American History Tellers - The Mystery of D.B. Cooper | The Man in Row 18 | 1

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

On November 24th, 1971, a man on a Boeing 727 bound for Seattle handed a flight attendant a note that read, “Miss, I have a bomb here.” No one knew the man’s real name. But soon, the press was calling him D.B. Cooper -- and his hijacking of Northwest Orient Flight 305 would go down as one of the most audacious in aviation history.Cooper parachuted out of that flight with $200,000 in cash, then disappeared without a trace. Over the decades that followed, FBI agents and amateur investigators would pursue thousands of leads and hundreds of suspects. And the mystery of what really happened in the skies over Washington that night has only grown deeper.Listen to new episodes 1 week early and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/historytellers.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's November 24th, 1971. You're an airline stewardess aboard Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305. It's around three in the afternoon on the day before Thanksgiving, and the last of 36 passengers are finding their seats. Soon, this Boeing 727 will take them on the half-hour flight from Portland to Seattle. The captain's voice calls out over the intercom.

Okay, folks, we've been cleared to taxi, so if the cabin attendants will take their seats, we'll be on our way. You buckle yourself into your jump seat in the very back of the plane. In just 28 minutes, you'll be at the end of your month-long flight shift. When you touch down, you'll finally have some well-deserved rest and relaxation. Tina, the other flight attendant in your section, takes the seat next to you. God, I don't think those wheels can come up fast enough. You said it. Sometimes this job can be exhausting.

It's not just the fear of crashing or the diet pills you have to take to keep your job. It's the male passengers. Grabby, pushy, always leering. Always thinking they're the first guy to ever hand you their phone number on a cocktail napkin. Excuse me, miss. The man in the row in front of yours has turned around. Earlier, you served him a bourbon and soda. Now he's holding out an envelope. You don't even blink. Take it and drop it into your purse. Sure, it's another pickup note. The plane lifts away from the runway, climbing into the sky. At 5,000 feet, it begins to bang.

That's when the man turns around in his seat again. Miss, I think you better have a look at that note. Reluctantly, you pull the envelope out of your purse and open it up. The letter is handwritten, black pen on white paper. It reads, Miss, I have a bomb here and I would like you to sit by me. Your heart stops. Tina turns to you, concern on her face. Hey, what's going on? Is that guy getting fresh?

You ignore Tina. Slowly, you unbuckle your seatbelt and move up alongside the man in row 18. He's still wearing his dark raincoat. He's middle-aged, with receding hair, thin lips, and a pinched nose. He looks straight into his eyes. Sir, you're kidding, right? This note is a joke, right? No, miss, it's for real. He opens up his briefcase and shows you its contents. Several red sticks of dynamite connected to a battery, bigger than the kind you put inside a flashlight. Your breath catches in your throat. Tina?

You turn around to hand her the man's note, but it flutters from your shaking hand to the floor. What is it? The man sitting next to me? He's got a bomb. As Tina reads the note, the man lights up a cigarette, like he's got all the time in the world. You have no idea what he's planning to do next.

He hasn't told you his demands. All you know is he holds your life and the life of every passenger on this plane in his hands. Your flight has been hijacked. I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And we're the hosts of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims, and what's left once the facade falls away. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, this is Nick. And this is Jack. And we just launched a brand new podcast called The Best Idea Yet. You may have heard of it. It's all about the untold origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. Listen to The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers.

Our history, Your story. On our show, we take you to the events, the times, and the people that shaped America and Americans, our values, our struggles, and our dreams. We put you in the shoes of everyday citizens as history was being made, and we'll show you how the events of the times affected them, their families, and affects you now. In 1971, a routine flight from Portland to Seattle turned into a sudden crisis when a mysterious man threatened to kill everyone on board with a briefcase bomb. A case of the Flight 305 hijacker would become one of the most enigmatic in aviation history. By the end of the evening, federal agents and law enforcement officials faced a baffling mystery, one that made international headlines and kicked off a manhunt

that would last for decades. Americans in the early 1970s struggled with a weak economy, a losing war in Vietnam, and a growing distrust of authority figures. Against that backdrop, the hijacker and the name he became known by, D.B. Cooper, achieved an almost mythical status. The case would go down as one of the most infamous hijackings in American history, one that transformed commercial aviation security and inspired generations of amateur detectives to pursue the man at the center of it.

