Latest / True Crime California / TCC 23: The Chowchilla Bus Kidnapping

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TCC 23: The Chowchilla Bus Kidnapping · True Crime California

0:04
Speaker 1: Dark Cast Network.
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Speaker 2: Out of the shadows come the best indie podcasts. Autumn's
0:25
Oddities is a strange and unusual podcast made by the
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strange and unusual me Autumn Groovy. Each week, I'll be
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taking you through some of the creepiest cases true crime
0:37
has to offer. It won't only be true crime. I'll
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also be covering cryptids, haunted places, haunted things, and the
0:45
true stories that inspired horror movies. Listen every Monday and
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Friday for new episodes, and remember, if it's creepy and weird,
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you'll find it here.
1:10
Speaker 3: Hey.
1:10
Speaker 1: Everyone, welcome to True Crime California. I'm your host, Cindy,
1:15
and I'm glad you're here. Hey guys, I'm back thanks
1:29
to your patience. You know, I had this episode done
1:33
research wise, like over a week ago, but it's been
1:35
so hard to find time to record, like a quiet
1:38
moment to do this, but it's pouring rain in Los Angeles,
1:42
like the worst rain I've ever seen, so now seemed
1:44
like a good time to dive in and get this recorded.
1:48
I know I have done an episode since Halloween, but
1:50
I just wanted to say again, I hope everybody had
1:53
a great Halloween and very sad it's over. I think again,
1:58
maybe I mentioned this, but I went as Judy Jumpstone,
2:00
which if you haven't watched The Righteous Gemstones, you're fucking up.
2:03
Get on it. Shit is absolutely hilarious. It's a Danny
2:06
McBride's show. It's fucking great.
2:09
Speaker 3: Check it out.
2:10
Speaker 1: And Judy, so she's the sister and she's like hilarious.
2:14
But I was like, oh, I'm gonna dress like her
2:16
because she dresses kind of gaudy and she's got this
2:17
really like kind of frizzy, curly hair. The family in
2:22
the show is super super rich, and the costume designer
2:25
was not playing around. Everything that woman wears is like
2:29
twenty five hundred dollars plus. It's like very very designer,
2:32
even if it's tacky, even if it's like vintage. So
2:34
trying to dress up like her was very, very difficult,
2:38
and so I feel like I fell a little short.
2:40
I'm gonna try again next year probably and really like
2:43
figure out how to get an outfit that looks like
2:45
her that doesn't cost like my rent. But anyway, it
2:49
was still really fun. The wig was hilarious. Had a
2:52
great time. I hope everybody else had a great time.
2:55
Very sad that, you know, Halloween is over, but I'm
2:58
looking forward to Christmas. You know, I've got a ten
3:00
year old, so it's more fun for me now than
3:03
when I was like childless and didn't really give a
3:05
shit about Christmas. I've really leaned into it now, which
3:08
is weird, like caring about the holiday and really getting
3:12
into I love holiday music now. I don't know who
3:14
I am anyway, hope you all love it as well.
3:16
Don't be afraid to shout it from the rooftops if
3:19
you do, I'm right there with you anyway. Okay, let's
3:23
get into the topic that I chose the story that
3:27
I chose. I chose a survival story, and I want
3:30
to call out I feel like a lot of people
3:32
who have covered this case or talked about this case,
3:34
it's a pretty well known case, they really talk about
3:36
it as like having a happy ending, and I mean comparatively,
3:41
it does. But that being said, I think we're all
3:43
a little too indoctrinated by Hollywood and like the happy ending.
3:47
You know, where people go through absolute hell, they suffer,
3:50
like violence and all sorts of horrific shit, but in
3:54
the end, because they survive, they're quote unquote like happy
3:56
and sort of.
3:57
Speaker 3: Just like move on with their lives.
4:00
Speaker 1: I think the reality is that many people who survive
4:03
they it's a much more complicated PostScript, if you will.
4:09
I think sort of celebrating people's survival without recognizing their
4:12
extreme trauma sets people up for a lifetime of reliving
4:16
that trauma because nobody really stops to think about the
4:18
amount of therapy it's gonna take or would take to
4:21
get over something like I don't know, let's say like
4:23
what Mary Vincent went through, and I'll absolutely cover her
4:26
story at some point, I promise I love her story.
4:29
So anyway, I do want to say that again, comparatively,
4:32
this story has a happy ending and that nobody dies,
4:35
but the lasting effects of what went on during this kidnapping,
4:38
that's what it is, shouldn't be ignored or forgotten. So
4:41
I wanted to call that out and I will talk
4:44
about it a little bit as well. So this is
4:48
the Chowchilla bus kidnapping. And again it's a pretty well
4:52
known case. If you know it, hopefully you like the
4:55
way I tell it. If you don't know it, welcome,
4:57
get ready for some weird shit. Okay, So this takes
5:02
a place in Chowchilla, California on July fifteenth, nineteen seventy six.
5:11
So this is a seventies case. Now I've talked a
5:14
bit about the different areas of California. You know, we
5:16
have along the coast, the big cities, and I know
5:18
that I've touched on the smaller communities as well, but
5:21
I really wanted to reiterate that small towns are honestly
5:25
what make up most of California. Even today, California provides
5:31
our nation with nearly half of all the fruits and
5:34
vegetables that our entire country eats in a year, which
5:37
is extremely significant and really needs to be understood to
5:41
kind of comprehend just how much of our state is farmland.
5:45
We farm fruits, veggies, cattle, dairy, chickens. It goes on
5:49
and on and on, and yes, cattle and dairy are
5:52
different because there's meat farms and there's dairy farms. So
5:56
you know, very much, we live in an agricult state.
