SAC Seattle to Director recommending closure of NORJAK investigation
Document date 24 February 1986
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Id: Cooper-Part-48:027-028
Subject: Cooper Files: Cooper-Part-48:027-028 Document: Memo SAC Seattle to Director recommending closure of NORJAK investigation Id: Cooper-Part-48:027-028 Page: https://cooper.theunsolved.net/documents/Cooper-Part-48%3A027-028 What is wrong (title, date, type, which pages belong together, copies)? What does the scan show?
A person reads every report. Corrections are made by hand, to the data — titles, dates, names, which pages belong together — never to the scans, and they can take a while to appear.
FBI 164-81, Vault Part 48 pp. 27–28 (DB Cooper-19819), Memo, dated 24 Feb 1986, serial 764-81-8846 (as read from the transcript) — cooper.theunsolved.net/documents/Cooper-Part-48%3A027-028
Memorandum
To : DIRECTOR, FBI (164-2111) Date 2/24/86
From : SAC, SEATTLE (164A-81) (C)
Subject : NORJAK; OO: SEATTLE
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During the last 14½ years, Seattle Division has conducted extensive investigation into the hijacking of Northwest flight number 305 (NORJAK) from Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington on November 24, 1971. Initial investigation disclosed the only passenger who did not exit the aircraft in Seattle, Washington after the hijacking was a passenger using the name of DAN COOPER when purchasing a ticket in Portland. This individual has never been positively identified or located nor was the major portion of the $200,000.00 in Northwest Airlines funds ever recovered. In excess of 800 suspects were considered and subsequently eliminated during the course of the investigation.
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During a conference in San Francisco in April, 1976, several West Coast Division case agents and the Bureau supervisor at that time reviewed captioned investigation. A memorandum from that conference reported that there were no quality suspects at the time and only limited physical evidence. Eyewitness identification was considered weak at that time. Nearly 10 additional years have passed since that conference. The conference came to the conclusion that "if COOPER was to surrender to authorities now or in the near future, it would be extremely difficult to make the case if he was uncooperative."
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On November 24, 1976, a Federal Grand Jury in Portland, Oregon issued a "John Doe" aka DAN COOPER, aka D.B. COOPER indictment for one count of Air Piracy and one count of Hobbs Act-Extortion recommending a bond of $500,000.00. This was completed in spite of an opinion by the U.S. Attorney's Office, Seattle, Washington, after conferring with the Department of Justice, that the five year Statute of Limitations
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2 - Bureau (164-2111) (1)- Seattle (164A-81) RDS:mag
Searched____ Serialized ✓ Indexed____ Filed____
764A-81-8846
SE 164A-81
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did not apply to captioned investigation since it was an offense punishable by death in 1971.
Seattle Division, with the concurrence of Portland Division and on a UACB basis, is closing captioned investigation at this time as no viable suspects currently exist. Seattle Division intends however to review any new information received on an item by item basis and after appropriate evaluation, will conduct additional limited investigation to resolve the specific information.
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DB Cooper-19819
Serials: 164-2111, 764-81-8846, SE 164-81