it until it ran out of gas, and then ditch it and find another one. He actually started hopping islands by boat, avoiding capture again and again. Eventually, though, he has an idea. He wants to get to the Bahamas. So he is going to drive across the US Stealing cars, abandoning them as he, you know, runs out of gas, and then grabbing a new one. But finally, In July of 2010, it all comes crashing down, literally. Colton stole one plane, this one is in Indiana, and flew it all the way down to the Bahamas, which right there. How did you, How? I wouldn't even know how if I was up or down. If I was flying a plane, I.
- [43:59]
Melissa
Want to know how come no air traffic control picked this up and was like, why is this random plane not flying at all correctly? Going all the way from Washington?
- [44:11]
Mandy
No, Indiana, it's much better. It's just Indiana.
- [44:15]
Paisha Eaton
It's also like, you hear that once you become a parent, you never sleep through the night again because you just worry about your kids. I mean, this mom is operating on another planet.
- [44:24]
Mandy
Absolutely. Can you imagine? Oh, my gosh. So this time his flight, believe it or not, he crash lands once again. These are smaller planes. It's gotta be him running out of gas. I know at least a few times and like, pretty low to the ground, but still, I, I, Mandy knows I would die if I just fell out of a plane. All my bones would break. I would be a medical emergency. Like, I can barely survive the day. And he's just getting out of crashes over and over again. But of course, he's not done. He gets to the Bahamas, he's crashed. Now he's going to get a boat. So he takes a boat and he leads the Bahamian authorities on a high speed speed water chase before they finally catch up to him and are like, if you try to drive off, we're going to shoot your boat. And so when he tries to do that, they shoot up his boat. He's alive, he's fine. But he was scared, obviously, at that point. And police were finally able to capture him. And just like that, the barefoot banded was grounded.
- [45:19]
Hannah Smith
Wow.
- [45:19]
Melissa
Grounded. You're grounded.
- [45:20]
Mandy
He needed to be grounded a few More times he did.
- [45:24]
Melissa
Starting at 7, the Bohemian authorities extradited him back to the US and once he was back in the US he faced over 30 charges. They ranged from everything including burglary to aircraft theft, which apparently is its own separate crime. I didn't. Not. Didn't know that. But he was facing multiple years of incarceration, and that is, of course, unless he could get himself a great defense attorney. And you bet he did. So you might know this guy. His name is John Henry Brown, and it is the same John Henry Brown who once defended Ted Bundy. So in 2012, Colton pleaded guilty to multiple federal charges, and he was sentenced to six and a half years in prison. He went on to service time, really without any incident, surprisingly, because you would think that the Barefoot Bandit would like Barefoot Bandit his way right out of prison as his, you know, last act of just like completely, you know, he.
- [46:19]
Mandy
Thought about it, but absolutely.
- [46:22]
Melissa
He definitely thought about it. He definitely thought about it. But after his release, his legitimate release in 2016, Colton reportedly went to a halfway house. House. And worked in construction and expressed interest in becoming an aviation mechanic, which definitely makes sense. Might be a great career path for him. He definitely was persistent, and he had at least a little bit of knowledge already going into it, so maybe that would be a good thing for him. But now that the media circus has moved on, his story, of course, lingers as one of the weirdest true crime rabbit holes that we've ever been down. We actually, years ago talked about this story for our Patreon listeners. It's been such a long time ago. They did a documentary about this. This.
- [47:03]
Mandy
It's on Amazon Prime. It's not great, but there's like 48 hours. It's like a weirdly animated thing in parts. So many feet. One time, he's just sitting in the plane. I rewatched it, and just his foot is up there in the most odd way you could ever put your foot. But I'm like, we get it. He's barefoot. They just couldn't stop.
- [47:23]
Hannah Smith
I have a very hard time with the barefoot thing. I got to be honest.
- [47:27]
Mandy
Too much.
- [47:28]
Paisha Eaton
I mean, teenage boy, bare feet, like.
- [47:31]
Mandy
Okay, yeah, you really brought it too much. That is way too much. But of course, we know Colton wasn't actually violent, unless you count the aggressiveness he portrayed. His feet. The amount of times I've seen this kid's feet is upsetting and unsettling. But of course, it wasn't exactly harmless. He was failed by all the adults in his life, really, by the system and by the structures that were supposed to protect him. And he learned to survive on his own. And somewhere along the way, survival turns into a spectacle. And thanks to Internet hype and media fascination, that spectacle turns into legend, really. But behind all the headlines and memes is a boy who really never had a fair shot. Of course, you know, there's a ripple effect of his actions, and it stretches far. It's in people's homes, it's in their communities, and in the lives of people who are still dealing with the consequences. I will say from that documentary, the story is kind of peeling back what I just said, but there's a lady who, I guess Colton had ran through her yard, and she took the footprints made, like, casings and tried to sell them on ebay. And I want to know if she sold them, but she was, like, standing up in the documentary with two feet, and I was like, lady, this is too far. We've gone way too far. So, yeah. So that's really the story of Colton and his barefoot banded bandit badness.
