A secret parachute may have revealed DB Cooper’s identity after five decades, the FBI reopens the case

The children of Richard McCoy II, a convicted skyjacker, believe their father may be DB Cooper, the mysterious figure behind a famous skyjacking in 1971.

This case is the only unsolved skyjacking in U.S. history, but now new evidence has emerged.

Months after the Cooper incident, McCoy committed a similar skyjacking involving a parachute jump.

His children Chanté and Richard III (Rick) have long believed the similarities pointed to their father, and now they may have proof.

Decades-old parachute

Chanté and Rick remained silent for years because they thought their mother, Karen, might have helped in both crimes.

Since both parents have now died, the siblings can express their suspicions openly. They claim to have found a modified parachute that was used in the escape.

“This facility is literally one in a billion,” said Gryder, who posted a YouTube series discussing the case. His series once again attracted the attention of the FBI.

The FBI now reportedly has the parachute and harness found in a storage shed on the family property in North Carolina, as well as a skydiving logbook that Chanté says shows DB Cooper’s movements in Oregon and Utah.

This is the first real action the FBI has taken in this case since the case was closed in 2016.

After examining the new evidence, the FBI searched the family’s property for four hours with more than a dozen agents. The unique changes to the parachute could be crucial to solving this decades-old mystery.

The FBI knows that the original parachutes were altered by Earl Cossey, a skydiver who worked with them until his murder in 2013.

If the new parachute matches Cossey’s changes, it could help uncover who DB Cooper really was.

DB Cooper

The DB Cooper mystery is legendary and amateur detectives have discussed many theories in books and documentaries.

A 1990s book, DB Cooper: The Real McCoy, even suggested that McCoy was the perpetrator, but the book was withdrawn from publication after Karen filed a defamation lawsuit.

On November 24, 1971, DB Cooper, who called himself Dan, bought a one-way ticket to Portland in cash and boarded Northwest Orient Flight 305 without showing identification. He handed a flight attendant a note saying he had a bomb.

Cooper opened his briefcase to reveal what looked like a bomb and demanded $200,000, several parachutes and a fuel truck in Seattle so he could fly to Mexico City.

After Cooper’s demands were met, the flight that should have lasted 30 minutes became a two-hour loop over Puget Sound while ground crews prepared.

Cooper let the 35 passengers and some crew go and then dictated the flight path and attitudes to the remaining crew.

After negotiations concluded, Cooper and the four remaining crew members set off again.

Somewhere over Washington, Cooper opened the back stairs and parachuted out of the plane, but no one knew exactly when or where he jumped.

Efforts to find him yielded no result, and experts had difficulty determining a search area because of the many unknowns involved in the night jump.