DB Cooper

[Orange1 0]

If you believe his (Pfarrer's) memoirs, then they certainly did jump from 727s - I've got some direct quotes from him rather than the paraphrasing you quoted, adding in an instance he describes a training jump out of a 727 specifically. No year mentioned that I can see.

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So what was I doing standing in the back of a 727, waiting to jump into a soccer field in the middle of a Virginia suburb?

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Most people do not parachute on purpose from jet aircraft. The planes are too fast, and the turbulent air dragging in their wake can snap your spine and pop your hips from your pelvis. We were trained to jump from commercial airliners because they are ubiquitous and nonattributable. It is one thing to prohibit American military aircraft from flying over your country. It is quite another to close down your airspace to all commercial traffic. Libya, Syria, Cuba, and a host of other thug nations allow commercial flights to fly through their airspace. This is all the opening a SEAL Team needs. Unknown and unseen, a SEAL element can parachute into any place on earth. One might insert: that is, provided one survives the jump. The trick is to exit in correct body position and deploy your parachute after the appropriate delay.

these quoutes are part of a larger extract on:

http://www.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=191806

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[377 22]

Pfarrer may be "all that" but dontcha think he is exagerrating the pelvis popping spine snapping aspects of a jet jump?

I made a semi high speed exit from the DC 9 and a REALLY high speed exit once from a throttles to the firewall Herc. There was unstable tumbling for a few seconds but no pelvis popping and spine snapping. Those things happened later that night at WFFC, but that's another story.

I can't see how a jumper would ever get any significant contact with wake turbulence, you fall too fast. Look at those tests the FAA did with smoke generators. The tip vortexes linger and fall slowly, far far slower than a jumper. Maybe Pfarrer just takes literary license to juice up the events.

Hell, my whuffo friends all think jumping from a jet is hugely scary dangerous and why would someone with an ego want to straighten them out?

As I've said before night , bad weather and bad terrain below changes everything, but just jumping from a DC 9 or 727 is not a huge deal.

Somewhere there is an online edition of the C 7 airdrop manual. It is HUGELY detailed. If the military used 727s for airdrops, somewhere there is documentation with flight manual supplement inserts, checklists, charts, etc. Maybe it is classified, but the military has manuals for everything they do with airplanes. They dont just say: go out and drop some stuff.

I am really wondering if Galen has solved the case. He sure seems confident so I'd venture he has something that he thinks proves the Cooper link. I guess we will just have to wait and see. You'd have to give Ckret some profiling kudos if this pans out. He thought there had to be a local miliary base connection and Wolfgang had the Ft Lewis ties. He also thought Cooper was not an experienced jumper and convinced me to think that way. Wolfgang had major relevant jump experience.

Nobody wants Galen to be the hero because he is apparently kinda obnoxious. If he solved the case we have to put aside our jealousies and give the man some major respect. If not, we get to play on this forum until it is solved.

Has Galen made any public explanation of the riverbank money find?

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[snowmman 3]

normally we don't like going down the conspiracy theory path here, I know, but a lot of stuff was going down in Southeast Asia in late '60s, early '70s...you could imagine that there was suspicion on who Coop was, and it may have been decided that the greater good was served by giving him a pass because maybe otherwise the greater bad might be revealed. Or some other reason for a pass. Plausible. Likely? dunno. Sounds too spy novelish, I suppose.

But ignoring conspiracy stuff, and even ignoring the SEAL claim here, someone in a position of authority knew about boxes going out, somewhere, somehow, in flight, with wheels and flaps in something close to the Cooper Configuration.

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If you believe his (Pfarrer's) memoirs, then they certainly did jump from 727s - I've got some direct quotes from him rather than the paraphrasing you quoted, adding in an instance he describes a training jump out of a 727 specifically. No year mentioned that I can see.

Quote

So what was I doing standing in the back of a 727, waiting to jump into a soccer field in the middle of a Virginia suburb?

