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Speaker 1: Back in nineteen seventy six, in Chowchilla, a little town

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Speaker 1: smack dab in the middle of California, a school bus

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Speaker 1: with twenty six children aboard was hijacked and the kids

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Speaker 1: were held for ransom by men looking to make easy money.

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Speaker 1: But man, was this anything but easy for everyone involved.

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Speaker 1: What makes this case so famous, in addition to you

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Speaker 1: know the kidnapping of twenty six children on their way

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Speaker 1: home from school, is that the kids and the bus

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Speaker 1: driver were buried alive while the kidnappers waited for the ransom.

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Speaker 1: Why don't you join them by listening to this episode.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and

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Speaker 1: there's Charles w Chuck Bryant and Jerry's here and this

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Speaker 1: is stuff you should know.

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Speaker 2: You know what I've been singing for two days?

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Speaker 1: Wheels on the bus, go on and around.

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Speaker 2: No, that's pretty good, guess though, what donut don't don't

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Speaker 2: no out no, no, Chowchilla. I can't get it out

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Speaker 2: of my head, thet Godzilla song. Now, all I'm saying

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Speaker 2: over and over is Chowchilla.

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Speaker 1: That's a great song. Do you remember who played it?

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Speaker 2: Was that, like Edgar Winner Johnny Winter.

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Speaker 1: I don't know.

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Speaker 2: I think it's one of the Winners. Okay, that's my guess.

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Speaker 1: Okay the Long Winters.

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Speaker 2: Definitely not the Long Winters.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So, Chuck, we're talking about a piece of Americana

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Speaker 1: true crime history that I had no idea about, actually,

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Speaker 1: and I noted though, because of the timing and because

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Speaker 1: of the location. I hit up my beloved former hippie

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Speaker 1: aunt who lived in San Francisco at the time and

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Speaker 1: was raising kids and said, do you remember this? She said, oh, yes,

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Speaker 1: I remember this big time that she had kids that

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Speaker 1: were about to be bus riding agent. She was not

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Speaker 1: very comfortable with this whole jam.

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Speaker 2: Yeah it provided discomfort.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's one way to put it.

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Speaker 2: So did you even say what the name of it was?

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Speaker 1: No, it's the Chillis school bus kidnapping is what people

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Speaker 1: usually refer to.

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Speaker 2: It as, right, And I think this was a listener

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Speaker 2: who sent this in. And I apologize because I'd usually

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Speaker 2: make note of that so I can shout them out,

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Speaker 2: but I did not do so in this case, so

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Speaker 2: I missed. I know, boo hiss, But yeah, this was

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Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy six and still stands according to the sources,

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Speaker 2: I saw as the largest domestic kidnapping in US history.

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Speaker 1: So my aunt says, oh yeah.

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Speaker 2: She also said she was not very into it.

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Speaker 1: I was not very comfortable by that.

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Speaker 2: It's very disappointing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the largest mass kidnapping for ransom. I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: why that's a quality of fire, but I don't know.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, I saw the same thing too that it

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Speaker 1: still stands. And it was like the idea that the

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Speaker 1: most of anything happened to this little town of Chowchilla

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Speaker 1: in the San Joaquin Valley, about one hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: miles southeast of San Francisco in and of itself is significant,

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Speaker 1: but it was a really terrible like most of event

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Speaker 1: that happened to this poor little town, as we'll see.

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Speaker 2: All right, So should we just start on July fifteenth,

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six, Yes, all right, we'll paint a picture

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Speaker 2: for you. You already mentioned where it was between Fresno

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Speaker 2: and San Francisco, out in a part of California that

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Speaker 2: had some very very small towns at the time. It's

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Speaker 2: hard to imagine anywhere in California having forty six hundred

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Speaker 2: people living there. But that was the case in the

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Speaker 2: mid seventies in Chowchilla, And it was the next to

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Speaker 2: the last day of summer school, and a bus was

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Speaker 2: being driven after a because it was summer school, a

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Speaker 2: little fun day trip to a swimming pool, driven by

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Speaker 2: fifty five year old Ed Ray.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, who was a farmer there in chaw Chill himself.

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Speaker 1: Apparently he bailed hey like nobody's business. He was married

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Speaker 1: to a woman named Odessa who was a bank teller

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Speaker 1: at the Bank of America, and he was apparently quite

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Speaker 1: happy being a farmer and then driving kids around on

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Speaker 1: the school bus, because even after this he continued on

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Speaker 1: for another dozen years as the school bus driver.

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Speaker 2: That's right, he had only dropped off a few kids

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Speaker 2: at this point, and there were nineteen girls and seven

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Speaker 2: boys on board from five to fourteen, and notably the

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Speaker 2: fourteen year old because he will factor in pretty heavily here.

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Speaker 2: His name was Mike Marshall. He wasn't even supposed to

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Speaker 2: be on that bus. He usually got picked up by

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Speaker 2: his mom, but he got busted the night before with

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Speaker 2: some beer and his mom said, your punishment, you got

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Speaker 2: to ride that school bus home yep, tomorrow and after

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Speaker 2: school or after the trip, he was like, I don't

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Speaker 2: even know what bus to take because I don't do this.

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Speaker 2: But he knew who Ray was, and so he went

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Speaker 2: to ed Ray and said, hey, man, will you I

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Speaker 2: don't know if this is my bus or not, Bill

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Speaker 2: you take me home? And Edray is ed Ray, so

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Speaker 2: he went sure, sureboard, so thank goodness he said that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So after that that third stop, there were twenty

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Speaker 1: six kids and ed Ray on board. And ed Ray

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Speaker 1: was continuing along his route and he turned on to

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Speaker 1: a street called Avenue twenty one, and as he turned

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Speaker 1: on to Avenue twenty one, ed Ray found that there

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Speaker 1: was a white van blocking the road, and apparently he

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Speaker 1: started to go around it, and then I guess thought

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Speaker 1: the better of it, and I wanted to stop and

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Speaker 1: see if they needed any help instead. And when he did,

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Speaker 1: he realized very quickly that he was actually being hijacked,

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Speaker 1: because when you see a man with a long gun

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Speaker 1: and pantyhose on his head, you're probably being hijacked.

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Speaker 2: That's right. The first thing he saw was this one

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Speaker 2: guy who said open the door, and then he realized

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Speaker 2: there were a couple of other guys, samem I think

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Speaker 2: they had shotguns with the pantyhose, and they said, get

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Speaker 2: in the back. We'll take over the driving from here.

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Speaker 2: If you watched the movie, did you see any of that?

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Speaker 1: No? No, I haven't yet.

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Speaker 2: We'll get to it. Then there's a Lifetime movie that

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Speaker 2: came out in the nineties. I think ninety three looks

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Speaker 2: like it was made in eighty three somehow. That is

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Speaker 2: on YouTube, and I highly recommend scrubbing through it. I

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Speaker 2: wouldn't say watch the whole thing because I don't know

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Speaker 2: if you'll be able to. But Carl Malden, yeah, play

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Speaker 2: ed ray and I don't know if it's true to

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Speaker 2: the story, but he gave them a lot of guff

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Speaker 2: about getting out of that driver's seat in the movie.

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Speaker 1: Oh really Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I'm not sure if that happened in real life or not.

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Speaker 1: It's a Malden improv if I've ever heard one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, And I'm not getting out of my seat right.

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Speaker 1: My feet hurt.

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Speaker 2: So he eventually did, though, and they drove. They drove

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Speaker 2: that bus followed by the van for a bit, and

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Speaker 2: then eventually transferred those kids to that van and another

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Speaker 2: identical van, and you know, they I think we should

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Speaker 2: point out a few smart things these guys did along

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Speaker 2: the way, because they mainly did dumb things. But the

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Speaker 2: kidnappers did make them jump from the school bus to

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Speaker 2: the van so they wouldn't leave footprints.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and these in these vans, they had all the

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Speaker 1: kids and ed Ray in the vans now two vans,

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Speaker 1: and they had kind of like deck these vans out.

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Speaker 1: It was kind of a shoddy manner of adding plywood

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Speaker 1: partitions to keep the kids from getting out from anybody

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Speaker 1: being able to see. And I think they painted over

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Speaker 1: the windows. And then they drove those kids around for

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Speaker 1: eleven hours in the backs of those vans, with no

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Speaker 1: potty breaks, no food, no water, no nothing. They just

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Speaker 1: drove them around for eleven hours in July, the middle

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Speaker 1: of July, in the San Joaquin Valley, pretty mercilessly, before

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Speaker 1: finally arriving at the destination, which ultimately was only one

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Speaker 1: hundred miles away from where the kids had been kidnapped.

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Speaker 1: I think they just wanted to disorient the kids.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that was kind of smart m HM

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Speaker 2: as well, because they could have been, you know, eleven

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Speaker 2: hours away if they managed to escape or something. Right,

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Speaker 2: one of the girls years later did say that she

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Speaker 2: saw through a crack that they were up there with

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Speaker 2: the ac go and drinking sodas and have a good

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Speaker 2: old time, and the kids and ed Rayer back there

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Speaker 2: just suffering, just terrified obviously of what's going on.

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Speaker 1: Right. That was Jennifer brown Hyde who said that, and

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Speaker 1: she's not very happy with this whole thing. It's still

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Speaker 1: to this day from what I understand.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, as you could imagine.

