Infamous America - DB COOPER Ep. 4 | “Conspiracy Theories”

Episode Date: July 29, 2020

Host Chris Wimmer interviews the writer of the D.B Cooper series, Jamie Lyko. They add more detail to the story of the money found in the sand bar; they analyze a new suspect; and they discuss theories of how Cooper might have survived the jump and escaped detection. Join Black Barrel+ for early access and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the final chapter of our series on D.B. Cooper. In this episode, I interview the writer of the story, Jamie Leiko. We're going to add some detail about the money that was found in the sandbar by Brian Ingram. And we're going to add another suspect to the list. And of course, we're going to talk about a couple theories. Before we get started, we're going to pay homage to D.B. Cooper by toasting a glass of his favorite beverage. So here we go. Here's my interview with Jamie Lyko. Okay, so the first thing we want to do here is set up for the listeners what might have been and then what is.

And there's a reason for doing this. So initially when we wanted to do this interview, it was going to be in Hermosa Beach, California. For those of you listening internationally, maybe you've never been to California or the Los Angeles area. Hermosa Beach is one of the probably three main beach communities leading south from Los Angeles toward Orange County. It's a fantastic place. and we were going to sit on the patio, the outdoor patio of this amazing house in Hermosa Beach, California, and look out over the Pacific Ocean, probably in the late afternoon. It's sunset, and we were going to have cocktails out there.

We're going to have a beverage that we're going to talk about in a second, and it was going to be this whole thing. Now, of course, with the circumstances of 2020 right now, that wasn't possible. So we're doing this interview virtually through the miracle of the World Wide Web. and so I am in my place in Phoenix, Arizona. Jamie is in his place in Los Angeles, but we do still have that beverage here with us that we were going to drink in honor of D.B. Cooper. We're just not, unfortunately,

sitting on an amazing patio in Hermosa Beach, California. So at this point, I'm going to toss it over to you, Jamie, to tell people what this special beverage is that we're going to at least try right in the beginning. I've never had this. I don't know if either of us ever have, so we'll see how it goes, but we're at least going to give it a shot. Well, I think the two most important things is, one, the listeners should understand that we are not unfamiliar to the ways of drinking. We, you know, spent met in a bar, probably spent more time in a bar than any other building ever.

The other thing you need to know is this. The drink's kind of the opposite of special. I think for me, I say this jokingly, but in some seriousness, one of the biggest mysteries about the D.B. Cooper case, is why anyone would want to drink bourbon and soda. Right. Yeah. It doesn't make sense to me. I mean,

I don't like to be, you know, make fun of what other people drink. Drink whatever you want. You want to have a grasshopper? Have a grasshopper. But I know if this was me on the plane, I would have been double fisting whiskey,

neat and chasing it with a vodka soda or something. But he has a bourbon soda, which is like one of these really funny details that like always gets put in this story every time it gets told. It wasn't just that he ordered a drink. He orders a bourbon and soda. And I think it's really funny. And I went so far as to Northwestern University's research library has a collection of old airline menus. And I tried to get on the phone to find out like if they had a Northwest Airlines menu from the early 70s to find out exactly what brand of whiskey he was drinking. Like that was going to be the one thing that I uncovered in the D.B. Cooper case

that no one else had before is to figure out the exact brand of whiskey he was drinking. But to no avail, I couldn't find that out. So I'm having bullet. I'm having bullet in my... All right, I thought you would. So I went with bullet. Yeah, so we both have our bullet and sodas here. We have, I have to try this.

So let's give it a shot. Let's see what this thing actually tastes like. Yeah. Nope. Yes. Yeah, it tastes about like what I expected. And I think, I don't, I, we didn't confirm this right off the bat, but I also happened to have a whiskey neat, a bullet neat here with me as my substitute drink in case I didn't like Cooper's bourbon and soda and didn't want to make myself go through that for the rest of this interview. So I do have a backup. As do I. Okay. Good man. So let's switch to our backup drinks and. Okay. Switching to our backup drinks, we, we've done our little homage to D.B. Cooper. So yeah, we definitely need to get the show on the road. And so you referenced it earlier that we, we, we, we. We. We. We've done our little homage to D. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We've definitely known each other for a while now.

