No. Bill Young/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty ImagesThe interior of the moving truck in which Ed Ray and 26 children were buried alive. When Frederick Newhall Woods and two other gunmen hijacked the school bus in Chowchilla, California, it was considered the biggest kidnapping in US history. A van reportedly blocked the road ahead of the bus, with three armed men jumping out and confronting the driver. As a teenager and a young married, he enjoyed a liberal stipend from his wealthy parents, but was penurious about purchasing such things as household goods. Determined to save all of the children, the bus driver and the oldest student acted quickly. gas and land His friends say Woods never hurt for money. Richard Schoenfeld was paroled in 2012, and James Schoenfeld was released in 2015. He said it was really beautiful, and you could really be out there solitary, I mean, alone. Victim Jennifer Brown Hyde, who was nine at the time, said she 'felt like an animal going to the slaughterhouse.' When they were married, Mr. Wood was a salesman at a paint store, but lost the job. Frederick Newhall Woods was found suitable for parole at a hearing Friday at California Men's Colony, a state prison in San Luis Obispo County. Woods became eligible for parole in 1982 but was previously denied release 17 times. Thankfully, all the children and their bus driver returned home 36 hours after they were abducted, safe but traumatized. my friends, by the house, and if we had anyone that he invited it was always his family or relative, no one else.. However, he was merely denied entry again, and James went back to Idaho, where he abandoned the car in Coeur d'Alene the next day and purchased a truck that he drove back to Washington. ', She added:'He's not someone who should be released. Regarding their married life. Frederick Newhall Woods IVRichard SchoenfeldJames Schoenfeld At trial, all three men pleaded guilty to kidnapping for ransom and robbery, and they were sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Now I fully understand the terror and trauma I caused. And they dont fight back. Woods and the Schoenfelds wanted a $5m ransom for the safe return of the children to their families, but their plan quickly went awry. Parole commissioners reportedly decided Woods no longer is a danger to the public. Three young men from extremely wealthy families had meticulously planned and carried out the kidnapping all so they could demand a $5 million ransom to pay off their debts. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. (1) Frederick Newhall Woods IV, son of the quarry owner, 25 years old, 6 foot, 145 pounds, brown hair and blue eyes; (2) James Schoenfeld, son of a podiatrist in Atherton, 25 years old, 6 foot, 170 pounds, red hair and blue eyes; (3) James' brother Richard Schoenfeld, 22 years old, 5 foot 11 inches, 150 pounds, blonde hair and blue eyes. After nearly 40 years, James gained his freedom in April at the age of 63, after twenty parole hearings. Ive had a character change since then. By Wayne King Special to The New York Times. By 7:30 p.m., an all-points bulletin was broadcast while numerous people, including the parents of the missing children, initiated a widespread search. A Portola Valley fireman, who, like others who talked about Mr. Woods to reporters, asked not to be identified. Like many people with a IV at the end of. And now he rescues me every day, said Marshall. Two victims who participated during Fridays hearing said they agreed that Woods should be paroled, according to NBC. It was a man identified from photographs as Frederick Newhall Woods who allegedly purchased, using a false name, the vans used in the kidnapping. You see them and you rationalize all yourproblems will be over in 24 hours. Ray, the driver, and the children were herded into two vans and driven around for 11 hours. Theyre vulnerable. SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 4 When 24yearold Fred Woods, the last to be arrested of the three young men charged with the kidnapping and entombment of 26 schoolchildren, was taken into custody in Canada a week ago, he was dressed, as a Canadian official put it, like an amateur cowboyhighheeled boots, faded brown denim suit and a rancher's hat saucily curled over long brown sideburns. Woods was arrested weeks later after fleeing to Vancouver, British Columbia. One of the eldest children, Mitchell Marshall, bravely announced to the group that he wasn't going to die without putting up a fight. Officials said they . He dug until he was exhausted and then he kept on digging. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. "I tell myself I should be able to shake this off and deal with it. Frederick Newhall Woods IV, 24, and brothers James Schoenfeld, 24, and Richard Schoenfeld, 22, held them captive in box truck in a rock quarry up north near Livermore. He has married three times during the period of his incarceration, and he has also purchased a mansion nearby. District Attorney Warren Haas said, It was a minor matter. It was back in July 1976, when three young men from. Fred Woods's favorite was a 1952 Chevrolet, restored to perfection, but any car was likely to strike his fancy. The panels decision will now be reviewed by the California Board of Parole Hearings legal division. He did not, in thcse days, hunt, camp, fish, watch or participate in sports, although he enjoyed watching automobile races on television. A relative said that the family can trace its ancestry to six Mayflower pilgrims, including John Alden and William Bradford, the Governor of Plymouth. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, said his former wife, whose name is now Padgett and who is now living in Georgia. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. I knew it.'. Born sometime in the 1952 and 1954, respectively, Frederick, James, and Richard all came from privileged backgrounds, having lived in wealthy neighborhoods in the San Francisco area. Jessica O'Connor is a public historian focusing on Deep South Black History with degrees from Winston-Salem State University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Now Woods, who was 24 when he committed the kidnapping, has moved one step closer to leaving prison. Woods expected too much of him and he couldn't live up to it, she said. Another survivor, Darla Neal, told CNN in 2015 that she deals with crippling anxiety to the point that she had to leave work. she said. Richard Schoenfeld was paroled in 2012 after serving 36 years, and James Schoenfeld was paroled in 2015. Anyone can read what you share. Frederick Newhall Woods IV, 24, and brothers James Schoenfeld, 24, and Richard Schoenfeld, 22, held them captive in box truck in a rock quarry up north near Livermore. Scuba Certification; Private Scuba Lessons; Scuba Refresher for Certified Divers; Try Scuba Diving; Enriched Air Diver (Nitrox) They ordered Ray and the children into the back of the two vans, which had been converted from prison transport vehicles. Yet here I am, a mess.. Name We enjoyed ourselves, she said. No record of such an incident could be found in the records of appropriate police or medical officials, and a check of newspapers disclosed nothing involving Mr. Woods. The men planned to. If were going to die, were going to die trying to get out of here, she remembered Ray and Marshall saying. A draft ransom note was found at the scene, with some of its phrasing seeming to make reference to Hugh Pentecost's story, 'The Day the Children Vanished', which had been published in Alfred Hitchcock's Daring Detectives and was displayed in the Chowchilla public library. His parole stirred great controversy from the hostages. However, once this was proven to be wrong, local police and the county sheriff was called in to investigate, determining that the bus disappeared after successfully making its first three stops. One of the perpetrators, Frederick Newhall Woods, was approved for parole in March of 2022. According to James, they initially weren't serious about actually committing such a crime, but as time passed by, they began to consider it. Under hypnosis, Ray was also able to remember one of the license plates of the vans that had taken them to the quarry, which was tied to Woods and both of his accomplices. When the last of the children was inside, Woods and the Schoenfelds began shoveling dirt over the roof, weighing down the hatch-door by placing two 100-pound industrial batteries on top of it. Woods is an unusual prisoner in another way: he is believed to have inherited a massive amount of money from his wealthy parents, claimed in one court filing to be around $100m. One of the three boarded the bus, masked, armed with a shotgun, and carrying nylon stocking, boarded the bus when Ray opened the door, having already noticed his items and hoping to engage in a peaceful negotiation. Theirs was a union of shared insecurity, according to the young woman who remarried after her divorce from Mr. Woods in 1972, after only a year of marriage. On the early hours of July 16, news of Ray and the children's disappearances became nationwide, and reporters flocked to Chowchilla to cover the story. They kept their captives by stuffing them into a van buried under a pile of dirt. At the time of the hostages' captivity, Frederick, Richard, and James had previously tried to call in their ransom, but without success due to, ironically, the flooding calls from reporters, law enforcement agencies, and tipsters. "Now I fully understand the terror and trauma I caused. At the time of his release, his lawyer said to People Magazine, It was long overdue, and I think there is solid evidence that he isnt dangerous, and California has no interest in keeping him in prison. United States. After hijacking the bus, which returning from a summer field trip at the Chowchilla fairgrounds swimming pool, Woods and his friends James and Richard Schoenfeld transferred the 26 children and their driver into vans and drove them 12 hours away in the dark to a location where, CBS News reported, they were held captive underground in a truck trailer. Frederick Newhall Woods IV was 24 when he and two brothers, James and Richard Schoenfeld, held up a school bus in Chowchilla, Calif., on July 15, 1976. He's demonstrated the capacity to do this kind of a crimeto mastermind and carry out something like this. After discovering that they could reach the top