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over to patreon.com/grabbagcollab. Some

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crimes are so heartbreaking or shocking

0:47

that they change laws, change

0:49

society, or even

0:51

earn the label Crime of the Century.

0:55

But the stories that made

0:57

headlines in decades past aren't

0:59

necessarily remembered today. I'm

1:02

Amber Hunt, a journalist and author, and

1:04

in each episode of this show I'll

1:06

examine a case that's maybe lesser known

1:08

today, but was huge when

1:11

it happened. This

1:14

is Crimes of the Centuries. The

1:30

Bus Driver The

1:33

bus driver was in his underwear when he

1:35

was told to climb down the ladder and

1:37

into a dark hole. He had

1:39

no idea where he was headed or who was

1:41

waiting for him when he got there. He

1:44

did know that it was 3.30 in the morning

1:46

because the men who had taken him had not

1:48

asked for his watch when they took his clothes

1:50

from him. He knew that

1:52

even if the worst awaited him, it was

1:54

best he went first because he sure didn't

1:56

want any of the 26 children

1:59

waiting to follow him down there

2:01

to be alone in that dark place. He

2:04

had a fleeting thought that if these

2:06

guys wanted money, they'd pick the wrong

2:08

school district and the wrong town. He

2:11

was handed a flashlight and then descended down

2:13

the steps into what looked like an old

2:16

8 foot by 26 foot tractor

2:18

trailer container. He could

2:21

see the floor of the receptacle was

2:23

lined with mattresses. He could hear some

2:25

fangs that were worrying behind some vent.

2:28

Then one by one, Ed Ray

2:30

helped each of the children down and

2:33

placed them on the mattresses. When

2:35

the loading of the underground container was done,

2:37

the masked men lowered a 400 pound steel

2:41

plate over the opening that they

2:43

had crawled through. Unbeknownst to Ray,

2:45

they then put heavy batteries on

2:47

top of the manhole cover, shoveled

2:49

three feet of dirt over that

2:51

and left the premises. All

2:54

Ray knew was that he was alone with

2:56

these kids, some as young as

2:58

five, whimpering, crying and screaming

3:01

for their mothers. When

3:04

the bus he was driving had been hijacked, it

3:06

was just about four o'clock on the

3:08

day before the last day of summer school.

3:11

Ray had stopped the bus in the rural

3:14

back roads of Madera County, California when

3:16

he tried to drive around a white van that

3:18

was blocking the road. Thus

3:20

began the largest mass kidnapping in

3:22

the history of this country. 27

3:26

people all taken from a school

3:28

bus and placed in a massive

3:30

underground prison cell to await being

3:32

freed. Assuming, of course,

3:34

they lived through the oppressive heat

3:36

and the lack of air and the abject

3:39

fear. Mike Marshall,

3:41

then 14, told the CBS

3:43

News magazine 48 hours that he

3:45

remembered the moment after the kidnappers

3:47

had placed the steel cylinder over

3:49

the opening that they had climbed

3:51

through. When there it just went dark

3:55

and you just hear the material getting

3:59

thrown on us. We would have been

4:01

very alive. It was July 15th, 1976. Ed

4:06

Ray was an ordinary 55-year-old

4:08

man put in an extraordinary

4:10

position. He would prove

4:13

to be the most decent and responsible of

4:15

men. A brave soul who

4:17

cuddled, cajoled, and comforted 26 children

4:21

who had even less of an idea of what

4:23

was going on than he did. The

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www.magicmind.com/COTC20. It

