IN JANUARY 1986, LESS THAN TWO MONTHS after the hijacking, I flew down to Houston for the first time since Scott and I were married. I was still too scared to go on a plane by myself, so I arranged to fly to Dallas with Scott’s sister Margaret, who had to travel to Dallas-Fort Worth on business. Barb Wilson would fly to Dallas, meet me there, and then we’d fly to Houston.
It was scary being on a plane again. I cried when I sat down in my seat. Almost immediately, I found myself staring at other passengers’ laps to check for guns and grenades. Somehow, I managed to settle down after a while.
Barb Wilson was waiting to greet me in Dallas. Together, we got on a commuter flight to Houston’s Hobby Airport.
On the drive home from the airport I gazed out the window, watching the familiar landscapes of my youth scrolling by on our way to Pasadena, the Houston suburb where I grew up.
Pasadena has a couple of big claims to fame. It’s home to many of the world’s largest oil refineries. Driving along Highway 225, between Houston and Deer Park, oil fields and refineries stretch as far as the eye can see. At night, it’s quite a sight. The flashing, glowing lights of the refineries create the illusion of strange, ghostly cities out of a science fiction novel.
Before it burned down in 1989, Mickey Gilley’s famous country western nightclub was also in Pasadena. Gilley’s attracted national attention as the place where Urban Cowboy, the 1979 movie starring John Travolta, was filmed. Barb Wilson and I used to go there on Friday nights to ride the famous mechanical bull and practice country western dance steps such as the Cotton-Eyed Joe, the shottish, the polka, and the two-step.
In the daytime, there’s nothing romantic about the area immediately west of Houston. It’s a sprawling urban mess—a mishmash of residential, commercial, and industrial construction. Houston is the only large American city with no zoning laws, and you can see the results. In Houston, and its suburbs, your next-door neighbor can open an automobile repair shop in his backyard—or a marble and cement mixing operation, for that matter—without a permit. Abandoned oil rigs, like iron dinosaurs from another era, dot the landscape. They stand idly by fast-food restaurants, miniature golf courses, flea markets stocked with velvet paintings and cheap jewelry, gas stations, and motels.
Pasadena is a blue-collar, working-class suburb where southern hospitality still prevails. People drive Ford and Chevy four-by-fours, wear cowboy hats, and enjoy home cooking.
On this first trip back home, I stayed with my parents and with Barb and Wayne part of the time, as I had the previous summer. Outside Barb’s house was a big banner that read WELCOME HOME JACKIE. She and my other friends had tied a yellow ribbon around the huge oak tree in her front yard.
It felt good to be home again, surrounded by close friends and family. I spent a lot of time with my mom and dad, in the same house where as a young girl I’d played school with my sisters and neighborhood friends.
My mother, Billie, and my father, Eugene, met in the navy during the Korean War and settled in Pasadena soon after. They were typical of their generation. Dad joined the navy after high school and worked as an aviation electrician. He served on board the Intrepid in the South Pacific and later in Seattle, Washington. After the war, he worked as an operator for Ethyl Oil Corporation for thirty-four years.
My dad’s ethnic background is German—and he is known to display the stubbornness which Germans are famous for. My dad also has a very gentle, loving, and sensitive side. His mother’s maiden name was Brahms—and she was directly related to the family of the famous composer, Johannes Brahms. The two Brahms brothers came over to America on a ship in the late 1890s. One decided to stay in Texas; the other, the composer who wrote “Brahms Lullaby,” returned to Germany.
Moms background is French and Irish. She grew up in New Hampshire and, after high school, joined the navy. She later served in the Korean War and was stationed in Seattle, Washington, where she was a chaplains assistant and met my dad.
When I first arrived at Barb and Wayne’s house, I sat in the same kitchen where Barb and I watched the TWA hijacking unfold in June. How different the circumstances were this time!
