Posted on 01/01/2008 2:59:53 PM PST by DogByte6RER
D.B. COOPER REDUX
Help Us Solve the Enduring Mystery
12/31/07
On a cold November night 36 years ago, in the driving wind and rain, somewhere between southern Washington state and just north of Portland, Oregon, a man calling himself Dan Cooper parachuted out of a plane he’d just hijacked clutching a bag filled with $200,000 in stolen cash.
Who was Cooper? Did he survive the jump? And what happened to the loot, only a small part of which has ever surfaced?
It’s a mystery, frankly. We’ve run down thousands of leads and considered all sorts of scenarios. And amateur sleuths have put forward plenty of their own theories. Yet the case remains unsolved.
Would we still like to get our man? Absolutely. And we have reignited the case—thanks to a Seattle case agent named Larry Carr and new technologies like DNA testing.
You can help. We’re providing here, for the first time, a series of pictures and information on the case. Please look it all over carefully to see if it triggers a memory or if you can provide any useful information.
A few things to keep in mind, according to Special Agent Carr:
* Cooper was no expert skydiver. “We originally thought Cooper was an experienced jumper, perhaps even a paratrooper,” says Special Agent Carr. “We concluded after a few years this was simply not true. No experienced parachutist would have jumped in the pitch-black night, in the rain, with a 200-mile-an-hour wind in his face, wearing loafers and a trench coat. It was simply too risky. He also missed that his reserve chute was only for training and had been sewn shut—something a skilled skydiver would have checked.”
* The hijacker had no help on the ground, either. To have utilized an accomplice, Cooper would’ve needed to coordinate closely with the flight crew so he could jump at just the right moment and hit the right drop zone. But Cooper simply said, "Fly to Mexico," and he had no idea where he was when he jumped. There was also no visibility of the ground due to cloud cover at 5,000 feet.
* We have a solid physical description of Cooper. “The two flight attendants who spent the most time with him on the plane were interviewed separately the same night in separate cities and gave nearly identical descriptions,” says Carr. “They both said he was about 5'10" to 6', 170 to 180 pounds, in his mid-40s, with brown eyes. People on the ground who came into contact with him also gave very similar descriptions.”
And what of some of the names pegged as Cooper? None have panned out. Duane Weber, who claimed to be Cooper on his deathbed, was ruled out by DNA testing (we lifted a DNA sample from Cooper’s tie in 2001). Kenneth Christiansen, named in a recent magazine article, didn’t match the physical description and was a skilled paratrooper. Richard McCoy, who died in 1974, also didn’t match the description and was at home the day after the hijacking having Thanksgiving dinner with his family in Utah, an unlikely scenario unless he had help.
As many agents before him, Carr thinks it highly unlikely that Cooper survived the jump. “Diving into the wilderness without a plan, without the right equipment, in such terrible conditions, he probably never even got his chute open.”
Still, we’d all like to know for sure, and Carr thinks you can help.
“Maybe a hydrologist can use the latest technology to trace the $5,800 in ransom money found in 1980 to where Cooper landed upstream. Or maybe someone just remembers that odd uncle.”
If you have any information: please e-mail our Seattle field office at fbise@leo.gov. And for more details on the case, see our story of November 24, 2006.
Oh please! The FBI does this on a regular basis. They put out a call for help in solving cold cases. All they do is put out this type of bullitin and hope they get some hits. It is not as if they are sending hundreds of agents out into the woods looking for Cooper. Sheesh!
The D.B. Cooper mystery is sexier than drugs, illegals, gangs, or Islamic terror.
Newsradio-best sitcom ever!!
It's a shame that they don't have the same tenacity about Vince Foster.
He died that night, either on impact or shortly thereafter. His body is somewhere upstream from where the kid found the money. None of the other money has ever turned up.
Darwin Award stuff, if we knew he hadn't reproduced.
Gary Larson had Cooper landing into a ring of dogs on a rottweiler farm.
Completely buried in some upland bog, where the bills bubbled up from — that’s my theory.
I agree.
Maybe this agent needs to be re-assigned to the regional Joint Terrorism Task Force, a criminal alien fugitive task force or even going COINTELPRO on groups like CAIR (ha, ha)
Still, this D.B. Cooper has always fascinated me since I was a kid. I would just like to know how this case ends...
I believe that little problem was fixed after the Cooper incident...
I’m Spartacus
yup
Right on! In another ten years, the FBI might try to convince everyone that D.B.Cooper was really Richard Jewell or Mark Hatfield. If the FBI is so sure D.B.Cooper couldn’t have survived the jump, why do they keep reviving the case? Maybe they realize that $5800. found is not much compared to the $200,000. taken. And no body ever found.
He’s dead. Slug food.
lol
If that’s the case, I think the $200K in seed money has paid off quite well!
Come to think of it, that $200K in seed money was taxpayers’ money.
That means you and I own a stake in D.B. Cooper’s Mansion.
Now where is my free lap dance?
Looks like Mike Huckabee.
I was just thinking that :-)
Completely agree. The Donks hand saw to it that 12 people entering a St. Louis polling place cast 37 votes a few years back, some from pets at home. They really have lost their way...
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