“I don’t hold a grudge against your airline, Miss. I just have a grudge,” were the enigmatic words spoken by a man calling himself Dan Cooper on November 24, 1971. He was responding to a flight attendant’s inquiry after he hijacked Northwest Orient Flight 305, which was on a short route from Portland to Seattle.

Earlier in the flight, Cooper handed a note to an attendant, claiming that he had a bomb in his briefcase. In a dramatic demand, he requested $200,000 in $20 bills and four parachutes in exchange for the safety of the 42 passengers and crew on board.

Upon landing in Seattle, the ransom was delivered, and the plane was refueled. Cooper then instructed the pilots to set a course for Mexico. However, at an altitude of 10,000 feet over southwestern Washington, he executed a daring escape by lowering the aircraft’s rear staircase and jumping into the night with two parachutes and the cash secured to him. He vanished without a trace.

The identity of Dan Cooper and whether he survived his daring leap remain unsolved mysteries that have captivated America for decades. Despite hundreds of potential suspects being investigated over the last 50 years, no arrests have been made. The FBI officially closed the case in 2016, leaving a dedicated group of amateur investigators determined to uncover the truth.

Among these persistent sleuths is Bill Rollins, an inventor and licensed pilot. He is convinced that unlocking the mystery of Cooper’s supposed “grudge” may be the key to finally revealing the identity of this elusive criminal.

Among them is Bill Rollins, an inventor and a licensed pilot, who believes the secret to unmasking the elusive crook lies in cracking the code of Cooper’s supposed ‘grudge.’

What motivated Cooper, Rollins believes, was a personal tragedy – grief, not greed. But what kind of tragedy could push someone to hold the lives of dozens to ransom on the eve of Thanksgiving, several thousand feet in the air?

Rollins points to a horrifying skyjacking staged just 51 days before Cooper’s jump, an incident bungled by the FBI that resulted in the deaths of three people. That led him to his prime suspect: Joe Lakich, a former engineer and retired Army major from Nashville, whose daughter was among the victims.

And Lakich’s son, Keith Bagsby, tells the Daily Mail he believes Rollins’ theory is entirely plausible.

‘I believe it’s extremely possible,’ said Bagsby. ‘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.’

Could Joe Lakich, a former engineer and retired Army major from Nashville, be DB Cooper? One sleuth believes so

The elusive D.B. Cooper hijacked a commercial airliner on Thanksgiving Eve 1971 shortly after taking off from Portland, Oregon. His identity remains a mystery to this day

In the early hours of October 4, 1971, 25-year-old Susan Lakich was dragged screaming onto a private plane in Nashville by her estranged husband, George Giffe.

Claiming he was a doctor transporting a patient, Giffe pulled a .45 calibre pistol and ordered the pilot, 29-year-old Brant Downs, to take off. Giffe instructed Downs to fly to the Bahamas but agreed to stop in Jacksonville for fuel.

When the plane landed in Jacksonville, waiting FBI agents refused to comply with Giffe’s demands. It was the height of aviation’s golden age of skyjackings, a chaotic period when armed hijackers regularly seized aircraft, and the FBI was in no mood to negotiate. Instead, they shot out two of the plane’s tires and an engine.

Moments later, shots rang out inside the cabin. When agents boarded, they found Susan and Downs dead from gunshot wounds. Giffe had taken his own life.

In news reports, Joe Lakich said the case was grossly mishandled and that the FBI had his daughter’s blood on their hands. According to Rollins, the family was harassed after speaking out, and again after filing a wrongful death lawsuit.

He argues that Susan’s death, combined with what he describes as FBI negligence and intimidation, fostered a grudge deep enough to drive Lakich toward revenge – hellbent on embarrassing the bureau in front of the world.

For Rollins, motive alone did not make Lakich a suspect. What drew him deeper into the theory were the physical, forensic and circumstantial clues that he believes line up more cleanly with Joe Lakich than with any other name ever put forward in the Cooper investigation.

One crucial forensic clue is the black clip-on tie Cooper left on his seat. A group of volunteer scientists known as the Citizen Sleuths, who examined it under an electron microscope found titanium, stainless steel and palladium particles used only in a handful of industries. The FBI obtained a partial DNA profile, but no match has been found.

Many investigators believe Cooper worked in metal processing or electronics. After retiring from the Army in 1961, Lakich worked at Nashville Electronics, a capacitor factory that used several of the same metals. A company patent also shows it produced a component containing a rare type of titanium found on Cooper’s tie.

Rollins also points to the hijacker’s alias as an additional link to Lakich, insisting it was no random invention. The crook identified himself at the airport gate as ‘Dan Cooper’, not D.B. Cooper, which was an appellation mistakenly given to him by a journalist who misspelled the alias in an early report, creating the legend.

