James Schoenfeld And Richard Schoenfeld have reportedly expressed remorse for their actions and have been working to rebuild their lives since their release.
The 1976 Chowchilla kidnapping occurred on July 15, 1976, when a school bus driver and 26 children aged 5 to 14 were abducted in Chowchilla, California, United States.
The kidnappers kept their prisoners in a box truck buried in a quarry in Livermore, California, to demand a ransom in exchange for their release.
This week’s episode of CBS 48 Hours will examine the 1976 Chowchilla kidnapping of 26 children and the bus driver from a school bus. Three masked and heavily armed kidnappers, Frederick Woods and brothers James and Richard Schoenfeld, held them captive in an underground box truck at a rock quarry.
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The driver and children got themselves out and escaped after about 16 hours underground, and they all survived. The quarry owner’s son and two of his pals were convicted of the crime and sentenced to life in prison without the chance of release.
Chowchilla Kidnappers: Where Are James Schoenfeld And Richard Schoenfeld Now?
James and Richard Schoenfeld, brothers, grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and came from a wealthy household. Amazingly, they had few run-ins with the law before the kidnapping, and others who knew them said they behaved like any other young adult.
When James and Richard Schoenfeld appeared in court, they were prepared to plead guilty to all charges except the many counts of causing bodily damage.
Despite this, the jury eventually convicted them on all counts, and they were sentenced in 1976 to 27 concurrent sentences of 7 years to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Unsurprisingly, James and Richard immediately appealed their sentences, and in 1980, a court lowered the brothers’ life sentences and determined that they would be eligible for parole in the future.
As a result of that decision, Richard was granted parole in 2012, while James was released by then-Governor Jerry Brown in 2015. Both brothers have embraced seclusion and seek to keep their personal lives private.
Notwithstanding their parole status, we can confidently state that James and Richard Schoenfeld reside in Camino, California. Furthermore, according to a 2016 article, while Richard was the brothers’ 93-year-old mother’s full-time carer, James earned a living through architectural sketching skills, which he learned in prison.
James Schoenfeld And Richard Schoenfeld Brothers Arrest And Charges Explored
In roughly two weeks, investigators tracked down the kidnappers and arrested Frederick Woods, the rock quarry owner’s son, his used vehicle business partner, James Schoenfeld, and James’ younger brother, Richard.
According to CBS News, a document containing the “plan” of the kidnapping, a draft of a ransom note, and a list of all the victims’ names, together with their fingerprints, were used to convict all three men.
In the Chowchilla kidnapping case, they were first sentenced to 27 years to life in jail without the possibility of release.
Nevertheless, in 1980, an appeals panel overturned these sentences and declared that the men were eligible for release because they did not cause substantial bodily harm to the victims.
At 57, Richard Schoenfeld was granted parole and released from prison in June 2012, while his older brother James was released three years later.
Frederick Wood, the suspected architect of the kidnapping, was recently given parole, a move strongly contested by most Chowchilla kidnapping survivors.