Of the four suspects featured in HBO's documentary The Mystery of D.B. Cooper, Duane Weber makes the strongest case as the identity of the mythical hijacker. Though the film follows various leads for each of its persons of interest and leaves much up to viewers to draw their own conclusions, there's a reason Weber is "Suspect #1," and his widow Jo is the first to endear herself to the camera. Alongside Cooper-mystery-enthusiast and Jo's "Memory Man" Tim Collins, the two offer Emmy-nominated filmmaker John Dower and his team the most tantalizing trail for an audience hungry for tidbits.
The D.B. Cooper hijacking occurred on November 24th, 1971, when a mysterious man hijacked a plane and extorted the U.S. Government for $200,000 ($1.3M adjusted for inflation) in ransom money. To this day, it remains the only unsolved case of air piracy in American history. Neither Cooper's body nor parachute have been found in the vast expanse of mountainous wilderness over which he dropped. As time passed, the story entrenched itself into the legend. Cooper earned a reputation among those familiar with the spectacle as a sort of Robin Hood figure: an everyman with enough gumption to try a high-flying stunt like that and the skill to actually pull it off. Cooper himself failed to rise to the accolades and take his victory lap, his true identity and whereabouts unknown - until in 1995, Jo Weber heard her husband's final words on his deathbed: "I am Dan Cooper." She recognized the name as the infamous hijacker; the media had misreported it as "D.B" so many years ago. She began to recollect memories and connect the dots, and with the help of Tim Collins, she devoted the next 23 years of her life to determining the veracity of a dying man's words.
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While The Mystery of D.B. Cooper explores many claims which support Weber as the true identity of the mystery man, it conveniently leaves out certain exculpatory evidence. The FBI ruled out Weber as a suspect in 1998 after DNA results from his discarded necktie came back negative. That, combined with the failure to get a fingerprint match for Weber on any of the cigarette butts (which the documentary reports as "lost") or area around his seat on the plane, proved damning enough to the Weber theory in the eyes of the FBI. Also "lost" was the conspicuous airline ticket, what would otherwise be a convincing link to the crime. Still, the film leaves out other interesting notes for the case: Weber was a bourbon drinker and chain smoker, as was Cooper on the flight (in the middle of a bourbon business slump, no less). Weber had an extensive rap sheet, an army man intimately familiar with the Pacific Northwest who'd spent time in a Seattle prison. His hair, described by one of the passengers as "marcelled" (an uncommon style during the 70s), fits the description.
The documentary builds on these with its chosen evidence. Far her husband's junior, Jo didn't know much about what kind of life he led before their marriage. After his death, she discovered fake IDs in his wallet for a Mr. John Carson Collins; perhaps aliases were familiar territory for Duane. She and Tim found compelling evidence in the form of tax returns. Most exciting of all, however, was the "sentimental journey" to the Columbia River in Washington State. Jo recalled a trip the couple took to the area in 1979, remembering a moment when Duane tossed a bag of "trash" down the river. Months later, cash from the ransom, identifiable by serial number, was unearthed from the Tina Bar riverbank.
Even after the credits roll, the D.B. Cooper mystery remains unsolved. True crime enthusiasts yearning for a definitive answer won't find one in Duane Weber, but perhaps they can take some wisdom from the documentary: "It's not really about [D.B. Cooper's identity] anyway. It's about the people, it's about believing in the fantasy, it's about believing in something."