6:09

took parents only about an hour to

6:11

figure out something was very wrong. The

6:14

calls started to pour into the Madera

6:16

County Sheriff's Department. The day watch

6:19

commander called another officer, a pilot, and told

6:21

him to get a plane in the air

6:23

and start looking for the missing bus. He

6:26

then took a car and drove the

6:28

bus route himself while Madera County Sheriff

6:30

had Bates call the governor and said,

6:32

we need some help here. Chachilla

6:35

is a small town located smack dab

6:37

in the middle of California with a

6:39

population of 5,000 in 1976. Two

6:44

state prisons are located there. Its

6:47

median annual income of around $7,000 at the time

6:49

was little more than half the national

6:53

average. This was farm country

6:55

and had a lot of migrant workers who

6:57

called it home. But it was

6:59

also a small town in the best sense of

7:02

the phrase. Everybody knew

7:04

everybody else. And in

7:06

this case, all the pilots knew all

7:08

the other pilots and pretty soon there

7:10

were a lot of eyes in the

7:12

sky looking for a runaway bus. There

7:15

were a lot of eyes on the ground looking too. By

7:18

now the California Highway Patrol was

7:20

helping search the area and so

7:22

were dozens of volunteers combing the

7:24

lonely back roads spreading out

7:26

in all directions. At

7:28

7.15 p.m. the bus was spotted in

7:31

a dry river bed. Around

7:33

the bus, 20 foot tall bamboo

7:35

stood guard and made it invisible

7:37

from the street. Sheriff's deputies

7:40

flooded the scene but found the

7:42

bus empty except for damp bathing suits

7:44

and towels left on the seats by

7:46

children who had been celebrating their final

7:48

days of summer school. There

7:51

were some tire tracks that led nowhere.

7:54

Ed Ray and the children, 19 more girls,

7:56

7 more boys, had met trouble

7:59

on road 20. 21 midway

8:01

through the bus's route. The bus

8:03

had slowed to move around a stalled van

8:05

when two masked men emerged and told Ray

8:08

to open the bus door. The

8:10

gunman then got on the bus and told Ray to

8:12

move to the back. One gunman

8:14

went with him, holding a sawed-off shotgun

8:16

on him the whole time. The

8:19

other got into the driver's seat and drove

8:21

to the riverbed. One child

8:23

on the bus, 10-year-old Jennifer Brown, would

8:25

later say she thought it was some

8:27

kind of joke. You know, end

8:29

of the term sin thing, that they

8:31

were being taken to like a party

8:33

or something. But it quickly

8:36

felt differently. Edward was speaking

8:38

in a harsh tone and that normally was

8:40

not the Edward that we knew and loved.

8:43

Then get used to Jennifer and all

8:45

of the news reports that followed, both

8:47

on TV and in the papers. It

8:50

would be this confident, smart, little blue

8:52

eyed girl who would step up to

8:54

the plate and tell people what the

8:56

kids were thinking and doing and feeling

8:59

during their long ordeal. It

9:01

would be Jennifer who talked to the cops,

9:03

to reporters, her mom said it was okay,

9:06

and who testified in court when the

9:08

time came. Jennifer was

9:10

and is one cool chick who, when

9:13

she figured out what was happening, told

9:15

the kidnappers that her daddy was a

9:17

reserve deputy and if she was so

9:20

much as five minutes late getting off

9:22

that bus, he'd come looking for

9:24

her. They didn't care. Soon

9:28

enough, everybody was loaded into the white

9:30

van and another that was green. Each

9:32

had their windows painted black and had

9:34

a partition separating the kids from the

9:37

driver in front. Fourteen kids

9:39

and Ed Ray got in one van,

9:41

twelve kids got in the other. Ray

9:43

was pressed against the back of the van

9:46

door, with children laying on his arms and

9:48

legs, each one holding onto some part

9:50

of Ray's body. No

9:52

light seeped in. Survivor

9:54

Larry Park told 48 hours that

9:57

the darkness was like an abyss.

10:00

Six years old, I had never been

10:02

in darkness like that before. It

10:05

was just pitch black. Like

10:07

the dark was touching me,

10:09

engulfing me like I was

10:11

actually inhaling the darkness. Hardly

10:14

anyone could breathe, so eventually, Ray tore

10:17

up the carpet and threw some holes

10:19

in the underbelly of the van. New

10:21

air could pass through. They rode

10:24

that way, stopping three times, but

10:26

never being allowed out. Ray

10:28

reported later that he could not hear

10:30

traffic or anything that would indicate to

10:32

him where they were. But they

10:35

drove and drove with the kids

10:37

occasionally taking it upon themselves to

10:39

bang on the partition and beg

10:41

the driver to let them go. All

10:44

the time, Ray worried about the kids in

10:46

the other van and wondered how they were

10:48

faring. Then

10:51

the van stopped. It

10:53

was about three in the morning

10:55

of the next day, pitch dark

10:57

outside. They had been driving for about 11

10:59

hours. The

11:01

kidnappers told the children to get off the

11:03

bus one at a time. The

11:08

terrified kids still left on the bus didn't know

11:11

if the kids being let off were being killed

11:13

one at a time, somewhere out there in the

11:15

dark. Jennifer remembered. I

11:18

felt like I was an

11:20

animal going to the slaughterhouse. Instead,

11:23

once they stepped out, the children were

11:25

asked their names and asked to take

11:27

off a piece of their clothing so their

11:29

parents would be given proof that no one

11:31

was playing here. One

11:33

12-year-old had his glasses taken from him.

