BONUS: The D B Cooper Vortex (Part 3)

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You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast.
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My name is Bill Thomas. I'm a writer, consulting, producer,
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and now podcaster. I am now trying to use my
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experience as the brother of a murder victim to help
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other victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book
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on the unsolved Colonial Parkway murders and I'm the co
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administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
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Kristin Dilly.
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My name is Kristin Dilly.
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I'm a writer, a researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate,
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as well as the social media manager and co administrator
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for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner
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in crime, Bill Thomas.
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Welcome to Mind Ever Murder.
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I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm Bill Thomas.
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We're joined today by Darren Schaefer here to talk about
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the podcast, the Cooper Vortex and school us on everything
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dB Gooper.
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Darren, Welcome to the podcast.
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Thank you so much for having me on. I'm excited
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to be here.
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We're so happy to have you because we know that
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in our two episodes on dB Cooper, we did not
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even begin to scratch the surface of everything that there
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is to know in the I guess we'll call it
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the dB Cooper space, or we'll use your term for
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the dB Cooper Vortex. Start by telling us a little
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bit about yourself and your podcast.
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My name is Darren Schaeffer. I just I fell into
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what is called the Cooper vortex probably about ten eleven
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years ago now at this point in time, and then
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somewhere along that line, I started my own podcast, The
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Cooper Vortex, creatively named and just it's something that I
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can't escape. The term the Cooper vortex was coined by
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Mark Meltzer because once you fall into this vortex, you
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cannot escape. And boy, is that true?
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Do you actually first hear about the dB Cooper case.
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I first heard about it.
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I grew up in Woodland, Washington, which is like the
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closest town to where his drop zone was believed to
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have been at that point in time. And I first
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heard about it on Unsolved Mysteries, like watching a rerun
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of that probably on some like after school thing with
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my sister. And then it was like, hey, in this
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guy at the Portland International Airport and we're like Portland,
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that's over, that's right over there that's close to us,
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and then in Seattle it's oh Seattle, that's right over
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here too, and then jumped out near Ariel, Washington, so
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we know where that is. That's two towns over. This
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is so crazy. This is right in our backyard, and
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then just grown up there. It's a local story, something
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I had a passing interest in until I really got
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sucked in.
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So how old were you at this point, Darren, when
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you first saw the unsolved mysteries and started talking to
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your sister about the case.
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I would have been like ten years old talking with
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my sister about the case.
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Not so much.
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It was more just wow, this crazy thing happened, like
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basically in our backyard. That's so crazy, and it's unsolved.
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I wonder what happened.
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We chatted off air for a little bit the first
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time that we talked, and you said something really interesting.
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You said that you aren't a true crime fan, which
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is a little hard for me to understand, but that's okay.
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It's not for everybody. What differentiates the dB Cooper case
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from other true crime cases? What draws you to it
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and makes it interesting?
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I think most true crime is some sort of a
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personal story. This happened to this person they weren't expecting it,
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or this person did this to this other person. The
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dB Cooper case, I think is a lot different because
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at its basis it's a heist, so it's more along
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the lines of bank robbery or a train robbery. In
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this case is an airplane robbery more than what would
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be a sort of typical true crime story. And all
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of everyone's saying this in this doc on Netflix is
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so good. I'll check it out, But I'm not really
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a true crime fan because it personally it makes me angry.
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I'm like, I'm gonna round up a posse and we're
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gonna go get this guy. And that's not what I'm
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looking for. When I want to be entertained, it's more, Oh,
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I want I want to laugh or I want to
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be educated more than I don't want to get angry
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about something that happened to someone or something someone else did.
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One of the things that you mentioned to us was
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that there's a big difference in the demographics for your podcast,
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The Cooper Vortex, and the average true crime podcast, if
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there is such a thing. What are some of those
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differences in terms of the audience.
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Along this podcasting journey that I've had. I've met some
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other people with some shows, and I found it really
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interesting that most of the people in the true crime
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space would say my audience is about seventy five percent female,
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And when I first gotten in the dB Cooper case,
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I would say it was ninety five percent men, And
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with some other media in my podcast, I would say
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that's changed a little bit, but I would still say
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that it's probably eighty percent men at this point in time.
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Well, then the first question becomes, why do you think
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that is.
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It's a question that I ask on my show to
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almost every guest because it's very odd. It's not just
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oh yeah, my show's fifty to fifty when most lean female. No,
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my show is completely the opposite. Having talked to many
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different guests about it, I think it boils down to
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a few factors. One is the type of case that
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this is, like I said, a heist, and then the
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other is the style of the case and the means
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and by which he did it. And so I think
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the audience for this, just by the fact that it's
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a heist would lean more towards men. But then the
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way Cooper did it using an airplane and jumping out
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of the airplane. This case really appeals to pilots, it
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really appeals to skydivers, it really appeals to people who
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are in the military and formerly military, as well as
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aviation fans. And now the vast majority of all the
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groups I just mentioned skew way heavily male. So I
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think all of those things really contribute to the fact
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that if you go to Cooper Kahn, if you get
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on forums or a MySpace group, that's the reason that
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it's going to be mostly dudes in there.
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Okay, before we stray away from Cooper Kahn, tell us
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about Cooper KHN.
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Please.
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Cooper Kahn's been going on for a while. There were
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a couple early versions. Jeffrey Grace held the first one
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in Gosh, I want to say that was two thousand
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and twelve of twenty eleven, don't quote me exactly on that.
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And then Eric Youulss picked up the torch, and I
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think the first one he did was twenty eighteen, and
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then twenty twenty and twenty twenty one. I believe there
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were no Cooper KHN for obvious reasons.
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And are these typically held in the Pacific Northwest?
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Yeah, either in Portland or Seattle.
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So is it like a one or two day convention
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or like, how does this work when we talk about
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crime con which is what we're most familiar with, I imagine
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it's very different from Cooper KHN.
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So can you tell us a little bit about it?
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Who could you see guesting there?
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Yeah? Con it's very interesting because there's two different aspects
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to it. There's a very collegiate presentation and hey, here's
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this evidence, and here's my analysis of this evidence. And
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here's this speaker that's going to come on and tell
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us about this angle or about their expertise in titanium
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for example, or some obscure aspect of the case. And
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then there's the getting together and drinking and just talking
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about Cooper and the community and the hangout aspect of it.
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It's just a great time if you're super into this case.
