Posted on 05/20/2018 10:46:44 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A 47-year-old mystery finally may be resolved. Grand Rapids-based publisher Principia Media announced yesterday it has released a book that allegedly reveals the real identity of D.B. Cooper, the infamous skyjacker who in 1971 demanded a $200,000 ransom on board a flight from Portland, Oregon to Seattles Sea-Tac airport, before jumping 10,000 feet to his escape. The book, D.B. Cooper & Me: A Criminal, A Spy, My Best Friend, is by Carl Laurin, an alleged friend of the skyjacker, and details an investigation into Coopers identity. Laurin claims that Cooper was the late "military paratrooper, daredevil and intelligence operative" Walter R. Reca, Principia Media said. Reca, of Oscoda, Michigan, was born in 1933 and died in 2014, said Julie Hurley, a spokesperson for Principia Media. Principia Media said it has a set of supporting "evidence": the flight path and landing zone; "witness" testimony from an individual Laurin claims spoke with Cooper within an hour of his jump; and documentation of how the $200,000 was spent. Laurin also claims to have three hours of audio recording from 2008 between himself and the skyjacker. The publisher hosted a press conference today at the Amway Grand Plaza in Grand Rapids to discuss the book. The author will be signing copies of the book at 5:30 p.m. today at Schuler Books in Grand Rapids, at 2660 28th St. SE.
(Excerpt) Read more at grbj.com ...
That’s an interesting detail, that the cash was planted well after the fact.
It still seems like a lot where I'm sitting. :^) And would be enough, regardless.
I was a skydiving instructor and jump master at the time DB Cooper did his thing. The USPA made sure all of us saw the drawings and knew to speak up if his face was familiar.
On Facebook there is an old school skydiving thread where all the old timers scoff at the new assertion. DB has gone somewhere in Malaysian Air 370.
Thanks. That’s probably the first time I ever saw a lot of details about it, even though I was a mostly grown kid when the hijacking happened.
Excuse me!!?? The Pacific Northwest. Bigfoot!?
My kids LOVED the following book (we live near Seattle, camping, etc. Bigfoot stories around the campfire...)
“Sasquatch”, a novel written by Roland Smith.
(Mt. Saint Helens, Lava Tube Caves, Bigfoot, D.B. Cooper, etc.)
it is coming to me vaguely there was a recent CoasttoCoastAM that said some of this. Was clear he was carrying on, Cali I think, running things, boat, people talk to him but he evades direct answers etc
That sounds like the Robert Rackstraw idea.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3656836/posts?page=18#18
I can see that happening if your suicide man wore something like a snow mobile suit with an attached hood.
The suit would help hold all of the bones together and might help keep vultures from pulling the body apart.
A synthetic suit would resist rot. The foliage would prevent UV degradation of the synthetic fiber.
The suit would keep the body together for a long time. Eventfully the boots would rot away and foot and leg bones would fall out.
The fact that the fellows gun was still in the tree is interesting. I wonder did he have the gun somehow attached to himself or the tree.
Judge Crater, call your office.
Do many people still care about Hillary Clinton?
I thought they proved D.B. Cooper was Don Draper.
Remarkably, despite the decades that have elapsed, the case has several credible suspects, and the FBI seems less than forthcoming.
If the money was spent, how come none of it ever turned up in circulation?
Is there a scanner in every business where money gets spent? Was there in 1971? You can get the picture I think -- if in a reasonable timeframe after the hijacking and ransom someone opened a large, new account in a US bank, or made a large deposit in an existing acc't, perhaps someone would have started checking the serial numbers. A year or two later, not so much. Also, if the money were spent on everday needs and otherwise kept in the mattress as it were, it would very easily vanish into circulation, which is probably what did happen. This new claim notes that the suspect bought a house -- on land contract with only $600 down -- and a car -- in cash (perhaps from private party?), and used the rest of the money over subsequent years for other immediate needs of that kind.
It's an embarrassment for the FBI, and the colder the case has gotten, and without any newly discovered evidence, there's not much upside to taking it on.
You would be surprised how easy it is for the government to track cash. If the bills had entered circulation, they would have been detected. They would have long since worn out and been removed from circulation. The serial numbers would have been recorded and detected long ago.
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