This is a special episode of American History Tellers, The Man in Row 18. On November 24, 1971, a man approached the ticket counter at Portland International Airport and bought a one-way ticket for a flight to Seattle. He stood around six foot tall and wore a dark business suit and raincoat. He carried a black briefcase. He paid the $20 ticket fare in cash. It was the afternoon before Thanksgiving, and the airport was filled with anxious passengers getting ready for the busy holiday season. In the early 70s, air travel was a very different experience than it is today. Smoking was allowed on all airlines. Flight attendants were almost exclusively young women and were forced to adhere to strict weight requirements. At airports, security consisted of little more than a pressurized door between the gate and the airplane

itself. Anyone with some money could walk up to the counter, buy a ticket, and climb aboard. The man in the dark raincoat joined other passengers as they made their way onto Northwest Orient Flight 305. The Boeing 727 was only one-third full, holding 36 passengers. He took a seat in the last row of the plane and ordered a bourbon and soda. Around 3 p.m., just as the plane was in the process of taking off, he passed an envelope with a folded note to 23-year-old flight attendant Florence Schaffner. The note announced that the man had a bomb in his briefcase. Trying to stay calm, Schaffner showed the note to Tina Mucklow, the flight attendant in the seat beside hers. Mucklow was younger than Schaffner and had less experience in the air. But she managed to remain calm.

Without alerting any of the passengers, Mucklow reached for the back cabin phone and less experience in the air. But she managed to remain calm. Without alerting any of the passengers, Mucklow reached for the back cabin phone and called up to the cockpit. The plane was now at 10,000 feet and climbing, steered by Captain William Scott and co-pilot William Radicek. Clouds had gathered menacingly in the skies around them. Thunder and lightning were forecast along the flight path. Over the radio, Captain Scott contacted Northwest Orient Operations in Minneapolis, who in turn contacted police and the FBI. By the early 1970s, airplane hijackings had become distressingly common in the United States and across the world. From early 1969 to late 71, there were roughly 100 so-called skyjackings,

and nearly half of them were successful. Passengers' lives were considered too important to put at risk, so hijackers typically received what they asked for. The man sitting in row 18 had not given his name, but the name on his ticket read Dan Cooper. After handing his note to Schaffner, he asked her to switch places with Mucklow to sit beside him. During the next half hour, Cooper chain-smoked cigarettes, drank his bourbon, and quietly gave Mucklow instructions. She then relayed these instructions to the pilots, who sent them on to authorities. Cooper demanded that the plane land at 5 p.m. as scheduled at Seattle-Tacoma Airport.

Once on the ground, he wanted four parachutes and $200,000 in, as he phrased, negotiable American currency. From his office at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, the president of Northwest Orient Airlines authorized payment of the ransom and arranged for Flight 305 to circle while Seattle authorities and the FBI rushed to prepare for the plane's landing on the SeaTac runway below. One agent scrambled to locate standard-issue parachutes from a local skydiving school. Another collected the $200,000 ransom and $20 bills from a local bank, which prepped the bank for tracking by recording each of the serial numbers. Meanwhile, aboard Flight 305, flight attendant Tina Mucklow remained seated next to the hijacker. He'd put on a pair of dark sunglasses but remained polite

and quiet, occasionally looking out the window. Mucklow and the hijacker shared a cigarette and made small talk while the plane circled over Tacoma. At one point, Mucklow asked him, Do you have a grudge against the airline? He replied, No, miss. I just have a grudge. Mucklow maintained her composure and continued to be the go-between for the hijacker and the pilots up front. As she would recall later, I was there for the hijacker to kind of keep him feeling safe, reassured, comfortable, and not detonating that bomb. At 5.40 p.m., Flight 305 finally touched down at SeaTac. Passengers emerged out on the rainy runway, confused and upset at the delay. When they were bussed to the terminal, they met a phalanx of police and TV reporters.

