I've always been inclined to believe the witnesses and really focus on the finer details of what they said. Florence Schaffner in 1988 on Unsolved Mysteries always lingers in my mind "the sketches never really looked like him, it's still STRONG in my mind, I still see him...wide forehead, narrow face the hair was wrong..."

I produced an article under the suspects thread last night which has an interview with ticketing agent Hal Williams, holding Bing Crosby sketch, claiming "the hair was wrong, it never looked exactly like him."

Kind of a bummer, but that's precisely why the FBI conjured up several more sketches as quickly as possible. For my money, I realize it was some 15-16 years later, I think the Unsolved Mysteries sketch is probably most accurate. Schaffner says "it's strong in my mind," and I have to believe her. This is not a witness who is drawing a blank, stammering and trying to remember details. The sketch also really reflect the hijackers age, which was speculated by all but one to be "middle aged", "mid-40s."

If we simply discount the only people who ever saw the SOB, what are we even doing here? Where do we start from? Do we start from a cleared suspect and then begin systemically discounting all the known facts that do not align with our suspect? In DB Cooper world, that seems by many to be the order of the day. The arrogance in just dismissing key eyewitnesses as being wrong based on zero evidence is always stunning to me. "oh, he didn't look like MY suspect? Plfft, what do they know, they're mistaken/wrong/incompetent and I know much better because I'm an amateur detective."

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Hispanic? That's speculation on my part if I indeed said that. I am saying confidently is that the guy was "Latin American or possibly confused as being Latin american." Why? Because every witness, including the ticketing agent, said "dark complexion," or "appeared Latin American." That's a big clue. These are people in Mucklow's case who spent hours with the guy. Larry Carr, who before ever handling the case thought it be McCoy, stated the eyewitnesses "immediately dismissed McCoy," continuing to state "they took one glance and said "nope, not him ." Carr then realized oh, it's actually not Richard McCoy. But I mean, what do two generations of FBI agents and the people who actually saw the man for hours know? Right? I'm sure they were all wrong, all hundred or so of them (decades of case agents all the eyewitnesses).

Larry Carr also stated "the flight attendants we're asked if the man was wearing any make up or any kind of disguise," to which they replied "No." This was all in a recent interview with Carr, available on YouTube.

Larry Carr had an impeccable, decades long career in the FBI. In law enforcement for decades. By claiming we can't dismiss McCoy, we are saying the best detective agency in the world is totally wrong and has been wrong for decades, and also that eyewitnesses do not matter at all, and that they are all wrong, and that's it's actually some random amateur detective who is correct, not 50 years of detectives. Why would we believe Carr or all the rest are wrong? What evidence exists pointing to McCoy? Because he did something similar? Because it's convenient for an old, long ago dismissed suspect? I just don't get the logic. We rule people out, it's just that simple. Why? So there can be clearly defined parameters for investigations and so we have something to work from. Of we just randomly, with zero evidence, dismiss decades of FBI work, what are we even doing here?

FBI/Eyewitnesses= McCoy is not Cooper.



Good enough for me, next.

On a personal note, I see zero resemblance to the artist rendering. Zero. Also, Peterson has been definitively eliminated, I believe. Besides, he was a Norwood 6 baldy and had blue eyes. Again, if we are willing to simply discard all the eyewitness testimony, what are we doing?


All that said, you're free to believe whatever you like. Don't allow me to stand in your way (you're in the Cooper universe so surely you will not). It's fun grappling over these same issues all the time, kind of. Sidenote, I'm in Washougal working today, I'll let you know if I see a parachute.

You want to hang your hat on eye witness's?  Do you?  What about Richard McCoy's family immediately identifying the tie and the pearl clip as Richards?  What about that?   And Tina never saw him well without the sun glass's.  At least not after they knew he was a skyjacker.  Flo is a horrible witness who wants nothing to do with any  of this. Im going to toss her testimony to the win.  One thing I will say for Ulis's fav suspect, he looks very much like the sketch.  Sheridan.  McCoy had the toughness and training to make it out of those woods regardless of weather as he was former Green Beret. That counts for something.  So I will just stick with the tie for now.  You certainly are not going to use Himelbach are you?  LOL.  What a joke.  And the Reno FBI is not the LA or NY FBI.  Jurisdictions MATTER.   They were like Mayberry RFD

Ullis no longer believes Sheridan to be Cooper. He moved off of his suspect once he realized it wasn't him. That's rare in the vortex (both are rare, moving on from a suspect, and admitting you were wrong about a suspect).

Tina was with Cooper for several hours. Stood beside him. Put Coopers height at a few inches taller than her, while she herself was the same height, maybe even slightly taller than McCoy. Try as you may, you simply cannot disregard the description of the person who spent hours with the guy.

McCoy was not immediately put in front of them.  It was months later he pulled off the LA skyjacking and then was arrested, I believe two days later.  It had to be after that that Flo was shown McCoy.  Not right away.  And FBI agent Callum still believes Cooper was McCoy.  So there you have a very intelligent FBI agent that holds the belief that it was McCoy.  And I believe you are blowing the skin thing out of proportion.  He was always believed to be Caucasian. OK, Olive skin . I have never heard of Olive skin before this. But it does not mean he was black or hispanic.  They suspected he could be Canadian?  The comic books just cannot be a coincidence. 

""So there you have A VERY INTELLIGENT FBI AGENT that holds the belief that it was McCoy.""

Assuming someone is very intelligent because they possess a law enforcement badge, fbi or whatever, is like saying a priest would never be capable of harming a child because they possess a badge from God.
Here is a 302 with Mccoy vs Cooper comparison.
How anyone with a reasonable mind could think mccoy was Cooper is beyond fantastical in my opinion.

