04x14 - Who is D.B. Cooper?

[bunniefuu]

Tonight, the only unsolved

skyjacking case in history.

Today, after hijacking

a Northwest Airlines jet,

the description on one

wire service, "master criminal."

The perpetrator leaps

from a moving plane

with $200,000 cash

and is never seen again.

There's a lot of variables.

When did he jump

out of the plane?

How long did he wait

before he pulled the ripcord?

What was the wind speed?

People don't just disappear.

He has to have gone somewhere.

Now, we explore the top theories

behind the world's

most elusive hijacker.

Investigators are looking

at a former cocaine dealer.

He's an ex-paratrooper,

looks a lot like

the D.B. Cooper sketch.

There are millions

of Caucasian men with dark hair,

but there's only

a few hundred thousand

that would have worked in

that kind of environment.

Can new evidence finally reveal

his true identity?

This is a better lead than they

could have ever anticipated.

Who is D.B. Cooper,

and will he ever be caught?

November 24th, 1971,

Portland International Airport.

A man named Dan Cooper

boards Northwest Orient Airlines

Flight 305 to Seattle.

The flight crew

and the passengers

describe him as an unremarkable

guy.

He's a Caucasian male,

he's got on a dark suit,

black tie, carrying a briefcase.

He's one

of the last to board the plane,

sits in the last row in 18E.

He orders a bourbon and soda

and dons a pair of sunglasses.

The plane takes off

at 2:50 p.m.

The flight

from Portland to Seattle

is a milk run flown

several times a day.

It's about an hour in the air.

This time around, the plane's

carrying 36 passengers

and six crew members.

Everything's going to plan,

everything's on schedule,

until the man

seated in the last row,

Cooper, hands a note

to the flight attendant,

Florence Schaffner.

She doesn't read it at first,

she puts it in her pocket.

And then Cooper says to her,

"You might wanna read that."

The note says "I have a b*mb

and I'd like you

to sit next to me."

Florence Schaffner

understandably sort of loses it,

but she does comply and follows

his instructions.

Cooper opens his briefcase

revealing a makeshift b*mb.

Schaffner describes the contents

of the briefcase

as something that looks like

eight sticks of dynamite,

a battery, and a bunch of wires.

Cooper has her attention.

She knows he's serious.

He demands four parachutes

and a ransom of $200,000

when the plane lands in Seattle.

Schaffner relays

the hijacker's commands

to Captain William Scott.

But since it's such

a short flight,

ground forces

need more time to react.

So, air traffic control

keeps the plane

circling around for two hours

until they can gather

the money and the parachutes.

Investigators write down

the serial number of every bill

and then bundle it up

into a bank bag.

The plane finally

lands in Seattle at 5:46 p.m.

Captain Scott parks the plane

away from the buildings.

Cooper sends out

a different flight attendant,

Tina Mucklow, and she goes out

and interacts

with the authorities.

There, she collects the money

and the parachutes,

and returns to the plane.

She also brings

printed instructions

on how to use the parachutes,

but Cooper tells her

he does not need them.

Cooper agrees to let

the passengers off the plane.

Two flight attendants,

Florence Schaffner

and Alice Hancock,

also ask to leave,

and Cooper allows them to.

But the ordeal isn't over

for the rest of the crew.

Cooper wants the 727

to take off again

and start to head

towards Mexico City.

He's going to keep the four

remaining crew members

as hostages

the flight attendant,

the flight engineer,

the first officer,

and the captain.

For this second flight,

Cooper makes more demands.

Cooper wants the pilots to fly

with the wing flaps

in an unusual configuration

a downward position.

Now, that's how a plane

normally takes off, but then

they raise the flaps.

You wouldn't fly a long haul

with the flaps down,

because it creates

enormous drag and means

it can't go very fast,

something like

200 miles per hour.

Cooper also asks that

they keep the landing gear down

and fly below 10,000 feet.

He wants them to be going

super slow and super low.

The pilots tell Cooper

it can't be done.

They're afraid the plane

might just fall out of the sky.

But the hijacker is adamant

that it will work,

and they need to comply.

At 7:40 p.m.,

the plane takes off

for Mexico City.

But 20 minutes into the flight,

Cooper does something

completely unexpected.

He lowers

the plane's rear airstair.

The 727 has a set of stairs

that can be lowered

out of the back of the airplane.

The pilot gets a warning light

when this happens.

Once Cooper

lowers the aft stairs

around 8:00 p.m.,

he puts on his parachute,

grabs his $200,000,

and jumps out.

