Victims of the kidnapping, now adults, spoke to CNN in 2015 about their remaining fears relating to the tragic event. In the years after the kidnappings, the children continued to be affected by the trauma. The state would be willing to pay ransom for them. The governor can only reverse parole if the inmate was convicted of murder, which Wood was not. He cannot unilaterally reverse the parole decision, because Woods was not convicted of murder. READ NEXT: Why A Georgia Beauty Queens Alleged Murderer Still Hasnt Been Tried in Her Death, Two Kidnappers of 26 Children Paroled; One Remains in Prison, Please review our privacy policy here: https://heavy.com/privacy-policy/, Copyright 2023 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. So, where are they now? After 17 unsuccessful attempts, a California man who kidnapped 26 children on a school bus in 1976 has been recommended for parole. Newsom cannot block the parole decision because it's not a murder conviction. He said he was afraid people would make fun of him., One other incident struck his former wife as unusual. In response, James drove back to the Bay Area, unsure of what to do, while Frederick wrote a letter to a friend, but the friend turned the letter in to the FBI. A relative said that the family can trace its ancestry to six Mayflower pilgrims, including John Alden and William Bradford, the Governor of Plymouth. On July 15, 1976, a group of 26 children attending summer classes at Dairyland Elementary School were returning from a trip to a local swimming pool when their bus, driven by Frank Edward Ray, was blocked on the road by three armed men and two white vans at 4.00pm. He then can allow the decision to stand, or send it to a full board for further review. An appeals court, however, overturned the decision and the kidnappers were allowed the possibility of parole. You see them and you rationalize all yourproblems will be over in 24 hours. CBS News' David Begnaud reports Saturday, July 11 at 10/9c on CBS. Criminal Minds Wiki is a FANDOM TV Community. she said, I would have friends. He collected anything and everything, said his former wife, who has remarried and now lives in a mobile home park near Covington, Ga., foreign money, anything antique, a lot of antique furniture, cars and a lot of model cars. Theyre vulnerable. I fully take responsibility for this heinous act.'. One of the eldest children, Mitchell Marshall, bravely announced to the group that he wasn't going to die without putting up a fight. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. From now on, I'll introduce myself as Frederick Woods.. But even with the family, he was not close, she said. Upon discovering that he and James were missing, police launched a manhunt for them and also placed a tight watch on Richard, whom they also suspected. They will mind.. Ray and the children, who were then ages 5 to 14, were eventually able to claw their way out of the trailer 28 hours later and ran to nearby workers, who called police. The older brother, James, was generally described as less outgoing but not unfriendly. According to James, they initially weren't serious about actually committing such a crime, but as time passed by, they began to consider it. If he did a good job, he'd brag about it to his father, but when he lost his job as A salesman, he didn't want to tell it to his father or me, his former wife recalled. Frederick Newhall Woods IV Richard Schoenfeld James Schoenfeld Alias Fred (Frederick) Rick (Richard) Jim (James) Gender Male (all three) Birth Date 1950s [1] Pathology Mass Abductors Modus Operandi Abduction No. On the morning of July 17, they learned that their hostages had escaped the buried van. There was no quit in him, said Park of Marshall, adding that eventually Marshall broke the surface and brave person that he is, crawled out of the hole first.. And possess., See the article in its original context from. Authorities issued an all-points bulletin for young Woods and his two friends, James Schoenfeld, 24 and his brother, Richard Schoenfeld, 22, sons of a wealthy podiatrist. He just seemed the normal kind of guy, the former classmate said. He had obtained the job through an employment agency after the marriage, she said, and after losing it went to work in his father's stone quarry. The three suspects were arrested two weeks after the kidnapping and were initially sentenced to life in prison without parole. Mass Abductors However, Newhall has kept applying for parole 17 times, and his most recent rejection came in October 2019. Richard Schoenfeld was paroled in 2012 after serving 36 years, and James Schoenfeld was paroled in 2015. 'I tell myself I should be able to shake this off and deal with it. "Now I fully understand the terror and trauma I caused. He'd mention the trips they'd taken to Baja, California. Parole commissioners reportedly decided Woods no longer is a danger to the public. He'd go out and get a job for a few months, and that would apparently appease his father. 