1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000
Tonight, the only unsolved skyjacking case in history.

2
00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:08,000
Today, after hijacking a Northwest Airlines jet,

3
00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:10,000
description on one wire service,

4
00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:12,000
mass drift from behind us.

5
00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:14,000
The perpetrator leaps from a moving plane

6
00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:19,000
with $200,000 cash and is never seen again.

7
00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:20,000
There's a lot of variables.

8
00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:22,000
When did he jump out of the plane?

9
00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:24,000
How long did he wait before he pulled the Ripscord?

10
00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:26,000
What was the wing speed?

11
00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:30,000
People don't just disappear. He has to have gone somewhere.

12
00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:36,000
Now, we explore the top theories behind the world's most elusive hijacker.

13
00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:39,000
Investigators are looking at a former cocaine dealer.

14
00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:41,000
He's an ex-paratrooper.

15
00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:43,000
Looks a lot like the DB Cooper sketch.

16
00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:46,000
There are millions of Caucasian men with dark hair,

17
00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:50,000
but there's only a few hundred thousand that would have worked in that kind of environment.

18
00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:53,000
Can new evidence finally reveal his true identity?

19
00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:57,000
This is a better lead than they could have ever anticipated.

20
00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:01,000
Who is DB Cooper?

21
00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:03,000
And will he ever be caught?

22
00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:30,000
November 24th, 1971, Portland International Airport.

23
00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:36,000
A man named Dan Cooper boards Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 to Seattle.

24
00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:41,000
The flight crew and the passengers describe him as an unremarkable guy.

25
00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:46,000
He's a Caucasian male. He's got a dark suit, black tie, carrying a briefcase.

26
00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:51,000
He's one of the last to board the plane, sits in the last row in 18E.

27
00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:55,000
He orders a bourbon and soda and dons a pair of sunglasses.

28
00:01:55,000 --> 00:01:58,000
The plane takes off at 2.50pm.

29
00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:02,000
The flight from Portland to Seattle is a milk run flown several times a day.

30
00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:04,000
It's about an hour in the air.

31
00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:08,000
This time around, the plane's carrying 36 passengers and six crew members.

32
00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:11,000
Everything's going to plan. Everything's on schedule.

33
00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:17,000
Until the man seated in the last row, Cooper, hands a note to the flight attendant, Florence Schaffner.

34
00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:20,000
She doesn't read it at first. She puts it in her pocket.

35
00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:23,000
And then Cooper says to her, you might want to read that.

36
00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:27,000
The note says, I have a bomb and I'd like you to sit next to me.

37
00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:34,000
Florence Schaffner understandably sort of loses it, but she does comply and follows his instructions.

38
00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:39,000
Cooper opens his briefcase, revealing a makeshift bomb.

39
00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:46,000
Schaffner describes the contents of the briefcase as something that looks like eight sticks of dynamite, a battery, and a bunch of wires.

40
00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:49,000
Cooper has her attention. She knows he's serious.

41
00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:55,000
He demands four parachutes and a ransom of $200,000 when the plane lands in Seattle.

42
00:02:55,000 --> 00:03:00,000
Schaffner relays the hijacker's commands to Captain William Scott.

43
00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:05,000
But since it's such a short flight, ground forces need more time to react.

44
00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:11,000
So air traffic control keeps the plane circling around for two hours until they can gather the money in the parachutes.

45
00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:17,000
Investigators write down the serial number of every bill and then bundle it up into a bank bag.

46
00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:21,000
The plane finally lands in Seattle at 5.46 p.m.

47
00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:25,000
Captain Scott parks the plane away from the building.

48
00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:31,000
Cooper sends out a different flight attendant, Tina Mucklow, and she goes out and interacts with the authorities.

49
00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:36,000
There she collects the money and the parachutes and returns to the plane.

50
00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:43,000
She also brings printed instructions on how to use the parachutes, but Cooper tells her he does not need them.

51
00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:46,000
Cooper agrees to let the passengers off the plane.

52
00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:51,000
Two flight attendants, Florence Schaffner and Alice Hancock, also ask to leave and Cooper allows them to.

53
00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:55,000
But the ordeal isn't over for the rest of the crew.

54
00:03:55,000 --> 00:04:00,000
Cooper wants the 727 to take off again and start the head towards Mexico City.

55
00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:04,000
He's going to keep the four remaining crew members as hostages.

56
00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:09,000
There's a flight attendant, the flight engineer, the first officer, and the captain.

57
00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:14,000
For this second flight, Cooper makes more demands.

58
00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:20,000
Cooper wants the pilots to fly with the wing flaps in an unusual configuration, a downward position.

59
00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:24,000
Now that's how a plane normally takes off, but then they raise the flaps.

60
00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:32,000
You wouldn't fly 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.

61
00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:38,000
Cooper also asks that they keep the landing gear down and fly below 10,000 feet.

62
00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:42,000
He wants them to be going super slow and super low.

