Author Topic: Suspects And Confessions  (Read 1304420 times)

Offline Chaucer

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Re: Suspects And Confessions
« Reply #4680 on: April 14, 2021, 01:05:45 PM »
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Has it occurred to you that you're just not very bright?

"Inconclusive" is my word. You get that right?

The test is going to come back one of two ways...Eliminate or Cannot Eliminate. I am using the word "inconclusive" for the "Cannot Eliminate" result so as to be clear that this result does not mean he is definitely DBC.

If the result is Cannot Eliminate, I do not know the precise language they would use because I have never seen such a result.

This is not a court of law. This is a discussion on an Internet forum.

That said...Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, I rest my case.

Cheers!
Ah, so the Almighty Eric Ulis can utilize words to fit his narrative however he wants.

Smart people actually use precise language so as to not murk up the issue. Which one is your excuse?
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Offline Robert99

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Re: Suspects And Confessions
« Reply #4681 on: April 14, 2021, 04:17:47 PM »
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Changing the subject...

I have been corresponding with a woman associated with Underground Mysteries regarding a POI that I have identified by the name of Arthur (Arturo) Levario Sr. Her contacts and efforts have been remarkably helpful, and I hope to have a detailed update on what we have uncovered very soon.

Is your "detailed update" going to be in the form of a press conference where you claim to have identified Cooper? 

If I remember correctly, there were claims recently that one of the Zodiac ciphers had been solved.  Unfortunately, the claims were nonsense, and the so-called experts didn't even know what constituted the enciphered message. 
 
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Offline fcastle866

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Re: Suspects And Confessions
« Reply #4682 on: April 24, 2021, 07:50:18 PM »
Has anyone seen any composite sketches on the other hijackers?  I'm watching the HBO documentary and was thinking of how some people say Cooper was McCoy, based off the composite.  But have we seen what witnesses described McCoy as looking like?

Other thoughts.  Why did he dye his hair black?  What was he trying to hide (blonde, grey)? Or was he just trying to be cool or uncool as Bill Mitchell said?

Other thought. Duane Weber says on his death bed (while on pain meds) I'm Dan Cooper.  I've heard some crazy stuff come from people when they are asleep, or on pain meds.  Same for me, I've said some crazy stuff, none of it true.  Most of it from movies.  Duane easily could have just been fascinated with Cooper.

Random thoughts.
 
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Offline Lynn

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Re: Suspects And Confessions
« Reply #4683 on: May 08, 2021, 01:55:07 AM »
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If Sheridan matched to 1%, That still leaves a ton of people who would also test positive. Odds would still be a false positive.
That may match tons of people, but how many of them would be DBC suspects? We don't know exactly how limited the suspect pool is, but it's tiny - the person had to have been long missing before Norjak, as no one matching the description was very recently missing, and/or have had no alibi for the night before Thanksgiving, fit the key witness descriptions to some degree, particularly on height and age, and know quite a bit about the region and the 727 and at least enough about skydiving not to need instructions when putting on the gear. Of all the suspects already identified, some are fairly easy to eliminate, like Weber and Kenny. Cross the remaining number of suspects (even ones not yet found; it will still be a very small number vs the general population) with  that hypothetical 1% (hey, make it 10%, even), and the probability of someone else being DBC seems far lower. Having said that, are there any other suspects the FBI did test that they did not eliminate?

All that aside, I've been researching another book and working from home and only learned yesterday that Sheridan had passed. He's fascinated me in his own right since I got interested in the case, and Cooper or not, I'm so sad to hear about it. i only recently saw this photo of him as well and really think it captures all the complexity of the man himself. Gentle but intelligent and sharp-eyed, really a face with so many stories behind it.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2021, 02:51:36 AM by Lynn »
 

Offline Lynn

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Re: Suspects And Confessions
« Reply #4684 on: May 08, 2021, 02:27:56 AM »
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Has anyone seen any composite sketches on the other hijackers?  I'm watching the HBO documentary and was thinking of how some people say Cooper was McCoy, based off the composite.  But have we seen what witnesses described McCoy as looking like?

Other thoughts.  Why did he dye his hair black?  What was he trying to hide (blonde, grey)? Or was he just trying to be cool or uncool as Bill Mitchell said?

Other thought. Duane Weber says on his death bed (while on pain meds) I'm Dan Cooper.  I've heard some crazy stuff come from people when they are asleep, or on pain meds.  Same for me, I've said some crazy stuff, none of it true.  Most of it from movies.  Duane easily could have just been fascinated with Cooper.

