Funeral services were held today for Mrs. Nettle Blassberg, the 57-year-old Greenfield, Mass, woman killed by the hijacker of a bus here July 4.
Rabbi-Kalman Newfield of Temple Israel in Greenfield told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Mrs. Blassberg was an active member of the temple and its sisterhood, sang in the temple choir and was a member of Hadassah. She worked as a clerk at the Mammoth Mart store in Greenfield.
Mrs. Blassberg and her husband, David, who operates a newsstand and lunch counter at the courthouse in Greenfield, were returning from a visit to their daughter in Washington when a gunman seized a Vermont Transit bus after it left New York’s Port Authority bus terminal and forced it to go to Kennedy International Airport.
At the airport, the gunman, identified later as Luis Robinson, 26, shot Mrs. Blassberg because, according to others on the bus, he wanted to show police he was serious about his demands for $6 million and a plane with a 3000-mile range to fly him out of the country as ransom for his hostages. When the bus driver, Norman Bozwick, lunged at the gunman, he was also fatally shot.
The gunman ordered Mr. Blassberg to drive the bus, but he said, “I can’t drive, I’m legally blind.” Mr. Blassberg escaped as the gunman ran to the back of the bus. Robinson wounded two other passengers, one of whom, Jimmy Lo, 36, of Hong Kong, is still in critical condition. Robinson, who was charged yesterday with murdering two people and kidnapping 25, was ordered held for psychiatric examinations.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
