DNA Doesn't Match New "D.B. Cooper" Suspect

UPDATE: Turns out "D.B. Cooper" may still be out there.

The FBI says that DNA testing failed to link a new suspect to the man who jumped out of a hijacked airplane with $200,000 in ransom cash four decades ago, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Investigators thought they had finally solved the case earlier this year when a women, Lynn Doyle Cooper, came forward claiming that she believed her now deceased uncle was the infamous "D.B," based largely on childhood memories from when she was 8 years old.

But a DNA sample taken from someone in the suspect's family did not match a sample taken from a necktie left onboard the plane by the hijacker. The FBI said it doesn't know for certain that the DNA on the tie belonged to the suspect (he could have borrowed it from someone else), but it nonetheless leaves investigators without a positive ID.

UPDATE Tuesday, Aug. 2 : The FBI may be close to confirming the ID of "D.B. Cooper," but that doesn't mean the feds will be arresting the man who jumped out of a hijacked airplane with $200,000 in ransom money.

The promising lead the agency announced over the weekend points to a dead man.

An FBI spokesman said the agency's Seattle office has been investigating the tip for more than a year, and that the suspect in question died of natural causes 10 years ago. If the suspect is indeed the legendary hijacker, that would mean he lived some 30 years after jumping from the plane, "defying those who concluded he couldn't have survived the leap," the Seattle Times reports.

The suspect is believed to have reported an auto injury in 1971, perhaps to explain any injuries he may have suffered in the jump.

The FBI says it is still investigating the case, although so far there appears to be little evidence to contradict their suspicions that the man – who officials still are not identifying – is the one they have been looking for.

ORIGINAL POST Monday at 3:22 p.m.: First Whitey Bulger, now “D.B. Cooper”?

The FBI says it is investigating a credible lead in a 40-year-old case in which a man escaped with $200,000 in ransom money by jumping out of a passenger plane that he had hijacked over the Pacific Northwest.

Federal investigators are not yet saying if they now know the identity of the hijacker – known to the American public only as “D.B. Cooper” – but say that the tip came from a law enforcement official who directed investigators to a person who has information on the suspect, the Associated Press reports.

According to agency spokeswoman Ayn Sandalo Dietrich, an item potentially belonging to the suspect has been sent to a lab in Virginia for forensic testing.

Dietrich said that the new information is the "most promising lead we have right now," but she maintained that the investigation was far from over. "With any lead, our first step is to assess how credible it is," she added. "Having this come through another law enforcement (agency), having looked it over when we got it, it seems pretty interesting."

So far, investigators have received more than 1,000 leads since the beginning of the case, all of which have failed to produce significant evidence.

For those unfamiliar with the unsolved crime, here's the background on a story that captured the American imagination and has puzzled investigators for four decades:

On November 24, 1971, a man who identified himself as "Dan Cooper" walked up to the Northwest Orient Airlines counter at Portland International Airport and purchased one ticket for a flight to Seattle. After the plane took off, Cooper passed along a note to a flight attendant indicating that he had a bomb and was hijacking the aircraft. He demanded $200,000 in ransom money, which Northwest's president decided to pay, along with four parachutes.

After the plane landed in Seattle, with the FBI watching closely, a Northwest employee passed along the money and the parachutes (provided by a local skydiving school) to the hijacker. With his demands met, Cooper released the 36 passengers.

Cooper demanded that the plane take off once again, with a flight path headed southwest towards Mexico. He also specified that the plane should fly slowly and at a low altitude. About 30 minutes after takeoff, the crew received an alert in the cockpit that the plane's rear exit had been opened. When the plane landed two hours later, there was no sign of Cooper. For now, his fate remains a mystery.