Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Entitled Rich Guy Kidnapped 26 Kids // The Chowchilla Kidnapping

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

1976, three kidnappers hijacked a school bus in Chowchilla, California. They buried the hostages in a ventilated moving van inside a Livermore rock quarry for a 5 million dollar ransom. After 16 hours, the group successfully dug their way out, leading to the captors' swift capture and conviction.

What kind of dummy would kidnap 26 kids? Now, the story all starts with this guy. His name's Frederick. And Frederick's about 24 during this time, and he's living in Portola Valley, California. Here's the thing about him. He comes from a very wealthy family. His dad owns a big-ass rock quarry, and his family used to own Six Flags Magic Mountain. So they got money.

And Frederick himself owns his own car restoration business. However, around 1976, that business starts to fall apart. And it puts him in massive debt. And suddenly he needs some money, fast. But he can't ask his wealthy dad for the money. That would mean admitting that he failed as a businessman. And he can't allow his dad to think that he failed. So one night, he's with two of his friends,

and they're watching this dirty hairy movie from around that time. And in the movie, the gunman hijacks a school bus full of kids and he demands a ransom. And they're like, oh shit, we could do that and we can make some money. So they map out this plan. To kidnap a bus full of school kids, hide them somewhere, and then demand a ransom from the government. Now, like I said, Frederick's dad owns a rock query and Frederick has access to it. So they're going to hide the kids there. So they get to work on this terrible plan.

They go to that rock query and they use the equipment to dig a massive trench. Then they buy a large moving tractor trailer, lower it into the hole, and bury it, turning it into a makeshift underground bunker. After that, they begin monitoring schools in the region, looking for the perfect one to strike. And that is when they learn about this school 150 miles away in a town called Chowchilla. And this school plans on taking its students to the county fair. fairground swimming pool to celebrate the end of summer school. And Frederick and the goons, they decide that those are the students they'll target. So after 18 months of planning, they're finally ready to execute this kidnapping. Then the day of the school trip arrives. And the school bus

full of kids is coming back from the fairground swimming pool and that bus is being driven by this guy, Ed Ray. And Ed Ray, he's a local farmer and a longtime school bus. driver. So Ed Ray is driving along this sort of isolated road, and that is when he sees a van stopped across the road, blocking his path. So Ed Ray slows down. And suddenly, boom, Frederick and his goons appear, and they're all armed, and they're all wearing panty hose on their heads. And they storm onto the bus, and they're like, everyone outside. And so Ed Ray and the kids, and there are about 26 of them, they're all forced outside and into the van blocking the road, and also a second van parked along the roadside. After that, one of the goons drives the empty school bus into a nearby

ditch and covers it with bamboo so no passing drivers will notice it. Once that's done, they begin driving the vans toward the rock quarry. Eleven hours later, they get there, and Ed Ray and the kids are led into that makeshift underground bunker that they made. Then Frederick and the goons close the hatch above them, and they leave. Meanwhile, back in Chowchilla, The parents, they've been waiting for their kids to get back to the school so they can pick them up. And the whole school bus is somehow missing. So these parents start panicking. And some of them start calling the police.

And so immediately, police begin an investigation. And pretty quickly, they discover the abandoned school bus in the wooded ditch area. Here's actually a photograph of it. And that is when police realized the entire group of kids has been abducted. Around the same time, time, Frederick and the goons, they get back to Portola Valley, where they live, and they use public pay phones to call police and demand the ransom. However, they can't get through, because by this point, all kinds of worried parents and reporters are calling the sheriff's office,

blowing up their phones, so the phone lines are completely jammed. So they try calling over and over and over again, and they still can't get through. So eventually, they give up and they decide to go back to their respective homes and get some sleep and try again at a later time. Meanwhile, Ed Ray and the kids, they're still trapped underground. And they've been down there for hours at this point. And it's totally dark and Ed Ray is the only adult there and half the kids are scared out of their minds and the other half are too young to comprehend what's going on. And after a while, it gets super hot in there. And some of the kids start to start. fainting. Around that time, Ed Ray starts to realize that the trailer they're buried in,

covered with rock and dirt, the roof isn't designed to hold that kind of weight. So eventually that roof is going to cave in and crush them all, and they'll all be dead. Now, the oldest kid down there is this kid, Marshall. Marshall, he's 14, and Marshall, he's had enough of this being buried alive nonsense. And he tells Ed Ray, if we're going to die, we're going to die, we're We're going to die trying to get out. And Ed Ray agrees. So they start trying to get out. And there are a bunch of old mattresses in that trailer,

so they start stacking them on top of each other to help them get closer to the ceiling. Then Ed Ray stands on the stack of mattresses and he uses a wooden slat along with his physical strength to try and open the hatch. The problem is, Frederick and his goons predicted that they would try and escape through that hatch. So they weighed the hatch down with two massive 100-pound industrial tractor batteries. But Ed Ray, he's able to stick his arms through the hatch just enough to slide them aside, which creates just enough space for Marshall to crawl through that gap. And from there, Marshall uses his bare hands to dig to the surface, and then he comes straight out of the ground, like some kind of freaking zombie.

Then Ed Ray lifts each kid up one by one so they can climb out of the hatch. while Marshall pulls each one of them to the surface. So after 16 hours of being trapped underground, all 26 kids are finally out. Then the whole group walks quite a ways through the rock quarry until they reach the quarry's office, and there they find a security guard who was able to call the police. So like immediately, this story is all over the news. But back at home, in Portola Valley, Frederick is just a general. waking up and he's getting ready to meet up with the goons again to call up police and demand

their ransom. But at some point he turns on the TV and he sees the news and he realizes that every hostage had already escaped and that their plan had essentially failed. And so from there, Frederick and the goons split up and essentially they all go into hiding. However, Frederick immediately becomes the prime suspect. Because he's the Rock Quarry's owner's son, and he's, and he's and he has full access to the quarry. And so Frederick knows he's fucked. So he packs his bags and he flees across the border to Canada. And about two weeks later, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police track him down to right outside a post office in Vancouver.

And bam, they arrest him. Here's his mugshot. Also, bam, they end up arresting the other two goons. Here's one mugshot. Here's the other mugshot. And so ultimately, Frederick pleads guilty and he gets sentenced to life and death. prison, while the goons also plead guilty and they each get life in prison. And at some point, while he's locked up, Frederick's parents die. And he inherits their $100 million fortune.

Because remember, he comes from a wealthy family. So he ends up being super rich, but still in prison. But then a few years ago, back in 2022, he finally got out and he's like 70 years old now.