Quote

Most people do not parachute on purpose from jet aircraft. The planes are too fast, and the turbulent air dragging in their wake can snap your spine and pop your hips from your pelvis. We were trained to jump from commercial airliners because they are ubiquitous and nonattributable. It is one thing to prohibit American military aircraft from flying over your country. It is quite another to close down your airspace to all commercial traffic. Libya, Syria, Cuba, and a host of other thug nations allow commercial flights to fly through their airspace. This is all the opening a SEAL Team needs. Unknown and unseen, a SEAL element can parachute into any place on earth. One might insert: that is, provided one survives the jump. The trick is to exit in correct body position and deploy your parachute after the appropriate delay.

these quoutes are part of a larger extract on:

http://www.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=191806

[Orange1 0]

Quote

Pfarrer may be "all that" but dontcha think he is exagerrating the pelvis popping spine snapping aspects of a jet jump?

Absolutely!! Shoulder dislocation, sure; spine snapping?? but hyperbole aside (cos he has to sound like a hero)... the important thing in terms of the debate here was that he confirmed they did actually use 727s to jump from, at least in training jumps.

The article hints Galen has "explanations"... we'll have to wait and see. It seems they did offer prints and DNA to the FBI so we'll presumably get an answer on that at some point.

We have one person's opinion on how obnoxious Cook is (and it fits the stereotype of course) but i still think the fact that he seems to have been examining and discarding suspects till he found one that really fits, is a good rather than bad thing in terms of finding the suspect to fit the crime (not choosing a favorite suspect and making the facts fit).

snowmman, re the 'cover up' theory, that doesn't seem to tie with the description of a confession to a judge that he left prints behind and was told to shut up... presumably if this judge is still alive cook has interviewed him... if not we are back to "he said yada yada yada". [some judge, btw ...)

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[377 22]

Snowman,

I think you could take off with the stairs down, but it would definitely cause a stair to runway contact on rotation. For that reason it wouldn't be in any approved operation list. Even a tiny foreign metal object shed on an active runway can cause a disaster for the next plane whose engines inhale it. Something like this brought down the Concorde in flames. If the stairs were really rigidly attached to the fuselage in their deployed position it might prevent takeoff, but it seems like they can be deflected upwards so I think rotation could be accomplished.

I'll bet there is no Boeing document that says takeoff with stairs deployed is OK, even though it can be accomplished. A procedure which damages the aircraft and sheds metal wouldn't likely be tried or approved. Still, perhaps Cooper tried something as simple as lifting the stairs a tiny bit on the ground somewhere which would tell him that takeoff with an open door might be possible. My guess is that the stairs are spring loaded or somehow counterbalanced or upwards biased so you do not need a megamotor to retract them.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[377 22]

Orange 1 wrote:" snowmman, re the 'cover up' theory, that doesn't seem to tie with the description of a confession to a judge that he left prints behind and was told to shut up... presumably if this judge is still alive cook has interviewed him... if not we are back to "he said yada yada yada". [some judge, btw ...)'


You'd be surprised at how uncorrupt the US judiciary is. They often thumb their noses at the govt. and give rulings that are very unfavorable for the govt. Fed judges are appointed for life so they dont have to kiss anyone's butt. If you look at prosecutions of fed judges for bribery/corruption there are only a handfull of cases in the last half century. There are secret federal courts where national security cases are heard and those have been called rubber stamp kangaroo courts where the govt always gets its way, but regular US District Courts are not rubber stamps which grant every govenment request. I'll bet Ckret has stories about fed judges not granting the FBI a search warrant or something else needed for an investigation. Prosecutors and defense lawyers often get equally pissed at the judges which is a splendid indication of fairness.

The idea that a judge would be complicit in covering up a hijacking sounds far fetched to me. I assume that any court proceeding related to Cooper would be in federal court, but maybe that's not correct.

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[n467us 0]

Excellent observation... too bad he didn't tell the pilots something like..."but when I worked on the Boeing engineering team you could...oops!"

[Orange1 0]

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The idea that a judge would be complicit in covering up a hijacking sounds far fetched to me. I assume that any court proceeding related to Cooper would be in federal court, but maybe that's not correct.

Did you read the article? Nothing to do with court proceedings at all. he worked for the judge in question. But that wasn't the point of the original post anyway; the exchange if it happened, seemed to argue against any original coverup i.e. there was no conspiracy, just a guy who got away with a crime.

