Prime Crime: Solved Murders - The Bombing of Flight 629 Pt. 2

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

23-year-old Jack Graham unravels as the FBI uncovers his deadly vendetta against Daisie King, who was a passenger on Flight 629—and Jack’s own mother.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Due to the nature of this murder case, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes dramatizations and discussions of attempted suicide and murder that some people may find offensive. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. A note before we begin, though today's story is true, certain moments have been fictionalized and dramatized by actors. On November 1st, 1955, 23-year-old Jack Graham rushed his moment. mother, Daisy King, through Denver's Stapleton Airport. His wife, Gloria, was also with them,

trying to keep up. They dropped Daisy's bag off, then quickly purchased her life insurance before Graham whisked her off to the gate. United Airlines Flight 629 to Seattle was starting to board. Graham gave his mom a quick goodbye kiss. Then he stood by Gloria's side and the two waved Daisy off. They lingered until all the passengers had boarded, then they left to go eat at one of the airport cafes. But as they ate, Graham couldn't focus on Gloria. He kept looking out the window at the tarmac, wondering which plane was his mom's.

As he watched one after another take flight, Graham's stomach twisted in an anxious knot. He felt like he was going to explode. He excused himself and raced towards the bathroom before vomiting. Graham leaned back feeling better. He couldn't wait for what came next. Welcome to Solved Murder's True Crime Mysteries, a Spotify original from Parcast.

I'm your host Carter Roy. And I'm your host Wendy McKenzie. Every Wednesday we step into the world of true crime's most fascinating murder cases and tell the tale of how real-life detectives close the case. You can find episodes of Solve Murders and all other stuff. Spotify Originals from Parcast for free exclusively on Spotify. This is our second episode on the bombing of flight 629. Last week, we covered the initial investigation into the plane crash that killed all 44 people on board.

This week, we'll join authorities as they uncover the truth behind the sabotage. We have all that and more coming up. Stay with us. On November 1st, 1955, United Airlines Flight 629 took off from Denver's Stapleton Airport. 11 minutes later, it exploded in mid-air and crashed in Longmont, Colorado. All 39 passengers and five crew members tied. By November 10th, the FBI had already narrowed in on a suspect, 23-year-old Jack Graham. Graham was the son of what? one of the passengers. The FBI had interviewed him and his half-sister, Helen Hablitzel.

Neither had very warm things to say about their mother, Daisy King, but authorities found Graham's relationship with Daisy particularly interesting. And once they learned that two months earlier, there'd been an explosion at the drive-in restaurant that Graham ran with his mom, agents had a lot more questions. Your restaurant, the Crown A, was it successful? We had some loyal customers, but I wouldn't say we were thriving financially. What about that gas explosion back at September? You must have gotten a handsome payout from insurance. I had nothing to do with that if that's what you're implying. It was a bunch of burglars. You can ask the police. And just so you know, the truck wasn't my fault either. You're talking about when you left your truck on the railroad tracks a

months back. I didn't leave it on the tracks. It stalled. You think I'd want a brand new Chevrolet pickup to get pulverized? I'm not an idiot. You tried to get insurance money for it, but that time it didn't work. I barely made it out of there alive. I'm telling you, I wouldn't risk my life like that. The truck just stalled. A brand new truck? I don't know what to tell you. Well, the judge found you at fault, and you spent a night behind bars because you wouldn't pay the $50 fee. your mother... What about my mother?

She bailed you out. So? So, aren't you a little old for your mom to be cleaning up your messes? I'm not some mama's boy. No? You sure had me fooled, because I know that wasn't the first time Daisy had to take care of you. The agent pulled out the newspaper articles they'd found in Daisy's handbag at the crash site, detailing Graham's forgery charges.

