Chowchilla bus kidnapping survivor Jodi Heffington’s lifelong fight to keep her captors behind bars

Produced by Chris Younger Ritzen, George Osterkamp, Mead Stone and Gary Winter

In August 2022, after 46 years, the final of three males convicted of kidnapping 26 youngsters and their bus driver was paroled from a jail in California. 

It was one of many largest kidnappings in U.S. historical past. A college bus with 26 youngsters was stopped by three armed gunmen as they headed house from the Dairyland Elementary College within the small California city of Chowchilla.

The lads had been sporting pantyhose over their faces.

“After which this man got here up with a stocking over his head with a gun and stated, “Open the door,'” stated survivor Jodi Heffington, who was 10 on the time. Heffington relived the ordeal publicly for the primary time in an interview with “48 Hours,” and shared emotional particulars of her life after.

“The place their eyes had been, it was like, it nearly seemed hole,” recalled survivor Larry Park, simply 6 years outdated on the time. “It was like loss of life.”

The kids and their college bus driver had been transferred to vans and had been pushed for almost 12 insufferable hours earlier than being buried alive inside a truck trailer underground — held hostage at midnight for one more 16 hours earlier than they made a harrowing escape.

WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN?

Simply exterior Chowchilla on July 15, 1976, the scary journey started.

Jennifer Brown Hyde | Survivor: We begin driving down the street …

Larry Park | Survivor: I am questioning the way it was going to really feel to die.

Larry Park: I used to be too scared to maneuver.

Twenty-six terrified youngsters – some as younger as 5 – had been staring down the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun. Three masked males had hijacked the Dairyland Elementary college bus. One had the shotgun, one drove the bus, and one adopted behind within the white van they’d used to dam the street.

Jodi Heffington | Survivor: It is a laborious factor to elucidate, ‘trigger I by no means been round weapons.  You solely seen unhealthy guys within the motion pictures with stockings on, you already know, so I knew it wasn’t good.   

Jennifer Brown Hyde: Edward … stored telling his youngsters simply be quiet, sit down, do what they are saying. … Edward was talking in a harsh tone, and that usually was not the Edward that we knew and liked.

Jennifer Brown Hyde: Finally, the bus went off the street, down right into a dry riverbed. 

Larry Park: Into this large grove of bamboo that had been taller, truly, than the bus.

Jennifer Brown Hyde: After which as I seemed out one of many facet home windows, I noticed that there was one other van that was parked there …

AUDIO: JENNIFER BROWN, AGE 9: …They parked the bus.  And there was one other inexperienced — there was a inexperienced van down there ready for us.

Even on the age of 9, little Jennifer Brown appeared to know the horror that day ought to be documented.  She later made this recording along with her mother:

AUDIO: JENNIFER BROWN, AGE 9: And people two guys standing from the bus door to the van door with weapons with pantyhose over the pinnacle so we would not run out. … after which, see, they pulled the van proper as much as the bus door.

The abductors herded the surprised youngsters from the bus into these two vans. 

Jennifer Brown Hyde: We needed to leap from the bus to the van.

AUDIO: JENNIFER BROWN, AGE 9: So they would not see any toes prints.

Jodi Heffington: When it was my flip to get on the van … he stopped me. He held a shotgun to my abdomen. And I stated, “I used to be doing what you stated.” And I needed to stand there with this gun in my intestine till that one van drove away they usually backed the second van up. It felt like without end. I believed he was going to shoot me. I truly did. 

Jennifer, Larry and the remainder of the kids adopted Jodi into the second van, together with the bus driver, Ed Ray.  Then the abductors closed the doorways. 

Jennifer Hyde: It was pitch darkish.

The vans had been transformed into makeshift jail cells by putting in wooden paneling and even portray the home windows.  Nobody might see in or out.

The abductors sped off with the kids caged in these cell prisons. 

Jennifer Brown Hyde: And I felt like I used to be an animal going to the slaughterhouse.

Round that point, Jennifer’s mother, Joan Brown, got here house from work and the home was empty.

Joan Brown: The kids weren’t there.  No peanut butter on the counter, no chairs on the market, effectively … they simply weren’t there.

As one hour turned to 2, fearful mother and father started serving to the police retrace the varsity buses route, crisscrossing dozens of rural roads.       

