Kidnapper in ’76 bus case may be freed
Chowchilla, Calif. -- — One of three men who helped kidnap a busload of Chowchilla schoolchildren more than 30 years ago has been deemed suitable for parole.
But a state parole official says 54-year-old Richard Schoenfeld won’t be released from a San Luis Obispo prison any time soon because Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could modify Thursday’s decision by a Board of Parole Hearings panel.
Schoenfeld, his brother James Schoenfeld and Frederick Newhall Woods are serving life sentences for the July 1976 crime.
The men commandeered a bus carrying 26 children near Chowchilla in the San Joaquin Valley, took them to a quarry near Livermore and placed them in a buried furniture van, planning to hold them for ransom. The hostages spent about 16 hours there before they escaped.
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