DB Cooper, the man behind the most notorious airplane hijacking in American history
The infamous sketches of DB Cooper
On November 24, 1971, a man walked up to the Northwest Orient ticket counter at the Portland, Oregon International Airport. After waiting on line for a few moments, he paid $20 dollars in cash for a ticket for Flight 305 to Seattle, a scheduled 30 minute trip leaving at 2:50 PM.
The actual ticket used by “Dan Cooper” to fly from Portland to Seattle
He gave his name as “Dan Cooper” for the purposes of ticketing but he was not required to show identification. Dressed in a dark suit, black tie and white shirt with a black raincoat he looked identical to any number of business travelers anxious to make it home for the following day’s Thanksgiving celebration. He was assigned seat 18C, an aisle seat in the last row and boarded the plane with 36 other passengers, not including the crew.
Richard Floyd McCoy, Jr.
On April 7, 1972, a man flying under the alias “James Johnson” boarded flight 855 in Denver, Colorado. The plane’s flight began on the East coast and was supposed to fly from Denver to Los Angeles. It was a Boeing 727, the identical craft hijacked by D. B. Cooper. James Johnson was actually a Mormon, national guard member , ex-Green Beret BYU student named Richard Floyd McCoy, Jr. He sat in the last row on the aisle in the exact location used by Cooper. Heavily made up and wearing a wig, McCoy hijacked the plane to San Francisco, claiming to have explosives, a grenade and a pistol, which he brandished at the flight attendants and some passengers who became aware of the situation when the plane rerouted to San Francisco. McCoy demanded 500,000 dollars in different denominations and four parachutes. He got the money and the chutes and got off the ground before agents could storm the plane. A duffel bag filled with the ransom money was attached to his parachute harness. This time, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies were better prepared for such an eventuality.
DB Cooper, the man responsible for the most notorious air hijacking in US history.
The areas where Cooper may have landed in the state of Washington
On Thanksgiving morning, A Portland FBI investigator involved in the case, Ralph Himmelsbach, took it upon himself to use his own single engine plane to fly over the area where it is believed that Cooper might have bailed out. He spends much of Thanksgiving Day flying back and forth over Vector 23, the route that flight 305 took through the area, trying to spot some trace of the hijacker. A parachute, clothing, a campfire, even a body. He comes up with nothing and, because of the poor weather and visibility, a full scale search on foot will not begin until Friday, November 26. D. B. Cooper’s hijacking is the lead national network news story, beginning a public fascination with the case that will only increase over time.
The JC Penny tie, tie tack and ransom money recovered at the Tena Bar
In the immediate aftermath of the hijacking, the FBI, the chief law enforcement agency charged with investigating the case completely searched the airplane and meticulously interviewed witnesses, the flight crew and especially the two stewardesses who interacted with Cooper. They uncovered numerous fingerprints ultimately determined to be useless, two of the four parachutes the hijacker left behind, a clip on tie that will turn out to be from Penney’s Department store, a pearl festooned tie clasp and eight cigarette butts of the brand “Raleigh”, a cheaper alternative to more high profile tobacco brands.
Ken Christiansen
Another notorious potential Cooper emerged in a 2007 New York Magazine article which identified a former deceased Northwest Orient purser named Kenneth Christansen as the hijacker. Christiansen was implicated by his brother, Lyle, who repeatedly told the FBI and various investigators of his suspicion. Along with the usual secretive deathbed confession while dying in 1994 of cancer, Chritiansen was an experienced paratrooper, a long time crew member with knowledge of a 727 and based out of Seattle. Christiansen bought a house with cash shortly after the hijacking. He died with an inexplicably large bank account, a valuable stamp collection, gold pieces and a strange, twenty year Northwest Orient scrapbook of news items that were related to the airline but ended right before the 1971 hijacking. He smoked, drank whiskey and when Florence Schaffner was shown photos of Christiansen she agreed that he was photographically the closest match to Cooper that she had subsequently seen. Unfortunately, Tina Mucklow, the flight attendant with the most contact with Cooper would eventually join a nunnery and refuse any interviews concerning the incident. Two books would be written alleging that Christiansen was the hijacker, but his age in 1971, 45, and his small stature at 5’ 8”, 150 pounds which contradicted most eyewitness accounts make him a poor possibility. The FBI ignored Christiansen from the start and Ralph Himmelsback personally ruled him out based on physical appearance alone. Strangely, though the bureau also said that Christiansen was too skilled a paratrooper to have attempted the jump, implying that anyone who knew what they were doing would never have planned such a hijack in such weather and such a remote location.
