Richard McCoy Jr. - 604
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So you're still

How are you doing tonight, Aaron? I'm doing all right, man. How are you? I'm doing okay. Do we have any announcements? Go to our website at genypod.com. You'll not only find our new merch store, but you'll also find other goodies like our blog that our good dear friend from UK, Lindsay, works on tirelessly. She puts out a new blog post every week. I remember a long time ago, Aaron, we covered the DB Cooper case.

And I don't think we need to give a summary on that. You know, it's just a guy that hijacked a plane, got some money and jumped out the back. And now there's this huge debate on whether or not he survived and got away with it. We even had a skydiver come on the show and talk about the logistics of this. And he didn't think that this man would have survived the jump, but it's possible. I think if there's a will, there's a way. And

And sometimes, not to say that I don't believe experts, because I do believe them, but I've come across many times in my life where somebody will say, that's not going to work. And they know way more than me about whatever topic. And I do it anyways, because I have ADHD and I don't doubt myself. And I make it work. For instance, I remember somebody telling me, there's no way you'll be able to pack all that luggage and bags into your car.

And I said, well, I was in the army. I know how to do this. And I guarantee you, I can make this fit.

Oh, I thought you were a Tetris champion. Well, exactly. I'm from the generation that grew up on Tetris, so I made it work. And that's not to say that there isn't an argument or a case that there's no way he could not have survived, but there was elements of the D.B. Cooper case that made me believe he did. And from there, we have another case, which we're going to talk about tonight, that was

If I had believed he hadn't survived, this case would make me believe maybe he did. So with that, what are we talking about tonight? Tonight we're talking about the April 7th, 1972 hijacking of a plane by an armed man. He hijacked a passenger plane and escaped with $500,000.

Is this D.B. Cooper, or is this a copycat? I guess is the argument if you want to make one out of the case. So, this is the story of Richard McCoy Jr.

Richard Floyd McCoy Jr. was born December 7, 1942, in Kinston, North Carolina. He had served two tours in Vietnam, one with the Army Special Forces in 1964 and another as a helicopter pilot in 1967. He served two years in Germany after Vietnam. Now, he did well for himself. He won the Army Accommodation Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross. He went on to become a Utah Air National Guardsman.

With the 115th Engineer National Guard Unit in Murray, Utah, he was also a junior police science major at BYU.

As much as his career in past sounds impressive, it's said that he had financial problems. He was married with two children. And just because you are ex-military, just because you have all of these achievements doesn't mean you're good with money, doesn't mean that life has dealt you a great deck. So if you're struggling financially, sometimes you might make bad decisions in life.

So what we know about this man was he was a quiet family man, and people said he was a devout member of his church. A classmate at BYU described Richard McCoy as an organized crime freak who wanted to make his dent on the world by busting crime syndicates. So at least one person who interacted with him, got to know him, said, this guy wants to fight crime. I get that, but sometimes there's a fine line between being a criminal and a vigilante.

Now, months before McCoy was arrested, the D.B. Cooper case took over the headlines.

On the afternoon of November 24th, 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper approached the Northwest Orient Airlines counter in Portland, Oregon. He used cash to buy a one-way ticket on flight 305 to Seattle. Now, the people saw him. They described him as a quiet man in his mid-40s wearing a business suit with a black tie and white shirt. And while he was waiting for takeoff, he ordered a bourbon and soda.

Shortly after 3 p.m., he gave a flight attendant a note indicating he had a bomb in his briefcase and wanted her to sit with him. She obeyed, and then Cooper opened his briefcase and showed her wires and red sticks and demanded she write down what he told her. Essentially, something that looked like dynamite with wires attached to it.

She left with a note addressed to the captain demanding four parachutes and $200,000 in $20 bills. So this is a ransom. This is a ultimatum saying, I'm going to blow up the plane unless you give me these things. Then why wouldn't you listen, right? Because if the plane blows up, you go with it.

So when the flight landed in Seattle, Cooper exchanged 36 passengers for the money and parachutes. Getting the money and the parachutes obviously took a few hours. The flight circled in the air during the wait, Cooper kept four crew members hostage, and

And the plane took off again towards Mexico City. Yeah, then Cooper asked that the jet fly lower than 10,000 feet at a speed of under 200 knots. Obviously, he wants to stay off the radar. And he also wants to do this for another reason, which will become apparent if you don't already know. While the crew was in the cockpit, Cooper lowered the stairs at the back of the plane and jumped out.

