On the Cover
‘ W I T N E S S I NG A M I R AC L E ’ The story of two young sisters lost in the woods and the frantic search to find them
The staging ground for law enforcement conducting the search for 8-year-old Leia Carrico and 5-year-old Caroline Carrico, who went missing in the woods near their home in Benbow on March 1. Photo by Alexandra Hootnick
By Thadeus Greenson thad@northcoastjournal.com
10:32 A.M., SUNDAY, MARCH 3 Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal is running late for a hastily scheduled press conference that's been called in the face of an onslaught of media attention as a rapt nation awaits word on the status of two young girls who have been missing in the woods near Benbow for 44 hours. Honsal doesn’t have much to tell the assembled press. So far, search parties — comprised of personnel from 20 agencies and six scent-tracking canines — have come up empty. The girls — if they are still alive — have now endured two nights out in the rain, with tempera-
tures in the high 30s to mid 40s, in terrain that’s rugged and steep, with gullies and gulches and creeks swelled from days of rain. In short, things look bleak. But Honsal is prepared to put a good face on it, to assure the public that he and hundreds of searchers who have descended on Benbow State Park from throughout Northern California are doing all they can. “We were on our way up to the press conference at the Benbow Inn, about 10:32, walking up from the command center at the state park,” Honsal recalls. “I hear this yelling and screaming coming from the command post. Now, I have a professional group of leaders working underneath me and when I see them yelling and gesturing for me to come back, I could tell something significant was happening.”
Honsal turns and begins walking back. His walk turns to a run. “I’m running back and get about 50 feet from my incident commander and I look at him and he gives me this thumbs up and I’m just like, ‘Thank God,’” Honsal says, the relief still audible in his voice 24 hours later. The girls have been found.
2:15 P.M., FRIDAY, MARCH 1 Misty Carrico is home alone with her three kids at their place near Benbow, which is off the grid, up 6 miles of dirt road. Her husband Travis is at work and Misty Carrico is in the backyard, which abuts an 80acre forest, watching her two girls — Leia, 8, whose name is pronounced “like the
princess,” she’ll tell you, and her 5-year-old sister Caroline — play in the treehouse while she corrals her 2-year-old son Wyatt. The girls are restless and ask their mom to take them for a hike. But Misty Carrico has garbage to load up for a dump run and tells the girls they have to wait for a hike. After she takes Wyatt inside to start gathering trash, the girls decide to go for a walk. This isn’t unusual — Misty Carrico homeschools the girls and they are used to traipsing around the property, walking the road and exploring when they’re not studying, or being shuttled to ballet and baseball practices. The two follow a deer trail until they come to a log — the marker their parents have designated as the boundary they Continued on next page »
northcoastjournal.com • Thursday, March 7, 2019 • NORTH COAST JOURNAL
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