Joan Brown: The place had been these youngsters?  Twenty-six of them and a bus driver?  Nowhere. 

After which, simply earlier than sundown, a police pilot noticed the massive bus about seven miles exterior Chowchilla, hidden within the dry riverbed. 

Sheriff Ed Bates | Madera County, California: You’d solely see it from the air.

Madera County Sheriff Ed Bates rushed to the scene. His deputies had already discovered the bus empty.  The kids and their driver gone. 

The tire impressions discovered within the sand led straight to the entrance door of the bus.

Sheriff Ed Bates: Clearly somebody had backed their car as much as the doorways of the bus.

Sheriff Bates was satisfied the kids of Chowchilla had change into the victims of a brazen and weird, mass kidnapping. 

Sheriff Ed Bates: I known as the governor.  I stated, “I want some assist down right here.”

Sheriff Ed Bates: I had the mother and father all assembled there within the fireplace station. … Nicely, you may simply take a look at their faces, and the nervousness and the worry was there.

Sheriff Ed Bates: I instructed them, I known as the FBI. … And unexpectedly, I’ve 30 FBI brokers there.

As Sheriff Bates continued to widen the investigation, the kids continued to undergo contained in the sweltering, pitch-black vans. 

Jodi Heffington: We would bang on the place the drivers panel can be —like, “allow us to out, allow us to out” … and they’d simply say “shut up”. 

Jennifer Brown Hyde:  And we drove what appeared like for hours upon hours upon hours.

Larry Park: And I keep in mind that I stored falling asleep … and coming again awake. … I might dream … about being – [takes a long pause] — I might dream about being up within the forest the place my household would go tenting.

Jennifer Brown Hyde: All of us tried to consolation one another.

AUDIO: JENNIFER BROWN, AGE 9: And some of my little pals which are 5 and 6, they came visiting and began laying on me and crying. And I instructed them be courageous as a result of it will be alright …

Then, the vans began to decelerate. The children might really feel it pulling off the street, lurching back and forth on tough terrain, earlier than coming to a cease – after almost 12 insufferable hours. 

Larry Park: They opened up the door they usually took Ed Ray out first.  They shut the doorways again. After which there was nothing. There was no sound.

Jennifer Brown Hyde: And I bear in mind they’d simply seize the primary child that was contained in the door … They opened the door they usually grabbed anyone else.

Larry Park:  And so they simply stored doing that. They’d open up the door …

Jodi Heffington: They’d take the subsequent child out. And they’d shut the doorways. However after they opened the doorways you do not see them. I believed they had been principally killing us every one after the other. 

Jennifer Brown Hyde … and I stored scooting to the again of the van, and I believed perhaps if I cover within the nook, they will not come for me.

However they did.

“THE HOLE”

Jennifer Brown Hyde: I did not know if it was within the desert, on the seaside. Within the facet of a mountain? I had no thought the place we had been. I did not even know if we had been in California.

After nearly 12 hours in darkness, 10-year-old Jodi Heffington was the final to be taken out of the primary van.

Jodi Heffington: Being the final one … you do not know what is going on to occur since you do not see no person else. …What occurred to them? In case you did not kill them, the place are they at? That they had flashlights form of like shining of their faces. After which one shining in your face. And so they stated, “What’s your title?” And I truly — I’ve just a little little bit of a smart-ass in me. And I stated, “Puddin Tang — ask me once more and I will inform you an identical.” I used to be pissed and I used to be scared on the similar time. They stated, “in the event you do not inform us your title, you are by no means going to see your mother and pa once more, do you perceive?” … And so they took all my belongings … After which they stated, “you are going to go down on this gap proper right here.

The opening led to an outdated truck trailer buried underground. Ed Ray and the kids from the primary van had been there.

Larry Park: There was a desk arrange within the again. It was surrounded with jugs of ingesting water …

Jodi Heffington: On among the mattresses, that they had some cereal, a loaf of bread and a few peanut butter.

Jennifer Brown Hyde: … within the wheel wells, that they had reduce holes in ’em for bathrooms. We might hear followers. So, we knew that there was some type of air flow. 

Michael Marshall, 14, was nonetheless within the different van with among the youngest youngsters.

Michael Marshall | Survivor: The children bought a maintain of me and had been holding onto me. And … simply scared out of their – you already know, we had been all – simply scared out of our wits. 