The hijacker

is never seen again.

At 11:02 p.m., the pilot

safely lands the plane in Reno.

At this point, the flight crew

has stayed in the cockpit,

and they're not sure if Cooper's

still in the plane or not.

But when the FBI

searches the plane,

Cooper is definitely gone.

Almost immediately,

the story spreads like wildfire.

D.B. Cooper bailed out

of a Northwest Airlines jet

going 200 miles an hour

at about 10,000 feet.

The best guess is he jumped

almost exactly over

La Center, Washington.

The FBI takes

the lead on the case,

with assistance from sheriffs

and state troopers

in Washington,

Oregon, and Nevada.

They have very little to go on.

This guy has committed an

incredibly well-planned crime.

Authorities need

to begin somewhere.

They start with his name.

They know he bought a ticket

under the name Dan Cooper.

The FBI doesn't really

suspect that's his real name,

but criminals

often choose an alias

that's very close

to their real name.

So, they run this idea

by the Portland police,

and as luck would have it,

they know of a petty criminal

who goes by D.B. Cooper.

D.B. Cooper lives

about an hour and a half

from Portland,

in The Dalles, Oregon.

And he's got a minor record,

so police have him

in the system.

It's a long sh*t, but they know

they have to start somewhere.

And they're hopeful

they can nab him on his way home

with $200,000 of stolen money.

A police officer

drives to D.B. Cooper's house

on the night of the hijacking,

planning to stake it out

until Cooper comes home,

and catch him red-handed.

But as soon

as the officer arrives,

he sees Cooper's already home.

It seems unreasonable

that D.B. Cooper

would have committed

the skyjacking,

jumped out of the plane,

and made it back home

to his house

in The Dalles that night.

The timeline doesn't fit

in any way, shape, or form.

So, despite having

a similar name

and a criminal record,

D.B. Cooper is quickly ruled out

as the hijacker.

Police may be done

with D.B. Cooper as a suspect,

but history isn't done

with his name,

thanks to an innocent error.

A reporter named James Long

for the Oregon Journal

is covering this story.

In all this chaos,

no one knows what's happening,

and Long makes a mistake.

The hijacker actually

identified himself

as Dan Cooper, but Long

puts the hijacker's name out

as D.B. Cooper,

and it's immediately picked up

by all the wire services.

And just like that,

D.B. Cooper becomes the name

on everyone's lips.

From that moment on,

the case is known

as the D.B. Cooper mystery.

Meanwhile, at Reno Airport,

authorities race

to gather evidence on the plane.

Inside the plane, FBI agents

find 66 latent fingerprints,

but can't identify any of them.

They also find Cooper's

black clip-on tie and tie clip,

some cigarette butts,

and two of the four parachutes.

That's it.

That's all they have.

In 1971, we don't have

fingerprint databases

like we do today.

We also don't have

DNA at this time.

The tie clip and the tie

are pretty unremarkable,

so they're gonna be hard

to trace.

There's nothing on the plane

that immediately tells us

who the hijacker is.

With little to go on,

a large-scale manhunt begins.

The FBI knows that

he jumped out of the plane

somewhere between

Seattle and Reno,

and now they need to know

where to look.

But it's hard to determine

Cooper's landing zone

because they don't know exactly

when and where he jumped.

There's so many variables

involved.

What was the wind speed?

When did he pull the ripcord?

When and where was the plane

exactly when he jumped?

It's next to impossible

to establish

an accurate search area,

but they start

with a massive section

of really thick forest

north of Portland.

This is a huge deal.

The Air Force actually

loans them an SR-71 Blackbird

to help them photograph

the entire flight area

in hopes of developing a clue.

Though the Blackbird retraces

the h*jacked plane's

flight path five times,

their search turns up empty.

The Oregon National Guard

brings out helicopters

to search for Cooper.

They find some plastic

and broken tree limbs,

but it turns out it has nothing

to do with the crime.

And then,

200 U.S. Army soldiers

search the forest on foot.

There's also a private

salvage company

that searched Lake Merwin

with a submarine

looking for evidence of Cooper

at the bottom of the lake.

They don't find anything.

Despite all this effort,

no trace of Cooper is found.

People don't just disappear.

He has to be somewhere.

The FBI wants to get his face

out to the public,

hoping someone has seen him.

With no actual photo to go on,

the FBI enlists the help

of a sketch artist.

They talk to people

who were at the Portland airport

who saw him buy his ticket,

and people who were on

the airplane.

