Ten Thousand Feet in the Air

Speaker 1 Support for criminal comes from BetterHelp. Many American adults get the blues this time of year, sometimes as a result of seasonal affective disorder.

Speaker 1 But BetterHelp wants to encourage you to reach out, get coffee with an old friend, write a letter to a family member, and take that first step to connect with a licensed therapist using BetterHelp.

Speaker 1 This month, don't wait to reach out. Whether you're checking in on a friend or reaching out to a therapist yourself, BetterHelp makes it easier to take that first step.

Speaker 1 You can get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com slash criminal. That's betterhelp.com slash criminal.

Speaker 1 Support for criminal comes from Ollie. Having a happy, healthy dog starts with what you put in their bowl.
That's why Ollie delivers fresh, human-grade food that your dog will love.

Speaker 1 Go to ollie.com slash Phoebe. Tell them all about your dog and use code Phoebe to get 60% off your welcome kit when you subscribe today.

Speaker 1 Plus, they offer a happiness guarantee on the first box. So if you're not completely satisfied, you'll get your money back.

Speaker 1 That's o-l-l-ie-e.com/slash Phoebe and enter code Phoebe to get 60% off your first box.

Speaker 2 Here is an idea. A get rich quick scheme, no experience at all.

Speaker 3 On the day before Thanksgiving in 1971, a man using the name Dan Cooper bought a $20 one-way ticket from Portland to Seattle. He paid in cash.

Speaker 3 He boarded the plane set towards the back and ordered a bourbon and soda. When the plane took off, he handed the flight attendant a note.
She put it away without looking at it.

Speaker 3 She assumed he was trying to give her his number. She was used to businessmen trying to flirt with her.

Speaker 3 But when the man saw that she didn't look at it, he leaned over and whispered, Miss, you'd better look at that note. I have a bomb.

Speaker 3 The note told her to sit down beside him, and when she did, the man opened his briefcase. Inside, there were eight red cylinders attached to wires.

Speaker 3 The flight attendant took the man's demands to the pilot. When the plane landed, he wanted $200,000 and four parachutes.

Speaker 3 Once the plane landed, the man let all of the passengers disembark, but he kept the crew on as hostages. He demanded that they take off again, this time in the direction of Mexico City.

Speaker 3 And 45 minutes into the flight, the man strapped the cache to himself and jumped off the plane.

Speaker 3 Search parties looked for the man in the cache for days, but they couldn't find either. He had just disappeared.

Speaker 3 It was all over the news, although the hijacker's pseudonym, Dan Cooper, was misreported as D.B. Cooper.
He's still never been found. It's been 47 years.

Speaker 3 28-year-old Martin McNally was driving with a friend in Detroit when he heard about D.B. Cooper on the radio.

Speaker 2 At that particular time, I laughed very loud and I told my friend

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 that's not a bad way to make some money.

Speaker 3 Martin thought, how hard could it be if D.B. Cooper could do it? He could too.

Speaker 2 I had no experience being on other planes.

Speaker 2 I never put on a parachute

Speaker 2 and I never owned a gun.

Speaker 3 Martin was unemployed. He'd worked a series of jobs after being discharged from the Navy years earlier.
He'd tried a few small-time scams.

Speaker 3 Once he got busted putting fake quarters into a laundromat change machine, nothing had really worked out.

Speaker 3 So he threw himself into trying to figure out how to hijack an airplane. First, he went to the local library.

Speaker 2 Spent about five hours pulling out

Speaker 2 books on parachuting and World War II adventures in flying and so forth.

Speaker 2 And it took about four hours to come across the calculation that I wanted. And it was an algebraic calculation to determine terminal velocity.

Speaker 2 And once I had that,

Speaker 2 I wrote down the

Speaker 2 formula and left and went home.

Speaker 3 Martin did all of the calculations himself, figuring out how high above the ground the plane should be and how fast it should be going for him to safely jump out and open a parachute.

Speaker 3 He was most concerned with how long he would have after the jump before he needed to open the parachute. He figured he had about 15 to 20 seconds.
The next step was to find the right airport.

