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[dramatic music]
At the present time we know that there's twenty-seven people
missing since about, uh, 4:15 yesterday afternoon.
Still no break in that Chowchilla, California
school-bus kidnapping.
Twenty-six school children
and their bus driver, have vanished.
Vanished. Yesterday afternoon near Chowchilla, California.
[music continues]
(newscaster #1) President Ford directed the Attorney General
to use all available government resources.
The California National Guard
joins state local police and the FBI
in a giant search for the children and the driver.
(female #1) It was like somebody
come down from Mars
and just took 'em off the planet.
(male #1) Was it an outright kidnapping?
A psychopath or sex maniac on the loose?
Whoever did it, put a great deal of planning
and effort and you might even say money.
(male #2) There may never have been
as anguishing a mystery.
(female #2) It's the worst kind of story
you could tell.
(female #3) Being buried alive
is our worst fear.
(female #4) The Chowchilla kids
showed the world what childhood trauma
really does to a person.
(female #5) My childhood ended
July 15, 1976.
I will never get back the kid...
...that I was. That-that kid stayed underground.
(male #3) That happened for each and every one of us.
[dramatic music]
[instrumental music]
(female #6) Chowchilla is in central California.
It was very small-town USA.
[train horn blaring]
(male narrator) Chowchilla is a place
where time can seem to stand still.
But there's always something
that need to be planted or harvested
as the cycle of life continues.
By the time I was there
in 1970
it was mainly cattle and farming.
(Ed Bates) They had a fair and a rodeo.
(female announcer) '12:46.'
[horses neighing]
(Ed Bates) Each year, they had a cattle drive.
[police siren wailing]
[cows mooing]
Right through the center of town.
(Mike) My dad was a world champion
steer wrestler.
[music continues]
I was raised right.
Really to believe in God
and cowboy.
At an early age, I knew I wanted to be a rodeo cowboy
like my dad and his friends.
(Jennifer) Chowchilla was a wonderful place to grow up.
We'd catch frogs.
We'd go roller skating down the hills.
Go play in the mud.
In the irrigation ditches.
The town had no crime.
No crime at all.
(Patricia) You didn't have murders.
You didn't have a lot of big cases.
It wasn't uncommon to go
all night long on a graveyard shift
and the phone not ring one time.
(Lenore) In Chowchilla, the children could develop
a sense of basic trust.
And that is an important foundation in early life.
That sense, that you can just sort of trust the world.
[church bell dinging]
(Larry) It's one of the few towns in America
that had fewer bars than it had churches.
[laughs]
As a child, God was very real to me.
(pastor) By the power of our living God...
(Larry) We had angels, demons.
I could imagine Satan's army.
My dad said that we all have
a guardian angel
that keeps those demons at bay.
You imprint that on a three year old's brain
and there is just no doubt.
[kids chattering]
(Lynda) At the time
we were in summer school.
We did arts and crafts, ceramics.
We got to go swimming.
[water splashes]
I remember we had actually started a petition
so that we could have an extra two weeks of summer school.
'Cause we were having so much fun
we did not want it to end.
I have a large family.
I'm third youngest
in a family of eleven.
That day, I had three siblings on the bus
and two cousins.
We were little innocent children.
[ominous music]
(Ed Ray) Okay, load 'em.
-Want to load em'? Come on. -Yup.
(boy #1) Where we going? Where are we going?
(Ed Ray) We're going home. Take you home.
(Lynda) Ed Ray was the driver that day.
He was a local farmer.
You could tell, this man was bucking his own hay.
(Larry) Yet, he was so kind.
He knew all the kids by first name.
Knew most of their parents.
(Glen) There's not a one of them
that didn't want to hug his back
when they got on the bus.
(Mike) I remember mom would come get me
every day at noon all summer.
And the day before...
...the kidnapping, I got into my mom's beer
and...tried to make some popcorn
almost burnt the house.
She walked in and said
"Okay, Mike, well, your punishment is, you know
you're gonna have to ride the bus home tomorrow."
[instrumental music]
That day, I was out in the orchard
with the teacher's daughter
messing around and stuff and, heh
the bus is starting to leave at 3:30.
And, she's like, "You better go get on the bus.
Buses are leaving."
So I took off running
and flagged down the last bus leaving
which was Edward's.
♪ Bending over miles of cotton ♪
♪ Finally ruined my daddy's back ♪
♪ As he overcompensated for me ♪
(Jennifer) When we loaded up on the bus
I went to the very back so that I could be rowdy
and talk with my friends.
I was a very outgoing, outspoken child.
And I was constantly getting in trouble on the bus for talking.
♪ As he pulled me through that hot Chowchilla dust ♪
(Jennifer) My brother Jeff was also on the bus.
He was one year ahead of me in school.
An honorable student.
Basically an all American kid.
(Lynda) Jeff was right in front of me, by the way.
He was a sweetheart.
He was my ten-year-old boyfriend.
♪ As I'm falling through the hot Chowchilla dust ♪♪
(Larry) As a child, I was hyperactive.
I was such a problem on the bus
you couldn't keep me in a seat.
And me being me, I forgot to take my...
...meds that day.
I was moving seats.
Bugging this person and hitting this person
and pulling this person's hair.
My sister Andrea
was sitting by me on the bus.
She was getting me to relax.
Basically, she was my best friend.
I remember, a lot of the girls had a crush
on the 14-year-old cowboy, Mike Marshall.
(Lynda) He was definitely a handsome, 14-year-old boy.
(Larry) Never heard of him.
Never really seen him before.
Here is this kid
who comes out of complete obscurity
for the sole purpose...
...that God knew
what was about to happen.
[ominous music]
We were driving home.
As usual, we were dropping kids off
along the way.
We're in the middle of the orchards and fields.
We turn this corner...
...and Ed Ray stopped.
[brakes hiss]
[music continues]
(interviewer #1) I'd like you to tell me, in your own words first
uh, when you're riding the bus
just tell me what you remember.
(Jennifer) There was this white van parked on the road.
And then...
[loud thumping]
[dramatic music]
Two guys jumped out with guns...
...and one told Ed to open his door.
[banging on door]
[dramatic music]
So Ed opened the door.
And then the guy got in.
He had a pantyhose over his head.
He told Edward to go to the back of the bus.
(Mike) When Edward opened the door
one of the kids, Jeff Brown
he got up and said "We didn't do it."
And everybody kinda laughed.
He thought it was a joke.
(Lynda) I was scared, so I ducked
under my seat.
[tense music]
(Larry) Ed Ray got up and he moved to the back.
I went back over to my sister Andrea.
I held her hand.
The guy with a shotgun
he's scaring me with his gun.
(Young Mike on tape) They told everybody in the first two seats
to go to the back of the bus.
And I was in the fourth seat.
Everybody was scared.
(Lynda) They kept their gun pointed in the direction
of all of us children.
So it was the whole time
pointed at the children.
[tense music]
Even more scary was the pantyhose
that they had pulled over their face.
(Larry) They were tight.
Smashing their nose down.
Their eyes were hollow.
They reminded me of demons.
[sinister music]
And then all of a sudden, we were driving.
(Mike) I'm trying to figure out what's going on.
If I can figure out the why...
...to maybe I can figure out a way to...
...interrupt what's going to come next.
And we drive a little further and the guy runs the bus
into a big slew.
[rumbling]
[ominous music]
(Lynda) It was a deep incline.
We were jostled all over the place.
When we finally stopped, we saw another van.
Now there was a white van and a green van.
(Larry) The van drove right back
to the door of the bus.
And then they had all the kids
on the right hand side...
...go into the white van.
(Jennifer) In that first group of children was my brother.
He turned and looked at me down my aisle.
He gave me that look of
"You just need to be quiet."
And so I did.
I had seen enough TV shows
that I knew that
this was serious.
(Mike) I was the first one
getting into the van.
Going through the door, there's another guy
standing there like a statue
pointing his gun straight through.
So you had to go by him.
[ominous music]
They had plywood all inside the vans
so that you couldn't see out or anything.
And then they backed the second van up to the bus.
(Jennifer) The other kids, we got in that van.
I was scared.
Because there was absolutely no communication
from them on where we're going
or what they were gonna do with us.
