SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY - After being denied parole 20 times, one of the California men who kidnapped a school bus full of innocent children and then buried them alive nearly four decades ago is a free man after being released from a Central Coast prison.
The California Department of Corrections says 58 year old Richard Allen Schoenfeld was released from the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo Wednesday night.
The prison system did not say where Schoenfeld would be living but adds he will be monitored around the clock via a GPS device.
In 1976, 22 year old Richard Schoenfeld was the youngest of the three Chowchilla School Bus kidnappers when they were arrested, convicted and sent to prison.
Schoenfeld, his brother James and Frederick Woods, all from wealthy families, commandeered a Chowchilla Public School Bus carrying 26 children and the bus driver and ended up burying them in a rock quarry.
The kidnappers made everyone climb down a ladder into a buried moving van that had air tubes, mattresses and containers of water.
Despite spending 16 hours underground, all of the victims survived after the bus driver stacked the mattresses together allowing everyone to eventually climb out of the van through the top.
Instead of collecting any loot, the three kidnappers fell asleep before calling in their ransom demand.
It was the largest kidnapping for ransom in U.S. history and it remains a part of California criminal history lore.
The driver of the school bus, Ed Ray, died recently at age 91.
Others who were there in Chowchilla at the time wonder why any of the kidnappers are being granted parole.
"I think it was a mistake", says Ronald Moore who was Superintendent of the Chowchilla School District at the time of the kidnapping, "they had many opportunities to call out and tell people where those children were."
"If it wasn't for the bus driver saving those kids, all of those kids would be dead right now", adds longtime Chowchilla resident Jon Newton, "so why does he get to get out."
After 35 years behind bars, a California Appeals Court ordered Richard Schoenfeld released because the State Parole Board unfairly set his parole date for 2021 even though the Board said Schoenfeld is not a threat to society.
James Schoenfeld and Frederick Woods are both up for parole at the California Men's Colony near San Luis Obispo later this year.