Speaker 3 For five months, Martin scouted airports across the Midwest. He visited Indianapolis, Chicago, St.
Louis, and Kansas City. He finally chose St.
Louis's Lambert Airport.

Speaker 3 He thought it had the worst security. He visited two more times to prepare.
He bought a ticket with forged Navy discharge papers under the name Robert Wilson.

Speaker 3 And on the afternoon of June 23rd, 1972, he walked into the airport, went up to the counter, gave the agent his ticket, and boarded the plane.

Speaker 2 We didn't go

Speaker 2 If there had been metal detectors, I wouldn't have been on that plane, period. So I was able to get on the plane and with a gun.

Speaker 2 Yeah, with my uh

Speaker 2 I had a sought-off

Speaker 2 rifle. It looked like a World War II grease gun.

Speaker 2 I had a pistol and I had a smoke grenade, and I was dressed like a businessman, suit and tie, and sport coat, sunglasses.

Speaker 2 Didn't have my wig on at that time.

Speaker 2 Sat down and

Speaker 2 we took off.

Speaker 3 Martin McNally was planning to jump out of a plane 10,000 feet in the air, going 500 miles an hour, and had almost no idea what he was doing.

Speaker 3 I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

Speaker 3 We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 Support for criminal comes from BetterHelp. The holidays can be a wonderful, but often hectic and sometimes lonely time of year.

Speaker 1 Therapy can help you make sure you're taking care of yourself, no matter what.

Speaker 1 BetterHelp does the initial matching work to find the right therapist for you so you can focus on your goals in the short and long term. This December, start a new tradition by taking care of you.

Speaker 1 Our listeners get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash criminal. That's betterhelp.com slash criminal.

Speaker 1 With the Spark Cash Plus card from Capital One, you can earn a limited 2% cash back on every purchase. And you get big purchasing power so your business can spend more and earn more.

Speaker 1 Stephen Brandon and Bruno, the business owners of SandCloud, reinvested their 2% cash back to help build their retail presence. Now, that's serious business.

Speaker 1 What could the Spark Cash Plus card from Capital One do for your business?

Speaker 2 Capital One, what's in your wallet?

Speaker 1 Find out more at capital1.com/slash sparkcash plus. Terms apply.

Speaker 3 More than 130 American planes were hijacked between 1968 and 1972. Sometimes there was more than one case of air piracy on the same day.

Speaker 2 Anyone could have tried it.

Speaker 2 Anyone could have tried it. And quite frankly, a lot of people were doing it back then.

Speaker 3 During the 1960s, it was most common for people to board planes and demand to be taken to Cuba.

Speaker 3 People trying to leave the United States to make a political statement, but also criminals seeking ransom payments.

Speaker 3 Airline companies and the U.S. government came up with some unusual solutions.
Pilots flying to any destination were provided with charts outlining routes to Havana just in case.

Speaker 3 Hijackings to Cuba were so common that in 1968, Time magazine published an article advising passengers to just stay calm and enjoy the mojitos. It included tips for the best hotels and cigar shopping.

Speaker 3 The federal government went so far as to consider building a fake version of the Havana airport in Florida, so hijacked planes could land there instead.

Speaker 3 The Federal Aviation Administration formed an anti-hijacking task force and solicited ideas from the public.

Speaker 3 The public made suggestions like installing trap doors, arming flight attendants with tranquilizer darts, and making everyone on the plane wear boxing gloves so no one could hold a gun.

Speaker 3 The obvious solution was to just screen passengers with a metal detector.

Speaker 3 But airlines thought the inconvenience of walking through a metal detector outweighed the inconvenience of being threatened at gunpoint, 10,000 feet in the air.

Speaker 3 Airlines argued that increased security would be bad for business. Customers didn't want to wait in line or feel like criminals on their way to vacation.

Speaker 3 So, on the afternoon of June 23rd, 1972, when Martin breathed onto his flight at the St. Louis airport, he didn't expect any trouble at all.

