Braden does have a lot going for him as a suspect. But also a couple big things against him such as:
- Height, I believe he was about ~5'8".
- Eye Color, seems blueish grey.
- No protruding lower lip which was mentioned by the witnesses.
No doubt, Braden has some tough things to overcome. However, regardless of those physical disparities, if I had a gun to my head and the "Cooper Gods" came down and said that Coop was indeed a name that we know and if I don't guess correctly I'm a dead man, I'm probably going with Braden.
I was a prosecutor for many years, and now do defense work. I've prosecuted murders, rapes, kidnappings, you name it. If there's one thing I've learned it's that eyewitness testimony is as flawed as the day is long. I had a married couple one time who were held hostage while a perp burglarized their home for two hours. They not only failed to identify him in a photo lineup, they picked the wrong guy! Another common thing I experienced was exaggeration of size, both with people and with objects. When people have a knife or gun pulled on them they imagine it to be bigger than it is. Same goes when they are being assaulted. Part of being a victim is helplessness and inferiority, so your brain tends to exaggerate what is causing your distress. Cooper wasn't assaulting Flo and Tina, but they were certainly intimidated by him. In hindsight we likely know that the bomb wasn't real, but they sure as hell didn't know that. They didn't wake up that morning thinking they were going to spend every minute in a 3-5 hour window thinking it could be their last. That messes with your perception of events. Consider how in the 302's we see how the FBI kept going back to Mitchell and even Gregory multiple times for input on suspects and sketches. Their memories weren't distorted by fear. It might not also be a coincidence that they both put Cooper at 5'9 (Gregory) or 5'9-5'10 (Mitchell) and with Mitchell saying he was "way bigger" than Cooper and Gregory describing Cooper as "slight". Here's another thing to consider: if someone is standing right in front of you do you know the difference in 5'9 and 5'10? Are you certain? What about 5'10 or 5'11? Something else to consider when we are talking about Coop's height:
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LoginSkinny neckties are characterized by a narrow design. They are essentially “skinnier” than other types of neckties. And because of their narrow design, they’ll create the perception of a taller height when worn.
Back when I was prosecuting, if I had a guy who fit the profile to a freaking T in every single way to a crime, but he was 5'8 in his bare feet (Braden's height comes from his military charts where they measure in barefeet) and a victim went as low as 5'10 in her estimation, there is no way in hell I'm letting that dude walk. Same goes for an eye color discrepancy. Braden's eye color was hazel, which means they can appear green in some light and light brown in other light. And again, I'm not eliminating a guy as a suspect solely on the memory of one terrified victim who very briefly saw someone's eyes. Heck, Flo may as well have been looking into the eyes of Satan at that point; a guy telling her he had a bomb.
With Braden you've just got mountains upon mountains of circumstantial evidence that no other named Coop suspect even comes close to having except for Sheridan (the main difference to me being that Sheridan was a good human and Braden was an awful human.)
no alibi - dude was an enigma, whereabouts unknown at the time except for the fact that he was trucking for a company headquartered in Vancouver, Washington
ability - perhaps the best, or one of the best, military skydivers alive at that point.
brains - scored a 150 on the military's GA test, which is near genius level. Definitely smart enough to devise this caper
attitude - was as cool as a cucumber under fire. a daredevil. reportedly had a deathwish.
skin tone - photo from the winter before shows him looking tan and leathery as all get out. years of outdoor military service did a number on his skin
morals - was a giant jerk. a criminal. throughout the 70's and 80's continued to devise criminal schemes with potential payouts in the hundreds of thousands.
knowledge - absolutely would have had the knowledge about jumping from 727's. It's possible he may have already done it with the MACV-SOGS.
accent - was from Ohio
grudge - forced to leave the Army, CIA barred him from going overseas to serve as a mercenary. Rambo forced to drive a truck for a living essentially.
survivability - the man did HALO jumps into Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Do we really think he'd have been unable to handle himself in the outskirts of Portland? If Braden did it he probably thought the whole thing was fun. It got his blood pumping again.
So you've got this skydiving savant, is perhaps in the area, with a criminal mind, is a jerk who lacks empathy for other people, is a daredevil and not afraid of dying, is as cool as it gets under pressure, with knowledge this can be done, is pissed off, with a history of subsequent high dollar schemes, oh and he's 43 years old at the time and doesn't look too dissimilar to the sketches.
Put some shoes on ole Teddy and he can get ya to looking like 5'10 with a skinny tie and scaring the hell out of a 22 year old lady.
Ted is one hell of a suspect and honestly, I've personally seen far too many victims throughout my career completely botch the descriptions that they gave to police for me to rule him out simply because he's a few inches too short than what a couple of terrified victims remember.