I was actually thinking about it. It's got to be more than 15 years, but I don't know if either of us want to put a number on it and make ourselves feel any older than we already probably do. So we'll just leave it at a minimum of 15 years. And so I already knew that you were interested in the DB Cooper story. We talked about it, at least in passing. I knew you had some interest in it.

But oddly enough, I never asked how you got interested in the DB Cooper story. So why don't you tell myself and the listeners, how you became interested in this story. And then we'll move into the actual meet of the interview from there. It was kind of a slow burn. Like it wasn't, I think for a lot of people, they find out about it and they dive in because it's that kind of a compelling story. But my father, Jim Leiko, was an employee of Pratt and Whitney for a really long time.

And I grew up in Connecticut and he would take me to air shows a lot. Oftentimes because of the connection to Pratt and Whitney, we would kind of get some tours of the planes. and, you know, get to go in kind of areas and get to talk to the pilots and maybe that not everybody at the air show got to do. And I have to believe I don't exactly know when that he told me about D.B. Cooper. Because I know that when I went on my first flight, when I was like five or six, we flew to Florida. I remember we boarded the plane, the rear air stairs. So I think it was most likely a Boeing 727.

I think there was a couple other planes used commercially that had the rear airsters. But I remember getting on the plane to go down to fly into Orlando, Florida, and like saying to my dad, like, this is where the guy jumped off. And that was maybe all I knew. And then he kind of just seemed to come back into my life really, like, bizarrely or because I got interested. I know at some point I saw the timeless cinematic achievement, the hunt for DB Cooper. with Treat Williams and Robert Duvall. I remember I was in high school.

I loved the book Still Life with Woodpecker. And the main character in that is this outlaw figure, Bernard Rangel and, you know, Tom Robbins is a Pacific Northwesterner too. So I kind of always associated that. I loved the Todd Snyder song. And then about 10 years ago, I was a co-owner of a bar out here and found out after we had opened the new bar that in the early 80s, the bar had been called D.B.

Cooper's hideaway. I forget we were like going. I didn't know that. Yeah. Bizar. And so yeah, so like when we started talking about like projects and, you know, different stories that infamous America could do, I was glad that you thought this would make a good story because it was like I was already kind of, you know, one foot in. And it's just been a blast to kind of find out so much because, and I was just thinking about this today, it might have been not until I started, doing the research for this and really started to like understand the story where it wasn't just kind of um you know this kind of i don't know myth that i didn't know that much about i had never entertained the idea that d b cooper didn't make it like in my mind the story my entire life was the

guy bailed out of the plane and he got away with the money um and through this and understanding just how huge and compelling and this story was and all of the different people that thought they might D.B. Cooper or people thought they could be D.B. Cooper. It's just, it never dawned on me that, like, maybe this dude just, you know, fell into Lake Vancouver. I don't know. So, but yeah, that's how kind of D.B. Cooper's always just kind of been one of those little stories that I really liked. And I think I kind of liked it because not a lot of people know about it that are our age. I found that everybody that I've said, how I'm doing a podcast about D.B. Cooper that are our age, You're like, wait, who's that?

And then they might ask their parents, and they're like, oh, yeah, the guy that jumped out of the plane with the money. So I'm glad we're bringing it back. I mean, obviously, we're going to talk about it, but there are people out there that are obsessive about the story. And that's great. And they make a wonderful community. But there are also a lot of people that I hope just, you know, hearing this story will be enjoyable and somewhat informative. Yeah, and that's exactly the way I found it, that I realized in working on, this story with you that I knew even less than I thought I did. I thought I had at least a few

of the basics and it turned out I think in the end I really only knew two things. I knew there was a guy who was called D.B. Cooper who jumped out of a plane and obviously there was some money involved somewhere but in our early stages of writing this thing and working on it I realized I didn't even have stuff about the money correct so I knew very very little as it turns out so this whole experience has been a learning experience which has been fun because this story has been requested since day one. I mean, the second I launched a show that was called Infamous America,

