Crime Weekly - S3 Ep134: D.B. Cooper: A Man With a Grudge (Part 1)

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

Go follow Derrick's new show, 'Detective Perspective'. Available on Youtube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen/watch your podcasts. All the links can be found here! -- https://hoo.be/detperspective It was November 24th, 1971, the day before Thanksgiving and historically the busiest day for travel in the United States. A tall man dressed in a business suit and a thin black tie approached the flight counter of Northwest Orient Airlines at the Portland International Airport and requested a one way ticket to Seattle. This man gave his name as Dan Cooper and he paid twenty dollars in cash for his ticket on Flight 305, which he boarded with 35 other passengers. Cooper took his seat all the way at the back of the plane, he ordered a bourbon and 7-UP, and then he settled in for the short 30 minute flight which was scheduled to take off from Portland, Oregon on time at 2:50 PM, Pacific Standard Time. None of the other passengers, or the six members of the flight crew, noticed anything suspicious about this nondescript business man, traveling with a briefcase and paper bag, sitting quietly by himself in seat 18-E, but that would change shortly after takeoff, when this quiet and polite man notified flight attendant Florence Schaffner that he had a bomb, and he was hijacking the plane. Cooper wanted 200 thousand dollars and four parachutes, and somewhere between Seattle Washington and Reno Nevada, this man dressed in a suit and loafers leaped from a Boeing 727 into a dark and stormy night and was never seen again. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. Liquid I.V. Grab your Liquid I.V. Hydration Multiplier Sugar-Free in bulk nationwide at Costco or get 20% off when you go to LIQUIDIV.COM and use code CRIMEWEEKLY at checkout. 2. Echelon Text WEEKLY to 81-81-81 to get $200 off your new Echelon. Just text WEEKLY to 81-81-81 to get this special discount–plus FREE shipping and risk-free 30-day returns. 3. Vessi If you’re like me and you want to be ready for anything rain or shine, head to vessi.com/CRIMEWEEKLY and get yourself a pair today 4. IQ Bar Get twenty percent off all IQBAR products, plus get FREE shipping. To get your twenty percent off, just text WEEKLY to 64000. 5. ZocDoc Go to Zocdoc.com/CRIMEWEEKLY and download the Zocdoc app for FREE. Then find and book a top-rated doctor today.

It was November 24th, 1971, the day before Thanksgiving and historically the busiest day for travel in the United States. A tall man dressed in a business suit and a thin black tie approached the flight counter of Northwest Orient Airlines at the Portland International Airport and requested a one-way ticket to Seattle. This man gave his name as Dan Cooper, and he paid $20 in cash for his ticket on flight 305,

which he boarded with 35 other passengers. Cooper took his seat all the way at the back of the plane. He ordered a bourbon and seven up, and then he settled in for the short 36-minute flight, which was scheduled to take off from Portland, Oregon on time at 2.50 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. None of the other passengers or the six members of the flight crew noticed anything suspicious about this nondescript businessman traveling with a briefcase and a paper bag, sitting quietly by himself in seat 18E. But that would change shortly after takeoff, when this quiet and polite man notified flight attendant Florence Schaffner that he had a bomb and he was hijacking the plane. Cooper wanted $200,000 and four parachutes, and somewhere between Seattle, Washington and Reno, Nevada, this man, dressed in a suit and loafers, leaped from a Boeing 727 into a dark and stormy night,

and he was never seen again. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today, obviously, we are doing something a little bit different for Crime Weekly, but I feel like after the Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell case, we needed something a little bit lighter, a little bit more mysterious, a little bit more like brain scratchy. And here we have it. D.B. Cooper, an enduring mystery. Yeah, I've always wanted to look in this.

I know there's been a lot of documentaries about it, and I've always wanted to take a deeper look at it because I know there's been a lot of people. Some have spent their life looking into this case. And again, it's kind of fascinating. It's like you would see like a movie or something. So I'm looking forward to it. Do I think we're going to solve it over the series? Probably not. But who knows? Maybe we'll come up with something that maybe no one has thought of before. You never know. Dude, it's actually super fascinating. And people have devoted their lives to this. It's called the Cooper Curse. And I think that these people get into it and they're like, oh, this can't be that hard. You know, there's plenty of evidence. And you'd think, you know, going into this, like, oh, this isn't really a true crime case. I mean, there's forensic evidence.

There's all sorts of things that definitely make it a true crime case and definitely make it like very interesting. But I think people look at it and they're like, this is easy to solve. How has nobody solved this yet? I'm going to tackle it. And this is going to make my career. And then they realize that it's not that simple. And then they become almost like enmeshed into it and they can't let go of it. And then they develop their own theory that they then become so attached to, they develop a strong case of confirmation bias. And it doesn't matter what anybody says or what any evidence that comes out that disputes their theory, they're going to die on that hill. I've never seen anything like it, actually. So it is very interesting. And hopefully we do not become victim to the Cooper curse. This might just be instead of Crime Weekly, it might just be the Cooper curse. That's a new YouTube channel. We just cover DB Cooper every single week until we can't we can't talk anymore.

I mean, honestly, with the amount of information that's out there, we could talk about it for 10 years, but we're not going to do that. We're going to focus on the stuff that we know and then try not to speculate that much. Tim Parder, here we come. Nope. That's what she was hinting right there. She's like, Derek, there's a lot here. Absolutely not. I'm saying three parts tops because this is very interesting. There's a lot of information. But I mean, if anybody can really shine a new light on it, it could be you, you know, with your detective perspective. I doubt it. I doubt it for this case, to be honest with you. But I do appreciate the confidence.

Thank you for the segue into that. Yeah, if anybody's been following me on social media, Stephanie is known about this. She's actually the first person who knew about this. And she's been helping me out a lot with this journey as far as like creating the show. I wanted to do something where, very different from Crime Weekly in a sense,

where we cover cases. It's really a robust case that involves a lot of research. There's a lot for us to talk about. So let me stop you there. Let me stop you there because you didn't really explain what you were talking about. Derek has a podcast called Detective Perspective that is launching what? When? July 23rd at midnight East Coast time. It's going to be Derek alone on the detective perspective. It's so sweet. His whole setup suite, the theme music, everything, the logo, everything is so cool. And he's going to be covering unsolved cases, basically cold cases and things like that that don't get enough attention.

And so now I will let you continue on. Thank you. Well, you said it better than I would have, but that's why, that's why I always go back to her, defer to her. But yeah, we, we're doing more obscure cases. Some of them you may have heard of, but cases that are not as robust necessarily, but still deserve the same amount of exposure that we give to a lot of the cases here. I've already recorded a few of the episodes. Absolutely. Actually, we've recorded at this point four. And one of those four is actually from the daughter of one of the victims who reached out to me can they do from here, what I think about the case at that point. And then I'll always end every case with kind of a call to action with the information for the individuals or organizations connected to the case so that if you have any tips, you can contact them directly. And maybe, maybe we will help solve a case. You never know. And that's at minimum, we want to give them that

exposure. So I'm going to try to do a case every single week And as I said, i've been teasing it on my on my social media. I've been doing little clips We announced the the name of the show and the logo And today is if you're listening to this when it just comes out. It's friday So later today on social media i'm going to release the trailer But if you're listening on audio, I wanted to keep something Strictly for our Crime Weekly listeners and viewers. So I'm going to play that exclusive trailer right now and then we'll wrap this up. for over 17 years. And during that time, I've worked everything from drugs, guns, and gangs to sexual assault and homicide. In this line of work, you unfortunately become desensitized to

a lot of the things you see. But there's one thing I've never gotten used to, the amount of unsolved cases that are still out there. Every time I read the news or open my phone, I'm reminded of all the families still looking for answers. And in some cases, I hear from them directly. And most of the time, all they want is for someone to look at their case and bring some exposure to it. Now, I'm not saying we're going to solve all of them, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Join me as I break down a new unsolved case each and every week right here on Detective Perspective. I'll discuss the case and leave you with my opinion on the investigation, as well as provide contact information if you have any leads. That's right, I'm going to be relying on you to not only submit cases,

but also help solve them. Detective Perspective will be available on YouTube and all podcast platforms. Make sure you subscribe so you'll be notified as soon as the first episode drops. Stay safe out there, and I'll see you soon. So that was the trailer. It kind of sums up what I'm going to try to accomplish on Detective Perspective. If you have a case that is,

again, this show is going to be about 30 to 40 minutes each episode. So it's a smaller show, but it's something that's consumable on a short ride to work. It's going to be on all podcast platforms, on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify. It'll also be on YouTube, on my YouTube channel, which you'll find the links in the description below. And as Stephanie said, the first episodes,

I'm actually going to drop two episodes at once. So the first two cases are dropping July 23rd at midnight East Coast time. So if you're listening to this on Friday, that means you have to wait until Sunday. But if you're watching this video on YouTube right now, when it drops on Sunday, go over to subscribe to the channel, both whether listening or watching, go subscribe right now. I'd really appreciate it. And then Sunday night at midnight East Coast time, you're going to have two episodes come out, both on audio and on YouTube. And then every week after that, it'll be on audio on Mondays and YouTube on Tuesdays. So I'd appreciate the support. It's my first time doing it. I've always loved what Stephanie did on her channel. That's how I found it. And I feel like I got a

good chance here because trying to raise the production value. And I had a consultant by the name of Stephanie Harlow critiquing everything I did, including some of the episodes and kind of helping me find that voice when you're doing it. She even told me in the beginning, like, so what's your, what's your podcast voice? Cause I'm reading from a script on these now I have to, you know, it's like, I'm telling the story and I'm like, what do you mean podcast voice? So we'll see, we'll see what you guys think. It's going to be something different than you're usually accustomed to hearing from me. So we'll see. So pause right now, go subscribe on YouTube,

detective perspective, go subscribe in your podcast platforms, detective perspective, hearing from me. So we'll see. So pause right now. Go subscribe on YouTube, Detective Perspective. Go subscribe in your podcast platforms, Detective Perspective. Make sure you're following. And yeah, enjoy. Appreciate it. Don't be too mean. They don't listen to that. That's true. Facts. All right. So let's jump in. Yeah. So since November 24th, 1971, D.B. Cooper and his true identity have become an enduring mystery because he's never been found. He's never been identified. And honestly, it's unknown whether or not he survived his daring getaway. Spoiler alert, I think he did.

But a lot of people don't, including allegedly the FBI, who in the beginning, they were like, oh, this dude's like a mastermind. Like I went back to newspaper.com and I like read the early articles coming out and the FBI were like, wow, he really knew what he was doing. He had this down, he had this down, he could be anywhere. And now the FBI are like, he definitely didn't make it. So I don't know what's up with the change of heart. But anyways, I think he survived. said portland to seattle right portland to seattle yeah and so they weren't going over any bodies of water so i would think oh no they were okay they were it's the pacific northwest man so they went out and up kind of as you know they stay over the ocean like right along that area before they come back well oregon so they weren't

over the ocean but we're gonna talk about yeah're going to talk about where they think he jumped, which once again, like a lot of things with this mystery is up for a huge debate. Like the people in the DB Cooper community argue about it all the time. But we'll talk about that. In fact, the place he jumped, if it's correct, is probably the last place I would want to jump out of a plane. But maybe he knew what he was doing. Well, I just don't even know. And I don't want to jump around because we have a whole session to go through tonight. But some of the things that when we decided to cover this, I was like, there's no way unless he was in the cockpit, he would even know geographically where

they were. Like he had to have like a getaway car or someone waiting for something where, you know, he's not going to just jump and land on someone's house. That would probably be pretty obvious. No, he wouldn't have landed on someone's house because he jumped over. All right. So I will kind of like go a little bit ahead just to, you know, talk about it a little bit. The place where he jumped, allegedly, is called the Dark Divide. Okay, so could it be more ominous sounding? I don't think so. And basically, this is the largest roadless area in western Washington state. And it's made up approximately of 76,000 acres of intact wilderness on juniper ridge basically like they got trees up in this place

that are over 500 years old because it's just like complete wilderness and there's like lakes and there's rivers and there's things like that so he must have known to some extent where he was jumping because of the fact that he chose this area like you said so he's not jumping and landing on roads or landing on someone's house or, you know. Landing on a police station. Yeah. Or like landing in the middle of the road and getting hit by like a tractor trailer kind of thing. So I think he knew to some extent. You had to plan this out to some level before doing it. Right. I mean, so, yeah, we'll see. A lot of questions.

