Thomas J. Colbert

Last updated
Thomas J. Colbert
Thomas Colbert Last Master Outlaw.png
Occupation(s)Founder, TJC Consulting
Known forConsultant, Writer, Producer
Notable workThe Last Master Outlaw
Website Thomas Colbert website

Thomas J. Colbert is an American consultant, writer, producer and former media executive. He is the co-author of The Last Master Outlaw , a book that documents his five-year cold case investigation of D. B. Cooper suspect Robert Rackstraw. [1] The book became the subject of a documentary on the History Channel which Colbert exec-produced. [2] He currently operates TJC Consulting, a consulting firm in Los Angeles. Prior to his work as a consultant, he was a story researcher for CBS and Paramount Pictures and founder of media service Industry R&D. [3]

Contents

Career

Colbert spent his early career as a story researcher for KCBS-TV in Los Angeles and then with Hard Copy . [4] After 12 years in the business, he founded the true-story tip service Industry R&D, Inc. (IRD). [4] Colbert used his national network of contacts to collect high-profile stories from local media and then sell them to television and motion picture production companies. [5] Tips generated by Colbert became books and films, [4] including The Vow , Baby Brokers , Fly Away Home , and Boys Don't Cry . [3] [6] Colbert sold the company in 2009. [6]

Colbert is the co-author of The Last Master Outlaw: How He Outfoxed the FBI Six Times--but Not a Cold Case Team. The book details an investigation organized by Colbert into the identity of a possible suspect in the D.B. Cooper hijacking. The investigation took place over five years and included 40 retired investigators, including a dozen FBI agents. [1] Colbert identified Robert W. Rackstraw Sr. as the main suspect of the crime. [1] The week before Colbert’s team was to turn in all of its circumstantial evidence to the Cooper FBI case agent, the Seattle Division canceled a long-planned meeting and later announced the FBI considered the case of D.B. Cooper "administratively closed." [7] The investigation also became the subject of the History Channel documentary D.B. Cooper: Case Closed, which aired in 2016 and was exec-produced by Colbert. [2] [8]

Colbert currently operates TJC Consulting. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">D. B. Cooper</span> Unidentified airplane hijacker in 1971

D. B. Cooper is a media epithet for an unidentified man who hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, a Boeing 727 aircraft, in United States airspace on November 24, 1971. During the flight from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington, the hijacker told a flight attendant he was armed with a bomb, demanded $200,000 in ransom and requested four parachutes upon landing in Seattle. After releasing the passengers in Seattle, the hijacker instructed the flight crew to refuel the aircraft and begin a second flight to Mexico City, with a refueling stop in Reno, Nevada. About 30 minutes after taking off from Seattle, the hijacker opened the aircraft's aft door, deployed the staircase, and parachuted into the night over southwestern Washington. The hijacker has never been found or conclusively identified.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin Mitnick</span> American hacker (1963–2023)

Kevin David Mitnick was an American computer security consultant, author, and convicted hacker. He is best known for his high-profile 1995 arrest and five years in prison for various computer and communications-related crimes. Mitnick's pursuit, arrest, trial, and sentence along with the associated journalism, books, and films were all controversial. After his release from prison, he ran his own security firm, Mitnick Security Consulting, LLC, and was also involved with other computer security businesses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Roselli</span> American mobster

John"Handsome Johnny"Roselli, sometimes spelled Rosselli, was a mobster for the Chicago Outfit who helped that organization exert influence over Hollywood and the Las Vegas Strip. Roselli was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a plot to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

<i>Numbers</i> (TV series) American crime drama television series (2005–2010)

Numbers is an American crime drama television series that was broadcast on CBS from January 23, 2005, to March 12, 2010, for six seasons and 118 episodes. The series was created by Nicolas Falacci and Cheryl Heuton, and follows FBI Special Agent Don Eppes and his brother Charlie Eppes, a college mathematics professor and prodigy, who helps Don solve crimes for the FBI. Brothers Ridley and Tony Scott produced Numbers; its production companies are the Scott brothers' Scott Free Productions and CBS Television Studios.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disappearance of Natalee Holloway</span> Case of an American woman who disappeared in Aruba

