A GIANT leap forward has been made in the hunt to unmask DB Cooper after an independent investigator probing his infamous unsolved skyjacking has obtained the crook's DNA.
The identity of DB Cooper has continued to perplex investigators for the last 53 years.
The bomb-wielding thief hijacked Northwest Airlines Flight 305 on Thanksgiving Eve 1971 and parachuted out of the plane at 10,000 feet with $200,000 strapped to his waist, never to be seen again.
Cooper made the daring jump with all his possessions, leaving only a black JCPenny clip-on tie behind in his seat.
The tie has long been seen as the most important clue to help finally unlock the mystery.
What Ola and James Jordan really ate and did to shed 7st
And Eric Ulis, who has been investigating Cooper for the last 13 years, exclusively revealed to The U.S. Sun on Monday that the criminal's days of anonymity are now numbered.
Last week, Ulis met with Tom Kaye, a scientist who tested DB Cooper's tie in 2009 and 2011 with a special device that captures particulates in a filter.
The initial reason for Kaye's tests was to analyze the accessory for traces of certain metals, chemicals, and pollen.
However, the device is also capable of capturing DNA - a realization recently made by Ulis and Kaye.
Kaye's filter - which has been hermetically sealed for the last 13 years - possesses Cooper's DNA with "100% certainty", the pair say.
They now plan to share the filter with a state-of-the-art lab to conduct metagenomic DNA analysis, an advanced kind of analysis that enables scientists to separate individual strands of DNA.
Once all of the DNA strands from the tie are separated, Kaye and Ulis will begin building a genetic profile of Cooper to compare with outstanding suspects, such as Vince Petersen.
The pair will also be able to use the DNA for forensic genealogy, allowing them to build out a family tree for Cooper and work backward to identify him.
"People thought I was kidding when I said things are moving so fast that we could solve this by the end of the year, but I wasn't," laughed Ulis, stressing the significance of the DNA development.
"Metagenomic DNA is the holy grail where this is concerned because it can separate individually all of the DNA profiles on the tie, even for something like a dog. So If DB Cooper had a dog, we'd be able to find that on there.
I'm a 'time traveler' - the 'worst case scenario that could kill us all'
"It's critically important because [...] let's say you have a dozen different DNA profiles on that tie from everyone who has come into contact with it over the years, including various FBI agents and Cooper himself.
"We will be able to separate all of those strands individually, and - while we won't know which one is Cooper's - we will be able to gradually narrow them down.
"If DB Cooper had any kids, for example, those children would likely be on the tie as well. So if any of the dozen or so profiles on the tie are related, that will mostly likely be Cooper's."
'WE DON'T NEED THE FBI'
Ulis called the development "thrilling".
He sued the FBI for access to Cooper's tie for additional testing last year but his case was thrown out by a judge in December.
The tie has twice been tested for DNA with little success but Ulis stressed the kinds of testing used by investigators 20 years ago are like the "Stone Age" in comparison to the technology available today.
While insisting he no longer needs the FBI's help to crack the case, he is still campaigning for access to Cooper's tie.
Ulis wants to test a hidden spindle in the knot of the tie that he believes investigators overlooked and that may contain an isolated sample of Cooper's DNA.
"Metagenomic DNA testing is expensive, time-consuming, and complicated," he added.
"That's why the spindle is of great importance because it's protected. We're likely dealing with a situation where DB Cooper's DNA is isolated on that spindle.
"Maybe there's one or two profiles there, compared with the rest of the tie which could contain dozens.
"Testing the spindle could give us a solid, clean, and simple profile.
"But we don't need the FBI anymore. We have more than enough to work with to find DB Cooper ourselves."
PRIME SUSPECT: VINCE PETERSEN
The FBI declined to comment on Ulis' investigation and his outstanding request to access Cooper's tie.
The Bureau officially closed its investigation into DB Cooper in 2016, rending the skyjacking of Northwest Flight 305 the only unsolved crime of its kind in US history.
More than 800 suspects were considered in the years that followed but none were deemed to be a compelling match and no arrests were ever made.
Ulis is currently investigating Vince Petersen as the prime suspect in his probe.
Petersen, a metallurgist who died in 2002, would've been 52 at the time of the skyjacking and shared several physical similarities with eyewitness descriptions of Cooper.
One of the key items of evidence that led Ulis to Petersen's door was a series of chemicals found by Kaye on Cooper's tie that were consistent with rare, specialty metals from the aerospace sector.
Further analysis of those elements led Ulis to a now-defunct specialty facility in Pittsburgh called Crucible Steel, where Petersen worked as an engineer.
Last week, in his latest push to lobby the FBI to grant him access to the tie, Ulis enlisted the help of Vince Petersen's daughter, Julie Dunbar, to appeal directly to the Bureau too.
Unlike Ulis, Dunbar doesn't believe her dad was DB Cooper.
However, she is hoping the FBI allows the investigator access so she can clear her father's name once and for all.
Speaking to The U.S. Sun last week, Dunbar said, "I told Eric I understand all the evidence he's gathered and that he's claiming the research leads to where my dad worked and everything and that's fine.
