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Ladybbird · 21-10-19, 06:14

Horrific True Story of 26 Kids Who Dug Themselves Out After Being Buried Alive

EXCLUSIVE: In the 1976 Chowchilla kidnapping, 26 kids were taken from a school bus and locked in a trailer underground. They dug their way out - but the ordeal ruined their lives

Daily Mirror UK, 21 OCT 2019.

Officers escort children on Grayhound bus upon their return to Chowchilla at 4am. July 17, 1976

As they were being driven along, the 26 pupils burst into song. If You’re Happy And You Know It echoed around the van, as did their clapping.

But after almost 100 miles and more than 11 hours of driving, the lyrics changed to “If you’re sad and you know it...”

The children weren’t on a happy outing. They were terrified after becoming hostages in what would be known as America’s most notorious mass kidnapping – and singing to chase away the fear.

They were to be buried alive and certain they were facing death during the terrifying ordeal.

For decades they’ve all tried to put the experience behind them yet this week the group has been forced to relive those traumatic events of July 15, 1976 as the criminal mastermind behind it made a bid for parole.

On that summer day the schoolchildren – aged from five to 14 – had been enjoying an excursion to a swimming pool as part of their summer classes at Dairyland Elementary School, Chowchilla, in central California.

Larry Park shortly after the kidnapping (Image: Daily Mirror)

At 4pm, the bus driver, Ed Ray, was forced to stop on a deserted dusty road outside of the farm town by three armed men.

The kidnappers, disguised with tights over their heads, ordered Ray, then 52, along with his passengers – seven boys and 19 girls – into two white vans before driving for hours north-west to a remote rock quarry west of Livermore.

During the journey, some of the terrified youngsters soiled themselves and threw up from motion sickness.

So to help them, the older kids began the singing, belting out songs such as Love Will Keep Us Together and If You’re Happy And You Know It.

It was an attempt to cheer them up but nothing could shake their growing sense of dread..

Workers unearth the buried kidnap van in Livermore quarry. The weight of dirt crushed the top

Speaking to the Daily Mirror, one of the victims, Larry Park, now 49, says: “At first we kids thought it might have been a joke carried out by some parents but it quickly turned to horror.

“One of the men had a double-barrelled, sawn-off shotgun that he pointed at us. I remember that gun being pointed at me as though it was going to eat my soul.

“That’s when I realised it was very bad and very real. I have a near-*photographic memory, so there is nothing about the kidnapping that I don’t remember.”

Victim Jennifer Brown Hyde, who was nine at the time, said she “felt like an animal going to the slaughterhouse.

After arriving at the quarry at around 3am, the hostages were marched at gunpoint into the trailer of a removal van, which had been buried more than 12ft below the ground.

Larry Park still remembers everything from that day

Then, in the darkness, the kidnappers made each of their hostages give them their name and a piece of clothing, which they intended to use with their ransom demands.

The men had planned their crime for over 18 months, inspired by the 1971 Clint Eastwood movie Dirty Harry, in which a killer called Scorpio kidnaps a busload of schoolchildren for a ransom.

They had targeted the bus as they believed the youngsters were from a wealthy area and, despite coming from affluent families themselves, intended to demand £4million in ransom. The young hostages were forced to climb down a ladder into the trailer. Inside they found several stained, filthy mattresses and containers of water.

Meanwhile, above them, they heard their kidnappers throwing dirt over the trailer, along with two tractor batteries to keep the hatch shut. Ray and the children were being buried alive.

The men had equipped the trailer with battery-powered fans that sucked in fresh air but the stifling heat was
still intense.

Dirty Harry: Clint Eastwood as Harry Callahan, Andy Robinson as The Killer July 2000

The children began wailing in the trailer’s oven-like temperatures. Driver Ed Ray tried to comfort them but he was crying too, convinced that the roof was going to cave in.

Ray, who died in 2012 aged 91, later said: “I remember children just screaming and crying. The sides of the van were bowing in. I knew that I was going to die. I knew it.”

Eventually, the oldest child, 14-year-old Michael Marshall, announced that he wasn’t going to die without putting up a fight.

So, he, Ray and the other older schoolboys began to stack the mattresses on top of each other.

They then climbed on top and used wooden slats to try to push away a steel plate on the roof of the van.

Working furiously in the overwhelming heat, the boys poured what little water they had left over their heads to fight heat exhaustion and kept pushing until the hatch was open, before digging away the earth so they could all escape.

Suspects charged with kidnapping 26 Chowchilla children and their school bus driver are shown in the court room. Left to right: James Schoenfeld, Fred Woods and Richard Schoenfeld.

Larry, who was then six, and with his sister, Andrea, then eight, says: “When we were placed underground there
was terror, hopelessness. I remember wondering what it was going to be like to die. Soon, the sides
of the van were buckling with the weight of the earth, as if they were caving in.

“I thought we were going to be crushed to death. I remember the darkness inside. There were a couple of flashlights but when they were off it was pitch black. I could taste the darkness it was so thick. It was horrifying.

