Original subtitles

Tonight, on History's Greatest Mysteries.

Ready to find D .B. Cooper?

Do you think that he could be D .B. Cooper? Yeah, I do. I think I pinpointed

where it is. This could be our smoking gun.

They've got to take this back when we open it.

It's a mystery that's confounded law enforcement for 48 years.

On November 24th, 1971, a man who would become known as D .B. Cooper

hijacks a plane and then jumps out, taking with him a ransom of $200 ,000.

I'm Lawrence Fishburne, and tonight, who is D .B. Cooper, and how did he

escape?

Neither his identity nor his body has ever been recovered.

It's impossible.

Or is it?

Can investigator Eric Euless finally close the only unsolved skyjacking in U

history?

Eric and his team will re -examine the plane's alleged flight path. They'll

search alternate landing sites for fresh clues and profile a possible suspect.

Tonight, a search for new answers to one of history's greatest mysteries.

Who is D .B. Cooper.

D .B. Cooper investigator Eric Uless is on his way to Washington State, but his

research and investigation started 12 years earlier.

in Arizona.

I've always had a fascination with aviation, which is what I believe

drew me into the case. Here was a man who developed a cult -like following

the years, despite the fact that nobody really knew anything about the guy at

all. He became a legend overnight.

I think DB is like the coolest guy in America. He did the ultimate crime.

Eventually, I found the case was being hijacked by conspiracy theories and so

forth. And I just ended up getting sucked into this D .B. Cooper vortex,

ultimately I decided that I was going to undertake an investigation of my own

into the case.

Over the years, more than 1 ,000 suspects have been scrutinized. When

happened in the 1970s, the era of DNA was not upon us, and agents really

didn't look out to preserve this evidence in the way that we do now.

In order to identify...

where the FBI and others went sideways with this case, I knew that I was going

to have to personally read all 20 ,000 pages of redacted FBI files regarding

case. Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in 2016, every few

months the FBI releases files from the case in chronological order. This

constant drip of new information and new sources is key to Eric's theory about

what really happened.

on Northwest Flight 305.

The night of the skyjacking, we know a man boarded Northwest Orient Flight in

Portland, destined for Seattle.

He bought the ticket with $20 bill at the airport.

There was no ID required, and he gave the name Dan Cooper to the ticket agent.

He would end up taking a seat in the very back row of the jet, 18E to be

The flight attendants recall D .B. Cooper being a guy who was in his mid

dressed as a business person wearing a black suit, wearing loafers with a

black tie and a raincoat.

And he would later put on a pair of dark sunglasses as the jet was about to take

off. By his side, he had a black attaché case.

As the plane starts taxiing toward the runway, D .B. Cooper hands one of the

flight attendants, Florence Schaffner, a note.

which says that he has a bomb.

36 passengers got off the jetliner in Seattle last night, left aboard four

members and the hijacker, dressed in a business suit demanding $200 ,000. With

the full ransom collected from Seattle banks and four parachutes aboard, the

plane headed for Reno.

What many people don't know is that Reno was not the intended destination.

Cooper actually requested that the plane fly to Mexico nonstop.

But the problem is that he wanted the jet to fly with the landing gear down.

wanted the jet to fly with the flaps down.

He wanted the jet to fly at a very slow speed and not fly over 10 ,000 feet in

altitude. So there was simply no way that they could fly nonstop to Mexico

They would need to refuel somewhere, and they decided Reno.

According to Eric, Cooper's request to be flown to Mexico was a ruse.

Seven minutes after the plane left Seattle, the flight crew received an

The rear air stairs were activated.

The Boeing 727 was unique in that it had air stairs that would deploy from the

back bottom of the fuselage.

In fact, it's these air stairs that the passengers actually boarded the jet

with.

Roughly 27 minutes after the air stairs deployment alert, the crew experienced a

cabin pressure disturbance.

At approximately 8 .12 p .m., the pilots experienced what they described as a

pressure bump on the plane.

What felt like a popping in the ears. This pressure bump was created when D

Cooper jumped off the back air stairs and the air stairs snapped back up into

the bottom of the fuselage.

That bump holds the key to everything.

Estimating where and when that bump took place is key.

It determined the area in which FBI, Air Force, and local law enforcement

members looked for Cooper in a coordinated ground search that lasted

The FBI never found anything in their original search area, and my research

indicates that the reason they came up empty -handed is because they were

actually searching in the wrong place.

Why were they searching in the wrong place?

Because the flight path was off.

Understanding that pressure bump and identifying the correct search area will

allow us to ask the basic fundamental question.

To test his theory about the plane's path, Eric is meeting with the person

charged with tracking flight 305 on the night of the hijacking, the air traffic

controller on duty, Cliff Ammerman.

My name is Cliff Ammerman, and I'm a retired air traffic controller.

I worked at Seattle Center Air Route Traffic Control from 1969 until 1998.

Did the FBI or law enforcement at all ever reach out to you?

Never did. I never got a request like that at all. What did you know about

I mean, I assume you knew it was a skyjack jet.

We knew it was a hijacking.

We didn't have a flight plan on it because nobody knew exactly what the

was going to be, so we were told just follow him, keep everybody else away

him. It became fairly obvious that he was on Victor 2 -3.

Victor 2 -3 is one airway in a low -altitude airway structure that's

It's a system of ground -based navigational aids that pilots can

allows them to hold a track over the ground.

Just like when you're on Interstate 5 in a car, Victor 2 -3 is the highway in

the sky.

The first priority here when tackling this case is trying to figure out the

that the jet took.

Can you gauge how precisely you could identify the exact location of Flight

Yeah, what I'm looking at is a map on a video screen.

Aircrafts are being presented in what would look to you like an equal sign.

on the leading slash...

The aircraft itself could be any place on that line. So it could be in the

center. It might be at the left side of the line. It might be at the right side.

We don't know. Any idea of roughly what kind of distance you're looking at

there? I would guess four to five nautical miles long that line is.

How do you know that he's actually within Victor 23 if you've got sort of

much play there?

It's very uncertain just exactly where the airplane was within that.

target area that we're seeing.

So where's the airplane actually?

There's quite a bit of variance in there.

Indeed, the jet could have actually been a handful of miles outside of this

Victor 23 airway and not have been noticed by anyone.

It seems to indicate that the jet indeed took a path that was more along the

western side, the lines it up with the money find and all that good stuff. That

is not at all consistent.

with the official version of the flight path.

The pilot of Northwest 305 also said that they were not looking far enough

Well, that confirms it for me. Yeah.

That's an area that they should have looked, but they didn't look.

Convinced the plane was actually eight miles west of the original FBI search

zone... Eric and his team head up to a remote wilderness refuge that's never

been searched.

They're looking for any evidence of D .B. Cooper, including possible remains

his parachute.

Hey. Hey, how's it going? It's going well. Eric Hewless.

Hey, Ryan.

To maximize the time he'll have on the ground, Eric first takes to the sky to

see how closely his search lines up with an area known as Tina Bar.

In 1980, the FBI found important evidence there.

A child has led the FBI to the start of a trail it hopes will help them solve

the eight -and -a -half -year -old mystery of skyjacker D .B. Cooper.

The first break in the only unsolved airplane hijacking in United States

came on a Columbia River beach along the Oregon -Washington border where an

eight -year -old boy dug up the shreds of $3 ,000 on Sunday. The money was

about 20 miles from the FBI's original third zone.

Also, it was found about eight or nine miles against the current along the

Columbia River.

So there was no possible way that the money just washed ashore. The bundles of

20s were found just below the surface of the sand, neatly stacked upon each

other with the original rubber band still intact.

So by all appearances, it looks like somebody actually buried those three

packets of 20s.

Since it's impossible to know the precise altitude at which Cooper pulled

parachute ripcord, Eric plans to search a wide area the FBI missed.

The first is an island a few miles north of Tina Bar.

The second zone is an extended meadow along the tree line on the west side of

the train tracks.

If Cooper landed there, Eric believes he could have walked south along these

train tracks, crossing over from the mainland at the River Esbridge to Tina

Eric thinks Cooper might have buried the ransom here, temporarily, and then

fled. The third zone.

Private properties across from the refuge provide access to a large

ravine, which could have given perfect cover for DB Cooper.

Part of what has guided me to these three specific search areas is that

pristine and largely untouched in the last 50 years.

Eric Gillis, good to meet you.

I'm thinking about...

You know, the 12 years of research I have put into this case, this is what I

have been waiting for, the opportunity to actually get boots on the ground and

dig through the brush and look for those missing parachutes, look for any sign

of D .B. Cooper.

Eric Ulis has investigated the D .B. Cooper case for 12 years.

The pilot of Northwest 305 also said that they were not looking far enough

Convinced the FBI misjudged the hijacked plane's flight path,

Erick's assembled a team to look for new evidence.

They hope to find something to reopen this cold case.

Hey. Hey, guys. How you doing? Alex Call with Archaeological Services.

This area was home to thousands of Native American villages.

So in order for the project to have special access to the refuge, it needed

archaeologist to join the project, and that archaeologist is me. Given the

terrain, it's going to require a lot of luck.

Accompanying Eric on his mission, geophysicist Colin Miatka, who will help

examine any ground disturbance or man -made materials left behind by the

skyjacker. With my geoscience background, you look for man -made

In this case, though, there's a very small object in a very big area, so it's

incredibly challenging.

There's just so much ground to cover, and the only real best way to do that is

by physically walking over the area. Who wouldn't want to be the person

responsible for solving a 50 -year -old case that the FBI gave up on,

essentially? He's also enlisted the help of local search and rescue volunteers

Jason Coe and Barry Wells.

Both have a vast knowledge of the area.

I was here when the event happened, when there was a lot of theories going

around. So today, what we're going to be doing is getting on the boats. We're

going to be traveling along Lake River up to the Columbia River. Then once

on the Columbia River, we're going to go upstream a little bit.

This area we're talking about here was not part of the original search area,

obviously the fact that it's a refuge as well and is off -limits to people

essentially provides a real opportunity where this stuff would have never been

found. Ready to find D .B. Cooper?

With restrictions in place.

To protect local wildlife, Eric and his team must also contact a state

environmental expert before they can begin their search on the island.

Hey, Brent, how you doing?

Good, Ernst.

We'll work our way north, see if we can actually get over to where you are,

because I think the refuge is where we want to start versus the DNR land, and

then we'll go from there.

Get these guys over on the shoreline here.

Landfall, there we go.

Right now we're on Washington Department of Natural Resources land, and

basically at the tree line there is where the wildlife refuge starts.

They'll be limited in the tools they can use and are forbidden to dig anything

up or remove any evidence from the refuge.

Do you want to go over some of these maps that I pulled?

This is 1970. So this is 70.

Compared to now, the footprint...

It looks pretty stable. Looks pretty consistent.

So the only thing that might give us a little pause is the 1996

aerial. I know there was quite a bit of flooding in 1996.

So it looks like to me that this area here is actually underwater.

In 1996, there was actually a very big flood in the area.

In reality, if the parachutes were in that area, they could have easily...

been swept out to the Columbia River and out to the Pacific Ocean.

I believe that the parachutes were placed a little bit further inland,

wasn't affected nearly as much. So you said the parachute was white and the

was green?

That's correct.

It always helps me to know what colors. Dark green, yeah.

Eric's team is looking for D .B. Cooper's missing parachutes and other

including his attaché case, ransom notes, or unrecovered money.

They must notify local authorities and the FBI immediately if they find

anything.

But Eric's search permit for the refuge is limited and will expire.

We'll just start working off in this direction and find our way through.

A little bit of rain.

I think we've got to go a little further down to the open field, basically.

I was surprised at how he was dressed as a businessman.

You bring up a great point because a lot of people said, you know, who in their

right mind would jump into the middle of the woods wearing loafers and a tie?

And I've always argued nobody.

I believe that the evidence clearly shows that D .B. Cooper intended to jump

initially in the outskirts of Seattle.

After the skyjacking, flight attendant... Tina Mucklow told

.B. Cooper was visibly frustrated and complained to her about how the money

delivered. He made me feel very sure that we had a very real

and horrifying threat.

When the money showed up, it was not in a knapsack as he requested. It was

actually just delivered in a white, open -top canvas.

Bank bag.

Didn't have any zippers, didn't have any flaps, didn't even have a handle on it.

Cooper needed to figure out a way to secure the top of that bank bag.

If he didn't, the force of the free fall would have immediately ejected all of

the cash out of that bag.

It was also reported by co -pilot Bill Ratajk that Cooper had difficulties

lowering the air stairs.

He called us on the interphone and requested that he was having trouble

stairs. I can't get the stairs down.

Eric believes these delays forced Cooper to jump into rougher terrain than

originally planned.

I think that's really ground zero as far as searching for D .B. Cooper's

parachute if he landed in this area. And basically we need to start right around

here where these sticker bushes are, but start working our way down around to

the south. Along the edges.

To ensure a thorough ground search, the team walks at arm's length from each

other, searching in a traditional grid pattern.

Let's move.

That looks like an impenetrable wall back there.

I'm not even going to try that.

It's pretty thick in front of us here.

This stuff is brutal.

Yikes.

Yeah. That looks like a prime spot to dump a parachute. Exactly.

Eric believes Cooper left his parachute behind wherever he landed.

All the soil around here is pretty packed clay.

There's no way he's digging more than whatever you can kick with his boot.

Right. It's dark, too, right?

Yeah. So he's not going to go too far in there.

No. Although the parachute may have deteriorated, metallic and nylon

could have survived.

Alex found some. Let's check it out. It's really the first sign of human

activity I've seen in here.

Oh, yeah.

This could be promising.

Searching on federally protected land on an island along the Washington -Oregon

border, investigator Eric Ulis and his team make what they hope is a

discovery.

Alex found some. Let's check it out. It's really the first sign of human

activity I've seen in here.

Oh, yeah.

This could be promising.

I don't know anything about parachutes and the kinds of shroud lines they would

use.

The problem is the color. The shroud lines were either white or light pink.

And so that would not be part of D .B. Cooper's parachute.

This area is clear.

After ten grueling hours, the team ends the search for the day.

With the restrictions that we have from the refuge, limiting the number of

people that we can actually search with, and seeing how vast this area is and

how dense the growth is that we have to fight through, it just made me realize

how difficult this search is actually going to be.

With only a few days remaining to search what he believes is the landing area,

Eric reviews the mystery of D .B. Cooper.

There are really two parts to the D .B. Cooper mystery.

There's the part that relates to what actually happened.

All these years later, they're still looking for D .B. Cooper. Everything FBI

Special Agent Larry Carr has on Cooper fits in one battered box.

Mostly what Cooper left on the plane.

And there's this other part that relates to who the guy actually was.

D .B. Cooper came from someone. He came from somewhere.

You know, he just didn't miracle himself here. And so someone has information.

During the 45 years that D .B. Cooper's skyjacking case remained open, the FBI

investigated more than 1 ,000 possible suspects.

Some simply matched the crime sketch.

Others confessed on their deathbeds.

Hospitalized here in Florida with kidney disease, Dwayne Webber motioned to his

wife to come close.

He says, I have a secret to tell you.

I said, what?

He says, I'm Dan Cooper.

Even a woman was investigated, pilot Barbara Dayton.

Eric's determined to provide a definitive answer about one person of

man DNA tested in 2003 but never publicly eliminated.

Eric believes this man could be.

DB Cooper.

His name is Sheridan Peterson.

He actually became a suspect within one week of the skyjacking. However,

it wasn't even until 2003 the FBI was actually able to interview him. That FBI

agent was a woman named Mary Jean Fryer.

And what she told me when I first reached out to her has completely

trajectory.

I'm Mary Jean Fryer. I'm a special agent with the FBI from 1985 to 2006.

In 2003, I received a communication from the Seattle office to locate

and interview Sheridan Peterson, who was residing in Santa Rosa, and obtain a

voluntary DNA sample.

In late 2007, the FBI announced that they had a partial DNA profile.

that they got from D .B. Cooper's clip -on tie.

This is the tie we got the DNA from.

This could explain why the FBI had Mary Jean Fryer obtain a DNA sample from

Sheridan Peterson to compare it against the partial DNA profile.

When I met with Sheridan Peterson in 2003, it was special because it was a

historic case.

During my training at the FBI Academy, we had instructors that came in and

talked about it.

Sheridan's alibi since I talked to him in 2003 was always that he was present

Nepal for his children's birth.

He was saying he wasn't in the country, so he couldn't have been DB Cooper. He

did show me his birth certificates of his kids, but his wife could have very

easily given birth without him there.

Sheridan worked in the department that literally wrote the flight manual for

Boeing 727 jet.

He worked as a smokejumper in Montana.

He's an expert skydiver.

He's a former Boeing employee.

Then in 1966, Sheridan found himself in Vietnam working as a refugee advisor

until August of 1970 when he and his wife moved to Nepal.

There is nothing that Sheridan can point to that proves unequivocally that he

was in Nepal at the time that the skyjacking took place, with the

his second wife.

The problem is, according to Sheridan, his second wife died in 1977.

Sheridan Peterson was interviewed for a program related to D .B. Cooper, and

there are some inconsistencies in there.

There are things that he stated that just don't add up.

There are two things that I found that could rule Sheridan out as a suspect.

There's some discrepancy with respect to eye color.

Specifically, Sheridan has blue eyes, and the FBI's very first description of

.B. Cooper had him having brown eyes.

However, very quickly after they put out the initial description for D .B.

Cooper, the FBI updated the description and described D .B. Cooper as possibly

having brown eyes.

The second being we know that D .B. Cooper definitely smoked cigarettes.

In fact, he smoked eight cigarettes during the skyjacking. I have never been

able to prove that Sheridan Peterson was ever a smoker.

Eriks asked Mary Jean to help secure an interview with Sheridan.

Her goal, get him to request his DNA test results.

Now, we can't use DNA to prove that he was D .B. Cooper.

Because the profile that the FBI has is only a partial DNA profile.

But if we can get Sheridan Peterson to actually request to get his DNA

comparison results from the FBI, we may actually be able to prove definitively

that he wasn't D .B. Cooper.

Back on the refuge, Eric Uless and his team of investigators continue their

hunt.

Yesterday, they searched a remote island.

Today, they're searching an extended meadow area.

None of this land has been searched before because the FBI used a different

flight path to calculate its search area in 1971.

If Eric can find any evidence that B .B. Cooper landed here, it might lead to

finally identifying the skyjacker.

All right, so today we're continuing the search for the missing parachutes.

We've got our survivalist with us as well, Dan.

I'm Dan Barrett. I'm a backcountry guidance survival expert.

I'm not an expert on D .B. Cooper himself, but to me it seems like a

situation. I'm looking forward to this search. This is going to be awesome.

There are several copycat jumps that took place after Cooper's jump.

Every single person who did it survived.

Although every copycat jumper survived, none of them got away with the crime.

Most notable, a man named Richard Floyd McCoy, who in 1972 remained free for two

days before being arrested.

It seems that the real challenge comes once he hits the ground, how he gets out

of the area.

Were these tracked in place at that time?

Yeah, they were.

We're on top of the BNSF railway track.

If DB Cooper landed in this area, the railroad tracks provide a perfect

that he could have used to get to Tina Bar, where the money was found.

Do you ever think of looking into what the train schedule was like that night?

If he landed and started walking for 20 minutes, half hour, I'm sure a train

would have gone by. There was a railroad conductor who was driving down the

tracks that night who actually did report to the FBI.

that there was somebody on the tracks.

And it's important to remember that as the conductor is bringing this to the

attention of the FBI, the FBI actually thinks that D .B. Cooper landed six or

seven or eight miles east of the railroad tracks.

Today we're going to be doing half of the meadow because there's just too much

territory to cover in one day. Tomorrow we'll deal with the other half.

That said, the search starts right here.

There's going to be four of us that are going to have to work as the actual line

searchers. These guys are going to be a little bit more independent.

Look along the edge here.

That's due north.

We need to work our way a little further north.

It's more of like a pinpoint, so then it'll open up. It'll make it really

sensitive, so you'll pick up everything. And then you can kind of do your cross.

And if I left it on that, it would be like, whoo! Exactly, yeah. Okay.

Somebody landing in some place like this in the middle of this thicket, that'd

be pretty brutal. I mean, I just don't see how you land in something like this

without getting injured.

On the night D .B. Cooper jumped, moderate wind gusts upwards of 11 miles

hour were reported on the ground with sporadic rainfall.

When Cooper hit land, he would have experienced ground temperatures dropping

into the 30s.

This is swampy right here.

Is it dry over there, Jason?

If you come around the north side, follow the grass.

Can I go forward and back a little bit?

This could be promising.

Found it.

Yeah, if you come around the north side, follow the grass.

Eric Uless and his search team.

are in a protected wildlife refuge in southwest Washington, searching for

evidence that D .B. Cooper landed here.

Halfway through searching a large meadow area, they uncover something that could

be connected with this unsolved mystery.

I think I've pinpointed where it is. Cooper's NB -6 parachute had stainless

steel parts.

So a hit on the metal detector is encouraging news.

Yeah, let's get it.

It's either two separate objects or one slightly stretched out. Like the

backpack, I think, would be... All right, we got something underground.

Wow. So what does that mean as far as the size of the piece?

With any metal detection, it's hard to get size until you start digging it up

because you could have something really small that's really conductive right at

surface, and that's going to give you a really solid response. But if you

have... Something larger that's at depth, it'll give you a smaller

So it's just how close the object is to the sensor.

Although the metal detector registered a strong hit, the size of the object, how

conductive it is, and how close it is to the surface can all influence the

strength of the signal.

It seems really pinpointed at that little soft spot right there.

I mean, that's a robust signal. I mean, clearly there's something down there.

Well, and maybe... Oh, there we are.

Oh. Wire. Wire?

What kind of wire, though?

Parachute pull cord?

So the wire has to stay in the ground, so... Let me try to see if I got cell

service in here and give Mark a really quick call.

Mark Meltzer is an expert skydiver.

He's going to know this parachute inside and out.

So he's the perfect person to reach out to to see if he recognizes this piece of

wire and if he thinks it has anything to do with a parachute.

Hey, Mark. Yeah, it's Eric. So we found what appears to be like a wire buried,

kind of half buried in here.

Is there any sort of wire?

It's a little heavier gauge wire. Anything like that in the parachutes,

the reserve or the main that is consistent with that?

In a pilot chute, there's a spring. It's not stranded. It's solid wire, but it's

springy. What kind of gauge are we talking about relative to, like, the

a hangar, for example?

About the same.

Okay. Is it okay if we take a picture and send the picture to you and just

of get your impression?

Yeah, that's fine.

Okay. Hold on a second here, Mark.

Is it rusted?

I mean, it's not shiny, but it doesn't appear to be rusted to me. But let me

send this over to you. Hopefully it lets me send it out to you here.

And then you can just shoot me a call back as soon as you have a chance to

a look at it.

All right. Thanks, Mark.

There's an old road in here, too, about 100 yards in.

Got a gate on it, even.

Let's see what kind of metal they used on the fencing here.

That's what it looks like, actually, right there. Yeah.

That's what it looks like.

Yeah, as you can see down there, that's how they secure the posts together and

make them stand up. Yeah, they look just like that. They look just like that,

exactly like that.

At least we have an idea of what it is now. Yeah, that appears to be the case.

I was hoping...

that we would have found something a little bit more concrete at this point.

We've only got one more day left to search the refuge.

Then it's on to searching the private property.

While Eric and the team call it a day, retired FBI agent Mary Jean Fryer is in

Santa Rosa.

She's spoken with Sheridan Peterson, Eric's key person of interest. And now

says she has even more reason to believe.

He could be D .B. Cooper.

In September, I received communication from Sheridan Peterson, which was very

strange. I've never had another person I've ever interviewed in my 21 .4 years

ever contact me again.

And he sent me two messages about things that were upsetting him and signed them

both D .B.

I think Sheridan loves the stimulation, the engagement, the thrill of him being

a suspect of D .B. Cooper.

Do you think that he could be D .B. Cooper? Yeah, I do.

To prepare for her meeting, Mary Jean watches an interview Sheridan did for a

2016 documentary.

In it, Sheridan acknowledges he sky jumped at Issaquah Skyport, the place

supplied the parachutes D .B. Cooper requested.

during Flight 305 skyjacking.

Oh, I was the most obvious suspect of anyone.

I had jumped in Issaquah, and I had got my instructor's license there. And that

is where the guy got the parachutes. And I had worked for

Boeing. He's building a very good case against himself.

She said, where were you?

And I said, I was in Nepal.

Oh, Nepal, come on. You can think of a better one than that.

No, I did not say that.

Then they didn't keep track of people going back and forth from the country.

he was there, that's great, but that doesn't prove that he was there.

And I told him, I said, he had four parachutes.

He had one parachute with a red X across it. That was a reserve.

Another reserve was perfectly good.

Which reserve did he take?

The one that was daisy -chained. I remember that one.

This is interesting that he's so detailed.

It took more than taking the right parachute. It also meant that the person

would have to know those stairs come down on the 727.

I wouldn't know what to do. That's what I'm saying. So anybody saying that you

would have been a great D .B. Cooper, not if you didn't know how to get off

airplane. Oh, yeah.

That made him nervous when that conversation, didn't know about the

he's kind of fidgeting with it.

And did you ever hear from Mary Jean again?

She came back for some reason and told me that there's no match.

Well, that's very fortunate for me.

I'm about to go see Sheridan Peterson for the first time since 2003, and I'm

hoping that maybe at this point he's finally ready to accept that he's going

tell us that he's C .B. Cooper. Don't take it to your death.

Set the record straight. Put this to rest so that everyone can appreciate

you did and got away with and not let anyone else take credit for it.

With their permit expired at the refuge, Eric and his team arrive at their final

search zone, a ravine on private property.

It's on Lake River, and Eric believes Cooper could have used it for cover as

made his way to Tina Bar.

where some ransom money was uncovered in 1980.

How's it going, man? Good, good to see you. Good to see you as well. Yep, yep.

How you doing?

Good morning.

So my name's Eric. Barry, I want to thank you very much for getting this

of people together. And why don't you give me an idea of who we've got here,

because clearly we have two different teams. We have, as you see by the

different colors of blue and the red, so I'm with the Southwest Washington

Search and Rescue, and these folks here in the red are with the Clark County

Sheriff's Office.

How many of you have actually heard of D .B. Cooper or haven't heard of D .B.

Cooper or are familiar with the case?

I know you guys are.

I'd be more surprised if somebody hadn't heard about it.

I'm from the East Coast.

I read a little bit about it and thought it was interesting, and being here with

the rest of the team, it's exciting and it's fun.

Hopefully we do come across something and get to learn a little bit more about

the Pacific Northwest legend.

There's a lot of evidence that suggests that D .B. Cooper landed somewhere in

this vicinity.

We did some searching on the refuge side of Lake River.

Now it's time to focus on this side of Lake River. My thought is that Cooper,

you know, if he landed in this area here, would have...

You know, walked his way down to the ravine looking for a path out of the

a path toward the railroad tracks.

Today's search will cover over 12 acres, so they've doubled their search team.

Each member is outfitted with a GPS tracker and monitored from a mobile

center. All right, folks, we ready?

If evidence of D .B. Cooper is here, Eric's confident his team can find it.

Right side good?

Right good. Left side?

Left side good.

Okay, moving.

All right, slow methodical.

Just follow this ravine straight down.

Low and slow, folks. Low and slow.

Make sure you're clear under trees and things like that.

Look up every once in a while.

Yeah, look behind you, too.

You can break as much as you need to.

We got permission.

Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.

Think, where would I hide a parachute?

One other thing to consider as I look at these trees up here, one of the premier

suspects in this case was actually a smokejumper. If he happened to land in

type of environment, he would have known exactly what to do and how to handle

the situation.

If he had caught up in these trees, you know, 60, 70 feet up, we know that he

had a pocket knife on him. He actually used that to cut some of the shroud

lines, so he would have figured out a way to get down. It wouldn't have been

issue for him.

They got stuff.

They're digging in stuff over there, Eric. I'm not sure.

Eric, do you want to come over here?

Yeah. Hold on.

Right holding.

Yeah, just the same area.

What is this?

It's a wine bottle.

Might be a piece of aluminum.

Yeah, I think that's all it is.

Yeah, some cork on it. Yeah, it's definitely like a top of a wine cork. I

the guy was drinking.

had a bourbon on the flight you know this is one of those things i'm just

curious to be took a couple you know yeah i mean he's got many bottles with

you don't know so be the kind of items to save uh for the heck of it but seems

unlikely that there's any significance but uh gives you an idea of how how

sensitive this instrument is yeah all right continue pocket that and we'll

continue yeah that looks like something from a plane

cabinet or something.

Hey, Eric.

Yeah. Do you want to come here for a second?

Yeah. Large metal box that I assume somebody filled it with rocks, but I

want to make sure that you don't have any... You see it anywhere?

This right here.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that's the kind of thing that... I don't know how it ended up here, but

it's certainly not associated with the parachute or anything like that.

Yeah, it's not associated with anything that... Nothing that I'm aware of, yeah.

Certainly much bigger than the attache case would have been. It looks just up

here. It looks to me just like a, you know, large metal box.

Just an old metal box, yeah. Yeah, okay.

Good to check out, though.

Although they've yet to find definitive evidence, the search team has recovered

a few items of interest, including this small gauge wire, which could have been

part of the NB -6 parachute.

They also found nylon rope hanging from a tree and aluminum that could be from

beverages served on Flight 305.

A few, you know, false positives, so to speak. It helps keep a little fresh in

your mind that this is a very real case.

This guy really did exist. He really did jump somewhere in this area.

Those parachutes are somewhere in this vicinity.

It's just a matter of finding them.

Investigator Eric Ulis is on the last day of his search for evidence that

solve the mystery of D .B. Cooper.

Eric believes the FBI got it wrong, and Cooper actually landed eight miles west

of law enforcement's original search zone.

If he can find any sign of Cooper, it would prove he survived the jump and may

be alive today.

I wonder what this area looked like 48 years ago.

I think it looked just like this.

The ravine the team's searching has remained untouched by loggers for 50

Eric believes decades of overgrowth could have helped preserve evidence.

An awful lot of vegetation, and this is exactly the kind of area that we would

expect to find something if he was in this area and happened to stash it.

It wouldn't be fun to land a parachute in and get caught up.

This is actually a pretty long property. Is it a long line? Yeah, we're about a

fifth of the way right now. Oh, wow.

Watch to your right, folks. Don't outwalk your flanks.

Hey, Joe. Yeah. See that big tree on the other side of that ravine right there?

That one right there? Yeah. So once we get to that, we want to spread out to

right. Okay.

There we go.

All right.

All right. There you go. There you go. Yeah, and then catch it if you fall.

Yeah.

There you go. All right.

Well,

$200 ,000 in 1971, what would be the value of that today?

It would be $1 .2 million today.

So it would be a millionaire in today's dollars.

All of that for $1 million.

The FBI has never been able to prove one way or the other whether any of the

ransom was spent. If D .B. Cooper did actually spend this money...

My research indicates that there would be approximately 50 of those bills still

out there in circulation today.

There is a very strong chance that someone out there right now has

one of those bills, but they just don't know it. As you can see here, this is

not a complete $20 bill.

In fact, I estimate that what we're looking at is only about 25 % of the

original bill.

After a difficult grid search, the team finally reaches the ravine.

Okay, guys, you're going to have to be a little slower, a little bit more

brushier here for both sides.

From here, Eric believes Cooper could hear trains running on the BNSF railway

tracks, tracks leading to Tina Bar.

Oh, look at it right here, right in front of you.

There's some white something here.

I don't know.

The material is interesting.

We have a parachute expert, and I'm going to ask him about it. Where'd you

it? Just right under the log here.

It looks like a mix of materials, some of which could be on the parachutes.

ask the expert, and he'll be able to tell us definitively. Something with

tension. This had to be on something with some serious tension.

The team sets up a GPS locator on the spot where the cloth fragment was found.

To provide coordinates, they can plot on a map.

The situation we find ourselves in right now is rare, unique, and a very limited

time. So we just cannot afford to pass up on situations like this. We have to

thoroughly vet this. We have to figure out what we're working with here because

this may be it. This may be the one final golden opportunity to figure out

and for all what happened to D .B. Cooper.

We'll get it checked out. We'll see what the expert says.

So we'll see.

Could this fabric be part of D .B. Cooper's missing parachutes?

It appears to be nylon and canvas, which looked very durable. It resembled a

piece of a parachute. It certainly looked like it could be, but I'm not

now that we've got the piece in hand, we've marked where we found it, we'll

present it to our parachute expert, Mark Meltzer, and he'll be able to tell us

definitively whether or not this is a piece of a parachute or not.

To learn more about the fabric he found, Eric heads to L .A. to meet with Mark

Meltzer. Not only is he very knowledgeable about the Cooper case,

something like 1 ,500, 2 ,000 parachute jumps. It gives us the opportunity to

give him that piece of evidence that we found during the search, see if he

thinks it could possibly come from a parachute, either the main parachute or

reserve parachute or something else. And he actually personally knows Sheridan

Peterson.

