Nearly 12 years after police say she drove away in an armored van filled with millions of dollars in cash, one of Las Vegas' most-wanted fugitives resurfaced in the city Thursday and unexpectedly surrendered.

Defense lawyers said Heather Tallchief, 33, flew to Los Angeles on Monday from Amsterdam, Netherlands, where she left behind her fiance and her 10-year-old son. She arrived in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

"I truly feel this is the right thing to do," Tallchief told reporters before turning herself in.

Las Vegas attorney Daniel Albregts and Connecticut attorney Bob Axelrod escorted their client Thursday morning to the Lloyd George U.S. Courthouse, where she surrendered to the U.S. Marshals Service.

"She's been wanting to do it for a very long time but simply couldn't until she was sure that her son would be taken care of," Albregts said.

Tallchief, then 21, was hired by Loomis Armored as a guard and driver about five weeks before she disappeared Oct. 1, 1993.

Although news reports indicated she fled in a vehicle holding $3.1 million in cash, a criminal complaint accuses her of stealing $2.5 million.

Albregts said she fled with her boyfriend, Roberto Solis, who was 48 at the time.

Solis, also known as Julius Suave, had spent 17 years in prison for the 1969 murder of a Loomis employee who was killed during a botched robbery in San Francisco.

Albregts said Tallchief became pregnant a few months after fleeing with Solis. Shortly after her son's birth, the lawyer said, Tallchief left Solis and the stolen money.

"He had control of the money," Albregts said. "We will show during the course of this case why we believe we can prove that she didn't have any of the money. He had it all."

Albregts said Tallchief has not seen Solis in more than a decade and does not know his whereabouts.

Tallchief was dressed neatly in pale-colored slacks, a blouse and a suit jacket Thursday afternoon when she appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Johnston with her ankles shackled.

She calmly answered routine questions before Johnston declared her a flight risk and granted a prosecutor's request to keep her in custody. Defense lawyers did not object to the request.

"She's going to handle it well," Axelrod said after the hearing. "She has a good attitude about it."

The woman's lawyers welcomed a national media blitz Thursday.

"We're hoping that the world will see her as a sympathetic figure and so will the court," Axelrod told reporters gathered outside the courthouse.

He said he and Albregts plan to present a defense of "mental duress."

Albregts said: "We believe that we will be able to show that she was under such influence and control of Mr. Solis that it essentially was tantamount to being brainwashed, and on the chosen day he told her to drive away with the money and meet him at a storage unit where he parked the truck, and that's what she did."

Axelrod said that Tallchief's story is for sale and that she plans to give any proceeds to her victims.

When a reporter asked how the defendant is paying for her two lawyers, Axelrod replied, "None of your business."

Albregts then added, "Other than to say with entirely lawful means."

Axelrod said that Tallchief has been living in a "loving family relationship" for several years and that her fiance will care for her son while she resolves her criminal case.

Tallchief said she dropped her son off at his school in Amsterdam on Monday.

"I told him to practice his guitar, have fun at his sporting club, do his homework, and I'll see you soon," she said.

Axelrod described his client as a "soccer mom" who lived a normal life under an assumed identity.

"There is no meaningful possibility that she would have been apprehended," the lawyer said. "Her identity was well-hidden from the world."

Albregts said Tallchief has worked for the past few years as a maid in a small 17th-century hotel in Amsterdam.

He said she has family in Buffalo, N.Y., but has had no contact with her relatives since she fled with Solis.

Albregts said Tallchief chose to surrender because she believed that her son "was old enough to understand but to forgive." She also needed to regain her true identity to marry her fiance, the lawyer said.

Axelrod said Tallchief was referred to him because of his experience representing Americans arrested in Europe. She first contacted him in March.

Albregts said the lawyers notified an assistant U.S. attorney 10 minutes before Tallchief surrendered.

Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Fidencio Rivera said his office had received no warning.

"It was a surprise," he said. "We had no idea this was happening."

He said those involved in her arrest said she was courteous and gave the impression that "she was resigned to move on with this whole ordeal."

David Schrom, a spokesman for the FBI's Las Vegas office, said news of Tallchief's surrender also came as a surprise to those in his agency.

"Obviously, we're very happy to have solved another case here," he said.

Schrom characterized Tallchief and Solis as two of the Las Vegas office's most-wanted fugitives.

After her court appearance Thursday afternoon, Tallchief was taken to the Las Vegas Detention Center.

She faces nine felony charges: bank larceny, conspiracy, making a false statement in application for a passport, interstate transportation of stolen property, flight to avoid prosecution, bank fraud, use of a firearm during a crime of violence, possession of false identification documents and embezzlement.

The stolen armored van was found two weeks after the theft in a garage at 708 S. First St. It was abandoned with a .357 Magnum revolver, a notebook and about $3,100 in small bills.

Authorities said Tallchief, a Seneca Indian, and Solis, a native of Nicaragua, fled Las Vegas in a chartered plane to Denver and were disguised as elderly people, with Tallchief using a wheelchair.

Bogus passports intended for the couple were confiscated in Miami with their photos and the names of Nicole Marie Reger and Joseph Anthony Panura, authorities said.

Mark Clark, spokesman for Loomis Armored successor Loomis, Fargo & Co. of Houston, said he welcomed Tallchief's surrender but said the company wants the missing money.

"I don't suppose she turned the money in when she turned herself in," Clark said Thursday.

Heather Tallchief