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1976 Chowchilla Kidnapping
The 1976 Chowchilla kidnapping was the abduction of a school bus driver and 26 children, ages 5 to 14, in Chowchilla, California, United States, on July 15, 1976. The kidnappers held their captives in a box truck buried in a quarry in Livermore, California, intending to demand a ransom for their return. After about 16 hours underground, the driver and children dug themselves out and escaped, all surviving. The quarry owner's son and two of his friends were convicted of the crime, each receiving a sentence of life with the possibility of parole. By 2022, all three had been paroled. Kidnapping At around 4 p.m. PDT on Thursday, July 15, 1976, school bus driver Frank Edward "Ed" Ray was driving 26 students of Dairyland Elementary School home from a summer class trip to the Chowchilla fairgrounds swimming pool when a van blocked the road ahead of the bus. Ray stopped the bus and was confronted by three armed men with nylon stockings covering their faces. One of the men held a g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chowchilla, California
Chowchilla is a city in Madera County, California, United States. The city's population was 19,039 at the 2020 census. Chowchilla is located northwest of Madera, at an elevation of . The city is the location of two prisons: Central California Women's Facility and Valley State Prison. Etymology The name "Chowchilla" is derived from the indigenous American tribe of Chaushila (the spelling is inconsistent in reference guides), a Yokut Indian tribe which once lived in the area. The name evidently translates as "murderers" and is apparently a reference to the warlike nature of the Chaushila tribe. It is also to be known among the Yokuts tribes later on to be associated with "bravery". The Chaushila Indians were inadvertently responsible for the first white men "discovering" Yosemite Valley, which occurred when they were being pursued by a band of whites. References to the tribe still abound in Chowchilla, and until 2016 the town's high school used the moniker "Redskins" as their ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