After 8 p.m. between Seattle and Reno, D.B. Cooper jumped out of the back of the plane with a parachute and the ransom money. See, it's really interesting. So he asked for these parachutes, and he only ends up taking half of them. He takes two of the four. And one of these parachutes is said to have been a dummy chute. So people have a big argument over if he was skydiver, he would have known the difference.

But I always thought if you're in the middle of hijacking an airplane and asking for money, this is a high tension situation. You might not notice that this parachute is fake or a dummy chute. So there's a whole argument online about that. But obviously, he's planning on jumping off this plane. Now, law enforcement is going to follow this plane's flight path and then determine where exactly he jumped off and then try to triangulate where he is and find him.

Now, some theorize that Cooper actually left the plane when it was seven miles further west than when they suspect. And this isn't today's time. So yes, they have him on radar. Yes, the flight crew is going to say, well, we felt the plane kind of bounce when he jumped off the back at this point. But it's hard to really isolate down when he jumped off this plane and where he would have landed on the ground immediately.

in the middle of a very thick wooded area. So this is quite a task for law enforcement. And initially they had over 800 suspects they were looking at. But in 1980, a young boy found a rotting package full of $20 bills. It totaled $5,800 and that matched the ransom money serial numbers that they were looking for.

The money was found on the shore of the Columbia River. This was near Portland, several miles from the suspected jump zone of Ariel Washington near the Oregon border.

No bills from Cooper's ransom have ever been discovered in circulation because they look for those things, don't they, Justin? Oh, yeah. So people would theorize that if he had survived, he maybe took the money to Canada or Mexico or something and exchanged it out and then came back and exchanged it back. Maybe I just explained how to launder money to everybody. I don't know. But...

But the FBI investigates this for decades. And there was a man, Richard McCoy, who was on their suspect list. But he was ruled out because he didn't match the nearly identical description of Cooper given by two flight attendants.

There were additional unspecified reasons why he was ruled out as a suspect, but he was on that initial list. Well, it's still interesting, even if he attempted to launder the money, why not a single bill is ever turned up in circulation. I would think that the bills would come back eventually, would they not?

Who knows? And this is the idea, is if all the bills stayed in the forest, and this is why this kid found some of them, well, they would have never been put into circulation. But one thing that we could actually say, and one thing I don't think I considered too much at the time we recorded the original episode, is what if he lost all the money, but he survived? And hence, why he would need to do it again.

Exactly. Why would you do it again when you barely got away with it the first time or if it went poorly the first time? Well, out of necessity, you know, if you have financial issues and you feel you're capable, maybe the weather just wasn't right that day for you and you do it again.

But either way, the FBI's description of Mr. D.B. Cooper was a white man in his mid-40s with an olive complexion, brown eyes, black hair, in a conventional cut, parted on the left, 6'1", and 170 to 175 pounds. But if you want to know more, definitely listen to our original episode.

Meanwhile, let's move on to April of 1972. This is just months after the D.B. Cooper situation, another hijacking. So within months, and this is the question, is this a copycat or is this the same guy?

Denver, Colorado, United Flight 855 was en route to Newark, New Jersey to Los Angeles with 85 passengers and six crew. The plane stopped in Denver and resumed the flight. About 20 minutes after takeoff, 5.18 p.m., a male passenger was observed in his seat with a hand grenade because this is very much pre-9-11 and they didn't have x-ray scanners and all that stuff.

And investigators later determined the hijacker was listed on the passenger roster as T. Johnson. So obviously this is upsetting people. And a stewardess was notified and advised the captain of a man who was on the flight with a hand grenade.

So obviously, T.

T. Johnson, or at least that's the name he was going by, has complete control of the situation of the plane.

So according to the New York Times, flight stewardess Diane Serdom said that the hijacker showed a hand grenade and handed her an envelope while the plane was over Utah near Grand Junction, Colorado. This envelope contained a bullet, a hand grenade pin, and a flight plan to San Francisco. The note said, grenade pin pulled, pistol. I guess that's making it clear he's holding all the cards. And if you don't know...