- [48:53]
Paisha Eaton
Wow, what a great story. And I'm from Washington state, and I'd never heard of it.
- [48:57]
Mandy
Really?
- [48:58]
Hannah Smith
Yeah.
- [48:59]
Mandy
I didn't know this one in real time. I will say. I'm normally, like, pretty good on those things. I didn't know this one in real time, but I've been fascinated by it ever since.
- [49:07]
Hannah Smith
Wow, it's so interesting. And, you know, you're right. Like, he's breaking in people's home. He is causing some level of damage and fear, but you can really also feel for him, like, he was this kid that really never fit into society and maybe didn't really have a chance. So then he was like, I'm just gonna make my own way and do whatever I want, and was clearly, you know, is clearly intelligent in. In some way, and he is resourceful.
- [49:33]
Melissa
You cannot say that he's not resourceful. He paid attention and kind of. He was always one step ahead. Obviously, he knew what he was doing. I mean, and I don't. I genuinely don't believe that he was trying to, like, harm or scare anyone for sure. I think it was just him just trying to take care of himself and to get by for sure.
- [49:51]
Paisha Eaton
Like, I don't know what the job is, but there's a very specific job out there for Colton.
- [49:57]
Mandy
Absolutely.
- [49:58]
Melissa
Yes. Yeah.
- [49:59]
Mandy
Can you even imagine. And when you were saying Mandy earlier about the planes being stolen and how that's, like, a federal offense or whatever, it's so funny because, you know, there is somebody in the FBI Whose job is, like, plane recovery or something. We always run into that. We'll be like some FBI agent in charge of art theft. I'm like, really? But, I mean, I guess it does make sense. So there's a job for Colton and there's a job job for everyone, I guess.
- [50:25]
Hannah Smith
I had never heard of the Barefoot Bandit.
- [50:27]
Paisha Eaton
I hadn't either. That's good. And I'm from the Northwest.
- [50:30]
Hannah Smith
Yeah, I know. And you had. Somehow that slipped by.
- [50:33]
Paisha Eaton
Yeah.
- [50:33]
Hannah Smith
They did such a good job of telling the story. They're so delightful.
- [50:37]
Paisha Eaton
I loved how much he loved his dog.
- [50:40]
Hannah Smith
I know, like, anytime someone loves dogs, I have to have a little bit of a soft spot for them.
- [50:45]
Paisha Eaton
Totally. I actually remember when I was adopting my last dog, Bunker, who, you know, rip. Rip. I was at the LA City shelter and there was this beautiful dog there. This was before we found Bunker. And I asked if I could, like, meet this dog. And so my husband and I go in to meet with this dog, and the person who is in there from the shelter is like, oh, don't get attached. His owner's gonna be back for him. Like, the dog gets out all the time. The owner just goes and gets the dog back. And he is an escape artist. Just, like, jumping over every fence and like, it reminded me of the Barefoot Bandit. Like, they cannot be separated.
- [51:24]
Hannah Smith
Always slipping between your fingers.
- [51:25]
Paisha Eaton
Yes. Yes. Well, I have a wreck actually for today.
- [51:29]
Hannah Smith
Oh, great.
- [51:29]
Mandy
Yeah.
- [51:29]
Paisha Eaton
So this is a documentary, and it actually premiered back in 2011 on HBO, and it's called There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane. And the documentary is about Diane Schuller and a terrible car accident that she gets into where there's multiple fatalities and sort of what leads to the crash and unpacking. What was going on for Diane that the family was unaware of that probably led to this crash. It was just a really powerful examination of, like, how well you can know someone and also be unaware of their struggles.
- [52:07]
Hannah Smith
Sounds like there were some dark secrets that were revealed.
- [52:10]
Paisha Eaton
Yes, yes. And it's incredibly heavy and sad, but it's also, there's. You can see despite, you know, because she was driving. So it's like, despite what happened with the crash and the death that came from this crash, there was so much love for her from so many of her family members still, that it has always just stayed with me because I thought it was a really dynamic look at a tragedy.
- [52:35]
Hannah Smith
Is there a trial or a criminal aspect to this?
