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The Mysterious Case of DB Cooper
20 Plays3 months ago
In November of 1971, passengers on a routine flight from Portland to Seattle settled in for an easy trip through Northwest skies, but one man on board had other plans. Mid-flight, he calmly revealed he carried a bomb and demanded $200,000 in cash and four parachutes. Hours later, somewhere over the stormy forests of Washington, he opened the rear staircase of the plane and leapt into the darkness… never to be seen again. Who was the mysterious man we now call D.B. Cooper and did he survive the jump?
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Beneath the Evergreens'
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Beneath the Evergreens, where murder, mysteries, and mayhem lurk in the shadows of the Pacific Northwest. I'm Jess. And I'm Anna. From haunted forests and unsolved disappearances to true crime cases buried deep in the moss and the mist, we're digging into the dark secrets hiding under the evergreens.
00:00:21
Speaker
Each episode will explore real cases, eerie encounters, and the legends that keep the Pacific Northwest up at night. So grab your flashlight, lock your doors, and join us Beneath the Evergreen.
Reflecting on Episode One's Success
00:00:56
Speaker
Welcome to episode two. I know. I can't believe we're already on episode two. I'm so excited for your story today. I'm very excited too. I've been thinking about this case for a really long time. So when it was like, okay, my turn, i knew exactly what I wanted to do.
00:01:11
Speaker
Coming out with a punch. I love it Exactly. So last week I really liked how obscure and like out there your story was like, I had never heard of the blobs. We did a really good job on it. And I'm like pretty proud of our first episode. It was not perfect, but I felt like we did a really good job for our first first little session. And um the ah blobs were definitely, I think, a good starting point because it's kind of fun. It's a little bit of mystery, but it's not super heavy, which I think people appreciated. 100%.
00:01:41
Speaker
hundred percent And it's one of those stories that like, don't know, you've lived here your whole life and you've never heard about it. Like, I mean, maybe I was just hiding under a rock, but I had no idea that the blobs were a thing. i learned about it from, i think it's Unsolved Mysteries, the episodes that used to run were way back in the day.
00:01:57
Speaker
But that was, I don't know, 15 years ago. And so I, which is crazy that I can say i watched something 15 years ago and can still remember it. Wow. I feel old.
00:02:08
Speaker
I need a carbon date myself. So, ah but then it came back up on my newsfeed and I was like, oh, wow, I've got to cover this. So I'm glad it popped up right before we did this podcast because I think it was, it was a great episode.
Humorous Dog Stories
00:02:23
Speaker
um One thing that is going crazy though, like I told you, i have, I'm babysitting this basset hound.
00:02:32
Speaker
And I can literally hear it yodeling at my neighbor right now. And I'm just waiting for me to get a text like, please shut the dog up. Please take the dog indoors. This is wild.
00:02:45
Speaker
I can't hear him at all. like Okay, that's all that matters. As long as you can't hear it here, we're good to go.
00:02:53
Speaker
He's such a funny little guy though. Like he, he has that um like typical basset hound bark. And then when he runs, his legs are so short and his paws are like tilted outwards that he looks kind of like a rocking canoe. It's pretty, it's pretty awesome.
00:03:08
Speaker
Also, I found out that I'm, I'm pretty sure he's gay and so is my dog. And so there's a bromance happening right now, which I appreciate.
00:03:18
Speaker
Yeah. Which dog? I'm pretty sure Harry, Harry, my dog, Harry, ah a tiny one. And then this basset hound, like ah there's, there's been some interesting place licks. If you get my drift and
00:03:34
Speaker
it's like one minute, they hate each other. And the next minute they're like, I don't know, best friend. It's, it's such a fun love story to, to be a part of.
00:03:44
Speaker
That's absolutely ridiculous. The love is in the air at my house this week.
00:03:54
Speaker
Have you heard any interesting news this week from anything, any stories that are cool?
Creepy Animatronic Dogs
00:03:59
Speaker
but More so people, when I tell them that we're doing a podcast, they're like, oh, let me tell you about this strange encounter. Let me tell you about this one.
00:04:07
Speaker
oh Yeah, that's a good one. i went back down my deep rabbit hole of fire breathing dogs. Have you heard about this? I have not. Oh, so they have these creepy animatronic robot dogs.
00:04:22
Speaker
They look kind of creepy. I don't know if you've seen Black Mirror, but there's an episode that features these dogs. But they're robots, and they're all-terrain, and they can go, i think, up to 15 or 20 miles an hour.
00:04:36
Speaker
but they now have modifications where you can put, like, AK-47s or you can put, like, fire flamethrowers. And I'm not sure if you deep dove on flamethrowers recently, but they make ones that go, can, like, spray fire up to 200 feet.
00:04:52
Speaker
Which is crazy. Anyways, so these dogs can be modified to fit a front flamethrower on it. And their prices are coming down over time. So now you can get one for about like $5,000. It doesn't come with a flamethrower. You have to buy that separately.