6:01
I live in an agricultural state. And we always think
6:03
about the big cities and the beaches, and you know
6:07
San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, even Sacramento, But Sacramacmento
6:13
is agriculturals as fuck, like it's all farms out there.
6:17
But anyway, the point is, I think when people haven't
6:19
really visited California, or even if you only live in
6:22
a big city in California your whole life, not even
6:24
Californians themselves realize how much farmland there is where we
6:28
live now. Chilchilla is located in what I would say
6:32
is the very dead center of California. I think anybody
6:35
would say that. Actually, it's not close to the ocean,
6:37
it's not close to Arizona. It's honestly like right in.
6:39
Speaker 3: Between the two.
6:41
Speaker 1: It's also about three hundred and fifty miles from Mexico
6:43
and also three hundred and fifty miles from Oregon, so
6:46
it couldn't be more in the center of the state
6:48
if it tried. It's just west of Fresno, which I think,
6:52
as you will recall, that's where Kristen Smart was raised.
6:55
So we've definitely talked about Fresno a bit. And Chowchilla
6:58
is very much a cowtown, you will, That's kind of
7:00
what we call rural towns. Lots of farmers, lots of
7:04
migrant workers, not a very rich town. But back in
7:08
the seventies, it was very very safe. In nineteen seventy six,
7:12
Chilchilla had a population of about nineteen thousand residents and
7:15
most of them knew one another, so very small, very rural,
7:18
very safe. Now, as I noted, this takes place in
7:21
the middle of summer in July. And another thing people
7:24
may not know about California is that it gets hot
7:27
here like over one hundred pushing one hundred and ten
7:30
in the summer hot. And this is especially in central California,
7:34
but like where I grew up, which is like northern
7:35
central California, it's like that too, And even in La
7:39
like one hundred degrees.
7:40
Speaker 3: Is like not abnormal.
7:42
Speaker 1: So it's middle of July, dead of summer, super hot,
7:47
and many of the kids in town are going to
7:49
a summer school. And this is kids ranging from ages
7:52
five to fourteen years old, so a wide range, all
7:55
in one summer school. And this is you know again,
7:57
because it's a very small town. In this summer school,
7:59
it was definitely like a school, but it was also
8:02
a little bit more like a summer camp. And I
8:04
think sort of like a way for the families who
8:07
are farming and working to have child care for their
8:11
children through the summer, so the kids would go do
8:14
school type stuff a little bit in the beginning of
8:16
the day, but then it would turn into like fun
8:17
stuff later on. And on that day, July fifteenth, the
8:21
kids had all gone to the local pool. At three pm,
8:25
they got picked up by their bus driver, Ed Ray,
8:27
who was a fifty five year old former farmer who
8:30
still farmed on the side, but had taken a job
8:33
as a bus driver as he really enjoyed being around
8:35
children and all of his were grown up. And I
8:38
think that's really really sweet that this man became a
8:42
bus driver just so that he could still have children
8:44
in his life. I think it's something that people don't
8:47
really think about, like men and especially grandfathers wanting to
8:51
have those types of relationships. I think that's very very sweet.
8:55
Ed who all the children called Edward, was a well
8:58
known and very well respect did man in his community.
9:01
He had been a hard worker his entire life and
9:04
was a trusted and trustworthy man who the kids all loved.
9:09
He was married to his wife of many years, Odessa,
9:11
and they had a very simple life. On this day,
9:15
he picked the kids up and went on his route.
9:17
He made two stops dropping off I think four or
9:20
so kids, then continued on with the twenty six still
9:23
remaining on the bus. He came up to a fork
9:26
in the road. And these are long country roads, which
9:28
are what I grew up learning to drive on, so
9:30
very desolate, not really near anything. And in the middle
9:33
of the road where he's supposed to turn, there is
9:35
a van, and this van is blocking traffic entirely, even
9:39
though the school bus is the only vehicle anywhere nearby.
9:42
As I said, this is a small, safe town and
9:44
everybody knows everybody. So Ed goes to roll down the
9:47
window and begins to ask if anybody needs help. As
9:50
he's doing this, a man comes out from behind I
9:54
think the front of the van, but he clearly doesn't
9:57
need help. He's holding a shotgun and has a sto
10:00
over his head to distort his facial features. A second
10:04
man appears, and the first man says to Ed open up.
10:07
Speaker 3: Now.
10:08
Speaker 1: Ed is a tough guy, but he isn't a tough guy,
10:10
if you know what I mean, So he has no
10:11
reason to try be a hero, and he wants to
10:13
keep the kids safe. At first, some of the kids
10:17
thought this was a joke, so even after he opened
10:19
up and let the men on, one of the kids shouted,
10:21
we didn't do it, like, thinking this was all like
10:24
a big, big joke. But Ed's tone, harsher than the
10:27
kids had ever heard, let them know this wasn't, in
10:29
fact a joke, and pretty immediately the kids went from
10:32
happy and carefree to absolutely terrified. Now, these two men
10:37
with the stockings over their head took control of the bus,
10:40
the brus the bus and drove it a short distance
10:43
to an area covered by a bamboo forest. And hidden
10:47
in this bamboo forest is another man with another van.
