D.B. Cooper: 40 years later - November 24th, 2011, marks the 40th anniversary of the legendary case

Yahoo! News ^ | November 24, 2011 | Yahoo! News

[DogByte6RER]

D.B. Cooper: 40 years later

November 24th, 2011, marks the 40th anniversary of the legendary Cooper case, an unsolved crime that has baffled agents, detectives and amateur sleuths, and spurned one of the greatest manhunts in law enforcement history.

The FBI’s case file on D.B. Cooper runs some forty feet long. It is located in the basement archives of the Bureau’s field office in Seattle, where for four decades agents have hunted for the man who ransomed a passenger jet for a small fortune and parachutes, then jumped out the back over the rural Northwest, during the middle of a storm, never to be seen again.

This Thanksgiving, November 24th, 2011, marks the 40th anniversary of the legendary Cooper case, an unsolved crime that has baffled agents, detectives and amateur sleuths, and spurned one of the greatest manhunts in law enforcement history.

Geoffrey Gray, author of The New York Times bestseller SKYJACK: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper, was the first reporter to gain access to the FBI’s Cooper files. In addition to hundreds of documents, he was able to get his hands on the Bureau’s photos, some seen here for the first time.

This image: A 1971 artist's sketch released by the FBI shows the skyjacker known as 'Dan Cooper' and 'D.B. Cooper', was made from the recollections of passengers and crew of a Northwest Orient Airlines jet he hijacked between Portland and Seattle, Nov. 24, 1971, Thanksgiving eve. FBI spokeswoman Ayn Sandalo Dietrich tells The Seattle Times that a law enforcement member directed investigators to a person who might have helpful information on Cooper.

[DogByte6RER]

[elkfersupper]

I would like to think that D. B. Cooper is alive and well

[Jonty30]

The odds are against him being alive.

He’d be at least 80 by now and possibly 100 years, if he were alive.

[Lazlo in PA]

I think I saw something on TV about how people are pretty certain that they know who DB was and that he lived well after the heist.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/126662723.html

[HiTech RedNeck]

Or maybe some elk had HIM fer supper.

[Jim Scott]

D.B. Cooper remains a fascinating case. Partly because of the audacity of the crime but mostly because he was never caught, making it appear as if he got away with it. We'll probably never know. I always suspected that 'D.B. Cooper' was killed in the jump and his body never found but of course, one could just as easily conclude that no body means that he escaped, albeit losing a good portion of the stolen money, which was found. Whatever the truth, if he actually survived, 'D.B. Cooper' would probably be dead of natural causes or a very old man now. We'll get more books and articles and tons more speculation and alleged 'revelations' about the guy but as far as I can see, like Jimmy Hoffa who disappeared in 1975 and Judge Crater, who disappeared back in in 1930, the actual fate of the man forever known as 'D.B. Cooper' will probably never be learned - and that's O.K. with me. We need a little mystery in life.

[Jim Scott]

D.B. Cooper remains a fascinating case. Partly because of the audacity of the crime but mostly because he was never caught, making it appear as if he got away with it. We'll probably never know. I always suspected that 'D.B. Cooper' was killed in the jump and his body never found but of course, one could just as easily conclude that no body means that he escaped, albeit losing a good portion of the stolen money, which was found. Whatever the truth, if he actually survived, 'D.B. Cooper' would probably be dead of natural causes or a very old man now. We'll get more books and articles and tons more speculation and alleged 'revelations' about the guy but as far as I can see, like Jimmy Hoffa who disappeared in 1975 and Judge Crater, who disappeared back in in 1930, the actual fate of the man forever known as 'D.B. Cooper' will probably never be learned - and that's O.K. with me. We need a little mystery in life.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Fred Astaire hijacked a plane ?

[ElkGroveDan]

Or maybe some elk had HIM fer supper.

What could we do? He wore out his welcome here in the Grove.

[Joe 6-pack]

I never realized how really ballsy Cooper was 'til I read the full description. Brown shoes with a black suit?!?!?! Wow...I'd never try something that crazy!!!

[Sacajaweau]

Bet 1000 dudes knew where Hoffa got dumped.

[elkfersupper]

The elk be vegetarians. If they ate him for supper, he would have to be 2nd or 3rd generation worm food.

[elkfersupper]

A sort-of normal guy who just twisted off one day.

Get ready for more of that.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Some woman who thinks he was an uncle, that said something at a family dinner about their money worries being over assuming they could “go back and get” it, when she was eight. (Some of the money was found loose on a river bank by a boy in the area in 1980.) I’d assume the woman would have heard about it had the uncle actually succeed in retrieving the stash, so sounds like he did not. Sounds like it went in a river. Money paper is actually cloth and it might survive for decades in the water.

[Jeff Chandler]

.

.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Oh deer.

[Cold Heart]

Brad Meltzer’s Decoded, History Channel, had a good investigation on ole DB. Pretty much sure they found him. The guy was Northwest employee and former paratrooper. Survived & led a nice life after his jump.

Kenneth Christiansen.

[Scoutmaster]

I would like to think that D. B. Cooper is alive and well

In 2007, the FBI announced that one of the two parachutes obtained from the Seattle skydiving school was a dummy 'chute. A classroom 'chute that was nonfunctioning and had an inoperable ripcord. The FBI said that the dummy parachute was procured in haste and provided as one of the two as an 'accident' (heh, heh). Cooper cannibalized the working chute and probably used the shrounds to secure the money bag to his body.

If this is true, Cooper didn't survive the plunge from the airliner without a parachute.

It does make you wonder why the FBI looked for him, or his body, for so long without announcing that they were looking for splatter marks.

[Revolting cat!]

I'm D.B. Cooper!

[Wage Slave]

It’s worse than that. His actions spurned a manhunt. That’s gotta be worse than spurring one.