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But Gossett did confess to at least two people, according to Cook. One is a retired Salt Lake City judge who was Gossett’s boss and close friend when he worked in the Salt Lake City public defender’s office.
“Wolfgang and I were on very good terms,” the judge recalled in his interview with Galen Cook. “In 1977 he walked into my office and closed the door and said he thought he might be in some trouble, that he was involved in a hijacking in Portland and Seattle a few years ago and that he might have left prints behind. He said he was D.B. Cooper. I told him to keep his mouth shut and don’t do anything stupid, and not to bring it up again.”

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[Orange1 0]

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...a mysterious trip to a Vancouver, B.C. bank where some of the ransom money may have been stashed in a lock box.

First, note the evasive "may"

Question: does anyone know how easy in the 70s it was to spend/exchange USD in Canada? Would Canadian banks have been on the lookout for the Cooper bills? Would a US bank receiving a pile of bills from a bank outside the country check those against the DB Cooper list? Taking the cash to a country within easy reach but that may not have been on the lookout for those bills is a pretty smart move.

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[377 22]

Quote

Quote

The idea that a judge would be complicit in covering up a hijacking sounds far fetched to me. I assume that any court proceeding related to Cooper would be in federal court, but maybe that's not correct.

Did you read the article? Nothing to do with court proceedings at all. he worked for the judge in question. But that wasn't the point of the original post anyway; the exchange if it happened, seemed to argue against any original coverup i.e. there was no conspiracy, just a guy who got away with a crime.

Quote

But Gossett did confess to at least two people, according to Cook. One is a retired Salt Lake City judge who was Gossett’s boss and close friend when he worked in the Salt Lake City public defender’s office.
“Wolfgang and I were on very good terms,” the judge recalled in his interview with Galen Cook. “In 1977 he walked into my office and closed the door and said he thought he might be in some trouble, that he was involved in a hijacking in Portland and Seattle a few years ago and that he might have left prints behind. He said he was D.B. Cooper. I told him to keep his mouth shut and don’t do anything stupid, and not to bring it up again.”

sorry, Orange. Guess I misinterpreted your post and responded before I read the article part about the judge. Still, sounds very odd. Why would he confess to anyone? Working in the public defenders office he'd know that confessions lead to convictions. They don't solve any problems besides perhaps relieving guilt. They don't get you out of legal trouble.

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[skyjack71 0]

Quote

theory, that doesn't seem to tie with the description of a confession to a judge that he left prints behind and was told to shut up... presumably if this judge is still alive cook has interviewed him... if not we are back to "he said yada yada yada". [some judge, btw ...)

I shouldn't even get on here and read some of these things because I get so upset I can't sleep. Galen Cook called me for a long time and many times yrs ago and I also told him about the prints on the plane - that Duane thought he left prints as per the dream. I told him about the changed prints.

This is something you guys don't know about Galen Cook - he is or was a union attorney. Remember the insurance companies that I listed Duane working for that I said were fronts for coverts hired to show ligitimit income....It was a company for the Unions. Politcal involvement to pull the strings... with one WELL know State Governor of the times.

One individual who contacted from this group yrs ago - tried to get me to sell the rights to what I was claiming and I didn't feel I had enough proof to go there. They were smoking me to see how much I knew.

I have a note that I wrote and concealed where it would be found if I died in a strange manner. It named a certain individual - as I was frightned of this man and his connections (it is not the man who threatened me, but that man was connected to this group also).

Now we have a Union attorney - who harassed me for a long time using this - smoking me to see how much I knew, No one would listen to me about this so I was not a threat...but, I suspose they took me for a complete idiot.

I even asked and questioned Cook about his connections to the the Unions and that I felt that all of it was connected. Now he is using this for his story.

I can only go by what I am reading on the forum as my computer will not down load that newpaper. I just need a copy of the article.

Galen was real SMART - he kept his communications with me using a calling card at that time and not emails. I believe there were some email at a later date. He used me.

Carr: I need to talk to you on the phone.

Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 2013, 2014, 2015 by Jo Weber

[skyjack71 0]

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Gossett did confess to at least two people, according to Cook. One is a retired Salt Lake City judge who was Gossett’s boss and close friend when he worked in the Salt Lake City public defender’s office.
“Wolfgang and I were on very good terms,” the judge recalled in his interview with Galen Cook. “In 1977 he walked into my office and closed the door and said he thought he might be in some trouble, that he was involved in a hijacking in Portland and Seattle a few years ago and that he might have left prints behind. He said he was D.B. Cooper. I told him to keep his mouth shut and don’t do anything stupid, and not to bring it up again.”

Wonder if this Judge is connected to the Unions? Strange 1977 - the yr that Duane went to Colorado and made a trip to Ca. and Wa. around Nov.

Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 2013, 2014, 2015 by Jo Weber

[n467us 0]

The News Times, Newport, OR Sept. 5, 2003

William "Wolfgang" Gossett

William Pratt "Wolfgang" Gossett, 73, of Depoe Bay died Sept. 1, 2003, at Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital in Lincoln City, following a stroke.

He was born July 29, 1930 in San Jose, Calif.

He served with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Marine Corps, and was an administrative clerk and physical training instructor in Okinawa, Japan, at the end of World War II. He served with a U.S. Naval advisory group in South Korea from 1957 to 1959 as an administrative personnel chief and law specialist. From 1959 to 1964, he served with the Marine Corps in California, then worked for the U.S. Army Judge Advocate's office in New York City. He served with the Judge Advocate General in France from 1965 to 1966; then was in Vietnam as a military law specialist from May 1966 to October 1967, and received the Purple Heart. From 1967 to 1968, he was an administrative and legal supervisor with the 3rd BCT Brigade, Ford Ord, Calif.

He was an instructor at reserve training centers and a military law professor at Weber State College, now Weber State University, Utah. He also worked as a correctional officer and administrative director of a confinement facility at the Davis County Sheriff's Office, Farmington, Utah, and for the public defender's office in Utah.

In 1976, he was commissioned as an officer in the Utah National Guard.

He was a radio talk show host for KCGL Radio from 1981 to 1983. He also worked as a school teacher and assistant principal at Bryant Intermediate School in Salt Lake City, Utah. In 1988, he was ordained as a priest in the Old Roman Catholic Diocese in Salt Lake City.

He worked as a freelance civil and criminal investigator from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, and owned and directed an agency specializing in investigation of investment fraud, cult and occult fraud, and missing persons cases.

He moved to Newport in 1994, where he worked as a legal assistant to attorney Dan Poling. From 1998 to 2002, he worked with the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.

He was a marathon runner, and enjoyed distance walking. He enjoyed storytelling and his dog, Skye.

Survivors include three sons, Steven Gossett of California, Gregory Gossett of Utah, and Kirk Gossett of Arizona; a daughter, Doris Lee Gilliam of Delaware; two brothers, Danny Gossett of California and Orien Gossett of Utah; and two sisters, Nancy Easler and Libby Lee, both of California; and his wife, Marilyn Smith of Sherwood.

A memorial service will be held Monday at Willamette National Cemetery, Portland.

[n467us 0]

Article in plain text format:

DEPOE BAY — He was the soldier who became a skyjacker, the skyjacker who became a priest, and the priest who lived and died in Depoe Bay!
A fantastic yarn? Not according to Galen Cook, a Spokane, Wash. lawyer who is one of the nation’s leading authorities on D.B. Cooper, the famous air pirate who skyjacked a Northwest Orient Boeing 727 from Seattle to Portland on the night of Nov. 24, 1971 and disappeared into popular history when he bailed-out with $200,000 in ransom money.
In an exclusive interview with the Beacon, Cook revealed how he became convinced that former Depoe Bay mystery man Wolfgang Gossett was, in fact, the infamous skyjacker D.B. Cooper.
Galen Cook has been on the trail of D.B. Cooper since the 1980s and has interviewed hundreds of people close to the case, including eyewitnesses on the ill-fated flight, airplane crewmembers, aviation and parachuting experts, FBI agents and even other suspects. The trail seemed to go cold at every turn until a break in the case in late 2007, thanks to the national radio show Coast-to-Coast AM, the popular late-night program for 2.5 million insomniacs and other night people founded by Art Bell and hosted now by George Noory and on Saturday nights by Ian Punnett. Punnett was interviewing Cook when a caller — Gossett’s son, Greg, a corrections officer and one of five children — said he believed his father was D.B. Cooper.
Family members have helped the police solve thousands of important crimes such as the Unabomber case, so Galen Cook took the tip seriously and began a six-month investigation that brought him on at least four occasions to Depoe Bay where he interviewed people who knew “Wolf” Gossett intimately. Among the people he spoke with were Depoe Bay resident C.J. Winter, Gossett’s caretaker in the last years of his life, a Newport attorney who claimed to have known Gossett’s dark secret and even the editor of the Depoe Bay Beacon, Rick Beasley, who knew Gossett as a friend and wrote his obituary on the day he died, Sept. 1, 2003.
Dozens of other people who knew Gossett including family members and ex-wives, people with whom he served in the military, co-workers in the court system and law enforcement officials who knew him as a private investigator cooperated and in many cases revealed their belief that Gossett carried an ominous secret that had something to do with the D.B. Cooper case. He often dropped hints about the skyjacking that some people took as merely a fascination for the topic.
“He told his last wife, Elaine Hetschel, that he would write D.B. Cooper’s epitath,” Cook said. “There were others that said he always talked about D.B. Cooper. There was all this third-person narrative, but he never told the people closest to him, ‘I did the job.’”
But Gossett did confess to at least two people, according to Cook. One is a retired Salt Lake City judge who was Gossett’s boss and close friend when he worked in the Salt Lake City public defender’s office.
“Wolfgang and I were on very good terms,” the judge recalled in his interview with Galen Cook. “In 1977 he walked into my office and closed the door and said he thought he might be in some trouble, that he was involved in a hijacking in Portland and Seattle a few years ago and that he might have left prints behind. He said he was D.B. Cooper. I told him to keep his mouth shut and don’t do anything stupid, and not to bring it up again.”
The other person who claims to have known Gossett’s secret is a retired Newport attorney who befriended Gossett and once took him on a mysterious trip to a Vancouver, B.C. bank where some of the ransom money may have been stashed in a lock box.
“A lot of credible people in his past told me that Gossett could have been D.B. Cooper,” Cook said. “They believe he could have gotten away with it. He had the training, the motive and the opportunity, and the more I got into this case the more he started to become the most viable suspect ever. The circumstantial evidence is really strong. I feel we’ve got the right guy.”
Cook spent time at the C.J. Winter home in Depoe Bay where he went through the belongings of Gossett and collected a bandana with a set of Airborne wings that Wolfgang wore at all times. The bandana contains hair strands that could provide conclusive DNA proof that Gossett was the hijacker. The only thing standing in the way is cooperation from the FBI, which claims to have a DNA sample from the clip-on tie that D.B. Cooper left aboard the airplane, as well as a partial print from a cocktail glass. The much-vaunted federal agency has been silent on the issue up to now, including a response to the full set of fingerprints provided to the G-men by Galen Cook. Cook’s relationship with the FBI is a little rocky; he once sued the agency under the Freedom of Information Act.
