An Old Timey Podcast - 83: The D.B. Cooper Investigation Takes Off (Part 2)

Episode Date: December 10, 2025

On Thanksgiving Eve, 1971, D.B. Cooper parachuted into the night’s sky with $200k in ransom money. That night, the FBI launched their investigation into his identity and location. They interviewed eyewitnesses. They developed sketches. They searched the airplane for evidence, finding a few hairs, cigarette butts, and a clip-on tie. They analyzed the flight path to determine where he might have landed. But after searching, and searching, and searching - the mysterious D.B. Cooper was nowhere to be found. Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Kristin pulled from: The book, “Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper,” by Geoffrey GrayThe documentary, “DB Cooper: Where are you?!”The documentary, “The Mystery of DB Cooper”“Who was the mysterious hijacker D.B. Cooper?” by Ella Morton for History.com“D.B. Cooper Hijacking, FBI.gov“The missing piece of the D.B. Cooper story,” by Andrea Marks for Rolling Stone“Scientists say they may have new evidence in the D.B. Cooper case,” by Chris Ingalls for USA TodayAre you enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Then please leave us a 5-star rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts!Are you *really* enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Well, calm down, history ho! You can get more of us on Patreon at patreon.com/oldtimeypodcast. At the $5 level, you’ll get a monthly bonus episode (with video!), access to our 90’s style chat room, plus the entire back catalog of bonus episodes from Kristin’s previous podcast, Let’s Go To Court.

Hear ye, hear ye. You are listening to an old-timey podcast. I'm Kristen Caruso. And I'm Normie C. And on this episode, the investigation into D.B. Cooper takes off. Hey. Do you get it? It's like flying because he hijacked. He did not skyjack because we have settled that that is a different thing entirely. Well, you know what they say? Skyjacking, you got to take off to get. get off. Norm, that was actually pretty good. I was really wondering where we were headed with that one. But I don't need to wonder where we're headed now because I know we're headed for a

Patreon plug. That's right, Kristen. Tis the season history hoes because I'm in a very giving mood this holiday season. You sound kind of weird right now. I do sound kind of like threatening and weird. Basically, I just wanted to say that right now, our $10 pig butter investor tier, it's 50% off for the first month. My goodness.

What a time to be alive. So head on over to patreon.com slash old-timey podcast to support this small, sexy, independent podcast on that $10 pig butter investor tier, which is 50% off your first month right now. You're going to get bonus episodes, sign card and stickers, early ad-free video episodes, access to our monthly trivia parties, which Kristen lost in a humiliating fashion last month. I have reason to believe that that was stolen from me. Right. Kristen has filed the paperwork, challenging the results. As the host of the show, we're looking into it.

You also get 10% off all merch and add-free episodes of Kristen's old podcast. Let's go to court. Woo! So, head on over to patreon.com slash old-timey podcast to sign up. That deal lasts till the end of the year, right, Kristen? It sure does. Also, did you know, first of all, you can sign up for yourself, but you can also give the gift of Patreon to a ho in need. A history hoe in.

In need. Yes. Like grandma. Oh. Okay. Are you ready? Uh, yeah. Norm.

Here we go. I'm going to need that previously on voice, please. Uh-oh. How many buttons do you need to push? You worry about yourself over there, right? You don't, you don't even want to mess with this soundboard, so you don't get to criticize how long it's taking me to set stuff out. Everyone, I don't know if we're going to cut some of this, but just so you know,

Norm has been pushing random buttons on the soundboard for five minutes straight. I guarantee it. Maybe 20 seconds. Calm down over there. You're just so damn excited and tell your little story. We have to solve this case right now, right here. Okay, we don't have time for you to fiddle around with a soundboard. Okay.

Well, here, take it away. Previously, on an old-timey podcast. On Thanksgiving Eve, 1971, a non-descripted. man boarded a plane headed to Seattle. On board, he alerted flight attendants that he had a bomb. Then he made his demands, 200K in cash, plus four parachutes. When they landed in Seattle, the passengers deborded the plane unaware that they'd been hijacked, or, to use a term that we all know and love, skyjacked! I'm about to bust. The hijacker demanded that flight attendant Tina Mucklow bring the ransom money and parachutes on board.

Then he revealed a shocking level of knowledge, not just about flying, but about the Boeing 727 aircraft itself, when he said that the stairs on the back of the plane could be lowered mid-flight. Even the pilots hadn't known that, but somehow this hijacker did. The hijacker instructed them to take off, and then, at some point on their flight from Seattle to Reno, the mysterious man who'd purchased his. ticket under the alias Dan Cooper did what at the time seemed unthinkable. He parachuted out into the stormy

night sky, ransom money in tow, never to be heard from again. On this week's episode? The investigation into the identity of D.B. Cooper takes off. I realize I kind of use that joke at the top of the show.

Anyway, it's exciting. Okay. Okay. Holy Tilly. Oh, Jesus. It scared me. He'd done it. Hijackings were way too common in the 60s and early 70s, but what D.B. Cooper did on Thanksgiving Eve 1971 was shockingly brazen.

He'd been so cool, so calculated, so maybe successful. They had to catch this guy, Norm. Already, people were kind of intrigued and a little in awe of the seemingly mild-mannered, highly skilled, and very, very, knowledgeable hijacker who'd parachuted out of a plane with 200K. Plus, thanks to an early reporting error, media outlets ran the story that the man who'd hijacked the plane had purchased his ticket under the name D.B. Cooper. He'd actually purchased it under the name Dan Cooper, but by the time the name D.B. Cooper got out into the world, ho, ho, there was no stop in it. Because, number one, it was cool as hell. And number two,

Both names were definitely fake anyway, so why not go with the one that was sick, far out, and groovy? That's true. Man, if Mr. Cooper survived and he was reading on the news that they're calling him D.B. Cooper, he was probably thrilled. He was like, man, they can't even get my name right. I'm definitely getting away with this. Sure. But again, both were fake, so, you know. Do you think maybe he watched the news and he was like, damn, D.B. Cooper sounds way cooler than Dan Cooper.

I absolutely think he did. Maybe I fucked up there. No, no, because you wouldn't. Here's the thing. I think this guy was smart enough to know. I can't walk up to the ticket agent and say, hello, I'm D.B. Cooper, because that might be memorable. Now, he did say to the guy, now that's a Boeing 727 jet, right? Which ended up being very memorable.

But, you know, still, you get the idea. He's trying to be nondescript. What if he went to the counter and he was like, hello, my name is Daniel Benji Cooper. My friends call me D.B. I mean, sure. Honestly, in 1971, people were walking onto planes after paying 20 bucks cash, not showing an ID, shotguns in their trench coats, briefcases full of bombs, and not a metal detector in sight. So who knows? Do what you will in 1971. Well, that's back when we had freedom, Kristen. Oh, okay. Right away, the FBI began interviewing eyewitnesses. They needed to know what the hijacker looked like. But, oof, that's...

proved way harder than they might have imagined. The good thing was that the two people who spent the most time with the hijacker, flight attendants Florence Schaffner and Tina Mucklow gave investigators similar descriptions. Flight attendant Florence Schaffner was unique in that she'd been the one to see him without his sunglasses. She said he had brown eyes. He was in his mid-forties, about six feet tall. He wore a black suit, black shoes. He had black hair. Flight attendant Tina Mucklo spent by far the most time with the hijacker. She also described him as being in his mid-40s, but thought that he was slightly shorter than what Florence described. Maybe 5'10. Okay, two inches, you know, not a big deal. Right.

What? Do you have a joke, Kristen? No, I do not. Because I said two inches, not a big deal. big deal? No, I'm a very mature woman, so that's ridiculous. She said he had dark brown hair, a dark brown suit, and dark brown shoes. Florence and Tina didn't agree on the color of the man's hair, but they did agree that he had straight hair. Okay. But flight attendant Alice Hancock, who also interacted with the hijacker, described his hair as wavy. Other passengers provided their own descriptions of the man at the back of the plane. One guy got up to use the bathroom several times during the flights. Uh-oh.