Both sets of witnesses give

a near identical

description of the man.

He's a Caucasian man

in his mid-40s

with a somewhat dark olive

complexion.

He has a receding hairline,

short dark hair,

and is wearing

a dark suit and sunglasses.

This sketch,

which has become world-famous,

comes out about a week

after the hijacking

on November 28th, 1971.

It generates hundreds,

if not thousands of tips.

Tips that will soon

break the Cooper case wide open.

When the FBI releases a sketch

of the unidentified hijacker

known as D.B. Cooper in 1971,

a flood of names

begins to pour in.

On April 8th, 1972,

one in particular

grabs their attention.

A concerned citizen

called the FBI tipline.

He said that him and his friend

were talking over a beer,

and his friend

outlined a detailed plan

on how to hijack an airplane.

The friend's name

is Richard Floyd McCoy, Jr.

At first, it may seem like

another one of these fake,

"My friend is D.B. Cooper" stories.

But as investigators dig deeper

into McCoy's background,

they realize, "This might

really be our guy."

Richard McCoy's a former student

at Brigham Young University

in Utah.

He drops out, he joins the Army,

he serves two tours in Vietnam.

He was a helicopter pilot

and demolition expert.

After his time in Vietnam,

he served with the Utah

National Guard,

where he became a skydiver.

Based on his background,

FBI agents believe he has some

of the skills that Cooper has.

He knows bombs, he knows planes,

and he's a skydiver.

There's a lot more

to it than that,

because according

to the tipster,

McCoy has just gotten away

with another hijacking.

On April 7th, 1972,

the day before the caller's tip,

United Flight 855 from Denver

to Los Angeles is h*jacked.

This hijacking occurred

just five months

after the D.B. Cooper hijacking,

and the similarities

are uncanny.

This hijacker uses

the name of James Johnson

to buy his ticket.

Like Cooper, he gives

the flight crew a note

announcing his intentions.

He gives very specific

instructions to the pilot.

He asked them to fly

to San Francisco, and he has

a specific runway picked out

19-Left.

He wants $500,000

and four parachutes.

And if he gets that,

he'll let the passengers go.

It's just like D.B. Cooper,

right down to the number

of parachutes.

The parallels don't end there.

Johnson gets the cash,

he lets the passengers off,

and the plane goes in the air.

He tells them to fly low

and slow at 16,000 feet.

Then he takes the cash.

straps on a parachute,

and jumps out the back stairs.

But the Johnson

hijacking has something

the Cooper case doesn't

a prime suspect.

The first thing the FBI does

is a handwriting

and fingerprint analysis

of the note used

in the Johnson hijacking.

Both samples are a positive

match to McCoy.

And then, the FBI conduct

a search of McCoy's home,

and they find a duffel bag

full of cash

$499,970.

McCoy is caught red-handed

for the James Johnson hijacking,

and sentenced

to 45 years in prison.

But is McCoy

also D.B. Cooper?

Unfortunately,

unlike the Johnson hijacking,

there's no evidence

that ties McCoy

to the D.B. Cooper hijacking.

First of all,

none of his fingerprints

match the 66 latent prints

that were found

off of the D.B. Cooper

hijacking airplane.

Eyewitnesses

are shown photos of McCoy,

and they say

it does not match Cooper.

Also, McCoy claimed

to be in Las Vegas at that time,

and that alibi

was actually verified,

in that his signature

appeared on receipts and forms.

None of this rules out McCoy,

but it makes it

a lot less likely

he is the Cooper suspect.

But there's one piece

of evidence

that could tie

McCoy to the crime.

McCoy's family's asked

to look at the tie clip

that D.B. Cooper left behind

on Flight 305.

According to the family,

that tie clip

belongs to Richard McCoy.

Unfortunately,

the FBI is never able

to interview McCoy

about the Cooper hijacking case.

On August 10th, 1974,

soon after he's sent to prison,

McCoy escapes.

When he's found,

he's sh*t and k*lled

in a sh**t with the FBI,

and that kind of closes

the case on McCoy.

The evidence

against McCoy is thin,

so in order to ID him

as D.B. Cooper,

they would need a confession,

which they're never going to get

now that he's dead.

But the FBI agent, Nick O'Hara,

who sh*t McCoy,

was quoted as saying,

"When I sh*t McCoy,

I sh*t D.B. Cooper."

But without more

concrete evidence against McCoy,

it's impossible to make

a definitive ID,

and so the FBI

keeps investigating.

