The once-infamous crime is not so well known today: on July 15, 1976, three masked gunmen took a school bus full of children hostage in Chowchilla, California, and spirited them away to a moving van buried in a quarry in Livermore. The children and the bus driver escaped before a ransom could be demanded. The three kidnappers were soon captured, went to trial, and received lengthy prison sentences.
So what does this have to do with us? It turns out that all three gunmen were residents of our county. Brothers Richard and James Schoenfeld (who lived in Atherton) and Frederick Woods (a resident of Portola Valley) were established residents in San Mateo County – all three attending Woodside High School.
At first glance, these three did not look like criminal masterminds, although they had had some minor scrapes with the law in the past. Richard and James were both Eagle Scouts. The Woodside High School yearbook “The Wildcat” listed Frederick’s sole interest as track and announced that James was a member of the Chess Club.
The Press Democrat, however, highlighted that even the best neighborhoods have a dark side: “Portola Valley and Atherton…appeared to be the epitome of the American dream… But even in Portola Valley, there is a hard edge….”
By the time the three young men were in their early 20s, they owed a lot of money due to weighty real estate investments they had made. James outlined how the kidnapping plan came to be in an interview with the Napa Valley Register: “The plan was simple in theory – kidnap a school bus, hold the occupants for ransom…all our problems would be solved…”
And why a busload of children? James told CBSnews.com: “We needed multiple victims to get multiple millions, and we picked children because children are precious. The state would be willing to pay ransom for them. And they don’t fight back. They’re vulnerable. They will mind.”
Before law enforcement had identified these three suspects, investigators developed a variety of (wrong) theories, including, as reported in the San Mateo Times, that there were more than seven sons from wealthy San Mateo County families involved in what could be some kind of cult activity.
Because Frederick’s father owned the Livermore quarry where the van was buried, it didn’t take long for the police to figure out who was responsible for the crime. Richard turned himself in, Frederick was captured in Canada, and James was arrested in Menlo Park.
After unremarkable behavior in prison, Richard and James were released in, respectively, 2012 and 2015, and Frederick comes up before the parole board once again in 2024.
