Murder in the Skies Trivia Quiz

Answer: No

On October 10, 1933, a United Airlines Boeing 247 exploded and crashed in Chesterton, Indiana, while en route to Chicago from Cleveland. An investigation headed by Melvin Purvis determined that the explosion had been caused by a nitro-glycerin bomb in the baggage compartment. A man was reported to have been seen carrying a brown package onto the plane, however no one was ever arrested or charged, and the identity of the perpetrator was never determined. This fact, combined with the relatively small number of casualties (seven altogether- four passengers and three crew) are the probable reasons that this tragedy has not achieved the notoriety of the Guay and Graham crimes.

Also, on May 7, 1949, just over 5 months before the Canada DC-3 crash, a Philippine Airlines passenger plane headed for Manila exploded in midair, killing all 13 on board (10 passengers and 3 crew). The cause was determined to have been a bomb created by two ex-convicts. This incident was much discussed in the press in the days following the Canadian disaster, and may possibly have given Guay the idea of sabotaging the DC-3. The Guay case was notable for having been the greatest mass-murder in North America up to that point, and other aspects of the case, such as the love-triangle and the fact that three mining executives from the U.S. had been among the dead ensured that the crime would be widely publicized. It has since been eclipsed by the Air-India flight 182 tragedy in 1985, which took the lives of 329 people.

By a macabre coincidence, the DC-3 explosion occurred just two days before the 11th of September, a date which, more than a half-century later, would become indelibly associated with airplane homicide.

Answer: He owned a jewelry shop.

Joseph-Albert Guay, who was called "Albert" by his friends and family, described himself at his trial as a clockmaker and jeweler, although he seems to have been primarily a salesman. During WWII he had worked at an arsenal, which closed down in 1945.

At the time of the murder, his business was not faring well and he was deeply in debt. Albert had taken out a $10,000 insurance policy on his wife prior to the fatal flight, in addition to which there was an existing policy from 1942 in the amount of $5,000.

Although this may not seem like much today, it was a considerable sum in the late 1940s and would likely have helped save Albert's business, at least temporarily.

Answer: Albert had fallen in love with someone else.

By all accounts, Albert Guay's marriage to the former Rita Morel had deteriorated following the birth of their first- and only- child, a daughter. Albert became infatuated with Marie-Ange Robitaille, a 17 year-old waitress, and began courting her under the assumed name Robert Angers. Rita had found out about the affair and confronted the couple, informing Robitaille of Albert's true identity, and that he was married and had a child. Albert wanted to continue his relationship with Robitaille, but she broke off with him, citing his marriage and family as the reason.

At the time, the laws in Canada made a divorce prohibitively difficult to obtain. Albert realized that he could never be with Robitaille as long as Rita was alive, and began to plot ways to get her out of the way.

His first plan was to poison her (in fact, he had unsuccessfully tried to pay someone $500.00 to do so), but he reasoned that this would be too risky for himself, as he would likely become the prime suspect. He came up with the idea of sabotaging an airplane with Rita on board, possibly following the old maxim of the wise man hiding a leaf in the forest; with so many victims, there would be more suspects.

The fact that this plan necessarily involved killing numerous other people besides the intended victim seems to have troubled him not in the least.

Answer: The crow

Pitre was wearing black on the day she delivered the package. Because of their black plumage and the fact that they feed on carrion, crows are typically associated with death, so the sobriquet was grimly apt in this instance. Pitre was said to have dropped off the package to be delivered by air freight shortly before the airplane took off. Although it seemed suspiciously heavy for its size, it was placed on board without being checked, since the flight was about to leave, a decision that had tragic consequences.

Following the explosion, Pitre took a slight overdose of pills. While recovering in the hospital she confessed to having delivered the package, though she insisted that she was unaware of its contents. She said that she had been told that it contained a religious statue, and she named Albert Guay as the person who had given it to her. Pitre had met Guay through her brother, and had arranged several assignations between Guay and his teenage lover, Marie-Ange Robitaille. She stated that he had visited her after the crime and encouraged her to take her own life, since she would be implicated in the crime. Her brother, Gerereaux Ruest, admitted to having helped Guay create the bomb, but likewise disclaimed any knowledge of Guay's criminal intent; he said the Guay had told him that he needed the bomb to clear some tree stumps from a field. Guay was furious when he discovered that Pitre had confessed, and was heard to mutter "la maudite salope" ("that damned slut"). He swore revenge on them both if he were convicted, and kept his oath.

