FD-350 clipping: "D. B. Cooper — A Race With Time", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 11/25/76

Deadline Indictment D. B. Cooper—A Race With Time

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UPI, AP, P-I Staff

A federal grand jury in Portland yesterday, working against time, indicted history's first parachute skyjacker, D.B. Cooper, who five years ago jumped from a Northwest Orient jetliner with a $200,000 cash ransom and disappeared.

The indictment, returned in Portland, listed a fictitious "John Doe, also known as Dan Cooper," the lat- ter a name that appeared on the skyjacker's airline ticket. Cooper has never been found, but a Justice Department official said the indictment was obtained because of uncertainty over whether the five-year statute of limitations applied in the aerial hijacking case.

The Post-Intelligencer has offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to Cooper's arrest and conviction. The offer expires on December 31, 1976.

Northwest Orient Airlines has said it will pay $25,000 for recovery of the entire ransom, or 15 per cent of any lesser amount recovered.

Clutching the ransom, Cooper apparently went out the rear exit of the plane on Thanksgiving Eve, 1971, near Lake Merwin between Kelso and Vancouver in Southwest Washington.

No established trace of the skyjacker has ever been found. However, an FBI laboratory is examining a pair of tattered trousers discovered two weeks ago by a hunter in the Merwin area.

FBI spokesmen have said the garments could be a hoax, timed for the fifth anniversary of Cooper's coup.

But seven FBI agents, equipped with axes and shovels, searched more than three hours yesterday in the area where the pants were found hanging in a tree about 25 feet off the ground.

"We searched and we didn't find anything else," said John Pringle, assistant agent-in-charge of the Seattle FBI office. "There's no way anybody can say whether his body is in [illegible] here."

"I have no idea whether we're coming back," Pringle said. "The undergrowth is extremely thick and it's been five years. You never know. We have to see what the lab says."

Ray Mathis, FBI spokesman in Seattle, said there was no reason to "play the pants discovery up or down . . . We check out all leads in this case."

"The lab tests will disclose whether or not the pants are five years old, and if they aren't, then there goes that lead," Mathis said.

The FBI has investigated more than 800 leads in the Cooper caper. Its agents have reported they are still looking at about 15 persons in the case.

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

p.A1 Seattle Post- Intelligencer Seattle, Wash.

Date: 11/25/76 Edition: Final Author: Editor: Jack Doughty Title:

/ NORJAC

Character: or Classification: 164-81-Sub B Submitting Office: Seattle

☐ Being Investigated

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COPY SENT TO BUREAU SEARCHED .......... INDEXED .......... SERIALIZED ......... FILED .......... NOV 30 1976

Many people believe that the five-year feder- al statute of limitations on Cooper ran out yes- terday, and that he can now emerge to spend the loot of 10,000 $20 bills.

The indictment of Cooper was returned just hours before the statute of limitations ran out.

Justice Department of- fi[guess: c]ials in Washington, D.C., noted that their at- tempt earlier this year to prosecute New Jersey Teamster leader Antho- ny Provenzano for a 1961 kidnap-slaying was thrown out of court by a federal judge who ruled that the statute of limi- tation had expired a decade ago.

But Stan Pitkin, who recently resigned as U.S. Attorney for West- ern Washington, claims the case against Cooper is very much alive.

Pitkin argues that air piracy with threat of bodily harm is a capital offense. He says federal capital cases can re- main "active" forever, or until a suspect is brought to trial and guilt is decided.

Pitkin also claims there is a federal tax case to be made against Cooper — the $20 bills, their serial numbers carefully recorded, have never been spent. The statute of limitations on tax cases is six years.

But while FBI agents combed nearby wood- lands, the tiny town of Ariel, near Lake Mer- win, planned a Saturday night party observing the fifth anniversary of Cooper's jump.

Mrs. Germaine Trico- la, owner of the Ariel Store, said she is spon- soring the party because "... It's pretty quiet around here this time of year."

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FBI AGENT Dick Dyer of Vancouver, Wash., left, and Sheriff Gene Cotton of Clark County examine a pair of pants found in a tree about 25 feet off the ground in southwest Washington. The pants might have been worn by history's first, and only successful, parachute skyjacker, D. B. Cooper. — AP Photo.

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