The Fox | Criminal Podcast | Forensic Files

this episode picks up from our last episode episode 100 it's called ten thousand feet in the air
if you haven't listened to that one yet you may want to go back and listen to them in order
after Martin McNally hijacked a plane lost the money parachuting to the ground and was surrounded by FBI agents near
his house a few days later he was given two life sentences and sent to Leavenworth federal penitentiary in
Kansas when I went to prison the doors opened Pandora's boxes open and I will do anything and I will do everything to
get out of prison because I'm not never I'm not going to accept it and I never did accept it and the fact is I should
be free it was there in 1975 that he met another hijacker his name was Garrett Trapnell
okay Garrett Trav now I like that dude he was so solid Smart Genius rapnell was a a maniac
he is kind of like a combination of Leonardo DiCaprio's character and catch him if you can with DB Cooper and like a
little bit of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest he was both Petty um but also kind of a megalomaniac and
he was sort of a bomb that he would sort of drop into people's lives and use them
how he wished um for his own gains and uh he found a sort of a counterpart in McNally this is
Danny wisentowski a reporter for the Riverfront Times in St Louis Garrett Trapnell was said to have had
six different wives at the same time and at least 25 aliases in 1972 just months before Martin
McNally hijacked his plane Garrett Trapnell hijacked a plane from Los Angeles to New York
he was one of the 130 hijackings that happened between 1968 and 1972. Garrett Trapnell pretended to have a
broken arm and he hit a gun in the fake cast he demanded 306 800 and a phone call
with President Nixon after the plane landed in New York an FBI Marksman posing as a member of the
flight crew shot Garrett trapped now and took him into custody this wasn't Garrett trapnell's first
arrest he'd been arrested at least 20 times before for robbing banks forging checks and stealing more than a hundred
thousand dollars worth of jewelry from a store in the Bahamas and for all those crimes he'd spent less
than two years in jail he developed this tactic of studying Psychiatry and he was
able to use the insanity defense as a strategy to get himself out of prison situations and into Mental Hospitals
where he could either be released after a year which happened a number of times or Escape outright in an interview
Garrett Trapp now bragged that he knew more about Psychiatry than your average resident psychiatrist
he described the insanity plea as a license to Kill he said he could go out on the street in
New York shoot 10 people and be free in six months he added that of course he'd never do a
thing like that in 1973 he used the insanity plea during his trial for the hijacking it was a
hung jury during the second trial Garrett was convicted given a life sentence and sent
to Leavenworth that's where he met Martin McNally I knew his case suddenly he knew my case
and uh at one particular point there I said listen if I ever have an opportunity I'll uh snatch a
plane and demand your release and he said Mac if if that happens I'll do the same thing for you
plane hijackers started coming up with a plan to get out of prison using the very
thing that got them in there in the first place as Garrett Trapnell once said escaping
is as American as apple pie I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal [Music] Garrett trap now was sent to prison in
1973 and by 1976 a journalist named Elliot azanov had published a book about him it was called the fox is crazy too
the subtitle was the true story of Garrett Trapnell Adventure Skyjacker bank robber con man lover there's this
line at the beginning where asanov is describing him this moment where trapnel is
in the midst of this hijacking and he writes it was as if he thrived on the brink of a towering precipice a man for
whom danger was the stimulant that sparked his genius his mind was as sharp as his speech his eyes took in
everything figuratively and literally he kept his back to the wall this was kind
of the picture that he was painted as this outlaw this this person who discard who both used people but was above it he
was like a main character of a thriller novel but who lived in real life um and the book is really
you know gives you a sense of of kind of the spell he could put you under trapnel's address at Leavenworth he
received a lot of fan mail much of it from women oh he's certainly got a gift to gab and uh that gift to gab
e had all the women uh flying to him like uh in his fly trap that uh he could get him
these fan letters were forwarded on to him when he was relocated to the First Federal super max prison the U.S
penitentiary in Marion Illinois Martin was sent there too they happen to end up in the same cell
block just two cells apart from each other that's where they were when Garrett got
a letter from a 43 year old woman named Barbara Oswald she had read the fox is crazy too it was required reading for a
criminal justice course she was taking do you remember Garrett telling you about her
of course what did he say of course he showed me letters that she had written him and uh
that Gary was spending hours and hours and hours writing to her Barbara Oswald was a former Army flight controller she
was a single parent living in a suburb of St Louis after a motorcycle accident a couple of
years before she left the Army and was studying criminal justice specifically inmate rehabilitation
she and Garrett wrote for months she said she loved him she started visiting four times a week
she would sometimes bring her teenage daughter Robin on visits Martin says that Garrett promised Barbara that they
were going to run off together to Australia he even showed her photos of the house
where they were gonna live he comes back from a visit one time knocked on my door
uh he 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
this place in a helicopter and I said well uh I paused well uh uh I don't know we're gonna have to
discuss this we'll have to discuss the details before I make a decision on something like that but yeah let's look
into this Martin and Garrett looped in a third man a bank robber named Kenny Johnson he would help them rob a bank
once they were out within a few months they had a plan in place it all hinged a on Barbara Oswald
she would hijack a helicopter he convinced her he told her he says you could do this
[Music] I think there was a sense of almost disbelief that this could actually happen because they virtually had to do
nothing all they had to do was make sure they were in the right place of the yard
getting ready to run and that's really it they're you know in the moment imagining what it'll be like to fly out
of this prison shooting down at the guards as they go [Music] everything goes wrong
Barbara Oswald followed their instructions exactly she put a diagram of the prison yard in her pocket she hid
guns in her briefcase she made up a story about being a real estate agent interested in seeing aerial views of
some property and on May 24 1978 she went into St Louis and chartered a helicopter
and for some reason she gets into a helicopter being flown by the worst possible person she could have chosen
um combat pilot named Alan barclich and Barbara Oswald tells him that she wants to look at some property you know in the
area from above some flooded areas um the flight starts and not long after Barbara Yanks off his headset puts a gun
to his Temple and says you're flying to Marion and we're going to get Garrett out
we saw the chopper all three of us saw the chopper at about 5 000 feet and it was coming over the trees and and
there was a high winding like a muffler and go and then when it gets out of the trees
into uh open ground it would go the difference on that so when I heard it go I yelled out I says now now
go as we're waiting there I I'm jumping up and down uh standing on a yellow jacket
