Was D.B. Cooper from Santa Cruz? Netflix series explores hunt for famed hijacker

How far will some people go to prove that they are right?

A lot, it turns out, especially when it means trying to be the sleuth who can say they’ve finally discovered the identity of D.B. Cooper. The enigmatic outlaw touched off “the holy grail” of American mysteries” in 1971 when he donned sunglasses, business suit and skinny black tie to hijack a Seattle-bound passenger plane and parachute away with $200,000.

The four-part Netflix series, “D.B. Cooper: Where Are You” picks through some of the best known theories about Cooper’s identity. Available July 13, the series also introduces viewers to a cavalcade of serious D.B. Cooper obsessives, people who have dedicated their lives, reputations or personal fortunes to make a case for their preferred suspect.

“The only person more famous than D.B. Cooper is the person who finds him,” Geoffrey Gray, author of “Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B Cooper,” says in the series.

Was the hijacker Robert Rackstraw, a Vietnam vet and former pilot from the Santa Cruz area, who also may have worked for the CIA? He’s the suspect vigorously promoted by author and former TV producer Tom Colbert and his volunteer cold case team of retired investigators in what Colbert said has been his “historic fight for the truth.”

Or was Cooper a former Boeing employee who died in a Santa Rosa retirement community last year? Or was he a different Vietnam vet who was arrested for staging copycat hijackings in the early 1970s? Some attendees at the annual CooperCon festival say they favor Barbara Dayton, a former Merchant Marine and transgender woman who told friends she was D.B. Cooper. Meanwhile, other experts, including “The Cooper Vortex” podcast host Darren Schaefer, say they’re intrigued by a newer theory that the hijacker was a Canadian who used the name of the pilot hero of a French-language comic book.

Rather than proving any of these theories, the documentary seems most interested in the nature of peoples’ obsessions. Cooper is the subject of a seemingly infinite number of books, movies, feature films and TV specials. With its ‘70s pop-style song and graphics, the Netflix series also places the hijacking in its unique cultural context. Air travel had expanded to the masses, but airport security was pretty much non-existent even as plane hijackings became almost routine international events.

On the eve of Thanksgiving 1971, a man calling himself “Dan Cooper” purchased a ticket on Northwest Orient Flight 305. The man, mistakenly identified as D.C. Cooper by the media, politely handed a flight attendant a note saying he had a bomb and opened his briefcase to show her what appeared to be dynamite. He demanded $200,000 in cash and four parachutes, in case one was rigged to fail. When the Boeing 727 landed in Seattle, he released the passengers, hopped back on the refueled jet and, exhibiting a professional knowledge of planes and flight, and ordered the pilots to head to Mexico City.

But somewhere over the wilderness of Washington or Oregon, he executed the ultimate “badass” move by  jumping out of the plane at night and in the middle of a storm. Maybe he crashed to earth and died, but most “Cooper-ites” like to believe he escaped with his money. The nondescript face of the hijacker in the police sketch also prompted an avalanche of calls from people saying that their co-worker, neighbor, brother, father or ex-husband was Cooper.

The FBI officially closed its investigation in 2016 with no conclusions reached. As the perpetrator of this dramatic act of air piracy, Cooper has joined Bigfoot, Depression-era gangsters and other antiheroes in the annals of American folklore, as the series illustrates. He’s also become a pop culture touchstone, with “Mad Men” fans wondering if the series would end with Don Draper morphing into D.B. Cooper and Marvel’s “Loki” series depicting its god of mischief, in sunglasses and suit, being the outlaw.

The series’ narrative arc follows the affable Colbert, whom the Hollywood Reporter calls a figure in the “true stories business,” as he tries to sell other producers and reporters on the idea that his team has identified Cooper after putting in 10 years work and spending more than $200,000. Colbert calls his suspect, Robert Rackstraw, a conman who landed on the FBI’s radar after run-ins with the law in the 1970s. He said the Scotts Valley native was acquitted of charges of murdering his stepfather but served time for check fraud, possession of explosives and theft of a small plane, during which he tried to fake his own death.

Colbert says his team team has amassed more than 100 pieces of evidence, including what they believe are parts of Cooper’s parachute after organizing a search in a remote area in eastern Washington state. They also successfully sued the FBI to release much of its Cooper file, which allowed a retired military intelligence analyst to decrypt code in letters Cooper sent to the media, which Colbert says gives away Rackstraw’s identity.

Joseph Russoniello, the former U.S. Attorney for Northern California, believes he could have secured a conviction based on Colbert’s evidence. But other talking heads in the series say Colbert’s case is mostly circumstantial, though they admire his tenacity.

Still others, though, talk about “confirmation” bias or raise questions about Colbert’s methods. The series focuses on Colbert’s elaborate surveillance of Rackstraw’s home, boat and business in order to stage a hidden-camera interview with him in 2013. Colbert offered him $20,000 and cuts of book and movie deals in order to compel him to tell his ‘true story” on camera. During the exchange, Colbert also promises legal representation if his “coming clean” puts Rackstraw in the crosshairs of federal prosecutors. “Nobody is going to get a jury to convict a legend,” Colbert assures Rackstraw.

Those immersed in “Cooperland” know that Rackstraw was never willing to confirm or deny that he was Cooper, as if he liked to keep people guessing. He died in 2019, never satisfying people’s curiosity. Other talking heads in the series dismiss Colbert’s assertions that the FBI refused to properly investigate Rackstraw because doing so would expose his work with the CIA.

“If the FBI and the CIA and space aliens went into together to cover up something, do you think they’d cover up as fundamental as inconsequential as a hijacking in the Pacific Northwest in 1971 that didn’t even raise enough money to buy you an Arby’s franchise?” says journalist and author Bryan Burrough.

Indeed, the series floats the idea that the hunt for Cooper isn’t as consequential as other famous cold cases of the era, which involved efforts to bring to justice homicidal predators like the Zodiac Killer or Golden State Killer. Bill Mitchell, one of the passengers who saw Cooper on Flight 305, said it’s “entertaining” to meet people at CooperCon and laughed at how his “15 minutes of fame has lasted more than 50 years.”

Others accept that the mystery may never be solved or that the more one investigates, “the less you know.” But they still find pleasure — and perhaps profit — in working out the puzzle.

“It speaks to something in the American soul,” Burrough said. “A guy who puts on a parachute and leaps into the darkness? I hope he’s never found.”