63
00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:47,000
The pilots tell Cooper it can't be done. They're afraid the plane might just fall out of the sky.

64
00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:52,000
But the hijacker is adamant that it will work and they need to comply.

65
00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:57,000
At 7.40 p.m., the plane takes off for Mexico City.

66
00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:03,000
But 20 minutes into the flight, Cooper does something completely unexpected.

67
00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:06,000
He lowers the plane's rare air stair.

68
00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:11,000
The 7.27 has a set of stairs that could be lowered out of the back of the airplane.

69
00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:13,000
The pilot gets a warning light when this happens.

70
00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:21,000
Once Cooper lowers the aft stairs around 8 p.m., he puts on his parachute, grabs his $200,000 and jumps out.

71
00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:25,000
The hijacker is never seen again.

72
00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:30,000
At 11.02 p.m., the pilot safely lands the plane in Reno.

73
00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:36,000
At this point, the flight crew has stayed in the cockpit and they're not sure if Cooper is still in the plane or not.

74
00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:40,000
But when the FBI searches the plane, Cooper is definitely gone.

75
00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:44,000
Almost immediately, the story spreads like wildfire.

76
00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:49,000
E.B. Cooper bailed out of a Northwest Airlines jet going 200 miles an hour at about 10,000 feet.

77
00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:54,000
The best guess is he jumped almost exactly over Liss Center, Washington.

78
00:05:54,000 --> 00:06:02,000
The FBI takes the lead on the case, with assistance from sheriffs and state troopers in Washington, Oregon and Nevada.

79
00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:07,000
They have very little to go on. This guy has committed an incredibly well-planned crime.

80
00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:12,000
Authorities need to begin somewhere. They start with his name.

81
00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:15,000
They know he bought a ticket under the name Dan Cooper.

82
00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:22,000
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.

83
00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:30,000
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.

84
00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:38,000
D.B. Cooper lives about an hour and a half from Portland in the Dolls, Oregon.

85
00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:41,000
And he's got a minor record, so police have him in the system.

86
00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:44,000
It's a long shot, but they know they have to start somewhere.

87
00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:49,000
And they're hopeful they can nap him on his way home with $200,000 of stolen money.

88
00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:57,000
A police officer drives D.B. Cooper's house in the night of the hijacking, planning to stake it out until Cooper comes home and catch him red-handed.

89
00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:02,000
But as soon as the officer arrives, he sees Cooper's already home.

90
00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:11,000
It seems unreasonable that D.B. Cooper would have committed the hijacking, jumped out of the plane and made it back home to his house in the Dolls that night.

91
00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:15,000
The timeline doesn't fit in any way, shape or form.

92
00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:22,000
So despite having a similar name and a criminal record, D.B. Cooper is quickly ruled out as the hijacker.

93
00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:30,000
Police may be done with D.B. Cooper as a suspect, but history isn't done with his name, thanks to an innocent error.

94
00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:34,000
A reporter named James Long for the Oregon Journal is covering the story.

95
00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:38,000
In all this chaos, no one knows what's happening and Long makes a mistake.

96
00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:49,000
The hijacker actually identified himself as Dan Cooper, but Long puts the hijacker's name out as D.B. Cooper and is immediately picked up by all the wire services.

97
00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:53,000
And just like that, D.B. Cooper becomes the name on everyone's lips.

98
00:07:53,000 --> 00:07:59,000
From that moment on, the case is known as the D.B. Cooper mystery.

99
00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:05,000
Meanwhile, at Reno Airport, authorities raced to gather evidence on the plane.

100
00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:11,000
Inside the plane, FBI agents find 66 latent fingerprints but can't identify any of them.

101
00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:17,000
They also find Cooper's black clip on tie and tie clip, some cigarette butts and two of the four parachutes.

102
00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:19,000
That's it. That's all they have.

103
00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:27,000
In 1971, we don't have fingerprint databases like we do today. We also don't have DNA at this time.

104
00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:31,000
The tie clip and the tie are pretty unremarkable, so they're going to be hard to trace.

105
00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:35,000
There's nothing on the plane that immediately tells us who the hijacker is.

106
00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:39,000
With little to go on, a large-scale manhunt begins.

107
00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:46,000
The FBI knows that he jumped out of the plane somewhere between Seattle and Reno, and now they need to know where to look.

108
00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:51,000
But it's hard to determine Cooper's landing zone because they don't know exactly when and where he jumped.

109
00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:59,000
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?

110
00:08:59,000 --> 00:09:07,000
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.

111
00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:17,000
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.

112
00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:25,000
Though the Blackbird retraces the hijack plane's flight path five times, their search turns up empty.

113
00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:33,000
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.

114
00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:38,000
And then 200 U.S. Army soldiers search the forest on foot.

115
00:09:38,000 --> 00:09:49,000
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.

116
00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:53,000
Despite all this effort, no trace of Cooper is found.

117
00:09:53,000 --> 00:10:01,000
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.

