As of 2026, all three men who hijacked a school bus in Chowchilla, California, and buried its occupants alive are free.
Richard Schoenfeld was released in 2012, James Schoenfeld in 2015, and Frederick Newhall Woods IV, the wealthy heir long seen as the ringleader, was paroled in August 2022 after decades of failed bids for release.
In the years since, the 1976 case has returned to public view through documentaries, as well as a new wave of survivor interviews that have forced a grim question back into the open:
