School Bus Gone Missing When Driver Comes Back With A Story To Tell

Seemingly overnight, the lives of everyone in town had been upended. It was usually a quiet, peaceful place. Now the place was swarming with police officers and even federal agents.

It was a hugely distressing situation. An entire school bus full of kids and the driver had just disappeared without a trace. No ransom, demands, crash site, nothing to indicate what could have happened to them. That was until the driver suddenly showed up again with a story to tell.

The Town

Seven hours away from Los Angeles is a much smaller and far less glamorous town. Unlike big city life in California, Chowchilla is a lot more laid back. In fact, the town is so small, it only has one bar and one hotel to its name.

With a population of just 20000 people, the town saw an influx of people from other states like Arkansas during the 1950s. It was a quiet place, the kind of place that no one would ever associate with one of the largest crimes in U.S history.

The Driver

Ed ray became one of the most famous locals of Chowcilla. He wasn’t born or raised there but ended up schooling there. It was there that he met his wife, Odessa.

He was a large man, rugged, and not the academic type. He was, however, good with numbers and followed the farming tradition like so many others there. Like many others in town, he’s a farmer. Ed also had a second job as the local school’s bus driver.

A Normal Day

It was a day like any other. The kids all went off to school, and nothing unusual was reported. It wasn’t until the afternoon that people started to realize something was wrong.

Parents first became alarmed when none of them saw the school bus driving around town like it usually did. Many calls were made to the school. All the school could say was that the bus had left the school on time as usual. Yet, it was nowhere to be found, and all the kids were missing too.

A Scorcher

Around the same time, 26 school kids were sweltering in the buss. The heat was harsh and unforgiving that day as they sat uncomfortably on the school bus, terrified of what was happening.

Ed Ray should have been upfront in the driver’s seat. Instead, he sat near the front like one of the students. He was struggling in the scorching heat like the rest. Only, he wasn’t driving now. Someone else had the wheel.