Do not ask. He remembered looking at the hijacker. He said the guy couldn't have been older than 35. In retrospect, that guy shouldn't have had all that coffee and watermelon before the flight. That's right. He's like, I can provide an excellent description because, not to brag, I have IBS. Another guy on board said the hijacker looked to be about 50. He remembered looking at the hijacker a lot of.

lot because he thought it was strange that he was wearing sunglasses. Yep. At night on a plane. Yeah. Because his future's so bright. Another guy. I hated laughing at that. Another guy, a college sophomore, had gotten a decent look at the hijacker, too,

mostly because he was kind of jealous. The college sophomore wanted to flirt with the flight attendant, but she wouldn't stop talking to the old short guy with the saggy chin. Hey, a good descriptor, saggy chin. He was not cool. I was way hotter. I mean, that is kind of how the college sophomore said. He was like, I was way bigger than him. I was cooler.

As you can see, my chin is perky. One passenger, a guy who owned a paint company, provided a very detailed account of the hijacker. He agreed with what flight attendant Alice Hancock had said about the hijacker having wavy hair. But this guy took it a step further. The paint company owner said that the hijacker's hair was definitely wavy. In fact, it was in a Marcell wave, a jet black Marcell wave. Marcell wave? I don't even know that I'm saying it correctly, but picture, it kind of looks wet when you see it. And it is very intentional. You know, sometimes wavy hair, it can just look wild and

cool and stuff. A Marcell wave is very intentionally done with tools. Google it and you'll know exactly what I'm trying to describe. You usually associate this hairstyle with the 1920s. Oh. Boy, I think he's a little off with that description. Why do you say that? You weren't there. You're, you know what, Norm?

You just revealed yourself to be the hijacker. Well, first of all. I don't look anything like that. First of all, the two most credible witnesses you have are Tina Mucklow and Florence Schaffner, right? I agree, yeah. Yeah. So, like, and they both agreed he had straight black hair, right?

No, Florence said black. Tina said dark brown. Okay. Eh, tomato tomato. Oh, you know. Interesting. But, like, I'm looking at Marcel waves right here, which sounds like a potato chip brand.

Mm-hmm. And, yeah, I'm not seeing that. That's a very distinct hairstyle. You feel like other people would have. noticed that. I feel like that, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Also, it's incredibly difficult when people go through what they consider a very insignificant event at the time. And then later it is revealed it was a significant event and they have to recall what happened. And boy, this is a big problem with history. Yeah. Memory is very fickle. Well, so that's why I'm so interested in the details. Like, okay, this guy says he saw the hijacker a lot. Well, it's because he went to the bathroom a lot.

And the sunglasses seemed weird. Okay, that makes sense to me. And, you know, the guy who wanted to flirt with a flight attendant. Yeah, I can see him kind of studying the guy, be like, what's he got that I don't got? To me, it's interesting that this guy right here is the owner of a paint company. to me that implies a level of attention to detail. But of course, what you're saying is true. This guy can't have attention to detail about everything all the time.

Yeah. If we got on a flight and I sat next to somebody and then I got off the flight and the next day they were like, that person you sat next to, you know, robbed a candy store. We need you to describe them. I mean, I would have a difficult time doing that. Not necessarily. I think I would. If I did not interact with that person, if I just noticed they were on the flight. I think, see, I think this is what's so fascinating.

And this is what's even more, sorry to interrupt, that's what's even more difficult. It's like no one sat next to the guy. He was in the row by himself, right? Well, no, Tina had to sit next to him. Florence had to sit next to him. And again, like Tina and Florence, definitely the most credible witnesses. but anybody else on the flight, I want to talk to the guy who got a...

Oh, God, I'm sorry. Everyone, I thought a bug just crawled by me. It was a fuzz from my blanket. Man, man, oh man. All this talk about hijacking has me a little jumpy. That's why I've got a skyjack to relax myself. I'm sorry, what were you interrupting me to say, you rude, man? Sorry.

The guy who D.B. Cooper gave a stern talking to said, get back to your seat. Yeah, the guy in the Stetson hat. He was not interviewed. Why not? I don't know. That's annoying, isn't it? The Stetson Haget guy. I saw footage of him getting off the plane with the Stetson hat.

I think that guy knows something. All right. I'm mental note. Mental note on the Stetson Hat guy. Okay. No doubt purchased from J.C. Penny. I find eyewitness accounts interesting because I feel like if I were trying to gather them, I would almost want to know as much about what the person thinks they saw

as about the person themselves. And I know I worded that in the weirdest way possible. So you're welcome everyone. But like, for example, this thing about how tall was this guy? The thing I kept wondering is how tall is Tina, how tall is Florence? Sure. Because as a woman who is five foot nine, you know what I'm amazing at? Like the best? You're more like five, ten and a half. Okay. You know what I'm amazing at, Norm? Don't try to make yourself shorter. I'm 5 foot 9, but anyway. Can I, may I make my point, sir?

Yeah, yeah. I am amazing at knowing whether a man is actually 6 feet tall or if he is doing the thing that dudes do, which is be 5 foot 10, but say they're 6 feet tall. Yes, you are an incredible measuring stick, Kristen. But that's only because of, you know, my height. And I feel like if I was an absolutely adorable height, like 5 foot 2, which we all agree is the most adorable height a person can be, I don't know.

I'd be like everyone's 6'7 foot 7. Everyone should play for the Lakers. You know, how good can you be when you're way, way shorter? Sure, sure. Again, I know you're hating on this paint company guy. I'm not hating on them. You seem a little doubtful. And he's got more to say.

think you're going to like any of it. He has a very detailed account. I agree. Why does he remember this so well? We should be a little skeptical. But also, I do think there are certain people who are really good with details. Yeah. Some people have photographic memories. I'm sure there's some people who saw this man and like remember everything about him. But it is difficult. Yeah, it is difficult when you don't know that you've been hijacked and you don't know who the hijacker is. You just know that there's a dude in sunglasses at night with a saggy chin. and maybe a Marcel wave. We don't know.

Paint store owner guy, he says it's a Marcel wave, and it looked real greasy. In fact, so greasy, he thought maybe something was in it. Okay, I wasn't going to throw this in. But you know, I love, there's this lady on YouTube. I think she was the former director of the CIA Spies and Disguises Division. Yeah, you like the spy lady. I do. She mentioned something about the possibility of, is it sure?

polish, shoe polish in his hair. That would change the color, you know, and it would give it that greasy look. I don't know how common hair dye was in those days, or, you know, for a man who's unfamiliar with it, if maybe he just goes for the old shoe polish. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, a perfectly reasonable explanation, too, is that the guy just had black hair and he had some product in it, like, you know, moose or something.

Sure. The man said that the hijacker's suit wasn't black. It wasn't brown. In fact, it was reddish-brown. It had wide lapels, which he noticed because they were out of style. The paint store owner also said that he didn't think the guy looked white. He looked maybe Native American, maybe Hispanic. And not six feet tall, Norm, more like 5'9.

Okay. This may have been pre-led paint ban. Maybe this guy had hopped a little too much lead paint. That is so rude. He's running the paint store. As these conflicting eyewitness descriptions came together, investigators began putting together a sketch of the hijacker. And within just a few days, boy, oh boy, the sketch of the hijacker was complete.

And not a moment too soon, the public was clamoring for information. Oh, and when they laid eyes on the sketch of the mysterious DB Cooper, they were like, ah, ha! Uh-huh. Oh. Okay. Now, folks, if you haven't seen the sketch, which is now known by the FBI as Composite A, I will describe it to you now. And dear listener, if as I describe this sketch you happen to see a man who resembles the sketch, do not hesitate to tackle and disarm him, okay? Here we go. What are we like more than 50 years later? I'm just saying.

