SOUTH BEND – A couple who got snowbound in Oregon and then went on the lam from Arizona drug charges appeared Wednesday in a Washington state court.
Elbert and Becky Higginbotham got a court-appointed attorney and two days to say whether they’ll fight extradition to Arizona, where sheriff’s deputies say they promised to help drug investigators 11 months ago and then vanished.
The couple’s flight ended Tuesday when an off-duty park ranger spotted their recreational vehicle parked along U.S. 101, near Long Beach, Wash., authorities said.
The coastal highway is the one the Higginbothams didn’t get to in early March when they and four Ashland relatives embarked on a trip across the Coast Range in Southern Oregon. They got lost, they said, and spent more than two weeks stuck in the snow, listening to broadcast reports of the search for them.
The Higginbothams were rescued March 21, to national publicity, but almost immediately authorities in Navajo County, Ariz., issued warrants for them, saying deputies had caught them with 1.9 grams of methamphetamine and a shotgun a year earlier.
The Higginbothams left Ashland late Sunday, sheriff’s deputies and relatives said. They had driven at least 400 miles north into Washington state before their arrest.
In orange jail garb Wednesday, the couple appeared separately before Judge Michael Sullivan.
He asked them whether they wanted to be sent to Arizona without a hearing, or whether they wanted to contest the extradition.
“I would just like to talk my wife to make sure we agree on things,” responded Elbert Higginbotham, 54, The Daily World newspaper of Aberdeen reported.
Becky Higginbotham, 44, said only that she didn’t want to waive extradition and wanted a lawyer.
Sullivan appointed a lawyer for them, set bail for each at $25,000 and scheduled a hearing Friday.
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