Is There New Evidence in the D.B. Cooper Case? (cowboystatedaily.com) 63
On November 24th, 1971 — 53 years ago today — a mysterious man jumped out of an airplane clutching $200,000 in ransom money. (He'd extorted it from the airline by claiming he had a bomb, and it's still "the only unsolved case of air piracy in the history of commercial aviation," according to Wikipedia.) Will modern technology finally let us solve the case — or just turn it into a miniseries on Netflix? And have online researchers finally discovered the definitive clue?
The FBI vetted more than 800 suspects, according to the Wyoming news site Cowboy State Daily, but in 2016 announced they were suspending their active investigation.
So it's newsworthy that the FBI now appears to be investigating new evidence, according to an amateur D.B. Cooper researcher on YouTube: the discovery of what's believed to be D.B. Cooper's uniquely-modified parachute: Retired pilot, skydiver and YouTuber, Dan Gryder told Cowboy State Daily that he may have found the missing link after uncovering the modified military surplus bailout rig he believes was used by D.B. Cooper in the heist. It belonged to Richard Floyd McCoy II, and was carefully stored in his deceased mother's storage stash until very recently... McCoy's children, Chanté and Richard III, or "Rick," agree with Gryder that they believe their father was D.B. Cooper, a secret that shrouded the family but wasn't overtly discussed. For years, they said, the family stayed mum out of fear of implicating their mother, Karen, whom they believe was complicit in both hijackings. Upon her death in 2020, they broke their silence to Gryder after being contacted by him off and on for years.
Gryder, who has been researching the case for more than 20 years, documented his investigation in a lengthy two-part series on his YouTube channel, "Probable Cause," in 2021 and 2022, where he connects the dots and shows actual footage of him finding the parachute in an outbuilding on the McCoy family property in North Carolina in July 2022. On Monday, Gryder released a third video, "D.B. Cooper: Deep FBI Update," where he announced the FBI's new and very recent efforts in his discoveries. After watching his first two videos, Gryder said FBI agents contacted Rick and Gryder to see the parachute. It was the first investigative move by the agency since issuing the 2016 public statement, declaring the case closed pending new evidence. Gryder and Rick McCoy traveled to Richmond, Virginia, in September 2023, where they met with FBI agents, who took the harness and parachute into evidence along with a skydiving logbook found by Chanté that aligned with the timeline for both hijackings, providing another vital piece in the puzzle, Gryder said....
During the meeting, Gryder said the agents called it a first step. If the evidence proved fruitless, they would have promptly returned the skydiving rig, he said, but that didn't happen. Instead, an FBI agent called Rick a month later to ask to search the family property in Cove City, North Carolina, which McCoy's mother owned and where Gryder had found the parachute and canopy... [Gryder says he watched] at least seven vehicles descend on the property with more than a dozen agents who scoured the property for about four hours... Rick said he has provided a DNA sample and was told by the FBI agents that the next step might be exhuming his father's body, but no formal terms and conditions for that process have been established thus far, he said.
A retired commercial airline pilot who was present in the Virginia FBI meeting said "It was clear they were taking it seriously" — noting it was the FBI who'd requested that meeting. The article cites two FBI agents who'd earlier already believed D.B. Cooper was McCoy. And the article points out that the FBI "has never ruled McCoy out, stating in a 2006 statement that he was 'still a favorite suspect among many.'"
A second article notes that Gryder supports the FBI's recent request to exhume McCoy's body. As he sees it, "The existing DNA marker comparisons studied so far only validate the need for this final extreme step and should close the mystery once and for all."
And the article adds that McCoy's children are "eager for closure and hope that the FBI finds the evidence agents need to close the D.B. Cooper case once and for all."
The FBI vetted more than 800 suspects, according to the Wyoming news site Cowboy State Daily, but in 2016 announced they were suspending their active investigation.
