His sister, who did not want her name published, told us he had left his uncle's home in Chatsworth on June 20 in his 1998 green Rav4. She said he intended to visit a "farm" in Humboldt County, California, which is part of the largest marijuana growing region in the United States, an area often referred to as the Emerald Triangle.
One person from that farm has subsequently left the state, and another changed his number, according to a man who identified himself as Joseph's cousin. The family has hired a private investigator.
The Humboldt County Sheriff's Office has a detective on the case, too, a spokesman said. Humboldt County has been inundated with drug-related crime and missing persons cases in recent years, he said. "We have so many missing people," the spokesman said. "We've had two homicides in the last four days. Our homicide and missing persons rate per-capita is like that of Oakland or Detroit."
