00:00:00
foreign [Music] [Music] at six years old I had never been in darkness like that before
00:00:40
it was just pitch black like the dark was touching me engulfing me like I was actually inhaling the darkness
00:00:51
oh Chowchilla in 1976 was a Cow Town you could drive through the heart of town in about 30 seconds
00:01:11
[Music] thank you very close-knit community everybody looked out for each other people didn't lock their doors
00:01:20
there was nothing to fear I didn't know what fear was I still have a hard time grasping the
00:01:31
way that my life changed on July 15th it's another average summer day very hot going to summer school and that day we
00:01:44
got to go to the town swimming pool got back on the bus ready to go home the bus driver was Ed Ray he was a
00:01:53
strong Quiet Man everybody liked Edward and respected him the buses had the windows down the Hot
00:02:01
Summer Breeze the kids were laughing and singing happy and just glad to be going
00:02:08
home [Music] what I remember was her traveling he just left off two kids all of a sudden
00:02:15
he said what the heck is this and then I can remember the bus stopping at a stop sign Edward went to go around
00:02:23
a white van that was parked in the road and then this man came up with a stocking over his head with a gun and
00:02:30
said open the door foreign the first man came on the bus and he had a gun Ed Ray said what's
00:02:41
going on and he said shut up and move to the back I remember telling him that if
00:02:46
he didn't get me home on time my dad would be on him like stink on skunk you know I wasn't afraid of anything I
00:02:54
didn't know I needed to be and then another man came on the bus and he had a sawed off double barrel shotgun
00:03:06
the shotgun filled me with Terror the masked men had pantyhose pulled over their face it was a very distorted look
00:03:17
where their eyes were it almost looked Hollow it was like looking at death one of the kidnappers got into the
00:03:28
driver's seat and the bus started moving again I started to think I wonder where
00:03:37
they're taking us 26 school children and their bus driver have vanished anguish parents President
00:03:45
Ford hundreds of searching police are asking the question where are the children
00:03:56
foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] just outside Chowchilla on July 15 1976.
00:04:46
[Music] frightening Journey began we started driving down the road I was wondering how it was going to feel
00:05:00
to die I was too scared to move [Music] 26 terrified children some as young as five were staring down the barrel of a
00:05:13
sawed-off shotgun three masked men had hijacked the Dairyland Elementary School Bus one had
00:05:21
the shotgun one drove the bus and one followed behind in the white van they'd used to block the road
00:05:30
it's a hard thing to explain because I'd never been around guns you only seen bad
00:05:35
guys in the movies with stockings on you know so I knew it wasn't good [Music] Edward kept telling us kids just to be
00:05:43
quiet sit down do what they say Edward was speaking in a harsh tone and that normally was not the Edward that we
00:05:52
knew and loved eventually the bus went off the road down into a dry riverbed this this big Grove of bamboo that were
00:06:08
polar actually than the bus and then as I looked out one of the side windows I saw that there was another van
00:06:16
that was parked there they parked the bus and there was a green band down there waiting for us even at the age of
00:06:23
nine little Jennifer Brown seemed to know the horror of that day should be documented she later made this recording
00:06:31
with her mom and there was two guys standing from the bus door to the van door with guns
00:06:38
um with pantyhose over their heads so we wouldn't run out and then see they pulled the van right up to the um bus
00:06:45
door the kidnappers herded the stun children from the bus into those two Vans we had to jump from the bus to the
00:06:54
van so I wouldn't see any feet brands [Music] it's my turn to get on the van he stopped me
00:07:07
he held a shotgun to my stomach I said I was doing what you said and I had to stand there with this gun
00:07:17
in my gut until the one van drove away and made back the second van up it felt like forever
00:07:26
I thought he was going to shoot me I actually did Jennifer Larry and the rest of the
00:07:33
children followed Jody into the second van along with the bus driver ed Ray then the kidnappers closed the doors
00:07:42
it was pitch dark the Vans had been converted into makeshift jail cells by installing wood paneling and even
00:07:51
painting the windows no one could see in or out [Music] the kidnappers sped off with the
00:08:00
