The identity of Dan Cooper or DB Cooper has finally been revealed! His name really was Dan Cooper and he has been hiding in plain sight for decades. "I've never really kept my life a secret," he said during a recent interview. "I just assumed that the FBI wanted to keep the case unsolved for some reason. Maybe the FBI has a stake in keeping urban legends alive, or maybe they just didn't want to admit that they forgot to look into easily available records for 45 years."
In 1971, a flight from Portland to Seattle was hijacked by a passenger who bought a one-way ticket under the name Dan Cooper. His name was later represented by the press as DB Cooper. After securing a $200,000 ransom and some parachutes, Dan Cooper jumped from the back of the 727 over Washington State and parachuted down to terra firma. While mostly silent on the specifics of the hijacking, he has allowed a few details, "I actually landed in the parking lot for Glen's Market in Onalaska, Washington. The first thing that I used the money for was a package of Little Debbies. That money recovered by the Columbia River ... I guess the FBI must have done that. I think that is where the real mystery has been all these years."
Mr. Cooper's life before and after the hijacking has had some interesting twists. He is actually the cousin of shock rocker Alice Cooper. Dan Cooper and Alice Cooper kept in touch for many years, but now they are more limited to Christmas cards and the occasional birthday greetings. Alice Cooper refused comment at this time, but it is believed that Dan Cooper helped Alice Cooper find a relevant attorney after the on-stage chicken death in Toronto. It may have been that 1969 Toronto incident which led Dan Cooper to realize the need for a nest egg to prepare for the unexpected.
Little is known about Mr. Cooper immediately after the hijacking, but a close look at records show that he eventually moved to Alpena, Michigan and began living in a condominium with a J. Hoffa in 1975. Police records from the time show that the condo, on the shores of Lake Huron, was the site of many noise complaints. Jack Allerton, who still lives in Alpena remembers living next to Mr. Cooper and Mr. Hoffa, "We all knew Jimmy Hoffa just wanted out of organized labor, but didn't know Danny was a hijacker. Ya' know, it was the 70's though. Everybody was runnin’ from something." Mr. Allerton is quiet for a few moments with a telling smirk on his face, "Those were some wild times." The current whereabouts of Jimmy Hoffa are now being investigated with renewed vigor.
With much of his hijacking cash spent by the late 1970's, Mr. Cooper had to tame his partying ways and find other employment. In 1978 he began working for a new TV news magazine which eventually became known as 20/20. However, he apparently had a hard time sitting still and remained somewhat nervous about being caught. After the producers began looking into doing a story on the 1971 hijacking, Mr. Cooper must have known it was time to get out.
In 1993, Mr. Cooper joined MTV and was largely responsible for moving the music entertainment channel from mostly a music video format to the growing genre of reality TV. MTV's Kurt Loder says that MTV still receives hate mail addressed to Dan Cooper over the destruction of how great MTV was in the 1980's music video era.
After MTV, Mr. Cooper moved on to Fox News in the mid 1990's. He was instrumental in creating the Fox News Brand, although his initial plan was considered bloated and unlikely to succeed by both investors and executives. As Mr. Cooper had realized the importance of weather in planning his hijacking in 1971, he invented the concept of the weather gadget in the corner of the TV screen. To this day he still gets small royalty checks every time it is used.
Bored with broadcasting, Mr. Cooper opened a Dippin' Dots franchise in Olathe, Kansas. This was done in partnership with William S Burroughs (author of Naked Lunch), who maintained a separate franchise in Lawrence, Kansas. Dippin' Dots was apparently very lucrative for both Cooper and Burroughs, Mr. Cooper even created a way of making far more uniform dots through the use of something called an acoustic nozzle. These far superior dots would likely have taken Dippin' Dots to a new level if it had not been for the worldwide frozen confectioner's scandal of 1999. While not directly implicated in the scandal, Dippin' Dots was unable to take advantage of the acoustic nozzle process and Mr. Cooper moved on.
After 2000, Dan Cooper returned to Michigan and opened an automotive repair shop in Muskegon. Mr. Cooper is happy to talk about his current life, "Muskegon is great. I have everything I need here. Cooper Dan Automotive is going gangbusters and I have my boat ready at a moment's notice on Lake Michigan."
Pushed for more information on the hijacking, Mr. Cooper just presses his lips together and shakes his head. Questions remain about the statute of limitations and there is still an indictment out of Portland, Oregon. When Alan Redford, Mr. Cooper's lawyer, was contacted, he only wanted to confirm he is still studying the case but there are more questions than answers, "Since Dan Cooper boarded the plane under his own name and hasn't been hiding, I think the in absentia indictment from 1976 is invalid."
A legal battle will likely play out over the coming weeks and months. The FBI has been largely silent since the information has come to light and one senior investigator, who would only talk off the record, suggested that department embarrassment over the whole issue has become a major morale problem. This same senior investigator also suggested that they have begun recently using Google to search for anyone relevant to unsolved cases, and it appears that Mr. Cooper's situation is not unique.
Standing on the rocky pier at Muskegon State Park for a few final words, Mr. Cooper is largely reticent, "Ya know, fake news has been in the news so much recently. And so maybe I made some news in the early 1970's and worked in the news in the 1990s. But maybe not. Maybe it is all fake news, ya know? Sad..."
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