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There's going to be a bunch of authors from the
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books you've read, people you have seen on documentaries or
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on podcasts, for on YouTube channels speak and talk and
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then you just hang out with them and ask him questions. Hey,
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I know you covered this, but what do you really
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think about it?
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Is there a dB Cooper lookalike contest or anything. There's
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no role playing at crime conton, so thankfully we've been
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spared that. But I'm just curious do people show up
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in the gray suit?
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And there was dB Cooper Days, which was held at
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the Aerial Store. I think it was the Friday after
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Thanksgiving every year and that went on for gosh, thirty
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five years or something like that until the Aerial Store
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closed down. And that was just a party that was
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like a Hey, we think dB Cooper landed in our
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backyard and we're going to throw this party in his honor,
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and if he wants to show up, that's cool. And
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they did have a dB Cooper lookalike contest, but Cooper
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cause it's more like informative and educational in the main
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event than a looklike contest sort of thing, although there
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have been people that have shown up in dB Cooper GARB.
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What was the impetus for you to start your podcast
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on dB Cooper? Was it just that you needed to
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fill a void that wasn't there.
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Absolutely, And a lot of things happened at the exact
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same time. So I really got heavy into this and
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my wife bought me Jeffrey Gray's book Skyjack in probably
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twenty thirteen or twenty fourteen. It had been out for
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a while, and I was like cool, And then it
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set on my bookshelf for a while. I was traveling
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for work. I brought that to read and read that
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book and I was like, dang, there is so much
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more to this case than I was aware of, and
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it goes so much deeper, and there's so much crazy
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stuff going on here. And that book sort of references
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he's working with this private investigator, Skip Portius, and a
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certain point in the book, Skip says, Hey, I'm not
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going to work with you anymore. I'm going to write
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my own book about this. And so I thought, this
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book is a few years old, maybe that's out, and
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it was It's Into the Blast by Skip Portius and
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Robert Blevins. So I ordered that book. I read that
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book and I was like, Okay, it's Kenny Christiansen case closed.
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I know who dbe Cooper was Into the Blast mentions
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an online forum, the drop Zone, which is now skydiveforum
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dot com. I believe I got on there and there
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was a group of people on there just argue a
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NonStop about dB Cooper. But one thing that they did
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was completely tear apart all of the work that Skip
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Portius Robert Blevins had done on Kenny Christensen. And looking
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at that, I was like, Okay, if it's not Kenny Christensen,
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then who is it? And then that led me to
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Bruce Smith's book dB Cooper and the FBI, which had
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just came out. Fantastic, phenomenal book. I can't recommend it enough.
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Third edition is out and now I believe. Then I
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started a job where I worked completely alone. So I
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was listening to talk radio and podcasts for forty to
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sixty hours a week. And this is twenty fifteen ish,
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and so I got on Apple Podcasts and I was like,
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I've already ran out of all the shows I want
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to listen to. What else should I find? So I
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was like, I'm into this dB Cooper thing right now.
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So I typed dB Cooper into the search bar, and
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at that point in time, there were about twenty different
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shows that had done one episode on dB Cooper. So
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I just started burning through them. I found it frustrating
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because I was so deep into it by this point
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in time that covering the case for twenty minutes and
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then going over five suspects, and then at the end
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we think it's this guy. By the end of those
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I was fast forwarding them going over the hijacket because
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I was like, I don't want to hear that. Let
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me just hear what their theories and conjecture on the
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case are. And then I was listening to this podcast
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called Mormonism, which is just about the history of Mormonism
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in the United States.
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I was gonna say, and what's the connection.
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The connection is listening to that show. His show became
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successful enough that it was something he did as a hobby,
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like driving an interstate battery truck. To he quit his
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job and was just doing this podcast. I thought to myself,
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what I really want to hear is long form interviews
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with the authors of these books and the people arguing online.
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And if this guy can make a real podcast about
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Mormon history, then I can make the podcast that I
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want to listen to. So I decided I'll give this
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a shot. But I'm not known in this community at all.
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I don't even have a screen name on the website.
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So I decided I'm going to reach out to five
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people that I won on the show, and if two
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of those five agree to be on my show that
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doesn't exist, then I'll create it. And so I reached
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out to five people and all five of them said yes,
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I'd love to be on the show.
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Even though the show didn't even exist. At that point,
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the show didn't exist. So I googled what equipment I
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would need to start a podcast, and then loaded up
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my car and I did all five of those interviews
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in person, driving across the Pacific Northwest.
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Oh interesting, What made you decide to do the podcast interviews?
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When you launched the Cooper Vortex in person?
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Two different podcasters it would be Tim Ferriss and Joe Rogan,
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and both of them by then had discussed how much
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better an interview is in person than remotely, and at
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that time, zoom wasn't where it is today. Basically all
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my interviews pre twenty twenty I traveled to do those
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interviews in person.
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Wow.
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I actually really loved that idea, and it had to
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have been fascinating to be able to get out there
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meet people, get a feel for their energy. It probably
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puts the use a little bit too, that they're able
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to talk with you see you in person.
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That sounds really neat. I would love to be able
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to do that.
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What's interesting too is that and Kristin and I we
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may have forgotten this ourselves when we started Mind Over Murder.
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This is just before COVID. Now, I know there's a
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big joke about how many podcasts got started as a
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result of the pandemic. We actually started just before the pandemic.
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Our original intention was to have more face to face interviews.
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And I had moved back from Los Angeles to Connecticut,
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which at least put me closer to Virginia, where Christen's based,
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and particularly with the Colonial Parkway murders one of our
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key cases, that's a Virginia case as well. But we
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didn't end up going down that road, if you will,
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because we did end up being increasingly dependent on doing
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interviews via the computer. And and so even today now
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for everybody's benefit, we're on zoom and I can see Kristin,
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and I can see Darren, and they can see me.
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We don't use the visual component of what we record.
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But it's very interesting that you chose to go and
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meet with these people face to face, and interestingly, so
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many of them are in the Pacific Northwest.
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Yeah, and I was living in Boise Idaho at the time,
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so not that far. I think my farthest one was
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like eight hours, although I did drive from Boise to
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Great Falls, Montana, which is like eleven hours to interview
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John Cameron.
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So you got some nice travel time in there too.
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Let's go ahead and get into the suspect aspect of
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the case before we talk about the community around dB Cooper.
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It seems to me, and again please correct me if
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I'm wrong, because I'm not an expert, it seems to
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me like the dB Cooper suspects seem to fall into
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two categories, the likely category and the unlikely category. Who
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is your favorite unlikely suspect? They probably aren't D. B. Cooper,
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but you like their backstory.
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There's going to be two of them. My favorite by
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far is Barb Dayton, the transgender suspect of Washington State.
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That was one of my first five interviews I did.
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I interviewed the Foremans, who wrote the book about her D. B.
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Cooper death by natural Causes. I hadn't read that book
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when I had reached out to him, and my first impression,
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00:16:30.279 --> 00:16:34.679
not knowing the Foremans and not truly knowing that story, was,
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oh my gosh, this is going to be some woke
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couple from Seattle just trying to sling this book to
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fit a Pacific Northwest narrative with this D. B. Cooper
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story from the Pacific Northwest also, And then I read
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the book and the book's very sweet.
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They are.
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Truly just great friends of hers that met at Dunfield
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just became lifelong friends. I went to the Foreman's house
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to do that interview and I knocked on their door.
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They let me in and they were the nicest people ever.
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It was like hanging out with my aunt and uncle
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that I hadn't seen in a long time. We stopped
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00:17:16.240 --> 00:17:18.240
the interview halfway through because that one's three and a
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00:17:18.279 --> 00:17:21.720
half hours or something like that, and I was like, hey,
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I need to break for a minute. Let's go get
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lunch and then we can finish the second half of this.
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And they took me out to lunch. He showed me
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as playing, he showed me his car collection.
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Wow. Very cool.
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Actually, just the greatest people in that story is truly amazing.
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00:17:36.640 --> 00:17:42.279
There's also been some work done recently. There's this infamous
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00:17:42.319 --> 00:17:45.200
book on the dB Cooper case called dB Cooper What
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Really Happened? By Max Gunther and that came out in
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nineteen eighty five. I believe and Max Gunther is a
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serious journalist. He writes this book is non fiction where
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he is communicating with the widow of Dbie Cooper, who
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tells him the story of what happened, and she remains anonymous.
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So I don't know for sure if Max Gunther even
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knew who she was. It's possible Max Gunther made this
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00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:14.160
whole thing up in nineteen eighty five, being a serious
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journalist presenting this as nonfiction even though the whole thing's
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a joke, would be that could ruin your career and
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potentially end it. Martin Andrade did some forensic linguistics I forgot.
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00:18:27.279 --> 00:18:30.880
Stylometry is the term for that, where there are some
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00:18:31.079 --> 00:18:35.279
letters from Clara to Max Gunther in that book, and
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he compared it to the writings of Barb Dayton and
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00:18:38.960 --> 00:18:42.839
got an incredible match. And what that more than likely
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means is that Barb Dayton communicated with Max Gunther to
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tell the story.
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Under a pseudonym, or did he give her the pseudonym.
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That I'm not one hundred percent shirt certain of. I
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believe Clara chose the name Clara because she also wrote
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a letter Max Himmelsbach, not Max Simmelsbach, Ralph Himmelsbach, and
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00:19:05.880 --> 00:19:08.319
to sell this Dbie Cooper story also and in that
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00:19:08.440 --> 00:19:10.960
letter she uses the name Clara, so it would have
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00:19:10.960 --> 00:19:13.240
been the name she gave to Max Gunther. But I
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00:19:13.279 --> 00:19:16.559
don't think that this proves that Barb Dayton is dB Cooper.
355
00:19:16.640 --> 00:19:19.599
But I think it proves that Barb Dayton has always
356
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had an obsession with this case, okay, And she was
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lonely at a certain point in time and could envision
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00:19:26.960 --> 00:19:31.640
herself both as D. B. Cooper and as now a
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00:19:31.720 --> 00:19:34.880
woman who fell in love with dB Cooper.
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Was Barb Dayton? Had she passed by this point? Is
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she still with us? Or is she gone?
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00:19:41.599 --> 00:19:45.480
Barb Dayton died in the early two thousands, I believe
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00:19:45.680 --> 00:19:48.240
if you read the book by the Foremans, D B.
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Cooper Death by natural causes born Robert Dayton. Robert Dayton
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00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:56.279
was truly a badass and lived this wildlife. He was
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a merchant marine and he's captured like in the Philippines
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00:19:59.119 --> 00:20:01.960
as a prisoner of war, and then they needed crew
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00:20:02.039 --> 00:20:04.160
for a ship, and so he just like raised his
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00:20:04.200 --> 00:20:07.480
hand like hey, I could do. This was in a
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00:20:07.480 --> 00:20:13.200
motorcycle gang, just an all around tough guy, and then
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00:20:13.400 --> 00:20:16.039
always had this thing where it's like I was born
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in the wrong body because the first person in Washington
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State I believe to have ginger reassignment surgery got it
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done in Baltimore and then living his life as gender
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assignment surgery in nineteen sixty nine, by.
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00:20:29.400 --> 00:20:33.319
The way, Yeah, long time ago, right, yeah. Yes.
377
00:20:33.480 --> 00:20:35.920
And so now she's living a life as a woman,
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sad and lonely and working as a librarian for the
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Seattle Public Library. She wants to prove to herself that
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she's still like this tough, no nonsense person and not
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just this meek librarian. So she pulls off the dB
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00:20:50.079 --> 00:20:54.240
Cooper hijacking, ditches the money in a cistern and would
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00:20:54.279 --> 00:20:58.799
burn Oregon, and goes back to her job as a librarian,
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fulfilled that she proved to herself that she's still tough
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00:21:03.240 --> 00:21:06.799
old Robert Dayton as well as today being Barbara Dayton.
386
00:21:07.519 --> 00:21:09.240
I like that. That's an interesting story.
387
00:21:09.680 --> 00:21:13.240
Yeah, And she confessed to the Foremans. Ron Foreman told
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me that he believed all along that Barb was Clara
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00:21:17.200 --> 00:21:20.440
in the Max Gunther book, which is very interesting because
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00:21:20.440 --> 00:21:22.960
the Max Gunther book is quite controversial. There's a lot
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00:21:23.000 --> 00:21:25.359
of stuff in there. There's details that we didn't learn
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00:21:25.440 --> 00:21:28.279
until the FBI files came out that are like, wow,
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00:21:28.319 --> 00:21:30.799
that was right on the nose, And then there's a
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00:21:30.880 --> 00:21:34.960
lot of details that don't make sense that could be filler.
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Did Max Gunther make that up to fill in the
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00:21:37.279 --> 00:21:40.279
gaps of the story or did Clara truly not know
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and give information that was wrong.
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You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back
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00:21:46.920 --> 00:21:55.720
after this word from our sponsors. We're back here at
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00:21:55.720 --> 00:21:56.640
mindover Murder.
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00:21:58.079 --> 00:22:01.599
You said you also had another favorite unlikely suspect.
402
00:22:01.640 --> 00:22:02.680
Who is that?
403
00:22:02.680 --> 00:22:06.960
That would be Wolfgang Gossip. Wolfgang Gossip. He's a veteran,
404
00:22:07.400 --> 00:22:11.079
he's a survivalist. His son Greg told me he would
405
00:22:11.160 --> 00:22:13.480
go on these camping trips alone where his family would
406
00:22:13.519 --> 00:22:15.559
drop him off and then pick him up a week later,
407
00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:20.359
like fifty sixty miles a different direction with no gear
408
00:22:20.440 --> 00:22:23.759
or anything like that. He confessed to both of his
409
00:22:23.839 --> 00:22:27.279
sons on their twenty first birthday of being dB Cooper.
410
00:22:27.720 --> 00:22:31.279
He also confessed to two different lawyers in two different states.
411
00:22:32.279 --> 00:22:36.359
There have been a handful of books in the works
412
00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:40.920
about him that never seemed to get finished real mysterious figure.
413
00:22:41.839 --> 00:22:44.119
I wasn't really sure how I felt on him until
414
00:22:44.119 --> 00:22:47.000
I interviewed Greg Gossett, another one I traveled to. He
415
00:22:47.079 --> 00:22:50.880
was just outside Salt Lake. He was very skeptical of me,
416
00:22:51.160 --> 00:22:54.480
probably because he's been contacted by other dB Cooper researchers.
417
00:22:54.720 --> 00:22:56.599
So he wanted to have dinner with me before we
418
00:22:56.640 --> 00:22:59.240
did the interview, which I really didn't want to do
419
00:22:59.279 --> 00:23:01.279
because I didn't want to go over the same things
420
00:23:01.319 --> 00:23:04.960
and then my questions would be fake. During that dinner,
421
00:23:05.039 --> 00:23:07.680
it was very clear to me that he just wanted
422
00:23:07.680 --> 00:23:10.039
to know do I have an agenda? As am I
423
00:23:10.160 --> 00:23:12.599
trying to pitch his father as Cooper? Or am I
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00:23:12.680 --> 00:23:15.960
trying to pitch his father as not being Cooper, which
425
00:23:16.440 --> 00:23:18.880
neither was the case. I just wanted to hear Greg's story.
426
00:23:18.920 --> 00:23:22.279
In Greg's thoughts on his father being involved in the
427
00:23:22.319 --> 00:23:23.440
Stevie Cooper myth.
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00:23:23.640 --> 00:23:27.319
Do you feel like for people that are connected to
429
00:23:27.440 --> 00:23:30.200
the case that they must run into people that are
430
00:23:30.279 --> 00:23:35.400
either skeptics or cranks or difficult people with a strong agenda?
431
00:23:35.519 --> 00:23:37.359
Is that kind of what he was trying to filter
432
00:23:37.519 --> 00:23:39.640
out by having dinner with you the night before?
433
00:23:40.200 --> 00:23:40.319
Oh?
434
00:23:40.400 --> 00:23:44.400
Yeah, absolutely, And you guys briefly spoke about Vince Peterson
435
00:23:44.599 --> 00:23:48.839
in your last episode. Eric, you listed this like press conference. Hey,
436
00:23:48.880 --> 00:23:52.039
it's Vince Peterson. I connected him via these tai particles.
437
00:23:52.440 --> 00:23:56.759
I had his daughter on my show, Julie. She's adamant
438
00:23:57.279 --> 00:24:00.920
that her father is not Dbe Cooper and very upset
439
00:24:00.960 --> 00:24:03.920
by the fact that here's this group, here's this community
440
00:24:03.960 --> 00:24:08.279
that just named her father as being involved in criminality
441
00:24:08.359 --> 00:24:11.960
and pulling off this crime when he was the kind
442
00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:14.440
of guy who was never involved in anything like that,
443
00:24:14.480 --> 00:24:17.880
wouldn't have done this. There's just no evidence for it.
444
00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:21.640
She thinks it's absolutely ridiculous. I love that episode I did.
445
00:24:21.680 --> 00:24:25.119
It's one of my favorite I've wanted. I've had relatives
446
00:24:25.160 --> 00:24:28.599
of people who believe their uncle, their father, their grandfather
447
00:24:28.880 --> 00:24:31.319
was Cooper. But I've always wanted to have someone on
448
00:24:31.480 --> 00:24:35.279
whose family member has been accused and doesn't believe it.
449
00:24:35.599 --> 00:24:37.839
And so I was very excited to do that episode.
450
00:24:37.880 --> 00:24:39.799
It was hard to get her on because of course
451
00:24:39.880 --> 00:24:43.039
she's jaded to this community. Yeah, and so I had
452
00:24:43.079 --> 00:24:45.279
to earn her trust and look, this, I just want
453
00:24:45.279 --> 00:24:48.319
to hear from you. Also, I don't believe your father
454
00:24:48.480 --> 00:24:52.000
was Vince Peterson. So that definitely helps. But I just
455
00:24:52.039 --> 00:24:54.000
want to hear what you have to say about this,
456
00:24:54.519 --> 00:24:57.720
what you think of Hey, your father is accused of this,
457
00:24:57.720 --> 00:25:00.319
because now you google his name and the first thing
458
00:25:00.359 --> 00:25:01.680
that comes up as DBE Cooper.
459
00:25:01.839 --> 00:25:04.799
It has to be really frustrating for her because she
460
00:25:05.240 --> 00:25:08.640
firmly believes that he is not dB Cooper, and yet
461
00:25:08.720 --> 00:25:10.240
she has to now deal with this.
462
00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:13.559
And she had to look up what dB Cooper was
463
00:25:14.680 --> 00:25:16.880
when her father was accused of this crime.
464
00:25:17.400 --> 00:25:21.400
Okay, so who then is your favorite likely suspects? Like
465
00:25:21.480 --> 00:25:24.680
you've examined all of the evidence, you know it way
466
00:25:24.720 --> 00:25:27.039
better than the two of us. Do Who do you
467
00:25:27.160 --> 00:25:29.119
think is most likely dB Cooper?
468
00:25:29.599 --> 00:25:31.799
If you want a JFK connection.
469
00:25:32.279 --> 00:25:33.559
Yeah, let's do it.
470
00:25:34.519 --> 00:25:39.559
Laurence skip Hall is a very interesting suspect. Obviously, I
471
00:25:39.599 --> 00:25:41.759
can't put him on the plane because if we could
472
00:25:41.759 --> 00:25:43.920
put any of these suspects on the plane, then it's
473
00:25:44.119 --> 00:25:48.079
game over. We're done. He was like this Cuban freedom fighter.
474
00:25:48.200 --> 00:25:51.839
They then got involved with this Cuban casino magnet and
475
00:25:52.200 --> 00:25:56.039
goes by all these aliases. Has the skill set to
476
00:25:56.079 --> 00:25:59.960
both plan and execute this sort of crime. There's some loose,
477
00:26:00.160 --> 00:26:04.119
goosey air America ties there as well. He seems to
478
00:26:04.119 --> 00:26:08.000
be likely to be involved in the JFK assassination. He
479
00:26:08.119 --> 00:26:11.000
was testified in one of the hearings about that. But
480
00:26:11.160 --> 00:26:13.079
one of the things I like about him more than
481
00:26:13.119 --> 00:26:15.440
anything else that doesn't really prove he's Cooper, But it's
482
00:26:15.440 --> 00:26:18.400
so interesting is if you look at the description of Cooper,
483
00:26:18.839 --> 00:26:24.079
the official FBI one, they list possible Mexican or Native
484
00:26:24.119 --> 00:26:29.240
American history or ancestry with an olive or swarthy complexion.
485
00:26:29.480 --> 00:26:31.960
And if you pulled up a screenshot of fifty dB
486
00:26:32.079 --> 00:26:36.720
Cooper Suspects, it's a lot of pasty white faces on there.
487
00:26:36.799 --> 00:26:41.319
And Laurence skip Hall, in some of his freedom fighting endeavors,
488
00:26:41.319 --> 00:26:45.119
went by the alias Lorenzo Pacia. I think it was
489
00:26:45.160 --> 00:26:48.319
Lorenzo Yea, I'm prettyure it's Lorenzo Pasia. If I told
490
00:26:48.359 --> 00:26:51.759
you my name was Lorenzo Pacia, you'd be like, no,
491
00:26:52.519 --> 00:26:54.720
you don't look like that name fits.
492
00:26:54.480 --> 00:26:55.960
You, like Lorenzo.
493
00:26:57.880 --> 00:27:00.759
Just the fact that he could go by this like
494
00:27:01.039 --> 00:27:05.680
Cuban alias and get away with it. He is obviously
495
00:27:05.839 --> 00:27:09.559
has some sort of Latin influence in there as well.
496
00:27:09.680 --> 00:27:12.519
The other suspect that's been around a little bit longer. Oh,
497
00:27:12.559 --> 00:27:15.720
and let me plug. Where was Skip? By John Limbach
498
00:27:16.359 --> 00:27:19.160
is a really good book on Lauren skip Hall. He
499
00:27:19.200 --> 00:27:21.559
goes by Lauren Hall or Skip Hall. So that's why
500
00:27:21.559 --> 00:27:24.680
I'm saying both first names. But the other suspect that's
501
00:27:24.720 --> 00:27:27.000
been around a while that just seems to get more
502
00:27:27.039 --> 00:27:31.720
and more fascinating is Ted Braiden. Ted Braden is a
503
00:27:31.839 --> 00:27:36.240
mac v SAG, a special Forces dude from Vietnam. He
504
00:27:36.799 --> 00:27:41.319
goes a wall during Vietnam. He's captured working as a
505
00:27:41.319 --> 00:27:45.480
mercenary in the Congo. He then gets taken to Fort Dix,
506
00:27:45.519 --> 00:27:48.640
where I spoke to one of the prison guards there
507
00:27:49.079 --> 00:27:51.680
and he said, when he encountered Ted Braden was in
508
00:27:51.680 --> 00:27:55.799
his cell at Fort Dix for desertion, and he was
509
00:27:55.839 --> 00:27:58.799
in his cell in full uniform with a belt buckle,
510
00:27:59.200 --> 00:28:02.839
shine shoes, smoking a wood tipped cigar, and watching a
511
00:28:02.880 --> 00:28:05.920
television And he said, Darren, I'm only giving you all
512
00:28:05.920 --> 00:28:09.640
those details because everything I just mentioned was strictly not allowed.
513
00:28:11.599 --> 00:28:14.519
And he said, when I saw that, I knew right
514
00:28:14.599 --> 00:28:17.240
away that there's something going on about this guy that's
515
00:28:17.279 --> 00:28:19.640
above my pay grade. And when it came time for
516
00:28:19.720 --> 00:28:22.799
him to be tried for his crimes. He was released
517
00:28:22.880 --> 00:28:25.720
because there was quote not enough staff to fill the
518
00:28:25.759 --> 00:28:26.759
courtroom that day.
519
00:28:27.359 --> 00:28:31.480
It just seemed crazy, like how did this happen?
520
00:28:32.119 --> 00:28:33.960
Yeah, And I know a lot of people in the
521
00:28:34.039 --> 00:28:36.880
dB Cooper community that have access to a lot of
522
00:28:36.920 --> 00:28:39.920
resources to look up people in history, more so than
523
00:28:39.920 --> 00:28:42.720
the average person on Google. And if you look in
524
00:28:42.759 --> 00:28:46.079
Ted Braden's history, there is truly nothing there as if
525
00:28:46.119 --> 00:28:49.279
he never existed. And my friend Drew Beeson has this
526
00:28:49.440 --> 00:28:52.599
great book on him called Soldier of Fortune. I'm sorry,
527
00:28:52.799 --> 00:28:56.599
Paratrooper of Fortune. The story of Ted Braden. One of
528
00:28:56.640 --> 00:29:00.240
my favorite facts about him is he's seventy two years old,
529
00:29:00.359 --> 00:29:04.440
gets pulled over for drunk driving. He's driving a car
530
00:29:04.519 --> 00:29:08.920
with no registration and no plates. He has no identification
531
00:29:09.119 --> 00:29:12.960
on him and refuse to identify himself to the police officer.