children caged in those mobile prisons felt like I was an slaughterhouse around that time Jennifer's mom Joan
00:08:11
Brown came home from work the house was empty the children were not there no peanut
00:08:18
butter on the counter no chairs out there well they just weren't there [Music] as one hour turned to two worried
00:08:28
parents began helping the police retrace the school buses route crisscrossing dozens of rural roads
00:08:37
where were those children 20 of them and a bus driver nowhere and then just Before Sunset
00:08:48
a police pilot spotted the big bus about seven miles outside Chowchilla hidden in
00:08:55
the dry riverbed you would only see it from the air Madera County Sheriff Ed Bates rushed to
00:09:03
the scene we found a higher impressions in the sand that led straight to the front door of the bus obviously someone
00:09:11
had backed their vehicle up to the doors of the bus Sheriff Bates was convinced I
00:09:17
called the governor I said I need some help down here the children of Chowchilla had become the victims of a
00:09:24
Brazen and bizarre mass kidnapping I had the parents all assembled there in the fire station
00:09:33
well you could just look at their faces and the anxiety and the fear was there I told him I called the FBI all of a
00:09:45
sudden I had 30 FBI agents there as Sheriff Bates continued to widen the investigation
00:09:53
the children continued to suffer inside the sweltering pitch black vans we'd bang on why the driver's panel would be
00:10:02
like let us out let us out and they would just say shut up [Music] and we drove what seemed like for hours
00:10:13
upon hours upon hours and I remembered that I kept falling asleep and coming back awake I would
00:10:25
dream about being [Music] I would dream about being up in the forest where my family would go camping
00:10:41
we all tried to comfort each other and a few of my own little friends that are five and six I came over and started
00:10:52
laying on me and crying and I told them be brave because everything's gonna be all right
00:11:01
then the van started to slow down the kids could feel it pulling off the road lurching from side to side on rough
00:11:09
terrain before coming to a stop after nearly 12 unbearable hours they opened up the door and they took Ed
00:11:18
Ray out first they shut the doors back and we're like where's Edward now what were they doing and I remember they
00:11:24
would just grab the first kid that was inside the door and they just kept doing that they opened the door and they
00:11:29
grabbed somebody else open up the door they take the next kid out and they close the doors but when they open the
00:11:34
doors you don't see them I thought they were basically killing us each one at a time
00:11:40
I kept scooting to the back of the van and I thought maybe if I just hide in the corner they won't come for me
00:11:47
but they did [Music] I didn't know if it was in the desert at the beach in the side of a mountain I had no idea
00:12:10
where we were I didn't even know if we were in California [Music] after almost 12 hours in darkness
00:12:17
ten-year-old Jody Heffington was the last to be taken out of the first fan being the last one you don't know what's
00:12:27
gonna happen because you don't see nobody else what happened to them if you didn't kill him where are they at
00:12:35
they had flashlights kind of like shining in their faces and then one shining on your face and they said
00:12:41
what's your name and I actually I have a little bit of a smart ass in me and I said pudding Tang ask me again
00:12:48
I'll tell you the same I was pissed I was scared at the same time they said if you don't tell us your name
00:12:56
you're never going to see your mom and dad again do you understand and they took all my belongings and then
00:13:02
they said you're going to go down in this hole right here the hole led to an old truck trailer
00:13:11
buried underground Ed Ray and the children from the first fan were there up in the back
00:13:25
it was surrounded with jugs of brinky water on some of the mattresses they had some cereal a loaf of bread and some
00:13:33
peanut butter in the wheel wells they had cut holes in them for toilets we could hear fans so
00:13:40
we knew that there was some sort of ventilation fourteen-year-old Michael Marshall was
00:13:49
still in the other van with some of the youngest children [Music] the kids got a hold of me and were
00:13:56
holding on to me and scared out of there you know we're all just scared of them which
00:14:04
as they did before the kidnappers removed the children one by one Michael and the youngest five-year-old
00:14:13
Monica artery were the last ones left in the van it was just me and her not knowing what had happened to the other
00:14:21
children or if they were even alive Michael says he couldn't bear to hand Monica over to the kidnappers so when
