D.B. Cooper

[swamprat]

Well, to SOME of you, this is "history"!


FBI: 'Credible Lead' Surfaces in D.B. Cooper Case

Published August 01, 2011
Associated Press

SEATTLE – The FBI says it has a "credible" lead in the D.B. Cooper case involving the 1971 hijacking of a passenger jet over Washington state and the suspect's legendary parachute escape.

The fate and identity of the hijacker dubbed "D.B. Cooper" has remained a mystery in the 40 years since a man jumped from a Northwest Orient Airlines 727 flight with $200,000 in ransom.

The recent tip provided to the FBI came from a law enforcement member who directed investigators to a person who might have helpful information on the suspect, FBI spokeswoman Ayn Sandalo Dietrich told The Seattle Times on Sunday. She called the new information the "most promising lead we have right now," but cautioned that investigators were not on the verge of breaking the case.

"With any lead our first step is to assess how credible it is," Sandalo Dietrich told the Seattle Post Intelligencer on Saturday. "Having this come through another law enforcement (agency), having looked it over when we got it - it seems pretty interesting."

Dietrich says an item belonging to the man was sent to a lab in Quantico, Va., for forensic testing. She did not provide specifics about the item or the man's identity.

Federal investigators have checked more than 1,000 leads since the suspect bailed out on Nov. 24, 1971, over the Pacific Northwest. The man who jumped gave his name as Dan Cooper and claimed shortly after takeoff in Portland, Ore., that he had a bomb, leading the flight crew to land the plane in Seattle, where passengers were exchanged for parachutes and ransom money.

The flight then took off for Mexico with the suspect and flight crew on board before the man parachuted from the plane.

Read more: www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/01/fbi-credible-lead-surfaces-in-db-cooper-case/#ixzz1TmWyZqCf

[sansseed]

I read about this last night. I would love to see how this turns out. It is such a fascinating story. I watched the episode of Decoded on History Channel that looked into D.B. Cooper. They theorized that it was a man originally from Minnesota and worked for the airline, but this man died several years ago. The news gives the impression that the suspect is still alive. Hmmm..., a great mystery.

[lois]

Swamp .. about the time I gave up thinking they would find him sooner or later this shows up.

Wow.

It could be another dead end also..That is a big area to comb for a body if he died from the jump..

Almost impossible.. but they did search for him at the time did they not?

[swamprat]

DB Cooper mystery: 'Potential' physical evidence uncovered in search

By Samuel Chamberlain
Published August 10, 2017

A crew of volunteer cold-case investigators in the Pacific Northwest, led by a former FBI agent, has uncovered what they believe to be “potential evidence” in the 46-year-old mystery of D.B. Cooper.

Thomas Colbert, a TV and film executive who helped put together the team with his partner and wife Dawna, confirmed to Fox News that his group had uncovered what “appears to be a decades-old parachute strap.”

The D.B. Cooper case has fascinated and confounded professional and amateur sleuths since Nov. 24, 1971, when a man calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked a Northwest Orient Boeing 727 and demanded a $200,000 ransom. After receiving the money, “Cooper” jumped out the back of the plane wearing a business suit and a parachute.


Thomas Colbert, right, is handed the 'potential evidence' by a retired FBI supervisor (Courtesy TJC Consulting)

No trace of Cooper has ever been found, though some bundles of the ransom cash amounting to $5,800 were uncovered in 1980 on the banks of the Columbia River, which marks the border between Washington and Oregon.

Colbert declined to make the precise location of his crew’s dig public, but claimed the potential strap was located “right where a credible source claimed the chute and remaining money are buried.” Colbert added that he planned to pass the possible evidence to the FBI on Friday, while his team would offer the dig site to the Bureau on Monday.

In July 2016, the FBI announced that it was no longer actively investigating the case. Two months later, Colbert filed a federal lawsuit aimed at obtaining the FBI’s entire file on the Cooper case. On Wednesday, Colbert said that archived FBI field reports helped corroborate information from a couple that led to the site of his team’s most recent dig.

