Who Is DB Cooper Really? | Expedition Unknown S7 E3 | Discovery Channel India

There aren't many cold cases that could still captivate a nation after half a century. But then again, D.B. Cooper has always been one of a kind. A daring criminal who skyjacked a domestic flight in 1971, he grabbed hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom before parachuting into the realm of legend. Despite a massive FBI manhunt, Cooper's whereabouts and identity are a hotly debated mystery. And it remains the only unsolved skyjacking in American history, perhaps the perfect crime. A few years ago, I decided to enter what experts call the Cooper Vortex, a virtual black hole swirling with theories pursued by obsessive citizen sleuths. Hell, I became one myself. I searched low and high. And helped uncover some of the most momentous evidence in decades, the discovery of rare element particles on Cooper's necktie. And now the case is turning hot yet again. Recently uncovered audio recordings are revealing a new suspect and an unexplored search area. Meanwhile, a high tech discovery is rewriting the story of the missing ransom money. And one resolute investigator with FBI documents believes he's honed in on the true location of Cooper's daring jump. So grab a parachute and join me, if you dare, as we dive back into the vortex in pursuit of the real D.B. Cooper. My name is Josh Gates, explorer, adventurer, and a guy who ends up in some very strange situations. That was exciting. With a degree in archaeology and a passion for the unexplained, I travel to the ends of the earth investigating the greatest legends in history. This Thanksgiving Eve, 1971, a mysterious figure behind dark sunglasses carries a briefcase aboard Northwest Orient Flight 305, a domestic hop from Portland, Oregon, to here, Seattle, Washington, home of Boeing and the inspiring Museum of Flight. The name on his ticket, Dan Cooper, an unassuming looking man later described as in his mid 40s and about 5 foot 10 inches tall. He takes his seat in 18E. Upon takeoff, he informs the flight attendant that his briefcase contains a bomb. Once back on the ground in Seattle, Cooper agrees to release the passengers in exchange for $200,000 for parachutes and a promise of safe passage to Mexico. Back in the air, the pilots inform Cooper they'll need to stop in Reno to refuel. But before they can get there, a light goes off in the cockpit indicating that a door has been opened. You see, D.B. Cooper chose the Boeing 727 for a reason. Its unique aft staircase. Jumping from the side door of a commercial jet could kill a skydiver, but Cooper simply had to walk out the back. Outside, a storm is raging, and somewhere in the darkness above the Pacific Northwest, Cooper jumps. And that's where the mystery deepens, because by the time the plane lands in Reno, both the hijacker and the money have vanished. Who are you? Over the years, there have been countless suspects fitted for Cooper's shades. Marvel fans even saw Tom Hiddleston's Loki take credit for the crime. Today, though, I'm trying to answer the $200,000 question, who is D.B. Cooper, by enlisting the A-team of Cooper researchers. Mark Meltzer, criminal defense attorney with over 50 years of skydiving experience, a top authority on Cooper's jump. Joe Koenig, lead investigator in the Jimmy Hoffa case, 26-year veteran of the Michigan State Police. And Bruce Smith, veteran sleuth and author of D.B. Cooper and the FBI. Oh, and me, I'm here too. All right, guys, I got a lot of questions. We got answers. I hope so. Let's start with this. Most books that I've read about D.B. Cooper have a suspect. Mark, I know you're an attorney. Does it seem strange to you how many potential suspects there are in this case? It's very unusual. FBI has said there have been hundreds of confessions. Right. You don't normally have hundreds of guys confessing to the crime. Correct. Got to remember, the D.B. Cooper skyjacking was innovative. No one else had ever done it. In fact, skydivers the next day were saying, why didn't I think of that? Right. Exactly. So, OK, let's start where the FBI started. The primary witness to the skyjacking is the flight attendant who sat next to D.B. Cooper. Tina. That's Tina Mucklau. Right. And she and the FBI got to come up with a sketch. And this was the first sketch. OK. However, over the next year, a lot of other people came forward like passengers. And so they came up with a different composite sketch. Are they accurate? Is eyewitness testimony for composite sketches really valuable? I never found it to be all that valuable. So much depends on the eyewitnesses ability to recall an image. Right. So let's wipe