Two Northern California Forest Service employees alive after kidnapping at gunpoint
Two U.S. Forest Service employees are alive and free after being kidnapped and held for hours at gunpoint in a trailer at a remote lake in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest.
The two employees were conducting seasonal fieldwork near a campground when two men, a father and son, abducted them at gunpoint, zip-tied them and led them to a remote trailer, according to officials. The father, Joseph Charles Henrichsen, then used one of the government worker’s phones to make a call — it was not clear to whom — in which he described taking two “fed” employees “hostage from the Forest Service,” according to a news release issued Friday evening by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California.
That kicked off a 15-hour endeavor by a wide range of local, state and federal law enforcement, including an elite Federal Bureau of Investigation hostage response team flown in from the agency’s headquarters in Quantico, Virginia.
U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officers contacted the FBI and the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office at 10:55 a.m. on July 16, Siskiyou County Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue said at a news conference in Redding early Friday afternoon.
The trailer was somewhere in the area of Gumboot Lake, a lake accessible by dirt roads in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Sheriff’s deputies reached the area around noon and launched drones to look for the trailer, locating it at around 1:03 p.m., LaRue said. Other agencies, state, local and federal, also sent officers rushing toward the area.
Officials started communicating with the alleged kidnappers not long after that, but it was not until around 4:20 p.m. that law enforcement began to negotiate with them, LaRue said. Hours later and well into the night, at around 1:50 a.m., the men released his two hostages, LaRue said. Henrichsen, released first one of the hostages, and then fifteen minutes later after further negotiation released the second, FBI Sacramento Acting Special Agent in Charge Brian Tosh said.
The news release published later Friday stated it was negotiators from the FBI Hostage Rescue Team that secured the two Forest Service employees release. At the news conference that morning, officials said that team had flown in on a Boeing 757 from Quantico.
At 2:30 a.m., Henrichsen and his son, Phoenix Henrichsen, exited the trailer. Joseph Charles Henrichsen was 49 years old, officials said, and his son was 23 years old.
Both men were being charged with kidnapping federal employees, U.S. Attorney Eric Grant said at the news conference. Authorities continued to investigate the men’s possible motivation for the kidnapping, Grant said.
The Forest Service employees do not appear to have suffered serious physical injuries. They are recovering with their families, LaRue said. Officials declined to provide their names or ages.
The kidnapping generated a large federal response, with FBI Director Kash Patel receiving reports, officials said at the press conference, for which the director of the Forest Service, Tom Schultz, travelled to Redding.
Henrichsen reportedly had an AR-15 assault rifle and knives in the trailer with him. At one point he told authorities he also had grenades. During the phone call that alerted authorities to the kidnapping he said he had “live rounds ready to [expletive] anyone who [expletives] with me,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s news release.
“This has been a frightening experience for everyone involved,” Schultz said at the news conference. In a message posted to social media, he described the outcome, in which no one appears to have been injured, as “a testament to the skill and professionalism of our Forest Service law enforcement officers, the FBI, the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office, and every first responder who answered the call.”
LaRue said the Henrichsens did not have a criminal history with the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office.
Public records reviewed by The Bee indicate multiple prior arrests for a person with Henrichsen’s name and age in Oregon, California and Washington. In 2022, that person was charged with committing a hate crime against his neighbors in Bellingham, Washington.
In that incident, a then 45-year-old man with the name Joseph Charles Henrichsen allegedly threw fireworks and walked around his neighbor’s property with a gun days after deputies contacted him over separate aggressive incidents that led them to believe his mental health was deteriorating.
His case was ultimately dismissed when a psychologist determined he more than likely did not have the capacity to rationally understand the nature of the proceedings against him or assist in his own defense.
Naomi Taxay contributed reporting.
This story was originally published July 17, 2026 at 1:41 PM.