Answer: False

On the contrary, Guay gave a heartrending performance at the airport waiting for news of the doomed flight. Many people were affected by the sight of him comforting his little daughter (she was the only child in the waiting room); they could scarcely have imagined that he had coldly plotted her mother's murder.

At Rita's funeral, Albert again played the distraught husband to perfection; he ordered a huge floral cross enscribed "From your beloved Albert". When his friend Roger Lemmelin informed him that the crash had been caused by a bomb placed on board the plane, he expressed outrage that anyone could do such a thing (Lemmelin, a writer, later wrote a fictionalized account of the Guay case entitled "Le Crime d'Ovide Plouffe", which was made into a film in 1984).

In retrospect, his behavior which moved many people at the time, was astoundingly cynical and cold-hearted. He was heard to exhort the authorities to "get to the bottom of this!" Unfortunately for him, they did!

Answer: The flight was delayed.

Guay had timed the bomb to go off at a time when the airplane would be flying over the St. Lawrence River. Had this happened, recovery of the wreckage would have been difficult- if not impossible- and with the state of forensics at that time, it might not have been possible to determine the cause of the explosion and crash. Unfortunately for Guay, the flight was delayed, with the result that the plane exploded over dry land, and much of the wreckage and debris was recovered. Had the bomb gone off just five minutes earlier, Guay's plan might well have succeeded.

Answer: Both were found guilty and hanged.

The verdicts and sentences passed against Ruest and Pitre were controversial at the time, and continue to inspire debate even to this day, more than fifty years after the fact. Both protested their innocence to the last; Ruest insisted that although he had helped create the bomb, he had no idea that Guay intended to kill his wife, much less sabotage an airplane. However a witness stated that on the day of the fatal flight, Ruest, who suffered from tuberculosis of the hip, which had rendered him a near invalid, had painfully hobbled on crutches to the balcony of a hotel near the airport in order to view the plane's departure.

Pitre was known to have gone to a hardware store at the time the bomb was being created; she purchased sticks of dynamite, blasting caps, and electrical wires. She had taken a taxi to deliver the fatal package to the airport, and had told the taxi driver to avoid bumps in the road. The driver stated that she had made a cryptic statement about the package she was carrying: "I haven't got eggs in here." This would seem to indicate that she was nervous about the contents of the package; she was probably afraid that a particularly severe bump would set off the bomb. It does seem incredible to believe that Guay, charismatic though he was, could have persuaded two people to help him sabotage an airplane simply to kill his wife, but it is equally difficult to account for their actions otherwise. Possibly he had offered the incentive of a "cut" of the insurance money once it was paid (Ruest had accepted a ring from Guay, valued at $10.00, for his help in creating the bomb; not much of an incentive, but it may have been a "down payment").

Guay had probably hoped that by ratting out his partners in crime, his own execution would be delayed so that he could testify. He was asked to testify at Ruest's trial, but was executed soon after. Pitre's trial was conducted after Guay's death.

Answer: "At least I die famous!"

Unrepentant and smug to the last, Guay uttered the words "Au moins, je meurs célèbre" ("At least I die famous") before being hanged. He had never expressed the least degree of remorse either for the death of his wife, and the mother of his child, or for the 22 others whom he had callously condemned to death simply in order to be rid of her. Upon imposing the sentence, after Guay's trial and conviction, the judge had declared to Guay: "Your crime is infamous. For what you have done, there is no name!"

Answer: She was the last woman executed in Canada.

Pitre was hanged on January 9th, 1953, just under two years after Guay's execution. Her brother had been executed in July of the previous year; the condition of his tubercular hip was such that he had to be taken by wheelchair to the execution chamber. Pitre had appealed her sentence all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada; at the time of her execution, an attempt was being made to appeal to Queen Elizabeth II, but the sentence was carried out before it could be made. She has never been granted a posthumous pardon. At the place of execution, she made an impassioned speech, comparing her trial and death to the Crucifixion of Christ:

"I want to say something, and I have this to say for the sake of my children. Christ was condemned by Pontius Pilate and delivered into the hands of Caiaphas, and now it is your hour. That is all I have to say."

Pitre was the thirteenth- and last- woman to be executed in Canada.

