Coopericane

The first reply directly below has the link to the files. (The wetransfer link)

Dr. Edwards has generously created & shared a keyword-searchable conversion of the FBI files! https://twitter.com/DrBobEdwards1/status/1519979114278670341

Yeah, I've spent a little time looking into Italian-Americans from back then, and they can have a pretty "swarthy" or "olive" appearing complexion. It could be an interesting angle to look into further.

So, uh... please forgive me for using this thread for this, but I don't know where else to ask it... but how is one supposed to join the D. B. Cooper Mystery Group on Facebook? I made an account and have tried joining several times over the past few days to no avail. It seems like my request is expiring for some reason, or I am just being flat-out rejected (which I sure hope isn't true). I don't mean to sound too whiny here, lol... it's just frustrating being locked out of what seems like a very active community for discussion of the case! If anyone can lend a hand, just hit me up and it would be very much appreciated.

I don't have as keen of an eye of some of the others here, but I noticed there was a lot about the sketches. Of course it's a little hard to connect the dots of who is talking about who, because of the redactions - though the superiority of the "B" sketch over the original is stressed over and over again. One witness (one of the flight attendants, probably?) even says this:

Foiled once again by redactions... but it's highly interesting to know that it's an edited photograph, and was considered the "closest match so far" by Mucklow (presumably?) as to how she remembered the hijacker... Flyjack, I believe I've heard you mention before that there were other suspects who were identified as strong/close matches for Cooper by the witnesses... out of curiosity, do you happen to know where this one would fall along that timeline? Did Mucklow ever identify any other suspect/picture (redacted or not) as a closer match for Cooper after late 1973?

Yep, I think that as described in the book, Dan Leclair is a stellar match for the Cooper profile. Maybe the best so far I've heard of. The problem is determining what parts of his backstory are fabrications. It could be as little as just his name/aliases to huge parts of his life story and career (in the worst case, maybe even all of it). When I try to imagine what things he might lie about to conceal his identity, like maybe the names of companies he's worked for or places he's lived, it just ends up making it harder to identify him than before...

Well, I finally got my hands on a copy of the elusive Gunther book (many thanks to who hooked me up with a copy - you know who you are). I've been fascinated by the connections between the Gunther book and the crime since I probably first started getting into this case. I know that it's been a fairly popular topic of choice in the case for a pretty long time now, so I'll try to keep this short... As others have mentioned before, it is a pretty brief read, and it wraps itself up fast (I was actually somewhat caught off guard by the abruptness of the ending). But sure enough, the connections to the case I was curious about were there. Despite finally reading the text for myself, I actually felt more conflicted about the book's contents and its overall accuracy than before. Some of the connections that others (and admittedly myself) have made seemed more strenuous or coincidental in context. But my overall feeling is still that there's something more to this book. I didn't get the impression once that Gunther was lying, not on purpose at least. What he writes come across as a story that has been passed on to him instead of something he made up on his own. But it's riddled with little details and mistakes that can be explained equally well by fabrications, fading memories, and changes to protect identities, which is I'd guess why it's such a hard book to analyze in the first place. Some things do, though, fall eerily well into place. The description of "Dan Leclair/Paul Cotton" ticks a lot of popular suspect boxes (working for multiple chemical companies being probably the hardest detail to ignore, and there's also a passage about him "loving" a potential job where he can work with his hands and wear a tie at the same time - a nearly perfect description of the type of career the wearer of Cooper's tie probably had?). There's also the short bit that seems to reference the infamous Elsinore Paracenter visits, which I actually missed at first, because the name Elsinore is not actually used - in fact, the skydiving center is not named in the text, but I would bet safely that someone else has already figured this bit out better than me - there can't have been too many other skydiving centers fitting the criteria of being "not too far from Los Angeles" at the time, anyways (if any). Without going into too much more detail, though, I thought it was a good read, if not a bit surreal. The possibility that I was reading the true story of what really happened to D. B. Cooper nagged at me the whole time. Was this part true? Was that part? Impossible to know now, probably, with Gunther (and most likely Cooper too) long gone. I've heard there's been some effort to get access to Gunther's notes through his heirs without success, which is a shame. It's their right to refuse to do so, of course, but I doubt we will ever learn more about the truthfulness of the book without those notes. That book is, in my eyes, just as big of a mystery as the Cooper caper itself.

Seems like a good time to be a Cooper fan... maybe even Larry Carr will show up here again now that thread is back on track!

