OKLAHOMA CITY — When an FBI agent pleaded several years ago for help finding notorious skyjacker D.B. Cooper, he wondered, offhandedly, whether someone’s “odd uncle” might be their guy.
Oklahoma City resident Marla Cooper thinks her late uncle Lynn Doyle Cooper was the man who hijacked a plane in 1971 and parachuted with $200,000 ransom into a rainy night over the Pacific Northwest.
The FBI has for years tried to find out whether D.B. Cooper survived the jump. The agency said it is following up on a “credible” new lead. FBI agent Fred Gutt declined Wednesday, however, to say whether Marla Cooper was connected to that lead.
“It is an unsolved crime, and we are obligated to address that if new, credible information comes to us,” he said, adding that the case is a low priority. The FBI is focused on criminal activity that threatens communities today, he said.
Marla Cooper told ABC News, which first reported her comments in an interview broadcast Wednesday, that she made the connection by piecing together her memories and her parents’ comments over the years. Cooper, however, did not say why she chose to speak out now.
Cooper claimed on “Good Morning America” that she heard her uncle, L.D. Cooper, and another uncle planning something “very mischievous” over the holidays in 1971. She said her uncles said they were going turkey hunting around Thanksgiving.
On Nov. 24, 1971, a man who gave his name as Dan Cooper claimed shortly after takeoff in Portland, Ore., that he had a bomb, leading the flight crew of the Northwest Orient plane to land in Seattle. Passengers were exchanged for parachutes and ransom money.
The plane then took off with the suspect and flight crew aboard. The hijacker parachuted from the plane after dark as it flew south, apparently over a rugged, wooded region not far from the home of Marla Cooper’s grandmother in Sisters, Ore.
Marla Cooper said her uncle L.D. Cooper came home claiming he had been in a car accident.
“My uncle L.D. was wearing a white T-shirt, and he was bloody and bruised and a mess, and I was horrified. I began to cry. My other uncle, who was with L.D., said, ‘Marla, just shut up and go get your dad,’ ” she said.
Marla Cooper said she heard her uncle say at the time, ” ‘We did it, our money problems are over, we hijacked an airplane.’ “
She said her father, just before he died in 1995, mentioned his brother and said, “Don’t you remember he hijacked that airplane?” In 2009, she said, her mother made a similar comment that raised her suspicions again.
Cooper said she contacted the FBI “as soon as I was sure that what I was remembering were real memories.”
