Left: During the hijacking, Cooper was wearing this black J.C. Penney tie, which he removed before jumping; it later provided us with a DNA sample. Right: Some of the stolen $20 bills found by a young boy in 1980.I remember watching a TV docu-drama about D.B. Cooper when I was a kid. I think Treat Williams played D.B. Cooper in the movie. After landing in the wilderness D.B. Cooper (Treat Williams) used several hundred dollar bills to light a cigar in celebration of his escape.
Anyways...this case has always intrigued me. It would be interesting if the feds could solve it once and for all.
Left: During the hijacking, Cooper was wearing this black J.C. Penney tie, which he removed before jumping; it later provided us with a DNA sample. Right: Some of the stolen $20 bills found by a young boy in 1980.Come on! Everyone that was solved years ago. DB Cooper was Newsradio’s Jimmy James. Ha, Ha.
He’s dead. The money was not spent.
ping
I thought they [the fbi] had someone pegged for this years ago, but he died in prison. This guy was former military & had pulled the same crime as this.
I might be wrong, but I don’t think so....
The FBI re-opening a case from 1971 ???? Clearly, they have too much time on their hands....or way too many agents. What a joke !!!! With “open borders”, a rampant “drug trade” and millions of “islamics” trying to kill us anywhere they can, someone in the FBI administration needs a swift kick in the ass wake up call to help identify priorities !!!
It's a shame that they don't have the same tenacity about Vince Foster.
He died that night, either on impact or shortly thereafter. His body is somewhere upstream from where the kid found the money. None of the other money has ever turned up.
Darwin Award stuff, if we knew he hadn't reproduced.
Gary Larson had Cooper landing into a ring of dogs on a rottweiler farm.
Completely buried in some upland bog, where the bills bubbled up from — that’s my theory.
He’s dead. Slug food.
More coverage here:
“FBI Makes New Bid to Find 1971 Skyjacker”
http://breakingnews.nypost.com/dynamic/stories/L/LOOKING_FOR_COOPER?SITE=NYNYP&SECTION=HOME
I recently saw the Discovery Channel show that claimed it was Duane Weber and it was very convincing.
I’m questioning how they got a DNA sample out of a tie and how they could say with any certainty that it was Cooper’s. Assuming he didn’t bleed on the tie, I would guess they found a hair sample on the tie but, again, how can they be sure it was Cooper’s hair and how many hands could the tie have passed through before someone thought to preserve it as evidence? After all, by 1971 standards, the evidence one could have gleaned from it would be negligible.
Weber claimed to tell his wife on his deathbed in 1995 that he was “Dan Cooper”, not the publicized “D.B. Cooper” that the media called him. The wife had no idea who he was talking about and only found out after telling family members who then started researching. “Dan Cooper” would be a fitting alias for a “Duane Weber”, given the cadence of the name and the relative sound-alike quality.
Far from being a bungler, Cooper had to be aware that the plane he was on was one of the few commercial planes that allowed him to jump from the rear, rather than side exits. In addition, his note instructed the crew what speed and altitude they should travel at. Flying too high or too fast would have severely hampered his escape.
Weber also had an Air Force background as well as a criminal past in Washington state, two things that would have fit the profile. His photos around that time look like Cooper’s sketch although I felt the nose on Weber was more prominent.
The Discovery Channel used computer analysis of the Cooper sketch with photos of various could-have-beens and found Weber’s face matched the Cooper sketch most closely.
Weber said he buried the money after landing and planned to return for it a few years later but that he couldn’t remember where the burial site was and that the later explosion of Mt. St. Helen’s so altered the landscape that he decided the money could never be found.
FWIW, the Treasury Department claims that no money with serial numbers matching the ones Cooper left with have ever been recovered except for the $6000 or so found down river by kids in 1980.
“He also missed that his reserve chute was only for training and had been sewn shut....”
You can tell this happened a long time ago. With all the lawyers we have now they would have a warning label on that today. His relatives should come forward and sue the airlines. They’d probably get a lot more than $200,000.
(OK, it is only Burt Reynolds playing D.B. Cooper in the movie "Without A Paddle.")
Maybe John Edwards can channel him.
How fast do you estimate the plane was flying at the time he bailed out?
He may be running for president in the Iowa primary...everyone else is.