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Friday 22 May 2020

58th anniversary

This May 22nd marks the 58th anniversary of the tragedy of Continental Airlines Flight 11.

Sunday 19 January 2020

A concurrent tragedy

It has been brought to my attention by an Iowa -based writer that around the same time as the crash of Flight 11 there was also another unhappy tragedy unfolding in the rural Heartland of the USA. On May 27th, 1962, a man named Gayno Smith murdered five persons (his Uncle and his Uncle's family) in a farm house at Hedrick, Iowa. He was later found by a posse from the Appanoose County Sheriff's office. Over 100 men were part of the manhunt which was already weary from the aftermath of the crash of Flight 11.

They found Gayno hiding out in a barn at Lake Wapello, Iowa which is coincidentally where a lot of wreckage from Flight 11 was found just days earlier. Also near Lake Wapello is the rural town of Unionville, Iowa not to be confused with Unionville, Missouri.