William P. Gossett's Link to the D.B. Cooper Letters
by John S. Craig
The identity of infamous skyjacker D.B. Cooper has eluded the FBI since he jumped from the back of a Boeing 727-100 with 200,000 dollars somewhere over Woodland, Washington on the night of November 24, 1971.
The FBI has publicly stated that they do not believe the skyjacker survived the jump, a case code-named "Norjak," which remains officially unsolved though the FBI might have partial fingerprints from the elusive skyjacker left on a cocktail glass. In 2001, the FBI obtained DNA of the skyjacker from a clip-on tie he left on the plane, and possibly other sources like cigarettes or a drinking glass.
Can the four letters provide additional evidence to the case?
The details of these letters were reported by the Reno Evening Gazette, Reno, Nevada in three articles on November 29, 30, and December 3 of 1971, only days after the November 24 skyjacking.
Upon close examination, Galen Cook found that each of the letters has a possible link to William Pratt Gossett, a D.B. Cooper suspect he has been investigating since 2007.
William P. Gossett has not been eliminated by the FBI as a suspect in the Norjak case. As of August 2011, Gossett has been considered a viable suspect.
William Pratt Gossett was born in San Diego in 1930. He served with the U.S. Marines, Army Air Force and then the U.S. Army, served tours, and was decorated for action in Korea and Vietnam. He was a survivalist and experienced parachutist. He was an ROTC instructor and retired from the Army at Ft. Lewis, Washington in 1973, two years after the skyjacking. (For more information on Gossett, see Additional Links and Sources below.)
Gossett died in Oregon on September 1, 2003 of natural causes at age 73. According to Gossett's son Greg, Gossett told three of his sons he was the skyjacker. Cook says he confessed that he was the skyjacker to a retired Salt Lake City judge and a close friend he worked with in the Salt Lake City public defender's office. Cook has investigated the D.B. Cooper case for years and has been working closely with the FBI on the case especially as it relates to Gossett. Cook has been a frequent guest on the national radio show Coast to Coast where he has updated the audience with his research.
All four letters associated with D.B. Cooper were turned over to the FBI by the newspapers. Only the Reno Evening Gazette wrote articles about these letters.
Letter 1
On November 29, five days after the skyjacking, a letter arrived at the Reno Evening Gazette signed D.B. Cooper. The letter was postmarked November 27 from Oakdale, California, a small town approximately 10 miles north of Modesto, California. It was simply addressed in hand-printed pencil, "Reno News, Reno, Nevada." The author of the letter cut words from the November 26th edition of the Modesto Bee newspaper.
The letter read:
Attention!
Thanks for the hospitality.
Was in a rut.
D.B. Cooper
By November 26, a Portland, Oregon AP writer had already misidentified the suspect from "Dan Cooper," the name the skyjacker identified himself before boarding the plane, to "D.B. Cooper." Reno, Nevada was where the skyjacked plane landed without Cooper.
Cook's investigation has revealed that William Gossett lived in Merced, California in the 1950's with his first wife and children, and was a police officer for one year in Merced. Merced is just 40 miles south of Oakdale, California, the town where the first letter was postmarked.
Gossett's fourth wife Marilyn told Cook that during 1971 Gossett had marital and financial problems along with custody issues with his children. He was increasingly dissatisfied with his position in the U.S. Army as a sergeant stationed in Utah.
The Reno Evening Gazette reported on the letter in the November 29th evening issue, made a copy, and contacted the FBI. The Reno Evening Gazette reported that the FBI fingerprinted all individuals who had contact with the letter, and that the letter was sent to the "FBI lab in Washington D.C."
Letter 2
A second, hand-written letter signed "D.B. Cooper" was sent to the Vancouver Province, British Columbia's largest newspaper, between November 30 and December 2, 1971. It made an odd claim that the first composite drawing of the Cooper suspect "did not represent the truth." The letter was mailed from Vancouver.
Additionally, the note read:
I enjoyed the "Grey Cup" game.
Am leaving Vancouver.
Thanks for the hospitality.
D.B. Cooper
Both the first and second letters used the words "thanks for the hospitality." Repeating the exact phrase used in the first letter provides a possibility that both writers were the same person.
The 59th Grey Cup, crowning the champion of the Canadian Football League, was played November 28, 1971 in Vancouver. Gossett liked football and had a cousin who played in the NFL as a kicker.
