Investigators claim they have finally confirmed the identity of DB Cooper, the infamous 1971 airplane hijacker.
The team of cold case experts say they have decoded a 1972 message addressed to The Portland Oregonian Newspaper that was supposedly sent by the mystery man months after the hijacking.
They claim the message contains a confession from Cooper, which ties his identity to 74-year-old Vietnam War veteran Robert W. Rackstraw.
The man dubbed by the FBI as DB Cooper, who is one of the 20th century's most compelling masterminds, hijacked a Boeing 727 at Seattle-Tacoma airport and held its crew and passengers hostage with a bomb.
Once his demand of $200,000 cash – the equivalent of $1.2 million today – was reached and transferred onto the plane, he had the crew take off before he parachuted out over the dense Pacific Northwest woods and disappeared.
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Investigators have uncovered a letter that they believe is a confession of the true identity of the infamous 1971 airplane hijacker DB Cooper
They say a letter sent to a newspaper months after the hijacking ties Cooper's identity to Vietnam War veteran Robert W. Rackstraw
Investigators dedicated to uncovering the true identity of infamous 1971 airplane hijacker DB Cooper (left in police sketch) claim they now have the final pieces of evidence that proves he is Vietnam veteran Robert W. Rackstraw (right)
Investigators questioned Rackstraw about the Cooper case in 1978 and eliminated him as a suspect. When Colbert first publicly named and linked Rackstraw to the hijacking, the veteran's lawyer called the accusations 'the stupidest thing I ever heard'.
Rackstraw had an illustrious military career as a pilot in the 1st Cavalry Division – one of the first major American air assault divisions. MORE
