Crime historian conducts dig for D.B. Cooper case evidence

VANCOUVER, Wash. – Nearly 50 years aft skyjacker D.B. Cooper vanished retired the backmost of a Boeing 727 into freezing Northwest rainfall — wearing a concern suit, a parachute and a battalion with $200,000 successful currency — a transgression historiographer is conducting a excavation connected the banks of the Columbia River successful Vancouver, Washington, successful hunt of evidence.

KOIN reports that Eric Ulis, a self-described adept connected the infamous D.B. Cooper case, began a two-day excavation connected Friday. Ulis and 4 volunteers are searching for grounds astir 10 to 15 yards distant from wherever a lad recovered $6,000 of Cooper's ransom wealth successful 1980.

Ulis said his mentation is that Cooper buried the parachutes, an attache lawsuit and the wealth astatine the aforesaid time, but dug smaller holes alternatively of 1 ample one.

The lawsuit of Cooper has go infamous, not lone successful the Pacific Northwest but besides successful the country. The FBI Seattle tract bureau called the probe 1 of the longest and astir exhaustive successful the agency’s history.

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On Nov. 24, 1971, the nighttime earlier Thanksgiving, a antheral described arsenic being successful his mid-40s with acheronian sunglasses and an olive complexion boarded a formation from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. He bought his $20 summons nether the sanction “Dan Cooper,” but an aboriginal wire-service study misidentified him arsenic “D.B. Cooper,” and the sanction stuck.

Sitting successful the rear of the plane, helium handed a enactment to a formation attendant aft takeoff. “Miss, I person a weaponry and would similar you to beryllium by me,” it said.

The antheral demanded $200,000 successful currency positive 4 parachutes. He received them astatine Sea-Tac, wherever helium released the 36 passengers and 2 of the formation attendants. The level took disconnected again astatine his direction, heading dilatory to Reno, Nevada, astatine the debased tallness of 10,000 feet. Somewhere, seemingly implicit southwestern Washington, Cooper lowered the aircraft’s rear stairs and jumped.

He was ne'er found. But a lad digging connected a Columbia River formation successful 1980 discovered 3 bundles of weathered $20 bills — astir $6,000 successful all. It was Cooper’s cash, according to the serial numbers.

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Over the years, the FBI and amateur sleuths person examined innumerable theories astir Cooper’s individuality and fate, from accounts of unexplained wealthiness to purported discoveries of his parachute to imaginable matches of the agency’s composite sketch of the suspect.

In July 2016, the FBI announced it was nary longer investigating the case.

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