FD-350 clipping: 'My Search for D.B. Cooper' by Darrell Bob Houston, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

FD-350 (Rev. 12-5-78) (Mount Clipping in Space Below)

(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) p.A1 Post-Intelligencer Seattle, Wa. Date: Final Edition:

Title: NORJAK

Character: Classification: 164-81 Submitting Office: Seattle

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My Search for D.B. Cooper 9 Years Trailing The Phantom Skyjacker

Tuesday's announcement of the finding of part of the D.B. Cooper loot was the first dramatic development in one of the nation's most publicized — and puzzling — skyjack cases. Seattle writer Darrell Bob Houston, who has devoted years of study to the case and who wrote the book "King of the Midnight Blue," herewith reviews the D.B. Cooper history and his own preoccupation with it.

By Darrell Bob Houston

My first mistake was having the same initials as D.B. Cooper. My second was writing a book about him. My third was allowing myself to become a D.B. Cooper expert. My fourth — and perhaps most dangerous — was when I scoffed at the supernatural overtones in the case. My fifth mistake was the most embarrassing. After nine years of checking out everything from the Raleigh filter cigarettes that D.B. smoked to the thin clip-on necktie he wore, I came to see him as a kind of avatar. The Last Invisible Hero. He could be anybody — because he was nobody. Punk or paragon, he could go either way. Even the FBI doesn't know what he looked like. The thousands of flyers they plastered around the

world show Cooper's face hidden behind the fattest pair of sunglasses this side of Hollywood Boulevard.

D.B. is the only man ever to make the global Ten Most Wanted List — in disguise. But ask any school kid who the first man to walk on the moon was, and all you get is a stare. Mention D.B. and the kid will give you everything but the serial numbers on the ransom money.

There I go, parroting the lines that I've fed to people for the past nine years. Especially people who wanted my help in turning "the real D.B. Cooper" over to the police. Many claimed to have been in jail with him. One caller, after reading one of my essays on Cooper, said D.B. was really his mother — in drag.

Steadily it was building up, this feeling that I was hiding the truth from myself: I fought it back. Every time a new clue would turn up — a pair of soiled underwear in a Southwest Washington tree, the alleged sighting of a sasquatch playing building-blocks with a pile of $20 bills — I would write another skyjack article.

D.B. had become, in a sense, my life. And my livelihood.

Then came the day when the

conviction struck home. I had just finished a story for Saga Magazine called "The Phantom Skyjacker." I brushed off my dark Montgomery Ward business suit. I flicked at a mote of dust on my low-cut military brogans. I straightened my thin, clip-on tie. I pushed my wrap-around sunglasses up on my forehead and exclaimed [guess: to the skies].

"It's true. I know too much. I am D.B. Cooper."

My megalomaniac fled the next day. It was the letter that did it. From the opening paragraph, I was hooked.

Here's how it began:

Thanksgiving eve, 1971. A stormy night. A Northwest Orient 727 lumbers through the darkness. Its speed is barely above stall-point. A stairwell slowly distends from the big jet's belly. A man appears. He rides the swaying ladder like a tomcat on a fire ladder. He wears a dark suit and overcoat. Sunglasses are taped to his temples. Strapped to his waist is a canvas bag stuffed with the $200,000 ransom he collected at Seattle. Over his buttocks, on the same strap, an attache case dangles. It is black and contains five sticks of phony dynamite. The man is poised on the final step. His laughter rises in the wind. He spreads his arms wide and skydives toward the treetops — and the folklore of the nation. D.B. Cooper has arrived. The world will never be the same place again.

I felt a pang of professional jealousy. This guy was good with the

typewriter. And all the space-age jargon was there. He called the 727-100's engines "Pratt & Whitney jewels." He knew the skyjacked plane's fuel capacity — in U.S. gallons. And he knew how much 10,000 twenties weighed.

It was smooth and authentic. Still, the writer could have gotten most of that stuff out of Jane's All the World's Aircraft.

But one section struck home. The part that told about the delivery of the ransom aboard the 727 at Sea-Tac Airport:

"The bills were the real McCoy. But all of them had been xeroxed to get their serial numbers. I know. I snarfed them personally."

Snarfed? A doozy of a verb, an active verb.

One that might lead me straight to the skyjacker. To an all-time journalistic scoop. To fame, fortune — and a Hollywood contract.

I read the letter a dozen times.

It was signed like the rest of them: D.B. Cooper. This one, however, was different. After more than 200 bogus D.B.'s write to you, you can tell.

* * *

The address was an apartment house on Capitol Hill. The place smelled of pomade and insecticide. It was enough to make a healthy inspector call in sick. I knocked on Number 9.

"He ain't here. Not if you're looking for D.B."

The old man had tippy-toed up behind me in the carpeted hall-

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SEARCHED....[illegible]...FILED SERIALIZED...[illegible] FEB 15 1980 FBI - SEATTLE

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FBI/DOJ DB Cooper-17401

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Sur B

way. He wore a Brahms sweatshirt and a pair of Vietcong pajama trousers. His slippers looked like the gloves on a boxing kangaroo. I kept my voice calm. "Hello. Is he around?" The old man clammed up. "It's O.K., dad," I said. "I'm not with the police." "Cooper packed up and moved out a couple of days ago," he said. "Didn't pay his rent, though." "His name is really D.B. Cooper?" The old man studied his palms. "Strange fella," he said. "Kept trying to turn himself in. But the cops wouldn't believe his story, either."

* * *

I called Sea-Tac and asked for Operations. A young, eager voice came on. I told its owner that I was a writer. What I specifically wanted to know was this: had anyone in Operations overheard any of the conversation between Cooper and the tower while the plane was re- fueling and the money was being delivered to the skyjacker? There was a pause. "I heard a little," the young man said. "But don't quote me." "I don't even know your name," I assured him. "The radio was a little staticky," he said. "I heard the captain tell; Cooper that the smart skyjacker would try for San Francisco in- stead of Reno. Cooper just told him to rotate for takeoff — that's right, rotate — and head south, on Vec- tor 23." I asked what his voice was like. "Flat, sir," my informant said. "Kind of a whine, like W.C. Fields or Mae West." "Anything else?" "Yeh. Cooper was very unhappy about the money having been xe- roxed. He said something like, "I sniffed it myself — tell that to the bank." "Sniffed?" I said. "Or snarfed?" A long silence. "I'm not sure, sir," the helpful young man said at last. His tone turned waspish. "Could it possibly make any difference?" "Only," I said, "to someone who's over forty and has a dirty mind." "Dirty mind, sir?" Sighing, I thanked the young man and hung up. I was too old to be tracking phantom skyjackers. Admit it, I goaded myself. You've finally OD'd on D.B. But my addiction was not that simple. Once a Cooper expert, always a Cooper expert.

(Next: The Los Angeles Times backs down on D.B. — and a beau- tiful blonde ghost visits my apart- ment.)

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Bob Hasting

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DB Cooper-17402

D.B, HOUSTON and the only man to make the international 10 Most Wanted List in disguise.

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DB Cooper-17403