Only then did they realize there had been a hijacker on board with them. Once the passengers were clear of the plane, FBI agents delivered the ransom money, along with the two sets of primary and reserve parachutes. At the time, it was the largest ransom amount that had ever been given to a hijacker in U.S. history. Using Mucklow as his go-between, the hijacker then gave more demands. Once in the air, he ordered the plane would fly low, no higher than 10,000 feet, with the flaps down. This would hinder the plane's speed. Between that and the parachutes, it was clear that the hijacker intended to jump.

He likely chose a Boeing 727 as his target because of a feature unique to that plane called the aft stairs, a small staircase that could deploy from the back of the plane during flight. Around 7.40 p.m., Flight 305 took off again, this time bound for Mexico City, per Cooper's instructions. He had allowed Florence Schaffner and another flight attendant to leave, but insisted on keeping Mucklow with him in the cabin. In the cockpit sat both pilots and a flight engineer. Otherwise, the plane was now deserted. As the man from row 18 strapped on the parachutes, it was clear to Mucklow that he was planning to jump. But there was a problem with the bag of money. He couldn't figure out how to attach it to himself. So instead, he hastily fashioned a makeshift bag out of one of the other parachutes, then tied it in a haphazard manner around his

waist. He shoved the bills into this improvised bag and even asked Mucklow if she wanted to keep some of the money for herself. She declined. The plane had been in the air for about ten minutes when Cooper instructed Mucklow to go up to the front and pull the curtain. He wanted to be alone. Mucklow showed him the mechanism for operating the aft stairs and asked him if he wanted help with it. He said no. From his place in the back of the plane, the hijacker could not have known that several military jets had been scrambled and were following close behind. In case Flight 305 lost control or began to head towards a populated area, the jets were authorized to shoot it down. In the cockpit of Flight 305, all the pilots could do was continue flying southbound through the darkness, knowing that any moment,

their flight could come to an abrupt and terrifying end. Imagine it's around 8 p.m. on November 24, 1971. You're the co-pilot of Flight 305, headed southbound from Sea-Tac Airport to Mexico City, with a refueling stop in Reno, Nevada. You've been in the air roughly 20 minutes, maintaining an unusually low course at 10,000 feet at the request of your only passenger, a mysterious man with a bomb and a bag of ransom money. Next to you, Captain Scott checks his gauges and squints into the darkness. You really think this guy's dumb enough to jump? Visibility's near zero. Sure seems like that's his plan.

He's gonna find it awful cold at 10,000 feet. You got a temperature? Yeah, negative 7 degrees outside right now. Captain Scott shakes his head. He's kept his cool for over five hours now. And you suppose you have too. A pilot can't think too much about anything other than operating the aircraft. There's no time for fear. Still, there's been one or two moments where your thoughts have wandered to terrifying places.

It's your job to communicate with the hijacker. So when the cockpit phone rings, you grab it. The stairs aren't opening up. I need someone to help me. Copy that. Give us a minute up here. Tina, didn't you show him how to release the air stairs? In the back of the cockpit, next to the flight engineer, Tina nods her head emphatically. Before you can tell her she has to go back and show him again, a light appears on your instrument panel. Well, that light says the aft stair apparatus has been activated. Guess

you figured it out. You pick up the cockpit phone and press the button for the cabin. Sir, can you hear me? Is there anything we can do for you? You wait for a response, glancing at the temperature gauge. With the stairs down in the back, the wind must be swirling around the cabin like a tornado. It crosses your mind that the wind might be jostling everything back there, including the hijacker's explosive device. You try not to dwell on that. Is everything okay back there? Finally, the hijacker picks up the cabin phone.

