CooperNWO305

That was a good article, thanks for the link.

Close serial numbers could be doctored bills. It’s a long shot, but possible. Here’s one for you all. Imagine it’s 1972-3 or even later, and the FBI finds a $20 in circulation. What do they do? What does it mean?

There were definitely a lot of 1969 and 1963A $20 bills printed. The numbers I was given are about 607 million 1969 $20's and 821 million 1963A $20's. There were ways that the government could have isolated a Cooper $20, but that would have required someone who understood probability well enough to do what was needed. I'm guessing they might not have gone down that path. Regardless of whether the government looked for the $20's, Cooper still would not have known they stopped, therefore if he spent the money, he likely would have thought he was taking a big risk, and therefore may not have spent the money.

If it was 1971 and I had to bet, I would bet he lost the bag, or it ripped open. For that to have happened, the likely scenario was someone else found the money and kept it, knowing if they talked, they'd have to give it back. Or, it fell into the woods and is still there. However, it being 2020, and only 300 of the 10,000 bills have showed up, I would bet that he made it out with most of it. So the next logical question is "did he spend it?" Spending the money was one surefire way to get busted. Imagine it is now 1972, you haven't been caught, you see a number of composite sketches, you see many suspects, then it becomes later in the 1970's and they don't have you. What do you do? Do you start to spend the money? It's a huge risk. We know now that the FBI did not look too hard for the 20's, but Cooper would not have known that. Could he have spent the money? Certainly. If so, I think he would have had to doctor the bills somehow to avoid detection. Using them in a foreign country would be as dangerous as using them in the United States, maybe worse because the greenbacks would stand out in another country. Most likely scenario is he got away with the money, and did not spend much of it. That's my opinion. His payment was that he pulled off the heist. That was winning for him.

There are some posts at the Cooper Forum on the money bag. For the posters here-what are your theories on what happened to the rest of the money not found at Tina Bar? I'm wondering if any of it could possibly still be tracked today (are there enough $20's still in collectors hands that could be checked against the list of serial numbers?)

As I remember from looking a while back it was a little less than a half moon. I suspect he would have at least been able to see the lights from Interstate 5 to the west and Portland to the south, this would give him some sense of orientation.

Another observation. Cooper may or may not have known where the plane was, but I'm thinking at some point while he was descending under the parachute canopy, he would have had time to look around and possibly get his bearings. I've done it, but it was not under the same stressful conditions he was under, something tells me he did not have much time to enjoy the ride.

Great use of graphics Flyjack. 8:12 PM pressure bump/jump would put him landing right north of Battleground. If you're Cooper, chances are you want to walk south, so what scenario gets him to the Heisson General Store, on the railroad tracks, heading south?

If that break in was indeed done by DB Cooper, then it makes me wonder about a few things. The first would be why did he have to break into a store? What comes to mind is he either lost his survival gear/food in the jump, figured he didn't need any and maybe landed somewhere he thought he wouldn't, or didn't really plan it all out in advance. You would think he would have at least jumped with some food in his pockets. Would old police reports have an actual list of what was stolen? The other part that comes to mind is the use of railroad tracks to move through the area. It is certainly a good method, especially on Thanksgiving eve/morning. What is the final destination, is it a railyard, an actual passenger station, is he meeting someone somewhere, or even getting on a train? Lots of things to speculate about. His goal could have been to get to tracks, and it could have taken him hours to do so.

Any thoughts as to why he changed his mind? Or was it as simple as him asking for two because he assumed each set would have a main and a reserve? Certain air crews only jumped with a reserve. It was smaller and took up less space on the plane and could be put on faster. He may have been more comfortable with a reserve.

Robert, you stated "escaping by rail is unlikely" Do you have a percentage you could put to that? Like 10%, 20%, etc? For instance, the Cleveland Browns have a 0% chance of winning the Super Bowl, the Kansas City Chiefs maybe a 50%, etc. Not looking for deep math, but where would unlikely vs likely fall for you when it comes to escaping by rail, and what were the other options and those probabilities? If not rail, then all by foot, car, plane, boat, etc.

So you acknowledge he could have gotten on a train at a rail yard?

I can’t see which rail line that was. Chelatchie? I have better rail maps and can do some digging. An aircrewman like Hahneman or Smith would be drawn to rail lines for navigation and as targets for bombing and recon. Smith worked for the railroad, so would be even more likely to go to a rail. My theory is Cooper escaped by rail, likely with help.

