The Mystery of D. B. Cooper: A Conversation with Eric Ulis

[00:00:00] We all have cases that for some reason or other haunt us, that we can't stop thinking about. These are the ones that might sometimes keep us awake at night as we turn over all the

[00:00:11] possibilities in our mind. For me, the story of D. B. Cooper is definitely one of those cases. It's not a murder case, but it is a missing person case. On November 24th, 1971, a man

[00:00:25] the world has come to know as D. B. Cooper hijacked a passenger plane and demanded a ransom of $200,000. After he got his money, he parachuted out into the night sky and was never seen again.

[00:00:41] Who was he? Why did he do it? What happened to him after he leapt out into the darkness? To get an idea of some of the possibilities, we turn to Eric Ulis.

[00:00:52] Eric is a widely recognized expert on the case. You may have seen him discuss it on the History Channel and CNN. And he has some ideas on how the mystery surrounding Cooper can finally be solved.

[00:01:21] And this is The Mystery of D. B. Cooper, a conversation with Eric Ulis.

[00:02:11] To start off with, I think maybe it would be best if you could just tell us a bit about yourself and how you got interested in this case. Yeah, I think I first heard of the case as a kid,

[00:02:24] probably in the late 70s, Leonard Neemoy had a show called In Search Of and one of the episodes was about the D. B. Cooper mystery and then I think that aired in 78. So that was a couple

[00:02:37] of years before the money was found or a portion of the ransom was found buried along the Columbia River. And I was 12 years old at that point. We had a big aviation buff, still am I guess,

[00:02:50] but certainly as a 12 year old kid, I was definitely an aviation buff. And I suspect that that's probably what piqued my interest initially because this was a crime that involved obviously an airliner. And it's one of those things that over the years I just had a passing

[00:03:07] interest. Things would occasionally appear in the newspaper or on TV, that type of thing. And I would just kind of keep an eye on it. I guess if things happen to materialize.

[00:03:20] And then I want to say it was about 15 years ago where for whatever reason this idea crossed my mind. I wonder if I could actually solve this thing because I knew that the case was still on the solve.

[00:03:33] And I just thought, you know what? There's got to be a way to figure this thing out. I mean, it's real. It really happened. This isn't Bigfoot or Loch Ness Monster we're talking about here. This is a real event. And so I started to go ahead.

[00:03:49] We'd be very interested in hearing about what steps you've taken to try to solve this. I think our audience would be extremely interested in that. But before we get into that, I think there

[00:04:03] are some people out there who might not be familiar with the basics of the case. So I wonder if could you start by just running through what D.B. Cooper did? Yeah, yeah. So on November 24th, 1971, which was Thanksgiving Eve, an unidentified man showed up

[00:04:25] at the Northwest Orient Airlines ticket counter in Portland, Oregon. And purchased a one-way ticket from Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington. He gave the ticket agent the name Dan Cooper and proceeded to head to the gate. Now within the hour, he actually handed one of the flight attendants

[00:04:49] a note as the jet was taxiing to the runway. It was still on the ground. It was taxiing to the runway. And the note said that he had a bomb and that he wanted the flight attendant

[00:05:00] to come sit by him. So of course, she did that. And at that point, he opened an attaché case that he had sitting on his lap that appeared to show a bomb and said that there were being skyjacks.

[00:05:15] And he had some demands. Now this is as the jet is literally rolling down the runway and taking off from Portland up to Seattle. And that started a whole series of events over the next several

[00:05:30] hours, including demands that he made, which essentially amounted to he wants $200,000 in cash. He wants two front parachutes and he wants two back parachutes. And he wants all of these things staged at the airport in Seattle before he will let the jet land and obviously before he lets

[00:05:54] the passengers go. And so the authorities did manage to get everything finally staged at Seattle. They were a little late. The jet actually landed at 5.40pm. He wanted this all staged by 5pm,

[00:06:09] but he did land but the jet land. And at that point, the first thing that came on board, the jet was the $200,000 in cash, which was a 20 pound bag of cash with $10,000 bills in it.

[00:06:23] He let the passengers go at that point. Then he had the four parachutes. And when I say four parachutes, I'm talking two front parachutes and two back parachutes, he had those brought on board

[00:06:34] the jets. And he let two of the three flight attendants go as well. And the jet was refueled and he said, let's head to Mexico. And that started a series of conversations with the pilots

[00:06:49] because they said they simply couldn't fly that far without refueling somewhere along the way. So he agreed to let them refuel in Reno, Nevada. Now it's very important that when they took off from Seattle, he also had some demands, very specific demands about the configuration of the

[00:07:07] jet, meaning he didn't want the jet to fly over 10,000 feet in altitude. He wanted the landing gear to remain down. He wanted the flaps to remain down at a very specific 15 degree flap setting.

[00:07:23] He wanted the jet to be unpressurized and he wanted the lights off. So it was flying in a very drag heavy configuration. And about 36 minutes after taking off from Seattle, on this way to Reno, ostensibly to refuel the head over to Mexico, there was this

[00:07:44] pressure bump that the pilots experienced. And this is a critical part that I actually forgot as well. This was a Boeing 727. And the Boeing 727 was a unique airliner in that it had this

[00:08:01] air stairs apparatus that deployed from the back bottom of the fuse lodge. So it was essentially built in air stairs. So when the jet was at a small airport, for example, they didn't need

[00:08:15] a truck with stairs on it or a jetway or anything of that nature, they could simply deploy these back air stairs apparatus and passengers could bore the jet or deplane the jet.

[00:08:28] But he wanted those jet air stairs hanging open in flight. So and they were he lowered them in flight as the jet was flying south. And again, about 36 minutes after taking off the pilot's experience, the pressure bump, which the authorities later learned was when DV Cooper actually climbed

[00:08:47] down those stairs while the jet was flying at 10,000 feet and 200 miles an hour and jumped out. When he jumped off those air stairs, essentially they sprung back up like a diving board almost into the back bottom of the fuse lodge and created this popping sensation in their ears.

[00:09:04] But he's never been seen or heard from again. So officially at this point, the authorities don't know where he came from. They don't know where he went. They don't know whether he lived or died. And they don't know his real name. I should mention

[00:09:21] finally hear that he did give the name as I mentioned before Dan Cooper at the ticket counter. But the one of the media reporters made a mistake of reporting on the skyjacking in pegs his name is DB Cooper. And authorities quickly realized and the media quickly realized,

[00:09:41] no, that's a mistake. His name was actually Dan Cooper, not not DB Cooper. But DB Cooper just stuck people just like, No, it's a cooler sounding name I guess. So it's just stuck.

[00:09:52] And it just been called DB Cooper ever since. So here we are 52 years later still trying to figure out who this guy was and where he went. And still getting his name wrong. That's exactly it. Yeah. And you know, it's funny because there are a couple purists out

[00:10:08] there who refused to call him, you know, DB Cooper, he's got to be called Dan Cooper because that's the name that he gave. But I'm the opposite. I'm like, you know what? I like

[00:10:17] DB Cooper. That's just kind of a cool name. So I'm going to roll with that. Yeah, the initial sound cooler, I will admit. You mentioned you mentioned some of the money was found. Can you discuss that?

[00:10:30] Yeah, in 1980, so about eight years after the skyjacking, there was a family that was on the beach in Vancouver, Washington, just across the river from Portland, Oregon. And they happened to discover three rotted packs of $20 bills.

[00:10:52] $20 bills, part of DB Cooper's ransom, a totaling $6,000 buried in the sand just below the surface of the sand. And it had obviously been there for a very long time because they were quite rotted. In fact, about 75% of the bills had rotted away in the three packets. And importantly,

[00:11:13] it was found at a point on the beach that was about 50 feet from the water's edge and about nine feet above the level of the river under normal conditions. So what I'm getting at is that the

[00:11:25] river doesn't reach that spot normally. So it's impossible that he could have jumped that night, landed in the river, and then just washed up on the river from the river. It's impossible

[00:11:39] because the river wasn't that high up. So that's been sort of an enigma built into this as well. A mystery within a mystery had its $6,000 of DB Cooper's money end up buried on this beach in Vancouver, Washington. And it's critically important to note that where it was found

[00:11:58] was about 15 to 20 miles as the crow flies from the drop zone, specifically the area where the FBI thinks he jumped. And there is no physical way, no natural physical way that those three packets could have arrived at this beach called Tina Bar, T-E-N-A is how it's spelled,

[00:12:21] Tina Bar. There's no physical way that the money could have or natural way the money could have arrived there. So it does appear that it appears that the money was buried there and presumably DB Cooper buried it himself. So make of that what you will.

[00:12:37] This is all very intriguing. It's a very intriguing case. And maybe part of the reason why it's intriguing is because like you mentioned earlier, it seems like it could be solvable

[00:12:48] or should be solvable. So now can you discuss some of the things you have done to try to find answers in this case? Yeah, I'm again, I started looking very seriously at this case about

[00:13:01] 15 years ago. And you know, I'm not the kind of person that's really into conspiracy theories or you know, things of that nature. I mean, I really wanted to figure out who the real guy was.

[00:13:15] So, you know, fortunately, this has been about seven years ago now through the Freedom of Information Act. The FBI files are opened up to the public. So they started releasing the FBI started releasing some original case files going all the way back to the night of the skyjacking.

[00:13:34] And there's about 30,000 pages worth that have been released at this point. So I've read through those 30,000 pages and about every six months or rather every six weeks, there's another, you know, 500 or so pages that are released. Now a lot of these are heavily redacted

[00:13:52] and are of little value, but there is still, there are still little diamonds, you know, built into that thing, little gems built into that that really tell a story. So I dug into those pretty heavily. But more importantly, I think is I've gone out of my

[00:14:09] way to really leverage today's technology and specifically related to the tie because one of the things when the jet landed in Reno, Nevada to refuel, Debye Cooper was gone, of course. The money was gone. The bomb was gone. Pretty much everything was gone. However, there was a skinny

[00:14:32] black clip on tie that was left on board the seat was on his seat on board the jet. This is the tie that Debye Cooper had been wearing. Now in 1971, it wasn't of much value.

[00:14:44] There wasn't much they could do forensically with it. But in recent years, there's been an awful lot that we've been able to do forensically. And specifically, there was a scientific analysis that was put under a standing electron microscope basically. And that identified something north

[00:15:02] of 100,000 very unique and rare kind of particles on the tie. Rare earth elements, you know, titanium metals, aluminum stainless steel, a whole array of things that are really kind of unique and interesting for 1971 and appear to be consistent with the aerospace sector,

[00:15:24] somebody who worked in the aerospace sector, which makes a lot of sense because of course, Seattle is where Boeing was located. It was a Boeing jet. Debye Cooper, whoever this guy was, appeared to be familiar with Boeing 727 and just aviation in general. So that's one area that

[00:15:43] I've spent a lot of time looking into is the related to the type particles specifically about a year ago, a little over a year ago actually. I discovered among the particles, three particles of a very rare titanium and antimony alloy that appears to be consistent with the US

[00:16:06] patent that was procured by a company that's no longer around, a company called Remkru Titanium that was based in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area. And they were specialty metals manufacturer and they were a major subcontractor for Boeing and as well as other aerospace companies. So they created

[00:16:28] a lot of the specialty metals that Boeing used on their commercial aircraft, as well as their military aircraft back in the 60s and 70s and even beyond. So it does appear my mind that Debye Cooper because he had this stuff on his tie and specifically these three very

[00:16:48] rare titanium and antimony particles, it does appear that Debye Cooper actually worked at that company in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area leading up to the point that the skyjacking took place. So yeah, it's a fascinating thing and there's also DNA that I'm trying to get my hands on

[00:17:09] which is kind of a lengthy story but again I think that really as far as my main trust has been concerned it's really been trying to leverage science to see if they can come up with

[00:17:22] some answers because of course the state of the art technology that we have nowadays, far and away ahead of what it was back in 1971. And I've also been actively searching because I believe very formally that the FBI made a few mistakes that's pretty clear

[00:17:42] and I think one of the mistakes was the flight path that they were working with which identified this drop zone, this area where they believe Debye Cooper land which remember was about 15 or 20

[00:17:55] miles from where the money was found. So simply put I think that that flight path was slightly askew. I think there was a mistake into that flight path in other words they were searching

[00:18:07] in the wrong area. Specifically I think that the path that they worked with was not the path for the Skyjack airliner but we're actually one of the military chase jets. So I personally believe

[00:18:21] very firmly that Debye Cooper actually landed probably about a mile or so from where the money was found. So I've actually over the last few years have spent quite a bit of time heading in that area searching because I do believe Debye Cooper's parachutes and perhaps

[00:18:40] the bomb perhaps some of the money is still out there but certainly the parachutes, the main parachute that he jumped with that would still be out there somewhere just a matter of finding it.

[00:18:49] Absolutely. I want to ask you more about the DNA but before that this is a very nerdy question but can you tell us more about the FOIA that sort of started you off on this? Did you

[00:19:01] file it? Did others in the community? How long did that take? The reason I ask and our listeners will know this is because Kevin filed a FOIA on a FBI case from the 70s and literally waited

[00:19:15] three years for it. He actually has been waiting on that longer than he's been married to me so I was just curious what your experience with that was. The FOIA request that opened everything up was not from me. It was from a gentleman named Tom

[00:19:32] Colbert and his attorney, a guy named Mark Zade and this was filed back in 2016 and I'm not sure of the exact process that it went through. I know they ended up going to court because I think

[00:19:47] initially the FBI said we're not going to hand over anything but ultimately it did go to court and the matter was resolved and again they're now releasing files to the tune of like I said about

[00:20:00] 500 pages every six weeks or so. Now separate from that there is a matter related to D.B. Cooper's clip on tie that I mentioned there. Now the clip on tie is in the custody of the FBI of course

[00:20:16] at their headquarters in Washington DC and I filed a FOIA request probably two years ago, something like that two to three years ago asking to get access to the tie because I identified

[00:20:33] a very specific part of the tie that I believe that there is likely a full DNA profile for D.B. Cooper and my ultimately they came back and first of all they said they couldn't they didn't know where

[00:20:48] the tie was and then they said that they just didn't fall under the purview of FOIA so they basically disregarded my request. Now I happened to be at FBI headquarters in October of 2021 so you know a little over two years ago and when I was there I actually

[00:21:09] saw the tie with my own eyes so I said well I know where the tie is because and that was somewhat of a matter of discussion is where's the tie and I don't I don't know what the story is I just get

[00:21:22] the impression that somebody was just too lazy to do their due diligence but obviously me seeing him with my own eyes I'm like well I can tell you where your tie is sitting in you know Washington

[00:21:32] DC so but the other matter with respect to trying to get access to the tie saying that that didn't fall under the purview of FOIA I disagreed with so I filed a federal lawsuit

[00:21:45] in Washington DC it's been a little over nine months now trying to get access to the tie and we're still waiting to hear from the judge we're waiting for some sort of ruling from the

[00:21:57] judge with respect to this but I will say that my my dealings with FOIA and the FBI specifically have been they haven't been accommodating at all it's been very very frustrating I've actually had

[00:22:13] cases or situations with the FBI whereby I requested a specific documentation and they actually agreed to the FOIA request and then they came back months later and said we can't find the documents

[00:22:28] and I'm like you know the documents are there you know someone's just not looking or whatever the case may happen to be so yeah that's that's it I've just been an unpleasant experience and frankly

[00:22:41] I don't think they've really lived up to the spirit of the law which is pretty clear that you know these kind of documents and this kind of information should be made available to the

[00:22:51] public to the public and you know they have an obligation that is the FBI and other government agencies have an obligation to provide these this information this documentation to the degree that doesn't infringe or impune upon a you know an existing you know prosecution or something of that

[00:23:11] nature but they've they've been very unaccommodating in that sense so it's been a little frustrating but you know that's the nature of the beast I can imagine it must be incredibly frustrated

[00:23:22] yeah we feel your pain on this but I'm I'm struck by how much information you've been able to get from this tie even without access to it you you've built a compelling case for where

[00:23:37] Cooper may have worked and so the obvious question is are there any suspects you can talk about who did work at Boeing yeah and to be clear the person that I've identified as a person of

[00:23:51] interest did not actually work at Boeing he worked for this company called Grimfru titanium the subcontractor which is where it was the subcontractor that uh that had the patent and manufactured this very

[00:24:06] specific alloy it was never you know it's sort of an experimental thing and never made a you know was never really commercially developed or distributed or anything of that nature but I do have one

[00:24:17] specific person of interest a guy named Vince Peterson he worked in the titanium research lab there in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania area he passed away in 2002 so I want to be very clear he's just a

[00:24:32] compelling person of interest in my mind obviously Mr. Peterson is no longer alive so he cannot speak for himself and can't obviously defend himself so I don't want to be accusing anybody of anything

[00:24:44] but I'll just say that he's a very interesting compelling person of interest because he does appear to not only meet match the physical parameters for D.B. Cooper you know a guy that was about 50 years

[00:24:57] old a guy who's about six feet one tall you know has a certain general appearance but also with respect to he was in the right place to have picked up these high particles and that's a

[00:25:13] hard sell that's hard that's hard to find somebody who was wearing a tie back then who can account for all of the particles on the tie because again there's quite an exotic array of particles on the

[00:25:25] tie and he is about the only person I'm aware of that can actually account for all of these particles very interestingly as well uh his old supervisor his former supervisor is still alive

[00:25:39] at least he was still alive as of a year or two ago he was 90 years old at the time and I spoke with the supervisor and the supervisor mentioned to me that there is a very small group of men that

[00:25:52] worked in this titanium research lab one of homeless Mr. Peterson when I say small I mean about eight you know eight eight engineers now they had assistants and so forth so the assistants didn't wear ties the engineers did but he also said the supervisor mentioned that

[00:26:10] Mr. Peterson actually traveled to Seattle to Boeing on business and that he was the only person to do that for this room crew titanium in addition to the supervisor himself so it's very interesting

[00:26:27] because I can put Mr. Peterson obviously in Seattle you know add Boeing on the floor during the time that the Boeing 727 was being produced and manufactured there in Seattle so it's all very interesting but having said that I do think that it's going to take you know

[00:26:46] something along the lines of getting access to the tie and procuring it a DNA profile but before we know with certainty whether he was db Cooper or whether he was not db Cooper because at

[00:26:59] the end of the day it's a binary choice Bench Peterson was either 100% db Cooper or he was 100% not db Cooper you know it's one or the other so so hopefully we'll be able to figure this thing out

[00:27:13] once we get the end that once we get access to the tie which I'm confident we will confident eventually that will happen I'm wondering just going back to the FBI aspect of this um do you

[00:27:24] have a sense of why they would not want you to test DNA like wouldn't that be a good thing for everyone to figure this out once and for all uh it's a pain in the ass that's basically it

[00:27:36] I mean honestly they closed the case in July 2016 unsolved and they just don't have anything else to do with it I mean that's really I think what it comes down to it involves work

[00:27:46] you know somebody's got to you know give us access to the tie they're certainly not going to test them for themselves anymore because it's expensive and it's time consuming and and all that kind of stuff

[00:27:58] but uh that's really the only thing I can figure out I mean other than that I just don't know I've been asked many times you know is the FBI concerned about the the um are they concerned

[00:28:11] about how would look you know having someone like me who is just a private citizen solving the case you know solving you know solving the case and they couldn't solve it after all these years

[00:28:21] and I suppose there's probably a part you know that may be part of it to a certain degree you know but you know I don't think there's any room for pride in these time of matters let me get a

[00:28:33] applied aside you know if there's a legitimate opportunity to to uh perhaps solve this case that's that's what they need to be doing and again I'm not asking them to spend public resources

[00:28:45] or anything of that nature I'm just simply asking the FBI to give me access to the tie with a DNA specialist for half an hour we'll we'll go to Washington DC the tie remains in their possession

[00:29:00] they just open the door and pull the tie out and you know for no more than 30 minutes the you know DNA expert uh swabs a couple areas of that tie then we take that material and then have

[00:29:13] it processed I would analyze through a lab and see what we can come up with so I don't know I'm not really sure what what the objection would be from the FBI but for whatever reason

[00:29:26] they have definitely played hardball and I've talked about this extensively I mean I was on the CNN with Jake Tapper probably a month or month and a half ago and Jake Tapper himself right on the show

[00:29:38] at the at the at the end of the segment challenged the FBI director Christopher Ray said you know if you're not doing anything with the tie director Ray why not just give Eric and his

[00:29:48] in his DNA expert you know why don't you give him access see what they come up with what's the hell tied yes it's not just me I mean I think a lot of people look at and say what the hell is

[00:29:58] the problem here just give him access like this was like a highly sensitive murder case and they were actively working it and there there was a possibility that private citizens could accidentally damage the you know I could understand where they were coming from but in this situation

[00:30:12] they're seemingly not doing anything with it this is an opportunity to finally have some closure on you know something that wasn't necessarily like a murder but certainly like you know was a traumatic

[00:30:23] experience for I'm sure those who survived it and just everyone wants to know so I'm with you guys on that one I don't understand it um here's a question that's a little bit depressing or maybe

[00:30:34] I'm not I'm not sure like you mentioned having at least one person of interest at this point is there what do you think of the theory that um he just he died out there he didn't survive

[00:30:45] the jump in his body since never been found I think there's zero percent chance that happened and the reason why is because the evidence simply doesn't back it up you know you have to start with

[00:30:57] the fact that nothing was ever found you know you didn't find a corpse you didn't find you know uh the parachute strewn about the ground you know didn't find an half-past shake case

[00:31:08] anything of that nature well for that matter the bulk of the money none of this was found and if db cooper died uh dead dead men don't don't walk you know they can't you know if he's dead he

[00:31:20] can't walk out of the area and hide everything and conceal everything uh the other thing is that you know when we're talking about the six thousand dollars that was found you know we were talking

[00:31:31] three packets three of the packets that were found uh stacked on top of each other just below the surface of the sand and again as I mentioned before where they were found it appears with

[00:31:44] with certainty in my mind that those three packets had to have been buried by a person and if they were buried by a person then all likelihood it was db cooper himself so uh you know and it's

[00:31:57] been 52 years and we're not talking Siberia here or Antarctica we're talking Clark county Washington I mean there's a significant number of people that live in this area and people have been looking for the guy not only law enforcement but you know treasure hunters and uh and hunters out

[00:32:17] there and other people engaged in recreation for years have been out in that area enjoying the Pacific Northwest and many of whom have actually been looking for the the guy in a specific target

[00:32:28] area and have never found him so I think it's very very clear that he walked away that's probably unfun I think because he walked away and I said this many times before because the FBI likes to

[00:32:40] spin this yarn that he probably died or whatever the case may happen to be and at the end of the day this is what it comes down to the last time anybody saw him he was alive he was alive

[00:32:53] with a parachute it was the last time anybody saw him so if he jumps out of the back of the jet never to be seen or heard from again it seems to me that default position has got to be he's still

[00:33:04] alive or you know at least at that point and uh so I think that that's uh it just defies common sense the other critical thing I should mention as well is there ended up being several copy

[00:33:17] cats that tried doing similar things after the all of whom got caught but importantly most of the copycats believe it or not had never jumped before had never even put on a parachute

[00:33:31] before yet they still did it they still jumped out of an airliner at 10 000 feet with you know with the loot and again all of them got caught also very importantly every single one survived

[00:33:44] not a single fatality most of whom had never even jumped before so one makes vb cooper different one makes him unique why is he the one guy that died that somehow nobody can find any any evidence

[00:33:57] of that having been the case in the course that mysterious $6 000 that would sound long beach so again I am absolutely convinced 100% that he uh landed um in good shape and just simply walked out I'm curious um do you believe based on based on the evidence based on your

[00:34:17] review of this that he was able to walk out with the remainder or at least some of the money yeah I actually think you got away with 194 000 because while on the surface you look at it

[00:34:30] and you think what the heck you know how to have a $6 000 end up there where's the rest of it you know what's it doing over here I think the the answer is actually pretty obvious um

[00:34:42] it's important to note that when db cooper asked for the $200 000 he actually asked for it in a nap sack because it's obvious that what he was going to do is he was going to put this

[00:34:54] nap sack this backpack on he's probably gonna wear it backwards wear it in reverse and then have a parachute on his back but it didn't show up that way when the authorities

[00:35:03] delivered the money it was delivered in a white chief white canvas bank bag didn't have snaps on it didn't have a drawstring didn't have a zipper nothing was you know it's really just kind of a bag

[00:35:17] and db cooper immediately recognized this is a problem I can't jump you know at 200 miles now for 10 000 feet up with his bag because the money is you know obviously going to go everywhere

[00:35:29] so I think that what he did is he took a portion of the money out to lighten the load in the bag because the bag was not very sturdy and I have one of the bags so I mean I've tried this so I know

[00:35:41] I know what I'm talking about as far as this goes so I think he took part of the money out in how it's part of the ransom in one of the reserve parachutes because he also jumped with

[00:35:54] a reserve parachute that he could not have been using as a reserve as a backup and safety measure for a number of reasons so I believe he put part of the money in there to lighten the load in the bag

[00:36:07] and then he kept the rest of the ransom in the bank bag and we've got witnesses saying that you know he used cannibalizing a shroud line from one of the four parachutes used it to tie the

[00:36:19] money bag up and everything else pretty thoroughly and it ultimately tied all this stuff to his person so I think what happened here is that D.B. Cooper when he jumped and I should note that I think it was

[00:36:33] I think it's also obvious that he was his initial plan with the jump in the outskirts of Seattle I think his initial plan was once the jet took off from Seattle six or seven minutes out you

[00:36:43] know in the excerpts somewhere he was trying to jump but there were a couple things that got in a way he ended up jumping about half an hour later near Vancouver near Portland but to me it's obvious

[00:36:54] that when he landed near the Columbia River of course he walked to the river because he realized he had to bury the cash he couldn't very well walk into town carrying the cash I mean that would be

[00:37:07] crazy I mean it's a surefire way to get arrested so I think he made his way to the beach using a stick or whatever kind of implement was on the ground there just the cans carved out

[00:37:19] a hole in the sand through the bag of cash in the hole and I think he extracted those loose packets that he had put in the reserve parachute I think he extracted those from the reserve

[00:37:33] parachute and also through those in the hole and buried it all up and then I believe he came back a period of time later presumably undercover of darkness I can't seem doing this in the middle

[00:37:44] of the day and he retrieved it so he probably you know had marked had had a couple landmarks in mind and you know uncovered the bag and you know pulled the money bag out of it's out of its grave

[00:38:01] and some of those loose packets would have you but I think it's unbeknownst to him three of those loose packets that were also buried there in the hole on the sand just simply were

[00:38:10] overlooked and got left behind and ultimately I think that's what was found a few years later in 1980 so I think that explains how do you have those three isolated packets sitting there and importantly that I think that indicates that as for the 194,000 that's still outstanding

[00:38:29] that he actually got away with it earlier of course we both agreed that this case seems solvable and so that actually raises an interesting question why wasn't this case solved in 1971?

[00:38:45] Well at the end of the day there's a few things first of all with 1971 you know so you know we don't have DNA testing scanning electron microscopes you know everybody with a cell

[00:39:00] phone in their hands GPS back I mean we you know obviously they just don't have the same tools back then in 71 that they do you know 52 53 years later 2023 2024. The other thing is that Cooper was just one or two steps ahead of the authorities the entire way

[00:39:22] and you know it's obvious to me that Cooper what part of what made Cooper unique is he didn't talk about it he didn't brag about it part of part of how some of these copycats got caught

[00:39:40] wasn't because they failed and didn't manage to jump and get away it's because they jumped and got away but bragged about it and then five days later that you know word got back to the authorities

[00:39:52] and then all of a sudden there's somebody knocking on the door so it's apparent to me that Cooper did a very good job of just simply not talking about it now bragging to his buddies or obviously

[00:40:04] going to the local Cadillac dealership and buying a brand new Cadillac and cash anything like that so you know one step one or two steps ahead of the authorities very careful

[00:40:16] about his movements once he got away with it I think that had a lot to do with it as well so I think that's really primarily the lion's share of how he managed to get away now to be sure

[00:40:30] I think there are also a couple of critical errors that the FBI made in their investigation that didn't help and so I think it's almost sort of the perfect storm in a way I think it would be

[00:40:44] impossible to replicate that nowadays but back in 71 DB Cooper I believe he was successful and and it was I think largely a testament to his you know paying attention to detail and obviously being very disciplined about certain things I think that's the majority of the reason

[00:41:08] he got away was because of that but I think there is also that other aspect which is just you know some flaws on the part of the investigators in the intervening decades and this is such an

[00:41:20] intriguing case that once it gets its hooks into people they tend to want to talk about it and discuss it and so actually there is a vibrant community that has grown around this case both online

[00:41:35] and in real life at events like Cooper con can you can you tell us a little bit about the community around this case yeah yeah absolutely uh yeah for yeah you're right uh there are there is

[00:41:48] a pretty vibrant community here uh that's built around this case uh one of which is an annual event called super con uh which I actually founded in 2018 so we just had the fifth annual Cooper con

[00:42:04] took place in November in Seattle and uh you know it's a three-day event we get experts and and first hand witnesses you know the guy was a passenger on the jet who sat directly

[00:42:15] across from DB Cooper he was there you know and we interviewed him on stage you know the former FBI agent who headed up the investigation obviously before it was closed he was interviewed

[00:42:26] on stage uh one of the copycat skyjackers that I talked about that tried you know that was inspired by DB Cooper and did the same exact thing but ended up getting caught he was on stage we had him

[00:42:38] there as well so it's very it's just fascinating because people just find this to be an interesting case and it is interesting uh in addition to that I actually founded a Facebook group as well

[00:42:50] called the DB Cooper mystery group which I founded probably two two years ago something like that as far as it stands now it's a little north of 4400 members and it's a it's a great place where

[00:43:04] people can get together and talk about theories and suspects and ideas and occasionally argue or picker about things but uh but it's actually it's it's been a terrific resource because um you it's amazing the the people that you that you see that join the group like this

[00:43:25] scientists and attorneys and you know former law enforcement personnel pilots and so forth all of whom or many of whom who contribute in their own way you know they have an area of expertise and I think that that's really kind of the modern day version if you will

[00:43:43] of the investigation because again you know the FBI is no longer investigating this thing they they closed the books on this in 2016 so it's really up to us you know people like myself and others

[00:43:55] who have a passion and are interested in you know trying to figure out who this guy was and what happened and uh you know certainly something like the Facebook group is an ideal spot to get

[00:44:06] people together and to uh to dig into the case in details and uncover facts and things of that nature so but it's it's it is remarkable and that in turn has led to a fair amount of

[00:44:20] you know documentaries and certainly podcasts and things of that nature that that and a lot of media coverage frankly as well that every year there's a fair amount of media coverage related to the case in one shape or form all of which which keeps expression people's minds

[00:44:37] and introduces the case to maybe younger people and others who for whatever reason aren't familiar with the case and I think that's a critical component as well I think it's really important to uh that people are aware of this case because it's been 52 years it hasn't been 500

[00:44:56] years just 52 so it's there's a very real possibility that you know even though db Cooper's likely no longer alive at this point because he'd be very old you know around 100 um certainly the man had

[00:45:09] relatives and you know the hope is that maybe at some point science can't close the book on the case as I mentioned earlier you know perhaps somebody uh a grandson a granddaughter

[00:45:22] somebody like that you know realizes that grandpa fred has strangely uh you know a stash of old 20 dollar bills or maybe a handwritten note that appears to have you know demands on it you know

[00:45:40] for you know 200 000 dollars in cash whatever you know I mean you know there may be evidence there that somebody finds it somewhere down the road and obviously if they're unfamiliar with

[00:45:50] the db cooper case that may be a little value but if they've heard of the case they may think hmm maybe grandpa fred was this old you know the db cooper guy so that's that's an important part as

[00:46:03] well absolutely that would be that'd be wild if if just somebody is just cleaning out their grandparents attic after they pass away and then just find that um and I just want to say like

[00:46:13] having you know we're in the true crime space we see how often you know communities can devolve into you know just outlandish stuff or ridiculous stuff or ghoulish stuff I really feel like the

[00:46:21] cooper community is a lot more I don't know like positive than that from what I've seen so far like there there really does seem to be this kind of community minded spirit to like let's figure this

[00:46:31] out and I think that's really cool um yeah I I think that you're largely right I mean when you get a group of you know in the case of the facebook group 4400 people together you know

[00:46:43] you occasionally have a bad apple oh or you know or or you have people that are uh territorial in a way but I think by and large uh that is is I think I do a pretty good job policing that on the group

[00:46:58] and you know at the at the end of the day I mean I look at the case myself and and I'm asked you know why why do I want to solve it and honestly I can't tell you it's because I'm you know I

[00:47:09] believe you know I believe law enforcement blue or anything and I'll be damned if this guy's got to get away with it I mean I don't think I don't give a shit at this point in 52 years like it's just

[00:47:20] you know I mean it's not my role to get a marriage yeah that's like I just honestly that part but I don't care I mean I at this point I've said I've said this to people before that uh

[00:47:33] yeah this is this is not my it's been so long at this point it it's it's not my role to judge this guy I mean he's he's gonna you know I don't know what the story is or whatever the case may

[00:47:45] happen to be but that's above my pay grade that's not my job it's really more a matter of I'm just the guy who wants to figure that you know I'm the kid who tried to crack the Rubik's cube

[00:47:58] you know that kind of thing I just how my mind works is like I know which wheel I know it's solvable I do firmly believe that we have enough of the puzzle that we're we know where we actually

[00:48:10] can't figure it out we can we can solve the thing it's just a matter of uh it's just it's just an elaborate riddle and it's just a matter of just sort of being clever and putting the

[00:48:23] pieces together I'll give you an example uh at Cooper con this year I actually put forward a riddle and I said this is actually very analogous to the db Cooper case in my mind or at least the way I