00:05:09
Speaker
But I'm just saying, if I moved to the country... which may happen depending on, you know, how the state of the world keeps going. I may have to buy three of these dogs and equip them with with flamethrowers that go like 30 feet and just, you know, can light everything on fire.
00:05:29
Speaker
I'm just trying to imagine how they would interact with your actual dogs. And I feel like that would be a shit show. I don't know. the word They have them. People buy them as pets. I think in Japan, it's either Japan or China.
00:05:41
Speaker
People are buying them as pets and they program them with AI to to act like normal dogs. So they'll go up and like fake sniff each other's butts. But the the problem is they don't have faces. So it's this weird I don't know. You go look it up after I would share my screen, but I don't know if you can't, that has a speech here, but yeah, they're, they're these faceless like robot dogs and they can go in like the mud. They can go in the snow. They can go in the woods for the most part. I mean, not too woody, but they can go in the woods and ah yeah, they're thinking about i providing them to police forces to help with monitoring people, which is kind of creepy to think about.
00:06:20
Speaker
I couldn't imagine being chased by a robot dog. Anyways. I have a really big fear of being chased by dogs and I feel like that just like compounds that. Yeah. And it can go like 15 miles an hour and like sustained.
00:06:33
Speaker
So there's no way that you're going to outrun that. best i am I mean, i know you're, I know you're super fast, but actually i take that back. I could not outrun it.
00:06:44
Speaker
She's good. Next 15 years. She'll run. She's the new Forrest Gump. What am I was thinking? Yeah. apologies your highness I didn't mean to misspeak I appreciate your apologies thank you very much okay oh sorry about the deep dive but I'm like literally I think about these dogs probably on an every other day basis and how much I want one it's a problem very interesting I don't totally know how to respond to that um I know how you can respond
Introduction to D.B. Cooper's Hijacking
00:07:15
Speaker
to it. Let's just go into the story this wonderful story that I'm so excited.
00:07:20
Speaker
I'm so excited learn about. I have no idea what the story is. i have no, yeah, have no idea what the story is. So I'm really excited to listen. Alrighty, so we'll jump right in.
00:07:31
Speaker
So I kind of went the complete opposite direction from you. So yours was very obscure. This is an infamous case that I'm pretty sure everyone already knows about. But I like to think that we're going to about some new details, a bit of a new perspective on it.
00:07:47
Speaker
love it. So it is the whole drum roll, please, if you will. We're going to talk about the D.B. Cooper hijacking today. Oh!
00:07:58
Speaker
Ooh, I'm excited. but So I know a little bit about this. Not like a lot though. ah Very, very high level. I know it happened. I know there was a plane involved, but that's pretty much all I know.
00:08:10
Speaker
Okay. Well, you're, you're in for treat. So I have been kind of obsessed with the DB Cooper hijacking since I was a kid. I vividly remember like being in elementary school, reading the paper before going to school.
00:08:25
Speaker
Yes. That's nerdy. And I'm like a, like, I grew i just grew up as an adult. I was going to say, um you trolled me, i think last week, that I vividly remembered 1994. But what I definitely remember about 1994 yes, I can remember that year, but I never picked up a paper.
00:08:42
Speaker
My dad got the paper delivered every day. That was my like morning reading material. I loved it. Hey, you know what? I love it. Good on you. I wish I was more like that.
00:08:53
Speaker
Could not be me, though. I thought that says a lot about my personality.
00:08:59
Speaker
So yes, I remember reading the paper and must have been like, I don't know, 2000, like 2006, 2008, and some new development or some for some reason it was in the paper. So I'm reading about it and I was captivated.
00:09:12
Speaker
Like, you mean this guy just he hijacked a plane, got a bunch of money and disappeared? That that ah blew my mind as 10-year-old.
00:09:23
Speaker
It's blown my mind as a however old I am, however, yeah, whatever age I am at this point. oh And I wanted to win the lottery. So maybe this is an alternative way to winning the lottery.
00:09:37
Speaker
Allegedly, allegedly. I would not actually do this. Disclaimer, this is these are just, I'm just reporting facts that happened. I am not encouraging anyone to do anything.
The Hijacking Details
00:09:49
Speaker
So let me let me set the scene of this case a little bit for you. So it is a rainy November day in Portland, Oregon. It is the day before Thanksgiving in 1971.
00:10:02
Speaker
There is about 37 people boarding a flight on Northwest Airlines flight 305 from Portland to Seattle. It's not a very long flight. takes 45 minutes to an hour max.
00:10:15
Speaker
um And it's it's just everything's normal. Everyone boards, they get a drink, they're just sitting there waiting for takeoff. Then shortly after the plane takes off, a man sitting in the back in a suit waves for the stewardess to come over.
00:10:32
Speaker
Now again, pretty, pretty normal. Nothing crazy here. However, when the stewardess does get over to this man, he hands her a note. The note says that there is a bomb in his briefcase.
