Couple rescued in snowbound RV face drug charges

ASHLAND, Ore. — Arizona authorities have issued a warrant on drug-related and weapons charges for a couple who were among a family of six rescued from a snowbound motor home this week, according to court documents.

Warrants were issued for Elbert Higginbotham — a self-described survivalist — and his wife on Wednesday, a day after the six were rescued in a mountainous region in Southern Oregon, according to records in Snowflake Justice Court in Snowflake, Ariz.

Elbert Higginbotham is wanted on charges of possession of dangerous drugs for sale, misconduct involving weapons and possession of drug paraphernalia, according to the court records. All are felonies. His wife, Becky, is wanted on charges of possession of dangerous drugs for sale and possession of drug paraphernalia, according to the records.

The Ashland Daily Tidings said the warrant was issued after Arizona authorities saw TV coverage of the Higginbothams and the four others — Becky Higginbotham's son, his wife and their two children.

The six set out in Higginbotham's motor home from Ashland on March 4 and were missing until they were found stranded on a back road in the Coast Range on Tuesday.

The Higginbothams are from Arizona. The four others live in Ashland.

"There is an active warrant for Mr. Higginbotham and his wife," Deputy Commander Kelly Clark, of the Navajo County Sheriff's Department, told the Daily Tidings.

Phone calls to Clark by The Associated Press were not returned.

Police in Ashland said they have not been contacted by Arizona authorities about the warrant.

"We don't have an ongoing investigation of the Higginbothams. We don't have a reason to arrest them at this time," said Sgt. Jim Alderman of the Ashland police department.

Relatives on both sides of the family said they hadn't heard from the Higginbothams since Thursday.

Clark told the Ashland newspaper that Higginbotham and his wife were arrested last year in Arizona, but never charged, on three felony counts, including possession of methamphetamine and possession of a shotgun.

Mary Higginbotham, Elbert's mother, said he had called her the day of the rescue but not since then. She said she learned of the warrant from her eldest son, Gilbert, of Chandler, Ariz.

"We knew he did this in the past, but we thought he was clean now," she said in a phone interview from her home in Payson, Ariz.

Elbert and Becky married about two years ago, and lived together 16 years before that, she said.

The two other adults who were rescued on Tuesday — Peter Stivers and his wife, Marlo Hill-Stivers — were not talking to reporters.

Hill-Stivers' mother, Rose Hill, said the couple had left the Higginbothams at a family apartment in Ashland on Thursday afternoon and hadn't heard from them since then.

"We have no idea where they are," she said. "We haven't heard or seen them since then."

She speculated that the Higginbothams may have gotten a motel room in Ashland. So far as she knows, she said, the Higginbothams don't have a vehicle. Their recreational vehicle was to be pulled out of the mountains this afternoon, she said.

She said any legal difficulties "have nothing to do with Marlo and Pete."

Peter Stivers was raised by grandparents and had little to do with his mother, Becky Higginbotham, while growing up, she said.

Rose Hill told KTVL television that "it's very wrong of them to leave like that," leaving the Stivers to answer media queries about the Higginbothams' past.

Clark said Higginbotham and his wife had agreed to cooperate with law enforcement officers after their arrest, so the couple was not charged at the time.

"We let them go because they expressed an interest in working with law enforcement," Clark said. "We haven't seen hide nor hair of him since. He didn't hold up his end of the bargain."

In an interview with the Ashland newspaper, Higginbotham admitted he had been arrested on drug charges in Arizona. But he said the drugs were not his.

"I was in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said.

Police and Higginbotham say he was house-sitting for a friend in Heber, Ariz., when police raided it on April 21. Higginbotham said he knew the drug was in the residence but called the arrest entrapment.

"We weren't dealing in any way shape or form," Higginbotham said. "We told the cops who were doing it, and now they are making it out like we did it."

Higginbotham said he planned to contact Arizona authorities.

"I've done some stupid things in my life," he said. "I've got to call them and take care of business. We don't run from things."