INFAMOUS: D.B. Cooper

Summary

Clues Podcast Summary: Episode "INFAMOUS: D.B. Cooper"

Hosted by Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore | Crime House Original | Released May 14, 2025

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I. Introduction to the D.B. Cooper Case

In this gripping episode of Clues, hosts Morgan Absher and Kayla Moore delve into one of America's most enduring mysteries: the infamous hijacking by D.B. Cooper. Set against the backdrop of the early 1970s—a time when airplane security was virtually nonexistent—the episode unpacks the intricate details of Cooper's daring escape with $200,000 in ransom money.

Morgan Absher sets the stage at [02:01], stating:

"In 1971, a man in a suit boarded a flight, handed the stewardess a note, and by the end of the night, he vanished with $200,000 in cash. No body, no parachute, absolutely no trace."

II. The Hijacking Details

The hijacking took place on November 24, 1971, aboard Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 from Portland to Seattle. Cooper, using the name "Dan Cooper," meticulously planned his heist, ensuring minimal traceability.

Kayla Moore describes Cooper's appearance and initial actions:

"He was wearing a business suit with a white shirt and a skinny black clip-on tie... He also carried a bag that was described as looking like a briefcase."

Key moments include Cooper handing a note to Flight Attendant Florence Schaffner at [12:30], revealing his bomb threat:

"Miss, I have a bomb in my briefcase. I want you to sit next to me."

Demonstrating strategic foresight, Cooper demanded four parachutes and $200,000 in $20 bills, ensuring the authorities could not supply dummy parachutes that would end his plan disastrously.

III. Examination of Clues

As the crew prepared to meet Cooper's demands, several clues emerged:

• Parachute Selection: Cooper left behind a dummy parachute marked with a big "X" and selected a military-grade parachute himself, indicating his familiarity with parachuting equipment ([34:55]).

• Tactical Behavior: Despite the high-stress situation, Cooper remained composed, even taking precautionary measures such as collecting matchbooks to eliminate physical evidence ([16:03]).

Notably, Cooper's precise knowledge of the Boeing 727's aft airstair system ([24:10]) and his ability to communicate specific flight adjustments highlighted his expertise and possible aviation background.

IV. Possible Suspects and Theories

The mystery deepened with numerous suspects and theories:

• Richard Floyd McCoy: A Vietnam veteran and former paratrooper who hijacked a similar Boeing 727 in 1972. Although similarities exist, discrepancies in age and alibis led the FBI to consider him a likely copycat rather than Cooper himself ([49:19]).

• Deathbed Confessions: Several individuals, including Walter Reka and Dwayne, came forward claiming to be Cooper on their deathbeds. However, inconsistencies in their stories and physical descriptions cast doubt on their claims ([58:46]).

• Kenneth Christensen: A former Northwest Orient Airlines flight attendant and paratrooper who surfaced as a suspect due to his background. Despite initial suspicions, he was eventually ruled out by the FBI ([57:25]).

V. Subsequent Developments and Modern Analysis

Decades later, the case remains unsolved, but modern technology has offered new avenues for investigation:

• DNA Analysis: Recent efforts to extract and analyze DNA from Cooper's discarded tie have introduced potential leads, though confirmations remain pending ([59:26]).

• Recovered Money: In 1980, an eight-year-old discovered stacks of rotting $20 bills near the Columbia River, some of which matched the ransom money's serial numbers. This finding reignited interest but ultimately led to dead ends due to environmental factors and possible misplacement ([53:56]).

• New Evidence: In March 2025, amateur sleuths made strides by identifying elemental compositions on Cooper's tie that could link him to specific metal supply chains within the aerospace industry. While promising, conclusive evidence is still elusive ([60:50]).

VI. Discussion and Conclusion

In their concluding discussions, Morgan and Kayla weigh the likelihood of Cooper's survival versus his demise during the jump:

Morgan Absher posits:

"I don't think he died. I think there's a solid chance DB made it out and rode into the sunset and took that money somewhere else that didn't get put back in circulation."

Conversely, Kayla Moore reflects on the plausibility of Cooper losing his life on the jump:

"He would splat. So I covered a case where... She survived a 10,000-foot fall out of an airplane, but without a parachute."

Ultimately, the hosts express skepticism towards major suspects like McCoy and maintain that Cooper remains an enigmatic figure, possibly still alive and eluding capture. They encourage listeners to engage with their theories and continue the collective pursuit of uncovering the truth behind D.B. Cooper's legendary escape.

Kayla Moore invites listener participation:

"So I have to ask you, what do you think happened? Who do you think did it?"

Morgan Absher adds:

"We want to know what suspect do you think is the most likely? I want to know how you think it happened, what they're doing today, what their phone number is so we can talk to them."

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For more detailed discussions and intriguing true crime cases, tune into the next episode of Clues on YouTube or your preferred podcast platform.

Transcript

[Morgan Abshur]

Foreign. This is Crime House.

[Kayla Moore]

I have a bomb in my briefcase. I want you to sit next to.

[Morgan Abshur]

Me asking for four parachutes. Pretty strategic for our guy Dan. Here it is kind of giving insider info. It's. It's giving. He was very man with a plan. I picked this plane for this reason.

[Kayla Moore]

Or he was a pilot himself. One of the slickest guys cats to ever walk the face of the earth. Hello. Welcome to Clues, where we sneak past the crime scene tape and explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases.

[Morgan Abshur]

And these aren't just ordinary cases. They're complex puzzles where forensic science, investigative techniques and. And sheer grit collide in order to uncover the truth and deliver justice.

[Kayla Moore]

I'm Kayla Moore, and I'll be piecing together the timelines and bringing the history to break down the hard facts of these cases.

[Morgan Abshur]

And I'm your Internet sleuth, Morgan Abshur. I'll be diving into the theories and pulling out the threads that just don't add up. Each week on Clues, we'll explore how the smallest pieces of evidence, like a microscopic fiber, a partial fingerprint, or even a single strand of hair, could lead to groundbreaking discoveries and may even bring long awaited justice. These clues shine a light on stories that have been waiting, sometimes for decades, to finally be heard. So join us as we uncover the breakthroughs, the heartbreak, and the relentless pursuit of answers behind these unforgettable investigations.

[Kayla Moore]

And here at Crime House, we value your support. So please share your thoughts on social media. Please do it. We read all of them at. And remember to rate, review and follow clues to help others discover the show. And for bonus episodes, early access and ad free listening, join our Crime House plus community on Apple Podcasts.

[Morgan Abshur]

In 1971, a man in a suit boarded a flight, handed the stewardess a note, and by the end of the night, he vanished with $200,000 in cash. No body, no parachute, absolutely no trace.

[Kayla Moore]

Today we're talking about DB Cooper, America's most stylish thief and. And its biggest unsolved mystery. Was he a criminal mastermind or was he just incredibly lucky? We'll break down the clues that have baffled the FBI for over 50 years. Right after a quick break.

[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

I thought rosacea girl, I feel you.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, same. So I like to always have a little bit of something on my skin. The Great Skin Serum leaves my skin refreshed and glowy and a little less red. And then I'll use a little bit of the minimalist, which is their foundation and concealer in one. Just use that on some of my red spots and I feel like it's my skin, but better. I love it.

[Morgan Abshur]

Merit has become my one stop shop. From the foundation to the bronzer balm to the lip gloss that adds a shine but doesn't leave you sticky. And I love that their products are clean, vegan and cruelty free.

[Kayla Moore]

So.

[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

Dsw.Com kind of hard to read with these bad boys on. But before we get into today's episode, anything new? What's going on in your world?

[Kayla Moore]

Have you watched Bad Influence on Netflix yet?

[Morgan Abshur]

No, it's good.

[Kayla Moore]

It's hard to say. It's good. It's very interesting. It's a. It's like the number one documentary on Netflix right now. It's essentially a high pack house for children that was operating in la and it was run by this oh, my God woman, Tiffany. She has this daughter, Piper, who is like a social media star. But. Yeah, so. So Tiffany was, like, managing all these other child influencers. The documentary interviews a lot of those kids. And it's really dark. It's just really dark. Like, the amount of work they had to do. She was putting them in uncomfortable situations. And, like, the whole thing is really shining a light on, like, how there's no rules surrounding child influencers. But it's an interesting watch if you have time.

