This is exactly right.

This story contains adult content and language.

Listener discretion is advised.

The kids heard dirt and quarry rock being pushed over them, and they realized that they were being buried alive.

I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor in Austin, Texas.

I'm also the co-host of the podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right.

And throughout my career, research for my many audio and book projects has taken me around the world.

On Wicked Words, I sit down with the people I've met along the way.

Amazing writers,

journalists, filmmakers, and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true

crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both good and bad, and it's a deep dive

into the unpublished details behind their stories.

In 1976, 26 kids were riding on a school bus in Chowchilla, California, when they were kidnapped, along with their driver, by three men. The men buried them all underground in the

middle of nowhere. The kids were terrified as they struggled to stay alive, and then a 14-year-old boy took control.

It's an incredible story of survival. Paul Solid tells me about the story at the center of his film, Chowchilla.

So this is, I think, a hell of a film. I really, I was impressed with the way you put it together.

And what a harrowing story I was too when this happened. So I don't remember, I remember hearing about it. Tell me how

this film came to you because you don't look older than I am. I'm probably older than you are.

So how did you get this film? I come from scripted films, actually. And a long time ago, I was just doing research. You know, and I came upon, I was probably looking for, you know, the craziest crimes, blah, blah, blah. And I came upon the Chowchilla Kidnapping. And I was just, I was first of all shocked, I think, that I hadn't heard of it before.

And then I realized there was a lot of questions that I had reading about it, that hadn't been the

answer. I wanted to know what happened for the kids. And I wanted to know more specifics on how it

resolved on the day, because I mean, the crime itself is completely crazy, but also its resolution

...