Speaker 2 We took off and

Speaker 2 we're on our way to Tulsa, Oklahoma. And about 15 minutes out of Tulsa, the pilot came on the

Speaker 2 intercom

Speaker 2 and he said, we'll be landing in about 15 minutes.

Speaker 2 So I sat there and I said, this is it. I got to make a decision.

Speaker 2 If I land in Tulsa and don't pull this thing right now, I'm going to be stuck in Tulsa, Oklahoma. So I said, either pump up your gonads or forget about it.
So

Speaker 2 I asked the guy

Speaker 2 where the restroom was in the plane

Speaker 2 and said it's in the back on the right-hand side.

Speaker 2 So I picked up my attache case very cautiously and headed to the bathroom, went in the bathroom, closed the door, locked the door, and opened the attache case,

Speaker 2 pulled out the wig

Speaker 2 and pulled out the gloves and then

Speaker 2 pulled out the

Speaker 2 rifle.

Speaker 3 Martin says he kicked the safety back on the rifle so he wouldn't accidentally fire a bullet into the plane's fuselage. He put on what newspapers later described as a hippie type wig.

Speaker 3 Then he opened the bathroom door and crouched down in the aisle at the back of the plane.

Speaker 2 And I was waving, waving to to the stewardesses, but nobody no stewardesses could see me, did see me for about three minutes. Finally, a stewardess saw me and came back and she was

Speaker 2 a young lady and she said, don't hurt anybody. And I said, young lady, I'm not here to hurt anybody.
I'm here to give the pilot

Speaker 2 a message. And

Speaker 2 I said, take this note

Speaker 2 up to the pilot and then come back here

Speaker 3 immediately so that's what she did what did the note say did had you written it at home

Speaker 2 yes I typed it at home on a typewriter and

Speaker 2 actually I had the original and the carbon copy and by mistake I gave the stewardess the carbon copy and the carbon copy didn't have the red

Speaker 2 bold

Speaker 2 type

Speaker 2 that was on the original.

Speaker 3 So it's hard to read.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it would have been a little harder to read, but

Speaker 2 the pilot got the gist of it. This is a skyjacking.
All I want is the money. Here's the instructions that you need to do.
Notify the FBI.

Speaker 2 I want $502,000.

Speaker 3 Why the extra $2,000? Why not just make an evening?

Speaker 2 That's spending money. That would have been pocket change.

Speaker 3 Martin says his plan was to bury the half-million-dollar package wherever he happened to land after he jumped out of the plane and use the extra $2,000 to get back home to Michigan, pick up his car, and drive to Canada.

Speaker 3 He would come back and dig up the half million once things had cooled down. But first, he had to get the money.

Speaker 2 The captain

Speaker 2 says, tells the

Speaker 2 over the intercom, he said,

Speaker 2 We have a passenger that wants to go back to St. Louis, so that's what we're doing.

Speaker 3 Back then, when a hijacker made a demand, airline policy was was total compliance.

Speaker 3 Martin demanded a new seat at the back of the airplane, and a flight attendant asked a family to move to make room for him.

Speaker 2 There was a dude,

Speaker 2 a tall dude, his wife, and he had two kids. So the wife got up, moved, the daughter got up to move, and the son, he was about 10 or 11, 12 years old.

Speaker 2 He got up into the aisle and turned back and looked at me for a couple of seconds, 10 or 15 seconds, and just shook his head and then

Speaker 2 turned around and went up to the first class section. And then the old man, the father of the family,

Speaker 2 he got up and stood in the aisle and

Speaker 2 he was about

Speaker 2 four or five feet in front of me. He turned around and he was looking at me.

Speaker 2 And I was looking at him. I was staring at him.
I didn't blink.

Speaker 2 And I was thinking that

Speaker 2 what this guy wants to do here is charge me. He wants me to be blinking and uh kick the uh gun and uh

Speaker 2 uh subdue me.

Speaker 3 Martin says he pointed his gun at the man, and they stood there staring at each other until the man finally turned and followed his family up to first class.

Speaker 3 The pilot landed back in St. Louis.
As soon as they landed, Martin says he ordered the women and children off the plane.

Speaker 3 He didn't want anyone on the tarmac to get too close, so they used the inflatable slide.

