In Madera, Calif. Frederick Newhall Woods, who was 24 years old at the time, together with two accomplices hijacked a school bus with 26 students and the bus driver. Afterwards, they locked those captured in a ventilated bunker for 16 hours, while the kidnappers demanded a ransom of five million dollars.
According to the Peruvian media ‘El Comercio’, this crime has been the largest orchestrated kidnapping in the history of the United States. When Woods along with Richard and James Schoenfeld, the brothers who were accomplices, were arrested They were sentenced to 27 years in prison without the right to parole.
However, an appeals court in California overturned the first sentence so that they could agree to request parole if they met the necessary requirements. According to the television network ‘NBC News’, they were inspired by the movie ‘Dirty Harry’ to carry out the kidnapping.
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Richard and James Schoenfeld were granted parole in 2012 and 2015 respectively, but Woods has been denied parole 17 times.. On March 25, 2022, a hearing at the California Men’s Colony state prison found Frederick Newhall Woods, who masterminded the kidnapping, eligible for parole.
The biggest kidnapping
They hijacked the school bus near Chowchilla, a town near San Francisco. The victims were between five and 14 years old, in addition to the driver of the transport. The kidnappers took the victims to Livermore, where they were locked in a bunker on the Newhall Woods father’s property.
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According to the police report, the victims were in that condition for 16 hours. For their part, the kidnappers were demanding that the parents deliver a ransom of 5 million dollars, which today would be just under 24 million dollars (almost 90 billion pesos today).
The children along with the driver managed to escape at a time when the three kidnappers were sleeping.
Frederick Woods, Jason and Richard Schoenfeld when they were captured.
Alameda County Sheriff’s Office
Woods Parole Request
Frederick Newhall Woods is still in custody, who, as reported by ‘NBC News’, apologized for his actions at the hearing. Woods maintained that today he feels genuine regret for what he did to the kidnapped youths.
There were times when I thought we’d die there in the bunker
“Now I totally understand the terror and trauma I caused”, reported the man deprived of liberty.
Your case has a review time of 120 days, after which the board before which it was presented must respond if they will grant you parole. After this, the file will go to the Governor of California, where the final decision will be made.
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Two of the victims, Larry Park and Rebecca Reynolds, reportedly expressed support for Woods’ release. Although not everyone agrees with this: Lynda Cerrejo was interviewed on the ‘CNN’ network and expressed that she feels as if she were reliving the moments of his kidnapping.
“There were times when I thought we would die there in the bunker, abandoned”, declared Cerrejo, who will have to wait for the decisions of the Californian authorities.
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