10:51
So we have the one man who took over. Well,
10:53
we have the two men, but one of them drove
10:55
the school bus, the other one drove the white van
10:58
that had been blocking the school bus. And then they
11:00
met up in this hidden bamboo forest with a third
11:04
man and another van. And now I know it sounds
11:07
really weird, a bamboo forest like in central California, But yes,
11:10
like I said, we grow everything, including grasses, which bamboo
11:14
is a grass. And so they chose this bamboo forest
11:17
because again it's in the middle of nowhere, it's super remote,
11:20
and the bamboo grows super super tall, so you could
11:23
hide the school bus in it. You could hide the
11:25
vans and nobody had any idea that anything was going
11:28
on there because you couldn't see anything from the road. Now,
11:33
from there they drive a little while into the grove
11:36
of bamboo, which, like I said, is taller than the bus,
11:39
and then from there they make the children get into
11:41
each of the two vans, either the original white van
11:44
or the second van. Half go into the first and
11:47
half go into the second. And one thing that they
11:49
did that I felt was like kind of weird and
11:53
it could be seen as smart, but it could also
11:54
be seen as like completely unnecessary was they actually made
11:58
the kids jump from the bus to the van, so
12:01
there were no footprints. But I feel like you have
12:04
the you know, original bus being left there, you have
12:08
tire tracks from vans. It's not like people are gonna
12:10
be like, oh, well, I guess the kids must not
12:13
have gone onto the vans because we don't have footprints.
12:14
Like it seems really like overcomplicated and kind of unnecessary
12:18
to make them jump, Like that's gonna fool anybody, like
12:21
where they're not going to figure out what happened. Very
12:24
very strange, and I want to be clear, pardon me,
12:27
that this entire kidnapping is absolutely fucking stupid, and we'll
12:31
talk about the morons that perpetrated this crime and they're
12:34
insane reasoning for it. But I just want to call
12:36
that out because like I've heard that referred to as
12:39
like smart, and like, how is that smart? It doesn't
12:42
fool anybody, it's worthless. So it's really weird how in
12:45
some ways they sort of like thought through things, and
12:48
then in other ways they couldn't be more of like
12:50
a bungling criminal stereotype, but in no way were they
12:54
actually smart. But anyway, so the kids get moved into
12:57
the two buses, forced by these men with the guns
12:59
in their hands. These vans are completely blacked out, no windows,
13:02
no light, no airflow. They have like wood paneling all
13:04
over them. It's pitch pitch black and super hot inside
13:09
because no ac and it's the dead of summer, and
13:11
there's no food and there's no water. So these little
13:15
kids again raging age five to fourteen, and their poor
13:19
fifty five year old bus driver Ed Ray, are in
13:21
these buses and once they're split up, they begin driving
13:26
and they drive in these hot, blacked out vans for
13:29
eleven hours straight eleven hours. Now, during the drive, the
13:37
kids would alternate between crying, vomiting from car sickness, soil
13:41
themselves because again, like many of them are younger than
13:44
ten and it's been hours and hours since they've used
13:46
the bathroom. But they would also sing songs because they
13:50
are kids, and even in the worst situations, kids have
13:53
this irrepressible hope in them that is so so magical. Now,
13:59
the songs they receive were things like, if you're sad
14:02
and you know it, clap your hands. But still they
14:04
were singing and in a weird way, kind of making the.
14:07
Speaker 3: Best of the situation.
14:09
Speaker 1: Now, finally, finally, after eleven hours of heat and darkness
14:14
and fear, the vans stopped. And this is the middle
14:17
of the night, it's like three in the morning. And
14:20
when they stopped, the kids grew even more scared, of course,
14:25
and this definitely was not helped by what happened next.
14:29
One by one, the kids were taken out of the van,
14:31
leaving the rest of the captives in the dark, not
14:34
knowing what was going on. So, of course, assuming the worst,
14:38
the kids all thought they were being taken off the
14:40
van one by one to be killed. Before the you
14:43
know the kidnappers would come back for the next victim.
14:46
Fourteen year old Michael Marshall was one of the oldest
14:48
kids on the bus when it was taken, and he
14:50
immediately took to reassuring the younger kids that everything would
14:53
be okay. He ended up in the same van as
14:56
the youngest passenger, five year old Monica. When it came
15:02
time for one of the two of them to get
15:03
out of the van, they were the last two in
15:05
the van. He pushed her behind him, said not to
15:08
worry and that he would go first. It wouldn't have
15:11
made a difference in the end if they were in
15:13
fact killing them all, but his willingness to go first
15:16
and to try to protect her for as long as
15:18
he could is really commendable, especially given the situation now.
15:22
What was actually happening to each of the kids and
15:24
to Ed was far better than death, but far worse
15:27
than just being let go the kidnapper the kidnappers. The
15:30
kidnappers had driven the kids only about one hundred and
15:33
ten miles from their home to a rock quarry located
15:37
in Livermore, which is mostly north but also like a
15:41
little bit west of Chilchilla, sort of just before the
15:44
bay area, but still in a mostly agricultural area. The
15:48
kidnappers had buried a moving truck in the ground in
15:52
an like sort of abandoned area of the quarry and
15:55
were taking the kids out one by one, writing down
15:59
their names in aid, and then sending them down into
16:01
that dark, hot, underground prison. Now, this truck, which I
16:07
think was like a twenty six foot box truck, so
16:09
not huge, maybe not even that big, maybe only like
16:12
sixteen feet I think that's like the smaller one. It
16:15
had been crudely modified, had about one meal's worth of
16:19
food for each of the captives. This included cereal, bread,
16:22
and peanut butter. It also had dirty mattresses strewn all over,
16:27
and the wheel wells had holes cut into them to
16:29
make a crude toilet for the kids to use. So
16:32
where the wheels would be, they basically just cut a
16:36
hole that goes into the ground and so they can
16:38
go to the bathroom in there. But there's no, uh,
16:42
there's no cover for it. So anything they do, you're
16:44
gonna smell it. It's just gonna come right back up
16:46
into the truck. It's very very hot. Again, there's very
16:50
little airflow. One thing that the captors did do was
16:53
they cut a hole into the top of the truck
16:56
and they put like a fan in there, so the
17:00
fan would sort of make the you know, the air circulate.