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Speaker 1: So finally, at three thirty am on Friday morning, they

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Speaker 1: were hijacked around after three point thirty on three PM

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Speaker 1: on Thursday. They finally stopped driving at three thirty in

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Speaker 1: the morning Friday morning, and they arrive at a rock quarry.

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Speaker 1: They're in Livermore, California. Apparently again it's one hundred miles

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Speaker 1: away from Chowchilla. And this is the what the what

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Speaker 1: the kidnapper see is the final destination for these kids

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Speaker 1: until they're ransomed off, until the authorities cough up the money.

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Speaker 1: And what the what they've done is bury a moving

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Speaker 1: van line trailer, so like a huge moving truck, the

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Speaker 1: trailer part of it. They buried it a total of

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Speaker 1: twelve feet underground and have covered it with four feet

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Speaker 1: of dirt, and they've opened a hole, put a ladder

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Speaker 1: in and told the kids get down there, and ed

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Speaker 1: ray too.

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Speaker 2: That's right, And as the kids were going down and

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Speaker 2: this kind of points to the direction of how dumb

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Speaker 2: these guys were and how unprepared they were, even though

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Speaker 2: they it turns out, would have planned this thing for

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Speaker 2: well over a year. They wrote down their names and

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Speaker 2: their phone numbers in contact in parents' names, not on

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Speaker 2: a clipboard legal pad, but on the back of a

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Speaker 2: Jack in the box wrapper. So and then they took

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Speaker 2: apparently some kind of piece of clothing from each kid,

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Speaker 2: because the idea was, once again is that they have many,

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Speaker 2: many kids that should bring many many monies and dollar bills.

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Speaker 1: Their way, exactly, and the fact that their kids means

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Speaker 1: that people do anything to keep them safe. So these

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Speaker 1: guys figure they've got a pretty good payday with twenty

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Speaker 1: six kids that they're now holding hostage in a buried

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Speaker 1: moving van trailer. And in the trailer they had done

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Speaker 1: a little more than they had in the van, so

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Speaker 1: they had peanut butter cheerios, some bread down there, some water,

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Speaker 1: but definitely not enough to keep all those people alive

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Speaker 1: for a very long time. They'd also thought of bathrooms.

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Speaker 1: They made bathrooms in the wheel wells, and they dropped

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Speaker 1: a ventilation tubes with some fans to force air into

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Speaker 1: the into the van. So there was fresh air down there,

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Speaker 1: but not a lot from what I understand.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. And the one faithful mistake they made

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Speaker 2: was that for their comfort they included some old box

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Speaker 2: springs and mattresses and stuff for them to sit on

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Speaker 2: and lay on, which would end up being their undoing.

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Speaker 2: Should we take a break.

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Speaker 1: I think we should, because now you've got twenty six

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Speaker 1: kids buried in a buried trailer right now in Livermore, California,

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Speaker 1: at three point thirty in the morning. Not a good

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Speaker 1: thing to happen.

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Speaker 2: That's right. So we'll pick up with what's going on

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Speaker 2: in Chowchilla right after this. All right, So in Chauchilla,

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Speaker 2: that bus doesn't come back, so obviously everyone freaks out

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Speaker 2: pretty quickly. An entire school bus full of kids and

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Speaker 2: a very trusted man about town like people knew, you know,

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Speaker 2: it's a small town. People knew ed Ray and he

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Speaker 2: was a good guy by all accounts. They were all missing.

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Speaker 2: So the very first thing that happens is they locate

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Speaker 2: the school bus, which had been hidden with some bamboo

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Speaker 2: and camouflage. But they did find the bus right away,

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Speaker 2: which you know, on one hand, that's good because they

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Speaker 2: have a lead. On the other hand, that just sends

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Speaker 2: this thing into the stratosphere as far as panic goes, sure,

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Speaker 2: because where are these kids?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I saw also that the bus had basically

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Speaker 1: no clues on it whatsoever. So it's like, we found

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Speaker 1: the bus, but that doesn't help at all. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure they were panicked by that. So it became

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Speaker 1: pretty clear pretty early on that the child Chilli sheriff,

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Speaker 1: a guy named Ed Gates, was going to need some help.

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Speaker 1: So the FBI came to town. Apparently they booked every

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Speaker 1: one of the hotel rooms in the two hotels in town.

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Speaker 1: They brought like all the state law enforcement agencies, like

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Speaker 1: everybody just converged on this town to help out because

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Speaker 1: it made national news. Like almost instantaneously, I saw somewhere

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Speaker 1: chuck that like this is during the bi centennial, and

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Speaker 1: the bi centennial just been going on and going on

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Speaker 1: and going on, and there was still bisentennial stuff going on,

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Speaker 1: and this stopped it. Like this kidnapping. News of this

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Speaker 1: kidnapping stopped the bisentennial celebration. Deadnis tracks. It was the

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Speaker 1: end of it, not just for this town but for

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Speaker 1: the whole country.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean this went right up to the

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Speaker 2: President Ford at the time, and obviously Governor Jerry Round.

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Speaker 2: So they threw everything they could at it. The media

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Speaker 2: descended upon chow Chilla like super fast, and because it's

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Speaker 2: the media, you start getting these these terrible stories about like,

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Speaker 2: well maybe because you know, they'd never caught Zodiac and

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Speaker 2: this was just six or seven years I think after

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Speaker 2: the final what would end up being the final killing,

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Speaker 2: so they said maybe it was a Zodiac because they

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Speaker 2: made reference to wiping He made reference to wiping out

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Speaker 2: a school bus at one point. Any tip that came

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Speaker 2: in they had to follow. There's a shoe on the

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Speaker 2: side of the road, so they have to track down

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Speaker 2: that tip. There was a novel in nineteen fifty eight

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Speaker 2: called The Day the Children Vanished, where the gang of

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Speaker 2: people abduct a busload of kids just to bring people

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Speaker 2: out of town and distract them while they robbed a bank. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: Ray's wife worked at the bank. Like you said, sod,

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Speaker 2: They put a bank under surveillance, so there were you know,

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Speaker 2: it was I don't know if I was described it

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Speaker 2: as a panic because the FBI was on the scene

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Speaker 2: in the state californ on your Bureau and Investigation, so

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Speaker 2: they were doing good work. But there was a frenzy

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Speaker 2: of activity.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think the sheriff had all the help

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Speaker 1: he possibly needed to chase down all these leads and everything.

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Speaker 1: But from what I saw, there was just not much

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Speaker 1: to go on. There were there they were just dead

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Speaker 1: ends left and right, and so like there was, there

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Speaker 1: was a just an enormous amount of panic and terror

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Speaker 1: in the town. Families started converging on the firehouse, the

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Speaker 1: local firehouse for some reason, I'm not sure why, but

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Speaker 1: it became like the meeting place for anybody concerned about

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Speaker 1: the fate of the kids, and this is where news

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Speaker 1: would first be broken. And I think the media probably

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Speaker 1: hung around there too, So you can only begin to

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Speaker 1: imagine how anxious the parents were, and then the town

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Speaker 1: and then apparently the whole country was was anxious as well,

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Speaker 1: and so it was really kind of surprising when all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden, at about I think about eight pm

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Speaker 1: the next night, Saturday, so the kids have been gone

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Speaker 1: for almost about Carrie the one about thirty hours, thirty

285
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Speaker 1: two hours, something like that at this point, thirty two

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Speaker 1: hours of terror, when all of a sudden at that quarry,

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Speaker 1: some people are working and a man and a bunch

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Speaker 1: of kids run over and it turns out to be

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Speaker 1: the kidnapping victims who just present themselves to a security

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Speaker 1: guard at the quarry in Livermore, who gets on the

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Speaker 1: phone and says, we found them.

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Speaker 2: That's right, amazing, And you would think, well, pretty sensational story,

293
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Speaker 2: but it was very short span of time and all

294
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Speaker 2: the kids were fine, So why is it really a story.

295
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Speaker 2: It's a story because as we'll see, the trauma that

296
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Speaker 2: they suffered emotionally and how it went down in who

297
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Speaker 2: these people were who kidnapped them. But before we get

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Speaker 2: to those dumb dumbs, let's talk about the escape. They

299
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Speaker 2: were down there about twelve hours and running out of

300
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Speaker 2: food and water. The roof, you know, they had a

301
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Speaker 2: lot of weight on this moving van roof and those

302
00:17:03,520 --> 00:17:06,760
Speaker 2: things aren't super strong, so this thing was, you know,

303
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Speaker 2: kind of dented in and seemed like it mike cave in,

304
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Speaker 2: and they were worried that they just couldn't stay there basically,

305
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Speaker 2: and this is where the story I mean, I guess

306
00:17:16,480 --> 00:17:21,080
Speaker 2: we'll cover both points of view, the immediate history and aftermath.

307
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Speaker 2: Ed Ray saved the day because he was the only

308
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Speaker 2: adult there, so obviously he was the one that broke

309
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Speaker 2: those kids out of there. Years later, you know, we

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Speaker 2: mentioned Mike Marshall, the fourteen year old that wasn't supposed

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Speaker 2: to be on that bus, and he was far and

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Speaker 2: away the oldest kid there and the most capable to help.

