Customer Reviews

D.B. Cooper: The Real McCoy

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
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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.

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.

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.

I have been fascinated with the 1971 hijacking by the so called DB Cooper for years. I saw this account of who may actually have been responsible on the History Channel's "Files of the FBI" and so ordered the book from Amazon. It was well written and made it clear to me that Richard McCoy was the guy responsible. However, the only issue that was not elaborated, that would have clinched it for me, was his supposed alibi of being at home on Thanksgiving when the hijacking occurred. There was also evidence that he was NOT at home. Was that alibi thoroughly investigated by the FBI or did they just take his family's word for it? I wish there was someone to talk with regarding the alibi.

surprisngly moving account of a sunday school teacher turned airline hijacker

author bernie rhodes working with researcher russell calume makes the persuasive
if not convincing case that richard mccoy was in fact db cooper the modern day anti-hero who
leaped from a jetplane while hugging close 200k in ransom bills
and vanished never to be heard from again ... or ... maybe not

both author and researcher were themselves involved in the case
writer rhodes as the criminal courts officer who conducted mccoy's presentencing interviews
and researcher calume a former fbi boss in the district where the hijacking took place

the supposition is db cooper and his loot parted company during the parachute jump
which was into the teeth of an unpredicted stormfront
not to mention the kick in the pants a boeing 727 must deliver
to any guy decides willingly to dive off its back stairs at 200mph
"geronimo-ron"
(i read somewhere 'jump speed' for parachute planes is around 100mph
and theyre definitely not jets usually single prop 'puddle jumpers')

my unscientific comparison is picture driving along the highway going 50mph
and sticking your hand out the car window there's a pretty strong force against it
a normal (if there is such a thing) parachute jump feels twice that force
db cooper got blasted by 4x the 'hand out the car window' wind tunnel effect
so no it's not too hard to imagine a guy losing control his grip

so ... according to the rhodes&calume's hypothesis mccoy aka cooper
using the 'if first you dont succeed' method of criminal endeavor
tried it again six months later

jacking up the ranson to 500k ('cost recovery plus' method of hijacking?)
and this time managing to hold tight all that beautiful cash-ola
the whole way down to good ol' terra firma
rhodes writes mccoy in his presentencing interview said the jetstream force
knocked him unconcious for a minute or so before he came to

mccoy did succeed in holding onto the money satchel this time okay
but his freedom not so much
two days later he got busted for air piracy

this story really takes off 175 pages in til then it struck me as fairly newspaper-ish
style reporting from then til its end tho
it's tough to put this book down

as said rhodes spent some considerable time w/ mccoy
interviewing him for a court required pre-sentencing report
both men quite remarkable mccoy as a good guy gone bad
and rhodes as a been around the block quasi-cop/investigator whose storytelling
skills - once he brought himself into the tale - really are impressive

calume the reseacher's fbi contacts gained him access to case files
and discussions off the record w/ other g-man types (rhodes terms them numerous times
as 'fbi secret handshake' talks)
and some pretty compelling evidence - and coincidence - do seem to 'tie'* rf mccoy to db cooper

a couple pretty big problems tho werent answered sufficiently enough
to exclude reasonable doubt (at least for me)

one was that during the hijack cooper chained smoked cigs
and sipped bourbon&7ups (suave skyjacker-style)
while mccoy not exactly mormon poster boy candidate material obv but still a practicing one
shunned alcohol and tobacco

another problem for me is db cooper/rf mccoy jumped near portland ore
around 8pm thanksgiving eve the author claims mccoy phoned home
from las vegas nev 10pm thanksgiving day 26 hours later

portland is 1000 miles from vegas mccoy/cooper jumped into galeforce winds but
unless he'd painted a glow-in-the-dark bullseye on top of his getaway car and stuck the landing
covering that distance within that time span seems kinda iffy

i mean how long did it take cooper/mccoy to even find his way out of the forest he'd jumped into?
then get back to wherever his ride was? assuming he acted alone that is

still i would say read the authors' case presented in whole and judge for yourself
stranger things have happened i guess on dark & stormy nights

also too a pretty weird coincidence took place between the fallen mormon mccoy
and a name fairly well known to those who buy into that faith
and it provides a bizarrely fitting end to a story that mixes money religion and firearms
a damnation trifecta if i ever heard one
but seriously ...