of the truck if they stacked the mattresses, Ray and Marshall worked for hours trying to wedge a piece of wood into the opening in the roof. He too served time at the same facility as Newhall and Richard. They forced Ray and all of the children down a ladder and into a moving truck they had buried 12 feet underground. Escape was further cut off by a metal lid that covered the top of the truck and was weighed down with two 100-pound industrial batteries. Marshall also struggled with addiction for a while as a young adult, but he too is sober now and has a therapy dog named Blue. But he was lonely, and it was lonely living with him.. Yet here I am, a mess.". Matthew Medrano, son of Jodi Heffington Medrano, sobbed several times as he recounted watching his mother change from being a loving, outgoing survivor until she experienced darker, bitter thoughts and depression before her early death. It surprised me how much [money] he made, but it was a lot, the youth said. But though the first part of their plan went off without a hitch, everything went awry when they tried to phone in the ransom. There was no quit in him.. By Wayne King Special to The New York Times. An appeals court ordered Richard Schoenfeld released in 2012, and former Gov. XD;Frederick Newhall Woods accused of kidnapping and robbery in the abduction of 26 Chowchilla area youngsters and their bus driver. A grammar school classmate said that he was a little different, shy, awkwardpeople made fun of him.. During the same interview, Brown saidshe 'felt like an animal going to the slaughterhouse'. Jennifer Brown Hyde, another victim of the Chowchilla kidnapping, vividly remembered being ushered into the deep, dark hole at gunpoint: I felt like I was an animal going to the slaughterhouse.. "I'm overwhelmed to the point that I had to leave work," said Darla Neal, who was a 10-year-old student at the time of the kidnapping. Twenty of the children feared of being abducted again, and twenty-one were afraid of "cars, the dark, the wind, the kitchen, mice, dogs, and hippies". The telephone lines to the police station were overloaded with calls from frantic parents demanding answers about their missing children. I said we didn't come with any idea of trespassing and he said he had problems with trespassers. One was that he kept the two vans he and the Schoenfelds used to transport the children and their driver to Livermore, California in the expectation that the notoriety of their crime would make the bus increasingly valuable. "I was 24 years old," he said, per Fox News. At this point, the positions Frederick, Richard, and James took during the initial abduction are unknown. After knocking down another battery from the lid, Ray and the boys cleared out dirt and debris until they made a hole large enough for one of the smaller boys to fit through. Nevertheless, the three were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, although the prevention of parole was later overturned in 1981. Through his relationship with the family, Mr. Woods stood to inherit, according to one source, one thirtysixth of the fortune. His accomplices, brothers Richard and James Schoenfeld, were freed years ago. Then they were taken to the quarry in Livermore, California. After 17 unsuccessful attempts, a California man who kidnapped 26 children on a school bus in 1976 has been recommended for parole. Once all 27 members of the group were inside, the kidnappers put a heavy piece of metal and two 100-pound industrial batteries on top of the entry theyd cut into the roof of the truck, filled in the rest of the hole with dirt, and left the scene. On July 15, 1976, Frederick, Richard, and James put their scheme into motion. For the victims of the 1976 kidnapping, the possibility of Woods being released from prison is complicated. Mrs. Woods had her friends by the cottage on the big estate where they lived; her new husband had none. 'I believe you have served enough time for the crime you committed,' Park said Friday, before adding: 'I'm concerned about the addiction you may have about money.'. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. The heir to two wealthy California families, the Newhalls and the Woodses, he inherited a trust fund from his parents that was described in one court filing as being worth $100 million (equivalent to $113 million in 2021), although Woods' lawyer disputed that amount. Ray and Michael Marshall, aged 14 at the time, managed to find an escape for the group, which finally led to the apprehension of the three kidnappers, Frederick Newhall Woods IV, the quarry owners son, and his two friends, James, and Richard Schoenfeld. I'm sorry, he said, I'm not Ralph Snider [the false name he had registered under] I'm Frederick Woods. Park remembered Marshalls determination at that moment. I asked him if he felt funny, finding a dead man. After driving the victims around for nearly 12 hours, the kidnappers buried them in a moving van trailer 12 feet underground with very little food and water. But he was lonely, and it was lonely living with him.. On the morning of July 17, they learned that their hostages had escaped the buried van. The older brother, James, was generally described as less