Английская Википедия:1976 Chowchilla kidnapping

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On July 15, 1976, three armed kidnappers hijacked a school bus and abducted the driver and 26 children, ages 5 to 14, in Chowchilla, California. The kidnappers imprisoned the bus driver and children in a truck trailer buried in a quarry in Livermore, California. The victims managed to escape before the kidnappers could issue their ransom demands. All of the victims survived, but suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The kidnappers were caught, convicted, and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Because the victims had not sustained serious physical harm, an appellate court overturned the convictions and the kidnappers were subsequently re-sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. By 2022, all three kidnappers had been paroled. The Chowchilla Kidnapping led to major changes in California laws regarding bodily injury and psychological trauma.

Kidnapping

On Thursday, July 15, 1976, school bus driver Frank Edward "Ed" Ray was driving 26 Dairyland Elementary School students home. The children had spent the day on a summer class trip to the Chowchilla Fairgrounds swimming pool. At approximately 4PM, a van drove into the bus's path and blocked the road. Ray stopped the bus, and three men with nylon stockings covering their faces exited the van and hijacked the bus. One of the men pointed a gun at Ray, the second man drove the bus, and the third followed in the van.

The kidnappers drove to Berenda Slough, [1] a shallow branch of the Chowchilla River. The kidnappers hid the bus and retrieved a second van they had hidden nearby. The kidnappers had modified both vans to transport their victims: the rear windows of the vans had been painted black, and the interiors were insulated with soundproof paneling. The kidnappers ordered Ray and the children at gunpoint into the vans, then drove the victims to the California Rock & Gravel quarry (Шаблон:Coord) in Livermore, roughly Шаблон:Convert from the fairgrounds.

In the early morning hours of July 16, the kidnappers forced the victims at gunpoint to climb down a ladder, through a hatch, and into a makeshift underground bunker. The kidnappers had built the bunker by burying a truck trailer, equipped it with ventilation and a pit toilet, and stocked it with several mattresses and a small amount of food and water. As each child climbed from the van into the bunker, the kidnappers wrote each victim's name and age on a Jack-In-the-Box hamburger wrapper.

Once the victims were inside, the kidnappers removed the ladder, covered the hatch with a heavy piece of sheetmetal, weighted it with two Шаблон:Convert industrial batteries, and buried the opening with dirt to prevent the victims from escaping or being found.

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Victims being escorted by sheriff's deputies after their escape

After several hours, Ray and the older children stacked the mattresses to reach the hatch. As Ray lifted the hatch, 14-year-old Michael Marshall wedged a piece of wood into the opening, moved the sheet metal and batteries, and dug away the remainder of the debris covering the entrance. Sixteen hours after being imprisoned, Ray and the children climbed out of the bunker and walked to the quarry guard's shack, near Shadow Cliffs Regional Park.

Alameda County sheriffs took the victims to Santa Rita Jail, the nearest facility with medical staff. Jail doctors and EMTs examined and treated the children and driver, gave them food and water, while Alameda County Sheriffs took statements and got descriptions of the kidnappers. The victims were then driven back to their families in Chowchilla.

Arrests and convictions

On July 16, telephone lines to the Chowchilla Police Department were jammed with calls from media and frantic families, so the kidnappers were unable to issue their $5M ransom demand (equivalent to $Шаблон:InflationM in Шаблон:Inflation/year). The kidnappers decided to call back later, and fell asleep. When they awoke later in the evening, they saw television news reports: the victims had freed themselves, and were safe.

Meanwhile, the FBI had immediately begun investigating 24-year-old Frederick Newhall Woods IV, the son of Frederick Nickerson Woods III, owner of the California Rock & Gravel quarry. The FBI discovered the younger Woods had keys to the quarry, unlimited access, and free use of its facilities. The FBI also discovered Woods and two friends, brothers James (aged 24) and Richard Schoenfeld (aged 22), had been previously convicted of motor vehicle theft, for which they had been sentenced to probation.

The FBI obtained and executed a search warrant for Hawthorne, the 78-acre Woods estate in Portola Valley. In Woods' room, investigators found journals, a draft of the ransom note, maps, notes, plans, receipts for the vans and the trailer, false identifications, one of the guns used in the kidnapping, and the Jack-In-The-Box hamburger wrapper on which the kidnappers had written the names and ages of each kidnapped child. The FBI also discovered a rental contract for a storage facility, at which they found the vans used to transport the victims, and a getaway vehicle: a Cadillac covered with flat-black spray paint night camouflage. In the notes found by the FBI, the kidnappers outlined their plans to have the ransom money dropped from a plane into the Santa Cruz Mountains at night, and retrieve it under cover of darkness.

