DB Cooper

[377 22]

Jamie wrote:

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what is the deal here anyway?
I have to get a $20 out of a briefcase that may or may not still be where I last saw it, or not be taken seriously, while none else have any proof to back up their claims?

It's completely irrational Jamie but it's just human nature. The more sympathetic/likeable the DBC claimant is, the less proof we require.

Caretaker Al has to provide two hot twenties, where one from you would be acceptable.

Remember high school? It's still in session. Good looks and good grades have an unfair but undeniable correlation.

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2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[377 22]

We knew you before you were famous Robert!

Post links to any recorded interviews.

Have fun.

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2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[JamieCooper 0]

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This coming from the guy that wants other people to do his searches for him.

I don't have access to police files, nor the authority to go into someone elses house and demand they let me look for a briefcase.
so in your logic, sure i'm a lazy and expect others to do my searches.
but in reality, it's just a result of the laws and regulations of this country.
unlike in your case where you don't actually moderate and blatantly ignore constant and obvious site rules violations.
and support a theory without any evidence to support it, ie your pet he hung in a tree then fell into a river and money whisked itself along until it arrived at Tena Bar.
not impossible but completely based in fantasy and laziness.

[JamieCooper 0]

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This coming from the guy that wants other people to do his searches for him.

I want Snowmman to do everyones' searches for them. That's essentially what he did here, dug deeper on what we searched for and richly supplemented it... in addition to performing his own original research.

One reason I don't want to listen to Occam about Cooper's drowning is that I don't want anyone to have come to that gruesome end after pulling off such an amazing caper.

Can you imagine the agony? You actually get the cash, you make a successful exit, are floating down under a good canopy with all the money still attached to you and then splash... shocking cold, complete disorientation and a quick realization that after beating all those odds, your luck has run out and you will be dead in a few minutes.

So I ignore Occam and continue to look for less probable but more emotionally palatable explanations for how stacks of hot twenties ended up on Tena Bar.

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Occam's razor doesn't suggest he drowned.
when you take into consideration the land mass versus water, the appearance of the money at Tena Bar so long after the caper, and the existence of an lively regional folklore that suggests the opposite.
Occam is saying he made it.

[377 22]

Jamie wrote:

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unlike in your case where you don't actually moderate and blatantly ignore constant and obvious site rules violations.

Cool down Jamie. I am not happy with all Quades decisions either, especially the permafrost of Snowmman, but attacking Q is guranteed to be an exercise in futility.

Spend you energy on productive stuff. See if you can convince the homeowner to search with you, offer to split proceeds or whatever. You'll never get a search warrant issued, so pursue other avenues.

Quade did save this forum from disappearing. If you took a vote among skydivers on dropzone.com I bet the vast majority would prefer to see this forum go away. The more vocal ones have agitated for it several times. Quade got no points and probably lost some by defending our forum's right to exist on dropzone.com. I am sure his move to save the DBC forum was seen as arbitary and unfair by those who sought to can it.

A moderator's job is thankless and pays nothing. I don't like censors and cops but I do like this forum. Our cop defended it against attack by intolerant members of the skydiving community. For that he deserves some credit even from those who dont agree with all his decsions and nudge him even here to reconsider them.

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2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[377 22]

Jamie says:

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Occam is saying he made it.

I wish I agreed Jamie, I really do. I want Cooper to have made it, but live crooks do not throw money away.

Sure, there are plausible explanations that have a live Cooper and money on Tena Bar, but the simplest explantion is that Cooper died and the money ended up there by means of river and/or dredge transport.

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2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[JamieCooper 0]

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Jamie says:

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Occam is saying he made it.

I wish I agreed Jamie, I really do. I want Cooper to have made it, but live crooks do not throw money away.

Sure, there are plausible explanations that have a live Cooper and money on Tena Bar, but the simplest explantion is that Cooper died and the money ended up there by means of river and/or dredge transport.

