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The identity of the infamous skyjacker D.B. Cooper, who vanished after parachuting from a hijacked plane in 1971, may finally be revealed. Siblings Chanté and Richard McCoy III have discovered a parachute on their family property in North Carolina, which they believe was used by their father, Richard McCoy II, in the notorious skyjacking. The siblings have long suspected their father, a convicted skyjacker, was D.B. Cooper due to the striking similarities between his crime and the unsolved case.
Richard McCoy II was arrested five months after the Cooper incident for committing a similar skyjacking involving a parachute jump. He later escaped from jail and was killed in a police shootout. Despite the parallels, the FBI initially dismissed McCoy as a suspect due to his age; he was 27 at the time of the Cooper hijacking, while Cooper was described as being in his mid-40s.
The siblings waited until their mother's death to share their suspicions, as they believed she may have been complicit in the crimes. They reached out to Dan Gryder, a retired pilot and aviation expert who has been documenting his search for D.B. Cooper on his YouTube channel. Gryder told MyNorthwest, "If there was anybody on the planet that was qualified to step off the steps of a 727, it was Richard Floyd McCoy."
The discovery of the parachute has prompted the FBI to reopen the case, which was closed in 2016. Gryder revealed that the FBI is now attempting to match DNA samples and has requested to exhume the body of Richard Floyd McCoy. If the DNA matches, this could finally solve the only unsolved skyjacking in U.S. history.