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Transcript

00:00:00 [Sound Effects]

00:00:06 [Music]

00:00:18 At the present time we know that there are 27 people missing since about 4.15 yesterday afternoon.

00:00:24 [Music]

00:00:26 Still no break in that Chowchilla, California school bus kidnapping.

00:00:30 26 school children and their bus driver have vanished.

00:00:34 Vanished yesterday afternoon near Chowchilla, California.

00:00:38 [Music]

00:00:40 President Ford directed the Attorney General to use all available government resources.

00:00:44 The California National Guard joined state, local police and the FBI in a giant search for the children and the driver.

00:00:51 It was like somebody come down from Mars and just took them up off the planet.

00:00:57 Was it an outright kidnapping? A psychopath or a sex maniac on the loose?

00:01:01 [Beep]

00:01:02 Whoever did it put a great deal of planning and effort and you might even say money.

00:01:06 There may never have been as anguishing a mystery.

00:01:09 It's the worst kind of story you could tell.

00:01:12 Being buried alive is our worst fear.

00:01:15 The Chowchilla kids showed the world what childhood trauma really does to a person.

00:01:21 My childhood ended July 15, 1976.

00:01:25 I will never get back the kid that I was.

00:01:29 That kid stayed underground.

00:01:31 That happened for each and every one of us.

00:01:34 [Music]

00:01:36 [Glass breaking]

00:01:37 [Music]

00:01:45 Chowchilla is in Central California.

00:01:49 It was very small town USA.

00:01:52 [Music]

00:01:55 Chowchilla is a place where time can seem to stand still,

00:01:58 but there's always something that needs to be planted or harvested as the cycle of life continues.

00:02:03 By the time I was there in 1970, it was mainly cattle and farming.

00:02:09 They had a fair and a rodeo.

00:02:11 1246.

00:02:13 Each year they had a cattle drive.

00:02:16 [Music]

00:02:19 Right through the center of town.

00:02:21 [Music]

00:02:23 My dad was a world champion steer wrestler.

00:02:27 [Music]

00:02:29 I was raised, right, really to believe in God and cowboy.

00:02:37 At an early age, I knew I wanted to be a rodeo cowboy like my dad and his friends.

00:02:44 Chowchilla was a wonderful place to grow up.

00:02:47 We'd catch frogs.

00:02:49 We'd go roller skating down the hills.

00:02:52 Go play in the mud, in the irrigation ditches.

00:02:55 The town had no crime.

00:02:57 No crime at all.

00:02:59 You didn't have murders.

00:03:01 You didn't have a lot of big cases.

00:03:03 It wasn't uncommon to go all night long on a graveyard shift and the phone not ring one time.

00:03:08 In Chowchilla, the children could develop a sense of basic trust,

00:03:13 and that is an important foundation in early life.

00:03:16 That sense that you can just sort of trust the world.

00:03:20 [Music]

00:03:23 It was one of the few towns in America that had fewer bars than it had churches.

00:03:29 [Laughter]

00:03:30 As a child, God was very real to me.

00:03:34 By the power of our living God.

00:03:38 We had angels, demons.

00:03:41 I could imagine Satan's army.

00:03:44 My dad said that we all have a guardian angel that keeps those demons at bay.

00:03:51 He would print that on a three-year-old's brain, and there's just no doubt.

00:03:58 At the time, we were in summer school.

00:04:00 We did arts and crafts, ceramics.

00:04:02 We got to go swimming.

00:04:06 I remember we had actually started a petition so that we could have an extra two weeks of summer school

00:04:11 because we were having so much fun.

00:04:13 We did not want it to end.

00:04:15 I have a large family.

00:04:17 I am third youngest in a family of 11.

00:04:21 That day, I had three siblings on the bus and two cousins.

00:04:26 We were little innocent children.

00:04:28 [Music]

00:04:43 Okay, load up.

00:04:44 Mama, where are we going?

00:04:47 I don't know. Take your horse.

00:04:49 Ed Ray was the driver that day.

00:04:51 He was a local farmer.

00:04:53 You could tell this man was bucking his own hay, yet he was so kind.

00:05:00 He knew all the kids by first name.

00:05:02 Knew most of their parents.

00:05:04 There's not one of them that didn't want to hug his back when they got on the bus.

00:05:08 I remember Mom would come get me every day at noon all summer.

00:05:12 And the day before the kidnapping, I got into my mom's beer

00:05:18 and tried to make some popcorn and almost burnt the house.

00:05:23 She walked in and said, "Okay, Mike, well, your punishment is you're going to have to ride the bus home tomorrow."

00:05:29 [Music]

00:05:32 That day, I was out in the orchard with the teacher's daughter, messing around and stuff.

00:05:39 The buses were starting to leave at 3.30, and she's like, "You better go get on the bus.

00:05:45 Buses are leaving."

00:05:47 And so I took off running and flagged down the last bus leaving, which was Edward's.

00:05:54 [Music]

00:06:06 And we loaded up on the bus.

00:06:09 I went to the very back so that I could be rowdy and talk with my friends.

00:06:13 I was a very outgoing, outspoken child, and I was constantly getting in trouble on the bus for talking.

00:06:22 [Music]

00:06:26 My brother Jeff was also on the bus.

00:06:30 He was one year ahead of me in school, an honorable student,

00:06:34 basically an all-American kid.

00:06:38 Jeff was right in front of me, by the way.

00:06:40 He was a sweetheart.

00:06:41 He was my 10-year-old boyfriend.

00:06:43 [Music]

00:06:47 As a child, I was hyperactive.

00:06:50 I was such a problem on the bus.

00:06:53 You couldn't keep me in a seat.

00:06:55 And me being me, I forgot to take my meds that day.

00:06:59 I was moving seats, bugging this person and hitting this person and pulling this person's hair.

00:07:05 My sister Andrea was sitting by me on the bus.

00:07:09 She was getting me to relax.

00:07:11 Basically, she was my best friend.

00:07:17 I remember a lot of the girls had a crush on the 14-year-old cowboy, Michael Marshall.

00:07:23 He was definitely a handsome 14-year-old boy.

00:07:26 Never heard of him, never really seen him before.

00:07:31 Here's this kid who comes out of complete obscurity for the sole purpose that God knew what was about to happen.

00:07:43 [Music]

00:07:49 We were driving home.

00:07:53 As usual, we were dropping kids off along the way.

00:07:59 We're in the middle of the orchards and fields.

00:08:04 We turn this corner and Andrea stops.

00:08:14 I'd like you to tell me your own words first.

00:08:17 When you're riding the bus, just tell me what you remember.

00:08:21 There was this white van parked on the road.

00:08:24 And then...

00:08:29 Two guys jumped out with guns.

00:08:35 And one of them told him to open his door.

00:08:42 So he opened the door.

00:08:46 And then the guy got in.

00:08:48 He had a penthouse over his head.

00:08:51 He told Edward to go to the back of the bus.

00:08:55 When Edward opened the door, one of the kids, Jeff Brown, he got up and said, "We didn't do it."

00:09:02 And everybody kind of laughed.

00:09:04 He thought it was a joke.

00:09:07 I was scared, so I ducked under my seat.

00:09:15 And Ray got up and he moved to the back.

00:09:22 I went back over to my sister Andrea.

00:09:24 I held her hand.

00:09:29 The guy with the shotgun, he's staring at me with his gun.

00:09:33 They pulled everybody in the first three seats to go to the back of the bus.

00:09:37 And I was in the fourth seat.

00:09:39 Everybody was scared.

00:09:42 They kept their gun pointed in the direction of all of us children.

00:09:45 So it was the whole time pointed at the children.

00:09:52 Even more scary was the pantyhose that they had pulled over their face.

00:09:59 They were tight.

00:10:01 Smashed their nose down.

00:10:03 Their eyes were all open.

00:10:06 It reminded me of demons.

00:10:15 And all of a sudden, we're driving.

00:10:20 I'm trying to figure out what's going on.

00:10:22 If I can figure out the why, maybe I can figure out a way to interrupt what's going to come next.

00:10:34 And we drive a little further and the guy runs the bus into a big slough.

00:10:45 It was a deep incline.

00:10:48 We were jostled all over the place.

00:10:51 When we finally stopped, we saw another van.

00:10:54 Now there was a white van and a green van.

00:11:00 The van drove right back to the door of the bus.

00:11:05 And then they had all the kids on the right-hand side go into the white van.

00:11:13 In that first group of children was my brother.

00:11:16 He turned and looked at me down the aisle.

00:11:18 He gave me that look of, "You just need to be quiet."

00:11:22 And so I did.

00:11:24 I'd seen enough TV shows that I knew that this was serious.

00:11:30 I was the first one to get into the van.

00:11:34 Going through the door, there was another guy standing there like a statue pointing his gun straight through.

00:11:41 So you had to go by him.

00:11:44 They had plywood all inside the van so you couldn't see out or anything.

00:11:57 And then they backed the second van up to the bus.

00:12:01 And the other kids, we got in that van.

00:12:04 I was scared because there was absolutely no communication from them on where we're going or what they're going to do with us.

00:12:13 And then they shut the doors.

00:12:20 I had fixed Michael bacon and tomato sandwiches for dinner.

00:12:25 And about 4.30, I started looking for the bus.

00:12:32 It didn't come.

00:12:37 About 4.30, I got a phone call from a parent that the children hadn't arrived home after school.

00:12:43 I thought, "They've had a flat tire. The bus is broken down," or something like that.

00:12:48 Then we received several more calls.

00:12:52 In 1976, the sheriff's office had one patrol officer in Chowchilla.

00:12:57 There was only one little bitty office and one phone.

00:13:01 When the call came in that the bus was missing, I said, "What do you mean missing?

00:13:05 How does a school bus, all painted yellow, in a small county, show up missing?"

