CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SAN LUIS OBISPO : Parole Bid Denied in Chowchilla Case

State officials have denied parole for the 11th time to Richard Schoenfeld, one of three men who kidnaped 26 Chowchilla schoolchildren and their bus driver in 1976. A three-member panel of the Board of Prison Terms said the seriousness of Schoenfeld’s crime left no choice but to find him unsuitable for release for another year. Schoenfeld’s older brother, James, and Fred Woods, both 38, initially were sentenced to life without parole for the crime, but their sentences later were reduced to allow the possibility of parole. The younger Schoenfeld, now 36, received a life sentence with the possibility of parole because authorities believed he bore a lesser responsibility for the crime. The three armed men stopped the bus near Chowchilla in the San Joaquin Valley and kept the driver and children in a buried van for 30 hours.