532
00:29:13.359 --> 00:29:16.480
He sounds a Reacher on television that character.
533
00:29:17.319 --> 00:29:20.559
Yes, and a lot of the macv SAG guys from
534
00:29:20.640 --> 00:29:23.240
that time period, some of which I've spoken to, and
535
00:29:23.480 --> 00:29:27.359
Drew Beeson many more, unanimously they say, oh, that dB
536
00:29:27.480 --> 00:29:31.000
Cooper thing, that's Ted Braden. One hundred percent, that's Ted Braden.
537
00:29:31.440 --> 00:29:34.000
And it's not, even though some guys thought it was Ted,
538
00:29:34.119 --> 00:29:36.799
but uh, we don't really think so, or maybe it's
539
00:29:36.839 --> 00:29:40.440
this other guy. They unanimously believe that it's Ted Braden.
540
00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:45.599
He's by far the most qualified to pull off this skyjacking.
541
00:29:46.200 --> 00:29:49.319
And one of the things about the skyjacking that's so interesting,
542
00:29:49.400 --> 00:29:53.119
especially compared to the six copycats, is the entire time
543
00:29:53.240 --> 00:29:56.799
dB Cooper is calm, cool and collected. It takes a
544
00:29:56.839 --> 00:29:59.799
different person to be pulling off something like this and
545
00:30:00.119 --> 00:30:04.160
remaining completely calm, someone who has maybe seen some stuff
546
00:30:04.200 --> 00:30:07.279
and done some stuff. This isn't their first rodeo, and
547
00:30:07.359 --> 00:30:10.160
this isn't in any way the most dangerous thing they've done,
548
00:30:10.519 --> 00:30:12.279
and that would definitely be Ted Brayden.
549
00:30:13.039 --> 00:30:16.759
We had in our two episodes, Bill and I, again
550
00:30:16.839 --> 00:30:19.599
not having done the full breadth of research that you've done,
551
00:30:19.759 --> 00:30:22.920
advocated for Richard Floyd McCoy, and you had set off
552
00:30:22.920 --> 00:30:25.880
air that you wanted to utterly destroy Richard Floyd McCoy.
553
00:30:25.920 --> 00:30:26.559
So please go.
554
00:30:26.559 --> 00:30:29.240
Ahead and tell us why we are wrong on Richard
555
00:30:29.279 --> 00:30:29.960
Floyd McCoy.
556
00:30:30.480 --> 00:30:33.400
There are a few suspects that, for whatever reason, they
557
00:30:33.559 --> 00:30:38.279
just get picked up and continuously reran. Robert Rockstraw is.
558
00:30:38.160 --> 00:30:38.720
One of those.
559
00:30:38.839 --> 00:30:41.880
Yeah, a lot of media attention. And I'm very forgiving
560
00:30:41.920 --> 00:30:43.839
of this because when I came into the case, I
561
00:30:43.839 --> 00:30:46.680
would have told you, oh, it's Kenny Christensen, for sure,
562
00:30:46.680 --> 00:30:50.359
it's Kenny Christensen, and then I continued to read and
563
00:30:50.400 --> 00:30:53.960
do more. Richard Floyd McCoy has been a suspect since
564
00:30:54.000 --> 00:30:58.079
April seventh, I think, nineteen seventy two. He committed a
565
00:30:58.160 --> 00:31:03.359
copycat skyjacking six months after Cooper. There are many things
566
00:31:03.400 --> 00:31:06.240
he did in a very similar way. There are also
567
00:31:06.359 --> 00:31:10.720
a couple things where he'd improved on Cooper's plan. He
568
00:31:10.759 --> 00:31:15.160
gave much more specific flight instructions. For example, he lands
569
00:31:15.200 --> 00:31:18.720
just a few miles from his home, but his execution
570
00:31:19.119 --> 00:31:25.000
is completely sloppy. He hilariously leaves his hijacking notes in
571
00:31:25.079 --> 00:31:28.880
the airport, and so when he's on the plane, they
572
00:31:28.920 --> 00:31:31.720
call out, hey, did somebody leave him in ela envelope
573
00:31:31.839 --> 00:31:35.119
in the airport and it's full of his hijacking notes?
574
00:31:36.319 --> 00:31:41.160
Is hijacking? He's a complete mess. He makes it obvious
575
00:31:41.279 --> 00:31:44.200
that there's something going on with him before his hijacking starts,
576
00:31:44.240 --> 00:31:47.240
so the pilots were going to land somewhere else before
577
00:31:47.319 --> 00:31:52.119
his hijacking even begins. He drew a lot of attention
578
00:31:52.279 --> 00:31:55.839
to himself. He was all over the place. He was
579
00:31:56.279 --> 00:32:00.000
angry and flustered, not in any way similar to Cooper.
580
00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:05.640
The stewardesses were immediately shown pictures of McCoy. Hey, look
581
00:32:05.680 --> 00:32:09.079
at this guy, he just committed a similar hijacking. This
582
00:32:09.119 --> 00:32:12.720
is six months later. All of the stewardesses said, that
583
00:32:12.880 --> 00:32:16.319
is definitely not him. He's twenty nine at the time.
584
00:32:16.839 --> 00:32:20.240
Cooper is given the age of mid to late forties.
585
00:32:20.839 --> 00:32:23.880
Tina Mucklow is twenty two years old sitting right next
586
00:32:23.920 --> 00:32:26.200
to him. Do you think a twenty two year old
587
00:32:26.319 --> 00:32:28.559
is going to mistake someone a few years older than
588
00:32:28.559 --> 00:32:31.519
her for someone that could be her father? Definitely not.
589
00:32:31.720 --> 00:32:35.920
McCoy has big ears that prominently stick out. He has
590
00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:40.039
blue eyes. Cooper is believed to have brown eyes. McCoy
591
00:32:40.200 --> 00:32:43.759
has a South Carolina accent and a little bit of
592
00:32:43.759 --> 00:32:48.160
a speech impediment, like a slight lisp. The FBI thoroughly
593
00:32:48.480 --> 00:32:52.559
ruled out McCoy in seventy two, and whatever you think
594
00:32:52.599 --> 00:32:55.279
of the FBI and whatever job they did, I want
595
00:32:55.319 --> 00:32:58.960
to make this point. The FBI had him in custody,
596
00:32:59.279 --> 00:33:02.480
so if there were any evidence that they could have
597
00:33:02.640 --> 00:33:06.640
used to pin the nor Jack hijacking. dB Cooper's on
598
00:33:06.839 --> 00:33:10.319
him as well. They would have tried that. They didn't
599
00:33:10.480 --> 00:33:13.680
do any of that. The dB Cooper files are out,
600
00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:18.079
you can read them. They thoroughly ruled out McCoy. There
601
00:33:18.079 --> 00:33:21.480
are witnesses that say McCoy was home the morning of Thanksgiving.
602
00:33:21.880 --> 00:33:25.400
So if he's jumping out north of Portland, southwest Washington
603
00:33:25.599 --> 00:33:29.160
the night before Thanksgiving, getting to his home in Utah
604
00:33:29.200 --> 00:33:35.960
by the morning, theoretically it's possible, but would be extremely difficult. Also,
605
00:33:36.279 --> 00:33:41.160
dB Cooper smoked seven cigarettes in four hours. McCoy was
606
00:33:41.200 --> 00:33:44.839
a non smoker. If you believe you can use smoking
607
00:33:44.880 --> 00:33:48.000
cigarettes as a disguise, I would challenge you to smoke
608
00:33:48.079 --> 00:33:50.960
seven cigarettes in four hours as a non smoker and
609
00:33:51.000 --> 00:33:52.279
see how that works out for you.
610
00:33:53.720 --> 00:33:56.759
One of the things we laughed about was just there's
611
00:33:56.759 --> 00:34:00.200
so much about the Cooper cases of a time. It
612
00:34:00.240 --> 00:34:03.279
was fifty years ago. We were discussing the fact that
613
00:34:03.359 --> 00:34:05.200
back then you could smoke on aircraft.
614
00:34:05.640 --> 00:34:09.400
Here's my favorite detail about this hijacking and one of
615
00:34:09.400 --> 00:34:12.000
the reasons, and we can get into the dB Cooper's
616
00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:14.840
a full care versus a criminal. But he's sitting in
617
00:34:14.880 --> 00:34:17.920
the back of that plane drinking a bourbon and soda
618
00:34:17.960 --> 00:34:22.039
with sunglasses on, and he's got a beautiful young stewardess
619
00:34:22.039 --> 00:34:26.039
sitting next to him and she lights his cigarettes for him.
620
00:34:28.639 --> 00:34:31.840
It seems like a James Bond movie. Yes.
621
00:34:32.920 --> 00:34:35.559
One of the things that I thought was very interesting
622
00:34:36.039 --> 00:34:38.599
is the parallels that people have drawn between D. B.
623
00:34:38.760 --> 00:34:42.039
Cooper and the Roger Thornhill character from the nineteen fifty
624
00:34:42.119 --> 00:34:46.159
nine Hitchcock film north By Northwest. And he definitely kind
625
00:34:46.159 --> 00:34:48.800
of struck me as Yeah, Roger Thornhill, what one hundred
626
00:34:48.800 --> 00:34:51.639
percent have done that? And just because I'm a film
627
00:34:51.679 --> 00:34:54.599
buffer a film teacher, I just like that little particular
628
00:34:54.639 --> 00:34:59.320
element there. I definitely see where Richard Floyd McCoy's is
629
00:34:59.360 --> 00:35:03.679
definitely not the correct suspect. Because you mentioned the FBI,
630
00:35:03.800 --> 00:35:07.119
I do want to ask your thoughts about the FBI
631
00:35:07.199 --> 00:35:08.320
and their work on the case.
632
00:35:08.679 --> 00:35:12.000
They did give up their investigation. Do you feel like
633
00:35:12.039 --> 00:35:13.280
they gave up too easily?
634
00:35:13.400 --> 00:35:15.639
Did they do everything they could to solve the case,
635
00:35:15.760 --> 00:35:17.360
or should they have kept doggedly on.
636
00:35:18.119 --> 00:35:20.119
I have a couple different schools of thought on this.
637
00:35:20.440 --> 00:35:24.039
I think that the FBI did everything they could to
638
00:35:24.079 --> 00:35:27.280
get this case solved, and I've spoken to several agents
639
00:35:27.320 --> 00:35:30.079
that have worked on this case. I had Larry Carr
640
00:35:30.079 --> 00:35:33.360
on my show. All of those guys wanted to be
641
00:35:33.440 --> 00:35:36.840
the one to solve the case. To purp walk dB Cooper.
642
00:35:37.360 --> 00:35:40.880
The FBI is an organization. I think they made a
643
00:35:40.920 --> 00:35:44.360
couple of small mistakes on this and some of them
644
00:35:44.400 --> 00:35:49.199
aren't even really all their fault. So Cooper, like I said,
645
00:35:49.239 --> 00:35:53.039
smoked seven cigarettes. That's some of the evidence recovered from
646
00:35:53.079 --> 00:35:55.880
the flight. You can see in the FBI files, an
647
00:35:55.960 --> 00:35:59.199
FBI file where they send the cigarette butts to a lab. Hey,
648
00:35:59.519 --> 00:36:02.159
check the cigarette butts, see if you can pull any
649
00:36:02.159 --> 00:36:04.760
prints off it. If you can't, then throw them in
650
00:36:04.800 --> 00:36:11.079
the garbage. Because they didn't know in nineteen seventy one, Hey, fifteen,
651
00:36:11.280 --> 00:36:15.039
twenty twenty five years from now, we will exactly be
652
00:36:15.159 --> 00:36:17.480
able to figure out who this guy is thanks to
653
00:36:17.519 --> 00:36:20.960
these cigarette butts. It was probably just more than likely. Hey,
654
00:36:21.000 --> 00:36:24.159
we don't want these these smolly cigarette butts in the
655
00:36:24.159 --> 00:36:27.119
evidence locker forever, because they're obviously of no doubt. The
656
00:36:27.199 --> 00:36:30.840
other weird one is the hair slide. They pulled one
657
00:36:30.880 --> 00:36:32.960
piece of hair off of his seat that they believed
658
00:36:33.000 --> 00:36:35.519
could have been his This is where I'm like, this
659
00:36:35.599 --> 00:36:38.719
is crazy sloppy work. Because if I have my dB
660
00:36:38.840 --> 00:36:42.000
Cooper hair slide and Bill, you have a suspect and
661
00:36:42.079 --> 00:36:45.159
you have a piece of his hair, I would say, hey, Bill,
662
00:36:45.719 --> 00:36:48.880
send me your hair sample. I'll compare it to my slide.
