1976 Chowchilla kidnapping

On July 15, 1976, 55-year-old school bus driver Frank Edward "Ed" Ray was driving 26 children home from a summer trip to the Chowchilla Fairgrounds swimming pool when a van blocked the bus's path. Three men wearing nylon stockings over their faces boarded the bus, one holding Ray at gunpoint, and hijacked the vehicle. The kidnappers drove the bus to Berenda Slough, where they transferred the driver and children into two modified vans with blacked-out windows and soundproofed interiors, then drove roughly 110 miles to the California Rock & Gravel quarry in Livermore. There, in the early hours of July 16, the victims were forced into an underground bunker made from a buried truck trailer, equipped with a ventilation system, a pit toilet, mattresses, and limited food and water. The kidnappers recorded each child's name and age on a hamburger wrapper before sealing the hatch with sheet metal and heavy batteries and covering it with dirt.

After several hours of confinement, Ray and the older children stacked mattresses to reach the hatch. Fourteen-year-old Michael Marshall wedged wood into the opening and helped clear the debris, and the group escaped roughly sixteen hours after being buried, walking to a nearby quarry guard shack. All 26 children and the driver survived, though many later experienced post-traumatic stress disorder, phobias, and other lasting psychological effects documented in subsequent studies.

The kidnappers—Frederick Newhall Woods IV and brothers James and Richard Schoenfeld—had planned to demand a $5 million ransom, intending to use the funds to restore the Victorian Rengstorff House in Mountain View. Jammed phone lines prevented them from delivering the ransom demand before news broke that the victims had escaped. Investigators linked Woods, son of the quarry's owner, to the crime through his access to the site, and a search of the Woods family estate turned up planning documents, weapons, and the hamburger wrapper listing the children's names. All three men were arrested within weeks and pleaded guilty to kidnapping for ransom and robbery. They contested a bodily-harm charge that would have carried a mandatory sentence of life without parole, but were convicted on that count as well and initially sentenced accordingly. An appellate court later overturned the bodily-harm finding, ruling the children's injuries did not meet the legal standard, and the three were resentenced to life with the possibility of parole.

Richard Schoenfeld was paroled in 2012, James Schoenfeld in 2015, and Frederick Woods in 2022 after numerous prior denials. In 2016, the surviving victims settled a lawsuit against the kidnappers, with payment drawn from Woods' trust fund. Ed Ray, the bus driver, was later honored by Chowchilla, which renamed a local park in his name; he died in 2012. The case is credited with influencing changes to California law regarding bodily injury and psychological trauma standards, and has informed broader understanding of childhood trauma responses.