Galen Cook was given an 8 mm film shot in August of 1973 of William Gossett only days after Gossett's retirement from the U.S. Army at Fort Lewis, Washington. The film was shot by his son and includes scenes of ferries sailing from Vancouver to Victoria. Cook was told that the Gossetts spent two days in the Vancouver area on August 2 and 3 where William Gossett carried two briefcases and left his son in a motel for two hours while he left for "business." Gossett's son told Cook that William Gossett was reluctant to be photographed during their trip to Canada. Cook was able to secure a copy of the film, and it clearly shows a nervous William Gossett on a ferry. The film can be seen in a link under "Additional Links and Sources" at the end of this article.
Speculation has surrounded whether Gossett was using Vancouver banks to store money in safety deposit boxes during his lifetime. Additionally, why would a hoaxer claim that the composite sketch was not accurate? Is it possible that the real D.B. Cooper might be taunting the FBI and saying, "Not only can't you catch me, you are unable to sketch my face accurately"?
Two sketches of the D.B. Cooper suspect were rendered by FBI sketch artists. When the second sketch was done, known as composite B, witnesses involved in the skyjacking agreed that it was the more accurate of the two. Composite B was rendered by an official FBI sketch artist, Mr. Rose, several months after the skyjacking. He received information from four material witnesses to Cooper. The letter had to be referring to composite sketch A.
Gossett's son Greg told Galen Cook that his father was vain about his appearance. If the FBI did not initially get his appearance correct, he might find it irritating. Greg said his father kept the rendering from composite #2 and showed it to him in 1986 saying that they finally got it right.
William Mitchell, a passenger on the skyjacked plane, sat in the same aisle as D.B. Cooper (18 B). He told Galen Cook that D.B. Cooper sat in 18 E (the same seat Cooper left his tie), and that the suspect he saw bore no resemblance to a photo of suspect Ken Christiansen, who was the sole subject of the History Channel's January broadcast of the show DeCoded.
On Mitchell's testimony concerning the suspect's appearance, Cook said, "His report to the FBI was crucial, with one fine detail about D.B. Cooper that was never released by the FBI to the public. I met personally with Mr. Mitchell and he told me what that 'detail' was. The FBI confirmed it to me. That detail comports exactly to Gossett's distinct physical characteristic."
Galen Cook has interviewed all of the five surviving crew members of the D.B. Cooper flight.
Cook showed pictures of Gossett to one of the flight attendants (Florence Shaffner) who saw the Cooper hijacker at close range. She told Cook that Gossett looked like the hijacker and related that she believed the hijacker was wearing makeup to darken his skin. Cook is reserving his right to confidentiality concerning contact with flight attendant, Tina Mucklow, who spent the most time with Cooper.
Letter 3
A third, cut-and-paste letter, mailed from Oregon, was directed to the Portland Oregonian and mailed December 1 from a zip code that starts with "970," which is one of the Oregon zip codes but not Portland. It read:
Am alive and doing well in hometown. P.O.
The system that beats the system.
D.B. Cooper
The Portland Oregonian never published or commented on the letter. Though the Oregonian never published it, for some reason the Billings, Montana Gazette did publish it on December 3, 1971 on page 38. On August 1, 2011, the FBI published a black and white version of the letter online. A picture of the entire letter can been seen at a link under Sources of this article.
Was D.B. Cooper returning to the place of his crime? Gossett ended up living on the Oregon coast for many years toward the end of his life. What the "P.O." means is unknown, though Portland, Oregon is an obvious guess, or Port Orford, Oregon. Portland was where D.B. Cooper boarded the skyjacked plane. Cook speculates that the P.O. could refer to "Post Office." "D.B. Cooper wanted to create an aura that he was mobile, and to give a much broader range of possibilities as to where he was from," says Cook. Gossett relatives told Cook that Gossett used Post Office box addresses frequently around Salt Lake City in the 1970s and 1980s.
On September 8, 2011, on the DB Cooper forum "DropZone," there was a posting from a "DBCooperDecoded" who asked for people to comment on letter 3. This is the same email address for an anonymous person "Al Di" who established a web site and video concerning letter 3 (dbcooperdecoded.com). A video analyzing this letter, linked within the Al Di web site, was posted on YouTube Aug. 16, 2011 ("New D.B. Cooper Letter Reveals Intriguing New Insights"). The anonymous video creator claims that all of the pasted letters of this letter were cut from June and July, 1970 issues of Playboy magazine. The video provides analysis of the letter and how the choice of letters from the pages of the magazine reveal additional associations to the hijacking that D.B. Cooper wanted to show authorities. The link to this video can be found in the Sources section of this article or at dbcooperdecoded.com.
