Missing Humboldt County Sisters Found After Intense Search Operation
Reporting by Karen Foshay in Benbow, CA
Two young sisters who disappeared into the woods near their Humboldt County home two days ago were found safe Sunday during a massive search that rallied their rural community and resulted in the happy ending.
Leia Dorice Carrico, 8, and her 5-year-old sister, Caroline Rose, were found nearly 1 ½ miles from their home in Benbow. They told rescuers they spent Saturday night singing lullabies and telling stories as searchers tried to find them, said Kori Beach, one of the team members who found them.
Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal described the girls as cold, but well. They were provided with warm clothes, water and food. Beach gave them chocolate chip granola bars.
Honsal said Leia and Caroline’s survival and 4-H training played a key role in their ordeal.
“I’m elated that they were found safe,” Honsal said. “This is extreme environment. How they were out there for 44 hours is amazing. These girls definitely have a survival story to tell.”
Leia and Caroline’s mother last saw them at 2:30 p.m. Friday when she declined their request to go for a walk. About a half-hour later, their mother noticed they were gone. Family members and friends looked for them for about three hours before calling the Sheriff’s office for help.
About 100 rescuers joined the search in forest so thick it might require crawling on their bellies to break through. Hundreds of people wrote supportive messages on social media to hope for the best.
"It's super-rugged terrain, very steep canyons and gullies and thick brush, a lot vegetation," the girls’ cousin, Julie Scarlett, told SoCal Connected’s Karen Foshay, reporting from Benbow.
Honsal said that although there was no indication of foul play, he deployed a major crimes investigative team just in case. Honsal said he ruled nothing out, including whether a stranger had picked them up on a rural dirt road.
Rescuers, however, had found wrappers from granola bars, boot prints and signs that the girls tried to start a fire. The girls’ mother told officials the girls had recently purchased the granola, giving officials good clues of where to look, sheriff’s Lt. Mike Fridley said.
Homeschooled in the forest community, the girls knew the terrain, Scarlett said. Each was wearing jackets and boots.
"They know how to be in the woods," Scarlett said. "They are tough little girls."
Honsal credited rescue teams from surrounding counties with rushing to help. Some drove more than seven hours; members stayed up all night while some slept on the ground. Rescuers from Humboldt, Mendocino, Napa and Del Norte counties, along with the state parks department, the California National Guard, the U.S. Coast Guard and Cal Fire were on scene.
The effort included dogs that tracked the girls’ scents, observers in helicopters with heat-seeking devices and California National Guard officers equipped with handheld GPS devices that systematically recorded the areas they had scoured.
Residents also turned up wanting to help, including flying their drones, but were told to stay out of the area to allow the professionals to work.
Throughout the search, Scarlett remained positive. The forest was no match for the girls.
"That's their terrain," Scarlett said. "They've been out in the woods before. They've grown up in the woods. I think they are going to make it."
In an interview with Foshay after the girls were found Sunday, Scarlett said the girls yelled Saturday night for help when they heard rescuers calling out to them.
Early Sunday, Honsal told the slew of rescuers in orange and yellow jackets, “Today we are going to find them.”
Within hours, they did.
“To have a positive outcome like this is absolutely amazing,” Honsal said. “I see it as none other than a miracle. I want to thank God for that.”
Scarlett said the girls were found walking on a road, where they had reached a shop that sells burl wood.
The girls were taken to a hospital for a checkup.
Fridley, who had spent the weekend regularly calling the girls’ mother to keep her informed, said it was a privilege to contact her with good news.
“She melted on the phone,” he said. “We had to hang up.”