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John Gilbert Graham: Home-Grown Mass Murderer
October 2005 Brooks Tower Newsletter
:ad200 In November of 1951 when a "petty" criminal forger, John Gilbert Graham, 19 years old, was arested in Texas as one of Denver's "six most wanted" not much concern surronded the event. Although his photograph accompanied news accounts in both The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News, it would be four years later (fifty years ago this month) that Colorado's infamous mass murdere dominated local and national media attention. For example, Life Magazine in November 28, 1955, refers to the event as "the most hideous mass murder in U.S. history."
Graham blew up United Airline flight 629, a DC-6B mainline, after taking off from Denver's Stapleton Airport, killing all forty-four aboard because he wanted to collect the $37,500 life insurance policy he had taken out on Daisie E. King, both a passenger and his mother. Within two weeks investigators concluded that the plane had been deliberately blown up by Graham who had put a time bomb in his mother's luggage. It would be the first known case of successful sabotage in the history of U.S. commercial aviation.
As on of Brooks Tower more mature residents and a native Denverite, I still think about the events of November 1, 1955, and the subsequent investigation every time I fly. Today, as one drives to DIA from our downtown residence, there are many reminders of Graham that cannot easily be forgotten. For example, driving along 14th to Stout Street, the Denver Motor Hotel at 1420 Stout is where Graham stored his mother's 1955 Chevrolet while she left on a visit to his sister in Alaska. This seven-story non-descript structure, built in the early 1930's, is Denver's first off-street parking garage. Since Mrs. King planned to spend Thanksgiving in Alaska, she wanted her new car parked in a covered garage.
Proceeding northeast on Stout to E. 32nd Ave. (now Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.), one will notice the stately red sandstone buildings near the intersection with Colorado Blvd. These buildings were part of the Clayton College for Boys. When George W. Clayton (his name still appears at the top of the Granite Bldg. in Larimer Square) died in 1899, he left the build of his estate to the founding of a "permanent college" in Denver for the education and well-being of poor white, male orphan children. Graham spent his early years at this orphanage.
Graham was born in Denver in 1932 and his father died when he was two years old. His mother suffered financial difficulties after her husband's death and Graham was placed at Clayton College. he attended Denver Public Schools' Stedman Elementary (E. 29th and Dexter St.) through the sixth grade. However, in 1941 his mother married John E. King a well-to-do Yampa, Colorado, rancher. As a result, Graham then attended junior high in Tonopas, Colorado, and later dropped out of high school in Kremmling. At sixteen he enlisted in the Coast Guard and was discharged nine months later as a minor after having been AWOL for two months.
As one continues the drive east along MLK Blvd. to Quebec Street, the tower for the old Stapleton International Airfield (since 1964) still appears on the horizon. Graham had made a dynamite time-bomb device. This was put in his mother's luggage on the afternoon of November 1 and he set the timer after arriving at Stapleton with the luggage. he had to hurry to buy the flight insurance at an airport vending machine.
Prior to November of 1955, the Airline Pilots' Association wanted new laws by Congress to outlaw indiscriminate sales of flight insurance at airports. On the other hand, insurance companies believed that flight insurance was a comfort to many passengers who still worried about flying-despite the airlines' remarkable record for getting people safely to their destinations. (As a note, one can still purchase flight insurance at DIA on the 5th level at World Wide Money Exchange. However, the day I stopped by they were out of application forms and couldn't relate the cost to me either. nevertheless, this company was doing a brisk business selling lotto tickets to airport employees).
At 6:52 p.m. on November 1, United Airlines' flight 629, New York to Seattle by way of Chicago and Denver, took off. It was twenty-two minutes late starting on its 1,075 mile last leg mostly because it had waited for a late arriving passenger. Aboard were 39 passengers and a crew of five, connected briefly by the chance fellowship of travel like the five who once started across Thornton Wilder's "Bridge of San Luis Rey". Flight conditions were good, the four engines purred thunder and in 11 minutes (7:03 p.m.) the plane had reached 11,000 feet. The, in one blazing instant of hopelessness 44 people were plunged into eternity. The "ball of fire" hurtled to the ground near Longmont, Colorado. Graham had planned the explosion over the Rocky Mountains to make it more difficult to prove.
On November 15th, Graham confessed to FBI agents and was arrested by Denver authorities. He was incarcerated at the then new county jail (Smith Road and Havana). This structure is visible as one travels east on I-70 to DIA. One year later in January, two psychiatrists declared Graham sane and ready for trial. he went to the trial on April 16, 1956, and after seventeen days was found gulty and sentenced to death.
A month prior to his execution, "The Big Story," a regular NBC-TV program, honored The Denver Post reporters, Zeke Scher and George McWilliams, for their role in reporting the Graham case. In a dramatization titled "Mass Murder-Flight 119" which was televised December 14, 1956, the sponsors gave a $500 cash award to both reporters at the end of the episode. I'm still puzzled by the tiele "Flight 119" since all other sources indicate the flight was 629.
Graham was executed in the gas chamber at the state prison at Canon Cit on January 11, 1957, less than 15 months after his crime. His execution ended one of Colorado's most sensational trials. Ironically, this gas chamber was built by Denver's Eaton Metal Products Co., (4800 York Street and less than a mile from where he committed his first crime). It was the last chamber built by Eaton Metal and appropriately the first person execute in it was John Gilbert Graham. This certainly has given another aspect to ABC (Always Buy Colorado)!
by Jim McNally, Mac's Facts - October 2005 Brooks Tower Newsletter
- It is asserted that presentation of this article qualifies as fair use under U.S. Copyright law because it details a significant historical event and there is no comparable free content on the topic.
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