17:04
But nobody knew how long this was going to last,
17:07
and like if it was on a battery or what
17:09
was going to happen, And nobody knew what would happen
17:12
if and when it shut off. So very very scary,
17:16
very hot, very claustrophobic, very stinky, very small, very little food,
17:22
very very bad situation. After ed and all the kids
17:26
were in the truck, the kidnappers covered the whole above
17:28
with a metal sheet, put two large truck batteries on top,
17:31
each weighing around one hundred pounds, and then, to the
17:34
horror of everyone inside, started shoveling dirt on top of that,
17:39
which I don't think they could see that happening, but
17:41
they could certainly hear it. And I feel like that
17:44
is almost worse as you can imagine. Inside this truck
17:50
was cramped. It's not a big space. Plus, like I said,
17:53
it's covered in mattresses, so everyone is on top of
17:56
one another. So very claustrophobic, very dark, very hot, so
18:01
more of the same, but this felt definitely more permanent
18:03
because they're no longer with the captors. The captors said,
18:07
you know, we're going to come back for you, but like,
18:08
who the hell knows and who knows if they're going
18:10
to be alive? You know, who knows if the fan
18:12
is going to keep the air flowing, Who knows if
18:14
they're going to starve or run out of water? I mean,
18:16
they have no idea. So when the kidnappers left, on
18:20
top of saying we'll be back for you, they threw
18:22
down a.
18:22
Speaker 3: Roll of toilet paper, which feels very benevolent.
18:25
Speaker 1: And again, even if these men did come back, it
18:28
could be too late. So Ed and the older boys,
18:31
including Michael, started to look around for a way out,
18:34
but couldn't find anything. After a while, Ed told the
18:37
kids it was time for them to get some sleep,
18:40
because what else could they do. They'd been up for
18:42
well over twenty four hours at this point, and again,
18:44
many of these kids are under ten years old. So
18:47
the kids tried to listen. They tried to get some rest,
18:49
but it wasn't exactly successful.
18:51
Speaker 3: As you can.
18:51
Speaker 1: Imagine, the kids would be quiet for a moment, but
18:54
then one would begin crying, and then everybody would cry.
18:58
They ran out of food. The walls felt like they
19:01
were caving in, but they also actually were. The weight
19:04
of the dirt was actually starting to push the walls
19:08
of the truck in around the kids. This is absolutely
19:12
fucking terrifying. Finally, the older kids, including ten year old
19:18
Jody Heffington, who was tall and very strong for her age,
19:22
began stacking up the mattresses so they could get closer
19:25
to the hole in the top of the truck. They
19:27
stood on these mattresses, then on each other's shoulders and
19:31
pushed as hard as they could. Now remember it's the
19:35
dead of summer, and even in Livermore it's in the
19:37
upper eighties at least at this time of year, even
19:40
in the middle of the night, so it's hot in there,
19:43
and these kids and ed are all working hard to
19:46
get out of this box. But remember there's a couple
19:50
hundred pounds on top of the cover, so it's not
19:52
exactly an easy task. They worked for hours, and finally
19:57
Michael uses his legs to push. This is fourteen year
20:00
old Michael, and they all see a tiny ray of
20:03
light come through the top of the opening. As a note,
20:07
the fans had already stopped working a while back, and
20:10
this tiny crack allowed the first fresh air the kids
20:13
had breathed in hours from here. They know they can
20:18
get out if.
20:18
Speaker 3: They keep pushing.
20:22
Speaker 1: Michael Marshall opened the hole just enough to crawl up in,
20:25
you know, kind of out of it, and he finds
20:27
himself inside a large box the kidnappers had constructed around
20:32
the hole, so he had to dig out of that,
20:35
which he does but takes more time. So basically it
20:39
was weird. There's like a photo of it or like
20:41
a drawing that you can see online. They basically put
20:44
I'd hit my mic.
20:45
Speaker 3: Sorry.
20:45
Speaker 1: They put the covering over the hole where the kids
20:48
climb down into the truck. They covered that with like
20:51
the metal sheet. They put the batteries. On top of that,
20:54
they bury dirt on it, and then on top of
20:56
that they put a box around it. Now I think
20:59
the reason they did so so that it didn't look
21:01
like a metal sheet with batteries on it, so if
21:04
somebody was walking by the quarry, they wouldn't be like,
21:06
what the fuck is this? But it ended up just
21:09
taking more time for him to dig out of it
21:12
because he had to dig underneath the box to get out,
21:15
so you had to dig up through the hole under
21:17
the box like a tunnel and then get out. So
21:21
he digs his way out, then turns back and gets
21:23
each of the kids out one by one, with Ed
21:25
below helping to pull them up until everyone is out. Finally,
21:31
Ed climbs out and leads the kids away from the truck.
21:35
So they were in there for probably twelve hours, and
21:38
they freed themselves, and those motherfucking kidnappers never fucking came.
21:43
Speaker 3: Back to check on them.
21:44
Speaker 1: Now, they pretty quickly realized they're in a quarry and
21:47
it's now mid to late afternoon on July sixteenth. They
21:51
had been in that hole for sixteen hours. But luckily
21:54
we're able to climb out during working hours, so there
21:56
were a lot of people on site at the quarry.
