THE CHOWCHILLA SCHOOL BUS KIDNAPPING

you are such a genuine Jim thank you for clicking on my video I'm Brooke McKenna but today's case is the Chowchilla School Bus kidnapping now this was a disappearance like none other and a deep dive into what the victims would go through but the most infuriating of all was that most people during this time did not want to acknowledge the psychological damage that victims could go through by the way if you're new to my channel I post content like this all the time it's my absolute passion to tell these victims stories and I mean no harm when I do so whatsoever and if that's something that you would like to support me in doing all you have to do is subscribe down below give this video a thumbs up and comment something nice down below I'm so thankful for today's sponsor which is June's journey which is the hidden object mystery game an app on your iPhone or even for Android as well and I thought that this was the perfect app for anyone who loves my channel because not only are you going into these different crime scene scenarios and looking for clues you are also in a very vintage time period it's in the 1920s and everything is so beautiful and elegant in this game you are the brilliant and independent june parker who was actually taking it upon herself to solve her sister's murder now the fun thing is you can do this in your bed and just while you relax or if you were sick like I have been for the past week it's basically all I could do was just hang out on my phone because I couldn't move any other parts of my body but my fingers and I still got to do what I love it also doubles as a memory game because you're constantly having to remember where things are to pass to the next level and you can also decorate your little estate and its little vintage aesthetic I seriously love this and I was so happy when they reached out to me and I will have a link in my description if you want to play as well again it is free and all the link does is show that you guys wanted to play the app because of me and thank you to tunes journey for sponsoring this portion of the video and now let's get back to the story so it was 1976 in California and Chowchilla which was a quiet kind of farm town they weren't necessarily the most wealthy individuals but they worked hard they worked with themselves and there was tons of families so no one expected a horrendous event to occur but on Thursday July 15th Dairyland elementary school was having their summer school program and this actually wasn't for people who didn't show up to school or had bad grades this was actually for the children who wanted to continue going to school and wanted something to do outside of their home because there wasn't a ton of places to go in this town is very small so the community decided they would run a summer school program where during the first half the school the children would learn as normal but the second half in the afternoon they would actually get to do a fun activity sometimes cost trips just something where they actually got to have a summer break and fun as well the whole community figured that this was the best way to keep children out of trouble and also get them to learn more and enjoy it that learning so when it came around where it was time for school again they wouldn't be as you know disappointed and sad because they had just continued to learn throughout the summer and it was actually a huge hit in the community everybody loved it and in fact they had actually started a petition to continue it through the rest of summer it was supposed to stop July 16th but the children put together a petition and the teachers and the bus drivers all signed as saying that they would love to continue working if the kids wanted to continue going Frank Edward Bray who went by edged most adults and mr. right to the kids was a 56 year old bus driver and he was one who did sign the petition as well and he was also a farmer in the area he had grown up in Chowchilla he knew everybody basically and some of the people the children he was driving around were actually grandchildren of classmate's he had gone to school with he loved his job he loved the children he loved the entire community and technically he had worked there for about thirty years and could have retired but he decided that wasn't for him he wanted to continue doing it to seeing the kids and that was just part of his personality was wanting to be helpful wanting to be around people and so it was something he looked forward to doing every day and on July 15th his job was to head to the Chowchilla fairgrounds it was swimming pool at 3:45 to pick up the children because of course the afternoon they got to do something fun and that day it was to swim so he knew that he was going to pick them up at 3:45 from their class trip now most of these students ranged from anywhere from almost 5 to 14 there weren't ton of teens but there were a few that would go on and off and they would all hop aboard this big yellow bus amid the very hot summer day and head down the road that had fruit trees all along both sides to their homes Ed's bus actually had four stops and he was always there on time never tardy and basically the perfect bus driver parents knew that they could count on him to keep their children safe now Ed's bus was the last to leave the swimming pool that day and he would head on to his first stop everything would go well drop off the kids the same with the next two stop so he just had one more to go before the stop did not occur and there were 26 students still on board along with Ray and nobody knew what happened to them the parents were trying to keep calm you know a few minutes