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The person known as D. B. Cooper may have pulled-off one of the greatest feats of criminality
known to man, not just because of the crime but more the subsequent, literal, vanishing
into thin air. Some criminals go down in history as almost heroic, they become to the stuff
of folklore. We have noble highwaymen; we have people that robbed the rich only to share
their spoils with the poor. We have bank robbers such as John Dillinger, who became a legend
after stealing from the big bad banks and being very kind with the swag. Then we have
outlaws such as Jesse James, whose legend appears to be somewhat overblown in both books
and movies. But in today’s show we will focus on a man whose actions were certainly
not fiction. Welcome to this episode of the Infographics Show, Who was D.B. Cooper?
Before we start sleuthing, we must know what it is this man did. We should also tell you
that the name D.B. Cooper was a given name by the media, who he really was, is still
up for speculation. We’ll get around to the theories later.
Twas the night before Thanksgiving, November 24, 1971, when through the doors of the busy
Portland International Airport a man went up to the check-in counter for Northwest Orient
Airlines. Throughout the USA people were travelling back home or already drinking the festive
hooch; turkeys were thawing, corn pudding had been made in the morning. The man checked-in
under the name, Dan Cooper. He was to take a half an hour flight to Seattle. A short
trip home presumably, to spend time with loved ones. That was far from the case. He was about
to create criminal history.
He walked onto a Boeing 727-100, some people say he sat in seat 18C, but others dispute
that. Whatever the seat, it seems our Mr. Cooper was in the mood for merriment. He sat
back, lit up a smoke and imbibed a bourbon and soda. According to witnesses who were
later interviewed, he wore a dark suit and a black tie, decorated with a mother of pearl
tie pin. From the sketches you could say he looked not unlike Don Draper from the series
Mad Men. And a madman the man known as Dan Cooper certainly was. He was later described
by flight attendants to be 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 meters) to 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 meters)
tall, 170 to 180 pounds (77 to 82 kg). It’s said he had tanned skin and was likely in
his early 40s.
Not long into the flight this smartly-dressed man handed a note to a flight attendant. Her
name was Florence Schaffner and she was probably used to single guys handing her phone numbers,
so she just put the note in her purse. According to New York mag this 23-year old “cute,
perky,” and sexy stewardess was not unaccustomed to guys hitting on her. This time was different.
Cooper then leaned over to her and said, “Miss, you'd better look at that note. I have a bomb.”
She looked at him and knew that he wasn’t fooling around. The note read, “I have a
bomb in my briefcase. I want you to sit beside me.” She did just that and the man showed
he wasn’t kidding, offering her a glimpse of some sticks of dynamite and lots of wires
attached to a battery. He then apparently told her, “I want $200,000 by 5:00 p.m.
In cash. Put in a knapsack. I want two back parachutes and two front parachutes. When
we land, I want a fuel truck ready to refuel. No funny stuff or I’ll do the job.” $200,000
in today’s money is about $1.2 million. He wasn’t too greedy it seems.
According to Schaffner, she was reeling with fear. Was the plane about to explode; were
a lot of people about to grilled in mid-air before the turkey was even roasted? She was
confused, too. This smartly-dressed guy had been polite; he’d even given her a $20 bill
for the whiskey and told her she should could keep the 18 bucks change. He wasn’t a political
terrorist, one of the sky-pirates she’d heard about. Another flight attendant later
remarked, "He wasn't nervous. He seemed rather nice. He was never cruel or nasty. He was
thoughtful and calm all the time.” She went to the cockpit and told the news
to the crew, after which the pilot informed Seattle–Tacoma Airport air traffic control,
and the authorities were alerted. The plane circled in the air for around two hours, with
the passengers not knowing what was going on. They were told the plane was experiencing
a “minor mechanical difficulty.” What was really happening is that the authorities
had decided to meet the hijacker’s demands and they were putting together the list of
things, including the money, he had asked for. The man stayed calm and even started
talking about what he could see down below, meaning he obviously knew the area well. He
ordered another bourbon and again told Schaffner she could keep the change. Down below the
money was being put together in unmarked bills, although it’s said Cooper wasn’t happy
with the military-issue parachutes. He wanted civilian parachutes and they had to be taken
from a nearby sky-diving school.