I'll say I'll reserve some questions until we get there because I'm sure a lot of them will be answered. But that's why I'm glad we're covering this i as you were saying i love aviation i had i had uh teased that we were doing this on patreon saying it involved the plane nobody guessed it as far as i remember the last comments i said no nope nobody guessed it so maybe someone has since i last looked but at the time i was surprised i said to you nobody had guessed it yet at that point. So I'm really not, this is not that this is, I want to say lighter,

but it is lighter. It is lighter. It is lighter. Nobody's died in this one that, you know, there's no, there's victims, but not in the sense of like what we're accustomed to.

So I am glad we're changing it up a little bit, a little mystery too. It's fun. And like, it's, it's very cool for me because I love history and I love looking at when certain crimes took place and like how they happened in this kind of a microcosm of what the times were like, you know, and how like

somebody could not possibly get away with something like that today. Because D.B. Cooper, along with others who tried to replicate his crime, they basically led to so many changes in the commercial aviation industry. And Cooper's successful heist, I guess successful like he got away with the money. We don't know if he survived or not, but he got away with the money. It remains the only unsolved case of air piracy in the history of commercial aviation. Now, at the time of the hijacking afterwards, you know, in the days and weeks, months, years afterwards, the general public looked at D.B. Cooper like a modern day Robin Hood. They idolized him. They cheered him on as they had the outlaws of the past, like Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger, figures who operated during the Great Depression, the money and goes. Also, economic times were tough and feelings towards the government were kind of hostile, just as they had been during the rise of,

you know, these other outlaws in the 30s and 40s and the Great Depression. People felt good to see someone sort of like get the best of the man and pull one over on the government. D.B. Cooper has become a folk hero of sorts, especially throughout the Pacific Northwest region, where young people still wear t-shirts with his face on them. They have like

logos and says, D.B. Cooper, where are you? They wrote songs about him and his brave escapades. Annual festivals take place in his honor in a place called Ariel. They have like a whole establishments that are specifically focused on D.B. Cooper. And Dr. Otto Larson, who's a professor of sociology at Washington University, he described this as something that he's called Robin Hood syndrome. He said, quote, we all like adventure stories. That hijacker took the greatest ultimate risk. He showed real heroic features, mystery, drama, romanticism, high degree of skill, and all the necessities for the perfect crime. This man was neither political nor neurotic. His motive was simply $200,000 and people can understand that. His was an awesome feat in the

battle of man against machine. One individual overcoming, for the time being anyway, technology, the corporation, the establishment, the system, end quote. And that sort of leads us into an important conversation to have. I think most of us look at air travel today in a certain way. It's kind of always been the same, you know, which is that commercial air travel isn't necessarily a fun or a pleasant experience. You know, it's just what we need to do to get from one location to another the most quickly, the most efficiently. I personally hate flying.

Because first of all, I mean, we've talked about this. I don't feel like human beings should be up in planes in the air. It just doesn't seem natural. You're always a great time before a flight. Who, me? Yeah, you. Because I'm drunk.

Yeah, you're always like that. Like, I know CrimeCon's coming up and I'm getting ready for it. Like the preparation leading up to it where you're like, okay, I'll see you there. And you just usually send me a picture of you like laying up against a wall with a cocktail in your hand and you're like drooling on yourself. And I'm like, okay, she's drugged. She's good to go. I'll see her when she lands.

They'll wake her up. I pretty much have to be like completely sedated. Otherwise, I'm clawing at like the windows i and i think one time like i was on we were on the same flight accidentally and i was like sitting there yeah you were in first class i was with the i was with the peasants i didn't even notice you because i was so nervous i was like shaking my leg and like all bundled up into a ball and you were like you good yeah i was like hey i was like hey i know you and you were like, you good? I was like, hey, I was like, hey, I know you. And you were like already like, like, I just scared you just saying hello. Yeah. I mean,

it's real bad. And just the whole the whole lead up to it, like, you know, you're going to go to the airport. It's going to suck in every way, shape or form. No one who works at the airport is nice ever, by the way. And I always take early morning flights because for some reason, I think they're going to be less crowded and they never are. You know, the planes are always full to the brim. So I always think it's going to be less crowded at like 530 in the morning and everyone's miserable. And it's just between the invasive security measures, the horribly uncomfortable seats, no one really enjoys flying, but it wasn't always like that. In fact, going into an airport and getting on a plane, it used to be as easy and

as casual as walking into a supermarket and buying groceries. By 1955, for the first time, more people in the United States were traveling by air than by train. After World War II, passenger travel had surged to a new level, and this demand caused new airline carriers to emerge, ushering in the era of mass air travel. And these airlines, they wanted their customers to feel as if they were having a fun and luxurious experience. You know, they wanted people to be flying. People, it was still new, and a lot of people were scared, rightly so. And so they were like, oh, let's make this like the best experience ever. Now everyone wants to fly and the airlines are like, screw you. We

don't care if you absolutely feel miserable the entire time. You're going to take the flight regardless. You're going to take the flight regardless. You need us. Okay. So, but back then they were like, let's make this as fun as possible and as cool as possible. So for a few decades, air travel was pretty awesome and pretty chill. Passengers were usually well-dressed in their best clothes because this was like a cool experience. Men wore suits. Women wore dresses. The drinks were made strong and offered throughout the flight, and they were just flowing freely.

The seats were wider and more comfortable. People could smoke. They could get up, walk around, talk to the pilots because the cockpit was just wide open. So you just stroll up and you're like, hey, pilot. Hey, captain, what are you doing in here? And the captain's like, hey, come on in, Joe. You want a cigarette? Let's have some scotch. And it was just like chill, you know. And even before boarding the plane, everything was like super lax. Before 1996, you didn't even have to show identification to buy a plane ticket and

anyone could just walk you to your gate even if they weren't boarding with you. They were just like just people in the airport just chilling and hanging out. I read this one interview with a guy named John Dasif and he remembered that on one flight, he had to bring his crossbow with him. He didn't say why he had to bring his crossbow with him, but he brought it on the flight and the flight attendants just cheerfully helped him store it in an overhead compartment. They were like, oh, sir, can we help you with your crossbow? You know, now you can't even bring like a bag of shampoo or a wine opener, man. Yeah.

You know how many wine openers I've had just taken away from me at TSA? Unbelievable. They could open a bar. A lot. They could open a bar with the amount of wine keys they stole from me. Unbelievable. They could open a bar. A lot. They could open a bar with the amount of wine keys they stole from me. Anyways. Oh, and then I read another interview because the tickets, I guess, would have your name on it and stuff. But this one kid was like, oh, it was cheaper to buy a round trip ticket. So my aunt bought a round trip ticket. She flew to me and then I took her

flight back and they didn't do anything. It was just like, definitely not his aunt. And they were just like, yeah, absolutely, come on board. All of that began changing, though, between May of 1961 and the end of 1972. And this is a period known as the golden age of airline hijackings. During that stretch of time, there were 159 aircraft hijackings in United States airspace. Sometimes they were happening at a rate of once a week. Sometimes more than one hijacking happened in the same day. And for the most part, especially initially, passengers and airlines were pretty chill about this. I guess they're just chill about

everything, especially because it was like happening so frequently. It just kind of became something that people expected to happen when they got on a flight. That doesn't seem very reassuring, but I guess I can see it like if nobody was dying, where it was more so like, hey, someone's going to get some money out of this or they're trying to. It's one thing. But I think what obviously was in 1996, but I think things really changed after September 11th. That's obviously like, that's obviously when flying just, it's now a completely different thing. It's never been the same since, since that day. Understandably so, because now the concern is that people are going to lose their lives, right? So not saying we're making light of this, but yeah, if someone, as you said,

the kind of whole Robin Hood syndrome, Hey, worst case scenario, the, the, the, the plane's going to get hijacked. They might get something off me, maybe a couple bucks, but mainly they're going after the airline. They're going after the big guy. So what do I care? But when people started hijacking planes in order to use them as weapons, now it's a different thing. So actually, it wasn't even about money.

The majority of these hijackings were not about money. They were political. I'll explain to you a little bit more about that when we come back from our first break. 1959. And basically like these American revolutionaries, because at that point there was an embargo with Cuba, right? And there was also like a travel ban. So you couldn't just get on a plane and fly to Cuba. I kind of feel like you still can't. Am I wrong about that? I feel like you still can't. No, you can. Can you fly to Cuba right now? I believe so. Are you sure? I'll look it up real quick. I'll look it up. So as far as we can tell, you can travel to Cuba, but you have to have some like legitimate business reason. As far as tourism, it's still prohibited.

So, yeah, it's kind of been like this for a while. Just American-Cuban relations, not super good. And so there was a lot of people who were in support of Fidel Castro when he took over, like even people in America. And they would basically get on these planes and then they would hijack them to fly to Cuba where they believed they'd be welcomed as revolutionary heroes who were escaping from the United States government. They thought they were going to receive protection from Cuba's new leader, Fidel Castro. And sometimes I guess they did, but sometimes they didn't. According to IBM.com, quote, the request became so frequent that Take Me to Cuba was featured in a famous sketch by none other than Monty Python. Castro, eyeing an opportunity to humiliate

the U.S. government, often offered to return the planes to the airlines for a meager $7,500, end quote. So to avoid injury and loss of life, it sort of became airline policy to always cooperate with hijackers and give them total compliance. So cockpits were provided with charts of the Caribbean Sea, regardless of where they were headed to, because, you know, they kind of figured that they might be diverted to Cuba. And being diverted to Cuba became so routine that passengers and crews didn't even blink. William Ratizak, who was the first officer on Cooper's flight, said, quote, everybody on the airplane would get a bottle of rum and a couple of cigars, get back on the airplane and fly home. They thought it was a really fun thing, end quote. Eventually, however,

these constant hijackings became so inconvenient and costly that airports enacted certain measures to try and prevent them. So metal detectors were installed, baggage inspection became mandatory, and passengers who paid cash for tickets on the day of the departure would be singled out for additional security checks. But in 1971, air travel was still kind of in its Wild West stage, and D.B. Cooper took advantage of that. Now, everyone who saw Dan Cooper that day gave a similar description of him, I guess, although it's going to vary and we'll get there. But basically, a lot of people said he was tall, between 5'10 and 6 feet. A lot of people said

he was thin, although later some people are going to say he had a stockier build, but he weighed between 170 and 180 pounds. He had dark hair cut in a conventional way, parted to the left side, and brown eyes, and his complexion was described variously as darker, swarthy, or olive. He appeared to be in his mid-40s, and he was wearing a dark suit, although the color of this suit, once again, is going to vary. Some people said it was brown, some people said it was black, some people said it was red. But regardless, he had on a dark colored suit, a white shirt, a thin black tie, a black raincoat, and either brown or black shoes. He was always described as carrying a black attache case, so a briefcase, and a brown paper bag. And he wore dark rimmed sunglasses that he

never took off. So nobody ever saw his eyes, really. Although people say he had brown eyes. So I don't understand that because literally the flight attendant who spent the most time with him said, I never saw him take off his sunglasses. I never saw his eyes. And everyone said he never took off his sunglasses. So it's definitely strange. You know, all of this, we've talked about this on Crime Weekly before with witnesses, right? They can be sitting right next to them. You ask two people the same question, they have total different perspectives on it. And that's why investigations are hard, right? Because you're relying on people who aren't necessarily trained in looking for these types of things. And not only that, not only are they not trained in it, but they're on a flight. They're not necessarily concerned. They didn't know they had to. Right. They're not necessarily concerned with what the guy next to them is wearing. You would think that someone on a plane never removing their sunglasses may stand out to you. That might be someone you take an extra look at because that's weird, right?