00:13:11 I put out all points bulletin.

00:13:16 It was a summer session, so the bus driver didn't take the normal route that he would take to drop children off.

00:13:23 So we had to check everywhere.

00:13:26 I went all the way to the school, backtracked, looked down every street, every which way.

00:13:33 Didn't see anything.

00:13:35 I knew something was wrong.

00:13:38 The parents were congregating at the police station, because we were getting really anxious.

00:13:46 We're trying to locate 26 lost children, along with their driver.

00:13:52 Never in my wildest dreams did I think that something major like this could happen in Chowchilla.

00:14:00 [Sirens]

00:14:04 [Music]

00:14:15 It seemed like we were driven around for hours upon hours.

00:14:21 It was hot in that van.

00:14:23 It was just stifling.

00:14:27 Kids got sick from the motion of the vehicle, and no food, no water.

00:14:33 I just felt like an animal being taken to slaughter.

00:14:38 If you, as a child, can be thrown into the back of a van without any comforts, they didn't care about us.

00:14:46 I told a few of my little friends, I told them, "Be brave, because everything's going to be all right."

00:14:53 [Music]

00:14:57 We thought that they might be back there killing the guys in the bus, because we didn't know what they were doing to them.

00:15:04 I was separated from my three sisters.

00:15:06 Were they alive? Did they get left behind?

00:15:11 Andrea and I were together.

00:15:14 I took her hand.

00:15:16 There was some security there.

00:15:21 We prayed.

00:15:23 We sang, "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands."

00:15:27 Nobody clapped their hands.

00:15:29 [Music]

00:15:33 All of us have a wall against getting totally overwhelmed.

00:15:38 And that wall is our defenses, our coping mechanisms, humor.

00:15:43 And when the wall gets broken, that's trauma.

00:15:48 [Music]

00:15:50 They wouldn't let us use the restroom.

00:15:52 I held myself all day.

00:15:54 I was in tears because I was in physical pain.

00:15:58 Jeff didn't want me to be embarrassed, because he knew I was embarrassed.

00:16:01 And so Jeff wet his own pants and took my hand and placed my hand on his lap.

00:16:06 He said, "Look, I went. You can go ahead and go."

00:16:11 Edward was very quiet.

00:16:13 I think he comprehended that this was a serious situation.

00:16:18 The kids were asking me questions of when they were going to see their mommies and daddies.

00:16:26 And I think that they believed that I would tell them the truth.

00:16:32 I told them, "Yes, you will."

00:16:36 And I didn't lie.

00:16:38 I didn't tell them what lifetime it might be.

00:16:44 [Sirens]

00:16:50 We were looking for him everywhere.

00:16:52 Then I recalled one of my sergeants, he didn't have an airplane, but he had another buddy that did.

00:16:58 So I asked him to get up in a plane.

00:17:07 Dad Robert Gudgel was well known as a local aviator, and he approached Dan right here to augment the search.

00:17:14 I remember going out, flying in the airplane out over the ash slough, looking for the bus.

00:17:22 Dad took Berenda Slough down here to the south, and Dad is the one that spotted it.

00:17:29 It was difficult to see from the ground because the sloughs had quite a bit of trees.

00:17:35 They knew something was terribly wrong at that point when they found the empty bus.

00:17:40 I couldn't understand it.

00:17:42 I actually looked up in the sky.

00:17:44 UFOs? What? Where are the kids? Where's Michael?

00:17:49 This was a major case.

00:17:51 I called Governor Jerry Brown's office.

00:17:53 I said, "I want every state agency that has cars and radios in my office."

00:17:59 He said, "You got it."

00:18:01 In the meantime, nearby counties said, "What do you need? We'll help you any way we can."

00:18:06 And set up roadblocks.

00:18:19 We drove around for, it seemed like, hours and hours and hours until they finally stopped.

00:18:32 And started gearing, sawing, and hammering.

00:18:48 And then all of a sudden the door flies open.

00:18:56 They took Ed Ray out first.

00:19:01 And then they grabbed one of the kids.

00:19:05 Door flies shut again.

00:19:08 A few minutes would go by.

00:19:10 They'd reach in and grab another kid.

00:19:13 And I scooted myself way to the front of the van again.

00:19:17 I was trying to survive at that point.

00:19:22 I felt helpless.

00:19:25 That, to me, was one of the scariest.

00:19:28 Because now we're going to find out what's going on.

00:19:33 When you opened the doors, what did you see?

00:19:35 I saw, it was kind of like a tent, but it had three sides and it had a roof on it.

00:19:43 They had built this structure and covered it with some kind of a tarp.

00:19:52 And they had backed the van underneath the structure.

00:19:57 And so it was enclosed.

00:20:01 I remember that my knees gave a little bit just from not having stood up for so long.

00:20:11 They asked me my name.

00:20:13 I couldn't pronounce my R's, so I was Lewy Polk.

00:20:17 And that's how they wrote it down.

00:20:23 They asked me my name and my age and they took my shirt.

00:20:27 So at that point it was just me in my pink fuzzy swimsuit.

00:20:32 They took my purse, white leather purse, which had a little address book.

00:20:35 And I thought, "Are you giving these guys who are pointing guns at you

00:20:40 your address and phone number where they can get the rest of your family?"

00:20:46 Finally I came down to this little Monica and she was four years old.

00:20:53 The hardest part was six hours.

00:20:54 My head was, I had to either hand her over to them or leave her there.

00:21:03 And I couldn't hand her over.

00:21:08 They escorted me to where there was a hole in the ground with a ladder coming out.

00:21:19 I looked down the ladder and I could see Ed Ray.

00:21:25 The kidnappers gave him one flashlight.

00:21:29 I did not want to go down there.

00:21:32 I knew if I went down that hole I was never coming back out.

00:21:37 Time froze.

00:21:41 And then Ed Ray grabs my ankle and says, "Come on inside. It'll be okay."

00:21:51 And I climbed down into there.

00:21:58 Inside this hole that we were in, we were in the dark again.

00:22:03 You couldn't really comprehend at that point where you were.

00:22:10 I found my brother, so I knew that he was alive.

00:22:13 My sisters were there.

00:22:16 When they let Monica come down, I was relieved.

00:22:21 Some of the younger children were whimpering and crying.

00:22:24 I remember Jodi Heffington was one of the older girls

00:22:27 who tried to keep the younger kids calm somewhat and composed.

00:22:36 Some people just had that personality of an older sister figure that was there to help.

00:22:45 I look around.

00:22:49 There are some mattresses and some blankets.

00:22:53 There's a table in the back and it has water around it.

00:22:58 I remember thinking I wanted that water so bad.

00:23:03 And there was some food. They had cereal, peanut butter, bread.

00:23:08 For us to use the restroom, they had cut out holes.

00:23:14 But we were okay, at least for now. We're okay.

00:23:18 We're all alive. We're all back together.

00:23:22 Suddenly, they drop like a bad hole cover over the hole.

00:23:29 That's when I started hearing that dirt.

00:23:37 You know, pshh.

00:23:39 We were being covered up, buried alive, you know.

00:23:44 [♪♪]

00:23:47 I was a young news director at KQED, the public television station.

00:24:01 So the news of the kidnapping came to me on a wire machine.

00:24:07 I realized that this was a big story.

00:24:10 Possibly the story of the decade, possibly the story of the century.

00:24:17 The news media just flooded the place.

00:24:21 The phone lines were jammed, both with reporters and with anxious parents.

00:24:27 It was a great story for reporters, a terrible event for parents.

00:24:32 Good evening. There may never have been as anguishing a mystery.

00:24:36 It was covered everywhere.

00:24:38 The bus has been found. There are no signs of violence.

00:24:41 And there are only horrified guesses as to what may have happened.

00:24:44 It led the newscasts.

00:24:46 Still no break in that Chowchilla, California, school bus kidnapping.

00:24:49 It was internationally covered.

00:24:53 But in those early hours, of course, nobody knew anything.

00:24:56 There are lots of theories as to why.

00:24:58 You tell me what the theories are, I will select one. We have no theories at all.

00:25:02 What would you say about the possible motive, then? Do you have a theory as to what--

00:25:04 I really don't. I don't really have one.

00:25:06 It's been a half hour. ABC, CBS, NBC, all of them come in to what you can tell us.

00:25:11 We're doing all we got. Frankly, it's a very baffling case because we don't know who murdered him.

00:25:15 This morning, authorities organized more search parties, but we're still at a loss for explanation.

00:25:21 It was a crime beyond imagination, with reporters trying to get information in any way possible.

00:25:28 Debbie Zylstra was the last child to be let off the bus before it disappeared.

00:25:32 Have you ever seen any cars following the bus before? No.

00:25:36 Do you have any idea who might have done that? No.

00:25:40 Did you see anything after the bus let you off? Nope.

00:25:45 The sheriff says the only thing he has ruled out at this point is the possibility of a flying saucer,

00:25:49 and there are those in this area who don't rule out that possibility either.

00:25:54 There were people calling in with conspiracy theories.

00:25:58 I remember talking to one person going on and on about the son of Sam.

00:26:06 Must have received at least a thousand calls, thinking it was a Zodiac killer, or moon up in Oregon.

00:26:13 I mean, in the last few years, we've become used to terrorist activity in this country, unfortunately so.

00:26:20 It's a political act. That's speculation, sir. Your guess is as good as mine at this point.

00:26:40 You could hear these, like, exhaust fans, and if you went to the sides, you could feel air coming in.

00:26:48 Not air-conditioned air, but warm air circulating.

00:26:52 To me, there was just very little air. Very hard to breathe.

00:26:58 After so many hours, it just becomes desperate.

00:27:03 Edward yells up, "Would you please open the door? I beg of you. Pretty please, pretty please let us out.

