Benito Vasquez-Hernandez left the Washington County Jail on Thursday in the front passenger seat of a patrol car.

He wore a plaid shirt, khaki pants and tennis shoes.

All of his belongings fit in a grocery bag.

His exit, not through the usual release door, was out of the sight of media waiting as he ended his 905th day in jail -- and with it, his notoriety as the longest-held witness in Oregon and perhaps the nation.

Two hours earlier, he had finished testifying in the murder case against his son, 32-year-old Eloy Vasquez-Santiago, charged in the 2012 disappearance of co-worker Maria Bolanos-Rivera, 55, of Hillsboro.

Before the 58-year-old father took the witness stand, reporters filled the hallway outside the closed courtroom. Vasquez-Hernandez's extraordinary time in custody without committing a crime had become news after The Oregonian/OregonLive reported it last week.

A material witness, under Oregon law, is someone with information about a case who's unlikely to appear at trial. The law allows witness detention without any limit, but in most cases it lasts for less than a week. This case was complicated by Vasquez-Hernandez's lack of education and understanding of the American justice system.

At the witness stand, raising his right hand cuffed to a chain at his waist, Vasquez-Hernandez took a simplified oath.

"Do you promise to tell the truth?"

"Yes," he replied.

Circuit Judge Don Letourneau then let jurors into the courtroom, and the testimony began.

Vasquez-Hernandez denied again and again knowing anything about his son's involvement in the disappearance.

He denied making earlier statements incriminating his son.

"No, that's a lie," he said repeatedly.

In his questions, prosecutor Jeff Lesowski indicated that Vasquez-Hernandez at one time told detectives that he saw blood on his son, blood in a minivan his son drove, and a bloody knife in his son's hand. The prosecutor also indicated that Vasquez-Hernandez told them he saw his son throw away the knife and heard his son admit to stabbing a woman to death.

The witness insisted he had never said those things.

"Sir, your voice is on a tape recording saying those words," the prosecutor said.

"But I didn't say anything regarding that," Vasquez-Hernandez responded, speaking through a Spanish interpreter.

During his almost two hours on the stand, regardless of the question, he said he was innocent. He'd spent two years in jail, he said. He didn't like it there. He wanted out.

As his direct examination reached a confrontational peak, Vasquez-Hernandez told the prosecutor: "I've done nothing and I've said nothing."

"I know you've done nothing," Lesowski said.

"I've just been saying the truth," Vasquez-Hernandez said.

"I know it's hard, sir. I know he's your son," the prosecutor replied. "I know it's probably the hardest thing you've ever done. Please tell the jury the truth."

"I've said the truth about that," Vasquez-Hernandez said. "He didn't tell me anything. How can I say something if I didn't see anything?"

After his testimony, the judge asked the jury to leave the courtroom briefly. He then released Vasquez-Hernandez from the material witness hold.

"OK," Vasquez-Hernandez said.

Deputies took him back to jail to be processed and let him go. The trial continued into the afternoon with other witnesses and is expected to go to the jury Friday.

Oregon law says a material witness should receive $7.50 for each day in custody, but Vasquez-Hernandez's court-appointed lawyer, Alan Biedermann, had been unsure whether the payment would happen.

Biedermann said he was surprised when the prosecutor pulled him aside and instructed him to go to the district attorney's office to pick up an envelope of money for Vasquez-Hernandez.

In the envelope, he said, was a check for $5,750 and another $232 in cash. He took it to the jail and left it with deputies to give to his client.

Sgt. Bob Ray, a sheriff's office spokesman, said deputies worked quickly to speed the man's release.

Ray, who watched the witness leave the jail, said Vasquez-Hernandez seemed subdued. Melancholy.

With a "courtesy transport," Vasquez-Hernandez could go anywhere he wanted, Ray said. He asked to be let out on a street corner in Cornelius. The city of roughly 12,000 is about four miles west of the jail.

Vasquez-Hernandez didn't say where he was going.

"And we didn't ask," Ray said. "He's a free man."

-- Emily E. Smith

esmith@oregonian.com

503-294-4032; @emilyesmith