Heroic survivors of chilling Chowchilla school bus kidnapping – who were BURIED ALIVE in underground trailer for 16 hours – reveal incredible battle to escape as air ran out and how harrowing ordeal scarred them for life

• Survivors of the 1976 Chowchilla bus kidnapping have revealed the life-long impact the ordeal has had on them ahead of new film’s release
• On July 15, 1976, 26 children and their bus driver were abducted at gunpoint in the small town of Chowchilla and buried alive 
• The group, aided by their hero bus driver, hatched a plan to escape by piling up their mattresses and clawing their way out to seek help 

Heroic survivors have spoken about their ordeal during the Chowchilla bus kidnapping ahead of a film about the infamous case released on Sunday. 

On July 15, 1976, 26 children and their bus driver were abducted at gunpoint in the small town of Chowchilla, California. The ensuing 16-hour standoff made national headlines.

The kidnappers drove the terrified children – the youngest aged just five, the eldest, 14 – and their 55-year-old school bus driver Ed Ray in two locked vans for more than 100 miles then buried them alive in a makeshift bunker in a rock quarry.

Demanding $5million in ransom, the kidnappers’ scheme was foiled when the driver, who was eulogized as a hero at the time of his death in 2012, was able to escape with some of the kids and notify a quarry guard.

Now a new film will retell the heroic tale, with new interviews from survivors detailing their incredible escape and revealing the harrowing impact the ordeal has had on their lives. 

26 children – aged five to 14 – were abducted along with their bus driver Ed Ray, then 55, (center, back) and buried in a crumbling trailer in a quarry. The scheme was foiled when Ray and 14-year-old Michael Marshall (at Ray’s right, above) led an escape 

On July 15, 1976, the children attending summer classes at Dairyland Elementary School were returning from a trip when their bus was blocked on the road by three armed men and a white van at 4pm. The group was then held for ransom – paving the way for a 16-hour standoff 

Victim Jennifer Brown Hyde, who was nine-years-old at the time, says in the film: ‘When I got home, I thought we were all going to be OK. [We] were not OK’

Larry Park, who was six at the time, also appears in the new CNN feature. He recently recalled of his fellow student: ‘Mike was Hercules. Mike was Sampson. Mike was the man that slayed the beast’

Among them was Jennifer Brown, who was nine when she was kidnapped, told CNN of the moment she and the other children were taken one by one into the underground prison.

‘I started hearing sawing and hammering. And then all of a sudden the door flies open.

‘They took Andre out first. And then they grabbed one of the kids, the door flies shut again.

‘A few minutes would go by, they would reach in, grab another kid. And I scooted myself way to the front of the van again. I was trying to survive at that point.

‘For me at that point the nightmare actually just started,’ Brown explained, ‘because at the time that we were driven around in the vans we were together and had gotten used to that atmosphere, and then once they removed us from the vans, it was a whole another nightmare that was beginning to unfold with the unknown terror of what are they going to do.’ 

Brown explained that the traumatic event impacted her throughout her life.

‘It’s been a life-long struggle of trying to be normal when your childhood is stolen from you and my life was never the same from that moment at nine years old.

‘It’s had such an impact on not only myself, but my parents and how they parented, and then also myself as I have raised my own children. 

Now 61, Mike Marshall (pictured) is one of several survivors featured in the upcoming film, set to release on December 3. To young Larry Park, who was six at the time of the terrifying abduction – and who also appears in the CNN feature, ‘Mike was Hercules. Mike was Samson. Mike was the man that slayed the beast.’

One of the eldest children, Mike Marshall, then 14, told CNN how he announced to the group that he wasn’t going to die without putting up a fight (pictured above) – so he began hatching a plan and told bus driver Ed Ray. The pair teamed up to escape

After the fateful day, Ray received an award for outstanding community service. Before his death in 2012, he was visited by several of the kids he helped save, and to honor his birthday, every February 26 since the kidnapping has been declared Edward Ray Day in Chowchilla

The kidnappers loaded Ray and the children, all aged between five and 14, into two vans before abandoning the school bus

The group stacked the mattresses inside the truck on top of one another and used wooden slats to dislodge a steel plate on the roof of the van that was covering the hatch through which they’d entered

‘You don’t think about the overall effects of the generations that this has touched upon and the unknown life that it’s led for all of us’ she said. 

Brown added that she is grateful she and the other survivors have managed to stay in touch and find support from one another.

The terrible kidnapping is ‘something that we share as a bond that nobody else could possibly understand, and the fact that we have each other to lean upon and try to get through life’s experiences is great.

Speaking about the impact she hoped the film will have Brown said: ‘But I hope that other people who have been through any type of child trauma can see a sense of hope and inspiration.’ 

In a preview for the film 14-year-old Michael Marshall details how he hatched the plan for the children to escape. 

‘If we’re gonna die, we’re gonna die getting out of here,’ the now-61-year recalls in an excerpt of the upcoming film, set to to premiere December 3. ‘We were being buried alive.’

The never-before-heard snippet recounts how, with air running out and the roof caving in above them, he took charge of the situation. He told his fellow captives he wasn’t going to die without a fight – and executed a brave plan to get them out and shared it with his bus driver, Ed Ray.

Other interviews give more insight into the group’s agonizing plight – which worsened when the roof of the de facto tomb, actually a trailer, started caving in at one end, crushing one of the air vents.