Less weird now in today's society, by the way. Now it's a pretty normal thing. Yeah, because you know I am not taking off my sunglasses on the plane at True. True. I was, I was, I was throwing, that was a subtle. That was a subtle shade at me. No, no, actually it wasn't. It actually wasn't. But yeah, no, I mean, it's one of those things where you have to kind of take a, a poll of everybody and find out where that person actually, what the description of that person is somewhere in the middle. Right. Because it's not necessarily that people are trying to mislead you. Their perception is their reality. So what they remember is what they're going to tell you. And

in most cases, what they're trying to do is help. And so they're not necessarily certain about what they're saying, but they don't want to leave you with nothing. So they take an educated guess, which is why, and I've said it a million times on here before, I always said, I don't want to know what you think. I want to know what you know. If you don't know, I'd rather you tell me that than guess. If you're not a hundred percent certain, just tell me you don't know. Was the car white? I don't know. It might've been cream. Okay. So you don't know if it was white or not. No, I don't. Okay. Perfect. That's what I need to know. I need people who are certain because you might be certain about the hair and that shirt. Somebody else might be certain about the jeans and the shoes. And then I can create a pretty good representation of what this person

looks like. But yeah, on a plane like this, when everyone's kind of relaxed, maybe a little intoxicated for the flight, you're not going to necessarily have the best witnesses. Plus we've all been on, most of us have been on a plane before. You're kind of secluded in there. Once you sit down, you know, the seats are pretty high. You really can't see anyone around you. Everyone's got their back to you for the most part. And unless you stand up in your seat, you can't see who's behind you. So unless you're in his row, you really aren't going to have the greatest view of him unless you're watching him when he's going to his seat, which again, that's

not something we normally do. So I understand it completely. So a handful of passengers did pay close attention to him simply because once the flight took off, he was getting a lot of attention from the flight attendants, right? So that stood out to people and they were like, what's up with this guy? Who is this guy? And I believe it was the kid. It was like a college student who was sitting across the row from him.

And this college student was like, what the hell? I think his name was Robert Mitchell. Actually, I don't know why that just popped into my head. But the kid was like, what the hell? Who does this guy think he is? Like wearing sunglasses the whole flight. Because this was a different time. You know, this was the 70s.

People were more like- Pants off, sunglasses off. Yeah, it was like more respectful. It was not considered respectful to have your sunglasses on the entire time. You know, and that's why people were dressing up more often. Pats off, sunglasses off. Which goes right back to, you know, eyewitness testimony is not super reliable. It's all about like the filter of your experience. And I will say like I pay attention to the people sitting around me on planes just because I like watching people. No, I do. I like watching people. You're in a coma.

Yeah. You'd be the worst person to ask when I get on a plane. We just got done prefacing how before the flight takes off, like I remember walking by you as an impartial witness and I didn't know if you were alive or dead. You were already laying on the, you were already laying on the window. You were in the front row where there's like nobody sitting in front of you. And I just saw you in a ball looking out the window. Maybe your eyes were open. Maybe they weren't.

So yeah, you're not the person. You're not the person that I'm going to rely on for my description of my potential suspect. Listen, I'm like really offended by this now. So one day we're going to take a flight together. Okay. I'm going to do my normal thing, which is usually, you know, at least an edible and a couple drinks. Okay. And then when we get off, you're going to ask me who was sitting across the row from us.

And I'm going to tell you what they looked like. I'll do you one better. Just one time when we're out or something, I'm just going to be like, hey, there was a person sitting over to our left. Okay, dude, we're so on. Okay, cool. I'm so ready for this. Okay, great. Because you don't even know how much I pay attention to people around me because I'm super paranoid.

Oh, we, we, everyone knows that. We all know. So we're going to, we're going to do it. Okay. Okay. So that day, as Cooper, along with the other passengers, took their seats, flight attendants Florence Schaffner and Tina Mucklow began preparing to serve drinks. Even though the flight from Portland to Seattle was a short one, just 36 minutes, it was Northwest's policy to serve drinks before takeoff.

Now you're lucky if you get a freaking bag of pretzels, okay? You're lucky if you get a bag of pretzels. They're definitely ain't giving me no bourbon and 7-Up. I have to flag them down for that. So Tina Mucklow, she's at the front of the plane in the galley and she's icing glasses. Florence Schaffner, she's taking drink orders and she starts from the back of the plane, making her way up. D.B. Cooper is sitting in the back of the plane. So Florence Schaffner asked him if he cared for a drink. He ordered a bourbon and seven up, which he paid her for with a $20 bill. And Florence said, listen, like, I don't have any change for this yet because you're the first drink order I took. So I have to, you know, take the order of the rest of the passengers in your section and then I'll have change to give you. To which he replied that that would be fine. He was very polite. He's

described constantly by all of these flight attendants as being very polite, and later when she gave him his change, he thanked her. Shortly after takeoff, D.B. Cooper slipped a note to Florence Schaffner, who was seated in the stewardess seat directly behind him. And initially, Florence thought that he was slipping her his number, which was a pretty common thing to happen to flight attendants at that time. So Tina Mucklow, the other flight attendant, she was 22 and the least senior member of the flight crew that day, having just been hired in the spring of 1969. And she'd later tell Rolling Stone magazine that her job as a flight attendant or as a stewardess, as they were then called, was more ornamental than anything. In the 60s and 70s, stewardesses were all female.

They had to meet very strict standards, like about their life and about their appearance. A typical employment ad for a stewardess dictated that one should not apply unless they were between 100 and 128 pounds, unless they were between 5'2 and 5'6 in height, and unmarried with no children. Because airlines chose to hire only the most physically attractive women, less than 3% of applicants were hired. For some context, that's lower than the acceptance rate at Yale University. Imagine these standards now. Whoa. Oh, yeah. It would never fly. Never fly. And when Tina had

been hired, she'd been told she couldn't gain weight. She could never wear glasses and her contract dictated that she retire by the age of 30, no matter how good she was at her job. Yikes. Times have changed. Yeah. They used to have a height requirement for state police in rhode island too well i mean for what you had to be at least six one what why who is six one look it up state rhode island state police used to have to or maybe it was six foot i mean that's like severely limiting your candidates the troopers were always like the biggest the tallest like they there was an appearance to them and so there was a height requirement of the best there was always a height requirement and when i got on the job i believe there was a height requirement because i remember being like yes i'm over six feet i can apply if i want but you're not a state trooper no i never applied to be one i wanted to go federal

they want to go state state does a lot of traffic enforcement i wasn't i wasn't writing tickets in my own city so it wasn't really appealing to me oh they sure do yeah they sure do do a lot of traffic enforcement. I wasn't, I wasn't writing tickets in my own city, so it wasn't really appealing to me. Oh, they sure do. Yeah. They sure do do a lot of traffic enforcement. They do a lot of traffic enforcement. So once I learned what they are,

their main responsibilities were, and they do a lot of great things too, but it wasn't really my thing. But yeah, there used to be a height requirement. They've done away with it now because now I see all these state troopers and they're like 5'1",

5'2". And I'm like. No, state trooper is 5'1", 5'2". I'm telling you, shout out to those short for state troopers i'm telling you this in rhode island if you look up the state trooper uniform

shannon throw a picture up here they have we have a very specific uniform where over the years they've been nominated like the best dressed troopers in the country multiple times uh and have you ever seen the movie me myself and irene yeah jim carrey's a rhode island state trooper in that movie yeah and they wear and they wear like the tall boots and stuff and yeah so the state troopers that are short they have those boots yeah they do they look like uh mounties and like honestly the short troopers when their boots are like up to their knees it looks like they're swimming in their boots honestly it's pretty funny so i feel like it's sexist but like i definitely would rather be pulled over by a

six foot one state trooper than a five foot one state trooper i'm just gonna say that because i can see higher in the window because he'd be hotter oh just by default that's me um there's a lot of there's a lot of short people in our comments right now that guys are like not happy with you well short Well, short kings. Okay, short kings. I'm sure you're not 5'1", though. Like, I've never met a 5'1 man in my entire life. I promise you.

That's ludicrous that you even said that. 5'1"? I've never met a man who was 5'1 in my life. Have you? Yes. I mean, there's been some short guys out there. Short kings. All right.

So anyways, back to Tina Mucklow and the stewardesses. Tina said, quote, they had just allowed the married flight attendants to wear wedding rings. And it was only the contract before that one that had actually allowed flight attendants to even be married. Those are just the parameters in which we worked. It was part of the industry. End quote. So like I said, this is, you know, part of the airlines, I guess, trying to give give people like a good experience. Most of the people traveling were businessmen. They put these women in these like tight little dresses. And, you know, some of them even wore the like high like go-go boots of the 70s. And it was basically they were there to just like be flirted with and, you know, look pretty, basically. So that was something that they understood, I suppose.

On that note, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. OK, we.k.a. D.B. Cooper, at first she just was like, oh, some other freaking boring businessman giving me his number. So she dropped it into her purse without opening it. But she told the FBI that the passenger, Cooper, kept looking at her and she felt that he was indicating that he wanted her to open the note. So Tina opened the note and sure enough, it told her in all capital letters, Miss, I have a bomb in my briefcase and I want you to sit by me. She reported that the whole note was written in felt tip pen, but the word Miss was printed while

the rest of the note was written in legible handwriting. So what we would call cursive today. Florence looked at Cooper and she was like, are you kidding? To which he responded, no, miss, this is for real in a serious but calm voice. At this time, Tina Mucklow, who'd become suspicious of how much Florence and this passenger were talking, she walked over to them and Florence handed her the note. So Tina immediately went to the phone and called the cockpit to notify them as Florence took the aisle seat next to Cooper, who was in the middle seat of his row. Florence once again asked Cooper, are you kidding? And he said no. And then he grabbed his briefcase, which had been sitting in the window seat, and he placed it on her lap. He then opened the briefcase for her to show her

that he was not bluffing. And Florence claims inside she saw a big battery with what looked like six sticks of red dynamite wrapped around the battery with wires. And then there was a small wire leading from the bundle to his hand. And Cooper told her, all I have to do is attach this wire to the battery and we'll all be dead. After confirming that there was in fact a bomb on board, Florence brought Cooper's demands to the cockpit where Captain William A. Scott and First Officer William Ratisak made the decision to contact Northwest Flight Operations and let them know that they'd been hijacked and that the hijacker had specific demands. Okay, so that's important to something you said in there. It does look appear that there was nobody sitting in the row with him. He had the seat, he had the seat open to the left of him and to the right of him. So to have that person that would be super close, which I mentioned earlier, would have been advantageous for a description later on. Luckily, or maybe strategically, I don't know how the

planning would have been back then. I know online now you can see if the rows vacant before you book the seat. I don't think that was the case back then. But he may have strategically placed himself or just got lucky. And so nobody right next to him. So here's what I think happened. Because like I said, back then, it's 1971. Flights aren't full. People aren't flying.

Just sit wherever the seats are empty. So what I think happened is because he was seated in the very last row of the plane. And I think he strategically did want to sit there. And so I believe when he bought his ticket, he probably requested that seat, which he could do because the flight's not going to be full either way. So he could be like, hey, is that seat open? And they'd be like, yeah. And then he could have it, you know. Yeah.

And just maybe by luck, he didn't have anybody next to him. Or when he was walking to the back of the plane, look to his left, look to his right. And this row over here is completely empty. So he plops down there and he's good to go. That was the seat he was assigned, though. It was the seat he was assigned. Yeah, I believe so. It looks like it on his ticket.

Yeah, I know he was in set. You said seat 18E, right? So that's where he was. Did we confirm that it is, in fact, the seat that he originally booked? He didn't move. I'm assuming he would have, or the probably the flight attendants at that time would have noticed. Cause as,

as they're taking like a roll call or whatever, like, Hey, someone's supposed to be sitting here. There's nobody here or whatever. You know, they still do that to this day where they'll check. So,

I mean, I'm looking at the ticket. It says Dan Cooper. It says the date. It says where he's going. It says how much he paid for it. It says where he's coming from. It does not look as if there is a seat assigned here. That's him. So he could have walked right to the back of the plane and said, Oh, I'm going to sit over here. And as you said, the plane's not full. It's kind of like a Southwest type thing. Southwest airlines where

you're kind of just first come, first serve. What a nightmare. I'm taking Southwest to CrimeCon. Oh, I am not taking Southwest ever again. It's like the Hunger Games. The slander. It's not. It's the Hunger Games, dude.

