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The Chowchilla school bus kidnapping has always struck a chord with me. Basically, a school bus is en route to dropping the children off at their homes one afternoon. The driver sees a motorist in distress and stops to assist only to have the bus overtaken by three men wearing nylon stocking hats and waving guns. In a matter of minutes, the driver and 26 students (ranging from ages 5-14) find themselves as hostages. They are forced to board a van and taken on an 11 hour disorienting drive. They are then made to climb into a hole into the ground. After about 12 hours, and with no idea of when or if they would be freed, the captives began to look for any possible way to escape. They manage to climb out of their chamber and 36 hours after their capture, the driver and children are free. However, during the hours that their captives had been underground, their kidnappers had not been inactive. The next step of their plan was to demand a $5 million ransom. Unfortunately for them, they are soon greeted with the news that the hostages had safely escaped. The article goes more in depth as to their panic at this point and time because they had failed to plan for this particular scenario and investigations quickly zoom in on their men. I can't imagine being one of those school children heading home only to be confronted with scary men brandishing weapons. I can't imagine being the driver, responsible for the children under such duress. I can't imagine the terror of the parents wondering where their children have disappeared to. The whole thing is pretty damned unnerving. The article is worth a read as I've left out some fascinating details including, but not limited to, the driver being hypnotised for clues (he remembered their license plate!) to the bungled plans of the perpetrators who had set out to perform a "perfect crime" (as one of the defense lawyers later told The Chronicle, the trio's plan "would make a great...comedy because nothing went right.")
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May 27, 2014 23:53
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Now, I'm not sure how well known this event is/was (because I think it was overshadowed by the 2007 Tech shootings), but I distinctly remember hearing about it on the radio the day after it happened and it made me feel so nauseous that I considered going back home and calling out sick to work. In a nutshell, a former Virginia Tech graduate student decapitated a classmate because she rejected his romantic advances--this was done as they were having coffee at a campus eatery. There were about seven witnesses. One cafe worker testified that he and other horrified onlookers watched as the former student cut off the girls head with a knife. The former student had kept at it until his victim eventually fell and he had succeeded in severing her head. He was holding it when police arrived. Just let that sink in for a while. Imagine you are at a coffee house when you see a dude cutting off some chicks head with a knife. What would you do if you were in some public place, watching someone cutting off somebody's head with a knife? Intervene? Stand in shock? 'Cuz I honestly don't even know what I would do myself anymore  Virginia Tech Student Decapitated With Kitchen Knife by Attacker She Knew IAmNotYourRealDad has a new favorite as of 04:45 on Jul 4, 2014 |
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Jul 4, 2014 04:39
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A Furious Foetus posted:Got a request! I found this http://www.snopes.com/risque/caught/snapshot.asp  quote:My friend told me that this happened to a friend of a friend (of course). She decided to hike the Appalachian Trail alone. She traveled the entire length of the trail and took seven rolls of film with her. She camped in the woods along the way. Sounds like an interesting read. Maybe it was posted in one of the ghost story threads?
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Sep 10, 2015 17:56
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