November 26, 2025 • 34 mins
On July 15, 1976, a school bus carrying 26 children and their beloved driver, Ed Ray, left Chowchilla, California, after a hot day at summer school and never made it home.
Blocked by a mysterious white van, the bus was hijacked by armed, masked men and driven into a hidden slough, where the victims were transferred into dark, soundproofed vans. Over the next 16 hours, they would endure an ordeal that left lasting scars: being buried alive.
In this episode, we speak to Fox News Senior Correspondent Claudia Cowan, host of Nightmare in Chowchilla, to unpack the chilling ransom plot and its surprising perpetrators.
You can listen to the podcast Nightmare in Chowchilla: The School Bus Kidnapping here.
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Guest: Claudia Cowan
Host: Claire Murphy
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Group Executive Producer: Ilaria Brophy
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
On July fifteenth, nineteen seventy six, kids from a school
in the tiny regional town of Chowchilla, more than three
hundred kilometers north of la in California, are getting ready
to head home from summer school. It's hot and they've
been swimming that day. Some wearing their swimsuits still holding
their towels, jump on the bus that will take them
back home to their families. Sitting behind the wheel of
(00:24):
the bright yellow school bus is Frank Edward Ray, known
to everyone in town as Ed. All the kids know
and love Ed. He's been driving the school bus for
so long he knew the kid's parents from when he
drove them when they were kids too. They climb aboard
and settle in for the trip back home. They turn
onto Treeline Avenue twenty one, where the bus abruptly comes
(00:47):
to a stop. Sitting in the middle of the road
is a white van. Its door is wide open and
it's blocking the bus's path. Ed waits patiently. Maybe they've
broken down and need a minute to push the van
out of the way, But instead, a man wearing a
stocking over his face and holding a sworn off double
(01:07):
barrel shotgun emerges from the van and points the weapon
at Ed through the driver's window. Open the door, he commands,
and moved to the back of the bus. I'm Claire
Murphy and you're listening to True Crime Conversations, a podcast
exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the
(01:28):
people who know the most about them. When the gunman
boarded the bus alongside another to drive it away from
the scene, the twenty six kids on board and Ed
the driver had no idea where they were headed or why.
Pretty soon after they'd been intercepted, the bus, followed by
the van that had stopped them on their journey, was
eventually driven into the dry bed of what's referred to
(01:50):
as a slew, a natural irrigation channel with sky high
bamboo growing in its sandy bed, a perfect place to
hide a bright yellow vehicle of that size. Another van
was there waiting for them, and one by one, the
children and Ed were transferred into the two vehicles. The
windows inside were blacked out, the interior line with soundproofing
(02:12):
their ability to communicate with their kidnappers. Cut off by
plywood barriers. They could see nothing, but they could hear
each other. Some of the children were crying and calling
out for their mothers. Some threatened the kidnappers with the
wrath of dads who would not rest until they were
found and justice handed out. Others sat in silence, too
(02:34):
scared to make a sound. The next more than thirty
hours would leave those kids with a lifetime of trauma
that they still deal with to this day, a fear
stemming from the time that they were buried alive. Fox
News Channels San Francisco based senior correspondent Claudia Cowan is
(02:54):
the host of the podcast Nightmare in Chowchilla, telling the
chilling story of twenty six children one bus driver held
for ransom by men with a very surprising background. She
joins us now, Claudia, thank you so much for joining
us to tell us the story about the Chowchilla bus kidnapping.
(03:17):
I would love to first get your perspective on what
the town of Chowchilla is actually like, because you have
physically been there, although it was, you know, forty five
years after this incident occurred. But do you feel like
it's changed a lot, as those small regional towns tend
to not do since the nineteen seventies when this happened.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Well, it's still an agricultural, mostly farming community. It's still
a small town. It's got that small town charm and feel.
A lot of American flags, a lot of churches, not
many buildings over three stories tall. But obviously you have
a lot more retail, a lot more hotels, a lot
more businesses coming in. But it really is still quintessential,
(03:59):
you Knowentral Valley of California and the vibe, the smells,
the heat during the summer, you know, and I was
there in July and it does get hot and you know,
the tumbleweeds are blowing around. That I think was very
much the scene back in nineteen seventy six as well. Well.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Your podcast definitely sets that scene with you know, you
can almost feel the heat through the audio because there's
like the crickets chirping in the background and you can
feel that kind of it's very Australian to hear that too,
in that heat of the middle of summer, which is
when this occurred. When these children were kidnapped from their
bus ride home. They're on summer camp and then they're
(04:37):
transferred into vans and taken away. And you did actually
speak to at least three of the children who were
on the bus that day, Mike, Larry and Jennifer. Can
you describe from what they told you the conditions inside
those vans when they were first kidnapped?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Oh? Well, the vans were black. All the seats had
been taken out of these vans and then plywood or
paper or something was put in front of the windows
so that there was it was completely pitch black in there,
and there were there was no water, no food, certainly
no bathrooms. At one point, Jennifer remembers, the vans stopped
(05:18):
and she smelled gasoline, so they obviously fueled up during
their eleven plus hour jaunt, with no idea of where
they're going, why they've been taken, and the little you know,
this was summer school and a lot of the kids
in these vans were little, I mean, you know, five, six,
seven years old, and they were all clinging to each other,
(05:39):
and they were clinging to this bus driver Ed Ray
as the only other adult, and it was just frightening
for them. I mean you imagine a child's worst nightmare,
you know, locked in a moving car with no idea,
where you are not being able to see, getting no breaks,
very little air, no water, no food. It was just
(06:00):
horrendous for these kids.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
It's interesting to the way that the kidnap is transferred
them from that bus to those vans, because it really
left little evidence for the police when they did actually
locate the bus.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Well, one of the vans had somewhat side swiped the
bus and left a little bit of a blue or green,
dark colored paint on the bus, So officials knew that
they were looking for a vehicle that might be a
dark color. But what's interesting is that shortly after the
discovery of the bus in that river slough, it rained
(06:32):
and that little bit of evidence, that little discoloration of
paint was washed away. This was nineteen seventy six and
forensic evidence gathering has changed a lot. But it's a
good thing they found that bus when they did, so
that they knew that they were going to be looking
for a dark colored vehicle.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
So these kids in these vans, as you mentioned, it's
the middle of Samma, it's very hot. They haven't been
given a break to go to the toilet. Even they're
having to do that in said the van with they
literally cannot see their hands in front of their faces.
Nearly twelve hours passes and they finally pull up. What
actually happens to them when they arrive at their destination?
Where even are they?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
So they end up after this long, you know, eleven
hour drive, just willy nilly around northern California, they end
up in a rock quarry in a city called Livermore.
