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| 12/3/2008 3:06:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| Rona and Pat Forman gather with their “fan club” at the Ariel, Wash., store to celebrate DB Cooper Days and be filmed for an upcoming National Geographic TV documentary. Pictured are, standing left to right: Rena Ruddell (daughter of DB Cooper suspect Barb Dayton), Ron Forman, Tammy Forman Oughton, and Cliff Kluge (a pilot for Continental Airlines who lives in Graham). Seated are, left to right: Pat Forman, Karen Hampton, Bob Vorak (of Graham), and his fiancée Sherry Mattox. |
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Local authors becoming celebrities with DB Cooper book
by Bruce Smith
Ron and Pat Forman, two local authors who wrote about their friend and fellow Thun Field pilot Barb Dayton's claim that she was DB Cooper, are on the verge of becoming nationally-known for their book, The Legend of DB Cooper: Death by Natural Causes.
The Formans will be featured in an upcoming National Geographic TV documentary exploring this famous skyjacking incident, and were in Ariel, Wash., this past weekend to be filmed by crews from Edge West Productions of Los Angeles.
Ariel, once the center of the FBI's ground search for Cooper, is now home to DB Cooper Days, a celebration of the legend of criminal folklore who skyjacked a Northwest Orient 727 the day before Thanksgiving, 1971, and dove into the night sky with $200,000 strapped to his waist.
No trace of Cooper or his money has ever been found, except for a stash of $5,800 found nine years later buried in a sandy beach along the Columbia River. The Cooper case remains the only unsolved skyjacking in the history of the United States.
The FBI says that DB Cooper most likely plunged to his death.
"Not so!" claim the Formans, who met Barb Dayton in 1977 at Thun Field. There, they spent many years flying their Cessna 140s together, and became life-long friends.
Over time, the Formans say Barb Dayton told them, first, that she had had a sex change operation in 1969, and then later, that she was DB Cooper. She also told them numerous details of the heist, including her successful parachute jump - not over Ariel as the FBI claim, but nine minutes of flying
time later above the hazelnut groves of Woodburn, Ore.
The Formans say Barb Dayton never spent the money, and that she did the skyjacking for therapeutic reasons to counter the deep depression she experienced after her operation.
The Formans and Edge West are continuing filming this week in Woodburn, at the spots where Dayton said she landed, buried the cash, and switched back to dressing as a woman. In a few weeks, Edge West will return to Thun Field and interview several other pilots who knew Dayton.
"I was so nervous," said Pat Forman of her camera experience. "I'd rather jump out of an airplane than be filmed."
Nevertheless, Forman appeared very comfortable before the Edge West cameras as she reiterated how she and Ron came to learn this remarkable saga of grit, despair and determination.
Edge West Productions are regular contributors to the National Geographic cable channel, having produced ten documentaries for them in the past two years, including one on Amelia Earhart, and another on the legends of UFO activity in Roswell, New Mexico. They anticipate that National Geographic will air the piece sometime in August.
As for the Formans, they have issued a second hardback edition which has many more photographs and a few new chapters added. Paperback editions are also now available. For more information, visit www.legendofdbcooper.com.
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Reader Comments
Posted: Friday, January 16, 2009
Article comment by:
justrena
Hello
Just read your note and wanted to help you understand. I was born in 1952. My dad had his sex reassignment in 1969. Hope this helps.
Posted: Sunday, January 11, 2009
Article comment by:
Skeptical
If Barb was a man and had a sex change, how is Rena Ruddell her daughter? Adoption?
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