21:59
They walked up to a man and as they did,
22:01
he said, quote, the whole world's been looking for you.
22:04
And he was not exaggerating even a little bit. The
22:08
story of these missing kids and this missing bus was
22:12
the biggest story in months. It had reached other countries
22:16
within hours of the kids being taken. It was all
22:19
over the news that parents were being interviewed I mean,
22:22
this was the story, you know, of the century. You know,
22:26
it was the biggest kidnapping in the history of the
22:28
US at the time and I think still to this day,
22:30
so totally fair that it was major news.
22:34
Speaker 3: The FBI was.
22:35
Speaker 1: On the case, newspeople were everywhere. It was just crazy.
22:39
And in the end, despite police doing everything they could
22:41
define the kids, they ended up rescuing themselves, with the
22:44
help of Ed of course, the man they found, who said,
22:49
you know, the world's been looking for you, of course
22:51
called the police, who arrived shortly thereafter and also notified
22:54
the parents that the kids had been found. The kids
22:57
were taken to the only place that could hold and
22:58
treat them all at once, which was a jail. Really
23:02
bad timing considering what they'd just been through. Also, I
23:05
should note that then, in addition to taking them to
23:06
the jail, they took them there by bus, which was
23:09
probably very triggering for the poor kids. Once at this prison,
23:13
they were treated for minor wounds, mostly scrapes from escaping
23:16
the hole. They were given clothing for those who had none,
23:19
because the kidnappers did take some of their clothing, including
23:21
most of Ed's who'd been stripped to his underwear, and
23:25
they were also fed and given water, which they hadn't
23:28
had in many hours. The police also took photos of
23:31
each kid before they were transported to the jail, and
23:34
I think these photos can all be found online. And
23:36
it's so funny to me because half the kids are smiling,
23:39
like they just naturally, like, oh, it's time to take
23:41
a picture, I'm gonna smile, Like they haven't realized that
23:43
they don't have to smile just because their picture is
23:46
being taken. And it's just such a weird, like these
23:48
kids have just been through hell and they're grinning. It's
23:51
so bizarre, And I mean, to be fair, I'm sure
23:54
they were super happy in the moment, but I just
23:56
think it really speaks to the innocence of children, just
23:58
like when they're singing, you know, while they're being kidnapped.
24:02
Before the kids are released from the prison, each was
24:04
interrogated individually to get their stories about what happened. This
24:08
was probably really scary for the kids, and it sucks
24:10
that it had to happen, but the police wanted to
24:12
make sure they knew who to look for and exactly
24:14
what happened to these kids. I watched interviews with some
24:18
of the kids later when they were adults, and they
24:20
all said that everybody was very nice to them, of course,
24:23
but still it's a very traumatic thing to be kidnapped
24:26
in a bus, then taken by a bus to a jail,
24:29
then interrogated before you finally get to see your parents. Now,
24:32
when they're done with these interviews, they're put on another
24:37
bus and taken home to their parents. When they arrive
24:40
in Chowchilla, they get off the bus and they're surrounded
24:42
by their families, but also the media who are taking
24:45
photos and videos and asking for interviews before the kids
24:48
even get to see their parents. After the kids went home,
24:53
they did give interviews. They didn't really do it that
24:55
night because like that's super inappropriate, But when they did
24:58
give interviews.
24:59
Speaker 3: They were super sweet.
25:00
Speaker 1: Jennifer Brown, who was nine years old when she was taken,
25:03
was asked why she thought the kidnappers did what they did.
25:06
She replied, I don't know, maybe they didn't have enough
25:09
love so already just like or still I should say,
25:13
like empathetic and sweet. Now, outwardly the kids were all
25:17
still sweet and kind, but their parents would later tell
25:20
tales of horrific nightmares or the kids not being able
25:23
to sleep at all, and that they didn't want to
25:25
close their eyes to see the men again. Larry Park,
25:29
who was only six at the time he was taken,
25:31
had a very tough time after his return, and as
25:34
a teen, turned to drugs to calm his mind, which
25:37
was filled with fear and anger and nightmares. Now I
25:41
do want to say that later on he turned his
25:42
life around and has become like I think, like a speaker,
25:46
and he's just like a really cool guy. He's interviewed
25:48
in like the forty eight hours about this case. But
25:50
you know, he had a really really difficult time because
25:53
of something that was not his fault, that just happened
25:55
to him. Now, as I said, Jody Heffington, who I
25:58
think had been only ten years and was very like
26:01
big and strong, had also been really sassy with the kidnappers,
26:05
but she later said nothing was the same after that.
26:08
So even the kids who are like outwardly not scared,
26:11
are terrified and their lives have been changed forever. So again,
26:15
this took a really big toll on the kids, but
26:17
Ed as well. Years later, Ed was doing an interview
26:21
and tried to say he was no longer bothered by
26:23
what happened. Now, obviously he's going to be a very
26:26
stoic man. He's a farmer, he's manly, he's not going
26:28
to talk about his feelings. However, his wife Odessa spoke
26:33
up and said, you're still bothered by it, And she
26:36
then started telling reporters that sometimes she'd find ed crying
26:40
in the garage. So this is just heartbreaking to hear
26:44
and anybody mad at her for telling his secrets. She
26:47
was trying to help him confront his feelings rather than
26:49
lie about and hide them, which I think, even if
26:53
a bit gruff in the end, is a very loving act,
26:56
and I think he probably saw it that way. So
27:00
now we know about the victims and the lasting effects
27:03
on their lives. But what about the kidnappers. As you
27:06
can guess, they were caught pretty quickly after all this
27:08
went down. I'm going to tell you about them. The
27:10
police figured out quickly that anybody who had enough time
27:14
to bury a truck in a rock quarry must have
27:16
had some sort of legal access to that quarry, and
27:19
that made their list pretty damn small. Almost immediately, police
27:23
turned to the family who owned the quarry, and specifically
27:26
to Frederick Newhall Woods. The third, the son of the
27:31
owner of the quarry. Now I say the third with
27:34
the question mark because he may have been the fourth,
27:36
but I think his dad had a different middle name,
27:38
and the family was just like wealthy enough that they
27:40
made their own rules regarding juniors. But anyway, he's Frederick
27:45
Newhall Woods, I believe the third now fred Woods twenty
27:49
four at the time, came from a family of supreme wealth.