That’s right in one of the most agreed upon drop zones. You would think the local police would have dusted for prints and if they found some, those would be on file.

Around 11:30. 3 hours and 15 minutes roughly after he landed. It’s on the flight path. He could have come from any direction, and may have been hurt. How far could he travel at night unhurt and hurt?

I personally was never a fan of the whole Dan Cooper comic book theory, but I guess you never know, and when following a trail, sometimes it opens your mind up to other things, and you find something else you did not know you were looking for. My thoughts on the Dan Cooper comic: The comic came out around 1954, outside of the USA. We suspect that DB Cooper was in his 40's or even 50's in 1971, which means he was born between say 1920 and 1930, so at the youngest, he would have been around 24 when that comic came out, still kind of old to be reading comic books (unlike today where a lot of ages are into comics due to the movies). And, he would probably have been non-American, because an American would likely have picked an American comic book hero. It was an FBI agent who came up with the idea. Maybe he used info that the public did not have and that's where he got the idea for the Dan Cooper comic book connection. However, I think it is just grasping at straws. The comic book connection does make me think of Leonardo DiCaprio's character in Catch Me If You Can and how he used comic book characters as aliases. (That was in the movie, but I don't remember it being in the book). There are so many little things that may be lost to history, like "Why did you choose Dan Cooper?" My guess is he knew what name he was going to use, so therefore he planned it in advance. Dan and Cooper could be from totally different parts of his life and could be two different people, or parts of others. I believe he knew someone in his life named Dan Cooper.

The 1973 fire in St. Louis really wiped out a lot of history. However, the remaining records are not all digitized yet, and certainly were not in the 80s or 90s. It’s not like the FBI could have cross checked a lot like prints or airborne training unless they had a specific suspect in mind. Maybe now it is easier. DNA is a different story. If there were no restrictions, the DNA from the tie could be fed into a number of systems, military and civilian (23 and Me). Maybe there would be a close match. Those cigarette butts may still be out there too.

The accent is one of the pieces of "evidence" that sent this case down a path that is hard to come back from. Early on the narrative became that he was Canadian, due to "no discernible accent" and the whole "negotiable currency" bit. Parts of the USA have very heavy accents, Boston/NYC/the deep South come to mind. Others have accents that are not what I'd call heavy, but that do stand out, Chicago, Minnesota, etc. Then there are parts of the country that just have plain accents, these are often the places that produce newscasters. These accents are pleasant and easy to understand (I definitely do not have one of those). These come from states like Kansas, Maryland, Colorado. But these accents can also come from rural areas in populous states like NY, MA, NJ, IL, etc. Not everyone from Illinois has a Chicago accent. If Cooper had an accent, then he certainly would have done as much as he could to hide it, maybe even practicing what he would say, or purposely disguising it. I think he could have done this with Dennis Lysne the ticket agent, and with Flo. However, it would have been a lot harder with Tina. That leads me to speculate a few possibilities. 1. Tina was in on it somehow, and it was planned for her to say she did not hear anything or see anything. For someone who spent all that time with him, the amount of info she gave is pretty light. 2. Tina was from the same area of the country as Cooper, and therefore his accent did not stand out to her. It just sounded normal. This happens a lot. I don't pick up an accent so much when I go back to places where I've lived, and it's only after I've been gone a long time that I start to hear it when I meet someone from those areas. 3. Cooper was a gentleman. How does one get described as a gentleman? By the way they dress, how they are groomed, how they speak, and what they say/do. I could walk you into The Bronx, New Jersey, etc. and introduce members from the same family, one who will have a heavy accent, and one who has no accent. Someone who speaks calmly and has made a point of speaking intelligently could easily not have any accent, even if they were from the Northeast or deep South. 4. Cooper was actually foreign, and when he learned English, he learned it the perfect way, not through growing up using slang or hanging out on the street. I don't worry about pronouncing English words perfectly, but in other languages I've studied, I always made sure I sounded out the words the best I could. Frankly, there are foreigners who speak better English than some of us. But, it is still very hard to hide a foreign accent.

The closest resemblance to the witness sketch I’ve seen is William J. Smith. Cary Grant and Rod Serling look like it too, but they are not good candidates for the crime.

