‘Barefoot Bandit’ Says His Mother May Die Before He’s Freed

EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — The former teenage car, boat and plane thief who became known as the "Barefoot Bandit" during a two-year crime spree says his mother is ill and might die before he's released from prison this summer.

Colton Harris-Moore was arrested six years ago, after he crash-landed a stolen plane in the Bahamas. The Herald newspaper interviewed him this week by telephone from Stafford Creek Corrections Center near Aberdeen. He says his mother, Pam Kohler, is fighting advanced lung cancer.

Kohler sometimes made the news during her son's run, such as when she told an Associated Press reporter she was proud of him for stealing planes and hoped he wore a parachute. Harris-Moore says she self-medicated with alcohol when he was young, but the choices he made were his alone.

Harris-Moore is due to be released to a halfway house at the end of July. He says, "I would do another 10 years in prison if it meant my mom could live."