The Mystery of D.B. Cooper

I watch a lot of documentaries, and lately find that I am enjoying fewer and fewer of them. This one was an exception. It's in the style of some of the Errol Morris films, very fluid, not committing to a narrative, letting the story lead where the story leads. We're in the company of actual participants in the DB Cooper drama (flight attendants, co-pilots, passengers, FBI agents), plus an odd assortment of characters who claim to have known the real DB Cooper and the real story of what happened to DB and the money he parachuted out of the plane with on a rainy night somewhere over Oregon. It all adds up to a fascinating 90 minutes or so of immersive cinema that recalls a world far removed from the one we live in today. Highly recommended despite the fact that a few benighted reviewers just don't seem to get it.

This documentary has some interesting cases. Out of the four suspected DB Cooper suspects two seem very credible, while the other two, especially the sex change operation one...are very laughable. The most credible story with sound evidence is Richard McCoy. He pulled off a stunt identical to DB Coopers months after the heist and even looked just like the FBI description of DB Cooper. They went into good detail on why McCoy would have done a second stunt and explained how he was tied to what little evidence the FBI had on DB Cooper.

The other credible story is the woman from Florida who supposedly was married to DB Cooper. He was on his death bed when he admitted to her he was DB Cooper. He lied to her about his identity and it goes into great detail on events in her life with him that pointed out he very well could have been the real Cooper. She also had a compadre who was interested in the Cooper story who did some serious sleuthing to pin point her details and memory while living with him that really did add up to the Cooper case.

The other two lousy stories consist of a woman who claims her uncle was DB Cooper and the other of a man who had a sex change operation and just claimed he was DB Cooper. The woman who claims her uncle was DB Cooper was going off on memory about her childhood of an event where her uncle showed up bloody and bruised with claims of having hijacked an airplane. Yet, he disappeared and was just forgotten about by the family for some reason? It was all really shoddy information and didn't seem legit. Then she forget about this seemingly very profound event in her life until her father was close to his death when he brought up about the time her uncle hijacked a plane. She also claimed her uncle was her favorite relative and liked spending time with him. So after he shows up bloody and bruised and disappears you just forgot about him? Seems really bizarre and none of it really added up. They did a polygraph test on her and she passed...take that for what you will.

The man with the sex change operation didn't even seem like it should have been included on this documentary. It seemed like a story you'd find in a fan fiction tv forum board versus anything the FBI would have taken seriously. Bobby Dayton was a man who knew airplanes and flew them on a regular basis. Further on in his life he decided to get a sex change operation and became Barbara Dayton. During this transitional period a couple who were into planes as well met Barbara and became friends. During a visit at this couples house she out of the blue says she is DB Cooper. Thats basically it, thats the entire story. Other then the fact he/she was well versed with airplanes nothing else is included for evidence. Other than a diary that Barbara kept but for whatever reason around the time of the Cooper hijacking didn't write much down during that period. If my memory serves me right it was the only one out of the four suspects where it mentioned nothing about the FBI looking into it and for good reason.

Over all use your own judgement on it. It's a documentary with two good cases that kept me entertained.

Highly entertaining if you watch it as fun entertainment and not as a science show with die hard facts, because some of the people are obviously lying.

Recommend strongly , 8/10

5 suspects really? They all seem like they did it and they all basically confessed. How can the flight attendant not look at the 5 pictures and know exactly who she spent all that time with. They don't even show that ladies opinion on the 5 suspects. I give it 7 only because there is still lots of facts and cool info about the actually highjack

How do you make such an interesting subject this boring?

The "who" is less interesting when it's something that can never be resolved. The better approach would have been focusing on what drives these people to obsess about the case, and hold onto the theories that they do; something like the documentary on The Shining fan theories (Room 237).

It's presented decently enough, and didn't offend or anger me... it was just dull, really.

There's a 30-minute YouTube video by Lemmino on DB Cooper that's an hour shorter than this and far more interesting.