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D.B. COOPER PARACHUTE FOUND?"D.B. Cooper" is the airline hijacker who famously parachuted into history on November 24, 1971 with $200,000 in ransom cash. He was never seen again, but some of the banknotes found their way to the numismatic market. The case has fascinated armchair sleuths for decades. A two-part series in Wyoming's Cowboy State Daily discussed what may be newly-discovered evidence. -Editor 
D.B. Cooper cash fragments More than five decades ago, a mild-mannered passenger in a business suit boarded a Seattle-bound flight in Oregon under the name Dan Cooper on Nov. 24, 1971. He ordered a bourbon and soda, and once in the air, handed a stewardess a handwritten note demanding $200,000 in cash and four parachutes under the threat of what appeared to be a bomb in his ratty briefcase. The plane landed in Seattle, and authorities complied with the hijacker's demand. After refueling, the airliner took off again. Somewhere between takeoff and Portland, the mysterious man jumped out of the plane and into the dark sky, attempting to hold onto the freshly acquired satchel of cash. He was never seen or heard from again, nor was the money ever found except for $5,800 in $20 bills that washed up on the banks of the Columbia River years later. Learning the identity of the notorious hijacker who some consider a folk hero further inspired a cult-like following of hundreds of amateur detectives, all clamoring to ID the culprit while generating dozens of books, movies and even a 2022 Netflix series. In 2016, after turning over every credible lead and suspect, the FBI seemingly threw up its hands and declared in a statement that it was rerouting resources to other investigative priorities pending any new information, particularly physical evidence such as parachutes or money. Now the agency might have gotten a new break in the case for the first time in decades. 
Retired pilot, skydiver and YouTuber, Dan Gryder told Cowboy State Daily that he may have found the missing link after uncovering the modified military surplus bailout rig he believes was used by D.B. Cooper in the heist. It belonged to Richard Floyd McCoy II, and was carefully stored in his deceased mother's storage stash until very recently. McCoy has long been one of the FBI's leading suspects after successfully pulling off an identical, but better-executed, hijacking in Utah just five months later. McCoy's children, Chanté and Richard III, or "Rick," agree with Gryder that they believe their father was D.B. Cooper, a secret that shrouded the family but wasn't overtly discussed. For years, they said, the family stayed mum out of fear of implicating their mother, Karen, whom they believe was complicit in both hijackings. Upon her death in 2020, they broke their silence to Gryder after being contacted by him off and on for years. Gryder, who has been researching the case for more than 20 years, documented his investigation in a lengthy two-part series on his YouTube channel, "Probable Cause," in 2021 and 2022, where he connects the dots and shows actual footage of him finding the parachute in an outbuilding on the McCoy family property in North Carolina in July 2022. Apparently the FBI is looking at the parachute, but this remains a 53-year-old open case. -Editor
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Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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