Humboldt sheriff seeks help finding missing Southern Humboldt woman

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office asked the public to help find 24-year-old Kylie Bones of Southern Humboldt after she failed to return from a float on the Eel River near Garberville. The county said Bones was reported missing by a friend at about 10 a.m. on May 26, and that she had last been contacted two days earlier, on May 24, at around 1 p.m.

In its missing-person notice, the sheriff’s office described Bones as a white female, about 5 feet 2 inches tall and roughly 110 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. Investigators asked anyone with information to call 707-445-7251, using the public notice to spread the report quickly across a wide part of Southern Humboldt where travel can be difficult and cell service can be unreliable.

Later that same day, the County of Humboldt said Bones had been located and was safe. The missing-person alert was canceled. The short timeline mattered: the report, the sheriff’s alert and the resolution all unfolded within hours, which is exactly how these notices are meant to work when deputies do not yet know whether someone left voluntarily, became stranded or may be in danger.

In Southern Humboldt, the public alert is often the first tool deputies use to fill in gaps after a disappearance. Law enforcement relies on residents to notice details that can tighten the timeline, including sightings, vehicle information, travel routes and the names of people who may have been with the missing person. The sheriff’s office has said recent reports should include a name, date of birth, recent photo and clothing details, information that can move a case faster before precious hours pass.

The Bones case also landed in a county that continues to track unresolved disappearances closely. The sheriff’s office has said its unsolved-cases database holds about 57 unsolved missing-person and suspected-homicide cases dating back to the 1950s. Local reporting citing the sheriff’s office said Humboldt County recorded 244 missing juveniles and 238 missing adults in 2024, with most eventually located. For residents in Garberville, the Eel River corridor and the broader Southern Humboldt region, the Bones alert showed how quickly a local missing-person report can turn into a countywide notice, and just as quickly into a safe-location update once someone is found.