Jerry Dwyer (died in 2016), who claimed he was writing a book on the crash--apparently never did, but there is this blurb:
Dwyer, 85, died Jan. 16 in hospice care in Mason City after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s — a quiet, peaceful death mostly overlooked among the clamor of our Iowa caucuses.
He never did publish that book, in which he promised finally to reveal his side of the story, armed with crucial facts known only to him. But his widow, Barb, says she will finish it on his behalf. She’s working with an author in California.
“It’s going to take awhile,” she said.
You might have heard of Dwyer because of his role in the fabled “day the music died." A Feb. 3, 1959, plane crash north of Clear Lake killed influential early rockers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “the Big Bopper” Richardson. The musicians had just played a gig at the Surf Ballroom.
And don't forget Roger Peterson, the 21-year-old pilot who also died but often is relegated to a footnote.
Dwyer managed the Mason City airport and owned the plane, the 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza that in the wee hours of Feb. 3 ended up mangled along a fence line in the frozen field.
He watched the crash grow in significance throughout his lifetime and end up in Don McLean’s 1971 elegy, “American Pie." The tragedy still resonates as the post-war template of unfulfilled artistic promise.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/local/kyle-munson/2016/02/04/rip-jerry-dwyer-man-haunted-buddy-holly-crash/79711056/
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