A grenade functions, you pull a pin out and then it has a handle. And as long as you are squeezing the grenade, that grenade will not go off. So he's created what's called a dead man's trigger. If you were to kill him or knock him down and he were to drop that grenade, then the spoon or the handle would flip off and that grenade would go off, thus depressurizing that cabin of that airplane and probably killing everybody in it.

According to the people at the time, most of the passengers on this plane were not even aware of what was going on. The captain discussed the issue with some of the crew and decided to land at Grand Junction, Colorado to radio law enforcement on the ground. The captain then announced over the PA system that the aircraft was experiencing a minor mechanical problem and would land shortly. I know these pilots do their best to try to calm everyone down, to keep them feeling reassured, but...

If you hear that there's a minor mechanical problem, what's your first thought? There's a major mechanical problem. Exactly. It doesn't matter how well they say it, you still go right to that. Go, nope, there's a real problem happening here for us to actually stop our flight path. And this is why I'm not a pilot, Aaron, because if I was the captain, I would say the man seated in 2A is...

is hijacking the plane, everyone attack him at once. With the dead man trigger? Okay. Yeah. I don't care. Get rid of this guy. The dead man's trigger. I couldn't do that. Now, I do think it would be kind of funny if he just had a pistol or something, but yeah, not with that situation. They'd all be dead. Unless you believe he wasn't holding a real grenade. I don't believe he was holding a real grenade. The chances or opportunities of someone to get a hold of an actual real live grenade are one in a billion. So,

It's probably a fake grenade. So therefore, the gun's probably real, but you can't take us all. Casual approach, huh?

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That's ShipStation.com, code Gen Y. So the instructions required the captain to land at the San Francisco International Airport and park at runway 19 left. From there, the captain was to follow certain procedures, such as the number of persons allowed near the plane at one time, and what distance all vehicles, besides those containing fuel, needed to be from the aircraft. The hijacker demanded $500,000 in small bills, six hours of fuel, four parachutes,

and the return of all written or typed directions given during the flight.

So this is where they have to make a decision. Are they going to listen to the hijacker or are they going to just try to land somewhere? But they end up deciding to comply, right? So they have to explain this because the passengers are like, wait, there's a problem and we're going to land. Oh, wait, we're not landing there. So a flight crew member then had to tell the passengers that Grand Junction could not handle the necessary repairs and they were going to divert.

to San Francisco. That's a big deal, especially for passengers who don't know what's going on, but they are going to comply. And they're trying to protect the passengers, unlike me and my reckless behavior where I would have put everyone's lives in danger. So they land in San Francisco, two bags loaded with cash and four parachutes were delivered to the plane. The hijacker's luggage was brought on board.

The fuel trucks filled the plane up, and about three hours later, after all the written directions were completed, the gunman released all of the passengers and one stewardess. Five crew members remained on board at this time. So if the passengers thought there was a mechanical problem before this, now they know the reality of the situation. Now, this hijacker had told LVC,

everyone, do not keep any notes that I give you. You need to return them. But the stewardess, Diane, she kept one note given to her in San Francisco that said, everybody off now except stewardesses, they stay put. Get the hell off the GD. Be quick about it. Use this runway. And if anyone's wondering, he's basically asking for money from United Airlines because he's got their plane, he's got their passengers. They can't afford for anything to happen to them

This hijacker ordered the rest of the crew into the cockpit and sat in the back of the plane. Yes, sounds very familiar. Sounds exactly like the same playbook of the D.B. Cooper hijacking situation. Yes, I agree. It sounds very similar.

So this hijacker summoned a stewardess and gave her another set of flight instructions. He instructed that the pilot needed to head east, climb to 16,000 feet, and fly at 200 miles per hour on a course that would pass over several specific communities in Utah in a zigzag pattern. Now the messages from this hijacker to the pilot were now handwritten and sent with increasing frequency.