They asked him to explain what happened. Graham admitted that in 1951, he stole 42 blank checks from the company he worked for at the time, then filled them out for $100 each. Today, that's about $1,100 a pop. He then cashed the checks around town and took off with the money. For months, he traveled all over the country, partying it up. But that all came to a screeching halt when a police officer tried to pull him over for a traffic violation in Texas. Graham knew he couldn't let the officer search his car. It was filled with cases of whiskey he was bootlegging for more cash,

not to mention an illegal gun. So he hit the gas. Graham sped off. Then, going over 100 miles per hour, he raced right through a police roadblock. His truck careened off the street into a ditch. But Graham managed to get it back on the road. He kept driving and he didn't stop until the police started shooting. Only then did he surrender.

The officers arrested him and eventually Graham was sent back to Colorado where he was wanted for fraud. He pled guilty to the forgery charges, but at his sentencing hearing, his mother came to his defense. Daisy asked the judge for leniency and promised to help her son pay his restitution. To show good faith, she put down. down $2,500 up front. The judge seemed to like the fact that Graham had support. He suspended Graham's prison sentence on two conditions. He had to pay back the full $4,200 he stole,

and he had to complete five years of probation. Whether Graham would admit it or not, this made him indebted to his mom, which he resented. The two had had a rocky relationship. When his father died, Daisy sent the six-year-old Graham to live at an orphanage. She was struggling to make ends meet, and putting her son in someone else's care was the only way they could survive. But Graham was too young to understand that.

From his perspective, he thought his mother just didn't love him. Graham tried running away from the orphanage several times. Each time, he went straight to his mother, only for his mother. her to send him right back. Eventually, Daisy remarried a wealthy rancher, but even with her newfound security, she still didn't bring Graham home. It seems that this solidified Graham's trust and abandonment issues towards his mother. Once he entered adulthood and started getting into trouble, he viewed her help as an attempt to make amends, but he wasn't so ready to forgive her. Daisy didn't give up on their relationship.

In 1954, three years after Graham's forgery charges, her husband passed away and left her his entire estate. That brought Daisy's net worth to about $150,000, or roughly $1.7 million today. With all that money, Daisy offered to buy Graham a house in Denver. He was now married with an 11-month-old son and a daughter on the way. She wanted to help out. Her offer had just one catch. The house had to have room for her to stay when she was in Denver. She usually lived at her late husband's ranch, but when she was in Denver, she wanted to stay with her son.

I can't say I was super enthusiastic about the idea of living with my mother, but a house is a house. You all got along, you, your wife, your mom? Sure, things were going well. Well, Daisy was the one who suggested we open a drive-in restaurant together. She wanted me to manage it. And how was working with your mom? Fine. It would have been better if she just let me run things, but she always wanted to be in control.

She wouldn't let me touch the finances. You opened the Crown A in May, and by September you were losing money? Like I said, it would have been better if I were in charge. The FBI agents wrapped up their interview with Graham knowing they could only get so much out of him. It seemed far-fetched that someone would bring down an entire flight just to get rid of their mother, but he was the best lead they had and he was certainly suspicious. So they started digging. They interviewed some of the drive-in employees, including 15-year-old Naomi Harger.

Naomi disagreed with Graham's feelings that he could. could have run the establishment better than Daisy. The teenager explained that Graham fired all the car hops, including herself, and made everything self-serve, which was not what customers wanted at a drive-in. But even more alarming, Naomi claimed that Graham would, quote, fly off the handle at Daisy if she made just the littlest mistake.

The FBI agents also spoke with the insurance adjuster who investigated the explosion at the Crown. A. Although he couldn't prove it, the adjuster fully suspected that Graham was responsible for the gas leak. Most importantly, the agents learned that after the explosion, Daisy didn't reopen the drive-in. Instead, she hired a real estate agent and put it on the market. To Graham, this was like a knife in the back. If Daisy sold the drive-in, he would be out of a job. Not to mention she'd get all the money from the sale. But there was one way that all the money could go to Graham and his family instead if Daisy died.

