Editing Jack Gilbert Graham

{{Short description|American mass murderer (1932–1957)}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2022}}
{{Infobox mass murderer
| name              = Jack Graham
| image             = Jackgraham2.jpg
| birth_name        = John Gilbert Graham
| birth_date        = {{Birth date|1932|01|23}}
| birth_place       = [[Denver]], [[Colorado]], U.S.
| death_date        = {{Death date and age|1957|01|11|1932|01|23}}
| death_place       = [[Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility|Colorado State Prison]], [[Cañon City, Colorado]], U.S.
| sentence          = [[Capital punishment|Death]]
| spouse            = Gloria A. Elson
| date              = November 1, 1955
| time              = 7:02 p.m.
| targets           = Daisie E. Walker (mother)
| locations         = [[Longmont, Colorado]]
| victims           = 44 (including his mother)
| weapons           = [[Dynamite]] bomb
| motive            = [[Life insurance|Life insurance money]]
| conviction        = [[First degree murder]]
| death_cause       = [[Execution by gas chamber]]
| country           = [[United States]]
| children          = 2
}}
'''John''' "'''Jack'''" '''Gilbert Graham''' (January 23, 1932 – January 11, 1957) was an American [[mass murderer]] who, on November 1, 1955, killed 44 people aboard [[United Airlines Flight 629]] near [[Longmont, Colorado]], using a [[dynamite]] [[time bomb]]. Graham planted the bomb in his mother's suitcase in an apparent move to murder her and claim $37,500 ({{Inflation|US|37500|1955|r=-4|fmt=eq}}) worth of [[life insurance]] money from policies he purchased in the airport terminal just before the flight departure. Graham was convicted of murdering his mother. He was sentenced to [[death penalty|death]] and was [[executed]] by the state of [[Colorado]] in January 1957.

== Background ==
John Gilbert Graham was born on January 23, 1932, in [[Denver, Colorado]], the child of Daisie ([[née]] Walker) Graham and her second husband, William Graham.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jack Gilbert Graham |url=https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/jack-gilbert-graham |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20220805000746/https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/jack-gilbert-graham |archive-date=2022-08-05 |website=[[FBI]]}}</ref> Nicknamed "Jack," Graham was Daisie's second child, as she already had a daughter from her first marriage. Graham was born during the height of the [[Great Depression]], and, in 1937, his father died from [[pneumonia]], causing Daisie to send the young Jack to an [[orphanage]] due to their poverty. In 1941, Daisie was married for the third time to Earl King, who died shortly after their marriage. Using her inheritance from King's death, Daisie became a successful businesswoman, but despite her newfound wealth, Daisie did not collect Graham from the orphanage. The two remained [[family estrangement|estranged]] until 1954, when Graham was 22 years old, and Daisie King was running a successful restaurant. After their reunion, King and Graham had a poor relationship, and often argued.

In 1955, shortly before the aircraft bombing, King's restaurant was destroyed in a suspicious gas explosion, believed to have been deliberately caused by Graham. Graham had insured the restaurant and collected on the [[property insurance]] following the explosion.

Graham married Gloria A. Elson, with whom he had two children, Allen and Suzanne, who were infants at the time of the notable events. After Graham's execution, Gloria and the two children began using her maiden name. Allen Earl Elson married Denise Marie in 1976. Both went missing on October 16, 1981, in [[Curry County, Oregon]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Missing Persons |url=https://www.oregon.gov/osp/missing/pages/missingpersons.aspx?wp1936=se:%22Elson%22 |access-date=2023-12-29 |website=State of Oregon}}</ref> and are presumed dead. Gloria died in 1992.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2005-10-30 |title=Family moved on, but tragedy struck again |url=https://www.denverpost.com/2005/10/30/family-moved-on-but-tragedy-struck-again/ |access-date=2023-12-29 |website=The Denver Post |language=en-US}}</ref>