“Andrea prayed. We had grown up in church and she prayed non-stop. I helped the other kids dig us out. Michael was leading the digging. He was my hero then and he is now. I see him as Batman, breaking through the earth. Dirt showered into the van and then there was a blast of sunlight and I could feel air rushing into the van and the dust blew up.

“It looked like a billion shooting stars going towards the sun. At that moment, I knew we were going to be OK. I looked at Andrea and she looked at me with tears of relief in her eyes.”

After 16 hours of being buried alive, Ray and the children made it above ground. Incredibly, they literally caught the kidnappers napping and, as the men slept, the kids quietly escaped to the quarry’s guard station near the Shadow Cliffs East Bay National Park, where the authorities were called.

At some stage, the gang woke up and fled before police arrived on the scene. They discovered the trailer was registered to the quarry owner’s son, Frederick Woods. They also found a draft ransom note. The escape had taken place before the kidnappers could even call it in. The police department’s phone lines were so overloaded with calls from the media and family members looking for their children that the gang were unable to get through

Andrea Park, 8, and her brother Larry, 6, were among the 26 Chowchilla area school children kidnapped with their bus driver.

Traumatised by events, Ed Ray could not recall any details to help the authorities capture the kidnappers. So he underwent hypnosis and was able to remember the number plate of one of the kidnappers’ vans which took them to the quarry.

Around two weeks later, Woods was arrested after fleeing to Vancouver, British Columbia. His accomplices, brothers Richard and James Schoenfeld, surrendered after just a few days in hiding.

All three received life sentences after pleading guilty to 27 counts of kidnapping.

However, almost all the children have been haunted in one way or another by the ordeal ever since.

Larry says: “Andrea told our dad Rodney about what happened and she was worried that all she had done was pray. Our dad said, God gives each of us a task and her task was to pray while I dug, so it was all good and proper.”

Heartbreakingly, Larry admits that the kidnapping has badly affected his relationship with his sister.

He says: “She hasn’t hugged me since 1976. The effect on my family and me was immense. Every single night as a kid I would have nightmares about fighting zombies. Gory, bloody and terrifying. If the room was dark, I would see the faces of the zombies above my bed. So I always slept with the light on.”

Becky Reynolds, 9, shown here with her mother, was one of the 26 kidnapped

And, as he grew up, Larry turned to drugs to numb the memories of what had happened.

He says: “I was addicted to drugs for more than 20 years because of what happened. We all found ways to hide the pain – and my way was drugs.

“By the time I was 21, I was doing methamphetamines, cocaine, crack cocaine, heroin, PCP and smoking pot.

“I was not only doing drugs, I was dealing drugs to support my habit. So I have spent a lifetime going in and out of jails and mental institutions.”

A decade ago Larry finally decided to turn his situation around.

He explains: “I woke up one morning and realised that all the pain, the hatred and the bitterness that I was holding on to wasn’t punishing the kidnappers any more than they had already been punished. Instead, it was killing me.”

Larry has now been clean for nine years and has written a book about his traumatic experience.

Incredibly, he also met the kidnappers face-to-face – including Richard Schoenfeld after he was paroled in 2012 and brother James who was freed in 2015 – saying it finally allowed him to be at peace.

Larry, who has a degree in Christian counselling, says: “This story for me is one of redemption and forgiveness. I’m not one who has held on to this over the years and is still bitter.

“I have visited each of the kidnappers. I have forgiven each of them and I have asked them for forgiveness for the years I spent hating them.

“I realised that I needed to change something in my life, and I turned to Christianity.

“I figured that if that didn’t work, I would try something else but, luckily, it did work. There was a lot of pain and a lot of tears.

“If I was going to be set free from the prison of my life, I had to help these men get set free from the prison of their lives.”

Bus driver Frank Edward Ray Jr. shown with a happy passenger at Santa Rita after the kidnapping rescue..

However, this approach has worsened the rift with Andrea. Larry says: “She has dealt with this completely differently to me. She refuses to forgive. She hasn’t spoken to me in four years now because of her struggle with what happened.

“She just can’t see where I’m coming from.”

This week, 43 years on from the Chowchilla kidnappings, Woods made another bid for freedom.

However, on Tuesday, the 67-year-old was denied parole for the 17th time. And he was told that he will be kept behind bars for at least another five years due to poor behaviour.

The move has been welcomed by most of the victims. But Larry believes that his one-time captor should be given a second chance.

He says: “I have mixed feelings about Fred and his parole hearing.

“I would love to go and advocate for his parole. But I am not prepared to do that while he is prepared to get himself into trouble in prison.

“He was running a business out of the prison selling Christmas trees, of all things.

“If he can go for a length of time without getting into trouble, I would definitely go in and advocate for his parole.
END

NB: From Ladybbird Re:

Quote:

“My sister Andrea. has dealt with this completely differently to me. She refuses to forgive.
“I did advocate for the other guys’ parole and I am glad they are free.”

..

I really do not think it is his sole decision on this & I support his sister's view entirely..JMO

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