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well the problem here is we are debating opinions not facts.
in my opinion based on fact, thieves and other criminals frequently throw away incriminating evidence. as soon as it was announced that all the serial numbers were recorded that money lost it's value for anyone who might have accepted it as a bribe.
you got to take into account the nature of the area to begin with.
the vast majority is land, not water, so most likely he would have landed on land. even if he had landed in water, most people will at least attempt to live and swim.
while there it a largely wooded area it's not endless. literally thousands if not millions of people were looking for DB Cooper.
proving the competence of the search teams, 2 bodies were found in the woods, neither of them DB Cooper.
the only chute found in the area, was buried for some reason? and no sign of a body again.
we can debate the chute all we want, doesn't matter who left it, only that all these three things were found but nothing from DB Cooper other than that money 9 years after the fact.
the area it was found might have been handpicked because it would be impossible to connect it to whomever put it there.
because its used to dump dredging material.
the probability of it finding its way there on its own? not likely, by definition it came to the area by human intervention, possibly many humans interventions.
could have been a bribe? and as police seemed to be closing in, or knowledge that banks were searching for the serial numbers became known, they dumped the bills that then became potential tickets to life in prison.
this idea that other people have drowned and bodies lost forever?
whos to say thats what happened to them either?
could have just as easily been kidnapped or murdered, devoured by animals, or any number of things.
simply last being seen near the river and then not again doesn't prove anything more than that.

[JamieCooper 0]

he might toss some money to throw cops off but seems odd unless they were on his trail and he knew it. then you would think he would scatter it in multiple directions rather than in the same spot.
either way tossing some money to throw off police that don't know who or where you are, is just plain sloppy and stupid.
DB Cooper successfully hid the rig, and everything else from his caper why be so sloppy with the money?
there was no way of knowing the Tena Bar money would be found. it's more likely that it wouldn't have been found at all.
live crooks don't toss perfectly good money. just as junkies don't flush perfectly good dope away unless they think police are going to find it.
DB Cooper was a cool headed, resourceful, daring, sociable, tipper, who wanted others to be comfortable and happy, not a scatterbrained frantic moron.
now if you were approached by a guy offering 3 to $6k in 1971 shortly before xmas, just for a ride, or change of clothes and silence? you might take the money.
especially if he told you he just screwed over an insurance company, thus sticking it to the man.
later you find out they are all marked and you are now an accessory to a major crime. that could land you in prison for the rest of your life. it might even occur to you that you could be a patsy.
you might try to dispose of those prison tickets in a way closely resembling the Tena Bar money.

what percentage of the ransom would the Tena Bar find be?
could he have been attempting to tithe?

[JamieCooper 0]

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jamiecooper asks, in part:

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'DB Cooper successfully hid the rig, and everything else from his caper why be so sloppy with the money?'

Because if they find the rig, and there is no body in it, then they would know he was still alive. You HAVE to hide the parachute. You can't dump it in the water for the same reason. No body attached.

It wasn't 'sloppy with the money,' it was smart thinking, I mean...if he tossed it. Look at what the FBI says now: Since the Tena Bar find, they now say they think Cooper died in the jump, although the case is still open. So in a way, it worked for him, although it would have worked better had they found dozens of bills floating down the river right after the hijacking.

Within a year or two, the FBI would have started saying they think he died. No chute, just some bills in the river. He's dead. Who knows? Maybe they wouldn't have ended up going to that Federal judge and getting the John Doe warrant in 1976, if they thought back then he was dead. They only did that because they thought he was still alive.

Until the Tena Bar find, that is. It makes perfect sense that Cooper would try this one. It's just too bad he wasn't smarter about HOW he tossed the money. Loose bills, maybe a bundle still with the band on it, that would have been pretty convincing. But you can't let them find the chute. No way.

I wonder where they went? Those are a lot bigger than the money, yet not a trace has ever been found, well, unless you think the Amboy chute was his. And if it is, you would need a LIVE person to bury it.

I'm not convinced either way on the Amboy chute.
it doesn't make sense that he would go on the plane without a chute to begin with. could he have paid or talked someone else into bringing one onboard? could he have fit the chute alone into for example the paperbag and then cannibalized one of the other rigs to use it?
I think it went down just as my father said.
went to a bar, made friends and got a ride.
drunks will overlook a hell of alot of things, especially from a guy buying rounds.
my mother always said he bribed people. he screwed over insurance companies in other ways too.
he wouldn't have felt a bit guilty for this one.
in fact a whole lot of people would willingly help him get away with it, especially for a cut right before xmas.
if the Tena Bar money wasn't planted, it's a pretty major stretch that involves suspending reality for it to get there on it's own.

[smokin99 0]

Anybody heard anything about this book?

