Editing Jack Gilbert Graham (section)

== Arrest and conviction ==
Investigators discovered that Graham had a [[criminal record]] for [[embezzlement]] by [[cheque fraud|check forgery]], and [[Rum-running|illegal transport of whiskey]] for which he had served 60 days in a [[Texas]] prison.<ref name= FBI /> King's restaurant had been severely damaged by "a suspicious explosion" earlier that year, and Graham had received the insurance settlement.<ref name= CrimeLibrary>{{cite web | url= http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/jack_graham/ |title= Sabotage: The Downing of Flight 629 |first= Mark |last= Gado |work= Crime Library |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20040301155939/http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/jack_graham/ |archive-date= March 1, 2004}}</ref> Local people also suspected Graham of deliberately causing his new pick-up truck to be struck by a train that year, in order to collect the insurance.<ref name= FBI /><ref name=CrimeLibrary />

After reassembling fragments of the plane, the FBI determined that certain items of luggage in the baggage compartment had contained explosives. Based on that evidence, as well as his contradictory statements, physical evidence found at Graham's house, and finally a confession, Graham was charged with sabotage, then later murder.<ref name=FBI />
[[File:Jack gilbert graham courtroom trial.jpg|upright|thumb|Graham as seen on TV in the courtroom]]

After Graham's arrest, Denver radio station KDEN owner Gene Amole and ''Rocky Mountain News'' photographer Morey Engle surreptitiously took a camera into the jail for an interview of Graham during a reunion with his wife Gloria.<ref name= Amole>{{cite news |url= http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_product=NewsBank&p_theme=aggregated5&p_action=doc&p_docid=0EB4E3C916A2FE12&p_docnum=15&p_queryname=1 |title= Explosive precedents: Colorado airline bombing 40 years ago resulted in first TV courtroom coverage |first= Gene |last= Amole |work= Rocky Mountain News |location= Denver, [[Colorado|CO]] |date= October 29, 1995 |url-access=registration}}</ref> "I loved my mother very much", Graham told Amole. "She meant a lot to me. It's very hard for me to tell exactly how I feel. She left so much of herself behind." When Amole asked him why he confessed, he said the FBI had threatened to point out inconsistencies in statements made by his wife Gloria. "I was not about to let them touch her in any way, shape or form," he said. None of the Denver TV stations would agree to broadcast the film at the time, though it was eventually shown on one of Denver's local PBS stations as part of a documentary.

Graham's confessions gave details about the bomb that matched the evidence from the plane's wreckage. He also told prison doctors that he "realized that there were about 50 or 60 people carried on a DC6, but the number of people to be killed made no difference to me; it could have been a thousand. When their time comes, there is nothing they can do about it."<ref name=FBI />

Graham's trial led to [[Colorado]] becoming the first state to officially sanction the broadcast of criminal trials on television. No [[federal statute]] at the time made it a crime to blow up an airplane. Therefore, on the day after Graham's confession, the Denver district attorney moved to prosecute Graham via the simplest possible route: premeditated murder of a single victim, his mother, Daisie King. Graham recanted his confession, but at his 1956 trial his defense was unable to counter the massive amount of evidence presented by the prosecution. In February 1956, he [[Prisoner suicide|attempted suicide in his cell]], and was thereafter put under 24-hour surveillance.<ref name= FBI /> On May 5, 1956, Graham was convicted of the murder of his mother, Daisie King, and was [[Death penalty|sentenced to death]].

Graham was [[Capital punishment|executed]] in the [[Colorado State Penitentiary]] [[gas chamber]] on January 11, 1957. One source has his final words being "Thanks, Warden", after Warden Tinsley patted him on the shoulder. TIME magazine quoted a lengthier statement, "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."<ref>[https://lastwordsoftheexecuted.com/page/46/ ''Jack Graham'']; Last Words website; accessed November 2023</ref>