Robert Rackstraw
Unfortunately, the notoriety surrounding DB Cooper has also precipitated many journalistic attempts to cash in on the topic. This seems to be the case in the allegation that Robert Rackstraw, a former Vietnam veteran, helicopter pilot, ex-con and possible CIA operative is DB Cooper. Rackstraw is a former university instructor and arbitrator who seems to have gotten his life together after a checkered past in the military. In 2011, Thomas Colbert, a television journalist and law enforcement employee, began an extensively orchestrated investigation that concluded that Rackstraw is DB Cooper. Over a five year period, Colbert’s team of various former FBI agents, Marshals and prosecuting attorneys sifted through various leads that lead them to individuals who were allegedly connected to the hijack. It is Colbert’s allegation that three people colluded with Rackstraw and were waiting for him on the ground after Rackstraw jumped out of Flight 305. Colbert’s team searched an area that an anonymous source told them was where Cooper actually landed and unearthed a parachute strap and pieces of a backpack that they turned over to the FBI. In 2016, Colbert’s team also turned over information about Rackstraw and his accomplices that the bureau never investigated, instead officially closing the case on July 8, 2016, claiming that no new information had emerged and that the bureau did not have the resources to devote to a forty year plus cold case. The FBI had already investigated Rackstraw in 1979 and concluded that he was not Cooper. Colbert responded by maintaining that the FBI does not want to be embarrassed by a group of civilian investigators cracking the case and sued the FBI to release their files under the Freedom of Information Act. Among the subsequently released maerial were several letters mailed to newspapers from an individual who claimed to be the hijacker. One letter contains a numerical code that Colbert’s team claims Rackstraw would have known and utilized during his military service. The numbers were a coded reference to Rackstraw’s elite Vietnam Army intelligence unit and as late as 2018, Colbert was trumpeting this as additional proof of Rackstraw’s secret identity and conveniently using this information to fund his second History Channel documentary on the topic. Rackstraw’s alleged motive for the hijack was his anger over his discharge from the Army after falsifying his education and military exploits. A 1970 photograph of Colbert also bears a strong resemblance to the Cooper drawing. Rackstraw’s responses to Colbert’s investigation have ranged from threats to sue to elliptical statements neither confirming or denying his identity as DB Cooper. Rackstraw has even hinted that he is in talks to produce his own version of his connection to the case but currently refuses to publicly discuss any connection to the crime. Based on the FBI’s attitude, the best Colbert will ever be able to do is to convince a television audience that Rackstraw is DB Cooper and it is unlikely that this investigation will result in a prosecution. However, as long as somebody is willing to finance his investigation, Colbert seems amenable to pursuing the case.
Richard F. McCoy grave in North Carolina. Was Richard McCoy actually DB Cooper?
Robert E. Lee was born on January 19, 1807. He was the son of Henry Lee III and Anne Carter, Henry and Ann’s fifth child.
Robert E. Lee’s Wife And Daughter
Lee was initially assigned to assist in the construction of a fort on the Savannah River, 12 miles from the city of Savannah, Georgia itself. But construction was unsuccessful and it would be sixteen years before Fort Pulaski was completed. Long before that, Lee would be fortuitously reassigned to Fort Monroe, near present day Hampton, Virginia. He visited Mary Custis at her family home, Arlington House, which overlooked the Potomac and Washington, DC. Lee’s initial proposal to Mary Custis was accepted by her and her mother but her father, George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of George Washington and the grandson of Martha Washington was initially opposed. Not only was Robert E. Lee from a family with limited financial resources, “Light Horse” Harry Lee’s questionable business practices had brought the hint of scandal to the entire Lee clan.
Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson, Photo Taken Only Weeks Before His Death
From a leadership perspective, Lee would also be forced to face the reality of the loss of Stonewall Jackson. Initially thought to be able to recover from his gunshot wounds inflicted by friendly fire, Jackson contracted pneumonia and died on May 10. Lee was uncharacteristically emotional in a letter to his son, Custis: “It is a terrible loss. I do not know how to replace him. Such an executive officer the sun never shone on. I have but to show him my design and if it can be done, it will be done.”
Lee and Jackson Commemorative Stamp, With Lee’s Ancestral Home, Stratford Hall
Both of Lee’s parents emanated from two of Virginia’s most aristocratic families. Henry Lee III was a Revolutionary War cavalry officer who earned the nickname “Light Horse” for his equestrian ability during combat. His mother’s family lived at Shirley, one of the oldest and most profitable tobacco plantations in the state of Virginia. At the time of their marriage, Henry Lee was Virginia’s governor and would also serve the state as a member of the US House of Representatives. However, by the time of Robert E. Lee’s birth, his father had suffered significant economic setbacks forcing the family to abandon the Lee ancestral home of Stratford Hall.