Gossett’s personal history is eye-popping and could be ripped from the pages of a spy novel. Galen Cook’s research, documented by official records, revealed that he was born William Pratt Gossett in San Diego in 1930, the son of a Navy commander later stationed at Pearl Harbor. At the age of 11, Bill Gossett witnessed Japanese bombers attacking the base. In 1946 at age 16 Gossett joined the Army Air Force, then switched branches in 1954 to become a U.S. Marine. After 10 years in the Corps, he jumped to the U.S. Army, serving one tour in Korea and two tours in Vietnam, where he earned a Purple Heart for wounds and several awards for valor. Throughout his military career, he attended dozens of elite Armed Services schools where he learned military law, fluent French — he did a tour at the U.S. embassy in France — and became a skilled survivalist and combat parachutist with hundreds of high-altitude and night jumps. He finished his career as an ROTC instructor and retired from the Army at Ft. Lewis, Wash., in 1973, less than two years after the notorious skyjacking.
Gossett returned to Utah, where he had inaugurated the ROTC program at Weber State College, and became a private detective specializing in money fraud, cults and missing persons. His biggest moment came when he assisted the FBI in rescuing a woman from the Bhagwan Rajneesh’s compound in Antelope, Ore. Among the documents Galen Cook found among Gossett’s personal belongings at the Depoe Bay home of C.J. Winter was a letter of commendation from the FBI, which still has an investigator assigned to the D.B. Cooper case. Gossett also worked for the public defender’s office in Salt Lake City, where he was well-known and respected by police and court officials including the police chief of Ogden, Utah, who said Gossett “could eat bullets and call it a meal.”
In another amazing twist to Gossett’s life, he officially changed his name to “Wolfgang” and became a priest in the Old Catholic Church, SLC Diocese, in 1988 — a move that answered, according to family members, a spiritual calling that he’d always heard. Finally, in 1994, Gossett moved to Newport where he worked for attorney Dan Poling, a Depoe Bay resident who died several years ago. Gossett retired to Depoe Bay and became known as a man about town who had many friends, often won on the gaming machines at Gracie’s Sea Hag and spoke-out at City Council meetings.
What many people didn’t know is that Gossett had a dark side, including four failed marriages, five children and money troubles from gambling. Cook’s research places Gossett in Ogden, Utah, around the time of the skyjacking. He was an ROTC instructor making $15,000 per year, and newly separated from his wife. Galen Cook said that Gossett chose the date for the heist because he had a week off from his duties.
“Opportunity, and a brilliant plan, was the key to the whole D.B. Cooper thing,” Cook said. “He didn’t have to be at work or at home. He had the level of skills and ability to plan the entire thing with military precision, and to not only parachute from the plane but to survive.”
According to Cook, Gossett took a flight from Ogden to San Francisco where he donned his Dan Cooper disguise. The name ‘Dan’ was Gossett’s inside joke. He had a brother, now deceased, named Danny. Growing up, he would always blame Danny whenever he got into trouble by declaring, “Danny did it!” The name Cooper appears to be randomly picked. Portland police mistakenly came up with the initials “D.B.” during their investigation, and the name stuck.
“My research indicates that the reason he avoided detection on the night of the jump and the following days was because searchers were looking in the wrong state,” Cook said. “D.B. Cooper cleared the Columbia River and landed in Oregon, where he made his way back to the airport and returned to Utah. It took him three days, in and out.”
Galen Cook has tied-up many of the loose threads of the case, such as the mystery over some of the ransom money that was discovered on a Columbia River bar in 1980. He also explains how D.B. Cooper selected the one parachute among the three brought to the aircraft that actually worked. But those details, and others, will have to simmer until the publication of his book. Cook left for Alaska on May 1, where he will sequester himself at his father’s home for three months to write the last chapter on the D.B. Cooper caper.
“It’s an incredible story,” he said. “The air pirate who became a priest and marries and buries people when he’s not out helping the FBI solve criminal cases. And in later life he becomes civic-minded by attending City Council meetings in Depoe Bay and becomes a late-life jogger who runs around town wearing his military parachute badge on his headband to remind himself of who he really is. This story is going to be a blockbuster.”
For more information on Galen Cook and his investigation, go to coasttocoastam.com. For more on D.B. Cooper, got to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper on the internet.