He ordered that the cabin be depressurized and warned that if any pursuit planes were spotted, he would detonate a hidden explosive device after he jumped. So he's saying he put something on the plane that he can detonate from afar. He opened his luggage and covered the peephole completely.

between the cockpit and the cabin, so they couldn't see what he was doing. However, the second officer observed what he was doing through a small space under the cockpit door, and he saw the hijacker put on a jumpsuit, helmet, and a parachute. The gunman shut off the cabin lights to get a better view of the ground, and he demanded to be kept abreast of wind, ground, and air speeds, altimeter settings, and sky conditions.

After the plane passed over the last Utah community on the list, the hijacker stopped sending notes. And after 11 p.m., the stewardess went into the cabin and saw that the hijacker had jumped out of the plane with the ransom money as shown by the open rear entrance, just like D.B. Cooper. And after five hours, the crew returned to the Salt Lake City International Airport where FBI is waiting.

And they do a search of the interior of the plane immediately after the landing. Agents collected seatbelts, gum wrappers, cigarette butts, and a copy of United's passenger magazine. The hijacker left behind one hand-printed note, which was of course sent to the FBI lab in D.C. There were also interviews conducted with crew members and passengers to establish an exact timeline of the whole incident.

One stewardess recalled the hijacker dressed flashy. Passengers and crew recalled that a passenger agent entered the plane after everyone was boarded to locate the owner of an envelope left in the waiting room. The suspect said the envelope was his and went into the lavatory for a long time. A flight officer asked him to return to his seat for takeoff.

So kind of odd behavior by this man. Most witnesses agreed the suspect put on a wig and mustache in the laboratory. Several passengers believed more than one person was involved. The crew received notes that used the word we and not I. So he is behaving in odd ways and it appears he put on a costume or at least a fake mustache and stuff in the bathroom.

The authorities also searched the countryside near the Provo, Utah airport since the hijacker jumped out of the plane in this area. And of course, this story was the headline the next morning.

Before noon, the Salt Lake City FBI office received a phone call from a Utah highway patrolman who said his acquaintance, 29-year-old Richard Floyd McCoy Jr., outlined to him a foolproof plan for hijacking a plane. He noted that McCoy was a helicopter pilot and skydiver. This is starting to sound like someone who could maybe not be D.B. Cooper because D.B., as far as we know, didn't tell anyone what his plans were. Why would he start now?

But McCoy apparently told his friend it would be possible for someone to get away with hijacking a plane if he carried his own parachute. Now, McCoy said that if he were to do it, he would demand at least $500,000. And this patrolman said McCoy flies frequently and is very familiar with Federal Aviation Administration flight plan forms and has access to them.

He also noted that McCoy had access to several pistols, and it would be possible for him to have a hand grenade.

possible because he had a military background here. And I don't know, I always think D.B. Cooper didn't tell anybody. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. It's hard to tell. There's a lot of suspects out there who claim that they were D.B. Cooper. So I don't really think much about this guy telling his friend about his plan and then D.B. Cooper not having told anyone. I think that whoever is doing this could have bragged about it. But obviously, McCoy

is telling this guy about his surefire plan, which to me is kind of a smoking gun. This is the biggest lead they're going to get.

This patrolman told the FBI that McCoy's sister-in-law called him the night of the hijacking and asked if McCoy was on a military mission. She called him again later that evening and said McCoy was not home and that she was scared to death as McCoy had tried to get her to help him on a hijacking. So we have not just his friend, but his sister-in-law all saying he's planning a hijacking.

Yeah, and that's very curious to me. If you've got the skills, why do you have to tell everyone your plan? Because that's how you get caught, right? And Richard McCoy Jr. was arrested early on April 9th as he was preparing to attend National Guard drills. He was charged with aircraft piracy, which was a capital crime, and interference with a flight attendant. The Provo police said the hijacker landed at the Provo airport and got into a green Volkswagen with North Carolina plates.

McCoy had not been home for two days. His home had been under surveillance since the afternoon of April 8th. And on April 9th, a green Volkswagen with North Carolina plates was parked at the rear of his home. Obviously, he was the one driving it. A warrant officer in the Utah National Guard said McCoy showed up for a scheduled training operation on April 8th.