George Parke Custis was kicked out of Princeton, left St. John’s College of Annapolis after only one semester and made a living renting out all of the various plantation properties that he had inherited. By comparison to the industrious and spartan Robert E. Lee, Custis was an indolent patrician who lived on the wealth of his ancestors. Eventually, understanding that his daughter was enthusiastic about marrying Lee, Mary Custis’ father agreed to the marriage of his only child, which took place at Arlington House on June 30, 1831.
Robert E. Lee and His Horse, Traveller
Lee immediately realized that the attack was not only a failure but a disaster. On his horse Traveller he is said to have galloped forward and greeted his defeated troops by saying “It is my fault.” Of Pickett’s 6,000 men, 3,000 were casualties including all 15 regimental commanders. Other units suffered similarly bringing casualties to approximately 6,500 suffered in less than an hour. Lee quickly became concerned that Meade might follow with a counterattack but when he ordered General Pickett to prepare his division for such an eventuality, Pickett is said to have replied, “General Lee, I have no division.”
Robert E. Lee, by Matthew Brady
Lee’s disappointment in his defeat at Gettysburg was so profound that he submitted his resignation to Jefferson Davis. Lee indicated that he was to blame for the loss at Gettysburg and he questioned whether he could continue to meet the physical demands of military command. Davis emphatically rejected Lee’s offer of resignation, telling him that replacing would be an impossibility.
Mary Lee, In Old Age
Lee did not live long enough to observe the post war reality of race relations, especially in the southern United States, but, based on the attitudes that both he and his wife expressed during their lifetime, he would not have found them problematic.
Washington and Lee University Commemorative Stamp
General Lee not even sure as to what he would do with the rest of his life. He was 58 years old but other than the military he had no other occupation. He must have considered it fortunate when the rector of Washington College in Lexington, VA offered him the presidency of the school. Besides a salary which included a percentage of tuition, Lee was promised a residence. In exchange he would administer the school and be asked to teach a course in philosophy. Robert E. Lee accepted the position.
Robert E. Lee Chapel on the Campus of Washington and Lee University
In late September, Lee prepared for the beginning of Washington College’s 1870-1871 academic year. On September 28, at a meeting of the directors of his local church, Lee’s last official act was to agree to make up the remaining $55 of the rector’s salary out of his own pocket. He walked home and when he got to the dinner table, he was unable to lead his family in grace or even speak at all. They sat him down and called a doctor, Lee clearly afflicted by some traumatic event which turned out to be a massive stroke. Robert E. Lee lingered for two weeks, lying quietly in a bed in the main room of his home surrounded by family. He died quietly on October 12, 1870, aged 63. His glorification began immediately with a name change of Washington College to Washington and Lee University, Lee having initiated both law and business schools as part of the school’s curriculum.
View From Arlington House Today
Robert E. Lee will always remain a complex and fascinating figure of historical prominence. Hopefully, the pendulum which initially swung too far in favor of insensitive adulation will eventually swing back from strident, out of context vilification to a more sensible middle ground
When he died at age 72, on September 28, 1891, Herman Melville was so obscure that those who even remembered his literary output presumed that he had passed away many decades earlier. Melville’s works were out of print, his last novel published more than thirty years before his death. The title of his epic work Moby Dick was misspelled in Melville’s New York Times obituary and one of his most respected efforts, “Billy Budd, Sailor,” had not even been published.
Elizabeth Shaw Melville, Melville’s Wife
Despite the initial Shaw family misgivings about how their future son-in-law would make a living as a writer, Herman Melville and Elizabeth Shaw were married in Boston, in August of 1847. They became permanent residents of New York City and the writer spent the next few years grinding out a succession of books.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Packing off his family to his in-laws in Boston, in October, 1856, Melville first set out for Glasgow and then Liverpool and a meeting with his friend, now diplomat, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Their reunion was friendly even warm but Hawthorne’s journal entries, while empathetic, depict Melville as a conflicted, lost soul.
Over forty, Melville need not be concerned with actually having to fight for the Union but in 1863, he and his wife decided to move back to New York City, exchanging Arrowhead, which he was unable to sell, for his brother Allan’s East 26th Street home.
Herman Melville, Last Photograph, Mid-1880’s
Throughout this time period, Melville continued to toil away at his custom’s officer’s job. When he began working at the Customs House in 1866 he took a horse drawn streetcar to work. By the 1880’s, so much time had passed that Melville took the Third Avenue El, an elevated railway, to his office on the Upper East Side.