00:27:12 I got a blank check. That'll help, Penny." Then he says, "Everybody here say pretty please."

00:27:18 So we all start saying that, and the guy wouldn't answer us.

00:27:26 Ed Ray and Mike Marshall took the flashlight and really started looking around.

00:27:32 Every crack and every crevice, they're looking at the walls, they're looking at the cracks in the ceiling.

00:27:40 The only way we could get out was to go through the top.

00:27:46 All the little kids, they started saying, "Try and move it."

00:27:52 Edward didn't want to because he thought we'd get hurt if they caught us trying to get out.

00:27:59 We begged Edward, "Please try. You've got to try. We're going to die in here. You've got to get us out."

00:28:04 Ed Ray put his hands up, and he pushed on a little bit.

00:28:09 Ed Ray is a stout man, but man, it was not moving.

00:28:16 The water was running out. Nobody's come to find us.

00:28:20 And then the batteries on whatever fans they had going, they just stopped.

00:28:26 I remember Andrea was sitting by herself, praying.

00:28:37 [♪♪♪]

00:28:40 Ed Ray got us all to calm down.

00:28:47 He had all 26 of us take a nap.

00:28:53 I don't know if it was the heat, but I kept going back to camping trips that I had had with my family.

00:29:06 I could see the water.

00:29:10 Waiting for that monster fish.

00:29:18 I could see us gathering around the campfire.

00:29:25 I could smell the smoke.

00:29:28 [♪♪♪]

00:29:32 [♪♪♪]

00:29:35 In the past, hallucinations were attributed to viruses, head injuries.

00:29:43 But what hadn't been known before Chowchilla is that pure fright, getting scared to death, could make you hallucinate.

00:29:52 One little child saw right through the ceiling of the hole,

00:29:59 right through all the rocks and the dirt that had been piled on,

00:30:04 and saw the scene of kidnappers sleeping above them.

00:30:10 It was a complete mirage, and that came from being traumatized.

00:30:19 When I woke up, something was wrong.

00:30:27 [♪♪♪]

00:30:30 Dirt was coveted, dust.

00:30:34 It made like a little "k-k-k" like that.

00:30:39 "K-k-k."

00:30:41 What's going on?

00:30:43 The only thing holding the roof in place were four by fours,

00:30:48 one on the ceiling, and then a post holding it up.

00:30:53 You could hear the screeching of the metal.

00:30:57 [♪♪♪]

00:30:59 And the roof just gave.

00:31:03 [♪♪♪]

00:31:06 It was terrifying.

00:31:08 There was dust and dirt that was flying everywhere.

00:31:13 We thought we were going to die right there.

00:31:15 That's when we thought we would smother to death.

00:31:17 [♪♪♪]

00:31:22 And then it finally stopped,

00:31:25 but anyone that touched that beam, the sand would trickle in.

00:31:30 So we couldn't move.

00:31:32 We had to stay put wherever we were at.

00:31:36 We knew we wouldn't last much longer in there.

00:31:39 Good evening.

00:31:41 The California National Guard today joined state and local police

00:31:45 and the FBI in a giant search for 26 California children.

00:31:50 There are no real clues,

00:31:52 only an eerie silence in a frightening and bizarre case.

00:31:56 Throughout much of this day,

00:31:58 parents and other family of the missing children

00:32:00 came to the command post set up in downtown Chowchilla.

00:32:04 At that time, there was 100 people waiting for word,

00:32:08 and it was scary.

00:32:10 I want to express to you the governor's concern and my concern.

00:32:14 The California Highways Department is helping the state police,

00:32:17 the National Guard, are available to assist in the search.

00:32:22 When somebody disappears for that long

00:32:25 and you have no word whatsoever on where they might be,

00:32:29 you're scared to death.

00:32:31 Do you have other children?

00:32:32 I do, and I would have had two children on that bus,

00:32:35 but she woke up sick yesterday morning, and I didn't send her.

00:32:38 And she was so far from me.

00:32:41 [sobbing]

00:32:46 My husband Bob, he was in Canada at the Calgary Stampede.

00:32:51 He was practically in tears trying to get home.

00:32:55 I was able to sleep for a while,

00:32:58 but as soon as I opened my eyes, it was like a ton of bricks hit me.

00:33:03 I guess now all that we can do is to join with the families and loved ones

00:33:06 of those involved and pray, pray hard for their safe recovery.

00:33:11 [explosion]

00:33:13 We begged Edward, "Please try. You've got to try.

00:33:18 We're going to die in here. You've got to get us out."

00:33:21 I remember Edward saying that it looked like we were going to have to

00:33:27 stay down there and kick the bucket.

00:33:29 Edward was fearful that his actions could cause harm,

00:33:34 not only to him, but to us.

00:33:37 But Mike didn't have that sense of hopelessness.

00:33:41 You know, a little fear kind of hits you,

00:33:44 but at the same time, it generates more power.

00:33:49 I was trying to process it all, and I thought to myself,

00:33:54 "If we're going to die, we're going to die getting the hell out of here.

00:33:56 You know, we're going to die trying."

00:33:58 They started stacking up mattresses to get to the top.

00:34:04 Even a lot of the younger kids took turns doing whatever it is

00:34:10 that their young little bodies could do.

00:34:12 "We're not going to die. This is not how we're going to end."

00:34:15 Jodi's job was to shine the flashlight,

00:34:18 while Michael went up and, with all his might, gave his cowboy push.

00:34:24 All the kids are, "Come on, Mike. You can do it, Mike."

00:34:32 And I don't feel it move or see it move,

00:34:37 but all the kids, I just heard them say, "It moved. It moved."

00:34:43 For the first time, I felt hope.

00:34:47 I kind of wondered if he was my angel,

00:34:50 my guardian angel that Dad talked about.

00:34:53 At that point, we said, "Edward, you have to help him.

00:34:57 We've got to get out of here. We're going to die.

00:34:59 We're going to suffocate in here."

00:35:01 Edward was fearful that somebody was up there just waiting.

00:35:05 But he finally went over and helped.

00:35:09 Ed Ray started pushing with everything he had.

00:35:14 They knew something was on it, but we didn't know what it was.

00:35:18 And so he pushed up, and he got that manhole cover up,

00:35:24 maybe about yay high.

00:35:26 And Mike Marshall stuck his arm through there

00:35:30 and started feeling around to see what was on top of the manhole cover.

00:35:35 Mike got his hand in there and just started doing this.

00:35:42 And together, they moved that manhole cover back just far enough

00:35:47 that a corner of a battery could be seen.

00:35:51 That's not the battery in your car.

00:35:55 These bus batteries weigh about 125, 150 pounds.

00:36:00 Had Ed Ray slipped, had Ed Ray lost his grip,

00:36:07 Mike Marshall would have lost his arm.

00:36:10 I remember them saying, "Watch out," and, "Twoom!"

00:36:15 These two huge batteries were dropped down on the stack of mattresses.

00:36:20 And then Ed Ray had a good look.

00:36:25 [♪♪]

00:36:28 Around this hole, they made a square box,

00:36:31 three feet high, something like that.

00:36:34 And that was so that as they were covering the van with dirt

00:36:39 that they wouldn't cover up the hole.

00:36:42 Edward squeezes me through this half-foot hole.

00:36:48 I get on top of it.

00:36:51 I start pounding on this box.

00:36:53 There was a box up there, and he tried to bang his way out.

00:36:58 But he couldn't do it.

00:37:00 Then they got me up there with him.

00:37:02 We both tried with our backs to push up, push up.

00:37:08 We couldn't do it, so Mike tried with his feet, and I tried with my back.

00:37:12 And still we couldn't do it.

00:37:14 All the seams were pretty well connected.

00:37:17 Mike said, "We need something to pry it with."

00:37:19 I kicked apart a box-spring mattress and was using the wood.

00:37:24 So Robert got up there with me for a while,

00:37:29 and we started hitting and pounding, hitting and pounding.

00:37:32 Mike would slam that corner over and over and over.

00:37:39 It just seemed impossible.

00:37:42 I start digging underneath the plywood.

00:37:49 And I realized after I do that for a while,

00:37:52 the material, rock and stuff,

00:37:56 is falling down outside of the plywood into the hole I'm digging.

00:38:03 I thought, "Maybe I could get weight off the top.

00:38:08 Then I can pull it out, and I can scoop it down inside the hole."

00:38:15 He was kicking dirt, throwing dirt.

00:38:18 He kept digging.

00:38:24 I don't know how Mike maneuvered up in that wooden box.

00:38:30 I don't know how long he was up there.

00:38:33 It was hours.

00:38:35 Our sense of time under scary conditions

00:38:39 is one of the most vulnerable things in the world.

00:38:42 It's one of the most vulnerable senses that we have.

00:38:46 The child who held the light knew it was a long, long time.

00:38:52 I was, you know, drained, tired.

00:38:56 I had no energy. I was exhausted.

00:39:00 My equilibrium was totally off.

00:39:03 I didn't know what was up or down.

00:39:06 That's when Edward started,

00:39:08 "Pretty please don't hurt him. Pretty please don't hurt him."

00:39:12 I could hear that in my ears, ringing over and over.

00:39:16 "Pretty please don't hurt him. He doesn't know what he's doing."

00:39:19 And I'm starting to believe that they are up there.

00:39:23 That, to me, was scary.

00:39:27 I tried to see if I could get any weight off the top.

00:39:34 It moved like just a crack,

00:39:37 and I looked through it, and plain as day,

00:39:41 I was going up,

00:39:44 and a door opened.

00:39:48 And beyond that was just pure darkness.

00:39:52 And you could tell there was somebody in that darkness.

00:39:58 I remember it vividly.

