FD-350 clipping: Seattle P-I story on suspect Robert Wesley Rackstraw, 2/3/79
Document date 3 February 1979
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Id: Cooper-Part-54:152-153
Subject: Cooper Files: Cooper-Part-54:152-153 Document: FD-350 clipping: Seattle P-I story on suspect Robert Wesley Rackstraw, 2/3/79 Id: Cooper-Part-54:152-153 Page: https://cooper.theunsolved.net/documents/Cooper-Part-54%3A152-153 What is wrong (title, date, type, which pages belong together, copies)? What does the scan show?
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FBI 164-81, Vault Part 54 pp. 152–153 (DB Cooper-23081–23082), News clipping, dated 3 Feb 1979 — cooper.theunsolved.net/documents/Cooper-Part-54%3A152-153
FD-350 (Rev. 10-19-77)
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Possible D. B. Cooper Suspect
P-I. News Services
STOCKTON, Calif. — A self-styled soldier of fortune, whose wild esca- pades have landed him in a northern California jail, has emerged as a possi- ble suspect in the legendary D.B. Cooper skyjack case.
Robert Wesley Rackstraw, 35, was arraigned yesterday in Stockton on charges connected to his disappear- ance last October in a rented plane. He allegedly faked a crash of that plane last Oct. 11.
FBI agents in Seattle and at several California offices yesterday declined official comment on the possibility of a connection between Rackstraw and the D.B. Cooper case. But an FBI source confirmed that Rackstraw had been questioned "at least once" in connection with the skyjacking.
And a relative of Rackstraw, con- tacted yesterday at his home in San Jose, Calif., said FBI agents visited him last year in connection with the skyjacking case. William Rackstraw, the relative, said he was unable to help the agents.
The rumor that Robert Rackstraw, a much - decorated Vietnam War vet- eran and former Green Beret with parachute training, could be the elu- sive D.B. Cooper, first surfaced among Stockton law officials about a year ago.
"We checked on it a year or so ago, and found out he was up there in the Pacific Northwest at the time of the skyjacking," said Det. Sgt. Charles Buck of the Stockton Police Depart- ment.
On Thanksgiving Day, 1971, a mid- dle - aged man calling himself D.B. Cooper parachuted from a low - flying jetliner over Southwest Washington with $200,000 strapped to his body.
The rumor of the Rackstraw-D.B. Cooper connection, previously con- fined to law enforcement circles, leaked to the press after Rackstraw was arrested last week in Fullerton, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles.
Fullerton police said yesterday that Rackstraw was arrested after a man tried to duplicate a Federal Avia- tion Administration pilot's license. The owner of a print shop became suspicious and called the FAA, police said.
One of two San Joaquin County detectives, dispatched to return the suspect to Stockton on outstanding warrants, watched as Rackstraw was being fingerprinted, according to a California police source.
When a palm print was obtained from Rackstraw, the suspect is re- ported to have remarked "Oh, the D.B. Cooper thing again."
A Stockton police source said au- thorities have tried to obtain a palm print from Rackstraw in the past in connection with the D.B. Cooper case but have been unsuccessful.
FBI officials have been tight - lipped about their investigation of the case, and the possible significance of a palm print could not be determined last night.
FBI spokesman Ray Mathis in Seat- tle last night refused to comment on any possible connection between Rackstraw and the D.B. Cooper case. "I can tell you," Mathis said, "that [text cut off]
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(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.)
p.Al Seattle Post- Intelligencer Seattle, Wa.
Date: 2/3/79 Edition: Final
Title:
Character: /64 -81 Classification: Submitting Office: Seattle
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164-81-Sub B [stamps and markings, partially illegible] b6 b7C
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DB Cooper-23081
we don't know who D.B. Cooper is and to the best of my knowledge, we're not any closer to knowing who D.B. Cooper is.
Asked whether he thought the Rackstraw arrest in Fullerton was a break in the Cooper skyjacking, Mathis refused comment.
According to court records in Ca- laveras County, Rackstraw left the army early in 1971 and took a job with a petrochemical firm in the San Fran- cisco Bay area. As a trained helicopter pilot, he also is reported to have taken on private flying assignments for various corporations between 1971 and 1974, when he formed his own helicopter service.
Rackstraw went into the construc- tion business with his stepfather in Calaveras County in 1976. The busi- ness took a bad turn, and Rackstraw late in 1977 was charged with writing $75,000 in bad checks at two San Joa- quin County banks.
It was at about that time that Rack- straw dropped out of sight. eventual- ly, the FBI located Rackstraw in Iran, where he had taken a job as a flight instructor for Bell Helicopter Interna- tional.
He was deported from Iran and was arrested Feb. 20, 1978, when he arrived on a flight to New York City.
Two days later, the body of his step- father was found in a shallow grave near his home in Valley Springs, Calif.
Rackstraw was acquitted of charges in the murder of his stepfath- er, but illegal explosives charges and charges on the bad checks remain to be disposed of in San Joaquin County.
And it was last October, a few days before he was due in court on those charges that Rackstraw and an uni- dentified companion rented a plane at a Stockton airport and disappeared. The last that was heard from Rack- straw, until his arrest last week, was his "mayday" call supposedly broad- cast from somewhere in the Monte- rey, Calif. area.
During an interview with a Stock- ton newspaper reporter last summer, Rackstraw claimed the FBI considers him "a James Bond who had gone wrong."
He also said that he was a member of a "top secret special intelligence organization while in Vietnam in 1969."
A San Joaquin County prosecutor, Clark Sueyres, said he once ques- tioned Rackstraw about being Cooper. He said Rackstraw "invoked his rights" to have an attorney present and the inquiry stopped there.
The questioning took place shortly before Rackstraw's disappearance in October.
He was being held last night in lieu of $650,000 bail after arraignment on the past charges.
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D.B. COOPER Artist's sketch
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ROBERT RACKSTRAW Soldier of fortune
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DB Cooper-23082
Serials: SE 164-81