I was wearing a red scarf and wig to cover my shaved head, and the scar from my bullet wound was still visible. I removed the scarf and wig to let Barb see the soft spot in my head move up and down when I breathed—just like the soft spot on the top of an infant’s head. It was pretty scary.
Barb arranged a homecoming party for me that gave me a chance to see all my old friends again. It gave me a big boost to see how much they cared about me. “I was praying for you, Jackie,” my friend Debbie said. “We’re all so glad you made it through.”
About three hours later, after the last person left the party, I went into Barb’s bedroom and just broke down. I sobbed and sobbed. I felt as though I had to hold everything in while people were around. Now I could let go and let things out.
Barb must have heard me, for she came in and sat down next to me on the bed. She just held me while I cried. “It’s okay, Jackie. It’s okay to cry. Just let it all out,” Barb said.
“Why am I crying?” I said. “I just get so down.”
“The only way to get through it is to let your emotions out, honey.”
“But I’m so afraid of letting people down. I want to be strong. But it’s so hard.”
“Tears are good,” Barb said. “If you don’t show your emotions, you’re going to have a hard time. Don’t be afraid to cry.”
I was physically and emotionally exhausted most of my time back home. I was so wiped out that I needed to take a nap every afternoon. I felt completely drained.
One afternoon when Barb was at work, Wayne asked if I wanted to see any of the television coverage of the hijacking that he had taped. I said yes.
Wayne popped the tape into the VCR and I lay on the carpet, watching the terrible event all over again from a strange new perspective. I just lay there on the floor, staring at the painful images flashing across the same screen on which I’d seen the TWA hijacking unfold six months earlier.
Wayne saw the pain on my face as I saw the news coverage of the hijacking for the first time. I felt like I was living through it all over again. Watching the tape gave me a sense of what it was like for people back home.
The two of us didn’t say much as we watched. I sensed that Wayne was at a loss for words. I made only one comment.
“That’s him,” I pointed to the screen. “That’s the man who shot me.”
The video footage all seemed so strange and unreal.
The next day, I called an old friend who is a clinical psychologist, and asked to meet him for dinner. He was the first person I opened up to about the spiritual questions I was having after the hijacking.
At the restaurant, I asked my friend, “Isn’t there more to life than what we’re doing? Isn’t there more to life than just waking up every morning, weaing the right clothes, and driving the right car? Is there some deeper meaning to life?”
I was searching for the meaning of life and, because my friend was a psychologist, I hoped he could help me answer the questions in my heart, questions like: “Why are we here? Why did the hijacking happen to me? What’s going to happen to me now?”
My friend is a very sensitive and thoughtful man. He listened closely before speaking. “It’s not unusual for you to have those questions, Jackie,” he said, quietly. “I’d be surprised if you didn’t. It’s probably going to take some time before things make sense again.”
I told him more about my perception and memory problems and, on this subject, he had some ideas. He had a friend who was a neuropsychologist—a doctor who studies and treats the language, perception, memory, and behavior problems often caused by brain damage and brain disorders—who was interested in testing me. I called and made an appointment with him.
When I went in, I took a battery of reading and memory tests, including the Wepman Auditory Discrimination Test, designed to measure how well people can distinguish different sounds. He recited word pairs such as “house-mouse,” “red-Fred,” then asked me whether the words were the same or different. Time and again, I answered “same” when the words were different. I failed the Wepman test.
Another memory test he gave me was similar to one I’d taken in Minnesota—with one important difference. This test required me to recall pairs of abstract words. For example, he presented me with word pairs such as “because-acknowledge.” Since I couldn’t make a picture of “because” or “acknowledge,” I couldn’t use a mnemonic technique to hide my learning disability.
The neuropsychologist was hesitant to tell me the results of my reading test. He didn’t want to hurt my feelings, but I needed to know. “Your short-term memory is very, very weak, Jackie,” he said. “You’re reading at a third-grade level and comprehending at a first-grade level.”
