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Investigators Claim They've Discovered D.B. Cooper's Identity (rollingstone.com) 131

Posted by msmash from the or-so-they-think dept.
A team of former FBI investigators is claiming to have proof of the real identity of D.B. Cooper, the notorious airplane hijacker who has remained at large since he parachuted out of a Seattle-bound plane with $200,000 in November 1971. From a report: According to filmmaker and author Thomas Colbert -- who has led the independent investigation into the cold case for the last seven years -- the real Cooper is a 74-year-old Vietnam veteran named Robert Rackstraw. And the proof is hidden in a series of letters allegedly written by Cooper in the months after the hijacking and his disappearance. Rackstraw -- a former Special Forces paratrooper, explosives expert and pilot with about 22 different aliases -- was once a person of interest in the case, but was eliminated as a suspect by the FBI in 1979. His elimination was controversial amongst the investigating agents, and he remained, for many, the most viable suspect in what remains the only unsolved case of air piracy in the United States. In 2016, the FBI announced they were ending their investigation into the case.
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Investigators Claim They've Discovered D.B. Cooper's Identity More

Investigators Claim They've Discovered D.B. Cooper's Identity

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  • No! (Score:1)

    by Sejus ( 2109992 )
    I'm D.B Cooper! Or Spartacus. One of those.

  • discovered is easy, demonstrated ... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Conclusively demonstrating the identity is much harder than developing a hypothesis.

  • Strange dialogue around this guy (Score:3)

    by bluefoxlucid ( 723572 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @12:20PM (#56886796) Homepage Journal

    One theory claims D.B. Cooper must have died because he took a parachute that was a dummy parachute, and so would have had just a stuffed backpack when he jumped. People believe this despite obvious questions like "why would you have something like that on a commercial airplane?" and "where is the body?"

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by cre1mer ( 5440320 )
      You have parachutes for the crew in case something goes wrong with the plane. As for the passengers, they should have read the fine print on the ticket.

    • The parachutes were not on the plane. They were provided to him as part of the ransom and they mistakenly gave him a dummy chute.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Holi ( 250190 )
        Again, why would you have a dummy parachute on a plane? That seems like a very bad idea. In what way would it be a good idea to have a fake parachute?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          "Mistakenly" gave him a dummy chute. Sounds like something that would be good. Here is $200,000, and here is a 'parachute". Jump ---> splat.

        • Again, why would you have a dummy parachute on a plane?

          He demanded, and was given, the money and chutes when the plane landed in Seattle.

          This seems very stupid to me. Why didn't he bring his own parachute?

          Other evidence that he died: The money was never spent.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            The money was never spent.

            How is that known? The money hasn't been recovered, and could have been spent overseas or in a non-recorded transaction.

            • Supposedly they know the serial numbers of all the bills they gave him. If the money was spent, entered the money supply, and started to circulate, inevitably some of it would make it back to the US one way or another. And it wouldn't surprise me either if some foreign banks also check serial numbers of US currency that passes through them.

              I guess it's possible that the money was spent once and now is just sitting in someone's vault Scrooge McDuck style, but that seems unlikely.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Strange dialogue around this guy (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @12:41PM (#56886968)

      The parachutes weren't on the commercial plane to start with; commercial passenger planes do not have parachutes because it is not realistic that people will parachute from them. At least not survive parachuting from them!
      The parachutes came from a Seattle parachuting club, I think. They were put on the plane because Cooper demanded it. Among these chutes was one training chute with the reserve sewn shut. This was the one Cooper used for his jump. So a real parachute, just without a working reserve chute.
      My main argument for that he survived is that if he didn't, the parachute would have been left laying about in the terrain, and could easily have been seen by searchers from planes. The area where he jumped did not have any snow, so a white parachute would likely have been visible. It is also not a totally uninhabited area, lots of farms and houses, so people (or their dogs) could easily have found him. But if he survived he could have removed evidence.
      Another possibility, of course, is that he did die, someone found him and hid the body and evidence and pocketed the money.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Vreejack ( 68778 )

      I believe the spare was a dummy, not the main chute. The fact that he did not recognize the clearly marked dummy chute (among others) is the reason that Rackstraw was eliminated as a suspect. "D. B. Cooper", whoever he was, did not know what he was doing with a parachute. He had no protection from the insane chill factor and the extreme buffeting as he exited the plane.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by vux984 ( 928602 )

      People believe this despite obvious questions like "why would you have something like that on a commercial airplane?" and "where is the body?"

      The parachute was not on the plane. It was one his demands to release hostages.

      So its entirely plausible that he'd be given a dummy parachute.

      However, he requested multiple parachutes as part of his hijacking demands. So the idea that the police would have deliberately given him a dummy parachute is pretty much unthinkable, because asking for multiple parachutes was precisely to raise the possibility of him having a hostage from the plane jump with him... as insurance against the parachutes being sabotaged.

      • Thanks, that helps. Not sure where I read that or if it's just been too long and my memory is distorted. There were all kinds of bizarre claims about this guy.

    • He got the parachutes as part of his demand together with the money. He specifically asked for 4 parachutes so the police wouldn't give him a dummy one since they would believe that he would force the pilots and crew that remained to parachute off the plane.

  • He's been debunked multiple times (Score:3)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @12:29PM (#56886872)
    Main reason, he was too young.