I wanted to start out talking to you a little bit about D .B. Cooper's skill

level with respect to parachutes, given everything you know about this case

specifically and skydiving in particular.

What indicates to me that he probably had some experience with military

parachute gear is the type of main parachute rigs that were brought to him

either Navy NB -6 or NB -8.

containers and harnesses. And parachute instructions were brought to the plane,

printed instructions on how to use the gear. He didn't need them. And Tina

Mucklow, the stewardess that spent the most time with Cooper, noted Cooper

taking out a packing cart out of one of the parachute rigs. And to me, that's a

huge clue that Cooper was most likely a skydiver.

Skydivers know what a packing cart is. Nobody else does. It's very well

concealed. So if Cooper actually

found a packing cart, and knew how to put on an NB -8 or NB -6.

That's very telling. We did find something that may or may not be related

parachute. I'd like to see it. I'll take it out.

Get this open here.

Well, it's interesting in that it has sort of a grip stop.

in the fabric material here, the porous fabric material.

It has nylon webbing.

And I see nothing in the materials that's inconsistent with the late 60s,

70s.

Investigator Eric Uless is in Los Angeles, meeting with parachute expert

Meltzer. He hopes Mark can shed light on a piece of possible evidence.

looking for the missing parachute, we did find something that may or may not

related to a parachute.

Well, it's interesting in that it has sort of a ripstop weave in the fabric

material here, the porous fabric material.

It has nylon webbing.

A ripstop weave is commonly found in fabrics made to resist tearing.

Yarns are interwoven at regular intervals in a crosshatch pattern.

I see nothing in the materials that's inconsistent with the late 60s, early

but it's not the right color for military parachute gear. This is a

blue, and it apparently has leather over sewn on the perimeter of the thing, and

there is no leather on the type of gear that... cooper jump but it does have

components in common with parachute gear it has an nylon webbing it has some

sort of ripped stops weave fabric but i can say with 100 certainty that this was

not from db cooper's parachute gear so you've pretty much established that it's

absolutely not related to the the parachute that he jumped with What's the

possibility that there's some sort of relation to the dummy reserve parachute?

That's an interesting question, Eric. I've seen some crude things done to

training reserves. The only thing you want to do is have it be able to be

deployed and packed up really quickly. So they cut panels out. They sometimes

cut some of the suspension lines off. It doesn't have to be done to FAA specs.

And so I can't definitively say this wasn't part of a training reserve. I

it's unlikely, but I certainly can't rule it out.

This is very exciting for me because there's a possibility that this piece

be part of the modification that was made to the dummy reserve parachute.

You personally know Sheridan Peterson. What are your overall impressions of

Peterson as they pertain to the possibility of this guy being the real

D .B. Cooper?

Sheridan Peterson is absolutely a qualified candidate.

There is no aspect of that jump that he wasn't a master of. He knew how to jump

into wilderness and egress.

Do I think he's D .B. Cooper?

I just don't know.

To further his investigation, Eric Uless next visits Claire Peterson, Sheridan

Peterson's first wife.

He hopes she may have some insight into whether Sheridan could have pulled off

the skyjacking. She also has details about Sheridan's second wife, the key

person who could corroborate his alibi.

Sheridan has three children, all grown with Claire.

They were married in the 50s and divorced in 1962, which is right before

Sheridan moved up to Seattle and got the job at Boeing. Actually, Sheridan

started working at Boeing.

in May of 1962.

So they went their separate ways right before that.

So this is going to be fascinating to speak with Claire about her time with

Sheridan. Claire Peterson was interviewed by the FBI in 1974

about Sheridan and about this case. And at that time...

Sheridan was living in Asia, so she knew as of 1974 that Sheridan was a suspect

in the DB Cooper skyjacking.

Sheridan was 45 at the time of the skyjacking, and Eric believes his

is similar to the original sketch of DB Cooper.

Sheridan lived in Seattle prior to the skyjacking and was photographed in a

and tie while posing as a skydiver.

As a Boeing employee, It's also likely that Sheridan knew the inner workings of

the Boeing 727.

And finally, Eric does not believe that Sheridan's alibi can be corroborated for

the time of the skyjacking.

Hi, Claire.

Hi. Hi, Eric Hewlett. You can see Eric. I am Eric. How are you?

Fine, thank you. Good to meet you.

Claire agreed to help Eric obtain a DNA profile from one of their children.

It will be compared to the DNA from D .B. Cooper's tie left aboard Flight 305.

If it's a match, Eric could finally have the answer to the mystery of D .B.

Cooper's identity.

First of all, Claire...

Thank you very much for taking the time to sit down with me and talk a little

bit about your life and your life with Sheridan.

Can you describe just the nature of your relationship during that seven years

with Sheridan?

Well, the relationship was bumpy.

He did have tirades of anger.

I don't think he could control it.

So I knew there was a time when I was going to have to say goodbye to him.

And that's the way it went. Something had to be done because I didn't want to

get hurt.

In terms of being clever and deceptive, when there's something that he wanted or

what have you, did you detect any of that in him, the ability to be

think he was deceptive, yes, in a way that would work for him.

As Eric speaks with Claire Peterson.

Former FBI agent Mary Jean Fryer is en route to visit Sheridan Peterson.

In 2003, she interviewed him as a person of interest and collected a DNA sample.

This is the first time they've met since then.

I was glad you reached out to me on Twitter when you sent me the message

you wish I was still in the FBI because you had things.

that were happening to your computer.

Yeah. Do you remember that in September?

With your book. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. You signed it, DB.

Because I thought I'd amuse you.

Yeah, you did amuse me. Twice you signed DB.

Yeah, I was so surprised to find you.

It's been a long time since we've seen each other. Yes, it has.

That was 20 years ago, huh? A long time ago.

Heisting of aircraft.

And that wasn't me.

There are easier ways to get $200 ,000, I would think.

I'm surprised that you guys are still interested.

They never caught the guy.

The FBI gave up on it and closed it. Oh, did they?

The fact that people think that you could be D .B. Cooper makes sense.

D .B. Cooper was a...

was a gangster. He was a thief.

He stole $200 ,000.

And also, he wanted to blow up a plane. He would have killed a lot of people.

Do you think the bombs were real?

Oh, they weren't real, no.

How do you know that?

Retired FBI investigator Mary Jean Fryer is meeting with Sheridan Peterson, a

man she interviewed in 2003.

as a person of interest in the D .B. Cooper case.

Do you think the bombs were real?

Oh, they weren't real, no.

The FBI found and proved that the bombs weren't real.

They did? I didn't hear that.

Oh, yeah.

Once he had jumped there, he left the stuff behind.

He only left the tie behind.

The only items recovered from the hijacked plane were a long, skinny black

-on tie.

a gold tie clip, and eight cigarette butts.

It's believed Cooper jumped with everything else, including the

notes exchanged between he and the flight attendants.

Why would he do that?

I feel that my personal opinion that he ended up in the Columbia River.

That money all rotted and everything was in the sand along the bank north of the

Dahl.

Actually, I think the money was buried, not lost.

Buried?

Because it was like in a stack in the sand, not like just drifted there.

If he jumped in a tire that he was wearing, he was crazy.

And I'm not crazy.

That took a lot of guts to do what he did.

Oh, yeah, I think so.

You know, your life story is fascinating. Can we start after your

Claire?

Yes. Right after my first wife, I took a sabbatical in the Philippines.

I was just an English teacher.

And I met Vinnie. She lived in a very poor area.

She wasn't well -educated.

But I married Vinnie. We had two children. And then I went to Vietnam.

with the express purpose of writing a documentary on the Vietnam War.

You know, I needed a passport.

Oh, I have those passports.

Can we see them?

Yeah.

This is all your travel everywhere?

Well, I'm not sure it's all of them. You keep everything. I love that.

So here's Kathmandu in August of 71.

Now, after August of 71, then where did you go?

Oh, I went back to Vietnam.

Yeah, I remember that. I went back and I left the family in

Malaysia, in Penang.

Your wife died in 1977?

Well, yeah.

I don't want them to know where I am.

I don't want them to know anything.

Back in Idaho, Eric Uless continues his meetings with Sheridan's first wife,

Claire. He was not money crazy, but he did not want to work, but, you know, he

wanted to have a living. And I knew he wanted to go to Asia, and it looked like

he was doing what he wanted to do.

So you were made aware at some point that he, like, headed to Asia.

I did know that he left and he went overseas.

And was there any contact with him while he was over there?

Probably a couple of letters.

And then, but for years and years, no contact.

One thing that was intriguing that we talked about related to his second

wife. And you're talking about a wife that he led me to believe was alive.

What did he say to you in 2007?

Made you think she was still alive.

I met his daughter, their daughter, and she wanted to see her mother, and she

wanted to see that her mother got over here to the United States from the

Philippines. What year was this? Well, this was 2007.

So you had a conversation with Sheridan about this right here at your house,

where we are right now. I did, yes. What did Sheridan say about that? Well, I

asked Sheridan, why don't you send for her? Why don't you see that she can get

here?

And he laughed. And what he said was, oh, she wants to bring her entire family

over with her.

Clearly, you're under the distinct impression that his second wife, at

of 2007, is alive and well and is living in the Philippines. Is that correct?

According to Sheridan, his second wife had passed away in 1977.

Well, he's lying about something.

If he is possibly Dan Cooper.

she would know.

Well, that's when I started to really think perhaps it was he who

did it.

He had the knowledge and probably, he probably had the courage to do something

like that.

Look, I read Eric's work, and I have to ask you, I want to know how you knew.

The reserve parachute was daisy -chained. I daisy -chained it.

You daisy -chained it? Yeah, I daisy -chained it. We used it there at

for years.

Sheridan Peterson worked at the Issaquah Skydive Center in the early 1960s, the

same place that would later provide parachutes used by Cooper in his escape.

I daily change it so they throw it down and out, see? The reserve, I put the

red X on it.

You hadn't been to Issaquah in five years. How did you know that that's the

reserve you made?

Well, I was sure it was.

Why would they change it?

Who gave it to him?

Lynn Emmerich.

Yeah, that's why Lynn Emmerich figured it was me.

Lynn Emmerich worked at Issaquah Skyport at the same time of the hijacking.

But the others no longer think that I'm an EV2 friend.

And they still have DNA out there.

Yeah, you still have my DNA.

It's still there, yeah. I've never heard that it was cleared.

But I thought you said... No, because I never found out.

But you can find out yourself.

I can send you the form. You just make the request and they'll tell you.

There was a little part of me that was hoping you were going to confess to

D .B. Cooper today.

A little part of you? Yeah.

Oh, she really is this FBI.

Yeah. I just hope that whoever it is takes some credit for it before they

die, if they're still alive, because it's quite... the accomplishment.

And so many people have claimed it or tried to steal it from this person

oh, I was DB Cooper or on their deathbed or family members will come out. But it

would be nice if the person doesn't let it go unsolved.

All right, listen, I have to say goodbye.

Yeah. Hey. Yeah.

All right. You take care of yourself.

Yeah. We'll send you that form.

All right.

All right?

Then we can put this to rest.

I'll go back. Unless you want to confess to me. Huh? Unless you want to confess

to me. Oh, I've got to get on my knees. Yeah.

You take care of yourself.

I'll remember this forever.

Oh, well, good. I will, too.

Twelve years after he began his obsessive search into D .B. Cooper, Eric

is in Arizona, meeting with one of the only researchers ever to be given access

to Cooper evidence by the FBI.

Eric hopes that he will finally learn if the man he believes could be D .B.

Cooper really is.

Tom Kay is a rock star in the D .B. Cooper world, and the reason the guy's a

rock star is because he actually...

got special access to the evidence in 2008 as well as 2011.

Knowing this, it only makes sense to see if Tom K happened to extract some of D

.B. Cooper's DNA while testing the tie.

Eric, glad you made it. How you doing, man? Good to see you. Good to see you.

Come on in. Back in 2008, I was approached by a Cooper group that was

for somebody to analyze the money that was found on Tina Barr and had been

buried there for a long time.

Then we went back to the FBI in 2011, and by that time we were working with

Special Agent Curtis Eng, and he allowed us then to have access to the tie

specifically so we could do a series of tests, and we also vacuumed the tie for

particles. What we found that was really amazing is we found metallic titanium

on the tie.

Titanium is used to manufacture aircraft and is found at plane manufacturing

plants, like the Boeing facility where Sheridan worked from 1962 to 1964.

There were very few applications for commercially...

pure titanium back in 1971.

And I know that some of my research has actually shown that indeed the 727

itself, specifically the engine, has commercially pure titanium.

At that time, titanium wasn't very common. It was used primarily in

and also in the chemical industry. So it goes a long way towards narrowing down

criteria for DB Cooper.

Now we knew how vitally important the particles were on the tie, and we knew

what we were looking for. So we hooked up a vacuum.

to a filter like this. This is a sterile filter inside of a sterile jar.

We had a small nozzle coming out the end here, and then we hooked a vacuum to

the back end of this, and we vacuumed the tie, including the knot of the tie.

The tie knot seems like the most logical place to look, the place that would

have been touched the most by DB Cooper.

This filter that remains unopened to this day has particles from DB Cooper's

in it, but most importantly... It also has Cooper's DNA in it. The thing is,

there's only one shot with the DNA here. I will never see that again. It is

destroyed in the process of getting the DNA. I think that the lab that's been

appropriated for this job is a good one, and it'll do a good job.