And then they shut the doors.
[door slams]
I had fixed Michael, bacon and tomato sandwiches for dinner.
At about 4:30...
...I started looking for the bus.
[birds chirping]
(Carol) It didn't come.
[instrumental music]
[indistinct chattering]
(Patricia) About 4:30, I got a phone call
from a parent that the children
hadn't arrived home after school.
I thought they've had a flat tire
or the bus has broken down or something like that.
Then we received several more calls.
[phone ringing]
(Ed Bates) In 1976, the sheriff's office
had one patrol officer in Chowchilla.
There was only one little bitty office.
And one phone.
When the call came in that the bus was missing
I said "what do you mean missing?"
How does a school bus all painted yellow
in a small county, show up missing?
I put out all points full.
[phones ringing]
It was a summer session.
So the bus driver didn't take the normal route
that he would take to drop children off.
So, we had to check everywhere.
(Carol) I went all the way to the school
backtracked, looked down every street...
...every which way...
...didn't see anything.
I knew something was wrong.
The parents were congregating at the police station.
'Cause, it-we were getting really anxious.
We're trying to locate 26 lost children
along with their driver.
Never, in my wildest dreams...
...did I think something
major like this could happen in Chowchilla.
[sirens blaring]
[engine rustling]
(Jennifer) It seemed like we were driven around
for like hours upon hours.
It was hot in that van.
(Larry) It was just stifling.
Kids got sick from the motion of the vehicle
and no food, no water.
(Jennifer) I just felt like an animal being taken to slaughter.
If you as a child
can be thrown into the back of a van
without any comforts, they didn't care about us.
(Young Jennifer on tape) I told a few of my, um, little friends.
And I told them, be brave 'cause everything's
gonna be alright.
[soft music]
(Young Mike on tape) We thought that they might
be back there killing the guys on the bus
'cause we didn't know what they were doing to 'em.
(Lynda) I was separated from my three sisters.
Were they alive?
Did they get left behind?
(Larry) Andrea and I were together.
I took her hand.
There was some security there.
[soft music]
(Lynda) We prayed.
We sang "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands."
Nobody clapped their hands.
(Lenore) All of us have a wall
against getting totally overwhelmed.
And that wall is our defenses
our coping mechanisms, humor.
And when the wall
gets broken, that's trauma.
[engine rustling]
(Lynda) They wouldn't let us use the restroom.
I held myself all day.
I was in tears.
Because I was in physical pain.
Jeff didn't want me to be embarrassed
'cause he knew I was embarrassed.
And so Jeff wet his own pants
and took my hand and placed my hand on his lap.
He said, "Look, I went, you can go ahead and go."
[music continues]
Edward was very quiet.
I think he comprehended
that this was serious situation.
The kids were...
...asking me, you know questions about when they were
gonna see their mommies and daddies
and...I think that they
believed that I would tell them the truth.
I told them, "Yes, you will."
And I didn't lie.
I didn't tell them what...
...lifetime it might be.
[siren blaring]
[indistinct radio chatter]
(Ed Bates) We were looking for them everywhere.
Then I recalled one of my sergeants
he didn't have an airplane, but he had another buddy that did.
So I asked him to get up in a plane.
[airplane droning]
(Dan) My dad, Robert Gudgel, was well known
as a local aviator.
And he approached dad right here
to augment the search.
I remember going out
flying the airplane out over the ash slew
looking for the bus.
[suspenseful music]
(Dan) Dad took Brenda, slough down here to the south
and dad is the one that spotted it.
(Dan) It was difficult to see from the ground
because the sloughs had quite a bit of trees.
[plane whirring]
(Patricia) They knew something
was terribly wrong at that point
when they found the empty bus.
(Carol) I couldn't understand it.
I actually looked up in the sky.
"UFO's. What?"
"Where are the kids? Where's Michael?"
(Ed Bates) This was a major case.
I called governor Jerry Brown's office.
I said I want every state agency
that has cars and radios in my office.
They said, "You got it."
In the meantime, nearby county's said
"What do you need? We'll help you any way we can."
We set up roadblocks.
[people chattering]
[music crescendos]
(Mike) We were driving around for
seemed like hours and hours and hours.
Until they finally stopped.
[brakes creak]
And started hearing
sawing and hammering.
[distant sawing]
[distant hammering]
[ominous music]
And now all of a sudden the...door flies open.
[door opens] [dramatic music]
(Larry) They took Ed Ray out first.
(Mike) And then they grabbed one of the kids.
Door flies shut again.
Few minutes would go by
they'd reach in, grab another kid.
(Jennifer) And I scooted myself
way to the front of the van again.
I was trying to survive at that point.
(Mike) I felt helpless.
That to me was-was scariest
because now we were gonna find out what's going on.
(interviewer #1) When they opened the doors, what did you see?
(Young Jennifer on tape) I saw...
...it was kind of like a tent
but it had three sides
and it had a roof on.
(Larry) They had built this...
...stretcher and covered it
with some kind of a tarp.
And they had backed the van
underneath the stretcher.
And so it was enclosed.
[indistinct whirring]
I remember that my knees gave a little bit just from
not having stood up
in for so long.
[ominous music]
They asked me my name.
I couldn't pronounce my 'Rs.
So I was "Lawwy Pot."
And that's how they
wrote it down.
[suspenseful music]
(Jennifer) They asked me my name
and my age and they took my shirt.
So at that point it was just me and my pink fuzzy swimsuit.
(Lynda) They took my purse, white leather purse
which had a little address book.
And I thought are you giving these guys
who are pointing guns at you...
...your address and phone number
where they can get the rest of your family?
Finally it came down to me and this little Monica
and...she was four years old.
Hardest parts that sticks out of my head was
I had to either hand her over to them
or leave her there.
And I couldn't hand her over.
They escorted me...
(Larry) ...to a-there was a hole in the ground
with a ladder coming out.
[ominous music]
I looked down the ladder
and I could see Ed Ray.
The kidnappers gave him one flashlight.
I did not want to go down there.
I knew if I went down that hole
I was never coming back out.
Time froze.
And then Ed Ray...
...grabs my ankle
he says "Come on son, it'll be okay."
[sniffles]
Then I climbed down into there.
[ominous music]
(Jennifer) Inside this hole that we were in
we were in the dark again.
You couldn't really comprehend
at that point where you were.
I found my brother.
So I knew that he was alive.
My sisters were there.
When they let Monica come down
I was relieved.
(Jennifer) Some of the younger children
were whimpering and crying.
I remember Jodi Heffington
was one of the older girls
who tried to keep the younger kids
calm, somewhat...
...and composed.
Some people just had that personality
of an older sister figure
that was there to help.
[ominous music]
(Larry) I looked around.
There were some mattresses and some blankets.
There was a table in the back
and it has water around it.
I remember thinking I wanted that water so bad.
(Lynda) And there was some food.
They had cereal, peanut butter, bread.
(Larry) For us to use the restroom
they had cut out holes.
Like, we're okay, at least for now.
We're okay. We're all alive.
(Mike) We're all back together.
Suddenly they drop
like a manhole cover
over...the hole.
(Mike) That's when we started
hearing that dirt.
[rumbling]
You know, phhshhh!
We were being...
...covered up, buried alive, you know.
[loud rumbling]
[ominous music]
[distant chattering]
(George Osterkamp) I was a young news director at KQD
the public television station.
So, the news of the kidnapping came to me
on a wire machine.
[dramatic music]
I realized that this was a big story.
It was probably the story of the decade.
Possibly the story of the century.
[indistinct chattering]
News media just flooded the place.
[indistinct chatter]
(George) The phone lines were jammed.
Both with reporters and anxious parents.
It was a great story for reporters.
A terrible event for parents.
Good evening. There may never have been
as anguishing a mystery.
(George) It was covered everywhere.
The bus has been found.
There are no signs of violence.
And there are only horrified
guesses as to what may have happened.
(George) It led the newscasts.
Still no break in that Chowchilla, California
school bus kidnapping.
It was internationally covered.
[dramatic music]
But in those early hours, of course, nobody knew anything.
There are a lot of theories as to why.
You tell me what the theories are, I will select one.
We have no theories at all.
What would you say about the possible motive, then?
