Reason First: John Gilbert Graham Selflessly Dynamited United Airlines Flight 629

Just before the Christmas season in 1955 swung into full gear, United Airlines Flight 629 exploded over Denver, Colorado airspace at 7:03 in the evening. 44 people perished in the explosion. From where did all of this stem? The alleged poor upbringing of a vicious monster named John “Jack” Gilbert Graham. He felt that along with his mother, 43 other souls had to die.

Graham had wrapped dynamite into a bundle with caps intact to ensure that the explosives would detonate. He had tied between three and four feet of “binding cord around the sack of dynamite” Graham remarked in his confession.

His feelings and emotions had reached a peak in his evil works. By claiming that he had experienced a horrible childhood, he sacrificed over forty people. His unselfish and selfless act is all the more heinous as he marched his way to the gas chamber.

This landmark case became historical because it stood as the first to appear on television screens. Deliberations took just over an hour. The verdict remained guilty and he was sentenced to be executed.

Orderlies and other corrections officials stripped Graham naked and forced him to wear a pair of shorts to limit the cyanide from clinging to his person. On January 11, 1957 in the Colorado State Penitentiary at Cañon City, Graham met his fate. The mixture of the chemicals cyanide and sulfuric acid began to lift from the source.

Graham initially tried to hold his breath. As it turned out, he took a few gasps of air that had been replaced by the hydrogen cyanide that filled the chamber. In a gagging motion, his head and body convulsed in an attempt to take in the fleeting oxygen.

A blood-curdling scream escaped from his mouth and he pushed up against the leather straps of the chair. At 8:08 in the evening, Graham hung his head and life exited from his body.

The emotionalism involved in this case is apparent. Just because he was abused and taken advantage of in his youth, this did not mean that he should have taken it out on the innocent people of Flight 629. His troubled beginnings with his mother had nothing to do with the 5 crew who just wanted to serve 39 the passengers. These occupants of the plane just wanted to relax and enjoy the flight. Sadly, Graham’s dynamite destroyed their peace and order.

Graham represented the disgusting specimen of males who could not control his emotions and decided to take it out on others in disastrous fashion. His selflessness in taking the lives of all of these people instead of being rational and selfish deemed him a deviant and a beast.

All of those plans to visit family and friends during the holiday, Graham dashed them. His irrationality disrupted and demolished the lives of people that had nothing to do with his crummy start at life.

Only 14 pounds of explosives sufficed in the catastrophe in the sky. Graham deserved his last moments of agony and then more. Aboard the plane was even a 1-year-old boy. What did he ever do to Graham? What did any of the people (besides his mother) do to him to go against him so much that they deserved to die? It was not greed for the life insurance policy that animated Graham but a dedication to destruction. Greed is too good of a virtue to apply to Graham.

Had Graham been a rational human being, he would have also been egoistic. There were no signs of any of these virtues in his acts. He committed them out of fear of facing reality. Had he even possessed a slight sense of reason within his person, he would’ve sought out psychiatric care. All that he had to do was maybe take a few prescribed drugs to keep him from doing a most malicious thing.

It is a benefit that law enforcement officials took Graham in and prosecuted him. His verdict, sentence, and execution caused Justice to sing. That should be remembered in all of this along with the lives of Flight 629.