THE son of a key suspect in the DB Cooper case who claims his late father was the elusive skyjacker says he wants his father to finally get the credit he deserves.

Richard “Rick” McCoy III told The U.S. Sun that his Vietnam veteran father, Richard Floyd McCoy II, was responsible for the still-unsolved November 1971 hijacking of Northwest Orient Flight 305.

Flight 305 was hijacked over Portland on Thanksgiving Eve by a man identifying himself as Dan “DB” Cooper, a well-dressed 40-something who held the Boeing 727 for a ransom of $200,000 and four parachutes before skydiving out into the night, never to be seen again.

Five months later, McCoy staged a near-identical in-air heist to Cooper over Denver on April 7, 1972.

McCoy, a 29-year-old devout Mormon and father of two, made away with $500,000 and skydived out the rear of the plane – just as Cooper had – over Utah.

However, unlike Cooper, McCoy was caught by authorities within 72 hours.

Investigators were tipped off by an associate of McCoy’s who said he’d bragged about developing a foolproof plan for hijacking a plane and that DB Cooper should’ve asked for more money.

Inside his home, investigators recovered $499,970 wrapped in bank bands inside a cardboard box and a jumpsuit.

He was convicted of air piracy two months later and sentenced to 45 years inside Lewisburg Penitentiary.

He became known as the “Mormon Hijacker” and was excommunicated from the church behind bars.

McCoy escaped Lewisburg after serving just two years but was killed in a shootout with police in November 1974.

Though just a very young child when his namesake died, Rick McCoy told The U.S. Sun that, growing up, his mom, Karen McCoy made a series of partial confessions to him and his sister that their dad was, in fact, DB Cooper.

According to Rick, Karen – who died in 2020 – said that he’d be annoyed about not getting any credit for Cooper’s crimes.

“The overall theme of what she told us was that my mother was involved in everything and to keep our mouths shut,” Rick recounted.

“There were lots of secrets and a lot of stuff I’d hear was conversations between adults and things like that but it was beaten into us not to talk about it. 

“But she would say, ‘Your dad would be upset that he didn’t get the credit [for DB Cooper]. The credit that he deserved,’ and all that type of stuff.

“She told us she was involved in both of the hijackings, and helped him plan them, but she always made it seem – and I’ll call BS on this – that he forced her into doing it. And trust me, nobody was forcing my mother to do anything.”

In addition to his mother’s purported confessions, Rick believes there are numerous other indicators that his dad and Cooper were one in the same.

Though his father was much younger than witnesses described Cooper to be, Rick said his father looked much older than 29 and pointed to what he believes to be a strong resemblance to him and a sketch of Cooper.

The composite in question is commonly referred to as the “Bing Crosby” sketch and shows Cooper with a thin, elongated face, a narrow nose with small nostrils, and a large forehead with a receding hairline.

It was released by the FBI on November 30, 1971, six days after the hijacking.

“It looks like the same guy to me,” said Rick. “I always thought my dad looked like Bing Crosby and I’ve seen overlays of his face and the sketch and the likeness is remarkable.

“My dad oddly looked much older than he was. You could’ve looked at him and easily have thought he was over 40.”

Numerous witnesses aboard Flight 305 were shown images of McCoy and asked if he resembled Cooper, to which they unanimously declared he did not.

However, McCoy wore a disguise during his 1972 skyjacking and Rick believes his father did the same five months prior.

DAMNING EVIDENCE

He also believes a clip-on JCPenney tie left behind by Cooper and bank statements prove he was the culprit.

The Cooper tie – the existence of which was withheld from the public for several years – was identified by Rick’s aunt as belonging to McCoy shortly after his arrest.

The relative made the identification from its gold pin, which is one believed to be one commonly worn by male students at Brigham Young University, where McCoy had been studying law enforcement at the time.

Rick said it’s believed McCoy purchased the tie where he purchased the vast majority of his clothing: a Mormon thrift store chain called Deseret Industries, which he likened to a Goodwill.

As the McCoy-was-Cooper theory goes, Rick believes his father made a series of mistakes during the 1971 hijacking of Flight 305 over Portland that led to him losing the majority of the $200,000 ransom.

$5,800 of Cooper’s ransom was discovered buried along the banks of the Columbia River in 1980, but the remaining $194,200 is still unaccounted for.

After ironing out the kinks he encountered the first time around, McCoy geared up to conduct a second attempt five months later in Colorado.

This time, he was going to ask for more money and prepare more rigorously, including bringing his own jump equipment on board rather than relying on authorities to supply it.

However, McCoy was tentatively ruled out as a suspect by the FBI because family members claimed he’d been home for Thanksgiving lunch in 1971, and couldn’t have possibly made it back from the Pacific Northwest in time.

But Rick says his family lied to cops to prevent McCoy from facing any further trouble.

That Thanksgiving, he said his parents asked his aunt to babysit him and his sister while they went away for a trip on the West Coast.