And this rock quarry was owned by one of the
kidnappers father fred Wood's father owned this rock quarry. Of course,
(07:33):
the kids and ed Ray have no idea where they are,
but they're ordered to get out of these vans, and
one child at a time is taken out of the
van and ordered to climb down a ladder into a
hole that's been carved out in the ground. And this
is a gunpoint, mind you, These kidnappers have guns. And
(07:55):
so one by one the children come out. They are
told to say their name and to give some sort
of an article a personal effect to their kidnapper, and
then they are told to climb down a ladder into
another larger van, one big moving van as it turned out,
that had been buried under the ground inside this rock quarry.
(08:17):
So one by one the kids all climb down the ladder,
and after the last one, the kidnappers throw down some flashlights,
and they pull up the ladder and they seal up
the top hole with a manhole cover, and then they
put heavy, heavy truck batteries on top of the manhole cover,
and then they build a box and fill it in
(08:39):
with dart above that. So essentially, these twenty seven people,
these twenty six kids and their bus driver are buried alive.
It's just like, you think about this, right, and you think,
you know, in what nightmare scenario does something like this happen,
But it happened to these kids. It's just incredible. What
(09:00):
happened to them.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
What did these survivors, he spoke to, describe the conditions
as being like when they were inside that moving van
under the ground.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Well, at least in this situation, they had some light,
They had some flashlights, and they had some batteries for
these flashlights. There were a tables set up with some
cereal cheerios, life cereal things like that. There were jugs
of water, and there were a lot of mattresses, so
you know, clearly this had been planned out for some time. Also,
(09:30):
some makeshift toilets had been kind of carved out in
the wheel well of the tire of this moving van.
That had been buried. So they did have you know,
if you can call them amenities, I don't know, but
they did at least have food and water and light,
and there was also a fan to recirculate, so they
had some sort of air to breathe. But I tell you,
(09:52):
the batteries on you know what started to happen over time.
The dust started to fall, that fan started to not
work so well, the batteries you know, started to go
out on these on these flashlights. So so the the
these small creature comforts did not last a very long time.
And of course the kids went through the water and
(10:12):
the food right away because they were starving. You know,
they had been on their way home from summer school
and hadn't eaten probably since lunch that day, and now
it's late into the night and they're probably starving. So
all of all of the food and water disappeared pretty quickly,
and then the lights started to go to.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
You're listening to True Crime Conversations with me, Claire Murphy.
I'm speaking with journalists Claudia Cowen, host of the podcast
Nightmare in Chowchilla. Up next, Claudia tells us how exactly
police were able to start investigating a case as unusual
as this one. So while this is happening, what's happening
(10:53):
back in chow Chilla. The bus is found fairly quickly,
as you mentioned it rained, so some of the evidence
gets washed away. What are the parents being told? And
how a police actually even starting this investigation because it
is such an unusual event.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Well, when they found the bus kind of shielded in
this river slough and no kids on it and no
bus driver, the parents were what in the world is
going on here? Where are they? So the sheriff at
the time was this real character named Ed Bates, and
he always wore a cowboy hat and he had, you know,
(11:28):
a hole stern cowboy boots. He was the right man
for the job, and he was on this case right away,
and he told these parents right away, we're going to
find these kids. And so he you know, there was
no cell phones and no GPS in those days. He
had to rely on relationships and gut instinct, and he
had a lot of luck on his side. He put
out something of a description because they did know that
(11:51):
there were two tracks of tire tracks leading away from
the bus, and they knew that they were looking for
some sort of a dark colored vehicle. That information went
out and a real estate woman who was very smart,
and of course this is all over the news right now,
but she remembered seeing suspicious men acting weirdly around a
(12:13):
couple of dark colored vans and she wrote down the
license plate. If you can believe that, that's the luck
part of this whole story. So then from that Ed
Bates was able to track down where these vans originated,
who they were sold to. They had some names to
go on, and that was definitely that part of the investigation. Meantime,
(12:34):
the kidnappers had been driving around, obviously with these kids
all night in these vans, and they were trying to
call into the sheriff's office to make a five million
dollar ransom demand because they felt that this would be
easy money. They had heard that California had a state surplus,
a budget surplus of five million dollars in that the
money wouldn't be missed. But because all the media and
(12:57):
the parents and all the attention on this store sor
was tying up all the phone lines at the police department,
the kidnappers couldn't get their calls through, if you can
believe it, So they decided to go back to their
homes closer to San Francisco and take a nap, and
that's when Mike Marshall and Ed Ray managed to pull
(13:19):
off really the miracle of the century and devise an
escape from this underground tomb where they've been buried alive.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I think this is something we have to understand too.
It's nineteen seventy six. So the police department that they're
calling into, which is also in a regional area so
it's not a big centralized city, had like one or
two phone lines at the time, and you've got twenty
six missing kids with twenty six sets of parents and
other family and members of the public all calling into
(13:47):
that one police station. So the chances of those kidnappers
ever getting through on that phone line were almost.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Zero, exactly right they had. They kept stopping and trying
to phone in theirs and they just couldn't get through.
So they went home, took a nap, and when they
woke up and turned on the television, that's when they
got the shock of their lives.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, Okay, we'll find out who these people are in
just a second, but let's go to what actually is
happening underground. So twenty six kids and their bus driver ed.
They first of all go through the motions of like,
oh my god, this is it, We're going to die
to then at least one of those kids saying not today,
can you talk us through exactly what happens in that moment?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So yeah, and they would console each other by singing
and praying together. I think they took turn sleeping when
they could. So the kidnappers had done a dry run
on this and they had really, you know, specifically chosen
this particular bus to take hostage because they saw that
it was almost always a filled with little kids. What
(14:52):
they didn't count on was on July sixteenth, one kid
named Mirk Marshall would be on this bus. And he
was on this s bus because he was in trouble
with his mom and his mom was I'm not picking
you up. You got to take the bus home from
summer school. So Mike Marshall ended up being on this
particular bus on this particular day. And he's not a
little kid, and he's fourteen years old, and he's strong.
(15:14):
He's a rodeo, a rodeo kiddie comes from a rodeo family. Strong,
strapping kid fairly new to Childchilla, braver than anybody I've
ever met. And he's on that bus that day. And
Larry Park, another survivor that I spoke to, said he
doesn't know what would have happened if Mike Marshall was
(15:35):
not on that bus that day, But because he was
on that bus that day, Larry is alive. So ed Ray,
the bus driver, was pretty much of a mindset of
we're down here, kids, get used to it, We're never
getting out. Say your prayers. In his words, according to
(15:56):
Mike and Larry, we're going to kick the bucket down here.