D.B. Cooper Case Exposed: J. Edgar Hoover Cover Up?
by George C. Nuttall

but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

[JamieCooper 0]

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No. But here it is at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/D-B-Cooper-Case-Exposed-Hoover/dp/0533163900/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1294204348&sr=1-1

It's from Vantage Press, a notorious pay-to-publish company. One of the originals in that business.

What the heck...another resource, I guess. I take these type of books with a grain of salt, but they can be interesting anyway. There aren't THAT many Cooper books out there. Amelia Earhart has LOTS more.

almost sounds like Caretakeral's story

[skyjack71 0]

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Cooper wouldn't be the first guy to try a red herring to throw the cops off his trail.

You missed the logic on this one. If Cooper hit the ground and survived - he is intent on one thing getting away from the area he landed in.

Regardless of if the skyjacking was planned or not - Cooper did not expect to survive and no one could have been more surprised than he was. I think Cooper actually expected to be caught and sent to prison...it was the only life he knew as he had spent most of his adult life in prison. He had a bad diagnosis and knew he would eventually face a kidney machine and he didn't have money to pay for his health care. He was still very able bodied, but knew from watching his mother that he didn't want to die that way.

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You have to imagine yourself as Cooper for a moment, to see why he may have done this. Okay, you've made it to the ground. It's dark, it's raining, and you know full well that by morning every friggin' member of law enforcement is going to be on the lookout for you.

No way I could say that better than you did Blevins![/blue
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Important point: There were no sketches of Cooper done at the time he landed, and the descriptions going out on him were pretty generic, at least for a while. You are out there on the ground, but the hunt isn't really on, not yet, and it isn't organized. You have a small window to make your escape, but it won't last long.

Oh, he did that right! Duane told me the only way to get away with a crime was to GO RIGHT BACK AT THEM, The area he took refuge at was right across the river from the PDX. A resident of the area had told me that in 1971 there was a cabin on this site.

This is the very place he went down to the river that day in 1979 in Vancouver. At that time there was NO cabin there...but a woman not far from there told me (in 2001) the cabin had been taken out by a flood prior to 1979 while she was away at school. No way was he going to leave the area - that is what the FBI expected him to do. Frankly I think he expected them to find him - he thought he was making it easy for them...the joke was on himself.

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What's a few thousand dollars if it gets the cops off your back?

Leaving a trail of money or the chute would let the FBI know he did survive - NO WAY.

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Cooper knows that if the cops find absolutely nothing, that they will assume he is still alive, and the hunt will go on...and on. I think the only error was that the money was not found for almost nine years

Which is may be why Cooper went back for the rest of his bounty and threw it in the river in 1979 -so the FBI WOULD STOP SEARCHING FOR HIM. Duane seemed surprised when in 1980 the FBI found the money - so maybe he was just DUMB enough to think it would sink and disappear......he now had a life and he wanted to keep that life.

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I have some serious doubts on the dredging idea, anyway. One of them is because if the money had been underwater for so long, it would have to also be under the mud, otherwise it would have separated and washed away long ago. The Columbia is a friggin' powerful river. And if the bills were under MUD for a long time, than how in the heck did they hold together so well and end up in the same place just a few inches under the sand at Tena Bar? They would have been mush, and I've seen the pictures. They're not.

We agree on that and the Palmer report will support that.

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I'm sure he realized that by morning he was going to be the most hunted man in America. Tossing a few bundles would be a small price to pay to throw off the cops.

Yea, problem is it was an after thought 8 yrs later when he retrived the rest of his bounty.

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If you were going to throw away money, you should have taken the time to tear off the rubber bands first and toss handfuls into the river, instead of bundles.

I disagee with that but I don't know why other than the bills were already stuck together from the accumulation of moisture leaking into the container he buried them in.

Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 2013, 2014, 2015 by Jo Weber

[quade 4]

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ie your pet he hung in a tree then . . .

Kid, I ain't got a pet theory.

I only have facts and the facts say ain't nobody ever proved anybody is DB Cooper and all claims to him so far are nothing but guesses.

As they said in the movie, "Show me the money." Until then, ya really don't have much.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[skyjack71 0]

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I only have facts and the facts say ain't nobody ever proved anybody is DB Cooper and all claims to him so far are nothing but guesses.

As they said in the movie, "Show me the money." Until then, ya really don't have much.

What is missing are breaking and entering files - in various areas during the period of time Cooper was on the ground in WA.