Bill Rollins, a New Hampshire engineer and amateur sleuth, says he believes the man responsible for the hijacking to be Joseph S Lakich (second from right)

Lakich’s son, Keith Bagsby, believes his father could well be Cooper, calling Rollins’ findings compelling

Susan Lakich is seen with her killer estranged husband George Giffe. Susan left behind a young daughter

The name Dan Cooper is shared with a Franco-Belgian comic-book hero – a Royal Canadian Air Force test pilot and space traveler whose adventures were published in Europe during the 1950s. The comics were never translated into English or sold in America.

Retired FBI agent Larry Carr said he believes the hijacker may have been inspired by the Dan Cooper series and chose the alias as a nod to the fictional character.

While leading the case, Carr worked with the theory that Cooper was either French Canadian or lived or served in Belgium with the US Air Force.

Lakich’s military records show he served in the infantry in World War II, and he received the Bronze Star for heroism. He served in Germany, Korea, and Italy. Rollins believes Lakich may have come into contact with the comics while abroad, though he has no definitive proof.

Rollins argues that Lakich matched descriptions of Cooper as a polite, soft-spoken man in his forties with an olive complexion. Lakich would’ve been in his late 40s at the time.

A composite image combining half of Lakich’s face with half of the FBI sketch also shows a close match. Military training, Rollins says, would have given Lakich the composure and practical skill to execute a dangerous jump at night.

Rollins maintains that the likelihood of another person matching the same combination of motive, background, appearance and forensic clues is so small that Lakich is effectively the only man who could have been Cooper.

‘Joe Lakich is one in a trillion. D.B. Cooper can be no one else,’ he claims.

Lakich’s face is seen above spliced with one of the sketches of DB Cooper. Rollins sees a strong resemblance between the pair

One of the few clues left behind by Cooper was a JCPenney clip-on tie, from which the FBI was able to obtain a partial DNA profile

Northwestern Flight 305 is seen after landing Seattle, where Cooper collected his ransom, ordered the aircraft to refuel, and later parachuted out

Lakich died in 2017, aged 95. Rollins came forward with his findings for the first time later the same year and has since made contact with Lakich’s son, Keith Bagsby, who was intrigued by the claims.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Bagsby, 56, said he only met his dad when he was 35, because his birth was the product of an extramarital affair that Lakich kept secret. By then, Lakich was already elderly and exhibiting early signs of Alzheimer’s.

‘Bill first got in touch with me by telephone… I could understand Bill’s theory knowing what happened to my sister, but I was skeptical [at first],’ said Bagsby.

‘After hearing more about the theory and reading through [his] book, I thought that it could be possible. Unfortunately, there’s no way of knowing because I was not about to talk to him about – he’d already passed.

‘[However] the tragedy with Susan greatly affected Joe. He would talk about it from time to time. It genuinely saddened him. [But] we never discussed DB Cooper.’

Another moved by Rollins’ findings was Tom Pugh, a close friend of Susan Lakich, who was a pallbearer at her funeral.

‘I see that there is some possibility that Joe was involved in this thing,’ Pugh told ABC7 in 2017.

But not all are convinced.

In news reports, Joe Lakich said his daughter’s skyjacking case was grossly mishandled and that the FBI had his daughter’s blood on their hands

It’s unclear if Cooper survived his fabled jump from Flight 305. That question divides FBI and independent investigators alike

Retired agent Larry Carr believes Cooper likely had limited military training and almost certainly died on the night of the jump. He cites several perceived mistakes made by Cooper, including failing to specify parachutes, dictate a flight path or wear appropriate protective clothing.

A storm was blowing across the Pacific Northwest that night, and Carr believes anyone with military experience would have scrubbed the mission.

Carr said that, while he is unfamiliar with Lakich as a suspect, working backwards from a supposed grudge is not an effective way to build a case.

‘I never really had a theory as to what [Cooper’s grudge] could have been,’ said Carr by text. ‘Other than stating it wasn’t with Northwest, he did nothing or said nothing that would give any sort of clue as to what it could be.

‘Plenty of folks have come up with a suspect and then cherry-picked their way backwards to a grudge – but that’s a sure way to back yourself into a hole.’

Independent investigator Eric Ulis agrees that the tie holds the secret of Cooper’s identity but believes the particles point not to Nashville Electronics but to two other specialist plants: Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee or Rem-Cru Titanium in Pittsburgh.

Rem-Cru was a major supplier of titanium and stainless steel parts for Boeing in the 1960s and 70s, and patents from the era match particles found on the tie.

Ulis and Citizen Sleuth scientist Tom Kaye also recently identified a thorium–uranium compound on the tie consistent with Oak Ridge.

‘If you can’t explain the tie, he’s not the guy,’ laughed Ulis. ‘And, to me, Joe Lakich just doesn’t make sense as a suspect.’

This Thanksgiving will mark 54 years since Cooper’s leap of faith.

It remains the only unsolved skyjacking in US history.