So Mike Marshall said, well, if we're going to die
down here, we might as well die trying to get out,
And he found some deep reservoir of courage and bravery
to devise a plan to break apart the mattresses, the
box springs and to stack them up on top of
(16:19):
each other so that he could climb and try to
touch the ceiling and try to figure out about this
manhole cover that was covering the hole where the latter
had been where they all climbed down. And over a
period of I think thirteen fourteen fifteen hours, this kid,
Mike Marshall kept pushing at the manhole cover, and remember
(16:40):
they're heavy truck batteries on top of it. But he managed, ever,
you know, one inch at a time, to move this
manhole cover to the side, and then the kids were
cheering him on. Dust was falling, and all of a
sudden the manhole you know, and he slipped his arm
even past this manhole cover. It could have if it
(17:03):
had fallen, it would have broken his arm off. These
things are so heavy. Anyway, he finally manages to move
the cover aside, get the batteries off, and then he's
looking at the inside of this box that had been
built on top of this whole manhole cover battery setup,
and he takes some plywood from the mattresses that the
(17:25):
kids had broken up, and he's digging at this dirt
and it's falling down on him, on everybody, but he
keeps digging, digging, digging, and finally the last piece of
dirt falls in, and as Larry describes it, it was
a shaft of sunlight that with the dust in the
sunlight sparkling and fresh air. He said, in that moment,
(17:50):
there was hope. There was hope. And after that Mike
was able to poke his head out of the ground,
look around, see there were no kidnappers there, and finally
start pulling the kids out one at a time so
that they got above ground. Every one of those kids survived,
and ed Ray survived too, And it was just a
(18:12):
miracle that Mike was on the bus that because the
next oldest kid, I think, was like ten, and without Mike,
there was just no way that they would have been
able to devise that escape. And clearly the kidnappers had
gone home and gone to bed with you know, no
care in the world for these kids. It was just
a miracle that they all got out. And what's interesting
(18:34):
when they finally did make it back to Chowchilla, one
of the reporters there wanted Mike because all the kids
were like Mike, Mike, Mike, and one of the reporters
was about to get the story from Mike himself, and
I believe it was the school principal who said, hey,
enough you reporters, these kids have been through enough. Let
Mike get his rest, let them be with their families.
(18:56):
And you know, Mike was listening to the grownups in
the room and all the kids. That's what they did
and Mike never got to tell his story. And so
all the people, all the reporters, the school, the parents,
they all thought that it was because of completely because
of ed Ray that they escaped from this underground dungeon,
this tomb, when in fact, there were other heroes that day.
(19:18):
I don't want to discount ed Ray, not at all.
He was a huge part of all these people getting out,
but really the credit should go to a large, large
extent to this kid, Mike Marshall.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Well, let's go back to the kidnappers for a moment.
What do we know about them and why were they
motivated to actually do this? Because it was so premeditated.
They put a lot of effort into kidnapping these kids.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
You know, they did so. The ringleader was this man
named Fred Woods. He's twenty four, and he gets his buddies,
these two brothers, James and Richard Schoenfeld, twenty two and
twenty four. And you know what's interesting is that all
three of these young men came from well to do
family and lived in Portola Valley, which is a very
(20:02):
wealthy enclave of the Bay Area. The Schoenfeld's father was
a doctor, and Fred Woods his family, you know, struck
it rich during the during the gold Rush, and had
a lot of money and owned land and all kinds
of real estate interests. And of course this rock quarry
in Livermore where Fred Woods had worked, and that's why
(20:23):
he knew it well, and that's why he decided to
bury this load of kids there. But they, you know,
they were scrappy kids. They often were in debt, and
they'd made some bad investments over time, and they wanted
some quick money. I mean, that's the bottom line. They
really wanted some quick money. And they thought that kidnapping
(20:43):
a busload of of helpless, defenseless little kids precious lives,
you know, they thought precious lives for you know, lots
of millions who wouldn't fight back or resist would be
the best way to do it. And so that's that's
why they devised this plan. And again about this five
million dollar budget surplus, that that's how they struck on
(21:03):
the number of a five million dollar ransom.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
What's really interesting is when police do finally actually track
them down and they go through their home, the sheer
amount of evidence that they found is quite amazing.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Really. It is, oh, diagrams on like fast food wrappers,
I want to say, or bags of fast. These kidnappers
were very organized in some ways and you know, Keystone
cops in other ways. So yes, lists of how they
were going to pull this off, what they were going
to do. Eventually they were going to set the kids free.
(21:42):
But there was a lot of evidence, just a treasure
trove of evidence. And of course when the kidnappers realized
that the kids had escaped, they all fled. They all
tried to escape to Canada or to various parts. Eventually,
Richard Schoenfeld, the younger brother, a few days later, he
turned himself in. You know, he was young, just twenty
two years old. You think about you know, these guys
(22:04):
were young. And then the other two were caught within
days as well. There was not a long manhunt that
stretched out for weeks and weeks. It wasn't like that.
These kidnappers were found pretty.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Quick after the break. We hear what happened when police
finally tracked down the kidnappers and what evidence police found
in their home. What was their trial like, because I
understand some charges were brought against them that at that
time in nineteen seventy six, required a lot to be proven.
(22:40):
And so that's why they first of all ended up
with life without parole. But then that change, didn't it?
Speaker 2 (22:46):
It did, It did, and we know so much more
today about childhood trauma. But back in those days they
were sentenced to life without parole because there was a
charge of bodily injury. One of the chill on the bus,
Jennifer Hyde Brown, had suffered an injury to her foot
or her ankle. But later on appeal, the defense argued, well,
(23:09):
it wasn't that serious, and none of the other kids
were injured, so really that point that led to the
life in prison without parole should be dismissed, and a
judge agreed. So now their sentence is a life in
prison with the possibility of parole. And what we know now,
of course, is that kind of trauma does cause physical
injury to the brain. It may not be a mark
(23:32):
on the skin, but that was, you know, and all
these survivors have had some degree of trauma later in life.
But at the time it was, oh, they're young, they're little,
We'll just put them on a trip to Disneyland and
they'll forget about it and move on with their lives.
But of course now we know so much more and
(23:54):
especially based on studies of these particular kids that were
kidnapped about child trauma and the real lasting, you know,
physical and emotional damage that something like this can cause
and did cause in this case.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
We did speak to some of the survivors. What did
they explain to you was their experience like after going
home after everything had happened.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Well, Jennifer Hyde Brown, who was I think she was
just nine years old to this day, she has tu
She lives in an area of the country where there's
tornadoes and she sometimes has to go down into storm cellars.
She needs to fortify herself with a stiff drink before
she does that. She never sleeps in the dark. She
always has a light on. She doesn't like airplanes or
(24:38):
elevators or any kind of enclosed spaces. That has been
part of her lasting trauma. Now with that said, she's
raised a beautiful family and has a thriving career, so
she's doing well. But those are just some of the
things that she's still dealing with to get over that trauma.
And as for Larry and Mike, you know, it's really tragic,
you know what happened with them because they both fell
(25:01):
into into alcohol and substance abuse. Especially, Larry had demons
haunting him for many, many years and was in and
out of institutions and recovery homes. He was getting into
fights and it was really really bad until he rediscovered
his faith and went into a Christian ministry to serve others.
