July 15, 1976 was hot. It was good weather for a field trip, though, and the kids from Dairyland Elementary in Chowchilla had enjoyed their day at a local swimming pool. In the late afternoon, they trundled back onto the school bus, where they were greeted by longtime driver Ed Ray. Once everyone had piled in, Ray pulled out of the parking lot to make the usual drop-offs.
At 4 p.m., only a few stops into the route, Ray hit the brakes. Up ahead was a van parked across the road, perhaps the unlucky victims of car trouble. But as Ray slowed to a halt to see if the driver needed help, three men with guns, their faces obscured by nylon stockings, emerged. Two of the armed men forced their way into the bus. One held a gun to Ray, ordering him to get out of the driver’s seat. The other took the wheel and began driving. Behind the school bus, the third man trailed behind in the van.
They drove about a mile, eventually pulling into some brush along the Berenda Slough. Ray and the 26 children were told to get off the bus, and they were herded onto two waiting vans. Minutes turned to hours as the stuffy vans with blacked-out windows drove in what felt like endless loops. Some of the kids tried singing “If You’re Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands” to cheer themselves up. But “nobody clapped their hands,” 8-year-old Jennifer said.
Finally, the vans stopped. The doors opened and, under the cover of darkness, Ray and the kids were told to descend a ladder into a hole in the ground. Through the dim light of an oil lamp, Ray could see they were inside some kind of truck that had been buried underground. Left in piles were potato chips, water and mattresses. Once the captives were inside, the men weighed down the only way out with two 100-pound industrial batteries and a heavy sheet of metal. Then, the three jailers left.
An oppressive heat settled in, and the kids began screaming.
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There was chaos in Chowchilla, a small agricultural town of about 5,000 just south of Merced. It had quickly become apparent that something was terribly wrong, as family after family called the school asking where their kids were. A number were Spanish-speaking farm workers, and translators were brought in to help communicate between families, law enforcement, school officials and social workers.
Two local pilots headed to the skies to search for the lost bus. They found it — with no sign of human life inside.
Meanwhile, over 100 miles away, Ray enlisted the help of the oldest boy, just 14, to stack the mattresses high enough to reach the blocked exit. Together, they pushed until they were able to shove a piece of wood under the metal sheet to wedge it open.
“It was awfully hot and we kept putting water on our heads to cool off,” Ray would later tell the Merced Sun-Star. “We had a hard time trying to keep the children from crying. I had to beg them not to scream.”
Agonizingly slowly, they were able to shift the batteries away from the exit. As they did so, dirt and debris covering the truck fell into their eyes and mouths. It took 16 hours before Ray and his helpers were able to make a space large enough for everyone to squeeze out.
Once free, they found themselves in a large, open space. Ray and the 26 kids made a run for it, and almost immediately ran into a security guard. He was astonished at what he saw: the missing kids from the news, dirty, scared and exhausted, outside his guard shack in the Livermore rock and gravel quarry.
Police descended on the spot near what is now Shadow Cliffs Regional Recreation Area and drove the traumatized group back to Chowchilla, where a crowd of 500 people awaited them. Some of the kids cried, but many just wanted to sleep. “They are in shock, but they are too tired to realize it,” a Merced County social worker told the Sun-Star.
A few parents allowed their children to speak with reporters. One boy, a 9-year-old named Jeff, was asked what he wanted to do when he grew up.
“Maybe a writer or a librarian,” he said nonchalantly. “I’m not going to be a school bus driver, that’s for sure.”
As the kids returned home, the FBI and police investigation kicked into high gear. They didn’t have to look far: It was unlikely that anyone without inside access to the quarry could have gotten past locked gates and security to dig a massive trench in which to hide an entire truck. Under immediate suspicion was Frederick Newhall Woods IV, the 24-year-old son of the quarry’s millionaire owner. Police executed a search warrant on the 100-acre family estate in Portola Valley and discovered Woods had fled the country for Canada.
On July 29, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested Woods in Vancouver. Also taken into custody in California were the Schoenfeld brothers, James, 24, and Richard, 22. The trio of friends came from wealthy backgrounds — the Schoenfelds were the sons of an Atherton doctor — but were reportedly deeply in debt. “We needed multiple victims to get multiple millions, and we picked children because children are precious,” James Schoenfeld explained at a 2015 parole hearing. “The state would be willing to pay ransom for them. And they don’t fight back. They’re vulnerable.” The men settled on a $5 million ransom (over $24 million today, adjusted for inflation).
After leaving Ray and the kids in the buried truck, the men went back home to call in the ransom demand. But here, fate intervened. The tiny Chowchilla police station’s line was so jammed with family and media calling about the kidnapping, Woods couldn’t get through. After a few tries, the men decided to take a nap and try again later. When they awoke, they turned on the news to discover their captives had broken free.
Woods and the Schoenfeld brothers pleaded guilty to kidnapping for ransom and robbery, and were sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. Richard was paroled in 2012 and James in 2015. Woods, now 70, is the last perpetrator in prison — but perhaps not for much longer.
On Friday, Woods was recommended for parole after being denied 17 previous times. Life in the California Men’s Colony, a state prison in San Luis Obispo, has reportedly been lucrative for Woods. According to a 2019 CBS News story, Woods was running at least three businesses from prison: a Christmas tree farm in Creston, the Little Bear Creek gold mine near Lake Tahoe and a used car business in Tehachapi. He’s married three times while incarcerated and owns a mansion down the road with a view of the Pacific Ocean.
In 2016, Woods used his trust fund to settle a civil suit with the Chowchilla survivors, many of whom have post-traumatic stress disorder to this day. One court filing estimated his trust fund was valued at $100 million; Woods’ lawyer has disputed this.
“He could have done much more,” survivor Jennifer Brown Hyde told the Associated Press. “Even the settlement paid to some of us survivors was not sufficient. It was enough to pay for some therapy but not enough to buy a house.”
The parole decision will become final within 120 days. Gov. Gavin Newsom can review the decision but he cannot overturn it because the crime does not involve a murder. At most, Newsom can punt the decision back to the full parole board for review.
“This is an individual who’s demonstrated how dangerous he is,” Madera County District Attorney Sally Moreno said. “He’s ruined the lives of dozens of these kids — they still struggle, a lot of them, with the aftereffects of this.”
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While a number of survivors attended Woods’ parole hearing, missing among them was their hero, Ed Ray.
In 2012, at the age of 91, Ray’s life began to wind down. In the days leading up to his death, many of the kids came to say goodbye. He died on May 17, 2012, still living in his beloved home in Chowchilla, which now honors him with a city park.
“He was always worried about somebody else,” his granddaughter Robyn Gomes told the Sun-Star. “I think that’s why he lasted so long, because he knew we needed him. He was our rock.”