Author Name
Rick Beasley - news@depoebaybeacon.com

[n467us 0]

Jo,

You will probably be better off exploring any potential links between Wolfgang Gossett's "judge" and the unions that are somehow connected to Duane outside of public (forum) scrutiny. Not that you can't specualte as you wish, but this line of theorizing travels in the same direction as the MLK assasination and probably won't do anything to prove the assertion that Duane Weber was Cooper.

After you have read the Depoe article you will realize that the reference to the judge is not the focal point of the Gossett suspect's hijacker credentials.

[Orange1 0]

[replyGalen Cook called me for a long time and many times yrs ago

[Orange1 0]

Jo, n467us has posted the story but you really should try download it (you need to "save target as". and you should have acrobat on your PC, if not it is downloadable free) - there is a photo on there that bears an absolutely uncanny resemblance to the sketch - the one without sunglasses obscuring anything.

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[377 22]

Quote

Jo, n467us has posted the story but you really should try download it (you need to "save target as". and you should have acrobat on your PC, if not it is downloadable free) - there is a photo on there that bears an absolutely uncanny resemblance to the sketch - the one without sunglasses obscuring anything.

Hope there is some way to get the NWA stewardess to look at those photos.

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[peckerhead 0]

Some other interesting trivia....The author, Rick Beasley, is also a skydiver. (or at least he used to be) I used to jump with him at Ralph Hatleys DZ in Eagle Creek Oregon. Back in the 80's he wrote a column called the skydivers diary in the local Estacada newspaper which was located just a few miles from the DZ. Rick is also very familiar with Ted Mayfield and I am pretty sure he jumped at Teds DZ as well. He wrote many articles for the paper but the skydivers diary was written under the pen name "Rip Kord"

[Orange1 0]

That is interesting trivia! Do you happen to know what his views were on the theory that Mayfield was Cooper?

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[peckerhead 0]

Well, I do remember DB Cooper was a very popular bonfire topic back in the 80's since the hijack happened not too far from the DZ. I am sure we talked about it but I don't remember what Beasleys views were, I have not seen Rick in years.
I don't think any of us suspected Ted, we just assumed it was Ralph

[Ckret 0]

My take on the whole "new suspect" thing is the same as the rest. Nothing links any of these people to the crime other than some stories that can't be proven. Beyond that, our efforts are paying off because people are talking about the case which may bring someone forward that can actually be investigated.

And here is the problem with testing these folks against the DNA: The DNA cannot be used as proof that the person is Cooper. The pool of possible donors is too large, it can only be used to exclude.

So you have someone that has no link to the crime other than some stories that can't be proved. You then compare their DNA and it comes back as a partial match. This, in reality, is meaningless with regard to solving the crime but could you imagine the mess it would stir. It would cause far more harm in resloving the case than it would ever help. If i just did a random sample of a thousand people, several may match the partial DNA as possible donors.

For this reason there are very few people I would test against the DNA we have, there would have to be something more than stories about people who are no longer with us.

I do, however, plan to look at the prints.

[skyjack71 0]

Galen Cook was so evasive and strange that I could never get a straight answer out of him - so you asked a question I can't answer. I assume that he was interested in Duane in the beginning. but he and I spit nails. I don't like being lied to and talked to the way the did and I was NOT co-operative with him at all - especially after I was informed that he was not giving me correct info.

It would be Nov of 2003 when he wrote me a letter asking me to keep it confidential. He enclosed a photo of a subject who doesn't look at all like Cooper and the dress and age seemed to be inappropriate. He had contacted me because he thought Duane was a good suspect, but only in theory I suspose or to get me to tell him what I knew.

At that time he did not have William Mitchell or Tina's address and wanted them off of me. I was empathic that I would NOT divulge Tina's address or phone number.

All I had for Mitchell was an email at his job and his daughters name and email (she had contacted me).
I did NOT have the information Cook asked for - address and phone number. Mitchell and I spoke thru emails and one phone call. I made it a point not to bug people.

Mitchell was a very young college student who sat across from Cooper, but paid him little attention.

Cook then contacted me after the annoucement of the DNA early this yrs 2008 and-we had a couple of phone calls - which I now realize was to pump me for information...and to use me. He wanted to be sure that I wasn't holding something back and that could cause him problems I suppose.

As for Bill Gossett - he seems terribly hi-profile to have been Cooper...and I did tell Cook about Vancouver BC and the Idaho and Washington area that Duane knew someone in - infact I had found out where Cook lived and told him this person was in his backyard.

Now it seems he was. Sorry I still know that Duane was Cooper and as I have always said if he wasn't he sure as hell knew who was...I told Cook this also. No one can take away the bag and the stub and the ticket - of course it is only my word, but I will go to my death with those memories.