It was a big relief to finally have my learning problems identified. Now that I knew what I was dealing with, I could do something about them. Before I left the doctor’s office, he suggested some techniques that could help strengthen my memory and reading ability.
The Sunday before I went back to Minnesota, I was invited to speak at my church—Trinity Episcopal, in Baytown—to share my story with the congregation. I was pretty nervous about it. What would I say? It had only been a short time since the hijacking. I was still in shock. But I agreed.
The night before, Barb helped me write down what I wanted to say. We sat at the kitchen table and worked on the speech. The next morning, Barb, Wayne, and I went to church together.
It was the first time I had ever publicly shared my story. Before this, I had only talked about what happened with my family, close friends, and people who knew me in Minneapolis. I was very, very scared.
Barb sat in the front row the whole time. There was only one point when I was overwhelmed by the sadness of what I’d been through. The tears started to come.
I stopped and Barb walked up to the podium and gave me a big hug. “I can keep going,” I whispered in her ear.
I finished my speech with a quote Barb had hanging on her bedroom wall. I knew right away that it was something I wanted to share with others.
I got up early one morning
And rushed right into the day.
I had so much to accomplish
That I didn’t have time to pray.
Problems just tumbled about me and heavier came each task.
Why doesn’t God help me? I wondered,
He answered, “You didn’t ask.”
I wanted to see joy and beauty,
But the day toiled on gray and bleak,
I wondered why God didn’t show me,
He said, “But you didn’t seek.”
I tried to come into God’s presence,
I tried all my keys at the lock,
God gently and lovingly chided,
“My child, you didn’t knock.”
I woke up early this morning,
And paused before entering the day.
I had so much to accomplish,
That I had to take time to pray.
“I want to be in Egypt,” I told the audience in closing, “but I can’t be in Egypt. People say, ‘The U.S. is wonderful, why don’t you want to be here?’ I love the U.S. and, yes, I’m going to be here and I’m going to love it here. But I want you to understand that, for me, leaving Egypt is hard. I feel the way you might if you were suddenly snatched from your home and loved ones.”
I’d been so nervous before giving the speech, but I was excited by people’s reactions. They gave me a standing ovation when I was through. It felt great. Afterwards, some people came up to tell me how much it meant to them.
I flew from Hobby Airport back to Dallas-Fort Worth in a first-class seat. Barb Wilson’s mom was a travel agent in El Paso, and she had upgraded my ticket from coach to first class.
My friend Suki Fitzgerald was waiting to meet me in Dallas. Suki had trained me as an educational diagnostician in Baytown, and we discovered that we had a lot in common and became good friends. She and her husband had moved to Dallas shortly before I went overseas. I loved the opportunity to catch up with her.
Suki came on board to make sure I got settled safely into my seat for the flight to Minneapolis. I was in for an unpleasant surprise. I’d been bumped from my first-class seat.
“Do you know who this is?” Suki demanded of the flight attendant at the ticket gate. “This is Jackie Pflug; she’s the one who was just hijacked a little while ago. She needs special attention.”
I smiled. I also got my first-class seat back.
“You take good care of her,” Suki advised the flight attendant.
I was really nervous and jittery about being back on board an airplane again. I was shaking and feeling kind of out of it.
A man sitting next to me could tell something was wrong. I told him about being in the hijacking, and he nodded sympathetically.
Early in my recovery, I was reluctant to say much about the hijacking or discuss the details with strangers. When Scott and I went to parties or other social gatherings, people often asked me what it was like. And people often told me what they would have done if they were in my situation: “Well, if I was on the plane, I would have done this, or I would have done that.”
I remember doubting myself and thinking, Gosh, maybe they’re right. If I had done that, what would have happened? Maybe I could have saved some children’s lives.
After a while, I didn’t want to hear it anymore. I decided to say it was “scary,” then change the subject. Or else I’d say, “It’s easy for you to say that when you’re on safe ground.”
There was another reason why I stopped talking about the hijacking. I didn’t trust people’s motives in asking me about my experience. Were they just out for a good time? I didn’t feel like opening my life up to someone drinking a can of beer, distractedly looking off in the distance.