If you take a look at this site and the video, you will see that a lot of work has gone into the analysis of this single letter. Is this the work of an amateur sleuth or someone with special knowledge of the case? If this is an amateur sleuth, why the anonymity?
Al Di's web site details his opinions on the letter and has a "Contact" section asking for name/email/comments. Though I have inquired through the "Contact" section about Al Di's identity and source of material, he or she has not responded.
Galen Cook and Al Di exchanged emails numerous times between August 16, 2011 and May 2012. The entire time Al Di refused to reveal his identity to Cook. "I went back and reread each of 'Al Di's' emails to me," said Cook. "He probes around asking for information about Gossett, makes comments that the FBI 'probably has more unreleased evidence about Norjak,' kids around about other suspects, and asks me questions about my publisher and whether I have 'other evidence' about the case that the FBI has not yet seen."
Al Di claims on his web site that he is ". . . not a professional researcher. Just an average Joe interested in the mystery of D.B. Cooper." However, this average Joe refuses to reveal his identity or source of information to Galen Cook or anyone else it seems.
Cook speculates that the FBI has other unreleased evidence about Norjak and that Al Di could be an active or retired FBI agent trying to find unreleased information about Gossett from Cook or anyone else who might have information. Cook cites a similar instance when FBI agent Larry Carr went undercover as "CKRET" at the Dropzone website with the expectation of getting new information. Is Al Di another sleeper FBI agent fishing for Cooper information?
Two weeks before the Cooper skyjacking, a similar skyjack attempt was made by a man on an Air Canada flight out of Calgary, Alberta, which was diverted to Great Falls, Montana. The skyjacker, Paul Cini, was overcome by the flight crew and little was heard about this incident again. Did the FBI link this failed skyjacking with Cooper's? Did they believe there was some kind of connection? Would the appearance of the Oregonian letter in a Montana paper have anything to do with this connection? FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach stated the he believed Cooper derived part of his plan from Cini's botched effort.
Curiously, the July 1970 issue of Playboy has a short story entitled "Last Train to Limbo" that features a 42-year-old man who plots his disappearance from society while suffering from a mid-life crisis, a scenario that is similar to the state of affairs of Gossett at the time. Did D. B. Cooper select this issue to provide additional clues to the FBI? Did Cooper gather inspiration from this story to plot his disappearance from society and gather retirement funds?
Cook says about the Al Di situation that the "The FBI is definitely curious about Gossett, but they don't want me or other people to know that."
In May 2011, Galen Cook saw the envelope of this letter in a Seattle FBI field office. He believes the handwriting on the envelope is similar to the handwriting of Gossett.
The envelope reads:
Editor - Oregonian 1320 S.W. Broadway 97201
Letter 4
A fourth letter, as reported by the December 3 article in the Reno Evening Gazette, was mailed December 1 from US Postal Server 956, in the Sacramento area. The letter was cancelled in Sacramento but could have been mailed "at any one of 50 or 60 post offices in the Sacramento area," which included the town where the first letter was mailed: Oakdale, California.
The Reno Evening Gazette did not publish the letter, as they had been warned by the FBI not to publish it. However, the paper did write a short article on Friday, December 3, 1971, mentioning the fourth DB Cooper letter.
The letter was again a paste up like the first letter that read:
Plan ahead for retirement income D.B. Cooper
William Gossett's senior commanding officer at the Weber State College ROTC unit in Ogden, Utah (Col. Knauer) was due back in Ogden on Friday, December 3, 1971, after having spent one week at the Presidio in California. The regular air mode of travel for uniformed officers and NCO's in 1971 was by military transport. There was an established military transport service between Ogden, Utah and Sacramento in 1971, which Gossett was known to have used.
Gossett would retire from the Army less than two years later.
In all four letters, there is a complimentary, explanatory, and taunting tone. First, a compliment to all involved: Thanks for the hospitality, a phrase used in the first and second letters. Then there is an explanation: I was in a rut and needed retirement income, then taunting when he writes I enjoyed a football game; you can't draw my face; you can't catch me even though I'm telling you where I am; I'm in Vancouver; I'm alive and back where it all started (Portland); I'm the system that beat your system.
Where was Gossett Thanksgiving Week 1971?
