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Our station has been told that officials in this case have received or found a $5 million ransom note. Number one. Is that true? And when will you reveal the contents of that note? Okay, john you know. And I just spoke at the press conference. There is

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a gag order. There's a 10 day ruling on the search warrant pertaining to any evidence, found anything about the search scene and all abide by that order. You cannot say whether or not in fact the ransom note does exist. I cannot say recognize him if you

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saw them again. Dude, were they bringing in any vans in here, bringing pickups, cars? All kinds of No, I've never seen a man. Did you see them working on these things? Were they painting? What were they doing inside there? I don't know. I can't see through

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the walls. Did they talk to you though? No. And how long do they have that place? four months? five months. I don't know. Did you? No longer than a year. Did you notice anything strange about them at all? No. They were just fixing cars and trucks,

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Naval cars, naval trucks. They kept the doors closed most of the time. So you couldn't see what they were doing inside there? You can see anyway, pick up the bag over by the side. Would you mind moving up.

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These two kids are described in the all points bulletin is dangerous. Does that bear any relationship to the kids that you know. No. Not at all. This investigation appears to be progressing at a snail's pace detectives in the field defend their exercise saying they must adhere

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to the legal process, leaving no stone unturned, so to speak because they don't want to lose this one due to a legal blunder. It may be some time before we unravel. What happened? Just a few miles from this school a week ago today. We don't know

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who did it yet and we don't know why they did it. And that's what worries the people in and around chowchilla in the mail today for jennifer and Geoffrey letters from as they put it. People they didn't even know interviews with the Brown Children have been

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in newspapers this week and reaction to that publicity is now beginning to come in today. There were letters from school Children in hawthorne and jennifer and Geoffrey sat down immediately to answer these new pen pals. There had been an Ed Ray day scheduled in chowchilla, august

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1st in honor of the bus driver, but that's been indefinitely postponed. There's just too much of the kind of apprehension expressed by mrs Brown for all the kidnapped victim families to get together in one group right now. Maybe later. Mhm. I've tried

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to stay away from the tv and the news broadcast now where before we jumped every time it came on. Uh, just trying to keep my mind clear so that I don't uh, because there are their minds are still healthy. Our kids weren't that badly harmed by

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it or it hasn't shown and if I become too upset by this now it's going, they'll pick it up from me and I don't want that to happen. Well, I'm probably more apprehensive right now than I was through the whole thing. Uh I don't know. I

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just feel uneasy. I just would like to know that they're caught. That's that there. I don't feel that they're around here or that type of thing. I just would feel better knowing that they're behind bars where they should be In Chowchilla Pat O'Brien Channel five, Eyewitness

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News. But as far as the official investigation goes, there's not much of it here today. The focus has shifted elsewhere in livermore, Bill Schechner, Channel five Eyewitness News. The search warrant was under a sealed affidavit as to the types of things that they were

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looking for, sealed by the courts, All the evidence that they're gathering is being done by Alameda County Sheriff's office that uh any evidence and things that they pick up there in connection with the child killer kidnapping case will be uh sent back to the court and

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out of out of that. Well, come the further warrants or whatever that that may be in connection of the people involved in it. Yeah, just thanks. They can't Throughout

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the day, people come here to look, this is a spot just off a blacktop road, a few miles outside where the bus was found yesterday evening, parked back in their 26 Children aboard and the driver gone. Yeah. Nothing strange happened talking to all your friends and

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everything, you know. Did you see the bus drive off When you get off to go home? Everything was as it as it usually is. Huh? Yeah, nobody acting strange or anything like that. Carol Marshall's 14 year old son, Mike was another on the bus and he

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wouldn't normally have been there. You in your own mind. Have any thought as to what, why? This might have happened? What, what's going on? No. Like I said, it's crazy. It's just crazy. I have no idea why or how it occurred or or even the reason

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behind it. At this point, anyone heard any message from any group or person who claimed responsibility for this? Nothing. At this point, there's been no information that's available to us. Search locally here turned up anything. The search locally has turned up nothing other than the school

