True Crime thread

[JohnnyTheFox]

Crime of the week..

I remember when I first heard about this crime– It turned my stomach it was so heinous.

For as bad as it was I had never heard of it until I came across it on one of those "We discuss lots of crimes" sites (the site itself was purchased by the "Court TV" folks several years ago and was shut-down not longer after).

For as bad as the crime was I've been surprised at how little press it has received over the years.

It's a crime that occurred long ago, November 1st, 1955 during a time when crimes involving mass murder weren't suppose to happen– And this one continues to be the worst one in the state of Colorado (thinking about the various mass shootings in Colorado over the years– that's saying something).

So what was the cause of this horrible crime?

A 23 year-old man hated his mother and was greedy.

It was no more complicated than that.

His saw his opportunity when his mother was going to be flying out of Stapleton Airport (Denver) to Portland, Oregon via United Flight 629.

In addition he saw this as a money-making opportunity...

You see during that time period, many airports offered life-insurance right on site, so prior to the plane taking off, the man, named John "Jack" Gilbert Graham managed to cram sticks of dynamite into his mother's luggage along with buying life insurance on his mother's life.

So at 6:59PM the plane took off and at about a height of 6,000 feet near Longmont, CO, the plane blew-up.

Wreckage was spread over huge area.

Included in that were 44 bodies. 15 crewman and 29 passengers, including a 13 month-old boy.

Authorities were able to put together what had happened relatively quickly, Graham was arrested, went to trial, found guilty and was executed on January 11th, 1957.

Yep, the worst mass murder in the history of the state of Colorado.

https://www.thedenverchannel.com/ne...-son-blew-up-his-mothers-flight-over-colorado

Never heard of this......
Had no clue you could purchase flight insurance in Airports, out of a Vending Machine of all things. Flew a few times before it was changed in the 80s but still don't remember it.
He was tried/convicted for the murder of his Mother and not the other 43 passengers.
From the bombing until his execution was about 14 months which i presume{?} was pretty quick even back then.

What a horrible story........

 

[SlammedZero]

Found a new show on HBO Max called How It Really Happened. Topics range throughout the show but it does cover some true crime stories. So far I watched the episodes about the Menendez Brothers and about the OJ Simpson trial. So far it's not a bad show. It just mostly delves into the cases and unpacks the information for you. I remember the Menendez Brothers in the news from back in the day but I never knew the entire story very well, so, that was informative. It also did touch on a few alternative OJ Simpson theories that are floating out there. I still think he did it.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Never heard of this......
Had no clue you could purchase flight insurance in Airports, out of a Vending Machine of all things. Flew a few times before it was changed in the 80s but still don't remember it.
He was tried/convicted for the murder of his Mother and not the other 43 passengers.
From the bombing until his execution was about 14 months which i presume{?} was pretty quick even back then.

What a horrible story........

The Warren court during the 1960's greatly affected the time-frame of capital punishment convictions, the result being what we see today.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Never heard of this......
Had no clue you could purchase flight insurance in Airports, out of a Vending Machine of all things. Flew a few times before it was changed in the 80s but still don't remember it.
He was tried/convicted for the murder of his Mother and not the other 43 passengers.
From the bombing until his execution was about 14 months which i presume{?} was pretty quick even back then.

What a horrible story........

Of course there were ghastly crimes before this one, but in my mind this is the one that opened the flood-gates to our present era of crime and mayhem where those committing these crimes seemed to have far less regard for the killing of strangers and the overall numbers they achieved.

 

[CowboyStar88]

Yeah, I'm big on websleuths.com

I got booted from that site a few years back after I defended someone the site considered a suspect. Actually ended up becoming friends with the guy over his music. What seemed weird to some was totally normal for some of us. He was cleared.

 

[SlammedZero]

Watching a show about the Gainesville murders back in 1990. Wow! I had heard about these but I had never known how gruesome they were. One murder he decapitated his victim and put her head on a bookshelf as to be presented to whoever discovered the body. Unbelievable!!

 

[JohnnyTheFox]

I have always been enamored with the Lufthansa heist which was pulled off in 1978 for the tune of 5 million cash. Lufthansa heist - Wikipedia

 

[MichaelWinicki]

I have always been enamored with the Lufthansa heist which was pulled off in 1978 for the tune of 5 million cash. Lufthansa heist - Wikipedia

Stunning that more info hasn't come out over the years about this... But I get that a few of the participants (or possible participants) meant an untimely demise... No honor among thieves I guess.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Watching a show about the Gainesville murders back in 1990. Wow! I had heard about these but I had never known how gruesome they were. One murder he decapitated his victim and put her head on a bookshelf as to be presented to whoever discovered the body. Unbelievable!!

Danny Rollings. What a sick bugger.

I do give him a wee bit of credit in that he did admit murdering a family in Louisianna I believe, prior to heading to Florida. Someone else had been blamed for the crime.

One other thing about this case is that he used a Kabar knife... Kabar is made in my home town. Both my great great grandfather and my grandmother (from opposite sides of the family) worked at Kabar knives.

 

[JohnnyTheFox]

Stunning that more info hasn't come out over the years about this... But I get that a few of the participants (or possible participants) meant an untimely demise... No honor among thieves I guess.