(25:23):
And what's interesting with Larry is that he became involved
in what we're calling restorative justice, where he felt the
need to meet these kidnappers that had caused him so
much distress as a young man, and he did. He
met with them and he forgave them. But what's really
(25:44):
shocking to me is that he told these kidnappers of
his that he needed them to forgive him for hating
them for so many years and being so angry with
them for so many years. He says, I was your
prisoner for thirty hours, but I hated you for thirty
(26:05):
eight years and no one deserves that. Do you forgive me?
And this kind of healing that he needed to do
is really quite astounding. Mike Marshall doesn't quite feel the
same way, although he has found his faith too and
is it about christian But he's not quite ready to
forgive these men the way that Larry has, but it
(26:27):
was really something to see. Now, as your listeners may know,
all three men are now free on parole, living somewhere
in northern California. We think the details of where they
are and what they're doing have been kept very private,
like no information really on what they're doing, except we
know they've stayed out of trouble. They haven't been arrested,
(26:49):
no court hearings, anything like that. But Larry told me
that once enough time had gone by, he wanted to
take Fred Woods out for a steak dinner and talk
to him and just kind of get to know this
man that has loomed large over his whole life. I
don't think that has happened yet. I think Larry would
(27:09):
like to find out where Fred is, and yet he
just hasn't found out that information yet. But I just
thought that was so interesting. That was so interesting. Also,
in the aftermath of all of this, Ed Ray went
right back to work driving that bus, same bus. He
went right back to work driving kids. That's what he
loved to do. And years later, after he retired and
(27:30):
he found out that the bus was heading to the junkyard,
he bought it. And I always thought about that connection
he had to that school bus and his need to
to keep it safe, and so he bought it and
he put it in his barn. I think it's been
moved now to a different location, but I always thought
about that. Isn't that interesting?
Speaker 1 (27:51):
It is interesting, and the fact that it's tied to
such trauma now interesting that he still felt that connection
to it even after everything that happened. He mentioned that, oh,
three of those men have been paroled now. The Schoenfeld
brothers got out earlier, and it seems like their life
behind bars was failing on eventful. But fred Wood stading
for a lot longer, and he applied for parole, obtained
(28:14):
times and was denied because he was running businesses from
behind bas Is that true?
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yes, yes, yes. When we originally did our podcast, we
didn't think he would be paroled or come up for
parole until twenty twenty four. In fact, he was paroled
in I believe twenty twenty two, after being denied like
seventeen times. But yeah, you know, he ran into some
trouble behind bars. I believe he was running a Christmas
tree farm and he had a cell phone, and I
(28:43):
think he was getting married over and over again. And
he didn't always have the warden's permission for some of
the things that he was doing there. And you know,
as the district attorney or will say, it's like a
preview of how somebody will behave once they're out of prison.
Is their history in prison and how they behave in prison.
So you know, it was a dicey move, but he
(29:05):
is now. He is now free and living a crime
free life for as far as we can tell. One
thing that's interesting too, is that when he got out
of prison, the first thing that he did after being
behind bars more than four decades, he wanted to go
to the beach, and so the police or whoever took
him out of the jail drove him to the beach.
(29:27):
And you can imagine how that must have been for
him after all those years behind bars, to feel his
toes in the sand and to breathe that fresh air.
And now after that, we don't know where he is
or the Schoenfeld brothers, they both had family, a large
families that were willing to take them in and give
them jobs and support them. So it's likely that these
(29:49):
men are all with their families.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
What's been the lasting legacy on the town of Chowchilla
after this happened. I imagined the parents of not just those
twenty six children, that the parents of every child who
lived anywhere remotely close to this incident changed behaviors in
the wake of this, or were at least more scared
for their children. But what's the lasting legacy of this
kidnapping event on the town's there?
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Well, I think across the country, because this was a
huge national story really around the world. Even I think
that was the time after that where parents were, you know,
telling their kids, you can't play outside after dark, you
can't ride your bike, you know, if I don't know
where you're going, we need to stay in touch with
you more. It was a loss of innocence in many ways.
(30:37):
And I think Chowchilla, you know, like so many places
like Valdi's, Alaska. You know, it will always be synonymous
with this kidnapping, but it is a thriving community and
people are moving there with their families, with their children.
There are parks there, including an ed Ray Park, and
they celebrate ed Ray Day with the town coming out
(30:57):
with a little parade for that. But I think that,
you know, it's a sad chapter, but in many ways,
you know, this story could have turned out so much worse.
And there's a plaque in front of the police department
with giant boulder, with a plaque with a picture of
the school bus and the list of all the kids'
(31:19):
names in ed Ray, and it's a beautiful commemoration. I
don't know how many young people growing up today even
know about this story because it happened so long ago,
more than forty five years ago. But I know when
our crew met with Mike and Larry on the forty
five day anniversary in Chowchilla, there was really nothing happening
(31:42):
to commemorate the day there, but I can tell you
it was an emotional reunion, and especially for Larry to
meet his hero, Mike Marshall, who helped save his life.
I asked Larry, how long has it been since you've
seen Mike. He's like forty five years. Forty five years.
You know. It's a little bit of a heart scratch
think about that.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I must admit when I was listening to that episode
of your podcast, I was in tears in the car
just listening to the gratitude come from Larry and then
the real kind of humbleness of Mike who I think
sounds like he felt like he just did what he
had to do in the moment. He doesn't feel as
heroic as Larry sort of holds.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Him up to be.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Do you find like in speaking to those two men
that they're still kind of grappling with what their role
was and the response was from that.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Day, absolutely absolutely. I think they will always still be grappling.
It was nice to know that both of them at
that time and hopefully still are sober, they're doing well
in their recovery. I think Mike appreciates, after all these
years to tell his side of the sport, to have
his side of the story told. He's very humble, a
(32:54):
little bit shy. He has a support animal with him
all the time, his beloved dog Blue. I don't think
he's one to clamor for attention, but I think now
all these years later, it's not like stolen Valor here
or anything, but I think he's glad that he's had
a little bit more of the whole story come out.
(33:14):
And as for Larry, he was overwhelmed to meet the
man he calls his hero and to thank him repeatedly,
over and over, thank you, thank you, thank you, and
also to try to impart some of his own personal
belief that Mike could benefit from this idea of forgiveness
(33:36):
just as he had. I don't know. We'll see. We'll
see where Mike goes with forgiving his kidnappers. I think
Larry might be maybe one other of the survivors has
also forgiven them, because forgiveness is a tough thing for
some people, but for Larry it was a life saver
for him because he said, once he was able to
forgive and let go of that anger and resentment, he
(33:58):
was able to spell these demon voices that had told
him so many terrible things and to do so many
terrible things. And he wanted Mike to know that part
of his story, and he was glad to be able
to share that.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Thank you to Claudia for helping us tell this story.