As they did earlier than, the abductors eliminated the kids one after the other. Michael and the youngest, 5-year-old Monica Ardery, had been the final ones left within the van. 

Michael Marshall: It was simply me and her.

Not realizing what had occurred to the opposite youngsters or in the event that they had been even alive, Michael says he could not bear handy Monica over to the abductors. So, after they opened the doorways once more, he went first.

Michael Marshall: I needed to take her fingers from mine and rip —and tear them aside, say it will be OK. And go along with them and go away her. … That was laborious.

Michael Marshall: As quickly as I bought on that ladder and took a step down … and I heard the remainder of the youngsters say, “It is Mike. … It is Mikey. Michael.” And I spotted that everyone was alive.

And to his aid, not lengthy after, Monica got here climbing down the ladder. They had been all collectively once more.

Michael Marshall: We’re OK. We’re OK. We’re OK. So proper now, thus far, we’re alright.

However the sense of aid was short-lived.

Jennifer Brown Hyde: Earlier than I knew it, the ladder was gone. They threw a roll of bathroom paper down and stated, “We’ll be again for you.” And that was it.

The abductors then coated the opening with a manhole cowl.

Michael Marshall: I bear in mind it simply went darkish. … And you then simply hear the fabric (strikes his fingers in a digging movement) getting thrown on us … we had been being buried alive.

They had been buried 12 toes underground.

Jodi Heffington: I simply bear in mind trying up at that gap. I wished to remain shut. I wished to be like proper there. As a result of that was the way in which out.

Larry Park: Ed Ray and Mike Marshall they checked out each nook, each wall … for an escape route. They bought beneath the manhole cowl and pushed up on it. And so they could not transfer it. So, Ed Ray decided that it was time for everybody to get some relaxation.

The minutes and hours ticked by.

Michael Marshall: … It might be silent after which anyone would bust out crying and the opening would simply erupt. Everyone’s crying.

Michael Marshall: The factor that made me cry was not having the ability to say goodbye to my mother. … And I am remembering the final time that I noticed her [gets emotional] and wishing I might have instructed her goodbye.

CBS NEWS REPORT: All through a lot of at the present time, mother and father and different household of the lacking youngsters got here to the command submit arrange in downtown Chowchilla to strive desperately to fathom some purpose out of this insanity. Carol Marshall’s 14-year-old son Mike was one other on the bus.

REPORTER: Any probability in any respect this could possibly be a horrible hoax or joke that somebody is taking part in?

CAROL MARSHALL: I think about there’s a probability. I hope that is all it’s.

This was one of many largest kidnappings in U.S. historical past.

CBS NEWS REPORT: Thus far there’s been no phrase from any abductors …  

Sheriff Ed Bates: Two heavily-laden [sic] autos had taken 26 youngsters and their bus driver. That is not straightforward to do. And the way did they management them? And what did they do with them?

As investigators intensified their search, Jennifer and Jeff’s mother Joan waited by the cellphone hoping to listen to information about her youngsters.

Joan Brown:  I bear in mind later that day, praying and saying to God that in the event you deliver them again … I’ll promise you that I’ll — after which I finished as a result of there was nothing I can provide in trade for my youngsters.

That they had been within the gap for nearly 12 hours and the situations had been deteriorating.

Jennifer Brown Hyde: We had eaten the meals. … The followers on the ventilators stopped.

Jennifer Brown Hyde: My little mind began to understand the idea of we might actually not go house.

Larry Park: There was this one boy. … And he stored kicking blocks out from beneath the 4×4 pillars. And so, the roof of the van was beginning to collapse. The seams had been breaking. Mud was flowing by means of. And I bear in mind youngsters simply screaming and crying. … The edges of the van had been bowing in. … I knew that I used to be going to die. I knew it.

Jennifer Brown Hyde: We thought, they usually stated —  the older youngsters and Edward —  if we’ll die, had been going to die making an attempt to get out of right here.

THE ESCAPE

Jennifer Brown Hyde | Survivor: As a younger child, you do not have a whole lot of sense of time. … There was no daylight. So, you could not inform if it was day or night time. … We had been out of meals, we had been out of water, the roof was caving in…. It simply was a determined state of affairs.

Jodi Heffington | Survivor: Everyone bought the mattresses and stacked them up as excessive as we might go.

Larry Park | Survivor: … proper beneath the manhole cowl.

