Siblings from North Carolina claim they have uncovered one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history… who is skyjacker D.B. Cooper?
Is Rick McCoy Jr. the notorious skyjacker?
According to Chanté and Rick McCoy III, their late father, Richard McCoy Jr., is none other than the elusive D.B. Cooper—the infamous skyjacker who vanished into thin air after parachuting out of a plane with $200,000 during a daring 1971 heist.
The McCoy siblings reported that they found the parachute allegedly used in the escape hidden in their family home.
As reported by the New York Post, this new development has reignited interest in the unsolved case just over five decades later.
The hijacker, using the alias “Dan Cooper,” took a Northwest Orient Flight 305 hostage in 1971.
After informing the flight attendant that his briefcase contained a bomb, he handed her a note demanding $200,000 in cash (equivalent to $1.2 million today) and four parachutes.
To prove he meant business, authorities say he briefly opened the briefcase, revealing wires and what appeared to be explosives.
After receiving the ransom and parachutes during a stop in Seattle, he released the passengers and forced the crew to take off toward Reno.
Somewhere en route, wearing a business suit, he jumped into the night and disappeared without a trace.
DNA may be the key to solving the case
One of the few tangible leads in the case has always been a clip-on tie left behind on the plane, which contains trace DNA evidence.
Investigators mounted one of the most exhaustive searches in FBI history, but no solid leads ever panned out.
Yet, in 2023, the FBI reportedly searched the McCoy family home and seized the discovered parachute for analysis.
Rick McCoy also provided the authorities with a DNA sample in hopes of comparing it to the traces found on the hijacker’s tie.
The McCoy siblings revealed that they were aware that their father was Cooper, but the knowledge was a closely guarded family secret.
YouTuber Dan Gryder, who examined the parachute before it was confiscated by the FBI, believes it may indeed be the one used in the infamous hijacking.
“That rig is literally one in a billion,” Gryder reportedly remarked.
According to Gryder, the DNA Rick McCoy gave the government revealed markers were present in his sample that matched the tie, which has allegedly prompted the agency to potentially examine his father’s corpse.
“Undisputable DNA, which would give them more of those markers, is what is what they’re looking for,” he explained.
“That that’s where they were at on the thing. And that’s how come they’ve requested to exhume the body, which is a huge deal.’
The case remains the only unsolved aircraft hijacking in U.S. history, with a long list of colorful suspects.
To add credence to the McCoy sibling’s claim, Richard McCoy Jr. orchestrated a hijacking in Utah just five months after the Cooper incident.
Sentenced to 45 years for the crime, he escaped from a federal prison in Pennsylvania with three other inmates.
While two of the inmates were quickly captured, McCoy died in a shootout with FBI agents three months later in Virginia Beach.
Skyjacker D.B. Cooper suspect list
Despite the siblings claim, there have been several other likely suspects, including Robert Rackstraw, a former Army paratrooper known for his daredevil expertise, or Richard Briggs, a flamboyant criminal and cocaine supplier who brazenly claimed to be Cooper during the 1970s.
Briggs’ bizarre connection grew even stranger after a friend recalled a party where Briggs predicted that Cooper’s ransom money would resurface—and days later, $5,800 indeed turned up along the Columbia River.
Then there’s William Gossett, a seasoned veteran of multiple wars, whose own son claimed he was the man behind the heist.
Greg Gossett told The Standard-Examiner that on his 21st birthday, his father showed him the FBI sketch and asked him who it reminded him of.
More recently, a 2018 investigation tied William J. Smith, another potential candidate, to the case.
An anonymous Army data analyst wrote to the FBI declaring that Smith’s connections to Cooper’s profile were “too many to be simply of a coincidence.”
But the FBI has largely moved on from the case. Back in 2016, the bureau announced it would no longer actively investigate the mystery, citing the substantial resources required and the dwindling likelihood of credible leads.
“Every time the FBI assesses additional tips for the NORJAK case, investigative resources and manpower are diverted from programs that more urgently need attention,” the agency said in a statement at the time.