You can find the podcast Nightmare and Chow Chiller at
the link in our show notes. If you want to
see images from this story, here to our Instagram page
at True Crime Conversations. True Crime Conversations is hosted by
me Claire Murphy. Our senior producer is Talie Blackman. The
group executive producer is Alaria Brophy, and there's been audio
(34:36):
designed by Tina Madloff. Thanks so much for listening. I'll
be back next week with another True Crime Conversation. True
Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast was recorded on
On July fifteenth, nineteen seventy six, kids from a school
in the tiny regional town of Chowchilla, more than three
hundred kilometers north of la in California, are getting ready
to head home from summer school. It's hot and they've
been swimming that day. Some wearing their swimsuits still holding
their towels, jump on the bus that will take them
back home to their families. Sitting behind the wheel of
(00:24):
the bright yellow school bus is Frank Edward Ray, known
to everyone in town as Ed. All the kids know
and love Ed. He's been driving the school bus for
so long he knew the kid's parents from when he
drove them when they were kids too. They climb aboard
and settle in for the trip back home. They turn
onto Treeline Avenue twenty one, where the bus abruptly comes
(00:47):
to a stop. Sitting in the middle of the road
is a white van. Its door is wide open and
it's blocking the bus's path. Ed waits patiently. Maybe they've
broken down and need a minute to push the van
out of the way, But instead, a man wearing a
stocking over his face and holding a sworn off double
(01:07):
barrel shotgun emerges from the van and points the weapon
at Ed through the driver's window. Open the door, he commands,
and moved to the back of the bus. I'm Claire
Murphy and you're listening to True Crime Conversations, a podcast
exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the
(01:28):
people who know the most about them. When the gunman
boarded the bus alongside another to drive it away from
the scene, the twenty six kids on board and Ed
the driver had no idea where they were headed or why.
Pretty soon after they'd been intercepted, the bus, followed by
the van that had stopped them on their journey, was
eventually driven into the dry bed of what's referred to
(01:50):
as a slew, a natural irrigation channel with sky high
bamboo growing in its sandy bed, a perfect place to
hide a bright yellow vehicle of that size. Another van
was there waiting for them, and one by one, the
children and Ed were transferred into the two vehicles. The
windows inside were blacked out, the interior line with soundproofing
(02:12):
their ability to communicate with their kidnappers. Cut off by
plywood barriers. They could see nothing, but they could hear
each other. Some of the children were crying and calling
out for their mothers. Some threatened the kidnappers with the
wrath of dads who would not rest until they were
found and justice handed out. Others sat in silence, too
(02:34):
scared to make a sound. The next more than thirty
hours would leave those kids with a lifetime of trauma
that they still deal with to this day, a fear
stemming from the time that they were buried alive. Fox
News Channels San Francisco based senior correspondent Claudia Cowan is
(02:54):
the host of the podcast Nightmare in Chowchilla, telling the
chilling story of twenty six children one bus driver held
for ransom by men with a very surprising background. She
joins us now, Claudia, thank you so much for joining
us to tell us the story about the Chowchilla bus kidnapping.
(03:17):
I would love to first get your perspective on what
the town of Chowchilla is actually like, because you have
physically been there, although it was, you know, forty five
years after this incident occurred. But do you feel like
it's changed a lot, as those small regional towns tend
to not do since the nineteen seventies when this happened.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Well, it's still an agricultural, mostly farming community. It's still
a small town. It's got that small town charm and feel.
A lot of American flags, a lot of churches, not
many buildings over three stories tall. But obviously you have
a lot more retail, a lot more hotels, a lot
more businesses coming in. But it really is still quintessential,
(03:59):
you Knowentral Valley of California and the vibe, the smells,
the heat during the summer, you know, and I was
there in July and it does get hot and you know,
the tumbleweeds are blowing around. That I think was very
much the scene back in nineteen seventy six as well. Well.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Your podcast definitely sets that scene with you know, you
can almost feel the heat through the audio because there's
like the crickets chirping in the background and you can
feel that kind of it's very Australian to hear that too,
in that heat of the middle of summer, which is
when this occurred. When these children were kidnapped from their
bus ride home. They're on summer camp and then they're
(04:37):
transferred into vans and taken away. And you did actually
speak to at least three of the children who were
on the bus that day, Mike, Larry and Jennifer. Can
you describe from what they told you the conditions inside
those vans when they were first kidnapped?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Oh? Well, the vans were black. All the seats had
been taken out of these vans and then plywood or
paper or something was put in front of the windows
so that there was it was completely pitch black in there,
and there were there was no water, no food, certainly
no bathrooms. At one point, Jennifer remembers, the vans stopped
(05:18):
and she smelled gasoline, so they obviously fueled up during
their eleven plus hour jaunt, with no idea of where
they're going, why they've been taken, and the little you know,
this was summer school and a lot of the kids
in these vans were little, I mean, you know, five, six,
seven years old, and they were all clinging to each other,
(05:39):
and they were clinging to this bus driver Ed Ray
as the only other adult, and it was just frightening
for them. I mean you imagine a child's worst nightmare,
you know, locked in a moving car with no idea,
where you are not being able to see, getting no breaks,
very little air, no water, no food. It was just
(06:00):
horrendous for these kids.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
It's interesting to the way that the kidnap is transferred
them from that bus to those vans, because it really
left little evidence for the police when they did actually
locate the bus.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Well, one of the vans had somewhat side swiped the
bus and left a little bit of a blue or green,
dark colored paint on the bus, So officials knew that
they were looking for a vehicle that might be a
dark color. But what's interesting is that shortly after the
discovery of the bus in that river slough, it rained
(06:32):
and that little bit of evidence, that little discoloration of
paint was washed away. This was nineteen seventy six and
forensic evidence gathering has changed a lot. But it's a
good thing they found that bus when they did, so
that they knew that they were going to be looking
for a dark colored vehicle.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
So these kids in these vans, as you mentioned, it's
the middle of Samma, it's very hot. They haven't been
given a break to go to the toilet. Even they're
having to do that in said the van with they
literally cannot see their hands in front of their faces.
Nearly twelve hours passes and they finally pull up. What
actually happens to them when they arrive at their destination?
Where even are they?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
So they end up after this long, you know, eleven
hour drive, just willy nilly around northern California, they end
up in a rock quarry in a city called Livermore.
And this rock quarry was owned by one of the
kidnappers father fred Wood's father owned this rock quarry. Of course,
(07:33):
the kids and ed Ray have no idea where they are,
but they're ordered to get out of these vans, and
one child at a time is taken out of the
van and ordered to climb down a ladder into a
hole that's been carved out in the ground. And this
is a gunpoint, mind you, These kidnappers have guns. And
(07:55):
so one by one the children come out. They are
told to say their name and to give some sort
of an article a personal effect to their kidnapper, and
then they are told to climb down a ladder into
another larger van, one big moving van as it turned out,
that had been buried under the ground inside this rock quarry.
