Father, Son Kidnapped Federal Female Workers at Gunpoint in 15-Hour Standoff: Prosecutors

A father and son have been federally charged after allegedly using rifles to kidnap two U.S. Forest Service biologists at gunpoint as part of a 15-hour standoff with law enforcement in a remote Northern California forest.

Joseph Charles Henrichsen, 49, and his son, Phoenix Henrichsen, 23, of Siskiyou County, Calif., were charged July 20 with kidnapping federal employees, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California. Both were detained in Sacramento, where they did not enter pleas. The two federal employees are females.

The employees were conducting a frog-habitat survey near Gumboot Lake Campground in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest on July 16, when Joseph Henrichsen allegedly approached them carrying an AR-15-style rifle, according to the criminal complaint. He zip-tied their wrists behind their backs and led them to a nearby trailer.

Phoenix Henrichsen is accused of aiding and abetting by keeping watch over the hostages when his father stepped away.

The FBI conducted the investigation with assistance from the U.S. Forest Service, Homeland Security Investigations, the Bureau of Land Management, the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office, the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, the Mt. Shasta Police Department, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the California Highway Patrol.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, whose department includes the Forest Service, said she was relieved the employees were home safe.

15-Hour Standoff

A Forest Service law enforcement officer alerted the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office at 10:55 a.m. that two employees were bound and held at gunpoint inside a trailer, Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue said.

What followed was a 15-hour standoff that drew local, state and federal agencies up a one-lane road into rough terrain some 2,000 feet above the valley floor.

The FBI flew its Hostage Rescue Team into Redding, Calif., from Quantico, Va., officials said. Negotiators used drones to locate the trailer and open a line to the elder Henrichsen, who authorities said was armed with an AR-15 and is claimed to have possessed grenades.

At one point, the elder Henrichsen purportedly used one of the victims’ phones to place a call, telling the person who answered that he had taken two Forest Service employees hostage and had “live rounds ready,” according to prosecutors. He said he wanted a federal investigator to come to the site, so the two could talk things through. The voice of one of the captives can be heard on the recording.

Negotiators spoke with him for hours. Both biologists were released around 1:50 a.m. Friday, one at a time, while the father and son walked out and surrendered about 40 minutes later, LaRue said. The employees were freed safely.

LaRue called the surrender and the hours of negotiation that led to it “probably the smoothest thing that I’ve seen in many years.”

“Crisis situations like this don’t often result in everyone leaving the scene safely,” said Brian Tosh, the FBI’s acting special agent in charge in Sacramento.

The FBI led the investigation with help from the Forest Service, Homeland Security Investigations, the Bureau of Land Management, the Siskiyou and Shasta county sheriff’s offices, the Mt. Shasta Police Department, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the California Highway Patrol. Investigators have not established a motive, and LaRue said the men were not known to law enforcement before the standoff.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Campbell is prosecuting the case. If convicted, Joseph and Phoenix Henrichsen each face a maximum of life in prison and a $250,000 fine. A preliminary hearing is set for Aug. 3.