Erika!

But it tracks considering how bad the rest of the article is, he confused celsius and fahrenheit! Good example of how one person's sloppy research can reverberate

Looking through the 46,000 pages of declassified FBI files, the FBI never once mention it as a concern in their internal communications

There is nothing to Mount St Helens. I have no idea why that one AP journalist asserted that the FBI believe Cooper's body is buried under "tons" (!) of ashes. Because the FBI certainly never told him so. There was never even a tenth of inch of ash in the drop zone, down towards Orchards WA.

Don't worry about it at all! CNN and other mainstream media news outlets picked it up, it really is no one's fault but them. They're the ones who dropped the ball

Larry Carr, who led the investigation for multiple years, has talked about this. It's a grifter looking for his 15 minutes. He tried to pay him to come be part of his videos, Larry of course said no. McCoy was definitively ruled out 5 decades ago, it's farcical at this point.

Because the FBI don't comment on false leads. That's why you haven't heard anything. If it had been true the FBI would have made a statement by now, and the youtuber who first came up with this whole spiel would be talking about it constantly and doing another media tour

Even worse, it was actually $18.52! He just paid with a $20 bill. The 70s were a different time, man lol

Unfortunately, she was basically penniless when she died in 2002 which is hard to reconcile with the ransom. There are other issues too, she doesn't really match the physical description. But it's a really cool story! Her friends have gone on a few podcasts to talk about it

Yep, this is basically suspect Barbara Dayton! She had already transitioned in 71, but she claimed she got a haircut and faked her voice to do the hijacking. She told her friends and they came forward after she passed away. Always admired her, imagine the guts to be an out trans woman in the 60s

The 3 stewardesses aren't the only witnesses. We also have ticket agent Dennis Lysne, gate agent Hal Williams, as well as passengers Bill Mitchell, Nancy House, Robert Gregory, George Labissoniere, Harms Spreckel, Richard Simmons, Jack Almstad, Michael Cooper, and Larry Feingold.

Funny thing, there was a small airstrip almost exactly below where the FBI believe he jumped. Between Battle Ground and Orchards, slightly closer to Orchards. It's called Scholl's Airport & Sport Parachute Center.

You heard that last bit right!
There was a skydiving center in the drop zone!!!

Bill Rataczak, the co-pilot, called it "the soup". Pretty much the most stereotypical boring PNW autumn weather.
As I said, he landed near Orchards, WA. Even in 1971 this land was flat and covered in farms and fields. Gifford Pinchot National Forest is many miles to the east.

I mean, there really was a boat that he fell out of, and even though the police were contacted at 8.13 (Same time Cooper jumped) he had fallen in much earlier.
Like, if he had been a 45-year old man in a suit and parachute carrying a bunch of cash... Then I think they'd have arrested him

Also Barb died, sadly, penniless. She spent her life savings on her transition and was completely broke. There is no explanation for the 200k in cash she supposedly had.
As I said, I adore Barb. Such an icon. Like the guts it must have taken to be out as trans in the 60s and 70s? Insane.

I love Barb but she's not a very credible suspect. The FBI never even assigned her a suspect number.
Cooper had sideburns. Barb had already transitioned by this point
Barb says she jumped over Woodburn, Oregon. That's more than 50 miles from where we now know the hijacker jumped

One of the funnier coincidences in this case is that a 62-year old man fell into the cold waters of Lake Merwin, where the FBI originally believed Cooper landed, at the same time. He treaded water for 10 hours (!) before being rescued. He lived!
So clearly the outlook isn't that bad.

So this is a common misconception, but we have the original files from the FBI. The National Weather Service tells us the weather. Light rain, 42f
The FBI places the hijacker's drop zone between the towns of Orchards and Battle Ground, WA.
Here are 3 photos of the towns from the period.

There's another comic book that could also be a possible connection! The pulp action magazine "Air Trails" had a feature in its January 1937 edition about a crime-fighting airline pilot named Dan Cooper!
From the median age of 45, that'd have made Cooper 11 years old when this magazine came out

During his hijacking he was freaking out. He had a panic attack basically the entire time, he was freaking out and sweating sinner in church.
Like, does any of this match to DB Cooper? The suave, calm businessman? McCoy would *never* have come up with something like this on his own.

His wife and him were estranged, she was sick with a rare form of arthritis, and his kids were young. He wanted to make them some money so they wouldn't become homeless after he was gone. And if he died trying? Well, he was fine with that. He was deeply suicidal.

McCoy fans usually claim he lost the money in his first hijacking
The thing is, McCoys story is really tragic. He had severe PTSD and chronic migraines, leading him to think he had brain cancer. He was convinced he was going to die soon. He was seen beating his head against the wall to stop the pain

This was enough for Larry Carr, who was the final case agent of the case, to completely discard McCoy. As he's explained, it's not temporally possible for McCoy to be at school on the morning of the 24th, then hijack a plane in Portland in the afternoon, and then make it back home by next morning.

Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah! 800 miles from Portland.
McCoy was a good guy. He invited a foreign exchange student over for thanksgiving. When that student showed up at 10 am, McCoy was right there. So we can place him in Utah both a few hours before, and a few hours after the hijacking.