Colbert, who maintains a website, DBCooper.com, and has co-written a book about the case with veteran writer Tom Szollosi, believes they have identified Robert Rackstraw, a 73-year-old Army veteran with a prior criminal record, as “Dan Cooper.” However, investigators questioned Rackstraw about the Cooper case in 1978 and eliminated him as a suspect the following year. Rackstraw himself has repeatedly denied any involvement in the caper.

The FBI could not immediately be reached for comment on Colbert’s claims. However, Bill Baker, the Bureau’s former assistant director of criminal investigations, has said the idea that Rackstraw is Dan Cooper needs another look.

"Look…this is more than a theory, and you have a [living suspect] that has all the attributes of someone to do this successfully,” Baker said. “These are issues that have to be examined and weighed [by the FBI]."

www.foxnews.com/us/2017/08/10/db-cooper-mystery-potential-physical-evidence-uncovered-in-search.html

[swamprat]

FBI releases 1971 letter that D.B. Cooper sleuth says could be from notorious hijacker

By Robert Gearty, Fox News
Nov. 19, 2017

Newly released FBI documents pertaining to the D.B. Cooper hijacking case include a letter that may only deepen the mystery surrounding the notorious unsolved crime which marks its 46th anniversary this week.

“I knew from the start that I wouldn’t be caught,” says the undated, typewritten letter from a person claiming to be the man who said he had a bomb and commandeered a Northwest Airlines flight from Portland to Seattle on Nov. 24, 1971. After releasing passengers and crew members, the man then ordered the pilots to fly to Mexico, only to parachute out the back door somewhere over Washington's rugged wooded terrain with $200,000.

“I didn’t rob Northwest Orient because I thought it would be romantic, heroic or any of the other euphemisms that seem to attach themselves to situations of high risk,” he said.

“I’m no modern-day Robin Hood. Unfortunately (I) do have only 14 months to live.”

The carbon-copy letter was turned over to the FBI three weeks after the hijacking by The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and the Seattle Times, which were each mailed a copy and published stories about its contents. The letter was in an envelope with a greater Seattle area postmark.

Last month, the FBI released a copy of the letter that was sent to The Post in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by acclaimed D.B. Cooper sleuth Tom Colbert, a Los Angeles TV and film producer. He believes the letter is real.

“We have no doubt it’s from Cooper and the reason is that he cites he left no fingerprints on the plane,” he said. “The reason that’s critical is because it’s absolutely true.”

“There were no prints found in the back of plane,” Colbert said. “They found 11 partial prints that’s all, sides, fingers, tips and palm. But no prints of value were found.”

The FBI wrapped up its D.B. Cooper investigation last year without identifying the hijacker or ruling out the possibility that he could have been killed in the treacherous jump. The FBI says it considered 800 people as suspects. The FBI also never established the authenticity of the letter to the four newspapers, or, for that matter, four other letters that also purported to be from the hijacker. Those letter were sent a few days after the hijacking.

The FBI got its biggest lead in the case in 1980 when a young boy walking along the Columbia River in Washington found a bundle of rotting $20 bills whose serial numbers matched the ransom money serial numbers.

“My life has been one of hate, turmoil, hunger and more hate; this seemed to be the fastest and most profitable way to gain a few fast grains of peace of mind,” the letter said. “I don’t blame people for hating me for what I’ve done nor do I blame anybody for wanting me to be caught and punished, though this can never happen.”

The person wrote that he wouldn’t get caught because he wasn’t a “boasting” man, left no fingerprints, wore a toupee and “wore putty make-up.”

“They could add or subtract from the composite a hundred times and not come up with an accurate description,” the letter said, adding, “and we both know it.”

“As a matter of fact I’ve never even received a speeding ticket,” the person wrote.

FBI agents in the field apprised FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover of their investigation into the letter, according to other documents the FBI turned over to Colbert along with the letter.

“Efforts were made by (Washington Field Office) to preserve the letter and envelope for latent fingerprints,” read one of the documents, an FBI memo. “However, both were handled by an unknown number of individuals at ‘The Washington Post’ prior to being obtained by WFO.”

