The 1976 Chowchilla kidnapping occurred on July 15, 1976, in Chowchilla, California, and involved 26 kids, ranging in age from 5 to 14. In order to exact a ransom for their release, the kidnappers kept their victims hostage in a box truck buried in a quarry in Livermore, California. The driver and kids dug themselves out of the tunnel after spending nearly 16 hours inside and made it out alive. After being found guilty of the crime, the son of the quarry owner and two of his pals were each given a life sentence with the possibility of parole. All three had received parole by 2022.
Frank Edward “Ed” Ray, a school bus driver, was returning 26 Dairyland Elementary School pupils from a field trip to the Chowchilla Fairgrounds swimming pool at around 4 p.m. PDT on Thursday, July 15, 1976, when a van blocked the road in front of the bus. When Ray got off the bus, three armed men with nylon stockings over their faces charged at him. As one of the men drove the bus and the other held Ray down with a revolver, the third man followed in the van.
In the Berenda Slough, a shallow fork of the Chowchilla River, where a second vehicle was parked, the kidnappers hid the bus. Black paint covered the back windows of both vehicles, and paneling was used to bolster the interiors. Gunpoint was used to force Ray and the kids into the two vehicles, and they were then driven around for 11 hours before being taken to a quarry in Livermore (37°39′48′′N 121°48′29′′W). There, early on July 16, the abductors forced the victims to descend a ladder into a hidden moving truck that was filled with some mattresses, some food, and water.
Ray and the older kids later stacked the mattresses so that some of them could access the opening at the top of the truck, which was covered in a heavy sheet of metal and weighed down with two 100-pound (45-kilogram) industrial batteries. Victims being escorted by sheriff’s deputies following their escape. After hours of struggle, Ray and the oldest boy, 14-year-old Michael Marshall, pushed the lid open with a piece of wood and moved the batteries; they then dug away the remaining of the debris obstructing the entrance. The party escaped from the truck sixteen hours after being inside and made their way to the guardhouse for the quarry, which was close to Shadow Cliffs Regional Park.