3rd Edition Update:
Rackstraw as Cooper, the chapter, 8. 6. 16
Chapter 3?
July 10, 2016 – The Day Cooper World Stood Still
Cooper World flipped upside-down on July 10, 2016. First, we learned that the FBI was closing Norjak. Secondly, we learned about a super-dooper suspect by the name of Robert Wesley Rackstraw (RWR) that no one had ever heard about, and all of this was co-joined by the History Channel's four-hour, two-part documentary on DB Cooper, which aired that night and the following evening.
We'll talk about the closing of the case in the next chapter, but first we need to understand the drama that brought Rackstraw to the forefront. The History Channel documentary featured Rackstraw and the man who had spent five years investigating him, Thomas J. Colbert. Colbert is a Hollywood TV producer and documentarian, and for his research Colbert magnetized forty associates, which included a dozen retired FBI agents; another two dozen retired law enforcement officials, detectives and private investigators; and a seasoned LA investigative journalist named Jim Forbes. Together they formed what Colbert has termed his “Cold Case Team” (CCT).
In 2012, Colbert heard about Rackstraw-as-Cooper from one of his investigative contacts in Las Vegas, a videographer named Rich Kashanski. Colbert partnered with Forbes and hit the streets, hard. Quickly they learned that Rackstraw, a roguish soldier who fought in Vietnam, had the “skill sets” needed to do Norjak. Colbert and Forbes went to the FBI with their information, but the feds were unimpressed. But Colbert knew he had a good story—perhaps the breakthrough to the DB Cooper case—and pitched the story to the History Channel, who bought it.
In turn, the History Channel hired an independent production company, LMNO, to do the actual filming and script development. LMNO then hired a few freelance producers to lead their team. One of these individuals, Ted Skillman, contacted me. Beginning in the spring of 2015, I spent several hours on the phone with Ted, tutoring him on the intricacies of Norjak. As a result, LMNO filmed me and this book as part of the History Channel's four-hour retrospective on DB Cooper.
A major part of this documentary was the Rackstraw story as presented by Colbert and Company. Nevertheless, LMNO hired two other individuals to lead their storytelling on screen, fellows they called “interlocutors” who would function as tour guides to the DB Cooper story. One, Tom Fuentes, is the former Associate Director of the FBI for International Operations, and the second is a young journalist named Bill Jensen.
I did not know of LMNO's specifics until just hours before I was to appear on camera. An associate producer, Allison Berg, phoned me to say that her film crew was coming with a former FBI official, Mr. Fuentes. I was shocked. A FBI guy is going to interview me? I should be interviewing him!
Nevertheless, I did as I was asked and sat before the cameras as Fuentes and Jensen asked me questions about Norjak.
As events would demonstrate, the History Channel documentary had former FBI agents interviewing other FBI agents about the DB Cooper case—but only about the suspects—and no one asked about the evidence, or lack thereof. In essence, the History Channel show was a huge soap opera, starring Rackstraw, Tom Colbert, and his Cold Case Team.
Further, the FBI declined LMNO's initial invitation to be part of the documentary, but in January 2016 they reversed their decision. In fact, by early 2016 they had decided to close Norjak and deemed the History Channel as the ideal means of informing the American public. Hence, the last ten minutes of the broadcast shows Curtis Eng and other FBI officials boxing-up the evidence, and waving it “goodbye” as it shipped to FBI HQ in Washington, D.C. As a result, we had FBI agents swirling around the entire documentary almost as if they were chasing each other's tail, and in the next chapter we'll examine their stated reasons for the closure and its merits.
But in the meantime, could Robert W Rackstraw, who is still alive, actually be DB Cooper? The short answer is “No.” But the more complete answer is a bit more complicated, and needs to be told because the drama swirling on the screen colors related events, particularly the closing of the case and the focus of the documentary.
In the History Channel broadcast, Rackstraw-as-Cooper is denied, with Fuentes and Jensen clearly stating that they do not believe RWR is DB Cooper. Additionally, Curtis Eng appears unconvinced of Rackstraw-as-Cooper as well, and the broadcast has 15 minutes of memorable coverage of Tina Mucklow examining pictures of Rackstraw and listening to video tapes of him speaking, after which she concludes, “No, that's not him.”
Adding to the dismissal of Rackstraw-as-Cooper, passenger Bill Mitchell was unable to identify DB Cooper in a “six-pack” of photos of skyjacking suspects. Oddly, Mitchell incorrectly identified Rackstraw as Richard McCoy, and Colbert's CCT say this happened because Mitchell had an unconscious association of his skyjacker, DB Cooper, to a known skyjacker, Richard McCoy.
But at the show's conclusion, even Jim Forbes declares that he no longer believes that Robert W. Rackstraw is DB Cooper.
Colbert appears absolutely deflated in these scenes, and in an email to me he described his experience as a “deer in the headlight” moment. Nevertheless, to this day Colbert still believes that Rackstraw is DB Cooper.
Colbert believes passionately, though, and in addition to the two hours of Rackstraw-as-Cooper material shown on the History Channel, Colbert has written a hefty book on RWR, co-authored with Tom Szollosi. It's juicy and gripping, clearly portraying Rackstraw as a bad dude who never followed the rules.
But Rackstraw adds to the intrigue because he also told lots of people that he was DB Cooper, including TV producers from KNBC in Los Angeles. However, it is now clear that this admission was most likely a gambit designed to distract the world from his on-going trial for the murder of his stepfather, Philip Rackstraw, of which Robert was eventually acquitted.
Colbert and Szollosi show that Rackstraw was probably guilty, and report that his acquittal was the result of mismanagement and malfeasance on the part of the Calaveras County, California prosecutors and Sheriff's Department who lost or mishandled vital evidence.