[Morgan Abshur]

There's a lot of conspiracy theory cases about some of these influencer cults. Houses essentially, like, really dance one. Like, her family. There's a dancer and her family has come forward and been like, she won't talk to us. They married her off. She's dancing and tick tock famous, but she won't talk to us. Yeah, there's a couple interesting stories.

[Kayla Moore]

I mean, it's kind of ripe for cults, right, because there's so much money to be made. There's usually someone at the top telling everyone what to do. And then it just. Yeah, there's so much bad behavior that happens. But this one especially, I mean, everyone involved was, like, 11 years old at the time, so it's really heartbreaking. It's really interesting, though.

[Morgan Abshur]

I'll add it to my list.

[Kayla Moore]

Add it to your list?

[Morgan Abshur]

I'll add it to my list.

[Kayla Moore]

It's fast. It's like three episodes. They're like 45 minutes.

[Morgan Abshur]

Netflix does a good documentary.

[Kayla Moore]

They do, yeah. Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

I just read a book for the first time. I read the new Hunger Games book.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, what'd you think?

[Morgan Abshur]

First time in ages that I've read. I know how to read. That sounded weird, guys, but I do know how to read.

[Kayla Moore]

Morgan did learn how to read, but.

[Morgan Abshur]

It was really good. Really good. It set up Haymitch's backstory in a really cool way. So interesting.

[Kayla Moore]

Are they gonna do a movie off.

[Morgan Abshur]

That they're already, like, casting?

[Kayla Moore]

Wow.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

Okay. Yeah, I'll have to check that out.

[Morgan Abshur]

I haven't. Oh, my God.

[Kayla Moore]

Games in like 10 years.

[Morgan Abshur]

I don't think I've read it since high school. But I, yeah, walked by a little, you know, bookstore and I'm like, okay, I need a book for my flight.

[Kayla Moore]

So do you finish it on the flight?

[Morgan Abshur]

I finished it within 24 hours.

[Kayla Moore]

Nice.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. But should we get into today's case?

[Kayla Moore]

Let's do it.

[Morgan Abshur]

So we are opening up the case file for the infamous DB Cooper. And just a quick reminder, there's going to be some pictures for those watching on YouTube. It'll help visualize all the elements of this case. But if you're listening, you are not going to be left out. The same photos are on our social media Luz podcast on Instagram. So a little bit of background about this case first. It took place in 1971. So this was at the start of the air travel boom. And very pre 911 there was no airport security. You could walk up to a gate, kiss your loved one goodbye. Full access, basically.

[Kayla Moore]

I sort of remember that a little bit.

[Morgan Abshur]

I do too. The tail end of like walking my dad to his plan plane. And yep, people didn't even have to buy their plane tickets ahead of time. Imagine that. You could just literally walk into the airport, pay with cash, board a plane. No identification verification.

[Kayla Moore]

Wow.

[Morgan Abshur]

I know.

[Kayla Moore]

Truly different era. And also one thing that was interesting reading about this era was there was actually a lot of like airplane hijackings at the time.

[Morgan Abshur]

So many.

[Kayla Moore]

A shocking amount. The CIA was getting about one report every single month from 1968 to 1972. It said that 137 planes were hijacked in the US alone today. That's so unheard of. But back in the day they had a whole protocol on what to do if your plane got hijacked.

[Morgan Abshur]

It's so crazy to think about because that's not a modern day fear. Like my biggest fear flying is turbulence.

[Kayla Moore]

And oh no, I'm afraid of like absolutely everything when flying. So it is something I think about when I'm in a plane which this story we're gonna get real deep in my airplane fears.

[Morgan Abshur]

I have really big airplane fears, really big airplane fears. I also, when I fall asleep on plan, I have nightmares on the plane that the plane is gonna go down.

[Kayla Moore]

Me too. I wake up with the plane crashing. It's horrible.

[Morgan Abshur]

My just flew last weekend. Wing snapped straight down.

[Kayla Moore]

Wow.

[Morgan Abshur]

Not, not a good dream.

[Kayla Moore]

It's brutal.

[Morgan Abshur]

Let's talk about this hijacking and not as much about my nightmares. So on Wednesday, November 24, 1971, which is the day Before Thanksgiving and even back then it was one of the busiest travel days of the year. At around 2.25pm a man approached the counter of Northwest Orient Airlines at the Port Portland International Airport. When he filled out the ticket voucher, he signed the name Dan Cooper in block letters. Why block letters? Can't get a handwriting sample off it. He appeared to be in his mid-40s. He was wearing a business suit with a white shirt and a skinny black clip on tie from JCPenney's which was said to be fastened in place with an imitation pearl tie pin. The suit was dark burgundy brown and he had on a pair of dark loafers. He also had an overcoat on and carried a bag that was described as looking like a briefcase of sorts. He was said to have an olive complexion and fancy Marcel waves in his hair. I read a quote that said other than the fact he was wearing horn rimmed sunglasses aboard the flight, there was nothing remarkable about this man. So I'm guessing no one was able to gather what color his eyes were.

[Kayla Moore]

Interesting. So when Cooper went to purchase his ticket, he, he actually asked the ticket seller if the plane was a Boeing 727. And the seller said yes, it is. But for some reason the seller didn't really think too much about it. He didn't think that was like a weird question to ask.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, I mean I'm asking myself nowadays, is that a certain type of plane? And I'm honestly picking my flights based on it.

[Kayla Moore]

Absolutely. I have the filters on as well.

[Morgan Abshur]

Look at you.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, I don't mess around when it comes to flying. So Cooper paid $20 cash for a one way ticket on Flight 305 which was only supposed to be about 40 minutes long. I don't know if you've ever that flight, super fast, it's quick. Around 3pm he boarded the flight and he took his aisle seat near the back of the plane. And there in total were five crew members aboard this flight. There was the pilot, Captain William Scott. There was the co pilot, Robert Radazak. There was the senior flight attendant, Alice Hancock. And two flight attendants, Tina Mucklow and Florence Schaffner. When he sat down, Cooper ordered a bourbon and soda. And then he started chain smoking cigarettes.

[Morgan Abshur]

Tell me this case took place in the 70s without telling me. It took place in the 70s.

[Kayla Moore]

Different time.

[Morgan Abshur]

Smoking on airplanes.

[Kayla Moore]

Smoking a lot on airplanes. So at around 305the plane took off and a few minutes later, once they get into the air, Cooper hands a note to the flight attendant, 23 year old Florence Schaffner, she took it, but at first she didn't read it. She actually kind of like, folds it up and puts it in her pocket. Cooper ends up turning around to her and saying that she should read the note. And she unfolds it, and it says, miss, I have a bomb in my briefcase. I want you to sit next to me. And for a little bit of context to help that make a little more sense, flight attendants were, like, very sexualized at the time. Even TV ads for airlines openly objectified them. So I'm sure Florence was used to being hit on all the time. It probably wasn't even the first note that a man slipped her that day. Day.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, I just went to the TWA hotel. That's at JFK now. It used to be, like, an old terminal.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

And you can actually see all these uniforms and, like, learn the history of, like, being a stewardess and all this stuff.

[Kayla Moore]

Wow.

[Morgan Abshur]

And they had age caps on flight attendants. Like, up until the late 60s, early 70s, the age cap was, like, 35. They wanted them young and hot. And then I think it was like, 71 when they finally started letting men be flight attendants. Before that, it was just women.

[Kayla Moore]

Just women?

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. So they would do weight checks and appearance check ins, and, like, they really.

[Kayla Moore]

Wanted a type, and, like, height was a thing.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

You had to be unmarried.

[Morgan Abshur]

There was a lot that married. They wanted them attractive. And almost setting them up for being pestered.