and I'm waiting for the pilot to see me and then I hear the rotor of the chopper
it's uh and it's it's it's a level it's not moving and I I hear it uh start to uh
run down in other words shut down and I looked over the Trap and I said oh trap we got a problem here
[Music] as the helicopter hovered over the prison the pilot Alan barclage who was
now being held at gunpoint by Barbara Oswald noticed all the armed guards in the prison towers and his survival
Instinct starts to click in he figures there's no way that they're going to let me take this helicopter out of this
prison with those guys inside I'm gonna die and so he does something that you know is is kind of unbelievable
even to describe he tells Barbara Oswald you should open the doors while we're still up here
um they're very heavy and they're difficult to open and if you're concerned about time do it now
Barbara Oswald begins to struggle with these heavy metal doors and she shifts the gun
um out of the hand she was using to point at him she's now holding the gun in her right hand and her fingers off
the trigger and then Alan barclage turns around he takes his hands off the controls and he grabs the gun in her
hand he told investigators later that her last words were it doesn't matter I've
got another one she reached under the seat and that's when Alan barclich shot her
four times he said he just kept pulling the trigger until he saw her slump over one bullet blew a hole through the
helicopter window Alan barclage managed to regain control of the helicopter and safely landed 70
feet away from the prison Administration Building and down to the ground McNally is sort
of hopping up and down waving his arms and they see the helicopter land in the wrong spot and instead of Barbara you
know with the door open waving them in with you know handguns and weapons they see a guy in a Blue flight suit
run out of the helicopter and run into an Administration Building he is terrified of what he's just done
he's also terrified of being shot by the guards and eventually he's confronted by
prison guards who with their you know weapons drawn and Alan barklidge is beside himself he you know according to
the guards you know and later in these later investigations the guards are saying They Came Upon Alan barcledge who
was just repeating over and over again I've been hijacked I've killed someone I've been hijacked I've killed someone
when trapnel came back from being talked to uh he said uh Barbara's been shot and
killed by the pilot and I said damn oh God [Music] Martin Garrett and Kenny were each
charged with attempted escape and kidnapping and waited for their trials Garrett insisted on defending himself
and because of that he was given certain privileges he was actually able to inspect the
sight of the crash and he's also given leeway to interview his own Witnesses and one of those Witnesses is Robin
Oswald the 16 year old daughter of Barbara after her mother's death Robin dropped out of high school she
wrote letters to Garrett Trapp now a friend of Robbins told the newspaper that Garrett was like a father to her
Robin said Garrett told her about all the things she could have a horse all the clothes she could ever want the Jeep
she'd always talked about but he could only do that if she helped him Escape here's Garrett in a TV interview
recorded years later I felt a responsibility I was the one who caused her mother's death
uh at the same time I want to get out of prison he convinces Robin to finish the work
that her mother started on December 21st 1978 seventeen-year-old Robin Oswald boarded a flight in
Louisville headed for Kansas City prepared to follow the instructions Garrett had given her
five minutes before the plane landed she handed the flight attendant a node it said that she had three sticks of
dynamite strapped to her waist she demanded to be taken to the small airport near the Marion prison in
Illinois and for Garrett trap now to be released and brought there there are some problems first she was
supposed to have made the demand in the first five minutes of the flight not the
last second the dynamite wasn't real she hijacks a plane herself at the age of 17.
with no weapons and with nothing more than what will turn out to be road flares and a Detonator that is you know
fashioned from some pieces of plastic that are connected to nothing and she just keeps
repeating I want Garrett [Music] about what they're going [Music] uh he was a she turned 17 he was a 17
year old girl who went out and took a plane to break someone out of prison I don't think I don't think Hearts get
any bigger than that [Music] after the plane landed in Illinois no one was let off everyone waited for
Garrett Trapnell to be brought to the airport Robin requested sandwiches coffee and
milk one passenger later told newspapers that she kept talking about her mother and
how she died in a helicopter you know later the passengers on that plane would you know tell news reporters
that you know she was in charge but she wasn't me and another man said you know her grammar was good never used a curse
word everything was pleasing thank you and you know he recounted that at some point Robin even sort of quipped to a
stewardess aren't I the nicest hijacker [Music] um at the same time in the FBI are looking
at this they're trying to figure out if she has a real bomb the FBI knew that Robin's mother had
been able to get weapons and they assumed Robin could as well some passengers pretended they were
going to the bathroom and snuck off the plane but there are still people on board and
so they were faced with a very tense situation eventually though the mechanical issues on the plane meant
that a lot of the circular the air circulation went off it got very hot and uncomfortable and Robin steadily allowed
more and more people to leave the flight when she was distracted basically the rest of the plane emptied out and she
eventually surrendered to the FBI after 10 hours and she was taken into custody and what happened to her
it's hard to say a lot of the reports around the time said that she was put in juvenile detention
that she was released not long after that she was not you know considered an adult she didn't do a lengthy amount of
time and she really disappears a lot of what we know about her comes from an interview she gave to an FBI
crime show her face was hidden she said quote I think he was very wrong for involving other people in his dirty
work at 16 years old you think you know all and you don't I was just a little kid
Garrett trap now was never charged for any involvement in Robin Oswald's case both trapped now and Martin McNally were
found guilty in Barbara Oswald's case and returned to Marion prison to serve life sentences on top of their existing
life sentences he McNally describes both himself and trepnel as monsters who destroyed an entire family Robin's life
Barber's life and that she had just wanted something very similar I think that he
did to make something of herself to to do something adventurous and Larger than Life to be the main character of your
own masterful Thriller you know the to be that Adventurer the lover the you know to be you know someone who would be
on the cover of a pulp paperback gear trap now didn't try to escape again he died in prison in 1993.
Martin McNally was released on parole in 2010 he lives in St Louis now Danny wasintowski has been interviewing him
for almost three years Airline hijackings almost destroyed you know what was sort of a civil institution the
idea of getting in a plane right off on the tarmac you know not even eating even buying a ticket on a
plane after you've taken off the idea that a plane was just you know another conveyance maybe even a luxury
you would get dressed up for it was something incredibly American in the sense of a frontier that had not yet
been explored and in a matter of years you had men like Garrett and McNally destroy this idea
criminals produced by Lauren Spore Nadia Wilson and me audio mix by Johnny Vince
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s