Everything's okay. You fly for several minutes in silence until you notice something else. You can feel it in the body of the plane. Deep, throbbing, shuddering. We're getting some oscillations in the cabin. He must be doing something with the aft stairs. I think our friend took his leave of us. Let's maintain course two hours until we land in Reno.

The plane continues heading south. In the cockpit, no one says anything. There's not much more to say. You've all guessed the man has jumped, but maybe he's still back there, holding on for dear life as the freezing wind whips around him and the engines blast his ears. Either way, you'll find out soon enough. Around 8 p.m., the flight deck recorded that the aft stairs had been opened. A few minutes later, the pressure in the cabin changed significantly,

and after that, there was no more communication from the man in the back of the plane. The flight crew continued flying south for two hours, not knowing whether the hijacker was still there, holding a bomb in his briefcase. Finally, at the Reno airport, around 10 p.m., Flight 305 touched down. After the crew got off, authorities searched the plane but found no one inside. The $200,000 was gone as well. The man known as Dan Cooper had jumped off the back aft stairs, hurling himself into the darkened sky over southern Washington. At night, in the darkness, in the cold wind and bad weather,

he would have faced brutal conditions for even the most seasoned parachuter. But the fact remained, the hijacker had escaped. So now authorities would have to go find him. The police and FBI faced a daunting task. They had no idea where their man was. And to make matters worse, they had no idea who he was. All they had was the name he'd used when he bought the ticket, Dan Cooper. Earlier that evening, while the plane was still in the air,

a wire service reporter had called a Portland FBI agent to ask if there were any suspects. Rushing to file a story on the hijacking, the reporter used the wrong name. Instead of writing Dan, he wrote D.B. The rest of the media ran with the error, and soon the hijacker had a new alias, D.B. Cooper. Whoever he was, the man now known as D.B. Cooper had pulled off one of the most daring hijacks in history. Now, as the FBI launched a manhunt, the biggest question became not who he was or where he was, but whether he was alive or dead. In a quiet suburb, a community is shattered by the death of a beloved wife and mother. But this tragic loss of life quickly turns into something even darker. Her

husband had tried to hire a hitman on the dark web to kill her. And she wasn't the only target. Because buried in the depths of the internet is The Kill List, a cache of chilling documents containing names, photos, addresses, and specific instructions for people's murders. This podcast is the true story of how I ended up in a race against time to warn those whose lives were in danger. And it turns out, convincing a total stranger someone wants them dead is not easy. Follow Kill List on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Kill List and more Exhibit C true crime shows like Morbid early and ad-free right now

by joining Wondery Plus. Check out Exhibit C in the Wondery app for all your true crime listening. This is the emergency broadcast system. A ballistic missile threat has been detected inbound to your area. Your phone buzzes and you look down to find this alert.

What do you do next? Maybe you're at the grocery store, or maybe you're with your secret lover, or maybe you're robbing a bank. Based on the real-life false alarm that terrified Hawaii in 2018, Incoming, a brand new fiction podcast exclusively on Wondery Plus, follows the journey of a variety of characters as they confront the unimaginable. The missiles are coming. What am I supposed to do? Featuring incredible performances from Tracy Letts, Mary Lou Henner, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Paul Edelstein, and many, many more,

Incoming is a hilariously thrilling podcast that will leave you wondering, how would you spend your last few minutes on Earth? You can binge Incoming exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. The day after the hijacking of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, many Americans gathered with family and loved ones to celebrate Thanksgiving. But for authorities, the work hadn't stopped

since the hijacked plane touched down Wednesday night in Reno, Nevada. Special Agent Ralph Himmelsbach was the lead investigator on the case. A 27-year veteran of the FBI, Himmelsbach flew with the Army Air Corps during World War II. The night of the Flight 305 hijacking, Himmelsbach himself took to the sky in a National Guard helicopter attempting to chase the southbound Boeing 727. Agents in Nevada reported back there was almost no usable evidence to be found on the plane, just eight cigarette butts in the ashtray of seat 18E. Agents found one hair on the seat

