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I Am D B Cooper
Over the years several people have either come forward and confessed
to being D B Cooper or have been fingered by others as D B Cooper. This list
includes Duane Weber a
The FBI has investigated over 1400 individuals as possible suspects. To this date none have emerged as a likely candidate for D B Cooper. Many people have their favorite suspect, who do you think D B Cooper really was? You can express your feeling about the identity of the “real D B Cooper” at the NORJAK Forum.
Introduction
After the Northwest Airline Flight 305 Skyjacking on November 24, 1971 (NORJAK), the FBI and other law enforcement received many tips from the general public about someone who was believed to be D B Cooper.
In some cases, the “fingered” individual was
already deceased. In some cases, the individual made a confession before dying.
All but a few have been eliminated as a suspect. The FBI
has entertained leads both 
incredible and plausible. A
Another Cooper claim involved a
This page contains a discussion of some of the more notorious suspects and some of the facts that made others suspect they were D B Cooper.
John List
John
List was arrested for shooting his mother, wife, and three
children in 1971. In 1971, mass-murderer John List was
considered a suspect in the Cooper hijacking, which occurred just after he had
killed his family in
Richard Floyd McCoy, Jr
On April 7, 1972, four months after Cooper's hijacking,
Richard McCoy, Jr., under the alias "James Johnson", boarded United Airlines Flight 855
during a stopover in
Police began investigating McCoy following a
tip from Utah Highway Patrolman Robert Van Ieperen, who was a friend of
McCoy's. Apparently, after the Cooper hijacking, McCoy had made a reference
that Cooper should have asked for $500,000, instead of $200,000. Van Ieperen
thought that was an odd coincidence, so he alerted the FBI.
Married and with two young children, McCoy was a Mormon Sunday school teacher
studying law enforcement at
On April 9, following the fingerprint and handwriting
match, McCoy was arrested for the United 855 hijacking. Coincidentally, McCoy
had been on National Guard duty flying one of the helicopters involved in the
search for the hijacker. Inside his house FBI agents found a jumpsuit and a
duffel bag filled with $499,970 in cash. McCoy claimed innocence, but was
convicted and received a 45-year sentence. Once incarcerated, using his access
to the prison's dental office, McCoy fashioned a fake handgun out of molding
material used by dentists. He and a crew of convicts escaped in August 1974 by
stealing a garbage truck and crashing it through the prison's main gate. It
took three months before the FBI located McCoy in
In 1991, Bernie Rhodes and former FBI agent Russell Calame coauthored “D.B. Cooper: The Real McCoy,” in which they claimed that Cooper and McCoy were really the same person, citing similar methods of hijacking, a tie, and a mother-of-pearl tie clip, left on the plane by Cooper. Neither Rhodes nor Calame were involved in the original Cooper investigation, but Calame was the head of the Utah FBI office that investigated McCoy, and eventually arrested him for the copycat hijacking that occurred in April 1972. The author said; “McCoy never admitted nor denied he was Cooper." When McCoy was directly asked whether he was Cooper he replied, "I don't want to talk to you about it." The agent who supposedly killed McCoy is quoted as saying, "When I shot Richard McCoy, I shot D. B. Cooper at the same time." The widow of Richard McCoy, Karen Burns McCoy, reached a legal settlement with the book's co-authors and its publisher.
Ted (Teddy) E. Mayfield
D. B. Cooper is alive and well and living in
Ralph
Himmelsbach's book, “NORJAK, the Investigation of DB Cooper”,
notes that Mayfield was phoned in as a Cooper suspect by at least a half a
dozen people on the night of the hijacking. Despite this, Himmelsbach, who
personally knew Mayfield from an earlier dispute at a local airport, never took
these leads seriously, since Mayfield phoned the FBI
to offer assistance approximately two hours after Cooper jumped from the plane.
Himmelsbach argued that there wasn't enough time to land and make it to a
telephone.
This has been disputed by Dvorak and Myers, as well as a few professional skydivers, who have argued that any trained diver could have landed, hitched a ride and made it to a telephone within that time frame. They even speculated that, given that Cooper gave the pilot the flight pattern, the speed, and altitude, an experienced skydiver could have stashed a vehicle along the flight path, and used dead reckoning, navigational aids, or simply searched for a landmark and jumped within a predetermined area. They also note that Mayfield had the necessary background.
