Man who packed parachutes for mysterious skyjacker D.B. Cooper 'found murdered' in Washington home



Home where murder occurred is owned by 74-year-old Earl Cossey, who packed the parachutes for D.B. Cooper

The man's death is being investigated as a homicide



Cooper vanished in November 1974 after jumping out of an airplane he had hijacked with $200,000 cash



Detectives are investigating a homicide in Washington state home owned by a man linked to the D.B. Cooper skyjacking mystery.

A woman called police Friday to report that she had gone to the home in Woodinville, northeast of Seattle, to check on her father and found him dead, said King County Sheriff's Sgt Cindi West.

Reports said that the home is owned by Earl Cossey, 74.

Death investigation: The murder was reported at the home of Earl Cossey, 74, in Woodinville, Washington

Map: Locations in Washington where Cooper was originally thought to have landed and where some of the ransom money was found in 1980

Citing King County property records, KIRO-TV reported that Cossey, a former skydiving instructor, lived in the home.



He is the man who packed the parachutes used by infamous airplane hijacker D.B. Cooper more than four decades ago.

The woman had not heard from him in several days.

The victim's identity is not expected to be released until Monday, after it is confirmed by the King County Medical Examiner's Office.

Skyjacker: D.B. Cooper hijacked a Northwest Orient plane from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle in one of the Northwest most notorious mysteries

But West said Saturday that detectives have ruled the case a homicide.

On November 24, 1971, a man in a suit and sunglasses calling himself Dan Cooper - later mistakenly identified as D.B. Cooper - hijacked a Northwest Orient plane from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle.



After getting on the plane, he ordered whiskey and lit a cigarette before passing a flight attendant a note that read: 'I HAVE A BOMB IN MY BRIEFCASE. I WILL USE IT IF NECESSARY. I WANT YOU TO SIT NEXT TO ME. YOU ARE BING (sic) HIJACKED.'

At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, he released the passengers in exchange for $200,000 and four parachutes, and he asked to be flown to Mexico.

Somewhere near the Oregon line, Cooper leapt out of the plane. Despite intensive searches, no sign of Cooper ever emerged.



Investigators doubt he survived and have never been able to determine his true identity.



But a boy digging on a Columbia River beach in 1980 found three bundles of weathered $20 bills - Cooper's cash, according to the serial numbers.

The parachutes provided to the skyjacker came from an Issaquah skydive center which had recently purchased them from Cossey.

The one Cooper apparently used was a military-issue NB6, nylon, 28-foot with a conical canopy.



Over the decades, as parachutes were sometimes discovered in the area of Cooper's jump, the FBI turned to Cossey to ask if they were the real thing.

Plot: A hijacked Northwest Airlines jetliner 727 sits on a runway for refuelling at Tacoma International Airport on November 25 1971

Clues: Three packets of ransom money, totalling $5,800, were found on the Columbia river in February 1980

Cool culprit: Impressions of Cooper as a smartly-dressed man have added to the fascination nature of the mystery

'They keep bringing me garbage,' Cossey told The Associated Press in 2008, after the FBI brought him a silk parachute discovered by children playing at a recently graded road in Southwest Washington.



'Every time they find squat, they bring it out and open their trunk and say, 'Is that it?' and I say, 'Nope, go away.' Then a few years later they come back.'

That didn't keep Cossey from having fun at the expense of reporters who covered that discovery.

Vital clue: Cooper's cheap clip-on tie was one of the items recovered after the skyjack

He told some who happened to call him on April Fools' Day that year that the chute was, in fact, Cooper's.

One reporter called him back and angrily said he could get fired for writing a false story, Cossey said.

Another said the newsroom was amused by the prank.

'I'm getting mixed reviews,' Cossey said. 'But I'm having fun with it. What the heck.'

The mysterious hijacking has intrigued everyone from federal agents to amateur sleuths.

There were more than 1,000 possible suspects considered over the past four decades.

Several people even claimed to be Cooper at times, but were dismissed on the basis of physical descriptions, parachuting experience and, later, by DNA evidence recovered in 2001 from the cheap, clip-on tie the skyjacker left on the plane.

Many believe that Cooper was Richard McCoy, a Vietnam War veteran, experienced parachutist and BYU political science student who staged a similar hijacking several months later.