MYSTERY SOLVED?

Are The Feds Closing In On Elusive Hijacker D.B. Cooper?

By Elizabeth C.

FAMED ELUSIVE HIJACKER D.B. COOPER MAY FINALLY BE IN THE CROSSHAIRS OF THE F.B.I.

Cooper is the name given by the hijacker of a Northwest flight from Portland to Seattle on November 24, 1971. The man took a seat and slipped a note to a stewardess threatening to blow up the plane if he didn’t get what he wanted. And what he wanted was four parachutes, $200,000 in cash, and the plane to fly south under 10,000 feet altitude in exchange for the release of 36 passengers. The FBI agreed, the hostages deboarded in Seattle.

Somewhere over southwestern Washington, the hijacker opened the plane door and jumped out.

Now, the F.B.I. has revealed to the Seattle Post Intelligencer that it’s investigating its most promising lead in 40 years in identifying who was really DB Cooper.

According to Ayn Sandalo Dietrich, spokeswoman for the FBI’s Seattle office, an item believed belonging to the suspect has been sent Quantico, Va. for forensics testing. Authorities will compare fingerprint and DNA evidence from the recently collected item with that found on a black JCPenney clip-on tie and cigarette butt that the hijacker left on the plane.

It’s back at our lab and we hope to compare it to partial fingerprints we got in the hijacking,” Sandalo Dietrich told seattlepi.com. “It would be a real break if it came back.”

The latest suspect was brought to authorities’ attention from someone with a “strong” connection to the man, but it will take weeks for forensics testing to conclude that there’s a link. Authorities won’t say if they new suspect is dead or alive.

D.B.Cooper has become a legend in pop culture, with the movie the Pursuit Of D.B.Cooper “speculating on the fate” of the notorious hijacker.

In 1980, a boy camping with his family near the Columbia River found $5,800 in bills whose serial numbers were traced to the bills given to hijacker, whom many agents believed died when he jumped from the plane with a parachute sewn shut.