Tag: Richard Floyd McCoy Jr.

Hello everyone… I’ve missed talking to everyone and I wanted to get this posted before the weekend. I’ll see you tomorrow!

There are mysteries that we all have read about that were never solved. A few were D.B. Cooper, Jimmy Hoffa, and Amelia Earhart. Personally, I had my doubts about anyone solving them. D.B. Cooper was the alias of an unidentified man who, on November 24, 1971, hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft (Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305), extorted $200,000 in ransom, and parachuted out of the plane—disappearing without a trace. It remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in U.S. history. Is this certain that they found the right person? No, but it is sure looking that way. 

This is a brief summary of the original hijacking. Shortly after takeoff, at around 3:00 PM, Cooper handed a note to flight attendant Florence Schaffner, who initially ignored it, thinking it was a phone number. He noticed that and whispered: “Miss, you’d better look at that note. I have a bomb.” He demanded 200,000 in cash, four parachutes, and a fuel truck ready at Seattle-Tacoma Airport for refueling. The flight attendant asked to see the bomb, and Cooper opened his briefcase, revealing what appeared to be red cylinders with wires and batteries.

The airline told the FBI what was going on and they met his demands. The FBI got together the money and they recorded the serial numbers so they could track him down. The plane landed in Seattle and he demanded that they go to Mexico City. He told them to fly at a low altitude (10,000 feet) and a slow speed of 200 mph. Cooper knew the Boeing 727 had an aft stairway that could be lowered mid-flight. He knew how to control altitude and speed to make a parachute jump survivable. At 8:13 PM, over southwestern Washington, somewhere near Ariel, Washington, and the Lewis River, the crew noticed a sudden pressure change…Cooper had lowered the rear stairway and jumped out into the night. That was the last known sighting of Mr Cooper. The plane landed in Reno, Nevada and the investigation started. 

Through the years, money was found in a creek bed near where he jumped and he left a tie on the airplane. It wasn’t much to go on. There were suspects and one of them was Richard Floyd McCoy and four others but nothing could be proved…until an amateur YouTube documentary maker named Dan Gryder found something. He made a documentary after years of researching and actually traveling to sites. He heard from Chanté and Rick McCoy III and they claim their father, Richard McCoy Jr., was D.B. Cooper. 

They had a very unique parachute in their mom’s old things and it matched the one that was given to D.B. Cooper. Gryder said: That rig is literally one in a billion. The FBI marked Richard McCoy Jr. off the list back in the seventies. What took his kids so long to say something?  The brother and sister said they waited until their mother died in 2020 to come forward, fearing she could be implicated as the parachute that allegedly belonged to Cooper was found in her storage area outside their house.

The FBI didn’t believe it until they got in touch with Gryder and he took them to the sibling’s parachute AND deteriorated money…some with the serials intact. Although it’s not official… the agents have said they are certain that McCoy was D.B. Cooper. I don’t know why it took them so long. He did the SAME thing the next year (1972) to a different airline. McCoy hijacked a United Airlines passenger jet for ransom in April 1972 and again asked for parachutes. To be fair though…the FBI thought it was a copycat at the time. From the New York Post: Gryder claimed the parachute at the McCoys’ home matched the modified parachute prepared by veteran skydiver Earl Cossey for police as part of Cooper’s demands before he disappeared somewhere between Seattle and Reno, Nevada. DB Cooper sleuths have raised the possibility that Richard Jr. was the fugitive for years given his own criminal past.

Richard McCoy Jr. was arrested for the hijacking of American Airlines a few days after it happened. They found him with a duffel bag full of money from the hijacking. He received a 45-year sentence but he escaped from prison in 1974 along with other prisoners in a garbage truck. Three months later he was found in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He went inside his home and was greeted by the FBI and he shot at them and was killed in the shootout. 

He had the experience because he served two terms in the Army and then another one where he went to Vietnam. He was awarded an Army Commendation Medal and The Distinguished Flying Cross and he also served as a warrant officer in the Utah National Guard…and he did a lot of skydiving. 

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