00:14:28
they opened the doors again he went first had to take her hands from mine and rip
00:14:35
and take them apart so it would be okay and go with them and leave her that was hard
00:14:45
as soon as I got on that ladder and took a step down and I heard the rest of the kids say
00:14:54
it's Mike it's my feet Michael and and I realized that everybody was alive [Music]
00:15:04
and to his relief not long after Monica came climbing down that ladder they were all together again we're okay
00:15:13
we're okay we're okay so right now so far we're all right but the sense of relief was short-lived
00:15:21
before I knew it the ladder was gone they threw a rolled toilet paper down and said we'll be back for you
00:15:27
and that was it the kidnappers then covered the opening with a manhole cover I knew it just went dark
00:15:39
you just hear the material getting throwed on us we've been buried alive buried 12 feet underground
00:15:50
I just remember looking up at that hole I wanted to stay close I wanted to be like right there because that was the
00:15:57
way out Ed Ray and Mike Marshall they looked at every corner every wall for an Escape
00:16:03
Route got underneath the manhole cover pushed up on it they couldn't move it so Ed Ray determined that it was time
00:16:13
for everyone to get some rest the minutes and hours ticked by it would be silent and then somebody
00:16:27
would bust out crying and oh we just erupt every cry [Music] the thing that made me cry was
00:16:41
not being able to say goodbye to my mom and I'm remembering the last time that I
00:16:51
saw her and [Music] wishing I could have told her goodbye throughout much of this day parents
00:17:02
another family of the missing children came to the command to post set up in downtown Chowchilla to try desperately
00:17:07
to Fathom some reason out of this madness Carol Marshall's 14 year old son Mike was another on the bus any chance
00:17:14
at all this could be some kind of terrible hoax or joke that someone is playing I imagine there's a chance
00:17:20
I hope that's all it is It is believed to be the largest kidnapping in U.S history so far there's been no word from
00:17:28
any abductors they had been in the hole for almost 12 hours and the conditions were deteriorating
00:17:42
we had eaten the food the fans on the ventilator stopped my little brain started to grasp the
00:17:50
concept of we may really not go home there was this one boy and he kept kicking blocks out from underneath the
00:18:01
4x4 pillars and so the roof of the van was starting to cave in the seams were breaking dust was flowing through the
00:18:10
sides of the van were bowing in children just screaming and crying we thought if
00:18:18
we're gonna die we're gonna die trying to get out of here see more photos from the case at
00:18:24
48hours.com [Music] as a young kid you don't have a lot of sense of time there was no sunlight so you couldn't
00:18:46
tell if it was day or night we were out of food we were out of water the roof was caving in it just was a
00:18:55
desperate situation everybody got the mattresses and stacked them up as high as we could go right
00:19:03
underneath the manhole cover people started standing on each other's shoulders I was a very tall girl and
00:19:09
very strong so they stood on my shoulders when they didn't stand on Edwards they took turns pushing up on the
00:19:17
manhole cover I'm giving it everything I got and all the kids are cheering me on
00:19:23
you know come on you can do it you can do it then all of a sudden they said it moved it moved
00:19:30
but they were far from being free the kidnappers had put truck batteries and dirt on top of the manhole cover and had
00:19:38
constructed a wooden box around it once the manhole cover was moved that box was
00:19:44
just big enough for Michael to stand in it like Jennifer Michael Marshall made a
00:19:53
recording about his experience foreign he dug until he was exhausted and then he kept on digging there was no quit in
00:20:11
him [Music] then suddenly this Ray of sunlight oh [Music] this Rave sunlight came down into the
00:20:39
opening it was catching the Dust and the dust particles look like a bunch of shooting stars there was this airflow
00:20:51
that came out of the van and I knew we were free I need a minute the air and the light there was demon coming
00:21:17
through [Music] Mike Marshall actually Brave person that he is crawled out of the hole first and
00:21:32
I stuck my head out and there was nobody I didn't see anybody and I could see we
00:21:37
were in the Hills he said the coast is clear and so we started taking the little ones
00:21:44
and putting them up there and Mike grabbed them that part was kind of scary too because
00:21:50