11:36

Jennifer gave up a flip-flop as she'd

11:39

already lost one somewhere early on in

11:41

the escapee and did the other one wouldn't

11:43

do much good for her. Then they followed

11:45

Ray 12 feet down into the subterranean

11:47

holding cell. It

11:50

had been a moving van in a

11:52

past life where they found peanut butter,

11:54

dry cereal, sliced bread, crackers, and

11:56

water. They also saw that the

11:58

kidnappers had come to the house and they were The

12:00

two holes in the floor for uses

12:02

toilets. Jennifer. Would tell authorities

12:04

later that when someone used the

12:06

makeshift party, other kids would hold

12:08

up a blanket for privacy because

12:10

you know this whole thing was

12:12

hard enough. Should also been

12:14

afraid at one time that one of the

12:17

little kids was dead, but it only been

12:19

asleep. Jennifer would explain that

12:21

sometime during all of this. A.

12:23

Group of little girls started to

12:25

sing. To take people's minds off

12:28

the circumstances, someone began singing if

12:30

you're Happy. And you know it.

12:32

Clap your hands known clapped. We

12:34

all try to comfort each other.

12:38

In a few my him little seems.

12:41

Criticizing subsection movement so mean

12:43

I'm inclined to than the

12:45

same concept is can it's

12:47

all right. He

12:51

was lot of crying but nobody was

12:53

hurt. Not. Be the if you don't

12:56

count the discomfort related to the

12:58

fear and the heat, the claustrophobia.

13:00

And the smell kid stood in

13:03

line to get with suburb from

13:05

the badly working fans. Are

13:08

dismayed child busy themself kicking a

13:10

post that was. Showing up the

13:12

moving vans interior. Structure: Soon enough

13:14

the roof began to give.

13:16

Jennifer said she was afraid

13:18

of being quote unquote Schools.

13:21

So. Was everybody else now stands

13:23

on the ventilator stopped. My little

13:26

brain started to grasp the concept

13:28

of we may really not go

13:30

home As a young kids you

13:32

don't have a lot of sense

13:35

of time, their weakness and nine

13:37

season talent at with day or

13:39

night. At Gray and might

13:41

marshall notice that the sides of

13:44

the creed or sagging as well

13:46

they decided they would try to

13:48

claw their way out. Added later

13:50

told case the or a tv

13:52

show up and have different bird

13:54

dog vegan. withdrawal

13:57

around were famous been i've read

13:59

that ourselves out. So

14:02

when we started to move this steel plate, we

14:04

couldn't hardly move it because it had two great

14:07

big old batteries on top of it. Then

14:10

we got that plate up and

14:12

everything else to try to cool off and go back up and

14:14

dig some more. Meanwhile,

14:17

back in Chocilla, law enforcement from

14:19

everywhere started showing up to help.

14:22

President Gerald Ford directed the

14:24

Federal Bureau of Investigation to

14:27

spare no expense sending 30

14:29

agents to take to the

14:31

air and on horseback commandeering

14:34

scent-smelling dogs and forensic specialists

14:36

to scour the backwoods of

14:38

Central California. This was an

14:40

era where the Citizen Band

14:43

radio and citizens anxious to

14:45

use it were ubiquitous. Where

14:51

everybody reported everything to everybody

14:53

else from clunky bulky radios

14:55

in their cars. The chatter

14:58

was especially popular with lonely

15:00

long-haul truckers but lots of

15:02

people had CB radios. A

15:05

lot assumed handles like they were top

15:07

gun pilots, names like Smokey

15:09

or the Bandit. And

15:11

during this mid-july crisis in Chocilla,

15:14

chatter exploded which gave investigators pause

15:16

as they knew that the kidnappers

15:18

could be listening to every development

15:21

where the cops were at any

15:23

time, who they were talking to

15:25

and where they were executing warrants.

