2-Day Search Ends in Rescue of Girl, 5, and Father’s Arrest

SANTA CLARITA —  A mother and her young daughter were reunited Thursday after authorities tracked the child and her father--who officials said was armed and had threatened suicide--to a remote campsite in Los Padres National Forest.

Five-year-old Danielle Beverly jumped up and down, waving at relatives waiting for her at the Santa Clarita Sheriff’s Station, appearing cheerful and unaware of the commotion her disappearance had caused.

“She just gave me a big hug,” said her mother, Karen Beverly, after the reunion.

Apparently the little girl had been told by her father that they were “camping out,” Karen Beverly said.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies had combed the canyons near the Beverly family’s Castaic home after the child’s father, Daniel Beverly, 33, told his wife during an argument that “he was going to kill himself, and that [the wife] was going to watch him do it,” said Sheriff’s Lt. Steve Dolan.

Daniel Beverly fled with the child and a hunting rifle Tuesday evening, authorities said, touching off a manhunt that at its peak involved more than 50 sheriff’s deputies from Los Angeles, Ventura and Kern counties.

Ventura County authorities were notified of the family drama after Karen Beverly told deputies her husband may have taken their daughter into Los Padres Forest, where Daniel often spent weekends hunting.

Ventura deputies spent four fruitless hours Wednesday morning searching a 200-square-mile swath in the Lockwood Valley-Frazier Mountain area of the national forest.

“We were really worried about the little girl,” said Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputy Tim Hagel. “The father had a high-powered rifle, was suicidal and had a little child. I’ve been on enough cases to know that many don’t have happy endings.”

But deputies got two crucial tips that reduced the search to just four square miles.

A Ventura County sheriff’s dispatcher in the Lockwood Valley recognized a description of Beverly’s truck and recalled seeing it at Mutau Flats--an unpopulated forest region.

“We don’t see a whole lot of cars out here and the truck had a unique tire cover on the back that looked like cowhide,” dispatcher Sandi Vanni said.

Later that night, a rancher who knew Beverly called deputies with a tip that the distraught father might be staying in a trailer on his property at Mutau Flats.

About 10 a.m. Thursday, Hagel and three other Ventura County deputies landed their helicopter out of view a half-mile from the trailer and hiked in with guns drawn.

Beverly’s truck was found concealed in a barn amid some abandoned cabins and a 24-foot trailer. As they slowly approached, Beverly emerged from the trailer without his rifle and surrendered, deputies said.

Beverly and his daughter were flown to the Santa Clarita Sheriff’s Station.

During the ride, Danielle, wearing an oversized California Angels T-shirt and sneakers with Power Rangers designs on them, appeared unaware of the drama, but spoke excitedly about her first helicopter ride.

“She kept saying that her friends would never believe she got to fly in a helicopter,” Hagel said.

A handcuffed Beverly was booked on a charge of false imprisonment and held on $45,000 bail.

Karen Beverly seemed dazed but relieved Thursday as she spoke to reporters. Danielle, by contrast, seemed unfazed, running through the hallways of the sheriff’s station, her blond braids bouncing off her shoulders.

Relieved family members, smiling as she tossed a rag doll almost as big as herself in the air, said she was “showing off.”