When it comes to criminals, my interests in their pursuits tend to border on apathy. However, this changes entirely when it comes to cold cases. These unsolved crimes are unavoidably thought-provoking and full of enigmatic details that countless individuals often spend years of contemplation on. Even better is when the culprits themselves escape capture and manage to (assumedly) live on for decades.

The possibility that criminal masterminds could be living right under our noses is both frightening and exciting. One such example is D.B. Cooper, the man who hijacked a plane in 1971 and then jumped from it with $200,000 in a ransom payout.

Despite an aggressive search by the FBI, Cooper is yet to turn up nearly 40 years later. Many postulate that he never survived the jump from the plane, while others insist he is still alive and well. Until now, D.B. Cooper had fallen off the radar entirely. More important world events have long overshadowed the fly-and-run incident that shocked airport security into introducing metal detectors.

That is, until recently.

On Monday March 24, the FBI announced that they had discovered an abandoned parachute from a field in Clark County, Washington – the area that experts predicted Cooper would have landed in. The parachute was found by a farmer who was plowing land and got snagged up on the material, which he then fully uncovered to reveal a parachute.

Over the years, the FBI has investigated nearly 1,000 possible suspects but their efforts never turned up any leads. But the real Dan Cooper, who boarded the Portland-to-Seattle flight and demanded $200,000 and four parachutes, has yet to be caught. While no one was killed or injured throughout the entire ordeal, the charges against this fugitive mastermind are heavy and include air piracy (something you don't see everyday).