The case surrounding the mysterious disappearance of unknown pirate DB Cooper may have achieved a breakthrough thanks to a newly uncovered piece of evidence.

According to the Seattle Times, the parachute used by the hijacker may have been found. Richard McCoy II’s children found the parachute in an outbuilding on the family property.

According to the Times, the children always believed their father was DB Cooper. Chanté and Richard III waited until their mother died before reaching out to Dan Gryder, a retired pilot and skydiver who, in his retirement, documented his own search for DB Cooper on his YouTube channel.

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The children waited until their mother died because they suspected she was involved in the kidnapping. The FBI closed the investigation into the case in 2016.

Chanté and Richard III’s father, Richard McCoy II, was arrested five months later after attempting a nearly identical robbery to DB Cooper’s on Utah. He was arrested, then escaped from prison and eventually died in a police shootout.

McCoy was initially dismissed as a suspect by the FBI because he did not match Cooper’s description. McCoy was much younger, 27, when the attack occurred. Cooper was said to be in his mid-40s.

Many FBI officials had come to believe that the real DB Cooper had died in the jump, but others, including Gryder, believe this recently uncovered piece of evidence could be a breakthrough.

“This will definitely prove it was McCoy,” Gryder said, according to Yahoo News.

November 24th – the 53rd anniversary of Cooper’s disappearance

In 1971, Cooper, a middle-aged man in a business suit, was aboard a plane when he handed a stewardess a note claiming he had a bomb. He demanded $200,000 in $20 bills (equivalent to about $1.5 million in 2024) as well as four parachutes in exchange for the passengers’ release. Cooper showed the stewardess the contents of his briefcase, which looked like it contained wires and explosives.

The jet circled Seattle while local authorities collected the money and parachutes to meet Cooper’s demands.

After the plane hovered over the city for nearly three hours, an FBI agent brought the money and parachutes onto the plane.

After passengers disembarked from the aircraft and refueled, the 727 took off again at 7:37 p.m. with its three-person crew in the cockpit and stewardess Tina Mucklow in the cabin with Cooper. After takeoff, Cooper directed Mucklow to join the crew in the cockpit, where she remained for the remainder of the flight.

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Cooper had instructed the crew to fly to Mexico at low speed, with the landing gear down and at an altitude of no more than 10,000 feet. Cooper was told this would require a fuel stop in Reno, Nevada.

At some point after sending Mucklow into the cockpit, Cooper took off his tie and attached one of the parachutes. He grabbed the $200,000 (which the FBI said weighed about 21 pounds) and lowered it down the back stairs. An indicator light in the cockpit indicated that the door opened around 8 p.m. Then, about fifteen minutes later, authorities later said, Cooper went down those stairs and jumped off, probably over an area east of Interstate 5 (I-5) near the community of Woodland.

All that was left of Cooper was his clip tie. Searchers combed the woods of southwest Washington but never found a trace of anything.

Contributor: Feliks Banel, MyNorthwest resident historian

Frank Sumrall is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories here and email him here.