Elizabeth Shaw Melville, Later In Life
Melville would remain in this position until his resignation on December 31, 1885. By that time, his wife had inherited a considerable amount of money from an aunt and other relatives, enough to allow Herman to retire.
Ted Ngoy, the ultimate American Dream, including donuts
Ted Ngoy’s First Donut Shop, La Habra, California
Eventually, in 1976, one of Ted’s customers showed him an ad in the local newspaper, the Orange County Register, advertising a donut shop for sale. Ngoy had meticulously saved 20,000 dollars, the seller financed the rest of the $45,000 purchase price.
Ted and his wife, Suganthini, with Richard Nixon
By 1985, Ted was a millionaire and a very respected member of the Cambodian community. He and his wife moved into a 7,000 square foot home in Mission Viejo and Ngoy became active in the Orange County Republican Party.
Ted Ngoy in Cambodia, 2017
Most media accounts of Ted Ngoy end sometime around 2014. It’s hard to keep up with an individual so far away from the western press, even in the age of the internet. But, judging from his Facebook page, he is alive and surviving quite well. His “photos” page features him, a man in his seventies, with a much younger and beautiful woman who he began dating when she was in her teens. Judging from the photo they seem quite happy.
Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo Calderon was born on July 6, 1907 in Coyoacan, Mexico. Today, Coyoacan, officially a borough of the Federal District, is part of the urban sprawl of Mexico City. But when Frida was born it consisted of open space, farm and ranch land. Although her birth probably occurred at her grandmother’s house, Frida would spend her childhood and much of her life living in the Casa Azul, the blue house built by her father in 1904. Carl Wilhelm Kahlo was born in Germany and emigrated to Mexico in 1891, when he was nineteen, his Hungarian father, a wealthy jeweler, paying for his passage.
Frida and Diego Rivera
Known during her lifetime as merely the wife of Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo subsequently ascended to artistic prominence and popular culture fame in her own right, becoming a worldwide social and political icon. Her sickly childhood, painful existence, tortured relationship with Rivera and brief life provided a tragic backdrop to her artistic accomplishment, now recognized as unique and transcendental. She remains so revered in Mexico that her works have been designated as national heritage objects, prohibited from foreign export. Internationally, she is now perceived as one of the most important and original artists of the twentieth century.
La Casa Azul
La Cas Azul, Frida Kahlo’s ancestral home.
Frida and Diego Rivera’s House With Separate Residences
In early September, Frida got a telegram from her family back in Mexico City informing her that her mother was seriously ill, her breast cancer now entering a terminal stage. Accompanied by her American friend Lucienne Bloch, she was forced to take trains and even a bus over the flooded Rio Grande back to the Mexican capital, an arduous journey that took five days. One week after her arrival, her mother died, leaving her father in a state of grief and confusion. She would remain in Mexico for a month to grieve with her family and also check on the house that was being built for her and Diego. Her prospective home would have a bridge that connected two separate wings of the structure, one for her and one for him.
Since the death of Lenin in 1924, a power struggle over not only over the Soviet government but also the international Communist movement ensued with the winner Josef Stalin and the loser Leon Trotsky. But Stalin was not content with merely expelling Trotsky from the party and the country. His megalomaniac paranoia would subsequently require the physical extermination of his opponent, including Trotsky’s family. Many of Trotsky’s relatives, including his first wife and children would be imprisoned, exiled or executed. Initially expelled by Stalin, Trotsky himself fled first to Turkey, then France, where he was initially offered asylum but subsequently rejected and ultimately Norway, which also eventually deported Trotsky to Mexico
Trotsky’s Study And Assassination Location, Mexico City
In the winter of 1939, Frida would be reintroduced to a Trotskyite sympathizer named Jacques Mornard. While in Paris, Mornard, who lived in the French capital at the time, claimed that he was moving to Mexico City and aggressively asked her to help secure him a home near hers and an introduction to Leon Trotsky. She refused, explaining that she and her husband had had a falling out with Trotsky and suggested he find a residence on his own. Mornard eventually made his way to Mexico, accompanied by his American girlfriend, Sylvia Ageloff, a trusted member of Trotsky’s inner circle. It would take months, but Mornard, who routinely dropped Sylvia off at the Trotsky compound and did small favors for the entourage eventually ingratiated himself into obtaining a personal meeting with the Soviet exile. Ostensibly, Trotsky was to review a political article that Mornard had written. In the late afternoon of August 20, Leon Trotsky ushered the younger man into his study and began to read his work. Unfortunately for Trotsky, Jacques Mornard was actually Ramon Mercader, a specially recruited Stalinist assassin who took an ice axe from underneath his rain coat and plunged it into Trotsky’s skull. Although the blow did not immediately kill Leon Trotsky, he would die of his injuries within 24 hours.