Age progress this, okay? Do it in your head. We've all got the technology. We're looking for a white male with hair, kind of receding a little. Also kind of long ears on either side of the face. He's got two of them. Set of eyeballs with the brows over the top.

A thinish nose, a smirky little mouth with two lips. One on top, one on the bottom. And one. Count on one. Chin. Very good. The FBI, again, called this sketch Composite A, but the public, very rudely, dubbed it the Bing Crosby sketch.

Because the dude looks exactly like Bing Crosby, and if you squint a little, I think he looks like every white dude you've ever met in your whole life. You're looking him up right now? I'm looking at Bing Crosby. Yeah, yeah, I can see that as a white guy. Oh, uh-oh, he's getting offended. Uh-huh.

I don't know if I would agree that he looks like every white guy you've ever met. Well, but... Norm, you fit the description of this man. I don't have a thin nose. Let me tell you. Yeah, but these are approximations. You know, the sketches aren't perfect, okay? I don't have weak lips.

I've got big, juicy lips. Okay, you know what? I was very offended. This book that I read for this episode, which I enjoyed the book immensely. It's the one that's the title is Skyjack. which we've made fun of immensely. But the author in describing this sketch, I didn't include his exact wording,

but I about threw the book across the room. It said that the man had thin lips as if from the Midwest. What? What? I don't understand that at all. I don't either. And I'm saying that to you with my big pillowy ones. Absolutely, Crystal.

I love your big luscious lips. Yeah, I mean, I just, when you look at the sketch, he just looks like a generic dude. Yes. There's nothing distinctive about the sketch. Right. So it would be very hard to identify this person. I did like that they shared one version. And then they shared another version, which was just the same thing but with sunglasses on.

Yeah, yeah. It's good stuff. And he's got like big Merrill Street Devil Wears Prada sunglasses on. Yeah, they called him bubble sunglasses. Yeah, yeah. Kind of looks like an alien a little bit. So you think that we've been looking for D.B. Cooper on the wrong planet, perhaps. Possibly.

That's a very interesting avenue. I think we've got to go down all the avenues, Norm. You don't, yeah, you got to think, did the FBI, you know, investigate that this could be an extraterrestrial hijacking? When did Alf come out? The 80s. Okay. Well, we know what he was doing before then, before he landed that show. Multiple eyewitnesses, including flight attendant Florence Schaffner, told investigators,

um, hey, that sketch really doesn't look like the hijacker. So over time, the FBI worked with eyewitnesses to develop new sketches that more closely resembled the hijacker. Ultimately, the third one has been deemed by eyewitnesses to be, the most accurate rendering of the hijacker. In that version, the hijacker's features are more distinctive. His face is shorter. His eyes are wider.

His nose is too. Are there other things you notice about that one? To me, it's so much less generic. Yeah, this is a distinctive look. His hair. It's like the first sketch, it almost looks like he's wearing a toupee in the first sketch. But in the good sketch, it's like, like a finalized, not finalized, it's like a styled, almost kind of like my hair.

Yeah. I mean, he has a very straight hair line, though, but. That's why I've got FBI agents standing right outside the studio doors, ready to tackle you. Is Cash Patel here? Oh, my God. My personal hero. Okay. That's enough, Norm.

Ooh. Yeah, he flew here on taxpayer money, obviously. Brought his girlfriend, too, because why not? Oh, been wanting to meet her, too. But Norm, I'll thank you to not jump around in the timeline with all these different sketches, okay? Stick to business. Because while the FBI was putting together the motel art of police sketches, they were also searching the plane for clues.

Surely the hijacker had been sloppy. Surely he'd left something behind. But, wow, he kind of hadn't. Interviews with the flight attendants revealed that the hijacker had been meticulous about keeping evidence. that note that he'd handed to the flight attendant, that one that read, Miss, I have a bomb in here, and I'd like you to sit by me,

he'd written that by hand, and he'd asked for it back. Oh, I didn't know he asked for it back. He even demanded back the notes that Florence took when he laid out his demands. She couldn't keep those either. And at one point on the flight, he'd allowed flight attendant Tina Mucklo

to light his cigarette for him, and he'd handed her a blue match book that read Sky Chef. And when she'd gone to dispose of it, he'd stopped her and asked for his trash back. Oh, okay. What about the drink? What about it? He ordered a seven and seven, right?

Oh, yeah, he did his bourbon and seven up. I do know he spilled that and he never asked for another drink. I assume it was disposed of. Well, I was just wondering, was it served in like a disposable cup and they threw the cup away? Was it served in a glass cup? And there's maybe fingerprints on the cup? That had to have been disposed of because otherwise it would have come up, I think. Okay.

But you're right to be thinking about fingerprints. See, this is what the FBI didn't look into. I doubt that very much. When investigators searched the aircraft for pieces of physical evidence, they didn't find much. They dusted for prints, just as Norm suggested. Specifically, they dusted row 18. They dusted the bathroom. They dusted the inner phone.

But, oh, there were so many prints, so many prints that could have easily belonged to, I mean, God knows how many people, because not so fun fact, airplanes are disgusting. They are absolutely disgusting. Boss, it looks like we got some testicle imprints here on the toilet seat. This could be D.B. Cooper's nuts. Or it could be literally. anybody's. I mean, that's why, oh my God, imagine dusting for Prince in an airplane bathroom. Dear Lord Almighty, they get every passenger back on the plane and they say drop trow, we need to see your nuts and compare it to the imprint. This is why you're so wrong, Norm,

because you know they don't clean those planes well between flights. They don't. So it's not going to be just like the 36 people who were on board. It's the hundreds of other people who cycled through that. stinky aircraft. Oh, God. I'm just really revealing my hatred for flying. See, and this is pre-DNA. DNA had not been invented yet. That's right. The Lerd hadn't gotten around to it yet. And so, you know, in the last episode I suggested, if he went to the bathroom, could have scooped out some piss and analyzed it. You think he didn't flush? The agent's like, yep, this is piss.

That's before DNA. All they could do was sip any liquid. lick any service and determine if it was piss. 100% bottle. 99% this is piss. I'm 99% sure. And I will testify to that in court. Sir, I disagree. I believe this is crystal light fruit punch.

Oof. So they didn't get any usable prints. But they did find two hairs. Ooh. They were in the chair that the hijacker had sat in. They found a limb hair on the seat. And they found a head hair on the headrest. It was brown, and according to their analysis, Caucasian.

Okay, okay. Smelled like white rain. He's using pert plus. You know, I thought about making a pert plus joke. Of course, there was no guarantee that these hairs belonged to the hijacker, but hey, at least it was something. More on that later. Yeah.

And then there were the cigarette butts. The hijacker had smoked throughout the flight. Investigators found eight cigarette butts in the ashtray by the hijacker's seat. They were Raleigh filter-tip cigarettes. Named after Sir Walter Raleigh. Really? Yeah. Oh.

Did you look into these? When I was finalizing the video version, I added a image of Raleigh cigarettes. And, yeah, Sir Walter Rale is on the case. What is a cigarette case? Packaging. The packaging. The pack. The pack.

The pack. Yes. Big smokers in this house, clearly, folks. Oh, yeah. So they collected the cigarette butts, but as you pointed out, the Lerd hadn't invented DNA evidence yet, so they mostly focused on the brand itself. Who was Sir Walter Raleigh?

And why was he so sad? Hey, put him on the pinboard. What's the connection here? No, they did think that these cigarettes were an interesting choice. They were what was known as a coupon smoke, which obviously I didn't know what that meant. I didn't even know whether to say carton or case when you asked just then. And of course, the answer is pack.

These cigarettes were produced by a company called Brown and Williamson, and they were one of the least popular brands that they carried. So coupon smokes were kind of, and this will just make you feel warm and fuzzy, they would send out these coupons aimed at young people who hadn't yet started smoking. Okay. Or people who had quit and maybe just needed a lot of. little extra incentive to go pick up a pack. You know, it's just cheap.

