He had been denied release 17 other times.
Members of the Alameda County Crime Lab and the FBI work at the opening to the van where 26 Chowchilla school children and their bus driver were held captive at a rock quarry near Livermore, California, on July 17, 1976.A 70-year-old California man who has spent the last four decades in prison for kidnapping a school bus full of children and burying them and their driver alive has been approved for parole.
The kidnappers, who planned the crime for more than a year, demanded $5 million in ransom from the state Board of Education. All three came from wealthy San Francisco Bay Area families.The children and the driver were able to dig themselves out and escape after more than a day in the bunker. His accomplices are already freed after an appeals court ordered Richard released in 2012 and then-Gov. Jerry Brown paroled James in 2015.“I believe you have served enough time for the crime you committed,” Park said Friday.
“Even the settlement paid to some of us survivors was not sufficient. It was enough to pay for some therapy, but not enough to buy a house,” she said.