Murder Mountain

I remember one of the first times we went surfing.

Um...

And Garret, he had a little surfboard and I had a board,

and I...

helped him catch a wave, and he really liked it.

He just caught on right away.

So, I had instilled a love for the ocean for him.

We would go fishing and things like that.

Couple years ago, I told him that we bought a lot in Mexico

uh, that is like five minutes away from the water.

"Uh, it's a world-class surf spot,

And I want to give it to you." He goes, "What?"

You know, and he got all excited,

and he was really, really, uh...

happy to hear that.

And I says, "Look, but you have to earn enough money

to put up a little house on there."

I says, "So, the sooner that you get the money,

the sooner you can have it," you know.

So he said, "Okay, Dad."

He got a job on a long-range fishing boat.

And then right about a week or so before he was supposed to leave,

he calls me, and he says, "Dad, I decided not to go."

I says, "Why not?"

He says, "Because I know where I can make more money in a lesser amount of time."

And I says, "Where?" He says,

"Up in the medical marijuana fields up in Northern California."

And I said, "No, son.

Don't even get involved with that, please."

Humboldt, for people that don't know what we are all about, is...

always been known as an outlaw community.

You say, "Oh, yeah, I'm from Humboldt County,"

and people go, "Oh. Okay."

Usually that's a wink-wink, nudge-nudge,

say-no-more situation where, um...

they're assuming that you're just a pot grower,

that that's all you're really all about.

What allured me, and I know a lot of people,

I think it's the freedom.

I think it was the idea of living in the great outdoors,

off the grid, being self-sufficient.

That type of thing.

Things that are harmless, really.

People come up here from all over.

Humboldt County is a great destination to find yourself.

The redwoods, the mountains, the rivers, the ocean.

It's the most beautiful place in the world, in my opinion.

But there's a million places to disappear in Humboldt.

- Can I ask you a question? - Sure.

Are you a local?

No, I'm just here visiting some friends and family.

-Oh, okay. All right, thanks. -Yeah.

Hi, sorry, can I ask you a question? Are you a local?

-Yeah. -Um...

I'm looking for my daughter.

She's a missing person.

I actually come from Australia.

Oh, okay.

And...

-What's her name? -Her name is Asha.

I can't say I've seen her.

-Okay. -Uh-uh.

-All right. -Yup.

Thank you.

There are fliers everywhere.

There's old cases that haven't been solved from 30 years ago.

Then there's cases from a couple years ago that are still unsolved

and then there's new cases cropping up.

You could just tell that there's something going on up here.

Right? There's always a new missing person on front of the store.

There's always these signs.

It's alarming.

The Humboldt County Sheriff's Office

and search and rescue posse continues the search

for a missing woman in the Petrolia area.

Do we got folks from search and rescue?

Awesome. Great. Thanks so much for coming.

And then we got the sheriff as well, so...

Yeah. Thanks for being here.

So, what I would like to do

is to go from her vehicle

and do a ground search

to where this river access is at.

Let's investigate that first,

because that's daunting information that there's a foul smell

uh, that may be related with something deceased.

It's called the Humboldt County Sheriff's Posse, is what we are.

We're volunteers. We're there just to help.

Not only do we do search and rescue, we do evidence searches.

We'll help them out if somebody tosses a gun into a field.

We'll go and help them search for that gun if they can't find it.

Law enforcement in Humboldt is definitely spread thin.

Definitely.

They deal with a lot of things that other counties don't have to deal with.

I've found a few bodies, yup.

I've definitely found a few bodies.

But I think being able to, you know,

at least return that child to his parents.

I think as a parent, not knowing, you know,

where your child is...

you know, I'd much rather know.

It's a really difficult area.

You can bring out 100 personnel and air assets.

However, your search area becomes infinite

once you rule out the high-probability areas.

After that, then it's just a matter of getting the word out to the community

to be on the lookout for our missing person

and to contact the sheriff's office.

The Humboldt County Sheriff's Office is asking for the public

-to keep an eye out for a missing man. -For a missing woman.

-Another man is missing. -Mysteriously disappeared.

Last seen on Highway 36.

More missing people than any other county in California.

Why is that?

There are a lot of missing people here.

I think a lot of people come up to Humboldt County

to get away from life somewhere else.

So you already have a culture of people who kind of want to disappear.

A lot of the public opinion out there

believe that there is possibly a serial killer.

It's crossed my mind.

You know, like, I couldn't-- That's one of the things that came across my mind.

"Maybe there's a serial killer that's killing all these people or something.

All these missing people."

It's a really remote place.

This is why people came here in the first place, it's the remoteness.

It makes you kind of think, what if this guy came up here

because he could get away with this?

You know?

That narrative is flashy and attractive and misleading.

If it's not a serial killer, then what is it?

I-I do not-- If I knew, then I guess these wouldn't be unsolved cases.

What brings you to Northern California?

I have come to Northern California

looking for my daughter,

who became a missing person

on September 21st, 2015.

So you have had some reports and you followed up.

I get vague reports, yes.

But you would say nothing that you really felt like...

No. I did have a girl, the other day,

say that she spoke to someone with a tattoo like Asha's,

and that made me feel really good.

I can imagine.

And how has local law enforcement responded?

The local law enforcement, um...

yeah, it's a tricky...

it's a tricky thing in that they have been,

I would say, overly kind to me,

and they would lend me an ear at any time of the day or night.

However, their MO is different than what we may think it should be.

And you realize that it's really up to you,

the individual family member...

She looks familiar, for some reason.

...to lead the charge.

I believe that's because they have so many reports of missing people.

To leave an anonymous message, you can call 213-986-7671

or Facebook, "Help Find Asha Kreimer."

Reporting for KMUD News, this is Eileen Russell.

There are so many missing persons in Humboldt County that law enforcement

cannot possibly keep up with it.

Within the sheriff's department,

a lot of times the missing persons detective

is also a homicide detective.

This is where our records bureau, where we process,

you know, 12,000 police reports every year.

And missing persons cases, crime reports, those kind of things.

I did have a question,

as somebody who looks at a lot of crime and missing person cases.

Wouldn't it be easier to have one dude who looks at all these missing people

rather than just spending it out, and...

You know, it all depends, because a voluntary missing person...

You know, we have our detective bureau

that looks at these cases, and we have a caseload.

The problem is, when you have, you know, 20 homicides in a year,

some of those things get pushed to the side.

And it's an important thing for us to do, absolutely,

but we also, with the limited resources we have,

we have to prioritize, you know.

And also, people have to work with us.

Especially in southern Humboldt, if there's a problem,

they can't go to law enforcement,

because their lifestyle

and the way they've been making money has been illegal, and still is illegal,

unless you have a permit, which those are few and far between even now.

What we are finding is that missing persons

are very difficult to find in Humboldt County.

And a lot of that is tied back into the cannabis industry.

A harvest is a really big deal, because you're thinking,

"We made it this far.

There's one last chance that we're going to get busted."

A trimmer, or trimmigrant, would be anybody who comes to Humboldt

specifically to make money during harvest trimming.

When I first started trimming, it was just hippie girls, mostly.

All the trimmers were women.

Mostly because Greg used to say, and I agree,

that guys eat more, they drink more, and they sleep more.

Also, usually a hippie girl wouldn't come back and rob you.

But her boyfriend would.

I was just gonna stay for a year or two, and I couldn't ever leave.