Jodi Heffington: Individuals began standing on one another’s shoulders. … I used to be a really tall lady and really robust, so that they stood on my shoulders after they did not stand on Edward’s. 

They took turns pushing up on the manhole cowl.

Michael Marshall: … And I am giving it every thing I bought, and all the youngsters are cheering me on. , “Come on Mike, you are able to do it. You are able to do it.” After which unexpectedly, they stated, “It moved, it moved.”

However they had been removed from being free. The abductors had put truck batteries and dust on high of the manhole cowl and had constructed a picket field round it. As soon as the manhole cowl was moved, that field was simply large enough for Michael to face in. 

AUDIO: MICHAEL MARSHALL, AGE 14:  Edward squeezes me by means of this half-foot gap.

Like Jennifer, Michael Marshall made a recording about his expertise.

AUDIO: MICHAEL MARSHALL, AGE 14: I get on high of it and I begin pounding on this field. Begin hitting and pounding, hitting and pounding.

Larry Park: He dug till he was exhausted after which he stored on digging. There was no stop in him.

AUDIO: MICHAEL MARSHALL, AGE 14: None of us knew if after we bought out, they had been simply going to be standing there with shotguns at our head and stuff, so we had been form of … fairly scared.“

Larry Park: Then abruptly this ray of daylight [cries, then pauses]. This ray of daylight got here down into the opening. And it was catching the mud. And the mud particles seemed like a bunch of capturing stars. … There was this airflow that got here out of the van and I knew we had been free. I want a minute. [Gets up from his chair, overcome with emotion.]

Michael Marshall [sighs, then pauses]: The air and the sunshine it was beaming coming by means of …

Larry Park: Mike Marshall, truly, courageous individual that he’s, crawled out of the opening first.

Michael Marshall: And I caught my head out and … I did not see anyone. … I might see we had been within the hills …

Jodi Heffington: He stated “the coast is obvious.” And so we began taking the little ones and placing them up there. And Mike grabbed them. …That half was form of scary too as a result of we’re out now. … We do not know who’s out right here.

It was roughly 8 p.m. on July 16. That they had been within the gap for almost 16 hours.

Jennifer Brown Hyde: All of us simply scurried like a bunch of little mice. … We noticed conveyor belts and excavators … It seemed like “The Flintstones.” … And all these males with laborious hats on got here to us and checked out us like, “who’re you?”

The abductors had buried them in a rock quarry in Livermore, California, 100 miles away from Chowchilla. When police arrived, as proof, they took images of each youngster.

Jodi Heffington: An Alameda County jail bus got here. (Sarcastically laughs) It was like, “yeah, they put us again on a bus.”

Then they transported them to the closest place that would maintain them — the Santa Rita Rehabilitation Middle — a neighborhood jail.

Jennifer Brown Hyde: I bear in mind entering into — within the bus and you may see the jail wire. … And also you thought effectively, “they’re taking us into jail.”

Jennifer Brown Hyde: They took us into what seemed like lecture rooms. … They introduced us apples and soda.

AUDIO: JENNIFER BROWN, AGE 9: That they had these coveralls. … And all these little youngsters go into ’em and we needed to roll the pants about 10 toes. And we rolled the arms up and we had been all sitting there — a few of ’em did not roll our arms up and we sitting there flapping our arms. We stated, “Hey we are able to fly!?”

Over the subsequent few hours, Ed Ray and the kids had been examined by docs. They had been additionally questioned by police.

Jodi Heffington: Every certainly one of us was interrogated by ourselves to inform our story.

Jennifer Brown Hyde: How do you describe anyone that has pantyhose over their face? 

After 4 hours of questioning, they had been lastly allowed to go house.

Michael Marshall: They put us on a Greyhound … escorted us again to Chowchilla.

Larry Park: It was time for mother and pa. I simply wished my mother and pa.

It had been nearly 36 hours since their traumatic ordeal started.

Jennifer Brown Hyde: The scene was like a mob scene … information cameras and TV lights.

AUDIO: JENNIFER BROWN, AGE 9: Everyone acknowledged saying, “are you all proper Jennifer” and all these things and I stated “Yeah. I am wonderful.” Then at any time when we bought into this room, I discovered my mother and my dad.

