It has been almost 50 years since the infamous and sometimes mythological D.B. Cooper made his escape out of the back of a Boeing 727 into freezing Northwest rain. Cooper was wearing a business suit, a parachute, and a pack with $200,000 in cash.
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Now, a crime historian is conducting a dig on the banks of the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington, hoping to find evidence in the case.
Eric Ulis, a self-described expert on the infamous D. B. Cooper case, started his two-day dig on Friday, KOIN reported.
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Ulis has four volunteers searching for evidence about 10 to 15 yards from where $6,000 of Cooper’s ransom money was found in 1980 by a boy.
The theory Ulis has is that Cooper buried the parachutes, an attached case, and money at the same time. But, instead of digging one large hole, he dug several smaller ones to bury the loot.
The FBI Seattle Field office called the investigation one of the most prolonged and most exhaustive in the agency’s history, The Associated Press reported.
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The Cooper case has become that of mythological legend making its way across pop culture, appearing in shows from “Prison Break” to, most recently, Disney+’s “Loki.”
On Nov. 24, 1971, the night before Thanksgiving, a man who was later described to be in his mid-40s with dark sunglasses and an olive complexion boarded a flight from Portland, Oregon to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
He bought a $20 ticket under the name “Dan Cooper,” however, an early wire-service report misidentified him as “D.B. Cooper,” and the name stuck.
Cooper sat in the rear of the plane where he handed a note to a flight attendant after takeoff saying, “Miss, I have a bomb and would like you to sit by me.”
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He demanded $200,000 in cash and four parachutes that were received at the Seattle-Tacoma airport. Once his demands were met, he released the 36 passengers and two of the flight attendants on board. Then, the plane took off again, heading slowly to Reno, Nevada, at a low altitude of 10,000 feet. It’s assumed that Cooper leaped out of the jet somewhere over southwestern Washington.
Cooper was never found, leading to the mystery that has left many wondering what happened for years. Finally, in 1980 a boy digging on a Columbia River beach found three bundles of weathered $20 bills. According to the serial numbers, it was Cooper’s cash, the AP reported.
The FBI and amateur detectives examined numerous theories as to what happened to Cooper and who he was. In July 2016, the FBI announced that it would no longer investigate the case, the AP reported.
Ulis’ dig will cover about 300 square feet of the beach that claims the FBI never searched. The dig is being streamed on a DB Cooper Facebook page.
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