Cheap cigarettes. And Max and Eustas, you know. Mm-hmm. Save money a little better. So the lack of physical evidence was frustrating. So frustrating that it was, honestly, borderline, impressive. The hijacker had been so careful. But the one thing he'd left behind, likely unintentionally, was his necktie.

They found it in the chair next to where he'd been sitting. It was a skinny, black, blackie. It was a skinny black clip on tie with a gold tie clip. The tie clip had a little pearl at its center. Ooh, fancy. It was probably fake. The clip didn't contain any markings, but the tie sure did. The tag on the back of it read, Towncraft.

Number three, pennies. J.C. Penny? That's right, Norm. Okay, so we're painting a more clear picture here. The man was incredibly wealthy. and had excellent taste in clothing. That's exactly right, Norm. Very good.

But he went for the cheapest cigarettes possible. We don't know what to make of him. He's trying to throw off the police is what he's doing. Legend has it that the investigator who first laid eyes on the label of that tie whispered to himself, J.C. Penneys, I love your style. Within no time, FBI agents descended on their local J.C. Penney's where they They were no doubt astounded by the array of high-quality goods offered at low, low prices. It's all inside.

They sang as they skipped into the store, clutching the hijackers tie. Wait a minute. The timeline's a little off here. An assistant manager offered to help them because he was doing it right. Oh, wow. The pitch is a little off with these slogans. When's the last time you saw these commercials? Listen, I'm not a singer.

I'm just a big fan of pitch. Me too. Me too, Kristen. Listeners of this podcast will not be surprised to learn that the assistant manager knew everything about that tie, including, rudely, that it was no longer in fashion and therefore hadn't been sold in any JCPenny in at least a year and a half. Why? It was too skinny. Ew, eat a burger. By 1971, ties were getting thick and juicy. Ooh. The assistant manager also informed them that the tie, the high-trial. had been wearing was a budget tie. It sold for a dollar 50. Skinny weeny ties for a buck 50, huh?

Adjusted for inflation, $12. The tie was polyester. People tended to buy it in bulk. In other words, the hijacker hadn't worn a dress tie. He'd worn a working man's tie. And out of style working man's tie. Oh, no, wait a minute, wait a minute. That's just the facts. If it was sold at pennies, it's always in style. They didn't sell it anymore because it was out of style. Well, they don't sell anymore because it's out of stock. It's sold out.

Naturally. You seem a little defensive norm. You also got a little defensive about the wide lapel suit that was out of style. Are you questioning yourself? You questioning what you got in your closet? Well, no, I was, the painter boy said it was like a reddish-brown. Yeah. lapel suit?

But how do you get that when the flight attends, it was either dark brown or black? You've got real beef with this guy, don't you? I don't know. Maybe he had an incredible eye. You ever think about that? Naturally, the agents hoped that the tie the hijacker had worn could be traced back to a specific store,

but the assistant manager told them that that tie had been sold at fine J.C. Penny's locations all over these United States. Did the assistant manager also inform them that J.C. Penney's had more than 2,000 stores nationwide and was bringing in $5 billion in revenue? Absolutely not. That would have been bragging. And as a wise man once said, do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. And also, no, I don't have any idea where that gold tie clip came from. Good luck to you. Kristen, the golden rule. I was waiting for you to catch up.

You learned a lot from that J.C. Penny series, didn't you? I sure did. So they had some physical evidence, but in the immediate aftermath of the crime, what they really needed to do was figure out where he'd landed. I mean, you know, that's kind of, that seems like the first thing I would do is like approximate when he jumped out where they were and just search that area. Well, sure. They've got to do all of this kind of at the same time. But I can only tell you these things one at a time. Because I have the one voice, darling. One voice was heard. As you can see from my thin Midwestern lips, I can only say so many words at a time, okay.

Yeah, you don't really have the lips for podcasting. They're too thin. Oh, thanks a lot. We need big old, big juicy lips to, you know, say big, big, sexy words. I agree. I need reality show lips is what I need. Mm-hmm. Okay, we were watching that preview of that new Netflix show called like The Abandons or something, and it stars that one actress who is in Game of Thrones. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we saw her and we were like, and you immediately were like, those aren't lips from the 1800s. I do, I do really dislike that. Yeah. When people are doing period pieces, but either the makeup is way too noticeable and way too modern, or, I mean, lip fillers, I'm sorry, big unnatural lip fillers. That's a modern day problem, okay? Yeah. In the 1800s, they would have been like, who punched you in the mouth, ma'am?

Yeah, well, and weren't thin lips popular back then? Oh, I don't know about that. I think so. I think thin lips were like a sign of beauty back then. So they would have been like, oh, this woman is hideous. This woman's husband beats her, and we're fine with that. What were we talking about, D.B. Cooper? You were like, if it were me, I would be very worried from the start about where he jumped out.

And I explained to you how stories work, which is one thing at a time. Right. And then I sang one voice was heard, which when's the last time you heard that song? It brought a tear to my eye, Norm. It was beautiful. Unfortunately, we had to cut it for time. You folks understand. Oh, damn.

But when he does his falsetto, the ladies just melt. He was like 10 years old when he sang that song. I was talking about you singing it. I wasn't talking about it. Oh, me. Yeah. So, for what it's worth, a lot of the investigators thought that there was no way that this dude was alive. He'd gone parachuting on a dark and stormy night.

And oopsies, the skydiving instructor who supplied them the reserve parachutes admitted that he'd accidentally given them a training shoot that could not be deployed. So that meant that the hijacker had jumped without having a working reserve shoot. So he still had a main shoot. But it would have made things a lot more difficult for him. I've never parachuted before. So I'm really struggling with all this information. But my understanding is that he wouldn't be able to really steer it much at all. Well, don't you just need like one parachute when you jump?

Well, I think you want a backup plan in these situations. Yeah, but if the first one worked, why would he need the backup? Again, maybe for steering, but also this is an area where I have no knowledge. So I do not know. But I would think if I were jumping out of a plane, I would personally, I would have 15 backups attached to every inch of my body. So you would just look like the Michelin man jumping out of the plane. And also I'd be like, do I have to do this? Could I not do this?

Okay, thank you. I'll stay in that airplane bathroom and lick everything. I'll figure out who did this to you. I think you would jump out of a plane before I would. Well, definitely. Yeah. I mean, I'm the one who has to get on the step ladder in this house. That's true, yeah.

So although they weren't sure exactly where he'd landed, they were pretty sure that he'd landed in a densely forested area, meaning that he was probably a human shish kebab. A human shish kebab who definitely dropped bundles of $20 bills all over the woods. And if you think turkey trots are cool, get a load of this. When the D.B. Cooper story broke, people were fascinated. And on the day after Thanksgiving, the media, investigators, and just everyday folks who wanted a post- Thanksgiving treasure hunt descended on the area around Woodland, Washington to search where D.B. Cooper might, maybe, who knows, have landed. Helicopters flew overhead, searching the area. Boats searched Lake Merwin. People hiked on foot looking for something, anything. But, ugh, you ever been in Washington State?

the wintertime in dense woods, it's not easy going. They didn't find any trace of D.B. Cooper. So that kind of sucked. I had to be honest, if I lived in that area and I saw the D.B. Cooper News story, I would definitely be out there searching. Hell yeah. Also, I mean, unemployment was pretty high at this time. So a lot of people were like, hell yeah, I'm going to hike in the woods today.

I'm going to keep my eyes peeled. and if I find a couple 20s, I am going to keep them to myself. Actually, you know, that'd be tough to do because they took account of all the numbers, right? Sure. Yeah. So if you took some of that money and spent it. You might get caught. Might get caught.