At this point, there's not a lot

the FBI can do on their own.

They find themselves

mainly running down tips

from the public, and there

are a lot of tips.

You have to understand,

D.B. Cooper almost becomes

a legend.

There's kind of

a Cooper mania surrounding him.

He's kind of like a Jesse James

or a Billy the Kid,

this kind of common man

who beats the system.

And in the 1970s,

that's the coolest thing

you can do.

Claiming to be

D.B. Cooper,

especially in

the Pacific Northwest,

is just a way to get

your 15 minutes of fame.

This is a nightmare

to these poor investigators,

'cause they have to sift through

all these false confessions.

After a few years,

many agents speculate

that they will never really find

the real Cooper.

The Bureau

continues its work for decades,

investigating some 1,000

serious suspects,

but none are proven

to be Cooper.

Eventually, the fame

surrounding this case

gets the public interested

in solving this case as well.

It spawned all these

armchair detectives

and independent investigators

to look at this case

for themselves.

Among them,

news researcher Tom Colbert

and his team

called the Case Breakers.

In 2011, they announce

a surprising new suspect.

Colbert has spoken

to an informant

named Ron Carlson.

In the late '70s and '80s,

Carlson said he worked

in the cocaine business

with d*ck Briggs, and apparently

Briggs used to brag all the time

about being D.B. Cooper.

One night in 1980,

Carlson stated that Briggs

threw a party at Hayden Island,

which sits in the middle

of the Columbia River.

There, once again, Briggs brags

that he is D.B. Cooper.

This time, party guests

ask Briggs to prove it.

Carlson says that Briggs

points out a couple

at the party.

Their names are Dwayne

and Patricia Ingram.

Briggs says, "If you don't

believe me, just watch.

They're going to find

the Cooper money in five days."

Five days later,

Ingram's son Brian

finds two bundles

buried in the sand

on the banks

of the Columbia River.

Inside these bundles was $5,800

in decomposing cash.

My son ran up and said,

"Wait a minute, Daddy."

So, he raked a place

out in the sand there,

and there it was, it kinda

tumbled up on the top.

The bills have

deteriorated quite badly,

but the serial numbers

on the bills

match the ones

given to D.B. Cooper.

This is most definitely

the Cooper ransom money,

and it's found exactly

as Briggs described it.

This remains

the only physical evidence

ever found outside the plane.

And the FBI tries

to process the money

to lead them back

to the hijacker.

Unfortunately,

the bills are falling apart,

and there are no fingerprints

or any other evidence

to tie back to Cooper.

At the time

of the discovery in 1980,

the FBI has no reason

to suspect d*ck Briggs.

The whole Briggs connection

doesn't come to light

until the Case Breakers

bring it up.

By then, the FBI

can't further investigate.

d*ck Briggs dies

in a single car accident

December 12th, 1980,

and it's unlikely

that this drug dealer

was Cooper,

but with him gone,

we'll never really know.

Once again, we're left

with more questions

than answers.

How do Briggs, the money,

and D.B. Cooper add up?

Did Briggs plant the money?

Did he know about the couple

going to find it?

Fortunately, the Case Breakers

aren't done digging yet.

It's November 2011,

and while the FBI

has investigated

over 1,000 suspects

in the D.B. Cooper case,

none have panned out.

But a team

of amateur researchers

called the Case Breakers

have uncovered

a new person of interest.

The Case Breakers

have been looking

at a former cocaine dealer

named Richard Briggs who bragged

that he was D.B. Cooper.

Now, Briggs has been dead

for 30 years,

so there's no way

to prove his claim.

Plus, there's always

been some problems

about Briggs being the suspect.

First, he doesn't look that much

like the D.B. Cooper sketch.

Second, there's no known records

of him having any parachute

training.

This isn't the end

of the story for Briggs though,

because the Case Breakers find

one of his associates,

former paratrooper

Robert Rackstraw.

When they look at the picture

of Rackstraw

and compare it to the sketch,

they think maybe this guy

could be D.B. Cooper.

This guy checks all the boxes.

He's an ex-paratrooper,

looks a lot like

the D.B. Cooper sketch,

and was even investigated

as a suspect in the late '70s.

The Case Breakers dig

deeper into Rackstraw's past.

Robert Rackstraw

joins the Army in 1969,

and he's assigned to

the First Cavalry

Airmobile Division in Vietnam.

In the service,

he gets extensive training

on skydiving, use of expl*sives,

and how to fly a plane.

