Parole granted to last Chowchilla school bus hijacker Frederick Woods

The last of three males convicted of hijacking a school bus stuffed with California youngsters for an tried $5 million ransom in 1976 in what a prosecutor known as “the largest mass kidnapping in U.S. history” is being launched by the state’s parole board.

Gov. Gavin Newsom requested the board to rethink its resolution to parole Frederick Woods, 70, on Tuesday after two commissioners really helpful his launch in March when earlier panels had denied him parole 17 instances. But the board affirmed that call. The governor could not block Woods’ launch as a result of he is not convicted of homicide, and will solely urge the parole board to take a more in-depth look.

Woods and his two accomplices, brothers Richard and James Schoenfeld, had been from rich San Francisco Bay Area households once they kidnapped 26 youngsters and their bus driver close to Chowchilla, about 125 miles southeast of San Francisco.

The three buried the youngsters, ages 5 to 14, together with their bus driver in an outdated shifting van east of San Francisco with little air flow, mild, water, meals or toilet provides. The victims had been ready to dig their method out greater than a day later.

“As a young kid, you don’t have a lot of sense of time. … There was no sunlight,” survivor Jennifer Brown Hyde instructed “48 Hours” in 2019. “So, you couldn’t tell if it was day or night. … We were out of food, we were out of water, the roof was caving in…. It just was a desperate situation.”

Woods, who was 24 on the time, turned an individual of curiosity within the case after police linked him to the quarry the place the van had been buried — his father owned the place.

Officials then searched Woods’ father’s property and located a mountain of proof, together with a draft ransom observe, “48 Hours” reported.

Arrest warrants had been issued. Richard Schoenfeld turned himself in, however Woods and James Schoenfeld fled California. Once they had been all arrested, they pleaded responsible to a number of fees, however refused to plead responsible to the eight counts of bodily hurt, which might ship them to jail for all times, in accordance to “48 Hours.”

They had been all, nonetheless, discovered responsible on all fees and sentenced to life in jail with out the opportunity of parole.

In 1980, state Judge William Newsom, who was the present governor’s father, was on an appellate panel that decreased the lads’s life sentences to give them an opportunity at parole. He pushed for his or her launch in 2011, after he retired, noting that nobody was critically bodily injured through the kidnapping.

An appeals court docket ordered Richard launched in 2012 and then-Gov. Jerry Brown paroled James in 2015.

However, Newsom mentioned Woods “continued to engage in financial related-misconduct in prison,” utilizing a contraband cellphone to supply recommendation on working a Christmas tree farm, a gold mining enterprise and a automotive dealership. 

Woods’ conduct “continues to demonstrate that he is about the money,” Madera County District Attorney Sally Moreno mentioned in opposing his parole. And in 2019, Sheriff Ed Bates instructed “48 Hours” he thought Woods was “a sociopath.”

Moreno mentioned after the choice that she was offended and pissed off “because justice has been mocked in Madera County” and he or she fears for the state of society “if you can kidnap a busload of school children, abandon them buried alive and still get out of prison after committing that crime and spending your time in prison flouting the law.”

Woods wasn’t eligible to attend in particular person on Tuesday, however mentioned throughout his parole listening to in March that he felt he wanted cash to have acceptance from his mother and father and “was selfish and immature at that time,” whereas his more moderen violations had been to profit the belief fund left to him by his late mother and father.

“I didn’t need the money. I wanted the money,” Woods mentioned of the ransom try.

His lawyer, Dominique Banos, mentioned Wednesday that the parole board acknowledged that Woods “has shown a change in character for the good” and “remains a low risk, and once released from prison he poses no danger or threat to the community.”

Three former inmates who served time with Woods urged parole officers to free him, whereas 4 victims or their relations mentioned Woods’ misbehavior in jail reveals he nonetheless views himself as privileged. Several of Woods’ victims have beforehand supported his launch.

Lynda Carrejo Labendeira, who was 10 on the time, recalled how the youngsters struggled to escape as a flashlight and candles flickered out whereas “the makeshift, dungeonous coffin was caving in.”

“I don’t get to choose the random flashbacks every time I see a van similar to the one that we were transported in,” she instructed the board.

“Insomnia keeps me up all hours of the night,” she mentioned. “I don’t sleep so that I don’t have to have any nightmares at all.”

Jennifer Brown Hyde, who was 9 on the time, recalled “the lifetime effects of being buried alive and being driven around in a van for 11 hours with no food, water or a bathroom in over 100-degree weather.”

“His mind is still evil and he is out to get what he wants,” she instructed the board. “I want him to serve life in prison, just as I served a lifetime of dealing with the PTSD due to his sense of entitlement.”

She mentioned Wednesday that her household is disenchanted, however it’s “time to close this chapter and continue living the blessed life I have been given.” She praised her fellow hostages as “true survivors and not victims.”

Newsom acknowledged that Woods is eligible for consideration each as a result of he was simply 24 when he dedicated the crime and since he’s aged now. He mentioned Woods, who as soon as studied policing at a group school, has additionally taken steps to enhance himself in jail.

In the 2019 “48 Hours” particular, different survivors spoke in regards to the psychological impacts of the kidnapping.

Larry Park instructed CBS News’ David Begnaud he turned an offended little one after the kidnapping. His mother and father, fearing he was able to violence, positioned him in a facility for youth offenders when he was 15. 

“By the time I was 21, I was using meth,” he mentioned. “I was smoking crack. I was doing acid.  … And I was just angry.”