Comic book holds clue in D.B. Cooper case

On a cold November night 36 years ago, in the driving wind and rain, somewhere between southern Washington state and just north of Portland, Oregon, a man calling himself Dan Cooper parachuted out of a plane he’d just hijacked clutching a bag filled with $200,000 in stolen cash.

Who was Cooper? Did he survive the jump? And what happened to the loot, only a small part of which has ever surfaced?

It’s a mystery, frankly. We’ve run down thousands of leads and considered all sorts of scenarios. And amateur sleuths have put forward plenty of their own theories. Yet the case remains unsolved.




















I just came across a new story that claims there may be some clues:

The following is from Komonews.com
PORTLAND, Ore. - One of the Northwest's most notorious unsolved crimes may have a comic book connection and while it may sound kooky, the FBI agent in charge of the case says the new clue is no laughing matter.


In November 1971, a man identifying himself as Dan Cooper, later mistakenly called D.B. Cooper, hijacked a Northwest Orient flight from Portland to Seattle, claiming he had a bomb.

At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, he released the passengers in exchange for $200,000 and four parachutes and asked to be flown to Mexico. He jumped from the plane somewhere near the Oregon state line.

The hijacker was never seen or heard from again and thus one of the Northwest's most famous mysteries was born. Did he die in the jump? Did he survive and make off with the money? No one knows, although there are a number of theories out there.



Larry Carr, the FBI agent currently overseeing the case, now believes the hijacker may have taken his name from a French comic book. The Dan Cooper comic book was popular in France in the 1960s and early 1970s and one issue published around the time of the hijacking shows the character parachuting.

Carr said this is an important clue in the case because the comic books were never translated into English, which supports his theory that the hijacker had been in the Air Force and probably spent time in Europe, where he likely came across the Dan Cooper comic books.

This new information brings another twist to the story, which continues to fascinate people decades later. You can read more about the FBI's link to the Dan Cooper comic book here. Comic












I blogged about this case in January of 2008. You can read my post at this link: Cooper