Courtesy Fox 31 News Denver

Lance Hering's mug shot.

Lance Hering appears in court today in Clallam County, Wash. (Peninsula Daily News/Port Angeles, Wash.)

Photo by Mark Leffingwell

Lloyd Hering (L) comforts his wife, Elynne Hering (R), during a press conference discussing their missing son, Lance Hering, in Eldorado Canyon State Park Tuesday September 12, 2006 in Boulder, Colo.

Lance Hering

Lance Hering — the Boulder Marine who staged his disappearance and was in hiding for more than two years — was on the verge of turning himself over to authorities before his arrest in Washington state over the weekend, his attorney said Monday.

“When arrested, Lance was on the last leg of his long and lonely journey as a fugitive,” said attorney Alex Garlin. “He was just days short of his planned voluntary surrender. He knew what he had to do and was in the process of doing it.”

Hering was arrested Sunday at Fairchild International Airport in the northwestern Washington town of Port Angeles as his father, Lloyd Hering, a pilot, fueled a red-and-white Cessna 210 that he had rented from Air West Flight Center in Longmont and flown from Vance Brand Municipal Airport the day before.

Air West owner Larry Kuebrich said he didn’t know where Lloyd Hering was headed. He also didn’t know why Hering, who owns a Piper that he stores in a hangar he rents from Kuebrich, didn’t take his own plane to the West Coast.

Authorities arrested the elder Hering on suspicion of “aiding and abetting,” a misdemeanor charge in Washington. But Lloyd Hering, 60, was released Monday pending a charging decision, Port Angeles Deputy Police Chief Brian Smith said.

Police said Lance Hering appeared to be saying goodbye to a woman before the arrest was made. Her name has not been released.

Hering appeared in Clallam County Superior Court on Monday with long, blond hair cascading down to his shoulder blades. His father watched the hearing from the visitors’ gallery.

Lin Mayberry, a legal assistant with the Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, said Hering has refused to sign a waiver of extradition that would bring him back to Boulder County.

She said he is being held on $5,000 bail on a fugitive from justice felony charge and will be arraigned Friday. Mayberry said it is not likely Hering will walk free, even if he posts bail.

“Should he make bail on our case, the feds can still come and get him,” she said.

A panoply of charges

The 23-year-old Iraq war vet was picked up on outstanding warrants from the county and the Marine Corps. He is being held on a felony warrant out of Boulder County for violating probation, stemming from a 2004 conviction of attempted burglary, and he is wanted by the Sheriff’s Office on a false reporting charge related to his faked disappearance.

He is also being held on a separate Marine Corps warrant for failing to return to his unit at Camp Pendleton in California, a more serious federal charge.

“He’ll be facing a desertion charge,” Marine spokesman Curtis Williamson said Monday. “I’m not sure what the maximum punishment is, and we’ll be in touch with a command lawyer. It’s not World War I; we’re not shooting deserters anymore. It is serious. It’s more than shirking your obligations. Desertion is abandoning the people who count on you. It’s not the same as partying too hard and being gone for a few days.”

The Uniform Code of Military Justice calls for stricter punishments for deserters during a time of conflict.

“Any person found guilty of desertion or attempt to desert shall be punished, if the offense is committed in time of war, by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct,” the code says.

Cmdr. Phil West, of the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, said the federal charges would likely take precedence over the county charges.

Since Hering’s disappearance, his unit has deployed to Iraq twice. Williamson said the unit is preparing to deploy on a ship for a tour that will be based from the sea.

Father and son about to take off

The weekend arrest ends an 808-day mystery, which started in August 2006 when search and rescue crews combed Eldorado Canyon State Park looking for Hering after his friend Steve Powers led authorities to believe that Hering was lost and hurt on a climbing expedition.

Hering hadn’t been seen since Aug. 30, 2006, when a security camera inside a Denver Greyhound station captured him buying a bus ticket about 6 a.m. — less than an hour after Powers reported him missing.

Powers, 22, pleaded guilty to false reporting last year for lying to authorities about his friend’s disappearance. He was sentenced to two years of probation, ordered to serve 200 hours of community service and forced to pay the entire $33,000 restitution bill for the cost of the search.

In a past interview with the Camera, Powers said Hering feared a return to Camp Pendleton because he thought men in his unit would kill him for something he witnessed, and possibly videotaped, in Iraq.

Their original scheme was not just to stage Hering’s disappearance but for Powers to be accused and convicted of killing Hering. In the first six months of Powers’ prison stay, Hering would reappear, and Powers would be cleared.

Little about the Marine’s whereabouts has been known since then. In July 2007, law enforcement officials searched the Hering home after getting a tip that he might be back in Boulder, but they found nothing. The Sheriff’s Office also received an anonymous tip over the summer that Hering was seen camping outside Olympic National Park, near where he was apprehended Sunday.

“Nothing came of it at the time, but it looks like it was valid,” West said.

But Sheriff’s Office investigators got a solid tip mid-day Sunday that Hering would likely be at the airport at Port Angeles, which sits on the northern edge of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula close to the Canadian border. They relayed the information to police in Port Angeles, who closed in on the AWOL Boulder Marine and apprehended father and son about 1:15 p.m. as they prepared to take off.

“We told Lance to get out of the plane,” Port Angeles police Detective Jesse Winfield told the Peninsula Daily News. “He complied.”

West wouldn’t say more about who gave his department the tip on Hering’s whereabouts.

Answers sought in 2-year saga

Police are still trying to get answers to some big questions in the case: where exactly Lance Hering has been for the past two years, when his father discovered his whereabouts and where they were headed.

On a Web site devoted to Lance Hering’s disappearance, his father left a message in which he said that during a trip he made to Seattle, he felt his son’s presence nearby.

“Hi Lance. It’s the middle of the night and I’ve been reading Mark Twain’s essays. He about has me convinced that if I just write to you, our messages will cross and I will hear from you soon,” Lloyd Hering wrote in an undated posting. “Maybe it is a slim chance but I want to hear from you so much that I am perfectly willing to grasp at straws. Mental Telegraphy does occur.”

I was in Seattle for the day a while ago and walked all over downtown, seeming to feel you nearby. There was the illusion that if I just went down the right street, there you would be. Of course maybe you are in Miami or Vancouver :( Anyhow I sure hope this reaches you and that you are doing well at least in some way,” he continued. “I love you. I may not know where prayer goes, but I pray for you all day, every day. Good night.”

Nobody answered the door Monday at the Herings’ Boulder home.

Questions also remain about what will happen with the restitution Powers was required to pay for spurring the massive manhunt for his friend.

Powers couldn’t be reached Monday. His father, Lyle Powers, refused to comment.

West said it would be up to a judge to decide whether the money Powers owes should be partially assigned to Lance Hering as well.

The Rocky Mountain News contributed to this report.