D. B. Cooper, Mystery I D

Who is this 'D. B. Cooper'? Where did he disappear to? Will he ever be found again? Does anyone know what happened to him? Not long ago I addressed a current "murder mystery" in one of my blog posts. Today I'll focus on a 'Mystery From Past History' (Nov. 24, 1971) which includes an airline hijacking, extortion, $200,000 in ransom, and a missing person who has yet to be found. This crime remains unsolved as of todays date. Will it ever be solved?

Please watch the following video of the CBS Evening News from November 25, 1971. This is only the beginning of the Mystery of D. B. Cooper, aka Dan Cooper (please note that Walter Cronkite initially refers to the hijacker as D. A. Cooper):





For more information you may link to:

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/dec07/dbcooper123107.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17840873


Ian Punnet, the weekend host for Coast to Coast AM, is advertising a show addressing this topic for Saturday night May 24, 2008. He indicates he will have new information concerning this 'Mystery from Past History. You may link to their website through Coast to Coast AM.

Generations

This weekend I was listening to Coast to Coast AM with Ian Punnett, the weekend host, interviewing Neil Howe. While most of the interview concerned the book, The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy by William Strauss and Neil Howe, one topic of discussion which arose was the topic of 'Generations'. At first I listened only in passing, as I had never really paid much attention to the topic of 'Generations'. Sure I had heard of the 'Boomers', 'Gen-X'ers, and more recently 'The Millennials'. I had never really paid much attention to the whole topic and it had never really caught my interest. I knew that it generally dealt with the history of the culture and events which were popularly associated with the groups of people who were born, raised, and came of age during an extended period of time in history. As a former History teacher this sounded fascinating and it aroused my interest. As I listened to some of the explanation about the different 'Generations' and the contrasts and comparisons between the different groups of people the whole topic began to become more intriguing. I determined I should do a little research, see if I could get more information, and try to ascertain if there was indeed anything to this 'Generations' thing. I found the topic to be very broad and there is a vast amount of information available. I also determined that there was more information than I could cover in one writing. I will try to break it down into a few interesting topics and give some explanation and insight into what I have learned about the topic of 'Generations'.

I will first focus on identifying three 'Generations' or distinct groups of people during the last century of U. S. History:

1. The Silent Generation: Members of this group were born between World War I and World War II and they were too young to have served during WW II, although many of them may have had fathers who served in WW I.
2. The Baby Boomers: This group is constituted of members who were born shortly after World War II. This period of time in U. S. History is distinguished by a general increase in the overall birthrate. This population explosion was also taking place in many countries around the world and there was generally a world wide "Baby Boom".
3. Generation X: This group consists of those who were born between about 1964 and 1981. Most members of this generation are the children of either the 'Baby Boomers' or the 'Silent Generation' and they came of age with such things as MTV, Cable TV, and Video Games.

One fact became immediately evident about the whole topic of 'Generations'. There is a variety of sub-groups within many of the groups and there is a bit of variation about the topics most influential and considered most important in determining the characteristics of each group. Sometimes popular culture and social trends seem most important while at other times politics and economic trends become more important in determining the specific period in history and the predominate characteristics of a particular 'Generation'. I will continue with this topic in a series of future Blog Posts and I will try to make some observations about some of our current affairs as affected by these 'Generations'.

Murder Mystery Update!

Apparently there are others who are interested in the story of the "Smiley Faced Serial Killers". Charlie recently left his comment to my previous Murder Mystery Blog post and he directed me to his Sope-Bocks Blog. He has included some intersting details in his post which I did not include in my original post. Please see his post for even more information on this tragic mystery.

Sope-Bocks

Murder Mystery

This is a very serious story of a sinister and upsetting topic with a set of bizarre and apparently still unknown facts. I will attempt here to summarize some of what is known and make you aware of the apparent mystery surrounding a number of deaths in numerous states across the country. My interest here is to let others know about these cases and to help spread awareness of the mystery surrounding these seemingly unrelated deaths. I will attempt to give a number of links to various sources related to the story and allow you to follow up on as many as you wish. You may then draw your own conclusions about the possibilities and hopefully help to spread the awareness of this story to others who may not have heard about this Murder Mystery.

Warning, this topic may be too upsetting for some and you may want to link off to another site at this time.

One of my favorite places to get away from it all!