and one hair on the headrest. Both were brown and Caucasian in origin. They also found a black clip-on tie with a small tie pin attached. The military pilots who tailed Flight 305 between Portland and Reno reported that nothing ever left the plane, but it was nighttime and visibility was limited. Obviously, Cooper had bailed out at some point, but it was impossible to say exactly where or when. The best clue Himmelsbach and other agents had was that the aft stairs opening and the documented pressure change inside the cabin was reported around 8.15 p.m. In a later recreation of Cooper's jump, Bureau agents and Air Force personnel discovered that the pressure change was the result of the aft stairs lowering and then quickly shutting, as if springing back

like a diving board. Based on where they thought Cooper jumped, agents identified a search area of 150 square miles, which they referred to as the Drop Zone. This area was just north of Vancouver, Washington, in the dense, mountainous forests of the Cascade Range. The trees in this region reached hundreds of feet in the air. These trees, uneven terrain, and limited visibility would make any parachute landing treacherous. The majority of the drop zone was uninhabited wilderness, although the towns of Ariel and Woodland, Washington were on its periphery. Cooper had jumped wearing only a raincoat, a suit, and dress shoes.

Parachute he used was the kind that couldn't be steered. So even if he landed safely, he faced miles and miles of snowy, heavily wooded terrain. As far as Himmelsbach was concerned, there was a good chance that Cooper had either fallen to his death or died of exposure in the wilderness. Either way, in such densely wooded landscape, his body might never be found. Over the days and weeks that followed, Himmelsbach faced an uphill battle. Though the story of the hijacking was on the front pages of newspapers around the world, the FBI had no real leads. Police sketches sent to the press revealed nothing. He was a middle-aged man, possibly with receding hair and no distinguishing features. He was an everyman, and at the same time a master criminal who disappeared in the

most fantastical way possible. As an Oregon newspaper put it, Cooper was a wild mix of John Dillinger, Evel Knievel, and your neighborhood CPA. To many observers, that mix made Cooper a sort of anti-hero. As one local resident told reporters, folks are actually pulling for the man. That's all anybody wants to talk about. I hear it all day long. Hope he made it. He deserves it. Hope he gets away with every nickel. In 1971, robbing an airline was considered by many to be a victimless crime. And in the midst of an economic downturn, many Americans could sympathize with a seemingly ordinary man exploiting the system in such a dramatic fashion. And though the search for Cooper continued and no lead went unpursued, as weeks turned to months, the trail went cold.

Immelsbach and his team grew increasingly desperate for a break in the case. Imagine it's March 1972. You're an agent assigned to NORJAC, the official FBI name for the D.B. Cooper case, and you've been called to what you hope will be a promising crime scene. You pull your unmarked car to a stop on a back road just outside the town of Woodland, Washington. Your partner, Agent Tinsdale, is so excited he's out the door before you've got the parking brake on. As Tinsdale rushes ahead, soldiers from the army base of Fort Lewis are arriving on their jeeps. You trot past them, chasing after your partner. Jeez, would you calm down? Take it easy with this one, all right?

Up ahead of you is an old gristmill, hanging over the banks of a creek. The forest surrounding it is dense and skeletal, still yet to thaw in the spring that always comes late to this region. Tinsdale stops and surveys the scene. Nah, I don't think this is Cooper. Earlier today, two sisters were hunting for antique bottles around the mill and saw a body part inside the mill's rotting cistern. It's one of the first tangible leads you've had since the case started. You study the gristmill and the surrounding terrain. And why are you so hopped up about it? Besides, I think it fits the bill. It's remote, undisturbed, just inside the

