DB Cooper Sleuth Insists Letter Written by Mysterious Hijacker Linked to San Diego Man

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DB Cooper Sleuth Insists Letter Written by Mysterious Hijacker Linked to San Diego Man
By Ryan Gaydos/ Fox Business/ foxbusiness.com


"A nine-digit number found at the bottom of a letter believed to be sent by the mysterious plane hijacker D.B. Cooper came from a San Diego man who is still alive, the leader of an investigative team said.

Thomas Colbert, a TV producer who helped put together the 40-member team, told Seattle PI on Thursday that the person’s name is Robert Rackstraw, an Army veteran.

The code was discovered on the bottom of a fifth letter allegedly sent by Cooper after he hijacked a Northwest Orient Boeing 727 on Nov. 24, 1971, according to Seattle PI.

Colbert told the newspaper that the man who sent the letter may have put the code into the letter to signal to possible co-conspirators that he was alive...."


Richard

 

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Will the Real Parachuting Hijacker Please Stand Up?
By Jon Kinyon/ True Story/ ZY See Beyond/ ozy.com

"D.B. Cooper leaped from the Boeing 727 he had hijacked on Nov. 24, 1971, with a military parachute and $200,000 in ransom money strapped to his body. He vanished into the mist of a frigid Pacific Northwest night and instantly transformed himself into an American folk legend. “Dan Cooper” has since been the singular target of one of law enforcement’s all-time greatest manhunts. He also might have been the man who was like a second father to my younger brothers.

Ron Terry served as a paratrooper during the Korean War and was later stationed in Guam instructing Vietnam-bound troops in the fine art of assault parachuting. He became one of the first civilian sport parachutists in the U.S. With thousands of jumps under his belt, he wowed crowds as a stunt pilot and skydiver at air shows. He also opened a skydiving school and was a flight instructor, aircraft salesman and mechanic, accomplished farmer and building contractor.

In the late 1970s, Ron was flying DC-3s and Cessnas under the radar and across the Mexican border smuggling untold tons of marijuana into the U.S. He ended up serving five years in federal prison after his fingerprints were discovered on an aeronautical map inside a downed aircraft loaded with 1,000 pounds of Columbian Gold. Upon release, he found himself a prime suspect in the D.B. Cooper case — his background and recent stint in the joint fit the FBI profile to a T...."

Richard

 

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Indiana Man Tells How Cracked Code Pointed to DB Cooper Suspect
By Robert Gearty/ Fox News/ Crime/ foxnews.com

"An Indiana Army vet says he used his code-breaking skills to crack a nearly 47-year-old mystery -- the identity of the infamous airline hijacker D.B. Cooper.

Cooper became a folklore legend after parachuting from a jet in 1971 in a business suit and escaping with $200,000 in ransom money. The FBI closed the case two years ago without identifying a suspect and after recovering only a portion of the stolen loot.

Rick Sherwood, 70, of Wheatfield, believes the hijacker is a former military pilot named Robert Rackstraw, The Indianapolis Star reported Friday.

Sherwood worked with codes during the Vietnam War and used that knowledge to decipher two letters allegedly written by Cooper in 1971 and 1972.

One of the letters contained an incongruous string of numbers: “717171684*”

“The numbers just didn’t belong,” he told the paper.

The letter began tauntingly, “I knew from the start that I wouldn't be caught," and was sent to four papers: The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Seattle Times.

Eventually, Sherwood took “717171” to mean the 371st, the unit he and Rackstraw had been assigned to briefly in Vietnam. He said they never met but could have communicated on the radio during missions.

"When the 371st come up, I seen that, I'm going: 'Yes, this is it. This is the beginning of breaking that code,'” he told the paper.

Using a simple letter counting system, he found other clues that pointed to Rackstraw, according to the paper....."

Richard

 

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Code-Breaker Says He's Cracked the DB Cooper Plane Heist Mystery
By River Donaghey/ Vice/ vice.com/en_uk

"Based on a string of numbers in one of Cooper's old letters.

Ever since a nondescript man using the name "Dan Cooper" boarded a Seattle-bound flight, held passengers hostage for $200,000 in ransom money, and parachuted out of the plane somewhere over the Pacific Northwest, the FBI has been stumped about the mysterious hijacker's identity. But now, almost 50 years after DB Cooper's famous escape, an Indiana construction worker thinks he may have cracked the case.

According to the Oregonian, ex-Army code-breaker Rick Sherwood teamed up with a TV producer named Tom Colbert who's been leading a group of amateur sleuths in investigating the DB Cooper case, which the FBI closed back in 2016. After looking over some coded letters that Cooper—or someone claiming to be him—sent the media in the 70s after the heist, Sherwood and Colbert believe a former paratrooper named Robert Rackstraw is actually DB Cooper.

Colbert has been claiming that Rackstraw is Cooper's real identity for the past few years, and laid out the case against him in a History Channel documentary and a 2016 book. According to the Oregonian, Rackstraw was a suspect in the heist until the FBI ruled him out in 1979. Still, Sherwood argues that not only did Rackstraw have the training to pull off the heist, but that Cooper's old letter contains coded messages that point to Rackstraw's military units while in Vietnam.

"I think certainly there's a strong circumstantial case now, especially the link between the decoded messages and Rackstraw," former FBI agent Jack Schafer told CBS News after looking over Colbert and Sherwood's new findings...."

Photo of Cooper by Time Life Pictures/Fbi/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images. Evidence photo via Bettmann/Getty.


Richard

 

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He died claiming to be a disabled veteran. But many believe he was hijacker D.B. Cooper.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/hist...as-hijacker-db-cooper/?utm_term=.077b0a580ed7.


Richard

 

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I've found Cooper: The man who claims he's solved history's greatest skyjacking mystery


https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12267824


Richard

 

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SCIENTIST UNCOVERS NEW, MINISCULE CLUES ON DB COOPER RANSOM MONEY

Scientist uncovers new, miniscule clues on DB Cooper ransom money

Using a microscope to identify 'diatoms,' Tom Kaye uncovered a new clue in the 49-year-old case of skyjacker DB Cooper.

www.wzzm13.com

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Richard

 

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D.B. Cooper and Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 both disappeared.
Coincidence? I think D.B. must have hijacked the plane.
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