A man has come forward claiming his mother confessed on her deathbed that she helped orchestrate the legendary D.B. Cooper skyjacking. Rick McCoy alleges that his mother, Karen McCoy, revealed she assisted in planning both the 1971 NORJAK heist and his father's 1972 copycat crime. The confession came after Karen's death in 2020, prompting Rick to finally share DNA evidence with the FBI.

Richard McCoy Jr., a Vietnam veteran and skydiver, was arrested for a similar 1972 hijacking but never charged with the Cooper case. His son believes his father was the infamous skyjacker who parachuted from Northwest Orient Flight 305 with $200,000 in ransom money. The FBI has quietly reopened the decades-old investigation amid these new claims, though previous confessions have failed to crack the case.

This latest revelation joins a long line of D.B. Cooper confessors, from a Lincoln family chauffeur to a dying forger who claimed to be the hijacker. With the FBI's original suspect description pointing to a white male in his mid-40s, the case has spawned countless theories over 54 years. Whether this new lead will finally solve aviation's greatest mystery remains uncertain, but it underscores how the Cooper legend continues to captivate the public imagination.