FD-350 clipping: 'Pickings are slim in Cooper treasure hunt', Seattle Times

FD-350 (Rev. 12-5-78)

(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.) p. B1 Seattle Times Seattle, Wa. Date: 2/14/80 Edition: Final

Title: NORSAK [guess: NORJAK]

Character: or 164-81 Classification: Submitting Office: Seattle

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Pickings are slim in Cooper treasure hunt

by Richard Zahler and Steve Johnston Times staff reporters

Federal Bureau of Investigation treasure hunters re- turned to a cold and sandy Columbia River beach down- stream from Vancouver, Wash., today seeking more clues to the eight-year-old D.B. Cooper skyjacking mystery.

The F.B.I. mixed a little science and technology with a lot of old-fashioned elbow grease yesterday in continued digging at the beach. Agents continued to find scraps of $20 bills in the area where a picnicking Vancouver family found three bundles of money Sunday.

Through serial numbers, those decomposed bundles of bills have been identified as "several thousand dollars" of the $200,000 given to the man who hijacked a Northwest Orient Airlines 727 in November, 1971, then parachuted from the jet with his loot. The F.B.I. believes he jumped somewhere in the vicinity of LaCenter, about 25 miles northeast of the beach where the money was found.

Yesterday's search, aided by a backhoe and advice from a Portland State University geologist, provided no clues how the money got to the beach or where it has been since the hijacking.

F.B.I. agents said the money still was packaged in the same order as it was given to the hijacker. The geolo- gist said the money probably had been there for less than two years.

Kenneth Moore, a Seattle F.B.I. agent assigned to the case, said, "One reason for conducting an exhaustive search of this area would be to find other indications of what happened — pieces of clothing, pieces of bag, pieces of parachute or human remains, which in this case would be only bones."

The beach area is 7½ miles northwest of Vancouver, on a stretch of shoreline used heavily by fishermen and lined with industrial plants and farms.

Moore and other agents said it would be just specula- tion to suggest that Cooper might have come down near the Columbia River beach, or that the search site might give any clue besides additional pieces of money. The round shape of the wads of money suggested that the cash could have tumbled along the river bed, agents said.

The farmers who own the shoreland, Al and Richard Fazio, said the place where the money was found is peri- odically underwater during high river runoff, like last week.

Moore said the currency might have been pumped on the beach during the dredging, but that was doubted by Dr. Leonard Palmer, Portland State geologist.

Palmer said the scraps of money had been found in looser sand, not in dredging spoils. The river last was dredged there in 1974.

Moore said the meager evidence suggests the hi- jacker "may have landed in the water, although not nec- essarily the Columbia."

Speculation that Cooper could have dropped into Lake Merwin, a reservoir on the Lewis River, was re- placed this week by speculation he could have landed in the Washougal River watershed. The Lewis River enters downstream from the search area, the Washougal up- stream from Vancouver.

But Moore said there were no plans to search upriver "unless evidence leads us to a more specific area."

Small pieces of currency were found yesterday in scattered places as they combed through sand several hundred feet downstream from Sunday's discovery site. Other fragments showed up as agents shoveled sand through wire screens around the main site. The largest piece discovered yesterday was about the size of a stick of chewing gum. It was several layers thick.

Moore said the new fragments may once have been part of the destroyed bundles discovered Sunday.

Although there were several rewards offered for the discovery of the money or the arrest of D.B. Cooper, fed- eral agents said it looked as if the Harold Ingram family is out of luck. Ingram's son, Brian, 8, uncovered the money.

"As fair as I know, all reward offers have been can- celed," a Portland F.B.I. agent, Bill Williams, said.

Roy Erickson, a spokesman for Northwest Orient in St. Louis, said the airline had settled with its insurance company, Globe of New York, several years ago and re- ceived $180,000.

"Our loss was covered by our insurance and so we are out of the situation now," he said.

Ralph Himmelsbach, a Portland F.B.I. agent who has worked on the D.B. Cooper case since 1971, said the finding of the money gave him "a certain sense of satis- faction," the Associated Press reported.

"The case isn't solved," Himmelsbach said, "but this is certainly a major milestone."

"So we know at least that he (Cooper) never spent this money, and we know that none of the money he was given has ever turned up in circulation."

Himmelsbach said Cooper's skeleton probably never will be found if it is in the forested mountain area where he is supposed to have landed.

"Unlike the money, Cooper is biodegradable," Him- melsbach said.

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SEARCHED...... SERIALIZED...... FEB 12 1980 FBI - SEATTLE

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AIRSS E, C, [guess: 4] [illegible]

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FBI/DOJ b6 b7C DB Cooper-17417