[00:48:34] view the Cooper case I said here's the riddle basically um there was a child born uh this year 2023 born this year uh in somewhere somewhere in the continental united states and they were born on march 12th at 237 in the morning what state was the child born in

[00:49:01] now you hear that and you think okay so there's a child born in the continental united states march 12 2023 237 in the morning what state were they born in you would think how how could you possibly know which state they're born in the realities have actually given you enough information

[00:49:17] in the riddle right there to actually solve the riddle solve the problem and this is like I said this is analogous to db Cooper because I believe there is actually enough information out there

[00:49:28] to solve it just a matter of putting the pieces together but either of you have a guess Eric you're gonna come on our show and humiliate us would be terrible at riddles Kevin's you

[00:49:38] can't see him but he's pointing at me like I'm gonna do it and I don't I have no idea okay I'm just gonna pull something out of me I'm just gonna completely I'm gonna completely guess I have no idea I'm just gonna say California

[00:49:50] was actually it's actually Arizona and the reason it's Arizona is it relates to daylight saving time because that's when daylight saving time kicks in so bring full let's fall back so what happened what happens of course is daylight saving time at two o'clock in the morning

[00:50:10] you go from two o'clock immediately to three o'clock so there is no two o'clock hour in at all anywhere in the United States continental United States with the one exception the state of Arizona which does not observe daylight saving time so it's the only possible state the child

[00:50:28] could have been born in oh my god so that's it that's how good that's really cool well now everyone has a cool riddle to share and blow their friends and family's minds but no but truly I think

[00:50:42] that's a great analogy and I feel like the more you talk about it really does sound solvable we really hope you prevail in court and get that tie and that you know this further developments but in

[00:50:53] the meantime if people want to follow your work read your work you've done so much work on this case um can you tell us about you know your book can you tell us about where they can follow

[00:51:02] you yeah I've got a book uh that I actually initially wrote a book about it that was in pdf format format rather and and now I've updated into a book called silver bullet

[00:51:16] related to the case and as you know I've actually been trying to get this thing wrapped up and polished but we are moving so fast right now with new development constantly happening literally

[00:51:31] month by month I'm like well I don't want to I don't want to wrap it up until I know what happens with the lawsuit or what happens with the search that we're doing near where the money was found

[00:51:42] of this what a trench area where the parachute may be or whatever so so that's that's what's going on there uh but you know it it is a matter of time before that happens but uh

[00:51:53] other than that if anybody's interested I might do have a personal website which is there at u-list.com which has uh you know I mean it has information there related to

[00:52:04] a lot of what I've done on the case and and so forth and um and certainly the Facebook group as well the db cooper mystery group is a way for people to uh to join the group and

[00:52:16] obviously stay plugged in and contribute as well one of the things with to go back to the Facebook group one of the things that have really uh been very vocal about is encouraging everybody

[00:52:29] to get involved you know there is a tendency for people who are not terribly familiar with a case to want to kind of be quiet and just observe and not you know ask this quote unquote stupid

[00:52:41] question or whatever the case may happen to be and uh and I and I've made I've let it be known that there isn't there there are no stupid questions I mean at the end of the day you know we

[00:52:52] get invariably we get the same questions asked over and over again and that's fine that's okay you know I mean nobody's you know if a person doesn't want to answer it they don't have to answer

[00:53:00] it but I think it's a healthy part of uh bringing new blood and fresh ideas into the case and I think ultimately that's what's been take to solve this thing um you get enough minds

[00:53:12] working together and and it's eventually going to happen and I think I've contributed my part you know I like to think that at the end of the day I'll be the person who

[00:53:23] who solves this thing but maybe not I don't know maybe it's never solved I don't think that's the case I actually do think it will be solved my prediction is by the time the 60th anniversary

[00:53:33] comes around which is in a little under eight years from now I think for all intents and purposes we will have figured out who this guy was yeah that would be amazing um and yeah thank you so

[00:53:45] this has been great we really appreciate it and maybe at some point we'll ask you to come back with a solution or also I find your theory about Oswald's third shot in the JFK case to be intriguing so

[00:54:00] love to talk to you about that sometime I tell you what the Oswald that that third shot thing I I know it sounds ridiculous to say but I don't even think it's theory I mean I think it's

[00:54:15] absolutely been proved but we will leave the conversation there for now but we definitely have Eric back on to discuss his theory of the JFK assassination we'd like to thank you

[00:54:26] for taking the time to talk with us today if you want more information on what he's up to you can check out his website at ericulis.com thanks so much for listening to the murder sheet

[00:54:41] if you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover please email us at murder sheet at gmail.com if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime please report it to the appropriate authorities if you're interested in joining our patreon that's available at www.patreon.com

[00:55:06] slash murder sheet if you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murder sheet we very much appreciate any support special thanks to

[00:55:23] Kevin Tyler Greenlee who composed the music for the murder sheet and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com if you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered

[00:55:36] you can join the murder sheet discussion group on facebook we mostly focus our time on research and reporting so we're not on social media much we do try to check our email account but we

[00:55:48] ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages thanks again for listening