00:40:04 This was a hallucination that he had dug into no place,

00:40:09 that they were still in horrible trouble,

00:40:12 that they were going to die anyway.

00:40:15 So he went back down, and he sat down,

00:40:18 and he thought, "What am I digging for?

00:40:20 This is terrible. I can't do this."

00:40:23 And then he decided, "I'm going to go up there anyway."

00:40:28 It took a, you know, a little break there,

00:40:31 but then I... something clicked in me.

00:40:35 I said to myself, "You're a cowboy.

00:40:38 You're going to get on that crazy-ass horse.

00:40:41 You're going to do whatever it is you got to do."

00:40:44 I didn't care if they were up there.

00:40:47 I wasn't going to give up.

00:40:49 From that point on, it didn't matter.

00:40:52 I started hitting stuff,

00:40:55 hitting and pounding and hitting and pounding.

00:40:58 And I pulled the chip out.

00:41:01 And then there was a big crack.

00:41:07 I cracked the ceiling.

00:41:14 And then I almost thought it open.

00:41:21 I just pulled some more and cracked it again.

00:41:28 [water splashing]

00:41:30 It was the most beautiful ray of sunlight

00:41:39 that I had ever seen.

00:41:41 I just remember the light and the air.

00:41:47 So much air and cool air.

00:41:50 Not knowing if they're up there,

00:41:54 I kept thinking, "We're getting creamed or we're getting out?"

00:41:57 And I think that's why I didn't hesitate

00:42:00 to stick my head out as soon as I had it broke off.

00:42:04 Going up above the hole,

00:42:16 I had no real sense where it was.

00:42:21 I could see trees,

00:42:24 and it felt like we were in the mountains.

00:42:26 There was nobody there.

00:42:28 I remember getting out and looking around.

00:42:34 Off in the distance was a big, big building.

00:42:39 And I was worried about that building

00:42:43 because maybe the kidnappers were over there.

00:42:47 Edward got all the kids together,

00:42:50 said, "We need to be quiet."

00:42:52 And so, like a bunch of little ducks,

00:42:55 we're just walking through the sand.

00:42:58 There were 27 of us,

00:43:01 and if they are around here,

00:43:03 we're a pretty easy target to see.

00:43:06 But then we saw someone coming toward us,

00:43:11 and I did not know who it was or what they wanted.

00:43:15 And the guy's face was just like,

00:43:18 "Oh, my God! I saw you on the news.

00:43:22 Where in the hell did you come from?"

00:43:24 It turned out to be in a rock quarry.

00:43:30 And in no time, the clacks had started sounding.

00:43:37 They had set off their alarm.

00:43:41 The children have been found.

00:43:44 They are in good shape.

00:43:45 The bus driver has been found.

00:43:47 He is in good shape.

00:43:48 There's no indication of any harm.

00:43:51 Detective Bernie Serving and I were the first two,

00:43:59 as I recall, to arrive and make contact

00:44:01 with the bus driver and the kids.

00:44:04 The kids were actually, for the most part, calm.

00:44:09 They were a little bit dirty-looking, obviously,

00:44:12 because they were buried in the ground.

00:44:15 [camera shutter clicking]

00:44:17 We were in this big warehouse.

00:44:27 I remember they had a water cooler.

00:44:30 I would take my little cup, and I would pour it on my head.

00:44:33 And I'd fill it up, and I'd pour it on my head,

00:44:35 trying to get the dirt off me.

00:44:37 That evening, we had the television on,

00:44:42 and I thought I heard him say,

00:44:44 "Kids from Chowchilla have been found."

00:44:46 I ran in there, jumped over the coffee table,

00:44:50 turned the TV up, and sure enough,

00:44:54 I was so thankful.

00:44:56 My son, Michael, is 14, and he's alive and well,

00:44:59 and he's coming home, and I can't wait to see him.

00:45:02 What's the last 24 hours been like?

00:45:04 Not very nice.

00:45:05 I wouldn't want to have to go through him again, ever.

00:45:09 [indistinct chatter]

00:45:12 We had to decide how we were going to proceed

00:45:16 with the interviews and things,

00:45:17 and we decided it was best to get them to a secure location.

00:45:20 So we rode just a very short distance to a prison.

00:45:26 They sat us down at all these little desks,

00:45:31 and they had apples and cartons of milk.

00:45:36 We were given inmate jumpsuits,

00:45:39 they're white jumpsuits, to wear.

00:45:41 All us little kids got into them,

00:45:43 and we had to roll the pants up about 10 feet.

00:45:47 We sit in there, flapping our arms.

00:45:49 We said, "Hey, we can fly,"

00:45:51 and we pretended like we were going to fly.

00:45:54 And then the police came in and talked to us.

00:45:59 [indistinct chatter]

00:46:01 Go ahead.

00:46:02 Now, I would generally describe them in very high spirits.

00:46:05 [indistinct chatter]

00:46:06 We ask who wants to be talked to next,

00:46:08 and they all put up their hand, and they're very jovial.

00:46:10 After that, they got us loaded up in a Greyhound bus

00:46:14 to go home to Chowchilla.

00:46:16 [cheers and applause]

00:46:19 [cheers and applause]

00:46:22 When we got through Chowchilla,

00:46:24 there were lights everywhere, people everywhere,

00:46:27 just a sea of people.

00:46:28 It was just a mob.

00:46:31 [cheers and applause]

00:46:34 [indistinct chatter]

00:46:37 - Take a right up here.

00:46:38 - A very nice gentleman carried me off the bus...

00:46:43 - Is that Larry?

00:46:44 - And put me in my mom's arms.

00:46:47 [sniffles]

00:46:48 And I put my head on her shoulder.

00:46:51 [sniffles]

00:46:53 - It's wonderful.

00:46:54 You can't say there's enough words to, you know,

00:46:56 describe how it feels, you know.

00:46:59 I'm just so happy I can cry.

00:47:01 [cheers and applause]

00:47:03 - Hello!

00:47:05 How are you?

00:47:07 Come here, my little one.

00:47:08 - Reporters are all over asking me what happened,

00:47:12 and I started to talk to them,

00:47:14 and then just out of nowhere,

00:47:16 Principal Tatum stepped in and said,

00:47:19 "Why don't we just give them a break, boys, you know,

00:47:22 let them go home, get some sleep?"

00:47:24 And so we got in the car and left.

00:47:28 There was my chance to tell the world what happened

00:47:31 to getting out and everything.

00:47:33 I didn't do it.

00:47:34 I let the grown-ups do it.

00:47:36 - 7 o'clock, we got dug out.

00:47:38 I handed the kids up to the other boys,

00:47:40 and we got out.

00:47:41 We all got home safe.

00:47:43 [applause]

00:47:44 - As miraculously as they had disappeared,

00:47:46 the children of Chowchilla returned to their parents

00:47:49 due to the heroic efforts of their bus driver, Ed Ray.

00:47:54 [soft music]

00:47:57 ♪ ♪

00:47:59 - We were home, but the kidnappers

00:48:02 were still out there.

00:48:04 ♪ ♪

00:48:06 - You knew they were someplace, but you didn't know where.

00:48:09 You know, it was still a mystery.

00:48:11 You had no answers to this mystery.

00:48:13 [siren wailing]

00:48:16 - I had a lot of agents out there following leads

00:48:19 on who might have done this.

00:48:21 I had all the state, I had all the FBI,

00:48:24 and my own people, of course, too.

00:48:27 The following morning, I was directed to go out

00:48:30 to the site where they were buried.

00:48:33 ♪ ♪

00:48:35 I had a whole crew of people

00:48:37 looking for any evidence we could get.

00:48:40 - This is a place where they cut a hole in the roof

00:48:42 and made an exit and ingress and egress.

00:48:45 ♪ ♪

00:48:46 - The only people into the hole

00:48:48 have been a couple of sheriff's criminalists.

00:48:50 The sheriff's office is working very carefully

00:48:52 because they hope to find clues

00:48:54 which will lead them to the kidnappers.

00:48:56 ♪ ♪

00:48:57 - The crime scene was a mysterious hole in the ground.

00:49:01 There was some notion that it might be a cave,

00:49:05 an underground room.

00:49:07 It took us a while to understand

00:49:10 that it was, in fact, a moving van.

00:49:13 ♪ ♪

00:49:18 By today's standards, it wasn't a 40-foot van.

00:49:21 It was a fairly short 27-foot moving van.

00:49:26 [train rumbling]

00:49:28 When you think about it,

00:49:29 to have 26 kids confined in that kind of a chamber,

00:49:34 I was flabbergasted.

00:49:36 [indistinct radio chatter]

00:49:38 - The search for these suspects is now, of course,

00:49:41 what is preoccupying authorities.

00:49:42 Being sought are three men and two vans.

00:49:45 We don't know what color they are now.

00:49:47 They were purchased in November in Alameda.

00:49:49 Information on the registration is all phony,

00:49:52 so we don't know who we're looking for yet.

00:49:55 - At that time, we were looking for any information

00:49:58 we could get.

00:49:59 [indistinct radio chatter]

00:50:01 - We had multiple conversations with law enforcement.

00:50:05 - One man saw what color dirt he had.

00:50:08 - What kind of-- - My brother and I

00:50:10 helped with composite drawings

00:50:13 to help identify the kidnappers.

00:50:16 - This is the latest composite.

00:50:18 - We have no names whatsoever at this point.

00:50:22 Is this from the memory of the children?

00:50:24 - Yes.

00:50:25 - And then information had been developed

00:50:28 on the investigative side about the vans.

00:50:32 - The kidnapped vans were found in a one-story

00:50:34 commercial building in southeast San Jose.

00:50:37 Reports say a rental agent told police

00:50:39 a young man rented the place about six months ago.

00:50:43 - The bus driver, Ed Ray,

00:50:44 was brought to the warehouse by authorities.

