Produced by way of Chris Young Ritzen, George Osterkamp, Mead Stone and Gary Winter
In August 2022, after 46 years, the ultimate of 3 males convicted of kidnapping 26 kids and their bus driving force used to be paroled from a jail in California.
It used to be one of the crucial greatest kidnappings in U.S. historical past. A college bus with 26 kids used to be stopped by way of 3 armed gunmen as they headed house from the Dairyland Elementary School within the small California the town of Chowchilla.
The males had been dressed in pantyhose over their faces.
“And then this man came up with a stocking over his head with a gun and said, “Open the door,'” said survivor Jodi Heffington, who was 10 at the time. Heffington relived the ordeal publicly for the first time in an interview with “48 Hours,” and shared emotional main points of her lifestyles after.
“Where their eyes were, it was like, it almost looked hollow,” recalled survivor Larry Park, simply 6 years previous on the time. “It was like looking at death.”
The kids and their faculty bus driving force had been transferred to trucks and had been pushed for almost 12 insufferable hours ahead of being buried alive within a truck trailer underground — held hostage at nighttime for every other 16 hours ahead of they made a harrowing break out.
WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN?
Just outdoor Chowchilla on July 15, 1976, the scary adventure started.
Jennifer Brown Hyde | Survivor: We get started riding down the street …
Larry Park | Survivor: I’m questioning the way it used to be going to really feel to die.
Larry Park: I used to be too scared to transfer.
Twenty-six terrified kids – some as younger as 5 – had been staring down the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun. Three masked males had hijacked the Dairyland Elementary faculty bus. One had the shotgun, one drove the bus, and one adopted behind within the white van they would used to block the street.
Jodi Heffington | Survivor: It’s a troublesome factor to give an explanation for, ‘purpose I by no means been round weapons. You most effective observed unhealthy guys within the films with stockings on, , so I knew it wasn’t excellent.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: Edward … stored telling his children simply be quiet, sit down down, do what they are saying. … Edward used to be talking in a harsh tone, and that usually used to be no longer the Edward that we knew and liked.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: Eventually, the bus went off the street, down right into a dry riverbed.
Larry Park: Into this giant grove of bamboo that had been taller, in truth, than the bus.
Alameda County D.A’s Office
Jennifer Brown Hyde: And then as I regarded out one of the crucial aspect home windows, I noticed that there used to be every other van that used to be parked there …
AUDIO: JENNIFER BROWN, AGE 9: …They parked the bus. And there used to be every other inexperienced — there used to be a inexperienced van down there looking forward to us.
Even on the age of 9, little Jennifer Brown gave the impression to know the horror that day must be documented. She later made this recording with her mother:
AUDIO: JENNIFER BROWN, AGE 9: And the ones two guys status from the bus door to the van door with weapons with pantyhose over the top so we would not run out. … after which, see, they pulled the van appropriate up to the bus door.
The kidnappers herded the surprised kids from the bus into the ones two trucks.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: We had to leap from the bus to the van.
AUDIO: JENNIFER BROWN, AGE 9: So they would not see any ft prints.
Jodi Heffington: When it used to be my flip to get at the van … he stopped me. He held a shotgun to my abdomen. And I stated, “I was doing what you said.” And I had to stand there with this gun in my intestine till that one van drove away and so they subsidized the second one van up. It felt like endlessly. I believed he used to be going to shoot me. I in truth did.
Jennifer, Larry and the remainder of the kids adopted Jodi into the second one van, in conjunction with the bus driving force, Ed Ray. Then the abductors closed the doorways.
Jennifer Hyde: It used to be pitch darkish.
The trucks were transformed into makeshift prison cells by way of putting in wooden paneling or even portray the home windows. No one may see in or out.
The kidnappers sped off with the kids caged in the ones cell prisons.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: And I felt like I used to be an animal going to the slaughterhouse.
Around that point, Jennifer’s mother, Joan Brown, got here house from paintings and the home used to be empty.
Joan Brown: The kids weren’t there. No peanut butter at the counter, no chairs in the market, neatly … they only were not there.
As one hour grew to become to two, frightened oldsters started serving to the police retrace the college buses course, crisscrossing dozens of rural roads.
Joan Brown: Where had been the ones kids? Twenty-six of them and a bus driving force? Nowhere.
And then, simply ahead of sundown, a police pilot noticed the massive bus about seven miles outdoor Chowchilla, hidden within the dry riverbed.