(08:17):
So one by one the kids all climb down the ladder,
and after the last one, the kidnappers throw down some flashlights,
and they pull up the ladder and they seal up
the top hole with a manhole cover, and then they
put heavy, heavy truck batteries on top of the manhole cover,
and then they build a box and fill it in
(08:39):
with dart above that. So essentially, these twenty seven people,
these twenty six kids and their bus driver are buried alive.
It's just like, you think about this, right, and you think,
you know, in what nightmare scenario does something like this happen,
But it happened to these kids. It's just incredible. What
(09:00):
happened to them.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
What did these survivors, he spoke to, describe the conditions
as being like when they were inside that moving van
under the ground.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Well, at least in this situation, they had some light,
They had some flashlights, and they had some batteries for
these flashlights. There were a tables set up with some
cereal cheerios, life cereal things like that. There were jugs
of water, and there were a lot of mattresses, so
you know, clearly this had been planned out for some time. Also,
(09:30):
some makeshift toilets had been kind of carved out in
the wheel well of the tire of this moving van.
That had been buried. So they did have you know,
if you can call them amenities, I don't know, but
they did at least have food and water and light,
and there was also a fan to recirculate, so they
had some sort of air to breathe. But I tell you,
(09:52):
the batteries on you know what started to happen over time.
The dust started to fall, that fan started to not
work so well, the batteries you know, started to go
out on these on these flashlights. So so the the
these small creature comforts did not last a very long time.
And of course the kids went through the water and
(10:12):
the food right away because they were starving. You know,
they had been on their way home from summer school
and hadn't eaten probably since lunch that day, and now
it's late into the night and they're probably starving. So
all of all of the food and water disappeared pretty quickly,
and then the lights started to go to.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
You're listening to True Crime Conversations with me, Claire Murphy.
I'm speaking with journalists Claudia Cowen, host of the podcast
Nightmare in Chowchilla. Up next, Claudia tells us how exactly
police were able to start investigating a case as unusual
as this one. So while this is happening, what's happening
(10:53):
back in chow Chilla. The bus is found fairly quickly,
as you mentioned it rained, so some of the evidence
gets washed away. What are the parents being told? And
how a police actually even starting this investigation because it
is such an unusual event.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Well, when they found the bus kind of shielded in
this river slough and no kids on it and no
bus driver, the parents were what in the world is
going on here? Where are they? So the sheriff at
the time was this real character named Ed Bates, and
he always wore a cowboy hat and he had, you know,
(11:28):
a hole stern cowboy boots. He was the right man
for the job, and he was on this case right away,
and he told these parents right away, we're going to
find these kids. And so he you know, there was
no cell phones and no GPS in those days. He
had to rely on relationships and gut instinct, and he
had a lot of luck on his side. He put
out something of a description because they did know that
(11:51):
there were two tracks of tire tracks leading away from
the bus, and they knew that they were looking for
some sort of a dark colored vehicle. That information went
out and a real estate woman who was very smart,
and of course this is all over the news right now,
but she remembered seeing suspicious men acting weirdly around a
(12:13):
couple of dark colored vans and she wrote down the
license plate. If you can believe that, that's the luck
part of this whole story. So then from that Ed
Bates was able to track down where these vans originated,
who they were sold to. They had some names to
go on, and that was definitely that part of the investigation. Meantime,
(12:34):
the kidnappers had been driving around, obviously with these kids
all night in these vans, and they were trying to
call into the sheriff's office to make a five million
dollar ransom demand because they felt that this would be
easy money. They had heard that California had a state surplus,
a budget surplus of five million dollars in that the
money wouldn't be missed. But because all the media and
(12:57):
the parents and all the attention on this store sor
was tying up all the phone lines at the police department,
the kidnappers couldn't get their calls through, if you can
believe it, So they decided to go back to their
homes closer to San Francisco and take a nap, and
that's when Mike Marshall and Ed Ray managed to pull
(13:19):
off really the miracle of the century and devise an
escape from this underground tomb where they've been buried alive.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I think this is something we have to understand too.
It's nineteen seventy six. So the police department that they're
calling into, which is also in a regional area so
it's not a big centralized city, had like one or
two phone lines at the time, and you've got twenty
six missing kids with twenty six sets of parents and
other family and members of the public all calling into
(13:47):
that one police station. So the chances of those kidnappers
ever getting through on that phone line were almost.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Zero, exactly right they had. They kept stopping and trying
to phone in theirs and they just couldn't get through.
So they went home, took a nap, and when they
woke up and turned on the television, that's when they
got the shock of their lives.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, Okay, we'll find out who these people are in
just a second, but let's go to what actually is
happening underground. So twenty six kids and their bus driver ed.
They first of all go through the motions of like,
oh my god, this is it, We're going to die
to then at least one of those kids saying not today,
can you talk us through exactly what happens in that moment?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So yeah, and they would console each other by singing
and praying together. I think they took turn sleeping when
they could. So the kidnappers had done a dry run
on this and they had really, you know, specifically chosen
this particular bus to take hostage because they saw that
it was almost always a filled with little kids. What
(14:52):
they didn't count on was on July sixteenth, one kid
named Mirk Marshall would be on this bus. And he
was on this s bus because he was in trouble
with his mom and his mom was I'm not picking
you up. You got to take the bus home from
summer school. So Mike Marshall ended up being on this
particular bus on this particular day. And he's not a
little kid, and he's fourteen years old, and he's strong.
(15:14):
He's a rodeo, a rodeo kiddie comes from a rodeo family. Strong,
strapping kid fairly new to Childchilla, braver than anybody I've
ever met. And he's on that bus that day. And
Larry Park, another survivor that I spoke to, said he
doesn't know what would have happened if Mike Marshall was
(15:35):
not on that bus that day, But because he was
on that bus that day, Larry is alive. So ed Ray,
the bus driver, was pretty much of a mindset of
we're down here, kids, get used to it, We're never
getting out. Say your prayers. In his words, according to
(15:56):
Mike and Larry, we're going to kick the bucket down here.