Answer: "The Bad Seed", by William March

"The Bad Seed" is a horror/mystery novel(later made into a critically acclaimed play and film) about a precociously evil 8 year-old girl, Rhoda Penmark. Rhoda's mother, Christine, gradually comes to realize that her daughter has killed one of her classmates, and is capable of killing again. Christine, who was adopted, also discovers that her own biological mother was a serial killer who had murdered everyone in her family except Christine herself. She realizes that her daughter has inherited her mother's sociopathic nature.

At one point in the novel, Christine asks Reginald Tasker, a writer acquaintance of hers for some information on serial killers, including her mother. He sends her some material on both male and female serial killers. One of the latter is Albert Guay, who is the only male serial killer who interests Christine. She finds a note written by Tasker attached to Guay's entry, which facetiously expresses distaste for the fact that Guay had become a mass-murderer "...not through merit, but through accident." In Tasker's opinion, compared with other, more "distinguished" serial killers (including Christine's mother), "...he'd been fumbling and foolish indeed".

Answer: A newspaper clipping about her son.

The clippings were from a Denver newspaper, and indicated that her son, Jack Graham, had been charged with forgery by the Denver District Attorney, who had placed him on their "most wanted" list. This prompted an investigation into Graham's background. Early in 1951 when Graham had worked as a payroll clerk at a Denver manufacturing concern, he was found to have forged- and later cashed- a number of blank checks in the amount of $4,200. Half of this he had used to purchase a convertible, which he used to skip town. He was later arrested in Lubbock, Texas, on an unrelated charge, and was released to the Denver District's attorney office to face the charges of forgery. He was convicted, but sentence was suspended and he was given five years probation, during which he was expected to make financial restitution in the amount of $40.00 per month (he paid $2,500 at the time of the trial). At the time of his mother's death, he still owed $105.34. It was found that his mother had been instrumental in arranging the payback arrangements to keep Graham out of jail, and had paid some of the money herself.

Further investigation revealed that Graham, who had served in the U.S. Coast Guard, had gone AWOL for a two month period during his service, though he had received an honorable discharge. Early in 1955, he had been employed by his mother at a drive-in restaurant, which she owned. The windows in the restaurant had been mysteriously vandalized, and sometime later an explosion had occurred, caused by someone having disconnected the gas line. Also, in 1955, a brand-new Chevrolet truck owned by Graham had been destroyed after having supposedly stalled on a railroad crossing, where it was struck by a train. Graham had later submitted an insurance claim on the truck.

Answer: A tool kit.

Graham had told his wife Gloria that he had purchased a tool kit suitable for making costume jewelry out of sea shells for his mother as a Christmas gift, and that he intended to secretly place it in her luggage as a surprise. She had seen and handled a package, 18 inches long, 14 inches wide and 3 inches deep, covered with Christmas wrapping paper, on the day of Daisie's departure. She and Graham had initially lied to the FBI agents investigating the crime, claiming that Daisie had done all her own packing, and that Graham had put nothing in his mother's luggage. However a couple who were friends of Gloria's parents had told investigators that Christine Elson, Gloria's mother, had mentioned that Graham had, in fact, hidden the package in his mother's luggage. She had also mentioned that Graham had seemed to have a premonition about the crash, and had become physically ill after the family had dinner at the airport restaurant.

When confronted with this evidence, Gloria admitted her deception. Graham, under interrogation by the FBI, gave investigators permission to search his home, in which his mother also resided when she was in Denver. Investigators discovered boxes of ammunition, which Graham had originally claimed his mother had taken with her, since she had intended to hunt caribou during her trip. Investigators also found a $37,000 flight insurance dated November 1, 1955, and signed by Mrs. King, listing her son as a beneficiary, hidden in a cedar chest in the couple's bedroom. Additionally, they found two lengths of yellow wire, suitable for detonating dynamite, in the vest pocket of one of Graham's shirts. Inquiries at local tool shops which sold the type of kits which Graham had described revealed that no such kits had been purchased recently. Investigators confronted Graham with the evidence they had gathered, and informed him that they intended to charge him with the crime.

Answer: She had placed him in an orphanage.

Graham's father had died unexpectedly when he was only three years old. Daisie, depressed and in dire financial straits, felt that she could not properly care for her son, and placed him in an orphanage. At the time, this might have been a wise decision, but it resulted in young Jack being bereft of both parents. In 1940, Daisie married John Earle King, a wealthy rancher.

