Richard McCoy, Jr.

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Richard Floyd McCoy, Jr.
Born December 7, 1942(1942-12-07)
Kinston, North Carolina
Died November 9, 1974 (aged 31)
Virginia Beach, Virginia
Penalty 45 years incarceration
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.

Contents

[edit] 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 pilot[1] 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.[2] 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.

[edit] Criminal career

Same modus operandi as D. B. Cooper
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.

The Salt Lake Tribune's article about the 1972 capture of Richard McCoy
The Salt Lake Tribune's article about the 1972 capture of Richard McCoy

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 a number of people how easy it would be to carry out such a hijacking.[3]

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.[1]

McCoy claimed innocence, but was convicted of the hijacking[4] and received a 45-year sentence.[5] 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.[6] Rinehart also interviewed several officers and FBI agents involved with the case and posted those interviews online as well.[7]

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.[8]

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;[9] he fired at them, and an agent fired back with a shotgun, killing McCoy.[10] Other witnesses dispute this claim.[citation needed]

[edit] 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.[11]

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.[12] Mrs. McCoy accepted a settlement in 1994[13]

[edit] Further reading

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b "The Real McCoy", Time, 1972-04-24. Retrieved on 2007-07-26. 
  2. ^ Associated Press. "Skydiver Held as Hijacker; $500,000 Is Still Missing", New York Times, 1972-04-10, p. 1. Retrieved on 2007-07-27. 
  3. ^ Famous Cases: Richard Floyd McCoy, Jr. - Aircraft Hijacking. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved on 2007-07-26.
  4. ^ Associated Press. "Viet Veteran Convicted Of Colorado Air Piracy", The Washington Post, 1972-07-01, p. A3. Retrieved on 2007-07-27. 
  5. ^ Associated Press. "45-Year Term Given Veteran In Hijack of Jet, $500,000", The Washington Post, 1972-07-11, p. A14. Retrieved on 2007-07-27. 
  6. ^ Steven Rinehart. "Questions for Judge Winder", 2006-2-11 cite web. 
  7. ^ Steven Rinehart. "Recorded Interviews about McCoy", 2006-3-11 cite web. 
  8. ^ "4 Inmates Escape From Lewisburg", New York Times, 1974-08-11, p. 26. Retrieved on 2007-07-26. 
  9. ^ Hunsberger, Don. "Detective stories", The Villages Daily Sun, 2005-12-29. Retrieved on 2007-07-26. 
  10. ^ Associated Press. "Hijacker Shot Dead in Va. by FBI", The Washington Post, 1974-11-11, p. C2. Retrieved on 2007-07-27. 
  11. ^ Associated Press. "Widow of Man Linked in Book to Skyjacker D.B. Cooper Sues Authors, Provo Attorney", Deseret News, 1992-01-18, p. B5. Retrieved on 2007-07-28. 
  12. ^ Funk, Marianne. "McCoy's Widow Admits Helping in '72 Hijacking", Deseret News, 1992-02-21, p. B4. Retrieved on 2007-07-28. 
  13. ^ Funk, Marianne. "Hijacker's Widow to Gain $120,000", Deseret News, 1994-01-19, p. B2. Retrieved on 2007-07-28. 

[edit] External links


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