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Speaker 2: Years later, after a while of this story of Ed Ray,

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Speaker 2: he finally came out and said, oh, you know, Edray's

315
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Speaker 2: a good guy. I want to disparage him, but like

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Speaker 2: it was my idea and I was the one that

317
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Speaker 2: really led the charge to escape, and he was a

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Speaker 2: big mess, kind of crying in his hands that they

319
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Speaker 2: were doomed and dead, and he got on board and

320
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Speaker 2: helped me. But it was really me. And the reason

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Speaker 2: I kind of believe that after reading all the accounts

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Speaker 2: is it took many years for him to kind of

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Speaker 2: come out with this, and it felt like he even

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Speaker 2: felt bad for saying so. So I think that Mike

325
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Speaker 2: Marshall in fact did lead the charge to escape.

326
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Speaker 1: Well, his account was corroborated by another guy named Larry

327
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Speaker 1: Park who wrote a book called The Chowchilla School Bus

328
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Speaker 1: Kidnapping Colon Why Me And I don't know if he

329
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Speaker 1: corroborated in that or in an interview later on, but

330
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Speaker 1: he was there and he said that that's true, that

331
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Speaker 1: that's how it went down. On the other perspective, the

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Speaker 1: fact that like when Ed Ray like lived the rest

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Speaker 1: of his life, he stayed in Chowchilla. Most of those

334
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Speaker 1: people kids who've been kidnapped with him, stayed in Chowchilla.

335
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Speaker 1: When he was dying, Those same kids as adults now

336
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Speaker 1: came and visited him his bedside, say goodbye. There's plenty

337
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Speaker 1: of opportunity for you know, little town to start talking,

338
00:19:01,600 --> 00:19:03,480
Speaker 1: you know, whispers and that kind of thing, and that

339
00:19:03,600 --> 00:19:05,920
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to have happened. He seems to have died

340
00:19:06,480 --> 00:19:09,679
Speaker 1: considered a hero as well. So my take on a

341
00:19:09,760 --> 00:19:13,720
Speaker 1: Chuck is that he may have been a gloom and

342
00:19:13,760 --> 00:19:16,320
Speaker 1: doom about their prospects to begin with. And maybe it

343
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Speaker 1: really was Mike Marshall who said, no, we need to

344
00:19:19,600 --> 00:19:21,359
Speaker 1: we need to try to get out of here. But

345
00:19:21,440 --> 00:19:24,119
Speaker 1: even Mike Marshall said after a while once Mike Marshall

346
00:19:24,160 --> 00:19:27,280
Speaker 1: started to try. Ed Ray joined in and started helping,

347
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Speaker 1: and that they might not have been able to drink. Yeah,

348
00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:30,879
Speaker 1: they might not have been able to get out had

349
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Speaker 1: a grown man been helping them, like push against this.

350
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Speaker 2: Totally agree. I think we're I think we park our

351
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Speaker 2: cars in the same garage here.

352
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Speaker 1: Yeah, look at them, they're both.

353
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Speaker 2: Uh So here's how they got out. They took those

354
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Speaker 2: mattresses and stacked them up, and they took apart one

355
00:19:47,080 --> 00:19:49,400
Speaker 2: of they kind of smashed one of the box springs,

356
00:19:50,320 --> 00:19:53,960
Speaker 2: which are framed in wood, and they started using that

357
00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:56,760
Speaker 2: wood as like a sort of makeshift crowbar to try

358
00:19:56,800 --> 00:19:59,960
Speaker 2: and what these guys kidnappers had done as they put

359
00:20:00,119 --> 00:20:02,000
Speaker 2: sort of iron plate I've seen manhole, but it was

360
00:20:02,040 --> 00:20:06,200
Speaker 2: some kind of heavy metal plate over the thing, along

361
00:20:06,240 --> 00:20:10,560
Speaker 2: with two industrial tractor batteries which are super heavy, and

362
00:20:10,600 --> 00:20:13,760
Speaker 2: then dirt, so there's ended up being several hundred pounds

363
00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:17,000
Speaker 2: kind of weighing this thing down this escape patch. But

364
00:20:17,080 --> 00:20:19,560
Speaker 2: they were able after hours and hours to finally kind

365
00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:22,760
Speaker 2: of use that wood to pry open just enough to

366
00:20:22,800 --> 00:20:26,600
Speaker 2: where they see starlight and dirt leaking in, and with

367
00:20:26,640 --> 00:20:29,639
Speaker 2: the help of ed Ray and his you know, manly

368
00:20:29,680 --> 00:20:32,760
Speaker 2: man strength. They were able to climb out of there.

369
00:20:32,800 --> 00:20:33,720
Speaker 2: Mike Marshall was.

370
00:20:33,960 --> 00:20:36,840
Speaker 1: So Mike Marshall climbed out and then from that moment

371
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Speaker 1: on and so apparently also ed Ray was really worried,

372
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Speaker 1: and I guess Mike Marshall was too, but it was

373
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Speaker 1: not a deterrent for him. But they were worried that

374
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Speaker 1: there was at least one or more of the kidnappers

375
00:20:47,520 --> 00:20:50,720
Speaker 1: hanging around with a gun. What was going on, Yeah,

376
00:20:50,840 --> 00:20:53,119
Speaker 1: so there was a good chance in their minds that

377
00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:55,080
Speaker 1: they were going to poke through and just be shot

378
00:20:55,119 --> 00:20:58,399
Speaker 1: on site. Sure, so they were worried about that. And luckily,

379
00:20:58,440 --> 00:21:00,280
Speaker 1: when Mike Marshall poked his head up, he's so that

380
00:21:00,320 --> 00:21:02,840
Speaker 1: there was no one around. There's nobody guarding it. It

381
00:21:02,880 --> 00:21:06,399
Speaker 1: turned out that they had long since left and that

382
00:21:07,400 --> 00:21:09,960
Speaker 1: so Mike Marshall had ed Ray start handing kids up

383
00:21:10,040 --> 00:21:12,480
Speaker 1: to him, and they got all the kids out and

384
00:21:12,480 --> 00:21:15,240
Speaker 1: then ed Ray out and Mike Marshall ran into the

385
00:21:15,240 --> 00:21:18,640
Speaker 1: woods to hide. So in case the kidnappers were still around,

386
00:21:18,640 --> 00:21:20,960
Speaker 1: they just hadn't seen them yet, and those kids were

387
00:21:20,960 --> 00:21:23,640
Speaker 1: intercepted by him. At least Mike Marshall would be able

388
00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:27,239
Speaker 1: to run away through the woods and get help. But

389
00:21:27,280 --> 00:21:30,320
Speaker 1: it turned out the kidnappers weren't there, and somebody, luckily

390
00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:33,320
Speaker 1: was still working at the quarry I believe, including a

391
00:21:33,359 --> 00:21:35,800
Speaker 1: security guard when ed Ray and the kids ran up

392
00:21:36,080 --> 00:21:39,920
Speaker 1: and presented themselves, So that's how and then I guess

393
00:21:39,920 --> 00:21:42,639
Speaker 1: the guy got on the phone, and within moments of

394
00:21:42,680 --> 00:21:45,480
Speaker 1: that happening, the news made it back to chow Chilla

395
00:21:45,560 --> 00:21:47,320
Speaker 1: that they'd all been found safe and they were all

396
00:21:47,359 --> 00:21:53,480
Speaker 1: alive and generally unharmed, and ed Ray was basically automatically

397
00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:54,440
Speaker 1: hailed as a hero.

398
00:21:57,080 --> 00:22:00,399
Speaker 2: Carl Maldon was certainly portrayed as the hero in the

399
00:22:00,480 --> 00:22:01,280
Speaker 2: Lifetime movie.

400
00:22:01,359 --> 00:22:03,120
Speaker 1: They said, do you have anything you'd like to say,

401
00:22:03,160 --> 00:22:04,880
Speaker 1: and he said, just that my feet hurt.

402
00:22:06,280 --> 00:22:07,960
Speaker 2: And you know, we again want to point out this

403
00:22:08,119 --> 00:22:13,120
Speaker 2: was thirty six hours from beginning to end. But these

404
00:22:13,240 --> 00:22:16,919
Speaker 2: kids were didn't know what was going on above ground.

405
00:22:17,440 --> 00:22:20,600
Speaker 2: They were hot, they were, you know, stripping down to

406
00:22:20,640 --> 00:22:23,760
Speaker 2: their underwear. Carl Malden was in his underwear even in

407
00:22:23,760 --> 00:22:27,160
Speaker 2: the movie Nice. They were running out of food and water.

408
00:22:27,359 --> 00:22:31,719
Speaker 2: So as a five to fourteen year old, I mean,

409
00:22:31,920 --> 00:22:34,479
Speaker 2: ed Ray was in hysterics. You're you think you're going

410
00:22:34,560 --> 00:22:36,440
Speaker 2: to die down there. So it may not have been,

411
00:22:36,800 --> 00:22:39,040
Speaker 2: you know, a kidnapping that lasted days and weeks, but

412
00:22:39,560 --> 00:22:43,399
Speaker 2: that doesn't minimize the trauma that these kids suffered down there,

413
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:47,000
Speaker 2: completely not knowing what was going on above ground, and

414
00:22:47,359 --> 00:22:49,720
Speaker 2: daring to escape, not knowing if they were all of

415
00:22:49,760 --> 00:22:51,480
Speaker 2: a sudden that van was going to come speeding down

416
00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:54,399
Speaker 2: the road. After like, it took a while until they

417
00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:55,560
Speaker 2: felt safe, I think.