According to a local newspaper in Sheridan,
Oregon, Mayfield owned a skydiving school for several years
before the Cooper heist, and has national medals for skydiving accuracy. Court
records in
In an interview with Inside Edition, Dvorak and Myers released some of the evidence of what they say is a strong circumstantial case. When asked for comment, Mayfield noted that the FBI called him for assistance five times while Cooper was still on the plane.
Dvorak and Myers say that they confirmed with two separate FBI sources, including Ralph Himmelsbach, agent in charge of the case, that Mayfield was never called by the FBI on that night.
In a KOIN TV interview, Himmelsbach collaborated their account, indicating that Mayfield called the FBI well after Cooper had jumped, and that the FBI never called Mayfield that night. Mayfield still lives in Sheridan, Oregon where he builds kits for Ultra-Light Aircraft.
Kenneth Peter (Kenny) Christiansen
Lyle Christiansen of
“I’m not getting any younger,” Christiansen wrote to the FBI in January 2004. “Before I die I would like to find out if my brother was D.B. Cooper. From what I know I feel that he was and without a doubt.”
Kenneth Peter Christiansen was born Oct. 17, 1926, deceased
July 30, 1994 from cancer. Lived in his own home in
In 1944, Kenny enlisted in the Army, and chose an elite,
and dangerous specialty: the paratroops.
Kenny trained with the 11th Airborne Division, the Angels, which had been sent
to the Pacific. After the war he took all sorts of jobs. He traveled once with
a carnival, selling tickets. Then he’d leave for warmer climes:
According to property records, Kenny was able to purchase a
house and some land. In October 1972, about a year after Cooper’s jump,
Kenny paid $14,000 for a modest ranch in
On
his deathbed, Lyle remembers, his older brother pulled him close. He then said
something that didn’t make sense to him then. It does so now. Kenny said,
“There is something you should know, but I cannot tell you!” Lyle
didn’t want to know. “I don’t care what it is you cannot tell
me about. We all love you.”
The FBI knew there were many specific traits Cooper needed to pull off the jump. Cooper had to know how to parachute, and in tough conditions. Maybe he’d been in the Army. Better yet, they figured the paratroops. Also, he had to be familiar with planes (10,000 feet, fifteen-degree wing flaps) and the area (“Looks like Tacoma down there”). They also knew what Cooper looked like. They had a detailed sketch that Florence Schaffner helped create. And there was his personality. “He seemed rather nice,” said Tina Mucklow, another attendant on the flight. “He was never cruel or nasty. He was thoughtful and calm.”
When shown photos of Kenny, Florence Schaffner said that the images were closer in resemblance to Cooper than any of the suspects she’s ever seen, she said. But? “But I can’t say ‘Yay.’
William Pratt (Wolfgang) Gossett
In February 2007, the radio show MJ Morning Show released pictures of who the
show's producers think may be the real D. B. Cooper, noting similarities in
facial features from the Cooper composite sketch. The man’s family came
forward after his death and are currently working with the FBI
to ascertain if their relative is the real D. B. Cooper. Attorney Galen Cook is investigating the man (in
conjunction with the FBI) and has stated that the suspect had night jumping
experience as a military paratrooper. Cook has speculated further that
the man might have known Richard
McCoy, Jr. through the military or connections in
The suspect’s name, William Pratt (Wolfgang) Gossett
was released May 28th, 2008 in an article in “the Depoe Bay (OR) Beacon Online”. According
to the article he officially changed his name to “Wolfgang” and
became a priest in the Old Catholic Church, SLC Diocese, in 1988. Gossett
retired to
The photo on the left was taken in 1973 during award
ceremony at
Note the medal located directly above the ribbons (over suspect's heart). This is the suspect's "Jump Wings," a medal depicting a deployed parachute with wings. There was no HALO (high-altitude, low-opening) uniform insignia in the 1960s or 1970s, however, the suspect's son distinctly remembers his father practicing military HALO jumps at night.
Because of its timing, many amateur NORJAK investigators feel that release of information about this suspect is just a ploy (by Cook) to sell his forthcoming book. However, others believe he is one of the best suspects yet. Only time (and the FBI) will tell.
Materials courtesy of Galen Cook,
Attorney at Law.
