They call him "the Barefoot Burglar," though he often flies from place to place.
The story of Colton Harris-Moore's outlaw odyssey began nearly two years ago, when he escaped a Washington state halfway house while serving a sentence for burglary.
The teenage fugitive has eluded authorities' grasp ever since.
In that time, Harris-Moore has been linked to the theft of boats, planes and other vehicles in the U.S. and Canada, as well as a number of petty thefts and other burglaries.
Most recently, authorities sought Harris-Moore in connection with a stolen plane they believe he flew along the shore of Orcas Island, Wash., which the apparently self-taught pilot flew southeast to the Yakama Indian Reservation last week.
After running out of gas, police believe he made his way back to Orcas Island, before making his way east to Bonners Ferry, Idaho, where he allegedly stole another plane and flew to Granite Falls, Wash.
Investigative journalist Mark Ebner says the young flying enthusiast grew up in a single-wide trailer in the woods of Camano Island, Wash., about 100 kilometres northwest of Seattle.
"He's the boy who loved to fly. He always wanted to fly," Ebner told CTV's Canada AM during an interview from Washington on Tuesday morning.
Inside the trailer where Harris-Moore grew up is a bedroom filled with model planes where the fugitive once dreamed of taking to the skies.
"I walked into his bedroom and there were model airplanes staged all over the room, cockpit posters looking out onto airfields," said Ebner, recounting a visit he made to Harris-Moore's childhood home.
Ebner wrote a story on Harris-Moore that will be featured in the April issue of Maxim magazine, which includes interviews with members of the fugitive's family.
They claim Harris-Moore learned to fly planes by downloading online flight manuals and never boarded a plane before he allegedly stole one.
"On today's Internet, he was able to download a flight manual for these single-engine, high-wing Cessna planes and he learned how to fly them," said Ebner.
Always a risk-taker, Harris-Moore has faced the severe updrafts and downdrafts of the Cascade Mountains on his own and without training, but Ebner said he has always survived unscathed.
"It's amazing to everyone how he's managed to do this," he said.
That's in addition to the fact that the tall, teenage fugitive who was born in 1991 has also managed to elude authorities on his own.
It's the kind of story that has garnered wide media attention and a significant following on Facebook, where he is described as a "public figure" in a group with more than 22,000 fans as of Tuesday morning.
A product of a broken family with alcoholic members, Ebner said Harris-Moore is an unusual talent who suffered through a difficult childhood.
"He didn't have much going for him and he was essentially institutionalized since he was 12 years old," Ebner said.
"Had he been given the educational opportunities, who knows what heights he would have risen to, given his genius."
Ebner said the teenage fugitive was "born a young D.B. Cooper," referencing the man who hijacked a plane in November 1971 and parachuted out with US$200,000 ransom in his backpack, never to be seen again.