418
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:57,320
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, Chuck, You'd said it

419
00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:00,760
Speaker 1: kind of earlier, but I think it really bears repeating.

420
00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:03,720
Speaker 1: They were really worried that the roof of this thing

421
00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:06,600
Speaker 1: was going to cave in. Four feet of dirt on

422
00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:09,560
Speaker 1: top of a moving van, roof that had been in

423
00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:13,119
Speaker 1: the in the perpetrator's defense had been reinforced with lumber,

424
00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:16,800
Speaker 1: but not very well. That's a lot of weight hanging

425
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:19,600
Speaker 1: pushing down on this And if you see pictures of

426
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:22,360
Speaker 1: what the thing looked like from inside, I could see

427
00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:24,200
Speaker 1: how they would have been very nervous that the thing

428
00:23:24,280 --> 00:23:26,639
Speaker 1: was going to cave in on them and crush them.

429
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:29,800
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like the pictures of it afterward, that roof

430
00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:31,760
Speaker 2: was in the process of caving in.

431
00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:35,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was very nerve wracking.

432
00:23:35,640 --> 00:23:38,520
Speaker 2: Of course, if that would have happened, the dirt probably

433
00:23:38,520 --> 00:23:40,800
Speaker 2: would have caved in and gotten some of them dirty

434
00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:41,760
Speaker 2: and then they could crawl halty.

435
00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:43,359
Speaker 1: I hope, so hopefully that's how.

436
00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:45,360
Speaker 2: Who knows, but you know, like I said, they didn't

437
00:23:45,359 --> 00:23:47,480
Speaker 2: know what was going on down there, No they didn't.

438
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 1: So but now they're free, they're they're safe, and the

439
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:56,640
Speaker 1: authorities go get them, the FBI, the sheriff, everybody's interviewing them.

440
00:23:56,720 --> 00:23:59,359
Speaker 1: This is ours. It's more hours for the parents back

441
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:02,040
Speaker 1: in chill chill having to wait. And then there was

442
00:24:02,119 --> 00:24:06,040
Speaker 1: a greyhound bus that went and got them and brought

443
00:24:06,119 --> 00:24:08,160
Speaker 1: them back. It was pretty sweet. There was a lot

444
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:12,000
Speaker 1: of donations going on, like apparently Pacific Bell donated not

445
00:24:12,080 --> 00:24:14,760
Speaker 1: just new phones, but new phone lines because there were

446
00:24:14,760 --> 00:24:17,360
Speaker 1: so many calls being made by the authorities and by

447
00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:21,600
Speaker 1: the press, which will factor in a second. They the

448
00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:25,400
Speaker 1: greyhound bus lines donated that bus ride, which is worth mentioning.

449
00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:31,760
Speaker 1: I guess the FBI donated their time. Who knows, now they.

450
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:33,560
Speaker 3: Get bade, But there was a okay, there was a

451
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 3: lot of there's just like.

452
00:24:35,080 --> 00:24:38,960
Speaker 1: A lot of banding together to support this town as

453
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:40,919
Speaker 1: they were going through this, And I just thought it

454
00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:43,080
Speaker 1: was cool. There was a Greyhound bus that rolled up

455
00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:45,280
Speaker 1: with everybody inside and they got off and they're like,

456
00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 1: I'm never getting on one of those again.

457
00:24:48,160 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 2: Well, it did kind of wonder. I was like, maybe

458
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:52,679
Speaker 2: we should send like a few or not even vans.

459
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:58,600
Speaker 2: Send twelve cars, right, no buses, no vans. M that

460
00:24:58,800 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying.

461
00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:01,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I get you're saying. We're just making walk.

462
00:25:04,359 --> 00:25:06,280
Speaker 2: And of course the kids got good to Disneyland.

463
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:07,680
Speaker 1: That was a big one.

464
00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:10,560
Speaker 2: You got a heroes welcome, they got a parade, they

465
00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 2: got to go to Disneyland, and it was as soon

466
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:16,800
Speaker 2: as the town went from the saddest place on Earth

467
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:18,560
Speaker 2: to the happiest place on Earth in the span of

468
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:19,439
Speaker 2: thirty six hours.

469
00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:22,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, they had a huge feast. I saw that Ed

470
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:28,160
Speaker 1: Ray won a vacation, that he appeared on Hollywood Squares,

471
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:31,920
Speaker 1: which is that's peak, that's peak exposure in the mid

472
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:36,080
Speaker 1: seventy six. Sure, and Chuck, there's one other little fact

473
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:38,879
Speaker 1: that we have to say about this, that Robert Goolay

474
00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:43,120
Speaker 1: recorded a song called the Ballad of Chow Chill a Ray.

475
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:48,040
Speaker 1: It's so obscure it is not on YouTube. Some either

476
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:51,520
Speaker 1: cursed or Blessed Soul put it on SoundCloud.

477
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:54,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can find there's a cover version on YouTube.

478
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:57,840
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, from another person I couldn't find. I recommend

479
00:25:57,880 --> 00:26:03,359
Speaker 2: the SoundCloud goolay version. It is. It is a product

480
00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:05,119
Speaker 2: of the nineteen seventies. In every way.

481
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:06,399
Speaker 1: It's unlistenable.

482
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:09,040
Speaker 2: I made it through most of it.

483
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:10,760
Speaker 1: Did you make it through all of it?

484
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 2: I made it through most of it. Then I skipped

485
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:16,359
Speaker 2: to the end. Okay, it was something else because it's

486
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:20,080
Speaker 2: sort of like disco, But it's also that very seventies

487
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:24,320
Speaker 2: thing when they wrote these story songs like about the

488
00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 2: kid jumping off of the tatcha Hatchi bridge or whatever,

489
00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:32,760
Speaker 2: not tatcha Hatchi what was it? Billy Joe McAllister, Like

490
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:35,120
Speaker 2: they wrote these songs in the seventies, these weird sort

491
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:39,919
Speaker 2: of folk story songs. A ballad, yeah, but not. I

492
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:41,640
Speaker 2: mean a ballad can be like a love song. These

493
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:43,040
Speaker 2: were like folk stories.

494
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 1: I thought a ballad meant it was like told the story.

495
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 2: Maybe, but I think of ballads is love songs.

496
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 1: Surely, but a love story right.

497
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:56,960
Speaker 2: Like the Air Supply wrote ballads, They didn't write songs

498
00:26:57,000 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 2: about folk heroes jumping off of bridges. You know they

499
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:00,720
Speaker 2: should have.

500
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 1: Sure, well, I don't know. There's really nothing Air Supply

501
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:07,360
Speaker 1: could have done to have improved their game. They were

502
00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:09,960
Speaker 1: pretty much still sound great. Yeah. One of the best

503
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:12,040
Speaker 1: concerts I ever saw in my life was Air Supply

504
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:13,879
Speaker 1: in Jacksonville, Florida.

505
00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:14,880
Speaker 2: It's amazing.

506
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:19,760
Speaker 1: It was. It was amazing. I said it before and

507
00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:22,760
Speaker 1: I'll say it again. It was like the fabric of

508
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:25,720
Speaker 1: reality was coming apart at the seams and we were

509
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 1: right right there to witness it. It was so cool.

510
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:31,920
Speaker 2: I didn't know you took ecstasy that show.

511
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 1: I didn't. That was what's what's so significant about it.

512
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 1: We were totally sober.

513
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:41,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, what was it about the Was it just songs

514
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:42,639
Speaker 2: from your childhood or something?

515
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:44,960
Speaker 1: No, it was, I mean, yes, that was part of

516
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 1: it. It was great to hear all those songs and see

517
00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 1: them live. It was the chemistry between the two dudes

518
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:53,640
Speaker 1: they still got it after all these years is really

519
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:58,120
Speaker 1: neat to see. And but what really kind of made

520
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:01,600
Speaker 1: it unreal was it was it almost had the same

521
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:06,439
Speaker 1: feeling as like a really energetic tent revival, Like people

522
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:11,639
Speaker 1: were wandering down the aisles, like you could tell they

523
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 1: were moving, not necessarily of their own will. They were

524
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:18,720
Speaker 1: being drawn towards the stage. It was bizarre. It was

525
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: so cool to see people were just out of their

526
00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 1: minds at this air Supply show and like we're I

527
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:27,119
Speaker 1: don't think any of them were on next to see either.

528
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:29,880
Speaker 1: I think like everybody was like people were with their

529
00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 1: moms or with their kids, or it was just a neat,

530
00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 1: neat show. I'll never forget it ever.

531
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 2: Amazing. So go see Air Supply and I'm sure they're

532
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 2: playing a third rate casino near you.

533
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 1: Probably they definitely do the work.

534
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:45,920
Speaker 2: For sure, they supply you with more than air though.

535
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:46,520
Speaker 2: It sounds like.

536
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:50,640
Speaker 1: Dude, and the guy's voice still is one hundred percent

537
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 1: as good as it was in the seventies, which is pretty.

538
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 2: Muching some I was watching some VIDs the other day,

539
00:28:56,080 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 2: live VIDs of them recently. It's a good thing to do.

540
00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 2: Sit around, but definitely check out the song on SoundCloud.

541
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:05,480
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and listen to as much of it as

542
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 2: you can.