late is fine that happens sometimes but when it gets to closer to 30 minutes parents began to panic and they all kind of rushed outside to look down the street both ways to see if they could see any sign of a bus coming and none of them could it was now 4:15 and the parents would start calling this school and they would get the superintendent and they would start to say you know the bus has shut up - you know of any delays why hasn't Edward dropped off her children where are they and the superintendent hadn't heard anything and he was confused and he kind of said oh well you know they dropped them off at the first three stops so I'm sure Edward just broke down somewhere in between and we should hear news about it soon however they were not hearing news and then parent started calling the bus barn and saying have you heard anything do you know if Edward has broken down and nobody knew anything and of course this would make the parents completely frantic they would head up to the school themselves to question of the superintendent and by 7:00 p.m. a full-blown search was happening there were patrol cars everywhere who were driving and down the bus route to see if he had broken down anywhere on the bus route he was supposed to go on but the problem was they couldn't find Edward or his bus anywhere on that route which was completely concerning because he wasn't supposed to leave there without dropping off the kids now the parents were bombarding at the school asking different questions demanding to know where their children were because of course the third stop everyone had gotten they're fine so what had happened in the short span of time between the third and the fourth stop what had happened to these 26 children and at first when this bus couldn't be found people actually started to blame the bus driver Edie saying that he had something to do with it that he took these kids he knew where they were and he was a bad man his wife Odessa who had been married to him for years and years and years that that cannot be true at all Edie is the best man that she knew and she knew that he loved kids so much he would do nothing to harm them but nobody else had any theories or answers this bus had just vanished and that's when the FBI was called in to assist the police department in finding this bus and by 8:00 p.m. a new search was happening where there were actually helicopters above the area surveying it to see you know more more widely than just a police car could and that is when they would find this bus it was in a shallow branch of the Chowchilla river but it was actually dry and the bus had kind of been pulled in there as well as covered with different debris to kind of camouflage it a bit but the police immediately sped there after hearing that the helicopter had found it in this area and when they got there they dug through the debris to look inside this bus and then they would find nothing there was a no sign of life inside nobody was there yanking open the door and barging inside they found no evidence of these children or edy but on a brighter note they actually didn't find any sort of blood or evidence that there was a struggle so it meant that nobody had been harmed on the bus except they didn't know where they had taken them or where they had gone around the area they found some swimsuits some books towels and cotton swabs which probably would have been from the children that's what they assumed but the most important evidence they found retired tracks they were over the buses tire tracks and they appeared to be from a van so now they were speculating that possibly a van had come and whoever was inside came and took these children now there was actually no footprints found her on this area you know even though you could see the tire tracks on the ground you couldn't see any footprints so they were kind of theorizing that whoever was in this van had placed them from the bus into the van without actually stepping on the ground making it so none of them did either and this was thought to be a kidnapping and in fact a mass abduction and the biggest at this time the parents biggest fear was coming true their children had been kidnapped they had no idea where they were if they were okay and when people weren't looking at Edward as being a suspect they were looking and even more terrifying up and that was the Zodiac killer because you see in 1969 seven years prior to this kidnapping the Zodiac killer had written a note as he loved to do and he'd said this is the zodiac speaking I am the murderer of the taxi driver over by Washington Street and Maple Street last night to prove this here's a blood-stained piece of his shirt and the same man who did in the people in the north bay area the San Francisco police could have caught me last night if they had searched the park properly instead of holding Road races with her motorcycles seeing who could make the most noise the car driver should have just parked their cars and sat there quietly waiting for me to come out of cover school children make nice targets I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning just shoot out the front tire and then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out now of course we all know the Zodiac killer was never caught and the investigators were said to kid his last letter two years prior to this kidnapping so it was believed it was possible this could have been the zodiac because the other option of a possible ransom being involved in this kidnapping didn't make much sense I said that the whole Chacho that area was a very rural and it had a whole bunch of families who were farmers who didn't have a ton of money and so to randomly