FD-350 clipping 'Dan Cooper has one year to go before statute of limitations runs out' (AP/Oregonian)

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

(Mount Clipping in Space Below)

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Dan Cooper has one year to go before statute of limitations runs out

By JOE FRAZIER

ARIEL, Wash. (AP) — If he's alive, and that's a big "if," skyjacker Dan Cooper started his final year of lying low Monday.

On Nov. 24, 1971, a man using that named parachuted from a Northwest Orient 727 over Southwest Washington with $200,000 in ransom money.

He and the money were never seen again, and on Nov. 24, 1976, the statute of limitations expires.

The deed spawned several similar attempts, and two air pirates later made similar jumps over Indiana and Utah. Both were captured.

But Cooper's apparent success made him a folk hero of sorts. There were Cooper tee-shirts, bumper stickers and at least one song.

The case has been a festering thorn in the side of the FBI, which admits it knows little more about him than it did in the stormy Thanksgiving eve when Cooper grabbed the bag containing 10,000 $20 bills, and leaped into history.

The case remains active, however, and FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach, who has worked on it off and on for four years, says leads still dribble in.

The man using the name of Cooper boarded Northwest's Flight 105 in Portland. Once in the air, he threatened to blow up the plane unless $200,000 in $20 bills and four parachutes were given him in Seattle.

He got what he wanted.

"My personal guess is that there is no better than a 50 per cent chance that he's still alive, and that's being very generous," Himmelsbach said. "In fact, the chances are very slim indeed."

He said Cooper apparently knew little or nothing about skydiving.

In addition, Himmelsbach said, Cooper was in clouds when he jumped and couldn't have known where he would land. "Up looked like down," he said. "He could have had no visual reference."

The FBI has pinpointed a 24-square-mile area it feels is the drop zone, and some of it is pretty rough country.

There is the chance he came down in Lake Merwin, a large reservoir within the zone.

In the zone is the community of Ariel. The only business is a combination store-tavern with a gas pump that doesn't work. Within, Cooper lives, or at least his memory does.

The records on the elderly juke box are old because the proprietress, Germaine Tricola, likes them that way.

"Yes, they still call it 'Cooper country' up here," she said.

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

THE OREGONIAN PORTLAND, OREGON

Date: 11-25-75 Edition: Author: Editor: Title:

Character:

[illegible]

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INDEXED FILED 1975 [illegible]

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DB Cooper-22610

"Hunters and huckleberry pickers stop in here and they still talk about finding something up there, but not like they used to."

Nobody hurries at the Aeriel tavern in November. Muddy roads and snow have closed the woods to logging for the winter, and it's cold outside. Loggers drift in and out for a beer or a game of cribbage.

Through the smoke from an apparently communal pack of Camels talk drifts from the finer points of cribbage to Cooper and back to cribbage.

"Hey, Jimmy!" Germaine shouts down the bar. "Where's Cooper?"

"South America. Africa, maybe," says Jimmy, not looking up from his newspaper.

"You could go a long time on that kind of money in Mexico," she mused.

In the spring of 1972 the Army sent 200 men from Ft. Lewis, Wash. to [guess: fly] in a light plane waiting for him on a primitive airstrip."

search for 18 days, but nothing turned up. But Ariel Tavern consensus was that the cougars, coyotes and wild dogs in the hills would have made quick work of any body, and that searchers could be a few feet from what they sought and still miss it.

The FBI says most of its leads during four years came from missing person reports.

"There was one man who had left a suicide note, and cut his boat out to drift," Himmelsbach recalled. "That was two days before the skyjacking, and he looked pretty good as a suspect. Then we found him running an adult bookstore in Los Angeles."

Numerous other ideas and theories have been checked out, he said.

They include:

"Cooper landed safely and escaped

This assumes he knew where he was jumping, a possibility the FBI has ruled out.

If Cooper makes it another year to outlive the skyjacking charges, the U.S. attorney's office in Portland says, there may be other charges filed.

These could include possession of stolen money or income tax violations.

There is also the question of a civil suit from Globe Indemnity Corp. of New York, which had to pay the airline $180,000 of the $200,000 in ransom.

Himmelsbach said if it can be shown that Cooper fled the area to avoid prosecution, the statute of limitations might be suspended.

"But if he can prove he stayed around this area and didn't try to run, I guess he's beat us," he said.