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AUDIO: MICHAEL MARSHALL, AGE 14: We pulled as much as Chowchilla and I used to be asleep. … So, once I bought off the bus everyone began taking footage of me saying, “Hello Mike, the way you doing? What was the pit like?”

Jodi Heffington: They simply allow us to off the bus with all these folks … And also you did not know the place your mother and father had been (emotional).  

Larry Park: This man carried me off the bus. And he put me in my mother’s arms, and I stated, “Hello mother,” and fell asleep on her shoulder. …. I felt like I used to be lastly secure [emotional].

Jodi Heffington: Nothing was ever the identical. Nothing was ever the identical after that. (emotional)

Joan Brown: We had no thought what our youngsters had been by means of. None by any means. 

HAROLD DOW | CBS NEWS: How does it really feel to be a giant film star?

JENNIFER BROWN, AGE 9: I do not know. I’ve by no means been a film star earlier than.

CBS NEW REPORT: For 9- year-old Jennifer Brown, the expertise has allowed her to nonetheless see the world with compassion. 

HAROLD DOW | CBS NEWS: Why do you suppose that they’d do one thing like that?

JENNIFER BROWN: I do not know. They did not have sufficient love.

Joan Brown: She had horrible nightmares. … she would run screaming into our bed room, and she or he wasn’t even awake … And he or she would inform us later that she dreamt that they had been lined up and shot.

Larry Park: One night time … I used to be dreaming that I …. was falling down this gap and I used to be making an attempt to get out. … I began screaming for my mother. Mother got here in. … And all I might do was cry. And all she might do was maintain me. There was nothing extra that could possibly be completed.

THE KIDNAPPERS

Within the days following the youngsters escape, investigators searched the rock quarry and the van that had been their underground tomb hoping they’d discover clues that might cause them to the abductors.

Prosecutor Jill Klinge | Alameda County: They seemed to see who would have keys to the quarry. … As a way to have entry to bury this shifting container undetected, you would need to have entry.  Fred Woods had keys to that quarry.

Frederick Newhall Woods, 24, the son of the proprietor of the quarry, instantly turned an individual of curiosity.

Prosecutor Jill Klinge: …Then they seemed on the ledger, surveillance tapes and began to place all of it collectively at that time.

Safety guards instructed investigators that they had seen three younger males digging a big gap within the quarry months earlier than the kidnapping. One in all them they stated was Fred Woods.

And Woods had a document.  Two years earlier, he had been charged with grand theft auto. Arrested with him had been two of his pals – James Schoenfeld, Fred’s companion in a used automobile enterprise, and James’s youthful brother, Richard. All three had been from rich households who lived in San Francisco’s nicest suburbs. They escaped with a wonderful and probation. 

Prosecutor Jill Klinge: They’re younger. … They’re rich. I feel it added a part of fascination to the story as a result of it was so unlikely that three males similar to these would commit such an atrocious crime.

Investigators executed a warrant to go looking Fred Woods’ father’s property. 

RICHARD THRELKELD | CBS NEWS: For the final two days, the Woods property has seemed like an armed camp, dozens of officers in search of something.

What they discovered there was a treasure trove of proof.

Prosecutor Jill Klinge: We had been capable of get better one of many weapons that was used throughout this kidnapping.

Prosecutor Jill Klinge: This crime was deliberate out for a year-and-a-half in intricate element.

Prosecutor Jill Klinge: You even have a doc labeled “plan.”  And it units out … the way in which they had been going to commit the kidnapping after which they on the right-hand facet put … how they’d compensate or take care of what might go incorrect.

In addition they recovered a draft of a ransom notice.    

Prosecutor Jill Klinge: The draft of the ransom notice says $2.5 million, however if truth be told, they had been going to ask for $5 million from the State of California. 

However the kidnappers had been by no means capable of ship their demand.

Prosecutor Jill Klinge: They tried to name the Chowchilla Police Division. Due to the variety of calls that had been coming in worldwide … the cellphone traces had been jammed. They could not get by means of. So, they took a nap.  And by the point they wakened, they noticed on the information that the youngsters had been discovered. So, they had been by no means capable of request the ransom. 

RICHARD THRELKELD | CBS NEWS: And so the search is on nationwide for these three males …

Arrest warrants had been issued. Richard Schoenfeld turned himself in. Fred Woods and James Schoenfeld fled California, however not for lengthy.

