Infamous plane hijacker DB Cooper has been unmasked using DNA technology as a North Carolina father called Richard Floyd McCoy Jr, an expert has claimed.
McCoy’s children, Chanté and Richard III ‘Rick’, contacted YouTube researcher Dan Gryder after their mother’s death to confess that they believed their parents were behind the DB Cooper kidnapping mystery.
Now, in an explosive update, Gryder told DailyMail.com that FBI agents had asked Rick to provide a DNA sample and there were surprising results.
Gryder claimed that there are parts of Rick’s DNA that lined up “perfectly” with DB Cooper’s, possibly indicating a partial match from a relative.
The FBI now plans to exhume his body from where it is currently buried on the family property, Gryder added.
The iconic hijacker, whose true identity has long been unknown, seized a Boeing 727 at Seattle-Tacoma Airport on November 24, 1971 and held its crew and passengers hostage with a bomb threat.
He demanded $200,000 in cash, the equivalent of $1.2 million today. Once he had the money (and four parachutes), he had the crew take off before parachuting into the dense forests of the Pacific Northwest. From there he disappeared without a trace.
One of the few clues in the case is DNA found on a tie clip left on the plane in 1971.
On November 24, 1971, an unknown man nicknamed DB Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 at Seattle-Tacoma Airport and demanded $200,000 in cash.
Once their demands were met and transferred to the plane, Cooper had the crew take off before jumping.
There have been many suspects over the years, including Richard Floyd McCoy Jr. (pictured), who was convicted of an eerily similar kidnapping just months after the Cooper case.
After considering the similarities between the DNA, Gryder told DailyMail.com that investigators are now asking to exhume McCoy’s body for testing.
“All they (the McCoy children) could tell us is that there are DNA markers present, and they have of those markers, and where they have fallen is in the difference between the DNA of the son and the tie versus the real Richard Floyd McCoy,” he said.
What they’re looking for is undisputed DNA, which would give them more of those markers. That’s where they were with the thing. And that’s why they asked to exhume the body, which is a big problem.
“If the kids give permission and feel like they’re that close, if they could get those final markers to line up with what was left on the plane compared to Richard Floyd Mccoy himself.”
When contacted by DailyMail.com about the DNA evidence, the FBI delayed its July 2016 announcement that they would no longer actively investigate the case.
But Gryder, who previously revealed how he discovered a parachute he believes Cooper used to escape on the McCoy family farm in North Carolina, said he saw FBI agents on the property.
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.
They say this is due to the nearly identical heist McCoy pulled off in Utah just five months after Cooper’s heist.
One of the only possible DNA pieces of evidence from the crime scene is a tie clip (pictured) left on the plane in 1971.
YouTube researchers Dan Gryder are looking to make a DNA match to McCoy.
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 speaking with a witness who worked at a roadside diner and 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.
Two of them were captured within days, while McCoy evaded arrest for three months. He was later shot by the FBI in 1974 inside his Virginia Beach home.