00:10:44
Speaker
and he wants her to sit down next to him. So if I was that stewardess, I'd be freaking out like, I, I'm not going to argue this man. I'm going to do what he says, but oh my God, like this is not what I anticipated for my day before Thanksgiving working working day.
00:11:02
Speaker
ah You know, I feel like stewardess don't make enough. Yes. I feel like they have to deal with crazy stuff all the time. And I think if I was a stewardess and someone pulled over or pulled, handed me a note, did the little ding, ding, ding, go over there.
00:11:20
Speaker
And they hand me a note saying there's a bomb. I think I would, first of all, I'd have a major panic attack. And then I would pee my pants. And I would be very upset. I, that is like, what are you going to do You're in enclosed space, right? You can't, you can't run away. are they still on the tarmac? Are they like in flight at this? They're, they're in the air. Oh, okay. They've are, they have taken off. They are in this enclosed airplane flying, flying over Portland. And a sardine can with a bomb.
00:11:47
Speaker
That's terrifying. Yes. Yes. So she sits down next to him and he actually opens up his his briefcase and she can see a bunch of wires and things that look vaguely bomb like.
00:11:59
Speaker
And like, she's not going to dig in there and investigate. like Is this actually a bomb? Do these wires connect properly? No. She's like, yep. You say you have a bomb. That looks like a bomb. I'm going to listen to whatever you have to say. Yeah. I don't want to touch it.
00:12:12
Speaker
Right. Like, oh, we're good. Yeah. So he then tells her that he needs her to write down exactly what he's about to say. um So she writes down his message and then he tells her to take it to the captain.
00:12:26
Speaker
So the note that she brings the captain says that he needs four parachutes and $200,000 in $20 bills waiting for him in Seattle. For reference, that's like $1.6 million in 2025.
00:12:41
Speaker
that's ah That's a lot of money. That's not a small chunk of change that someone can easily go get. That's a lot of money. Yeah. Right. And that's like such a short amount of time to get it in. Yeah.
00:12:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's not. I mean, like i said, it's 45 minutes to an hour flight like there. They got to start moving. So the captain, he radios down or yeah, somehow lets the ground know that, hey, this is the situation we need to get moving. We have 36 hostages plus the crew on board and we we need to figure what we're going to do.
00:13:13
Speaker
So anyways, everyone in Seattle is now running around trying to train to meet this man's demand because they ultimately decide that it's too big of risk and to try to negotiate. And they're just going to give him what he wants and then kind of go on their way.
00:13:26
Speaker
So that that plane actually ends up circling Seattle for about three hours while everyone on the ground gets the $200,000 and $20 bills, the parachutes, all that good stuff.
00:13:37
Speaker
But eventually the ground says, okay, we have everything that we need. We have preparations ready. go ahead and land. So the plane lands. Cooper actually releases the hostages and gets everything on board.
00:13:51
Speaker
And he lets part of the crew go. He keeps a a couple. Yeah. keeps the pilot, the second pilot, and then one of the stewardesses because he tells them that he wants them to now fly him towards Mexico city.
00:14:07
Speaker
um he instructs them that they need to stay only 10,000 feet above the ground and fly as pretty much as slow as they can. So so the the money is now on the plane.
00:14:20
Speaker
The money is now on the plane. The parachutes are on the plane. They've swapped hostages for the goods. Okay. And yeah, he's saying, okay, now take off again. Head towards Mexico City. But I think everyone...
Cooper's Escape and Aftermath
00:14:32
Speaker
So sorry. Yeah.
00:14:34
Speaker
I'm being annoying. Does he have a gun or anything or he just has the bomb and that's just just the ball. And he's is he like rigged into it? Like I'm ah because if I'm thinking if I'm a pilot and like I'm being quote unquote held hostage, is he not leaving just because it might blow up the airport or because I'm saying I'm punching this dude in the face and I'm leaving.
00:14:57
Speaker
I don't know. Okay. It sounds... but From everything that i but I've read, it was only the bomb. Okay. And it was the threat of the bomb. And if you think about it, like, 1971, this is obviously pre-911. So the idea of, like, terror on an airplane is really... It's a new idea. Yeah.
00:15:14
Speaker
And it's it's novel enough that I think everyone's a little extra scared. That totally makes sense. Totally makes sense. Yeah. so So they get up in the air, the the couple of crew members and Cooper...
00:15:27
Speaker
And all of his, all of his goods, if you will. um He tells them ah fly slowly and not far off the ground. And I think they all kind of know what's happening, right? He has these parachutes.
00:15:38
Speaker
They assume he's going to jump, but no one really knows the plan. Once they're in the air, Cooper, who I might actually add, he's never, the only way we know his name is based off of the ticket that he he bought it under.
00:15:51
Speaker
that cooper sort of Dan Cooper is what was on the ticket. And back in the 70s, you didn't have to like provide ID or anything. So it could have been anybody. Exactly. Nice. Yeah.
00:16:03
Speaker
Yeah. So they're in the air. He instructs the stewardess to go into the cockpit with the pilots and stay there. So they they're in there.
