Chowchilla Kidnapping: James Schoenfeld Paroled

James Schoenfeld, the man convicted in the Chowchilla kidnapping, has been freed because California Governor Jerry Brown did not object to his parole.

Schoenfeld kept 26 children and their school bus driver buried in a trailer in 1976. The horrific crime startled the nation and were inspired the Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry movie.

Richard Schoenfeld, the brother of James Schoenfeld, now 63, and a friend, Fred Woods, were all convicted in the Chowchilla kidnapping case after the trio confessed. James Shoenfeld was originally given a life sentence, but the originally sentencing decision was ultimately commuted to life with the possibility of parole.

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Because Governor Jerry Brown took no action when the parole request was made and the midnight Thursday deadline to object has passed, Shoenfeld will now be paroled. The Chowchilla kidnapping victims wrote passionate letters to the California parole board asking that all three of their captors be kept in jail.

The Shoenfeld brothers, and their friend, kidnapped 26 who were between the ages of five to 14-years old, and school bus driver Ed Ray. The Chowchilla group from the California Central Valley were transported to a Livermore area quarry and held inside a ventilated trailer buried underground. Multiple mattresses, along with food and water, were stored inside the buried trailer.

The children, under the direction of the Ed Ray, who was hailed as a hero and died in 2012, were ultimately able to dig themselves out of the buried trailer and escape. While the Chowchilla kidnapping victims were unharmed physically, the emotional distress the children endured followed many of the victims into adulthood.

Fred Woods was denied parole in 2012 when Richard Schoenfeld was paroled, but is up for a new hearing this fall. The kidnappers lured the driver to stop by pretending their white van had broken down on the side of the road. When Ed Ray stopped to see if he could help, three masked men pointed guns in his face and forced the driver back onto his bus.

Once kidnapped, the Chowchilla kidnapping victims were driven around for about 11 hours. The kids reportedly held onto each other in a state of fear, they were hungry and thirsty, and soiled their pants.

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The children and Ray were loaded onto two vans and driven around for 11 hours, during which time the hungry, petrified youngsters soiled themselves and held each other in fear.

All three of the kidnappers were from wealthy families and demanded a $5 million ransom for the hostages. The trio had spent 18 months planning the kidnapping, but their scheme quickly unraveled when they decided to take a nap.

Ed Ray and some of the older boys in the group stacked the mattresses in order to reach a hole in the top of the trailer. They managed to force open a weighted-down metal lid and freed themselves and the children who had been held captive for 16 hours.

“He was a courageous man,” Chowcihlla kidnapping victim Jodi Heffington-Medrano said when referencing Ed Ray. “He kept 26 scared children in line and made us feel safe.”

Jennifer Brown Hyde, now 48, was only nine when she and her brother were among those kidnapped. She recently opened up about the experience and the letter she sent to the parole board asking that all three of the kidnappers spend the rest of their lives in prison.

“I was honestly brutal [in parole board letter] I wrote that they buried me alive, they stole my childhood and caused me immense emotional pain over the years. It affected my life, my parents’ lives and my children’s lives. For me, it’s having to deal with hatred and anger toward other human beings, and that’s a struggle that almost 40 years later I still have to deal with. Until recently I slept with a night light. I have anxiety attacks when I’m in a confined space, and it’s a problem living in the South when we have tornado warnings and we have to take cover in storm shelters. They took away my ability to be free.”

Do you think the Chowchilla kidnapper James Schoenfeld, and the other two men, should have been released from prison?

[Images via: Wikimedia Commons]