Duane L. Weber was a WWII Army veteran who served time in at least six prisons between 1945 and 1968 on counts of burglary and forgery. On his deathbed in 1995, three days before his death, Weber told his wife, Jo, "I am Dan Cooper." While the name meant nothing to Jo, she conducted research at the local library and found her husband's handwriting in the margins of "DB Cooper: What Really Happened" by Max Gunther. Jo found little evidence connecting her husband to the hijacking, other than the fact that Weber and Cooper were both chainsmokers who drank bourbon.
Speaking with CBS News in 2000, FBI Agent Ralph Himmelsbach said, "[Weber] does fit the physical description (and) does have the criminal background that I have always felt was associated with the case." However, he had doubts that Weber and Cooper were one and the same. The FBI officially eliminated Weber as an active suspect in the investigation in July 1998 after his fingerprints failed to match those found at the scene of the hijacking. Later, Weber's DNA also failed to match samples recovered from Cooper's tie.