00:16:15
Speaker
And the flight crew actually tells Cooper that, hey, but based off of the flight and the speed that you're telling us to fly, we're going to need to make a pit stop in Reno, Nevada to refuel.
00:16:26
Speaker
So Cooper okays it, and they're they're on their merry way. um So once that stewardess is in the cockpit, it's just Cooper that's in the rest of the plane.
00:16:36
Speaker
So he kind of has free reign to do whatever he needs to do. And everyone flying the plane has no idea what's going on at the but it's they're completely they're completely shut off that's terrifying right but around 8 8 p.m so approximately seven hours once they and they took off from portland the first time they get an uh a notification of some sort on the dashboard indicating that the rear doors of the plane um they're flying a 727 so it has a basically looks like a um kind of a door towards the back that goes down into the bottom of the plane yeah uh it's
00:17:12
Speaker
They get a notification that the door is open and the stairs that come with it are going down. They don't stop. They keep flying towards Reno. um When they get into Reno, Cooper's gone.
00:17:27
Speaker
he's He's nowhere to be found. That is so cool. I mean, not cool, but like... That's wild. wow Like just imagining this guy just like walking down these stairs and like hopping into the into there.
00:17:41
Speaker
And to trust that the parachutes aren't disabled somehow. I mean, that's some cojones, man. it's It's pretty sick. Yeah. um So based off of when then they got the notification that the rear door opened up, authorities have identified that he probably jumped somewhere near Woodland, Washington, which is about 30 miles north of Portland.
00:18:05
Speaker
Okay. So remember, he started his day in Portland. Now he's ending near Portland.
00:18:12
Speaker
Odd coincidence. I wonder how he tracked that. And maybe it was just luck, but we'll get we'll get back to that in a little bit. Okay. So the only thing remaining on that plane to indicate that Cooper was even there was his tie. He had taken his tie off before he jumped.
00:18:30
Speaker
you and Why? just the tie? why just the tie don't know yikes okay so when the plane lands in reno the fbi all over it and at this point they start investigating the hijacking of northwest airlines or norjack as they continue to refer to it as nice okay norjack cool cool and that's basically all that we know about the actual incident the next big break in this case comes in 1980 and
Discovery of Cooper's Ransom Money
00:18:59
Speaker
So nine years later, when a boy finds about $6,000 in $20 bills on the banks of the Columbia River in Washington.
00:19:09
Speaker
um This is just north of where he's expected to have jumped out at. um And the serial numbers on those bills actually lined up exactly with what was given to Cooper. So they can confirm that that is that is the money that he was at one point in possession of.
00:19:24
Speaker
And it's nine years later and it's still on the banks. Yes. So people are thinking there's a lot of theories about what happened, right? did Did someone leave it there? Did he actually jump there? Did it wash somehow wash over there from like through the Columbia? it is It's a little bit further north of where they expected the jump site to be. So that doesn't totally make sense. um But obviously a ton of people stuff started searching this area trying to see, hey, was anything else found? yeah Nothing. Nothing.
00:19:58
Speaker
The rest of the money hasn't been found. His briefcase hasn't been found. The parachute hasn't been found. Nothing has been found besides this roughly $6,000. That is so why we're okay. I have so many questions.
00:20:13
Speaker
Why four parachutes? First of all, second of all, Why just 6,000? And that's such a weird place for that to be.
00:20:24
Speaker
was I'm guessing you probably don't know, but like was the money weathered? Was it like rained on? Or it was just chilling? So I'll get into this in a in a little bit. okay there's i'm jump with the guy I've been finding some some mixed reports, if you will. Okay.
00:20:40
Speaker
So a little bit more information. So one thing that my one thing that I was thinking of after hearing about the story was, you know, was anyone hurt? I feel like when we hear about hostage situations, things like this, that situation escalates so fast. Yeah.
00:20:53
Speaker
The minute a plan does not go go according to the way the ah hijacker thought it was going to go, it people people end up getting hurt, right? Yeah. Yeah. Not true in this case. Every single person that boarded that flight in Portland made it to Seattle unharmed, albeit a little bit later than intended. Yeah.
00:21:11
Speaker
And even the crew, they were fine. Like they probably had a little bit of psychological trauma, but physically everyone was fine. Cooper kept his cool the entire time.
00:21:22
Speaker
And it just, everything went the way it seemed like he wanted it to go. So he was a, he was a gentleman robber. Exactly. Exactly. Cool. Okay.
00:21:33
Speaker
Or just the smoothest, most calm person you've literally ever met. yeah That to stay calm in that. Right. i don't know.
00:21:45
Speaker
i don't know if I could do that.
00:21:48
Speaker
So now I want to get into a couple, a couple of theories or a couple of additional details in this. So, like I said, the only thing left behind from Cooper on the plane was his tie.
Clues from Cooper's Tie
00:22:02
Speaker
So FBI quickly snatched up that tie, trying to if there's any evidence on it. The tie is actually still in possession of the FBI. like They still have it. um They did some preliminary DNA testing. They did pick up some DNA.
