Would You Let This Man Date Your Sister?

There remains a lot of interesting and contradictory evidence surrounding the man we know as D.B. Cooper. He was quite polite when asking the Portland ticket agent if there was a seat available on Flight 305. He ordered a Bourbon and 7UP onboard and apologized for not having any small change. When he passed stewardess Florence “Flo” Schaffner the ransom envelope, she was so uninterested and obviously unthreatened that she didn’t even read it right away. He thoughtfully ordered meals for the employee hostages and offered Benzadrine, a popular stimulant, to the weary crew. He and another stew, Tina Mucklow, shared a cigarette. D.B. joked about the heaviness of the money bag. Alice

Hancock, the first class attendant, recently said that Cooper pulled out two packets of cash ($4000) and tried to hand it to her. (No tipping allowed back then!) Cooper was quite obliging when two of the female crew asked to leave the plane as they had holiday plans. Flo went so far as to ask if she could return to the jet to retrieve her forgotten purse – what? After the crew was safe, Tina famously told reporters that the highjacker was “rather nice.” He never explicitly threatened or physically hurt any individual directly despite the wired briefcase. The passengers were blissfully unaware a crime was in progress.

And yet, his neatly written note -“MISS - I have a bomb here and I would like you to sit by me”- is not exactly “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Dan Cooper was highjacking a passenger jet and claimed to have a bomb in his briefcase which he could and would detonate. He warned the crew not to “try anything funny” and ominously stated “I won’t be taken alive.” He seemed to alternate between friendly (they were going to a “pleasant place”) and quite threatening (“I’ll show them!”). He made clear the gadget and the wire could blow up the plane.

So, what do the amateur psychologists among us have to say? I’ll start. Do you think….

1) Cooper was a formerly honest and agreeable regular Joe, who, for whatever reason, was so desperate for cash because of sad circumstances in his life that he had no choice but to, well, you know.

2) Cooper was a bad guy who finally cooked up “the perfect crime.” The friendly demeanor hid his true, evil personality. He probably had a loaded gun and would’ve used it.

3) Cooper was a low level grifter who didn’t mean any harm, but this wasn’t his first rodeo (just his first skyjacking.)

4) Cooper was an adrenaline junkie and just wanted to prove he could do it – the money was

merely an added bonus. He probably jumped from airplanes in the military, as a smokejumper or with Air America, and missed the thrill.

5) Cooper was paid to do this as an operative for some unnamed government agency as part of a conspiracy to improve airline safety or obtain funds for future nefarious deeds. His entire personality was a sham, a pretense, a fake, a put on, a deception, a…sorry.

Have you figured him out yet? If I had to guess, I’m going with number 1 or number 3. I think it absolutely was about the money. The conspiracy plot is too Hollywood for me. Somehow, I don’t think he did intend to hurt anyone. He was a loser of sorts with a skill set he put to good use. For sure he had knowledge of parachutes and planes. He probably was kinda nice when he wasn’t committing a federal crime of air piracy, punishable by death circa 1971….

Let me know your personal D.B. Cooper profile!

-Pat