An Airman who disappeared from an Air Force Base in North Dakota 40 years ago is in custody of the U.S. Air Force after he was discovered last week living in Florida. 
 
 Jeffrey Michels, 64, was arrested Thursday on charges of desertion after he failed to report for duty at North Dakota’s Minot Air Force Base on July 6, 1977, WFTV reported. 
 
 WHAT KIND OF SENTENCING COULD BERGDAHL FACE? 
 
 Michels, originally from East Liverpool, Ohio, was found living a double life in Sanford, Fla. — under the name “Jeffrey Lantz,” according to a police report. 
 
 The man reportedly used the fake name to obtain a business license in Florida in 1998. Online records show the name Jeffrey Lantz had a certified general contractor license for construction business Atlantic Development Corporation. 
 
 A photo of Michels was posted on July 9 to the Facebook group “Veteran Doe” — a website dedicated to bringing “attention to the many missing veteran/active duty cases and unidentified person cases where there is a possible military connection.” The post was deleted after Michels was discovered. 
 
 It’s unclear if the Air Force opened an investigation into Michels' disappearance due to the Facebook post. 
 
 AIR FORCE AIRMEN ACCUSED OF VANDALIZING HISTORIC SC CHURCH WITH SATANIC GRAFFITI 
 
 Michels, according to WFTV, is in the custody of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. 
 
 Because there is no statute of limitations for deserting a military post, Michels will stand trial in military court. 
 
 Reports of Michels’ arrest come one day after Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl pleaded guilty to desertion charges after he left his post in Afghanistan in 2009. Bergdahl was subsequently held captive by the Taliban until May 2014. ||||| A serviceman who disappeared 40 years ago from an Air Force Base in North Dakota has been tracked down and charged with desertion after leading a double life. 
 
 Jeffrey Michels, 64, was arrested and is being held by the US Air Force and will stand trial for failing to report for duty at Minot Air Force Base on 6 July 1977. 
 
 Michels was unearthed last Thursday (12 October) in Sanford, a city in central Florida, where he lived with his wife and kids under an alias which he had used for years, investigators said. 
 
 According to a police report, Michels had been using the name Jeffrey Lantz. Records showed he used that name in 1998 to obtain a license from the state of Florida for his construction business called Atlantic Development Corporation. 
 
 There is no statute of limitations for desertion, and Michels will stand trial in a military court. 
 
 However, the military rarely enforces the highest sentences for desertion. This ranges from a dishonourable discharge, a prison term typically between two to three years, up to the death penalty. But soldiers are only executed for desertion during wartime, and even then, it has to be demonstrated that their action left serving personnel in danger. 
 
 For instance, even at the height of the Iraq war fewer than one per cent of deserters served prison time, according to New York magazine. 
 
 Also, this week Bowe Bergdahl, the US soldier held as a Taliban captive in Afghanistan for five years, pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehaviour before the enemy. 
 
 The 31-year-old Army sergeant entered his plea on Monday (16 October) before a military judge at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. 
 
 The Idaho native's lawyers have argued he cannot get a fair trial following criticism from Donald Trump during last year's presidential campaign. Trump had called him "a no-good traitor who should have been executed". 
 
 The military does not keep strict records for servicemen and women who have deserted, but the outstanding number is estimated to be around 50,000 based on internal military data, according to New York magazine. ||||| A body found in a rural field was identified Wednesday as that of a 17-year-old Southern California girl who was likely kidnapped while walking to a friend's home after a summer class. 
 
 Moreno Valley residents wearing T-shirts of missing teen Norma Lopez, react as authorities confirm that a body was identified through dental records as Norma Lopez, during a news conference on Wednesday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Moreno Valley residents react as authorities confirm that a body was identified through dental records as Norma Lopez, during a news conference on Wednesday, July 21, 2010, in Moreno Valley, Calif. A... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - This undated file image provided by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department shows Norma Lopez, who has been missing since July 15, 2010, after failing to return from a summer school class. An... (Associated Press) 
 
 Riverside County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Joseph Borja, at podium, confirms that a body was identified through dental records as Norma Lopez, during a news conference on Wednesday, July 21, 2010, in... (Associated Press) 
 
 An autopsy confirmed the identity of Norma Lopez, but investigators would not release the cause of death. 
 
 "I don't want to believe it's her," family friend Melanie Villarreal, 18, told The Associated Press. "We know she's in a better place." 
 
 Police and the FBI have not identified a suspect and have asked the public for help in the investigation. 
 
 "We do have a few leads that we're still following up ... but I wouldn't say that we're any closer," Riverside County sheriff's Sgt. Joseph Borja said. 
 
