Two Northern California Forest Service employees alive after kidnapping at gunpoint
Two U.S. Forest Service employees are alive and free after being 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 when they were kidnapped and ultimately zip-tied, Siskiyou County Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue said at a news conference in Redding on Friday morning. A U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officer contacted his agency at 10:55 a.m. on July 16, LaRue said, with a report that a man, who was later found to be in the trailer with his son, had taken the two employees hostage and wanted to speak to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The trailer was near Gumboot Lake, a remote alpine lake in the 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.
“It was a large incident,” LaRue said.
Officials started communicating with the man not long after that, but it was not until around 4:20 p.m. that they began to negotiate with him, LaRue said. Hours later and well into the night, at around 1:50 a.m., the man released his two hostages, LaRue said. The man, who authorities identified as Joseph Charles 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.
At 2:30 a.m., Henrichsen and his son exited the trailer. Henrichsen was 49 years old, officials said, and his son was an adult, but they did not provide his age.
Both men were being charged with kidnapping a federal employee, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California 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 response from the FBI, with agency director Kash Patel receiving reports, officials said at the press conference. A special FBI hostage rescue team traveled to Redding from the agency’s headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, in a Boeing 757. The extent of those agents’ involvement in the operation wasn’t immediately clear.
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. Gumboot Lake is deep into the National Forest and on Google Earth appears accessible by dirt roads. Law enforcement officials described the remote location as adding to the challenges of the rescue. There is a campground along the north side of the lake. Officials were not immediately aware if the Henrichsens owned the trailer where they took the government employees hostage, but said it was not government property.
“This has been a frightening experience for everyone involved,” U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said at the news conference. 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 4:41 PM with the headline "Two Northern California Forest Service employees alive after kidnapping at gunpoint."