-Do you have a theory as to-- -No, I really don't. I don't really have one.
(Ed Bates) Every half hour, ABC, CBS, NBC
all of 'em come in. "Okay, what you can tell us?"
Given all that we've got, frankly it's a very
baffling case because we don't know any motive.
(male #4) This morning authorities organized more search parties
but we're still at a loss without explanation.
It was a crime beyond imagination.
(George) With reporters trying to get information
in any way possible.
(male #5) Debbie Zilstra was the last child
to be let off the bus before it disappeared.
(reporter #1) 'Had you ever seen any cars following the bus before?'
No.
(reporter #1) 'You have any idea who might've done it?'
No.
(reporter #1) 'Did you see anything after the bus let you off?'
Nope.
The sheriff says the only thing he's ruled out
at this point is the possibility of a flying saucer.
And there are those in this area
who don't rule out that possibility either.
(Patricia) There were people calling in with conspiracy theories.
I remember talking to one person
going on and on about the son of Sam.
Must've received at least a 1000 calls
thinking it was the "Zodiac Killer."
Or Moon, up in Oregon.
(Patricia) I mean, in the last few years we've become used to
terrorist activity in this country, unfortunately so.
(reporter #2) 'Is it a political act?'
That's speculation, sir.
Your guess is as good as mine at this point.
[dramatic music]
(Jennifer) You could hear these, like, exhaust fans
and if you went to the sides
you could feel air coming in.
Not air-conditioned air
but warm air circulating.
To me there was just very little air.
(Mike) Very hard to breath.
(Jennifer) After so many hours
it just becomes desperate.
(Young Mike on tape) Edward yells that
"Would you please
"open the door, I beg of you?
"Pretty please, pretty please let us out.
"I've got blank checks if that'll help any.
Then he says "Everybody here say, pretty please."
So we all start saying it.
And the guy wouldn't answer us.
Ed Ray and Mike Marshall...
...took the flashlight and really started looking around.
Every crack and every crevice, looking at the walls
they're looking at the cracks on the ceiling.
[suspenseful music]
(Young Mike on tape) We knew if we could get out
was to go through the top.
All the little kids, they started saying
"Try and move it."
Edward didn't want because he thought we'd get hurt
if they caught us trying to get out.
We begged Edward "Please, try."
"You've gotta try, we're gonna die in here."
"You've gotta get us out."
(Larry) Ed Ray put his hands up and he
pushed on it a little bit.
Ed Ray is a stout man but man!
It was not moving.
(Jennifer) The water was running out.
Nobody's come to find us.
And then the batteries on whatever fans
they had going, they just stopped.
[fan blades whirring to a stop]
[music continues]
(Mike) I remember Andrea was sitting by herself, praying.
(Larry) Ed Ray got us all to calm down.
He had all 26 of us take a nap.
I don't know if it was the heat...
...but I kept going back to camping trips...
...that I had had with my family.
[soft music]
I could see the water.
Waiting for that monster fish.
I could...
...see us gathering around
the campfire, I could smell the smoke.
[music continues]
(Lenore) In the past hallucinations
were attributed to viruses
head injuries.
But what hadn't been known before Chowchilla
is that pure fright
getting scared to death
could make you hallucinate.
[music continues]
One little child
saw right through the ceiling of the hall.
Right through all the rocks and the dirt
that had been piled on.
And saw the scene of kidnappers
sleeping above them.
That was a complete mirage...
...and that came from being traumatized.
[unnerving music]
(Larry) When I woke up
something was wrong.
[ceiling creaking]
Dirt was coming in.
And dust.
(Mike) It made like a plough...
[imitates creaking] Like that.
[Mike imitates creaking]
What's going on?
(Larry) The only thing holding the roof in place
were four by fours
one on the ceiling
and then a post
holding it up.
You could hear the screeching of the metal...
[metal screeching]
...and the roof...
...just gave. [roof rumbling]
[children screaming]
(Jennifer) It was terrifying.
There was dust and dirt
that was flying everywhere.
(Lynda) Thought we were gonna die right there.
That's when we thought we would smother to death.
[screaming frantically]
And then it finally stopped.
But, anyone that touched that beam
[sand trickling]
...the sand would trickle in.
So we couldn't move.
We-we had to stay put
wherever we were at.
We knew we wouldn't last much longer in there.
(newscaster #2) Good evening. The California National Guard today
joined state and local police
and the FBI in a giant search
for 26 Californian children.
There are no real clues
only an eerie silence
in a frightening and bizarre case.
(reporter #3) Throughout much of this day
parents and other family of the missing children
came to the command post set up in Downtown, Chowchilla.
(Glen) At that time, there was a 100 people
waiting for word and it was scary.
I want to express to you
the governor's concern, and my concern.
The California Highway Patrol Police
and if necessary, the National Guard
are available to assist in the search.
When somebody disappears for that long
and you have no word whatsoever
on where they might be, you're scared to death.
(reporter #4) 'Do you have any children?'
I do and I would have had two children
on that bus but she woke up sick yesterday morning
[voice breaking] and I didn't send her.
[sobbing] And she was so...
[sobbing]
My husband, Bob, he was in Canada
at the Calgary Stampede.
He was practically in tears trying to get home.
I was able to sleep for a while
but as soon as I opened my eyes
it was like a ton of bricks hit me.
(reporter #5) Guess now all that we can do is to join with the families
and loved ones of those involved
and pray, pray hard for their safe recovery.
[eerie music]
(Lynda) We begged Edward, "Please try.
"You've got to try. We're gonna die in here.
You've got to get us out."
I remember Edward
saying that
it looked like we were gonna have to
stay down there and kick the bucket.
Edward was fearful
that his actions...
...could cause harm
not only to him but to us.
(Jennifer) But Mike didn't have that sense of hopelessness.
(Mike) You know, a little fear kind of hits you
but at the same time
it generates more...
...power.
I was trying to process it all
and I thought to myself
"If we're gonna die, we're gonna die
"getting the hell out of here, you know
we're gonna die trying."
[tense music]
(Jennifer) They started stacking up mattresses
to get to the top.
Even a lot of the younger kids
took turns doing whatever it is
that their young little bodies can do.
We're not gonna die. This is not how we're gonna end.
Jodie's job was to shine the flashlight
while Michael went up
and with all his might
gave his cowboy push.
[ceiling creaking]
(Mike) All the kids are calling
"Mike, you can do it, Mike."
And I don't feel it move
or see it move
but all the kids
I just heard them say,
"it moved, it moved."
(Larry) For the first time, I felt hope.
Kinda wondered if he was my angel.
My guardian angel that dad talked about.
At that point, we said, "Edward you have to help him.
"You, we-we've got to get out of here.
We're going to die. We're gonna suffocate in here."
(Jennifer) Edward was fearful that
somebody was up there, just waiting.
[suspenseful music]
But he finally went over and helped.
(Larry) Ed Ray started pushing
with everything he had.
They knew something was on it
but we didn't know what it was.
And so he pushed up...
...and he got that man-hole cover up
maybe about yay high.
And Mike Marshall stuck his arm through there...
and started feeling around to see what was
on top of the man-hole cover.
[tense music]
Mike got his hand in there
and just started doing this.
And together, they move that man-hole cover back
just far enough that a corner of a battery...
...could be seen.
That's not the battery in your car.
These bus batteries
weigh about 125, 150 pounds.
Had Ed Ray...
...slipped...
...had Ed Ray lost his grip...
...Mike Marshall would have lost his arm.
(Jennifer) I remember them saying "watch out" and two
these two huge batteries
were dropped down on the stack of mattresses.
[music continues]
And then Ed Ray had a good look.
(Larry) Around this hole they made a square box.
Three feet high, something like that.
And that was so they-as they were covering the van with dirt
that they wouldn't cover up the hole.
[cassette static]
(Young Mike on tape) Edward squeezes me through this
half foot hole.
I get on top of it.
I start pounding on this box.
(Young Jeff on tape) There was a box up there.
And he tried to bang his way out...
...but he couldn't do it.
And then they got me up there with them.
We both tried with our backs to push up, push up.
We couldn't do it so Mike tried with his feet
and I tried with my back...
...and still we couldn't do it.
(Larry) All the seams were pretty well connected.