This was one of those crimes you only could have gotten away with back in the day. After they did in Stacks the rest just tumbled down like dominoes, although Good Fellas took a few liberties as opposed to that actually happened to whom.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

This was one of those crimes you only could have gotten away with back in the day. After they did in Stacks the rest just tumbled down like dominoes, although Good Fellas took a few liberties as opposed to that actually happened to whom.

True.

Like there's a reason the number of serial killers/serial rapists seems to have dropped considerably over the last 20 years– forensics and improved cooperation amongst agencies have the ability to catch perps much sooner in their cycle of terror– very difficult to rack up an obscene number of killings like Corll, Bundy & Gacy.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

I somehow missed this...

https://abc13.com/serial-killer-elmer-wayne-henley-dean-corll/6223025/

David Brooks, who was an accomplice of Dean Corll, passed away last June from Covid.

I still find it amazing that Corll's crimes are somewhat forgotten.

 

[JohnnyTheFox]

I somehow missed this...

https://abc13.com/serial-killer-elmer-wayne-henley-dean-corll/6223025/

David Brooks, who was an accomplice of Dean Corll, passed away last June from Covid.

I still find it amazing that Corll's crimes are somewhat forgotten.

Had to go read up on them, 28 victims. What a sick bunch. One of the 3 perps is apparently still alive and well in the Texas prison system.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Had to go read up on them, 28 victims. What a sick bunch. One of the 3 perps is apparently still alive and well in the Texas prison system.

Corll was the first of the "big number" serial killers.

The overall number may be even larger than the 28.

Houston police supposedly quit looking for additional victims relatively early in the investigation– They seemed to simply want to forget it as quickly as possible. Their approach from before Corll was shot and killed by Henley, was that the boys simply "ran away from home".

I come across a map of the victims home's in one particular neighborhood and it was stunning how many there were– makes the entire "they ran away from home" to sound stupid at best and highly negligent at worst. Needless to say they put little or no effort into finding any of the kids until Henley forced their hand.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Authorities have identified the remains of serial killer Larry Eyler...

https://news.yahoo.com/1983-indiana-remains-idd-chicago-210234298.html

Eyler murdered at least 20 young men in the early 80's. He was eventually captured and found guilty of one murder and put on death row– ultimately succumbing to aid's related complications in 1994.

It's stunning how many serial killers were operating within the borders of the US during the 70's & 80's.

 

[FloridaRob]

I somehow missed this...

https://abc13.com/serial-killer-elmer-wayne-henley-dean-corll/6223025/

David Brooks, who was an accomplice of Dean Corll, passed away last June from Covid.

I still find it amazing that Corll's crimes are somewhat forgotten.

There was a book written about these murders back in the 1970s. The book was named "the Man with the Candy". I sang with a gospel quartet during that time and we sang in High Island Texas. When the writer of the book was researching the story, he commented in his book about a flyer he read in High Island about our group singing there. That was our experience with fame. LOL

 

[MichaelWinicki]

There was a book written about these murders back in the 1970s. The book was named "the Man with the Candy". I sang with a gospel quartet during that time and we sang in High Island Texas. When the writer of the book was researching the story, he commented in his book about a flyer he read in High Island about our group singing there. That was our experience with fame. LOL

Interesting!

I think there's still story to be told about Corll and his accomplices.

After the initial interest in the murders nationally things went quiet with the next group of serial killers filling the news... Bundy, Gacy, Hillside Strangler, Nightstalker, BTK... Gosh, one after another. And a lot of those killers seemed to stay in the headlines for seemingly ever, while Corll was pretty much forgotten.

Funny how it worked out.

 

[timb2]

 

[JohnnyTheFox]

Remember this like it was yesterday, VERY good breakdown of the shootout here

A Breakdown of the Infamous 1997 North Hollywood Bank ShootoutThe Firearm Blog

Pretty amazing they were no fatalities{other than their own}especially given their firepower/armor and amount of rounds expended. This single event was also an important factor in Police Depts. becoming more militarized.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

About 4:00PM on July 18, 1984, James Huberty wandered into a McDonalds in San Ysidro, California and did what he had told his wife he was going to do before he left the house and that was– "I'm going to hunt humans".

Between the time he entered the building and the time he was shot and killed by a SWAT team member, almost 90 minutes later, he had shot and killed 21 while wounding 19.

I remember it...

It was like a bolt of lightning had struck.

By 1984 we were use to various serial killer murders that had been occurring the previous 15 years or so, but there hadn't been any large-number mass shootings since Charles Whitman and the University of Texas clock tower in 1966.

What Huberty did was so shocking because we simply weren't use to hearing about mass shootings (then).

Huberty seems to have been the classic case of mass shooter if there is such a thing.

He held a grudge against society because of failed employment (he was fired from his job as a security guard the week before).

But he was having mental problems also. At one point earlier he attempted suicide but his wife stopped him. He also had bouts where he lost touch with reality and had a fascination with war.

On top of this he started collecting weapons.

He did make an attempt to get help by calling a mental health agency nearby but they never returned his phone call.

On July 18th, 1984 he just snapped.

Here's an interesting piece on his daughter who came forward after the San Bernadino mass shootings:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.co...-james-huberty-interview-2015dec15-story.html