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As we traveled back in time, back to the year 1976, we find a school bus driver named Ed Ray driving 26 children aged 5-14 home from the second to the last day of school and coming across a van blocking the road. As Ed attempts to go around here makes the fateful decision to slow down concerned someone inside the van may be hurt or experiencing engine problems.
It was when the bus slowed down that a man jumped from the open doors of the van. He was wearing pantyhose on his head and had a gun in his hand.(The legs of the pantyhose lying limply on either side of the mans head looked like big floppy rabbit ears and at one point the youngest of the children would ask if he was the Easter Bunny)
The bus is forced to a stop and the man walks up to the drivers side door and asks almost politely if Ed will open the door. The gun in the mans hand convinces Ed to do just that. As he opens the door two additional men appear. They are dressed identical to the first man. One of the men enters the bus and orders Ed and the children to the back of the bus and he accompanies them acting as a guard. Another man who is not carrying a gun takes over driving the bus and the third man gets inside the white van and follows the bus as Ed and the children, having now become hostages are driven off into the night.
. They drive for about a mile before pulling the bus into a bamboo thicket near a second van, this one green, and parking the bus where it is somewhat hidden by the tall bamboo shoots.
. Twelve of the children are then loaded into the white van. They are made to jump from the bus to the van so that they do not leave any footprints. Ed and the remaining children are loaded into the green van and ordered to jump from one vehicle to the other just as the first group had done.
. The inside of the vans are identical for the most part, both having been made into makeshift jail cells. A wooden partition separates the driver from the back of the van and the windows have been painted over so that no one could see in or out of the van. There is no fan, no air-conditioning, no ventilation of any kind. There is no food, no water and no toilets. There was also no lighting and with the windows painted over as they were, once the doors of the van were closed, the 27 captives were plunged into total darkness. Many of the children are crying and when the doors close some of the younger children begin to scream.
. The older children try and offer comfort to the younger ones and to help calm their fears by singing songs. They sing songs such as, "Boogie Fever," "Get Down Tonight," and "If you're happy and you know it." This last they change the words to "If You're Sad And You Know It," to better fit their situation.
. In town, Ed being known for keeping such an exact schedule that it was said you could set your watch by him, it was not long before parents became worried and only fifteen minutes after the bus had not arrived as scheduled that the first of many phone calls was made to police. Soon after the police station would become overwhelmed with calls from frantic parents wanting to know what was going on. Wanting to know where their children were.
. Local television stations began broadcasting the news that the school bus, is driver and its 26 young passengers had vanished.
. Back in the vans, the children remain in total darkness. The singing had stopped and many children are crying quietly. Each child with their own thoughts , they're own fears. .The heat is becoming unbearable and the group is tired, hungry, frightened and just want to go home. Instead, they are driven through the night for several hours before finally coming to a stop at a rock quarry in Livermore, California over 100 miles away from Chowchilla. It's about 3:00 am when they arrive and the illumination from the construction lights which light the quarry cast an eerie glow on the landscape making the hole in the ground that the children will be forced to climb down into look like a graveyard crypt.
The kidnappers take Ed out of the van closing the doors to the van, plunging the children once more into total darkness. Ed is then made to remove his clothing except for his underwear, given a flashlight and after the kidnappers write his name on a used Jack In The Bag, he is instructed to climb down a wooden ladder into the hole that looks like a graveyard crypt.
. As soon as Ed decends into the dark hole, the kidnappers begin to remove the children one by one from the vans . They too are made to strip down to their underwear, asked their names which are also written the the bag along with Eds and then, they too are forced to climb down the wooden ladder into the dark hole and whatever it is that waits below.
Stay tuned for Part 3 of our series, Chowchilla 1976-A Journey Back In Time.
By Sagisteen Vanderhoff Reporter for AV Street Beats
Local Late Breaking and Music News
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