118
00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:06,000
With no actual photo to go on, the FBI enlists the help of a sketch artist.

119
00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:13,000
They talk to people who were at the Portland airport, who saw him buy his ticket, and people who were on the airplane.

120
00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:18,000
Both sets of witnesses give a near identical description of the man.

121
00:10:18,000 --> 00:10:23,000
He's a Caucasian man in his mid-40s with a somewhat dark olive complexion.

122
00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:29,000
He has a receding hairline, short dark hair, and is wearing a dark suit and sunglasses.

123
00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:36,000
This sketch, which has become world famous, comes out about a week after the hijacking on November 28, 1971.

124
00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:39,000
It generates hundreds, if not thousands, of tips.

125
00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:43,000
Tips that will soon break the Cooper case wide open.

126
00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:58,000
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.

127
00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:04,000
On April 8, 1972, one in particular grabs their attention.

128
00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:09,000
A concerned citizen called the FBI tip line. He said that him and his friend were talking over a beer,

129
00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:14,000
and his friend outlined a detailed plan on how to hijack an airplane.

130
00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:17,000
The friend's name is Richard Floyd McCoy Jr.

131
00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:21,000
At first it may seem like another one of these fake, my friend is D.B. Cooper stories,

132
00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:26,000
but as investigators dig deeper into McCoy's background, they realize this might really be our guy.

133
00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:30,000
Richard McCoy is a former student at Brigham Young University in Utah.

134
00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:34,000
He drops out, he joins the Army, he serves two tours in Vietnam.

135
00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:37,000
He was a helicopter pilot and demolition expert.

136
00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:42,000
After his time in Vietnam, he served with the Utah National Guard, where he became a skydiver.

137
00:11:42,000 --> 00:11:47,000
Based on his background, FBI agents believe he has some of the skills that Cooper has.

138
00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:52,000
He knows bombs, he knows planes, and he's a skydiver.

139
00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:58,000
There's a lot more to it than that, because according to the tipster, McCoy has just gotten away with another hijacking.

140
00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:11,000
On April 7, 1972, the day before the caller's tip, United Flight 855 from Denver to Los Angeles is hijacked.

141
00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:17,000
This hijacking occurred just five months after the D.B. Cooper hijacking, and the similarities are uncanny.

142
00:12:17,000 --> 00:12:22,000
This hijacker uses the name of James Johnson to buy his ticket.

143
00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:26,000
Like Cooper, he gives the flight crew a note announcing his intentions.

144
00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:29,000
He gives very specific instructions to the pilot.

145
00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:35,000
He asks them to fly to San Francisco, and he has a specific runway picked out. 19 left.

146
00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:42,000
He wants $500,000 and four parachutes, and if he gets that, he'll let the passengers go.

147
00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:46,000
It's just like D.B. Cooper right down to the number of parachutes.

148
00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:50,000
The parallels don't end there.

149
00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:54,000
Johnson gets the cash, he lets the passengers off, and the plane goes in the air.

150
00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:58,000
He tells them to fly low and slow at 16,000 feet.

151
00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:02,000
Then he takes the cash, straps on a parachute, and jumps out the back stairs.

152
00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:08,000
But the Johnson hijacking has something the Cooper case doesn't, a prime suspect.

153
00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:14,000
The first thing the FBI does is a handwriting and fingerprint analysis of the note used in the Johnson hijacking.

154
00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:17,000
Both samples are a positive match to McCoy.

155
00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:22,000
And then the FBI conducts a search of McCoy's home, and they find a duffel bag full of cash.

156
00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:26,000
$499,970.

157
00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:35,000
McCoy is caught red-handed for the James Johnson hijacking and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

158
00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:38,000
But is McCoy also D.B. Cooper?

159
00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:44,000
Unfortunately, unlike the Johnson hijacking, there's no evidence that ties McCoy to the D.B. Cooper hijacking.

160
00:13:44,000 --> 00:13:52,000
First of all, none of his fingerprints match the 66 Layton prints that were found off of the D.B. Cooper hijacking airplane.

161
00:13:52,000 --> 00:13:57,000
Eyewitnesses are shown photos of McCoy, and they say it does not match Cooper.

162
00:13:57,000 --> 00:14:06,000
Also, McCoy claimed to be in Las Vegas at that time, and that alibi was actually verified and that his signature appeared on receipts and forms.

163
00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:12,000
None of this rules out McCoy, but it makes it a lot less likely he is the Cooper suspect.

164
00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:16,000
But there's one piece of evidence that could tie McCoy to the crime.

165
00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:21,000
McCoy's family's asked to look at the tie clip to D.B. Cooper left behind on Flight 305.

166
00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:25,000
According to the family, that tie clip belongs to Richard McCoy.

167
00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:32,000
Unfortunately, the FBI is never able to interview McCoy about the Cooper hijacking case.

168
00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:40,000
On August 10, 1974, soon after he's sent to prison, McCoy escapes.

