(FD-50): 'More $20 Bills Found, Tied To D. B. Cooper', San Diego Union

FD-50 (Rev. 12-5-78)

(Mount Clipping in Space Below)

[Top right box:] Duplicate page, name of newspaper, city and state. San Diego Union, San Diego, Ca.; A-4 Date: Thurs., 2/14/80 Edition: Home

Title: D. B. COOPER

Character: or Classification: 164-91 Submitting Office: San Diego

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More $20 Bills Found, Tied To D. B. Cooper

PORTLAND, Ore. (UPI) — FBI agents found wadded up $20 bills yesterday in muck dredged from the Columbia River six years ago and said the money was part of the $200,000 ransom collected in 1971 by D.B. Cooper before he parachuted into folklore from a hijacked jetliner.

The first money from Cooper's haul was found Sunday on a sandy beach on the north shore of the Columbia 5 miles northwest of Vancouver, Wash., by children on a family outing. It totaled about $3,000 and the serial numbers checked matched numbers on the bills given Cooper.

FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach said more money was dug up by agents Tuesday afternoon and yesterday morning.

"We have the Army Corps of Engineers and geologists out there," Himmelsbach said. "An agent who was out there said it looks like they'll be able to help us out."

One agent at the site said he dug up a formless fist-size clump of money he described "a wadded up bunch of $20 bills."

Himmelsbach said the geologists and corps scientists probably will be able to determine whether the shore material where the money was found came from the middle of the Columbia River, washed downstream from the Washougal River or was carried upstream from the mouth of the Lewis River and dumped at the site.

The FBI said it had learned that section of the Columbia was last dredged in 1974.

The FBI long believed Cooper parachuted into the drainage of the Lewis River, which empties into the Columbia downstream from Vancouver. The location in which the money was found indicated he landed 20 miles or more away in the drainage of the Washougal River which enters the Columbia upstream from the site.

Before he learned the shore material was dredging spoils from the river, Himmelsbach said the $20 bills had been buried on the shore "probably for several years."

FBI agents Tuesday, digging three feet deep, found more fragments of bills but no more packets from the $200,000 given to Cooper at Seattle on Thanksgiving Eve 1971 when he hijacked a Northwest Airlines 727.

Nor was there any trace of the [text truncated at clipping edge]

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164-91-171

SEAR[CHED] SERIALIZED FILED FEB [14] 1980 FBI—SAN DIEGO [8]

legendary extortionist who para- chuted from the plane somewhere over southwest Washington, an area of rugged mountains and thick for- ests where a body could remain hidden forever. Many authorities say they think Cooper, whose real identity never has been learned, died in the leap from the plane.

Himmelsbach, the agent who has worked on the Cooper caper since the night it occurred, said he knew of no unidentified bodies, which could be Cooper, that washed up on the Columbia banks in the past eight years.

"We have kept a close liaison with medical authorities on both sides of the river," he said. "If there had been any such body we'd have known about it."

Himmelsbach said when Cooper jumped into the rainy night he had the 21-pound package of money strapped to him with nylon cords from one of three parachutes sup- plied by the airline at his demand.

Himmeslbach outlined a "possible scenario" which would explain the money's presence on the beach.

"Probably the money (in the bag) came down close to the bank of a stream. When the water got high enough it washed downstream, bumping along the bottom. The bag finally degraded.

"Perhaps it could have burst on impact but that is not likely. We think finally, tumbling down the river bottom, it broke open and the money was carried on, wearing off little bits and pieces around the edges, grinding it down like it had been ground with sandpaper or a file, leaving the center portion."

The first money was found in three packages, all bound together, by Brian Ingram, 8, and his cousin, Denise Ingram, 5. Brian's parents, Harold and Pat Ingram of Van- couver, turned the money over to the FBI Monday.

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DB Cooper-911