Natalee Ann Holloway was an 18-year-old American high school senior whose disappearance made international news after she vanished on May 30, 2005, in Aruba. Holloway lived in Mountain Brook, Alabama, and graduated from Mountain Brook High School on May 24, 2005, days before the trip. Her disappearance resulted in a media sensation in the United States. The prime suspect, Joran van der Sloot, has made conflicting statements over the years about his involvement, including a confession to killing her. Her remains have not been found.

Mark S. Zaid is an American attorney, based in Washington, D.C., with a practice focused on national security law, freedom of speech constitutional claims, and government accountability.

Steven L. Marmel is an American television writer, producer, and stand-up comedian who has worked on many animated television series, including The Fairly OddParents, I Am Weasel, Danny Phantom, Family Guy and Yin Yang Yo!. During his work on The Fairly OddParents he frequently co-wrote episodes with Butch Hartman. Marmel also created the series Sonny with a Chance, So Random as well as the series Mech-X4.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard McCoy Jr.</span> American aircraft hijacker

Richard Floyd McCoy Jr. was an American aircraft hijacker. McCoy hijacked a United Airlines passenger jet for ransom in April 1972. Due to a similar modus operandi, McCoy has been proposed as the person responsible for the November 1971 hijacking of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, attributed to the still-unidentified "D. B. Cooper".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Huma Abedin</span> American political staffer (born 1975)

Huma Mahmood Abedin is an American political staffer who was vice chair of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign for President of the United States. Before that, Abedin was deputy chief of staff to Clinton when she was U.S. Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013. She was also the traveling chief of staff and former assistant to Clinton during her 2008 presidential campaign for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 presidential election.

D. B. Cooper is a media epithet used to describe an unidentified man who hijacked a Boeing 727 on November 24, 1971, extorted a US$200,000 ransom, and parachuted to an unknown fate. He was never seen again, and only $5,880 of the ransom money has been found. The incident continues to influence popular culture, and has inspired references in books, film, and music.

"Disturbed" is the 21st episode of the fifth season of the American television show Numbers. In the episode written by series creators/executive producers Cheryl Heuton and Nicolas Falacci, skeptical Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents track an undetected serial killer while their math consultant copes with his brother's recent injury. After FBI Special Agent Don Eppes's injury, FBI Special Agent David Sinclair, who was the newest member of the team at the beginning of the series, served as team leader. Falacci and Heuton also included Easter eggs from the "Pilot" and from some of the previous 99 episodes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chuck Philips</span> American writer and investigative journalist

Charles Alan Philips is an American writer and journalist. He is best known for his investigative reporting in the Los Angeles Times on the culture, corruption, and crime in the music industry during the 1990s and 2000s, which garnered both awards and controversy. In 1999, Philips won a Pulitzer Prize, with Michael A. Hiltzik, for their co-authored series exposing corruption in the entertainment industry.

<i>Bosch</i> (TV series) American drama television series

Bosch is an American police procedural streaming television series produced by Amazon Studios and Fabrik Entertainment starring Titus Welliver as Los Angeles Police Department detective Harry Bosch. The show was developed for Amazon by Eric Overmyer, and the first season takes its inspiration from the Michael Connelly novels City of Bones (2002), Echo Park (2006), and The Concrete Blonde (1994). It was one of two drama pilots that Amazon streamed online in early 2014, and viewers offered their opinions on it before the studio decided whether to place a series order. The seventh and final season was released on June 25, 2021.

<i>CSI: Cyber</i> American police procedural television drama series (2015–2016)

CSI: Cyber is an American police procedural drama television series that premiered on March 4, 2015, on CBS. The series, starring Patricia Arquette and Ted Danson, is the third spin-off of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and the fourth series in the CSI franchise. On May 12, 2016, CBS cancelled the series after two seasons.

Eastman Kodak v Harold Worden is a case of industrial espionage involving the sale of information by Harold Worden, a former Kodak manager, to Kodak's competitors in 1995. Worden was caught selling details on the 401 process, a process designed to increase the speed and quality of film during development, during a sting operation conducted by Kodak after two of their competitors, Konica and Agfa-Gevaert, told Kodak that he had approached them selling trade secrets. After the sting operation, Worden was sentenced to 15 months in prison and a fine of $30,000 for interstate transportation of stolen property.

On December 2, 2015, a terrorist attack, consisting of a mass shooting and an attempted bombing, occurred at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, United States. The perpetrators, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a married couple living in the city of Redlands, targeted a San Bernardino County Department of Public Health training event and Christmas party of about 80 employees in a rented banquet room. Fourteen people were killed and 22 others were seriously injured. Farook was an American born citizen of Pakistani descent, who worked as a health department employee. Malik was a Pakistani-born green card holder. After the shooting, the couple fled in a rented Ford Expedition SUV. Four hours later, police pursued their vehicle and killed them in a shootout, which also left two officers injured.

<i>The Last Master Outlaw</i>

The Last Master Outlaw: How He Outfoxed the FBI Six Times—but Not a Cold Case Team is a 2016 non-fiction book written by Thomas J. Colbert and Tom Szollosi. It details the results of a five-year investigation of a suspect in the 1971 D. B. Cooper hijacking case. The book documents the life of Robert Rackstraw and the evidence compiled against him. It was also the basis of the 2016 History Channel documentary D.B. Cooper: Case Closed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Licht</span> American television newsman and producer (born 1971)

Christopher Andrew Licht is an American television newsman and producer. He is best known as the showrunner and executive producer of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, as well as CBS's executive vice president of special programming. He is also known for having launched Morning Joe on MSNBC, and the reboot of CBS This Morning. From May 2022 to June 2023 he was the chairman and CEO of CNN.

James R. Fitzgerald is an American criminal profiler, forensic linguist, and author. He is a retired FBI agent and best known for his role in the UNABOM investigation, which resulted in the arrest and conviction of Ted Kaczynski.

D.B. Cooper: Where Are You?! is a four-part documentary mini-series released by Netflix in 2022. The series discusses the history and investigation of the Northwest Orient Airlines hijacking by the man known as D. B. Cooper in 1971 and includes interviews with investigators journalists involved with investigating the case.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Dodd, Johnny (12 July 2016). "Man Identified in History Channel Show as Notorious Skyjacker D.B. Cooper Denies Accusation". People. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
  2. 1 2 Dobuzinskis, Alex (9 September 2016). "U.S. TV producer seeks to prove theory in D.B. Cooper mystery". Reuters. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
  3. 1 2 "How Those Bizarre Stories Make It To The Screen". The Cincinnati Post. 25 November 1996. Archived from the original on 21 November 2018. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 Pool, Bob (26 February 1994). "The Only Story That Tom Colbert Hasn't Gotten: His Own : 'We ask, "How's the wife, how are the kids and, by the way, do you have any stories for us?" '". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
  5. Pertman, Adam (27 March 1994). "Quick movie deals may hurt justice". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 15 December 2016.[ dead link ]
  6. 1 2 Storer, Mark (11 February 2012). "Camarillo producer helps bring "The Vow" to screen". Ventura County Star. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
  7. Bailey, Everton (8 September 2016). "Lawsuit filed against FBI to make D.B. Cooper investigation file public". Oregon Live. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
  8. "D.B. Cooper: Case Closed?". History Channel. 10 July 2016. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
  9. "About TJC Consulting". TJC Consulting. Retrieved 15 December 2016.