A 70-year-old man imprisoned for the 1976 kidnapping of a bus full of children has been approved for parole, according to spokesperson Joe Orlando of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).
Highlights
- Frederick Newhall Woods, 70, was one of three men who kidnapped 26 children and their bus driver in Chowchilla, California.
- The kidnappers demanded $5 million ransom while the victims were underground in what was the largest mass kidnapping in US history.
- Woods and his two co-conspirators pleaded guilty to kidnapping and were each given 27 life sentences without the possibility of parole.
- After 16 hours underground, the driver and the children dug themselves out and escaped as the kidnappers were asleep in a quarry owned by Woods’ father.
- The scheme was apparently inspired by a plot point in the movie “Dirty Harry” in which the children were buried alive.