Inside the world of tree poachers: how a murder shone a light on rural trauma

Danny Garcia hoped to flee the life of poverty and crime that led him to poach wood from national park land. But the circle of violence was inescapable

The last time I talked to Danny Garcia was two weeks before he was killed.

In December 2022, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake rattled northern California. Its strength was such that along stretches of Highway 101, which runs north-south through some of the state's most celebrated forest, the asphalt heaved and cracked. A hundred people were displaced from their homes.

That night, Danny Garcia was sitting on his living room couch in Eureka, the seat of Humboldt county. Garcia had just returned from his night shift at a lumber mill, about 28 miles away from the earthquake's epicentre, where he operated a board edger, repeatedly straightening and smoothing slabs of rough lumber. After the shaking stopped, he stood up and drove back to the mill to check on his co-workers. Later, he messaged me: It hit hard. Power just came back on."