DB Cooper is called as Richard McCoy Jr by professional who says he has hermetic proof
Infamous airplane hijacker DB Cooper has been unmasked by DNA technology as a North Carolina father called Richard Floyd McCoy Jr, an expert has claimed.
McCoy’s children – Chanté and Richard III ‘Rick’ – contacted YouTube investigator Dan Gryder after their mother died to confess they believed their parents were behind the DB Cooper hijacking mystery.
Now, in a bombshell update, Gryder told DailyMail.com FBI agents had asked Rick to provide a DNA sample, and that there were startling results.
Gryder claimed there are parts of Rick’s DNA that lined up ‘perfectly’ with that of DB Cooper, possibly indicating a partial match of a relative.
The FBI is now planning to exhume his body from where it is currently buried at the family’s property, Gryder added.
The iconic hijacker, whose real identity has long remained unknown, commandeered a Boeing 727 at Seattle-Tacoma airport on November 24, 1971, and held its crew and passengers hostage with a bomb threat.
He demanded $200,000 in cash – the equivalent of $1.2 million today. Once he got the money – and four parachutes – he had the crew take off before sky-diving out over the dense Pacific Northwest woods. From there he vanished without a trace.
It is the only unsolved hijacking in US history, despite FBI investigators vetting over 800 suspects, though many of these were made by people either on their deathbeds or looking for publicity.
On November 24, 1971, an unknown man dubbed DB Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 at Seattle-Tacoma airport and demanded $200,000 cash
Once his demands were met and transferred onto the plane, Cooper had the crew take off before he jumped out
There have been many suspects over the years, including Richard Floyd McCoy Jr. (pictured) who was convicted of an eerily similar hijacking just months after the Cooper case
Many believe Cooper did not survive the jump from the plane.
One of the few clues in the case is DNA found on a clip-on tie left on the plane in 1971.
After considering the similarities between the DNA, Gryder told DailyMail.com investigators are now asking to exhume McCoy’s body for testing.
‘All [the McCoy children] were able to tell us is that there’s DNA markers that are present, and they have X amount of those that line up perfectly like Swiss cheese models where all the holes in the Swiss cheese eventually line up, but they need more of those markers, and where they have fallen down is the difference between the son’s DNA and the necktie versus actual Richard Floyd McCoy,’ he said.
‘Undisputable DNA, which would give them more of those markers, is what is what they’re looking for. That that’s where they were at on the thing. And that’s how come they’ve requested to exhume the body, which is a huge deal.’
‘If the kids will give permission, and they feel like they’re that close, that if they could get those final markers to align with what was left on the airplane compared to Richard Floyd Mccoy himself.’
When contacted by DailyMail.com about the DNA testing, the FBI deferred to their July 2016 announcement that they will no longer actively investigate the case.
It said: ‘The mystery surrounding the hijacking of a Northwest Orient Airlines flight in November 1971 by a still-unknown individual resulted in significant international attention and a decades-long manhunt.
A map that shows the area where some several thousand dollars of the DB Cooper hijack was found 2/10/80 by Brian Ingram, 8, while on a family outing
Archived footage of the plane DB Cooper hijacked in 1971
The canvas bag that contained one of the parachutes given to D.B. Cooper in 1971
The plane ticket used by DB Cooper to board the plane he hijacked in 1971
‘Although the FBI appreciated the immense number of tips provided by members of the public, none to date have resulted in a definitive identification of the hijacker.
‘Although the FBI will no longer actively investigate this case, should specific physical evidence emerge – related specifically to the parachutes or the money taken by the hijacker – individuals with those materials are asked to contact their local FBI field office.’
But Gryder, who previously revealed how he discovered a parachute rig he believes Cooper used to escape on the McCoy family farm in North Carolina, said he has seen FBI agents at the property.
McCoy’s name has been thrown around among sleuths for years and many believe the late man – who died after escaping prison – is the famed hijacker.
They say this is due to the near identical heist McCoy pulled off in Utah just months five month after the Cooper heist.
At the time of the Utah heist, McCoy was a criminal justice student at Brigham Young University who enrolled after serving two tours in Vietnam as a highly decorated veteran who served as a Green Beret, demolitions expert and helicopter pilot.
He was also a member of the Utah National Guard, and was known to have been in financial adversity.
In April 1972, McCoy jumped from a United Airlines flight travelling from New Jersey to California as it flew over Utah after demanding $500,000.
The badly decomposed $20 dollar bills were shown to newsmen after check of their serial numbers showed that they were identical to the bills given to hijacker D.B. Cooper on November 24, 1971
A list of the parachutes onboard the plane DB Cooper hijacked
Money recovered in 1980 that matched the ransom money serial numbers from the DB Cooper hijacking
He threatened the crew with an inert hand grenade and an empty gun, while wearing a fake mustache, a wig and mirrored glasses that he put on when he went to use the lavatory.
One flight attendant told the FBI during its investigation that he was ‘flashily dressed.’
He handed over a sealed envelope labeled ‘hijack instructions’ and told an off-duty pilot on the plane who was asked to assess the situation to ‘give this envelope to the girl and have her take it to the captain.’
The envelope contained instructions, along with a grenade pin and a bullet.
The captain was instructed to land at San Francisco International Airport and park at ‘Runway 19 left’, and was told to follow procedures that limited the number of people allowed near the hijacked plane at any given time, as well as the distance from the aircraft that all vehicles except fuel trucks were allowed to be.
On top of this, McCoy specifically made sure the captain returned any written or typed directions given during the course of the flight.
After landing at the San Francisco airport and allowing the passengers, but not the crew, off the plane, McCoy instructed the pilot to fly east, climb to 16,000ft and fly at precisely 200pmh on a course that would pass over several Utah towns.
After hiding his tracks on the plane, and covering the peephole in the door to the cockpit, he jumped out of the plane, which was landed at the nearby Salt Lake City International Airport, five hours after the hijacking began.
One of the only possible bits of DNA evidence from the crime scene is a clip-on tie (pictured) that was left on the plane in 1971
YouTube investigator Dan Gryder investigators are looking to make a DNA match to McCoy
Though he managed to pull off the heist, within 72 hours, the FBI arrested him after matching fingerprints left on the note, and speaking to a witness who worked a roadside restaurant and recalled selling McCoy a milkshake shortly after the heist.
The FBI raided his home without a warrant, which more than likely didn’t allow them to pin him for the Cooper heist.
He was convicted to 45 years in prison for the Utah heist, but later broke out of a maximum security prison in Pennsylvania with three other prisoners.
Two were caught within days, while McCoy evaded arrested for three months. He was later shot dead by the FBI in 1974 inside his Virginia Beach home.