Yeah, it doesn't work. So that's important. So he might have strategically. Now, if we find out later, we'll correct ourselves. But there's a situation here where he got a ticket, flight's not full. He walks on the plane, sees where everyone's kind of sitting, knows he wants to be at the back of the plane because he knows there's going to be a stewardess sitting behind him. So that is a gimme, but maybe he gets lucky where he sees the rows empty, purposely sits in the middle so that if somebody else comes on

the plane, if somebody's sitting at the window, you can sit in the aisle so that if somebody else comes on the plane, you know, if somebody's sitting at the window, you can sit in the aisle seat and you still got a space between you. But if you sit in the middle seat, you may assume that that's already somebody sitting in the aisle seat. Maybe they're in the bathroom or whatever. So you may choose a different section. That may be why he chose to pick that seat. If it wasn't assigned, he may have said, Hey, I'm going to sit here in the middle, put my briefcase in the window seat. So it appears that somebody is already sitting there, less likely to have someone sit to the left or right of me. I got more room to move. I got more room to work. Dude, it's just so weird that it's like

name of passenger, Dan Cooper. That ain't his real name. Right. They were just like, what's your name? He's like, Dan Cooper. And they're like, all right. Sounds legit. Like what? Bob Smith. I don't understand. Like how hard would it have been in 1971 to just be like, hey, can I have your driver's license so I can write down your actual Because in a perfect world, right? We should be able to just get on a flight and it shouldn't be a big deal. And we should be allowed to be confidential and private and travel wherever we want and not have to be tracked by everyone. But unfortunately we live in a world, a scary world where it's that invasion of privacy for some is necessary to keep everyone safe. I wish we didn't live in that world, but we do.

A couple rotten apples mess it up for everybody. Yep. Well, listen, here's Cooper's demands. He wanted $200,000, which would be, I think, $1.5 million in today's money. He wanted this delivered to him in a knapsack by 5 p.m. on the ground in Seattle. He specifically requested that the money be in negotiable American currency, that's going to be important later, and that it all be in $20 bills. He also asked for four parachutes, two front and two back. So basically, two front will be like chest parachutes, ones you wear on your chest, and then back would be ones you wear

like a backpack on your back. I had to learn all sorts of things that I didn't know before. So bear with me. By the way, that may be telling in and of itself because I didn't even know there was a front backpack, a front parachute, a rear chest parachute, a back parachute. My understanding is only one.

And maybe back, maybe as of today's times, but maybe this person, as I'm sure down the road, we're going to speculate on who this person was at minimum, maybe they've had some skydiving experience, uh, to, to know what type of parachutes would be accessible to them. Not saying they're an expert skydiver, but maybe taking a lesson or two, uh, and before, before this flight. So the way it seemed like it was explained, the parachutes is very weird and complicated, but the way it was explained is there was two main parachutes and two reserve

parachutes. So it looked like a reserve parachute, you would wear the main and the reserve at the same time. Okay. So now that's all in one backpack, but you're saying back then it was in two? Separately. Yeah. So if one didn't open, you could pull the cord on the other and then that would open. That's because they called it a reserve chute. So that's what it sounds like to me. if one didn't open, you could pull the cord on the other and then that would open, you know, that's because they called it a reserve chute. So that's what it sounds like to me. I have another question. So when he was saying this, I'm asking you to answer things you may not know, but obviously he wanted the money on the ground. He doesn't assume the money's going to already be on the plane when he gets on it. But does it appear that he knew those parachutes

would already be on the plane or he wanted them delivered when they landed in Seattle? So he's basically telling the flight crew, like, yo, call your boys in Seattle and tell them that by the time we land at 5 p.m., I want $200,000 in cash and these four parachutes. Got it. And then I also want the trucks to be ready to refuel this plane when I get there. And then if all of those things happen, I'm going to let these passengers off the plane, but you're going to continue taking me somewhere else with the money and the parachutes.

But only if everything happens the way I say it should. Otherwise, this bomb's going off. Okay. All right. I'm with you. So it's believed that D.B. Cooper asked for these four parachutes and he did this in a strategic way because it suggested to the authorities that he might be planning to jump and he might be planning to bring like a hostage, someone else with him

when he jumped. And therefore this would ensure that the parachutes delivered to him would be in good working condition and they wouldn't be like sabotaged so that he wouldn't jump to his death. He wouldn't survive the jump. He also requested that the fuel trucks be ready to refuel as soon as they landed like there and waiting. So Florence Schaffner told Cooper that she would have to take the demands to the cockpit as the plane was taking off. And he was like, yeah, go ahead and do that. She also asked him if that was all he wanted, to which he replied, yes. Captain Scott, when he got the demands from Florence, he told her to remain in the cockpit and they sent Tina Mucklow back to the cabin to sit next to Cooper and keep him calm while the FBI and law enforcement in Seattle were notified and they were scrambling to get together the money in the parachutes that Cooper had demanded. After Florence Schaffner had been in the cockpit for a few minutes, Tina Mucklow called the cockpit from the phone in the cabin and informed them that Cooper wanted the note that he had written to Florence back. And he also wanted the list of demands that she had written down back.

So he basically is like collecting physical evidence as he goes. Yeah, because obviously it was handwritten. He doesn't want any type of handwriting analysis. So Daniel Nyrop, who at that time was the president of Northwest Orient Airlines, he authorized the ransom payment and instructed all employees to cooperate with Cooper Foley. The FBI used several banks throughout Seattle to get together 10,000 unmarked $20 bills. Nearly 87% of the serial numbers on the bills started with the letter L, the Boeing 727 circled the Puget Sound for two and a half hours. And none of the passengers at this point know what's happening, allegedly. Like, they don't know that they're being hijacked. They're told there's a mechanical issue and they got to, like, run out the fuel.

And that's why they're circling the SeaTac airport for over two hours. Tina Mucklow would later say that it was only after she was safely on the ground that she'd been told the pilot did this in case a bomb went off on the plane. So if they were flying over water, it would prevent pieces of the plane and its passengers from raining down on unsuspecting civilians below. I was also thinking it might be for fuel too, right? Like obviously that igniter having all that fuel on the plane in conjunction with a bomb, bigger explosion, more, there's going to be more collateral damage, you know, to the surrounding area. Well, I mean, they can't land until the stuff's ready. Yeah. Can't land until the stuff's ready. And he won't let them land until the stuff's ready. So they have to wait until they get notification from the ground.

Like, okay, the money's here. The parachutes are here. They're sitting on the ground too long. They're thinking he's going to get spooked and he, he, he pulls the, he, he lights the bomb. Exactly. And then you're at an airport. So way more collateral damage. And I mean, he didn't want them to land until the stuff was ready. Cause he didn't want the chance of being like rushed by law enforcement or somebody sneaking on the plane or just no funny business, you know, no funny business, no funny business. So basically the pilot had told the passengers the landing would be delayed due to mechanical issues. And a passenger, Michael Cooper,

he would later tell the media that as they were in this holding pattern over the Puget Sound, he was like, this is weird, you know? I feel like something's off. And then he and the other passengers were instructed to move up to the front of the plane. But basically, D.B. Cooper stayed in his seat at the back.

When Michael took his new seat next to a man who ended up being an assistant from the AG's office in Seattle, he remarked to his new seatmate, you know, something seems weird here. And he wondered if the plane had been taken over, similarly to the hijacking of an Air Canada jet a few weeks prior. But for the most part, the passengers were not told they were in imminent danger and most of them just enjoyed their drinks and waited for the plane to land, with the exception of a mystery passenger wearing a cowboy hat. According to passenger George Labassaniere, he became suspicious of Cooper shortly after taking off because of Cooper's constant contact with flight attendant Tina Mucklow, who was either sitting next to Cooper or on the phone

much of the time with the cockpit. And the plane was circling the Seattle-Tacoma airport, so Labasanier, who was sitting six rows in front of Cooper and Tina, he had to get up to use the bathroom several times. And the bathroom's at the rear of the plane behind Cooper and Tina. And one of these times, he exited the bathroom to find the aisle blocked by Tina and another male passenger who was wearing a cowboy hat. And this cowboy hat wearing passenger was hassling Tina about like, what were these mechanical issues? Why hadn't they landed yet? Like he was acting very impatient. According to his interview with the FBI, Labasinier thought that Cooper seemed amused by this man in the cowboy hat at first, but then he became irritated and he told cowboy to get back to his seat. But the cowboy hat wearing passenger ignored Cooper and continued being a nuisance to Tina. The

passenger eventually did return to his seat. Now, Tina Mucklow reported this incident differently, however. She said a male passenger did approach her while she was seated next to Cooper, but he claimed he was bored. He was looking for a magazine to read. So Tina brought the passenger to an area directly behind Cooper so he could pick out a magazine. He chose the New Yorker and he promptly returned to his seat. When Tina sat back down next to Cooper, she claimed he whispered to her, quote, if that was a sky marshal, I don't want any more of that, end quote. Now, it doesn't seem that this cowboy hat wearing passenger was ever identified or questioned by the FBI.

But looking at the pictures taken of the 35 passengers after the incident, so like once the plane lands and the passengers get off, a bus has to take them to the terminal because they parked far away from the airport. And the media took pictures of each one of them as they got off the bus. And looking at the pictures, it's believed that the cowboy could have been Daniel Rice or Robert Cummings. These are the only two men that look to be wearing some sort of hat that could be described as a cowboy hat. A lot of the men have hats on, but most of them are like, you know, normal. I wouldn't call them top hats, but normal like man hats from the 1970s.

I personally think that Daniel Rice looks far more like a cowboy, but he was seated in first class. And technically, Tina Mucklow would not have been the flight attendant. He would have questioned about any issues he had. He would have most likely spoken to Alice Hancock, who was the flight attendant in first class at that time. But if the pilot had brought all of the flight attendants into the cockpit by that point for like their safety, Tina would have been the only member of the flight crew to remain in the cabin. She was the only member of the flight crew in the cabin for a good amount of time. And Rice would have had no other person to question besides her. But either way, like the FBI never talked to any passenger wearing a cowboy hat and asked about his interaction

with Tina Mucklow and D.B. Cooper that day. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. So we're back. Another passenger on the plane, Robert Gregory, also remembered seeing Cooper that day. After it was announced that the plane was having mechanical difficulties and they'd have to circle the field to burn out fuel, he remembered seeing Tina sitting next to the passenger at the back of the plane. And although Tina had instructed him to not look at this passenger, Gregory had been able to sneak a peek twice. So he kept looking back at him. He described the man to be about 35 years of age with jet black wavy hair that had a patent leather sheen to it, combed back at a slight angle to the right, a slight part on the left, combed close to the head and slightly receding in the front. Now this is interesting because Gregory is the only person who describes D.B.

Cooper's hair to kind of have a shiny like sheen to it. And it almost feels, it makes me wonder like was D.B. Cooper's hair that dark or did he have some sort of like hair dye on or was it like a wig or a toupee or something that would have a kind of unnatural sheen to it you know what I mean you have to think this is premeditated and he's going on there with nothing but glasses on you're gonna do some things to alter your appearance now if you're not wearing a mask there's only so much you can do one of the things you can do is completely alter your hair color and it wouldn't be hard. You know, a couple bucks, you go buy some hair dye. For all we know, DB Cooper is a blonde. Right. It's that simple. So now all you have is really bone structure and that's it. And it is height and weight. That's not much. Dude, and like the sketches, they came out with a couple of sketches.