00:50:46 It is assumed Mr. Ray will attempt

00:50:48 to identify those vans.

00:50:50 [dramatic music]

00:50:53 - When they recovered the vehicles,

00:50:55 they also recovered other pieces of evidence.

00:50:58 They found a 12-gauge shotgun,

00:51:00 which is probably the one that was used

00:51:02 when they made the stop of the school bus.

00:51:05 - We found lumber material,

00:51:08 the same lumber as 2x4s that were picked up at the quarry,

00:51:14 number of mattresses,

00:51:16 the same mattresses that had been put into the trailer.

00:51:20 - They also located a Cadillac

00:51:23 that had been completely spray-painted flat black,

00:51:27 even the hubcaps.

00:51:29 It was very strange.

00:51:30 - Did you see them working on these things?

00:51:32 Were they painting? What were they doing inside there?

00:51:34 - I don't know.

00:51:35 - And they talked-- - I can't see them at all.

00:51:38 - They recovered what looked like some kind of a journal,

00:51:41 diary.

00:51:42 They had encrypted it into some kind of unusual writing.

00:51:46 - Never seen anything like that in my life.

00:51:50 - I was scared.

00:51:54 I was actually still scared of those kidnappers.

00:51:56 Where they're at, what they're doing,

00:51:58 are they following us?

00:52:00 [indistinct radio chatter]

00:52:02 They know where we live.

00:52:03 They know our addresses.

00:52:04 They know our phone numbers.

00:52:06 It was really overwhelming for me.

00:52:08 - A lot of them are scared to let their kids out of the house.

00:52:10 I know my wife's got a girlfriend across town

00:52:12 that says she won't let her kids out of the house.

00:52:14 - We were in a panic.

00:52:15 We did not like sleeping in the windows,

00:52:18 and every sound sent us running.

00:52:24 [dramatic music]

00:52:27 [siren wailing]

00:52:29 [indistinct radio chatter]

00:52:32 - The first real breaks in the case came

00:52:34 when the former employee from the quarry

00:52:37 called up and said that he had made notes

00:52:39 in a ledger that they maintained during their patrols,

00:52:43 that he had seen men working with a capped bulldozer,

00:52:47 and he also noted that there were two moving vans

00:52:50 parked on the site.

00:52:52 One time, he said he found a young man

00:52:55 working in one of the scrapyard areas,

00:52:58 and when he confronted that individual,

00:53:01 he found his identification said that he was Frederick Woods,

00:53:04 and he was the son of the owner.

00:53:08 - One of the things we learned was that the Woods family,

00:53:12 they weren't from the Central Valley.

00:53:14 They were from the Bay Area,

00:53:16 from the very nicest suburbs of the Bay Area.

00:53:20 In fact, Woods has an illustrious double name--

00:53:24 Frederick Newhall Woods.

00:53:26 - When the gold rush was happening in California,

00:53:29 Henry Newhall ended up amassing a great fortune--

00:53:33 148,000 acres up and down the state of California.

00:53:36 Railroad towns were named after him.

00:53:40 - They owned Magic Mountain.

00:53:42 Why would these people be involved?

00:53:48 Was it a thrill crime?

00:53:50 - Next day, I was asked to serve a search warrant

00:53:57 on the Woods estate.

00:54:03 When we opened these doors up and went in

00:54:06 to the actual mansion, everything in there was expensive.

00:54:10 Very fancy cut crystal statues.

00:54:14 The place was littered, literally, with old vehicles.

00:54:21 It had antique Rolls Royces and Bentleys,

00:54:25 all kinds of military, war surplus-type jeeps.

00:54:30 It was really something to see.

00:54:33 There was a separate building opposite the mansion.

00:54:37 It was a series of garages.

00:54:39 We had been told that Fred slept above the garages,

00:54:43 and we went upstairs.

00:54:45 The place was full of junk.

00:54:47 You could barely walk across the room.

00:54:49 Old movie cameras-- there was a bunch of them

00:54:52 all over the place.

00:54:53 And there was a desk,

00:54:55 and that's where he had a kind of an envelope,

00:54:58 like a manila-type envelope.

00:55:01 It had the plan, the actual plan of how the sequence

00:55:06 of the kidnapping was supposed to go down.

00:55:10 And inside that, there was a jack-in-the-box bag

00:55:16 that on the back side of it had been written

00:55:18 the names and the ages of all of the children.

00:55:22 But probably the most telling evidence

00:55:27 was the ransom note that was found in that envelope.

00:55:30 ♪ ♪

00:55:33 And at that point, it started to gel

00:55:42 as to who was responsible for this.

00:55:45 Fred Woods, the suspect's father,

00:55:51 was very cooperative.

00:55:52 Told me he tried to get his son interested

00:55:54 in the family business.

00:55:55 His son got interested in these old cars.

00:55:58 He developed a business of refurbishing old cars

00:56:01 and selling them.

00:56:02 He had gone into partnership with a friend

00:56:05 from high school named James Schoenfeld.

00:56:08 His brother, Rick Schoenfeld, was involved,

00:56:10 but he was more of a hanger-on to the other two.

00:56:13 The brothers, their father was a foot specialist.

00:56:18 They were upper-middle class.

00:56:21 They were always very polite and outgoing,

00:56:24 and if we saw them outside,

00:56:27 they always chatted with us.

00:56:29 Very friendly boys.

00:56:30 We were really shocked that these were three young men

00:56:34 that came from very affluent families.

00:56:38 I was dumbstruck.

00:56:40 Why do you suppose that they would do something like that?

00:56:42 I don't know. They didn't have enough slob.

00:56:45 Fred Woods is--what was he after money for?

00:56:49 He had more money than the town had.

00:56:52 Now we know who these people are.

00:56:56 So we just followed our noses.

00:56:58 Acting on evidence discovered at the house,

00:57:01 law enforcement authorities have just issued

00:57:03 all-points bulletins.

00:57:05 Suspects are considered armed and dangerous.

00:57:08 Arrest on probable cause.

00:57:12 The investigators worked 24 hours a day

00:57:15 and found out that Fred and James Schoenfeld took off.

00:57:20 Fred went to Vancouver.

00:57:22 He used a fake ID to get in, checked into a hotel.

00:57:27 While Woods is up in Canada, he's writing letters

00:57:30 from a post office asking friends for money.

00:57:34 Jim Schoenfeld drove his car up to the border

00:57:37 and tried to enter the border.

00:57:40 He had weapons in the car, but they didn't arrest him.

00:57:43 They bought him a soda. They were nice to him.

00:57:45 Gave him the guns back and turned him around.

00:57:48 Good evening. The FBI is looking all over the country tonight

00:57:51 for Frederick Woods and James Schoenfeld,

00:57:54 two of the three men suspected of kidnapping

00:57:56 26 children in California last week.

00:57:59 The third man, Schoenfeld's younger brother,

00:58:01 turned himself in.

00:58:04 In Oakland, California last night,

00:58:06 Richard Alan Schoenfeld surrendered.

00:58:08 He walked into the Alameda County District Attorney's office

00:58:11 along with his father and a lawyer.

00:58:14 The attorney said Richard surrendered for his own protection.

00:58:20 James tried to get into Canada one more time.

00:58:23 He had gotten rid of most of the weapons,

00:58:25 but he had one more weapon that he didn't know about

00:58:28 that Fred had hidden in the vehicle.

00:58:30 So they turned him around, finally gave up on that

00:58:33 and started heading back home.

00:58:35 James Schoenfeld was captured at dawn today.

00:58:37 His lawyer said he'd gotten tired of running.

00:58:40 Had called and said he'd turn himself in at 8 this morning.

00:58:43 Police closed in an hour before that.

00:58:46 The third suspect, Fred Woods, was arrested

00:58:48 at the Maine-Vancouver Post Office

00:58:50 after Royal Canadian Mounted Police had been tipped by the FBI.

00:58:54 They say the 24-year-old suspect was unarmed

00:58:56 and did not put up a fight.

00:58:58 He appeared nervous, a little cocky,

00:59:00 but mostly disinterested in talking to reporters.

00:59:04 No comment.

00:59:06 What do you think about the charges against you?

00:59:08 No comment.

00:59:10 Any concerns about going to California at all?

00:59:13 Would you?

00:59:16 [♪♪♪]

00:59:18 The kidnappers had hit this town right in its heart

00:59:25 by taking those children.

00:59:27 [indistinct radio chatter]

00:59:29 The community took it quite personal.

00:59:34 Saying we were upset is very, very mild.

00:59:38 It was voiced around town that, quote,

00:59:41 "All we need is a good old-fashioned street hanging," unquote.

00:59:44 Literally, that was said.

00:59:46 These were three men who were so hated,

00:59:50 stationed on top of the police station.

00:59:53 A sniper on top of City Hall.

00:59:56 A sniper all in the means of protecting them.

01:00:00 [indistinct radio chatter]

01:00:02 Inside, both Woods and James Schoenfeld

01:00:08 spoke with a firm voice, showing no fear.

01:00:11 They were ordered held on $1 million bond each.

01:00:14 The biggest question in this bizarre case is still unanswered.

01:00:19 Were there political motives, psychological motives,

01:00:21 motives of revenge?

01:00:23 No one seems to know.

01:00:25 When I interviewed Fred,

01:00:29 he said that he and his dad weren't very close.

01:00:32 He wasn't doing what his dad expected him to do.

01:00:35 They were always bickering about him dropping out of college,

01:00:39 and he wanted his own money,

01:00:41 so he didn't have to rely on his father.

01:00:43 Thank you, you're welcome.

01:00:48 James told me that they were gonna make a movie to make money,

01:00:54 and that's how the whole thing started.

