Feature story - May 23, 2001

Fugitive led normal life in Jackson Hole
DEA says motel employee tried to smuggle 37 tons of pot.

By Carolyn Smith

Lance McCain loved to ski.

He lived in Jackson Hole for about five years in the mid 1980s, raising a family while working at a downtown motel. Like so many Jackson parents, he taught his oldest son how to ski on Snow King Mountain as soon as the boy could walk.

To his Jackson friends, Lance McCain was a passionate athlete, an avid skier, a musician, a loving father of two sons and an honest man.

But to the DEA, Lance McCain was really Michael Lund, a man who they say in 1978 tried to smuggle 37 tons of marijuana into the country across the Washington coast.

Lund was arrested in Colorado last week after being booked into the Arapahoe County jail for failure to pay child support. His past apparently caught up with Lund when fingerprints connected him to his other identity after 23 years on the lam.

Tom Robbins, the owner of the Parkway and Prospector inns, employed Lund for about five years and said he enjoyed spending time with him.

"He helped with every aspect of business at the Parkway," Robbins said. "Lance was an honest employee. The staff loved to work with him and all the guests loved him."

Robbins said that he was dumbfounded when he heard about Lund's apparent double life.

"It just broke my heart," Robbins said. "I can't believe that he's accused of something like that."

Robbins has fond memories of Lund. He recalled a Christmas when Lund backpacked his oldest son, Michael, into the forest off Teton Pass to get a Christmas tree. Lund hid presents under trees and told Michael that they were left by the spirit of St. Nick.

"His little boys just adored him," Robbins said.

Jackson resident Robert Hartung, who is retired, employed Lund as a handyman and also flew planes with him. Hartung said he knew Lance McCain, not the Michael Lund that he learned about last week when a reporter from Seattle called asking him for information.

"It didn't seem real," Hartung said. "[The reporter] explained the quantity of marijuana involved and the facilities [Lund] put together ­ the Lance McCain I knew did not do that. I didn't know Michael Lund, whoever that was."

Lund's athletic prowess and good-natured attitude made an impression on Hartung.

"I think everybody like him," Hartung said. "He was a very charming fellow."

Hartung said that stories of Lund's life before Jackson Hole had always fascinated him.

"He would tell me tidbits about skiing in Europe or about a sailboat race he won," Hartung said. "When the story broke and all the details were laid out, it all made sense."

Lund, in fact, was a professional skier who was one of the pioneers of freestyle skiing. Lund counted on his own sailing prowess as he allegedly planned to ferry bales of marijuana from a cargo boat to the coast of Washington on his 61-foot sailboat the Joli.

When the freighter was busted by the U.S. Coast Guard, Lund headed south with his then-girlfriend Patricia Karnik, who reported that she dropped him off somewhere in Oregon.

Court and credit records indicate that Lund immediately changed his name and went to Santa Barbara, Calif. He married Wendy Starcher in 1980, who gave birth to Michael in 1982. Within a few years, the family moved to Jackson.

In 1987, Lund and Wendy had their second son, Hans. In 1989, they filed for divorce in Teton County's District Court and Lund left Jackson shortly afterward.
Hartung remembers happier times for Lund, who learned to fly glider planes and earned his pilot's license in the area. Hartung considered Lund to be a jack of all trades.

"Anything he wanted to do, he did extremely well," Hartung said. "He had a lot of diverse talents and was incredibly intelligent."

Hartung and Robbins agreed that Lund probably shouldn't spend the rest of his life in jail. Four drug charges filed against Lund carry five-year prison sentences and $15,000 in fines each ­ the penalties that the charges would have brought in 1978.

Robbins said the crime was committed long ago and that Lund has probably learned his lesson.

"He has led a very honest life and worked very hard," Robbins said. "He learned that he could have been much more successful that way. If he is guilty, I don't know what the point would be to sentence him to jail."

Hartung said a prison sentence doesn't seem too fitting.

"Obviously, it was not the right thing to do," Hartung said. "Twenty-three years ago, he did a foolish thing.

"But he never gave me the impression of being a devious man with a criminal mind."

Both men said they intend to follow the trial, which will begin in two weeks in Seattle. Robbins said he plans to be actively involved in the trial.

"I want to contact the district attorney out there and see what I can do for Lance," Robbins said.

- The AP contributed to this story.

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