Duane L. Weber (aka John C. Collins)
In July 2000, U.S.
News & World Report ran an article about a widow in Pace,
It
was March 1995, and Duane Weber was in a
The name meant nothing to Jo Weber, she had met Duane in
She put the information out of her mind. Her husband was likable and friendly, she says. And as he lay in the hospital in 1995, her thoughts were only on his condition. But when she didn't respond to his statement, Duane became upset and shouted so loudly the nurses heard his words: "Oh, let it die with me!" Moments later Duane was sedated; he died soon after.
It was only weeks later, after she learned the infamous
hijacker D.B. Cooper had actually called himself "Dan Cooper," that
Jo Weber began to understand what she now believes her husband was trying to
tell her in his confession: that he was D.B. Cooper.
Although he always has believed D.B. Cooper most likely did not survive his jump from the rear stairs of Northwest Airlines Flight 305 on Thanksgiving Eve, 1971, retired FBI Agent Ralph Himmelsbach says "If he did make it, it would have been someone that fits the profile of Duane Weber. He appeared to me to be a credible suspect, and when Jo first contacted me (five years ago) I told her I thought it should be brought to the attention of the FBI right away. She granted me permission to contact the FBI, and they did initiate an investigation."
There
are photos of Duane that bear such a resemblance to the FBI composite of Cooper
that a forensic expert who has worked with the FBI told US News & World Report recently,
"It's about as close a match as you can get." Jo had Weber family records that
indicated Duane had served time at the federal McNeil Island Corrections Center in
There were receipts and photographs of a vacation Duane and Jo took to the Northwest in 1979. On it, Duane took Jo on a side trip along the Columbia River. Duane knew the area well. "He told me what was up that logging road, or up on that hill." A short while later, Jo says her husband pointed and said to her, "That's where D.B. Cooper walked out of the woods." "I said to him, 'How do you know that?' And he says, 'Maybe I was on the ground.' I just took it as a joke."
On the way back, Jo says, Duane stopped the car along the Columbia River, about three miles east of Vancouver. "He told me to stay in the car, that he'd be about 10 minutes. He opened the trunk; I don't know if he got anything out."
Months later, a Vancouver, Wash., boy discovered a bundle of D.B. Cooper's ransom money buried in the sand along the river, about thirteen miles downstream of where Duane and Jo had stopped.
Then there were the intangible pieces of
evidence that never before had made sense to Jo. Shortly before his last trip
to the hospital, Duane told Jo his chronic knee injury had been caused "by
jumping out of an airplane." He once had told her it was possible to make
flares resemble a bomb.
In 1994 she had discovered an old plane ticket from Portland to Seattle in Duane's tax papers. After she asked Duane about the ticket, it disappeared. Another time, she'd looked inside a cooler Duane usually kept locked up; inside was a "grayish wheat colored bag made out of heavy, coarse material. It had some printing on it." D.B. Cooper was given the ransom money in a canvas bank bag.
After Duane's death Jo never found the bag or the ticket.
But about a year later, when she went to the
Jo Weber is disappointed that the FBI has chosen not to pursue its investigation of her late husband. But she is determined to continue her own. There are other pieces of evidence she won't reveal, things that led Ralph Himmelsbach to say, "She has a lot of points that would stretch your imagination at the possibility of coincidence." D.B. Cooper was a chain smoker who drank bourbon; Duane Weber was, too.
"All
I want is the truth," says Jo. "I want it over. I have a very curious
mind and I've never been able to put anything down until I've completed it. I'm
not obsessed by this, I'm not crazy, I'm not making this up. But it is a
passion, to get to the truth.
"I held that plane ticket in my hand," she says.
"And Duane must have told me this for a reason. Evidently he wanted the
story told."
The FBI has declared that Duane is no longer a suspect, based on DNA evidence found on the tie left on the aircraft. Many amateur investigators are skeptical of this determination, because of the possibility that of the four individual’s DNA found on the tie, none of them are from Cooper. Another shadow on the FBI’s DNA determination is that the samples of personal items submitted to the FBI years after Duane’s death had been contaminated by other individuals.
Photos of Duane Weber are courtesy
of Jo Weber. Copyright © Jo Weber 2003 – 2008. All rights reserved by the Copyright owner.
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