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On a cold November night 36 years ago, in the driving wind and rain, somewhere between southern Washington state and just north of Portland, Oregon, a man calling himself Dan Cooper parachuted out of a plane he’d just hijacked clutching a bag filled with $200,000 in stolen cash.

Who was Cooper? Did he survive the jump? And what happened to the loot, only a small part of which has ever surfaced?

It’s a mystery, frankly. We’ve run down thousands of leads and considered all sorts of scenarios. And amateur sleuths have put forward plenty of their own theories. Yet the case remains unsolved.

Would we still like to get our man? Absolutely. And we have reignited the case—thanks to a Seattle case agent named Larry Carr and new technologies like DNA testing.

You can help. We’re providing here, for the first time, a series of pictures and information on the case. Please look it all over carefully to see if it triggers a memory or if you can provide any useful information.

Check out the photos and the rest of the evidence at the FBI Press Room

For my money this is one of the best stories in the history of crime. Period. The story still resonates with me as strong as it did when I was a kid and saw the story covered on “In Search Of…”

via NPR

[3-29-2008: update!]

Cooper’s parachute found?

Chute Find Rekindles D.B. Cooper Legend

AMBOY, Wash. (AP) — A tattered, half-buried parachute unearthed by kids had D.B. Cooper country chattering Wednesday over the fate of the skyjacker, who leapt from a plane 36 years ago and into the lore of the Pacific Northwest.

While the FBI investigates whether the fabric came from the world’s only unsolved skyjacking, the discovery re-energized a legend in the southwestern Washington woods where Cooper may have landed, and where time has helped turn him into a folk hero.