pick this 20 26 children that didn't have wealthy parents didn't make sense it was said that these people Churchill were all very common everyday people who didn't wear ties there were blue jeans nice shirts and they were super hard-working but they didn't have that kind of money so was it some sort of darker motive possibly a serial killer who was targeting children well the superintendent mr. Tatum believed that it was more of a life for a life kind of deal but it wasn't really no one really knew who could have done this or why they would have done this and so his search continued with dogs horses helicopters FBI agents all of the police and also volunteers Chowchilla had about 5,000 resident the time and nearly all of them were out and about doing something to help because this was really affecting so many in the community I mean 27 families 26 children and Edie all of their families were suffering and wanting to know answer so this was something that was affecting so many people and they were finding that the tire tracks were from vans and more specifically kind of I'm not even sure with her call but we kind of called them where I'm from creeper vans because they're used in a lot of kidnappings unfortunately but witnesses had come forward saying that the day that the children were abducted in Chowchilla they had seen two of these vans kind of lurking about and they knew from this area that most the time these vans weren't around and so some of the residents were actually put on watch and given a police radio and were to call in any time they saw the vans around just in case investigators were also watching the Bank of America in Chowchilla because that is the one that Edward and his wife would go to and they were still suspicious that it had something to do with it so they were watching it to make sure that nothing happened that you know no ransom demands were made or if they were it wasn't going to the certain bank and they also started to believe that a book called the day the children who vanished was possibly inspiration that was because this book was about a busload of children who were abducted but this was only as a ruse for a gang to be able to go into the town and rob a bank because everybody was out searching for the kids nobody was actually watching this Bank and so they got a ton of money but this resulted in both events in Chowchilla being monitored at this point there was little to go on there was no ransom made from kidnappers which they didn't think made sense anyway but they were hoping because that would mean that they could possibly get the children back and this is when authorities released a statement saying about a hundred and seventy five pupils from kindergarten through eighth grade were picked up for school shortly before the summer session began at 8:45 a.m. after a morning of academic oriented classes arithmetic history and so fourth the pupils as usual spent the afternoon in a variety of recreational pursuits including assuming outing for some school ended at 3:45 p.m. and the bus driven by mr. ray left the Dairyland school which is in a sparsely settled farming area 12 miles west of here the bus made three stops to drop off children and continued on about 4:15 p.m. for unknown reasons it went off its normal route instead of turning right at the intersection leading to the fourth stop it apparently continued west toward what is called the verandah it was in that place that the bus was found at about 7 p.m. after parents began calling the school inquiring about their children now sheriff Bates who was working on the case said I guess I'm a fundamentalist on this but I can't help but think anybody who would do this who would take boys and girls and kidnap them whatever their motive can help but be a psychotic whether it is political whether it is self-serving whether it's personal I can't help but think it's psychotic now because of their age a lot of the victims names were not released to the public however if you would be and the oldest on the bus would be 14 year old Michael Marshall now according to once upon a crime a podcast he was not normally on this bus in fact his mom would normally pick him up after the academic oriented studies and this was about at noon every day so he didn't go on to do the fun stuff he would just get to go home and on July 15th his mother actually said he was going to stay the whole day and ride the bus home this is because he was in trouble you see the day prior he had gotten home at 12 p.m. his mom had to go back to work and when she arrived back home Michael and his friend dougie were actually drunk they had gotten bored and they decided to drink some beer and his mom was furious saying that if he had so much free time and that he was not going to do great things with it he would need to stay at the school program so that's what he did and he in fact almost missed the bus he was kind of he was angry because he would normally take the time between you know school and the end of the day to go and practice rodeo riding because his father was a professional he of course wanted to follow following his father's footsteps but he made a mistake the day previous and he was not being able to do that because it would already be dark by the time he would get home but now he was missing and the youngest on the bus was a four year old named Monica artery and she was the sweetest most innocent little thing she was now missing as well there was 19 girls and seven boys total but it included 11 year-old Jeff Brown and his 9 year old sister as well as 10 year old Robert Gonzalez and his younger brother there was also Judy Reynolds who was 13 and her 9 year old sister Rebecca Linda