I wasn’t interested in telling the story to people who asked, “What’s it like to be on a plane that was hijacked?” To me, it seemed as insensitive as approaching a rape victim and eagerly asking, “What’s it like to be raped?” I didn’t want to be that vulnerable; I didn’t want to have to keep reliving the experience with anyone who asked.
I was very hurt by the hijacking. I am a very trusting person by nature, and it hurt to realize that someone could actually kill me without batting an eye. That knowledge does something to you; it changes you. I had to feel very safe before I felt comfortable sharing my story or being that open with someone.
Yet I could understand people’s curiosity. I wanted to talk about the experience, but not in a sensational way. I was interested in talking about all the lessons I was learning from the experience.
The hesitation I felt about sharing my story also extended to the national news media. Right after the hijacking, I was swamped with interview requests by producers of Good Morning America, Today, and other talk and news shows. You name it and they called. I turned them all down. I didn’t feel like I had anything to say. I hardly knew what a toothbrush was; what was I going to tell millions of people on national television?
Besides, I was suspicious of the media’s motives. Yet Scott and I took down the names of everyone who called, and we kept the list in a drawer.
A few months later when I finally did start talking to people in the media and giving some interviews, Scott didn’t understand it. I felt that sharing my story was a necessary part of my healing process. This later became a source of conflict.
The hijacking and its aftermath was going to severely test our relationship. Scott and I really didn’t know each other that well. When we’d met, we both had that twinkle in the eye and the unbounded optimism of youth—and the belief that, with love, anything is possible.
I hadn’t dated much in high school—my first date was the senior prom—so I was still amazed that a handsome man saw me as attractive too.
Scott was the first boyfriend whom I knew I’d be afraid to leave. In the past, I’d always been the one to call it quits. It was something I didn’t like about myself. I always wondered, Why is this? Everyone else can stay in a relationship; am I so different? I wanted to get married and have children.
When Scott and I started getting more serious, I thought, Wow, this is great! I was already thirty years old and I thought, I better grab him, because this may be my only chance to get married. I did want to have a family and it seemed like the right time to start.
There were many things that attracted me to Scott. We quickly found out that we had a lot in common. We had the same beliefs and wanted the same things out of life. We had the same thoughts about God, life, and our purpose.
I liked that Scott was aggressive and spoke his mind. On the other hand, I often found him intimidating. I was afraid of his reaction when I spoke my mind. Sometimes, it seemed that my opinions and feelings were less acceptable than his.
At the end of the 1984–85 school year, our teaching contracts in Norway were up. We’d dated about seven months and were now facing a big decision: get married or go our separate ways.
We decided to get married. We both wanted to continue teaching overseas, so we attended a job fair in London for teachers, similar to one I’d attended a year earlier. We both got jobs in Cairo, teaching at the Cairo American School. Scott would be coaching and teaching physical education, while I would be working with learning disabled students in grades four through six.
That summer, Scott and I flew back to the states to spend some time with our families. During that time, I flew to Minneapolis to meet Scott’s parents and relatives. In early August, Scott flew to Houston to meet my family and friends for the first time. On August 10, 1985, Scott and I exchanged wedding vows at Trinity Episcopal Church in Baytown. Two days after the wedding, we were on a thirty-six-hour flight from Houston to Cairo.
In Cairo, the bubble began bursting on my fantasies of married life. Scott and I had known each other a whole year, yet we only seemed to communicate on a superficial level. I tried to push away my doubts, hoping things would improve as we settled into our new jobs and apartment. I kept thinking, it will change. It will be okay; we’ll learn to communicate.
I had no idea what marriage was about. I had this fairy-tale image in my head that we’d have children and everything would be fine and dandy. I knew what I liked and what I didn’t, but I really wasn’t mature enough to make a solid decision on marriage. I loved Scott and I thought that was all that really mattered—that we could work through anything if we love each other.