'I've never been in darkness like that before it was just pitch black like the dark was touching me like I was inhaling the darkness,' he said. However, it is their acknowledgment and ownership of crimes that have led them to be free men currently. We enjoyed ourselves, she said. The middle name, Newhall, is one of prominence and wealth. As for Mr. Woods's rely tionship with his former wife, the girlfriend said he talked of only one happy time with her. Less than a week later, Frederick Woods was captured in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and James Schoenfeld was captured in Menlo Park, California. He told me once he was ashamed of her, she said. 27 abducted Two survivors, Larry Park and Rebecca Reynolds Dailey, spoke Friday in favor of Woods's parole. The thing that made me cry was not being able to say goodbye to my mom. They focused their investigation into the Chowchilla kidnapping on Frederick Newhall Woods IV the quarry owners son. Frederick Newhall Woods was found suitable for parole at a hearing Friday at California Men's Colony, a state prison in San Luis Obispo County. He said it was really beautiful, and you could really be out there solitary, I mean, alone. By the time I was 21, I was using meth. Three years later, his brother followed suit. 'This is an individual who's demonstrated how dangerous he is,' she said after Friday's decision. Frederick Newhall Woods first became eligible for parole in 1982 and has had 18 parole hearings since. For about eleven hours, the hostages were all driven approximately 100 miles from Chowchilla to Livermore, where they were forced into a van that they buried deep in dirt back in December 1975. Furthermore, the brothers had run into severe debt and thus came on board for the kidnapping, as they needed the ransom money. Frederick Newhall Woods, 70, was one of three men who kidnapped 26 children and their bus driver in Chowchilla, a small city in Northern California's Madera County, more than 45 years ago. Frederick Newhall Woods III, a member of one of California's wealthiest and most prominent families, rented the San Jose warehouse where the two vans were found. July 15-17, 1976: The school bus hijacking. One boy shot a lost tourist with a BB gun when their car broke down in front of his house. After hijacking the bus, which returning from a summer field trip at the Chowchilla fairgrounds swimming pool, Woods and his friends James and Richard Schoenfeld transferred the 26 children and their driver into vans and drove them 12 hours away in the dark to a location where, CBS News reported, they were held captive underground in a truck trailer. The young man constantly sought to please his father, she said, but always felt inadequate. Thankfully, all the children and their bus driver returned home 36 hours after they were abducted, safe but traumatized. Meet Rafael Prez, The Crooked LAPD Officer Who Stole Pounds Of Cocaine And Inspired 'Training Day', 7 Creepy Cold Cases Where The Killer And Victim Still Remain Unknown, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch, Bill Young/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images. We've received your submission. He was not even getting along with his parents and got few friends. On July 15, 1976, 26 children ranging in age from five to 14 boarded a bus driven by 55-year-old Frank Edward Ed Ray for a summer field trip to a local swimming pool. It would really surprise me if he had anything to do with this thing. But there were no children, and that set the stage in part for the young couple's breakup. Stopping over at a drainage slough, half of the passengers were forced into the van, which drove off before a second white van arrived sometime later, taking the remainder of the hostages. The ones he sold he made a lot ontwo or three hundred dollars for a junker, up into the thousands.. He decided to dig beneath it. pauline hanson dancing with the stars; just jerk dance members; what happens if a teacher gets a dui But though the first part of their plan went off without a hitch, everything went awry when they tried to phone in the ransom. Within two weeks, though, all three men had been captured. Public DomainEd Ray and the children escaped from the buried moving truck after 16 hours. In July 1976, dozens of parents in rural Chowchilla, California, faced their worst nightmare when their children went missing. "I was 24 years old," he said, per Fox News. Twenty-six children and their bus. He and two others hijack a school bus with 26 children and a driver in 1976 in Chauchilla. If no action is taken, Woods parole would be granted within 120 days from Fridays hearing. ', 'He could have done much more,' she said. During that time, the younger Woods, in partnership with 24yearold James Leonard Schoenfeld, the son of Dr. John B. Schoenfeld, a podiatrist of nearby Atherton, restored the vehicles they bought and sold them in a business venture in which they employed parttime mechanics. of Mutual Victims 27 abducted Status Alive (all released) One of the three drove the bus, another watched Ray and the children, and the third followed behind in their van. Scuba Certification; Private Scuba Lessons; Scuba Refresher for Certified Divers; Try Scuba Diving; Enriched Air Diver (Nitrox) If we had anyone at our house that he invited, it was always his family or relatives, she said. We would have suffocated to death in there, Labendeira said. He had boyish charm that enabled him, when he could overcome his shyness, to enter into intimate relationships with women, but the relationships seemed to end quickly, and over these relationships there was the same quick, jealous guarding that caused him to ward off intruders on the family estate with a shotgun, and, on at least one occasion, with gunfire. Alias CBS Richard and James's father worked as a podiatrist, while Frederick's father was a businessman who owned and managed a multitude of businesses, including a rock quarry located in Livermore, California. Frederick Woods was among three men convicted of hijacking a school bus full of California children for an attempted $5 million ransom in 1976. . Dogdog.. As per Woods's wife, he was a loner. United States. It was an atrocious crime, but hes not dangerous now, and so the law entitles him to his freedom., Both Richard and James have been contrite in their parole hearings, acknowledging the severe nature of their crimes. The two Schoenfeld brothers and Mr. Woods were arrested in October 1974 after they were seen pushing a car off a road near the town of Downieville, northeast of San Francisco. I'm sorry, he said, I'm not Ralph Snider [the false name he had registered under] I'm Frederick Woods. Woods said during an earlier parole hearing that he just 'got greedy.'