drop zone. Yeah, but bodies inside cisterns are usually placed there. They don't just fall in on parachutes. But I don't know, I guess maybe it's him. And hey, this beats working the tip lines, right? You certainly know what he means. For four months, you've been fielding one useless tip after another. I know where DB is. Cooper is hiding in my dad's basement. As a junior agent, you have to write up a report on every single one. It's not exactly what you pictured when you first joined the Bureau. You walk around the mill and arrive at the cistern, where a few soldiers and local police officers are standing around with a medical examiner. You mutter under your breath to Tinsdale as you approach them. Well, nice of them to wait for us. Lately, the FBI has not been a welcome presence at crime scenes

in these parts. The D.B. Cooper case has become an embarrassment, and not just to your field office, but to the entire Bureau. One of the cops gestures to the mouth of the cistern, which is partially covered with rotting two-by-fours. The body's down there. I figured we'd wait for you before we open it up in case it's your guy. As a soldier cuts through the wood with a chainsaw, you crane forward and try to get a better look. Even though you know it's a long shot,

you can't help but feel a sense of anticipation. Maybe this is the break in the case you've been waiting for. The body in the Grist Mill cistern was not that of D.B. Cooper. Instead, it was a murdered young woman who'd been missing for several months. FBI agents and sheriff's deputies continued to scan the area of southwest Washington state, conducting door-to-door searches. Nothing was found. No equipment, no body, and no trace of the money. The FBI released the serial numbers of the ransom money to casinos, racetracks, and financial institutions around the world. Northwest Airlines offered a reward of $25,000. A Seattle newspaper offered $5,000 for any information. And still nothing ever turned up.

Then, in April of 1972, the first promising suspect emerged. Richard McCoy was a 29-year-old Vietnam helicopter pilot and former Sunday school teacher. He successfully hijacked a United Airlines flight and jumped out in the skies above Utah, carrying half a million dollars in ransom money. He landed in a field near Provo, Utah, and managed to hitchhike his way home. Federal agents apprehended him a few days later. The FBI quickly seized upon McCoy as their prime suspect. He resembled Cooper's police sketch and had the parachuting skills necessary to survive the jump from Flight 305. But their hopes were dashed when his alibi for

the night of Cooper's hijacking checked out. On November 24, 1971, Richard McCoy was in Las Vegas with his wife and children. McCoy was sentenced to 45 years in prison for his hijacking attempt. He soon escaped, though, using a fake gun made from dental supplies and drove a garbage truck full of other convicts through the gates of Lsburg Penitentiary. McCoy eluded authorities for three months until he was finally killed in a shootout with FBI agents in the fall of 1974. By that year, the FBI had pursued over 800 suspects, but gotten no closer to solving the case. Richard McCoy had been the most probable of them all. His Las Vegas alibi could have been engineered. But if so, any further clues died with him.

The next year, Northwest Airlines insurer paid out their claim for the ransom money, to the tune of $180,000. In 1978, the airlines sold the Boeing 727 Cooper had hijacked to Piedmont Airlines. And by 1980, it seemed as though the case of D.B. Cooper would officially remain unsolved. But that summer, an eight-year-old boy found three packets of cash while trying to build a campfire in a riverbed near Vancouver, Washington. The FBI positively identified the money as having come from Cooper's 1971 ransom bag nine years earlier. But how the money ended up along the Columbia River remained a

mystery. That site, a stretch of river coast called Tina Bar, was thought to be too far outside the established boundaries of Cooper's drop zone. The bills were the first real piece of evidence in almost a decade. Here, finally, was the money that Cooper had taken from the plane, strapped to his parachute, and escaped with. If authorities could just connect the dots, the case could finally yield an answer. But by this time, it wasn't just the FBI that was searching. Over the years, the mystery of D.B. Cooper had captured the public's imagination. Now, hordes of amateur investigators had joined the quest to identify Cooper and finally bring him to justice.

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Who created that bottle of red Sriracha with a green top that's permanently living in your fridge? Did you know that the Air Jordans were initially banned by the NBA? We'll explore all that and more in The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy. This is Nick. This is Jack. And we've covered over a thousand episodes of pop business news stories on our daily podcast.