169
00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:45,000
When he's found, he's shot and killed in a shootout with the FBI, and that kind of closes the case on McCoy.

170
00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:54,000
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.

171
00:14:54,000 --> 00:15:02,000
But the FBI agent, Nick O'Hara, who shot McCoy, was quoted as saying, when I shot McCoy, I shot D.B. Cooper.

172
00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:08,000
But without more concrete evidence against McCoy, it's impossible to make a definitive ID.

173
00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:12,000
And so, the FBI keeps investigating.

174
00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:20,000
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.

175
00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:27,000
You have to understand, D.B. Cooper almost becomes a legend. There's kind of a Cooper mania surrounding him.

176
00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:33,000
He's kind of like a Jesse James or a Billy the Kid, this kind of common man who beats the system.

177
00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:36,000
And in the 1970s, that's the coolest thing you can do.

178
00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:42,000
Claiming to be D.B. Cooper, especially in the Pacific Northwest, is just a way to get your 15 minutes of fame.

179
00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:47,000
This is a nightmare to these poor investigators, because they have to sift through all these false confessions.

180
00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:52,000
After a few years, many agents speculate that they will never really find the real Cooper.

181
00:15:52,000 --> 00:16:01,000
The Bureau continues its work for decades, investigating some 1,000 serious suspects. But none are proven to be Cooper's.

182
00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:08,000
Eventually, the fame surrounding this case gets the public interested in solving this case as well.

183
00:16:08,000 --> 00:16:15,000
It spawned all these armchair detectives and independent investigators to look at this case for themselves.

184
00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:21,000
Among them, news researcher Tom Colbert and his team called the Casebreakers.

185
00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:26,000
In 2011, they announced a surprising new suspect.

186
00:16:26,000 --> 00:16:30,000
Colbert has spoken to an informant named Ron Carlson.

187
00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:35,000
In the late 70s and 80s, Carlson said he worked in the cocaine business with Dick Briggs.

188
00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:40,000
And apparently, Briggs used to brag all the time about being D.B. Cooper.

189
00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:51,000
One night in 1980, Carlson stated that Briggs threw a party at Hayden Island, which sits in the middle of the Columbia River.

190
00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:55,000
There, once again, Briggs brags that he is D.B. Cooper.

191
00:16:55,000 --> 00:16:59,000
This time, party guests ask Briggs to prove it.

192
00:16:59,000 --> 00:17:06,000
Carlson says that Briggs points out a couple at the party. Their names are Dwayne and Patricia Ingram.

193
00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:13,000
Briggs says, if you don't believe me, just watch. They're going to find the Cooper money in five days.

194
00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:21,000
Five days later, Ingram's son Brian finds two bundles ferried in the sand on the banks of the Columbia River.

195
00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:26,000
Inside these bundles was $5,800 in decomposing cash.

196
00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:32,000
My son ran up and said, wait a minute, Daddy. So he raked a place out in the sand there and there it was.

197
00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:34,000
It kind of tumbled up on the top.

198
00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:41,000
The bills have deteriorated quite badly, but the serial numbers on the bills match the ones given to D.B. Cooper.

199
00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:47,000
This is most definitely the Cooper ransom money, and it's found exactly as Briggs described it.

200
00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:52,000
This remains the only physical evidence ever found outside the plane.

201
00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:56,000
And the FBI tries to process the money to lead them back to the hijacker.

202
00:17:56,000 --> 00:18:03,000
Unfortunately, the bills are falling apart and there are no fingerprints or any other evidence to tie back to Cooper.

203
00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:10,000
At the time of the discovery in 1980, the FBI has no reason to suspect Dick Briggs.

204
00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:15,000
The hope Briggs connection doesn't come to light until the case breakers bring it up.

205
00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:19,000
By then, the FBI can't further investigate.

206
00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:28,000
Dick 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.

207
00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:35,000
Once again, we're left with more questions than answers. How did Briggs, the money, and D.B. Cooper add up?

208
00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:40,000
Did Briggs plant the money? Did he know about the couple going to find it?

209
00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:44,000
Fortunately, the case breakers aren't done digging yet.

210
00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:56,000
It's November 2011, and while the FBI has investigated over a thousand suspects in the D.B. Cooper case, none have panned out.

211
00:18:56,000 --> 00:19:04,000
But a team of amateur researchers called the case breakers have uncovered a new person of interest.

212
00:19:04,000 --> 00:19:12,000
The case breakers have been looking at a former cocaine dealer named Richard Briggs who bragged that he was D.B. Cooper.

213
00:19:12,000 --> 00:19:19,000
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.

214
00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:28,000
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.

215
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:37,000
This isn't the end of the story for Briggs, though, because the case breakers find one of his associates, former paratrooper Robert Rackstra.

216
00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:44,000
When they look at the picture of Rackstra and compare it to the sketch, they think, maybe this guy could be D.B. Cooper.

217
00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:55,000
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.

218
00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:59,000
The case breakers dig deeper into Rackstra's past.