I agree. Cooper having worked at Boeing has only ever been speculation, and while it seems to explain many things nicely at first, if you dig deeper, there's some problems with the idea (like an employee not knowing how to open the stairs, as you said!). I believe Tom Kaye has also said that Boeing would've likely been a poor match for the type of workplace environment the tie particles could have come from. These things don't stop people from looking for new suspects specifically with Boeing backgrounds, though - probably because of how pervasive the idea that he MUST have worked there has become.

Part 66 is here guys, right on schedule. https://vault.fbi.gov/D-B-Cooper /d.b.-cooper-part-66-of-66/view

That's interesting, I wonder when he may have removed his sunglasses. I assume he also backs up Florence's testimony of dark-colored eyes? Actually, not to cast any doubt, but do we have any other testimonies on the eye color, for that fact? Perhaps from either of the two airport employees that saw Cooper? I don't remember if he had his glasses on yet then or not.

I would assume that it's Nicky B himself in those videos?

Very interesting... I can't make every word out, but the first video goes something like: "Do you have the money on board?" "Advise when you get parachutes and everything up" "I will keep you posted". And then the second one goes like: "Alright, we have one more request, we ask those passengers to go back on the taxi strip between the two runways. There's no reason for them to be standing there, they're only going to create confusion and apprehension, so please direct those passengers to move back two hundred yards onto the taxiway please."

Wow, that's a good clip, and tbh, it makes the physical discrepancies between McCoy and Cooper even more pronounced than I thought they were before. His complexion is different, his hair color is different, his eye color is different, his height is different, his face is different... it's too much. The witnesses would have *all* had to have had an absurdly bad lapse in memory or be flat-out lying about who was on Flight 305 that day to get it so wrong. I know McCoy wore disguises, but none as complicated as this one would have been (nor do I think he could pull it off without it being noticed). You have to make outrageous leaps and bounds of logic for McCoy to be Cooper, and that's just based on his physical appearance... when you include everything else, McCoy is out and has been for a while. I'm probably speaking for most on this board though, and repeating what many of you have already said or thought, heh. It's just so frustrating to see when people get stuck on McCoy, especially when there are other elements of the case (not to mention better suspects) that need more attention!

Well, I had a feeling McCoy was Gryder's suspect based on some of his comments in his Cooper Vortex interview... sigh. He's just... so obviously not Cooper, but the media loves to latch onto him. Fortunately I feel like most of the more knowledgeable sleuths in the Cooper world have ruled him out, but he's still got his peddlers out there that are very aggressive with their case.

Here we go, a new FBI file release... not quite in time for the 50th anniversary though! https://vault.fbi.gov/D-B-Cooper /d.b.-cooper-part-65-of-65/view

Why should he be obligated to have comments on? I think realistically not a huge amount of people are going to seek out the videos much less want to leave a comment. Those interested are probably already aware of other places to discuss the content of the presentation (like here).

I think this is a little disingenuous to say in context. The Cooper case is an outlier compared to your standard case where witness descriptions are involved and relied upon, he wasn't seen in a brief flash during an attack or something, he was observed up-close by the flight attendants and passengers, some even spent hours with him (Tina) and others took physical notes on his appearance (Flo).

...And that's it, guys. Close to exactly 50 years ago, Cooper jumped out of that plane (I guess it depends on what jump time you agree with - but I tried to round it to the middle of the 8:10 - 8:15 PM estimate).

For anyone who was there: did Anonymous (not anymore though, I guess) have anything especially interesting or new to say about his suspect? I know he is not especially compelling to some people, but I continue to be interested in him and his potential connections to the Max Gunther book.

I agree and I really hope at least some of the panels were recorded, especially Kaye's. I know his presentation from 2019 made it onto Youtube and it's absolutely excellent. https://youtu.be/WYl9NG6Tv8k Actually it looks like we got lucky :) I assume the title implies there is more to come!

I thought this bit from Bruce Smith's report was interesting

Did anything especially interesting come out of CooperCon? Any big news/suspects/theories? And are any of the presentations on/going to be on Youtube or something?

It looks like we have some more information about that D. B. Cooper movie that the Rolling Stone article with Tina Mucklow revealed near the start of the year. https://deadline.com/2021/11/nod-if-you-understand-amber-sealey-to-direct-thriller-on-db-cooper-hijacking-1234876249/ Both Tina and Bill are consulting it seems.