15:28

There was nothing they could do to stop it. But

15:31

the truth was they had nowhere to

15:33

even start looking for real information

15:35

aside from the abandoned bus. No

15:38

ransom note had been received and

15:40

the motive was anybody's guess. It

15:42

was actually Sheriff Bates was willing

15:44

to guess. He said it was

15:47

one of five things. One, a

15:49

deranged guy. Two, someone

15:52

wanting personal revenge on a parent.

15:54

Three, a terrorist plot. Four,

15:58

some older kid on the bus thought it might be a crime. be

16:00

funny or five good

16:02

old-fashioned cash from

16:05

a newscast at the time. Any chance at all

16:07

this could be some kind of terrible hoax or

16:09

joke that someone is playing. I imagine

16:11

there's a chance. I

16:13

hope that's all it is. The

16:16

Dairyland School District Superintendent Lee Roy

16:18

Tiedem ventured against the

16:20

kidnappers' identities. Quote, well

16:23

they weren't our screwballs, our

16:25

screwballs aren't smart enough. End quote.

16:28

Not helpful really.

16:30

Still please remember that they

16:33

had received a number of reports a

16:35

few days earlier of suspicious van activity

16:37

in the area around where the bus

16:39

had been stopped. On Friday

16:41

morning, the day after the kidnappings, the

16:44

cops decided that they would go public

16:46

with that and try to make that

16:48

crowdsourcing thing work for them. It

16:50

did. A local woman called the

16:53

sheriff to say she had seen those

16:55

vans people were talking about and had

16:57

written down a complete license plate from

16:59

one of them. The authorities immediately

17:01

took the number to the

17:03

California DMV. They came up

17:05

with a name and a fictitious address

17:08

in San Jose, but they

17:10

also had records that pointed them straight

17:12

to the prior owner who had sold

17:14

the van and he was happy

17:16

to help. Meanwhile

17:18

underground, the little crew worked

17:20

the problem with her hands and

17:22

finally managed to shove

17:24

aside the 419 pound

17:27

steel cover. On top

17:29

of that was a box into which Mike

17:31

Marshall could poke his head. Mike

17:33

made a recording of himself describing the

17:36

moment. The recording is

17:38

tough to make out but

17:40

he says quote, I started

17:43

pounding on this box. Started

17:45

hitting it and pounding it, hitting it and

17:47

pounding it. None of us knew if

17:49

when we got out there'd be shotguns aimed

17:52

at our heads. We were

17:54

scared end quote. On

17:56

Top of the box were two heavy

17:58

diesel batteries that they. Lowered slowly

18:00

one at a time. Then.

18:02

They ran into that three foot

18:05

thick layer of dirt. They

18:07

refused to give up the Gap.

18:09

Doubted any dream energy would Wayne

18:11

make Marcel with say keep digging.

18:14

Suddenly. A shaft of light filtered

18:16

through the whole. Even little Larry,

18:18

who was only six when he

18:21

was kidnapped, remembered that moment. Is

18:23

ray of sunlight and dell he

18:25

is to for opening. He was

18:27

cast in the dust as the

18:29

dust particles look for a from

18:31

to should start. Around

18:34

eight Pm twilight really sixteen hours

18:36

after they had been forced to

18:38

climb down into the darkness make

18:40

poked his head in the open

18:42

air he couldn't see any one

18:44

but the familiar hills to the

18:47

west. Than with raise help he

18:49

lifted twenty six dirty partially clothed

18:51

children out of their little how

18:53

we are just scurry like a

18:55

bunch a little mice. We.

18:57

Saw conveyor belts, escalators and

18:59

were quite the Flintstones and

19:02

all these men would perhaps

19:04

came to us and looks

19:06

at his late. So.

19:08

Are you. A took no

19:11

time to realize they had found the

19:13

children the whole country was searching for.

19:18

The California Rock and Some and Company

19:20

was only a hundred miles. From where

19:22

the bus snapping had occurred, the eleven

19:24

hours in the vans then had just

19:26

been spurned. Driving round to confuse the

19:29

hostages, they had thought that the tunnel

19:31

or is we're going. To emerge in

19:33

the middle of the Pacific Northwest. Moods.