I think the very day, the very next day after I put out a trailer for the Salem Witch Trials, the season one of the show, somebody sent me an email saying, oh, are you going to do D.B. Cooper? And I said, yeah, absolutely. He was one of probably the first five story ideas

written down. But it just took this long to get to it, and I think it worked out for the best. So this whole experience has been a learning experience for me, and that's what this interview is going to be as well. you know, I know some, I know some of the basics that we're about to discuss, but we've intentionally not gone into super detail with them. So I'm about to learn a whole bunch of

stuff, just like the listener, as we go through a little bit about the money and some suspects and, of course, some of the conspiracy theories. So let's dive into those right now. So as I just referenced, let's start with the money. The money is probably the most fascinating part of this as being the most recent. You know, it's the only real piece of evidence found, well, the only piece of evidence found outside the plane as far as I'm aware and as far as we know at this point so the money was found yeah the money was found it's the only thing that really can be directly linked to the plane the stuff that was found on the plane has through the years revealed more information but um yeah the money that somebody of a hunter found a placard off the inside

of a Boeing set but that could you know that I mean probably there's no way to tie it to the yeah to the DB Cooper flight to flight 305 It's pretty bizarre that he found it in the woods. But yeah, the money. And it was almost nine full years after the hijacking occurred. And, you know, six or seven years after, like, people, I mean, more than that, after, you know, authority stopped searching the woods, this boy, Brian Ingram, you know, he's clearing a spot to have a fire with his family on this little beach area.

along the Columbia River and he scratches at the sand and finds three worn out bundles of $20 bills. And, you know, it changed him and his family's life for sure when they, you know, they took it to the FBI and they confirmed that these, you know, they match the serial numbers. And it was $5,800 of 20s that he found. And they took him. Yeah. So, yeah, so that was the question. What happened to the money? Of course the FBI took it and wanted to analyze it and all that stuff.

So what happened to it after that process, after everybody and law enforcement had their chance with it? I mean, I think, I mean, I think two things. From what I've read, the Ingram family certainly thought there was going to be some kind of a reward because their rewards had been advertised very early on in the investigation in newspapers. I mean, there were newspapers battling saying, we'll give $1,000 for the first 20 found. And another one said, we'll give $5,000 for the first 20 found. Obviously, none of that panned out. So I think they thought there was going to be some reward.

They were told right away that the rewards had expired, so there wasn't going to be any rewards. Of course. And they were also told, we're keeping the money. It's evidence. And the legal battle ensued, and the Ingram family went to court for six years with the FBI. And I guess Brian Ingram would have been almost 14, maybe, in 1980s. when they got some of the money back.

I've read it's about $3,000. Some of the money went back to Northwest Airlines, Northwest Orient Airlines. And I don't know if some of that went to the insurance company that had paid out the insurance money on the hijacking. And the FBI kept 13 bills as evidence, and the Ingrams were left with roughly $3,000. in tattered, worn $20 bills.

And then as far as I can tell, Brian Ingram didn't do anything with the money for two decades. And in 2006, he said he wanted to sell the bills that had legible serial numbers. And 15 of them sold at auction. And they brought in, they fetched $37,000. Wow. Only 15.

Yeah, I'd heard the 37,000. I didn't know was for only 15 bills. Right. And obviously that wasn't the whole hall. I know there was also a collector in Alabama that was kind of hoarding them. And, I mean, one of the bills gets brought into that show, Pond Stars, the pawn shop in Las Vegas. They come in. And I love it because, you know, whatever they bring in, somehow somebody in the pawn shop knows everything about it. So the guy on the show is just rattling off facts about D.B. Cooper.