 About 2,000 people gathered around an athletic field at Lopez's school Wednesday evening for a vigil where 16-year-old friend Moises Michel remembered how Lopez loved dance, especially merengue and salsa. 
 
 "Whenever we were bored we'd just dance with each other, we'd get up and dance," he said. "I'm used to seeing her every day smiling. I'm just in shock because I can't believe it." 
 
 The discovery of the body was reported Tuesday just hours after Lopez's anguished family held a press conference to plead for her return, and authorities said they had no clues and announced a $35,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever abducted her. 
 
 Lopez vanished July 15 after leaving a summer school class at Valley View High School, where she would have been a senior this year. Authorities said she was heading to meet a friend. 
 
 When she didn't show up, her younger sister and a friend went to look for her, found some of her personal items in a field 1 1/2 blocks from the school, and called authorities, Borja said. 
 
 The field, a well-known neighborhood shortcut, is off a street that dead-ends at the base of boulder-studded hills cut with trails. Homes line one side, but in the blazing Wednesday heat the expanse of dirt and dry stubble was deserted. 
 
 Searchers fruitlessly covered the area for several days. 
 
 On Tuesday, a resident driving his tractor-mower on another remote field found the body near a stretch of desert road more than two miles away. The decomposed body, shirtless and clad in jeans, was found face-down in a grove of trees in the agricultural area on the eastern edge of Moreno Valley. 
 
 The mix of suburban-style residential sprawl and large rural areas is common in fast-growing Moreno Valley, a city of 186,000 about 60 miles east of Los Angeles between March Air Reserve Base and a swath of unforgiving, rugged terrain known as The Badlands. 
 
 The teen's disappearance drew wide attention across Southern California, where the high-profile abduction-murders of two other teenage girls in San Diego County _ one jogging alone this year and the other walking to school in 2009 _ led to a sex offender who ultimately admitted the killings and is now imprisoned. 
 
 "I believe this has been made personal because we all have children," Borja said. "It's probably our worst nightmare that our kids can just be taken from a street and killed." 
 
 Borja said it was unknown whether the girl was taken by an acquaintance or a stranger. Her boyfriend had been interviewed several times and was cooperative, Borja said. 
 
 He would not provide details on the items found at the site where Lopez was abducted, explaining that releasing further details could hamper the investigation. 
 
 "We haven't caught the suspect who killed Norma so obviously there is at least a murderer out there, and so I would be vigilant, I would be aware," he said. "If I was a parent I would keep track of my children. I would do everything I could to ensure their safety." 
 
 Valley View High School Principal Kristen Hunter said phone notifications had been made to students' parents urging safety precautions. The school has about 3,000 students, with 400 in summer classes. 
 
 Lopez was taking biology over the summer and was doing well in the class, the principal said. 
 
 Hunter said teachers described the teen as a very good student and a quiet girl who never got into trouble. 
 
 On Wednesday, incoming seniors came and went from campus to have their class pictures taken. 
 
 Jennifer Sanchez, 18, said she knew Lopez through a freshman-year club. 
 
 Lopez was sweet and quiet and mostly spent time at school with her older sister, who graduated last year, her younger sister, and her on-and-off boyfriend, Sanchez said. 
 
 "We called them 'the Lopez sisters' because they were really close to each other," Michel said. "They spent a lot of time together." 
 
 (This version CORRECTS A new approach. Updates with details, community vigil, quotes, scene, area description. Corrects that she was walking to a friend's home, not her home. AP Video.)
– Jeffrey Michels disappeared from an Air Force base in northern North Dakota on a summer day in 1977—and was found last week in Florida living a double life, Fox News reports. Michels, 64, was arrested Oct. 12 on desertion charges filed against him after he went missing from Minot Air Force Base near the Canadian border. Police say the former airman had taken the name Jeffrey Lantz, married, and had kids, per WFTV. In 1998, "Lantz" applied for a business license and started a construction company, Atlantic Development Corporation. Michels, originally from Ohio, was nabbed after the Facebook group Veteran Doe posted his photo in July, nearly 40 years to the day after he failed to report for duty. (That photo has since been taken down.) The site calls "attention to the many missing veteran/active duty cases and unidentified person cases where there is a possible military connection." The Air Force hasn't explained how Michels was found, per the Miami Herald. But Seminole County authorities identified him by a scar on his left leg near the ankle. There's no statute of limitations on desertion, so Michels will stand trial in a military court, per the IB Times. He was turned over to the custody of the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations. Why Michels walked away from the remote base is unknown, but the Herald notes it's known for its nuclear missile silos and hard winters. (One of the first women Army combat engineers was accused of desertion.)