[Kayla Moore]

Yes, exactly. So Cooper turns around, tells her to read the note. She does. And then she goes over and she sits by him, and he opens his briefcase for her. And Florence, in that briefcase, she sees that there's a ton of wires and there's this big battery with a bunch of dynamite sticks wrapped around it. And Cooper told her that all he had to do was attach a wire to a little gadget that was fixed to the battery, and everyone on the plane would be dead. And he demanded that she write down what he told her. He said he wanted four parachutes, $200,000 in $20 bills. Quote, I want $200,000 by 5pm in cash. Put it in a knapsack. I want two back parachutes and two front parachutes. When we land, I want the fuel truck ready to refuel. No funny stuff, or I'll do the job. End quote. So with really no other option, Florence wrote all that down. And then Cooper told her to give that note to the pilot. He wanted the items delivered upon landing at Seattle Tacoma International Airport SE and he wanted everything gathered ahead of time. So that he was not going to have to wait on the tarmac at SeaTac.

[Morgan Abshur]

I do have to say, asking for four parachutes, pretty strategic for our guy Dan here, because if he had asked for just one, they could have given him a dummy parachute. He could have instantly plummeted to his death.

[Kayla Moore]

Right.

[Morgan Abshur]

But by asking for multiple parachutes, it kind of made people think he was going to take hostages. And obviously, they weren't going to let innocent people get caught in the crosshairs here. So they made sure they were giving him the real deal.

[Kayla Moore]

Absolutely. And so Florence goes, and she takes that note to the pilot. And when she comes back, Cooper asks her to give him the note back, which is important to remember. And, of course, she does exactly what he says.

[Morgan Abshur]

So this would have been a clue, but. Nope, gone.

[Kayla Moore]

Exactly. He was being very mindful of the trace he was leaving behind on this plane. And so while all of this was going on, Cooper actually has another flight attendant, Tina Mucklow, come and sit next to him. And according to Tina, Cooper noted that they were flying over what looked like Tacoma at the time.

[Morgan Abshur]

And this is kind of a mini clue here, because that detail did have investigators speculating that Cooper was familiar with the area.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, absolutely. And while all this was going on, he seemed really composed. He was just smoking cigarettes and keeping to himself for the most part. And so Tina asked Cooper if he had a grudge against Northwest Orient. She's trying to figure out why he's doing this.

[Morgan Abshur]

What's the motive here?

[Kayla Moore]

And Cooper said, quote, I don't have a grudge against your airline, Miss. I just have a grudge. End quote. And unfortunately, Tina was very scared at the time, but that was a very cool thing to say.

[Morgan Abshur]

I mean, it's very blase. Cool guy.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

Suave, as some may say.

[Kayla Moore]

Exactly. While he's doing all this, he's keeping one hand inside of the briefcase at all time. So Tina was lighting his cigarettes for him as he was smoking, but as she was doing that, Cooper's making sure to take all the matchbooks so that there's nothing left behind.

[Morgan Abshur]

Again, taking back so much potential evidence, which, to have that foresight in the 70s, like, DNA wasn't a thing yet. Like, he was pretty good.

[Kayla Moore]

Absolutely. And at this point, the authorities get alerted. The pilots had called SeaTac to tell them what was going on. And SeaTac immediately called the FBI to relay the message. They were basically saying, like, hey, can you bring us $200,000 in cash and four parachutes? And it kind of seems like at the time, the FBI was essentially like, no, but they get everything that they need to to get. So around 3:35, the pilot comes on the intercom in the flight and he told the 36 passengers that they were having mechanical issues and they needed to burn off some fuel. And he stated that everyone should come up towards the front of the plane. Which I want to make a note here is a huge fear of mine on flights, every time we circle. You know how sometimes you have to circle before you land?

[Morgan Abshur]

Have you ever had to do the take back off?

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

Nope.

[Kayla Moore]

I'm always. I always think back to this case and I'm like, they know something we don't know. Like, the pilot got a message that something is wrong, the plane is going to burn up. And they're just not telling us because that's like. That's what they were doing to these people on this flight.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. And oddly, they didn't have an issue with it. They were totally fine. No, no fear. Clearly. Clearly not scared flyers like us. And it seems like since the pilot and the flight attendants were doing such a kind of maintaining this, no one was freaking out. They didn't think much of it even.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. Which, like, good on them. Because in actuality, all the people at SeaTac were scrambling to get this money together and the parachutes. So basically Flight 305 was just circling as a way to buy time so they could get everything that they needed.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. There's a quote from one of our sources for this episode, an article called how the hunt for DB Cooper worked by Josh Clark. Quote, Flight 305 was the only plane in the sky above Seattle. All other flights had been diverted. A little later in the article, he goes on to say, quote, the downtown branch of a local bank, Cfirst, was tapped to provide the actual currency on NWO's behalf. They kept money preassembled in stacks of varying amounts to make it look like the money had been hastily gathered. In reality, each bill's serial number had been recorded and stored on microfilm. Banks do this in case of armed robberies. But in this case, it worked just as well for a skyjacking.

[Kayla Moore]

Really smart on their end.

[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

So while Cooper demanded four parachutes, it wasn't necessarily an easy task for them to gather all of them. But the manager of Sea Tac Airport knew someone who actually agreed to give them four chutes. But amidst the chaos of everything that was going on, they accidentally handed over a dummy reserve chute. So this is the kind that's used during training. The main canopy of it is sewn shut, so these chutes are always marked with a big X because you have to know that this is not the right shoot. You cannot mix these parachutes up. So how they ended up getting one of those on the plane is still kind of beyond me. But the plane ended up circling for three and a half hours while they were scrambling to get the shoots, get the money, get everything before it finally landed.

[Morgan Abshur]

Three and a half hours is such a long time. This was only supposed to be a 30 minute flight.

[Kayla Moore]

A 30 minute flight.

[Morgan Abshur]

30 minute flight.

[Kayla Moore]

Are the people on the plane panicking? Because I would be in full panic.

[Morgan Abshur]

I would be terrified. I was a flight attendant. I literally used to be a flight attendant scared of turbulence. I don't know how the heck I did it. Explain that you guys. But like, it's scary when you like circle or burn fuel or go back up. Like the scariest thing. Actually, I was always the least superior on the roster. So I was the one that had to go in the cockpit when the other pilot came out to pee because you always have to have Two people up there, and the other pilot turns around, and he's just talking to me, and the plane's flying itself, and we're bumping around. But another thought here, me and my flight attendant experience, they're so lucky they had enough fuel to even circle for this long.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, that's a good point, actually, because usually on those small flights, right, you don't fully fuel up.

[Morgan Abshur]

No. Weight and balance is such a big thing. I think nowadays they're very precise where they really take on only what they need.

[Kayla Moore]

So when the plane finally landed, there were snipers in position watching this plane land. But Cooper seemed to know, or at least sense that this was happening, because he immediately told the flight attendants that they needed to shut all the windows. And before any passengers were allowed to deplane, Cooper instructed Tina to retrieve the money and the parachutes for him. And while Tina could have technically kept herself safe at that point, she decides to get back on the plane. Once she returned, the passengers of Flight 305 were released, along with two of the flight attendants, Alice and Florence.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, I don't think we can say enough how great of a job this cabin crew and everyone did, because you guys, you wouldn't want me in this experience, I'll tell you that much. One of the passengers actually had no idea what was going on. They went back on board to get an item they had forgotten. Even so, like, again, it speaks to how good this crew really was in this.

[Kayla Moore]

That is so funny. Like, oh, sorry. Like, you see the snipers in position, you're like, wait, I have to grab my. My. I left my phone. Or whatever you had back then.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, I know. Phones, phones. They couldn't even have fun.

[Kayla Moore]

That would have been me. Wait, can I grab my cell phone?

[Morgan Abshur]

Actually, I forgot my sleep mask in the seat pocket. I mean, there were hundreds of news people there, even. And it was actually them getting off and seeing all those people there.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

That's when they actually realized that their plane had been hijacked. Right. And I know your mom is a flight attendant, so you're kind of familiar with the world as well. But, I mean, you know how high stress the job can be. So for them to be so composed.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, they did such a good job. My mom actually works inside of the airport because it's less stressful than being a flight attendant.

[Morgan Abshur]

Oh, my God. I thought she was a flight attendant.

