Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
One of the great mysteries of the Northwest. Fascinating story, only because his body has never been found. But some of the stolen money did wash up along the Columbia. Very bizzarre! Is he alive or dead? One of the greatest "unsolved mysteries" of all time!
They think that second plane jacking WAS HIM (who got tracked down and killed) but it cant be 100% verified I dont think......
They think that second plane jacking WAS HIM (who got tracked down and killed) but it cant be 100% verified I dont think......
Richard McCoy.. He hijacked a plane out of Denver, almost the exact same way 5 months after the Cooper hijacking.
However.. McCoy looked nothing like the description of Cooper, was significantly younger than Cooper's estimated age, and had an alibi for the timeframe.
Tracking the money is the key to solving this case. As of yet no one has come up with a satisfactory explanation for how the money found in 1980 on Tena Bar got there and how it was in such good condition after almost 9 years. I think he either survived or someone found the remains and kept quiet so they could keep the money. I also don't buy the "not in circulation" line. It could easily be in circulation overseas or have been burned up along with trillions of other bills by the Treasury. Anyone that believes they have tracked every bill destroyed without fail lives in a different world.
Quote:
Originally Posted by madison999
didn't the fbi sorta close this case a year or so ago?
reasonably sure it was a deceased guy who had been trained to do that exact thing with commercial planes when he was a pilot in Vietnam war?
Currently inactive because it's very low priority but still unsolved and open.
@Cuero: Interesting post. Do you think Cooper is one of the men who is a known possible suspect?
When it comes to the publicly acknowledged suspects I am skeptical since they all have proponents with financial interests in their man being the one. The only ones I consider as possible are: Kenny Christiansen, Lynn Doyle Cooper, and Duane Weber. I don't consider L.D. Cooper a serious suspect because all we have is a picture of a guy resembling the sketch and a story from a relative. That leaves Weber and Christiansen.
Weber was a career criminal who made a deathbed confession to his latest wife that he was DB Cooper. There is evidence that he visited Tina Bar a few months before the money was found in 1980. The FBI said he matches their profile but dismissed him as a suspect for lack of physical evidence connecting him to the crime like DNA or fingerprints.
Christiansen served in the Army during WWII and was trained as a paratrooper. After the war, he worked odd jobs until settling down at NWA. He worked for NWA in various roles first as a mechanic, then flight attendant, and finally as a purser which he was at the time of the hijacking. His younger brother claims that while Kenny was dying of cancer, told him that there was something he wanted him to know but he couldn't tell him. The FBI has said Christiansen "is not a prime suspect" because he does not match the eyewitness descriptions or fit their profile of the hijacker. Their profile being a desperate criminal with little or no parachuting experience. The reason they think Cooper didn't have parachute training was because he selected an older, less sophisticated army style parachute over the newer parachutes he had to choose from. In addition it was a training parachute which had the reserve chute sewn shut.
Between Weber and Christiansen, I think Christiansen is the better suspect. Weber looks like Cooper and has a shady past, but he doesn't have any publicly known connection to the crime other than an alleged confession according to his wife. Christiansen was described as friendly but a loner with little family and little money. He was a mechanic and flight attendant so he would have known his way around airplanes as well as NWA's procedures in the event of a hijack. That would explain his calm demeanor during the hijacking as well as his apparent knowledge about the plane. Jumping out of the back of a jet, at night and during dicey weather took guts, something an army paratrooper would have. He may have noted the lack of a reserve chute but went with it anyway because it was what he was most familiar with. The whole endeavor was risky, so one more calculated risk wouldn't make a difference. Christiansen was allegedly identified by one of the flight attendants as looking more like Cooper than anyone so far, but she couldn't be sure it was him. That is interesting given what the FBI claimed about a lack of resemblance. To be fair, the investigator that is promoting Christiansen as a suspect has a book out and there was a History Channel documentary about it. So that is very one sided. Still, I think the FBI knows more than they are saying. Since it's not an active case, they aren't going to devote resources to moving fast on it and also need to build cases against any accomplices.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