They had so many calls saying I think Cooper broke in to my house and took some food.

Or reports of a storage building being broke into near Orchard & Battleground - nothing seemed to be missing (but, then later an employee notes his work coveralls are missing and he swears he left them there).

An individual returns to their home after being away for several weeks and finds tsomeone had been there, but nothing seemed to be stolen, but the bed had been slept in and food cooked.


Small incidents the FBI did not relate to Cooper.

Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 2013, 2014, 2015 by Jo Weber

[JamieCooper 0]

[skyjack71] said in part:

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Now that the files are available to the public (for a price) lots of people have started to DIG in. Some smart Cookie will find the clues the FBI missed - someday, I hope.

What is missing are breaking and entering files - in various areas during the period of time Cooper was on the ground in WA.

They had so many calls saying I think Cooper broke in to my house and took some food.

Or reports of a storage building being broke into near Orchard & Battleground - nothing seemed to be missing (but, then later an employee notes his work coveralls are missing and he swears he left them there).

An individual returns to their home after being away for several weeks and finds tsomeone had been there, but nothing seemed to be stolen, but the bed had been slept in and food cooked.

Small incidents the FBI did not relate to Cooper.

whats your source on these reports?

[Orange1 0]

Look, here's a real hijacker that we know did it (and did it before Cooper). And I guess there was real evidence in this case ...also interesting given the talk about "would Cooper be prosecuted", because this happened 3 years before Cooper.

Man sentenced in 1968 plane hijacking

New York - A US citizen convicted of hijacking a plane from New York to Cuba four decades ago has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Luis Armando Pena Soltren was sentenced on Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan.

Authorities say he and co-defendants brought pistols and knives aboard a plane in a diaper bag in November 1968.


The pilots were forced to divert Puerto Rico-bound Pan American Flight 281 from Kennedy Airport to Havana.

The flight was carrying 103 passengers and crew.

Pena Soltren returned to the United States from Cuba in 2009 to face charges of conspiracy to commit air piracy, interfering with a flight crew and kidnapping.

He pleaded guilty in March.

Pena Soltren's lawyer says his client had wanted to come back for decades because he was remorseful.

http://www.news24.com/World/News/Man-sentenced-in-1968-plane-hijacking-20110104

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[377 22]

Mr. Blevins wrote:

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l. And what about that parachute in Amboy? Do you buy the FBI's and Cossey's lame explanations about it? I sure don't.

Quade, Guru, other jumper posters and lurkers... Back me up on this if you agree. I can't tell if the 1946 Amboy chute is nylon twill or silk, but that isn't very important. It does not appear to be made of ripstop nylon. As far as I can tell ripstop nylon was not yet used in standard military aircrew escape canopies in 46.

NO WAY would Cossey, a rigger and jumper, bet his life on a 1946 non ripstop military canopy in 1971. Back then you could get new C9 ripstop military surplus canopies dirt cheap. Twill canopies could rip from top to bottom. They were not nearly as safe as ripstop canopies. Nobody was using twills as emergency backpack canopies in 1971.

The FBI might have erred in calling it silk. Many make that mistake when they see a vintage twill canopy. What really matters is was it ripstop or not.

I wish the FBI would show the riser ends in a photo. The hardware might tell us something about whether it had been connected to an NB 6 or NB 8 harness/container or something different. The Amboy chute is odd. Why was it buried? Who left it there?

I don't think it was Coopers canopy. Do other jumpers and riggers agree?

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2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[CaretakerAl 0]

"Smile No such meeting televised or otherwise ever occured. Unimpressed If it did - PROVE IT!"

Honestly Jo, trolling at your age!! You should be ashamed. As stated numerous times, I do not have an agenda like you all. I watched the entire program, start to finish an listened intently. I found the arguments both pro and con to be most compelling. The most important statement to me was the conformation of information I had received directly from McCoy about him being the only one who was rehired. I repeated it to Pasternak. This program satisfies my need to know, but I see no responsibility to TRY to convince you. I know better. You have made up your mind McCoy was not involved no matter what it takes. You won't follow up because you wouldn't accept it if you were broad-sided by a Bronco. (Private pun) Love you, Dear, but you are the most stubborn, untrusting, flighty blond I know.