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bus was found early this yesterday afternoon. You suspect that if whoever kidnapped these Children has by now taking them out of the area? I could speculate that, but I would have nothing that would, that would lead me to that speculation other than the fact that we've

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turned up, nothing that would lead us to the bus or lead us to the people who took them. They had left this elementary school yesterday afternoon after another day of summer school. Much as the Children here left this afternoon. The last day of the summer session,

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three youngsters were dropped off at their homes, then nothing for all intents and purposes. The bus, the 26 Children and driver it contained vanished. The bus was found about two hours after worried parents looking for sons and daughters who had not come home had called authorities.

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It was abandoned, empty, backed up along this dry slew, no sign of violence in or around the bus tracks of at least one vehicle over those The bus left when it had been driven down in here, A vehicle that had therefore left the scene after the

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bus had pulled in, Sandy Zylstra was the last child to be let off the bus before it disappeared today, Sandy's parents came to school to take her home for her. Yesterday's bus ride had been just another ride home. Throughout much of this day, parents and other

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family of the missing Children came to the command post set up in downtown chowchilla to talk to FBI investigators to see if there was any word To try desperately to fathom some reason. Out of this madness. Why, who did it? Where are the Children? Are they

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safe? What demands will be made for their release? There are no answers now. Betty Rose's 12 year old niece Lisa was on that bus. There's just no reason for it. It's terrible. Anything unusual in preceding days or weeks that might give you a clue, Anything out

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of the ordinary. Nothing. I don't know that much about it. And I just came up this morning when she called. I understand some of the Children had been let off their home. Three of my niece was to be next. She was to be next. The fourth

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one would be my niece. What time he was to get home Exactly. Because he never takes yesterday was the first time he picked the bus. Why did he do that yesterday? Yesterday? Because he got to school late and he decided to stay all day and make

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up for the work that he missed and I was unable to go pick him up when he was done so, he said he'd take the bus home. Any chance at all. This could be some kind of terrible hoax or joke that someone is playing. Imagine there's

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a chance, I hope that's all it is. At 7:15 a.m. And Betty Spratly housewife and driver for the chowchilla Elementary School district, commandeers the yellow bus on a plotted course. Today begins her eighth year on the job down the road, a small girl waits at a

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designated spot. Her blonde pigtails neatly braided Mrs Bradley maneuvers the giant yellow machine to the side of the highway. The little girl runs to the wide open doors and scrambles inside the long summer recess is over back to school again to learn to gather together in

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the tedious process of repetition called education. The four walled classrooms have been idle these past three months. The chalkboards and wooden desks and chairs wait to be scrawled on and squirmed and fidgeted in back again to school. The yellow machine is driven down the road past

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the acres of cotton fields, corn fields, stopping intermittently to scoop up another group of youngsters as the journey continues on Last July 15, barely two months ago, 26 Children fell victims to a bizarre and dastardly plot was to permanently fix the name of this small town.

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In the memories of us all, this is where it happened everywhere. The name will be remembered. The incident disrupted the small community of 5000 souls. Families of two victims packed up their belongings, sold their homes and left the area, but the majority of chowchilla citizens rallied

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and steadfastly regained their composure and they vowed to keep it. So the three men believed responsible for the mass kidnapping have been apprehended. Justice will prevail the people here promise there will be a fair trial for two long months. The episode has been told and retold.

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The parents and the residents now want it all to end chowchilla is their home and they want to live here unattended unnoticed, observed, just like it used to be back to school again. The yellow machine comes to rest and the tiny Voyagers clamor out to a

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brand new day, elaborate security measures were in effect here today, the chowchilla Police Department, Madera County Sheriff's office and the California Highway Patrol all on special alert to make certain that chowchilla is 1000 plus elementary school. Children attended

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their first day of classes today, without incident in chowchilla Jon Lester Channel five Eyewitness News.