Christopher boyce where is he today

Parole Commission to grant him early release. After spending almost half of his life in various federal prisons, Boyce was released in September from a medium-security prison in Sheridan, Ore. He made headlines in when he escaped from federal prison in Lompoc; he remained on the run for 19 months and supported himself by robbing banks in the Pacific Northwest. Edgar Hoover once said that if you were a fugitive and you really wanted to go hide, go to Lincoln County, Montana, which is right over the border from Bonners Ferry.

Boyce: Well, I did go up in Canada several times. In Canada I was a foreigner. I talked different, slightly different. I just blended in more in Idaho. And the other thing was that I had friends in Idaho. With the FBI and the marshals after you, when it seems you should have been lying low, you went in to the bank-robbing business. Why did you start robbing banks?

That sounds really cold-hearted, but it costs a lot of money to be a fugitive. And that part of my life, doing that, is what I am most ashamed of, of all the crimes I committed. Looking back on it, when I was sentenced in Idaho … I told the judge that I had never hurt anybody.

That scared people. Boyce: I was willing to, if confronted, to pop off caps not directly at people but, you know … pauses. People who work at banks are trained not to oppose a bank robber. I have to be honest with you, that I did not intend to ever go back to prison.

I was never confronted at a bank, although I was chased away from a bank and I did take out that. You began splitting your time between Bonners Ferry and the Olympic Peninsula, where you bought a fishing boat. And then you took flying lessons. Were you planning to get out of the country or go to Russia? That might have been conjecture of other people but, no, I had no intention.

If I was going to go to Russia I could have very easily gone down to Mexico, booked a flight to Havana and went to Russia. Actually it would have been fairly simple to do that. Boyce: I was taking flying lessons because I ultimately wanted to take helicopter lessons. The reason I wanted to get the ability to fly a helicopter was because I wanted to take Daulton Lee out of a federal penitentiary.

But I was arrested before that particular plan had developed to the point where it could be pulled off or even attempted. But I was going to give him that option. You got caught in Port Angeles, got another 28 years tacked on to your sentence, and were sent back to prison. By this time you are famous from media coverage. How much extra grief did being a high-profile prisoner bring you in prison?

I had only been there a couple of days. Prior to my seeing these people, the head of the guard called me into his office and tried to bully me out of doing the interview, and I basically told him to stuff it. And I pretty much enraged the fellow.

And I really thought I was being murdered at that time and I kept waiting for the knife. I was being stomped at the behest of the captain. And so then they used that as an excuse. Six years in solitary confinement straight. I mean, they just take your brain apart, you know, brain cell by brain cell.

You go mad. It was a hard time. Cait Boyce: I was asked by a friend. It was one of those deals where a bunch of people are sitting around, and the lawyers are kind of B. And the more I started reading about it, the more it really worked on my last nerve. I would wake up in the middle of the night, and it just bothered me so badly. Boyce responded with a friendly letter wishing his old friend well. But he told the Surfer he had nothing useful to offer. Their correspondence continued, sparked by shared youths in Southern California, books, nature and critters.

Soon they were pen pals. As the years piled up, they grew close. So close the Surfer hatched a plan to help Boyce win a parole date. He was intrigued but fatalistic. His criminal record was a train wreck. Two years after the government locked him up for espionage, Boyce broke out of a prison in Lompoc , Calif.

He funded his month run with a string of armed bank robberies, then got an additional 28 years tacked onto his sentence after he was caught in Port Angeles, Wash.

Still, he enjoyed flirting with the Surfer by U. She sent a photo, showing a willowy 6-foot redhead with blue eyes, high cheekbones, and legs turned sinewy by long days carving up waves on her short board. In the late s, the Surfer — now married and deeply immersed in helping Lee — continued to write Boyce. But she was losing hope she could help him get out.

In her mind, it would take a team of lawyers, not a solitary paralegal. Well, I couldn't do that," she recalls. It wouldn't have been fair. So she wrote him a kiss-off letter. Boyce was stung but also felt a measure of relief. Now he had license to quit hoping for a miracle.

It was easier to turn off the world outside the walls, put his head down and do his time. The Surfer wrote Boyce again in April to say Lee would be out by She asked: What about you? She was now divorced, living at the beach in San Francisco, still a hard-charging paralegal.

She told Boyce she wanted to go full bore to help him put together a winning parole packet. Boyce played along. She was like my window to the world. I just started to feel closer and closer to her. Boyce figured he'd probably lose his bid for release. But he was desperate to keep her in his life. He began to think of her as his girlfriend.

It's not uncommon for inmates to fall for a pen pal. Central Oregon, to me, every day is a Sunday. According to Chris, he spent nearly 10 years in solitary confinement, dreaming about these types of lands.

Recently, during a stroll along the Deschutes River, he came upon a herd of deer, he said, and then a cougar. He watched the wildlife scene play out. When presidential candidates visited the area in , Chris was the one fueling their planes. When the Drug Enforcement Administration conducted surveillance on smugglers at the airport, it took place in his office. And he knows how lucky he is to be here, not locked up in Lompoc or Leavenworth or Marion, or even Sheridan, the federal lockup in Oregon where he spent his final prison time before heading to a halfway house in San Francisco.

Of course, that was insane. She noted he still uses a flip phone but is getting pretty good at using an iPad. Now, after nine years in the area, living in relative obscurity, the couple decided it was time to tell their side of the story. But he had reservations about writing the book.