But the first one, they call it the Bing Crosby sketch. And I don't know if I'm a huge fan of like old movies. So it's funny to me because Bing Crosby looks like any guy you'd see on the street. You know, he looks like your uncle. He looks like your fifth grade math teacher. He looks like the guy at the grocery store who bags the groceries. He looks like just guy at the grocery store who bags the groceries he looks like just your every man and so so many of these sketches came out of db cooper just looking like a guy you would see

on the street like nothing really stood out about him yeah i'm sure that i mean i'm pretty sure that was by design for all we know like i said the guy was a blonde with a mustache most of the time but for this particular beard or something yeah a beard and but for this particular or something, yeah, or a beard. And for this particular occasion, he completely changed up his look knowing that, Hey, if I can get by for the first 20, 30 days with this money, my appearance is going to naturally change my hair. I can dye my hair back, grow my beard out. Now I'm never, and I'll never wear those glasses again. So I'll never fit the description of the person. So the only way they're going to get me is if they can figure out who I am. And I never gave him my ID and nobody knew me on that plane. So it's, it's, that's a difficult, that's a tough hill to climb. Yeah. But you know, they, they, they talk about

his complexion, right? They describe it as swarthy. So like darker, he could have even faked that he could have gotten a tan, you know, he could have gotten a tan specifically for that situation and never saw the sun again. We don't know. But because of his swarthy complexion, this passenger, Gregory, felt that Cooper might have been Caucasian, but also of maybe Mexican-American descent or possibly Native American descent because of his darker complexion. Gregory said he couldn't see Cooper's eyes because of his dark glasses, which had very dark horn rims, but the color of the suit did stand out. Gregory described it as being reddish brown. He said it was an unusual, almost russet color with wide lapels. Another passenger, Cord Spreckle, described Cooper almost completely different. He said he was white, about 50 years of age, which is like 10 years older than the other passengers thought he was,

with a medium or heavy build and a square jawline with dark brown or black hair parted on the left side. Yet another passenger, William Mitchell, described Cooper as having dark hair but a sagging chin. And he said that Cooper had a sack and a briefcase next to him that he kept putting his left hand in and out of, even though he appeared that Cooper had a sack and a briefcase next to him that he kept putting his left hand in and out of, even though he appeared otherwise to be pretty cool and casual. Now, William Mitchell, he was the college student, and he was sitting across the aisle from Cooper,

who, like I said, was in the middle seat of his aisle. And Mitchell didn't even notice Cooper until he allegedly spilled his drink. And so this is something that William Mitchell says, but nobody else really corroborates that Cooper spilled his drink. So so this is something that William Mitchell says, but nobody else really corroborates that Cooper spilled his drink. So it could be that William Mitchell saw it and no one else did. But I don't know if spilling your drink suggests a level of nervousness that maybe you're not betraying otherwise. No, I mean, yeah, I think it should be an accident, but you're saying this kid was in the same row just on the opposite side, right? Yes, he was sitting across the aisle from him.

Yeah. So I mean, if anybody else would see it would it'd be him nobody else even if you're in the front row or the back row behind him you wouldn't have access to that so i don't think he's wrong he's probably correct could have been something where because he's you know db cooper's trying to move things around on the you know with the with his bomb or his makeshift bomb which i'm sure we're going to get into whether that was real or not. But, um, yeah, he could have accidentally, I don't know if it was nerves, just more so kind of being a little clumsy, have it holding onto this briefcase, which has got a wire attached to it. And he's probably not trying to show off that the wires attached to it too early. He's waiting until he's going to expose that. So if he spilled

the drink, this was before he notified the flight attendants that he was hijacking the plane, right? This was after he notified the flight attendants. He notified the flight attendant as soon as they took off. So maybe he was a little nervous at this point then. Right. I think he was. But everybody, like all the flight attendants who talked to him, they're like, he was polite. He was cool.

He seemed relaxed. He didn't seem nervous at all. That doesn't mean nothing. Exactly. He could be just a mess. You'd still be nervous regardless, especially if you knew you were about to jump out of a plane, right? Right, yeah. And at this point, the passengers are still on the plane, so he doesn't know what's going to happen when they land.

Yeah, but see what I'm talking about? Like, cord sprocket is like, oh, Cooper has medium or heavy build and a square jawline. And most people described him as being pretty tall and thin. And then William Mitchell says he's got a sagging chin. William Mitchell's right across the aisle. So these are completely two different descriptions, like two different people. questioning, but in this case, it's going to be Mitchell who's going to have the better angle for a longer period of time and most likely going to give a more accurate description depending on where you're sitting. The first question I would ask is, well, how long did you see him? Oh, he walked by me as he was going to his seat. Okay. So you saw him for like a total of 30 seconds. Yeah. Well, Mitchell saw him the entire time before taking off and then obviously in the air before they moved. So.

Well, most of these passengers were like, we paid attention to him because of how close he was to the flight attendants because of the fact that they were sitting next to him and talking to him the whole time. This was like very odd. Like, you know, these passengers are used to being on planes that get hijacked, but they see a flight attendant sitting next to a passenger and they're like, what the hell's going on over here? Yeah. But even if they were though, they're still not going to have the best angle on them because as we know on planes, it's kind of hard to see anybody sitting in their seat, even if they're taller. So yeah, they could have been keeping an eye on the area because there's some commotion going on back there and the flight attendants are back there and you may be rubbernecking it a little bit to see what's going on. But overall, you still don't have a clear line of sight like Mitchell would have had.

So another passenger, Nancy House, she was three seats in front of Cooper. And she saw him basically right after they landed in Seattle. He stood up to use the restroom. He was in the bathroom for just one or two minutes. And Nancy saw that he was wearing an overcoat and dark sunglasses. He brought his briefcase into the bathroom with him. And when he exited, she saw that he also had a yellow paper bag on top of the briefcase that was just about four inches high, just about two inches shorter

than the briefcase. And she thought that the bag was made of cloth, very light yellow with a possible pink tinge to it. And this is once again, something that nobody really understands because in the FBI files and in even some of the passenger remembrances, he's got a brown paper bag. But some people remember the bag being yellow and made out of cloth. So it's like, what the heck was in this bag? Why did he have it? We know that the bomb was in the briefcase, but what was in this paper or cloth bag? We don't know.

OK, so you're saying the bag was above the briefcase handle, like he was walking around with the bag next to the handle of the briefcase? Or was it in the opposite hand? She said, Nancy said when he left the bathroom, the bag was on top of the briefcase. On top of it, like near the handles? Like probably sitting on top of it, yeah. Because something that was running through my mind as far as like handwriting analysis, I was also thinking about fingerprint analysis. You know, was he wearing gloves? Because his fingerprints are going to be everywhere.

You know, unless he's like not touching anything. Yo, he was not wearing gloves. Nobody described him as wearing gloves. But when the FBI literally 27 minutes after the plane lands, we're going to talk about it, but after the plane lands later in Reno, not in Seattle, when the plane lands in Reno, they come on, they dust for fingerprints. they don't find any of his fingerprints so he did something

he probably did clean it yeah probably clean the area with some type of solvent something like that he know you know knowing he's going on the plane for what he's going on there for making sure to touch very little as possible and maybe the handles or something he knows hey listen maybe that's why he spilled his drink man get that alcohol on there yeah yeah maybe that's what was in the bag so that's another thing what was in the bag we're going to talk about that because okay they were the fbi is always like oh yo this dude jumped out in a suit wearing like you know loafers impossible but it's like what if he had like different shoes or different clothes in the bag? Like, we don't know really what was going on there.

Yeah. And do we know for a fact he went to the bathroom to pee? We don't know what he was doing in the bathroom, but we know he went to the bathroom. Exactly. Personally, I was thinking when you said it, that'd be the worst time to go to the bathroom because now if someone's going to rush the plane, you're inside the bathroom. Yeah. So what was he going to the, what did he go into? Something important it must've been. You would think so to knowing, hey, listen, if I can get at this point, if I can get us back up in the air, I got to be ready to jump. I got to be ready to go. And now he's going to take this moment to do that, whatever that is. And

he clearly didn't want anybody else to see what he was doing. And he brought his briefcase in the bathroom with him. Oh, that's yeah. He has to, because obviously if he doesn't, they take the bomb. He's no longer a threat. Yeah. Right. He leaves it on the seat. You get a passenger or a stewardess who grabs it and goes, I got it. So DB Cooper's in the bathroom peeing and he, and the police were outside the door waiting for him. They got their bot, his bomb. And that would have been awkward pulling up his zipper as he's coming out. They're all standing there. Crisis averted. Yeah. He's like, oh, shit, I forgot the bomb. But he brought the paper bag or whatever, the cloth bag in there too.

Yeah. He was probably changing something. Something's in that bag. Yeah. Some type of preparation was going on there. Or did he have something stored in the bathroom? Who knows? I just don't know.

Yeah. So Tina Mucklow remained next to D.B. Cooper for almost the entire flight. She's considered to be the person who spent the most time with him and spoke to him the most. She remembered that at one point Cooper told her that the bomb he had was electrically fused and he hoped that the crew wouldn't generate any electrical current that might trigger it. For the most part, he remained calm throughout the flight. He chatted with Tina. He asked her where she was from. And, you know, she was like Pennsylvania. And he's like, oh, that's a good place. And then she asked where he was from. And he just wouldn't answer, obviously.

At one point, Tina asked Cooper, why had he picked the Northwest airline to hijack? And she said this question kind of made him chuckle. But he responded cryptically saying, quote, it's not because I have a grudge against your airline. It's just because I have a grudge against your airline. It's just because I have a grudge, end quote. According to Cooper, it was nothing personal. This specific flight simply suited his needs. As they flew into Washington state, Tina felt that Cooper was familiar with the area and the terrain. He identified Tacoma as they flew over it, even though there was no announcement that they were flying over Tacoma. And he even pointed out McCord Air Force Base, mentioning that they must be getting close because he knew that the Air Force Base was only a 20-minute drive to SeaTac Airport.

Tina said that Cooper was not nervous and he seemed rather nice and polite. He even offered her a cigarette at one point, which she accepted, even though she'd recently quit, which I can't blame you, girl. Take that cigarette. You don't know if it's going to be your last. Now, Cooper himself was chain smoking. He smoked eight cigarettes while he was aboard the plane. And it's so odd because he's very fastidious about taking a lot of physical evidence, but he leaves these eight cigarette butts in the ashtray on the plane. Seriously? just gave him all his credit and i got to get all back but but back then dna was not as prevalent you know i still probably wouldn't have left them but yeah i don't think they were matching cigarette butts to people's dna at that point and if they yeah no they definitely weren't no not no definitely

weren't and they didn't even know that it would ever be a thing. Become a thing. Right. So he's probably thinking fingerprints are a bigger deal than my saliva. Yeah. And Tina Mucklow remembered that he'd been smoking Raleigh filtered cigarettes. And at one time she lit a cigarette for him with the last match in the paper match folder she had. But when she tried to throw the empty match folder away, he took it from her and placed it into one of his pockets, stating he didn't want her to throw it out. Yeah, so somewhat cognizant of it,

but that also could again be back to the fingerprint concern, not necessarily DNA. It's more so the folder itself, if he had touched it. If he had touched it, yeah. Yeah, he's like, nope, can't have that there. So he was definitely conscious about fingerprints because they should have found something in his area. Even if it was smudge print, whatever it was,

they should have found more than they did. Allegedly they didn't. Yeah. So they did get DNA though. They did get DNA. We're going to talk about that next time, but they got DNA off his tie. They should have gotten DNA off the cigarette butts,

but they got lost. Which doesn't help the conspiracy cover-up people out there who truly believe that Cooper worked for the CIA and the FBI is covering it up. I'll tell you, I'm thinking at this point, I know we're about the halfway point, a little past the halfway point in this episode, I'm thinking this guy might have a familiarity with the airlines. Because even something you said, as far as I don't have a grudge necessarily, this airline, I just have a grudge. Could it be with the airline industry in general? Yeah.

Or the aviation industry in general. Yeah, something to go on there where it's like he was wrong in some sense, could have been like an accountant who was done wrong or something like that. Who knows? It doesn't have to necessarily be someone who was a a pilot but someone who was in that industry maybe let go for reasons they didn't agree with and figured hey you know what if i'm not going to get my money through the the the the legal ways i'm going to get it this way i'm going to take i'm going to i'm going to hit their wallets so the main theories are that this person was either in the military the air force um or worked for boeing or was like

a skilled parachutist i think it could be i think it could be a combination right i think it could be someone who's probably above could be prior military now working for boeing and was let go or something and i'm assuming if everything's on the up and up, those types of profiles were looked into by the FBI. I mean, listen, I'm not saying anything that's like- They had a thousand suspects. I'm not saying anything that hasn't been considered by people who are smarter than I am.