Anyone as hi-profile ;and visibile as Gossett would have been virtually impossible to not be spotted. Gossetts photos that I have seen - he seems a little wirey in build - but folks get that way as the get older also - curious to see a full body of Gossett as a 45 yr old.

I keep trying to remember where I heard that name - I suppose Cook gave me a name at one time. The Wolfgang didn't mean anything to me.

Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 2013, 2014, 2015 by Jo Weber

[skyjack71 0]

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Jo, n467us has posted the story but you really should try download it (you need to "save target as". and you should have acrobat on your PC, if not it is downloadable free) - there is a photo on there that bears an absolutely uncanny resemblance to the sketch - the one without sunglasses obscuring anything.

Hope there is some way to get the NWA stewardess to look at those photos.

That should be done using photos of Duane (some that have never been put on the computer or else where) along with photos of many suspects over the yrs and other unknown individuals. What the Stews' will remember is perhaps a profile - something that might be revealed in a less formal photos as I have, but with age explanations.

Florence has been quoted as saying Duane was too Old, but with no explanation of age factor and that no photo exist for that specific time except for a polaroid shot of Duane all dress-up in a brown suit and dyed hair.

Photos (several of each subject with age explanations)need to be provided for all suspects for a formal showing to be made to Tina and Florence. Every photo needs an age explanation so she can visualize age off or on.

I would go so far as to suggest that individuals with their own photos be given time with Tina - (no attorneys or writers - family member only) this gives the person a chance for closure, by asking questions and telling her something that may have been said that might trigger a memory. A gesture or a mannerism or multiple things.

I would love to meet Tina - I would make a generous donation to the charity of her choice to spend 30 minutes with her - just to get this out of my head once and for all - to look in her eyes and know Duane was not Cooper. Then I would have to address the fact that I am Crazy.

I can't make the things he showed me (in WA)and the unusual coincidences (money and history)and the things I saw with my own eyes go awaybag,stub and ticket. I can't make the confession go away. I wish Duane had never told me what he told me before going to the hospital and while he was there.

The confession and the story he told - the pieces I might never have put together had it not been for his telling me "I'm Dan Cooooper".

Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 2013, 2014, 2015 by Jo Weber

[skyjack71 0]

What photos are you saying resem ble Coopers Composites. What I have been able to download from the Depoe Bay Beacon - I am not sure I got all the photos.

PLEASE NOTE; The Depoe Bay Beacon had done an Enquirer thing.
The composites they posted have been altered. Check them againsr the original composites which I have posted before.

1. With the Bing Crosby Look-alike they have squared the chin and changed the shading around the chin.
2. With the color Composite they have changed the eyebrowes (lots) and changed the chin. They also attempted to remove the line that goes up the cheek - not the smile lines but the other line that goes along the cheek line. Many people do not see this in the composite, but it is there.

I wish my original was not so faded and I would be able to show the lines - it is a feature that only Duane Weber has had that no other suspect has. You have to look at the detail of the art.

There must be photos from what I am reading here that did not download to my computer. After reading the article and I assume I got all of the text - I do not feel threatened at all.

A man takes a week off and the wife doesn't see the resemblence of the composites to her husband who is a jumper and his friends don't find anything amiss at that time....this is just too much. Cooper was a LONER - he was a nobody - he was someone no one would miss.

Gossett sounds like a joker - someone who was always pulling somebodys leg. All Cook is doing is trying to ride the Cooper frenzie that is out there right now and nothing more.

He may succeed because everyone is looking for answers, but to falsify the composite (modify) them for their own justifications that to me is dirty and misleading the public.

Many in the public do not know what the originals look like and would not see the modifications.
The print was real small, and I did not see a disclaimer by the writer about these Modification.


That is unethical unless you are the Enquired and the Enquirer has been sue for doing just that.

Cook sued the FBI - maybe the FBI should sue Cook for that or FORCE another article to be written with the DISCLAIMER and the ACTUAL Composites for comparison so the unwary individual will not get caught up in the farce. It just adds to the false information that abounds.

Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 2013, 2014, 2015 by Jo Weber