Delta Suspends Pilot Charged In Plane Assault

[ultrarunner]

Or the DL captain that was drilling holes in hotel rooms to video the girls. I think the FO had to bail him out on an RON on that one. General will fill us in.

 

[Colonel Savage]

Anyone remember the Eastern woodchipper guy back in the 80's?

Is that like a "Fargo" kind of thing?

 

[jonjuan]

Anyone remember the Eastern woodchipper guy back in the 80's?

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/family/woodchipper_murder/index.html

 

[Whine Lover]

This is the html version of the file http://mylifeofcrime.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/wood-chipper-killer-gets-50-years.doc.
Google automatically generates html versions of documents as we crawl the web.​

New Haven Register (CT) January 9, 1990
​

'Wood chipper' killer gets 50 years
Author: Mark Zaretsky

Richard B. Crafts was sentenced Monday to 50 years in prison for the "absolutely horrendous and barbaric" 1986 crime of murdering his wife, Helle, and using a wood chipper to get rid of the body.

The sentence is 10 years short of the maximum allowed by state law.

"This murder was intentional. This murder probably was premeditated. The defendent showed no remorse," Judge Martin L. Nigro said before handing down the sentence.

"Helle Crafts had a right to live and that right was denied her by the defendant," Nigro said. " . . . In effect, what he has done by the murder of Helle Crafts is to murder the childhood of his children."

Crafts, 52, did not receive the maximum sentence because he had never been arrested before, Nigro said.

Public Defender Gerard Smyth said Crafts will appeal the conviction and will go before the state's sentence review board.

If appeals are unsuccessful, Crafts must serve at least two-thirds of the sentence, or 33 years, Smyth said.

Nigro set Crafts' appeal bond at $1 million. Crafts never was able to raise the $750,000 bond set after his arrest.

Crafts is being held at the Community Correctional Center at Bridgeport. Smyth said he thought Crafts may be transferred to Connecticut Correctional Institution at Somers, the state's maximum security prison.

Crafts was accused of killing Helle Crafts, 39, on Nov. 18 or 19, 1986, and disposing of her body along the s************************* of Lake Zoar in Southbury with a chain saw and a rented wood chipper.

Helle Crafts, a Danish-born Pan Am flight attendant, was last seen on Nov. 18, 1986, when a friend and co-worker dropped her off at home after returning from a flight from Frankfurt to Kennedy International Airport in New York.

Crafts was arrested after the state's acting medical examiner declared his wife dead on the basis of less than three ounces of body parts, hair and clothing scraps found along the banks of Lake Zoar.

A jury convicted him of murder Nov. 21 after a second trial that spanned 2 1/2 months. It was the first time in Connecticut history that someone had been convicted of murder - or even tried for it - without a body having been found.

In pre-sentencing presentations, the prosecution portrayed Crafts, a former Eastern Airlines pilot, as arrogant, heartless and obsessed with power. The defense painted him as a likeable loner, "your average guy living in the suburbs."

In sentencing Crafts, Nigro rejected defense motions to either dismiss the case or order a new trial because of various alleged legal errors and the possibility that Crafts' phone conversations may have been illegally-taped by state police in the Southbury barracks.

Crafts, speaking in his own defense, told Nigro he felt he has been miscast by media reports portraying him as cold, calculating and unemotional.

"A great deal has been said about my apparent lack of emotions - `He has ice water in his veins,' " Crafts said. "I have feelings just like everyone else."

Crafts' eyes filled with tears before the sentencing as his sister, Suzanne Bird, pleaded for leniency, saying her brother always fulfilled his family obligations and "cried at daddy's funeral right along with the rest of us."

It was one of few times Crafts showed emotion during the three-year legal odyssey that began with his arrest on Jan. 13, 1987.

When Crafts' other sister, Karen Rodgers, urged Nigro to lock her brother up for as long as possible, the rift the case cleaved in the Crafts family became evident. Rodgers has custody of the three Crafts children.

"The children should have the security of knowing they are safe for the rest of their lives," Rodgers said, adding that she and her husband, David, "can never fill the void left by the loss of their mother."

Crafts told the judge his children, "are the most important thing in the world to me. I love them. I want them to know I love them. I don't think that, even though our relationship is physically interrupted, that it will ever be interrupted in spirit."

Across the Atlantic in Hoersholm, Denmark, Helle Crafts' 71-year-old mother, Elisabeth Nielsen, greeted news of the sentencing with relief.

"I feel that justice has been done in the United States," she said, speaking in Danish to a reporter for Ekstra Bladet, Denmark's largest newspaper. "It is, of course, a great relief for me that it is all over now and that I now can put all these awful things behind me."

Prosecutor Walter Flanagan said he was "very satisfied" with the sentence, which he called "a very appropriate conclusion to a very complicated matter."

Crafts' first trial in New London ended in a mistrial on July 15, 1988 after a 3 1/2-month trial and a state record 17 days of jury deliberations.

Juror Warren Maskell, who for days had been the lone holdout for acquittal, walked out of the jury room and refused to return.

 

[St. Nic]

Don't forget about the two drunk America West pilots

 

[Whataburger]

My local news said he was saying over and over again, "Where is Taxiway M, where is taxiway M, where the f**k is taxiway M. I'm the General, I'm the General, I'm the General. I demand to know where taxiway M is. I have 14,000 posts on FI. Where is M!!! I would fly this DC-3 to Spain if it had any gas in it.":nuts:

 

[viking737]

I like this part from the wood chipper story;

Single stewardesses liked the airline pilots both as future mates or just for a good time while they were on a layover

 

[crj567]

A good buddy of mine was shot down by the shrink at Delta.....Now he's at SWA...That whole psych. thing at Delta is just strange when you see some of the folks that make it thru.....Heck, Scope out RJs and General Lee made it if that tells you anything....[/QUOTE]

It tells us all a whole lot.

 

[crj567]

The village idiot always bites on this!

And how many people were hurt/killed by these 2 occurances vs. the last 2 occurances at the regionals??

Yeach, just keep spitting into the wind, Gen.... The potential for disaster from that taxiway thing was huge. Everyone should say a prayer of thanks that a couple hundred or so were not killed..... Anyone can screw up-and obviously these guys didn't intentionally do something dangerous, but luck was on their side.

Only someone with as little class as you would even draw such a vacant comparison.

 

[crj567]

400ahole: AKA:

Chuck Yogurt
Lawman
Einstein
Texas Jet Jock
Boris Yelling
Lame Lizard
Sky fly


Chuck........................Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaz up?
How's it going since they closed up shop in MKE? Sorry to hear about Midwest. Really. I wish all the best to everyone but you!:laugh:
You still pretending to be a SWA pilot? Unemployment must be a bitch. If you need any help finding a job, you can always apply here!
Let us all know how the job search goes.

Be careful, on that unemployment salary, you can't afford another username account!
Take care buddy!

Really?!?

-Who the hell hired this arrogant putz? I am sure he will be making the papers one day. There are clearly some serious bats in this belfry.