Skyjacker D.B. Cooper's Identity Eludes FBI

The identity of infamous skyjacker D.B. Cooper has eluded the FBI since he jumped from the back of a Boeing 727 with 200,000 dollars somewhere over Woodland, Washington on the night of November 24, 1971.

Ever since that night over 200 suspects have been investigated but none has ever been confirmed as the skyjacker by the FBI.

The identity of infamous skyjacker D.B. Cooper has eluded the FBI since he jumped from the back of a Boeing 727 with 200,000 dollars somewhere over Woodland, Washington on the night of November 24, 1971.

The FBI has publicly stated that they do not believe the skyjacker survived the jump, a case code-named "Norjak," which remains officially unsolved though the FBI may have fingerprints from the elusive skyjacker. In 2001, the FBI obtained DNA of the skyjacker from a clip-on tie he left on the plane. In March of 2008, a parachute was found near Amboy, Washington. The man who packed Cooper's parachute for the FBI examined the parachute found and denied it was the same parachute he had packed.

Special Agent Carr of the FBI has been quoted as saying that "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. 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."

Additional evidence concerning the identity of Cooper and his motives has been scant. In February 1980, eight-year-old Brian Ingram found $5,880 in decaying $20 bills on the banks of the Columbia River that have been directly linked to the ransom money given Cooper by the FBI. The finding of this money has fueled thought that the skyjacker did not survive the jump. The three stacks of bills were found on top of each other as if deliberately stacked. Rubber bands were still in place questioning the theory that the stacks of money floated down the river.

In a November 2009 radio broadcast on Coast to Coast AM, Galen Cook said he was performing tests on the money to determine when it may have settled or buried on the banks of the river.

Cook, who sued the FBI in 2004 for files to the Cooper case, stated in the same broadcast that he is working on a paper trail that might link Gossett and the hijacked money to Northwest American/Canadian banks. Voice recordings of Gossett were played on the air and listeners had the opportunity to hear the demeanor of the latest suspect, though the subject matter of the recordings were unrelated to the case.

Adding to an already deep mystery, Cook showed pictures of Gossett to one of the flight attendants (Florence Shafner) who saw the Cooper hijacker at close range. She told Cook that Gossett looked like the hijacker and related that she believed the hijacker was wearing makeup to darken his skin. Cook is actively trying to find another flight attendant, Tina Mucklow, who spent the most time with Cooper. He wants to show her pictures of Gossett and has asked the public to help him find her.

In March 2009, a new investigation was launched with the FBI in trying to determine the significance of "bits of metal found on physical evidence," as reported by metallurgist Alan Stone.

Suspect William P. Gossett

Galen Cook, an attorney who has spent years investigating the case, announced his suspicions concerning a suspect named in May of 2008: William Pratt Gossett, who died in September of 2003. Cook has interviewed family members of the suspect and released video and photographs concerning the suspect.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/796139/db_cooper_suspect_named_william_pratt.html?cat=49

Cook has interviewed family members of Gossett. The suspect's three sons and his wife have provided Cook access to photographs and film of the suspect along with intriguing information about the suspect's past. The suspect allegedly told one of the sons that he had pulled off the Cooper case. The age of the suspect and photographs match descriptions of Cooper from eyewitnesses on the jet. Additionally, the suspect had a military background, paratrooping experience, files on the case in his house, and a possible motive to conduct the crime: gambling debts. Whether the suspect's DNA and fingerprints match any evidence the FBI has remains to be seen.

One of the suspect's son, Greg Gossett, spoke on the radio show Coast to Coast in May of 2008 about his belief that his father was D.B. Cooper. The son said his father admitted to all three sons, at different times, that he was the elusive skyjacker. The suspect had kept voluminous records of the crime and it was the son's belief that his father had perpetrated the crime for the money and thrill of the crime describing him as an "adrenaline junkie." The son said his father had more money than usual the Christmas after the skyjacking and kept some of it in a Canadian safe deposit box but wasted most of it on gambling in Las Vegas casinos. The suspect, who had been ex-communicated from the Mormon Church for unknown reasons, retired from the military in 1973 and became a priest that served in Utah in the 1980's.

Galen Cook, piecing together evidence from various sources, said that the suspect took flights from Utah to San Francisco and to Portland where he began the skyjacking operation. After taking on parachutes and money in Seattle, he successfully parachuted from the jet, landed on the Oregon side of the Columbia River and made his way out of the wilderness to Portland where he flew out of the airport once again back to Utah. It is theorized that at some time he planted the money found on the Columbia River so that searchers would believe he had landed in Washington, where most of the searching had taken place.

Cook said he is waiting for a response from the FBI concerning evidence he has provided them concerning the suspect. Additionally, he is trying to get a response from flight attendants that got the best look of Cooper. He has sent them various pictures of the suspect.

Gossett was married four times but according to Cook was known to be a loner. Cook told the Standard Examiner in November of 2009 that he is negotiating with a British Columbia bank to gain access to a security box thought to be Gossett's, which may contain ransom money.

On Jan. 1, 2011, Galen Cook told Coast to Coast radio host Ian Punnett that four letters delivered to newspapers days after the skyjacking have connections to suspect Gossett.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/6174770/1971_db_cooper_letters_linked_to_suspect.html?cat=37

Galen Cook was told by the FBI in June of 2011 that they think the case is "unsolvable." This might have a lot to do with the limited evidence the FBI was able to accumulate from the skyjacked plane. Cook believes that the only reliable evidence might be the fingerprints on a magazine that the skyjacker touched during the flight. Curiously, Cook's prime suspect, William P. Gossett has been investigated by the FBI for years and no definitive elimination has been established for him by the FBI. Cook is investigating numerous aspects of the case and is working with the Canadian banking system in trying to locate a safety deposit box owned by Gossett, which could contain part of the skyjacker's ransom money. Cook has expressed his interest in providing information on this aspect of the case by the end of 2011.

