Richard McCoy, Jr.

Infobox Criminal
subject_name = Richard Floyd McCoy, Jr.


image_size =
image_caption =
date_of_birth = birth date|1942|12|7
place_of_birth = Kinston, North Carolina
date_of_death = death date and age|1974|11|9|1942|12|7
place_of_death = Virginia Beach, Virginia
charge = Aircraft piracy
penalty = 45 years incarceration
status =
occupation =
spouse = Karen Burns McCoy (1965-)
parents = Myrtle McCoy
Richard Floyd McCoy, Sr.
children = Chanti
Richard

Richard McCoy, Jr. (December 7, 1942 – November 10, 1974) was an American aircraft hijacker.

Life

Richard Floyd McCoy, Jr., was born December 7, 1942, in the town of Kinston, North Carolina, and grew up in nearby Cove City.

McCoy moved to Provo, Utah in 1962 and enrolled at Brigham Young University before dropping out to serve a two-year tour of duty in the United States Army. He served in Vietnam as a demolition expert and pilotcite news |title=The Real McCoy |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,943370-1,00.html |work=Time |publisher= |date=1972-04-24 |accessdate=2007-07-26 ] and was awarded the Army's Purple Heart in 1964. He returned to BYU in 1965, where he met Karen Burns. Richard married Karen Burns in August 1965 in Raleigh, North Carolina and fathered two children, Chanti and Richard, with her by 1971.

He served another term in the Army on the condition he go to Vietnam, where he was awarded both the Army Commendation Medal and Distinguished Flying Cross. Back in Utah, he served as a warrant officer in the Utah National Guard and was an avid skydiver. [cite news |author=Associated Press |title=Skydiver Held as Hijacker; $500,000 Is Still Missing |work=New York Times |page=1 |date=1972-04-10 |accessdate=2007-07-27 ] McCoy taught Mormon Sunday school and studied law enforcement at Brigham Young University. His purported dream was to become a United States FBI or CIA agent.

Criminal career

[

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thumb|350px|Same_modus operandi as D. B. Cooper] McCoy's criminal career began on April 7, 1972, when he boarded United Airlines flight 855 during a stopover in Denver, Colorado. The aircraft was a Boeing 727 with aft stairs, the same equipment used in the D. B. Cooper incident, which McCoy used to escape after giving the crew similar instructions as Dan Cooper had. McCoy was carrying a novelty grenade and an empty pistol.

Police began investigating McCoy following a tip from a motorist who picked up a hitch-hiker (in a jumpsuit, carrying a duffel bag) at a fast-food restaurant where he had stopped to get a milkshake. McCoy also had described to an acquaintance how easy it would be to carry out such a hijacking. [cite web |url=http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/mccoy/mccoy.htm |title=Famous Cases: Richard Floyd McCoy, Jr. - Aircraft Hijacking |accessdate=2007-07-26 |publisher=Federal Bureau of Investigation]

Following a fingerprint and handwriting match, McCoy was arrested two days after the hijacking. Ironically, McCoy was on National Guard duty flying one of the helicopters involved in the search for the hijacker. Inside his house, FBI agents found a jumpsuit and a duffel bag filled with cash totaling $499,970.

McCoy claimed innocence, but was convicted of the hijacking [cite news |author=Associated Press |title=Viet Veteran Convicted Of Colorado Air Piracy |work=The Washington Post |page=A3 |date=1972-07-01 |accessdate=2007-07-27 ] and received a 45-year sentence. [cite news |author=Associated Press |title=45-Year Term Given Veteran In Hijack of Jet, $500,000 |work=The Washington Post |page=A14 |date=1972-07-11 |accessdate=2007-07-27 ] The Public Defender assigned to represent McCoy was David Winder, who was later appointed by President Ronald Reagan to be a District Court judge in Salt Lake City and who continues to sit on the bench to this day. Thirty years after McCoy was sentenced, an attorney and talk-radio host in Salt Lake City named Rinehart proposed a detailed list of written questions to Judge Winder about the McCoy case and posted them online with Winder's response. [cite news |author=Steven Rinehart |title=Questions for Judge Winder |date=2006-02-11 cite web |url=http://www.stevenrinehart.com/uploads/JudgeWinderLetter.htm] Rinehart also interviewed several officers and FBI agents involved with the case and posted those interviews online as well. [cite news |author=Steven Rinehart |title=Recorded Interviews about McCoy |date=2006-3-11 cite web |url=http://www.stevenrinehart.com/pages/?section=2&page=9]