THE MEMO ALSO SAID THAT AGENTS COULDN’T FIGURE OUT THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TYPED NUMBER “717171684” OPPOSITE THE NAME “WASH POST” IN THE BOTTOM LEFT CORNER OF THE LETTER.

In another memo, agents in Seattle requested that the FBI lab determine if the paper on which the letter was written could conceivably be from government stock, “noting that it resembles the carbon copy of the airtel material used by the Field Offices.”

Since January, the FBI has released more than 3,000 documents to Colbert, who formed a volunteer team of 40 former law enforcement officials to investigate the hijacking. The FBI said in court papers that it has more than 71,000 documents that may be responsive to Colbert’s lawsuit.

Colbert and his team believe D.B. Cooper is an individual named Robert Rackstraw who flew helicopters in the Vietnam War and is now 73 and living in the San Diego area.

In March, Rackstraw sent the judge presiding over Colbert’s FOIA lawsuit a rambling 9-page letter that the judge took to be a motion to intervene in the case. In his letter Rackstraw said that he was not D. B. Cooper and accused Colbert of ruining his life.

The judge responded to the letter by issuing a ruling that rejected Rackstraw's motion.

In July, Rackstraw sent another letter to the court in which he again said he was not the hijacker.

See pictures: www.foxnews.com/us/2017/11/19/fbi-releases-1971-letter-that-d-b-cooper-sleuth-says-could-be-from-notorious-hijacker.html

[swamprat]

The significance of the number “717171684” may have been determined:


DB Cooper sleuth claims hijacker was CIA agent, FBI is 'flat-out lying' about case

By Travis Fedschun | Fox News
February 1, 2018

The leader of the private investigative team who has spent years trying to crack the D.B. Cooper hijacking case claimed Thursday he believes the mysterious criminal was a CIA agent whose identity has been covered up by federal agents.

Thomas Colbert, a documentary filmmaker who helped put together the 40-member team, told the Seattle PI his team made the connection from work a code breaker uncovered in each of the five letters allegedly sent by Cooper.

Last month, he insisted in an interview with the PI that a nine-digit number found at the bottom of a letter believed to be sent by the mysterious plane hijacker came from a San Diego man who is still alive -- Robert Rackstraw, an Army veteran.

"The new decryptions include a dare to agents, directives to apparent partners, and a startling claim that is followed by Rackstraw's own initials: If captured, he expects a get-out-of-jail card from a federal spy agency," Colbert said in a news release Thursday.

The code in question was discovered on the bottom of a fifth letter allegedly sent by Cooper after he hijacked a Northwest Orient Boeing 727 on Nov. 24, 1971.

Colbert said several people who knew Rackstraw have come forward to claim he had possible connections to the CIA and other top-secret operations.

The investigator told the newspaper the man who sent the letter may have put the code into the letter to signal to possible co-conspirators that he was alive.


The letter allegedly written by DB Cooper and sent to The Washington Post. (FBI)

Colbert claims that the code refers to three specific Army units Rackstraw was connected to during his military service. One of Rackstraw’s former commanders told Colbert that Rackstraw would have learned some encryption codes before being pulled from the unit.

“I think the coding thing is remarkable, but I'm a hard skeptic,” Dorwin Schreuder, a former FBI agent who worked on the Cooper case in the 1980s, told the Seattle PI back in January. “The circumstances of those codes being what Tom says they are, that he says nobody but him would know these units and these figures, if it's true that's pretty hard to argue against. Rackstraw might be his guy.”

The FBI released the fifth letter in November in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, which featured the typed number “717171684” opposite the name “Wash Post” in the bottom left corner. Colbert’s team appeared to have linked the number to Rackstraw.

An investigator with Colbert's team claims that in the four other previously released documents, the letters "SWS" appear in one letter, which is short for "Special Warfare School." He also said Cooper claimed to be a CIA agent in another document where the letters "RWR," standing for Robert W. Rackstraw, appear.

“As we suspected, records show the Bureau has been stonewalling, covering up evidence and flat-out lying for decades,” he told The Oregonian.

Since last January, the FBI has released more than 3,000 documents to Colbert's team investigating the hijacking. The FBI said in court papers that it has more than 71,000 documents that may be responsive to Colbert’s lawsuit.