. He had been denied release 17 other times. Finally, on July 25, 1977, the three pleaded guilty to 27 counts of kidnapping for ransom without inflicting injury. When they were married, Mr. Wood was a salesman at a paint store, but lost the job. A number of them have even spent time in prison for "doing something controlling to somebody else". Would love your thoughts, please comment. His younger brother, Richard Allen, 22 years old, is already in custody and is held in bail of $1 million on 27 counts of kidnapping of the schoolchildren and their bus driver. Woods has spent the vast majority of his life in prison, where his disciplinary record reportedly includes citations for running an unauthorised gold mine, a car dealership, and a Christmas tree farm. Theyre vulnerable. That, plus the fact that Frederick's father owned the rock quarry where the hostages were discovered, placed suspicion on him. The young Schoenfeld is also sought in the kidnapping. They ordered Ray and the children into the back of the two vans, which had been converted from prison transport vehicles. Most of her short marriage with Mr. Woods was not happy, Mrs. Padgett said. Yet here I am, a mess.". I fully take responsibility for this heinous act." HORROR SLAYING CBS reported that in previous parole hearings he was evasive, unable or unwilling to follow prison rules and fail[ed] to acknowledge the severity of his crime. Frederick was paroled in August 2022. Now I fully understand the terror and trauma I caused. And he's just letting those trucks, beautiful fire engines, turn into junkers. Park remembered Marshalls determination at that moment. Inside the prison bunker, Ray and Marshall worked quickly to find a way out. Prosecutors said Woods and his accomplices planned the kidnapping as if it was the crime of the century, and demanded $5 million in ransom from the state Board of Education. Hes incarcerated at the California Mens Colony in San Luis Obispo. Like us on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/TheSunUSand follow us from our main Twitter account at@TheSunUS, 2020 THE SUN, US, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED | TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY | YOUR AD CHOICES | SITEMAP, Frederick Newhall Woods has been approved for parole in 2022, Frederick Newhall Woods, along with James and Richard Schoenfeld, were arrested for the 1976 kidnapping. TruTV states that they were in their early- to mid-20s at the time of the mass abduction, which would place their approximate time of birth at around that decade, Real Criminals Referenced in Season Eight, Wikipedia's article on the mass abduction, TruTV Crime Library articles on the mass abduction, Section on the Chowchilla city website that describes the mass abduction. Twenty of the children feared of being abducted again, and twenty-one were afraid of "cars, the dark, the wind, the kitchen, mice, dogs, and hippies". Woods and the Schoenfeld brothers decided to take a nap and try again later. Natasha Anderson For Dailymail.Com He says the nightmares have finally stopped and that healing continues if you allow it., Park also said he met his kidnappers, shook their hands, and forgave them, which changed [his] life.. Once they found themselves above ground, Ray and the children walked to the quarry's guard station near the Shadow Cliffs East Bay National Park where authorities were called. 'I was 24 years old. Ray and Michael Marshall, aged 14 at the time, managed to find an escape for the group, which finally led to the apprehension of the three kidnappers, Frederick Newhall Woods IV, the quarry owner's son, and his two friends, James, and Richard Schoenfeld. He wasn't interested in anything. Subscribe to the 48 Hours" Channel HERE: bit.ly/1DvRWbT Watch Full Episodes Of "48 Hours" HERE: bit.ly/1fop6N1 Investigate with "48, Video related to two kidnappers of 26 children paroled; one remains in prison, kidnapped a school bus driver and 26 children, Why A Georgia Beauty Queens Alleged Murderer Still Hasnt Been Tried in Her Death. Inside The 1976 Chowchilla Kidnapping That Left 26 Schoolchildren Buried Alive. Around 4:00 p.m., as Ray was driving the students home, a white van suddenly pulled in front of the school bus and came to a stop in the middle of the road. Eighteen months after the mass abduction, one of the older male victims shot a Japanese tourist with a BB gun when the tourist's car broke down in front of his home. Of her, she said their children went missing who 's demonstrated how dangerous he is, ' said. Been recommended for parole 17 times, and James Schoenfeld was paroled in 2015 their. 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