Wednesday, March 26, 2008
They might have found D.B. Cooper's parachute.
The parachute -- similar to the one Cooper jumped with -- was unearthed earlier this month after a Clark County man plowed part of the rural property he's owned for nearly a decade, said Larry Carr, the lead agent on the Cooper case. The man's children found the parachute when they were playing and Carr, who is based in Seattle, retrieved it from southwest Washington.
"If D.B. Cooper had pulled his chute not long after that jump, he would have landed in that area," Carr said. "Is this D.B. Cooper's parachute? We don't know yet" . . .
Carr said Cooper's backup parachute was sewn shut, and the working one he jumped with was a Navy-issue NB6. But Carr can't find identifying markings on the worn parachute or the container in which it was packed. He is hoping someone with expert knowledge of NB6 parachutes can assist in the effort.
"If this canopy can be traced to an NB6 backpack, it will start looking pretty good," Carr said.
Most investigators surmise Cooper died in the frigid wild, perhaps even in his jump. But!
None of the $200,000 ever made it into circulation, though $5,800 worth of the frayed bills were found along the Columbia River in 1980. And that creates another complication for FBI investigators.
Carr said that if Cooper landed where the parachute was found, it would be impossible for the ransom money to end up where it did by natural means.
"No matter what you do with this case," Carr said, "the mystery deepens."
