FD-350 clipping: UPI 'A Year Without Trace of Air Pirate and $200,000 Cash'

FD-350 (Rev. 7-16-63)

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A Year Without Trace of Air Pirate and $200,000 Cash

BY ELDON BARRETT United Press International

With $200,000 cash strapped to his chest, he jumped out the rear exit of a 727 jet into the murky night to become the first of the ransom skyjackers, a legend known as "D.B. Cooper."

The question today is whether D. B. Cooper is a living legend or a dead one — "screwed" into the ground up to the elbows," as the chief of security for the Federal Aviation Administration in this region believes.

It was a year ago this Thanksgiving Eve that the mysterious Cooper, whoever he may be, pulled his infamous hijacking, brandishing what appeared to be a homemade bomb in a carrying case, he hijacked a Northwest Orient Airlines 727 shortly after it took off from Portland, Ore., for Seattle.

He demanded $200,000 in $20 bills and four parachutes and when these were put aboard at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, he allowed the flight's 36 passengers and two stewardesses to disembark unharmed. Then he ordered Capt. William Scott, the pilot, and flight officers W. "Bob" Rataczak and H. E. Anderson and stewardess Tina Mucklow to [guess: take off] for Mexico.

He demanded the plane fly at about 10,000 feet and at about 200 miles per hour and he prescribed a route that held it over the lowlands of Western Washington and Oregon.

When the plane landed at Reno for a "refueling stop", 3½ hours later, the hijacker, the money, one parachute and the "bomb" were gone. The four crew members were unscathed.

The FBI is convinced the hijacker bailed out over southwestern Washington, most likely in the Lake Merwin area between the snow-mantled cone of 9,677-foot Mt. St. Helens and the Columbia River.

Since then this area has been scoured by searchers, including a contingent of more than 300 soldiers from Ft. Lewis sent there on "maneuvers." The bodies of two murdered women have been found, but not a sign of Cooper.

Nor have any of the $20 bills given the hijacker turned up at any bank or clearing house, and the serial numbers were noted before the bills were gathered from four Seattle banks for delivery to the 727.

Last month, Donald W. Nyrop, Northwest Airlines president, announced the company is offering a $25,000 reward to any person who returns the $200,000 ransom.

A finder of the money also will be able to keep 15 per cent of any lesser amount recovered.

The Post-Intelligencer is offering a $5,000 reward, as a part of its Secret Witness program, for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the missing skyjacker.

Max Shaffer, chief of security for the Northwest FAA region, has been as close to the mystery as anyone.

"I'm inclined to go along with the FBI's theory that he's dead," said Shaffer. "I feel that one of these days some hunter in Oregon or Washington is going to find the skelton of this man screwed into the ground up to the elbows."

He pointed out that although the hijacker seemed to be familiar with the procedures for bailing out, conditions for a jump were far from ideal: He wore [guess: oxford] [guess: fords], not jump boots; he was clad in a business suit, not a jump suit; the night was very dark, and it was raining.

Yet, the crew reported that the hijacker appeared to be "very relaxed."

The folks who live around the 12-mile lake are convinced that Cooper dropped in among them, but their opinions are divided on whether he survived or "is hanging up in some tree as crow bait."

Many contend the incident was planned too carefully to have gone awry, but that's pure guesswork.

DB Cooper-22352

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(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.)

p.A18 Seattle Post- Intelligencer Seattle, Wash.

[symbol: cursive S w/s B]

Date: 11/23/72 Edition: Final Author: Eldon Barrett Editor: Dick Lyall Title: NORJAK Character: or Classification: 164-81 Submitting Office: Seattle

[X] Being Investigated

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COPY SENT TO BUREAU [signature/initials: illegible] SEARCHED.......... INDEXED.......... SERIALIZED.....[guess: &] FILED....[guess: &].... NOV 29 1972 FBI—SEATTLE

Even so, a lot of odd things happened around Lake Merwin on Thanksgiving Eve and the night before. For example, Jess Hat- field heard a thumping on his rooftop. And in the community of view, a small plane was reported to have landed at an isolat- ed strip near the home of Mrs. Melvin Anderson, Emil Neiger's wife re- called the plane circling overhead. And at La Center, five miles west of View, Mrs. Donald Haun remembered a small plane landed on a strip adjacent to the Haun's blackberry ranch the night before the hijack. The craft took off with the aid of automobile head- lights, returned about 45 minutes later and then both the car and the plane left. Was that a rehearsal? The night of the hijack, the Hauns, like just about every one else in and around La Center, were at- tending a wedding in the Evangelical Church. And for some inexplica- ble reason, an organized search for Cooper did not get really going in this area until the Saturday aft- er Thanksgiving. The sol- diers' helicopters much of the time were unable to penetrate the mist that shrouds the foothills and farmland around Lake Merwin. The 300-foot maxi- mum depth of the lake made a thorough search of its cold waters impracti- cal. Meantime, the FBI has checked out every possible clue — letters purportedly written by Cooper to news- papers and television sta- tions, cigaret butts found in the forest, because the hi- jacker was a chainsmoker, and even a Seattle area skydiver who resembles the composite of Cooper drawn from description. [guess: says] Cooper is "white with an olive complexion," 6- foot-1, 170-175 pounds, and in his mid-40s. His dark hair was cut short and neatly combed. He wore

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tinted glasses, with dark frames and in addition to a dark suit, was clad in a white shirt with narrow black tie and a dark trenchcoat. Regardless of whether he got away with the $200,000, several other persons were able to cash in on the epi- sode, some with dire re- grets. Dick Daiser, a 29-year- old Portland restaurant worker, wasted no time in designing and manufactur- ing D. B. Cooper T-shirts which he sold at $1.50 wholesale, although a con- signment obtained at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport gift shop never were put up for sale. And a Portland night club singer named Tom Bresh wrote and recorded a record called "D. B. Cooper, Where Are You?" with short-lived success. At Ariel, Anna, Friday penned and published a whimsical little book enti- tled "Skyjacker's Guide — Or Please Hold This Bomb While I Go to the Bath- room." It was illustrated by her cartooning brother- in-law, Bill. One of his car- toons shows a sleeping,

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contented bear with para- chute shrouds dangling out of his mouth. And then there is the case of former Newsweek writer Karl Fleming of Los Angeles. He paid out $30,000 for an exclusive in- terview with D. B. Cooper for the new weekly "LA," of which he is editor. That case comes up in federal court in Seattle Nov. 27 with William J. Lewis, 33, and Donald S. Murphy, 49, a couple of Bremerton, Wash., real estate develop- ers charged with conspira- cy to defraud Fleming. Since the Cooper hijack- ing, there have been 21 ex- tortion - hijacks of air- planes. In these a total of $12,712,000 has been de- manded, Shaffer said. Only the $200,000 paid Cooper and $303,000 extorted May 5 by Frederick W. Hannenen has not been accounted for. Three extortionist hijack- ers have been killed by FBI agents. Six of the hijackers para- chuted, but only Cooper has not been found. "Since Cooper," said Shaffer, "we're getting a new animal in this thing. The out-and-out criminal."

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DB Cooper-22353

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[illegible] CRUEL WORLD