Around p. He was assigned an aisle seat, 18C, for a p. The plane carried 36 passengers that day, not including: the pilot, Captain William Scott, the first officer Bob Rataczak, the flight engineer H. Anderson, and two flight attendants, Tina Mucklow and Florence Schaffner.
An accent-less, middle-aged, white male in a dark suit and tie, Cooper drew little attention boarding the flight. After takeoff, Cooper handed Schaffner a note. At the time, men traveling alone commonly slipped phone numbers or hotel room numbers to flight attendants, so Schaffner placed the note in her pocket and ignored it. The next time she passed, Cooper motioned for her to come closer. He told her that she better read the note and warned that he had a bomb, nodding towards his suitcase.
Schaffner then went to the galley to read the note. She showed it to the other flight attendant and together they hurried to the cockpit to show the pilot. After he read the note, the pilot immediately contacted air traffic control. They in turn contacted the Seattle police, who informed the FBI.
Doubtless, Nyrop wanted to avoid any negative publicity that such a disaster would bring. Cooper instructed the flight attendant to return the note, wary of potentially incriminating evidence.
Because of this, the exact wording of his note is unknown. Cooper moved next to the window so that when Schaffner returned, she sat in his aisle seat.
He opened his suitcase wide enough for her to get a glimpse of wires and two cylinders, potentially dynamite sticks. He then directed her to return to the cockpit and to tell the pilot to stay in the air until the money and parachutes were ready.
After receiving the message, the pilot announced over the intercom that the jet would circle before landing due to a mechanical problem. Most of the passengers were unaware of the hijacking. Cooper was very precise about his demands for money. If smaller bills were used, it would add extra weight and could be dangerous for his skydive. Larger bills would weigh less, but they would be more difficult to pass. There were too many circumstances involved for it to be a coincidence.
That was the approximate age Cooper was assumed to have been, and I closely resembled sketches of the hijacker. On another occasion a photo came to light from a Boeing newsletter showing him dressed in exactly the same manner as the hijacker was said to have been during the flight. Mr Peterson insisted that he was in Nepal at the time of the hijacking, but nevertheless was still considered a prime suspect by the FBI.
Eric Ullis, an entrepreneur from Phoenix, spent years trying to establish the real identity of DB Cooper. For nearly 30 years, Mucklow has been living in Eugene, Oregon, working on meeting some of those worldly needs.
She left the monastery in and went back to school to work in social services. She has since staffed a county crisis call line that sent mental-health responders instead of police to emergencies; worked in a residential facility with people who were transitioning out of psychiatric hospitals back into the community; and helped launch an outpatient learning and recovery center, oftentimes working with homeless populations and people who struggle with disorders like schizophrenia.
Mary Alice Johnston worked with Mucklow at the psychiatric recovery organization, where the two bonded over their shared spirituality and a love of travel. Johnston knows Mucklow as a hard worker who cares deeply about helping others — and someone who screens her calls.
Today, Mucklow is 71 and recently retired, waiting for the Covid pandemic to subside so she can resume volunteering at a soup kitchen, spend time with friends, and go out to eat. She and Rataczak, who still lives in Minnesota, catch up by phone every couple of months. In This Article: direct , long reads , RSreports , true crime. Want more Rolling Stone? Sign up for our newsletter. The Missing Piece of the D.
Cooper Story. FBI sketch of hijacker D. Recently, Mucklow has reconsidered her silence, agreeing to occasional interviews. She also gave brief interviews for a two-part History special in , and the documentary The Mystery of D. Cooper , which came out on HBO last year. Newswire Powered by. Close the menu. Rolling Stone. Log In. To help keep your account secure, please log-in again.
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Shape Created with Sketch. Plus Created with Sketch. Colbert claims both letters contain coded messages that point directly at Rackstraw. According to the Post-Intelligencer , the newspaper contacted Rackstraw — who is currently living in San Diego — last November. Rick Sherwood — a former member of the Army Security Agency, which decoded signals during the Vietnam War — cracked the codes.
Rackstraw served under Sherwood in two classified units, and Sherwood was familiar with his writing style having deciphered some of his earlier messages. According to the Post-Intelligencer, Sherwood spent weeks working on the solution, which allegedly referred to three specialized army units that just one soldier had served in. He was taunting like he normally does and I thought his name was going to be in it and sure enough the numbers added up perfectly.
This letter, however, does not have any fingerprints or watermarks, and the FBI was never able to confirm a genuine connection to the previous Cooper letters, which limits its evidentiary value. Using codes that only Rackstraw would have known, Sherwood honed in on two sentences for analysis. Robert Rackstraw, D.
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