HAROLD DOW | CBS NEWS: James Schoenfeld was captured at daybreak right now. Police say he ran laborious, all around the Western United States, however he didn’t run effectively. … Frederick Woods was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police this afternoon, simply throughout the Washington State border in Vancouver. 

Jodi Heffington: I bear in mind being bodily sick once I truly noticed them. … After that you simply form of did have a way of (takes a deep breath) … you possibly can breathe.  …They’re behind bars. 

So, what drove these younger males, seemingly effectively off, to kidnap younger youngsters for cash?  James Schoenfeld ultimately instructed police, regardless of their mother and father’ wealth, he and Fred Woods had been in severe debt.  

He would later inform the parole board: “We would have liked a number of victims to get a number of hundreds of thousands, and we picked youngsters as a result of youngsters are treasured. The state can be keen to pay ransom for them.  And so they do not struggle again.”

Sheriff Ed Bates: I feel that the 2 Schoenfelds did it simply on pure persuasion by Fred Woods. Fred Woods … in my very own private opinion, and I’ve a grasp’s diploma, I feel he was a sociopath. Some may name him a psychopath.  

With the overwhelming proof in opposition to them, Woods and the Schoenfelds pleaded responsible to 27 counts of kidnapping for ransom and theft. However they refused to plead responsible to the eight counts of bodily hurt. These expenses would ship them to jail for all times with out the opportunity of parole. So, 16 months after their abduction, Jennifer, Michael and among the different youngsters confronted the abductors in courtroom.

Jodi Heffington: You are on this little field … they usually’re there you, simply evident at you and staring you down.

They testified that along with the emotional trauma, that they had suffered bodily wounds like cuts and bruises.

Jodi Heffington: And I seemed over at them and I simply broke down. …That was the primary time I cried. … So, they allowed my father to come back sit by me and that made me really feel so much safer.

Jennifer Brown Hyde:  And the abductors had been sitting to my left at a desk. … I bear in mind giving my dad my gum as a result of I instructed him I used to be going to spit my gum at ’em. 

REPORTER AT COURTHOUSE: You say they’d provide you with this humorous look. What did that make you are feeling?

JENNIFER BROWN: Scared. 

Jennifer Brown Hyde: I did my testimony.  I answered my questions.  And I left that courtroom with my head held excessive. And there was no method that I used to be going to allow them to see me cry.

WALTER CRONKITE | CBS EVENING NEWS ANCHOR: A California choose right now imposed obligatory life jail sentences with out parole on these three younger males who kidnapped 26 Chowchilla college youngsters …

Joan Brown: Life in jail with out the opportunity of parole. That was all we wanted. That is what we wanted.

Jennifer Brown Hyde:  I bear in mind considering they will jail … they are not going to do that to anyone else. And that is all that I must know.

With the abductors sentenced to jail for the remainder of their lives, the survivors thought their nightmare was lastly over. Nevertheless it was simply starting.

THE SURVIVORS

Simply 5 weeks after being buried alive, the gutsy youngsters of Chowchilla and their bus driver Ed Ray had been hailed as heroes. There was even a visit to Disneyland.

Larry Park: And everybody thought that was nice as a result of the great recollections of Disneyland would overshadow the unhealthy recollections of the kidnapping.

It wasn’t that easy.

Jennifer Brown Hyde: In a method you attempt to be regular.  However … once you’ve gone by means of one thing that is so traumatic, it is laborious to return and be a standard child once more.

Jodi Heffington: Generally it is like life is an act.  You attempt to be good for everyone else so they do not fear, however they fear anyway, so … I counsel everyone else to not do it that method. 

The survivors struggled to maneuver ahead.  However simply 4 years after the kidnappings – a important turning level.

Prosecutor Jill Klinge: The abductors’ legal professionals appealed the discovering of bodily hurt. And the appellate courtroom overturned it. And whereas acknowledging the horrific nature of the crime, acknowledged that the accidents suffered didn’t rise to the extent of bodily hurt beneath the regulation. 

So, Fred Woods and the Schoenfeld brothers had been resentenced to life with the opportunity of parole.

Prosecutor Jill Klinge: They’d get a parole listening to each one or two years.

Larry Park: I felt like I had been betrayed by the justice system.

Simply six years after the kidnappings, the parade of parole hearings started.

