A recent claim has linked the unsolved case of the infamous skyjacker D.B. Cooper to a family living in Nashville. According to Bill Rollins—a set‑up inventor, licensed pilot, and author—Cooper might have been none other than Joe Lakich, a Nashville father whose daughter Susan was abducted and later murdered by her estranged husband just weeks before the November 24, 1971 flight that made Cooper’s name.
Lakich’s son, Keith Bagsby, has said that Rollins’s theory now seems plausible. “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,” Bagsby told the Daily Mail. The Lakich family has grown more intrigued by Rollins’s research, which was featured in a 2017 book about the skyjacker.
The story of Susan’s disappearance begins with a man named George Giffe, who posed as a doctor to take her onto a private aircraft. When Giffe asked for a .45‑caliber pistol from the pilot to prove his credibility, the pilot, quick on his feet, diverted to Jacksonville, Florida. FBI agents waiting there opened fire, prompting a gunfight on the plane. The agents later discovered that Giffe had killed Susan and the pilot, according to the Nashville Scene.
Lakich has long accused the FBI of mishandling the incident and suggested that he might have wanted to embarrass federal officials. Rollins believes that the family’s frustration with the FBI could be a clue pointing to its involvement. “After hearing more about the theory and reading through [Rollins] book, I thought that it could be possible,” Bagsby added. He lamented that the tragedy had deeply affected his father, who would occasionally speak about Susan’s death. “Unfortunately …he’d already passed,” Bagsby said, adding that he could not be reached for further comments.
While little is known about D.B. Cooper’s appearance beyond photographs of a well‑groomed, dark‑haired man in his mid‑forties, the account of the hijacking remains a classic mystery. On November 24, 1971, the man boarded a Northwest Orient Airlines flight from Portland, slipped a note to a stewardess alleging a bomb in his luggage, and demanded four parachutes, a $200,000 ransom and safe passage to Mexico City. Instead, he leapt from the aircraft at 10,000 feet sometime between Seattle and Reno, Nevada, taking the money with him. The identity of Cooper has not yet been confirmed, and Rollins has declined to comment further.
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