We've identified the most viral products of all time. And they're wild origin stories that you had no idea about. From the Levi's 501 jeans to Legos. Come for the products you're obsessed with. We'll see you next time. wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. In the decades since the Flight 305 hijacking, searching for the man called D.B. Cooper had become like tracking down Bigfoot. FBI Special Agent Ralph Himmelsbach had caught a break in 1980 when some of Cooper's ransom bills were found near the Columbia River. But that evidence had led nowhere.

Himmelsbach would retire from the Cooper case and the FBI only a few months later. But as the FBI struggled to uncover any new leads, amateur sleuths and investigative journalists stepped forward in ever greater numbers with their own theories. Many were convinced that D.B. Cooper worked for Boeing, that he'd been a disgruntled employee. Some thought he was a trained parachutist or ex-military. Others insisted he was an amateur who'd taken a few skydiving classes. D.B. Cooper's landing site was also the subject of much debate.

Some thought that the FBI's initial drop zone was wrong, that Cooper had been blown further east due to the prevailing winds the night of the hijacking. Among all these theories was a single unifying notion. Whoever he was, D.B. Cooper was alive. One by one, private investigators added to the list of potential suspects. Most were wildly implausible, but that didn't stop them from capturing the attention of amateur sleuths. Pat and Ron Foreman, a married couple living near Tacoma, became friends with a fellow pilot named Barbara Dayton. As the Foreman spent more time with Dayton, they learned that she'd undergone the first gender reassignment surgery in the state of Washington in the late 1960s. Dayton was a

skilled pilot and parachutist and eventually confessed to the couple that she was D.B. Cooper. She'd passed as a man to pull it off, something the Foremans referred to as the ultimate disguise. Dayton told them her motive was revenge on an airline industry that treated women as second-class citizens. She would later recant her story after realizing that hijacking charges could be brought against her. Then, in 1989, police arrested a man named John List on suspicion of murdering his family in 1971, just days before the Cooper hijacking. List had come to the attention of the FBI because of his physical resemblance to the Cooper sketch and the timing of his disappearance. When questioned by police, List admitted to murdering his family but denied being

D.B. Cooper. In several other instances, people came to suspect family members of being D.B. Cooper. For one woman living in Florida, that suspicion came only after a surprise confession from her dying husband, a confession that would become one of the most infamous in D.B. Cooper lore. Imagine it's March 1995. You're in the West Florida Regional Medical Center in Pensacola. It's where your husband comes to get his kidney dialysis treatments. But today, it's where he's fighting for his life. Can I get you a cigarette? You lean forward slightly to reach into your purse, but your husband, Dwayne, waves you off with a brief flick of his wrist. Oh, no, cigarette. Don't you know those things will kill you? It's a grim joke. You both know Dwayne is dying, whether he smokes or not.

He's 69 years old and has battled kidney disease for years. As his condition has worsened, he's started refusing his treatments. His doctor says that without him, he won't live another five days. The two of you have been married for 17 years. You met at a hotel bar in 1977, just after your divorce to another man. Dwayne was such a character. He made up songs and sang them to you on the couch at night. Now he can barely form words.

Come closer, Josephine. I got something to tell you. It's time to tell you. He trails off. He started calling you by your full name just a few days ago. It was alarming at first, but now you've gotten used to it. You lean in closer to hear his scratchy, croak of a voice. I'm Dan Cooper. No, honey, what are you saying? You're Dwayne. No, I'm Dan Cooper. I jumped out of an airplane. I had to walk 20 miles in the snow. You look around.

Maybe a nurse can come and give him some morphine. It seems like the pain is making him delirious. You've never heard him mention anyone named Dan Cooper, let alone claim to be a Dan Cooper. There was a bucket with some money in it. $170,000. $170,000. $170,000! As he starts to get louder, a nurse does appear with some morphine.