[CaretakerAl 0]

"Flights were posted and you could sign up or trade, but it was normally based on seniority as I heard it. Right? Holiday flights were not a flight of choice, so anyone with any seniority could easily swap to get one, particularly on milk-runs." Right?

What about radio vectoring to known coordinates? How accurate is that? 100 yards? That could be done in a complete black-out, right?

How well does your flightpath map coincide with the oil pipeline map when you shift it 15-20 miles west? What were the winds and the crab? What was the correction? How does it coincide with Portland airspace and the controller fly-around order? Read Project Norjak.
We have an eye-witness that saw the plane on that flight path, and McCoy threatened her to be quiet. (From two first-hand sources)

Where are the missing notes to the flight deck? They did not go back to Cooper. One went to a reporter, where is the other? Who's handwriting is on those notes? Find the notes.

At what date did the evidence description change from a gold BYU medallion to a tie clasp? Read Bernie Rhodes and Callimine.

Anybody? Buhler? Where is Buhler? ANYBODY?

[CaretakerAl 0]

"Weber knew only too well what his future held when he was diagnosed in 1970 or 1971."

McCoy and I knew it in 1968. Your dates must be in error.

[smokin99 0]

L

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ook, here's a real hijacker that we know did it (and did it before Cooper). And I guess there was real evidence in this case ...also interesting given the talk about "would Cooper be prosecuted", because this happened 3 years before Cooper.

Man sentenced in 1968 plane hijacking

New York - A US citizen convicted of hijacking a plane from New York to Cuba four decades ago has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Luis Armando Pena Soltren was sentenced on Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan.

Authorities say he and co-defendants brought pistols and knives aboard a plane in a diaper bag in November 1968.


The pilots were forced to divert Puerto Rico-bound Pan American Flight 281 from Kennedy Airport to Havana.

The flight was carrying 103 passengers and crew.

Pena Soltren returned to the United States from Cuba in 2009 to face charges of conspiracy to commit air piracy, interfering with a flight crew and kidnapping.

He pleaded guilty in March.

Pena Soltren's lawyer says his client had wanted to come back for decades because he was remorseful.

http://www.news24.com/World/News/Man-sentenced-in-1968-plane-hijacking-20110104

Wow..good find Orange. 15 years...Have to look this one up tomorrow. You're right ...this does answer that question I've often wondered about.
Course he did plead guilty. I think ol Dan might want to plead innocent and take his chances with a jury. That generally seems to work out well on the west coast anyway.

but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

[nigel99 473]

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Before ya know it, the only person that's not going to be banned in this forum is the ghost of DB Cooper himself.

So can you ban yourself? Or is that an admission that after all you are actually Coopers Ghost

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[CaretakerAl 0]

"I think ol Dan might want to plead innocent and take his chances with a jury. That generally seems to work out well on the west coast anyway."

Especially if it were pillars of the community performing a secret Government mission to protect the citizens of the World against terrorists, foreign and domestic.....................

[377 22]

Blevins writes:

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HC exec asks questions about the Amboy chute, whether KC is now being investigated (due to the book) and a bunch of other relevant questions.

FBI PR guy's response to EVERY SINGLE QUESTION:

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'I can't comment on that...'

A couple of possibilities:

1. FBI coverup and stonewalling.
2. FBI sees DBC media stuff as a huge waste of time and decides to be uncooperative to discourage further dialog.

Occam likes number 2. We also have a hint that the Seattle office leadership thinks that despite initial hopes, DBC media interface had been unproductive and they want out. Look at Carr's history on the case.

I want the Amboy chute to be Cooper's, but I'd bet against it. It is too old and of a type that was obsolete and unsafe by dates far preceding 1971.

Riggers keep logs of emergency chute repacks. The logs include the serial number of the repacked canopy. Cossey has a riggers log. It would be easy to see if the Amboy chute SN is in it. I think Cossey was truthful when he said the Amboy canopy was not his. The alternatives call for complex conspiracies which Occam abhors.

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2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[377 22]

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"I think ol Dan might want to plead innocent and take his chances with a jury. That generally seems to work out well on the west coast anyway."

Yeah, left coast juries often don't believe everything cops and prosecutors say. I think that's a good thing in most cases. Show a jury solid physical evidence and they'll make the right call, but out here the jurors are not rubber stamps confirming everything the prosecution advocates.

The Trial of DB Cooper. Now there's an idea for a book or movie.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.