219
00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:06,000
Robert Rackstra joins the Army in 1969, and he's assigned to the 1st Calvary Air Mobile Division in Vietnam.

220
00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:12,000
In the service, he gets extensive training on skydiving, use of explosives, and how to fly a plane.

221
00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:17,000
He makes a name for himself and quickly rises to the rank of 1st Lieutenant.

222
00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:23,000
But this guy is a total rule breaker. At one point, he even steals his own commander's jeep.

223
00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:31,000
In 1971, just five months before the Cooper hijacking, Rackstra finally gets kicked out of the Army for insubordination.

224
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:35,000
From there, his bad behavior continues.

225
00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:40,000
In the 1970s, he racks up a lot of charges, everything from check forgery to domestic violence.

226
00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:49,000
At one point, he's actually charged with killing his own stepfather. He's actually his acquittal to that, but still faces other charges when he disappears.

227
00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:56,000
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.

228
00:20:56,000 --> 00:21:00,000
Investigators find the plane intact, repainted, and a nearby hangar.

229
00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:05,000
Rackstra's eventually re-arrested a few months later and receives a short sentence.

230
00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:12,000
All this attention with law enforcement has an unintended consequence. It puts him right on the radar for the DB Cooper investigation.

231
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:23,000
In 1978, two stocked and California detectives look at Rackstra. They look at his background and criminal record, and they can't help but notice his similar appearance to the Cooper sketch.

232
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:26,000
The detectives find too many connections to ignore.

233
00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:35,000
He knows bombs, he knows skydiving, he runs scams with airplanes, he knows fake identities, and by all accounts, he has nothing to lose.

234
00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:39,000
The Stockton detectives tip off the FBI.

235
00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:44,000
Rackstra gives a jailhouse interview to the Stockton, California newspaper, The Record.

236
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:50,000
In it, he says he identifies with the spirit of DB Cooper, a guy who challenged the legal system and beat it.

237
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:57,000
In the interview, Rackstra switches the first person and he says, I think I stand for the American people.

238
00:21:57,000 --> 00:22:01,000
Journalists find some more circumstantial links between him and DB Cooper.

239
00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:05,000
He admitted to being in the Pacific Northwest during the time of the hijacking.

240
00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:12,000
They also learned that he was introduced to skydiving by his favorite uncle, Ed Cooper.

241
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:18,000
In another sit-down interview, Rackstra is asked if he thinks he's a good suspect for DB Cooper.

242
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:25,000
He says, if I was an investigator, definitely so. I wouldn't discount myself or a person like myself.

243
00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:37,000
Based on all this evidence, the casebreakers, Tom Colbert and Tom Salosi, publish a 2016 book, identifying Rackstra as DB Cooper.

244
00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:41,000
But their biggest bombshell has to do with the reason that Rackstra was never caught.

245
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:47,000
Colbert and Salosi believe that Rackstra was protected by friends in high places, possibly the CIA.

246
00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:53,000
Colbert and Salosi have discovered evidence that Rackstra worked for the CIA.

247
00:22:53,000 --> 00:23:02,000
Court records show that Rackstra flew for CIA's Air America in Laos shortly after the DB Cooper hijacking.

248
00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:08,000
And he may have also been a pilot during the CIA's Iran-Contra affair.

249
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:16,000
Colbert and Salosi believe that because Rackstra knows CIA secrets, he is shielded from the FBI investigation into DB Cooper.

250
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:29,000
Despite this new evidence, the FBI doesn't further investigate Rackstra, because they officially closed the Cooper case just days after this revelation in 2016.

251
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:35,000
The FBI has spent 45 years, countless man hours and millions of dollars investigating this case.

252
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:38,000
And they don't have any firm evidence against any particular suspect.

253
00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:42,000
He didn't kill anybody. There's no families clamoring for justice.

254
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:46,000
And at the end of the day, he really only stole $200,000.

255
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:50,000
They really can't justify spending all these resources on this case anymore.

256
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:54,000
Robert Rackstra never confirms or denies he's DB Cooper.

257
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:59,000
For the rest of his life, after the theory comes out, he seems to like people making their own assumptions.

258
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:04,000
Maybe he was a CIA operative. Maybe he wasn't. Or maybe he's just some old guy having a bit of fun.

259
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:11,000
We'll never know either way, because on July 9th, 2019, he died of a heart condition and took those secrets with him.

260
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:24,000
When the FBI officially closes the DB Cooper investigation in 2016, the government assumes the public will finally lose interest.

261
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:35,000
But in 2018, a new book reveals a shocking new theory, one that captures the world's attention and reignites speculation about the case.

262
00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:41,000
At this point, the FBI case has been closed for just over two years.

263
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:45,000
So the only new suspects are coming by the way of amateur investigators.

264
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:55,000
One in particular comes from author Carl Lauren. In his book, DB Cooper and Me, a criminal, a spy, my best friend.