He makes a name for himself,

and quickly rises to the rank

of First Lieutenant.

But this guy

is a total rulebreaker.

At one point, he even steals

his own commander's jeep.

In 1971, just five months

before the Cooper hijacking,

Rackstraw finally

gets kicked out

of the Army for insubordination.

From there,

his bad behavior continues.

In the 1970s

he racks up a lot of charges,

everything from check forgery

to domestic v*olence.

At one point,

he's actually charged

with k*lling his own stepfather.

He actually is acquitted

of that,

but still faces other charges

when he disappears.

While out on bail,

he fakes his own death.

He rents a small plane

and he fakes a mayday call

saying he's going down

in Monterey Bay.

Investigators

find the plane intact,

repainted in a nearby hangar.

Rackstraw's eventually

rearrested a few months later

and receives a short sentence.

All this attention

with law enforcement

has an unintended consequence.

It puts him right on the radar

for the D.B. Cooper

investigation.

In 1978, two Stockton,

California detectives

look at Rackstraw.

They look at his background

and criminal record,

and they can't help but notice

his similar appearance

to the Cooper sketch.

The detectives find

too many connections to ignore.

He knows bombs,

he knows skydiving.

He runs scams with airplanes,

he knows fake identities,

and by all accounts,

he has nothing to lose.

The Stockton

detectives tip off the FBI.

Rackstraw gives

a jailhouse interview

to the Stockton, California

newspaper, The Record.

In it, he says he identifies

with the spirit of D.B. Cooper,

a guy who challenged

the legal system and b*at it.

In the interview, Rackstraw

switches to first person,

and he says, "I think I stand

for the American people."

Journalists find

some more circumstantial links

between him and D.B. Cooper.

He admitted to being

in the Pacific Northwest

during the time

of the hijacking.

They also learn that he was

introduced to skydiving

by his favorite uncle,

Ed Cooper.

In another sit-down interview,

Rackstraw is asked if he thinks

he's a good suspect

for D.B. Cooper.

He says, "If I was

an investigator, definitely so.

I wouldn't discount myself

or a person like myself."

Based on all this evidence,

the Case Breakers'

Tom Colbert and Tom Szollosi

publish a 2016 book

identifying Rackstraw

as D.B. Cooper.

But their biggest bombshell

has to do with the reason

that Rackstraw was never caught.

Colbert and Szollosi

believe that Rackstraw

was protected

by friends in high places,

possibly the CIA.

Colbert and Szollosi

have discovered evidence

that Rackstraw worked

for the CIA.

Court records show

that Rackstraw

flew for CIA's

Air America in Laos

shortly after

the D.B. Cooper hijacking.

And he may have

also been a pilot

during the CIA's

Iran-Contra Affair.

Colbert and Szollosi

believe that because Rackstraw

knows CIA secrets,

he is shielded

from the FBI investigation

into D.B. Cooper.

Despite this new evidence,

the FBI doesn't further

investigate Rackstraw,

because they officially

close the Cooper case

just days after

this revelation in 2016.

The FBI has spent 45 years,

countless man hours,

and millions of dollars

investigating this case,

and they don't have

any firm evidence

against any particular suspect.

He didn't k*ll anybody,

there's no families

clamoring for justice,

and at the end of the day,

he really only stole $200,000.

They really can't justify

spending all these resources

on this case anymore.

Robert Rackstraw

never confirms or denies

he's D.B. Cooper.

For the rest of his life

after the theory comes out,

he seems to like people

making their own assumptions.

Maybe he was a CIA operative,

maybe he wasn't,

or maybe he's just some old guy

having a bit of fun.

We'll never know either way,

because on July 9th, 2019,

he d*ed of a heart condition

and took those secrets with him.

When the FBI officially closes

the D.B. Cooper investigation

in 2016, the government

assumes the public

will finally lose interest.

But in 2018, a new book reveals

a shocking new theory,

one that captures

the world's attention

and reignites speculation

about the case.

At this point, the FBI case

has been closed

for just over two years,

so the only new suspects

are coming by the way

of amateur investigators.

One in particular

comes from author Carl Laurin

in his book "D.B. Cooper and Me:

A Criminal, a Spy,

My Best Friend."

He alleges that his friend

and former spy Walter Reca

is D.B. Cooper.

When this theory comes out,

it makes huge headlines.

Carl Laurin

and his publisher Vern Jones

start a full-scale media blitz

to get their suspect's name

out there.