we're out now we don't know who's out here it was approximately 8 P.M on July 16th
00:21:58
they had been in the hole for nearly 16 hours we all just scurried like a bunch of
00:22:04
little mice [Music] we saw conveyor belts excavators it looked like the Flintstones
00:22:14
and all these men with hard hats came to us and looked at us like who are you the kidnappers had buried them in a rock
00:22:27
quarry in Livermore California 100 miles away from Chowchilla foreign they took photos of every child
00:22:41
[Music] an Alameda County Jail bus came and he was like yeah they put us back on a bus
00:22:51
then they transported them to the closest place that could hold them the Santa Rita Rehabilitation Center a local
00:22:59
jail I remember going in in the bus and you could see the prison wire and you thought well they're taking us
00:23:07
into jail they took us into what looked like classrooms they brought us apples and soda
00:23:18
they had these coveralls and all those little kids got into them and we had wolf pants about 10 feet and then we
00:23:26
rolled the arms up and we were all sitting there some of them didn't roll our arms up and we sitting there
00:23:31
flapping our arms we said hey we can fly over the next few hours Ed Ray and the children were examined by doctors
00:23:39
they were also questioned by police each one of us was interrogated by ourselves
00:23:45
to tell our story how do you describe somebody that has pantyhose over their face
00:23:50
after four hours of questioning they were finally allowed to go home they put us on a Greyhound
00:24:00
escorted a spect Chowchilla it was time for Mom and Dad I just wanted my Mom and Dad it was 4 AM when
00:24:10
the bus arrived at last it had been almost 36 hours since their traumatic ordeal began
00:24:19
the scene was like a mob scene news cameras and TV lights everybody started I'm saying are you all
00:24:29
right Jennifer and all this stuff they said yeah I'm fine then whenever we got into this room I found my mom and my dad
00:24:44
will start taking pictures [Applause] they just let us off the bus with all these people and you didn't know where
00:25:00
your parents were this man carried me off the bus and he put me in my mom's arms
00:25:09
and I said hi Mom and fell asleep on her shoulder I felt I felt like I was finally safe
00:25:20
nothing was ever the same nothing was ever the same after that we had no idea what our kids have been
00:25:37
through none whatsoever how does it feel to be a big movie star her nine-year-old Jennifer Brown the
00:25:46
experience has allowed her to still see the world with compassion why do you suppose if they would do something like
00:25:52
that no you didn't have enough love horrible night [Music] dreaming into our bedroom
00:26:05
and she wasn't even awake and she would tell us later that she dreamed that they were lined up
00:26:15
and shot one night I was dreaming that I was falling down this hole and I was trying
00:26:25
to get out I started screaming for my mom mom came in and all I could do was cry
00:26:33
and all she could do was hold me [Music] today in this rock quarry they Unearthed
00:26:58
the truck that was prison and very nearly a tomb for 26 children and their school bus driver unearthing The Who and
00:27:04
why of all this is much harder in the days following the kids Escape investigators searched the rock quarry
00:27:13
and the van that had been their underground tomb hoping they would find clues that would lead them to the
00:27:20
kidnappers they looked to see who would have keys to the Quarry in order to have
00:27:25
access to bury this moving container undetected you would have to have access assistant district attorney Jill klingey
00:27:34
Fred Woods had keys to that quarry 24 year old Frederick Newhall Woods the son of the owner of the Quarry immediately
00:27:42
became a person of interest they looked at The Ledger surveillance tapes and started to put put it all together at
00:27:48
that point security guards told investigators they had seen three young men digging a large
00:27:55
hole in the Quarry months before the kidnapping one of them they said was Fred Woods
00:28:03
and woods had a record two years earlier he had been charged with Grand Theft Auto
00:28:10
arrested with him were two of his friends James schoenfeld Fred's partner in a used car business
00:28:18
and James's younger brother Richard all three were from wealthy families who lived in San Francisco's nicest suburbs
00:28:26
they escaped with a fine and probation they're young they're wealthy I think it added a component of Fascination to the
00:28:34
story because it was so unlikely that three men such as these would commit such a atrocious crime
00:28:42
investigators executed a warrant to search Fred Woods's father's estate for the last two days the woods estate has