carajo and her three sisters were also missing as well as Larry Park Jennifer Hyde Barbara Parker Jodie Medrano Angie Robinson and 10 year old darlin Neil and 7 year old sherry Hensley now Sherry's mother and father stayed at the police station in this entire time and Sherry's mother would actually say it's a group of people who either want money or publicity or both and they'll get it look at all the reporters that are here they're going to get all the attention they want which was true phones were ringing off the hooks media reporters were everywhere trying to get statements but nobody had information as to where these children were and it was just causing more chaos to an investigation that wasn't going anywhere and was truly breaking so many hearts of parents and everyone in the community who didn't understand why this was happening they waited hours and hours they stayed up through the night and this would actually pay off because at 4:00 a.m. on Friday the 16th the police department would get a call this was from a hundred miles away and Livermore on a rock quarry and this caller said that he had a busload of children and their bus driver and they were all completely okay it was at all 27 of them were mentally and physically exhausted but they were okay they had survived they were immediately taken to the FBI and they were given of course comfort foods drinks they were just made sure that they were okay they were given medical treatment if they needed it but then they were questioned about what had happened to them and at this point when they were done with that they would send the children back home on a bus to Chowchilla to be with her parents once again now I just have to intervene right here because when I read that they had send them back on a bus that completely blows my mind these children were just traumatized from being on a bus and you put them back on a bus I mean yeah I may have taken more gas to send out cars but I think to spare them that trauma and reliving that memory so soon they should have thought about that but this actually goes into what we're going to be talking about at the end of this video and how little was known about mental health and how much trauma can affect us as a person and affect our lives which we'll get into later especially in how it affects children so what really happened to these children and Edie well they had said that about 4:15 p.m. they were headed to the fourth stop however there was a white van that was kind of parked in the middle of this road and it was a very narrow gravel road that was Avenue 21 and they couldn't really get past it if there was a car in the middle of the road this van had his hood up and Edward kind of slowed down as to not hit the car but also to make sure they were okay like I said he was a very caring guy it was a very small community and everybody would help each other so he was going to stop if they needed help and help them however as soon as he slowed down three men would get out of this van loading guns they were white men with hoes on their faces and they would demand to get on the bus and force edy back to the back of the bus with a gun and demanded the children I'll be quiet they were shoving guns and their faces they were screaming at them and that has been they began to drive down the road and the bus with one of the men going back to the white van and following behind the youngest girl Monica would actually asked one of the men if he was the Easter Bunny because his pantyhose of course the legs of the pantyhose were draped on each side of his head that looked like ears and the men just kind of screamed at her and after this she would not let go of edge she clung to him for safety for help and she was so terrified she was only four almost five at this time they were driven through thickets of bamboo and rough roads they were being thrust back and forth along the seats and that is when they would get to the shallow branch of this river and they were forced off the bus through the back into the back of this white van and also the back of another van there was already at this scene and one van had Edward in it with a whole bunch of other children far too many to actually fit in this van and the other would have Michael the oldest boy and a whole bunch of children as well they were just thrown in there on top of each other like a luggage there were no seats there was nothing to make them comfortable not only was it so hot being in the back of a vehicle with no source of air and it being about a hundred degrees outside but there was also painted windows they couldn't see what was happening outside there was also no food and water and they would be driving for 11 hours some of the kids had motion sickness and we're throwing up everywhere or just from the heat others were going to the bathroom and their own pants because they couldn't hold it anymore there were just children the older children started singing to the younger children who were profusely crying and begging to go home they started singing songs like love will keep us together and if you're happy and you know and they were just trying their best to console his children going through what they were going through as well which i think is the biggest form of bravery is helping someone when you are also suffering as well 11 hours of driving later the fans would stop and the door would open except they would be plucked out one by one and the doors would be shut sending the rest of them back into darkness the people who were on the outside were not anymore lucky they were forced to tell these men in pantyhose their address their name their phone number and to give them a piece of