The children of convicted skyjacker Richard McCoy II believed their dear old dad may have been D.B. Cooper, the notorious (and notoriously unidentified) central figure in 1971’s unsolved skyjacking. It’s the only one in United States history, in fact, without an answer—until, perhaps, now.
Just months after the Cooper incident, McCoy was convicted of an incredibly similar skyjacking that also included a parachute jump. His children, Chanté and Richard III (Rick), have long thought the clues added up.
They may now have evidence to back up their suspicions.
Chanté and Rick had kept quiet out of consideration for their mother, Karen, who they believed was potentially complicit in both crimes. But as both parents are now deceased, the opportunity arose for the siblings to come forward with their suspicions. And, crucially, they seem to have hard evidence: a modified parachute that they (and amateur D.B. Cooper sleuth Dan Gryder) believe was used in the daring escape.
“That rig is literally one in a billion,” Gryder told Cowboy State Daily after releasing a series on YouTube about his suspicions. It was that YouTube series, Gryder said, that drew the FBI back into the case.
According to Gryder, the FBI now has the parachute and harness that were once tucked away in a storage shed on family property in North Carolina, along with a harness and a skydiving logbook that Chanté claims show D.B. Cooper’s movements near Oregon and Utah (the locations of the two skyjacking events). This is the first real movement from the FBI on the case since the bureau closed it in 2016—even if some former personnel claimed it remained secretly open.