543
00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: You won't make it all the way through the Ballad

544
00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 1: of Child Chiller Ray. It's so bad. Now I understand

545
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:14,120
Speaker 1: why Elvis would shoot the TV whenever Robert Goulay came on.

546
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:17,280
Speaker 1: It was because of that because of that's Robert Goolay.

547
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 2: Is that why shot the TVs?

548
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:23,520
Speaker 1: Yeah? For some apparently no one knows why. But whenever

549
00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 1: Robert Gouley would come on, he would shoot his TV.

550
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 1: Sometimes he'd get really mad and shoot his toaster or

551
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 1: his oven or whatever. Wow, but he would shoot the TV.

552
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 2: That's pretty good. Yeah, all right, So these kidnappers, getting

553
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:39,240
Speaker 2: back to the story of the Chowchilla school bus kidnapping,

554
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 2: these guys were three real low rent scumbags who were

555
00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 2: didn't have a pinion to their name and were desperate

556
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 2: for cash, right.

557
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 1: In some ways kind of but if they were also

558
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:57,480
Speaker 1: all three rich kids, if you can put those two

559
00:29:57,640 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 1: things together.

560
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 2: They were three which white kids won. Specifically the literal

561
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:07,960
Speaker 2: trust fund kid. Yeah, he was the ringleader. We're talking

562
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:11,920
Speaker 2: about fred Woods, James Schoenfeld, who were twenty four, and

563
00:30:11,960 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 2: then James's younger brother, Richard, who was twenty two. But

564
00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:21,400
Speaker 2: fred Woods, Frederick Newhall Woods, the fourth was the ringleader

565
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 2: and the I guess you could call it the brains

566
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:27,600
Speaker 2: if there was a brain behind this. But he came

567
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:32,520
Speaker 2: from a long line of California money. His one of

568
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:35,360
Speaker 2: his ancestors was Henry Mayo Newall, who came in the

569
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:39,040
Speaker 2: eighteen fifties to California, part of Santa Clarita's new All

570
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 2: California name for him. They made a ton of money

571
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 2: in real estate speculation and railroads and then eventually oil

572
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 2: and ranching and had a several hundred million dollar family fortune.

573
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:58,160
Speaker 1: Yeah. I read that they made seventies about three hundred

574
00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 1: and fifty million a year in the seventies a year,

575
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 1: just that family doing nothing. And by the time this guy,

576
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:10,440
Speaker 1: Fred Woods the fourth came along, there were generations of

577
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 1: this family that had never worked a day in their life.

578
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:16,200
Speaker 1: So it's not like his parents struck it rich. And

579
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:19,960
Speaker 1: they remember their roots like their roots were just gobsmackingly

580
00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:23,960
Speaker 1: wealth is wealthy, That's what they're That's what they knew.

581
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:28,080
Speaker 1: And apparently Fred was not particularly paid attention to by

582
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:30,959
Speaker 1: his parents and it had some effects on him. And

583
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:34,280
Speaker 1: I saw also that he had trouble living up to

584
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 1: his father's expectations for him. But do nothing blue blood, Yeah,

585
00:31:40,280 --> 00:31:45,600
Speaker 1: but that his his dad's approval meant a lot to him. Yeah,

586
00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 1: that's a terrible position for any any person to be in.

587
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 1: And I feel for him in that respect. And I

588
00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:55,000
Speaker 1: also think from from what I saw. There was a

589
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 1: New York Times article about him while I believe he

590
00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 1: was still at large where he said, but he's described

591
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 1: as a loser in the headline. Yeah, the New York

592
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 1: Times calls him a loser, at least says other people

593
00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 1: call him a loser in their headline. He was that

594
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:12,760
Speaker 1: kind of person, and again it was the seventies, but

595
00:32:12,800 --> 00:32:16,120
Speaker 1: he was also that kind of person. He's just he

596
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:20,360
Speaker 1: was the product of wealthy, neglectful parents from what I

597
00:32:20,400 --> 00:32:23,120
Speaker 1: can tell, and also an education system that seems to

598
00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:25,720
Speaker 1: have failed him, at least in the grammar portion.

599
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:32,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll get to that. He didn't have a lot

600
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 2: of friends. He never really had a ton of girlfriends,

601
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 2: which is ironic because he ended up being married four times,

602
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:41,680
Speaker 2: which we'll get to. He lived in a converted apartment

603
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 2: in an outbuilding on the nearly eighty acre estate in

604
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 2: Portala Valley where his grandmother lived and his parents lived.

605
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:54,840
Speaker 2: Even though they were traveling by themselves usually. He got

606
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:58,440
Speaker 2: a job at that rock quarry. Your first indication that

607
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 2: they may not have had the smartest play because his

608
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:04,480
Speaker 2: dad owned it and he was into cars. He collected

609
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:08,720
Speaker 2: cars with his money. The ringleader did. He had dozens

610
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 2: and dozens of cars. His buddy James, who helped him,

611
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:14,560
Speaker 2: he was rich too, not that kind of rich, but

612
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:19,200
Speaker 2: his parent his dad was a pediatrist, so they had

613
00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:21,520
Speaker 2: doctor money. So they were doing pretty well as well,

614
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 2: and they got into various businesses together. They had a

615
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:27,440
Speaker 2: used car business together. They never did super well, it

616
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:30,160
Speaker 2: seemed like, in any of their business ventures, because it

617
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:31,640
Speaker 2: seemed like they weren't super smart.

618
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:37,080
Speaker 1: Right. Another good descriptor is that Fred in particular loved

619
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:39,400
Speaker 1: his cars, and he loved to shoot the windows out

620
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:42,000
Speaker 1: of his cars with his guns, which he also loved.

621
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:44,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, they had a lot of guns between them as well.

622
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:46,560
Speaker 2: I mean, it's sort of what you think. There were

623
00:33:46,600 --> 00:33:49,920
Speaker 2: these rich kids who weren't paid attention to that could

624
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:53,840
Speaker 2: do whatever they wanted and ended up getting into trouble.

625
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 2: He had Fred had designs on being a film producer,

626
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:01,680
Speaker 2: and part of the concept for this kidnapping was the

627
00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:05,120
Speaker 2: school bus kidnapping and the movie Dirty Harry. Yeah, and

628
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:07,240
Speaker 2: he said, hey, this would make a great movie too,

629
00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:10,000
Speaker 2: which we'll get to sort of the bows eye on

630
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:13,320
Speaker 2: that later on. But he and James ended up losing

631
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:17,840
Speaker 2: some money about thirty grand on a housing deal. And

632
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 2: depending on the report you read, some people say they

633
00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:22,560
Speaker 2: were desperate for money, but if you talk to James,

634
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:24,719
Speaker 2: he said, I wanted to buy a Ferrari with it

635
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:28,440
Speaker 2: because my neighbors had Ferraris and it was to keep

636
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 2: up with the Joneses situation.

637
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:33,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, fred was born into it,

638
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:37,480
Speaker 1: and I think took money largely for granted James and Richard,

639
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: but James in particular really kind of felt new to

640
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:42,920
Speaker 1: the area and didn't fit in because they didn't have

641
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 1: as much money. I think their dad was punching above

642
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:50,719
Speaker 1: his weight class socioeconomically in the area that they moved to,

643
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:53,440
Speaker 1: and his sons kind of suffered for it because they

644
00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:56,600
Speaker 1: fell out of place because they just did not have

645
00:34:56,719 --> 00:34:59,560
Speaker 1: anywhere near the kind of wealth that their peers had

646
00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:02,120
Speaker 1: where they where they now lived. And that seems to

647
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:04,280
Speaker 1: have gotten to James, and that was his big motivation.

648
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: I never saw fred Wood's motivation, did you.

649
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:09,640
Speaker 2: I mean, I think part of it had to do

650
00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 2: with that thirty grand in debt, but I think part

651
00:35:12,600 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 2: of it, dude, is he was a bored rich kid

652
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:17,880
Speaker 2: in some ways, right, Like that may have been the reason,

653
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:20,200
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm dumb.

654
00:35:20,239 --> 00:35:23,320
Speaker 1: I also yeah, and also I have the impression that

655
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:30,319
Speaker 1: James and Rick Schoenfeld were a lot more moral than

656
00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 1: fred Wood was.

657
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:32,040
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.

658
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:35,160
Speaker 1: Apparently in his journal James wrote at the time that

659
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:37,719
Speaker 1: he was worried he was becoming immoral as they were

660
00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:42,560
Speaker 1: like really planning this, and he and his brother were

661
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,160
Speaker 1: both Eagle Scouts, so I guess they It is fair

662
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 1: to say that they kind of fell under the influence

663
00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:51,879
Speaker 1: of fred Woods, who had no qualms about this whole thing.

664
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:55,080
Speaker 1: He convinced them to give up their qualms as well.

665
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:57,880
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the last time I'll say the word

666
00:35:58,040 --> 00:36:01,239
Speaker 2: smart thing that they did was when they were initially

667
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:06,319
Speaker 2: hatching the idea. They said, we saw the news California saved.

