More Woes For Snow-Rescued Couple

Arizona Issues Drug Warrant For Parents Of Snowbound Oregon Family

(CBS/AP)  Arizona authorities have filed felony drug charges against two members of a family that was rescued from a snowbound motor home earlier this week.

Warrants were issued in Snowflake, Ariz., for Elbert and Becky Higginbotham on Wednesday, a day after they and four relatives were rescued in a mountainous region of southern Oregon.

The two are charged with possession of dangerous drugs for sale and possession of drug paraphernalia, court records show. The records show Elbert Higginbotham is also wanted on a charge of misconduct involving weapons.

In an interview with the Ashland Daily Tidings published Friday, Elbert Higginbotham acknowledged he had been arrested on drug charges in Arizona, where the couple live, but he said the drugs were not his.

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

The newspaper said the warrants were issued after Arizona authorities saw TV coverage of the rescue.

The family — the two Higginbothams, Becky Higginbotham's son, his wife and their two children — had set out from Ashland in the motor home on March 4. They were found stranded on a back road in the Coast Range, a remote, snowy area of southwestern Oregon, on Tuesday. Their chances of survival were so bleak that searchers had given up looking for them, CBS News correspondent Vince Gonzales reports.

They survived, along with the family dog and cat, in their snowbound recreational vehicle by rationing dehydrated food and other provisions.

Two adults were found after they left the RV, which had gotten stuck in snow, to seek help. Hours later, rescuers found the others and they were reunited in Glendale, about 80 miles north of the California border.