the slate here. Let's talk about actual suspects. Who are some of the people that really rose to the top and were the greatest hits in this case? Well, the very first guy was Ted Mayfield. And people were already calling the FBI while the plane was still in the air. And Cooper hadn't even jumped yet, saying, your guy is Ted Mayfield. Why? Why were people so? He ran a corrupt operation as a skydiver. And OK, and people ended up dying there from a bad training, bad equipment. He even stole an airplane. So did Ted Mayfield hold up as a suspect? No, he didn't. He was immediately ruled out. And I think correctly so because he was far too short. He did not meet the height requirements of Cooper. He was way below it. OK, so we get rid of Ted Mayfield. Who else? Within a few days of the crime, the FBI received a tip that they should investigate Sheridan Peterson. Sheridan Peterson. OK, who's he? Sheridan Peterson was a very experienced skydiver. He was an instructor. And he worked at Boeing in technical documentation. OK, so this guy's looking pretty good. He is. What's wrong with him? His alibi is that he was living in a mud hut in Nepal at the time. Well, that's a pretty big problem. Yeah, I don't think he's Cooper. OK, let me rifle through a few more. John List. Forget about him. It's not even worth discussing. Nah. OK, he's gone. Dwayne Weber. He has no parachuting experience. He was arrested 23 times. 23 times? Yeah, he's now a master criminal. He's out. This guy is not a master criminal. That's right. He's done. In the end, the FBI maintains that none of these men were Cooper and that he most likely died in his leap from the plane. The men at this table might respectfully disagree. Who's a guy who could be Cooper? As far as capabilities go, Robert Rackstraw had every skill needed. Robert Rackstraw, he was an army helicopter pilot and was an experienced halo parachutist. That means high altitude, low opening. Joe, do you think Rackstraw could be Cooper? I don't think so. He was too young. How old was he? 29. Oh, I mean, really young. But he had the capability. Rackstraw had every skill needed, but nobody can put him on the plane. And in fact, the flight attendant, Tina Mucklow, said no when she was shown his picture. So you can't equate capability with culpability. Right. And what about you, Joe? Who do you think D.B. Cooper is? I know who D.B. Cooper is. This young man. Walter Recca? Correct. This is D.B. Cooper? He's the one. OK. Tell me, who is Walter Recca? Walter Recca was a paratrooper. He was in the Air Force Reserve's Sea and Rescue Squad. And I go to my parachute expert here. This guy knew how to jump? He was a U.S. Air Force Reserve pararescue jumper. They're called PJs. He absolutely had the skills. They know everything. They know night jumps, water jumps, combat rescue. I've been jumping for 53 years. I don't have a hundredth of the skills that Recca had. OK. So he knew how to jump. And he's D.B. Cooper because of his confession, which was very detailed. After he jumped from the 727, Recca is said to have landed in the town of Cle Elum, Washington. But don't take my word for it. Here's an excerpt of Walter Recca's confession, recorded by a close friend of his shortly before his death in 2014. Does anybody see this guy walking in the rain along this road? Yes. Really? One witness, a local truck driver, reports passing Recca on the road on his way to a nearby diner. The man is walking in the rain in a suit. Shortly after, he limps into the diner and asks for change to use the phone. Here's Walter Recca again. I've evaluated those tapes to determine truthfulness. That's your area of expertise. Exactly. He was being truthful. You're convinced? I am. I don't want to start a fight here. What do you think? Could it be Recca? The place where he landed is over 100 miles from where this aircraft was flying. It is also true that there is no actual record of where that plane flew, right? There was a record. They didn't preserve it. This raises another question. If you're going to make up a story about D.B. Cooper, why place yourself 100 miles from there? If there's something very puzzling about the Recca case, I can't figure it out. I agree with Joe. Walter Recca landed in Clay Elm, Washington the night in question and was soaking to the skin by the rain. You buy that? I buy that. Absolutely. So there's two guys jumping out of airplanes wearing business suits the night before Thanksgiving in 1971. That's impossible. I'd rather have you say it never happened. There was no guy walking down the road. If you're telling me that there was a guy in a business suit on that night walking down the road, then how could