Jail Term Will Be A Relief For Mountain Man -- Hermit Describes `Living Like An Animal'

EVERETT - By appearances, he is not the stuff of legends, this grizzled man in a wheelchair who confounded police for more than a decade.

Mincio Donciev is an old, embittered man, left lame during his capture last February, who will spend at least the next two years in jail after confessing to a string of burglaries at vacation cabins near Darrington.

In his first public interview yesterday Donciev, known as "The Mountain Man," disputed virtually all of the prosecution's case; he didn't break into cabins and steal food and clothing; he didn't try to blow up a woman's home in Seattle; and he was never convicted of murder in his native Bulgaria.

In sometimes rambling statements, Donciev, 68, talked of conspiracies and the KGB, of police and paranoia. And during a court appearance yesterday he tried to fire his attorney, a public defender. But in the end it made little difference.

Donciev last month pleaded guilty to burglarizing three cabins along the Stillaguamish River in rural Snohomish County and yesterday was sentenced to 29 months in jail.

In an interview yesterday, Donciev pulled off his sock to display a mangled foot with two missing toes - the result of severe dog bites when he was captured by police near the Stillaguamish River cabins.

High above the river Donciev had dug 10 homes, all crude underground shelters covered with brush.

For 12 years he didn't talk to another person, living a hermit life foraging for food, trying to keep himself clean and knitting new clothes from old ones, with needles made of twisted wires.

It was a desperate, lonely existence and Donciev said he was relieved when he was captured because he knew he would get food and shelter.

"I was living like an animal. Of course I was lonely," he said through an interpreter.

He crafted a stick with a sharp point to ward off bears and he would wade into rivers at night to catch fish with his bare hands.

He ate huckleberries and thistles, snakes and slugs. But Donciev said while he had guns, he never shot an animal. Winters were the worst, he said, with no fish and snow so deep he would go two weeks without food.

Donciev fled into the mountains in 1985 after he was convicted of trying to blow up a Seattle woman's house - a charge he now denies even though he pleaded guilty to it at the time.

He was charged with possession of an incendiary device after police found he had wired the woman's house so it would blow up, after the woman had asked him to move out of her home. He said he had been running a car-repair business at her home and he had no place else to go.

Donciev said he worked as a border guard in Bulgaria, but fled the country to escape Communism and eventually landed in the United States in 1982.

Bulgarian newspapers said he served time for attempted murder in Bulgaria and was convicted of another murder, but escaped from a work camp. Donciev denies that, as well.

"I no criminal," he said in broken English, his graying head shaking in disgust.

Police found Donciev's fingerprints at the burglarized cabins, but yesterday he said he believes they were planted there by an aggressive police department.

Authorities disputed Donciev's new version of how he survived and said there's no truth to the allegations that police set him up.

"I have every confidence in the professionalism and quality of the work done by the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office," said Deputy Prosecutor Michael Held.

Donciev became an enigma in the Darrington area, where he lived a cat-like existence in the nearby Whitehorse Mountain, coming out of the woods only at night.

Donciev said it would take him five hours to hike down the mountain, a full day to climb back up, using two sharpened walking sticks.

He would talk to the trees, afraid of losing his voice, and he listened constantly to a transistor radio. He followed the presidential elections, Seahawk football, and the days of the week on the radio. "I sang and I cried," he said.

Many times he thought he would die. When he first entered the woods, he said, he dug a deep hole, a grave, climbed in and prepared to die. He lay there for days. But then he saw a wild dog watching him and he decided he would try to live.

In 12 years, Donciev said he slept not one night, watchful for coyotes and other wildlife that might attack him. Instead he slept during the day, often until noon.

Did he ever consider simply coming out and surrendering to police?

"Many times I'd think about it," he said, "But what could I do? I didn't know how to do it. When I saw the police coming I was happy. Now they'll capture me, I'll go to prison and eat myself full. I was very happy."

Donciev continues to insist that he didn't steal from cabins, asserting people left food - and even a gun - out for him. "Around the mountains, they knew me," he said.

But two couples, who own homes that Donciev allegedly burglarized, spoke in court yesterday and urged the judge to hand down the maximum sentence.

"We never knew when he might return," said Edith Osborn. "You had your peace of mind taken away from you."

While Held acknowledged that Donciev left behind valuable items and took just survival gear, he said a value can't be placed on the fears the homeowners experienced.

"This is the tragedy here, the need to take from others to survive," Held said.

Those who lived in the mountain cabins were so frustrated that they pressured Snohomish County authorities to capture him, and late last year renowned tracker Joel Hardin was enlisted to find his trail.

Hardin not only found the track, he later led other trackers to Donciev's final lair, a 4-by-6-foot root cellar, hidden but for bottles and cans that surrounded it.

His sentence isn't the end of Donciev's case. When captured he was carrying two handguns, and a firearms charge may be considered later this summer. That could add five years, or less, to his sentence.

Meanwhile, Donciev said he has no wish to return to Bulgaria, but might like to move to Italy, where he once lived.

He said he has no life here, and isn't even sure he will ever walk again.

And he said he doesn't miss his mountain hideaway. "It was hard, but what choice did I have? I'm not going back there any more."