Will a Parachute Found 2 Years Ago Help Solve the D.B. Cooper Skyjacking Case? Man Who Made Discovery Speaks Out

Mar. 15, 2025

D.B. Cooper.Photo:Federal Bureau of Investigation

Federal Bureau of Investigation

When the plane landed in Seattle, he was given the money and then instructed the pilot to fly to Mexico before parachuting out of the plane near the Oregon border. He was never found, though nearly a decade later a boy found $5,800 of the money near the Columbia River.

But a suspect has never been publicly named and the mystery officially remains unsolved, though several names have been suggested as the potential culprit.

One name that has been considered a longtime possibility is Richard Floyd McCoy, who perpetrated a nearly identical hijacking a few months after the Cooper incident. McCoy was later identified as the suspect and was convicted of aircraft piracy and sentenced to 45 years in prison, though he maintained his innocence, according to the FBI.

But in 1974, McCoy escaped custody and was later killed in a shootout with FBI agents in Virginia.

Though their father has been dead for 50 years, McCoy’s children believe their father was also the man responsible for the D.B. Cooper hijacking, according toCowboy State Daily.

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“That rig is literally one in a billion,” Gryder said, saying that it was a modified military surplus rig.

The paper reported that McCoy’s children had long suspected their father but did not say anything to protect their mother — who they believe helped their father. Their mother died in 2020, which is when theCowboy State Dailyreported they spoke to Gryder for the first time.

source: people.com