1976 Chowchilla kidnapping

On Thursday, July 15, 1976, 55-year-old school bus driver Frank Edward "Ed" Ray was transporting 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 4p.m., a van drove into the bus's path and blocked the road. Ray stopped, and three men with nylon stockings covering their faces exited the van and hijacked the bus. One man pointed a gun at Ray, a second drove the bus, and the third followed in the van. The kidnappers drove to Berenda Slough (), a shallow branch of the Chowchilla River, where they hid the bus. They retrieved a second van they had hidden nearby. The kidnappers had modified both vans to transport their victims: the rear windows were painted black, and the interiors were insulated with soundproof paneling. The kidnappers ordered Ray and the children into the vans, then drove them to the California Rock & Gravel quarry () in Livermore, Alameda County Sheriff's Deputies responded and took the victims to Santa Rita Jail, the nearest facility with medical staff. Jail doctors and EMTs examined and treated them and gave them food and water, while deputies took down statements and 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. The kidnappers therefore were unable to issue their $5 million ransom demand (equivalent to $ million in ). They decided to call back later and fell asleep. When they awoke later in the evening, they saw television news reports that the victims had freed themselves and were safe. Meanwhile, local law enforcement and 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. It was discovered that the younger Woods had keys to the quarry, unlimited access and free use of its facilities. Additionally, Woods and two friends, brothers James and Richard Schoenfeld (aged 24 and 22, respectively), had been previously convicted of motor vehicle theft, for which they were sentenced to probation. Local law enforcement obtained and executed a search warrant for Hawthorne, the 78-acre Woods estate in Portola Valley. In the younger Woods' room, investigators found journals, a draft of the ransom demand, maps, notes, plans, receipts for the vans and the trailer, false identification, one of the guns used in the kidnapping and the hamburger wrapper on which were written the names and ages of each kidnapped child. The notes outlined plans to have the ransom money dropped from a plane into the Santa Cruz Mountains at night and retrieve it under cover of darkness. Also discovered was a rental contract for a storage facility. There, the vans used to transport the victims were found, as well as a getaway vehicle, a Cadillac spray-painted with flat black night camouflage. Warrants for the arrests of Woods and the two Schoenfeld brothers were issued. Eight days after the kidnapping, Richard Schoenfeld voluntarily surrendered to authorities. 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 pleaded guilty to kidnapping for ransom and robbery but refused to enter a guilty plea 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 resentenced to life with the possibility of parole. and James Schoenfeld was paroled on August 7, 2015. 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 $ million in ), although Woods' lawyer disputed that amount. Over the years, reasons given for the denials included his continued minimization of the crime as well as disciplinary infractions for possession of contraband pornography and cellphones. Woods married three times while in prison, and purchased a mansion about half an hour away. Governor Gavin Newsom asked the 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==

Frank Edward "Ed" Ray, the bus driver, received a California School Employees Association citation for outstanding community service. Before he died on May 17, 2012, he was visited by many of the schoolchildren he had helped save. In 2015, Chowchilla renamed the Sports & Leisure Park as the Edward Ray Park, and declared every February 26, Ray's birthdate, as "Edward Ray Day". A study found that the kidnapped children suffered from panic attacks, nightmares involving kidnappings and death, and personality changes. Many developed fears and phobias such 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." The treatment of young victims of trauma has been guided by what was learned about the effects of the Chowchilla kidnapping on the children who were abducted. In 2016, the 25 surviving victims 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 amount of the settlement 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==

• 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. Acquaintances described him as a loner who did not meet his father's expectations. • 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==

American crooner Robert Goulet released a ballad about the incident in 1977, entitled "Ballad Of Chowchilla Ray". The investigative news program Hard Copy aired a two-part series in 1992 about the kidnapping. A two-hour made-for-television movie about the incident, titled ''They've Taken Our Children: The Chowchilla Kidnapping'', aired on ABC on March 1, 1993. It stars Karl Malden as Ray, and Julie Harris as his wife. The kidnappings are featured in "Buried Alive", the seventh episode of Season 2 of Investigation Discovery's House of Horrors: Kidnapped. "Buried Alive" first aired on April 21, 2015, and is told from the point of view of Marshall, the oldest of the children, who was instrumental in their escape. 48 Hours examines the abduction in the 2019 episode "Live to Tell: The Chowchilla Kidnapping", On December 3, 2023, CNN aired a documentary on the kidnapping, simply titled Chowchilla. == See also ==