Speaker 2 And then when that wasn't enough to get off,

Speaker 2 there were still a lot of people on the plane, I told the stewardess to tell the pilot that anybody with heart problems taking medication or old,

Speaker 2 they can get off the plane too. So what the pilot did, he got an intercom and he relayed that message.
And

Speaker 2 unbelievably, everybody on that plane stood up. They were going to leave.
100% of them. Okay, they all had heart problems, apparently.

Speaker 3 He needed to think. In the end, he did decide to let almost everyone off the plane.
But he kept 15 healthy men, along with the crew, as hostages.

Speaker 2 Once we got all that done, they said, what next? I said, well, we need to get this plane in the air and tell the pilot to refuel and take us up in the air.

Speaker 3 The plane circled above St. Louis for almost five hours while banks and airlines scrambled to get together the $500,000.

Speaker 3 How are these passenger hostages doing? I mean, you were in the air with them for many hours. Were they in, what was the mood?

Speaker 2 I think they were in good mood.

Speaker 2 I think the moods were good. I mean,

Speaker 2 they had no reasons to be apprehensive about any serious problems, I think. But

Speaker 2 yeah,

Speaker 2 the passengers were okay.

Speaker 3 At any point, though, when you were sitting there on the plane, were you feeling guilty?

Speaker 3 Were you looking at them and kind of wanting to say i'm listen i'm sorry about this i'm not actually trying to hurt you

Speaker 2 no no not at all of course i'm not trying to hurt them i'm not trying to hurt anybody myself included

Speaker 3 that uh i didn't feel no i didn't feel guilty at all just after 9 p.m the plane made its second landing at the st. Louis airport The money was delivered in a leather mailbag and a small paper bag.

Speaker 3 Martin gave the flight attendants $2,000. He called it a tip because they'd, quote, been so nice through this thing.

Speaker 3 He had a few other demands: two shovels, flight goggles, five parachutes, two harnesses, and an altimeter. Around midnight, Martin released all of the passengers except for one hostage.

Speaker 3 The plane was refueled for another takeoff. Everything was on schedule.

Speaker 2 And we are ready to take off.

Speaker 2 The pilot

Speaker 2 starts to gun the engine. We're rolling, rolling for takeoff.
He starts to gun the engine, and then he stops, puts the brakes on, and he says,

Speaker 2 there's something on the runway.

Speaker 2 And he says, oh my God,

Speaker 2 it's going to hit us.

Speaker 3 A businessman named David Hanley had been watching the news of Martin's hijacking.

Speaker 3 He was sitting at the bar of the airport Marriott, watching the minute-by-minute updates about the hijacking on local TV.

Speaker 3 He told everyone at the bar to keep their eyes on the screen, got into his brand new Cadillac El Dorado, and drove to the airport.

Speaker 3 He then drove through the chain link fence around the runway and started driving towards the plane at 80 miles an hour.

Speaker 2 80 miles an hour. Think of what's going to happen.
The nose gear is going to collapse and the plane, the cockpit and everything else is going to hit the concrete and the turmac.

Speaker 2 A fully loaded plane, you can talk about a major explosion there, and I'm dead. Everybody's dead at that point.
But what the pilot did, he slammed on the brakes and the plane bounced

Speaker 2 twice. I moved up twice in my seat.
I think at that point there,

Speaker 2 everything came to a stop and

Speaker 2 I realized that we were really hit by some damn fool. We're going to have to order another plane.

Speaker 3 We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 Support for Criminal comes from Saks Fifth Avenue. Saks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to do holiday shopping your way, whether you're looking for the right gift or the right outfit.

Speaker 1 Saks is where you can find everything from a Jimmy Chew bag for a sister who's hard to shop for to a Prada jacket for yourself to dress up for holiday dinner.

Speaker 1 If you don't know where to start, Saks.com will filter just for items that match your personal style so you can save time shopping and spend more time just enjoying the holidays.

Speaker 1 Make shopping fun and easy this season and find gifts that suit your holiday style at Saks 5th Avenue.

