Thus spoke Jim Reid:
>
> At 12:32 PM 4/17/98 +0100, Alastair Beaton wrote:
> >Can someone please put me out of my misery and explain the terrible
> >secret/mystery about Palmyra?
I've actually just finished reading the book _And the Sea Will Tell_ by
Bugliosi. I thought it was an interesting read and recommend it for those
curious. I'm not sure I necessarily agree with the conclusions he
makes about his client, but it is very interesting to read about how he
developed his arguments and tactics.
[SPOILERS FOLLOW] <-- Just in case you're thinking of reading the book,
although the book is actually written on the
assumption that you've already heard of the events,
which in my case took place when I was less than
two years old, so I knew nothing before I read it.
> >From prior posts:
>
> "A couple was killed for their well provisioned boat! The killers were
> another
> couple in a lesser boat and low on supplies. They were eventually found
> here in Hawaii and tried; however, the woman was let off claiming it
> was all his idea.
There were four trials. The couple were first tried separately on theft
of the boat and were separately convicted and both served time. Seven years
later, the bones of one of the victims were discovered and the couple was
separately tried on counts of first degree murder. The man was convicted
and is presently incarcerated. The woman was found not guilty. Bugliosi
was one of her defense lawyers, and the book in question is 1/4 a narrative
of the events at Palmyra as he was able to determine them, and 3/4 his memoirs
of the case itself. He maintains that she was innocent.
> Radio amateurs had a hand in collecting evidence on Palmyra after the
> event; which of course went unknown for a time.
>
> This just came in from K5NA:
>
> "If anyone wants more information about what Jim is alluding to, go to your
> local library to check out and read "And The Sea Will Tell" by Vincent
> Bugliosi. I think the events that happened on the island were about the
> time of the first-ever Kingman operation that used Palmyra as a jump-off
> point.
Yes, the book mentioned that when both couples first arrived on the
island, the dxpedition was still there, and subsequently left for Kingman.
The book does not indicate the dxpedition callsign, and actually makes very
little mention of it at all.
> The Jack Wheeler mentioned early in the book is now KH6CC. Jack used to
> sail to Palmyra regularly to operate from there back when he was KH6CHC. I
> think he may have used KP6AL as his Palmyra callsign, but my memory is
> clouding with time."
>
> More:
>
> Last afternoon I had an amazing QSO with Ed Pollock, NH6OO; Ed and
> his wife were on Palmyra at the time both boats of the incident were
> there!! Ed had befriended Graham, the one killed while there; Ed says
> he was a great guy, a ham, at least he had an amateur transceiver, and
> was keeping a daily sked with another whom he had met in Hilo before
> sailing on down to Palmyra.
According to the book, Mac Graham was not licensed, but did have a
shortwave transceiver on board - the book mentions that it was a Drake,
the same type that Jack Wheeler had on his boat.
According to the book, the Grahams kept a schedule with Curtis Shoemaker,
whose callsign is given in the book as KH61HG (I have to assume this is in
error and they meant KH6IHG, which looks right according to QRZ! - but at
least they are consistent throughout the book.) Graham met IHG in Hawaii
before he left for Palmyra and was convinced that he should keep regular
communications on his cruise. According to the book, the callsign he
pirated was W7VXV (which doesn't show up in QRZ!) chosen because it was
the call of a long-inactive then-recently-SK ham and would be unlikely to
draw attention. Shoemaker also appeared as a witness in the trials,
although there was apparently no reference in court to the issue of the
pirated call.
> However the other couple seemed odd, per Ed's wife, and after a couple
> of days following their arrival on Palmyra, she insisted that she and Ed
> sail on back to Honolulu.
>
> A few days later, Ed learned that the skeds with the guy in Hilo had
> suddenly stopped, without explanation by Graham. Ed and his wife,
> being suspicious, called the Coast Guard, who went down to Palmyra,
> and found nothing.
Supposedly IHG before that had contacted a ham friend on Fanning I.,
about 175 miles from Palmyra, who also owned a plane and asked him to
fly over Palmyra. The fly over found no boats at Palmyra.
> Some time later, Ed spotted Graham's boat in Honolulu!!! Ed called the
> police, and the couple were arrested; eventually tried for theft, etc.
> But Bugliosi, who's name is on as the author of the book, is an attorney,
> and he defended the woman, and got her off. The guy who she claims
> did the deed of stealing the boat went to prison on the mainland,
> but escaped!!
Both of the couple were separately tried and convicted of theft. She
served two years, while the man, having a criminal past including failure to
appear at an arraignment for drug trafficking (the hippie couple's motivation
for going to Palmyra in the first place) was sentenced to 10 years. He later
escaped and ended up in Arizona dealing in drug trafficking from Mexico.
Bugliosi was not involved in either theft trial.
> In 1980 or so, a skull was found on Palmyra, the escaped killer was caught,
> in South Africa I think Ed said. The couple was tried for murder. Bugliosi
> again got her off, but the guy is now still in prison somewhere for the
> killing.
According to the book, the couple visiting Palmyra that discovered the
bones were South Africans. The hippie woman turned herself into authorities
after consulting an attorney, and the hippie man was apprehended in
Arizona after a considerable search. The two were tried separately.