Random thoughts.
Agreed on the Weber confession. He just doesn't fit, and if he was medicated or delusional, or seeking posthumous notoriety (which, sought or not, he got) that could explain an untrue confession. But confessing also wouldn't eliminate a suspect, obviously, and knowing how often people falsely confess to high profile cases can blinker sleuths against confessions as well. How many credible suspects confessed to being Cooper? I know of Weber, Dayton, and Gossett off the top of my head. Were there others? (Of the three, I'd only really take Gossett seriously as a suspect, though Dayton would be the greatest story ever. But height alone eliminates her for me.)

This case turned me off confessions so much, in fact, I had to re-open my mind on the case I'm currently researching. In this case, which already had 3-4 viable suspects at minimum, 40+ years after the murder, a reclusive little old lady who'd recently converted to RC and begged for a priest in the throes of a heart attack, wound up confessing to a neighbour that she'd killed a silent film director in 1922. After her death, they found a chest of old photos and memorabilia confirming she had once been a silent film actress, had worked with said director 4 times, and had a criminal history of prostitution and later gang extortion involving the Mann Act. She'd also fled the country for a number of years with the second of three husbands - the first of whom she married so he wouldn't have to testify against her in her extortion arrest. Her heart attack occurred one day after she'd seen a TV doc on the cold case and became very agitated, insisting she was the killer to the neighbour's mother, who only revealed the first confession after the second. She was 73 and had exhibited no signs of dementia or illness prior. So the confessions became quite credible after her death, though the case remains unsolved. (The problem is, those other 3-4 suspects were pretty shady, too; all vehemently denied the killing, apart from one who vanished forever.)
 

Offline Bruce A. Smith

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Re: Suspects And Confessions
« Reply #4685 on: May 08, 2021, 10:26:48 AM »
Confessing is its own phenomenon: Over 900 people have confessed to being DBC.
 

Offline EU

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Re: Suspects And Confessions
« Reply #4686 on: May 08, 2021, 11:30:36 AM »
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Confessing is its own phenomenon: Over 900 people have confessed to being DBC.

DB Cooper didn't evade the authorities for 50 years by confessing to, or bragging about, being DB Cooper. Anyone who has confessed to being DB Cooper is automatically eliminated.
Some men see things as they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?

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Offline Lynn

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Re: Suspects And Confessions
« Reply #4687 on: May 08, 2021, 04:16:56 PM »
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Confessing is its own phenomenon: Over 900 people have confessed to being DBC.

DB Cooper didn't evade the authorities for 50 years by confessing to, or bragging about, being DB Cooper. Anyone who has confessed to being DB Cooper is automatically eliminated.
Absolutely agreed. The difference is that the other case was seemingly personal and the crime possibly accidental or unplanned. I don't think Cooper would have confessed, except possibly if someone else were arrested/charged, and no one ever has been.
 

Offline Chaucer

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Re: Suspects And Confessions
« Reply #4688 on: May 09, 2021, 02:45:32 PM »
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SOME quotes form the FBI files...

SA HENRY SHUTZ called from Bureau on 11/29/71

He said that he talked to the artist who interviewed one of the stewardesses, the only one who saw the man without glasses and she was unable to definitely recall what his eyes looked like.

RE: Artist’s sketch

“The hairline was good, Hair itself should be marcelled and hair style of President Nixon is quite similar to what unsub had. Hair should be slicked down as characters wore in old George Raft movies. Nose in artists’s conception is too pinched, should be broadened in area of nostrils.  Cheeks too flat. Should be more rounded to give Mexican American appearance.

The Hijacker was wearing dark glasses when xxxx saw him and he was unable to furnish any particulars about the hijackers eyes. After studying the artists’s sketch of the hijacker, xxxx had the following comments. He stated that the hijacker had an overall appearance which was in some ways similar to the artists’s sketch. However, he recalled that the hijacker had a broader nose, wider forehead and face in general, than that depicted in the sketch.

That he has average eyes, of Latin appearance, with a sort of disinterested look… thought artists’s conception was very good overall. Except the hair did not recede quite so much as he remembers it, it was a little more curly and definitely short. He also thinks the nose and face slightly too thin, although not much. Feel’s artist sketch makes him look younger than he is.

The subjects hair was jet black, greasy, had a patent leather sheen, marcelled, combed almost straight back but with a slight angle toward the right side of the head and a slight part on the left.

He felt the subject might have been a Mexican-American with possibly some American Indian blood.


.. suggested the following changes;

The hair should be as it appears in the sketch, not photograph, at the top of page 104 in the above-mentioned catalog; it should be marcelled with a slight part on the left, with a patent leather sheen.

