The Day 26 Students Vanished _ Were Found Buried Alive_ Chowchilla Kidnapping _ Crime Documentary

On July 15, 1976, three masked men hijacked a school bus carrying 26 children in Chowchilla, California. They drove the children and their bus driver for 11 hours, then forced them into a buried moving van in a Livermore quarry [citation:2][citation:7]. The kidnappers sealed them inside with mattresses, demanding a $5 million ransom [citation:4]. After 16 harrowing hours underground, 14-year-old Michael Marshall stacked the mattresses and clawed his way out, leading the escape [citation:2][citation:6]. His heroics saved every life, though the trauma would haunt the survivors for decades [citation:7][citation:9].