On the evening of November 1, 1955, a United Air Lines DC-6B left Stapleton Airport in Denver for Portland, Oregon, on the first leg of a journey that was to end in Anchorage, Alaska. About eleven minutes later it came down on farmland near Longmont, Colorado. Thirty-nine passengers and five crew members died. One of the passengers was a Denver woman traveling to see her daughter. Within two weeks the FBI had concluded that her own son, Jack Gilbert Graham, had caused the aircraft to be destroyed.
Graham was 23. He was convicted in Denver District Court on May 5, 1956, of "murder in the first degree," and the jury recommended the death penalty. The conviction was for his mother's death alone. The other 43 deaths were never the subject of a charge. The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the sentence in October 1956, and Graham was executed in Cañon City on January 11, 1957, a little more than fourteen months after the crash.
The aircraft, a DC-6B, had come across the country from New York and Chicago before it reached Denver. It took off from Stapleton at 6:52 p.m. and was bound for Portland, where it was to continue north. Eleven minutes into the flight a bright flash was seen in the sky north of the airport by an employee of the control tower, and the aircraft stopped responding to controllers. It had broken apart in the air at about 5,780 feet, over farmland some eight miles east of Longmont, and the wreckage was scattered across roughly six square miles.
All 44 people aboard were killed: 39 passengers and five crew. The dead came from across the country. The police chief of Longmont sent officers, firefighters and ambulances to the fields, and families who farmed the surrounding land spent the night and the following day walking the debris with the first responders.
The Civil Aeronautics Board began the examination of the wreckage, and the FBI laboratory was asked to assist. The fuselage showed damage from an explosion, and witnesses on the ground had described one blast in the air and another as the pieces fell. On November 7, six days after the crash, the Board's chief of investigations told the FBI that there were indications of sabotage and asked the Bureau to open a criminal investigation. Agents were assigned to the case full time the next day.
The investigators reconstructed the aircraft in a large hangar and matched the damage to the baggage compartments. Almost everything that belonged to the passengers was recovered in a recognizable state. The belongings of one passenger, Graham's mother, were largely missing, and what remained of them had suffered the most severe damage. Graham had been charged earlier that year with forgery. Agents learned that he and his mother were on difficult terms. They also learned that he was the beneficiary of life insurance on her of at least $37,500, and that a trip insurance policy had been taken out in her name at the airport on the day of the flight.
On November 13 the FBI laboratory reported its findings on the explosion, and agents carried out a search in Denver. His own account and his wife's did not agree with each other.
FBI agents questioned Graham in the Federal Building in Denver over the course of Sunday and Monday, November 13 and 14. After being told that he was a suspect and being confronted with what the Bureau had learned, he made a statement admitting that he had caused the destruction of the aircraft, and he signed it.
On November 14 a federal complaint before a United States Commissioner in Denver charged Graham with "sabotage." On November 17 he was charged in the Colorado courts with the murder of his mother, and he was held without bail. The district attorney of Denver chose to prosecute the one death rather than all 44. The federal complaint went no further.
Graham was arraigned in Denver District Court on December 9, 1955. The court accepted pleas of "innocent" and "innocent by reason of insanity at the time of the alleged crime." Four psychiatrists examined him, and the state hospital in Pueblo found him competent to stand trial. All concluded that he was legally sane. The defense later withdrew the insanity plea, on February 24, 1956, and the trial was set to begin on April 16, 1956. By the time it opened, Graham had retracted his confession, and his lawyers argued that it had been obtained under duress.
The trial began in Denver in April 1956, five months after the crash. Interest was great enough that the judge issued rules for the press and public. He allowed sound film, still photography and radio in the courtroom, though not live television, and he allowed any witness or defendant who objected to stay off the record. Graham was the only participant who objected. The proceedings became known as the first criminal trial in Colorado with the cameras present, and one Denver station took up the issue with the state's highest court, which led to a revision of Canon 35 of the Judicial Code of Ethics.
Selecting the jury took 231 prospective jurors to be examined, the largest number ever called in a Colorado case up to then. The prosecution called about eighty witnesses and introduced 174 exhibits. They covered the findings on the wreckage, the laboratory work and the evidence that investigators had traced to Graham. On the ninth day a federal judge rejected a defense motion to bar the FBI's evidence, finding that Graham had been advised of his rights before he spoke. The case ran about fifteen days in all.
The defense called eight witnesses. Graham did not testify.
On May 5, 1956, the jury returned after about an hour. It found Graham "guilty of murder in the first degree" and recommended that he be put to death. On May 15 the judge denied a motion for a new trial that his lawyers had filed, and Graham told the court he wanted neither a new trial nor a review by the Colorado Supreme Court. He was sentenced to death, with the date to be set by the warden of the Colorado State Penitentiary in Cañon City.
His appointed lawyers filed an appeal in spite of his wishes, and on August 8, 1956, the Colorado Supreme Court stayed the execution. On October 22, 1956, the court affirmed the judgment of the Denver District Court and set the execution for the week ending January 12, 1957.
Graham was executed in Cañon City on January 11, 1957. The date fell fourteen months and ten days after the crash.
When Graham was charged, no federal statute covered the destruction of a civil aircraft. Congress added section 32 to Title 18 of the United States Code, headed "Destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities," on July 14, 1956, two months after the Denver verdict. The Colorado prosecution was therefore brought under the state's murder law, in the single count that could be proved most simply, and the verdict covered one death.
Graham retracted his statement to the FBI before trial, and the court admitted it over the objection that it was obtained under duress. He pleaded "innocent" and, for a time, "innocent by reason of insanity at the time of the alleged crime," and the plea was withdrawn after the psychiatrists found him sane. He was never convicted of the deaths of the other 43 people aboard.
November 1, 1955: Flight 629 leaves Denver and is destroyed near Longmont; 44 die.
November 7, 1955: The Civil Aeronautics Board asks the FBI to open a criminal investigation.
November 13, 1955: The FBI laboratory reports on the explosion; agents search in Denver.
November 14, 1955: Graham signs a statement; a federal complaint of "sabotage" is filed.
November 17, 1955: He is charged in the Colorado courts with the murder of his mother.
December 9, 1955: Arraignment in Denver District Court; pleas of "innocent" and "innocent by reason of insanity."
February 24, 1956: The insanity plea is withdrawn.
April 16, 1956: Trial set to begin.
May 5, 1956: Verdict of "guilty of murder in the first degree"; the jury recommends death.
May 15, 1956: A motion for a new trial is denied.
July 14, 1956: Section 32 of Title 18 enacted.
August 8, 1956: The Colorado Supreme Court stays the execution pending appeal.
October 22, 1956: The Colorado Supreme Court affirms.
January 11, 1957: Executed in Cañon City.