Lars Larson answers the DB Cooper case

By Lars Larson,
NW and national radio host

Since DB Cooper’s back in the news why don’t I just tell you who he really was.

Richard McCoy from Provo, Utah. That’s your guy.

Former army paratrooper who was taking skydiving lessons in 1971.

Thanksgiving week that year, McCoy drove to Vegas, took a plane to Portland, bought a ticket for cash using the name Dan Cooper, not DB. That was an Associated Press mistake.

McCoy demanded parachutes and 200 grand in Seattle, bailed out and lived.

How do I know it was Richard McCoy?

The FBI has a gas station receipt that put McCoy on the Las Vegas strip the day after the Cooper skyjack when he claimed he was home with family.

He likely cleaned up the money at the tables in Vegas.

The FBI blew the Cooper skyjack case.

Because he lost most of the money, six months later, McCoy did it again.

Skyjacked a plane, demanded and got half a million, bailed out and escaped.

A cop friend turned him in, he was put on trial and convicted.

A federal court sent McCoy to prison for 45 years but he escaped and started robbing banks. He died in a shootout with FBI agents in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Richard McCoy…the Real McCoy…did both skyjackings and he’s been dead and in the ground since November 10, 1974.

But the legend of DB Cooper lives on.