Nov. 24 2024, Printed 1:45 p.m. ET
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The FBI has been baffled for many years by the case of D.B. Cooper – the unidentified man who hijacked Northwest Orient Airways Flight 305, took hundreds in ransom, and mysteriously vanished after parachuting out of the airplane.
After exhausting all credible leads and suspects, the intelligence company lastly appeared to surrender in 2016.
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The FBI mentioned it was reallocating sources to different investigative priorities except new info – notably bodily proof like parachutes or cash – emerged.
However now, the case has quietly been reopened after Richard Floyd McCoy II’s youngsters reached out to retired pilot, skydiver, and YouTuber Dan Gryder in 2020, presenting potential new proof.
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There was hypothesis and theories suggesting McCoy may have been D.B. Cooper, however there hasn’t been any definitive proof linking him to the hijacking.
McCoy, a former Military soldier and fugitive, was arrested in 1972 for the same hijacking of a United Airways flight – one 12 months after the D.B. Cooper incident.
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After the loss of life of Chanté and ‘Rick’ McCoy’s mom, the siblings reached out to Gryder in July 2022 and invited him to their household property in North Carolina.
The YouTuber had persistently been contacting them through the years throughout his personal investigation of the case.
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Inside Rick’s mom’s storage unit, Gryder found a modified navy surplus bailout rig, which he believes was utilized by Cooper throughout the hijacking and might be the case’s lacking hyperlink.
He mentioned of the precise parachute: “That rig is actually one in a billion.”
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McCoy’s youngsters share Gryder’s perception that their father was D.B. Cooper, a secret that hung over the household however was by no means brazenly mentioned.
For years, the household stored quiet in concern that talking out would possibly implicate their mom, Karen, whom they consider was concerned in each hijackings.
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Gryder – who has researched the D.B. Cooper case for 20 years – documented his findings in a two-part Possible Trigger sequence on YouTube, together with footage of discovering the parachute on the McCoy household property in July 2022.
He launched a 3rd half on Monday, the place he revealed the FBI’s latest efforts in his discoveries.
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FBI brokers contacted Rick and Gryder to look at the parachute after watching his first two movies, marking the company’s first motion on the case since declaring it closed in 2016.
In September 2023, Gryder and Rick traveled to Richmond, Virginia, the place they met with FBI brokers.
The brokers took the harness and parachute into proof, together with a skydiving logbook discovered by Chanté that matched the timeline of each hijackings, including one other essential piece to the investigation.
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A month later, an FBI agent referred to as Rick asking to look the household property in Cove Metropolis, North Carolina – the place the parachute was found.
Rick mentioned the company appeared via “each nook and cranny” of the property, which their mom owned.
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The important thing to the invention lies within the distinctive alterations to the parachute, which had been well-documented by Earl Cossey, a veteran skydiver who equipped the parachutes for the 1971 hijacking.
Gryder and McCoy’s youngsters consider these particular particulars present sturdy proof linking him to the D.B. Cooper case.