This story was originally published on MyNorthwest.com
The case regarding the mysterious disappearance of the unidentified pirate D.B. Cooper may have had a breakthrough, thanks to a newly uncovered piece of evidence.
According to The Seattle Times, the parachute used by the hijacker may have been found. The children of Richard McCoy II found the parachute in an outbuilding on the family property.
The children have always believed their dad was D.B. Cooper, according to the Times. Chanté and Richard III waited until their mother passed before reaching out to Dan Gryder, a retired pilot and skydiver who has been documenting his own search for D.B. Cooper on his YouTube channel in his retirement.
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The children waited until after their mother passed because they suspected she was complicit in the hijacking. The FBI stopped investigating the case in 2016.
Chanté and Richard III’s father, Richard McCoy II, was arrested five months later after attempting a near identical heist to D.B. Cooper’s over Utah. He was arrested, and then broke out of jail, eventually dying in a police shootout.
McCoy was originally dismissed as a suspect by the FBI due to him not matching Cooper’s description. McCoy was much younger, 27 years old, when the heist occurred. Cooper was described to be in his mid-40s.
Many FBI personnel had come to believe that the real D.B. Cooper died in the jump, but others, including Gryder, believe this recently uncovered piece of evidence could be a breakthrough.
“This will definitely prove it was McCoy,” Gryder said, according to Yahoo News.
Nov. 24 — the 53rd anniversary of Cooper’s disappearance
In 1971, Cooper, a middle-aged man dressed in a business suit, was on board a plane when he gave a note to a stewardess claiming he had a bomb. He demanded $200,000 in $20 bills (equivalent to approximately $1.5 million in 2024) plus four parachutes in exchange for releasing the passengers. Cooper showed the stewardess the contents of his briefcase, which looked like it contained wires and explosives.
The jet circled Seattle while authorities on the ground gathered the cash and the parachutes to meet Cooper’s demands.
After the plane hovered above the city for nearly three hours, an FBI agent brought the money and the parachutes onto the plane.
Once the passengers were off the plane and the 727 was refueled, it took off again at 7:37 p.m. with its crew of three in the cockpit, and stewardess Tina Mucklow in the cabin with Cooper. After takeoff, Cooper directed Mucklow to join the crew in the cockpit, where she remained for the rest of the flight.
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Cooper had directed the crew to fly to Mexico at low speed, with the landing gear down and at an altitude no higher than 10,000 feet. This, Cooper was told, would require a fuel stop in Reno, Nevada.
Sometime after sending Mucklow to the cockpit, Cooper took off his necktie and put on one of the parachutes. He took hold of the $200,000 (which weighed about 21 pounds, according to the FBI) and lowered the rear stairs. In the cockpit, an indicator light showed the door opening around 8 p.m. Then, about fifteen minutes later, over an area east of Interstate 5 (I-5) near the community of Woodland, authorities later said, Cooper likely walked down those stairs and jumped off.
All that was left of Cooper was his clip-on necktie. Searchers combed the woods around southwest Washington, but never found a trace of anything.