Hering faces military court today
By Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published December 19, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
After more than two years on the run and more than a month behind bars, Marine Lance Hering is expected to learn his fate this morning in a military courtroom.
Hering, 23, is scheduled for a two-hour "summary" court- martial at Camp Pendleton, the Marine base north of San Diego where he was stationed when he disappeared in August 2006 while on leave to visit his family in Colorado.
He faces a single charge of "unauthorized absence for more than 30 days terminated by apprehension," rather than the more serious accusation of "desertion." He faces up to a year in a military prison and a bad conduct discharge from the Marine Corps.
Hering, a lance corporal, was 21 when a buddy reported him missing Aug. 30, 2006, in Eldorado Canyon State Park near Boulder. The friend told an elaborate story about how he had gone for help after Hering had fallen while rock climbing - suffering a head injury that left him disoriented.
Hundreds of searchers walked and climbed in the area for several days, looking for Hering. But ultimately, investigators concluded that it was all an elaborate ruse.
Hering, who was home on leave between tours of duty in Iraq, was captured on videotape boarding a Greyhound bus in Denver after he had been reported missing, police later discovered.
For nearly two years, investigators had no solid leads on his whereabouts. They filed charges against him for violating the terms of his probation in a Boulder burglary case.
Then, on Nov. 16, someone tipped Boulder County investigators that Hering might be getting onto a plane piloted by his father in Port Angeles, Wash. Hering's father, Lloyd, was planning to fly him to the East Coast to consult with a forensic psychiatrist with expertise in post-traumatic stress disorder and then to Texas to meet with his attorney, James Culp.
By the time of his arrest, Culp had been in negotiations with Marine Corps lawyers for several weeks, arranging for Hering's surrender.
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