But I'm just saying that's like my initial thought. Oh, don't count yourself out, Derek. I'm pretty confident that there's some people within the FBI that are smarter than I am that would probably say, hey, maybe this guy had some parachute experience, whether it was prior military or recreationally. They said at first, like, oh, yeah, dude's like super skilled. But now they're like that idiot. He didn't know what he was doing. So it's just weird.

It's weird how they like change their tune. But well, they never found the parachute, right? Not the ones he took with them. OK, so we'll keep again i want to ask more but i know we got to get there but there's things that you would think you would find if you didn't make it so i agree with you man that's what i'm saying so we'll get there so listen as they're like circling the sea tack airport captain scott is talking to the people on the ground and he's like, okay, they have your

money and they have the parachutes. But then D.B. Cooper was like, nah, I don't want those parachutes because they'd brought him four military issue parachutes from McCord Air Force Base. And Cooper was like, no, I don't want those. I want four civilian chutes that have manually operated ripcords. Okay. So the Seattle Police Department then has to like before they even land, they got to go and find these parachutes. So they found two front reserve chutes from a local skydiving school and two main back chutes from a local stunt pilot. After they had those, Flight 305 landed at the Seattle Tacoma Airport at approximately 5.46 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, and Captain Scott parked the aircraft away from the main terminal on a partially lit runway.

Cooper had made his instructions very clear. No one should get near the plane except for one employee who would bring the money and the parachutes to the plane, and then he would send someone out to get the items. Al Lee, who was Northwest Orient's Seattle Operations Manager, was chosen for this task, and he actually changed out of his uniform and into civilian clothes so that Cooper wouldn't mistake him for law enforcement. Captain Scott from the cockpit asked the passengers to remain seated with their seatbelts fastened, and it was at this point that Cooper went into the bathroom for a minute. When he returned, he asked that the stairway at the front of the aircraft be lowered.

Now, this is cool because I had to learn about planes and stuff. But for some context, on the Boeing 727, this is a feature that sort of was unique to the 727. It not only had the front staircase where the passengers would get on and off, but the plane featured a rear staircase, or what they call aft stairs. And these stairs deployed under the tail of the aircraft. So airlines would use these rear stairs on the 727 when the craft would park at a remote ramp or when a stair car wasn't available. There's only one issue with the aft stairs. They could be opened when the aircraft was in flight. Unlike other doors on the 727, there was no mechanical preventative in place to stop the aft stairs or the back door from being opened while in flight and the aft stairs from being lowered while in flight.

And because the stairs were at the rear of the plane, under like the tail, the door could open without fighting against the wind. Actually, it's like the safest and best place to jump from the aircraft. So I almost wonder when he said this flight just suited my needs, did he mean because it was a 727? I think that's a fair assumption. I'm sitting here thinking the same thing. Again, I think everybody's probably, there's some familiarity here where either A, he previously worked for the airline or B, because he was going to hijack a plane, he did some research, right? It could be that simple too, because this information,

although specific to a certain industry, was probably also accessible if you picked up some books about planes and how they were built. Again, it's not as accessible as the internet, but there's resources at that time where you could probably learn a lot about the different types of planes without being someone who worked for Boeing. So that's where my head goes to. This is knowledge that could come from either place. You would think easy answer, oh, he worked for Boeing. But I would say that if this person's planning something as elaborate as this, they would have taken some time to kind of plan out their strategy, their plan of their attack, and would have researched what plane would be the most advantageous for jumping out of. I don't know. How are they going to research that?

It's not like the internet. Like you'd have to have like plane manuals and stuff where it's not like easily accessible. I think it's probably more accessible than you think to get access to those types of manuals or to those types of descriptions on how those planes are built, what they're how they're the structure of it as far as the where the stairs are located. Because I think back then a lot of this was out there because they wanted to brag about their planes and how big they were and what the features were that each one had. And yeah, it's not as accessible as internet, but I think libraries, different things, aviation schools, different things where you could go and find out about these specific types of planes, especially something you would do if you're going to hijack one of them. I'm just saying, I feel like sometimes not saying anything specific, but yeah, it's an option, but I do feel like, you know, they always say like Occam's razor. It's got to be the simple one, right? Like he has knowledge about this plane.

He must've worked for the plane industry. Yeah. Yeah. Captain obvious. Yeah. That's a possibility. But I think the reason that sometimes these cases go unsolved is because the simple answer isn't the answer.

And there could be something where this guy appears, like even for example, when you were talking about the parachutes, right? This is just how my brain works. And I'm sure I'm not the only one, but you hear him specifically requesting a civilian style parachute, right? So I'm sure a lot of people's minds go to, okay, this guy has got to be someone who learned how to parachute recreationally, because if he's paramilitary, he's going to want a military style parachute because that's what he's familiar with, right? The fact that he's requesting the civilian style parachute, one that can be manually pulled,

means that he's had some training on that. Therefore, suggesting he's a civilian who learned how to parachute after the fact. I would argue it could be a military guy who specifically asked for a civilian one because he knew how to use both, but he wanted to throw them off and he didn't want them looking for a guy who had previous military experience. So whatever, pick your poison. And that's, that's the way you got to look at it. Like you got to think outside the box because whatever they've tried to do up to this point to solve this case, either there's just not enough or they're following the wrong scent. With that being said, let's take our last break. We'll be right back.

Okay, we're back. So Tina Mucklow remembered that when the forward door stairway was attached, Cooper told her to go out and get the money and the parachutes. Now at that time, she saw that the fuel truck had already pulled up and it was already working on refueling the plane. She retrieved the bag of money from Al Lee, who was parked in a vehicle near the aircraft, and she returned to the plane with the bag of money. Cooper inspected the money inside, and once he seemed satisfied, he told Tina that the rest of the passengers could go ahead and get off the plane. As this was happening, you know, when the passengers were filing off, Tina remained standing next to Cooper's seat. And in an attempt to, like, keep things light, she cracked a joke. And she was like, hey, look at all that money. I wonder if I can get some. And Cooper immediately pulled out a stack of $20 bills held together with a rubber band,

and he handed it to her. Tina thanked him, but then she returned the money to him, stating that it was the airline's policy that flight attendants were not allowed to accept tips. And this was actually something that Cooper had been told by several of the other flight attendants during the flight because he had tried to tip them more than once. And they'd all said, no, we can't take it. And they cited the airline's policy. After the passengers were all off the plane, Cooper told Tina to go and get the parachutes, which she did. But she said, you know, these are huge parachutes, so I can only bring them in one by one. Now, it's interesting because while Tina was doing this, all the other flight crew were in

the cockpit and they could have like gotten off the plane while Tina was outside of the plane getting the parachutes and they could have like escaped and been off the plane. And, you know, even the captain later said, like, I guess there was like opportunities for us to get away, but we just didn't, you know, we don't know why, but we didn't. I think sometimes that happens when you're in a stressful situation. You're not thinking as clearly and things you wouldn't normally do can happen. And that just might be the simple explanation about it. It's just you're concerned.

This person, I mean, we're talking about it now in hindsight. But you believe in that moment that this individual who's maybe 20 feet away from you has a bomb that if he decides to touch a wire together is going to kill you instantly and everything you know and love is gone. I mean, he's definitely not 20 feet away from them. He's there in the cockpit at the front of the plane. It's a 727 and he's all the way at the back. So what would you, would it be better if I say 50 feet? I don't know. I'm not good with like distances. Well, you're calling me out on measurements so what would i know it's not 20 feet because i know i'm five foot four okay so like four of me laying on the ground toe to toe to like head would not be the length of a 727 that is fair so do you want to go would you like to go with 60 feet would that make you feel better if that's accurate sure it's fine i can if he's

got six sticks of dynamite on a plane full of fuel, 20 feet, 200 feet, if he pulls that, if he lights that thing up, you're blinking and you're gone. So I'm sure they're thinking if this guy just changes his tune or has a sense that he's about to be captured, we could all be dead. And I'm sure that's the number one priority on their mind. And so you can make mistakes, things that would be perfectly normal for you and I under that situation. I've seen situations where all someone has to do is unlock the door to get out and they freeze. They can't think. They don't think about it.

I mean, I wouldn't be trying to escape. I'm just telling you what they said. I'm not going to be trying to escape. No, I'm going to sit there and I'm going to follow. Especially because these pilots and these flight crews are basically to like be completely compliant with hijackers. Right. So there's nothing in them. They're useless.

A lot of this has happened before. So protocol is just let them get what they want and nobody's going to get hurt. Yeah. And there's nothing in them that's going to like push against that at this point. So Tina goes out and she gets the first parachutes. And from what I can understand, these are parachutes are pretty large and it it's like a chute inside of like a book bag, almost kind of thing. So she brings on the first parachute. And after she did that, Cooper instructed her to lower all the shades on the plane's windows that were in his section of the aircraft,

which she did before going back out and bringing the rest of the parachutes to him, along with printed instructions on how to use the parachutes, which he claimed he did not need. As Cooper inspected the four parachutes, Tina asked him, you know, what is our next destination? Because at this point, Cooper hadn't given instructions on where they were going to fly next. And she claims that Cooper told her, like, don't worry, we're not going to Havana,

which is in Cuba, if anybody didn't know. He said, but we are going to go to a pleasant place. And then he instructed her to tell the pilots to fly nonstop to Mexico City or anywhere in Mexico. But he wanted them to do this with all of the cabin lights turned off, with the landing gear still down, with the flaps of the plane still down, and they should not fly over 10,000 feet in altitude. Cooper also indicated that he wanted the plane to be flying very slowly, at 205 miles per hour, and he wanted them to take off with the rear door open and the aft stairs extended. Now, at this point, flight attendant Alice Hancock

asked Cooper if they were allowed to leave, to which he reportedly responded, whatever you girls would like, at which point both Alice and Florence Schaffner got off the plane, leaving Tina Mucklow, Captain William Scott, First Officer William Radicek, and flight engineer Harold Anderson remaining on the plane with Cooper. Soon after giving his instructions for how they would need to take off, you know, with all like don't fly over 10,000 feet and fly very slow and have the back door open and the aft stairs down. Captain Scott was like, it's not possible to take off with the back door open and the aft stairs down. It's not possible or safe. And Cooper responded, quote,

it can be done. Do it. End quote. And this would later suggest to law enforcement that Cooper had some knowledge on the Boeing 727, and he knew there were no measures in place to prevent the door from being opened during flight or to prevent the plane from flying with the door and the stairs down. Now, eventually, it was decided by Cooper. Basically, he didn't want to argue about it. They were like, we really can't do that. He's like, whatever, just freaking fly, and I'll open the door and lower the stairs once we're in the air. And he wanted Tina Mucklow to stay on board and in the cabin with him to assist him with this.

But he wanted the rest of the flight crew to remain in the cockpit and never enter the cabin. So basically it's like everyone else at the front in the cockpit and just Tina and D.B. Cooper in the back of the cabin. Yeah. Why do you think that was? Well, because he doesn't want them to like rush him and shit. Rush him, but also throw him out. Well, throw him out. But I think also just less people to kind of pinpoint where he's going to jump out at.

So they could be flying for another 30, 40 minutes, not realizing he's already gone. Well, he's not going to let Tina stay in the cabin while he jumps. No, no doubt. That's what I'm saying. So he's got one person back there. But he doesn't want them back there because he opens the door and before he has a chance

maybe to like even get the parachute on or deploy it, they're like, pew, you know, pew. Yeah. She made a put

for anyone on audio. She just made like a pushing gesture. But yeah, he definitely wants people to be a little bit more in the dark, if you will,

on when he makes his leap so that they may fly for another 20, 30 minutes before realizing he's gone. And now when they're questioned by the FBI later, where did he jump? Honestly, we do not know. He might have jumped five minutes after takeoff. We don't know. That's his advantage. Because that's a long way if they're flying to Mexico City from Seattle, that's a lot of land.