Suspect Lynn Doyle Cooper

August 3, 2011, Marla Cooper told ABC News that her uncle, Lynn Doyle Cooper, is the new suspect in the 1971 D.B. Cooper skyjacking case. Marla Cooper is a resident of Oklahoma City and told reporters that she took a polygraph test given by the FBI.

Marla Cooper was eight-years-old when the skyjacking occurred. She claims that two of her uncles were conspirators in the case, and one uncle known to the family as "L.D.," was the man who jumped from the plane.

On August 5, 2011, Marla Cooper said that "the DNA that they were able to extract" from L.D.'s daughter, "did not match the the partial sample of DNA that they have in their files." However, the question of the reliability of the DNA that the FBI procured from a tie and tie clip left on the plane, is and has been in question for years.

FBI agent Fred Gutt admits that the sample "is not very good" and in fact may not be the skyjackers at all.

Marla Cooper created a national stir about the case when she told ABC and CNN News that before Thanksgiving of 1971, "My two uncles, who I only saw at holiday time, were planning something very mischievous." She witnessed them before the skyjacking working with "expensive walkie talkies" and planning a hunting trip.

Ms. Cooper says she remembers that her two uncles showed up to a family house in Sisters, Oregon on Thanksgiving, the day after the skyjacking. L.D. was bloodied and injured claiming he was in an accident. "My uncle L. D. was wearing a white T-shirt, and he was bloody and bruised and a mess, and I was horrified. I began to cry," she said.

"I heard my uncle Dewy say, 'We did it. Our money problems are over. We just have to go back and get the money. L.D. hijacked an airplane,' " Marla said.

Her uncles tried to convince Marla's father into joining them to hunt for the money, which her father refused to do. Her father was angry and screamed at his brothers claiming they had ruined their lives. Marla's father and the two brothers are deceased.

Questions remain legion in the case against L.D. Cooper as the legendary skyjacker. Did he have enough paratrooping experience to make a successful landing? How were the brothers able to link up after such a difficult night time jump? How were they able to return to Sisters, Oregon the next day when the recognized jump zone was approximately 150 miles northwest of Sisters as the crow flies? Did the Cooper brothers ever recover any of the money? How did the entire Cooper family stay silent for so long on such a famous incident in American crime? Of the $5,800 dollars found on the banks of the Columbia River at Tina Bar in 1980, where is the rest of the $200,000 in twenty dollar bills? None of the ransom money has ever been reported in circulation and no other trace of the skyjacker or any other ransom money has ever been found on the ground.

Marla Cooper has stated that she believed L. D. Cooper did not have paratrooping experience. He had an interest in the comic book Dan Cooper, which he kept a copy tacked to a wall. "Dan Cooper" is the name the skyjacker used when purchasing a twenty-dollar, one-way ticket from Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington on November, 24, 1971. She produced a color photo of L.D. Cooper for ABC News, which she says was taken in 1972. Though the photo is not of great quality, the resemblance of L.D. to the FBI sketches of D.B. Cooper is similar. She did not see L.D. after 1972.

L.D. Cooper lived in the northwest part of the United States and was a recluse after the skyjacking. He had been employed as an engineering surveyor, and Dewy was employed at one time at Boeing. The men's occupations has led to speculation that Lynn was able to scout areas in Oregon in which he could land, and Dewy's work at Boeing would have provided knowledge concerning the jet's unique aft staircase used by the skyjacker to exit the plane.

L.D. Cooper died on April 30, 1999 and is buried in Bend, Oregon. He served in the Korean War with the U.S. Navy. Born in 1931, L.D. Cooper would have been forty-years old at the time of the hijacking.

Questions

Nagging questions remain concerning this bizarre case:

How could a man survive the jump from a passenger jet wearing nothing more than street clothes (he supposedly wore loafers and a knee length raincoat)?

If the skyjacker didn't survive the jump where is the parachute and body?

If the skyjacker survived the jump, and if the money's serial numbers were documented, why hasn't any of the money turned up in circulation?

What is the significance of the 1980 finding of three stacks of Cooper's money, stacked on top of each other, buried on the Columbia River with two of the three rubber bands still in place? Private investigators are trying to determine if the money floated from one of the streams into the Columbia or if the money was deliberately planted on the bank of the river.

What can modern science tell us about the tie that Cooper used and left on the plane. Is there DNA, pollen, or other substances left on the tie that can be crucial clues in determining the person who wore it?

Does the FBI really have any substantial evidence that can aid in eliminating Gossett and Cooper as suspects?

Sources

Standard Examiner: http://www.standard.net/topics/crime/2009/11/24/38-years-later-db-cooper-remains-mystery

A list of the usual and unusual suspects in the Cooper case:

http://n467us.com/I%20Am%20D%20B%20Cooper.html

Schwebke, Scott. "D.B. Cooper mystery -- Did witness see hijacker's parachute?" Standard-Examiner, May 22, 2010.

1971 D.B. Cooper Letters Linked to Suspect William Gossett
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/6174770/1971_db_cooper_letters_linked_to_suspect.html?cat=37

FBI Web site:

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/dec07/dbcooper123107.html
Link to an 8 mm silent film of suspect:

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2008/03/29.html

Comparison photos of D.B. Cooper sketches and Galen Cook's suspect:

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2008/03/29.html

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/gen/page2377.html?theme=light

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/gen/page2577.html?theme=light

Pertinent video material on Cooper case:

http://www.truveo.com/search.php?query=d.b.cooper+sort%3AmostRelevant

Additional information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper