WA WA - D.B. Cooper Hijacking Mystery, 24 Nov 1971 #4

[barefootpoet]

You’d think the FBI would be using their DNA sample from the tie clip for “forensic genealogy”. That seems to have a good tract record i.e. Golden State killer.

 

[owsley]

DB Cooper suspect Robert Rackstraw, 75, dies of 'natural causes' nearly 48 years after the legendary hijacking of a Boeing 747 which saw a mysterious man disappear without a trace after parachuting out of the plane's backdoor with $200,000 cash

• Thomas J Colbert identified Robert Rackstraw, 75, a military vet with a murky past riddled by fraud and con-artistry, as the man responsible last year
• Rackstraw's death was confirmed by his family members on Tuesday, saying he passed from natural causes and was a great-grandfather
• A man - dubbed DB Cooper by the FBI - hijacked a plane in 1971, demanded $200k as it was still at the airport and then parachuted from it with the cash
• He was first considered as a suspect seven years after the hijacking in 1978, with investigators saying ‘so many things’ about him seemed to match with Cooper
• A letter sent to a newspaper months after the hijacking ties Cooper's identity to Vietnam War veteran Robert W. Rackstraw, investigator Thomas Colbert claims
• FBI closed the investigation in 2016 saying Cooper most likely died of exposure in the woods after the daring escape
• Colbert claims the FBI is guilty of 'stonewalling, covering up evidence and flat-out lying'

 

[Dan Cooper]

Mark S. Zaid on Twitter

 

[Gardener1850]

DB Cooper suspect Robert Racktrsaw dies at age 75: Army pilot passes away from natural causes, a year after cold case sleuths identified him in 'coded' FBI letters as the hijacker who vanished in 1971

9 July 2019

In November 1971, a ‘non-descript man’ identifying himself as Dan ‘DB’ Cooper bought a $20 ticket for a Northwest Orient flight from Portland to Seattle, later demanding $200,000 ransom and a parachute in what later become one of the most infamous cold cases of all time – and the only unsolved skyjacking in US history.

Cooper would later vanish without a trace, skydiving from the rear of the plane with the cash in hand, prompting decades of debate and conspiracy over the brazen thief’s true identity.

An unexpected breakthrough came last year when cold case expert and author Thomas J Colbert identified Robert Rackstraw, a military vet with a murky past riddled by murder accusations and con-artistry, as the man responsible, citing a decades-worth of research as evidence.

But on Tuesday, Rackstraw’s family announced the lead suspect had passed away from natural causes aged 75, potentially taking with him the answers of what really happened on that fateful winter’s afternoon.

‘I am in touch with Rackstraw family members in six states, and we have learned he died yesterday,’ Colbert said.

‘While my cold case team believes he was Cooper, he was also a husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather. Our condolences to the family.’

DB Cooper suspect Robert Rackstraw, 75, dies nearly 48 years after the legendary hijacking | Daily Mail Online

 

[ColyH]

I don't believe Rackstraw is D.B. Cooper but he seemed to like leading people to believe it might have been him.

I still believe Cooper died on the night of the hijacking. There is no way he survived that stormy weather at that attitude with just a business suit on. The only way he could have survived is if he never jumped but stayed on the plane and when it landed snuck out but that means he would have needed help from the inside.

 

[barefootpoet]

I don't believe Rackstraw is D.B. Cooper but he seemed to like leading people to believe it might have been him.

I still believe Cooper died on the night of the hijacking. There is no way he survived that stormy weather at that attitude with just a business suit on. The only way he could have survived is if he never jumped but stayed on the plane and when it landed snuck out but that means he would have needed help from the inside.

Well the ransom money being found buried at Tina Bar would very strongly suggest Cooper and the money left the plane. Again I feel the only real path to solving this mystery is forensic genealogy. Far too many Robert Rackstraws are now just being turned into made-to-order new suspects. No wonder the FBI closed the investigation.

 

[barefootpoet]

And speaking of Rackstraw. Flight attendant Florence Schaffner, with certainly, said he wasn’t Cooper.

 

[pppsuedio]

My suspicion is that 'Cooper' was a man named Melvin Luther Wilson. Obviously just a personal suspicion, but I came to this view because it seemed given the time that had passed without the crime being solved that Cooper had either left the country or had perished in the descent (or a short time later either because of injuries sustained in the descent or because he was lost in the outdoors). Either way, I felt there was a good chance this person hadn't contacted their family since the hijacking and thought, well, maybe they're listed as a missing person.

So I did a NAMUS search for something like Caucasian men between 5'8 and 6'4, with a current age of between 78 and 108 (and so a generous age range of between 30 and 60 in 1971) whose date of last contact occurred prior to the 25th of November, 1971. I cannot remember if I limited it to people with brown or black hair, or if I left that out to allow for the possibility Cooper had dyed his hair. At any rate, without the hair color specified in the search terms and ordered chronologically oldest to newest, Melvin Luther Wilson is the second result (the circumstances of the first result, a man by the name of Kenneth Michael Plaisted, unfortunately seem to me to strongly suggest foul play rather than anything else - although of course, until things are solved, anything is possible...) With the hair color specified, Melvin Luther Wilson is the first result. His NAMUS profile is here.

Reading his NAMUS profile made me wonder why this hadn't been solved yet, he seemed a very strong possibility at first blush. So I googled his name to see if there were any results regarding speculation that he was DB Cooper. I did hit on a few mentions of him in some news articles, mostly those mentions seemed to be linked to his daughter Vicki trying to raise the possibility he is DB Cooper in the media. I believe she may have tried to do this at the time to raise his profile in the public so that the FBI might investigate him more fully, but I do not know. He is discussed on DB Cooper forums. Vicki gives a good summary of some of the things that suggest Melvin Luther Wilson as a good candidate for DB Cooper here - it is a copy of an email she sent to an FBI agent whom she spoke with in 2011.

Anyway, I was surprised he isn't mentioned in the WS DB Cooper thread. He has a very short thread on WS here and I was surprised DB Cooper isn't mentioned on it either. You can find links to a video with film footage of him in a link there and a video of a segment from Unsolved Mysteries about him. He was the subject of a Lost Loves segment (I believe at the time of that segment his daughter Vicki, and some of his other children, were seeking to find him as well as to find any other half siblings they might have - it was only at a later date that his daughter Vicki heard about the DB Cooper case and began to suspect that her father might be DB Cooper).

The Unsolved Mysteries segment certainly paints a picture of a man who is capable of undertaking high risk illegal activities in order to get money and also willing to take fairly extreme measures to avoid prosecution for his criminal behavior (in the past doing things like deserting his family and relocating, switching his MO from fraud to counterfeiting). At the time of his disappearance, he was going to face counterfeiting charges in Federal court. He had previously spent several stints in prison is my understanding and, as the Unsolved Mysteries segment explains, was facing up to 25 years if convicted. He is still a wanted fugitive.

Soooo it isn't a stretch for me to think he changed MO again and escalated to a slightly more desperate or risky scheme to obtain money, while also at the same time relocating/fleeing again to start a new life and avoid prosecution. He had military service (naval?) in his background but I do not believe his daughter was able to tell from his military records whether he was a paratrooper (I got lots of this information from her comment here). I don't know if he was familiar with the area, but he left his home in Minnesota over two months before the hijacking and he was familiar with areas of California and Nevada. It is conceivable to me he was hiding out somewhere around the East coast while he planned this hijacking.

Personally, I feel his appearance is pretty close as well, particularly his manner of dress. Keeping in mind that composite sketches aren't photographs, he is more similar to some of the sketches than he is to others. He is noticeably heavier looking in available photographs than the thinner faced, black and white FBI sketch. He was on the run for over two months, potentially trying to prepare for a hijacking, so it is possible that he may have dropped a couple of pounds because of those things. Vicki does also mention in the comment I linked above that the man sitting across from DB Cooper apparently felt that particular sketch portrayed the man as thinner than the man he saw. I don't know, I didn't see him. To my mind Melvin looks similar to the later, color FBI sketches and to this sketch that was apparently released by the FBI around 1988 but the providence of which I don't actually know (sorry). But even with weight loss I feel he would still not look exactly like the earlier, thinner sketch (a sketch is still just a sketch, though).

