Robert Rackstraw, D.B. Cooper suspect with various bizarre Oregon connections, dies at 75

Updated Jul 10, 2019; Posted Jul 10, 2019

By Douglas Perry | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Robert Rackstraw loved adventure. He also embraced danger and confrontation. For a time, the FBI suspected him of being the legendary skyjacker known as D.B. Cooper.

Rackstraw died Tuesday in San Diego of natural causes. He was 75. He is survived by his wife Dorothy and “several children and grandchildren,” the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.

Born in Ohio in 1943, the high-school dropout became a decorated U.S. Army paratrooper during the Vietnam War in the late 1960s before being run out of the military for lying and other misconduct. He pursued various jobs and diversions in the years that followed, leading to trouble with the law.
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Along with his exploits in California, Rackstraw also spent time in Oregon -- beyond the possibility that he purchased a plane ticket at Portland International Airport on Nov. 24, 1971, under the name Dan Cooper.
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It might have been inevitable, then, that Rackstraw would be linked to the famous -- and famously unsolved -- D.B. Cooper case. In the late 1970s, the FBI considered Rackstraw a suspect for a while before moving on, in part because witnesses said the skyjacker was in his 40s. (Rackstraw was 28 in 1971). A reporter at the time asked Rackstraw if he were Cooper, and the Vietnam War vet gave a cryptic answer, saying that if he were investigating the case, “I wouldn’t discount myself.” Years later Rackstraw insisted he was winding the reporter up and that he wasn’t D.B. Cooper.



A 1970s mugshot of Robert Rackstraw.
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-- Douglas Perry

@douglasmperry