To make matters even more disheartening, they weren't really sure they were searching the right area. Now, the good thing was that investigators did have some information to go off of. According to the transcripts of the radio conversations that took place during the hijacking, at 7.42 p.m., the flight crew reported that the stairlight was on. That meant that the stairs at the back of the plane had been lowered mid-flight. Then, at 8.12 p.m., the flight crew reported oscillations. The flight engineer took that to mean that the hijacker was messing with the stairs. Messing as in walking down the stairs or just like,

you know, stairs goes up, stairs go down, scared, stair goes up, stair goes down. You're wasting electricity, sir! No, walking on the stairs and jumping off. Okay. That was probably correct. But the oscillations are just changes to the air pressure in the cabin.

So those oscillations, yes, could have been the hijacker jumping out of the plane. Also could have been a strong gust of wind. Okay. Ultimately, engineers at Northwest Airlines determined that the flight engineer was probably correct, given the approximate weight of the hijacker, including the extra 21 pounds of ransom money, they figured he weighed about 200 pounds.

And 200 pounds would be enough to push the stairs down while the plane was flying through the air, but 200 pounds would not be enough to push the stairs down so much that they locked into place. So the engineers posited that when the hijacker jumped, the stairs were not locked into place and therefore acted kind of like a springboard when he jumped. Oh, that's fun. I'm sure it was a blast. They dipped down and came back up toward the plane, moving up but not closing back into the aircraft.

And that's what caused those oscillations. These eggheads really know what they're doing. We love these nerds. Later, the FBI did a test over the Pacific Ocean and the test revealed that the hunch was right. So the oscillations marked the moment when he jumped. Okay. 8.12 p.m.

Except 8.12 p.m. had been when the flight crew reported the oscillations on the radio. How much time had passed between when the oscillations occurred and when they reported it? And was it possible that the transcript itself was a little off, even by a minute? If so, that would change the location of his drop dramatically. Yeah. All of this leads me to discuss my least favorite things. subjects that have personally attacked me for the majority of my life. I'm talking, of course, about math and science.

Tragically, we're going to have to do some of that dirty business right here. And by do it, I mean repeat words that other people have said. But just so we're clear, I understand it all perfectly. I did the math myself. I checked it. It's good. Oh, cool. The plane had been moving at 200 miles per hour over dense woods. The flight path was 10 miles wide.

The plane covered about three miles per minute. So if they narrowed the jump down between 8.11 p.m. and 8.16 p.m., that left them with 150 miles to search. Got it. The military weighed in with their more advanced technology and narrowed the search zone to about 25 square miles. They divided that area into six zones, and each zone got a group in charge of searching it. But, oh my lord, it was thick forest. thick forest in the winter and it rained and then it snowed

and then it rained and it snowed and God, people were just itching to catch this guy though. He'd captured everyone's attention. He was becoming kind of a folk hero. Northwest Airline offered a $25,000 reward for information on the hijacker. The Seattle Post

Intelligencer offered a $5,000 reward. And hell, if they couldn't find the guy, maybe they could at least find the money. The FBI had all the serial numbers from the ransom money, so they created a booklet with all those numbers and they released it to the public. And they waited, hoping, and likely expecting that at some point, some of that money would turn up. But it didn't. That just bolstered the theory that D.B. Cooper

hadn't survived the jump. That money had to be scattered somewhere along the flight path. Or who knows, maybe altogether. Well, and also, it was storming that night. Yeah. So, like, the wind could have taken money. Who knows where? He could have landed in water, honestly. And then he's just gone and so's the money.

And as we talked about, if he was an extraterrestrial. Did he get beamed up into outer space? Yeah, did he just call his home, his mother ship and get beamed back into space? Frankly, I think it's irresponsible that the FBI didn't look into this. this, okay? That's why we have to have independent podcasters to do God's work here, okay? And that's what we're doing? Yeah, well, okay, so I have a question. All right. They say like, what's wrong? I'm sorry. I was just thinking, it'd be so funny if you asked something totally off top. So I have a question. I have a question. What do you think we should have for dinner today? Uh-huh. No, I was, why did they say because no money

had been reported as being spent? Why did they assume, oh, well, then he probably died. Well, the thinking was, if this guy gets away with it, the whole point is for the money. So wouldn't he be spending it? Yeah, but like also, if he was smart and cool and sexy, which he was. Oh, okay. Wouldn't he be like, I'm going to hold off on spending this stuff for a while? Sure. I mean, in these situations, that's the smart thing to do.

You hold off, I guess, as much as you can, or maybe you go to, I don't. I don't know, you go somewhere else, try to exchange the currency. I'm not sure what the right play is, but definitely you don't want to go to a casino the next day and blow it all in your same outfit, which is definitely Reddish Brown. Aren't I right, Norm? I would like to exchange this $200,000 for Chuckie Cheese tokens, please. They'll never catch me. They'll never know. And I can have all the cool sticky hands I want.

That's right. Yeah, I'll take 20 mustache cones. Parachuting experts weighed in. For a while, the prevailing theory was that the hijacker couldn't have been an experienced skydiver or parachuter because no one in their right mind with any kind of parachuting experience would have chosen to parachute on a dark and stormy night. An experienced parachuter certainly wouldn't have parachuted in the clothing and footwear that he'd worn on board the plane that day. That idea, though, has kind of been debunked. With more eyes on this story, other parachute experts have said that, yeah, okay, in order to survive the jump,

the hijacker couldn't have been a total newbie baby's first parachuting thing. Yeah. But all it would have taken was maybe six or seven jumps with an instructor, and he would have gotten the gist of it. He would have probably been able to do this. Yeah, or if he served in the military as a paratrooper. Right, right. The other thing I think when they're like, well, no one would choose to. to do this on a dark and stormy night.

To me, that's kind of silly because this whole thing lasted a lot longer than he wanted it to last, which meant that the storm got a lot worse than he would have anticipated. Right. And you don't know what's going through a person's mind. If they decide to parachute out, they might be going, hmm, I might not make it, but I don't want to go to prison for the rest of my life. Yeah, I mean, what choice does he have? Then there's the question of what he wore when he jumped.

It's certainly possible that he jumped in a suit and slip on shoes, you know, like business shoes. Crocs. Crocs. But D.B. Cooper carried more than just a briefcase on board the plane that day. He also had a paper bag. It was about four inches tall and ran the length of his briefcase. So was it possible that he had boots in there and possibly another set of clothes? He had a paper bag, four inches tall.

I know. And the length of his briefcase? Yeah. To me, four inches tall means it's been folded over. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah. Because that would be a really odd dimension for a paper bag. Right.

Yeah. Right. I'm with you, Kristen. Thank you, darling. They called up every hospital in the area, hoping to find someone who'd come in with a broken leg or ankle. That's actually, that's actually good. idea. It was a tough time for a white boy with a limp. Let me tell you. But that didn't really lead anywhere. In a way, the public's fascination with the hijacking made the investigation so much more

complicated. Tips poured in. And why not everyone knows someone who looks kind of like the Bing Crosby sketch? They got a lot of prank phone calls. One of them went like this. Oh my God, I picked up a hijacker and he was holding just a ton of $20 bills and the person was like, wait really? And the person was like, oh, no. Got him. But oh, oh, oh, don't you worry.

They were definitely going to catch this guy and holy shit they did. So suck on that. Okay, not long after the hijacking, police got into a high speed chase with a bad boy. He had hair and ears and two lips, one on top, one on the bottom, just like the sketch. He

tried to get away, but they blew his tires out. The tires burst into flames. They grabbed him. Holy shit. He had all kinds of foreign currency in his vehicle. Australian, Chilean, Brazilian, Canadian, Mexican, Peruvian. And guess what? When you added it all up, it was about 200K American. They arrested him. Got him. Word got out to the media. D.B. Cooper has been caught. But when he was interrogated, he was like, yeah, tulips, strupe wafoo? Because he was Dutch and he spoke very little English. Yeah, that didn't really match the flight attendant's description of a hijacker with no discernible accent. Yep.

