FBI-cleared hijacker admits being “Cooper” in coded letter
‘Nam superior uses 1950 Army booklet to unmask a 6th note from jumper, now 74

“We have doctrinal validation of the process that (code-cracker) Rick Sherwood used to decipher all six
of these messages. In addition, DoD records show Rackstraw learned his coding method at Fort Bragg in
a Special Warfare Operations Course in 1968.” – Rackstraw’s retired commander, LTC Ken Overturf

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 EMBARGOED 6/28/18 (L.A., CA):
Finding the man behind six
taunting D.B. Cooper letters was
top priority for 77-year-old FBI
Founder J. Edgar Hoover. But it
was a private cold case team,
decades later, which got the
author’s confession.
What “excited” Hoover’s agents
most were the two typed notes.
1971-72 FBI memos, available
through an FOIA court order by
Investigative Producer Thomas J.
Colbert, revealed that the 5th one
was openly called “the Cooper
letter.” Eighteen days after the
crime, four newspapers were
sent carbon copies of it. The
mystery writer crowed, “I left no
prints… I wore a toupee… I wore
putty make-up” – details only the
arriving agents, close passengers
(sworn to secrecy) and the daredevil would know. Stamped as
“evidence,” the note was locked
away for almost five decades.
When an Oregonian editor forwarded the hijacker’s alleged 6th letter in March 1972 (p. 1), Bureau brass
again had high hopes. But it was mailed from Jacksonville, FL, the first from the East. Then the lab declared
the typewriter used was unlike the 5th – “no connection could be established” with the earlier messages.
The five-month postal goose chase ended with the frustrated Hoover’s last signature stamp (above).
***
After a six-month records battle by Washington, D.C., lawyer Mark S. Zaid, a judge ordered the FBI in 2017
to start releasing secret files from the Cooper archive to Colbert’s team – ironically, led by former special
agents. That’s when the 40 volunteer lawmen and women learned something was still hiding in the letters.
Vietnam veteran Rick Sherwood was a senior codebreaker for the covert Army Security Agency (ASA), a
sister program of the NSA. Colbert recruited him because the team’s long-suspected Cooper candidate –
74-year-old Robert W. Rackstraw Sr. – served in two of Sherwood’s classified units. A former Special
Forces-trained paratrooper, explosives expert and pilot with an astounding 22 identities, Rackstraw was
tracked down twice by the FBI, halfway around the globe. But in 1979, the recaptured fugitive was abruptly
“ruled out” by Seattle Division – a decision that led a half-dozen agents to brake rank and go to the media.
One of them, retired SA Tom R. Kinberg, joined Colbert’s team in 2012 to continue his Rackstraw hunt.
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 Last January, ASA analyst Sherwood recognized his 1969 Army “code-speak” in letters #1-5 (#5 below). The
whodunit ended with Rackstraw’s recently unmasked gloat in note #6. (More on codes and his superior’s
confirmation are at https://dbcooper.com/2018/02/press-release-smoking-gun-robert-w-rackstraw-sr/)
The team’s new revelations, along with more than 100 pieces of evidence gathered over seven years, were
sadly met by FBI silence. A formal letter from attorney Zaid to Director Christopher J. Wray was answered
with a form letter. Colbert got the Bureau’s message: “I know the FBI has much bigger problems, and
Rackstraw knows it too. As long as he lays low, he’s off their radar. But my guys think #6’s boast will put
new salt in their wounds at Headquarters. If that happens, Hoover’s going to crack his first smile.”
##

FYI: Ongoing archive cover-up is happening in WA, D.C, not at Seattle Division. FOIA docs available; more at
DBCooper.com. With signed NDA, copyrighted code-breaking is obtainable thru experts and Army manual.
CONTACTS:

Exec Producer/Co-Author Thomas J. Colbert (L.A., CA): 866-778-5669; TColbert@CommStatim.com
National Security/FOIA Attorney Mark Zaid (WA, DC): 202-454-2809; mark@markzaid.com
TJC’s Entertainment Attorney/Manager Michael London (BH, CA): 310-474-0577; lonbiz@aol.com
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