19:36

And he'd secretly fretted how he was

19:38

going to get twenty six kids to

19:40

safety if they had to sleep. I

19:42

can live off the land for a

19:44

time. But. They emerged in the middle

19:46

of the puri. It. Was not an

19:49

active worksite Mirror had. It been

19:51

for years. They buried enclosure rate

19:53

could see was surrounded by brush

19:55

that was easily six. Feet high,

19:58

Tops swarmed. in The

20:00

kids were taken to the Santa

20:02

Rita Rehabilitation Center, put in fresh

20:05

oversized prison garb, and fed. Some

20:07

of the children had random cuts and bruises.

20:10

A few had fainted during the ordeal. There

20:13

had been bloody noses, maybe some

20:15

heat exhaustion, but nothing really

20:17

that required hospitalization. Someone

20:20

found Ray something to wear, and he

20:22

stayed at the quarry to help the

20:24

FBI understand what had happened there. California

20:27

Lieutenant Governor Melvin Damali was on

20:29

the scene to announce... This

20:38

chaotic scene comes from KCRA

20:40

TV in California. But

20:53

the parents would have to wait a bit to see their

20:55

children, because doctors needed to fully

20:57

examine them, and the police and

20:59

FBI wanted to speak to the

21:01

kids individually before their stories

21:03

got confused. After

21:16

the children, bus snapped and chow chill

21:18

over discovered in a quarry, it did

21:20

not take long for the FBI to

21:22

ask quarry workers, who had keys to

21:24

get in. The list was

21:27

short. It included the owner

21:29

and his son, Frederick Nickerson Woods

21:31

III, a descendant of

21:33

a prominent family that traces its way

21:35

back to the Mayflower. After

21:38

a California branch of the family

21:40

made good in the Gold Rush

21:42

days, the multiple descendants still owned

21:44

1.4 million acres of land across

21:47

the state, including the

21:49

Magic Mountain theme park near Los Angeles.

21:52

The people at the quarry soon remembered that

21:54

three men had been digging a big hole

21:56

at the quarry a while back. He

22:00

was Woods Jr.'s son. When

22:02

Daddy Woods was called, he told the supervisor

22:05

to give Woods the third the run of

22:07

the property. Someone else

22:09

at the quarry then remembered that Woods and

22:11

two of his pals had gotten into a

22:13

little trouble in Sierra County a few years

22:15

back as well. While they

22:18

were on some kind of junk car collecting adventure,

22:20

Woods and these two others had found

22:22

what they thought was an abandoned car

22:25

and began working on it. You

22:27

know, to get it going so they could take it

22:29

back down to the scene. The cop

22:31

rolled up and asked if they owned the car. They

22:34

replied they'd found it riddled with bullet

22:36

holes and figured it was fair game.

22:39

The cop wasn't convinced. He

22:42

took them in and they were charged

22:44

with Grand Theft Auto, which got lowered

22:46

to felony joyriding. Then they paid

22:48

a fine and all was well. Except

22:51

that in October 1974, the police

22:53

in the beautiful county divided by

22:56

the Pacific Crest had taken some

22:58

mug shots of these three nice,

23:00

well-behaved victims of a misunderstanding and

23:03

the FBI had something now that

23:05

they could really work with. Pictures

23:08

of the men they were looking for. Especially

23:11

now that it had been a

23:13

few days since anyone had seen

23:15

Hyde Nor Hare of Fred Woods

23:17

III and his two

23:20

partners in crime that day, brothers

23:22

James and Richard Schoenfeld. They

23:25

were not just nice and polite young men.

