Transcript of taped interview of witness re possible D.B. Cooper suspect (pages 3-16)

down and then we'd fall down and you know, probably not get hurt, oh Jesus criminy, but nothing ever happened, you know, just get me home, so we flew on home and there at the airport, like I say it was getting close to evening then, it wasn't dark, but I think it was probably here it got dark around nine in, I think in July, somewhere

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When you got back to Albany.

When we got back to Albany. Uh, we got out of the plane, and I said well you guys come on, I had my car there, I said well come on to the house and we'll talk a while and then you can take off, he said no, he said uh, there's a certain area I want to fly over that I can look over on the way back, and I you know, want to do it while it's daylight, and we shook hands and everything and he got out and they went back to, back to Canada, he lived right on the border he said, in fact when we was talking there he, I said uh, well where you know, I just started this new job, so I, you know, we was planning on going to Canada, you know, sometime and I said yeah we're gonna come up there someday, he said well come on up I live right on the road, he said the next town after you hit Canada right there, and the only one I can figure out is Langley, because that's where the airport is, that's where he flew the airplane out of, cause he says it's right on the, as you go through, he said just drop right in and you'll be right there, I mean you got to go through my town anyway where I live, right on the border, well I've never been to Canada, so I really didn't pay much attention to him, that's all I remember of that part of it, that, you know, if we come up, but then I thought everything was fine, the girlfriend he had with him was real meek, real quiet, never said too much, she was in her, I would say [REDACTED] to early [REDACTED] maybe, uh, small, built nice, uh, light, light brown hair, I would say, kind of blondish, but more kind of brown, a quiet, she was real quiet, and uh, where was I at

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Do you recall her name?

No I don't.

Okay.

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Now I might be able to get that later, I don't know, but I doubt whether my ex-wife would know the name. Uh, okay, now I know where I'm at now, uh, okay that was in July, a few months later, it wasn't, now, this time he come down in seventy-one, it was July, I know that, there was no highjacking there, or we'd have talked about it, him being a pilot and all this stuff, so a few months later, it wasn't very long later when he called me from Portland, said he was in Portland, said him and his girlfriend had

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broke up and I thought man that was strange they got along good, you know, there was no arguing or fighting amongst them, you know, when we was together, of course she never said much, so I don't know what was going on between the two of them, so uh, he said him and his girlfriend had broke up and that he was in Portland and I said oh, and he said uh, is what I need to know, he said, if I come down that way, can I stay at your place a few days, I said well sure come on down, he said, well I got some business to take care of and then I'll be down and I said okay, and there was no laughing, talking, joking or that, he was really serious, you know, it was just like to me, like he was depressed, I don't know, you know, he just, cause he was the type of guy we always joked, you know, and he said I'll be down, and I said fine, yeah, you can stay here, come on down we look forward to seeing you and hung up and uh, never heard from him since, never

Never, never did show then?

Never showed and we lived in the same house for fifteen years.

And he was trying to think back of when he got that phone call and uh, he, he said that he had gone to work at [REDACTED] on the swing shift and that uh, so he would have been home

Oh that's

in the early afternoon.

See the thing of it was I never answer the phone in my house cause I had four girls and one boy that always answered the phone and the wife, so I never answered the phone, and the phone was never one of my things, but that day I was sitting in my chair, I remember, I, at the time, thinking about it later, I didn't know whether it was night or day, you know when it was, but I knew everybody was gone, so later I got to thinking, well it was on a Wednesday, nobody would be gone

You mean be home?

Nobody'd be home, if I and I, and I went back and figured out I was on swing shift so I'd have been sitting in that chair getting ready to go to work around, I think I went to work at three thirty, was my time and I always went early, so I would have been sitting there and nobody was there when the phone rang and when he called, so I was thinking, he could have even called, if that was him, he could have even called from the airport, cause in reading the stuff and everything he had an hour to kill, but I can't figure if, if he called me, why I would answer the phone in the evening on a Wednesday night and nobody'd be there, if it'd have

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been on the Tuesday then it'd been different, it could have been he called on a Tuesday, that's why nobody was there, it's more likely then would have been gone then, but not Wednesday, so that's just something there, I don't know, see I can't really get the time of day he called but I know I was sitting in the chair and nobody's home.

What was his name?

Am I supposed to tell you?

It would help.

[REDACTED] Okay, now we, I called the girlfriend that knew him and she, what she'd say his?

She said either [REDACTED] might be his middle name.

Middle name, see I never knew his middle name

But she wasn't sure.

was [REDACTED], could be his middle name.

Go ahead.

And let's see, where was we at,

Well the reason you went in to explaining about the airplane and how well he handled it, just

Oh yeah, he knew what he was doing with airplanes.