So it's newsworthy that the FBI now appears to be investigating new evidence, according to an amateur D.B. Cooper researcher on YouTube: the discovery of what's believed to be D.B. Cooper's uniquely-modified parachute: Retired pilot, skydiver and YouTuber, Dan Gryder told Cowboy State Daily that he may have found the missing link after uncovering the modified military surplus bailout rig he believes was used by D.B. Cooper in the heist. It belonged to Richard Floyd McCoy II, and was carefully stored in his deceased mother's storage stash until very recently... McCoy's children, Chanté and Richard III, or "Rick," agree with Gryder that they believe their father was D.B. Cooper, a secret that shrouded the family but wasn't overtly discussed. For years, they said, the family stayed mum out of fear of implicating their mother, Karen, whom they believe was complicit in both hijackings. Upon her death in 2020, they broke their silence to Gryder after being contacted by him off and on for years.
Gryder, who has been researching the case for more than 20 years, documented his investigation in a lengthy two-part series on his YouTube channel, "Probable Cause," in 2021 and 2022, where he connects the dots and shows actual footage of him finding the parachute in an outbuilding on the McCoy family property in North Carolina in July 2022. On Monday, Gryder released a third video, "D.B. Cooper: Deep FBI Update," where he announced the FBI's new and very recent efforts in his discoveries. After watching his first two videos, Gryder said FBI agents contacted Rick and Gryder to see the parachute. It was the first investigative move by the agency since issuing the 2016 public statement, declaring the case closed pending new evidence. Gryder and Rick McCoy traveled to Richmond, Virginia, in September 2023, where they met with FBI agents, who took the harness and parachute into evidence along with a skydiving logbook found by Chanté that aligned with the timeline for both hijackings, providing another vital piece in the puzzle, Gryder said....
During the meeting, Gryder said the agents called it a first step. If the evidence proved fruitless, they would have promptly returned the skydiving rig, he said, but that didn't happen. Instead, an FBI agent called Rick a month later to ask to search the family property in Cove City, North Carolina, which McCoy's mother owned and where Gryder had found the parachute and canopy... [Gryder says he watched] at least seven vehicles descend on the property with more than a dozen agents who scoured the property for about four hours... Rick said he has provided a DNA sample and was told by the FBI agents that the next step might be exhuming his father's body, but no formal terms and conditions for that process have been established thus far, he said.
A retired commercial airline pilot who was present in the Virginia FBI meeting said "It was clear they were taking it seriously" — noting it was the FBI who'd requested that meeting. The article cites two FBI agents who'd earlier already believed D.B. Cooper was McCoy. And the article points out that the FBI "has never ruled McCoy out, stating in a 2006 statement that he was 'still a favorite suspect among many.'"
A second article notes that Gryder supports the FBI's recent request to exhume McCoy's body. As he sees it, "The existing DNA marker comparisons studied so far only validate the need for this final extreme step and should close the mystery once and for all."
And the article adds that McCoy's children are "eager for closure and hope that the FBI finds the evidence agents need to close the D.B. Cooper case once and for all."
Quick question (Score:5, Interesting)
Quick question for everyone: If you're D.B. Cooper and you're smart enough go pull off the most amazing air piracy in history, with legions of FBI and amateur sleuths looking for you...
Why would you keep the parachute around?
Why not just burn it some summer evening, cut it up into strips and throw it away piecemeal, or bury it?
Why even keep the skydiving log?
While there's significant emotional appeal to going public and showing off how smart you are, I think he would also recognize that doing that would make the rest of his life miserable.
Re:Quick question (Score:5, Interesting)
You're exactly right.
The only thing I can think of is some criminals like to be reminded of what they got away with.
But is that worth $200K (at the time)?
I am concerned that DoJ will now implicate the farm as unjustly enriched by the crime and seize it to sell for the airline's successor corporation's restitution. The way civil asset forfeiture "works" is the property can be charged with being an accessory to a crime and the owners won't have "standing" to hire a lawyer to defend the property. It's a total criminal racket supported by the MWG.
Some people need to learn to STFU.
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I am concerned that DoJ will now implicate the farm as unjustly enriched by the crime and seize it to sell for the airline's successor corporation's restitution. The way civil asset forfeiture "works" is the property can be charged with being an accessory to a crime and the owners won't have "standing" to hire a lawyer to defend the property. It's a total criminal racket supported by the MWG.
Interesting legal theory. (IANAL, and I doubt you're one.) In any case, forfeiture wouldn't happen without due process. [congress.gov] The state would be burdened with demonstrating that the property was enriched by the stolen assets, and that would include demonstrating that the erstwhile farm-owner was the thief.