Speaker 1 With the Spark Cash Plus card from Capital One, you can earn a limited 2% cash back on every purchase. And you get big purchasing power so your business can spend more and earn more.

Speaker 1 Stephen, Brandon, and Bruno, the business owners of SandCloud, reinvested their 2% cash back to help build their retail presence. Now, that's serious business.

Speaker 1 What could the Spark Cash Plus card from Capital One do for your business?

Speaker 2 Capital One, what's in your wallet?

Speaker 1 Find out more at capital one.com/slash spark cash plus. Terms apply.

Speaker 3 After David Hanley smashed his Cadillac into Martin McNally's plane at 80 miles an hour, Martin didn't give up. He just asked for a new plane.

Speaker 3 This new plane would need to be fully fueled and parked as close as possible.

Speaker 3 They would all have to move from the damaged plane to this new one without anybody making a run for it and without anybody getting the chance to aim a a gun at Martin.

Speaker 2 Very nervous. I was very nervous.
I would say I was even scared that that's a vulnerable position.

Speaker 2 And I told the pilot to tell the FBI on the ground that I know they got sharpshooters that are going to try to pick me off. And I know they have

Speaker 2 cameras trying to get photos. And if I see any

Speaker 2 lights,

Speaker 2 any lights or any beams,

Speaker 2 this thing could come to a screeching halt very quick with an explosion. I said, I don't want to see any

Speaker 2 hanky-panky when we make the move from plane to plane.

Speaker 3 It took an hour and a half for it to arrive. When it did, Martin changed planes using two flight attendants for cover and holding his briefcase over his head.

Speaker 3 It was almost 2.30 in the morning when they took off in the new plane towards Toronto. He had hoped to take off from St.
Louis by midnight and jump out of the plane by 1 a.m.

Speaker 3 But they were now hours behind schedule, which posed a problem because he knew he needed to jump before the sun came up.

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 that's what happened. I made the decision I had to bail out.

Speaker 2 That's what I did.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 you had never used a parachute before.

Speaker 2 Never in my life

Speaker 2 had I put on a parachute.

Speaker 3 Did you have anyone who helped you on the plane? I mean, how did you even know how to put this thing on?

Speaker 2 I tried to

Speaker 2 do it myself, get this harness situated.

Speaker 2 And as I'm doing this, the four stewardesses are standing around me. And I told one of them, I need to...

Speaker 2 clip these

Speaker 2 leg straps. I need to get these leg straps put on properly.

Speaker 2 And at one point, she says,

Speaker 2 I don't think we're supposed to be doing this.

Speaker 2 I said, young lady, believe me, trust me, you're supposed to be doing everything I tell you to do. Now let's get this harness taken care of.

Speaker 2 So that's what happened.

Speaker 3 I mean, I'd be happy to get you off that plane. I'd be just ready to throw you out the door.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 I guess you would.

Speaker 3 He used twine to tie the 45-pound mailbag full of money to his leg. He also threaded his belt through the loop of the bag to make it more secure.
And then he was ready to jump.

Speaker 2 I was very worried. I was very worried.
And

Speaker 2 when I was on the plane just getting ready to

Speaker 2 bail out,

Speaker 2 I had second thoughts and I said, yeah,

Speaker 2 this is precarious.

Speaker 2 I have some options here. I can go up to the cockpit and give him the gun and tell him this is a joke, or I can

Speaker 2 kill myself, or I can take a chance on

Speaker 2 bailing out. I decided, well,

Speaker 2 I better bail out. And if I make it, fine.
If I don't,

Speaker 2 death comes quick.

Speaker 3 He jumped. He could only see the clouds below him.
The goggles were ripped off of his head. He counted to 20 and pulled the rip cord.

Speaker 3 And when he did, the jolt of the parachute opening was so hard, the buckles on the belt holding the money bag snapped. The twine wasn't enough to hold the bag alone, and the bag went flying.

Speaker 3 The money was gone.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I said, I'm gonna do this again in two weeks.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I landed on the ground.

