By Mike Hazlip–
As a young man, Citrus Heights Councilman Tim Schaefer’s father warned him that, if he ever called for help from a police station, he would be on his own.
Years later, 16-year-old Schaefer would find himself doing just that after an ordeal that lasted for hours and captured national attention.
Late in the afternoon on Aug. 17, 1977, Schaefer was kidnapped along with several passengers on a city transit bus in Santa Cruz, California. While riding the bus home from work, Schaefer said a man came forward from the back of the bus with a rifle. The gunman asked the driver, Ann Gagnon, if she knew the location of a remote community called Bonny Doon. Then the gunman ordered Schaefer and the others to the back of the bus and demanded the driver take them 20 miles up into the Santa Cruz mountains.
Schaefer’s fellow passengers included an elderly woman with a bag of groceries and two male college students, one of whom was a visually impaired exchange student from Germany who spoke broken English, he said.
With the Santa Cruz community on the heels of two highly publicized serial killer cases in the early to mid-1970s, Schaefer said he feared for his life. During the drive up the winding mountain roads, Schaefer recalled calculating his odds of overcoming the gunman and decided the elderly woman and college students would not be able to help.
“I’m too young to die,” Schaefer said. “I’m not going to go down without a fight.”
The gunman, later identified in news reports as Thomas Benton Wilson, said he was taking the hostages to the Bahá’í retreat center. The story is recounted in a 1977 article in the New York Times.
Upon arriving at the retreat center, Wilson took Schaefer and the other passengers off the bus and led passengers to the dining hall, where about 70 people were gathered for a meal.
“[In the dining hall, the gunman] puts his back against the wall, pitches his knee up, and puts the rifle on his knee and says, ‘Okay, you five people that were on the bus, you can leave. But you can’t take the bus,’” Schaefer recalled.
Schaefer and the college students headed for the main road but lost track of the bus driver and elderly woman. After reaching the road, Schaefer and the others tried to flag down a Volkswagen van turning into the retreat center, but the driver ignored their actions.
Minutes later, the same van returned and stopped outside the entrance. One of the college students explained what they’d just endured to the van’s driver.
While Schaefer debated his next steps, “an army” of law enforcement personnel arrived.
“It was a cavalry coming over the hill with a parade of Santa Cruz, County Sheriff, and helicopters,” Schaefer said, adding that he later learned that Gagnon and the other passenger contacted authorities from a nearby cabin.
“I started to get choked up,” Schaefer said, realizing he was safe.
The transit authority retained Schaefer and the others in a circle of vans away from the approaching media. Schaefer said the police wanted to interview the passengers first before the media.
By this time, Schaefer and the others were several hours into their ordeal. Someone brought fruit from the bag of groceries the elderly woman had left on the bus.
Authorities continued negotiations with Wilson for hours, according to archived news reports from the Santa Cruz Public Library. An archived report by the New York Times said Wilson demanded the release of an inmate, and demanded that a man named Charles Kimbro be charged with killing Kimbro’s own son. The Times reported that Kimbro’s family members said his son was alive.
During the ordeal, members of the Bahá’í retreat center prayed and sang gospel songs during the ordeal, attempting to calm the gunman, the Brownsville Herald reported. Around midnight, Wilson surrendered peacefully without harming any hostages, according to archived reports.
Authorities transported Schaefer and the other passengers to the Santa Cruz police station for questioning without notifying his parents, he said. After providing statements, he was finally allowed to contact his father from the station.
“I got my dad on the phone and said, ‘I’m down at the police department, and I need you to come pick me up,’” Schaefer recounted, adding that his father told him no, and, “You got yourself into a mess.”
After seeing the headlines of the kidnapping on the local news, Schaefer said his father called back. When his father arrived, Schaefer said he was compassionate and concerned, asking him if he had been shot.
In the months following the ordeal, Schaefer gave depositions and planned to testify against Wilson; then he began receiving threatening phone calls. The District Attorney told Schaefer that the calls were from Wilson, who was in custody. Authorities limited Wilson’s telephone access to stop the calls, Schaefer said.
The Santa Cruz Independent reported that Wilson was committed to a state hospital after a judge ruled he was insane at the time of the kidnapping.
According to the report, Wilson’s public defender, Larry Biggam, told the Independent, “I am convinced the defendant did not understand the difference between right and wrong and was completely delusional at the time of all the charges.”
Today, Schaefer wonders what became of Wilson and the other hostages, but he will never forget seeing his father arrive at the police station.
“I started to get choked up when I saw my dad after he showed up at the police department; it was like, finally somebody who cares about me, somebody who knows me, who’s my family.”