clothing after this they would be told to get down inside what looked like a hole from a ladder and it was pitch dark inside the only light they had was a tiny flashlight that ad was given now Linda one of the children said that it looked like they were being buried into the earth like it was a tomb like it was a coffin and they were all terrified but some of the kids you know they fought it they they wanted to go home and without even knowing they were fighting in these men and that's when they would have a gun pointed at them and they would have no other choice but to do what they were told once the last child was down everybody was inside this hole the ladder was immediately pulled up so they couldn't get the the hole was then covered with dirt and some other things and all of the light would have vanished leaving them in the dark now the inside was terrifying to say the least the walls around them almost look like they were caving in they had wooden beams holding them up it was dirt falling from the ceiling like it could cave in at any moment and there was a very little to survive on inside this coffin like whole there were dirty mattresses stacked along the wall there were also containers of water as well as cereal peanut butter and bread and yes that's all wonderful that they had food but this was only enough that would last that many people one meal there was also a makeshift toilet which was just a hole in the box there was also aired boobs that were letting in a faint breeze from a small fan but it was battery-operated and those batteries was Olli die and it would get harder to breathe now the little girl I told you about Linda she promised God that if she survived if they all survived she would be the best little girl in the world for the rest of her life slowly everyone began to give up they were tired they were sweating they were thirsty they were hungry and they were terrified but edy and the oldest boy Michael decided they were not going to give up and die without trying and without doing their best to get out and that is when they began to stack mattresses below where they knew they had it come in from and it was actually tall enough where they could reach the top the only problem was it was incredibly hard to open it up there was some sort of steel that was keeping them from going up and so they had actually taken a wooden beam it was holding up one of the walls which they knew was incredibly risky because it could collapse the entire thing but they knew they needed to risk it to get out and so they got this beam they pried off this steel sheet and that is when they realized that they couldn't actually get out because whatever was above them was being held down by a tractor batteries which were extremely heavy to the point where they had to inch them off to get any sort of movement on the lid and Michael Jeff and Robert Alward tirelessly to move these and they would continue to pour water over themselves to keep heat exhaustion from happening and just basically ruining the whole thing because they weren't going to be able to work anymore so they were trying so hard to take turns and to keep it going and eventually they would actually move these and a steel plate would move and that is when they would move the dirt and see a little bit of light from there they sent a small super brave boy up to see if the coast was clear because nobody else could fit just yet and this boy actually went up and peeked out to see if anybody was nearby and when he came down they all knew they were gonna be ok because he had said the coast was clear so one by one the older boys headed up and stayed down below and picked up every little child to push them out they were climbing on each other's shoulders and then Edie crawled out himself and they all began to run exhausted they kept pushing forward trying to find someone to help them they knew that if they stayed in that area the abductors could come back and that is when they found this small building which was actually a guard building because they were buried on a you know construction type site and so it was a guard watching this area and at 4 a.m. they happened upon this guard who before they even said anything said the world's been looking for you he knew exactly who they were and he called the police now that they knew that everybody was safe they needed to figure out who had done this and put 27 people through this and that is when it they traced their steps back from the guard station to where they were buried and they found that it was actually the back of a moving van that had been basically buried into this dirt hole with a makeshift opening at the top and the children had been lowered inside they began to look into anyone who had access to this quarry and why they would have you know wanted to do this if they had a motive and that is when they came across the owner's son he was a 24 year old Frederick Nihal Woods the 4th and he and two of his friends had previously been arrested for grand theft auto and had been released on probation these two friends were 24-year old James Schoenfeld and 22 year-old Richard Schoenfeld who was his brother now investigators immediately wanted to talk to Fredrik but they found that he was missing he still lives at home with his wealthy family so they got a search warrant for his home including his room where they found pretty incriminating evidence there was a pretty detailed plan of this kidnapping as well as a five million dollar ransom note that was pretty much looked like a draft and one of the guns that was used was there as well now the moving van had also been purchased in Fredrik woods name they hadn't covered themselves up very well