In fact, one of Rackstraw's supporters and friend, Hollywood producer Vivian Jones, told Colbert, “We all knew he (RWR) killed him.”
Rackstraw's aunt, Betty, was more blunt: “He (RWR) killed my brother.”
Without question, Rackstraw has been a bad egg. He was busted from his rank as lieutenant and discharged from the Army for lying about his non-existent college degree, and in the late 1970s he was arrested and convicted on bank fraud, forgery, and illegal possession of explosives. Colbert and Szollosi also show that Rackstraw was allegedly involved in blowing up a military armory and stealing the weapons and explosives, possibly selling them to terrorist organizations. Added to that are the alleged robberies of guns stores, the theft of at least one airplane, and the bamboozling of a helicopter from the Calaveras County Sheriff's Department, which helps explain why they let Rackstraw off the hook for the death of his stepfather. Rackstraw even reportedly alluded FBI capture on some of these charges by faking a plane crash into Monterrey Bay and flying to a deserted airstrip in Southern California.
But the most compelling of Rackstraw's abilities was his skill as a jungle warrior. In Vietnam Rackstraw was a helicopter pilot and mechanic, but he also volunteered for many rescue missions and hazardous covert operations. Reportedly, Rackstraw even sought out rogue CIA operatives to launch private guerrilla-like raids on the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese. In addition, he had advanced explosive and airborne training.
These “skill sets” put Rackstraw on the top of the pile of suspects for DB Cooper, and in fact, the FBI considered him a prime suspect in the late 1970s, but ultimately dismissed him for reasons that are unclear.
Age is one possibility. Rackstraw was 27 years old in 1971.
Another concern is the lack of tangible evidence. No money, parachute or gear has ever been found in Rackstraw's possession, nor have his fingerprints or DNA been linked to the skyjacking. In fact, the one-hundred pieces of evidence that Colbert and Company says that they have amassed on Rackstraw-as-Cooper is all circumstantial.
Most problematic is the money find at Tina Bar. Colbert and Company say that Brian Ingram's father, Harold Dwayne Ingram, planted the money for Rackstraw at the behest of a Portland gangster named Dick Briggs. They claim Briggs was acting on the command of Rackstraw, who was attempting to prove to the feds that DB Cooper was dead. Remember, if Rackstraw was Cooper as the FBI then suspected—and Cooper was dead because of the money washing up on the beach—then RWR was dead, too, so the feds could stop looking for him.
Also consider that the money was found in February 1980, just after Rackstraw's acquittal for the murder of his stepfather and his bogus disappearance into the waters of the Pacific Ocean, but before his arrest on the bank fraud charges, which he apparently was still trying to beat.
As for the money find, Harold Dwayne Ingram is certainly a strange dude, and his multiple interviews in the History Channel documentary show him to be a guy who has tremendous difficulty telling the truth, or at least the same story twice in a row.
But a plant?
That hypothesis is totally bogus because we know conclusively that Brian's three bundles were found directly above a three-foot deep scatter-field of thousands of money shards, based upon the statements from PIO Dorwin Schreuder and the KATU TV film clips.
When I asked Colbert how he explains this inconsistency, he simply dismissed it with the comment: “I'll let you guys (at the DB Cooper Forum) play in the sand.”
One thing that Colbert and Szollosi make crystal clear is that Rackstraw is a con man. He duped his multiple wives into signing away assets and homes in shaky business deals, and he never paid child support to his first wife for their three kids, at least with a check that never bounced. Most tellingly, that woman calls Rackstraw “Bullshit Bob.”
In addition, in late 1971, RWR was able to impersonate a European “Baron” named Norman de Winter, and bilk dozens of folks in the town of Astoria, Oregon before he disappeared, only to re-appear in Corvallis, Oregon a few days before DB Cooper stole Flight 305.
But proving that Rackstraw was de Winter doesn't make him DB Cooper.
Nevertheless, Colbert states that Rackstraw-as-de Winter had a small plane at his disposal, and feels Rackstraw could have flown into PDX in this plane, or possibly an abandoned airstrip in Woodland—which is ten miles west of Ariel—and used it later as his means of escape from LZ-A. But how the plane got from PDX to the landing strip in Woodland is not explained. When queried in August 2016, Colbert vacillated on the fly-in to PDX and told me his best estimate is that Rackstraw flew to Woodland directly, parked the plane, and then got a ride to PDX.
But this suggests a second party helped with the transport back to the airport. Adding to this conundrum is the truth of the “small plane scenario” rumors that Ariel and Amboy residents love to tell researchers, and seems to be the basis of Colbert's speculation. Although none of these tales have been corroborated they abound in Cooper lore, and the secret airstrips could be in Ariel, Woodland, or just in the imagination of LZ-A residents.
Also troubling is how Rackstraw-as-de Winter could wake up on some frat boy's couch in Corvallis on November 23, the day before the skyjacking, after a weekend of partying and slumming in a stranger's home. RWR then would have to fly into PDX or LZ-A, pick up a black suit, overcoat, a brief case and bomb, and get to the Northwest ticket counter by 2 pm on the next day, November 24. Yes, perhaps it was all prepared days or weeks in advance and stored aboard the aircraft, but the timing is too suspect to accept easily.
Rackstraw's candidacy as DB Cooper is intriguing, but I don't think Robert W. Rackstraw is the Norjak skyjacker. But Tom Colbert and Company certainly make a compelling and dramatic case for RWR. In addition, the intricacies of the drama may lead us to better understand the mysteries of Norjak, in particular the workings of the FBI. After all, why did the feds close the DB Cooper case in the middle of the History Channel broadcast?
It's classic Cooper, and will be discussed next.
