AB of Seattle Releases Biggest Title Ever on Skyjacker D.B. Cooper

We're all very tired. However, there is some satisfaction in a job well done. Do you know the true identity of D.B. Cooper? Do you know how he actually pulled it off? Do you know who helped him on the ground and how he spent the money afterward? Most importantly, do you know what motivated him to hijack Flight 305 on November 24, 1971 and extort $200,000 bucks from Northwest Airlines?

Don't feel bad if you don't know the answers. The F.B.I. had nearly forty years to pursue the case and they couldn't figure it out, either.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an efficient organization, but even they make mistakes. And one of the biggest ones they ever made was in the D.B. Cooper case. They never looked to see it if could be an inside job. They never looked at employees as potential suspects. This made it possible for the hijacker to slip from their grasp just long enough to fade back into the community. He had good friends, faithful friends, who not only shared in the proceeds, but kept their mouths shut for decades.

Well, until now anyway.

When you are doing an investigation, some people will be forthright and honest. Others will be evasive, and perhaps engage in lying. If you come prepared, then it is easier to separate the wheat from the chaff and determine what is truth and what is a lie.

Since I grew up in the same town as the hijacker and have lived around here since the time of dinosaurs, it was not as difficult as I thought to dig deep enough to find the truth. I had to do a lot of driving, though. As far as I am concerned, the mystery of who Cooper really was is solved.

I'll admit a bit of letdown about the whole thing. The chase, the investigation, the interviews, the sifting of the testimony. That was the fun part. When I finally realized the chase was over, it was like finding Amelia Earhart by accident. Amelia is only interesting because no one has found out what happened. If they had found her the year after she disappeared, there would be no books, no movies, and no speculation. This is the way I feel about the D.B. Cooper case. It's sort of like hunting down Bigfoot, I guess. Except even Bigfoot hasn't thumbed his nose at every law enforcement agency in America and lived to spend a bunch of loot.

However, I'm still glad I was a part of it. The book comes out in paperback and for the Kindle in a couple of days. And I wouldn't trade the experience of being a part of that for the world.

Robert Blevins is the co-author of Into the Blast: The True Story of D.B. Cooper and a managing editor at Adventure Books of Seattle.