23:27

Fred and James were 26, Richard

23:29

was 22, but they

23:31

were also nicely situated. Woods

23:34

lived with his parents on the 78

23:36

acre ranch on the wealthy San

23:39

Francisco Peninsula that had paddocks

23:41

full of horses and rows

23:43

and rows of vintage automobiles in

23:45

various states of repair. Woods

23:48

was loosely in business with one of his

23:51

high school friends, Jim Schoenfeld, who

23:53

would be described later as a

23:55

boy scout kind of guy, who

23:57

loved Disney movies and the Beach

23:59

Boys and watched Wild Kingdom

24:01

on TV. Together, the

24:03

two had bought an old school bus

24:05

once, refurbished it and resold it. They

24:08

also acquired a run-down Victorian mansion and

24:10

wanted to move it to the city

24:12

of Mountain View, but ran into

24:14

a few snags there, money being

24:16

one, and a lot of paperwork

24:19

being the other. The two

24:21

otherwise hung out, creating money-making

24:23

schemes, sometimes with Jim's kid

24:25

brother Richard along for the

24:27

ride. The Schoenfeld boys

24:29

had grown up sons of a

24:32

prominent Bay Area playa-trust. Jim

24:34

was the car nut, wrecked like

24:37

torses and was said to be

24:39

interested in studying forestry. Back

24:42

at the quarry, after the kids were safe, police

24:45

followed leads that showed that wood

24:47

had bought two vintage vans from

24:49

Apollo Alto Storage Company in November.

24:51

They were the ones the police had

24:53

just found eight miles outside of Chowchilla.

24:55

A CB radio was

24:58

inside. All-points bulletins

25:00

were issued across the country,

25:02

complete with mug shots for

25:04

woods in the Schoenfeld. The

25:06

closely appeared unwanted posters hung

25:08

in America's post offices. Soon

25:11

enough, law enforcement also found out that

25:13

Fred and James had rented a warehouse

25:16

in East San Jose where they moved

25:18

to the old vehicles they had purchased,

25:20

where warehouse tenants reported seeing them paint

25:22

over some of the windows of the

25:24

van. At 11 p.m. on July

25:26

21, six days

25:29

after the kidnapping, the cops showed

25:31

up at the woods' residence and

25:33

began a thorough search. Soon

25:35

enough, they found a heap of evidence,

25:38

including guns and a

25:40

piece of paper, a pebble of which

25:42

was written the word plan. It

25:45

was, indeed, a plan of the bus

25:47

mapping. Also found was a

25:49

rough draft of a ransom note. The

25:52

public would not be privy to its

25:54

contents immediately, but this is what

25:56

the cops had in hand. been

26:00

kidnapped, put 2.5 million in

26:02

each of the suitcases, total

26:04

5 million. Use old bills,

26:07

have ready at Oakland police station.

26:09

Further instructions pending until Sunday a.m.

26:11

We are

26:14

Beelzebub." By

26:16

the way, Beelzebub, a common nickname

26:18

for Satan, was misspelled to look

26:20

something like Beelzebub. The

26:23

note continued, quote, Sunday,

26:25

take suitcases to Oakland airport,

26:27

of CHP plane pickup and

26:29

transfer at 1,000 feet above

26:32

ground to Santa Cruz. Then

26:34

follow Highway 17 back to Oakland.

26:37

Speech should be about 120 miles per hour ground speed. Rest

26:41

of the message follows, end quote.

26:44

I can't help but noting that the kids were taken

26:46

on Thursday, put in the ground on Friday,

26:48

and they were not going to ask

26:50

for the ransom to be paid until

26:52

Sunday. It seems like they were willing to let

26:54

26 children be scared to

26:57

death for days and maybe even

26:59

worse. Did they even have enough

27:01

food to last that long? I

27:03

feed one kid. They eat three times

27:05

a day and they're fragile. The

27:08

extent of the cruelty is stunning. In

27:10

these cases, man, sometimes there's more than

27:12

the usual amount of stuff to loathe.

27:15

Anywho, two days after the

27:18

ransom note was found on July 23rd,

27:20

Richard Schoenfeld and his attorney walked

27:22

into the Oakland office of the

27:25

Alameda County District and surrendered. The

27:27

lawyer, Edward Merrill, had represented

27:29

a member of the Symbionese

27:32

Liberation Army, the bunch that

27:34

took Patty Hearst in 1975.