00:28:48
looked like an armed Camp dozens of officers looking for anything what they found there was a treasure Trove of
00:28:55
evidence we were able to recover one of the guns that was used during this kidnapping
00:29:02
crime was planned out for a year and a half in intricate detail you actually have a document
00:29:08
labeled plan and it sets out the way they were going to commit the kidnapping and then they on the right hand side how
00:29:16
they would compensate or deal with what could go wrong they also recovered the draft of a ransom note the draft of the
00:29:22
ransom note says 2.5 million dollars but in actuality they were going to ask for
00:29:27
five million dollars from the state of California but the kidnappers were never able to
00:29:32
deliver their demand when they tried to call the Chowchilla Police Department because of the number of calls that were
00:29:38
coming in worldwide the phone lines were jammed they couldn't get through so they
00:29:43
took a nap and by the time they woke up they saw in the news that the kids had been found so they were never able to
00:29:50
request their Ransom and so the search is on Nationwide for these three men in their arrest warrants were issued
00:29:57
Richard schoenfeld turned himself in Fred woods and James schoenfeld fled California
00:30:04
but not for long James schoenfeld was captured at dawn today police say he ran hard all over
00:30:11
the western United States but he did not run well Frederick Woods was arrested by the
00:30:16
Royal Canadian Mounted Police this afternoon just across the Washington state border in Vancouver
00:30:22
I remember being physically ill when I actually saw him after that you kind of did have a sense
00:30:30
of you can breathe they're behind bars so what drove these young men seemingly well off to kidnap young children for
00:30:40
money James schoenfeld eventually said despite their parents wealth he and Fred Woods were in serious debt he would
00:30:48
later tell the parole board we needed multiple victims to get multiple millions and we picked children because
00:30:55
children are precious the state would be willing to pay ransom for them and they
00:31:00
don't fight back I think that the two schoenfels did it just on pure persuasion by Fred Woods Fred woods and
00:31:08
my own personal opinion and I have a master's degree I think he was a sociopath some might call him a
00:31:14
psychopath with the overwhelming evidence against them woods and the schoenfels pleaded
00:31:21
guilty to 27 counts of kidnapping for ransom and robbery but they refused to plead guilty to
00:31:28
eight counts of bodily harm those charges would send them to prison for life without the possibility of parole
00:31:36
so 16 months after their abduction Jennifer Michael Jody and some of the other children
00:31:43
face the kidnappers in court you're in this little box and they're there looking at you just glaring at you and
00:31:51
staring you down they testified that in addition to the emotional trauma they had suffered
00:31:57
physical wounds like cuts and bruises and I looked over at them and I just broke down
00:32:04
that was the first time I cried so they allowed my father to come sit by me and that made me feel
00:32:14
a lot safer the kidnappers were sitting to my left at a table I remember giving my dad my
00:32:22
gum because I told him I was going to spit my gum at him you say they would give you this funny look what did that
00:32:29
make you feel scared I did my testimony I answered my questions and I left that courtroom with my head held high and
00:32:37
there was no way that I was going to let them see me cry a California judge today imposed
00:32:43
mandatory life prison sentences without parole on those three young men who kidnapped 26 chowchillas I remember
00:32:50
thinking they're going to go to jail they're not going to do this to anybody else that's all that I need to know
00:32:58
with the kidnapper sentenced to prison for the rest of their lives the survivors thought their nightmare
00:33:03
was finally over why but it was just beginning see more photos from the case at 48hours.com
00:33:26
just five weeks after being buried alive the gutsy children of Chowchilla and their bus driver ed Ray were hailed as
00:33:35
Heroes there was even a trip to Disneyland everyone thought that was great because
00:33:42
the good memories of Disneyland would overshadow the bad memories of the kidnapping
00:33:48
but it wasn't that simple in a way you try to be normal [Music] but when you've gone through something
00:34:01
that's so traumatic it's hard to go back and be a normal kid again sometimes it's like life is an act
00:34:12