Also, Wilson's DNA or his children's DNA is on file on Namus at least, which throws some doubt on the whole thing. But apparently in 2011 when Vicki's LE/Namus/DOJ contact requested that the FBI run a comparison between Wilson's DNA and DB Cooper samples, the response was an odd sort of side-stepping of the question without confirming or denying whether any DNA comparison had been run or not. In 2015 she still had no idea whether they had actually looked at the DNA to rule him in or out. I got that info from the last two paragraphs here. My understanding is they only have a partial profile that can only exclude or 'not exclude' but not actually match suspects. So there are three possibilities: they have never compared the partial profile to Melvin's profile (they did, after all, stop active investigation of the DB Cooper case in 2016 to dedicate resources to other cases and it is certainly possible that they were not using many resources on the case in the years leading up to 2016 either), they have compared them and he was excluded without that information being given to his daughter, or they have compared them and he was not excluded but no conclusive match can be made. All three possibilities seem almost equally plausible to me.

It is also of course possible 'Cooper' did get back in touch with his family after the hijacking, or they were aware of his plans and so didn't report him missing, or he had no close or living family to report him missing, or he was never reported missing for other a variety of other reasons, and so my initial approach to the case was the wrong approach anyway. But with the information I have at this time, my gut tells me Wilson is a really strong contender for being DB Cooper.

 

[ColyH]

pppsuedio, that was a good idea looking for people reported missing. I believe D.B. Cooper died in the jump and so suspects like Robert Rackstraw, Kenneth Christiansen or anyone known to be living after November 24, 1971 are off my radar as possibly being D.B. Cooper.

On reading up more on Melvin Luther Wilson I don't believe he was D.B. Cooper. He doesn't look much like the composite sketch of Cooper plus there are some personality differences.

D.B. Cooper - Seemed angry at the "man" and hijacked the plane as though he was doing it for the little guy. The fact the he jumped wearing a business suit in horrible weather conditions tells me he didn't care if he lived or died.

Melvin Luther Wilson - Was a lifelong criminal who comes across as a very selfish person and self-absorbed. He comes across as someone who looks out for himself and don't believe he would risk bodily harm to himself.

 

[Richard]

The FBI has a history of grabbing headlines and taking all the credit when a high profile character is caught. But look at their "Most Wanted" list and you will see that they are very quiet about the ones that get away.

 

[pppsuedio]

pppsuedio, that was a good idea looking for people reported missing.

Thanks!

On reading up more on Melvin Luther Wilson I don't believe he was D.B. Cooper. He doesn't look much like the composite sketch of Cooper

That is fair. It seems to be at least part of the reason the FBI agent was not very enthusiastic about MLW as a POI or suspect or whatnot. In my own mind, "does not look much like the 'thinner' composite" does add weight against my suspicion that MLW is Cooper. However, because sketches are never going to be completely accurate and because I feel like if I personally were trying to describe MLW to a sketch artist that it may well end up looking like the later color sketches or the 1988 sketch linked above, that "against" weight is counterbalanced enough that I do not rule him out because of the sketches. I think he is actually a relatively good match, in real world conditions, for some of the sketches. Overall I would say the sketches are a mix of for and against, in my mind, but ultimately resolve to adding more "for" weight to my feeling MLW is DB Cooper.

plus there are some personality differences.

D.B. Cooper - Seemed angry at the "man" and hijacked the plane as though he was doing it for the little guy. The fact the he jumped wearing a business suit in horrible weather conditions tells me he didn't care if he lived or died.

Melvin Luther Wilson - Was a lifelong criminal who comes across as a very selfish person and self-absorbed. He comes across as someone who looks out for himself and don't believe he would risk bodily harm to himself.

This is fair enough as well. However, just from my own experience, I would also say that I often find that selfish and self-absorbed people have a sense of entitlement that is congruent with seeing themselves as the little guy, or feeling like "the man" or the establishment, or anyone who disagrees with them, has actually done them wrong and/or is just trying to keep them down (not to get political, but I'm thinking of personalities like Trump - just mentioning that to help people picture the ~sort~ of personality I am picturing). I can see a lifelong criminal having that attitude, he certainly seemed to feel entitled to easy money. Similarly, if he was self-absorbed, he may not have even believed he was putting himself at risk of physical harm. A grand sense of self can be accompanied by a genuine belief that you are smart enough and good enough to do things that in reality you cannot pull off (*sigh* sometimes I wish I actually had a bit more of this sort of confidence and foolhardiness in my personality, but anyway...) With enough of that I can see someone believing they could jump out of a plane and escape unharmed. If he had paratrooper experience or had spent that two months planning the jump, he might have just assumed he could do it. Y'know, that sort of, knowing just enough to be dangerous level of knowledge and confidence. People don't know what it is that they don't know. Maybe he didn't know it was not a good idea to jump out of the plane in a business suit. Also, he was out on bail awaiting very serious criminal charges that could've meant spending 25 years in prison. So perhaps there was a bit of a desperate times call for desperate measures thing happening, as well. And that could've sure made him angry at "the man"!

 

[kemo]

I have no ideas as to the identity of D.B but I do believe that it is close to certainly that he survived the jump and was able to spend some of the money. My reasoning is as follow:

Commercial Aircraft has always had specific flight paths they must follow. There are often multiple options for some routes that the airline or pilots might chose depending on circumstances. If the pilot complied with D.B.’s instruction, there was only one route he could have taken from Seattle to Reno: a route the ran a mile or so due east of Interstate 5 north of Vancoveer Washington. Everything that is known about the flight would indicate that he jumped somewhere over a stretch of land about 5 miles long and two miles wide north of Vancouver and south of the Lewis River. This country is mostly flat farm or pastureland with plenty of roadways but few people actually living there. There would have been some trees and forested areas that might have presented a hazard to a parachutist but in general it would have presented very good conditions for a safe landing.

The following day, an extensive search was made of the area and no trace of D.B. Was found. Had his parachute open, it would have been found that day. Had it not opened, he would have been found soon enough by ranchers or farmers working their land.

The fact that two bundles of bills from the money he was given were found on Tina Barr on the Columbia River is proof that he did not die during his jump over that area. All running water in the area he would have landed in flows into the Lewis River that empties into the Columbia well downstream from Tina Barr. It would be impossible to arrive at that spot through natural drift.

After the Tina Barr find, the FBI offered an alternative scenario. They suggested that the flight might have been off course perhaps 10 miles to the east where the land was steeper and more heavily forested. In addition, steams in that area flow into the Washougal River which empties into the Columbia well upstream from Tina Barr. The land is by no means wilderness as it is heavily logged and there are plenty of roads that provide access to hunters, fishermen and off-road vehicle enthusiasts. It would seem a body there would eventually turn up.
The possibility of two bundle of bill finding their way into the Washougal and drifting together onto Tina Barr seems statistically as close to impossible as you can get.

A young boy, digging in the sand, unearthed bundles of bills so it is uncertain exactly how they were arranged but no explanation that involves two bundles of bills floating in Columbia River coming together buried in the sand at that particular beach seems reasonable. Being buried by human hands seems far more likely. Why D.B. or anyone else would bury those bills there is equally a mystery. That spot was on private land but it was apparently made available for many people to use as a beach in the summer. The flight attendant that stayed with D.B. on his flight was named “Tina”. Was it some kind of a joke?

