DB Cooper investigator 'blocked from examining evidence' as FBI quietly 'reopen case'

An independent investigator trying to finally uncover the identity of the phantom plane hijacker known as DB Cooper says he has been denied access to one of the parachutes touched by the criminal mastermind.

The case has plagued the FBI for more than 50 years, ever since Northwest Orient Flight 305 was skyjacked by the man dubbed as DB.

The name DB Cooper was given to the anonymous criminal by the press after he infamously threatened to blow up a Boeing aircraft mid-flight on 24 November, 1971.

FBI

Cooper demanded £200,000 (£158,604) - worth around $1.54 million (£1.22 million) in 2024 - and four parachutes so he could skydive in to the night sky with his illegal takings.

Authorities handed over the cash to Cooper and off he went in to the night sky, jumping out the plane while it was flying through the air between Oregon and Washington in the United States.

The case has become incredibly well known and the mystery has seen it become the focus of countless TV shows and true crime documentaries.

Despite the FBI officially closing the case on finding out who Cooper is back in 2016, The Sun reports that the security service is quietly looking back in to the crime as new methods of securing DNA evidence are mooted.

It comes after Larry Carr, a retired FBI agent, said it is a 'conceivable possibility' that items left behind at the scene of the crime by DB Cooper - including a very famous tie - are being re-investigated once again.

FBI

But Tom Kaye, a scientist investigating the case independently of the FBI, says a scheduled test to take DNA samples from one of the parachutes left behind by Cooper was shut down at the last minute by those in possession of it.

The parachute, owned by the Washington State History Museum, was meant to be swabbed by Kaye having been arranged by fellow Cooper investigator, Pat Boland.

The belief is that Cooper may well have put his hand inside one of its pouches to retrieve a packing card.

But access to the parachute was denied last October when the museum U-turned on the scheme without public reason. LADbible has approached the museum for comment.

Kaye is of the belief that the FBI could well be behind the blocking of the planned tests. He said: "I was quite surprised. I've been in museums around the world and I've asked to see multi-million dollar specimens, and getting access with my credentials has never been a problem.

FBI

"But the curator pulled the plug on it suddenly for unknown reasons... sometimes curators have their own reasons for doing things, like if they're studying the subject matter themselves, but we know that's not the case here.

"So it was all kind of a mystery. I don't have any knowledge of why they would close off access to that [parachute].

"But it's interesting that in the last year, we've brought up the subject of DNA publicly, and how to go about getting Cooper's DNA, and trying to get access to the tie he left behind, etcetera.

"The FBI has continuously said the case is closed, and now we find out the case was open or opened back up and they're working on the DNA again. It's an interesting coincidence, for sure. We don't have any evidence but it's very coincidental."

It comes as another amateur detective and associate of Kaye, Eric Ulis, says he is '100% confident' he'll have the DNA of the real DB Cooper by the end of 2024.

Watch his interview with LADbible below:

In 2023, Ulis failed in his attempts to sue the FBI to gain access to the tie left behind by DB Cooper on the hijacked plane.

He told LADbible earlier this year: "There's a very specific part of the tie - a metal spindle that's part of the clip on tie - and I'm determined there may be an uncontaminated profile for DB Cooper within this spindle that's well protected.

"A judge ruled the FBI cannot be compelled to turn over the tie for me to analyse. So it's been a matter of some frustration because I think the answers to solving this riddle are right there, in the possession of the FBI."

Ulis says that he will finally find out the identity of Cooper when combining samples from Kaye with new a DNA technology called metagenomics; an advanced scientific analysis that enables professionals to separate individual strands of DNA.