Mike said we need something to pry it with...
And keep the part of box spring mattress
and was using the wood.
[thudding]
(Young Mike on tape) So, Robert got up there with me for a while
and we started hitting and pounding
hitting and pounding.
(Larry) Mike would slam
that corner
over and over and over.
It just seemed impossible.
[tense music]
(Mike) I start digging underneath the plywood...
...and I realized after I do that for a while
the material, rock and stuff
is f-falling down
outside of the plywood
into the hole I'm digging.
[rocks rumbling]
I thought maybe I could get weight...
...off the top.
And then I can pull it out and I can scoop it
down inside the hole.
[sand and rock rustling]
He was kicking dirt, throwing dirt.
[thudding]
-(Larry) He kept digging. -(Jennifer) I don't know how Mike maneuvered
up in that wooden box.
I don't know how long he was up there.
It was hours.
(Lenore) Our sense of time under scary conditions
is one of the most vulnerable senses
that we have.
The child who held the light
knew it was a long, long time.
I was, you know, drained, tired.
(Mike) I had no energy.
I was exhausted.
My equilibrium was totally off
and I didn't know
what was up or down.
That's when Edward started
"Pretty please, don't hurt him."
I could hear that in my ears, ringing over and over.
"Pretty please don't hurt him.
He doesn't know what he's doing."
And I'm starting to believe that they are up there.
That to me was scary.
I tried to see if I could get any weight off the top.
It moved like just a crack
and I looked through it
and plain as day...
...I was going up...
[eerie music]
...in a door opening...
...and beyond that was just pure darkness.
And you could tell there was somebody
in that darkness.
But I remember it vividly.
(Lenore) This was a hallucination
that he had dug into no place
that they were still in horrible trouble...
...that they were going to die anyway.
So he went back down
and he sat down and he thought
"But what am I digging for?
This is terrible, I can't do this."
And then he decided "I'm gonna go up there anyway."
I took a, you know, a little break
there, but, then I...
(Mike) ...something clicked in me.
I said to myself, "You're a cowboy.
"You're gonna get on that crazy ass horse
you're gonna do whatever it is you gotta do."
I didn't care if they were up there.
I wasn't gonna give up.
From that point on, it didn't matter.
[tape recorder static]
(Young Mike on tape) I started hitting stuff.
Hitting and pounding and hitting and pounding.
And I pulled the chip out.
[crackling]
And then there was big crack.
[creaks]
[sand crumbling]
I cracked the ceiling.
[soft dramatic music]
And then I almost got it open.
Stole some more and...
[sand whooshing]
...and cracked it again.
[sand whooshing]
[music continues]
(Larry) It was...the most beautiful
ray of sunlight...
...that I had ever seen.
(Mike) I just remember the light
and the air.
So much air, cool air.
Not knowing if they're up there
I kept thinking
we're getting creamed or we're getting out.
And I think that's why
I didn't hesitate
to stick my head out.
As soon as I had it broke off.
[tense music]
Going up above the hole
I had no real chance
where it was.
It's these trees.
And it felt like we were in the mountains.
There was nobody there.
(Larry) I remember getting up
and looking around...
...off in the distance was a big...
...big building.
And I was worried about that building
'cause maybe the kidnappers
were over there.
Edward got all the kids together
said we need to be quiet.
(Jennifer) And, so, like a bunch of little ducks
we're just walking through the sand.
(Mike) There were 27 of us.
And if they are around here, we're pretty easy
target to see.
(Larry) But then we saw someone coming...
[tense music]
...toward us, and I did not know
who it was or what they wanted.
And the guy's face was just like
"Oh my God!
"I saw you on the news.
Where in the hell did you come from?"
[tense music]
(Mike) We turned out to be in a rock quarry.
And in no time the klaxon started sounding.
[klaxon blaring]
(Larry) They had set off their-their alarm.
The children have been found.
They are in good shape.
The bus driver has been found.
He is in good shape.
There's no indication of any harm.
[van engine whirring]
(Bruce) Detective Bernie Serving and I were the first
to as I recall, to arrive and make contact
with the bus driver and the kids.
Kids were actually
for the most part, calm.
[camera shutter flashing]
They were a little bit dirty looking, obviously
because they were buried in the ground. [camera shutter flashing]
(Larry) We were in this big warehouse.
I remember they had a water cooler.
I would take my little cup and I would pour it on my head.
And then I'd fill it up and I'd pour it on my head
trying to get the dirt off me.
[water sloshing]
That evening we had the television on
and I thought, I heard him say
kids from Chowchilla, had been found.
I ran in there...
...jumped over the coffee table
[chuckles] turned the TV up
and sure enough...
...and I was so thankful.
My son Michael is fourteen
and he's alive and well
and he's coming home and I can't wait to see him.
(reporter #6) 'What's the last 24 hours been like?'
Not very nice.
I wouldn't want to have to go through it again.
Ever.
[indistinct chatter]
(Bruce) We had to decide how we're gonna
proceed with the interviews and things
and we decided it was best
to get them to a secure location.
(Jennifer) So, we rode just a very short distance
to...the prison.
They sat us down at all these little desks
and they had apples
and cartons of milk.
[tense music]
(Larry) We were given inmate jumpsuits.
Their white jumpsuits to wear.
(Yong Jennifer on tape) All those little kids got into 'em
and we had to roll the pants about
ten feet.
We sitting there flapping our arms.
We said, "Hey, we can fly"
and we pretend like we were gonna fly.
(Jennifer) And then the police came in
and talked to us.
-'What is the situation?' -'Go ahead.'
(male #6) 'I would generally describe them in very high spirits.'
-Yeah. Has-- -They talk--
We asked who wants to be talked to next and they all
put up their hand and they're very jovial.
After that, they got us loaded up
in a Greyhound bus to go home to Chowchilla.
[cheering and whistling]
(Lynda) When we got through Chowchilla
there were lights everywhere, people everywhere.
Just a sea of people.
(Larry) It was just a mob.
[applauding]
[indistinct chattering]
(Larry) A very nice gentleman
carried me off the bus...
...and put me in my mom's arms.
[sniffling]
[sobbing] And I put my head on her shoulder.
[emotional music]
(Bob) It's wonderful. You can't say there's enough words to-to
you know, describe how it feels, you know, I'm...
Uh, I'm just so happy, I could cry.
[cheering and whistling]
(reporter #7) 'Come here, Mike.'
(Mike) Reporters are all over
asking me what happened.
And I started
to talk to him and then just out of nowhere
Principal Tatum stepped in
and said, "Why don't we just give him a break, boys?
You know, let him go home and get some sleep."
And so we got in the car and left.
There was my chance to tell the world
what happened to getting out and everything.
I didn't do it. I let the grown-ups do it.
7 o'clock, we got dug out. I handed the kids up
to the other boys and we got out.
We all got home safe.
[crowd applauding]
(reporter #8) As miraculously as they had disappeared
the children of Chowchilla returned to their parents
due to the heroic efforts
of their bus driver, Ed Ray.
[mellow music]
(Larry) We were calm, but the kidnappers
were still out there.
[propeller plane whirring]
(Glen) You knew they were someplace, but you didn't know where.
You know, it was still a mystery.
You had no answers to this mystery.
[helicopter whirring]
[police siren wailing]
(Ed Bates) I had a lot of agents out there
following leads on who might have done this.
I had all the state. I had all the FBI.
And my own people, of course, too.
The following morning I was directed to go out
to the site where they were buried.
I had a whole crew of people
looking for any evidence we could get.
(reporter #9) 'This is a place where they've cut a hole in the roof'
and made an exit and, uh, ingress and egress.
(reporter #10) The only people into the hole
have been a couple of sheriff's criminalists.
The sheriff's office is working very carefully
'cause they hope to find clues
which will lead them to the kidnappers.
The crime scene
was a mysterious hole in the ground.
(Tony) There was some notion that it might be a cave.
An underground room.
It took us a while to understand
that it was in fact a moving van.
[excavator whirring]
By today's standards uh, it wasn't a 40 foot van.
It was a fairly short 27 foot moving van.
[truck whirring]
When you think about it, to have 26 kids
confined in that kind of a chamber
I was flabbergasted.
