Skyjack Sequel

In search of a father figure

"Escaping from prison is as American as apple pie," Garrett Brock Trapnell once told a television interviewer. He should know. The black sheep of a distinguished military family (his father was a Navy commander), Trapnell was arrested more than 20 times for robberies and other crimes committed, yet he became so skilled in faking mental illness that he repeatedly got himself hospitalized and then escaped.

Captured after hijacking a TWA airliner for $306,800 ransom in 1972, he was finally sentenced to life imprisonment.

Trapnell did not give up. Last May a woman named Barbara Oswald tried to rescue him from the federal penitentiary in Marion, Ill. She commandeered a St. Louis helicopter at gunpoint, but the pilot seized her gun and killed her. Oswald's daughter Robin, 17, was shattered. She dropped out of high school but continued corresponding with Trapnell, whom a friend said she regarded as "a father figure." Last week Robin Oswald boarded TWA Flight 541 in St. Louis, then announced that she was carrying three sticks of dynamite and took over the airliner. With 87 passengers aboard, she ordered the pilot to fly to Marion. There the authorities began delicately negotiating her demand for Trapnell's release, and after ten hours the girl surrendered. Garrett Trapnell is still serving his life sentence.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.