Watch video: www.foxnews.com/us/2018/02/01/db-cooper-sleuth-claims-hijacker-was-cia-agent-fbi-is-flat-out-lying-about-case.html

[swamprat]

Thomas Colbert is at it again.....



DB Cooper letter reveals hijacker's true identity, sleuths claim

By Ryan Gaydos | Fox News | June 29, 2018

A team of private investigators who spent years trying to crack the D.B. Cooper case claimed Thursday they decoded a letter from the hijacker revealing his identity.

The team, led by documentary filmmaker Thomas Colbert, claims that a letter sent to “The Portland Oregonian Newspaper” contains a confession from Army veteran Robert Rackstraw.

The letter was sent months after a man only identified as Cooper hijacked a Seattle-bound flight and parachuted out of a plane with $200,000 and never to be heard or seen from again.


FBI sketch of DB Cooper along side Robert Rackstraw. (FBI/WikiCommons)

“This letter is too [sic] let you know I am not dead but really alive and just back from the Bahamas, so your silly troopers up there can stop looking for me. That is just how dumb this government is. I like your articles about me but you can stop them now. D.B. Cooper is not real,” the letter reads. “I want out of the system and saw a way through good ole Unk. Now it is Uncle’s turn to weep and pay one of it’s [sic] own some cash for a change. (And please tell the lackey cops D.B. Cooper is not my real name),” the letter continued.

Colbert told The New York Daily News that he received the letter after suing the FBI for the files. He said he noticed that the letter was written in a similar fashion to a separate letter and he called a code breaker to decipher it.

Rick Sherwood, a former Army Security Agency member, told the newspaper he spotted similarities with the words “D.B. Cooper is not real,” “Unk” or “Uncle,” “the system,” and “lackey cops.” Sherwood decoded “through good ole Unk” to mean “by skyjacking a jet plane” using a system of letters and numbers.

Colbert said the words “And please tell the lackey cops” meant “I am 1st LT Robert Rackstraw.”

“I read it two or three times and said, ‘This is Rackstraw, this is what he does,’” Sherwood told The New York Daily News, adding that the writer was taunting authorities like he normally does. “I was definitely shocked his name was in there. That’s what I was looking for and everything added up to that,” Sherwood said.

Colbert claimed in February that he believed Cooper was a CIA operative whose identity had been covered up by federal agents. He told the Seattle PI that his team made the connection from work a code breaker uncovered in five letters allegedly sent by Cooper.

He claimed in a January interview that Cooper was Rackstraw. Colbert said at the time that several people who knew Rackstraw have come forward to claim he had possible connections to the CIA and other top-secret operations.

The investigator told Seattle PI the man who sent the letter may have put the codes into a letter to signal to possible co-conspirators that he was alive.

Rackstraw, 74, of San Diego, served in Vietnam. Colbert said in a press release Thursday that Rackstraw served in two of Sherwood’s units, has Special Forces paratrooper training, is an explosives expert and is a pilot with nearly two dozen aliases. Colbert said the FBI cleared Rackstraw in 1979.

In May, a Michigan publisher said the hijacker was former military paratrooper and intelligence operative Walter R. Reca. The publisher cited audio recordings that claimed Reca was speaking about the heist.

In 1971, on the night before Thanksgiving, a man calling himself Dan Cooper, wearing a black tie and a suit, boarded a Seattle-bound Boeing 727 in Oregon and told a flight attendant he had a bomb in a briefcase. He gave her a note demanding money. After the plane landed, he released the 36 passengers in exchange for $200,000 in ransom and parachutes. The ransom was paid in $20 bills.

The hijacker then ordered the plane to fly to Mexico, but near the Washington-Oregon border he jumped and was never seen or heard from again.

Despite the claims of the publishing company, the FBI has never ruled out the possibility that the hijacker was killed in the jump -- which took place during a rainstorm at night, over rough, wooded terrain. The hijacker's clothing and footwear were also unsuitable for a rough landing.

www.foxnews.com/us/2018/06/29/db-cooper-letter-reveals-hijackers-true-identity-sleuths-claim.html