Chowchilla bus kidnapping: Rare photos from one of the largest abductions in U.S. history

A look inside the truck trailer where 26 abducted school children and their bus driver were buried alive -- and managed to escape. 

The frightening ordeal began when the children, ages 5-14, were on a school bus on their way home from summer school.  At around 4 p.m., on July 16, 1976, three masked men with guns hijacked the Dairyland Elementary School bus driven by Ed Ray.  The kidnappers then drove the bus into a dry riverbed and hid it in tree brush. The stunned children were herded from the bus into two vans. They were forced to jump from the bus to the vans so that they would not leave behind any footprints. Jennifer Brown Hyde, who was 9 at the time of the kidnapping, remembers what it felt like inside the van. "And I felt like I was an animal going to the slaughterhouse."  Inside the vans, the kidnappers had constructed makeshift jail cells by installing wood paneling and painting the windows. No one could see in or out. There was no air ventilation, food, water or toilets. The kidnappers drove around for nearly 12 hours as the children suffered inside the sweltering, pitch-black vans. Finally, the vans stopped. The kidnappers had taken them to a rock quarry, 100 miles away from Chowchilla in Livermore, California.  Bus driver Ed Ray and the children were taken out of the van, one by one, and sent down into a hole. They soon learned they were inside an old truck trailer and they had been buried 12 feet underground.   The kidnappers had made toilets in the wheel wells of the tractor trailer.  Inside the hole, the children found containers filled with water for them to drink. They also found boxes of cereal, peanut butter and loaves of bread.   Two ventilation pipes provided air to the children who were trapped 12 feet underground.  The children tried to stay calm as the minutes and hours ticked by. After being in the hole for almost 12 hours, conditions started to deteriorate. The roof started to cave in, and they were running out of food. Survivor Jennifer Brown Hyde said, "It was just a desperate situation … We thought … if we're going to die, were going to die trying to get out of here."  Ed Ray and the kids decided they had to try and to escape before it was too late.  Bus driver Ed Ray and Michael Marshall, 14, took turns pushing up on the heavy manhole cover that was blocking the opening to the hole. Once they were able to move that, Michael started the arduous task of digging to the top.   After many grueling hours, Michael Marshall dug himself to the top. It had been 28 hours of terror. Ed Ray and the children walked toward the rock quarry and were greeted by stunned workers. Soon police arrived  and photos, like these, were taken of each child as evidence. Police took school bus driver Ed Ray and the children to the closest place that could hold them all -- the Santa Rita Rehabilitation Center, a local jail. Pictured at center is Jennifer Brown. At the Santa Rita Rehabilitation Center, the children were given apples and soda, and examined by doctors.  Ed Ray and the children were interviewed by police. The children waited patiently, but they all just wanted to get home to their families.  Finally, approximately four hours after escaping, the children boarded yet another bus …  ... this time the bus was heading back home to Chowchilla.  The children could not wait to be reunited with their families. Parents and families of the returning school children waited anxiously for the arrival of their children inside the Chowchilla police station on July 17, 1976. When 6-year-old survivor Larry Park arrived home to his parents he said, "I finally felt safe again." Park is pictured in the arms of his father.  Immediately, police started to dig for clues at the scene of the crime.  Investigators unearthed the truck trailer that had been the children's underground tomb hoping they would find clues that would lead them to the kidnappers.  Media from all over the world covered the story.  It would take almost two weeks to track them all down, but investigators finally arrested 24-year-old Frederick Newhall Woods, left, the son of the owner of the rock quarry where the kids escaped. They also arrested his partner in a used car business, 24-year-old James Schoenfeld, center, and his younger brother Richard. All came from wealthy families who lived in San Francisco's nicest suburbs. Security guards had seen the three men digging in the quarry months before the kidnapping.  When investigators executed a warrant to search the estate of Fred Woods' father, they found a treasure trove of evidence. One important piece was this document that says, "plan." It sets out how they were going to commit the kidnapping and what they would do if something went wrong.  Another important piece of evidence was this draft of a ransom note. The draft of the note says the kidnappers wanted $2.5 million, but in actuality, they were going to ask for $5 million. They were never able to deliver their demand because when they tried to call, the phone lines were jammed.  Another piece of important evidence was this list of the kidnapped children's names written on the back of a Jack in the Box wrapper. The kidnappers wrote them down as they pulled each child from the van. When later tested by investigators, they found fingerprints from two of the three kidnappers.  The kidnappers were all eventually sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. Thirty-six years after the kidnapping, Richard Schoenfeld was granted parole in June 2012. Three years later, his brother James was paroled.  Fred Woods,  the last kidnapper in prison,  was granted parole on August 17, 2022 after 17 previous denials. Jennifer Brown Hyde is a wife, mother and executive assistant.  Until just recently, she could not sleep without a nightlight. Michael Marshall, 57, is a father and long-distance trucker. He has a therapy dog, Blue. He says, "I rescued him before he was a year old. And now he rescues me every day." Larry Park owns a handyman business and volunteers as a pastor at a local church. He says he has forgiven the kidnappers. 

On July 15, 1976, 26 school children and their bus driver from Chowchilla, California, were kidnapped and buried alive in this tractor trailer.