[Kayla Moore]

She deals with all the people. Like, she would have sold D.B. cooper the ticket. Oh, and she also would have been like, oh, you're asking about what the Plane is like, I don't care. I want to go home. Like, I'm not gonna make a mental note of this the second you leave. I'm forgetting straight over your.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

You deal with so many people every day, and, like, most people are in a bad mood at the air. I worked inside of an airport and, like, just the, the, the people are horrible. So you're not really making mental notes of everyone you come into contact with. And it's only getting worse, at least according to my mom.

[Morgan Abshur]

I know.

[Kayla Moore]

Getting a little more wild.

[Morgan Abshur]

But I do like the fact that you brought up about Cooper asking about which type of plane he was on. And this does matter. You know, for the right person, this could have rang alarm bells. It didn't for whoever, you know, gave him his ticket. But because he was on a Boeing 727, this was how this whole heist was kind of possible. This aircraft had a unique feature, an aft airstair, which is essentially a retractable staircase, and it's located in the rear of the plane. Cooper really, really cared about this aft airstair.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, because as the ground crew is refueling the plane and getting ready to take off again, Cooper mentioned that he wanted to depart with the aft staircase down. So, like, part of the plane fully open. And the pilot kind of tells him like, no, that's not possible. We can't do that. But Cooper was pretty adamant about this. So the pilot ends up reaching out to Boeing anyways, and he learns from the engineers that while, yes, he was right, you can't take off with the staircase lowered. It can be lowered during flight. And so, by all accounts, Cooper wasn't really happy with that solution, but he finally was like, that's fine and we can do it that way.

[Morgan Abshur]

Let's go, guys.

[Kayla Moore]

So Cooper and the pilot talk about where they're going to fly next. And Cooper says that he wants to go to Mexico City. It looks like this is over 2, 300 miles away. And it would take around five and a half hours to get there. And that's really typical in today's air travel. Like, we take five hour flights all the time.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, easy.

[Kayla Moore]

The airplane's tank wasn't big enough to get there. They just circled for three and a half hours. That was essentially as far as they could go.

[Morgan Abshur]

So crazy.

[Kayla Moore]

So they were going to have to refuel along the way if they're going to make it all the way to Mexico City. So the crew, they basically had a huddle up and they come up with a game plan and they're like, okay, we have to make a few stops. So the first one's going to be in Reno, Nevada, and we can refuel there. And Cooper, as this is happening, he looks into the bag that they gave him, full of cash. By all accounts, he's pretty happy with what he sees. So the pilot takes off again. They're heading to Reno. Cooper gets on the cabin phone once they're up in the air, and he starts giving really strict instructions to the pilot. First, he says he wants the plane to fly at 10,000ft, really low, that the. The cabin's not pressurized at 10,000ft. He said he also wants the wing flaps to be at 15 degrees and no more than 200 knots, which is about 190 miles per hour or 300 kilometers per hour, which also, again, not even fast enough to take off. When you take off, you're going faster than that.

[Morgan Abshur]

So crazy.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

And the risk of stalling in the air and having this not work out. And I know we're using a lot of airplane lingo here. Flaps. You're like, what the hell? Flaps.

[Kayla Moore]

Well, your dad's a pilot, right?

[Morgan Abshur]

My dad's a pilot. And I think the average person now kind of has, like, looked out the window as you're landing, and you. You see those little things off the wings that go up or down or move as you're flying. Yeah, those are flaps. And a typical wing flap angle these days is between 5 and 15 degrees for takeoff and between 25 and 40 degrees for landing. Landings where you typically see them, they'll. They'll really change the angle to help slow the plane down. Okay.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

So you don't have to use the brakes as much. But back then, this wasn't necessarily a given. So the fact that Cooper understood all of this and knew that it was even an option on this Boeing 727, it is kind of giving insider info. It's. It's giving. He was very man with a plan. I picked this plane for this reason.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

Either he had a lot of knowledge.

[Kayla Moore]

He had done a lot of research, or he was a pilot himself, because to know the exact angles that the wings have to be. Or he was familiar with hijacking planes and. But he had a lot of information on what to do.

[Morgan Abshur]

It's definitely giving inside job, especially given this fact. Right. Pilots talking to Boeing, they can't take off with the aft door down, which. Okay. Drag. This isn't a little plane carrying a banner. That makes sense.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

But Cooper knew that it could be deployed in flight. And he knew that the pilots would not be able to do anything about it. See, at this time, there was no child lock or control in the cockpit that would prevent that aft staircase from deploying. So in flight, you could go to the back and just control it from back there, and the flight crew up in front would have no way of stopping him.

[Kayla Moore]

So anyone could really go back there and deploy the stairs mid flight if.

[Morgan Abshur]

You knew how to do it.

[Kayla Moore]

Wow. Interesting. And so, for what it's worth, the pilot didn't think that the plane could go as slow as Cooper was asking. Again, you go faster than that to take off. So Cooper ends up telling him, yes, it can. I know you don't think this plane can go that slow, but I promise you, it can do what I'm asking. And so the pilot, I guess, trusted him and decided to go as slow as they could.

[Morgan Abshur]

I mean, good pilot. Hopefully he would have felt a stall coming on. But I don't know if you've seen videos, but it's. It's kind of giving the same energy as Sky King.

[Kayla Moore]

No.

[Morgan Abshur]

What's that rip? If, you know, you know, Sky King is a guy who hijacked a plane in modern times and was doing barrel rolls and loops and, like, oh, my gosh. He wasn't a trained pilot.

[Kayla Moore]

Right. And so wasn't that also up in Oregon?

[Morgan Abshur]

I think so, yeah. I think so.

[Kayla Moore]

Hijacked a whole plane.

[Morgan Abshur]

A whole plane. Like a big modern plane. So, I mean, it's. It's again, giving inside job. He was. He was a ground crew. That's how he got access to that plane.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, that makes sense. That makes sense.

[Morgan Abshur]

But back on track here. Even though Cooper was happy with the money, there were a few issues. Okay, Kaylin, earlier you mentioned that part of Cooper's request was that the cash be delivered in a knapsack, but it was actually delivered in a canvas bag. And basically that meant that he would need to make a handle for this bag, which he did using a knife, which he had on board with him the whole time, apparently.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, you could just bring knives on planes. Smoke.

[Morgan Abshur]

And he used lines from one of the parachute, which. You're going to waste a good parachute, sir.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. So he. He, like, took apart one of the parachutes and was using the line. So just, like, destroyed one of the.

[Morgan Abshur]

Parachutes, ripping it to shreds, which in.

[Kayla Moore]

His mind, he's like, oh, I have four parachutes, but really you have three because one of them is a dummy.

[Morgan Abshur]

I know.

[Kayla Moore]

So this kind of also Hints at the idea that he never planned on making someone else jump with him. So, Morgan, like you mentioned earlier, this was really just him being super strategic about every single thing that he did this day. And according to some sources, Cooper and Tina go to the back of the plane and into the space where the stairs were lowered. And according to some other sources, Cooper and Tina went up to the cockpit before this. But regardless, at 7:42pm a light comes on in the cockpit, and that alerts the pilot that the staircase door was open. Happened. The crew called the phone in the rear of the plane. Cooper answered, and they ask whether he needs any help. And he just says, no.

[Morgan Abshur]

No.

[Kayla Moore]

Hangs up. Crazy 8:12, which is 30 minutes later, the crew feels the plane move. Cooper jumped.

[Morgan Abshur]

What was he doing back there for so long? Scoping it out, Probably.

[Kayla Moore]

Scoping it out. Probably seeing exactly where he wanted to land. But also, mind you, he was telling them to go to Reno, so they don't think he's going to jump that early. But he must have known this whole time that he was going to jump somewhere in between where they were in Reno.

[Morgan Abshur]

So wild. And based on the plane's coordinates and when they felt this jump, they did have a rough idea of where Cooper's drop zone was going to be. They figured it was over this area called the Dark Divide, which this area makes up 75,000 acres in Western Washington. It's massive. The conversion, if we're going to put it in miles, is like 117 square miles. Huge. And there's no roads. Like, people are allowed to go in there, but not a lot do because there's no roads and it's not super well maintained. It's giving, like, remote wilderness. So the fact that he was comfortable jumping into this random spot seems crazy to me.

