FD-350 clipping, Seattle Times: 'Cooper scooper: Scraps may hint at D.B.'s skyjack fate'
Document date 18 December 1982
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Id: Cooper-Part-47:036-036
Subject: Cooper Files: Cooper-Part-47:036-036 Document: FD-350 clipping, Seattle Times: 'Cooper scooper: Scraps may hint at D.B.'s skyjack fate' Id: Cooper-Part-47:036-036 Page: https://cooper.theunsolved.net/documents/Cooper-Part-47%3A036-036 What is wrong (title, date, type, which pages belong together, copies)? What does the scan show?
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FBI 164-81, Vault Part 47 p. 36 (DB Cooper-19312), News clipping, dated 18 Dec 1982 — cooper.theunsolved.net/documents/Cooper-Part-47%3A036-036
FD-350 (Rev. 12-5-78)
(Mount Clipping in Space Below)
(Indicate page, name of paper, city and state.) p. A-14 SEATTLE TIMES Seattle, Washington Date: 12/18/82 Edition: AM
Title:
Character: NORJAK or Classification: 164-81 Submitting Office: Seattle
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Cooper scooper: Scraps may hint at D.B.'s skyjack fate
PORTLAND (UPI) — A tattered piece of cloth-covered nylon, a piece of rope and a bone scooped from the Columbia River's bottom were on their way yesterday to an ex-FBI agent who hoped they might provide a tantalizing clue to the whereabouts of legendary skyjacker D.B. Cooper.
Blake Payne, of Florence, Ore., sent the items to ex-FBI agent Richard Tosaw, a Ceres, Calif., lawyer who is writing a book about Cooper's mysterious disappearance while trying to find out what happened to the fugitive who pulled off the world's first aerial hijack for ransom.
Most authorities decided long ago that the man listed on passenger lists as Dan Cooper probably was killed when he strapped $200,000 to his waist, buckled on a military parachute and bailed out of a Northwest Airlines Boeing 727 over southwest Washington on a rainy Thanksgiving Eve in 1971.
A Northwest legend has grown around Cooper's daring escape, the nation's only unsolved hijacking, which led to heightened security procedures at airports throughout the country.
The only concrete clues to Cooper's fate so far have been some tattered bills from the ransom money dug up along the shore of the Columbia in February 1980.
Payne, skipper of the fishing boat "Magnum," was hired by Tosaw last month to dredge the bottom of the Columbia between Portland and Vancouver, Wash., in the plane's flight path.
He's been raking the river with a 12-foot rake — he calls it a Cooper Snooper — from the stern of his boat. Tosaw said yesterday in a phone interview.
Using that rake, Payne Thursday found a nylon cord that he's sending to Tosaw, the lawyer said.
Yesterday, Payne described it as white nylon about the size of the cord that Cooper took from the spare chest parachute on board to tie the money bag around his waist before he jumped," Tosaw said.
"We're interested in examining it to see if there's any indication it's part of Cooper's gear," he said.
He had asked for the money in a knapsack but they gave it to him in a canvas mail-pouch type of bag without any handles."
Tosaw said Payne "also found a piece of canvas which we want to look at because it could be part of the parachute. The heavy canvas part could be part of the harness."
He said he will ask Earl Cossey of Seattle, who packed the parachutes used by Cooper, to look over the find and help determine its validity.
The bone probably has no connection at all, the lawyers said, adding that he was not sure [guess: whether] it was human or not. Whether or not the clues prove to have merit, Tosaw said he [guess: already] keep up the search, which already has cost him $10,000 in the past two months. A major find couldn't [guess: hurt] sales of Tosaw's book, which he plans to publish in two months, called "D.B. Cooper: Deal[er] Alive?"
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SEARCHED __ INDEXED __ SERIALIZED __ FILED __
DEC 2 1 1982
FBI/DOJ DB Cooper-19312
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b6 b7C
Serials: SE 164-81