'Barefoot Bandit' Colton Harris-Moore Strikes Again?

May 16, 2010— -- A pair of boats stolen and then abandoned and a burglary may be the latest escapades in the on-going crime spree of a teenager who has alternately terrorized a group of small islands in the Pacific Northwest and won an international fanbase as an anti-hero.

Colton Harris-Moore, 18, is suspected in dozens of burglaries of homes and businesses and the thefts of four planes, each of which he crashed. Police, aided by federal agents, closed in on him in March in San Juan County, but he evaded capture yet again, sneaking off into the woods he has become so adept at disappearing into.

After the San Juan County Sheriff's Office received a report early today of a sport fishing boat stolen from a private marina on Lopez Island, and at the same time learned from the Coast Guard that the same boat had been found abandoned and floating off Camano Island in neighboring Island County, they put two and two together.

"This incident is being investigated as another possible criminal event involving Colton Harris-Moore," Sheriff William Cumming said in a statement released today.

The sheriff said the theft today may be linked a recent boat theft and burglary that occurred on San Juan Island.

Investigators from the two counties are working together on the cases, Cumming said.

Harris-Moore has been a thorn in the side of police in Washington's San Juan Islands for years, and officials have told ABC's Seattle affiliate KOMO-TV that his haul may total $1.5 million.

He's done most of his damage in Orcas and Camano islands, frustrating and exhausting the bare bones police force that have also had to contend with persistent questions about why they can't keep up with an 18-year-old kid.

"It's changed, and not in a good way, our life style," Orcas Island resident Bob Friel said of Harris-Moore's capers. "The crime level is extremely low and then suddenly you've got kind of this boogeyman who moves around in the woods at night and breaks into people's houses."