The FBI issued warrants for the arrests of Woods and the two Schoenfeld brothers. Eight days after the kidnapping, Richard Schoenfeld voluntarily surrendered to authorities. Two weeks later, James Schoenfeld was arrested in Menlo Park. Later the same day, Woods was arrested by the RCMP in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

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The abductors entering the courthouse for a pre-trial hearing

James Schoenfeld later stated that despite coming from wealthy families, both he and Woods were deeply in debt: "We needed multiple victims to get multiple millions, and we picked children because children are precious. The state would be willing to pay ransom for them. And they don't fight back. They're vulnerable. They will mind."

All three kidnappers pleaded guilty to kidnapping for ransom and robbery, but refused to plead guilty to infliction of bodily harm, as a conviction on that count in conjunction with the kidnapping charge carried a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. They were tried on the bodily harm charge, found guilty and given the mandatory sentence, but their convictions were overturned by an appellate court which found that physical injuries sustained by the children (mostly cuts and bruises) did not meet the standard for bodily harm under the law. They were re-sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. Richard Schoenfeld was released in 2012, and James Schoenfeld was paroled on August 7, 2015.

In October 2019, Woods was denied parole for the 19th time. Over the years, reasons given for the denials have included his continued minimization of his crime as well as disciplinary infractions for possession of contraband pornography and cellphones.

In 2016, a worker's compensation lawsuit filed against Woods revealed that he had been running several businesses, including a gold mine and a car dealership, from behind bars without notifying prison authorities. The heir to two wealthy California families, the Newhalls and the Woods, he inherited a trust fund from his parents that was described in one court filing as being worth $100 million (equivalent to $Шаблон:Inflation million in Шаблон:Inflation/year), although Woods' lawyer disputed that amount. He married three times while in prison, and purchased a mansion about 30 minutes away from the prison.

In March 2022, a panel of two commissioners recommended Woods for parole. The recommendation required the approval of the full parole board, the board's legal division, and California's governor. California Governor Gavin Newsom asked the parole board to reconsider, but the decision was affirmed. On August 17, 2022, it was reported that Woods' parole had been granted and he was to be released from prison.

Aftermath

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The victims riding in a parade to celebrate their escape

Frank Edward "Ed" Ray (February 26, 1921 – May 17, 2012) received a California School Employees Association citation for outstanding community service. Before he died in 2012, he was visited by many of the schoolchildren he had helped save. In 2015, the Sports & Leisure Park in Chowchilla was renamed the Edward Ray Park, and every February 26 was declared "Edward Ray Day" in Chowchilla.

A study found that the kidnapped children suffered from panic attacks, nightmares involving kidnappings and death, and personality changes. Many developed fears of such things as "cars, the dark, the wind, the kitchen, mice, dogs and hippies", and one shot a Japanese tourist with a BB gun when the tourist's car broke down in front of his home. Many of the children continued to report symptoms of trauma at least 25 years after the kidnapping, including substance abuse and depression, and a number have been imprisoned for "doing something controlling to somebody else." What was learned from the after-effects suffered by the kidnapped children has guided the treatment of young victims of trauma since the kidnapping.

In 2016, the 25 surviving kidnapped children settled a lawsuit they had filed against their kidnappers. The money they received was paid out of Frederick Woods' trust fund, and although the exact settlement amount was not disclosed, one survivor stated that they had each received "enough to pay for some serious therapy—but not enough for a house."

Abductors

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Frederick Woods, James Schoenfeld and Richard Schoenfeld

• Frederick Newhall Woods IV (aged 24 during the kidnapping) was repeatedly denied parole until August 2022 when, at the age of 70, he was granted full parole.
• James Schoenfeld (aged 24 during the kidnapping) was paroled in 2015 at age 63.
• Richard Schoenfeld (aged 22 during the kidnapping) was paroled in 2012 at age 57.

In popular culture

A two-hour made-for-television movie about the event aired on the ABC Network on March 1, 1993, titled, They've Taken Our Children: The Chowchilla Kidnapping. It starred Karl Malden as bus driver Ed Ray, and Julie Harris as his wife.

The Chowchilla kidnappings were featured on episode 7 of season 2 of the program House of Horrors: Kidnapped, which airs on the American cable network Investigation Discovery. The episode, "Buried Alive", first aired on April 21, 2015, and was told from the point of view of Michael Marshall, who at age 14 was the oldest of the children on the bus.

Also in 2015, an episode of Inside Edition reunited some of the kidnapped women to tell their stories of the kidnappings. The bus from the kidnappings, which is now stored in a Chowchilla farm warehouse, was also seen in the episode.

In 2019, the television news magazine 48 Hours investigated the story in the episode "Live to Tell: The Chowchilla Kidnapping".

In 2023, the television news magazine 48 Hours aired "Remembering the Chowchilla Kidnapping (Season 36 Episode 20)" on March 18, 2023.

A new documentary produced by CNN, Chowchilla, was broadcast on the network on December 3, 2023.

See also

• 1972 Faraday School kidnapping
• 2013 Alabama bunker hostage crisis

External links

• "'Nobody's Gonna Talk': The ballad of the Chowchilla bus kidnapping", Vox, July 23, 2021.