“Dirty Harry” with Clint Eastwood was a controversial movie when it came out in 1971. A homicide detective takes the law into his own hands to stop a serial killer who got off on a legal technicality.
A different scene from that movie inspired a real life kidnapping five years later. The serial killer hijacks a school bus with the driver and children on board to get away from Dirty Harry. The school bus crashes inside the entrance to a rock quarry.
The Chowchilla kidnapping was—and still is—the largest kidnapping in U.S. history.
Why is that kidnapping still relevant today? The third and final kidnapper got paroled from prison and came out $100 million US richer than he went in.
Read more “Dirty Harry, Chowchilla Kidnappings & The Parolee”