01:00:57 They turned out a movie script called "Chain Reaction,"

01:01:00 and it was an amalgam of the Patty Hearst kidnapping case,

01:01:03 the French Connection,

01:01:05 and Dirty Harry.

01:01:07 You can ask yourself one question-- do I feel lucky?

01:01:10 Well, do you, punk?

01:01:12 And it didn't happen.

01:01:14 During this time, they also learned

01:01:16 that the state had a surplus of funds.

01:01:18 So they tried to think of,

01:01:20 how can we get ransom from the state?

01:01:22 So then that led them to kidnapping a school bus

01:01:25 because the state runs the school system.

01:01:27 Again, they were obviously influenced

01:01:31 by the original Dirty Harry movie.

01:01:33 Row, row, row your boat to Meadow,

01:01:35 and we're doing it, you dig?

01:01:37 In the final scenes of the movie,

01:01:39 you had an individual who hijacks a bus full of children,

01:01:42 and they end up in a rock quarry.

01:01:44 Fred was the leader who started it.

01:01:48 But Fred didn't have the ability

01:01:50 to plan something like this by himself,

01:01:52 and he thought that Jim Schoenfeld

01:01:54 probably was the more efficient planner,

01:01:56 and in fact, he's the one who wrote the journal

01:01:59 that was found at a storage unit.

01:02:01 When they decoded these writings,

01:02:03 James Schoenfeld was asking himself

01:02:05 what would happen as a result of this crime.

01:02:07 James had to make a decision.

01:02:11 He decided to make money with Fred Woods.

01:02:17 For 18 months, they were researching different targets.

01:02:23 They had maps where they circled

01:02:27 all the schools they were considering.

01:02:31 They were able to get identification in different names,

01:02:34 to purchase the things they needed.

01:02:36 They went out to the quarry in the cover of darkness

01:02:38 to bury an entire transport van.

01:02:41 They obtained weapons, many, many weapons.

01:02:44 To collect the ransom money,

01:02:47 they wanted the government to fly the ransom money

01:02:49 and drop it at a location.

01:02:51 They had intended to have an airdrop

01:02:53 over the Santa Cruz Mountains.

01:02:55 In fact, the Cadillac was intended to be used

01:02:58 to pick up the ransom money,

01:03:00 and they wanted it not to be seen.

01:03:02 They wanted it to blend in for a nighttime operation.

01:03:05 All the way through, they thought that they had thought of everything.

01:03:08 But the night of the kidnapping,

01:03:10 they weren't able to call in their ransom demand

01:03:12 because the phone lines were so jammed.

01:03:14 They decided to go home.

01:03:17 Fred Woods had a late-night dinner with his parents,

01:03:20 like any other night.

01:03:21 Then the news came out

01:03:23 that the children had freed themselves.

01:03:25 The children are home.

01:03:27 Rick and James Schoenfeld came over to the property

01:03:30 and planned their escape from there.

01:03:32 When the children escaped,

01:03:36 that kind of destroyed their whole plan right there.

01:03:39 With all three suspects behind bars,

01:03:44 the grateful townspeople today honored their hometown hero.

01:03:48 The local politicians decided that we needed

01:03:52 to celebrate the heroes

01:03:54 that came from this horrendous event.

01:03:57 And so the town had what they called Ed Ray Day.

01:04:01 Me and the 25 kids have something to give to Ed.

01:04:07 Thank you.

01:04:10 Edward was a very humble man.

01:04:14 He didn't ask for the publicity,

01:04:17 and he didn't ask for all the attention that came his way.

01:04:21 The press assumed that Edward saved us,

01:04:25 and he, from that point on, was the hero.

01:04:28 And that is true.

01:04:30 Edward kept us all together,

01:04:32 and Edward helped us get out.

01:04:34 But Edward was not the only hero.

01:04:37 I was telling people Mike Marshall dug us out.

01:04:41 It was Mike that dug us out.

01:04:43 But nobody was listening.

01:04:45 That day, I could see that Michael was really

01:04:50 depressed.

01:04:52 I remember thinking to myself,

01:04:55 "Why am I feeling like this?

01:04:58 What's wrong with me?

01:04:59 Hey, you know what? Who cares?

01:05:01 We all got out. We're all out.

01:05:03 That's what matters."

01:05:05 I felt guilty for feeling bad.

01:05:09 Mike was not going to boast about what he did.

01:05:13 That just wasn't Mike.

01:05:15 All the children know.

01:05:17 We all know the story. We were there for it.

01:05:19 So we do know what everybody did,

01:05:22 and everybody's role.

01:05:23 But I don't think any of us really went out and spoke.

01:05:25 We were just children.

01:05:27 We were still just trying to process what happened.

01:05:31 That day was supposed to be the day of honoring us.

01:05:36 They put a plaque in there with all of our names.

01:05:40 But a lot of us were still in that hole.

01:05:48 When we got home, I thought life would be okay.

01:05:53 Even though the kidnappers were actually arrested,

01:05:57 it didn't stop my mind from going over

01:06:03 what happened, what could have happened.

01:06:06 I can remember having nightmares immediately.

01:06:09 My mom tells me that I started sleepwalking,

01:06:15 and I would come into their room just in shock

01:06:19 and tell them, "They're killing me."

01:06:22 We're driving down the road, and there happens to be a van,

01:06:25 whether it's telephone company or PG&E,

01:06:27 or just a vehicle beside the road.

01:06:29 "Go on past, Mama. Don't stop. Don't slow down."

01:06:32 My self-esteem at that point just really started to go down.

01:06:44 I hated sleeping.

01:06:47 I hated going to sleep, because every night I was having nightmares.

01:06:52 I could hear Andrea screaming. She could hear me screaming.

01:06:58 "Mom! Mom! Mom!"

01:07:01 Those demons were going to keep us forever.

01:07:05 I knew Michael was having trouble.

01:07:12 He was also screaming and hollering in his sleep.

01:07:15 I put myself back in there, thinking about how I was going to die.

01:07:20 Our family was just turned inside out.

01:07:26 Didn't know how to fix it.

01:07:29 Didn't know who to talk to about it.

01:07:31 We left, went on the road,

01:07:34 tried to forget it, get past it.

01:07:39 And the school did not offer any help to those kids,

01:07:43 like counseling, whatever.

01:07:45 I can't visibly see any problem now.

01:07:48 Whether or not there's some psychological scars,

01:07:50 I certainly wouldn't know.

01:07:52 But it's just kind of on the surface.

01:07:54 I can't pull anything out.

01:07:56 Not once. The kids were totally forgotten.

01:07:59 There was no ground laid for anything like this yet.

01:08:07 Back then it was, "Go to Disneyland."

01:08:11 Go to Disneyland.

01:08:13 The Lions Club group in Los Angeles

01:08:17 paid for a trip to Disneyland

01:08:20 as a way to somewhat overcome

01:08:24 the trauma that we had faced.

01:08:27 And so it was, for a moment,

01:08:31 a chance to get away from Chowchilla

01:08:34 and go see Mickey and Minnie.

01:08:38 They held a parade for us.

01:08:41 I believe the way our parents were convinced

01:08:44 was that they were giving us therapy,

01:08:46 some kind of therapy.

01:08:48 The trip to Disneyland

01:08:52 was an intrusion into the nightmare.

01:08:55 That's all it was.

01:08:57 [camera shutter clicks]

01:08:59 In 1976, there was a word "childhood trauma" out there,

01:09:09 but nobody knew exactly what it was.

01:09:12 When one is traumatized,

01:09:14 the sense of basic trust goes.

01:09:17 While I was in training as a child psychiatrist,

01:09:20 I wanted to find out what happens

01:09:22 to children who get frightened to death.

01:09:27 And don't die.

01:09:29 And that started the Chowchilla study.

01:09:32 No one other than Dr. Teer was even trying to be helpful.

01:09:37 She told us right up front

01:09:39 she was writing a paper for the American Medical Journal.

01:09:43 She was interviewing the kids.

01:09:45 She also listened to them.

01:09:48 I remember seeing various kinds of statements that were made.

01:09:52 The kids were not okay.

01:09:54 Somebody got a psychiatrist to come to town,

01:09:58 and he made a prediction.

01:10:00 He said, "One kid in this 26 is going to have a problem."

01:10:05 But what happened was that no parent wanted to admit

01:10:09 that his kid was the one in 26.

01:10:12 By the time I got out there,

01:10:14 100% of those kids were having problems.

01:10:18 Mom and Dad were told not to come in when we have nightmares.

01:10:23 They said that if they are going in when we have nightmares,

01:10:27 that they are rewarding our behavior of having the nightmares,

01:10:31 and if they stop rewarding the behaviors,

01:10:33 we'll stop having nightmares.

01:10:36 Andrea became very introverted.

01:10:39 Where she had been outgoing before,

01:10:42 she preferred to hide in her room.

01:10:45 Some of them became afraid to really get intimate with anybody.

01:10:49 She would not hug me.

01:10:52 I would tell her that I loved her,

01:10:56 and she would just ignore it like it was never said.

01:11:00 The Chowchilla children had the worst idea about their futures.

01:11:05 In the unconscious, we are indestructible,

01:11:09 we are going to live forever.

01:11:12 After trauma, that's not true.

01:11:16 You buy it that you're going to die.

01:11:20 In California yesterday,

01:11:23 three young men pleaded guilty to the kidnapping a year ago

01:11:26 of 26 school children and their bus driver.

01:11:29 The men pled not guilty to different charges

01:11:32 that carry a life sentence without parole.

01:11:35 Prosecutor David Menear is also trying to show

01:11:40 that there was far more bodily harm inflicted on the kidnapped victims.

01:11:44 We have conditions of total darkness,

01:11:47 not enough food or water, extremely hot,

01:11:50 conditions of panic among the children.