  • Two words: Duke Lacrosse (Score:5, Informative)

    by Noishkel ( 3464121 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @12:30PM (#56886878)
    Yeah, because Rolling Stone magazine has such a sterling history of conducting deep in depth investigations. Just ignore the fact that they had to pay about $1.65 million when they published a scandalous accusation of rape in a fraternity when the case against them collapsed due to serious credibility issues with the accuser.

    • I'm more concerned why the government is wasting resources on cases like this. Meanwhile you can call up the FBI and give them the name of a person who is going to shoot up a school and they toss it in the trash.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        You apparently cannot read, even though this story was quite short. The FBI stopped its investigation 2 years ago, that's right in the story. This is a private organization. The investigators PREVIOUSLY worked for the FBI. Geez.

  • Decoding? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    “And please tell the lackey cops D.B. Cooper is not my real name,” was decoded to “I am 1st Lt. Robert Rackstraw, D.B. Cooper is not my real name.”
    What? How does lackey cops translate to Robert Rackstraw?

    This smacks of some weird numerology, and cop hunches. I sure don't see any actual evidence pointing to Rackstraw being Cooper. Just someout with a pet theory .

  • Confirmation bias? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Registered Coward v2 ( 447531 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @12:36PM (#56886926)
    So they decided Rickshaw was the guy after analyzing the information they had; then, when they got the last two letters, were able to decode them to conclusively prove he did it? They even were able to decode his name in the letters? He may have been a prime suspect, per TFA, but absent physical evidence such as a parachute or a stack of bills from the hijacking I would not consider that conclusive. If Rickshaw is a narcissist who needs to prove he was smarter than everyone else I would think he'd save proof that he was in fact D. B. Cooper an not yet another imposter.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @12:39PM (#56886944)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Settled, at last! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Vreejack ( 68778 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @12:59PM (#56887120)

      Also decoded: "Vreejack is the True King of Slashdot. Long May He Reign." They left that bit out of the article, but you can decode it from the D.B. Cooper letters at your leisure.

    • Yeah, this whole thing seems rather silly. Colbert describes Rackstraw as a “narcissistic sociopath who never thought he would be caught. He was trying to prove that he was smarter than anyone else.“ He also describes him as someone who likes to taunt the police. But they’ve got a grand total of six letters from a narcissistic sociopath who’s been roaming free for 40 years - all of which were written not long after the skyjacking?

      For that matter, even if they could prove the author o

  • " allegedly written by Cooper " (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Allegedly...

    I've been following these knuckleheads for years and they still have no proof at all... just a bunch of conjecture and innuendo.

  • Isn’t it “former investigators” now that the investigation had been closed? I mean, it’s great if they are investigating other stuff in the mean time, but that’s hardly pertinent to the title. It would really be better if it was something less clickbaity like “Two years ago some FBI agents thought that the guy they suspected to be Cooper forty years ago could still be Cooper.”

  • but no photos of Rackstraw? Does he look anything like the drawings?

  • chose the worst parachute rig to jump with, a Navy NB-8. FFS wasn't he aware the Paracommander in a B4 container vastly superior and has some forward speed and excellent turnability compared to a unmodfied round canopy of the NB-8? I didn't RTFA but I don't think this guy was Dan Cooper.

  • Most crimes have some sort of statute of limitations, why not this? Declare the deed pardoned and let whoever did it come forward. It's in the public interest (i.e. curiosity) to know whodunit and if they indeed survived they can probably even repay the money from potential book/film rights and everybody's happy.

    • Re:Just pardon whoever did it. (Score:5, Informative)

      by WolfgangVL ( 3494585 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @04:15PM (#56888434)

      Because he's made fools of the police, the FBI, and pretty much the entire media- for decades. Add to that the fact that he's become sort of a folk legend/hero and there is absolutely no chance of pardon.

      If he was to come forward they would nail him to the wall for all to see, and then go after his family for the 200k adjusted for inflation with interest and tax evasion and everything else they can come up with.

      If he lived, I expect he a doddering old mastermind at this point. I'm hoping his dying breath spills the beans while he flips them the bird.

  • Nonsense (Score:3)

    by GoRK ( 10018 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @01:28PM (#56887324) Homepage Journal

    Am I missing something in that there is no evidence presented around the actual message coding except for pictures of letters and then apparently the secret messages which have been conveniently 'decoded' from them?

    Considering it's rather trivial to produce an enciphering scheme that will transliterate any plaintext into any other the designer desires (not that the "investigators" even bothered in this case) I find the whole thing pretty suspect.

  • ... the Colbert Report?

    <ducks ... >

  • Known for a while now (Score:3)

    by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) <bruce@perens.com> on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @02:06PM (#56887600) Homepage Journal
    Mr. Rackstraw has been the main suspect for a while, based not on anagrams in this letter but the presence of particles of aerospace materials in a tie that he left. The suspect had to have worked where such materials were machined.
  • "At this point, what difference does it make?"

    Seriously.... it doesn't really matter...

  • That paragon of journalistic integrity?

  • Doesn't this claim pop up every couple of years? Alternating with discovering who Jack the Ripper was. And for some decades the regular unmasking of Deep Throat of Watergate fame.

  • (checks link) ... Oh... According to a story in Drooling Stoner. Never mind.

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