SWAT teams search for suspect near Granite Falls

Dozens of police combed thick forest near the small town of Granite Falls on Monday, hoping they'd find a notorious teenage burglar who may have recently turned his attention to stealing airplanes.

SWAT officers set up a perimeter and tracking teams began searching Sunday night after a break-in was reported at a home not far from where a single-engine Cessna taken from Idaho crash-landed in a clearcut last week.

Deputies who arrived to investigate the break-in found the stolen items - blankets, shoes and possibly food, but nothing of high value - behind the home and called for backup after a shot was fired nearby.

"Obviously we're aware of what everyone's talking about, but deputies didn't see him, and so until we make an arrest and know who it is, we can't say," said Snohomish County sheriff's spokeswoman Rebecca Hover.

On the lam is Colton Harris-Moore, an 18-year-old from Camano Island who was first convicted at age 12 and is suspected in nearly 50 cases since he snuck out the window of a halfway house in April 2008. He is believed to have taken two airplanes from the San Juan Islands in the past year before stealing a boat and making his way to Point Roberts, a nub of land in the northwest corner of Washington that's an easy walk from the Canadian border.

From there, he could have made his way across southern British Columbia to Bonners Ferry in northern Idaho, where the Cessna was taken, authorities have said.

Its owner, Pat Gardiner, told The Associated Press on Monday that investigators found bare footprints leading up to the door and inside his hangar; Harris-Moore is believed to have committed some of his other crimes barefoot, even earning himself the nickname of "the barefoot burglar."

Granite Falls, 36 miles north of Seattle, would be along the likely flight path from northern Idaho to Camano Island.

The Snohomish County sheriff's office SWAT team searched for the burglary suspect throught the night before being relieved by the Everett police SWAT officers, and the sheriff's office helicopter, whose thermal imaging system had trouble penetrating the thick forest canopy, was replaced by a Blackhawk helicopter from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Harris-Moore's mother, Pam Kohler, said she has periodically spoken with her son by phone, but hadn't heard from him this weekend or on Monday.

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AP Photographer Ted S. Warren contributed from Bonners Ferry, Idaho.