27:37

Fred was arrested in Vancouver,

27:39

British Columbia six days later

27:41

on July 29th. He

27:43

had been trying to retrieve a letter at

27:45

Vancouver's main post office, a

27:47

newscast at the time. Frederick Woods was

27:49

arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police

27:51

this afternoon just across the Washington state

27:54

border in Vancouver. On the

27:56

same day, James had been driving on Interstate

27:58

5-2. that later,

28:00

give himself up when he was pulled

28:03

over near Menlo Park and taken into

28:05

custody. James Schoenfeld was captured at

28:07

dawn today. Police say he ran hard

28:09

all over the western United States, but

28:11

he did not run well. Law

28:14

enforcement still had one more guy in

28:16

mind. It seemed like

28:18

the idea for the caper was, more

28:20

or less, the subject of a screenplay

28:22

written by a friend of Woods and

28:24

the Schoenfelds. David Boston, the

28:26

wannabe writer, had received a letter from

28:28

Jim while he was on the lamb

28:31

in Canada. Jim wrote, quote,

28:33

If you want to make really good money ever

28:35

on a movie, write about our deal. I

28:38

think it would make a damn good movie of the

28:40

week if not a feature. It's big,

28:42

real big and a hot item. Everybody

28:45

wants to know about it. My ending

28:47

is not exciting enough, so you might

28:49

have to kill some people or something.

28:51

End quote. He added that

28:53

he had wanted to put more weight on

28:56

the buried moving van, but Richard had talked

28:58

him out of it. Boston

29:01

handed the letter over to the police and

29:03

told them about a screenplay. That's

29:05

dope suspicion about whether he'd actually

29:07

been involved in it from the

29:09

start. So the cops

29:11

enlisted Clint Eastwood to ask Boston

29:13

for a meeting to discuss the

29:15

possibilities of turning it into a

29:17

film. Boston jumped at

29:20

the chance. The two met

29:22

at a Los Angeles restaurant and Boston handed

29:24

a script to Clint who handed it back

29:26

to the cops. The cops

29:28

examined it, but Boston's fingerprints matched

29:30

nothing from the crime. The

29:33

film was never made. A

30:02

year after the arrests, after a

30:04

change of venue, retired Riverside County

30:06

Superior Court Judge Leo Degan was

30:09

selected to hear the case. The

30:11

defendant decided to take their chances

30:13

on his judgment and declined a

30:15

jury trial, having pleaded guilty to

30:18

simple kidnapping, but not to the

30:20

kidnapping with bodily harm crime that

30:22

prosecutors had charged them with. Over

30:26

days of testimony, it was revealed that they

30:28

never delivered the ransom note because Jim

30:30

Schoenfeld, who had become obsessed with

30:32

the Exorcist movie, wanted to

30:34

check the spelling of the Azelba before

30:37

sending it. So they

30:39

had shifted gears and tried to call the

30:41

sheriff's office with a ransom demand, but the

30:43

phone line was always busy. Oh,

30:46

and after not being able to call

30:48

in the ransom details, the threesome decided

30:50

to nap for a while after their

30:52

big night. When they woke up, the

30:55

kids had already escaped. They

30:57

also told the court that they had practiced

30:59

the bus napping once and the bus had

31:02

turned into a side road when they were

31:04

just about ready to pounce. They

31:06

said they were so relieved it hadn't

31:08

worked, they immediately went to an A&W

31:10

root beer stand to celebrate. And

31:13

they said they never meant to bankrupt

31:15

anyone, they just figured the state of

31:17

California would pay the ransom. After

31:20

all, state officials had just announced a

31:22

$5 billion surplus. They

31:25

figured nobody would even notice $5 million

31:27

missing. And

31:30

they had plans for that money. Woods

31:32

had wanted to develop and patent a new

31:34

way to put out wildfires, and he said

31:36

he would have given the device to the

31:38

state who, you know, had already paid for

31:41

it. Richard Schoenfeld said he

31:43

planned to use the money to

31:45

give the kids cars or motorcycles

31:47

or horses, whatever they wanted. Your

31:49

attorneys knew how this was going to make them

31:52

look to the public. One pointed

31:54

out that, quote, no Weinstein's

31:56

were running the show, end

31:58

quote. Now,

32:02

there was plenty of evidence that the men had

32:04

run up serious debt that they did not

32:06

want their parents to know about and that

32:08

they figured this, well, was a good plan

32:11

to recoup their losses. Judge

32:13

Degan said at sentencing that he was

32:15

impressed that they were, quote, not people

32:17

who developed habits of viciousness, end quote,

32:20

and that they didn't intend to harm

32:22

the children, but he didn't have

32:24

the right to change the facts in applying the

32:26

law. If harm had

32:28

been done to the victims, that the

32:31

harsher sentence was appropriate. Woods

32:33

and Jim Schoenfeld got life without

32:35

the possibility of parole. Richard,

32:38

because he was 22 at the time

32:40

of the crime and because of a

32:42

quirk in California law, got life with

32:44

the possibility of parole. All

32:49

the hostages were offered an all-expense

32:52

paid visit to Southern California to

32:54

see Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm,

32:56

another theme park. A

32:58

special college fund was set up and

33:01

Ed Ray got a healthy retirement fund.