They make a documentary,

and they contact

the lead investigator

in the Jimmy Hoffa investigation

and ask him to write a book

about this case.

This book comes

to the same conclusion

that D.B. Cooper is Walter Reca.

It all starts with a phone call.

According to Laurin,

in 2008 Reca calls him.

Laurin can tell

that he has something

he wants to get off his chest.

And his best friend tells him,

"I am D.B. Cooper."

Reca is getting older,

he wants to share his story

with someone.

Why not his best friend?

Carl wasn't surprised by this.

In November of 1971

when he first heard the news

of the skyjacking,

he said out loud,

"I bet that's Walt."

He knows Reca's a trained

former paratrooper.

They were even

on a skydiving team

together in the 1950s with

the Michigan Air National Guard.

Other details line up as well.

In 1971, Walt would have been

37 years old.

He looks similar to the hijacker

and was living

in Washington State at the time.

Laurin thinks that Reca

has the personality for it.

He describes his friend

as fearless and brash.

Laurin states, "I knew

Walter Reca was D.B. Cooper,

because he was D.B. Cooper."

Before sharing more details,

Reca asks Laurin

to sign a notarized letter

stating he'll only release

the information

after Reca's death.

Laurin signs the letter,

and then they can begin.

Reca agrees to let Laurin

tape record

all their phone conversations,

where he will finally

reveal everything.

There's three hours

of recordings

where Walt

confesses to the crime

and describes exactly

how he did it.

If these tapes are true,

there are details in here

that only the skyjacker

would know.

Most importantly, Reca describes

precisely where he jumped

and landed.

Reca says he leapt

from the plane

about 50 miles

southeast of Seattle

just on the edge

of the Cascade Mountain range.

He chose a spot

where there was a highway

running through it

for an easier escape.

In order to verify Reca's claim,

Laurin goes to this location

and begins to ask around.

There, he's amazed to find

an eyewitness

named Jeff Osiadacz,

a former cop

who claims to have seen Reca

the night of the infamous

hijacking.

He stated that in

the small town of Cle Elum,

he saw Reca walking down a road

near a café.

Reca is wearing a black suit,

he's soaking wet,

and carrying a raincoat

wrapped up under his arm.

Reca seems disoriented

and asks where he is.

He calls an unidentified friend

and has Osiadacz give the friend

directions to their location.

Before Osiadacz leaves,

Reca offers to pay

for his coffee, and that's

the last of their encounter.

According to Osiadacz,

he didn't notify authorities

because he didn't think

this could be Cooper.

Osiadacz sees the news

about the hijacking,

but from what he saw,

the hijacker jumped out

in Oregon, not in Washington.

Plus, he didn't think Reca

looked anything like

the composite sketch.

Reca had a much rounder face,

a little bit thicker build,

and a more crooked nose

than what was observed

in the sketch.

Despite the claims

in Laurin's book,

the FBI doesn't reopen the case

to investigate Reca.

Besides the sketch, the location

also doesn't add up

to investigators.

Reca supposedly walks

to a town in Washington

called Cle Elum.

The town

is over 150 miles northeast

of the h*jacked plane's

flight path.

Also, the only evidence

they have

that may implicate Reca

is hearsay.

The FBI isn't interested

in reopening the case,

so it's just

another deathbed confession.

But Laurin says

there's another reason

the FBI steers clear of Reca.

According to Laurin's book,

shortly after the hijacking,

two government agents

come knocking on Reca's door.

They give Reca a choice

come work for U.S. intelligence

or spend a long time in jail.

Laurin claims that

Reca then begins working

as a spy for the CIA,

as well as Israel's Mossad,

and even allegedly

the Soviet KGB.

Laurin has evidence for this,

'cause Reca gave him

a bunch of passports,

some of which have fake names.

He also has a variety

of covert identity cards

from spy agencies like MI6,

and a diary chock full

of assassinations

and covert operations.

I suppose that

all of these documents

could be forgeries,

but they really don't answer

the question

of if he's D.B. Cooper.

We'll probably never know

the answer to that question.

When the hijacker

known as D.B. Cooper

disappears with $200,000

in 1971,

he leaves behind

almost no evidence.

The only things we know for sure

that are left on the plane

is the black clip-on tie

and the tie clip.

You may be surprised

that he would leave

some things behind.

But back in the '70s,

nobody knows about DNA,

and nobody can test for it.

Criminals are mainly concerned

with not leaving behind

hairs or fingerprints,

neither of which

are found on the necktie.

But 50 years later in 2011,

technology evolves enough

to make a breakthrough.