The FBI had nailed down a motive. And soon the person closest to Graham would confirm their suspicions. Coming up, agents hammer the nail in Jack Graham's coffin. Now back to the story. On November 11th, the day after interviewing Jack Graham, FBI agents returned to his house, but this time they wanted to speak to Graham's wife, 22-year-old Gloria. The two FBI men jumped right into their questions.

They asked Gloria about her mother-in-law's packing habits and movements on the day of the crash. At first, Gloria corroborated everything Graham had said. Then agents noticed some conflicting details. Is there anything else you can remember from that day? anything out of the ordinary? Well, this probably doesn't matter. It's just so sad. Jack had a gift for Daisy.

He wrapped it up in green and red Christmas paper, but I don't think he ever got the chance to give it to her. What type of present? Daisy loved making jewelry out of seashells, so he got her an exact-o-tool-set for carving. And do you know if he maybe put the gift in her luggage, maybe as a surprise when she got to Washington? I'm not sure exactly.

I think it may have been too big. How big was the box? It was flat but wide, definitely more than a foot. It's very helpful. Graham never mentioned this gift before, which made it all the more suspicious. And given the size of the package Gloria described, The FBI didn't think Graham had actually wrapped up an exacto tool set.

It could be the bomb that they were searching for. The agents knew they had to bring Graham back for questioning, so they asked him and Gloria to come to headquarters to identify some luggage fragments. The couple arrived around noon on November 13th. They met with new FBI agents, including Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Roy Moore. Moore was the quintessential company man, a favorite of Jay Edgar Hoover's, who had just completed a stint working organized crime in Chicago. Moore showed the couple some scraps of leather, which the pair recognized as part of Daisy's Samsonite luggage. After that, he let Gloria go home, but he kept Graham for more questioning.

The agents led him to a back room. Then they asked Graham to repeat his account of the day of the crash. They wanted him to walk them through every minute. Graham stayed pretty true to his original account, but then he made a crucial mistake. After we heard about the plane crash, I walked Gloria to the car. Then I went back to the terminal to try to get more information. An airport employee told me the plane went down around Longmont. I thought my mother's plane would have been further out by then.

I thought she was safe. Graham may have been trying to sound innocent, but this, This statement went against his first one. Originally, he'd claimed he and Gloria had gone straight home. The agents prodded further. They asked if he had any experience with dynamite, and surprisingly, he said yes. He'd used dynamite to remove beaver dams on his stepfather's ranch, and blasting caps while working a construction gig in Alaska.

It wasn't building bombs per se, but it was close enough for investigators to believe Graham had the means to pull off this crime. By 6.30 p.m., about six hours after Graham arrived at headquarters, the agents took a break. They went down the hallway to brief Agent Moore on all they'd learned. Ten minutes later, Moore walked into the interview room himself and told Graham he was a suspect. Graham maintained his innocence, but he did give his consent for agents to search his home, business, vehicles, and Daisy's ranch. The FBI got right to work, and around 8 p.m., while Graham was still in custody, Gloria opened the door for a handful of agents.

Gloria watched as they scoured every corner of the house. Before long, the agents started asking her questions. But unbeknownst to Gloria, they were. were setting her up to expose her husband. Mrs. Graham, your husband said that you knew he put the exacto set in his mother's luggage. But that's not what you told us earlier. Graham said that? Ma'am, did you or did you not know that he put the present in Daisy's suitcase?

Yes, I suppose I did know. Making false statements like that is a federal offense. I'm sorry. He'd asked me not to say anything. But yes, I did know. I knew it was in her luggage. Will you sign a statement attesting to that? Yes.

The FBI was playing, Gloria. Graham never told the agents that Gloria knew about the gift going in Daisy's suitcase. But now that they got the truth out of her, Agent Moore had a new round of ammunition. Mr. Graham, you've been lying to us. I've got a sworn statement from your wife saying that you hit a package, a so-called gift, in your mother's suitcase. Gloria's just getting her details mixed up. I am done playing games.

