D.B. Cooper, the Real McCoy

The hijacking of a Northwest Orient Airlines flight in 1971 by one Dan (D. B.) Cooper, who parachuted from the plane and escaped with $200,000, is the only unsolved crime of its kind in U.S. history. The following year a United Airlines flight was hijacked by a man who parachuted from the aircraft with $500,000. Identified as Richard McCoy, a Mormon Sunday School teacher and criminal justice student at Brigham Young University, the hijacker was convicted and sentenced to 45 years, but he escaped and was killed in a shoot-out with law enforcement officials in 1974. Both Rhodes and Calame were federal agents in Utah who worked on the McCoy case and believe that Cooper and McCoy were one and the same, a contention buttressed by the criminals' identical MOs and physical evidence. The argument is convincing, the book dramatic. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct.)