Garrett Brock Trapnell (January 31, 1938 – September 7, 1993) was a

con man A scam, or a confidence trick, is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using a combination of the victim's credulity, naivety, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibi ...

bank robber Bank robbery is the criminal act of stealing from a bank, specifically while bank employees and customers are subjected to force, violence, or a threat of violence. This refers to robbery of a bank branch or teller, as opposed to other bank ...

, and aircraft hijacker of the 1960s and early 1970s. Trapnell robbed a string of banks in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, frequently posed as an agent of the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

, masterminded a $100,000 jewelry store heist in

Freeport, Bahamas Freeport is a city, district and free trade zone on the island of Grand Bahama in the northwest part of The Bahamas. In 1955, Wallace Groves, a Virginian financier with lumber interests in Grand Bahama, was granted of pineyard with substant ...

, and simultaneously maintained marriages with at least six women. When arrested for his crimes, he frequently

feigned madness "Feigned madness" is a phrase used in popular culture to describe the assumption of a mental disorder for the purposes of evasion, deceit or the diversion of suspicion. In some cases, feigned madness may be a strategy—in the case of court jeste ...

and successfully used the

insanity defense The insanity defense, also known as the mental disorder defense, is an affirmative Defense (legal), defense by excuse in a criminal case, arguing that the defendant is not responsible for their actions due to a mental illness, psychiatric disease ...

to be committed to mental institutions, from which he would later escape or be released on the grounds that he was no longer dangerous. While serving

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence (law), sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life impr ...

for the

hijacking Hijacking may refer to: Common usage Computing and technology * Bluejacking, the unsolicited transmission of data via Bluetooth * Brandjacking, the unauthorized use of a company's brand * Browser hijacking * Clickjacking (including ''likej ...

of a passenger airliner in 1972, he was the subject of a book, ''The Fox Is Crazy Too'', written by journalist

Eliot Asinof Eliot Tager Asinof (July 13, 1919 – June 10, 2008) was an American writer of fiction and nonfiction best known for his writing about baseball. His most famous book was ''Eight Men Out'', a nonfiction reconstruction of the 1919 Black Sox scanda ...

. A lifelong smoker, he died at the

United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners The United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners (MCFP Springfield) is a United States federal prison in Springfield, Missouri for male offenders. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department o ...

Springfield, Missouri Springfield is the List of cities in Missouri, third most populous city in the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County, Missouri, Greene County. The city's population was 169,176 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 censu ...

after developing

emphysema Emphysema is any air-filled enlargement in the body's tissues. Most commonly emphysema refers to the permanent enlargement of air spaces (alveoli) in the lungs, and is also known as pulmonary emphysema. Emphysema is a lower respiratory tract di ...

Hijacking and trial

On January 28, 1972, Trapnell, using a .45 caliber pistol he had smuggled aboard inside a plaster cast on his arm, hijacked

TWA The Twa, often referred to as Batwa or Mutwa (singular), are indigenous hunter-gatherer peoples of the Great Lakes Region in Central Africa, recognized as some of the earliest inhabitants of the area. Historically and academically, the term � ...

Flight #2 from Los Angeles to New York while over Chicago. Trapnell demanded $306,800 in cash (to recoup the loss of a recent court case), the release of

Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American Marxist and feminist political activist, philosopher, academic, and author. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Feminist Studies and History of Consciousness at the University of ...

(as well as that of a friend of his who was also imprisoned), and a formal

pardon A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the j ...

from President

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...

. The FBI was able to retake the aircraft during a crew switch at Kennedy Airport; Trapnell was shot and wounded but no one else was hurt. Trapnell's skyjacking came after a string of similar domestic incidents (especially Cuba-bound hijackings) and was directly responsible for an overhaul of security procedures by the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government agency within the United States Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation that regulates civil aviation in t ...

that remained in place until the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

almost 30 years later. At trial he pleaded insanity, claiming that he suffered from multiple personality disorder and

schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...

and that the hijacking was actually committed by an alter ego named "Greg Ross." This position was discredited when the prosecution produced audio recordings from an interview with Trapnell, recorded months before the hijacking, in which he had boasted to a journalist of his skill at faking insanity. Nevertheless, the trial still ended in a

hung jury A hung jury, also called a deadlocked jury, is a judicial jury that cannot agree upon a verdict after extended deliberation and is unable to reach the required unanimity or supermajority. A hung jury may result in the case being tried again. Thi ...

when a lone juror (a

social work Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social wo ...

er by profession) held out for acquittal. At his retrial four months later, however, he was convicted and sentenced to

. His subsequent incarceration at USP Marion, the first federal

supermax prison A super-maximum security (supermax) or administrative maximum (ADX) prison is a "control-unit" prison, or a unit within prisons, which represents the most secure level of custody in the prison systems of certain countries. The objective is to ...

, was marked by continued scheming and criminal endeavour.

Attempted breakouts

On May 24, 1978, Trapnell's friend, 43-year-old Barbara Ann Oswald, hijacked a

St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...

-based charter helicopter and forced the pilot to land in the yard at USP Marion, where Trapnell was serving his sentence. While landing the aircraft the pilot, Allen Barklage, who was a Vietnam veteran, struggled with Oswald and managed to wrestle the gun away from her. Barklage then shot and killed Oswald, thwarting the escape. Another inmate involved in this escape attempt was Martin J. McNally, who had hijacked a St. Louis-Tulsa American Airlines Flight on June 23, 1972 and demanded $502,500 before jumping out of a Boeing 727 over

Peru, Indiana Peru is a city in, and the county seat of, Miami County, Indiana, Miami County, Indiana, United States. It is north of Indianapolis. The population was 11,073 at the 2020 census, making it the most populous community in Miami County. Peru is loc ...

. Barklage died in an unrelated helicopter crash on September 19, 1998, succumbing to his wounds on September 25; McNally was paroled on January 27, 2010. According to

Eddie G. Griffin Eddie may refer to: *Eddie (text editor), a text editor originally for BeOS and now ported to Linux and Mac OS X *Eddie (crater), a crater on Mars *Eddie (given name) *The Eddie, a surfing tournament Arts and entertainment *Eddie (film), ''Eddie' ...

, an author, former member of the

Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was a Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist and Black Power movement, black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newto ...

, and convicted bank robber who was incarcerated at Marion at the time, Trapnell was placed under a "no human contact" order following the attempted escape and spent most of the remainder of his life in

solitary confinement Solitary confinement (also shortened to solitary) is a form of imprisonment in which an incarcerated person lives in a single Prison cell, cell with little or no contact with other people. It is a punitive tool used within the prison system to ...

. On December 21, 1978, Robin Oswald, the 17-year-old daughter of Barbara Ann Oswald, hijacked TWA Flight 541 and demanded that Trapnell be freed or she would detonate dynamite that was strapped to her body. Robin Oswald was remembered by the hostages aboard the flight as a "beautiful girl" with a serious demeanor, who never exhibited any signs of nervousness. FBI negotiators were able to free the passengers and induce her to surrender with no injuries or deaths. The bomb that was strapped to her chest later emerged to be a set of railroad flares wired to what appeared to be a doorbell. Robin Oswald was charged as a juvenile, with the court records sealed, per Illinois law.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trapnell, Garrett Brock 1938 births 1993 deaths 20th-century American criminals American bank robbers American confidence tricksters American escapees American kidnappers American people convicted of robbery American people who died in prison custody Criminals from Massachusetts Deaths from emphysema Fugitives Hijackers People from Brockton, Massachusetts Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by the United States federal government Prisoners who died in United States federal government detention