Sheriff Ed Bates | Madera County, California: You would most effective see it from the air.
Madera County Sheriff Ed Bates rushed to the scene. His deputies had already discovered the bus empty. The kids and their driving force long gone.
The tire impressions discovered within the sand led directly to the entrance door of the bus.
Sheriff Ed Bates: Obviously anyone had subsidized their automobile up to the doorways of the bus.
Sheriff Bates used to be satisfied the kids of Chowchilla had turn into the sufferers of a brazen and ordinary, mass kidnapping.
Sheriff Ed Bates: I known as the governor. I stated, “I need some help down here.”
Sheriff Ed Bates: I had the fogeys all assembled there within the hearth station. … Well, it’s good to simply take a look at their faces, and the nervousness and the concern used to be there.
Sheriff Ed Bates: I instructed them, I known as the FBI. … And unexpectedly, I’ve 30 FBI brokers there.
Alameda County D.A.’s Office
As Sheriff Bates persevered to widen the investigation, the kids persevered to undergo within the sweltering, pitch-black trucks.
Jodi Heffington: We’d bang on the place the drivers panel could be —like, “let us out, let us out” … and they might simply say “shut up”.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: And we drove what gave the look of for hours upon hours upon hours.
Larry Park: And I understand that I stored falling asleep … and coming again conscious. … I might dream … about being – [takes a long pause] — I might dream about being up within the woodland the place my circle of relatives would pass tenting.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: We all attempted to convenience each and every different.
AUDIO: JENNIFER BROWN, AGE 9: And a couple of of my little pals which might be 5 and six, they came visiting and began laying on me and crying. And I instructed them be courageous as a result of it is going to be alright …
Then, the trucks began to decelerate. The children may really feel it pulling off the street, lurching from aspect to aspect on tough terrain, ahead of coming to a prevent – after just about 12 insufferable hours.
Larry Park: They unfolded the door and so they took Ed Ray out first. They close the doorways again. And then there used to be not anything. There used to be no sound.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: And I take note they’d simply clutch the primary child that used to be within the door … They opened the door and so they grabbed any individual else.
Larry Park: And they only stored doing that. They would open up the door …
Jodi Heffington: They’d take the following child out. And they’d shut the doorways. But once they opened the doorways you do not see them. I believed they had been principally killing us each and every one after the other.
Jennifer Brown Hyde … and I stored scooting to the again of the van, and I believed possibly if I cover within the nook, they may not come for me.
But they did.
“THE HOLE”
Jennifer Brown Hyde: I did not know if it used to be within the desolate tract, on the seaside. In the aspect of a mountain? I had no thought the place we had been. I did not even know if we had been in California.
After virtually 12 hours in darkness, 10-year-old Jodi Heffington used to be the ultimate to be taken out of the primary van.
Jodi Heffington: Being the ultimate one … you do not know what is going on to occur as a result of you do not see no person else. …What came about to them? If you did not kill them, the place are they at? They had flashlights more or less like shining of their faces. And then one shining in your face. And they stated, “What’s your name?” And I in truth — I’ve a bit little bit of a smart-ass in me. And I stated, “Puddin Tang — ask me again and I’ll tell you the same.” I used to be pissed and I used to be scared on the similar time. They stated, “if you don’t tell us your name, you’re never going to see your mom and dad again, do you understand?” … And they took all my property … And then they stated, “you are going to pass down on this hollow appropriate right here.
The hollow led to an previous truck trailer buried underground. Ed Ray and the kids from the primary van had been there.
Larry Park: There used to be a desk arrange within the again. It used to be surrounded with jugs of consuming water …
Jodi Heffington: On one of the most mattresses, that they had some cereal, a loaf of bread and a few peanut butter.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: … within the wheel wells, that they had minimize holes in ’em for bathrooms. We may pay attention fanatics. So, we knew that there used to be some type of air flow.
James Palmer / AP
Michael Marshall, 14, used to be nonetheless within the different van with one of the most youngest kids.
Michael Marshall | Survivor: The children were given a dangle of me and had been retaining onto me. And … simply scared out in their – , we had been all – simply scared out of our wits.
As they did ahead of, the abductors got rid of the kids one at a time. Michael and the youngest, 5-year-old Monica Ardery, had been the ultimate ones left within the van.
Michael Marshall: It used to be simply me and her.