[indistinct chatter]
(newscaster #3) The search for these suspects is now, of course
what is preoccupying authorities
being sought are three men and two vans.
We don't know what color they are now.
They were purchased in November in Alameda.
(male #7) 'Information on the registration is all phony.'
'So we don't know who we're looking for yet.'
(Duane) At that time, we were looking for
any information we could get.
(police on radio) 'We have no hard evidence.'
We had multiple conversations
with law enforcement.
[tape recorder clicks]
(Jennifer) My brother and I helped with
composite drawings
to help identify the kidnappers.
This is the latest composite.
We have no names whatsoever at this point.
(reporter #11) 'Is this from the memory of the children?'
(male #8) 'Uh, yes.'
And then information had been developed
on the investigative side about the vans.
[helicopter whirring]
(newscaster #4) The kidnap vans were found
in a one story commercial building
in southeast San Jose.
Reports say a rental agent told police
a young man rented the place about six months ago.
(male #9) The bus driver, Ed Ray
was brought to the warehouse by authorities.
It is assumed Mr. Ray will attempt
to identify those vans.
[camera shutter flashes]
(Duane) When they recovered the vehicles
they also recovered other key pieces of evidence.
They found a 12 gauge shotgun
which is probably the one that was used
when they made the stop of the, uh, school bus.
We found lumber material.
(Tony) The same lumber as
two by fours that were picked up at the quarry.
Number of mattresses
the same mattresses that had been put into the trailer.
(male #10) They also located a Cadillac...
...that had been completely spray painted
flat, black.
Even the hubcaps. It was very strange.
(male #11) 'Did you see them working on these things?'
'Were they painting? What were they doing inside there?'
-I don't know. -'Did they talk?'
I can't see because of the wall.
(male #12) They've recovered what looked like
some kind of a journal, diary.
They had encrypted it into some kind of unusual writing.
(Duane) Never seen anything like that in my life.
[eerie music]
(Lynda) I was scared, I was actually
still scared of those kidnappers.
"Where they're at, what they're doing
are they following us?"
[tense music]
(Lynda) They know where we live, they know our addresses
they know our phone numbers.
It was really overwhelming for me.
A lot of them are scared to let their kids out of the house.
I know my wife's got a girlfriend across town
that says she won't let her kids out of the house.
We were in a panic.
We did not like
sleeping in the windows
and every sound...
...sent us running.
[eerie music]
[video tape rolling]
(Bruce) The first real breaks in the case came
when the former employee from the quarry
called up and said that he had made notes in a ledger
that they maintained during their patrols...
...that he had seen men working
with a CAT bulldozer
and he also noted that there were two moving vans
parked on the site.
One time, he said he found a young man
working in one of the scrap yard areas
and when he confronted that individual
he found his identification said that he was Frederick Woods
and he was the son of the owner.
[tense music]
(George) One of the things we learned
was that the Woods family
they weren't from the Central Valley
they were from the Bay Area.
From the very nicest suburbs of the Bay Area.
In fact, Woods has an illustrious double name.
Frederick Newhall Woods.
[suspenseful music]
(Jill) When the Gold rush was happening in California
Henry Newhall ended up amassing
a great fortune. 148,000 acres
up and down the state of California.
Railroad towns were named after him.
They owned Magic Mountain.
[children screaming]
(George) Why would these people be involved?
Was it a thrill crime?
[car door opening]
(Duane) Next day and I was asked
to serve a search warrant on the Woods estate.
[music continues]
When we opened these doors up
and went in to the actual mansion
everything in there was expensive.
Very fancy cut crystal statues.
[helicopter whirring]
(Bruce) The place was littered
literally, with old vehicles.
It had antique Rolls Royces
and Bentleys.
All kinds of military
war surplus type jeeps.
It was really something to see.
[music continues]
(Duane) There is a-a separate building
opposite the mansion.
It was a series of garages.
We had been told that Fred
slept above the garages.
We went upstairs.
(Bruce) The place was full of junk.
You could barely walk across the room.
Old movie cameras.
There was a bunch of them all over the place.
(Duane) And there was a desk
and that's where he had a kind of an envelope
like a manila type envelope.
It had the plan.
The actual plan of how
the sequence of the kidnapping
was supposed to go down.
[tense music]
And inside that, there was a jack-in-the-box bag
that on their backside of it had been written the names
and the ages of all of the children.
But probably the most telling
evidence was the ransom note that was found
in that envelope.
[eerie and chilling music]
And at that point, it started to gel
as to who was responsible for this.
[helicopter whirring]
(Ed Bates) Fred Woods, the suspect's father
was very cooperative.
Told me, he tried to get his son interested
in the family business.
His son got interested
in these old cars.
(Bruce) He developed a business
of refurbishing old cars
and selling them.
He had gone into partnership
with a friend from high school
named James Schoenfeld.
His brother, Rick Schoenfeld was involved
but he was more of a hanger-on to the other two.
The brothers, their father was a, uh
a foot specialist.
(Ed Bates) They were upper middle class.
They're always very polite and outgoing
and if we saw them outside
they always chatted with us.
Very friendly boys.
(Jennifer) We were really shocked
that these were three young men
that came from very affluent families.
I was dumbstruck.
(reporter #12) 'Why do you suppose that they would do something like that?'
I don't know. They didn't have enough to live.
(Carol) Fred Woods is...
What was he after money for?
He had more money than the town had.
[tense music]
Now we know who these people are.
So we just followed our noses.
(reporter #13) Acting on evidence discovered at the house
law enforcement authorities
have just issued all points bulletins.
(dispatcher) Suspects are considered
armed and dangerous
arrest on probable cause.
[police siren wailing]
(Bruce) The investigators worked 24 hours a day
and found out that
Fred and James Schoenfeld took off.
[propeller plane whirring]
Fred went to Vancouver.
He used a fake ID to get in
checked into a hotel.
While Woods is up in Canada, he's writing letters
from a post office asking friends for money.
Jim Schoenfeld drove his car up to the border...
...and tried to enter the border.
He had weapons in the car but they didn't arrest him.
They bought him a soda. They were nice to him.
Gave him the guns back and turned him around.
Good evening, the FBI is looking all over the country
tonight for Frederick Woods and James Schoenfeld.
Two of the three men suspected of kidnapping
26 children in California last week.
The third man, Schoenfeld's younger brother
turned himself in.
(newscaster #5) In Oakland, California, last night
Richard Allen Schoenfeld surrendered.
He walked into the Alameda County
district attorney's office along with
his father and a lawyer.
The attorney said Richard surrendered
for his own protection.
(Bruce) James tried to get into Canada one more time.
He had gotten rid of most of the weapons
but he had one more weapon that he didn't know about
that Fred had hidden in the vehicle.
So they turned him around finally gave up on that
and started heading back home.
(newscaster #6) James Schoenfeld was captured at dawn today.
His lawyer said he'd gotten tired of running, had called
and said he'd turned himself in at 8: 00 this morning.
The police closed in an hour before that.
(newscaster #7) The third suspect, Fred Woods
was arrested at the main Vancouver
post office after Royal Canadian Mounted Police
had been tipped by the FBI.
They say the 24-year-old suspect
was unarmed and did not put up a fight.
He appeared nervous, a little cocky
but mostly disinterested
in talking to reporters.
No comment.
What do you think about the charges against you in court?
I'm telling you, no comment.
(reporter #14) 'Any concerns about going to California at all?'
[chuckles] With you?
[tense music]
(Patricia) The kidnappers had hit this town
right in its heart
by taking those children.
[police siren wailing]
(Dan) The community took it quite personal.
Saying we're upset is very, very mild.
It was voiced...around town that quote
"All we need is a good old fashioned street hanging."
End quote. Literally that was said.
(Larry) These were three men
who were so hated
stationed on top of the police station, a sniper.
On top of City Hall, a sniper.
All in the means of protecting them.
[crowd chattering indistinctly]
(newscaster #8) Inside, both woods and James Schoenfeld
spoke with a firm voice, showing no fear.
They were ordered held on one million dollars bond each.
(reporter #15) The biggest question in this bizarre case
is still unanswered.
Were there political motives
psychological motives
motives of revenge?
No one seems to know.