27:54
He was born and raised in Portola Valley on a
27:57
seventy eight acre estate, so he was for want of nothing. Now,
28:03
for seventy eight acres is roughly seventy eight football fields,
28:07
so fucking huge, like insanely large. And the location of
28:12
this gigantic estate is, as I mentioned, in Portola Valley,
28:16
which is one of the richest communities in the country
28:19
and has been for years, including back in the sixties
28:23
and seventies. So this kid came from a ton of money,
28:27
from a family who was elite among the elite. His
28:31
last name was Woods, but new Hall was in there
28:33
as well as you could tell as you heard, and
28:36
there is a new Hall California, as well as the
28:38
new Hall Pass, which was in fact named after his family.
28:43
So he is just really really rich. Beyond his obvious
28:47
connection to the quarry. Fred here came under scrutiny from
28:51
the police because only about a year before this he
28:53
had been arrested for car theft and joy riding along
28:56
with two of his friends who I would call more
28:59
his lackey or henchmen. These two brothers were twenty four
29:03
year old James and twenty two year old Richard Schoenberg,
29:07
sons of a prominent podiatrist also from the area.
29:12
Speaker 3: So they also have a lot.
29:14
Speaker 1: Of money and status, and they're from Portola Valley. These
29:17
kids have no reason to need anything, so why are
29:21
they doing what they're doing now? These three, despite having
29:24
all the money in the world and seemingly probably being
29:28
able to choose their own adventure as far as their
29:30
life goes, they were all seen as loaners, losers, and
29:34
never up to any good, despite having all the opportunity
29:38
in the world to just be decent people, like if
29:41
I was that rich, I'd be on vacation or out
29:43
helping the needy, like I wouldn't be fucking around and
29:46
like kidnapping children.
29:47
Speaker 3: Like what the fuck?
29:48
Speaker 1: But these idiots, they just kept getting in trouble over
29:50
and over and they just couldn't keep their shit clean.
29:54
So the police look into these guys, and in fact,
29:57
they issue warrants for their arrest.
29:59
Speaker 3: But they don't do this right now.
30:00
Speaker 1: So they do this, they're like, oh, we think these
30:02
are our guys. So then they search the quarry and
30:05
then they get a uh, what's it called a warrant? Oh,
30:10
my god, my brain to search the woods a state.
30:13
And in this estate they find an insane amount of
30:16
evidence pointing to these idiots being behind this. Some of
30:20
the items that they found and this is just silly, including.
30:24
Speaker 3: God, this is so dumb.
30:25
Speaker 1: They found a piece of paper that said plan up
30:28
top and outlined their step by step plan to kidnap
30:32
a busload of children for ransom. This plan had a
30:38
little list of things to do, like a laundry list,
30:41
and some of the things said stop a bus transfer
30:45
the occupants, put occupants to sleep, which they didn't do,
30:48
but I think that was the eleven hour drive, a
30:50
couple other stupid things. Then says then take clothing, put
30:55
clothing and ransom note in suitcase, and then it just
30:58
jumps to police find clothes and instructions. Now, this is
31:03
just a small sampling of the idiocy of this very
31:06
ill planned note, and it's just one of the many
31:10
things that they found in the home that pretty much
31:13
proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that these morons
31:15
were the ones behind this. Now, what's the saddest thing
31:19
to me about this whole thing is that apparently this
31:21
plan had been in the works for well over a year, which,
31:25
considering how stupid it is, is actually kind of impressive.
31:28
The men had planned to kidnap the kids, demand five
31:32
million dollars ransom, which in the seventies is a ton
31:36
of money, and then disappear somehow. Now they knew when
31:40
they were taking these kids that their families were not
31:42
going to have the money. But a kidnapping of this
31:44
scale is going to bring in the FBI and the government,
31:48
and the ransom they wanted was going to come from
31:51
the government, so they're trying some federal shit here.
31:55
Speaker 3: Now.
31:55
Speaker 1: The only part of the plan, in my mind, that
31:57
was even remotely smart, was asking to drop the ransom
32:01
in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where they would have been
32:04
able to sort of hide out and then retrieve it.
32:08
It's acres and acres of woods, so it would have
32:10
been really difficult for police to navigate or even see them,
32:13
so they would have been able to get.
32:14
Speaker 3: In and out without the cops catching them.
32:16
Speaker 1: I should mention that one part of their plans said
32:18
to quote keep cool, which may have referred to the
32:21
kids underground, but I like to think it was like
32:23
a mid note pep talk to themselves. I also wanted
32:26
to note that they were asking to be called Beelzebub,
32:30
but they had spelled it wrong, which is insane. And
32:34
I heard and I read a few places that they
32:36
had actually been inspired to kidnap this busload of children
32:40
from the movie Dirty Harry. And if you've seen that movie,
32:44
they kidnap a busload of children. So this idea isn't
32:47
even original, it's poorly planned, and they just leave evidence
32:51
fucking everywhere. Now I do, I do want to call
32:55
out because you're like, Okay, well, what happened to the ransom?