I agree. Non local. The best indicator of him being from somewhere else than the Pacific Northwest is that he was never caught. Someone from far away would not have friends and relatives looking at him thinking he might be DB Cooper. Also, a lot of the articles after the hype died down were mainly in the Northwest, and still are. Frankly, people in say North Carolina don’t care as much about DB Cooper as people in Oregon. I think he chose Mexico City because that was the max range for the 727, and he wanted to make it look like he’d be in the air for a long time. But why stay in the air that long and risk adding more and more chase planes or people on the ground? Regardless of where he wanted to jump, I’d like to know how he planned to escape. Did he have a radio? Was he going to use a pay phone or a pre arranged pickup spot? Was he going to walk out on his own or maybe camp out for a few days?

Practically everyone in the military has heard of Fort Lewis and McChord. Those were staging bases for troop movement to the Pacific in WW2, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq/Afghanistan. Both those bases were also on maps (crazy as it might sound). Anyone in the Seattle area would know too. Little anecdote. Before GPS, military actually learned land navigation using a map and compass. I spent years doing land navigation training off and on, and we used the Tenino map sheet, which was right near Fort Lewis. Having not been to the area at the time, I would have felt confident navigating on the ground there. The rivers, mountains, and all other terrain features were burned in my memory. Someone confident with a map and compass (military, Boy Scout, hiker) would have been ok on the ground after a jump. Someone confident in the air (air crew, pilot, navigator) would have been confident in the air. Knowing Tacoma or Fort Lewis does not mean he was from the area. That's just one more fallacy that DB Cooper laughed about to his grave.

Dudeman, I agree. I'm of the belief that he made a recon flight, or multiple flights. I firmly believe he chose Northwest for a specific reason, and likely used other airlines for his other flights, in his normal hairstyle which was not jet black. If your goal is to get $200,000, then spending $25 a few times is nothing. A few recon flights could keep you out of prison. I also believe he had aerial recon experience, so recon flights would have been standard. I also think he could have looked out the window and spotted landmarks, or at least lights and darkness. You may not know where you are in the air, but you can see the change from lights to darkness (city to country).

Movies really don't mean a lot these days unless it is a big box office production. Anyone can make a film. If the movie is not interesting or not well done, then it actually hurts the case, like the ridiculous Treat Williams movie. Public interest is clearly increased during airings of episodes such as Case Closed or Unsolved Mysteries or Expedition Unknown. The Pageview Statistics on Wikipedia will give you a good history of what the interest in the case is. I put the DB Cooper viewers/researchers into roughly 3 groups: 1. Those who know a lot about the case and are not swayed by the manufactured suspects like Rackstraw or Reca, and who don't believe the media stories on McCoy. Some of this group have their own suspects and will not be swayed into believing anyone else could be a suspect. Most of this group is concerned with facts about the case. If the case were solved today, some of this group would not believe it, some would be happy it was solved, and some would be disappointed because they don't have anything else to live for. Group 1 is almost everyone on the Cooper Forum and on this thread. 2. Those who know a little bit about the case, and have some interest. These are the ones who concern me, because they all seem to fall for the suspects in the media (Rackstraw, Reca, McCoy) and don't do any basic research on the details. They know DB Cooper hijacked a plane, they could probably tell you it was in the 1970s, and that he took a lot of money. However, they do not get into any of the relevant facts such as age, description, personality, etc. They believe what they have been told. If the case was solved today, they would probably believe the new suspect and realize they were wrong to think it was Rackstraw, McCoy, etc. This group likely does not read Dropzone or Cooper Forum, and if they do, they don't post. 3. Those who don't know who DB Cooper is, or if they do, they don't know anything except that he was a hijacker. If the case was solved today, they would read a few snippets about it on the news and never talk about it again. Group 2 is the target audience to educate about the case.

Cary Grant in "North by Northwest" wrote notes on a matchbook to his blonde accomplice. Add that to the list of an unusual number of connections to that movie. https://dbcooperhijack.com/2019/01/04/d-b-cooper-cary-grant-and-the-1959-film-north-by-northwest/ Flyjack, do you have a release number on the set of documents on the Tina Mucklow-Tacoma comment? Tied to The Vault or to the Last Master Outlaw FOI docs? Thanks.