D.B. Cooper: The Real McCoy [Hardcover]

Bernie Rhodes (Author), Russell P. Calame (Contributor)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 246 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Utah Pr (T) (October 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874803772
• ISBN-13: 978-0874803778
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #129,943 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Was sooo wrong before., March 12, 2002

By 

Phillip Duke Jr. (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: D.B. Cooper: The Real McCoy (Hardcover)

I wrote a review before, but I was very wrong. I went to the library and checked out this book. It was so great, I learned small details that I didn't know before. This book goes into so much detail, it's amazing. When before I didn't know much about Richard Floyd McCoy Jr., now I know so much more. It seems that people can relate to him for being just an ordinary guy. The Cooper-McCoy similarities are too many to be coincidental. For a Cooper-McCoy fan it is very interesting. Although, if someone is into true crime, it is also great. I am sorry for my review earlier.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stranger than fiction, May 22, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: D.B. Cooper: The Real McCoy (Hardcover)

Absolutely fascinating, thoroughly researched book. This story is amazing but tragic--I came close to shedding a few tears for poor McCoy at the end of the book.
The author does a great job of backing up his claims with research, and honestly expresses his regrets about the things he wishes he would have asked McCoy.
Excellent read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Preponderence of the evidence" points to McCoy as Cooper, August 2, 2011

By 

J. Kilbride - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: D.B. Cooper: The Real McCoy (Hardcover)

That's a summation from co-author Russell Calame. I called him several years ago in Utah and talked about the case, after reading this excellent book. Calame provided details regarding the Karen McCoy lawsuit, which is often hoisted as evidence that McCoy was not DB Cooper. On the phone, Calame said his lawyers had Karen on the defensive throughout. Primarily she was adamant that a movie would not be made. Calame told me that he and co-author Bernie Rhodes were exhausted after researching and writing the book, and had no interest in a movie.

I'd recommend this book heavily to anyone with a threat of applied common sense. If McCoy is not Cooper, he should have had tame normalcy on the day of the skyjacking. The book provides overwhelming evidence that was not the case, that non-gambler McCoy made an extremely odd and out of character drive from Provo to Las Vegas in the wee hours preceding the Cooper incident. There are credit card receipts along the way, the card in McCoy's name and with his signature. Then the paper trail strangely disappears for more than 36 hours, until the card is used again at the closest gas station to the Las Vegas airport, and a phone call made from the Tropicana Hotel -- at that point the nearest hotel to the airport -- to McCoy's home in Provo.

The implication is obvious, that McCoy drove to Las Vegas to begin the Cooper event, flying to the Pacific Northwest from Las Vegas. He made his way back to Las Vegas a day after the skyjacking. The authors uncovered receipts indicating McCoy made a test run several weeks earlier, staying at the Westward Ho Hotel on the Strip. Rhodes and Calame believe the vast majority of the money was lost during the jump, prompting McCoy to try again months later.

The FBI is incredibly sloppy and disingenuous to assert McCoy was elsewhere on the day of the Cooper skyjacking. At various points they've claimed he was at home in Provo celebrating Thanksgiving, or in Los Angeles taking part in national guard activity. I called the Utah Air National Guard a few years ago and they literally laughed out loud when I asked if maneuvers could have been held in Los Angeles over a holiday period. "No, I guarantee we'd didn't do that."

Rhodes, in connection with the trial for the second skyjacking, questioned McCoy about his whereabouts on Thanksgiving. McCoy wobbled all over the place, covered very well in the book. I'll use Calame's published quote from a few years ago, when the DB Cooper story resurfaced: "I think we proved pretty conclusively that he wasn't here, that he lied about Thanksgiving dinner."

The internet is virtually barren of the details found in this book. Consequently, many message board posters are eager to dismiss McCoy, preferring mysterious angles to the simple answer. In particular, it's ludicrous, IMO, to rely on physical description. McCoy was a wiry type with hardened facial features and thinning hair, appearing much older than his age of 29. The cover photo of this book in itself rejects the notion that McCoy did not resemble Cooper.