Overall, all indications are that D.B. Survived his jump and buried at least some of the money at Tina Barr. Any suggestions that there is no record of any of the bills having been cashed is ludicrous since, at the time, there was no way to trace the movement of any bill by its serial number. Apparently bank tellers in the Seattle area were given a list of all the bills but none were ever found. If they were cashed outside the area ( or tellers were just too busy to check each $20 that crossed their desk), they would not be expected to turn up.

 

[snowleopard]

Interestingly, Mel Wilson's last regular address was in Minnesota, where Northwest was headquartered. Also the face value of the counterfeit money he dumped was $250K, not far from the ransom amout.

 

[GoBuckeyes]

Personally, I’m not convinced by this news at all.
Either way, I don’t think we’ll ever know if Rackstraw is DB Cooper because there’s no physical evidence linking him to DB Cooper, nor will the FBI investigate any leads unless physical evidence is found, I.e. the parachute and the rest of the money.

Part of me feels like this case isn’t meant to be solved.

@Maia_1011 I agree with you. Like the JFK assassination, the information is out there, moo. But we can't access it, at least not at this time. It's fun trying though.

 

[GoBuckeyes]

I feel the same way that this case will never get officially solved.

Unless a big pile of that money ends up being found I dont think LE wants to put any more time or effort into it.

One of the common theories may be the answer but we will likely never know which one for sure.

For my best guess.
I kind of like the one theory about the guy that had a military background and knew how to jump. Ive been leaning towards that theory. Mainly because of jumping out of an airplane seems like something someone would have to have past experience in doing it. I cant see someone who never had training to be the one to use that method to escape the plane. So I will probably always favor that theory the most.

@Hatfield, that's the theory I lean toward also. I like to think he did survive.

 

[george14]

I understand sketches are not very reliable, but what I question is the 1988 sketch that shows Cooper with a pronounced widow's peak. Every other photo shows him with a business-like comb over and bigger forehead/receding hairline. That is a big reason why I don't think Walter Reca is a reliable suspect because he had a very low hairline and a ton of hair, no signs of hair loss at all. That's difficult to mix up because your hair is such an identifying feature like your eyes.

The other guys like Sheridan Peterson, Robert Rackstraw, and William Smith seem more likely to me. They all had some sort of jumping experience and a lot of their details seem to add up.

I personally think Cooper survived the jump. Unless the guy was a total recluse, a missing persons report would have been filed. I know it was 1970's but someone, somewhere, would have said "hey where is my dad, brother, uncle, friend, neighbor, husband, coworker, etc". So Melvin Luther Wilson could make sense. I really want to look into that. I have never seen his name mentioned but that is a very interesting case.

My guess is the FBI is still working on matching the DNA. Testing is only getting better and over time we see links made and cases solved. They have the tie and some of his other finger prints. I kind of never want this to be solved, but I also do at the same time.

 

[Laughing]

DB Cooper case gets new clues in tiny algae found on ransom money, study says

Algae clue found on the money!!!

 

[barefootpoet]

DB Cooper case gets new clues in tiny algae found on ransom money, study says

Algae clue found on the money!!!

Interesting clue suggesting that the original flight path was off by almost 20 miles.

 

[Cliff Hardy]

After reading books and endless articles and opinions I had convinced myself DB Cooper didn't land his jump safely. But if you factor in that nothing of him, his briefcase, the parachute and most of the money was ever found you have to second think that conclusion. Factor in also that all the copycats did land safely, including Martin McNally who had never even jumped before, and....well....who knows?

The money find at Tina Bar, and how it got there, is such a tease though.

 

[barefootpoet]

After reading books and endless articles and opinions I had convinced myself DB Cooper didn't land his jump safely. But if you factor in that nothing of him, his briefcase, the parachute and most of the money was ever found you have to second think that conclusion. Factor in also that all the copycats did land safely, including Martin McNally who had never even jumped before, and....well....who knows?

The money find at Tina Bar, and how it got there, is such a tease though.[/QUOTE



I always wondered that if Cooper didn’t survive the jump wouldn't somebody had reportEd him missing? Plus it was very much national, even worldwide, story. Almost anybody would had put two and two together