D.B. Cooper: New wrinkles in the tale of a mystery skyjacker who leaped from a jet with $200,000

Dennis Wagner | The Republic | azcentral.com

Show Caption Hide Caption Indiana man says he knows the identity of D. B. Cooper. Rick Sherwood, of Wheatfield, served in the Vietnam War with a man he says is D.B. Cooper, and he says he can prove it.

In 1971, a hijacker parachuted from a jetliner over the forests of Oregon and slipped away with $200,000.

The skyjacker, who used the alias “Dan Cooper” in taunting letters to the FBI, was never apprehended.

For crime buffs, the case of the man who became known as D.B. Cooper has remained one of America’s most compelling mysteries.

Now, Los Angeles filmmaker Tom Colbert and a team of investigators are doubling down on claims they have identified the real D.B. Cooper as Robert W. “Bob” Rackstraw, a former Vietnam War soldier who became a university law instructor.

And they are saying parts of Rackstraw's story have connections to Arizona.

In numerous past interviews with police and journalists, Rackstraw has offered coy and conflicting responses while refusing to confirm or deny he is Cooper. In one TV interview, when asked if he was the hijacker, he smiled and said, “Could have been. I can’t commit myself on something like that.”

Now 74 and retired, Rackstraw resides in Coronado, California, where Colbert said he has a yacht named Poverty Sucks.

Reached this week by phone, Rackstraw declined to be interviewed except in person, explaining, “I want to know who I’m talking to.”

Many FBI agents concluded Cooper was killed when he jumped from the jetliner. Others, including a legion of self-anointed sleuths, have identified countless possible suspects.

Rackstraw at times was among them. Yet the seminal book on the topic, “Skyjacker: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper,” by Geoffrey Gray, does not even mention his name.

Gray told The Arizona Republic that Colbert and his team are just one "pocket of obsession" in a "sea of chaos."

"While he (Rackstraw) looked like an interesting suspect, there were a thousand interesting suspects," Gray said. "All we have is suspicion right now."

The FBI closed its case on Cooper two years ago, just as Colbert aired a History Channel documentary pointing to Rackstraw as the perpetrator.

Colbert claims his team now has proof: a hidden code discovered in letters D.B. Cooper sent to the media years ago. One of the encrypted messages purportedly says: “I am 1st LT Robert Rackstraw.”

Colbert acknowledges he is working on a new film and has a vested interest in publicity.

But he insists his primary goal is to expose the FBI’s failure to do its job, purportedly because Rackstraw became a CIA operative after the hijacking.

Colbert sued the bureau last year to obtain the case file.

“This is horribly embarrassing for them,” he said in a phone interview, “and the fact that they cut a deal with the CIA is not out yet.”

Dennis Roberts, Rackstraw's longtime lawyer, offers a different perspective: "He's not D.B. Cooper, but these people have been driving him crazy for years. They won't leave him alone."

SEE ALSO: Indiana man says he helped crack the code to identify D.B. Cooper

The skyjacking

A long version of the story fills nearly 72,000 pages in the FBI's case file, dubbed NORJAK, not to mention books, blogs, films and a D.B. Cooper Music Festival.

A shorter version focuses on Arizona and explains where Rackstraw learned to skydive, why he allegedly chose the last name “Cooper,” and what led Colbert’s team to focus on him.

First, some background on the case:

On Nov. 24, 1971, Northwest Orient Flight 305 from Portland to Seattle was commandeered by a man claiming to have a bomb in his briefcase.

The skyjacker, who boarded as "Dan Cooper," instructed the pilot to land in Seattle.

In exchange for a parachute and $200,000, Cooper allowed some passengers to disembark. Then he ordered the Boeing 727 to take off and fly south.

Over a forested area of Oregon, at low altitude in a rainstorm, the man vanished.

The hijacking reportedly was America’s first to end in a parachute getaway.

Cooper’s bravado triggered an FBI dragnet and wild public speculation. (Early news accounts contained the erroneous “D.B.” initials, which stuck even though they were never used by the hijacker.)

The mystery grew as someone who identified himself as Cooper began mailing cryptic letters to media outlets, leaving clues and taunting the FBI.

“I didn’t rob Northwest Orient because I thought it would be romantic, heroic or any of the other euphemisms,” the person wrote. “I’m no modern-day Robin Hood… Neither am I a psycho-pathic killer.”

A murder, explosives and forgery

According to Colbert, Rackstraw served seven years in the Army, earning medals in Vietnam before he was forced out in 1971 due to misconduct.

He was a helicopter pilot trained in parachute drops and psychological operations. That background did not place Rackstraw onto the FBI’s list.

But in 1975, somebody broke into an armory at Rackstraw’s former military base in California and stole explosives. FBI agents reportedly viewed the former soldier as a person of interest. No arrest was made.

In 1977, Rackstraw’s stepfather disappeared in Stockton, California. Arrest warrants were issued alleging Rackstraw forged the missing man’s name on checks. Separate charges were filed for shipping explosives to a fellow Vietnam veteran.

While awaiting trial, Rackstraw vanished.

Two Stockton detectives realized he not only resembled FBI sketches of D.B. Cooper, but had a skill set for skyjacking. They tipped off an FBI agent. A file was opened.

In 1978, the fugitive was traced to Iran, where he was training pilots for the shah. Just as Rackstraw was returned to the United States, his stepfather’s body was uncovered from a shallow grave, two bullets to the head.