Cause he seemed to know what he was doing

He knew everything, I mean

Do you know if the plane belonged to him or did he

No, he rented it, cause he said, I remember now I got to thinking again at the time this happened on that indicator thing, he said he was glad he didn't take this other plane because it didn't have an indicator, it just had a radio, I guess, but evidently he couldn't get radio contact with uh, Reno where he was flying right there, or something, I don't know if he even tried, but I remember him mentioning if he wouldn't have had that indicator he was glad he got the plane with the indicator in it, I remember that, because that told us to turn, so that's

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You, you said you first met him in about nineteen sixty-one in Yreka?

Sixty, it was sixty.

Sixty, I mean, I'm sorry.

Sixty-one's when the pictures I got and everything.

Okay. Uh, and he was unemployed supposedly?

Yes.

Do you have any idea what he did during the day time when you

No,

were working?

none of us know what he did.

He, he thought maybe he could have kind of been the handy man around the hotel there and pay his rent that way.

That's where he stayed at, but we don't know

But, but he's not sure, that's where'd he see him, you know.

Now he told me what he did in Langley and for some reason I, it always was in my head that he either worked in a, a mine something to do with driving a truck in a mine or a mill, I don't know, but down there he never worked in the mills, so I don't know what, it was one, something like that, down in something it seemed like, or something, he told me what he did

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Do you know why he was in Yreka?

No, I have no idea.

He never talked about that?

Uh-huh, (indicating "no").

Okay.

Yeah, is all I know the, the picture I got of his friend here, was his good friend that she claims, they were really close, he was from Medford and she went up there once with him to meet the boyfriend, her boyfriend's uh, sister, and she members that when

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they pulled in to either Ashland or Medford, she can't remember which place it was, it was just across the border, that there was a lot of logging trucks around and that's all she, one was parked underneath of a something, and she remembers that, but she don't remember which town it was in, she just remembered the logging trucks, that's why when I asked her what he did for a living, the other guy, and she said thought he was a logger, but she wasn't sure,

Okay, who are these other people we're talking about now?

Okay, the guy, the other person that I got the picture of is his, [REDACTED] friend.

Okay.

A close friend, the girl, [REDACTED] introduced this girl to this other guy and they all three ran together there for a while, but she never went with [REDACTED] and I asked her, I said well why didn't you ever go with [REDACTED] and she said well he never asked me, this is what last night she told me

Okay, so you have some pictures of who,

Yeah, I got pictures.

Why don't you go ahead and pull them out and tell me who they are?

Okay. Set this one up to look at, but, I had this one blown up, I could have had it blown up farther, but I didn't, cause I didn't know, I was gonna blow the face up bigger, okay, here's the girlfriend, and here's him in a swimming suit and he was an excellent swimmer.

This is [REDACTED] here?

Yeah, now this is the other picture of him and this is his friend.

Is it okay to write on these pictures?

Yes, yeah go ahead.

And what was the friend's name?

It's on the back.

Oh, okay.

She wrote it, [REDACTED]

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[REDACTED]

Yeah.

Okay.

If we have to I can get that from the,

[REDACTED]

[REDACTED] okay and this is [REDACTED]

This is Dwynell Lake?

Yeah.

D-W-Y-N-E-L-L?

Yeah.

Actually, now it's Lake Shastina.

Oh, okay. Now I recognize it.

I, it's, see I, years ago well, I went to Yreka way after that, they were all there, kind of weird.

Yeah.

I had moved there in sixty-five.

Now, see here on the pictures I'd like to tell you, see these, his hair is high here, okay, now when he came to Yreka, when I met him, he had the shorter hair, like this on the sides and he combed it flat, I had him do this, see the the way I combed mine?

Hmm-mm.

And I was always doing that, I said hey, you want to look nice for the girls, get that pomp in it, uh

But otherwise, he, he combed it more like the sketch that they had,

More flat, you know, he had just

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His hairline is, is more down than they have on the sketch.

Okay, this is nineteen ninety-six, why has it been so long for you guys to come forward with this, what, what's happened to make you talk about this?

Okay, what happened in the meantime

Well actually I told him to

Yeah, it was

I told him it would be worth checking out

A few years, I, see like I say, I was into my job, I was a titanium welder and it was all new and we was all getting into that, in fact I was the first to start you know, help the write the book on welding titanium,

Hmm.

So I was really into my work all the time and I had five kids, never, and I mentioned to my other wife a few times, well boy you know that sounds like [REDACTED] and finally I seen after a few years, seen the picture cause see I don't remember none of the run around airplanes looking for him, cause I was on swing, I think that's why, it was long hours a lot of time, and then I somehow got a hold of a book and seen the picture and I kept looking at it and I think man, you know, but I didn't have a picture of [REDACTED] at the time, from just what I can remember that you know, the mouth, the shape the head and and the dark eyes that he had, you know, he had the dark piercing eyes and I said god darn, you know and this, and then I read more books on it and stuff and got a little more information, but me, in the meantime me and my wife broke up and we had a, big battle and I went to California for a year and

That's how he met me.

That's how I met her and then I come back here in nineteen eighty something.

Eighty-eight

Eighty-six.

Eighty-seven.

Eighty-six, eighty-seven.

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Eighty-seven.

