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A DNA test has failed to connect a deceased central Oregon man to the unsolved 1971 hijacking of a Northwest Orient jet. This according to the man's niece. She came forward this week to finger her uncle as the legendary fugitive D.B. Cooper.
Former Washington state resident Marla Cooper took her suspicions about her uncle to the FBI after he was long dead. According to her, the details she provided were sufficiently credible that the bureau decided to run a DNA comparison.
"The DNA that they were able to extract from my uncle L.D. (Cooper)'s daughter, who was born after the fact, did not match the partial sample of DNA that they have in their files," Cooper says.
But neither Ms. Cooper nor the FBI considers this outcome definitive one way or the other.
In Seattle, FBI agent Fred Gutt explains the DNA on file comes from a necktie the hijacker left behind when he parachuted from the plane.
Gutt says "it's not a very good sample" and might not even belong to the hijacker necessarily. Gutt would not confirm which witnesses have been interviewed.
The widow of Lynn Doyle Cooper lives in Nevada. She has not returned a phone call requesting comment.
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