== Bombing ==
[[United Airlines Flight 629]] was using a [[Douglas DC-6B]] airliner (named "Mainliner Denver") piloted by [[World War II]] veteran Lee Hall on the evening of November 1, 1955. The flight had originated at [[New York City]]'s [[LaGuardia Airport]], making a stop in [[Chicago, Illinois|Chicago]] before continuing to Denver; it then took off from [[Denver, Colorado]]'s [[Stapleton Airfield]], bound for [[Portland, Oregon]], with continuing service to [[Seattle]]. Minutes after the plane's departure from Denver, the DC-6B exploded, the flaming wreckage falling into farmland near [[Longmont, Colorado]]. There were no survivors.<ref name=FBI>{{cite web |url= https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-cases/jack-gilbert-graham |publisher= Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) |title= Jack Gilbert Graham |work= Famous Cases & Criminals |date=  |access-date= January 30, 2015 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150215232408/http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-cases/jack-gilbert-graham |archive-date= February 15, 2015 }}</ref>

Graham's mother had been a passenger on Flight 629, and was traveling to [[Alaska]] to visit her daughter, Graham's half-sister. At the time, flight insurance could be routinely purchased in vending machines at airports, until changes to the system in the 1980s.<ref name="ACrime" /><ref name="Mom">{{Cite news|url=http://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/justice-story-son-bomb-mom-luggage-kills-44-flight-article-1.1335372|date=4 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130505050818/http://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/justice-story-son-bomb-mom-luggage-kills-44-flight-article-1.1335372|archive-date=5 May 2013|title=Justice Story: Son plants bomb in mom's suitcase, killing her and 43 others during flight|first=Mara|last=Bovsun|newspaper=NY Daily News}}</ref>

Graham's apparent motive for the bombing was to claim $37,500 ({{Inflation|US|37500|1955|r=-4|fmt=eq}}) worth of life insurance money from policies he had purchased in the airport terminal just moments before the aircraft's departure.

== 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>

== Fictional portrayals ==
* Graham was portrayed by [[Nick Adams (actor, born 1931)|Nick Adams]] in the 1959 motion picture ''[[The FBI Story]]'' starring [[James Stewart]] and [[Vera Miles]].
* The case was the basis for the 1960 "Fire in the Sky" episode of ''[[M Squad]]''.
* The case was the basis for the 1959 "Flight 169--Mass Murder" episode of ''[[Deadline (1959 TV series)]]''.
* The book ''Mainliner Denver: The Bombing of Flight 629'' by Andrew J. Field (Johnson Books, 2005) was published on the 50th anniversary of the bombing.{{Citation needed|date=September 2020}}
* The case is the subject of the episode titled "Time Bomb" of the 2013 [[Investigation Discovery]] [[miniseries]] ''[[A Crime to Remember]]''.<ref name="ACrime">{{cite web |url= http://acrimetoremember.com/ep4-details.html |work= A Crime to Remember |title= No. 004: Time Bomb |publisher= Discovery Communications |date= 2013 |access-date= December 3, 2013 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20131215010606/http://acrimetoremember.com/ep4-details.html |archive-date= December 15, 2013 }}</ref>

== Music ==
[[Macabre (band)|Macabre]], a grindcore metal band from Chicago, wrote a song about Graham called "There Was a Young Man Who Blew Up a Plane", on their ''[[Sinister Slaughter]]'' album.

== See also ==
* [[Albert Guay]]
* [[Capital punishment in Colorado]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* [http://www.andrewjfield.com/ ''Mainliner Denver: The Bombing of Flight 629''] by Andrew J. Field (Johnson Books, 2005)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Graham, Jack Gilbert}}
[[Category:1932 births]]
[[Category:1957 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American murderers]]
[[Category:20th-century executions by Colorado]]
[[Category:20th-century executions of American people]]
[[Category:American male criminals]]
[[Category:Bombers (people)]]
[[Category:Executed American mass murderers]]
[[Category:Matricides]]
[[Category:People convicted of murder by Colorado]]
[[Category:People executed by Colorado by gas chamber]]
[[Category:People from Denver]]