What\u2019s known for certain is that former Ocean Beach resident Garret Rodriguez left for what has been dubbed “Murder Mountain” by outsiders in Humboldt County several months ago to become a marijuana farmer. What is also known is that Rodriguez, 29, never returned.
\nRodriguez\u2019s body was discovered at the end of November, his remains recovered from a rural gravesite following a tip from an anonymous source.
\nHow and why Rodriguez perished remains a mystery, said officials.
\nOn Nov. 30 at about 5 p.m., the Humboldt County Sheriff\u2019s Office received a call from a citizen who told deputies where to search for a possible grave. On Dec. 1 about 7 a.m., Humboldt County sheriff\u2019s detectives went to the location near Jewitt Ranch Road, where they unearthed human remains.
\nThose remains were subsequently identified by the Humboldt County Coroner\u2019s Office as those of Rodriguez.
\n“A forensic pathologist confirmed that Rodriguez is the victim of a homicide,” according to the Coroner\u2019s Office.
\nOnce an Ocean Beach resident, Rodriguez was reported missing April 25 by his father, who had contacted the Humboldt County Sheriff\u2019s Office.
\n\u00a0“His father told the investigating deputy that Garret told him he was coming to Humboldt County to work on a ranch growing medical marijuana in an area near the so-called “Murder Mountain,” Humboldt authorities said.
\n\u00a0“It\u2019s an illegal, underground industry,” said Humboldt County Sheriff\u2019s Department spokesman Lt. Steve Knight, who added two detectives and the FBI are continuing an investigation into Rodriguez\u2019s murder. “Sometimes people who come up here to work in [the marijuana-harvesting industry] just go missing. In this case, there are remains and a family that\u2019s made inquiries, which is enough to begin an investigation.”
\n“People come up here to make a fast buck \u2014 sometimes they never leave,” said Knight.
\nKnight said “Murder Mountain” is not a formal geographical designation, but rather a nickname given to the rural area by “outsiders,” indicating its remoteness in an area known to be frequented by marijuana traders who sometimes wind up missing or worse.
\n“There are no [such things as] legal marijuana farms,” said Knight. The family of Garret Rodriguez retained Cook & Associates, a private investigator in Humboldt County, in May to search for their missing son.
\n“Our goal from the beginning has been to provide answers to the family as to the events surrounding Garret\u2019s disappearance,” said the investigation firm in a prepared statement.
\nExcerpts from statements made by Cook & Associates to the Lost Coast Outpost, an online publication founded in 1996 in rural Ferndale, about the Rodriguez investigation are as follows:
\n“On the day after Thanksgiving, private investigators received calls from anonymous sources that an individual had confessed to the murder of Garret Rodriguez \u2026 The sources advised that the body would be [discovered] off of Jewitt Ranch Road, a general location that had been reported by other confidential sources as early as June 2013 \u2026 The physical size of the property in question made it difficult to search the area without specific directions from someone who knew the spot\u00a0\u2026 It was not until Nov. 30 that the Sheriff\u2019s Office received a more specific location to search that the body was discovered.”
\nAnyone with information related to Rodriguez\u2019s disappearance and murder is urged to contact Chris Cook at Cook & Associates Private Investigations at (707) 839-7422, or by email at pichriscook@msn.com.\u00a0
\nRodriguez family members could not be reached for comment.
\nCook & Associates declined further comment on the case, noting it was a private investigation.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What\u2019s known for certain is that former Ocean Beach resident Garret Rodriguez left for what has been dubbed “Murder Mountain” by outsiders in Humboldt County several months ago to become a marijuana farmer. What is also known is that Rodriguez, 29, never returned. Rodriguez\u2019s body was discovered at the end of November, his remains recovered […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Mystery swirls around death of OB man at Humboldt pot farm","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11593,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-297857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-no-images","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}