32:58
Because the news knows about it, the world knows about it.
33:01
The kids are in this hole for sixteen hours. Why
33:04
why was there no ransom? Like why did the police
33:07
never get a call or a letter or whatever. And
33:10
I'll explain that to you right now. And this is
33:12
really the most ridiculous part of this. So Fred, James
33:17
and Richard they go back I think, to Fred's house
33:21
after this, and they're tired, you know, they're like, man,
33:23
that was twenty four hours straight of like kidnapping we
33:27
just did. Man, that was a long day. Let's call
33:30
the police. So they call the police in Chowchilla to
33:34
give them their ransom. I think they're gonna, you know,
33:36
just chat it to them over the phone. But because
33:39
everybody in the world knows about this, and because the
33:43
Childchilla police is they're tiny, there's probably like ten cops,
33:47
the lines are busy, they cannot get through.
33:50
Speaker 3: So what do these idiots do.
33:52
Speaker 1: Do they call the FBI? Do they call a different
33:55
police station knowing they'll know what they're talking about.
33:58
Speaker 3: No, they don't do any of that.
34:00
Speaker 1: They decide they'll just wait it out a little bit
34:03
and in the meantime they're gonna go ahead and take
34:05
a nap. So these idiots they straight up go home
34:10
and put themselves to bed because they're tired. And meanwhile,
34:14
these kids and Ed dig themselves out of this hole,
34:17
rescue themselves and completely foil their plan, which is idiotic anyway.
34:22
So anyway, after their names are released and having done nothing,
34:26
having accomplished nothing. By this, James and Fred go on
34:30
the run, and Fred actually makes it all the way
34:32
up to Vancouver before he's caught, and he is caught. Now, Richard,
34:36
the youngest of the group and very clearly the biggest
34:39
follower of all of them, got scared, reached out to
34:43
his parents, and with his lawyer, turned himself in on
34:46
July twenty third of that year, so like literally eight
34:49
days after the kidnapping. That's how quickly they worked out
34:52
who was to blame. Once he turned himself in and
34:55
admitted to the crime, his brother was caught in Menlo
34:57
Park while preparing to surrender because he also knew he
35:00
wasn't gonna get away. And then Fred, who had somehow
35:03
made it into Vancouver, was arrested the same day that
35:08
James was, but he had made.
35:10
Speaker 3: It out of the country.
35:11
Speaker 1: So now these guys are all in custody and they
35:14
get hit with a number of charges, and they plan
35:17
to plead guilty to all of them, except for the
35:21
charge of bodily harm, because if you plead guilty to
35:26
bodily harm during the commission of a kidnapping, your automatic
35:30
sentence is life without parole, and what they were saying
35:34
is these kids were not harmed. Yeah, maybe they have
35:37
a couple of scrapes from climbing out of the hole,
35:40
but we didn't hit them, we didn't tie them up,
35:42
we didn't beat them. There was nothing really done to them.
35:46
And I want to call out that the extreme mental
35:50
trauma and mental harm that they underwent during this process
35:54
was not considered at the time. Now, it didn't matter
35:58
at the beginning here because they were all found guilty
36:01
on all charges, including the bodily harm. But what I
36:04
will call out is that within about ten years of
36:08
these idiots being sentenced, two of their lawyers are actually
36:12
I think all three. I think it was like Fred's
36:14
lawyers because his parents were richer than God. Basically, they
36:17
argued that the bodily harm wasn't fair because cuts and
36:22
bruises don't meet the requirement of bodily harm, and because
36:25
they had these high powered lawyers, and because they were
36:27
well connected, and because they argued, well, that was turned
36:30
over and all three of these guys were then given
36:33
life with parole. Now, I want to say, what they
36:37
did was horrible, It was heinous, it was terrible, and
36:40
I'll tell you a little bit more about Fred Woods
36:42
here and why I think he should have stayed in
36:45
prison forever. But these other two idiots, they were in
36:47
their early twenties. They were just stupid, they were followers. Yes,
36:51
I think they should have been locked up for a
36:52
long time. No, I don't think that this is something
36:54
that they should have been put in prison for the
36:56
rest of their lives for, especially because nobody died. I
37:00
know that might be controversial, but I feel like as
37:02
a nation and as a people, we are far too angry,
37:05
we are far too punitive, and I think that you
37:08
really have to kind of consider, like that's forever. Is
37:11
that really an appropriate punishment? And some of you may
37:16
say yes, and I understand where you're coming from. But
37:20
the thing that I want to point out is the
37:21
only reason these guys were given this opportunity is because
37:23
they're rich. To me, that's the bigger problem than them
37:27
actually getting it overturned. Because I don't necessarily disagree with
37:29
overturning it. I just don't like that they were able
37:32
to do that where other people wouldn't be able.
37:34
Speaker 3: To do that.
37:35
Speaker 1: So anyway, they did get this overturned, and they were
37:38
given the possibility of parole, and also I couldn't find
37:43
it exactly who it was, but one of the captives.
37:46
I think her way of kind of dealing with her
37:47
trauma is that she started talking to some of these kidnappers.
37:50
I think it was like Richie, Richard and James, and
37:53
she started to want them to be released. I think
37:56
as part of like her healing was she wanted to
37:58
be able to forgive them and let them be free.
