Los Angeles Times clippings: 'Airline Asks Search for Hijack Cash' and 'No Trace of Hijacker in Foot-by-Foot Search'

Los Angeles Times

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Airline Asks Search for Hijack Cash

SEATTLE (AP)—Hunters moving into the southwest Washington wilds for the opening on the general hunting season Saturday have been asked to look for $200,000—the money Northwest Airlines paid to the hijacker known as D. B. Cooper.

And they have been of- fered a $25,000 reward if they come up with the whole amount. The re- ward scales down to 15% of any lesser amount re- covered.

Cooper, the only suc- cessful parachute hijack- er, is believed to have bailed out of a Northwest 727 jetliner last Thanks- giving Eve somewhere over the southwest Wash- ington area. Law enforce- ment agencies have scoured the area several times but without success. Northwest, still con- vinced Cooper didn't sur- vive the jump, hopes a hunter will stumble on the loot.

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164-81-S[illegible]B

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DB Cooper 22361

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[guess: Sub B]

The Times Part I Friday, April 28, 1972

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IN THIS SECTION: A young, new breed of American criminal is jockeying for power in the nation's families of crime. A complete change in leadership is seen within the next five years. Page 2.

Most Americans living abroad will not be able to vote in the presidential election. They will, however, have nonvoting delegations at the conventions who can air their views. Page 5.

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No Trace of Hijacker in Foot-by-Foot Search

Fate of 'D. B. Cooper,' Who Jumped From Airliner With $200,000 Still a Mystery

BY DARYL LEMBKE Times Staff Writer

LAKE MERWIN, Wash. —Vince Tricola, proprietor of a grocery store and adjoining pub here on the shores of Lake Merwin, is waiting for delivery of a painting which he plans to display behind the bar.

It will commemorate the search for the elusive "D.B. Cooper," who the FBI thinks bailed out over this area with $200,000 on a rainy day last Thanksgiving eve after hijacking a Northwest Orient Airlines plane.

Tricola said he doesn't know if the artist is going to depict the hijacker floating safely and serenely to earth, or hanging by his parachute from a tree.

Tricola's customers have debated both possibilities endlessly since the hijacking.

Mystery Remains

The fate of "D.B. Cooper" is as much a mystery now as when he jumped, despite a new, intensive search of a 10-square-mile area around the lake by 200 soldiers from Ft. Lewis, Wash.

That 18-day hunt ended last week without finding either the hijacker's body or a single clue as to what happened to him. There was no parachute, no clothing and none of the 10,000 $20 bills which [illegible]

hunt and who described the search as "cold, miserable and a lot of walking."

"Either he got away alive or he's at the bottom of the lake, or the FBI calculations of where he jumped aren't correct, but I have no doubt that this is where he dropped."

Capt. Charles Markham, an Army helicopter pilot with two hitches in Vietnam who participated in the search, said troops covered every three to five feet of the search area on foot.

Tapes were stretched out to make sure that everything was systematically covered. Observers in eight Army helicopters also scanned the terrain from the air. Every broken treetop was examined.

Markham was asked if he believes "Cooper" survived.

"I think it's quite possible he did," replied Markham. "There's a lot of wide open area in which he could have jumped and got away. It's possible that he's dead somewhere in there and we didn't find him, but not probable."

FBI Agents Join In

Shiroma said that having divers search the bottom of the lake, which is [illegible] 12 miles lon[g] [illegible]

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DB Cooper-22362