So they gave him some salted black licorice and sent him on his way. No. He was happy about it. My apologies to Dutch people. I don't know if the Dutch are into salted black licorice, but... I think they are. I got to tell you, that is the most disgusting candy. Yes.

Actually, that might be the most disgusting thing I've ever put in my mouth. And I put a lot of stuff in my mouth. This man checks toilets for pee by drinking them. I mean, I've never had a candy that made me want to vomit. No, I think you and I are pretty open. mind when it comes to food and especially like we can understand some stuff's an acquired taste. Yeah. That is the only way that that stuff makes sense to me is you would have to have it introduced to you as an infant, like breast milk and a little bit of black salted licorish.

That's the only way you would develop a taste for it. Otherwise, it's horrifying. Yep. When you didn't know any better, you were just a stupid baby. You ate black licorice. Salted black licorice. So the investigation was kind of chaotic And then came the copycats

Oh yeah And who could blame them D.B. Cooper had reinvented the hijacking He'd hijacked a plane Gotten ransom money and parachuted out of it No one had ever done that before People hadn't even thought to put it on their vision boards But now that the idea was out there

A bunch of random dudes decided Why the hell not? Another one On Christmas Eve of that year a 25-year-old guy got on a northwest plane with a gun and a fake bomb. He demanded two parachutes and $300,000. But as he gleefully counted his ransom money, the flight crew snuck off the plane. And with no one to fly the plane, he had no choice but to surrender.

Oh, wait a minute. Wait a second. Then, two weeks later, another one. A 22-year-old brought a gun on a flight to Houston. claimed to have a bomb. He demanded parachutes, hiking boots, a machete, and $1 million. He also surrendered. A machete? That's right. Seems a little excessive, buddy. Then, two weeks later, another one. A 23-year-old hijacked a plane with a fake bomb. He demanded a parachute and 50K, and he did parachute out, but he was captured on the ground. Then, six days later, Another one.

A guy got on a plane with a starter pistol and a fake bomb. He demanded 200K and parachutes. He ended up fleeing the plane with a flight attendant as his hostage, but he was shot and killed by an FBI agent. Approximately two months later, a 31-year-old Stanford graduate got on board a plane and threatened to blow it up with a grenade. He demanded four parachutes and $500,000. But the pilot managed to trick the national. Merit Scholar into getting off the plane to grab some maps from a couple of mechanics, but holy shit, those mechanics turned out to be FBI agents in disguise. Were the real mechanics tied up in a

broom closet wearing nothing but undershirts and boxer shorts? We can't rule it out. Then one month later, another one. Then one month later. Another one. Then three weeks later. Another one. Then one week later. Another one. And then one week later. Another one. Then one week later. Then one week later. Then later that exact same day. What? Another one. Oh, there were so many copycats. At some point, did folks look at themselves and say, hey, we need to strengthen the laws against air piracy? And also should we maybe, I don't know, make it a little harder to get on an airplane with a bomb and a variety pack of weapons? Yes, yes, we should. should. Not a moment too soon. How many copycats in the span of a year? So many. So many. I mean, you read a report about the guy that did this, explain how he did it and how they haven't caught him yet. Yeah. It would be inspiring. Interesting. And the punishment isn't that severe? Okay, that's fine. I'll do it. In the meantime, they still had to figure out who D.B. Cooper was and where he was. And for that last question, they busted out the big guns. I'm talking to

about the latest and greatest in 1971 technology. On multiple occasions, they sent out the SR-71 spy plane over the area where they thought the hijacker might have landed. That plane was built for the CIA to do aerial recon. It could read a car's license plate from up to 85,000 feet in the air, baby. Neat. A little freaky that we had this technology in 71. Wonder what we got now. But damn it all to hell.

Every time they flew that plane, the weather suddenly got bad, so they were never able to actually take any photos of the area. Good Lord. Don't they look at the weather reports before they go out and do these things? I'm very skeptical about that. Really? Yeah, I don't know. What do you mean you're skeptical about it? Yes, is it really possible that the weather was that bad every time?

Or did they see some... Okay, I'm getting tinfoil hatie here. Uh-oh. Or did they think, like, one day this will have to be released to the public? and we don't want to reveal that we've got this kind of shit going? I don't know. I don't know. Well, I mean, it is the Pacific Northwest,

and the weather there can be all over the place, right? You're right, yeah. So maybe, yeah, they just weren't anticipating bad weather, and it rolled in. Maybe Mother Nature was looking out for Mr. Cooper. Maybe. Maybe they were in cahoots. Maybe Mother Nature was a couple grand short of what she needed.

They held out hope that they'd. find D.B. Cooper's body when the weather got better that spring. And sure enough, that spring they searched the woods. And they found two bodies, but neither belonged to D.B. Cooper. Oh. One had been a young woman who had been murdered. And the other had been a hunter who appeared to have died because he broke his leg and couldn't get out. Oh, that's a tough way.

It's all awful. Yeah. It's all awful. The search for D.B. Cooper was frustrating to say the least. years passed. There were some suspects, and we'll talk about them in next week's episode, but there was never really enough on any of them to say with total certainty, this person is D.B. Cooper. So, where was he? Who was he? Where was the money? The statute of limitations for air piracy was five years. So before the five years passed, the Department of Justice charged John Doe,

aka D.B. Cooper in absentia. That meant that if they ever caught him, he'd face consequences. Interesting. I didn't know that was a thing. Oh, in absentia? Yeah. It's a good thing, I think. Because imagine if you were like, Neen-a-Nine-a-Nee, I'm like...

You'll never catch me. Six years in, I'm back home rolling in dough. Can't do a thing about it. Yeah, you're right. That is a good idea to do that. It was maddening. But they did at least have a sense of who they were looking for. Given the hijackers' knowledge about flying and about the Boeing 727 specifically, they wondered if he might have been a disgruntled, recently laid-off worker from Boeing.

Okay, and Boeing had had a ton of layoffs in recent years. So they interviewed a bunch of former Boeing employees, but no one really stood out. They wondered, given his insider knowledge about the fact that the plane's stairs could be loved, lowered mid-flight if he'd been part of the CIA's operations in Vietnam, where they did that all the time. Right. The CIA offered up 30 dudes who fit the description. And they were all interviewed and none of them seemed cooperie enough. Is that what they wrote down?

This guy is not cooperie enough. I don't know. This guy doesn't seem very cooperie to me. Although it's impossible to say for certain, they were pretty sure that the hijacker was former military. onboard the plane, he'd correctly stated the Seattle airport's proximity to McCord Air Force Base. That, coupled with a number of other factors, made investigators think that maybe he'd been a member of the Air Force. They definitely thought that he'd learned how to parachute in the military. If nothing else, because, and I find this so fascinating, this is the kind of insight that I just love.

Because if this dude was in his mid-40s, or maybe even 50s, which it seems like he probably was. Right. Then he would have stood out at any kind of skydiving school because he would have been noticeably older than the majority of the typical clientele. Okay. In other words, someone would have turned him in. So it kind of had to be military. Oh, so you think like a skydiver instructor would have been like, oh, yeah, we had this like weird old guy. Or cool.

I mean, who knows? This cool old guy. He popped over right after he was shopping at J.C. Pennings. Is that relevant? I just don't know. Yeah. Yeah, that is interesting insight. Yeah.

I think that's fascinating. They also, I don't agree with this one quite as much, but, you know, they made some assumptions about, okay, he's a pack a day smoker based on how much he smoked on the flight. Personally, I don't know. I kind of feel like maybe you smoke more in that situation. I would know I'm not a smoker. Well, and we've established that I definitely am. I smoke a carton of cigarettes a day.