There is no evidence that Daisie sexually or physically abused Jack, but she seems to have been an insensitive and domineering parent. She had let her son remain at the orphanage for some time after she had married Earle and was in a position to take care of him. During the time that Jack was in the orphanage, she had brought him home for Christmas one year after she had married Earle and presented him with a pony as a Christmas present. Jack was delighted, but his joy soon faded when the holiday ended and he was sent back to the orphanage, while the pony remained on the ranch. Graham may well have remembered this incident when he created his mother's fatal "Christmas present".

When Jack was an adult, Daisie seems to have tried to make amends for her neglect during his childhood. She offered to buy a house for him and his wife, who was expecting their second child (an offer which they accepted), and she also offered him the management of the drive-through restaurant. Although her efforts were well-intentioned, they had the effect of keeping Jack tied to her apron strings: she had bought him the house under the condition that it contain living quarters for herself when she was staying in Denver, and she was also the owner of the drive-through restaurant, and consequently her son's boss. Jack began to feel that he was now being smothered by the mother who had neglected him when he was a child and had craved her attention. Lacking either the fortitude to break away and strike out on his own or the equability to accept the situation and make the best of it, Jack began to nurse a pathological resentment of his mother which would eventually turn deadly.

Answer: Nothing would grow in the places where the bodies had landed.

The impact of the falling bodies had apparently compacted the soil to such an extent that, for years after the crash, nothing would grow in the places where the bodies had landed. In several instances, the bare spots in the field formed grisly silhouettes in the shape of the fallen bodies.

Answer: True

Although the Graham case is not much remembered today, there was intense public interest at the time. The senseless nature of the crime, the murderer's complete lack of regard for the many people he had arbitrarily sentenced to death in order to kill one person, and the terrifying possibility that there might be similar crimes brought public interest to near fever pitch. People were understandably afraid to travel by plane, and their fear was accompanied by anger; a situation that those of us living in the post 9-11 world can easily relate to.

As the trial drew near, the news media began appealing to the judge, Joseph A. McDonald, to allow television cameras into the courtroom, citing the tremendous public demand to be a part of the proceedings, even if only from a distance. Justice McDonald acknowledged the public's right to know, but also expressed concerns about the defendant's right to a fair trial, as well as the possibly disruptive presence of the media.

He seemed, however, to be intrigued with the idea, and struck a compromise: the proceedings could be filmed, but the resulting footage could not be broadcast live; it would have to be aired at a later time.

The Graham case thus became the first trial in which television was permitted inside the courtroom.

Answer: It had a view of the airfield, from which the doomed flight had departed.

Graham was one of the first two inmates of the old Denver County Jail to be transferred to the newly-built facility. The other was LeRoy Leick, a convicted murder whose crime was similar in motive to Graham's: he had murdered his wife to collect on her insurance policy. Ironically, both men were tried by the same attorney (Gibbons) and both had been arrested in part due to evidence given by the same person, a potato chip salesman named Lou Messervy.

On the morning after the transfer, Graham looked out of the window of his new cell and discovered that it looked out upon Stapleton Airfield, from which Flight 629 had made its final, fatal departure. What his true emotions may have been regarding this macabre feature of his cell we shall never know, but in a diary he began keeping months later at the request of a columnist from the Rocky Mountain News, he airily writes that "Outside it is beautiful. It is 8:30 and the birds are singing and a big plane is taking off from nearby Stapleton Airfield."

Answer: His half-sister

Graham's older half-sister Helen Hablutzel (Daisie's daughter by her first husband, Tom Gallagher), with whom he had lived for a period of time, told investigators that she had never felt comfortable around her brother, whom she described as moody and sullen. She also felt that he was mentally unstable and that he had "pent-up violence", which on occasion erupted into physical abuse. On two occasions, Graham had attacked her, once knocking her to the ground and hitting her in the chest with his knee, hard enough to injure her ribs. On another occasion, he had threatened her with a hammer, causing her to take refuge in a locked room. She also related an incident earlier in 1955 Graham became physically violent with his wife Gloria over a trivial incident. She said that on this occasion their mother became frightened, afraid that Graham would attack her as well.

