DB Cooper investigator says one key detail disproves siblings' claims dad is hijacker after 'one in a billion' discovery

A DB Cooper investigator has poured cold water on a set of siblings' claims that their dad is the infamous hijacker DB Cooper due to one key detail.

Chanté and Richard III 'Rick' McCoy reckon their late father, Richard Floyd McCoy II, is the person who pulled off the legendary ‘skyjacking’.

The cold case has been baffling investigators since the early 70s with a Netflix documentary even joining amateur sleuths in attempting to crack the identity.

The mysterious DB Cooper case

Back on 24 November 1971, an unknown individual boarded a flight from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington after buying a one-way ticket with cash at the ticket desk

Calling himself Dan Cooper, he told a flight attendant once they were in the skies that he was carrying a bomb. The man demanded $200,000 (which is equivalent to over £1 million in today's money) and four parachutes which he was given.

The mysterious bloke allowed passengers to deplane in Seattle before having staff refuel and head up into the air again. Around 30 minutes after take-off, he opened the door of the aircraft and parachuted out into the night somewhere over southwestern Washington.

And just one clue pointing to his identity was left behind at the scene; a tie from the US retail chain JCPenney.

Amateur sleuths have piled onto the mystery with Eric Ulis being a bit of a leading expert on the case – having founded the largest social media group dedicated to it and ‘CooperCon’.

Chanté and Richard III 'Rick' McCoy's 'one in a billion' claim

He explained to LADbible why he reckons the claim backed by fellow investigating YouTuber, Dan Gryder, is essentially, a load of crap.

DB Cooper has not knowingly been seen since 24 November, 1971 (FBI)

The McCoy siblings say their dad could be the mysterious man after having previously been considered a ‘serious subject’ by the FBI.

The late father had done a similar hijack job in 1972 and they found a modified military surplus bailout rig in their parents’ storage. Gryder reckons the ‘one in a billion’ find suggests McCoy could really have been DB Cooper.

But investigator Eric Ulis says otherwise. He previously met with Chanté and Rick and explains he knows Gryder ‘personally’.

Casting doubts

He’s ‘a little suspect’ of the claims as pictures of the parachute that was found ‘clearly show that it is not DB Cooper’s’.

“Fortunately in the FBI files, the gentleman who handed over the parachutes - a guy named Norden Hayden who has since passed - he was very descriptive about what the parachutes were and what they looked like,” Ulis explains.

Ulis reckons this is false. (YouTube/Dan Gryder)

“There were a number of components that Dan Gryder’s parachute shows, that are not part of DB Cooper’s parachute The type of parachute which Gryder is displaying and claiming may be related to Cooper is what is called a B4, which is an airforce parachute.

“DB Cooper’s parachute was called an ND6 or an ND8 - which is a Navy backpack parachute.

"There are clear differences.”

Ulis adds his belief that the real parachute ‘is still out there somewhere’ and is likely to be near to ‘where he actually landed’.

“He stashed them somewhere,” the investigator reckons.