Speaker 2 Yeah

Speaker 2 and then my head slammed against the

Speaker 2 dirt

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 I jumped up and I could see stars

Speaker 2 and I heard a lot of dogs barking. A lot of dogs barking.
I mean the dogs must have known something was up.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 I started walking towards the trees because I knew I couldn't get a car

Speaker 2 uh at

Speaker 2 with my head uh being smashed up like it was.

Speaker 2 It was pitch dark, one hundred percent. I laid down the parachute and crawled into the parachute and went to sleep.
I think it was about five o'clock PM that I actually uh

Speaker 2 uh got up and uh brushed off my uh clothes and my shoes, shined my shoes a little bit, put the parachute uh under the tree and over some leaves, and headed out to a road.

Speaker 3 Martin had no idea where he was, but he assumed the FBI was already looking for him. He decided to hitchhike into town.
Finally, a car stopped for him.

Speaker 2 The chief of police,

Speaker 2 he was something. He was with his wife, and this was about 10 o'clock.
He stopped and he says, where are you going?

Speaker 2 I says, I'm going to Detroit.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 he got out of his car and he came up to me

Speaker 2 and he said, could I see some identification? I said, sure. So I pulled out my wallet.
I pulled out a driver's license. And he said, do you have other identification? I said, sure.

Speaker 2 So I showed him some credit cards.

Speaker 2 The guy says, would you like a ride into town? And I said, well, yeah, I certainly would. Thank you.
Before I get in his car, I pulled out my pistol and I tossed it about 20 feet.

Speaker 2 He didn't see it, and his wife didn't see me do that. And then I got in the car.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 he said,

Speaker 2 it's not safe to be on the streets tonight. There's a lot of excitement.
I said, yeah, I know. I've heard about...

Speaker 2 the search that's going on here for that skyjacker. So he said, yeah, there's a lot of FBI around here.

Speaker 2 I said, I can imagine.

Speaker 3 They drove a couple of miles into town where the police chief dropped Martin off.

Speaker 2 And my

Speaker 2 inclination was to grab a car, Hotwire a car, and get out of the area. But then, on reflection, I said, no, I can't do that.

Speaker 2 If a car comes up missing here, reported stolen, that chief of police has my name and he could connect two and two.

Speaker 2 So I said, I can't do that.

Speaker 2 And I decided I couldn't hitchhike either. It's too hot.

Speaker 2 So I walked around and I noticed a bar at the end of the road

Speaker 2 at the street there. And I walked into the bar and

Speaker 2 got up and sat down and ordered a drink.

Speaker 2 There were about 10 or 15 people in this bar and they were looking at me. Yeah, they were looking at me.
And I wondered about that.

Speaker 2 So I went into the bathroom and I looked in the mirror and I looked a mess.

Speaker 2 I looked a mess. Both eyes were brown and my chin

Speaker 2 looked like it had been ripped and a little bloody and my hair was a mess.

Speaker 2 So, yeah,

Speaker 2 I was messed up there.

Speaker 3 He put water on his hair and combed it and tried to clean off some of the blood. He then went back into the bar and ordered a hamburger and a beer.
Around midnight, he went to a hotel.

Speaker 3 The hotel clerk was listening to radio reports about the hijacker. She joked, you're not the hijacker, are you? Martin just smiled and went up to his room.

Speaker 2 I was looking out the window. Looking down the street.
There were a lot of cars on the street, and there were

Speaker 2 two two men

Speaker 2 walking down the street and they weren't in suits and they were looking in

Speaker 2 windows. And yeah, I figured they were the FBI.

Speaker 2 I understand they had about 200 FBI agents

Speaker 2 searching plus local police and so forth.

Speaker 3 The money was soon found in a field by a soybean farmer. A couple of hours later, another farmer ran over the gun with his his tractor.

Speaker 3 The search for Martin was intensifying. He had a friend come pick him up and drive him back to Michigan.
He didn't think anybody knew who he was, so he just went home.

Speaker 3 And immediately, he started making plans to do it all again, without losing the money this time. He bragged to a friend about it, but Martin didn't know that the FBI was already watching his house.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 you do do end up getting arrested?