The aircraft landed at 5.39 pm at Seattle-Tacoma Airport. Cooper told the pilot to taxi to
a brightly lit area of the airport and for all the window shades to be lowered lest a
sniper try and take him out. Northwest Orient's Seattle operations manager, Al Lee, delivered
the cash and the parachutes to the aircraft. Cooper then told the passengers they could
go, as could two of the flight attendants, including Schaffner. One remained. He then
told the cockpit crew that they would all be going on a trip to Mexico City, except
he wanted them to fly at the lowest speed possible. He also told them to fly at 10,000-foot
(3,000 meters) altitude. The pilots told him they would need to refuel once more, and Nevada
was chosen. Cooper told them to keep the landing gear down and for the cabin to remain unpressurized.
He told authorities that no one could come on board during the refueling while they were
still in Seattle.
And off they went, into the skies, bounty in the bag, flying at a snail’s pace for
the plane. They weren’t alone up there, with five military planes following them.
It’s said the last person to see Cooper was a 22-year old flight attendant called
Tina Mucklow. She said he told her to go back to the cockpit and the last thing she witnessed
was him tying something around his waist. It’s said she later never talked much about
that evening, and later in life became reclusive and partly lived in a nunnery. With the crew
all in the cockpit they heard an alarm indicating that the aft airstair apparatus had been deployed.
Apparently, the pilot sent a warning that this was very dangerous. It was around 8 pm.
Just over two hours later the aircraft landed, and the mysterious bourbon-quaffing hijacker
was not one of the occupants of the plane. Here’s a little song about what likely happened
sometime after 8:
Out a little service doorway In the rear of the plane
Cooper jumped into the darkness Into the freezing rain
They say that with the windchill It was 69 below
Not much chance that he’d survive But if he did, where did he go?
Indeed, where did he go?
The Feds looked all over for him, for the parachutes, for anything. They went through
every bit of forest where he might have landed; a submarine scoured lakes, but the man had
vanished. It was the largest search ever by law enforcement and in the end all they found
were the remains of a girl that had been abducted and murdered. For years the police searched
for the money as all the bills had serial numbers, but that never showed up, either,
except when a couple of swindlers tried to get a $30,000 reward from Newsweek by counterfeiting
bills with the serial numbers. The press had a field day, and it was a mistake
made by a reporter which gave him the name D.B. Cooper. It stuck. As for the American
people, most folks loved the story of the handsome, well-spoken, James Bond-like character.
People rooted for him, likely to the chagrin of law enforcement. He was like a noble highwayman
of modern times, a Robin Hood of the skies. What the cops did know is that this guy knew
how to parachute; he knew planes, he knew the area. How hard could it be to put the
pieces together? Very hard is the answer. The FBI had lots of leads that came to nothing,
changing their story a few times. For instance, the FBI later said that he was likely not
someone who knew a lot about parachuting, “We concluded after a few years this was
simply not true,” they said. “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.” It was concluded by some that the man had simply died, and
authorities had failed to find the body.
He even had copycats, such as Richard McCoy, a former Vietnam helicopter pilot who tried
to do the same. He was arrested in a matter of days and he swore that he was not Cooper,
just a guy trying his luck. But was it him? While he was serving a 45-year sentence he
made a courageous and cunning prison escape, only later to be killed in a shoot-out with
the cops. The agent that killed him said this. “When I shot Richard McCoy. I shot D.B.
Cooper at the same time.” However, that doesn’t quite work as McCoy’s family told
police while Cooper’s air heist was going on McCoy was with them having a party for
Thanksgiving eve.
Then in 1980 an 8-year old boy on holiday made a discovery when he was on the riverbank
of the Colombia river. The boy pulled $5,800 from the bank all in $20 Federal Reserve notes.