This episode picks up where Episode 100 left off. We suggest you listen to them in order: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_3EzYDdK5g

When Martin McNally met another plane hijacker in prison, they started coming up with a plan to escape…using the very thing that got them there in the first place.

Special thanks to Danny Wicentowski. Learn more at the Riverfront Times: “The Final Flight of Martin McNally.”

Music in the episode “House of Grendel” by Blue Dot Sessions “Rally” by Blue Dot Sessions “Roundpine” by Blue Dot Sessions “The Mandrake” by Original Music by Blue Dot Sessions “Nesting” by Blue Dot Sessions “Inessential” by Blue Dot Sessions “Our Fingers Cold” by Blue Dot Sessions

Criminal is a show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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Episode transcripts are posted on our website https://thisiscriminal.com/.

Episode 101 originally published 10/19/2018 https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-101-the-fox-10-19-18

Brief Summary

Martin McNally and Garrett Trapnell's prison escape plans lead to tragedy involving Barbara and Robin Oswald.

Key points

The Plane Hijacking Plan. Martin McNally and Garrett Trapnell devise a plan to escape prison using a helicopter.
Tragic Turn of Events. Barbara Oswald's attempt to rescue Garrett ends in tragedy when she is shot by the pilot.
Robin Oswald's Bold Move. At 17, Robin Oswald hijacks a plane to free Garrett Trapnell, but things go awry.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I will do anything and I will do everything to get out of prison.

Martin McNally's determination to escape prison.

0:38WatchJan 19, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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