Not understanding what had came about to the opposite kids or in the event that they had been even alive, Michael says he could not undergo to hand Monica over to the abductors. So, once they opened the doorways once more, he went first.
Michael Marshall: I had to take her fingers from mine and rip —and tear them aside, say it could be OK. And pass with them and depart her. … That used to be arduous.
CBS News
Michael Marshall: As quickly as I were given on that ladder and took a step down … and I heard the remainder of the children say, “It’s Mike. … It’s Mikey. Michael.” And I noticed that everyone used to be alive.
And to his reduction, no longer lengthy after, Monica got here mountaineering down the ladder. They had been all in combination once more.
Michael Marshall: We’re OK. We’re OK. We’re OK. So presently, to this point, we are alright.
But the sense of reduction used to be short-lived.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: Before I knew it, the ladder used to be long gone. They threw a roll of bathroom paper down and stated, “We’ll be back for you.” And that used to be it.
The kidnappers then lined the outlet with a manhole duvet.
Michael Marshall: I commit it to memory simply went darkish. … And then you definitely simply pay attention the fabric (strikes his fingers in a digging movement) getting thrown on us … we had been being buried alive.
They had been buried 12 ft underground.
Jodi Heffington: I simply take note taking a look up at that hollow. I sought after to keep shut. I sought after to be like appropriate there. Because that used to be the way in which out.
Larry Park: Ed Ray and Mike Marshall they checked out each and every nook, each and every wall … for an break out course. They were given beneath the manhole duvet and driven up on it. And they could not transfer it. So, Ed Ray decided that it used to be time for everybody to get some relaxation.
The mins and hours ticked by way of.
Michael Marshall: … It could be silent after which any individual would bust out crying and the outlet would simply erupt. Everybody’s crying.
Michael Marshall: The factor that made me cry used to be no longer being ready to say good-bye to my mother. … And I’m remembering the ultimate time that I noticed her [gets emotional] and wishing I will have instructed her good-bye.
CBS NEWS REPORT: Throughout a lot of nowadays, oldsters and different circle of relatives of the lacking kids got here to the command post arrange in downtown Chowchilla to check out desperately to fathom some reason why out of this insanity. Carol Marshall’s 14-year-old son Mike used to be every other at the bus.
REPORTER: Any probability in any respect this generally is a horrible hoax or shaggy dog story that anyone is enjoying?
CAROL MARSHALL: I consider there’s a probability. I am hoping that is all it’s.
This used to be one of the crucial greatest kidnappings in U.S. historical past.
CBS NEWS REPORT: So a ways there may be been no phrase from any abductors …
Sheriff Ed Bates: Two heavily-laden [sic] automobiles had taken 26 kids and their bus driving force. That’s no longer simple to do. And how did they keep watch over them? And what did they do with them?
As investigators intensified their seek, Jennifer and Jeff’s mother Joan waited by way of the telephone hoping to pay attention news about her kids.
Joan Brown: I take note later that day, praying and pronouncing to God that in the event you carry them again … I will be able to promise you that I will be able to — after which I finished as a result of there used to be not anything I will be offering in change for my kids.
They were within the hollow for nearly 12 hours and the prerequisites had been deteriorating.
CBS News
Jennifer Brown Hyde: We had eaten the meals. … The fanatics at the ventilators stopped.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: My little mind began to seize the concept that of we might in reality no longer pass house.
Larry Park: There used to be this one boy. … And he stored kicking blocks out from beneath the 4×4 pillars. And so, the roof of the van used to be beginning to collapse. The seams had been breaking. Dust used to be flowing thru. And I take note kids simply screaming and crying. … The facets of the van had been bowing in. … I knew that I used to be going to die. I knew it.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: We idea, and so they stated — the older children and Edward — if we are going to die, had been going to die attempting to get out of right here.
THE ESCAPE
Jennifer Brown Hyde | Survivor: As a tender child, you wouldn’t have numerous sense of time. … There used to be no daylight. So, you could not inform if it used to be day or evening. … We had been out of meals, we had been out of water, the roof used to be caving in…. It simply used to be a determined scenario.
Jodi Heffington | Survivor: Everybody were given the mattresses and stacked them up as prime as lets pass.
Larry Park | Survivor: … appropriate beneath the manhole duvet.
Jodi Heffington: People began status on each and every different’s shoulders. … I used to be an overly tall lady and really sturdy, so that they stood on my shoulders when they did not stand on Edward’s.
