Photo: FBI
It was mass murder at 10,000 feet.On Nov. 1, 1955, a bomb blasted United Air Lines Flight 629 out of the night sky over Longmont - killing all 44 aboard the DC-6 departing Denver's old Stapleton Airport.
Remorseless Jack Gilbert Graham, 24, married with two children, was tried, convicted and executed within 15 months. The prosecution said he acted "coldly, carefully, and deliberately.”
Graham, who had a criminal record, planted the bomb to collect on a life insurance policy on his mother, passenger Daisie King.
His half-sister told the FBI that before Graham was arrested he had said, if as joking: "Can’t you just see those shotgun shells going off in the plane every which way and the pilots, passengers and ‘Grandma’ jumping around.”
In her luggage, Graham packed 25 sticks of dynamite, two electric primer caps, a timer, and a six-volt battery - and disguised it as a gift.
The dastardly device slashed the fuselage in two. The flaming wreckage showered on farmland, creating a wide debris field.
In his confession, Graham told police he "wrapped about three or four feet of binding cord around the sack of dynamite to hold the dynamite sticks in place around the caps.
"The purpose of the two caps was in case one of the caps failed to function and ignite the dynamite," he said.
At his execution - according to Time Magazine - Graham said: "As far as feeling remorse for those people, I don't. I can't help it. Everybody pays their way and takes their chances. That's just the way it goes."
The FBI said Graham resided at 2650 West Mississippi Avenue in Denver.
Flight 629 victims
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