663
00:36:49.199 --> 00:36:51.559
That's not what they did. What they did is they
664
00:36:51.599 --> 00:36:54.400
would send it to other offices. Okay, here's the dB
665
00:36:54.519 --> 00:36:56.719
Cooper hair slide. It's in the mail, and in the
666
00:36:56.760 --> 00:36:59.719
process of doing that time and time again, somewhere in
667
00:36:59.719 --> 00:37:01.679
the mix that hairslide is now lost.
668
00:37:01.880 --> 00:37:05.400
Don't get me started with the FBI and the Parkway murders.
669
00:37:05.480 --> 00:37:06.960
That's a whole nother discussion.
670
00:37:07.760 --> 00:37:12.000
But the case isn't actually closed. They publicly suspended the
671
00:37:12.039 --> 00:37:15.239
investigation in twenty sixteen, and I think there are a
672
00:37:15.320 --> 00:37:19.360
couple different reasons for that. First of all, by publicly
673
00:37:19.440 --> 00:37:22.920
doing that, they're going to slow down this barrage of
674
00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:26.039
people saying, Hey, look at this information I found, check
675
00:37:26.079 --> 00:37:29.000
out my theory, I solve the case. What do you
676
00:37:29.039 --> 00:37:31.639
think of this? Hey, my neighbor bought a new corvette
677
00:37:31.679 --> 00:37:35.199
in seventy two, isn't that suspicious? And then the real
678
00:37:35.239 --> 00:37:39.880
reason is just resources. By twenty sixteen, this case is
679
00:37:39.920 --> 00:37:44.480
forty five years old. They haven't really gotten anywhere. So
680
00:37:44.800 --> 00:37:46.960
how much more time and money are we going to
681
00:37:47.000 --> 00:37:47.679
invest in this?
682
00:37:48.519 --> 00:37:52.960
Do you feel that the are the files truly open?
683
00:37:53.320 --> 00:37:57.039
Can you see everything they have on dB Cooper.
684
00:37:57.639 --> 00:38:00.880
The files have been in the process of being released
685
00:38:00.880 --> 00:38:04.599
for quite some time. We're towards the end, so the
686
00:38:04.639 --> 00:38:07.800
files that are coming out now are later years. As
687
00:38:07.840 --> 00:38:11.679
far as reactions, there isn't much because most people involved
688
00:38:11.679 --> 00:38:14.559
in this case have passed away, and also all these
689
00:38:14.599 --> 00:38:17.519
super sluts in the community are able to figure out
690
00:38:17.800 --> 00:38:21.119
what is likely in the reactions, both based on number
691
00:38:21.159 --> 00:38:24.559
of characters and who likely would be in that So
692
00:38:24.840 --> 00:38:27.800
the files are quite extensive. But the files are what
693
00:38:27.840 --> 00:38:31.000
the FBI calls three O two's right, and a three
694
00:38:31.079 --> 00:38:35.360
oh two is a case agent's notes. So one three
695
00:38:35.400 --> 00:38:38.719
to two, for example, can be a field agent taking
696
00:38:38.719 --> 00:38:41.559
a call from a guy, and this is a real file. Hey,
697
00:38:41.840 --> 00:38:44.960
I was watching Matt Locke the other night and there
698
00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:47.760
was a guy in the jury. He sure looked like
699
00:38:47.800 --> 00:38:52.400
the dB Cooper sketch. It was on Tuesday at eleven pm.
700
00:38:52.440 --> 00:38:54.880
You guys should watch that episode and check it out.
701
00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:57.800
And that that's an LBI three to two that's not
702
00:38:58.000 --> 00:39:01.119
going anywhere. They're not going to investigate. But because it
703
00:39:01.239 --> 00:39:04.480
was in the process of this active investigation, a case
704
00:39:04.519 --> 00:39:08.159
agent has to make a note on it. Wow, there's
705
00:39:08.199 --> 00:39:10.239
a lot of good information in there, a lot of
706
00:39:10.280 --> 00:39:13.960
things we learned, suspects that we thought were legit, that
707
00:39:14.119 --> 00:39:18.800
the FBI had cleared time and time again, suspects that
708
00:39:18.800 --> 00:39:22.960
have been gone over multiple times, leads they've chased. Just
709
00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:25.880
to show you how far this case has gone. And
710
00:39:26.480 --> 00:39:28.639
like I said, it's they're not any further today than
711
00:39:28.719 --> 00:39:32.519
they really were November twenty fifth, nineteen seventy one. There's
712
00:39:32.519 --> 00:39:36.159
a file from like nineteen seventy six where they're reaching
713
00:39:36.199 --> 00:39:38.320
out to a bunch of case agents and different field
714
00:39:38.360 --> 00:39:41.880
offices and to paraphrase it, basically says, Okay, five years
715
00:39:41.880 --> 00:39:45.199
have gone by and we haven't gotten anywhere. So we're
716
00:39:45.199 --> 00:39:47.360
going to have this meeting in San Francisco and we
717
00:39:47.400 --> 00:39:50.119
want all of you to bring fresh ideas on where
718
00:39:50.159 --> 00:39:53.079
to take this case next. And that was just five
719
00:39:53.159 --> 00:39:56.000
years after the fact. We're coming up on fifty four
720
00:39:56.079 --> 00:40:00.400
years this year and five years in they feel like
721
00:40:00.440 --> 00:40:01.360
they'd gone anywhere.
722
00:40:02.119 --> 00:40:05.119
Join us again next time as we continue our conversation
723
00:40:05.320 --> 00:40:10.599
with Darren Schaefer of the Cooper Vortex podcast. A fascinating
724
00:40:10.639 --> 00:40:15.760
conversation into dB Cooper suspects and where the case might
725
00:40:15.840 --> 00:40:16.559
go from here.
726
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That is going to do it for this episode of
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mind Over Murder. Thank you so much for listening. We'll
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see you next time.
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Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
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Another Dog Productions.
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Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.
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Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.
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Our theme music is by Kevin McLoud.
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Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with crawl Space Media.
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You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
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You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway
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Murders on facebok.
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Buck and finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter
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at Bill Thomas five six.
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Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.