The mystery behind the identity of notorious skyjacker D.B Cooper has intrigued the world since 1971 when a mysterious man successfully carried out a skyjacking. A new clue involving a modified parachute in possession of the FBI might finally reveal the identity of the evasive D.B Cooper.
For a long time, the children of another notorious skyjacker, Richard McCoy II, believed that their father was the mysterious D.B Cooper.
In fact, a few months after the D.B Cooper incident, McCoy was judged and convicted for another skyjacking that had eerie similarities to the one committed by the infamous figure. For instance, this skyjacking also involved a parachute jump.
Now, McCoy’s children, Chanté and Richard III think the clues have started to add up to confirm their suspicions.
No one really knows who D.B Cooper is, but a lot of people know what he did. On November 24, 1971, a man using this name got on a flight to Portland, which he would eventually leave rather unconventionally.
Whilst holding a briefcase and a paper sack, Cooper gave a note to one of the flight attendants telling her he had a bomb. He opened his briefcase, revealing an explosive device… or something that looked like it, and a list of demands which included, $200,000,(equivalent to approximately $1,500,000 in 2024) various parachutes, and a refueling waiting in Seattle so he could escape to Mexico.
Cooper’s demands were met, which extended the 30-minute flight into a 2-hour one whilst crews prepared for their landing. Once they landed, Cooper released 35 passengers and some crew members.
The remaining crew members were forced to follow a flight path crafted by Cooper himself, with him dictating the path, configuration, speeds, and flight angles. With his demands met, and the flight configuration ready, D.B Cooper and four remaining crew members took off once again.
Whilst on the second flight, Cooper opened the airline’s staircase and parachuted off the plane somewhere above Washington. Immediate searches did not pay off, and the only evidence left by Cooper was a clip-on tie from JCPenney, which is held by the FBI to this day.
This remains the only unsolved hijacking in United States history.
For a long time, both Chanté and Richard III have been in possession of hard evidence that might confirm their father as the mysterious D.B Cooper: A modified parachute. Investigators believed that this was what Cooper used in his notorious escape.
They had not reported to authorities about the existence of this parachute, as they feared their mother, Karen, might have been complicit in both crimes. Since her passing, they have come forward with this piece of supposed hard evidence.
The D.B. Cooper Conspiracy
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A civil investigator on the case by the name of Dan Gryder believes this parachute is “one in a billion.” His series on the case which he has posted on YouTube, is widely credited for drawing the FBI back onto the D.B Cooper case.
Gryder also confirmed that the FBI now has the parachute and the harness that was used for it. The FBI also recovered a skydiving logbook that, according to Chanté shows D.B Cooper’s movements in Oregon and Utah, which are the two states where the crimes were committed.
The recovery of the hard evidence provided by McCoy’s children is the first real movement on the case that had gone cold since the bureau closed it in 2016.
Immediately after receiving the parachute, the agency got in touch with the family and searched their North Carolina property. The operation allegedly involved more than a dozen federal agents.
Crucially, however, the modifications that are noticeable on the parachute may be the key factor for this piece of evidence to shed new light on the historic case.
The FBI knows that the modifications made to D.B Cooper’s parachute were made by a man known as Earl Cossey, who was working with the FBI until his murder in 2013. If these modifications were to match, then it could be a breakthrough in the 50-plus-year case.