265
00:24:55,000 --> 00:25:01,000
He alleges that his friend and former spy, Walter Reca, is DB Cooper.

266
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:06,000
When this theory comes out, it makes huge headlines.

267
00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:13,000
Carl Lauren and his publisher, Vern Jones, start at full-scale media blitz to get their suspect's name out there.

268
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:20,000
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.

269
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:25,000
This book comes to the same conclusion that DB Cooper is Walter Reca.

270
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:28,000
It all starts with a phone call.

271
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:32,000
According to Lauren, in 2008, Reca calls him.

272
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:39,000
Lauren can tell that he has something he wants to get off his chest, and his best friend tells him, I am DB Cooper.

273
00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:44,000
Reca is getting older, he wants to share his story with someone, why not his best friend?

274
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:46,000
Carl wasn't surprised by this.

275
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:54,000
In November of 1971, when he first heard the news of the skyjacking, he said out loud, I bet that's Walt.

276
00:25:54,000 --> 00:26:02,000
He knows Reca is a trained former paratrooper. They were even on a skydiving team together in the 1950s with the Michigan Air National Guard.

277
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:05,000
Other details line up as well.

278
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:13,000
In 1971, Walt would have been 37 years old. He looked similar to the hijacker and was living in Washington State at the time.

279
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:19,000
Lauren thinks that Reca has the personality for it. He describes his friend as fearless and brash.

280
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:27,000
Lauren states, I knew Walter Reca was DB Cooper because he was DB Cooper.

281
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:37,000
Before sharing more details, Reca asks Lauren to sign a notarized letter stating he'll only release the information after Reca's death.

282
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:46,000
Lauren signs a letter and then they can begin. Reca agrees to let Lauren tape record all their phone conversations where he will finally reveal everything.

283
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:53,000
There's three hours of recordings where Walt confesses to the crime and describes exactly how he did it.

284
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:58,000
If these tapes are true, there are details in here that only the skyjacker would know.

285
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:05,000
Most importantly, Reca describes precisely where he jumped and landed.

286
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:13,000
Reca says he left from the plane about 50 miles southeast of Seattle, just on the edge of the Cascade Mountain Range.

287
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:18,000
He chose a spot where there was a highway running through it for an easier escape.

288
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:24,000
In order to verify Reca's claim, Lauren goes to this location and begins to ask around.

289
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:33,000
There he's amazed to find an eyewitness named Jeff Osottage, a former cop who claims to have seen Reca the night of the infamous hijacking.

290
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:39,000
He stated that in the small town of Clay Ellum, he saw Reca walking on a road near a cafe.

291
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:45,000
Reca is wearing a black suit, he's soaking wet and carrying a ring coat wrapped up under his arm.

292
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:54,000
Reca seems disoriented and asks where he is. He calls an unidentified friend and has Osottage give the friend directions to their location.

293
00:27:54,000 --> 00:28:00,000
Before Osottage leaves, Reca offers to pay for his coffee and that's the last of their encounter.

294
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:07,000
According to Osottage, he didn't notify authorities because he didn't think this could be Cooper.

295
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:14,000
Osottage sees the news about the hijacking, but from what he saw, the hijacker jumped out in Oregon, not in Washington.

296
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:19,000
Plus, he didn't think Reca looked anything like the composite sketch.

297
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:26,000
Reca had a much rounder face, a little bit thicker build and a more crooked nose than what was observed in the sketch.

298
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:33,000
Despite the claims in Lauren's book, the FBI doesn't reopen the case to investigate Reca.

299
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:37,000
Besides the sketch, the location also doesn't add up to investigators.

300
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:41,000
Reca supposedly walks to a town in Washington called Clay Ellum.

301
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:47,000
The town is over 150 miles northeast of the hijacked plane's flight path.

302
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:52,000
Also, the only evidence they have that may implicate Reca is hearsay.

303
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:58,000
The FBI isn't interested in reopening the case, so it's just another deathbed confession.

304
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:03,000
But Lauren says there's another reason the FBI steers clear of Reca.

305
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:10,000
According to Lauren's book, shortly after the hijacking, two government agents come knocking on Reca's door.

306
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:15,000
They give Reca a choice. Come work for U.S. intelligence or spend a long time in jail.

307
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:27,000
Lauren claims that Reca then begins working as a spy for the CIA, as well as Israel's Mossad, and even allegedly, the Soviet KGB.

308
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:34,000
Lauren has evidence for this, as Reca gave him a bunch of passports, some of which have fake names.

309
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:43,000
He also has a variety of covert identity cards from spy agencies like MI6, and a diary chock full of assassinations and covert operations.

310
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:49,000
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.

311
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:52,000
We'll probably never know the answer to that question.

312
00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:08,000
When the hijacker known as D.B. Cooper disappears with $200,000 in 1971, he leaves behind almost no evidence.

313
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:13,000
The only things we know for sure that are left on the plane is the black clip on Ty and the Ty clip.

314
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:22,000
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.

