Frederick Woods, 70, was approved during a release hearing Friday at the California Men’s Colony, a state prison, after he had previously refused 17 times. He had the support of two survivors. “I think you have spent a lot of time on the crime you committed,” said survivor Larry Park, who co-sponsored Woods’ release with Rebecca Reynolds Dailey. But Park added: “I’m worried about your money addiction, urging Woods to consider treatment. Woods and his accomplices, brothers Richard and James Schoenfeld, abducted 26 children and their bus driver on July 15, 1976, near Chowchilla, a town 125 miles southeast of San Francisco. USA TODAY contacted the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. According to CNN, the group took the 27 hostages 100 miles away in Livermore, where they were placed in a moving truck and buried alive. Woods and the brothers asked for $ 5 million from the State Board of Education. The children, aged 5 to 14, and the bus driver managed to get out after 16 hours. It was considered the largest mass abduction in US history, the report said. “Time Credits”: Thousands of federal inmates will be released under the law for the first step of 2018 What is everyone talking about? Subscribe to our trending newsletter to receive the latest news of the day Governor Gavin Newsom’s late father, State Judge William Newsom, reduced the sentences of all three men in 1980 so they could be released on parole. Richard was released in 2012 following a court of appeals decision and James was released by the then governor. Jerry Brown in 2015. FILE – This July 24, 1976 photo shows the inside of a van used as a jail for the 26 abducted students at Chowchilla School and their bus driver in Livermore, California. men convicted of piracy of a school bus full of children for a ransom of $ 5 million in 1976. The two commissioners acted on Friday, March 25, 2022, in the case of 70-year-old Frederick Woods. All three were from wealthy San Francisco Bay Area families when they abducted 26 children and their bus driver near Chouchilla. (AP Photo / Jim Palmer, Archive) At the hearing of his release on Friday, Woods read an apology for his crime. “I was sympathetic to the victims I did not have then,” he said. “I have changed my character since then.” The story goes on “I was 24 years old,” he added. “I now fully understand the horror and trauma I caused. “I take full responsibility for this heinous act.” Woods committed the crime as a young man under California law that requires conditional release commissioners to give more weight to the release of youth convicts who are now older and have long prison sentences. Approval from the parole hearing will be finalized within 120 days, then sent to Governor Gavin Newsom where he will have 30 days to consider the decision, CNN reported. As this is not a murder conviction, Newsom can not overturn it, but instead send it to the Board of Parole hearings for review. Jennifer Brown Hyde, a survivor who opposes Woods’s release on parole, said she had not fully recovered from the crime “He could have done a lot more,” he said. “Even the settlement paid to some of us survivors was not enough. “It was enough to pay for some treatment but not enough to buy a house.” Contribution: Associated Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: A man from California was given conditional after he kidnapped a children’s school bus