[Kayla Moore]

But it also feels like it would have been strategic. Right. No one is down there who can see someone jumping from a plane.

[Morgan Abshur]

Also true, there's some dark coverage. But one thing that's really interesting about the parachutes that he chose, he picked one that wasn't as nice as options that he had. He actually cut up the nicest parachute.

[Kayla Moore]

Interesting.

[Morgan Abshur]

I know. On top of that, it was also raining pretty heavily this night. And with the plane going about 250 miles per hour, which is slow for a jet, it's still pretty fast when you're jumping out of a plane.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

So with the sky being cloudy and only a quarter moon in the sky, there wasn't a lot of light or anything to really go off of. And Cooper's wearing a suit and an overcoat with loafers. Definitely not what you'd want to be wearing in the middle of a wilderness. Or jumping from 10,000ft. It's cold.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

Your hands are going to be freezing. So to even pull that rip cord. Brr. But despite all of this and these crazy conditions, he jumps and is somehow fine with it.

[Kayla Moore]

And it's worth mentioning here that even though he did not go back with them, the crew does land safely, and no one in this entire ordeal was hurt. But the FBI is there on the tarmac waiting for them. And once they land, they get to work. They're like, we have to figure out who this man was. We cannot let someone like this get away. And so they start gathering clues.

[Morgan Abshur]

Finally, some clues in this case. So FBI get on the plane, and this is where they find our first real clue. Cooper's tie, which for some reason, he unclips and tosses behind him into the plane before he's jumping. But even though this is a clue, it's not really a good one. The tie was from JCPenney's. It was pretty mass produced, you know, in some capacity. And though there could have been some DNA on it, this was also, again, the early 1970s, and DNA testing wasn't even developed until the 80s. And they do find this little tie pin, too, which is what actually secured his tie to his shirt. But not much else comes out of this clue. But the FBI keeps it.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. Just in case in the future they can do something with it.

[Morgan Abshur]

Next up, we have parachutes, which he left two on the plane.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. And for all of the research that he did on the airplane and the flight paths, he clearly didn't do all of the research on the parachutes because he used one of the best parachutes, like you said, to make the bag handle, and he left the other one on the plane. So basically, he takes a military parachute that they gave him and the dummy chute, which, again, had a giant X on it because the parachute inside was literally sewn shut.

[Morgan Abshur]

How does he grab, literally, the dummy chute out of all of them? Come on, guy. And the military parachute, he picked a chute that you just go where the wind takes you. There's no steering with that bad boy.

[Kayla Moore]

No. You can't control it as well. Yeah. He picks the worst shoots. And speaking of the parachutes, the FBI knew that there was a high probability that he was going to jump out of the plane, so they had fighter jets watching the plane as it was flying. But remember, Cooper had instructed the pilots to go no more than like 230 miles an hour. So the jets were going too fast. There was a helicopter following at one point, but that also had to go too fast. The plane was going way too slow. So by the time Cooper was getting ready to jump, there was nothing following the plane, watching him?

[Morgan Abshur]

No. And it's also pretty dark. Do they even have night vision back then?

[Kayla Moore]

That's a good question.

[Morgan Abshur]

I'm like, how? I mean, this little ant falling from a plane, basically. Right. I don't think they're gonna see him regardless.

[Kayla Moore]

So of course they go to the area that they think he jumped in and they start searching immediately. But there is no sign of him. Not even his parachute? Nothing.

[Morgan Abshur]

Which is interesting to me because let's say he landed safely, packed up his chute, and then ran. Packing up a parachute is pretty hard to do, especially if you don't have familiarity with them and haven't been taught. According to one person I saw on Reddit, it actually can take like 40 minutes to properly pack a chute. Tears up your fingers, leaves you in a sweaty mess. So if he did pack up this parachute and then take off into the night, he's got to be pretty skilled or again, highly trained.

[Kayla Moore]

I mean, we'll get into our theories later, but I think there's a chance that he just left the chute and ran. And maybe they didn't find it, but.

[Morgan Abshur]

I mean, again, 117 square miles. Yeah, it's a lot of woods on.

[Kayla Moore]

That little parachute somewhere.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah.

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The manhunt on the ground gets started, and it is massive. There was said to be over 1,000 police officers and military troops combing through the Dark Divide looking for him. And reportedly, a local millionaire suspected that Cooper had actually dropped into Lake Merwin. So this guy rented a small submarine and tried to search, mostly because he was looking for the ransom money. I don't think he really cared about finding Cooper. But they were also able to identify where they thought Cooper landed. And it was a spot near the Lewis river, which is around aerial Washington.

[Morgan Abshur]

Okay.

[Kayla Moore]

There's no real leaves on the ground. The area is just way too vast. And like we said earlier, there's no roads. It's not well maintained. It is really hard to search this area.

[Morgan Abshur]

But fortunately, there are a few more clues that were left on the plane. And these are smaller clues, but I still think they're worth mentioning. As you mentioned earlier, Kaylin, he was chain smoking up a storm. And our third clue is his Raleigh cigarette butt. He smoked at least 8 during the duration of the flight. But somehow no fingerprints were discovered on these cigarette butts. Not a single print.

[Kayla Moore]

That is almost unbelievable to me. Because he wasn't wearing gloves.

[Morgan Abshur]

No. Did he burn his fingerprints off before? I mean, but then why was he so careful about the match packs?

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, I mean, that's a good point.

[Morgan Abshur]

There was also at least one strand of hair left on the back of his seat's headrest. Some sources say there were multiple left behind, though.

[Kayla Moore]

But of course, no DNA testing at the time. So even if they did have the hair, how are they going to tell?

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, and this is one of those again, maybe clues, because some sources say there were prints on the bourbon glass or his in Flight magazine. But others say that those weren't prints of Cooper. I saw in one source, the FBI didn't even really catalog these glasses that well. They were mixed up. So they were unsure if the glass was definitively Cooper's or not.

[Kayla Moore]

Right, Right.

[Morgan Abshur]

And there's one more clue that I think is kind of missed in this case. There's no handwriting sample. As you mentioned earlier, he asked for that note from the flight attendant back. And again, he used block letters on his Ticket voucher for his flight. So we got nothing.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, there's really only that his name he wrote Dan Cooper. And then all the other handwriting samples are gone. So. Another thing that surprised me to learn was that the pilot and co pilot never spoke to Cooper directly, Not even once. They didn't even have any helpful details to describe Cooper. They were in the front of the plane while all this was happening. Kind of, you know, the flight attendants were mitigating the conversation.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

And because the flight attendants kept everyone so calm and didn't lead them on into what was actually happening on the plane, it doesn't seem. Seem like there was a ton of attention on Cooper. I don't even think any of the people on the plane thought to turn around and look in the back to see what was going on. So they maybe assumed he was just any other passenger or they just didn't get a good look at him. Because really none of the people on the plane had any more information for the authorities.

[Morgan Abshur]

No. And like, think about when you travel. Like, you'll look at kind of who's nearest you, but the rest of the people on a plane, you're just.

[Kayla Moore]

No idea.

[Morgan Abshur]

No idea. They're. They're unremarkable to your memory.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, absolutely. Like, do you ever try to go down and find, like, if you check a bag and you're looking at all the. The like, where they have the bags come out and you're like, I could not tell you what flight I was on. Like, none of these people look familiar to me.

[Morgan Abshur]

None of them look familiar. No, it's like one of those things where it's like, okay, you drive to a grocery store and you're on the way and you see a white dog and blah, blah, blah. What color was the man's hat? You're like, I was thinking about the white dog. I wasn't looking at his hat.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, you're just not really paying attention. Everyone just wants to get to their destination.

[Morgan Abshur]

Exactly.

[Kayla Moore]

So the day after the hijacking was Thursday, November 25, 1971. Thanksgiving Day. And there's immediately so much media coverage. I mean, think about it. Everyone's at home with their family. Like, it's a perfect time for just like, talking about this case. Talking. Chatting about it over Thanksgiving dinner. And again, no one was hurt. So the cultural conversation that starts happening about DB Cooper is largely positive. Most people are very impressed that this guy was able to pull off something this wild. And one of the guys that was interviewed on the news said that Cooper was, quote, one of the slickest cats to ever walk the face of the earth.

