The State - News from June 9, 1989

One of three men who kidnaped and buried a bus full of schoolchildren 13 years ago has been denied a parole for the 10th time. Richard Schoenfeld, 35, who is serving a life sentence, is still a danger to society, a Board of Prison Terms panel decided. Schoenfeld was convicted for his role in the Chowchilla kidnaping of 26 schoolchildren and their driver from the rural San Joaquin Valley town for $5 million ransom. Schoenfeld, his brother, James, and Frederick N. Woods commandeered the bus on July 15, 1976, and took it 100 miles to Livermore. There they shut the victims in a poorly ventilated moving van buried in a quarry. It took the group 16 hours to dig to safety through the wood- and earth-covered hole.