Oh, no. A carton. They also decided that since he spilled his drink and didn't ask for another one, that he wasn't a big drinker. Again, I don't know about that because I think this dude's hijacking a plane. He's going to parachute out with the ransom money. Maybe he's just the type who can wait to have his bourbon and seven up a couple hours later. Well, and like, we don't know if he drank before getting on the flight. And when you drink at a high altitude, don't you get tipsy a little quicker?

Oh, hell yeah, I had a gin and tonic on a flight one time. I was feeling no pain. Yeah, so maybe he had the one and he was like, feel good, I'm good. Yeah. I got to be a little sober for this jump. They knew they were looking for someone who was intelligent, adaptable, someone who was capable of making a plan, but flexible enough to change things if it didn't all fall into place. This man had sat at the back of the plane.

where he'd been able to see everything and minimize surprise attacks on him. That had been pretty smart. Yeah. He'd requested four parachutes, which had made everyone wonder if he was going to take a hostage, and that ensured that they didn't give him any dummy shoots,

not intentionally anyway. Oh, yeah, because the guy gave him, whoops, that's a training shoot. The hijacker was smart, smart but maybe desperate they figured that he had to be in a bad position financially he hadn't done this just for the thrill of it he'd done it because he could and because he needed the money all of that information narrowed things down but it didn't narrow them down enough okay so norm i'm going to pause okay who do you think this man is i definitely think he was probably

ex-military i think without a doubt yeah without a doubt Now, I don't necessarily agree that he had to, he served in the American military. Okay. Well, he had a really good American accent. What if he was from Canada? Well, what if he had said, what a boot this? And then the whole plan goes to shit. Did he say a boot?

Let's hear the transcript. Did he say a boot? I don't know. Okay. So I've always been fascinated by, so he had that alias, Dan Cooper. Dan Cooper is the name of like a Canadian comic book graphic novel hero or something. And so I'm like, that's a very specific reference. And Dan Cooper, I think in the graphic novel or whatever, was like a Air Force pilot,

like a Canadian Air Force pilot or something. Yeah, I mean, maybe he was playing around with people. Yeah, but I'm like, I don't think an American would know that reference. Like only a Canadian would know that reference, right? Well, okay. I'm glad you brought this up because I did not include that in the script. So, you know, I'm a little hazy on the details of that theory. But my understanding is that, you know, a lot of that comic is in French.

Isn't that right? Maybe it's totally in French. I have no idea. Well, my understanding is that it was also popular in Europe. So some people think, yeah, he's former military. He was at one point stationed in Europe and came a... across that comic strip. I don't know.

Very possible. Or it could just be, Dan Cooper is kind of a common name and he just shows that. Yeah. But it is kind of an interesting, it does seem like a little too much to be a pure coincidence, doesn't it? Yeah. This is why I love these mysterious stories. Uh-huh. So we can really just go down a bunch of rabbit holes.

But, yeah, I definitely think ex-military don't necessarily agree that he was American. Okay. But if he wasn't American, he was Canadian, right? Do we all agree with that? Okay. Not necessarily. Yep. I mean, one of the guys on the plane thought he might be Hispanic.

Well, you were saying like the accent. He had no accent. Right. And I feel like American, yeah, you're not going to have the accent. And then I think Canadian you could get away with not sounding like you have an accent. Okay. Plus, you know, they're in the Pacific Northwest. He knows a lot about the area.

It's near the Canadian border. I don't know. What do you think? I think absolutely former military. Not just because of his knowledge level, but also because of that ability to be in a very sticky situation and get himself out of it, not flip out at anybody, not go over the top with his threats,

just being able to keep calm. To me, that seems military. Well, and the odds of him being ex-military, at that time are very high because his age, you either think, okay, he either served in World War II or the Korean War right after. So, like, yeah, his odds of being in the military are pretty high, I would think. What about Vietnam? Vietnam, gosh, was like still going on in 71, wasn't it?

Yeah. And his age, I think he'd be too old to be, like, actively serving in Vietnam, right? Well, see, so that's what makes me wonder, how old are you in the CIA? Don't you kind of work your way up? I mean, I guess I'm assuming. Yeah, okay, so there is, yeah, the CIA secret plane thing in Vietnam. Mm-hmm. Okay.

I don't know. I also wonder about, okay, you're getting on a plane to do this thing. Okay, if I did that, what would I do to disguise my appearance? And I do wonder, did he have product in his hair designed to change the color of it? I wonder about the cheap cigarettes, the cheap tie. Part of me wonders, is that just truly what the FBI had kind of thought it was, which is this is a guy who needed money? And so, yeah, he smoked cheap cigarettes and had a cheap tie. Or is this all part of an image that he's created for himself to commit this crime?

I mean, couldn't it be both? Sure. He doesn't have a lot of money and he's buying very like nondescript generic things to look as to blend in as much as possible. Sure. Sure. I mean, I feel like people had trouble like identifying this guy. Mm-hmm. So.

Do you think he lived? Oh, see, that is, that's the ultimate question, right? Yeah. I don't, I feel like if he died, they would have found more evidence, right? Right? They would have found some shoots They would have found more money They would have found

I just feel like there would have been more stuff they found See I feel like I would almost have to see how dense the woods are And how populated these areas are Because it's amazing You know Things can happen in the woods And people just don't know

The other thing I keep thinking is What if he landed in water And he gets washed out? Yeah I mean So, yeah, that's like a wild card there. If he lands in the water and the river takes him downstream, he could be, you know, drained down to the ocean somewhere. Right.

So, yeah, that's, well, ooh, we haven't gotten this part yet. Speaking of. Well, here's my idea, Kristen. All right. If they really wanted to do a thorough search of this area, you do kind of a hands-across Samarica kind of search. You get enough people to hold hands and form a 150 square mile circle. And then you all just hold hands and you walk in at the same time. Uh-huh.

And then you are literally searching like every square inch as you walk in. What could go wrong? What if someone needs a pee break? Well, you got to pause the whole line. Oh, wow. This is going to take a very long time. Hang on, Tom's got a kiss. Got another pee break. The resources that went into finding D.B. Cooper were and are incredible, especially when you consider that they never found anything. Oh, holy night breaking news. But in the spring of 1980, nine years after the hijacking, there was a break in the case. Kind of. Picture it. Dwayne and Patricia Ingram were at Tina Barr with their eight-year-old son, Brian. Tina Barr, It's not a weird bar.

It's a sandbar. Okay, I was going to ask. Yeah. It's a sandbar on the Columbia River, not too terribly far from Vancouver, Washington. It was a spot where people liked to fish and swim. That day, Duane wanted to cook up some hot dogs, so he asked Brian to clear a spot for the fire in the sand. So little Brian got down in the sand and cleared a spot, and just as he was sweeping away the sand, his arm hit. the corner of something. It was a bundle, a bundle of cash. He dug a little, and he found

another one. And then he found another one. Holy wow, the Ingrams were ecstatic. The money was, you know, a bit of a mess. It had clearly been exposed to the elements and partially disintegrated and had lost all the edges. But rubber bands had kept it together. And it was free money, nearly six, grand of it. The Ingrams didn't have a lot of money. Dwayne painted trailers and cars for a living, and Patricia was a stay-at-home mom. They'd just moved to Washington from Oklahoma, and this was quite the warm welcome. They were like, let's take this to the bank, baby.

But a friend of theirs was like, whoa, all 20s? That might be D.B. Cooper's money. Oh, a friend let them know. Well, yeah, and I mean, when you see pictures of this money, you know something. things up with it. Well, yeah. And wasn't there a reward for anyone who found the D.B. Cooper money? Hmm. They called the FBI and brought in the money and sure enough, they had found three bundles of the D.B. Cooper ransom money, for sure. But for investigators, the location of the money raised further questions. Tina Barr was about 40 miles south of where they'd been pretty sure the hijacker had landed. It was about

five miles off the flight path. How had it gotten there? Had it been buried? Had it floated there? If it had floated there after D.B. Cooper landed, why were a few bills missing from one of the bundles? Where was the rest of the money? And as bad as those bills looked, and boy, did they look bad? Did they look as bad as they should look, assuming they'd been in the water for nine years? There were bills missing from the bundle? One of them, yeah. Mm. Not a ton, like a couple hundred bucks.

