Hi crime junkies, I'm your host Ashley Flowers and I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today is one I wasn't all that familiar with despite its notoriety for being one of the most bizarre kidnapping cases in US history.

This is the story of the Chowchilla kidnappings. Oh, It's July 15th way back in 1976 when a police dispatcher in Chautillo, California, gets a call from a concerned

mother saying that the school bus that was supposed to drop off her son just never arrived.

Her son was taking part in this summer session along with many other kids from the town And their school day in the summer

mostly consisted of them playing and swimming with kids

and then being returned in the late afternoon

just in time for dinner.

But still, it was sometime after 4 o'clock and the bus was late, which I mean never happened.

And it seems she isn't the only one panicking because more and more calls start coming

into police from other concerned parents whose kids haven't been dropped off.

Now listen, my kid doesn't come home on time and I go straight to worst case scenario,

but police aren't in an emotional place.

I mean, their first thoughts lean more towards like mundane scenarios.

Right.

Which makes sense, like a flat tire, a mechanical issue, maybe there was like a traffic

jam or an accident that they are stuck behind

or something like that.

Precisely. That's the most logical explanation. So they go out looking for this bus.

But according to the CNN films documentary

Chowchilla, complicating matters was the fact that this is a summer session not

a regular school year or whatever, so the bus driver, 55-year-old Ed Ray,

didn't take the normal bus route.

...