[Morgan Abshur]

What a compliment.

[Kayla Moore]

People just, like, talked better back then. What's, like, the equivalent now?

[Morgan Abshur]

Our modern day Sam was sick as hell.

[Kayla Moore]

Something like that. I don't know.

[Morgan Abshur]

That does not have the same ring to it.

[Kayla Moore]

People wrote songs about him. They sold T shirts with his face on it. And this was all in tribute to the first man to get away with hijacking a US Plane. Basically, people felt like he stuck it to the man, which, I mean, we just came out of the 60s into the 70s. Like, people were all about that. Yeah, like, people did not trust the man.

[Morgan Abshur]

And so we still see it now today.

[Kayla Moore]

You definitely see it today. Absolutely. And again, this guy had the name of Dan Cooper when he bought his ticket, but at some point, there was a reporter who maybe misheard law enforcement during a press conference, and the reporter called him DB Cooper instead of Dan Cooper. And unfortunately for everyone, that just made him seem even cooler, because that was a way better name. So the public really latched onto that. And overall, even though everyone's talking about this case, going home for Thanksgiving, and talking to their parents about it, not a lot is happening. We have those clues that we found, but there's not much beyond that. And at some point, the FBI starts wondering if Cooper actually died during the jump. But again, there's not really any proof of that happening either. They haven't collected a body, but really, he's not turning up anywhere. And one agent in particular, this guy named Ralph Himmelsbach, he releases a book about the case in 1986. And in it, Ralph, who was a pilot himself, he was actually in a helicopter that was trying to track Cooper. But he says that he believed D.B. cooper, quote, probably hadn't even gotten his chute open and plunged to his death, winding up buried by the impact on the forest floor in the Cascade Mountains. Pretty pessimistic take there, I know. So really doesn't think he survived. And one more thing to note here, actually, is that Ralph eventually retired in the early 1980s. And after that, he finally got the chance to meet with Captain William Scott, who was the pilot of Flight 305. And after they meet, Ralph starts to believe that Cooper's landing zone actually wasn't where they initially searched, but actually 40 miles east of the area they were searching, which is significant.

[Morgan Abshur]

That's a huge difference.

[Kayla Moore]

That's a huge radius. But despite a massive manhunt, there's really no more movement in this case and no known potential suspects. But a Few months later, would you believe, another skyjacker struck and the M.O. sounded a lot like D.B. cooper. So according to the FBI's website, on April 7, 1972, United Airlines Flight 855, a Boeing 727. Sound familiar? Was traveling from Los Angeles, California to Newark, New Jersey with 85 passengers and a crew of six people. The flight had a layover in Denver and then took off just before 5:00pm About 20 minutes later, at 5:18pm, quote, a male passenger was observed in his seat holding a hand grenade. And this guy had boarded the plane using the name James Johnson. An off duty pilot who happened to be on the plane checked out the situation. He was trying to not be suspicious, but it didn't work because the guy pulled a pistol on him and then handed him a sealed envelope with the words hijack instructions on it. And in that letter, the guy demanded $500,000 in cash and four parachutes. And he also ensured that all of the written notes were handed back to him.

[Morgan Abshur]

Sounds oddly familiar.

[Kayla Moore]

There's a lot of similarities in this case. Yeah, I mean, there could have been copycats, but it is very, very similar. So the crew decided to land in Grand Junction, Colorado, and the pilot told everyone on board that the aircraft was experiencing a, quote, minor mechanical problem. Again, why? I don't trust anything that happens in the air. They are lying to us. That way the passengers wouldn't be worried about the abrupt landing.

[Morgan Abshur]

And this is another situation where everything happened really quickly and the airline crew did a good job thinking on their feet. Again, the passengers weren't panicking.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, no, seriously, it's amazing that they can do that. But even though the pilot wanted to land in Grand Junction, once they opened the envelope, there were really specific directions written inside. And it told them that they needed to land in San Francisco and park on Runway 19 left. And then there was a bunch of additional directions and procedures. But since the passengers were already informed that, hey, we're going to be landing shortly, the crew had to come back on the intercom and basically tell them that Grand Junction couldn't handle the necessary repairs and that they needed to go to San Francisco Airport, which, okay, you're.

[Morgan Abshur]

Trying to get to Denver and then New York, you're gonna stop in Grand Junction, Colorado. But then all of a sudden you're going back to California and going to San Francisco instead of la. How are they not panicking?

[Kayla Moore]

I know I would have been looking out the window, counting all of the turns and being like, where are we heading? What is happening? The flight ends up landing in San Francisco. And as requested, four parachutes and two bags of cash were delivered to the airplane. The gas tanks were refilled. And about three hours later, after the requests were satisfied, the hijacker released all of the passengers and one of the flight attendants. But then the plane takes off again, and this guy summons a flight attendant and hands her more instructions. Basically, head east, get to 16,000ft, and fly exactly 200 miles per hour. Some messages were passed back between the pilot and the hijacker via the flight attendant. And while they're over Utah, the hijacker jumped off the aft stairs of the plane. And five hours after the hijacking began, the crew was able to land safely in Salt Lake City, Utah. So, again, no one got hurt. And ultimately, the difference between the DB Cooper case and this one is we actually know who did this hijacking. And he was identified as Richard Floyd McCoy.

[Morgan Abshur]

Insane. They were able to get him. And you know how. From one source I saw, investigators were actually led to Richard McCoy after he was overheard bragging in a bar that he could do it better than DB Cooper. And, well, I mean, he kind of did. He ended up getting more money. But let's talk a little bit about Richard Floyd McCoy. According to one source, quote, McCoy was a green Beret in Vietnam, experienced with skydiving, bore some resemblance to Dan Cooper, and not least of all pulled off a virtually identical heist. McCoy was found five days after his heist and was sent to prison. However, he escaped by making a fake gun out of plaster and rode out of the prison on a garbage truck. He was killed shortly after in a shootout with police. However, he's considered likelier a copycat since he was 29, while Cooper was in his 40s, and because his family said he was at home with them in Utah for Thanksgiving in 1971.

[Kayla Moore]

It's unfortunate. These guys are so cool. Broke out of jail on a garbage truck. Like, that's just.

[Morgan Abshur]

Come on. The movie writes itself, literally. Like, how insane is that? And also, I mean, he got home for Thanksgiving in Utah. We have planes. Clearly, he could have still gotten there in time.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, absolutely.

[Morgan Abshur]

So I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. And there's some more clues in the McCoy hijacking case, but we're not 100% sure if this guy is DB Cooper, so we're not going to get into all of them today. But essentially, McCoy did get caught. Long story short, he hitchhiked right after this incident, and he was wearing A jumpsuit and carrying a duffel bag. Not suspicious at all. Of course, it was actually reported that McCoy was on national Guard duty in the search for this hijacker. So he was essentially just chasing himself.

[Kayla Moore]

Wow.

[Morgan Abshur]

But, yeah, he was arrested two days after the hijacking, and the FBI found a jumpsuit, a duffel bag filled with $499,970.

[Kayla Moore]

What do you think he spent that $30 on? Only $30 was missing at that point.

[Morgan Abshur]

I would have gone on a big shopping spree the next day, but I.

[Kayla Moore]

Would have spent way more money than that. Right. Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

Seems like a meal, maybe a strong drink after that jump.

[Kayla Moore]

He just got a. Yeah, strong drink. I mean, $30 will get you far in the early 70s. So you actually maybe could have bought a lot with that 30 bucks.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. We did get some fingerprints from McCoy, but they don't match the ones left on the bourbon glass in the DB Cooper hijacking. But as we know, FBI didn't really catalog everything too well. A little bit of our botch for this case. And so they're not sure whose prints DB's actually were. Even.

[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

So through the years, there were a few more suspects, but no real progress in the case. In 1978, hunters in Oregon found an instruction manual showing how to lower the aft staircase on a Boeing 727 100. But this was on the flight path for Flight 305. And it didn't generate any new leads.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, makes sense. It could have caught in the wind and fallen out as he was jumping. But luckily, in the 1980s, we do get a little bit of a lead. An eight year old named Brian Ingram was on a camping trip with his family, and while trying to make a fire pit along the Columbia river, he finds three stacks of rotting $20 bills. And when I say stacks, I mean stacks. It totaled $5,880, actually.