00:22:16
Speaker
okay So back in 71, they obviously were not able to do the same DNA testing that we can do now. yeah But they were able to get a partial some partial DNA. Interesting. Okay. Right. Right.
00:22:28
Speaker
They were also able to find trace particulates of titanium on the tie. Titanium? that and Immediately that song came in my head.
00:22:41
Speaker
Sorry, go ahead. Titanium, got it. So the thought was, did this man work in a some kind of titanium manufacturing facility?
00:22:53
Speaker
Yeah, I don't even know how one comes in contact with titanium. So looking into manufacturing facilities, there's not a ton of information in 2025 on manufacturing in 1971 anywhere.
00:23:05
Speaker
Yeah. um Much less so Portland, Oregon. Because that's kind of been, that seems to be kind of the home base of this man who calls himself Dan Cooper. Yeah. um Very few titanium manufacturing facilities in the Portland area.
00:23:21
Speaker
And one thing that I thought of while researching this is who wears a tie in a manufacturing facility? Someone wants to be murdered by themselves.
00:23:33
Speaker
Right? Like that's, it's super rare. So the amount of people that one worked in titanium manufacturing in Portland, very small. The percentage of those people that were wearing ties at work, even smaller.
00:23:45
Speaker
Yeah. And, So I'm imagining the FBI took that lead and you know narrowed it down, but nothing nothing has come out of that. theyve I have not heard that the DNA has been a match to anyone either.
00:23:59
Speaker
it just seems like a lot of evidence and not a lot coming out of it. And the other thing that i want to note is that even if they were able to match that DNA to someone, it doesn't technically prove that whoever the DNA matches is Dan Cooper, right?
00:24:16
Speaker
it could have Dan Cooper could have picked that tie up at a thrift store before he boarded that flight. He could have borrowed it from a friend. um But still, it could lead us to someone and it hasn't.
00:24:28
Speaker
So that's a big kind of question mark in my mind. Yeah, I would say nowadays people don't wear ties. So I feel like that would be a big giveaway. But I feel like in the 70s, it was still very much that generation of when you flew, you looked nice and you dressed up.
00:24:44
Speaker
So that kind of makes sense why it would be hard to... identify who's, who's tie that could be. And of course there's no video cameras or anything like that either. So you can't like rewind the tapes.
00:24:56
Speaker
So interesting. And right. Titanium is such, I wonder what is the bomb? Did the bomb have titanium on it or did they find the bomb? Oh, no so he just took it with them. Yeah. Wild smart guy, smart
French Comic Book Connection
00:25:09
Speaker
guy.
00:25:09
Speaker
Right. Right. Another interesting piece of information that I found was There's actually a French comic book titled Dan Cooper.
00:25:21
Speaker
And on one of the comics, it talks about a man who boards a plane wearing a dark suit with a mask over his eyes. He sits in the back of the plane and he asks for a briefcase from the cockpit.
00:25:36
Speaker
Sounds a little little similar, right? So a villain origin story. Okay. The most interesting bit, though, is that this is a pretty obscure comic book, okay? Okay.
00:25:47
Speaker
um And it was never translated to English. So it's got to be a French guy or a super, super nerd. Right. But in 1971, it's not like you can just Google ah comic, like a French comic book. Right. Like he had to be he had to be exposed to it in some capacity.
00:26:06
Speaker
Yeah. So he has to be somewhat fluent and well, really fluent French because you can speak French fluently and not know how to read it. So you have to be well versed in like native language type. Well, first.
00:26:20
Speaker
yeah Did they say if he had an accent when he oh, no, because he didn't he didn't talk. He spoke to the stewardess. Okay. He said, um he did give her a note that said sit next to me.
00:26:32
Speaker
Then he also told her what to write down. Oh, okay. So fair but very briefly, he kept the communication to a minimum, which all ties in with this plan, right? Interesting. Interesting.
00:26:44
Speaker
Yeah. So all of this, none of this evidence really points to a specific person, but it's all just like, it's all weird bits of information that I can imagine one day finding, like if this person is ever found, I think it'll all kind of click together. Like this, this all makes sense. Of course it was this guy. And then, I mean, don't know lot of people that know how to skydive or so are so confident in their skydiving abilities that that they would just jump out of a plane like that, or even have the knowledge to open up a jet door. Like, right. I don't know.
00:27:20
Speaker
i mean, I I've worked in the aerospace industry, so I know kind of what doors look like and how to open them. But like, I, I wouldn't necessarily know for this model of plane, I opened this door, stairs are going to come out and that'll allow me to just jump free and clear.
00:27:36
Speaker
Exactly. Like I, Now I want to get somehow find a Boeing 727 and see like how how complicated was this actually? like Is there just a big button somewhere? Did it take... I mean, because all like theyre like doors on airplanes are hard to open, right? Like by design. So they're not they don't randomly open in air.