A fellow guardsman said McCoy did not appear to be under stress during the Saturday training duty. Well, you can imagine why, because he's got $500,000. Yeah, he got away with it at that point. Well, I mean, no, it's like if you're having financial issues and suddenly you have $500,000, that's got to be a huge weight off your shoulders. He's probably feeling great. Yeah, and he didn't die in the process, you know? Right. But getting away with something can take years, Justin. Yeah.

You know, the first 48 hours are so dangerous. You know that. You're still in the hot seat there.

According to Major General Maurice L. Watts, Utah Adjutant General McCoy flew a guard photographer to Camp Williams at 10.30 a.m., close to a massive search party in the Provo area. The photographer said that they returned to Salt Lake City and were then questioned by FBI agents, but were let go. The FBI website states that McCoy gave a handwriting sample.

The handwriting on the hijacker's notes matched McCoy's handwriting in his military records. The Department of the Army furnished samples of McCoy's handwriting to the FBI lab. So one more piece of the puzzle here. Fingerprint specialists determined that a latent print on the United Airlines magazine in the seat next to the hijacker's matched McCoy's fingerprint in his military records.

They noted that the suspect was described as having a tan complexion and was wearing dark glasses, a wig, and a mustache. McCoy had sandy hair, a light complexion, and was clean-shaven. But again, he kind of went into the bathroom and put on a disguise.

An employee at a roadside hamburger stand in the Provo area viewed McCoy's photograph and said he purchased a milkshake around 11.30 p.m. on the night of the hijacking. A teenager said that a man matching McCoy's description paid him $5 for a ride from the hamburger stand to a nearby town. Now, McCoy was also identified by William Richard Coggan, an inmate traveling on the flight to

The hijacker selected Coggin to leave the plane and secure a large piece of luggage, two large briefcases, and then bring those back to the plane.

On the evening of April 9th, FBI agents in San Diego reported the arrest of a man who demanded $500,000 in parachutes after hijacking a Pacific Southwest Airlines jet. An airline spokesman said the hijacker allowed 85 passengers on the flight to leave after the plane landed and was arrested afterwards. Sounds like another copycat here.

This was the seventh hijacking involving parachutes in under five months. The FBI spokesman also said on April 9th, We're not working on the theory that Richard McCoy and D.B. Cooper were the same person. The agency could not find a link between the two men.

That cracks me up. What does that mean, could not find a link? I think there's a lot of links there. They don't have a linked fingerprint, so they don't have the same fingerprint from both men, right? They don't have DNA from both men. I mean, you could go down the list and say, we don't have the same this, that, or the other thing, but what do they really know? If you're not leaving much evidence behind, maybe those things aren't things that can be compared. The MO, the means, there's so many other things that do match up.

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On April 10th, the FBI announced that agents had recovered $499,970 from McCoy's house, which, you know, you do the math and he spent 30 bucks. According to an FBI report, agents also seized clothing, a watch, two typewriters, two flight suits, a parachute and harness, two helmets, a green canvas bag, a pistol, holster, and a black glove, as well as that money.

So 30 bucks, I guess a milkshake and a ride to a nearby town. Yeah, it makes sense. April 14th, 1972, a federal grand jury indicted Richard McCoy Jr. for air piracy and interfering with an airline attendant. And his arraignment was scheduled for May 12th. That day, the judge ordered a psychiatric exam. May 26th, Richard McCoy Jr.

Richard McCoy pleaded not guilty after he was declared competent for trial, which, yeah, I don't think he was out of his mind. He had planned this very thoroughly. He had told other people. He didn't say that God told him to do it. This was, I need money. I'm going to get money. I'm going to hijack an airplane and get ransomed.

This is premeditated as you can get. This is amazing to me because he's allegedly hijacked a plane in April, and by the end of June, he's going to trial. And they say that McCoy was found to have acted alone despite what was written in the notes about a we. Sometimes it's, what, the proverbial we? He was tried in the U.S. District Court. The trial began June 26th. Now, what did the defense do here?

The defense put forth a motion to suppress evidence seized from McCoy's house, arguing it was illegal because the wrong FBI agent's name was on the warrant. The judge denied the defense's motion for suppression and allowed the evidence at trial. Whoever submitted the warrant doesn't exactly have to be the lead guy on the search of a home. I don't see any problem happening here.

