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By Steve Olafson | Reuters 8 hrs agoOKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - A woman claiming to be the niece of the mysterious skyjacker dubbed D.B. Cooper, who bailed out of a jetliner 40 years ago with $200,000 in ransom, says she recalls her uncle plotting the sensational caper at a family gathering in 1971. Marla Wynn Cooper, 48, of Oklahoma City, said on Wednesday that she was the person who furnished investigators new clues to a previously unknown suspect, sparking a renewed probe of a case the FBI counts as the only unsolved hijacking in U.S. aviation history.
The woman told Reuters she gave the FBI a leather guitar strap made by her uncle, now dead for over a decade, along with a photo of him with the same strap, to be examined for fingerprints that might match those from the plane.
"They were never going to close this case without someone knowing the truth," she said, adding she underwent a polygraph test administered by the FBI to assess her credibility.
In an interview at a downtown Oklahoma City restaurant, she recalled seeing L.D. Cooper engrossed in suspicious behavior with another uncle, Dewey Cooper, during a holiday gathering at her grandmother's house in Oregon before Thanksgiving 1971.
She said the two men, both brothers of her father, appeared to be secretly planning something as they experimented with sophisticated walkie-talkies, then left the family gathering for what they said was a turkey hunt.
They returned Thanksgiving Day with her uncle bloodied and bruised, claiming he had been in an automobile accident.
"I looked in the car ... for a turkey, and what I see instead is my uncle injured," she said. "I started to cry and said, 'What happened?' They told me they'd been in a car wreck, and I said, 'The car is fine. What were you driving?' My uncle Dewey said, 'Marla, shut up. Go get your dad."
Later while eavesdropping, Cooper said, she overheard her Uncle Dewey say, "'Our money problems are over. We just have to go back and get the money. L.D. hijacked the airplane.'" more at link:
http://news.yahoo.com/woman-claims-1971-hijacker-d-b-cooper-her-072547811.html