FBI Gets New Lead On DB Cooper

Aug 1, 2011 by James

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FBI Sketch of "DB Cooper"

Updates

The niece and mother of the alleged D.B. Cooper have come forward and said that they believe Lynn Doyle Cooper and Dewy Cooper were involved in the hijacking and that Lynn Cooper was the one who jumped from the plane. Dewy Cooper also worked at Boeing however it is unknown if he had access to the plane involved in the hijacking. L.D. Cooper died in 1999, Dewy Cooper died about 12 or 15 years ago, and Donald Cooper died in 1996, not long after telling his tale to Marla.

Fred Gutt, a special agent in the Seattle office of the F.B.I., told The New York Times on Monday that the suspect died 10 years ago. He said the tip came from a retired law enforcement officer who knew a witness who “had an association with” the suspect from long ago. “After the suspect died, the witness was more comfortable sharing some secrets, if you will,” Mr. Gutt said. The tip, first reported by The Telegraph, the British newspaper, was deemed credible because it came from someone in law enforcement.

Source: NY Times

The FBI has gotten its first credible lead in years on the mystery man who pulled off the only unsolved aerial hijacking in American history. It has been 40 years since a mystery hijacker calling himself Dan Cooper, also known as DB Cooper, boarded a Northwest flight in Portland for a flight to Seattle on the eve of Thanksgiving 1971, and commandeered the plane, claiming he had dynamite. He then went to the back of the Boeing 727 and parachuted from the rear of the plane with $200,000 in cash that he extorted from the FBI.

His survival was immediately questioned due to the stormy conditions that night and many speculated that for him to have survived he would have to be a former special forces operator. Richard McCoy, a Vietnam War veteran, experienced parachutist and BYU political science student who staged a similar hijacking months later was thought to be “Dan Cooper” however the FBI ruled him out because of his physical characteristics. The FBI has had this information for a year when law enforcement turned over a “credible person” who may have information on the infamous hijacker.

We do have a promising lead, FBI spokeswoman Ayn Sandalo Dietrich said Sunday.We do actually have a new suspect we’re looking at. The credible lead is somebody whose possible connection to the hijacker is strong, she told the Daily Telegraph. And the suspect is not a name that’s come up before.

The FBI was prompted to acknowledge the lead after British newspaper The Daily Mail published a very lengthy feature article on the famed hijacking that included the new information. According to the Daily Mail the FBI is testing fingerprints of a new suspect of what they say is the ‘most promising’ lead to date. That says something considering they have had over 1,000 leads since the hijacking and none have panned out.

Dietrich cautioned that the FBI is not on the verge of a “big break,” but is carrying out “due diligence” on the new information.

The FBI would not comment on whether the new suspect is dead or alive and noted that most of the suspects that they have looked into are now deceased. The FBI is only testing one item in the hopes of finding a useable fingerprint so it is likely that the infamous Dan Cooper is now dead but it would shed some light on who the man was and where the stolen money went. I honestly hope the FBI doesn’t solve this case as it’s more interesting to just speculate about who pulled off the most successful and peaceful hijacking in history and burned the FBI for decades.

D.B. Cooper Facts

Purchased airline ticket as Dan cooper. The media misidentified him as D.B. Cooper.
$200,000 in 1972 is the equivalent of $1,080,009 today.
Two men in 1972 bilked $30,000 from a Newsweek reporter by using counterfeit $20 bills with matching serial numbers promising the magazine an exclusive with the hijacker himself.
In 1980 8-year-old Brian Ingram found three packets of the ransom money including two packets with 100 bills and one packet of 90 bills.
After six years of negotiations the ransom money found by Ingram was divided equally between Ingram and the airline’s insurer save for 15 example bills retained by the FBI.
In 1988 sixteen-year-old Ingram sold fifteen of his D.B. Cooper bills at auction for $37,000 ($70,597 adjusted for inflation).
The FBI has investigated over 1,000 serious suspects.
It’s assumed the alias comes from a popular 1970s French comic book hero Dan Cooper.
Popular Cooper Day event held in Ariel, Washington draws thousands of tourists each year.
Cooper’s hijack note read, “I have a bomb in my briefcase. I will use it if necessary. I want you to sit next to me. You are being hijacked.”