Alameda County D.A.’s Office
They took turns pushing up at the manhole duvet.
Michael Marshall: … And I’m giving it the whole thing I were given, and all of the children are cheering me on. You know, “Come on Mike, you can do it. You can do it.” And then unexpectedly, they stated, “It moved, it moved.”
But they had been a ways from being unfastened. The kidnappers had put truck batteries and dust on best of the manhole duvet and had built a picket field round it. Once the manhole duvet used to be moved, that field used to be simply large enough for Michael to stand in.
AUDIO: MICHAEL MARSHALL, AGE 14: Edward squeezes me thru this half-foot hollow.
Like Jennifer, Michael Marshall made a recording about his revel in.
AUDIO: MICHAEL MARSHALL, AGE 14: I am getting on best of it and I get started pounding in this field. Start hitting and pounding, hitting and pounding.
Larry Park: He dug till he used to be exhausted after which he stored on digging. There used to be no hand over in him.
AUDIO: MICHAEL MARSHALL, AGE 14: None people knew if once we were given out, they had been simply going to be status there with shotguns at our head and stuff, so we had been more or less … lovely scared.“
Larry Park: Then suddenly this ray of sunlight [cries, then pauses]. This ray of sunlight came down into the opening. And it was catching the dust. And the dust particles looked like a bunch of shooting stars. … There was this airflow that came out of the van and I knew we were free. I need a minute. [Gets up from his chair, overcome with emotion.]
Michael Marshall
Michael Marshall [sighs, then pauses]: The air and the sunshine it used to be beaming coming thru …
Larry Park: Mike Marshall, in truth, courageous particular person that he’s, crawled out of the outlet first.
Michael Marshall: And I caught my head out and … I did not see any one. … I may see we had been within the hills …
Jodi Heffington: He stated “the coast is clear.” And so we began taking the little ones and placing them up there. And Mike grabbed them. …That section used to be more or less horrifying too as a result of we are out now. … We have no idea who is out right here.
It used to be roughly 8 p.m. on July 16. They were within the hollow for almost 16 hours.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: We all simply scurried like a number of little mice. … We noticed conveyor belts and excavators … It gave the look of “The Flintstones.” … And these types of males with arduous hats on got here to us and checked out us like, “who are you?”
The kidnappers had buried them in a rock quarry in Livermore, California, 100 miles clear of Chowchilla. When police arrived, as proof, they took footage of each and every kid.
Jodi Heffington: An Alameda County prison bus got here. (Sarcastically laughs) It used to be like, “yeah, they put us back on a bus.”
Then they transported them to the nearest position that would dangle them — the Santa Rita Rehabilitation Center — a neighborhood prison.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: I take note getting into — within the bus and it’s good to see the jail cord. … And you idea neatly, “they’re taking us into jail.”
Jennifer Brown Hyde: They took us into what gave the look of school rooms. … They introduced us apples and soda.
Alameda County D.A.’s Office
AUDIO: JENNIFER BROWN, AGE 9: They had those coveralls. … And these types of sons and daughters pass into ’em and we had to roll the pants about 10 ft. And we rolled the palms up and we had been all sitting there — a few of ’em did not roll our palms up and we sitting there flapping our palms. We stated, “Hey we can fly!?”
Over the following couple of hours, Ed Ray and the kids had been tested by way of docs. They had been additionally puzzled by way of police.
Jodi Heffington: Each certainly one of us used to be interrogated by way of ourselves to inform our tale.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: How do you describe any individual that has pantyhose over their face?
Alameda County D.A.’s Office
After 4 hours of wondering, they had been in the end allowed to pass house.
Michael Marshall: They put us on a Greyhound … escorted us again to Chowchilla.
Larry Park: It used to be time for ma and pa. I simply sought after my ma and pa.
It were virtually 36 hours since their demanding ordeal started.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: The scene used to be like a mob scene … news cameras and TV lighting fixtures.
AUDIO: JENNIFER BROWN, AGE 9: Everybody said pronouncing, “are you all right Jennifer” and all these items and I stated “Yeah. I’m fine.” Then each time we were given into this room, I discovered my mother and my dad.
AUDIO: MICHAEL MARSHALL, AGE 14: We pulled up to Chowchilla and I used to be asleep. … So, after I were given off the bus everyone began taking photos of me pronouncing, “Hi Mike, how you doing? What was the pit like?”