Prosecutor Jill Klinge: Each time one of many kidnappers got here up for parole … it triggered all their fears and trauma …

The hearings passed off contained in the jail. 

Prosecutor Jill Klinge: They sit in the identical room, and it is not a big room, with the kidnapper.

Jodi Heffington: The primary time, I used to be terrified.

For all three kidnappers, there have been greater than 60 parole hearings to this point. Jodi Heffington went to just about all of them.

Jodi Heffington: It simply looks like each three years I am going. And I am going thrice, each time. … It is excruciating and the aftermath is — by no means good.

Jodi and the opposite survivors watched helplessly as Richard Schoenfeld was the primary to be granted parole in June 2012, 36 years after the kidnappings.  Three years later, James Schoenfeld was paroled, too.

Prosecutor Jill Klinge: So far as I do know, they haven’t been in any form of bother.

The identical couldn’t be stated for Fred Woods. He repeatedly broke jail guidelines. He was caught with pornography and cell telephones.

AUDIO FROM 2018 PAROLE HEARING:  Hiya. My title is Jodi Medrano. I used to be Jodi Heffington.

In 2018, “48 Hours” was at Fred Woods’ fifteenth parole listening to and recorded audio of Jodi’s testimony.

AUDIO FROM 2018 PAROLE HEARING | JODI HEFFINGTON MEDRANO: To hearken to him discuss his poor childhood … (sarcastically laughs) I do not know if I wish to snicker, cry, cuss him or what … As a result of the place did my childhood go?

Jodi Heffington: Like I instructed him, Mr. Woods – you are not a kidnapper, you are a thief.  You are a thief of lives.  Not simply the youngsters that had been within the bus.  However they stole our households’ lives, and what all of us had earlier than that.

After that listening to, Woods was once more denied parole.

It was 28 hours of terror that may all the time be with Michael, Jennifer, Jodi and Larry — all who’ve managed to search out methods to get on with residing.

Larry Park: Therapeutic continues in the event you permit it.

Larry Park, who spent his 20’s and 30’s abusing medicine, now owns a handyman enterprise and volunteers as a pastor at a neighborhood church.  His nightmares have lastly stopped.  And he’s sober.

Larry Park: I’ve 9 years sober.

His sobriety was motivated by an epiphany concerning the kidnappers.      

Larry Park: My resentment for them … was killing me. … One night time … I used to be laying in mattress … and I stated, “God assist me to forgive them.”

Larry met the lads, shook their fingers, and did forgive them.  Right here he’s…with Richard Schoenfeld.

Larry Park: It modified my life. … One thing washed over me. … And there was peace like I had by no means identified.  And I knew that day that I might be OK.

Jennifer Brown Hyde – a spouse, mom and government assistant – says it took her many years earlier than she might even sleep with no night-light.

Jennifer Brown Hyde: I’ve had household and church household … and associates which have piece by piece helped put me again collectively. … And I would like folks to know that that little lady that was kidnapped and buried alive has managed to dwell an exquisite life.

Michael Marshall had misplaced his method after the kidnapping.

Michael Marshall: I went to mattress at 18 drunk and hung over and blacked out. And wakened about 48, you already know, with a hangover, blurry.

He’s sober and has discovered happiness as father and a long-distance trucker. He tries not to consider these kidnappers.

Michael Marshall: What they put my mother and pa by means of is one thing I can not forgive.

Jodi Heffington by no means left the Chowchilla space. She opened her personal hair salon and raised a son, however she struggled to search out peace of thoughts.

Jodi Heffington: How that day affected me, has affected me on daily basis indirectly or one other. … I feel it made me not a great daughter, not a great sister, not a great aunt and particularly not a great mom.  And doubtless not a great good friend. … I attempt to be these issues, nevertheless it looks like it, um, it simply took one thing from me that I am unable to ever get again. And I am unable to tear it down — irrespective of how laborious I attempt to it doesn’t matter what I do. 

In January 2021, Jodi Heffington handed away. She was 55 years outdated.

Fourteen months after her loss of life, Fred Woods went earlier than the parole board for the 18th time. This time, he was granted parole.

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Produced by Chris Younger Ritzen and George Osterkamp. Gary Winter and Mead Stone are producer-editors. Jordan Kinsey and Hannah Vair are the affiliate producers. Joan Adelman is the editor. Nancy Kramer is the manager story editor. Judy Tygard is the manager producer.