00:27:55
Speaker
And with the wind resistance and all of that, that... You gotta have some muscles. I wonder if it's like some obscure Boeing employee that was like, you know what? I build these. i could do this.
00:28:07
Speaker
Maybe, maybe one of the more recent developments that I found while researching, um it came about a year ago, actually, about a man named Richard McCoy, the second.
Richard McCoy as a Suspect
00:28:19
Speaker
So his children was a bit suspicious that he was Dan Cooper. Um, But they also thought that their mother was somehow involved with it. So they didn't say anything until she passed away.
00:28:33
Speaker
But they brought forward a parachute that they found on their father's property that resembled the one that Dan Cooper was given. Okay, I have so many questions about this. How do you just suspect that you're parent?
00:28:48
Speaker
Okay, well, let me let me dig into this Richard McCoy a little bit because he is actually also a really interesting character. Okay. So he was involved with a similar plane hijacking in 1972 in Utah. So first off,
00:29:00
Speaker
in utah so first off Police, they never quite suspected him because he was 27 at the time of the at the time of the Cooper hijacking.
00:29:12
Speaker
And Cooper was always reported to be looked like he was in his 40s. So initially they were like, and it doesn't quite line up. But even with further investigation, my personal opinion but there, I don't think there's any way that he's Cooper.
00:29:25
Speaker
And let me tell you why. So the M.O.' 's were so different. So McCoy was far more flashy, whereas Cooper seemed to kind of blend in He didn't. He kind of slunk into the shadows.
00:29:37
Speaker
McCoy seemed to he boarded the plane in a kind of more flashy outfit. And um he boarded the plane in Denver and was headed towards Los Angeles.
00:29:49
Speaker
So McCoy, was he also did he rob someone? just oh Oh, you're getting into it. My bad. yeah okay okay Jess, you're getting ahead of yourself. ah we'll Stop talking. um So he ah he boarded a plane in Denver heading to Los Angeles.
00:30:08
Speaker
And the stewardess kind of was walking around. Noticed that he had a hand grenade like on his person in his seat while they're in the air. So alarm bells are going off.
00:30:20
Speaker
Like a MASH hand grenade? do you Do you remember the show MASH? Yes. Like a hand grenade like that? No, I don't have the specific. i That's what I'm imagining, but I don't have the specifics on what kind of hand grenade.
00:30:33
Speaker
Ew, I hate that. Again, stewardess, you need to make more money. but
00:30:41
Speaker
So there was actually an off-duty pilot on this plane with McCoy, and he's like, whoa, he goes over to try to de-escalate the situation, and McCoy then pulls a pistol on this guy.
00:30:52
Speaker
So everyone's like on edge at this point. He had, McCoy had brought typed hijacking instructions that he gave to the stewardess to give to the captain.
00:31:04
Speaker
And the instructions directed the pilot to divert the plight the flight to San Francisco. And he requested six or five, excuse me, $500,000 in cash and four parachutes.
00:31:16
Speaker
So definitely some similarities to the Cooper hijacking. However, this is where they start the stories start to diverge a bit. So after arriving in San Francisco, McCoy receives his demands, which seems to kind of be the common theme.
00:31:30
Speaker
You have some kind of bomb or grenade or or gun in the sky. We're going to give you whatever you want. Noted. Okay. So, yeah yeah, they get to San Francisco.
00:31:42
Speaker
um He lets all the passengers go and he gets um he gets his demands. Mm-hmm. The remaining crew were then forced into the cockpit, just like the Cooper case.
00:31:53
Speaker
However, they were given a very specific flight path to follow that went over specific parts of Utah. So whereas Cooper directed, just said, fly towards Mexico city.
00:32:06
Speaker
Okay. This, this hijacking they were given, they're specifically told fly over these specific areas. I imagine they're giving coordinates. Um, And then as the flight started moving, McCoy started to get a little little frantic.
00:32:23
Speaker
um He actually hand wrote letters to the captain saying you know where to go, what i kind of, i I think just kind of updated him on the situation. And they became more and more frantic.
00:32:37
Speaker
ah that and That is not a person you want to be fran frantic. You don't want someone who has a gun to be frantic. That does not sound... yeah A gun and a grenade. No, thank you. while While you're in it. Yes. So you can see he's he's getting more and more agitated.
00:32:51
Speaker
However, once they get over to the spot of his liking, similar to Cooper, he opens that rear door and the stairs and he jumps. However, unlike Cooper...
00:33:03
Speaker
he left behind some of those handwritten notes he wrote to the captain. Dun, dun, dun. He also started talking about his crime. oh very smart.
00:33:14
Speaker
Yeah. The following day, an unnamed person calls the FBI and says that someone he knew had bragged about a foolproof plan to hijack an airplane. And they say, that man is Richard McCoy.
00:33:27
Speaker
So McCoy is quickly picked up. They compare his handwriting to the one left on the plane. And lo and behold, it matches. So he is promptly arrested for his crimes.