So Mike Marshall said, well, if we're going to die
down here, we might as well die trying to get out,
And he found some deep reservoir of courage and bravery
to devise a plan to break apart the mattresses, the
box springs and to stack them up on top of
(16:19):
each other so that he could climb and try to
touch the ceiling and try to figure out about this
manhole cover that was covering the hole where the latter
had been where they all climbed down. And over a
period of I think thirteen fourteen fifteen hours, this kid,
Mike Marshall kept pushing at the manhole cover, and remember
(16:40):
they're heavy truck batteries on top of it. But he managed, ever,
you know, one inch at a time, to move this
manhole cover to the side, and then the kids were
cheering him on. Dust was falling, and all of a
sudden the manhole you know, and he slipped his arm
even past this manhole cover. It could have if it
(17:03):
had fallen, it would have broken his arm off. These
things are so heavy. Anyway, he finally manages to move
the cover aside, get the batteries off, and then he's
looking at the inside of this box that had been
built on top of this whole manhole cover battery setup,
and he takes some plywood from the mattresses that the
(17:25):
kids had broken up, and he's digging at this dirt
and it's falling down on him, on everybody, but he
keeps digging, digging, digging, and finally the last piece of
dirt falls in, and as Larry describes it, it was
a shaft of sunlight that with the dust in the
sunlight sparkling and fresh air. He said, in that moment,
(17:50):
there was hope. There was hope. And after that Mike
was able to poke his head out of the ground,
look around, see there were no kidnappers there, and finally
start pulling the kids out one at a time so
that they got above ground. Every one of those kids survived,
and ed Ray survived too, And it was just a
(18:12):
miracle that Mike was on the bus that because the
next oldest kid, I think, was like ten, and without Mike,
there was just no way that they would have been
able to devise that escape. And clearly the kidnappers had
gone home and gone to bed with you know, no
care in the world for these kids. It was just
a miracle that they all got out. And what's interesting
(18:34):
when they finally did make it back to Chowchilla, one
of the reporters there wanted Mike because all the kids
were like Mike, Mike, Mike, and one of the reporters
was about to get the story from Mike himself, and
I believe it was the school principal who said, hey,
enough you reporters, these kids have been through enough. Let
Mike get his rest, let them be with their families.
(18:56):
And you know, Mike was listening to the grownups in
the room and all the kids. That's what they did
and Mike never got to tell his story. And so
all the people, all the reporters, the school, the parents,
they all thought that it was because of completely because
of ed Ray that they escaped from this underground dungeon,
this tomb, when in fact, there were other heroes that day.
(19:18):
I don't want to discount ed Ray, not at all.
He was a huge part of all these people getting out,
but really the credit should go to a large, large
extent to this kid, Mike Marshall.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Well, let's go back to the kidnappers for a moment.
What do we know about them and why were they
motivated to actually do this? Because it was so premeditated.
They put a lot of effort into kidnapping these kids.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
You know, they did so. The ringleader was this man
named Fred Woods. He's twenty four, and he gets his buddies,
these two brothers, James and Richard Schoenfeld, twenty two and
twenty four. And you know what's interesting is that all
three of these young men came from well to do
family and lived in Portola Valley, which is a very
(20:02):
wealthy enclave of the Bay Area. The Schoenfeld's father was
a doctor, and Fred Woods his family, you know, struck
it rich during the during the gold Rush, and had
a lot of money and owned land and all kinds
of real estate interests. And of course this rock quarry
in Livermore where Fred Woods had worked, and that's why
(20:23):
he knew it well, and that's why he decided to
bury this load of kids there. But they, you know,
they were scrappy kids. They often were in debt, and
they'd made some bad investments over time, and they wanted
some quick money. I mean, that's the bottom line. They
really wanted some quick money. And they thought that kidnapping
(20:43):
a busload of of helpless, defenseless little kids precious lives,
you know, they thought precious lives for you know, lots
of millions who wouldn't fight back or resist would be
the best way to do it. And so that's that's
why they devised this plan. And again about this five
million dollar budget surplus, that that's how they struck on
(21:03):
the number of a five million dollar ransom.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
What's really interesting is when police do finally actually track
them down and they go through their home, the sheer
amount of evidence that they found is quite amazing.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Really. It is, oh, diagrams on like fast food wrappers,
I want to say, or bags of fast. These kidnappers
were very organized in some ways and you know, Keystone
cops in other ways. So yes, lists of how they
were going to pull this off, what they were going
to do. Eventually they were going to set the kids free.
(21:42):
But there was a lot of evidence, just a treasure
trove of evidence. And of course when the kidnappers realized
that the kids had escaped, they all fled. They all
tried to escape to Canada or to various parts. Eventually,
Richard Schoenfeld, the younger brother, a few days later, he
turned himself in. You know, he was young, just twenty
two years old. You think about you know, these guys
(22:04):
were young. And then the other two were caught within
days as well. There was not a long manhunt that
stretched out for weeks and weeks. It wasn't like that.
These kidnappers were found pretty.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Quick after the break. We hear what happened when police
finally tracked down the kidnappers and what evidence police found
in their home. What was their trial like, because I
understand some charges were brought against them that at that
time in nineteen seventy six, required a lot to be proven.
(22:40):
And so that's why they first of all ended up
with life without parole. But then that change, didn't it?
Speaker 2 (22:46):
It did, It did, and we know so much more
today about childhood trauma. But back in those days they
were sentenced to life without parole because there was a
charge of bodily injury. One of the chill on the bus,
Jennifer Hyde Brown, had suffered an injury to her foot
or her ankle. But later on appeal, the defense argued, well,
(23:09):
it wasn't that serious, and none of the other kids
were injured, so really that point that led to the
life in prison without parole should be dismissed, and a
judge agreed. So now their sentence is a life in
prison with the possibility of parole. And what we know now,
of course, is that kind of trauma does cause physical
injury to the brain. It may not be a mark
(23:32):
on the skin, but that was, you know, and all
these survivors have had some degree of trauma later in life.
But at the time it was, oh, they're young, they're little,
We'll just put them on a trip to Disneyland and
they'll forget about it and move on with their lives.
But of course now we know so much more and
(23:54):
especially based on studies of these particular kids that were
kidnapped about child trauma and the real lasting, you know,
physical and emotional damage that something like this can cause
and did cause in this case.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
We did speak to some of the survivors. What did
they explain to you was their experience like after going
home after everything had happened.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Well, Jennifer Hyde Brown, who was I think she was
just nine years old to this day, she has tu
She lives in an area of the country where there's
tornadoes and she sometimes has to go down into storm cellars.
She needs to fortify herself with a stiff drink before
she does that. She never sleeps in the dark. She
always has a light on. She doesn't like airplanes or
(24:38):
elevators or any kind of enclosed spaces. That has been
part of her lasting trauma. Now with that said, she's
raised a beautiful family and has a thriving career, so
she's doing well. But those are just some of the
things that she's still dealing with to get over that trauma.
And as for Larry and Mike, you know, it's really tragic,
you know what happened with them because they both fell
(25:01):
into into alcohol and substance abuse. Especially, Larry had demons
haunting him for many, many years and was in and
out of institutions and recovery homes. He was getting into
fights and it was really really bad until he rediscovered
his faith and went into a Christian ministry to serve others.
(25:23):
And what's interesting with Larry is that he became involved
in what we're calling restorative justice, where he felt the
need to meet these kidnappers that had caused him so
much distress as a young man, and he did. He
met with them and he forgave them. But what's really
(25:44):
shocking to me is that he told these kidnappers of
his that he needed them to forgive him for hating
them for so many years and being so angry with
them for so many years. He says, I was your
prisoner for thirty hours, but I hated you for thirty
(26:05):
eight years and no one deserves that. Do you forgive me?
