The FBI closed the DB Cooper (or NORJAK, Northwest Hijacking) case in 2016, ‘without conclusion’. The most likely suspect died three years later.
The Bureau interviewed over 800 ‘strong’ suspects by 1976, five years after DB Cooper parachuted himself to freedom with $200,000 (close to $1,300,000 today) strapped to him in a knapsack. Over 1,000 suspects were interviewed, but the top suspect, the man (believe it or not, a woman claimed credit, insisting she’d worn men’s clothes and called herself Dan Cooper to hijack Northwest Orient Flight 305) most likely to have been Cooper was an extraordinarily colourful character whose life reads like fiction.
Robert Wesley Rackstraw (1943-2019) was born in Ohio and brought up in Scott’s Valley, California. A high school dropout, he joined the National Guard after lying on his application form, writing the names of two colleges he never attended down. No one bothered to check with either registrar and Rackstraw was in like Flynn.
After the National Guard came the Army Reserve. Then Rackstraw enlisted in the Regular Army, joining the well-known 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in Vietnam in 1969 by this time a married man. Rackstraw served his country for seven years, promoted steadily from Private to Corporal to Sargeant to Warrant Officer (aviator) to First Lieutenant.
But that was only on paper.
Rackstraw broke rules as a matter of course, delighting in flouting authority, even ‘borrowing’ a commanding officer’s Jeep on one memorable occasion. Yet he was a brave soldier, awarded the Silver Star in 1970.
‘Warrant Officer Rackstraw distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous actions on 17 April 1970, in the Republic of Vietnam. When the base came under an intense mortar barrage and ground attack, evacuation of wounded personnel was urgently needed. Realizing the importance of getting the injured men to medical facilities and despite the intensity of the enemy attack, Warrant Officer Rackstraw skillfully maneuvered his helicopter into the base and quickly completed the vital mission. His gallant action is in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit on himself, his unit and the United States Army.’
And he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross the same year, not once but twice.
However, his commanding officers saw a different Rackstraw, a defiant soldier with an extraordinary sense of entitlement, who casually inserted himself in unauthorised missions involving the Green Berets and the CIA. (How he did this has never been explained.) Rackstraw was a callous man, bragging about ‘gunning down’ an elephant in Vietnam from a helicopter, much to the disgust of his fellow soldiers, one dryly commenting: ‘Nothing was too audacious for Bob.’ Given his audacity, could Bob have been DB Cooper?
‘He was crazy enough to try it.’
While in Vietnam, Rackstraw became an experienced parachutist, building on his training before deployment at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Then the lies he told as a matter of course caught up with him.
Less than a year after being awarded a Silver Star and two Distinguished Flying Crosses, Robert W. Rackstraw was dishonourably discharged from the United States Army for conduct ‘unbecoming an officer’. The lies about his level of education emerged, as did his claim that he had five Purple Hearts (Rackstraw was never wounded), over forty commendations and five Vietnam Service Medals despite serving a single tour of duty. (And Rackstraw maintained the fiction for the rest of his life, going so far as to drive a car with Purple Heart licence plates.)
And he’d been reprimanded for unauthorised parachute jumps, interesting considering DB Cooper parachuted out of a Boeing 727-100 airplane in the middle of a rainstorm.
Rackstraw, then twenty-seven, returned to Alameda, California, described by his sister as angry and disillusioned. And broke. So he went to Oregon, leaving his children (and financial obligations to them) behind in California, starting a flooring business with a man named Hunt. Like most people, Hunt was drawn to the unusually charismatic Rackstraw. Unlike most people, Hunt quickly concluded he had ‘a criminal mind’. Hunt’s brother witnessed a savage beating Rackstraw administered to a worker who’d dared to talk back on a job site.
Was Rackstraw a sociopath or a psychopath? Given that he doesn’t appear to have had a conscience, it might be wise to opt for the second option.
Luckily for Hunt, Rackstraw returned to California. Not long after his arrival, he drove a truck through the front door of a gun shop, before speeding away with as many weapons as he could load.
His criminal career continued. Rackstraw was suspected of theft in the army. Now he stole on a grand scale by turning forger, cashing cheques his stepfather purportedly signed, to the tune of $75,000. Arrested for his murder, he fled to Iran while out on bail, landing a job training pilots in the Imperial Iranian Air Force. (Iran was ruled by the Shah at the time.) But he could not stay out of trouble: while in Iran, Rackstraw was accused of stealing dynamite and was swiftly deported, put on a plane to New York.
Rackstraw returned to California and stood trial for murder. He was very, very lucky: a sympathetic jury acquitted him.
In October 1978, his ex-wife was stunned when the FBI turned up on her doorstep in Stockton, California, neither she nor the children haVing heard from Rackstraw in over a year. She had no idea he was living in Iran, let alone accused of murdering his stepfather. Now the FBI was looking for him: Rackstraw bailed out of a rented plane over Monterey Bay before it plunged into the Pacific Ocean after issuing a mayday call.
In other words, he’d faked his own death.
He was caught within months and imprisoned for two years. After his release, he telephoned various television stations to say he was DB Cooper.
The Mysterious Disappearance of DB Cooper, Part Three will be posted early next week.
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