Back in 2009,

a paleontologist named Tom Kaye

assembled a group of scientists

to investigate.

They dub themselves

as Citizen Sleuths.

Their plan is to use

the up-to-date

scientific techniques

that have not been used

in this case.

In 2011, they're allowed

by authorities

to test the black clip-on tie.

Kaye and his team

feel that the tie

is a great piece of evidence

for one specific reason.

You don't usually wash ties.

There's a chance

that this tie was worn

in many different situations,

picking up various particles

and fibers along the way.

The team uses

an electron microscope,

allowing them to look closer

at the tie than ever before.

They're shocked to find

rare Earth minerals on it.

Specifically, these are cerium,

strontium sulfide,

and pure titanium.

These aren't just

lying around your house.

These elements are used

for very specific situations.

Of course,

they were hoping for a lead,

but this is a better lead

than they could have

ever anticipated.

In 1971, these materials

would only typically appear in

aerospace maintenance facilities

or cutting-edge

electronics labs.

This narrows

things down tremendously.

There are millions

of Caucasian men with dark hair,

but there's only

a few hundred thousand

that would have worked

in that kind of environment.

Was D.B. Cooper

an engineer or a scientist?

Did he sweep up the lab

at the end of the day?

After the team

releases its findings,

engineer Bill Rollins

joins the hunt.

Rollins goes through the records

of people who were employed

by these companies in the 1970s.

He compares these with thousands

of persons of interest

that the FBI looked at.

He believes he finds

the perfect candidate

for D.B. Cooper,

a production supervisor

at an electronics factory

names Joe Lakich.

Joe Lakich is a retired

U.S. Army Major and w*r veteran.

And at the time

of the hijacking,

he works at a technology plant

in Nashville,

where he could easily

come in contact with

the rare earth elements.

But there's something else

that catches Rollins' eye.

He thinks Lakich

committed the hijackings

not for money, but for revenge.

When the FBI

originally questions

flight attendant

Tina Mucklow in 1971,

she mentions a conversation

that investigators

don't pay much attention to

at the time.

She asked Cooper

why he's hijacking the plane.

"Do you have something against

Northwest Orient Airlines?"

He responds,

"I don't have a grudge

against your airline, Miss,

I just have a grudge."

For Rollins, that grudge

is a critical detail.

Rollins believes Lakich

has a serious grudge

against the FBI.

In 1971, the same year

as the hijacking,

Lakich's daughter Susan

dies in a tragic accident

involving the Bureau.

Susan is kidnapped by

her estranged husband George.

He drags her on board

a private plane

against her will

at gunpoint in Nashville.

He demands the pilot

fly them to the Bahamas,

but this requires

a refueling stop

at Jacksonville

International Airport.

The FBI is waiting

for them in Jacksonville,

and they end up sh**ting

the tires out on the plane.

But before they can rush

on board,

George has k*lled everyone

on board, including himself.

Lakich files

a wrongful death suit

against the Bureau.

And just two months later,

D.B. Cooper hijacks the plane,

creating a years-long headache

for the FBI.

For Rollins, the timeline

of Susan's m*rder

and the Flight 305 hijacking

points directly to Lakich

as a suspect.

In some warped sense of justice,

he decides to stick it

to the FBI

by hijacking a plane himself.

And Lakich seems to be

one of the few suspects

who was ever on the FBI's radar

who could have had access

to the rare metals

found on the tie.

Unfortunately, Lakich dies

before Rollins can question him.

But Rollins hasn't given up.

He's still trying

to track the ransom money,

which he believes will lead

to Lakich's home town

of Nashville.

Maybe if he finds it,

we'll finally know

D.B. Cooper's true identity.

As amateur

investigators continue to study

the D.B. Cooper case

in the late 2010s,

some focus on one detail

that he's a man with a grudge.

At some point during the flight,

flight attendant Tina Mucklow

asked D.B. Cooper

if he had a grudge

against her airline.

And Cooper's response was no,

that he just had a grudge.

Now, if we could just figure out

exactly what D.B. Cooper's

grudge was,

it would be a huge clue

to ultimately solving this case.

In 2018, a reporter

for the Oregonian newspaper,

Douglas Perry,

announces he's found the answer.

The reporter has been handed

a treasure trove of research

that an army analyst

had put together.

The analyst

wants to remain anonymous,

and is hesitant of the publicity

that the case might bring him.

He's right it makes

international headlines.