(Duane) When I interviewed Fred
he said that he and his dad weren't very close.
He wasn't doing what his dad expected him to do.
They were always bickering about
him dropping out of college
and he wanted his own money
so he didn't have to rely on his father.
[instrumental music]
(male #13) 'Turn to your left.'
(Duane) James told me that
they were gonna make a movie to make money.
And that's how the whole thing started.
They turned out a movie script called Chain Reaction
and it was an amalgam of the Patty Hearst kidnapping case.
"The French Connection" and "Dirty Harry."
(Harry) You've got to ask yourself one question.
'"Do I feel lucky?"'
Well, do you, punk?
And it didn't happen.
(Jill) During this time, they also learned
that the state had a surplus of funds.
So they were trying to think of
how can we get ransom from the state?
So then that led them to kidnapping a school bus
because the state runs the school system.
(Bruce) Again, they were obviously influenced
by the original, "Dirty Harry" movie.
♪ Row row row your boat ♪♪
What's the matter with you? Don't you sing?
(Bruce) In the final scenes
of the movie, you had
an individual who hijacks
a bus full of children
and they end up in a rock-quarry.
Fred was the leader who started it.
(Bruce) But Fred didn't have the ability
to plan something like this by himself.
And he thought that Jim Schoenfeld
probably was the more efficient planner
and had, in fact, he's the one who wrote the journal
that was found at the storage unit.
(Jill) When they decoded these writings
James Schoenfeld was asking himself
"What would happen as a result of this crime?"
James had to make a decision.
He decided to make money with Fred Woods.
For 18 months
they were researching
different targets.
They had maps
where they circled all the schools
they were considering.
They were able to get identification
in different names
to purchase the things they needed.
They went out to the quarry in the cover of darkness
to bury an entire transport van.
They obtained weapons.
Many, many weapons.
To collect the ransom money, they wanted the government
to fly the ransom money and drop it at a location.
(Bruce) They had intended to have an airdrop
over the Santa Cruz Mountains.
In fact, the Cadillac was intended to be used
to pick up the ransom money
and they wanted it not to be seen.
They wanted it to blend in for a night time operation.
All the way through, they thought that
they had thought of everything.
(Jill) But the night of the kidnapping
they weren't able to call in their ransom demand
because the phone lines were so jammed.
[indistinct chattering]
(Jill) They decided to go home.
Fred Woods had a late night dinner
with his parents like any other night.
Then the news came out
that the children had freed themselves.
The children are home.
(Jill) Rick and James Schoenfeld
came over to the property
and planned their escape from there.
(Bruce) When the children escaped
that kind of destroyed their whole plan right there.
[marching band music]
(newscaster #9) With all three suspects behind bars
the grateful towns people today
honored their hometown hero.
(Jennifer) The local politicians decided
that we needed to celebrate the heroes
that came from this horrendous event.
And so the town had
what they called, "Ed Ray Day."
Me and the 25 kids have something to give to Edward.
Thank you.
(Jennifer) Edward was a very humble man.
He didn't ask for the publicity
and he didn't ask for all the attention
that came his way.
The press assumed that Edward saved us.
And he, from that point on, was the hero.
And that is true.
Edward kept us all together
and Edward helped us get out.
But Edward was not the only hero.
I was telling people, Mike Marshall dug us out.
It was Mike that dug us out.
But nobody was listening.
(Carol) That day, I could see that Michael
was really depressed.
(Mike) I remember thinking to myself
"Why am I feeling like this?
"What's wrong with me?
"Hey, you know what, who cares?
We all got out, we're all out. That's what matters."
I felt...
...guilty for feeling bad.
(Jennifer) Mike was not gonna boast about what he did.
That just wasn't Mike.
(Lynda) All the children know. We all know the story.
We were there for it.
So we do know what
everybody did and everybody's role.
But I don't think any of us really went out and spoke.
We were just children.
(Jennifer) We were still just trying to process what happened.
(Larry) That day was supposed to be
the day of honoring us.
They put a plaque in there
with all of our names.
But a lot of us were still in that hole.
[eerie music]
(Jennifer) When we got home, I thought
life would be...okay.
Even though the kidnappers were actually arrested...
...it didn't stop my mind
from going over
what happened, what could have happened.
I can remember having nightmares immediately.
[eerie music]
My mom tells me that I started sleepwalking.
And I would come into their room just
in shock and tell them, they're killing me.
(Joan) We're driving down the road
and there happens to be a van.
Whether its telephone company or PG&E
or just a-a vehicle beside the road.
"Go on past, mama, don't stop. Don't slow down."
My self esteem at that point just really started...
...to go down.
[intense music]
(Larry) I hated sleeping.
I hated going to sleep
because every night I was having nightmares.
I could hear Andrea screaming. She could hear me screaming.
"Mom! Mom! Mom!"
Those demons were gonna keep us forever.
[eerie music]
(Carol) I knew Michael was having trouble.
He was also screaming and hollering in his sleep.
I put myself back in there
thinking about how I was gonna die.
[thud]
(Carol) Our family was just turned inside out.
Didn't know how to fix it.
Didn't know who to talk to about it.
We left, went on the road.
Tried to forget it, get past it.
And the school did not offer
any help to those kids.
Like counseling, whatever.
I can't visibly see any problem now.
Whether or not, you know, there's some psychological scars
I-I certainly wouldn't know.
But, you know, it's just kind of on the surface.
I can't pull anything out.
Not once.
The kids were totally forgotten.
(Mike) You know, there was no
ground laid for anything like this.
Yet back then it was, uh...
"Go to Disneyland."
[soft music]
(Jennifer) Alliance Club Group in Los Angeles
paid for a trip to Disneyland
as a way to somewhat overcome
the trauma that we had faced.
And so it was, for a moment
a chance to get away from Chowchilla
and go see Mickey and Minnie.
(Lynda) They held a parade for us.
I believe the way our parents were convinced
was that they were giving us therapy
some kind of therapy.
The trip to Disneyland
was an intrusion into the nightmare.
That's all it was.
(Lenore) In 1976
there was a word, childhood trauma out there
but nobody knew exactly what it was.
(Lenore) 'When one is traumatized'
the sense of gut basic trust goes.
(Lenore) While I was in training as a child psychiatrist
and I wanted to find out what happens to children
who get frightened to death...
...and don't die.
And that started the Chowchilla study.
No one other than Dr. Terre was
even trying to be helpful.
(Carol) She told us right up front
she was writing a paper
for the American Medical Journal.
She was interviewing the kids.
She also listened to them.
I remember seeing various kinds of statements that were made.
(Lenore) The kids were not okay.
Somebody got a psychiatrist to come to town
and he made a prediction.
He said, "One kid in this twenty-six
is going to have a problem."
But what happened was
that no parent wanted to admit
that his kid was the one in twenty-six.
By the time I got out there
a hundred percent of those kids were having problems.
(Larry) Mom and dad were told not to come in
when we have nightmares.
They said that if they are going in
when we have nightmares, that we...
They are rewarding our behavior of having the nightmares.
And if they stop rewarding the behaviors
we'll stop having nightmares.
Andrea became very introverted.
Where she had been outgoing before...
...she preferred to hide in her room.
(Lynda) Some of them became afraid to really get
intimate with anybody.
She would not hug me.
[soft music]
I would tell her that I loved her
and she would just ignore it like it was never said.
(Lenore) The Chowchilla children
had the worst idea about their futures.
In the unconscious, we are undestructible.
We are, we are...
...gonna live forever.
After trauma? That's not true.
You buy it that you're gonna die.
In California, yesterday, three young men pleaded guilty
to the kidnapping a year ago
of 26 school children and their bus driver.
(newscaster #10) The men pled not guilty to different charges
that carry a life sentence without parole.
(newscaster #11) Prosecutor David Manir is also trying to show
that there was far more bodily harm
inflicted on the kidnapped victims.
Where you have conditions of total darkness
of not enough food or water
extremely hot conditions of panic among the children.
(David) That should be enough to constitute bodily harm
even if you don't have broken bones.
(Lenore) Physically, the children had a bruise or two.
There was a cut or two.
They had a little bit of urinary trouble
which cleared up.
So the defense said, "No harm."