he not be D.B. Cooper? I think the Walter Recca story opens up a huge story. And the story is, what the hell was Walter Recca doing in Clay Elm that night? This is a relatively new suspect landed in an unsearched area. And hopefully with your help, we'll find some evidence to seal this case. If you think that sounds like a challenge, well, it does to me too. Looks like Joe and I are going to Clay Elm. Joe travels ahead to assemble his team of Cooper fanatics, leaving me to drive the 85 miles solo. I arrive where the Tinaway Junction Cafe once stood and rejoin Joe Koenig. How are you, man? Good, Josh. How are you? Good. Good to see you. Good, good. What do you think of my car? I love it. A mini Cooper. Exactly. I'll go a long way for a bad joke, Joe. This for me? Yeah. Thank you, sir. And you've got an army of people out here. We do. We got a bunch of volunteers from the Clay Elm area and a professional metal detectorist. So we are in the spot. This is the spot. Should we go find D.B. Cooper's parachute? Let's do it. Let's go. Joe believes that Cooper must have landed near where the tree line is today, an area that was deep in the woods in 1971. The years may have changed the landscape, but the buckles, fasteners, and other metallic pieces of Cooper's parachute can't hide from a metal detector. Our team is fanned out across the field and into the trees. This is the largest search ever made here for evidence in the Cooper case. And it may be about to pay off. Got something? What do we got over here? It's in this vicinity. Let's get a little deeper here. Oh, we got metal here. I've joined investigator Joe Kenneg in Clay Elm, Washington, to explore his theory that a man named Walter Reca was also Skyjacker D.B. Cooper and that he landed in these very woods. See rust down here. Here we go. Look. See how it's curved? Yeah. Big chunk of metal. What do you got? Oh, yeah. Look at that. The drum lid? Yeah. So, OK, somebody at some point buried a bunch of drums back here. Probably not D.B. Cooper. Probably not. OK, moving on. The team continues metal detecting while the property's owner, Wayne Willett, brings us back into the forest in search of any sign of our suspect. Is this the underside of a tree? These are all roots. Now, in terms of this tree from the Cooper story, Reca, when he parachuted in here, he said that he hit a dead tree, right? Yeah, he said the only dead tree in the woods. So this is obviously a big dead tree, although I wouldn't say it's been dead for that long. How long have you been on this property? We moved out here in about 72. So a year after the Cooper jump? Yes. So was there a big old dead tree here at that time? There was. It was right in here somewhere. OK, well, maybe we come across it. Yeah. Let's keep looking. Nobody said it was going to be easy. As far as landmarks go, the remains of a 50-year-old dead tree in the forest don't exactly stick out. And these woods aren't exactly a walk in the park. It's good, good, good. Oh, careful, careful, careful, careful. There I go. OK. I rushed to his aid, but as a retired cop. I hit my head on that thing. Joe is one tough mother, and he bounces back quickly. You all right? Yeah, yeah. You didn't feel a parachute down there, did you? I didn't. Come on, let's get you dried off. After changing into dry clothes, he brings me to meet one of the volunteers who's helping us today, a man who's driven by this area once before on November 24, 1971. That's right. Jeff Oshaditz is the key eyewitness from Walter Reca's story. Hey, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Wow. You're the guy who saw Reca that night out on the road. Right. I can picture it just like it happened yesterday. I want to hear this from your lips. You're driving this truck, and what do you see out the window? I see a man standing on the side of the road with a black suit, white shirt, soaking wet. And he's not wearing his raincoat. No, it's rolled up under his arm. Crazy. I thought this guy's French fries short of a Happy Meal. So you drive past him. You go to the diner. He comes walking in. He says to me, kid, where am I? And I said, you're about four miles east of Cle Elum. And he says, if I make a phone call, can you tell this friend of mine how to get here to pick me up? Hands me the phone. I talked to the guy. I said, where are you coming from? You might have inadvertently helped Cooper get out of town that night. You're lucky Joe doesn't arrest you. I'm still looking for the FBI to see how you show up. This is it, sir. This is the sting. What's so amazing about you, you're a corroborating witness. And that's something that almost no other Cooper suspect has. But he's