Parole Refused for 3rd Time in Chowchilla Bus Kidnaping Case

State officers denied parole again Wednesday to James Schoenfeld, who helped abduct a busload of children 10 years ago in the San Joaquin Valley farm town of Chowchilla.

The three-member panel of the Board of Prison Terms said Schoenfeld, 35, will be eligible for parole consideration again in 1988.

Steve Blankenship, executive officer of the Board of Prison Terms, said the board considered “the nature of the crime and an unfavorable psychiatric report” in rejecting Schoenfeld’s parole.

The board had not made a decision late Wednesday on Schoenfeld’s brother, Richard, 32, who also took part in the kidnaping and was up for parole.

It was James Schoenfeld’s third parole hearing and Richard Schoenfeld’s fifth.

Locked in Van

The Schoenfelds, of Atherton, and Frederick Woods IV, 35, of Portola Valley, pleaded guilty to the July 15, 1976, kidnaping of 26 children and their bus driver in the San Joaquin Valley farming community of Chowchilla, 150 miles southeast of San Francisco.

In one of the most bizarre kidnapings in American history, the three men, all members of wealthy families, drove their victims 150 miles and locked them in a moving van buried in a Livermore gravel quarry. Led by bus driver Ed Ray, the children clawed their way to safety after 16 hours.

The children were reunited with their families in Chowchilla 30 hours after they were kidnaped.

The three kidnapers said after their arrests that they had planned to seek $5 million in ransom.

Ray said in an interview earlier this year that he fears that the Schoenfelds and Woods eventually will be released from prison, where they are serving life terms.

“I think that will be a mistake,” Ray said. “They better keep them there because they would be a danger to somebody if they get out.”