D.B. Cooper case has become an open book for the FBI

SEATTLE — After a search that has lasted more than 36 years, all of the evidence in the case of the legendary outlaw known as D.B. Cooper fits easily into an inconspicuous box, carried comfortably under the arm of FBI agent Larry Carr.

He is the newest in a line of about a dozen agents assigned to the case since 1971, when Cooper hijacked a passenger jet and bailed out over Clark County, Wash., with $200,000 in $20 bills. When the last agent moved on six months ago, Carr requested to take the case.

"How could you not?" he said. "It's the ultimate mystery."

One that was further deepened last month by a promising discovery: Children found an old parachute partially buried in their family's field in southwest Washington, located almost exactly at the midpoint of a line drawn between the two spots where authorities think Cooper could have landed.

But like so many roads over the years, this one came to a dead end.

Very little has made it into the evidence box. Yellow with age and marked by brittle remnants of adhesive tape, it looks like something a college student might throw old books or sneakers into. Inside is a black polyester clip-on tie; a tie clasp with a button of fake pearl; an airline ticket bearing the name "Dan Cooper"; a green canvas parachute bag; a spare chute that Cooper cut up in order to use its cords; and some of the $20 bills found by a boy on the banks of the Columbia River in 1980.

Since then, nothing.

Still, the Cooper legend is as robust as ever. In part because so many years have passed, the FBI has adopted a more open approach to the case, inviting and even encouraging public participation.

A farmer's back field, the old trunk of someone's long-forgotten uncle, the sudden recollection of a strange conversation with a friend pulled from the attic of someone's memory -- Carr figures that is the only place an answer will be found.

"He came from somewhere," Carr said. "He came from someone."

The FBI has entertained leads both incredible and plausible. A Florida woman told authorities that her late husband, Duane Weber, had confessed on his deathbed to being Cooper. A Minnesota man claimed that his brother, Kenneth Christiansen, was Cooper. Another tipster asserted that Cooper actually was a woman who had undergone a sex-change operation. Among the more far-fetched tips Carr received was a report that Cooper was the father of NASCAR drivers Kurt and Kyle Busch.