668
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:11,799
Speaker 2: California has a five billion dollar budget surplus, and we're

669
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:14,879
Speaker 2: not going to get money kidnapping a kid or even

670
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 2: twenty six kids from their parents for their parents to

671
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:22,800
Speaker 2: pay ransom. But if they were on a school bus,

672
00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:26,440
Speaker 2: then it's the responsibility of the state of California. And

673
00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:29,279
Speaker 2: they've got all this dough so five million bucks is

674
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:32,279
Speaker 2: chump changed to them. So if we get them on

675
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:34,799
Speaker 2: a school bus, then they're liable and that's how we're

676
00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:35,920
Speaker 2: going to get the most money.

677
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:39,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so the calculation that they made was that

678
00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:41,359
Speaker 1: there was nobody was going to get hurt. They knew

679
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:44,800
Speaker 1: that they weren't going to physically hurt those kids. Yeah,

680
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 1: they knew that California had a budget surplus, but even

681
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:52,840
Speaker 1: more than that, that their insurance company, the States whoever

682
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:55,919
Speaker 1: ensured the state would end up actually paying that five

683
00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:59,520
Speaker 1: million dollars, and that they were just basically taking five

684
00:36:59,520 --> 00:37:01,880
Speaker 1: million dollars from the state that the state didn't really

685
00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:04,560
Speaker 1: need and that nobody was going to get hurt. And

686
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:07,200
Speaker 1: then that calculation it really kind of reveals like how

687
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:11,840
Speaker 1: much they did lose any kind of morality, which is

688
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:15,880
Speaker 1: they did they utterly failed to take into account, like

689
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:19,240
Speaker 1: the psychological and emotional damage they were going to inflict

690
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:22,800
Speaker 1: on these kids and their parents and the town in general.

691
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:23,759
Speaker 1: You know.

692
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's one of the things that

693
00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:30,000
Speaker 2: because I think even in the end they saw it

694
00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 2: as like not the biggest deal because no one was

695
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 2: hurt and it was really quick. But like when I

696
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:39,840
Speaker 2: saw an eventually spoiler, we'll go ahead and say that

697
00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:42,440
Speaker 2: the two brothers were eventually paroled, and we'll get to

698
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:45,360
Speaker 2: all that. But you know, the news teams in twenty

699
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 2: fifteen were like following this guy around in a parking lot,

700
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:51,560
Speaker 2: asking him questions and he's just trying to avoid it.

701
00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:54,080
Speaker 2: And one of them was like, you do realize that

702
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:57,920
Speaker 2: trauma these kids have still suffered into adulthood, and he

703
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 2: just went, you know, I've heard, so I heard, and

704
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:04,120
Speaker 2: then just like quickly ran away. So even to this day,

705
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:07,319
Speaker 2: they're trying to get them to realize that there was

706
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:12,160
Speaker 2: a real impact and and the end result was trauma

707
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:12,960
Speaker 2: and PTSD.

708
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the reason it did and it had the

709
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:17,640
Speaker 1: impact and part of the problem for chow Chilla. Apparently

710
00:38:17,719 --> 00:38:21,799
Speaker 1: child Chilla was just transformed immediately. Like you know when

711
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:24,240
Speaker 1: when if you're the victim of a crime, you wonder

712
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:27,640
Speaker 1: like why why me? Especially a random crime, and this

713
00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:31,160
Speaker 1: is a random crime perpetrated on a whole town. Yeah, Like,

714
00:38:31,360 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 1: Chowchilla was a possible town among a number of towns

715
00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:39,960
Speaker 1: in the area that those three traveled to and staked

716
00:38:39,960 --> 00:38:41,719
Speaker 1: out and just kind of tried to figure out what

717
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:44,600
Speaker 1: the best the best victim would be for this crime,

718
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:47,480
Speaker 1: and they just settled on Chowchilla. They had no grudges

719
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:49,719
Speaker 1: against chow Chilla. They had no ties to child Chilla.

720
00:38:50,480 --> 00:38:53,320
Speaker 1: But the problem was they didn't care about the people

721
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:55,640
Speaker 1: of Chowdchilla or how they felt about their children or

722
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:57,480
Speaker 1: what they were going to do to them. It was

723
00:38:57,640 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 1: just a random They chose them basically randomly, and chow

724
00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 1: Chilli is the kind of rural farming town where people

725
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:10,440
Speaker 1: don't talk about their feelings. I think I get the

726
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:13,520
Speaker 1: impression that they still think that that's weak. It shows

727
00:39:13,520 --> 00:39:16,640
Speaker 1: a sign of weakness. And so I don't really have

728
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:19,920
Speaker 1: the impression that the town has ever really processed this

729
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:23,279
Speaker 1: and that they've tried to forget. And then there's a

730
00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:25,880
Speaker 1: lot of problems among the victims who are known in

731
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:31,319
Speaker 1: their like fifties, that have never really been resolved or

732
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:33,960
Speaker 1: worked out because the town just tried to carry on

733
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 1: as if it never happened basically from the get go.

734
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:40,680
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean some of them got had very

735
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:45,279
Speaker 2: hard luck stories getting into drugs, eventually getting better and

736
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:48,320
Speaker 2: going through rehabit treatment and writing books about it. Others

737
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 2: say they don't trust people. They suffered nightmares for years,

738
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:54,759
Speaker 2: some continue to Others have said that they don't even

739
00:39:54,800 --> 00:39:57,879
Speaker 2: really remember much of what happened. I imagine if you're

740
00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 2: five years old, you're not going to remember as much

741
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:03,880
Speaker 2: as a twelve year old obviously, so depending on your

742
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:08,000
Speaker 2: age group, you may have suffered some more obvious lasting damage.

743
00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:12,839
Speaker 2: But they were all damaged. The way these guys got

744
00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:16,719
Speaker 2: caught is well, I guess let's tell a little bit

745
00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:19,880
Speaker 2: of that story. During the investigation, one thing they found,

746
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:23,279
Speaker 2: and we'll put this in the dumb column. On the

747
00:40:23,320 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 2: property of where Fred lived, they found a plan written

748
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:36,320
Speaker 2: out that said at the top plan I think a

749
00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:40,239
Speaker 2: kidnapping plan. Didn't even capitalize the p Yeah, they wrote

750
00:40:40,239 --> 00:40:42,000
Speaker 2: it out in pen and they had a lot of ideas.

751
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 2: They wanted to buy an X ray machine. I think

752
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 2: they did to X ray in case the ransom money

753
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:53,920
Speaker 2: was bugged. They had a larger plan. They had one

754
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:56,319
Speaker 2: plan about them the state dropping the money from a

755
00:40:56,360 --> 00:41:00,799
Speaker 2: plane in the Santa Cruz Mountains at a specific drop

756
00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:03,879
Speaker 2: site indicated by a series of lights. But they also

757
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:08,080
Speaker 2: had this larger plan of putting dummies in a plane

758
00:41:08,160 --> 00:41:11,800
Speaker 2: with parachutes, and it was sort of all over the map.

759
00:41:11,920 --> 00:41:14,000
Speaker 2: This plan over the course of a year and a half.

760
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was this really reveals I think a lot

761
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:20,239
Speaker 1: about them as well that on that plan sheet it

762
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 1: said one of the line items was burned the plan. Yeah,

763
00:41:24,719 --> 00:41:26,319
Speaker 1: they just didn't get around to that.

764
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:28,360
Speaker 2: They left a ransom note.

765
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:31,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they had a lot of like scratch outs

766
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 1: and misspellings, and apparently referred to Fred by name in

767
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:39,120
Speaker 1: the ransom note that they were planned to give to

768
00:41:39,200 --> 00:41:44,120
Speaker 1: the authorities, like reallys they were trying to throw the authorities.

769
00:41:44,200 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 1: They were trying to sniff the authorities off the case,

770
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:51,000
Speaker 1: I guess, by posing or presenting themselves as a Satanic group.

771
00:41:51,719 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 1: And they said that their their name was beils a Bub,

772
00:41:54,920 --> 00:42:03,560
Speaker 1: but they misspelled beals abub. They spelled b sabub, which

773
00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:06,320
Speaker 1: is just offensive to anybody who knows how to spell

774
00:42:06,360 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 1: that word. It's just like if you misspell things in

775
00:42:11,719 --> 00:42:15,239
Speaker 1: your ransom note, like you're not going to do very

776
00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:16,799
Speaker 1: well for yourself. Most likely.

777
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:21,160
Speaker 2: That's right in the aftermath of the kidnapping, from when

778
00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:25,120
Speaker 2: they buried the kids to when they left, the plan

779
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:29,160
Speaker 2: was called the Chowchilla Police Department, demand your five million

780
00:42:29,200 --> 00:42:34,560
Speaker 2: dollar ransom. But the Chowchilla phone system was very small,

781
00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:37,840
Speaker 2: and there were obviously when you kidnapped twenty six kids,

782
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:40,919
Speaker 2: and the media is descending. Every phone line was busy.

783
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:43,520
Speaker 2: They literally could not get through with a ransom demand.

784
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 2: The kids escaped before they even got through with a

785
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:51,480
Speaker 2: ransom demand. Yeah, I think you said. The donation from

786
00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:53,759
Speaker 2: the phone company. They literally had to go in and

787
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:57,440
Speaker 2: install like dozens of phone lines just so the FBI

788
00:42:57,520 --> 00:42:58,719
Speaker 2: could operate effectively.

789
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:02,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they never What did these guys do?

790
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:04,400
Speaker 2: Right afterward? When they couldn't get through.