This was part of the ransom. Many theories were put forward as to how the bills ended
up there. Did they float there, were they buried there? No one really knew.
Some people thought it was Ted Mayfield, a skydiving teacher with a history of criminality
including stealing a plane and armed robbery. Mayfield even called the FBI four hours after
the heist to give them a list of skydivers who might have done it. But there is no cogent
evidence to say Mayfield was D. B. Cooper.
What about Kenneth Christiansen? He was a spitting image for the sketch of Cooper; he
was a former paratrooper and he’d even spent time working as a flight attendant on Northwest
Orient. He was usually broke, but then in 1972 suddenly had bags of cash and bought
a house. It gets better. On his deathbed in 1994 he told his brother, “There is something
you should know, but I cannot tell you.” The brother then discovered that in his bank
he had around $200,000 and he had also been left gold. Meanwhile, Flight attendant Schaffner
said he was a dead ringer for Cooper. The brother wrote in 2004, close to death himself,
“Before I die I would like to find out if my brother was D.B. Cooper. From what I know
I feel that he was and without a doubt.”
We very much doubt it was Barbara Dayton, a trans woman who had once said she did it
to get back at the airline for not being able to get a commercial pilot's license. She changed
her tune anyway when she found out she might actually be charged for the hijacking.
What about William Gossett, an ace parachutist who had survival training? According to an
attorney named called Galen Cook, Gossett had admitted he had done it. Gossett’s son
believes his dad did it, saying he got very rich in 1971 and then went on a gambling spree
in Las Vegas. Still, the evidence is weak.
The there’s Robert Richard Lepsy, whose car was found nearby the airport and who suddenly
decided to take off to Mexico. When his daughter saw the sketch of Cooper, apparently, she
shouted, “That’s dad!” She gave the FBI a DNA sample some years later, but it
seems they didn’t think Lepsy was their man. Still we might wonder if he’s sipping
on Pina Coladas right now basking on an Acapulco beach at the expense of an American insurance
company.
Or could it have been Duane Weber, who told his wife just before he died, “I am Dan
Cooper.” He was seen near to where the kid had found the money and he also looked like
Cooper. Again, the DNA wasn’t a match, but it was also inconclusive as it was with others.
They got the DNA by the way from Cooper’s tie, which he kindly left behind before he
leaped.
Jack Coffelt also claimed he was Cooper, to a cellmate no less. He apparently suffered
broken legs around the time of the hijacking and was also in the right place. Despite his
cellmate swearing it was him, and trying to make a few bucks from TV and movies, no one
really thinks it was Coffelt.
It was just as unlikely to be L.D. Cooper, a war veteran whose niece believed he had
done it. Again, there are some interesting implications but nothing solid.
Former-pilot and war veteran Robert Rackstraw had all the skills to pull off such a job,
and his face looked the part. Rackshaw denied it, his attorney said it was ridiculous, but
many believe it was him and that the FBI wouldn’t release Cooper’s case file under the Freedom
of Information Act because they were embarrassed some amateurs had uncovered the case.
War veteran Walter R. Reca also said he was D. B. Cooper. Before he died in 2014 he gave
details to his friend about the crime that had not been heard before. A fraud examiner
and forensic linguist examined the evidence the friend had, and it seemed it all pointed
to the fact that Reca could have been D. B. Cooper. Is this the most likely candidate?
The Washington Post in 2018 wrote about this, saying while the friend may have had compelling
evidence in regard to how the crime took place and the details the friend knew, the FBI would
not re-open the case if the money or the parachutes were not given to them.
And so, D. B. Cooper could have been one of those people, or someone else. He could have
died in the fall, or there could be a totally different story behind what happened after
that eventful flight on Thanksgiving eve.
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Now we’ll turn this over to you and ask you who you think D. B. Cooper was. Tell us
in the comments. Also, be sure to check out our other video This is how Warren Buffett
Made $85 Billion. Thanks for watching, and as always, please don’t forget to like,
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