Jodi Heffington: They simply allow us to off the bus with these types of other people … And you did not know the place your oldsters had been (emotional).
AP Photo
Larry Park: This guy carried me off the bus. And he put me in my mother’s palms, and I stated, “Hi mom,” and fell asleep on her shoulder. …. I felt like I used to be in the end protected [emotional].
Jodi Heffington: Nothing used to be ever the similar. Nothing used to be ever the similar after that. (emotional)
Joan Brown: We had no thought what our youngsters were thru. None in any way.
HAROLD DOW | CBS NEWS: How does it really feel to be a large film superstar?
JENNIFER BROWN, AGE 9: I have no idea. I’ve by no means been a film superstar ahead of.
CBS NEW REPORT: For 9- year-old Jennifer Brown, the revel in has allowed her to nonetheless see the arena with compassion.
HAROLD DOW | CBS NEWS: Why do you think that they’d do one thing like that?
JENNIFER BROWN: I have no idea. They did not have sufficient love.
Joan Brown: She had terrible nightmares. … she would run screaming into our bed room, and he or she wasn’t even conscious … And she would let us know later that she dreamt that they had been covered up and shot.
Larry Park: One evening … I used to be dreaming that I …. used to be falling down this hollow and I used to be attempting to get out. … I began screaming for my mother. Mom got here in. … And all I may do used to be cry. And all she may do used to be dangle me. There used to be not anything extra that may be achieved.
THE KIDNAPPERS
In the times following the children break out, investigators searched the rock quarry and the van that were their underground tomb hoping they’d in finding clues that will lead them to the abductors.
Alameda County D.A’s Office
Prosecutor Jill Klinge | Alameda County: They regarded to see who would have keys to the quarry. … In order to have get right of entry to to bury this shifting container undetected, you possibly can have to have get right of entry to. Fred Woods had keys to that quarry.
Frederick Newhall Woods, 24, the son of the landlord of the quarry, straight away turned into an individual of hobby.
Prosecutor Jill Klinge: …Then they regarded on the ledger, surveillance tapes and began to put all of it in combination at that time.
Security guards instructed investigators that they had observed 3 younger males digging a big hollow within the quarry months ahead of the kidnapping. One of them they stated used to be Fred Woods.
And Woods had a document. Two years previous, he were charged with grand robbery auto. Arrested with him had been two of his pals – James Schoenfeld, Fred’s spouse in a used automobile trade, and James’s more youthful brother, Richard. All 3 had been from rich households who lived in San Francisco’s nicest suburbs. They escaped with a tremendous and probation.
Prosecutor Jill Klinge: They’re younger. … They’re rich. I feel it added an element of fascination to the tale as it used to be so not going that 3 males reminiscent of those would dedicate such an atrocious crime.
Investigators finished a warrant to seek Fred Woods’ father’s property.
RICHARD THRELKELD | CBS NEWS: For the ultimate two days, the Woods property has gave the look of an armed camp, dozens of officials on the lookout for the rest.
What they discovered there used to be a treasure trove of proof.
Prosecutor Jill Klinge: We had been ready to get well one of the crucial weapons that used to be used throughout this kidnapping.
Prosecutor Jill Klinge: This crime used to be deliberate out for a year-and-a-half in intricate element.
Prosecutor Jill Klinge: You in truth have a file categorized “plan.” And it units out … the way in which they had been going to dedicate the kidnapping after which they at the right-hand aspect put … how they’d compensate or care for what may pass mistaken.
They additionally recovered a draft of a ransom word.
Prosecutor Jill Klinge: The draft of the ransom word says $2.5 million, however in reality, they had been going to ask for $5 million from the State of California.
Alameda County D.A.’s Office
But the abductors had been by no means ready to ship their call for.
Prosecutor Jill Klinge: They attempted to name the Chowchilla Police Department. Because of the choice of calls that had been coming in international … the telephone strains had been jammed. They could not get thru. So, they took a snooze. And by the point they aroused from sleep, they noticed at the news that the children were discovered. So, they had been by no means ready to request the ransom.
RICHARD THRELKELD | CBS NEWS: And so the quest is on national for those 3 males …
Arrest warrants had been issued. Richard Schoenfeld grew to become himself in. Fred Woods and James Schoenfeld fled California, however no longer for lengthy.
HAROLD DOW | CBS NEWS: James Schoenfeld used to be captured at daybreak these days. Police say he ran arduous, far and wide the Western United States, however he didn’t run neatly. … Frederick Woods used to be arrested by way of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police this afternoon, simply around the Washington State border in Vancouver.