[Kayla Moore]

Wow. That's a good find for an eight year old.

[Morgan Abshur]

I know.

[Kayla Moore]

I'm stoked.

[Morgan Abshur]

I know. Would you have admitted you found that money?

[Kayla Moore]

I know. I thought about that, too.

[Morgan Abshur]

No, it wasn't in the best condition. And so his family contacted the police and then the FBI. And when his father read one of the serial numbers to the FBI over the phone, it turned out to be a part of the ransom money given to DB Cooper. Remember how the bank had those little serial numbers all recorded?

[Kayla Moore]

They were thinking ahead.

[Morgan Abshur]

They sure were. And I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole here on this one. After years of analysis, investigators, like, really haven't conclusively been able to determine how the money got there.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, I had read something somewhere that it maybe fell into a different part of the river and then was, like, dragged through the current down to this part. But it probably wasn't found in the spot that it actually landed in.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, some people speculate that the river was dredged. So essentially, you, like, drag soil sediment from the middle up on the shoreline to make it deeper.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

But then other sources say, well, the dredging actually didn't occur close to where the money was found. It stopped 150ft short of that. So the only way it could have gotten there was DB Burying it.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, interesting. Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

But then why bury your money, DB Keep it under your mattress like a.

[Kayla Moore]

Normal person and only that amount of it? Like, why are you keeping it?

[Morgan Abshur]

I know. Which some Reddit sleuths speculate he did just to throw off investigators.

[Kayla Moore]

And maybe there's more out there.

[Morgan Abshur]

Put him in another tailspin.

[Kayla Moore]

So, in the mid-1990s, another guy landed on the FBI's radar for the D.B. cooper case. But again, it doesn't amount to anything. And ultimately, there's no real movement for 28 years. But then, in 2008, a few miles southeast of the aerial search zone around Amboy, Washington, some kids noticed fabric sticking out of the ground on their family's farmland, and it turned out to be a military parachute. They alerted their dad, who immediately called the cops it looked like the parachute had been buried for a while. And again, the FBI got involved. But they showed the parachute to the guy who owned the skydiving center, the one who had given the four parachutes that were used during D.B. cooper's hijacking. And that guy confirmed that it was not the same parachute. The one that he gave was made of nylon, but the one that the kids found was made of silk. And it turned out that the parachute they found was actually way older, from a jet that was ditched in December of 1945. So while that is a pretty cool find, it was a total dead end.

[Morgan Abshur]

And don't worry, guys, the pilot of that ditch jet did survive. But what's interesting is the weather during that. That ditch was similar weather conditions to what DB encountered. So it could point to the fact that Cooper did survive.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, that's interesting. So in 2011, a different guy was outed by his family as a possible suspect because he showed up to Thanksgiving in 1971 bloodied and bruised. But again, as far as I could tell, in the research, it didn't seem like this guy would have had the skills to pull off the heist. And nothing came of that tip.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, they were actually getting a lot of people outed by their families. There's another suspect in this case that I saw come up, which is Kenneth Christensen. He was a former paratrooper, and get this, a former Northwest Orient Airlines flight attendant.

[Kayla Moore]

Wow.

[Morgan Abshur]

An employee. So he was a prominent suspect in this. And because of his paratrooping experience and working for the airline, and potentially a deathbed confession to his brother, he was considered in this. There was actually a point before he was a flight attendant that he was actually a mechanic for the airline. So it would be someone that would have that inside information on the planes, how they work, and that aft staircase. But he was eventually ruled out.

[Kayla Moore]

That's interesting you say that, because there were a few other deathbed confessions that come forward in this time.

[Morgan Abshur]

Why so many?

[Kayla Moore]

That is something that I'm really trying to figure out. I actually covered it in a episode of Heart Starts Pounding, because we do deathbed confessions episodes. But one of the guys was this man, Walter Reka, and he had told his friend. Friend that he was D.B. cooper, and he was not familiar with planes, but he was really familiar with parachutes because he was a big time skydiver. And so he told his friend about being DB Cooper, essentially on his deathbed. And then his friend went and made a documentary about it. But there was just a lot that didn't add up, like, Walter really didn't look anything like the composite sketch. He was, like, a little bit older than DB Cooper would have been. And he basically confessed that he had no idea what he was doing that day, but he just knew how to use the parachutes. When it kind of feels like it was the opposite. Right. It feels like he knew exactly what he was doing that day, but he just didn't know how to use the parachutes.

[Morgan Abshur]

Parachutes weren't a strong point. Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

And then there was this guy, Dwayne, who one night woke up in the middle of the night having a nightmare and told his wife he had a nightmare about leaving fingerprints near the aft stairs of an airplane before he jumped out.

[Morgan Abshur]

Ooh.

[Kayla Moore]

And the chills. His wife was like, okay, that's weird, because think about how meticulous D.B. cooper was and collecting the evidence and making sure no one could figure out it was him. And so he would have these nightmares about leaving fingerprints on the plane, like, near the stairs. And so his wife was always like, I feel like you might be Dee Dee Cooper. And so he also confessed on his deathbed, but again, nothing really came of that. It didn't seem like he was a perfect match.

[Morgan Abshur]

There was a picture of Kenneth that was actually shown to one of the flight attendants, and they did say he was the closest resemblance. Okay, so there's that.

[Kayla Moore]

I trust it.

[Morgan Abshur]

But again, FBI, you know, they ruled them out, but they did still have the tie in their possession, so they started looking into that a bit more with the modern technology we have. According to a recent article from earlier this year, March 2025, amateur sluice have sued the government for access to the DNA and particles left on the tie, to no avail. There's other sources that say, back in 2017, the FBI did actually cooperate with some of these sleuths and amateur scientists gave them the tie, they sent it to a lab, and it found traces of metals, which made them think that Cooper possibly could have worked as an engineer at a plant that supplied metal to the aerospace industry. But the majority of the particles found on the tie had elemental compositions that were actually linked back to book matches. And we know that DB Liked a cigarette. I mean, he smoked at least eight of them on this plane. And while most metals would have been seen as too common or just a contaminant, maybe there were titanium particles found. And because they weren't alloyed, which is basically combined with other metals and materials, it narrowed down to where these particles could have come from. So it seems like they're at least gleaming a bit of new information with modern technology.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. And the FBI still stresses that they don't actually know if that was Cooper's tie, because, remember, at least one person did go back on the plane to grab something after they were let off. So people were frantic and forgetting things. Someone else could have forgotten the tie. But it is interesting that the FBI, with basically every single piece of evidence, is just like. Well, we. We don't know whose that is. Like, the glasses. We don't know who was drinking out the glasses. We kind of didn't pay attention to that. The ties. We. We don't know whose ties they are. Just kind of. The evidence is kind of a mess.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. I mean, the cigarette butts, I believe, are now thrown out. They don't have those anymore.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, just like, discarded.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. Not as. Not as tidy of keeping evidence.

[Kayla Moore]

No, not in this case.

[Morgan Abshur]

But let's talk about where we stand on this case today. What's the aftermath looking like? Well, in 2020, a pair of siblings come forward to claim that they found a parachute used in the hijacking. It was in their mom's shed. Their dad was actually D.B. cooper. You want to know their father's name? Richard McCoy. The name should sound familiar, because Richard was the guy who hijacked the other plane, the supposed copycat. Yeah, and his kids said that he identified himself as Dan Cooper when he boarded a Northwest Orient Airplanes jetliner from Portland to Seattle in November 1971.

[Kayla Moore]

I mean, he does seem like the most likely, just in terms of. He was totally capable of doing this. He had done it. So if the shoe fits.

[Morgan Abshur]

Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.