Despite these statements, Helen initially insisted upon her half-brother's innocence. Nonetheless, she was called upon twice to testify against him, which she did with the utmost reluctance. In her second appearance, she was forced to admit that she had opened her mother's dresser drawers after the fatal crash and was astonished to find that many items of clothing that her mother had intended to take with her were still there. (Graham had packed his mother's luggage, and had apparently needed room for the bomb). She was also forced to repeat a chilling statement that Jack had made to her after their mother's death: Graham had said that Daisie had packed "damn near forty pounds of ammunition" and had jokingly speculated what it must have been like on the plane with the shotgun shells going off and the pilots and passengers and their mother jumping around. She admitted that she had not found her brother's statement amusing. Graham, clearly uncomfortable, turned his back on his sister during her testimony.

After Graham was sentenced, a drunken Helen was found by police officers asleep in her station wagon, clutching a copy of the newspaper announcing the death sentence. She subsequently penned a rambling but poignant letter to the newspaper, in which she remembered her mother as someone who had never been happy. Recalling that her mother had been afraid of heights and hated flying, she agonizingly imagined what her final moments must have been like. And having apparently been forced to conclude that her brother had, in fact, killed their mother, she wrote that she wanted him to die, but that nonetheless, she couldn't hate him.

Answer: Dwight D. Eisenhower

Sandstead was an authority on the nutritional problems of developing countries; he was traveling to deliver a speech at the Annual Institute of Far East and World Affairs at Oregon State College. His death in the explosion of flight 629 resulted in the special interest of President Eisenhower (who had suffered a serious heart attack in September of that year) in the subsequent investigation and trial.

One of the most poignant victims of the bombing was 18 month-old James Fitzpatrick, the son of a soldier stationed in Okinawa. Little James was on board the fatal flight with his mother, Helen, who was taking him to see his father. The boy's father had not seen him since he was six weeks old; his grief at losing both his wife and infant son can only be imagined. Also among the victims were a young couple, Brad and Carol Bynum, who had recently celebrated their first wedding anniversary, and were expecting their first child.

During Graham's trial, Sally Hall, the widow of Captain Lee Hall, the pilot of the doomed aircraft, arrived at the courtroom at promptly 9:00 each day. The courtroom guards always saved a seat for her; a seat that was only few feet away from Graham. Sally was a former stewardess; she and her husband had four children together. Hall's copilot was twenty-six year-old Don White, married and the father of two children. White and his wife were about to purchase their own home, after years of scrimping and saving. White and another crew member, thirty-eight year-old Sam Arthur, were not originally scheduled for the doomed flight; they had been called in as substitutes.

Most of Graham's public statements expressed a chilling lack or remorse and regard for the additional victims of the tragedy. In a statement recorded by his prison doctors, he admitted that he knew from the outset that there would be fifty or sixty other victims, but added that "... the number of people to be killed made no difference to me; it could have been a thousand. When their time comes, there is nothing they can do about it."

Answer: Gas chamber

Graham was the 26th person in Colorado to have been executed by cyanide gas since 1933, when the gas chamber replaced hanging as the state's official form of execution. Enigmatic to the last, Graham appeared in a jovial mood as he entered the execution cell and smiled at the 12 assembled witnesses.

He was strapped into the metal seat and a mask was placed over his face. According to eyewitness reports, after the cyanide gas began to fill the cell, Graham was seen struggling against the restraining straps, and let out a piercing yell.

A moment later he fell unconscious, and shortly afterward the prison doctors, listening through an attached stethoscope, reported that his heart had stopped. The execution had taken eleven minutes, ironically the same amount of time that Flight 629 had been aloft before the explosion.

Answer: The FBI Story

"The FBI Story" is based on the book of the same name by Don Whitehead, which featured detailed accounts of a number of cases, starting with the Graham case. Playing the role of FBI agent John Michael ("Chip") Hardesty, Jimmy Stewart narrates the story of Jack Graham (portrayed by Nick Adams, best known for playing the title role in the television series "The Rebel") over a scene depicting Graham purchasing the flight insurance and seeing his mother off on her fatal flight. Over a fading close-up if Graham's impassive face, we see the plane in flight and the explosion, witnessed on the ground by a farmer. Details of the investigation and Graham's arrest and trial follow, providing a textbook example of the workings of the FBI.

There is a brief cameo appearance by J.Edgar Hoover, playing himself; he is shown coordinating the investigation into the crime, as he had done in reality.