In November of 2011, Galen Cook released information concerning his investigation into Weber State College's attendance records for ROTC personnel. Cook also obtained Gossett's full DD-214 military file. Gossett was an instructor at Weber State at the time of the skyjacking and a Desk Sergeant with access to attendance records. Was Gossett ever seen during the crucial days of Thanksgiving week and was he able to officially cover any missing time he might have had? This is a key question concerning Gossett's possible role in the skyjacking, and Cook's continued investigation provides some important information about this time period.
Cook says he consulted three sources concerning the whereabouts of Gossett in November of 1971: the U.S. Army "duty roster" for the month of November 1971; U.S. Army's "morning reports" for as many days in late November, early December, as possible; and a personal interview with Gossett's immediate CO (commanding officer), Major Palletti.
Additionally, he extensively interviewed all of the living ROTC staff that worked with Gossett at Weber State during November of 1971.
Cook reports that "Gossett appeared on the duty roster for the months of November/December 1971, but this can be misleading because those rosters only provide the names of the persons who are 'scheduled' to be working at the Weber ROTC unit. They do not show who might not have shown up for work. The DR shows four commissioned officers and three NCO's, which included Gossett. This was the full complement of the ROTC staff."
The "morning reports" for November 28, 1971 document that ROTC Col. Knauer (Professor of Military Science) was to leave on that date and go to the Presidio in San Francisco for a week's worth of military-related work. On Friday, December 3, a new NCO, Sgt. Dumling, was assigned to the ROTC unit to take Gossett's position. Gossett would remain with the unit due to his approaching retirement. Col. Knauer's second in command, Maj. Palletti, was more relaxed and Gossett's best friend at the unit.
Cook reports that Palletti told him that "with Knauer gone for the week starting Monday, November 29, and Dumling coming in the following Friday, there wasn't much for Gossett to do." Additionally, Maj. Palletti told Cook "that Gossett didn't do that much anyway. Gossett was the first NCO (E-7) to arrive at Weber, and he helped Maj. Palletti establish the entire ROTC unit in April 1971."
It is Maj. Palletti's opinion that Gossett could have easily taken off from Weber after work on Tuesday, November 23 and been gone until Thursday or Friday of the following week. "With Col. Knauer gone," said Cook, "and Sgt. Dumling not due to arrive until Friday Dec. 3, Gossett had little to do at the unit that week, according to Palletti. He wouldn't have even needed to fill out a 'leave' form, as long as he was back by Friday, Dec. 3. Moreover, Gossett was the desk sergeant and he would be in a position to alter any material records involving official leave."
When this information is placed in conjunction with the timeline of the letters, Cook believes, "The first letter was sent out on Saturday, November 27th from California. The last letter was sent from California probably on Wednesday, December 1st. There were no more DB Cooper letters after that, because Gossett returned to Utah by Thursday, December 2, and he didn't want to give his position away on the cancelled envelope."
Continuing the Investigation -- Nagging Questions and Issues
Phone calls by Galen Cook in January of 2011 to retired FBI agents revealed that all of the letters were confiscated by the FBI in 1971. A retired FBI agent who worked the case in Portland, Oregon in 1971 told Cook that the "source of the letters was never identified," and that the letters are in some FBI vault. A retired FBI profiler told Cook that the "letter writer needed attention," and that the D.B. Cooper skyjacking was "a source of embarrassment to the Bureau." Cook's conversations with the retired FBI agents found that one of the prime FBI investigators of the skyjacking, Ralph Himmelsbach remembers the letters but the FBI was never able to identify who mailed them. Cook is determined to find the letters and investigate them.
In January of 2011, Cook said he is working closer than ever with the FBI. He is seeking admission to the original D.B. Cooper letters. "What I would like to do is have DNA samples taken from several letters and see if they are from the same author. Then, I want to see if any of them match Gossett's DNA." He speculates that following the skyjacking, Gossett might have returned to familiar surroundings in the Merced and Modesto, California area. He is documenting his investigation for a book.
By Galen Cook bringing the issue of the D.B. Cooper letters to the public once again, it appears the FBI agent in charge of Norjak is looking into finding these letters and reassessing their value. A new agent took over the Norjak case in May 2010 when the previous agent, Larry Carr, was replaced.
A thorough search of back issues of the Portland Oregonian by Galen Cook demonstrated that there was no article referring to the fact that the Oregonian received letters from Cooper. It appears all the more likely that the Province and Oregonian turned over their letters to the FBI and only the Reno Evening Gazette wrote about them.