And this kind of healing that he needed to do
is really quite astounding. Mike Marshall doesn't quite feel the
same way, although he has found his faith too and
is it about christian But he's not quite ready to
forgive these men the way that Larry has, but it
(26:27):
was really something to see. Now, as your listeners may know,
all three men are now free on parole, living somewhere
in northern California. We think the details of where they
are and what they're doing have been kept very private,
like no information really on what they're doing, except we
know they've stayed out of trouble. They haven't been arrested,
(26:49):
no court hearings, anything like that. But Larry told me
that once enough time had gone by, he wanted to
take Fred Woods out for a steak dinner and talk
to him and just kind of get to know this
man that has loomed large over his whole life. I
don't think that has happened yet. I think Larry would
(27:09):
like to find out where Fred is, and yet he
just hasn't found out that information yet. But I just
thought that was so interesting. That was so interesting. Also,
in the aftermath of all of this, Ed Ray went
right back to work driving that bus, same bus. He
went right back to work driving kids. That's what he
loved to do. And years later, after he retired and
(27:30):
he found out that the bus was heading to the junkyard,
he bought it. And I always thought about that connection
he had to that school bus and his need to
to keep it safe, and so he bought it and
he put it in his barn. I think it's been
moved now to a different location, but I always thought
about that. Isn't that interesting?
Speaker 1 (27:51):
It is interesting, and the fact that it's tied to
such trauma now interesting that he still felt that connection
to it even after everything that happened. He mentioned that, oh,
three of those men have been paroled now. The Schoenfeld
brothers got out earlier, and it seems like their life
behind bars was failing on eventful. But fred Wood stading
for a lot longer, and he applied for parole, obtained
(28:14):
times and was denied because he was running businesses from
behind bas Is that true?
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yes, yes, yes. When we originally did our podcast, we
didn't think he would be paroled or come up for
parole until twenty twenty four. In fact, he was paroled
in I believe twenty twenty two, after being denied like
seventeen times. But yeah, you know, he ran into some
trouble behind bars. I believe he was running a Christmas
tree farm and he had a cell phone, and I
(28:43):
think he was getting married over and over again. And
he didn't always have the warden's permission for some of
the things that he was doing there. And you know,
as the district attorney or will say, it's like a
preview of how somebody will behave once they're out of prison.
Is their history in prison and how they behave in prison.
So you know, it was a dicey move, but he
(29:05):
is now. He is now free and living a crime
free life for as far as we can tell. One
thing that's interesting too, is that when he got out
of prison, the first thing that he did after being
behind bars more than four decades, he wanted to go
to the beach, and so the police or whoever took
him out of the jail drove him to the beach.
(29:27):
And you can imagine how that must have been for
him after all those years behind bars, to feel his
toes in the sand and to breathe that fresh air.
And now after that, we don't know where he is
or the Schoenfeld brothers, they both had family, a large
families that were willing to take them in and give
them jobs and support them. So it's likely that these
(29:49):
men are all with their families.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
What's been the lasting legacy on the town of Chowchilla
after this happened. I imagined the parents of not just those
twenty six children, that the parents of every child who
lived anywhere remotely close to this incident changed behaviors in
the wake of this, or were at least more scared
for their children. But what's the lasting legacy of this
kidnapping event on the town's there?
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Well, I think across the country, because this was a
huge national story really around the world. Even I think
that was the time after that where parents were, you know,
telling their kids, you can't play outside after dark, you
can't ride your bike, you know, if I don't know
where you're going, we need to stay in touch with
you more. It was a loss of innocence in many ways.
(30:37):
And I think Chowchilla, you know, like so many places
like Valdi's, Alaska. You know, it will always be synonymous
with this kidnapping, but it is a thriving community and
people are moving there with their families, with their children.
There are parks there, including an ed Ray Park, and
they celebrate ed Ray Day with the town coming out
(30:57):
with a little parade for that. But I think that,
you know, it's a sad chapter, but in many ways,
you know, this story could have turned out so much worse.
And there's a plaque in front of the police department
with giant boulder, with a plaque with a picture of
the school bus and the list of all the kids'
(31:19):
names in ed Ray, and it's a beautiful commemoration. I
don't know how many young people growing up today even
know about this story because it happened so long ago,
more than forty five years ago. But I know when
our crew met with Mike and Larry on the forty
five day anniversary in Chowchilla, there was really nothing happening
(31:42):
to commemorate the day there, but I can tell you
it was an emotional reunion, and especially for Larry to
meet his hero, Mike Marshall, who helped save his life.
I asked Larry, how long has it been since you've
seen Mike. He's like forty five years. Forty five years.
You know. It's a little bit of a heart scratch
think about that.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I must admit when I was listening to that episode
of your podcast, I was in tears in the car
just listening to the gratitude come from Larry and then
the real kind of humbleness of Mike who I think
sounds like he felt like he just did what he
had to do in the moment. He doesn't feel as
heroic as Larry sort of holds.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Him up to be.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Do you find like in speaking to those two men
that they're still kind of grappling with what their role
was and the response was from that.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Day, absolutely absolutely. I think they will always still be grappling.
It was nice to know that both of them at
that time and hopefully still are sober, they're doing well
in their recovery. I think Mike appreciates, after all these
years to tell his side of the sport, to have
his side of the story told. He's very humble, a
(32:54):
little bit shy. He has a support animal with him
all the time, his beloved dog Blue. I don't think
he's one to clamor for attention, but I think now
all these years later, it's not like stolen Valor here
or anything, but I think he's glad that he's had
a little bit more of the whole story come out.
(33:14):
And as for Larry, he was overwhelmed to meet the
man he calls his hero and to thank him repeatedly,
over and over, thank you, thank you, thank you, and
also to try to impart some of his own personal
belief that Mike could benefit from this idea of forgiveness
(33:36):
just as he had. I don't know. We'll see. We'll
see where Mike goes with forgiving his kidnappers. I think
Larry might be maybe one other of the survivors has
also forgiven them, because forgiveness is a tough thing for
some people, but for Larry it was a life saver
for him because he said, once he was able to
forgive and let go of that anger and resentment, he
(33:58):
was able to spell these demon voices that had told
him so many terrible things and to do so many
terrible things. And he wanted Mike to know that part
of his story, and he was glad to be able
to share that.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Thank you to Claudia for helping us tell this story.
You can find the podcast Nightmare and Chow Chiller at
the link in our show notes. If you want to
see images from this story, here to our Instagram page
at True Crime Conversations. True Crime Conversations is hosted by
me Claire Murphy. Our senior producer is Talie Blackman. The
group executive producer is Alaria Brophy, and there's been audio
(34:36):
designed by Tina Madloff. Thanks so much for listening. I'll
be back next week with another True Crime Conversation. True
Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast was recorded on
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