38:01
So I find that really interesting as well, because like
38:04
the way that all of these people sort of individually
38:06
dealt with what happened to them has a very wide
38:09
range of like feelings and responses and actions, and I
38:13
found that one really interesting. So, Okay, they wanted five
38:17
million dollars, I kind of talked about that, but I
38:20
kind of want to go back for a minute, because
38:21
why did these rich ass kids want five million dollars? Well,
38:24
what it came down to for Fred Woods was that
38:27
he never met his father's expectations. He had already been
38:30
married and divorced, he couldn't keep a job, and he
38:33
had a really big spending habit. He actually collected cars,
38:38
everything from like classics to just junkers and everything in
38:41
between and he couldn't stop.
38:42
Speaker 3: Spending money on it.
38:44
Speaker 1: So at the time he wanted this money, One he
38:47
was in debt to people for like all of the
38:49
stuff he had bought because he's like, oh, I'm good
38:51
for it, my family's rich, whatever, And then couldn't come
38:54
up with the money because his dad's like, get a
38:55
fucking job. And two when he was asked later, he
38:59
literally said, I just wanted a cool car. So he
39:03
literally kidnapped twenty seven people, twenty six of them children,
39:07
so that he could buy a fast car when he
39:10
already had like, you know, fifty fucking cars on the
39:13
property in various conditions. And then the brothers they just
39:17
did it because they were followers and they did whatever
39:19
Fred was telling him to do. So just absolutely fucking pointless,
39:23
idiotic and pathetic, just straight up pathetic. In any case,
39:27
I wanted to call out that Richard Schoenfeld, who was
39:29
twenty two at the time of the kidnapping, was paroled
39:31
in twenty twelve at age fifty seven. He was parrolled
39:35
after being an absolute model prisoner from the moment he
39:39
entered prison until the moment he was released, and since
39:42
then has done nothing of note. He has just lived
39:46
a normal life, but a normal dude, no problems. His
39:51
brother James was paroled three years later. He was twenty
39:55
four at the time of the kidnapping, and he was
39:57
paroled in twenty fifteen at the age of sixty three,
40:00
same thing as Richard model prisoner, never any problems, realized
40:06
what a mistake he had made, lived his life trying
40:09
to make it up, and was released and has just
40:11
kind of faded away. Probably has family money and he's
40:14
just living a quiet life now. Fred on the other hand,
40:19
was not paroled until twenty twenty two at the age
40:22
of seventy. One of the reasons for this is because
40:26
he was seen as the ringleader totally which is totally fair.
40:29
But another reason is that he was a total fucking
40:31
shit bag in prison from start to finish. He was
40:34
constantly buying and selling things he wasn't allowed to. He
40:38
was running a fucking business from behind bars, which he's
40:42
not supposed to do. He was getting married, he was
40:44
buying houses, he was doing all sorts of unscrupulous shit.
40:48
That just showed that, unlike the two brothers, this is
40:51
who Fred Woods was and is to this day now.
40:55
As far as his family's immense wealth. I don't know
40:59
how much of it he I know he bought an
41:01
almost two million dollar house while he was still in prison,
41:03
so obviously he's got something from his parents. But I
41:06
also know that that seventy eight acre estate was actually
41:09
given to the city and turned into a historic landmark.
41:13
Not because the family is necessarily significant, although again the
41:17
new Hall family on his mom's side, I think it
41:20
was on his mom's side anyway, they were definitely significant
41:23
or are significant to California history. But I think it
41:25
was more that it was a very old space and
41:28
it's like a wildlife preserve, and so his childhood home
41:32
is now part of that. I also think that potentially
41:35
his family donated it for like tax reasons, but maybe
41:38
also because his dad was like, fuck this guy, he's
41:40
in prison forever, I'm not giving him shit, So it
41:42
could have been his sort of like final fuck you
41:44
to his son before he died. I don't really know.
41:47
What I do know is you can go visit the
41:48
space if you want to, and like see the house,
41:50
which I really want to do, and next time i'm
41:52
up north, I'm absolutely gonna do. It is in Portola Valley,
41:56
so again, like the richest part of the rich Ass
41:59
Bay area. Anyway, he was finally parolled in twenty twenty
42:04
two at the age of seventy, and since then I
42:06
haven't heard sit about him either, and I've looked it
42:08
up and it seems like he's probably being a shitbag,
42:12
but he's not doing anything that's like making the news.
42:15
So in any case, that's the story. Very fucking scary,
42:19
very fucking crazy. Feel really bad for these kids. Ed obviously,
42:25
you know, he was fifty five at the time, so
42:26
he has passed since then. But they have multiple like plaques,
42:32
and I think they named a park after him, like
42:34
the Ed Ray and Children Park in Chowchilla. He is
42:37
a local hero. It's mentioned on the Chowchilla City website
42:41
what happened, and again he's lauded as like an absolute
42:44
hero who saved all of these children. And I really
42:47
do think that without Ed being there, things could have
42:50
gone a very different way. So I'm very glad that
42:52
he was there. I'm very glad that he took care
42:55
of the kids, and I'm very glad that he's being
42:57
remembered exactly how.
42:58
Speaker 3: He should have been, because wonderful guy.
43:01
Speaker 1: I really hope the best for all of these kids,
43:03
I really who are now adults older than me. I
43:06
really hope everybody who survived this is doing okay. I
43:08
can't imagine what that's like, and I hope everybody listening
43:11
enjoyed the story.
43:13
Speaker 3: So thanks again for tuning in.
43:14
Speaker 1: I'll be back soon with another episode, and until then,
43:18
stay safe.