FBI releases new files on infamous plane hijacker DB Cooper revealing shocking insights into unsolved case
Back in 1971, a man who used the fake name Dan Cooper, threatened to blow up the aircraft he was traveling on
Lucy Devine
The FBI has released new files regarding the infamous plane hijacker, DB Cooper.
Back in 1971, a man who used the fake name Dan Cooper threatened to blow up the aircraft he was traveling on, if his demands were not met.
Cooper bought a Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 ticket on 24 November, 1971, and demanded $200,000 in $20 bills - which is worth around $1.54 million in 2024. He also demanded four parachutes.
He is even believed to have succeeded in his hijacking plans. Upon landing in Seattle, the 36 passengers onboard the flight were released in exchange for the money, and Cooper demanded the plane take off again with several crew members - headed to Mexico City.
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He is then thought to have parachuted out of the plane and vanished without a trace.
Despite the culprit having never been found, newly released FBI files have detailed a number of tips that came in from members of the public, claiming to know the identity of DB Cooper.
For example, one tip claimed the suspect could have been a man in a wheelchair; however, this was found not to be true.
“A man confined to a wheelchair (sic) did not hijack the plane in this case," the document explained, as per the New York Times.
Other suspects included a man from Alabama who died of cancer not long after the hijacking, as well as pilots and parachutists.
Meanwhile, the files also provide details surrounding Donald Sylvester Murphy, who pretended to be Cooper as part of a plan to extort $30,000 from a former Newsweek editor.
Murphy ended up receiving a prison sentence over the claims.
Recently, two siblings claimed their father was the culprit; however, this is allegedly not discussed in the files.
According to a separate New York Post report, Chanté and Rick McCoy III claim their father, Richard McCoy Jr, was the fugitive and that they had known this for years.
They said they waited until their mother’s death in 2020 to come forward and went as far as to say it was a taboo topic in the family out of fears their mother could be implicated.
They believed she could get in trouble because the parachute that allegedly belonged to Cooper was found in her storage stash outside the house.
Many believe that McCoy Jr. is the culprit given his criminal past, in which he was found guilty of pulling off a similar hijack on a United Airlines Flight in 1972, in which the hijacker parachuted out of an aircraft over Utah.
While McCoy Jr. always maintained his innocence, evidence began mounting up against him after one of the parachute packs was found by a 14-year-old boy.
The FBI called in a handwriting expert who determined that a note written by the hijacker matched McCoy's handwriting.
Meanwhile, DNA evidence, as well as two witnesses who testified to having encounters with McCoy after he allegedly landed in Utah, also solidified the case against him.
McCoy Jr. was handed a 45-year prison sentence for the 1972 hijacking, but he died two years later following a shootout with FBI agents.