[Kayla Moore]

Maybe it'd be a duck named Richard. So, reportedly, this finding caused the FBI to reinvestigate the case of DB Cooper. And according to this guy named Dan Greider, who has spent over 20 years investigating this case, quote, that rig is literally one in a billion. That's what he's talking about with the parachute that they found, that this is one in a billion. It has to be the parachute that he used. He also confirmed that the FBI agents visited the McCoy's property, searching for clues, and that the McCoys willingly gave them the parachute. They were really cooperative. Greider goes on to release two videos in 2021 and 2022 on his YouTube channel, Probable Cause, documenting the McCoys claims. And in his latest video, he claims the FBI effectively reopened its investigation after contacting him in late 2023. This is all just according to him, by the way. This is not corroborated. Greider also claims that the FBI, which is in possession of the McCoy parachute, is now searching for, quote, a positive DNA connection between the McCoy's DNA and the Cooper DNA left aboard the aircraft. And again, FBI has not said that it is just this man who makes YouTube videos.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, well, unfortunately, if the FBI is trying to do that, they're gonna have a pretty hard time considering a lot of the evidence that could have DNA is gone. And the people of Reddit are pretty mad about this. But I've also seen some people question if it's true. Like maybe the FBI is lying, or maybe there's a chance the hair is just misplaced and it'll turn up. You know, those archives could be pretty vast and poorly cataloged.

[Kayla Moore]

Totally.

[Morgan Abshur]

But I don't know. In January 2024, some sleuth did say that they found trace DNA samples on that clip on tie, but we'll have to see if that amounts to anything. I did find this really cool sleuthing website with some good tack on points and details during the research for this episode. The original hope in analyzing the tie was actually to see if there was any pollen on it. Yeah, pollen always comes back to the bees. They essentially thought that they could determine what part of the country the hijacker came from if this pollen type was so rare and specific to a certain bee colony.

[Kayla Moore]

Totally.

[Morgan Abshur]

I could see that the money that the 8 year old boy found had rubber bands on it, and so those were analyzed to help figure out how long the money had been there and maybe disprove some of the theories that it just floated there or, you know, things like that. There's also some really cool flight maps and a photo gallery. And one interesting thing I found, none of the money, besides what was found buried in the sand, was ever found in circulation. So if DB did survive, the money never turned up again.

[Kayla Moore]

And that means it never got scanned at a bank. So it never made it back to a bank.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, I don't know how they determine if it's re in circulation or not.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, so I guess in theory he could have been just like spending it amongst people, but at some point that would have had to go into a bank and they would have scanned it and figured out that it was part of DB Cooper's money.

[Morgan Abshur]

You would think. I mean, he was trying to get to Mexico. They accept US dollars down there sometimes, so maybe he just spent it elsewhere.

[Kayla Moore]

That's true. That's true. So in March of 2025, just earlier this Year, the FBI released a bunch of old and heavily redacted files detailing their investigation into hundreds of potential suspects in the D.B. cooper case. The pages show that they looked into bank robbers, especially those with parachuting skills, as well as non criminals with parachuting skills, and of course, people with the last name Cooper. But there were no major bombshells in the documents. Okay. That is basically the whole overview of the case. So I have to ask you, what do you think happened? Who do you think did it?

[Morgan Abshur]

I don't know. I don't think it was McCoy. No, I think McCoy was a copycat for me. I feel like McCoy seems like such a guy. He would have admitted it and been like, I did a better job the second time, didn't I? Like, I feel like he would have been more that versus overheard saying, I could do it better than DB Did I show you?

[Kayla Moore]

That is an interesting thing to say, but absolutely.

[Morgan Abshur]

I don't know. What about you?

[Kayla Moore]

There's kind of two wolves inside of me. There's the one that's like, maybe this, like, the FBI did such a bad job. Is like, it a cover up. Do they know who did it? They just don't want to say. Maybe it is McCoy. And then part of me is also like, he's dead.

[Morgan Abshur]

Like, I think at this point he.

[Kayla Moore]

Just hit the ground and died.

[Morgan Abshur]

But how would they not find anything? This is where I need our team of scientists to come in. Like, yeah, and this is kind of a sad thought in this, but, like, okay, plane up there, 10,000ft. Person jumps. They travel a certain speed, they hit the ground. Would there be a big crater or would it just. Would he splat?

[Kayla Moore]

He would splat. So I covered a case where. The Juliana Kopka case. Where.

[Morgan Abshur]

See? And that's the case covered. She floated down in the seat.

[Kayla Moore]

She survived a 10,000 foot fall out of an airplane, but without a parachute.

[Morgan Abshur]

Guys, the other. Listen to the episode.

[Kayla Moore]

This is kind of graphic. The other people that didn't survive were. There wasn't a crater around them, but they were like, like three feet into the dirt. Like, they hit the dirt so hard that most of their body was like, lodged into the dirt.

[Morgan Abshur]

Okay.

[Kayla Moore]

So you wouldn't like. But think about it. If you're searching, you're looking for like knee to foot above in the dirt.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

So it becomes like a harder search. And you're in the wilderness. There's animals.

[Morgan Abshur]

There's a lot of animals.

[Kayla Moore]

There's humidity and heat and people decompose really fast in there.

[Morgan Abshur]

You Think they would have found a chute, though?

[Kayla Moore]

The chute, maybe. I guess if he hit hard enough, maybe the chute got buried under the dirt with him.

[Morgan Abshur]

But I guess if it didn't open.

[Kayla Moore]

If it didn't open, and that's what I'm thinking.

[Morgan Abshur]

Didn't open. Hands were too cold. He didn't dress appropriately.

[Kayla Moore]

That is so.

[Morgan Abshur]

Couldn't get the rip cord.

[Kayla Moore]

But to go through all that and to have, like, the acumen to pull off a heist like that and then to just bungle the parachute in the last moment doesn't feel like a DB Cooper move. So that's why I'm like, I. He's probably not. He probably didn't die.

[Morgan Abshur]

I don't think he died.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

The fact that McCoy made it out, I mean, right?

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

I think. I think there's a solid chance DB Made it out and rode into the sunset and took that money somewhere else that didn't get put back in circulation.

[Kayla Moore]

Do you think anyone out there knows who it is and isn't saying?

[Morgan Abshur]

No one can keep a secret.

[Kayla Moore]

If that was your dad, do you think you would come forward later and say it was him once he passed away?

[Morgan Abshur]

100.

[Kayla Moore]

So maybe he is still alive out there and his family's just like, okay, once you die, we'll come forward and tell everyone what happened.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, my dad. I honestly could see my dad being the type to pull this off, but he was born in 57. Age doesn't fit.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. Interesting, though.

[Morgan Abshur]

I know.

[Kayla Moore]

Trying to snitch on your dad.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. Jerry, what are you doing?

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, what were you doing?

[Morgan Abshur]

Where were you? You.

[Kayla Moore]

Thanksgiving Eve, 1971.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, but I definitely want to hear everyone's theories on this.

[Kayla Moore]

Drop it in the comments right now. I'm not kidding. I want to know what everyone thinks. I want to know what suspect do you think is the most likely? I want to know how you think it happened, what they're doing today, what their phone number is so we can talk to them.

[Morgan Abshur]

Let's go. I'll hop on a zoom call. I'm ready.

[Kayla Moore]

We need to get on a zoom with DB Cooper.

[Morgan Abshur]

I mean, this is an important case. It is the case that is referred to as the only unsolved hijacking case in the history of commercial aviation.

[Kayla Moore]

Yes. And like we said, we want to know all your thoughts and theories. So please, wherever you're listening, leave us a comment. You can write your theory in a review as well. YouTube, Spotify comments, just. Yeah, let us know.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. Five stars only, though, if you're doing it on the review.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, please. But.

[Morgan Abshur]

All right, Kaylin, it's time to close the case file on Mr. D.B. cooper.

[Kayla Moore]

All right, that's all for this episode of Clues. We hope you enjoyed unraveling this case with us. And we're going to open another case file next week. But in the meantime, we want to hear from you. Your thoughts, your theories, your feedback. That's everything that makes this community so.

[Morgan Abshur]

Special at Crime House. We really value your support. Share your thoughts on social media again at Clues Podcast and remember to rate, review and follow clues to help others discover the show. And if you're watching on YouTube, don't forget to hit the the subscribe button.

[Kayla Moore]

And if you're hungry for even more content, we've got you covered. Join our Crime House plus community on Apple Podcasts.

[Morgan Abshur]

We'll be back next week with another new case on Clues. Bye Bye.