New clues to kidnap

Press, 3 August 1976, Page 8

New clues to kidnap

NZPA San Franciscoi A straight, “cash for kids” ransom was the apparent motive in the kidnapping of 26 Calilornian school child-! ren ana their bus driver on July 15. The conclusion is based on documents found on the 40 hectare family estate of one of the three rich young suspects, Fred Newall Woods, arrested in connection with the mass abduction. The documents included a rough draft of a SUSSM ransom note, a list of the victims’ names written on a paper bag, and an outline of a plan to kidnap a busload of children and hold them for money, according to police. According to authorities, the ransom note was accom-

panied by demands that the money be dropped by air in a snatter-proof container in a rough, desolate area of the Santa Cruz mountains.

Woods, aged 24, was captured by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Thursday in Vancouver, Canada, and was flown back to California from Seattle on Friday night. He is being held in Sacramento County gaol, pending transfer to Alameda County, east of San Francisco, where the two other suspects, James Schownfeld, aged 24 and his brother, Richard, aged 22, are imprisoned.

Woods arrived in Vancouver by air from Nevada on July 17, and he planned to stay only five days. When he walked into a police trap at Vancouver’s main

■ post office, he had been There 12 days, and this was enough for his deportation under the Immigration Act.

Woods seemed cocky and was smiling slightly as he was escorted through a crowd cl reporters besieging the immigration headquarters.

“I am really sorry I'm going to miss this on the news tomght,” he said. Although the three men are behind bars, authorities are still pursuing leads that others may have helped in the mass abduction. At least two of the children mentioned a fourth kidnapper. None of the three suspects seems to fit one of the composite drawings of the kidnappers sketched with the help of several of the children.