315
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:29,000
Criminals are mainly concerned with not leaving behind hairs or fingerprints, neither of which are found on the necktie.

316
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:36,000
But 50 years later, in 2011, technology evolves enough to make a breakthrough.

317
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:42,000
Back in 2009, a paleontologist named Tom Kay assembled a group of scientists to investigate.

318
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:45,000
They dubbed themselves as Citizen Sluice.

319
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:51,000
Their plan is to use the up-to-date scientific techniques that have not been used in this case.

320
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:56,000
In 2011, they're allowed by authorities to test the black clip on Ty.

321
00:30:56,000 --> 00:31:04,000
Kay and his team feel that the Ty is a great piece of evidence for one specific reason. You don't usually wash ties.

322
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:11,000
There's a chance that this Ty was worn in many different situations, picking up various particles and fibers along the way.

323
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:17,000
The team uses an electron microscope, allowing them to look closer at the Ty than ever before.

324
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:25,000
They're shocked to find rare earth minerals on it. Specifically, these are cerium, strontium sulfide, and pure titanium.

325
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:31,000
These aren't just lying around your house. These elements are used for very specific situations.

326
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:36,000
Of course, they were hoping for a lead, but this is a better lead than they could have ever anticipated.

327
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:46,000
In 1971, these materials would only typically appear in aerospace maintenance facilities or cutting-edge electronics labs.

328
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:55,000
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.

329
00:31:55,000 --> 00:32:01,000
Was D.B. Cooper an engineer or a scientist? Did he sweep up the lab at the end of the day?

330
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:07,000
After the team releases its findings, engineer Bill Rollins joins the hunt.

331
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:12,000
Rollins goes through the records of people who were employed by these companies in the 1970s.

332
00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:17,000
He compares these with thousands of persons of interest that the FBI looked at.

333
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:24,000
He believes he finds the perfect candidate for D.B. Cooper, a production supervisor at an electronics factory named Joe Lacitch.

334
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:36,000
Joe Lacitch is a retired U.S. Army major and war 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.

335
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:40,000
But there's something else that catches Rollins' eye.

336
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:47,000
He thinks Lacitch committed the hijackings not for money, but for revenge.

337
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:58,000
When the FBI originally questions flight attendant Tina Muclo in 1971, she mentions a conversation that investigators don't pay much attention to at the time.

338
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:04,000
She asks Cooper why he's hijacking the plane. Do you have something against Northwest Orient Airlines?

339
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:09,000
He responds, I don't have a grudge against your airline mess. I just have a grudge.

340
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:13,000
For Rollins, that grudge is a critical detail.

341
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:25,000
Rollins believes Lacitch has a serious grudge against the FBI. In 1971, the same year as the hijacking, Lacitch's daughter Susan dies in a tragic accident involving the bureau.

342
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:33,000
Susan is kidnapped by her estranged husband George. He drags her on board a private plane against her will at gunpoint in Nashville.

343
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:41,000
He demands the pilot fly them to the Bahamas, but this requires a refueling stop at Jacksonville International Airport.

344
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:52,000
The FBI is waiting for them in Jacksonville, and they end up shooting the tires out on the plane, but before they can rush on board, George has killed everyone on board, including himself.

345
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:56,000
Lacitch files a wrongful death suit against the bureau.

346
00:33:56,000 --> 00:34:03,000
And just two months later, D.B. Cooper hijacks the plane, creating a years-long headache for the FBI.

347
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:11,000
For Rollins, the timeline of Susan's murder and the Flight 305 hijacking points directly to Lacitch as a suspect.

348
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:17,000
In some warped sense of justice, he decides to stick it to the FBI by hijacking a plane himself.

349
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:26,000
And Lacitch 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.

350
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:31,000
Unfortunately, Lacitch dies before Rollins can question him.

351
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:39,000
But Rollins hasn't given up. He is still trying to track the ransom money, which he believes will lead to Lacitch's hometown of Nashville.

352
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:43,000
Maybe if he finds it, he'll finally know D.B. Cooper's true identity.

353
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:54,000
As amateur investigators continue to study the D.B. Cooper case in the late 2010s, some focus on one detail.

354
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:57,000
That he's a man with a grudge.

355
00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:04,000
At some point during the flight, Flight Attendant Tina Muclo asked D.B. Cooper if he had a grudge against her airline.

356
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:07,000
And Cooper's response was no, that he just had a grudge.

357
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:14,000
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.

358
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:22,000
In 2018, a reporter for the Oregonian newspaper, Douglas Perry, announces he's found the answer.

359
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:29,000
The reporter has been handed a treasure trove of research that an army analyst had put together.

360
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:33,000
The analyst wants to remain anonymous and his hesitant of the publicity that the case might bring him.

361
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:36,000
He's right, it makes international headlines.

362
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:41,000
The analyst has done years of research and shares it with both Perry and the FBI.

363
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:48,000
According to him, D.B. Cooper didn't act alone. He believes there's a co-conspirator.