791
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:08,440
Speaker 1: They decided they needed to scram that the jig was

792
00:43:08,560 --> 00:43:10,919
Speaker 1: up and they needed to part ways, and they did.

793
00:43:11,719 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 1: Fred Woods was wily enough to have come up with

794
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 1: a passport with the name Ralph Snyder, and he traveled

795
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:26,720
Speaker 1: successfully to British Columbia, I think Vancouver under that fake passport.

796
00:43:26,840 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 1: But then when he was there he started writing to people.

797
00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:32,600
Speaker 1: He had a friend who was i think in film

798
00:43:32,640 --> 00:43:35,319
Speaker 1: school and said, hey, you should turn this into a

799
00:43:35,360 --> 00:43:38,440
Speaker 1: whole like a whole movie.

800
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:41,480
Speaker 2: He said, right, just give me.

801
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:44,719
Speaker 1: Some of the the box office, I guess, but he said,

802
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:48,440
Speaker 1: but be fair, he said, be fair, but he spelled,

803
00:43:48,680 --> 00:43:53,680
Speaker 1: he spelled the fai. Yeah, so that's I'm sorry, it's

804
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:58,160
Speaker 1: just annoying me to no end the misspellings. Yeah, but

805
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 1: then he signed the letter sent it Ralph Snyder. He

806
00:44:01,600 --> 00:44:04,920
Speaker 1: sent it as his alias, so the cops, the FBI

807
00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:10,640
Speaker 1: tracked him like within days to Vancouver and got the

808
00:44:10,719 --> 00:44:13,040
Speaker 1: Royal Canadian minded police to arrest him.

809
00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:15,960
Speaker 2: I wonder he knew the guy though in film school.

810
00:44:16,160 --> 00:44:17,600
Speaker 2: I wonder if this guy was like, who.

811
00:44:17,480 --> 00:44:19,520
Speaker 1: Is there, who's Ralph Snider?

812
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:23,200
Speaker 2: Or if he put in parentheses that's my alias, this

813
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:24,360
Speaker 2: is this is Fred.

814
00:44:25,200 --> 00:44:28,560
Speaker 1: Don't tell the FBI, but he misspelled FBI.

815
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:37,440
Speaker 2: So Rick, the younger Schoenfeld, for his part, almost immediately confessed.

816
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:40,480
Speaker 2: He got home after the three of them met up

817
00:44:40,520 --> 00:44:43,560
Speaker 2: and then split up, went home and told his dad

818
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:46,640
Speaker 2: what he did. His dad because they had money again

819
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:49,759
Speaker 2: as a podiatrist, got him a lawyer too sweet, And

820
00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:52,320
Speaker 2: so that's why we don't know exactly. That's one reason

821
00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:55,120
Speaker 2: we don't know exactly what happened in those first like

822
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:58,160
Speaker 2: you know, hours afterward, is because the lawyer kind of

823
00:44:58,200 --> 00:44:59,960
Speaker 2: kept that all quiet. Although it did see a new

824
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:03,360
Speaker 2: report that said they took naps. I don't know if

825
00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:05,279
Speaker 2: that's true true or not, but I did see that.

826
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:07,960
Speaker 1: It sounds right. It holds up if you put it

827
00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:09,200
Speaker 1: up against everything else.

828
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 2: And keep in mind once again They took these kids

829
00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:16,799
Speaker 2: to a quarry that fred Wood's dad owned and where

830
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:20,759
Speaker 2: fred Woods worked, and the quarry security guard said when

831
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:23,920
Speaker 2: they were interviewed, said, well, yeah, last week, Fred and

832
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 2: two other guys dug a big hole out there, you know,

833
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:30,880
Speaker 2: a few months before this happened, like a oh, I

834
00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:33,319
Speaker 2: don't know, like a moving van size hole.

835
00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:38,240
Speaker 1: But the hole's gone now, so who cares, right, exactly?

836
00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:44,680
Speaker 1: So Rick turned himself in. Fred got caught. James made

837
00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:48,520
Speaker 1: attempts to cross the border into Canada himself, but apparently

838
00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:53,759
Speaker 1: the Canadian authorities considered him a way too nervous, be

839
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:56,680
Speaker 1: way too vague about what he planned to do in Canada,

840
00:45:56,960 --> 00:46:00,400
Speaker 1: and see in possession of way too many guns to

841
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 1: be led in the country. And apparently he tried two

842
00:46:03,200 --> 00:46:05,440
Speaker 1: or three times using his own name to get in

843
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:08,359
Speaker 1: and finally gave up and turned around. And I guess

844
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:10,960
Speaker 1: he had decided he was going to turn himself into authorities,

845
00:46:11,280 --> 00:46:14,279
Speaker 1: but because of an all points bulletin on his license plate,

846
00:46:14,320 --> 00:46:17,320
Speaker 1: he was picked up before he could turn himself in.

847
00:46:17,840 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 2: Right, So they were all collected less than two weeks

848
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:24,759
Speaker 2: after it happened. Yes, all right, well, let's take our

849
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:27,719
Speaker 2: last break and then we will kind of quickly go

850
00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:30,719
Speaker 2: over the sentencing and what happened afterward, right.

851
00:46:30,640 --> 00:47:13,359
Speaker 3: After this, all right, So they were collected.

852
00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:15,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were collected and of course had their day

853
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:18,440
Speaker 2: in court. And the big, the big thing that happened

854
00:47:18,440 --> 00:47:23,000
Speaker 2: in court was was whether or not these guys committed

855
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:27,400
Speaker 2: bodily harm on these children, because if you committed bodily harm,

856
00:47:27,760 --> 00:47:30,920
Speaker 2: then you have a sentence of life without a possible

857
00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:34,360
Speaker 2: sentence of life without parole. If there was no bodily harm,

858
00:47:34,719 --> 00:47:38,880
Speaker 2: then you could have life with parole. They ruled that

859
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:43,280
Speaker 2: they did suffer bodily harm, so they had stomach trouble,

860
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:46,640
Speaker 2: they had nosebleeds, some of the kids fainted, and that

861
00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:50,560
Speaker 2: that counted. But in nineteen eighty an appeals court reversed

862
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:53,719
Speaker 2: that ruling said that is not bodily harm and that

863
00:47:53,760 --> 00:47:57,880
Speaker 2: made them eligible for parole. And since then, like I

864
00:47:57,920 --> 00:48:01,720
Speaker 2: said earlier, the two show Unfeld brothers have been released

865
00:48:02,440 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 2: in I think twenty twelve and twenty fifteen.

866
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:10,719
Speaker 1: Right like long after. Some observers who were involved in

867
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:14,040
Speaker 1: the case think that they should have been paroled, like

868
00:48:14,239 --> 00:48:18,000
Speaker 1: especially Richard Schoenfeld. He was twenty two at the time.

869
00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:21,120
Speaker 1: He was basically there I saw described as a long

870
00:48:21,160 --> 00:48:25,360
Speaker 1: for the ride again, an eagle scout. He probably became

871
00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:29,440
Speaker 1: an eagle scout three four years before this happened, and

872
00:48:30,080 --> 00:48:37,440
Speaker 1: he he spent thirty nine years in prison.

873
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:41,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess, so twenty fifteen is when he got out.

874
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:42,400
Speaker 2: In twenty twelve.

875
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:46,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yeah, so yeah, about thirty seven years in

876
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:50,400
Speaker 1: prison of design from age twenty two. He spent the

877
00:48:50,400 --> 00:48:52,919
Speaker 1: next thirty seven years in prison for basically hanging out

878
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:56,280
Speaker 1: with his brother and his brother's goofy friend doing something

879
00:48:56,360 --> 00:49:00,279
Speaker 1: really stupid. And a lot of other people said, yeah,

880
00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 1: and if you're gonna let Richard Shownfeld out, you should

881
00:49:02,680 --> 00:49:05,719
Speaker 1: really probably take another look at James Schoumfeld too, because yeah,

882
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:09,759
Speaker 1: he was more involved than his brother, but he was

883
00:49:09,800 --> 00:49:12,759
Speaker 1: still no Fred Woods. And then you get to fred

884
00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:15,640
Speaker 1: Woods and people say, yeah, probably just he doesn't really

885
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:16,600
Speaker 1: deserve to be parole.

886
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:21,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the other two were model prisoners, and

887
00:49:21,200 --> 00:49:26,400
Speaker 2: they also had, I mean people that were active. I

888
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:29,600
Speaker 2: don't know if it was a prosecutor or investigator. I

889
00:49:29,640 --> 00:49:33,200
Speaker 2: think the investigator for the case eventually advocated for parole.

890
00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:33,799
Speaker 1: Both did.

891
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:37,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, some of the townspeople felt betrayed

892
00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:40,200
Speaker 2: by that, but they did get out. Fred Woods was

893
00:49:40,239 --> 00:49:43,120
Speaker 2: not a model prisoner. He was still as shady as ever.

894
00:49:43,640 --> 00:49:46,600
Speaker 2: You know, you're not supposed to run businesses from prison.