I should probably cite him as a source for this, but... Yeah. Almost as if they were prepped that it was going to happen. It would be... It's really... No, they wouldn't... But it's reality TV. They wouldn't do that.

No. No, they wouldn't script anything like that and call it reality TV. But, you know, that's $5,800 out of $200,000. There's like $9,720 bills that are never accounted for. And I don't know. That blows my mind. I don't, I guess that... Yeah.

none were ever found. Because, you know, like we talk about, what you talk about, like I wrote, you know, banks, casinos, racetracks had these catalogs of the serial numbers. And, you know, obviously not everyone could get caught or, you know, get checked. But it seems like maybe not. Maybe it's very possible that, you know, that many $20 bills change hands that many times a day. Maybe it is possible. But I don't know.

People should know that if they don't already know, if you were cleaning out your parents' attic or basement at any time, and you come upon a random $20 bill from, it's 1963, 1969, and one other year, you can go to this. 50-something, I think. I think it was in the 50s. I think you're absolutely right. There is an aviation history website called Check 6, and they have a little program they've made where you just type in the serial number, and it will tell you whether or not it's a DB Cooper 20. I don't know if you can trust them, but I'm certainly going there the next time I find an old $20 bill. Yeah, no question. Yeah, I know we referenced the search engine in the series. But yeah, I don't think we didn't specify exactly what it was. So yeah, if you guys have that, I think we said it was a $20 bill in your uncle's attic or something like that.

Oh, okay. From the series, yeah. Yeah, as you can tell, we've also spent so much time with us. We've slightly moved on trying to remember exactly the exact wording. but yeah like yeah there's a search engine out there if you find a random $20 bill that looks really old or you can verify that it's from one of the three years that the Cooper bills were from then yeah you can check it out so yeah was there anything you wanted else but i feel like we covered the money there was anything else that randomly sticks out as far as the money goes before

we dive into some suspects and some theories i mean just that just that you know and i'm certainly not the first person to say this but it's just like that where the hell heck all the money went is, I mean, it's as big a mystery, you know, as finding out whether this guy's a pile of bones in the woods somewhere or he's, you know, met it, made it rather and had a wonderful long life. But no, yeah, I think that covers the money. Yeah, are they in the bottom of the lake? Have they disintegrated in the forest floor covered in six inches of snow for a winter season or did he end up in Canada? And I don't like, I don't know if they checked internationally. Did you ever read anything?

I'm going to put you on the spot here about checking internationally. Good of you made it to Canada. It's funny because that actually, that factored into one of, I mean, a rather recent story. If we just want to kind of move into kind of some of the more theoretical suspect-driven material. Yeah, let's do that. The money, an explanation for the money came up in this next part that I, when I read it, I was like, oh my God, that's brilliant. But I was just recently listening to a podcast called The Cooper Vortex.

It's a website. It's a podcast. It's run by this gentleman named Darren Schaefer. And it's amazing. I definitely want to plug them. It's deep dive stuff. It's like one and a half, two hour episodes. And they peel back the layers.

It is they are they are on a whole other level in terms of, you know, the investigation that they do. Because they're, you know, these are, this community is really trying to solve the, solve the mystery of D.B. Cooper, whereas, you know, we want to try to tell an entertaining story. But so on this Cooper Vortex, in late April, he had two guests. And their names were Mindy Fossy and Stephanie 30 Acre. And they are fen treasure hunters, F.E.N. Which I have to admit, I knew nothing about.

But it's in the news very recently. Oh, okay. I don't think I put the name together, but I might know what you're talking about now. Okay, gotcha. And Forrest Fend, and I have, I'm just, you know, giving you what I was able to garner quickly over the last few days leading up to this. But he's an art dealer in the Southwest. He wrote several books. Very eclectic, eccentric individual. But one of his books is autobiography. And as legend has it, for lack of a better phrase, it gives clues to where a treasure, he claims the location of a treasure, he claims he hid in the Rocky Mountains. Right. And through the years, and I think this has been going on for at least a decade. Yeah, I remember seeing it on the news several times.