Wow I have a newbie coming for me.  The oldies are fed up with anyone with my opinion, which is not 100% as I have stated.  I am watching this "new" show on Netflix.  I like Mr Grey alot.  Smart guy.  I do not care for another guy that thinks he is smart.  I am sure I will have to see him on here soon enough.  I do not yet know this, oh, up pop the devil already.  i should have known.
The more you guys shoot McCoy out of the water based on eye witness testimony, the more I believe it was him.  Its just weak   Nice try rookie

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Here's an old article referencing little know Cooper suspect Bob Huddleston. Below is the pertinent part:

"The two men were poker-playing buddies. Sitting in a bar one night in 1984, Rizzo said, he confided to Huddleston that he was a fugitive wanted by the FBI for counterfeiting.

Huddleston replied with his own confession: He had skyjacked an airplane in 1971.

Rizzo said he kept the secret until after Huddleston died in 1986 of an aneurysm brought on by a cocaine overdose at age 52. Rizzo told the FBI his tale. An autopsy of Huddleston revealed his legs were covered with scars, which Rizzo says were caused by the jump from the plane.

Rizzo said Huddleston gave him this account:

After plunging from the plane, he landed near a river, in a tree about 10 feet above the ground, where a sharp limb punctured his knee and ribs. The weather was so bad his shoes blew off, and ice and sleet coated his arms and back.

The strap that held the money tore, and that's how he lost the packet later found by the child on the riverbank. He crawled to a cave and later hitchhiked to Portland, where he spent months recuperating before eventually moving to San Diego.

He hid the money until 1978, when he took it to an Indian reservation in Montana to be laundered. When he returned to San Diego, he kept it stashed in the taillight of an old Cadillac.

Because he was constantly fearful of running into someone from the flight who would recognize him, he often changed his appearance, growing a beard and shaving his head, then growing a mustache and wearing a long ponytail.

Rizzo said Huddleston once said: "In the back of my mind, one day I'll be sitting on a bus, in a bar, and look into the face of the only person who could identify me. I'll see that stewardess. I know she will never forget my face."

Huddleston told Rizzo he'd bought the airline ticket under the name Don — his real middle name, not Dan — and was amused that the FBI went searching for a Dan Cooper.

"He was a James Dean type, a daredevil," Rizzo said. "This is not a story I could make up, but the FBI's never going to prove it."

Yes.

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Yes.

Wonderful!  If some strange force in nature or your psyche forces you to post it, perhaps you could enlighten me a bit on the logic in this tale.

Rizzo, a fugitive wanted by the FBI for counterfeiting, went to the FBI after Huddleston's death and ratted him out as being Cooper.  I'll bet that there is something on page 1 of the FBI Manual related to interviewing informants that says the informant must be and will be vetted.  So Rizzo would be the village idiot if he went to the FBI in the first place.  And if he walked out of that interview a free man, then the interviewing agent would be just as dumb.  But I am willing to bet that no such interview ever happened.

Huddleston allegedly stated that he lost the money packets that were later found at Tena Bar when he landed in a tree.  Gravity would have deposited those packets on the ground underneath the tree he landed in.  All he would have to do is pick them up.  Also, there are no caves in the Tena Bar area for him to crawl to.  But he could have easily crawled to the marina in the channel between Caterpillar Island and the mainland and perhaps the great Amazon of DropZone fame would have assisted him.  That marina is where she kept her boat and lived on it.

Other such questions can be raised.

Chaucer, did your PhD program have a lecture or two on identifying bs, beer talk, and fairy tales? 
 

I posted an article about a DB Cooper suspect on a suspect thread on a DB Cooper website. Not that odd.

Also, nowhere did I say I thought he was a good suspect or bad suspect or anything in between. I ran across the article and had never heard of Huddleston or Rizzo’s story before, and I thought I’d share it for everyone to discuss.

Despite your unnecessary rudeness and sarcasm, you raise some good points, and I appreciate it.

Well, the so-called Western Flight Path isn’t in the 25,000 pages of FBI files either. If you see anything about it in there, please alert us.

In two or three years, people will read your posts about the Air Force getting the flight path wrong and the FBI covering up redacted ATC transmissions and assume it is a legitimate theory backed with documented evidence.

When you put something on the Internet in the present day, it never dies and will probably have some gullible people claiming that there is a coverup conspiracy going on.

If you think this story about a little known suspect from 20 years ago is white noise, why even comment on it? Huddleston is almost certainly not DB Cooper, but I thought someone might at least find it interesting. Clearly, you didn’t which is perfectly fine. Just ignore it. There’s no reason to be rude about it.

Agents who agree with you are smart, while the ones that don't are stupid.
and
The more the evidence does not support McCoy, the more convinced you are that he's the guy.

Those are novel approaches. You might have better luck just stalking the daughter on social media.

I was not talking about agents. And I am not the only one that believes it could have been McCoy. Of the suspects, he is my pick.  But then there is the chance its someone that has not been discovered.   I still give it more than 50% that McCoy was Cooper. But like I have stated, I am not 100%.  The one I will give zero possibility to is the trans gender.  And so many that have lied.  Its really incredible to me that one would like to a loved on on their death bed.  Who does that?  So back to McCoy, if the eye witness testimomy is powerful to you or others, then how about the family saying it was McCoys tie so quickly.  Not just the tie but the clip?  No that is not enough to nail this down.  Nothing is. The cigarettes.  Ah those cigarettes were the smoking gun.  Stupid FBI agents.