Jodi Heffington: I take note being bodily in poor health after I in truth noticed them. … After that you just more or less did have a way of (takes a deep breath) … you’ll breathe. …They’re behind bars.
So, what drove those younger males, apparently neatly off, to kidnap babies for cash? James Schoenfeld sooner or later instructed police, in spite of their oldsters’ wealth, he and Fred Woods had been in severe debt.
Alameda County Sheriff’s Office
He would later inform the parole board: “We needed multiple victims to get multiple millions, and we picked children because children are precious. The state would be willing to pay ransom for them. And they don’t fight back.”
Sheriff Ed Bates: I feel that the 2 Schoenfelds did it simply on natural persuasion by way of Fred Woods. Fred Woods … in my very own private opinion, and I’ve a grasp’s level, I feel he used to be a sociopath. Some may name him a psychopath.
With the overpowering proof in opposition to them, Woods and the Schoenfelds pleaded in charge to 27 counts of kidnapping for ransom and theft. But they refused to plead in charge to the 8 counts of physically hurt. Those fees would ship them to jail for lifestyles with out the potential of parole. So, 16 months after their abduction, Jennifer, Michael and one of the most different kids confronted the abductors in court docket.
Jodi Heffington: You’re on this little field … and they are there taking a look at you, simply obvious at you and staring you down.
They testified that as well as to the emotional trauma, that they had suffered bodily wounds like cuts and bruises.
Jodi Heffington: And I regarded over at them and I simply broke down. …That used to be the primary time I cried. … So, they allowed my father to come sit down by way of me and that made me really feel so much more secure.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: And the abductors had been sitting to my left at a desk. … I take note giving my dad my gum as a result of I instructed him I used to be going to spit my gum at ’em.
REPORTER AT COURTHOUSE: You say they’d provide you with this humorous glance. What did that make you are feeling?
JENNIFER BROWN: Scared.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: I did my testimony. I replied my questions. And I left that court with my head held prime. And there used to be no approach that I used to be going to allow them to see me cry.
WALTER CRONKITE | CBS EVENING NEWS ANCHOR: A California pass judgement on these days imposed necessary lifestyles jail sentences with out parole on the ones 3 younger males who abducted 26 Chowchilla faculty kids …
Joan Brown: Life in jail with out the potential of parole. That used to be all we wanted. That’s what we wanted.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: I take note considering they’re going to prison … they are no longer going to do that to any one else. And that is all that I would like to know.
With the abductors sentenced to jail for the remainder of their lives, the survivors idea their nightmare used to be in the end over. But it used to be simply starting.
THE SURVIVORS
Just 5 weeks after being buried alive, the gutsy kids of Chowchilla and their bus driving force Ed Ray had been hailed as heroes. There used to be even a go back and forth to Disneyland.
Larry Park: And everybody idea that used to be nice since the excellent recollections of Disneyland would overshadow the unhealthy recollections of the kidnapping.
Jennifer Brown Hyde
It wasn’t that straightforward.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: In some way you check out to be standard. But … whilst you’ve long gone thru one thing that is so demanding, it is arduous to return and be a standard child once more.
Jodi Heffington: Sometimes it is like lifestyles is an act. You check out to be excellent for everyone else so that they do not be disturbed, however they concern anyway, so … I counsel everyone else no longer to do it that approach.
The survivors struggled to transfer ahead. But simply 4 years after the kidnappings – a crucial turning level.
Prosecutor Jill Klinge: The kidnappers’ legal professionals appealed the discovering of physically hurt. And the appellate court docket overturned it. And whilst acknowledging the horrific nature of the crime, said that the wounds suffered didn’t upward push to the extent of physically hurt below the regulation.
So, Fred Woods and the Schoenfeld brothers had been resentenced to lifestyles with the potential of parole.
Prosecutor Jill Klinge: They would get a parole listening to each and every one or two years.
Larry Park: I felt like I were betrayed by way of the justice gadget.
Just six years after the kidnappings, the parade of parole hearings started.
Prosecutor Jill Klinge: Every time one of the crucial kidnappers got here up for parole … it prompted all their fears and trauma …
The hearings happened within the jail.
Prosecutor Jill Klinge: They sit down in the similar room, and it is not a big room, with the kidnapper.
