The ballad of the Chowchilla bus kidnapping -
In 1976, a school bus carrying 26 children and their driver disappeared from a small California town, capturing the world’s attention. Forty-five years later, we revisit the story.
In Chowchilla, 150 miles southeast from San Francisco, it’s a normal July afternoon. Languid, hot, and unremarkable. A bus driver is picking up kids from summer school. His name is Ed Ray. A humble rancher with a humble day job, married to a humble bank teller named Odessa. Stocky, about 55 years old. Looks like a guy you don’t want to fight; a guy who works with his hands and knows his way around baling hay. He doesn’t talk much. He’s from down the road in Merced but went to high school here and doesn’t plan on going anywhere else.
When he turns onto Avenue 21, he sees a white ’71 Dodge van blocking the road with its door open. He tries to weave around the empty van when a guy in overalls with pantyhose covering his face jumps out in front of the bus with a revolver. The man walks to the driver’s side window and asks Ed, with no intimidation in his voice, “Would you open the door, please?” Ed opens it.
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The 1976 Chowchilla kidnapping was the abduction of a school bus driver and 26 children, ages 5 to 14, in Chowchilla, California, on July 15, 1976. The three kidnappers held their captives in a box truck buried in a quarry in Livermore, California, intending to demand a ransom for their return. After about 16 hours underground, the driver and children dug themselves out and escaped.
The quarry owner's son, Frederick Newhall Woods IV, and two of his friends, brothers James and Richard Schoenfeld, were convicted of the crime. By 2015, both Schoenfelds had been paroled. The next parole hearing for Woods is scheduled for 2024.
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https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22...bus-kidnapping
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_C...lla_kidnapping