A lot of land to cover, yeah. Yeah, basically, you know, yeah, almost the entire country from north to south. So they got some time. Well, for the entirety of this incident, right, Cooper had acted cool as a cucumber, but when they're on the ground in Seattle, there was some delays in refueling the plane, and he kind of became agitated and impatient, and this was the first

time that anybody noticed him cracking a little bit. The FBI report states, quote, the hijacker displayed an extensive knowledge of the aircraft and seemed specifically well-informed in refueling procedures to the point that the crew had difficulty convincing him that only 96% of their required fuel was on board at the time he was protesting the fact that refueling had not been completed, end quote. During this time, Cooper also complained to Tina that the money had been delivered to him in like a cloth bank type bag instead of the knapsack that he'd requested. Cooper stated that he was annoyed by this and he would now have to use one of the parachutes to rewrap the money. Once the plane had been refueled, the crew in the cockpit notified Cooper through the intercom that they'd been advised that the fuel load would

not permit them to fly nonstop to Mexico City or anywhere in Mexico for that matter, and they would need to stop again to refuel. They recommended the San Francisco area, but Cooper came back and he was like, what about Phoenix? So the crew's like, okay, we can go to Yuma, Arizona, or we can go to Reno, Nevada. And Cooper's like, let's go to Reno. So the plane took off from Seattle, headed for Reno at the time of takeoff, which was around 7.40 PM Pacific Standard Time. Tina Mucklow said that Cooper was seated in 18D and she was across the aisle in 18C. And at that time, Tina Mucklow said that Cooper was seated in 18D and she was across the aisle in 18C. And at that time, he was preoccupied with opening one of the parachute packs, trying to figure out a way that he could pack the money into a parachute container and then attach it to his body with

parachute straps. She saw him remove a small knife from his pocket, which you wouldn't be allowed to bring on the plane today, and he was cutting some portion of either the outside of the parachute container or the parachute itself. Now, once the plane was in the air, Cooper instructed Tina to open the rear door and extend the aft stairs, but Tina was afraid to do this. She told him she didn't want to be sucked out of the plane. She asked if she could retrieve the emergency rope from the cockpit to tie around herself and secure herself to one of the seats, but Cooper did not want her going to the cockpit. Instead, he offered to cut one of the parachute shroud lines, and he said they could use that to secure her to the inside of the plane.

Now, he was saying this as he continued to work on securing the money to his body with the parachute that she described as being orange or pink. So it wasn't actually the parachute that he was using. He was cutting the lines that attach the parachute to like the book bag part and then using those lines to like tie it, tie the money to him. And I almost wonder like how exactly was that going to work? But it looks like he took several lines. We're going to talk about that in a minute. Now, either way, it does seem like this guy has an extensive knowledge of parachutes and skydiving, because if you feel comfortable to touch something that you may need, I mean, I know he has the other parachutes, but it's one of those things where- His three other parachutes besides that, yeah.

The ability to navigate through that, know what's inside of it, know what you may potentially use inside the backpack as cordage or whatever, that's a knowledge about that before. And again, it could be just good preparation, just like learning about the plane, or there can be some familiarity because of past experiences, whether that's military or recreation. Either way, this guy, he knows his way around a parachute. So Cooper then asked Tina to show him how to open the rear door and how to put the upstairs down. And later, Tina recalled this was the only function of the plane that she could remember discussing with him, the only thing he didn't seem to be fully clear on how to do.

The FBI file stated, quote, She stated that as a matter of fact, he'd even shown knowledge of where the oxygen bottles were located at an earlier time, which information she felt is normally known only to air crew personnel. While she could not recall specifically, she stated there were several other comments he had made, which indicated to her that he had an extensive technical knowledge of this particular type of aircraft and perhaps aircraft and flying in general. She also comments that he appeared to be completely familiar with the parachutes which had been furnished to him, end quote. Yeah, that's exactly what we're saying.

Yeah. But then the FBI later, they're like, nah, he don't know shit. But like, it's so weird that they say that because the FBI is like very vehement that he didn't survive. But I think there's some evidence that he did. I think the bottom line is this. If they can't prove it, they can't say he didn't survive because we found this, we found that, we found a body, whatever it may be, then there's no way they can be 100% certain that you didn't survive. You even think about with Alcatraz. Dude, no, I completely agree. With Alcatraz, they did the same shit, the FBI and the warden of

Alcatraz. They're like, oh, it can't be done. It can't be done. Yes, it can be done. People do it every single year. Multiple people did it before. Multiple people did it after, like swim from Alcatraz and make it to shore. But they want us to believe that these three prisoners just didn't make it and they died. But I know that those three prisoners made it off of the rock. I know they did. It was only about five minutes after takeoff that Cooper told Tina she could go. He wanted her to go to the first class cabin, shut the curtains behind her, and then go to the cockpit, closing and locking the door behind her.

She was not to return to the cabin, and none of the other crew were to leave the cockpit or enter the cabin either. Tina asked if Cooper could defuse the bomb before he left the plane, and he told her not to worry. He would either take it with him or disarm it before his departure. Because Tina spent the most time with D.B. Cooper,

let's quickly look at the physical description she would give the FBI. Tina said he was a white male in his mid-40s. He stood between 5'10 and 6'0", weighed between 180 to 190 pounds, and he was well-built. He had dark brown hair with sideburns partially past his ears. His hair was parted and combed back. She described his complexion as medium and smooth, and he wore dark rimmed wraparound glasses with black frames which concealed his eyes the entire time. He was wearing a dark trench coat, a brown suit and brown shoes, and a black tie. Tina remembered looking back as she closed the first class curtain, and she saw Cooper standing in the aisle, and a black tie. Tina remembered looking back as she closed the first-class curtain, and she saw Cooper standing in the aisle,

tying what appeared to be a bag of money around his waist. The plane had departed from Seattle at around 7.36 p.m., and at approximately 8.05 p.m., the cockpit used the intercom to communicate with Cooper once Tina was safely with them. William Ratajk asked Cooper if there was anything he needed from them, and Cooper responded with one word, no, that is the last thing he would say to the crew in the cockpit.

At that point, the flight crew figured that Cooper would just be on the plane until Reno, but as they approached the Reno airport, they tried to communicate with Cooper again to inform him of their descent, but they got no response. At 11.02 p.m., Flight 305 landed at Reno Tahoe International Airport, and they were greeted by multiple law enforcement agents from the FBI and local police who had formed a perimeter around the plane, not daring to get close for fear that Cooper might detonate the bomb on board if he felt threatened. The pilot

continued trying to contact Cooper in the cabin for a little while, but after receiving no response, Captain Scott went into the cabin to find it empty, the back door open, and the aft stairs still down. D.B. Cooper had jumped out of the plane at some point between Seattle and Reno, but when had he done it? Well, the flight crew thought they might have a clue. They reported that around 8 p.m., a light in the cockpit had gone off, notifying them that the aft stairs had been lowered, and it was at this time that the crew felt their ears pop due to a drop in cabin pressure. When Captain Scott entered the cabin later, it was completely depressurized and the temperature had dropped to 7 degrees below zero. At 8.13 p.m., the crew heard and felt an oscillation or an unusual vibration of the aircraft. The plane's tail section pitched upward quickly, but there'd been no change in flight

altitude, speed, or any other external force that would have caused this sudden vibration and movement of the plane. The crew believed that they'd been over Portland when this happened, but over a suburb of Portland. But how accurate is that? We honestly don't know, and everyone has their theories. There is a big controversy amongst D.B. Cooper investigators, not only about where Cooper jumped, but what flight path the plane took in general. Now, it seems like the official location is somewhere in what is called the Dark Divide, the largest roadless area in western Washington state, which is made up of approximately 76,000 acres of intact wilderness on Juniper Ridge. Now, this sounds like a scary enough place to jump into, not knowing whether you would land in one of the trees or in any of

the multiple bodies of water that lay beneath, including the Lewis River. But add to that that it was pitch black and the weather had taken a turn for the worst. The storm had started picking up as Flight 305 circled for hours over Seattle. And by 8 p.m., Cooper would have been faced with thick clouds at 5,000 feet, making it impossible to see where he was going. And he was jumping into heavy rain and snowstorms. It's believed that Cooper, if he had survived this jump, would have ended up somewhere in the hilly or mountainous terrain of southwestern Washington, right in the middle of an extended rain or snowstorm. Weather data from Stampede Pass, which is located in central Washington, probably about 100 miles north of where Cooper ended up, it showed steady snowfall on November 24th, 1971, and this snowfall continued for four days after. If he'd landed in higher elevations, he would have faced a snowstorm. If he landed in lower elevations, he would have faced

incessant rain, and he would have done this allegedly wearing a suit and loafers and a thin trench coat. After leaving Seattle, the plane that Cooper had hijacked was followed from a distance by two F-106 fighter jets from McCourt Air Force Base and a Lockheed T-33 trainer. All three planes maintained S-flight patterns to stay behind the slow-moving 727 while still remaining out of Cooper's view, but none of these planes witnessed him jumping out of the 727, and their radar didn't detect the presence of a deployed parachute. Some speculate this is because Cooper's parachute never opened. Unbeknownst to him, there was an issue with one of the parachutes. According to Special Agent Larry Carr of the FBI's Seattle Field Office,

quote, we originally thought Cooper was an experienced jumper, perhaps even a paratrooper. We concluded after a few years this was simply not true. No experienced parachutist would have jumped into the pitch black night in the rain with 200 mile per hour wind in his face wearing loafers and a trench coat. It was simply too risky. He also missed that his reserve chute was only for training and had been sewn shut. Something a skilled skydiver would have checked. End quote. Well, I have so many thoughts on this. So many thoughts on this.

All right, well, give it to me. So first off, I'm thinking about those movies where, like, have you ever seen Inside Man? Dan's Out Washington? Yeah. Yeah. Right. So I don't think this happened, but imagine if DB Cooper had set it up to look like he jumped from the plane, but in fact he had created a void within the plane because he

was so knowledgeable of it where he could hide himself once the plane was on the ground. Dude, I thought the same thing. Okay, so I guess I'm not too crazy. And then just like, but there was like law enforcement that formed a perimeter around the plane.

Right. I don't think it happened, but there's a couple of things. The FBI is so certain that he didn't make it. Could it be because they had sabotaged all the parachutes in some way? And they don't want to say that. As soon as they,

as soon as the parachute actually, you wouldn't know until the parachute was completely pulled out and then realize it's not even attached or there's a big hole in it. And that's where they're like, yeah, he didn't make it. We can promise you that.

Or let's say that's not the scenario. They say, oh, he would, a trained paratrooper would have known like this, the training bag was sewn shut. Well, we already know. You had mentioned it. He had a knife on him. So maybe he cut the thing that was sewn shut so that it would be operable.

Duh. You know what I mean? It could have still been used. He might have altered it to make it usable. You don't know. So, I mean, it's just- What kind of training parachutes are sewn shut anyways? What kind of training is this?

You're trained how to die? Yeah, I mean, and now- What is that about? Maybe they could say. And now the training parachute doesn't even have a parachute in it. Then obviously that holds true. But, you know, as far as the planes behind the... But he had four parachutes all day and he only cut one open to use the cords. That leaves him with three parachutes. And when they talk about the parachutes, this is the most confusing thing to me. And maybe somebody can clear it up for me. I spent an hour today trying to figure out where's this other parachute because he jumped allegedly with only two and he left one on the plane. But how do they know he only jumped with two and not three? And where is that other parachute that they just never talk about? I'm

confused. Yeah, it must be something we're missing there. But I don't want you would think but I looked everywhere man. I would also think as far as the planes behind them not seeing him jump. I mean, I'm sure they could see the stairs were open. You would like to think they had an eye on that, but yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, he's not on the plane. I don't think he was on the plane. So yeah, he could have jumped out and it's possible parachute never opened and he splattered somewhere. But then, you know, you would think they'd be able to recover that knowing the area they'd be able to find human remains or a parachute or something resembling a parachute over these years. Nobody ever has. Nobody ever has. Which suggests maybe that's because he made it and he disposed of all those items.

