HomeSafety48 Hours Airs Interview with Chowchilla Kidnapping Survivors

48 Hours Airs Interview with Chowchilla Kidnapping Survivors

CBS News’ segment 48 hours aired Remembering the Chowchilla Kidnapping on March 18.

The segment, which aired on CBS and is streamed on Paramount+, follows the story of the infamous 1976 school bus kidnapping, in which three masked gunmen abducted 26 children and school bus driver Ed Ray. They were buried alive in a rock quarry and in an old moving truck, spending more than 16 hours in the dark before they were able to escape.

Last summer, the last of the three men convicted of the kidnapping, Frederick Wood, was paroled from prison. Wood, then 24, and his two friends James and Richard Schoenfeld, were arrested, convicted and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

The 48 Hours segment consisted of an interview with survivors, including Jodi Heffington, who relayed her lifelong trauma she dealt with before dying in 2021.

“How that day affected me has affected me every day in some way or another,” Heffington tells 48 HOURS, CBS News stated via a press release. “I think it made me not a good daughter, not a good sister, not a good aunt, and especially not a good mother … I try to be those things. But it seems like, it just took something from me that I can’t ever get back. And I can’t tear it down … no matter how hard I try and no matter what I do.”


Related: Technology Lessons Learned From Chowchilla
Related: Mastermind of Chowchilla School Bus Kidnapping Paroled from Prison
Related: (STN Podcast E126) Tech & How To Use It: Chowchilla Kidnapping Lessons & Driver Training Insights
Related: Heroic Chowchilla School Bus Driver, Ed Ray, Remembered
Related: Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide


Jodi Heffington, a survivor of the 1976 Chowchilla kidnapping. She died in 2021 but first granted 48 Hours an interview that will air on March 18, 2023.kid

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