Cook was told by an FBI agent that the public was probably told that D.B. Cooper died in the jump in hopes of drawing him out of hiding. Does this mean that the FBI believed the hijacker got away all the time but just could not admit it?
To create false clues and trails, did Gossett author these letters to confuse the FBI before he returned to his apartment in Ogden, Utah after a Thanksgiving break? Moving from Merced north to Modesto it would be easy to post the first letter in the small town in Oakdale and then travel north to an airport and fly to Vancouver via Sacramento or similar airport. In Vancouver, he might have secured the ransom money for later retrieval.
Did Gossett author all or some of the letters to create a confusing trail before returning to Ogden?
Gossett had connections and associations with each of the areas where the letters were mailed.
What is the status of the FBI's investigation into the four letters that were clearly referred to in three separate articles in the Reno Evening Gazette only days after the skyjacking?
Only the FBI can test the letters for DNA, fingerprints, handwriting comparison, and report the results to the public. Are the envelopes the same? Are there any obvious similarities between the letters? Beyond evidence the letters might reveal, was there evidence left on the plane, like the tie and cigarette butts the skyjacker was known to have smoked, that could be linked to Gossett?
Cook has found that the FBI has some kind of DNA from the skyjacker but the quality of the sample may be questionable. He has been told that the FBI needs actual fingerprints from Gossett, not copies. Original fingerprint samples might be available through St. Louis' U.S. military records, or even Merced, California records where Gossett acted as a police officer. What kind of fingerprint evidence the FBI has obtained from the skyjacker has not been revealed publicly.
Throughout the years, there have been numerous suspects mentioned with this infamous crime with most definitively eliminated by the FBI with evidence they have kept confidential. In May of 2010, the FBI placed the Norjak case under its Northwest organized crime unit. In November 2010, the new Norjak case agent told Galen Cook that Ken Christiansen had been ruled out as a suspect and that Gossett was "a viable suspect." In the summer of 2011, a new suspect surfaced: L.D. Cooper. Though the FBI initially said that there was no DNA match with L.D. Cooper, later they have said that they will try to match fingerprint data they have with L.D. Cooper.
Galen Cook has provided DNA, fingerprints, military records, work records, other documents, confessions, motives, opportunities, skills, and escape routes of the prime suspect to the FBI.
The investigation into the significance and authenticity of the letters continues alongside the possibility that William P. Gossett is the real D.B. Cooper. Or is he just another suspect that will eventually be eliminated by the FBI like all the others that have gone before him?
Envelopes and Letter Sent to Portland Oregonian Revealed by FBI Office
In May of 2011, a Norjak case agent showed Cook two envelopes that might be linked to the Cooper case. Each was sent to the Portland Oregonian newspaper, one dated December 1, 1971 and the other December 3, 1971. They were on file in the Seattle Field Offices of the FBI.
Though one of the original FBI case officers, Ralph Himmelsbach, told a Portland Oregonian reporter that the Oregonian never received any letters from D.B. Cooper, the evidence in the Seattle FBI office would seem to contradict that belief.
Cook believes the December 3, 1971 envelope and letter he saw was a hoax.
However, the December 1st envelope "showed some resemblance to Bill Gossett's hand printing," according to Cook. The envelope contained double the postage necessary.
Synopsis of circumstantial evidence that William P. Gossett was D.B Cooper
At the time of the skyjacking, Gossett was 41 years old, 5' 10", 185 pounds with brown eyes and short, dark hair parted on the left. [The skyjacker was officially described by the FBI as white, male, mid-40's, 5' 10" to 6', 170-180 pounds, and possibly brown eyes. He was average to well built, olive complexion, dark hair parted on the left and combed back. He spoke with no discernible accent. The suspect smoked 8-10 Raleigh filtered cigarettes, wore a black suit, white shirt, black tie, black overcoat, brown shoes, and carried a dark briefcase and paper bag 4" x 12" x 14".]
Flight attendant Florence Shaffner said pictures of Gossett looked similar to Cooper.
A picture of Gossett taken in the early 1970s is similar to the second suspect sketch (composite B) released by the FBI.
Gossett drank bourbon and smoked cigarettes like Cooper.
Gossett had paratrooping experience as both a Marine and member of the U.S. Army. He had low elevation paratrooping experience as well.