outgoing but not unfriendly. And Im remembering the last time that I saw her and wishing I could have told her goodbye.. He and two others hijack a school bus with 26 children and a driver in 1976 in Chauchilla. Ray and the children, who were then ages 5 to 14, were eventually able to claw their way out of the trailer 28 hours later and ran to nearby workers, who called police. Home. They had been in the hole for nearly 16 hours, completely terrified. Similarly, Larry Park remembers sitting in the darkness wondering 'how it was going to feel to die'. On July 29, fourteen days after the mass abduction, Frederick and James were both arrested when they were recognized by several civilians. They were good kids., See the article in its original context from. The kidnapping, which was the subject of massive media attention when it happened, has resurfaced in popular culture in recent years through CBS and Fox television specials. On July 15, 1976, a group of 26 children attending summer classes at Dairyland Elementary School were returning from a trip to a local swimming pool when their bus, driven by Frank Edward Ray, was blocked on the road by three armed men and two white vans at 4.00pm. Marshall cautiously stuck his head out of the dirt to make sure their abductors werent nearby, then he and Ray helped the other 25 children out of the truck. He told me once he was ashamed of her, she said. Gavin Newsom approves his parole. I said to myself as soon as the bus stopped: 'What have I got myself into?' After driving a short distance, the men brought the school bus to a stop in a dry riverbed surrounded by bamboo and tall brush, where another van was waiting. Frederick purchased an ocean-view mansion at Nipomo appraised at nearly $1.5 million. were rarely seen in the company of their son They went their separate ways. REAL CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION However, Newhall has kept applying for parole 17 times, and his most recent rejection came in October 2019. The marriage ended abruptly in early 1972, when Songel simply told her husband that she was leaving him. Frederick Newhall Woods was 24 years old at the time of the 1976 Chowchilla school bus kidnapping. The escape took place before the kidnappers had even been able to call in their ransom demands. Like us on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/TheSunUSand follow us from our main Twitter account at@TheSunUS, 2020 THE SUN, US, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED | TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY | YOUR AD CHOICES | SITEMAP, Frederick Newhall Woods has been approved for parole in 2022, Frederick Newhall Woods, along with James and Richard Schoenfeld, were arrested for the 1976 kidnapping. We had no reason to expect to see them again. READ NEXT: Why A Georgia Beauty Queens Alleged Murderer Still Hasnt Been Tried in Her Death, Two Kidnappers of 26 Children Paroled; One Remains in Prison, Please review our privacy policy here: https://heavy.com/privacy-policy/, Copyright 2023 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. If the decision from the hearing panel stands, it will become finalized 120 days after the hearing. Frederick has been called the mastermind of the kidnapping, and like his accomplices, he received 27 life sentences without the possibility of parole. However, they found that there was a metal lid on top of the hole, which was heavy and immovable. Larry Park, who was just six years old at the time of the Chowchilla kidnapping, later told 48 Hours, Where their eyes were it almost looked hollow. But even with the family, he was not close, she said. It is an exaggeration to say that there seemed to be two Fred Woodsesthe shy, unsocial young man who seemed to seek solace in the old cars and other possessions he surrounded himself with on the family estate, and the cocky, wisecracking cowboy accused of kidnappingbut two aspects of his personality emerge from conversations with those who knew him casually and those who knew him well. When police finally caught up with the perpetrators, they were stunned. The young mechanic who worked at the Woods estate described James as a pretty decent person. He was intelligent, quick with the math needed in the automobile trans actions, but usually quiet, the mechanic said. However, according to CBS News, their families appealed the conviction and in 1980, a panel of judges ruled that the kidnappers would eventually be eligible for parole instead of spending life in prison without said eligibility. Miraculously, the driver and children managed to dig themselves out and escape relatively unharmed and the kidnappers were eventually caught. He wanted to really control. Once the allotted time is up, the governor has 30 days to review their decision. Male (all three) Inspiring the frightened cohort into action, under the instructions of Ray the group stacked the mattresses inside the truck on top of one another and used wooden slats to dislodge a steel plate on the roof of the van that was covering the hatch through which they'd entered. Sixteen hours after they were buried, the group escaped physically unscathed. 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