I have been doing research on Frank Sturgis, off and on, for the last two years as a possible DB Cooper suspect. To my knowledge, no one has ever proposed Frank Sturgis as a possible suspect. I have searched the forums and the internet at large over the years, and have never seen anyone else propose this theory, so I think this is the first time.
If you don’t know anything about Frank Sturgis, you can read all about him here:
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LoginSturgis’ nephew Jim Hunt wrote a biography of him, and it is available for purchase here:
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Login You can get a feel for Sturgis’ appearance, speech pattern, and demeanor from this interview:
Most of Sturgis’ fame comes from his involvement in Watergate and his alleged involvement in the JFK assassination. This notoriety makes it difficult to find information on how he could have been involved in matters other than Watergate or JFK, but from my research I think he’s a strong DB Cooper suspect.
Here are the main reasons why I think Frank Sturgis is a strong DB Cooper suspect:
-Sturgis matches the physical description. He stood around 5’11”, and weighed 175 lbs (per his draft card). He was a full-blooded Italian (born Frank Fiorini), he had an olive complexion, and he had black hair that was marcelled, and usually combed-back.
-Sturgis was a chain smoker. You will have trouble finding a full-body picture of him WITHOUT a cigarette in his hand.
-Sturgis had the skillset. He was essentially a special forces commando in WWII. During the war he jumped out of planes behind enemy lines and engaged in covert assassinations. After the war, his specialty was working for the CIA to train rebels in guerilla warfare and techniques on how to survive in the jungle/harsh terrain. He had the experience to perform the jump, and the survival skills to know what to do once he landed on the ground.
-Sturgis was a pilot. He owned his own plane, flew many missions to Cuba, and he would have known how to direct the Flight 305 pilots in regard to the plane controls and flight path.
-Sturgis was an “off the books” CIA operative. If you think the U.S. government (i.e. the CIA) was involved in the Cooper heist, then Sturgis is EXACTLY the type of guy they would have used to do the job. If not, as a CIA operative he still would have had access to inside information that the 727 air stairs could be lowered during flight.
-Sturgis was a pilot in the Bay of Pigs Invasion. In Geoffrey Gray’s book Skyjack, he says that Florence Schaffner told him that a strange man followed her after the skyjacking and said to her that Cooper wanted to meet her and that Cooper flew in the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
There are also reasons why Sturgis is not likely to be Cooper:
-Cooper ordered a cocktail, while Sturgis was a teetotaler who by all accounts never drank alcohol. The counterpoint to this is that in his book DB Cooper and the FBI, Bruce Smith says that witness Bill Mitchell told him Cooper ordered only one drink, and spilled it.
-Cooper supposedly had no accent, while Sturgis had a subtle East Coast accent.
-Sturgis became a national figure after Watergate, and his face was all over the news. If he was Cooper, he would have been easily identified by the witnesses on the plane.
-Between his military career and his CIA work, Sturgis’ finger prints and palm prints would have been “in the system”. The FBI would have had as easy time matching even a partial print to him, assuming he was on the radar as a possible suspect.
-Sturgis wasn’t really a criminal per se. If Cooper, whomever Cooper was, kept the money for himself, then Sturgis didn’t do it. Sturgis was a U.S soldier/agent/operative who loyally served his country, no matter the request, and he probably wouldn’t have gotten involved in a common (or in this case uncommon) robbery scheme. The counterpoint to this is that if the skyjacking really was a mission assigned to him by Uncle Sam, then he probably would have done it, no questions asked.
A few interesting coincidences between Frank Sturgis and DB Cooper:
-After he was discharged from the military, Sturgis was suffering from “battle fatigue”, presumably due to the many killings of the enemy he was asked to commit at such a young age. He spent time recovering in a mental health facility in Oregon. Did this give him some familiarity with the Northwest?
-Sturgis went “missing” once when he was younger and living at home in Virginia, and his disappearance made the local news. It’s unclear what happened, but the official story is that he went hunting, was attacked by some people, and was hit on the head which altered his mental state. He says he “woke up” smoking a cigarette (for the first time) in Raleigh, of all places.
-Sturgis’ experiences in Cuba left him with a hatred of Castro, and Kennedy’s pullback in the Bay of Pigs were the source of a lifelong “grudge”.
-Sturgis had a job in the late 60’s working as a salesman/installer for an aluminum window company in Florida. Is this a possible source for the spiralized aluminum and the titanium (white paint) found on the tie?
-Sturgis trained rebels in Honduras in the 60’s. At a Congressional hearing, Howard Hunt was asked about Frederick W. Hahnemann (alias George Ames), a so-called copycat skyjacker. He was asked specifically about a connection between Hahnemann and Sturgis: “Do you know whether Frank Sturgis was involved while in Honduras or elsewhere in Central America with Hahnemann or George Ames?” The coincidence is incredible. Also, Sturgis met with Howard Hunt in late 1971 to join the Plumbers, and the Plumbers were in full swing in the Fall of 1971. Was the Cooper heist their first operation?
-After the statute of limitations had run, a man admitted that Sturgis hired him to blow up a plane with a bomb carrying the Portuguese Prime Minister, for $200,000. The plane, bomb, and dollar amount are another incredible coincidence.
Lots of names have been thrown around as possible Cooper suspects over the years, and I think it’s time Frank Sturgis be considered as a possible suspect.
Blanket Footnote: Special thanks to Jim Hunt, Bruce Smith, and Geoffrey Gray, whose books were the original source material for much of the factual information re-stated here, and the main sources for my research and learning about Frank Sturgis and the Cooper skyjacking. While the theories, analysis, and conclusions are my own, I personally discovered none of the facts re-stated here, and relied upon the investigatory written works of others in my research, for which I am very thankful.
