Father and son arrested after kidnapping two Forest Service workers in California

A father and son surrendered to law enforcement early Friday, ending a hostage ordeal that left two U.S. Forest Service employees zip-tied and held at gunpoint for about 15 hours near Gumboot Lake in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Federal prosecutors said charges were expected to include kidnapping of a federal employee, and NBC News identified the suspects as Joseph Charles Henrichsen, 49, and his adult son Phoenix Henrichsen.

The Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office first received a call just before 11 a.m. Thursday reporting that a man had zip-tied two U.S. Forest Service employees and was holding them at gunpoint inside a trailer at Gumboot Lake. The workers were later safely recovered from the remote site in Siskiyou County, deep in Northern California’s Shasta-Trinity National Forest.

The employees were reportedly conducting fieldwork or seasonal fieldwork when they were abducted, a job that can take Forest Service staff into isolated terrain with limited immediate backup. Gumboot Lake sits alongside other Forest Service recreation sites, including Gumboot Campground and Upper Gumboot Lake, which underscores how far from routine patrols and quick intervention the encounter took place.

The response drew dozens of law enforcement officers, including FBI agents who flew into Redding from Quantico, Virginia. That scale of deployment showed how quickly a violent incident on federal land can move from a local sheriff’s call to a multi-agency operation involving county deputies, federal investigators and prosecutors.

Authorities said the two suspects were allegedly armed with guns and knives when they were arrested. The case now heads toward federal kidnapping charges, with the workers back safely after a standoff that brought an abrupt and dangerous end to a field assignment in one of Northern California’s most remote forest corridors.