The analyst has done years

of research, and shares it

with both Perry and the FBI.

According to him,

D.B. Cooper didn't act alone.

He believes

there's a co-conspirator.

The analyst claims

his research began

in the early 2000s.

The analyst

reads an obscure book

that was written in 1985.

The book was titled

"D.B. Cooper:

What Really Happened."

In the book,

the author, Max Gunther,

claims that he received

a phone call from D.B. Cooper,

and later, D.B. Cooper's widow.

These people outline to Gunther

the real story of what happened,

and the name they give him

is Dan LeClair.

The book gives further details

such as biographical information

and birthdays,

so the analyst is able

to connect Dan LeClair

with a very real

former Army veteran

named Dan Clair.

He thinks

that's who called Gunther.

Clair d*ed in 1990,

and he doesn't resemble

the Cooper sketch.

But a colleague of his does.

The analyst looks

into Clair's family and friends,

and while doing so,

he believes he's come up

with a match, a man

named William J. Smith.

Smith is a manager

at Clair's railyard.

Smith is a New Jersey native

who graduates high school early

to join the Navy.

Smith trains as an aerial gunner

and photographer.

His job is to take

reconnaissance pictures.

He gets an honorable discharge

in 1947,

where he makes his way home

to Jersey City

and begins his job

at Lehigh Valley Railroad.

In the 1960s,

he befriends Dan Clair.

After working for the railroad

for over 20 years,

Smith is eventually promoted

to the position of yard master.

It's a management position.

It oversees everything

that's going on in the railyard.

There are two key reasons

why this is important.

First, Smith would have worn

a tie to work.

Second, he would have been

wearing that tie

near the exotic metals

present in the railroad's

repair facilities.

This could explain

the rare materials

found on D.B. Cooper's tie.

Could the duo's

work with railroads

motivate Cooper's

alleged grudge?

In the late 1960s

and early '70s,

the railroad industry

is in shambles.

The rise in airplane travel

and air freight

has crushed their bottom line.

Railroads nationwide are plagued

with wage reductions

and furloughs.

In 1970, this comes to a head

when Smith and Clair's railroad

files for bankruptcy.

It ends up being

the biggest bankruptcy

in history up till that time,

until the Enron collapse

in 2001.

Thousands of people

lose their jobs,

and many of them lose

their life savings and pensions.

The analyst believes

this incites the hijacking.

He doesn't believe

Smith and Clair got laid off,

but he does believe that

seeing all their coworkers

get laid off

did inspire their revenge.

They decide to att*ck

the air industry

because that's what's ruining

their business.

The analyst

suggests that Smith and Clair

planned the hijacking together.

He thinks they make

D.B. Cooper's so-called b*mb

out of railroad flares.

These could look

a lot like dynamite

when they're wrapped in wire.

Then, they study rail maps

of the Pacific Northwest

to plan the hijacking route.

It's possible D.B. Cooper

chose that flight path

due to his knowledge of where

the railroad tracks were

to make an easy getaway.

Smith and Clair prep together,

and Smith is the one

that actually does the crime,

based on his aviation training.

Smith does look a lot like

the sketch of D.B. Cooper.

He may be one

of the closest resemblance

of all the suspects.

Maybe even Clair is out there

on the night of the hijacking

helping Smith escape.

The analyst noted

that Clair retired

a year and a half

after the hijacking,

and he was only 54 years old.

Maybe he got his share

of the ransom money.

When Perry writes his story,

he asks the FBI for comment.

The FBI has received

the analyst's file

on Smith and Clair,

that much we know.

But as far as how seriously

the FBI takes them as suspects,

we actually have no idea,

because they give

a strangely cryptic response.

They officially close

the investigation in 2016,

so they could have

just said that,

"We're not looking into them."

Or, like many candidates

before him,

they could say

Smith isn't the guy,

that he's not D.B. Cooper.

But that's not what they say.

Instead, they said, quote,

"It would be inappropriate

to comment on tips

related to Smith."

What does that mean?

That's usually the language

used in an active investigation.

Sadly, it turns out

that Smith d*ed

in January of 2018,

just 10 months before

the article was published.

So, we may never know the truth.

Maybe the FBI is still

looking at William Smith.

Or maybe it's just

another red herring

in a case full of red herrings.

The unsolved case continues

to captivate the public

five decades after

the skyjacking took place.

Perhaps someday, one of

the many passionate sleuths

still investigating this mystery

will help us discover

D.B. Cooper's real name.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching

"History's Greatest Mysteries."