Okay. Also, if the bundles had been in the water for nine years, would the rubber bands have disintegrated by now? It was all so intriguing. Intriguing for everyone except the Ingrams, because what happened to the Ingrams after they found this money is a whole different story, but to sum it up, they got boned.

They'd hope to get some reward money, but discovered that all the reward, awards had expired. Oh, that sucks. Yeah, it does. Better give them something. I agree. And when the FBI held a press conference to announce the discovery of those bills, the

Ingrams became public figures. And that might not seem like such a bad thing. But apparently, when they moved from Oklahoma to Washington, they didn't notify their bank and they skipped a car payment. Oh. And as a result, unbeknownst to Dwayne, there was a warrant out for his arrest. But obviously they couldn't find him because they had no idea where he was. Then they see him on the FBI press conference.

And then one day, in an event that sounds unrelated but is definitely related, I assure you, their house caught fire. Okay. Uh-huh. No one was hurt. Thank God. But when that happened and poor Dwayne was standing in his front yard, watching all of his possessions burn, police showed up not to help with the fire, but to arrest. him for stealing his own car. No.

The Ingrams later sued the FBI in an effort to get some of the money. And after a six-year court battle, a judge awarded them about half of the cash that they'd found that day in 1980. $3,000? The whole thing sucks. There's also a thing with the aunt. The aunt was saying, no, you know, Brian wasn't the one who found it. You're the five-year-old. You know, it just sounded like a real.

real mess. Ugh. But back to the story and also back to present day. You know, Norm, the only good thing about an investigation that drags on forever is that eventually new technologies, they come out. Mm-hmm. That FBI agent, you don't have to drink the piss anymore. But I like it.

All of a sudden, evidence that was once thought to be useless or maybe relatively unimportant can crack a case wide open, baby. Let's start with the ransom money that the Ingrams found. More recent analysis has shown that the microalgae found on the bills would only have been on those bills if they'd entered the water several months after the hijacking. Okay, several months after the hijacking. Yeah. To me, that doesn't, I mean, that could mean a lot of things. It could mean the money lands somewhere and then a bunch of water comes or snow melts and,

it gets moved into the water, you know. Or like a bear picks it up and he's like, this doesn't taste good and spits it out into the... We can't rule out the bears. Yeah. There's bear saliva all over these bills. Also, a study on the sand and clay at Tina Barr showed that the bills would have had to arrive at that spot

long after that section of the river had been dredged. By the way, it was dredged in 1974. three years after the hijacking. So that's interesting and something that might factor into next week's episode when we talk about suspects. But I think the real questions we're asking ourselves are what about the limb hair,

what about the head hair, what about the eight cigarette butts? Yeah. Well, I got real bad news. Oh, what? Those eight cigarette butts, they didn't spark joy. So somebody tossed them. Don't throw him away?

Yeah. Oopsie Daisy. Someone Marie condoed the cigarette butts? The limb hair, same story. Didn't spark joy. Got tossed. Oh. The head hair?

Oh, oops, fudge, stripes. Can't find it. Oh, my God. So, well, that would have been huge. Yeah, it would have been. Everything. It would have been everything. This son of a bitch is good.

And we're also really stupid. Well, it is tough. You know, I imagine. you've got all these crimes, all this evidence. You don't know what technology is going to come up in the future. You don't know what pieces of evidence are going to be so necessary. You're making a face. But it's like it's an active investigation, right?

Yeah. So why aren't the hairs in the little box in the evidence room and they leave them alone? Who threw that away? I don't know. Good Lord. Jerry. Jerry threw him away. Jerry, you fucked up again.

Uh-huh. So that's a bummer and an excellent reason to never empty your vacuum cleaner. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But fear not, history, hoes. Hope is not lost because, in fact, over the course of this lengthy investigation, which has involved actual experts and armchair experts, several key suspects have emerged. And in next week's episode, we'll talk about him.

We'll figure out who did it. We'll arrest them. We'll say, don't you know better than to parachute and loafers? Who's with me? I am. Hey, didn't they find like a sign from the Boeing 727? So there were a couple things. They found in, I believe it was 1978.

They found, I think it was a hunter who found some instructions on how to lower the stairs. Yeah. For the Boeing 727. And it matched the plane, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's another story that I think is kind of interesting. So obviously all kinds of tips poured in.

Apparently, a man robbed a grocery store in rural Washington. Just robbed it of kind of the basic necessities that you would need. But he was kind of discounted as a suspect because he was wearing lace-up boots, which again, I keep thinking, isn't it possible that this hijacker had some boots in that bag or somehow. They dismissed him just because of the shoes he was wearing? I don't know that that's the only reason, but that's, you know, they've got all, there are so many different avenues they look down.

And that was one that stood out to me as, oh, that seems interesting. That seems like there's something there. To me, the flight instructions, that's huge too. Actually, I'm just looking this up. That grocery store robbery suspect. Uh-huh. Norm. That FBI agent.

What are you bet to make up? They said, all right, let me taste your piss. He's like, no, this doesn't taste anything like the piss from the flight. And, sir, you are dehydrate. You are free to go. Maybe drink a little more water. That's disgusting. People tune in for a classy podcast about the DB Cooper investigation.

Before DNA was invented, we went to great lengths to solve. these cases, okay? I like how you're including yourself. These piss drinkers. These FBI piss drinkers are heroes, Kristen. It's really a lost art, you know, and that's why Norm's so upset, you know, plaster repair. It's kind of a lost art form. Drinking piss to determine if someone committed a crime.

Some people don't even consider that an art form. They just consider that disgusting and weird and more of a kink than anything else. They got a lot of former wine experts. Zavali agents. They've, you know, switched it. around sniffed. Okay. All right.

That's enough piss humor. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Thanks, Norm. Yeah. Enough, Kristen. Enough of your piss humor. Well, very good, Kristen.

I am enthralled once again by D.B. Cooper. Yes. So next week, we're going to look at all the suspects, huh? Every last one of them. It's going to be a 14-hour episode before the holidays. I hope you're ready. Kristen, looking forward to this last part. But for now, let's wrap it.

up this episode. Sorry, I have to sneeze. Oh, wow, we can't wrap up. We cannot wrap up. Norm needs to sneeze, and he needs you all to hear it. Oh, wait, actually, I think I'm good. Yeah, the fact that you, that's the law of sneezing. If you say I have to sneeze. Oh, wait, oh, wait. It goes away as soon as you say something. Wait a minute.

Shuck the whole room. Okay. I might have another one. So we better wrap it up. Wait, no, it's got it. Play DJ Callan. Another one. Now you can't do it. Okay. They only come in twos for me. Kristen, you know what they say about history hosts?

We always cite our sources. That's right. For this episode, I got my information from the disgusting book, Skyjack. No, I'm sorry. The book Skyjack, the hunt for D.B. Cooper by Jeffrey Gray. The FBI files. the documentary, the mystery of D.B. Cooper, as well as reporting from rolling stone and history.com. Plus more, check the show notes for a full list of our sources.

Oh, my gosh. Only comes in twos, huh? Another one. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to an old-timey podcast. Please give us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. And while you're at it, subscribe. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast.

Join the Reddit community, R-slash-old-timey podcast. Follow us on Facebook and YouTube and Instagram at Old Timey Podcast. You can also follow us individually on Instagram. I'm at Kristen Pitts-Keruso, and he's at Sneezy. And until next time, that was a Disney reference. Oh, we better correct it. People are going to go at Sneezy and get a whole different profile. At Gaming Historian.

And until next time, Tudaloo, Tata, and Cheerio. Goodbye. See you. See you. Thank you.