According to James, they initially weren't serious about actually committing such a crime, but as time passed by, they began to consider it. Additionally, several of the survivors have alleged they suffered from anxiety and nightmares as a result of the incident. He was left with relatives every year for at least a month or two all his life when his parents traveled. Frederick Newhall Woods was 24 years old at the time of the 1976 Chowchilla school bus kidnapping. While executing a search warrant at the Woods estate, investigators found a gun used in the abduction, a draft of a ransom note, and even a document titled plan. But Woods and his two suspected accomplices, brothers James and Richard Schoenfeld, were nowhere to be found. A draft ransom note was found at the scene, with some of its phrasing seeming to make reference to Hugh Pentecost's story, 'The Day the Children Vanished', which had been published in Alfred Hitchcock's Daring Detectives and was displayed in the Chowchilla public library. Richard Schoenfeld was paroled in 2012, and James Schoenfeld was released in 2015. she said, I would have friends. He had obtained the job through an employment agency after the marriage, she said, and after losing it went to work in his father's stone quarry. of Mutual Victims 27 abducted Status Alive (all released) 'Even the settlement paid to some of us survivors was not sufficient. ', 'He could have done much more,' she said. Marshall also struggled with addiction for a while as a young adult, but he too is sober now and has a therapy dog named Blue. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. He was denied parole numerous times for his minimization of the crime, his behavior in prison, and his possession of contraband like pornography and cell phones. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Richard Schoenfeld turned himself in to authorities eight days after the kidnapping; his brother was captured in Menlo Park, California, not far from the quarry; and Frederick Newhall Woods was arrested in Vancouver, Canada, after fleeing the country. On Friday, March 25, 2022, Woods read aloud an apology at his parole hearing. Frederick, Richard, and James targeted a school bus full of children, all aged 5 to 14, whom they got to stop by pretending that their van broke down in the middle of the road. Woods' son, Fred Newhall Woods IV, 24, was missing. The fans had stopped working, and the roof of the moving truck was beginning to cave in. Herself the product of a tangled and traumatic home situation, housed in a foster home, she said that Mr. Woods found her a person aloneand he took me in.. The escape took place before the kidnappers had even been able to call in their ransom demands. At this point, the positions Frederick, Richard, and James took during the initial abduction are unknown. Ray and Michael Marshall, aged 14 at the time, managed to find an escape for the group, which finally led to the apprehension of the three kidnappers, Frederick Newhall Woods IV, the quarry owners son, and his two friends, James, and Richard Schoenfeld. Frederick Newhall Woods IVRichard SchoenfeldJames Schoenfeld Inside the prison bunker, Ray and Marshall worked quickly to find a way out. Woods has spent the vast majority of his life in prison, where his disciplinary record reportedly includes citations for running an unauthorised gold mine, a car dealership, and a Christmas tree farm. Richard and James's father worked as a podiatrist, while Frederick's father was a businessman who owned and managed a multitude of businesses, including a rock quarry located in Livermore, California. CBS News' David Begnaud reports Saturday, July 11 at 10/9c on CBS. I asked him if he felt funny, finding a dead man. The ones he sold he made a lot ontwo or three hundred dollars for a junker, up into the thousands.. Then, after some 16 hours, bus driver Ed Ray and some of the older children in the group dug their way out of the trailer while the kidnappers slept and led the group to safety. A 70-year-old man convicted of hijacking a school bus full of children and holding them and their driver for $5 million ransom in 1976 has been approved for parole. Frederick Newhall Woods, now a bit frail, had been incarcerated 43 years for helping commit one of California's most shocking crimes. Two victims who participated during Fridays hearing said they agreed that Woods should be paroled, according to NBC. It was an atrocious crime, but hes not dangerous now, and so the law entitles him to his freedom., Both Richard and James have been contrite in their parole hearings, acknowledging the severe nature of their crimes. 'I believe you have served enough time for the crime you committed,' Park said Friday, before adding: 'I'm concerned about the addiction you may have about money.'. According to reports, hes directing at least three enterprises from behind bars, including Ambria Acres Christmas tree farm, the Little Bear Creek gold mine near Lake Tahoe, and another used car business. Parole commissioners reportedly decided Woods no longer is a danger to the public. Scuba Certification; Private Scuba Lessons; Scuba Refresher for Certified Divers; Try Scuba Diving; Enriched Air Diver (Nitrox) Woods is related to California's wealthy Newhall family The Newhall Land and Farming Co. holds enormous investments in commercial and recreational ventures, agriculture, cattle, oil. Ray and the children, who were then ages 5 to 14, were eventually able to claw their way out of the trailer 28 hours later and ran to nearby workers, who called police. At the timehe wasn't really workinghe told me from time to time his father would lean on him. After about 12 hours on the road, the group was taken down into a ventilated bunker that contained mattresses and snacks on property owned by Woods father, prosecutors said. Woods, Wealthy Kidnap Suspect, Described as a Loner