Jack Coffelt
Nat Loufoque sent me a very interesting set of docs from the latest FBI Document Dump. Nat sent me the 22-page magazine article on jack Coffelt that was published in the Las Vegan magazine in 1983. It was written by Byron H Brown and edited by Jack Sheehan. I spoke with Jack at length this week, and I just finished reading the 22-pages.
Jack's a True Believer that Coffelt was Cooper. And based upon what Brown wrote and was told, it's an eminently believable story. But it is probably the Biggest Con Job in Cooper Lore, one that took years to set-up. Why? Who knows, but maybe trying to get a Hollywood score?
Some of the highlights:
Byron H. Brown is the son of James Brown. The elder Brown and Coffelt did time in the Atlanta Penitentiary in the late 1940s and early 1950s. They became best friends as they both worked on the prison's newsletter. After discharge in 1952, Brown went on to lead a good life and become an engineer. In 1955, Coffelt left behind his robbery days when he departed the Atlanta Pen, and went on to become a grand con man, first in Las Vegas and then in Washington, DC.
In 1974, Coffelt called up James and convinced him to go on a road trip to Oregon to find the DB Cooper money, and enticed James to bring along his 19-year-old son, Byron. The Browns left their home in Georgia, picked up Coffelt in his old hometown of Joplin, Missouri, and headed to the Mount Hood area of Oregon. Along the way, Coffelt confessed to being DB Cooper, but said very little about the actual skyjacking.
Nevertheless, told a lot of stories about being a CIA asset, an insider inside the Belt Way, and being an FBI informer and contractor. But he did say that he had three accomplices in the skyjacking: one, a Boeing engineer who told him the metrics for using a 727, two, a guy manning a huge searchlight in the Pine Hollow reservoir area south of Mount Hood that would be a tracking beacon for Flight 305, and a third guy burning hay bales at the edge of the foothills of Mt Hood acting as another beacon to food and water, medical supplies and a getaway jeep were waiting for Coffelt in case he got injured on the descent and landing.
When they got to the town of Friend, Oregon, they started hiking. Eventually, they found the spot where Coffelt said he had landed on Nov 24, 1971. There, they found remnants of a parachute. Searching further, they explored the slopes of Mount Hood looking for the green plastic bag that Coffelt had put the money into, but had slipped off his shoulder during the violent opening on his NB-6. Coffelt estimated that the bag had landed a couple of miles north of the parachute site, but these guys never found the money.
Arguments erupted between Coffelt and James, about what they were doing and if they were complicit in the crime in an "after the fact" kind of way. One night, Coffelt disappeared. Then James and his son left the area when two pick-up trucks arrived nearby their campground, frightening the Browns, who thought they might be the three accomplices returning with Coffelt to get the money.
The Browns returned to Georgia, but Byron returned to the Mt Hood area years later to conduct more research on the Coffelt story to support a book he had begun writing. He found the searchlight, but not the jeep.
Byron also says that he interviewed Florence Schaffner and Tina Mucklow, along with George Labissoniere. He showed them the Atlanta Pen pic of Coffelt, and Schaffner exclaimed that it was Cooper. Labissoniere also confirmed the pic of Coffelt was Cooper, and added that he had said the same thing the FBI six weeks after the skyjacking when they showed him the same pic!
But Byron also wrote that Florence was half-Filipino, which is not true, as far as I know. She was born in Arkansas in 1948, presumably from Caucasian parents.
Tina didn’t confirm the pic, nor did Byron say how or where he got in touch with Tina. So, that angle is suspect.
Bottom Line: Bryon got played.