Yeah. Legions of people are hunting for this treasure the same way legions of people are trying to get to the bottom of the Cooper case. I read that five people have actually died in the wilderness looking for this treasure. And the interesting thing is, or one of the many interesting things, is that Fen is still alive. And he has a website that he runs about the treasure and he interacts with the hunters. Like he talks to them on the phone, including the two women that Darren Schaefer were interviewing. And just this month, June 6th, I think, what it was.

He went on his website and said, it's over. The treasure has been found. And he's actually posted pictures of this alleged found treasure. And it claims there's all kinds of secrets in it. And I don't think they revealed who found it. But yeah, he claims the treasure has been found. That's what I saw. That some little thing crossed my radar that that treasure has been found.

But I didn't see any details about it, just that it had finally been found. Right. And that's, I don't know a whole lot more than that. But just looking stuff up even less than, I think, a week ago, there was another CNN article about Fenn Treasure Hunters that aren't buying it and are still out there on the hunt. And they think it was all the smokescreen and part of the elaborate, you know, ruse this guy's playing on all of us. But these women were on the Cooper Vortex podcast because they theorize that. that Forrest Fenn could also be D.B. Cooper. And I think at this point, any new theory after reading so many of the ones that have already been around for a long time, maybe I bit down a little too hard on it, but I was kind of getting into it because he's the right age. He's 90. Yeah, he's 90.

So that puts him well. The pictures I've seen, he doesn't look 90. Yeah, I don't, I mean. So maybe I saw some old ones. That could really well be. Like, yeah, I've only seen maybe one or two. And, you know, so maybe they're using old stock photos whenever I see them or something. Sure.

So he's well within the plus or minus of the age that has always that the FBI and all investigators and all citizen sleuths and conspiracy theorists have always worked with that Cooper was, you know, mid-40s when the hijacking took place. He was a Vietnam veteran and pilot. He has experience with parachuting. And this was the part that I really liked that they, what they put forward. You got out of the military in 1970 and he opened his first gallery in 1972. And their theory that they talked about was he took the money to Europe and laundered it buying art and then came back with enough, like enough to start a, uh, um, an art gallery. And I, I, I bit, um, I bit down pretty hard on that one. I was like, that's a good one because that covers.

That covers where he went. It covers how he got rid of the money and what he's been up to. And also it would just be great to think that he was like, all right, I did that. Now I'm going to become an eccentric art dealer and lead people on another hunt. So that one I definitely want to look more into the story of Forrest Fenn, whether it's D.B. Cooper ends up being D.B. Cooper related or not. but I thought that was a pretty wild story. Yeah, that's a great one. Yeah, and I've heard not necessarily theories that are, I think, that detailed and in depth.

Like they have a specific person and this is what he could have done with the money, how he could have gotten away with all this. The stuff that I've seen is probably half that. It's more oriented around if he made it to the ground safely and with his money. This is how he could have escaped the area. Those types of theories are just. generally what I come in contact with. Like he could have buried the parachute and had a truck waiting or maybe had an accomplice potentially. I know that that's been bandied about every now and then.

So those are the kinds of things that I typically had run into. So I love that Forrest Fenn story. Regardless of whether it's true or not, you're right. It does explain all the things. It explains how it could have happened. But so what, as you've been done, as you've done the research for this and read more about this, are there any other theories, maybe even along lines of what I said. Like people have talked about if he actually made it to the ground, how could he have escaped that area and those kinds of things? What else have you come across? I mean, I mean, there's definitely a reoccurring idea in a lot of the theories about him having had help. There was kind of one of the ways that Richard McCoy, who pulled off his own hijacking only to be caught a few days later. and he did that about five months after D.B. Cooper.

And he was definitely investigated because of the similarities between the case for actually being Cooper. But they could put him in, I think by using phone records to and from a casino in Vegas, they could put him in and around Reno. I may have those flipped, but they could put him far enough away. Yeah, he was. His alibi was in Reno. He was far enough away that there was very little chance. chance he could have pulled it off without help.