Besides, lots of newlyweds second-guess themselves or their partners. I decided to focus on the positive.
Now here we were, a year later, and our real problems were just beginning.
In mid-January 1986, I got a phone call from Cindy Carter, an FBI agent based in Washington, D.C. Carter explained that she was in charge of coordinating the FBI’s investigation of the hijacking. In that capacity, she supervised the gathering and analysis of evidence, interviewed witnesses, and followed up on leads throughout the world.
Because Americans were on board the hijacked plane, the FBI was involved in the case right from the start. Agents were on the ground in Malta even as the Egyptian commandos prepared to storm the plane. After the disastrous rescue attempt, the bureau’s “Disaster Squad”—a specially trained response team of investigators and technicians—combed the wreckage for evidence that could later be used in court or to help Maltese and Egyptain authorities identify bodies.
At the time of Cindy’s call, prosecutors in Malta and the United States were both preparing separate cases against the one surviving hijacker, Omar Mohammed Ali Rezaq. The FBI was working with Maltese authorities to gather its own evidence in case Malta could not—or would not—prosecute the hijacker. If Malta chose not to prosecute for any reason, the U.S. government would attempt to have Rezaq handed over to the United States for prosecution. Carter asked if I’d be willing to testify in Malta and at a trial in the United States, if one were held. I said yes.
The FBI was rigorously preparing its own case against Rezaq. They had evidence that he took charge of the hijacking after one of his comrades was killed in the midair gun battle. They investigated and documented the evidence in preparing for an indictment.
The FBI had a good relationship with Maltese officials on the case. Maltese technical experts flew to the FBI lab in Washington, D.C.—probably the finest crime lab in the world—to examine evidence. FBI forensic experts conducted ballistics tests on the spent cartridges found in the aircraft, helped with autopsies, and looked for more fingerprints.
Carter asked if I would fly to Washington in mid-April 1986, to testify before a special grand jury convened to handle terrorist attacks against American citizens living or traveling abroad. Congress had passed a special “hostage taking” statute allowing the Justice Department to prosecute terrorists who attacked Americans traveling on board foreign planes and ships. Previously, only American passengers traveling on American carriers were protected under U.S. law.
This grand jury, first convened in October 1985, was the same one that indicted three terrorists for killing Leon Klinghoffer, a passenger on the Achille Lauro.
Carter explained a little about what would happen in the event of a trial in Washington, D.C., and why my testimony was important. “This really is a case of identity—that’s what the whole trial will be about,” she said. “They will say, ‘Yes, the defendant was there, but he’s not the one who pulled the trigger.’ That’s probably what it will come down to.”
I was an eyewitness to everything that happened. Having the testimony of a victim was important to the prosecutors, and it would appeal to the jury.
I was scared about going on another airplane to testify. Hijackings and terrorist attacks continued to be common occurrences.
I had planned to testify at the hijacker’s trial for murder and attempted murder in Malta. As the March 1986 trial date approached, however, I was having second thoughts. I was still deathly afraid of the hijackers, whether they were dead or in jail. Months after the ordeal, I was still afraid that someone would gun me down in the street. I hated being at large gatherings. When I went, I was like a small child. I was afraid of everyone. I trusted no one. I was continually plagued by insomnia and a recurring nightmare. This made it hard to get the rest my mind and body craved so desperately.
In my nightmare, the doorbell rang and Scott went to answer it. He’d come back and say, “It’s for you.” A tall, dark-haired man stood in the doorway, extending a gift. I said thank-you and started unwrapping the box. I love getting gifts so I eagerly opened the present. Inside were three small boxes within boxes. Inside the last was a note saying, “Ha, ha. Got you this time!”
In my nightmare, I looked up at the man at the door as he reached into his bag, pulled out a gun, and shot me in the head. I fell to the ground and the man ran away. Scott started yelling, “Jackie, are you okay? Are you okay?” There was blood all over the white carpet. I looked Scott in the eyes, said, “I don’t think I can make it this time,” and fell into his arms.