you try to be good for everybody else so they don't worry but they worry anyway so I advise everybody else not to
00:34:20
do it that way the survivors struggled to move forward but just four years after the
00:34:29
kidnappings a critical Turning Point the kidnappers lawyers appealed the finding
00:34:35
of bodily harm prosecutor Jill clingy and the Appellate Court overturned it and while acknowledging the horrific
00:34:42
nature of the crime stated that the injury suffered did not rise to the level of bodily harm under the law
00:34:49
so Fred woods and the schoenfeld brothers were re-sentenced to life with the possibility of parole they would get
00:34:56
a parole hearing every one or two years I felt like I had been betrayed by the justice system
00:35:05
just six years after the kidnappings the parade of parole hearings began every time one of the kidnappers came up for
00:35:13
parole it triggered all their fears and Trauma the hearings took place inside the prison they sit in the same room and
00:35:22
it's not a large room with the kidnapper the first time I was terrified for all three kidnappers there had been
00:35:30
more than 60 parole hearings to date Jody Heffington went to nearly all of them it just seems like every three
00:35:37
years I go and I go three times every time it's excruciating in the aftermath is never good
00:35:46
Jody and the other survivors watched helplessly as Richard schoenfeld was the first to be granted parole in June 2012
00:35:53
36 years after the kidnappings three years later James schoenfeld was paroled too as far as I know they have
00:36:01
not been in any kind of trouble the same could not be said for Fred Woods he repeatedly broke prison rules he was
00:36:11
caught with pornography and cell phones hello my name is Jody madrondo I was Jody Heffington in 2018 48 Hours was at
00:36:25
Fred Woods's 15th parole hearing and recorded audio of Jody's testimony to listen to him talk about his poor
00:36:34
childhood I don't know if I want to laugh cry cuss him or what because um where did my childhood go
00:36:45
like I told him Mr Woods you're not a kidnapper you're a thief you're a thief of lives not just the the
00:36:54
kids that were in the bus but they stoled our family's lives and what we all had
00:37:07
before that after that hearing Woods was again denied parole it was 28 hours of Terror that will
00:37:20
always be with Michael Jennifer Jody and Larry all who have managed to find ways
00:37:26
to get on with living healing continues if you allow it Larry Park who spent his 20s and 30s
00:37:37
abusing drugs now owns a handyman business and volunteers as a pastor at a local church his nightmares have finally
00:37:45
stopped and he is sober I have nine years sober his sobriety was motivated by an epiphany about the kidnappers my
00:37:55
resentment for them was killing me one night I was laying in bed and I said God help me to forgive them
00:38:12
Larry met the men shook their hands and did forgive them here he is with Richard schoenfeld it
00:38:21
changed my life something washed over me and there was peace like I had never known
00:38:32
and I knew that day that I would be okay Jennifer Brown Hyde a wife mother and executive assistant says it took her
00:38:42
decades before she could even sleep without a nightlight and I've had family and church family
00:38:50
and co-workers that have piece by piece helped put me back together and I want people to know that that little girl
00:38:58
that was kidnapped and buried alive has managed to live a Wonderful Life Michael Marshall had lost his way after
00:39:08
the kidnapping I went to bed at 18 drunk and hung over and blacked out and woke up about 48 you know with a hangover
00:39:17
blurry he is sober and has found happiness as a father and a long-distance trucker
00:39:25
he tries not to think about those kidnappers would they put my mom and dad through
00:39:35
is something I cannot forgive [Music] Jody Heffington never left the Chowchilla area
00:39:52
she opened her own hair salon and raised a son but she struggled to find peace of mind
00:40:02
how that day affected me has affected me every day in some way or another I think it made me not a good daughter
00:40:16
not a good sister not a good aunt especially not a good mother and probably not a a good friend
00:40:31
I try to be those things but it seems like it um it just took something from me that I
00:40:40
can't ever get back and I can't tear it down no matter how hard I try and no matter
00:40:53
what I do [Music] a young mother found dead in her car where's the gun sir it's right here in
00:41:22
her hands it appears she took her own life but could she have shot herself twice it just seems like something out
00:41:28
of a movie instead of real life 48 hours Saturday on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus