January 1, FBI Scraps DB Cooper Hunt After Decades

Wyatt’s Take

• FBI probed Maine pilot Raymond Russell as hijacker back in 1972.
• Agents interviewed vet at home, he denied it flat out.
• Handwritten note ended it: “ELIMINATE RUSSELL.”

The FBI dumped old files on the 1971 plane hijacking where D.B. Cooper grabbed $200,000 and jumped out over the Pacific Northwest.

Never caught, it stays America’s top unsolved caper.

Russell, born 1923 in Norway, Maine, flew with Flying Tigers, lived West Coast before heading home in 1971.

Some locals fingered him, others said no way.

ELIMINATE RUSSELL

Ryan Burns, DB Cooper buff, reviewed all files.

It’s kind of the coolest crime ever. This guy is wearing sunglasses, smoking cigarettes, drinking bourbon in the back of a plane, Burns said. And he got away with it.

Burns rules out Russell by looks mismatch, figures two dozen got deep checks like him.

DNA gone now, case doomed says expert.

I don’t think anybody in the world wants it solved more than I do, given all the effort I put into it, Burns added.

Russell died 1989, skied high school, got state grant for invention.

Fifty years on, books and flicks chase the ghost who beat the system.

Share this wild tale with your crew over coffee—did Cooper make it or crash hard?

FBI DB Cooper Files Released

Wyatt Matters

This old hijack yarn shows feds drop the ball on crooks who hit big, while everyday workers grind for honest paychecks in flyover towns.