I knew I was having other nightmares, too, ones that I couldn’t remember when I woke up. I knew they were nightmares because I could feel them in my body, and I’d wake up in the middle of the night, crying.
The hijackers haunted me during the day as well. I often thought about the curly-haired hijacker who banged me on the head, the one who died during the midair gun battle. I could feel his body and sense his presence near me. Doctors said I was hallucinating, but that wasn’t it.
I didn’t hear him speak, but felt him saying, “You’re still mine. I still gottcha. You can’t get away from me.”
I’d fight back, saying, “Leave me alone!”
Shortly before I was scheduled to testify in Malta, I reached a crisis. I was afraid to travel and said I wanted someone to protect me. I was afraid that Rezaq’s buddies might show up and kill some of us who were planning to testify.
It wasn’t an idle concern. The FBI received a lot of information on the continuing activities of terrorist groups in the region. There was always a concern that Libya or another group might attempt to disrupt the trial. Days before the hijacker was arraigned on charges of murder and attempted murder, a bomb exploded at the Libyan Cultural Institute in Malta, a short distance from the law courts. No injuries were reported, but the blast damaged a library. Nobody claimed responsibility.
Malta guarded Rezaq around the clock, which took a lot of resources for a country with such a small military and police force. According to FBI sources, the Maltese wanted to be rid of him, but they were caught in a political mess: if they handed him over to the United States, they would anger Egypt, Libya, Greece, and several other countries who wanted to try him. In the end, it was politically expedient for Malta to try him there.
I called my contact person at the FBI, and she agreed to assign two bodyguards to protect me. They were all set to meet Scott and me at the Minneapolis airport and fly with us to Malta. As the trial date approached, I felt more and more jittery about going to Malta, even for a few days.
In my head I wanted to go, to make sure justice was done. I wanted to put the guy away. But my body kept saying no. I didn’t want to go back and live through the hijacking all over again. I didn’t want to see or be in the same room with the man who shot me. I didn’t want to look into his eyes.
I knew it was too soon for me to make the trip back to Malta. I was shaking and scared inside. I was terrified by the mere prospect of getting on a plane again.
In February 1986, I called my FBI contact in Washington, D.C. I was crying on the phone. “I can’t do it, I just can’t,” I told her. I felt as though I was letting everybody down by not going to tell my story in court.
“That’s okay, Jackie,” she said, gently.
I was so glad that she wasn’t mad at me for changing my mind.
“I’d like to be able to do something to help you put this guy away. Is there any other way I can help? Could I tell my story here in Minnesota?”
“Sure, we can do something in Minnesota,” she said. “You can testify there. We’ll have someone take your statement.”
Two FBI agents from the Minneapolis bureau, a man and a woman, came to our apartment and escorted me to the federal courthouse in Minneapolis. A prosecuting attorney from Malta and a court-appointed public defender representing the hijacker also flew to Minnesota to be present during my testimony.
I was scared when we entered the large, empty courtroom, but the court officials made me feel safe. They ordered the courtroom cleared except for myself, the attorneys, and the FBI agents. They sat me down in the witness stand, and I took the oath.
“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” the clerk asked.
“I do.”
The questions began. First, the prosecutor asked me to describe the hijacking step by step—what happened and when. He was a kind man.
Then it was the defense lawyer’s turn. I’d been terrified by the prospect of facing the man assigned to defend the hijacker who shot me. But the person in front of me was not to be feared. He was a short, bald man with kind eyes. He obviously was sympathetic to me. He was appointed by the court and was there to do his job.
“Do you remember the man who shot you? Can you describe his physical appearance for the court?” he asked.
“Well, he had straight hair and very piercing eyes,” I began….
The lawyers asked me to look at some pictures and see if I could pick out the hijacker who shot me. I did. At the time, however, I wasn’t sure if I’d picked out the right man.