The extent of the job that they can do, nobody knows yet, not even the lab.

Tom, I want to thank you for entrusting us with this very valuable D .B. Cooper

evidence.

We're going to take it, send it right off to the lab, see what they can find

out, and I'll get back to you with the results as soon as I have something.

All right, Tom. Let's go get them. All right.

While Eric waits to send the MVAC tie sample to a Florida lab specializing in

older forensics cases, former FBI agent Mary Jean Pryor receives an unexpected

call from Sheridan.

When I met with Sheridan Peterson, I thought it was intriguing and kind of

confusing. They evidently found the guy that made the heist.

No, they never caught the guy.

They didn't? The FBI gave up on it and closed it.

Oh, did they?

During the interview, I thought it wasn't him.

And then when he pulled out the passports, I said, oh, I think it might

So here's Kathmandu in August of 71.

Now, you didn't have these when I interviewed you way back when.

There were two faded stamps for Nepal, for Kathmandu. One ended late in 1971,

before the hijacking, and then the other one started in April of 1972.

By the time the interview was over, I walked out thinking, I don't know

I'm totally confused.

Probably about a month after I was up in Santa Rosa, I called Sheridan and I

asked him, I thought you were going to do the paperwork and follow through with

the DNA filing.

And he said, oh, you told me that I wasn't D .B. Cooper, and I don't think

going to do it.

And then that was it. The conversation ended.

And I hung up thinking, oh, my God, now that makes me really suspicious.

He just wants to keep it until he dies, which is probably how it's going to play

out.

Five weeks later, Eric arrives back in California.

He set up a video conference meeting with a senior analyst at the lab

DB Cooper's DNA to one of Sheridan's daughters.

If his theory's right, he may finally learn the true identity of DB Cooper.

When I first embarked upon this investigation, I had no idea where it

to take me. I had no idea who I was going to encounter, let alone that I'd

a suspect.

who couldn't be ruled out by the known facts.

According to Sheridan, his second wife had passed away in 1977.

Well, he's lying about something.

I've often said that I believe with 98 % certainty that Sheridan

Peterson could be D .B. Cooper.

But there's always been that missing 2%, because truthfully, I've never been

able to find a smoking gun.

There's an awful lot riding on what the lab comes back with.

Eric Uless readies himself for DNA results that could break the case wide

He'll be speaking to an analyst at the lab tasked with testing a sample taken

directly from the tie Cooper left behind on the plane.

Should DNA be found within the sample, the results could reopen a near 50 -year

-old case and confirm Eric's suspicions about a person of interest.

How are you?

I'm good. How are you? I'm doing well.

Well, my name is Samantha Wanzack, and I currently work at DNA Labs

International. We're a private laboratory out of Deerfield Beach in

we have clients in over 40 states, so it's very easy to go back to any cold

and find more work to be done. So for this case, I was actually the reporting

analyst for it. And how did you tackle the material that I sent to you to try

ascertain whether or not there's any...

DNA or not. Due to the size of the filter, you actually cut it up in teeny

chunks and then set the whole filter for extraction.

That's the first stage of the DNA testing process.

We then try to determine how much DNA of any is present in the sample. If we

have enough DNA, we'll then send it forward for application.

When you have cases that are old, typically you'll see a sample will be

degraded. That DNA is just going to break apart over time and you're just

going to have as much intact DNA.

But I was very surprised with the results.

So there was DNA in the filter.

We did end up with a profile from one male individual.

Is there some way to quantify like the strength?

I mean, is it one of these things where one out of a billion people would match

this particular profile? Like how strong is it? What can it tell us? Typically,

once you have over 20 locations.

You would have to see hundreds, thousands, millions of planet Earths

same current population to expect to see that profile one time.

So once you have over the 20 locations, it usually becomes very rare.

So what you're telling me is that we are the very first people outside of the

FBI to actually have D .B. Cooper's DNA profile.

I'm anxious to find out what that means. What can it tell us?

in comparison to DNA profile from one of Sheridan Peterson's daughters.

Does it match?

She is not the biological daughter of the male donor that we found.

Wow.

That's stunning.

I mean, that's really remarkable given everything I know about this guy.

It's a game changer, obviously.

The one thing that's very encouraging to me, though, is that we have a very

solid DNA profile from the tie.

Getting a DNA profile is so important because it can provide assurance to me

others that this case is actually solvable. I do very much appreciate all

effort that you folks put into this.

And I'm just very grateful that we've got a solid DNA profile, and I'm

that we have some resolution with respect to Sheridan Peterson. So, again,

you very much for your efforts and your time.

Please feel free to contact me with any additional questions that you have. We

will do that.

Now armed with new information from the lab, Eric calls Agent Mary Jean Fryer to

share the results.

Right now.

I want to give Mary Jean a call, and I want to let her know what I have

Because Mary Jean has really helped move my investigation forward, and I'm sure

she's going to want to know what I've learned about the DNA.

Hey, Mary Jean, how you doing? It's Eric Uless calling.

I've got a DNA update. Finally have some results from the lab in Florida.

They did come up with a...

full DNA profile, and it's from a male.

I'm getting really excited. My stomach's like in knots because I'm hoping that

it's him.

They proved 100 % that the DNA does not match.

Oh, damn!

Sheridan Peterson is not D .B. Cooper.

Last conversation I had with Sheridan, he point blank refused to go forward

the DNA.

get the DNA results.

I am absolutely convinced that the DNA that we have is DB Cooper's DNA.

So if anybody matches this DNA profile, all 20 points, that's your guy. There's

absolutely no doubt about it.

Can we run it in databases and find him, or is this a lost cause at this point?

They actually can utilize it to run through the CODIS system, but of course

involves law enforcement getting involved and the courts getting

Eric, I think what you've done is...

I

honestly

believe we will eventually figure out who this guy was. Thank you very

much. Take care.

After narrowing down Cooper's possible landing site and eliminating an FBI

person of interest,

Eric's even more determined to continue his mission.

I feel very empowered at the moment. I feel more motivated than ever because

having this DNA profile provides an outstanding blueprint as I continue to

pursue this case. I am now actually armed with precisely what I need

to determine who D .B. Cooper was and, more importantly, to prove it.

Time in a D .B. Cooper case has served as a double -edged sword.

In one sense, you have first -hand witnesses that pass on and memories

But in another sense, we have advances in science and technology.

And I think when all is said and done, time is going to be our friend because I

firmly believe that this DNA profile is ultimately what's going to break this

case wide open.

and is what is going to solve this case.

The identity of D .B. Cooper has haunted investigators for nearly five decades.

Who is this mysterious hijacker? And will we ever finally discover his true

identity? I'm Lawrence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching History's Greatest Mysteries.