D.B. Cooper - An American Legend

I've always been fascinated, not obsessed, but extremely intrigued by the story of fabled hijacker D.B. Cooper. For those who may not know who D.B. Cooper is, he was a man who, around Thanksgiving 1971, hijacked a plane going to Seattle from Portland. Once he got to Seattle he asked for lots of money and enough fuel to fly to Mexico City. The authorities did what he asked, gassing up the plane and giving him a satchel of $200,000. The plane then left Seattle on a dark rainy night heading south. Soon after he jumped out of the plane near the Mount Saint Helens area never to be heard from again. They never found his body (if he died) and the authorities don't think he ever spend the money (if he lived). Quite simply, he vanished.

I wrote a play about the hijacking. It's a comedy - "D.B. Cooper's Christmas Spectacular." I haven't staged it yet but hope to sometime. After learning of my interest in all things D.B. Cooper my friend told me that his father-in-law was the man who furnished D.B. Cooper with the parachute he jumped out of the plane with. Small world.

Smaller world in that the REAL D.B. Cooper was, quite possibly, Kenneth Christiansen, a guy who lived in Bonney Lake near where I live. He died of cancer in 1994. New York Magazine has an extensive article entitled "Unmasking D.B. Cooper" and about how the case might finally be solved. Local reaction comes by way of the Tacoma News Tribune.

Do I want the case solved or do I like the mystery of it? A little of both, I suppose. Like the assassination of John Kennedy, of all the theories and theorists out there, you'd think one has to be right. It's just the figuring out that's the hard part.