‘He hid it very well from any of us’: Son realizes his dad may have been DB Cooper, the mastermind even FBI couldn’t catch

A man now believes his late father could be DB Cooper, the famous skyjacker who vanished after jumping from a plane in 1971. Keith Bagsby thinks his dad, Joe Lakich, might be the person behind America’s only unsolved plane hijacking. He came to this stunning realization after an author showed him evidence linking his father to the crime.

According to LAD Bible, author and pilot Bill Rollins wrote a book in 2017 explaining why he thinks Lakich was Cooper. His theory isn’t based on guesses. It relies on real evidence found on the hijacked plane. Scientists examined a clip-on tie left behind by Cooper and found tiny particles of titanium, stainless steel, and palladium on it. These metals suggest Cooper worked in a metal processing plant.

This matters because Lakich actually worked at Nashville Electronics, a factory that used those exact same materials. The tie evidence creates a direct link between Lakich and the hijacking. Beyond the physical proof, Rollins also found a possible reason why Lakich would commit the crime.

A personal tragedy may have driven the hijacking

During the 1971 hijacking, a flight attendant asked Cooper why he picked Northwest Orient Airlines. He answered that he didn’t have a grudge against the airline itself, but that he did have a grudge. This strange comment might be the key to understanding everything. Just weeks before the November 1971 hijacking, Lakich’s daughter Susan was killed by her estranged husband during a failed hijacking attempt.

Rollins believes this tragedy drove Lakich to take revenge against the FBI, who he supposedly blamed for his daughter’s death. The author also pointed out that Lakich looked like the descriptions of Cooper and had military training, which would have helped him jump from the aircraft successfully. When Rollins first told Bagsby about his theory, Bagsby was shocked and doubtful.

But after thinking about it, things started making sense. Bagsby told reporters he could understand the theory after remembering what happened to his sister. 

“I could understand Bill’s theory knowing what happened to my sister, but I was skeptical [at first],” he said in a recent interview with MailOnline. “I believe it’s extremely possible. On one hand, it could’ve been Joe with all the circumstances at hand, but if so, he hid it very well from any of us.”

On November 24, 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper bought a cash ticket for a flight from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington. After takeoff, he told a flight attendant he had a bomb. He demanded $200,000 in cash and four parachutes. No passengers were ultimately hurt, unlike in plane crashes that occurred earlier this year.

The plane landed in Seattle, passengers left, and after refueling, the plane headed toward Mexico. Cooper then opened the aircraft door and jumped out with a parachute somewhere over southwestern Washington. He disappeared completely, though some ransom money was found years later. While many cold cases were reopened and solved, the case of DB Cooper still remains a mystery.