Well, they say, like, we're going to talk about this next time, but they say they think he landed in water. But still, you would think. still well that's the easy explanation right but yeah but still you would think he's got like two at least two parachutes on him and if he if he landed in water with the parachute it would be open you'd find the parachute somewhere or if he landed in the water and the parachute didn't open like yeah maybe he would die but still those parachutes would some somehow wash up. You would think. Yeah. If he made it, let's say, like you said, if the parachute opened and he was in the water and no way to stay afloat for a long period of time, he might have drowned. But you don't think he got to this point yet, but he jumped out of

the plane with the money, right? Yeah. So you think you'd find at least a couple of bills somewhere floating around, right? So they did. think you'd find at least a couple bills somewhere floating around, right? So they did. Okay. Let me not get ahead. I don't want to spoil. I'm stealing your thunder. Let me shut up. Just keep going. I'm sorry. So when FBI agents boarded the plane, I think it was like 27 minutes after it landed in Reno, they found a pink parachute along with its open green canvas reserve container, which is like, I believe, a book bag kind of thing. The reserve container was located at the back of the plane, and it was found directly in front of seat 18D. The pink parachute was one row in front, spread out over seats 17C and 17B.

This parachute was a 24-foot ripstock type, and it was one of the two chest chutes delivered to Cooper that day. All 24 of the shroud or suspension lines had been cut out of the reserve container, freeing the entire canopy, but several of the shroud lines had been cut from the canopy and removed from the aircraft altogether. And most likely, these were the lines that Cooper had used to tie the money to his person. So from what I can understand, like I said, Cooper had two back parachutes, two chest parachutes. He left one of the chest parachutes and the green bag that it came in behind. And he jumped with two parachutes, including the one that was reportedly used for training purposes and had been sewn shut. That's what the FBI website says. Where's that fourth parachute? They don't talk about the fourth parachute. Well, wasn't there one?

So there's one he left, maybe the one that he cut up for the stewardess to use as to lock herself in. That was the same one. That's the same one? That he cut up to tie. Because, yeah. That's the one he left. Yeah. They only found one parachute and one bag that's parachute abandoned.

But they're saying he only jumped off with two. They say he jumped off with two. And one was the- How would they know how many he jumped off with? I don't know. And they never say anything about that fourth. So I must be missing something or something's going on here. But what the heck?

Yeah, for them, no, he only jumped off with two. That means the other two are accounted for. I know we don't have it here tonight. Maybe throughout the series, someone's going to weigh down in the comments below, but if there was four- I really hope they do. There's a reason why they're saying he only jumped off with two. Yeah. But even if he had only two, right?

Right. And one of them was the one sewn shot, that means he still has another one. That works. That works. Supposedly the front one, the other one was a reserve parachute. That was a training one. So the main parachute- The main back parachute should have worked. That was a training one. So the main parachute, if that works, you don't need- The main back parachute should have worked. Yeah, you don't need the reserve.

Yeah. And technically, where's that other back parachute? Because they never talk about it. They talk about the reserve one that they found on the plane. Right. And the one that he took with them, the other reserve one that was like sewn shut. Well, can I ask you this? Did he possibly use one parachute to tie the money to him and another parachute for her?

Or is it the same parachute that he kind of dissected for both purposes? The same parachute. And they never ended up using anything for her because she didn't end up opening the door. Yeah, she didn't go to the cockpit. She was scared. Yeah. Yep. Okay.

Something we'll have to figure out. I'm sure by the end of this series, we're going to have that answer. I looked for an hour today and like, I don't know. I must be mad. It was really frustrating to me, honestly. So we'll find it. This led the FBI to believe that DB Cooper's parachute had never opened, which is why the planes following him never saw it, you know, because if the parachute opened, it was a light color that would have been more visible and large than just like him in a dark suit. And, you know, the parachute opening never registered

on the plane's radar. And the FBI says basically he plummeted to his death. However, nine years later, an eight-year-old boy digging a bonfire on the banks of the Columbia River would uncover three packets of $20 bills. All three were neatly tied together with rubber bands. And it would be discovered that this money, $5,800 in all, matched serial numbers of ransom money given to D.B. Cooper. But the discovery of this money 18 miles away from Cooper's suspected landing zone would only deepen the mystery. And it would prove to many that Cooper made it to the ground alive. And the money thing, they've done so much testing on it, is so interesting to me. I can't wait to talk about it because they tested like the algae. And basically, basically the way it looks is the FBI, we're going to talk about this more when we get into

it next episode, but the FBI has this theory that he landed in the river, the Lewis River, and died. And then the money washed up to the Columbia River and then some of it embedded in the banks. But the way the money was preserved and the way that it was found and the physical evidence on it would suggest that it hadn't been in the water for that long. And so it's just, it's really cool. It's really cool. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it I mean, I think you can go either way with it, right? I think it's something where you could easily say Whether he survived or not. He hit the he hit the water at a high rate of speed some big impact

He might have been injured and the money however tied up it was i'm sure he had it done nicely Uh, it came off of his body because obviously when he's landing he's hoping not to lose any of the money He needs that right? So that's his number one priority. Well, number one is to live. But secondly is to make sure you keep all the money intact. You don't want to just lose bundles of money. I don't know how much a bundle would have been. Probably a couple grand at least.

It's $5,800, those three bundles together. Okay, six grand. That's a lot of money back then. So it's one of those things where those are the three you found. So you have to assume there were more initial thought would be oh okay well if you found it in the water near where he alleged where he would have landed and it's it's a if i had to guess i would say that's probably suggested that he didn't make it but you could also argue that he threw a couple in there to you know throw people off to make them think that he passed

away he was willing to give the flight attendant money just because she asked. So obviously he had some measure of loss in his head where he was like, hey, I'm not going to make it with all this money. However that may be, I'm going to lose some of this money in the process and that's okay. So you could look at it any way you want. And obviously we're going to get into the science of it, which may sway you one way or the other. we'll see but i am so glad we're covering this because this is this is fun it's fascinating too it's fun this is a cool mystery and it's like like we could talk for hours right now but even i keep going back to the planes that were behind behind it like when you see skydivers as soon as they jump out of the plane they like the plane keeps going and

they like fly behind it because obviously the plane is still moving when they jump. So to think like these, they're going about 200 miles an hour. These jets are following behind. I don't know how close they are, but everyone's moving at 200 miles an hour. So when you jump out of the plane, you're going to go down and you're going to go behind those aircraft. So it's not like you're all moving in unison. Unless you, unless you fall without opening your parachute yet. Right. That's what I'm saying. If you fall, you're going to, you're going to fall, but you're still not moving this way, 200 miles an hour. So if you jump out of the back of the plane, your body, yeah, you're still going, but the jets are all being propelled

by the engine. So they're going to continue moving at that rate of speed. When you jump out, you're going to go, they're going to go right past you. You follow what I'm saying? Like, they're still going to, they're going to, you could actually get struck by one of them. So as soon as you jump, if they don't notice you immediately, it's going to go, if you're watching on video here, it's easier to kind of explain, but you're going to go down and they're going to go right over you because they're still, they're not slowing down for you. So within a second or two, you're going to be behind even the trailing planes. Yeah.

So if he holds on even extra 30 seconds. I think they were a little further back than that. Let's say he holds out a minute or two until he looks up and sees that the planes are past him. Pulls it. Just gives him an extra minute or two. If he's a trained parachute guy, he knows, hey, he jumps out. He can see them. They might not be able to see him

he sees them they're by him he pulls it he lands simple or like they suggest he jumped out pulled the cord nothing happened but then when he pulled the other cord from the well there's a parachute there's a potential that he didn't notice it was sewn which that doesn't seem likely based on how prepared he appeared to be and he plane. Yeah. And he examined the parachutes. Yeah. And he had a knife. So if he had a knife and I'm sure he was planning on them trying to sabotage these parachutes to some degree. And also I would argue it's kind of a risky move because there's a concern that he's got the two sets of parachutes, one for him, one for a hostage so that nobody goes after him. Well,

if he puts that faulty parachute on the hostage, you just killed her. So I don't know if they would make, I don't know what was the rationale going on there, but it seems like they might have accidentally given him a training parachute. You think that they would have checked the parachutes before giving them to him, right? Well, they had to have, right? How would they know that he had a training parachute on? Because he took it with him. Well, allegedly they figured it out after. Okay. Yeah. All right. But you'd think that they would have inspected them because now you're, if you're going to give him that knowingly, right? Like you run the risk of him being pissed and just like detonating that

bomb. A hundred percent. Right. A hundred percent agree with you. It just seems like they accidentally gave him that parachute. So I don't even know if dude had a training parachute or if that's just something, right? That's just something they're saying to make us feel. I feel like D.B. Cooper knew more about the parachutes than the people handing them to him. Right. Like that's just something they're saying to us so that we're like, oh yeah, he didn't make it, you know? Yeah. Because I think they're sick of hearing about it. I don't think there's any grand cover up or grand conspiracy. I think things like this and things like Alcatraz and stuff like that make the

authorities look stupid. And so they just don't like to focus on them that much. Happens to all, including me. You don't want to get beat. It's a chess match. And there's a real possibility he beat them. This idiot had a training parachute and he didn't even know. So he's dead and he didn't get the best of us. When that might not even

be true honestly i agree and everyone's got an opinion right doesn't they can't all be accurate but if he dies and he lands on the ground or in water something's gonna be found right oh and i didn't even tell you so when the oh shit i wish i had this like i put it in the next video, but when the aft door opened, a placard from the plane flew off, basically like a warning placard. And it was like, you know, don't jump, don't fly with these down. And that warning placard was found a few years later by like a farmer in Washington state somewhere. I'll give you better details next time. But that kind of shows you like it can land on

land, like these things could have landed on land. He probably did land on land. He probably knew to some extent where he was jumping when he did it. And that goes to show you that the light in the cockpit went off around eight to show that the door was open and the stairs were lowered. But it wasn't until about 10, you know, 15 minutes later that the change in pressure happened or that like feeling that vibration with the tail pitching and stuff happened. So it seems like he kind of stood out there for a minute trying to get his bearings. Makes sense. I agree.

Fascinating stuff. Can't wait for part two. Hope everyone likes it. If you guys like what you're hearing, like, comment, subscribe. Let us know what you think down below and especially if you have any idea about this fourth parachute. Let me know about the parachute, man. Because

Stephanie's going to lose sleep over that. I am losing sleep over it. I looked everywhere. Everywhere. Someone's going to find it. And they kept saying the same thing and it was almost like purposeful where like every website I found that talked about the parachutes used this wording that it almost made me feel like sure there were four parachutes are we sure they didn't just give them three they give them four yeah she brought four on two front two back

yeah but like the way that every website worded it and every like news source worded it it was almost like they didn't know either but they didn't want to like say that they didn't know so they worded it in like this weird way where I was like, wait, what? It was like this like weird circular kind of like speak with the way they talked about it. And I was like, wait, what? That doesn't make any sense.

Somebody had to address it with all these people looking into it. Someone had to ask the same question as you. Dude. I mean, I spent time on Reddit forums. I spent time on like, I was looking. So I would love for somebody to tell me,

and I know that you guys will. I know they want to be well. Oh yeah, someone's going to find it. Someone's going to find it. Well, we appreciate you guys joining us. As we said at the beginning of the show, a little last minute plug, Detective Perspective. If you didn't already, please go over on whatever platform, if it's audio or video, subscribe to the channel. You can leave a review already. You can probably do all that by this point. Probably going to have the trailer up on there as well. So if you're listening on audio and it's Friday or Saturday, July 23rd comes out at midnight East Coast time. Two episodes are going to drop. If you're watching on YouTube right now, tonight, East Coast time, stay up, check out an episode.

Let me know what you think. I really want to hear your feedback. Yeah, stay up. Wait, let me know what you think because I can tell you, I will be on there as Stephanie can attest to looking at the comments. I've spent so much time on the show. I really hope that it shows when you watch it. I mean, you know how much time, money and effort I put into this. So we will see the proof is in the pudding. If you leave negative comments, I'm going to come for your asses. Blocking everyone. They already accused us of doing that, even though, never mind. I'll have no comments on the video and you'll know why. Everyone's blocked.

You'll have no comments on the video. No, no, power of positive thinking. It's only Monday when we're recording this, but I'm putting myself in the mind of Sunday right now and I'm waiting. It's Tuesday now. It's Tuesday. Yeah, and it's Tuesday. That's normal for us.

But always, we appreciate you guys being here. Appreciate the support. We'll see you next week for part two. Everyone stay safe out there. Have a good night. Bye.