thankfully but these three boys were all from very wealthy families of course James and Richard four brothers but Frederick was also from a wealthy family his father owned many businesses in the area and his Schoenfeld brothers father was a podiatrist so a doctor these boys who were all in their 20s had never been forced to do anything much less do something with their life they were all spoiled and they didn't really know how to work that hard but being in their 20s their parents had basically told him that they needed to start making money doing something with their life and do something good for the family name now Frederick had always been the tempered one of the group he would get angry and he didn't really get along well with anyone but these brothers pictures of these men would be put into newspapers as wanted men to be looked out for however eight days later on July 23rd one of these men would walk into the police station willingly that was the youngest brother Richard now he had actually returned home confessed to his parents who was willing to confess to police he also told police that Frederick and James had gone separate ways he said what they looked like you know what kind of guns they could be carrying exactly how it all happened they would go on a nation-wide man hunt for these men and on July 17th a tip would be called in from a man saying he saw a man that looked like James at a beach and this was in Washington and they arrived and they captured James he said he was going to turn himself in but who knows if that was true however not too long after Frederic would be captured as well in Vancouver Canada it had been found that James had tried to go into Canada as well but had actually been turned away because he was staying he was saying that he was staying with a friend in Canada to wait for the Olympics however he didn't have enough cash to pay that long and they thought that that was suspicious so they turned him away and so he went and got more money his second time he went they searched his car and found a gun so he was once again turned away and he was going to try again later however Frederick had gotten through pretty easily to Canada he had checked into a hotel under an alias but that is where you would actually write a note back to a friend in California saying where he was and that he was ok this friend would turn him in to the FBI after questioning the investigators found that these men really loved crime movies and especially the 1971 movie Dirty Harry which involved a killer hijacking a school bus now ultimately they wanted to make their own movie together and they were working towards that however they slowly started to mesh fiction and reality and they decided they were going to create the perfect crime this would go way too far and that coupled with the boys needs for money so they thought I mean James was so ended' because he had spent so much trying to live a lavish lifestyle trying to impress people he spent on fancy cars and he was being cut off he was in debt and the other boys needed money too and so it was said that after this they decided they couldn't commit the perfect crime and get a huge ransom I mean if just one kid got a bunch of money a whole busload ton more that was their thinking they knew that the parents wouldn't be able to give them that kind of money but Ronald Reagan had just announced a surplus of money from California's Education Department and they wanted that money so they believed that going after school bus could get them it December of 1975 the year prior Frederick had bought this van and they started burying it and hatching the entire plan but by July 15th of 1976 they were on their second attempt at the kidnapping to see the day prior they'd actually tried but failed they'd missed the bus so they had to try the 15th but unfortunately this time they would be successful they were going to ask for five million dollars then after they got the money they were going to send the location they weren't gonna harm anybody or so they said the only problem was that because the phone lines at the police department were so backed up they couldn't get through to make the ransom demand so they began to start writing a letter they were going to send they fell asleep while writing this because they had drove the whole night previous to this to the location to store all of these children in bed and when they woke up the next morning it was actually to news that their victims had freed themselves and they were going to get none of that money now this completely baffled them especially Frederick he got really angry he knew that they had thought of everything yet even bought an x-ray machine to make sure that none of the money had tracking devices in it he also had someone make him a leadbox that way if any dye packs were in there they wouldn't go off he had really thought this all the way through but now the children and Edie were safe and their abductors were in handcuffs they would plead guilty for kidnapping for ransom and robbery but not for infliction of bodily harm and this is what would be argued about most in the case whether these children were harmed now the prosecution said that physical and mental trauma was bodily harm however the defense said that it wasn't and all three men were actually found guilty on all counts including bodily harm which meant that they were given life without parole however this was overturned in 1981 because it was said that bodily harm wasn't scratches and bruises which was all the kids had physically they didn't want to incorporate mental trauma and the psychological damage that was done to this children and so it was actually overturned and