investigator have got their hand on a solidification of new documents that they believe has confirmed the identity of DB Cooper , one of the great antiheroes of modern history .
The40 - solid teamof former FBI agents , forensic scientists , and secret investigators arrogate to have find out a secret code within a alphabetic character write by the jump brigand , reveal his unfeigned identity as a 74 - year - old Vietnam veteran currently know in San Diego . The new discovery keeps in line with their previous work outlined in the bookThe Last Master Outlaw .
Here ’s how the story break : On Thanksgiving eve , November 24 , 1971 , a Northwest Airlines flight set off from Portland trammel for Seattle . Shortly after take off , a smartly dressed man lit a butt and order a bourbon with soda . According to theFBI ’s account , he approached one of the flight attendants and inform her that he was gird with a turkey , then tell his demands of $ 200,000 , four parachutes , and a fuel motortruck on standby in Seattle .
Just before 6 atomic number 61 , the aircraft touch down at Seattle - Tacoma Airport . The man received their side of the deal , a backpack of bank note , and some parachutes , so he regularise all the frenzied rider off the planer while it refuel , before telling the remaining crew to direct towards Mexico City . Once the plane was back at its desired altitude , the world chute out and was never see again .
The countless functionary and civilian investigations have generated an ever - mounting list of possible suspects , however , this latest breakthrough claims to be the closemouthed supposition yet .
Seattle Pireports that the investigation squad has obtained five type letters , allege sent by DB Cooper to newspapers in the days follow the hijacking , that have recently been released by the FBI through a Freedom of Information Act petition .
The 5th letter starts by aver : “ I knew from the first I would n’t get caught . "
Most crucially , there ’s a series of numbers at the bottom of the letter . Tom Colbert , telly manufacturer and Pb investigator , said one of the squad ’s codification - breakers noticed the sequence and found tally codification in an LA Times newspaper archive . This code , the investigators claim , relate three Army building block served in by a man they have suspected for legion years , Robert Rackstraw , a 74 - yr - onetime Vietnam veterinary surgeon first pegged as a defendant in 1978 .
Rackstraw stringently denies these allegations , althoughindependent expert think the teammight be onto something .
" I think the rag thing is noteworthy , but I ’m a toilsome doubter , " Dorwin Schreuder , a former FBI federal agent who work on the case in the early 1980s , toldSeattle Pi . " The fate of those codes being what Tom says they are , that he says nobody but him would live these whole and these figure , if it ’s true that ’s pretty surd to argue against . "
It ’s certainly not " lawsuit close " just yet , but the investigators remain sure-footed they have puzzle their valet de chambre .