The drug calms him down, but his ranting has shaken you. You know Dwayne has secrets, but a whole other identity? You squeeze your husband's hands and wonder who this Dan Cooper is and why Dwayne would be raving about him on his deathbed. In 1995, a dying Florida man named Dwayne Weber confessed to being D.B. Cooper. Afterwards, his wife Jo began to recall bits of information that led her to believe Dwayne

might have been telling the truth. She knew that he'd used an alias in the past and that he'd served time in several different prisons for burglary and robbery. Little by little, things started to add up. Duane had a military service background. He chained smoked cigarettes and liked to drink bourbon. Joe also recalled that Duane had nightmares about leaving his fingerprints on something called the aft stairs. Those words had meant nothing to her at the time, but now they took on a new meaning. In 1998, Joe Weber contacted the FBI and provided samples of Duane's fingerprints. But Duane was cleared when they didn't match

any prints gathered from the plane. In 2016, the FBI officially closed the D.B. Cooper case. But that didn't stop one last suspect from emerging. Robert Rackstraw was a former Special Forces paratrooper, a pilot, and a man who'd held 22 different aliases. In 1978, he came to the attention of the FBI after he was arrested in Iran and deported to the United States

to face charges for arms trafficking and check fraud. His resemblance to the Cooper sketches, along with his experience in the air, made him a suspect, but he was dismissed after no direct evidence could be found that tied him to the crime. Then, shortly after the FBI closed their books on the Cooper case, investigative filmmaker Thomas Colbert filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the FBI to release their case files. Colbert believed that Rackstraw was not just D.B. Cooper, but he'd also been a CIA agent involved in covert operations during the Vietnam War.

According to Colbert, it was more important for the FBI to protect Rackstraw's identity than it was to admit that he'd been the hijacker all along. Rackstraw himself teased that he might have been Cooper, but he would later deny having anything to do with the hijacking. Rackstraw's death in 2019 has not cleared up the matter any further. Then in 2021, Tina Mucklow, the flight attendant who spent the most time with Cooper, finally broke her silence. For decades, she'd been reluctant to talk about the hijacking, especially as the man behind it was elevated to the status of a folk hero. She had said he was a criminal who was not only threatening my life, but the lives of all those

innocent people on that flight. Mucklow continued to work as a flight attendant for a decade after the hijacking. Then, in 1981, she entered a monastery and became a nun. Her new vocation made her a target of renewed speculation from amateur Cooper sleuths. Internet detectives wondered if she was in witness protection or hiding from public life to conceal secret information about the hijacking. But in 2021, Mucklow wanted to put any thoughts of a conspiracy to rest, saying, I was a crew member who was just trying to do my job to the best of my ability. If my fellow crew members and I had an agenda, it was to get that airplane safely on the ground and the passengers off. To this day, the case of D.B. Cooper remains the

only unsolved plane hijacking in history. It is also one of several hijackings that became the catalyst for more stringent air travel security. In 1971, airline companies had not wanted to spend the necessary funds to install metal detectors. But within a decade, airports introduced X-ray screenings and metal detectors for all hand luggage. Airplanes changed too. A safety mechanism dubbed the Cooper Vane was invented to keep the aft stair doors

from being deployed mid-flight. P-poles were installed in all cockpit doors so that pilots could see what was going on in the cabin behind them. But the lasting legacy of the Cooper case is one of an unsolved mystery. After 50 years and hundreds of theories, the man who hijacked Flight 305 continues to inspire amateur sleuths and crime solvers around the world. His identity may never be known. We may never find out if he survived his daring leap into the frigid sky over the Washington wilderness. But maybe someone out

there knows what really happened on that night in 1971. And someday, that truth will be revealed. From Wondery, this is The Mystery of D.B. Cooper from American History Tellers. In our next season, to mark its 100th anniversary, we're presenting a special encore of our four-part series on one of the most shocking events in American history, the Tulsa Race Massacre. If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. Senior producer is Andy Herman. Executive producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman and Marshall Louis. Created by Hernán López for Wondery. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand,

lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reached the age of 10 that would still have heard it. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story

that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.