the men went from life without parole to life with the possibility of parole and many were completely baffled at this they were angry because especially the parents of these children knew how different they were after that happened I mean they were no longer the same innocent children they would have nightmares they were paranoid they were claustrophobic they were filled with fear but at this time and even sometimes still today nobody cared about that side of it they weren't harmed physically so they were fine now 20 years after the abduction in 1996 the three abductors were actually interviewed James the older brother would say I'm very sorry deeply sorry for what I've done Richard said he was immature that he was the follower and he made an extremely stupid decision he was the one that actually turned himself in but Frederic said it was just a lot of pain and suffering that we put everyone through that we didn't realize we were doing at the time but now I just hope that everyone is going on with their lives everyone can be somewhat back to normal now to me all of these sound extremely scripted but it was an apology if the victims needed that 36 years after the abduction and 2012 Richard the youngest brother would be released on good behavior and moved in with his mother now three years later after that his brother James would also be released and would have a degree in architecture Richard however would not be released because he was not a model prisoner and in fact he was found to be running several businesses outside of prison without telling anybody he was also smuggling in cellphones which had sexually explicit photos of children on it he was said to be the mastermind in all of this and he really was showing that he had a different state of mind than most people he also purchased a mansion 30 minutes away from the jail but had never been able to even see it he was also married three times behind bars and he has since told investigators that during this whole kidnapping scheme he had actually rented a warehouse in San Jose where they were going to store the money once the children got back to their families and it was a little more normal again a Lions Club in their town actually it sent them all to Disneyland it was like a paid vacation which is such a wonderful thing that they didn't have to do they also put money into as a retirement fund to just kind of let them know if the community was supporting them and behind them and wanted them to be okay in 2016 the children who has survived this abduction had actually suddenly lost suit against their kidnappers and it's not said how much money they got but it was said that it was enough to get some serious therapy but not enough to buy a house and a 2019 a frederick was up for a new parole hearing however he was denied because he said he never really hurt anyone and that he didn't hear them crying you don't want to take any responsibility and he said that if they were saying that that was the case they were remembering it wrong so his next hearing was set for 2020 for now the heroic bus driver Edward ray had passed at 91 in 2012 but he went to his grave as a known hero he'd even received an award for outstanding community service and on his deathbed the children from this abduction all came in to say goodbye and tell him how much they appreciated him and that he will forever be their hero they also said that just his presence still makes them feel safe every February 26th and Chowchilla is Ashley Edward ray and Children's Day where they celebrate them and what they went through was most heartbreaking to me about this case is the psychological damage that these children went through that was just dismissed at trial I mean although we know PTSD wasn't really known at this time and I think it was like 1980 when it was you know kind of established that this was a thing however they had to know that children being buried alive would have some repercussions some lingering fears that a bare minimum and I mean harm done to your brain is in my opinion equally as harmful as harm done to your other parts of your body I mean just because it's inside and something psychological it doesn't mean it's any different than you know being tortured physically I mean this case we're having panic attacks they had complete personality changes and many of them would actually go on to struggle with addiction and drug abuse and this was just how they decided to cope with what had happened to them not that it was a good choice but they felt that it was the only one at the time many have suffered from depression and surprisingly have gone to jail some of them for doing something controlling to somebody else which I think it can be brought back to the fact that when they were younger they had zero control they were it was even worse because you know Edward could fight but the children especially the younger ones probably felt helpless like there was nothing they could do now how they were affected as adults could go back to how the trauma affected them as children I mean of course it is but I wanted to talk to you about something called the omen formation that can happen in children who have been through traumatic situations and this is actually a term I heard on a mug shot podcast and had no idea so I went into researching it and it's quite interesting actually it's most often found in children with PTSD so it's a belief that there was warning signs that happened before a tragic event that were either you know not seen or not listened to lions were trying to protect them but ultimately didn't see them at the time so you know how we said that Michael almost missed the bus he could look back and say