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A newly released batch of FBI investigative files in the long-unsolved D.B. Cooper hijacking case shows that agents once examined a former pilot from western Maine as a possible suspect.
The files, released by the FBI, indicate that Raymond Sidney Russell, who also went by R. Sid Russell and Sid Russell, was interviewed by the bureau in 1972 as part of their efforts to identify the man who hijacked a Northwest Orient Airlines flight in November 1971, collected $200,000 in ransom and parachuted from the plane somewhere over the Pacific Northwest.
The hijacker was never caught, and the case remains one of the FBI’s most infamous unsolved mysteries.
The Portland Press Herald says that Russell, a Norway, Maine, native born in 1923, served in the military and later worked in aviation, including time with the Flying Tigers and other freight airlines. He had lived on the West Coast before returning to Maine in 1971.
The FBI released these sketches after a man named D.B. Cooper hijacked a plane flying from Portland to Seattle on Nov. 24, 1971 and then parachuted out the back door with $200,000, never to be seen again. (FBI)
The FBI files do not specify how Russell first drew investigators’ attention, but the documents show agents reviewed his background and interviewed him at his home in September 1972. During that interview, Russell reportedly denied any involvement in the hijacking and said he had returned to Maine months before the crime to be with his mother.
According to the newspaper, some of the people agents spoke with believed Russell could have committed the crime, while others did not think he was capable of it.
The newly released portion of the file includes a handwritten notation dated November 1972 that reads “ELIMINATE RUSSELL,” suggesting the bureau decided not to pursue him further.
Ryan Burns, a Mississippi criminal defense attorney who runs a YouTube channel called “D.B. Cooper Sleuth” and attends an annual Cooper-focused gathering known as “CooperCon,” told the Portland Press Herald that he has reviewed all the FBI’s released files.
“It’s kind of the coolest crime ever. This guy is wearing sunglasses, smoking cigarettes, drinking bourbon in the back of a plane,” Burns said. “And he got away with it.”
Burns said roughly two dozen people appear to have been investigated as seriously as Russell. The expert said that he doesn’t believe Russell was the hijacker, citing differences between Russell’s physical characteristics and witness descriptions of Cooper. He also noted that despite decades of investigation, he doubts the case will ever be solved, in part because potential DNA evidence may have been destroyed.
“I don’t think anybody in the world wants it solved more than I do, given all the effort I put into it,” Burns told the newspaper.
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Money recovered in 1980 that matched the ransom money serial numbers. (FBI)
Records reviewed by the newspaper show Russell was a standout high school skier in Norway and later received a $5,000 state grant in the late 1980s for an invention. Russell died in 1989 and is buried in Paris, Maine. The FBI redacted the names of witnesses and acquaintances interviewed in connection with Russell.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the FBI for comment on the case.
The canvas bag that contained one of the parachutes given to D.B. Cooper in 1971. According to the FBI, Cooper asked for four chutes in all; he jumped with two (including one that was used for instruction and had been sewn shut). He used the cord from one of the remaining parachutes to tie the stolen money bag shut. (FBI)
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More than five decades after the hijacking, the Cooper case continues to draw fascination, inspiring books and movies. Despite thousands of pages of released documents and countless theories, the identity of the man who successfully hijacked the commercial aircraft remains a mystery.
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Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
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