And uh,

We came back up here,

just kind of you know, things,

That's when we got married.

and then I, I quit my job, retired and just lately I, in fact what got it going, I was down talking to my relatives.

Honey you didn't quit your job, you, you,

That's what I said

You got, took a medical retirement.

Yeah, well that's retirement.

You're not working anymore anyway.

No, I'm not working.

Yeah.

And I got to talking with them down there real heavy on it and boy the more I thought, thought about it, I thought well you know, I'm retired now, I'll look into it, so, I got a hold of my, uh, I was talking to my brother and he said well, yeah, [REDACTED] used to go with uh, his wife's uh

Sister.

Sister-in-law.

Oh that's right.

So I called him and wanting to know what, [REDACTED] my brother knew and he remembered a little bit about him, he said I never really liked him, of course [REDACTED] tough, you know, he'd whip anybody into place he thought, you know he was that kind, but uh, and then I called back another day and asked uh, talked to [REDACTED] his wife and uh, she give me, she says well why don't you call this [REDACTED] cause she knew [REDACTED] her sister, that's her sister, she said why don't you call [REDACTED] and she could probably tell you something, so I called her, she said hell yeah, I got pictures of him and everything here, she took a lot of pictures at that time,

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so I said well send me some, I want to see, remember what that guy looked like you know, and when I got them, then I, then I said man there's you know, to me there's something, there's just too much stuff at the same time, at the same uh,

Well

Never hearing from the guy and

To your knowledge, anybody that uh, you used to run around together in your group, has anybody had any contact with him

No.

since seventy-one?

See, I had heard from her family and stuff, tried to find out whatever she could of anybody that seen, cause she's still got a, uh, her mother's still in Yreka, her mother still lives there, and I said you find out what you can, if anybody seen him and she said she hasn't, nobody's, as far as she knows none of what she's come up with, that, she has more pictures, she has a picture of him out in Dwynell Lake way, way out, she said, that man was one hell of a swimmer, that's, that much she knew about him, now, when her, okay, now this is in Los Angeles, this picture was taken in Los Angeles, those two guys and her went to Los Angeles, uh, they left Yreka and she still don't know why they went to Los Angeles, they drove clear to Los Angeles, went on this beach, that's where she took the pictures, she said they was there not over two hours and [redacted] evidently was driving, the, the other guy owned the car, [redacted] never had a car, [redacted] was driving, they switched off you know, and [redacted] said I've got to get out of here, he said there's too much traffic down here for me, aw this and that, so they headed back, she said, I said well don't you know why you went down or what was the reason, she said no, she said, I can't think, I said was there any other people around like there might have been a drug deal or something they went down to get some drugs or something and uh, she said not that she knew of, and she said there was no drinking going down, no drugs, she wasn't on, you know, there was no drugs involved, so why they went down, she still don't know.

Yeah.

She has no idea.

What's [redacted] last name?

Now that's something I'll have to call her back and get.

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Okay.

If she's remarried now, but she's been in Klammath Falls for the last fifteen, twenty years.

She lives in K Falls now?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, she's been there.

I've got the number and uh, I've got the number in Vancouver of the girl that he went with, [REDACTED] sister-in-law, she lives in Vancouver, I've talked to her, she can't remember much cause she was just getting a divorce from her husband and she said that, you know, she was in real bad shape, she was looking for attention and her and [REDACTED] went together for a while and she, and the first thing she said that [REDACTED] was a, a guy that treated her better than any guy's ever treated her

Hmm-mm.

And then I think is what happened, that her and her husband went back together and that left [REDACTED] hanging.

Yeah.

My brother told me he said he talked to [REDACTED] after, the day after [REDACTED] and the sister-in-law broke up, that [REDACTED] told my brother [REDACTED] that they had a big fight that night and he went up there and [REDACTED] said well I think he slept with her, but anyway, he had left two cents on the table and left.

(Laughing) As a tip.

(Laughing) As a tip, now,

(Laughing) You don't know if that true's or not?

No.

Okay. Is that pretty much, essentially what you wanted to talk about?

That's pretty much it, right there.

Okay, this will conclude this taped interview. The time is one twenty-four. We'll continue for a moment longer. The uh, current time is one twenty-five. Go ahead.

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Okay, when I met [REDACTED] there was a saying that uh, he always said that I've always said to my kids, uh, you know, joking with them and playing with them is uh, shake the hand of the man who shook the world, and I've always said that and my kids

But you learned it from him?

I learned it from him, yeah, he always said that and I, and then he'd go oh, oh, oh in that deep voice.

And, oh, and uh, he did not add that uh, the reason he always said let's get this show on the road is that he had previously ran away with the circus,

He either was in the circus when he came to town or something to do with the circus and my brother said the same thing, something about a circus, that he was travelling, he thought in a circus to get from place to place, but he had nice clothes, you know his clothes are, he always looked, looked good, he always kept himself up nice.

Okay, is that all?

I guess that's it, we'll probably remember something else.

Okay, this will conclude the tape, the time is uh, one twenty-seven.

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