before mccoy taught sunday school** he was a vietnam war hero
a chopper pilot with multiple rescues and bravery medals
who for good measure decided to become a green beret paratrooper*** too
gutcheck bonafides dont come much more impressive (some might say 'suicidal ramboesque bonafides'
but whatever ...) certainly they were worthy of both admiration and reward

richard mccoy tho paid a not small price and consequence for his post war decision-making
reading the story it seemed too decisions made more for love&marriage than money
but maybe those things never go quite unrelated and certainly without a doubt
mccoy was a guy not averse to stepping out - way out - on a limb

the book's story arc also includes telling about the only convict ever to bust out of
super-prison marion illinois
his and mccoy's paths soon met up sort of like a matchstick and matchbook strikestrip do

what we have here is not a failure to communicate but a story of four tough guys
who were really good at what they did - for better or worse - told by two
who went 'good' about two who went 'bad' real badddd
after it was all said and done the two good guys got together and wrote a book about it

i imagine most of us of a certain age now would still recall
the name 'db cooper' (if only vaguely) should it come up but id never heard of richard mccoy
until a week before this review

his story sure seemed a tale with action thriller movie written all over it
but that never came to be
why not is covered in mccoy's wikipedia entry and the why not does not seem to support
the authors' theory
but ... who knows?

richard mccoy may have been ... or ... may not have been ... db cooper
regardless, his story separate and apart from db cooper seems more interesting (and tragic)
than the fabled sky pirate's

i guess the moral of the story is: 'ya makes your choices and ya gits to live with 'em'
... sometimes you die with them too

ps:
re the '*' above: if you do read the book an obscure pun attempt will change to just a lame one

re the '**' somewhere i read too that mccoy for a time was also a boyscout troop leader
but including that point there just seemed to strain credulity past any chance of believability
even tho evidently true

re '***' and believe it or not mccoy told rhodes he actually was terrified of heights

'The Real McCoy' is a good book, and the author makes a reasonable case that in fact McCoy was Cooper.

However, you know people are going to start doing their own research on McCoy, and what they eventually discovered was that McCoy was definitely NOT in Washington State on the day of the DB Cooper hijacking. In addition, every witness who saw and interacted with Cooper during the Northwest Airlines hijacking described him as being in his mid-to-late forties. Richard Floyd McCoy was twenty-nine years of age at the time of the hijacking. These facts alone negate the possibility that McCoy was Cooper, and show him to be what we actually was: A copycat. In addition, McCoy was loud and threatening to the crew, brandishing a pistol and a fake grenade. The REAL D.B. Cooper was nothing but polite. They were not the same person. Later, the widow of Richard Floyd McCoy successfully sued the publishers of this book, after she was able to establish his alibi, i.e. McCoy was not in Washington on Thanksgiving, 1971...the date of the original Cooper hijacking.

This book tells you what really happened to D. B. Cooper. He's dead, shot by the FBI. The physical items he left in the plane, positively ID'd by both his wife and mother, clinches the case. Don't believe any other junk you hear about Cooper on TV. In '85 I dated Dorothy Holland, who had been McCoy's sister-in-law as she was married to his brother. She's mentioned in the book. At the time she knew McCoy had been killed by the FBI, but she didn't know McCoy and Cooper were the same. She liked McCoy, who, unfortunately, was a sap who should have told his wife to get lost. He paid the price.

Richard McCoy was the victim of a fundamental contradiction in a society that gave him medals for violence in Vietnam, and life in prison for violence back home. I'd like to see a "McCoy Act" passed that mandates downward departures for vets like McCoy. He was a loving father, with a bitch for a wife, who'll burn in hell. Too bad he was excommunicated by his LDS faith. As devoted as he was to it, I think it would be a caring gesture if they reinstated his membership (just as they did for John D. Lee). slr383838 at yahoo.

I read this book and wish I could have been available to help support and add to its contents. I spent a great deal of time with the McCoy family and especially... Denise. I MISS them all especially Richard. He baptised me into the Mormon faith. So, Karen, Denise, Chante, and "dinky duck" (remember?) I am sad and wish you all Gods speed. I wish you had kept in touch with me. I still miss you Denise... Mike

I have not read this book, although I have done extensive research on D.B. Cooper and Richard McCoy Jr. and I had read in my research that Richard McCoy Jr. was sentenced to 45 years in 1972 for hijacking and endangering the crew. I never heard that he had been shot, and would like to find out more. I will most definately be buying this book, but I just wanted to get the word out there.