- [52:39]
Paisha Eaton
You know, I don't remember if there was any sort of, like, post mortem charges. I Wouldn't think so, but I don't recall exactly. But yeah, there's one interview in particular that stands out so much to me and I don't even want to give it anything away. But you should watch it. It's powerful and it's one that I think probably not a lot of people have seen.
- [52:58]
Hannah Smith
Yeah. What is it called again?
- [52:59]
Paisha Eaton
There's something Wrong with Aunt Diane.
- [53:02]
Hannah Smith
I'll put it on my list. I have to tell you, I just watched a documentary. I don't really have a recommendation, but I'm just gonna mention this one. Cause this is one that you recommended to me. Not on air, just on Personal Love has Won.
- [53:17]
Paisha Eaton
Yes.
- [53:18]
Hannah Smith
And you recently recommended this to me and I was shocked, and I think you were shocked too, that neither of us had seen this yet. Because it came out in 2023, I think. And it's about the Amy Carlson, her group, she was this sort of. She called herself Mother God. She had a group of followers and she was found dead in a home in Colorado. And I can't remember what year she.
- [53:43]
Paisha Eaton
Died, but her followers were still there.
- [53:45]
Hannah Smith
Her followers were still there. And we talked about this years ago, like as it was breaking news. Yeah.
- [53:53]
Paisha Eaton
As news of her death was starting to make headlines, we were working on another show and the story came up and we actually reached out about it. And I think the person we made some contact with was her son who she was estranged from. But there was so much going on and so many people working on the story already that it just. It wasn't the for us to be spending our time. But the documentary is so unique because it has so much access to believers, followers, and you don't usually get that.
- [54:24]
Hannah Smith
I think they must have started filming right after she died because they have some very early footage of her followers doing interviews who still believe in her. And I mean, that must have. Just the trust that this documentary filmmaker must have had to build with them is really impressive.
- [54:43]
Paisha Eaton
It was also impressive. I mean, you and I talk about this so much. It's like, especially because we've worked on cult stories, is that these interviews, you never felt like the director, the producer, the person behind the camera was poking any fun at them. I mean, these are, you know, probably considered pretty outrageous beliefs that these people have, but it never felt like we were laughing at them. It was just like an eye opening view into like, wow, they were really in this.
- [55:15]
Hannah Smith
No, I totally agree. And that was really impressive and I like that a lot because it would have been so easy to make fun of these people. And I really felt like they never did that. It was really pretty empathetic viewpoint. Like also, most of the people that were in this cult seem like very kind people that just like really went down a rabbit hole and believe some things that are like, pretty out there. But one of the things also that makes the documentary so great is that part of what this, you know, I'm going to call them a cult. I think that's fair to say cult was doing is they were live streaming. They were selling products, crystals, tinctures, and so part of that brand building is they were live streaming a lot. So there's just so much archival footage of them live streaming over the years. So it is such a well done documentary. I loved it and I would recommend it to anyone. Same Love has won.
- [56:09]
Paisha Eaton
Love has won.
- [56:10]
Hannah Smith
Well, that was our episode this week.
- [56:12]
Paisha Eaton
Thanks for listening and we'll see you guys soon.
- [56:15]
Hannah Smith
Bye.
- [56:17]
Paisha Eaton
If you have a story for us, we would love to hear it. Our email is thenifexactlyrightmedia.com or you can follow us on Instagram Henife Podcast or Blue sky the Knife Podcast.
- [56:27]
Hannah Smith
This has been an exactly right production, hosted and produced by me, Hannah Smith.
- [56:32]
Paisha Eaton
And me, Pasha E. Our producers are Tom Breifel and Alexis Amorosi.
- [56:36]
Hannah Smith
This episode was mixed by Tom Breifogel.
- [56:39]
Paisha Eaton
Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
- [56:41]
Hannah Smith
Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.
- [56:43]
Paisha Eaton
Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.
- [56:45]
Hannah Smith
Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.
- [56:58]
Melissa
Everyone thinks they'd never join a cult.
- [57:00]
Mandy
But it happens all the time to people just like you.
- [57:03]
Melissa
You and people just like us.
- [57:04]
Paisha Eaton
I'm Lola Blanc.
- [57:05]
Hannah Smith
And I'm Megan Elizabeth.
- [57:07]
Mandy
We're the hosts of Trust Me, a podcast about cults, manipulation and the psychology of belief.
- [57:12]
Hannah Smith
Each week we talk to fellow survivors.
- [57:14]
Mandy
Former believers and experts to understand why people get pulled in and how they get out.
- [57:19]
Melissa
Trust me. New episodes every Wednesday on exactly right.
- [57:22]
Mandy
Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.