Jodi Heffington: The first time, I used to be terrified.
For all 3 kidnappers, there were greater than 60 parole hearings to date. Jodi Heffington went to the vast majority of them.
Jodi Heffington: It simply turns out like each and every 3 years I am going. And I am going 3 times, each and every time. … It’s excruciating and the aftermath is — by no means excellent.
Jodi and the opposite survivors watched helplessly as Richard Schoenfeld used to be the primary to be granted parole in June 2012, 36 years after the kidnappings. Three years later, James Schoenfeld used to be paroled, too.
Prosecutor Jill Klinge: As a ways as I do know, they’ve no longer been in any more or less hassle.
CBS News/George Osterkamp
The similar may no longer be stated for Fred Woods. He time and again broke jail laws. He used to be stuck with pornography and mobile phones.
AUDIO FROM 2018 PAROLE HEARING: Hello. My title is Jodi Medrano. I used to be Jodi Heffington.
George Osterkamp
In 2018, “48 Hours” used to be at Fred Woods’ fifteenth parole listening to and recorded audio of Jodi’s testimony.
AUDIO FROM 2018 PAROLE HEARING | JODI HEFFINGTON MEDRANO: To concentrate to him speak about his deficient formative years … (ironically laughs) I have no idea if I need to chortle, cry, cuss him or what … Because the place did my formative years pass?
Jodi Heffington: Like I instructed him, Mr. Woods – you are no longer a kidnapper, you are a thief. You’re a thief of lives. Not simply the children that had been within the bus. But they stole our households’ lives, and what all of us had ahead of that.
After that listening to, Woods used to be once more denied parole.
It used to be 28 hours of terror that can all the time be with Michael, Jennifer, Jodi and Larry — all who’ve controlled to in finding tactics to get on with residing.
Larry Park: Healing continues in the event you permit it.
Larry Park, who spent his 20’s and 30’s abusing medicine, now owns a handyman trade and volunteers as a pastor at a neighborhood church. His nightmares have in the end stopped. And he’s sober.
Larry Park: I’ve 9 years sober.
His sobriety used to be motivated by way of an epiphany in regards to the kidnappers.
Larry Park: My resentment for them … used to be killing me. … One evening … I used to be laying in mattress … and I stated, “God help me to forgive them.”
Larry Park
Larry met the boys, shook their fingers, and did forgive them. Here he’s…with Richard Schoenfeld.
Larry Park: It modified my lifestyles. … Something washed over me. … And there used to be peace like I had by no means recognized. And I knew that day that I might be OK.
Jennifer Brown Hyde – a spouse, mom and govt assistant – says it took her many years ahead of she may even sleep with no night-light.
Jennifer Brown Hyde: I’ve had circle of relatives and church circle of relatives … and colleagues that experience piece by way of piece helped put me again in combination. … And I need other people to know that that little lady that used to be abducted and buried alive has controlled to reside a good looking lifestyles.
Michael Marshall had misplaced his approach after the kidnapping.
Michael Marshall: I went to mattress at 18 inebriated and hung over and blacked out. And aroused from sleep about 48, , with a hangover, blurry.
He is sober and has discovered happiness as father and a long-distance trucker. He tries no longer to consider the ones kidnappers.
Michael Marshall: What they put my ma and pa thru is one thing I can’t forgive.
CBS News
Jodi Heffington by no means left the Chowchilla space. She opened her personal hair salon and raised a son, however she struggled to in finding peace of thoughts.
Jodi Heffington: How that day affected me, has affected me on a daily basis by hook or by crook or every other. … I feel it made me no longer a excellent daughter, no longer a excellent sister, no longer a excellent aunt and particularly no longer a excellent mom. And most definitely no longer a excellent buddy. … I check out to be the ones issues, however it sort of feels love it, um, it simply took one thing from me that I will’t ever get again. And I will’t tear it down — regardless of how arduous I try to it doesn’t matter what I do.
In January 2021, Jodi Heffington passed on to the great beyond. She used to be 55 years previous.
Fourteen months after her loss of life, Fred Woods went ahead of the parole board for the 18th time. This time, he used to be granted parole.
Produced by way of Chris Young Ritzen and George Osterkamp. Gary Winter and Mead Stone are producer-editors. Jordan Kinsey and Hannah Vair are the affiliate manufacturers. Joan Adelman is the editor. Nancy Kramer is the manager tale editor. Judy Tygard is the manager manufacturer.