And his widow, I believe, actually sued the writer of the real McCoy because they implied that she had helped him with the D.B. Cooper case. Apologies if I have some of those facts a little off. So he was always thought of as like if he had had help, he could have pulled this off. Okay. But I guess whenever that comes up, I just the whole, you know, three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead. Like, it's just so hard for me to believe that one person has kept their mouth shut about this for going on 50 years. You start adding in other people, you know, I don't know, especially when all the people that, no, not all the people, but, you know, many of the people that have either claimed to be or suggested they might be strong.

or hinted or innuendoed, whatever, have, you know, proven to be probably not D.B. Cooper. It's hard for me to believe. It just don't think it's human nature to pull off something like that and then keep your mouth shut about it. Yeah, you're right. You'd have to go almost down a pretty dark road that if he did have help, then you'd have to probably eliminate your accomplices at some point. Oh, I like that. I like that.

So that they couldn't talk, basically. So then you have to start getting really dark with this thing. And now we're looking for two bodies. I like this. I like this. Of course we are. Yeah. So what the authorities need is more to look forward to, more unanswered questions.

What if there's more bodies? Go find agent car. Wake them up. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the Richard Rackstra, like the Tom Colbert. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about him. He, you know, he, his, I really enjoyed the, the documentary they did on him. and the book, The Last Master Outlaw, because it's just, it is like some really good investigative

journalism. Like, you know, they, they, they were trying to dot as many eyes and cross as many T's as they could. And, like, they theorized that he had help from someone on the ground who had a small plane and that they changed planes. And, I mean, if that's, like, the more, I mean, the more complicated the theory, the more impressive it is if they pull it off, you know, like, I think. course. You know, maybe he just happened to land close enough to a highway and he hitchhiked out.

You know, that would, that's, that's pretty awesome too. Um, but, you know, Raxra. Yeah, not as much fun as changing two or three more planes after you've just jumped out of one. Right. You know, and Rackstraw is such a, you know, compelling person. You, you want it to be him, you know, like, you know, the arrested in Iran for explosive charges. Yeah, that was wild. fake his own death and, you know, like, that's more fun. If we just find out D.B. Cooper was actually Mr. Wier, my, you know, sophomore year geometry teacher, I'd be pretty, that would be pretty amazing for me, but it's kind of a boring story for everybody else.

I think we want this guy to continue to have lived a life of some kind of daredevil. I don't know. Right, right. But Rackstra in the end, although I think he very cleverly baited a lot of people. in the end, he claims he wasn't Cooper. So, yeah, and you know, in Walter Reckas story, he claims he landed in Clee, Elam. I hope I'm saying that right for all the people in Washington, which is like 50 miles north of the northernmost part of the search zone from my quick remembering of a map of Washington. I apologize if I'm off, but it's so far out of the bounds of where they were looking that if that's true,

you know, of course they weren't going to find any evidence. But it also kind of is like, you know, you don't have to, they don't have to be wrong by much about when he jumped out where he may have landed to be. Right. The wind speed, the wins and everything. Yeah. I mean, that kind of, I mean, that's what I've gathered through doing this. And people these, you know, if you're listening to this, hopefully you listen to episode three, chapter three. And, you know, I want to believe he made it.

and I want to, you know, and I think maybe, I don't know, maybe he lost all the money and then just kept his mouth shut about it because that would be super embarrassing. I had never considered that possibility. That's what I would do. He could have lived and lost the money. Yeah. Oh, my God. That's exactly what I would have done. If I pulled this off and I lost the money, I would.

