D.B. claimed to be the hijacker. Cooper stated that he only had 14 months left to live, in a manifesto sent out to several news agencies just weeks after the hijacker took control of a commercial flight.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation released two letters that were purportedly written and sent by Cooper as part of its latest unsealing of memos, tips and research from the agency’s 45-year investigation of the infamous hijacker.
Digital obtained copies of these letters, including the manifesto received by the Los Angeles Times on Dec. 11, 1971. In that letter, a man purporting to be Cooper lists the reasons why police will never be able to identify him, writing, “I’m not a boasting man,” “I left no fingerprints,” “I wore a toupee,” and “I wore putty make-up.”
The letter also opens with Cooper writing: “I didn’t rob Northwest Orient because I thought it would be romantic, heroic or any of the other euphemisms that seem to attach themselves to situations of high risk.”
It goes on to read: “I’m no modern-day Robin Hood. Unfortunately,You have just 14 months left to live.
The other letter, sent around the same time, was addressed “Mr. Airport Manager” at the “Portland Airport.”
The letter reads: “Dear Mannager [sic]You have a lot to thank for my success. Thanks. I will be flying to foreign land very soon. Thank you again.
That letter contained an actual signature, but it is redacted in the FBI document.
D.B. COOPER MANIFESTO
It was on Nov. 24, 1971, just a few weeks before that letter arrived at the Times, when a man identifying himself as Dan Cooper boarded a Northwest Orient Airlines flight in Portland bound for Seattle.
Cooper stood approximately 6-feet tall and was wearing a dark suit and black necktie with loafers and a raincoat.
He asked for a glass of bourbon and smoked a pipe before giving Florence Schaffner, the flight attendant, a handwritten note.
Later, Schaffner said in an interview to the FBI that Cooper called her when she had forgotten to read the note and said: “Miss. You’d better take a look at that note.” “I have a bomb.”
Cooper threatened to blow up the plane and kill all 36 passengers if his demands were not met, and the aircraft spent two hours circling the airport while efforts were underway to meet his demands.
An employee of Northwest eventually brought Cooper 10,000 unmarked $20 bills and four parachutes in a knapsack, at which point he released the 36 passengers and Schaffner from the plane.
The aircraft then refueled while Cooper instructed the rest of the crew that they were to fly from Seattle to Reno at an altitude of no more than 10,000 feet. Cooper also asked that the aircraft travel slowly.
D.B. COOPER THANKS NOTE
Cooper and the crew were up again two hours later after their landing in Seattle. Cooper ordered the crew members to remain in the cockpit and not let Cooper go.
Soon after the Northwest Orient hijacked flight, three planes flew off but did not catch Cooper’s aircraft. Cooper escaped the airplane with parachutes and his money.
The FBI dusted the plane for fingerprints, followed up on hundreds of leads and even released the serial numbers on the bills given to Cooper, but there were never any major breaks in the case.
In fact, it was almost nine years before any evidence linked to the case was discovered at all. In February 1980, 8-year-old Brian Abrams found some of the money that had been given to Cooper.
The young boy was on vacation in Washington with his family when he discovered three cash bundles while looking for firewood to make a campfire.
It is not known how the money reached its destination. It is unknown what happened to the other 9,710 bills or parachutes.
D.B. D.B.
Many in the FBI believe that Cooper would have been unable to survive his jump, which would explain the fact that he has never been apprehended and none of that money was ever found in circulation.
The FBI closed its investigation into D.B. in 2016. Cooper case.
“We have arrived at our conclusion today that it was just time to close the case because there isn’t anything new out there,” Special Agent in Charge Frank Montoya, Jr. said at the time. “There’s a lot that goes into that decision but really it was just time.”