I recently heard a news story on that late night radio talk show, Coast to Coast A.M. hosted by Ian Punnett who was filling in for the regular host George Noory. The topic of the story was the ‘Smiley Faced Serial Killers'. Investigative Reporter, Kristi Piehl, was interviewed and questioned by the radio talk show host. They discussed the cases of numerous unexplained deaths of young men who were last seen at a party are bar who then turned up missing. After some time their body turns up in a nearby body of water usually along the bank of some riverfront. Since the deaths were being investigated by a number of different local law enforcement agencies across the country, it was a number of years before anyone made a connection between the numerous cases. In all cases the deaths was initially ruled as an accidental drowning and usually explained away as tragic, but simply an accidental death blamed on the alcohol since the young men apparently had just left a party or bar. Finally, in one case the law enforcement agency involved went back and changed the ruling of death for Chris Jenkins in Minneapolis from undetermined drowning to homicide. Chris Jenkins went missing Oct. 31, 2002 and his body was later found in the Mississippi River in Feb. of 2003. This is when two retired New York City policemen began to make a connection to a previous case they first investigated more that 11 years ago. The initial case was investigated by then NYPD Sgt. Kevin Gannon who made a promise to the parents of Patrick McNiel that he would not let the case rest until he found the killer or killers. This seemingly intelligent and well fit young man was last seen leaving a NYC bar in 1997. His body was found 50 days later and 11 miles downriver from where he went missing. The parents “knew it wasn’t suicide” and then Sgt Gannon had a ‘feeling’ that there was more to the story than could be explained away as ‘accidental death by drowning’. Now retired Kevin Gannon has teamed up with a former colleague Anthony Duarte also from the NYPD and they have devoted their time and personal resources not only to the further investigation of the initial crime,the recent case of University of Minnesota college student Chris Jenkins, and also to dozens of other deaths from across the country over the last decade. All of these deaths which were blamed on a drunken accident now appear to be connected by a set of mysterious and bizarre similarities. The most striking similarity is the clue which has been found at a number of the sites not where the body was found along the waterfront but where investigators have tracked back to where they believe the body to have entered the water. Initially the only crime scene investigated was the site of where the body was found. Gannon and Duarte took a larger view and reasoned that bodies may have drifted and been found in a different location from the initial crime scene. Many of these initial crime scenes have been revealed to have contained similar ‘tags’ or graffiti, the most notable being a Smiley Face. Thus we have the mystery of the ‘Smiley Faced Serial Killers’.

You may use the following links if you wish to learn more about this apparent Murder Mystery:

Coast to Coast AM

Investigative Reporter, Kristi Piehl

Smiley Faced Serial Killers

Blog Tag!

I was recently tagged (Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2008) by my brother on his Blog! (See Waco in the column of Favorite Places to the right).

Blog Tag? What is this all about? I give you 5 -7 unknown or little known but interesting facts about myself? Who wants to see that stuff? Why does anyone want to know somthing like that about me? If it is unknown or little known how could it be interesting? Where am I going with this? I don't know.

I guess I should get into the spirit of this thing. Apparently it goes something like this: I give you some of those unknowns about myself and then I tag another blogger to continue with the game. Well this should be relatively interesting and maybe even fun.

1. I like to listen to a popular late night radio talk show Coast-to-Coast AM.



2. My favorite music band/group is Chicago.



3. I like to read Science Fiction and Fantasy, non-fiction (history, political science, and science), and biographies and autobiographies.



4. My wife and I like to visit natural areas to picnic, hike, ride bikes, and view birds and other wildlife. See the Favorite Places links on my blog.



5. I like to watch a variety of movies. I like all sorts of action and adventure, science fiction and fantasy, popular and current drama, but my favorite movies are old soap opera classics from the 1950's and 60's. These movies were about those taboos and social mores of the times. One of my favorites is A Summer Place (1959) starring Richard Egan and Dorothy McGuire. Speaking of movies . . . . .



6. I had a secret crush on Hayley Mills when I was a kid. Remember Pollyanna (1960)? Note: Richard Egan was in that movie also.



7. I once shook hands with Roy Rogers! He was the headliner at the Rodeo at the Heart of Texas Fair and Rodeo once when I was a kid. As he rode by on his horse Trigger, he shook hands with many of the kids who came down to the rail and leaned out. I was one of those kids! I'm not sure, but that may be my hand sticking out at the left edge of the picture. Sorry, but it looks like the photographer was more interested in Roy Rogers than me. But thats O.K. So was I back then when I was a kid. Wasn't life grand as a kid?
   
   
   
   
   
   Now for the fun part of this. I now take delight in tagging 2 of my favorite people

Janna and Kari .

Tag You are it! Now tell us a few unknown or little known but interesting things about yourself in your Blog and then Tag someone else.