And what if that did happen? Why are you "concerned?" Shouldn't you also be concerned that the ill-gotten gains should be recovered? Crime should not pay.
Re:Quick question (Score:5, Insightful)
I am concerned that DoJ will now implicate the farm as unjustly enriched by the crime and seize it to sell for the airline's successor corporation's restitution. The way civil asset forfeiture "works" is the property can be charged with being an accessory to a crime and the owners won't have "standing" to hire a lawyer to defend the property. It's a total criminal racket supported by the MWG.
Interesting legal theory. (IANAL, and I doubt you're one.) In any case, forfeiture wouldn't happen without due process. [congress.gov] The state would be burdened with demonstrating that the property was enriched by the stolen assets, and that would include demonstrating that the erstwhile farm-owner was the thief.
And what if that did happen? Why are you "concerned?" Shouldn't you also be concerned that the ill-gotten gains should be recovered? Crime should not pay.
Lots to unpack there. But first, this farm is in North Carolina, where a quick Wiki search tells us the burden of proof falls upon law-enforcement. So in this specific case it's a non-issue.
That said, that isn't the case in all states. There are plenty of cases of what appears to be LEO seizing assets pretty much because it enriches them. For instance, in Rhode Island, property owners have to prove their property wasn't involved with a crime to get it back. 90% of the proceeds go to... law-enforcement.
To be clear, this isn't hypothetical. The fourth amendment of your constitution has been overridden successfully in many ways, and this is one.
Finally, your conclusion is very in line with why civil forfeiture is a problem. You're presuming guilt, just like LEO sometimes do. Only this is about consequence before proof, and in some states without proof. It's not great to be pulling "crime should not pay" here because you're assuming that - in the specific case being discussed - that has not been demonstrated. The person you were replying to was saying "what if they're innocent... bad things could still happen", and aside from the state in question, they're right so far.
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I thought I was clear about this in my post, but to clarify now: my position is that the crime must be proven to have been committed by a party connected to the property, before the property could be forfeited to recover gains from the crime. So, no presumption of guilt.
I didn't read "what if they're innocent" into bill_mcgonigle's post. I don't see that the children are guilty of anything anyway. But that doesn't change the fact that the property they inherited may have been enriched by stolen property, an
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I thought I was clear about this in my post, but to clarify now: my position is that the crime must be proven to have been committed by a party connected to the property, before the property could be forfeited to recover gains from the crime. So, no presumption of guilt.
You were clear. You were wrong.
Try a search "civil asset forfeiture" abuse [duckduckgo.com]
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But first, this farm is in North Carolina,
Air Piracy is usually charged as a federal crime in a federal court. That being said, civil forfeiture is a cancer, and North Carolina routinely seizes money for suspected drug dealing. To wit:
b) Any property subject to forfeiture under this Article may be seized by any law-enforcement officer upon process issued by any district or superior court having jurisdiction over the property except that seizure without such process may be made when:
(1) The seizure is incident to an arrest or a search under a search warrant;
Such arrest can by made "under exigent circumstances" without a court order because they plead "It's necessary!" (See sig)
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At that point you would then have to sue the local LEO to get
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there is literally an post currently on the front page saying:
"drug agents have been seizing anything over $5,000 if airline passengers can't prove â" on the spot â" that their own money didn't come from drug trafficking"
but yeah that totally sounds like due process, I'm sure it's fine.
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And in that same story, the DEA was ordered by the Justice Department to stop doing it.
Yes, it happens [Re:Quick question] (Score:3)
And in that same story, the DEA was ordered by the Justice Department to stop doing it.
More specifically, was ordered by the Justice Department to stop doing it to random passengers in airports who had no particular suspicion of being drug dealers.
But no one has ordered the FBI to stop doing it
https://www.cato.org/blog/fbi-... [cato.org]
https://www.foxnews.com/politi... [foxnews.com]
https://www.vice.com/en/articl... [vice.com]
Or the U.S. Marshalls to stop doing it.
https://criminaldefenseattorneytampa.com/asset-seizure-asset-forfeiture/fighting-us-marshals-forfeiture/
https://ij.org/wp-content/ [ij.org]
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Civil forfeiture [Re:Quick question] (Score:3)
I am concerned that DoJ will now implicate the farm as unjustly enriched by the crime and seize it to sell for the airline's successor corporation's restitution. The way civil asset forfeiture "works" is the property can be charged with being an accessory to a crime and the owners won't have "standing" to hire a lawyer to defend the property. It's a total criminal racket supported by the MWG.
