Photo of Sheridan Peterson (Left) and sketch of D.B. Cooper (Right)

A leading suspect in the D.B. Cooper skyjacking died January 8, at the age of 94. Sheridan Peterson was the primary suspect in this case. Peterson was a smokejumper (a firefighter who parachutes into wildfire zones), loved to go skydiving, and reportedly experimented with bat wings.

November 24, 1971, a man, going by the name Dan “DB” Cooper, skyjacked a plane from Portland to Seattle holding 36 passengers hostage. Cooper handed a note to a flight attendant stating that he had a bomb in his briefcase and that he wanted $200,000 in unmarked $20 bills along with four parachutes. When the flight landed, Cooper exchanged the 36 passengers for the money and parachutes. He kept several of the flight attendants on the plane and demanded that they take off and they headed in the direction of Mexico City. At some point between Seattle and Reno, Cooper parachuted out of the airplane.

In 1980, $6,000 of the ransom money was found near the Columbia River near Vancouver. Authorities believed that Cooper’s landing sight was near the area and he had buried the money in the sand; over time, the money had been washed down the river.

The case of DB Cooper is the only unsolved skyjacking in United States history. The FBI spent decades attempting to identify the criminal. Over 800 suspects were identified but most of them were cleared. Several people in Peterson’s life believe that he was DB Cooper; his ex-wife has said that that does sound like something he would do. Peterson himself even told people that he was Cooper saying: “the FBI had good reason to suspect me”.

Still, to this day, no one has been charged with the skyjacking.