01:11:53 That should be enough to constitute bodily harm,

01:11:56 even if you don't have broken bones.

01:11:59 Physically, the children had a bruise or two, there was a cut or two.

01:12:03 They had a little bit of urinary trouble, which cleared up.

01:12:07 So the defense said no harm.

01:12:10 As you gentlemen who have seen the transcript know,

01:12:13 there's very little physical damage at all,

01:12:16 but what about the emotional damage that they talked about?

01:12:19 Is that possible?

01:12:21 There is no case in California that I know of

01:12:24 that holds that emotional damage is bodily injury.

01:12:27 I couldn't believe it. The mind and the brain?

01:12:30 That's not bodily harm? What you do to a person's mind?

01:12:33 What you do to a young child's developing mind?

01:12:36 Bus driver Ed Ray was among the early arrivals

01:12:39 at the Alameda County Courthouse, closely followed by some of the children

01:12:42 who were kidnapped with him in July of last year.

01:12:45 So the children had to be brought in and had to testify

01:12:48 about the injuries that they sustained.

01:12:51 They had to face the kidnappers in that courtroom.

01:12:55 I can remember my mom saying that the kidnappers would be in the room.

01:13:03 I was so scared.

01:13:06 Ed Ray explained how he and the children were placed in two airless vans

01:13:10 and how the children wept and he feared suffocation.

01:13:14 Jodi Heffington fell to tears on the witness stand

01:13:17 as she attempted to tell her story of the kidnapping

01:13:20 and being entombed underground.

01:13:22 When they took me into the courtroom,

01:13:25 I can remember sitting in the jury box and I felt like I could barely see

01:13:29 because I was so little.

01:13:31 I remember not looking at the kidnappers like,

01:13:34 "I'm going to do what I got to do and I'm going to get out of here."

01:13:39 I told them the harm that they caused to us

01:13:43 was because of the conditions that they put us in.

01:13:46 And as I finished and I walked out, I just started bawling.

01:13:51 It was extremely brave of them to take the stand.

01:13:58 Do you think they should ever be released?

01:14:03 No, I don't think they should.

01:14:04 Why?

01:14:05 Did you know they were going to come back and release us

01:14:07 if we didn't get out?

01:14:09 We was buried under the ground, man.

01:14:11 After 16 days of grueling testimony,

01:14:16 Judge Deegan found all three men guilty.

01:14:19 Deegan, this was an ordeal of terror and that to me causes suffering.

01:14:24 Suffering is, in itself, physical harm.

01:14:27 Finding out that my kidnappers got life without the possibility of parole

01:14:33 was exactly what we had hoped for.

01:14:37 But just when survivors felt that they could find some sort of peace with it,

01:14:43 the kidnappers filed appeals and in 1980,

01:14:47 the appellate court agreed and reversed the sentence.

01:14:51 The kidnappers had plenty of money and plenty of time

01:15:02 and a very good attorney and said, "Mental harm isn't bodily harm."

01:15:07 They could be out after 25 years.

01:15:10 We thought we were safe, you know?

01:15:13 That was and still is like a slap in the face.

01:15:19 What was the worst part of it for you?

01:15:26 I really didn't think we were going to get out.

01:15:28 My brother did, but I didn't think we were going to get out

01:15:31 and I didn't know what was going to happen to us

01:15:33 or if they'd ever let us out or if we'd run out of food or die or what.

01:15:36 I just figured that was it.

01:15:39 After the trial was done, I couldn't progress past the kidnapping.

01:15:45 My self-esteem took a large blow.

01:15:49 I didn't want anybody knowing everything that I had been through,

01:15:53 but everybody in Chowchilla knew about the kidnapping,

01:15:56 so I had a lot of eyes watching me at that point in time.

01:16:00 And then, unfortunate for us, five years after the kidnapping,

01:16:05 my brother was in an industrial accident with my dad,

01:16:08 and my brother was killed.

01:16:11 About 300 people attended Jeff's funeral,

01:16:14 many standing outside because the chapel was full.

01:16:18 I felt so betrayed by God that he got me through the kidnapping

01:16:26 and then took away my beloved brother.

01:16:30 The spotlight was on us again.

01:16:34 We had reporters at our house all the time.

01:16:38 My small family at that point crumbled.

01:16:43 My parents divorced.

01:16:45 That small town became so suffocating for me

01:16:50 that I couldn't go to school without stares.

01:16:54 I couldn't go to school without people talking behind my back.

01:16:58 I couldn't go to school without somebody saying, "I am so sorry."

01:17:03 And my mom and I made the decision to leave Chowchilla.

01:17:10 I left during my junior year of high school.

01:17:14 I was a class officer. I was a cheerleader.

01:17:19 I was involved in everything.

01:17:20 I gave it all up so that we could move away and I could be a nobody.

01:17:24 I just wanted to be nobody.

01:17:27 When they get to be adults, childhood trauma doesn't just go away.

01:17:34 In fact, some of it gets worse.

01:17:43 I was about 19 or 20, going out and getting hammered, blackout, drunk every single night.

01:17:53 I just didn't want to remember anymore about the kidnapping.

01:17:57 I just wanted it to go away.

01:17:59 Around the four or five year mark, he was in trouble as a rodeo rider.

01:18:07 It was such a shame that he had lost this pride in himself.

01:18:12 And some of that pride from having been the kid's hero

01:18:17 had been robbed from him by the town's response.

01:18:21 He was never acknowledged.

01:18:25 I didn't know who I was anymore.

01:18:29 That cowboy part of me went away.

01:18:34 I'm still alive. I can still walk and talk.

01:18:38 But still, the way I feel inside me, what they'd done to me,

01:18:43 they could never feel what they put us through.

01:18:48 Alcohol helps with that in a big way.

01:18:52 Over the years, everything just overwhelmed him.

01:18:59 He got more and more into the hole.

01:19:04 I was drinking and using and all that, to the point where I'd been to seven rehabs.

01:19:12 I was living in insanity.

01:19:15 Before the kidnapping, I could see so much light ahead of me.

01:19:24 I could see my future.

01:19:26 But then, after the kidnapping, I couldn't see anything.

01:19:31 [thunder]

01:19:34 The kidnappers have been having parole hearings since the early 1980s.

01:19:43 Many of the survivors wanted to participate in the process.

01:19:47 Jody Huffington attended almost every hearing,

01:19:50 having to face each of the kidnappers every five years.

01:19:53 They did a number of emotional damage to all of us,

01:19:58 including our families, our parents.

01:20:02 Our lives were never the same after that, ever.

01:20:06 During the kidnapping, Jody Huffington was one of the older girls

01:20:11 who was like an older sister figure to a lot of the kids.

01:20:16 She was the one kid who held a flashlight the whole time and stood steady as anything.

01:20:22 She became one of our strongest advocates.

01:20:26 Her and Linda Correjo have gotten in the car and driven hours to the Bay Area

01:20:31 to be there in person numerous times.

01:20:35 What they did, they should stay there.

01:20:38 It was on the victims to fight for them to be in jail.

01:20:41 If they had not been going to the parole hearings,

01:20:43 they'd have been out in probably 1980-something.

01:20:46 At one hearing, they actually shut me down because I was so angry.

01:20:53 One of the guards led me away.

01:20:56 It was one thing that they hurt me, but they completely shattered my family.

01:21:02 Andrea had dissociated from the family and left Chowchilla.

01:21:10 My mom lost faith in my dad as a protector.

01:21:14 I was surviving day to day, hated my life, hated myself, and hated everyone around me.

01:21:23 [Police sirens]

01:21:25 Park has had trouble with the law, spent some time in prison.

01:21:29 He's doing better now, he says, but still struggling.

01:21:33 If they want me to believe that they're ready,

01:21:36 they're going to have to let me see them cry.

01:21:39 They're going to have to let me see them cry for me and for my sister and my family.

01:21:45 When they would go to the parole hearings,

01:21:48 it would be the responsibility of the victim to say what their story is.

01:21:52 My mom talked about how she didn't feel safe around men,

01:21:56 her depression, her struggle with addiction issues.

01:22:00 What they don't tell you is that you're not just going to speak your piece one time.

01:22:05 They never got rest.

01:22:08 The kidnappers were denied parole for many, many years.

01:22:13 It wasn't until after 2010 that there was public support for them.

01:22:18 A rally was held today in San Francisco by supporters demanding parole for the kidnappers.

01:22:24 Several high profile politicians and families became involved in advocating for parole.

01:22:31 This includes Gavin Newsom's father, who was an appellate judge.

01:22:35 Nobody was physically injured. Huge factor in the case.

01:22:39 And Dale Fore, who was part of the investigative team from Madera County

01:22:44 when the Chowchilla kidnapping case occurred.

01:22:47 What's right is right. How much time you want out of these guys?

01:22:51 He was one of the people assured us that none of the kidnappers would ever get out.

01:22:56 He started working for Fred Wood's team.

01:22:59 He knew many of the survivors and at times he approached them and offered them money

01:23:04 to come and support parole and to change their position.

01:23:07 He had offered me personally at one point to make some money.

01:23:14 He wanted me to write letters in support of parole for the kidnappers.

01:23:19 And I let him know I was not the kind of girl that could be bought.

01:23:23 The next parole hearing, one of the kidnap victims showed up with Dale as her support person

01:23:30 with letters in support of release.

01:23:33 Don't ask me nothing.

01:23:35 It was a complete like betrayal to everyone.

01:23:38 Over the years, there was an anger building in me that infested absolutely every aspect of my life.

01:24:02 I was replaying the kidnapping constantly.

01:24:06 I wanted to torture those men.

01:24:09 I would fantasize about the different ways that we could get them.

01:24:17 I was in a prison of my own making.

01:24:24 And I decided to pray.

01:24:30 I said, "God, forgive them because I can't. God, bless them because I can't."

