Thomas J and Dawna Colbert believe their team of sleuths have deciphered six letters written by notorious hijacker DB Cooper (seen in a police mock-up) to reveal his true identity as ex-military pilot Robert Rackstraw
A team of cold case sleuths who believe they know the real identity of the mysterious plane hijacker DB Cooper have revealed how they broke a series of codes hidden in six letters to come up with the answer.
Thomas J and Dawna Colbert, from Los Angeles, successfully sued the FBI in 2016 to have the documents released under public information laws, and since then have poured over them to uncover their secrets.
Helped by the code breaking expertise of a Vietnam veteran, they announced in February all the evidence pointed to ex-military pilot Robert Rackstraw. But only now have they revealed the methods used to come to that conclusion.
DB Cooper (an FBI codename for the hijacker) became one of the 20th century’s most compelling masterminds after he took over a Boeing 727 at Seattle-Tacoma airport in 1971 and held its crew and passengers hostage with a bomb.
Once his demand of $200,000 cash – the equivalent of $1.2 million today – was reached and transferred onto the plane, he had the crew take off before he parachuted over the dense Pacific Northwest woods and disappeared.
Thomas Colbert, a TV researcher and writer, took up the hunt to find Cooper’s true identity in 2011 by assembling a team headed by ex-FBI agents. Several difficult years chasing leads followed until the six letters came into the team’s possession in 2016.
The Colberts, from Los Angeles, (pictured in February this year) successfully sued the FBI in 2016 to have the documents released under public information laws
The Colberts asked ex-Army code-breaker Rick Sherwood, 70, to examine this letter, in which someone signing themselves off a DB Cooper mocks the police
Sherwood said he had made coded references in the letter to three units Rackstraw had served with during the conflict. He broke all the codes using a number counting system, whereby each letter in the alphabet corresponded to a number
One, in particular, provided a breakthrough when it was passed into the hands of Rick Sherwood, 70, a veteran of the Vietnam War who was trained in Morse code and other similar techniques.
It was a page-long missive sent to four newspapers in which someone identifying themselves as Cooper boasted at being able to evade the law. Long dismissed as a fake, Sherwood believed it was genuine and contained codes that identified Rackstraw as the author.
Rackstraw was investigated and cleared by the FBI. When Thomas Colbert named him as Cooper in 2016, the ex-pilot’s lawyer called the claim ‘the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard’. Rackstraw is alive today and lives in California.
But Sherwood thinks differently.
Examining the first letter, he cracked its codes using a simple number counting method, whereby each letter in the alphabet corresponded to a number.
Rackstraw (pictured, after being arrested for fraud and murder). He was cleared of the charges
Sherwood said he had made coded references in the letter to three units Rackstraw had served with during the conflict. As only Rackstraw had been with those three units, he must have been the author, Sherwood believes.
Another letter, sent to the Reno Gazette, on Saturday, November 27, 1971, merely said ‘Attention! Thanks for the Hospitality. Was in a rut. D.B. Cooper’.
From these words, Sherwood uncovered the initials SWS, which he said meant Special Warfare School, where Rackstraw had learnt his coding.
Another letter contained a message to Rackstraw’s accomplice saying he was ‘going down to Sacramento’, the code-breaker believes, while a further identified a parachute school he attended in 1967.
A final one, sent in 1972, actually provided Rackstraw’s full name and rank, according to Sherwood, and informed the reader about: ‘I want out of the system and saw a way by hijacking one jet plane’.
The code-breaking methods and conclusions reached by the Sherwood and his co-workers will inevitably prove controversial and face challenges.
But Thomas Colbert thinks they have managed to identify the right man, telling DailyMail.com that Sherwood’s work proved the six letters had genuinely been sent by the hijacker, and also identified him as Rackstraw.
Rackstraw (right), who lives in California, has repeatedly denied the claims. The ex-pilot’s lawyer called the claim ‘the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard’
Another letter, (top) sent to the Reno Gazette, on Saturday, November 27, 1971, merely said ‘Attention! Thanks for the Hospitality. Was in a rut. D.B. Cooper’. From these words, Sherwood uncovered the initials SWS, which he said meant Special Warfare School, where Rackstraw had learnt his coding. The other three letters (marked #2, #3 and #4, are explained here by Sherwood)
Colbert believes the FBI did not name Rackstraw as the hijacker because he worked for the CIA, citing several alleged references to the agency in the letters, and information from a ‘deep source’, as evidence.
He also says his team have ‘more than 100 pieces of evidence, including DNA trails’ that point to Rackstraw.
He also said two of the letters were dropped in mailboxes just 20 minutes away from the remote California hideaway he lived in for the first year after the jump – at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, 500 miles from the Portland crime scene.
Colbert said he had extensively investigated Rackstraw’s personal background as well.
Rackstraw had an illustrious military career as a pilot in the 1st Cavalry Division – one of the first major American air assault divisions.
A final one, sent in 1972, actually provided Rackstraw’s full name and rank, according to Sherwood, and informed the reader about: ‘I want out of the system and saw a way by hijacking one jet plane’
It was there that Rackstraw learned to parachute and was given two Distinguished Flying Crosses for his performance while in the air – but he was kicked out of the army after they discovered he had lied about dropping out of high school and attending two colleges.
Colbert believes the military gave him all the skills he needed to pull off the extraordinary heist.
In 1977, six years after the hijacking, Rackstraw was suspected of kiting checks for $75,000, but fled before arrest and went to Iran to teach the Shah’s men how to fly helicopters.
Meanwhile, back at home, police raided his storage units and found 14 rifles and 150lbs of dynamite.
He lost his Iran chopper job and he was brought back the USA, where he was arrested for fraud and the murder of his stepfather. Philip Rackstraw was found in the grounds of his parents’ home with two bullets in his head.
Cooper, who is one of the 20th century’s most compelling masterminds, hijacked a Boeing 727 at Seattle-Tacoma airport in 1971 and held its crew and passengers hostage with a bomb
Rackstraw was acquitted of murder and made bail on the fraud charge. Then he faked his death, pretending to crash his plane in the ocean at Monterey Bay, California.
He was found and taken in by the FBI, who believed he might be Cooper, but a lack of evidence and the sudden discovery of some of the hijack money in Washington – planted, Colbert says, by an accomplice – led to his release.
Rackstraw made a plea deal and after serving a year in prison for his Stockton convictions, he moved to Riverside, California.
There he taught a law course in mediation before retiring to his yacht, ‘Poverty sucks’.