As much as I like to find problems with search warrants and everything, this one doesn't really make a blip on my radar. They also said the first witnesses could not identify McCoy in connection with the hijacking. The stewardess on the flight, Diane Serdom, testified that the hijacker was wearing a black curly wig, a mustache, had a dark complexion, and was wearing a blue suit and sunglasses. So there

There's discrepancies in the visual identification of the man, which we know eyewitness accounts aren't always the best.

Yeah, and the other witnesses included Captain Gerald P. Hearn. He testified about receiving the instructions from the hijacker. Co-pilot Kenneth R. Bradley said he never saw the hijacker. Second officer Kent W. Owen testified that he peeked through a crack in the cockpit door and saw the hijacker putting on a helmet and parachutes, but he couldn't identify McCoy in court as being that person.

But we do have the handwriting expert saying McCoy's handwriting matched a note written to the plane crew. We have William Coggin, that inmate who was on flight 855.

In the custody of an officer, he testified that Richard McCoy went into the restroom and returned with a dark mustache and shaggy hair. He later saw what he believed was a hand grenade and pistol in McCoy's possession. Nancy Bowen testified she was working at a drive-in in Springville on April 7th when a man came in and ordered a milkshake.

Randy Aldman, also at the drive-in, saw McCoy walking near I-15 in Springville on April 7th. McCoy asked for a ride. Peter Zimmerman testified that he gave McCoy a ride for five bucks and took him to a home in the southern part of town. So he's in that general area. Multiple people see him there. This is where he would have ended up, right? So it makes sense.

Also testifying was Richard McCoy's sister-in-law, Mildred Burns. She said that he outlined a plan for the hijacking and threatened to kill her. She was living at the McCoy home in Provo. McCoy told her his plan about two months before the hijacking. He said he would board the plane in California and jump out over Nevada. He wanted her to pick him up.

He also mentioned that he would use notes during the hijacking. A month later, McCoy told her he was having financial trouble and was tired of having no money. He was seriously considering the hijacking and said he would try to get $500,000. He said he would give her $50,000 for her help.

And that's exactly what he did, is he hijacked a plane and got $500,000. Allegedly. Yeah. On the night of April 8th, she was watching TV with McCoy when McCoy identified one of the women on the news as a stewardess on the flight. And then he started talking about how he went into the plane bathroom and put on a wig, a mustache, and some sunglasses. He said he pulled the blinds on the plane, put tape over cockpit peephole,

and sent a note with a grenade pin in it. McCoy said the money wasn't in the house, but his sister-in-law saw it in a box in the home. She told McCoy she would turn him in if she found out he really hijacked a plane. He threatened to kill her and ordered her to leave the house. The defense asked Mildred Burns why she failed to mention the disguise note, grenade pin, and amount of money in her statement to the FBI on April 10th.

I don't know how relevant it is if you don't mention every single detail of the crime when you're first being interrogated or questioned by the FBI. Tell us everything you know. Do you not know? And then just the fact that he told her these things in the home and she saw the money. Again, he didn't have that kind of money just laying around. There's a lot of evidence here.

Now, the trooper we talked about who knew McCoy, his name was Robert Van Eprin. He testified that he saw McCoy skydive once and had discussed airplane hijackings with him in the past. He thought McCoy was doing a paper for school when he brought it up. Roy L. McDaniel, the FBI fingerprint expert, testified that he examined the airplane ticket sold to McCoy, a magazine from the plane, as well as McCoy's known fingerprints.

Two prints on the magazine were made by the same person that matched those from the fingerprint card. So a match for McCoy.

And United Ticket agent testify he saw a man he thought was McCoy on April 7th. He picked McCoy out of a photo lineup. So in closing, the prosecution argued that the most damning evidence was the money found in Richard's house and how the denomination of bills, the serial numbers on the bills all match the ones that were given to him for this ransom payment.

The defense, they do what they can, right? They presented four character witnesses. One testified that McCoy was the president of his local LDS church and was known to be an honest man. Another testified that he was in Germany with McCoy and said he was honest and peaceful. A church member described McCoy as having an honest reputation. All that added up to what, right?