In the 1991 book, DB Cooper: The Real McCoy, authors Bernie Rhodes and ex-FBI special agent Russell Calame uncovered evidence that suggests McCoy drove to Las Vegas, then to Portland days before the DB Cooper hijacking.

Credit card receipts and phone records place him within a day’s drive of where Cooper is believed to have jumped after hijacking Flight 305, they said.

Rick believes his father went to Vegas after the Cooper heist to launder whatever money he managed to keep hold of during his daring jump.

The following month, McCoy was suddenly flush with cash over Christmas, according to Rick.

He said, “The one thing I was told, and this was by my grandmother, that in December [1971], my dad all of a sudden had come out to North Carolina and bought everyone – including me – first-class tickets to join him.

“There were no questions asked, and that’s another thing nobody in my family talks about either.”

PROMISING DEVELOPMENTS

Last week, The U.S. Sun exclusively revealed the FBI is quietly reinvestigating the DB Cooper case, which remains the only unsolved crime of its kind in US history.

Rick supplied the bureau with a DNA sample to test against any remaining evidence roughly six months ago.

He has also handed over one of his dad’s old parachutes and a logbook detailing practice jumps his father conducted before the Cooper hijacking and his copycat stunt in 1972.

McCoy has long been considered one of the leading DB Cooper candidates and is one of the few remaining key suspects not to have been ruled out by DNA.

Recovering Cooper’s missing parachute has long been seen as one of the keys to finally unlocking the mystery of the infamous crook’s true identity.

Rick said he last spoke to the bureau about the parachute roughly three months ago when agents told him it was being analyzed by specialists.

He described agents as being excited by the discovery and intrigued by his father’s logbook of practice jumps.

Of those logbooks, Rick shared, “Leading up to the Cooper jump in November [1971], there’s a whole bunch of practice jumps logged, and then there’s a lull in jumps, except for one that he did right before the second hijacking.

“I also had a copy of his jump instructor’s logbook and the dates for the jumps listed line up perfectly. The FBI has that logbook too, now.”

After turning over the evidence, Rick was asked by the bureau if he’d be willing to provide a cheek swab for DNA analysis, which he reluctantly agreed to do.

In coming to the decision, Rick explained, “After I surrendered the parachute they asked me, ‘Do you really want to see this thing get solved?’ And of course I do, so they said, ‘Well, give us your DNA then.’

“I had to think about it because I wasn’t super thrilled about them having my DNA, but I eventually agreed to […] They didn’t tell me what it was going to be used against, because they’re not sure what has my dad’s DNA on it.

“But they’ve been in contact fairly frequently,” he added. “They’ve been great, as whenever I’ve checked in on stuff, they’ve told me it’s in the queue.

“Because it’s officially a closed case, the lab prioritizes open cases. But I understand that they are working on it, they told me that considering all the publicity around this case at the moment, it would be prioritized.”

FBI STAYS SILENT

When approached for comment, the FBI refused to answer any specific questions about its investigation into Cooper and McCoy, instead pointing The U.S. Sun to a 2016 statement, announcing the closure of the case.

“Following one of the longest and most exhaustive investigations in our history, on July 8, 2016, the FBI redirected resources allocated to the D.B. Cooper case in order to focus on other investigative priorities,” reads the statement, in part.

“Over the years, the FBI has applied numerous new and innovative investigative techniques, as well as examined countless items at the FBI Laboratory. Evidence obtained during the course of the investigation will now be preserved for historical purposes at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

“Although the FBI will no longer actively investigate this case, should specific physical evidence emerge—related specifically to the parachutes or the money taken by the hijacker—individuals with those materials are asked to contact their local FBI field office.”

However, former lead FBI investigator on the case, Larry Carr, revealed last month that it was a “conceivable possibility” the bureau was quietly re-examining evidence with modern technology.

He also said the case was never really closed, despite the FBI’s 2016 announcement.

Carr oversaw the case between 2007 and 2010 before he moved from Seattle to Washington for a promotion.

When he returned to Seattle in 2019, he was handed the reigns to the Cooper case once again despite it supposedly being closed three years prior.

Additionally, despite remarks made by the FBI in 2016, a source with knowledge of the matter said the evidence in the case was moved back to Seattle sometime after for reasons unknown.

Carr confirmed the account, saying the evidence was back with the FBI’s Seattle branch by the time of his return in 2019, though he is unsure why the evidence was sent back.

Highlighting the FBI’s statement, Rick believes with the parachute, the log books, and his mom’s alleged second-hand confessions that he’s provided the bureau with what it needs to revive the case.

“The parachute is what they wanted and now they have it,” said Rick.

“I’ve always believed my dad was DB Cooper because growing up that’s what I was told.

“I’d never had any drive to come out publicly until that parachute came to light.

“Before then, I only had memories and my mother’s words, but now I have physical evidence and now it all makes sense.

“I don’t think we’re too far away from this case being closed.”