D.B. Cooper
The best thing about being on vacation is reading newspapers from other towns. I read in the Seattle Times yesterday that there is a new theory about who D.B. Cooper is. It seems that Ron and Pat Forman of Puyallup, Washington are writing a book entitled “The Legend of D.B. Cooper: Death by Natural Causes.”
In case you forgot, D.B. Cooper highjacked a plane in 1972 out of Seattle and parachuted out of the plane with $200,000 in ransom money. The crime has not been solved.
The Formans claim that they knew a woman by the name of Barb Dayton who is actually D.B. Cooper. Barb was born Bobby Dayton and he decided to have a sex change operation. Barb or Bobby was despressed and suicidal due to his gender problems and decided to highjack the plane. He described in detail how he jumped from the plane in Oregon and hid the money at a farm. When Barb/Bobby died in 2002, the Formans decided to research the tales that she/he had told them and found the stories about boar hunting, sky diving and gold mining to be true. This led the Formans to think that maybe she/he was telling the truth about the highjacking as well.
The FBI does not believe the story though. Barb/Bobby was only 5′ 8″ tall and the flight attendants described D.B. Cooper as being 5′10′ to 6′ tall. Also, there was DNA recovered from a tie clip (although it may not be D.B.’s anyway) and it does not match Barb’s DNA. The Formans however are convinced that the have the right man, or woman!
When Ron and I began writing this story we did not believe the D. B. Cooper angle either. However, as we got into it, we found so much circumstantial evidence, we became believer. The book simply states the case and ends with a question. In 2000 it was reported that the FBI had DNA evidence from Raleigh cigarette butts. That would be conclusive, but with the tie, there is no way of knowingit the DNA was actually from Cooper. Also, we can’t understand why the FBI is putting so much reliance on the eye-witnesses. It has been proven time and again that eye witness accounts can be flawed. In this case, the eye color was observed at night in a 727. It would be difficult to tell eye color under those circumstances. Height is also difficult to judge accurately. Whether it was our friend who was D. B. Cooper or someone else, I don’t believe the case will ever be solved unless the FBI starts thinking out of the box.
July 28th, 2008 at 6:17 pmThanks for your comment! I too believe that law enforcement needs to “think outside the box.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the FBI will ever solve the mystery. I look forward to reading you book when it is published!
August 4th, 2008 at 12:03 pm