June 29, 1972, Richard McCoy Jr. was found guilty of air piracy. This was a pretty easy trial, I would say, because there was just too much evidence against this man.

Yeah, I'm not sure how much more you could have had. I mean, the only things his defense had going was some people didn't give a proper description of him. Some other witnesses didn't give all the information up front, but ultimately, multiple people identify him. Multiple people say they saw him in the area after it. And his sister, sister-in-law, had conversations with him. And

And saw the money in the home, which then they recovered. I mean, the defense had nothing here to get this man off. Yeah, I think the most they could do is had people come in and say, this was a really good guy. But what does that matter if you break the law, right?

July 10, 1972, Richard McCoy Jr. was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison. But McCoy, he didn't want to stay in prison, so he appealed to the Supreme Court, and they had an answer on October 9, 1973.

They denied his petition. It was on August 10th, 1974. Four inmates stole a garbage truck and broke out of the federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Richard McCoy was one of those escapees because his petition was denied and he's like, I'm not staying here.

The other inmates were Joseph Havel, Larry Bagley, and Melvin Walker. They were all convicted of armed bank robbery. The four inmates showed what looked like a gun to a prison guard at the first of the two back gates. They crashed the stolen truck through the second gate, making their escape. Fifteen miles west of the prison in Forest Hills, Pennsylvania, the

The inmates accosted a man and two women and stole their car. They were left on the road, bound but unharmed. The inmates disappeared into the Pennsylvania mountains. Obviously, Richard McCoy had hijacked this airplane, had done these things, and he didn't like his sentence and he needed to escape. Where there's a will, there's a way, right?

November 9th, 1974, Richard McCoy was killed in a shootout with FBI agents. You're not taking me back to any prison, right? That's what he's saying. You're not taking me back. You're not getting me. I'm not going back.

In 1991, former FBI agents Bernie Rhodes and Russell Kalem published the book D.B. Cooper, The Real McCoy, claiming McCoy was D.B. Cooper. As of July 12, 2016, the FBI has redirected resources allocated to the D.B. Cooper case to focus on other investigative priorities. Obviously, people want to know, who was D.B. Cooper? Was D.B. Cooper Richard McCoy Jr.? Well, what people would tell you is, it's

It's possible, but there's no link that we can say he was definitively. And there are others like McCoy who had the means and the skill sets to do what was done here. But either way, the FBI says McCoy was not D.B. Cooper, but McCoy's own son insisted his father was D.B. Cooper.

The Sun reported February 2024 that the FBI has quietly reopened the D.B. Cooper case and is focusing on McCoy. McCoy's son said that he turned over an old parachute found in his late grandmother's home to the FBI and provided a DNA sample. This is important because D.B. Cooper had left a tie behind and they say they have a DNA sample from that.

And this parachute they've focused on because it's claimed that it shows the movements near Oregon and Utah and the locations between the two hijacking events. So if this parachute's found here, it's like, well, this is where he was staying before this one event. It's a loose tie-in, but it's there.

Larry Carr, a recently retired FBI agent who led the D.B. Cooper case for years, told The Oregonian that he was not aware of the FBI conducting any type of investigation into McCoy. He said, I know the hijacker wasn't McCoy, though. I'm sure it's just more of the same with people wanting their 15 minutes of fame, essentially.

I wouldn't say you can be 100% sure it's not. I think the better way to phrase this is we're not 100% sure he was, but he makes a really good suspect. He makes for a really good person of interest as DB Cooper, the infamous DB Cooper.

Yeah, I think the only thing that I would say as far as what tells me he may not be is, again, he told people what he was doing, Richard McCoy Jr. did, and those same people didn't hear him claiming any responsibility for the other hijacking, the one just months before. So I don't know if that's proof of anything, but it is strange. But let us know what you think.

Obviously, some of you have really gotten into the D.B. Cooper case over the years. How do you like Mr. Richard McCoy Jr. as a suspect in that other case? Do you like him or do you feel like it was someone else? And do you think D.B. Cooper even lived? Let's hear your responses. You can find us on Instagram. You can find us on Facebook. Hit us up. Let us know. And if you're wondering what to listen to next and you're all caught up on Generation Y, you need to visit our Patreon page.

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I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.

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