One of you is lying, so either you fess up, or I'll just have to assume she's hiding something. I swear she doesn't know what she's talking about. I'm sure she's just flustered about... It's over, Graham. We just found the life insurance policy. What? My men found it inside a chest in your bedroom. It lists you as the beneficiary for our cool $37,500.

I thought you said you purchased the minimum policy. I've never seen that before. Moore left the interrogation room and let Graham sweat it out for the next hour. Until finally around midnight, Moore returned with the final piece of the puzzle. My guys found two strands of yellow wire in one of your shirt pockets. The exact type of wire used to detonate dynamite. I can explain. You've been lying to us all night, Graham.

We are going to charge you with the crime. The more you deny it, the harder it's going to be for you. Okay. Where do you want me to start? Adam tells his side of the story. Now, back to the story. Right after midnight in the early hours of November 14th, 23-year-old Jack Graham finally told the FBI

The truth. According to him, everything started about six months earlier when his mom, Daisy King, first started complaining about the drive-in restaurant they owned together. They'd had many talks about the state of the business, but this time, Daisy had had enough. We should sell the Crown A. We're losing money every day. You can't be serious. If you just let me run things the way I wanted to, we'd be making a profit. I love you, honey. really do. But you know I can't trust you with money. That's not fair. I did my time. I paid my dues. Needless to say, Graham didn't take well to the idea of his mom selling the restaurant. He felt

that he'd poured his heart and soul into the place. In his mind, he deserved to be in charge. I'll admit it. I orchestrated the gas leak at the Crown A. We needed the insurance money, but then Daisy had to go and close the restaurant. She told me she was. wanted to sell the place. I mean, come on. We couldn't just give up like that. I had to do something. It's not clear how exactly he came up with the idea of sabotaging Daisy's plane, but maybe he was inspired by the other United Airlines flight that crashed in October, just a few weeks before his mom's flight took off. The cause of that crash still hadn't been determined. So it's possible Graham thought people would write off a second crash as a mystery also.

And once he settled on the idea of a bomb, he never wavered. He bought 25 sticks of dynamite, a timer, and a 6-volt battery, and assembled his homemade device all on his own. Then, on the afternoon of November 1st, before taking his mother to the airport, Graham slipped the device into her suitcase. He nearly got discovered that day, too. When they arrived at the airport and dropped off Daisy's bag, it was way over the weight limit. The airline employee offered to ship the luggage to Daisy's final destination for her,

but Graham persuaded Daisy to just pay the extra weight fee. He argued that she'd want to have all of her belongings with her when she arrived in Alaska, and who knew how long shipping would take. Daisy only had 20 minutes till her flight took off, so she didn't even bother looking in the bag to see if there was anything she could remove. She did what Graham said and paid the fee. Then she rushed to her gate and the suitcase was loaded into the belly of the plane. Graham and Gloria went to get food from the airport cafe while Flight 629 took off. But he couldn't keep his meal down.

He threw up, knowing that any minute now, the timer he'd said on the bomb would go off. Sure enough, the device exploded over Longmont, Colorado, where the United Airlines flight crashed, and everyone aboard died. When Graham heard the news, he and Gloria rushed home, then he called United. Graham was the first one of the victim's families to call the airline.

He spoke with a representative named Sam Kellogg. I heard another United Airlines flight just crashed. Was it Flight 629? My mother was on that plane. Did anyone survive? But you have a sense. That's the way it goes. Back at FBI headquarters, the agents listened to Graham's confession in stunned silence.

They'd suspected everything, but his casual retelling of the bombing was chilling. Graham didn't appear to have any remorse about killing his mother. or murdering the 43 other innocent people on that plane. That night, the FBI charged Graham with sabotage, but three days later, the charge changed to murder. As it turned out, there actually weren't any laws that made it illegal to sabotage a commercial aircraft. If they wanted a conviction, it'd be easier to charge Graham for killing his mother.