01:24:34 And I realized, "God, forgive them because I won't."

01:24:39 And God, He said, "I can work with the truth. We can move forward from here."

01:24:55 Larry Park decided to go through the restorative justice process.

01:24:59 And that's a process that assists survivors that choose to, to talk to their offender.

01:25:05 To come to closure if it helps them.

01:25:08 So I got to go in.

01:25:14 And I said, "I was your victim for 36 hours.

01:25:21 And for the last 38 years, I've been my own victim."

01:25:25 I told them that I forgave them.

01:25:30 But forgiving them wasn't enough.

01:25:34 I had spent my lifetime hating them.

01:25:40 And so I asked for their forgiveness.

01:25:46 [A man convicted of kidnapping a bus full of children in Chowchilla more than 35 years ago is now free.]

01:25:52 A man convicted of kidnapping a bus full of children in Chowchilla more than 35 years ago is now free.

01:26:00 The California Department of Corrections released Richard Schoenfeld last night from a San Luis Obispo prison.

01:26:07 In 1976, he kidnapped 26 children, a crime that held the nation with great concern.

01:26:14 When the youngest kidnapper got out, that's when the panic attacks started happening and the worry.

01:26:21 All these feelings come up that you hadn't felt in so long.

01:26:23 I was kind of nauseous.

01:26:26 And then very tearful because first, I think, first of other children.

01:26:31 I prepared myself because I knew that his brother would be not too soon after that.

01:26:37 After nearly 40 years behind bars, James Schoenfeld will soon be out of prison and on parole.

01:26:44 News of the latest release did not go over well with the victims.

01:26:47 Let's let all the prisoners who hurt someone and hurt their families, let's let them all go.

01:26:53 Jodi went into a huge depression.

01:26:59 She would say, "Linda, it's all my fault. It's all my fault. They're getting out. It's all my fault."

01:27:03 And I said, "We have as much responsibility as you do to keep them in."

01:27:08 She couldn't get out of bed no more.

01:27:12 And it was just, she was so weak.

01:27:14 Because she was just drinking so much and she wouldn't eat because she was so depressed.

01:27:19 And she basically just couldn't process life the way she was supposed to.

01:27:25 And my mom just did her best for as long as she could.

01:27:30 [Music]

01:27:35 And it was their fucking fault.

01:27:37 While the Schoenfelds in prison seemed to behave according to the rules, Woods was different.

01:27:52 It was discovered that he was conducting businesses, including a Christmas tree farm, a gold mine.

01:27:58 And he continued to purchase and collect cars while he was incarcerated.

01:28:02 He was able to acquire contraband cell phones and use them to conduct the businesses.

01:28:07 The extent that Fred Woods involved himself in every small detail was staggering.

01:28:14 This is a prepaid call from an inmate at the county correctional facility.

01:28:20 Hey Mike, this is Fred.

01:28:21 What's the deal about the generator being screwed up loose?

01:28:23 I need a green and a number.

01:28:28 [Multiple voices]

01:28:35 One of the more astonishing things, that Fred Woods has possession of the two kidnap vans

01:28:42 that the children and the bus driver were transported in.

01:28:46 Because he thinks the value will increase because of their notoriety.

01:28:52 It's not any sentimental value.

01:28:55 This is Fred's continuing obsession, I would call it, with money.

01:29:01 It's amazing because he didn't even need the money.

01:29:04 The Woods family set up a trust.

01:29:07 They wanted to pass on what they could to their son.

01:29:11 And it was estimated in one filing to be a hundred million dollars.

01:29:19 Money that Woods, even as an inmate, had access to.

01:29:24 The hearing came up pretty quick.

01:29:30 It was really difficult because we had just recently lost Jodi.

01:29:37 But the community came together and said, "Okay, we've got to not just do it for ourselves,

01:29:42 do it for Jodi and Jeff and each other."

01:29:48 This is the 17th subsequent life parole consideration hearing for Frederick Woods.

01:29:53 Only the inmate and his attorney were in the prison.

01:30:00 Everybody else was on remote.

01:30:02 Here we are, wondering if rehabilitation has occurred.

01:30:06 Is rehabilitation running businesses out of a jail cell,

01:30:09 sneakily smuggling contraband such as cell phones in and out of prison

01:30:12 without regard to rules, regulations and authority?

01:30:15 He should not be released.

01:30:17 His mind is still evil and he is out to get what he wants

01:30:21 with no regret for the safety of others.

01:30:23 Mr. Woods has not changed for the better in the 45 plus years he's been incarcerated.

01:30:28 He's gotten to heal.

01:30:30 And my mother was never granted that chance from 1976 to when she died two years ago.

01:30:37 The biggest question the commissioners had was from the lead commissioner

01:30:41 who asked why Woods was so fixated on money.

01:30:46 I've always said I needed the money.

01:30:48 Well, I didn't need the money, I wanted the money.

01:30:51 I've learned that in the last few years.

01:30:53 That was a mistake on my part.

01:30:55 I was totally wrong with this way of thinking.

01:30:58 I've had a thinking change.

01:31:00 I felt that he still wasn't wholly truthful

01:31:05 and that he still showed some of the same characteristics

01:31:08 that he did at the time he planned this.

01:31:11 I wonder if he understands that the trauma,

01:31:14 the physical and emotional trauma, is life altering.

01:31:18 That was really very sad, thinking how we've worked so hard.

01:31:28 I feel that I did everything I could possibly do,

01:31:34 but I had to let go of the thought that I had that control.

01:31:42 If that kept me in a dark place for too much longer, it would be overwhelming.

01:31:49 The thing about this case that made it unique

01:31:59 was the continuing impact of the crime on the children.

01:32:03 In 1976, we thought they would just get over it.

01:32:10 But all were deeply affected.

01:32:12 Dr. Terr once called the children "little pioneers of medicine"

01:32:17 because they so helped in the understanding of childhood trauma.

01:32:21 They paved the way for us to understand more contemporary things.

01:32:26 What happens when you force children away from their parents at a border?

01:32:30 What happens to children at some of these horrible school shootings?

01:32:35 Because of the Chowchilla kidnapping,

01:32:38 there were counselors at Columbine after the shooting.

01:32:41 There are counselors at nightclubs after shootings.

01:32:45 Chowchilla children are heroes,

01:32:49 and they continue to teach us what childhood trauma is

01:32:53 46, 47, 48, 50 years after the fact.

01:32:58 We are in an area that is prone to tornadoes.

01:33:07 It's very common to have a storm shelter.

01:33:10 So we actually purchased one.

01:33:13 We weren't able to submerge it in the ground

01:33:16 because that's just a little bit too traumatic for me.

01:33:19 My family knows that it's a struggle for me.

01:33:23 They work with me on that.

01:33:25 I'm thankful to my parents for encouraging me to try to grow and give back

01:33:32 to show that this one event has not defined me.

01:33:37 I focused on putting my energy towards positive things in my life.

01:33:46 So I chose education, and I went back to Chowchilla

01:33:51 and taught in Chowchilla at Albuquerque Dairyland.

01:33:54 And I take the responsibility.

01:33:58 My eyes are always watching the children, making sure they are safe every second in the classroom.

01:34:03 I chose making a difference that way.

01:34:07 For 34 years, I was nothing but a survivor.

01:34:14 Today I am a reverend, a Christian counselor, and I am a friend.

01:34:24 I wake up in the morning, I say my rosary, and I step out in faith.

01:34:30 I never gave up. Not completely.

01:34:35 Because I was taught at six years old by a 14-year-old boy,

01:34:43 "You don't give up. You keep digging."

01:34:47 How are you?

01:34:49 Good.

01:34:50 1977 is the last time that I saw Mike Marshall.

01:34:54 Do you know I'm standing with my hero?

01:34:58 I can't believe what he did.

01:35:01 I still can't believe it.

01:35:04 I appreciate that. I really do.

01:35:07 Thank you so much, Mike.

01:35:14 I didn't realize how much it would help me to understand

01:35:21 and to actually hear one of the kids tell me that I saved their lives

01:35:27 and that they were grateful.

01:35:29 Not very many people that, you know, can relate.

01:35:34 When I was a kid, I wanted to be a rodeo cowboy like my dad.

01:35:43 I would see myself far in the future, rodeoing for a living,

01:35:48 but I woke up at about 48 years old with a blurry hangover.

01:35:55 But then getting sober is amazing. It's to have a life.

01:36:02 And to be grateful for every day.

01:36:10 It's taken a while to come back and rodeo,

01:36:13 but once you're a cowboy, you're always a cowboy,

01:36:16 because it's in your heart.

01:36:18 So I'm going to cowboy up tomorrow and go to this rope in here

01:36:25 and chow-chow and stick some steers.

01:36:29 Five, Lacey Jones, Jeff Cabral.

01:36:35 Six, Adam Silvera, Spencer Mitchell.

01:36:37 Seven, Tate Dill, Joe Joe.

01:36:39 God has a way of making things come full circle in his timing.

01:36:44 Mike, you're up.

01:36:45 Spending over miles of cotton finally ruined my daddy's back.

01:37:02 As he overcompensated for an education lack.

01:37:08 As a kid I rode behind him on his canvas cotton sack.

01:37:15 And every day he'd say 500 pounds or bust.

01:37:20 As he'd pull me through that hot chow-chilla dust.

01:37:27 When I grew too big to ride I got myself an old tow sack.

01:37:33 Mama sold me on a harness and strapped it on my back.

01:37:40 Daddy headed for the fields and as I stepped into his track.

01:37:47 I ain't sure, but I think my mama cussed.

01:37:53 As I bowed in through that hot chow-chilla dust.

01:37:58 (Music)

01:38:04 (Applause)

01:38:07 (audience applauding)

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