As you gentlemen who have seen the transcript
know there's very little physical damage at all
and practically it's-it's non existent.
(reporter #16) 'What about the emotional damage that they talked about?'
'Is that possible?'
There is no case in California
that I know of that holds that
emotional damage is bodily injury.
(Lenore) I couldn't believe it.
The mind and the brain, that's not bodily harm?
What you do to a person's mind?
What you do to a young child's developing mind?
(newscaster #12) Bus driver Ed Ray
was among the early arrivals
at the Alameda County Courthouse
closely followed by some of the children
who were kidnapped with him in July of last year.
(Jill) So the children had to be brought in
had to testify about the injuries
that they sustained.
They had to face the kidnappers in that courtroom.
(Jennifer) I can remember my mom saying
that the kidnappers would be in the room.
I was so scared.
(newscaster #13) Ed Ray explained how he and the children
were placed in two airless vans
and how the children wept
and he feared suffocation.
Jodi Heffington fell to tears on the witness stand
as she attempted to tell her story
of the kidnapping and being entombed underground.
When they took me into the courtroom
I can remember sitting in the jury box
and I felt like I could barely see
'cause I was so little.
I remember not looking at the kidnappers like
I'm gonna do what I got to do
and I'm gonna get out of here.
I told them the harm
that they caused to us
was because of the conditions that they put us in.
And as I finished and I walked out
I just started bawling.
It was extremely brave of them to take the stand.
(reporter #17) 'You think they should ever be released?'
-No, I don't think they should. -'Why?'
Did you know they was gonna come back and release us
if we didn't get out?
We were buried under the ground, man.
(male #14) After 16 days of grueling testimony
Judge Deegan found all three men guilty.
Deegan, "This was an ordeal of terror
"and that, to me, causes suffering.
Suffering is in itself physical harm."
Finding out that my kidnappers got life
without the possibility of parole
was exactly what we had hoped for.
(Jill) But just when survivors felt
that they can find some sort of peace with it
the kidnappers filed appeals.
And in 1980
the appellate court agreed
and reversed the sentence.
[soft music]
(Lenore) The kidnappers had plenty of money
and plenty of time
and a very good attorney
and said, mental harm isn't bodily harm.
(Larry) They could be out after 25 years.
We thought we were safe, you know?
That was and still is like a slap in the face.
What was the worst part of it for you?
I really didn't think we were gonna get out. My brother did.
But I didn't think we were gonna get out 'cause I didn't know
what was gonna happen to us or if they'd ever let us out
or if we'd run out of food or die or what.
I just figured that was it.
(Jennifer) After the trial is done
I couldn't progress past the kidnapping.
My self esteem took a large blow.
I didn't want anybody knowing
everything that I had been through.
But everybody in Chowchilla knew about the kidnapping
so I had a lot of eyes watching me
at that point in time.
And then, unfortunate for us
five years after the kidnapping
my brother was in industrial accident
with my dad and my brother was killed.
(reporter #18) About 300 people attended Jeff's funeral.
Many standing outside because the chapel was full.
[sirens wailing]
(Jennifer) I felt so betrayed by God
that he got me through the kidnapping...
...and then took away my beloved brother.
The spotlight was on us again.
We had reporters at our house all the time.
My small family at that point crumbled.
My parents divorced.
That small town became so suffocating for me
that I couldn't go to school without stares.
I couldn't go to school without people talking behind my back.
I couldn't go to school without somebody
saying, "I am so sorry."
And my mom and I made the decision
to leave Chowchilla.
I left during my junior year of high school.
I was a class officer.
I was a cheerleader.
I was involved in everything.
I gave it all up so that we could move away
and I could be a nobody.
I just wanted to be nobody.
(Lenore) When they get to be adults
childhood trauma doesn't just go away.
In fact, some of it gets worse.
[engine revving]
(Mike) I was about 19 or twenty
going out and getting...
...hammered, blackout drunk
every single night.
I just didn't want to remember anymore about kidnapping.
I just wanted it to go away.
(Lenore) Around the four or five year mark
he was in trouble
as a rodeo rioter.
It was such a shame
that he had lost this pride in himself.
And some of that pride
from having been the kid's hero
had been robbed from him
by the town's response.
He was never acknowledged.
(Mike) I didn't know who I was anymore.
That cowboy part of me went away.
I'm still alive. I still walk and talk.
But still the way I feel inside me
what they'd done to me...
...they could never feel
what-what they put us through.
Alcohol helps with that in a big way.
[tense music]
(Carol) Over the years, everything just overwhelmed him.
He got more and more in...
...into the hole.
I was drinking and using it
and all that to the point where I'd been to seven rehabs.
Was living in insanity.
Before the kidnapping
I could see so much light
ahead of me, see my future.
But then after the kidnapping
I couldn't see anything.
(Jill) The kidnappers have been having parole hearings
since the early 1980s.
Many of the survivors wanted to participate in the process.
Jodi Huffington attended almost every hearing
having to face each of the kidnappers
every five years.
They did a number of emotional damage
to-to all of-all of us
including our families, our parents.
Um...our lives were never the same after that, ever.
(Jennifer) During the kidnapping
Jodi Heffington was one of the older girls
who was like a older sister figure
to a lot of the kids.
(Lenore) She was the one kid who held the flashlight
the whole time and stood steady as anything.
(Jennifer) She became one of our strongest advocates.
Her and Melinda Correjo have gotten in the car
and driven hours to the Bay Area
to be there in person numerous times.
What they did, they should stay there.
(Matthew) It was on the victims to fight for them to be in jail.
If they had not been going to the parole hearings
they'd have been out in probably 1980 something.
At one hearing, they actually shut me down
because I was so angry.
One of the guards led me away.
It was one thing that they hurt me
but they completely shattered my family.
Andrea had dissociated from the family
and left Chowchilla.
My mom lost faith
in my dad as a protector.
I was surviving day to day.
Hated my life, hated myself
and hated everyone around me.
(reporter #19) Park has had trouble with the law
spent some time in prison.
He's doing better now, he says
but still struggling.
If they want me to believe that they're ready...
...they're gonna have to let me see him cry.
They're gonna have to let me see him cry for me
and for my sister and my family.
When they would go to the parole hearings
it would be the responsibility of the victim
to say what their story is.
(Matthew) My mom talked about how she didn't feel safe
around men, her depression
her struggles with addiction issues.
What they don't tell you
is that you're not just gonna speak your piece for one time.
They never got rest.
(Jennifer) The kidnappers were denied parole for many, many years.
It wasn't until after 2010
that there was public support for them.
(newscaster #14) A rally was held today in San Francisco by supporters
demanding parole for the kidnappers.
Several high profile politicians and families
became involved in advocating for parole.
(Jill) This includes Gavin Newsom's father
who was an appellate judge.
Nobody was physically injured.
Huge factor in the case.
(Jill) And Dale Fore who was part of the investigative team
from Madera county when
the Chowchilla kidnapping case occurred.
(Dale) What's right is right.
How much time you want out of these guys?
He was one of the people who assured us that
none of the kidnappers would ever get out.
(Jill) He started working for Fred Wood's team.
He knew many of the survivors and at times
he approached them and offered them money
to come and support parole to change their position.
He had offered me personally
at one point to make some money.
He wanted me to write letters in support
of parole for the kidnappers
and I let him know I was not the kind of girl
that could be bought.
The next parole hearing
one of the kidnap victims
showed up with Dale as her support person
with letters in support of release.
Don't ask me nothing.
It was a complete, like, betrayal to everyone.
[dramatic music]
(Larry) Over the years
there was an anger building in me
that infested...
...absolutely every aspect of my life.
I was replaying the kidnapping constantly.
I wanted to torture those men.
I would fantasize...
...about the different ways
that we could get them.
I was in a prison
of my own making...
...and I decided to pray.
I said, "God forgive 'em, because I can't.
God bless 'em, because I can't."
And I realized
"God, forgive 'em, because I won't."
And God, he said
"I can work with the truth.
We can move forward from here."
(Jill) Larry park decided to go through
the restorative justice process
and that's a process
that assists survivors
that choose to, to talk to their offender.
To come to closure if it helps them.
[soft music]
(Larry) So I got to go in...