and a Loser, https://www.nytimes.com/1976/07/26/archives/woods-wealthy-kidnap-suspect-described-as-a-loner-and-a-loser.html. He is the heir to a sizable family fortune and his lawyer, Gary Dubcoff, has repeatedly argued that apart from the commitment offense, [Woods] has no history of violence, whether before prison or in it. Frederick Newhall Woods was found suitable for parole at a hearing Friday,California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesperson Joe Orlando confirmed to CNN on Tuesday. There was just miles and miles of scenery., One major point of her incompatibility with Mr. Woods, the young woman said, were his racial views. Frederick Newhall Woods was 24 years old at the time of the 1976 Chowchilla school bus kidnapping. That, plus the fact that Frederick's father owned the rock quarry where the hostages were discovered, placed suspicion on him. Over the course of her studies, she noted that numerous traits and facts about the children, including that a majority of the children, upon recollection, did not name the time they spent in the vans or the hours they spent being buried underground as the worst of their experiences; they also remembered that the highest degree of terror occurred at any time whenever their location was changed: from the school bus and into the small vans, from those vans and into the hole at the top of the buried van, and even from their placement onto the buses taking them home after their ordeal ended. Eventually, they moved the cover and Marshall scrambled into a box the kidnappers had put on top. I'm sorry, he said, I'm not Ralph Snider [the false name he had registered under] I'm Frederick Woods. And now, more than 40 years later, all three will soon be walking free once again. Now I fully understand the terror and trauma I caused. 27 abducted Yet here I am, a mess.'. Im 50 years old, and I can have an anxiety attack over getting in the car with my husband, survivor Jennifer Brown Hyde told Fox News earlier this year. Marshall cautiously stuck his head out of the dirt to make sure their abductors werent nearby, then he and Ray helped the other 25 children out of the truck. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. Birth Date As for Mr. Woods's rely tionship with his former wife, the girlfriend said he talked of only one happy time with her. An appellate panel, which included the governor's late father, state Judge William Newsom, reduced the kidnappers' sentencesin 1980, giving them the chance at parole. It was at the gravel quarry owned by Mr. Woods's father, Frederick Nickerson Woods 3d, that the children were held in a buried moving van for 18 sweltering hours before they managed to dig their way out. I said to myself as soon as the bus stopped: 'What have I got myself into?' Thankfully, all the children and their bus driver returned home 36 hours after they were abducted, safe but traumatized. We enjoyed ourselves, she said. Jessica O'Connor is a public historian focusing on Deep South Black History with degrees from Winston-Salem State University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Their miraculous escape made national headlines, but their abductors were still on the loose. Frederick Newhall Woods is ready to go free - Wikipedia Frederick Newhall Woods was 24 years old when he committed the crime. Regarding their married life. Frederick Newhall Woods IV, James Schoenfeld, and Richard Schoenfeld planned the Chowchilla kidnapping for over a year. Gavin Newsom has 30 days to review the decision and wither allow it to stand or refer it to the full Board of Parole Hearings for a review. A spokesperson stated that Newhalls parole hearing was not convincing enough for him to be released. He cannot unilaterally reverse the parole decision, because Woods was not convicted of murder. The trial was then delayed as it was relayed from Chowchilla's Madera County to Alameda County. On Friday, March 25, 2022, Woods read aloud an apology at his parole hearing. He collected anything and everything, said his former wife, who has remarried and now lives in a mobile home park near Covington, Ga., foreign money, anything antique, a lot of antique furniture, cars and a lot of model cars. Powered by. If he went anywhere and he got a brochure of something, he'd, keep that.. He really didn't want people around here. However, according to CBS News, their families appealed the conviction and in 1980, a panel of judges ruled that the kidnappers would eventually be eligible for parole instead of spending life in prison without said eligibility. Despite the significant wealth of their families, James Schoenfeld told CBS that he and Woods were in serious debt at the time of the kidnapping and that the crime was financially motivated. He was 57 at the time. In 1976, Frederick Newhall Woods IV and brothers James and Richard Schoenfeld kidnapped a school bus driver and 26 children, then buried them alive in a moving van trailer in a quarry. Woods expected too much of him and he couldn't live up to it, she said. When the day was about to come to a close, worried parents contacted the school, which initially assumed that the bus had broken down in the road. It was later observed that elements of the abduction seem similar to a scenario depicted inThe Day the Children Vanished, a story written by Hugh Pentecost that was published in the 1969 fiction anthologyAlfred Hitchcock's Daring Detectives; since there was a copy of the book in the Chowchilla library, it was assumed that the Pentecost story was the inspiration for the mass abduction. Now I fully understand the terror and trauma I caused. His parole stirred great controversy from the hostages. After driving a short distance, the men brought the school bus to a stop in a dry riverbed surrounded by bamboo and tall brush, where another van was waiting. 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