Bugliosi was a co-counsel for the woman, but was not involved in her
previous theft trial at all.
> Ed has no respect, just disdain for Buliosi who has his name on a string of
> sensational killings "true stories"; the Manson Gang being another. However,
> Ed says he had/has ghost writers, and Ed knows the one who actually
> wrote "And the Sea Will Tell".
>
> Jack Wheeler, now KH6CC, sailed down often to Palmyra on behalf of
> the present owners who now have the island listed for sale. He went
> down also immediately after the stolen boat was found in Honolulu, and
> gathered incriminating evidence for the theft, etc, but found no
> bodies; remains, as above were not found for a few years.
>
> Ed said he could go on for hours about the people, all four of whom
> of course he and his wife know/knew, and the events which followed
> for several years; he of course was a witness at the trials since he
> "turned them in".
>
> Thought you might be interested in some of the "rest of the story",
> and probably some that is not in the book! Ed wound up with a
> heart attack resulting from the stress of the long investigation leading
> to the first trial in the later '70's. He is now living over here on Kauai,
> and was at my QTH on Saturday, April 4th. I know he is credible.
>
> 73, Jim, KH7M
For those who have read this far and aren't interested in reading the 470
page book, the man was convicted of first-degree murder and the woman was found
not-guilty.
The Grahams were visiting Palmyra as their first stop on a two
year south seas cruise. According to the book, they were exceptionally
well-prepared sailors, having circumnavigated the globe on a previous
cruise. The hippie couple were fleeing his arraignment on drug charges,
intending to live on Palmyra indefinitely, being periodically
resupplied by friends from Hawaii with whom they would supply with marijuana
they intended to grow on the island. They were ill-prepared, having
among other things destroyed their only motor en route to Palmyra. The two
boats' arrival at the island at the same time was obviously coincidental,
and neither especially enjoyed the intrusion on their privacy.
The defense for the woman argued that the murders were carried out by the
hippie man during a day that the woman spent entirely aboard their ship
preparing it to leave for Fanning so that they could buy more supplies,
as they were very low on food and their friends had notified them through
the Grahams' radio contacts that they would be over a month delayed.
The defense argued that her boyfriend was able to kill them both, place their
bodies in metal containers (which would have required at least partial
dismemberment) that came from an old USAF rescue boat found in a shed on the
island, at least attempted to burn the body of the wife with an acetylene torch
(whose bones were the ones later discovered,) tie the containers shut with
wire, sink them in the lagoon, scuttle the USAF rescue boat in the lagoon, and
overturn the Grahams' Zodiac dinghy on the beach, being careful enough to
keep it above the high tide mark so that the motor wouldn't become fouled by
seawater overnight, and do this all in the one location on Palmyra that would
be out of sight and earshot of his girlfriend on their boat. He also
supposedly concocted a story to make her believe they had gone fishing so she
would think they had disappeared in a fishing accident. His most persuasive
argument was that if the two of them had been acting in concert, they would
have disposed of the bodies at sea rather than in the lagoon so that there
would be no chance of their subsequent discovery, but that if the boyfriend
were attempting to hide the murder from the girlfriend and make it look like
an accident, he had no choice but to do it as it was supposedly done.
The hippies scuttled their own boat and sailed back to Hawaii on the
Grahams' boat, apparently intending to keep it a while, as the man filed to
re-register it under a different name so as to avoid problems when they
sailed to non-U.S. possesions, and they were caught apparently on their
last stop in Hawaii to get diesel before they headed out again. Neither
made any attempt to return the boat before they were caught nor did they
make any attempt to inform the Grahams' family about their disappearance
and presumed death. She was caught in Hawaii wearing one of the victim's
blouses. They had spent all of the cash they had found on the boat. Her
story concerning the fate of their original boat changed three times,
apparently admitting to having scuttled it only after their own roll of
film showed her, smiling, on the deck of the Grahams' boat with Palmyra
and their boat (sinking) in the background. This was all rationalized away
by defense counsel in the murder case as necessary to protect themselves, as
he was a fugitive from justice and she an accomplice to his flight.
I get the impression in the book that the ham radio operators involved
were given the roughest cross examination on the witness stand by Bugliosi
(although not specifically because they were ham radio operators, more because
their testimony was the most damaging to the defense case.) By his own
admission, Bugliosi intended to destroy their credibility as witnesses in a
harsh manner rather than contradict their specific testimony.
Of course, the real problem is that no one except those two know what
really happened. At least one of the jurors reportedly told one of the
prosecuting attorneys a few years later that he thought she got away
with murder, but that the burden of guilt "beyond reasonable doubt" had
not been proven by the prosecution in the trial.
--
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Kenneth E. Harker "Vox Clamantis in Deserto" kharker@cs.utexas.edu
University of Texas at Austin Amateur Radio Callsign: KM5FA
Department of the Computer Sciences President, UT Amateur Radio Club
Taylor Hall TAY 2.124 Maintainer of the Linux Laptop Home Page
Austin, TX 78712-1188 USA http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/
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