33:03

The buses in the region all got CB

33:06

radios, despite Ray explaining

33:08

that he wouldn't have gotten reception in the

33:10

area where they were taken and he never

33:12

would have been able to call anyone anyway. In

33:15

some districts, boards decided school buses

33:18

could not stop for any reason.

33:22

This week, Jennifer Brown told the judge during

33:24

the trial that she had nightmares regularly

33:26

still and she saw herself being

33:28

killed. She said that in those streams,

33:31

the kids were lined up and apples

33:33

were placed on their heads when they

33:35

were shot, like a William Tell trick.

33:38

When asked by reporters why she thought the men

33:40

did what they did, she replied

33:42

that they hadn't had enough love in

33:44

their lives. Four years

33:46

after the trio was convicted, an appellate

33:48

court said the injuries suffered at the

33:51

children did not amount to the legal

33:53

standard of bodily harm. That

33:55

meant they all would be eligible for parole.

33:58

Some of the children now have been arrested. adults over

34:01

the years showed up at least 60 times,

34:03

20 times per kidnapper, to

34:06

argue against them being set free.

34:09

Nevertheless, Richard Schoenfeld was released from

34:11

prison in 2012. His

34:14

brother Jim followed in 2015. Woods

34:17

was paroled in 2022. Sally

34:20

Marina of Madera County's District

34:23

Attorney's Office argued against

34:25

Woods' release to ABC News. When

34:27

they arrested him, he was busy

34:29

selling the rights to the movie.

34:31

He's always been about the money. Whatever he had

34:33

to do to get the money, he would have

34:35

done to those kids, including bury him alive. Jennifer

34:38

Brown grew up, got married, had kids,

34:41

and admitted it was a long time

34:43

before she could sleep without a nightlight.

34:46

She had testified at their trial. The

34:48

kidnappers were sitting to my left at

34:50

a table. I remember

34:52

giving my dad my gum because

34:55

I told him I was going

34:57

to spit my gum at him. I did my

34:59

testimony, I answered my questions, and I left that

35:01

courtroom with my head held high and there was

35:04

no way that I was going to let them

35:06

see me cry. Getting back to

35:08

normal had been harder than she thought it'd be, but

35:11

she wanted everyone to know those men

35:13

did not keep her from having a

35:15

wonderful life. Others felt

35:17

differently. Like Marshall didn't

35:19

go on the Disneyland trip. He

35:22

just wanted to forget about the whole thing. Almost

35:25

50 years later, Marshall told People magazine

35:27

that before the kidnapping, he'd been looking

35:30

forward to his future. After

35:32

it, he said he, quote, couldn't see

35:34

anything, end quote. He

35:36

said he was drunk for the next 30 years. But

35:40

recently, hearing from others how grateful they

35:42

were that he had saved their lives,

35:45

his perspective has changed some. Many

35:48

told him that he had kept helping them

35:50

through the hardest days of their lives because

35:53

they remembered him scratching and clawing

35:56

to free them and saying over

35:58

and over, keep digging. To

36:07

research this story, journalist Amy Wilson read

36:09

decades of newspaper stories about the case,

36:12

combed through the available television coverage at

36:14

the time, and listened to a few

36:16

retrospectives of the kidnapping. The

36:19

48 hours episode, Remembering the

36:22

Chowchilla Kidnapping was especially helpful.

36:32

Crimes of the Centuries is available

36:34

early and ad-free through Grab Bag

36:37

Collab. Join us at patreon.com slash

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also get access to several other shows

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on our profit sharing network, unless noted

36:48

in the citations, this case was researched

36:50

and written by me, Amber Hunt, and produced

36:52

by Amanda Rassman and Henry LaVoy.

36:55

Original music is by Bruce Hunt,

36:57

Andrew Higley, and occasionally by my

36:59

son, Hunt Van Benskoten. Other music

37:01

comes from Soundstripe and Epidemic Sound.

37:04

If you like the show, help us

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