![]() “Some of that pride from having been the kids’ hero had been robbed from him by the town’s response he was never acknowledged,” said Dr. He had a chance to tell the world how the escape had unfolded.Ĭalifornia mass kidnapping: After being buried alive as children, victims relive nightmare As Marshall walked past them on his way home, a broad grin eclipsed his exhaustion. Just freed, the kids went to officially report their ordeal to police. He dug and dug and dug – until a cascade of dirt fell into the box, through the manhole and into the coffin, revealing “the most glorious ray of sunlight that I had ever seen,” Park recalled.Īfter 16 hours in the subterranean hell, the 27 hostages climbed their way to freedom.īut the effects of the kidnapping would soon plague the children in myriad ways. Undaunted, Marshall pounded the dirt sealing the bottom edges of the box. Then they discovered another sick challenge: a large, reinforced plywood box surrounding the manhole, with more dirt on top. Ray joined him, and eventually they pushed the cover open – only to watch two massive truck or bus batteries that had covered it plummet into the underground cell. Hostages had to use a box with a hole as a toilet. The inside of this van was used as the children's prison. Marshall climbed onto mattresses the hostages had stacked under it and pushed with all his might. It seemed the only way out might be through a sealed manhole at the top of the entombed van. “I thought to myself: If we’re going to die, we’re going to die getting the hell out of here,” he recalled in “Chowchilla.” ![]() The lone adult trapped underground, bus driver Edward Ray, was reluctant to try to escape, “fearful that somebody was up there just waiting,” Brown Hyde recalled.īut Michael Marshall, who was 14, was willing to take the chance. The dark chamber – outfitted with some mattresses and meager snacks – quickly filled with the stench of vomit and filth, intensified by the searing California heat. “It was like a coffin,” Lynda Carrejo Labendeira, who was 10 at the time, told CNN in 2015. “It was like a giant coffin for all of us.” Fresno Bee/Tribune News Service/Getty Images Workers unearth the buried kidnap van where 27 people were held hostage. The gunmen drove it through a thicket of tall bamboo until they reached a ditch hiding two vans. A trio of gunmen – pantyhose over their heads – emerged and hijacked the bus. On July 15, 1976, summer school students were headed home from the Dairyland School when a van parked in the middle of a narrow road blocked their driver. ‘Like an animal being taken to slaughter’ ![]() ![]() There’s the 10-year-old girl who comforted other terrified kids, then spent decades confronting the kidnappers at parole hearings until the agony became too much to bear.Īnd there’s the 6-year-old boy who fought relentless nightmares and all-encompassing anger before finding unexpected peace. There’s the 14-year-old hero who devised a cunning escape to free the hostages – but didn’t get due credit and spiraled down a dark chasm of substance abuse. Now, the new CNN Film, “Chowchilla,” delves into how the largest mass kidnapping in US history became a catalyst for change. As part of a ransom plot, they drove the hostages into a rock quarry and forced them into what could have become a mass grave: a moving van soon to be covered with 6 feet of dirt.Īlmost 50 years on, those students have become unwitting pioneers in what child trauma can look like decades later. In 1976, gunmen stormed a school bus carrying 26 children – ages 5 to 14 – and their bus driver in Chowchilla, California.
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