Speaker 2 Yes,

Speaker 2 yes, I do.

Speaker 3 Almost six days after Martin hijacked the plane, a dozen FBI agents surrounded him as he was walking home one night.

Speaker 3 They'd found his fingerprints on the plane and on the note that he'd handed to the flight attendant. They'd also searched his house and found ammunition.
and parts of a gun.

Speaker 3 He was charged with two counts of federal aircraft piracy. Part of his lawyer's defense was that the jump Martin made was impossible.
There was no way anyone could have survived it. It didn't work.

Speaker 3 Martin was given two life sentences.

Speaker 3 And in 1973, less than a year later, airports started installing metal detectors.

Speaker 3 I wonder if you ever thought when you were in the courtroom hearing the two natural life sentences and thinking to yourself,

Speaker 3 I I didn't even get the money.

Speaker 2 Yeah, of course.

Speaker 2 I said that I got two life sentences and it cost me about two or three thousand dollars to put the put the uh everything together. This thing took about five months.

Speaker 2 I did a lot of driving around and uh spending a lot of time looking at airports and uh

Speaker 2 seeing the sights and uh getting

Speaker 2 all the equipment uh together, the gun and uh

Speaker 2 yeah,

Speaker 2 yeah. Yeah, I thought that

Speaker 2 I got the life and I cost me two grand. Yeah,

Speaker 3 you feel bad about it?

Speaker 2 Oh, God, do I feel bad about it?

Speaker 2 I really don't know what to say. I don't feel bad about anything.

Speaker 2 I don't feel bad about anything. Should I feel bad?

Speaker 3 Martin was sent to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas, where one day a fellow hijacker knocked on his door.

Speaker 2 Knocked on my door and

Speaker 2 said, can I come in? I said, yes, come on in. I said, what's up? He said, how would you like to leave this place in a helicopter? And I said, well,

Speaker 2 I paused. Well,

Speaker 2 I don't know. We're going to have to discuss this.
We'll have to discuss the details before I make a decision on something like that.

Speaker 2 But yeah, let's look into this.

Speaker 3 To hear that part of the story, listen to episode 101 of Criminal, the Fox. There's a link in our show notes.

Speaker 3 Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer.
Katie Bishop is our supervising producer.

Speaker 3 Our producers are Susannah Robertson, Jackie Sejiko, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, Sam Kim, and Megan Kinnane. Our technical director is Rob Byers.
Engineering by Russ Henry.

Speaker 3 Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com.

Speaker 3 And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com slash newsletter.

Speaker 1 Listen to Criminal ad-free by signing up for Criminal Plus.

Speaker 3 Once you sign up, you can listen to all of the shows we make without any ads and get bonus episodes in your podcast feed. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com slash plus.

Speaker 3 That's thisiscriminal.com slash plus.

Speaker 3 We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at criminal underscore podcast. Criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public Radio, W UNC.

Speaker 3 We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com.

Speaker 3 I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

Speaker 1 Time. It's always vanishing.
The commute, the errands, the work functions, the meetings, selling your car?

Speaker 1 Unless you sell your car with Carvana. Get a real offer in minutes.
Get it picked up from your door. Get paid on the spot.
So fast you'll wonder what the catch is. There isn't one.

Speaker 1 We just respect you and your time. Oh, you're still here.
Move along now. Enjoy your day.
Sell your car today. Carvana.
Pickup fees may apply.

Speaker 4 Support for this show comes from Nature Sunshine All-New Marine Glow Collagen. How much time do you think you spend with a screen in front of your face on any given day?

Speaker 4 Well, if you're anything like the average American, you probably spend about seven hours staring at a screen. Nature Sunshine knows that contact with blue light is unavoidable.

Speaker 4 That's why they've combined the skin-enhancing power of marine collagen and blue light-fighting lutein to support your eyes and skin in a blue light-filled world.

Speaker 4 Experience more radiant skin and proven eye protection with Nature Sunshine New Marine Glow, the only collagen product clinically proven to support eye and skin health and defend against blue light.

Speaker 4 Try Nature Sunshine New Marine Glow now at nature sunshine.com.