Interesting legal theory. (IANAL, and I doubt you're one.) In any case, forfeiture wouldn't happen without due process. [congress.gov]
That statement would be a bit more convincing if this story weren't posted the very same day as another slashdot story, one about civil forfeiture without due process. [slashdot.org]
Some links to read:
https://www.aclu.org/issues/cr... [aclu.org]
https://ij.org/issues/private-... [ij.org]
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FTFA:
Upon her death in 2020, they broke their silence to Gryder after being contacted by him off and on for years.
To which bill_mcgonigle (nice low number there);
I am concerned that DoJ will now implicate the farm as unjustly enriched by the crime and seize it to sell for the airline's successor corporation's restitution.
And from 18 U.S. Code 4 - Misprision of felony:
Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
As well as exposing themselves to the law of parties as accomplices after the fact to air piracy in federal statute, but the harshest punishments are usually state law - to wit, Texas, which allows for the execution of parties that did something as innocuous as (unknowingly) loaning their car to a bank robbery where a police officer is killed. I don't know that they would do it, but the law allows them to i
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Why are you concerned about that? Wouldn't that be an actual, correct usage of civil asset forfeiture? If these people are coming right out and saying "Yup, our daddy stole all that money and here's all the evidence" why would you suggest that it would be wrong to use the legal system for redress? Obviously they can't put the dead guy in jail, but they can surely pay back the I'll gotten gains.
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Pretty sure the article mentions exhumation of his corpse. So he never announced being DB Cooper. One thing is for sure; this would never happen today. Aside from obvious tech and protocols, Millennials and GenZ are so fucking stupid they would live stream the heist on TikTok or FBLive like they do with other incriminating shit like rapes and drug deals. They have no fucking clue how to keep their mouth shut for a year let alone 53 years.
Re: Quick question (Score:2)
Why would you keep the parachute around?
If this is the guy, he probably wasn't even alive and out of prison long enough to consider that. Likely it was somebody else, possibly an accomplice, that kept it around.
The log would be obvious to keep around if you trained to skydive and you wanted to keep doing it.
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Why would you keep the parachute around?
For his retirement? Don't rich people need one for that? Sure, it's probably not gold, but it's something...
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This guy was killed in 1974 by the FBI, after escaping from prison (he was arrested in 1972 for hijacking a United Airlines flight in order to get a 500k ransom, a year after the 1971 D.B. Cooper incident):
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/1... [nytimes.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
His wife admitted to assisting McCoy in his hijacking:
https://www.deseret.com/1992/2... [deseret.com]
So... maybe he was D.B. Cooper... maybe he wasn't. But if he was and wanted to erase the evidence that linked him to the D.B. Cooper case... apparently
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Just not that Mr McCoy died in 1974.
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Re: Congratulations! (Score:3)
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Not just corporations, and so long as there isn't any deflation they're not usually the problem. A reasonable amount of inflation is the best kind of wealth tax; it's specific to hoarded wealth. If you're shoving money in a mattress, you're hoarding wealth. And if a hundred million people are doing it, it's a problem.
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No, you're not hoarding wealth, you're hoarding money. Doing so doesn't deprive the society of a valuable asset -- to the contrary, taking some money out of circulation effectively increases the value of all other money.
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taking some money out of circulation effectively increases the value of all other money
Only if the state cancels that money, you keeping money in your mattress is not taking money out from the money pool.
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Money is a symbol we use to make wealth more convenient to transfer. If you're hoarding it, you're also hoarding wealth. It's not quite the same as if you had a stash of useful machine tools or a bunch of farm land you were keeping fallow, but in a modern economy it has some of the same effect. The existence of that debt has an effect.
Take note, Bitcoin.
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I was going to reply to oumuamua but seeing the link to YT I figured "Why bother?"
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What this case illustrates is the crime of inflation, how utterly insignificant the amount stolen seems today.
Well, it'd be like $1.54 million being stolen today. That's still not really a lot of money when you're talking large-scale crimes. For example, SBF defrauded billions.
