Two US Forest Service employees were released early on Friday morning after a forest service hostage situation near Gumboot Lake in Shasta-Trinity national forest that lasted more than 12 hours. Law enforcement officers later arrested Joseph Charles Henrichsen and Phoenix Henrichsen, and both men will be charged with kidnapping of a federal employee.
Gumboot Lake in Shasta
A USFS law enforcement officer reported on Thursday morning before 11am that a man had the two employees restrained with zip ties and was holding them at gunpoint inside a trailer. Authorities said Joseph Charles Henrichsen, 49, was armed with an AR-15 and knives and wanted to speak with the FBI.
Jeremiah LaRue, the Siskiyou county sheriff, said around 4pm that authorities began negotiations with Henrichsen. LaRue later said the hostages were released after 2am on Friday morning.
Tom Schultz on the release
Tom Schultz said, “I’m grateful beyond words that both of our Forest Service employees taken hostage on the Shasta-Trinity national forest are home safe.” The workers had been doing routine fieldwork in a remote area when they were abducted, which drew a law enforcement response that reached across the region.
Authorities said his office had not previously interacted with Henrichsen, though newspaper articles and social media indicate that Joseph Charles Henrichsen and Phoenix Henrichsen previously lived in Washington. In 2022, the Bellingham Herald reported that Joseph Charles Henrichsen had been accused of a hate crime for allegedly harassing his landlords, and a judge ruled him incompetent to stand trial before the case was dismissed because of delays in admitting him to a state hospital.
The arrest closes the immediate standoff, but the federal kidnapping case moves next. Eric Grant, the US attorney for the area, is tied to that charge as the case proceeds through the federal system.