895
00:49:46,640 --> 00:49:49,239
Speaker 2: But he ran a gold mine. He ran a used

896
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:53,239
Speaker 2: car business, he ran a Christmas tree farm, he got

897
00:49:53,280 --> 00:49:56,280
Speaker 2: married a few times. The reason he was finally outed

898
00:49:56,440 --> 00:50:01,120
Speaker 2: was he was running the Christmas tree farm and Michael Biyanki,

899
00:50:01,160 --> 00:50:04,040
Speaker 2: who was managing that business, got injured on the job

900
00:50:04,160 --> 00:50:06,000
Speaker 2: and Woods said, I'm not going to help pay for

901
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:09,320
Speaker 2: the surgery. So Biyanki said all right, and he filed

902
00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:12,200
Speaker 2: a state workers comp claim and they got on the

903
00:50:12,200 --> 00:50:14,800
Speaker 2: investigation and found out that Woods was behind the operation.

904
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:19,680
Speaker 2: So he's not When that comes time for parole, that

905
00:50:19,719 --> 00:50:20,479
Speaker 2: doesn't look good.

906
00:50:20,880 --> 00:50:23,920
Speaker 1: No, And I guess he's been denied parole seventeen times

907
00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:27,000
Speaker 1: so far, yes, and he's up next in twenty twenty

908
00:50:27,040 --> 00:50:31,040
Speaker 1: four and a lot of people think he might he

909
00:50:31,120 --> 00:50:32,200
Speaker 1: might never be paroled.

910
00:50:32,200 --> 00:50:38,080
Speaker 2: Actually, well, he bought a mansion in Nipomo, California, thirty

911
00:50:38,120 --> 00:50:42,120
Speaker 2: miles from the prison that no one lives at. He

912
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:45,640
Speaker 2: did have a civil lawsuit in twenty sixteen where he

913
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:48,200
Speaker 2: had to pay out money to the victims. That was

914
00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:52,440
Speaker 2: described as quote enough to pay for some serious therapy,

915
00:50:52,800 --> 00:50:54,160
Speaker 2: but not enough to buy a house.

916
00:50:55,400 --> 00:50:58,560
Speaker 1: Which is significant too because they did rule. An appeals

917
00:50:58,560 --> 00:51:02,520
Speaker 1: court ruled in nineteen eighty that they didn't inflict bodily harm.

918
00:51:02,880 --> 00:51:05,160
Speaker 1: But I wonder if that same appeals court would come

919
00:51:05,160 --> 00:51:10,360
Speaker 1: to that conclusion in twenty twenty one, based on interviews

920
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:13,960
Speaker 1: with some of the people who were abducted, like Jennifer

921
00:51:14,120 --> 00:51:17,279
Speaker 1: Brown High, who I mentioned earlier, who's not I.

922
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:19,600
Speaker 2: Think emotional harm would play in these days, right.

923
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:23,040
Speaker 1: And there was definitely emotional harm inflicted. You talked about

924
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:25,680
Speaker 1: Larry Park who was addicted to meth and crack before

925
00:51:25,880 --> 00:51:29,560
Speaker 1: he finally found forgiveness and actually went and met with

926
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:33,160
Speaker 1: all three of the perpetrators and shook their hands and

927
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:35,799
Speaker 1: told them he forgave them and apparently changed his own

928
00:51:35,840 --> 00:51:36,520
Speaker 1: life like that.

929
00:51:36,719 --> 00:51:38,480
Speaker 2: If you haven't listened to words said, hey, I could

930
00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:39,920
Speaker 2: make you a heck of a deal on a used van.

931
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:43,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, fred Ward took his watch when he shook

932
00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:43,520
Speaker 1: his hand.

933
00:51:45,080 --> 00:51:48,440
Speaker 2: Well, I was kidding, but he My final little factoid

934
00:51:48,520 --> 00:51:52,560
Speaker 2: is that that used Carlat had those two vans and

935
00:51:52,600 --> 00:51:54,320
Speaker 2: he held onto those because he thought they would be

936
00:51:54,360 --> 00:51:56,879
Speaker 2: worth a lot of money as the kidnap vans.

937
00:51:56,719 --> 00:51:59,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, which they might be worth an extra few hundred

938
00:52:00,280 --> 00:52:02,000
Speaker 1: I could see that, but I don't know if that

939
00:52:02,520 --> 00:52:06,320
Speaker 1: If that's the crown jewel of your inventory.

940
00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:08,680
Speaker 2: Owner, Nick cage Bottom, you're right.

941
00:52:10,160 --> 00:52:12,920
Speaker 1: And then you can go watch that movie from Lifetime

942
00:52:13,640 --> 00:52:16,000
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety three called They've Taken Our Children if

943
00:52:16,040 --> 00:52:19,320
Speaker 1: you want to see Carl Malden in his underwear apparently.

944
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:20,840
Speaker 2: Man bad movie, bad song.

945
00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:23,520
Speaker 1: I read also that chow Chiller residents do not care

946
00:52:23,600 --> 00:52:26,480
Speaker 1: for that movie Chuck because it was shot in Kansas,

947
00:52:26,960 --> 00:52:29,720
Speaker 1: and anyone who knows anything about the San Joaquin Valley

948
00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:31,799
Speaker 1: knows that Kansas is a poor stand in for that.

949
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:34,319
Speaker 1: So they're a little turned off by that movie from

950
00:52:34,360 --> 00:52:37,200
Speaker 1: what I understand, that's right. And then last thing I

951
00:52:37,239 --> 00:52:42,680
Speaker 1: want to shout out Caleb Horton, who wrote an article

952
00:52:42,760 --> 00:52:45,120
Speaker 1: on Vox very in depth one called the Ballad of

953
00:52:45,160 --> 00:52:47,359
Speaker 1: the chow Chiller Bus Kidnapping. It's pretty good.

954
00:52:48,120 --> 00:52:48,919
Speaker 2: Oh that's a good one.

955
00:52:49,040 --> 00:52:53,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is all right, all right, the article, not

956
00:52:53,960 --> 00:52:58,160
Speaker 1: the song. No, no, oh, okay, it's an article, an article.

957
00:52:58,239 --> 00:53:01,799
Speaker 1: I gotcha. Okay, Well, since we had we worked out

958
00:53:01,840 --> 00:53:04,479
Speaker 1: them as understanding everybody. That means it's time for listener mail.

959
00:53:07,200 --> 00:53:11,560
Speaker 2: I'm going to call this. Let me see. How about

960
00:53:12,520 --> 00:53:16,640
Speaker 2: racist ticketing. In our episode on jaywalking, we talked about

961
00:53:17,280 --> 00:53:21,200
Speaker 2: people of the black and Hispanic communities are ticketed more

962
00:53:21,800 --> 00:53:26,320
Speaker 2: for jaywalking. And this is from Valerie Mates in an Arbor, Michigan.

963
00:53:27,120 --> 00:53:29,080
Speaker 2: Hey guys, you mentioned that black and Hispanic drivers are

964
00:53:29,080 --> 00:53:32,360
Speaker 2: issued more traffic tickets and white drivers. His interesting issue

965
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:35,319
Speaker 2: in Chicago, when they installed traffic cameras, they found that

966
00:53:35,360 --> 00:53:39,280
Speaker 2: the cameras, despite being race neutral, still gave more tickets

967
00:53:39,320 --> 00:53:42,239
Speaker 2: to black and Hispanic drivers, so of course they wanted

968
00:53:42,239 --> 00:53:45,719
Speaker 2: to study that. The experts found that more affluent neighborhoods

969
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:49,720
Speaker 2: are built with more features that would naturally slow down traffic,

970
00:53:50,000 --> 00:53:54,160
Speaker 2: more sidewalks, more stop signs, more crosswalks, while poorer neighborhoods

971
00:53:54,160 --> 00:53:56,960
Speaker 2: had fewer those fewer of those things, and the result

972
00:53:56,960 --> 00:53:59,919
Speaker 2: wood cars would be naturally would tend to drive fast

973
00:54:00,680 --> 00:54:04,200
Speaker 2: in poorer neighborhoods. Since black and Hispanic drivers are more

974
00:54:04,280 --> 00:54:07,279
Speaker 2: likely to live and be driving in less wealthy neighborhoods

975
00:54:07,600 --> 00:54:10,200
Speaker 2: in Chicago, they were more likely to be speeding and

976
00:54:10,280 --> 00:54:14,920
Speaker 2: caught by traffic cameras, or so says the evidence at

977
00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:17,640
Speaker 2: least crazy. It's not just prejudice on the part of

978
00:54:17,640 --> 00:54:21,440
Speaker 2: police officers that causes this discrepancy, is actually a difference

979
00:54:21,440 --> 00:54:24,200
Speaker 2: in how the neighborhoods are built systematically. Thought it was

980
00:54:24,239 --> 00:54:28,759
Speaker 2: really interesting and I agree Injory. Thanks for sending that

981
00:54:28,800 --> 00:54:31,799
Speaker 2: in Who was it again? Valerie Mates of ann Arbor?

982
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:34,600
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Valerie. That's a great one. If you've

983
00:54:34,600 --> 00:54:37,479
Speaker 1: got a great one like Valerie does. We love little

984
00:54:37,520 --> 00:54:41,359
Speaker 1: brainbusters like that, so you can wrap them up, spank

985
00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:43,680
Speaker 1: them on the bottom, and send them off via email

986
00:54:43,760 --> 00:54:49,759
Speaker 1: to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.

987
00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:52,759
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

988
00:54:52,880 --> 00:54:57,040
Speaker 2: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

989
00:54:57,160 --> 00:55:03,520
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.