Yeah, I would just be like, you know, I'm imagining, you know. Go back to your day job on Monday morning. Oh, man. Yeah. And have to listen to you and the. rest of our friends just give me it the business about it for the rest of my life like that i lost two hundred thousand dollars after pulling off this great caper almost so yeah that's the theory i go with or maybe he kept just enough that he whenever he spent it um you know it was never enough

to raise any flags but yeah i hope i hope that's what he's doing i love in and now i have a whole new idea to entertain the idea that he survived but without the money So now that's a whole different rabbit hole that they get to go down. And I love ending that this phase of the interview on that way. That's awesome. So the last thing I want to have you tell the audience is the thing you gave me a little bit of detail about that I want to hear about again. Is the Belgian cartoon that talks about, refresh my memory. Was it a person named Dan Cooper?

The Tom Kay's website, Citizen Salutes, and certainly Jeffrey Gray talks about this more in length in his book. um skyjack um but it's this like bizarre little tidbit that someone uncovered and I don't know who that the FBI kind of ran with for a little while I mean you can go to the FBI's archive website and they have you can find a picture of a cover of one of these comic books from Belgium about a sort of James Bondish like uh military guy who was like all the G.I. Joe characters wrapped into one, but like in the particular episode issue they have on the website, he's bailing out of a plane, which I think from what I understand was kind of a reoccurring thing. Jeffrey Gray goes to go so far as to go to Europe and meet with the author, either the

writer or the illustrator of it. And the thing about it is, is they're trying to connect how maybe this could have been some sort of inspiration or he's just an homage when whoever D.B. Cooper is bought the ticket. He threw that down as, you know, that was how he was thinking of himself that day. But it was never published in English to my knowledge. But it was in French, so they have theorized that it maybe it was a French Canadian. And it's just this weird, quirky little thing that, you know, but it's like, how could there not be a connection? Like, I don't know.

I don't know. Maybe we're all reaching for it. But, like, I just feel like, and if he was overseas serving in the military, anywhere, maybe he would have come across it. And I don't know. But I thought, like, when I read that, I, go ahead. I'm sorry. No, yeah, so there's a Belgian comic book with a James Bond super spy type character. Right.

His name is Dan Cooper. Yes. Of all things. A very Anglo-English sounding name. Right. And this, but it's only written in French. The comic book is written in French. So if it had some influence on this, the theory is that somehow D.B. Cooper might have been a French Canadian, for instance, and might have come across it or maybe served overseas.

You know, a lot of the theories were that Cooper was a World War II paratrooper, or at least a lot of paratroopers from World War II were investigated. So potentially he's serving overseas. I don't know, but we don't know. I don't know what the publication day was. Maybe it wasn't even around in World at that time. But either way, it might lead toward the. origins of or the ancestry of D.B. Cooper. Is he could be French, he could be Canadian, something to that extent to maybe factor in this really weird coincidence of this Belgian comic book.

Absolutely. Yeah. And it's just one of, it's like one of the quirky little things about it, about the story that is just kind of a head scratcher, in the whole thing's a head scratcher. It's like, you know, why did they not keep the cigarette butts? You know, it's, yeah, what happened to the cigarette butts, of course, yeah. I think I was listening to the Cooper Vortex and they said that they've they came across someone has come across a document, an FBI document that was like, send them to Quantico, check for fingerprints, do whatever was part of analysis of these things in the early 70s and then destroy them. Like it's in a memo is my understanding. Oh, man. Which, you know, is crazy.

but you know that seems why yeah why crazy yeah but it's that epitomizes this story all these little loose odds and ends that are really interesting and provide tons of fodder for conversation but may tie together

or may not at all and that certainly has to be part of the allure of this story for nearly 50 years we're about a year away from the little over a year away from the 50th anniversary of this event so I can we can wrap it up there we can give one last toast

of our bourbon and sodas or just our straight bourbons if we replace the bourbon and it's been sitting here melting and I'm going to but I'm going to take a sip anyway for DB Cooper. One last time. Here's to you, DB. Here's to you, buddy. Thanks for listening. For many of you, we'll be back in two weeks on August 12th, 2020 with our new season on the

Leopolden Lowe murder case. But of course, Black Barrel Plus members received the entire series a week early on August 5th, 2020. We'll see you then.