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SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A California man who was responsible for the biggest kidnapping in U.S. history involving 26 children and one adult is recommended for parole, according to reports.
Frederick Newhall Woods was one of three gunmen who hijacked a school bus occupied by 26 kids and their driver in Chowchilla, California, in 1976.
The demented perpetrators transferred the youngsters and the driver to vans and transported them 12 hours before they were buried alive in an underground truck trailer, CBS News reported.
Woods had been denied parole 17 times during his decades-long incarceration. However, he was recommended for supervised release by a panel of two commissioners during his 18th attempt this year.
Next, the full parole board, the board’s legal division as well as Gov. Gavin Newsom need to approve the recommendation, Fox News reported.
This seems plausible given the current political environment. Moreover, Woods’ co-conspirators have already been released on parole.
Despite coming from wealthy families, Woods and the two other kidnappers, James and Richard Schoenfeld, sought $5 million in ransom during the mass-kidnapping. However, the driver, Ed Ray, and some older children managed to dig out of captivity and successfully escaped while their captors slept.
Although the children and driver did not suffer any life-threatening injuries, the psychological trauma after being held in captivity was enormous.
“I’m 50 years old, and I can have an anxiety attack over getting in the car with my husband,” survivor Jennifer Brown Hyde told Claudia Cowan, host of “Nightmare in Chowchilla,” earlier this year, Fox reported.
Following their arrest about two weeks after the kidnapping, the co-conspirators all pleaded guilty. Woods and the two other men were initially sentenced to life without parole.
Nevertheless, a court of appeals later overturned the decision and made the inmates eligible for parole.
On Friday, Woods read an apology for the mass kidnappings.
Richard Schoenfeld was paroled in 2012 and James Schoenfeld in 2015.
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Source: www.lawofficer.com