On the afternoon of July 15, 1976, 55-year-old school bus driver Ed Ray was transporting a group of children aged 5 to 14 years old from the Chowchilla Fairgrounds. It was the second to last day of summer school, and the kids were ready to go home after spending the day in the local swimming pool for their field trip.
On the way home, Ray noticed a white van blocking the road. He stopped the bus, thinking someone had vehicle troubles. An armed man then approached the bus and asked Ray to open the door. He had two other accomplices. One drove the school bus, while the other followed in the white van. The incident that followed is now known as the Chowchilla Kidnapping.
At the time of the kidnapping, there were 26 children held captive. They were driven to a dry riverbed where a green van was waiting. The kidnappers commanded the children and Ray to transfer to the white and green vans, and they traveled for 11 hours without breaks in between. Their destination was a rock quarry 100 miles away from Chowchilla, California.
The buried truck trailer
One by one, Ray and the children were escorted out of the vans and forced into a trailer truck that was buried 12 feet in the ground. They were trapped. Inside were supplies that indicated the kidnappers intended to keep their captives for a while. Several mattresses, peanut butter, cereal, bread, and water were made available to them. They heard what sounded like rocks and dirt being thrown on the roof of the trailer, and Ray was fearful that the roof might cave in from the weight.
Some children panicked, others screamed, while others started crying. It seemed like a hopeless situation, but 14-year-old Michael Marshall was determined to try and escape. He, together with Ray and the older kids, moved the mattresses and stacked them on top of one other to reach the metal closure on the roof from where they had entered.
Ray and Marshall climbed on top of the mattresses and together, they pushed with all their might but the metal barely budged. The steel plate was kept in place by two heavy industrial batteries placed on top of it, but after hours of working together, they were eventually able to move it. It wasn’t over, however, as they discovered that the opening was blocked by a wooden box made of plywood that was covered with soil and dirt.
Freedom, at last
But Marshall was not deterred by the new obstacle. He used his hands and pounded the edges of the wooden box to loosen the soil and dirt. He pounded and dug for hours, using all his strength to get a chance at freedom. He didn’t know whether the kidnappers were still outside, but he was determined not to go out without a fight. In an interview with the Las Vegas Sun, Marshall said, “I didn’t really know what I was doing but I figured it was better than doing nothing.” As he worked, the other children cheered for him, which encouraged him to keep going.
Eventually, he was able to lift up one of the wooden panels of the box and the outside light could be seen from the gap. He put his head up the opening and was relieved to discover that no one was outside keeping watch. Marshall and Ray worked together to get all the children out, allowing everyone to be safe and free after 16 grueling hours of being trapped underground with very little ventilation.
What was the motive behind the kidnapping?
Authorities interviewed Ray and the children before they were allowed to go home to their worried families back in Chowchilla. Investigators immediately went to work to find clues about the identities of the three kidnappers. They scoured the buried trailer for evidence and looked over surveillance videos at the quarry. Investigators identified the suspects as 24-year-old Frederick Woods, and brothers 24-year-old James Schoenfeld and 22-year-old Richard Schoenfeld. All of them came from well-to-do families.
James said that the motive was money. The three young men were in debt, and they figured the state of California would pay the hefty $5 million ransom they wanted in order to save the lives of the children. After they left the children and the bus driver in the trailer, they attempted to call the authorities to demand ransom, but the phone lines were tied up as several parents were phoning the police station to report their missing kids. The kidnappers decided to take a nap and try again later. When they awoke, however, they were surprised to find out from the news that the children had escaped.
The three abductors were convicted and sentenced to life without parole, but they appealed and were granted the possibility of parole. The younger Schoenfeld brother was released on parole in 2012, and his brother was released after three years. Woods, on the other hand, spent the longest time in prison and was paroled in 2022.
Chowchilla kidnapping: How did 26 children escape after being buried alive by their kidnappers?
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