The parachute used by infamous hijacker DB Cooper to escape a plane with $200,000 may have finally been found.
The enigma behind DB Cooper, the man who jumped off Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 with thousands of dollars in cash after handing a flight attendant a ransom note, has long stumped the FBI.
Nearly a decade later, the FBI began unofficially investigating the case after Richard Floyd McCoy II’s children contacted YouTuber Dan Gryder in 2020 with possible evidence.
After the death of Chanté and Richard III ‘Rick’ McCoy’s mother, they contacted Gryder, who had pestered them on and off for years while doing his own investigation, inviting him to the family’s North Carolina estate in July. of 2022.
Inside McCoy’s mother’s warehouse was a modified military surplus salvage rig that Gryder believes Cooper used in the heist, he told her. Cowboy State Diary.
“That platform is literally one in a billion,” he told the outlet.
McCoy’s children also agree that their father may have been Cooper, but they refrained from pursuing their speculation until their mother died, as they believed she was complicit in her husband’s crime.
Monday, Gryder released a video on his YouTube channel, where he announced that the FBI had been investigating his most recent discoveries.
The enigma behind DB Cooper, the man who jumped off Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 with thousands of dollars in cash after handing the flight attendant a demanding note, has long racked detectives’ brains and stumped the FBI. . Many believe it was Richard McCoy II
Nearly a decade later, the FBI began unofficially investigating the case after his sons and amateur investigator Dan Gryder led them to a parachute and platform they believed Cooper used in McCoy’s mother’s warehouse.
The amateur investigator said FBI agents contacted him after seeing his first two videos, one of which shows him discovering the parachute in the warehouse on the family’s property.
It was the first time the FBI had taken action on the DB Cooper case since it was postponed in 2016, pending new evidence.
The flight instructor claimed that FBI agents met with him and Rick to take the harness and parachute as evidence.
They were also interested in a log book that Chanté found that was aligned with the Cooper kidnapping in Oregon, as well as a kidnapping in Utah that McCoy was convicted of that took place months after the Cooper case.
Gryder’s friend Laura Savino, a retired airline pilot, also attended the meeting and reminded Cowboy State Daily that the officers were “professional and stoic.”
“Given they had requested the meeting, it was clear they were taking it seriously,” he said.
The Gryder and McCoy children said the parachute has unique modifications to the parachutes in the Utah hijacking that have been well documented by Earl Cossey, who owned and supplied them before the 1971 crime.
The FBI has yet to return the evidence, leading Gryder to believe their speculation that the parachute was used in Cooper’s kidnapping.
A month later, an FBI agent contacted Rick asking him to search the family property. Dozens of agents arrived at the southern property and searched “every corner,” according to Rick.
Many believe McCoy is Cooper because he pulled off an identical heist months after Cooper’s before being arrested and convicted. Each time, the kidnapper made off with hundreds of thousands of dollars.
From afar, Gryder and Savino watched and documented the search that lasted about four hours, according to Cowboy State Daily.
Rick has also provided DNA samples to the FBI, but the agency has yet to inform the McCoy family of any developments in the case.
McCoy’s name has been mentioned among detectives for years and many believe the late man, who died after escaping from prison, is the notorious kidnapper.
Many believe this is due to the nearly identical heist McCoy pulled off in Utah just five months after Cooper’s heist.
In April 1972, McCoy jumped off a United Airlines flight over Utah after demanding $500,000.
Within 72 hours, the FBI arrested him after matching fingerprints left on the note, and a witness who worked at a roadside restaurant recalled selling McCoy a milkshake shortly after the robbery.
The FBI raided his home without a warrant, which likely prevented them from charging him with the Cooper robbery.
He was sentenced to 45 years in prison for the Utah heist, but later escaped from maximum security with three other prisoners.
The FBI had tested a clip-on tie Cooper left behind in 1971, but they have not said whether Rick’s DNA sample from 2023 matches the DNA evidence on the tie.
Gryder believes the parachute found on McCoy’s property is Cooper’s harness because it has modifications.
Two of them were captured within days, while McCoy evaded arrest for three months. He was later shot by police in 1974 in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Although McCoy is widely believed to be the culprit of the Oregon heist, not everyone agrees with the assessment.
Retired FBI Special Agent Larry Carr, who took over the case briefly in 2007, does not believe the kidnapper could have survived the fall, even though Gryder has done so himself in the past.
Other critics say McCoy was too young to match the profile of the man believed to be in his 40s who completed the heist.
Gryder dismisses them as McCoy simply using a disguise to hide his identity.
Furthermore, Gryder is sure that the parachute and the team will prove that they are his man.
“This will definitely prove it was McCoy,” he told Cowboy State Daily.
Despite having the evidence, the FBI has not announced any new changes in the case, but previously denied true crime investigator Eric Ulis’ FOIA request, according to a June report. The US Sun.
Eric Ulis (pictured) says he discovered an adjustable shaft in a tie that matches the one Cooper was wearing.
Ulis suspects a man named Vince Peterson (pictured) is Cooper after the material on the tie could be linked to Pennsylvania.
He requested the DNA profiles after Rick provided a sample to the FBI.
The FBI had tested a clip-on tie Cooper left behind in 1971, but the hidden shaft built into the knot has not yet been tested.
Ulis sued the FBI, saying Cooper’s DNA could still be on the spindle, but his efforts were unsuccessful.
A judge dismissed his first FOIA request for the spindle, and filed a second requesting the DNA records, saying: “We know that the FBI obviously attempted to re-test last year by contacting Richard Floyd McCoy’s son, so clearly “they reactivated the spindle.” case.
‘So based on this recent test in 2023 and the other tests they did in 2001, the partial DNA that they have documented is in a series of lines or a sequence of numbers, and that is clearly an agency record.
‘When you look at the other documents released in this case under the FOIA, they contained social security numbers, so there should be no excuse that this DNA data is personal information.
“I have worked a lot on this case over the last few years (…) and the only way to definitively resolve this matter is through DNA testing,” he concluded.
His application was rejected over the summer, according to The Sun.
The ticket showing Dan Cooper on the Northwest Orient flight in 1971
Cooper walked away with $200,000 after passing the note to the flight attendant.
Ulis believes the mysterious kidnapper is engineer Vince Petersen from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
Petersen worked as a Boeing subcontractor at a titanium plant and matches evidence left by the infamous hijacker, the DB enthusiast told The Sun. He would have been 52 years old at the time of the crime and had long since died.
Ulis, who was five years old when the plane hijacking occurred, first landed on Petersen’s name after analyzing microscopic evidence left on the black clip-on tie DB left behind before parachuting from the plane.
Several of the particles found matched special metals used in the aerospace sector, such as titanium, high-quality stainless steel and aluminum, Ulis explained.
The detective claims he found “three particles of a very rare alloy of titanium and antimony that have a very specific balance, a very specific mixture.”
Ulis then combined the alloy with a U.S. patent issued to Boeing’s subcontractor in Pittsburg.