The 50-year-old cold case of D.B. Cooper may have seen a new development after an amateur sleuth claims to have found the parachute used by the infamous, yet still unidentified plane hijacker.
YouTuber Dan Gryder said that he found a modified device matching the one used in the 1971 hijacking on a property in North Carolina, and has handed it over to the FBI.
Gryder, who has been looking into the case “off and on” for almost 20 years, said in a video series about his investigation that the rig was “literally one in a billion.” “This is the rig he used... we just solved it,” he says.
D. B. Cooper, also known as Dan Cooper, hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 on November 24 1971. During the flight, Cooper told a flight attendant he had a bomb, demanding $200,000 in ransom and four parachutes upon landing in Seattle.
However soon after taking off again with the intention of heading to Mexico, Cooper opened the aircraft’s door and parachuted into the night over southwestern Washington. His true identity and whereabouts remain a mystery to this day.
Gryder found what he claims is Cooper’s parachute on a property owned by the family of the late Richard McCoy Jr – one of the men considered by the FBI to be a “serious suspect” in the case.
McCoy staged a near identical hijacking in April 1972, after boarding a flight in Denver, Colorado, and demanding four parachutes and $500,000 while brandishing a weapon. He later also bailed out of the aircraft.
McCoy was killed two years later in a shootout with FBI agents after he escaped from federal prison. Investigators have pointed out that his photo bears a striking resemblance to a sketch made of D.B. Cooper.
Despite Gryder’s handing over of the parachute, the FBI has yet to update the case status on its website. The last update was made in July 2016, in which the agency said it would no longer be “actively” investigating the case.
However, it added that “should specific physical evidence emerge—related specifically to the parachutes or the money taken by the hijacker—individuals with those materials are asked to contact their local FBI field office.”
According to Cowboy State Daily, McCoy’s children, Chante and Richard III, have said they agree with Gryder’s discovery and have long suspected their father was the hijacker.
In his series, Gryder said that FBI investigators told him a possible next step would be to exhume McCoy’s body and attempt to get a DNA match with evidence left behind.