Frida Painting In Bed
Most of the rest of the decade would be consumed by painting, teaching and attempting to find solutions for the various ailments that plagued her which included a chronically infected hand, her right foot which was troublesome and restrictive, a deteriorating spinal column that was also overwhelmingly painful and even possible syphilis that was diagnosed in the early forties. However, it would be during this time period that Frida would paint some of her most quintessential works.
Frida’s Four Poster Bed, Frida Kahlo Museum
Frida’s degenerative spinal condition would begin to require surgery and a succession of casts designed to allow her mobility. She would fly to New York in May of 1946 for surgery that would fuse four vertebrae with bone and a metal rod. Returning to Mexico, she would be placed in a steel corset and remain bedridden for eight months.
Frida’s Life Mask, Frida Kahlo Museum
Frida Kahlo celebrated her 47th and last birthday on July 6, 1954. Drawings and notations in her diary indicate that however it would arrive, she knew the end was near. Officially, she would die sometime in the early morning of July 13, from what a doctor officially noted as a “pulmonary embolism.” Wracked by pneumonia, in constant and excessive pain only dulled by massive amounts of opiates, this certainly would not be a far-fetched prognosis. However, on the evening before her death she insisted on giving Diego Rivera an anniversary present, despite the fact that their anniversary was a month away. Later, her nurse would claim that Frida intentionally exceeded the number of painkillers she was supposed to take. Her final diary entry was both ominous and revelatory:
“I hope the exit is joyful-and I hope never to come back.”
Ian Fleming, who proved that a great deal of fiction is factual.
Ian Fleming, Naval Intelligence
Ian Fleming was born on May 28, 1908, the second son of Valentine and Evelyn Fleming. Both parents came from upper crust British backgrounds, Evelyn, known as Eve, was the descendant of a solicitor paternal grandfather and a maternal grandfather who was the personal physician to Queen Victoria, both of whom would be knighted for their efforts. Valentine, known as Val, was the son of the wildly successful Robert Fleming, a pioneering British financier who originated the investment bank Robert Fleming and Company.
Muriel Wright, The real “Bond Girl”
Although it would not become meaningful for many years, Ian Fleming initiated a relationship in August of 1935 that would have a profound effect on his future literary life. In Kitzbuhel, on a summer holiday, he met twenty-six year old Muriel Wright. Although she came from the type of elite British background that didn’t require that she work for a living, she was a professional model, especially of ski apparel and bathing suits with a figure to back it up. She and Fleming hit it off immediately and they spent a great deal of time together. Unfortunately, Muriel adored Ian Fleming, a situation that he took full advantage of, enjoying her company but not having the slightest intention of moving the relationship forward in any meaningful way.
Ann Charteris, before her marriage to Fleming
If Muriel was totally smitten and more than a little naive, Ann Charteris, another girlfriend, was more calculating and fully expected Fleming to propose when her husband was killed in the war. He didn’t so she instead married Esmond Harmsworth, the Viscount of Rothermere. But, even after her marriage, Ann continued to see Ian on the side, a typically twisted Fleming emotional relationship. When she miscarried with her first child, it was rumored to actually be Fleming’s and not her husband’s.
Fleming’s Home, Goldeneye, Jamaica
By the end of the war, Fleming was interested in attempting to emulate his brother Peter Fleming, an accomplished travel writer and journalist for The Times. But Fleming was not ready to forego a steady salary for the potentially financially unrewarding life of a writer so instead he took a job with the Kemsley Newspaper chain as a mid level manager. Because his position allowed up to three months of annual vacation, Fleming spent all of his time off in Jamaica, which he first visited during the war. He also began building a home near the northern coastline on Oracabessa Bay. He would name this property Goldeneye and it would quickly become a destination for various British writers and celebrities who also spent time at the nearby Firefly, a home owned by Noel Coward. Goldeneye overlooked a beach and a coral reef teeming with exotic fish and crustaceans and would play an important role in both Fleming’s romantic and professional life.
Fleming with his first novel, Casino Royale
Sometime in early 1952, Fleming began a process that he would continue while in Jamaica for the rest of his life. After an early morning swim in the reef off of Goldeneye and breakfast in the garden with his wife, he would sit at a roll top desk in his living room and write continuously until noon. After a nap and an afternoon outside, Fleming would return to whatever he had written earlier in the day and correct it. The finished pages would then be deposited in his desk. Although the exact date that Fleming began writing his first manuscript is still up for debate, it was finished in as little as four weeks on the eighteenth of March, 1952. The novel was 62,000 words. It was entitled Casino Royale.
