Man held on weapons charges
SANDPOINT — A Spokane man unofficially implicated in the disappearance of a Montana woman has been arrested on weapons charges.
Danny Harold Neep is charged with two counts of unlawful weapon possession charges due to a prior felony conviction.
Neep, 61, made an initial appearance in Bonner County Magistrate Court on Tuesday. Judge Lori Meulenberg set Neep’s bond at $100,000 and appointed a public defender to represent him, court records show.
Neep is accused of unlawfully possessing a 20-guage shotgun and a .22-caliber rifle on Sept. 15, 2017. Neep is barred from possessing firearms due to a 1999 conviction in El Norte County, Calif., for being a felon in possession of a firearm. Neep was convicted of forgery in 1976 in Placer County, Calif., according to court documents.
Neep is being prosecuted as a persistent violator due to his prior felony convictions in California.
The charges against Neep coincide with the search for Mirissa Serrano, who disappeared in Bonner County last fall. Local authorities cast Serrano’s disappearance as a missing persons case, although she is not listed as missing person in state or federal databases, an indication that she is presumed dead.
Serrano’s family took to social media to implicate Neep in the 27-year-old’s disappearance.
“I fear the worst,” Seranno’s father said in a Facebook post.
The day after Serrano was reportedly last seen, sheriff’s deputies and Two Bear Air Rescue out of Kalispel, Mont., conducted searches along U.S. Forest Service Road No. 278, according to a Bonner County Dispatch log. The forest route extends north from the Bayview area and follows the eastern shoreline toward the remote outposts of Lakeview and Granite.
Neep was stopped by a U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officer on Road No. 278 on Sept. 15 about 8 miles south of Lakeview. He admitted possessing firearms and was being held at the Kootenai County Jail on Sept. 19.
Court records indicate Neep accompanied investigators to an area on Road No. 278 known as “the saddle” before being returned to the jail. References to the Seranno disappearance are conspicuously absent in court documents.
Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.