...and I said, "I was your victim for 36 hours."
But for the last 38 years, I've been my own victim.
I told them that I forgave them...
...but forgiving them wasn't enough.
I had spent my lifetime...
...hating them, and so I asked...
...for their forgiveness.
A man convicted of kidnapping a bus full of children
in Chowchilla more than 35 years ago is now free.
The California Department of Corrections
released Richard Schoenfeld last night
from a San Luis Obispo prison.
In 1976 he kidnapped 26 children.
A crime that held the nation with great concern.
(Lynda) When the youngest kidnapper got out
that's when the panic attacks started happening.
And the worry, all these feelings come up
that you hadn't felt in so long.
I was kind of nauseous
and then very tearful
because first-I think first of other children.
I prepared myself because I knew that his brother
would be not too soon after that.
(newscaster #15) After nearly 40 years behind bars
James Schoenfeld will soon be out of prison and on parole.
News of the latest release
did not go over well with the victims.
This led all the prisoners who hurt someone
and hurt their families. Just let's let them all go.
Jodi went into a huge depression.
She would say, "Lynda, it's all my fault.
It's all my fault they're getting out. It's all my fault."
And I said, "We have as much responsibility
as you do to keep them in."
(Matthew) She couldn't get out of bed no more.
And it was just, she was so weak.
Because she was just drinking so much
and she wouldn't eat because she was so depressed.
And she basically just couldn't
process life the way she was supposed to.
And my mom just did her best
for as long as she could.
[soft music]
And it was their fucking fault.
[sighs]
(George) While the Schoenfelds in prison
seemed to behave according to the rules
Woods was different.
It was discovered that he was conducting businesses
including a Christmas tree farm, a gold mine.
(Jill) And he continued to purchase and collect cars
while he was incarcerated.
(George) He was able to acquire
contraband cell phones
and use them to conduct the businesses.
The extent that Fred Woods involved himself
in every small detail was staggering.
-This is a prepaid call from... -Fred.
(automated voice) An inmate at the county Correctional Facility.
(Fred) Hey, Mike, it's Fred, what's the deal about
the generator being screwed up?
Listen, I need green-dark numbered...
[overlapping chatter]
Also the title the truck is...
(George) One of the more astonishing things
that Fred Woods has possession
of the two kidnap vans
that the children and the bus driver
were transported in
because he thinks the value
will increase because of their notoriety.
It's not any sentimental value.
This is Fred's continuing obsession
I would call it with money.
It's amazing, because he didn't even need the money.
The Woods family set up a trust.
They wanted to pass on what they could to their son...
[eerie music]
...and it was estimated in one filing
to be a $100 million.
Money that woods, even as an inmate had access to.
[instrumental music]
(Lynda) The hearing came up pretty quick.
It was really difficult
because we have just recently lost Jodi.
But the community came together and said
"Okay, we got to not just do it for ourselves
do it for Jodi and Jeff and...each other."
(reporter #20) This is the 17th subsequent life parole
consideration hearing for Frederick Woods.
(George) Only the inmate and his attorney
were in the prison.
Everybody else was on remote.
Here we are wondering if rehabilitation has o-occurred.
Is rehabilitation running businesses out of a jail cell
sneakily smuggling contrabands such as cell phones
in and out of prison without regard
to rules, regulations, and authority?
He should not be released.
His mind is still evil.
And he is out to get what he wants
with no regret for the safety of others.
Mr. Woods has not changed for the better
in the 45 plus years he's been incarcerated.
He's gotten to heal.
And my mother was never granted that chance.
From 1976 to when she died two years ago.
The biggest question the commissioners had
was from the lead commissioner, uh
who asked why Woods was so fixated on money.
(Woods) I've always said I needed the money.
Well, I didn't need the money. I wanted the money.
I've learned that in the last few years.
That was a mistake on my part.
I was totally wrong with this way of thinking.
I've had a thinking change.
I felt that he still wasn't...
...wholly truthful and that he still showed some of the same
characteristics that he did at the time he planned this.
I wonder if he understands that the trauma
the physical and emotional trauma, is life altering.
[unnerving music]
That was really very sad
thinking how we've worked so hard.
(Jennifer) I feel that I did everything I could possibly do
but I had to let go
of the thought that I had th-that control.
If that kept me in dark place
for too much longer
it would be overwhelming.
(George) The thing about this case that made it unique
was the continuing impact of the crime on the children.
In 1976, we thought they would just get over it.
[instrumental music]
But all were deeply affected.
Dr. Tear once called the children
little pioneers of medicine
because they so helped in the understanding
of childhood trauma.
They paved the way for us to understand
more contemporary things.
What happens when you force children
away from their parents at a border.
(Lenore) What happens to children
at some of these horrible school shootings.
(Larry) Because of the Chowchilla kidnapping
there were counselors at Columbine after the shooting.
There are counselors at nightclubs after shootings.
Chowchilla children are heroes.
(Lenore) And they continue to teach us
what childhood trauma is.
Forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight
fifty years after the fact.
[music continues]
(Jennifer) We are in an area that is prone to tornadoes.
It's very common to have a storm shelter.
So we actually purchased one.
We weren't able to submerge it in the ground
because that's just a little bit too traumatic for me.
[door screeches]
My family knows that it's a struggle for me.
They work with me on that.
I'm thankful to my parents for encouraging me
to try to grow and give back.
To show that this one event has not defined me.
[wind rustling]
I focused on putting my energy towards
positive things in my life.
So I chose education.
And I went back to Chowchilla
and taught in Chowchilla at Avi Dairyland.
[music continues]
(Lynda) And I take the responsibility.
My eyes are always watching the children
making sure they are safe every second in the classroom.
I chose making a difference that way.
[pleasant music]
(Larry) For 34 years
I was nothing but a survivor.
Today I am a reverend.
A Christian counselor.
And I am a friend.
I wake up in the morning
I say my rosary and I step out...
...in faith.
I never gave up.
Not completely.
Because I was taught at six years old
by a 14 year old boy, you don't give up.
You keep digging.
[music continues]
-How are you? -Good.
1977, it's the last time that I saw Mike Marshall.
Do you know I'm standing with my hero?
[sniffles]
I can't believe what he did.
I still can't believe it.
[Larry sniffles]
I appreciate that.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Mike.
[instrumental music]
I didn't realize how much...
...it would help me to...
(Mike) ...understand and to actually hear...
...one of the kids tell me that I saved
their lives and that they were grateful.
Not very many people that, you know, can...relate.
[engine rumbling]
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a rodeo cowboy like my dad.
[rattling]
I would see myself far in the future
rodeoing for a living.
But woke up at about...
...forty-eight years old with a...
[chuckles] ...blurry hangover.
But, then, getting sober, is amazing.
It's to have a life.
And, uh, to be grateful for every day.
[tires rustling]
It's taken a while to c-come back and rodeo.
But once you're a cowboy, you're always a cowboy.
'Cause it's in your heart.
So, I'm gonna cowboy up tomorrow and go
to this rope in here in Chowchilla
and...stick some steers.
[chuckles]
[tires rustling and water splattering]
(female announcer) 'Five, Lisa Jones, Jeff Cabal.'
'Six, Adam Silvera, Spencer Mitchell.'
'Seven, Tateville, Jimmy Joe.'
[country music]
(Mike) God has a way of making things
come full circle in his timing.
(female announcer) 'Mike, you're up.'
[Gunilla Hutton singing "Hot Chowchilla Dust"]
[rattles]
♪ Bending over miles of cotton ♪
♪ Finally ruined my daddy's back ♪
♪ As he overcompensated ♪
♪ For an education lack ♪
♪ As a kid I rode behind him ♪
♪ On his canvas cotton sack ♪
♪ And every day say 500 pounds a buzz ♪
♪ As he pulled me through ♪
♪ That hot Chowchilla dust ♪
♪ When I grew too big to ride ♪
♪ I got myself an old sew sack ♪
♪ Mama sewed me on a harness ♪
♪ And strapped it on my back ♪
♪ Daddy headed for the fields ♪
♪ And as I stepped into his track ♪
♪ I ain't sure ♪
♪ But I think my mom cussed ♪
♪ As I followed him through that hot Chowchilla dust ♪♪
[applause]