The mouth’s lower lip is too full….

The chin is too too broad….

SA XXX penciled in a narrower lip, narrowed the chin and shaded the area on either side of the chin in the artist’s sketch. XXXX stated that with these changes the resemblance was closer, but that the entire face should be longer. The sketch, as it originally existed resembled a “clean cut American” too much.

The neck and chin of unsub appear as if he had been fat and lost weight, leaving some flabby skin. Everything from nose up is good. Mouth is also good. Overall picture of composite makes unsub appear younger than he actually is.



Hahneman clamed to have cancer and pics of Hahneman seemed to range from heavy to thin and back to heavier with a "turkey neck".
Two Hahneman pics, one compilation and one with George Raft (Left) and Hahneman (middle) and Richard Nixon. He has "marcelled" Nixon hair..
I know I am bumping a very old post, but I wanted to know who the redacted name is on this file? It seems to be a male, so it had to be a passenger. Is it Mitchell? Or Robert Gregory? Or someone else?
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Offline andrade1812

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Re: Suspects And Confessions
« Reply #4689 on: May 09, 2021, 03:18:40 PM »
I print out the page, measure the redaction, then measure the spacing in the unredacted parts to get the approximate number of letters in the name. Then it's just a guess from there. However, from everything I have read in the 302s, Mitchell was the go-to witness whenever the office of origin wasn't in Minnesota.
 

Offline 377

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Re: Suspects And Confessions
« Reply #4690 on: May 11, 2021, 07:47:15 PM »
Lynn’s post brought back some memories of good times with Sheridan Peterson. He alternated between being very friendly and occasional paranoid raging during which he accused me of being “FBI/CIA”. Had several leisurely lunches with him. We shared lots of stories about the early days of skydiving. He seemed to lack the fear gene. He told me of incredibly risky jumps he had made without any hesitation or second thoughts. He wasn’t bragging, just telling what happened. He loved talking about current US politics and was incredibly well informed. He correctly predicted Trumps win long before anybody thought he had a chance of winning.

Snowmman put a lot of work into editing Sheridan’s novel, The Idiots Frightful Laughter. It’s much more readable as a result and, for me, none of the message or impact of Sheridan’s work was materially changed or harmed. Sheridan turned on Snow later accusing him of sabotaging and infecting his computer.

Sheridan had his demons. PTSD from childhood abuse and witnessing horrible atrocities in Vietnam certainly could have been a factor is his erratic moods and inability to maintain lasting relationships.

Was he Cooper? Not enough evidence to say yes. Nobody has found evidence that unequivocally puts him on the plane or even in the US during the skyjack. Could he have done it? Absolutely yes. He had every skill needed. But so did others including Rackstraw, Braden and Recca. As I’ve said many times capability isn’t the same as culpability.

Sheridan did say one thing that intrigued me. I was talking to him hypothetically about if he were Cooper I’d represent him pro bono.  I told him I was reasonably confident I could get a dismissal if he were charged based on the FBI’s loss or mishandling of possibly exculpatory evidence such as the cigarette butts. He looked at me eye to eye, then paused a long time. “You know Mark, there are two of me” he said very slowly and rather wistfully. He would not elaborate further and changed the subject.

May he rest in peace forever free of his demons and tranquil at last.

377
 
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Offline Bruce A. Smith

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Re: Suspects And Confessions
« Reply #4691 on: May 11, 2021, 10:33:16 PM »
Indeed. RIP. Petey.
 

Offline Chaucer

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Re: Suspects And Confessions
« Reply #4692 on: May 14, 2021, 05:23:20 PM »
Which of the major suspects most accurately fit the description of DB Cooper? Do anyone of them match perfectly? Age/height/weight/hair color/eye color/build?
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Offline georger

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Re: Suspects And Confessions
« Reply #4693 on: May 14, 2021, 11:20:58 PM »
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Which of the major suspects most accurately fit the description of DB Cooper? Do anyone of them match perfectly? Age/height/weight/hair color/eye color/build?

None are an exact fit. But McCoy is in the ballpark,  imho.
 

Offline Chaucer

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Re: Suspects And Confessions
« Reply #4694 on: May 14, 2021, 11:30:29 PM »
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Which of the major suspects most accurately fit the description of DB Cooper? Do anyone of them match perfectly? Age/height/weight/hair color/eye color/build?

None are an exact fit. But McCoy is in the ballpark,  imho.
Agreed, but even McCoy was well below the age that the crew described. It's hard for me to believe that none of the popular suspects didn't check all the boxes in terms of physical description.
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