364
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:53,000
The analyst claims his research began in the early 2000s.

365
00:35:53,000 --> 00:36:00,000
The analyst reads an obscure book that was written in 1985. The book was titled, D.B. Cooper What Really Happened?

366
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:09,000
In the book, the author Max Gunter claims that he received a phone call from D.B. Cooper and later D.B. Cooper's widow.

367
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:16,000
These people outlined to Gunter the real story of what happened and the name they give him is Dan LeClaire.

368
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:27,000
The book gives further details such as biographical information and birthdays so the analyst is able to connect Dan LeClaire with a very real former army veteran named Dan Clair.

369
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:29,000
He thinks that's who called Gunter.

370
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:37,000
Clair died in 1990 and he doesn't resemble the Cooper sketch, but a colleague of his does.

371
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:47,000
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.

372
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:50,000
Smith is a manager at Clair's Rail Yard.

373
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:56,000
Smith is a New Jersey native who graduates high school early to join the Navy.

374
00:36:56,000 --> 00:37:03,000
Smith trains as an aerial gunner and photographer where his job is to take reconnaissance pictures.

375
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:13,000
He gets an honorable discharge in 1947 where he makes his way home to Jersey City and begins his job at Lehigh Valley Railroad.

376
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:16,000
In the 1960s, he befriends Dan Clair.

377
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:24,000
After working for the railroad for over 20 years, Smith is eventually promoted to the position of yard master.

378
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:28,000
It's a management position that oversees everything that's going on in the rail yard.

379
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:31,000
There are two key reasons why this is important.

380
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:34,000
First, Smith would have worn a tie to work.

381
00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:41,000
Second, he would have been wearing that tie near the exotic metals present in the railroad's repair facilities.

382
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:45,000
This could explain the rare materials found on DB Cooper's tie.

383
00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:50,000
Could the Duos work with railroads motivate Cooper's alleged grudge?

384
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:55,000
In the late 1960s and early 70s, the railroad industry is in shambles.

385
00:37:55,000 --> 00:38:00,000
The rise in airplane travel and air freight has crushed their bottom line.

386
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:05,000
Railroads nationwide are plagued with wage reductions and furloughs.

387
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:10,000
In 1970, this comes to a head when Smith and Clair's railroad files for bankruptcy.

388
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:16,000
It ends up being the biggest bankruptcy in history up to that time until the Enron collapse in 2001.

389
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:22,000
Thousands of people lose their jobs and many of them lose their life savings and pensions.

390
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:26,000
The analyst believes this incites the hijacking.

391
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:34,000
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.

392
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:39,000
They decide to attack the air industry because that's what's ruining their business.

393
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:45,000
The analysts suggest that Smith and Clair planned the hijacking together.

394
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:49,000
He thinks they make DB Cooper's so-called bomb out of railroad flares.

395
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:53,000
These could look a lot like dynamite when they're wrapped in wire.

396
00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:59,000
Then they study rail maps of the Pacific Northwest to plan the hijacking route.

397
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:06,000
It's possible DB Cooper chose that flight path due to his knowledge of where the railroad tracks were to make it an easy getaway.

398
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:13,000
Smith and Clair prepped together and Smith is the one that actually does the crime based on his aviation training.

399
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:17,000
Smith does look a lot like the sketch of DB Cooper.

400
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:21,000
He may be one of the closest resemblance of all the suspects.

401
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:25,000
Maybe even Clair is out there in the night of the hijacking helping Smith escape.

402
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:32,000
The analyst noted that Clair retired a year and a half after the hijacking and he was only 54 years old.

403
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:35,000
Maybe he got a share of the ransom money.

404
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:40,000
When Perry writes his story, he asks the FBI for comment.

405
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:43,000
The FBI has received the analyst's file on Smith and Clair.

406
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:50,000
That much we know, but as far as how seriously the FBI takes them as suspects, we actually have no idea.

407
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:54,000
Because they give a strangely cryptic response.

408
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:59,000
They officially closed the investigation in 2016, so they could have just said that.

409
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:01,000
We're not looking into them.

410
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:07,000
Or like many candidates before him, they could say Smith isn't the guy that he's not DB Cooper.

411
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:09,000
But that's not what they say.

412
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:13,000
Instead they said, quote, it would be inappropriate to comment on tips related to Smith.

413
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:18,000
What does that mean? That's usually the language used in an active investigation.

414
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:26,000
Sadly, it turns out that Smith died in January of 2018, just 10 months before the article was published, so we may never know the truth.

415
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:33,000
Maybe the FBI is still looking at William Smith, or maybe it's just another red herring in a case full of red herrings.

416
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:42,000
The unsolved case continues to captivate the public five decades after the skyjacking took place.

417
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:51,000
Perhaps someday one of the many passionate sleuths still investigating this mystery will help us discover DB Cooper's real name.

418
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:58,000
I'm Lawrence Fishburne. Thank you for watching History's Greatest Mysteries.