00:33:41
Speaker
um He is taken to jail. However, ends up breaking out of jail. and Oh. and Yeah. And he's eventually um killed in a shootout with the police while they're trying to apprehend him.
00:33:52
Speaker
Tight. Okay. Yeah. So... While the parachute evidence is fascinating that maybe they found Cooper's parachute at McCoy's property, I'm not buying it. That m MO is way too different.
00:34:06
Speaker
Cooper was so like calm and cool under pressure. He didn't seem agitated in the slightest. Whereas as McCoy just seemed to get more and more, he just escalated the situation. um And the other interesting piece is that the McCoy hijacking came after the Cooper hijacking.
00:34:23
Speaker
So for those that claim that McCoy was Cooper, it doesn't – your ability to commit a a crime wouldn't regress like that, right? Like I can imagine if your first attempt was like McCoy, your second attempt is like Cooper.
00:34:37
Speaker
But going in the opposite direction doesn't quite make sense. I feel like Cooper's a cool cat too. he He's very methodical and – or it seems like he's very methodical at least.
00:34:47
Speaker
And it seems like this guy was just kind of a copycat, a poor copycat. Right? Yeah. That was the conclusion that, that I came to as well. Yeah.
Theories About Cooper's Fate
00:34:57
Speaker
Um, so the second kind of theory that the FBI has touted is that Cooper died that night after he jumped.
00:35:05
Speaker
He didn't, he didn't make it to the ground. Like I said, it was a dark night. He jumped somewhere around eight or 9 PM. It was cold. It was November, you know, Southern Washington's pretty heavily forested in certain areas.
00:35:20
Speaker
Yeah. Um, they don't think that They don't think that he was able to survive that. However, why was Abadi never found? Why was Abadi never found? Why was none of his belongings found if he did in fact die?
00:35:35
Speaker
Like I can see that you know, someone taking the money, they find $200,000, they're going to take it. But you would at least find a briefcase, a suit, a something, right?
00:35:47
Speaker
Yeah. And that area has been scoured. Nothing's been found. That's interesting. Right? but except for the $6,000, that was the only thing that's found.
00:35:58
Speaker
Exactly. Exactly. Okay. But the other piece that um I found while while researching is that, so back to the tie with the titanium on it, right?
00:36:10
Speaker
Like I said, it'd be kind of rare to have someone who works in a and the titanium industry also be wearing a tie. Yeah. And it would have been someone that would have probably been missed if he hadn't returned home.
00:36:22
Speaker
Like a GM or a supervisor or something along those lines. Yeah, exactly. Someone with a, would imagine a relatively stable personal life who would have been reported missing if he had jumped out of a plane and died.
00:36:35
Speaker
However, no one matching Dan Cooper's description was ever found or not ever found. No, none of them matching his description was ever ever a reported missing.
00:36:47
Speaker
I think we need a look in France.
00:36:52
Speaker
Yeah, there's just a lot a lot of information about this case, but a lot of just loose ends that I think everyone has been trying to tie up for years and years and new years.
00:37:03
Speaker
But it's just it keeps coming back to question mark after question mark after question mark. This is a very cool story. i yeah, I'm like baffled. Now I want to like dig and insert, like solve it, but.
00:37:19
Speaker
there's nothing There's nothing to go off of. There's no evidence. Exactly. And that was one of the pieces that kind of honestly bugged me a little bit about this case because there is so little evidence, but there is so much reporting and it's so like highly publicized that there's just a lot of retellings of this story, but small details are kind of always changing.
00:37:41
Speaker
So it feels like over the years, this has become one large game of telephone. You can read different sources And there's people are switching out words for synonyms.
00:37:52
Speaker
I use synonyms in quotation marks. I don't actually think synonyms are a thing. I think words have meanings. And the minute you use a different word, that meaning changes, even if it's ever so slightly.
00:38:03
Speaker
But that can kind of morph. So was the money that was found on the Columbia, was it, sometimes I've heard that it was buried. Sometimes it was covered or was placed or deposited.
00:38:17
Speaker
Those all, like, if it was placed, I mean, indicates, right, someone put it there. If it was depositive, that's more, it was more natural. Like, maybe water moved it. But those, there's been a lot of reporting where things are, things that are not quite interchangeable are used, being used interchangeably.
00:38:35
Speaker
And it just feels like the story is ever shifting. And even the hijacker's name, right? We call, we say D.B. Cooper, but that was actually just a mistake on a ah radio broadcast like that.
00:38:47
Speaker
That was just a typo. Oh, wow. It's Dan Cooper, not D.B. Oh. Yeah. dan Dan Cooper was the name on the ticket. D.B. Cooper was just something someone said once that stuck.
00:38:59
Speaker
Where did the B come from? Who did that? I don't know. who I don't know. Okay. Yeah. So I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that like words matter.
00:39:10
Speaker
And in order to really understand the truth, we need to get those hard facts with the most accurate language. And I don't think that's easy to do in this case. Yeah, because I mean, when you say something's buried, that speaks to like intentionality. Like I intentionally buried this here and X marks the spot. I'll be back for it.