"But it's my dad's character you really need to rely on because this is not something he would've done.
"He wouldn't have dived out of a plane. He wouldn't have abandoned the family the day before Thanksgiving and flown out to Washington, decided to hijack a plane and asked for four parachutes and $200k, and then jumped out of the plane in the dark of night when it was raining.
"That's just not my dad. He was a very well-educated man, he didn't do anything on the spur of the moment, and something like this is just so far out of his character."
Dunbar added, "Eric's story is very compelling, I'll give him that.
"But it does not change my point of view that my dad was not DB Cooper."
'JUST A NORMAL DAD'
Petersen worked at Crucible Steel for more than two decades.
The facility was one of the major suppliers of titanium and stainless steel parts for Boeing during the 1960s and 70s, Ulis says.
The plane Cooper hijacked was a Boeing 727, and it's long believed he had ties to the aerospace industry because of his near-constant use of aviation jargon during the heist and his seemingly intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the aircraft.
Ulis was led to Crucible by several titanium particles found on Cooper's tie that the company had patents for at the time of the hijacking.
The investigator believes Cooper worked at the plant and that Petersen is the most compelling match for him.
He identified a new particle on Cooper's tie earlier this month - pure titanium smeared with stainless steel - that Ulis says fortifies Cooper's links to Crucible.
Smearing titanium with steel is a process known as "cold rolling," which Crucible was one of very few facilities practicing during the 60s and 70s, according to Ulis.
Theorizing a potential motive, Ulis notes that Crucible and Boeing both experienced mass layoffs in 1971 because of a sharp downturn in the aerospace sector that year.
Cooper also famously told one of the stewardesses aboard Flight 305 of his reasoning for carrying out the skyjacking, "I don't have a grudge against your airline, miss. I just have a grudge."
According to Dunbar, her father didn't have any experience flying a plane or jumping out of one.
He did serve in the Merchant Marines, she said, but otherwise had no additional military experience.
"He was just a normal, everyday father," said Dunbar.
"He enjoyed being with his family, going on trips with us, going finishing, or playing golf.
"He was exactly what you would want him to be as a dad."
Imagining how her father would react to insinuations he was DB Cooper, Dunbar said he'd be stunned.
She continued, "He would be totally shocked; he'd be flabbergasted, to say the very least.
"He would say, ‘Well that’s stupid’. He’d call DB Cooper stupid and ask what that person was thinking."
CONFLICTING BELIEFS
Dunbar said she never heard of the name DB Cooper growing up and only became aware of the case four years ago when a documentary about the unsolved hijacking happened to come on the TV channel she was watching.
She didn't give the case a second thought until earlier this month, when her son sent her a news article from a local Pittsburgh news station, naming her father as an unofficial suspect in the case.
Dunbar said she was initially very shocked, upset, and slightly angry at the insinuations Ulis was making.
She reached out to him over email and the pair arranged to speak on the phone.
While Ulis didn't convince her that Petersen could've been the skyjacker, she said his investigation as a whole was interesting and she believes her dad may have known the real culprit - though he was almost certainly unaware they'd pulled off the heist.
"Anything is possible," said Dunbar, who would've been 7 years old at the time of Cooper's feat.
"I spoke to Eric about this clip-on tie. As far as I know, my dad didn't have one in his wardrobe. Maybe it was something that he kept at work [...] and someone else could've borrowed it and not returned it.
"But as far as my dad being DB Cooper himself, definitely not.
"He would've returned home late on Thanksgiving [if it was him] and he was in charge of carving the turkey every year.
"My mom would've been furious if he wasn't home and my dad wouldn't have left on a holiday like that unless it was absolutely mandatory for work."
THE END IS NIGH
DB Cooper hijacked Northwest Orient Flight 305 on November 24, 1971, during a short trip between Portland and Seattle.
Shortly after take-off, Cooper handed a note to a flight attendant sitting behind him, informing her he had a bomb in his briefcase.
In exchange for the lives of the 36 other passengers and six crew on board, the mild-mannered hijacker demanded $200,000 in stacks of $20 bills and four parachutes.
When the flight landed in Seattle, the cash and parachutes were exchanged for all of the passengers and some of the crew.
Following Cooper's instructions, the Boeing 727 was refueled and took off for a second time - this time in the direction of Mexico City.
But around 8pm, somewhere over southwest Washington, a light flashed up on the instrument panel in the cockpit, indicating the rear exit door had been opened.
With that, Cooper was gone, parachuting out into the stormy night sky with his ransom in tow.
Virtually all traces of Cooper vanished therein.
Other than his tie, the only other trace yielded of Cooper since came in 1980 when a young boy digging along the banks of the Columbia River in Tena bar unearthed $5,800 in $20 bills buried in the earth.
The serial numbers of the bills matched those issued to Cooper during the skyjacking but the discovery failed to bring any new leads.
But following a series of promising developments in his own investigation, Ulis is hopeful he can crack the case by the end of the year.
"By December 31, 2024, this is going to be a new world as far as this case is concerned," he said.
"We're either going to have figured out who this guy is, or we're gonna have a solid DNA profile to work with that's going to be pointing us in the right direction."