Rackstraw testified during his murder trial, “I didn’t kill my father, but I swear to God that I’ll find out who did …”

He was acquitted, but faced other charges when he disappeared again. This time, while flying a rental plane over Monterey Bay, Rackstraw issued a mayday call and announced he was ditching the aircraft. No wreckage or body was found.

Rackstraw was rearrested a few months later. Media reported the captured fugitive might be linked to the 1971 skyjacking.

And this is where an Arizona connection emerges.

A Cooper connection?

Amid the publicity, a man named Dick Briggs allegedly told two friends that he — not Rackstraw — was the real D.B. Cooper.

One of those friends, Ron Carlson, told The Republic their conversations occurred in 1979.

Carlson said the men were at a party in Portland when Briggs pointed out a young couple and predicted they, along with their son, would soon “discover” buried along the Columbia River cash from the airline heist.

Carlson said he thought the whole thing was a fabrication until a few days later when the couple and a boy appeared on TV newscasts with $5,800 purportedly found on the river’s bank while digging a fire pit. The bills' numbers traced to the hijacking.

Carlson, who now lives in Meadview, said he didn’t tell anyone about Briggs’ story until 2011, when he described the saga to a camera operator who worked for Colbert. The disclosure led to five years of investigation by a team of 40 former law officers.

Colbert said Briggs did not fit the hijacker’s description. But they learned he was a Rackstraw associate, and came to believe money from the skyjacking was planted to remove suspicion from Rackstraw.

The ruse worked, Colbert added. FBI agents decided a criminal wouldn’t leave cash behind, so the discovery was strong evidence Cooper hadn't survived.

Ten months later, Briggs died in a wreck that was ruled an accident.

Parachutes over Phoenix?

In March 1979, Colbert reports, Rackstraw contacted a Los Angeles television station and offered journalist Pete Noyes an exclusive on the real D.B. Cooper, which led to another Arizona twist.

Noyes requested proof. Rackstraw offered a morsel: He said he had learned to parachute as a 16-year-old boy vacationing in Phoenix. His instructor was an uncle, Ed Cooper. And that is how he came up with the pseudonym.

The confession interview never materialized. (The uncle died in 2000, but relatives confirmed the family ties.)

Rackstraw was convicted on five felony counts related to fraudulent checks, and pleaded no contest to the explosives charge, according to Colbert. He served more than a year behind bars.

A chronology prepared by Colbert outlines Rackstraw’s life in the aftermath. Despite criminal convictions, he launched a construction business and became a building inspector for Riverside County, California. He purportedly earned a law degree online, and briefly taught a course in mediation at the University of California, Riverside.

He also got married, divorced and remarried, eventually claiming six children and 14 grandchildren in a court filing.

Was he Cooper?

One year after Colbert began investigating Rackstraw, he offered to buy Rackstraw's story.

Rackstraw expressed interest and brought in his attorney. But they later threatened to sue.

Roberts, the lawyer, told The Republic that Colbert was ruining Rackstraw's reputation, and it made him sick.

But he also acknowledged Rackstraw had cultivated the D.B. Cooper identity, in part to meet women.

Colbert’s film aired, along with a book titled, “The Last Master Outlaw: How He Outfoxed the FBI …”

For several years, during interviews with the Indianapolis Star and other publications, Rackstraw refused to say whether he was Cooper.

Colbert said his team worked on the 2016 documentary in collaboration with the FBI until the film was nearly complete, and the bureau backed out.

Colbert then sued, demanding FBI investigative records under the Freedom of Information Act, including material he says the bureau provided to another researcher but not to him. The case is pending.

While Rackstraw is not a party to the lawsuit, he filed a motion to intervene, referring to himself as a “disabled, homeless veteran.”

The 17-page petition asked a judge to issue arrest warrants for Colbert and other team members charging “conspiracy to commit premeditated murder.” It claims they hired gunmen to ambush him. It says their 2016 documentary left him “defamed, harassed and killed (suffered a major heart attack and died) etc.”

The request mentions damages of $1 billion. It concludes, “Please don’t let them kill me again.”

Rackstraw’s motion was denied.

Get out your decoder ring

One of Colbert’s team members, Rick Sherwood, served at the same time as Rackstraw in Vietnam and studied encryption.

Going through D.B. Cooper letters, Sherwood said, he noticed words and numbers that might be a code. So he began trying to break it.

Sherwood claims the correspondent employed an alpha-numeric system where A=1, B=2 and so on to Z=26. Using that formula and making other adjustments, he said, he deciphered multiple messages.

For example, one letter contained “ccccccc.” Because C=3, and there were seven C’s, he decided the total was 21. Then he concluded that the message might be ASA (an acronym for Army Security Agency) because 1+19+1=21.

Of course, hundreds of other acronyms or words could be created with 21 letter-points, like a reverse game of Scrabble.

Sherwood admits his method and conclusions are speculative. In fact, he got the math wrong when he derived the most important message: “I am 1st LT Robert Rackstraw.” So, this week, he revised the wording to “I’m LT Robert W. Rackstraw.”

Nevertheless, Colbert insists the decoding is “documented validation.”

He noted that one message uncovered by Sherwood says, “I am CIA…” He said Rackstraw has claimed to be an operative for the spy agency.

“Deep sources in the military and intelligence communities claim agents won’t charge him because he was an award-winning black ops pilot for the CIA,” Colbert said.

An FBI spokeswoman said in an email to The Republic that the bureau will not investigate the NORJACK case further unless someone produces the parachute or money taken during the crime. She declined to comment on Rackstraw. She said agents have received a huge number of tips, but no definitive identification of the hijacker.

The legend grows.