00:39:27
Speaker
But if something is has dirt on it or dirt is placed on top of it, that kind of lends itself to it's just been here for a while. And with all the the sand and and the wind and all that other kind of stuff, it's going to cover it.
00:39:42
Speaker
Interesting.
Conclusion of the D.B. Cooper Mystery
00:39:43
Speaker
Okay. So the last theory that I have, and this one kind of keeps me up at night, ah is that we'll never actually know who Dan Cooper was. That he was just a man who for some reason or another really needed the cash that day and it had absolutely no fears in the world.
00:39:57
Speaker
And when he jumped out of that plane over Southwest Washington, coincidentally near where he started his day in Portland, that he just went right back to his normal life, a little bit richer with a story that he could not tell anyone.
00:40:10
Speaker
And that just idea really fascinates me because you could have lived next to to Dan Cooper. Like he could be your uncle. He could be your neighbor. He could be your best friend. And you we won't know. You won't know. I won't know. No one will know.
00:40:23
Speaker
And it's going to stay that way forever. i am kind of convinced that we're never going to know who DB or Dan Cooper was. I think it's just gonna be one of those immortal mysteries in U.S. history.
00:40:34
Speaker
Especially because I'm guessing they're looking for the serial numbers that they gave him on the cash. And if they have never spent it, yeah, it's like either he died and it washed away in the river or he just did this for giggles and never used the money. And that's kind of, that's even scarier. Yeah.
00:40:55
Speaker
it that It feels like it's been, well, it's been what, 50 some years and nothing's come out of it. i don't I don't know if we'll ever figure it out. I think we're going to continue to have theories. We're going to continue to hypothesize, but we're going to do be doing the same thing 20 years from now.
00:41:12
Speaker
There's been a lot of cases that have been cracked by like ancestry.com or twenty three and me where they're taking the DNA that people provide them and then giving it to the police force or I'm not sure how it works, but that DNA is used to identify people. I wonder if that's going to be a case, but like you said earlier, it doesn't necessarily definitively point to someone. It's just, oh, it could be in the realm, but I mean, it could give you a new lead.
00:41:37
Speaker
so i guess never say never but 50 years is a long time and back in the 70s early 80s i don't think we were taking care of dna like we do now so it might be degraded by this point exactly and all the reporting i'm finding says that it's a partial sample so partial can mean a lot of things right is it just like a teeny tiny sample that but won't really give us a definitive person just maybe a larger group i don't know yeah it just gives you like if he was o positive or or a positive or something like that yeah oh this is so interesting this is a good story right i feel like we kind of ended this episode with the same same like conclusion that we started with like we don't really know much but it's it's just so fascinating
00:42:22
Speaker
Like, it's so fascinating that he got away with got away with all this. They say there's no perfect crime, but I feel like this is pretty close to perfect. Stayed calm under pressure.
00:42:33
Speaker
Everyone followed his demands, and then he got away with a large amount of money. Unless he didn't get away and someone did compromise those parachutes. Maybe.
00:42:44
Speaker
then why didn't find the body? But why haven't we found a body? Or why didn't we find the rest of the money? Very interesting. Right. This was such a good story. Nice job. I'm going to be thinking thinking about this for the next three days.
00:42:58
Speaker
It might replace the robot dogs. Okay. So I'm going to tell you my theory. This is my theory that no one asked for. My theory is that they complied with his demands, but they, they cut the parachute, but he had his own parachute
00:43:17
Speaker
Oh, and so he did make it and he landed somewhere in Washington, made his way back to Portland, flew from Portland to France where he bought the original copy of Dan Cooper, the comic book and is now living the life of luxury with his millions of dollars.
00:43:40
Speaker
That is my theory. The end. You're welcome.
00:43:45
Speaker
I mean, I kind of like it. Part of me, like, don't condone hijacking airplanes, but a there were very few victims in this story. Yeah, I mean, it's not like the McCoy dude who was threatening to shoot people and was, like, frantic and saying, you have to do all this stuff, and then died in a shootout. No, he was very much a dapper gentleman.
00:44:04
Speaker
He said, ma'am, please come sit next to me. I'm going to ask you to write this lovely letter to these pilots. Yeah. um And then we're just going to have a fun little ride back to Nevada. And i'm going to leave you halfway through and no harm, no foul.
00:44:18
Speaker
Exactly. Just smooth criminal, if you will. Smooth criminal. and and and and and oh Okay.
00:44:31
Speaker
Well, this was a lovely episode. Thank you, Anna. You are so welcome. I had so much fun. That's it for today's dive into the dark corners of the Pacific Northwest. If you love the stories or shivered a little, be sure to subscribe and follow so you don't miss what's lurking beneath the evergreens next time.
00:44:47
Speaker
Thanks for joining us on Beneath the Evergreens. We appreciate you diving into the mysteries with us. Until next time, keep your eyes open and your doors locked.