Gossett traveled to Canada as part of his job with the Army. He was familiar with the Vancouver, Canada area where the second D.B Cooper letter was mailed and received by the Vancouver Province between 11/30/71 and 12/2/71.
Gossett's commanding officer at Weber State College, Maj. Palletti, said that Gossett could have been gone from his job before and after Thanksgiving 1971.
Gossett told three of his sons and his attorney that he was D.B. Cooper many years after the skyjacking. Numerous Gossett family members have said they believed that Gossett was either D.B. Cooper or had the ability to execute the risky jump and survive. Gossett often spoke of the D.B. Cooper case with relatives and kept numerous files on the skyjacking.
Cooper told flight attendant Florence Shaffner when queried as to why he was skyjacking the plane that "he had a grudge." Marilyn Smith, one of Gossett's wives, said he was dissatisfied with his position in the Army at the time of the skyjacking. Additionally, he had marital and financial problems along with custody battles for his children. The first Cooper letter has the line "was in a rut." Family members say he was disappointed that he did not receive a promotion from the Army in the early 1970's and might have had a gambling problem.
Gossett showed one of his sons wads of cash during Christmas of 1971. A niece has referred to seeing her uncle with large amounts of cash at the same Christmas.
Gossett was stationed in Brienne la Chateau, France in the 1960s during the time that a Belgian-produced comic written in French was available. The comic book, Dan Cooper, had plots similar to the skyjacking performed by Cooper on November 24, 1971. The comic was not available in the U.S. but it was in Canada. The skyjacker gave his name to the airline as "Dan Cooper." Gossett could read and write French.
Gossett traveled with his son to Vancouver, Canada in August of 1973 just days after his retirement from the Army at Ft. Lewis, Washington. He later told his son that the ransom money was stored in a safety deposit box in Vancouver. A letter signed D.B Cooper was mailed from Vancouver shortly after the skyjacking. The fourth D.B Cooper letter mailed to the Reno Evening Gazette on 12/1/71 referred to "planning for retirement."
Gossett lived and worked at one time in Merced, California just forty miles south of Oakdale, Ca., the location of the posting of the first D.B. Cooper letter mailed to Reno on 11/27/71.
Gossett lived the last years of his life in the Portland, Oregon area, which was the origin of the skyjacked plane and the vicinity of the drop zone of the skyjacker.
A 1978 marriage proposal to Gossett's fifth wife was written on MGM Grand Reno stationery. Two of the four Cooper letters covered here were mailed to the Reno Evening Gazette newspaper. When told by the flight crew that the jet would have to refuel before going to Mexico, Cooper suggested they land in Reno. They did land in Reno but without Cooper. According to one of Gossett's wives, Gossett spent a lot of time in Reno, Nevada never knowing exactly what he was doing there.
Additional Links and Sources
Picture of Letter 3:
http://photos.oregonlive.com/oregonian/2011/08/d_b_cooper_new_lead_3.html
YouTube Video Analysis of Letter 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcq305ozsUI
Alex Stout documentary "The Cooper Identity -- Who is the Real D.B. Cooper?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tRGP7t1U6s&feature=player_embedded
"Letter to Gazette Checked in FBI Hunt for Skyjacker," Reno Evening Gazette, Nov. 29, 1971.
"Words in 'Skyjacker Note' to Gazette Clipped from Modesto Bee, FBI Told," Reno Evening Gazette, Nov. 30, 1971.
"Gazette Receives Hijacker 'Letter' -- Second in a Week," Reno Evening Gazette, Dec. 3, 1971.
Personal correspondence with Galen Cook.
FBI page:
http://www.fbi.gov/page2/dec07/dbcooper123107.html
Set of pictures and documents showing Cooper tie, boarding pass, ransom money found, parachutes left on plane, notes by flight crew, pictures of crew and aircraft, maps of area:
http://n467us.com/Photo%20Evidence.htm#Money_Sand
National radio show Coast to Coast link to a Gossett family 8 mm silent film of Gossett in 1973.
Comparisons of Gossett photos with Cooper sketches:
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2008/03/29.html
General D.B. Cooper information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper Four letters signed by "D.B. Cooper" and mailed to three newspapers within days after the November 24, 1971 skyjacking are being investigated by attorney Galen Cook.
Links to Reno: Clifton and Marcus. Reno Gazette-Journal. D.B. Cooper Fascinates 40 Years Later in Reno, November 22, 2011.