November 1st marks 70 years since the horrific bombing of United Flight 629 in Colorado, which claimed 44 lives. Now, for the first time, a permanent memorial will honor the memory of those lives lost in this tragedy.
Shortly after the “Mainliner Denver” left Stapleton Air Field, it exploded over a farm eight miles east of Longmont. Investigators discovered Colorado resident John Gilbert Graham had placed 25 sticks of dynamite attached to a timer in his mother, Daisie King’s, checked bag. King had placed Graham in an orphanage when he was young, and he planned to kill her and collect the payout from an insurance policy he purchased in her name at the airport. All 39 passengers and five crew members aboard died when the bomb exploded, igniting the large fuel load and blowing the aircraft apart. Graham was convicted of the murder of his mother and executed in 1957.
Now, after 70 years, several organizations have created the first permanent memorial to honor the victims. Officials said over 100 family members of the victims traveled to Colorado to participate in events in honor of those killed and two FBI agents who helped solve the case and brought Graham to justice. Many of those survivors spoke about how the event affected their families and what the memorial means to them.
“It was the first commercial airline bombing in history. Our father was the co-pilot; he was only 26 years old,” Cynthia Owens, daughter of victim Donald White, told CBS Colorado.
She was only two when her father was killed in the explosion. White’s son, Jerry Fiske, was seven when his father died. He said Graham was never charged for the deaths of the other victims…