Dairyland school bus driver Frank Ray Jr. steps from the bus that brought him and 26 school children home to Chowchilla

The captors forced Ed Ray and the children into a buried trailer stocked with mattresses, a small amount of food and water, and ventilation fans. Pictured above, the trailer with its caved in roof

Piled-up mattresses they used to escape from the make-shift tomb as the roof began caving in. The kidnappers had shoveled dirt over the roof as soon as the last of the children were shoved inside, then weighed down the hatch door with two 100-pound industrial batteries

Marshall and bus driver Ed Ray managed to free themselves and eventually the rest of the group with their quick-thinking. Marshall saw an opportunity for escape as the buried trailer’s ceiling began collapsing. He and the bus driver – Ed Ray – stacked mattresses left behind by their captors to reach the ceiling, before eventually clawing their way out as dirt funneled in

An impatient victim had kicked one of the posts holding up the ceiling of the buried trailer, leaving dirt that had been buried on top of them to pour in.

Screams from the children, aged between five and 14, intensified, and even Ray had nearly given up hope, several of the survivors recall.

However, Marshall  saw an opportunity as he looked up at the collapsing ceiling.

Telling Ray about his still-formulating plan, the pair went for it – stacking mattresses left behind by their captors to reach the ceiling, before eventually clawing their way out of their imprisonment as dirt funneled in. 

Fighting heat exhaustion, Ray, Marshall, and the other more able-bodied victims poured water over their heads and kept pushing until they knocked away the batteries that had been placed to weigh down the trailer’s hatch. 

After 16 hours underground, Ray and a few of the children finally found themselves back above ground, and were able to walk to a nearby quarry’s guard station where authorities cops were called.

Speaking to CNN  another survivor, Larry Park, described how ‘they escorted me to where there was a hole in the ground with a ladder coming out. I looked down the ladder and I could see Ed Ray. 

‘The kidnappers gave him one flashlight.

Large cases of water lined the tomb’s interior. The victims had no idea how long they’d be trapped for – or if any of them would ever make it out alive

After an agonizing 16 hours of being buried alive, Ray and the children found themselves back above ground. They walked to the quarry’s guard station near the Shadow Cliffs East Bay National Park, and were all ‘in good condition’

A cryptic journal belonging to one of the kidnappers was found at the scene, seen here in the CNN film

‘I did not want to go down there.  I knew if I went down that hole I was never coming back out. Time froze. 

‘Then Ed Ray grabs my ankle and says “come on son, it will be okay”.

‘Then I climbed down into there.’

To young Larry Park, who also appears in the CNN feature, ‘Mike was Hercules. Mike was Samson. Mike was the man that slayed the beast.’ 

The escape took place before the kidnappers had even been able to call in their ransom demands – because the Chowchilla Police Department telephone lines had been overloaded with calls from the media and family members looking for the children.

The Dairyland Elementary school bus – which had been returning from a nearby swimming pool, had been abandoned in a wooded area, sending the town of Chowchilla into a frenzy.

Soon after arriving at the quarry, cops found that the buried truck was registered to the quarry owner’s son, Frederick Woods, along with a cryptic ransom note that seemed to refer to Hugh Pentecost’s story ‘The Day the Children Vanished’.

The story had recently been published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Daring Detectives and was displayed in the Chowchilla public library.

Woods was arrested weeks later after fleeing to Vancouver, British Columbia. His accomplices, brothers Richard and James Schoenfeld, surrendered to authorities in California after several days in hiding (James Schoenfeld is shown left, Richard seen right)

All three men received life sentences after pleading guilty to kidnapping charges. Only Richard expressed remorse for the crime. Richard (right) and James (center) were paroled in 2012 and 2015 respectively, and Woods (left), now 71, was paroled last year

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

Footage from the CNN documentary shows a cryptic journal belonging to one of the kidnappers also uncovered at the scene – filled with cyphers that mystified lawmen.

Under hypnosis, Ray was also able to remember one of the license plates of the vans that had taken them to the quarry, which was tied to Woods once more, and both of his accomplices.

Woods was arrested weeks later after fleeing to Vancouver, British Columbia. His accomplices, brothers Richard and James Schoenfeld, surrendered to authorities in California after several days in hiding.

All three men received life sentences after pleading guilty to kidnapping charges. Only Richard expressed remorse for the crime.

Woods meanwhile was already said to be concocting another scheme, desperately urging one of his friends to turn the Chowchilla kidnappings into a film.

In a newly discovered letter from 1976, shortly after his arrest, Woods – ironically alluding to future coverage like that of CNN’s – wrote: ‘I think it would make a damn good movie of the week, if not a feature.

Richard and James were paroled in 2012 and 2015 respectively, and Woods, now 71, was paroled last year.

It left the children forever traumatized, and especially unforgiving of their now free captors.

At Woods’ parole hearing in 2012, victims of the kidnapping described the suffering they still felt 39 years on in a heartfelt plea to the board, expressing their desire to ensure Woods is never made a free man. He was freed anyway.

After the fateful day, Ray received a California School Employees Association citation for outstanding community service for his heroics.

Before his death in May 2012, he was visited by a number of the kids he helped save, and to commemorate his birthday, every February 26 since the kidnapping has been declared Edward Ray Day in Chowchilla.

The town today has a population of roughly 19,000, but has been forever impacted by the 16-hour cri

Source: Read Full Article