Four decades after a skyjacker dubbed D.B. Cooper bailed out of a U.S. jetliner in mid-air and vanished with $200,000 in cash, federal agents are pursuing new clues pointing to a suspect they believe is long dead, an FBI spokesman said on Tuesday.
The latest lead in the case originated with a source in law enforcement, who directed agents to a person who was close to the suspect and obtained objects now being analyzed to see if they bear fingerprints matching those left by the hijacker on the plane, said Frederick Gutt, FBI special agent in Seattle.
Gutt declined to reveal the law enforcement source, the person the FBI was led to, or the deceased individual whose fingerprints are being examined.
But he said the suspect in question is someone who was not previously known to investigators.
The case of D.B. Cooper, a moniker given to the skyjacker by the media after he disappeared, has endured as one of America's great unsolved mysteries.
It began when a man dressed in a black suit and tie hijacked a Seattle-bound commercial flight on Thanksgiving eve 1971, extorted $200,000 in ransom from the airline, strapped 21 pounds of $20 bills to his body and jumped out of the jetliner after it took off again, presumably wearing a parachute.
He was never seen again, and was believed by some to have likely perished when he bailed out of the aircraft.
The FBI official said that authorities have ruled out Kenny Christiansen, a former Northwest Airlines employee once suspected in the case.
"Yes, there is a lead in this matter that's being pursued," Gutt told Reuters. "It's someone who surfaced who hasn't surfaced before. It came from someone who's close to someone who is deceased. So far, we haven't been able to dismiss it."
The FBI office in Seattle said that the potential suspect died 10 years ago, NBC affiliate KING5 TV said. Gutt said the deceased had ties to the Pacific Northwest.
The informant gave the FBI an item to be examined for fingerprints that could then be compared to partial prints left on a magazine on the plane and parts of the airliner itself, The Seattle Times reported.
The seattlepi.com quoted Gutt as saying that initial item turned out to be "not good for prints."
But Gutt told Reuters that "we're seeking to compare prints and finding stuff that can add more solid evidence. We have to wait. We're still recovering some additional items. It's a process, and it's not a priority matter."
He also said the new lead, first reported over the weekend by The Telegraph newspaper in London, actually originated over a year ago.
The Seattle Times, using material from its archives, reported that the hijacker had identified himself as Dan Cooper when he boarded a flight from Portland, Ore., to Seattle on Nov. 24, 1971. D.B. Cooper was a man from Portland who was quickly cleared, but whose name stuck in media reports.
Shortly after the plane took off, the skyjacker handed a note to a flight attendant that said: "I HAVE A BOMB IN MY BRIEFCASE. I WILL USE IT IF NECESSARY. I WANT YOU TO SIT NEXT TO ME. YOU ARE BEING HIJACKED."
The flight attendant put it in her pocket without reading it, but Cooper said: "Miss, you'd better look at that note. I have a bomb" and opened his briefcase to show several red cylinders and electrical wires.
The plane landed, the ransom was paid, and passengers were exchanged for parachutes. It then took off with Cooper and the flight crew on board, heading toward Mexico.
About half an hour into the flight, a cockpit warning light indicated that the rear stairway had been extended.
"Is everything OK back there?" the pilot asked. Cooper yelled back, "No," then jumped, according to the Times.
The air temperature was minus 7 degrees, with strong winds and freezing rain and some people believed he must have been killed.
Authorities thought he would have landed near Ariel, Cowlitz County, in Washington state, but the weather was so bad that the manhunt was delayed for days.