Colorado Couple Recalls Witnessing State's Worst-Ever Mass Murder
LONGMONT, Colo. (CBS4) - Sixty years ago, on Nov. 1, 1955, the worst mass murder in Colorado history took place. A plane carrying 44 people was blown up over the skies east of Longmont, killing all aboard.
It was headline news in Colorado and around the world. United Flight 629 exploded in midair 11 minutes after taking off from Denver's Stapleton airport.
All on board were killed when the plane came down east of Longmont, right onto the farm where Conrad Copp was living.
"It was terrible," he told CBS4 reporter Rick Sallinger.
Copp was 18 at the time. His family was having dinner when they heard the explosion.
"I seen the plane coming down. It was a ball of fire," he recounted.
It didn't take long to suspect this was an act of sabotage.
"I said it was blown up by dynamite."
He recognized the smell, and soon investigators found evidence of a bomb with a timer and dynamite.
The task then was to find who planted it.
Daisie King had boarded the plane in Denver. Her son, 23-year-old Jack Graham, had purchased $37,000 worth of insurance at the airport.
The dynamite was traced to a store in Kremmling where Jack Graham was identified as the buyer.
He confessed but later recanted.
"I love my mother very much, she meant a lot to me," he said in an interview at the time, adding, "I know I didn't do it and was trying to prove to them I didn't do it."
Charged with murder, he was put on trial by the Denver District Attorney.
Besides insurance, Graham stood to inherit his mother's drive-in. She had placed him in a home as a child.
It took the jury just over one hour to find the son guilty of bringing down the plane.
At the site where the plane went down there is no memorial, not even a marker, but there's most certainly a legacy.
- Insurance machines have disappeared from airports.
- Bombing a plane was rare, but all passengers are now screened.
- The trial was among the first with cameras.
LINK: Colorado Air Disasters
Martha Copp was at the crash site and recalls the trial, where evidence showed Daisie King's luggage was 37 pounds overweight.
"I guess she said her suitcase was heavy and he said 'Oh, there's just presents in there so it's alright,'" she said.
A defiant Jack Graham was put to death in the gas chamber less than a year and half after the crime.
Visiting the site brings back vivid memories of that day to Conrad Copp, who cried when recalling "I turned around and there was a seat setting with a body in it. My stomach dropped."
Now 60 years later, the memories are still hard to take.
Additional Resources
Read an extensive description of this crime on a special section of FBI.gov.
CBS4's Rick Sallinger is a Peabody award winning reporter who has been with the station more than two decades doing hard news and investigative reporting. Follow him on Twitter @ricksallinger.