that he almost missed the bus because he wasn't supposed to be on it and if he had just realized that saw it as a sign he would have been free this trauma which can create a lot of heightened awareness hyper vigilance and children moving forward after a traumatic event because they can think if I missed a warning sign before I need to be more aware of them now so every little thing to them is a warning sign and they can no longer live their lives like normal I mean in a way it helps them avoid danger and it's a way of protecting them from any more psychological damage however living like this is not okay especially for a child and you are constantly living looking over your shoulder and making sure that everything you are doing has no possible repercussions involved I mean a lot of children who go through this kind of stuff can have a ton of separation anxiety we're super young children can feel that they can't leave the side of their loved ones or the ones they feel they're safe with the safest with because something will happen if they do they also avoid many situations even if it has nothing to do with your trigger you know it's not just getting on buses it's going anywhere can be a task because they don't know what is going to trigger them and it could lead to a warning sign it could lead to a traumatic event you know for older and younger children they often exhibit post traumatic play where they will without even knowing it be kind of reenacting what had happened that day through you know toys or an imaginative play but while doing so they can actually kind of organize their memories wrong and this is called time skew and this is where a traumatized person can remember their memories in the wrong sequence the wrong order and cannot really know who was with them what had happened they just have a lapse of memory as far as that area but they still want to relive it now this can be done you know that the traumatic play where you're reliving it can be done well with a therapist who is helping you work through it however a lot of these children aren't being helped to work through it so they're just reliving the situation over and over again so you see yes it's a wonderful wonderful miracle that they all survived however it's not just as simple as that and they had some serious repercussions and drama and just heartbreak that they had to go through innocence lost and Lynda carajo has since really become a spokesperson for all of them I heard a lot of interviews from her I mean she had said it eases as they get older but as I had children it got harder as they got older it's gotten easier but it doesn't ever leave you it's just a matter of how well you hope you cope with circumstances that you were put into but she says that every parole hearing for these men has been like reliving the situation and the fact that you know they are now out as just as traumatizing knowing that the person who harmed her is free and walking this earth she said they were promises kids that they would be safe that these men were locked away but now that's not the truth one of these children named Larry Park lived his life in fear he he just hated those men and he hated life and he really became addicted to a whole bunch of different substances but he finally decided to let the hatred go and he actually met with Richard the youngest brother and just decided that he wanted to forgive him for what he had done and Larry said that this was the best thing he could ever do for himself which is wonderful but some victims aren't ready for that kind of forgiveness some victims never will be some don't want to do that and that's completely okay I think everyone deals with it differently but in the end I want everyone to know anyone out there and these children any of you watching if you've been through something traumatic you are so much stronger than the person who put you through it from anybody who looks down on you for struggling you're so much stronger because you were fighting you survived and you live every day with a strong part with a strong mind with a strong body but just remember to find those people that will be strong for you to give you a chance to be weak and to relax and to know that it's not your job to constantly fight every single day it's your job to live survival stories are my absolute favorite to talk about and I just I have such an appreciation for people who have been through trauma and who continue to be good people in spite of that I think people can use trauma as an excuse to be a horrible person and we see that in multiple serial killers you don't have to you can use it as a reason to make sure that it doesn't happen to more people or to empower people that it does happen to and that's what I hope to do with these videos and I continue to want to tell a survivor stories as well like this one because I think that they're just as important to remind us that even those who are alive still need our support and love from all of us don't ever forget to speak up your voice is powerful enough and I love you to absolute pieces okay [Music]

Channel: Brooke Makenna

Views: 476,249

Keywords: Chowchilla school bus case, true crime, solved, solved true crime, solved kidnapping, what happened to, where is, abduction cases solved, disappearances solved, missing persons, solved disappearance, missing, vanished, Chowchilla, Chowchilla kidnapping, Chowchilla kidnapping documentary, crime documentary, chowchilla kidnapping 48 hours, kidnapping documentary, Frederick Woods, James Schoenfeld, Richard Schoenfeld, crime cases, true crime youtubers

Id: cs7CLMdM_6o

Length: 49min 39sec (2979 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 30 2020