They were confident they could prove that, So despite the fact that there were 44 victims, Jack Graham was charged with just one count of murder. Graham's legal defense consisted of three public defenders, whom the judge assigned him because he thought the case was so massive, one lawyer wouldn't be enough. Under their guidance, Graham pled innocent by reason of insanity. Then he was whisked away to the Colorado Psychopathic Hospital for a series of exams. exams. He spent a month there, and during that period he made all sorts of statements, including a consistent claim that he'd made his entire confession up.

But as doctors probed more, Graham reverted to the original story. At times, he even seemed proud of himself, and one particular theme stood out to many of the psychiatrists who interviewed him. Everything came back to Graham's relationship with his story. mother. It seemed to them that his abandonment issues played a massive role in his crime. For Graham, murdering his mom was his way of ensuring that she could never leave him again. According to the Denver Post, Graham even said as much to one of his psychiatrists. When I watched her go for the last time, I felt happier than I ever felt before in my life.

As for his other victims, Graham said he felt guilty. But in reality, it seemed he had no remorse for them. It could have been a thousand people. When their time comes, there's nothing they can do about it. Ultimately, four psychiatrists examined Graham, and all of them found him legally sane. So after a month, he was released from the hospital and sent back to Denver County Jail. In prison, Graham flip-flopped again.

He likely knew he had to plead his innocence. otherwise he was a dead man walking, so he tried to convince people that his confession was forced. He even met with reporters, but that backfired. Graham's claims of innocence only made it harder for his legal team to argue an insanity plea. A jury would wonder, was he claiming he committed the crime but was legally insane? Or did he not commit the crime altogether? It couldn't be both. Sure enough, by February.

of 1956, less than two months before his trial, the insanity plea was dropped. A shocking decision given the prosecution was seeking the death penalty. Graham's trial began on April 16, 1956. It was an extremely lopsided affair. The prosecution took 15 days to present their case and called about 80 witnesses. Graham's defense, on the other hand, called only ate and rested after just two days. Graham himself never took the stand. After roughly an hour of deliberation, the jury found Jack Graham guilty of murder and recommended a death sentence. Graham didn't react to the news, at least not outwardly. He remained stoic as the courtroom erupted around him. Despite all the evidence, Gloria had stood by him all this time.

She couldn't bear to be in the courtroom when the jury read their verdict. She was outside in the hallway with a friend. When she heard the news, she grabbed their arm and sobbed. Graham's execution was scheduled for eight months later in January, 1957. At that point, he really was on his own. Not even Gloria attended to witness his final moments. He was executed in a gas chamber, where he was pronounced dead after 11, 11 minutes. As the Denver Post commented, it was coincidentally the same amount of time flight

629 was in the air before it exploded. Six months after Graham's execution, Congress finally passed a law that made airline and bus bombings a federal crime. So while there were some copycat insurance motivated airline bombings after this tragic incident, they were officially handled as sabotage cases. To this day, the bombing of Flight 629 is still the deadliest mass murder in modern Colorado's history. Thanks again for tuning in to Solved Murders. We'll be back next Wednesday with a new episode. For more information on this case, amongst the many sources we used,

we found Mainliner Denver, the bombing of Flight 629 by Andrew Field, extremely helpful to our research. You can find all episodes of Solved Murders and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. We'll see you next time. Solve Murders True Crime Mysteries is a Spotify original from Parcast. Our head of programming is Julian Boireau. Our supervising sound designer is Russell Nash with Nick Johnson as our head of production and Spencer Howard as our post-production supervisor. Quality Control by Lisa Marie Gallegos.

Stacey Nemek is our supervising editor, and Derek Jennings is our writing lead. This episode of Solve Murders was written by Alex Burns, edited by Sarah Batchelor and Alex Garland, fact-checked by Catherine Barner, researched by Mickey Taylor, produced by Joshua Kern, and sound design by Brian Gullab. It stars Sammy Amounts, Joe Hernandez, Tommy Arseniega, Charlie Wes and Jerry Courtney Austen. Our hosts are Wendy McKenzie and me, Carter Roy.