In the latest twist in the D.B. Cooper mystery, researchers now believe that they have decoded a confession from their prime suspect that was hidden in one of the skyjacker's letters. The potential breakthrough comes courtesy of dogged Cooper investigator and former C2C guest Tom Colbert and his team of experts. They derived the possible confession from a heretofore unseen letter thought to have been written by the skyjacker following his legendary heist.
The missive, sent to the newspaper The Oregonean in March of 1972, was obtained via an FOIA lawsuit brought against the FBI by Colbert. "No one even know about this letter," he marveled to the NY Daily News. Upon receiving the evidence, Colbert sent it to a code breaker on his team who had previously uncovered some tantalizing findings and, once again, came back with a rather remarkable message that may have been hidden in the text.
According to Rick Sherwood, who served as a code breaker in the Army Security Agency during the Vietnam war, the author of the letter included a number of repeating phrases which he interpreted to be significant. Using a system described to Oregon Live as "converting letters to numbers and back to letters," he was able to produce several details ostensibly encoded in the recurring parts of the letter. Incredibly, one such insight was the actual identity of the skyjacker as Sherwood says the words "I am 1st LT Robert Racksaw."
Followers of Colbert's quest to solve the case will recognize that name as his prime suspect in the skyjacking, although the still-living Racksaw vehemently denies any role in the caper. And, as we noted when a similar letter was purportedly decoded back in January, the ultimate resolution of the case, whether Cooper was Racksaw or not, depends upon the FBI and they continue to seemingly ignore Colbert's increasingly intriguing work.
It remains to be seen if this latest development will change the agency's mind, but we're guessing, either way, the independent team trying to crack will continue increasing the pressure with additional bombshells until, hopefully, the FBI is forced to act one way or the other. Coast Insiders can learn more about Thomas Colbert's exhaustive investigation into the Cooper case by checking out his 2/2/2018 appearance on the program. Not a Coast Insider yet? Sign up today.