It seems like most of the motivation behind this case is because air piracy is considered a particularly heinous crime even when nobody ends up dead. If you don't believe me, feel free to attempt to hijack a plane and demand something ridiculous that doesn't actually cost anything (such as that Elon Musk has to french kiss Trump and then s
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You just spent more than $200,000, the amount stolen, for a crime where no one was killed.
Most law enforcement efforts (probably) cost more than the crimes. Are you saying people should be able to steal things below a certain cost? If, so can you provide us a list so we can start criming worry-free? Be sure to group by cost-of-living, etc ...
That said, the statute of limitations expired a long, long time ago, even if extended for extenuating circumstances. And while I can understand the lingering curiosity about his fate, the limitations are there for a reason -- and I'm sure financial is
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Are you saying people should be able to steal things below a certain cost?
The State of California seems to think that you should be able to get away with shoplifting merchandise valued at $950 or less.
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The Gell-Mann amnesia effect (Score:3, Informative)
The threshold for putting something on the YouTube is not much higher than "let's make a video" and even the threshold for putting something in a traditional print outlet is not much higher than "does the narrative flow" with perhaps an slight hint of "is anything here grossly outrageously wrong?"
There's a lot of mountain to climb between both of those and anything resembling proof. Or even plausibility, for that matter.
Wait a minute (Score:2)
"We stayed quiet because we believed mom was involved".
That kind of seems like aiding and abetting if the FBI ever asked them a single question where they were the least bit evasive.
So they've just admitted to that, right?
Presumably they also benefited from their father's crimes. That's possession of stolen goods since apparently they knew where the money was coming from.
Though I assume they were minors at the time given that D.B.'s description was 'middle aged'. Still, they continued this behavior as adu
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That kind of seems like aiding and abetting if the FBI ever asked them a single question where they were the least bit evasive.
So they've just admitted to that, right?
No. Aiding and abetting requires actively doing something (driving the getaway vehicle, hiding the criminal, etc). All the family had was suspicions. They had no evidence anything was done.
Presumably they also benefited from their father's crimes. That's possession of stolen goods since apparently they knew where the money was coming from.
Aga
Re: Wait a minute (Score:1)
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This!
As I recall reading, all of the bills serial numbers were recorded before the money was given to Cooper and none of those bills have ever turned up in circulation again. Most likely they are spread all over the wilderness and have probably succumbed to the elements by now.
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Presumably they also benefited from their father's crimes. That's possession of stolen goods since apparently they knew where the money was coming from.
Here's a thing to think about: the money didn't make it back into circulation. It's hard to benefit from money that was never spent.
Take the write off (Score:4, Insightful)
Mysterious man jumped from airplane (Score:1)
Cooper didn't jump, he hid in the hold until the plane landed and left disguised as one of the ground crew.
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McCoy was a suspect for a long time (Score:3, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Although there is no reasonable doubt that McCoy committed the Denver hijacking, the FBI does not consider him a suspect in the Cooper case because of mismatches in age and description (e.g., McCoy was 29 years old, with projecting ears),skydiving skill much greater than thought to be possessed by the hijacker, and credible evidence that McCoy was in Las Vegas on the day of the Portland hijacking, and at home in Utah the day after, having Thanksgiving dinner with his family.
In addition, all three of the stewardesses from the Cooper hijacking were shown photographs of McCoy and agreed that he was not their hijacker. They were even able to point to specific differences in the two men, specifically that Cooper's nose wasn't as broad as McCoy's, that Cooper had more hair than McCoy, and that Cooper's ears did not protrude as much as McCoy's. McCoy's photo was also shown to the ticket agent who sold Cooper his ticket, the gate agent, and the passenger seated closest to Cooper (Bill Mitchell), and they too concluded that McCoy and Cooper were not the same.
Dan Gryder is a crank (Score:4, Interesting)
I am D.B Cooper (Score:2)
Close but no cigar (Score:1)
Fun fact: an acquaintance of mine was actually on the plane DB jumped out of.
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Fun fact: an acquaintance of mine was actually on the plane DB jumped out of.
There were no passengers when he jumped, only crew. Cooper had allowed the other passengers to disembark while the ransom money was brought on board for him. I guess your acquaintance was one of those passengers though.
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He's been dead for 50 years (Score:1)
Cooper... (Score:2)