Once incarcerated at the Federal penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, McCoy used his access to the prison's dental office in order to fashion a fake handgun out of dental paste. He and a crew of convicts escaped on August 10, 1974 by commandeering a garbage truck and crashing it through the prison's main gate. [cite news |title=4 Inmates Escape From Lewisburg |work=New York Times |page=26 |date=1974-08-11 |accessdate=2007-07-26 ]

The FBI located McCoy in Virginia Beach, Virginia, three months later. News reports stated that on November 9, 1974, McCoy walked into his Virginia home and was met by FBI agents; [cite news |first=Don |last=Hunsberger |title=Detective stories |url=http://www.thevillagesdailysun.com/articles/2005/12/29/villages/villages01.txt |work=The Villages Daily Sun |date=2005-12-29 |accessdate=2007-07-26 ] he fired at them, and an agent fired back with a shotgun, killing McCoy. [cite news |author=Associated Press |title=Hijacker Shot Dead in Va. by FBI |work=The Washington Post |page=C2 |date=1974-11-11 |accessdate=2007-07-27 ]

His Widow

"D. B. Cooper: The Real McCoy", a book positing that Cooper and McCoy were really the same person, was published in 1991. It cited similar methods of hijacking and a tie and Brigham Young medallion with McCoy's initials on the back, left on the plane by Cooper. McCoy's widow filed suit against the book's authors, publisher, and her former attorney Thomas S. Taylor, claiming they misrepresented her involvement in the hijacking and later events from interviews done with Taylor in the 1970s. [cite news |author=Associated Press |title=Widow of Man Linked in Book to Skyjacker D.B. Cooper Sues Authors, Provo Attorney |work=Deseret News |page=B5 |date=1992-01-18 |accessdate=2007-07-28 ]

The depth of her participation in the hijacking was revealed in the court proceedings, leading her request for an injunction to prohibit further sales of the book to be denied. An injunction to prohibit the sale of movie rights to the book, conditional upon the movie including references to four specific allegations that she protested in the book, also was granted. [cite news |first=Marianne |last=Funk |title=McCoy's Widow Admits Helping in '72 Hijacking |work=Deseret News |page=B4 |date=1992-02-21 |accessdate=2007-07-28 ] Mrs. McCoy accepted a settlement in 1994 [cite news |first=Marianne |last=Funk |title=Hijacker's Widow to Gain $120,000 |work=Deseret News |page=B2 |date=1994-01-19 |accessdate=2007-07-28 ]

Further reading

*cite book |last=Rhodes |first=Bernie |coauthors=Russell P. Calame |title=D.B. Cooper: The Real McCoy |year=1991 |publisher=University of Utah Press |location=Salt Lake City |isbn=0874803772 |oclc=24173928

References

External links

* [http://www.ldsfilm.com/movies/DBCooper.html D.B. Cooper and LDS movie "The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper" (1981)] (contains excerpts from "D.B. Cooper: The Real McCoy")
* [http://www.stevenrinehart.com/pages/?section=2&page=9 Radio interviews with McCoy biographers (2007)]
* [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23801264 Did kids find D.B. Cooper's parachute] MSNBC March 25 2008
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/us/27chute.html? Parachute May Have Link to 1971 Hijacking Case] NYTimes March 27 2008

Persondata
NAME = McCoy, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
SHORT DESCRIPTION = American aircraft hijacker.
DATE OF BIRTH = December 7, 1942–November 10, 1974
PLACE OF BIRTH = Kinston, North Carolina, United States
DATE OF DEATH = November 10, 1974
PLACE OF DEATH = Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States