This date a series of photographs containing that of Richard Floyd McCoy was shown to Northwest Stewardesses at Minneapolis, Minnesota. The three stewardesses stated that there were some slight similarities, but each was quite certain that McCoy was not identical with Cooper. Some of the differences in physical characteristics that were noted were that McCoy's ears stuck out further from his head than those of Cooper, Cooper's hair was fuller than that [END PAGE ONE]

[PAGE TWO, CONTINUED] That of McCoy's, McCoy's nose was broader than that of Cooper; and Florence Schaffner, the only stewardess who saw Cooper without his glasses, stated that Cooper's eyes were brown. It is noted from the photograph of McCoy, his eyes were blue. Armed and dangerous.

Special Agent [REDACTED] Portland, advised that Portland witness [REDACTED] said that McCoy's photo was definitely not unsub. Portland witness [REDACTED] advised that a group of photos containing McCoy did not contain a photo of the hijacker. Witness [REDACTED] at Eugene, Oregon advised McCoy definitely not identical.

Photos of Richard Floyd McCoy shown in suitable groups to Portland division witnesses [REDACTED] fellow passengers of subject this matter. None could make any identification. [REDACTED] stated positively McCoy not identical with Norjak unsub, and [REDACTED] stated he does not recall enough to make a positive statement.

Yeah I can definitely see it too! So did the FBI, we can see in the original files them freaking out about it.
But then they showed it to the witnesses, and it seems that any similarity between McCoy and the sketch was an issue with the sketch.

None of the 10 witnesses thought they looked alike.

Interviews of acquaintances of subject in UAL case indicate subject obsessed with idea of hijacking and continually brought up discussions wherein he attempted to obtain opinions as to what the other hijackers had done wrong in their operation.

McCoy's statement at his sentencing: "The original idea was to write a research paper for one of my university law enforcement classes on how to prevent skyjackings. I telt my background and life experiences had given me an advantage over others in solving the problem. After working on this project in a haphazard fashion for a couple of months, it became apparent that I wouldn't be able to prove my original theory. After carefully analyzing the steps a well-equipped skyjacker would employ and the countermeasures the FBI would take, I concluded that there was no effective deterrent once an airplane had been taken over. Although I fantasized on what the experience would be like, as people do in reading an adventure story, or watching an exciting movie, it was later, when my problems seemed insurmountable, that I seriously considered undertaking such a project. In working on the project, it was necessary to play the roles of the people involved. The person I identified with most was the skyjacker. Playing his role and figuring how he would handle different situations seemed, at the time, to be a harmless escape from reality."

I'm just a huge D.B. Cooper nerd haha!
McCoy was a Criminal Justice student at BYU. He wrote an essay on the Cooper hijacking in Spring 1972 and became obsessed with the case. That's the reason for the similarity!

Though McCoy did his hijacking *much* worse than Cooper

[Redacted] advised that on November 24, 1971, [redacted] Richard Floyd McCoy attended his regular morning classes at Brigham Young University, leaving from [Redacted] Utah at about 7:30 A.M.

Hard to commit a crime in Portland while attending classes in Utah 800 miles away 😉

As Robin Montgomery, the special agent of the Oregon office at the time, said: "I can tell you from 20+ years in the FBI that if, in fact, we could have made McCoy as DB Cooper, we would have done it. End of story."

On 1/24/86, Charles Shepherd, Salt Lake County SO, Retired FBI Supervisor who was the case Agent on the MC COY case, contacted the Salt lake City Office and advised that he could not believe that CALAME was writing a book or seriously believed that MC COY was D. B. COOPER. SHEPHERD believed that CALAME was motivated only by the profit. He stated that extensive investigations had been done regarding MC COY, including personal discussions between SHEPHERD and RALPH HIMMELSBACH, a case agent in the D. B. COOPER case, and that there was no way MC COY was identical with Cooper.

We actually have this wonderful nugget from the declassified FBI files where some FBI agents are complaining about a book that came out claiming that McCoy was Cooper. You can see the exasperation in the text!

[Redacted] advised that on November 24, 1971, [redacted] Richard Floyd McCoy attended his regular morning classes at Brigham Young University, leaving from [Redacted] Utah at about 7:30 A.M.

Review of Bank of America Card Tickets today indicated charges to McCoy at Provo, Utah, for gas purchase on November 25th; Charge for gas purchase at Cedar City, Utah, November 25th; Charge for gas purchase at Power Thrust, Las Vegas, Nevada; Merchant Number [Redacted] for gas November 25th AST.

ASAC [redacted] advised that all three stewardesses viewed photograph of McCoy and advised that he was not identical to NORJAK subject.

There aren't many certainties in the Cooper case, but that it wasn't McCoy is one of them.

The FBI went and got his attendance records at BYU. They also checked his credit cards.
He was in Utah all week, attending his classes like normal.

Also, all of the witnesses ruled him out as being Cooper

Barb is such an icon!

Barb is great! There is a convention every year about DB Cooper and the Formans actually brought her ashes! The first suspect we've ever had attend lol.
Her life is really tragic though. I mean, imagine the guts one must have had to be out as a trans woman in the 1960s!